02.07.15
Links 7/2/2015: Manjaro 0.8.12, Korora 21
Contents
GNU/Linux
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Material Design + Linux = PapyrOS, Coming soon to a desktop near you!
The upcoming PapyrOS is trying to build an entirely new Linux distro (based on Arch Linux) which will have Android 5.0′s now famous material-design inspired look and feel.
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Server
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Oracle Linux Now Available on Docker Hub
Oracle puts its official mark on Oracle Linux and MySQL images on the Docker Hub registry.
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Kernel Space
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A new batch of stable kernels
Greg Kroah-Hartman has released stable kernels 3.10.68, 3.14.32, and 3.18.6, each with important fixes and updates throughout the tree.
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Graphics Stack
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Mesa 10.4.4 Released
While all exciting work going into Mesa Git is for Mesa 10.5, Mesa 10.4.4 is out for stable users sticking to tagged releases. Mesa 10.4.4 fixes just a handful of bugs rangingg from core Mesa to the i965 driver and DRI3.
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Intel Mesa Driver Picks Up Support For OpenGL Memory Barriers
A set of fourteen patches were published today for the Intel Mesa DRI driver for implementing glMemoryBarrier() as needed by OpenGL 4.2 and newer.
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Benchmarks
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9-Way Linux Laptop Performance Comparison From Intel Nehalem To Broadwell
As the latest Linux benchmark numbers to deliver for Intel Broadwell and the new ThinkPad X1 Carbon ultrabook, here’s a nine-way Linux laptop/ultrabook comparison. All nine devices in this article were tested against the latest snapshot of Ubuntu 15.04 while running a big set of benchmarks and also monitoring the CPU temperatures and battery power consumption while testing for a nice look at Clarksfield/Nehalem, Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, Haswell, and Broadwell mobile hardware on Linux.
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Applications
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Instructionals/Technical
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How To Install The Go For It 1.4 “To-Do App” On Ubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04 And Derivative Systems
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How To Install Kernel 3.18.6 On Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04 And Derivative Systems
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How To Install Coulr 0.4.2.3 On Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic Unicorn
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Improve system performance by moving your log files to RAM Using Ramlog
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How To Install Subsurface 4.4 On Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04, Debian 8, Fedora 20, OpenSUSE 13.2, OpenSUSE 13.1, Arch Linux And Derivative Systems
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How To Install SoundConverter 2.1.5 On Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04 And Derivative Systems
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How To Install Kernel 3.14.32 On Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Elementary OS, Deepin And Other Ubuntu Derivative Systems
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How To Install Kernel 3.16.7 CKT5 On Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04 And Derivative Systems
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How To Install Urban Terror 4.2.023 On Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04 And Derivative Systems
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Set up Two Node RDO Juno ML2&OVS&VXLAN Cluster runnig Docker Hypervisor on Compute Node (CentOS 7, kernel 3.10.0-123.20.1.el7.x86_64)
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DMS to DD to KML with AWK and sed
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Wireless Raspberry Pi print server
Wireless printing has made it possible to print to devices stored in cupboards, sheds and remote rooms. It has generally shaken up the whole process of printing and enabled output from smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktop computers alike. But you don’t have to own a shiny new printer for this to work; old printers without native wireless support don’t have to end up in the bin, thanks to the Raspberry Pi.
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Wine or Emulation
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Wine (Wine is not an emulator) 1.7.36 Gives Users Control over Speakers
Wine (Wine is not an emulator) 1.7.36 is now out and comes with quite a few improvements and new features, not to mention the fixes for various applications and games that have been added.
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Wine 1.7.36 Adds Speaker Configuration To Winecfg
Wine 1.7.36 has been released and it brings a few new features while correcting 44 outstanding bugs over the past two weeks.
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The Wine Development Release 1.7.36 Is Now Available
Wine development team was able to produce a new experimental release today. 1.7.36 bringing many new features and as many as 44 bugfixes.
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Games
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Feral Interactive Is Looking To Do More Linux Games
Feral Interactive, a game publisher and developer that historically focused on bringing AAA games to Mac OS X, is now looking to do more Linux game ports.
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More Optimizations Coming To LZHAM
While LZHAM 1.0 was recently released, the former Valve engineer behind the compression library targeting game assets, Rich Geldreich, is already targeting more post-1.0 improvements to this library.
Rich Geldreich blogged today about some upcoming LZHAM decompressor optimizations that improve the speed by up to around 2%, which can become significant when dealing with game assets of several gigabytes.
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Feral Interactive Looking To Hire Linux Developers
Feral Interactive are looking to expand their team to help out with the Linux (and Mac) porting, so this could be a great opportunity for a few of you. Feral are responsible for the excellent Linux ports of XCOM Enemy Unknown and Empire: Total War.
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Apotheon Now In Open Beta For Linux, Some Thoughts
Apotheon is an indie game based on the concept of taking the ancient Greek mythological pottery art-style and story; incorporating it with a 2D metroidvania (platform adventure), heavy physics driven, open world. Wow, what a mouthful description. I hope I didn’t butcher it because it’s one hell of an adventure I want to embark on!
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New Trailer For Platformer Red Goddesss, Looks Really Good
Red Goddess, an upcoming platformer projected for release this month, now has a new trailer showing off some more action as well as introducing the plot of the game.
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Deadnaut, A Mix Of Strategy & RPG From The Developers Of Zafehouse: Diaries Now On Linux
Deadnaut is Screwfly Studios’ second game and follow up to cult hit, Zafehouse: Diaries. Deadnauts, so named because they’re unlikely to return, must explore, investigate and fight their way through the derelict ships of dead civilisations. Every mission is unique and no two locations are the same.
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Desktop Environments/WMs
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Elive 2.5.4 beta released
The Elive Team is proud to announce the release of the beta version 2.5.4
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Distributions
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LQ Poll Results Expected and Unexpected
Linux Questions — the place you go where you really need a Linux or FOSS question answered because, well, most of the smart FOSS folks are there answering them — released the results of its Members Choice Awards for 2015.
So when the membership of LQ speaks — or at least votes on FOSS programs — you should probably listen. Don’t take my word for it: Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols thinks so, too.
There were some expected results: For example, LibreOffice wins the Office Suite category by a ton, garnering 86 percent of the vote. To break this down, that’s nearly 9 in 10 folks favoring LibreOffice to the second-place finisher, Apache OpenOffice, and the others.
Same with categories like Browser of the Year — Firefox, need we say more? — with the blazing vulpini taking 57 percent in a crowded field. Same for Android, the Mobile Distribution of the Year which finished 40 percentage points ahead of the second-place finisher. Even vim, at 30 percent in a crowded field, heads up the Text Editor category with three times the votes of Emacs.
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New Releases
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4MLinux 11.1 Delivers Maintenance, Miniserver, Multimedia and Mystery
Looking for a bit of mystery from your Linux distribution? 4MLinux delivers just that—and much more. In fact, the four M’s in its name stand for maintenance, miniserver, multimedia and mystery—the four elements that the distribution delivers. The “mystery” actually refers to gaming, which is a component of 4MLinux. This is not your average Linux distribution in other areas as well. Many Linux distributions in the market today are based on larger community Linux distributions. For example, many distributions use Ubuntu as a base, and Ubuntu itself is based on the upstream Debian Linux project. That’s not the case with 4MLinux, however, as it’s not based on another Linux distribution. Many Linux distributions also tend to favor GNOME or KDE as the default desktop, but not 4MLinux. 4MLinux leverages Joe’s Window Manager (JWM) as its default desktop environment. 4MLinux is available in several editions, including an Allinone Edition and 4MRescueKit, which focuses on the maintenance capabilities. 4MLinux 11.0 Allinone and 4MRescueKit were released on Jan. 24, while 4MLinux 11.1 beta Allinone was released on Feb. 1. In this slide show, eWEEK examines the key features in the new 4MLinux 11.1 Allinone update.
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Arch Family
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Manjaro 0.8.12 KDE Screenshot Tour
We’re happy to announce the 0.8.12 release of Manjaro Linux installation media, including images for the Xfce and KDE4 desktop environments, and our minimal ‘Net’ edition. This release is predominantly a maintenance release and includes very few changes to system defaults relative to the previous 0.8.11 ISOs, with some notable exceptions, such as out-of-the-box support for the exFAT file system and the change to pacman 4.2. Otherwise all the usual upstream updates are included, along with the latest from the Xfce 4.11 development series and the KDE 4.14 series.
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Manjaro 0.8.12 Arrives with Support for Microsoft’s exFat File System
Manjaro, a Linux distribution based on well-tested snapshots of the Arch Linux repositories and powered by the Xfce and KDE desktop environments, has been upgraded to version 0.8.12 and is now ready for download.
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Slackware Family
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Update for Chromium and another Flash security fix
Repeat message: Widevine is a Content Decryption Module (CDM) used by Netflix to stream video to your computer in a Chromium browser window. With my chromium and chromium-widevine-plugin packages you no longer need Chrome, or Firefox with Pipelight, to watch Netflix. The chrome-widevine-plugin is optional. If you don’t need it, then don’t install it. It is closed-source which for some is enough reason to stay away from it. The Chromium package on the other hand, is built from open source software only.
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Red Hat Family
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Fedora
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Korora 21 available
It has taken a few weeks longer than we had hoped, but Korora 21 images are now available. I strongly recommend downloading with BitTorrent if you can.
The 21 beta was quite successful and we were able to make some minor changes to help improve the overall experience. Users who are currently on the beta need not re-install, updates are provided via the package manager. Users who are on 20 may consider upgrading, however this is not necessary as version 20 is supported for another 6 months or so.
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Debian Family
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CrunchBang Linux developer moves on, recommends switch to Debian
It’s the end of an era, lightweight Linux fans. Philip Newborough has decided that it’s time to move on, and he’s ceasing development of #! — CrunchBang, for the uninitiated.
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Derivatives
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Roll the credits, and wait for the sequel?
By now, most if not all of you have seen Philip Newborough’s announcement that he is moving on. First things first: Thank you, Philip, for providing sensible and solid leadership over the past several years. And, of course, all of us are grateful for your bringing CrunchBang — a simple and solid distro that works on a wide range of hardware — into the world.
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It’s Goodbye to CrunchBang, Or is It?
Philip Newborough today announced the end of his Linux project that produced the fairly popular CrunchBang distribution. A few years back it seemed like a post would pop up every few days praising CrunchBang but Newborough said today that it was time to call it quits. “When progress happens, some things get left behind, and for me, CrunchBang is something that I need to leave behind.” He said his users would be better off using vanilla Debian nowadays. Once upon a time CrunchBang filled a niche but today there are other more popular choices according to Newborough. He said of CrunchBang, “I honestly believe that it no longer holds any value.” So the community bids adieu to yet another favorite…
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Canonical/Ubuntu
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Ubuntu 15.04 Vivid Vervet Will Be Most Likely Using Kernel 3.19
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Ubuntu 14.04.2 Has Been Rescheduled For The 19th of February. Ubuntu 12.04 Receives A Kernel Update
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Ubuntu 14.04.2 release date (obviously) delayed
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The First Ubuntu Phone Officially Launches
The BQ Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition smartphone has been announced and will begin shipping in the days ahead.
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First Ubuntu Touch smartphone ships for $190, unlocked
Canonical and BQ are launching the first Ubuntu Touch phone — the dual-SIM, quad-core, 4.5-inch “Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition” — for 170 Euros unlocked.
Starting on Monday, Spanish mobile manufacturer BQ will begin selling the world’s first Ubuntu-based phone, the Aquaris E4.5. The long-awaited Ubuntu phone will initially be sold in a series of limited volume “flash sales” across Europe that will be announced in the coming week. You can buy the dual-SIM phone unlocked for 169.90 Euros (about $190) and then purchase SIM bundles from 3 Sweden, amena.com (Spain), giffgaff (UK), and Portugal Telecom.
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The First Ubuntu Phone Is Going On Sale In Europe Next Week
Canonical announced today that the first Ubuntu phone, made in partnership with BQ, called Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition, will go on sale in Europe starting next week on BQ.com, through a series of “flash sales”, and it will cost 169.90 Euros (~ $193 / £127).
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BQ’s new Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition – the smartphone that puts content and services at your fingertips
Jane Silber, CEO at Canonical comments; “The launch of the first Ubuntu smartphones is a significant milestone. The new experience we deliver for users, as well as the opportunities for differentiation for manufacturers and operators, are a compelling and much-needed change from what is available today. We’re excited that a rising star like BQ has recognised this opportunity and is helping us make it a reality.”
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The Mobile age of Aquaris on the Ubuntu Linux platform
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Ubuntu Linux smartphones to go on sale, expected to be ultra-rare
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First Ubuntu phone on sale next week as Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition
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The first Ubuntu smart phone ditches ‘apps’ for ‘Scopes’
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Here’s what the first Ubuntu phone will look like
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The first Ubuntu smartphone goes on sale in Europe next week for just under €170
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The first Ubuntu phone is finally going on sale next week
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BQ Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition phone finally here, swaps apps for ‘scopes’
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Ubuntu smartphone offers alternative to apps
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The BQ Ubuntu Phone Will Be Stocked With Binary Blobs
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History is made: First Ubuntu phone arrives next week!
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Is this new smartphone OS real competition for Android and iOS? (spoiler: no)
Let’s face it, if you’re going to buy a new smartphone, you’re probably looking at the iPhone and Android first, because almost everyone you know has either one or the other, You may also be inclined to try other things such as Windows Phone and BlackBerry, which may better suit your current smartphone needs. But don’t forget that there are plenty of other mobile operating systems to choose from, although they’re not very popular.
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Ubuntu Phone Coming Soon, But Not to U.S.
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World’s first Ubuntu phone set to go on sale
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Finally — Ubuntu’s first phone is coming to Europe
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First Ubuntu phone to launch next week – report
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Watch GTK+ Apps Running in Unity 8, on Ubuntu 15.04
Unity 8 is coming to the Ubuntu desktop and it’s bringing with it the Mir display server, Qt implementation, and a host of other core modifications. That doesn’t mean that traditional GTK+ apps won’t work anymore and there is proof of that.
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It Takes A While To Boot The BQ Ubuntu Phone
Following the announcement of the BQ Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition that will begin going up for sale next week, the first real hands-on videos of the Ubuntu Phone in action are starting to come out…
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Canonical Says Plans Are in Motion to Have an Ubuntu Phone for US Market
BQ and Canonical announced the Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition yesterday, which will available for purchase very soon, but only in Europe. The rest of the world will have to wait, but there is good news. The United States haven’t been forgotten and plans are in motion to have a hardware partner for those territories as well.
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Devices/Embedded
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Raspberry Pi 2 vs Creator 120
The Creator 120 and the Raspberry Pi 2 are single-board computers designed for developers and hobbyists.
The Creator C120 was announced in late 2014, but started shipping at about the same time that the Raspberry Pi 2 was announced/starting shipping, which was just last week.
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Phones
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Tizen
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[Hack] Accessing the Tizen Store for the Samsung Z1 SM-Z130H/DS
The Tizen based Samsung Z1 has now gone on sale in India, and now has also began its rollout in Bangladesh, but there is one major problem that faces overseas linux enthusiasts / early Tizen adopters that have purchased the Z1, namely being you can only access the Tizen Store using the Samsung Z1 from the country that this product is currently being sold in.
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Android
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Can the Samsung Galaxy S6 win back the fans?
Samsung is losing ground, and that has allowed iOS to overtake Android in the US. But with the flagship Samsung Galaxy S6 now on the horizon, will it have what it takes to win back the fans.
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Best Android Tablets [February, 2015]
Over the past year some excellent Android tablets have been released to rival Apple’s popular iPad lineup, and choosing the right one can sometimes be difficult. These days consumers have a lot of choices and making a decision isn’t going to be easy. This is especially true for the average buyer that doesn’t keep up with the latest and greatest device announcements, or know about budget options released during the year.
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5 Best Android Phones [February, 2015]
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Can Android One prove successful?
Part of the allure of Android One was that it would bring faster, almost Nexus-like updates to lower end phones, promising an affordable offering that would still provide a decent Android experience. With the slow update to Lollipop and the fact that sale numbers are reportedly not all that high, is Android One delivering on this promise? That’s exactly what we wish to discuss for this week’s Friday Debate. Can Android One prove to be a success, despite a somewhat slow start, or with so many other affordable devices is it a largely unnecessary program?
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Video: Check out Google’s best TV commercial yet for Android
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Free Software/Open Source
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Exclusive: Seafile Founder Daniel Pan Talks About His Open Source Cloud Software
Cloud has become one of the buzzwords in modern computing; there are so many advantages of cloud that it can’t be ignored. It is becoming an integral part of our IT infrastructure. However cloud poses a serious threat to the ownership of data and raises many privacy-related questions. The best solution is to ‘own’ your cloud, either though an on-premise cloud running in a local network disconnected from the Internet or one running on your own secure server. Seafile is one of the most promising, open source-based cloud projects.
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Cisco Helping Advance Open Source in Networking
Last week I was in Italia at the Cisco Live! Milano event where I also had the opportunity to speak about OpenDaylight (ODL) and Software-Defined Networking (SDN). What stood out for me the most during my time there was the tremendous progress being made on technologies that are really disrupting the networking space
SDN and NFV have been advancing innovation in the networking industry over the past few years, but it’s still early, and not many of the technologies have made it out of the lab and into the networks – until now.
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Events
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My first experience at FOSDEM
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Linux Plumbers Conference call for proposals
The calls for proposals (CFPs) for Linux Plumbers Conference microconferences and refereed track presentations are now up. The conference will be held August 19-21 in Seattle, WA, co-located (and overlapping one day) with LinuxCon North America.
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X.Org’s XDC2015 Conference Is Happening In Toronto
The X.Org Board of Directors have decided on Toronto, Canada as the location for this year’s annual X.Org Developers’ Conference.
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Wayland/Weston 1.7.0 RC2 Released
The second release candidates to Wayland 1.7 and the reference Weston compositor is now available.
Wayland 1.7 RC2 fixes a regression on older systems (Ubuntu 12.04 ea) and a fix for a test failure on systems with the Yama Linux Security Module enabled. Wayland 1.7 RC1 was released last week.
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SaaS/Big Data
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Dip in Hadoop data lake can be bracing for big data users
Encouraged by the promise of cost savings and better efficiency, early adopters are wading into Hadoop as a central reservoir for their analytics data.
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4 Lessons for Every Entrepreneur Creating Big Data Solutions
I recently taught an MBA course at the University of San Francisco titled the “Big Data MBA.” In working with the students to apply Big Data concepts and techniques to their use cases, I came away with a few observations that could be applied by any entrepreneur.
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Exclusive: Pivotal CEO says open source Hadoop tech is coming
Pivotal, the cloud computing spinoff from EMC and VMware that launched in 2013, is preparing to blow up its big data business by open sourcing a whole lot of it.
Rumors of changes began circulating in November, after CRN reported that Pivotal was in the process of laying off about 60 people, many of which worked on the big data products. The flames were stoked again on Friday by a report in VentureBeat claiming the company might cease development of its Hadoop distribution and/or open source various pieces of its database technology such as Greenplum and HAWQ.
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Second OpenStack Kilo Milestone Now Available
Though the open-source OpenStack cloud platform only has two major releases in any given year, each release is preceded by a steady cadence of incremental milestone updates.
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FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC
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The Bazaar has become Cathedral
In recent times Red Hat has proven, through their political maneuvering and control over the GNU/Linux community, the need to rethink the definition of “Software Libre”. The violent and absurd landing of systemd over 99% of the GNU/Linux distributions is proving that it is not enough that the source code of the software is free for users to be free. We have lost the freedom of choice, control, and decisions made on our systems.
In the times we live is not enough that the source code is released under the GPL license to ensure that software is free. Some years ago, when words GNU and Linux perhaps were known to few, and the companies behind them were not competing for the millions of dollars generated today, perhaps this was true. But today there are other variables at play such as freedom of developers and users.
Whoever controls the free software developers will be able to control his users. It has become clear that even though the source code is free, if the user loses his ability to choose freely and hasn’t resources (knowledge, time and money) to adapt the code to your needs and/or preferences, ” freedom “is an empty word.
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RMS Feels There’s “A Systematic Effort To Attack GNU Packages”
Richard Stallman has come out against support for basic LLVM debugger (LLDB) support within Emacs’ Gud.el as he equates it to an attack on GNU packages.
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GNU C library version 2.21 released
The GNU C Library version 2.21 is now available.
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Project Releases
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Opera 28 Beta Released with Sync Bookmarks features, Mac improvements and more, install in Ubuntu/Linux mint & Ubuntu Derivatives
After Opera 27 stable, Opera 28 beta released with new features and improvements. The new major features are regarding bookmarks, syncing bookmarks with multiple devices is very useful feature added to this beta release.
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Public Services/Government
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Can Open-Source Voting Tech Fix The U.S. Elections System?
“Our nation’s elections systems and technology are woefully antiquated. They are officially obsolete,” says Greg Miller of the TrustTheVote Project, an initiative to make our voting system accurate, verifiable, transparent, and secure. He adds: “It’s crazy that citizens are using twentieth-century technology to talk to government using twentieth-century technology to respond.”
Miller and others are on a mission to change that with an entirely new voting infrastructure built on open-source technology. They say open source, a development model that’s publicly accessible and freely licensed, has the power to upend the entire elections technology market, dislodging incumbent voting machine companies and putting the electorate at the helm.
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Licensing
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Tips to Consider Before Using Open Source Code
You’ve found an amazing open source project that you think will enhance your proprietary software. But before you and your team of developers can get to work incorporating someone else’s code into your own product, there are some basic steps that you need to take.
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Openness/Sharing
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Emulation on the Raspberry Pi 2, Git Game, and more
This week the team at Raspberry Pi unvieled the Raspberry Pi 2. Its increased horsepower means that emulation of the Nintendo 64 and Playstation 1 are possible, as the Raspberry Pi team shows us with some gameplay footage of Mario Kart 64 and Spyro the Dragon.
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Risk of the Commons
Free and Open Source software has revolutionized how the world consumes software. Linux, BSD, httpd, nginx, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and thousands of other software products are consumed voraciously. But almost universally people are only consuming. And generally that’s okay. Sharing is one of the key tenets and strengths – that we are able to freely share code to help our neighbor.
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Leftovers
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Health/Nutrition
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113 countries have higher measles immunization rates than the U.S. for 1-year-olds
According to the World Health Organization, they have a higher measles immunization coverage among 1-year-olds than the United States. And, as this interactive map shows, they are far from alone.
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USDA pork inspectors speak out: “People are going to eat sh*t”
The agency’s new inspection model is a threat to food safety, federal whistleblowers allege
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Security
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Fed up with Adobe Flash? Make it safer
We’re addicted to Adobe Flash, and it’s time to break the habit. In the last three months, multiple Flash security holes have been found and exploited. In the last two weeks alone, security expert Brian Krebs has reported that Adobe has released three emergency Flash security patches. Enough already.
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Russians may have hacked Sony and not North Koreans
A while back I wrote about John McAfee saying that North Korea had nothing to do with the Sony breach, now Taia Global a US security firm is stating that Russian hackers could have been the ones behind the attack and that they could still have access to Sony’s servers.
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Sony Pictures hack: Co-chair Amy Pascal quits over leaked emails
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Forget Norks, Russian hackers are in Sony Pictures’ servers – claim
There’s a new twist in the already tangled tale of the Sony Pictures mega-hack: it’s now claimed Russians possibly broke into the company’s computers.
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Anthem warns U.S. customers of email scam after data breach
The insurer acknowledged that data accessed by hackers had not been encrypted, as is the normal practice at many companies.
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Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression
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Chomsky and Kissinger Agree: Avoid Historic Tragedy in Ukraine
In other words, Kissinger blames the U.S. and Europe for the current catastrophe in Ukraine. Kissinger does not begin at the point where there is military conflict. He recognizes that the problems in Ukraine began with Europe and the U.S. seeking to lure Ukraine into an alliance with Western powers with promises of economic aid. This led to the demonstrations in Kiev. And, as we learned from Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, the U.S. spent $5 billion in building opposition to the government in Ukraine.
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New allegations renew old questions about Saudi Arabia, 9-11
For years, some current and former American officials have been urging President Barack Obama to release secret files they say document links between the government of Saudi Arabia and the Sept. 11 attacks.
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What are Saudi Arabia’s ties to al-Qaeda? Barack Obama to consider releasing secret sections of 9/11 terror inquiry
Questions over the 28-page section of the congressional report have been raised this week following the deposition of imprisoned former al-Qaeda operative Zacarias Moussaoui in which he claimed major Saudi figures were donors to his group in late 1990s.
Saudi officials have denied this.
According to White House spokesman Josh Earnest, US intelligence last year began reevaluating the decision to classify the section following a request from congress, though no timescale for the decision was given.
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Unauthorized Government Killing by Drones, Bombs, or Other Means Is Still Murder
Although U.S. drones firing missiles at suspected bad guys in faraway places — such as Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia — have gotten much publicity in recent years, it was recently revealed that the CIA assassinated top Hezbollah terrorist Imad Mugniyah with a good old-fashioned car bomb in Damascus, Syria with President George W. Bush’s strident approval in 2008. Because of an executive order, signed in 1975 by President Gerald Ford, prohibiting assassinations by the CIA, presidents usually get around that order by using the military to kill an enemy bigwig and then make the disingenuous claim that it was merely taking out a “command and control” target rather than an assassination. In this case, Bush, never one to observe constitutional or legal niceties, became incensed that the CIA director was being too timid in carrying out the hit using the exploding car. The real issue in such cases is not whether it is more dangerous to liberty to kill the enemy using a high-tech drone or a more traditional car bomb, but whether it constitutional to do either.
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Does latest drone strike on al Shabaab signal change in US tactics in Somalia?
But despite their vaunted precision, there are reports the latest strike in Somalia, on January 31, killed or injured civilians.
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Drone strikes kill at least ‘45 militants’ in Somalia
At least 45 suspected al-Shabaab militants have been killed in drone strikes in Southern Somalia on Saturday, a government official said.
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US drone kills al-Shabaab commander
A commander of Islamist militant group al-Shabaab was killed in a US drone attack in Somalia, the East African nation’s National Intelligence and Security Agency said Wednesday.
“The killed al-Shabaab commander is called Abdinur Mahdi, also known as Yusuf Dheeg,” NISA said in a statement.
Dheeg, who was killed on Saturday, was in charge of coordinating attacks inside and outside of Somalia, as well as assassinations and suicide bombings, the statement added.
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Almost 2,500 now killed by covert US drone strikes since Obama inauguration six years ago: The Bureau’s report for January 2015
At least 2,464 people have now been killed by US drone strikes outside the country’s declared war zones since President Barack Obama’s inauguration six years ago, the Bureau’s latest monthly report reveals.
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You Never Die Twice. Lack of transparency in the CIA and military drone killings.
This week Women Against War and members of several other Capital District peace groups joined in a Statewide lobbying initiative of our two Senators, Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer, after having to re-schedule our Monday appointments due to the foot of snow and more that fell on the area.
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Technology, Weapons and the Future
According to Peter Singer, a Senior Research Fellow at the Brookings Institute, “The first predator drones were used in 1995 during the Balkan conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo. By 2000, the Air Force was developing ways to weaponize predator drones, as they were previously used exclusively in spy missions. When the US started the war in Iraq, back in 2003, there were a handful of drones in the air. By 2010, there were over 5,300 drones operating in Iraqi airspace. Additionally, the US went into Iraq with zero unmanned ground systems. By 2010, there were over 12,000 operating in the combat zone.”
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Three BBC journalists questioned for using drone in Davos no-fly zone
Three BBC journalists have been questioned by Swiss police for breaching high-level security protocols by using a drone at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month.
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Letter: Slow down acceptance of drones
My fear is that some of the dishonest people in government will abuse drones and push for drone strikes on U.S. soil. Food for thought.
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US Military Lost $400 Million Worth Of Weapons In Yemen
It was recently reported that $400 million worth of US military weapons went missing in Yemen over the past several years. The equipment includes helicopters, night-vision gear, surveillance equipment, military radios and airplanes.
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Pentagon loses track of weaponry sent to Yemen in recent years
Chaos in the functionally leaderless country has seen Houthi rebels reportedly take control of Yemeni military’s arms depots and bases
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No, I Will Not Watch American Sniper
America’s war machine breeds enemies faster than the US can kill them, argues Larry Beck.
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Blowback: the failure of remote-control warfare
As Europe still reels from the Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Cacher attacks in Paris, something far more profound to Western security is happening largely unnoticed—the failure of remote-control warfare. Open Briefing’s remote-control warfare briefing for January, commissioned by the Remote Control project, identified and analysed several trends, which taken together indicate the tactics and technologies deployed are coming back to haunt those Western powers that have embraced them in recent years.
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What is a defensive weapon?
President Obama is being urged to supply Ukraine with “defensive lethal assistance”, which sounds almost like a contradiction in terms. James Morgan asks what people mean by “defensive” weapons – and finds out it’s what a hedgehog has.
It’s widely believed in the US, and in other Nato countries, that Russia is not only arming the rebels but sending soldiers to fight alongside them, so the pressure is increasing on the White House to ramp up military supplies to the Ukrainian government to help it resist a new offensive.
Currently the US only provides non-lethal equipment, such as gas masks, night-vision goggles and radar. How much further can it go without escalating the conflict or being seen as an aggressor?
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Ukraine crisis: Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande to fly to Russia: February 5 as it happened
The leaders of Germany and France fly to Kiev and Moscow with new Ukraine peace plan as Nato bolsters eastern Europe against Russia and EU agrees new sanctions. Follow the latest developments
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Why Arming Ukraine Will Backfire
Vladimir Putin has restarted his war against Ukraine, and the U.S. and Europe are unsure how to respond. While Europe has apparently decided that no toughening of economic sanctions is called for, some in Washington are calling for equipping Ukraine with lethal weapons.
Yet arming Ukraine is likely to backfire: It risks misleading the country — which is now pressing to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization — into believing the U.S. will do what it takes to defeat Russia. It also risks encouraging Russia to expand the war, because it knows the U.S. and its NATO allies don’t have sufficient interests at stake to go all the way. The parallels often drawn with the war in Bosnia, where a U.S. arms and training program eventually turned the war and forced a peace, aren’t helpful: Serbia was a military minnow next to Putin’s nuclear-armed Russia.
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The Military’s Next Big Recruiting Ground May Be Virtual
Video gamers are more prepared for military service than people the same age were in previous generations.
“We don’t need Top Gun pilots anymore, we need Revenge of the Nerds,” said Missy Cummings, former US Navy pilot, Assoc. Prof. of Aeronautics, MIT in Drone Wars: The Gamers Recruited To Kill, a documentary film about gamers and drone operators.
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American Sniper: Humanizing and Glorifying a Mass Murderer for the Empire
Many who are praising the film say the movie is about him, not about the politics of the Iraq war. “It’s a movie about a man, a character study,” said lead actor Bradley Cooper. “The hope is that you can somehow have your eyes opened to the struggle of a soldier, as opposed to the specificity of the war.” Others argue American Sniper is “both a tribute to the warrior and a lament for war,” as the Associated Press reviewer wrote.
Bullshit. Regardless of the intentions of those making these claims, bullshit.
This is a profoundly reactionary movie. American Sniper humanizes and glorifies Chris Kyle, an unrepentant Christian fundamentalist mass murderer, who killed 160 Iraqis (supposedly the most “kills” by any U.S. soldier in history). Meanwhile, the movie demonizes and dehumanizes every single Iraqi (with the possible exception of one family), portraying them as evil terrorists and “savages” who deserve to die.
By telling this story through Kyle’s eyes and purported experience (and prettifying that story), American Sniper weaves a fable about the U.S. invasion of Iraq and its role in the world: America is a force for good. Whatever its mistakes, the U.S. sends its military to places like Iraq to try to protect the innocent and destroy evil. It promotes the outlook that only America and American lives count and anything goes to “defend” them. This is the big lie on the big screen.
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America’s New Invisible Air Force
The Pentagon is doubling down on the development of a new arsenal of stealth fighters, bombers, and drones in its newly unveiled budget for next year.
Never mind the “fifth generation” stealth jets currently rolling off defense contractor assembly lines. The Pentagon is starting to pour money into three different projects to research and develop “sixth-generation” stealth fighters, plus funding for a new Air Force stealth bomber and new Navy carrier-based stealth drone.
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The invisible face of terror
Brussels. Ottawa. Sydney. Paris. “Terrorist” attacks in these western cities in the last one year have claimed 29 lives. Add to this the beheadings of western citizens by the Islamic State. The horror evoked by these has led to an outcry against Islam and fierce debates about the necessity of reform in Islam. In France, 3.7 million people marched in solidarity — in the largest public rally since the Second World War — with the victims of Charlie Hebdo to show that western civilisation cannot be defeated by Islamic fanatics.
We are back to the days of 9/11 and other terror events in the West, and the debate assumes familiar directions: freedom of speech versus violent threats to it and the enlightened West versus barbaric Islam. We are presented this black and white world even by non-Muslim and non-western nations who have joined the project of moderating and domesticating Islam. Of course, there have been nuanced positions which have affirmed the right to free speech while at the same time calling out Charlie Hebdo for its racist portrayals of Islam. But the issue is larger than this.
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White House seeks big increase in Pentagon budget
The Pentagon would get $585 billion next year under the Obama administration’s proposed budget, reversing a five-year decline in military spending and blowing past mandatory spending caps imposed by Congress.
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ISIS Ranks Grow as Fast as U.S. Bombs Can Wipe Them Out
The Pentagon has said it has killed 6,000 fighters since coalition strikes began five months ago; the intelligence community estimates 4,000 foreign fighters have entered the fray since September. (A higher estimate, made by The Washington Post, holds that 5,000 foreign fighters have flowed into the two countries since October.)
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[Satire] “They are out there murdering people”
New Zealand’s contribution to oppressed peoples’ fighting US imperialism will be high on the agenda of his talks in Wellington today with British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond.
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COMMENTARY: But what shall we do with the #Fallen120000?
Agonizing as it may be, we need to stand humbly before all these fraught, painful questions because the problem in Mindanao is neither just a military, a legal, or an institutional problem—something that could be solved by increased firepower, policy formulation or institutional reengineering. It is ultimately and inescapably a moral problem: something that could only be solved by resolving broader questions of power and justice—and thus, something, that could only be solved through politics in the broader sense of the term: politics not as wheeling and dealing, but politics as the struggle over how we should live with our fellow human beings, over how should organize our society so we can live the “good life”—the kind of politics that people will kill and die for.
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US drone watched Mamasapano debacle
They were not alone. Big Brother was up there monitoring their every move.
“Kasalukuyan pong nag-e-encounter ang 5th Battalion sa Maguindanao para sa misyon kay Marwan” (The 5th Battalion is right now engaged in a mission in Maguindanao against Marwan), an officer from the assault team said, recording what was happening on the ground about 8 in the morning of Jan. 25 in Mamasapano, Maguindanao.
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US drone helped locate PNP-SAF in Mamasapano —source
A drone sent by the United States was key in locating pinned Philippine National Police Special Action Force units during the recent Mamasapano operation where 44 elite lawmen were killed, “24 Oras” reported on Wednesday.
According to the GMA News source, the US sent a drone to Mamasapano, Maguindanao after the PNP-SAF asked for support.
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Child or militant? 6th-grader killed in US drone strike in Yemen (VIDEO)
Relatives describe Mohammed as a joyful 12 year old, enjoying school. When he was killed in a latest drone strike in Yemen, authorities listed him as a ‘militant’. The family previously lost Mohammed’s father and brother in a similar attack.
Mohammed Saleh Qayed Taeiman had been among the three killed in the drone strike last week, according to the Yemeni National Organization for Drone Victims (NODV). It also said that previous US drone strikes had killed Mohammed’s father and his brother in 2011, and in a separate attack, another brother had been injured.
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IHC grills cop for not registering drone strike murder case
The Islamabad High Court (IHC) has summoned Islamabad Police Inspector General (IG) Tahir Alam Khan on February, 9 in contempt of court case against Islamabad Secretariat Police station house officer (SHO) for not registering murder case of two people killed in a drone attack in the area of Mir Ali at South Waziristan in 2009.
As the case came up for hearing before IHC Monday, Mirza Shahzad Akbar, counsel for petitioner Karim Khan, Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) Nawaz Bhatti from Secretariat Police Station and legal counsel Abdul Rauf appeared in the court.
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Is Obama Keeping His Promise to Constrain the Use of Drones?
While it is unclear if they were drone strikes versus another type of aerial assault, BIJ notes that 2014 saw the highest number of confirmed U.S. drone strikes in the east African nation of any year despite the administration’s praise of Somali government reforms.
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US Drone Strike Kills Four in Yemen
This is the first attack since Monday, when the US similarly destroyed a car in Maarib and similarly labeled all of the slain “al-Qaeda” only for one to turn out to be a 12-year-old student.
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Stop Using Drones in My Name
A 12-year-old Pakistani boy who lost his grandmother in a U.S.-led drone strike says he is afraid of the blue sky; he would rather see the gray sky because he knows then that the drones will not fly. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV’S), commonly known as drones, and particularly armed drones, are most effective when weather conditions provide for clear visibility, hence the better ability to hit identified targets. Drones aren’t flown on overcast days due to cloud cover and lack of visibility.
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Drones a deplorable evil
A policy of targeted extrajudicial assassination is by its very nature immoral.
[...]
Once extrajudicial killing was policy reserved for rogue nations like Nazi Germany and communist Russia. Rep. Barbara Lee, the only member of Congress to vote against the AUMF, said in her dissenting vote, “Let us not become the evil we deplore.” We now know that drone warfare, no matter how it is managed, is in fact a deplorable evil.
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Jordan Executes Two Militants After IS Kills Pilot
Jordan executed two Iraqi prisoners Wednesday, in answer to the Islamic State group’s killing of a Jordanian hostage in Syria.
Jordanian officials hanged an Iraqi woman sentenced to death for her role in a 2005 suicide bombing in Amman. It also executed another Iraqi who had ties to al-Qaida.
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Terrorists or “Freedom Fighters”? Recruited by the CIA
When ISIS beheaded two American journalists, there was outrage and denunciation throughout the West, but when the same ISIS beheaded hundreds of Syrian soldiers, and meticulously filmed these war crime, this was hardly reported anywhere. In addition, almost from the very beginning of the Syrian tragedy, al-Qaeda groups have been killing and torturing not only soldiers but police, government workers and officials, journalists, Christian church people, aid workers, women and children, as well as suicide bombings in market places. All this was covered up in the mainstream media, and when the Syrian government correctly denounced this as terrorism, this was ignored or denounced as “Assad’s propaganda.”
So why weren’t these atrocities reported in the western media? If this was reported it would have run counter to Washington’s proclaimed agenda that “Assad has to go,” so the mainstream media followed the official line. There is nothing new in this. History shows that the media supported every Western-launched war, insurrection and coup – the wars on Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and coups such as those on Iran, Guatemala, Indonesia, Chile, and most recently in Ukraine.
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Ron Paul: The failed ‘Yemen model’
If Yemen is any kind of model, it is a model of how badly U.S. interventionism has failed.
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American Sniper: A Model American
From record ticket sales to major media accolades, from the halls of Congress to the White House, the nation has spoken: “American Sniper” is all-American. Chris Kyle—the most lethal killer in U.S. military history, a true hero, a brave warrior—has been anointed as a role model for all that America has come to stand for.
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Did the U.S.-Israeli killing of Mughniyah violate international law?
Over the weekend, The Washington Post reported on a joint U.S.-Israeli operation that killed Imad Mughniyah—Hezbollah’s reported chief of international operations—on the streets of Damascus in 2008. The account raises questions about whether the killing violated international law, and central to the Post’s story is the assessment that these actions “pushed American legal boundaries.”
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Systemic Series of Monstrous Crimes (3-4)
Consider the staggering number of murders of innocent human beings committed by the United States government — and ask yourselves how many Auroras those murders represent. I have tried to make calculations of this kind before: using conservative estimates of the deaths in Iraq, the murders in that country alone represent a 9/11 every day for five years. An equivalent number of Auroras would be much higher. modified from Arthur Silber
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Cozying up to dictators hurts American interests
So what happened? The Arab Spring didn’t go as hoped — and the United States began to lose the war. An al-Qaida offshoot shockingly conquered large swaths of Iraq and Syria. Libya descended into civil war. Yemen, which Obama cited just last year as proof of his successful strategy, is on a similar downward spiral. The Taliban is gaining ground in Afghanistan. Boko Haram is carving out another space for barbarism in Nigeria.
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Born at War
We’ve been trained to think of war preparations — and the wars that result from being so incredibly prepared for wars — as necessary if regrettable. What if, however, in the long view that this book allows us, war turns out to be counterproductive on its own terms? What if war endangers those who wage it rather than protecting them? Imagine, for a moment, how many countries Canada would have to invade and occupy before it could successfully generate anti-Canadian terrorist networks to rival the hatred and resentment currently organized against the United States.
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The U.S. Intelligence Community is Bigger Than Ever, But is It Worth It?
The U.S. spends nearly $1 trillion on national security programs and agencies annually, more than any other nation in the world. Yet despite this enormous investment, there is not enough evidence to show the public that these programs are keeping Americans any safer – especially in the intelligence community. Excessive government secrecy prohibits the public and oversight agencies alike from determining whether our expensive intelligence enterprise is worth the investment.
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Transparency Reporting
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The UK Government Has Now Spent £10M On Julian Assange
The UK government has now spent £10 million keeping Wikileaker Julian Assange holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.
A website set up by Wikileaks supporters, called govwaste.co.uk, has a counter on the front page that has just creeped past the £10,000,000 mark. The website reads: “Julian Assange has been effectively detained without charge since December 2010.
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Nick Clegg In Spat With Julian Assange, Could Face Legal Action
Nick Clegg could face legal action following remarks made about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Speaking on LBC on Thursday, the deputy prime minister commented on Assange’s long stay at the Ecuadorian embassy in London and the £10 million cost of policing the building – comments Assange believes could be defamatory.
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Silenced: The War on Whistleblowers
In SILENCED: The War on Whistleblowers, three Americans reveal the persecution they’ve faced after they dared to question U.S. National Security policy in post 9/11 America. Everyone knows the name Edward Snowden, the fugitive and former intelligence contractor, but Academy Award nominated documentarian James Spione introduces us to three other whistleblowers of the era, speaking for the first time in one film, who discuss in dramatic and unprecedented detail the evolution of the government’s increasingly harsh response to unauthorized disclosures.
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Finance
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Bonafide Raises $850k to Build Reputation System for Bitcoin
The funding round, which comes from Quest Venture Partners, Crypto Currency Partners and the AngelList Bitcoin Syndicate, among others, is a step towards creating a scoring system for addresses on bitcoin’s network.
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Map: The Most Common* Job In Every State
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Obama Budget Boosts Military Spending, Taxes on Wealthy
President Obama has unveiled his $4 trillion budget proposal for next year, asking Congress to raise taxes for the wealthy and corporations to help fund education and fix crumbling infrastructure. The plan includes tax cuts for some poor and middle-class families. It also seeks to recoup losses from corporations that stash an estimated $2 trillion overseas by taxing such earnings at 14 percent, still less than half of the 35 percent rate for profits made in the United States. The budget takes aim at the high cost of prescription drugs, proposes a new agency to regulate food safety, and seeks $1 billion to curb immigration from Central America. It also calls for a 4.5 percent increase in military spending, including a $534 billion base budget for the Pentagon, plus $51 billion to fund U.S. involvement in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Speaking at the Department of Homeland Security, Obama said across-the-board cuts known as sequestration would hurt the military.
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PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying
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USA Today Responds: ‘Criticizing Violent Islamists Does Not Tarnish All Muslims’
I’ll save you the trouble of writing a rejection letter, because I know why you wouldn’t run cartoons like these: You would recognize that lumping people together who have nothing in common but their religion is straight-out bigotry. You wouldn’t take it seriously as a defense if I pointed out that the Lord’s Resistance Army and McVeigh really were bad guys.
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The GOP: Still the Party of Stupid
Mitt Romney definitely had his down sides as a candidate: the retread factor, and, as I noted two weeks ago, the fact that he made all those dramatic and (apparently) wrong predictions about the future of the economy. But I will say this for him. He did pass the this-guy-looks-and-sounds-like-a-plausible-president test. I always thought that was his greatest strength. He’s central casting.
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Brian Williams taking himself off air temporarily
Brian Williams said he is temporarily stepping away from the “NBC Nightly News” amid questions about his memories of war coverage in Iraq, calling it “painfully apparent” that he has become a distracting news story.
In a memo Saturday to NBC News staff that was released by the network, the anchorman said that as managing editor of “NBC Nightly News” he is taking himself off the broadcast for several days. Weekend anchor Lester Holt will fill in, Williams said.
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Censorship
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Guardian, Salon Show How Keeping And Fixing News Comments Isn’t Hard If You Give Half A Damn
We’ve been talking a lot lately about how the new school of website design (with ReCode, Bloomberg, and Vox at the vanguard) has involved a misguided war on the traditional comment section. Websites are gleefully eliminating the primary engagement mechanism with their community and then adding insult to injury by pretending it’s because they really, really love “conversation.” Of course the truth is many sites just don’t want to pay moderators, don’t think their community offers any valuable insight, or don’t like how it “looks” when thirty people simultaneously tell their writers they’ve got story facts completely and painfully wrong.
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China seizes 8,000 rolls of toilet paper printed with image of Hong Kong chief
An official of the Hong Kong Democratic party says Chinese authorities have seized about 8,000 rolls of toilet paper printed with the image of the territory’s pro-Beijing chief executive, Leung Chun-ying.
Lo Kin-hei, a vice-chairman of the liberal party, said on Saturday that police seized the toilet paper and another 20,000 packages of tissue paper from a factory in the Chinese city of Shenzhen where a friend of the party placed the order to obscure the party as the true buyer.
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What the CIA didn’t want Americans to know
Agency brass tried to spike a story implicating the CIA in the killing of a top Hezbollah terrorist. Newsweek complied. The Post didn’t.
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Privacy
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Today is a great victory against GCHQ, the NSA and the surveillance state
It is a rare thing to bring truth to bear on the most powerful and secretive arm of the state. Never before has the Investigatory Powers Tribunal – the British court tasked with reviewing complaints against the security services – ruled against the government. Not once have the spooks been taken to task for overstepping the lawful boundaries of their conduct. Not a single British spy has been held accountable for mass surveillance, unlawful spying or snooping on private emails and phone calls.
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GCHQ unlawfully spied on UK citizens through NSA
In its first ruling against an intelligence agency since it was set up in 2000, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) declared today that GCHQ’s access to information intercepted by the US National Security Agency (NSA) breached human rights laws.
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UK spy agency GCHQ unlawfully shared NSA internet surveillance data, rules court
GCHQ, the UK intelligence agency, unlawfully accessed millions of personal communications collected by the NSA, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) has ruled today.
The Tribunal is the only UK court with the power to oversee GCHQ, Mi5 and Mi6. This is the first time it has ever ruled against one of the intelligence and security services.
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UK tribunal rules GCHQ’s NSA data-sharing deal “unlawful”
The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) has declared British intelligence services acted unlawfully by accessing the personal communications data gathered by the US National Security Agency (NSA).
The IPT, set up 15 years ago to oversee the activities of GCHQ, MI5 and MI6, ruling follows a complaint made by several civil liberties organisations, including Amnesty International, Privacy International, Bytes for All and Liberty.
The Tribunal said the way intelligence was shared between GCHQ and the NSA’s Prism surveillance programme was unlawful up until December 2014, because the rules governing the practice were kept secret.
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British Intelligence Use Of NSA Data Unlawful, Tribunal Rules
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British Access to NSA Spying Was Illegal, Court Rules
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UK’s Secretive Court Says Intelligence Sharing Between NSA And GCHQ Was Unlawful In The Past — But Now It Isn’t
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UK tribunal says secret surveillance deal with NSA was illegal
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Court: UK spies broke law by getting info from NSA
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UK court rules that GCHQ unlawfully spied on British citizens
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GCHQ mass internet surveillance was unlawful, UK court rules
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GCHQ broke the law by spying on UK citizens
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UK spy agency’s Internet surveillance was illegal, court rules
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Mass Web Surveillance By GCHQ Was Unlawful
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GCHQ internet spying schemes Prism and Upstream breached EU human rights laws
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GCHQ mass surveillance ‘unlawful’ & breach of human rights, court rules
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UK Agency’s Intelligence Sharing With NSA Unlawful: Tribunal
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GCHQ unlawfully spied on UK citizens, secret court rules
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The Guardian view on GCHQ: snooping beyond the law
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GCHQ’s Internet surveillance with US ruled unlawful
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GCHQ mass spying of UK citizens on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google was illegal, secret court rules in shock decision
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GCHQ has acted illegally – politicians can’t pretend it’s business as usual
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Surveillance ruling: GCHQ and privacy campaigners respond
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GCHQ censured over sharing of internet surveillance data with US
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Mass internet surveillance by GCHQ declared unlawful
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A court managed what the complicit UK press couldn’t: force GCHQ to tell the truth
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GCHQ mass internet surveillance was against the law, rules tribunal
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Spying on our emails WAS against the law: historic ruling against UK’s intelligence services
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British Court Says Spying on Data Was Illegal
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GCHQ internet spying was illegal, rules secret court
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U.S. and UK’s mass surveillance sharing program was illegal
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UK tribunal: mass Internet surveillance unlawful
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British web surveillance violated human rights, court rules
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Court rules GCHQ’s surveillance breached human rights
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U.S. and U.K’s Sharing of Mass Surveillance Intel Ruled ‘Unlawful’
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UK-US surveillance regime: statements by political figures before the ruling
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In Latest Vindication Of Snowden, Court Rules UK Mass Surveillance Illegal
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GCHQ Spying On British Citizens Was Unlawful, Rules Court
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British spooks broke the law as millions of UK emails were spied on
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British Tribunal Rules Mass Internet Surveillance by GCHQ Was Unlawful
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GCHQ mass internet surveillance ‘was unlawful’, court rules
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US-UK intelligence sharing was unlawful, rules tribunal
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British tribunal rules secret intelligence-sharing with U.S. was unlawful
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GCHQ’s mass surveillance of the internet has been ruled unlawful by tribunal
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GCHQ snooping on Britons “unlawful”, rules tribunal
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Privacy Advocate Hails British Ruling on US, British Intelligence-Gathering
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GCHQ’s mass surveillance of the internet ‘breached human rights’
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Tribunal Rebukes British Government For Spying
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GCHQ mass internet surveillance was unlawful, says tribunal
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Tribunal censures UK over US surveillance data sharing
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Mass Internet Surveillance by UK’s GCHQ Was Unlawful After All, Secretive Court Rules
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British Tribunal Rules Mass Surveillance By Spy Agencies Was Illegal
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Internet surveillance illegal, British tribunal rules
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Amnesty Int’l Lauds ‘Historic’ UK Ruling on Rights Breaches by Spy Agencies
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UK spy agency under fire over snooping
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GCHQ unlawfully spied on British Citizens, rules court
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Secretive UK Court Declares GCHQ Mass Surveillance Program Unlawful
The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) has ruled that GCHQ illegally spied on British citizens.
The tribunal, which was created in 2000 to keep Britain’s intelligence agencies in check, stated that GCHQ’s access to intercepted information obtained by the US National Security Agency (NSA) breached human rights laws.
It marks the first time that the IPT has ruled against an intelligence agency in its 15-year history.
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Sharing mass surveillance data was illegal but is now OK, UK tribunal rules
The sharing of mass surveillance data between U.S. and U.K. intelligence services was unlawful before December 2014, but since then it has become legal, a U.K. tribunal has ruled.
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UK tribunal says GCHQ spying was, but no longer is, unlawful
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Spy agencies’ strategy was working – until the IPT blasted a hole in it
The British government and its intelligence agencies have successfully fended off the privacy lobby for more than a year and a half since the first of the Snowden revelations, engaging in the time-tested tactics of attack, obfuscation and setting up sham inquiries.
That strategy worked until Friday when the ruling of the investigatory powers tribunal (IPT) blasted a hole through it.
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Snowden leaks LEGALISED GCHQ’s ‘illegal’ dragnet spying, rules British tribunal
In a bizarre twist of events the Tribunal declared that intelligence sharing between the United States and the United Kingdom had been unlawful prior to December 2014, because the rules governing the UK’s access to the NSA’s PRISM and UPSTREAM programmes were kept secret.
Prior to December last year, the secret policy breached Article 8, the right to a private life, and Article 10, the right to freedom of expression without State interference, the tribunal said.
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Movement To Turn Off Water To NSA Megafacility In Utah Continues
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Bill to Turn Off Water to Utah NSA Facility Clears Important Political Hurdle
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Flagged Bill: HB 150 – Prohibition on Electronic Data Collection – Rep. Marc Roberts
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Mainstream Press Embracing Strategy to Turn Off NSA Power and Water
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Utah’s massive NSA data center using more water
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Spy court finds that GCHQ and NSA PRISM information sharing is unlawful
A COURT HAS RULED THAT AN UNDER-THE-COUNTER information sharing pact between the US National Security Agency (NSA) and GCHQ was unlawful.
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Hackers are unknowingly gathering intel for the NSA
The U.S. National Security Agency and its intelligence partners are reportedly sifting through data stolen by state-sponsored and freelance hackers on a regular basis in search of valuable information.
Despite constantly warning about the threat of hackers and pushing for their prosecution, the intelligence agencies of the U.S., Canada and the U.K. are happy to ride their coattails when it serves their interests, news website The Intercept reported Wednesday
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Massive Utah cyberattacks — up to 300 million per day — may be aimed at NSA facility
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Cyber-attacks rising in Utah, likely due to NSA facility (Update)
With that new equipment in place in January 2013, the state was seeing an average of 50,000 a day with spikes up to 20 million, Squires told The Associated Press. In February 2013, the number rose to an average of 75 million attacks a day, with up to 500 million on some days.
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Do webcams watch the watchmen? No sticker on ex-NSA chief’s laptop camera
Paranoid about the National Security Agency spying on you via your webcam? Don’t be. It’s safe to webchat again. Well, at least if you’re Keith Alexander, former director of the National Security Agency. That is, unless he’s watching you.
Alexander was spotted on Tuesday on a train from Washington to New York by the principal technologist of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Chris Soghoian. The four-star general turned top paid security consultant was working away on his Apple Macbook with the webcam uncovered.
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Obama signs order limiting cyber espionage
New initiatives on data collection by the US Government will set certain limitations on the use of signals intelligence collected in bulk.
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NY Times Editor: Snowden Lessons Unlearned, Gov’t Secrecy Alive and Well
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President Obama Proposes Weak New Data Collection Reforms
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NSA Reform Proposals Slammed As ‘Pitiful’
The US Intelligence community has proposed to limit the length of time it can hold information on citizens and hide secret data collections.
The proposals are in response to President Barack Obama‘s statement a year ago, in which he said that reform was needed for American surveillance practices in the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations about NSA snooping.
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Canary Watch: Activists create website to track & reveal NSA, FBI info requests
A recently launched website that tracks and lists transparency reports from across the web has already received over 20 submissions since its launch on Monday, co-founder Nadia Kayyali told the Sputnik international news service.
Kayyali, who is also an activist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), said that EFF became involved in the project because they thought it was important to provide information to people about what companies have so-called ‘canaries.’
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Canary Watch now legally tracks secret NSA and FBI national security data requests
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Canary Watch Figures Out NSA, FBI Data Requests to Social Networks
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Sen. Wyden calls for more privacy from NSA
Oregon Senator Ron Wyden is calling on President Barack Obama to immediately end the National Security Agency practice of scooping up huge amounts of data from innocent Americans.
He said that data includes phone calls that start and end in America.
“The president has the authority to end this dragnet surveillance immediately,” Wyden said. “The idea of collecting millions of phone records on law-abiding Americans doesn’t make any sense.”
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NSA staffers who snooped on their lovers http://arstechnica.com/tech
Turns out, not even the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee can figure out what’s happened to the National Security Agency (NSA) staffers who were involved in the LOVEINT spying scandal.
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Site shows how the NSA is collecting information on Canadians
Personal data sent to Canadian websites is often routed through the United States where the National Security Agency collects it, according to Andrew Clement, a University of Toronto professor.
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Concerns over Harper’s anti-terror legislation
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What is the price of privacy?
After two terrorist attacks on Canadian soil, the federal government proposed new anti-terror laws. Although it’s released details on its bill, many questions remain. Will these laws affect our privacy? How about our freedom of speech? Will they improve security? Considering the experiences of our southern neighbours with mass surveillance programs and the controversial National Security Agency (NSA), these questions seem crucially important.
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Site shows how the NSA is collecting information on Canadians
Personal data sent to Canadian websites is often routed through the United States where the National Security Agency collects it, according to Andrew Clement, a University of Toronto professor.
The professor is part of the team of University of Toronto and OCAD University students and professors that has created IXmaps , an online interactive tool that lets Canadians to see how their web traffic moves around the Internet.
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NSA and CIA on Receiving End of Massive German Phone Spying Program
Germany’s foreign intelligence agency has been using its sophisticated electronic systems to collect 220 million bits of metadata a day from satellites and Internet sources and shares that information with U.S. intelligence agencies, according to Zeit Online. Once it crosses the Atlantic, the National Security Agency (NSA) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) use it for their own spying and anti-terrorism activities.
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Achtung baby: Germany adores metadata as much as the NSA
Die Zeit claims the BND scoops up 220m metadata every day, through satellites and internet cables. This is just the phone-related surveillance, with the extent of web-based surveillance as yet unknown.
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German Intelligence Shares Billions of Phone Metadata Pieces With NSA
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Germany’s BND muscles in on metadata mass surveillance
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Report: US to grant foreigners limited NSA data deletion rights
The piece, which appears to be based on official leaks ahead of a Tuesday announcement, suggested foreigners will get for the first time get limited rights regarding how their personal data is treated after it’s been scooped up by agencies such as the NSA. Whereas the data of Americans would be deleted after incidental collection, foreigners’ data would be deleted after five years.
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White House reveals ‘weak’ NSA reform nearly 2 years after Snowden scoops
The Obama administration has announced changes to the surveillance operations conducted by the United States intelligence community, but critics are already using words like “weak” to describe the so-called reform.
Adjustments to how US intel agencies collect and hold bulk data on Americans and surveillance records concerning foreigners are outlined in a report published on Tuesday this week by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
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‘Connect the Dots’ — An Alternative to NSA Bulk Surveillance?
Last month, the National Research Council concluded there is no technological replacement for the National’s Security Agency’s mass surveillance and therefore should not be fully replaced.
“No software-based technique can fully replace the bulk collection of signals intelligence,” the report stated.
But there may in fact be a viable alternative — and it’s been around for more than a decade, according to J. Kirk Wiebe, a former NSA analyst.
Wiebe, who created this alternative surveillance technique, spent three decades at NSA and received its second-highest award, the Meritorious Civilian Service Award.
The idea behind Wiebe’s alternative is simple. It boils down to “connect the dots,” he said Saturday at an event sponsored by the Newseum and the Washington, D.C. Public Library.
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Snowden Warns Canadians About Proposed “Anti-terrorism” Law
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The Switchboard: Future of NSA programs remain murky as Obama tightens surveillance guidelines
As Obama tightens surveillance guidelines, uncertainty lingers on NSA program. “The Obama administration on Tuesday announced a series of modest steps to strengthen privacy protections for Americans and foreigners in U.S. intelligence-gathering, including an end to the indefinite gag order on certain subpoenas issued to companies for customers’ personal data,” writes the Post’s Ellen Nakashima. “At the same time, U.S. intelligence officials said they were still hoping to fulfill a goal President Obama set a year ago: ending the National Security Agency’s collection of millions of Americans’ phone records.”
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ACLU dings Obama for failing to reform the NSA
The new rules “clearly show that the government continues to stand by a number of its troubling mass surveillance policies, despite mounting evidence that many of these programs are ineffective,” said Neema Singh Guliani of the ACLU.
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RSA boss packs his fishing rod and heads for the hills
RSA, with its noted BSafe encryption technology, was bought by EMC in 2006 for $2.1bn, with Coviello in the RSA CEO chair. Its reputation as a trusted security technology supplier was tarnished by allegations from whistleblower Edward Snowden that it was paid $10m by the NSA to use encryption tech with a backdoor for the g-men (and, by extension, world+dog).
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British spies tell German MPs to back off
British spies have warned the government they may cut off ties with their German counterparts over a parliamentary inquiry into spying by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA).
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Gmail, Skype And Facebook Excluded from Australia’s Data Retention Scheme
The new law, set to go into effect later this year, will store data in Australian servers for two years. This data will be provided to Australian authorities, who can perform direct warrantless searches of potential criminals.
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Obama Won’t Disclose Spy Agency Budgets
Resisting a campaign for greater transparency, the White House has decided to keep American taxpayers in the dark about how much they’re likely to spend on government spy agencies.
President Barack Obama unveiled his fiscal 2016 budget requests Monday with the continued omission of proposed spending levels for specific intelligence agencies, which are funded with a so-called “black budget” supplement debated and voted upon behind closed doors by congressional appropriators.
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Zimmermann slams Cameron’s ‘absurd’ plans for crypto ban
Zimmermann, creator of the PGP email privacy package, countered Cameron’s argument that encryption is creating a means for terrorists and child abusers to communicate in private, arguing instead that intelligence agencies such as GCHQ and the NSA have “never had it so good”.
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Hello, wearables! Goodbye, privacy?
As the wearable technology industry explodes, security experts warn that the data collected could be stolen or misused.
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In a First, Government Acknowledges the Limits of Section 215
Following EFF’s victory in a four-year Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the government released an opinion (pdf), written by the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) in 2010, that concluded that Section 215—the provision of the Patriot Act the NSA relies on to collect millions of Americans’ phone records—does have a limit: census data.
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Mass Surveillance for Counter Terrorism: Are our Private Lives Compromised?
Exploitation, either political or personal can occur from the mass information gathered in intelligence operations…
[...]
While the laws that have created this system were passed in the interest of public safety, in protection from risks of terrorism, the post-9/11 world had led to military and cyber exploitations of power that have killed many in wars and drone attacks, as well as ruining lives due to racial and radical profiling. It is vital to consider how much of our private spheres should the government be allowed to have access to. The failures of honouring American rights and dignity thus far must be rectified by transparent and honest accounts from the National Service Agency about their mechanisms of tracking potential threats and treatment of unrelated personal data. Ultimately, no government should have the authority to ubiquitously and opaquely conduct their surveillance. The people should be informed before supporting beyond intent to include the implementation.
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Security and privacy: Why Internet users must demand both
The conflict between privacy and security is a long-running one, often inflamed by global threats, but always present. In a 2008 Wired article, the extent to which individual privacy should be sacrificed for matters of national security was laid bare by the then-director of national intelligence Michael McConnell.
“In order for cyberspace to be policed, Internet activity will have to be closely monitored. Ed Giorgio, who is working with McConnell on the plan, said that would mean giving the government the authority to examine the content of any e-mail, file transfer, or Web search. ‘Google has records that could help in a cyber-investigation,’ he said. Giorgio warned me, ‘We have a saying in this business: Privacy and security are a zero-sum game.’”
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Vital email security researcher may call it quits over lack of funds
ProPublica has the details on this story, which traces Koch’s work on Gnu Privacy Guard and the Windows secure email client, GPG4Win. Since 1997, Koch has maintained and improved his own secure email software. He credits a talk by Richard Stallman for giving him the idea — at the time, the Pretty Good Privacy software package wasn’t available for export, which led RMS to challenge European programmers to create their own implementation.
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British Spy Agency Harvested E-mails From U.S., U.K. Media
During a 10-minute period one day in November 2008, British spies vacuumed up 70,000 e-mails to and from journalists at major media outlets in the United States and the U.K. And they did it with the blessings of Washington.
Thanks to the Snowden leaks, many Americans are familiar with the surveillance that the NSA and other agencies are conducting on American citizens and citizens of other nations. It is not only U.S. agencies that are spying on our communications; GCHQ, the U.K. equivalent of the NSA, has been conducting is own comprehensive surveillance for quite some time now. The Guardian reported last month that the British agency “has scooped up emails to and from journalists working for some of the US and UK’s largest media organisations.” While not really a revelation in itself, this is bold, specific confirmation of what many have known since Edward Snowden came forward. We are being spied on, not only by nosy corporations and our own government, but by our “allies” as well.
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Lawmakers Debut Bill to Require Search Warrants for Email Snooping
House and Senate lawmakers are expected to reintroduce bipartisan legislation on Wednesday that would require law enforcement to obtain a search warrant before accessing the content of private emails.
The Email Privacy Act, sponsored by Reps. Jared Polis and Kevin Yoder, is landing with more than 220 cosponsors, meaning it already has the backing of more than half of House members. Sens. Patrick Leahy and Mike Lee are also slated to reintroduce their mirror version of the bill, though it was not immediately clear how many cosponsors they had on board.
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States go full throttle to limit feds
It’s only days, a few weeks at most, into the 2015 season for state legislatures, and already there are hundreds of bills looming that challenge the power of Washington on issues ranging from Common Core to marijuana and the National Security Agency, according to a new report.
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As A Documentary, ‘Citizenfour’ Captivates Like A Spy Thriller
Another reason the Snowden affair is interesting is that it crosses the typical, dismal political categories that infect American politics. Some on both the right and the left consider Snowden a traitor. Other people from all corners of American politics deplore the invasive snooping of the NSA. Other fascinating questions are who is Edward Snowden and why is he doing this?
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Citizenfour: an insider’s look at Edward Snowden
‘How do you get the audience to feel it? Not just to know it in their brains, but to walk out of the theatre and think twice as they use their phones or their email.’
She believes that telling Snowden’s story and questioning the practices of her own government was an obligation.
While she can’t say whether Snowden, still living in exile with his girlfriend in Moscow, is happy, she is confident of at least one thing.
‘I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have any regrets.’
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You are being watched: Attention citizens
When film director Laura Poitras calls from New York, she warns that our conversation is likely to be monitored by the US Government.
Since 2006, after she released the first documentary in her trilogy about America post 9/11, she has been stopped and detained by federal agents at US airports every time she enters the country.
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Poll: Edward Snowden Has Become One of Most Admired Men in Germany
Edward Snowden is the fourth most admired man among Germans, according to a new YouGov poll. The NSA whistleblower, whose leaks exposed US spying on German officials – including Angela Merkel’s mobile phone, came in just ahead of racecar driver Michael Schumacher.
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Anyone who makes you choose between privacy and security wants you to have neither
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The real impact of surveillance
Mass surveillance isn’t the security blanket that politicians are holding it up to be. For many people surveillance makes them less safe.
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South Korean spy agency opens its doors, but stays mum on controversies
NIS agents were found to have meddled in the 2012 presidential election in the form of an online smear campaign targeting the opponent of the eventual winner, conservative Park Geun-hye. Last year, Won Sei-hoon, the agency’s then-director general, was found guilty of overseeing the operation and sentenced to two years in jail.
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“Most Americans were unaware that their every move could be tracked by Big Brother”, said Rep. Ted Poe
On February 4, 2015 Rep. Ted Poe of Texas asked for permission to address the United States House of Representatives:
The SPEAKER pro tempore. “Under the Speaker’s announced policy of January 6, 2015, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) for 30 minutes.”
Mr. POE of Texas. “Mr. Speaker, just a few weeks ago, this Chamber was filled with Members of the House of Representatives, and all of us stood up and raised our right hands, and we took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. It is the same oath the President takes and that others take–the military. We do that for a lot of reasons, but the main reason is that, in this country, the Constitution is paramount to all other law. I agree with that philosophy. The Constitution, I think, is a marvelously written document, as well as the Declaration of Independence, which justified the reason for us to start our own country.
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Almost Two-thirds of Journalists Think Government Spies on Them
Almost two-thirds of investigative journalists (64 percent) polled in a recent survey said they believe that the U.S. government has probably collected data about their phone calls, e-mails, or online communications. Furthermore, 80 percent of those surveyed believe that being a journalist increases the likelihood that their data will be collected.
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How have journalists responded to revelations of mass surveillance?
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s revelations of mass surveillance by government agencies has made a big impact on investigative journalists, according to a new study.
The survey of 671 journalists, conducted by the US-based Pew Research Center and Columbia University’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism, found that 64% believe that the US government has probably collected data about their communications.
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Civil Rights
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Justice for Sale – Part 1: Declining Faith, Rising Police Violence
This is the first article in a five part series examining the US legal system. The series collectively argues that corporate media and political rhetoric have made Americans acquiescent toward corruption in the US legal system. This piece examines how discourse regarding law enforcement related issues in the US has been constructed to justify abuse by the police.
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Conservative Media Bash Obama For Mentioning Crusades At Prayer Breakfast
Conservative media lashed out at President Obama for mentioning the Crusades and Inquisition at the National Prayer Breakfast after condemning the Islamic State (ISIS or ISIL) as a “death cult” that distorts Islam.
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Fox Gave Defense Lobbyist An Undisclosed Platform To Slam Obama On Client’s Behalf
Guest Attacked Obama For Not Letting Company His Firm Represents Sell Drone To Jordan
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The Police State Is Upon Us
Anyone paying attention knows that 9/11 has been used to create a police/warfare state. Years ago, NSA official William Binney warned Americans about the universal spying by the National Security Agency, to little effect. Recently, Edward Snowden proved the all-inclusive NSA spying by releasing spy documents, enough of which have been made available by Glenn Greenwald to establish the fact of NSA illegal and unconstitutional spying, spying that has no legal, constitutional, or “national security” reasons. Yet Americans are not up in arms. Americans have accepted the government’s offenses against them as necessary protection against “terrorists.”
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Armstrong given two tickets after car crash
Former pro cyclist Lance Armstrong was issued two traffic citations in January for allegedly hitting two parked vehicles in Aspen’s West End and leaving the scene — with his girlfriend apparently telling police initially that she had been behind the wheel in order to avoid national headlines.
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Ignoring America’s true greatness
Messrs. Petraeus and O’Hanlan are unconcerned about the nation’s alarmng liberty and justice deficit. The President plays prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner to kill any American citizen he decreees based on secret evidence is a threat to the national security. Thousands of innocent civilians abroad are killed by predator drones. The National Security Agency conducts surveillance against the entire United States population without suspicion that even a single target has been complicit in crime or international terrorism.
Individuals are detained indefinitely without accusation or trial at Guantanamo Bay. Eighteenth century British legal scholar William Blackstone — who was gospel to the Founding Fathers — wrote: “[T]o bereave a man of life, or by violence to confiscate his estate, without accusation or trial, would be so notorious an act of despotism, as must at once convey the alarm of tyranny throughout the whole kingdom.”
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The US Already Running Special Ops Missions In 105 Countries In 2015
In the dead of night, they swept in aboard V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft. Landing in a remote region of one of the most volatile countries on the planet, they raided a village and soon found themselves in a life-or-death firefight. It was the second time in two weeks that elite U.S. Navy SEALs had attempted to rescue American photojournalist Luke Somers. And it was the second time they failed.
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America desperately needs constitutional convention
The imperial presidency persists. Look at Obama and his drones. Look at George W. Bush. Bush, who lost the popular vote, stole the 2000 election with the Electoral College’s help. As for the Senate, it is surely the world’s most undemocratic legislative body. Since every state gets two senators, one Californian voter has some 1.5 percent of a Wyoming voter’s power. Wyoming’s population is smaller than NJ’s Bergen or Middlesex counties. Senators from Mississippi or Utah can then filibuster and kill reforms voters from demographic mega-states like California or New York demand. These states are less urbanized and diverse in general. With growing inequality between the classes and races, and growing repression in the form of mass incarceration, we need to radically reform and amend our Constitution. As political scientist Daniel Lazare said, the alternative would be, “the old pre-reform Mississippi state legislature stamping on democracy — forever.” I’m sorry Lincoln’s ghost, but that’s not a Union worth saving. But hey, maybe Hillary can save us.
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CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou Released to House Arrest
Under the terms of his house arrest, Kiriakou is unable to give media interviews at this time.
Radack said he eventually hopes to be an anti-torture and prison reform advocate.
Kiriakou’s official release date is May 1, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons website.
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Aaron Swartz stood up for freedom and fairness – and was hounded to his death
On Monday, BBC Four screened a remarkable film in its Storyville series. The Internet’s Own Boy told the story of the life and tragic death of Aaron Swartz, the leading geek wunderkind of his generation who was hounded to suicide at the age of 26 by a vindictive US administration. The film is still available on BBC iPlayer, and if you do nothing else this weekend make time to watch it, because it’s the most revealing source of insights about how the state approaches the internet since Edward Snowden first broke cover.
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Internet/Net Neutrality
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Here’s What That Dumb Porn Parody Gets Wrong On Net Neutrality
Net neutrality propaganda is starting to get weird. A brand new interest group showed up this week with a confusing porn parody that seems to equate Title II reclassification of the internet with dragnet surveillance, among other fallacies. It’s a good chance to talk about what the Federal Communications Commission’s new open internet policy is — and what it isn’t.
An anti-big government campaign backed by a US Senator released this godawful video that looks like a tasteless ripoff of the age-old “cable guy” porn cliché — except you know not to actually expect any sex because it’s YouTube.
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