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Proclamation -- National Health Center Week, 2013

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Archived Version

Source: White House.gov Press Office Feed

Fri, 09 Aug 2013 21:05

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

August 09, 2013

NATIONAL HEALTH CENTER WEEK, 2013

- - - - - - -

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A PROCLAMATION

Community health centers play a critical role in providing affordable, high-quality preventive and primary health care to millions of Americans. From urban centers to rural towns, they offer vital services regardless of ability to pay -- services that help patients stay healthy and avoid emergency room visits. During National Health Center Week, we recognize health centers' significant contributions to keeping America healthy, and we offer our continuing support to the dedicated providers who operate them.

Today, health centers operate thousands of clinics across our country. One in every fifteen people living in the United States depends on their services. They are an important source of jobs in many low-income communities, employing more than 148,000 people nationwide. And with clinical and support staff who are responsive to their communities' needs and cultures, health centers are important partners in our efforts to reduce health disparities. From coast to coast, they coordinate care and build professional, compassionate health care teams focused on improving patient outcomes.

My Administration has worked to strengthen this essential network. Through the Affordable Care Act and the Recovery Act, we have made significant investments that have helped health centers expand their work, which is now reaching more than 20 million people each year.

As millions of Americans gain access to more health insurance options through the Affordable Care Act, health centers remain as valuable as ever. They help community members understand their options, determine their eligibility, and review possibilities for financial assistance. With support and funding from the health care law, health centers are also helping the uninsured enroll in plans made available through the new Health Insurance Marketplace, as well as in Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program.

This week, we celebrate these valuable services and extend our thanks to the women and men who operate America's health centers.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim the week of August 11 through August 17, 2013, as National Health Center Week. I encourage all Americans to celebrate this week by visiting their local health center, meeting health center providers, and exploring the programs they offer to help keep families healthy.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this ninth day of August, in the year of our Lord two thousand thirteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-eighth.

BARACK OBAMA

Porcine Reproductive & Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS) - Disease of Pigs from The Pig Site. Pig Diseases List - The Pig Site

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Sun, 11 Aug 2013 13:20

Disease:

Use the above box to quickly switch to another disease

PRRS is caused by a virus which was first isolated and classified as an arterivirus as recently as 1991. The disease syndrome had been first recognised in the USA in the mid 1980's and was called "mystery swine disease". It has also been called blue ear disease. The name porcine arterivirus has been proposed recently.The virus of PRRS has a particular affinity for the macrophages particularly those found in the lung. Macrophages are part of the body defences. Those present in the lung are called alveolar macrophages. They ingest and remove invading bacteria and viruses but not in the case of the PRRS virus. Instead, the virus multiplies inside them producing more virus and kills the macrophages. Once it has entered a herd it tends to remain present and active indefinitely.

Up to 40% of the macrophages are destroyed which removes a major part of the bodies defence mechanism and allows bacteria and other viruses to proliferate and do damage.

A common example of this is the noticeable increase in severity of enzootic pneumonia in grower/finisher units when they become infected with PRRS virus.

It may take up to a year for all breeding stock, particularly in large herds, to become infected for the first time and although the virus appears to spread rapidly in a herd it may be some 4 -5 months before at least 90% of the sows have become sero-positive. Some sows remain naive. Furthermore, it is not uncommon for sow herds 1-2 years after infection to contain less than 20% of serological positive animals. This does not however necessarily mean they are not still immune nor does it mean that they have stopped passing on immunity to their offspring. Adult animals shed virus for much shorter periods of time (14 days) compared to growing pigs which can excrete for 1-2 months.

The clinical picture can vary tremendously from one herd to another. As a guide, for every three herds that are exposed to PRRS for the first time one will show no recognisable disease, the second would show mild disease and the third moderate to severe disease. The reasons for this are not clearly understood. However the higher the health status of the herd, the less severe are the disease effects. It may be that the virus is mutating as it multiplies, throwing up some strains that are highly virulent and some that are not.

PRRS infects all types of herd including high or ordinary health status and both indoor and outdoor units, irrespective of size.

SymptomsAcute diseaseWhen the virus first enters the breeding herd disease is seen in dry sows, lactating sows, sucking piglets and growers.

Sows

Clinical signs in dry sows during the first month of infection

Short periods of inappetence spreading over 7-14 days, 10-15% of sows at any one time.The body temperature may be elevated to 39-40°C (103-105°F).Abortions, often late term, may occur at a 1-6% level. These are often the first signs to be noted.Transient discoloration (blueing) of the ears may be seen (2% level. Blue ear disease).Some sows farrow slightly early. 10-15% over the first 4 weeks.Increased returns occur 21-35 days post-service.Prolonged anoestrus and delayed returns to heat post-weaning.Coughing and respiratory signs.Clinical signs in farrowing sows in the first month of infectionInappetence over the farrowing period.A reluctance to drink.No milk (agalactia) and mastitis - significant symptoms.Farrowings are often 2-3 days early.Discoloration of the skin and pressure sores associated with small vesicles.Lethargy.Respiratory signs.Mummified piglets. 10-15% may die in the last 3-4 weeks of pregnancy.Stillbirth levels increase up to 30%.Very weak piglets at birth.The initial phase of inappetence and fever will often take 3-6 weeks to move through.Cyanosis or blueing of the ears is a variable finding and less than 5% of sows show it. It is transient and may last for only a few hours.Coughing occurs in some sows and a few individual cases of clinical pneumonia may occur.This acute phase lasts in the herd for up to 6 weeks, and is characterised by early farrowings, increases in stillbirths, weak pigs and an increase in the numbers of large mummified pigs that have died in the last three weeks of pregnancy. In some herds, these may reach up to 30% of the total pigs born. Piglet mortality peaks at 70% in weeks 3 or 4 after the onset of symptoms and only returns to pre-infected levels after 8-12 weeks. The reproductive problems may persist for 4-8 months before returning to normal, however in some herds it may actually improve on the pre-PRRS performance.Longer term effects of PRRS on reproductive efficiency are difficult to assess, particularly in herds of low health status. In some there are increases in repeat matings, vulval discharges and abortions, all of which may be blamed on PRRS.The effects of PRRS on reproduction efficiency in herds in which the infection has become enzootic have been observed in the field for up to 12 months after disease has apparently settled.These are as follows:A 10-15% reduction in farrowing rate (90% of herds return to normality).Reduced numbers born alive.Increased stillbirths.Poor reproduction in gilts.Early farrowings.Increased levels of abortion (2-3%).Inappetence in sows at farrowing.PigletsMore diarrhoea.Less viable piglets.Increase in respiratory infections such as glassers disease.Signs in boarsInappetence.Increased body temperature.Lethargy.Loss of libido.Lowered fertility.Poor litter sizes.Lowered sperm output.Weaners & GrowersWhen first introduced into an EP and App free growing herd there may be few signs:

A period of slight inappetence.Mild coughing.Hairy wasting pigs.In some herds there are no symptoms.If EP and/or virulent App are present but not under control in the herd:An acute extensive consolidating pneumonia.Formation of multiple abscesses.Disease becomes evident within 1-3 weeks of weaning.Pigs lose condition.Diarrhoea may be seen.Pale skin.Mild coughing.Sneezing.Discharges from the eyes.Increased respiratory rates.Mortality during this period may reach 12-15%.Once the acute period of disease has passed through PRRS virus normally only becomes of significance in the early growing period:Severe pneumonia.Periods of inappetence.Wasting.Pigs become infected as maternal antibody disappears and then remain viraemic for 3 to 4 weeks continually excreting virus. Clinical disease is seen in pigs 4 to 12 weeks of age:Inappetence.Malabsorption.Wasting.Coughing.Pneumonia.In this post-weaning period mortality can rise up to 12% or more and persist inspite of antibiotic treatments.Secondary bacterial infections become evident in pigs at a later stage from 12 to 16 weeks of age:Abscesses develop in the lungs and may spread throughout the body.Lameness with abscesses.Poor stunted growth.Causes / Contributing factorsThe following are common methods of spread and contribute to overall disease levels.Droplet contamination from older pigs to younger pigs.Nasal secretions, saliva, faeces and urinePermanently populated houses maintain the virus at high levels, particularly in the first and second stage nurseries.Movement of carrier pigs.Airborne transmission up to 3km (2 miles).Adult animals excrete virus for much shorter periods of time (14 days) compared to growing pigs which can excrete for 1-2 months.Mechanical means via faeces, dust, droplets and contaminated equipment, lorries etc.Contaminated boots and clothing.Vehicles especially in cold weather.Artificial insemination but only if the boar is viraemic. This period is probably only 3-4 days.The mallard duck and probably other species of bird.DiagnosisThis is based on the clinical signs, post mortem examinations and the known presence of the virus in the herd or by serological examinations and isolation of the virus in a laboratory.If the herd has not been exposed to PRRS then blood sampling and testing a minimum of 12 adult animals (preferably those that have been off their food at least three weeks) provides a reliable means of diagnosis.

Click on the links below to find out more about this disease, including treatment, management control and prevention information. The top link is the main article on this disease.

Spinning

Facism

Apple's Tim Cook, tech executives meet with Barack Obama to talk surveillance - Tony Romm - POLITICO.com

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Sat, 10 Aug 2013 21:27

The White House has declined to provide details about its new outreach. | AP Photo

ClosePresident Barack Obama hosted Apple CEO Tim Cook, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, Google computer scientist Vint Cerf and other tech executives and civil liberties leaders on Thursday for a closed-door meeting about government surveillance, sources tell POLITICO.

The session, which Obama attended himself, followed a similar gathering earlier this week between top administration officials, tech-industry lobbyists and leading privacy hawks, the sources said. Those earlier, off-the-record discussions centered on the controversy surrounding the NSA as well as commercial privacy issues such as online tracking of consumers.

Continue Reading

The White House has declined to provide any details about its new outreach since the beginning of the week. A spokesman didn't comment Thursday about the high-level meeting with the president '-- and the companies and groups invited also kept quiet when contacted by POLITICO.

(PHOTOS: Pols, pundits weigh in on NSA report)

Obama has promised more public debate about the country's counterterrorism policies and privacy safeguards amid a deluge of criticism about the NSA's controversial surveillance programs. As the steady stream of revelations continues, however, the White House has chosen to meet quietly with tech executives and consumer groups behind closed doors.

The administration's outreach began Tuesday, when chief of staff Denis McDonough and general counsel Kathy Ruemmler convened a privacy-focused huddle in the Roosevelt Room. Joining them were representatives from the Information Technology Industry Council, TechNet and TechAmerica, which together represent a diverse swath of the tech industry '-- from major defense contractors to companies like Facebook, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Privacy Information Center were also present, sources said.

While the White House at the time declined to comment, one administration aide, speaking to POLITICO ahead of the Tuesday session, portrayed it as part of a larger campaign.

(WATCH: Obama defends NSA surveillance)

''This is one of a number of discussions the administration is having with experts and stakeholders in response to the president's directive to have a national dialogue about how to best protect privacy in a digital era, including how to respect privacy while defending our national security,'' the official said.

The second meeting Thursday, however, was organized with greater secrecy.

Those invited were mostly senior executives, including Cook, Stephenson and Cerf, as well as representatives of groups like the Center for Democracy and Technology and Gigi Sohn, the leader of Public Knowledge, according to three sources familiar with the meeting. Each declined comment for this story.

As the White House consulted with industry, though, some members of Congress continued their push for legislation adding new checks to federal surveillance programs.

(WATCH: Obama: 'Nobody is listening to your telephone calls')

''Trust and credibility depend on the appearance of fairness and accountability. My fear is that some of those agencies and institutions are in peril of losing it,'' said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) during a speech Thursday at Harvard Law School.

The senator is sponsoring a bill that would create a new, adversarial public-interest defender before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which approves government requests to companies for user data. And Blumenthal also seeks to redo the FISC judge selection process to get more diverse voices on its bench.

''The purpose of the debate is to make sure we have both liberty and security,'' he said.

Michelle Quinn contributed to this report.

We need Big Tech to protect us from Big Brother | Jeff Jarvis | Comment is free | theguardian.com

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Sat, 10 Aug 2013 21:37

Technology companies: now is the moment when you must answer for us, your users, whether you are collaborators in the US government's efforts to "collect it all" '' our every move on the internet '' or whether you, too, are victims of its overreach.

Every company named in Edward Snowden's revelations has said that it must comply with government demands, including requirements to keep secret court orders secret. True enough. But there's only so long they can hide behind that cloak before making it clear whether they are resisting government's demands or aiding in them. And now, the time has come to go farther: to use both technology and political capital to actively protect the public's privacy. Who will do that?

We now know, thanks to Snowden, of at least three tiers of technology companies enmeshed in the NSA's hoovering of our net activity (we don't yet know whether the NSA has co-opted companies from the financial, retail, data services, and other industries):

(1) Internet platforms that provide services directly to consumers, allowing government to demand access to signals about us: Google with search, mail, calendars, maps; Facebook with connections; Skype with conversations, and so on.

In its first Prism reporting, the Washington Post apparently unfairly fingered nine of these companies, accusing the NSA and FBI of "tapping directly into the central servers" that hold our "chats, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs". Quickly, the companies repudiated that claim and sought the right to report at least how many secret demands are made. But there's more they can and should do.

(2) Communications brands with consumer relationships that hand over metadata and/or open taps on internet traffic for collection by the NSA and Britain's GCHQ, creating vast databases that can then be searched via XKeyscore. Verizon leads that list, and we know from the S¼ddeutsche Zeitung that it also includes BT and Vodafone.

(3) Bandwidth providers that enable the NSA and its international partners to snoop on the net, wholesale. The S¼ddeutsche lists the three telco brands above in addition to Level 3, Global Crossing, Viatel, and Interroute. Eric King, head of research for Privacy International, asked in the Guardian: "Were the companies strong-armed, or are they voluntary intercept partners?"

The bulk data carriers have no consumer brands or relationships and thus are probably the least likely to feel commercial pressure to protect the rights of the users at the edge. The telephone companies should care more but they operate as oligopolies with monopoly attitudes and rarely exhibit consumer empathy (which is a nice way of saying their business models are built on customer imprisonment).

A hodgepodge alliance of US legislators is finally waking up to the need and opportunity to stand up for citizens' rights, but they will be slow and, don't we know, ineffective and often uninformed. The courts will be slower and jealous of their power. Diplomacy's the slowest route to reform yet, dealing in meaningless symbolism.

So our strongest expectations must turn to the first tier above, the consumer internet platforms. They have the most to lose '' in trust and thus value '' in taking government's side against us.

At the Guardian Activate conference in London last month, I asked Vint Cerf, an architect of the net and evangelist for Google, about encrypting our communication as a defense against NSA spying. He suggested that communication should be encrypted into and out of internet companies' servers (thwarting, or so we'd hope, the eavesdropping on the net's every bit over telcos' fibre) '' but should be decrypted inside the companies' servers so they could bring us added value based on the content: a boarding pass on our phone, a reminder from our calendar, an alert about a story we're following (not to mention a targeted ad).

Now, there are reports that Google is looking at encrypting at least documents stored in Google Drive. That is wise in any case, as often, these can contain users' sensitive company and personal information. I now think Google et al need to go farther and make encryption an option on any information. I don't want encryption to be the default because, in truth, most of my digital life is banal and I'd like to keep getting those handy calendar reminders. But technology companies need to put the option and power of data security directly into users' hands.

That also means that the technology companies have to reach out and work with each other to enable encryption and other protections across their services. I learned the hard way how difficult it is to get simple answers to questions about how to encrypt email. The industry should work hard to make that an option on every popular service.

But let's be clear that encryption is not the solution, probably only a speed bump to the NSA's omnivorous ingesting. At the Activate conference, Cerf was asked whether the solution in the end will be technical or institutional. No doubt, institutional, he answered. That means that companies and government agencies must operate under stated principles and clear laws with open oversight.

Before Snowden's leaks, technology CEOs would have had to balance co-operation and resistance, just as the nation supposedly balances security and privacy. But now, the tide of public opinion has clearly shifted '' at least for now '' and so this is the moment to grab control of the issue.

If they do not assert that clear control, these technology companies risk losing business '' not only from skittish consumers, but also from corporate and foreign-government clients. The Cloud Security Alliance polled companies and found that 10% had canceled US cloud business and 56% were less likely to do business with US providers. "If businesses or governments think they might be spied on," said European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes, "they will have less reason to trust the cloud, and it will be cloud providers who ultimately miss out."

Besides taking action to secure technology and oversight within their companies and the industry, right-thinking technology companies also need to band together to use their political capital to lobby governments across the world to protect the rights of users and the freedom and sanctity of privacy and speech on the net. They must take bold and open stands.

To do that, they must first decide on the principles they should protect. In my book Public Parts, I proposed some principles to discuss, among them:

' the idea that if any bit on the net is stopped or detoured '' or spied upon '' then no bit and the net itself cannot be presumed to be free;

' that the net must remain open and distributed, commandeered and corrupted by no government;

' that citizens have a right to speak, assemble, and act online and thus have a right to connect without fear;

' that privacy is an ethic of knowing someone else's information and coming by it openly;

' and that government must become transparent by default and secret by necessity (there are necessary secrets). Edward Snowden has shown us all too clearly that the opposite is now true.

I also believe that we must see a discussion of principles and ethics from the technologists inside these companies. One reason I have given Google the benefit of the doubt '' besides being an admirer '' is that I believe the engineers I know inside Google would not stay if they saw it violating their ethics, even if under government order.

Yonathan Zunger, the chief architect of Google+, said this after the Guardian's and Glenn Greenwald's first revelations were published:

I can tell you that it is a point of pride, both for the company and for many of us, personally, that we stand up to governments that demand people's information '... I can categorically state that nothing resembling the mass surveillance of individuals by governments within our systems has ever crossed my plate. If it had, even if I couldn't talk about it, in all likelihood I would no longer be working at Google.

In the end, it's neither technologies nor institutions that will secure us from the inexorable overreach of government curiosity in the face of technical capability. Responsibility for oversight and correction begins with individuals, whether whistleblowers or renegade politicians or employees of conscience who finally remind those in power:

Don't be evil.

Apple 2 - 0 Samsung; Are The Lobbying Dollars About To Pay Off Again?

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Archived Version

Source: Zero Hedge

Sun, 11 Aug 2013 04:11

Last week we witnessed the almost unprecedented veto intervention in the Apple-Samsung patent debate. Last night, after the market had closed, the hits kept coming for the South Korean company as the Cupertino crushed showed the ITC that Samsung's infringements should mean a sales and import ban in the US. As Reuters reports, the decision is likely to inflame passions in the long-running dispute since the decision will now - once again - go to President Barack Obama, who has 60 days to review them and decide whether to side with the American company that 'donated' $16.5mm to his campaign or the South Korean market-share 'stealer' that only gave $3.7 million in offerings at the altar of hope-and-change. While some are calling foul so soon after the veto, with South Korean government officials 'observing' closely, even the US Trade Representative is against the proposed Samsung ban, citing "competitive conditions and the effect on the US consumer."

Hhhmm, we wonder who Obama will pick in this 'tricky' debate?

Via Reuters,

...

The U.S. International Trade Commission on Friday ruled that South Korea's Samsung infringes on portions of two Apple Inc patents on digital mobile devices, covering the detection of headphone jacks and operation of touchscreens.

The decision is likely to inflame passions in the long-running dispute and could spark a rebuke from South Korea.

The panel moved to prohibit Samsung from importing, selling and distributing devices in the United States that infringe on certain claims on the patents. It is unclear how many Samsung phones and devices would be subject to the ban.

All exclusion orders are sent to President Barack Obama, who has 60 days to review them. If he does not veto the order, it will go into effect.

...

But it comes less than a week after the Obama administration overturned an ITC decision from June that would have banned the sales of some older-model Apple iPhones and iPads in the United States for violating Samsung patents.

U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman vetoed the ban on Saturday, cited its "effect on competitive conditions in the U.S. economy and the effect on U.S. consumers."

That move, the first veto of an ITC ruling in decades, triggered concerns in the South Korean government and led to closer scrutiny of Friday's ruling than usual.

Letting the ban on Samsung devices stand after having so recently intervened in the Apple case could spur allegations the administration is showing favoritism toward Cupertino, California's Apple.

...

"We are disappointed that the ITC has issued an exclusion order based on two of Apple's patents. However, Apple has been stopped from trying to use its overbroad design patents to achieve a monopoly on rectangles and rounded corners," Adam Yates, a Samsung spokesman, said in a statement.

...

The current case has dragged on for two years.

Average:Your rating: NoneAverage: 5(1 vote)

Apple Turns Tables Seeking U.S. Samsung Phone Sales Ban - Bloomberg

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Archived Version

Thu, 08 Aug 2013 20:49

Apple Inc. (AAPL) is trying to force Samsung Electronics Co.'s mobile devices off U.S. store shelves a week after dodging an iPhone 4 ban by a rare White House veto.

The company will ask a U.S. appeals court tomorrow to block sales of Samsung models a California jury found violated patents for the iPhone's look and features. Later, a U.S. trade agency is expected to say if it will halt some Samsung imports based on other Apple patent-infringement claims.

For Cupertino, California-based Apple, making Samsung change or stop selling some smartphones and tablet computers is more important than money. The $1 billion verdict it won at trial last year equals less than two weeks' worth of iPhone sales and one-seventh of Samsung's second-quarter profit.

''Sometimes, the money's not enough,'' said Ray Van Dyke, a technology-patent lawyer with the Van Dyke Firm in Washington. ''Between Apple and Samsung, it's about who's going to be the top dog. You want to shut them down. This is the club. You can beat them into submission with a club and maintain your top dog status.''

Apple and Samsung together make almost half of all smartphones sold, with Samsung holding the title of world's biggest and the two companies vying to be No. 1 in the U.S.

The two companies are spending millions of dollars in legal fees battling across four continents. Neither has been able to strike a crippling blow. An import ban that could have halted some of Apple's older iPhone 4 and iPad 2 3G models at the U.S. border was vetoed by President Barack Obama's administration last week.

1 PercentSlowing Samsung's momentum will be hard -- most of the models named in Apple's patent cases are no longer sold as Samsung regularly introduces new devices in different price ranges. The company said it has designed around the Apple patents in newer products.

''Samsung's U.S. sales of the older products in question are very small, which accounts for even less than 1 percent of the company's total handset sales there,'' said Kim Young Chan, a Seoul-based analyst at Shinhan Investment Corp.

Based on Samsung's filings with the U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington, the impact will depend on the wording of any import ban imposed by the agency. A broadly worded order finding infringement of Apple's patent for the phone's front design ''could create an immediate shortage of millions of mobile devices,'' the filing said.

Koreans WatchingThe trade commission, which investigates unfair trade practices, is scheduled tomorrow to announce results of its review of a judge's findings that some Samsung models infringed four Apple patents.

If there is a violation, the commission could order a ban on imports. That too would be subject to review by the Obama administration, and the Korean Ministry of Trade said Aug. 5 it would be watching the case.

''Obama may issue the reprieve again for Samsung, and if not, it will only bring up even bigger international conflict,'' said Lee Sun Tae, an analyst at Seoul-based NH Investment & Securities said by phone. ''Consumers no longer care about Samsung's 'copycat' image any more as it has somewhat vanished, because even with the ongoing litigation, the Galaxy S sales have continued to rise.''

While the patents in the two cases aren't the same, some of the products overlap, including the Epic 4G and the Indulge that are now available only in pre-owned models. The Galaxy S II, the precursor to the company's top-selling Galaxy S4, was cleared by the ITC judge of infringing Apple's design patent.

'Meticulous Copying'The cases tomorrow involve different legal standards over the same basic issue -- Apple's ability to halt Samsung's sales.

Apple will ask the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, which specializes in patent law, to overturn District Judge Lucy Koh's 2012 order that lets Samsung continue selling devices found to infringe Apple patents. Koh said Apple didn't prove patented features and designs drove consumer sales, so Apple could be made whole with money.

''Samsung has chosen to compete not through innovation, but through calculated and meticulous copying of Apple's popular iPhone and iPad,'' Apple said in a filing with the appeals court. ''After the iPhone's success, Samsung's phones became iPhone clones.''

'Limited Features'Samsung, which denies infringing the patents, will urge the appeals court to uphold the ruling as it hasn't even yet determined whether the jury was right in finding infringement.

''The most Apple did was to introduce evidence that some consumers value 'design' and 'ease of use' in general, a far cry from a showing that the limited features covered by Apple's design and utility patents drive consumer demand for Samsung products,'' Samsung said in its own filing with the court.

The ruling could have broad implications for any company that owns patents for features or components of complex products, like a smartphone or computer.

Google Inc. (GOOG), which owns the Android operating system that Samsung phones use, urged the appeals court to uphold Koh's ruling. ''The owner of a trivial patent has no reasonable expectation of more than trivial compensation,'' Google said in a filing that was joined by Rackspace Hosting Inc. (RAX), HTC Corp. (2498)Red Hat Inc. (RHT) and SAP Inc.

Nokia Oyj (NOK1V), which was supplanted as the world's biggest maker of mobile phones by Samsung, said Koh's ruling ''threatens to turn the traditional purpose of patent law on its head'' and force patent owners to accept compulsory licenses for differentiating features.

The Apple ITC case against Samsung is In the Matter of Electronic Digital Media Devices, 337-796, and Samsung's case is In the Matter of Electronic Devices, Including Wireless Communication Devices, Portable Music and Data Processing Devices, and Tablet Computers, 337-794, both U.S. International Trade Commission (Washington).

The Apple appeal is Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co. (005930), 13-1129, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Washington). The lower court case is Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., 11-cv-01846, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Jose).

To contact the reporters on this story: Susan Decker in Washington at sdecker1@bloomberg.net; Jungah Lee in Seoul at jlee1361@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Bernard Kohn at bkohn2@bloomberg.net; Michael Tighe at mtighe4@bloomberg.net

Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. together make almost half of all smartphones sold, with Samsung holding the title of world's biggest and the two companies vying to be No. 1 in the U.S. Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg

3:44

Aug. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Richard Windsor, founder of radiofreemobile.com and an independent technology consultant, talks about the U.S. decision to overturn an import ban on Apple Inc.'s older iPhones and iPads, allowing the company to continue selling the iPhone 4. He speaks from Dubai with Francine Lacqua on Bloomberg Television's "On the Move." (Source: Bloomberg)

Some Samsung imports banned in US patent case

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Archived Version

Source: Phys.org - latest science and technology news stories

Sat, 10 Aug 2013 12:55

Some Samsung imports banned in US patent caseJavascript is currently disabled in your web browser. For full site functionality, it is necessary to enable Javascript. In order to enable it, please see these instructions.2 hours agoThe US International Trade Commission has blocked imports of some Samsung electronic devices, backing complaints by Apple that the South Korean company violated its patents. The ruling was the latest in a long-running global legal battle over alleged patent infringement between the two smartphone and tablet giants.

The US International Trade Commission blocked imports of some older model Samsung mobile devices following complaints by Apple that the South Korean company had violated its patents.

The ruling by the Washington-based trade body was the latest in a long-running and bitter global battle over alleged patent infringement between the two smartphone and tablet computer giants.

The ITC ruled that Samsung had infringed two Apple patents'--numbers 949 and 501, dealing with touchscreen actions and headphone jack plug-ins'--but cleared the South Korean company of charges that it had violated four more.

Apple welcomed the ITC ruling while Samsung expressed its disappointment.

"With today's decision, the ITC has joined courts around the world in Japan, Korea, Germany, Netherlands and California by standing up for innovation and rejecting Samsung's blatant copying of Apple's products," Apple said in a statement.

"Protecting real innovation is what the patent system should be about," it said.

Spokesman Adam Yates said Samsung is "disappointed that the ITC has issued an exclusion order based on two of Apple's patents."

"However, Apple has been stopped from trying to use its overbroad design patents to achieve a monopoly on rectangles and rounded corners," Yates said, referring to design features at issue in rejected patent claims.

"The proper focus for the smartphone industry is not a global war in the courts, but fair competition in the marketplace.

"Samsung will continue to launch many innovative products and we have already taken measures to ensure that all our products will continue to be available in the United States," the Samsung spokesman said.

The US International Trade Commission ruled that Samsung had infringed two Apple patents'--numbers 949 and 501, dealing with touchscreen actions and headphone jack plug-ins'--but cleared the South Korean company of charges that it had violated four more.

It was unclear precisely which devices would be targeted in the ban, but it was aimed at early model smartphones and tablets that are no longer hot products in the United States.

"It really doesn't mean that much," independent Silicon Valley analyst Rob Enderle said of the ITC ruling.

"It is not the new stuff they are talking about, but the older devices that are more likely to be shipped to emerging markets than here."

The import block is subject to a review by the White House and Samsung will be allowed to continue to sell the items at issue during the two-month review period.

The ITC ruling raised the question of whether US President Barack Obama's administration will once again intervene in a patent fight playing out between the companies at the agency.

Less than a week ago, the US Trade Representative overturned an ITC ruling in a patent suit brought by Samsung against Apple that would have banned the sale of certain iPads and iPhones in the United States.

It was the first time the USTR has overruled the commission since 1987, and South Korea's trade ministry made its feelings clear at the time.

Legal analysts point out that a critical difference in the cases is that the USTR intervened regarding patents deemed "standards essential," indicating that the technology involved was needed to comply with industry standards.

An Apple iPhone 4s (L) and a Samsung's Galaxy S3 are shown at a mobile phone shop in Seoul on August 27, 2012. Samsung has taken pains to modify smartphone and tablet designs to avoid attacks over Apple patents.

"Our ministry expresses concern about negative impacts the decision by the USTR will have on protecting patents held by Samsung," the company said in a statement at the time.

The ITC ruling also opens a door for Apple to try to use the same patent violation claim against newer Samsung gadgets that have incorporated the same technology.

Samsung has taken pains to modify smartphone and tablet designs to avoid attacks over Apple patents.

"I don't think this decision will reverberate much through Samsung's product line," Enderle said.

In a separate battle in US federal court, Samsung was ordered last August to pay more than $1 billion for patent infringement, a ruling which also opens the door to a ban on some Samsung devices.

A judge later slashed the award to $598.9 million. Apple continues its quest to get other Samsung mobile devices banned in that case.

Legal brawls between Samsung and Apple became common after the South Korean company began gobbling smartphone market share with devices powered by Google's free Android operating system.

Explore further:Obama administration overrules Apple import ban

(C) 2013 AFP

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Some Samsung imports banned in US patent caseJavascript is currently disabled in your web browser. For full site functionality, it is necessary to enable Javascript. In order to enable it, please see these instructions.2 hours agoThe US International Trade Commission has blocked imports of some Samsung electronic devices, backing complaints by Apple that the South Korean company violated its patents. The ruling was the latest in a long-running global legal battle over alleged patent infringement between the two smartphone and tablet giants.

The US International Trade Commission blocked imports of some older model Samsung mobile devices following complaints by Apple that the South Korean company had violated its patents.

The ruling by the Washington-based trade body was the latest in a long-running and bitter global battle over alleged patent infringement between the two smartphone and tablet computer giants.

The ITC ruled that Samsung had infringed two Apple patents'--numbers 949 and 501, dealing with touchscreen actions and headphone jack plug-ins'--but cleared the South Korean company of charges that it had violated four more.

Apple welcomed the ITC ruling while Samsung expressed its disappointment.

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Samsung has taken pains to modify smartphone and tablet designs to avoid attacks over Apple patents.

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In a separate battle in US federal court, Samsung was ordered last August to pay more than $1 billion for patent infringement, a ruling which also opens the door to a ban on some Samsung devices.

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Explore further:Obama administration overrules Apple import ban

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EUROLand

GLOBAL LOOTING: The new EU bailin law was passed 8 days ago'....did you notice? | The Slog. 3-D bollocks deconstruction

Link to Article

Archived Version

Fri, 09 Aug 2013 18:21

Are you a citizen with rights, or just a helpless crustacean?

Three beaming eurocrats '' Barroso, Van Rompuy and Lithuanian Dalia Grybauskaite '' emerged triumphant from a session two days ago, in which they mapped out the biggest bank heist in world history. This is to put flesh on the eurozone law hastily passed on August 1st (while EU citizens were on holiday) to deal with the inevitability event of a bank collapse. Under this draft proposal '' which many expect to be applied to the entire EU '' no depositor big or small will in future be able to feel safe with money deposited in a bank. The Slog now calls for those who represent us, across the entire cultural spectrum of European society '' to do something.

In a barely read piece a month ago, the International Business Times reported on the rapidly drafted new EU law for ''overhauling its policy on how banks receive bumper bailouts''. Be aware: this is an EU move, not a eurozone move: it is already law (it passed on August 1st) and although for now it applies only to the eurozone, it is an EU law. Hardly anyone has commented on this, but the approach being taken matches word for word the 3-card trick George Osborne used six weeks ago when he said:

''In future, taxpayers will not be called upon to bail banks out. It will be down to the creditors and the owners''.

The most remarkable example of double-speak to date, at the time I pointed out that creditors are taxpayers (they're account holders, simple as that) and so as the Establishments daren't ask us for higher taxes to bail out their mates in the banking system, they will take it via, if you like, Direct Debit. It is exactly the same principle of stealing the Troika wishes to apply to Greek private pension funds.

The initial piece at the IBT website noted that 'Eurozone leaders agreed upon the major policy shift and also confirmed that the new rules will help protect the taxpayer and move the burden of bailing out the banks onto shareholders and junior debt holders.'' Again, more bollocks: how will ripping your money out protect you? And note '' junior debt holders'...aka, you and I.

But yesterday from the German site Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten (German Economic News) came a piece reporting that all bets are off as far as the 'guarantee of all funds under '‚¬100,000'² pledge is concerned. Under the current Lithuanian Presidency of Dalia Grybauskaite (seen left between a Trot and a poet), the proposal as drafted '' and almost entirely ignored by the Western media '' states as follows:

* Treatment will not be the same regardless of size of deposit, BUT small account holders will have to wait up to four weeks to get their money'....'depending on how serious the insolvency is'. During that time, there will be a maximum withdrawal of '‚¬100-200 per day '' again, perhaps less depending on the seriousness of the failure. (Based on the Cyprus experience, the haircut in the end will be at least 60%).

* The EU Parliament '' allegedly '' is demanding that deposits of '‚¬100,000+ euros should be confiscated within five days. (So much for MEPs offering us some kind of protection from the Sprouts).

* In the event of a banking collapse, all previous government commitments are null and void. The force majeur of ''exceptional circumstances'' can lead to ways round such pledges. Part of the new plan suggests savers could also be subject to a 'penalty tax' if they have less than '‚¬ 100,000 in the bank. (So much for Merkel's promise to the German people).

George Orwell could've dropped acid and still not come up with a scheme quite so assumptive and brazenly deranged as this one. It is based on the following insane principles:

1. Putting money in a bank makes every citizen a creditor of that bank, equally prone to confiscation in order to repay'....who exactly? The answer is, other banks it owed money. So it's not really our money after all, it's the banking sector's money. After it's been taxed by the Government, despite the fact that we earned it'...it's really all bankers' money after all. Unbelievable.

2. If we are prudent enough to keep money in smaller amounts in lots of accounts, we will have to pay a 'penalty tax' '' well of course we will: I mean, given it's never our money really '' we're just borrowing it, or something '' then quite right too. And because it isn't really our money, we shall be given strictly limited spending money per day. The brass neck is beyond belief.

3. If you have been seditious enough in your life to actually make quite a lot of money legally, then within five days the money that was never really yours will be taken back by its rightful owners'...the bankers'....or the Government rescuing the bankers but without doing it in our taxes. Why five days '' why not five seconds? I mean, it's their money: we were just earning it for safe keeping, right? Of course we were.

4. Anything is an exceptional circumstance if they say it is. Even the Nazis in 1933 had to burn down the bloody Reichstag to declare a State of Emergency. In 2013, it requires just one dumb, over-leveraged, f**kwitted bank to collapse under the weight of its CEO's ego, and we're all pauperised by Law.

I think the time has finally come when we must give our legislators and 'leaders' here in the UK a gigantic kick up the jacksy. And I think the time has come for every decent organisation to mobilise even Wayne and Waynetta to GTF off the sofa and start making it clear to the scheming Wankers of Westminster that we're not having any of this crap here in Britain.

As I tried to point out two years ago, this is no longer a political issue. This is a case of one simple rule by which decent citizens must abide: stealing things is wrong'...especially when it's done to repair your own stupid decisions in the past.

These are the questions we should address to everyone supposed to represent us, starting today:

1. To German Sloggers, demand Angela Merkel make the safety of ALL EU citizens' bank money a solid Election pledge next month.

2. To the Christian, Jewish, Muslim and humanist leaderships of Britain: start an outcry in the media. Why aren't you giving your parishioners more support? Where is the outcry about pilfering from innocent citizens? Where is the condemnations of illegal, amoral confiscation?

3. To the anti-EU Conservative Right, to UKip and its leader Nigel Farage, to our MEPs '' especially Dan Hannan: do you realise the delayed referendum on EU membership will come far too late to stop this? When are you going to start spelling this out to your supporters and media contacts that this is now a matter of citizen survival? Why hasn't there been uproar in the European Parliament about this? You guys talk a good game, but where's the line in the sand?

4. To the TUC: Your members are about to be fleeced by the Co-op's management, and stand to be ruined by the EU's ECB-driven policy of slashing both the wages and assets of the European workforce. Can we have less political point-scoring, and more ecumenical organising action?

5. To the Labour Party leadership: show that you truly are our friend in tough times. Stop doing bloody focus groups and poncing about between the lines of bland policy statements designed to make you look harmlessly voteworthy. Come back off your holidays and take a stand '' when are you going to start hounding Camerlot bigtime on this iniquitous policy? Or are you complicit in it? Please tell us.

6. To the whingers and it-won't-make-any-difference-it's-nothing-to-do-with-me brigade: sorry, but you just ran out of road. Like it or not, you're involved. Start a movement now to remove every penny of current account and deposit monies from the bank. Are you a live Homo sapiens, or a braindead lobster?

The Co-operative scandal is just the beginning. They are going to take our money and leave us all penniless'....at their mercy. To combat this, we really don't need any slogan beyond this one:

Last night at The Slog: How hype took over from hope

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GLOBAL LOOTING: The new EU bailin law was hurried through alright'...but the template was premeditated | The Slog. 3-D bollocks deconstruction

Link to Article

Archived Version

Sun, 11 Aug 2013 12:17

Deutsche Bank'.....two left feet

It's becoming clearer with each day that passes why the EC rushed its new bailin law through the European Parliament at the beginning of this month. When the US returns from vacations after September 2nd '' and even more so once the German elections take place on September 22nd '' we can expect to see the brakes come off eurobank insolvency. But this is a race against time: Angela Merkel's fate hangs in the balance, and there are clear signs that the bomb might go off prematurely.

Almost exactly a year before the Cyprus bailout, EU Directive 2012/0150 COD was drafted with a view to creating a template for future banking collapses. Its proposals mirror pretty exactly what happened in Cyprus '' viz, a prototype bailin. Written in June 2012, it points clearly to the conclusion that Cyprus was a premeditated crime on the part of Brussels-am-Berlin.

The most obvious reference in the document is this one (my emphasis):

'In any case, if the institution under resolution fails and does not have sufficient funds to repay depositors, the universality of proceedings ensure the equal treatment of creditors irrespective of their nationality, place of residence or domicile'.....In order to ensure the equal treatment of creditors, [EU] Company Law Directives contain rules for the protection of shareholders and creditors. Some of these rules may hinder rapid action by resolution authorities.'

Brussels sources say those safeguards have been quietly, but totally, dumped. The new Law '' part of a batch relating to the Monetary Union road map '' is, if you like, a post-rationalisation of what happened in Cyprus. But it is also a preparation for what the Eunatics know is coming down the line. What started off as a premeditated plan has suddenly become a matter of urgency. Here's why.

My Madrid source has been saying for several months now that the Spanish banking system is being quietly propped up by the usual Peter-pays-Paul bollocks Draghi comes up with. Global Economic Analysis blogger Mish sums up the reality thus:

'Spain's exposure to Portuguese sovereign debt and unrealized losses on real estate loans are two reasons a collapse is inevitable'....Spanish bank exposure to Portugal today is higher than French bank exposure to Greece in early 2010'....A restructuring of Portuguese sovereign debt similar to the one completed by Greece, which involved haircuts of over 50%, would wreak havoc on Spain's banking system.'

Well beyond Spain, Europe's biggest banks '' which have more than doubled their highest-quality capital to meet tougher rules '' still have a long way to go in order to satisfy EC/ECB regulators'...hence all the scurrying about with rights issues of late. But ringing and Skyping around the Continent last Friday, three large banks were on most people's lists'....and seven were mentioned in all.

Perhaps one of the more surprising of these is Barclays (not domiciled in the ezone, but huge across the EU) in that many observers see the banks' rights issue as likely to be a flop. This is accurately reflected by the fact that its shares closed nearly 6% lower after the bank said last month that it would issue £5.8bn in shares to meet new EU requirements. More disturbing are the recurrent rumours about ''cans full of worms'' in the bank, although there is nothing specific to go on.

The most worrying potential casualty '' certainly for the inhabitants of the Chancellery '' remains DeutscheBank. The main contention is that the bank has taken a colossal hit on currency swaps. Last month Max Keiser described the bank as 'on suicide watch', and in June FDIC vice chairman Thomas Hoenig called Deutsche ''horribly undercapitalised''. German Sloggers continue to insist that DB is being secretly propped up with government money. There are of course elements in Frankfurt who would love to see more solid bad news from Deutsche to put the CDU completely on the spot; but they remain careful about what they wish for.

The third most commonly mentioned bank in the 'troubled' category is SocGen. Look at the numbers on French banking exposure to Greece, and you will see how massively the French dumped their toxic waste onto the ECB after 2010. In some ways, that's bad for Greece (dumping Athens wouldn't collapse the French system today) but like every country in the West, there's lots of sub-sub-glub-glub underwater subprime in there.

In Italy, multiply bailed-out Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA is not widely expected to make it to the finishing line. Italy's central bank continues its own Peter-pays-Paul version of the endless circulating money game with MdP, but that show is now so obvious to everyone, it's hard to see how it can stay on the road, let alone finish up anywhere safe. Standard & Poor's cut the ratings of 18 Italian banks during the last week of July saying the ''recession will be longer than expected''. I must confess I don't know of anyone who expected it to be short, but there you go.

However, the Slog favourite for Collapse of the Century so far remains Royal Bank of Scotland. I said last week that all this bollocks about the taxpayers getting their money back was, er, bollocks, and this morning Vince Cable as good as admitted that, by saying RBS ''will be in public hands for another five years''. It's actually going to be a large piece of Stonehenge on our backs, but let's not split hairs. It is a gigantic collapse waiting to happen, and in my view it is inevitable. I really do not see how breaking it up is going to help.

Last but not least, The Cooperative Bank is technically insolvent already. As I explained recently, it is the Bailin Which Dare not Speak it's Name down Westminster way, so dearly would all Parties in da House like this turd to be flushed away. But it refuses so to do'....and the longer they dither, the worse it's going to get. Basically, what's happening here is that 'bondholders' (who are really old and poor folks converted from depositors some time ago) are going to be treated the same as any trick-or-treat Hedge Fund, in order to bail out the larger account customers'....who just happen to include the LibDems, the Labour Party, and the TUC. The Co-op and the Unions in turn bankroll a great many Labour MPs '' including Ted Testicles himself, a bloke who isn't going to emerge from this scandal with a nice smell attached to his body.

In short, thinking that the bailin template is a hastily flung together and somewhat academic exercise is fine if you want to lose the shirt off your back. Otherwise, withdraw such money as you can, and buy any asset that you can. It doesn't matter if its canned food, gold or a motor bike: just do it '' and get a move on.

In the meantime'.....

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DutchNews.nl - High Dutch petrol prices drive motorists over the border to fill up.

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Fri, 09 Aug 2013 22:56

High Dutch petrol prices drive motorists over the border to fill upFriday 09 August 2013

The Dutch treasury is missing out on over '‚¬1bn a year because so many motorists fill up their cars with petrol in Belgium and Germany, where fuel is cheaper, according to research by garage owners.

The report, drawn up on behalf of the Bovag and Nove organisations, shows 53% of people who live up to 20 kilometres from the German and Belgian borders regularly fill up their cars abroad.

If Dutch petrol prices rise again, that percentage will rise to 66%, the report states. Dutch taxes on petrol are set to increase in January next year.

According to fuel price comparison websites, a litre of unleaded petrol costs '‚¬ 1.84 per in the Netherlands, making it the most expensive in Europe. A litre of fuel costs around '‚¬1.71 in Belgium and '‚¬1.60 in Germany.

Some 890 petrol stations, of which 560 are manned, are close to the Dutch borders and under threat because of the price differences, Bovag says.

(C) DutchNews.nl

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UK wages drop among worst in Europe

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Source: BBC News - Home

Sun, 11 Aug 2013 12:32

11 August 2013Last updated at08:24 ETWages in the UK have seen one of the largest falls in the European Union during the economic downturn, according to official figures.

Figures from the House of Commons library show average hourly wages have fallen 5.5% since mid-2010, adjusted for inflation, which is the fourth-worst decline in the 27-nation bloc.

By contrast, German hourly wages rose by 2.7% over the same period.

Across the European Union as a whole, average wages fell 0.7%.

Only Greek, Portuguese and Dutch workers have had a steeper decline in hourly wages, the figures showed.

Other countries that have suffered during the eurozone debt crisis also fared better than the UK. Spain had a 3.3% drop over the same period and salaries in Cyprus fell by 3%.

French workers saw a 0.4% increase, while the 18 countries in the eurozone saw a 0.1% drop during that period.

'Worse off'"These figures show the full scale of David Cameron's cost of living crisis," said shadow Treasury minister Cathy Jamieson.

"Working people are not only worse off under the Tories, we're also doing much worse than almost all other EU countries.

"Despite out-of-touch claims by ministers, life is getting harder for ordinary families as prices continue rising faster than wages."

But the government says it has tackled the higher cost of living by raising the tax-free personal allowance threshold to £10,000, taking 2.7 million people out of tax, and other measures such as freezing fuel duty.

"The economy is on the mend, but we've still got a long way to go as we move from rescue to recovery and we appreciate that times are still tough for families," a Treasury spokesperson said.

The GMB union said the government was "directly responsible" for the fall in wages.

"Employers paying low wages get taxpayer subsidies in the form of tax credits to assemble a workforce for them to make decent profit margins," it said.

In June, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said that a third of workers who stayed in the same job saw a wage cut or freeze between 2010 and 2011 amid a rise in the cost of living.

"The falls in nominal wages... during this recession are unprecedented," the IFS said at the time.

In 2009, the average public-sector worker earned about £16.60 per hour, which dropped to about £15.80 in 2011, the IFS said.

Meanwhile, hourly pay for private-sector workers in 2009 was just over £15.10 and dropped to about £13.60 in 2011.

Schenden 'slimme' vuilnisbakken privacy?

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Source: VK: Home

Sun, 11 Aug 2013 12:35

Bewerkt door: redactie '' 11/08/13, 14:09 '' bron: Tweakers.net

(C) afp. Shoppers in Oxford Street.

In het Verenigd Koninkrijk is discussie ontstaan over 'slimme' afvalbakken in de straten van Londen. Die verzamelen namelijk de unieke codes van draadloze apparatuur in de buurt, de zogenaamde MAC-adressen. Daarmee zou de Britse privacywetgeving mogelijk worden geschonden, meldt Tweakers.net.

Het bedrijf Renew plaatste de eerste zogeheten smartbins in Londen tijdens de Olympische Spelen van 2012, en inmiddels zijn het er honderden. De vuilnisbakken zijn voorzien van een lcd-paneel en wifi. Op de schermen staan advertenties en mededelingen van het stadsdeel.

Renew scant via de wifi-apparatuur de MAC-adressen van smartphones die voetgangers bij zich dragen. Met deze informatie bouwt het bedrijf uitvoerige profielen op en kan het bijvoorbeeld monitoren hoe lang een persoon in een bepaalde winkel is gebleven. De Britse krant The Independent meldt dat Renew in een week tijd meer dan 4 miljoen MAC-adressen verzamelde, waarvan 530.000 unieke.

DiscussieInmiddels woedt een discussie of de smartbins de privacywetten niet schenden. Het verzamelen van MAC-adressen zou weliswaar niet zijn verboden, maar de cookiewetgeving zou het niet toelaten om burgers te volgen zonder hun toestemming. Privacyvoorvechters stellen dat de technologie van Renew hetzelfde functioneert als het plaatsen van een trackingcookie in een browser.

Renew ontkent dat zijn smartbins illegaal zijn en stelt dat het alle verzamelde MAC-adressen geanonimiseerd bij adverteerders aflevert. Wel geeft het bedrijf toe dat er een grijs gebied is in de privacywetgeving. Renew zou dan ook graag de dialoog willen aangaan met zowel privavcywaakhonden als de Britse overheid.

SnowJob

Whistleblower bullcrap timeline

From Scott Brandy

Here's some interesting reading:

https://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/ppd/ppd-19.pdf

This was the executive order that Obama said Snowden should have used. Two interesting lines:

The order was signed on October 10, 2012

Within 270 days of the date of this directive, the head of each Intelligence Community Element shall certify to the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) that the personnel policies that apply to that element provide a process for employees to seek review of Personnel Actions they allege to be in violation of this directive and that the review process is consistent with the requirements of this directive.

Within 365 days of the date of this directive, the DNI shall, in consultation with the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, and the heads of agencies containing Intelligence Community Elements, issue policies and procedures for ensuring that all employees serving in Intelligence Community Elements are aware of the protections and review processes available to individuals who make Protected Disclosures.

The order was signed on October 10, 2012. That date + 270 days is July 7, 2013. Snowden contacted Poitras and Greenwald back in February. How does Obama think this order had any bearing on Snowden's case?

I can't believe Jay Leno didn't call him out on this.

Lavabit, email service Snowden reportedly used, abruptly shuts down - Boing Boing

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Thu, 08 Aug 2013 19:42

Remember when word circulated that Edward Snowden was using Lavabit, an email service that purports to provide better privacy and security for users than popular web-based free services like Gmail? Lavabit's owner has shut down service, with a mysterious message posted on the lavabit.com home page today. Below, the full message: My Fellow Users,

I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes against the American people or walk away from nearly ten years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit. After significant soul searching, I have decided to suspend operations. I wish that I could legally share with you the events that led to my decision. I cannot. I feel you deserve to know what's going on--the first amendment is supposed to guarantee me the freedom to speak out in situations like this. Unfortunately, Congress has passed laws that say otherwise. As things currently stand, I cannot share my experiences over the last six weeks, even though I have twice made the appropriate requests.

What's going to happen now? We've already started preparing the paperwork needed to continue to fight for the Constitution in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. A favorable decision would allow me resurrect Lavabit as an American company.

This experience has taught me one very important lesson: without congressional action or a strong judicial precedent, I would _strongly_ recommend against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States.

Sincerely,Ladar LevisonOwner and Operator, Lavabit LLC

Defending the constitution is expensive! Help us by donating to the Lavabit Legal Defense Fund here.

[HT: dd_toronto]

More on Email

Mailchimp blocked

Gmail blockage/Interface

Giblet

To Our Customers | Silent Circle Blog

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Fri, 09 Aug 2013 11:59

We designed our phone, video, and text services (Silent Phone and Silent Text) to be completely end-to-end secure with all cryptography done on the clients and our exposure to your data to be nil. The reasons are obvious '-- the less of your information we have, the better it is for you and for us.

Silent Mail has thus always been something of a quandary for us. Email that uses standard Internet protocols cannot have the same security guarantees that real-time communications has. There are far too many leaks of information and metadata intrinsically in the email protocols themselves. Email as we know it with SMTP, POP3, and IMAP cannot be secure.

And yet, many people wanted it. Silent Mail has similar security guarantees to other secure email systems, and with full disclosure, we thought it would be valuable.

However, we have reconsidered this position. We've been thinking about this for some time, whether it was a good idea at all. Today, another secure email provider, Lavabit, shut down their system lest they ''be complicit in crimes against the American people.'' We see the writing the wall, and we have decided that it is best for us to shut down Silent Mail now. We have not received subpoenas, warrants, security letters, or anything else by any government, and this is why we are acting now.

We've been debating this for weeks, and had changes planned starting next Monday. We'd considered phasing the service out, continuing service for existing customers, and a variety of other things up until today. It is always better to be safe than sorry, and with your safety we decided that the worst decision is always no decision.

Silent Phone and Silent Text, along with their cousin Silent Eyes are end-to-end secure. We don't have the encrypted data and we don't collect metadata about your conversations. They're continuing as they have been. We are still working on innovative ways to do truly secure communications. Silent Mail was a good idea at the time, and that time is past.

We apologize for any inconvenience, and hope you understand that if we dithered, it could be more inconvenient.

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Bitmessage Wiki

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Sun, 11 Aug 2013 13:04

Bitmessage

Bitmessage is a P2P communications protocol used to send encrypted messages to another person or to many subscribers. It is decentralized and trustless, meaning that you need-not inherently trust any entities like root certificate authorities. It uses strong authentication which means that the sender of a message cannot be spoofed, and it aims to hide "non-content" data, like the sender and receiver of messages, from passive eavesdroppers like those running warrantless wiretapping programs. If Bitmessage is completely new to you, you may wish to start by reading the whitepaper.

DownloadAn open source client is available for free under the very liberal MIT license. For screenshots and a description of the client, see this CryptoJunky article: "Setting Up And Using Bitmessage".

Download for Windows

Here is a simple echo server which will send your message back to you after being received: BM-orkCbppXWSqPpAxnz6jnfTZ2djb5pJKDb

Source codeYou may view the Python source code on Github. Bitmessage requires PyQt and OpenSSL. Step-by-step instructions on how to run the source code on Linux, Windows, or OSX is available here.

Bitmessage should run on any OS though it is only lightly tested on OSX. The start-on-boot and minimize-to-tray features are only implemented for Windows thus far.

Security audit neededBitmessage is in need of an independent audit to verify its security. If you are a researcher capable of reviewing the source code, please email the lead developer. You will be helping to create a great privacy option for people everywhere!

Forum

The Lesson of Lavabit | Steve (GRC) Gibson's Blog

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Fri, 09 Aug 2013 20:23

An implication of undeliverable security painted a bullseye'...Post's Permalink

On Thursday, August 8th, Ladar Levison, the owner and operator of the semi-secure Lavabit.com eMail system, shut down his nearly ten year old service rather than be forced to continue to comply with United States law enforcement demands for the disclosure of personal and private information belonging to his service's clients. The Lavabit web site now simply displays this notice:

My Fellow Users,

I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes against the American people or walk away from nearly ten years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit. After significant soul searching, I have decided to suspend operations. I wish that I could legally share with you the events that led to my decision. I cannot. I feel you deserve to know what's going on''the first amendment is supposed to guarantee me the freedom to speak out in situations like this. Unfortunately, Congress has passed laws that say otherwise. As things currently stand, I cannot share my experiences over the last six weeks, even though I have twice made the appropriate requests.

What's going to happen now? We've already started preparing the paperwork needed to continue to fight for the Constitution in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. A favorable decision would allow me resurrect Lavabit as an American company.

This experience has taught me one very important lesson: without congressional action or a strong judicial precedent, I would _strongly_ recommend against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States.

Sincerely,Ladar LevisonOwner and Operator, Lavabit LLC

Defending the constitution is expensive! Help us by donating to the Lavabit Legal Defense Fund here.

What is the lesson of Lavabit?

When news first surfaced about Edward Snowden's presumptive use of Lavabit's eMail service for his eMail communication the assumption was that it was somehow ''secure.'' So I researched the nature of the service that was being offered, and I was not impressed. The trouble was, it was making a lot of noise about security, but as an eMail store-and-forward service it didn't (and couldn't) really do anything that was very useful from a security standpoint: Ladar had arranged to encrypt and store incoming eMail to a user's inbox in such a fashion that his service could not then immediately decrypt the eMail. It would not be until the user logged in that the Lavabit servers would be able to derive the decryption key in order to forward the then decrypted eMail to the user.

As you can see, while this did offer somewhat useful encryption of data-at-rest, it didn't actually offer his users any real protection because both incoming and outgoing eMail would necessarily be transmitted in the clear.

This architecture would, therefore, inherently expose the Lavabit service, its servers, its owners, and thus its users' data to law enforcement demands. Which, it seems clear, is exactly what happened. Ladar made his service a target by offering ''security'' that wasn't actually secure. (And how very wrong is it that he cannot even share the exact nature of the demands that were made upon him?!)

I am impressed that Ladar chose to shutdown his service rather than continue to promise something that he now unequivocally knew was no longer secure in the face of law enforcement's quasi-legal incursions. It would have probably been better if he hadn't attempted to offer security that was beyond his ability to provide.

During my weekly Security Now! podcast with Leo Laporte, we use the acronym ''TNO'' (Trust No One) to refer to any system where readily available cryptographic technology is properly employed in such a fashion that it is not necessary to trust the behavior of any third party. Unfortunately, without going to extraordinary lengths (e.g. S/MIME, PGP, GnuPG, etc.), today's eMail technology is resistant to the TNO principle.

In coming weeks our Security Now! podcast will be delving deeply into the ways and means of producing true TNO eMail security.

Laura Poitras story on reddit

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Fri, 09 Aug 2013 20:41

US news belongs in /r/news, not here!/r/Worldnews is for major news from around the world except US-internal news / US politics.Do not editorialize the titles.News only, no raw images or videos.No link shorteners / all caps / offensive / racist contentNo editorial, opinion, petition, solicitation, poll or advocacy articles.Re-posts / pay-walled / stolen content (blogspam) may be removed.Please use the following reddits for content related to these topics:

Content that does not belong in /r/worldnews, and is more suited to these and other subreddits, may be deleted from here.

Shout out:

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The NSA Intends To Fire 90% Of Their System Administrators To Eliminate Future Leaks - Business Insider

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Fri, 09 Aug 2013 04:38

(Reuters) - The National Security Agency, hit by disclosures of classified data by former contractor Edward Snowden, said Thursday it intends to eliminate about 90 percent of its system administrators to reduce the number of people with access to secret information.Keith Alexander, the director of the NSA, the U.S. spy agency charged with monitoring foreign electronic communications, told a cybersecurity conference in New York City that automating much of the work would improve security.

"What we're in the process of doing - not fast enough - is reducing our system administrators by about 90 percent," he said.

The remarks came as the agency is facing scrutiny after Snowden, who had been one of about 1,000 system administrators who help run the agency's networks, leaked classified details about surveillance programs to the press.

Before the change, "what we've done is we've put people in the loop of transferring data, securing networks and doing things that machines are probably better at doing," Alexander said.

Using technology to automate much of the work now done by employees and contractors would make the NSA's networks "more defensible and more secure," as well as faster, he said at the conference, in which he did not mention Snowden by name.

These efforts pre-date Snowden's leaks, the agency has said, but have since been accelerated.

Alexander's remarks largely echoed similar comments made to Congress and at other public appearances over the past two months since his agency came under fire from civil liberties advocates and lawmakers concerned by Snowden's revelations.

Snowden leaked documents to the Guardian and the Washington Post, which published stories revealing previously secret telephone and internet surveillance programs run by the U.S. government.

Snowden now faces criminal charges but has since been granted temporary asylum in Russia.

Other security measures that Alexander has previously discussed include requiring at least two people to be present before certain data can be accessed on the agency's computer systems.

"At the end of the day it's about people and trust," Alexander said. He again defended his agency's conduct, much of which he said had been "grossly mischaracterized" by the press.

"No one has willfully or knowingly disobeyed the law or tried to invade your civil liberties or privacies," he said. "There were no mistakes like that at all."

He told his audience to "get the facts" and make up their own minds, adding that the agency itself could do more to enable this: "We've got to push out more, I recognize that," he said.

(Reporting By Jonathan Allen; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

NSA memo says the agency monitors 1.6 percent of all internet traffic.

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Source: WT news feed

Sun, 11 Aug 2013 12:52

Amid a global furor over US data collection policies, the Obama administration released two documents today describing the scope and what it claims is the legal justification for its monitoring of telephone metadata and internet browsing. The documents portray the National Security Agency's surveillance activities as more limited than recent published reports have made them out to be. But they avoid several key questions surrounding the spying, including which internet companies are cooperating with them and how, why the government has demanded absolute secrecy from the companies they work with, and how the agency's oversight functions work.

According to an NSA memorandum, the agency "touches" 1.6 percent of the estimated 1,826 petabytes of information that flow through servers every day. Of that 1.6 percent of monitored traffic, the NSA said it selects 0.025 percent for review. The agency sought to downplay the amount of data if collects. "If a standard basketball court represented the global communications environment, NSA's total collection would be represented by an area smaller than a dime on that basketball court," the memo says. It represents the NSA's latest damage-control effort in the wake of revelations from documents leaked by former contractor Edward Snowden. Published accounts of the NSA's surveillance programs that draw from Snowden's revelations have depicted a much more comprehensive system for monitoring internet traffic and telephone calls.

Citing a foiled 2009 plot as an example of the system's power

The memo describes the origins of the program, which was created in the wake of a report from the 9/11 Commission that identified gaps in intelligence agencies' ability to collect and share information that might have prevented the attacks. It cites a foiled 2009 plot to bomb the New York subway as an example of the system's power to prevent terrorist attacks, although previous reports have questioned whether NSA surveillance was instrumental to the success. Najibullah Zazi pled guilty to plotting the attack in 2010.

A separate white paper from the administration describes its legal rationale for collecting telephone metadata including phone numbers and the length and timing of the calls. It outlines the justification for the program under court precedents and section 702 of the Patriot Act, and describes the reasons that the NSA collects so many call records. In short, the administration says it cannot analyze patterns between calls unless it has a sufficiently large data set. The agency keeps its own copy of the records because in many cases telecommunications agencies purge the records. (The NSA keeps the metadata for up to five years, but telecom companies don't always maintain records for that long.)

"America is not interested in spying on ordinary people."

The documents' release followed a press conference at the White House on Friday afternoon in which President Obama announced plans to increase transparency and public awareness of surveillance programs carried out by US intelligence agencies. The president described four measures; making changes to the Patriot Act, reforming the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, appointing a privacy and civil liberties officer to the NSA, and appointing an independent advisory group to recommend additional changes. "To others around the world, I want to make clear, once again, that America is not interested in spying on ordinary people," Obama said today. "Our intelligence is focused above all on finding the information that's necessary to protect our people, and in many cases, protect our allies." The president also said he would launch a website to describe intelligence agencies' activities in more detail '-- but if today's document release is any indication, it won't tell us much.

Additional reporting contributed by Sean Hollister.

Thanks, S. Sun!

Glenn Greenwald offered Brazilian protection from U.S.

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Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed

Fri, 09 Aug 2013 12:42

A Brazilian official has taken the unusual step of publicly announcing that the Brazilian government will offer Guardian writer Glenn Greenwald protection from the U.S. government after determining he risks facing legal action if he returns to the U.S.

To receive protection from Brazil, Greenwald would have to officially request it. But though he takes the risk of prosecution seriously, Greenwald tells me he has no intention of taking the Brazilian government up on the offer '-- and that he plans to return to the U.S. sooner than later, come what may.

''I haven't requested any protection from the Brazilian government or any other government because, rather obviously, I've committed no crime '-- unless investigative journalism is now a felony in the U.S.,'' Greenwald said via email. ''But the fact that Brazilian authorities believe there is a real possibility that the U.S. would unjustly prosecute journalists for the 'crime' of reporting what the U.S. government is doing is a powerful indictment of the U.S.'s current image in the world '-- just as was the requirement that the U.S. promise it will not torture or kill Snowden if he's returned. It's an equally potent reflection of the massive gap in opinion between the U.S. Government and the rest of the world when it comes to how the NSA disclosures, my reporting, and Snowden are perceived.''

The offer, published in the Sao Paulo newspaper Estadao, doesn't indicate in any way that the U.S. government is pursuing or will pursue legal action. It also doesn't mean that the Brazilian officials genuinely believe Greenwald would be arrested or tried for violating U.S. laws if and when he returns stateside. But it at least suggests that people in Brazil and other countries believe it's a plausible enough scenario that government officials can credibly validate it.

A Department of Justice official did not respond to requests for comment on the Estadao article.

Greenwald '-- who once wrote for Salon '-- has published several articles based on classified surveillance documents he received from National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden. Prominent elected officials in the United States have accused Greenwald of being complicit in the crimes they accuse Snowden of committing, which feeds suspicions, both domestically and abroad, that Greenwald might face legal action if he returns to the U.S. That's part of the reason why Greenwald himself '-- a former appellate lawyer '-- isn't shrugging off the possibility.

''Given that the Obama DOJ has adopted theories that would criminalize journalism in both the WikiLeaks Grand Jury proceeding and the investigation of James Rosen, given that it has waged what most observers agree is an unprecedented war on whistle-blowers, and given that several prominent political figures and journalists have called for my prosecution, I obviously take the risk seriously,'' Greenwald adds. ''But I take more seriously the Constitution's guarantee of a free press in the First Amendment. So I have every intention of entering the U.S. as soon as my schedule permits and there's a reason to do so.''

Background on the President's Statement on Reforms to NSA Programs

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Source: White House.gov Press Office Feed

Fri, 09 Aug 2013 22:56

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

August 09, 2013

President Obama believes that there should be increased transparency and reforms in our intelligence programs in order to give the public confidence that these programs have strong oversight and clear protections against abuse. That is what he has pursued as President, and today he is announcing several initiatives that will move that effort forward.

Since the disclosures were first made, the President has held a series of meetings with Intelligence Community leaders, during which he has emphasized the importance of transparency and openness and directed IC leadership to press forward with declassification of relevant materials, to the maximum extent possible, without undermining national security. Already, the Administration has declassified unprecedented information about the activities of the National Security Agency (NSA). On July 31, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) made public three documents dealing with the Section 215 program.

The Administration has also engaged Congress on these issues on 35 occasions, including several committee hearings and all-Senate and all-House Members' meetings. On August 1, the President met with a group of bipartisan members of Congress to discuss key programs under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The President and senior White House and Administration officials have also engaged in a national dialogue on privacy in the 21st century, soliciting feedback from relevant stakeholder groups in the private sector, academia, and civil society. To date, the Administration has taken various steps to advance this national privacy dialogue, including: meeting with the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, and leading several conversations on privacy issues with a broad array of organizations representing industry, civil society, civil rights and transparency groups. Most recently, the President met with a group of leaders from the private sector, civil society and academia yesterday at the White House to discuss a range of privacy issues.

Today, the President directed his Administration to work with Congress to pursue appropriate reforms to our nation's surveillance programs and the court that oversees them. Specifically, he laid out four steps his Administration will take:

(1) The Administration will work with Congress to pursue appropriate reforms to Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act. After having a dialogue with members of Congress and civil libertarians, the President believes that there are steps that can be taken to give the American people confidence that there are additional safeguards against abuse. For example, steps could be taken to put in place greater oversight, transparency, and constraints on the use of this authority.

(2) The Administration will work with Congress to improve the public's confidence in the oversight conducted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). Specifically, steps can be taken to make sure civil liberties concerns have a greater voice in appropriate cases by ensuring that the government's position is challenged by an adversary.

(3) The President directed the Intelligence Community to make public as much information about these programs as possible. Already, the Administration has declassified unprecedented information about the activities of the NSA. On July 31, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) made public three documents dealing with the section 215 program. The NSA is taking steps to put in place a full time Civil Liberties and Privacy Officer, and has released information that details its mission, authorities and oversight. The Intelligence Community is creating a website that will serve as a hub for further transparency. This will give Americans '' and the world '' the ability to learn more about what our intelligence community does; how it does it; and why.

(4) The President called for a high-level group of outside experts to review our intelligence and communications technologies. The President is tasking this group to step back and review our capabilities '' particularly our surveillance technologies. They will consider how we can maintain the public's trust, and how this surveillance impacts our foreign policy '' particularly in an age when more and more information is becoming public. They will provide an interim report in 60 days, and a final report by the end of this year, so that we can move forward with a better understanding of how these programs impact our security, our privacy, and our foreign policy.

Obama Admin Unveils Spying Justification - BlackListedNews.com

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Sat, 10 Aug 2013 20:58

''The way the government is interpreting relevance, anything and everything they say is relevant becomes relevant.''

The Obama administration on Friday released a white paper in an apparent attempt to justify the National Security Agency's dragnet surveillance of Americans.

Sign seen at a Restore the Fourth protest. (Photo: Steve Rhodes/cc/flickr) The release came the same day Obama admitted at a press conference that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden "triggered a much more rapid" dialgue on the agency's spying programs.

One section of the NSA paper explains that the agency "touches" 1.6% of Internet traffic per day:

The paper also outlines the agency's justification of its bulk collection of Americans' "telephony metadata" as the Associational Tracking Program under section 215 of the Patriot Act.

However, as Cindy Cohen of the Electronic Frontier Foundationpoints out,

There is no direct authorization for the Associational Tracking Program in section Patriot Act section 215.

Nowhere does the statute say that the NSA may conduct bulk collection and analysis of the phone records of nonsuspect, nontargeted Americans on an ongoing basis, including requiring the production of records that haven't even been produced yet.

The Guardian's Spencer Ackerman explained further on the Associational Tracking Program, which "authorizes the government to acquire 'tangible things' that are 'relevant' to an investigation":

Since the Guardian disclosed the existence of the bulk phone records program, thanks to the ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden, legal scholars have puzzled over how the phone numbers dialed, lengths of calls and times of calls of millions of Americans unsuspected of terrorism or espionage meet that standard.

Cohen adds that

any analysis of the government's legalistic parsing of the legislative language has to start with the fact that, to believe the government, you have to believe that Congress intended to allow NSA to collect of all of the phone records of all Americans by hiding it in, at best, extremely strained interpretations of the statute that otherwise simply does not authorize bulk collection.

Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said, ''The way the government is interpreting relevance, anything and everything they say is relevant becomes relevant.''

>>

Revealed: Obama admin's nonsensical legal justification for bulk collection of Americans' phone records | End the Lie '' Independent News

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Archived Version

Sat, 10 Aug 2013 21:54

By Madison Ruppert

Editor of End the Lie

(Image credit: WeMeantDemocracy/Flickr)

The Obama administration recently released a white paper which summarizes the supposed legal justification for the bulk collection of Americans' phone records. Contained therein are some thoroughly nonsensical and leave the door open for massive invasions of privacy.

Meanwhile, it was revealed that the National Security Agency (NSA) can conduct warrantless searches for the phone calls and emails of Americans and that the collection of data expands far beyond what was previously admitted to.

The Department of Justice white paper deals with the ''Associational Tracking Program,'' operated under section 215 of the Patriot Act, codified in the U.S. Code as 50 USC § 1861.

''There is no direct authorization for the Associational Tracking Program in section Patriot Act section 215,'' writes Cindy Cohn, legal director and general counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The statute includes no authorization of the NSA's mass collection and analysis of the Americans who are neither suspects nor targeted individuals.

Furthermore, the statute does not authorize such collection on a continuous basis or the practice of requiring records that have yet to be produced, as the court order did in requiring future records from Verizon.

''The plain meaning of the statute fails to reach their breathtaking and unprecedented activities and it isn't even ambiguous about it,'' Cohn writes.

The Obama administration's legal argument then becomes quite troubling.

On page 16 of the white paper, the Justice Department argues that they can order prospective information because ''nothing in the text of the statute suggests that FISC [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court] orders may relate only to records previously created.''

Cohn notes that this kind of argument was addressed by Justice Antonin Scalia in the 2001 Supreme Court case, Whitman v. American Trucking.

Congress ''does not, one might say, hide elephants in mouseholes,'' Scalia wrote.

Yet the Justice Department apparently has no problem stretching the meaning of words, as they did when redefining ''imminent'' in an attempt to justify targeted killings.

The Obama administration did ''some fancy legal dancing '-- stretching terms like 'tangible things' and 'relevance' beyond recognition,'' Cohn wrote.

The administration claims that, '''relevance' is a broad standard,'' so broad in fact that they claim that it ''permits discovery of large volumes of data in circumstances where doing so is necessary to identify much smaller amounts of information within that data that directly bears on the matter being investigated.''

As Spencker Ackerman notes, they argue that ''relevance'' can ''include the 'reasonable grounds to believe' that when all the data is collected, 'when queried and analyzed consistent with the [surveillance] Court-approved standards, will produce information pertinent to FBI investigations of international terrorism.'''

Furthermore, ''tangible thing'' now means anything from a phone number to the length of a phone call, despite the fact that such data is not, in fact, a ''tangible thing.''

''There is little question that in enacting Section 215 in 2001 and then amending it in 2006, Congress understood that among the things that the FBI would need to acquire to conduct terrorism investigations were documents and records stored in electronic form,'' the document claims.

In the document, the government argues:

['...] there is an exceptionally strong public interest in the prevention of terrorist attacks, and telephony metadata analysis can be an important part of achieving that objective. This interest does not merely entail ''ordinary crime-solving,'' King, 133 S. Ct. at 1982 (Scalia, J., dissenting), but rather the forward-looking prevention of the loss of life, including potentially on a catastrophic scale. Given that exceedingly important objective, and the minimal, if any, Fourth Amendment intrusion that the program entails, the program would be constitutional even if the Fourth Amendment's reasonableness standard applied.

Mike Masnick of TechDirt pointed out that if this argument is taken to its logical conclusion, it would be quite a slippery slope, aside from the fact that ''there has yet to be any evidence presented that Section 215 did anything at all to prevent terrorism.''

''But, even more to the point, that justification is the justification for wiping out the entire 4th amendment. There's an exceptionally strong public interest in stopping all kind of negative activity, so why not place a video cameras and a recorder in every private room in the country?'' Masnick wrote.

The government goes on to argue:

Moreover, information concerning the use of Section 215 to collect telephony metadata in bulk was made available to all Members of Congress, and Congress reauthorized Section 215 without change after this information was provided. It is significant to the legal analysis of the statute that Congress was on notice of this activity and of the source of its legal authority when the statute was reauthorized.

Yet many individuals in Congress claimed they were unaware of the extent of the program and continue to be kept in the dark despite attempting to obtain more information.

To make matters even worse, as Masnick points out, this argument comes down to essentially claiming that ''because Congress did not explicitly tell us to stop collecting all data, we take that as implicit permission to collect all data.'' Yet if they were not actually aware of the extent of the data collected, they couldn't have specifically blocked such collection.

Even Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), the author of the Patriot Act, has said he is ''extremely disturbed'' by the administration's distortion of the Act's intent and does ''not believe the released FISA order is consistent with the requirement of the Patriot Act.''

''How could the phone records of so many innocent Americans be relevant to an authorized investigation as required by the Act?'' Sensenbrenner asked.

Suffice it to say, the white paper is riddled with problems, some of which may be addressed in future articles here at End the Lie.

However, perhaps the most significant aspect of the release of the paper is that the government's legal rationales are finally out in the open.

This leads Cohn to note that the EFF hopes ''to finally be able to fight this out in the place where competing interpretations of federal statutes should be decided: in the public federal courts where both sides get to argue.''

Currently a large, diverse coalition of groups is suing the NSA to challenge the Associational Tracking Program and the Jewel v. NSA case is still pending, as it has been since 2008.

I'd love to hear your opinion, take a look at your story tips and even your original writing if you would like to get it published. I am also available for interviews on radio, television or any other format. Please email me at [email protected]

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The New Adventures of Stephen Fry >> An Open Letter to David Cameron and the IOC

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Archived Version

Fri, 09 Aug 2013 04:24

Dear Prime Minister, M Rogge, Lord Coe and Members of the International Olympic Committee,

I write in the earnest hope that all those with a love of sport and the Olympic spirit will consider the stain on the Five Rings that occurred when the 1936 Berlin Olympics proceeded under the exultant aegis of a tyrant who had passed into law, two years earlier, an act which singled out for special persecution a minority whose only crime was the accident of their birth. In his case he banned Jews from academic tenure or public office, he made sure that the police turned a blind eye to any beatings, thefts or humiliations afflicted on them, he burned and banned books written by them. He claimed they ''polluted'' the purity and tradition of what it was to be German, that they were a threat to the state, to the children and the future of the Reich. He blamed them simultaneously for the mutually exclusive crimes of Communism and for the controlling of international capital and banks. He blamed them for ruining the culture with their liberalism and difference. The Olympic movement at that time paid precisely no attention to this evil and proceeded with the notorious Berlin Olympiad, which provided a stage for a gleeful F¼hrer and only increased his status at home and abroad. It gave him confidence. All historians are agreed on that. What he did with that confidence we all know.

Putin is eerily repeating this insane crime, only this time against LGBT Russians. Beatings, murders and humiliations are ignored by the police. Any defence or sane discussion of homosexuality is against the law. Any statement, for example, that Tchaikovsky was gay and that his art and life reflects this sexuality and are an inspiration to other gay artists would be punishable by imprisonment. It is simply not enough to say that gay Olympians may or may not be safe in their village. The IOC absolutely must take a firm stance on behalf of the shared humanity it is supposed to represent against the barbaric, fascist law that Putin has pushed through the Duma. Let us not forget that Olympic events used not only to be athletic, they used to include cultural competitions. Let us realise that in fact, sport is cultural. It does not exist in a bubble outside society or politics. The idea that sport and politics don't connect is worse than disingenuous, worse than stupid. It is wickedly, wilfully wrong. Everyone knows politics interconnects with everything for ''politics'' is simply the Greek for ''to do with the people''.

An absolute ban on the Russian Winter Olympics of 2014 on Sochi is simply essential. Stage them elsewhere in Utah, Lillyhammer, anywhere you like. At all costs Putin cannot be seen to have the approval of the civilised world.

He is making scapegoats of gay people, just as Hitler did Jews. He cannot be allowed to get away with it. I know whereof I speak. I have visited Russia, stood up to the political deputy who introduced the first of these laws, in his city of St Petersburg. I looked into the face of the man and, on camera, tried to reason with him, counter him, make him understand what he was doing. All I saw reflected back at me was what Hannah Arendt called, so memorably, ''the banality of evil.'' A stupid man, but like so many tyrants, one with an instinct of how to exploit a disaffected people by finding scapegoats. Putin may not be quite as oafish and stupid as Deputy Milonov but his instincts are the same. He may claim that the ''values'' of Russia are not the ''values'' of the West, but this is absolutely in opposition to Peter the Great's philosophy, and against the hopes of millions of Russians, those not in the grip of that toxic mix of shaven headed thuggery and bigoted religion, those who are agonised by the rolling back of democracy and the formation of a new autocracy in the motherland that has suffered so much (and whose music, literature and drama, incidentally I love so passionately).

I am gay. I am a Jew. My mother lost over a dozen of her family to Hitler's anti-Semitism. Every time in Russia (and it is constantly) a gay teenager is forced into suicide, a lesbian ''correctively'' raped, gay men and women beaten to death by neo-Nazi thugs while the Russian police stand idly by, the world is diminished and I for one, weep anew at seeing history repeat itself.

Published on August 7th, 2013

Written by: Stephen Fry

Godwin's law - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Archived Version

Fri, 09 Aug 2013 04:24

Godwin's law (also known as Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies or Godwin's Law of Nazi Analogies[1][2]) is an assertion made by Mike Godwin in 1990[2] that has become an Internet adage. It states: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitlerapproaches1."[2][3] In other words, Godwin said that, given enough time, in any online discussion'--regardless of topic or scope'--someone inevitably makes a comparison to Hitler or the Nazis.

Although in one of its early forms Godwin's law referred specifically to Usenetnewsgroup discussions,[4] the law is now often applied to any threaded online discussion, such as forums, chat rooms and blog comment threads, and has been invoked for the inappropriate use of Nazi analogies in articles or speeches.[5] The law is sometimes invoked prescriptively to mark the end of a discussion when a Nazi analogy is made, with the writer who made the analogy being considered to have lost the argument.

In 2012, "Godwin's Law" became an entry in the third edition of the Oxford English Dictionary.[6]

There are many corollaries to Godwin's law, some considered more canonical (by being adopted by Godwin himself)[3] than others.[1] For example, there is a tradition in many newsgroups and other Internet discussion forums that once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever debate was in progress.[7] This principle is itself frequently referred to as Godwin's law. It is considered poor form to raise such a comparison arbitrarily with the motive of ending the thread. There is a widely recognized corollary that any such ulterior-motive invocation of Godwin's law will be unsuccessful.[8]

Godwin's law applies especially to inappropriate, inordinate, or hyperbolic comparisons of other situations (or one's opponent) with Nazis '' often referred to as "playing the Hitler card". The law and its corollaries would not apply to discussions covering known mainstays of Nazi Germany such as genocide, eugenics, or racial superiority, nor, more debatably, to a discussion of other totalitarian regimes or ideologies, if that was the explicit topic of conversation, since a Nazi comparison in those circumstances may be appropriate, in effect committing the fallacist's fallacy. Whether it applies to humorous use or references to oneself is open to interpretation, since this would not be a fallacious attack against a debate opponent.

While falling afoul of Godwin's law tends to cause the individual making the comparison to lose his argument or credibility, Godwin's law itself can be abused as a distraction, diversion or even as censorship, fallaciously miscasting an opponent's argument as hyperbole when the comparisons made by the argument are actually appropriate.[9] Similar criticisms of the "law" (or "at least the distorted version which purports to prohibit all comparisons to German crimes") have been made by Glenn Greenwald.[10]

Godwin has stated that he introduced Godwin's law in 1990 as an experiment in memetics.[2]

Godwin's law does not claim to articulate a fallacy; it is instead framed as a memetic tool to reduce the incidence of inappropriate hyperbolic comparisons. "Although deliberately framed as if it were a law of nature or of mathematics, its purpose has always been rhetorical and pedagogical: I wanted folks who glibly compared someone else to Hitler or to Nazis to think a bit harder about the Holocaust", Godwin has written.[11]

^ abTim Skirvin (1999-2009). "How to post about Nazis and get away with it'--the Godwin's law FAQ". Skirv's Wiki. Retrieved 2006-05-07. ^ abcdGodwin, Mike (October, 1994). "Meme, Counter-meme". Wired. Retrieved 2006-03-24. ^ abGodwin, Mike (January 12, 1995). "Godwin's law of Nazi Analogies (and Corollaries)". EFF.org. Electronic Frontier Foundation. pp. "Net Culture '' Humor" archive section. Retrieved 2012-06-19. ^Godwin, Mike (August 18, 1991). "Re: Nazis (was Re: Card's Article on Homosexuality". rec.arts.sf-lovers. Web link.^Ben Goldacre (16 September 2010). "Pope aligns atheists with Nazis. Bizarre. Transcript here.". bengoldacre - secondary blog. ^"Oxford English Dictionary Online version December 2012". Oxford University Press. ^"Internet rules and laws: the top 10, from Godwin to Poe". The Daily Telegraph (London), 23 October 2009.^Eric Raymond. "Godwin's law". The Jargon File (4.4.7). Self-published. Retrieved 2007-03-01. ^David Weigel, "Hands Off Hitler! It's time to repeal Godwin's Law" Reason Magazine, July 14, 2005^Greenwald, Glenn (2010-07-01) The odiousness of the distorted Godwin's Law, Salon.com^"I Seem To Be A Verb: 18 Years of Godwin's Law". Jewcy.com. 2008-04-30. Retrieved 2010-04-16. This audio file was created from a revision of the "Godwin's law" article dated 2005-07-01, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. (Audio help)

aangirfan: FRY, SPIES AND GAY RUSSIA

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Sat, 10 Aug 2013 18:26

Stephen Fry, the famous Jewish TV personality and author, wants a boycott of the Winter Olympics in Russia because of Russia's alleged homophobia.Fry knows a lot about the security services and has written a novel on the subject - The Stars' Tennis Balls.Was Fry recruited by the spooks while he was in prison for fraud?

Fry is wrong about Russia."The age of consent in Russia is 16 years of age, regardless of sexual orientation.""Transsexuals and transgender persons are allowed to change their legal gender."Homosexuality is not regarded as a mental illness and it is not a criminal offence under Russian law."Single persons can adopt children whatever their sexual orientation, while homosexuals can serve in the armed forces without any type of restriction."Pioneers by Deineka. Deineka.info"Secondly, let us examine the law in question that was passed recently by 436 votes in favour and zero against with one abstention by Russia's DUMA, or Parliament: it is a law which bans the propagation of non-traditional sexual activities among minors.

"In other words, it is a law which prohibits the distribution or dissemination of homosexual acts, among children..."Suppose the campaigners stopped the hysteria, dropped the hype and took a stand against NATO's illegal wars, its support for terrorists in Libya and Syria, its intrusion into the internal affairs of sovereign states, its wanton acts of mass murder, strafing civilians with military hardware, targeting civilian structures with the same?"Suppose they started criticizing the arming of rogue elements on NATO's own lists of proscribed terrorist groups,the transportation of al-Qaeda murderers to Syria, its detention of persons without due legal process in its torture and concentration camps, its practice of urinating in food, setting dogs on people, forcing Moslems to eat pork, ridiculing their sexual organs, and sodomising them."If NATO or the citizens in its member states want Russians to start behaving in the same way, it is not going to happen. What was that about casting the first stone?"

Putin's Lone Walk After Coach's Funeral - Business Insider

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Sat, 10 Aug 2013 20:34

Russian President Vladimir Putin is known for his rugged spirit and unflinching exterior.

But he was so overcome following the funeral of his personal judo coach Anatoly Rachlin that he forcefully pushed past his car and security and went for a lone walk, reports Russia Today.

The tension is palpable as he tells his security to give him space.

Even though it is undoubtedly staged to an extent, like most of Putin's public outings, this manufactured moment is still imbued with the feeling of losing a teacher.

This is what it looks like when a former KGB colonel grieves for a lost friend.

Watch:

Amsterdam verbiedt Russisch galaconcert niet

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Source: VK: Home

Fri, 09 Aug 2013 12:37

Bewerkt door: redactie '' 09/08/13, 13:32 '' bron: ANP

(C) ANP. Burgemeester van Amsterdam, Eberhard van der Laan

Het Russische galaconcert Constellation of Russia dat op 25 augustus in Amsterdam wordt gehouden, moet gewoon doorgaan. De gemeente trekt de vergunning voor het evenement niet in na een oproep hiertoe van homobelangenorganisaties COC Nederland en Pride United.

Wel wil burgemeester Eberhard van der Laan op korte termijn in gesprek met de organisaties. Het stadsbestuur deelt de zorgen over ontwikkelingen in Rusland, waar de homorechten onder grote druk staan. Daarover heeft het zich de afgelopen tijd ook uitgesproken, onder meer tijdens het bezoek van de Russische president Poetin aan de Hermitage en op de Gay Pride.

De vergunning voor het evenement op het Museumplein blijft echter in stand. 'Juist omdat Amsterdam een naam heeft hoog te houden als stad waar w(C)l ruimte bestaat voor verschillende geluiden.' Een verbod past daarom niet bij de stad, liet de gemeente vrijdag weten.

'Vanzelfsprekend geldt deze vrijheid van meningsuiting ook voor tegengeluiden. Deze hebben in Amsterdam, ook in het Ruslandjaar, alle ruimte.' Hierover wil de burgemeester dan ook spreken met beide organisaties.

Tijdens het evenement is er muziek, dans en ballet van artiesten uit verschillende Russische regio's. Het gratis toegankelijke festival vindt plaats in het kader van het Nederland-Ruslandjaar 2013 en de organisatie is in handen van Rossotrudnichestvo. Dat is een onderdeel van het Russische ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken.

PM rejects Fry Olympic boycott call

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Source: BBC News - Home

Sat, 10 Aug 2013 12:53

10 August 2013Last updated at06:21 ETThe Prime Minister has rejected a call from broadcaster Stephen Fry to strip Russia of the 2014 Winter Olympics because of its treatment of gay people.

In an open letter on his website Fry said Russia was "making scapegoats of gay people".

David Cameron said he shared Fry's "deep concern about the abuse of gay people in Russia", but did not support a boycott.

He said: "I believe we can better challenge prejudice as we attend."

A Russian law, passed in June, prescribes heavy fines for anyone providing information about homosexuality to people under 18.

'Absolute ban'In his letter, which was published on Wednesday, Mr Fry compared the situation to the decision to hold the 1936 games in Nazi Germany.

In Russia, he wrote: "Beatings, murders and humiliations are ignored by the police. Any defence or sane discussion of homosexuality is against the law."

"It is simply not enough to say that gay Olympians may or may not be safe in their village. An absolute ban on the Russian Winter Olympics of 2014 is simply essential," he also said.

Continue reading the main storyThe Games themselves should be open to all, free of discrimination.''

End QuoteJacques RoggePresident, International Olympics Committee"Stage them elsewhere in Utah, Lillyhammer [sic], anywhere you like. At all costs (Russian President Vladimir) Putin cannot be seen to have the approval of the civilised world."

He urged International Olympics Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge and his fellow committee members to "take a firm stance on behalf of the shared humanity it is supposed to represent".

'Need clarification'On Saturday, Mr Rogge said he had asked Russia to explain how its new law on gay propaganda might affect the games.

He said in Moscow that Russia's written reassurances over the Winter Olympics needed clarification.

"We don't think it is a fundamental issue, more a translation issue," Mr Rogge added.

"We are not clear about the English translation of the Russian law and we want clarification of this translation to be able to understand what has been communicated to us," he said.

Mr Rogge was visiting Moscow ahead of the the world athletics championships due to start there on Saturday.

He stressed that, under the Olympic charter, sport was a "human right and should be available to all regardless of race, sex, sexual orientation".

Ministry of Truth

AP Pressured Into Issuing Correction Over 'Interpretive Phrase' Added to Obama's Embarrassing Gaffe | TheBlaze.com

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Fri, 09 Aug 2013 11:42

After being widely criticized for editing out President Barack Obama's geography gaffe made during his late-night TV interview with Jay Leno, the Associated Press has responded to public pressure and issued a thorough correction regarding its initial story.

''In an Aug. 7 story on President Barack Obama's comments on the need to deepen U.S. harbors, The Associated Press wrongly inserted an interpretive phrase in parentheses into a quote by Obama,'' the AP writes.

Here is the altered quote in question:

''If we don't deepen our ports all along the Gulf '' (and in) places like Charleston, S.C., or Savannah, Ga., or Jacksonville, Fla. '' if we don't do that, these ships are going to go someplace else and we'll lose jobs.''

Many sharp viewers were quick to point out that neither Charleston, S.C., nor Savannah, Ga., or even Jacksonville, Fla., are located along the Gulf. Clearly, adding the ''(and in)'' alters the statement in a fundamental way, making the statement seem like it wasn't a gaffe at all.

''The [AP]'...parenthetical Obama Gulf gaffe rescue would be akin to putting an ''(s)'' after ''potatoe'' to cover for Dan Quayle,'' Michelle Malkin said, as previously reported by TheBlaze.

The AP now admits: ''Charleston, Savannah and Jacksonville are not Gulf ports. It wasn't known if the president was suggesting they were. The AP should not have added the phrase in an effort to clarify his statement.''

Here's how the quote as it now appears in the news agency's updated post:

''If we don't deepen our ports all along the Gulf '' places like Charleston, S.C., or Savannah, Ga., or Jacksonville, Fla. '' if we don't do that, these ships are going to go someplace else and we'll lose jobs,'' Obama said.

The story was written by Associated Press reporter Russ Bynum.

''

A Creepy Video That Shows How Easily Protest Photos Can Be Staged

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Fri, 09 Aug 2013 20:40

Think the above photo is showing a violent protest in the Middle East? Think again. The photo is in fact a screen grab from a video showing just how easily news photos of a 'violent protest' could be staged.

The video below, captured by Elbadil TV, shows this fake protest shoot in action. Unfortunately we have no context regarding the ''protest'' itself '-- it could be a legitimate propaganda photo-op or simply a group of students showing how easily these things can be faked '-- but the creepy result speaks for itself:

In the video, the fake protesters are expressing their support for the recently unseated President of Egypt Mohamed Morsi. Some protesters hoist signs expressing their desire to avoid a coup and keep Morsi in office, while other 'injured' protesters are seen laying on the ground covered in fake blood.

Some cite this as an example of ''Pallywood,'' a term coined by professor Richard Landes of Boston University that refers to alleged media manipulation by Palestinians and other Arabs. Again, without context, there's no way to know for sure what this is showing, but it certainly acts as proof of concept.

We already shared the dangers of fake imagery in the news and its psychological effects some time ago, this video simply points out that not all staged press photos require Photoshop.

Cyber$cams

Cyber attack blackmail charges

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Source: BBC News - Home

Fri, 09 Aug 2013 12:44

9 August 2013Last updated at05:04 ETTwo men have been charged in connection with an attempt to blackmail a Manchester internet company with a cyber attack.

Police described it as a multi-million pound plot.

Patryk Surmacki, 35, of Szezecin and Piotr Smirnaw, 31, of Tawerny, Warsaw each face two charges of blackmail and one of unauthorised acts on a computer.

They were arrested at Heathrow Airport on Wednesday and are due at Uxbridge Magistrates' Court in London later.

The investigation is being led by Greater Manchester Police and supported by the Serious and Organised Crime Agency. It centres on a reported cyber attack on the online company's website.

Police said they could not confirm the identity of the internet firm that was targeted.

In Newark, Gunshot Detection System Falls Short of Booker's Claims - WNYC

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Sun, 11 Aug 2013 12:09

As he runs for higher office, Newark Mayor Cory Booker talks a great deal about bringing his insight as chief executive of a crime-ridden inner city to the U.S. Senate. And he proselytizes about the ways technology can solve stubborn problems.

One example that Booker touts is the gunshot detection technology he brought in to combat gun violence. But, the impact of the technology has been, at best, modest.

New Jersey Public Radio found that officers who represent the Newark Police Department to the public were far from transparent about the effectiveness of the gunshot detection system, called ShotSpotter. The Newark Police Department officer in charge of the program was confused and uniformed about its use.

Introducing Gunshot Detection Technology

Back in 2007, Booker announced he was bringing in gunshot detection sensors to combat gun violence in the city, after four young people were lined up behind an elementary school in Newark and shot execution-style from close range, in the backs of their heads.

The sensors are essentially microphones, strategically placed in high-crime neighborhoods. Of all the sounds of a city, they isolate any noise that sounds like gunfire.

Booker said the combination of sensors and surveillance cameras would help police find the people who fire guns in the city.

''You can actually capture the perpetrators in their actions,'' Booker announced.

But Sgt. Marvin Carpenter, who oversees the gunshot detection system in Newark, says that has not happened often. ''When we get there, usually the perp is not in the area,'' he said.

In the last three years, gunshot detection sensors in Newark went off 3,632 times, and 17 shooters were arrested on scene.

But for more than half of the sensors in Newark, there is no accompanying camera for several blocks. That leaves officers with insufficient information to act.

''So you might get a vehicle taking off, you might pick up somebody discharging a weapon,'' Carpenter said. But catching the person who fired the weapon? ''Very rare, because you would have to have cameras in every corner of the city in order for that to actually work."

It costs Newark taxpayers about $80,000 a year to maintain the current system. But critics argue the total cost is much more than that, given the way police respond when a detector goes off. Since 2010, 75 percent of the gunshot alerts have been false alarms. But police are often deployed to the location anyway, just in case there is a shooter.

George Muschal says that's a lot of police resources being diverted. He was a police officer in Trenton for 40 years and is now president of the Trenton City Council.

Trenton no longer uses ShotSpotter, but when the city did, Muschal said multiple police units would be deployed when the sensors went off. ''And when you get there, it's noting more than a truck back firing,'' he said. ''Now you go and jeopardize everyone going past the speed limit, and you're putting everyone on a wild goose chase.''

He says a Christmas Day shooting went undetected in Trenton. ''You got a guy shot in the back of the head that's dead, laid on the street approximately six hours before he was discovered,'' Muschal said.

Measuring Success of the Program

On April 11 of this year, Newark officers responding to a ShotSpotter alert recovered a .380 caliber handgun and 14 spent shell cases. And they arrested a 25-year-old male at the location.

Newark Police Director Samuel DeMaio said that arrest was a measure of the technology's value, even if successful outcomes are rare.

The effectiveness of ShotSpotter, he added, is not just in the number of guns recovered or the number of people arrested. ''Regardless of what that number is, for us to be able to know when a gunshot goes off immediately and not have to wait for someone to call us, it's invaluable to us,'' DeMaio said.

DeMaio noted that the sensors give officers an actual location from which to start their investigations - something that is especially useful when no one calls 911.

A spokesperson for Mayor Booker said the detectors can allow police to get to shooting victims faster.

"Gunshot detection technology is, like most cutting edge technologies and policing strategies, imperfect, but make no mistake about it: having a head start, often measured in minutes, on real shooting incidents can and has meant the difference between life and death, apprehension and escape, and provides for a palpable deterrent effect," the spokesperson said. "Gunshot detection is one of many strategies Newark has employed to reduce gun violence, which is down 27 percent since Mayor Booker took office. While not a panacea, it has proven an incredibly valuable tool.''

This is all part of what the sensors are designed to accomplish, according to Ralph Clark, the president of ShotSpotter, a privately held company based in California's Bay Area. But he says one of the ideas behind the program is for police departments to track their results and communicate those outcomes to the public.

''We were able to recover X number of weapons, capture these many of perpetrators, aid these many victims, recover these many shell casings,'' Clark said, listing the kind of data that could be publicly shared. ''But that's not what we do, that's obviously what the agency does.''

Police in Camden, Paterson and East Orange are not keeping some of the most basic data '' like the number of times sensors pick up gunshots, or how often the system helps police arrest a shooter.

In Newark, Booker has cited the effectiveness of ShotSpotter in his campaign for a seat in the U.S. Senate; the Democratic primary for the seat left vacant by the death of Sen. Frank Lautenberg is Tuesday. The mayor has said the technology serves as a deterrent, and that it reduces the confidence criminals have that they can shoot a gun in Newark and get away with it.

But the number of violent crimes in Newark has continued to rise throughout Booker's tenure as mayor.

Bengahzi

Obama cites sealed indictment in Benghazi probe - Boston.com

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Fri, 09 Aug 2013 22:07

The Associated PressPresident Barack Obama gestures during his news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Friday, Aug. 9, 2013. The president said he'll work with Congress to change the oversight of some of the National Security Agency's controversial surveillance programs and name a new panel of outside experts to review technologies. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)By BRADLEY KLAPPER / Associated Press / August 9, 2013

WASHINGTON (AP) '-- President Barack Obama vowed Friday to bring to justice those responsible for last year's deadly assault on a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, and made a public reference to a sealed indictment.

Obama said catching the militants who killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans on Sept. 11 remained a top priority, defending himself by noting that it took his government longer than 11 months to make good on his promise to find Osama bin Laden.

And he said his administration was making progress in its investigation.

''There's a sealed indictment,'' Obama said at a news conference at the White House. ''It's sealed for a reason, but we are intent on capturing those who carried out this attack. And we're going to stay on it until we get them.''

It's unusual for a public official to talk openly about grand jury protected material. Sealed criminal charges are supposed to be secret until they're unsealed.

U.S. officials said earlier this week the Justice Department filed the first criminal charges against an unknown number of people believed responsible, and one official said they included Ahmed Abu Khattala, the head of a prominent Libyan militia.

It was described then as a criminal complaint, not an indictment.

Justice Department spokesman Brian Fallon declined to comment Friday about the president's reference to a sealed indictment.

Republicans have criticized the administration's response to Benghazi and its shifting explanation of what happened. Obama has promised justice since the attack but has yet to apprehend any suspects.

___

Associated Press writer Pete Yost contributed to this report.

(C) Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

War on Drug$

Presidential Memorandum -- Continuation of U.S. Drug Interdiction Assistance to the Government of Colombia

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Archived Version

Source: White House.gov Press Office Feed

Fri, 09 Aug 2013 22:55

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

August 09, 2013

MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF STATE

THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE

SUBJECT: Continuation of U.S. Drug Interdiction Assistance to the Government of Colombia

By the authority vested in me as President by section 1012 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1995, as amended (22 U.S.C. 2291-4), I hereby certify, with respect to Colombia, that: (1) interdiction of aircraft reasonably suspected to be primarily engaged in illicit drug trafficking in that country's airspace is necessary, because of the extraordinary threat posed by illicit drug trafficking to the national security of that country; and (2) Colombia has appropriate procedures in place to protect against innocent loss of life in the air and on the ground in connection with such interdiction, which shall at a minimum include effective means to identify and warn an aircraft before the use of force is directed against the aircraft.

The Secretary of State is authorized and directed to publish this determination in the Federal Register and to notify the Congress of this determination.

BARACK OBAMA

EconomicPolicyJournal.com: This Week in TSA Drama

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Archived Version

Sat, 10 Aug 2013 21:50

Baghdad TSA Bob reports in:An anomaly was detected in a checked bag at St. Thomas (STT). After inspecting the bag, 2.2 kilograms of cocaine were discovered concealed inside candles. We're not looking for drugs, but powder inside what should be a solid wax candle does call for additional scrutiny. This is just another example of how our technology can spot anomalies and keep the flying public safe.

A shot gun was discovered in a checked golf bag in Detroit (DTW)

Wes Clark 7

Lebanon has record marijuana crop

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Archived Version

Source: Dr. Jones reports

Fri, 09 Aug 2013 22:59

The Lebanese government will not attempt to eradicate marijuana fields blooming across the country's Bekaa Valley, Beirut's Daily Star newspaper reported Friday. Sources cited by the Star said it was because of the fragile security situation in the area near the border with Syria and because the government had been unable to live up to pledges to provide financial compensation to farmers whose crops were destroyed last year.

marijuana field, Bekaa Valley, Lebanon (wikimedia.org)

They are also up against Bekaa Valley marijuana farmers in no mood to see their livelihood messed with."In the absence of alternatives, we will break the hands and legs of anyone who dares destroy our crops," one of the region's biggest growers, Ali Nasri Shamas, told the Daily Star. "We will not be gentle with [the security forces] like we usually are," added Shamas, who is wanted on several arrest warrants, including on a charge of attacking the Army. "It will be a full-blown war if necessary."

This after last year's eradication effort led to clashes between would-be eradicators and farmers armed with rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, and mortars. Those clashes, which resulted in the destruction of bulldozers hired by the government to plow under pot fields, ended only when the government promised to pay compensation to farmers. That didn't happen. The Finance Ministry said it didn't have the money.

This year, although the Higher Defense Council had fighting drug cultivation on the agenda this week, sources told the Daily Star that a "tacit agreement" last month between government officials and local leaders from the Baalbek-Hermel region in the northern Bekaa meant that eradication efforts weren't going to happen this year.

"The Army is exhausted by the roving security incidents and the farmers are poor and angry," said a political source. "Everyone wants to avoid a major confrontation with the military. No one wants carnage."

The Syrian civil war raging next door has led to repeated clashes inside Lebanon, especially since the open involvement of Hezbollah members in the fighting earlier this year. The Bekaa Valley is also a Hezbollah stronghold.

Lebanese hash provided funding for feuding militias in the Lebanese civil war between 1975 and 1990, and grew into a multi-billion dollar industry before the government cracked down under international pressure in the late 1990s. But its eradication campaigns have often generated violent clashes, and promised alternative development schemes have failed to materialize.

Now, the marijuana fields are back in a big war. The Daily Star described roads in the Bekaa Valley "lined with dark green cannabis fields."

This year's pot crop would be "wonderful," Shamas said. "We moved from 5,000 dunums of cannabis-cultivated land to 45,000 dunums," he said. (A dunum is about a quarter of an acre.) There is no shortage of dealers to buy the resulting hashish, he said, adding that it was destined for markets in Egypt, Turkey, and Europe.

While Shamas reveled in his anti-government outlaw status, other marijuana farmers said they had few other options. "We have no other choice," said Abu Asaad from Yammouneh. "Our region is highly poor and neglected and I prefer planting cannabis to turning into a bandit or a car thief."

The farmers scoffed at international aid and alternative development programs, saying they had been a bad joke.

"It's high time international donors realize that their money is not spent to devise tangible agricultural policies, but rather goes straight to the pockets of officials," Abu Asaad said. "Eradication campaigns are carried out at our expense and used to secure more funds, which will surely be embezzled."

Meanwhile, to save face, Lebanese authorities may do some Potemkin eradication.

"The police and Army might destroy a small plot of land where cannabis is grown in the next few weeks just to demonstrate that they have not dropped the ball on the matter, but I totally rule out a large-scale campaign," a source told the Daily Star.

US remains 'uninterested' as Kurds massacred by Syria's militant opposition

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Archived Version

Source: WT news feed

Sun, 11 Aug 2013 12:50

Patrick Henningsen is a writer, investigative journalist, and filmmaker and founder of the news website 21stCentury Wire.com.

Reports this week of the radical Islamist opposition in Syria massacring Kurds in the northern Syria is a disturbing development, but not nearly as disturbing as the strategic silence on the issue by the US and European government-media complex.

According to reports from the village of Tal Abyad near the Turkish border on Monday, jihadist terror brigades massacred some 450 residents, including 330 women and elderly, along with 120 youths and elderly near the Turkish border.

For nearly a year now, this Saudi and Qatari-financed armed opposition, known as Al-Nusra Front, or Jabhat Al-Nusra, has been enabled by its benefactors to run rampant in and around Syria. Because of the US and Britain's cozy relationship with both their gulf allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar, very little, if any, condemnation has come from the political ring leaders of the Syrian reformation project based in Washington and London. The same goes for the Western media, who do not want to run any news that might further expose their political leaders' own shaky history with Syria since the conflict began.

Any US congressional hearings or British parliamentary inquiries into the matter might just reveal too much information about the illegal flow of arms, or the presence of CIA, MI6, Mossad agents, along with any other undeclared special forces currently involved in operations around the conflict zone there. Given the current political climate, any such revelations would be a political disaster, especially for Washington.

Other disturbing reports of targeted violence in the region include Kurds being targeted by both Al-Nusra Front and the Free Syrian Army in northern Syria. Recently, in Tall Hassel and Tall Aren near Aleppo, 200 Kurds were said to have been taken hostage. There are also fears of the possibly that dozens of other civilians, including women and children, may have been brutally massacred there.

With the situation deteriorating, it's clear that thousands of civilians are becoming trapped in this region, threatened with execution, rape and victims of kidnapping by the FSA and Al-Qaeda groups. It's not yet known how many young people have been executed for the sole reason of being a Kurd.

By empowering these radical Islamic foreign-dominated fighters in Syria, the West and its Gulf State business affiliates have fueled a situation whereby fatwas could be issued in radical Sunni mosques in Syria and elsewhere - making Kurdish blood 'legal'.

Al-Nusra Front's efforts in the Kurdish region of Syria appear to have an ethnic cleansing, or genocidal shape to them. These radical Islamists appear to be motivated by religion and race, as evidenced by the Islamic front's public announcement of its wish to carve out an independent religious and Arab state, or emirate, in Northern Syria. Islamic rebels in Syria are already in the process of re-branding themselves as the 'Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham', also known as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS).

With so much Kurdish blood already spilt, it's a foregone conclusion that most Syrian Kurds will never accept any alliance with the FSA-Islamist-Al-Qaeda confab. This means that fighting in the region could be a long and violent affair '' especially if Washington and Ankara continue to employ a policy of willful ignorance towards the bloodshed there.

Washington's blind eye towards the Al-Nusra Front terrorist conclave was forced out into the open last month when the US Congress voted against arming the Syrian rebels on the grounds that it's now dominated by fighters with known terrorist affiliations, including Al-Qaeda. Many in the US government are beginning to realize that toppling the government of Bashar Assad at any cost is a cost too high to bear.

The facts on the ground over the last year reveal that the so-called 'moderate opposition' known as the Free Syrian Army is painfully weak, and dominated by dozens, if not hundreds of radical, foreign-led Islamist fighting groups, of which Al-Nusra Front is the largest and best-funded. Still, Washington will not openly condemn the terror group for fear that such a public decrial of foreign militant terror in Syria would discredit the West's entire effort over the last two years of characterizing the Syrian Armed Opposition as some sort of progressive, modern democratic, freedom-loving homogenous effort.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov probably said it best, when he explained recently, ''We saw before some Security Council members reluctant to condemn terror attacks in Syria on the grounds that '' as cynical as it sounds '' those attacks are being carried out by people fighting against an obsolete regime. This position is absolutely unacceptable. No double standards can be applied to terrorism.''

Truer words could not have been spoken. It seems that in their imperial scramble to reform the Middle East to suit its corporate and Israeli-driven interests, the West has all but surrendered its moral pulpit to Russia, and after the dust settles in Syria, it's unlikely that neither the US or Britain will be able to ever to preach to the international community about the War on Terror.

Turkey, it seems, is now caught in the geopolitical crossfire '' a victim of its leadership's own dubious partnerships.

Prime Minister Erdogan has become hamstrung by his own overwhelmingly pro-Western, partisan positions taken early on in the Syrian destabilization effort which began in earnest two years ago. Last year's visits with President Obama were centered on hopes of carving out a NATO buffer zone in northern Syria, but that never got off the ground. This past spring, US visits to regions were focused on getting Turkey to patch-up its differences with Israel. We now know what that was all about - as Turkey dived into the deep end this past June by allowing the Israeli Air Force to use Turkish bases to stage at least two bombing runs on Syria over the last two months.

This latest wave of violence against Syrian Kurds comes at a time when Turkish''Kurdish relations have been on the mend regionally. Ankara has made substantial progress towards peace and has even entered into bilateral energy partnership with the Kurdish Regional Government in Northern Iraq.

In addition to this, Turkey invited a prominent Syrian Kurdish leader, Salih Muslim from the Partiya Yek®tiya Demokrat (PYD), in order to open dialogue with the Foreign Ministry and intelligence services in Ankara and Istanbul. This is significant because only one year ago, Turkey was threatening military action because of the PYD's activities in northern Syria, which Ankara believed was working in congress with its domestic nemesis, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) whose members reside inside Turkey. The Turkish leadership is also engaged in a peace process with the PKK in Turkey, and the results of this effort will ultimately affect the outcome of its talks with the PYD in Syria.

Turkey is also well aware that the West's proxy war in Syria is not going as well as geopolitical engineers in Washington, London and Paris think it is, and that Al-Nusra Front is being seen as an overwhelmingly negative phenomenon in terms of regional security '' and therefore will move to distance itself from it. Any political alliance with the PYD would benefit Turkey in moving away from its uncomfortable proximity to the terrorist brigades of northern Syria.

According to a recent statement by PYD spokesman Alan Semo, ''Groups such Al-Nusra, not the Kurds, were the real threat to Turkey's security.''

''If you are going to work with us, we can protect you from these jihadists,'' he said, addressing the Turkish government (Financial Times of London August 5, 2013).

Maybe Turkey has somewhat honest motives in this case, not least of all its own internal security, but time will tell how serious Ankara really is regarding its newfound support of Kurds in northern Syria. Certainly, Turkey is playing a very dangerous and potentially volatile game with its puppet master in Washington pulling strings and making threats from over the Western horizon.

None can ignore the strategic and geopolitical importance of the Kurdish national movement '' a people without borders whose community straddles Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran. They are a people without a nation, both courted and reviled by power-players in governments, and yet, they may ultimately determine the outcome of not only the conflict in Syria, but the destiny of the entire region.

On a global scale, however, the conflict in Syria is still a proxy war, and the great powers will most likely try to ride out the conflict from an Imperial perspective. Rather than deploying their own troops, or attacking Syria themselves, they will continue to employ others in order to destabilize the region, in the hopes that when the piles of ashes lay thick, the West can glide in to marshal over the rebuilding process of economic and political reformation.

But that old plan may not actually work this time with Syria, it's certainly not going well for central planning at the moment.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

NWO

Group 4 (company) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Archived Version

Fri, 09 Aug 2013 18:36

Group 4 was a security business operating primarily in the United Kingdom and latterly worldwide.

The company was established by J¶rgen Philip-S¶rensen, as a division of Securitas AB in 1968.[1] The name derives from the fact that it brought together four different British security businesses into a single entity which became known as Group 4 Total Security and which was demerged from Securitas AB in 1981.[1] Following the decision by the British Government in 1993 to enter into a contract with Group 4 to provide security for prisons, the company was embarrassed after a series of security blunders, including escaped prisoners.[1] It merged with Falck, a Danish security business, in June 2000 to form Group 4 Falck.[1]

1993 prisoner escapes in the United Kingdom

In April 1993 Group 4 held a carefully stage managed press conference to resolve public relations problems after four prisoners were lost in the first seven days of their contract to transport prisoners about. Just after the press conference it was revealed a further two had been lost.[2]

In 1993 Tony Blair described their performance as a comedy of errors during the first ten days of their contract to transport prisoners.[3][4]

President Obama signs the "Bipartisan Student Loan Certainty Act of 2013

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Archived Version

Source: White House.gov Video Feed

Fri, 09 Aug 2013 23:01

Oval Office

2:21 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Well, before I sign this, I just want to say thank you to this extraordinary coalition that helped make this signing possible. I want to thank Chairman Kline, all the members of both House and Senate from both parties that came together to design a sensible, common-sense approach to keeping student interest rates at a reasonable level so that young people have a better opportunity to go to college, get the education that they need not only to better their own lives but also to strengthen the country's economy.

And I want to thank the advocates, including some of the young people I suspect will be benefiting from lower student loans -- or lower student loan interest rates -- because without their voice, without their participation, we probably would not have gotten this bill done.

Last point I'll make, and I suspect the Senators and Congressmen behind me will agree with this, even though we've been able to stabilize the interest rates on student loans, our job is not done, because the cost of college remains extraordinarily high. It's out of reach for a lot of folks, and for those who do end up attending college, the amount of debt that young people are coming out of school with is a huge burden on them; it's a burden on their families. It makes it more difficult for them to buy a home. It makes it more difficult for them if they want to start a business. It has a depressive effect on the economy overall. And we've got to do something about it.

So I'm going to be looking forward to engaging this same coalition to see if we can continue to take additional steps to reform our higher education system, and I'll have some more things to say about that in the weeks to come.

But for now, I want to celebrate what we accomplished here, and again, thank everybody here for their leadership in getting it done.

(The bill is signed.)

Those of you who haven't seen me do this before -- (laughter) -- it is a real art form. (Laughter.)

SENATOR DURBIN: Thank you, Mr. President -- I remember the 90-minute seminar in this office. (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: It was very interesting. (Laughter.)

It feels good signing bills -- I haven't done this in a while. (Laughter.) Hint, hint. Hint, hint. (Laughter.)

SENATOR DURBIN: How about a budget, Mr. President?

THE PRESIDENT: There you go. That's what I'm talking about. (Laughter.)

All right, thank you, everybody.

END

2:25 P.M. EDT

Close Transcript

IED's

This Man Would Like to Turn Anyone's Clothes Into a Bomb - Atlantic Mobile

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Archived Version

Wed, 07 Aug 2013 13:09

Next ArticleIbrahim Hassan al-Asiri (Reuters)

By devising an ingenious series of possibly undetectable airline bombs, a wiry Saudi named Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri has become the latest personification of the ever-changing al Qaeda threat. You can thank him and his tradecraft for much of the frenzy of counterterrorism activity in recent days. That includes pretty much every country shutting down its embassy in Sana'a, Yemen and evacuating government personnel, and dire warnings of a possibly large-scale imminent attack in North Africa or the Middle East--or possibly somewhere else.

The global war on terrorism has never lacked a face of evil to embody the threat; Osama bin Laden, of course, as well as Ayman Zawahiri, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and others. But authorities are now pursuing Asiri with an especially high level of urgency and concern. The reason: not only is he a bomb-maker for the terror network's most dangerous affiliate, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), he's apparently a very capable and creative one who has trained other al Qaeda operatives.

Asiri also seems to know exactly how to exploit what is arguably the biggest hole in the vast counter-terrorism safety net that has been constructed since the 9/11 attacks--airline security. U.S. authorities in recent weeks disclosed that Asiri has probably designed a sophisticated and powerful explosive device that can avoid detection by trained dogs and bomb detection machines at airport security checkpoints. And there are now concerns that AQAP--presumably at Asiri's direction--is developing an ingenious new generation of liquid explosive that is also undetectable, and possibly being used in planned (and imminent) attacks. Operatives reportedly can dip ordinary clothing into a liquid explosive and turn the clothes themselves into bombs once dry.

"He is a man of great experience and his experience is specifically in explosives, so that makes him more dangerous than others," a senior Yemeni official said today. "We have been looking for him for quite some time now. Anything he does is problematic."

Asiri is believed to be a savant of sorts, a trained chemist and the son of a retired Saudi soldier, who is about 31 years old. He has attacked numerous Western, Middle Eastern and North African targets, devising various high-tech devices including shoe bombs, underwear bombs, printers fitted with high-grade explosives, and metal-free bombs.

Counter-terrorism authorities have been playing a cat-and-mouse game with Asiri and other al Qaeda explosives experts for many years, changing their security posture--especially for commercial aviation--with each new bomb-making development. Those include the use of explosives like Triacetone Triperoxide (TATP) and Pentaerythritol Tetranitrate (PETN), which required new methods of detection. Asiri has been a particularly frustrating quarry. The CIA thought it had killed him at least once, in a drone strike in Yemen. Then an al Qaeda operative tasked with carrying out an attack with a new version of Asiri's underpants bomb defected to the CIA and Arab intelligence agencies--with the bomb--but Asiri was able to slip away again.

Next ArticleJosh Meyer is co-author of ``The Hunt For KSM: Inside The Pursuit and Takedown of the Real 9/11 Mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,'' and the Washington, DC-based director of education and outreach for the Medill National Security Journalism Initiative.

IED Change?

Living in Germany, I get most of my news from No Agenda, BBC and Wall

Street Journal...interesting mix. Reading about the terror threat

over the past few days, I've noticed that the WSJ is using the word

Bomb a lot more as in "expert bomb maker", expected "bomb attack"

etc... I'm confused, aren't these IED's?! Did they do some polling

and find that IED wasn't scary enough or the average American was too

stupid to know that IED meant bomb?! Or is it code that bomb is for

the non controlled attacks and IED is for government sanctioned

attacks? I'm leaning towards the polling myself...IED sounds to

technically and almost clean. Or maybe it's a setup for "dirty bomb"

since I've never heard of a "dirty IED."

Safe trip back from the low lands. Come back over for Oktoberfest!

Steve

Adam's Email

Service Personel listening

You are doing a great service to our country, even if it is 80 percent BS (I'm not saying it is, I'm just saying that even if it was), it is still a great service what you are doing, as it is entertaining and makes us think.

When I was in the navy, I would drink with marines, and they would say they really expected what I did, being on a submarine - they could never do that. And I usually replied that I admired what they were doing, as I have a high allergy to lead at high velocities. And we would laugh, and they said thanks to their taxi drivers and nurses (I.e. The navy) and I told them to fuck off and bought them a drink.

Difference between marines and seals? They do both - they are death from above and below, land and sea. They do stuff that will stop a man's heart. So I buy them drinks unapologetically, knowing I am completely on the winning side of any potential bar fight as I catch the spin-off of beautiful girls trying to fall in their laps.

Anyway, accept the gratuit from the forces freely, btw all of the major news outlets are breaking out with benghazi gun running, kudos to you for picking up on that early, I know is just one of many examples where you do so.

I am keeping up with you via podcast, I was in dar es salaam tanzania now in kampala uganda, your african boner (gitmo boner residing in africa?) Who will redeem himself at a later date, writing a book and trying to find a job here in uganda.

Can't be worse than Tanzania, that place was a bitch for me but then again I never got any job karma from you guys! My fault I guess.

Itm,

Vin

Another NA Traveltip

@TheWeirdWorld: At an airport and need wifi? Add "?.jpg" at the end of any URL to bypass the expensive wifi and access the Internet for free.

Obama Leno Jabouti

Producer Tristan: I'm saying jabouti. Obama was thinking Africa. something's up in jabouti is my call.

More on Russia Gay Law

Hey, Adam!

Just a couple of notes about situation over here

Duma. Yes, right, It supposed to be our parliament but after last

elections this is 100% clear that it is not. We just don't have

separated branch of government power. There are some bunch of lunatics

nobody really has voted for. We cannot vote for a person, we can only

vote for party. I can see how you already love it. Gets better. Nobody

even trys to pretend that Duma has some rights or it's somehow

independent now. More than 2/3 of votes in Duma belong to one party

'United Russia' and Putin is kinda front man for this party. I say

kinda front man because he is not even a member of that so-called

party! And he never been. It is THAT ridiculous, I'm not kidding. All

Duma does is making some noise nobody cares about and approving lows

coming from Kremlin. With 2/3 of votes they can change even parts of

constitution not asking anybody.

And just a little note about that anti-gay low and all that.

Really nobody cares about gay rights in Russia just because gays

really, I mean really not a question here. Actually nobody was

discussing this issue until this anti-gay low was introduced by some

lunatics in Saint Petersburg (second biggest city in Russia). Same

lunatics for example want to sue Madonna for gay propaganda and

violating her tourist visa restrictions (she can't perform for money

as a tourist but that's close to unreal to get working visa and all

performers always come as tourists...)

Some sad sad sad circus shit going on here, maybe I helped to

understand a little bit of that

--

Long time listener, donor and even an executive producer once,

from Russia with love

Dugwin J. Goines

War on Weed??

CNN Joins The Choom Gang

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Archived Version

Source: JustOneMinute

Fri, 09 Aug 2013 12:19

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN savant and former future Surgeon General, comes out swinging in favor of medical marijuana. A sign of the New Times? I Boldly Predict that gay marriage will become yesterday's cause and weed will be tomorrow's. Especially with the phony race war connection (We are all Trayvon and we are all high...).

The good doctor does include this important caveat:

I do want to mention a concern that I think about as a father. Young, developing brains are likely more susceptible to harm from marijuana than adult brains. Some recent studies suggest that regular use in teenage years leads to a permanent decrease in IQ. Other research hints at a possible heightened risk of developing psychosis.

Much in the same way I wouldn't let my own children drink alcohol, I wouldn't permit marijuana until they are adults. If they are adamant about trying marijuana, I will urge them to wait until they're in their mid-20s when their brains are fully developed.

Obama's personal history makes his inevitable evolution on this one a bit tougher, but, as with gay marriage, he will 'lead' once there are enough people out in front of him.

THAT WAS QUICK: My Bold Prediction may be more in the way of a 'what else is new?'. Andrew Sullivan:

That the Obama administration has done nothing to reclassify the drug to conform to minimal medical standards of accuracy can only be called extreme cowardice. At some point, in my view, this president needs to say about marijuana what he said about marriage equality: that he's for legalization, taxation and regulation. But Gupta is a helpful stepping stone '' a mainstream celebrity acknowledging that the US government is engaged in misleading and lying repeatedly to the American people.

CNN Scores Second Lowest Rated Primetime Night of the Year Among Adults 25-54

Link to Article

Archived Version

Source: TVbytheNumbers

Fri, 09 Aug 2013 23:00

CNN garnered its second lowest primetime ratings of the year among adults 25-54 on Thursday, August 8, 2013, averaging 76,000 Adults 25-54 viewers from 8-11PM and 392,000 total viewers. Piers Morgan Live delivered one of its ten lowest rated episodes of the year, with 71,000 adults 25-43 at 9PM.

Cable Network Primetime Thursday, August 8th

(8-11PM/ET)

FNC: 1,644,000 in P2+ (216,000 in 25-54)

MSNBC: 533,000 in P2+ (131,000 in 25-54)

CNN: 392,000 in P2+ (76,000 in 25-54)

CNN Reboots to Grab Non-News Ad Dollars | Media - Advertising Age

Link to Article

Archived Version

Sat, 10 Aug 2013 22:37

It looks like CNN is gunning for ad dollars that typically go to networks like Nat Geo and Travel Channel, as the founder of 24-hour cable news broadens beyond its programming base.

New President Jeff Zucker has been trying to remake CNN into a network that's essential every day rather than watched only during big news events.

"CNN's new programming strategy lends itself to go after dollars that are not traditional news," said Sam Armando, senior VP-director of strategic intelligence at Publicis Groupe's SMGx.

At the time of his hire, Mr. Zucker said news is more than just "politics and war." To this end, he is revamping the schedule -- bringing in personalities like George Stroumboulopoulos and Chris Cuomo; emphasizing mornings to take on the likes of "Today"; and moving into new genres with Anthony Bourdain's weekend travel show.

These formats will help CNN broaden its appeal to a wider consumer base and give the network opportunities to bring in new advertising categories and more ad dollars, said Greg D'Alba, president, CNN News Networks and Turner digital ad sales and marketing.

According to SNL Kagan, CNN ranked as the 23rd-largest basic cable network by gross advertising revenue in 2012 with $379.5 million. That puts it behind non-news networks like USA, Food Network, History, Syfy and Bravo. (ESPN was No. 1 with $2.08 billion.)

Under the new formats, CNN's sales team will also be able to build promotions and sponsorship packages around show launches, which have historically been limited. Mr. Bourdain's show has attracted BMW and MillerCoors as launch sponsors; the latter hasn't bought time on the network in about five years.

CNN is also selling its "foundation brands," like Mr. Bourdain, Anderson Cooper and Piers Morgan.

According to Magna Global, cable evening news receives 12% of total cable TV ad spending in the U.S. This is the third-largest cable daypart by spend, behind weekday prime time (17%) and late night (13%).

CNN also will be promoting its new research capabilities -- All-Screen, a partnership with Nielsen and Arbitron, and Advanced Media Targeting -- which give agency clients the ability to plan, measure and post their cross-platform campaigns more effectively, according to the company.

CNN isn't hosting an upfront, instead it will be bringing Mr. Zucker into small meetings with select agencies.

pharmaceutical advertising on cnn - Google Search

Link to Article

Archived Version

Sat, 10 Aug 2013 22:29

Prosecutor blasts Google over drug ads - CNN.comwww.cnn.com/2013/06/19/tech/google-drug-ads

19 Jun 2013 ... Mississippi's top prosecutor Wednesday threatened to subpoena the search giantGoogle over what he called its failure to crack down on ads ...Google braces for huge fine from rogue drug ads - CNN.comwww.cnn.com/2011/US/06/22/google.drug.ads/index.html- Cached1 Jul 2011 ... Internet search giant Google is bracing for a fine that could top $500 million, aftera federal probe of illegal online pharmacy ads placed on the ...Drug industry's free speech helps doctors - CNN.comwww.cnn.com/2012/12/10/opinion/frum-off-label-use-of-drugs

10 Dec 2012 ... David Frum says a court ruling that drug companies can discuss off-label uses fortheir drugs allows doctors to learn of new options.Prescription drug deaths: Two stories - CNN.comwww.cnn.com/2012/11/15/health/deadly-dose-jackson-rummler

Prescription drug deaths: Two stories. By Maxwell Newfield, CNN. updated 12:44PM EST, Mon November 19, 2012. STORY HIGHLIGHTS. Emily Jackson died ...The Double-Edged Sword of Drug Marketing - CNN.comwww.cnn.com/HEALTH/bioethics/9908/drug.marketing/- Cached9 Aug 1999 ...CNN.com ...Pharmaceutical advertising combines medical information for the laypublic with images of a healthy and carefree lifestyle.Gupta: Let's end the prescription drug death epidemic - CNN.comwww.cnn.com/2012/11/14/health/gupta-accidental-overdose

Gupta: Let's end the prescription drug death epidemic. By Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN. updated 11:57 AM EST, Mon November 19, 2012. STORY HIGHLIGHTS.Prescription Drugs: News & Videos about Prescription ... - CNN.comtopics.cnn.com/topics/Prescription_Drugs- CachedCNN's Elizabeth Cohen reports. ... CNNMoney: Google pays $500 million tosettle DOJ case over illegal drug adsupdated: Wed Aug 24 2011 12:13:00.Are we sure our drugs are safe? - CNN.comwww.cnn.com/2012/02/01/opinion/dingell-drug-oversight

1 Feb 2012 ... He also is the author of H.R. 1483, the Drug Safety Enhancement Act, which ... (CNN) -- When Americans pick up their prescriptions from the ...Cocaine: The evolution of the once 'wonder' drug - CNN.comwww.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/07/22/social.history.../index.html- Cached22 Jul 2011 ... (CNN) -- Long before drug cartels, crack wars and TV shows about addiction,cocaine was promoted as a .... The advertisements went away.Generic drug safety argued at high court - CNN.comwww.cnn.com/2013/03/19/health/court-generic

Generic drug safety argued at high court. By Bill Mears, CNN Supreme CourtProducer. updated 9:05 AM EDT, Wed March 20, 2013. Federal law requires ...CNN Adswww.ask.com/CNN+Ads

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Medical Marijuana Business Daily '' Legal, Financial and Dispensary NewsExclusive: US Medical Marijuana Sales to Hit $1.5B in 2013, Cannabis Revenues Could Quadruple by 2018

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Sat, 10 Aug 2013 22:26

March 21, 2013By Chris WalshRetail medical cannabis sales in the United States could hit an estimated $1.3 billion-$1.5 billion in 2013, growing 10-15% from last year as the industry recovers from widespread turmoil, according to exclusive research data released today byMMJ Business Daily.

The long-term future appears even brighter: The legalization of marijuana for adult use in Colorado and Washington '' coupled with the emergence of several new markets and continued overall growth on the medical side '' could boost overall state-legal cannabis sales to $3 billion in 2014 and $6 billion by 2018.

These forecasts appear in the Marijuana Business Factbook 2013, a 180-page industry report, with 69 exclusive table and charts, that begins shipping on Monday, March 25.

The Factbook '' published by the editors of MMJ Business Daily '' provides a comprehensive overview of the cannabis industry and includes state-by-state market estimates and stability/opportunity rankings as well as regulatory and investing information. It also features a wealth of financial data such as average revenues and startup costs for dispensaries, cultivation operations, edibles companies and ancillary firms. You can order it now here.

''Although plenty of information has been published elsewhere about cannabis itself, as well as the legalization movement, until now there's been a near-complete dearth of financial, market and other business-related data,'' said Cassandra Farrington, publisher of MMJ Business Daily. ''These are all facts that entrepreneurs, investors and expanding businesses need at their fingertips.''

The industry revenue estimates include sales of medical cannabis and infused products at dispensaries in states that have marijuana laws on the books, but not wholesale revenues or dollars tied to ancillary products and services. Projections for 2014-2018 include sales of marijuana for recreational use in states where it's legal.

MMJ Business Daily estimates that retail medical cannabis sales totaled roughly $1.5 billion in 2011. The numbers could have been much higher, but a crackdown by the federal government and other challenges stunted growth and led to hundreds of dispensary closures and plummeting patient numbers in some areas.

The turmoil intensified in 2012, leading to an estimated $200 million to $300 million decrease in retail medical marijuana sales as hundreds of additional dispensaries closed for various reasons and the industry collapsed in some states and cities, such as Montana and San Diego.

This year, however, the industry is poised for a recovery and should be able to get back to 2011 levels.

Dozens of MMJ centers are on track to open in Arizona '' generating tens of millions of dollars in revenues this year '' while states such as New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont as well as Washington DC are moving forward with their dispensary programs. The Colorado, Oregon and Washington State markets also are expected to grow, and there could be an MMJ revival in several California cities such as San Diego and San Francisco.

In 2014, the emergence of cannabis retail stores in Colorado and Washington could generate roughly $1 billion in state-legal cannabis sales during the first full year of operation. The markets will eventually be much bigger, but it could take time for the recreational marijuana industry in those two states to reach its near-term potential, in part because officials might look to prevent rapid growth (Colorado and Washington are still crafting regulations). Several other states are expected to pass medical or recreational cannabis laws this year, which will further fuel growth in 2014.

This trend is expected to continue for years to come, and the industry could see another huge spike in 2018 '' when any marijuana-related ballot measures passed in the 2016 general elections would really begin to play our from a business perspective. It often takes at least a year or two for states to get their dispensary/retail marijuana programs up and running after a law is passed.

There are some caveats to the projections, though.

California is still a very shaky market, and the industry could swing one way or the other this year. For instance, Los Angeles '' the largest single MMJ market in the country '' could see most of its dispensaries close later this year if voters back one measure on the ballot this spring. Several other markets, including Michigan, face challenges as well.

Additionally '' and more importantly '' the feds have not yet clarified how the government will respond to the recreational marijuana business in Colorado and Washington. Industry revenues will come in much lower if the Obama administration fights the new laws or looks to clamp down on retail cannabis stores.

On the other hand, revenues could soar much higher than expected if Colorado and Washington both allow visitors to purchase cannabis, which would create a massive marijuana tourism industry (the industry sales projections do not currently account for this possibility, as it is currently a big unknown).

MMJ Business Daily arrived at its estimates after conducting an in-depth study of the marijuana market in each state with dispensaries.

Given that the amount and quality of information available varies greatly in each state, the research team used a mix of methodologies to come up with reliable estimates, including: existing estimates by government agencies or other sources, identifiable trends, the maturity of the market, averages for similar markets or neighboring states with reliable data, average revenue per dispensary estimates, average annual patient spend in the area, information from local professionals, and/or MMJ tax revenues.

Top 10 Pharma Advertising Budgets - 2012 - FiercePharma

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Sat, 10 Aug 2013 22:31

Direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising, something that once seemed shocking, has become such a part of the television landscape that it raises few eyebrows any longer. Oh, there was an FDA study and finding last year that calming voice-overs and images of puppies and beach houses did not distract consumers from picking up on the health risks of the products being pitched. And a recent study found that voluntary industry guidelines have been ignored to the point that family-hour viewing often comes with a dose of erectile dysfunction drug advertising. But all in all, it is a part of doing business embraced by consumers and used by drugmakers of all ilk.

While DTC advertising spending has backed off from the $5-billion-a-year highs set during the boom years of the last decade, significant sums are still spent, particularly by the top 10 spenders. According to Nielsen, which tracks the numbers, those 10 last year spent $2.7 billion on ads for TV, magazines, newspapers, radio and billboards. The numbers do not track online advertising, which research shows is growing but still small comparatively. Two-thirds of the top 10's total went to television, and another 30% to magazines, leaving other media to share in about 4%, the Nielsen numbers indicate.

Most of the top 10 largest ad budgets are fielded by the largest Pharma players, but Amgen ($AMGN) and Allergan ($AGN) are also among them. The world's largest drug company, Pfizer ($PFE), tops the list, spending 23% of that $2.7 billion on some of its best-selling drugs. In fact, as the data show, it is generally a company's best-selling drugs that get the greatest spends, suggesting that DTC advertising remains very effective.

Here are the numbers, and please post a comment or send us a note if you have observations you would like to share. -- Eric Palmer (email | Twitter)

VIDEO- "U.S. Government Has A Patent On Marijuana As An Antioxidant And Neuroprotectant In The Brain!" - YouTube

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Agenda 21

Just another 33 years to an ice free arctic

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Source: 33 World News

Fri, 09 Aug 2013 12:22

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Drone Nation

Two killed in Yemen 'drone strike'

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Source: BBC News - Middle East

Sat, 10 Aug 2013 21:44

10 August 2013Last updated at17:14 ETTwo militants have been killed in a suspected US drone strike in southern Yemen, officials and witnesses say.

Two other militants were reportedly wounded when the vehicle in which they were travelling was destroyed near al-Askariya in Lahij province.

Local officials said the targets were believed to have been members of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

It is thought to have been the ninth US drone strike in Yemen since 27 July. They have left 38 militants dead.

Five were killed in a strike in the eastern province of Hadramawt on Friday, while two strikes in Hadramawt and Marib on Thursday killed eight.

The US acknowledges using drones in Yemen, but does not comment on individual strikes.

The US embassy in Yemen has been closed for the past week because of "ongoing concerns" about possible attacks by AQAP. Eighteen other US missions in the Middle East and North Africa will reopen on Sunday.

On Wednesday, the Yemeni authorities said they had foiled a AQAP plot to seize major oil and gas terminals and blow up pipelines.

Gunmen attack gas plant in Yemen

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Source: BBC News - Home

Sun, 11 Aug 2013 12:32

11 August 2013Last updated at07:20 ETSuspected al-Qaeda militants have killed five soldiers in an attack on a gas terminal in southern Yemen, reports say.

They opened fire on a checkpoint near the Balhaf terminal in Shabwa province, killing the soldiers before fleeing.

Almost all US diplomatic missions recently closed in the region due to threats were due to reopen on Sunday.

But the US embassy in the capital, Sanaa, was to stay closed "because of ongoing concerns".

Yemen is a stronghold of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) - an al-Qaeda offshoot considered by Washington to be the most dangerous to the West.

On Thursday, at least 14 suspected al-Qaeda militants - reportedly including seven from Saudi Arabia - were killed in Yemen in three drone strikes, Yemeni officials said.

The US closed 19 diplomatic missions in the Middle East and Africa last Sunday in response to what it said was a threat of a terrorist attack, but 18 out of the 19 missions were due to reopen on Sunday.

The consulate in the Pakistani city of Lahore, which closed after a separate threat, will also not reopen yet.

The US statement said its Sanaa embassy would stay closed because of concerns about a "threat stream" emanating from AQAP, without providing further details.

Most US employees at the Sanaa embassy were ordered to leave the country on Tuesday.

The embassy closures, along with a US global travel alert, came after the US reportedly intercepted al-Qaeda messages, with reports saying they were between senior figures talking about a plot against an embassy.

On Wednesday, Yemen said it had foiled a major al-Qaeda plot against oil pipelines and ports.

DOTW

DISTRACTION-Oprah faced not just fashion retail racism, but size bias too | Heidi Moore | Comment is free | theguardian.com

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Sun, 11 Aug 2013 04:05

Oprah Winfrey is a successful billionaire with an empire worth $3bn, a woman whose public reputation has been built on self-empowerment. She has been frank about the stresses in her life '' racism and sexism figure often '' and about her struggles with her weight.

It is this last aspect that may be the hardest to deal with. Oprah's thyroid condition makes her weight problems unavoidable. She has to deal with the rebellion of her body. She may find sympathetic tailors and fabulous shoes, and accessorize brilliantly, but she likely knows what all women know: shop assistants won't be kind to women over a size 10, and that is especially true of woman of color.

To find something nice for Tina Turner's wedding, Oprah walked alone into Trois Pommes in Zurich last month, an upscale shop that carries clothes from the usual runway names '' Celine, Jil Sander, Lanvin '' and has locations in wealthy ski towns that attract billionaires: St Moritz, Gstaad, Basel.

A shop assistant refused to show Oprah a $42,000 crocodile handbag. Here is the incident in Oprah's words, via the International Business Times:

I was in Zurich the other day, in a store whose name I will not mention. I didn't have my eyelashes on, but I was in full Oprah Winfrey gear. I had my little Donna Karan skirt and my little sandals. But obviously, the Oprah Winfrey Show is not shown in Zurich. I go into a store and I say to the woman, 'Excuse me, may I see the bag right above your head?' and she says to me, 'No. It's too expensive.'

Oprah later mused to Larry King that she considered following the script of Pretty Woman and deploying her fortune by buying everything in the store, but decided not to give the saleswoman the satisfaction of a larger commission. The head of the luxury chain, Trudie Goetz, later said that the saleswoman didn't recognize Winfrey and that by rejecting Oprah's request she tried to be "too kind".

No doubt, the details of the incident will be pored over. It has already been attributed to racism, and rightfully so: Oprah's incident tripped a wire that worries many women of color: to be judged negatively and immediately by their race, to be treated as second-class citizens, to be pointed to the things that are not the best, but considered merely "good enough" for you. The best and most expensive, the implication goes, is saved for those with the obvious status markers: well-groomed, accompanied by a wealthy-looking man, and usually, not coincidentally, very thin.

This is what Oprah, and most other women, rarely talk about: the struggle for respect faced by women of color is shared, at times, with another group: women of size, another category to which Oprah belongs. The scale is not the same '' racism can be as ugly as anything humans are capable of '' yet, on a day-to-day basis, they have parallels. There is the same sense of diminishment, the same high-handed assumption by others, the same struggle for control of your own image.

Race is tied with socioeconomic status struggles; so is weight. There have been some studies of a link between a woman's size and her socioeconomic status, showing that women with low incomes tend to be of higher weight. There are many theories on this '' because of unsocial working hours, lower availability of healthy food in poor neighborhoods, and other factors that may affect food choice and metabolism.

On the other side of the scale, anorexia and other eating disorders tend to be more common in people of higher socioeconomic status. You don't need science to tell you this: in the cold calculation of high-end fashion or jewellery or luxury bags, a woman's dress size is often assumed to be a marker of her status, as much as race is. Both indicate a certain institutional bigotry, an assumption based on outdated '' and just plain wrong '' cliches about what a person's bank balance looks like based on what their body looks like.

This is what most women know: when a woman walks into an upscale store, she has already been evaluated as to the size of her bank account or credit line (or whether she looks like she can attract a man with both of them). High-end shop assistants, like everyone who works on bonus, commission or by their wits '' Wall Street traders and pool hustlers, for instance '' are taught to size up a mark at a thousand paces. They read grooming, body language, clothing, and accessories as a sign of how likely someone may be to spend '' or lose '' money.

This is what that Zurich shop assistant was doing. Lacking the crucial information that Oprah was a celebrity, she relied on shallow markers: her size, her race. Even a Donna Karan dress is not enough to overcome those biases.

Oprah was looking to buy a handbag, which has no size measurements, but the product is not the point: in an upscale boutique, all buyers are judged, in part, by their weight. Many shops want the people in them to look "thin and cool", in the words of Abercrombie & Fitch's CEO. They may grudgingly sell larger sizes, but only online.

The key thing for people of any size is to remain hidden from areas where status is important. The rather unintelligent thinking seems to be that fat is infectious, or that thin people won't want products that have been merely glanced at by anyone over a size 10.

As a result, there is a kind of social segregation based on weight as well as on race. To test this, walk into any other fashionable shop in Zurich, or Gstaad, or London, or Paris, or Los Angeles, or New York: you may see women in flip-flops, women with messy ponytails, women in ripped jeans. Those are all perfectly acceptable '' as long as she is also carrying an expensive handbag or accompanied by a man who looks like he has means. But you will rarely, if ever, see even a perfectly groomed, immaculately dressed woman above a size 10.

Shop assistants in upscale boutiques in fashionable areas of major cities have become practiced at hovering around ample women in a hurry to remind them:

Oh, I'm sorry: we don't have anything in your size.

And this size bias trickles down the economic scale: clothing retailers at all levels perpetuate the idea that carrying an extra 30lb is anti-fashion. Identifying low body weight with low status seems to infect clothing retailers from Lululemon to Abercrombie & Fitch. Last week, Lululemon said that clothes above a size 12 "are not part of its business strategy", and Abercrombie's cheerleaders-only aesthetic has become the stuff of legend. "A lot of people don't belong (in our clothes), and they can't belong," says Abercrombie CEO Mike Jeffries.

This is, of course, ridiculous. There are many reasons for a woman's weight to vary, including everything from medication to thyroid issues to stress to lifestyle. Fat-shaming, as the fashion retail industry often indulges in, is also a form of fat-blaming: it assumes that a woman's weight tells you all you need to know about her. This is irrational and, most importantly, completely false.

The common bias of tying socioeconomic status with weight is just bad business. The saleswoman who made that assumption about Oprah was wrong '' and her shop not only lost a high-value customer, but is also paying a steep price in the very public wrath of a billionaire scorned. Whatever the social formula those shop assistants are using may be, it often fails to truly judge a customer's ability to spend. It was, to quote Pretty Woman, "a huge mistake".

There are women who would like to have access to upscale fashion and have the means to indulge '' if only shops would recognize that high income and good credit comes in all shapes and sizes. Maybe clothing retailers should, similarly, learn that a woman's cultural, economic and social power is not solely discernible at a glance '' either by her skin color or by her weight.

It might help their bottom line if they stopped judging those of others.

VIDEOS

VIDEO-Threat letter was sent out by mistake | KXAN.com

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Sun, 11 Aug 2013 13:53

Updated: Friday, 09 Aug 2013, 5:57 PM CDTPublished : Thursday, 08 Aug 2013, 6:29 PM CDT

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Texas Military Forces says a memo its commanders received about a potential terror threat in Austin was sent out by mistake.

The force protection alert outlines what it refers to as unconfirmed reports from the Department of Homeland Security about a potential terror attack in Austin sometime Thursday or Friday.

After contacting the Texas Military Forces Headquarters, KXAN was told the internal memo was not intended for public release.

It was sent out last week before all the details could be verified. The memo was later rescinded, but copies of the memo are now circulating on social media. It mentions Austin's famous 6th St. as a potential target area.

Greg Lane works in an office on 6th St. and told KXAN some of his colleagues and friends were startled by the memo they found while browsing social media sites.

"It makes you wonder," he said. "You saw what happened in Boston. Who would have thought two guys would detonate bombs at the Boston Marathon? To me that was out of left field. It seems like anything is possible this day and age. But you never think it's going to happen in your neck of the woods."

On Monday, the Austin Police Department confirmed it was briefed about a potential "low credibility threat" that could take place in Austin this week. APD says they are taking all necessary precautions to protect the public.

Residents who see something unusual are urged to simply speak up, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Preparations for terrorist attacks are often seen but rarely reported, DPS says. When in doubt, report the suspicious activity to your local law enforcement agency or through iWATCH , which is a DPS website where citizen-sourced information is collected in an effort to help thwart illegal and terroristic endeavors.

VIDEO-Presidential News Conference - C-SPAN Video Library

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Fri, 09 Aug 2013 21:14

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President Obama held a news conference in the East Room of the White House.'‚He addressed a number of issues including implementation of the Affordable Care Act, Nathional Security Agency (NSA) surveillance programs, .. Read MorePresident Obama held a news conference in the East Room of the White House.'‚He addressed a number of issues including implementation of the Affordable Care Act, Nathional Security Agency (NSA) surveillance programs, relations with Russian President Putin, immigration reform, and recent threats to U.S. diplomatic facilities abroad.

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VIDEO-Anthony Weiner Losing It ~ Mocks British Reporter | MRCTV

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Sat, 10 Aug 2013 23:10

If the player does not load, please check that you are running the latest version of Adobe Flash Player.

(h/t, HotAir) I have learned to grab stuff like this as it may dissapear... and this is [political] comedy gold! The original file comes from Dan Martland, and I must say, the Monty Python jab made me laugh. Because we all feel like we (the collective American public) are in a Monty Python skit with Weiner: "Kneed the dough."

(Posted by: Religio-Political Talk)

Patsy Pleads Guilty To Attempting To Blow Up The NY Federal Reserve With Bomb Supplied By FBI

MSNBC Contributor: Debate over NSA is a 'Privileged' Discussion

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Source: Hacker News

Fri, 09 Aug 2013 22:58

Reacting to President Obama's lengthy presser this afternoon, MSNBC contributor Dr. James Peterson said that the debate over the NSA's domestic surveillance operations is a ''privileged discussion'' that ignores the daily ''physical surveillance'' experienced by America's poor and minorities.

''I really find it to be quite a privileged discussion,'' Peterson said of the NSA scandal. ''It's not that I'm not interested in transparency'... I think this conversation is important, but I just believe we needed to have this conversation a long time ago.''

''I believe that poor people and people of color are under a different type of surveillance in this country,'' he continued, citing stop and frisk policies in various American cities. ''There's a tremendous amount of physical surveillance that goes on in our nation every day. I'd love to transmit this energy around the NSA'... to think more critically about poor folk and people of color are under constant physical surveillance.''

Watch below, via MSNBC:

[h/t WFB]

'' ''>> Follow Andrew Kirell (@AndrewKirell) on Twitter

AND BLESS DANIEL ELLSBERG

VIDEO-Dr. Sanjay Gupta Attacks DEA Classification of Marijuana | Crooks and Liars

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Fri, 09 Aug 2013 22:05

Just as the tide turned with same-sex marriage, more people will be coming around to the decriminalization of medical marijuana. It's really crazy that a substance with so much medical potential is treated like heroin:

CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta said Thursday that the federal Drug Enforcement Agency had no reason to treat marijuana the same way it treated PCP and heroin.

''I also looked closely at the DEA's scheduling policy,'' he said on CNN. ''They classify marijuana as a Schedule I substance. It is in the category of the most dangerous substances out there. And when I looked carefully at that, I found there was really no scientific evidence to say it was that dangerous, that it had high abuse potential and that it had no medical applications. I believe it does have medical applications.''

Twenty states and the District of Columbia have legalized the use of marijuana for medical purposes. But the DEA has refused to reschedule marijuana, insisting it has no medical value. The DEA currently considers cocaine and methamphetamines to be less harmful than marijuana. Both substances are classified as Schedule II drugs.

For conditions such as neuropathic pain, marijuana worked better and was less dangerous than other medications, Sanjay added.

''So you have something that works better, it may work when other things don't, and probably much safer and, again, I think that is important for both patients and the medical community to hear,'' he said.

VIDEO- Patsy Pleads Guilty To Attempting To Blow Up The NY Federal Reserve With Bomb Supplied By FBI - YouTube

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Sun, 11 Aug 2013 13:47

"Medical Marijuana Is A REAL MEDICINE! That Can Do Things Other Medicines Don't!" Sanjay Gupta

AUDIO-The Richard Nixon - Ray Conniff Incident (1972) - WFMU's Beware of the Blog

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Sun, 11 Aug 2013 13:43

Thank you for this piece of history unknown to me so far. I think that more peopel are needed to show this courage if we want to change the world to the better. It really makes me feel proud to belong to the generation of the 68.

Many thanks from switzerland

Posted by: Walter | February 07, 2010 at 06:09 AM

Hey even Nixon thought Ray Conniff was "square". Wow, thats just great. In those days they never did background checks apparently. Good for her. Now if only this happened after Watergate!

Posted by: Aaron | February 07, 2010 at 09:22 AM

Wow impressive, especially by comparison to presidential event crashers these days who seem to consider getting on TV for doing so an end rather than a means.

Posted by: bartleby | February 07, 2010 at 09:43 AM

I guess a modern-day equivalent would be this gentleman:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0LHtgzqTo0

http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/800/1/

Posted by: bartleby | February 07, 2010 at 10:16 AM

Leave it to Richard Nixon to be a Ray Coniff fan. "Ma, He's Making Eyes At Me" is about a far from a protest song as you could get.

Posted by: Kevin MacNutt | February 07, 2010 at 05:59 PM

Wow, good for the lady (I'm not sure how to spell her name.) She had guts. As for Nixon's musical taste.... well, he said it perfectly: the Ray Conniff singers were the equivalent of the Reader's Digest.

Posted by: Ivy | February 09, 2010 at 07:28 AM

Was this the video in which Nixon commented on the incident? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AS1_JGX3jVY

Posted by: Ivy | February 09, 2010 at 07:30 AM

What's interesting is that my dad, Ray, actually had John Lennon's "Imagine" in the music books that night. His music may have been considered "square" by some, but his arrangements were nothing but. And, he managed to have a 60-year career in music, no small feat.

Posted by: Tamarastar | February 10, 2010 at 02:37 PM

Nixon - a disgusting man.Almost as bad are those artists, like Mr. Conniff, who, instead of questioning power,challenging injustice and promoting peace and democracy, simply are in the pay of corrupt power brokers, echoing and amplifying their bloody propaganda.Sickening.

Posted by: eclectik | February 23, 2010 at 07:17 PM

Love Systems has never preached that you have to be "the best" to succeed. That would be pretty hard for us to be consistent with anyway, They can't all be the best. But they can all be very, very good. And that comes from being at your best...or being your best self. Maybe those words are what's causing the confusion?replica watches

Posted by: Vashgerlie | July 02, 2010 at 12:46 AM

I don't speak english, I speak portuguese. voces s£o uanderful, bealtiful.

Posted by: Lucio Leite de Oliveira | January 24, 2012 at 05:24 PM

I will liked que voces me conhececem pessoalmente, my adress:Rua (street)Francisco Pinhaneli Neto nº (Number) 214.Jardim Furlan.Santa Brbara D.oeste - SP.BRAZIL.CEP: 13-451-199

Posted by: Lucio Leite de Oliveira | January 24, 2012 at 05:30 PM

@Roxy

Hey man, what is she doing nowadays? She deserves applause. I just learn about the events and I am googling to find info about her, but haven't found much so far...

cheers

Posted by: Luiz | December 23, 2012 at 04:25 AM

Who is that worthless bitch? She basically sided with Communist genocide that night. She cared nothing for human rights. If she had she would have condemned the Communists for attaching South Vietnam.

Posted by: Ted McCarron | August 01, 2013 at 11:46 PM

Here's Ray Coniff's group singing the complete "Ma -- He's Making Eyes at Me".https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNWQ1pzkMp8

Posted by: Rowby | August 03, 2013 at 01:16 AM

oddly enough, Nixon was the one president since Vietnam started who actually put effort into ending it. He worked tirelessly w/ the south vietnamese govt to make arrangements to extract troops whereas Kennedy started our involvement there and LBJ escalated it. So, idiotic displays like this, were counterintuitive.

Posted by: Ed Borden | August 11, 2013 at 06:34 AM

VIDEO- AND BLESS DANIEL ELLSBERG - YouTube

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VIDEO- "Medical Marijuana Is A REAL MEDICINE! That Can Do Things Other Medicines Don't!" Sanjay Gupta - YouTube

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Sat, 10 Aug 2013 22:18

Is it time for America to close its zoos? -- Erin Burnett OutFront - - CNN.com Blogs

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