Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 16/8/2015: 18th Birthday for GNOME, Android M Name





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



  • Using open-source to turn tech challenges into solutions
    IBM has joined forces with the open-source movement to turn many of these challenges into solutions. “We have got to be a key part of what’s happening in open source.”

    With Linux, Thomas said, “It was about, how can we build a core technology and knowledge around Linux but then use that to help our clients solve problems. We think we’re at a similar juncture, but now on the data side.”


  • Events



  • Web Browsers



  • SaaS/Big Data



    • LinkedIn Makes Hadoop Tools Available as Open Source Project
      This week, LinkedIn announced that it is turning Gradle into an open source project. Alex Bain, senior software engineer for LinkedIn, says that LinkedIn has a vested interest in making Gradle, a plug-in to Hadoop, a bigger part of a rapidly growing Hadoop ecosystem. For example, as the Apache Spark in-memory computing project continues to evolve, Bain says that LinkedIn would like to see open source contributions that extended the reach of Gradle to both Hadoop and Spark.


    • How the cloud will devour open source
      Yes, we have Red Hat. But that's all we have. Investor (and former open source executive) Peter Levine insists that "we will never have another Red Hat," and he's right. But this may be because the Amazons of the world are increasingly eating the Red Hats of the world -- one SaaS business at a time.




  • Business



  • BSD



    • FreeBSD 10.2-RELEASE Announcement
      The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeBSD 10.2-RELEASE. This is the third release of the stable/10 branch, which improves on the stability of FreeBSD 10.1-RELEASE and introduces some new features.




  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC



  • Openness/Sharing



  • Programming



    • CNS 2015 Day 2 and 3


    • 7 things every new programmer should know
      As a developer, chances are you’ll spend a good deal of time working with a fancy IDE or code editor. However, also knowing how to get things done at the command line could occasionally make your life easier.

      “Sometimes you find yourself on a machine where stuff has to be done right now and tools are very limited,” one 20-year veteran programmer, who wished to remain anonymous, told me. “Know the shell like you know how to breath. Tools like find, comm, diff, vi/vim, sed, awk. How to write little scripts right on the command line to find the file that needs to change right f’ing now because production is broken and Joe who fat fingered a URL in said unknown file is on vacation in Fiji.”

      Bull, who started using Microsoft tools, then slowly moved to Linux, agreed, saying, “I would have learned the ins and outs of the command line and all of the useful utilities that are available on a *nix system. I can actually recall code that I wrote years ago, and probably spent days or weeks working on, that probably could have been done better in a grep + awk one-liner.”






Leftovers



  • Former SAP exec pleads guilty to bribery charge
    A former SAP executive has pleaded guilty to conspiring to bribe Panamanian officials in an effort to secure government contracts for the software vendor.

    Vicente Eduardo Garcia was SAP’s vice president of global and strategic accounts for Latin America from February 2008 until April 2014, when he was fired. With the plea, he admitted to participating in a scheme to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits bribing foreign officials to obtain business.

    Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 16 before Senior District Court Judge Charles Breyer of the Northern District of California.


  • For Pilots, Birds Are A Greater Threat Than Drones
    There has been a fair amount of hand-wringing over the growing number of drones in the skies—and indeed, pilots have reported a sharp rise in plane-drone encounters this year.

    But of the 650 plane-drone encounters reported to the FAA in 2015, none led to a collision. Birds, on the other hand, have been and continue to be a pilot’s worst nightmare. A Vocativ analysis shows that thousands of birds collide with airplanes every year.


  • Billionaire Wants Drone Racing To Be The Next NASCAR
    The owner of an NFL football team is throwing his support—as well as his money—behind a new sport: Drone racing.


  • Science



  • Hardware



  • Health/Nutrition



    • River in Colorado reopens as toxic plume reaches Lake Powell
      Water officials, however, said the plume that includes lead, arsenic and other heavy metals now presents little danger to users beyond Lake Powell - such as the city of Las Vegas - because the contaminants will further settle out and be diluted in the reservoir along the Utah-Arizona border.




  • Security



    • Friday's security advisories
    • Research Paper: Securing Linux Containers


    • Kaspersky Antivirus accused of creating fake malware for over 10 years
      It basically worked like this: Kaspersky would inject dangerous-looking code into common pieces of software. It would then anonymously submit the files to malware aggregators such as Google-owned VirusTotal. When competitors added the malware to their detection engines, they’d mistakenly flag the original files because of the similar code.


    • Investigating the Computer Security Practices and Needs of Journalists


      Though journalists are often cited as potential users of computer security technologies, their practices and mental models have not been deeply studied by the academic computer security community. Such an understanding, however, is critical to developing technical solutions that can address the real needs of journalists and integrate into their existing practices. We seek to provide that insight in this paper, by investigating the general and computer security practices of 15 journalists in the U.S. and France via in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Among our findings is evidence that existing security tools fail not only due to usability issues but when they actively interfere with other aspects of the journalistic process; that communication methods are typically driven by sources rather than journalists; and that journalists’ organizations play an important role in influencing journalists’ behaviors. Based on these and other findings, we make recommendations to the computer security community for improvements to existing tools and future lines of research.


    • Ten scary hacks I saw at Black Hat and DEF CON
      The highlight of this year’s Black Hat conference was a remote hack of the Jeep Cherokee and other Fiat Chrysler vehicles, demonstrated by security researches Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek.

      The attack was the culmination of a year of painstaking work that involved reverse-engineering car firmware and communications protocols. It eventually allowed the two researchers to hack into the car infotainment systems over mobile data connections and take over brake, steering and other critical systems. The research forced Chrysler to recall 1.4 million automobiles so they could be patched and prompted a car cybersafety legislative proposal from the U.S. Congress.


    • How to hack a Corvette with a text message
      Researchers have demonstrated how a simple text message can be used to control a vehicle.


    • Facebook issues Internet Defense Prize for vulnerability discovery tool
      Facebook has awarded $100,000 to a pair of Ph.D students for their work in the security of C++ programs which resulted in the detection and patching of zero-day vulnerabilities.




  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression



    • US Fighter Jet Crashes During Training Session in Germany
      According to a police spokesman in Upper Franconia, the American pilot managed to eject from the plane and landed with a parachute. His injuries are not believed to be life threatening.


    • Former CIA Officer:Cuba Could Play Bridge-Builder to Restore US-Russia Ties
      Former CIA officer and SFRC senior investigator John Kiriacou claims that badly strained US relations with Russia could unexpectedly benefit from revived American diplomatic ties with Cuba.


    • Tyler S. Drumheller, 63, CIA officer who disputed cause for Iraq war
      Tyler S. Drumheller, a high-level CIA officer who publicly battled agency leaders over one of the most outlandish claims in the US case for war with Iraq, died Aug. 2 at a hospital in Fairfax County, Va. He was 63.


    • Tyler Drumheller, Ex-C.I.A. Official Who Disputed Bush, Dies at 63
      Tyler S. Drumheller, a former senior American intelligence official who publicly asserted that President George W. Bush’s administration had knowingly hyped fabricated evidence of Iraq’s arsenal of biological weapons to justify the 2003 invasion, died on Aug. 2 in Falls Church, Va. He was 63.


    • Remembering Tyler Drumheller
      Tyler Drumheller was a 26-year veteran of the CIA and he exposed the faulty intelligence that was used to make the case for the Iraq War. He claimed he told his superiors at the CIA that the claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction wasn’t true, that it came from a source who was not credible. Tyler Drumheller died on August 2. He was 63.
    • Panetta disputes Bush’s take on Islamic State, backs Clinton
      Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has disputed Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush’s charge that Hillary Rodham Clinton and President Obama are largely responsible for the rise of the group Islamic State, even as he expressed concern that the administration needs “a larger strategy on how to deal with the Middle East.”
    • Ex-CIA official arrested at airport with loaded gun


    • Meet ‘Moderates’ U.S. is Supporting in Syria: They’re al-Qaeda
      Increasing evidence is coming in that the groups the U.S. is trying to install into power in Syria are actually contending groups of Sunni Islamic jihadists who seem to agree on only one thing: they want to replace the secular government of the Shiite Bashar al-Assad, who is supported by Russia and by Shiite Iran. They want to replace it with a Sunni Islamic government. Some of these groups have perpetrated terrorist attacks (some including beheadings) against Americans, and one such group is even al-Qaeda, the Sunni Islamic organization that, of course, perpetrated the 9/11, 2001, attacks and others.


    • Private Intelligence Contractors as Public Relations Arm of Military Industrial Complex
      Evidence shows that “full spectrum dominance” [i] is the goal. Full spectrum dominance, as described by a U.S Department of Defense (DoD) news article, “means the ability of U.S. forces, operating alone or with allies, to defeat any adversary and control any situation across the range of military operations.”


    • US warship pullout from Persian Gulf ‘goodwill gesture’ to Iran: Former CIA contractor
      A former CIA contractor says US President Barack Obama’s decision to withdraw the USS Theodore Roosevelt from the Persian Gulf shows a goodwill gesture towards Iran in the wake of the nuclear agreement.


    • Agreement with Iran is step in the right direction
      It started when the U.S. CIA overthrew the democratically elected Iranian government of Mohammed Mosaddegh in 1953, and installed a brutal dictator (the Shah) in his place.


    • Petition condemning Sen. Schumer for Iran stance tops 160,000 signatures
      The petition is from Credo Action, which bills itself as a “social change organization that supports activism and funds progressive nonprofits,” and has a goal of 200,000 signatures. However, its not exactly clear what will happen if the petition reaches that goal.

      “There’s no excuse for any Democrat to oppose the deal – least of all Senator Schumer, who is in line to take over leadership of the Senate Democrats once Senator Harry Reid retires,” the petition says.


    • Manuel Contreras, Chilean spy chief, dies at 86
      According to a CIA report released in 2000, by April 1975 it had become clear that “Contreras was the principal obstacle to a reasonable human rights policy within the Junta.” Nevertheless, weeks later, “elements within the CIA recommended establishing a paid relationship with Contreras to obtain intelligence based on his unique position and access to Pinochet.” The suggestion was overruled, the report said, but “given miscommunications in the timing of this exchange, a one-time payment was given to Contreras.”
    • Crimes Of US-Backed Dictatorship Era Still Being Prosecuted In Chile
      Two recent developments in Chile have reignited the struggle for memory against Augusto Pinochet’s lasting culture of oblivion. On Aug. 7, Chileans on both sides of the political spectrum either lamented or celebrated the death of Manuel Contreras, former head of Pinochet’s National Intelligence Services (DINA).

      Contreras’ death ignited a fresh surge of rage and indignation, as the families of the over 3,000 disappeared still face an uphill struggle against the state and the military to uncover details regarding the murder and disappearance of their relatives.


    • Ex-Pinochet general opts for suicide over 20 years in jail
      A retired Chilean general committed suicide yesterday, choosing to end his life rather than begin a 20-year prison sentence for the 1995 killing of a former secret agent who spied on Augusto Pinochet’s regime.

      Hernán Ramírez Rurange, 76, shot himself in the head and died at a military hospital, police announced. He was one of 14 former Chilean and Uruguayan Army officers who lost an appeal on Tuesday against their convictions for the 1995 kidnapping and killing of Eugenio Berrios, whom they wanted to silence before he exposed the crimes of the Pinochet regime. The case is just one of several high-profile ones dating back to dictatorship that has come to trial recently in Chile.


    • Chile: Manuel Contreras, Head of Pinochet-era Secret Police, Dead at 86
      On September 11, 1973, the democratically-elected leftist Salvador Allende was faced with a violent coup staged by the Chilean Armed Forces, led by Augusto Pinochet (who would then rule until 1990). Less than three weeks prior to the overthrow, Allende appointed the lifelong military man Pinochet to the top position in the armed forces and the Commander-in-Chief of the Army repaid him by ousting him from power.

      On the day of the coup, Pinochet ordered the attack on Allende who remained inside La Moneda, the national palace, in central Santiago. Rather than surrendering or being killed by military forces, Allende committed suicide by shooting himself just minutes before the Chilean Air Force bombed the complex.

      From that day on, Pinochet led Chile with an iron fist for the duration of the dictatorship in 1990 and was facing over three hundred different possible charges of crimes against humanity when he passed away in 2006.


    • Korea plays cat-and-mouse with nukes
      It was the United States that broke our will when we tried to develop nuclear weapons. They thought we would use the weapons to invade North Korea.
    • Yemeni women stage rare protest in rebel-held capital
    • The struggle for power in Yemen continues, and Qatar is playing a key role


      But he blames the Yemen conflict on the Shia. “There's a majority of Shia in Yemen," he said. "That's why they're torturing Sunni people. They think the Islam they are following is better than the Islam we are following."


    • Spy Sats and Subs: The U.S. Military's Secret Deep-Sea Operations
      During and after the 1963 USS Thresher disaster, the Navy developed powerful deep-ocean search and recovery techniques. The sea service used these techniques effectively in the search for lost H-bombs in 1966 and the USS Scorpion in 1968. It also had the only subs in the world capable of diving deep enough to reach the bucket. They were pretty weird subs.


    • Mideast Glimmers of Hope
      Despite Israel’s reliance on a dominated U.S. Congress as a last line of defense for its bomb-bomb-bomb-Iran strategy, other regional and global forces are moving quickly to reshape the Middle East’s geopolitical reality in a more positive way, as ex-CIA official Graham E. Fuller discerns.


    • How To Understand Those 60 Trainees In Syria – OpEd
      So said American Defense Secretary Ash Carter in testimony before an incredulous Senate Armed Services Committee on July 7, explaining that the $500 million American project, announced over a year ago, to train and arm a new Syrian rebel army to bring the Islamic State to its knees and force a political settlement on the Syrian regime simultaneously has, to date, trained just 60 fighters.


    • Pentagon’s Law of War Manual Justifies War Crimes and Press Censorship
      The major US newspapers and television networks, which have full-time Pentagon correspondents and regularly review Pentagon press releases, chose to say nothing about the Law of War Manual, for reasons that become obvious when the content of the document is explored. Nor did they comment initially on the manual’s provisions for journalists until the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ) issued a statement July 31 under the headline, “In times of war, Pentagon reserves right to treat journalists like spies.”


    • Feds Must Tell More About CIA's Role in Drone Strike
      Nearly four years after the controversial drone strike, the U.S. government must release more information about the legal rationale for killing New Mexico-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen, a federal judge ruled on Wednesday. .


    • "It's not risk-free war, it's displaced war"
      For more than a decade now, the US has been using drones in warfare. During this time, thousands of people, especially civilians, have been killed by the unmanned machines. In this interview, Chris Woods, one of the leading investigative journalists on drone warfare, explains to Emran Feroz why use of drones is on the rise and what the consequences are


    • Stop Whining and Get Cracking
      How many Americans could identify the National Endowment for Democracy? It was set up in the early 1980s under President Ronald Reagan in the wake of all the negative revelations about the CIA. Seemingly every other day there was a new headline about the discovery of some awful thing the CIA had been mixed up in for years.

      The agency was getting an exceedingly bad name. Something had to be done. What was done was not to stop doing these awful things. Instead, they were shifted to a new organization with a nice-sounding name – The National Endowment for Democracy.

      The idea was that the NED would do somewhat overtly what the CIA had been doing covertly for decades – and thus eliminate the stigma associated with CIA covert activities. This is why in 1983, the NED was set up to “support democratic institutions throughout the world through private, non-governmental efforts.”


    • Ukraine’s Cold War Gets Hot as Combat Explodes in the Last 24 Hours
      According to Ukrainian reports, hundreds of Russian-backed fighters took part in an assault, supported by tanks and artillery fire, on positions near the village of Starognatovka, in the south of the Donetsk region. The attack was repelled and Ukrainian forces made their first territorial gains since February 10. Since then, heavy artillery and Grad rockets have rained down across this section of the front line.


    • Post WW2 World Order: US Planned to Wipe USSR Out by Massive Nuclear Strike
      Was the US deterrence military doctrine aimed against the Soviet Union during the Cold War era really "defensive" and who actually started the nuclear arms race paranoia?


    • Pakistan's answer to 'The Onion' tackles tough topics with satire
      From a mullah who wants a military operation against women wearing jeans to "uncircumcised" Islamic State fighters, a satirical Pakistani website is using humour to shine a light on current affairs in the turbulent nation.


    • First Anniversary of the Borderfree Community Center
      Each year, when we celebrate the anniversaries of the Borderfree Nonviolence Community Centre, I hope we can celebrate such love, because, love heals, love is courage and love is action that will outlast all of us.


    • Numerous US-Trained Syrian Rebels Now Unaccounted For
      The recent capture of a handful of U.S.-trained Syrian fighters shortly after entering Syria may make it even harder to recruit reluctant volunteers for a new ground force to combat the Islamic State.

      And the Syrian Kurds in the northeast portion of the country have performed exceptionally well, according to Ryder. The Christians of Sadad have already started to flee to Damascus and other safe havens in Syria.

      India can play a lead role in mobilising APIC countries for regional cooperation on this specific issue and deny Islamic State in establishing their operational base or else it will be like repeating the same mistake that world superpowers initially committed in allowing Islamic State in consolidating their present day caliphate in Iraq-Turkey-Syria border. After a year in which signs of progress have been unreliable, they’re reluctant to sound too optimistic in public. “But they pay the jizya [a tax levied on non-Muslims] in exchange for permission to stay”, he said. After months of persuasion, Turkey finally joined the coalition of forces on their fight against Islamic State. They believed that eventually the allies would train and equip about 5,000 fighters.

      Davis also said that the military was anticipating attacks on Syrian forces before it put them into battle.


    • Submission of the ABC to Intelligence and Security Review
      The ABC wishes to express its very great disappointment with this review. We are very aware that the Review will not truly reflect opinion in this country because a great number of people who oppose the activities of both the Government Communications Security Bureau and the Security Intelligence Service have refused to take part in a process which they see as a managed charade and an attempt to legitimise the operations and existence of the two spy agencies.

      [...]

      2. Oversight

      2.1. Five Eyes. Throughout the Five Eyes collaboration there is a consistent pattern of systemic oversight failure. The CIA actually spied on the Senate Committee responsible for its oversight. In the UK, the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) itself, responsible for oversight, has recently reported that legislation is “unnecessarily complicated” and the regime “lacks transparency”. In spite of the oversight in Britain the GCHQ was illegally spying on Amnesty International and others. The documented part MI6 played in the rendition and torture of alleged terrorists was never subject to proper Parliamentary control.

      Even the UK former Home Office Minister David Davis, who played a large part in promoting the Bill that set up the British ISC, recently asserted that the ISC had been “captured by the agencies they are supposed to be overseeing” and that Malcolm Rifkind (until recently Chairperson of the ISC) acted as “spokesperson” for the spy agencies rather than a watchdog. To quote two members of the British House of Lords: “Recent events have shown that the Intelligence and Security Committee, as currently constituted, is not really effective” (Foulkes). The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, which gives legislative justification for GCHQ surveillance, “… is plainly inadequate to deal with the situation caused by the advances in interception technology” (Sharkey).


    • Lightning Strikes 44 US Army Personnel During Training
      The Army Rangers were immediately taken to hospital, but 31 of the students have already begun training again.

      Forty Army Ranger students and four instructors were struck by lightning as they were undergoing a training exercise about how to protect themselves from lightning bolts during thunderstorms, said U.S. army officials Thursday.


    • White officer ends testimony in black man's shooting death
      As prosecutors attempted to discredit him, a white Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer completed nearly six hours of testimony Friday, recounting the events of the night he shot and killed an unarmed black man nearly two years ago.

      Prosecutor Teresa Postell asked why Kerrick turned off his dashcam before reaching the home where there had been a breaking and entering call and challenged entries on his police academy application regarding whether he drank alcohol to the point that he risked being arrested if he attempted to drive a car.


    • Police murder and class rule in America
      The reign of police violence in the US claimed 16 more victims over the past week.


    • SEE IT: St. Louis teen guards police during protests
      An image of a St. Louis teen whose cop cousin died in the 9/11 terror attacks has become a pro-police symbol after she put herself in front of a row of riot gear-clad Missouri officers to protect them.

      Lexi Kozhevsky, a 19-year-old St. Louis University nursing student, was photographed joining cops Monday night in Ferguson as they stood guard during protests over Michael Brown’s death.
    • How St. Louis police added Twitter to its arsenal


    • Hundreds Gather in Ferguson to Honor Michael Brown Killed by Police
    • Protests return to Ferguson streets, state of emergency declared
      Police in riot gear contained roughly 200 protesters who had gathered in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri on Monday to mark the anniversary of the police shooting of an unarmed black teen whose death ignited a national firestorm on race relations.


    • Ferguson: State of emergency declared as black man shot
      The demonstrators, some waving flags, beating drums, and shouting anti-police slogans, marched along a street that was a flashpoint of last year’s riots which erupted after white police officer Darren Wilson shot dead the 18-year-old unarmed black teen whose death ignited a national firestorm on race relations.


    • Los Angeles Unified School District Debates Whether to Shoot Its Own Students–With Department of Defense Weapons
      On Thursday, July 30, 50 Black and Latino students wearing mock bullet proof vests with stickers that stated #StudentsAintBulletProof #End1033, from the Strategy Center’s Fight for the Soul of the Cities, once again asked the Los Angeles Unified School District to give us a list of the weapons they received from the Department of Defense 1033 Program, to return 61 M 16 assault rifles we believe are still in their possession, and to apologize for being in the program in the first place. Students said, after 3 public comment testimonies, four long letters (September 2014, November 2014, May 2015, July 2015), over 3,500 petitions, appeals, and every other method of persuasion “Why is the LAUSD trying to kill us?” This campaign is part of the Strategy Center’s No Cars in LA and the U.S., No Tanks in LA and the U.S.


    • Ukraine: In the Midst of War, Debate Swirls Around Soviet-Era Famine
      Even as the conflict with Russian-backed separatists smolders, Kiev has ratcheted up a no less ferocious public relations war. Hoping to bolster its case against Moscow, Ukraine as well as the country's foreign Diaspora have zeroed in on the so-called Holodomor or Stalinist-induced famine of 1932-33. In an effort to force Ukrainian peasants to join collective farms, Stalin commandeered their grain and other foodstuffs. The result was disastrous as millions of Ukrainians starved and perished. In some regions, the death rate reached one-third of the population with entire villages laid waste.


    • Scorecard on U.S. Interventionism
      Completely overreacting to 9/11--doing exactly what Osama bin Laden and terrorists historically have wanted--George W. Bush, employing the classic Washington trick of taking advantage of a crisis to promote an unrelated policy agenda, needlessly invaded yet another Muslim country.


    • Russian forces kill 4 militants, including rebel chief
      The Anti-Terrorist Committee said the suspects were killed in a raid in the province of Dagestan. It identified one of them as Magomed Suleimanov, the leader of the Caucasus Emirate, a loose group embracing Islamic militants in the Caucasus. Suleimanov's deputy was also among those killed.


    • How to Confront ISIS
      The reactions to these policies have been compounded further by the bombs and drones used to kill "terrorists" along with significant number of civilians. In January, the U.S. used a "signature strike" -- a drone strike based on a pattern of movement and intelligence -- against an al-Qaeda compound in Pakistan. The strike killed two Western hostages. In Yemen, another drone strike killed a dozen civilians in a wedding party in 2013. One can only imagine how many civilians have been killed in recent years -- the most conservative estimates range from a few hundred to over a thousand -- and how much anti-U.S. rhetoric has resulted.


    • Anti-drone protesters on criminal damage charges
      ANTI-DRONE protesters have appeared before magistrates to deny causing criminal damage at Llanbedr Airfield.

      Sian ap Gwynfor, 59, of Yr Hafod, Llandysul, and Anna Jane Evans, 52, of Cae Corn Hir, Caernarfon, both pleaded not guilty to causing crimi-nal damage by painting slogans on Llanbedr airfield earlier this year.

      Awel Irene, 61, of Garreg Frech, Llanfrothen, Penrhyndeudraeth, did not indicate a plea and Angharad Wyn Tomos, 56, of Betws, Ffordd Haearn Bach, Penygroes, Caernarfon, ref used to plead.

      Because of the pleas, court clerk Ffion Medi told the four defendants that the case had to be adjourned for a trial date to be fixed.

      Rhian Jackson, prosecuting, said that slogans such as “death drones” were painted on the airfield land and that the criminal damage was estimated at €£1,750, which the company that runs the airfield was claiming in compensation.


    • Indian troops kill another woman
      India opened fire Friday at about 8am without any provocation, targeting the civilian population. The Indian firing was in progress until last reports. The people of the firing-hit villages close to this side of the LoC in Haveli were confined to their houses the whole day due to the Indian firing. However, the morale of the local population was high and there was no report of shifting of the people to some safer place.


    • Authorities investigate after hotel attack in central Mali
      Authorities launched investigations at the hotel that was attacked in central Mali, a United Nations official said Monday.


    • Private airspace rights still evolving in age of drones
      Now, those almost seem like the good ol’ days. Not only do we have to worry about out-of-control vehicles, but we also have to watch the skies so we don’t find ourselves on the latest viral YouTube video taken by one of the rapidly growing number of drones. But are they trespassing in your airspace? Depending on their altitude, maybe — and maybe not. Currently, this seems to be a legal question that rivals “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin” when it comes to agreeing on a consistent standard. So fasten your seat belt and get ready for a long and somewhat bumpy flight as I take you on a brief evolution of the law.


    • French seaside town brings in drone to tackle 'carnivorous' seagull invasion


    • Summer's seagull scourge could be ended by DRONES that shoot eggs with steriliser


    • UK councillor wants armed drones to kill seagulls
    • Fed-up council considers drone strikes against ice-cream snatching sea gulls
    • Anti-seagull drones could be taking to the skies of Cumbria
    • Call for drones to tackle seagulls
    • Drone vs seagull! ‘Egg oiling’ UAV to target aggressive birds
    • California legislators to eye police push for use of drones
    • Legislature eyes police use of drones
    • California Legislature Considers Allowing Police To Use Drones Amid Privacy Concerns


    • A Theory of the Drone
      The doctrine being developed to legally justify targeted killing is contingent on vague and dubious presumptions about who is an enemy qualified to be killed, and the kind of threats he or they purportedly pose. Decisions about who and when to kill involve two intersecting registers: surveillance and threat assessment. Technologically, drones can function as “unblinking eyes” capable of “total surveillance” because they are equipped with dozens of high-resolution cameras aimed in all directions, and software that sends a constant stream of footage to remote centers and aggregates it into a single view. Even though human operators blink, the footage doesn’t; it is archived and can be viewed by multiple people. Threat assessment, in contrast, is (to date) entirely human and involves interpreting and acting on surveillance data. Sometimes targets are specifically identified individuals; bombing them is termed “personality strikes.” But because the model of security is predictive, more often assessment of who and where to bomb derives from observed behavior—specifically, “patterns of life” and those behaviors that are interpreted to be anomalous and thus deemed actually or potentially threatening. The bombings of people whose individual identities are not known to the killers but who are deemed kill-able because of their behavior are termed “signature strikes.”


    • Why are humans so determined to create armed artificial intelligence?
      The iconic scene at the start of Terminator 2 documents that humanity created an artificial intelligence computer network called Skynet as part of an American defence plan. But after turning it on, the software becomes self-aware, decides humanity is the big threat, hijacks the nukes and wipes most of humanity out. In the future, those still alive have to face Skynet’s autonomous robotic killing machines, in the form of the Terminators. This includes the iconic image of a dusty skull being crushed by a grinning laser-toting Terminator as it begins to kill the human resistance.

      [...]

      The risk of such contraptions thinking for themselves and duly killing with no recourse or human way to stop them is a troubling one, and is also a concept that has massive moral and ethical dilemmas. Yet the momentum is seemingly in favour of its arrival, and its an uncomfortable thought that somewhere, scientists are spending their time creating something with extinction level possibilities for no discernible reason.


    • Humans, Not Robots, Are the Real Reason Artificial Intelligence Is Scary
      This is the immediate danger with AI weapons: They are easily converted into indiscriminate death machines, far more dangerous than the same weapons with a human at the helm.


    • As Carter fights cancer, his post-White House years may set his legacy
      So Carter has had a bit of a tabula rasa to work with, which he has filled with annual home-building projects for Habitat for Humanity, monitoring elections around the world (he cut short a monitoring trip to Guyana in May, his 39th, because he wasn’t feeling well, though it’s unclear whether that ailment was tied to recent diagnosis), serving as a mediator or fact-finder in disputes around the world, publishing 27 books (he published two others before becoming president), as well as criticizing George W. Bush over his decision to invade Iraq, and Obama over human rights issues and the use of drones to kill civilians.

      All of which has earned him the support of a lot of political progressives, though it has done little to soften the views of Republicans who believe the Reagan presidency saved the nation.


    • Peace and the Ideology of Greed and Division
      We all want peace, don’t we? Peaceful relationships and communities; an absence of violence and conflict: a World at Peace. This is surely everyone’s heartfelt desire. Without peace nothing can be achieved, none of the subtler essential needs of our time, such as feeding everyone and providing good quality health care and education to all – let alone the urgent need to save our planet (S.O.P.), beautify the cities and develop sustainable alternative energy sources.

      Despite the fact that we all hanker after peace, there are currently around thirty armed conflicts taking place across the globe – wars in which many hundreds or many thousands of innocent people are being killed. They are not on the whole conflicts between one country and another, not directly anyway, although some may be. Ideology fuels much of the fighting, as well as popular armed resistance to corporate state power, state terrorism and repression. It’s worth saying at this point, that in addition to armed conflict the ‘war’ on independent ‘free’ thinking, true democracy and the freedom of the individual is a constant one. Brutal and unrelenting, it is fought by the ‘Masters of Mankind’ (Adam Smith’s famous term for the ruling elite) against the rest of us, the 99%.


    • No new WWII apology from Japanese leader Abe; China critical
      Prime Minister Shinzo Abe acknowledged that Japan inflicted "immeasurable damage and suffering" on innocent people in World War II, but stopped short of offering his own apology, drawing criticism from China and South Korea.

      In a widely anticipated statement 70 years after his country's surrender, he said Friday that Japan's repeated past "heartfelt apologies" would remain unshakeable, but that future Japanese generations should not have to keep apologizing.


    • U.S. meddling forgotten
      I suggest Harari, and many others, read Daniel Yergin’s “The Prize,” in which you will find that U.S.-Iran history didn’t begin in 1979-80. Our government assisted in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government in the 1950s, and installed the Shah, who ruled brutally until overthrown through the Iranian revolution.

      I’m not sure anyone can know today if a deal with Iran, bringing them back into the world of nations, is better or worse than continued sanctions. However, the countries of the Middle East are rightfully angry with our never-ending meddling in their countries, including drone strikes in which we kill innocent civilians.


    • Negotiate, don’t bomb


      Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya. Why did we fight these wars?


    • A Plea to Pope Francis: Name United States Foreign Policy Genocide
      Pope Francis’ recent comments regarding war, the environment and economic justice inspire our letter, which cites segments of his new encyclical, Laudato Si. “War always does grave harm to the environment and to the cultural riches of peoples,” Pope Francis writes, “risks which are magnified when one considers nuclear arms and biological weapons.” In the light of this reality, our letter suggests that Pope Francis avail himself of the challenging opportunity to acknowledge that the United States is “the most prolific polluter and, not coincidentally, the greatest war maker on the globe.”


    • America’s Transition to the “State Terrorist Model of Government”
    • George Kerevan: Build politics of peace, not weapons of nuclear war


    • Another Voice: Peaceful conflict resolution benefits everyone
      We don’t need more military spending – we need less. Our military aggression makes us a target.


    • Australian pilots begin missions over Syria, flying American Reaper drones
      RAAF pilots are poised to begin flying deadly American Reaper drones over Syria, taking for the first time Australia's involvement in the fight against the so-called Islamic State from Iraq into the more complex neighbouring country.


    • Yemen: U.S. Drone Strike Kills 5 Men Suspected of Being Militants
      Meanwhile, in Yemen, officials say a suspected U.S. drone strike killed five men on Wednesday. The officials say the men were suspected of being militants with the group al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.


    • Drone strike, operation kills 14 rebels in Afghanistan


    • US drone crashes in northeast Afghanistan
      A US drone has crashed in Afghanistan’s Kapisa province, the NATO has announced without explaining the cause of the crash.




  • Transparency Reporting



    • Democrats panic over Clinton email scandal: Hillary campaign issues 4,000-word explanation of why she's innocent after it emerges her private server held secret CIA intelligence and satellite info
      At least two classified messages on Hillary Clinton's home-brew email server contained top-secret intelligence including signal intercepts and information from keyhole satellite conducted by the CIA and the Pentagon's satellite-spying National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

      U.S. Intelligence Community Inspector General Charles McCullough reported to Congress on Wednesday that the sensitive information dated from 2006 and 2008, and was 'classified up to "TO.PSECRET//SI/TK//NOFORN".'


    • Top secret Clinton emails came from CIA
      A pair of classified emails on Hillary Clinton's private server that should have been marked "top secret" originated in the Central Intelligence Agency, raising questions as to why they had been stripped of their classification markings by the time they reached the secretary of state.


    • Report: ‘Top Secret’ Hillary Email Discussed CIA Drone Program


    • Clinton, CIA chief visit for conference
      Multiple off-the-record sources told the News&Guide the VIP on the jet was CIA Director John Brennan, in town for the same conference that drew former President Bill Clinton and CNN correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. That would correspond with the U.S. Air Force’s acknowledgement that it had a C-40B in the valley, but the military’s public affairs desk has refused to say who the jet’s passengers were or why it was here.


    • The UK’s Official Secrets Act, Forgeries and Facts Part 1
      ‘Within western democracies the UK has a powerful and persistent culture of secrecy. Richard Crossman, Labour Cabinet Minister and commentator on the British constitution, once called it the real “BRITISH DISEASE”.’

      These very words are quoted from David Vincent’s book, ‘The Culture of Secrecy: Britain, 1832–1998’, published by the Oxford University Press in 1998.

      On December 15th, 1858 William Hudson Guernsey, was tried on the charges of stealing 10 printed papers and 10 pieces of paper from the “Sovereign Lady, the Queen”. The documents related to the malicious role of the Colonial Office in conspiring to colonize and suppress the rights of the people of the colonized Islands. The documents were initially dismissed as ‘forged’.

      When the scandal refused to go away (even in those days) Guernsey was arrested. The basis of arrest was the very same ‘forged’ documents, published in The Daily News on November 12th 1858. The alleged documents, initially called ‘forged’ and then used as the evidence to arrest Mr. Guernsey, were written by the Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands, John Young, concerning the future of the Ionian Islands.

      One almost feels the history of the empire repeating itself, if we are viewing the events of history that shaped the Cayman Islands once we got separated from Jamaica in 1967. The British ‘abandoned’ Jamaica and ‘colonized’ the Cayman Islands to further their financial interests. Standard script should we say?


    • Sweden Drops Part of Sexual Assault Inquiry Against Julian Assange


      Swedish prosecutors have dropped part of their sexual assault inquiry against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, but the most serious part of the probe remains in place. The announcement was made as the statute of limitations ran out on three parts of the investigation. Assange has been holed up for three years in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, where he’s received political asylum. He fears he will be extradited to the United States to face prosecution for his role at WikiLeaks if he leaves the embassy. Both Ecuador and Sweden accuse the other of delaying a possible Swedish police interview with Assange inside the embassy. Sweden has never charged him with any crime.




  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife





  • Finance



    • German economy gets euro boost to grows 0.4 percent in Q2
      The German economy picked up pace in the second quarter of the year, growing by 0.4 percent from the previous three-month period, official figures showed Friday.


    • Kraft Heinz cuts 2,500 jobs
      And Heinz issued layoffs not long after the 3G/Berkshire takeover as well.


    • EU doubles down on TTIP secrecy as public resistance grows
      The fact that most people have still never heard of the world's biggest trade deal—the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the US and Europe—even after two years of negotiations, might suggest that whatever its problems, maintaining secrecy is not one of them. But the European Commission begs to differ: since the end of July, instead of sending up-to-the-minute summaries of its talks with the US to EU politicians, the Commission now requires that national politicians travel all the way to Brussels to a special reading room where the texts can be viewed under tight security. MEPs must also use this same system.


    • People in rough neighborhoods trade HIV meds instead of taking them
      The social environment of an area, including factors such as poverty, stress, and living conditions, contributes to the disease burden. A recent study published in AJPH shows that patients from a disordered environment don’t stick to their medication schedule, even for a potentially lethal condition like HIV. As the researchers found, residents of highly disordered neighborhoods will sell or trade their antiviral medication rather than taking it and adhering to their drug plans.


    • Greece's euro partners approve billions in new loans
      Finance ministers of the 19-nation euro single currency group on Friday approved the first 26 billion euros ($29 billion) of a vast new bailout package to help rebuild Greece's shattered economy.

      The approval came after Greece's parliament passed a slew of painful reforms and spending cuts after a marathon overnight session that divided the governing party, raising the specter of early elections.




  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying



    • The covert “selling” of anticommunism
      A dirty business, the CIA devised schemes to create or utilize social organizations, phony pass-through entities, universities, various media, artist groups, foundations and charities to service their propaganda wars—attempting to place a “progressive” or even “humanitarian” veneer upon America’s expanding grip.


    • What is Propaganda? CIA and Hollywood Are Offering Perfect Examples
      When we think of propaganda, the distribution of information of a biased or misleading nature for the purpose of promoting a point of view or political agenda, what do we think of? World War II and the Nazis perhaps? Alarmingly, some of the most pertinent examples of propaganda can be found much closer to home, in two of the United States’ biggest institutions – Hollywood and the CIA.


    • Democrats eye Gore for presidential run
      Some insiders in the Democratic Party are discussing having former Vice President Al Gore make another run for U.S. presidency, BuzzFeed reported on Thursday, adding that the man who won the popular vote in the 2000 presidential election has not taken any steps toward entering the current race.

      “They’re figuring out if there’s a path financially and politically,” an unnamed Democrat told BuzzFeed about the insiders. “It feels more real than it has in the past months.”




  • Privacy



    • Spy agencies monitor Facebook, seminar told
      Mirza Abdul Rahim informed the students that all kind of data uploaded at Facebook was monitored by the CIA which help to collect all required information about persons and organisation from all over the world. He advised student to remain careful while using computer, internet, mobile phone, IPod, Skype and other such applications and platforms.


    • Can big databases be kept both anonymous and useful?
      FREQUENT visitors to the Hustler Club, a gentlemen’s entertainment venue in New York, could not have known that they would become part of a debate about anonymity in the era of “big data”. But when, for sport, a data scientist called Anthony Tockar mined a database of taxi-ride details to see what fell out of it, it became clear that, even though the data concerned included no direct identification of the customer, there were some intriguingly clustered drop-off points at private addresses for journeys that began at the club. Stir voter-registration records into the mix to identify who lives at those addresses (which Mr Tockar did not do) and you might end up creating some rather unhappy marriages.


    • The internet of things – who wins, who loses?
      Recently I went on a BBC news programme to give “the privacy side” of a technology story. Employees of a software company in Sweden had implanted chips in their wrists that activated the company photocopier. Yes, you read that right. Having minor surgery instead of just remembering a four-digit PIN is a pretty daft idea. You’d have to be a tech utopian to want to do it.


    • iPhone cyber-flashing: What is it and how to stop it happening to you
      Security experts have begun issuing advice on how to prevent iPhone users from becoming the victims of a new phenomenon known as cyber-flashing. The advice has started to appear online in the wake of a woman contacting the police after she was sent explicit and unsolicited photos from a stranger in her close vicinity on a train in London.

      Using AirDrop - a feature on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac computers where users can send files, such as images, to each other at close range - the cyber flasher can request to send photographs to any fellow iPhone users within the range of a Bluetooth connection - usually around 10m. Even if the receiver rejects the photo, they are still shown an uncensored preview of the image.


    • Privacy visor which blocks facial recognition software set for public release
      Japanese researchers have announced the commercial launch of a "privacy visor" which confuses facial recognition technology in cameras, social networks and software.

      Surveillance is a standard element of daily life in the West. In the UK alone, there is at least one surveillance camera for every 11 citizens, and we encounter them on our streets, in our stores and online through tracking cookies, government programs and GPS-linked applications.




  • Civil Rights



    • 6 Insane Realities Of Life In A Modern Dictatorship
      Belarus is frequently called "Europe's last dictatorship." Unlike starfighters, samurai, or of the Mohicans, this is not a good thing to be the last of. We sat down with a man who's lived most of his life in Belarus, and asked him what life was like in a modern country ruled by a despotic leader who can't seem to pull his ass out of the 19th century.


    • What Other Countries Can Teach America About Transgender Military Service
      Huckabee, who is a fan of reinstating the repealed Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy and has previously made ugly comments about trans people, probably isn’t interested in some of the more prosaic reasons a military should strive for open LGBTQ service: to live up to the core values of dignity, integrity, and respect; to reflect the diversity of the country it serves; to bring its long-outdated medical standards up to date; or to recognize that there is “no compelling medical reason for the ban,” according to a report from a commission co-chaired by former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders. So let’s just assume that his main concern is that the armed services are prepared to kill people and break things.

      [...]

      A few months ago, I asked Okros what the United States could learn from Canada’s experience. Okros pointed out that when Canada lifted its military ban, it hadn’t taken into account many of the administrative policies it would need to codify for a smooth transition. What’s more, at the time, Canadian society wasn’t particularly hospitable to gay and transgender individuals. Nevertheless, despite open hostility and a lack of administrative planning, the Canadian Forces was able to open its ranks without compromising military readiness.


    • Latinos Have Gone Missing at CIA
      CIA Director John Brennan made a rare public appearance Monday to try to address the agency's "woeful" record of hiring and promoting Hispanics.

      Accompanied by the agency's highest ranking Latina, Brennan traveled to New York for the annual convention of the Association of Latino Professionals for America (ALPFA), to meet with potential applicants at a job fair and deliver remarks to the organization's leadership at lunch.


    • CIA director tells Latino professionals agency has 'woeful' record of hiring Hispanics


    • CIA chief: Yes, we work with human rights abusers
      In response to questions from three Senate Democrats, the head of the CIA is walking back a previous claim that U.S. intelligence agents never work with countries that abuse human rights.

      “While we neither condone nor participate in activities that violate human rights standards, we do maintain cooperative liaison relationships with a variety of intelligence and security services around the world, some of whose constituent entities have engaged in human rights abuses,” Director John Brennan wrote in a letter to Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) sent last week.


    • CIA director responds to Alabama man's claims of sexual harassment in the warzone
      The director of the CIA vowed a thorough investigation into an Alabama man's claim that he was subject to sexual harassment while serving as a contractor in Afghanistan.


    • CIA Head Indicates Swift Action After Warzone Gay Harassment Claims
      The Director of the CIA today addressed recent allegations by a gay CIA contractor who said he was harassed while on a dangerous deployment by other CIA contractors and staff officers, saying his spy agency has “zero tolerance” for such behavior and indicating the agency is moving swiftly in response.


    • CIA Whistleblower to Civil Rights Groups: Where are You?
      A former CIA officer described as the latest victim of the Obama administration's war on whistleblowers has issued a scathing open letter to civil rights groups asking, "Where were you?"

      In the letter published at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jeffrey Sterling, who is black, specifically calls out the NAACP, National Action Network, Rainbow PUSH Coalition, and Congressional Black Caucus, writing "I saw you when other black faces were either killed or mistreated." But, to these civil rights groups, he writes, he is "invisible."

      In a case that relied on circumstantial evidence, Sterling was convicted in January on nine separate felony charges, including seven counts of espionage.


    • An open letter to civil rights groups in the U.S.
      Where were you?

      Where were you when I was faced with blatant discrimination at my job, when my employer told me I was “too big and too black” to do the job?

      Where were you when I, one of the first black officers to do so, filed a discrimination suit against the Central Intelligence Agency?

      Where were you when the justice system of the United States dismissed my discrimination suit because the U.S. government maintained that trying my suit would endanger national security?

      Where were you during the many years I reached out to you, begging, pleading for help from you while the United States government pursued and tormented me for years, bent on retaliation and persecution?

      Where were you when I begged for help from Congressman Lacy Clay’s office and they told me to run away, to leave the country? I was there ... and I didn’t run.

      Where were you when the United States government arrested me, put me in jail and branded me with espionage?
    • CIA pays McKinsey 10 million in fees for reorganisation
      The CIA is about to enter into one of its most ambitious restructuring exercises in its history. In March Director John O. Brennan unveiled the blueprint, and the plan is set to have a massive impact on the organisation structure of the major directorates of espionage and analysis, which have been part of the agencies structure for decades. In its new model the agency will create a hybrid unit that combines analysts and operators in centres which are focused on specific regions, such as the Middle East, as well as on security issues including weapons proliferation. The new approach is modelled on the success of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Centre, which has enjoyed considerable influence since the attacks of September 11, 2001.


    • US refuses to free 'near death' Gitmo hunger striker weighing 33 kg
      A prisoner of US military detention facility in Guantanamo Bay may soon starve to death, as after more than eight years of force-feeding his body is said to be unable to take the nutrients he is pumped with. The DoD opposed the ailing man’s release.

      Tariq Ba Odah, a Saudi resident of Yemeni descent, was captured in Pakistan and held in Guantanamo facility since 2002. In 2009 he was cleared for release by the Obama administration, but remains in US custody. In 2007 he went on a hunger strike to protest his indefinite detention without charges. After more than eight years without taking food voluntarily, he weighs less than 34 kilograms and may soon die, his lawyer says.


    • Obama Seeks Legal Loophole in Strategy to Close Gitmo - Former CIA Officer
      Guantanamo’s continued importance for the US government was to continue to hold suspects captured in the War on Terror. Therefore, Obama needed a legal strategy allowing him to continue to hold detainees on US territory before he could feel free to close the facility, Kiriacou said.
    • CIA boss John Brennan drafted this never-sent apology letter to senators over the CIA hacking
      “The CIA accidentally released a document to me under FOIA and then asked that I refrain from posting it,” says VICE's Jason Leopold.


    • The Google Search That Made the CIA Spy on the US Senate
      On July 28, 2014, the CIA director wrote a letter to senators Dianne Feinstein and Saxby Chambliss — the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee (SSCI) and the panel's ranking Republican, respectively. In it, he admitted that the CIA's penetration of the computer network used by committee staffers reviewing the agency's torture program — a breach for which Feinstein and Chambliss had long demanded accountability — was improper and violated agreements the Intelligence Committee had made with the CIA.


    • CIA Accidentally Releases Apology Letter It Wrote, But Never Sent To The Senate For Illegally Spying On It
      Jason Leopold -- terrorizer of FOIA staffers throughout the US government -- has again obtained documents many would have expected to remain out of reach for years to come. Certainly, the CIA thought one of the documents would remain its little secret for the rest of whatever.


    • CIA director almost apologized for spying on Senate
      After CIA agents hacked into the Senate Intelligence Committee's computer network and accessed a report the Senate was preparing on the agency's torture program, CIA Director John Brennan drafted an apology letter to Vice Chairman Sen. Saxby Chambliss, a report by VICE News reveals.


    • Report: John Brennan drafted apology to senators for CIA hacking
    • How potent can a citizen journalist be? Ask the CIA about a certain MIT researcher.
      The Massachusetts Institute of Technology doctoral candidate, who says his interests include "animals, civil liberties, national security and freedom of information," took note when members of the U.S. Senate alleged last year that CIA employees had hacked into a computer network used by staffers of the Senate Intelligence Committee. At the time, the committee was looking into, among other things, allegations about the CIA's involvement in torture.


    • The Faulty Google Search That Set Off A Constitutional Crisis
      We already wrote about Jason Leopold "accidentally" receiving a letter the CIA never actually sent that was an apology for spying on Senate staffers, but there was a lot more that Leopold received in that FOIA dump as well. Beyond the document Leopold wasn't supposed to receive, the 300 pages handed over by the CIA (not by its voluntary desire to respect FOIA stipulations, but rather because a judge told it to) provide additional details about the alleged Senate breach and its "investigative" spying -- and the ensuing fight that set off something of a Constitutional crisis in the separation of powers between the executive branch and the legislative branch.

      Leopold's article goes into great depth on the subject and is well-worth reading in its entirety. One of the many, many details worth noting is that the CIA's "firewall" between it and Senate staffers wasn't really anything of the sort. A Google-powered custom search function allowed staffers to search CIA documents, but only the documents the CIA wanted them to see. The problem was that the search didn't work correctly. Keyword searches were returning documents the CIA hadn't approved for Senate perusal. This was how the hidden Panetta Report was discovered.
    • The Justice Department says it approved subpoenas or search warrants for three journalists last year
      The Justice Department said Friday that former Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. authorized three subpoenas or search warrants last year for journalists or people viewed as members of the media, though two of the three were not ultimately used.


    • Lawyer: Chelsea Manning faces possible solitary confinement for alleged prison infractions


    • Chelsea Manning having troubles with military brig authorities
      Convict faces solitary confinement over unauthorized toothpaste, books.
    • Slaying casts pall on plan to reduce solitary confinement
      California's efforts to ease its famously harsh use of solitary confinement are clashing with a bloody reality after an inmate who spent decades alone in a tiny cell was sent back to the general population and killed by fellow inmates within days.

      Hugo "Yogi" Pinell's repeated assaults on guards landed him in solitary confinement beginning in the early 1970s, making him one of the longest-serving solitary confinement inmates in the nation, said Keramet Reiter, a University of C


    • Obama’s Africa Hypocrisy
      During his trip to east Africa the president chastened Kenyans about gay rights, domestic violence, genital cutting, forced marriage and equal rights for women. He went on and on with no mention of how well his country lives to any accepted standards of human rights.

      American presidents have no business chastising others. The country with the world’s largest prison state, military and history of aggressions is on shaky ground when giving anyone else advice. In the neighboring country of Somalia the United States regularly sends drones intended to kill al-Shabaab fighters but they deliver collateral damage to other people too. The blowback has killed many Kenyans, who are targeted by al-Shabaab because of their country’s role as an American puppet.

      Because hypocritical Americans have made gay rights the new measurement of societal well being all over the world, the president took the opportunity to castigate Kenyans about that too. Of course homosexuality is illegal in Saudi Arabia, America’s partner in crime. Yet there is no record of public shaming for any Saudi prince or king on that or any other issue. Their sensibilities are deemed too delicate for tongue-lashing. It must be pointed out that Saudis take lashing quite literally.


    • Jonathan Pollard’s Release Doesn’t Erase 30 Years of Injustice
      The official announcement that Jonathan Pollard will be paroled on November 21, having served 30 years for transmitting classified American documents to the Israeli government, is a welcome – if much-belated – development. The fact of his prospective release, however, must not be allowed to overshadow the injustices of his life sentence – and 30-year prison term – as set forth below.

      [...]

      Sixth, false accusations have likewise been made by U.S. government agencies that Pollard compromised intelligence operations in Eastern Europe and was consequently implicated in the deaths of American informants. Yet, these accusations were never part of his indictment, and no evidence for them has ever been adduced. In fact, the architect of these treasonable acts, and the source of the disinformation against Pollard, was none other than senior CIA official Aldrich Ames, who pleaded guilty to them in 1994.


    • Let’s Talk About Torture
      The CIA’s torture-era leadership won’t repent. Even after the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released its report saying in no uncertain terms that the CIA had tortured its prisoners, that torture was official U.S. government policy, and that torture never elicited any actionable intelligence that saved American lives, Bush-era CIA Directors George Tenet, Porter Goss, Michael Hayden, and several of their underlings announced plans to release a book justifying torture.

      They intend to repeat a lie over and over again in this book: that torture worked. They hope that the American people are either so gullible or so stupid that they’ll believe it. It’s up to the rest of us to ensure that our government swears off committing this crime against humanity.

      I know that these former intelligence leaders are lying because I worked with them at the CIA. When I blew the whistle on the CIA’s torture program in 2007, they came down on me like a ton of bricks.

      It’s not necessarily news that these former CIA heavyweights believe in torture, even if they refuse to call it what it is. Many television news outlets still run clips of George Tenet’s 2007 appearance on CBS’s “60 Minutes” in which he repeats “We do not torture! We do not torture!” as though he were unhinged and living in a dream world. Perhaps what Tenet needs to do is to read the United Nations Convention on Torture, to which the United States is a signatory.
    • Report Concludes C.I.A. Torture Program was Bolstered by American Psychological Association
      Dr. Scott A. Allen, professor of medicine, was a co-author of a report that concluded the American Psychological Association (APA) coordinated with federal officials to create an ethics policy on national security interrogations that aligned with the government’s legal justification for the post-9/11 CIA torture program. Featured in a New York Times story published in April, the study characterized the collaboration between the APA and officials in the CIA, White House and Department of Defense as secretive.


    • Righting Governance Gone Rogue in the American Psychological Association: The Torture Scandal
      The vote occurred at the APA’s first convention since the release of an extensive independent investigative report confirming the APA leadership actively colluded with the Pentagon and the CIA during the Bush administration to facilitate torture programs. It concluded that the APA Board and some senior staff, including its ethics director, engaged in a pattern of secret collusion with the Department of Defense officers to defeat efforts by the APA Council to introduce and pass resolutions that would have prohibited psychologies from participating in interrogations at Guantánamo Bay and other U.S. detention centers abroad. Specially, the then-APA board president and then-APA president-elect were cited as key players who participated in this collusion.
    • American Psychological Association Finally Bans Torture
      ...many psychologists helped the CIA develop torture techniques after 9/11, making huge amounts of money in the process.


    • The APA’s Watershed Move to Ban Psychologists’ Complicity in Torture
      It was a stunning about-face for the APA. Having spent the better part of the last eight years supporting the “dissident psychologists” in their battle against the organized profession, I had trouble believing my ears as the steady wave of yesses rolled through that Toronto conference room last week. It was as if we had stepped into an alternate reality.
    • Torture, Psychology and the Real APA
      The real APA is all too real, I responded, but it is no longer my APA. I resigned in December 2007 after the August 2007 annual meeting effectively endorsed a professional role for psychologists in torture.
    • A Meeting of Psychologists Becomes a Moment of Soul Searching
      During the American Psychological Association’s conference in Toronto, members reflected on how the group and the discipline can recover from revelations about torture. Some also attended a separate gathering of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, which held a teach-in focused on the matter of psychologists involved in torture.


    • Dissident Psychologists Speak Out on APA Role in CIA-Pentagon Torture
    • No More Torture: World’s Largest Group of Psychologists Bans Role in National Security Interrogations
    • US psychologists’ convention bans participation in torture
    • American Psychological Association Bars Psychologists From Colluding In Torture
    • Psychology group bans members from harsh national security interrogations
    • Psychology Association Bans Members From Participating In Interrogations
    • Psychology Group Votes To Ban Members From Taking Part In Interrogations
    • Newspaper Review: Palestinian Hunger-Striking Detainee ‘Allan’ Slipping into Coma as Focus of Dailies
      The health condition of Palestinian detainee Mohammad Allan, who has been on a hunger strike for two months and has passed into a coma amidst a dispute over force-feeding him hit the front page headlines in Palestinian dailies.


    • Palestinian vigilante groups are last line of defence
      It is close to midnight. The silhouettes of ink-black hills across the valley are outlined against a sky splashed with hundreds of stars. A cool breeze causes the branches of the surrounding olive trees to wave in unison while bringing relief from the heat wave currently scorching the Middle East.


    • The Last Seamen of Gaza


    • Jeb Bush Leaves Door Open for Use of Torture by Government
    • Jeb Bush leaves door open for use of torture by government
      Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush declined to rule out resuming the use of torture under some circumstances by the U.S. government if he becomes president.
    • Jeb Bush refuses to rule out use of torture if he becomes US president
      Republican candidate Jeb Bush says torture is inappropriate, but use of brutal questioning methods may be justifiable and necessary for the US government
    • Jeb Bush leaves door open for CIA torture
      Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush has declined to rule out resuming the use of torture under some circumstances by the US government.


    • CIA Torture Tactics Reemerge in New York Prison
      Over 60 inmates at New York’s Clinton Correctional Facility have complained of abuse by prison guards in the wake of the June escape of convicted killers David Sweat and Richard Matt.


    • Chicago Stop And Frisk Settlement Puts ACLU At Odds With Activists
      Last week, the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois announced a “landmark” agreement with the Chicago Police Department and the City of Chicago on stop and frisks by police officers. However, in the days following, it became evident that activists from the local movement for police accountability were upset because they believed the ACLU’s settlement undermined their efforts.
    • Thousands of Americans Have Been Illegally Detained in Chicago’s CIA-Style Detention Center
      The Chicago Police’s CIA-style black site, Homan Square, has seen more people detained than died on 9/11 or imprisoned at Guantanamo, according to a new report by the Guardian. The newspaper, which sued the Chicago police to obtain further details on Homan Square, reports overwhelming targeting of minorities as well as other sordid and violative policies.


    • Judge: DOJ May Join Racial Profiling Case Against Sheriff Arpaio
      The U.S. Department of Justice, after settling most of its own civil rights lawsuit against the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, will be able to intervene in a separate lawsuit that found the sheriff’s office had engaged in racial profiling against Latino drivers.




  • Internet/Net Neutrality



    • Broadband Speeds, New Data
      Thanks to edmundedgar on reddit I have some more accurate data to update my previous bandwidth growth estimation post: OFCOM UK, who released their November 2014 report on average broadband speeds. Whereas Akamai numbers could be lowered by the increase in mobile connections, this directly measures actual broadband speeds.




  • DRM



  • Intellectual Monopolies



    • Copyrights



      • Hosting Company Wants to Wipe 1,103 Megaupload Servers
        Millions of users lost access to their personal files when Megaupload was raided and soon this data loss may be permanent. Carpathia Hosting's new parent company has asked the court's permission to wipe the servers clean, arguing that it should not bear the high financial costs. Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom disagrees and says his legal team will do its best to prevent any data from being destroyed.


      • Dallas Buyers Club Ruling Devastates Copyright Trolling Down Under


        The U.S. studio behind the movie Dallas Buyers Club (DBC) has been handed a devastating blow in Australia. The company wanted to 'fine' downloaders many thousands of dollars each but the Federal Court has seen through the scheme and has refused to hand over alleged pirates' identities unless DBC pays a AUS$600,000 bond.








Recent Techrights' Posts

Comparing U.E.F.I. to B.I.O.S. (Bloat and Insecurity to K.I.S.S.)
By Sami Tikkanen
New 'Slides' From Stallman Support (stallmansupport.org) Site
"In celebration of RMS's birthday, we've been playing a bit. We extracted some quotes from the various articles, comments, letters, writings, etc. and put them in the form of a slideshow in the home page."
Thailand: GNU/Linux Up to 6% of Desktops/Laptops, According to statCounter
Desktop Operating System Market Share Thailand
António Campinos is Still 'The Fucking President' (in His Own Words) After a Fake 'Election' in 2022 (He Bribed All the Voters to Keep His Seat)
António Campinos and the Administrative Council, whose delegates he clearly bribed with EPO budget in exchange for votes
Adrian von Bidder, homeworking & Debian unexplained deaths
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
 
GNOME GUADEC 2022 & Debian Albanian women trafficked to Mexico?
Reprinted with permission from the Free Software Fellowship
Sainsbury's: It Takes Us Up to Two Days to Respond to Customers Upon Escalation (and Sometimes Even More Than Two Days)
It not only does groceries but also many other things, even banking
People Don't Just Kill Themselves (Same for Other Animals)
And recent reports about Boeing whistleblower John Barnett
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 18, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, March 18, 2024
Suicide Cluster Cover-up tactics & Debian exposed
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 19/03/2024: A Society That Lost Focus and Abandoning Social Control Media
Links for the day
Matthias Kirschner, FSFE: Plagiarism & Child labour in YH4F
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Linux Foundation Boasting About Being Connected to Bill Gates
Examples of boasting about the association
Alexandre Oliva's Article on Monstering Cults
"I'm told an earlier draft version of this post got published elsewhere. Please consider this IMHO improved version instead."
[Meme] 'Russian' Elections in Munich (Bavaria, Germany)
fake elections
Sainsbury's to Techrights: Yes, Our Web Site Broke Down, But We Cannot Say Which Part or Why
Windows TCO?
Plagiarism: Axel Beckert (ETH Zurich) & Debian Developer list hacking
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 18/03/2024: Putin Cements Power
Links for the day
Flashback 2003: Debian has always had a toxic culture
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Sainsbury’s Epic Downtime Seems to be Microsoft's Fault and Might Even Constitute a Data Breach (Legal Liability)
one of Britain's largest groceries (and beyond) chains
[Meme] You Know You're Winning the Argument When...
EPO management starts cursing at everybody (which is what's happening)
Catspaw With Attitude
The posts "they" complain about merely point out the facts about this harassment and doxing
'Clown Computing' Businesses Are Waning and the Same Will Happen to 'G.A.I.' Businesses (the 'Hey Hi' Fame)
decrease in "HEY HI" (AI) hype
Free Software Needs Watchdogs, Too
Gentle lapdogs prevent self-regulation and transparency
Matthias Kirschner, FSFE analogous to identity fraud
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 18/03/2024: LLM Inference and Can We Survive Technology?
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 17, 2024
IRC logs for Sunday, March 17, 2024
Links 17/03/2024: Microsoft Windows Shoves Ads Into Third-Party Software, More Countries Explore TikTok Ban
Links for the day
Molly Russell suicide & Debian Frans Pop, Lucy Wayland, social media deaths
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Our Plans for Spring
Later this year we turn 18 and a few months from now our IRC community turns 16
Open Invention Network (OIN) Fails to Explain If Linux is Safe From Microsoft's Software Patent Royalties (Charges)
Keith Bergelt has not replied to queries on this very important matter
RedHat.com, Brought to You by Microsoft Staff
This is totally normal, right?
USPTO Corruption: People Who Don't Use Microsoft Will Be Penalised ~$400 for Each Patent Filing
Not joking!
The Hobbyists of Mozilla, Where the CEO is a Bigger Liability Than All Liabilities Combined
the hobbyist in chief earns much more than colleagues, to say the least; the number quadrupled in a matter of years
Jim Zemlin Says Linux Foundation Should Combat Fraud Together With the Gates Foundation. Maybe They Should Start With Jim's Wife.
There's a class action lawsuit for securities fraud
Not About Linux at All!
nobody bothers with the site anymore; it's marketing, and now even Linux
Links 17/03/2024: Abuses Against Human Rights, Tesla Settlement (and Crash)
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 16, 2024
IRC logs for Saturday, March 16, 2024
Under Taliban, GNU/Linux Share Nearly Doubled in Afghanistan, Windows Sank From About 90% to 68.5%
Suffice to say, we're not meaning to imply Taliban is "good"
Debian aggression: woman asked about her profession
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 17/03/2024: Winter Can't Hurt Us Anymore and Playstation Plus
Links for the day