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VIDEO-No Morsel Too Minuscule for All-Consuming N.S.A. - NYTimes.com
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  Sun, 03 Nov 2013 14:09
  When Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, sat down with President Obama at the White House in April to discuss Syrian chemical weapons, Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and climate change, it was a cordial, routine exchange.
  The National Security Agency nonetheless went to work in advance and intercepted Mr. Ban's talking points for the meeting, a feat the agency later reported as an ''operational highlight'' in a weekly internal brag sheet. It is hard to imagine what edge this could have given Mr. Obama in a friendly chat, if he even saw the N.S.A.'s modest scoop. (The White House won't say.)
  But it was emblematic of an agency that for decades has operated on the principle that any eavesdropping that can be done on a foreign target of any conceivable interest '-- now or in the future '-- should be done. After all, American intelligence officials reasoned, who's going to find out?
  From thousands of classified documents, the National Security Agency emerges as an electronic omnivore of staggering capabilities, eavesdropping and hacking its way around the world to strip governments and other targets of their secrets, all the while enforcing the utmost secrecy about its own operations. It spies routinely on friends as well as foes, as has become obvious in recent weeks; the agency's official mission list includes using its surveillance powers to achieve ''diplomatic advantage'' over such allies as France and Germany and ''economic advantage'' over Japan and Brazil, among other countries.
  ALLIES AND SPY TARGETS President Obama with other G-20 leaders in St. Petersburg, Russia, in early September, standing between President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil, left, and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany.
  Stephen Crowley / The New York Times
  Mr. Obama found himself in September standing uncomfortably beside the president of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, who was furious at being named as a target of N.S.A. eavesdropping. Since then, there has been a parade of such protests, from the European Union, Mexico, France, Germany and Spain. Chagrined American officials joke that soon there will be complaints from foreign leaders feeling slighted because the agency had not targeted them.
  James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, has repeatedly dismissed such objections as brazen hypocrisy from countries that do their own share of spying. But in a recent interview, he acknowledged that the scale of eavesdropping by the N.S.A., with 35,000 workers and $10.8 billion a year, sets it apart. ''There's no question that from a capability standpoint we probably dwarf everybody on the planet, just about, with perhaps the exception of Russia and China,'' he said.
  Since Edward J. Snowden began releasing the agency's documents in June, the unrelenting stream of disclosures has opened the most extended debate on the agency's mission since its creation in 1952. The scrutiny has ignited a crisis of purpose and legitimacy for the N.S.A., the nation's largest intelligence agency, and the White House has ordered a review of both its domestic and its foreign intelligence collection. While much of the focus has been on whether the agency violates Americans' privacy, an issue under examination by Congress and two review panels, the anger expressed around the world about American surveillance has prompted far broader questions.
  If secrecy can no longer be taken for granted, when does the political risk of eavesdropping overseas outweigh its intelligence benefits? Should foreign citizens, many of whom now rely on American companies for email and Internet services, have any privacy protections from the N.S.A.? Will the American Internet giants' collaboration with the agency, voluntary or otherwise, damage them in international markets? And are the agency's clandestine efforts to weaken encryption making the Internet less secure for everyone?
  IN THE MIDEAST Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, fourth from left, was tracked in the country's north by the N.S.A.
  Ayatollah Khamenei, via Twitter
  Matthew M. Aid, an intelligence historian and author of a 2009 book on the N.S.A., said there is no precedent for the hostile questions coming at the agency from all directions.
  ''From N.S.A.'s point of view, it's a disaster,'' Mr. Aid said. ''Every new disclosure reinforces the notion that the agency needs to be reined in. There are political consequences, and there will be operational consequences.''
  A review of classified agency documents obtained by Mr. Snowden and shared with The New York Times by The Guardian, offers a rich sampling of the agency's global operations and culture. (At the agency's request, The Times is withholding some details that officials said could compromise intelligence operations.) The N.S.A. seems to be listening everywhere in the world, gathering every stray electron that might add, however minutely, to the United States government's knowledge of the world. To some Americans, that may be a comfort. To others, and to people overseas, that may suggest an agency out of control.
  The C.I.A. dispatches undercover officers overseas to gather intelligence today roughly the same way spies operated in biblical times. But the N.S.A., born when the long-distance call was a bit exotic, has seen its potential targets explode in number with the advent of personal computers, the Internet and cellphones. Today's N.S.A. is the Amazon of intelligence agencies, as different from the 1950s agency as that online behemoth is from a mom-and-pop bookstore. It sucks the contents from fiber-optic cables, sits on telephone switches and Internet hubs, digitally burglarizes laptops and plants bugs on smartphones around the globe.
  SCOLDED John Emerson, left, the American envoy to Germany.
  Sean Gallup / Getty Images
  Mr. Obama and top intelligence officials have defended the agency's role in preventing terrorist attacks. But as the documents make clear, the focus on counterterrorism is a misleadingly narrow sales pitch for an agency with an almost unlimited agenda. Its scale and aggressiveness are breathtaking.
  The agency's Dishfire database '-- nothing happens without a code word at the N.S.A. '-- stores years of text messages from around the world, just in case. Its Tracfin collection accumulates gigabytes of credit card purchases. The fellow pretending to send a text message at an Internet cafe in Jordan may be using an N.S.A. technique code-named Polarbreeze to tap into nearby computers. The Russian businessman who is socially active on the web might just become food for Snacks, the acronym-mad agency's Social Network Analysis Collaboration Knowledge Services, which figures out the personnel hierarchies of organizations from texts.
  The spy agency's station in Texas intercepted 478 emails while helping to foil a jihadist plot to kill a Swedish artist who had drawn pictures of the Prophet Muhammad. N.S.A. analysts delivered to authorities at Kennedy International Airport the names and flight numbers of workers dispatched by a Chinese human smuggling ring.
  The agency's eavesdropping gear, aboard a Defense Department plane flying 60,000 feet over Colombia, fed the location and plans of FARC rebels to the Colombian Army. In the Orlandocard operation, N.S.A. technicians set up what they called a ''honeypot'' computer on the web that attracted visits from 77,413 foreign computers and planted spyware on more than 1,000 that the agency deemed of potential future interest.
  EARS ON THE WORLD The National Security Agency's complex at Fort Gordon, Ga. Much of the agency's eavesdropping is run from stations at home and abroad, far beyond its Maryland headquarters.
  Google Earth
  The Global Phone Book
  No investment seems too great if it adds to the agency's global phone book. After mounting a major eavesdropping effort focused on a climate change conference in Bali in 2007, agency analysts stationed in Australia's outback were especially thrilled by one catch: the cellphone number of Bali's police chief.
  ''Our mission,'' says the agency's current five-year plan, which has not been officially scheduled for declassification until 2032, ''is to answer questions about threatening activities that others mean to keep hidden.''
  The aspirations are grandiose: to ''utterly master'' foreign intelligence carried on communications networks. The language is corporate: ''Our business processes need to promote data-driven decision-making.'' But the tone is also strikingly moralistic for a government bureaucracy. Perhaps to counter any notion that eavesdropping is a shady enterprise, signals intelligence, or Sigint, the term of art for electronic intercepts, is presented as the noblest of callings.
  SPY CHIEF James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, in September. He has strongly defended intelligence gathering practices.
  Carolyn Kaster / Associated Press
  ''Sigint professionals must hold the moral high ground, even as terrorists or dictators seek to exploit our freedoms,'' the plan declares. ''Some of our adversaries will say or do anything to advance their cause; we will not.''
  The N.S.A. documents taken by Mr. Snowden and shared with The Times, numbering in the thousands and mostly dating from 2007 to 2012, are part of a collection of about 50,000 items that focus mainly on its British counterpart, Government Communications Headquarters or G.C.H.Q.
  While far from comprehensive, the documents give a sense of the agency's reach and abilities, from the Navy ships snapping up radio transmissions as they cruise off the coast of China, to the satellite dishes at Fort Meade in Maryland ingesting worldwide banking transactions, to the rooftops of 80 American embassies and consulates around the world from which the agency's Special Collection Service aims its antennas.
  The agency and its many defenders among senior government officials who have relied on its top secret reports say it is crucial to American security and status in the world, pointing to terrorist plots disrupted, nuclear proliferation tracked and diplomats kept informed.
  WINDOWS WITH VIEWS ON EVERYTHING Part of the National Security Agency's campus in Fort Meade, Md.
  Patrick Semansky / Associated Press
  But the documents released by Mr. Snowden sometimes also seem to underscore the limits of what even the most intensive intelligence collection can achieve by itself. Blanket N.S.A. eavesdropping in Afghanistan, described in the documents as covering government offices and the hide-outs of second-tier Taliban militants alike, has failed to produce a clear victory against a low-tech enemy. The agency kept track as Syria amassed its arsenal of chemical weapons '-- but that knowledge did nothing to prevent the gruesome slaughter outside Damascus in August.
  The documents are skewed toward celebration of the agency's self-described successes, as underlings brag in PowerPoints to their bosses about their triumphs and the managers lay out grand plans. But they do not entirely omit the agency's flubs and foibles: flood tides of intelligence gathered at huge cost that goes unexamined; intercepts that cannot be read for lack of language skills; and computers that '-- even at the N.S.A. '-- go haywire in all the usual ways.
  Mapping Message Trails
  In May 2009, analysts at the agency learned that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was to make a rare trip to Kurdistan Province in the country's mountainous northwest. The agency immediately organized a high-tech espionage mission, part of a continuing project focused on Ayatollah Khamenei called Operation Dreadnought.
  Working closely with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which handles satellite photography, as well as G.C.H.Q., the N.S.A. team studied the Iranian leader's entourage, its vehicles and its weaponry from satellites, and intercepted air traffic messages as planes and helicopters took off and landed.
  They heard Ayatollah Khamenei's aides fretting about finding a crane to load an ambulance and fire truck onto trucks for the journey. They listened as he addressed a crowd, segregated by gender, in a soccer field.
  They studied Iranian air defense radar stations and recorded the travelers' rich communications trail, including Iranian satellite coordinates collected by an N.S.A. program called Ghosthunter. The point was not so much to catch the Iranian leader's words, but to gather the data for blanket eavesdropping on Iran in the event of a crisis.
  This ''communications fingerprinting,'' as a document called it, is the key to what the N.S.A. does. It allows the agency's computers to scan the stream of international communications and pluck out messages tied to the supreme leader. In a crisis '-- say, a showdown over Iran's nuclear program '-- the ability to tap into the communications of leaders, generals and scientists might give a crucial advantage.
  On a more modest scale, the same kind of effort, what N.S.A. calls ''Sigint development,'' was captured in a document the agency obtained in 2009 from Somalia '-- whether from a human source or an electronic break-in was not noted. It contained email addresses and other contact details for 117 selected customers of a Mogadishu Internet service, Globalsom.
  While most on the list were Somali officials or citizens, presumably including some suspected of militancy, the document also included emails for a United Nations political officer in Mogadishu and a local representative for the charity World Vision, among other international institutions. All, it appeared, were considered fair game for monitoring.
  This huge investment in collection is driven by pressure from the agency's ''customers,'' in government jargon, not only at the White House, Pentagon, F.B.I. and C.I.A., but also spread across the Departments of State and Energy, Homeland Security and Commerce, and the United States Trade Representative.
  By many accounts, the agency provides more than half of the intelligence nuggets delivered to the White House early each morning in the President's Daily Brief '-- a measure of success for American spies. (One document boasts that listening in on Nigerian State Security had provided items for the briefing ''nearly two dozen'' times.) In every international crisis, American policy makers look to the N.S.A. for inside information.
  Pressure to Get Everything
  That creates intense pressure not to miss anything. When that is combined with an ample budget and near-invisibility to the public, the result is aggressive surveillance of the kind that has sometimes gotten the agency in trouble with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a United States federal court that polices its programs for breaches of Americans' privacy.
  In the funding boom that followed the Sept. 11 attacks, the agency expanded and decentralized far beyond its Fort Meade headquarters in Maryland, building or expanding major facilities in Georgia, Texas, Colorado, Hawaii, Alaska, Washington State and Utah. Its officers also operate out of major overseas stations in England, Australia, South Korea and Japan, at overseas military bases, and from locked rooms housing the Special Collection Service inside American missions abroad.
  The agency, using a combination of jawboning, stealth and legal force, has turned the nation's Internet and telecommunications companies into collection partners, installing filters in their facilities, serving them with court orders, building back doors into their software and acquiring keys to break their encryption.
  But even that vast American-run web is only part of the story. For decades, the N.S.A. has shared eavesdropping duties with the rest of the so-called Five Eyes, the Sigint agencies of Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. More limited cooperation occurs with many more countries, including formal arrangements called Nine Eyes and 14 Eyes and Nacsi, an alliance of the agencies of 26 NATO countries.
  The extent of Sigint sharing can be surprising: ''N.S.A. may pursue a relationship with Vietnam,'' one 2009 G.C.H.Q. document reported. But a recent G.C.H.Q. training document suggests that not everything is shared, even between the United States and Britain. ''Economic well-being reporting,'' it says, referring to intelligence gathered to aid the British economy, ''cannot be shared with any foreign partner.''
  As at the school lunch table, decisions on who gets left out can cause hurt feelings: ''Germans were a little grumpy at not being invited to join the 9-Eyes group,'' one 2009 document remarks. And in a delicate spy-versus-spy dance, sharing takes place even with governments that are themselves important N.S.A. targets, notably Israel.
  The documents describe collaboration with the Israel Sigint National Unit, which gets raw N.S.A. eavesdropping material and provides it in return, but they also mention the agency's tracking of ''high priority Israeli military targets,'' including drone aircraft and the Black Sparrow missile system.
  The alliances, and the need for stealth, can get complicated. At one highly valued overseas listening post, the very presence of American N.S.A. personnel violates a treaty agreed to by the agency's foreign host. Even though much of the eavesdropping is run remotely from N.S.A.'s base at Fort Gordon, Ga., Americans who visit the site must pose as contractors, carry fake business cards and are warned: ''Don't dress as typical Americans."
  ''Know your cover legend,'' a PowerPoint security briefing admonishes the N.S.A. staff members headed to the overseas station, directing them to ''sanitize personal effects,'' send no postcards home and buy no identifiably local souvenirs. (''An option might be jewelry. Most jewelry does not have any markings'' showing its place of origin.)
  Bypassing Security
  In the agency's early years, its brainy staff members '-- it remains the largest employer of mathematicians in the country '-- played an important role in the development of the first computers, then largely a tool for code breaking.
  Today, with personal computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones in most homes and government offices in the developed world, hacking has become the agency's growth area.
  Some of Mr. Snowden's documents describe the exploits of Tailored Access Operations, the prim name for the N.S.A. division that breaks into computers around the world to steal the data inside, and sometimes to leave spy software behind. T.A.O. is increasingly important in part because it allows the agency to bypass encryption by capturing messages as they are written or read, when they are not encoded.
  In Baghdad, T.A.O. collected messages left in draft form in email accounts maintained by leaders of the Islamic State of Iraq, a militant group. Under a program called Spinaltap, the division's hackers identified 24 unique Internet Protocol addresses identifying computers used by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, making it possible to snatch Hezbollah messages from the flood of global communications sifted by the agency.
  The N.S.A.'s elite Transgression Branch, created in 2009 to ''discover, understand, evaluate and exploit'' foreign hackers' work, quietly piggybacks on others' incursions into computers of interest, like thieves who follow other housebreakers around and go through the windows they have left ajar.
  In one 2010 hacking operation code-named Ironavenger, for instance, the N.S.A. spied simultaneously on an ally and an adversary. Analysts spotted suspicious emails being sent to a government office of great intelligence interest in a hostile country and realized that an American ally was ''spear-phishing'' '-- sending official-looking emails that, when opened, planted malware that let hackers inside.
  The Americans silently followed the foreign hackers, collecting documents and passwords from computers in the hostile country, an elusive target. They got a look inside that government and simultaneously got a close-up look at the ally's cyberskills, the kind of intelligence twofer that is the unit's specialty.
  In many other ways, advances in computer and communications technology have been a boon for the agency. N.S.A. analysts tracked the electronic trail left by a top leader of Al Qaeda in Africa each time he stopped to use a computer on his travels. They correctly predicted his next stop, and the police were there to arrest him.
  And at the big N.S.A. station at Fort Gordon, technicians developed an automated service called ''Where's My Node?'' that sent an email to an analyst every time a target overseas moved from one cell tower to another. Without lifting a finger, an analyst could follow his quarry's every move.
  The Limits of Spying
  The techniques described in the Snowden documents can make the N.S.A. seem omniscient, and nowhere in the world is that impression stronger than in Afghanistan. But the agency's capabilities at the tactical level have not been nearly enough to produce clear-cut strategic success there, in the United States' longest war.
  A single daily report from June 2011 from the N.S.A.'s station in Kandahar, Afghanistan, the heart of Taliban country, illustrates the intensity of eavesdropping coverage, requiring 15 pages to describe a day's work.
  The agency listened while insurgents from the Haqqani network mounted an attack on the Hotel Intercontinental in Kabul, overhearing the attackers talking to their bosses in Pakistan's tribal area and recording events minute by minute. ''Ruhullah claimed he was on the third floor and had already inflicted one casualty,'' the report said in a typical entry. ''He also indicated that Hafiz was located on a different floor.''
  N.S.A. officers listened as two Afghan Foreign Ministry officials prepared for a meeting between President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and Iranian officials, assuring them that relations with the United States ''would in no way threaten the interests of Iran,'' which they decided Mr. Karzai should describe as a ''brotherly country.''
  The N.S.A. eavesdropped as the top United Nations official in Afghanistan, Staffan de Mistura, consulted his European Union counterpart, Vygaudas Usackas, about how to respond to an Afghan court's decision to overturn the election of 62 members of Parliament.
  And the agency was a fly on the wall for a long-running land dispute between the mayor of Kandahar and a prominent local man known as the Keeper of the Cloak of the Prophet Muhammad, with President Karzai's late brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, as a mediator.
  The agency discovered a Taliban claim to have killed five police officers at a checkpoint by giving them poisoned yogurt, and heard a provincial governor tell an aide that a district police chief was verbally abusing women and clergymen.
  A Taliban figure, Mullah Rahimullah Akhund, known on the United States military's kill-or-capture list by the code name Objective Squiz Incinerator, was overheard instructing an associate to buy suicide vests and a Japanese motorbike, according to the documents.
  And N.S.A. listened in as a Saudi extremist, Abu Mughira, called his mother to report that he and his fellow fighters had entered Afghanistan and ''done victorious operations.''
  Such reports flowed from the agency's Kandahar station day after day, year after year, and surely strengthened the American campaign against the Taliban. But they also suggest the limits of intelligence against a complex political and military challenge. The N.S.A. recorded the hotel attack, but it had not prevented it. It tracked Mr. Karzai's government, but he remained a difficult and volatile partner. Its surveillance was crucial in the capture or killing of many enemy fighters, but not nearly enough to remove the Taliban's ominous shadow from Afghanistan's future.
  Mining All the Tidbits
  In the Afghan reports and many others, a striking paradox is the odd intimacy of a sprawling, technology-driven agency with its targets. It is the one-way intimacy of the eavesdropper, as N.S.A. employees virtually enter the office cubicles of obscure government officials and the Spartan hide-outs of drug traffickers and militants around the world.
  Venezuela, for instance, was one of six ''enduring targets'' in N.S.A.'s official mission list from 2007, along with China, North Korea, Iraq, Iran and Russia. The United States viewed itself in a contest for influence in Latin America with Venezuela's leader then, the leftist firebrand Hugo Chvez, who allied himself with Cuba, and one agency goal was ''preventing Venezuela from achieving its regional leadership objectives and pursuing policies that negatively impact U.S. global interests.''
  A glimpse of what this meant in practice comes in a brief PowerPoint presentation from August 2010 on ''Development of the Venezuelan Economic Mission.'' The N.S.A. was tracking billions of dollars flowing to Caracas in loans from China (radar systems and oil drilling), Russia (MIG fighter planes and shoulder-fired missiles) and Iran (a factory to manufacture drone aircraft).
  But it was also getting up-close and personal with Venezuela's Ministry of Planning and Finance, monitoring the government and personal emails of the top 10 Venezuelan economic officials. An N.S.A. officer in Texas, in other words, was paid each day to peruse the private messages of obscure Venezuelan bureaucrats, hunting for tidbits that might offer some tiny policy edge.
  In a counterdrug operation in late 2011, the agency's officers seemed to know more about relations within a sprawling narcotics network than the drug dealers themselves. They listened to ''Ricketts,'' a Jamaican drug supplier based in Ecuador, struggling to keep his cocaine and marijuana smuggling business going after an associate, ''Gordo,'' claimed he had paid $250,000 and received nothing in return.
  The N.S.A., a report said, was on top of not just their cellphones, but also those of the whole network of ''buyers, transporters, suppliers, and middlemen'' stretching from the Netherlands and Nova Scotia to Panama City and Bogot, Colombia. The documents do not say whether arrests resulted from all that eavesdropping.
  Even with terrorists, N.S.A. units can form a strangely personal relationship. The N.S.A.-G.C.H.Q. wiki, a top secret group blog that Mr. Snowden downloaded, lists 14 specialists scattered in various stations assigned to Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistani terrorist group that carried out the bloody attack on Mumbai in 2008, with titles including ''Pakistan Access Pursuit Team'' and ''Techniques Discovery Branch.'' Under the code name Treaclebeta, N.S.A.'s hackers at Tailored Access Operations also played a role.
  In the wiki's casual atmosphere, American and British eavesdroppers exchange the peculiar shoptalk of the secret world. ''I don't normally use Heretic to scan the fax traffic, I use Nucleon,'' one user writes, describing technical tools for searching intercepted documents.
  But most striking are the one-on-one pairings of spies and militants; Bryan is assigned to listen in on a man named Haroon, and Paul keeps an ear on Fazl.
  A Flood of Details
  One N.S.A. officer on the Lashkar-e-Taiba beat let slip that some of his eavesdropping turned out to be largely pointless, perhaps because of the agency's chronic shortage of skilled linguists. He ''ran some queries'' to read intercepted communications of certain Lashkar-e-Taiba members, he wrote in the wiki, but added: ''Most of it is in Arabic or Farsi, so I can't make much of it.''
  It is a glimpse of the unsurprising fact that sometimes the agency's expensive and expansive efforts accomplish little. Despite the agency's embrace of corporate jargon on goal-setting and evaluation, it operates without public oversight in an arena in which achievements are hard to measure.
  In a world of ballooning communications, the agency is sometimes simply overwhelmed. In 2008, the N.S.A.'s Middle East and North Africa group set about updating its Sigint collection capabilities. The ''ambitious scrub'' of selectors '-- essentially search terms '-- cut the number of terms automatically searched from 21,177 to 7,795 and the number of messages added to the agency's Pinwale database from 850,000 a day to 450,000 a day.
  The reduction in volume was treated as a major achievement, opening the way for new collection on Iranian leadership and Saudi and Syrian diplomats, the report said.
  And in a note that may comfort computer novices, the N.S.A. Middle East analysts discovered major glitches in their search software: The computer was searching for the names of targets but not their email addresses, a rather fundamental flaw. ''Over 500 messages in one week did not come in,'' the report said about one target.
  Those are daily course corrections. Whether the Snowden disclosures will result in deeper change is uncertain. Joel F. Brenner, the agency's former inspector general, says much of the criticism is unfair, reflecting a na¯vet(C) about the realpolitik of spying. ''The agency is being browbeaten for doing too well the things it's supposed to do,'' he said.
  But Mr. Brenner added that he believes ''technology has outrun policy'' at the N.S.A., and that in an era in which spying may well be exposed, ''routine targeting of close allies is bad politics and is foolish.''
  Another former insider worries less about foreign leaders' sensitivities than the potential danger the sprawling agency poses at home. William E. Binney, a former senior N.S.A. official who has become an outspoken critic, says he has no problem with spying on foreign targets like Brazil's president or the German chancellor, Angela Merkel. ''That's pretty much what every government does,'' he said. ''It's the foundation of diplomacy.'' But Mr. Binney said that without new leadership, new laws and top-to-bottom reform, the agency will represent a threat of ''turnkey totalitarianism'' '-- the capability to turn its awesome power, now directed mainly against other countries, on the American public.
  ''I think it's already starting to happen,'' he said. ''That's what we have to stop.''
  Whatever reforms may come, Bobby R. Inman, who weathered his own turbulent period as N.S.A. director from 1977 to 1981, offers his hyper-secret former agency a radical suggestion for right now. ''My advice would be to take everything you think Snowden has and get it out yourself,'' he said. ''It would certainly be a shock to the agency. But bad news doesn't get better with age. The sooner they get it out and put it behind them, the faster they can begin to rebuild.''
WikiLeaks: Hillary Clinton ordered U.S. diplomats to spy on UN leaders | Mail Online
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  Sun, 03 Nov 2013 13:57
  By Gerri Peev and Daily Mail ReporterUPDATED: 04:02 EST, 29 November 2010
  Hillary Clinton ordered American officials to spy on high ranking UN diplomats, including British representatives.
  Top secret cables revealed that Mrs Clinton, the Secretary of State, even ordered diplomats to obtain DNA data '' including iris scans and fingerprints - as well as credit card and frequent flier numbers.
  All permanent members of the security council '' including Russia, China, France and the UK '' were targeted by the secret spying mission, as well as the Secretary General of the UN, Ban Ki-Moon.
  Secret spy mission: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered diplomats to spy on UN leaders, including Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon
  Work schedules, email addresses, fax numbers, website identifiers and mobile numbers were also demanded by Washington.
  The U.S. also wanted 'biographic and biometric information on UN Security Council permanent representatives'.
  The secret 'national human intelligence collection directive' was sent to embassies and consulates around the world.
  The request could break international law and threatens to derail any trust between the U.S. and other powerful nations.
  Requests for IT related information '' such as details of passwords, personal encryption keys and network upgrades - could also raise suspicions that the U.S. was preparing to mount a hacking operation.
  It is set to lead to international calls for Mrs Clinton to resign.
  The fishing expedition was ordered by Mrs Clinton in July 2009, but followed similar demands made by her predecessor, Condoleeza Rice.
  The secret documents were simply signed 'Clinton' and 'Rice'.
  Mrs Clinton called for biometric details 'on key UN officials, to include undersecretaries, heads of specialised agencies and their chief advisers, top SYG [secretary general] aides, heads of peace operations and political field missions, including force commanders'.
  Mrs Clinton's orders followed on from those given by former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, shown here with former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan in Rome in 2006
  She also wanted intelligence on Ban Ki-Moon's 'management and decision-making style and his influence on the secretariat'.
  Cables were sent to U.S. embassies in the UN, Middle East, Eastern Europe and Latin America.
  America has always handed over information about top foreign officials to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
  But the request by Mrs Clinton paves the way for officials to be more closely spied upon, with even their travel plans tracked by U.S. diplomats.
  In what could discredit the U.S.'s role in the Middle East peace process, missions in Israel, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Egypt were asked to gather biometric information 'on key Palestinian Authority and Hamas leaders and representatives, to include the young guard inside Gaza, the West Bank'.
  Details of the US spying mission were sent to the CIA, the U.S. Secret Service and the FBI under the heading 'collection requirements and tasking'.
  International treaties ban spying at the UN.
  The 1946 UN convention on privileges and immunities states: 'The premises of the United Nations shall be inviolable. The property and assets of the United Nations, wherever located and by whomsoever held, shall be immune from search, requisition, confiscation, expropriation and any other form of interference, whether by executive, administrative, judicial or legislative action.'
  The American ambassador to Britain, Louis Susman said he 'condemned' the disclosures and that the U.S. government was 'taking steps to prevent future security breaches'.
  He also claimed the disclosures had 'the very real potential to harm innocent people" but insisted the cables 'should not be seen as representing U.S. policy on their own'.
  He said the leaks were 'harmful to the U.S. and our interests' adding, 'However, I am confident that our uniquely productive relationship with the UK will remain close and strong, focused on promoting our shared objectives and values.
  U.S. State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said Mrs Clinton had warned leaders in Britain, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Afghanistan and China about the cables, revealed by investigators at the Wikileaks website.
  Canada, Denmark, Norway and Poland had also been warned.
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NATO holds large-scale drills near Russia's borders >> WTF RLY REPORT
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  Sun, 03 Nov 2013 11:34
  Voice Of Russia
  Photo: EPA
  Poland and the Baltic states are hosting the largest strategic war games the defense alliance has held in ten years. The drill, code-named Steadfast Jazz 2013, began on Saturday and will wrap up on November 9.
  The NATO Response Force will practice defending the Baltics from an unidentified foreign invader.
  The exercise gathers some 6,000 troops from all NATO members as well as non-member states '' Finland, Sweden and Ukraine. Around half of them will participate in live exercise training, which will involve dozens of armor, aircraft and naval vehicles. The other half of the personnel are headquarters staff, who will take part in command and control drills.
  The week-long war games are designed ''to make sure that our rapid-reaction force, the NATO Response Force (NRF), is ready to defend any ally, deploy anywhere and deal with any threat,'' said NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
  Around 350 vehicles, including armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles, engineering vehicles, trucks and all-wheel drive vehicles, 1,000 mechanized infantries, a chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) battalion, an airborne anti-tank company, around 11 surface vessels and one submarine as well as 46 fighter jets and 11 helicopters are participating in the war games.
  Eastern European members of NATO have been seeking to host large-scale alliance drills for years, and 'Steadfast Jazz' is the largest since 2006. The scenario of the games involve an unidentified foreign nation invading Estonia over a territorial dispute, and the alliance deploying its rapid-response force to fend off the aggressor.
  While the name of the invading force is not stated, geography and global politics leave little doubt. For several years there was a rising concern in the three Baltic states over a perceived threat from Russia, which, according to some alarmists, could move its troops and occupy the region, which used to be part of the Soviet Union, in a matter of days or even hours. The big drill is partially meant to reassure the weary NATO members that the alliance is ready to protect them.
  ''Russia as a country in the last five years has been increasing its assertiveness in the Baltic,'' Latvian defense minister, Artis Pabriks, told Reuters. '''Steadfast Jazz' is important to us as these are the first exercises where we really train to defend our territory.''
  The latest peak of concern in the Baltic came in September during the Zapad annual joint military exercise held by Russia and Belarus. Prior to the drill, some media in the Baltics claimed that they were training for a potential invasion.
  Russia and NATO, partners in some areas like counter-terrorism, have their unresolved disputes. Arguably the most painful is the alliance's plan to deploy an American anti-ballistic missile system in Eastern Europe. Moscow sees the plan as a threat to its national security, since it may undermine Russia's nuclear deterrence.
  Despite years of effort to find a compromise, Russia's concerns over the ABM shield have not been addressed. In the latest anti-missile move, the US and Romania this week have begun revamping a military base in the eastern European country, which will host some elements of the system.
  Russia's latest military build-up move is the planned deployment of additional S-300 air defense batteries in Belarus. The two countries have joint integrated strategic air defense system guarding their borders.
  The tension, however, is far from the antagonism of the Cold War. NATO representatives attended the Zapad drill, while Russia sent its observers for the 'Steadfast Jazz' exercise.
  Last week, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu announced that his country would dispatch a delegation to Steadfast Jazz 2013 military exercise.Russian President Vladimir Putin has long complained about NATO's eastward expansion into Moscow's traditional sphere of influence, particularly the former Soviet Baltic republics of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
  In late July, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov censured what he termed as the ''Cold War'' spirit of the NATO exercise.
  Voice Of Russia
Brick O'Lore: HF-One: HF-One MKII QRP HF Mobile
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Sun, 03 Nov 2013 11:30
  Thanks to Riku for sending me the link to the HF-One MKII 10 W HF radio. Details are limited, but here is what the listing says you get for your $300 (plus shipping):- 100K--30MHz rx and tx in all band amateur radio band under 30MHz.- output max:10W- mode:ssb /CW- with SDR- AUTOKEY build in.- audio REC build in.
  Here is where it gets interesting for me. These images looks like the SDR could be controlled by your iPhone or iPad.The radio looks very familiar to me. And I'm going to be surprised if there is an app for that - controlling the radio. I've e-mailed the seller to see what else I can find out.
Chris Hedges: Our Invisible Revolution
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  Source: bertb news feed
  Sun, 03 Nov 2013 11:10
  Our Invisible RevolutionPosted on Oct 28, 2013By Chris Hedges
  ''Did you ever ask yourself how it happens that government and capitalism continue to exist in spite of all the evil and trouble they are causing in the world?'' the anarchist Alexander Berkman wrote in his essay ''The Idea Is the Thing.'' ''If you did, then your answer must have been that it is because the people support those institutions, and that they support them because they believe in them.''
  Berkman was right. As long as most citizens believe in the ideas that justify global capitalism, the private and state institutions that serve our corporate masters are unassailable. When these ideas are shattered, the institutions that buttress the ruling class deflate and collapse. The battle of ideas is percolating below the surface. It is a battle the corporate state is steadily losing. An increasing number of Americans are getting it. They know that we have been stripped of political power. They recognize that we have been shorn of our most basic and cherished civil liberties, and live under the gaze of the most intrusive security and surveillance apparatus in human history. Half the country lives in poverty. Many of the rest of us, if the corporate state is not overthrown, will join them. These truths are no longer hidden.
  It appears that political ferment is dormant in the United States. This is incorrect. The ideas that sustain the corporate state are swiftly losing their efficacy across the political spectrum. The ideas that are rising to take their place, however, are inchoate. The right has retreated into Christian fascism and a celebration of the gun culture. The left, knocked off balance by decades of fierce state repression in the name of anti-communism, is struggling to rebuild and define itself. Popular revulsion for the ruling elite, however, is nearly universal. It is a question of which ideas will capture the public's imagination.
  Revolution usually erupts over events that would, in normal circumstances, be considered meaningless or minor acts of injustice by the state. But once the tinder of revolt has piled up, as it has in the United States, an insignificant spark easily ignites popular rebellion. No person or movement can ignite this tinder. No one knows where or when the eruption will take place. No one knows the form it will take. But it is certain now that a popular revolt is coming. The refusal by the corporate state to address even the minimal grievances of the citizenry, along with the abject failure to remedy the mounting state repression, the chronic unemployment and underemployment, the massive debt peonage that is crippling more than half of Americans, and the loss of hope and widespread despair, means that blowback is inevitable.
  ''Because revolution is evolution at its boiling point you cannot 'make' a real revolution any more than you can hasten the boiling of a tea kettle,'' Berkman wrote. ''It is the fire underneath that makes it boil: how quickly it will come to the boiling point will depend on how strong the fire is.''
  Revolutions, when they erupt, appear to the elites and the establishment to be sudden and unexpected. This is because the real work of revolutionary ferment and consciousness is unseen by the mainstream society, noticed only after it has largely been completed. Throughout history, those who have sought radical change have always had to first discredit the ideas used to prop up ruling elites and construct alternative ideas for society, ideas often embodied in a utopian revolutionary myth. The articulation of a viable socialism as an alternative to corporate tyranny'--as attempted by the book ''Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA'' and the website Popular Resistance'--is, for me, paramount. Once ideas shift for a large portion of a population, once the vision of a new society grips the popular imagination, the old regime is finished.An uprising that is devoid of ideas and vision is never a threat to ruling elites. Social upheaval without clear definition and direction, without ideas behind it, descends into nihilism, random violence and chaos. It consumes itself. This, at its core, is why I disagree with some elements of the Black Bloc anarchists. I believe in strategy. And so did many anarchists, including Berkman, Emma Goldman, Pyotr Kropotkin and Mikhail Bakunin.
  By the time ruling elites are openly defied, there has already been a nearly total loss of faith in the ideas'--in our case free market capitalism and globalization'--that sustain the structures of the ruling elites. And once enough people get it, a process that can take years, ''the slow, quiet, and peaceful social evolution becomes quick, militant, and violent,'' as Berkman wrote. ''Evolution becomes revolution.''
  This is where we are headed. I do not say this because I am a supporter of revolution. I am not. I prefer the piecemeal and incremental reforms of a functioning democracy. I prefer a system in which our social institutions permit the citizenry to nonviolently dismiss those in authority. I prefer a system in which institutions are independent and not captive to corporate power. But we do not live in such a system. Revolt is the only option left. Ruling elites, once the ideas that justify their existence are dead, resort to force. It is their final clutch at power. If a nonviolent popular movement is able to ideologically disarm the bureaucrats, civil servants and police'--to get them, in essence, to defect'--nonviolent revolution is possible. But if the state can organize effective and prolonged violence against dissent, it spawns reactive revolutionary violence, or what the state calls terrorism. Violent revolutions usually give rise to revolutionaries as ruthless as their adversaries. ''Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster,'' Friedrich Nietzsche wrote. ''And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.''
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Top doctors warn of 'worst winter' in hospitals as A&E crisis grows.
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  Source: bertb news feed
  Sun, 03 Nov 2013 11:09
  Official data shows a 43% rise in the numbers waiting more than four hours in A&E departments compared with two years ago. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/Getty Images
  Leading accident and emergency doctors have warned of a winter crisis in the National Health Service as official data shows a 43% rise in the numbers waiting more than four hours in A&E departments compared with two years ago.
  The NHS figures also reveal an 89% leap in the number of "trolley waits" of four to 12 hours when data for September is compared with September 2011.
  Describing the NHS England figures as "a cause for grave concern", the leader of Britain's A&E doctors, Cliff Mann, said this winter was shaping up to be the toughest the NHS had ever faced. "All the worrying indicators are up already. And they seem to indicate that this winter will probably be worse than last winter, which was the worst we have ever had, a tipping point for the NHS's delivery of acute care."
  Mann, who is president of the College of Emergency Medicine (CEM), which represents A&E doctors, added: "It's not chaos in emergency departments, but it is a crisis. Colleagues at hospitals report that there are almost daily instances in most A&E departments of patients facing extended trolley waits."
  "Exit blocks" '' the inability to move patients elsewhere, even when they have been declared fit to leave hospital '' were a major problem. "That could be the lack of transport to get a patient from an acute hospital to a bed in a community hospital, or the fact that there's nowhere for the patient to go," said Mann. "People call it 'bed blocking', but it's not the patients who are blocking the system; it's the system blocking the patients".
  The most recent data available from NHS England shows that the number waiting over four hours reached levels this summer that are more normal for the winter months:
  '– The number waiting longer than four hours in A&E departments in England rose in September this year to 69,268, compared with 48,283 in September 2011, an increase of 43%.
  '– The total waiting more than four hours before admission, transfer or discharge between April and October this year was 513,626, compared with 356,056 in the same period in 2011.
  '– The number waiting more than four hours during a single week in mid-August was higher, at 17,037, than the total during a week in mid-January 2011 (16,479).
  '– "Trolley waits" reached 87,186 between April and October, compared with 47,644 over the same period in 2011.
  '– Days lost because of delayed discharges or "bed blocking" rose to 75,297 in September this year, against 60,316 in September 2010.
  A Department of Health spokesman said: "We know the NHS is under increasing pressure, but A&E departments have still been seeing 95% of their patients within four hours since the end of April. This is testament to the hard work of staff. More work needs to be done, so we are investing £500m over the next two years to help A&E departments through winter. Longer term, our £3.8bn integration fund will focus on joining up health and care services, keeping people healthier and treating them closer to home."
  Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham accused ministers of having "left the NHS on the brink of its most dangerous winter in years" and of refusing to heed warnings about the looming crisis. "These worrying new figures expose the intense pressure that England's A&Es and hospitals are under. Too many are already sailing dangerously close to the wind, and that is before the winter has even started. A&Es suffered their first summer crisis in living memory, with thousands more patients stuck in queueing ambulances and on trolleys in corridors."
  After last winter, when the number of people not seen within four hours in A&E did not fall as usual at the end of February, NHS England chief executive Sir David Nicholson ordered the service to prepare for this coming winter earlier than usual. Professor Sir Bruce Keogh, the NHS's national medical director, is finalising his eagerly expected report into the future of urgent care services, which could lead to major changes.
  Mark Porter, the leader of the British Medical Association, called for at least a halt to the fall in NHS bed numbers and, controversially, a rethink of the NHS's £30bn "efficiency drive". "We have all the symptoms of a system under pressure; that's what these new figures show. While we have this, it would be foolish to pursue a policy of still constraining resources in the acute sector. We are in the middle of the third year of huge cuts in acute hospitals' budgets," said Porter.
  Last week the official spending watchdog, the National Audit Office, said in a report that there were too many hospital admissions '' the number having risen by 47% over the past 15 years. It argued that, with better care in the community and social care, at least a fifth of cases admitted as emergencies could be managed outside hospital.
  The report came as ministers announced that A&E services were to end at two London hospitals, with cuts possible at two others.
More than 10,000 French protesters clash with police over 'ecotax' (VIDEO, PHOTOS) '-- RT News
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  Sun, 03 Nov 2013 05:52
  Published time: November 03, 2013 01:01Protesters wearing red caps, the symbol of protest in Brittany, take part in a demonstration to maintain jobs in Quimper, western France, November 2, 2013 (Reuters / Stephane Mahe)
  Thousands of people rallied in the town of Quimper in France's Brittany region on Saturday calling for a complete end to the controversial ''ecotax.'' Police fired tear gas after demonstrators hurled stones and iron bars.
  Farmers, food sector workers, fishermen, and others attended the protest, voicing concern over continuous layoffs and high taxes in the country.
  Some demonstrators reportedly threw stones and iron bars at police as they gathered for speeches before marching into the city. Officers responded by firing tear gas and water cannons.
  According to authorities, 10,000 people came out for the event. However, a protest organizer told French media that 30,000 people took part in the rally.
  French protesters wore red caps resembling the 17th century revolt against King Louis XIV's fiscal policies.
  Demonstrators came out despite the government's Tuesday decision to ''indefinitely suspend'' the green tax on heavy goods vehicles transporting over 3.5 tons of commercial goods. The move followed public outrage from farmers and food sector workers in Brittany. Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault stressed that the move was "a suspension, not a cancelation" of the tax.
  As the northernmost region has less rail infrastructure than the rest of France, local businesses and farmers claim they are being unfairly penalized because most goods there have to be transported by road.
  Residents of Brittany are angry as layoffs continue in their largely rural region. The majority of cutbacks are focused on the agricultural sector.
  ''How are we supposed to produce products that are made in France, made in Brittany, with all these taxes? It's impossible,'' a market gardener told France 24.
  France is battling high unemployment and increasing taxes. The latest data revealed that at least 3.2 million people are now looking for work in the country.
  Meanwhile, Francois Hollande has become the most unpopular French president on record, according to an opinion poll conducted in October. Major complaints against the leader include tax hikes, unemployment, and immigration policy.
  Hollande's approval rating dropped to 26 percent among those questioned in the BVA poll '' the lowest level of any French president in the survey's 32-year history.
  The leader has announced a total of around three billion euros (US$4.1 billion) in tax increases for next year, prompting many to protest the measures.
Obama meditating on drone strikes and telling his aides that he's ''really good at killing people
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  Sun, 03 Nov 2013 05:49
  For Halperin and Heilemann (and their publisher), this means one thing: mission accomplished.
  Coming off the history-making spectacle of the 2008 race, the borderline­nihilistic presidential campaign of 2012 presents a challenge to authors seeking to spin a compelling tale. That may explain why the pair devotes considerable attention to the Republican primary contest, a more topsy-turvy drama than the trench warfare between Obama and Romney.
  The book lacks the made-for-Hollywood scenes of ''Game Change'': Elizabeth Edwards ripping off her shirt to reveal her mastectomy scars in an emotional tarmac confrontation with her cheating husband, or anything Palin-related. But there's still click-bait aplenty: Obama meditating on drone strikes and telling his aides that he's ''really good at killing people''; Christie's raging temper; Romney adviser Stuart Stevens vomiting backstage after Clint Eastwood's performance art in Tampa; Romney's fascination with fat people, including his habit of ribbing male campaign staffers about dating overweight women; George W. Bush calling Rick Perry, his gubernatorial successor in Texas, ''a chicken-[expletive] guy''; Obama's team secretly polling and focus-grouping the notion of replacing Joe Biden with Hillary Rodham Clinton on the Democratic ticket; and so on. It's a book that will launch a thousand listicles.
  Such goodies were mined over three years from deep-background interviews with the candidates, their aides and the small galaxy of Washington fixers who surrounded the campaigns. The authors explain their hazy sourcing in a note at the book's conclusion; media snobs will have a field day. The Halperin-Heilemann method, a number of those who sat for interviews told me, is to invite a subject to a private room at a restaurant or a plush hotel suite, ply them with booze and let the stories flow. But the alcohol was unnecessary; the wild success of the first volume guaranteed that insiders would talk this time. Indeed, in a summer's worth of casual conversations with veterans of all the campaigns, it was difficult for me to find anyone who didn't consent to an interview with the pair.
  The book's loose argument is that both Obama and Romney placed their bets about the race early on and ''doubled down'' throughout the contest. It's an apt take on Obama World. The ''Obamans,'' as the authors call them, set out to annihilate Romney almost two years before the election and executed their plan with brutal efficiency. There were hiccups along the way, specifically Obama's dreary debate-prep sessions and his cringe-worthy performance in Denver, but his deputies in Chicago rarely deviated from their search-and-destroy mission. Romney's campaign, though, with its bad habit of reacting to news cycles with snap decisions, always felt more ad hoc, with tactics trumping strategy.
  Though the gossip merchants of This Town might be disappointed, readers are for the most part spared staff-level infighting and post-campaign score settling. There are exceptions: Former White House chief of staff Bill Daley comes in for rough treatment, depicted as a feckless outsider lost in the youthful, clannish and data-reliant Obama-verse. Although Romney's chief strategist, Stevens '-- a popular punching bag for know-it-all Republican consultants after the loss '-- emerges mostly unscathed, we witness some flashes of impetuousness. He was frustrated, it seems, to be the lone voice on Team Romney lobbying for Christie to be on the ticket instead of Paul Ryan, who is as much a cipher in the book as he was during the campaign: rarely mentioned and barely consequential.
Senate committee backs bill that would allow NSA data collection to continue | World news | theguardian.com
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  Archived Version
  Sun, 03 Nov 2013 05:42
  The Senate intelligence committee approved a bill on Thursday that would provide for increased transparency of the National Security Agency's bulk collection of US phone records but allow the controversial practice to continue.
  Sponsored by chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, the bill lets the NSA continue to collect phone metadata of millions of Americans for renewable 90-day periods, and allows the government to retain it. Some legislators have alternatively proposed letting phone companies hold the metadata. It passed the committee by an 11-4 vote Thursday afternoon, paving the way for a full Senate vote.
  Further codifying current practice, the bill allows analysts to search through the data when if they suspect there is a ''reasonable articulable suspicion'' that a suspect is associated with international terrorism.
  Additionally the bill adds new leeway for the NSA to continue surveillance begun on foreigners outside the US if they enter the country "for a transitory period not to exceed 72 hours".
  The bill is a direct challenge to one introduced Tuesday by senator Patrick Leahy that would end domestic phone-records collection. It was also opposed by leading intelligence committee member Mark Udall, who said it did not go far enough.
  "The NSA's invasive surveillance of Americans' private information does not respect our constitutional values and needs fundamental reform, not incidental changes. Unfortunately, the bill passed by the Senate intelligence committee does not go far enough to address the NSA's overreaching domestic surveillance programs," Udall said.
  Another Democratic member of the committee, Ron Wyden, said the bill maintains "business as usual" and "remains far from anything that could be considered meaningful reform".
  Feinstein defended the NSA bulk collection program, but said there was a need to rebuild public trust. ''The NSA call-records program is legal and subject to extensive congressional and judicial oversight, and I believe it contributes to our national security,'' she said in a statement. ''But more can and should be done to increase transparency and build public support for privacy protections in place.''
  In her statement, Feinstein said the bill would also make a number of improvements to transparency and oversight on the NSA, including:
  ' Requiring an annual public report of the total number of queries of NSA's telephone metadata database and the number of times the program leads to an FBI investigation or probable cause order.
  ' Requiring that the foreign intelligence surveillance court impose limits on the number of people at NSA who may authorise or query the call-records database.
  ' Establishing criminal penalties of up to 10 years in prison for intentional unauthorized access to data acquired under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa) by the United States.
  ' Mandating the Fisa court impose a limit on the number of contacts (or ''hops'') an analyst can receive in response to a query of bulk communication records.
  After the committee's hearing had ended, Feinstein strongly endorsed the NSA's main domestic program. "I think there's huge misunderstanding about this NSA database program, and how vital I think it is to protecting this country," she told reporters.
  Concern over the intelligence committee's bill was expressed by independent legal experts who said the stage was now set for a showdown with the USA Freedom Act, a bill introduced by Leahy and Jim Sensenbrenner that would prohibit bulk collection of Americans' telephone records.
  Elizabeth Goitein of the Brennan Center for Justice said: ''The intelligence committee bill and the USA Freedom Act present two opposing visions of the relationship between law-abiding Americans and the national security state. The fundamental question is: should the government have some reason to suspect wrongdoing before sweeping up Americans' most personal information to feed into its databases? Leahy and Sensenbrenner say yes; Feinstein says no.''
  Wyden suggested that recent concern about NSA spying on foreign leaders had distracted from the real focus on mass domestic surveillance in the US. ''The statements that American intelligence officials have made this week about collecting on the intentions of foreign leadership, that's consistent with the understanding I've had for years, as a member of the intelligence committee,'' he said.
  ''That has implications for foreign policy. My top priority is ending the mass surveillance, digital surveillance, on millions and millions of law-abiding Americans.''
  Feinstein unexpectedly announced on Monday that she was ''totally opposed'' to the foreign leader spying of the sort the NSA conducts of German chancellor Angela Merkel. Feinstein has been a staunch supporter of the NSA's bulk collection of Americans' phone records.
  ''Americans are making it clear, that they never '' repeat never '' agreed to give up their constitutional liberties for the appearance of security,'' Wyden said. ''We're just going to keep fighting this battle. It's going to be a long one.''
  Separately, Feinstein said that James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, had agreed to provide her in writing with a statement about a Washington Post story that alleged the NSA had intercepted data in transmission between Google and Yahoo data centers. She said she was withholding judgment on the story until she saw Clapper's rebuttal.
  Her strong endorsement of the domestic phone records collection indicates that the powerful Senate Democrat is not yet prepared to expand the criticism of the NSA she launched on Monday, when she "totally opposed" its surveillance of foreign allied leaders '' a more traditional intelligence activity than bulk phone metadata surveillance.
  Wyden would not comment on the Washington Post report on the Google and Yahoo intercepts. But the senators suggested it had implications for the privacy of Americans' communication.
  ''Decades ago, countries had their own kinds of communication systems. Now that you've had the merger of global communications, I think you're going to have a lot more challenges spying on foreigners with implications for US citizens,'' Wyden said.
  Following the markup of the bill, the intelligence panel held a classified hearing. Clapper and his chief counsel, Robert Litt, were seen entering the Hart Senate office building ahead of the markup and the hearing. Clapper refused to comment.
Obama halted NSA spying on IMF and World Bank headquarters | Reuters
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  Sun, 03 Nov 2013 05:38
  People walk outside the International Monetary Fund headquarters at the start of the annual IMF-World Bank fall meetings in Washington, October 8, 2013.
  Credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst
  By Mark Hosenball
  WASHINGTON | Thu Oct 31, 2013 6:49pm EDT
  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama has ordered the National Security Agency to stop eavesdropping on the headquarters of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank as part of a review of intelligence gathering activities, according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter.
  The order is the latest move by the White House to demonstrate that it is willing to curb at least some surveillance in the wake of leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden of programs that collect huge quantities of data on U.S. allies and adversaries, and American citizens.
  The NSA's surveillance of the Washington-based IMF and World Bank has not previously been disclosed. Details of such spy programs are usually highly classified.
  In response to Reuters inquiries, a senior Obama administration official said, "The United States is not conducting electronic surveillance targeting the headquarters of the World Bank or IMF in Washington."
  The Obama administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, did not address whether the NSA had eavesdropped on the two entities in the past.
  The first official said Obama had ordered a halt to such practices within the last few weeks, about the same time he instructed the NSA to curtail eavesdropping on the United Nations headquarters in New York.
  The IMF and the World Bank both declined to comment.
  Representatives of the NSA and the Office of Director of National Intelligence had no immediate comment.
  Loch K. Johnson, a former congressional oversight aide who is now a professor of international relations at the University of Georgia, said Obama made the right decision by curbing eavesdropping on international organizations and friendly foreign leaders such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
  "I think it's a good idea to cut back on surveillance" of economic-related targets, Johnson said. "The enemy is terrorism and we should focus on that. We have to focus almost all of our resources on Al Qaeda and its affiliates," he said.
  Paul Pillar, a former senior analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency, said that U.S. policy makers have to weigh the value of collecting intelligence on an organization like the IMF against the risk it will become public.
  "In this instance the gain from that information is likely to be minimal," Pillar said.
  "Sound analysis on international economic issues of concern to U.S. policymakers is apt to draw more from other sources of information, both secret and public, and from tapping relevant expertise both outside and inside government, than from eavesdropping on conversations at the IMF," he added.
  It is no secret that U.S. spy agencies historically have collected and analyzed information related to economic affairs - in public briefings to Congress, top intelligence officials have discussed assessments of economic issues.
  But a former senior U.S. intelligence official said that the Obama Administration had put greater emphasis and resources than predecessors into collecting and assessing economic information.
  In February 2009, shortly after Obama entered the White House, the Central Intelligence Agency began producing a new "Economic Intelligence Brief" for him to review along with the regular President's Daily Brief on international security and threats.
  Leon Panetta, Obama's first CIA director, said at the time the change was aimed at understanding the implications of the global economic crisis, and that the agency was considering hiring more economic analysts.
  The former U.S. intelligence official noted that insider detail on economic policy developments - for example, financial crises affecting the economies of European countries such as Greece, Italy and Spain, and the stability of the Euro - is the type of critical information U.S. policymakers welcome.
  The desire by U.S. policymakers for such information could help explain why NSA collected information on foreign leaders such as Merkel. Her cellphone number was listed in a NSA targeting document, which German media outlets apparently obtained from Snowden's cache. U.S. officials have now indicated that much NSA eavesdropping on Merkel and other allied leaders is likely to be curtailed if not halted.
  (Additional reporting by Warren Strobel; Editing by Tiffany Wu and Grant McCool)
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Lessig Blog, v2
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  Sun, 03 Nov 2013 05:24
  On the pathological way Apple deals with its customersSo this has been a week from Apple hell. Apple did a major upgrade of its suite of software '-- from the operating system through applications. Stupidly (really, inexcusably stupid), I upgraded immediately. Every Apple-related product I use has been crippled in important ways.
  I'm going to describe the crippling I have discovered so far, and some pointers to the work arounds that I've found. But that's not the purpose of my writing. My purpose instead is to say what should be obvious: Apple deals with us in a psychologically pathological way, and if that doesn't change, it's time to leave.
  Many will say, with perfect justification, that it was time to leave long ago. For example, my Free Software friends will say that the failure of Apple to respect Free Software was reason enough to dump them long ago. That's a fair criticism (of me) and a principled and justified position.
  But the argument I want to advance here is different. It is that in the ''hybrid economy" that the Internet is, there is an ethical obligation to treat users decently. "Decency" of course is complex, and multi-faceted. But the single dimension I want to talk about here is this: They must learn to talk to us. In the face of the slew of either bugs or "features" (because as you'll see, it's unclear in some cases whether Apple considers the change a problem at all), a decent company would at least acknowledge to the public the problems it identifies as problems, and indicate that they are working to fix it.
  Why is that what decency requires? And why, then, is the pathologically constipated way in which Apple communicates with its customers indecent?
  Because when you see the incredible effort that is being devoted to dealing with these either bugs or features, there is an obvious incredible waste of time and resources that Apple could avoid simply by saying what they know.
  For example, if the problem I have confronted with Mail.app using Gmail (which I describe more below) is something Apple considers a bug, then I'm willing to live with it for a while till Apple fixes it. If it isn't a bug, but is a feature (insanely but whatever), then I will spend the time (and incredible bandwidth waste) to deal with the problem in the way the Apple volunteers suggest '-- either by changing the way Gmail works, or getting a new mail application.
  So in a line, it is indecent for Apple to sit by silently while its customers waste thousands of hours (in the aggregate) trying to deal with the problems its ''upgrades'' create, when the simple act of describing what it intends to fix could save its customers those thousands of hours.
  And more generally, that at some point '-- and for me, now is this point '-- if Apple can't think different(ly) about its refusal to talk, then its customers should use the only real power we have: We should leave the Apple platform.
  The problems so far
  I live on the Apple platform. I have two offices at work, each has a machine which (through Dropbox) is essentially identical. I also have a laptop which I use to make the 70+ presentations I make every year. That machine (again through Dropbox) is essentially identical to the two work machines, except that in addition, that machine has the presentations I make, and the resources I need to make those presentations. I also have an iPhone, as do others in my family. And we have an AppleTV.
  The iPhone problems: The first, and most destructive consequence of the recent round of upgrades was to my iPhone. Basically, and as I have described elsewhere on this blog, the upgrade to 7.0.3 disabled my Wifi. Through the Apple support community, I quickly identified that this was a common problem for many (though not all) iPhone users. I spent the time necessary to try to recommended solutions '-- resetting network settings; when that didn't work, backing up, resetting the machine, setting up the phone as a new phone; still didn't work. After not seeing any indication by Apple about whether this was a transitory problem (one they were going to fix) or not (indeed, whether or not it was a hardware failure that could not be fixed by software anymore), I called Apple support. Actually, I chatted with them. Very quickly and very very decently, they determined my iPhone needed to be replaced. Because I was within the 1 year limited warranty, that replacement would be for free. Had it been beyond one year, and I didn't have an AppleCare contract, it would not have been free. So while I didn't have to confront that issue, I suspect I would have been quite unhappy to have been told that an ''upgrade'' from Apple had broken my iPhone, but that I had to pay $199 to fix it. But anyway, I expect today I will have my new iPhone and once again have access to Wifi.
  The Mail.app/Gmail problem: This problem is also hugely significant for me, and so far, without any obvious remedy.
  The short form description is this: After the ''upgrade'' of Mail.app, Mail will not let you move a message from the Inbox to a Gmail folder unless you also have the All Mail folder on your machine. If you don't, then the move won't stick, and when you leave and return to the Inbox, the messages return.
  Why is this a problem? Well I get literally hundreds of emails a day from many different channels '-- from students, from colleagues, from collaborators, from fellow activists, from spammers, from the public, from the haters, from whomever. Because of all that email, I have to spend endless hours processing those messages. I process them by either deleting them, or responding to them, or marking them for later response, or moving them to a ''if I ever get the time I will respond'' folder (which today has close to 1k messages). But because of this new bug, my processing doesn't work. And by the end of the week, there were literally thousands of emails in the mix of inboxes that I have.
  This problem has been extensively described by the incredibly generous Joe Kissell at Tidbits. As he explains, the obvious solution '-- enable the All Mail folder '-- isn't a solution. I'm privileged enough as a Harvard professor not to have to worry about the bandwidth required to suck down the gigabytes of data in all my All Mail folders from all my gmail accounts for each of my three machines. But I suspect there are many who live in the bandwidth desert that is the United States who are not happy to have to pay for the totally useless requirement of copying to the local machine the mail that is collected solely for the purpose of improving Google's ad algorithm.
  More importantly, as the many comments to that great Tidbits article describe, it's not even clear this solution is a solution. Apparently even after running your machine for the literally days necessary to download and reindex the Mail cache, the resulting Mail.app doesn't actually work very well. Some report that it takes 30 minutes for the Inbox to resync from the iPhone to the desktop. Others report all sorts of flaking with the system. No one I've seen reports that this change is good.
  So why did Apple do it? Well, it turns out iCloud mail accounts work just fine '-- so some suggest just forwarding mail from Gmail to iCloud. Maybe that's the reason Apple did this. Others say the change was requested by Google. That's really hard to believe but who knows.
  The bottom line is that we don't know. And so literally thousands of hours of users time is being spent to deal with the ambiguous bug/feature of this change, and terabytes of bandwidth wasted, all because Apple can't learn to speak.
  Keynote: As I've also described elsewhere, the latest update of Keynote has broken my slide presentations. ''Broken'' in the sense that some of the the functionality that existed in Keynote '09 doesn't exist in the new version.
  Here again, there is the question: Why did Apple remove this functionality? Is this the equivalent of the Seinfeld Soup Nazi '-- the iOS-Nazi has struck again? Or is it an oversight (so the removed functionality will be restored)? This difference is significant because if it is the former, then at least this user will leave Keynote. I don't have the time (or patience) to build for a platform I can't trust. If it is the latter, then again, it would be enormously beneficial to know whether Apple intends to fix it.
  This problem is the least significant, at least for me. The old version of Keynote remains (unlike with Mail.app, and unlike with the iPhone which Apple won't permit people to downgrade from). It's a hassle to launch it versus the new version (and you can't just delete the new version and keep auto-update on), but ok. I like Keynote '09 well enough, and can continue to use it while I scope out alternatives to move to.
  But I am sorry I won't see the other new features of Keynote. And am really sorry to have to begin the transition to a new presentation platform.
  Pages: These other experiences had made me really reluctant to explore Pages, but yesterday, I did. Right away I confronted a truly insane ''upgrade'': Apple has added an ability to automatically smart-ify quotes '-- as you type them at least. But a functionality that used to exist '-- where you could search and replace single and double quotes and the replaced quote would be a smart quote '-- has been removed. So now, the only way to smartify those quote (which, as one writes with the standard cut-and-paste-a-quote style of today) is to manually search for a single or double quote, and then retype it.
  I can't imagine this is a feature, and not a bug. But it means I can't use the new version of Pages till fixed.
  The obvious remedy
  Some of the problems I have described are obviously bugs '-- Apple didn't intend 7.0.3 to break wifi, and I really doubt it meant to stupify Search/Replace.
  Some may or may not be bugs '-- is Apple trying to nudge me away from Gmail? Is Apple trying to improve (in its view) the quality of my Keynotes by removing a transition it thinks isn't cool? And is this the future of consumer products? Will my Gap jeans add bellbottoms if that fashion returns (and if it has, because what do I know about fashion, will it remove them?)
  But whether or not these changes are bugs, this is my point: it is insane that Apple doesn't have a policy of explaining this to us. I am sure I am not the only Apple user that doesn't have time for this absurdity. Days begin for me in the 4am timeframe already, and I am already perpetually behind. So to confront these problems without there being a simple location on the Apple site where Apple explains what it intends to fix is to add the proverbial insult to injury.
  Apple is already spending the money to scrub the comments it doesn't like. Apple can afford to spend the money to help its users understand which bugs are features, and which bugs will be repaired.
  And if Apple doesn't, then it is a company with an ego that at least I don't have the time to afford.
  Anymore.
  1 November 2013 ·
The USA FREEDOM Act is Real Spying Reform | American Civil Liberties Union
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Sun, 03 Nov 2013 05:21
  Over the last several months, members of Congress have introduced at least two dozen spying reform and transparency bills. Today, a new proposal called the USA FREEDOM Act from Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) was introduced to significantly limit the collection and use of Americans' information under our nation's spying laws. The ACLU strongly supports the legislation.
  The bill is notable for its sponsors alone.
  Rep. Sensenbrenner was the lead author of the Patriot Act and now is the chair of the House's Subcommittee on Terrorism and Crime. A conservative member of Congress, he has repeatedly supported surveillance laws in the past, but now he's leading the charge for reform. According to Rep. Sensenbrenner, two consecutive White Houses have wrongly used his Patriot Act to collect the phone records of innocent Americans, and he wants it to stop. "This misinterpretation of the law threatens our First, Second and Fourth Amendment rights," Rep. Sensenbrenner recently said. "Congress never intended this. I will rein in the abuse of both the Patriot Act and the U.S. Constitution with the support of the American public."
  Sen. Leahy is the chairman of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, which also has jurisdiction over the Patriot Act and FISA. He also believes the government's indiscriminate collection of Americans' records must end, because the "government has not made its case that this is an effective counterterrorism tool, especially in light of the intrusion on Americans' privacy rights."
  The partnership between these two very senior members of the House and Senate, on both the left and the right, gives this bill legitimacy and a real chance at passing. But the bill has more than just names attached to it '' it has substance.
  It would amend Section 215 of the Patriot Act '' which is used to collect the phone records of almost every American every day '' so that it can no longer be used in such a sweeping fashion. The secret FISA court would still be able to issue subpoenas, but they would be limited to collecting things that directly pertain to a terrorist, his associates, or his activities. The bill would also require this standard for national security letters and pen registers, two other Patriot Act tools used to access Americans' records. The point here is to ensure that bulk collection doesn't just jump to another secret authority.
  The bill would also make changes to the FISA Amendments Act (FAA), the sweeping 2008 law that codified the warrantless wiretapping program. It would insert a very important restriction that would prevent the government from searching through FAA-collected data for U.S. person data in the absence of an emergency or a court order. Finally, the bill includes the creation of a special advocate before the FISA court and new transparency requirements.
  Although the USA FREEDOM Act does not fix every problem with the government's surveillance authorities and programs, it is an important first step and it deserves broad support. It incorporates the language and principles of past reform leaders like Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Reps. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) and John Conyers (D-Mich.), and it is far superior to the proposal recently described by Senate Intelligence Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), which we expect to see shortly.
  All members of the House and Senate should co-sponsor the USA FREEDOM Act and fight hard for its passage.
  Learn more about the NSA and other civil liberty issues: Sign up for breaking news alerts,follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook.
AFP: Big US tech firms calls for reform on snooping
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Sun, 03 Nov 2013 05:01
  Big US tech firms calls for reform on snooping
  (AFP) '' 1 day ago
  Washington '-- Six of the biggest US technology firms are urging Congress to rein in the National Security Agency by requiring more transparency about surveillance and improved privacy protections.
  In a letter to a Senate committee, the tech giants applauded the introduction of the USA Freedom Act aimed at ending bulk collection of phone records and improve privacy protection in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
  "Recent disclosures regarding surveillance activity raise important concerns both in the United States and abroad," said the letter signed by Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo and AOL.
  The companies, which have failed to win efforts to disclose details of their cooperation with US surveillance programs, said more transparency would "help to counter erroneous reports that we permit intelligence agencies 'direct access' to our companies' servers or that we are participants in a bulk Internet records collection program."
  "Transparency is a critical first step to an informed public debate, but it is clear that more needs to be done. Our companies believe that government surveillance practices should also be reformed to include substantial enhancements to privacy protections and appropriate oversight and accountability mechanisms for those programs."
  The letter dated Thursday and addressed to the Senate Judiciary Committee came days after a news report said the NSA has tapped into key communications links from Yahoo and Google data centers around the world.
  The Washington Post, citing documents obtained from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and interviews with officials, said the program can collect data at will from hundreds of millions of user accounts, including from Americans.
  The report said the program dubbed MUSCULAR, operated jointly with NSA's British counterpart GCHQ, indicated that the agencies can intercept data flows from the fiber-optic cables used by the US Internet giants.
  The NSA disputes key details of the report.
  The bill proposed by Senator Patrick Leahy and Representatives James Sensenbrenner and John Conyers, with other co-sponsors.
  Leahy and Sensenbrenner said in a joint statement they welcomed the wide support for their bill.
  "The breadth of support for our bipartisan, bicameral legislation demonstrates that protecting Americans? privacy not only cuts across the party divide, but also addresses concerns raised by the technology industry and other advocates," Leahy and Sensenbrenner said.
  "The time is now for serious and meaningful reform. We are committed to working with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to get this done so we can restore confidence in our intelligence community and protect the privacy rights of our citizens."
  The Center for Democracy and Technology, a digital rights advocacy group, meanwhile urged other companies to speak up.
  "This is a defining moment and other companies must now step up to support genuine FISA reform or explain to their users why they are not," said Leslie Harris, president and chief executive of CDT.
  Copyright (C) 2013 AFP. All rights reserved. More >>
VIDEO-Supporter paints picture of Snowden's life in Moscow '' CNN Security Clearance - CNN.com Blogs
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Sun, 03 Nov 2013 04:55
  By CNN's Greg Clary
  National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden has now been in Moscow for more than five months while Russia considers whether to grant his request for permanent asylum. But his day-to-day activities remain largely a mystery.
  One person who knows more than most about Snowden's situation is Jesselyn Radack, who met with him recently in Moscow.
  Radack is a member of the whistleblower-support organization, Government Accountability Project, and a former ethics adviser to the Justice Department. She became a whistleblower herself after raising concerns about the interrogation of ''American Taliban'' John Walker Lindh.
  Radack says security is still paramount for Snowden'--she and the other visitors weren't told the location of their meeting because of security concerns.
  ''It appeared to be a hotel, somewhere, but I don't know Moscow, so I didn't recognize where we were really,'' Radack said.
  When Snowden first arrived in Russia, he holed up in an airport transit lounge as Russia decided how to handle his case. But today, Radack said Snowden isn't simply hiding out and awaiting his fate, he's trying to adjust to the culture in which he now finds himself.
  ''He was pretty occupied most of the day with learning Russian and studying Russian history and getting acclimated to his new environment, to his new home as well as trying to follow the debate going on here and around the world,'' Radack said.
  Specifically, Radack said, he's reading the books of Russian poet Alexander Pushkin and learning Russian phrases. The New York Times reported Snowden was, ironically, reading Fyodor Dostoyevsky's ''Crime and Punishment'' although Radack couldn't confirm that.
  Radack did say Snowden does make a point of keeping tabs on the buzz surrounding him and what U.S. officials are saying about him.
  ''He's very aware. He's on the Internet so he can see this. He had known that there had been joke about putting him on the assassination list. He also is studying the legislation really carefully and there are certain bills that he liked and didn't like because they didn't go far enough in (the) Foreign Intelligence Act or the Surveillance Act,'' Radack said.
  Radack said she thinks Snowden wants to be part of the discussion about the NSA's spying practices someday, perhaps even using technology like Skype to testify before Congress.
  ''If in the near term, if testimonies were to occur, it would have to be through Skype. But Skype is not really safe because it can give away a location,'' Radack said.
  ''If that can be done in a way that would protect him, he would be glad to do that.''
  Snowden did meet with German Member of Parliament, Hans-Christian Stroebele, Thursday where Snowden delivered a letter addressed to the body.
  Radack said she can relate to Snowden following her own experience of taking on the government.
  ''I myself was called a traitor, and a turncoat and a terrorist - which obviously I am not. I am just extremely patriotic and a civically involved American,'' Radack said.
  Despite all his criticisms of the NSA, Radack said Snowden still sees himself as a patriot, not a traitor as many have made him out to be.
  ''What he did was in purpose of trying to make the United States a better country and the free and open democratic society it always says it is.''
  ''He loves the U.S. and he misses the United States,'' Radack said.
Jesselyn Radack - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Sun, 03 Nov 2013 04:48
  Jesselyn Radack (born December 12, 1970) is a former ethics adviser to the United States Department of Justice who came to prominence as a whistleblower after she disclosed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) committed what she believed to be an ethics violation in their interrogation of John Walker Lindh (the "American Taliban" captured during the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan) without an attorney present, and alleged that the Department of Justice attempted to suppress that information. The Lindh case was the first major terrorism prosecution after 9/11.[5] Her experience is chronicled in her memoir, TRAITOR: The Whistleblower and the "American Taliban".
  She is currently the National Security and Human Rights Director of the Government Accountability Project, a whistleblower organization.
  Early life and education[edit]Radack was born in Washington, D.C., and attended Brown University. She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in her junior year and graduated magna cum laude in 1992 as a triple major with honors in all three majors. Since 1983 when Brown began tracking such data, only one other student has received honors in three concentrations.[6]
  Radack graduated from Yale Law School and joined the Justice Department through the Attorney General Honors Program where she practiced constitutional tort litigation from 1995 to 1999 and then worked in the Department's newly created Professional Responsibility Advisory Office (PRAO) from 1999 to 2002.
  John Walker Lindh case[edit]Initial inquiry into Lindh case[edit]On December 7, 2001, Radack received an inquiry from Justice Department counterterrorism prosecutor John DePue regarding the ethical propriety of interrogating Lindh in Afghanistan without a lawyer present. He told her that Lindh's father had retained counsel for his son. This was not known to Lindh. Radack responded that interrogating him was not authorized by law.[7] The principle at issue was that a person represented by a lawyer cannot be contacted by agents of the Justice Department, including the FBI, without permission of that lawyer.[8] According to Radack, her advice was approved by Claudia Flynn, then head of PRAO, and Joan Goldfrank, a senior PRAO attorney.[9]
  The FBI proceeded to question Lindh without a lawyer. DePue informed Radack of the interrogation on the 10th, and she advised him that Lindh's "interview may have to be sealed or only used for national security purposes; however, I don't have enough information yet to make that recommendation".[10]
  Radack continued to research the issue until December 20, 2001, when Flynn told her to drop the matter because Lindh had been "Mirandized". It was later learned that the FBI agent Christopher Reimann who read Lindh the Miranda warning had, when noting the right to counsel, ad-libbed: "Of course, there are no lawyers here".[11]
  U.S. government statements on Lindh's legal rights[edit]On January 15, 2002, five weeks after the interrogation, Attorney GeneralJohn Ashcroft announced that a criminal complaint was being filed against Lindh. "The subject here is entitled to choose his own lawyer", Ashcroft said, "and to our knowledge, has not chosen a lawyer at this time".[7] On February 5, 2002, Ashcroft announced Lindh's indictment, saying that his rights "have been carefully, scrupulously honored".[12]
  In early 2004 Radack indicated in an interview that she disagreed with Ashcroft's view but could see its logic, that Lindh had not himself chosen a lawyer, so he was not represented by one. "You can debate it one way or another'', she said.[6] She was more troubled by the ethical issues,[6] later citing the same ruling the government cites to support its legal position.[13] In Moran v. Burbine (1986), the Supreme Court held that police were within the law in not telling a suspect (who had waived his Miranda rights) that his sister had retained counsel for him,[6] but the Court also granted that the police behavior was unethical and could rise to a violation of legal rights in more egregious circumstances.[14]
  In early 2005 Radack recalled her reaction to Ashcroft's statements more starkly: "I knew that wasn't true".[15]
  Poor performance review[edit]On February 4, 2002, the day before the Lindh indictment was announced, Flynn gave Radack an unscheduled "blistering" performance evaluation, despite Radack having received a merit raise the year before.[7] It covered December 27, 2001, to September 30, 2002, two months prior to the Lindh inquiry, and did not mention that case, but it criticized her legal judgment in issues related to the case and in other matters.[6][16] Flynn had not yet signed the review. She advised Radack to find another job or the review would be put in Radack's official personnel file.[7] Radack, who had planned on being a career civil servant, soon found a new job in the private sector.[17][7]
  Missing emails[edit]On March 7, 2002, while Radack was still working at PRAO, the lead prosecutor in the Lindh case, Randy Bellows, messaged Radack that there was a court order for all of the Justice Department's internal correspondence about Lindh's interrogation.[7] He said that he had two of her messages and wanted to make sure he had everything.
  Radack immediately became concerned that the court order had been deliberately concealed from her.[5] She had written more than a dozen emails on the subject, and neither of the ones Bellows had received copies of reflected her fear that the FBI's actions had been unethical and that Lindh's confession, which was the basis for the criminal case, might have to be sealed.[11] Radack checked the hard-copy file and found that the thick stack of paper had been unstapled and reduced to a few sheets including only three of her emails, along with cover sheets indicating that Flynn had sent copies of those three to the Lindh prosecutors.[11][18] Radack confided in a senior colleague, former U.S. Attorney Donald McKay, who examined the file and told her that it had been "purged".[19]
  With the assistance of technical support, Radack then recovered 14 email messages from her computer archives and gave them to Flynn with a cover memorandum. When Flynn asked Radack why the messages weren't in the file, Radack said she didn't know, and her supervisor said "Now I have to explain why PRAO should not look bad for not turning them over".[20] Radack took home a copy of the recovered emails to ensure they wouldn't "disappear" again.[21]
  Which emails the Department of Justice supplied to the court, and when, cannot be determined directly because the court placed them under seal.[17] In March 2003 investigative journalist Jane Mayer of The New Yorker reported that "[a]n official list compiled by the prosecution confirms that the Justice Department did not hand over Radack's most critical e-mail in which she questioned the viability of Lindh's confession until after her confrontation with Flynn".[11] Radack continues to rely on Mayer's report.[13]
  On December 31, 2003, Radack requested the court appoint a special prosecutor to probe the alleged suppression of the emails.[22] The government responded that it had supplied the emails to the court in its initial response to the court order seeking them, i.e., on March 1, 2002.[23] The description of the 24 documents (probably including duplicates) provided to the court at that time matches Radack's emails, including the one that states interviewing Lindh is not authorized by law.[24] DePue, the recipient of the emails, also had copies and states that they were submitted to the court.[25] The judge rejected Radack's request as "impertinent".[26]
  In 2004 Radack filed suit against the government (see below). In 2005, the court found that "[t]hough Flynn informed Radack that she would send the emails to Bellows, Radack maintains that she had a 'good faith belief' that this never occurred...Radack was mistaken, for in filings submitted to the Virginia District Court on March 1, 2002, and March 11, 2002, Bellows turned over thirty-three PRAO-related documents, including Radack's fourteen emails, ex parte and under seal, for in camera review".[27]
  Disclosure to Newsweek of emails believed to have been purged[edit]Radack resigned from the Justice Department on April 5, 2002. In June 2002 she heard a broadcast on NPR stating that the Department claimed they had never taken the position that Lindh was entitled to counsel during his interrogation. She later wrote, "I knew this statement was not true. It also indicated to me that the Justice Department must not have turned over my e-mails to the Lindh court..because I did not believe the Department would have the temerity to make public statements contradicted by its own court filings, even if those filings were in camera." She reasoned that ''disclosure of my e-mails would advance compliance with the Lindh court's discovery order while also exposing gross mismanagement and abuse of authority by my superiors at the Justice Department."[28]
  After hearing the broadcast, Radack sent the emails to Michael Isikoff, a Newsweek reporter, who had been interviewed in the NPR story.[6] He wrote an article about the purportedly missing emails[29] that appeared online June 15, 2002.[30] He did not reveal his source for the emails.
  Radack has said she did not turn the documents over to the court or prosecutors at the time she recovered them because she felt intimidated by Flynn, who had told her to drop the matter.[31] Later, no longer working in government, she reasoned, "I couldn't go to the court because Justice Department lawyers would argue (as they did when I eventually did try to tell my story to the court) that I had no standing. I couldn't go to a Member of Congress because, as a resident of the District of Columbia, I didn't have a voting representative. What I could do is disclose my story to the press--a judicially-sanctioned way of exposing wrongdoing under the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989, which provides protection to federal government employees who blow the whistle on what they reasonably believe evidences a violation of any law, rule, or regulation; gross mismanagement; or an abuse of authority".[32]
  Radack's reasoning assumed her emails were the position of the Department of Justice. Representatives of the Department have denied that. Michael Chertoff, then head of the criminal division that was prosecuting Lindh, viewed her emails as only a preliminary step in developing a PRAO position.[6] (Chertoff elaborated that position, and that the advice was not known to him or sought by those responsible for the decision to interview Lindh, in answers to questions from Senator Edward Kennedy, discussed below.)
  Radack and some others believe her disclosure of the emails may have contributed to the plea agreement that led to a sentence of 20 years instead of possible multiple life sentences for Lindh.[33] The plea deal was reached on July 15, 2002, a month after the Newsweek article on the emails appeared online and just hours before the hearing to consider the motions to suppress the Lindh interviews was set to begin.[34] According to Lindh defense attorneys, the prosecution first approached them about a plea deal around the beginning of June.[35] On June 14, the day before the emails were disclosed, and June 17, the Lindh defense filed their arguments to suppress all the interviews conducted in Afghanistan, including the ones that Radack had advised might have to be suppressed.[36] The defense reasoning was different than Radack's; it did not assert that Lindh was represented by a lawyer at the time, which was the basis for Radack's advice in the emails.[37] Because of the plea deal, the legal questions regarding the interviews were not adjudicated.
  Justice Department actions against Radack[edit]On June 19, 2002, the Lindh court ordered the Justice Department to file a pleading "addressing whether any documents ordered protected by the Court were disclosed by any person bound by an Order of this court". The Justice Department launched a criminal investigation of Radack that remained open for 15 months.[38] No potential criminal charge was ever specified, but since leaking is not a crime, the most likely charge would have been theft of government property,[17] as she had taken home copies of her emails before she resigned from the PRAO,[39] and her PRAO supervisor later insinuated she was suspected of having removed other files that had gone missing.[40] Radack says an agent of the Department of Justice's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) told her new employer and coworkers that she was under criminal investigation[41] and would steal client files.[42][43]
  Radack believes the OIG agent pressured her employer to fire her.[43] The firm was initially supportive, but after it obtained phone records of calls between Newsweek writer Isikoff and the firm's office showing that Radack appeared to be the leaker of government emails, that changed. A partner in the firm, which represented mainly government bond issuers, told her they could not be perceived to have an ex-government lawyer who broke confidence when she thought the client was wrong. When she continued to refuse to sign a statement that she did not leak the emails, she was placed on paid and then unpaid leave.[44]
  When Radack was granted unemployment benefits, her now-former employer was assisted by the Justice Department, she says,[43] in challenging the benefits on the grounds of her alleged misconduct and insubordination. She won the appeal.[44]
  It is not known how her employer obtained records of phone calls between her and Isikoff. They could have been obtained by the firm from the phone company, since they were records of calls to and from their phones. The firm also had records of calls Isikoff made to the Justice Department, which must have been supplied by the government, who knew because the calls were to them.[45]
  The Lindh court issued an order on November 6, 2002, concluding that Radack's disclosure did not violate any order of the Court, but this order was not made available to Radack until two years later.[46]
  The Department of Justice notified Radack that the criminal investigation was closed on September 11, 2003. On October 31, 2003, the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) sent letters to the bar associations of the two jurisdictions in which she was licensed to practice law referring her for a possible ethics violation. The referrals proposed that in disclosing the emails she may have knowingly revealed information protected by attorney-client privilege.[47] There is disagreement about whether the government or the public is the client of government attorneys.[6] Radack bypassed that issue by invoking the Whistleblower Protection Act (WPA), which she argues provides the legal basis for an exception to attorney-client privilege, i.e., for disclosure when permitted or authorized by law.[48] The Justice Department responded that the WPA may not apply to former employees, and that it does not authorize any disclosure, only prevents retaliatory personnel actions for certain disclosures.[49]
  OPR did not follow its own policies in making the referrals, according to Radack, including in not allowing her to formally respond to its findings.[50] She has contrasted the way she was treated by the Department of Justice and the way the department attorneys who authored the memos giving a purported legal basis for waterboarding and other controversial interrogation methods were treated.[51]
  There was never any serious investigation of how Radack's emails disappeared from the PRAO file, she believes, a conclusion reached in part because no investigator questioned her about it. She says the OIG told her attorney they had "looked into" her allegations and they were "not going to pursue it".[51]
  The criminal investigation and subsequent ethics referrals prevented Radack from finding suitable work as an attorney for years, she says.[6][32][52] The Maryland Bar dismissed the referral February 23, 2005.[27] At the District of Columbia Bar the referral is still pending (as of June 1, 2012).[51]
  Radack says she was placed on the "No-Fly List", by which she refers to the Selectee portion of the Terrorist Watchlist.[53] Selectees are submitted to extra security screening before boarding a flight.[54] She reports that for a time she was selected for extra security on each flight, at least 19 flights by her count, and that one airline told her she was on the list.[55] She believes she was eventually removed from the list, after she had complained to the Transportation Security Administration Ombudsman and the ACLU.[32]
  Radack claims that one or more anonymous Justice Department officials have "smeared" her in the media as a "traitor", "turncoat", and "terrorist sympathizer"[43][51][56] "to alienate me from all my neighbors, all my friends",[57] sometimes specifying it was in the New York Times.[57][42][55] Google searches of the Times website confirm only that in 2003 Times journalist Eric Lichtblau wrote, "Government officials suspect [Radack] is a turncoat", without indicating whether the word was his or theirs.[58][59]
  She has implied she is under a gag order, saying in the context of general remarks about gag orders, "There are certain things I cannot talk to you about, and I can't say anything more than that".[60]
  In 2008 Radack said that she had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting the government actions against her.[61] For a time beginning in 2003, noted constitutional scholar and former Associate Deputy Attorney General under Ronald Reagan, Bruce Fein, represented Radack pro bono.[6]
  Congressional questions[edit]In March 2003 U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy submitted questions about Radack's allegations to Attorney General John Ashcroft. On May 7, with no answers yet, Kennedy pressed the matter with Michael Chertoff, who oversaw the criminal division that prosecuted Lindh, and who was before the Senate Judiciary Committee as a nominee for a circuit court judgeship.[62][63]
  Chertoff said Lindh was deemed not to be represented by a lawyer he had not chosen, and he denied that PRAO was consulted about Lindh. His answers did not satisfy Kennedy, who followed up with written questions. Chertoff qualified his earlier answer by saying "those at the Department responsible for the Lindh matter" did not seek PRAO advice. He added, "I am not aware that PRAO ever took an official position about the Lindh interrogation or that any views expressed by an individual PRAO attorney were documented, factually and legally substantiated, reviewed and authorized, as I would expect before an official opinion was rendered".[64]
  Kennedy described Chertoff's responses as "non-responsive, evasive, and hyper-technical" and requested and received a week's delay in the committee's vote on his nomination. Kennedy was more satisfied, though still troubled, by the responses to a second round of written questions in which Chertoff acknowledged that he learned after the Lindh interviews that a lawyer in his division, DePue, had consulted PRAO. He implied DePue was not acting on behalf of those responsible for decisions in the Lindh case, and that he was peripheral to the decision process.[62][64] (The New York Times reported that DePue has "detailed numerous contacts he had with lawyers inside and outside the [criminal] division on Mr. Lindh's questioning". DePue says he was told by a supervisor that the criminal division's leadership, by which DePue inferred Chertoff, was upset that he contacted PRAO.[58])
  Kennedy also questioned Chertoff about how Radack was treated. Chertoff denied any knowledge of that.[62][64] After meeting with Chertoff, Kennedy announced his support for his nomination but said, "I remain very concerned about Ms. Radack's situation. According to press reports'--and the Department has never issued any statement disputing them'--Ms. Radack was in effect fired for providing legal advice on a matter involving ethical duties and civil liberties that higher-level officials at the Department disagreed with".[62] (The New York Times reported that Justice Department officials disputed that characterization.[58]) On May 22 several Democrats on the Judiciary Committee said they wanted more time to review Radack's allegations, but the committee voted 13-0, with six Democrats voting present, to send the nomination on to the full Senate,[65] where it was confirmed 88''1 on June 9.[66]
  Radack suit against the Justice Department[edit]On October 28, 2004, Radack sued the Department of Justice, alleging that its Office of Professional Responsibility violated the Privacy Act of 1974 and the Administrative Procedure Act in connection with its referral of professional misconduct allegations to District of Columbia and Maryland Bar officials.[67] The lawsuit was dismissed in 2006.[68]
  After DOJ[edit]Radack served on the D.C. Bar Legal Ethics Committee from 2005 to 2007. From 2006 until 2008, she represented government contractors blowing the whistle on fraud in the reconstruction of Iraq. Since 2008, she has served as the director of National Security & Human Rights at the Government Accountability Project. She was one of the attorneys who represented National Security Agency whistleblower Thomas Andrews Drake, with whom she won the 2011 Sam Adams Award, given annually by the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence.[2][69] They also both won the 2012 Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award. Her writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Salon, Philadelphia Inquirer, Legal Times, National Law Journal, The Nation, and numerous law journals. She maintains a blog at the DailyKos.
  See also[edit]References[edit]^Huffington Post, "D.C. Lawyer Jesselyn Radack Wins Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award For Whistleblower Work", June 3, 2012^ abBlaylock, Dylan (2011-11-17). "Radack, Drake Win Sam Adams Award". Government Accountability Project. Retrieved 2012-01-05. ^http://groups.yahoo.com/group/truthabout911/message/7495^http://dl.lib.brown.edu/dbdh/bdh_render.php?issue=1261009366316461&div=DIVL14&pid=0^ abCharlie Savage: Takeover, p.108-109. Little, Brown & Company, 2007.^ abcdefghijEmily Gold Boutilier, "The Woman Who Knew Too Much,"Brown Alumni Magazine, March/April 2004, p.35.^ abcdefJane Mayer, The Dark Side, pp. 93-97. Doubleday, 2008.^The application of the "no-contact rule" to the Department of Justice is discussed by James S. Montana, Jr., and John A. Galotto "Right to Counsel: Courts Adhere to Bright-line Limits."Criminal Justice Magazine 16:2 Summer 2001, see section "Ethical rules in lieu of constitutional protections". Radack has indicated that she was relying on that principle, e.g., in "Whistleblower Charges Justice Dept. with Misconduct in Chertoff's Prosecution of John Walker Lindh,"Democracy Now, January 13, 2005.^David McGowan, "Politics, Office Politics, and Legal Ethics: A Case Study in the Strategy of Judgment", University of San Diego School of Law, San Diego Legal Studies Paper No. 07-55, September 7, 2006, p. 7.^Proffer of Facts in Support of Suppression Motion, at 19, United States v. John Philip Walker Lindh, Crim. No. 02-37-A (E.D. VA 2002), cited in McGowan, p. 7.^ abcdJane Mayer, "Lost in the Jihad", The New Yorker, 10 March 2003, p. 57-59^"Transcript of John Ashcroft '' February 5, 2002". Transcripts.cnn.com. 2002-02-05. Retrieved 2010-03-22. ^ abJesselyn Radack's Post at The CenterLine: The Blog of the Center on Law and Security, New York University School of Law, 13 March 2010^Quoted by Radack in Jesselyn Radack's Post at The CenterLine: The Blog of the Center on Law and Security, New York University School of Law, 13 March 2010^Jesselyn Radack "A Whistle-Blower's Inside View of the Homeland Security Nominee", Los Angeles Times, February 4, 2005.^McGowan, p. 8-9.^ abcLaurie Abraham, "Anatomy of a Whistleblower", Mother Jones, January/February 2004 p. 62^Complaint Against United States Department of Justice, Radack v. United States Department of Justice, No. 04-1881 (D.D.C. 2004), ¶18.^McGowan, p.11.^Complaint Against United States Department of Justice, Radack v. United States Department of Justice, No. 04-1881 (D.D.C. 2004), ¶22.^Declaration of Jesselyn Radack, Exhibit 1, ¶18, Response to Defendant's Motion to Dismiss or, in the Alternative, Response to Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment, March 15, 2005, Radack v. United States Department of Justice, No. 04-1881 (D.D.C. 2004).^Boutilier^McGowan, p. 15; a copy of the government's response is at http://legalethicsforum.typepad.com/blog/files/MoDismissExh8.pdf.^McGowan, p. 13-14, 47; a copy of the government's motion that includes the description is at http://legalethicsforum.typepad.com/blog/files/ProtectiveOrderMotion.pdf.^McGowan, p. 14; a copy of his statement is at http://legalethicsforum.typepad.com/blog/files/OppDePueDecl.pdf.^McGowan, p 15; a copy of the order is at http://legalethicsforum.typepad.com/blog/files/UnsealingOrder.pdf.^ abRadack v. U.S. Dept. of Justice, Memorandum Opinion and Order, August 9, 2005, 402 F. Supp. 99 (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia 2005).^Declaration of Jesselyn Radack, Exhibit 1, ¶¶20, 23-24, Response to Defendant's Motion to Dismiss or, in the Alternative, Response to Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment, March 15, 2005, Radack v. United States Department of Justice, No. 04-1881 (D.D.C. 2004); quoted by McGowan, p. 12-13.^Michael Isikoff, "The Lindh Case E-Mails," Newsweek, June 24, 2002, p.8.^Declaration of Jesselyn Radack, Exhibit 1, ¶31, Response to Defendant's Motion to Dismiss or, in the Alternative, Response to Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment, March 15, 2005, Radack v. United States Department of Justice, No. 04-1881 (D.D.C. 2004).^Emily Gold Boutilier "Mail Room: Senior writer Emily Gold Boutilier replies,"Brown Alumni Magazine May/June 2004.^ abcJesselyn Radack "Whistleblowing in Washington,"Reform Judaism Spring 2006.^Radack "Whistleblowing in Washington"; on the sentence: "'I plead guilty,' Taliban American says," CNN July 17, 2002.^Toni Locy and Kevin Johnson, "Lindh plea removes risks of trial,"USA Today Jul6 16, 2002.^Terry Frieden and Laura Bernardini, "Lindh plea bargain talks began last week," CNN July 15, 2002.^U.S. District Court Eastern District of Virginia High Profile Cases (Alexandria), Criminal Docket for Case #: 1:02-cr-00037-ALL^The defense arguments are summarized in Tony Locy "Court hearing begins on use of Lindh statements,"USA Today July 15, 2002.^Complaint Against United States Department of Justice, Radack v. United States Department of Justice, No. 04-1881 (D.D.C. 2004), ¶¶34-35, 39.^Declaration of Jesselyn Radack, Exhibit 1, ¶18, Response to Defendant's Motion to Dismiss or, in the Alternative, Response to Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment, March 15, 2005, Radack v. United States Department of Justice, No. 04-1881 (D.D.C. 2004).^Sworn Statement of Claudia J. Flynn, Exhibit 4, ¶10, Response to Defendant's Motion to Dismiss or, in the Alternative, Response to Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment, March 15, 2005, Radack v. United States Department of Justice, No. 04-1881 (D.D.C. 2004).^Complaint Against United States Department of Justice, Radack v. United States Department of Justice, No. 04-1881 (D.D.C. 2004), ¶35.^ ab"Jesselyn Radack Was the Justice Department Official Who Knew Too Much -- A BuzzFlash Interview"BuzzFlash (website), February 16, 2007^ abcdJesselyn Radack, "When whistle-blowers suffer", Los Angeles Times, April 27, 2010.^ abDouglas McCollam, The Trials of Jesselyn Radack, The American Lawyer, July 2003, p. 19.^Douglas McCollam "Who's Tracking Your Calls? And how far will the Department of Justice go to burn a leaker?"Columbia Journalism Review March 28, 2004; Jesselyn Radack, "Wake Up Call: U.S. Government Targets Journalists, Happened to Me in 2003, Risen in 2006, AP in 2013", Daily Kos, May 14, 2013.^Jesselyn Radack: The Canary in the Coalmine, p. 69. Sheridan, 2006; Complaint Against United States Department of Justice, Radack v. United States Department of Justice, No. 04-1881 (D.D.C. 2004), ¶37.^Complaint Against United States Department of Justice, Radack v. United States Department of Justice, No. 04-1881 (D.D.C. 2004), ¶¶39-40.^Complaint Against United States Department of Justice, Radack v. United States Department of Justice, No. 04-1881 (D.D.C. 2004), ¶¶30-32.^Defendant's Reply in Support of Motion to Dismiss or, in the Alternative, for Summary Judgment, p. 19 fn. 11-12, April 22, 2005, Radack v. United States Department of Justice, No. 04-1881 (D.D.C. 2004)^Declaration of Jesselyn Radack, Exhibit 1, ¶40, Response to Defendant's Motion to Dismiss or, in the Alternative, Response to Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment, March 15, 2005, Radack v. United States Department of Justice, No. 04-1881 (D.D.C. 2004).^ abcdScott Horton "Traitor: Six Questions for Jesselyn Radack,"Harper's Magazine June 1, 2012.^"Whistle-Blower: Protection Act Doesn't Cover Enough People,"All Things Considered, NPR, August 01, 2013^Elaine Cassel, "Broken Wings: The Indignities of Being on the No-Fly List by Jesselyn Radack", City Pages Blogs, April 15, 2004. (Though the byline is Cassel's, Radack wrote all but the last sentence.)^"Step 1: Should I Use DHS TRIP?: More About Screening and Watchlists" U.S. Department of Homeland Security.^ abReprehensor (pseudonym) "Truthtelling with Rowley, Radack and Wright," Democratic Underground (discussion board), August 13, 2005. Interview with Radack, August 5, 2005.^Jesselyn Radack Traitor: The Whistleblower and the "American Taliban," Whistleblower Press (2012), Chapter 1: "Shoot The Messenger"^ abJenny Jiang, "Transcript: Panel Q&A on Bradley Manning and the media on June 2, 2013," All Souls Church Unitarian, Washington, D.C., What The Folly?! (blog), June 17, 2013.^ abcEric Lichtblau "Dispute Over Legal Advice Costs a Job and Snarls a Nomination,"New York Times May 22, 2003.^The Google searches used (August 9, 2013) were: site:nytimes.com jesselyn radack "traitor"; site:nytimes.com jesselyn radack "turncoat"; site:nytimes.com jesselyn radack "terrorist sympathizer".^"Jesselyn Radack at FFF Conference 2008, 5 of 6," at 5:16. Video of Jesselyn Radack speaking on "Conscience Over Career: The Prosecution of the American Taliban" at the Future of Freedom Foundation's Restoring the Republic, June 7, 2008. See also part 6 of this series of videos, where she talks about her fear of the consequences of breaking the order.^"Jesselyn Radack at FFF Conference 2008, 6 of 6," (video) at 1:11.^ abcdEdward Kennedy, Sr., "Statement of Senator Edward M. Kennedy Regarding the Nomination of Michael Chertoff to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit", May 22, 2003.^Hearings before the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, One Hundred Eight Congress, First Session, April 30, May 7, May 22, June 25, and July 9, 2003, Serial No. J-108-1, Part 3, U.S. Government Printing Office (2003).^ abcJesselyn Radack "Giving me Flashbacks: Bush Officials Lying to Congress About Political Justice Department Firing"Daily Kos March 22, 2007.^Eric Lichtblau, "Panel Clears 3 Bush Nominees for Senate Vote", New York Times May 23, 2003.^U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 108th Congress - 1st Session, Vote Number 211, June 9, 2003.^Complaint Against United States Department of Justice, Radack v. United States Department of Justice, No. 04-1881 (D.D.C. 2004).^Radack v. U.S. Dept. of Justice, CV 04-01881 (HHK) (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia 2006).^Radack, Jesselyn (2011-11-21). Attorney Jesslyn Radack: More whistle blowers have been charged during Obama admin. then all other presidents together (Flash). Washington, D.C.: Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence. External links[edit]PersondataNameRadack, JesselynAlternative namesShort descriptionAmerican whistleblowerDate of birth12 December 1970Place of birthWashington DCDate of deathPlace of death
The Convenience of Commerce | Philip Jacob / Whirlycott
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  Sun, 03 Nov 2013 04:25
  I didn't know that the federal Department of Transportation was responsible for regulating time zones in the US. Actually, I never knew that they were regulated at all, come to think of it. A few counties in Indiana just switched time zones and I happened to notice this in the news.
  It's also interesting to note this:
  Under the Uniform Time Act of 1966, the Secretary of Transportation has the authority to set time-zone boundaries and must base decisions on the ''convenience of commerce.½?
  It struck me as quite forthright that the decision to change a time zone should be based on commercial needs rather than whatever We The People happen to be thinking at a given point in time.
  . Bookmark the
  .
snopes.com: Daylight Saving Time Origins
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  Sun, 03 Nov 2013 04:22
  Even though there's no particular legend associated with the subject, we often receive inquiries from readers wondering how and when we started the annual practice of fiddling with our clocks twice a year, so we've put together a brief history of Daylight Saving Time.Prior to 2007, Daylight Saving Time (the second word is properly singular) began on the first Sunday in April; on that day, clocks were moved forward one hour in each time zone at 2:00 AM local time. Commencing in 2007, DST begins on the second Sunday in March (which in 2013 was March 10). Clocks are again shifted back in the fall; previously this return to "normal" time took place on the last Sunday in October, but since 2007 it occurs on the first Sunday in November (which in 2013 is November 3).
  The purpose of the shift is to transfer, in effect, an hour's worth of daylight from the early morning hours of the day, when only milkmen and chickens are awake to appreciate it, and use it to push back sunset until one hour later in the day. This arrangement is claimed to cut electricity usage in the evening and help reduce traffic accidents.
  The concept of something much like Daylight Saving Time was referenced by Benjamin Franklin in a satirical 1784 essay titled "An Economical Project." After several European countries put daylight time into practice during World War I, the United States formally adopted it in 1918, but it proved unpopular and was discontinued in 1919. (The U.S. still had a large agrarian sector back then, and far fewer businesses stayed open into the later evening hours, so most people tended to rise and retire earlier than they do today, negating the practicality of shifting an hour's worth of daylight away from early morning.)
  Although some cities and states opted to continue daylight time after 1919, it did not return on a national level until World War II, when it was referred to as "War Time" and observed year-round between 1942 and 1945. From 1945 through 1966 there was no federal law in effect to establish guidelines for daylight time, leaving states and municipalities to observe it how and when they chose, if at
  all.By 1966 the different daylight time practices throughout the country were a source of difficulty for businesses that had to follow strict time schedules, such as television networks and airlines, so that year Congress passed the Uniform Time Act which specified that Daylight Saving Time begin on the last Sunday of April and end on the last Sunday of October. (States were still free to pass laws exempting themselves from the daylight time scheme.) After the "energy crisis" of 1973 precipitated by an Arab oil embargo against the U.S., President Nixon signed the Emergency Daylight Saving Time Conservation Act, which put the United States on Daylight Saving Time for the fifteen-month period between January 1974 and April 1975.
  In 1986 federal law was amended to start Daylight Saving Time earlier in the year, the change now occurring at 2:00 AM on the first Sunday in April and ending at 2:00 AM on the last Sunday in October. Several states and territories of the U.S. (Arizona, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Marianas Islands) do not observe daylight time.
  In August 2005, the United States Congress passed the Energy Policy Act, which changed the dates of both the start and end of daylight saving time (DST). As of 2007, DST now starts three weeks earlier (2:00 AM on the second Sunday in March) and ends one week later (2:00 AM on the first Sunday in November) than before.
  Our DSTease page describes how a prankish newspaper editor put one over on the national press with his idea for a Daylight Saving Time "contest" in 1984.
  Last updated: 2 November 2013
  Urban Legends Reference Pages (C) 1995-2013 by Barbara and David P. Mikkelson.This material may not be reproduced without permission.snopes and the snopes.com logo are registered service marks of snopes.com.
TSA Officer Slain in LAX Shooting Was Husband of Warner Bros. Marketing Budget Manager - TheWrap
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  Sun, 03 Nov 2013 04:06
  The victim, 39-year-old Gerardo Hernandez, was married to WB marketing budget manager Ana Machuca
  The TSA officer who was shot and killed at Los Angeles International Airport on Friday was the husband of Ana Machuca, a manager of worldwide marketing budgets at Warner Bros., TheWrap has learned.
  Transportation Safety Administration officials on Friday night identified the shooting victim as Gerardo Hernandez, 39. He was shot around 9:20 a.m. Friday morning by a lone gunman, later identified as 23-year-old Los Angeles resident Paul Ciancia.
  The suspect approached the security checkpoint at LAX's Terminal 3 and opened fire, killing Hernandez. Three other people were wounded, one of them also a TSA agent, who was not identified.
  Also read: LAX Shooter Kills TSA Agent, Prompts Mass Evacuation and Lockdown; Suspect Identified
  Ciancia made his way into the airport terminal where he exchanged gunfire with LAX police and LAPD officers; he was taken into custody and was reportedly in critical condition with gunshot wounds to the chest.
  Hernandez was the first TSA officer to be killed in the line of duty since the administration was formed in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. An individual familiar with the situation said that Machuca and Hernandez had small children together.
  Machuca, who has been with Warners for more than eight years, is responsible for managing the studio's annual advertising and publicity budgets, including forecasting ultimates and other financial analysis. The California State University-Northridge grad was formerly a financial analyst at Disney.
  ''No words can explain the horror that we experienced today when a shooter took the life of a member of our family and injured two TSA officers at Los Angeles International Airport,'' TSA administrator John Pistole said in a statement.
  Warner Bros. confirmed that Hernandez was married to Machuca, but had no further comment.
SPLC EXCLUSIVE: Alleged LAX shooter referenced antigovernment 'manifesto' | Southern Poverty Law Center
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  The 23-year-old man who allegedly killed a TSA official at Los Angeles International Airport yesterday was carrying a one-page ''manifesto'' that included references to the ''New World Order,'' the Federal Reserve and ''fiat currency,'' according to a knowledgeable source with ranking law enforcement contacts.
  Paul Anthony Ciancia, who allegedly wounded three other TSA workers before being shot and critically wounded himself, also expressed antagonism toward the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its chief until she resigned in August, Janet Napolitano, the source said. Ciancia's note called former Secretary Napolitano a ''bull dyke'' and contained the phrase ''FU Janet Napolitano,'' the source said.
  Ciancia's language and references seemed to put him squarely in the conspiracy-minded world of the antigovernment ''Patriot'' movement. The New World Order refers to a longstanding conspiracy theory that today, in its most popular iteration, claims that global elites are plotting to form a socialistic ''one-world government'' that would crush American freedoms. Often, the root of the alleged conspiracy is traced to the 1913 creation of the Federal Reserve and the adoption of fiat currency '-- paper money that is not backed by gold, as it was once was in the U.S.
  So-called Patriots also increasingly see the DHS, which produces intelligence assessments of extremists that are distributed to other law enforcement agencies, as an enemy and even a collaborator in the New World Order conspiracy. Many believe DHS has targeted their movement and is somehow connected to the alleged construction of concentration camps by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The purported camps are thought to be meant for those Americans who resist a coming national seizure of all weapons from U.S. citizens.The TSA, short for the Transportation Security Administration, is an agency of the DHS charged with ensuring the security of transportation, most notably air transportation. Although it has not been widely singled out by Patriots, it has been subjected to criticism by far-right homophobes, among others, who have alleged that TSA agents engaging in hand searches are really sexually groping travelers.
  One witness told MSNBC that Ciancia asked people at the airport if they were TSA and, if they said they were not, moved on without trying to harm them.
  Yesterday, several news organizations reported that Ciancia was carrying a hand-written document referring to his desire to kill ''TSA and pigs.'' Pete Williams and Andrew Blankstein of NBC News, who first reported that Ciancia had referred to the New World Order, also wrote that a source said his manifesto ''expressed animus toward racial minorities.'' Hatewatch was not able to confirm that allegation.
  Hatewatch has no records of Ciancia and he is not known to have joined or participated in the activities of any radical groups. Reporters talking to his neighbors have not yet found any evidence of such participation or radical statements.
  The attack, which Ciancia allegedly carried out using a semi-automatic 223-caliber AR-15, comes at a time when the Patriot movement has been growing by leaps and bounds, from some 149 groups in 2008 to 1,360 last year, according to counts by the Southern Poverty Law Center. That explosive growth seems to have been driven by the election of our first black president and the approaching loss of a white majority in the U.S. that he represents. Another driver is the crash of the economy, which coincided neatly with the rise to national power of President Obama.
WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT: First photo of shot TSA killer | New York Post
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  Sun, 03 Nov 2013 04:03
  This is the face of a madman.
  A blood-drenched Paul Ciancia lays stunned on the floor at Los Angeles International Airport after brave airport cops shot him four times, including once in the face, to stop his rampage through the crowded terminal that left one TSA agent dead and six other people hurt on Friday.
  LAX shooter Paul Ciancia on the floor after being shot by police.
  Ciancia allegedly had a grudge against the Transportation Security Administration and a hatred for former Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
  ''FU Janet Napolitano,'' he apparently says in the one-page, handwritten screed, in which he proclaims that airport searches violate his rights.
  In this stunning first image of the alleged shooter, Ciancia is seen with his hands cuffed behind his slim body, surrounded by law enforcement as he stares off into space, next to a thick, bright pool of his own blood on the floor.
  The shot he took to the mouth knocked out teeth and split his tongue, sources said. Ciancia, a Pennsville, NJ, native, is in critical condition at UCLA Medical Center.
  He walked into Terminal 3, whipped out a semi-automatic rifle and began firing away at every Transportation Security Administration employees.
  TSA Agent Gerardo I. Hernandez, 39, was killed and hundreds of terrified air travelers ran for safety as Ciancia stalked his way through the terminal.
  His handwritten note also said he ''wanted to kill TSA and pigs,'' according to reports.
VIDEO- LAX SHOOTING DUMMY - CIAnCIA a New World Order Conspiracy Theorist - False Flag! - YouTube
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Everything You Think You Know About Panhandlers Is Wrong | ThinkProgress
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  Sun, 03 Nov 2013 03:49
  A new survey of panhandlers in downtown San Francisco dispels a number of myths that society propagates about homeless people.
  Conventional wisdom is that those on the sidewalk asking for a dollar are lazy freeloaders who will use the money for alcohol or drugs. Some even think that beggars are living large off of handouts, such as Fox News' John Stossel, who has bravely used his television perch to take on beggars. ''I had heard that some people beg for a living and make big bucks '-- $80,000 a year in some cases,'' Stossel told Fox & Friends. ''You really shouldn't give to these street people,'' Stossel concluded. ''You are really supporting alcoholism and drug problems.''
  Researchers wanted to test out whether this widely held view of panhandlers as lazy alcoholics getting rich off others was correct. The Union Square Business Improvement District, a collection of 500 property owners in downtown San Francisco, hired GLS Research to survey panhandlers over a two-day period in March.
  They found that, for the vast majority of beggars, Stossel's view was simply not true.
  In San Francisco's Union Square, the typical panhandler is a disabled middle-aged single male who is a racial minority and makes less than $25 per day despite panhandling seven days a week for more than five years. Though Stossel was insistent that panhandlers just use the money for beer and pot, the majority of those surveyed did not. In fact, 94 percent used the meager funds they raised for food.
  In addition, some justify doing little to fight homelessness because, in their view, many homeless people don't want help and prefer living on the streets. However, researchers discovered that, on the contrary, just 3 percent of panhandlers don't want housing.
  Among the survey's findings:
  83 percent are men48 percent are African American31 percent are white69 percent are single26 percent served in the military70 percent are 40 to 59 years old58 percent have been panhandling for at least five years53 percent panhandle seven days a week60 percent make $25 a day or less94 percent use the money for food44 percent use it for drugs or alcohol62 percent are disabled25 percent are alcoholics32 percent are addicted to drugs82 percent are homelessIn total, 146 people participated in the survey.
  Researchers also spoke with 400 people who had given money to panhandlers in the past year. They found that the largest group of people who chose to give were young working-class Bay Area residents. Empathy was a main driver; three in five said the gave ''because they or a family member may be in need someday.''
Hillary Clinton's Lucrative Goldman Sachs Speaking Gigs | National Review Online
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  Sun, 03 Nov 2013 03:42
  Hillary Clinton spoke at two separate Goldman Sachs events on the evenings of Thursday, October 24 and Tuesday, October 29. As both Politico and the New York Times report, Clinton's fee is about $200,000 per speech, meaning she likely netted around $400,000 for her paid gigs at Goldman over the course of six days.
  Last Thursday, Clinton spoke for the AIMS Alternative Investment Conference hosted by Goldman Sachs, a closed event exclusively for Goldman clients. AIMS is an annual conference that explores the latest strategies and products available to financial advisers. At the event, Clinton offered what one attendee described to me as ''prepared remarks followed by questions.''
  On Tuesday, Clinton spoke at the Builders and Innovators Summit, devoted to discussing entrepreneurship and how to help innovators expand and grow their businesses. According to Politico, Clinton conducted a question-and-answer session with Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein. Goldman Sachs declined to comment on the subject of her remarks or why Mrs. Clinton in particular was invited to the events.
  Keeping close to the investment world, Clinton also made visits to private-equity firms KKR in July and the Carlyle Group in September. At KKR's annual investor meeting in California, Clinton answered questions from firm co-founder Henry Kravis on the Middle East, Washington, and politics. At Carlyle Group, Clinton made a speech to shareholders moderated by Carlyle founder David Rubenstein.
  Clinton's office did not respond to a request for comment.
DON'T BREW THAT CUPPA! Your kettle could be a SPAMBOT ' The Register
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  Sun, 03 Nov 2013 03:40
  5 ways to reduce advertising network latency
  Russian authorities have claimed that household appliances imported from China contain tiny computers that seek out open WiFi networks and then get to work sending spam and distributing malware.
  St Petersburg news outlet Rosbaltreported last week that local authorities had examined kettles and irons and found ''20 to 30 pieces of Chinese home appliance 'spy' microchips'' that ''sends some data to the foreign server''.
  Just what data is being sent and to where is not discussed, which had Vulture South thinking the report might be spurious.
  A bit of digging suggests it is legitimate. One source the story mentions, Gleb Pavlov of customs broker Panimport can be found at the link we've popped in on the company's name. We've also been able to find this linkto an appliances company called ''Sable Ltd'', the very name translation engines say is the employer of one Innokenty Fedorov whose company found the bugged appliances.
  Next question: could someone build a spambot small enough to hide in a kettle or iron? We see no reason why not: the components are small and cheap enough. One last wrinkle: could one convert Russia's 220v electricity supply to power a small electronic device without frying it, and without making an iron or kettle look rather odd? The answer is yes: all manner of tiny PCB transformers can be had to do the job.
  Which leaves just one problem in the story: the fact that the report says the WiFi slurper-equipped kit was detected because the appliances were overweight. Unless the appliances were being air-freighted a handful of grams either way would not raise eyebrows, and it is hard to imagine low-cost items like irons were considered worthy of a plane trip. We surmise that whoever made the killer kettles and infiltrated irons cobbled them together with unlovely components that made their presence obvious. ®
  Supercharge your infrastructure
VIDEO-Rob Reiner aka Meathead: Hillary Would Be 'Most Qualified Person Ever to Run for President' | MRCTV
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VIDEO- Israel Attacks Syria - YouTube
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VIDEO- CNN: LAX SHOOTER LINKED TO NEW WORLD ORDER CONSPIRACY THEORY - YouTube
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U.S. military commandos fought in Benghazi - Washington Times
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  EXCLUSIVE:
  Masked from public view, two of the U.S. military's elite special operations commandos have been awarded medals for bravery for a mission that further undercuts the Obama administration's original story about the Benghazi tragedy.
  SEE ALSO: No more Obama nominees until White House relents on Benghazi: Graham
  For months, administration officials have claimed no special operations forces were dispatched from outside Libya to Benghazi during the Sept. 11, 2012, al Qaeda terrorist attacks on the U.S. diplomatic mission and CIA annex because none was within range.
  The Pentagon, under intense public criticism for not coming to the aid of besieged Americans, published an official timeline in November that carefully danced around the issue.
  It said time and distance prevented any commandos outside Libya from reaching a CIA compound under attack. The timeline disclosed that a reinforcement flight 400 miles away in Tripoli contained two ''DoD personnel'' but did not describe who they were. Later, the official State Department report on Benghazi said they were ''two U.S. military personnel'' '-- but provided no other details. It made no mention of special operations forces.
  But sources directly familiar with the attack tell The Washington Times that a unit of eight special operators '-- mostly Delta Force and Green Beret members '-- were in Tripoli the night of the attack, on a counterterrorism mission that involved capturing weapons and wanted terrorists from the streets and helping train Libyan forces.
  When word of the Benghazi attack surfaced, two members of that military unit volunteered to be dispatched along with five private security contractors on a hastily arranged flight from Tripoli to rescue Americans in danger, the sources said, speaking only on the condition of anonymity because the special operations forces' existence inside Libya was secret.
  The two special operations forces arrived in time to engage in the final, ferocious firefight between the terrorists and Americans holed up in the CIA annex near the ill-fated diplomatic mission in Benghazi, the sources added.
  PHOTOS: Inside the U.S. Navy SEALs: See America's elite warriors unleashed
  The two special operators were awarded medals for valor for helping repel a complex attack that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stephens, another American diplomat and two former Navy SEALs, but spared many more potential casualties.
  ''Yes, we had special forces in Tripoli, and two in fact did volunteer and engaged heroically in the efforts to save Americans,'' one source told The Times. ''The others were asked to stay behind to help protect Tripoli in case there was a coordinated attack on our main embassy.
  ''The remaining [special operations forces] were ready to dispatch the next morning, but by that time American personnel had been evacuated to the airport, local militias had provided additional security and it was determined there was no need for them to be dispatched at that point,'' the source added.
  Pressed why the Pentagon and administration officials did not publicly acknowledge the special operations forces' contribution that tragic night, the sources said officials decided that their anti-terror work inside Libya was sensitive and closely guarded. In addition, U.S. officials did not have a Status of Forces Agreement in place that would have authorized the troops' presence, the sources said.
  The history of the Benghazi attack is infamous in part for what the White House and Pentagon did not do: no warplanes and no rescue troops from outside Libya.
  The revelation that some special operations forces did make it to Benghazi the night of the attack is the latest to undermine a carefully crafted story line put out by the president and his aides in the weeks leading into the 2012 election. The administration has since acknowledged that parts of that story line were misleading.
  ''On the one hand, it is an indictment of the lack of contingency planning by both CIA and DoD, especially given the rising threat profiles in Libya that were well understood '-- and appropriately reported back to D.C. by agency reps on the ground,'' said retired Army Col. Ken Allard. ''So why weren't there more than just two Delta Force guys to send? Above all: Where were the air and naval resources that should have routinely been included in any contingency planning worthy of the name?''
Amicus curiae - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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  An amicus curiae (also amicus curi...; plural amici curiae, literally "friend of the court") is someone who is not a party to a case who offers information that bears on the case but that has not been solicited by any of the parties to assist a court. This may take the form of legal opinion, testimony or learned treatise (the amicus brief) and is a way to introduce concerns ensuring that the possibly broad legal effects of a court decision will not depend solely on the parties directly involved in the case. The decision on whether to admit the information lies at the discretion of the court. The phrase amicus curiae is legal Latin.
  History[edit]The amicus curiae figure originates in Roman law.[1] Starting in the 9th century,[citation needed] it was incorporated to English law, and it was later extended to most common law systems. Later, it was also introduced in international law, in particular concerning human rights. From there, it was integrated in some civil law systems (it has recently been integrated into Argentina's law system and Honduras's 2010 civil procedures code). Today, it is used by the European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and the Court of Justice of the European Union.
  Presentation[edit]The role of an amicus is often confused with that of an intervener. The role of an amicus is, as stated by Salmon LJ (as Lord Salmon then was) in Allen v Sir Alfred McAlpine & Sons Ltd [1968] 2 QB 229 at p. 266 F-G:
  I had always understood that the role of an amicus curiae was to help the court by expounding the law impartially, or if one of the parties were unrepresented, by advancing the legal arguments on his behalf.The situation most often noted in the press is when an advocacy group files a brief in a case before an appellate court to which it is not a litigant. Appellate cases are normally limited to the factual record and arguments coming from the lower court case under appeal; attorneys focus on the facts and arguments most favorable to their clients. Where a case may have broader implications, amicus curiae briefs are a way to introduce those concerns, so that the possibly broad legal effects of court decisions will not depend solely on the parties directly involved in the case.
  In prominent cases, amici curiae are generally organizations with sizable legal budgets. In the United States, for example, non-profit legal advocacy organizations, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the Landmark Legal Foundation, the Pacific Legal Foundation, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Center for Law and Justice or NORML, frequently submit such briefs to advocate for or against a particular legal change or interpretation. If a decision could affect an entire industry, companies other than the litigants may wish to have their concerns heard. In the United States, federal courts often hear cases involving the constitutionality of state laws. Hence states may file briefs as amici curiae when their laws are likely to be affected, as in the Supreme Court case McDonald v. Chicago, when thirty-two states under the aegis of Texas (and California independently) filed such briefs.[2]
  Amici curiae who do not file briefs often present an academic perspective on the case. For example, if the law gives deference to a history of legislation of a certain topic, a historian may choose to evaluate the claim from specialized expertise. An economist, statistician, or sociologist may choose to do the same. Newspaper editorials, blogs, and other opinion pieces arguably have the capability to influence Supreme Court decisions as de facto amici curiae.[3][4] They are not, however, technically considered amicus curiae, as they do not submit materials to the Court, do not need to ask for leave, and have no guarantee that they will be read.
  United States Supreme Court Rules[edit]The Supreme Court of the United States has special rules for amicus curiae briefs sought to be filed in cases pending before it. Supreme Court Rule 37 states, in part, such a brief should cover "relevant matter" not dealt with by the parties which "may be of considerable help".[5] The cover of an amicus brief must identify which party the brief is supporting, or if the brief supports only affirmance or reversal. Supreme Court Rule 37.3(a). The Court also requires that, inter alia, all non-governmental amici identify those providing a monetary contribution to the preparation or submission of the brief. Supreme Court Rule 37.6. Briefs must be prepared in booklet format, and 40 copies must be served with the Court.[6]
  In the United States Supreme Court, unless the amicus brief is being filed by the federal government (or one of its officers or agents) or a U.S. state, permission of the court (by means of motion for leave) or mutual consent of the parties is generally required. Allowing an amicus curiae to present oral argument is considered "extraordinary".[7]
  See also[edit]References[edit]Justice, To Assist the Court: Third Party Interventions in the UK (2009)
  ^Judithanne Scourfield McLauchlan (2005). "Congressional Participation As Amicus Curiae Before the U.S. Supreme Court". LFB Scholarly Publishing. p. 266. ISBN 1-59332-088-4. ^Gura, Alan (7 July 2009). "Thirty-four states support second amendment incorporation". ChicagoGunCase. ^Lee, Rachel C. (April 2009). "Ex Parte Blogging: The Legal Ethics of Supreme Court Advocacy in the Internet Era". Stanford Law Review61 (6): 1535''1571. Archived from the original on 2009-05-21. ^Dawson, Keith (8 May 2009). "Bloggers Impacting the World of Litigation". Slashdot. ^Rule 37(1).^United States Supreme Court Rule, 33^FRAP 29.External links[edit]
Feinstein debuts NSA ''reform'' bill that's really about the status quo | Ars Technica
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  Sen. Feinstein chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee.
  View all'...Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) has been one of the most stalwart defenders of widespread NSA surveillance since leaks with information about the programs started seeping out nearly five months ago. Civil libertarians and reformers have been none too pleased with her rhetoric'--and they're not going to get any happier after reading the bill she introduced today.
  The FISA Improvements Act has already attracted plenty of critics who view it as no improvement at all. In fact, they say, Feinstein's bill would make things much worse. It would actually enshrine the NSA "bulk data" collection programs into law and grant official Congressional approval to widespread surveillance programs that haven't ever received such affirmation before.
  Her bill comes on the heels of a competing bill introduced earlier this week that reformers say would be a real step in the right direction. It would outright ban some of the programs that Feinstein is vociferously defending. Dozens of politicians have now stated they're ready to end the controversial "bulk data" programs, including the NSA's practice of keeping a log of every phone call made in the United States. In the House of Representatives, 70 members signed on to a bill proffered by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), the sponsor of the original Patriot Act, which would shut the programs down. A companion bill in the Senate has a dozen co-sponsors, as well.
  "I'd laugh if I weren't so offended," said Jennifer Granick, of Stanford's Center for Internet and Society, in an e-mailed comment about Feinstein's bill. "It legalizes the currently illegal bulk collection of phone records and its language'--whether sloppily or intentionally, I don't know'--encourages the NSA to conduct bulk collection of other kinds of records under 215, as well as content, without even the bill's purported 'safeguards.'"
  The "enhanced criminal penalties" for unauthorized access to data actually criminalizes anyone who accesses a computer "without authorization," noted Ruthann Robson, professor of Law at City University of New York. "While couched in protecting privacy and data, this provision would also further sanction and chill whistleblowers."
  "The modest improvements [the bill] makes are far outweighed by the damage it does to civil liberties,'' said Greg Nojeim, of the Center for Democracy and Technology.
  In introducing the bill, Feinstein reiterated there's essentially nothing wrong with the current situation. "The NSA call-records program is legal and subject to extensive congressional and judicial oversight, and I believe it contributes to our national security," she said. "But more can and should be done to increase transparency and build public support for privacy protections in place."
  Feinstein's statements about the bill make it sound reform-ish, but when closely read, it mainly constitutes re-iterations of the status quo. For instance, the bill "prohibits the bulk collection of the content of communications under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act" (no emphasis in original). The NSA and its defenders, including Feinstein and President Barack Obama, have already stated repeatedly that they don't gather content.
  The legislation would also "prohibit the collection of bulk communication records under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act except under specific procedures and restrictions set forth in the bill." In other words, it forbids the collection of data unless it's collected in a way that the intelligence committee approves of'--essentially the same thing that's been happening for years.
  The bill includes other safeguards and reporting requirements, most of which are already in place, such as limiting the number of contacts or "hops" that an analyst can get when querying bulk communications.
  The Senate Intelligence Committee passed the bill out of committee on an 11-4 vote earlier today'--a vote held in a secret, closed session.
  There seems to be a showdown brewing between surveillance hawks and reformers in Congress. Both sides cross party lines in unexpected ways, and it isn't clear which side will prevail. Sensenbrenner's bill has become quickly popular, yet the Senate Intelligence Committee clearly has a strong majority in favor of these programs. Similarly, when General Keith Alexander and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper came to Congress for a hearing on Tuesday, top members of the House Intelligence Committee mostly showed support for their actions. The recent tone suggests that intelligence committees in both houses may be out of step with the sentiment elsewhere in Congress.
Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned ''Rockstar'' sues Google | Ars Technica
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  Rockstar's reverse-engineering lab in Ottawa, Canada.
  Canada-based telecom Nortel went bankrupt in 2009 and sold its biggest asset'--a portfolio of more than 6,000 patents covering 4G wireless innovations and a range of technologies'--at an auction in 2011.
  Google bid for the patents, but it didn't get them. Instead, the patents went to a group of competitors'--Microsoft, Apple, RIM, Ericsson, and Sony'--operating under the name "Rockstar Bidco." The companies together bid the shocking sum of $4.5 billion.
  Patent insiders knew that the Nortel portfolio was the patent equivalent of a nuclear stockpile: dangerous in the wrong hands, and a bit scary even if held by a "responsible" party.
  This afternoon, that stockpile was finally used for what pretty much everyone suspected it would be used for'--launching an all-out patent attack on Google and Android. The smartphone patent wars have been underway for a few years now, and the eight lawsuits filed in federal court today by Rockstar Consortium mean that the conflict just hit DEFCON 1.
  Google probably knew this was coming. When it lost out in the Nortel auction, the company's top lawyer, David Drummond, complained that the Microsoft-Apple patent alliance was part of a "hostile, organized campaign against Android." Google's failure to get patents in the Nortel auction was seen as one of the driving factors in its $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola in 2011.
  Rockstar, meanwhile, was pretty unapologetic about embracing the "patent troll" business model. Most trolls, of course, aren't holding thousands of patents from gigantic technology companies. When Rockstar was profiled by Wired last year, about 25 of its 32 employees were former Nortel employees.
  The suits filed today are against Google and seven companies that make Android smartphones: Asustek, HTC, Huawei, LG Electronics, Pantech, Samsung, and ZTE. The case was filed in the Eastern District of Texas, long considered a district friendly to patent plaintiffs.
  The lawsuitsThe complaint against Google involves six patents, all from the same patent "family." They're all titled "associative search engine" and list Richard Skillen and Prescott Livermore as inventors. The patents describe "an advertisement machine which provides advertisements to a user searching for desired information within a data network."
  The smartphone patent wars have been underway for a few years now, and the conflict just hit DEFCON 1.
  The oldest patent in the case is US Patent No. 6,098,065, with a filing date of 1997, one year before Google was founded. The newest patent in the suit was filed in 2007 and granted in 2011.
  The complaint tries to use the fact that Google bid for the patents as an extra point against the search giant. "Google subsequently increased its bid multiple times, ultimately bidding as high as $4.4 billion," wrote Rockstar's lawyers. "That price was insufficient to win the auction, as a group led by the current shareholders of Rockstar purchased the portfolio for $4.5 billion. Despite losing in its attempt to acquire the patents-in-suit at auction, Google has infringed and continues to infringe the patents-in-suit."
  The suits against the six manufacturing companies each assert the same patents'--either six or seven of them, depending on the target. The patents cover a variety of innovations and have different inventors. One patent filed in 1997 for a "navigation tool for graphical user interface" describes a way of navigating through electronic documents. Another describes an "Internet protocol filter," and a third patent describes an "integrated message center."
  The manufacturer lawsuits name the targets' whole array of smartphones and tablets. The lawsuit against Huawei, for instance, claims the infringing products include "the Huawei M865 MUVE, Huawei Ascend II, and Huawei Premia 4G M931, and Huawei's family of tablets, including but not limited to the Huawei MediaPad and Huawei IDEOS S7 Slim."
  Rockstar has employed two different law firms to file the suits; both firms have patent experience and experience litigating in the Eastern District of Texas. The Google search suit is being handled by Susman Godfrey, which has taken on other sue-the-world patent cases, like Paul Allen's lawsuits against Facebook, Google, and others.
  The manufacturer suits, meanwhile, are being handled by McKool Smith, a formidable Texas law firm that has probably wrung more massive verdicts out of tech companies than any other firm. It scored $368 million from Apple for VirnetX, $290 million from Microsoft over i4i's XML patent, and most recently notched a $173 million verdict against Qualcomm.
  The ultimate ''patent privateer''When Wired visited Rockstar's Ontario headquarters, it found 10 reverse-engineering experts, working daily to take apart products and find patent infringement. With just a few dozen employees, Rockstar is hoping to convince more than 100 technology companies to pay it patent licensing fees for a huge array of products. "Pretty much anyone out there is infringing," said Rockstar's CEO, John Veschi.
  The Rockstar Consortium may be the ultimate example of patent "privateering"'--when big companies hand off their patents to small shell companies to do the dirty work of suing their competitors. Essentially, it's patent trolling gone corporate.
  The "privateering" phenomenon has long irked Google. In February, when Google filed a patent lawsuit against British Telecom, it said one of the reasons for the suit was that BT had not only sued Google directly, but it had also gone around "arming patent trolls."
  Part of Rockstar's strategy is avoiding a patent countersuit by not having any operating businesses. Essentially, the company wants to enjoy the same advantage patent trolls have, even though it's owned by direct Google competitors like Apple and Microsoft.
  "The principals have plausible deniability," said Thomas Ewing, an IP attorney who spoke to Wired about Rockstar. "They can say with a straight face: 'They're an independent company. We don't control them.' And there's some truth to that."
  And Rockstar's CEO was quite straightforward about his belief that whatever promises Microsoft and Apple might have made about how they'll use their patents, those promises don't apply to Rockstar. ''We are separate,'' he says. ''That does not apply to us.''
  Rockstar may want to keep the patent conflict as a kind of "proxy war" between Google and its competitors. But Google has plenty of patents, and this new attack seems assured to bring a counterattack.
  The smartphone market is more valuable than ever, and the $4.5 billion Rockstar purchase shows that Google's competitors will spare no expense to put a damper on Android, and they hope to make money while they do it. Patents have become the arena in which tech companies have chosen to do battle. Six years after the iPhone and five years after the launch of Android, the stakes keep getting raised.
Kraft Agrees to Remove Yellow Dye From Macaroni and Cheese
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  In a big win for people who spend their time petitioning mega corporations to make unhealthy foods mildly healthier, Kraft Food Group Inc. announced Thursday that they will begin removing dyes from their famously-bright macaroni and cheese.
  But you can stop hyperventilating because they will not be removing the fake dye from their ''original flavor'' elbow-shaped macaroni and cheese. In a far emptier gesture, they'll only be removing Yellow 5 and Yellow 6 from the SpongeBob Squarepants, Halloween, and ''winter shapes'' varieties of macaroni and cheese. According to Kraft, they'll replace the dye with "spices like paprika." So instead of looking like neon noodles, the new macaroni and cheese will look like SpongeBob Squarepants drowning in blah speckled with paprika.
  However, Kraft really wants you to know that in no way did this change result from a Change.org petition with 348,000 signatures asking the company to stop using the dyes. According to the vice president of marketing meals at Kraft, Triona Schmelter, the company is simply ''making improvement where we can,'' not paying attention to widely publicized outrage.
  This will surely come as good news to the party poopers circulating this Change.org petition asking M&Ms to remove artificial dyes from the candies. The authors of this petition, appearing on the Today show this week, assert that the "petroleum-based" dyes cause hyperactivity in children. Their petition currently has 108,000 signatures.
  First they came for the macaroni and cheese, then they came for the M&Ms. What bright foods will be next?
LA Times - 28 solar flares in the last seven days, and more may be coming
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Hillary Clinton Reveals Her 2016 Presidential Campaign Theme
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  Sun, 03 Nov 2013 01:21
  Not including the Benghazi 4
  Can all these dead people on the Clinton friends list be coincidences'...or well-planned accidents? Copy the list and protect it for use in Killary's campaign.
  1 '' James McDougal '' Clinton's convicted Whitewater partner died of an apparent heart attack, while in solitary confinement. He was a key witness in Ken Starr's investigation.
  2 '' Mary Mahoney '' A former White House intern was murdered July 1997 at a Starbucks Coffee Shop in Georgetown. The murder happened just after she was to go public with her story of sexual harassment in the White House.
  3 '' Vince Foster '' Former White House councilor, and lover of Hillary Clinton at Little Rock's Rose Law firm. Died of a gunshot wound to the head, ruled a suicide.
  4 '' Ron Brown '' Secretary of Commerce and former DNC Chairman. Reported to have died by impact in a plane crash. A pathologist close to the investigation reported that there was a hole in the top of Brown's skull resembling a gunshot wound. At the time of his death Brown was being investigated, and spoke publicly of his willingness to cut a deal with prosecutors. The rest of the people on the plane also died. A few days later the Air Traffic Controller commited suicide.
  5 '' C. Victor Raiser II '' Raiser, a major player in the Clinton fund raising organization died in a private plane crash in July 1992.
  6 '' Paul Tulley '' Democratic National Committee Political Director found dead in a hotel room in Little Rock, September 1992. Described by Clinton as a ''Dear friend and trusted advisor''.
  7 '' Ed Willey '' Clinton fund raiser, found dead November 1993 deep in the woods in VA of a gunshot wound to the head. Ruled a suicide. Ed Willey died on the same day his wife Kathleen Willey claimed Bill Clinton groped her inthe oval office in the White House. Ed Willey was involved in several Clinton fund raising events.
  8 '' Jerry Parks '' Head of Clinton's gubernatorial security team in Little Rock. Gunned down in his car at a deserted intersection outside Little Rock. Park's son said his father was building a dossier on Clinton. He allegedly threatened to reveal this information. After he died the files were mysteriously removed from his house.
  9 '' James Bunch '' Died from a gunshot suicide. It was reported that he had a ''Black Book'' of people which contained names of influential people who visited prostitutes in Texas and Arkansas.
  10 '' James Wilson '' Was found dead in May 1993 from an apparent hanging suicide. He was reported to have ties to Whitewater.
  11 '' Kathy Ferguson '' Ex-wife of Arkansas Trooper Danny Ferguson, was found dead in May 1994, in her living room with a gunshot to her head. It was ruled a suicide even though there were several packed suitcases, as if she were going somewhere. Danny Ferguson was a co-defendant along with Bill Clinton in the Paula Jones lawsuit. Kathy Ferguson was a possible corroborating witness for Paula Jones.
  12 '' Bill Shelton '' Arkansas State Trooper and fiancee of Kathy Ferguson. Critical of the suicide ruling of his fiancee, he was found dead in June, 1994 of a gunshot wound also ruled a suicide at the grave site of his fiancee.
  13 '' Gandy Baugh '' Attorney for Clinton's friend Dan Lassater, died by jumping out a window of a tall building January, 1994. His client was a convicted drug distributor.
  14 '' Florence Martin '' Accountant & sub-contractor for the CIA, was related to the Barry Seal Mena Airport drug smuggling case. He died of three gunshot wounds.
  15 '' Suzanne Coleman '' Reportedly had an affair with Clinton when he was Arkansas Attorney General. Died of a gunshot wound to the back of the head, ruled a suicide. Was pregnant at the time of her death.
  16 '' Paula Grober '' Clinton's speech interpreter for the deaf from 1978 until her death December 9, 1992. She died in a one car accident.
  17 '' Danny Casolaro '' Investigative reporter. Investigating Mena Airport and Arkansas Development Finance Authority. He slit his wrists, apparently in the middle of his investigation.
  18 '' Paul Wilcher '' Attorney investigating corruption at Mena Airport with Casolaro and the 1980 ''October Surprise'' was found dead on a toilet June 22, 1993 in his Washington DC apartment. Had delivered a report to Janet Reno 3 weeks before his death.
  19 '' Jon Parnell Walker '' Whitewater investigator for Resolution Trust Corp. Jumped to his death from his Arlington, Virginia apartment balcony August15, 1993. He was investigating the Morgan Guaranty scandal.
  20 '' Barbara Wise '' Commerce Department staffer. Worked closely with Ron Brown and John Huang. Cause of death unknown. Died November 29, 1996. Her bruised, nude body was found locked in her office at the Department of Commerce.
  21 '' Charles Meissner '' Assistant Secretary of Commerce who gave John Huang special security clearance, died shortly thereafter in a small plane crash.
  22 '' Dr. Stanley Heard '' Chairman of the National Chiropractic Health Care Advisory Committee died with his attorney Steve Dickson in a small plane crash. Dr. Heard, in addition to serving on Clinton's advisory council personally treated Clinton's mother, stepfather and brother.
  23 '' Barry Seal '' Drug running pilot out of Mena Arkansas, death was no accident.
  24 '' Johnny Lawhorn Jr. '' Mechanic, found a check made out to Bill Clinton in the trunk of a car left at his repair shop. Lawhorn was found dead after his car had hit a utility pole.
  25 '' Stanley Huggins '' Investigated Madison Guaranty. His death was a purported suicide and his report was never released.
  26 '' Hershell Friday '' Attorney and Clinton fund raiser died March 1, 1994 when his plane exploded.
  27 and 28 '' Kevin Ives & Don Henry '' Known as ''The boys on the track'' case. Reports say the boys may have stumbled upon the Mena Arkansas airport drug operation. A controversial case, the initial report of death said, was due to boys falling asleep on railroad tracks. Later reports claim the 2 boys had been slain before being placed on the tracks. Many linked to that case died before their testimony could come before a Grand Jury.
  THE FOLLOWING PERSONS HAD INFORMATION ON THE IVES/HENRY CASE:
  29 '' Keith Coney '' Died when his motorcycle slammed into the back of a truck, 7/88.
  30 '' Keith McMaskle '' Died, stabbed 113 times, Nov 1988
  31 '' Gregory Collins '' Died from a gunshot wound January 1989.
  32 '' Jeff Rhodes '' He was shot, mutilated and found burned in a trash dump in April 1989.
  33 '' James Milan '' Found decapitated. However, the Coroner ruled his death was due to ''natural causes''.
  34 '' Jordan Kettleson '' Was found shot to death in the front seat of his pickup truck in June 1990.
  35 '' Richard Winters '' A suspect in the Ives / Henry deaths. He was killed in a set-up robbery July 1989.
  THE FOLLOWING CLINTON BODYGUARDS ARE DEAD:
  36 '' Major William S. Barkley Jr.
  37 '' Captain Scott J . Reynolds
  38 '' Sgt. Brian Hanley
  39 '' Sgt. Tim Sabel
  40 '' Major General William Robertson
  41 '' Col. William Densberger
  42 '' Col. Robert Kelly
  43 '' Spec. Gary Rhodes
  44 '' Steve Willis
  45 '' Robert Williams
  46 '' Conway LeBleu
  47 '' Todd McKeehan
Phil Simon: Big Data and Teenage Sex
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  Sun, 03 Nov 2013 01:20
  17 FlaresFilament.io17 Flares—''Big data is like teenage sex: everyone talks about it, nobody really knows how to do it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it.''
  ''Dan Ariely
  In a word, brilliant. You'll get no argument from me.
  I see myriad surveys, polls, and reports that ''most'' organizations are embracing Big Data. For instance, as Matt Asay onReadWriteWeb writes:
  According to a recent Gartner report, 64% of enterprises surveyed indicate that they're deploying or planning Big Data projects (emphasis mine). Yet even more acknowledge that they still don't know what to do with Big Data. Have the inmates officially taken over the Big Data asylum?
  That's a big jump (64% in 2013 compared to 58% in 2012), and it reflects a growing confidence that Big Data can help to enhance the customer experience (54% cited this as their driving motivation), improve process efficiency (42%) and launch new products or business models (39%).
  So, slowly but surely, Big Data is making inroads in the enterprise, right?
  Color me a skeptic, but I just don't buy these statistics. For every Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Netflix, and Twitter, there are thousands of mid-sized and large enterprises doing nothing. Probably more.
  Is this understandable? Of course. Most organizations do a poor job managing Small Data (read: the transactional, structured, relational data that undergirds their operations.) Tony Fisher covers this in his book The Data Asset (affiliate link).
  Simon SaysMaybe in a few years, Ariely's quote won't hold water. At this point, though, it's spot-on.
  FeedbackWhat say you?
  17 Flares1Facebook11LinkedIn0Google+3Buffer2Filament.io17 Flares—Tags: Quotes, Too Big to Ignore
LAX shooting: Charges filed against alleged gunman - chicagotribune.com
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  Sun, 03 Nov 2013 00:59
  LOS ANGELES'--
  Federal prosecutors on Saturday filed a murder charge against the alleged gunman in the shooting rampage at Los Angeles International Airport in which a Transportation Security Administration screener was killed.
  Other charges related to firing a weapon inside an international airport were also filed against 23-year-old Paul Anthony Ciancia, who was identified by police as the man who opened fire inside Terminal 3 about 9:20 a.m. Friday. At an FBI news briefing Saturday, officials confirmed that Ciancia used an assault rifle in the attack.
  If convicted, Ciancia faces life in prison without parole, or possibly the death penalty, authorities said Saturday.
  At the briefing, FBI officials said Ciancia's intent was made "very, very clear" in a note in which he "indicated his anger and malice toward TSA officers."
  David Bowdich, FBI special agent in charge, said that in Ciancia's handwritten note, his goal was to "instill fear into their traitorous minds."
  Ciancia remained in critical condition Saturday morning after law enforcement sources said he was shot in the leg and head by LAX police. Because of his injuries, federal authorities had not been able to interview Ciancia, Bowdich said.
  Authorities on Saturday were still trying to learn a motive. But a federal law enforcement official briefed on the investigation told The Times that the note found with Ciancia contained a rant against the government and the words ''kill TSA."
  DISTURBING TEXT MESSAGE
  In New Jersey, police and FBI agents descended on Ciancia's family's home in Pennsville Township.
  Pennsville Police Chief Allen Cummings said he had been contacted by Ciancia's father before the shooting, prompted by a worrisome text message from the young man to his brother.
  The police chief declined to say more about what was in the text message but said that family members told investigators they had no previous indications that Ciancia, who moved to California about 18 months ago, was troubled.
  A U.S. official who asked not to be identified said federal investigators were trying to determine if the gunman had been targeting TSA agents in the rampage.
  Neighbors who live across the street from the Ciancia family said the father, also named Paul, runs an auto body shop in the town.
  "I believe he worked for his father," said one neighbor, Jennifer Pagan, of the younger Paul.
  Her husband, Orlando Pagan, said the elder Ciancia had made several friendly gestures since they had moved into their house 10 years ago. When Hurricane Sandy hit New Jersey last year, "he asked if we wanted to take our personal vehicle and put it on his property." The Ciancia property is slightly higher.
  TSA AGENT'S WIDOW 'DEVASTATED'
  The gunman shot at least two Transportation Security Administration employees, one fatally, said Bowdich. TSA Administrator John S. Pistole traveled to Los Angeles on Saturday to meet with the family of Gerardo I. Hernandez, 39, the screener who was shot and killed on Friday. Pistole also met the two TSA officers who are recovering from gunshot wounds, officials said.
  Hernandez's wife, Ana, said Saturday her husband was "always there to help anyone in need."
  "We are hurting," she said. "I am truly devastated."
  Flanked by TSA Administrator John Pistole, Ana Hernandez said her husband was "always excited to go to work." The youngest of four siblings, she said, Gerardo moved to the United States from El Salvador at age 15 and graduated from Los Angeles High School.
  "It's devastating because he was such a great guy," one of Hernandez's friends, Kevin Maxwell, told KNBC. Maxwell said Hernandez was the "very proud" father of a boy and a girl.
  Hernandez was one of two shooting victims taken to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. When he arrived, doctors said it was evident there was no chance of survival.
  A round of shots broke into fragments inside his torso and caused chest injuries and debilitating internal bleeding.
  "We made every effort to stop the bleeding and get the heart to beat on its own," Dr. David Plurad told NBC News.
  TSA Administrator Pistole, who appeared outside the Hernandez home with Ana, called the incident "a senseless tragedy."
  "This is a time of great reflecting for us," he said.
  Pistole said officials will be examining their policies and assessing them, though he acknowledged: "We can't guard against all threats and all risks."
  Los Angeles police officers will be wearing black mourning bands in memory of Hernandez, ChiefCharlie Beck of Los Angeles Police Department said on Twitter.
  Meanwhile the airport said its 100-foot pylons would light the night blue through Sunday in Hernandez's honor.
  Hernandez is the first TSA officer killed in the line of duty since the agency was created 69 days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
  ''No words can explain the horror that we experienced today when a shooter took the life of a member of our family and injured two TSA officers at Los Angeles International Airport,'' Pistole said in a letter to TSA employees sent on Friday.
  Authorities said that during the rampage, Ciancia approached several people cowering in the terminal, pointed the gun at them and asked if they ''were TSA.'' If the answer was no, he moved on without pulling the trigger. A witness told The Los Angeles Times that the gunman cursed the TSA repeatedly as he moved through the terminal.
  Authorities said Ciancia was shot and wounded by police in an exchange of gunfire at the airport's busy Terminal 3. He was shot in the leg and head, making it difficult for authorities to gather information, a law enforcement official told The Los Angeles Times.
  KCAL-TV footage appeared to show the bloodied gunman handcuffed to a gurney as he was wheeled out of the terminal. He remained in critical condition at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center as of Saturday morning.
  The incident was over in less than 10 minutes but caused chaos at the world's sixth-busiest airport and disrupted thousands of flights across the nation.
  Armed with an assault rifle, the shooter touched off panic and chaos at one of the world's busiest airports. Hundreds of travelers ran for safety or frantically dove for cover behind luggage, and loud alarms blared through the terminal.
  Traveler Lauren Stephens, 47, said she had just put her luggage on the scale at the ticket counter in Terminal 3 when she heard a series of gunshots. "Somebody just yelled 'Run' at the top of their lungs. ... I just left my bag and I just ran like hell. Everybody ran."
  The gunman, a U.S. citizen who appeared to be acting alone, pushed through the screening gates and ran into an area where passengers were boarding flights, before law enforcement officers caught up with him in a food court, Patrick Gannon, chief of the Los Angeles Airport Police, said at a news conference.
  The officers shot him at least once and took him into custody, he said.
When Chivalry Became Benevolent Sexism | Stuff.co.nz
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  Archived Version
  Sun, 03 Nov 2013 00:55
  When a man holds a door open for a woman, is it chivalry or sexism? Or, to be precise, "benevolent sexism"?
  Benevolent sexism has been identified as the flip side of the "hostile" sexism that would banish women to the kitchen.
  It's a distincition that has been looked at by Auckland University researchers in a survey of the attitudes of more than 6500 New Zealanders.
  Study author Matthew Hammond said benevolent sexism portrays women as "fragile and delicate and in need of protection" and emphasised their emotional qualities.
  The study found that many women embraced benevolent sexism. Those women were also more likely to be psychologically "entitled" - a symptom of a narcissistic personality where people feel they are deserving or more special than others.
  Hammond said it was predicted the two traits would go together as benevolent sexism appeared to "promise" things to women.
  Television presenter Ali Mau said she believed benevolent sexism was predominantly "an older generation thing" that would probably die out with her parents' generation, or perhaps with her own generation.
  "These people who protest that it's chivalrous - I think there's some deep-seated sexism there."
  From an informal poll of her younger workmates, the custom of a man paying on a first date was still common, she said. "But generally the woman will insist on paying on the second date."
  Auckland University law student Olivia Lubbock, 22, who was part of a feminist parody of the pop song Blurred Lines, said she hadn't experienced any hostile sexism recently but "I definitely agree there's a lot of benevolent sexism".
  Particularly in the dating world, there was still an expectation that women were supposed to be "demure" and "fit into a certain stereotype" - the "good girl" of the Blurred Lines song, for example.
  Lubbock said she had noticed benevolent sexism in the workplace where men offered to lift boxes for her when "I like to lift my own boxes". The old-school staple of opening doors for someone was still gratefully received but "anybody can hold a door open for anyone else".
  "That's where we need to be heading rather than this notion that men need to protect women."
  The link between benevolent sexism and entitlement did not surprise her.
  "I think there are women whose parents actively encourage them to be entitled. As mature young women we have to be realistic - you can't expect everything to be given to you on a gold plate."
  Anna Guy, the sister of murdered Feilding farmer Scott Guy, said sexism had got "a lot better than it used to be maybe 10 years ago".
  Benevolent sexism was difficult to separate from a new attitude of people looking after each other and gender roles becoming more shared, she said.
  "It might not be exactly equal but men also look after children and work."
  Is a man opening a door for a woman "benevolent sexism"?
  Guy: "It's definitely impressive. I feel like they don't have to - if they don't want to I wouldn't be offended. It's a bonus."
  Olivia Lubbock: "Anyone can hold a door open for anyone else."
  Study author Hammond: "I open the door for everyone. I know when I open the door for someone it's not because they are a man or a woman, it's because they are behind me . . . but they don't know that."
  Alison Mau: "I open doors for men and they open doors for me. It's about who's better placed to offer the courtesy."
  - (C) Fairfax NZ News
VIDEO-October 27: Issa, Shaheen, Shenon, Johnson - CBS News Video
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  Sat, 02 Nov 2013 23:47
  September 29: Paul, Durbin, Blackburn, Van Hollen
  The latest on the possible government shutdown and negotiations with Iran, with Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., Reps. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., Zbigniew Brzezinski, Gerald Seib, David Ignatius, Clarissa Ward, Margaret Brennan and John Dickerson.
Drug Reduces Gambling Behavior In Slot Machine-Loving Rats | Popular Science
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  Archived Version
  Sat, 02 Nov 2013 23:37
  Scientists have found a way to reduce gambling-type behaviors in rats by blocking a specific dopamine receptor, signaling a potential treatment for pathological gambling.
  In a study led by Paul Cocker, a Ph.D. student in psychology at the University of British Columbia, a group of 32 rats compulsively used a slot-machine-like system of three flashing lights that lit up when the rats pushed one of two levers. If all three lights lit up, the rats won 10 sugar pellets, delivered when they hit a "cash out" lever. When any other combination of lights flashed, the rats lost, and if they pushed the lever to cash out, they received a 10-second penalty before they could play again. If they chose a different lever, the "roll again" one, it allowed them to play again without penalty.
  Like humans, the rats fell prey to the "near miss" effect, where an almost-winning combination feels a little bit like a win in itself'--though there's no reward. The rats often chose the "cash out" lever instead of the "roll again" lever when two of the three lights flashed. Near misses tend to make peoplekeep playing, and the researchers suggest that slot machines' high rate of near misses make them a particularly addictive form of gambling.
  To try to reduce the rats' gambling behaviors, the researchers blocked dopamine D4 receptors, which have been linked topathological gambling. Blocking the receptors reduced the rats' tendency to treat near misses as wins, seemingly decreasing the rewarding aspect of those two flashing lights.
  In human trials, the dopamine blocker used here has proved ineffective as an antipsychotic in schizophrenic patients, so it's not certain these findings would easily translate to people. ''More work is needed, but these findings offer new hope for the treatment of gambling addiction," Cocker said. Especially for all those Vegas-going rats.
  The study is available inBiology Psychiatry.
VIDEO-LAX eyewitness: 'Keep running, keep running' | Fox News Video
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  Sat, 02 Nov 2013 23:33
  This transcript is automatically generated
  INTO DROP OFF PASSENGERS TO PUT THEM ON BUSES.
  WE HAVE A NUMBER OF CORRESPONDENTS ON THE GROUND AND WE ARE GETTING A LOT OF TWEETS IN HERE.
  YES, WE ARE STANDING NEXT TO TERMINAL TWO.
  THE AIR TRAFFIC HAS CONTINUED.
  THAT IS ABOUT IT.
  NOTHING NORMAL FOR LAX.
  I WANT TO GET TO THE TWO WITNESSES.
  IT IS ABOUT A THREE HOUR DRIVE DOWN.
  IF YOU DON'T KNOW, IT IS UP STAIRS.
  DOWNSTAIRS IS WHERE PEOPLE ARRIVE.
  WE WERE PUTTING BELONGINGS ONTO THE BELT TO BE SCREENED AND WE HEARD 8 SHOTS RING OUT.
  WE HIT THE DECK AND FOR ABOUT I DON'T KNOW 15 SECONDS WE WERE DOWN AND EVERYBODY STARTED RUNNING DOWN INTO THE GATES, THE TERMINAL THERE.
  TSA WAS RUNNING WITH US.
  AS WE WERE RUNNING, THERE WERE PROBABLY 15 TO 20 SHOTS THAT WE HEARD BEHIND US.
  WE RAN OVER TOWARDS TERMINAL TWO UNDER PLANES AND SO ALL OF THE PEOPLE THAT WERE IN LINE TO BE SCREENED, WE STORMED THROUGH THE SECURITY GATES.
  THAT IS BREACHING SECURITY TOO.
  WE KEPT RUNNING AWAY FROM THE SHOTS AND WE DUCKED INTO TERMINAL TWO.
  SCARY MOMENTS HERE FOR SURE AT LAX.
  >> I HAVE BEEN TALKING TO MARK AND AUDREY WHILE YOU HAVE BEEN ON THE AIR.
  YOU DON'T HAVE YOUR SHOE.
  YOU ARE WEARING ONLY ONE SHOE.
  >> I WAS AT THE SCREENING AREA.
  I WAS PUTTING MY BELONGINGS IN THE TRAY I HAD ONE BOOT OFF AND I PUT MY BOOT IN THE TRAY AND WE FELL TO THE FLOOR AND ON TOP OF EACH OTHER.
  IT WAS LIKE A DREAM IT WASN'T REAL IT WAS LIKE A MOVIE.
  IT WAS SO INTENSE.
  AND WE PANICKED.
  AND JUST STARTED FLOODING THROUGH THE SCREENING XRAY MACHINES AND TSA WAS RIGHT THERE WITH US.
  I'M SHAKING I'M SCARED.
  THEY SAY THERE COULD BE A GUNMAN ON THE ROOF.
  I JUST WANT TO GET OUT OF HERE.
  >> I TALKEDED TO LAW ENFORCEMENT MOMENTS AGO.
  THEY DON'T BELIEVE THERE IS A SECOND GUNMAN ANY WHERE.
  PEOPLE LIKE THE HENRY'S LEFT THEIR BAGS.
  >> MY ID IS IN THERE.
  EVERYTHING IS BACK AT THE SCREENING.
  AND WE JUST WANT TO KNOW IF IT IS OKAY.
  >> ONE OF THE BYPRODUCTS OF YOU LEAVING IT THERE NOW THE BOMB SQUAD HAS TO GO THROUGH THE ENTIRE TERMINAL AND MAKE SURE THOSE BAGS ARE CLEAR.
  >> YOU SAID YOU WERE HAPPY TO GET OUT ALIVE.
  >> EVERYTHING THAT IS IN OUR BAGS IS REPLACEABLE.
  >> LIKE YOU SAID, SCARY MOMENTS.
  >> HIS DAD AND MOM ARE WITH US.
  AND WE HAVE BEEN SEPARATED FROM THEM AND HIS DAD HAS HEALTH ISSUES WITH HIS HEART AND WE WERE SCARED FOR HIM BECAUSE WE DON'T WANT ANYTHING TO HAPPEN TO HIM AND WE HAVE BEEN INFORMED THAT THEY ARE SAFELY OUT OF THE AIRPORT AND SAFE AND WE WANT TO RECONNECT WITH THEM.
  >> YOU MIGHT SEE PEOPLE WALKING BEHIND US.
  I TALKED TO SOME PEOPLE WHO RAN INTO RESTAURANTS AND I TALKED TO TSA AGENTS.
  THEY SAID THEY THOUGHT THE SHOTS WERE COMING FROM DOWNSTAIRS.
  >> THEY WERE LIKE AT THE BASE OF THE ESCALATETERS.
  SO YES, THERE WERE NO SHOTS.
  ONCE WE LEFT, THEY MAY HAVE CAME UP THE ESCALATETERS.
  >> I YOU HAVE TO GO UP THE STAIRS OR UP THE STAIRS TO GET TO WHERE YOU CHECK IN AND GO THROUGH SECURITY.
  MY QUESTION IS ARE TSA AGENTS ARMED? >> YOU WOULD THINK THAT THEY WOULD BE THERE TO KEEP US SAFE.
  >> WHEN THEY ARE RUNNING WITH US.
  >> NO DOWN THE ABOUT THAT.
VIDEO- Confessions of a RX drug rep, what we all must know. - YouTube
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  Sat, 02 Nov 2013 23:03
VIDEO- Weekly Address: Passing a Budget that Reflects our Priorities - YouTube
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  Sat, 02 Nov 2013 20:47
'Mad Men' Was Filming at LAX During Deadly Shooting, Says Crew Member | Variety
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  Archived Version
  Sat, 02 Nov 2013 20:40
  ''Mad Men'' was in the process of filming an episode at Los Angeles International Airport Friday morning when a deadly shooting incident occurred at the travel hub, according to tweets from a production staffer.
  Plenty of other bizzers were caught up in the shooting drama and the traffic snarl that ensued around 9:30 a.m. PT as the airport was evacuated while law enforcement hunted for the shooter.
  Dustin Woods, a key grip on the AMC's ''Mad Men,'' tweeted that the series was filming in American Airlines' Terminal 4 at LAX, one terminal away from where shots were fired at approximately 9:20 a.m. PT.
  Woods tweeted to TV Guide's Michael Schneider that the show on which he was in production was ''Mad Men,'' noting that it was the program's first day back lensing.
  AMC declined to comment.
  CBS senior exec VP Kelly Kahl was on his way to the airport for a flight when the lockdown occurred. He was unable to get into LAX and wound up re-routing his travel plans through Long Beach Airport. Amid the chaos, Kahl telephoned KCBS-TV Los Angeles to provide an on-the-scene report.
  Actor James Franco was stuck sitting on the ground in a plane when the shooting took place, which he chronicled via Instagram.
  Grant Imahara and Tory Belleci, of Discovery Channel's ''Mythbusters'' series, were in Terminal 3 where the shooting occurred. Both were on their way to Delaware for the filming of Discovery's popular holiday special ''Punkin Chunkin.''
  PHOTOS: Harrison Ford's 10 Best Movies of All-Time
  ''Grant and Tory are safe and being rerouted. Our thoughts are with all those affected by today's tragedy and our gratitude goes out to the members of the LAPD, Airport Police, TSA, and Virgin America staff for restoring safety to the scene,'' Discovery and Science Channel said in a statement.
  Late Friday, the FBI identified the shooter as Paul Ciancia, 23, of Los Angeles.
  The deadly incident continued to reverberate for thousands of travelers Friday as more than 100 flights were delayed or canceled because of the disruption.
Germany, Brazil to propose anti-spying resolution at UN | TODAYonline
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  Sat, 02 Nov 2013 20:28
  Charges that the US' national security agency accessed tens of thousands of French phone records and monitored the German chancellor's phone cause outrage
  UNITED NATIONS '-- Germany and Brazil are drafting a UN General Assembly resolution that would demand an end to excessive spying and invasion of privacy after a former US intelligence contractor revealed massive international surveillance programs, UN diplomats said yesterday (Oct 25).
  Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have both condemned the widespread snooping by the US National Security Agency.
  Charges that the NSA accessed tens of thousands of French phone records and monitored Ms Merkel's mobile phone have caused outrage in Europe. Germany said on Friday it would send its top intelligence chiefs to Washington next week to seek answers from the White House.
  In response to the disclosures about US spying, many of which came from fugitive former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the German and Brazilian UN delegations have begun work on a draft resolution to submit to the 193-nation General Assembly, several UN diplomats told Reuters.
  ''This resolution will probably have enormous support in the GA (General Assembly), since no one likes the NSA spying on them,'' a Western UN diplomat said on condition of anonymity.
  General Assembly resolutions are non-binding, unlike resolutions of the 15-nation Security Council. But assembly resolutions that enjoy broad international support can carry significant moral and political weight.
  Ms Merkel demanded on Thursday that Washington strike a ''no-spying'' agreement with Berlin and Paris by the end of the year, adding she wanted action from President Barack Obama, not just apologetic words.
  Last month, Ms Rousseff used her position as the opening speaker at the General Assembly's annual gathering of world leaders to accuse the United States of violating human rights and international law through espionage that included spying on her email.
  Ms Rousseff also expressed her displeasure by calling off a high-profile state visit to the United States scheduled for this month over reports that the NSA had been spying on Brazil. REUTERS
Nasdaq Crashes (Again): Is It The Usual Suspect? HFT
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Sat, 02 Nov 2013 20:17
  This article first appeared on Floating Path.
  High frequency trading combined with a complex market structure leads to crazy anomalies on an almost daily basis. This past week we saw an entire market shut down as the NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:NDAQ) went offline for more than three hours. This scenario was a bit more complicated than the BATS Global Markets, Inc. Class A Common Stock (BATS:BATS) outage because Nasdaq is responsible for disseminating prices of certain stocks (and their quotes) to all market participants via an information feed known as the Securities Information Processor. The SIP is a critical piece of information for traders. Often referred to as ''the tape'' this is essentially what the majority of regular folks see when looking at prices and quotes for stocks, or what you see on the bottom of the screen on CNBC. The description from the gentlemen at Themis Trading is rather succinct.
  The SIP is one of the most important and least understood pieces of our equity market. It aggregates all of those fragmented exchanges and distributes the NBBO (national best bid and offer). The NBBO is what all those dark pools use to price their merchandise and also what all those internalizers rely on to give sub penny price improvement. The SIP is the hub and the exchanges are the spokes.
  What caused the outage?
  Thus far there has been much finger-pointing by NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:NDAQ), chiefly in the direction of NYSE-Arca. The blame game is no surprise and there has been no official cause released just yet. In the meantime, what we do know is that gigantic bursts of quotes occurred just prior to the system breaking. These quote spam methods employed by HFT can be similar to DDoS attacks, as we've seen in the past.
  The charts below illustrate the disproportionate quoting that occurred. The thick red line represents the day of the outage, which officially began at 12:03 when the SIP went down.
  What was the result?
  NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:NDAQ) decide to halt trading entirely on its system and in all ''Tape C'' securities, or those listed on the Nasdaq exchange. As they were unable to provide timely and accurate information to participants, it made sense to stop all trading so as to not officially provide an unfair advantage to any single participant. Because of this, it was literally impossible to trade Nasdaq listed stocks or their options for three hours on Thursday. Popular names like Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft were all halted. Quotes from industry participants obtained by the Wall Street Journal show the confusion during the time.
  ''It's really shocking,'' said Ramon Verastegui, head of global engineering and strategy at Soci(C)t(C) G(C)n(C)rale, during the outage. ''If we want to trade Apple, we can't.''
  ''This takes confidence from the markets,'' said William ''Packy'' Jones, chief executive of JonesTrading Group, which handles trading for hedge funds, mutual funds and other institutional investors. For much of the day, he said, traders were asking, in reference to published prices, ''Are these prints real, or are they not real?''
  As you can see, the NASDAQ Composite (INDEXNASDAQ:.IXIC) flat-lined.
  The most curious aspect of the outage is that trading continued after the SIP was broken. So while the market was seemingly closed for most traders in a stock like Apple, it continued to trade among some participants as if nothing was wrong. Any firm not relying on the SIP for trade and quote data would have been unaffected by its malfunction.
  Who doesn't rely on the SIP?
  High frequency trading firms do not. Via co-location and direct data feeds, HFT are plugged directly into the exchange computers allowing them to calculate the data on their own, essentially a synthetic SIP that is faster and more accurate. Nanex calls this discrepancy between direct feeds and the SIP downright illegal.
  This is because exchanges are providing data to High Frequency Traders via direct feeds ahead of the SIP or consolidated feed. This is a clear violation of Reg NMS (what the SEC fined the NYSE $5 Million for). In fact, this behavior renders Reg NMS moot.
  The chart below clearly shows trading in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) beyond the SIP outage and even beyond 12:23 when NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:NDAQ) officially said every single Tape C stock had been halted.
  The same problem arose in Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)'s stock, where the NBBO was seemingly dead, only this occurred at 11:01, about an hour before the entire SIP crashed. The trades continued unaffected, assumingly by the same directly connected HFT firms.
  Was this an orchestrated event?
  While rumors were abound instantly invoking fears of a hacking or possible terrorist cyber attack, the cause most likely resides on American soil inside a server farm. To illustrate the ability to profit in this scenario, considering the following description.
  Let's assume you were at a farmer's market with various stands selling apples. In the middle of the market was a chalkboard (the SIP) displaying prices and quantities at which apples were just bought and sold, as well as bids and offers for future sales. What if one was able to, in the blink of an eye (or less actually), erase the chalkboard while simultaneously buying a majority of the available apples? One could turn around and sell their apples to other customers at their own price since others would have nothing to base a ''fair'' sale price upon. Or once the purchases were complete, one could allow the chalkboard to be re-written with new prices. Given the sudden drop in apple supply, the price would assumingly be higher, and that individual would be the new owner of an apple cart with a sudden appreciation in value.
  It is not yet known whether any HFT firm attempted to break the SIP, but it is clear they would be capable of doing so and in a position to benefit from the subsequent darkness in pricing experienced by other market participants. Further, if any HFT is responsible, willfully or otherwise, NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:NDAQ) is unlikely to blame them publicly. HFT is the biggest customer for a for-profit exchange, providing massive trading volumes and purchasing direct data feeds and co-location of their servers. Given this inherent conflict of interest, the argument against the current structure is valid.
  UPDATE:
  It is now apparent to market data experts Nanex, that the gigantic surges of quote information did not come from an HFT algorithm. In fact, the massive traffic came from the Nasdaq itself. A glitch in its software caused 50 minutes worth of quotes to be sent through the SIP in only 3 seconds of time. This massive compression of data reeked havoc on the NBBO and appears to have led to the SIP shutdown. Below is an example from one stock. Note the pattern in quotes are the same, however, the pattern on the right played out much faster.
  We'll continue to monitor ongoing research and post any new updates or relevant information.
Halloween / Harvest Party-Cradlerock ES
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  Sat, 02 Nov 2013 19:38
  WELCOME TO THE 2013-2014 SCHOOL YEAR
  Parent/Teacher Conferences
  Report cards will be issued on November 8. Parent /teacher conferences are scheduled for November 25, 26 and 27.
  Our teachers would like to meet with a parent/guardian of each of their Language Arts students during Parent/Teacher conferences in November. We will be using PickATime, the on-line internet program again to schedule these conferences. In order to schedule your conference, you will need your child's student ID number found on their Interim Report and Report Card. PickATime will open on November 8 and close on November 18.
  Halloween / Harvest Party
  This school year, we are having a Costume Parade and Halloween Party. Students who
  do not celebrate Halloween will participate in the Harvest Party. These activities will be held
  on Thursday, October 31 beginning at 1:45 pm.
  Costumes for the parade may not be of a gory Halloween nature (ghosts, blood &
  guts, masks, skeletons, make-up, etc.) Absolutely no weapons will be allowed. If we feel that
  the costume is not appropriate for school, the child will not wear it during the parade.
  Costumes are not to be worn to school and should not require a lot of preparation or
  assistance.
  Below are suggested costume options:
  - Appropriate book characters
  - Household items
  - Animals
  --School supplies
  - Careers
  - Sports figures
  - Nature/Food
  - Appropriate cartoon characters/action figures
  -Positive role models
  If your child does not celebrate Halloween and will instead participate in the Harvest Party
  on October 31st, please see the Halloween letter below. If you have any questions,
  please do not hesitate to call us.
  STAY CONNECTED
  Important school information and our school newsletter,The Cradlerock Chronicle, is sent home electronically via HCPSSNEWS. Please update or register by logging onto www.hcpssnews.com. SUPPORT CRADLEROCK ELEMENTARY
  Give With Target.
  The "Give with Target" program is over for this year. Target gave away 5 million dollars to schools across the country. Cradlerock Elementary ended with 685 votes! Thank you for your support!
  GIANT A+ BONUS CARDS
  Beginning September 1, 2013, register your Giant Card at www.giantfood.com/aplus. Our school ID# is 01019. You must re-register even if you registered last year. Starting October 4, 2013 through March 20, 2014 Cradlerock Elementary will have the opportunity to earn cash through Giant A+ School Rewards Program. After you register your card, each shopping trip at Giant earns CASH for our school!
UK: Snowden reporter's partner involved in 'espionage' and 'terrorism' | Reuters
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  Sat, 02 Nov 2013 19:35
  By Mark Hosenball
  WASHINGTON | Fri Nov 1, 2013 7:19pm EDT
  WASHINGTON Nov 1 (Reuters) - British authorities claimed the domestic partner of reporter Glenn Greenwald was involved in "terrorism" when he tried to carry documents from former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden through a London airport in August, according to police and intelligence documents.
  Greenwald's partner, David Miranda, was detained and questioned for nine hours by British authorities at Heathrow on Aug. 18, when he landed there from Berlin to change planes for a flight to Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.
  After his release and return to Rio, Miranda filed a legal action against the British government, seeking the return of materials seized from him by British authorities and a judicial review of the legality of his detention.
  At a London court hearing this week for Miranda's lawsuit, a document called a "Ports Circulation Sheet" was read into the record. It was prepared by Scotland Yard - in consultation with the MI5 counterintelligence agency - and circulated to British border posts before Miranda's arrival. The precise date of the document is unclear.
  "Intelligence indicates that Miranda is likely to be involved in espionage activity which has the potential to act against the interests of UK national security," according to the document.
  "We assess that Miranda is knowingly carrying material the release of which would endanger people's lives," the document continued. "Additionally the disclosure, or threat of disclosure, is designed to influence a government and is made for the purpose of promoting a political or ideological cause. This therefore falls within the definition of terrorism..."
  Miranda was not charged with any offense, although British authorities said in August they had opened a criminal investigation after initially examining materials they seized from him. They did not spell out the probe's objectives.
  A key hearing on Miranda's legal challenge is scheduled for next week. The new details of how and why British authorities decided to act against him, including extracts from police and MI5 documents, were made public during a preparatory hearing earlier this week.
  British authorities have said in court that items seized from Miranda included electronic media containing 58,000 documents from the U.S. National Security Agency and its British counterpart, Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).
  Greenwald, who previously worked for Britain's Guardian newspaper, has acknowledged that Miranda was carrying material supplied by Snowden when he was detained.
  In an email to Reuters, Greenwald condemned the British government for labeling his partner's actions "terrorism."
  "For all the lecturing it doles out to the world about press freedoms, the UK offers virtually none...They are absolutely and explicitly equating terrorism with journalism," he said.
  Separately on Friday, media disclosed details of an open letter Snowden issued to Germany from his place of exile in Russia, in which he says his revelations have helped to "address formerly concealed abuses of the public trust" and added that "speaking the truth is not a crime."
  Snowden said he was counting on international support to stop Washington's "persecution" of him for revealing the scale of its worldwide phone and Internet surveillance.
  Steven Aftergood, a secrecy expert with the Federation of American Scientists, said that given the nature of the material that Miranda was carrying, a harsh response by British authorities was not unexpected.
  "It seems that UK authorities were attempting to seize or recover official documents, to which they arguably have a claim," Aftergood said. "The authorities' action was harsh, but not incomprehensible or obviously contrary to law."
  In a separate document read into the court record, MI5, also known as the Security Service, indicated British authorities' interest in Miranda was spurred by his apparent role as a courier ferrying material from Laura Poitras, a Berlin-based filmmaker, to Greenwald, who lives with Miranda in Brazil.
  "We strongly assess that Miranda is carrying items which will assist in Greenwald releasing more of the NSA and GCHQ material we judge to be in Greenwald's possession," said the document, described as a "National Security Justification" prepared for police.
  "Our main objectives against David Miranda are to understand the nature of any material he is carrying, mitigate the risks to national security that this material poses," the document added.
  A spokesman for the British Embassy in Washington had no comment on the court proceedings or documents.
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Traction
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  Archived Version
  Source: a.nolen
  Sat, 02 Nov 2013 15:04
  The dust has settled from the US government shutdown and we can now see the lay of the land with regards to the NSA's abuses. It seems that Feinstein has drawn up her bill'' ''FISA Improvements Act'''' in a closed session of the US Senate Intelligence Committee. Feinstein's bill makes the NSA abuses legal. Read Russia Today's take on her bill here.
  The strongest challenge to the status quo has come from Patriot Act author, Rep. Sensenbrenner, and Sen. Leahy. It's called: ''USA Freedom Act'', Subheading: Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ending Eavesdropping, Dragnet-Collection, and Online Monitoring Act. Read the ACLU's take on this bill here, and the text of the bill here. The bill is being introduced simultaneously in the House and Senate.
  Of course, I would like to see a bill that goes even further than Sensenbrenner's/Leahy's, but it's a good start. Rep. Sensenbrenner has told The Guardian that he'd like ''to put their [the NSA's] metadata program out of business'', so please contact your representatives in the Senate and Congress in support of this bill. Short of that, please ask them NOT to support Feinstein's.
  If you're not from the US and you'd like to tell Sen. Feinstein what you think of her, you can do that here. It probably won't change her opinions, but it will make her henchmen work for a living. (Los Angeles zip codes run from 90001 to 90099, 90101, 90103, 90189, 90230 and 91331. I'd recommend entering one of these as your address.)
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LAX shooting: Just the facts
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  Archived Version
  Source: Northeast Intelligence Network
  Sat, 02 Nov 2013 15:03
  UPDATED 1 November 2013; 1700 ET: We've received many conflicting reports from individuals on-site at LAX and from open source news agencies. We are indexing each of them. It is our policy to review everything before reporting; instead of being first with the story, we would rather be correct. Additionally, we can then review the original source reports for signs of deliberate misinformation and manipulation of the facts.
  Confirmed: LAX police, in conjunction with other agencies, conducted a drill for this exact same scenario just two-(2) weeks ago. NOTICE: We will continue to update after we are able to confirm the facts outside of '' and beyond - mainstream news sources.
  1 November 2013; 1515 ET: A shooting incident took place at the Los Angeles International Airport this morning at 9:20 am PT. According to open source reports, an unidentified male entered terminal three-(3) at the Los Angeles Airport at approximately 0920 am local time. He is described as a male, race/ethnicity undetermined, wearing a cap and sunglasses, while reportedly carrying a long gun and a handgun.
  Some witnesses report that his attire was similar to that worn by security or TSA agents. The male reportedly began shooting with the long gun at various parties, possibly focusing on TSA agents or airport security. LAX police pursued the subject, who entered into the restricted area of the terminal, not far from a Burger King restaurant located inside the terminal. There, he was engaged in a gun battle with police, and was struck at last once by an officer from LAX. According to the most recent reports, a total of seven-(7) people were injured by gunfire, with six-(6) '' including the alleged gunman, being transported to hospitals from the scene. Recent unconfirmed reports suggest that two people have succumbed to their injuries, although this remains unconfirmed.
  Investigators on scene
  FBI SAC David Bodich
  Chief Patrick Gannon
  As most first reports are wildly incorrect, we will provide more information as we get it from our sources at LAX. Tune in to The Hagmann & Hagmann Report tonight for a complete analysis.
  Click here to save this article in PDF format
FUKUSHIMA - DON'T PANIC
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  Archived Version
  Source: aangirfan
  Sat, 02 Nov 2013 15:02
  A number of websites WRONGLY stated that the above diagram shows radiation from Fukushima.In reality, this diagram was produced in 2011.It was made by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to show the tsunami of 11 March 2011, based on data recorded in the Pacific. NOAA websiteThis is explained by Audrey Garricatle monde on 29 Oct 2013 (also Le blog de Wendy)
  "The plume of cesium-137 resulting from the disaster is expected to reach the northwest coast of the U.S. early next year, but at levels safe for health." A powerful current passing near Japan, the Kuroshio has diluted the radioactivity.The Pacific continues this process of dilution.Researchers predict rates of between 10 and 30 becquerels per cubic meter (Bq / m3 ) on the coast of Oregon and Washington between 2014 and 2020, and between 10 and 20 Bq / m 3 in California between 2016 and 2025.
  This graph shows the concentrations of cesium-137 in the ocean surface (between 0 - 200 meters) in April 2012 (a), April 2014 (b) April 2016 (c) and April 2021 (d)."These rates, which are about ten times higher than before the Fukushima disaster, are still very low.
  "They present no danger to wildlife and consumption of seafood", says Dominique Boust of Laboratory Radioecology Cherbourg at the Institute of Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN). "With an average of 20 Bq per m 3 of water, we should find two becquerels in each kilogram of fresh fish, which is within the safe limits. The maximum allowable level in Europe is 500 Bq / kg."le monde / Le blog de Wendy
  Timothy1954 comments:
  1. That's one isotope of one element, cesium 137. And levels have been higher than ten times above normal, earlier in this crisis. (much higher)
  2. Cesium 137, cesium 134, iodine 129, iodine 131, and tritium, are being produced still by the melted down cores of reactors 1 and 2. And they escape with water vapor or with flowing water.
  3. These, and strontium 90, accumulate in living creatures.The damage done from INTERNAL radiation is much greater than what you get from external sources.
  4. The uranium and plutonium that has burned and become dust, is inhaled and is carcinogenic.
  5. Chernobyl has killed a million people so far, and Fukushima was a hundred times worse, as of October 2011, said a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution study.
  6. Fukushima's reactors one and two, at least, are still fissioning in the ground, still adding to the contamination.
  CanSpeccy comments:
  At present only the Japanese appear to be exposed to a substantial dose of radiation from Fukushima.
  However, if one of the spent fuel pools overheats and the fuel is vaporized, the hazard will go global.
VIDEO- Remarks on National Adoption Month
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  Sat, 02 Nov 2013 15:01
  I have a niece named Iris, who is one of the most extraordinary young women I've ever known. From the day she came into our family, she has filled our lives with love and joy. And every time I'm with her, I am grateful my sister Peggy was able to adopt her from China years ago.
  Every child needs and deserves to grow up, safe and sound, in a loving home. But sometimes that's not the kind of environment a child's biological parents can provide.
  When parents or relatives aren't able to care for children, adoption can help give kids the permanent families they deserve. And, when adoptive families are not available in the places where these children live, inter-country adoptions can help find them a loving home abroad.
  I firmly believe that ethical and transparent inter-country adoption is a critical part of the international children's welfare system. It helps ensure that kids receive the love and support they need to grow into healthy and productive adults. I've seen it firsthand. That's why I worked hard in the Senate to help families navigate past roadblocks in the international adoption process. It's also why I was proud to be a member of Senator Landrieu's caucus on adoption.
  Today the United States is one of 90 countries that are party to the Hague Adoption Convention '' a set of internationally supported principles aimed at protecting both birth and adoptive parents and, most importantly, adopted children.
  And thanks to a law President Obama signed this past January, one I co-sponsored when I was a U.S. Senator, today these adoptions are safer than ever. Every U.S.-accredited inter-country adoption provider '' in every country, around the world '' must adhere to a set of strong, universal standards that make the well-being of kids the top priority.
  The State Department's adoption website '' adoption.state.gov '' is a great resource for anyone who is interested in learning more. Our Bureau of Consular Affairs keeps this site updated with the latest country information sheets, adoption processes, and developments that may affect inter-country adoption.
  Over the past decade, more than 200,000 children '' from more than 100 countries '' were adopted by American families. And as we mark National Adoption Month this November, the Department of State commits to doing our part to find loving homes for thousands and thousands more.
VIDEO-Sources: Alleged LAX gunman had 'new world order' conspiracy theory tract - Investigations
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  Sat, 02 Nov 2013 14:46
  NBC News
  Paul Anthony Ciancia, 23, is shown in a driver's license photo.
  By Pete Williams and Andrew Blankstein, NBC News
  The man who allegedly killed a TSA worker and wounded three others at Los Angeles International Airport on Friday had anti-government literature in his possession outlining an alleged conspiracy to create a single global government, law enforcement sources tell NBC News.
  The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the material recovered from Paul Anthony Ciancia, 23, after the shootout at LAX appeared to have been prepared by a group called ''New World Order.'' One source said it also expressed animus toward racial minorities.
  There is no record of a radical group by that name and the term ''New World Order'' is often used by conspiracy-minded groups and individuals to describe an alleged secret plot to establish an autonomous world government that would replace sovereign nations and put an end to international power struggles.
  According to ConspiracyWiki, an Internet site devoted to conspiracy theories, the doctrine was primarily limited to militant anti''government and radical fundamentalist Christian groups until the early 1990s, but has since been embraced by some left-wing groups.
  Very little was known about Cianci, who had lived in the Philadelphia area before moving to California.
  His brother told police in New Jersey he had received a text message from the suspect Friday morning saying he was thinking about taking his life.
  Pennsville, N.J., Police Chief Allen J. Cummings then contacted the Los Angeles Police Department to do a well-being check on Ciancia at his apartment in California. He wasn't there when LAPD officers contacted his roommates about 10 a.m. local time, but they said everything was fine.
  Ciancia's father, also named Paul, told NBC station KNBC that he last spoke to his son a week ago, when the son said the economy was depressed. The senior Ciancia said he didn't know if his son had a job or if he owned any weapons, but confirmed that he was in California.
  Ciancia was shot by law enforcement and taken into custody after he allegedly began shooting at Transportation Security Administration workers with an assault rifle at about 9:20 a.m. local time.
  Passengers at LAX describe the moments after the shooting started.
  Federal officials said it was unclear whether the gunman was targeting TSA workers or was trying to shoot his way through to gain greater access to the airport. But one witness said the shooter, while walking through the terminal with his weapon, approached him with a one-word question.
  "All he said was, 'TSA?' Just like that," Leon Saryan told MSNBC.
  The shooting started in Terminal 3, which serves Virgin America and other airlines. Ciancia allegedly took a 223-caliber AR-15 style, semiautomatic rifle out of a duffle bag and fired on TSA officers at a screening checkpoint, authorities said. He then went farther into the terminal, where he exchanged fire with law enforcement and was shot multiple times in the chest, they said.
  He was hospitalized in critical condition, authorities said.
  Police said quick action by airport officers averted a worse tragedy.
  Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said at a news conference later Friday that the gunman had with him at least 100 more rounds of ammunition that ''literally would have killed everyone in that terminal.''
  NBC's Ted Greenberg and Nyree Arabian contributed to this report.
  More from NBC News Investigations:
  Follow NBC News Investigations onTwitterandFacebook
  Investigate this!Read and vote on readers' story tips and suggested topics for investigation or submit your own.
Google just pulled a ''Facebook Home'': KitKat's primary interface is Google Search | Ars Technica
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  Archived Version
  Sat, 02 Nov 2013 05:57
  One of the headline features of Android 4.4 is a revamped home screen and app launcher. The icons are bigger, there is more transparency, and the app drawer makes better use of the screen real estate. It's also heavily integrated with Google Search and Google Now, although you might not see it at the surface level. Sure, there's the usual search bar widget and a swipe to the left will open the full Google Search app, but the integration goes much deeper than that. While developing KitKat, Google made a very interesting decision: rather than graft a few new search UI pieces onto the home screen, Google threw the existing home app in the trash and turned all home screen functionality over to the Google Search app.
  Everything you see here is being drawn by Google Search.
  That's right, Google Search isn't just integrated into the home screen, it is the home screen. Everything you see on the home screen'--the wallpaper, the icons, the widgets, and the app drawer'--are all drawn by the Google Search app. "GoogleHome.apk" still exists, but it is an empty shell that forwards everything to the search app.
  If you need proof of this, the picture below shows the layout files for the Android 4.3 launcher and the 4.4 Google Search app. Layout files do exactly what you think they do: they determine what goes where in an Android app. As the image shows, the layout files from the 4.3 launcher have all migrated over to the Google Search app. All the necessary assets and image files have made the jump, too. I would show the GoogleHome.apk layout files for comparison, but there aren't any. The launcher has been gutted and is now just a helper app that registers Google Search as the home screen. In fact, if you install GoogleHome.apk without the 4.4 Search app, it won't work at all. It just displays a message saying it requires the Google Search app to function.
  Google has adopted the Facebook Home strategy. Facebook took its normal Android app and grafted an app launcher onto it'--it replaced the Android home screen with something that revolved around Facebook. The wallpaper became images and status updates from your friends, and Facebook notifications were given top billing. Everything was designed to get you to use Facebook as much as possible. With KitKat, Google is working toward a similar idea. Google took its search app and gave it wallpapers, a home screen, and an app drawer, and now it's the first thing you see when you unlock a Nexus 5.
  If Google just wanted to include a few new search pieces into the existing standalone home app, it could have easily done that. The search bar has traditionally been a widget, and there is even a widget that displays Google Now information. Both of those could have been expanded and made more configurable with a few tweaks to Android's widget framework, but instead of doing that, Google chose to make its Search app the primary interface. While Facebook certainly went further down the integration road than Google, the two companies are now clearly headed down the same path. Google Now cards are currently relegated to the left-most home screen, but it's not hard to imagine a future where particularly relevant cards start popping up on the main screen. After all, since Google Search is the home screen, Google Now cards are constantly in memory.
  And yes, for those wondering, this means Google Home (more accurately, Google Search Home) will be in the Play Store. Google Home is the Google Search app, which is already in the Play Store, it's just an old version. Soon, you'll hit the update button and have 99 percent of the code for Google Home. Google Home doesn't even require KitKat; I've got it running on my Jelly Bean-equipped Nexus 4 right now.
  Google App Indexing.
  This isn't the only in-road Google Search has made into KitKat, either. The dialer and incoming call screen now automatically perform Google searches for phone number information (and will display Google Ads), and Google has just launched "App Indexing," a way to directly open a search result in the appropriate app from Google Search.
  [Update: Google has gotten in touch with us, and they say they are not working on ads in the Dialer.]
  If Google was going to stop here, there is no way it would need to merge Google Search and the Launcher into a single app. Android has begun a slow, gradual transformation into a Google Now device. Just like Facebook, Google wants to change the way you use your phone from an app-centric device to a device that revolves around its core product, but unlike Facebook, Google has the install base and clout with OEMs to make it happen. Remember, if OEMs want to ship any Google Apps, they need to ship allthe Google apps, so Google Home will most likely be included on every Android device. It won't necessarily be enabled by default on something like a Samsung device, but that's nothing some light badgering in the Search app won't fix ("For a better search experience, enable Google Home!"). Expect to see much more Google Now integration in the future.
VIDEO- LAX Airport Shooting. LAPD Chief Admits to Training For the Exact Scenario. - YouTube
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  Archived Version
  Sat, 02 Nov 2013 05:41
How IBM is making computers more like your brain. For real - CNET Mobile
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  Archived Version
  Fri, 01 Nov 2013 23:38
  Big Blue is using the human brain as a template for breakthrough designs. Brace yourself for a supercomputer that's cooled and powered by electronic blood and small enough to fit in a backpack.
  IBM Research is working on "interlayer cooling," in which water is pumped through tiny tubes penetrating chips are piggypacked using high-speed communication technology called through-silicon vias. IBM's approach is designed to deal with overheating problems that otherwise severely limit chip stacking. The protruding pipe fittings are for connecting water-cooling tubes.
  (Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)ZURICH, Switzerland -- Despite a strong philosophical connection, computers and brains inhabit separate realms in research. IBM, though, believes the time is ripe to bring them together.
  Through research projects expected to take a decade, Big Blue is using biological and manufactured forms of computing to learn about the other.
  On the computing side, IBM is using the brain as a template for breakthrough designs such as the idea of using fluids both to cool the machine and to distribute electrical power. That could enable processing power that's densely packed into 3D volumes rather than spread out across flat 2D circuit boards with slow communication links.
  And on the brain side, IBM is supplying computing equipment to a $1.3 billion European effort called the Human Brain Project. It uses computers to simulate the actual workings of an entire brain -- a mouse's first, then a human's -- all the way down to the biochemical level of the neuron. Researchers will be able to tweak parameters as the simulation is running to try to figure out core mechanisms for conditions like Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, and autism.
  It's all part of what IBM calls the cognitive systems era, in which computers aren't just programmed, but also perceive what's going on, make judgments, communicate with natural language, and learn from experience. It's a close cousin to that decades-old dream of artificial intelligence.
  "If we want to make an impact in the cognitive systems era, we need to understand how the brain works," said Matthias Kaiserswerth, a computer scientist who's director of IBM Research in Zurich, speaking during a media tour of the labs on Wednesday.
  One key challenge driving IBM's work is matching the brain's power consumption. Over millions of years, nature has evolved a remarkably efficient information-processing design, said Alessandro Curioni, manager of IBM Research's computational sciences department. The ability to process the subtleties of human language helped IBM's Watson supercomputer win at "Jeopardy." That was a high-profile step on the road to cognitive computing, but from a practical perspective, it also showed how much farther computing has to go.
  "Watson used 85 kilowatts," Kaiserwerth said. "That's a lot of power. The human brain uses 20 watts."
  Bruno Michel describes Aquasar, an IBM Research prototype high-performance computing machine that uses unusually high-temperature liquid cooling.
  (Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)Dense 3D computingThe shift in IBM's computing research shows in the units the company uses to measure progress. For decades, the yardstick of choice for gauging computer performance has been operations per second -- the rate at which the machine can perform mathematical calculations, for example.
  When energy constraints became a problem, meaning that computers required prohibitive amounts of electrical power and threw off problematic amounts of waste heat, a new measurement arrived: operations per joule of energy. That gauges a computer's energy efficiency.
  Now IBM has a new yardstick: operations per liter. The company is judging success by how much data-processing ability it can squeeze into a given volume. Today's computers must be laid out on flat circuit boards that ensure plenty of contact with air that cools the chips.
  "In a computer, processors occupy one-millionth of the volume. In a brain, it's 40 percent. Our brain is a volumetric, dense, object," said Bruno Michel, a researcher in advanced thermal packaging for IBM Research, who got his Ph.D in biophysics.
  What's the problem with sprawl? In short, communication links between processing elements can't keep up with data-transfer demands, and they consume too much power as well, Michel said.
  The fix is to stack chips into dense 3D configurations, with chips linked using a technology called through-silicon vias (TSVs). That's impossible today because stacking even two chips means crippling overheating problems. But IBM believes it's got an answer to the cooling problem: a branching network of liquid cooling channels that funnel fluid into ever-smaller tubes.
  The liquid passes not next to the chip, but through it, drawing away heat in the thousandth of a second it takes to make the trip, Michel said. The company has demonstrated the approach in an efficient prototype system called Aquasar. (Get ready for another new yardstick: greenhouse gas emissions. Aquasar can perform 7.9 trillion operations per second per gram of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere.)
  IBM can deliver up to 1 watt of power per square centimeter with this technology called a flow battery, which transports electrical power stored chemically. Here, vanadium electrolytes power a microfluidics chip in a lab demonstration. Ultimately IBM hopes to use liquids both to cool and power computers.
  (Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)Liquid-based flow batteryBut that's not all the liquid will do. IBM also is developing a system called a redox flow battery that also uses it to distribute power instead of using wires. Two liquids called electrolytes, each with oppositely charged electrical ions, circulate through the system to distribute power. Think of it as a liquid battery interlaced through the interstices of the machine.
  "We are going to provide cooling and power with a fluid," Michel said. "That's how our brain does it."
  The electrolytes, vanadium-based at present, travel through ever-smaller tubes, said Patrick Ruch, another IBM researcher working on the effort. At the smallest, they're about 100 microns wide, about the width of a human hair, at which point they hand off their power to conventional electrical wires. Flow batteries can produce between 0.5 and 3 volts, and that in turn means IBM can use the technology today to supply 1 watt of power for every square centimeter of a computer's circuit board.
  Liquid cooling has been around for decades in the computing industry, but most data centers avoid it given its expense and complexity. It's possible the redox battery could provide a new incentive to embrace it, though.
  Michel estimates the liquid power technology will take 10 to 15 years to develop, but when it works, it'll mean supercomputers that fit into something the size of a backpack, not a basketball court.
  "A 1-petaflop computer in 10 liters -- that's our goal," Michel said.
  Performing at 1 petaflop means a computer can complete a quadrillion floating-point mathematical operations per second. Today's top supercomputer clocked in at 33.86 petaflops, but it uses 32,000 Xeon processors and 48,000 Xeon Phi accelerator processors.
  Matthias Kaiserswerth, director of IBM Research in Zurich, is working toward the era of "cognitive computing," in which machines get attributes of human thinking such as perception, learning, and judgment.
  (Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)How to build a brainMore conventional supercomputers have been used so far for IBM's collaborations in brain research. The highlight of that work so far has been the Blue Brain project, which is on its third IBM Blue Gene supercomputer at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, or EPFL, in Lausanne, Switzerland. The Blue Brain and Human Brain Project will take a new step with a Blue Gene/Q augmented by 128 terabytes of flash memory at the Swiss National Supercomputing Center in Lugano, Switzerland. It'll be used to simulate the formation and inner workings of an entire mouse brain, which has about 70 million neurons.
  The eventual human brain simulation will take place at the Juelich Supercomputing Center in northern Germany, Curioni said. It's planned to be an "exascale" machine -- one that performs 1 exaflops, or quintillion floating-point operations per second.
  The project doesn't lack for ambition. One of its driving forces is co-director Henry Markram of EPFL, who has worked on the Blue Brain project for years and sees computing as the way to understand the true workings of the human brain.
  "It's impossible to experimentally map the brain," simply because it's too complicated, Markram said. There are too many neurons overall, 55 different varieties of neuron, and 3,000 ways they can interconnect. That complexity is multiplied by differences that appear with 600 different diseases, genetic variation from one person to the next, and changes that go along with the age and sex of humans.
  "If you can't experimentally map the brain, you have to predict it -- the numbers of neurons, the types, where the proteins are located, how they'll interact," Markram said. "We have to develop an entirely new science where we predict most of the stuff that cannot be measured."
  Liquid cooling has traditionally meant water traveling near chips, the hottest part of computers, but IBM Research has begun making chips with cooling conduits built directly in.
  (Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)With the Human Brain Project, researchers will use supercomputers to reproduce how brains form -- basically, growing them in an virtual vat -- then seeing how they respond to input signals from simulated senses and nervous system.
  The idea isn't to reproduce every last thing about the brain, but rather a model based on the understanding so far. If it works, actual brain behavior should emerge from the fundamental framework inside the computer, and where it doesn't work, scientists will know where their knowledge falls short.
  "We take these rules and algorithmically reconstruct a model of the brain," Markram said. "We'll say this is biological prediction, then we can go back to the experiments and we can verify if the model is right. We celebrate when the model is wrong, because that's when it points to where we need more data or we don't understand the rules."
  The result, if the work is successful, will be not just a better understanding of the brain, but better cooperation among brain researchers and medical experts. That could reverse recent declines in the development of new drugs to treat neural problems, he said.
  And understanding the brain could usher in the era of "neuromorphic computing."
  "Any new rules, circuits, or understanding of how the brain works will allow us to design neuromorphic machines that are much more powerful in terms of cognitive power, energy efficiency, and packaging," Curioni said.
  And that, in turn, could lead to profoundly more capable computers. For starters, IBM has four markets in mind: machines that could find the best places to invest money, bring new depth and accuracy to medical diagnoses, research the appropriate legal precedents in court cases, or give people help when they dial a call center.
  But it's not hard to imagine that's only the beginning. When computers can learn for themselves and program themselves, it's clear the divide separating biological and artificial computing will be a lot narrower.
  IBM Research investigates supercomputing, nanotechnology, medicine, and more at its Zurich labs.
  (Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)
Infosys Set To Be Slapped With Record Fine Of $35M In US For Visa Abuse: Report
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  Fri, 01 Nov 2013 22:38
  Infosys Ltd (NYSE:INFY), one of India's major software services providers, is likely to be slapped with a record penalty of $35 million by the U.S. federal government for violating visa laws to place its employees that are not American citizens at locations inside the country, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.
  The government is expected to announce the fine on Wednesday after a probe by the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State found that Bangalore-based Infosys misused cheaper B-1 visas, which are meant for short business visits, in place of harder-to-obtain H-1B visas, which allow companies to bring in skilled employees from overseas for long-term projects.
  The investigation was carried out in the backdrop of an ongoing immigration overhaul in the U.S., which if adopted by Congress, would double the cost of processing work visas and impact Indian software companies, which rely heavily on short- and long-term work visas for their employees based at client locations in the U.S.
  ''This complaint and large settlement should be a wake-up call to all employers that the government is serious about enforcing the H-1B visa regulations,'' Stephen Yale-Loehr, a Cornell University immigration-law professor, told the Journal.
  The comprehensive immigration reform bill will also force Indian firms to downsize their non-American workforce in the U.S. due to new restrictions on the total percentage of foreigners working in the U.S. on the H-1B visa. H-1B visa holders are allowed to stay in the U.S. for up to three years and are paid locally, meaning the pay is included in calculating federal and state income tax in the U.S., while B-1 visa holders are paid from their home country.
  Infosys currently earns 63 percent of its total revenues from North America, according to a Press Trust of India report. The company provides technology services to several U.S. clients and employs thousands of people in the U.S., including both Americans and non-Americans. Infosys told the Journal that it has earmarked $35 million to settle the case and to cover legal costs.
  Infosys' visa abuse first came to light when a former employee Jack ''Jay'' Palmer filed a lawsuit in the U.S. accusing the company of harassment and breach of contract after he confronted his managers about the possible violation of immigration laws by the company. The case was dismissed in August 2012, but according to the Journal, Palmer has been assisting in the federal probe against Infosys.
  Meanwhile, Infosys has introduced a rotation policy for its employees working at client locations overseas, which is seen as an effort to provide more employees with an opportunity to work overseas, the Times of India reported on Monday.
  The company, which employs about 157,000 people worldwide, also has set 18 months as the maximum period an employee can stay overseas when they travel for client-specific work, the report said.
NSA chief Keith Alexander blames diplomats for surveillance requests
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  Fri, 01 Nov 2013 22:33
  The director of the National Security Agency has blamed US diplomats for requests to place foreign leaders under surveillance, in a surprising intervention that risks a confrontation with the State Department.
  General Keith Alexander made the remarks during a pointed exchange with a former US ambassador to Romania, lending more evidence to suggestions of a rift over surveillance between the intelligence community and Barack Obama's administration.
  The NSA chief was challenged by James Carew Rosapepe, who served as an ambassador under the Clinton administration, over the monitoring of the German chancellor Angela Merkel's phone.
  Rosapepe, now a Democratic state senator in Maryland, pressed Alexander to give "a national security justification" for the agency's use of surveillance tools intended for combating terrorism against "democratically elected leaders and private businesses".
  "We all joke that everyone is spying on everyone," he said. "But that is not a national security justification."
  Alexander replied: "That is a great question, in fact as an ambassador you have part of the answer. Because we the intelligence agencies don't come up with the requirements. The policymakers come up with the requirements."
  He went on: "One of those groups would have been, let me think, hold on, oh: ambassadors."
  Alexander said the NSA collected information when it was asked by policy officials to discover the "leadership intentions" of foreign countries. "If you want to know leadership intentions, these are the issues," the NSA director said.
  The exchange on Thursday night drew laughs from the audience at the Baltimore Council on Foreign Relations, but did not seem to impress the former ambassador, who replied: "We generally don't do that in democratic societies."
  It also risked deepening the division between the Obama administration and the intelligence community, which have been briefing against one another throughout the week.
  Alexander had previously insinuated that targets of surveillance emerged from elsewhere in the administration, but this is the first time he is known to have publicly singled out US diplomats.
  Just hours earlier, secretary of state John Kerry appeared to lay the blame at the door of the NSA, when he said certain practices had occurred "on autopilot" without the knowledge of senior officials in the Obama administration.
  Alexander was asked by the Guardian how he thought Merkel, who grew up in East Germany when the Stasi secret service was operating, might have felt when she discovered her phone had been monitored by the NSA. "I don't know, I don't know the answer," he said. "You know, I would say 'alleged'."
  Asked why he would say "alleged", given he presumably knows the monitoring occurred, Alexander said: "I say alleged because there are no facts ... that are on the table."
  But Alexander also opened the door to the US halting surveillance of foreign leaders, hinting that it might be in the best interests of the US to suspend some surveillance programs to guarantee support to combat terrorism.
  "I think those partnerships have greater value than some of the collection," he said. "And we ought to look at it like that."
  Alexander, who is soon stepping down from the NSA, spoke after an eight-day period in which his agency has faced a growing chorus of criticism over its activities, particularly in relation to allied nations such as Germany.
  The NSA may also lose its ability to gather domestic phone data '' a program Alexander has previously sought to guard.
  In his speech in Baltimore, Alexander adopted a slightly different tone, suggesting he was "not wedded" to the program if a better alternative could be found.
  Competing legislation has been introduced in the House and Senate this week to reform the NSA and the secret surveillance court that is supposed to hold it to account. One bill, which has growing support on Capitol Hill, would effectively end the routine collection of phone records data.
  "I am not wedded to these programs," Alexander said in his opening remarks. "If we can come up with a better way of doing them, we should. Period." Speaking specifically about the collection of phone records, he compared administering the program to holding a "hornets' nest".
  "We're holding this hornets' nest for the good of the nation. We would love to put it down, we would like to cast it aside, but if we do it is our fear that there will be a gap '' and the potential for another 9/11 '' and we would not have done our duty. So our duty would be: find another way."
  The reference to the September 11, 2001, attacks was consistent with previous remarks. On Wednesday, al-Jazeera published a master list of NSA "talking points", obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
  Under the subheading ''Sound Bites That Resonate'', the memo encourages references to 9/11 as justification for its mass surveillance.
  "You know, every one of us remembers 9/11," Alexander told the audience in Baltimore. "You remember where you were, what was going on, what happened when the first plane hit, what was going on when the second plane hit '' it changed our lives."
  Alexander recalled firefighters killed trying help victims of the attack, and invoked the image of a fireman, during 9/11, "handing the flag" to the military and intelligence community. "We, the military and intelligence community, said 'we've got it from here'," he said. "That is etched on our hearts and our minds forever."
Deadline.com >> Blog ArchiveUPDATED: LA Airport Shooting Leaves Cable News Networks Cautious; Celebrities Cub-Reporting - Deadline.com
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  Archived Version
  Fri, 01 Nov 2013 22:08
  Cable news networks exercised extreme caution covering the shootout at LAX this morning when a gunman dressed in camouflage gear opened fire with a high-powered rifle at a security area and made his way deep into Terminal 3 before being wounded and apprehended '-- a shooting that left at least one TSA agent dead, another wounded, and actors and network execs reporting for news operations.
  In the cable news First To Bulletin Race: Fox News Channel broke in first, at 12:42:43 PM ET, followed by CNN at 12:44:38 and MSNBC 12:46:34 to cover the shooting that left injured seven '-- six of whom were sent to local hospitals, including the gunman, who was shot multiple times in the chest by an LAPD officer.
  James Francowas on the scene '-- of course he was '-- though stuck in a plane at LAX. ''At #lax Some S**tbag shot up the place'' he tweeted, also Instagramming a pic of himself stuck on the plane. Tim Daly called in to CNN and delivered one of the most colorful initial reports from the scene. He'd been in a VIP lounge at Terminal 3 when the gunman was wounded and apprehended very nearby, in the vicinity of Gate 35, he said. Very quickly after the shooting ''The LAPD burst into the lounge'...weapons drawn, herding everybody together to make sure there were no bad guys in the lounge,'' he described, noting that ''having a gun pointed at you'' in real life is a harrowing experience. He complimented authorities for doing ''an outstanding job trying to keep people calm'' and said he and others were locked in the lounge for ''almost an hour'' and when they were brought out, he saw a rifle and several clips on the ground about 30 feet away, as well as a blood and broken glass. Authorities told them to be careful not to disturb the blood or glass as they moved to the tunnel. But Discovery Channel's Mythbusters personality Tory Belleci is credited with breaking the new that something was up at LAX when he tweeted at 9:23 AM:''Something crazy is doing down at LAX. People running everywhere. We just got evacuated.'' He and Mythbusters colleague Grant Imahara were in Terminal 3 at the time of the shooting, en route to Delaware for the filming of Discovery's Punkin Chunkin.They're tentatively booked to tell their stories to CNN's Anderson Cooper tonight; Belleci was closer to the shooting, while Imahara was also in the Virgin Airlines lounge. ''During evac, I counted officers from Airport Police, LAPD, Homeland Security & other local PDs. All calm, all working together. Thanks guys!'' Imahara tweeted about two hours after the gunfire.
  ''There are a couple hundred people standing there not knowing what to do. Mostly people exiting the airport on foot, walking down Century (Blvd),'' CBS scheduling chief Kelly Kahl told the local CBS station as he stood outside the terminal. ''Holy crap, @calibadger is live from LAX on KCBS/KCAL right now as an eyewitness of the chaos there,'' tweeted TV Guide Los Angeles bureau chief Michael Schneider. Kahl told Deadline he noticed something was wrong as he approached the airport by car, discovered they could not get the car into the airport and parked at a remote location and walk in. He was stopped by police and sat outside the airport for a while, making alternate travel plans, and talking to the CBS station about what he was observing.
  It was the first big live breaking news event for Shepard Smith's new Fox News Deck, which he used to full capacity. The 38-foot video wall showed chopper footage of LAX and interviews with witnesses, as did various other monitors. Smith frequently went to the set's 55-inch touchscreen monitor to read out emails and statements from officials. Like his competitors, Smith was careful with information. ''I must tell you that there are reports that someone has lost his life. Fox News does not have those confirmed and will wait for authorities to give us an indication of exactly what they can confirmed,'' said Smith at around 11:35 AM PT today; similar comments came from CNN and MSNBC. Networks began reporting sources confirmed to them that one TSA agent had been killed at around 11:38.
  Related:Fox News Channel Unveils Its New Self On 17th Anniversary
  ''These reports are everywhere. Multiple sources have reported to multiple news organizations that he was,'' said Smith after the news conference at LAX, in re why reporters at the news conference were asking if the shooter was also a TSA officer. The FNC anchor cited the LA Times as reporting the story. ''Fox News cannot confirm that and the authorities did not confirm it for us. Quite frankly to get ahead of ourselves on that matter would be a mistake,'' Smith added. (Later, Smith noted the LAT had updated its report to say the shooter was a ticketed passenger.) CNN left it to Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif) to first report on its air that the gunman was 23 year-old American citizen, and LA area resident, named Paul Ciancia. She did so while being interviewed by Jake Tapper, also revealing that at least two of those injured are TSA employees. Almost immediately after that interview Tapper turned to CNN's justice correspondent Evan Perez, who said the FBI was still working to confirm motivation, ''as with the name of the suspect, which the congresswoman just said on our air.'' Perez said the FBI had taken some material from the suspect at the scene that described ''anti federal government views'...anti-TSA expression.''
  Fox News was first to return to regularly scheduled programming, Your World With Neil Cavuto, while CNN and MSNBC stuck with the LAX story.
Kraft removing some dyes from mac and cheese
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  Archived Version
  Fri, 01 Nov 2013 22:06
  Kraft plans to remove Yellow No. 5 and Yellow No. 6 from some boxes containing cartoon-shaped pasta.
  STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  Kraft will remove artificial food dyes from its new pasta shape varietiesCertain pasta shapes marketed to children will not include Yellow No. 5 and 6Kraft will likely use spices such as paprika, annatto and turmeric in its new products(CNN) -- When SpongeBob SquarePants skips onto shelves in boxes of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese next year, he may be a little less, well, yellow than your kids are used to.
  Kraft has revamped its character-shaped product line for 2014, according to company spokeswoman Lynne Galia. The new versions will have six additional grams of whole grains, be lower in sodium and saturated fat, and will use spices instead of artificial food dyes to recreate the pasta's famous yellow-orange color.
  "Parents have told us that they would like fun Mac & Cheese varieties with the same great taste, but with improved nutrition," Galia said in an e-mail.
  The company will remove Yellow No. 5 and Yellow No. 6 from boxes containing pasta shaped like SpongeBob SquarePants and those with Halloween and winter shapes. Two new shapes of the popular pasta -- Nickelodeon's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and "How to Train Your Dragon 2" from Dreamworks -- will also be free of food coloring, Galia said.
  Check out Eatocracy's recipe for homemade Mac & Cheese
  The Center for Science in the Public Interest hailed Kraft's decision on Friday. Michael Jacobson, the center's executive director, said he is pleased with the announcement but is "puzzled" as to why Kraft would not change its iconic elbow-shaped macaroni product as well.
  "As Kraft has today shown, it is clearly possible to make macaroni and cheese without these harmful chemicals," Jacobson said in a statement.
  The company tries to offer a wide variety of choices to consumers, Galia responded. "Making ingredient changes isn't as simple as it would seem," she said. "All of the ingredients must work together to deliver the distinctive taste, appearance and texture consumers expect and love from Original KRAFT Mac & Cheese. Our fans have made it clear they won't settle for anything less."
  In Europe, foods with Yellow No. 5 are required to include a warning label that says, "This product may have adverse effect on activity and attention in children." Instead of adding this label on its products, Kraft chose to remove the artificial dyes from its European line, and uses paprika and beta-carotene to add color. The company has not make the same change in the United States.
  That "double standard" is what convinced Food Babe blogger Vani Hari to start a Change.org petition to convince Kraft to remove these dyes from all of the company's products.
  "We recently discovered that several American products are using harmful additives that are not used -- and in some cases banned -- in other countries," Hari wrote on the petition.
  Yellow No. 5 has been linked to hyperactivity, asthma, some skin conditions and cancer, but larger scientific studies have proved inconclusive.
  Could our favorite food flavorings damage our DNA?
  The Food and Drug Administration must approve color additives in the United States; Yellow No. 5 and Yellow No. 6 were approved for use in foods in 1969 and 1986, respectively.
  More than 348,000 people have signed Hari's petition, and she delivered the electronic signatures to Kraft headquarters in April. She met with a public relations representative, but said she left the meeting feeling unsatisfied. Since then she has dedicated her time to pressuring the company to change.
  Thousands of parents have sent her letters, she said, talking about the behavioral changes they've seen in their kids since they removed artificial dyes from their diets.
  Hari doesn't have children herself, but she has two nephews that she worries about. "When I do have kids," she said, "I want to have a food system that I trust."
  Hooray for healthier mac n' cheese!
  Hari is thrilled that Kraft is going to alter its new line, but says there is more work to do. Other companies have removed artificial dyes from their products overseas without doing the same in America, she says. There's another campaign on Change.org asking Mars Inc. to remove the additives from M&M's.
  Jacobson urged parents to continue signing Hari's petition on Change.org.
  "As long as the Food and Drug Administration remains perched up in the bleachers and not on the playing field, action on the part of the consumers is the only thing that will get these companies' attention," he said.
VIDEO-LAX Gunman Kills TSA Officer Before Taken into Custody - ABC News
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  Archived Version
  Fri, 01 Nov 2013 20:34
  A gunman armed with an assault rifle entered a terminal at Los Angeles International Airport today, killed a TSA agent, penetrated deep into the terminal before he was captured by police.
  Six other people were injured in the incident.
  Th e shooting sent hundreds of passengers streaming out of the terminal with many fleeing onto the airport runway. Dozens of flights to and from the airport were delayed or cancelled. It also triggered a "tactical alert" for the Los Angeles Police Department.
  The shooting began around 9:20 a.m. in the usually crowded terminal.
  Police Chief Patrick Gannon said the shooter was armed with an assault rifle, blasted his way past airport screeners and "got back very far into the terminal." Gannon said the shooter initially opened fire before "proceeding up into the screening area" where he shot at TSA officers.
  Police "tracked him through the airport... and engaged him," Gannon said, eventually taking him into custody.
  The FBI quickly took a lead role in the invesitgation.
  Witnesses described the shooter as a short, young, white man, carrying a long-rifle.
  One of the shooting victims was a TSA officer who died of his wounds. Six others were injured and taken to nearby hospitals.
  "One arrived in critical condition and two are listed in fair condition," a spokesman from Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center said in a statement.
  An emergency physician said the patients suffered bullet wounds and other injuries.
  Three other patients were taken to other hospitals.
  The LAPD said it was on "tactical alert due to a major incident" at the airport and the fire department said they were assisting at a multi-patient incident.
  Police said they believe there was only one gunman, but are sweeping the terminal and surrounding areas as a precaution.
  An eyewitness, Leon Saryan, told ABC News Radio that a "fairly young" gunman with a rifle came down a corridor in Terminal 3 and shot perhaps 20 times.
  A TSA officer holding Saryan's shoes was shot and wounded, he told ABC.
  Saryan said the gunman asked him, "Are you TSA?"
  "He saw me. He looked at me with a quizzical look and said, 'TSA?' And I just shook my head. So he moved on," Saryan said.
  Terry Malloy, who was in the airport at the time of the shooting, told ABC News she heard at least three shots fired.
  "I was sitting there, and I heard the alarm go off like when the door opens. I saw all these people charging down this ramp going in a million different directions. Everyone started looking at each other (like) what are we going to do, and I saw the ticket agent go behind the counter, and then I heard shots," Malloy said.
  "I ran out to one of the piers," she said. "Someone opened one of the doors, and then we literally ran right onto the runway. We saw airport police charging down the runway with their doors open," he said.
Now The NSA And The State Department Are At War | The Cable
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  Archived Version
  Fri, 01 Nov 2013 19:39
  Newrevelations that the U.S. has been eavesdropping on world leaders like GermanChancellor Angela Merkel aren't simply straining Washington's relationship withBerlin. They're also sparking an increasingly public fight between the StateDepartment and the NSA, with the nation's spies and the nation's diplomatstrading shots about who's responsible for the mess."This is a pretty serious embarrassmentfor the U.S., and as top officials try to protect theiragencies and their reputations, they are notsticking with their talking points," a former senior U.S. officialtold The Cable.
  Secretaryof State John Kerry touched off the furor when he saidsome of the NSA's overseas surveillance efforts -- which also included tappinginto tens of millions of calls in France and Spain -- had been carried outwithout the Obama administration's knowledge or explicit approval. The remarkshighlighted what appears to the White House's emerging strategy for dealingwith widespread public fury over the programs: blame it on the NSA.
  "Thepresident and I have learned of some things that have been happening in manyways on an automatic pilot, because the technology is there and the ability isthere," Kerry told a conference in London. "In some cases, some ofthese actions have reached too far and we are going to try to make sure itdoesn't happen in the future."
  GeneralKeith Alexander, the head of the NSA, responded by putting responsibility forthe spying efforts squarely on the State Department itself. He saiddiplomats around the world were asking for information about the "leadershipintentions" of top foreign officials, and that his agency was simply trying torespond to those intelligence requests.
  Alexander,according to a report in The Guardian,was responding to a series of sharp-edged questions from James Carew Rosapepe,a former American ambassador to Romania. Rosapepe had asked the general toexplain how U.S. national security interests justified the NSA's spying effortson "democratically elected leaders and private businesses."
  "Thatis a great question, in fact as an ambassador you have part of the answer. Because we the intelligence agencies don'tcome up with the requirements. The policymakers come up with the requirements,"Alexander said. "One of those groups would have been, let me think, holdon, oh: ambassadors."
  Thisisn't the first time that the Obama administration has seen high-leveldisagreements play out in public, of course. In December 2009, President Obamaannounced plans to send tens of thousands of reinforcements to Afghanistan butstressed that they were being sent to carry out a narrow counter-terrorismmission targeting al-Qaeda terrorists, not a broader counter-insurgencymission. Within days, top military officials began to publicly and privatelysay they were going to undertake a counter-insurgency approach anyway.
  Theincreasingly-heated NSA debate is different, however, because it risks doinglong-term damage to key White House relationships with foreign leaders likeMerkel as well as long-term damage to the relationship between theadministration and the spies it entrusts with protecting the nation from newterror attacks.
  Foreign Policyreported earlier this month that senior NSA officials, including Alexander,were angryat the White House for failing to do more to defend the spy agency fromcriticism of its surveillance efforts on Capitol Hill and in foreign capitals.The administration, meanwhile, has seemed blind-sided by the continuingrevelations about secret NSA spying programs at home and abroad.
  TheWhite House had two basic choices for how to respond: argue that Obama knewabout the programs and approved them, which risked further infuriating keyAmerican allies, or say that he was unaware of the NSA's efforts, which riskedpainting a picture of a surprisingly out-of-touch commander in chief. For the moment, the administration seems tohave settled on the latter.
  P.J.Crowley, a former State Department spokesman, said the administration has had ahard time settling on a PR strategy because it doesn't know how many moredisclosures are yet to come, or precisely what will be in them.
  "There's a drip, drip, drip that makes categorical statements inresponse to the latest news report risky," he told The Cable. "At what point do you have a sense that youknow what you're dealing with so you can start to repair and rebuild? From adiplomatic standpoint, you can only start those repairs when the shovel stopsdigging a deeper hole."
  Crowley helped craft the State Department's response to theinitial WikiLeaks disclosures, but said that was relatively easy compared tothe ongoing disclosures of once-classified NSA documents by former NSAcontractor Edward Snowden.
  "During WikiLeaks we had months to assess the damage and seewhat was in the archive," he said. "Forthe moment, with Snowden, it's hard to know if we're closer to the end or thebeginning."