Slashdot Mirror

It isn't connected to the internet . These authors do a good job of confusing the reader.

From the article: Our purpose is to show how all countries can improve the security of dangerous nuclear materials - NTI Co-Chairman and former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn.

They do not distinguish between systems that control actual nuclear related equipment, communications and administrative networks, facility controls (hvac), etc. They also dont distingush between facilities that do nuclear research in a lab with little risk to start with vs those that process high grade materials vs those that just store materials.

From the methodology used to produce the Threat Index: The NTI Index differentiates among three sets of countries: (a) countries with one kilogram or more of weapons-usable nuclear materials (countries with materials), (b) countries with less than one kilogram of or no weapons-usable nuclear materials (countries without materials), and (c) countries with nuclear facilities, the sabotage of which could result in a significant radiological release with serious off-site health consequences.

And they try to make some jump to conclusions that power plants are included, all of which works toward their agenda.

From a 2009 White House joint press release by the President of the United States and President of the Russian Federation: The United States of America and the Russian Federation confirm their commitment to strengthening their cooperation to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and stop acts of nuclear terrorism. We bear special responsibility for security of nuclear weapons. While we reconfirm that security at nuclear facilities in the United States and Russia meets current requirements, we stress that nuclear security requirements need continuous upgrading.

If you are so blinded by your shilling for Nuclear Power that you are prepared to call the process of reducing access to Highly Enriched, weapons grade Uranium to terrorists an 'agenda' you must either have a terrorist agenda of your own or you are so profoundly stupid that you cannot see something that both the US *and* Russian Presidents agree are requirements for "a common vision of the growth of clean, safe, secure and affordable nuclear energy for peaceful purposes".

I'm not accusing her of a crime. I'm accusing her of either incompetence or horrible judgement, given her position as one of the few Original Classification Authorities in the executive branch ( https://www.whitehouse.gov/the... SecState is the first Department mentioned. ). She should have known better. Maybe she did know better, but chose not to do better - that'd be worse.

Further, she was expected (one could even say "ordered by the President") to take Classification Training annually: https://www.whitehouse.gov/the... section 1.3d:
"All original classification authorities must receive training in proper classification (including the avoidance of over-classification) and declassification as provided in this order and its implementing directives at least once a calendar year. Such training must include instruction on the proper safeguarding of classified information and on the sanctions in section 5.5 of this order that may be brought against an individual who fails to classify information properly or protect classified information from unauthorized disclosure. Original classification authorities who do not receive such mandatory training at least once within a calendar year shall have their classification authority suspended by the agency head or the senior agency official designated under section 5.4(d) of this order until such training has taken place. " You can't argue that she was unfamiliar with this issue.

Even more, as a former FLOTUS, as a former Senator, and ESPECIALLY as Secretary of State (analogous to a Foreign Minister in other countries), she should CERTAINLY expected that her communications would be a primary target by foreign adversaries. She had high-level conversations with advisers, communications with/about other foreign leaders and diplomats, national policy issues, internal State Department policy issues. We already know the NSA is interested in this kind of stuff for other countries (most recently the shit with Israel) ; pretty much everyone else would love to have this information on the US as well. We're all self-important geeks here who think the NSA is watching all of us as we play video games and post on Slashdot and Reddit. How can anyone give a pass to a Secretary of State, who has real, LEGIT reasons to suspect she'd be targeted?

And then there were the political games she's been playing in the aftermath, instead of handing shit over, lawyering up and taking her lumps if necessary, and moving on. If it cost her an opportunity at the Presidency, oh well, that's what accountability at that level means; its not as if she didn't have POTUS aspirations back then. The world knew it. (More of a reason to suspect she'd be targetted by other intel services, actualy). Instead, she avoided having to turn stuff over as long as possible, tried deleting stuff, hand-selected things to turn over, plays this stupid shrugging game, insults our intelligence by saying "“It was on property guarded by the Secret Service and there were no security breaches. So I think that the use of that server certainly proved to be effective and secure.”". (Yes, she said that. http://www.wired.com/2015/03/h... )

Even if every single email she had on there was born and legitimately unclassified, they were at very least sensitive. And a bunch of unclassified things can be considered classified in aggregate. "(e) Compilations of items of information that are individually unclassified may be classified if the compiled information reveals an additional association or relationship that: (1) meets the standards for classification under this order; and (2) is not otherwise revealed in the individual items of information." (from one of the Executive Order links above as well)

I'm not accusing her of a crime. I'm accusing her of either incompetence or horrible judgement, given her position as one of the few Original Classification Authorities in the executive branch ( https://www.whitehouse.gov/the... SecState is the first Department mentioned. ). She should have known better. Maybe she did know better, but chose not to do better - that'd be worse.

Further, she was expected (one could even say "ordered by the President") to take Classification Training annually: https://www.whitehouse.gov/the... section 1.3d:
"All original classification authorities must receive training in proper classification (including the avoidance of over-classification) and declassification as provided in this order and its implementing directives at least once a calendar year. Such training must include instruction on the proper safeguarding of classified information and on the sanctions in section 5.5 of this order that may be brought against an individual who fails to classify information properly or protect classified information from unauthorized disclosure. Original classification authorities who do not receive such mandatory training at least once within a calendar year shall have their classification authority suspended by the agency head or the senior agency official designated under section 5.4(d) of this order until such training has taken place. " You can't argue that she was unfamiliar with this issue.

Even more, as a former FLOTUS, as a former Senator, and ESPECIALLY as Secretary of State (analogous to a Foreign Minister in other countries), she should CERTAINLY expected that her communications would be a primary target by foreign adversaries. She had high-level conversations with advisers, communications with/about other foreign leaders and diplomats, national policy issues, internal State Department policy issues. We already know the NSA is interested in this kind of stuff for other countries (most recently the shit with Israel) ; pretty much everyone else would love to have this information on the US as well. We're all self-important geeks here who think the NSA is watching all of us as we play video games and post on Slashdot and Reddit. How can anyone give a pass to a Secretary of State, who has real, LEGIT reasons to suspect she'd be targeted?

And then there were the political games she's been playing in the aftermath, instead of handing shit over, lawyering up and taking her lumps if necessary, and moving on. If it cost her an opportunity at the Presidency, oh well, that's what accountability at that level means; its not as if she didn't have POTUS aspirations back then. The world knew it. (More of a reason to suspect she'd be targetted by other intel services, actualy). Instead, she avoided having to turn stuff over as long as possible, tried deleting stuff, hand-selected things to turn over, plays this stupid shrugging game, insults our intelligence by saying "“It was on property guarded by the Secret Service and there were no security breaches. So I think that the use of that server certainly proved to be effective and secure.”". (Yes, she said that. http://www.wired.com/2015/03/h... )

Even if every single email she had on there was born and legitimately unclassified, they were at very least sensitive. And a bunch of unclassified things can be considered classified in aggregate. "(e) Compilations of items of information that are individually unclassified may be classified if the compiled information reveals an additional association or relationship that: (1) meets the standards for classification under this order; and (2) is not otherwise revealed in the individual items of information." (from one of the Executive Order links above as well)

I posted this link elsewhere but:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the...

The whole thing is interesting and relevent, but in particular:

"(d) All original classification authorities must receive training in proper classification (including the avoidance of over-classification) and declassification as provided in this order and its implementing directives at least once a calendar year. Such training must include instruction on the proper safeguarding of classified information and on the sanctions in section 5.5 of this order that may be brought against an individual who fails to classify information properly or protect classified information from unauthorized disclosure. Original classification authorities who do not receive such mandatory training at least once within a calendar year shall have their classification authority suspended by the agency head or the senior agency official designated under section 5.4(d) of this order until such training has taken place. A waiver may be granted by the agency head, the deputy agency head, or the senior agency official if an individual is unable to receive such training due to unavoidable circumstances. Whenever a waiver is granted, the individual shall receive such training as soon as practicable."

Rarely or not, she should have had annual training, and to dodge this is to say that a person who reaches that level of government has no responsibility to uphold the more "mundane" things of their job.

A person who dodges this responsibility is not fit to lead others who are held to the same responsibility (the entire Executive branch)

Someone gets it. Also, as an Original Classification Authority (In fact, the first Department head mentioned in the Executive Order that defines who OCAs are (https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-original-classification-authority) ), she should have had specific training and a very good understanding of this stuff. ( https://www.whitehouse.gov/the... )

Fron the second link:
"((d) All original classification authorities must receive training in proper classification (including the avoidance of over-classification) and declassification as provided in this order and its implementing directives at least once a calendar year. Such training must include instruction on the proper safeguarding of classified information and on the sanctions in section 5.5 of this order that may be brought against an individual who fails to classify information properly or protect classified information from unauthorized disclosure. Original classification authorities who do not receive such mandatory training at least once within a calendar year shall have their classification authority suspended by the agency head or the senior agency official designated under section 5.4(d) of this order until such training has taken place. "

Start a petition - give the White House ANOTHER one to ignore.

How many more of our rights will our leaders call to sacrifice because of this boogy man ISIS? We already had our president call for the suspension of the second amendment based on some extrajudicial watch list. And now we have Eric Posner arguing to suspend the First amendment right of freedom of association and speech. The fourth has long since been ignored with the NSA blanket surveillance, so what is left for them to sacrifice?

Will we sacrifice the sixth and suspend trial by jury for those on the no fly list? After all they are on the list so they must be guilty.
How about tossing the eighth and throwing those newly convicted terrorists into the Iron maiden, bring back a little old school punishment.
Perhaps we should toss the third and start placing NSA agents inside peoples homes, to make sure ISIS doesn't get in.
Or we could ignore the fifth and give the people on the watch list a nice round of waterboarding so they confess and forgo the bother of a trial.

I mean when will it stop for these people? Throw up ISIS or Al Queda and our leaders seem to climb all over each other to rip up our bill of rights. When did we elect a bunch of gutless cowards who would gladly sacrifice our constitution to help them sleep at night? This has to stop, we should face tragedies head on while holding on to our beliefs, not throw away our rights at the earliest convenience.

There was a previous "We the People" petition to the White House regarding encryption, and it got the required number of signatures to elicit a response. Rather than just putting out a useless blanket statement (as they do for a lot of the petitions), the White House is actually soliciting specific feedback before creating a position. You can send them comments regarding encryption through the White House website (links below). No idea if this will actually go anywhere (or get you put on some kind of watchlist!), but presumably it's better than just remaining quiet and letting them come to their own conclusions?

Links:
The petition and response
The form to send comments

Funnily enough, it's a secure website.. hmm..

There was a previous "We the People" petition to the White House regarding encryption, and it got the required number of signatures to elicit a response. Rather than just putting out a useless blanket statement (as they do for a lot of the petitions), the White House is actually soliciting specific feedback before creating a position. You can send them comments regarding encryption through the White House website (links below). No idea if this will actually go anywhere (or get you put on some kind of watchlist!), but presumably it's better than just remaining quiet and letting them come to their own conclusions?

Links:
The petition and response
The form to send comments

Funnily enough, it's a secure website.. hmm..

Nobody's talking about helping the poor fat Americans overcome their obesity, poor education, violence

You dumb fuck. Of course they are.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

http://www.christianpost.com/n...

https://www.whitehouse.gov/rea...

http://articles.chicagotribune...

But we're not obligated to do anything and it's not our fault if something bad happens to a group of people somewhere in the world today.

First John 3:17 “But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?

According to https://www.whitehouse.gov/ene..., since Obama took office:

* The EPA released the Clean Power Plan — the first-ever carbon pollution standards for existing power plants,
* The U.S. increased solar electricity generation by more than ten-fold, and tripled electricity production from wind power.
* The DOI has approved over 50 wind, solar, and geothermal utility-scale projects on public or tribal lands.
* Obama put forth initiatives to help develop principles for establishing energy corridors; encourage the use of designated energy corridors in western states; expedite the review of transmission projects in non-western states; and improve the overall transmission siting
* Created the Advanced Research Project Agency-Energy (ARPA-E)
* Proposed the toughest fuel economy standards for passenger vehicles in U.S. history
* Finalized the first-ever fuel economy standards for commercial trucks, vans, and buses for model years 2014-2018.
* The EPA proposed two new rules in 2014 under the Significant New Alternatives Policy (SNAP) program to curb HFC's.
* Released a Strategy to Reduce Methane Emissions that builds on progress to date and takes steps to further cut methane emissions from landfills, coal mining, agriculture, and oil and gas systems.
* Committed to deploying 3 gigawatts of renewable energy on military installations, including solar, wind, biomass, and geothermal, by 2025.
* Directed federal agencies to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions from sources such as building energy use and fuel consumption by 28 percent by 2020 and increase deployment of renewable energy. ...and on and on.

What's the common thread here? Well, things Obama *can* do (EPA regulations, federal programs) he did - what required House & Senate to write laws, he made proposals - largely in agreement of the relevant industry groups...but if no laws are written as a result of all this work - is that Obama's fault?

And what percentage of the workforce is employed by that 15% of employers? For example, the US Gov't would count as ONE employer, yet they employ some 4 million workers...

I couldn't find the stats for fathers, but overall only 11% of workers are covered by paid family leave policies (source). Since paid maternity leave is more common than paid paternity leave, the numbers for fathers would be less than 11%.

[...] why must your employer provide healthcare, paternity leave, and retirement planning? Are US Citizens incapable of taking care of their own needs?

With income inequality growing at an alarming rate, yes most citizens are incapable of taking care of their own needs. That is why safety net programs exist. Highly skilled and paid workers like myself, and probably yourself given your lack of sympathy, have careers where we are able to either demand better benefits or simply provide them for ourselves. That is not the world the vast majority of people in any country live in.

If you can't afford to put some money aside during your pregnancy, how are you going to be able to provide for the added expenses when the child is born?

You could add whatever spin you want to on this topic. How about, if you have to dip into your savings to cover for lost wages in the immediate months after birth, how are you going to be able to provide for the added expenses in the first few years of the child's life?

If we lived in a world where CEOs made 10x what their janitors make, there wouldn't be much need for safety net programs. We don't live in that world.

No. Which the median person hasn't been since the 1950s. Worker compensation has been on a downward trend since, in real dollars.

Not only is that the wrong number to look at, it's not even true. Hourly wages rose significantly between 1947 and 1972 and then largely stagnated (they are slightly higher now than in 1972). They haven't been on a "downward trend". But that is the wrong number to look at anyway, since being "better off" doesn't just mean that your wages go up, it means what kinds of goods and services people can afford. Car ownership has steadily increased, average home sizes have been increasing, people have much better medical care, life expectancy has increased, the percentage of college graduates in the population has gone from 10% to 30%, etc.

Automation eliminates many skilled jobs, and replaces them either with cud-chewing assembly line jobs, or with nothing because the jobs are simply no longer required, or perhaps one or two skilled jobs maintaining the machines. And those aren't necessarily highly skilled jobs, either.

Probably 80-90% of jobs that existed 50 years ago have been replaced with automation by now, yet labor force participation rate has increased, not decreased, as your Luddite reasoning suggests. At the same time, automation has increased worker productivity greatly while not increasing wages, which is one reason why we are better off today: people can buy more and better stuff for less.

The minimum wage has not kept up with inflation in over twenty years. Don't talk shit about increases in minimum wage, you'll only look like a massive idiot.

You need to read more carefully: I said the administration pursued increases in minimum wage (he actually raised it for federal contractors). It shows how economically incompetent the administration is.

Where? All I've seen is bailouts and handouts. Where are these job creation programs?

Well, the Obama administration claims that its bailouts and handouts are job creation programs. Again, it's a sign of either duplicity or economic incompetence on the part of the administration. In fact, the government cannot "create jobs" at all, and any "job creation" program is automatically a fraud.

No. Which the median person hasn't been since the 1950s. Worker compensation has been on a downward trend since, in real dollars.

Not only is that the wrong number to look at, it's not even true. Hourly wages rose significantly between 1947 and 1972 and then largely stagnated (they are slightly higher now than in 1972). They haven't been on a "downward trend". But that is the wrong number to look at anyway, since being "better off" doesn't just mean that your wages go up, it means what kinds of goods and services people can afford. Car ownership has steadily increased, average home sizes have been increasing, people have much better medical care, life expectancy has increased, the percentage of college graduates in the population has gone from 10% to 30%, etc.

Automation eliminates many skilled jobs, and replaces them either with cud-chewing assembly line jobs, or with nothing because the jobs are simply no longer required, or perhaps one or two skilled jobs maintaining the machines. And those aren't necessarily highly skilled jobs, either.

Probably 80-90% of jobs that existed 50 years ago have been replaced with automation by now, yet labor force participation rate has increased, not decreased, as your Luddite reasoning suggests. At the same time, automation has increased worker productivity greatly while not increasing wages, which is one reason why we are better off today: people can buy more and better stuff for less.

The minimum wage has not kept up with inflation in over twenty years. Don't talk shit about increases in minimum wage, you'll only look like a massive idiot.

You need to read more carefully: I said the administration pursued increases in minimum wage (he actually raised it for federal contractors). It shows how economically incompetent the administration is.

Where? All I've seen is bailouts and handouts. Where are these job creation programs?

Well, the Obama administration claims that its bailouts and handouts are job creation programs. Again, it's a sign of either duplicity or economic incompetence on the part of the administration. In fact, the government cannot "create jobs" at all, and any "job creation" program is automatically a fraud.

Yes, the labor participation rate is low and it's not the strongest job growth ever, just the longest uninterrupted period of job growth.

Employment Situation in September

Reading his statement on the matter, his economic justifications are irrelevant ("the pipeline wouldn't create jobs or lower gas prices for Americans"): since it's not proposed that the US government pay for the pipeline, these issues are only relevant against costs -- and he doesn't discuss any costs! He isn't citing the direct environmental damage of digging the pipeline and creating associated infrastructure (roads, power cables, pumping stations etc). He isn't citing the risk of leaks.

I was wondering if Obama would claim climate risks since that would have required him to quantify his estimate of the accuracy of the models used to predict the climate effects of the pipeline. But naturally he didn't claim risks to the climate -- only risks to US leadership on climate issues. That's a fair reason to make national-level decisions, but is not a win for the environment.

Well the economic justifications are relevant is they fail to justify the costs, as to the costs you just listed a bunch, including the extra CO2 contributing to climate change and damage to US leadership that he focused on. Obama's claim is that the economic benefit is mild and not enough to cover the environmental and political problems.

The risk of leaks and environment damage from construction are relevant, but they're not the justification for the cancellation. (possibly because they're cancelled out by increases in other shipping methods)

It's notable that Obama is making a political calculation (wanting to retain "leadership" relating to climate change, the pipeline not increasing "energy security") rather than an economic or environmental one.

Reading his statement on the matter, his economic justifications are irrelevant ("the pipeline wouldn't create jobs or lower gas prices for Americans"): since it's not proposed that the US government pay for the pipeline, these issues are only relevant against costs -- and he doesn't discuss any costs! He isn't citing the direct environmental damage of digging the pipeline and creating associated infrastructure (roads, power cables, pumping stations etc). He isn't citing the risk of leaks.

I was wondering if Obama would claim climate risks since that would have required him to quantify his estimate of the accuracy of the models used to predict the climate effects of the pipeline. But naturally he didn't claim risks to the climate -- only risks to US leadership on climate issues. That's a fair reason to make national-level decisions, but is not a win for the environment.

Even if a climate scientist proves there's no warming interest in the subject will not vanish overnight.

The same can be said about oil companies' profits if the AGW is real. But any sceptic today is immediately suspected of being on Big Oil's payroll anyway. What's good for the gander, is good for a rooster.

So there's really no conflict of interest.

In 2012 US Federal government budgeted $19.78 bln for climate change research and "clean energy". In 2014 the figure was already $21,408 bln (and it was even greater in 2013). The $1.5 bln would buy a lot of scientists — especially those, who already think AGW is a real concern and whose conscience would thus be a lot cheaper.

But that delta is insignificant compared to the rise in expenditures compared to prior years — in 1998, for example, the US has only spent about $8 bln, if I read the CBO-document correctly — and that was when AGW was believed to be a concern.

You are right, that interest in the subject will not "vanish overnight". But the expenditures will most certainly fall to before 1998-levels and that will mean a lot of unemployed "climate scientists" — at least a half of them. Any judge or politician with a conflict of interest of such magnitude, that wouldn't recuse himself, would be impeached — and for a good reason.

I do not doubt, that you share the concerns over the fabled "Military-Industrial Complex" influencing the government towards "perpetual war" so it can forever sell the armaments. Why can't you recognize the same thing in other walks of life?

Did Clinton email classified material to anyone? I know there were classified documents on her server, which isn't good, but did she send any?

Much of the work is inherently classified. If Obama picks up the phone and dials Ashton Carter over at DOD, that conversation doesn't need to be marked classified, because it's classified by nature. Same goes for Hillary's work at State...if she sent or received an email about the nuclear programs of India or Pakistan, nobody had to mark it top secret because it was "born" classified.

Hillary, as an Original Classification Authority, knew this full well. She received special special training above and beyond other officials at the State Department on the classification of information. Thus, her attempt to move the goalposts by claiming none of the emails she sent contained information that was marked classified, which is a red herring.

Oh, and she broke the law, here is the law she broke:

http://uscode.house.gov/view.x...

Now the problem is actually prosecuting her for that. She also emailed classified information, it was unmarked, but as an Original Classification Authority, she was one of the people at State that was the source of classification declarations, and so should have known if information should have been classified even when unmarked.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the...

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/ar...

As Secretary of State, she would be considered an Original Classification Authority. This means that she would be trained in recognizing what should be classified information, and what should be protected.

http://www.politico.com/story/...

According to that article, the number of classified emails is in the range of 400. Some of those messages should have been obvious that they were classified, especially for someone who is supposed to be the one determining the classification of information (an Original Classification Authority's job).

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the...
http://www.archives.gov/about/...

Saying that she didn't send or receive any emails marked as classified is a lie of omission. She should have known that certain things should have been classified, so even without the markings (which is likely to land someone in Federal prison), she should be able to identify classified information and handle it properly, including reporting the release of classified information onto her home email server.

The laws she broke have to do with "Official Records". At the time she did it, it was illegal to not maintain official records. She only handed over the emails later when she was called out on it, but even then, there was a 3 month gap in the records. Can you imagine any possible way that the Secretary of State would not send an official email, or even reply to a work email in three months?

She also broke the law by emailing classified information on an unclassified email system. This has been proven, she claims the information was not marked classified, but as Secretary of State, she is an original classification authority, meaning she should have known the information was classified, and therefore should have reported the spillage of classified information immdiately, instead of letting it fester for YEARS.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Also, the server was wildly insecure, this information isn't new, and was on Slashdot previously:

http://politics.slashdot.org/s...

You can keep your head in the sand if you want, but what she did isn't much different than the crimes hanging over Snowden's head. If it were you or I that did these things, we would be in Jail awaiting a federal trial.

Even funnier about the classified information thing is that as Secretary of State, she is an original classification authority, which means that even if the information isn't marked classified, she is supposed to be able to say something should be classified.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the...

She emailed around classified information, and she should have known it was classified, that is a serious felony, and if it were you or I, we would already be in jail waiting for the federal court to hear our case.

Isn't that exactly like complaining that a criminal was "illegally" investigated, because the criminal in question has a personal rule that he shouldn't be investigated?

Well, in this case, the rule actually states that the government cannot protect itself from disclosure of illegal acts by classifying the information:

From Executive Order 13526, Classified National Security Information :

Sec. 1.7. Classification Prohibitions and Limitations.
(a) In no case shall information be classified, continue to be maintained as classified, or fail to be declassified in order to:
(1) conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error;
(2) prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency;
(3) restrain competition; or
(4) prevent or delay the release of information that does not require protection in the interest of the national security.

So, in fact, hiding government wrongdoing by classifying it is in itself illegal, and the material would be considered improperly classified.

He exposed national security secrets. The fact that they were illegal actions by our government does not change the fact that exposing those secret practices is textbook treason. There is no legal way to expose national security tidbits like that.

Not really true. From Executive Order 13526, Classified National Security Information :

Sec. 1.7. Classification Prohibitions and Limitations.
(a) In no case shall information be classified, continue to be maintained as classified, or fail to be declassified in order to:
(1) conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error;
(2) prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency;
(3) restrain competition; or
(4) prevent or delay the release of information that does not require protection in the interest of the national security.

So, in fact, hiding government wrongdoing by classifying it is in itself illegal, and the material would be considered improperly classified.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/sit...

You can find the others on your own.

FWIW: https://petitions.whitehouse.g...

Anybody who thinks these petitions are worth the paper they are signed on and that the White House actually pays attention to them is deluded.

I generally agree, except it absolutely did work for cell phone unlocking. https://petitions.whitehouse.g...

The DMCA exception had even been removed by the LoC, and after the public outcry, they reinstated the exception, and went even further. Today, the FCC forces all carriers to unlock phones as soon as they are paid-for:
* http://pipedot.org/story/2015-...

And that change was at least partially responsible for all major carriers recently ending their post-paid contract plans with big phone subsidizes.

That's one huge change that has apparently come out of the process.

That is likely what the FBI investigation is all about. However, it is part of the job as head of the Dept of State to be able to say "that information is classified".

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the...

So, for her not to be able to say, "hey, this should be classified, perhaps I should report this", and instead forward the emails on, says quite a bit about her.

Well some in the US tried but the white house in typical fashion sat on its hands. ;)

Well some in the US tried but the white house in typical fashion sat on its hands. ;)

Indian H1B covertly hires/promotes/colludes with another Indian H1B;
They've mastered the art of manipulating/using people for past 2000 years;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
https://petitions.whitehouse.g...

supply -> distribution -> demand

Somebody is manipulating the 'distribution';
https://petitions.whitehouse.g...

Indians have infected America with Caste system, a type of Cancer;
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Kshatriya will manipulate you/system and hire a Kshatriya;
Brahmin will manipulate you/system and hire a Brahmin;
Bania will manipulate you/system and hire a Bania;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Please sign/RT;
https://petitions.whitehouse.g...

Teach toddlers how to become a sociopath;
http://www.lovefraud.com/2013/...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/re...

And stop importing sociopaths from India;
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
https://petitions.whitehouse.g...

Thanks for that out of context quote. You can read the entire speech here, which includes the following:

True democracy demands that citizens cannot be thrown in jail because of what they believe, and that businesses can be opened without paying a bribe. It depends on the freedom of citizens to speak their minds and assemble without fear, and on the rule of law and due process that guarantees the rights of all people.

And passage that has you concerned...

The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam. But to be credible, those who condemn that slander must also condemn the hate we see in the images of Jesus Christ that are desecrated, or churches that are destroyed, or the Holocaust that is denied.

Doesn't quite read like the call for the worldwide caliphate you imply.

I think the only ones that weren't were ones that were cheer-leading for the current administration or outright silly. The best example of the "Fuck off" mentality is this petition response. I forget what the issue was in the initial petition but the response of basically go read our long standing stance on the issue and piss off prompted the second one. At that point I basically gave up on the petitions and most people did.

I think the only ones that weren't were ones that were cheer-leading for the current administration or outright silly. The best example of the "Fuck off" mentality is this petition response. I forget what the issue was in the initial petition but the response of basically go read our long standing stance on the issue and piss off prompted the second one. At that point I basically gave up on the petitions and most people did.

Th President's power as Commander-in-Chief is limited, but it's only limited to the extent that the power the US Government has to militarily Command people is limited.

Which means if something is classified under the Executive branch's authority the president can unilaterally declassify it. Legally he's simply over-ruled his underlings. Him and the VP are explicitly listed as "classification authorities, which means they are also by definition declassification authorities.

Well, for starters, this site is devoted to petitions, although very, very few of them get any response.

So, we'll keep locking people in rape cages for growing plants, pulling guns on unarmed teens and going through security theater in air ports with a 90% detection failure rate....But finally I can do https://whitehouse.gov/ to vote on a bogus petition with no effect. My confidence is restored thusly.

America Should Stop Issuing Visas To Indians, The Most Racist People On Earth;
https://petitions.whitehouse.g...
https://www.change.org/p/indep...

Yeah, you're right - the Patriot Act is all about that evil fascist Bush, and his toadies Cheney and Rumsfeld.

I'm glad that Pres. Obama has stood strong against these government overreaches, and has never come out to publicly say something like, "But tomorrow -- Sunday, at midnight -- some important tools we use against terrorists will expire. That’s because Congress has not renewed them, and because legislation that would -- the USA Freedom Act -- is stuck in the Senate. I want to be very clear about what this means."

Oh wait, he did say exactly that. Maybe Obama is just as bad as Bush, friend.

found, something.

The second thing I want to just mention very quickly -- last week, Congress obviously was busy. It left town without finishing necessary work on FISA and some of the reforms that are necessary to the Patriot Act.

I said over a year ago that it was important for us to properly balance our needs for security with civil liberties. And this administration engaged on a bipartisan, bicameral basis, talking to Republicans and Democrats about how we could preserve necessary authorities but provide the public greater assurance that those authorities were not being abused.

The House of Representatives did its work and came up with what they’ve called the USA Freedom Act, which strikes an appropriate balance. Our intelligence communities are confident that they can work with the authorities that are provided in that act. It passed on a bipartisan basis and overwhelmingly. It was then sent to the Senate. The Senate did not act. And the problem we have now is that those authorities run out at midnight on Sunday.

So I strongly urge the Senate to work through this recess and make sure that they identify a way to get this done. Keep in mind that the most controversial provision in there, which had to do with the gathering of telephone exchanges in a single government database -- that has been reformed in the USA Freedom Act. But you have a whole range of authorities that are also embodied in the Patriot Act that are non-controversial, that everybody agrees are necessary to keep us safe and secure. Those also are at risk of lapsing.

So this needs to get done. And I would urge folks to just work through whatever issues can still exist, make sure we don't have, on midnight Sunday night, this task still undone, because it's necessary to keep the American people safe and secure.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the...

While this sounds like a terrific idea, I don't think it will work.

Your first scenario is not permissible (the "Do it" part is proscribed); a cop can't have sex to make an arrest, nor could the department legally require officers to have sex as part of their job.

The second scenario is plausible except that you assume that the LEOs have as much or more "firepower" than the gangs. In fact some kinds of crime pay so well that law enforcement is way over their heads trying to fight back. Maybe not so bad as what's going on in Mexico but bad enough. For example, http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9770.html suggests that the combined spending on the four drugs {marijuana, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine} is about $100 billion USD per year; more than half that figure remains even if you remove marijuana from the list. Compare that to the total federal law enforcement budget of about $28 billion https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2012/assets/justice.pdf which covers the whole gamut of criminality, not just drug sales. OK, stop the "war on drugs" and the cost will drop to zero. Organized crime (gangs) will just move on to a different lucrative area, whatever brings in the cash.

New York City's police budget, according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Police_Department is $4.8 billion and it covers everything from jaywalking to terrorist bombers. Police Commissioner Bratton can't even get the mayor to hire an additional 1,000 cops because the money just isn't in the budget.

Furthermore, LEO has to "play by the rules" when going after criminals; the gangs don't have to play fair, so they don't have to waste their resources doing things that don't benefit their illegal activities.

It would make a cool movie though :-)

America Should Stop Issuing Visas To Indians, The Most Racist People On Earth;
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
https://petitions.whitehouse.g...
http://www.change.org/p/indepe...

Your flatulence is destroying our climate. To the dinosaurs with you, stinkers!

Could this be an emerging Earth Sciences turf war between NOAA and NASA? Lately it seems more of a National Atmospheric Space Administration. Mission creep, much?

Nope, it's fully in compliance with the 2013 OMB memo on an Open Data policy. The subheading on that memo is 'Managing Information as an Asset', and there is a real lack of a comprehensive catalog of NASA's data. (note that this is *not* the same as the 2013 OSTP memo on public access to federally funded data, but they're related.)

Even with the re-design of data.nasa.gov, the content behind is is woefully incomplete. When I contacted the creator of the page years ago, he said that they just did some internet searches to find 'data', and then listed them. They were listing websites that mentioned data, not even breaking it down into missions & investigations.

Someone needs to go through and determine for every investigation from every project what data *should* be there, and figure out if it's online, if it's in a dark archive, if the PI still has it, or if it's missing. They should catalog it according to GEMS and possible DataCite (although assignment of 'creator' for the data might be something that needs to be resolved by each science community)

I had tried proposing something to the NASA IT Labs call shortly after the memo came out, but the people running it were blocking our network from being able to submit. I tried again in 2014, and they gave me an alternate way to submit, but they took weeks to get the work-around, and by then I was out of town for a meeting.

(disclaimer : if it's not obvious, I work at a NASA center)

Could this be an emerging Earth Sciences turf war between NOAA and NASA? Lately it seems more of a National Atmospheric Space Administration. Mission creep, much?

Nope, it's fully in compliance with the 2013 OMB memo on an Open Data policy. The subheading on that memo is 'Managing Information as an Asset', and there is a real lack of a comprehensive catalog of NASA's data. (note that this is *not* the same as the 2013 OSTP memo on public access to federally funded data, but they're related.)

Even with the re-design of data.nasa.gov, the content behind is is woefully incomplete. When I contacted the creator of the page years ago, he said that they just did some internet searches to find 'data', and then listed them. They were listing websites that mentioned data, not even breaking it down into missions & investigations.

Someone needs to go through and determine for every investigation from every project what data *should* be there, and figure out if it's online, if it's in a dark archive, if the PI still has it, or if it's missing. They should catalog it according to GEMS and possible DataCite (although assignment of 'creator' for the data might be something that needs to be resolved by each science community)

I had tried proposing something to the NASA IT Labs call shortly after the memo came out, but the people running it were blocking our network from being able to submit. I tried again in 2014, and they gave me an alternate way to submit, but they took weeks to get the work-around, and by then I was out of town for a meeting.

(disclaimer : if it's not obvious, I work at a NASA center)

Why USA is issuing H1B visas to most racist people on earth?
https://petitions.whitehouse.g...
https://www.change.org/p/presi...