Slashdot Mirror

Just today I saw an article that the FBI authorizes informants to commit 5,000+ illegal activities/year. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/08/04/fbi-informant-crimes-report/2613305/ Could there be a connection? Gee, I'm sure it's all in our best interests.

This is another reason why I hate the, "if you've nothing to hide" nonsense.

I certainly have something to hide from the NYPD cannibal cop that abused a restricted law-enforcement database.

I have nothing to hide from a just government, but we don't have one of those, given that it's comprised of people. Our Founding Fathers knew that, and tried to write a Constitution forming a government with limited powers.

Legalize the Constitution!

US citizen flees to Russia to beg for asylum because he's being prosecuted for telling the truth...

"just telling the truth"...

telling us operational details of classified programs we knew existed in 2006: http://yahoo.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm

just accept that what is happening does *not* fit your reductive narrative

doesn't mean that it's ok for the government to violate its own surveillance laws, and it doesn't mean that Snowden is evil...but it's harmfully wrong to take such a oversimplified view of what's happening

Glen Greenwald should have published this *anonymously*....it just doesn't fit...anyone who has worked in journalism knows this could have been leaked in a way that protects Snowden's privacy (Greenwald would have to risk some jail time though...), just look at Deep Throat and the Pentagon Papers leakers

there is definitely other criminal or illuminati types involved here and Snowden is a pawn who got taken advantage of by larger forces

Ten or so years ago I got into an ugly argument with a Libertarian buddy

The last ten years have been the safest in the history of US commercial aviation. We're having entire years with no airline fatalities. US airlines have become so safe that foolish MIT professors are claiming major incidents among first world airlines are on the "brink of extinction".

The safety of western airlines has done nothing but improve since the 70's. Every year the average improves. This is despite the claims of statists everywhere that "deregulation" was compromising safety. This is despite an endless barrage of fear mongering anecdotes such as your rant about entry-level pilot salaries.

Every claim about how the market was doomed to produce a reckless airline industry has been proven false. The combination of market force and market neutral regulation has produced an amazingly safe and efficient system.

There is history now. There is data. Face it and rethink your worldview. It's wrong, and the less time you spend indulging it the better.

"Under the plea agreement, which requires court approval, Houston-based Halliburton will also face three years' probation, pay the maximum fine of $200,000..."
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/07/25/halliburton-guilty-plea-destroying-evidence-deepwater-horizon/2588105/

Not too bad... I think they may be able to afford it.

Honestly, i have no idea why they did this survey. Surely sales figures speak for themselves?

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2013/05/15/e-book-sales/2159117/
"even as digital books remain the fastest-growing part of the market. They now account for about 20% of all book sales reported by publishers."

That pretty much matches what the survey has confirmed, and, sales figures is more reliable data after looking at the question formatting.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/econ_survey_questions/july_2013/questions_e_books_july_11_12_2013

Just because it's been authorized by a secret government court that's accountable to no one other than the government doesn't make it legal or constitutional.

Actually, it does make it legal -- expressly and explicitly. That process and court is the exact framework that resulted from the Church-Pike hearings, and whose entire purpose is to protect the rights of Americans under the law and the Constitution while maintaining secrecy of foreign intelligence activities. It's the same fundamental process that has existed for the entire lifetime of the court.

Furthermore, the Supreme Court found in Smith v. Maryland (1979) that collection of phone call metadata (a "pen register") does not constitute a "search" under the Fourth Amendment, and courts, including the Supreme Court, have repeatedly found that "business records" (such as phone call records, but not the content) provided to a third party (such as the phone company) have no expectation of privacy. This fundamental finding does not suddenly change whether it is 1, 10, 100, 1000, or 1 million numbers.

The Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 codified what is required to implement a pen register, which is a court order. It does not state or imply the order must be individualized, nor that it must be tied to a single number, nor that it must be narrowly applied; only that it must exist. The FISC order Snowden leaked is just such an order. By the way, USA TODAY revealed all of this in 2006 -- Snowden revealed literally nothing new with regard to US Persons, except for the properly-classified documents themselves which authorize, regulate, and underlie the intelligence activities. The rest of what he leaked has to do with foreign intelligence activities that have NOTHING to do with US Persons or the Constitution (because the Constitution does not apply to non-US Persons outside of the US). Cyber policy, cyber targeting, target lists, second party activities, and so on -- these are all properly-classified materials, and, in our system, one person does not get to decide they need to be leaked.

Even if you broaden it to moral and ethical reasoning, the foundations of such reasoning also say that you must face the consequences of your actions; in this context, to affect social change. In a democracy, such ideas can withstand scrutiny. It is completely bogus to claim he "had" to flee in order to "get the information out". He could have gotten every single bit of information he had out the first second he chose to do so; what he wanted, as a narcissist, was the fame of being seen as a modern day hero-patriot -- "not a hero or traitor, just an American" -- with the specific purpose of getting the information out in the most sensationalistic way possible while escaping punishment. He might claim he's doing it "for the people", and he may really believe that. The fact is that he is doing it for himself, and the vast, vast majority of people who are making judgments about the necessity of US intelligence activities don't even understand the material that Snowden himself has leaked.

The bottom line is that there is no way to have complete transparency and public review for intelligence operations, especially things like SIGINT. If there were, anyone targeted by a particular method would simply stop using that method. What possible benefit would there be to such a situation? Some people assume that our nation could survive without any sort of the national security or intelligence establishment we have. Perhaps it could "survive" with a lot less. But the US itself and the West at large absolutely WOULD NOT survive if we did not collectively counter threats. These threats are not imaginary. They are not monsters of our own creation. There are real, actual adversaries out there with principles that are diametrically opposed to those of freedom and liberal democracy. It boggles my mind that people cannot fathom this.

I

Interesting post. I disagree with a number of your points, but I'll limit myself to a few counterpoints.

Guantanamo bay has never even held a total of 1,000 people as prisoners. Al Qaida teaches its members to lie and carry on the jihad by any means possible. Gitmo guards often attacked by detainees As to feeding tubes - yes they can be unpleasant, but it's likely the prisoners magnify the difficulties in line with their training.
Al Qaeda Manual Drives Detainee Behavior at Guantanamo Bay

WASHINGTON, June 29, 2005 – If you're a Muslim extremist captured while fighting your holy war against "infidels," avoid revealing information at all costs, don't give your real name and claim that you were mistreated or tortured during your detention. . .

Anwar al-Awlaki wasn't targeted due to making speeches, but due to his active participation as a terrorist recruiter, trainer, and leader: Awlaki's Legacy: A Dozen Terror Plots Linked to Al Qaeda Leader

Soviets rule was not benign: The Soviet Story

The problem here is that we, as humans, are very bad at working with probabilities. When asked "how likely is ... ?" we mentally substitute the question "how easily can I think of examples of ... ?"

Try it yourself. Which of the below do you think is more likely:
* A child or teenager in the U.S. is kidnapped by a stranger (not a family member or aquaintance.)
* A child or teenager in the U.S. is killed or injured in an accident involving a gun.

If you're an average American, and unless you googled the statistics first, you probably said that stereotypical kidnappings are more common than gun accidents. After all, we hear about it in the news all the time, and you can probably name a few children that were abducted. Therefore you'd worry if our child goes out by himself, but feel quite safe leaving him unsupervised at home with a gun in the house.

In fact, gun accidents are much more common. There are about a hundred stereotypical kidnapppings a year in the U.S. but about a thousand gun accidents involving children and teenagers. (If we only look at fataiities, there are also more children killed in gun accidents than by non-family, non-aquaintance kinappers.)

When it comes to guns, we can very easily think of scenarios where we pulls out our gun and save the day. This happens all the time in movies, and although it happens rarely in reality it gets much publicity when it does, so in our minds it is a common occurence.

We have a much harder time imagining the statistically more likely scenario that someone else gets hold of our gun and hurts somebody with it.

A gun in the home is 22 times more likely to be used in a completed or attempted suicide (11 times more likely), a criminal assault or homicide (seven times more likely), or unintentional shooting death or injury (four times more likely) than in a self-defense shooting. (Source)

Statistically speaking, a gun with a personalization system that is so bad that it never allows the gun to fire would still be safer for the gun-owner and his family than a gun with no personalization. Still people worry about the remote possibility that "the gun might not fire in that critical moment."

I'm amazed that anyone actually does consider what he did to be self-defense. In my eyes, he stalked and killed a teenage boy just for looking like a hoodlum. I used to look like a hoodlum when I was young and stupid too, is it okay for some self-righteous "neighborhood watch" bully to kill me as well? This whole thing really irritates me. I take solace only in the fact that I know that karma will one day catch up to Mr. Zimmerman. Pretty much the same as O.J. Simpson http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/07/10/oj-simpson-parole-hearing/2507087 .

The Authorization for Use of Military Force passed by the US Congress after 9/11 designates the enemy for the conflict. It is well settled law in the US that such an authorization is legally equivalent to a declaration of war. Al Qaida made their intentions clear in 1996 with Bin Laden's Fatwa which is a declaration of war in their culture.

There are a lot of misconceptions about Guantánamo Bay. This is a couple of years old, and doesn't reflect the most current controversies. It's a big topic, and I'm not going to get into all of it right now. One thing I would say to keep in mind is that you can disagree with what the administration says, or does, but remember that al Qaida trains its members to lie about their living conditions, and many of them are highly dangerous prisoners that regularly assault the guards. The training to lie is documented in captured training materials.

The Real Gitmo

Boeing has had other recent problems in quality and reliability, with some recent Boeing-managed programs being cancelled, because they were going so badly.

In 2005, FIA (run by Boeing) was canceled. The New York Times called it "perhaps the most spectacular and expensive failure in the 50-year history of American spy satellite projects. ... A torrent of defective parts, like gyroscopes and electric cables, repeatedly stalled work. Even an elementary rule of spacecraft construction — never use tin because it deforms in space and can short-circuit electronic components — was violated by parts suppliers. By the time the project, known by its initials, F.I.A., was killed in September 2005 — a year after the first satellite was originally to have been delivered — cost estimates ran as high as $18 billion."

From space.com, "But Boeing quickly ran into troubles on the highly ambitious and complex FIA program, which fell years behind schedule and overran its budget by billions of dollars. In 2005, having concluded that Boeing’s problems were intractable, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence directed the NRO to terminate the optical portion of the contract."

In 2011, the Boeing-run SBI Net program was canceled, because it was going so badly. From stltoday.com, "It was originally envisioned to stretch the 1,969-mile border between the U.S. and Mexico but initial phases of the $1 billion project took longer than anticipated to complete and covered just a small portion, 53 miles, since the project began."

In 2011, the "Joint Tactical Radio System’s Ground Mobile Radios (GMR)" project, run by Boeing, was canceled. From a Bloomberg article: "Based on growth in the unit procurement costs, I am terminating the program," Frank Kendall wrote in a letter to Congress. "... The GMR program last year was estimated to cost $19.5 billion."

And a USA Today article tells about other recent problems with Boeing. For example, "V-22 Osprey. The tilt-rotor aircraft, made in partnership with Bell Helicopter, is under congressional scrutiny because of concerns about its high cost of operation, reliability and safety". And "Joint Tactical Radio System Cluster 1. Boeing's management of the project for the military was so bad it received a stop-work order from the Defense Department. Eventually, the program was restructured rather than canceled but with Boeing in a diminished role."

You might be overlooking the existence of victim protection laws similar to this guideline:

GUIDELINES ON THE PROTECTION OF CHILD VICTIMS OF TRAFFICKING

2.6 Right to Confidentiality
All necessary measures shall be taken to protect the privacy and identity of child victims to ensure the safety and security of the victim and his or her family. The name, address and all other information that could lead to the identification of the child victim or his or her family members shall not be revealed to the public or media. Exceptions may be made in circumstances such as to facilitate the tracing of family members or otherwise secure the well-being and protection of the child, with the informed consent of the child. Information about a child victim that could endanger the child or the child’s family members shall not be disclosed in any case.20

Note what is in the fine article:

The bulk of the Vatican's penal code is based on the 1889 Italian code. Many of the new provisions were necessary to bring the city state's legal system up to date after the Holy See signed international treaties, such as the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child.

I wonder if there is something about the last Pope they don't want leaked. Could it be he stepped down to avoid a standing pope being shown to have committed some horrible crime against children?

There are several innocent reasons why this could be occurring now.

New bosses often like to put their stamp on an organization. The new Pope has been updating a lot of policies.
The old Pope wasn't well, so he probably had a limited work schedule. There has probably been a backlog of business to catch up on.
It is often easier to do multiple updates at once instead of piecemeal.

Then there is the information in the fine article :

The bulk of the Vatican's penal code is based on the 1889 Italian code. Many of the new provisions were necessary to bring the city state's legal system up to date after the Holy See signed international treaties, such as the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Others were necessary to comply with international norms to fight money-laundering, part of the Vatican's push toward financial transparency.

One new crime stands out, though, as an obvious response to the leaks of papal documents last year that represented one of the gravest Vatican security breaches in recent times.

Now I'm suspicious. Since this information is pretty close to the beginning of the article, I have to wonder if your post isn't just a clever way to libel not just a priest, but a Pope, without evidence and without being quite so obvious?

On top of advertising, they get to charge the federal government to snoop on us:

What the government pays to snoop on you

Every wonder how some of these startups were actually making money? I think we have stumbled upon their business model.

If the US has it as a national park, the others will likely be polite enough to avoid trashing it.

How naive... This is how America falls... via people so disconnected from reality..

Parent+1 : So true. Look at how wonderfully American interests are preserving land in the sq. mile around Niagara Falls National Park
http://www.nps.gov/nifa/index.htm.
The visuals of the local neighborhoods are stunning - especially just behind the treeline as you follow the river into America (not!)
(map) http://goo.gl/4B5Rc

Or, New Jersey's new " Great Falls National Park" - recently named ( even with sequestration, and no budget to fund any facility there).. it seems beautiful, just don't stray too far north along the river into the decaying structures.. or into the nearby neighborhoods.
(map) http://goo.gl/D5QlW

From USA Today :

It will take several years and millions of dollars before Great Falls looks like a national park; there won't even be ranger programs until next year. Since the designation, though, the site has received many more visitors. Robert Marshall, a retired public works director from a nearby suburb, had often driven past the falls, but until last month he'd never seen it up close. "I didn't know you could park and walk around here," he says, standing on the footbridge across from the falls. Then Marshall professed confusion over the national park designation: "The park service seems to be talking about laying people off, and they're adding a park here."

As if to illustrate the debate, along came Hamid Amer, his wife and three kids. All seemed mesmerized by the falls. None had ever set foot in a national park. Amer, a Palestinian barber who moved his family to the USA five years ago from the West Bank, voiced concern over the amount of trash on the ground and in the water and said he thought the Park Service could clean it up."

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/travel/destinations/2009-08-19-greatfalls_N.htm
http://www.nps.gov/pagr/planyourvisit/hours.htm

If anybody has any sense.. they won't let our elected leaders pollute and commodify one of the last places we haven't destroyed yet. Should visiting the moon become an attainable vacation destination - let's try and put some real environmental laws in place; with sufficient funding and real enforcement. ( I think that should sufficiently exclude the Koch bros. from even entering lunar orbit.)

I'm not sure how, but you managed to get this badly wrong.

The US, UK, France, Germany, and many other nations are not terrorist nations, but they do have terrorists in them among the population. If a government is opposed to terrorism, but it has 5,000 terrorists among a population of 80,000,000, it has a terrorist problem, but it isn't a terrorist nation. It will be the terrorists, among other things, that will be of interest to the intelligence agencies.

At Least 4,000 Suspected of Terrorism-Related Activity in Britain, MI5 Director Says
'Mumbai-style' terror attack on UK, France and Germany foiled
Raids foil plot to bring 7/7 terror to Germany
NSA director: Surveillance foiled 50 terror plots

National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander told a House committee Tuesday that more than 50 terror threats throughout the world have been disrupted with the assistance of two secret surveillance programs that were recently disclosed by former defense contractor Edward Snowden

I hope this is becoming clear.

You don't really seem to be making the connection here. You admit that there is going to be a future terrorist attack, but you think the United States is conducting intelligence operations in other nations just to be jerks? Can you think of any other reason? Maybe to try and prevent that future terrorist attack? Do you see how that works?

At Least 4,000 Suspected of Terrorism-Related Activity in Britain, MI5 Director Says
'Mumbai-style' terror attack on UK, France and Germany foiled
Raids foil plot to bring 7/7 terror to Germany
NSA director: Surveillance foiled 50 terror plots

National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander told a House committee Tuesday that more than 50 terror threats throughout the world have been disrupted with the assistance of two secret surveillance programs that were recently disclosed by former defense contractor Edward Snowden.

Do you realize that the UK, France, Germany, Russian, other European nations, China, and probably most other nations in the world conduct intelligence operations (spying) in and on other countries? Are you bitter about them too? Or just the US? If so, why?

if he picked the wrong beacon to guild his descent he would have been too high, dropped steeper than usual to get down once he noticed the discrepancy, and didn't have the necessary power to flare and ascend at the end of the runway, so he tailstruck.

Another comment links to a data visualization of the approach and that's just what it looks like.

That makes it pilot error, but confounded and mitigated by most (if not all) the regular guidance and assistance systems they rely on being out of commission.

Regulators are saying months to years to figure out what happened. I'm plunking down a dollar on your analysis here and hope to link back to it when the final report comes out.

as airplanes that crash often involve huge decelerations on impact, it is very difficult to design an airplane that will enable passengers to survive a crash

it's not like a car where you can just include a crumple zone, because the size of the crumple zone required for 300+ g decelerations from an airliner crashing into a mountain is going to make it harder to design the aircraft to actually get off the ground and/or carry any useful/profitable payload

aircraft also need powerplant to drive them forward, and the most efficient powerplant today is the high bypass turbofan fueled with kerosene jet a1. aircraft designers go to great lengths to ensure that where the fuel is stored can't catch fire, and if the general public knew exactly what an airliner fuel tank can withstand (including direct lightning strikes) they would be amazed.

even if you could completely prevent fire in the case of a plane crash, there are a myriad of other causes of death. protection against burning or smoke inhalation deaths in the cabin has been greatly improved due to strict regulations for flammability requirements for materials used in cabins (including use of fire retardants in seat cushion materials and self-extinguishing tests). unless there is structural damage to the cabin, even a fire outside shouldn't get into the cabin (there are tests for this that materials must pass). flammability requirements will evolve and improve over time. it was unfortunate that the FAA didn't mandate immediate replacement of cabin insulation materials after the swissair flight 111 disaster, but i can understand the need for gradual implementation for economic reasons - this accident may force their hand though.

much of aviation safety that we take for granted today has been at the expense of the lives of countless passengers and crew (particularly in areas like metal fatigue, human factors in flight deck design, engine containment, lightning protection, electrical interference, etc), and unfortunately this will always be the case. if an engineer discovers a safety issue, there is a good chance little will be done immediately, particularly if there is significant expense and/ore reputations on the line. unfortunately killing a plane load of people is often required to get the bureaucracy moving.

at the end of the day there will always be a risk in air travel, just as there is risk in almost any venture. you are still far more likely to be killed by/in a car than as a passenger in a plane.
http://traveltips.usatoday.com/air-travel-safer-car-travel-1581.html

So this is a rather informal one.

It's a coup, but rather a strange one. The people want Morsi gone, the military is moving against him and then handing off power to the people.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/07/03/egypt-morsi-protests-army-deadline/2485355/

Here's a summary of the situation from the point of view of one of the protesters.

Why President Morsi is in Trouble:
A youth leader of the June 30th demonstrations gives us an insider's view of why ordinary Egyptians are in revolt.

http://pjmedia.com/blog/why-president-morsi-is-in-trouble/?singlepage=true

Well, he's had his passport revoked, is being hunted around the world, and is being vilified in almost all public media.

Snowden isn't being hunted around the world because his passport is revoked. He is in Russia. Snowden isn't being vilified in "almost all public media." It is quite the reverse - he is being hailed as a hero by Chinese, Russians, many Europeans, and others across the world.

Well, at least he took refuge in Russia. What use do they have for four laptops full of NSA secrets?

Russia warns Ireland it will retaliate in spy row
Ireland Is Training Base for Russian Spies
As many Russian spies in UK today as in Cold War: Soviet defector
Canadian navy officer sentenced to 20 years for being Russian spy
10 in US held as spies for Russia
Russian spies in Australia at 'near Cold War level'
Germany jails Russian spy couple
Belgian diplomat suspected of being Russian spy
Finnish academic charged of aiding Russian spies
Spies in Sweden mostly from China, Russia, Iran
Estonia shaken by new Russian spy scandal
Georgia: Russian Spy Ring Smashed in Tbilisi -- Officials
Spain-Russia spy row leads to diplomats' expulsion

Russian warplanes breach NATO airspace - British and Norwegian jets intercepted Russian military aircraft ... close to the U.K. and Finland
Russian spy plane flies by Swedish military drill

This report comes after the newspaper wrote on 22 April, 2013 that Russian fighters had made dummy attacks close to Swedish territory during the Easter weekend.

RAF catches Russian bombers in UK airspace
UK jets shadow Russian bombers
Russian bombers’ secret UK missions ‘not a friendly act’
Russian subs stalk Trident in echo of Cold War - ... hunting down British Vanguard boats in a return to Cold War tactics
Russian around - A DESPERATE hunt was on last night for a Russian nuclear submarine lurking off the coast of Britain.

Having gone up about 20% since obama care passed.

And how much did it go up in the years before obamacare was passed?
Sounds like we were seeing double-digit inflation in health care insurance costs most years in the decade prior to obamacare's passage.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2009-09-15-insurance-costs_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

Seems like the rate of inflation in health care insurance is slowing to a historically low level of 4.5%:
http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2013/07/02/5-easy-ways-to-reduce-your-health-care-costs/

YMMV, but nationwide the trend is getting better not worse.

It is to protect intelligence programs that guard against terrorist attacks on innocent people, Americans as well as people in other nations.

Al Qaida and its associates have repeated demonstrated the willingness and ability to attack innocent civilians around the world. Terrorism is not a trivial problem, but is being kept in check by active measures. There is a long list of arrests and convictions for terrorism and related offenses that can help one differentiate between successful anti-terrorism measures and "magic anti-terrorism rocks."

Major terror attack on scale of 7/7 foiled every year in UK, police reveal NSA director: Surveillance foiled 50 terror plots National Counterterrorism Center: Annex of Statistical Information

Replying because there's no "-1: BAAAAAAAAAAAA" option...

It is to protect intelligence programs that guard against terrorist attacks on innocent people, Americans as well as people in other nations.

Al Qaida and its associates have repeated demonstrated the willingness and ability to attack innocent civilians around the world. Terrorism is not a trivial problem, but is being kept in check by active measures. There is a long list of arrests and convictions for terrorism and related offenses that can help one differentiate between successful anti-terrorism measures and "magic anti-terrorism rocks."

Major terror attack on scale of 7/7 foiled every year in UK, police reveal
NSA director: Surveillance foiled 50 terror plots
National Counterterrorism Center: Annex of Statistical Information

He could have gone to the inspector general or Congress, but didn't.

You mean like all the other people who failed to gain traction that way? Repeating someone else's failure is not usually considered a viable strategy for success. Please tell us why you think otherwise.

Who knows what the damage will be?

Nope, you can't hold people accountable for things that other people might do. Sorry, it doesn't work that way.

Because:
Officials from President Obama down have said they welcomed the opportunity to explain the importance of the programs...

But only to secret judges on secret courts.

Same story, different day. They are speaking publicly, but not everyone is listening, paying attention, or caring.

NSA director: Surveillance foiled 50 terror plots
FBI deputy director: NSA foiled NYC bombing plots
NSA director says surveillance foiled plot against Wall Street

Intelligence officials last week disclosed some details on two thwarted attacks - one targeting the New York subway system, one to bomb a Danish newspaper office that had published the cartoon depictions of the Prophet Mohammad. Alexander and Sean Joyce, deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, offered additional details on two other foiled plots, including one targeting Wall Street.

Under questioning, Joyce said the NSA was able to identify an extremist in Yemen who was in touch with an individual in Kansas City, Mo. They were able to identify co-conspirators and thwart a plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange.

Joyce also said a terrorist financier inside the U.S. was identified and arrested in October 2007, thanks to a phone record provided by the NSA. The individual was making phone calls to a known designated terrorist group overseas.

It doesn't matter how much they disclose if you don't listen. Maybe they should send the stories to Wikileaks, maybe then it would get people's attention.

Both of those specific instances were calls made overseas, and many people are ok with the NSA looking at international calls. So remind me again why they are watching all of our domestic calls? If they see a call to a foreign terrorist organization, they can use a good old fashioned court order to get the phone records from the domestic end of the call. No need for the NSA to collect all of the data.

There's also exactly zero evidence that those plots were even real.

Because:
Officials from President Obama down have said they welcomed the opportunity to explain the importance of the programs...

But only to secret judges on secret courts.

Same story, different day. They are speaking publicly, but not everyone is listening, paying attention, or caring.

NSA director: Surveillance foiled 50 terror plots
FBI deputy director: NSA foiled NYC bombing plots
NSA director says surveillance foiled plot against Wall Street

Intelligence officials last week disclosed some details on two thwarted attacks - one targeting the New York subway system, one to bomb a Danish newspaper office that had published the cartoon depictions of the Prophet Mohammad. Alexander and Sean Joyce, deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, offered additional details on two other foiled plots, including one targeting Wall Street.

Under questioning, Joyce said the NSA was able to identify an extremist in Yemen who was in touch with an individual in Kansas City, Mo. They were able to identify co-conspirators and thwart a plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange.

Joyce also said a terrorist financier inside the U.S. was identified and arrested in October 2007, thanks to a phone record provided by the NSA. The individual was making phone calls to a known designated terrorist group overseas.

It doesn't matter how much they disclose if you don't listen. Maybe they should send the stories to Wikileaks, maybe then it would get people's attention.

Both of those specific instances were calls made overseas, and many people are ok with the NSA looking at international calls. So remind me again why they are watching all of our domestic calls? If they see a call to a foreign terrorist organization, they can use a good old fashioned court order to get the phone records from the domestic end of the call. No need for the NSA to collect all of the data.

Because:
Officials from President Obama down have said they welcomed the opportunity to explain the importance of the programs...

But only to secret judges on secret courts.

Same story, different day. They are speaking publicly, but not everyone is listening, paying attention, or caring.

NSA director: Surveillance foiled 50 terror plots
FBI deputy director: NSA foiled NYC bombing plots
NSA director says surveillance foiled plot against Wall Street

Intelligence officials last week disclosed some details on two thwarted attacks - one targeting the New York subway system, one to bomb a Danish newspaper office that had published the cartoon depictions of the Prophet Mohammad. Alexander and Sean Joyce, deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, offered additional details on two other foiled plots, including one targeting Wall Street.

Under questioning, Joyce said the NSA was able to identify an extremist in Yemen who was in touch with an individual in Kansas City, Mo. They were able to identify co-conspirators and thwart a plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange.

Joyce also said a terrorist financier inside the U.S. was identified and arrested in October 2007, thanks to a phone record provided by the NSA. The individual was making phone calls to a known designated terrorist group overseas.

It doesn't matter how much they disclose if you don't listen. Maybe they should send the stories to Wikileaks, maybe then it would get people's attention.

The CIA is one of Amazon's biggest customers.

After what they did to the CEO of Qwest for refusing to cooperate I doubt Bezos is going to put those big contracts and his personal freedom at risk.

Tesla can be recharged to 50% in 20 minutes if you are using their supercharger.

Looking up the site's claims, it's '50% in 20 minutes', I'm taking that as +50%, not TO 50%. IE if you start at 20%, you'll be 70% when you're done. If you're really close to 0% you might get a touch more, if you're close to 50% you might get a bit less. Given that Tesla sets their battery's '100%' to more like 80% of true capacity for longevity purposes, you shouldn't run into the problem where the last 5% takes as long as the first 50%.

Stopping for 20-30 minutes every 100-150 miles is not practical.

Well, it's a good thing that the range is 265 for a model S. You might be able to Ironman driving, but I like to sit down and have a good meal every so often. That's without getting into a number of different possibilities:
1. The proposed on-road charging, which should enable you to finish a drive with most of the charge you left with, even if it doesn't enable charging the battery at all.
2. Even more increased battery capacity - we saw an article about lithium-sulfur batteries not long ago. Even if it only 'doubles' the range - that's 530 miles of range, or 8 hours of driving at 65 mph. You want lunch, right? If you utilize a high speed charger for an hour during that, you should be able to hit 14-16 hours of driving easy.
3. Generator trailer: I LOVE this concept. When people are on long trips is generally when they want to haul the most stuff. Make a small trailer incorporating a 5 gallon tank and a 15-20 kw generator in addition to some extra storage. The Tesla model S should use ~21kw@65, but if you're supplying 75% of the energy, you should be able to travel 1k miles before exhausting the battery, and just let it keep running for a bit if you're camping to charge the batteries back up. A 20kw version shouldn't cost more than $13k. See #4 for the idea of simply renting the trailer when you need it. If it runs the full size price, you're still looking at 65 weeks of renting it to make it cheaper to buy.
4. Week long rental costing 10% of the cost of a car? What kind of cheap-ass cars are you looking at? I see $45-65/day, $315-455, $3-4.5k doesn't generally get you a car I'd trust on a highway. Heck, Enterprise, checking a non-airport location, gives me a rental price for a full size at $200 for a week. You can get a 'intermediate SUV' for $320.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/16/snowden-whistleblower-nsa-officials-roundtable/2428809/

When a National Security Agency contractor revealed top-secret details this month on the government's collection of Americans' phone and Internet records, one select group of intelligence veterans breathed a sigh of relief.

Thomas Drake, William Binney and J. Kirk Wiebe belong to a select fraternity: the NSA officials who paved the way.

For years, the three whistle-blowers had told anyone who would listen that the NSA collects huge swaths of communications data from U.S. citizens. They had spent decades in the top ranks of the agency, designing and managing the very data-collection systems they say have been turned against Americans. ...

Jesselyn Radack: Not only did they go through multiple and all the proper internal channels and they failed, but more than that, it was turned against them. ... The inspector general was the one who gave their names to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution under the Espionage Act. And they were all targets of a federal criminal investigation, and Tom ended up being prosecuted â" and it was for blowing the whistle. ...

I mean, look auto convention :

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2010/01/sexism-fashion-models-start-returning-to-us-auto-shows/1

Sexism at comic book convention :

http://everythingstheworst.wordpress.com/tag/sexism-at-comic-book-conventions/

And tehre are similar stuff for gun convention (one of the weapomn show had sexy fashion model on their tank), I even saw it at downright other normal book convention.

I am not saying it is good, It annoy me too, but game convention are not the only one it happens. but domain which are seen by publisher as populated by men, they misuse sex appeal as advertising. And before you says me "but but there is 50% women in gaming!", check it up : triple AAA is still sadly the province of the young man/male teenager where they dwell in majority.

Snowden named Shen's university as one of hundreds of NSA targets in Hong Kong and mainland China in an interview published in Thursday's edition of the Post, but it was the only one he specifically identified.

At Chinese University, Shen said he wasn't sure why the NSA might target his school but added, "There are a few strategically important points in the Chinese University of Hong Kong."

Chinese University may have been of interest to the NSA beyond its infrastructure. University researchers are engaged in research projects with government counterparts in mainland China and elsewhere. Shen cited the example of the Dragon Programme, which is a joint project of the National Remote Sensing Center of China and the European Space Agency for Earth observation research and application development.

Chinese University also runs a joint program with the Chinese Academy of Sciences in "advanced integration technology," a brain research project with China's Academy of Military Medical Sciences, a research center for "radar remote sensing" with the China Center for Resources Satellite Data and Applications and the Joint Center for Intelligent Sensing and Systems with the National University of Defense Technology, among others.

I can't stand the false equivalence...'government' is a reductive concept...we aren't 3rd graders...we know more about how our policies are made...who votes for banning abortion and shit like that...by just saying 'government' you give yourself a bullshit problem to troll and bitch about forever...

same logic as Snowden and you are ALL IDIOTS...

here's why:

1. The relevant info is old news for IT professionals, and the new info (US has been hacking China) is treasonous...YES, the NSA wiretapping was reported on **in 2006**..."NSA has massive database of Americans' phone calls". He *still* broke the law with revealations about *that* program, like the name (PRISM) and other details...he's NOT BRAD LEE MANNING

2. **chose to reveal his identity**...he could have leaked this anonymously...you know, like Deep Throat did with the Pentagon Papers...like a class act would. But because he's doing this for SELFISH REASONS, he wants his name know...he wants to spout his internet troll-level bullshit on TV...and ruin his life for no gain

3. "Idiots like me have access to NSA data via Defense contractors"....that's all he revealed that is actually **value added** info. The NSA wiretaps, old news...US hacking China, treason...Booze/Allen's unacoutable employees...good to know...

keep idiots like this out of any important job...that's what I learned about this whole mess...oh, and 'Prism' is a codename...whop de damn doo...

Can you provide an example of something that the Soviets did that the United States has not done?

Slaughtering 20 million of their own citizens, and that's just under Stalin.

While you're formulating your answer, consider that the United States is the only country to nuke another country.

That's true, it ended WW2 with several million fewer casualties than an invasion of the Japanese mainland would have allowed.

We used our own prisoners and citizens as guinnea pigs to conduct experiments in nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare.

Common practice at the time, as reprehensible as we now view it. We also treated our prisoners significantly better than the Soviets powers did. Also bear in mind that things like the nasty side affects from radiation simply were not known at that time.

We engaged in witch hunts, like McCarthy appearing before Congress to say he "held in his hands" a list of known communist co-conspirators.

This doesn't even count as a pimple on the ass that is known as the Gulag's. Tens of millions of people were sentenced and countless millions were killed for political dissidence.

I'm not sure your claim that the USSR and the USA were significantly different in their propaganda campaigns

They were, and to be frank the US really sucks at propaganda and the Soviets were masters at it.

Ever wonder why the US is backing al Qaeda again?

overall this BS: we knew this in 2006 (see link below)...we just didn't know the name and that 500,000 dork contractors could access it....

to the comment...ah, the trolling begins...first when i point out that "Snowden is an idiot" that is in *no* way a pass on the NSA. That's a *different issue*...this is about his choices...

you fired off a bunch of questions that I already answered, but b/c you quoted me and said I'm being 'hateful' it makes your trolling more surreptitious...you didn't try to contradict my argument: this started a conversation that needed to happen in the mainstream media, but Snowden's way of doing it was as dumb as possible

Can you explain your stance in a less angry, more rational manner?

not necessary...but I would like some genuine discussion...

see, here's who was not surprised by PRISM: anarchists, 'libertarians', illuminati, and IT PROFESSIONALS

because IT workers actually understand signal communications concepts...if data is transmitted it is interceptable

another Red Herring is that these are *new* revelations...this was authorized **BY CONGRESS** in the Patriot Act...Obama can't make Congress undo it...he has brought to light what Bush started and changed what he could realistically...

this was reported on in 2006 "NSA has massive database of Americans' phone calls"

So Snowden is an idiot...he threw away his life on a dork's gamble based on internet-troll logic...he will not get a book deal or have mass suporters like Bradley Manning...

Funny?

LOL. ROFL. I just find ppl like you amazing
No doubt that you are a neo-cons that backs reagan and W.

Why is it suddenly a big deal now?

NSA has massive database of Americans' phone calls

Updated 5/11/2006 10:38 AM ET

By Leslie Cauley, USA TODAY

"The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.

The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans â" most of whom aren't suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate interviews."

http://yahoo.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm

http://yahoo.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm

"The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY."

What is different about what this guy "leaked" ?

He can stuff his pizza, and I don't mean the crust.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/01/14/pizza-papa-john-schnatter/1566364/

don't like Monsanto's sueing farmers for having their wheat in their fields when the farmers had nothing to do with that happening

Could you cite actual, neutrally-verified cases in which that happened?

Because all the big cases we keep hearing about (Percy Schmeiser, or the recent SCOTUS case) involve farmers who carefully and deliberately selected the Monsanto seeds for re-planting.

Which leads to the puzzling situation in which hordes of anti-GMO folks worldwide rush to defend (and in some cases fund) enthusiastic GMO planters!

You know, until that happened, you'd just be a tin-foil hat wearer, without a shred of credibility to you. Actually, you still are. But thanks to the colossal mistake of a couple of people in the IRS and Obama's total and complete inability to deal with a scandal, that singular act has managed to make the tinfoil hat crowd look more credible than the government.

Well, you know what, okay. Out of the thousands of times Obama and the "rabid liberals" have gotten it right, after six years of constant, sustained, unending attempts by the Republicans to find something, anything, to sink Obama even if it means repeatedly punching themselves in the face (Comeon guys, with all the major issues out there, your party platform for the previous four years has been trying to ensure Obama didn't get re-elected. Petty much?)... I suppose yes, with that much scrutiny eventually something had to pan out.

So take this one, singular victory. Have it, it's yours. You can feel righteous for a bit now -- you have a right to be upset

Well, that's mighty white of you. You are indeed a generous spirit.

True Scandal - A tea-party group ... gets attention from the IRS—and the FBI, OSHA, and the ATF.
The IRS Fiasco Is Only The Tip Of The Iceberg
A Frequent Visitor to the White House

...Douglas Shulman, Commissioner from 2008 to 2012, during the Obama administration, visited the White House 118 times just in 2010 and 2011. His successor, Steven Miller, also visited “numerous” times.

Lawmakers say IRS targeted dozens more conservative groups than initially believed

The IRS targeting of conservative groups is far broader than first reported, with nearly 500 organizations singled out for additional scrutiny, according to two lawmakers briefed by the agency

IRS Admits Targeting “Tea Party” Groups
The New Nixon This time, the press cheered as the IRS investigated the president's opponents.
Tea party groups call IRS process 'nightmare'
IRS approved liberal groups while Tea Party in limbo
Curious IRS Timing - Did the tax agency also target groups that support Israel?
Obamacare + IRS = gangster government
7 Questions That The IRS Inappropriately Asked Of Tea Party Groups
The IRS’s Tea-Party Targeting - An apology, but no explanation
Did The IRS Try To Swing Election To Obama?

Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert

Try the source at http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2013/05/22/weather-satellite-fails/2351927/

Satellite logs are at http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/SATS/messages.html, it looks like the satellite failed to return imaging two days ago and is now being put into a storage mode.

Not following the news (retractions) much? That same audit targeted liberal groups with equal opportunity -- it did focus on organizations with political-sounding names, but didn't pick bones about which side of the fence that organization was on.

I'm sorry, but you are completely wrong.

IRS approved liberal groups while Tea Party in limbo

WASHINGTON -- In February 2010, the Champaign Tea Party in Illinois received approval of its tax-exempt status from the IRS in 90 days, no questions asked.

That was the month before the Internal Revenue Service started singling out Tea Party groups for special treatment. There wouldn't be another Tea Party application approved for 27 months.

In that time, the IRS approved perhaps dozens of applications from similar liberal and progressive groups, a USA TODAY review of IRS data shows.

As applications from conservative groups sat in limbo, groups with liberal-sounding names had their applications approved in as little as nine months. With names including words like "Progress" or "Progressive," the liberal groups applied for the same tax status and were engaged in the same kinds of activities as the conservative groups. ...

Lawmakers say IRS targeted dozens more conservative groups than initially believed

The IRS targeting of conservative groups is far broader than first reported, with nearly 500 organizations singled out for additional scrutiny, according to two lawmakers briefed by the agency.

IRS officials claimed on Friday that roughly 300 groups received additional scrutiny. Reps. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said Tuesday that the number has actually risen to 471. Further, they said it is "unclear" whether Tea Party and other conservative groups are being targeted to this day.

USAToday, May 22, 2013 - Researchers at the University of Michigan have used a 3-D printer to create a custom-made, life-saving implant for baby boy, they report in a letter in 'The New England Journal of Medicine.'

Researchers at the University of Michigan have used a 3-D printer to create a custom-made, life-saving implant for a baby boy, they report today in a letter in The New England Journal of Medicine.

The baby, Kaiba Gionfriddo, suffered from a rare disorder in which one of the airways in his lungs collapsed when he exhaled. The problem caused him to stop breathing and turn blue when he was only 6 weeks old. Even with a mechanical ventilator, Kaiba stopped breathing virtually every day, requiring doctors to perform emergency resuscitations.

"We'd recently had a child in the hospital who died of this, and I said, 'there has got to be a solution that we can find for these kids,' " says co-author Glenn Green, Kaiba's doctor and an associate professor of otolaryngology.

So Green and his Michigan colleagues tried something new.

Using a 3-D printer, they custom-built a tiny, flexible splint that will grow with Kaiba. Researchers used a special material designed to be absorbed by Kaiba's body in about three years, says co-author Scott Hollister, a professor of biomedical and mechanical engineering.

Instead of making a cast of Kaiba's airway with plaster, they used a CT scanner, which gave them a 3-D blueprint.

Like a vacuum-cleaner hose, the C-shaped splint is flexible enough to move when Kaiba breathes. But it's also firm enough to prevent his air tube from flopping shut, says Green.

Kaiba was able to come off the ventilator three weeks after his surgery in February 2012. "Our prediction is that this will be a cure for him," Green says. "The splint will go away and the process will be done."

The porous splint is made from the same material as dissolvable stitches, Green says. Just as a wisteria vine grows through a trellis, Kaiba's body will create new cells to permeate the scaffold. By the time the splint is completely absorbed, doctors hope that Kaiba's own tissue will be sturdy enough to keep his airway open.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/22/3d-printer-implant-baby/2348091/

Microsoft and Yahoo when contacted admitted to having this service that matched internet accounts to voting lists so that political parties could target you online.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/technologylive/post/2012/06/microsoft-yahoo-sell-tracking-data-to-political-campaigns/1#.UZUsm8XA9yV
http://www.propublica.org/article/how-microsoft-and-yahoo-are-selling-politicians-access-to-you

Steve Jobs had a rare form of pancreatic cancer that can actually be cured in some cases, according to this interview and other sources. His doctors recommended a radical surgery to prevent it from spreading, but he delayed surgery for nine months because of his belief in non-scientific alternatives. It is unclear if this delay made a difference, but it's possible that he could have been full-blown cured had he opted for surgery right away.