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06.15.16

Links 15/6/2016: Git 2.9, Habitat

Posted in News Roundup at 3:09 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • 7 Free Operating Systems Not Based on Linux, Windows or OS X

    Microsoft’s recent decision to offer FreeBSD images in the Azure cloud is a reminder that GNU/Linux is not the only game in town when it comes to alternative operating systems.

    Here’s a look at lesser-known operating systems. Some are serious, production-quality systems. Others are whimsical or half-baked platforms. All present alternative options for people who want to experiment with something other than Windows, Mac OS X or Linux.

  • The new world order for open-source and commercial software

    We have been living through another cold war. Not geo-political — digital. Open-source software versus commercial software has long been on the brink of going nuclear, fought in the shadows with enormous stakes and conflicting ideologies. But suddenly… perestroika! The wall quietly fell. It did not end in absolute victory, or a stalemate; convergence is a more apt term.

  • Open Source Wins: Now What?

    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) is inviting open source developers to write and contribute code to The Machine project, an effort to juice up its ambitious plan to reinvent computing. During my reporting on that news I had the opportunity to talk with a real veteran of the Open Source Wars. (Not officially a thing, I know, but it should be.)

  • Nextcloud 9 Available, Enterprise Functionality to be Open Source

    Well ahead of the early July promise, today Nextcloud makes available Nextcloud 9. With this release we also announce to release all enterprise functionality as open source. Building on top of the open source ownCloud core and adding functionality and fixes, this release provides a solid base for users to migrate to. All enterprise functionality users and customers need will be made available over the coming weeks, fully developed in the open and under the AGPL license.

  • Jos Poortvliet: On Open Source, forking and collaboration: Nextcloud 9 is here!
  • Nextcloud releases ownCloud fork ahead of schedule

    When Frank Karlitschek, co-founder and former CTO of ownCloud, forked ownCloud into Nextcloud , I expected it to do well. I didn’t expect it to have its first major release less than two weeks after the company opened its doors. Well, the first Nextcloud release is out now.

  • Nextcloud 9 Released, All Enterprise Features To Be Opened Up

    Less than two weeks after ownCloud was forked into Nextcloud, the project today did their version 9 release.

  • Open Source SLA Printer Software Slices from the Browser

    Resin-based SLA printers need a different slicing algorithm from “normal” melted-plastic printers. Following their latest hackathon, [Matt Keeter] and [Martin Galese] from Formlabs have polished off an open source slicer, and this one runs in your browser. It’s Javascript, so you can go test it out on their webpage.

    Figuring out whether or not the voxel is inside or outside the model at every layer is harder for SLA printers, which have to take explicit account of the interior “empty” space inside the model. [Matt] and [Martin]’s software calculates this on the fly as the software is slicing. To do this, [Matt] devised a clever algorithm that leverages existing hardware to quickly accumulate the inside-or-out state of voxels during the slicing.

  • Capital One Taps Open-Source, Cloud, Big Data for Advantage in Banking

    Capital One is one of the nation’s largest banks. It started as a credit card company, really as a startup in the late 1980s. Its founder, Richard Fairbank, is still its CEO today. Fairbank’s idea was to build a better financial services company by using information and data to make better decisions and build better products and services for customers—making Capital One an early “big data” company. The company launched around the notion of an information-based strategy, which in that era was a pretty novel concept.

  • Scality launches single-server open source software for S3-compliant storage

    News this morning from storage vendor Scality that the company is announcing the general availability of its S3 Server Software. The offering is an open source version of Scality’s S3 API and allows developers to code to Amazon Web Services’ S3 storage API on a local machine.

    Packaged as a Docker container (what else!) the idea is that developers can local build applications that thereafter can be deployed on premises, on AWS or some combination of the above.

  • Scality Announces the S3 Server Open Source Software
  • Scality unveils open source Scality S3 Server
  • For Scality’s RING, ’6′ is magic number
  • 21 Inc. Creates Open Source Library For Machine-Payable Web

    21 Inc. has made its software free, ‘turning any computer into a bitcoin computer’, the company announced on Medium. Once a computer has installed the software, the user can get bitcoin using any device nearly anywhere without a bank account or credit cards.

  • Events

    • Seattle GNU/Linux Conference 2016 to Take Place November 11-12 in Seattle, USA

      There’s an upcoming GNU/Linux conference for those living in the Seattle area, and it promises to be a starting point for anyone interested in switching to a free and open source operating system for their personal computers.

    • Flow is a mental state of intense focus for programming

      Open Source Bridge is an annual conference focused on building open source community and citizenship through four days of technical talks, hacking sessions, and collaboration opportunities. Prior to this year’s event, I caught up with one of the speakers, Lindsey Bieda, who will give a talk called Hardware, Hula Hoops, and Flow.

    • LFNW – wrapup

      The conference overall drew nearly 2,000 open-source enthusiasts, setting yet another record for the event! All the openSUSE sessions were well attended, and that gave our team some excellent feedback for future sessions. We were pleasantly suprised to find that “Q&A with openSUSE board members (plus another guy)” was a standing-room-only event, with the audience providing plenty of thoughtful questions for us to answer. “Make the Leap from Dev to Production with openSUSE Leap“, co-presented by Richard Brown and James Mason, provided a thoughtful developer-oriented talk to another full room. Richard also showed some cross-distribution love for openSUSE tooling, co-presenting “openQA – Avoiding Disasters of Biblical Proportions” with Fedora’s Adam Williamson.

    • Forum – GNU Hackers’ Meeting (Rennes, France)

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Expanding Mozilla’s Boards

        In a post earlier this month, I mentioned the importance of building a network of people who can help us identify and recruit potential Board level contributors and senior advisors. We are also currently working to expand both the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation Boards.

  • SaaS/Back End

    • Tesora and Mirantis Partner on Easily Deployed DBaaS Solution

      As the OpenStack cloud computing arena grows, a whole ecosystem of tools is growing along with it. Tesora, familiar to many as the leading contributor to the OpenStack Trove open source project, has focused very heavily on Database-as-a-Service tools for OpenStack deployments.

      Now, Tesora has announced a promising partnership with OpenStack heavy-hitter Miranti

    • Tesora Positions OpenStack Trove Database-as-a-Service for the Future

      Ken Rugg, CEO of Tesora, discusses the latest innovations in the OpenStack Trove project and what’s coming in the Newton release cycle.

      The OpenStack Mitaka release debuted back in April of this year and with it came a series of updated open source projects, including the Trove database-as-a-service effort.

  • Habitat

  • Cost

    • The cost of free software

      The change from using a dedicated build server to running builds in a virtual machine probably will not change much for Slax users, but the post does highlight a common thread I have been seeing in recent years. Many open source projects are regularly in need of funding. Back in 2009, the OpenBSD project reported it was in “dire need” of infrastructure upgrades and needed funds. This call for donations was echoed by the OpenBSD team again around the end of 2013 which resulted in a lot of public attention and, ultimately, more money flowing into the project. More recently, the HardenedBSD project has asked for help maintaining the infrastructure of the security-oriented project. Last year the NTPD project, a critical piece of software for most Internet-connected computers, was almost abandoned due to a lack of funding. The previous year, OpenSSL’s Heartbleed bug highlighted how little support the critical security software had been receiving from its many users.

  • Healthcare

  • Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)

  • BSD

    • LLVM’s Clang Begins Better Supporting Musl Libc

      Patches are landing in LLVM Clang to improve the compiler’s support for musl libc as an alternative to glibc on Linux-based systems.

      LLVM has added Musl to the triple and work in Clang to enable the compiler to support targets such as x86_64-pc-linux-musl for building binaries against this alternative libc implementation. The later patch explains, “This make it easy for clang to work on some musl-based systems like Alpine Linux and certain flavors of Gentoo.”

  • Public Services/Government

    • Gains of government software repositories are many

      Repositories for software and services developed by and for public administrations have multiple advantages, emphasises Elena Muñoz Salinero, head of Spain’s technology transfer centre (Centro de Transferencia de Technologica, CTT). Repositories make it easier to find suitable solutions, reduce costs, and let users share best practices.

  • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

    • Open Source Bionics Promise: Affordably Make Lives Better

      We already know that open source gives us better and more secure software. But with the advent of 3D printing, the open source model shows even more meaningful promise in areas like open source bionics.

    • Make things ’til you make it at the Blowing Things Up Lab

      Recently while reading a tweet from the Blowing Things Up Lab, I learned about Emily Daub, a maker and college student who designed a running shirt that helps runners be more visible to motorists—my daughter is a runner so this sounds like a great idea to me.

      The shirt is photosensitive which cause the light intensity of the fabric to change in ambient light. According to Emily Daub, “If you run at night, this is for you. This lights up as it gets darker outside on two independent photocells and no microcontroller!” In this interview, I ask Emily more about this fantastic invention.

      Fun fact: Blowing Things Up (BTU) lab is located at the University of Colorado in Boulder, where Emily is a student of Alicia Gibb’s, the executive director of the Open Source Hardware Association (OSHWA), who I wrote about last year and contributed to our 2015 Open Source Yearbook.

    • Open Data

      • Government commits to Open Contracting Data Standard

        New Open Government National Action Plan includes Crown Commercial Service in lead role and further developments of GOV.UK

        The Crown Commercial Service (CCS) is to implement a standard for open data in contracting later this year as a first step towards its wider use in government.

    • Open Hardware/Modding

      • Razer unveils new Open Source Virtual Reality headset

        Gaming hardware and peripheral maker Razer Inc has announced the new HDK2, a VR device that is part of its Open Source Virtual Reality (OSVR) initiative, whose goal is “to create a universal open source VR ecosystem for technologies across different brands and companies.”

        The new headset is still considered a developer kit that is not ready for mass production, but at $400, it offers a number of high end features that put it on par with its much more expensive competition, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. HDK2 offers a 2160 x 1200 dual display resolution, which is 1080 X 1200 for each eye. It also offers a frame rate or 90 frames per second, as well as a front-facing infrared camera and a number of other features.

  • Programming/Development

    • The Python Kids Club

      An 11-year-old asks her grandfather how computer games are made and he tells her they’re created by programmers “using complex mathematical code.” The next thing he knows, she’s learning Python on her own, and getting her chums involved too.

    • The Quest to Make Code Work Like Biology Just Took A Big Step

      In the early 1970s, at Silicon Valley’s Xerox PARC, Alan Kay envisioned computer software as something akin to a biological system, a vast collection of small cells that could communicate via simple messages. Each cell would perform its own discrete task. But in communicating with the rest, it would form a more complex whole. “This is an almost foolproof way of operating,” Kay once told me. Computer programmers could build something large by focusing on something small. That’s a simpler task, and in the end, the thing you build is stronger and more efficient.

Leftovers

  • EU referendum: The Sun urges readers to vote Leave as Rupert Murdoch applies pressure

    Political commentator Robert Peston sums up reaction: ‘Rupert Murdoch does not typically back the loser – and this is his call’

    [...]

    Both the latter two papers – owned respectively by Mr Murdoch and billionaire brothers Sir David and Frederick Barclay – have arguably shown support for the Leave campaigns as led by right-wingers Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, John Whittingdale and others.

  • Amazon faces $350K fine for shipping dangerous goods

    Amazon faces a $350,000 fine from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration after shipping a corrosive chemical by air, in violation of federal law. It’s the 25th time the company has been found to violate hazardous chemical shipping regulations in two and a half years.

  • Reuters to scale down Chinese language news site, editorial staff to be redeployed

    News wire Thomson Reuters is to scale down its Chinese-language news site, according to an internal email obtained by HKFP on Tuesday.

    “We are reorganizing our Beijing editorial consumer operation to deploy more translation and editing resources to our professional news products from Reuters.cn,” the email from Digital Executive Editor Dan Colarusso said.

  • Security

    • Security updates for Tuesday
    • Survey: In Locking Down Security, Applications May Be the Biggest Concern

      Security is likely to rise to the top for many enterprises, and these concerns could have an impact on which kinds of applications enterprises end up trusting. All the data rolling in points to the fact that application security concerns are significantly rising at enterprises, not falling.

    • Clueless s’kiddies using exploit kits are behind ransomware surge

      Releases of new ransomware grew 24 per cent quarter-on-quarter in Q1 2016 as relatively low-skilled criminals continued to harness exploit kits for slinging file-encrypting malware at their marks.

      The latest quarterly study by Intel Security also revealed that Mac OS malware grew quickly in Q1, primarily due to an increase in VSearch adware. Mobile malware also increased 17 per cent quarter-over-quarter in Q1 2016.

    • New report shows the NSA used Word Macros, considered a security risk

      Two new reports out by The Hill and Vice are both showing that the NSA used programmable Word Macro shortcuts, which are considered a potential security risk by Microsoft.

    • Russia mulls bug bounty to harden govt software

      Local media report deputy Communications Minister Aleksei Sokolov is discussing a possible bug bounty with the Russian tech sector.

      The implications of such a bounty are being considered including staffing requirements for bug triage and validation, and the need to find a way to force developers to develop and apply patches for affected software.

  • Defence/Aggression

    • Man ‘claiming allegiance to IS group’ stabs French policeman to death

      A man who claimed allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) group stabbed a senior French police officer to death on Monday night before he was killed in a dramatic police operation, officials have said.

    • Ex-NSA Official: Orlando Attack Part of Wave of Mass Killings

      The slaughter of 49 people in a night club in Orlando in the US state of Florida is another expression of the growing problem of mass violence in American society that cannot solely be attributed to Islamic extremism, NSA whistleblower Mark Klein told Sputnik.

    • We Talked To ISIS Citizens: What You Won’t Hear In The News
    • Masked Russian hooligans attack England and Wales fans as more violence flares in Lille

      The ugly scenes came just hours after Uefa bosses warned Russia would be kicked out of the tournament if the violence continued.

      England fans came under attack following the 1-1 draw at the Stade Velodrome, with images showing Russian thugs chasing supporters inside the stadium.

      Uefa said Russia have been given a suspended disqualification from the tournament and a 150,000 euro (£120,000) fine after the crowd disorder.

    • Given Orlando, Has the US Government Been Adequately Protecting the Public?

      Going back in time, the U.S. government inadvertently created al Qaeda by encouraging, funding, and arming radical Islamist fighters against the Soviet Union in faraway Afghanistan during the 1980s. After the 9/11 attacks by that group, the U.S. government, by conducting an unrelated invasion of Iraq, then unintentionally created an even more brutal group called al Qaeda in Iraq, which pledged allegiance to the main al Qaeda group in Pakistan, and eventually morphed into the even more vicious ISIS. ISIS then took over large parts of Iraq and Syria, but began to attack Western targets only after a U.S.-led coalition began bombing the group in those countries.

    • Commenting on Orlando, NPR Terrorism Reporter Reverses Political Lesson of Madrid Blast

      Shortly before noon on Sunday (6/12/16), during NPR’s national coverage of the horrific shooting in Orlando, NPR “counter-terrorism correspondent” Dina Temple-Raston made a critical false claim that deserves an on-air correction.

    • MH-17 Probe Trusts Torture-Implicated Ukraine

      The floundering inquiry into who shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in 2014 has relied heavily on a Ukrainian intelligence agency that recently stopped U.N. investigators from probing its alleged role in torture, reports Robert Parry.

    • Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton Call for Bombing ISIS After Orlando Shooting That ISIS Didn’t Direct

      Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump reacted to the Orlando shooting with evidence that they can agree on at least one thing: bombing people. Both candidates called for an escalation of the U.S.-led bombing campaign against ISIS in Syria and Iraq.

      “We have generals that feel we can win this thing so fast and so strong, but we have to be furious for a short period of time, and we’re not doing it!” Trump complained on Fox & Friends Monday morning.

    • What Did FBI Do with Evidence that Mateen Was a Closeted Gay Man?
    • Orlando Killer Worked Inside the Global Security System

      The Orlando mass murderer, Omar Mateen, worked for G4S, one of the largest private security employers in the world. G4S has some 625,000 employees spanning five continents in more than 120 countries. As a private security company it provides services for both governments as well as corporations. Some of its well-known contractors are with the British Government, the United States, Israel, Australia and many more. G4S providers a range of services in the areas of corrections, policing, and security of important facilities. In the corporate sector it has worked with such well-known companies such as Chrysler, Amtrak, Apple, and the Bank of America.

    • Wikileaks will publish ‘enough evidence’ to indict Hillary Clinton, warns Assange

      Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange warns more information will be published about Hillary Clinton, enough to indict her if the US government is courageous enough to do so, in what he predicts will be “a very big year” for the whistleblowing website.

      Expressing concerns in an ITV interview about the Democratic presidential candidate, who he claims is monitoring him, Assange described Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump as an “unpredictable phenomenon”, but predictably, given their divergent political views, didn’t say if he preferred the billionaire to be president.

      He was not asked if he supported Green Party candidate Jill Stein, even though she said she would immediately pardon Wikileaks whistleblower Chelsea Manning if elected.

    • Pushing the Doomsday Clock to Midnight

      As the U.S. and NATO mount provocative military maneuvers on Russia’s border, the West is oblivious to how these threatening gestures ratchet up prospects of thermonuclear war that could extinguish civilization, says Gilbert Doctorow.

    • Clinton Discussed Top Secret CIA Drone Info, Approved Drone Strikes, Via Her Blackberry

      A new report in the Wall Street Journal reveals emails in which then-Secretary of State Clinton approved CIA drone assassinations in Pakistan from her unsecured Blackberry.

    • Emails in Clinton Probe Dealt With Planned Drone Strikes

      Some vaguely worded messages from U.S. diplomats in Pakistan and Washington used a less-secure communications system

    • AQ to CIA: You Are the Empire, and We Are Luke and Han

      The Force Awakens didn’t deal with the fact that the US has become (if it wasn’t already, in 1977) The Empire; the movie shied away from contemplating that fact.

    • Alligator drags away toddler into water at Disney hotel, police say

      A search is on to find a 2-year-old boy who was attacked by an alligator and dragged away at a Disney hotel near Orlando, authorities said.

      The incident happened while the family relaxed at a sandy area near the Seven Seas Lagoon on the property.

      The child was “wading just in the water along the lake’s edge at the time that the alligator attacked,” Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings said.

    • Alligator drags two-year-old boy into lagoon at Disney World resort in Florida

      The boy’s father saw the animal – reportedly between 4-7ft long – take his son, and entered the water to wrestle him from its jaws.

  • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Finance

    • Corporate Sovereignty Finally Enters The Political Mainstream

      Techdirt has been writing about investor-state-dispute settlement (ISDS), aka corporate sovereignty, for more than three years now. During that time, we’ve published well over a hundred articles on the topic. Increasing numbers of people have become aware of the threat that ISDS represents to democracy because of the privileged access it grants companies to a parallel legal system. Now, it seems, it’s beginning to enter the political mainstream around the world.

      [...]

      In other words, this is yet another “ratchet” clause that ensures changes only ever move in one direction — to the benefit of companies, and against the interests of the public. It’s yet another reason never to include corporate sovereignty chapters in these so-called trade deals.

    • Labor pledges to review trade deals that let companies sue Australia

      Labor is promising to review three of the major free trade agreements signed by the Abbott and Turnbull governments in the hope of removing a controversial clause that allows foreign corporations to sue the Australian government.

    • Hundreds of jobs at risk as Stockmann announces further cuts

      The department store chain announced it is beginning negotiations with unions over plans to cut 380 non-sales jobs from its payroll. Although profits grew this year, acting CEO Lauri Veijalainen said the group’s sales performance has not met expectations.

    • Seven reasons blockchain isn’t ready for mainstream deployment

      A lead analyst at Forrester shares her views on blockchain technology, the risks it poses to enterprise customers and how they can eventually reap the rewards of the distributed ledger technology.

      As more and more companies invest in the much-hyped blockchain technology, outside observers could be forgiven for thinking that the technology has arrived. The potential for the distributed ledger to transform key business processes has been spoken about but, like any cutting edge technology, blockchain comes with risks for businesses.

    • We Must Understand Corporate Power to Fight It

      The aims of the corporate state are, given the looming collapse of the ecosystem, as deadly, maybe more so, as the acts of mass genocide carried out by the Nazis and Stalin’s Soviet Union.

      The reach and effectiveness of corporate propaganda dwarfs even the huge effort undertaken by Adolf Hitler and Stalin. The layers of deception are sophisticated and effective. News is state propaganda. Elaborate spectacles and forms of entertainment, all of which ignore reality or pretend the fiction of liberty and progress is real, distract the masses.

      Education is indoctrination. Ersatz intellectuals, along with technocrats and specialists, who are obedient to neoliberal and imperial state doctrine, use their academic credentials and erudition to deceive the public.

    • Hillary Clinton’s Paperback Memoir Deletes Inconvenient Support Of TPP That Was In The Hard Cover Version

      I’ve seen plenty of nonfiction books that add some amount of content in the process from the original hard cover release to the eventual paperback release. But apparently Hillary Clinton went the other direction and conveniently excised all of the stuff about her support of the TPP. It’s no secret that, while facing a considerable challenge from Bernie Sanders in the primary contest, Clinton’s views of the TPP flip flopped from supporting it to being against it. She did try to explain away the flip flop by saying that it was about the details, but still, if you’re going to actually change your position, you should own it. Instead, it looks like Clinton and her campaign are simply trying to rewrite history. The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) first noticed a series of big changes in the paperback edition of Clinton’s book, including excising the support of the TPP — such as two full pages about a conference in El Salvador where she spoke in favor of the agreement.

    • Cracks emerging in plurilateral talks for TiSA

      Cracks are finally emerging in the grossly imbalanced, plurilateral talks on a Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) being pursued by 23 countries, after the European Union and several other members voiced concern about the overall quality of the latest revised offers and the exclusion of Mode 4, maritime transport, and sub-federal categories among other sectors, several trade envoys told the SUNS.

    • Unmasked: Corporate rights in the renewed Mexico-EU FTA

      The EU and Mexico launch negotiations for a ‘modernised’ Free Trade Agreement. A key feature is the investment protection chapter which grants major multinational companies in Mexico and the EU the exclusive right to challenge democratic decisions taken by States, even when they were taken in the public interest. The report outlines six reasons of major concern.

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Sanders’ Success: Democratic Socialism Goes Mainstream

      A January 2016 poll of likely Democratic caucus-goers in Iowa found that 43 percent described themselves as “socialist.” Fully 56 percent of registered Democrats, including 52 percent of Clinton supporters, view socialism favorably according to a recent NY Times/CBS News poll.

    • Trump Implicitly Suggests That His DOJ Would Take Down Amazon For Antitrust

      There was a fair bit of coverage on Monday of the news that the Donald Trump campaign had removed the press credentials from the Washington Post because the campaign was upset with the Washington Post’s coverage of the campaign. While it got a lot of attention, it was quickly pointed out that Trump has revoked or barred at least six other news outlets from receiving press passes, including Politico, the Huffington Post, the National Review, Buzzfeed and the Daily Beast. This issue is being discussed in lots of media circles. But what interested me much more was buried deeper in the full two paragraph statement that the Trump campaign later released. It included a weird and basically confused attack on Jeff Bezos, that again raises some serious questions about how Trump may use the Presidency to “settle scores.”

  • Censorship/Free Speech

  • Privacy/Surveillance

  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • Court Tells Cops They Can’t Seize Luggage And Send It Hundreds Of Miles Away In Hopes Of Generating Probable Cause

      There’s no universal law enforcement “best practices” for searches and seizures, but simply respecting the Fourth Amendment would seem to be a good base guideline. However, that baseline is rarely used. Far too often, searches and seizures seem to be officers seeing what they can get away with — and expecting the legal system to assist in applying “good faith” to unconstitutional searches after the fact.

      Ethan Moore landed at the Dillingham, Alaska airport, where he was met by two police officers. According to the officers, informants claimed Moore was transporting marijuana. They seized his luggage and took it to the local police station while they sought a search warrant.

    • Turkey plans to release MILLIONS of migrants if the EU doesn’t grant it visa-free travel

      TURKEY is threatening to release “millions” more migrants from refugee camps if Britain does not grant more than one million Turks visa-free travel, leaked documents have sensationally claimed.

    • The Real Reason Why Oakland’s Police Chief Was Fired

      At this morning’s press conference announcing the departure of Oakland Police Chief Sean Whent, Mayor Libby Schaaf and City Administrator Sabrina Landreth told a room full of reporters that Whent was resigning for “personal reasons.” The mayor said it had nothing to do with a scandal involving rookie police officers who sexually exploited a minor, or the suspicious death of a police officer’s wife and his subsequent suicide.

    • Home Office refuses to reveal whether women in Yarl’s Wood have been raped in case it ‘damages the commercial interests’ of companies

      The Home Office is refusing to reveal how many detainees have been sexually assaulted or raped inside Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre in Bedfordshire in case the information becoming public knowledge harms the “commercial interests” of private companies that are involved in running it, The Independent can reveal.

    • When cybersecurity research leads to jail time

      At 6:30am on Tuesday, May 24, someone began banging on the front door of Justin Shafer’s home in North Richland Hills, Texas. When Shafer and his wife answered the door, they found a dozen FBI agents with guns drawn. Shafer, 36, still in his boxer shorts, was allegedly handcuffed, according to a Daily Dot report. The agents seized all of Shafer’s computers and digital devices, and pushed him into a car.

    • CAIR Responds To Pulse Massacre By Ejecting Reporter From Press Conference

      The most prominent advocacy group for orthodox radical Islam in the United States threatened Friday to have a Breitbart reporter arrested if he did not leave its soon-to-start public press conference about the bloody Pulse massacre of at least 50 gay Americans by an American Muslim.

    • HIPAA Privacy Regulations Didn’t Need to Be Waived After Orlando. Here’s Why They Were Anyway

      Update: On Tuesday, the Department of Health and Human Services said it had not waived HIPAA in Orlando after all because it was not necessary—the mayor’s original remarks were the result of some miscommunication. WIRED’s original story, about why a HIPAA waiver would not have been necessary, is below.

    • Apple fights bids to make product repairs cheaper

      But the Cupertino giant does not always come down on the side of those who use its products as is evident from its attempts to block bids by US states to make repair of Apple devices cheaper.

      According to a published report, Apple is fighting “right to repair” amendments being considered by the US states of Minnesota, Nebraska, Massachusetts and New York.

      Given the difficulty in gaining access to the innards of most current Apple devices, these amendments would make it mandatory for Apple to provide unofficial repair shops with the necessary information needed to fix broken devices.

    • Saudi Arabia, UN Black Lists and Manipulating Human Rights

      It is such cases that give the United Nations a bad name. And if heads and decay say something about the rest of the body, Ban Ki-Moon says all too much in his role as UN Secretary General. Always inconspicuous, barely visible in the global media, his presence scarcely warrants a footnote. This has been a point of much relief for various powers who have tended to see the UN as a parking space for ceremony and manipulation rather than concrete policy.

  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • House Attacks Net Neutrality, Cable Box Reform With Sneaky Budget Rider

      As we’ve noted a few times, there’s really only two ways the telecom sector can successfully destroy U.S. net neutrality rules. Broadband providers could prevail on part or all of their multi-headed lawsuit against the FCC, a decision on which is expected any day now. Or the rules could be dismantled by the next President, who could repopulate the FCC with the usual assortment of revolving-door sector sycophants, reverting the agency back to its more consistent, historical role as a dumbly nodding enabler of broadband sector dysfunction.

      Every other attempt to kill the rules is just politicians barking loudly for their campaign contribution dinners — though that’s not to say the barking doesn’t get very loud from time to time.

      The latest example is the House Appropriations Committee’s 29-17 vote to approve an FCC appropriations bill (pdf), part of a larger Financial Services Bill determining the 2017 budgets for multiple agencies. The bill was passed last week with amendment language intended to hobble the FCC’s net neutrality rules — and its quest to bring competition to the cable set top box. More specifically, the bill prohibits the FCC from enforcing its net neutrality rules until the ongoing court case is settled. But it also would relegate the FCC’s attempt to bring competition to the cable box to committee purgatory.

    • Appeals Court Fully Upholds FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules

      After months of anticipation on all sides, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has upheld the FCC’s Open Internet Order, a notably huge win for net neutrality advocates. The full court ruling (pdf) supports the FCC’s arguments across the board, including the FCC’s decision to classify internet providers as common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act. That’s not only big for net neutrality, but it solidifies the FCC’s authority as it looks to move forward on other pro-consumer initiatives such as the exploration of some relatively basic new privacy protections for broadband users.

      Historically the DC Appeals court has been a mixed bag for the FCC, but in this instance the court declared the FCC’s neutrality protections rest on solid legal ground from beginning to end, dismantling arguments by the likes of US Telecom, AT&T, and advocacy groups like TechFreedom from stem to stern. That includes industry attempts to prevent the rules from being applied to wireless networks (a split decision whereby fixed-line services were covered by wireless was not was something that had worried many telecom sector consumer advocates).

    • Cable Industry Proclaims More Competition ‘Hurts Consumers’ & ‘Damages Economic Efficiency’

      As part of the conditions attached to Charter’s $79 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks, the FCC imposed a requirement that Charter expand broadband service to another two million locations, one million of which must already be served by an ISP delivering speeds of 25 Mbps or greater. Unfortunately these kinds of conditions historically don’t mean much; merger broadband expansion promises are almost always volunteered by the ISPs themselves, who already planned the expansion regardless of their merger plans.

    • Hypermedia: How the WWW fell short

      The web we have works incredibly well. Its feature set has enabled users to write billions of web pages. The technology is standardised and there are many mature implementations.

      HTML is still a medium where some things are easy and some things are not. We should not lose sight of how HTML will affect how we communicate. Instead, we should pillage the ideas of the past to make the best use of our content today.

    • Do We Need a More Open, Private, “Decentralized” Internet?

      Is it time to rebuild the Web? That’s what Tim Berners-Lee and other Internet pioneers are now saying in response to concerns about censorship, electronic spying and excessive centralization on the Web.

      Last week, Berners-Lee, the guy who played a leading role in creating the Web in 1989, held a conference with other computer scientists in San Francisco at the Decentralized Web Summit. Attendees also included the likes of Mitchell Baker, head of Mozilla, and Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Trademarks

      • Concussion Protocol: Can You Tell The Difference Between Soda And One Half Of A Football Team?

        There are a surprising number of really dumb trademark disputes involving professional sports, what with athletes jumping at the chance to trademark their nicknames and phrases, and that really dumb 12th Man thing. But even this cynical writer was taken aback at the news that Dr. Pepper had stepped in to block the Denver Broncos from trademarking the term “Orange Crush”, the nickname for the team’s defensive squad spanning nearly half a century.

      • Company opposes Broncos’ bid to trademark ‘Orange Crush’

        The Denver Broncos might have had the Orange Crush defense, but the team shouldn’t be allowed to trademark the term, at least according to Dr Pepper Snapple Group, which owns the Crush soda brand, whose most popular flavor is orange.

    • Copyrights

      • Europe Is About To Create A Link Tax: Time To Speak Out Against It

        We’ve written plenty of times about ridiculous European plans to create a so-called “snippet tax” which is more officially referred to as “ancillary rights” (and is really just about creating a tax on Google). The basic concept is that some old school newspapers are so lazy and have so failed to adapt to the internet — and so want to blame Google for their own failures — that they want to tax any aggregator (e.g., Google) that links to their works with a snippet, that doesn’t pay for the privilege of sending those publishers traffic. As you may remember, Germany has been pushing for such a thing for many, many years, and Austria has been exploring it as well. But perhaps the most attention grabbing move was the one in Spain, which not only included a snippet tax, but made it mandatory. That is, even if you wanted Google News to link to you for free, you couldn’t get that. In response, Google took the nuclear option and shut down Google News in Spain. A study showed that this law has actually done much to harm Spanish publishers, but the EU pushes on, ridiculously.

      • Film Producer Wants ISPs Prosecuted Over Widespread Piracy

        Dutch film producer Klaas de Jong has filed a police report against four local ISPs, holding them accountable for tens of millions of euros in piracy related losses. The producer says that the ISPs are responsible for the actions of pirating subscribers, since they fail to block torrent sites and other download portals.

06.13.16

Links 13/6/2016: Linux 4.7 RC3, Samsung’s Tizen Focus

Posted in News Roundup at 5:12 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

Leftovers

  • Health/Nutrition

    • Whistleblower: EPA Officials Covered Up Toxic Fracking Emissions for Years

      Why has the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) failed to take adequate action against disastrous, climate-warming methane emissions from the fracking industry?

      An environmental watchdog alleges that the answer may be a years-long, systematic cover-up of the true data surrounding these toxic emissions.

      That cover-up, the group says, was at the hands of at least one EPA researcher who accepted payments from the oil and gas industry.

  • Security

    • Deception Cybersecurity Pioneer illusive networks Adds Linux and Advanced Forensics in Latest Release
    • San Antonio’s Infocyte Takes Cybersecurity Threat Hunting to Linux
    • Lieberman Software Provides Security Automation at Scale for Linux

      Lieberman Software Corporation is advancing the security of the Linux enterprise by keeping the privileged attack surface in constant motion on Linux systems. The announcement was made at the Gartner Security and Risk Management Summit, where the company is exhibiting this week in booth #719.

    • Mozilla launches fund to vet open-source software

      More and more, developers are using open source tools when building applications and online services because it allows users to openly share and collaborate on code. Because it encourages crowdsourcing and collaboration, open source has opened the doors for amateurs and professionals alike to make better software faster than ever before.

    • Security advisories for Monday
    • Outdated authentication practices create an opportunity for threat hunter Infocyte

      “Having Linux allows us to look at web servers, for instance. If you’re going to bypass the biometrics, you’re going to need to get into that system itself,” Gerritz says. “That’s where we come in, is finding people who have inserted themselves under that authentication layer.”

    • Cable Sees NFV Enhancing Network Security

      Network functions virtualization is all the rage because of the money it can save, and because of the network flexibility it helps afford, but the cable industry is enthused about NFV for yet another, less publicized benefit: the potential NFV creates for improving network security.

    • IoT Consensus – A Solution Suggestion to the ‘Baskets of Remote’ Problem by Benedikt Herudek

      Bitcoin is able to integrate and have endpoints (in Bitcoin terminology ‘wallets’ and ‘miners’) seamlessly talk to each other in a large and dynamic network. Devices and their protocols do not have the ability to seamlessly communicate with other devices. This presentation will try to show where Bitcoin and the underlying Blockchain and Consenus Technology can offer an innovative approach to integrating members of a large and dynamic network.

    • Ready to form Voltron! why security is like a giant robot make of lions

      Due to various conversations about security this week, Voltron came up in the context of security. This is sort of a strange topic, but it makes sense when we ponder modern day security. If you talk to anyone, there is generally one thing they push as a solution for a problem. This is no different for security technologies. There is always one thing that will fix your problems. In reality this is never the case. Good security is about putting a number of technologies together to create something bigger and better than any one thing can do by itself.

    • Email Address Disclosures, Preliminary Report, June 11 2016

      On June 11 2016 (UTC), we started sending an email to all active subscribers who provided an email address, informing them of an update to our subscriber agreement. This was done via an automated system which contained a bug that mistakenly prepended between 0 and 7,618 other email addresses to the body of the email. The result was that recipients could see the email addresses of other recipients. The problem was noticed and the system was stopped after 7,618 out of approximately 383,000 emails (1.9%) were sent. Each email mistakenly contained the email addresses from the emails sent prior to it, so earlier emails contained fewer addresses than later ones.

    • Universities Become New Target for Ransomware Attacks [iophk: "Calgary has no excuse, given the particular tech activity headquartered specifically in their town. Some top Univ executives need firing +fines for having allowed Microsoft into their infrastructure."]

      This week the University of Calgary in Canada admitted paying C$20,000 (€13,900) to a hacker to regain access to files stored in 600 computers, after it suffered a ransomware attack compromising over 9,000 email accounts. In order to receive the keys, the school paid the equivalent of C$20,000 in Bitcoins.

    • Blue Coat to Sell Itself to Symantec, Abandoning I.P.O. Plans

      Blue Coat Systems seemed poised to begin life as a public company, after selling itself to a private equity firm last year.

      Now, the cybersecurity software company plans to sell itself to Symantec instead.

      Blue Coat said late on Sunday that it would sell itself to Symantec for $4.65 billion. As part of the deal, Blue Coat’s chief executive, Greg Clark, will take over as the chief executive of the combined security software maker.

      To help finance the transaction, Blue Coat’s existing majority investor, Bain Capital, will invest an additional $750 million in the deal. The private equity firm Silver Lake, which invested $500 million in Symantec in February, will invest an additional $500 million.

  • Defence/Aggression

    • The Chinese Hackers in the Back Office

      At the N.S.A., Mr. Falkowitz had worked with teams that detected North Korean missile launches. Much of that early work was done with satellites that would look for sudden heat blasts.

      Eventually, Mr. Falkowitz’s team tried a more proactive approach. If they could hack the computers that controlled the missile launch systems, they could glean launch schedules. Area 1 is now taking a similar approach to digital attacks, tapping into the attackers’ launchpads, as it were, rather than waiting for them to attack.

      Hackers don’t just press a big red “attack” button one day. They do reconnaissance, scout out employees on LinkedIn, draft carefully worded emails to trick unsuspecting employees to open them and click on links or email attachments that will try to launch malicious attacks.

      Once they persuade a target to click — and 91 percent of attacks start this way, according to Trend Micro, the security firm — it takes time to crawl through a victim’s network to find something worth taking. Then they have to pull that data off the network. The process can take weeks, months, even years and leaves a digital trail.

    • Before Nightclub Shooting, FBI Pursued Questionable Florida “Terror” Suspects

      The attack on a gay club in Orlando in which 50 people were killed and more than 50 wounded — now the largest mass shooting in U.S. history — demonstrates how potential threats are escaping the FBI’s vast counterterrorism dragnet.

      While it’s unclear whether gunman Omar Mateen’s inspiration was hatred of gays, the Islamic State, or something else, attackers like him are the intended targets of the FBI’s post-9/11 prevention program. Federal law enforcement’s top priority today is to stop the attacker of tomorrow.

      But Mateen’s mass shooting is an example of how dangerous men slip past the FBI’s watch while federal agents focus on targets of questionable capacity.

    • Orlando Pulse Open Thread

      There is so much we need to fix in this country: the guns, the homophobia. But I fear we’re most likely to just throw more policing in the mix, rather than addressing the underlying issues.

    • Omar Mateen and Rightwing Homophobia: Hate Crime or Domestic Terrorism

      US law enforcement is at least initially categorizing the horrific Orlando shootings as “domestic terrorism.”

      I don’t think it probably was terrorism in any useful sense of the term.

    • The Orlando Horror

      Terrorism is a reality – but endless war is not the answer

    • Recent Events in Honduras

      This week’s program looks at recent events in Honduras, including the 2009 coup, the 2012 killing of four villagers by a joint US-Honduran patrol at Ahuas, and the March 2016 assassination of indigenous environmental campaigner Berta Caceres. The guests examine some of the underlying institutions and circumstances there, including the heavily militarized Honduran police, the US “drug war,” and US willingness to use drug trafficking accusations to bring down critics of the country’s ruling party.

    • Hillary Clinton’s ‘Entangled’ Foreign Policy

      Besides bashing Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton offered few specifics in her big foreign policy speech which stressed the value of “friends.” But those “entangling alliances” helped create today’s global chaos, writes Daniel Lazare.

    • Gun Industry Describes Mass Shootings Like Orlando as a “Big Opportunity”

      In recent corporate presentations, leading gun makers celebrated the fact that consumers bought more firearms because of the December terrorist attack in San Bernardino. And, prior to the massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando on Saturday night, executives were telling investors to expect another big bump — because of the upcoming elections.

      The surge in sales after mass shootings, as we’ve reported, is nothing new: Mass shootings lead to talk of gun control; the National Rifle Association — the gun advocacy group funded significantly by gun and ammunition manufacturers — uses its influence in Congress to block any legislative action; but gun owners, irrationally terrified that the government will restrict or ban firearms, rush out to buy more guns and ammo.

    • Donald Trump Calls Obama Complicit in Orlando Shooting, Escalating Years of Anti-Muslim Rhetoric

      Donald Trump’s first response to the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando was to congratulate himself “for being right on radical Islamic terrorism.”

      His second response was to accuse President Obama of complicity.

      “Look, we’re led by a man that either is not tough, not smart, or he’s got something else in mind,” Trump told Fox News early Monday. “There’s something going on. It’s inconceivable. There’s something going on. … He doesn’t get it or he gets it better than anybody understands — it’s one or the other and either one is unacceptable.”

    • As FBI Was Rolling Up Ibragim Todashev and Friends in Orlando, Omar Mateen Claimed a Tie

      Described as a tie to the brothers behind the Marathon killing, the claim is just wacky. But perhaps not as much when you consider the close FBI focus on Orlando’s Muslim community. The FBI killed Todashev in May of 2013, and started rounding up and deporting his friends shortly thereafter.

    • Stop Exploiting LGBT Issues to Demonize Islam and Justify Anti-Muslim Policies

      In the late 1990s, Eric Rudolph – raised Catholic and affiliated for a time with a Christian Identity sect – bombed abortion clinics and a gay bar, insisting they were venues of immorality and evil. Last July, an Orthodox Jewish Israeli attacked the marchers in the Jerusalem LGBT pride parade, stabbing six of them, and one of them, a teenager, died of her wounds; justifying his attacks by appealing to Talmudic punishments for homosexuality, he had just been released from a 10-year prison term for doing the same in 2005. Yesterday, a Christian pastor from Arizona, Steven Anderson, praised the slaughter of 49 people in an Orlando LGBT club on the ground that “homosexuals are a bunch of disgusting perverts” and are “pedophiles.”

    • Was Orlando Shooter’s Domestic Violence History a Missed Warning Sign?

      The ex-wife of Orlando shooter Omar Mateen described him as a volatile and violent spouse who abused steroids and beat her during their brief marriage. “He started abusing me physically, very often, and not allowing me to speak to my family, keeping me hostage from them,” Yusufiy told reporters gathered in front of her home yesterday. After four months of marriage, Yusufiy was physically rescued from Mateen by her parents and, she said, filed a police report about his abusive treatment.

    • America’s Many Mideast Blunders

      Official Washington’s neocon foreign policy establishment looks forward to more “regime change” wars in the Mideast and more “blank checks” for Israel, but ex-Ambassador Chas W. Freeman Jr. sees such actions as a continued march of folly.

    • Globalization and the American Dream

      Implicit in all the rhetoric promoting globalization is the premise that the rest of the world can and should be brought up to the standard of living of the West, and America in particular. For much of the world the American Dream – though a constantly moving target – is globalization’s ultimate endpoint.

    • A Tale of Two Terrorists

      Nearly 15 years since its fiery debut, Bush’s “War on Terror” has somehow (and for some time now, too) been banalized into the humdrum of Obama’s permanent war; in light of this, as terrorism continues to simultaneously deviate from and reflect social norms, it seems entirely fitting that the two people vying for the presidency of the United States should be terrorists themselves.

    • Campaign 2016’s Brave New World

      As the U.S. election shapes up as a battle between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, the prospect for the public hearing anything approaching a truthful exchange of ideas appears hopeless, writes David Marks.

  • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

    • Newly Released Clinton Email Was Marked Classified When It Hit Clinton’s Unclassified Server

      When her use of an unclassified email server first broke in March 2015, Hillary Clinton’s earliest statements were that no classified information was sent or received.

      She quickly changed her standard reply to say nothing sent or received was marked classified at the time. As recently as Wednesday of last week, she told reporters, “nothing that I sent or received was marked classified. And nothing has been demonstrated to contradict that. So it is the fact. It was the fact when I first said it. It is the fact that I’m saying it now.”

      (The statement is itself an outright lie. Some information — the names of CIA undercover personnel, imminent drone strikes, details on U.S. NSA sources and methods, for example — is inherently classified and does not need to be marked to restate that. In addition, many suspected classified documents that were marked as such were simply retyped minus the marker when they were sent to Hillary. Leaving the marker off does not “declassify” information, and is in fact a national security crime.)

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

    • Ten Degrees Above Average, Alaska is Having Its Hottest Year Since Records Began

      Like the rest of the world, Alaska has been unusually hot this year—and it’s about to get hotter.

      That’s according to the most recent data released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), as Climate Central reported.

      Between March and May of this year, the meteorological spring, the entire state has been about 10 degrees hotter than normal, with an average temperature of 32°F.

      “That may sound cold,” Climate Central noted, “but warmth is a relative term. That temperature handily beat the previous record hot spring of 1998 by 2°F (1°C), according to NOAA.”

    • Mobilizing for COP21

      Tom Goldtooth is a Diné and Dakota environmental activist based in Minnesota. He has worked on environmental justice issues with tribal governments since the 1980s, and is widely respected as a grassroots leader throughout North America. In addition to serving as Executive Director of Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN), he is a founder of the Durban Group for Climate Justice, co-founder of Climate Justice NOW!, co-founder of the U.S. based Environmental Justice Climate Change Initiative, and a regular policy advisor to indigenous communities. In 2010, he was honored by the Sierra Club and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) as a “Green Hero of Color.” Last year, just weeks before COP21, he was awarded the Gandhi Peace Award, bestowed upon leaders who strive for world peace.

    • Nuclear ‘Ticking Time Bomb’ Is a Real Threat to New York, But the Feds Don’t Seem to Care

      A little more than a year ago, a transformer fire and oil spill reminded the world that Indian Point, an aging nuclear power plant, sits only about 45 miles north of midtown Manhattan. Later it was revealed that the fire was caused by a short circuit due to insulation failure in a high-voltage coil in the transformer.

    • Revealed: New evidence shows palm oil giant flouting rules to prevent Indonesian forest fires

      One of the world’s largest producers of palm oil appears to have defied instructions from the Indonesian government to stop practices that could cause a repeat of the extreme forest and peat fires of 2015, a new investigation has revealed.

      In November last year, the Ministry of Environment prohibited the palm oil industry from planting commercial crops on already burned land and instructed companies to ensure primary canals are blocked to prevent land being drained.

      Evidence unearthed by a Greenpeace Indonesia field investigation in April suggests that IOI has in fact violated these new rules.

    • Peabody Coal Bankruptcy Reveals Climate Denial Network Funding

      Peabody Energy, the world’s largest private-sector coal company, has provided funds to a network of individuals, scientists, non-profits and political organizations espousing climate change denial and opposition to efforts to tackle climate change, according to newly available documents reviewed by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD/PRWatch).

      The recipients of funding from Peabody Energy were made public in the company’s recent bankruptcy filings.

    • Revealed: How This Coal Giant Became Treasury Dept. for Climate Denialists

      Peabody Energy, the largest coal producer in the U.S., funded dozens of groups spreading skepticism about climate change, according to new figures that reportedly surprised even environmental advocates with their scale.

      A Guardian analysis of the company’s filings reveal that Peabody gave money to at least two dozen companies including trade associations, lobbying groups, conservative think tanks, and other organizations that campaigned against climate science and fought President Barack Obama’s plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

    • Now THAT’s going to make you saddle sore! Hundreds of cyclists ride naked through London in protest against car culture

  • Finance

    • Walmart Canada to stop accepting Visa cards due to ‘unacceptably high’ fees

      Walmart says it intends to join the list of retailers in Canada that don’t accept Visa cards, citing high fees for transactions. It’s a move one retail analyst has said will cause “pain on all sides.”

      All credit cards charge fees to retailers, which generally are between one per cent and 2.5 per cent of the cost what’s being sold. The fees vary depending on the type of card the customer is using — cash-back and premium cards generally have higher fees — and the type of retailer they’re shopping at.

    • EU referendum: Gordon Brown urges Labour voters to stay in

      Former PM Gordon Brown is to tell Labour voters they have the “most to gain” if the UK stays in the European Union, as the party seeks to rally its supporters behind the Remain campaign.

      In a speech later, he will say the EU can deliver policies close to their concerns including tackling corporate tax avoidance and creating jobs.

      Mr Brown will make what he is calling the “positive” case for staying in.

    • Left-Wing Party In Spain Borrows Ikea Style to Promote Anti-Austerity Manifesto

      The Spanish anti-austerity political party Podemos has an interesting idea to make its new platform the “most-read manifesto ever produced”: put it in the form of an Ikea catalog.

      Across pages of photographs depicting the party’s leaders relaxing or working in their sun-dappled homes, Podemos outlines its proposals (pdf) on key political issues, covering familiar ground with plans to reduce unemployment and increase taxes on the wealthy.

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Going Global: Bernie Sanders’s Challenge

      As Bernie Sanders ponders his next step, he could fall in line behind the Clinton bandwagon or break free and take his critique of economic injustice to a global stage, starting with a challenge to Brazil’s pro-corruption coup, writes Sam Husseini.

    • How Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and Others Used Social Media to Reframe News of Orlando Shooting

      As news updates rolled in about Sunday’s shooting at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub, politicians, public figures, activists and journalists took to Facebook and Twitter to send out unfiltered statements about the significance of the massacre.

      For prominent politicians in and seeking office, the shooting represented an obligation to comment as well as a challenge, as the tragedy touched on several highly charged issues and themes in the public sphere, including but not limited to: LGBTQ rights, homophobia, Islamophobia, gun control and terrorism.

  • Censorship/Free Speech

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Embarrassed German intelligence official trying to discredit Snowden

      German intelligence mandarin Hans-Georg Maassen of the Verfassungsschutz has told the Bundestag’s NSA committee that it is “highly plausible” that whistleblower Edward Snowden is a Russian spy.

      Obviously, it is very hard if at all possible to know if anyone is a Russian spy. There are even speculations about Chancellor Merkel (who is of East-German descent). But speculations are just speculations.

    • DOJ Warns Calexico Police: Fix Institutional Problems Before Adopting Surveillance Tech

      Law enforcement agencies should not expand their electronic surveillance capabilities until they have addressed core problems of corruption, incompetence, poor oversight, and inadequate training.

      Echoing concerns long raised by EFF, that’s the message the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) sent the Calexico Police Department (CPD) following a years-long investigation into alleged corruption by officers.

    • NSA interested in exploiting internet-connected medical devices, spying on IoT

      The NSA has new tricks up its sleeve, looking for ways to exploit the Internet of Things and connected biomedical devices like pacemakers in order to monitor targets and collect foreign intelligence.

      At the Defense One Tech Summit on Friday, NSA Deputy Director Richard Ledgett said, “We’re looking at it sort of theoretically from a research point of view right now.”

      If that involves hackers from the NSA’s Office of Tailored Access Operations (TAO), then it’s practically a done deal when you consider the wide range of devices previously pwned and listed in the ANT division catalog of exploits. It surely wouldn’t be too difficult for the group, since IoT and wireless medical devices are notoriously insecure.

      Ledgett, according to The Intercept, claimed surveillance via biomedical devices might be “a niche kind of thing … a tool in the toolbox.” He reminded the audience that there are easier ways for the NSA to spy on targets.

    • NSA targets the Internet of Things as a new data source

      The Internet of Things (IoT) may be the US National Security Agency’s next potential target for spying and collecting data according to a comment made by its deputy director at a recent military technology conference.

      During the conference, which was held in Washington DC on 10 June, deputy director of the NSA Richard Ledgett said that the agency is considering potential ways it could collect data from internet-connected devices such as smart appliances and pacemakers. According to the Intercept, he said: “We’re looking at it sort of theoretically from a research point of view right now.” IoT technology has yet to become truly mainstream and as such the NSA exploring ways it could utilise this new wave of devices to collect information is in line with the agency’s past activities.

    • Snowden leak reveals Scottish links to GCHQ spy programme
    • Snowden exposes mass surveillance in Scotland by “unknown” government agency
    • Politicians and researchers raise questions over secret Scottish surveillance system
    • Apple vs FBI: NSA reveals why it couldn’t hack San Bernardino iPhone
    • NSA Explains Why It Couldn’t Hack San Bernardino iPhone
    • Could FBI Again Struggle To Get Access To Orlando Terrorist’s Phone?
    • BlackBerry hands over user data to help police ‘kick ass,’ insider says

      A specialized unit inside mobile firm BlackBerry has for years enthusiastically helped intercept user data — including BBM messages — to help in hundreds of police investigations in dozens of countries, a CBC News investigation reveals.

      CBC News has gained a rare glimpse inside the struggling smartphone maker’s Public Safety Operations team, which at one point numbered 15 people, and has long kept its handling of warrants and police requests for taps on user information confidential.

    • BlackBerry: We’re Here To Kick Ass And Sell Out Users To Law Enforcement. And We’re (Almost) All Out Of Users.

      Back in mid-April, it was discovered that Canadian law enforcement (along with Dutch authorities) had the ability to intercept and decrypt BlackBerry messages. This level of access suggested the company had turned over its encryption key to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. BlackBerry has only one encryption key for most customers — which it maintains control of. Enterprise users, however, can set their own key, which cuts BlackBerry out of the loop completely.

      BlackBerry CEO John Chen — despite publicly criticizing Apple for locking law enforcement out of its phone with default encryption — refused to provide specifics on this apparent breach of his customers’ trust. Instead, he offered a non-denial denial, stating that BlackBerry stood by its “lawful access principles.”

    • US government asks to join key EU Facebook privacy case brought by Schrems

      The US government has asked to be joined as a party in the Irish High Court case between the Austrian privacy activist and lawyer Max Schrems, and the social network Facebook. In a press release, Schrems called this “an unusual move.”

      He told Ars that there are no documents relating to the “amicus curiae”—friend of the court—request yet. “The US government simply appeared via a barrister at the first (administrative) hearing today,” he said. “They will be able to file the documents until the 22nd.”

      Schrems speculated that the US government has made this move because it wanted to defend its surveillance laws before the European Courts. “I think this move will be very interesting,” he told Ars. “The US has previously maintained that we all misunderstood US surveillance.”

    • Now, please focus on Tor and its future

      Having seen the Swedish and the German Pirate Parties going down in flames after infighting, I can recognize some sort of underlying tone in the Tor dispute. Conflicts in tech-oriented communities often tend to spiral out of control and reason.

    • Snowden: Scotland has its own NSA conducting mass surveillance of phone and internet activity

      Documents leaked by Edward Snowden reveal that Scottish authorities have been engaged in gathering data about phone and internet usage in much the same way as the NSA and GCHQ.

    • Secret police phone tap unit was run by Strathclyde Police

  • Civil Rights/Policing

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Experts, scientists urge Kerala govt to include IPR in curriculum

      Now, the IPR experts and scientists have submitted a representation to the new Kerala government to include IPR in the educational curriculum from the school level and to set up an IPR Academy. Thiruvananthapuram: Since the last seven years, a proposal to set up an Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Academy in Kerala remains only on paper. IP literacy is still very low even after two decades since we signed the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) at World Trade Organisation. “The proposal to include it in educational curriculum and to set up an IPR Academy will be taken forward by the new government and a clear picture on its modalities will emerge soon,” he said. IPR is already an optional subject for Law students in Kerala.

    • Why you just can’t have a one-size-fits-all IPR policy

      The National IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) policy was released on May 11. This 38-page document will give directions to the government to promote ‘creative and innovative India’. Questions have been raised in some quarters about the need for a new policy now, as extensive legislation has been passed amending patent, copyright, trademark and design laws. Was the report released because of the Prime Minister’s US trip? Will it play into the pharmaceutical lobby?

    • Alongside UN Commitments To End AIDS, Event On Access Brings Tears, Vision

      Last week, United Nations members agreed on a political declaration on ending AIDS by 2030, with some new and old commitments. Alongside the 8-10 June High-Level Meeting on Ending AIDS, a side event looked at issues of access and got into intellectual property rights issues.

    • Myriad Genetics Refuses To Accept That People Have A Right To Access Their Own DNA Sequences

      One of the biggest victories on the patent front was when the US Supreme Court finally ruled that naturally-occurring DNA cannot be patented. The company involved in this case, Myriad Genetics, didn’t give up at this point, but tried to claim that despite this ruling, its patents on genetic testing were still valid. Fortunately, the courts disagreed, and struck down those patents too.

    • Love IP enforcement? Come to Brussels next week for the Commission’s IP Enforcement Conference!

      The AmeriKat currently has a four dedicated IP passions – SPCs, the UPC, trade secrets and remedies. Luckily for her 2016 has so far been an exciting year for all four. In particular, IP remedies in Europe is undergoing a potential renaissance in the form of the Commission’s Consultation on the IP Enforcement Directive (2004/48/EC) which closed on 15 April 2016 (see here).

    • Copyrights

      • “Piracy Monitoring Outfit Uses Flawed Tracking Technology”

        Every day anti-piracy outfits monitor millions of unauthorized BitTorrent transfers. Among other things, the data collected is used to sent stark warnings to alleged pirates. However, according to a torrent site owner the tracking methods of these companies are not all foolproof.

      • Neil Young Onstage: ‘F–k You, Donald Trump’

        In a lengthy Facebook post, Neil Young cleared the air about how he feels about Donald Trump using his songs: “YOUNG CONTINUES TO DENY TRUMP PERMISSION TO USE HIS MUSIC,” the rocker wrote, attaching a short clip of him yelling “Fuck you, Donald Trump” onstage.

      • Not The Onion: Morocco Bans Sharing Newspapers To Protect Publisher Business Models

        It’s no surprise that traditional newspaper publishing is a struggling business. That’s been the case for a long time, leading to a variety of silly proposals to try to prop up their failing businesses. There’s been talk of changing copyright law to ban linking to or paraphrasing newspaper articles online. There’s been a lot of focus on somehow harming search engines, as if they’re the problem that newspapers face. There have been proposals to create a special version of the hot news doctrine to stop search engines from linking to stories. And, of course, over in the EU there’s been a years-long push to “tax” links, which was so broad in Spain that Google News shut down in that country. That law, designed to protect newspapers, actually harmed them.

        However, I don’t think any proposal we’ve seen is crazier than what’s happening in Morocco, where apparently newspaper publishers are lashing out at anything they can think to blame in response to decreasing revenue — including people in cafes sharing newspapers with others. And thus, a compliant government has now banned the practice. No one’s putting any spin on this other than “OMG, newspapers are making less money, and let’s ‘protect’ them.”

      • Pure Bullshit: AMC Threatens Huge Fan Community With Copyright Claim Over ‘Spoiler’ Predictions

        What’s up, Hollywood TV people? Hey, could you do everyone a favor and maybe stop being complete assholes to your biggest fans — and especially completely abusing copyright law to harass and bully those people? Almost exactly a month ago we wrote about HBO abusing the DMCA process to go after people who were predicting what would happen in Game of Thrones, accusing them of violating copyright law in accurately predicting what would happen in the future. As we noted, that’s not at all how copyright law works, but apparently AMC took a look at what HBO was doing and said “hey, let’s do that too.”

      • EU digital copyright consultation: Last chance to have your voice heard

        An important EU public consultation on copyright closes on Wednesday. As well as the official consultation page from the European Commission, there is an easy-to-use site set up by the Copyright for Creativity group that aims to facilitate the process by explaining what the questions really mean. It takes only a few minutes to complete, and automates the entire submission process. There are versions in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Polish.

        The consultation offers a rare chance for members of the public to help shape the EU’s future digital copyright policy in two areas that are highly relevant for Ars readers. The first is the idea of placing a “Google tax” on snippets. More formally called a “neighbouring right” or “ancillary copyright,” it would allow publishers to demand payment from search engines and content aggregators when the latter include short snippets that link to the original text. As Ars explained last year, the approach has been tried in Spain and Germany with disastrous results—a powerful argument not to extend it across the whole of the EU, as the European Commission is still considering.

06.12.16

Links 12/6/2016: Chromebooks EoL, Android N Release Date

Posted in News Roundup at 11:33 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Splice Machine Opens Sources Its Hadoop and Spark Powered RDBMS
  • Splice Machine moves to open source; seeks contributors, mentors, sponsors and champions support latest move
  • Splice Machine Offering Open Source Version of its Platform
  • Getting started with ReactOS

    ReactOS is a relatively new open source operating system that resembles the looks of Windows NT and aims to offer similar levels of functionality and application compatibility. Featuring a wine-based user mode, this system doesn’t use any of the Unix architecture, but is a rewrite of the NT architecture from scratch, with its very own FAT32 implementation, and completely free of legal implications. That said, this is not yet another Linux distro, but a unique Windows-like system that is a part of the free software world. This quick guide aims at users who want an easy to use, open source replacement for their Windows system.

  • [OwnCloud] Revolutionizing the Cloud
  • ownCloud Inc. Closes Doors Following NextCloud Announcement

    Owncloud GmbH released an official statement last week, detailing their thoughts and feelings on Frank Karlitschek’s new service, NextCloud, and announced the closing of ownCloud Inc. They cite the Launch of Karlitschek’s new product and the “poached” devs as causes for the shuttering of the Massachusetts incorporated organization, just 12 hours after the NextCloud announcement. The report also details the formation of the “ownCloud Foundation,” an effort to strengthen the community despite the corporation’s closure.

  • Events

    • LaKademy 2016

      This year we celebrated the fourth LaKademy conference and for my luck it happened in the city I live in, Rio de Janeiro :-) The reason for that is because I have not had much time for contributing to KDE as I used to have. The fact that the event happened in Rio saved me a lot o time and sure I wouldn’t miss it for nothing hehe.

    • foss-north follow-up

      The time to summarize the foss-north event has come. I’d like to start by thanking everyone – speakers, sponsors and visitors – you all made it a great event!

      After the event I sent out a questionnaire which made for some interesting reading. About 30% of the visitors have replied to the questions, so I feel that the input is fairly representative.

    • SeaGL opens 2016 call for participation

      The Seattle GNU/Linux Conference (we like to call it SeaGL) has opened its call for participation for the 2016 event.

      SeaGL welcomes speakers of all backgrounds and levels of experience—even if you’ve never spoken at a technical conference. If you’re excited about GNU/Linux technologies or free and open source software, we want to hear your ideas.

  • Web Browsers

    • Chrome

      • Chrome 53 Should Be Blazing Fast

        Chrome 52 Beta may have just been released, but I’m already looking forward to Chrome 53 for very significant performance improvements!

        Google engineers have been using the Motion Mark web benchmark for making some improvements to the Chrome GPU pipeline. They’ve made around a 47% improvement in the speed of Chrome for these common benchmarks while for some particular tests they are multiple times faster.

    • Mozilla

  • Databases

    • PostgreSQL 9.6 Beta and PGCon 2016

      PostgreSQL’s annual developer conference, PGCon, took place in May, which made it a good place to get a look at the new PostgreSQL features coming in version 9.6. The first 9.6 beta was released just the week before and several contributors demonstrated key changes at the conference in Ottawa. For many users, this was the first time to see the finished versions of features that had been under development for months or years.

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • Tender for a Infrastructure and System Administrator (#201606-01)

      The Document Foundation (TDF), the charitable entity behind the world’s leading free office suite LibreOffice, seeks a Infrastructure and System Administrator to start work as soon as possible. The role is scheduled for 40 hours a week. The work time is flexible and work happens from the applicant’s home office, which can be located anywhere in the world.

      Our infrastructure is based on 4 large hypervisors with about 50 virtual machines running on them. In addition there are several bare-metal machines, additional backup servers, externally hosted virtual machines and services, split across three data centers and connected via dynamic routing.

  • Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)

  • BSD

    • pkgsrc 50th release interviews – Jonathan Perkin

      The pkgsrc team has prepared the 50th release of their package management system, with the 2016Q1 version. It’s infrequent event, as the 100th release will be held after 50 quarters.

      The NetBSD team has prepared series of interviews with the authors. The next one is with Jonathan Perkin, a developer in the Joyent team.

    • FreeBSD on Microsoft Azure [iophk: "It's just a one hour, non-technical sales pitch from a marketeer. BSDCan used to be a technical conference. The selection committee really failed on this one."]

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • GNU Make 4.2.1 Released!

      GNU Make 4.2.1, a bug-fix release for GNU Make 4.2, has been released and is available in the usual locations.

    • GNU Radio for Space (and Aircraft)

      The people behind the satellite, GomSpace, has a complete parser for the ADS-B data beacons and [destevez] has it rolled into a GNU Radio module. There’s a good representation of captured data on a map in [destevez’s] blog post. If you want something less interactive, you can see a static map of all collected data. If you want to try your hand at picking up GOMX-3, you can hear it transmitting in the video below.

  • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

    • Raspberry Pi on big list of single-board computers, new router chips to comply with FCC rules, and more news

    • Open Hardware/Modding

      • Alternative To x86, ARM Architectures?

        Support grows for RISC-V open-source instruction set architecture.

      • Secure Hardware and Open Source

        A few weeks ago Yubico published an interesting piece on their security architecture illustrating conflicts between Open Source and Secure Hardware. While we agree on the most important points raised in this article (basically that Secure Elements are a critical part of a security architecture to provide protection against physical attacks and device interdiction), we’d like to offer our perspective on how we’re trying to improve the status quo.

      • Open Source Cloud Chamber

        If you didn’t have a cloud chamber, you can build your own thanks to the open source plans from [M. Bindhammer]. The chamber uses alcohol, a high voltage supply, and a line laser. It isn’t quite the dry ice chamber you might have seen in the Sears Christmas catalog. A petri dish provides a clear observation port.

  • Programming/Development

    • The 2016 Python Language Summit
    • Gilectomy

      Python’s (in)famous global interpreter lock (GIL), which effectively serializes multi-threaded access to the interpreter (thus hampering concurrency using threads), has long been seen as something that Python could do without. But there are both technical and political hurdles to clear before the GIL can be removed. Larry Hastings presented his thoughts and progress on doing a “gilectomy” to the CPython interpreter at the 2016 Python Language Summit.

    • Twisted and Python 3
    • The future of the Python ssl module

      The opening session at the 2016 Python Language Summit concerned the ssl module in the standard library. Cory Benfield and Christian Heimes described some of the problems that the module suffers from and discussed some plans for making things better.

    • How To Code Like The Top Programmers At NASA — 10 Critical Rules

      Do you know how top programmers write mission-critical code at NASA? To make such code clearer, safer, and easier to understand, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has laid 10 rules for developing software.

Leftovers

  • It Took 33 Years For Someone to Find the Easter Egg in This Apple II Game

    Gumball, a game released in 1983 for the Apple II and other early PCs, was never all that popular. For 33 years, it held a secret that was discovered this week by anonymous crackers who not only hacked their way through incredibly advanced copyright protection, but also became the first people to discover an Easter Egg hidden by the game’s creator, Robert A. Cook. Best of all? Cook congratulated them Friday for their work.

  • Health/Nutrition

    • Congress approves bill updating chemical safety oversight

      The bill would update the Toxic Substances Control Act amid complaints that its 40-year-old provisions hobble the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from effectively regulating chemicals, including those ranging from asbestos and flame retardants to everyday household products.

    • Thanks to Bipartisanship, a “Witches’ Brew of Unregulated Chemicals” Still Threatens Consumers

      U.S. lawmakers have just passed legislation to finally update how toxic chemicals are regulated, but, according to watchdog groups, the changes to “the worst environmental law on the books” still leave consumers at risk.

      The House voted to update the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) last month, and the Senate passed the measure Tuesday in a voice vote.

    • Exclusive: Studies find ‘super bacteria’ in Rio’s Olympic venues, top beaches
    • EPA Proposed New Emergency Limits For Radioactive Drinking Water, And They Don’t Look Good

      New and higher radioactivity limits for drinking water tainted in the case of a nuclear emergency were put forward by the Environmental Protection Agency this week, a move that environmental organizations are calling “egregious.”

      “The upshot really is that the [nuclear] industry really wants to be able to release more radioactivity and not be responsible for it,” Diane D’Arrigo, a project director at the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, told ThinkProgress. “This is really a big loss.”

      On Monday, the EPA proposed new guidelines for radiological emergencies — like a nuclear meltdown or a dirty bomb, a weapon that combines conventional explosives such as dynamite with radioactive material. During a radiological emergency, radioactive material could be released into the rivers, lakes, and streams used by public water suppliers. EPA is proposing non-regulatory guidance that authorities can use “to protect residents from experiencing the harmful effects from radiation in drinking water following an emergency.” Guidelines influence radioactive limits that trigger safety measures like local water use restrictions or deploying alternative water supplies. The EPA calls these guidelines the Protective Action Guide, or PAG.

    • Why the Environmental Working Group Isn’t Backing the Toxic Chemicals Compromise

      Most chemicals used in everything from cleaners to candy bars have never been reviewed by either the EPA or the FDA. This measure won’t change that.

    • How We Can Prepare For A ‘Superbug’ Resistant To All Our Antibiotics

      Last month, a strain of bacteria resistant to “last-resort” antibiotics appeared in the United States for the first time. Luckily, doctors were able to kill the bacterium, but public health officials warned that one day a “superbug” resistant to all our antibiotics could emerge.

    • Air Force has lost 100,000 inspector general records

      The Air Force announced on Friday that it has lost thousands of records belonging to the service’s inspector general due to a database crash.

      “We estimate we’ve lost information for 100,000 cases dating back to 2004,” Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek told The Hill in an email.

      “The database crashed and there is no data,” Stefanek said. “At this time we don’t have any evidence of malicious intent.”

      The database, called the Automated Case Tracking System (ACTS), holds all records related to IG complaints, investigations, appeals andFreedom of Information Act requests.

    • Air Force IG Data Corrupted

      ​Data related to USAF Inspector General investigations have been lost, the Air Force said Friday. The service discovered Monday the data stored in the IG’s Automated Case Tracking System database were corrupted, spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said in a statement. The service is investigating the cause and attempting to recover the lost data. The database stores records related to IG complaints, investigations, and appeals along with FOIA requests. It is also used to track congressional inquiries. Senior official data are held separately. Stefanek noted the immediate impact of the loss is being assessed, but the service is “experiencing significant delays in the processing of inspector general and congressional constituency inquiries.”

  • Security

    • EFF’s Badge Hack Pageant Returns to DEF CON

      We are proud to announce the return of EFF’s Badge Hack Pageant at the 24th annual DEF CON hacking conference in Las Vegas. EFF invites all DEF CON attendees to stretch their creative skills by reinventing past conference badges as practical, artful, and over-the-top objects of their choosing. The numerous 2015 pageant entries included a crocheted badge cozy, a quadcopter, counterfeit badges, a human baby, a breathalyzer, a dazzling array of LED shows, and more than one hand-made record player that would make MacGyver weep. We encourage you to join us and contribute something whether you are a crafter, a beginner, or a hardware hacking wizard. It’s a great summer project so get started now and enjoy a great show!

    • @Deray’s Twitter Hack Reminds Us Even Two-Factor Isn’t Enough

      This has been the week of Twitter hacks, from Mark Zuckerberg to a trove of millions of passwords dumped online to, most recently, Black Lives Matter activist DeRay McKesson.

    • System calls for memory protection keys

      “Memory protection keys” are an Intel processor feature that is making its first appearance in Skylake server CPUs. They are a user-controllable, coarse-grained protection mechanism, allowing a program to deny certain types of access to ranges of memory. LWN last looked at kernel support for memory protection keys (or “pkeys”) at the end of 2015. The system-call interface is now deemed to be in its final form, and there is a push to stage it for merging during the 4.8 development cycle. So the time seems right for a look at how this feature will be used on Linux systems.

  • Defence/Aggression

    • Israel’s Willingness to ‘Negotiate’ With Egypt

      Gold’s conference was about the French peace initiative concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

      I have a lurking suspicion – it is still lurking around – that this is not really a French initiative, but a camouflaged American one.

      It arouses the fury of the Israeli government, and no American president can do that if he wants – himself or his party – to be reelected.

    • Venezuela’s Struggle to Survive

      Amid a reassertion of U.S.-backed neoliberal policies in Latin America, Venezuela’s socialist government totters at a tipping point, beset by a severe economic crisis, but Lisa Sullivan sees a ground-up struggle of Venezuelans to survive.

    • The Art of the Patriotic Con

      Military veterans are one of the most conned groups in America. Their exploitation resumed in full force with the 9/11 attacks against America. Those attacks allowed the George W. Bush administration to ramp up patriotic fever, justify launching a “global war on terrorism,” and continue the American empire’s capitalistic attempts to control other countries’ rulers and resources – which imperialism actually had provided the motivation for the 9/11 attacks. Bush himself conscripted the role of “President” into that of “Commander-in-Chief,” and with it the militarization of America was in full swing. Politicians, mainstream media, Hollywood, professional and college sporting programs, businesses, community institutions, and even religious groups accommodated, celebrated and worshipped the military uniform – with the American flag visible on the lapels of politicians and sportscasters. Shortly after the illegal, falsely-based invasion of defenseless Iraq in 2003, even a small hospital in New Hampshire displayed American flags and patriotic signs, such as “Support the Troops.” The patriotic con, which is undermining America’s morality and security, is now deeply ingrained in the status quo and readily seen in the 2016 presidential campaign.

    • S. Korean Villagers Sued for Anti-Base Protests

      The South Korean Navy filed a civil lawsuit against 116 individual anti-base protesters and five groups including the Gangjeong Village Association demanding $3 million in compensation for alleged construction delays caused by protests over the past eight years.

    • Trillions Spent on Violence as World Continues Downwards Spiral Away From Peace

      The global spiral downwards towards less peace continues, the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) finds.

      The findings are laid out in the think tank’s latest Global Peace Index (GPI), now in its 10th edition, released Wednesday. It ranks 163 states and territories based on 23 indicators covering domestic and international conflict, societal safety and security, and a country’s militarization.

      Book-ending the 2016 index (pdf) are Iceland, ranking as the most peaceful country, and Syria, which ranks dead last. The United States comes in at 103, just behind Uganda and Guinea, while the UK comes in much further ahead at 47.

    • The Nuclear Codes Come With Big Challenges For Clinton Or Trump

      Whatever your take on the presidential race, Tuesday’s primary results make it all but certain that, come January, President Obama will hand over the keys to the White House — and the nuclear codes — to Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.

      Both presumptive nominees have expressed deep concern about the nuclear threat. With more than 15,000 nuclear weapons in the world, rising tensions among nuclear-armed countries, extravagant investment in a new generation of these weapons, and the evolving specter of nuclear terrorism — the risks of a catastrophe are reaching unprecedented heights. It’s little wonder the Doomsday Clock hovers at three minutes to midnight.

    • Hillary Clinton on Gaddafi: We Came, We Saw, He Died
    • Hillary’s Victory and Next to Last Hurrah

      Everybody knew that the awful day would come when the Queen of Chaos, the Empress of Ineptitude, would become the Democratic Party’s “presumptive” nominee.

      It did last Tuesday. Wall Streeters, Cold Warriors, “humanitarian” interveners, Zionist settler supporters, and other assorted miscreants can now rejoice!

      Add to that list those who think that, at last, little girls can grow up thinking that the “glass ceiling” is gone – as if it wasn’t already by 1984, when Walter Mondale selected Geraldine Ferraro to run as his Vice President.

    • School Days and Grenade Launchers

      Come on, they aren’t tanks, they’re armored rescue vehicles. And the, uh, grenade launchers would only be used to launch teargas canisters. When necessary. And the M-16s? Standard police issue.

    • Hillary Clinton’s State Department Let South Sudan Use Child Soldiers

      Hillary Clinton spent years vowing to defend the rights of children worldwide, but under her leadership the State Department played a central role in allowing rebel forces in southern Sudan to use child soldiers in defiance of a 2008 law forbidding it, reports Nick Turse at The Intercept.

      The law is called the Child Soldiers Prevention Act, or CSPA, and after South Sudan’s independence, in 2011 the White House issued annual waivers that kept taxpayer dollars flowing its way despite its use of child soldiers.

    • US Bullying Canada to Pursue Anti-Russian Foreign Policy

      As the world is faced with numerous crises requiring cooperation between the US and Russia – Syria, Ukraine, and international terrorism to name just three – Washington just can’t help its Russophobic ways.

      Most recently, former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul expressed his extreme displeasure (dare I say revulsion) at the idea that the Canadian Government, and specifically its Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion, could possibly make the independent decision to not follow the diktats of Washington in adopting a Canadian version of the Magnitsky Act, a piece of proposed legislation which would have severe repercussions for the Russia-Canada relationship. McFaul, a staunch anti-Putin crusader whose time as ambassador was marred by countless failures and embarrassing public blunders, went so far as to cast doubt on the commitment to human rights of Mr. Dion and the Canadian Government.

    • Orlando nightclub shooting: Around 20 dead after ‘terror attack’ at Florida gay club

  • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

    • State Department Emails Reveal How Unqualified Clinton Donor Was Named to Intelligence Board

      Emails recently released by the State Department give more information on how a securities trader and big-money Clinton donor was appointed by her office to the International Security Advisory Board (ISAB), a group that advises the Secretary of State on nuclear weapons and other security issues.

      According to the State Department’s own website, members are “national security experts with scientific, military, diplomatic, and political backgrounds.” The current members show a lot of generals, ambassadors and academics.

      So it seemed odd to ABC News that Clinton felt that Rajiv K. Fernando, above, qualified for the group, since his background is in high-frequency stock trading and Internet “ventures.” He has donated heavily both to the Clinton Foundation, Hillary Clinton’s two presidential campaigns, and the Obama campaigns.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

    • Activists Deliver 90,000+ Petitions Calling on DNC to Add Fracking Ban to Party Platform
    • Tens of Thousands Demand DNC Add National Fracking Ban to Party Platform

      Climate activists on Wednesday delivered more than 90,000 petitions to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) demanding that the party’s 2016 platform include a nationwide ban on fracking.

      As the DNC convened in Washington, D.C. for its open forum on shaping the platform, activists with Food & Water Watch, 350.org, Honor the Earth, and other groups handed over the appeals and said officials must acknowledge the harm that fracking has caused the environment.

    • Light Pollution Hides Milky Way From 80 Percent Of North Americans, Atlas Shows

      The luminous glow of light pollution prevents nearly 80 percent of people in North America from seeing the Milky Way in the night sky.

      That’s according to a new atlas of artificial night sky brightness that found our home galaxy is now hidden from more than one-third of humanity.

    • Norway adopts world’s first zero deforestation policy: What does that mean?

      Norway announced a zero deforestation policy in its procurement of goods, two years after making a pledge with Germany and Britain to ‘promote national commitments that encourage deforestation free supply chains.’

    • Dead Zone In Gulf Of Mexico As Large As Connecticut?

      The Dead Zone that grows annually in the Gulf of Mexico could stretch to over an area the size of Connecticut, according to new predictions. In all, this area of the Gulf where little life can exist will cover near 5,900 square miles.

      The hypoxic zones are created because of the runoff of agricultural waste into waterways. Phosphorus and nitrogen from fertilizers and waste from livestock can rob regions of water bodies of their oxygen. As a result, plants and animals in the area are unable to take in the vital element, and die of suffocation.

      Although the size of the dead zone may sound large, the predicted area is about average for the summer season, researchers contend.

    • Planting Corn, Not Pipelines

      During the early stages of resistance against the Keystone XL pipeline in Nebraska, an unlikely alliance of farmers, ranchers, environmentalists and Native Americans held a spiritual gathering at the farm of Art Tanderup. While gathered in a tepee during a cold night, Mekasi Horinek of the Ponca Nation had a vision: they should plant the newly revitalized Ponca Nation sacred corn along the proposed route of the pipeline.

      The planting of this seed not only offered a life-affirming resistance to the pipeline, but it also represented a return of the corn to this land after a 137-year absence. Mekasi’s great-grandfather had walked across this very farm at the age of eight when white settlers drove the tribe from Nebraska and forced them to relocate to Oklahoma on a 600-mile trail of tears. Allowed to take with them only what they could carry, the natives to this land had to leave behind their newly planted crop of corn and thus lose a precious link to their heritage.

    • Before #ExxonKnew, Industry Hid Perils of Smog with #SmokeAndFumes

      Years before Big Oil began sowing doubt about the science of climate change and fighting efforts to cut dangerous emissions, the fossil fuel industry sought to muddle the research around smog, according to an investigation published this week by InsideClimate News.

      The revelations—from one of the first news outlets to expose ExxonMobil’s climate deception—are based on hundreds of industry speeches, articles, reports, and oral histories that span the last 70 years, many of them gathered by the Boston-based Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) and dozens unearthed by InsideClimate News (ICN) in the Library of Congress and other archives.

  • Finance

    • Who is afraid of the urban poor?

      In Egypt, both the ruling elites and the urban middle class cling to the military regime, in the hope that they will be protected from a seemingly inevitable tide of social unrest.

    • ‘Huge Win’ for Workers as DC Council Approves $15 Minimum Wage

      Heralding a new victory for the Fight for $15 movement, lawmakers in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday unanimously approved a measure to raise the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020, which Mayor Muriel Bowser has promised to sign.

      Beyond 2020, the minimum wage will rise with inflation. “When I see how much it costs to live in Washington, D.C.—and that cost is only going up—we know that it takes more money for every household to be able to afford to live,” Bowser said during a news conference following the vote.

    • PETER HITCHENS: The British people have risen at last – and we’re about to unleash chaos

      I think we are about to have the most serious constitutional crisis since the Abdication of King Edward VIII. I suppose we had better try to enjoy it.

      If – as I think we will – we vote to leave the EU on June 23, a democratically elected Parliament, which wants to stay, will confront a force as great as itself – a national vote, equally democratic, which wants to quit. Are we about to find out what actually happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?

      I am genuinely unsure how this will work out. I hope it will only destroy our two dead political parties, stiffened corpses that have long propped each other up with the aid of BBC endorsement and ill-gotten money.

    • How Low Would We Go for TPP?

      The Trans-Pacific Partnership, the huge new 12-country trade deal, raises the question: How low would we go to get the next NAFTA-style deal?

      The basic idea of a trade deal is that we will lower our tariffs, you will lower your tariffs, and trade goes up. That would be a trade deal.

      TPP is much more than that. The tariff schedules in TPP are not controversial. Really, TPP will not pass or fail based on the tariff schedule.

      Rather, the rules in TPP are very controversial because the rules define power relationships, and those power relationships determine who will take the gains from globalization.

    • In Paul Ryan’s District, a Community Struggling

      In Racine, Wisconsin, it is clear that a community was abandoned.

      On either side of Memorial Drive, one after another, are relics of better days: massive brick factories now closed, sprawling warehouses deserted, empty lots, boarded-up buildings. Rusted water towers and aged smokestacks rise from industrial rooftops, like sentries standing guard long after they served their duty. Racine Steel Casings, Case Tractors, Sealed Air, Jacobsen Textron, Golden Books, Young Radiator—once-great employers, all gone, but not forgotten by locals.

    • Nightly Newscasts Have Virtually Ignored Poverty in 2016. Here’s Why.

      One in two Americans will experience poverty or near poverty during their working years. But you wouldn’t know that from watching the news.

      Nightly news broadcasts on the three major television networks barely mentioned the 47 million Americans living in poverty in the first quarter of 2016. According to a new report from Media Matters for America, NBC Nightly News ran just two segments on the topic in the first three months of this year. What’s worse, ABC and CBS failed to cover the issue entirely.

    • The paradox of true sovereignty points to Remain

      The EU provides a means to exercise more control of international capitalism.

    • U.S. Elites: the Original Gangsters

      Donald Trump is at home in the underworld. Tom Robbins writes that the de facto GOP nominee “has encountered a steady stream of mob-tainted offers that he apparently couldn’t refuse” in his decades in business. He “worked with mob-controlled companies and unions” while building his empire, the Washington Post reports.

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Winning by Destroying: Trump and Gingrich

      Playing the game well or honorably is irrelevant.

    • Democrats Will Learn All the Wrong Lessons From Brush With Bernie

      This was no ordinary primary race, not a contest between warring factions within the party establishment, á la Obama-Clinton in ’08 or even Gore-Bradley in ’00. This was a barely quelled revolt that ought to have sent shock waves up and down the party, especially since the Vote of No Confidence overwhelmingly came from the next generation of voters. Yet editorialists mostly drew the opposite conclusion.

    • Did Big Media Do in Sanders?

      Many Bernie Sanders backers feel that the mainstream media did its best to marginalize the Vermont senator’s campaign and clear the way for Hillary Clinton’s coronation – and they’re not all wrong, says Neal Gabler.

    • After SCOTUS Gutted Voting Rights, An Explosion of Democratic Suppression

      State and local threats to voting rights have exploded in the three years since the U.S. Supreme Court attacked a critical constitutional protection for minority voters, despite overwhelming evidence of discrimination, a new report by the NAACP reveals.

      Democracy Diminished (pdf), released by the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund (LDF), looks at disenfranchisement around the country since the Supreme Court effectively blocked Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act—which requires certain jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination against voters to submit proposed voting changes to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) or a federal court in Washington, D.C. for pre-clearance—in its 2013 ruling on Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder.

    • This Feminist is #Still Sanders

      I write as a feminist, a well-seasoned historian of American women, and a die-hard supporter of Bernie Sanders. Long-time colleagues disparage my loyalty to the Sanders campaign and chastise me, along with him, for not celebrating Hillary Clinton’s landmark achievement as the first woman to become the presumptive nominee of a major political party. I’m betraying my feminist principles, they suggest. Moreover, I’m denying the historical significance of Clinton’s victory, they pointedly add. Against this tide, I’m holding fast to my principles on both accounts. Both feminism and the historical moment weigh heavily in my decision.

    • Obama Endorses Clinton, As Sanders Vows To Fight On for Progressive Future

      After an hour-long meeting with President Barack Obama on Thursday afternoon, Bernie Sanders spoke briefly to reporters outside the White House pledging that his campaign will continue the “political revolution” and encouraged his supporters not to give up on the key issues that have raised their political passions.

      Just minutes later, the Hillary Clinton campaign released a video of Obama offering his official endorsement of the former secretary of state.

      Those speculating that Sanders might concede after rival Hillary Clinton won the California primary on Tuesday, clearing the path for her to take the Democratic nomination, were proven wrong. Even as Sanders warned of the “disaster” of a Donald Trump presidency and vowed to work tirelessly to defeat the Republicans’ presumptive nominee, Sanders promised to fight for the ideals of his own campaign through to the end—including the Democratic National Committee (DNC) convention in July.

    • The Republican Party Just Crashed and Burned in California

      Fifty years ago, California was a reasonably Republican state—with a Republican named Reagan on his way to being elected governor, two Republican senators representing the state in Washington, and the pieces in place to back the GOP nominees in the next six presidential elections. Republicans did not always win California, but they had the upper hand. From 1952 to 1988, only one Democratic presidential candidate won the state—and that was Lyndon Johnson, in the Democratic landslide year of 1964.

    • New era of journalism: People against the gatekeepers

      What does the post-mainstream era hold for journalism? Can censorship exist in an era of total access to information? Where does freedom of expression begin and where does it end?

      These were just three of the important questions addressed at the “New Era of Journalism” conference held in Moscow this week, an event which brought together leading journalists from 32 countries and also featured a video link up with Wikileaks founder and editor-in-chief Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

      Opening the proceedings, Dmitry Kiselev, Director General of the Rossiya Segodnya news organization, said that since 2001 the US had interfered with and destroyed a number of countries around the world with wars and interventions based on lies. These lies, such as the blatantly false claim that Iraq had WMDs which could be launched within 45 minutes, were promoted by US State Department/NATO-friendly news channels and other media as proven facts which they clearly were not.

      Actually, the US policy predates the terrorist attacks on New York, as citizens of the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, who were bombed by NATO for 78 days and nights in 1999, would testify. The most drastic form of censorship was imposed in that conflict too, when Serbian state television (RTS), was bombed and 16 employees killed. But it was the “humanitarian crusaders” of a US-led military alliance doing the killing, so there were no ‘Ja sam Jelica’ or ‘Ja sam Branislav’ marches of solidarity in western capitals. It seems it’s ok to kill media workers if it’s “our side” that does it. Then the victims are “unpeople”.

    • As Establishment Lines Up Behind Clinton, Calls Resound to ‘Let it Bern’

      The Democratic elite may be lining up behind Hillary Clinton, but for those who have been galvanized by Bernie Sanders’ populist campaign, the call for a political revolution burns brightly still.

      Even as she endorsed Clinton on Thursday night, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) lauded Sanders’ integrity and primary achievements—and recognized the grassroots army inspired by his candidacy.

      “I take my cue on every part of this from Bernie himself,” Warren told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. “I also think that what Bernie Sanders did was just powerfully important. He ran a campaign from the heart, and he ran a campaign where he took those issues and he really thrust them into the spotlight. He brought millions of people into the political process, millions into the Democratic Party, and for me, that’s what it’s all about.”

    • Zephyr Teachout’s Push for Reform

      I sit next to a thirtyish man named Shawn and a sixtyish woman named Tanya. Tanya supports Teachout because “she understands that the structure of the system is the problem.” Shawn clutches Teachout’s 2014 book, Corruption in America, which castigates the modern Supreme Court’s campaign finance rulings.

    • Two Bigots Running for US President

      It’s easy to spot Donald Trump’s crude bigotry but harder to detect Hillary Clinton’s more subtle variety since it pertains mostly to Palestinians and people pressuring Israel to respect Palestinian rights, explains Lawrence Davidson.

    • Comcast-Funded Website Plugs Comcast-Owned TV Show Promoting Comcast-Backed Trade Pact

      The promotion of the TPP is a recurring staple at Vox, which frequently publishes articles that happened to dovetail with the interests of their major investor, Comcast—a corporation that spends large sums trying to convince members of Congress to pass the Trans-Pacific Partnership…

    • Donald Trump Has No Platform. Paul Ryan Isn’t Helping.

      House Speaker Paul Ryan spent the past week announcing policy plans designed to fill the void left by the party’s presumptive nominee, Donald Trump, who has virtually no detailed policy proposals save for outrageous propositions like building a giant wall on the U.S.-Mexico border at no cost to the U.S. taxpayer.

    • Despite Historic Achievement, Feminists Grapple with Clinton’s Deeply Troubling Record

      There is no doubt that history was made Tuesday night after Hillary Clinton swept California, all but sealing her fate as the first woman to become a major party nominee for president.

      Even before polls closed in the Golden State, the former secretary of state celebrated the moment at a Brooklyn rally, telling her supporters, “Thanks to you we’ve reached a milestone: the first time in our nation’s history that a woman will be a major party’s nominee.”

      “Yes, there are still ceilings to break for women, men, for all of us, but don’t let anyone tell you that great things can’t happen in America,” she said after premiering a stirring video that highlighted some of the women who fought for equality and liberation.

    • How the Media Manipulated the Democratic Primary

      Though it might not always seem like it, the news media is composed of human beings. Humans aren’t, can’t be, and possibly shouldn’t be, objective. Still, there’s a reasonable expectation among consumers of political news that journalists of all political stripes strive to be as objective as possible.

      At their minimum, media outlets ought to be straightforward about their biases.

      They certainly shouldn’t have, or appear to have, their thumbs on the scales.

      Unfortunately, all too often, it appears that the political system is rigged – and that the major media companies play an important role in gaming the system. That’s what has happened throughout this year’s Democratic primaries, in which the vast majority of corporate media outlets appear to have been in the bag for Hillary Clinton, the establishment candidate, against self-described “democratic socialist” insurgent Bernie Sanders.

    • Where are the Missing California Primary Votes?

      Richmond California is a refinery town in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is also where there is a diverse working class community with a strong Richmond Progressive Alliance which previously elected a Green Party Mayor. Bernie Sanders visited the city and actively supported the populist movement in February 2014 making it likely that Bernie Sanders would receive strong support in Richmond.

    • ‘We Will Never Give Up’: A Note of Thanks to Bernie Sanders

      Regardless of what you decide to do now, you have ignited a movement that will fight onward. We will fight to put more progressives into the House and Senate. We will fight at the state level. We will organize for the 2020 presidential election.

    • America’s voting system is broken. It’s time to overhaul it

      There’s no debate at this point that Hillary Clinton has won the popular vote and the delegate count to win the Democratic primary. But even Clinton supporters should agree that our supposedly “democratic” system for picking nominees for president is terribly broken and should be dramatically overhauled.

      It’s not just Bernie Sanders’ campaign that should (and has) argued that the voting system in this country is “rigged”. Virtually every major campaign in both parties griped about how the other was winning at some point during this campaign, and along the way almost all of them were right.

      First, there are the delegates themselves – the “representatives” that voters “choose” to express their interests at the party conventions (but sometimes don’t have to comply). Each state has its own rules for how delegates are allocated, and they are almost always ridiculously complicated. In both parties, delegate counts regularly do not match up to the percentage of votes candidates received in the primaries. For example, as Fusion’s Felix Salmon demonstrated in March, Trump had dramatically more delegates than his percentage of the Republican vote at that point, and Sanders had dramatically fewer delegates than his percentage on the Democratic side.

    • AP’s Clinton ‘Victory’ Story Breaches Journalism Ethics and Public Trust

      The Associated Press’ early crowning of Hillary Clinton as the “presumptive” Democratic presidential nominee thrust a news organization into the middle of the political process with a story that suddenly, and without enough explanation, emerged from the mysterious methods of today’s journalism.

      The story was not just a scoop. It fed the hostility and cynicism of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ fervent supporters. Now it will complicate Clinton’s efforts to build a united campaign against Donald Trump following her big and conclusive primary victories Tuesday night. And it possibly influenced voters before the primaries in California, New Jersey and New Mexico. Why vote if you already know the score?

      Clinton reached the 2,383 mark Tuesday with the help of the superdelegates. You might say that makes the AP story yesterday’s news. But it’s not. The story raised major questions about today’s journalism and its impact on the political process.

    • Green Party Seeks 2016 Ballot Access in all 50 States: an Interview with Rick Lass

      On June 5th, the Nevada Green Party and the Jill Stein for President 2016 campaign filed petitions to qualify for the Nevada ballot in November. Stein thanked all those who helped collect signatures, including Bernie Sanders’ supporters who were alienated by Nevada’s controversial nominating convention.

      The Nevada Green Party was required to file 5,431 signatures. They filed 8,300 which will now be verified by county clerks and then sent to the Nevada Secretary of State. Nevada Greens and the Stein campaign believe that number ensures qualification even after some number of signatures have been invalidated by clerks comparing them to the voter rolls.

    • Bernie Sanders Calls Meeting at His Home in Vermont Sunday to Discuss Campaign’s Future

      Sen. Bernie Sanders plans to get together Sunday night in his hometown of Burlington, Vt., with a couple of dozen of his closest supporters, an aide announced Friday.

      Sanders is spending the weekend in his Vermont home-base but is booked to appear on several Washington-based TV news shows on Sunday morning.

    • Did the Press Take Down Bernie Sanders?

      Earlier this week, even before Hillary Clinton’s primary victory in California assured her the Democratic presidential nomination, the Associated Press had already declared her the presumptive nominee. Bernie Sanders and his supporters were sore, and they had a right to be.

      Although the AP defended its decision, saying that Clinton’s crossing the delegate threshold was news and they had an obligation to report it when they did (the day before the clinching primaries) the timing and the circumstances were suspicious. It appears that AP had been hounding superdelegates to reveal their preferences, and blasting that headline just before those primaries threatened either to depress Sanders’ vote or Hillary’s or both because the contest was now for all intents and purposes over.

      Sanders has never been much of a media fan. Last October, Mother Jones reported that way back in 1979, he wrote in Vermont’s Vanguard Press, an alternative newspaper, that “with considerable forethought [TV capitalists] are attempting to create a nation of morons who will faithfully go out and buy this or that product, vote for this or that candidate and faithfully work for their employers for as low a wage as possible.” He said TV was America’s “drug.” On another occasion, he took a 60 Minutes crew to the AP office in Burlington and, in a bit of turnabout, began interrogating their reporters. So perhaps the AP’s announcement this week was a bit of long-simmering retribution.

  • Censorship/Free Speech

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • House Poised to Advance Privacy and Defend Encryption…If Allowed to Vote

      A bipartisan group of House members are preparing to introduce measures widely supported by their colleagues that would reign in NSA domestic surveillance and protect encryption. But a change in procedure adopted by the House leadership may deny the House a chance to even consider their proposal.

      Based on their successful amendments to the House Defense Appropriations bill two years ago, Representatives Thomas Massie (R-KY), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), and Ted Poe (R-TX) aim to reintroduce measures backed by civil liberties organizations and activists as amendments to the Defense Appropriations bill currently moving through the House.

      By prohibiting backdoor searches and preventing the NSA and CIA from undermining encryption devices and standards, their proposals would represent a significant step forward in the ongoing battle to secure privacy and security in the face of ongoing unconstitutional surveillance documented in 2013 by Edward Snowden.

    • Texas A&M Cybersecurity Center receives recognition from NSA, Homeland Security
    • Scots police had access to GCHQ spy programme

      Top secret documents revealing that Scots police forces had access to a GCHQ spy programme collecting information on people’s communications, movements and use of social media, are published today by The Ferret.

      The newly released classified documents came from US whistle-blower Edward Snowden and reveal that a previously unknown surveillance unit called the Scottish Recording Centre (SRC) was given access to a classified GCHQ project called MILKWHITE.

      The SRC was a police project that allowed Scottish forces to access metadata for information about people’s phone calls and emails.

      MILKWHITE was also storing data on people’s usage of smartphone apps such as WhatsApp and Viber and instant messenger services such as Jabber.

      GCHQ’s definition of metadata is broad and includes location data that can be used to track people’s movements, login passwords and website browsing histories.

    • Facebook: Install ‘Moments’ or Lose Your Synchronized Photos

      If you don’t use Facebook’s Moments app, the social network is looking to incentive you a bit to check it out—though, perhaps incentivize is the wrong word. The company is essentially threatening that your synchronized pictures are going to the digital recycling bin unless you download the Moments app, which isn’t leaving some users very thrilled.

    • The RCMP Surveilled Thousands of Innocent Canadians for a Decade

      The Royal Canadian Mounted Police has been using mass surveillance devices known as IMSI catchers, in public, for a decade. In that time, the police have indiscriminately surveilled potentially thousands of Canadians without their knowledge, and stored that information for later use.

      Motherboard and VICE News obtained more than 3,000 pages of court documents that were produced as part of a case centering around a 2010 RCMP drug bust that unveiled a Montreal mafia slaying, codenamed Project Clemenza. Thanks to these documents, Canadians are finally getting a peek into the RCMP’s use of mobile device identifiers—the police’s term for IMSI catchers. On Friday, some of the men who pleaded guilty in the case that sprang from Clemenza are being sentenced in a Quebec court.

    • NSA reveals why it couldn’t hack the San Bernardino terrorist’s iPhone 5c

      One of the more surprising aspects regarding the locked iPhone 5c involved in the San Bernardino terrorist attack of 2015 was that the FBI was unable to unlock the device by themselves. What’s more, we would later find out that even the NSA — who the FBI asked for assistance — lacked the requisite tools to unlock the device, a somewhat startling fact given all we know about the NSA’s activities and expertise.

      Speaking at a conference on military technology this past Friday, NSA deputy director Richard Ledgett addressed the topic and explained why the NSA was unable to access Syed Farook’s iPhone 5c. And as it turns out, it’s not necessarily that the task was beyond the NSA’s capabilities. Rather, the iPhone 5c wasn’t a sufficiently popular device that would have warranted the NSA’s attention in the first place. In other words, the iPhone 5c was never on the NSA’s radar because the people it had an interest in tracking and spying on were using other devices.

    • The NSA wants to monitor pacemakers and other medical devices

      Still, it’s both wild and disconcerting to think that something as critical as a pacemaker could be monitored by a hacker. The NSA doesn’t plan to stop at that, either. Perhaps less surprising is Ledgett’s broader suggestion that the NSA is interested in using information from any internet-connected device.

    • Why the NSA and other spies will love the Internet of Things

      It’s no surprise that the U.S. National Security Agency and presumably other spy agencies around the world are investigating how they might take advantage of the new generation of Internet-connected devices in homes and offices for spying purposes.

      What is surprising is how willing Richard Ledgett, the NSA’s deputy director, was to talk about it in remarks at a conference in Washington on Friday. “As my job is to penetrate other people’s networks, complexity is my friend,” he said of the growing mass of common household and office items that are increasingly likely to be logged in to a nearby Wi-Fi network. “The first time you update the software, you introduce vulnerabilities — or variables, rather. It’s a good place to be in a penetration point of view.”

    • Campaigners’ concern at mass surveillance by secret services
    • Exclusive: Edward Snowden leaks reveal secret Scottish spy system

      SECRET REPORTS leaked by U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden have revealed how UK mass surveillance of phone and internet activity was accessed by Scottish police forces.

      The documents confirm that a little-known policing body called the Scottish Recording Centre (SRC) was given access to information logs that includes millions of communications data including phone activity, internet histories, and social media behaviour on Facebook.

    • Senator Tells Funny J. Edgar Hoover Story to Warn Against Expanded FBI Surveillance Power

      Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., warned colleagues Thursday to think hard before expanding FBI surveillance powers, sharing a cautionary tale about his own experiences with former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.

  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • “We Can Assassinate You at Any Time” — Journalists Face Abduction and Murder in South Sudan

      Hakim was home alone with his two dogs, relaxing one night in March, when his cellphone rang. The man on the other end of the line asked a simple question: “Do you know that we can assassinate you at any time?”

      In seconds, the line went dead.

    • BREXIT: the R is for Racism

      B in Brexit stands for Boris and his overweening ambition. But R is for Racism, the method through which Vote Leave aims to achieve the political upset of the century.

    • U.N. Chief Admits He Removed Saudi Arabia From Child-Killer List Due to Extortion

      U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon publicly acknowledged Thursday that he removed the Saudi-led coalition currently bombing Yemen from a blacklist of child killers — 72 hours after it was published — due to a financial threat to defund United Nations programs.

      The secretary-general didn’t name the source of the threat, but news reports have indicated it came directly from the Saudi government.

    • Our Immigration Policies Are Ridiculous

      Doubling down on border enforcement is as ineffective as it is inhumane.

    • NYPD Officers Arrest And Punch Rapper For Hanging Out In Brooklyn Bridge Park

      Levar McDonald, also known as the as web comedian and rapper The Levar Show, was arrested in the Brooklyn Bridge Park in an escalating series of events that ended with him on the ground under a pile of New York Police Department (NYPD) officers.

      Bystander video footage of part of the encounter shows a police officer standing close to McDonald and demanding to see McDonald’s ID, to which McDonald repeatedly responds, level-voiced, “don’t put your hands on me,” and says, “I’m not doing nothing wrong.” McDonald tells an agitated crowd that he left the park when an officer told him to.

    • A Year After Cops Fired 44 Rounds at Keith Davis, His Case Still Raises Questions About Justice in Baltimore

      Between 2006 and Gray’s death in 2015, 67 people were killed in encounters with Baltimore police, according to the Baltimore Sun. Only two of the police officers involved in those killings were charged with a crime. Following Gray’s death, the Department of Justice opened an investigation into the Baltimore Police Department, focusing on its use of force, including deadly force, and its pattern of discriminatory policing. The police commissioner was fired, the city’s officials engaged in a public exercise of soul searching, and police reform became the talk of the town.

    • WTFUK

      The first time I visited the UK, the young immigrations officer at LHR was very inquisitive about this old friend I was going to meet while I was in London for a conference: Who was he? Where did he live? What was our relationship? My awkward answers and copious fear sweating must have been unsatisfactory, for she waved me over to the Corral of Shame to join other suspicious characters while she had a chat with a man I can only assume was her supervisor.

    • Cover up during Ramadan, Kelantan mufti tells non-Muslims

      The Kelantan Mufti today urged non-Muslims to dress conservatively throughout the fasting month of Ramadan as provocative attire could be haram for surrounding Muslims.

      Datuk Mohamad Shukri Mohamad explained that while non-Muslims have the freedom to dress however they liked, they should be “considerate” and dress appropriately to prevent Muslims from forfeiting their fast.

      “They (non-Muslims) should respect Muslims and dress appropriately.

      “It is not wrong for them to dress how they like but they must be considerate because when Muslims, particularly men, bump into them at public places, it is considered haram,” he was quoted as saying to local daily New Straits Times.

    • What happened to Hindus in Kashmir in 1990s is happening again in UP’s Kairana – Read this shocking story

      Kairana (Uttar Pradesh): At a time when the Central government is mulling to award citizenship to Hindu migrants from Pakistan and Bangladesh, there are reports that the community is being to forced to migrate from a city in Uttar Pradesh.

    • DEA Wants Inside Your Medical Records to Fight the War on Drugs

      The feds are fighting to look at millions of private files without a warrant, including those of two transgender men who are taking testosterone.

      Marlon Jones was arrested for taking legal painkillers, prescribed to him by a doctor, after a double knee replacement.

      Jones, an assistant fire chief of Utah’s Unified Fire Authority, was snared in a dragnet pulled through the state’s program to monitor prescription drugs after someone stole morphine from an ambulance in 2012. To find the missing morphine, cops used their unrestricted access to the state’s Prescription Drug Monitor Program database to look at the private medical records of nearly 500 emergency services personnel—without a warrant.

    • Sky News urged to drop footage of girl undergoing FGM

      Activists against female genital mutilation have urged Sky News to drop a segment which they say will show a girl as she undergoes the cutting in Somalia, saying it is tantamount to filming child abuse.

      Leyla Hussein, who co-founded anti-FGM campaign Daughters of Eve, said she was asked to appear on Sky News for an interview after a filmed segment about the prevalence of FGM in Somalia and Puntland, an autonomous state in Somalia’s north-east.

    • De-Incarceration, a Different Drum So Needed

      Along with VCNV companions, I’m part of a 150 mile walk from Chicago to Thomson, IL, a small town in Northwest IL where the U.S. Bureau of Prisons is setting up an Administrative Maximum prison, also known as a Supermax. Prison laborers from U.S. minimum security prisons now labor to turn what once was an Illinois state prison into a federal supermax detention facility with 1900 cells that will confine prisoners for 23 hours of every day.

    • UN Admits Extortion Behind Removal of Saudi Arabia From Child Killer Blacklist

      U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon admitted Thursday Saudi Arabia had been removed from a blacklist for maiming and killing children as a result of unnamed sources’ threats to defund United Nations programs. In plain language, an unknown entity used extortion to force the U.N. to reverse an important move toward ensuring the safety of children.

      According to an as-yet unsubstantiated report from Foreign Policy, that threat came directly from the Saudi government — though immediately after the report blacklisting the Saudi-led coalition went public, the kingdom vociferously denounced its placement, and was removed within 72 hours — perhaps lending an air of credibility to the allegation.

    • ‘We were caged and treated like animals’: Jamie Vardy’s wife Rebekah tells of ‘horrific’ treatment by French police as she was TEAR-GASSED on her way to England-Russia game

      Rebekah wrote: ‘That has to be up there with the worst experience EVER at an away game!

      ‘Teargassed for no reason, caged and treated like animals! Shocking!

      ‘I witnessed this with my own eyes! I can’t comment on things I didn’t see but what I got caught up in was horrific and uncalled for!

      ‘And this happened before the game even kicked off!’

    • Jamie Vardy’s wife Rebekah ‘tear-gassed’ during Russia vs England Euro 2016 violence

      Rebekah Vardy, the wife of England footballer Jamie Vardy, has revealed how she was caught up in a tear gas attack during the violence around Saturday’s Euro 2016 match between England and Russia.

      French, English and Russian football fans caused violent scenes in Marseilles, which carried on into Sunday morning.

    • North Carolina Asks Court to Keep Anti-Transgender Provisions of HB2 in Effect

      In court documents filed yesterday, North Carolina and the University of North Carolina system argued that the state’s law banning transgender people from public restrooms matching their gender identity should remain in effect while a legal challenge proceeds in federal court. The law, House Bill 2, also removes legal protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and others.

    • My Night with Muhammad Ali

      Muhammad Ali was then out on bail for dodging the draft. He had been stripped of his heavyweight title, banishing him from the ring, and he needed money for his legal fees. The Champ was touring college campuses across America, lecturing mostly white students about his Muslim faith and the sins of racism at home and war abroad.

    • Nevada’s Largest Paper Used To Support Marijuana Legalization. Then Sheldon Adelson Bought It.

      Last summer, the Las Vegas Review-Journal published an editorial proclaiming that the paper’s editorial page “has long supporting the decriminalizing, regulating and taxing the sale of currently illegal drugs,” including marijuana. It was on record as supporting an effort to legalize marijuana in the state that will go before voters this November, and as recently as late last year called for all presidential candidates to champion “removing marijuana from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act.”

    • Groundbreaking UN Decision: Ireland’s Abortion Ban Is Cruel and Inhumane

      Ireland’s restrictive ban on abortions subjected a woman to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment and should be ended, a groundbreaking decision from a United Nations committee states.

      The findings from the Geneva-based Human Rights Committee are based on the case of Amanda Mellet, who was denied access to an abortion in 2011. In November 2013, the Center for Reproductive Rights filed a complaint on her behalf.

    • Four Navajos Sue The Mormon Church Over Sex Abuse

      A member of the Navajo Nation filed a lawsuit this week against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) for inadequately protecting him from sexual and physical abuse he allegedly experienced during his participation in a Mormon foster program for Native American children. He is the fourth Navajo in recent months to sue the Mormon church for its neglectful oversight during the program—and more victims may still come forward.

  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • Yes, Getting The US Government Out Of ‘Managing’ Internet Domain Governance Is A Good Thing
    • Locking the Web Open: Dispatches from Morning One of the Decentralized Web Summit

      “The current Web is not private or censorship-free.” That matter-of-fact bug report provides the reason for the first ever Decentralized Web Summit, taking place this week at the Internet Archive in San Francisco. EFF is participating in the festivities, and whether you’re following along in person, on the live stream, or online, we hope these highlights can bring a bit more of the conversation to you.

      The day started with a kickoff by Wendy Hanamura, Director of Partnerships at the Internet Archive, welcoming all of the “great builders of the next decentralized web.” She then handed the stage to Mitchell Baker, Executive Chairperson of the Mozilla Foundation.

    • Values, Governance, and What Comes Next: Afternoon Sessions at the Decentralized Web Summit

      The afternoon session of the Decentralized Web Summit started with a rousing call to action by EFF’s own Cory Doctorow, who started by talking about…Oreos. More specifically: if you want to lose weight, you start by throwing away your bag of Oreos, so that when it’s been a long day and you’re exhausted and you’re craving a snack, they’re not there to tempt you. This is what’s called a “Ulysses Pact,” something you do when you’re strong and at your best, so that you can avoid giving in to temptation and compromise when you’re at your worst.

    • Cloudflare: Making the internet a little bit faster – for a select group of people

      When I wrote my previous article on Cloudflare, and how it craps all over my daily internet browsing and possibly millions of others, most of the responses I got was skepticism with a healthy dose of justification. Either, it’s my fault for being born and living in a country which is not on the favorable IP blocks for Cloudflare (read Developed Nations). Or it’s the Website owner’s fault for not turning firewall rules to essentially off. Who in their right might would turn firewall essentially off? Firewall is a good thing, right?

    • The fight over the Internet is a fight over the Power of Narrative, just like with the printing press

      The fight over the Internet has happened before, almost step by step, with the fight over the printing press 550 years ago. As the Catholic Church lost its power to interpret reality, it attacked any usage of the new copying technology, up to and including the death penalty. What it is, is a fight over the power to tell the narrative – the ability to tell others what reality looks like, and powerful institutions of today are fighting for their survival as they’re losing this ability and becoming irrelevant and obsolete.

      VPNs, Tor, encryption, surveillance – it’s all part of a much bigger picture about a fight over the Power of Narrative.

      I sometimes ask people to imagine how they would act if they could write all the world’s news for a week, and all of it would be unquestionably accepted as true. This is the Power of Narrative, the ability to sort true from false for other people. If they could change people’s perception of themselves in any way imaginable and never have it questioned, what would they write?

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • Judge: Failing Megaupload Servers Should Be Repaired, Not Copied

        Last month Megaupload’s former hosting company Cogent raised alarm bells about failing hard drives, which contain crucial evidence. Responding to this threat the MPAA and RIAA asked the court’s permission to copy the data, but this has now been denied. Instead, Judge O’Grady went with Megaupload’s proposal to simply repair the drives while keeping them stored at Cogent.

      • Watch The President Use Fair Use To Support A Trade Deal That Undermines Fair Use

        Lots of people are talking about the fact that President Obama went on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon on Thursday night to “slow jam the news” and play up a bunch of his accomplishments while stumping for the TPP agreement.

      • Ripoff Report Doesn’t Own the Copyright in Users’ Posts, But Neither Does This Guy Suing Them For Infringement

        People who don’t like what’s said about them on the Internet can’t bypass important protections for online speech by demanding the copyright to objectionable comments, EFF argues in a new amicus brief filed together with Public Citizen and Harvard’s Cyberlaw Clinic. The underlying case, now before the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, implicates key principles for online free speech and the rights of those who use online speech platforms.

      • Reject Europe’s Plans To Tax Links and Platforms

        A European Commission proposal to give new copyright-like veto powers to publishers could prevent quotation and linking from news articles without permission and payment. The Copyright for Creativity coalition (of which EFF is a member) has put together an easy survey and answering guide to guide you through the process of submitting your views before the consultation for this “link tax” proposal winds up on 15 June.

06.11.16

Links 11/6/2016: Wine 1.9.12, PHP 7.1 Alpha

Posted in News Roundup at 9:54 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

Leftovers

  • Science

    • Evolution of Fish Bioluminescence

      From the bizarre-looking anglerfish to sharks, bioluminescence is surprisingly common among ocean dwellers. Now, researchers from St. Cloud State University in Minnesota have shown that fish evolved the ability to make their own light on at least 27 separate occasions, according to a study published yesterday (June 8) in PLOS ONE. The fishes use their glowing abilities for everything from finding prey, to luring in mates, to communicating with one another.

      “This is the most comprehensive scientific publication on the distribution of fish bioluminescence ever written, and the authors show that bioluminescence evolved way more times independently than previously thought,” Prosanta Chakrabarty of the Louisiana State University Museum of Natural Science, who was not involved in the study, told Smithsonian.

    • Exploring the Effects of Dimensionality on a PDF of Distances

      Every so often I’m reminded that the effects of changing dimensionality on objects and processes can be surprisingly counterintuitive. Recently I ran across a great example of this, while I working on a model for the distribution of distances in spaces of varying dimension.

  • Health/Nutrition

    • World’s “ugliest color” will be used on cigarette packs

      According to an Australian survey, the shit brown color seen above (Pantone 448C, or “Opaque Couché”) is the ugliest hue around, reminding respondents of dirt and death. To deter smoking, Australian officials required Opaque Couché to be the main color and cigarette packages and now the UK is following suit. Apparently, Australian officials first referred to the color as “olive green” but the Australian Olive Association was none-too-pleased. Now, Pantone is grumpy about the choice of Opaque Couché. “At the Pantone Color Institute, we consider all colours equally,” Pantone’s exec director Leatrice Eiseman told The Guardian. “(There’s no such thing as the ugliest color.”

    • Stylewatch: Is Pantone 448C really the ugliest colour in the world?

      A thousand Australian smokers voted Pantone’s ‘opaque couché’ the world’s least desirable hue. But hey, it’s still in fashion …

    • Lee Fang on Industry’s Role in the Opioid Crisis

      This week on CounterSpin: Opioids can be a lifesaver for some people with severe pain. But the overuse and abuse of powerful drugs like oxycodone is driving what the Centers for Disease Control says is an epidemic in this country, with some 16,000 overdose deaths from prescription opioids a year. But when the CDC pushed for non-binding guidelines encouraging doctors to seek alternatives where possible, the opioid industry, which made $9 billion last year, pushed back.

    • European Parliament speaks out against agricultural colonialism in Africa

      MEPs have called on the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition to radically alter its mission. The Alliance currently pushes African countries to replicate the intensive agricultural practices employed in many developed countries. EurActiv France reports.

      For a large majority of MEPs, the G7’s decision to base its programme for food security in Africa on intensive agriculture is a mistake. The European Parliament took its first official stance on the subject with the adoption of a report on the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition (NAFSN) on Tuesday (7 June).

      “We have already made the mistake of intensive agriculture in Europe, we should not replicate it in Africa because this model destroys family farming and reduces biodiversity,” said Mara Heubuch, a German Green MEP and rapporteur on the New Alliance.

  • Security

    • Tuesday’s security updates
    • Security advisories for Wednesday
    • Thursday’s security updates
    • Security advisories for Friday
    • Slicing Into a Point-of-Sale Botnet

      Point-of-sale based malware has driven most of the credit card breaches over the past two years, including intrusions at Target and Home Depot, as well as breaches at a slew of point-of-sale vendors. The malware usually is installed via hacked remote administration tools. Once the attackers have their malware loaded onto the point-of-sale devices, they can remotely capture data from each card swiped at that cash register.

    • Microsoft’s BITS file transfer tool fooled into malware distribution

      Researchers at Dell SecureWorks have spotted a new and dangerous way to misuse of Microsoft’s Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS).

      While working on a customer clean-up project, SecureWorks staff found that attackers had created self-contained BITS tasks that didn’t appear in the registries of affected machines, and their footprints were limited to entries on the BITS database.

      The attack was spotted on a Windows 7 machine in an academic administration environment.

    • Massive DDoS attacks reach record levels as botnets make them cheaper to launch

      There were 19 distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks that exceeded 100 Gbps during the first three months of the year, almost four times more than in the previous quarter.

      Even more concerning is that these mega attacks, which few companies can withstand on their own, were launched using so-called booter or stresser botnets that are common and cheap to rent. This means that more criminals can now afford to launch such crippling attacks.

    • Twitter locks user accounts that need ‘extra protection’

      Better safe than sorry, or so goes Twitter’s latest thinking.

      The social network on Friday maintained it was not the victim of a hack or data breach, as previously reported. But Michael Coates, Twitter’s head of information security, wrote in a blog post that the company has identified some accounts that need “extra protection.” Those accounts have been locked, requiring users to reset their passwords in order to access them.

  • Defence/Aggression

    • ‘It as if we have created 10 open-air Bataclans and invited the jihadists to do their worst’: French bars banned from showing Euro 2016 matches on big screens for fears they could be terror targets

      Bars and restaurants in France have been banned from screening Euro 2016 matches on giant screens amid fears of a terrorist attack.

      Fans will instead have to watch games indoors or in the heavily policed fan zones across the ten host cities – which have been likened to ‘open air Bataclans’.

    • What pushes the US towards war with Russia

      First of all the US does not have a media. It has a ministry of propaganda. The media in the US is a function of the military security complex and of neoconservatives, and their ideology is world hegemony. That means American control of the entire world includes Russia and China. The neoconservative ideology says that history chose America to be the empire to rule the world. That is why they say that the United States is an indispensable country, and that the American people are the exceptional people. So, what you have here is the same ideology as Adolf Hitler. No one else matters.

    • The Democratic Party Has Destroyed Itself. Will It Now Destroy The Rest Of Us?

      Obama, Clinton and bipartisan neocons infesting Washington explain the deplorable state of America today – a democracy in name only, enriching the privileged few at the expense of most others, waging endless wars on humanity, leaving its fate up for grabs.

      Clinton was chosen Democrat party nominee last year before primary/caucus season began, assuring endless wars of aggression if elected, perhaps the madness of confronting Russia and China belligerently.

      The possibility of her succeeding Obama should terrify everyone, heightening the risk of global war with super-weapons making WW II ones look like toys by comparison.

    • The US-Russia Info-War: What’s Real?

      The Obama administration is dangling the possibility of real peace progress in Ukraine to convince the Europeans to renew sanctions on Russia, but is that just a bait-and-switch trick to keep Europe in line, asks Gilbert Doctorow.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

    • Singapore offers Indonesia aid in countering haze

      Singapore has offered aircraft, satellite photos of fires and fire-fighting assistance to Indonesia for the dry season, which runs from this month to October and often brings haze to the region.

      The assistance package, offered every year since 2005, is part of the Singapore Government’s commitment to support Indonesia’s fire mitigation efforts, the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources (MEWR) said in a statement yesterday.

      This year, Singapore is offering up to two C-130 transport planes to fly a Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) fire-fighting team to Indonesia and one C-130 aircraft for cloud seeding.

    • Restoring peatlands a game changer in anti-haze battle

      In recent months, Indonesia has taken major steps to prevent a repeat of last year’s epic fires. The Joko Widodo administration, shocked into action by the scale of the damage and impact on ordinary Indonesians, has decided to act like no other Indonesian government has before.

      These steps are crucial and long overdue, though only part of the solution.

    • IOI’s Indonesian forest fire legacy revealed at European palm oil summit

      Jakarta, 9 June 2016 – New analysis reveals the scale of fires in and around the IOI Group’s palm oil concessions in Indonesia. The findings, published today by Greenpeace International, come as the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) meets in Milan for its European Summit.

    • Singapore Aims to Prosecute Indonesian Polluters Under Haze Law

      Singapore is prepared to prosecute any Indonesian companies found responsible for the fires that produced hazardous ash clouds last year, a minister said, standing his ground even as recent efforts to take firms to account drew ire from the country’s largest Southeast Asian neighbor.

      Under the Transboundary Haze Pollution Act of 2014, Singapore has ordered six suppliers of Indonesia’s Asia Pulp and Paper Group to provide information on steps they are taking to prevent fires on their land, Environment and Water Resources Minister Masagos Zulkifli said in an interview on June 7. APP, one of the world’s largest paper producers, didn’t reply to e-mailed requests for comment, while its parent company didn’t reply to calls for comment.

      “We are standing on high moral ground,” said Masagos. “We have the support of the international community. We are not doing anything criminal nor wrong. We are just asking for the companies and the directors to own up and be accountable for what they’ve done.”

      The six companies have been told that Singapore has the right to bring their directors to court, and firms involved in haze-producing fires face fines of up to S$100,000 ($74,000) a day for every day of fire, the minister said.

  • Finance

    • 6 Ways You Didn’t Realize Ronald Reagan Ruined The Country

      Given the nature of this article, it would border on bad taste for me to mention that this past Sunday marked the 12th anniversary of the death of Conservative Republican Godhead Ronald Reagan, but alas, I just did. That said, he’d merit a mention even if I didn’t still have a bunch of decorations to take down, solely on the strength of all the comparisons the Donald Trump candidacy has drawn to that of Reagan’s.

    • Germany Waves ‘Auf Wiedersehen’ to Costly Wall Street Tax Scheme

      The German Parliament voted Thursday to end a trading strategy that helps foreign investors, many of them Americans,avoid an estimated $1 billion or more a year in taxes on dividends paid by German companies.

      The trades were exposed in a joint ProPublica investigation last month with The Washington Post and German news outlets Handelsblatt and Bayerischer Rundfunk. The report prompted widespread outrage among German lawmakers, some of whom called the maneuver “criminal.”

      This week’s vote effectively shuts down the transactions in Germany, which had been the biggest market for such trades. They live on in more than 20 other countries across Europe and other nations where authorities attempt to collect taxes on dividends.

      While German lawmakers closed the spigot on future tax losses, it remains unclear if tax officials there will be able to recoup billions of lost revenues from previous years.

    • Sen. Warren Slams For-profit College Accreditor for ‘Appalling Record of Failure’

      Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., released a report today slamming an accreditor of for-profit colleges for its “appalling record of failure.”

      “Students and taxpayers have paid the price” for the failures of the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools, she wrote in an accompanying letter to the U.S. Secretary of Education. Warren urged the Department of Education to take “strong, aggressive action to hold ACICS accountable.”

      Citing ProPublica’s reporting, Warren blasted ACICS for accrediting schools that “consistently produce astronomical debt levels and terrible outcomes for students.”

      Warren’s report comes nearly a year after she grilled members of ACICS during a senate hearing on their failure to sanction Corinthian Colleges, which kept its accreditation until the day the school collapsed in bankruptcy.

    • It’s Up to Us to Level CEO Pay

      Does anyone really need two mansions in the Hamptons, Wall Street’s favorite summertime watering hole? Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO at banking giant Goldman Sachs, has apparently decided he can get by with just one.

      Blankfein recently sold his first Hamptons manse — a seven-bedroom affair with a sunken tennis court that he bought in 1995 — for $13 million. From now on, he’ll have to make do with only his second Hamptons manse, a 7.5-acre spread that set him back $32 million in 2012.

    • Google Comes Down On The Wrong Side Of The TPP

      The TPP expands copyright rules to ridiculous levels in many countries, including extending copyright terms at a time when there is no sound basis for advocating for extending copyright terms. And the “requiring fair and reasonable copyright exceptions and limitations that protect the Internet” is just wrong. Yes, it’s true that for the first time the USTR actually acknowledges user rights in such an agreement. In the past, all such trade agreements only focused on expanding copyright holder rights. So you can argue that’s progress. But the details showed that it’s not creating “fair and reasonable copyright exceptions and limitations,” but instead pushing a misleading tool that will limit the way countries can explore fair use, and (even more important) makes the fair use stuff optional. Google claiming that it requires such things is just… wrong.

    • Devastating report reveals a bribery and fraud crimewave sweeping Britain that is costing City £127bn a year

      A bribery and fraud crimewave is sweeping Britain and is costing the City £127bn a year, a devastating report has revealed.

      A major study has uncovered how fraud is costing the economy as a whole £193bn – with the vast majority of this being lost through false invoices, dodgy payments and fake contracts.

      The study suggests banks, charities and the NHS are all major victims. And it shows that the public is also suffering, with millions of people falling victim to identity theft and other scams every year.

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • An Election Season Conversation With Ralph Nader, the Nation’s No. 1 Public-Interest Crusader

      It’s been an interesting couple of years for left-wing populist movements, from Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter to Bernie Sanders’ insurgent run for president. Driven by widening inequality and fanned by social media, some have already brought about real changes — like the fight for a $15 minimum wage across the country — while others have quietly faded away. Few people have a longer-term perspective on what it takes to have an impact than public-interest crusader and political maverick Ralph Nader, who, over the span of five decades, has leveraged the courts, the media, and the electoral system to win hefty gains for consumers and the environment. A five-time candidate for president, he’s sitting this election out, working the channels through his role with the Center for Study of Responsive Law, the research and advocacy organization he founded in 1968. The center is housed at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C., where we met in a grand, bookshelf-lined conference room and talked politics, elections, and organizing for change as the late-afternoon sun slanted through tall windows.

    • Clinton helped create Trump: Green Party’s Jill Stein blasts Hillary for already implementing Donald’s policies

      The Clintons’ own right-wing policies helped spawn the rise of far-right demagogues like Donald Trump, argues the Green Party’s presidential candidate. She warns that a Hillary Clinton presidency would only continue to fuel this right-wing extremism.

      Dr. Jill Stein, the Green Party nominee for president, spoke on Democracy Now on Thursday. She blasted Hillary Clinton for implementing many of the same policies that Trump is currently calling for, and expressed hope that Bernie Sanders will consider continuing his presidential run on a third-party ticket.

      The present electoral system “tells you to vote against what you’re afraid of and not for what you believe,” Stein said. “This politics of fear has actually delivered everything we were afraid of.”

    • Sen. Sanders Goes to Washington

      At a Bernie Sanders rally ahead of Washington D.C.’s last-in-the-nation June 14 primary, I wanted to get a sense of how his supporters would vote in the fall with Hillary Clinton now the presumptive Democratic nominee.

      Based on media accounts of how “unruly” Sanders supporters are supposed to be, I was, frankly, somewhat surprised by the number of attendees who said they would vote for Clinton, although this could partly stem from the fact that the rally on Thursday took place in Washington, D.C. which is, by definition, more comfortable with establishment politics.

      [...]

      Still others completely rejected the idea of voting for Clinton in November. “I would rather eat my own hand than cast a vote for Hillary Clinton, and you can quote me on that,” said Nikki Diamantopoulos from Baltimore County, Maryland.

    • State Department Says It Will Take 75 Years to Release All Requested Clinton Emails

      The State Department this week, apparently with a straight face, defended its claim that releasing all the emails sought by the Republican National Committee (RNC) would take 75 years. “It’s not an outlandish estimation, believe it or not,” spokesman Mark Toner told reporters.

    • Special Appeal from Senator Bernie Sanders

      It’s been a hell of a journey, we’ve come a long way, and now we are on the verge of our biggest victory! The Democratic Party is about to nominate my opponent, Hillary Clinton, who represents everything we have campaigned against from the very beginning of this race.

      I always said, this isn’t about Bernie Sanders, it is about the Revolution, the young people rising up and confronting Wall Street, confronting militarism, confronting an oligarchy that is killing us all with its climate change and low wage jobs and control of our democracy!

    • Hillary Clinton Used Leadership PAC as “Slush Fund” in 2008-09

      The Bernie Sanders campaign in April accused Hillary Clinton of “looting” her joint fundraising committee to fund her presidential campaign, effectively circumventing rules that cap donations at $5,400 per person.

      Clinton’s joint committee, called the Hillary Victory Fund, can raise $358,500 per person because it’s supposed to share money with the Democratic National Committee and state parties.

      The Sanders campaign pointed to news reports that the fund has been covering expenses for the Clinton campaign instead of spending on down-ballot races.

      The Clinton campaign called the charges irresponsible.

    • Why US Politics and Policy Are Adrift

      The U.S. system of politics and public policy is in disarray awash with elites trying to manipulate the public and the public drifting away from any factual grounding, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar explains.

    • Sanders Encourages Struggle Against Establishment Politics To Continue

      “The struggle continues,” Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders declared in a speech, which capped off his statewide campaign in California. He described the struggle broadly as one for social, economic, racial, and environmental justice.

      Sanders also noted he has overwhelmingly won young people in the majority of the United States. Young people recognize they must shape the future, and they share the Sanders campaign’s vision for a government that works for lower class citizens instead of catering to the interests of corporations and the rich.

      The primary contests did not go as well as Sanders supporters hoped. The campaign won decisively in North Dakota. It eked out a victory in Montana, but the campaign lost in South Dakota and New Mexico. It was blown out in New Jersey. Sanders did not win California, and there is ample evidence of massive irregularities at polling places, which should have Californians concerned.

    • Jill Stein to Bernie Sanders: Run on the Green Party Ticket & Continue Your Political Revolution

      As Bernie Sanders prepares to meet with President Obama, we speak to Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, who has also been reaching out to the Vermont senator. With Hillary Clinton claiming victory in the Democratic race, Stein is attempting to start a dialogue with the Sanders campaign. In an open letter in April, Stein wrote, “In this hour of unprecedented crisis—with human rights, civilization, and life on the planet teetering on the brink—can we explore an historic collaboration to keep building the revolution beyond the reach of corporate party clutches, where the movement can take root and flourish, in the 2016 election and beyond?” Stein joins us from Albany ahead of this weekend’s New York Green Party convention.

  • Censorship/Free Speech

    • Censorship makes you feel that the audience is like children

      Versatile actress Tisca Chopra will now be seen in a comic caper, ’3 Dev’ which will question the faith in a humourous way. Her last big outing on the silver screen ‘Ghayal Once Again’ was received well by the critics and moviegoers alike. In an exclusive interview to the Timesofindia.com, the ’24′ girl spoke about her future plans, censor board and more…

      [...]

      Do you agree with censor board’s way of working like it happened with ‘Udta Punjab’?

      I am against censorship in principle. I am completely averse to the idea of censoring films because that makes you feel that the audience is like children and they need to be told what they can do and what they can’t do. I think the better and smarter way to do it is to grade films with stuff like PG, A, UA certification like they grade internationally for films. There, the films are rated as ‘above 16′ and ‘above 18′. And then its parent’s choice and the children’s choice. Here, they have a strict identification at the cinema point that this child is not 18 and can’t go and see the film. We are behaving like an immature society by creating this kind of structure.

    • Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction [Ed: You don’t have to agree with a media organisation to be able to see what’s wrong with rich people shutting down Web sites they dislike. Gawker ceasing operation may mean not only that there won't be further publishing but that all existing/published material will vanish. Sad day for free media and free speech as controversial site/network destroyed by legal bullying.]

      Gawker Media filed for bankruptcy Friday and the company will be put up for auction after a judge ruled that a $140 million jury judgment against it in a costly legal battle with former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan would stand.

    • Gawker Media files for bankruptcy

      Gawker Media filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Friday, in order to protect its assets from seizure by former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan.

      In March, Hogan won a $140.1 million judgment against Gawker Media, CEO Nick Denton and former Gawker.com editor A.J. Daulerio. Following the trial, Gawker asked the presiding judge, Pamela Campbell, to either reduce the judgment or issue a routine stay to give them time to appeal the judgment. In May, Campbell upheld the full amount of the judgment. On Friday morning, she denied Gawker’s request for a stay.

    • Gawker Files For Bankruptcy, Begins Process Of Auctioning Itself Off

      Either way, this is still unfortunate. Even if you believe the Hogan case was justified (and I think you’re wrong about that), we should still be concerned when a billionaire basically sets out to destroy a media organization through a variety of lawsuits (many of which appear to be extremely questionable).

      What if the next billionaire who gets upset about coverage targets a publication you do like? And don’t say that it won’t matter if that publication doesn’t do anything wrong. Just the lawsuits alone can kill a company. And, even worse, the threat of lawsuits may create a massive chilling effect on what companies publish and how they go about their reporting. And disagree with Gawker’s decisions and tactics all you want, the company did break a ton of important news stories. While this does not mean the end of Gawker, it’s certainly the crippling of Gawker, and that should be a concern for anyone who believes in a free and open press.

    • Swedes slam ‘censorship’ of cartoon lesbian romance

      A group of Swedes have launched a petition urging Cartoon Network to stop censoring a lesbian romance depicted in one of its shows, after a scene showing two women flirting was apparently altered in the Swedish dub of the programme.

    • Bankrupting Gawker over a grudge isn’t justice. It’s censorship

      Though Gawker’s chapter 11 filing may not end it, the fact that a personal vendetta caused the act sets a chilling precedent

      [...]

      Gawker has, on occasion, run pieces which teeter on the brink of bad taste. Sometimes the site has even run pieces which fell from that ledge. But those lapses don’t justify bringing the whole structure down in flames.

      The infamous article outing a Condé Nast executive as gay last year was one of those, and Gawker was rightly excoriated for it. The 2007 story outing venture capitalist Peter Thiel was another. Stories in which people’s private sexual preferences, without genuine public interest at stake, are splashed without their consent on the front pages of newspapers or news sites have no place in a modern, enlightened press.

    • Gawker Union Takes On Peter Thiel

      The legal saga that is Hulk Hogan’s winning suit against Gawker Media for publishing his sex tape is far from over. While Gawker’s attorneys are working to postpone payment of the former professional wrestler’s $140.1 million award and filing for bankruptcy, the media company’s union is taking on Peter Thiel — the PayPal cofounder who surreptitiously bankrolled Hogan’s lawsuit.

      The Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) has launched a petition requesting Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to remove Thiel, who was one of the social network’s early investors, from the company’s board of directors.

    • Gawker Bankruptcy Filing Means Peter Thiel Has Already Won

      But that was before Hogan won a $140 million judgement from a Florida jury—and before it emerged that billionaire Peter Thiel was financing the case, in an attempt to drive Gawker out of business. And now he appears to have succeeded in doing exactly that.

      [...]

      Despite the agreement with Ziff Davis, however, there is no guarantee that it will emerge the eventual owner of Gawker Media. Since the assets the company is selling are the subject of a bankruptcy filing, there will be a court-mandated auction, and it is likely that other bidders will appear (Ziff Davis is what’s called a “stalking horse”). It’s even possible that Peter Thiel could acquire the company and shut it down, a scenario some Gawker-watchers have already speculated about.

      [...]

      Gawker may have published a handful of articles that were beyond the pale of civilized conduct or pushed the boundaries of what should be allowed by privacy rules (although it’s worth noting that two judges ruled that the Hogan material was newsworthy), but it has also done some ground-breaking and valuable journalism on a range of subjects.

      Should all of that have to be destroyed because it published some pieces that upset a billionaire or his friends? If free speech laws don’t protect media outlets that push the boundaries, then who will they protect?

      The reality is that Thiel’s vendetta has pushed an entire media organization into bankruptcy, and forced it to auction off its already damaged assets to the highest bidder. That could mean dozens or even hundreds of journalists will lose their jobs. And for what? And while some of the sites it operated may survive under new ownership, something unique will inevitably be lost. And that’s not something we should be celebrating, regardless of what we think of Gawker or Nick Denton.

    • Govt must think about film industry: Irrfan on censorship

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • As horrible as Internet surveillance is, the alternative could have been far worse

      While the Internet has turned into a global surveillance machine, with only tech-aware and privacy-aware people opting out of the surveillance, it’s important to remember that we could have had something far worse. In the 1990s, the telcos were aggressively pushing for their own version of a packet switched network – and had they won over the Internet’s simplicity, we wouldn’t even have had the option to turn on privacy today.

    • Reviewing Microsoft’s Automatic Insertion of Telemetry into C++ Binaries

      Recently Reddit user “sammiesdog” posted claims that Visual Studio’s C++ compiler was automatically adding function calls to Microsoft’s telemetry services. The screenshot accompanying their post showed how a simple 5 line CPP file produced an assembly language file that included a function call titled “telemetry_main_invoke_trigger”.

      The ensuing discussion then revolved around how to disable this unannounced “feature” while also speculating its purpose. “sammiesdog” noted that this appears in release builds, while user “ssylvan” also indicated that it appeared in debug builds too. The telemetry function is intended to communicate with ETW.

    • German Domestic Intel Chief Accuses Snowden of Working for Russia

      German domestic intelligence chief suggested that Edward Snowden was a Russian spy, the German parliament said in a Friday press release.

    • NSA’s Word Problem

      NSA analysists fill out lots of paperwork. That paper work is a core protection against NSA abuse. It constrains their activities, and facilitates legal and compliance review. As Justice Sotomayor has noted in her famous Jones concurrence the importance of costs as a constraint on surveillance. Some costs are monetary, but some costs are time. And when presented with things that require time or money, there is a natural inclination to find efficiencies.

    • Snowden Emails Reveal the NSA Used Notoriously Insecure Microsoft Word Macros

      At the heart of the NSA’s intelligence reporting process are—or at least were, in 2012—some templates using Microsoft Word macros. That’s one of the unbelievable details revealed in a series of Edward Snowden’s emails to NSA’s SIGINT Oversight and Compliance Division released to VICE News in response to a FOIA request. The revelation comes amid renewed focus in the security community on hackers’ uses of Microsoft macros as a vector to launch malware.

      In August 2012, compliance personnel in NSA’s Fort Meade headquarters had a problem. As part of NSA’s oversight of the use of congressionally-authorized spying authorities under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Department of Justice and NSA compliance personnel review the intelligence reports written by analysts to ensure they meet legal guidelines, including ensuring that analysts only targeted appropriate people and masked the identities of any Americans in the reports. But because of new security compartmentalization implemented on its network in Hawaii, personnel in NSA’s headquarters stopped being able to open the files sent by the Hawaii location.

    • The SSCI Contemplates Splitting CyberCommand from DIRNSA

      The Intercept’s Jenna McLaughlin liberated a copy of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Intelligence Authorization for 2017 which was passed out of committee a few weeks back. There are two really shitty things — a move to enable FBI to get Electronic Communications Transaction Records with NSLs again (which I’ll return to) and a move to further muck up attempts to close Gitmo.

      But there are a remarkable number of non-stupid things in the bill.

    • How Did Booz Employee Analyst-Trainee Edward Snowden Get the Verizon 215 Order?

      It’s not clear why Snowden made the switch, but we have certainly seen a number of cybersecurity related documents — see the packet published by Charlie Savage in conjunction with his upstream cyber article. Even the PRISM PowerPoint — the second thing released — actually has a cybersecurity focus (though I think there’s one detail that remains redacted). It’s about using upstream to track known cyberthreat actors.

    • Communications Show GCHQ’s ‘Oversight’ Talking Itself Out Of Performing Any Sort Of Oversight

      New documents obtained by Privacy International as a result of its ongoing litigation over GCHQ bulk surveillance shows (yet again) there’s really no such thing as “oversight” when it comes to spying. Owen Bowcott of The Guardian highlights conversations between GCHQ and its supposed oversight, in which the former talks the latter out of applying more restrictive guidelines from updated laws to its massive data intake. (Unfortunately, Bowcott discusses the documents but does not link to them, and I have been unable to locate these at Privacy International’s website.)

    • William Hague to InfoSec community: ‘there can be no absolute right to privacy’ [iophk: “the war on math continues”]

      Former foreign secretary and life peer William Hague said that in light of technological developments there can be no absolute right to privacy versus security, and that although the public is in favour of “unbreakable” encryption now, it might not remain so.

      Former foreign secretary William Hague has advised the information security community that public opinion in support of full encryption can be reversed.

      Speaking at the Infosec 2016 information security conference today, life peer of Richmond – who personally reviewed interception requests from the secret intelligent services in his previous role – outlined his views on achieving a balance between state surveillance and individual privacy.

      Hague said that, in his opinion, there can be no absolute right to privacy with technology.

      “If I was advising networks and technology companies offering unbreakable encryption – unbreakable by law enforcement authorities – I would give this advice: public opinion on this issue can turn around very quickly,” Hague said.

    • Creepy startup will help landlords, employers and online dates strip-mine intimate data from your Facebook page

      There’s a scene in the dystopian scifi novel “Ready Player One” in which the protagonist glimpses the dossier of personal information a major tech company has gathered on him. It includes his height and weight, his browser history, his address — even several years of his school transcripts.

      We’re still several years away from that vision, thankfully, but a new British startup called Score Assured has taken a big step in that direction: The company wants to, in the words of co-founder Steve Thornhill, “take a deep dive into private social media profiles” and sell what it finds there to everyone from prospective dates to employers and landlords.

    • Adobe fined by German privacy watchdog over lifeless EU-US data transfer deal

      Adobe Systems took a kick to the shins from a German privacy regulator, after the software maker was found to be using the defunct Safe Harbour deal to transfer data from the European Union to the US.

      The fine of €8,000 was levied by the office of the Hamburg Data Protection Supervisor, a regulator known for its tough stance on outfits that it feels are breaching privacy laws.

    • Sir Tim Berners-Lee: Internet has become ‘world’s largest surveillance network’

      WORLD WIDE WEB CREATOR Sir Tim Berners-Lee has said that the internet has fallen into the hands of large corporations and governments and become the “world’s largest surveillance network”.

      Berners-Lee explained in an interview with The New York Times that his invention has steadily come under the control of powerful interests.

      “It controls what people see. It creates mechanisms for how people interact. It’s been great, but spying, blocking sites, repurposing people’s content, taking you to the wrong websites completely undermines the spirit of helping people create,” he said.

    • Privacy habits: Full-disk encryption goes from optional to very recommended

      As US authorities decide they have the right to seize any data, the mandatory privacy suite expands: full-disk encryption goes from optional to very recommended, in addition to using a firewall and some sort of encrypting anonymizer.

      A decision by a U.S. appeals court says that all your hard drives can be searched without warrant to determine if you’re guilty of a crime, any crime. This means that in addition to an encrypting anonymizer (such as Tor or a VPN) and a good firewall, full-disk encryption is now a must not just for geeks and nerds, but for everybody.

    • Newspaper Association Thinks FTC Should Force Readers To Be Subject To Godawful Ads And Invasive Trackers

      This assertion continues to scapegoat ad blocking for many publications’ decision to force readers to play “find the content” when visiting their sites. As user ad blindness eventually rendered banner ads invisible, the response has been to escalate intrusion, via new ad delivery methods like popunder/popups, autoplay video ads, pervasive trackers, or escalating encroachment of ads into the “content” area. If ad blocker usage is more prevalent, publishers really have no one but themselves to blame.

      And there’s nothing out there that suggests the only way a publication can remain profitable is by assaulting users with ads and tracking them all over the internet. But that’s the narrative publishers have chosen because it’s simpler to make users conform to their wishes than it is to cede ground to site visitors’ best interests.

      [...]

      The supposed “deception” the NAA refers to is things like AdBlock Plus selling companies spaces on its “whitelist.” Then it has the audacity to make claims about the darkish shade of ad blockers’ kettles by claiming any information about these built-in whitelists is buried in the terms of service. Burial of crucial details under several pages of fine print is SOP for 99.9% of the internet — including (especially) the same tracking software the NAA says is crucial to the survival of the industry.

      The NAA also claims that evading paywalls — if enabled by ad blockers — is an “unfair method of competition.” Considering how easy it is to evade most paywalls (via referral links, Google searches, going “incognito,” etc.), it seems rather disingenuous to claim the automation of this process is somehow a violation of trade laws. For that matter, the complaint offers no proof that any popular ad-blocking extension actually offers this “service.” (There are extensions written solely for that purpose, however.)

      The complaint also takes issue with “replacement” services that substitute bad ads with better ads or offer micropayments to sites in exchange for blocking their revenue generators. The NAA insists these, too, are deceptive and should be kicked of the ‘net by the FTC.

    • NSA Looking to Exploit Internet of Things, Including Biomedical Devices, Official Says

      The National Security Agency is researching opportunities to collect foreign intelligence—including the possibility of exploiting Internet-connected biomedical devices like pacemakers, according to a senior official.

      “We’re looking at it sort of theoretically from a research point of view right now,” Richard Ledgett, the NSA’s deputy director, said at a conference on military technology at Washington’s Newseum on Friday.

      Biomedical devices could be a new source of information for the NSA’s data hoards—“maybe a niche kind of thing…a tool in the toolbox,” he said, though he added that there are easier ways to keep track of overseas terrorists and foreign intelligence agents.

      When asked if the entire scope of the Internet of Things, billions of interconnected devices, would be “a security nightmare or a signals intelligence bonanza,” he replied: “both.”

    • Intelligence: Ban The NSA

      A growing number of American politicians (and their constituents) are calling for the elimination of the National Security Agency (NSA). Yet the recent anniversaries of the World War II Battle of Midway (in 1942) and D-Day landings (in 1944) both stand as testaments as to why the NSA matters for grunts on the front line.

  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • Latest Absurd Moral Panic: Parents Complain Amazon Echo Is Creating Rude Children

      It wouldn’t be a month at Techdirt without one group or another engaging in a fit of moral hysteria over something they really don’t need to spend precious calories worrying about. Whether it’s the false claim that video games create deadly assassins, VR makes us slaves to Mark Zuckerberg, smartphones have demolished cultural civility or having Google at our fingertips makes us dumber, there’s always something new to waste time having a hissy fit over.

    • Parents are worried the Amazon Echo is conditioning their kids to be rude

      Alexa will put up with just about anything. She has a remarkable tolerance for annoying behavior, and she certainly doesn’t care if you forget your please and thank yous.

      But while artificial intelligence technology can blow past such indignities, parents are still irked by their kids’ poor manners when interacting with Alexa, the assistant that lives inside the Amazon Echo.

    • REPORT: Migrants Burn Down Asylum Centre After Not Receiving Ramadan Wake Up Call

      A massive fire at Düsseldorf’s major international trade fair grounds yesterday has been followed by reports that the blaze was set deliberately by migrants who were angry because of Ramadan.

      Officially, some 160 migrants were resident at hall 18 of the Messe Düsseldorf conference centre, but it was a facility plagued by racial conflict which had seen violence spark before. Düsseldorf’s Express newspaper reports these conflicts were not between European German staff and their guests, but between the predominantly Arab residents, and a minority of Afghans who sided with the security staff running the facility — who were mainly Iranian.

    • Germany’s migrant crisis turns into a NIGHTMARE as 80% of refugees have NO documents

      THE true scale of the migrant crisis in Germany has been uncovered as it emerges 80 per cent of asylum seekers have arrived there WITHOUT a passport – and hundreds of thousands are now planning to bring over their FAMILIES.

    • As Brasília’s Corruption Is Exposed, Lawmakers Try to Criminalize Dissent

      Leaked secret audio recordings of Brazil’s most powerful figures have sparked a series of explosive scandals in the nation’s ongoing political crisis. Now, Brazilian lawmakers are trying to outlaw publication of such recordings.

    • ‘Media Money Matters With the Olympics’

      Another one that often comes up is displacement. For example, in Beijing, 1.5 million people were displaced to make way for the Summer Olympics that year, 1.5 million. In Rio, we’ve seen 77,000 people being displaced for Olympic structures and for Olympic venues since Rio got the games in 2009.

    • Muhammad Ali: ‘The Truth Must Ultimately Prevail’

      So while media talked about Ali’s conversion to Islam, and his refusal to be inducted into the Army—because, as some even quoted, he refused, in his words, to go “10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over”—it’s still hard to convey how these things were heard, including by media, what it meant to say them, in 1967.

    • UN chief says he removed Saudi Arabia from damning human rights report under ‘undue’ financial pressure

      The United Nations Secretary General excised the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen from an annual UN register of children’s rights violators, after the middle-eastern country and its coalition partners threatened to cut off crucial funding to the world body.

      Ban Ki-Moon said the removal of Saudi Arabia from the list was “one of the most painful and difficult decisions” he has had to make as Secretary General, describing the pressure the Arab nation had exerted on the UN as “unacceptable”.

    • African-American Women Now Top the List of Most-Educated Group in the Country

      Statistics on black women and education have shown them leading all other gender and racial groups for a few years now. More than half of all black women specifically between the ages of 18 and 24 are enrolled in college, and black women overall outpace other race and gender groups in terms of college enrollment, according to the National Center of Education Statistics/U.S. Census numbers.

    • UK was Involved in Libyan Torture Flights and Politicians Knew, Say British Prosecutors

      UK Government prosecutors investigating the kidnap and ‘rendition’ of two families to Libya by MI6 and the CIA have today announced their conclusions that a senior British intelligence official was involved in the operation and had – to a limited extent – sought political approval for it.

    • My Metropolitan Police Evidence on Torture and Extraordinary Rendition

      This is a transcript of the evidence I gave, at their request, to the Metropolitan Police. I published scans of the witness statements yesterday, and a commenter has kindly transcribed them to make them web searchable. I was interviewed by the Police both at my home and at their headquarters, and it was made very plain to me that not only Sir Mark Allen, but Tony Blair, Jack Straw and numerous officials in the FCO and the Security Services were in the frame. I confess I therefore always expected the Establishment would have the case dropped despite overwhelming evidence.

      I first offered this evidence to the Gibson Inquiry, I was treated by that Inquiry as an important witness and Judge Gibson ordered the FCO to give me full access to all documents I saw while Ambassador, to refresh my memory. No. 10 panicked at this and other evidence that Gibson was doing a genuine job, and the Gibson Inquiry was closed down by Cameron with the active complicity of Nick Clegg. I was then told by the Gibson secretariat that the Metropolitan Police were taking over aspects of that inquiry. I was then contacted and interviewed by the Metropolitan Police and gave this evidence.

      [...]

      All the disciplinary allegations were false and around this time my security clearance was up for review. My security clearance reviewer contacted me to state my clearance had been passed by him but it had then been sent back to him and he had been put under pressure not to clear me. He said that he was sticking by his recommendation and my clearance was renewed.

      l was suspended for four months and sent back to Tashkent and told not to speak to anyone about the outstanding allegations. l was banned from entering embassy buildings and the stress of it all caused my health to collapse. I suffered severe heart and lung problems as a result.

      After four months of investigation l was cleared of all l8 allegations: there was a formal hearing in relation to two matters only. These related to being seen with a ‘hangover’ by a local member of staff in Tashkent and secondly misusing an embassy car, l was cleared on both counts and the evidence against me was shown to be rubbish or non-existent.

      l was however found guilty of telling someone about the existence of the allegations when I returned to Tashkent for which I was given a final written warning in January 2004.

      Later in June 2004 one of the initial telegrams l had written was somehow leaked to the Financial Times newspaper and the Times printed sections of it. This was not done by me and although I denied it I was suspended as a result and in February 2005 I resigned from the Civil Service. I was given six years early retirement severance pay.

      I firmly believe that the allegations against me were knowingly false or grossly exaggerated,. and were concocted against me deliberately to silence me after l was the only senior civil servant to enter a written objection to the policy of collusion in torture. As a consequence my career was destroyed and my health permanently damaged.

    • England fans in fresh clashes with riot police in Marseille

      French riot police made nine arrests and were involved in a series of pitched battles with England football fans in Marseille as violence threatened to overshadow the country’s opening Euro 2016 game on Saturday.

      On the eve of England’s first game in the European Championship at the city’s Stade Velodrome, riot police fired teargas repeatedly into large groups of fans who had gathered around the city’s old port.

      The fans, many of whom had been drinking heavily for much of the day, responded by hurling bottles at the police as they marched towards them.

    • Muslim waitress is assaulted in south of France for serving alcohol on first day of Ramadan

      Police have launched a criminal investigation after a Muslim waitress in the south of France was attacked for serving alcohol on the first day of Ramadan.

      The horrifying assault took place in Nice, the seaside city that will play host to thousands of football fans attending Euro 2016 next week.

      Politicians immediately claimed that the incident was an example of the growing influence of religious extremism in France.

    • African migrant smuggler extradited; wife in Sweden, money in USA banks

      An Eritrean dubbed “the general”, suspected of controlling a people-smuggling network responsible for shipping thousands of people to Europe, has been extradited to Italy.

      Prosecutors said that Medhane Yehdego Mered had a reputation for risky practices, often packing more humans than was safe, Reuters wrote. The NCA reportedly believes that Mered had arranged the transit of a boat that sank near the Italian island of Lampedusa in October 2013.

      Eritrean Medhane Yehdego Mered, accused of organising a trafficking route through Africa, is flown to Rome from Sudan.

    • Welcome to Swedenistan…and have a lousy day

      ‘All my life I’d been grateful to be part of a civilized society,’ explains Dan, whose parents were among almost the entire population of 8,000 Danish Jews, who were secretly ferried from Nazi-occupied Denmark in 1943 to sanctuary in neutral Sweden.
      ‘And, until about 2005, I felt blessed to live in a true social democracy, where people willingly paid high taxes for a fine welfare system and liberal values.’

      So what prompted – or rather drove – the amiable Dan and his gentle wife, creator of the world’s most lip-smacking gravidlax, to sell their Malmö shoreline home, rip up their roots and migrate to Spain?

      ‘Sure, the sunshine and lifestyle played some part in our decision,’ he explains. ‘But the real reason was Sweden’s changing demographics and politics. The radical, Left-wing establishment became totally obsessed with multiculturalism and political correctness, which we didn’t need reminding had been part of Swedish ethos for centuries.

      ‘But this was different. It was verging on authoritarian diktat and the open-door immigration policy was threatening the nation’s cohesion. Only a fool couldn’t see this, but there was a conspiracy of silence, or rather a policy to whitewash the adverse effects of accepting half-a-million immigrants from the Middle East, who plainly weren’t interesting in adopting Sweden’s values and Swedish culture.

      ‘The politicians, the media, the intellectuals…they all played their parts in pandering to this dangerous ideology and, sadly, it’s changing the fabric of Swedish society irreversibly.’

    • Police Defend Actions On Barricaded Suspect: ‘Property Is Last’

      The Greenwood Police Department defended the actions of its officers during a 20-hour standoff last week that left a home, where a barricaded shoplifting suspect had taken refuge, destroyed.

      “I made the right call because we’re standing here instead of standing over a casket,” said Greenwood Village Police Cmdr. Dustin Varney.

      Police believe they executed the standoff, which ended with the capture of the suspect with no one injured, tactically well. The homeowner disagrees, calling it a blatant example of excessive force because there was only one suspect inside with a handgun.

    • It’s not a Fourth Amendment search if a cop swipes your credit card, court finds

      A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that law enforcement can legally scan or swipe a seized credit card—in fact, it is not a Fourth Amendment search at all, so it doesn’t require a warrant.

      In the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals’ 15-page opinion, swiping a card does not constitute a physical search, as the magnetic stripe simply contains the same information obviously visible on the front of the card. Plus, the defendant, Eric-Arnaud Benjamin Briere De L’Isle, couldn’t have had a reasonable privacy interest in the card, the court concluded, because he would have tried to use it when he tried to buy something, thereby giving up privacy interests to a third party (the issuing bank).

      According to court records in United States v. De L’Isle, the case began in June 2014 when Eric-Arnaud Benjamin Briere De L’Isle was driving westbound on I-80 and was pulled over by a Seward County, Nebraska, sheriff’s deputy.

  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • Regulators genuinely don’t understand the Internet can work fine without their regulation

      Every now and then, we see regulators trying the most asinine move toward the Internet: banning encryption, requiring this, prohibiting that. They seem to be trying things at random, and a lot of it can be explained with regulators not being permitted to allow the Internet to come into being in the first place.

      Regulators remain utterly confused when it comes to the Internet – everything from what it is (it’s an agreement about a communications network with endpoints only) via who is responsible for it (no one, it is an organic agreement between millions much like a language) to whether human rights should apply as usual when using it (yes, very yes).

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Merck’s $200m patent damages award voided after “misconduct”

      Northern District of California judge rules Merck forfeited its right to assert patents against Gilead because of “unclean hands” and “numerous unconscionable acts”, voiding the second-largest US patent damages award of 2016 so far

      A California federal judge has ruled that Merck forfeited its right to assert its Hepatitis C drug patents against Gilead because of “unclean hands,” and voided the $200 million jury verdict that was awarded to Merck in March.

      In the conclusion of her opinion in Gilead Sciences v Merck, Judge Beth Labson Freeman of the Northern District of California wrote that: “Candor and honesty define the contours of the legal system. When a company allows and supports its own attorney to violate these principles, it shares the consequences of those actions. Here, Merck’s patent attorney, responsible for prosecuting the patents-in-suit, was dishonest and duplicitous in his actions with Pharmasset, with Gilead and with this Court, thus crossing the line to egregious misconduct.

    • Kenya’s Fledgling Innovation Agency Could Be Dissolved

      Kenya could disband its infant innovation agency and have its functions taken up by the state’s science, technology and innovation body, if changes suggested by the government to reform the science, technology and innovation (ST&I) sector are carried through.

    • Amid Allegations Of IP Theft By Corporations, Local Kenyan Innovators React [Ed: When ideas are "property", people are "inventors" (or innovators or whatever) and copying/inspiration is "theft" surely we're brainwashed]

      As start-up and innovation centres spring up across Africa, Kenya – which birthed the continent’s tech movement – is emerging as one of its leading innovation nuclei. But concerns are intensifying here that young inventors are losing their innovations to conglomerates, in what is alleged as intellectual property theft or abuse.

    • Copyrights

06.10.16

Links 10/6/2016: Maru OS, Fedora 24 Delayed

Posted in News Roundup at 7:41 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

Leftovers

06.09.16

Links 9/6/2016: Qt 5.6.1, NetOS

Posted in News Roundup at 6:52 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • 7 Open Source DevOps Products and Their Channel Impact

    We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: the DevOps mode of software development is fast becoming one of the new big forces in the channel. Here’s a look at some of the key projects and products in the open source DevOps space, and an explanation of how each one will change the way organizations create and VARs integrate software.

  • 3 open source alternatives to MATLAB

    Fortunately, there are many great open source alternatives. Depending on exactly what your objective is, you may find one or another to more aptly fit your specific needs. Here are three to consider:

  • Open source tools enable professional photography

    I find it sad that most people don’t realize how many options there are for photography software on Linux. While most Linux users are aware of GIMP, their knowledge beyond that is sorely limited. Surprising to many is the fact that professional photography on Linux is such a serious business that there are even closed source proprietary programs that are developed and sold to run on Linux.

    The ability to work with RAW files from a camera is a must for professional and amateur photographers alike. While this initially may seem like a very specific niche where the options would be limited, the open source philosophy has helped create many options. Darktable, Lightzone, Shotwell, RawTherapee, digiKam, Photivo, UFRaw, and Fotoxx are all open source options that a Linux user can choose from.

  • Fiorano ESB Goes Open Source

    The Fiorano Open Source ESB is available at:

    http://www.fiorano.com/products/open-source-esb/fiorano-esb/

    https://github.com/FioranoSoftware/FioranoESB

  • Events

    • Tokyo – Automotive Linux Summit

      AGL.automotiveITThe Linux Foundation, which promotes the general adoption of the open-source operating system, will host the Automotive Linux Summit in Tokyo July 13-14.

      The conference will bring together a range of automotive engineers, Linux experts, business executives and open-source licensing and compliance specialists.

  • Web Browsers

  • SaaS/Back End

    • ODPi: Test Less, Build More Applications With Hadoop

      According to Alan Gates, co-founder of Hortonworks and ODPi member, that’s the issue the Open Data Platform initiative (ODPi) is here to solve: create a single test specification that works across all Hadoop distributions so developers can get back to creating innovative applications and end users can get back to making money, or curing cancer, or sending people into space.

    • Databricks Community Edition Out for Everyone Now, Includes Spark Training

      Earlier this year, Databricks came out with the beta release of Databricks Community Edition, a free version of its cloud-based Spark platform. Since then, Spark has been commanding everyone’s attention, and now Databricks, which is the company founded by the team that created Apache Spark, has announced the General Availability of Databricks Community Edition (DCE), a free version of the just-in-time data platform built on top of Apache Spark, at Spark Summit 2016.

    • IBM and Other Tech Titans Raise Commitments to Apache Spark

  • Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)

  • Funding

    • Midokura raises $20M Series B round for its network virtualization platform

      Network virtualization specialist Midokura today announced it has raised a $20 million Series B round with participation from Japanese fintech company Simplex and existing investors like Allen Miner and the Innovation Network Corporation of Japan. With this round, Midokura’s total funding has now hit $44 million.

  • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

    • Open Access/Content

      • Professor, publisher clash over stance on open-source education

        In a growing climate of “publish or perish” for university faculty members, forfeiting a publishing opportunity is a unique and strong stance in any discipline. Add that to the recent news of shrinking opportunities for faculty positions in liberal arts disciplines, and Jhangiani’s position seems even bolder.

    • Open Hardware/Modding

      • FarmBot Open Source CNC Farming Robot (video)

        If like me you are lacking green fingers but would like to be able to grow your own vegetables you may be interested in a new open source CNC farming robot that has been created using Arduino hardware and awesome programming, called FarmBot.

Leftovers

  • Hardware

    • AMD Zen Reportedly Delayed Until Early Next Year

      According to reports, AMD’s Zen processors have been delayed until the start of the next year and it’s also affecting Intel’s Kabylake launch.

      While we were looking for AMD’s much anticipated Zen processors were expected to launch by the end of Q3 according to information from AMD just recently, now it’s believed that Zen might not be shipping until January 2017.

  • Security

    • University gives in to $20,000 ransomware demand

      Calgary officials agreed to pay the ransom but it will take some time for the encryption keys to be used on all of the university’s infected machines, of which there are over 100. The process is time-consuming and it is not yet known if the keys will even work.

    • University of Calgary pays hackers $20,000 after ransomware attack

      A chain of hospitals in Washington, D.C., was hit in March, while a Los Angeles medical centre shelled out $17,000 earlier this year to hackers following a ransomware attack.

    • Unintended Consequences Of Slavery In IT

      Obviously many use That Other OS for valid purposes but few would do so if this incident was on their radar. There are hundreds of such malwares. How many times will the university pay up for permission to use the hardware they own? They’ve already likely paid Intel double the value for their chips, M$, even more for permission to use Intel’s chips and now a steady stream of cyber-criminals.

    • Mikko Hypponen: Real Hackers Don’t Wear Hoodies (Cybercrime is Big Business)

      I’ll be discussing these topics, and how they apply to open source systems and to service providers further in my keynote (“Complexity: The enemy of Security”) at the OPNFV Summit in Berlin on June 22-23. See you in Berlin!

    • Your mobile phone account could be hijacked by an identity thief

      A few weeks ago an unknown person walked into a mobile phone store, claimed to be me, asked to upgrade my mobile phones, and walked out with two brand new iPhones assigned to my telephone numbers. My phones immediately stopped receiving calls, and I was left with a large bill and the anxiety and fear of financial injury that spring from identity theft. This post describes my experiences as a victim of ID theft, explains the growing problem of phone account hijacking, and suggests ways consumers and mobile phone carriers can help combat these scams.

    • Password Re-user? Get Ready to Get Busy

      In the wake of megabreaches at some of the Internet’s most-recognized destinations, don’t be surprised if you receive password reset requests from numerous companies that didn’t experience a breach: Some big name companies — including Facebook and Netflix — are in the habit of combing through huge data leak troves for credentials that match those of their customers and then forcing a password reset for those users.

    • Belgium tops list of nations most vulnerable to hacking

      A new “heat map of the internet” has revealed the countries most vulnerable to hacking attacks, by scanning the entire internet for servers with their front doors wide open.

    • Australia fourth most vulnerable nation to hacking: study

      Australia ranks fourth among the countries most vulnerable to hacking attacks, according to a study by penetration testing and information security form Rapid7.

      Belgium tops the list, followed by Tajikistan and Samoa.

      The company compiled what it calls a “heat map” of the Internet, looking for servers that had exposed ports that could be compromised.

    • University pays almost $16,000 to recover crucial data held hostage

      Canada’s University of Calgary paid almost $16,000 ($20,000 Canadian, ~£10,800) to recover crucial data that has been held hostage for more than a week by crypto ransomware attackers.

      The ransom was disclosed on Wednesday morning in a statement issued by University of Calgary officials. It said university IT personnel had made progress in isolating the unnamed ransomware infection and restoring affected parts of the university network. It went on to warn that there’s no guarantee paying the controversial ransom will lead to the lost data being recovered.

  • Defence/Aggression

    • Assange: Rasmussen Became NATO Chief After Secret Deal With Turkey, US

      Ex-Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen became NATO secretary general in 2009 in exchange for a secret deal with Turkey and the United States to close the Kurdish Roj TV satellite broadcaster operating in Denmark, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said Tuesday.

    • It’s Still Remarkably Easy For Criminals To Buy Guns On Facebook

      The ban, implemented in January, prohibits the private, person-to-person sales of guns, but allows gun clubs and licensed dealers to continue to operate Facebook and Instagram accounts. As Vocativ reported in February, the ban didn’t stop the online sale of guns, it just moved several online firearm marketplaces to other social media websites. Now, it appears private marketplaces on Facebook are still flourishing and in many cases do not appear to be adhering to the social network’s gun policy.

    • Netanyahu vows ‘decisive’ response to Tel Aviv attack

      Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday vowed a “decisive” response to Wednesday’s deadly terror attack in Tel Aviv, and said Israel’s security services would track down any who may have aided the shooters.

      Netanyahu, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman and Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan visited the Sarona Market in central Tel Aviv, site of Wednesday night’s shooting attack, following an emergency briefing at IDF headquarters, according to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office.

    • UK Illegally Harasses Russian Submarine Engaged in Lawful Passage of English Channel

      Contrary to Article 44 of the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea, to which the UK and Russia are both party, the UK has engaged in extensive illegal harassment of a Russian naval submarine engaged in fully lawful transit of the Dover Strait.

      A Russian naval vessel en route between the Baltic and Black Seas is fully and specifically entitled under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea Articles 37 and 38 to the right of passage through the strait. This is in addition to the general right of passage through the territorial sea at Article 17. The Russian navy was in full compliance with the provision at Article 20 that, while in territorial waters, the submarine must be on the surface and displaying its flag, and in compliance with Articles 29 to 32 on warships.

      Not only does the Russian Navy have every right to sail through the Dover strait on passage, it has been exercising that right – along with many other navies – for over a hundred years. The decision of the British government now to employ military harassment and threat is not only illegal, it is a gross and entirely deliberate act of provocation designed to sour international relations and disturb the atmosphere of world peace.

    • Newly released records cast doubt on FBI claims about its actions in Cambridge days after marathon bombings

      Newly released Cambridge Police Department records cast doubt on FBI claims about its agents’ activities in Cambridge in the critical hours before the Tsarnaev brothers allegedly shot and killed MIT police officer Sean Collier, carjacked another man, and engaged in a spectacular firefight with police officers in a quiet suburban residential neighborhood in Watertown. The new records provide additional backdrop to rumors among local law enforcement that the FBI has greatly misrepresented the truth about its knowledge of and relationship to the elder brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

    • After a Deadly Attack in Tel Aviv, Police Are Urged to Execute a Captive Suspect

      The civilian’s demand for the immediate, extrajudicial killing of the suspected gunman by officers echoes a similar call heard on another Tel Aviv street in March, when a police volunteer shot a Palestinian suspected of killing an American tourist, after he had already been wounded and immobilized.

    • Calling Out Drone War as a War Crime

      Night and day, U.S. “pilots” sit in cushioned chairs near Las Vegas, commanding drones on the other side of the planet, tracking and killing people, what retired Col. Ann Wright and other activists call a war crime, writes Dennis J Bernstein.

    • Democrats Are Now the Aggressive War Party

      For nearly a half century – since late in the Vietnam War – the Democrats have been the less warlike of the two parties, but that has flipped with the choice of war hawk Hillary Clinton, writes Robert Parry.

    • FBI is “Cooking Up” Cases Against Muslims

      “A 2014 study, “Inventing Terrorists: the Lawfare of Preventive Prosecution” by Project Salam and the National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms, found that almost every domestic terrorist plot from 2001 to 2010 was in some way cooked up or assisted (and eventually ‘busted’) by the FBI. The report analyzed about 400 domestic terror cases and found only that only four cases were initiated or driven without the encouragement of the bureau.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

    • Anti-Fracking Momentum Grows with Another People’s Victory in California

      Notching another victory for the growing national anti-fracking movement, voters in Butte County, California on Tuesday overwhelmingly passed a measure that bans the controversial oil and gas drilling process in their communities.

      Measure E won with 71 percent of the vote, making Butte the fourth California county to pass such a measure, following Mendocino, San Benito, and Santa Cruz counties, and adding to the growing list of states and municipalities across the nation that have come out against fracking.

      Agriculture is the top industry in Butte County, which sits just north of Sacramento. Proponents of the measure argued that threatening the aquifers with toxic fracking chemicals would destroy the “lifeblood” of the local economy.

  • Finance

    • Coalition may add clause to Japan trade deal that lets foreign companies sue Australia

      The Turnbull government is considering adding a controversial provision to the Japan-Australia free-trade agreement that would allow foreign corporations to sue the Australian government.

      It has been negotiating with Japan’s government about the plan but no conclusion has been reached.

      The provision is called an “investor state dispute settlement” (ISDS).

      ISDS provisions allow foreign corporations to sue the Australian government in an international tribunal if they think the government has introduced or changed laws that significantly hurt their interests.

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • How California is being stolen from Sanders right now

      There are a mind-blowing 4.2 million voters in California registered NPP – and they share a love for sunshine and Bernie Sanders. According to the reliable Golden State poll, among NPP voters, Sen. Sanders whoops Sec. Hillary Clinton by a stunning 40 percentage points.

      [...]

      On the other team, registered Democrats prefer Clinton by a YUGE 30 points. NPP’s can vote in the Democratic primary, so, the California primary comes down to a fight between D’s and NPP’s.

      And there’s the rub. In some counties like Los Angeles, it’s not easy for an NPP to claim their right vote in the Democratic primary – and in other counties, nearly impossible.

      Example: In Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, if you don’t say the magic words, “I want a Democratic crossover ballot,” you are automatically given a ballot without the presidential race. And ready for this, if an NPP voter asks the poll worker, “How do I get to vote in the Democratic party primary, they are instructed to say that, “NPP voters can’t get Democratic ballots.” They are ordered not to breathe a word that the voter can get a “crossover” ballot that includes the presidential race.

      I’m not kidding. This is from the official Election Officer Training Manual page 49:

      “A No Party Preference voter will need to request a crossover ballot from the Roster Index Officer. (Do not offer them a crossover ballot if they do not ask).”

    • Sanders Campaign Prepares For Run As An Independent

      A quiet burst of activity from the Sanders campaign seems to all but guarantee that Sanders will run as an independent this election cycle. All across the country Sanders’ core infrastructure of volunteers and paid staff are mobilizing to collect signatures and perform necessary paperwork to get him on the general election ballots in the states.

      Officials highly placed within the Sanders campaign remain evasive and deny that the senator plans, at this time, to run as an independent. Bernie’s campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, has stated time and time again that they intend to go all the way to the convention and make the case that Sanders should be the Democratic nominee for the 2016 general election. But the Sanders campaign is actively engaging in activities, within the states, that have no other purpose besides putting Sanders in the position of being able to run as an independent candidate against Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

    • J’Accuse! WikiLeaks Founder Assange Claims Google Has Deal With Clinton

      Moreover, the Internet giant Google is heavily integrated with the US establishment and is allying with the US exceptionalism campaign, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said Tuesday.

      “Google is heavily integrated with Washington power, at personal level and at business level… Google which has increasing control over the distribution channels… is intensely allying itself US exceptionalism,” Assange added.

      Speaking about about Hillary Clinton as presumptive presidential nominee from the US Democrat party Assange said that she “seemingly” wants to start wars, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said Tuesday.

    • Clinton tech aide asks court to keep immunity deal secret

      A former technology adviser to Hillary Clinton is seeking to keep under wraps an immunity deal the aide reached with the Justice Department in its investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state.

      A lawyer for Bryan Pagliano submitted a sealed motion and exhibits to U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan Tuesday afternoon, less than two hours before the 5 p.m. deadline Sullivan set for the filing of Pagliano’s immunity agreement.

      A legal memorandum filed publicly Tuesday confirms for the first time that Pagliano reached such an immunity agreement, and lays out arguments for why he should still be able to assert his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in a Freedom of Information Act suit a conservative group, Judicial Watch, is pursuing over Clinton’s email set-up.

    • Depoliticizing Anti-Trump Protests Plays Into Right-Wing Narrative

      Like all movements in the fascism family, Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is based on an ethnonationalist fear that impure elements within our borders (Muslims, Mexicans, “welfare thugs” and other powerless people) will fatally corrode this great nation if they’re not purged. A roundup by the Southern Poverty Law Center indicates that white nationalists are celebrating Trump as the savior for whom they’ve waited so long. Their hopes are captured in a popular neo-Nazi edit of the movie 300, which shows Trump rambling about globalism before kicking President Obama down a well shaft. The message: Emperor Trump will save white America (the one true America) from the hordes.

    • Thank You Bernie

      Sharing the bittersweet aftermath of Clinton’s likely victory, Bernie supporters have flooded the hashtag #ThankYouBernie with heartfelt thanks for a remarkable campaign by a man who’s already spent 50 years fighting to give a voice to the voiceless. They’ve thanked him for ignoring the experts, taking on the Democratic establishment, and fighting like hell; for recognizing black and poor and Palestinian lives; for newly inspiring the young and not-so-young who’d years back gave up on being inspired, but who now vow to keep on fighting; for being humble, gracious, tireless despite the denial and condescension of most mainstream media; for “accepting misfits, radicals, rabble-rousers and rappers into the inner circle of your campaign”; for speaking the truth, doing what’s right, staying on track, giving a damn. One meme circulating: “Do no harm, but take no shit.” May he, and we, prevail.f

    • Hillary Clinton’s State Department Gave South Sudan’s Military a Pass for Its Child Soldiers

      I met a few of them in the town of Pibor last year. These battle-tested veterans had just completed two or three years of military service. They told me about the rigors of a soldier’s life, about toting AK-47s, about the circumstances that led them to take up arms. In the United States, not one of these soldiers would have met the age requirements to enlist in the Army. None were older than 16.

    • Mainstream Media Didn’t Hold Back in Headlines About Clinton and Sanders

      If you were one of millions of Americans who went to the polls Tuesday night in the hope of putting Bernie Sanders in the White House, you were probably disappointed with the outcome of the most recent round of primaries. But supporters of Hillary Clinton were likely thrilled, and it seems that much of the mainstream media joined in on the revelry.

      Amid the onslaught of news coverage surrounding Clinton’s victories, perhaps the media was simply trying to engage readers with gripping headlines. But in an election season that has already seen complaints of media bias against Sanders, several of Tuesday night’s top headlines seemed to bask in Sanders’ defeat.

    • Jill Stein to Bernie Sanders: Join the Green Party Ticket (Video)

      Stein also pushed back on the notion that introducing a viable third-party element into the presidential contest at this stage would represent another “spoiler” situation that would boost presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump’s chances of taking over the White House. In other words, although a ballot featuring Trump’s and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s names may induce déjà vu for many voters, this isn’t a repeat of the 2000 election, when Green Party candidate Ralph Nader was branded a fatal distraction by Democratic contender Al Gore’s supporters.

      “Let me just say that ‘spoiler’ presumes that democracy is bad and that choices are bad,” Stein said. “And actually what’s really different from 2000 is that voters are saying, ‘Screw the system. Throw it under the bus!’ And not only the system but the candidates … and people are clamoring for independent parties and independent candidates and more voices and more choices.”

    • Why Clinton Has Already Lost Wisconsin

      The desultory, divided, and demoralized state Democratic party held its annual convention over the past weekend in Green Bay, home of the Packers. Bernie Sanders had won the state handily, and the Superdelegates went right along with the Clinton team anyway. Why would they concern themselves with the popular vote, the mass rallies, and the contrast to Hillary’s appearance in small venues or (in Madison) by-invitation-only events?

  • Censorship/Free Speech

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • NSA’s Curious Goal-Post Moving on Snowden’s Complaints

      In our piece on NSA’s response to requests for records of Edward Snowden’s complaints, Jason Leopold and I reported that a senior NSA official apologized to Admiral Mike Rogers for providing insufficient context about Snowden’s contacts with oversight entities before Snowden’s email to OGC got released on May 29, 2014. (See PDF 6 for the email and response as they got publicly released.) More importantly, we reported that the apology — written after several days of fact-checking — included at least one clear error. After we pointed that out to the intelligence community and asked questions for clarification, the NSA significantly moved the goalposts on its claims about whether Snowden had raised concerns, denying that Snowden had talked to the top three NSA officials rather than lower level ones. Here’s why I think that’s significant.

    • Former CIA, NSA Director Michael Hayden to Speak at AAPEX 2016 [Ed: Automotives event to be brought you by the guy who brags about killing people based on metadata]
    • U.K. Commons Passes Controversial ‘Snooper’s Charter’ Bill

      The U.K. House of Commons on Tuesday passed a controversial bill giving spy agencies the power to engage in bulk surveillance and computer hacking.

    • UK Parliament Ignores Concerns; Moves Snooper’s Charter Forward

      This isn’t necessarily a huge surprise, but the UK’s House of Commons overwhelmingly voted in support of the Snooper’s Charter, officially known as the Investigatory Powers Bill. As we’ve discussed, this is a dangerous bill that will give the UK government significantly more surveillance powers (or, in many cases, will “authorize” things that the UK government has already been doing on dubious legal authority), with little to no real oversight. And despite people being upset about it, it still was approved by a vote of 444 to 69. And, yes, the current version of the bill still asks for backdoors to encryption, but leaves a vague exemption if a company claims that it would not be feasible or would be too expensive. That’s better than the alternative, but it’s still a step in the wrong direction. The bill still needs to be considered by the House of Lords, but it’s disappointing that the House of Commons seemed so willing to cave to demands for more surveillance powers.

    • This is how the National Crime Agency thinks your internet connection records will look if the Snooper’s Charter passes into law

      The National Crime Agency gave a briefing to press yesterday about how it believed investigatory powers are necessary for the organisation to perform its role, and how it would like internet communication information to be displayed.

      Speaking to the press at a briefing yesterday, the same day the controversial Investigatory Powers Bill – or Snooper’s Charter – continued its journey into UK law, the National Crime Agency (NCA) laid out how it wants the internet connection records (ICR) of suspects it’s investigating to look, should the bill pass.

      The NCA is responsible for investigating organised crime like human, weapon and drug trafficking; cyber crime; economic crime and plays an increasingly important role in investigating terrorism.

    • The New York Times Is Preparing to Step Up Its War on Ad Blockers [iophk: "somehow the article(s) omit addressing properly the malware and trackers they were serving up via the "ads""]

      Like most online publishers, the New York Times is fighting an ongoing guerrilla war against ad blocking, a phenomenon that a recent study said could lead to more than $35 billion in losses for media companies by 2020. NYT chief executive Mark Thompson now says he is even considering what amounts to a nuclear option: Banning users with ad blockers completely.

    • Google To Deprecate SSLv3, RC4 in Gmail IMAP/POP Clients

      Google said that it will initiate on June 16 a gradual deprecation of SSLv3 and RC4 for Gmail IMAP/POP mail clients.

      Both the crypto protocols cipher are notoriously unsafe and are being phased out in big chunks of the Internet. Google, for its part, had already announced in May that it would no longer support SSLv3 and RC4 connections for Gmail SMTP.

    • The Troubling Metadata Sharing Program That Was Just Revealed in the UK

      For years, and in secret, UK law enforcement agencies have had access to metadata collected by the country’s powerful signals intelligence agency GCHQ.

      The fact this power has only been revealed now raises serious questions around government transparency, especially while Home Secretary Theresa May and others are pushing a controversial surveillance law on the premise that law enforcement need greater visibility into criminals using the internet.

      Through a program called MILKWHITE, revealed on Tuesday in Snowden documents published by The Intercept, the Metropolitan Police, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and more have been able to dig through GCHQ’s intercepts for things such as IP addresses.

      According to The Intercept, MILKWHITE stretches all the way back to September 2009, and may include information on British calls, emails and browsing data. (It’s not totally clear what amount or exact type of data has been provided to law enforcement—The Intercept suggests it was collected by GCHQ’s tapping of undersea cables).

    • Snowden and the NSA Gets Curiouser and Curiouser

      However, the NSA maintained then and still maintains that it could find only one email message from Snowden that touched on the subject.

      Snowden did much more than send a single email warning, Vice found.

      He had an in-person interaction with one of the people who responded to his email, for example. The NSA, the administration and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., all made efforts to discredit him, the FOIA documents revealed.

      After releasing the documents to Vice, the NSA posted them to its website, along with a reaffirmation of its original position.

    • VICE’s Vice: Snowden Scoop Promises Fire, Doesn’t Even Muster Smoke

      Over the weekend, VICE published a story entitled “Exclusive: Snowden Tried to Tell NSA About Surveillance Concerns, Documents Reveal.” If you haven’t read it, don’t bother. By its incendiary headline, the story—the product of documents released as part of a FOIA lawsuit—would purport to be an outright validation of Edward Snowden’s claims that he repeatedly tried to raise surveillance concerns with NSA officials but was ignored. But as journalist Mike Sacks put it, the story is “thousands of words promising fire and there’s not even any smoke.”

    • Watch the Full Episode: ‘State of Surveillance’ with Edward Snowden and Shane Smith

      The full episode of VICE on HBO’s ‘State of Surveillance’ is available to stream for free on VICE News.

      When NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked details of massive government surveillance programs in 2013, he ignited a raging debate over digital privacy and security. That debate came to a head this year, when Apple refused an FBI court order to access the iPhone of alleged San Bernardino Terrorist Syed Farook. Meanwhile, journalists and activists are under increasing attack from foreign agents. To find out the government’s real capabilities, and whether any of us can truly protect our sensitive information, VICE founder Shane Smith heads to Moscow to meet the man who started the conversation, Edward Snowden.

    • Muhammad Ali Was a Victim of Illegal NSA Surveillance

      With the recent passing of the boxer considered by many to be “the greatest of all time,” the world has stopped to reflect upon his legacy outside of the ring. It was no secret that Ali was just as outspoken about his political and religious beliefs as he was about his opinions of his boxing opponents. At the height of his career, the man formerly known as Cassius Clay spoke out against U.S. War in Vietnam and became a conscientious objector to the draft.

      Because of his actions that he took because of his commitment to his Islamic faith, the U.S. government jailed him for draft evasion. In response to requests for explanation of his actions, the world heavyweight champ said, “Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?”

    • Forty-One Secret Service Employees Punished For Illegally Accessing Congressman’s Private Data In Hopes Of Discrediting Him

      When Rep. Jason Chaffetz began asking the Secret Service about its string of high-profile failures, agents were quick to respond… with attempts to undermine the Congressman’s credibility. Eighteen minutes after the hearings started, Secret Service agents — dozens of them — began poring through his 2003 Secret Service application in hopes of finding a few skeletons in his previously-vetted closet.

      Even Secret Service Assistant Director Ed Lowery got in on the illegal fun, suggesting via email that “some information [Chaffetz] finds embarrassing needs to get out.” Information did get out, but it had no effect on Chaffetz’s reputation. The only people embarassed were the Secret Service and DHS head Jeh Johnson, who was forced to apologize on its behalf.

      Johnson’s press release, detailing the results of the DHS’s investigation of the incident, shows dozens were questioned about this violation of the Privacy Act. Better yet, it shows dozens were punished for their misconduct.

    • Almost three quarters don’t know powers of Bill which will ‘end online privacy and put our personal security at risk’
    • Snoopers’ Charter: ‘Independent’ reviewer worked at GCHQ

      A SUPPOSED independent reviewer for the Snoopers’ Charter worked at UK spy agency GCHQ for five years.

      MPs have already voted in favour of a third reading of the Investigatory Powers Bill, by a margin of 444 to 69, despite a huge backlash from people and pressure groups who want to see the bill shredded and never spoken of again.

      David Anderson QC, an independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, has condemned the bill and has now started a new review.

      “I will be asking whether the government has established a robust operational case for the bulk powers it says it needs, and examining whether similar results could have been reached by other, less intrusive, means,” he said.

    • FBI claimed Petraeus shared ‘top secret’ info with reporters

      The investigation that led CIA Director David Petraeus to resign and ultimately plead guilty to a criminal charge of mishandling classified information also uncovered evidence that he discussed highly classified information with journalists, according to a court document obtained Tuesday by POLITICO.

      Requesting a search warrant for Petraeus’ Arlington, Virginia home in 2013, an FBI agent told a federal magistrate the agency had two audio recordings in which the retired four-star Army general spoke with reporters about matters that authorities believed were “top secret.”

    • Snowden Docs Show GCHQ, MI5 To Be All Haystack, No Needle

      “Collect it all,” they said. “You can’t find needles without haystacks,” they proclaimed. “The more you know,” they rainbowed. All well and good, except the NSA, GCHQ, et al. appear to have far more in common with the protagonists of “Hoarding: Buried Alive” than with effective, finely-tuned terrorism-fighting machines.

      [...]

      This isn’t just an MI5 problem. And it’s not just a bulk surveillance problem. GCHQ uses the same “data broker” — a program called PRESTON, run by the National Technical Assistance Center, which is supposed to act as a go-between for intelligence agencies in order to prevent the siloing of data. But it doesn’t work. It has prevented agencies from walling each other off, but the info firehose is still too much for agencies to handle — even with more-targeted surveillance.

      Targeted collections fare little better than the bulk collections, in terms of needle location. The following chart shows how much data goes unutilized in cases where suspects are known and targeted with individualized warrants.

    • ZeroNet: An Open Source, Decentralized, And Anonymous Internet-like Network

      We have already discussed BitTorrent’s new Project Maelstrom which has the potential to change the way we interact with the Internet. When BitTorrent first announced Project Maelstrom, somewhere back in December 2014, a bunch of open source developers started a project called ZeroNet — an open alternative of Project Maelstrom.

  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • Senator Jeff Sessions Looks To Blast A Giant Hole In The 4th Amendment For ‘Emergency’ Response

      Yesterday we wrote about an already troubling attempt by Senator John Cornyn to attach a dangerous amendment to the Senate’s ECPA reform bill that would massively expand what kinds of electronic communications the FBI has access to (as we noted, the FBI already pretends it has access to this very info, so really this law would be papering over the FBI’s illegal collection of this info). But there’s another amendment, put forth by Senator Jeff Sessions, that is just as, if not more, troubling. It’s basically creating a massive loophole in the 4th Amendment, saying that any and all basic oversight can be tossed out the second the FBI declares the situation to be an “emergency.”

    • Russia Imprisoning Dozens Of Social Media Critics For ‘Hate Speech’

      We just wrote about the big social media companies agreeing to quickly take down content for “hate speech” in the EU, and warned about how problematic this was. The definition of “hate speech” matters quite a bit, and we’ve pointed out in the past how “hate speech” laws frequently morph into a tool for government censorship. So perhaps it should be no surprise at all that just around the same time that Google, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft agreed to start censoring “hate speech” in the EU, we get another story from the Associated Press about how Russia is using its own hate speech laws to imprison dozens of critics who mocked the government on social media.

    • The death of due process

      Suppose someone is accused of rape, or some other horrifying crime. If the accusation is true then the perpetrator should go to jail. If the accusation is false then the source of this false accusation should pay for this slander. Clearly someone has broken the law.

      A lynch mob forms to punish the alleged rapist by whatever means possible. A second lynch mob forms to punish the accuser, the alleged slanderer, again by whatever means possible. These mobs are full of angry people who want to be judges and juries and executioners. The members of the first lynch mob dismiss the possibility that the accusation is false. The members of the second lynch mob dismiss the possibility that the accusation is true.

      Evidently many of these people are wrong: accidentally or maliciously deceived. At the same time all of these people are convinced that they know who deserves punishment.

    • Jacob Appelbaum statement

      In the past few days, a calculated and targeted attack has been launched to spread vicious and spurious allegations against me. Given the way these accusations have been handled, I had little choice but to resign from my position as an advocate at the Tor Project and devote my full attention to completing my doctoral work on cryptography at the Technical University of Eindhoven.

      Vague rumors and smear campaigns against me are nothing new. As a longtime public advocate for free speech and a secure internet, there have been plenty of attempts to undermine my work over the years.

      Now, however, these unsubstantiated and unfounded attacks have become so aggressive that I feel it’s necessary to set the record straight. Not only have I been the target of a fake website in my name that has falsely accused me of serious crimes, but I have also received death threats (including a Twitter handle entitled ‘TimeToDieJake’).

      I think it’s extremely damaging to the community that these character-assassination tactics are being deployed, especially given their ugly history of being used against fellow members of the LGBT community. It pains me to watch the community to which I’ve dedicated so much of my life engage in such self-destructive behavior. Nonetheless, I am prepared to use legal channels, if necessary, to defend my reputation from these libelous accusations.

    • Statement on Jacob Appelbaum

      In light of the allegations that have been made, Jacob Appelbaum is no longer a member of our outside volunteer technical advisory board. We hope that the serious accusations made against him, and his denial of them, are resolved as fairly and as expeditiously as possible.

    • Community 2.0

      The accused, Jacob Appelbaum, is a friend of mine, and I was quite surprised of the accusations.

      [...]

      As for the people being accused, we also need to understand that they could end up being innocent. We need to understand that they could also end up being guilty – but that they still have rights even if so. To a fair trial for instance. It’s important that we keep our heads cool and don’t fuel fires just because we want revenge. We should use that energy to support victims and to do what the tech community does best in other circumstances: rip up the old code and reimplement new code with the new experience you have. Let’s make a community version 2.0 – now for everyone and with exception handlers for the things we miss.

    • British police accused of helping to train Saudi ‘torturers’

      British police are teaching Saudi Arabian officers skills that could lead to the torture and execution of pro-democracy activists, a charity has warned.

      Personnel from the Arab kingdom’s interior ministry have been trained in detective work and high-tech forensics as a money-maker for the College of Policing, according to Reprieve, which has branded the programme “scandalous”.

      The anti-death penalty campaigning charity said an internal document showed the long-running partnership had continued despite a brutal crackdown by the regime following the 2011 Arab Spring that led to the torture of dozens of young protesters who were sentenced to death.

    • OHP Uses New Device To Seize Money Used During The Commission Of A Crime

      You may have heard of civil asset forfeiture.

      That’s where police can seize your property and cash without first proving you committed a crime; without a warrant and without arresting you, as long as they suspect that your property is somehow tied to a crime.

      Now, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol has a device that also allows them to seize money in your bank account or on prepaid cards.

    • Pakistani mother burns daughter to death in latest shocking ‘honour killing’ case

      A Pakistani mother has been arrested on suspicion of burning her 16-year-old daughter alive for marrying without family consent in the latest so-called “honour killing” to shock the country.

      Perveen Bibi, tied her daughter, Zeenat, to a bed, doused her with fuel and then set fire to her in Lahore, police said.

    • How Corrupt America Is

      The best reporting on the depth of America’s dictatorship is probably that being done by Atlanta Georgia’s NBC-affiliated, Gannett-owned, TV Channel “11 Alive”, WXIA television, “The Investigators” series of local investigative news reports, which show, up close and at a cellularly detailed level, the way things actually work in today’s America. Although it’s only local, it displays what meets the legal standards of the US federal government in actually any state in the union; so, it exposes the character of the US government, such that what’s shown to be true here, meets America’s standard for ‘democracy’, or else the federal government isn’t enforcing federal laws against it (which is the same thing as its meeting the federal government’s standards).

      The links to three of these local TV news reports will be provided, along with a summary of each of the videos; and then the broader context will be provided, which ties the local picture in with the national, and then the resulting international, picture. So, this will be like a zoom-lens view, starting with three selected close-ups, and then broadening the view to wide-angle, showing the context in terms of which what’s happening in that fine detail (those close-up views) makes sense.

      The central video will be the second of the three, which deals with the impact that the national organization called ALEC plays in creating the entire situation in the US, and which ties the Georgia-state reality in with the reality of the US federal government.

    • FBI Comes After the 4th Amendment

      While Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are battling in their final round in the Democratic primaries and Donald Trump is arguing that Clinton should be in prison for failing to safeguard state secrets while she was secretary of state, the same FBI that is diligently investigating her is quietly and perniciously seeking to cut more holes in the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.

    • Pushing for Humane Immigration Reform

      The treatment of America’s 11 million undocumented immigrants has been a political football…

    • Newseum Honors Slain Journalists, Then Hosts Israeli Official Who Justified Killing Some

      The Newseum — a private Washington, D.C.-based museum dedicated to exhibits and events about the free press — began the week on Monday by rededicating its Journalists Memorial, which honors reporters who died in the line of fire.

      The next day, it hosted a discussion on the use of social media in war featuring a retired Israeli military official, Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, who in 2012 justified the targeted killing of Palestinian journalists whose names appear on that memorial.

      Leibovich, who now works as the director of the American Jewish Committee’s Israel office, used her time on stage to essentially reprise her role as a spokesperson for the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), using slides and videos to show how the IDF is trying to rebut what she called a biased image of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the Western media and Palestinians.

    • BuzzFeed Terminates Ad Deal With Republican Party Over Trump

      BuzzFeed has terminated a deal with the Republican National Committee to run political advertisements in the fall, the company’s CEO, Jonah Peretti, informed employees Monday morning.

      In an email, Peretti cited Donald Trump’s rhetoric and campaign promises as the reason for the decision to terminate the buy, worth $1.3 million according to a source who spoke with Politico.

      “Earlier today, BuzzFeed informed the RNC that we would not accept Trump for President ads and that we would be terminating our agreement with them,” Peretti said. “The Trump campaign is directly opposed to the freedoms of our employees in the United States and around the world and in some cases, such as his proposed ban on international travel for Muslims, would make it impossible for our employees to do their jobs.”

    • BuzzFeed Dumps Ad Deal With Republican National Committee Over Donald Trump
    • Native American Tribe Fights To Stop Texas From Auctioning Off Its Sacred Objects

      An upcoming auction in Texas intends to sell over 100 Native American items — including ceremonial pipes that are deeply sacred to the Oglala Sioux and guns that were used in the Massacre at Wounded Knee — over the objections of tribes who say it’s disrespectful.

      Attorneys for the Dallas-based Heritage Auctions say they can legally proceed with the sale. But the Oglala Sioux tribe intends to file an affidavit to prevent the sale of the ceremonial pipes.

      “These are our items, these are our laws,” Trina Lone Hill, the historic preservation officer for the Oglala Sioux Tribe, told ThinkProgress.

  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • Jesse Jackson Likens FCC Cable Box Reform Plan To ‘Snarling Dogs, Water Hoses And Church Bombings’

      Back in February the FCC voted to open up the captive cable set top box market to competition, potentially opening the door to better, cheaper hardware, but also putting an end to the $21 billion the cable industry makes annually in set top box rental fees. Shortly thereafter the cable industry responded by pushing an absolute torrent of misleading editorials in newspapers and in websites nationwide. Some of these editorials claim set top box competition will result in privacy, security, or piracy Armageddon. Most try to claim set top box competition is some kind of nefarious plan by Google to freeload on cable’s “amazing history of innovation.”

    • World Wide Web Creator Tim Berners-Lee Wants To Reinvent The Web

      Disappointed by the current state of the web, the World Wide Web creator Sir Tim Berners-Lee wishes to reinvent the web and make some amends. He feels that due to increased surveillance and barricades, the internet has deviated from its true purpose. “We don’t have a technology problem, we have a social problem,” Berners-Lee say pointing out the problem.

  • Brexit

    • Brexit: Gov’t UK voter registration site dies at worst possible moment [Updated]

      A government website used by British citizens to register to vote spectacularly failed at a key moment on Tuesday night—50,000 potential voters scrambled to log in at the same time during a major debate on the upcoming EU referendum.

      Brits had until midnight on June 7 to register to vote in the referendum. The government said that more than half a million people had added themselves to the electoral register on Tuesday. However, the number of people who attempted to access the site during the debate led to it falling over roughly an hour before the deadline for votes kicked in.

    • Nigel Farage spokesperson admits claim ’5,000 jihadi fighters have come to the EU’ isn’t true

      During last night’s EU referendum debate on ITV, Farage said: “[The boss of Europol] said that the migrant policy – and by the way these are not refugees, they are mostly economic – over the last year, sparked by Angela Merkel last year, led to up to 5,000 jihadis coming to the European Union in the space of the last 15 months.”

    • Nigel Farage destroyed by audience member in EU debate after telling woman to ‘calm down a little bit’

      Nigel Farage was blasted by a TV audience member after he told a woman to ‘calm down a little bit’ during an intense debate on the EU referendum .

      A woman grilled the UKIP leader about his views on the German sex attacks earlier this year.

      She questioned him about his comments that remaining in the EU could lead to similar attacks in the UK.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Trademarks

      • Can a foreign trade mark really trump a local one in Uganda?

        A High Court trade mark judgment suggests that a foreign trade mark registration entitles the owner to registration of that trade mark in Uganda, despite conflicting Ugandan registrations. The decision shines a spotlight on the Paris Convention, some unusual provisions of the Ugandan Trademarks Act, and the East African Community, as Chris Walters explains

    • Copyrights

      • Growing Coalition Opposes California Exerting Copyright Over Public Records

        California’s A.B. 2880 will give government agencies the power to put copyright restrictions on their work. That means state bureaucrats will be able to wrap their reports, research, e-mails, and even videos of public meetings in onerous legal restrictions, backed by federal lawsuits and six-figure penalties. The bill would change California from one of the most open state governments to one of the least open. EFF opposed the bill and explained its dangers to the State Assembly.

06.08.16

Links 8/6/2016: Linux Mint 18 Beta, Spark Summit

Posted in News Roundup at 9:52 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Russian Helicopters holding plans to switch to Linux OS

    Aircraft holding Russian Helicopters intends to switch to Linux operating system, Kamil Gazizov, CEO of RT-Inform, told reporters.

  • Why I built my own homebrew Linux router

    To be fair, setting up your own router from a generic server distro isn’t a project for everyone. It certainly isn’t user-friendly, both during the build process and once it’s finished. While it’s not terribly complex, it’s definitely arcane, with absolutely no hand holding along the way. If you aren’t already very experienced with Linux, you’ll likely do a lot of puzzled head scratching (and maybe a little cursing). You won’t get a super feature-rich build once you’re done, either—unless you go on to do a lot more for your build than I have with mine, you won’t have fancy quality of service features, usage graphs, or much of anything else besides a bare-bones (although extremely high performance) router that hands out IP addresses, resolves DNS records, connects to the Internet, and makes packets go where they’re supposed to.

  • What’s Our Next Fight?

    We won the battle for Linux, but we’re losing the battle for freedom.

    Linux turns 25 in August 2016. Linux Journal turned 21 in April 2016. (Issue #1 was April 1994, the month Linux hit version 1.0.) We’re a generation into the history of our cause, but the fight isn’t there anymore, because we won. Our cause has achieved its effects.

    It helps to remember that Linux was a fight, and so were free software and open source. If they weren’t fights, they wouldn’t have won what they did. They also wouldn’t have been interesting, meaning there wouldn’t have been any Linux stories, or a Linux Journal.

  • Fights

    Doc Searle is a thinker and strategist. He makes a lot of good observations in a recent writing but he’s bypassing the desktop PC strongholds when he declares victory for Open Source and Linux. The world is still in the wrong place when a legacy PC cannot be bought with FLOSS on it everywhere any time.

  • Desktop

    • Modularity and the desktop

      There has been much talk about modularity recently. Fedora even has a working group on this topic. Modularity is such a generic term that it is a bit hard to figure out what this is all about, but the wiki page gives some hints: …base module… …docker image… …reduced dependencies… …tooling…

    • Chrome OS vs. Endless OS

      Over the years, I’ve seen a number of attempts to create the first truly use anywhere, idiot-proof Linux PC. And until recently, Chromebooks (anything with ChromeOS) was easily the winner.

      Then a PC company known as Endless did something that really surprised me – they released their highly customized version of Ubuntu GNOME into something everyone could try. Will it beat out ChromeOS in terms of access, simplicity and overall value? Let’s take a gander and find out.

    • Linux features that you can’t live without?
    • Have the EFF investigate Microsoft for malicious practices regarding Windows 10
    • Petition condemns Windows 10 upgrade practices, asks EFF to investigate

      A petition launched Friday asks the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) to investigate Microsoft’s aggressive moves to convince and cajole users into upgrading to Windows 10.

      The request was launched on Change.org, a popular online petition website, and by early Monday had garnered more than 470 signatures.

    • Is Windows 10 ignoring sysadmins’ network QoS settings?

      An Australian sysadmin frustrated with his business’ sudden loss of performance has sparked a conversation about whether Windows 10 is behaving badly on network connections.

      To jump well into the discussion thread that points the finger at Microsoft: “We have had reports now from several people, not all our clients, reporting that their Internet connection is brought to a standstill and the common thread is that they all have Windows 10 machines recently installed.”

    • M$ Enslaves Not Only Users But Also Their Networks

      Be Free. Use Debian GNU/Linux or other FLOSS operating system.

  • Server

    • 7 DBaaS Vendors You Should Conside

      Database-as-a-service (DBaaS) puts storage and management of structured data in the cloud, offering companies functionality similar to well-known relational database management systems like MySQL, SQL Server and Oracle, with the added flexibility and lower upfront costs of the cloud.

    • Webmin 1.801 Released – A Web Based System Administration Control Panel for Linux

      Webmin is an open source web based system configuration application for Linux system administration. With the help of this tool we can manage internal system configuration such as setting up user accounts, disk quotas, services configuration like Apache, DNS, PHP or MySQL, file sharing and much more. Webmin applications is based on Perl module and it uses TCP port 10000 with OpenSSL library for communicating via browser.

    • WTF is operations? #serverless
    • What is DevOps? Kris Buytaert Explains

      Kris Buytaert is known as one of the instigators of the current DevOps movement and organizer of several related conferences, including DevOpsDays and Config Management Camp. He is a long-time Linux and open source consultant who often claims that everything is a freaking DNS problem. You can find him speaking at events and consulting as the CTO (Chief Trolling Officer) at Inuits on everything from Infrastructure as Code to Continuous Delivery.

    • ​Puppet DevOps comes to the mainframe

      Without DevOps programs such as Puppet, Chef, and Ansible, the cloud wouldn’t be possible. Now Puppet Labs is trying to work in systems management magic on IBM’s z Systems and LinuxONE.

  • Kernel Space

    • Continental, Toshiba, Hyundai Mobis join open-source connected car project

      Automotive suppliers Continental and Hyundai Mobis, electronics group Toshiba and several other companies have joined Automotive Grade Linux (AGL), a project that aims to develop an open-source, Linux-based platform for connected cars.

      Earlier this year, AGL announced a new set of codes designed specifically for the automotive industry. The new Linux distribution addresses automotive-specific applications such as navigation, communications, safety, security and infotainment functionality. The Linux Foundation, which promotes the general adoption of the Linux open-source operating system, hopes it will become the de facto standard for the auto industry.

    • Automotive Grade Linux Membership Growth Expands to Europe and Globally

      Automotive Grade Linux (AGL), a collaborative open source project developing a Linux-based, open platform for the connected car, today announced that bright box, Continental, ForgeRock, Hyundai MOBIS, Toshiba and Ubiquitous have joined The Linux Foundation and Automotive Grade Linux.

      “Our goal is to bring companies from diverse backgrounds and regions together to build an open platform that will drive rapid innovation across the entire automotive industry,” said Dan Cauchy, General Manager of Automotive at The Linux Foundation. “These new members join us from across Europe, Asia and the United States, and will help us continue to develop a global ecosystem for the connected car. We are excited to welcome these members into the AGL community and look forward to our joint collaboration.”

    • Linux Makes Progress On Prepping NVMe-Over-Fabrics Support

      Initial patches were published this week for adding initial NVMe-over-Fabrics support for the Linux kernel as set out by the NVMe 1.2b specification. This target implementation is the basics of making this new specification a reality and one of the first public implementations.

    • Graphics Stack

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • KDE neon User Edition 5.6 Available now

        KDE neon User Edition 5.6 is based on the latest version of Plasma 5.6 and intends to showcase the latest KDE technology on a stable foundation. It is a continuously updated installable image that can be used not just for exploration and testing but as the main operating system for people enthusiastic about the latest desktop software.

      • KDE Neon User Edition 5.6 Released

        The KDE project has this morning announced the release of KDE Neon User Edition 5.6, the first major version of this OS spin showcasing the latest KDE components.

        KDE Neon has been making good progress since it (re)launched earlier this year as a OS stack based upon Ubuntu but with incorporating all of the bleeding-edge KDE Plasma / Frameworks 5 components. This first major KDE Neon User Edition release incorporates Plasma 5.6.

      • KDE Plasma 5.7 To Have New Task Manager Library Supporting Wayland

        KDE Plasma 5.7 continues to look more and more like it will be running reasonably well on Wayland with close parity to the KDE stack running on X11.

      • A task manager for the Plasma Wayland session

        Plasma 5.7 will ship with a new taskmanager library. One of the reasons to implement a new taskmanager library is the port to Wayland. Our old code base was heavily relying on X11 and didn’t support the concept of multiple windowing systems. You can read more on that in Eike’s blog post about the new task manager. In this blog post I want to focus a little bit on the Wayland side of a task manager.

    • GNOME Desktop/GTK

      • Clasen: Continuing To Push Modularity On The Linux Desktop

        Matthias Clasen, well known Fedora / GNOME contributor at Red Hat, has written a blog post about the ongoing modularity work in the Linux desktop realm.

        Clasen’s blog post covers the continuing modularity of the desktop and the goal to “make it easier to get desktop applications from application developers to users.”

  • Distributions

    • The Linux Rolling Release Model

      Regardless of the operating system being used, we’re used to the idea that our current OS will become obsolete every few years, and a newer version will be released to replace the current one.

      However, some Linux distributions have adopted a different release model. Instead of releasing a new version every year, they use a model called the “Rolling Release Model” to continuously update your operating system. This means that you only have to install your OS once and will always be running the latest version.

    • Reviews

      • Sabayon 16.05

        Sabayon Sabayon is a Linux distribution that is based on Gentoo. Sabayon takes on some of the characteristics of its parent, providing users with a rolling release distribution that can make use of both binary and source software packages. Recent snapshots of Sabayon offer support for computers running on 64-bit x86 processors along with Raspberry Pi 2 & 3 computers. Perhaps the biggest new feature of Sabayon though is the launch of Sabayon Community Repositories (SCR). These new repositories provide a way for community members to build and distribute software for Sabayon without the necessity of getting their software into Sabayon’s official repositories.

        There are seven editions of Sabayon, including the builds for Raspberry Pi computers. There are several desktop editions, a Server edition and a small Minimal edition. I decided to begin my trial with Sabayon’s KDE edition which is a 2.7GB download. Booting from the distribution’s media brings up a menu asking if we would like to run Sabayon’s live desktop, perform an installation, boot to a text console, check the installation media for defects or perform a memory check. Taking the live desktop option loads the KDE desktop. The wallpaper shows a gravel road passing through farmland while a moon rises with the Sabayon logo on it. Icons on the desktop invite us to donate to the distribution, get on-line help and launch the system installer. At the bottom of the display we find the application menu, a task switcher and the system tray.

    • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva Family

      • PCLinuxOS 64 2016.06 Xfce Community Edition Arrives with Linux Kernel 4.4.11 LTS

        Thanks to one of our readers, we were able to report last week on the release of the PCLinuxOS 64 2016.06. MATE Edition operating system. However, today we would like to introduce our readers to the PCLinuxOS 64 2016.06 Xfce Edition OS.

        PCLinuxOS 64 2016.06 Xfce is a community edition, built around the lightweight Xfce 4.12 deskop environment and powered by a kernel package from the long-term supported (LTS) Linux 4.4 series. Linux kernel 4.4.11 LTS is used in the PCLinuxOS 64 2016.06 Xfce Live ISO images at the moment of the launch.

      • ROSA Desktop Fresh R7 KDE: nothing to complain… almost

        ROSA Desktop Fresh R7 KDE left a good impression on me.

        Even though the initial boot took about 500 Mb of memory, my laptop with 4Gb of RAM was capable of dealing with all the tasks I ran on it in the Live mode of this distribution in a quick and responsive manner. I felt no lags or glitches.

        The only minor things that were worth mentioning in this review were strange design of the panel and the ROSA Menu which isn’t to my taste.

        Well done, ROSA team, I hope to see your system even more improved in the future.

    • Arch Family

      • Manjaro Linux 16.06 Daniella Released

        Manjaro Linux is based onArch Linux and one of the easiest Linux distributions available. Manjaro Linux provides the distro in most major flavors including, XFCE, KDE, Gnome, LXDE, MATE, Cinnamon and more. The team has recently released its stable release Manjaro 16.06 with all the packages updated to their latest versions.

      • Manjaro Linux 16.06 ‘Daniella’ Released With New Features, Download Here

        The long-anticipated Manjaro Linux 16.06 ‘Daniella’ is now available for download. This release has arrived with the latest Linux kernel 4.4 (and 10 other kernel options) and other new features. The flagship Xfce edition of community driven Manjaro Linux comes with Xfce 4.12, bringing more polished desktop experience.

    • OpenSUSE/SUSE

      • ownCloud Summit at openSUSE Conference Cancelled

        The openSUSE project announces the immediate cancellation of the ownCloud Summit that was scheduled to take place during the openSUSE Conference in two weeks.

        The summit was scheduled for June 22 – 23.

        Given the ownCloud community has forked, openSUSE sought an amicable solution so that both communities could take part in the openSUSE conference. As this was found to not be possible, the openSUSE Board made the decision to cancel the summit.

      • Nextcloud hackweek and open BBQ!

        Yesterday we kicked off a meeting in Stuttgart to discuss Nextcloud and get work done. A first result is the establishment of the new Server repository on Github (and more repositories!) and we’ll share other things on the forums and in Github issues the coming days. The real important news however is that we decided to organize a BBQ!

      • Highlights of YaST development sprint 20

        The latest Scrum sprint of the YaST team was shorter than the average three weeks and also a little bit “under-powered” with more people on vacation or sick leave than usual. The bright side of shorter sprints is that you don’t have to wait three full weeks to get an update on the status. Here you have it!

    • Red Hat Family

    • Debian Family

  • Devices/Embedded

Free Software/Open Source

Leftovers

  • Nicola Sturgeon ranked second most powerful woman in UK

    Nicola Sturgeon has been ranked as the second most powerful woman in the UK, behind only the Queen.

    The first minister is one of six UK representatives in Forbes magazine’s annual list of the world’s most powerful and influential women.

    A Scottish government spokesman said the list underlined the importance both of the first minister’s office and the profile of Scotland as a nation.

    German Chancellor Angela Merkel topped the list for the sixth year running.

    Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton was placed second, with Janet Yellen, chairwoman of the US Federal Reserve, third.

  • The Leave campaign can’t keep dodging the biggest question

    For four years, as Leader of the Opposition, my job was to interrogate Tony Blair every week at Prime Minister’s Questions; a close approximation to trying to nail jelly to a wall.

    I used all the techniques ever devised of presenting him with a question demanding a “yes” or “no” answer, where both “yes” and “no” were politically impossible to say. And he employed every means known to a seasoned politician of addressing a question without ever coming down on either side of it.

    Even one day when the First Minister of Wales resigned minutes before PMQs – news of which reached me but not him – and I immediately tried to trick him into expressing confidence in that Minister, Blair sniffed the air, smelt the rat, and talked about Wales in general. When it came to obfuscation, he was a class act.

  • How Not to Interview Mitch McConnell

    On this subject, Charlie Rose fed McConnell another softball in the form of a middle-school civics query: “Is it a conservative government that the founders established, because they wanted… to make sure that this country didn’t rush into anything?”

  • Health/Nutrition

    • Antibiotic Resistance “Already Here” And Pipeline Is Dry, UK Health Minister Tells UN

      An estimated one million people may already die each year because they are resistant to all known antibiotics, and the number could reach 10 million per year and devastate the world economy by 2050 unless key steps are taken, experts from the United Kingdom and South Africa told a press briefing on antimicrobial resistance at United Nations headquarters today.

      “It’s already here. This is not a problem for the future,” said Prof. Dame Sally Davies, chief medical officer for England. “This is a real worry.”

    • American Wasteland: the Most Urgent Challenge for America is Its Poorly Hidden Mental Health Crisis

      The relentless tragedy of narcotic addiction, especially of opiates, across America has overwhelmed already depleted public resources, leaving a trail of devastated communities, families and lives – threatening a new lost generation.

    • At Least 33 US Cities May Be Hiding Lead in Drinking Water

      A troubling new investigation by the Guardian has found that at least 33 large cities in the United States may be improperly testing tap water in order to pass FDA regulations on allowable levels of lead. Reporters from the paper looked at 41 cities across 17 different states, and compared local officials’ water testing methods to those suggested by the EPA.

      Of the 41 cities studied, 33 were using testing methods that could potentially underestimate the amount of lead present in water, and 21 of those were using the same water testing methods employed by the officials who have now been formally charged in Flint. Due to the age of the infrastructure involved, the paper only looked at large cities east of the Mississippi River, so it’s still completely unknown what standards are being used in the rest of the country.

  • Security

    • WordPress plugin with 10,000+ installations being exploited in the wild

      The attacks have been under way since last Friday and are mainly being used to install porn-related spamming scripts, according to a blog post published Thursday. The underlying vulnerability in WP Mobile Detector came to light on Tuesday in this post. The plugin has since been removed from the official WordPress plugin directory. As of Wednesday, the plugin reportedly had more than 10,000 active installations, and it appears many remained active at the time this post was being prepared.

    • Bad Intel And Zero Verification Leads To LifeLock Naming Wrong Company In Suspected Security Breach

      LifeLock has never been the brightest star in the identity fraud protection constellation. Its own CEO — with his mouth writing checks others would soon be cashing with his credentials — expressed his trust in LifeLock’s service by publishing his Social Security number, leading directly to 13 separate cases of (successful) identity theft.

      Beyond that, LifeLock was barely a lock. It didn’t encrypt stored credentials and had a bad habit of ambulance-chasing reported security breaches in hopes of pressuring corporate victims into picking up a year’s worth of coverage for affected customers. This culminated in the FTC ordering it to pay a $12 million fine for its deceptive advertising, scare tactics, and inability to keep its customers’ ID info safe.

    • Samba 4.4.4 Fixes a Memory Leak in Share Mode Locking, Adds systemd 230 Support

      Samba 4.4 major branch was launched on March 22, 2016, and it brought support for asynchronous flush requests, several Active Directory (AD) enhancements, a GnuTLS-based backupkey implementation, multiple CTDB (Cluster Trivial Database) improvements, a WINS nsswitch module, as well as experimental SMB3 Multi-Channel support.

    • Printer security: Is your company’s data really safe?

      On March 24th of this year, 59 printers at Northeastern University in Boston suddenly output white supremacist hate literature, part of a wave of spammed printer incidents reported at Northeastern and on at least a half dozen other campuses.

      This should be no surprise to anyone who understands today’s printer technology. Enterprise-class printers have evolved into powerful, networked devices with the same vulnerabilities as anything else on the network. But since, unlike with personal computers, no one sits in front of them all day, the risks they introduce are too often overlooked.

      “Many printers still have default passwords, or no passwords at all, or ten are using the same password,” says Michael Howard, HP’s chief security advisor, speaking of what he’s seen in the field. “A printer without password protection is a goldmine for a hacker. One of the breaches we often see is a man-in-the-middle attack, where they take over a printer and divert [incoming documents] to a laptop before they are printed. They can see everything the CEO is printing. So you must encrypt.”

    • We Asked An Etiquette Expert About Home Security Cameras

      Roughly the size of a soda can, sitting on a bookshelf, and whirring away some 24-hours a day, a relatively innocuous gadget may be turning friends and family away from your home. The elephant in your living room is your Internet-connected security camera, a device people are increasingly using for peace of mind in their homes. But few stop to think about the effect these devices may have on house guests. Should you tell your friends, for instance, that they’re being recorded while you all watch the big game together?

  • Defence/Aggression

    • Syrian Gov’t Troops enter ISIL-held al-Raqqa Province, racing against US Allies

      Syrian troops, aided by a Homs-based pro-government militia the ‘Falcons of the Desert’ and under the cover of Russian air support, entered al-Raqqa Province from Hama for the first time in two years on Saturday. The southern half of al-Raqqa province is one of two major strongholds left to Daesh (ISIS, ISIL), the other one being Mosul in northern Iraq. Mosul is much bigger and more important, but al-Raqqa has symbolic importance to Daesh, since it is where the terrorist organization first established itself as a ‘state’ ruling territory. The territory also figures in Daesh’s weird theories about the Judgment Day.

    • France: White Terrorist not investigated for Terrorism even when he Vows attacks

      So Gregoire Moutaux, 25, was arrested last month by Ukraine. The French national had a large cache of deadly weapons.

      Ukraine Intelligence chief Vasyl Hrytsak said, “The Frenchman spoke negatively of the activities of his government on mass migration of foreigners to France, the spread of Islam and globalisation. He also said he wished to stage a number of terrorist attacks in protest.”

    • Netanyahu Must Decide if He’s the Prime Minister of the Jewish Nation or Israel

      Netanyahu is betraying his job. This man has to go, and soon. We are all tasked with that sacred mission, and especially the Arab citizens.

    • On Presidential Powers to Destabilize Entire Regions

      It’s definitely true we know who to hold responsible for Obamacare. Getting into the Iraq War, too — though there’s far less certainty among the public about who is responsible for the failure to negotiate a SOFA, which led to the withdrawal timeline, and (arguably) to the resurgence of what would become ISIS. Both Obama and Bush get blamed.

      But it’s an interesting argument particularly in light of Wittes’ prior dismissal of Conor Friedersdorf and Jennifer Granick’s concerns about drones and surveillance, because on those issues and many more, the Executive is shielded from much political and all legal accountability. Presidents have authorized a vast range of covert action over the years that have led to a great deal of blowback that they by definition cannot be held accountable for. Hell, as recently as 2013, the Executive was stone-walling SSCI member Ron Wyden about what countries we were conducting lethal counterterrorism operations in, and it took years of requests, starting before the Anwar al-Awlaki killing and continuing for some time after it, before Wyden was permitted to see the authorization for that.

      No one may doubt who is responsible for Obamacare, but even select oversight committees, and especially voters, simply don’t know all the things they might want to hold a president accountable for.

      And on the issues that (I think) Wittes would lump under “national security,” such secrecy, such unilateral power, actually may lead to rash and often stupid decisions. Setting aside what you think about the need for the President to have authority to order preemptive nuclear strikes (the “Bomb Power” that Garry Wills argues created the necessity for such secrecy), with such authority also comes the ability to create significant harms to the US by a thousand cuts of stupid covert action. We helped to create modern Sunni terrorism via such secret authority, after all.

    • UN Removes Saudi Arabia From Human Rights Blacklist After Just One Week, Faces Intense Backlash

      United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon removed Saudi Arabia from a U.N.-blacklist of violators of children’s human rights, after initially placing their Yemen coalition on the list last Thursday. The decision resulted in a massive outcry from rights groups who lambasted Ki-moon’s “flip-flopping.”

    • U.N. Quickly Removes Saudi-Led Coalition From Its List of Child Killers

      Under intense pressure from the Saudi Arabian government, the U.N. Secretary General removed the U.S.-backed, Saudi-led coalition in Yemen from a blacklist of child-killers only 72 hours after the list was made public.

      The coalition had been listed in the appendix of the U.N’s annual report on children and armed conflict, under “parties that kill or maim children,” and “parties that engage in attacks on schools and/or hospitals.”

      According to the report, at least 785 children were killed and 1,168 injured in Yemen last year alone, 60 percent by coalition airstrikes. The report documents dozens of coalition attacks against Yemeni schools and hospitals.

    • Israel Covets Golan’s Water and Now Oil

      Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu is defiantly asserting permanent control over the occupied Golan Heights, a determination strengthened by Israel’s extraction of water and now possibly oil from the land, writes Jonathan Marshall.

    • Crimes of the War on Terror

      Should George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Others Be Jailed?

    • Report Details How US-Backed Coup Unleashed Wave of Abuses in Honduras

      The U.S.-backed Honduran coup ushered in a wave of neoliberal policies that have systematically violated the economic, cultural, and social rights of the nation’s Indigenous people, women, and farmers, while leaving activists and rights defenders—such as the late Berta Cáceres—vulnerable to criminalization and violence.

      Such were the findings of a new report, prepared by a coalition of 54 Honduran social movements and rights organizations and presented as an alternative to the official government report submitted to the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which began its 58th session in Geneva on Monday.

      “The coup d’etat in 2009 meant an imminent reversal of human rights and a serious blow to the country’s institutions,” states the report (pdf), which is available in Spanish.

      While the study does not single out international governments that supported the ouster of the country’s democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya, it comes as former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton prepares to assume the role of Democratic nominee for president. Clinton’s role in the coup has come under increased scrutiny since the assassination of Cáceres, a Honduran Indigenous rights and environmental activist, in March.

    • Syria: The U.S. Is Unwilling To Settle – Russia Returns For Another Round

      The Obama administration does not want peace in Syria. The Russians finally have to admit to themselves that the U.S. is no partner for a continuation of a cease fire, a coordinated attack against the Islamic State and al-Qaeda and for peace in Syria. Indeed, as Lavrov explains, the U.S. has again asked to spare al-Qaeda from Russian air strikes even as two UN Security Council resolutions demand its eradication. Huge supply convoys (vid) from Turkey are again going to the “rebels” who will, as always, share them with al-Qaeda and other terrorists.

      The current renewed Syrian Arab Army attack towards Raqqa is being obstructed not only by sandstorms but also by a timely attack of al-Qaeda, Ahrar al Sham and Turkestan Islamist Party forces against government positions in the south Aleppo countryside.

    • Rehearsing for World War III

      This is Operation “Anakonda 16.” Thirty-one thousand troops, 14,000 of them American, are conducting war games designed to secure an Allied victory in World War III. The exercises involve “100 aircraft, 12 vessels and 3,000 vehicles,” and precede the upcoming NATO summit, which is expected to approve the stationing of yet more troops – mostly Americans – in eastern Europe.

    • Israel Wants a Peace Process, But Only If It’s Doomed to Fail

      In a familiar muddying of the waters, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has spent the past week talking up peace while fiercely criticising Friday’s summit in France – the only diplomatic initiative on the horizon.

      As foreign ministers from 29 nations arrived for a one-day meeting in Paris, Netanyahu dusted off the tired argument that any sign of diplomatic support for Palestinians would encourage from them “extreme demands”.

      France hopes the meeting will serve as a prelude to launching a peace process later in the year. French president Francois Hollande said he hoped to achieve a “peace [that] will be solid, sustainable and under international supervision”.

    • HRC’s War-Driven Foreign Policy

      In the last days before the California primary, where Democratic primary polls showed her neck-and-neck with Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton delivered a campaign speech in San Diego. Though her campaign billed it as a “major foreign policy address,” it looked more like a last-ditch attempt to position herself as the Democratic nominee ahead of a potentially embarrassing loss or close finish with Sanders in the nation’s most populous state.

      Indeed, most of the address was directed squarely at Donald Trump. It wasn’t a speech on Clinton’s own foreign policy so much as a takedown of the presumptive GOP nominee’s.

      Throughout, Clinton contrasted Trump’s often wild and crazy (and not to mention wildly inconsistent) positions with her own claims of having an experienced hand on the tiller (and not to mention on the button). Clinton’s overall point was that Trump is “temperamentally unfit to be president,” and that he’d be incompetent and dangerous as commander in chief.

      Much of the critique was a rehash of the GOP candidate’s bizarre and often contradictory statements on the subject. After all, Clinton found, it’s easy to critique Trump’s calls for providing nuclear weapons to Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and other countries. It’s a sure laugh-line to mention Trump’s claim that climate change is a hoax invented by the Chinese, and a guaranteed applause line (especially in a military town like the carefully chosen San Diego) to remind the audience that Trump said that POWs were not necessarily heroes.

    • Caving to Saudis, UN Takes Coalition Off Blacklist in ‘Shocking Flip-Flop’

      Just a few days after blacklisting the Saudi Arabia-led military coalition for killing children in Yemen, the United Nations on Monday removed the group from its tally of armed states that violate children’s rights during conflict.

      Amnesty International blasted the UN for “shamefully” caving to pressure to scrub the coalition from the so-called “list of shame” after an annual report found that the Saudi-led, U.S.-backed group was responsible for 60 percent of child deaths and injuries in Yemen in 2015.

      “It is unprecedented for the UN to bow to pressure to alter its own published report on children in armed conflict. It is unconscionable that this pressure was brought to bear by one of the very states listed in the report,” said Richard Bennett, representative and head of Amnesty International’s UN Office.

    • The Most Important Election Ever!

      However, even this belief in a “presidential difference” ignores that a President Gore would not have been the bearded, environmental “warrior” he has presented himself as since forfeiting the election. Gore (an opportunistic, protean, and militaristic politician flanked by a frothing hawk for his VP) would have been “commander in chief” and steward of the state and would have therefore wreaked havoc on the world as surely as Clinton did in Yugoslavia, Bush did in Iraq, and Obama did in Libya. As Obama’s drone program indicates, presidential differences here are matters of technique, but because liberals are frequently more concerned with presidential management’s form than content, they do not seem to notice that being a good manager is wholly compatible with being a mass murderer.

    • GOP Congress Plays Pentagon Budget Games

      Despite a nearly $600 billion military budget, congressional Republicans are demanding even more money for the Pentagon, while rejecting cuts in spending for military bands and resisting emergency funds to fight the Zika virus, notes Mike Lofgren.

    • 50,000 flee Boko Haram attacks in Niger: UN

      Tens of thousands of people have fled southeastern Niger following deadly attacks by Boko Haram insurgents on the town of Bosso in recent days, the United Nations said Tuesday.

    • Hindu priest murdered in Bangladesh in suspected militant attack

      The priest Anando Gopal Ganguly was attacked on Tuesday morning by three men, who came on a motorcycle, said Assistant Superintendent of Police Gopinath Kanjilal.

      Armed with sharp weapons, the assailants slit 69-year-old Ganguly’s throat around 9:30am while he was on his way to the temple he served.

      Kanjilal said that the Ganguly was on his bicycle, when the assailants first hit him on his head with a stick before slaughtering him.

      “It seems that militants might be responsible for the killing,” said Kanjilal.

      Monitoring group SITE Intelligence reported that Middle East-based Islamic State claimed the murder.

  • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

    • Voters: 50 Percent Say Clinton Should Keep Running Even If Indicted

      In a statement I never expected to see in print, half of voters said in a survey a presidential candidate should continue to run for America’s highest office even if she is indicted for national security crimes.

      For those who want historical markers to look back on, charting decline in civilization and deviations from reality, well, there’s a good one.

      The latest Rasmussen Reports survey, taken in late May, finds most voters (65%) believe Hillary Clinton is a lawbreaker, but half of all voters also say a felony indictment shouldn’t stop her campaign for the presidency.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

    • Indonesia’s forest fires threaten Sumatra’s few remaining Orang Rimba

      Indonesian land policies have turned rainforest into monoculture plantations. All photographs by Angel L Martínez Cantera

      “Our main goal is to preserve the forest according to the customary traditions of our people. If there’s no forest, there’s no Orang Rimba and the other way round,” says Bepak Pengusai, head of customs in arombong, or group area, belonging to the Orang Rimba, an aboriginal people in Sumatra.

      Indonesia’s devastating forest fires pose a serious threat to the Orang Rimba habitat. From July to late last year, the fires killed a dozen people and caused respiratory tract infections in half a million more.

    • Energy independence won’t cure climate ills

      For many governments aiming to reduce their import bills and avoid being reliant for fuel on potentially hostile or unstable foreign powers, energy independence is the ultimate goal.

      But international economists have published a report warning that it is false to believe the policy will also help to stave off climate change.

    • In Powerful Action, Anti-Pipeline Activists Sow Sacred ‘Seeds of Resistance’

      In a powerful display of opposition to the fossil fuel economy, activists in Virginia this week are planting traditional “seeds of resistance” along Dominion’s proposed natural gas Atlantic Coast Pipeline route.

      The action began Monday in Stuarts Draft, when residents met with anti-pipeline activists and members of national environmental groups to sow the sacred blue corn seeds, which were brought by a member of the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska.

      “We stand on this common ground that we care about and love,” said Mekasi Horinek Camp, Ponca Nation member and coordinator with Bold Oklahoma, which is part of the anti-pipeline Bold Alliance campaign.

    • For-Profit Pipelines Are Growing And So Are Eminent Domain Battles

      When an oil pipeline now poised to cut through four Midwestern states was first proposed in 2014, the project quickly got pushback from environmentalists and some landowners on the pipeline’s route.

      For one group, this piece of fossil fuel infrastructure was a poor investment in a time of human-caused climate change and increasing pollution. For the other, it was a threat to their land and their property rights. Residents thought it was clear from the beginning that Dakota Access, the developer, intended to claim land by condemning it via eminent domain if allowed to, and build a line intended to transport oil from North Dakota’s Bakken Formation to a market hub near Patoka, Illinois.

    • I Wrote a Book the Fracking Industry Doesn’t Want You to Read

      In the meantime, frontline communities are becoming sacrifice zones where people are sick from toxic water and poisoned air from fracking. Life on Earth is threatened if we don’t take dramatic action to save our global climate from chaos. Yet, even though we must take action to keep fossil fuels in the ground, billions of dollars are being sunk into another 40 years of fossil fuel infrastructure.

    • A Renewable Revolution Challenges Destructive Energy Paradigm

      Wind and solar power are on an exciting ride. Last year, new renewables for the first time made up more than half of the power capacity that was added around the world. New wind and solar plants, in other words, outstripped all new fossil fuel, hydropower and nuclear power plants. “Renewables are now established around the world as mainstream sources of energy,” states the Renewables 2016 Global Status Report. This is great news for the climate and for the world’s rivers.

    • Fukushima: Worse Than a Disaster

      Naohiro Masuda, TEPCO Chief of Decommissioning at Fukushima Diiachi Nuclear Power Plant, finally publicly “officially” announced that 600 tons of hot molten core, or corium, is missing (Fukushima Nuclear Plant Operator Says 600 Tons of Melted Fuels is Missing, Epoch Times, May 24, 2016).

    • EU laws protecting climate, health, considered “barriers to trade” according to US Department report

      A report published by the US Trade Representative at the end of March has indicated that a series of EU regulations that protect people and the environment act as “barriers” to US trade, and questions the need for such provisions.

      US based NGO Sierra Club has distilled the “lowlights” from the 2016 report (below) showcasing how the US is targeting climate-friendly laws, as well as regulations banning pesticides, chemicals and GM crops.

  • Finance

    • With the Trans-Pacific Partnership, It’s Obama and the GOP vs. the Democrats

      As it stands right now, the TPP’s best chance of passing is in the slim window of time between Election Day and Inauguration Day — the so-called lame duck session of Congress. This is really the easiest time for President Obama to push through a massively unpopular trade deal like the TPP without anybody noticing.

    • CETA: Luxembourg parliament resolution demands legal clarification, not ready to vote on deal

      The Luxembourg parliament voted in support of a resolution on the EU-Canada deal CETA on Tuesday (June 8), that calls upon the government to seek legal clarification on the investor rights provisions in the agreement. It also demands that CETA is a “mixed deal” requiring ratification in Member State parliaments once these legal irregularities have been addressed.

      The vote was overwhelmingly supported by all political parties, with 58 votes in favour and only 2 abstentions from the far left. The resolution refers to the legal opinions of the European Judges Association and the German Association of Judges (Deutscher Richterbund DRB) who have both heavily criticised the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) and the EU Commission’s reform proposal or Investment Court System (ICS). The DRB said in a February statement that an Investment Court System, as proposed by the Commission, had “no legal basis” and was not needed as EU and US states guarantee access to justice and grant effective protection to foreign investors.

    • Austria’s crackdown on immigration is denting its economy

      Faced with a record-breaking refugee crisis over the past year, some European countries have resorted to strict measures to stem the flow of migrants and asylum seekers arriving at their borders.

      Austria, in particular, has made it difficult for refugees to enter the country. In February 2016, for example, the country imposed a daily cap on the number of asylum seekers that could enter from its southern border—limiting it to just 80 a day. (In 2015 the country received 90,000 asylum claims, equivalent to 1% of its population.)

    • The Guardian view on the EU referendum debate: register to vote now

      Opinion polls show the leave campaign is gaining, but remain can still win. First things first, however – make sure you are registered before midnight on Tuesday

    • India Seeks To Renegotiate 47 Investment Treaties Because Of Their Corporate Sovereignty Clauses

      Corporate sovereignty has become a big issue as a result of its inclusion in TPP and TAFTA/TTIP, but it’s present in hundreds of other trade and investment treaties.The heated discussion of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) chapters in those negotiations has led some countries to realize that corporate sovereignty could prove very costly to them one day.

    • Uber and Deregulated Hypercapitalism Increasingly Leave Americans Unprotected

      Last week in San Diego, Calif., an Uber driver was charged with 20 counts of sexual assault-related charges stretching back several years, only months after he allegedly raped an intoxicated young woman who sought a ride home. (Uber immediately fired the driver after that incident last winter.) The attack, which was rare but not unprecedented, prompted Uber’s competition, the traditional taxi industry, to demand the Golden State require ride-share drivers undergo police-conducted fingerprinting and criminal background checks—which Uber has fervently opposed.

    • Three guys and a paper

      A new paper on “Neoliberalism: Oversold?” by Jonathan D. Ostry, Prakash Loungani, and Davide Furceri (pdf), is attracting a great deal of publicity these days.

      It’s not really because of the arguments in the paper, which are basically some pretty mild criticisms of some aspects of neoliberalism. It’s only because of where the paper appeared— in Finance and Development, a quarterly magazine published by the International Monetary Fund.

      But it’s a mistake to assume the IMF has rejected neoliberalism.

    • Accreditor of For-profit Colleges Agrees It Needs a Makeover

      A much-criticized group that accredits for-profit colleges announced Monday that it would temporarily stop taking new applications from campuses.

      The Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools described the move as an effort to restore “trust and confidence.”

      ProPublica and others have detailed serious problems at the organization. As ProPublica reported, students at ACICS-accredited schools graduate at particularly low rates and often can’t pay off their debt.

      “Every aspect of the agency must be re-evaluated, fortified and enhanced,” said ACICS’ top executive Anthony Bieda in a press release.

    • Paul Ryan’s Radical Anti-Poverty Plan Would Make Poverty Worse

      Three months after apologizing for calling poor people “takers,” House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) unveiled his plan to make life harder for them.

      Ryan delivered remarks about the plan, entitled A Better Way, at a drug rehab center in Anacostia, an impoverished and heavily black neighborhood of Washington, D.C., as part of a broader rollout of House Republican priorities this week.

      Ryan has become the leading voice in Republican lawmakers’ crusade against welfare programs. In the past, he’s blamed poverty on a “culture problem” in “inner cities,” where he says black men are “not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work.” He has also argued that marriage is the cure for poverty, not government programs, and refused to allow any actual poor people testify at his hearings on poverty. He seemed to back away from some of the more racially loaded rhetoric in March, saying he was wrong to refer to people stuck in poverty as “takers.”

    • Ryan’s GOP Regurgitates “Anti-Poverty” Policies that Amount to War on Poor

      Continuing the GOP’s war on the poor, Speaker Paul Ryan and House Republicans unveiled an ostensibly new “anti-poverty” plan on Tuesday, marked by cuts to critical safety-net programs and further austerity.

      According to Politico, “much of this latest initiative is repackaged GOP proposals”—and the last time around, those ideas weren’t very popular.

    • Social Security’s Enemies Are Down – But They’re Not Out

      Not so long ago, Social Security was endangered by a “bipartisan” consensus that sought to cut its benefits – already lower than those of comparable countries – as part of a “grand bargain.” President Obama even put a slow-motion benefit cut into one of his proposed budgets, in the form of a reduction in cost-of-living increases.

      And nobody talked much about raising taxes on the rich. That, they said, was “politically impossible.”

    • Singapore weighs international court system in EU trade agreement
    • ‘Wet Kiss for Wall Street’: Warren Shreds GOP Attempt to Gut Dodd-Frank

      A Republican plan to dismantle key banking reforms passed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis has been dubbed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) the “Wet Kiss for Wall Street Act.”

      Rep. Jeb Hensarling, a Republican from Texas, outlined his proposal—the Financial CHOICE (Creating Hope and Opportunity for Investors, Consumers and Entrepreneurs) Act—in a speech at the Economic Club of New York on Tuesday. The legislation contains “sweeping provisions that effectively constitute a wish list for Republicans,” according to American Banker.

    • Despite ‘Moral Angst’ About Inequality, World’s Richest Just Keep Getting Richer

      At a moment when the wealthiest one percent own more money than the rest of the world combined, a new report finds that in 2015 the world’s richest people were able to sit back and watch their assets grow by 5.2 percent to a stunning $168 trillion.

    • Abolish All Work Immediately

      Naturally, they fail to mention that not all ‘work’ pays, whereas jobs generally guarantee an income. The problem with jobs is that they sound a lot less glamorous than the more aspirational model of ‘work’, which supposedly makes you frei, and not just in the nazi sense of the word. Thus you’ll be hard pressed to meet anyone who isn’t a filmmaker, IT consultant, or “poet”. Tell people what you actually do for money and they’ll react as if you said “I kill surplus baby animals at a petting zoo with my own bare hands” or “I shoot ping pong balls out of my hoohoo in exchange for tequila shots” – as if that’s somehow worse than “leading a global team of market analysts for a European bank”. People who have jobs can fight for improved working conditions. People who ‘work’ at non-jobs as freelancers, interns or just aspirants in the field are unlikely to challenge the status quo. Thus ‘work’ is heralded as value producing, worthwhile and fulfilling, whereas jobs are for shmucks who can’t compete in the “real world”.

    • All about the money

      A commonly overlooked but very simple mechanism for promoting decent work in global supply chains is to improve the recovery of unpaid wages.

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • How Hillary Clinton “Clinched “The Nomination On A Day Nobody Voted

      Yet the AP and other media continued to do so. Why? It’s just blatant bias from the ostensibly neutral mainstream media for the status quo candidate Hillary Clinton.

      That should be enough to turn the U.S. population away from these organizations forever. Yet there’s more. In calling the nomination for Hillary, the Associated Press had to get commitments from a few more super delegates. They achieved that feat yesterday evening (mind you, they still haven’t actually voted), and they kept the names anonymous. Yes, you read that right.

    • Quick: How Many Delegates Does Hillary Clinton Have?

      As of May 31, Hillary Clinton has 13,221,091 votes to Bernie Sanders’ 10,340,549. Those numbers include the raw vote counts from the caucus states with the exception of Wyoming and several territories which have not released raw vote counts. They do include Washington caucus numbers but not its primary vote counts. Washington’s delegate allocation process is druidic, with candidate preferences calculated to the third decimal point.

    • Glenn Greenwald Is Spot-On About AP’s Premature Declaration of Hillary Clinton as the Dem Nominee
    • Is This Evidence of Collusion Between Hillary Clinton and the AP Over Clinton’s ‘Secret Win’?
    • Big Money’s Conquest of Democratic Party

      As Hillary Clinton finally clinches the Democratic nomination, the big question facing Democrats is: are they now the party of big money and elite special interests or will the Sanders’ revolt live on and grow, write Bill Moyers and Michael Winship.

    • Los Angeles Election Chief Dismissive of Ballot Shortage Concerns for Hillary Clinton vs. Bernie Sanders California Election Contest

      Poll workers in Los Angeles County are reporting that they are short, in some cases well-short, of the number of Democratic and No Party Preference cross-over Democratic ballots required for their precincts tomorrow under California Elections Code Section 14102 (a)1, (a)2, and (b). Dean C. Logan, L.A. County’s Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, is dismissive of these claims, however, suggesting that precinct inspectors should be speaking to his office instead of the media and offering a definition of “registered voters” that flies in the face of Federal law and California’s Secretary of State guidance in accordance with Federal law.

    • Hillary Clinton vs. Bernie Sanders: Tom Hayden vs. Norman Solomon

      So we’re looking at a quandary here where Bernie’s the winner on a moral and even a political basis. He’s made history, and she’s the winner on the mathematical basis. And then you have Trump. So it could be the tightest, most hazardous race in political history and we can’t afford to allow Trump to slither through. So that’s where I’m at.

    • ‘The Struggle Continues’: Sanders Refuses to Bend the Knee to Establishment

      Bernie Sanders refused to concede the race for the Democratic Party presidential nomination on Tuesday night even as he congratulated his rival Hillary Clinton on her primary wins and thanked his supporters for their determined commitment to the ‘political revolution’ he has championed throughout the hotly contested primary season.

      “If this campaign has taught us anything,” he told an enthusiastic and cheering crowd in Santa Monica, California just after 10:30 pm local time, “it has proven that millions of Americans who love this country are prepared to stand up and fight to make this country a much better place.”

      When Sanders took the stage, and as of this writing, major news outlets had awarded three of the day’s six contests–New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Dakota–to Clinton, while Sanders was able to claim victories in both Montana and North Dakota.

    • Failure of America’s Two Parties

      The U.S. political process, which fancies itself the world’s “gold standard,” is ready to foist on the American people two disdained candidates, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, raising profound doubts about the two-party system, writes Nat Parry.

    • Trump Doubles Down On Racist Attack Against Federal Judge

      In a lengthy statement released on his website, Donald Trump defended his racist attacks on the federal district court judge overseeing the fraud case against Trump University. Trump has said the judge, Gonzalo P. Curiel, was not capable of fairly adjudicating the case because of his “Mexican heritage.” Paul Ryan today described Trump’s comments as “textbook racism.”

    • California Senate President: Trump’s Attack on Federal Judge is Racist, Anti-Immigrant

      Leading Republicans have continued to criticize presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump for attacking a Mexican-American judge. Trump has said the judge should recuse himself from a lawsuit against the defunct for-profit Trump University, because his Mexican heritage represents a conflict of interest, since Trump wants to build a wall on the Mexican border. We get a response from Kevin de León, president pro-tem of the California Senate, and Los Angeles city councilmember and former California state legislator Gil Cedillo.

    • Here’s Paul Ryan Calling Out Donald Trump for Racism But Urging People to Vote for Him Anyway

      House Speaker Paul Ryan refused to withdraw his endorsement of Donald Trump on Tuesday even as he acknowledged that Trump made “racist” and “indefensible” comments about the Mexican heritage of Gonzalo Curiel, the federal judge overseeing a suit against the defunct Trump University.

      In a remarkable 45 seconds captured on video by CNN, Ryan, who is currently the highest-ranking elected official in the Republican party first called Trump’s comments obviously racist and then immediately urged Americans to vote for him anyway.

    • Republicans Show Just How Much of Trump’s “Textbook Racism” They Will Tolerate

      Testing the endurance of the proverbial ‘camel’s back’ on Tuesday, many mainstream Republicans claimed to have reached their threshold of blatantly discriminatory remarks made by the anointed party nominee, Donald Trump.

      Throughout his campaign, the New York billionaire has insulted entire sectors of people, from Mexicans and Muslims to women and people with disabilities. Despite this, the party has widely gotten behind his candidacy.

      But the conservative world appears to be in free-fall after Trump defiantly stood by his assertion that the U.S. district court judge presiding over the Trump University case would not give a fair hearing because of his Mexican heritage.

      As evidenced by the mid-Tuesday press conference by House Speaker Paul Ryan, many in the party appeared conflicted. While Ryan acknowledged that the remarks were indeed “the textbook definition of racist comments,” he said that he will continue to support Trump for president.

    • California’s primary has oily fingers all over it

      In the months leading up the California primary, all eyes have been focused on the Hillary vs. Bernie cage match. That’s too bad, because there’s another Democrat-on-Democrat struggle going on in the race for the California Assembly that’s full of suspense. It’s another episode in Big Oil’s ongoing fight to roll back the state’s ambitious climate laws.

    • Bernie Sanders’s big crowds in California, by the numbers

      During the month leading up to Tuesday’s primary, Bernie Sanders essentially turned California into a second home. The senator from Vermont campaigned the same way in the Golden State that he has since the outset of his White House bid: by staging rallies that draw eye-popping crowds.

      In California, the feat has been particularly impressive because of the Democratic hopeful’s ability to attract supporters in such big numbers day after day, up and down the state.

    • 4 Reasons Bernie Sanders Could Fight On

      Why Clinton’s call for Sanders to fall in line misreads the 2016 race

    • Sanders Supporters Cry Foul over Clinton’s Suspicious “Secret Win” Email

      Twitter blew up on Tuesday after it was revealed that an email sent to Hillary Clinton supporters—one celebrating Monday’s premature and controversial nomination call—contained an image labeled “secret win” which gave many the impression that the campaign was ready to pounce even before the Associated Press and other outlets made their surprise announcements on the eve of Tuesday’s primaries.

    • Truthdig Sits Down With Green Party’s Jill Stein

      Watch the entire discussion below, although the first video is cut off early because of Facebook’s time limit. The second segment, while much shorter, is a sign-off from Stein and the Truthdig staff.

    • First GOP Rats Are Starting To Jump Sinking Toxic Trump Ship

      With the Drumpf reality show getting ever more deranged, moronic and in-your-face racist – moving from trashing a judge whose parents happen to be Mexican to a possibly Muslim or female one – the GOP is tap-dancing as fast as it can to simultaneously deplore and support their candidate, haplessly arguing that while their candidate may be a racist dick, he’s their racist dick. As Republicans realize their guy is going to stay the same thin-skinned, babbling, narcissistic, vindictive jerk with the impulse control of a four-year-old, it’s surreal to hear them trying to toe the impossible line between ditching their party and selling their soul. Hence, their blizzard of double-speak: His attacks on Judge Gonzalo Curiel are “textbook racism,” “offensive and wrong,” “un-American”; then again, “I don’t know all the facts,” “I think we’re all sort of used to remarks being made that we don’t expect,” it’s “a more dimensional issue,” “I’m not going to comment about everything he says and doesn’t say (or) we’d never get anything done,” and from Maine’s own Susan Collins, “I continue to hope that Mr. Trump will rethink his position…I continue to believe in redemption.” Yeah, good luck with that.

    • Kirk: ‘I cannot and will not support my party’s nominee’

      I have spent my life building bridges and tearing down barriers — not building walls. That’s why I find Donald Trump’s belief that an American-born judge of Mexican descent is incapable of fairly presiding over his case is not only dead wrong, it is un-American.

      As the Presidential campaign progressed, I was hoping the rhetoric would tone down and reflect a campaign that was inclusive, thoughtful and principled. While I oppose the Democratic nominee, Donald Trump’s latest statements, in context with past attacks on Hispanics, women and the disabled like me, make it certain that I cannot and will not support my party’s nominee for President regardless of the political impact on my candidacy or the Republican Party.

    • Supreme Court To Consider What Happens When Race Discrimination Hides In Plain Sight

      Racial gerrymandering cases are rarely easy for courts to decide. On the one hand, the Constitution requires courts to treat racial classifications in the law with extraordinary skepticism. On the other, laws such as the Voting Rights Act require states to pay attention to race when they draw legislative maps, and the Constitution gives them some leeway to do so. The Supreme Court’s opinions explaining how to walk the line between these two conflicting concerns are not a model of clarity.

    • Nina Turner: ‘We’re Going All the Way to the Convention’ (Video)

      “We are being tested in this moment because there will never another candidate like Bernie Sanders.”

    • Sanders and Clinton Vying for More than California on Final Big Tuesday

      It might be hard to believe, but California is not the only state voting in the presidential primaries on Tuesday.

      Contests will also take place in New Jersey, North and South Dakota, New Mexico, and Montana—and could have some impact as Bernie Sanders supporters hold their ground against corporate media claims that Hillary Clinton has already clinched the nomination.

      In New Jersey, which has 126 delegates available, polls open at 6am and close at 8pm. It is a closed primary, which means that voters must be registered for the political party holding the contest in order to cast a ballot. However, the state does allow same-day registration. Live results will be available here.

      Moving further west, North Dakota will hold an open caucus at 7pm local time, and voters are encouraged to arrive at least an hour early. Those in line by the deadline will still be allowed to caucus. As the NWI Times noted, 2016 marks the first year that both Democratic presidential candidates took the trouble of opening up offices in a state that has not voted blue since 1964, although there are only 23 delegates up for grabs. According to FiveThirtyEight, Sanders is expected to sweep the state by 38 percentage points. Track live results here.

    • Clinton may take the nomination, but Sanders has won the debate

      Clinton may take the nomination, but Sanders surely has won the political debate. He started at single digits in the polls and was widely dismissed as a “fringe” candidate. He has astounded even his supporters, winning more than 20 contests, 10 million votes and 1,500 pledged delegates, the most of any true insurgent in modern history. He has captured the support of young voters by record margins. And he did so less with personal charisma than with the power of his ideas and the force of the integrity demonstrated by spurning traditional deep-pocketed donors in favor of grass-roots fundraising. Harvard researchers found that Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 have actually become more progressive over the course of the campaign. Sanders hasn’t merely won a seat at the table, he’s started a sea change in Democratic politics that the party will have to adjust to.

    • Action Alert: AP’s Premature Call for Clinton Does Disservice to Democracy

      AP Count: Clinton Has Delegates to Win Democratic NominationThe Associated Press (6/6/16) has unilaterally declared Hillary Clinton to be “the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee for president,” based on the news agency’s own polling of unelected superdelegates.

      Superdelegates—who have a role in the Democratic nominating process based on their institutional positions rather than being chosen by voters—do not vote until the Democratic National Convention, to be held on July 25. They can declare their intention to vote for one candidate or another, just as voters can tell pollsters who they intend to vote for before Election Day, but like voters they can (and do) change their mind at any time before the actual voting. Media do not generally call elections weeks before the actual voting based on voters’ intentions.

      The timing of AP’s announcement–on the eve of primaries in California, New Jersey, New Mexico, Montana and South Dakota, and caucuses in North Dakota—raises concerns of voter suppression, intentional or not. The six states choose a total of 806 delegates on June 7, making it the second-biggest day in the Democratic primary calendar (after “Super Tuesday,” March 1, when 865 delegates were at stake).

      News outlets generally withhold the results of exit polling until voters have finished voting, regardless of how far ahead the leading candidate is, because they don’t want to confuse poll-based speculation with the actual electoral results. AP, it seems, has no such qualms.

    • Sanders camp blasts media for ‘suppressing voter turnout’

      Bernie Sanders’ campaign manager laid into the media on Tuesday for allegedly suppressing voter turnout, ripping into news outlets’ calls projecting Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee while reiterating that his candidate would pursue the nomination all the way until next month’s convention.

      “Let those people vote and decide before the media tells them that the race is over,” Jeff Weaver told CNN. “What’s the point of suppressing voter turnout in six states across the country to have a quick news hit that could easily have been done tonight?”

      Sanders has said that he would do well in California and five other states voting Tuesday if there is a large turnout. Discussing Sanders’ next moves, Weaver noted that the District of Columbia still has its primary next Tuesday.

    • North Carolina superdelegate endorses Sanders

      The Associated Press may have declared Hillary Clinton the Democratic nominee, but Bernie Sanders is still picking up superdelegates.

      Democratic National Committeewoman Pat Cotham, a North Carolina superdelegate, said Monday evening she would support Sanders. The endorsement came on the eve of contests in California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota and South Dakota.

    • Trump University Documents Reveal Trump’s Scary Approach To Schooling

      Newly released documents from Trump University have inspired another round of questions about the company’s dubious business practices. But the documents also shed light on how presumptive GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump views education — and what education policies he might roll out if he wins the election.

    • Perfect End to Democratic Primary: Anonymous Superdelegates Declare Winner Through Media

      Last night, Associated Press – on a day when nobody voted – surprised everyone by abruptly declaring the Democratic Party primary over and Hillary Clinton the victor. The decree, issued the night before the California primary in which polls show Clinton and Bernie Sanders in a very close race, was based on the media organization’s survey of “superdelegates”: the Democratic Party’s 720 insiders, corporate donors and officials whose votes for the presidential nominee count the same as the actually elected delegates. AP claims that superdelegates who had not previously announced their intentions privately told AP reporters that they intend to vote for Clinton, bringing her over the threshold. AP is concealing the identity of the decisive superdelegates who said this.

      Although the Sanders campaign rejected the validity of AP’s declaration – on the ground that the superdelegates do not vote until the convention and he intends to try to persuade them to vote for him – most major media outlets followed the projection and declared Clinton the winner.

    • Does Sanders Have a Plan B?

      The Democrats introduced the super delegate system back in 1982, in order to prevent another populist upsurge in the early 1970s with the grassroots George McGovern campaign; and as a response to another outsider, Jimmy Carter, who turned out to be a disaster for the party in the 1980 election.

    • Declaring Clinton’s Premature Victory

      The mainstream media has run out screaming headlines and saturation TV coverage on AP’s tally that Hillary Clinton has nailed down the Democratic nomination, but the claims are misleading, reports Joe Lauria.

    • Rome, Brexit, Trump and Greens – so many forms of establishment meltdown: revolution in the making?

      Rome, London, Washington, Wien: these are different and distant places. Yet it is rather obvious nowadays to connect the dots and read them as just nation-specific symptoms of a worldwide phenomenon. We are witnessing what is increasingly looking like the meltdown of an entire political and economic system which has governed the developed world for at least three decades.

      In Italy, the results of yesterday’s election of local city councils surpassed even the expectations of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement. In Rome, the city which has lived for decades almost exclusively off salaries paid by a heavily indebted and inefficient central administration, only one out of ten electors voted for the Democratic Party of the PM, Matteo Renzi.

    • In California and Beyond, Sanders Democrats and Independents Needed to Stop Trump

      Despite the acrimony and​ deep​ ideological debate raging within the Democratic Party, the vast majority of both Clinton and Sanders​ supporters​ know America must defeat Donald Trump. ​They​ ​just vehemently disagree about how to​ best​ ​ ensure his loss.

      Californi​a primary voters can ​force Democrats to engage​ productively​ across the divide​​ ​ if they mak​e​ the unconventional​ political​ move​ to register the big picture, not simply the dynamics within the Democratic National Committee confines.

    • The Racial Divide Between Sanders and Trump

      As I sat in the San Diego sunshine yesterday listening to Bernie Sanders outside of Qualcomm Stadium, I was struck by the stunning contrast between the senator and Donald Trump, particularly on the issue of race.

      Sanders emphasized racial justice, citing the courage of African Americans and their allies who fought against racism and bigotry during Jim Crow. He talked of the thousands of undocumented workers who are ruthlessly exploited, overworked and underpaid, vowing to end the current deportation policies. Sanders seeks to “unite, not divide families.” And he wants to “fundamentally change” the federal government’s oppressive relationship with the Native American community.

      There are more people in U.S. prisons than in any other country in the world, Sanders noted. Those imprisoned, he said, are disproportionately African Americans, Latinos and Native Americans. The senator wants to invest in “jobs and education, not jails and incarceration.”

    • Most Dems Want Open Primaries: Poll

      Amid new charges of an “undemocratic” presidential primary, over 60 percent of Democratic voters and Democratic-leaning voters assert that they want the party to hold open nominating contests, an NBC News/Survey Monkey poll released Tuesday found.

      A majority of Republicans and voters leaning toward the Republican Party also prefer open primaries and caucuses.

      As the number of independent voters has risen in recent years, many voters have argued that closed primaries are disenfranchising a large portion of the population.

    • If Sanders Has Lost, What Have the Democrats Won?

      In the midst of an intensifying primary, the mainstream media joined as one to announce Hillary Clinton as the presumptive Democratic nominee for President. While she lacks a clear majority of pledged delegates, the expected support of as yet to vote superdelegates has apparently handed her a hard won victory against an impassioned Bernie Sanders and the growing progressive movement propelling him forward.

      Indeed, this announced “triumph” comes on the eve of a California primary where Sanders is surging in popularity and attracting hundred of thousands of new registered voters with his calls for no less than a “political revolution.” Rather than racing confidently toward the finish, Clinton is limping with desperate vigor to hold on tightly to her once inevitable coronation as the nominee. Far from celebration, her success is tinged with establishment concerns over how much she has been damaged as a candidate and broader worries over whether this will be ultimately a pyrrhic victory.

    • Establishment Media Commit Massive Act of Malpractice And Claim Clinton ‘Clinched’

      The Associated Press and NBC News inappropriately reported Hillary Clinton made history and “clinched” the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. It spurred other media organizations, such as CNN and the New York Times, to follow suit and splash their home pages with big headlines indicating Clinton was the nominee.

      In engaging in this act, establishment media improperly influenced five primaries scheduled for June 7, including the California primary, one of the biggest contests in the presidential race thus far. They collectively stooped to a new sycophantic low.

      The reports of “clinching” are entirely based on an unofficial survey of superdelegates, which the AP and NBC News has conducted throughout the 2016 election. They both determined Clinton reached the “magic number” needed to clinch, which is 2383 delegates.

      But if it is true that history happened, why didn’t Clinton’s own party congratulating her? How come there was no statement from the Democratic National Committee?

      As of 12 am ET on June 7, the DNC had released no statement. There was no status update on the DNC’s Facebook page. There was no message sent or retweeted about Clinton making history.

      Is that not a bit odd to journalists in the media or do journalists and pundits covering this election have their heads so deep in the Clinton campaign that they do not care to even fake objectivity and fairness anymore?

  • Censorship/Free Speech

    • Go Home, State Council Information Office Of The People’s Republic Of China, You’re Drunk

      Techdirt has written plenty of stories about the Chinese government’s attempts to stifle dissent online using a variety of heavy-handed approaches.

    • Ukraine struggles to balance censorship and security as war in east wears on

      But the message came at a time when Western journalists and human rights groups have been speaking out over mounting censorship in the country. Just two weeks ago, Poroshenko banned 17 Russian media executives and journalists from entering Ukraine as part of the fight against Kremlin propaganda or Russia’s “information war.”

      The ban issued on May 27 has been widely condemned by Western organizations, even though Ukraine lifted sanctions on 29 foreign journalists in a second decree issued on the same day.

    • State Department Tries to Send Embarrassing Press Video Down the Memory Hole

      Last week the State Department revealed that an unknown official within its public affairs office ordered the scrubbing of roughly eight minutes from a video of a State press briefing, which included a discussion about negotiations related to the Iran nuclear deal.

      In the deleted portion, then-spokesperson Jen Psaki (above) was asked whether her predecessor lied when she said secret bilateral talks with Iran had not yet begun, when later U.S. officials said they were already ongoing at that point.

      A few days later, after the news broke of the deletion, Secretary of State John Kerry said that whoever called for deleting the several minutes of video was being “stupid, clumsy and inappropriate.” Kerry emphasized that he intends to find out who was responsible, adding that he didn’t want someone like that working for him.

    • The War on Syria and the Refugee Crisis: Censorship and “Humanitarian Propaganda”, NGOs Support America’s “Moderate Terrorists”

      The genuine and positive forces seeking change in Syria disappeared long ago. James Foley documented the reality in Syria after his illusions were dispelled in Fall 2012. So did the native Aleppan known as Edward Dark. Initially he and his friends supported the uprising but then realized what it meant. While there is an array of jihadi factions, the conflict has crystallized into its essence: a brutal war of aggression with foreign funded mercenaries and international jihadis on one side, and a struggling multi-ethnic, multi-religious Syrian army and allies on the other.

    • Web Sheriff Accuses Us Of Breaking Basically Every Possible Law For Pointing Out That It’s Abusing DMCA Takedowns

      Remember Web Sheriff? That’s the wacky firm that claims it will send DMCA takedowns on your behalf or protect your online reputation by taking down stuff you don’t like. The company is somewhat infamous for being a joke and not doing its job particularly well. A couple of weeks ago we wrote about the company abusing the DMCA to try to get Google to delist stories relating to that “celebrity threesome” media injunction in the UK that has been making news for a few months. We highlighted just how ridiculous this was on many accounts, including using a copyright takedown notice on an issue that wasn’t about copyright at all. And they even tried to take down the company’s own Zendesk request to remove content from Reddit.

    • Japanese Media Subject to Self-, Not Gov’t Censorship – NHK Journalist

      Japanese journalists do not face political censorship problems, but are subjected to self-censorship, executive commentator of the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) Ichiyo Ishikawa told Sputnik on Tuesday.

    • Tanjug director: Internet censorship very present

      Internet censorship is possible, and it is very present, Tanjug Director Branka Djukic said in Moscow Tuesday at an international forum titled “The New Era of Journalism: A Farewell to the Mainstream.”

      The forum, organised by the Rossiya Segodnya agency, brought together media experts from over 30 countries of the world – the United States, the United Kingdom, France, India, China, Armenia, Egypt, Azerbaijan, the United Arab Emirates and others.

    • Kelly McParland: China’s microphone diplomacy flops in Ottawa

      In strict diplomatic terms, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s recent visit to Canada could not be termed a success.

      It was the first visit by a Chinese foreign minister in seven years. It was also the first opportunity for the new Liberal government to demonstrate its eagerness to patch up relationships it claims were strained under the Conservatives. Luo Zhaohui, China’s ambassador to Canada, says a lot of important work got done: the launch of a mechanism to improve dialogue; talks on trade and business relations; plans to increase student mobility, fight corruption and “hunt-down and surrender … fugitive offenders.” And, of course, the usual “candid and in-depth exchange of views on sensitive issues…of mutual concern.”

    • China should be pressed on human rights at every opportunity

      Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s scolding of a Canadian reporter for daring to ask a question about human rights in China has made headlines around the world. The unexpected rant reflects China’s attempt to export its own values, especially censorship, to the West.

    • China attempts to export censorship

      Minister Wang Yi’s scolding of a Canadian reporter for daring to ask a question about human rights in China has made headlines around the world. The unexpected rant reflects China’s attempt to export its own values, especially censorship, to the West.

      Instead of a spontaneous display of anger, the performance was clearly staged. Chinese officials are asked about human rights everywhere they go, and so the question itself should not have been surprising. What was odd was that while the question was directed at Canada’s foreign affairs minister, Stephane Dion, the Chinese minister stepped in to respond.

    • Gov. Cuomo’s Anti-BDS Bill is a First Amendment Nightmare

      On June 5 New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law an executive order aimed at the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement. BDS is a non-violent economic and political protest against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.

    • The current aggressive campaign against anybody who speaks out for Palestine is gathering force

      The current aggressive campaign against anybody who speaks out for Palestine is gathering force. It’s most obvious manifestation lies in the ridiculous claims of “anti-semitism” against many left wing or radical campaigners who have worked against all racism their entire lives. As the establishment becomes more desperate to portray any thought or expression outside their neo-con orthodoxy as illegitimate, the related attack on supporters of Palestine becomes increasingly shrill.

    • Postal censorship is a cure worse than the disease

      Canadians who value free speech – and let’s hope that is all of us – should be deeply troubled by Ottawa’s decision to tell Canada Post to stop carrying a fringe Toronto newspaper. Public Services Minister Judy Foote ordered the postal service to cease delivering Your Ward News, which has been accused of being anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi. Her “interim prohibitory order” gives its editor 10 days to appeal.

      Those who have campaigned against the free paper are “ecstatic.” But consider the awful precedent this act of postal censorship sets.

    • Media Censorship Becomes Global Phenomenon – Press Agency Head

      Censorship of media has become a global phenomenon, Michalis Psilos, president and general director of the Athens-Macedonian Press Agency (ANA-MPA), said Tuesday.

    • DA: Parliament must call SABC to account over ‘rampant censorship’ after SAfm show axed
    • SABC calls silencing editors a ‘revamp’
    • Parliamentary briefing on SABC’s censorship needed – Phumzile Van Damme
    • Canning SAFM current affairs show ‘another form of censorship’
    • Cancelling of The Editors on SAfm is more SABC censorship, the DA says
    • B-Town stands united against censorship of ‘Udta Punjab’
    • ‘Udta Nowhere’: Why Udta Punjab kind of censorship will spell doom for Indian cinema
    • Anurag Kashyap on Udta Punjab censorship row: Anyone opposing the film is guilty of promoting drugs
    • With Udta Punjab, it’s Now Time for Censorship to be Re-Redefined
    • Politics of censorship
    • Why We Must Thank Censor Chief Pahlaj Nihalani

      Pahlaj Nihalani, the current chairman of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) deserves our collective thanks for exposing just how absurd, arbitrary and abused our film screening regulations are. After a string of decisions that imposed his own dogmatic view of decency, propriety and culture on an unsuspecting public, the CBFC’s decision on Balaji Motion Pictures’ Udta Punjab has shown everyone just how much the board constituted for film certification has operated as a vehicle for film censorship.

    • Bollywood filmmaker challenges censoring of drug-abuse film
    • Film censorship continues and spreads in India

      Reports that the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) has asked for many cuts in Abhishek Chaubey’s Udta Punjab as well as sought the removal of “Punjab” from its title give a complete lie to the government’s pronouncements that it would like to usher in an era of reduced control on films.

    • Chorus in Bollywood: ‘Fraternity has to stand by what’s right’
    • B-Town slams censorship on ‘Udta Punjab’

      Filmmakers including Karan Johar, Mahesh Bhatt, Ram Gopal Varma among others today criticised Censor Board of Film Certification (CBFC) for censoring the content of upcoming film “Udta Punjab”.

    • Axl Rose DMCAs Unflattering Photo For Which He Doesn’t Hold The Copyright

      Show of hands: who remembers Axl Rose? Last we here at Techdirt checked in on him, Rose was busy suing video games and hassling music bloggers over album leaks. The younger among you may chiefly be familiar with his Axl-ness via a somewhat popular string of internet memes centered on some rather unflattering pictures of the musician taken from a concert in 2010.

      [...]

      Now, TorrentFreak reached out to Minkevich, who had no idea this takedown blitz was underway. He confirmed that some concerts do indeed make photographers sign these types of agreements, but couldn’t recall if this concert included one or not. Web Sherrif, who certainly should be able to produce the agreement, having taken the lead on the copyright claims, isn’t doing so. When asked, Web Sherrif’s response was instead to insist that even if the photographer had not signed an agreement — leading me to believe he probably didn’t –, that Rose would still be able to claim ownership over the photo.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • FBI Sends Computer Information Collected By Its Hacking Tools In Unencrypted Form Over The Open Internet

      The FBI doesn’t want to talk about its secret malware, but with over 100 child porn prosecutions tied to it, it’s had to discuss at least a few aspects of its Network Investigative Technique (NIT).

      In yet another prosecution — this one actually taking place in Virginia for a change — the FBI is once again struggling to withhold details of its NIT from the defense. Suppression of the evidence likely isn’t an option, as the warrant it obtained in Virginia was actually deployed in Virginia. I’m sure the FBI is as surprised as anybody by this fortuitous coincidence. But the defendant still wants access to more information, as he is looking to challenge the evidence the FBI collected with its Tor-defeating exploit.

      The defendant, Edward Matish, has questions about the chain of custody. FBI Special agent Daniel Alfin, who has testified in other Playpen/NIT cases inadvertently admits there could be problems here, considering the FBI does nothing to protect the information it collects from suspect’s computers from being intercepted or altered.

    • EFF Urges Senate Not to Expand FBI’s Controversial National Security Letter Authority

      The controversial National Security Letter (NSL) statute could be significantly expanded under two separate bills currently being debated by the Senate. Every year, the FBI issues thousands of NSLs to telephone and Internet companies, demanding records about their customers and gagging the companies from informing the public about these requests. NSLs are inherently dangerous to civil liberties because their use is rarely subject to judicial review. But NSLs are not magic, and they don’t require recipients to do whatever the FBI says. Above all, the type of information available to the FBI with an NSL is quite limited, reflecting the need to tightly control the extrajudicial nature of this controversial power.

    • New Intelligence Bill Gives FBI More Secret Surveillance Power

      A Senate bill published late Monday night includes a new provision that would give the FBI more power to issue secret demands, known as national security letters, to technology, internet, communications, and banking companies for their customers’ information.

      The provision, tucked into the Senate Intelligence Authorization Act, would explicitly authorize the FBI to obtain “electronic communication transactional records” for individuals or entities — though it doesn’t define what that means. The bill was passed by the Senate Intelligence Committee last week.

    • Why Is the Government Poison-Pilling ECPA Reform?

      At each stage of this gutting process, Feingold’s effort to end bulk collection got watered down until, with Sessons’ amendments, the Internet dragnet was permitted to operate as it had been. Almost the very same time this happened, NSA’s General Counsel finally admitted that every single record the agency had collected under the dragnet program had violated the category restrictions set back in 2004. Probably 20 days later, Reggie Walton would shut down the dragnet until at least July 2010.

      But before that happened, the Administration made what appears to be — now knowing all that we know now — an effort to legalize the illegal Internet dragnet that had replaced the prior illegal Internet dragnet.

    • The Danger of Corporate Facial Recognition Tech

      Supporters of unregulated corporate facial recognition systems are waging a sneak attack against our nation’s strongest protection of biometric privacy. On one side are business interests seeking to profit by using invasive facial recognition technologies to identify and track vast numbers of people without their consent. On the other side are EFF and many other digital privacy and consumer rights organizations. Our side won the latest round. But the future of biometric privacy will require all of our constant vigilance.

      The latest example of successfully working together: privacy advocates sprung into action last month and defeated a bill that would have repealed most of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, a groundbreaking law protecting your biometric data. The bill would have deregulated scans of faces, irises, retinas, and hands, and left in place regulation only of fingerprints and voiceprints. In addition to gutting people’s privacy, it would also have undercut lawsuits pending against Facebook and other companies for violating the original strong law. The bill, filed just before the Memorial Day weekend, appeared set for quick passage before the end of the regular legislative session.

    • Vulnerabilities in Facebook Chat and Messenger exploitable with basic HTML knowledge

      Check Point’s security research team has discovered vulnerabilities in Facebook’s standard online Chat function, and its separately downloaded Messenger app.

      The vulnerabilities, if exploited, would allow anyone to essentially take control of any message sent by Chat or Messenger, modify its contents, distribute malware and even insert automation techniques to outsmart security defences.

    • Secret GCHQ spy programme ‘Milkwhite’ collected UK civilian social media data to share with MI5

      Since at least 2009, a number of law enforcement agencies in the UK have had access to troves of metadata collected by British signals intelligence outfit GCHQ with the use of a highly secretive spy programme called ‘Milkwhite’.

      The previously undisclosed programme was described in documents leaked by former NSA-contractor Edward Snowden and published by The Intercept. It reportedly involves the collection of records belonging to domestic UK citizens – including metadata from social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn and chat services such as WhatsApp.

    • Assange: 80 percent of NSA budget privatized

      WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said in a televised address to an international media forum that 80 percent of the US National Security Agency’s (NSA) budget has been privatized as part of the merger between power and big business.

      “There is a merger between the corporate organizations and state… 80 percent of the National Security Agency budget is privatized,” Assange said, stressing that the NSA “is the core of the US deep state… There has been a smoothing out between the government and the corporations,” the whistleblower said.

    • Nest May Be The First Major Casualty Of Hollow ‘Internet Of Things’ Hype

      When the Nest smart thermostat was launched back in 2011, you may recall that it was met with an absolute torrent of gushing media adoration, most of it heralding the real arrival of the smart home. That was in part thanks to the fact the company was founded by Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers, both ex-Apple engineers with some expertise in getting the media to fawn robotically over shiny kit. But a parade of high-profile PR failures have plagued the effort since, including several instances where botched firmware updates briefly bricked the device, leaving even the media’s resident internet of things evangelists annoyed.

      [...]

      There’s also the recent kerfuffle involving Nest acquiring smart home hub manufacturer Revolv in 2014, then effectively bricking a $300 device as of last month (again, without really providing anything to replace it with). Over the last year Nest also started leaking many top employees and there was a notably ugly and public feud with Dropcam co-founder and departing Nest employee Greg Duffy, who blamed Nest’s dysfunction on Fadell’s “tyrant bureaucrat” management style.

    • NSA, Trump and Clinton vs Snowden Facts
    • Snowden Claims ‘Deceptive’ NSA Still Has Proof He Tried to Raise Surveillance Concerns

      On June 4, VICE News published more than 800 pages of declassified NSA documents that shed new light on the contentious issue of whether Edward Snowden raised concerns about the agency’s surveillance programs while he still worked there. Since then, Snowden has alleged there’s additional evidence that has not yet been made public.

      The former NSA contractor has long maintained that his 2013 leak of a trove of highly classified documents was a last resort after his efforts to sound the alarm about the agency’s secret spy programs went largely ignored.

      The NSA, meanwhile, has rejected Snowden’s narrative, insisting that the closest he got to raising concerns was sending a single email asking a question about the interpretation of legal authorities.

    • After Snowden, there is clear evidence of a paradigmatic shift in journalist-source relations

      On the first day of this month (June 2016), The Guardian revealed a rift caused in the mid-2000s between MI5 and MI6, Britain’s foreign and domestic intelligence agencies, by MI6′s involvement in the rendition and torture of people suspected of Islamist terrorism. It was good journalism, but it still took ten years for the public to be told of this rift.

      I have been an investigative journalist for over three decades. In that time, just about every case of illegality, immorality or incompetence demonstrated by an intelligence agency I can think of has been revealed by investigative journalists working with their inside sources.

    • Work of GCHQ leads to the arrest of one of world’s most wanted people smugglers who faces multiple charges [Ed: GCHQ recently found to have done copyright policing (Harry Potter) and now this]
    • A peek behind the curtain at GCHQ [Ed: the latest puff pieces about our spies]

      Mind you, this was friendly territory – the Cheltenham Science Festival in GCHQ’s home town.

    • Record breaking number of schoolchildren attending Cheltenham Science Festival
    • 17 things we learned from GCHQ director at Cheltenham Science Festival
    • MI5 collecting “significantly more” data than it can use, new Snowden docs reveal
    • MI5 warning: we’re gathering more than we can analyse, and will miss terrorist attacks
    • New Snowden document reveals UK spy agency warned of ‘too much data’ risk in 2010
    • ‘Leaked report’ reveals mass data fears
    • Newspapers’ Complaint to Consumer Agency Shouldn’t Lead to Bans on Privacy Software

      In an attack on ad-blocking software, the Newspaper Association of America filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission last week, asking the agency to ban a variety of functions, including “evading metered subscription systems and paywalls,” and ad substitution. NAA also called into question new business models that aim to replace online advertising. Newspapers are concerned about the effects that ad-blockers may have on their revenues and their ability to understand and market to their readership. But some of what NAA is asking for would threaten important and widely used privacy software, like Tor and EFF’s own Privacy Badger, and chip away at Internet users’ ability to control their own browsing experience.

    • A Few Easy Steps Everyone Should Take to Protect Their Digital Privacy

      Much of the privacy protection we need in today’s world can’t happen without technological and legislative solutions, and the ACLU will continue leading the fight for digital security and privacy through our litigation and advocacy efforts. But there are simple steps that everyone can take to improve their digital privacy. While there are many advanced techniques that expert technologists can deploy for much greater security, below are some relatively basic and straightforward steps that will significantly increase your protection against privacy invasions and hacks.

    • Facing Data Deluge, Secret U.K. Spying Report Warned of Intelligence Failure

      A secret report warned that British spies may have put lives at risk because their surveillance systems were sweeping up more data than could be analyzed, leading them to miss clues to possible security threats.

      The concern was sent to top British government officials in an explosive classified document, which outlined methods being developed by the United Kingdom’s domestic intelligence agency to covertly monitor internet communications.

    • FBI Wants To Have An Unrestricted Look At Your Web Browser’s History And Email

      The FBI is expecting a new change in the law that would grant it powers to get a complete picture of a person’s online life. The new change will allow the FBI to access a person’s browsing history and other “electronic communications” data without a warrant in any spy cases or terrorism.

    • How the government tried to use Snowden’s own emails to discredit his claims that he raised his concerns with his NSA superiors before mass leak of documents

      Newly declassified documents show that Edward Snowden was a CIA asset and shine a light on the steps made by the government to discredit his claims that he had raised concerns with the NSA, prior to his leak.

      Documents obtained by VICE via an Freedom of Information Act request, although inconclusive, reveal that the extent of internal process that led to the eventual release of an April 2013 email that asked whether an Obama executive order allowing the snooping program could supersede federal statute.

      Before he leaked the documents, Snowden said he had repeatedly attempted to raise his concerns inside the NSA about its surveillance of US citizens but claimed the agency had done nothing.

    • Clinton and Obama are wrong about Snowden — he was ignored after sounding alarm directly to the NSA

      An explosive exposé shows that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden repeatedly tried to raise concerns about illegal mass surveillance, but was ignored.

      Hundreds of internal NSA documents declassified and released by journalists prove that claims made by senior officials in the Obama administration and prominent politicians like Hillary Clinton, who accused Snowden of failing to use available whisteblower protections, are false.

      VICE News obtained more than 800 pages of documents, including emails, talking points and other records, in response to its long-running Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. These “call into question aspects of the U.S. government’s long-running narrative about Snowden’s time at the NSA.”

    • Three Years On, It Appears Snowden’s Leaks Have Damaged The NSA So Badly It’s Healthier Than Ever

      Every time the anniversary of the first Snowden leak rolls around, everyone reassesses the damage… or lack thereof. Did Snowden actually make a dent in the surveillance apparatus or did he do little more than hand out cheat sheets to terrorists?

      As more time passes, even Snowden’s harshest critics are warming up to the idea that his leaks did more good than harm. Former attorney general Eric Holder, to name one such critic, believes Snowden “performed a public service” by leaking surveillance documents. Of course, this is the sort of thing one can safely say when no longer in the position of having to choose between prosecuting Snowden or dropping the bogus espionage charges.

      Over at Lawfare — a site whose writers are almost universally critical of Snowden — one contributor (a former DoD lawyer) sees Snowden’s leaks as beneficial. Jack Goldsmith’s take on the NSA leak fallout finds that Snowden’s actions actually made the NSA a better agency — not just in terms of transparency but in terms of capabilities.

  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • Tased in the Chest for 23 Seconds, Dead for 8 Minutes, Now Facing a Lifetime of Recovery

      As the video opens we see a gray Pontiac enter the frame, and Bryce’s dad, Matt, put his hand on his son’s knee. His mom, Stacy, folded her arms, clutching a tissue. Tears began to form in both his parents’ eyes, anticipating what everyone else in the room was about to see. Unfazed, Bryce leaned his 6-foot-1-inch frame forward, his eyes focused on the makeshift projector. He knew this piece of evidence absolved him of any wrongdoing.

      In the video, Runnels pulls Bryce over and approaches the car. He tells Bryce to get out but doesn’t give a reason. Bryce repeatedly asks if he is under arrest. Runnels says, “You’re under arrest. Get your ass out of the car,” and attempts to pull him out by force. He then tases Bryce for 23 seconds, handcuffs him, drags the boy’s body behind the car, and deliberately drops him face first onto the asphalt road. Runnels may not have known it at the time, but Bryce was going into cardiac arrest. When the loud thud of the drop boomed throughout the courtroom, gasps echoed out. One woman looked down and covered her eyes with her hand. A man said, “Oh, my god.” A police officer with the Kansas City Police Department quickly brought his fist to his mouth, turned to the man next to him, and whispered, “Jesus.” Even those sitting behind the defendant — a few friends, his wife, his family — gasped, as if the recording revealed a truth about Runnels they had never considered.

    • FBI Pushing For Legislation That Will Legalize Its National Security Letter Abuses

      One of the more interesting things to sneak out around the edges of the FBI’s redaction bars in Yahoo’s document dump of National Security Letters was the sheer amount of information the agency was demanding. The FBI — using letters it writes and approves with no outside oversight — wants all of the following in exchange for a piece of paper backed by nothing but the FBI’s “national security” claims.

    • Anti-Politics and the Plague of Disorientation: Welcome to the Age of Trump
    • Baseball Without the Umpire: The Republicans’ War on Regulations
    • Fighting to Live Free of Police Violence While Black

      Black people are fighting for our right to live while Black.

      2010 marked the beginning of a historic period of Black resistance to police terrorism and state-sanctioned violence. Beginning with the murder of Oscar Grant in January 2010 by then-BART police officer Johannes Mehserle, and continuing with the high-profile cases of Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, Renisha McBride, Michael Brown, Rekia Boyd, Tamir Rice and too many others, police violence, particularly in poor and Black communities, has taken center stage nationwide.

    • Do South Africans really have the right to protest?

      At the end of 2015, university students across South Africa embarked upon protests, brought campuses to a standstill, interrupted exams, and marched to the seats of government in Cape Town and Pretoria. During these encounters, authorities repeatedly assaulted, tear-gassed and detained students. Throughout, these students appealed to the idea that the post-apartheid order is a rights-based order, and repeatedly insisted that they possessed a “right to protest”. In the face of repressive policing, they condemned the state and university administrators for not recognising this right.

      [...]

      Students are thus not wrong to state that the “right to protest” is refused recognition in practice—whether by the state, by university leaders, or other authorities. This right has been frustrated by the refusal to countenance disruptive dissent, and by the violent policing of public gatherings. These experiences are also not new or unique to students. Over many years, communities of the poor and dispossessed have taken to the streets in protest, facing increasingly violent practices of policing and political exclusion. They too have been assaulted and arrested, imprisoned and harassed. Some have been murdered, their voices permanently silenced—whether in groups by the state, as at Marikana, or assassinated by shadowy forces, as has happened in Durban and most recently in Bizana. The effect has been to suppress dissent by rendering it dangerous.

    • Welcome to the Party, America! 11 Muslim women who have been PM or President

      Hillary Clinton gave a victory speech Tuesday night positioning herself as the logical conclusion of first women’s rights meeting at Seneca Falls in 1848. Along the way, other milestones have included women gaining the right to vote, in 1919 and the first woman elected to the Senate, in 1932.

      But the US was late. Australia, Denmark and Iceland preceded us in granting the vote to women in national, parliamentary elections. The republic of Azerbaijan, a Muslim-majority country, granted the franchise to women in 1918.

    • Too Human (Not) to Fail

      Many consumer coffee grinders are another example of a design that physically prevents you from messing up. Even if you wanted to, you could NOT chop your fingers on the blade, because the “on” switch for the grinder is triggered by closing the lid (as opposed to a blender, which leaves its blades easily accessible to stray fingers).

    • Black Lives Matter Organizer Sentenced To 90 Days In Prison

      Jasmine Richards, the first black person to ever be convicted for “felony lynching,” will spend the next three months in a California prison, with 18 days already served. During a hearing on Wednesday, Judge Elaine Lu also sentenced Richards to three years of probation.

    • F.B.I. Steps Up Use of Stings in ISIS Cases

      The F.B.I. has significantly increased its use of stings in terrorism cases, employing agents and informants to pose as jihadists, bomb makers, gun dealers or online “friends” in hundreds of investigations into Americans suspected of supporting the Islamic State, records and interviews show.

      Undercover operations, once seen as a last resort, are now used in about two of every three prosecutions involving people suspected of supporting the Islamic State, a sharp rise in the span of just two years, according to a New York Times analysis. Charges have been brought against nearly 90 Americans believed to be linked to the group.

      The increase in the number of these secret operations, which put operatives in the middle of purported plots, has come with little public or congressional scrutiny, and the stings rely on F.B.I. guidelines that predate the rise of the Islamic State.

    • Dashcam footage of cop tasing, dragging, and dropping teen is unsealed

      A federal judge on Monday unsealed disturbing dashcam footage of a suburban Kansas City, Missouri, police officer tasering a 17-year-old motorist who became brain damaged after what was billed as a routine traffic stop. That stop subsequently turned into an event of excessive force—resulting in a four-year prison sentence for Officer Timothy Runnels of the Independence Police Department.

      The video shows Runnels tase and yank Bryce Masters out of the car and down on the street as Masters howls. The boy was filming the officer with his mobile phone, which the officer flings to the street. “Am I under arrest? Am I under arrest?” the teen is overheard saying before he is stunned and grabbed from the vehicle.

  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Patent scandal: US outmaneuvered on UN agency investigation

      In a bid to recover ground, U.S. diplomats, along with those from other nations that ostensibly oversee the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), an obscure but important U.N. agency in Geneva, were negotiating furiously to see if they will ever get to read a report on alleged wrongdoing by the agency’s autocratic director general, Francis Gurry, accused among other things of ordering illegal break-ins of his own staffers’ offices.

      Gurry himself already has a copy of the full and unredacted report on his own misdeeds– including the names of witnesses who testified against him—in violation not only of whistleblower protection rules but of standard U.N. investigative practices used to ensure witness cooperation.

      According to a State Department spokesman, U.S. diplomats in Geneva were still demanding “immediate release” of the report—which WIPO’s 188 member states had ordered up themselves from the U.N.’s Office of Internal Oversight Services, and which was delivered to the chair of WIPO’s General Assembly in February.

    • Trademarks

      • Digital Trademark and Design Patent Infringement

        Digital technology continues its collision with intellectual property law, this time in BMW’s lawsuit against the online virtual modeling company TurboSquid. TurboSquid sells digital 3D models of various items for use by game developers, architects, visual effects studios, etc.

        This case is paradigmatic of a project Mark McKenna and I are working on, which analyzes trademarks in the context of digital goods. BMW complains that TurboSquid’s “marketing of 3-D virtual models” of BMW vehicles infringes BMW’s trademarks, trade dress, and design patents. Specifically, it complains that TurboSquid “markets and tags BMW-trademarked 3-D virtual models of BMW vehicles as suitable for games.”

    • Copyrights

      • RIAA Fails to Take Down Pirate Bay Domain, For Now

        The RIAA has sent a formal letter to the Public Interest Registry, asking it to suspend Pirate Bay’s .ORG domain. The registry hasn’t complied with the request but has forwarded it to Pirate Bay’s registrar EasyDNS who insist the domain will stay up. So the question now is will the RIAA take the matter to court?

      • Google’s fair use defence succeeds against Oracle’s copyright infringement claim

        After a 6 year legal battle, Google has emerged victorious against a claim of copyright infringement. Oracle argued that Google had infringed copyright in 37 of their Java application programming interfaces (APIs), by using them in their Android platform. Java is a type of computing language, used to create code. Everyone is free to use the language itself, but the combination of code can be subject to copyright.

        Google successfully relied on the fair use defence to refute the claim.

      • KickassTorrents Enters The Dark Web, Adds Official Tor Address

        KickassTorrents, the world’s most popular torrent index, is pushing back against the increasing number of ISP blockades. To make it easier for its users to bypass local censorship efforts, KAT’s operators have added a dark web address, hiding the site in the Tor network.

      • KickassTorrents Enters The Dark Web, Gets TOR’s Official .Onion URL

        The operators of popular torrent index KickassTorrents have announced the launch of website’s .onion URL. Now, apart from the main service, KAT can also be accessed on the dark web via this address: lsuzvpko6w6hzpnn.onion

06.07.16

Links 7/6/2016: Manjaro Linux 16.06, Firefox 47.0

Posted in News Roundup at 6:08 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Muhammad Ali & IBM sought to “shake up the world” with Linux

    The late Muhammad Ali was not only a champion fighter and cultural figure, but also no slouch in the advertising ring.

    Ali sold pizzas, car batteries and even roach spray (“I can whup anything on two legs but even me, the greatest, needs help beating things with six legs…”)

    While many have used Ali’s image or voice in their ads, including Apple (Think Different commercial) and Gatorade, I’m not aware of Ali hawking much in the way of technology. One exception was this 2004 IBM Super Bowl ad during which the company pushes Linux and open source computing, something it had been behind since the late 1990s. The ad features a young boy (depicted as “Linux” in related IBM ads) soaking up vintage video of Ali boasting “I shook up the world!” and then sitting face-to-face with the boxer, who urges the kid to “shake things up” and “shake up the world.”

  • A program should be able to open its own files on Linux

    Many years ago, when koffice was fresh and with few users, I decided to test its presentation tool when making the slides for a talk I was giving for NUUG on Japhar, a free Java virtual machine. I wrote the first draft of the slides, saved the result and went to bed the day before I would give the talk. The next day I took a plane to the location where the meeting should take place, and on the plane I started up koffice again to polish the talk a bit, only to discover that kpresenter refused to load its own data file. I cursed a bit and started making the slides again from memory, to have something to present when I arrived. I tested that the saved files could be loaded, and the day seemed to be rescued. I continued to polish the slides until I suddenly discovered that the saved file could no longer be loaded into kpresenter. In the end I had to rewrite the slides three times, condensing the content until the talk became shorter and shorter. After the talk I was able to pinpoint the problem – kpresenter wrote inline images in a way itself could not understand. Eventually that bug was fixed and kpresenter ended up being a great program to make slides. The point I’m trying to make is that we expect a program to be able to load its own data files, and it is embarrassing to its developers if it can’t.

  • Microsoft

    • A Tail of Different VM Performance

      I watched the virt-top output for about 2 minutes and grabbed those numbers above during a representative 2 sec period. The Windows VM never dropped below 25% use. The other VMs each would bounce up as something required it, then would drop back down to nearly nothing when done.

    • Microsoft thinks it’s fixed Windows Server mess its last fix ‘fixed’

      Microsoft has issued fixes to its last round of Windows Server Management Pack fixes, but is asking you to help it understand if the new fixes fix the messes the last fixes created.

      File this one under “doesn’t exactly inspire confidence”.

      This problem started way back in February 2016 when Microsoft released version 6.0.7303.0 of Windows Server Operating System management pack.

    • Windows 10 Automatic Upgrade Drives A Man Crazy And He Can’t Handle It Anymore

      Remember that irritating Windows 10 upgrade popup that keeps testing your patience while you are busy in some important work? Well, a person has found it too much to handle and expressed his anger in the form of a rant full of swearing.

    • Updategate: Users petition EFF to challenge Microsoft’s Windows 10 practices

      ANGRY USERS have launched a petition requesting that the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) investigate the practices employed in persuading people to upgrade to Windows 10, known to us here as Updategate.

      The petition cites a number of problems that we have dealt with on these hallowed pages, as well as an incident that came to light on Friday in which a rural African involved in stopping the poaching trade had 6GB of data downloaded on a per MB metered connection. connection.

      We’re not judging whether it happened, but we remain resolute that Microsoft does not have the right to force download updates onto computers, and make it confusing to uninstall.

      Microsoft has said that it is “transparent” on the matter and that metered connections can be set to avoid the download, but most people feel that the practice has been rolled out without the clarity that such an important issue warrants.

  • Server

    • Docker 1.11.2 Linux Container Engine Improves CentOS and Ubuntu 16.04 Support

      The Docker developers have announced the availability of Docker 1.11.2, the second maintenance update for the Docker 1.11 stable series of rhe widely used Linux container engine.

      Docker 1.11.2 has been in development for the past one and a half months, during which it received a single Release Candidate (RC) build that included the same changes available now in the final build.

      Among these, we can mention improved networking support by patching an issue that made the “docker inspect”, “docker ps”, and “docker port” commands to report the wrong port, as well as fixing a stale endpoint problem for overlay networks, which occurred due to clumsy reboots.

    • Top Skills for Today’s DevOps Professional

      In the past five years, demand for DevOps professionals has grown exponentially, with companies looking to build out their tech capabilities and bring new software products to market while simultaneously cutting development time and driving efficiencies in the process. Since the beginning of 2016, there have been more than 2,000 daily job postings looking for DevOps professionals on Dice, representing roughly 3 percent of all job postings on the site and up 53 percent year-over-year.

    • RightScale DevOps Trends Survey Shows Docker on the Rise

      RightScale, which delivers some of the most detailed survey results on open source trends, has published the results of its survey report highlighting DevOps trends, as we covered here. A deeper dive into the survey results shows that Docker, Puppet and Chef are shown to be kings of the hill in the tools market, with Docker adoption rising in the enterprise. Docker, Puppet and Chef are shown to be kings of the hill in the tools market, with Docker adoption rising in the enterprise. The company also published its annual State of the Cloud report in February.

    • CoreOS Delivers Torus for Distributed Storage on Container Clusters

  • Kernel Space

    • Linux 4.7-rc2

      Things are looking fairly normal, and there are fixes all over, with drivers and architecture code leading the charge as usual, but there’s stuff spread out all over the place, including filesystems, networking, mm, library helpers, etc etc.

    • Linux 4.7-rc2 Kernel Released

      Linus Torvalds has tagged the Linux 4.7-rc2 kernel.

      This is the second weekly test release to the Linux 4.7 kernel, which offers many improvements and new functionality.

    • Linus Torvalds Announces Second Linux Kernel 4.7 Release Candidate, Download Now

      Just a few minutes ago, June 5, 2016, Linus Torvalds announced the general availability of the second Release Candidate build of the upcoming Linux 4.7 kernel.

    • LPC 2016 registration is now Open

      Early bird rate is available until our quota of 140 runs out (or we reach 26 August). Please click here to register.

    • Latin-quoting Linus Torvalds plays God by not abusing mortals

      Linus Torvalds has loosed release candidate 2 of version 4.7 of the Linux kernel on the waiting world.

      “Things are looking fairly normal, and there are fixes all over, with drivers and architecture code leading the charge as usual, but there’s stuff spread out all over the place, including filesystems, networking, mm, library helpers, etc etc,” Torvalds wrote .

    • Linus Torvalds Announces Second Linux Kernel 4.7 Release Candidate

      Linus Torvalds makes Linux 4.7-rc2 available for download and public testing

      Linus Torvalds has just announced the general availability of the second Release Candidate build of the forthcoming Linux 4.7 kernel.

    • The Linux 4.7 Kernel Builds Are Finally Playing Nicely Again On All My Systems

      Nearly two weeks ago I warned that You May Want To Think Twice About Trying Linux 4.7 Git Right Now. Fortunately, all is well now and those problems have cleared up.

    • Awesome Atomic Advances

      Also, silly titles. Atomic has taken of for real, right now there’s 17 drivers supporting atomic modesetting merged into the DRM subsystem. And still a pile of them each release pending for review&merging. But it’s not just new drivers, there’s also been a steady stream of small improvements over the past year, I think it’s time for an update.

    • Graphics Stack

    • Benchmarks

      • OpenGL/OpenCL Performance & Perf-Per-Watt From NVIDIA’s GeForce 9800GTX To GTX 1080

        Now that my initial GeForce GTX 1080 Linux review is out the door, I spent this weekend working on a “fun” comparison out of curiosity to see how the raw OpenGL and OpenCL performance has improved over the generations going back to the once-powerful GeForce 9800GTX plus including the top-end cards of the GeForce 600/700/900 Kepler and Maxwell series too.

        Eight years ago, the GeForce 9800GTX (G92) was a beast with its 65nm GPU and 754 million transistors. The 9800GTX boasted a core clock of 675MHz and 2200MHz for its GDDR3 memory. The 9800GTX was rated for 648 single-precision GFLOPS and had a 140 Watt TDP. Fast forward to today, the GeForce GTX 1080 is fabbed on a 16nm process and has more than 7.2 billion transistors. The base core clock is 1607MHz (and 1733MHz boost) while having GDDR5X for its video memory. The GTX 1080 has a 180 Watt TDP and its single-precision rating is 8228~8873 GFLOPS. Quite impressive seeing how much more advanced Pascal is over hardware from eight years ago and is still being used by some.

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • Qt 5.7 GUI Toolkit to Port the NFC API to Android, Add Raspberry Pi 3 Support

        The Qt Company, through Jani Heikkinen, announced the general availability of the Release Candidate (RC) build of the upcoming Qt 5.7 open-source and cross-platform GUI (Graphical User Interface) toolkit.

        Qt 5.7.0 Release Candidate arrives one and a half months after the Beta version, introducing a huge number of new features and improvements to most of the existing modules, among which we can mention support for a port of the Qt NFC API (Application Programming Interface) to Google’s Android mobile operating system.

    • GNOME Desktop/GTK

      • GNOME 3.22 Control Center App Updated with Symbolic Icons, See It In Action Now

        As part of the upcoming GNOME 3.22 desktop environment, GNOME developer Georges Basile Stavracas Neto published today, June 6, 2016, yet another update to the work coming for the GNOME Control Center app of the GNOME Stack.

        After revealing last month the new look of the GNOME Control Center app for the GNOME 3.22 desktop environment, Georges Basile Stavracas Neto today informs the community about the latest work done so far.

      • Arc Icon Theme Released Based on Moka, Here’s How to Install on Your Linux OS

        The creator of the Arc GTK Theme that most of the GNU/Linux distributions are adopting these days as the default desktop theme, the famous Horst3180, released an icon set to accompany its very popular GTK theme.

        The icon theme is called Arc Icon Theme, or simply Arc, just like the GTK theme, and it was pushed a few hours ago to the developer’s GitHub account for user to get an early taste. Why early taste? Well, because the icon set is far from being complete and many icons are still missing, and it doesn’t provide application icons at this time.

      • Bug Fix #2

        Last blog of pre-GSoC coding. This is the story which dates back to the application period.

        The month view of the calendar is a pretty important aspect of the calendar. The keyboard arrow keys allowed a user to switch between days in a specific month. But on reaching the end of the month, a user couldn’t go any further.

      • An update on the Control Center
      • GNOME Logs search popover

        It’s been almost two weeks since my last post. In this post, I will be mentioning all the progress done in these two weeks. First of all, the searching part is now moved from the front end part to the actual back end of GNOME Logs which is the sd-journal API. So, now when the user types text into the search bar, the results are actually fetched from the journal itself. Progress on the project can be checked out on my Github repository. I would like to thank my mentor David King a.k.a amigadave for reviewing my commits and guiding me in the right direction.

      • Week 2 in usability testing continues

        Personas are an important part of any design process. Whether you are trying to figure out the user interface or deciding what new functionality to add, personas can help you connect to the users.

        Personas allow you to talk about changes to the interface based on how those changes benefit users. Rather than saying “I want to add X feature because that would be cool” you can say “I want to add X feature because that helps users like the ‘Mark’ and ‘Sophia’ personas.”

        As part of the Outreachy project, we are working with the GNOME Design team (Allan and Jakub). It’s really great to have this connection with GNOME. They also share comments with us about GNOME design, which was very helpful in week 2 when we learned about who uses GNOME.

  • Distributions

    • Reviews

      • Tiny Core Linux 7.1: Big Where It Counts

        Tiny Core is quite an achievement in developing a small Linux distribution that offers a lot of functionality with very low resource requirements. Just the fact that Tiny Core runs and provides a desktop environment with 20MB of memory is impressive. If a person has need for a small yet powerful operating system, Tiny Core is an obvious choice.

        At the same time, this distribution, being so minimal, leaves us to fend for ourselves a bit. If we want additional software, password protected accounts, extra services or even to have our data survive a reboot, then we need to roll up our sleeves and configure the operating system. There is a strong do-it-yourself element to Tiny Core. In a way, its small size and hands-on approach reminds me of building with Lego blocks. It’s fun and educational if you are into crafting your own operating system, but it does mean a lot more work up front to get what you want.

        For people who like efficient systems and who are interested in exploring Tiny Core, I recommend exploring the project’s wiki, and for the more adventurous, reading Into The Core which talks about the inner workings of Tiny Core and how to build one’s own extensions to the operating system.

    • New Releases

      • SystemRescueCD 4.7.3 Released with GParted 0.26.0 for Read-only LUKS Support

        SystemRescueCd developer François Dupoux announced the release and immediate availability for download of SystemRescueCd 4.7.3, the third maintenance version in the 4.7 series of the distribution.

      • Easy-to-use Linux Distro “Endless OS” Now Available For Free To Everyone

        Endless Computers has released its Endless OS Linux for free to everyone. This Linux-based distribution features a modified GNOME desktop and comes in two variants. While Lite version looks like a Linux PC running GNOME desktop, Full version is for the people with limited internet access and comes with 100s of pre-installed apps.

      • Linux Top 3: Alpine Linux 3.4, deepin 15.2 and Linux Lite 3.0

        Alpine Linux has gained in notoriety and popularity in recent months as the new defacto standard Linux distribution on which Docker containers are now building images. The 3.4.0 update is mostly a milestone of new packages, with a few additional capabilities

      • BakAndImgCD 18.0 Disk Imaging and Backup Live CD Now Available for Download

        Softpedia was informed by 4MLinux developer Zbigniew Konojacki about the release and immediate availability for download of the BakAndImgCD 18.0 Live CD distrolette.

        Based on the 4MLinux Backup Scripts 18.0, as well as the 4MLinux Core 18.0 distribution, which is currently in the Beta stages of development under the 4MLinux 18.0 umbrella, BakAndImgCD 18.0 is here as an alternative to popular disk cloning and system backup Live CDs.

    • Arch Family

      • Manjaro Linux 16.06 released

        The Xfce edition remains our flagship offering and has received the attention it deserves. Few can claim to offer such a polished, integrated and leading-edge Xfce experience. We ship Xfce 4.12 with this release of Manjaro. We mainly focused on polishing the user experience on the desktop and window manager, and on updating some components to take advantage of newly available technologies such as switching to a new Vertex-Maia theme, we already using known as Maia for our KDE edition.

      • Download Manjaro Linux 16.06 ‘Daniella’ now — a solid Windows 10 alternative

        Windows 10 is a great operating system from a usability standpoint. Unfortunately, between the privacy issues and Microsoft’s unethical upgrade tactics, more and more folks are turned off to it. Luckily, thanks to Linux, users don’t have to tolerate the company’s shady behavior.

      • Manjaro Linux 16.06 Released, Powered By Linux 4.4 & Latest Arch

        Manjaro Linux 16.06 “Daniella” was released today as the latest stable version of this popular Linux distribution derived from Arch Linux.

    • OpenSUSE/SUSE

      • openSUSE Tumbleweed – Review of the Weeks 2016/22
      • openSUSE.Asia 2016 announced from Indonesia

        We are happy to announce the third openSUSE.Asia Summit. The openSUSE.Asia Summit 2016 will take place at Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University in Yogyakarta, Indonesia on October 1st and 2nd, 2016.

        The summit is a great way for both openSUSE contributors, and, users to meet each other and have fun. The openSUSE community will get together, share their experiences, and, learn free and open source technologies.

      • Open Build Service version 2.7 released

        We are happy to announce the availability of the Open Build Service Version 2.7! Three large features around the topic of integrating external resources made it into this release. We worked on automatic tracking of moving repositories of development versions like Fedora Rawhide, distribution updates or rolling Linux releases like Arch. A change to the OBS git integration to enable developers to work on continuous builds. And last but not least an experimental KIWI import that can be used to easily migrate your images from SUSE studio.

      • ​SUSE Enterprise Storage 3 released for serious storage work

        When Red Hat bought Ceph’s parent company Inktank, people were worried Red Hat would keep Ceph’s object store and file system to itself. Then, Red Hat announced it would let others help decide on Ceph’s future. Now, SUSE, a rival Linux power, is taking Red Hat up on this with its Ceph-supporting release of SUSE Enterprise Storage 3.

      • openSUSE Tumbleweed Getting Linux Kernel 4.6.1, LibreOffice 5.2, and GCC 6 Soon

        On June 6, 2016, openSUSE Project’s Dominique Leuenberger wrote on the openSUSE Tumbleweed’s mailing list a quick review of the major software updates that landed in the week that just passed for the rolling release distribution.

        Those of you who are currently using the openSUSE Tumbleweed OS on your personal computers, are aware of the fact that there were a total of four snapshots released last week, which brought many exciting new GNU/Linux technologies, such as the Linux 4.6 kernel, the KDE Applications 16.04.1 software suite for the KDE Plasma 5.6 desktop environment, and the Perl 5.24.0 packages.

      • openSUSE’s Open Build Service 2.7 Adds Better Integration of External Resources

        openSUSE Project, through Henne Vogelsang, announced on June 6, 2016, the general availability of the version 2.7 of the project’s Open Build Service (OBS) software distribution solution.

      • Open Build Service 2.7 released

    • Red Hat Family

    • Debian Family

      • DebEX Live OS Is Based on Debian GNU/Linux 8.4, Ships with Linux Kernel 4.6.1

        GNU/Linux and Android-x86 developer Arne Exton informed us about the availability of a new build of his Debian-based DebEX Live Linux distribution, version 160604.

        According to Mr. Exton, DebEX KDE Live DVD 160604 has been rebased on the software repositories of the Debian GNU/Linux 8.4 “Jessie” operating system, which means that it includes most of the security patches and software updates, through the newest Debian Jessie release if now 8.5.

      • Multiple Chromium 51 Web Browser Security Updates Land in Debian GNU/Linux Repos

        The Debian Project announced earlier that an update is available for the Chromium web browser, promising to patch various security vulnerabilities discovered upstream.

        According to Debian Security Advisory DSA-3594-1, the Chromium web browser was updated to version 51.0.2704.79 for Debian Stable, Debian Testing, and Debian Unstable, patching cross-origin bypass issues discovered in both the Blink and WebKit engines, as well as in the bindings to extensions.

        Moreover, it would appear that there was an information leak discovered by Rob Wu in the Chromium web browser since version 51.0.2704.63 that has been fixed as well, along with two use-after-free issues in the autofill feature and extensions, also discovered by Rob Wu.

      • Debian ‘Wheezy’ receives final point upgrade

        Debian 7 ‘Wheezy’ and Debian 8 ‘Jessie’ just received point updates, 7.11 and 8.5 respectively. These releases bring updates for security problems and come with a “few adjustments for serious problems.” The 7.11 release of Wheezy marks the last point release the version will receive as it gets adopted by the volunteer Long Term Support (LTS) team.

      • Request for Adoption: Buildd.Net project

        I’ve been running Buildd.Net for quite a long time. Buildd.Net is a project that focusses on the autobuilders, not the packages. It started back then when the m68k port had a small website running on kullervo, a m68k buildd. Kullervo was too loaded to deal with the increased load of that website, so together with Stephen Marenka we moved the page from kullervo to my server under the domain m68k.bluespice.org. Over time I got many requests if that page could do the same for other archs as well, so I started to hack the code to be able to deal with different archs: Buildd.Net was born.

      • Debian 8.5 and Manjaro 16.06 arrive

        The current Debian ‘stable’ version, Debian GNU/Linux 8.5.0, was announced on Saturday along with the final update for the ‘old-stable’ version, Debian GNU/Linux 7.11. Both of these are roll-up releases which contain the latest patches and security updates.

        If you have an installed Debian GNU/Linux system you do not need to re-install from these new images, all you need to do is make sure that you have the latest updates (via synaptic or apt-get).

      • Debian GNU/Linux 9 “Stretch” to Get a Fresh New Look, Here’s How You Can Help

        Debian developer Niels Thykier published the other day a call for artwork proposals for the upcoming Debian GNU/Linux 9 “Stretch” operating system, which is coming in the following months.

        Debian GNU/Linux 9 “Stretch” is the next major update of the acclaimed, award-winning, and widely used Linux kernel-based operating system on which numerous GNU/Linux distributions are based, including, but not limited to the popular Ubuntu.

        The upcoming Debian release is currently being developed under the Debian Testing umbrella, which users can install and use as their daily driver. And from the looks of it, the Debian devs are looking for people to contribute new artwork to the OS.

      • Call for Stretch artwork proposals
      • My Free Activities in May 2015

        Trying to catch up with my blog posts about My Free Activities. This blog post will tell you about my free activities from January to May 2016.

      • The new “best” multimedia player in Debian?

        When I set out a few weeks ago to figure out which multimedia player in Debian claimed to support most file formats / MIME types, I was a bit surprised how varied the sets of MIME types the various players claimed support for. The range was from 55 to 130 MIME types. I suspect most media formats are supported by all players, but this is not really reflected in the MimeTypes values in their desktop files. There are probably also some bogus MIME types listed, but it is hard to identify which one this is.

      • Derivatives

        • Debian-Based Q4OS 1.4.11 Distro Gets Better Nvidia Support, Raspberry Pi Updates

          The developers behind the Q4OS Linux kernel-based operating system, an open-source distro built on top of the Debian GNU/Linux OS, have informed Softpedia today, June 6, 2016, about the availability of Q4OS 1.4.11.

          Q4OS 1.4.11 is the eleventh update to the current stable series (Orion) of the Debian-based distribution, bringing more enhancements and fixing the nasty issues reported by users since the previous maintenance build, version 1.4.10, announced two weeks ago, on May 22, 2016.

        • Tails 2.4, Edward Snowden’s Favorite Anonymous Live CD, Brings Tor Browser 6.0

          The Tails Project released Tails 2.4, a major version of the anonymous Live CD based on Debian GNU/Linux, which was used by ex-CIA employee Edward Snowden to stay hidden online and protect his privacy.

          When compared with the previous release, we can notice that Tails 2.4 includes some big changes, among which we can mention the upgrade to Debian GNU/Linux 8.4 “Jessie” and the inclusion of the recently released Tor Browser 6.0 anonymous browser, which is based on the open-source Mozilla Firefox 45.2 web browser.

        • TeX Live 2016 released

          After long months of testing and waiting for the DVD production, we have released TeX Live 2016 today!

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Wireless Display Support Is Coming to Nexus 5 and OnePlus One Ubuntu Phones

            UBports developer Marius Gripsgård has announced earlier this morning, June 6, 2016, that he is currently working on bringing Canonical’s new Aethercast (Wireless Display) for the Nexus 5 and OnePlus One Ubuntu Phone devices.

          • BQ Aquaris M10 Ubuntu Tablet Review: In-Depth

            Back in February, BQ and Ubuntu announced that they’d joined forces to create the Aquaris M10 Tablet, the first 10.1-inch device to run Ubuntu OS. With the ability to quickly transform from a handheld touch tablet to a full-on desktop computer, the M10 has something different to offer users; and let’s be clear on this, the M10 is a tablet for developers and fellow geeks, not the average consumer. If you want something to watch movies, play games and browse the web on, you’ll be much better serviced elsewhere.

            So, how is the first Ubuntu tablet experience? Here’s our Aquaris M10 review.

          • Ubuntu-Based ChaletOS 16.04.1 Out Now for Those Who Want to Migrate from Windows

            Dejan Petrovic, the creator of the Ubuntu-based ChaletOS computer operating system, is currently uploading the new ISO images for the soon-to-be-officially-announced ChaletOS 16.04.1.

            We took the liberty of informing our readers that ChaletOS 16.04.1 is now available for download, despite the fact that Dejan Petrovic didn’t have the time to write any release notes for the minor update, nor publish the new Live ISO images on the distribution’s website for users to download it.

  • Devices/Embedded

Free Software/Open Source

Leftovers

  • Health/Nutrition

    • carafem Abortion Clinic Fights Censorship with Crowdfunding Campaign to Advertise Abortion and Birth Control in Atlanta
    • Abortion “Spa” Launches Crowdfunding Campaign to Fund New Abortion Center in Atlanta
    • The U.S. Is Failing in Infant Mortality, Starting at One Month Old

      Many more babies die in the United States than you might think. In 2014, more than 23,000 infants died in their first year of life, or about six for every 1,000 born. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 25 other industrialized nations do better than the United States at keeping babies alive.

      This fact is hard for some to comprehend. Some try to argue that the disparity isn’t real. They assert that the United States counts very premature births as infants because we have better technology and work harder to save young lives. Therefore, our increased rate of infant death isn’t due to deficiencies, but differences in classification. These differences are not as common, nor as great, as many people think. Even when you exclude very premature births from analyses, the United States ranks pretty poorly.

    • Cable News Conversation Is Far Removed From Reality of Abortion

      A majority of Americans support women’s right to abortion, a fact that’s been true for about two decades now. Support for that right actually increased after attacks on Planned Parenthood last year. And development experts have for decades, maybe centuries, identified women’s right to control family size and birth timing as critical to communities’ economic and social development. That’s just by way of indicating how far removed from the reality of abortion is the US media conversation about it—at least as represented by cable news.

    • Fire destroys ambulances outside East Surrey Hospital

      Three ambulances have been destroyed in a fire outside a hospital in Surrey.

      The blaze started in a parked ambulance outside the east entrance of East Surrey Hospital in Redhill, before spreading to the two other vehicles.

      Huge plumes of black smoke could be seen rising into the air at the height of the fire.

      Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust said there were no patients involved and everyone was safe.

      The hospital is closed to emergencies, and patients are being diverted through the South East Coast Ambulance Service.

    • One big NHS Trust proposed for Manchester – but what will be the impact on patient care?

      All hospital services in the city of Manchester should be run by a new single city-wide Trust, an influential report has proposed. The review, penned by former trust chief executive Sir Jonathan Michael and commissioned by the chair of Manchester city council, recommends that the creation of a new NHS Trust to take over the running of services currently provided at Central Manchester University Hospitals Foundation Trust, University Hospitals of South Manchester FT and North Manchester General Hospital.

    • Paving Way for Glyphosate Recall, EU Punts on Relicensing Weed Killer
    • European Commission Intervenes in Glyphosate Decision – Global Justice Now Response
    • E.U. Countries Delay Approval of Toxic Chemical in RoundUp

      Today in Brussels representatives from the European Union (E.U.) failed to pass a temporary reauthorization of glyphosate – a toxic chemical in the common pesticide RoundUp determined by the World Health Organization (WHO) to be a “probable carcinogen”. The committee was asked to grant re-authorization for between one and two years, to allow for completion of a safety assessment currently in progress at the European Chemicals Agency, but rejected the proposal. If the European Commission does not re-authorize the chemical’s use by June 30th, it will be considered illegal to use throughout the E.U. and all products containing glyphosate would be pulled from the market after a six-month grace period. Several countries including the Netherlands and France have already acted to restrict public access to glyphosate within their own borders on the basis that it poses a severe risk to human and environmental health.

  • Security

    • NTP Patches Flaws That Enable DDoS
    • Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s Twitter And Pinterest Accounts Hacked

      In a surprising incident, Mark Zuckerberg’s Twitter and Pinterest accounts were compromised this Sunday. A Saudi Arabia-based hacking group managed to hack his account using credentials found in the recent LinkedIn breach. Interestingly, the hackers tweeted that his LinkedIn password was “dadada”.

    • What Is A “Wi-Fi Whisperer”? How Does It Steal Your Data In The Creepiest Way?
    • Quieting Scary Web Browser SSL Alerts

      The entire Internet depends on OpenSSL to secure sensitive transactions, but until the Linux Foundation launched the Core Infrastructure Initiative to support crucial infrastructure projects, it was supported by a small underfunded team with only one paid developer. This is not good for an essential bit of infrastructure, and OpenSSL was hit by some high-profile bugs, such as Heartbleed. Now that OpenSSL has stable support, there should be fewer such incidents — and not a moment too soon, because we have no alternatives.

    • GnuTLS 3.4.13

      Added GnuTLS-SA-2016-1 security advisory.

    • Security updates for Monday
    • Password app developer overlooks security hole to preserve ads

      Think it’s bad when companies take their time fixing security vulnerabilities? Imagine what happens when they avoid fixing those holes in the name of a little cash. KeePass 2 developer Dominik Reichl has declined to patch a flaw in the password manager’s update check as the “indirect costs” of the upgrade (which would encrypt web traffic) are too high — namely, it’d lose ad revenue. Yes, the implication is that profit is more important than protecting users.

      The impact is potentially quite severe, too. An attacker could hijack the update process and deliver malware that would compromise your PC.

    • Protecting your PC from ransomware gets harder with EMET-evading exploit

      Drive-by attacks that install the once-feared TeslaCrypt crypto ransomware are now able to bypass EMET, a Microsoft-provided tool designed to block entire classes of Windows-based exploits.

      The EMET-evading attacks are included in Angler, a toolkit for sale online that provides ready-to-use exploits that can be stitched into compromised websites. Short for Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit, EMET has come to be regarded as one of the most effective ways of hardening Windows-based computers from attacks that exploit security vulnerabilities in both the operating system or installed applications. According to a blog post published Monday by researchers from security firm FireEye, the new Angler attacks are significant because they’re the first exploits found in the wild that successfully pierce the mitigations.

      “The level of sophistication in exploit kits has increased significantly throughout the years,” FireEye researchers wrote. “Where obfuscation and new zero days were once the only additions in the development cycle, evasive code has now been observed being embedded into the framework and shellcode.”

    • Is there a future view that isn’t a security dystopia?

      I recently finished reading the book Ghost Fleet, it’s not a bad read if you’re into what cyberwar could look like. It’s not great though, I won’t suggest it as the book of the summer. The biggest thing I keep thinking about is I’ve yet to really see any sort of book that takes place in the future, with a focus on technology, that isn’t a dystopian warning. Ghost Fleet is no different.

    • Some work on a VyOS image with Let’s Encrypt certs

  • Defence/Aggression

    • ‘A Fig Leaf For The Occupation’: Israeli Human Rights Group Ends Cooperation With Israeli Military

      “[T]he way in which the military law enforcement system functions precludes it … from achieving justice for the victims,” noted a report from B’Tselem, the human rights group which has ceased cooperating with Israeli military investigations into crimes committed by Israeli soldiers.

    • Washington Is Using Russia’s Reliance on Diplomacy To Revive ISIS And To Involve Russia In Long-Term War In Syria

      Make no mistake. Putin’s strategic intervention in Syria last September was a bold, vital step. He deserves credit and praise for taking it.

      Things changed dramatically on the ground. Reinvigorated government forces retook large swaths of earlier lost territory, freeing them from the scourge of US-sponsored terrorism.

    • US Survey Reveals Public Support for Nuclear Strikes and a Disconnect From Their Bloody Reality

      In the wake of President Obama’s visit to Hiroshima last week, renewed debates over the use of atomic weapons against Japan in August 1945 have highlighted a disturbing trend: a rise in public support for US attacks on civilians across the globe. Never having withstood a prolonged bombing campaign on their soil, many people in the United States are quick to support and justify the use of bombs — including nuclear ones — on others.

    • Baghdad advances on Fallujah but “slows down” for fear of Civilian Casualties

      Iraqi Prime Minister Haydar al-Abadi said Thursday that his troops were in position to move into the city of Fallujah from the south, after advances made during the past two days, but that he would “slow down” the assault for fear of civilians trapped in the city. The Iraqi military and its Shiite militia auxiliaries have met with fierce resistance by Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) fighters holding the city, which fell to them in January 2014.

    • Peter Kuznick

      In light of President Obama’s visit to Hiroshima on May 27, Peter and Mickey spend the hour with historian Peter Kuznick, who has written extensively about President Truman’s decision to drop the bomb.

    • When Does a Random Taxi Driver Become a Lawful Combatant?

      A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post questioning the Obama Administration’s logic in killing the leader of the Afghan Taliban in a drone strike in Pakistan. It turns out that the Defense Department also employed some very suspect reasoning surrounding the drone strike.

      [...]

      It seems that a suitable reference on which to rely for DoD’s thinking on combatants is to go back to William Haynes’ memo dated December 12, 2002 and titled “Lawful Combatants”. This memo comes from Haynes as General Counsel to DoD and is addressed to a Roundtable assembled by the Council on Foreign Relations. It appears that this exercise was geared toward providing legal cover for the Bush Administration’s “new” reading of international law and especially its attempts to shield prisoners from the Geneva Conventions.

    • MH-17 Probe Relies on Ukraine for Evidence

      The oft-delayed probe into the 2014 shoot-down of MH-17 over eastern Ukraine has been tainted by its dependence on Ukraine’s intelligence service for much of its evidence, as a new interim report makes clear, reports Robert Parry.

    • Muhammad Ali’s Real Legacy: True Patriotism

      Although it is customary to say nice things about a person who has died, Muhammad Ali has been rightly commended for not only his superb boxing career but also his principled opposition to the then-popular Vietnam War. Unlike later chairborne hawks, such as Bill Clinton and Dick Cheney, Ali did not try to evade the draft or get numerous college deferments to avoid service. He declared that because of his religion, he would not fight against people who had done nothing to him and bluntly said, “just take me to jail.”

      Therefore, it is difficult to argue that Ali avoided the war for selfish reasons, because the costs of noncompliance with the draft were substantial. If the Supreme Court had not nullified his conviction 8-0, he would have served five years in prison. Although he ultimately avoided losing his liberty, he had to give up his heavy weight boxing title and experienced financial hardship as a result.

      At the time, Ali’s was not a popular stand, but he turned out to be right about many things, just as the then unpopular civil rights heroes Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King were. The war – in a faraway, insignificant country – turned out to be a non-strategic quagmire in the competition with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Of course, then-President Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) privately predicted that at the time, but escalated the conflict anyway, so as not to be seen as a wimp politically with an eye toward winning the 1968 election. The war killed 58,000 Americans, a few million Vietnamese, and drained equipment and resources from the U.S. military, which it hollowed out for more important missions.

    • My Name, Not Yours

      In 1967, Ali famously connected the civil rights struggle to the injustices of the war in Vietnam: “Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No, I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end… I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality…I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail, so what? We’ve been in jail for 400 years.” May he rest in peace and power.

    • Israeli Soldiers Executed Two Palestinians in Hebron, Not One, Witnesses Say

      The on-camera execution of a wounded Palestinian suspect by an Israeli soldier in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron in March — which led to an indictment of the soldier for manslaughter and exposed a rift between Israel’s military leaders and many civilians — was preceded by another extrajudicial killing not captured on video by witnesses, an Israeli rights group reported on Monday.

    • Evidence Counters UK Claims That No British-Made Cluster Munitions in Yemen

      Amnesty International has published detailed information rebutting claims by the British government that no UK-manufactured cluster munitions were used by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition during the Yemen conflict which began in March 2015.

      The organization recently found evidence indicating that a British-manufactured “BL-755” cluster bomb was used by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition in an attack in al-Khadhra village in Yemen’s Hajjah governorate, approximately six miles from the Saudi Arabia border.

    • Obama’s “Successful” Counterterrorism Approach in Yemen Has Quadrupled Membership in AQAP

      On September 10, 2014, President Obama gave a speech advocating for the same kind of approach to counterterrorism against ISIL his Administration had been using with Yemen (and Somalia).

    • Europe Sleepwalks toward World War III

      The West’s scary new catch phrase for anything the diabolical Russians do is “hybrid war,” accusing Moscow of spreading propaganda and funding NGOs, pretty much what the West has been doing for decades, as Gilbert Doctorow explains.

    • The Difference Between How the U.S. Treats Brazil and Venezuela in One Video

      A State Department spokesperson repeatedly refused to comment on the momentous political crisis in Brazil during his daily press briefing on Friday — in almost ludicrous contrast to his long and loquacious criticisms of neighboring Venezuela.

      When questioned on the stark contrast, increasingly exasperated department spokesperson Mark Toner replied, “I just – again, I don’t have anything to comment on the ongoing political dimensions of the crisis there. I don’t.”

    • In News You Didn’t Hear About Today: Russia Is Still Bombing Syria’s Largest City

      In news you probably haven’t heard about today, Syria’s largest city — Aleppo — was hit by around 50 airstrikes from Russian and Syrian aircraft.

      “A civil defense worker said at least 32 people were killed in the rebel-held parts of the city during the air strikes, with 18 bodies pulled from flattened buildings in the Qatrji neighborhood, the worst hit,” Reuters reported Sunday.

      The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a human rights monitoring group, told Reuters that “dozens of barrel bombs – oil drums or cylinders packed with explosives and shrapnel- were dropped by helicopter on densely populated districts.”

    • “Just Take Me to Jail”: Remembering Muhammad Ali’s Refusal to Fight in Vietnam

      Thousands are expected to gather in Louisville Friday for the funeral of Muhammad Ali, one of the world’s most iconic figures of the 20th century. He was considered by many to be the greatest boxer of all time, but he will also be remembered for his activism against racism and war. In 1966, Ali announced his refusal to fight in Vietnam. After his conscientious objector status request was denied in April 1967, he refused induction. Ali’s title was taken away from him, and he was sentenced to a five-year prison term. He appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, and in 1971 his conviction was finally reversed.

    • Enormous, ‘Seriously Destabilizing’ NATO War Games Begin in Poland

      Drawing Russian rebuke, NATO members and partners on Monday launched what is being called the largest war game in decades—a 10-day exercise involving 31,000 troops and thousands of vehicles from 24 countries, none more committed than the United States.

      The exercise, dubbed “Anakonda-16,” is taking place in Poland ahead of next month’s NATO summit in Warsaw that will likely approve more troops to be stationed in eastern Europe. The United States is providing around 14,000 troops for the exercise, more than any other participating nation.

    • 4 killed, church, shop burnt in Niger State’s “blasphemy” riot

      Four persons have so far lost their lives while at least one house, a church and a shop have been burnt in a riot sparked by alleged posting of a blasphemous statement about Prophet Muhammad on the social media in Pandogari town, Niger State last Sunday, according to Nigerian military authorities.

      In a statement released on Tuesday morning, the military announced imposition of curfew on the town to curb the raging violence in which it said has also led to looting of 25 shops.

    • Hadi touts Islam as answer to all mankind’s problems

      Foreign ideologies have failed to solve mankind’s problems, but Islam can lead the way forward, PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang said at the opening of his party’s 62nd annual general meeting here today.

      He said Malaysians continue to put their faith in the democratic ideology inherited from the colonial British rulers, claiming there to be evidence pointing to its failure.

    • Police officer’s wife slain in possible ‘militant revenge’ in Bangladesh

      The wife of a prominent anti-terror police officer was stabbed and shot to death Sunday in an apparently targeted killing in the coastal Bangladeshi city of Chittagong, a local police commissioner said.

      Mahmuda Khanam Mitu, wife of decorated police superintendent Babul Akter, was attacked by three assailants at a busy intersection about 90 meters from her home at about 7 a.m. local time, Chittagong Police Commissioner Iqbal Bahar said.

    • Christian murdered in latest Bangladesh attack

      A Christian was knifed to death after Sunday prayers near a church in northwest Bangladesh in an attack claimed by Islamic State.

      Police said unidentified attackers murdered the 65-year-old in the village of Bonpara, home to one of the oldest Christian communities in Muslim-majority Bangladesh. “Sunil Gomes was hacked to death at his grocery store just near a church at Bonpara village,” said Shafiqul Islam, deputy police chief of Natore district.

  • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

    • Did Clinton’s Emails Expose CIA Agents?

      Even as Hillary Clinton closes in on the Democratic nomination, facts continue to emerge indicating that her sloppy email practices may have endangered secrets, including the identities of covert operatives, writes Peter Van Buren.

    • Hillary Clinton Emailed Names of U.S. Intelligence Officials, Unclassified

      You can look at the source documents yourself. This is not opinion, conjecture, or rumor. Hillary Clinton transmitted the names of American intelligence officials via her unclassified email.

      From a series of Clinton emails, numerous names were redacted in the State Department releases with the classification code “B3 CIA PERS/ORG,” a highly specialized classification that means the information, if released, would violate the Central Intelligence Act of 1949 by exposing the names of CIA officials.

    • FBI Won’t Tell Me How Much It Paid To Break Into Syed Farook’s iPhone, Saying It Might Jeopardize Its Investigation

      As you probably recall, several months ago, after going to court to try to force Apple to write some software to allow the FBI to hack into Syed Farook’s work iPhone, the DOJ and FBI abruptly called off the case, claiming that it had been able to get an exploit that let it into the phone. A few weeks later, FBI Director James Comey suggested that the government paid over $1.2 million to get that exploit from some “hackers.” Some later news reports indicated that the FBI quietly tried to talk down those numbers, and suggested that perhaps Comey was just bad at math (rather than name a number, he said that the FBI had paid “more than I will make in the remainder of this job, which is seven years and four months….”).

      Either way, I sent a FOIA request into the FBI that day asking for either the invoice or any other documentation showing how much the FBI had paid to get into Farook’s work iPhone. The FBI has now rejected my FOIA request, arguing that since this is an “ongoing investigation,” responding to such a request might somehow “interfere” with the case.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

    • Steve Horn: Clinton’s Fracking Flip Flop
    • The Great Barrier Reef: a catastrophe laid bare

      Australia’s natural wonder is in mortal danger. Bleaching caused by climate change has killed almost a quarter of its coral this year and many scientists believe it could be too late for the rest. Using exclusive photographs and new data, a Guardian special report investigates how the reef has been devastated – and what can be done to save it

    • Heat wave sparks brush fires in California

      Firefighters are battling a series of brush fires throughout Southern California this weekend.

      The brush fire that broke out in Temecula has doubled in size to 70 acres, according to Cal Fire Riverside county. The fire is 20% contained. Earlier in the day, the brush fire had was burning 30 acres south of the Temecula Parkway and forced the southbound I-15 freeway to close. Two southbound lanes reopened an hour later. No homes were immediately threatened in the area.

      Another brush fire recently broke out in Jurupa Valley, a city roughly 50 miles north of Temecula.

    • Decades Ago, Robert Kennedy Explained Something That Trump Still Doesn’t Know About The Economy

      Of that, EPA regulations delivered the majority of benefits ($132.5 to $652 billion) but only about half the costs ($31 to $37.5 billion).

      Of course, lots of those benefits were things like reduced health care costs because the air got cleaner — and those benefits don’t show up in our primary measure of economic growth, GDP. Indeed, reducing sickness and death actually lowers GDP.

    • Why There Could Be More Blasts Like 2015 ExxonMobil Torrance Oil Refinery Explosion, Putting Millions At Risk

      On the morning of February 18, 2015, the ExxonMobil oil refinery in Torrance, California exploded, causing chemical ash to rain on the surrounding community for hours. Eight workers had to be decontaminated and four were sent to hospitals with minor injuries.

      California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) ordered ExxonMobil to shut down the unit until it could demonstrate safe operation.

      In August, Cal/OSHA issued 19 citations for workplace safety and health violations at the Torrance refinery. The company was fined $566,600 in penalties in connection with the blast.

    • Could Arctic Ice Disappear For First Time in More Than 100,000 Years?

      The Arctic could become virtually ice-free by 2017 for the first time in 100,000 years, a leading scientist has told the Independent.

      Peter Wadhams, head of the Polar Ocean Physics Group at Cambridge University, cited new statistics from the National Snow and Ice Data Center which showed that as of June, Arctic sea ice had slimmed down to about 11 million square kilometers—lower than the last 30 years’ average of 12.7 million square kilometers—and it continues to melt.

      At that rate, Wadhams said, “Arctic ice may well disappear, that is, have an area of less than one million square kilometers for September of this year.”

      “Even if the ice doesn’t completely disappear, it is very likely that this will be a record low year. I’m convinced it will be less than 3.4 million square kilometers [the current record low],” he continued. “I think there’s a reasonable chance it could get down to a million this year and if it doesn’t do it this year, it will do it next year.”

    • Should lawyers be ethically obligated to protect the environment?

      As states and corporations increasingly head to court over climate change, a lawyer lays out an ethical roadmap to give the environment a louder legal voice

    • Oil Train Disaster Plans: A Burning Need for the Truth about Oil Train Fires

      In the year since five fiery oil train disasters in the US and Canada brought national attention to the threat from trains hauling explosive crude oil, the rail industry has embarked on a high profile public relations exercise to reassure the public that deadly disasters can be averted by emergency responders. In fact, the reality of oil train accidents — and the unanimous opinion of fire officials and federal rail safety experts — proves that there is no fighting an oil train derailment and fire. The scene of a crude oil derailment and fire is an uncontrollable fire. All firefighters can do is evacuate the area and wait for the fire to burn itself out.

    • Company Apologizes for Oil Train Disaster It Acknowledges Was Inevitable

      “We’re playing Russian roulette. I think the industry is perfectly willing to put a gun to our heads and risk our lives for the sake of making money. It is abundantly clear this enterprise is unsafe, unsustainable and they don’t know how to manage it.”

    • Socially constructed silence? Protecting policymakers from the unthinkable.

      The scientific community is profoundly uncomfortable with the storm of political controversy that climate research is attracting. What’s going on?

    • ‘Free Trade’ Will Kill Climate Movement, Hundreds of Groups Warn Congress

      Warning against dangers to “workers, communities, and our environment,” more than 450 environmental advocacy groups called on Congress to reject the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

    • PwC says major miners wasted the resources boom

      The world’s largest miners have squandered the benefits of the long resources boom, writing off the equivalent of 32 per cent of the capital expenditure spent since 2010, according to accounting firm PwC.

      An analysis of the world’s 40 largest mining companies by market capitalisation revealed a collective $US199 billion of impairments were booked between 2010 and 2015, representing a staggering 31.9 per cent of the $US623 billion in capital expenditure deployed over the period.

      PwC said the findings highlighted a “lack of capital discipline”.

      While PwC’s weighted commodity price index declined 25 per cent year-on-year in 2015, the combined market capitalisation of the top 40 miners plummeted 37 per cent to $US494 billion, just a third of the collective value five years ago.

    • Washington, D.C., Announces Divestment of $6.4 Billion Pension Fund From Oil, Gas, and Coal Companies
    • Another Giant Pension Fund Divested From Oil, Coal, And Gas Companies

      D.C.’s $6.4 billion city government pension fund has divested from fossil fuels.

      In September, the District of Columbia pledged to curb its greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050. Consistent with that aim, D.C’s Retirement Board has scrubbed its $6.4 billion pension fund of investments in the 200 largest publicly traded coal, oil and gas companies.

    • In ‘Bold’ Act of Leadership, Nation’s Capital Divests $6.4 Billion Fund from All Fossil Fuels

      The largest pension fund in Washington, D.C. has divested its $6.4 billion from 200 of “the world’s most polluting fossil fuel companies.”

      “In doing so, Washington, D.C. has taken a critical step toward addressing climate change, joining the more than 500 cities, philanthropic organizations, faith groups, universities, and other organizations that have divested funds worth a collective $3.4 trillion,” wrote grassroots advocacy group DC Divest, which celebrated the hard-won victory that came after three years of campaigning.

    • Can An International Standard Help End Food Waste?

      Food waste is a huge international problem that costs the global economy billions of dollars each year and creates tons of methane gas, which helps fuel climate change. Nearly one-third of all food produced is wasted each year. If the emissions associated with all that wasted, rotting food were a country, it would be the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, behind the United States and China.

    • Europe’s floods come as no surprise

      At least 18 people have lost their lives in central Europe as severe floods engulf the continent from France to Ukraine. In Paris the River Seine reached 6.1 metres (20 feet) above normal, and tens of thousands of people have fled their homes.

      If the downpours and swollen rivers came as a surprise, they shouldn’t have done. Not only are there historical precedents for disastrous floods. There have been graphic recent warnings too, spelling out the growing likelihood that the warming climate will make bouts of flooding and other extreme weather more frequent.

      Last March a study reported in the journal Nature said climate change was already driving an increase in extremes of rainfall and snowfall across most of the globe, even in arid regions. The study said the trend would continue as the world warmed.

  • Finance

    • Hillary Clinton gives a speech about inequality in an Armani jacket worth ‘$12,000′

      Hilary Clinton has come under fire for giving a speech about inequality in a Giorgio Armani jacket reportedly worth $12,495.

      It has emerged the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee wore the tweed jacket during her victory speech in April in which she explored topics of income inequality, job creation and retirement schemes.

      Clinton, who is known for her pantsuit collection, has hired a team of image experts which includes Michelle Obama’s former assistant Kristina Schake and opted for higher end European fashion labels in recent months.

      “She’s had to have spent in the six figures on this wardrobe overhaul,” Los Angeles-based political image consultant Patsy Cisneros told The New York Post yesterday.

    • GE Considers Scrapping the Annual Raise

      General Electric Co. is the laboratory of American management. So when the manufacturing giant says it’s rethinking a bedrock tradition of corporate life — the annual raise — you can bet that C-suites everywhere will be watching closely.

      GE executives are reviewing whether annual updates to compensation are the best response to the achievements and needs of employees. The company may also scrap the longstanding and much-imitated system of rating staff on a five-point scale. Decisions on both issues may come within the next several months, spokeswoman Valerie Van den Keybus said by phone.

    • Oracle Whistleblower Suit Raises Questions Over Cloud Accounting

      A whistleblower lawsuit filed against Oracle over its accounting practices underscores the pressures established computer companies face to show that they are growing in the fast-moving business known as the cloud.

      The lawsuit, filed on Wednesday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco by former Oracle senior finance manager Svetlana Blackburn, also revives longstanding questions about proper accounting when software and computer services are bought on a subscription basis rather than as a single package, analysts said.

    • C.F.P.B. Releases Payday Lending Rule, Calls for Credit Union-Style Services to Fill Void
    • South Africa’s EFF: Julius Malema and the Struggle to Continue the Revolution

      Indeed, neo-colonial South Africa has been good to South Africa whites. Whites, who comprise 10% of South Africa’s population, control 80% of one of the wealthiest real estate on the planet. Undeniably, land is the basis of all present and intergenerational wealth, not jobs. South Africa contains a cornucopia of mineral riches. It is the world’s largest producer of gold, diamonds, vanadium, chrome, manganese, platinum and vermiculite. No one voluntarily relinquishes this kind of wealth and the struggle for control of these magnificent resources is yet to be waged. The murders of valiant freedom fighters and the election of Mandela provided a temporary reprieve for white settlers and monopoly capitalism but a new generation of Black activists have determined that the fight for power, land and the future of Black folks in South Africa can no longer be held in abeyance.

    • John Oliver Bought Nearly $15 Million in Medical Debt to Prove a Point in an Incredible Way (Video)

      The “Last Week Tonight” host discovered just how easy it is to get into the debt collection business and then go after payment, something that often results in the persecution of innocent people. Oliver then made television history Sunday night. Watch to the very end of the hilariously informative clip to see Oliver outdoing Oprah Winfrey with an unforgettable act.

    • Closing in on EU Financial Tax Victory

      The international campaign for taxes on financial speculation is on the brink of a major European milestone that could further boost momentum in the United States.

    • ‘The current Brexit debate is essentially an argument between the Tory party and itself’
    • Is the US Behind the Brazilian Coup?

      There can no longer be a defense of the removal of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff from office. The political maneuvering by the opposition PSDB has been uncloaked and revealed for what it clearly was all along: a quiet coup dressed in the disguise of democracy.

      The recent release of a recording of a phone call has done for Brazil what Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian affairs Victoria Nuland’s phone call to American ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt did for Ukraine: it has provided incontrovertible proof that the removal of the elected President was a coup.

      The published transcript of the call between Romero Jucá, who was a senator at the time of the call and is currently the planning minister in the new Michael Temer government, and former oil executive, Sergio Machado, lays bare “a national pact” to remove Dilma and install Temer as President. Jucá reveals that, not only opposition politicians, but also the military and the Supreme Court are conspirators in the coup. Regarding the military’s role, Jucá says, “I am talking to the generals, the military commanders. They are fine with this, they said they will guarantee it.” And, as for the Supreme Court, Glenn Greenwald reports that Jucá admits that he “spoke with and secured the involvement of numerous justices on Brazil’s Supreme Court.” Jucá further boasted that “there are only a small number” of Supreme Court justices that he had not spoken to.

    • Wall Street Behind Brazil Coup d’Etat

      The US does not want to deal or negotiate with a sovereign reformist nationalist government. What it wants is a compliant US proxy state.

    • A Monthly Income Just for Being Human, and Other Sensible Ideas

      Unconditional basic income, a policy option that seems radical by American standards, is gaining new traction across Europe, Canada, and even a few places in the United States. Also known as “universal basic income,” the policy mandates a guaranteed stipend to every resident of a community, with no strings attached. It is promoted as a way to address rising inequality, protect against economic uncertainty, and replace increasingly austere and inadequate means-tested benefit programs. A basic income is gaining credence among economists and policymakers as a necessity in a global economy that’s failing millions of people.

    • The Theory of Business Enterprises Part 6: Government as an Arm of Business

      The international policies of the US government are organized around the needs of businessmen, according to Thorstein Veblen, in the same way the legal system was organized to protect their interests and not those of the common people.

    • A European network of rebel cities?

      In this perspective, the interaction with transnational movements and various initiatives “for democracy in Europe” (DiEM25, among others) is necessarily required. An example come from the recent meeting of Local Authorities against TTIP, held on April 21 and 22 in Barcelona, and that concluded with a strong claim to the European Commission signed by hundreds of mayors.

    • Public Health Must Not Resuscitate the Trans-Pacific Partnership

      Two recent high-profile statements attempt to drum up support for the unpopular Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) based on faulty analyses of provisions that greatly concern public health: tobacco control, and access to medicines.

    • The Trans-Pacific Partnership: a missed opportunity for civil society?

      The TPP requires the 12 member states to uphold basic International Labour Organization (ILO) standards. But there is a simple problem: no one knows what to do about non-compliance. Recent reports from The Atlantic Monthly and the House Ways and Means Committee cast doubt on the ability of the United States to hold some of the TPP partner countries to their labor rights commitments.

    • TPP mired as Congress returns

      TPP MIRED AS CONGRESS RETURNS: It could be a long, sleepy summer for the Trans-Pacific Partnership one year after Congress nearly ripped itself apart to give President Barack Obama “fast track” authority to finish the landmark Asia-Pacific deal. The administration is trying to sell Congress and the American public on the economic and geostrategic benefits of TPP. But both Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan are keeping their distance, while Donald Trump is promising to walk away from the 12-nation pact.

    • Obama Administration Bars Release of Clinton’s TPP Emails Until Post-Election

      While Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton has publicly reversed her position on the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), it remains unknown how much she helped advance, or even craft, the international trade deal while serving as U.S. Secretary of State—and the Obama administration appears interested in keeping it that way.

      On Monday, International Business Times (IBT) senior editor David Sirota reported that the State Department is refusing to release correspondence between Clinton’s State Department office and the United States Trade Representative related to the TPP until after the 2016 presidential election.

    • Panama Papers Show How Rich United States Clients Hid Millions Abroad

      Over the years, William R. Ponsoldt had earned tens of millions of dollars building a string of successful companies. He had renovated apartment buildings in the New York City area. Bred Arabian horses. Run a yacht club in the Bahamas, a rock quarry in Michigan, an auto-parts company in Canada, even a multibillion-dollar hedge fund.

      Now, as he neared retirement, Mr. Ponsoldt, of Jensen Beach, Fla., had a special request for Mossack Fonseca, a Panama-based law firm well placed in the world of offshore finance: How could he confidentially shift his money into overseas bank accounts and use them to buy real estate and move funds to his children?

      “He is the manager of one of the richest hedge funds in the world,” a lawyer at Mossack Fonseca wrote when the firm was introduced to Mr. Ponsoldt in 2004. “Primary objective is to maintain the utmost confidentiality and ideally to open bank accounts without disclosing his name as a private person.”

    • How the Panama Papers Firm Helped US Clients Escape Tax Rules

      The law firm at the center of the Panama Papers scandal, Mossack Fonseca, helped many of its American clients evade U.S. tax and transparency laws, according to an investigation by the New York Times published Monday.

      Documents including “confidential emails, copies of passports, ledgers of bank transactions and even the various code names used to refer to clients” show that Mossack Fonseca went beyond simply creating shell companies for some of the 2,400 Americans implicated in the leak, the Times reports—instead, the firm “offered a how-to guide of sorts on skirting or evading United States tax and financial disclosure laws.”

    • I Told Paul Ryan What It’s Like to Live in Poverty. Here’s What Happened Next.

      In your first speech as Speaker you called for combining many safety net programs into a single block grant. But I know you realize that poverty would be twice as high without the safety net, with nearly 30 percent of Americans living below the poverty line. What would our nation look like with 30 percent poverty? We can thank the safety net for the fact that we don’t know the answer to that question.

    • Hedge fund sues Peru for $ 1.6 billion over agrarian bonds

      Gramercy Funds Management has filed a $1.6 billion claim against Peru for its refusal to redeem land bonds from the 1970s agrarian reform.

      The Connecticut-based hedge fund has requested arbitration before a special tribunal created in the U.S.-Peru Free Trade Agreement which took effect in 2009.

      “For several years, Gramercy has attempted to engage in negotiations with the Peruvian government to find a solution for the land bond debt,” the hedge fund said in a statement according to the Wall Street Journal. “The government has consistently declined to enter into serious discussions on this matter, leading Gramercy to file the arbitration.”

    • Media Cite Architect of Last Recession as Expert on Preventing Another One

      FAIR has written before about “Trumpwashing”: the use of Trump’s extremism as a way of propping up establishment Democrats’ own history of extreme neoliberal economic policy and military adventurism. Just as Trump’s hypothetical wars are used to distract from the actual wars Hillary Clinton has pushed for, Trump’s theoretical recession is used to gloss over how much damage the Bill Clinton administration’s economic policies of deregulating Wall Street did.

      The rub in Summers’ warnings—and the subsequent coverage of them—is how ideological they are. Summers insists that two of the biggest dangers posed by Trump are his pulling out of “free trade” agreements and “scaling back NATO.” There’s much dispute over what caused the 2008 recession, but one thing is clear: Anti–“free trade” policies and scaling back NATO didn’t play a role. While it’s certainly possible Trump’s wackier economic policies (like defaulting on debts, for example) could bring the cataclysm Summers warns about, the smuggling in of pro-TPP and pro-NATO expansion language belies a disinterested motive.

      The use of the Trump spectacle, as FAIR has noted before, as a proxy war against either unrelated or tangentially related ideas, causes or countries is one of its more pernicious features. This tactic is made even more cynical when it’s done by one of the architects of the 2008 recession, nominally in an effort to warn us about a future one.

    • Universal Basic Income: Why it is Not Crazy and Not Going Away

      The Dutch city of Utrecht is developing a pilot project for a universal basic income that will launch in January 2017. The Finnish government is designing a trial to see whether giving low-income people a guaranteed basic income destroys their motivation to do any work at all, as critics allege. The idea is not going away because most “real” jobs are on the way out.

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Harry Reid Is Quietly Laying The Groundwork For Elizabeth Warren To Be Vice President

      There are several good reasons why presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton might want to choose Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) as her running mate. Warren is a forceful critic of Republican candidate Donald Trump. As the architect of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Warren helps insulate Clinton from charges that she is too close to Wall Street. And Warren is popular with many liberal Democrats that Clinton may want to build bridges towards in the wake of a bruising primary against Sen. Bernie Sanders.

    • Media Executives See Huge Payday Fueled By Donald Trump’s Campaign

      Early on, media executives in charge of much of America’s broadcasting industry were worried that Donald Trump, who eschewed traditional political advertising, might dampen prospects for a high-spending campaign season.

      That fear is gone.

      The Intercept reviewed the past six months of investor earnings calls and presentations of major media companies. In the first few months of this year, some executives expressed concern that Trump might continue to rely on his extraordinary free media exposure and spend less money than traditional Republican candidates. But over the last two months, the concern has dissipated and transformed into excitement that this year is on track to be the most expensive election in history.

      In reviewing the transcripts, we observed no discussions during any of the calls about the media’s role in creating the Trump phenomenon, or the media’s duty to present voters with the information necessary to make informed decisions.

    • Four Americans Who Should Be Crying Out For Socialism

      Beaten-down Americans are ignored by our neoliberal system of economics and government. A social democracy would help to restrain runaway capitalism by focusing on the needs of all citizens rather than just the money-makers. But unless our next president is Bernie Sanders, struggling Americans will continue to be ignored, as they have been since the Reagan years.

    • Democratic Elites Once Again Demonstrate Their Contempt for Organized Labor

      Last week, the Washington Post reported a striking piece of news: One of the five individuals Bernie Sanders nominated to play a role in writing the Democratic Party’s platform was vetoed by the Democratic National Committee.

      Striking, but far from surprising — particularly when, as the Post observes, we learn that the individual the DNC rejected was RoseAnn DeMoro, the executive director of National Nurses United, “the largest union and professional association of registered nurses in U.S. history.”

      The NNU was the first major union to endorse Bernie Sanders and, according to DeMoro, Sanders picked her “to advocate for Medicare for All.”

    • Hillary’s Foreign Policy Speech: Queen Galadriel Before Her Magic Mirror

      Hillary Clinton’s fiery performance last Thursday night, intended to assert her credentials as a former secretary of state (with all the positive “experience” that’s supposed to entail), framed by no fewer than seventeen U.S. flags, was a strident reassertion of U.S. “exceptionalism” without apologies or even reflections on the recent past and her bloody role in it.

    • Libertarian Johnson predicts a boost after Sanders drops out

      Libertarian Party presidential nominee Gary Johnson believes his campaign will get a boost whenever Bernie Sanders ends his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

      Johnson, who many believe could be the strongest third-party candidate in decades, told The Hill in an exclusive interview on Monday that Libertarians are poised for a breakout year driven by dissatisfaction with the major-party nominees.

      Johnson believes that once Sanders drops out, he’ll benefit from having one less insurgent candidate in the field as voters look for an alternative to the Republican and Democratic candidates.

    • Ron Paul: U.S. does not have democracy

      The United States is not a democratic country, former presidential candidate and Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) said Monday while discussing the “very poor choices” and “no real contrast” for voters to choose from between the likes of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

      “This country, we do not really have democracy. I mean, even if we were really, really super happy with the Libertarian candidate, you think they’d get into the debates? No, the debates are run by the Republicans and Democrats,” Paul said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” when asked about the viability of the Gary Johnson-Bill Weld Libertarian ticket.

    • Will Hillary Clinton Get Favored Treatment?

      Hillary Clinton’s private emails jeopardized the safety of undercover CIA officers, suggesting criminal charges, but the Obama administration might make an exception for the Democratic frontrunner, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.

    • If Hillary Clinton Gets a Pass on Espionage From President Obama, So Should Whistleblowers

      Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee for president, appears to have committed a very serious violation of some of the country’s most important laws governing the use and misuse of classified information: She revealed the names of undercover CIA officers by using her unclassified and unprotected personal email server. That may be a violation both of the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Intelligence Identities Act of 1982 (IIPA). That Clinton used an unclassified system for classified information is not conjecture. That’s the same email server that Romanian hacker Guccifer said was so easy to hack that it was “like an open orchid on the internet.”

      That Clinton had such highly classified information on an unclassified system is a fact. The question now is: What is the Obama administration going to do about it? And the answer is, probably, nothing.

    • Party Crashing and Political Revolution: With the DNC Just Weeks Away, What’s Next for Our Movement?

      As the California Democratic Primary rapidly approaches, I’m reminded of a small but important event that took place earlier this spring in San Francisco. Gutsy activists protested in April outside a campaign fundraiser for Hillary Clinton, co-hosted by movie megastar and area resident, George Clooney. The party was full of glitz, privilege, glamour, and of course money. Lots of it. The minimum price for entry to the hotel location was $33,400, with a seat inside the house party going for $353,400.

      A group of 200 protesters, uninvited and unwelcome at an event unaffordable to them, used the media spotlight outside to call out Hillary Clinton’s corporate record and corporate backing. George Clooney even felt compelled to respond to reporters, acknowledging the “obscene” amounts of money influencing the U.S. political system.

      Of course, lots of Clinton fundraisers like this one have happened all over the country, both before and since, while even larger sums of money are amassed quietly with corporate Super PACs. But what was different about this “Golden City” event was the success of activists in breaking through the media blackout with a vivid snapshot into the world inhabited by the Democratic Party establishment, and the fundamental class character of the party itself.

    • Bernie Sanders’ Revolution Won’t End at the Polls

      While no one can predict the future, victories in California, New Mexico and the Big Sky states on June 7, combined with a strong showing in New Jersey, would leave Sanders (or at least his movement) in a position analogous to Ronald Reagan’s in 1976: a close runner-up, poised to lead the country in a new direction. It certainly won’t be easy; unlike Reagan, Sanders would face unified opposition from the establishment. Still, victories in these final contests would cement the impression not only that Sanders’ program represents the future of progressive politics, but also that he won the battle of ideas in this election cycle.

    • Donald Trump Is the Mosquito, Not the Zika Virus

      Graduates of 2016, don’t be fooled by this glorious day. As you leave campus for the last time, many of you already deeply in debt and with a lifetime of payments to look forward to, you head into a world that’s anything but sunny. In fact, through those gates that have done little enough to protect you is the sort of fog bank that results in traffic pile-ups on any highway.

      And if you imagine that I’m here to sweep that fog away and tell you what truly lies behind it, think again. My only consolation is that, if I can’t adequately explain our American world to you or your path through it, I doubt any other speaker could either.

      Of course, it’s not exactly a fog-lifter to say that, like it or not, you’re about to graduate onto Planet Donald — and I don’t mean, for all but a few of you, a future round of golf at Mar-a-Lago. Our increasingly unnerved and disturbed world is his circus right now (whether he wins the coming election or not), just as in the Philippines, it’s the circus of new president Rodrigo Duterte; in Hungary, of right-wing populist Viktor Orbán; in Austria, of Norbert Hofer, the extremist anti-immigrant presidential candidate who just lost a squeaker by .6% of the vote; in Israel, of new defense minister Avigdor Lieberman; in Russia, of the autocratic Vladimir Putin; in France, of Marine le Pen, leader of the right-wing National Front party, who has sometimes led in polls for the next presidential election; and so on. And if you don’t think that’s a less than pretty political picture of our changing planet, then don’t wait for the rest of this speech, just hustle out those gates. You’ve got a treat ahead of you.

    • Sanders Speaks against Racism, Injustice

      As Hillary Clinton seeks to finally extinguish Bernie Sanders’s campaign, the Vermont senator continues to speak out against the Establishment’s neglect of social justice and against the racism coming from Donald Trump, reports Marjorie Cohn.

    • What Happens Next? People’s Summit to Fortify Sanders’ Political Revolution

      No matter what happens in the remaining seven Democratic presidential primaries, progressives—many of them Bernie Sanders supporters—will gather in Chicago later this month to discuss how to build and fortify the political revolution that’s been sparked during the 2016 campaign season.

    • Diamond Dogs: Clinton Family Jewels

      Lurking in the background of this secret deal was a Canadian financial tycoon named Frank Guistra, who owned 60,000 shares of stock in Diamond Fields. Over the years, Clinton and Guistra would become close friends, with Clinton travelling the world in Giustra’s private jet, negotiating mining deals from Kazakhstan to Moscow. As detailed in Peter Schweitzer’s very informative Clinton Cash, Giustra returned the love, donating more than $30 million to the Clinton Foundation.

      Hillary made out as well. On the night of the first Clinton inaugural ball, the new first lady proudly flashed a 3.5 carat diamond ring, a present from the old Diamond Fields team, mined from the Crater of Diamonds. As for old John Huddleston, the man once hailed as the Diamond King of Arkansas? He died indigent and was buried in a pauper’s grave two miles from his glittering crater.

      The moral of this tale: though others may well go under, you can count on the Clintons to always profit from their plunder.

    • Birtherism and Bigotry: These Are the Vile Impulses Driving Voters to Trump; Stop Thinking It’s Anything Else

      I suspect those people would be grateful for any help they can get to go into the future. But according to Nate Silver at 538 they aren’t Trump voters. His voters are white but they are not members of the working class, at least not if you define class as relating to how much money someone has. Silver wrote a piece called “The Mythology Of Trump’s ‘Working Class’ Support” about a month ago in which he examined all the exit poll data and discovered that Trump voters are actually better off than most Americans.

    • Who’s the Fascist?

      Donald Trump is the ill spoken, boorish, graceless version of every American president in modern history. He differs from them only in his unconcealed appeals to white nationalism. But Democrats aren’t much better. They pretend to work on behalf of human, civil and economic rights but those claims are lies. They are meant to hide their partnerships with corporate America, very wealthy individuals and the worldwide imperialist project.

    • Ahead of California, Sanders Warns Media Against Preemptive Coronation of Clinton

      Addressing concerns that the media may preemptively announce his rival Hillary Clinton as the “presumptive Democratic Party nominee” even before she has won the requisite numbers of pledge delegates, Bernie Sanders over the weekend indicated that such reporting would be both wrong and irresponsible and held to his commitment to take his campaign all the way to the national convention when so-called superdelegates will finally—and for the first time, in fact—be able to cast their vote for who they believe will make the best nominee.

      Six states are holding Democratic primaries this Tuesday, including California, New Mexico, New Jersey, Montana, South Dakota, and North Dakota.

      Amid some speculation, bolstered by overt comments by people like MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, that cable outlets or other news agencies would call the election in favor of Clinton before all the results of next Tuesday’s results are in, Sander reiterated his argument that even though he has a steep hill to climb, the race is much closer than often reported.

    • It’s Not Over Until It’s Over

      This morning I heard from an old friend here in California who said “I’m for Bernie, but he doesn’t really have a chance anymore. So isn’t my vote for him in the California primary just prolonging the agony, and indirectly helping Trump?”

      I told him:

      1. True, the electoral numbers are daunting, and Bernie faces an uphill task, but a win Tuesday will help enormously. One out of 8 Americans lives in California.

      2. Regardless of the electoral math, Bernie’s candidacy has never been mainly about Bernie. It’s been about a movement to reclaim our democracy and economy from the moneyed interests. And a win for Bernie in the California primary (and in other Tuesday primaries in Montana, New Jersey, North Dakota South Dakota, and New Mexico) will send an even clearer signal to Washington, the Democratic Party, and the establishment as a whole, that a large and growing share of Americans is determined to wrest back control.

      3. The goals Bernie has enunciated in his campaign are essential to our future: getting big money out of politics and reversing widening inequality; moving toward a single-payer healthcare system and free tuition at public universities (both financed by higher taxes on the richest Americans and on Wall Street); a $15 minimum wage; decriminalization of marijuana and an end to mass incarceration; a new voting rights act; immigration reform; and a carbon tax. All will require continued mobilization at all levels of government. A win Tuesday will help continue and build on that mobilization.

    • McConnell: Ignore Trump’s Racism Because ‘The Party Of Lincoln Wants To Win The White House’

      Appearing on Meet the Press Sunday morning, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) thrice refused to label Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s statement that a federal judge cannot decide a case impartially because the judge is Mexican American a “racist statement.”

    • Alabama Redux

      In early April this space was devoted to a discussion of the assorted political adversities that were being inflicted on those seeking to govern the state of Alabama, going from the Governor of the state, to the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, and finally to the Alabama Speaker of the House. It has, however, been more than two months since those events were described and it is time for an update, if for no other reason than to reassure my readers that Donald Trump is not the only clown in town. The following events occurred within days of each other during the merry month of May.

    • Matt Damon Talks Banks, Brexit, Climate Change and Inequality at MIT Commencement (Video)

      “There’s more at stake today than in any story ever told,” said the actor who starred in the 1997 film “Good Will Hunting,” set at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as he took the stage at the school’s graduation ceremony Friday. He even mentioned a certain Massachusetts senator, saying, “I don’t know if justice is coming for you in this life or the next. But if justice does come for you in this life … her name is Elizabeth Warren.”

    • Hillary Clinton’s ‘Major Foreign Policy Address’ Was Anything But

      In the last days before the California primary, where Democratic primary polls showed her neck-and-neck with Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton delivered a campaign speech in San Diego. Though her campaign billed it as a “major foreign policy address,” it looked more like a last-ditch attempt to position herself as the Democratic nominee ahead of a potentially embarrassing loss or close finish with Sanders in the nation’s most populous state.

    • Shut Down the Democratic National Convention

      On July 25, opening day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Cheri Honkala, leader of the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign, who was denied a permit to march by city authorities, will rally with thousands of protesters outside City Hall. Defying the police, they will march up Broad Street to the convention.

      We will recapture our democracy in the streets of cities such as Philadelphia, not in convention halls such as the aptly named Wells Fargo Center, where the Democratic Party elites intend to celebrate the results of the rigged primary elections and the continuity of corporate power.

      Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, other activists and I will march with Honkala. It is not as if we have a choice. No one invited us into the center or to the lavish corporate-sponsored receptions. No one anointed us to be Clinton superdelegates—a privilege that went to corporate lobbyists, rich people and party hacks. No one in the Democratic establishment gives a damn what we think.

      The convention is not our party. It is their party. It costs a lot of money to attend. Donate $ 100,000 and you become an “empire” donor, with perks such as “VIP credentials for all convention proceedings,” along with tickets to lavish corporate and Party receptions, photo ops with politicians at the convention podium, four rooms at the Loews Philadelphia Hotel and a suite at a Yankees game, where a “special guest” will be present. Short of $100,000? You can become a “gold” donor for $50,000, a “silver” donor for $25,000 or a “bronze” donor for $10,000.

    • Former Texas Regulator Said He Was Muzzled For Investigating Trump University

      A former Texas official said a fraud investigation into Trump University was silenced in 2010, under “highly unusual” circumstances. Former Deputy Chief of Consumer Protection John Owens told CBS he had a strong case against Presidential candidate Donald Trump’s company for scamming students at his unaccredited real estate school. Shortly after the company folded in 2010, Owens’ says he was ordered to drop the case.

    • Alex Jones: Trump University Judge Is “The Equivalent Of A Hispanic Grand Dragon”
    • Profiles in Cowardice — GOP Leaders and Donald Trump

      Donald Trump has entered a new phase of autocratic weirdness. His attack on Federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is presiding in the lawsuit against Trump University, was a trifecta. It combined outright racism with an assault on the independent judiciary and a clear warning that Trump would use the presidency to settle personal business scores.

      His rants at reporters display contempt for the role of a free press. He would govern like a spiteful tyrant, with all the awesome powers of a president of the United States — settling scores, punishing enemies, making impetuous, ignorant decisions.

    • Trump Has No Use For Dog Whistles

      Donald Trump doesn’t subscribe to the Atwater School of Subtle Racism.

      Trump last week declared the Latino judge presiding over the Trump University case unfit strictly because of his ethnic heritage.

    • Why the AP called it for Clinton

      And though Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign dismissed the news on Monday evening — and Hillary Clinton herself said at a campaign rally in California that she wanted to let voters have their say on Tuesday — the AP now says it will be calling Clinton the “presumptive nominee” until the convention in July.

    • #StillSanders: Fans Reject AP Project of Clinton as Nominee

      Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) supporters took to social media on Monday to protest the Associated Press declaring, one day before the highly-anticipated California primary, that Hillary Clinton had become the Democratic Party’s nominee.

    • Voters Outraged as Media Accused of Falsely, Preemptively Crowning Clinton

      The Bernie Sanders campaign and progressives across the nation expressed mixtures of frustration and contempt Monday night after major news outlets—following declarations by the Associated Press and NBC News—ignored the explicit instructions about how primary delegates should be tallied and declared that Hillary Clinton has won the nomination of the Democratic Party.

    • Major media to millions of voters on eve of California vote: Democracy be damned!

      The bias of the major media never ceases to amaze me.

      Apparently someone in the media (AP, and now the Huffington Post among others) was in a hurry to declare Hillary Clinton the winner of the primary before she actually wins. Before millions of people in California and five other states vote. Before the convention, weeks before it, in fact. The hell with specific rules stating not to include superdelegates in the count. It doesn’t matter! The convention? It doesn’t matter! The votes of millions of people on June 7? They don’t matter either!

      Democracy? Screw it,

      in America, Democracy doesn’t matter! It doesn’t matter!

      The media has declared, today in America, that the Democratic process does not matter!

      IT DOESN’T MATTER!

    • AP Declares Hillary Clinton Democratic Presidential Nominee

      However, superdelegates (or unpledged delegates) can change their minds and switch their loyalties until the Democratic National Convention, so it’s not completely accurate to call Clinton the presumptive nominee. That point wasn’t lost on the Sanders campaign, which quickly put out a press release saying the Associated Press had jumped the gun…

    • Clinton Reportedly Clinches Democratic Nomination, but Nobody’s Pleased

      We’ve just crossed a historic Rubicon in the most anticlimactic way possible. On Monday night, the Associated Press announced that, due to some new superdelegate commitments, Hillary Clinton has clinched the Democratic nomination. This news pleased no one. Bernie Sanders supporters saw the announcement, on the eve of an important primary day, as evidence that the system is rigged on Clinton’s behalf. The Clinton team worried that the announcement would suppress turnout Tuesday and step on a victory that should have been made manifest at the polls.

    • US ‘Democracy’ in Action? Before California, Clinton ‘Wins’ Democratic Nomination: AP

      Not including superdelegates, Sanders is just 291 delegates behind Clinton and campaigners for his “political revolution” have been going all out in California, which will allocate 475 delegates.

    • Is the GOP Losing Its Religion?

      Of course this is an inadequate way of posing the question. God is always present for believers, even if the political workings of the divine can be hard to discern. And religious people continue to occupy points all along the spectrum. Just ask Hillary Clinton about her Methodism.

      But especially among Republicans, religious issues have taken a back seat in the party’s discourse and religious leaders are playing a diminished role in the 2016 campaign.

    • Sanders’ Campaign Alleges Fraud in Puerto Rico Presidential Primary

      With just hours before the start of the presidential primaries in Puerto Rico, members of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ team accused the leadership of the local Democratic Party of fraud, saying they hindered the certification process of their voting center officials.

      The Hispanic vote director for the campaign of the Vermont senator, Betsy Franceschini, denounced a series of irregularities her work team faced Friday while thousands of inmates at the island’s correctional facilities were voting.

    • Puerto Rico Primary: Is Election Fraud Happening?

      The presidential primary in Puerto Rico is today, but concerns about election fraud have been growing for days already. Bernie Sanders campaign officials and supporters are worried that a series of problems, ranging from drastically reduced polling stations to poll workers who can’t get certified, might be signs of voter suppression or election fraud. Some of these problems wouldn’t just hurt Sanders supporters, but could reduce everyone’s access to voting during the primary. What exactly is happening? And is it some form of fraud or voter suppression, or just a series of poor management decisions?

    • Did the Democratic Party Commit Election Fraud in Puerto Rico?

      Polling locations for the Democratic primary in Puerto Rico were reduced from 1,510 to 432 days before the contest that Clinton won.

    • Clinton Foundation Opaque “Fundraising Arm of Campaign”

      In an interview on CNN this weekend, Sen. Bernie Sanders said: “You asked me about the Clinton Foundation. Do I have a problem when a sitting secretary of state and a foundation run by her husband collects many millions of dollars from foreign governments, governments which are dictatorships? You don’t have a lot of civil liberties, democratic rights in Saudi Arabia. You don’t have a lot of respect there for divergent, opposition points of view, for gay rights, for women’s rights. Yeah — do I have a problem with that? Yeah, I do.”

    • Endgame: Setting the Table for Tuesday’s Primary Showdown

      The weirdest presidential election year in the history of modern US politics came down to one of the weirdest five-day news runs I’ve ever seen. Secretary Hillary Clinton gave a rousing speech on Thursday in stalwart defense of empire while cutting Donald Trump off at the knees. Trump, in response, spent the next several days spraying copious amounts of folly into the air as if he were the fountains at the Bellagio Hotel in Vegas.

    • A More Relevant and Radical Democratic Platform? Sanders Brings Veteran Activists to the Table

      Usually the chair of the Democratic National Committee appoints the group after consulting with the party’s presidential nominee, and Barack Obama had sweeping say in 2008. However, this year, the party allowed candidates to make appointments in proportion to their share of the popular vote in the primaries. Hillary Clinton made six picks, and Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz selected the remaining four. The Washington Post interpreted the change in the selection process as an attempt to unite an increasingly divided party.

  • Censorship/Free Speech

    • Happyweb – a new Internet.

      The word “troll” no longer means just “troll” any more, as it seems that when some people come across another whose opinion they can’t counter, they will simply label them “troll” so as not to highlight the short-comings of their own position.

    • Israel-First McCarthyism: Cuomo’s vow to spy on, punish BDS Activists in long Tradition

      After New York governor Andrew Cuomo issued an executive order directing the state to monitor and sanction activists in the Boycott, Sanctions and Divest Movement (BDS) against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, critics complained that the order is McCarthyism. They objected that social and economic boycotts have been used in instances such as South Africa’s racial segregation or Apartheid. Interference in such a social and political movement in protest of injustice, they aver, is contrary to the first amendment. (Cuomo’s executive order will certainly be struck down by the courts). The order is creepy, since it suggests that Cuomo will have New York state bureaucrats combing through citizens’ Facebook and Twitter accounts to see if they support BDS, and then find ways of punishing them (no contracts from the state, no state jobs, no internships).

    • Jewish Voice for Peace Statement on Gov. Cuomo’s Executive Order on BDS

      Shame on Governor Cuomo for using an anti-democratic executive order to push through a McCarthyite attack on a movement for justice. Boycotts have long been a tactic of social justice movements to bring about urgently needed change for a more just and equal society, and the movement for Palestinian rights should not be singled out.

    • The Fight Against BDS Just Took A Frightening Turn In New York

      Through an executive order, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) is going after a peaceful boycott movement fighting Israeli occupation — and many critics are worried his effort will seriously threaten free speech.

    • Andrew Cuomo and Other Democrats Launch Severe Attack on Free Speech to Protect Israel

      One of the greatest free speech threats in the west is the growing, multi-nation campaign literally to outlaw advocacy of boycotting Israel. People get arrested in Paris – the site of the 2015 “free speech” (for Muslim critics) rally – for wearing pro-boycott t-shirts. Pro-boycott students on U.S. campuses – where the 1980s boycott of apartheid South Africa flourished – are routinely sanctioned for violating anti-discrimination policies. Canadian officials have threatened to criminally prosecute boycott advocates. British government bodies have legally barred certain types of boycott advocacy. Israel itself has outright criminalized advocacy of such boycotts. Notably, all of this has been undertaken with barely a peep from those who styled themselves free speech crusaders when it came time to defend anti-Muslim cartoons.

    • Gov. Cuomo Decrees Boycott & Blacklist to Silence Global BDS Movement for Palestinian Rights

      New York Governor Andrew Cuomo stirred the immediate ire of human rights campaigners around the world on Sunday by signing an executive order calling for the creation of a “blacklist” that would track groups and individuals who support Palestinian rights through the international Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement known as BDS.

    • Court Dumps Hastily-Granted Restraining Order, Says MuckRock Can Publish Smart Meter Documents

      It took a little less than a week, but the EFF, with the invaluable assistance of Venkat Balasubramani of FOCAL PLLC, have persuaded a Washington state judge to strike down the temporary restraining order against MuckRock he hastily granted back on May 27th.

      Landis+Gyr, a multinational corporation owned by Toshiba, recently secured a contract to upgrade Seattle’s “dumb” meters to smart meters. Privacy activist Phil Mocek requested information on the city’s smart meter plan through MuckRock and was handed two Landis+Gyr documents in unredacted form by the city.

      These documents worth suing over spent a month uploaded to MuckRock before Landis+Gyr took notice. Once it had secured the city contract, L+G then demanded — via a request for a temporary restraining order — that MuckRock take the documents down, turn over info on site users who may have seen/downloaded them, and somehow help L+G shove its smart meter genie back into the bottle.

    • Amos Yee, the Singaporean YouTuber facing offensive remarks charges, gains global attention due to social media campaign

      Yee claimed they were using his videos on religion because they “don’t want to take me down for mocking politicians because foreigners wouldn’t like it”.

      During the video Rubin questioned the laws around freedom of speech in relation to America or in Europe.

      “There is a constitution in Singapore which allows freedom of speech, it’s article 14 but in that constitution itself in clause two it says ‘we have freedom of speech but there are restrictions to freedom of speech, even if it breaks the public harmony or is provocative or whatever’ and that completely fucking defeats the purpose of freedom of speech,” he explained.

    • Pro-Trump Reddit Community Claims Admins Are Censoring Discussion Of Censorship

      Moderators of the popular Donald Trump supporting Reddit community known as /r/The_Donald are reporting that Reddit admins have requested that they delete any threads relating to censorship in the site’s main politics community, /r/Politics.

    • Portland Accused of Censorship, More Lead Woes, and the Pig-Humans are Here!
    • Free-speech group slams Portland schools’ ban on books that question climate change [Ed: lack of merit, not censorship]

      The decision to drop textbooks that question the severity of climate change from schools in Portland, Oregon, has drawn heavy criticism from the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC), which is warning that it will “undermine public education”.

    • RIAA Demands Takedown Of ThePirateBay.org, But EasyDNS Refuses Over Lack Of Due Process

      You may have heard recently that after switching many domains, a few weeks back ThePirateBay returned to its original thepiratebay.org domain. It’s basically an ongoing game of wac-a-mole, where the entertainment industry freaks out and scares registrars into taking back whatever domain and TPB just moves on. It’s unclear what good this does for anyone, but it keeps happening. And with the return to .org, it appears the entertainment industry has basically lots its mind. First, it had one of its lobbying front groups, the Copyright Alliance write a hellishly misleading post attacking Public Interest Registry (PIR), the organization that currently runs the .org top level domain.

    • 6 Aug: What’s the taboo? at Wilderness

      Watch our panelists struggle to evade the censor, cast your own vote on where to draw the line, and expect plenty of no-go subjects to come out from the shadows.

      Featuring Guardian and Index on Censorship cartoonist Martin Rowson, Citizen Khan comedian Adil Ray, theatre-maker Nadia Latif, director of Homegrown, and journalist Ian Dunt of politics.co.uk and Erotic Review.

    • DEBATE: SABC won’t revisit ‘self-censorship’ decision: Motsoeneng

      The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) has come under fire for its decision to ban television images of violent protests.

      Maggs on Media hosted a debate with the SABC’s Chief Operating Officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng, Glenda Daniels, senior lecturer at Wits University’s media studies and media lawyer and partner at Webber Wentzel, Dario Milo.

      Motsoeneng, maintained that the public broadcaster’s decision was not self-censorship.

    • How Should Conservatives Respond to the Disturbing Trend of Campus Censorship?

      On February 29th through March 1st at UC Davis, we faced our most aggressive, persistent, and unreasonable protest yet.

      As many of you know, our preferred way of doing outreach is to set up a simple poll table that asks questions like, “Should Abortion Remain Legal?” and provide options for people to sign Yes, No, or It Depends. While we do keep track of the results of these polls to pay attention to trends, they aren’t scientific and we don’t ask the question in order to track people’s answers. We just want to dialogue with people and give our volunteers an opportunity to use what they learned at our training seminar.

    • Feminist’s spanking website wins censorship fight in the U.K.
    • Feminist Porn Director Gets Big Spanking Win for Fetish Sites
    • Spanking Website Wins Battle Against British Web Censors
    • Feminist Pornographer Pandora Blake Wins Right To Reinstate Sadomasochism Website
    • Feminist pornographer wins right to reinstate sadomasochism website
    • Feminist porn director Pandora Blake wins right to reinstate fetish website in landmark ruling
    • Just In: ‘Udta Punjab’ Makers May Take The Censor Board To Court Over Reported Cuts
    • JUST IN! Censor to decide Shahid Kapoor and Alia Bhatt’s Udta Punjab fate today
    • Here’s how Twitterati reacted to ‘Udta Punjab’ censorship issue
    • Just Like North Korea, Says Anurag Kashyap On Udta Punjab Censorship
    • Here’s how Twitterati reacted to ‘Udta Punjab’ censorship issue
    • In poll-bound Punjab, censors stoke row over film name
    • Another Bad Ruling In California Threatens To Massively Undermine Section 230 By Exempting Publicity Rights

      What a week. Just a few days after we wrote about a dangerous ruling in a federal appeals court in California concerning a way to get around Section 230 of the CDA, now we have another problematic CDA 230 ruling from California in the form of a ruling from San Mateo Superior Court judge, Donald Ayoob, that has the potential to do a lot of damage to Section 230 as well as anti-SLAPP efforts in California. Paul Levy has a very detailed post about the case, but we’ll try and do a summary here.

      The case involves Jason Cross, a “country rap” musician who performs under the name Mikel Knight, who has apparently made a name for himself through a highly aggressive “street team” operation that basically travels around in vans pushing people to buy Knight’s CDs — and there are plenty of accusations of sketchy behavior around how those street teams operate, and how Cross treats the people who work for him. Apparently, Cross was not happy with a Facebook group entitled “Families Against Mike Knight and the MDRST” (MDRST standing for Maverick Dirt Road Street Team, which is what Cross calls the street team). He then used a court in Tennessee to try to get Facebook to identify who was behind the group, and then demanded that the page be taken down. That effort is still ongoing, but has been temporarily postponed, while he then filed a separate lawsuit in California against Facebook and whoever is behind that group, a variety of things, including breach of contract, negligent misrepresentation, negligent interference with prospective economic relations, unfair business practices and various publicity rights violations. Oddly, as Levy points out in his post, despite listing John Does as defendants, the complaint doesn’t describe anything anyone did other than Facebook. However, as part of the discovery process, Cross did (of course!) ask Facebook to identify the people behind the group criticizing him.

    • Axl Rose Sends DMCA Notices to Google Targeting ‘Fat’ Photo

      Many of us have unflattering photographs that we would rather forget but most exist in family archives that are easily hidden away. However, if you’re a multi-millionaire rock star potentially trying to erase an unfortunate moment, there are always DMCA takedown notices to fall back upon.

    • The Other Tech Figure Who’s Trying to Kill Gawker

      Gawker Media LLC isn’t just contending with a legal challenge from a wealthy wrestler backed by an extremely wealthy venture capitalist. There’s also the matter of the man who says he invented e-mail—a claim a Gawker website attacked under the following headline: “Corruption, Lies, and Death Threats: The Crazy Story of the Man Who Pretended to Invent E-mail.”

      Shiva Ayyadurai, the longtime tech entrepreneur who says he invented e-mail, filed a defamation suit against Gawker on May 11. His lawyer, Charles Harder, also represents Hulk Hogan in a lawsuit that resulted in a $140 million verdict against Gawker. Peter Thiel, a co-founder of Paypal and current Facebook Inc. board member, is bankrolling the Hogan suit, which was prompted by the publication of a sex tape. Thiel’s involvement was kept secret until recently.

    • Buzzfeed Discovers Internet Censorship From Other Countries

      Buzzfeed is at it again today. First it decided to pick sides in a presidential election, and now it has noticed that other countries, often Muslim, don’t have the same sensibilities as Americans. And this is a big problem for social media companies like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter.

      Buzzfeed’s Katie Notopoulos noted, “The proliferation of internet-connected mobile phones, in theory, is bringing the world together — with people continents apart talking and sharing, fueled by the sweet nectar of social apps. But in some cases, those connections turn into collisions. Within just the last three weeks, three big American social media platforms — Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter — have all butted up against the laws and cultural norms of local populations outside the United States.”

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • A Coalition Says to Congress: End 702 or Enact Reforms

      Congress has no business approving government programs that neither it nor the public understands. Yet policymakers have repeatedly authorized surveillance activities without doing their homework. Over the eight years since enacting reforms to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), Congress has failed to gain a functional understanding of NSA Internet surveillance, and has never even considered its impacts on democracy.

      Until Congress legislates meaningful limits to curtail widespread, longstanding, and continuing violations of constitutional rights, the digital rights movement stands united in calling for FISA Section 702 to expire next year as scheduled. Authorizing an extension of the law before securing answers to several critical questions, and enacting real limits to prevent documented and predictable abuses, would be a gross abdication of Congressional responsibility.

    • On anniversary of Snowden leaks, group lobbies against mass surveillance

      Several groups have banded together to call for an end to warrantless mass surveillance.

      Fight for the Future and a coalition of groups are using the third anniversary of Edward Snowden’s revelations of the extent of the NSA’s surveillance practices to drum up support for the end of Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. The program, the group said on its website, “has allowed for mass surveillance programs…that have been used by the U.S. government to warrantlessly collect and search the internet communications of people all over the world.”

    • Why is Facebook trying to force you to use its Messenger app?

      Facebook is forcing users of its mobile site to install its separate Messenger app if they want use chat, just as it has already done for users of its Android and iOS app.

      The Facebook app for Android and iOS began encouraging people to install Facebook Messenger in August 2014. Some users switched to using the Facebook mobile site on their phone browser instead, which still had Facebook’s built-in chat – but now that mobile site work-around has been marked for death, too. Facebook is prompting users to install its Messenger app, while warning it will be their only option soon. The change should also affect web wrappers such as Metal, which is currently blocking the warning message.

    • Three Years After Snowden, Bipartisan Coalition Demands Congress End Warrantless Spying

      “The Snowden leaks caused a sea change in the policy landscape related to surveillance,” writes watchdog, from the recent passage of the USA Freedom Act to the coming showdown in Congress over Section 702.

    • Secret documents reveal MI5 and GCHQ’s close relationship

      Privacy International questions whether the government is bending surveillance rules too far

      Previously secret documents revealed by Privacy International have exposed what it claims to be a worrying relationship between MI5 and GCHQ, suggesting the two organisations could be putting UK residents’ privacy at risk.

      The document, penned by Interception of Communications Commissioner Sir Swinton Thomas in 2004, reveals plans to develop ‘the database’, a collection of data about citizens of the country that could be used to investigate into people thought to be involved in illegal activities.

      It was sent to lawyers of MI5 and GCHQ, asking their opinion on whether it could be used in security operations.

      “The documents revealed today demonstrate the Government’s troubling history of bending the rules to expand its surveillance powers while minimising safeguards,” Caroline Wilson Palow, general counsel at Privacy International, said.

      “The particular correspondence that we reveal today, between lawyers for MI5 and GCHQ and the former Interception of Communications Commissioner, is also an illuminating example of how oversight can go wrong when it lacks sufficient transparency and resources.”

    • Letters prove GCHQ bends laws to spy at will. So what’s the point of privacy safeguards?
    • How MI5 and GCHQ spies bent surveillance rules to snoop on UK civilian targets
    • UK spies circumvented surveillance laws with no ‘meaningful’ oversight
    • Official correspondence reveals lack of scrutiny of MI5′s data collection
    • MI5 was bulk collecting public’s data, with little or no oversight
    • SCOTUS rejects Google’s appeal; Snowden tried to tell NSA about concerns; Zuckerberg’s Twitter hijacked
    • Trump, Clinton, and the end of the Snowden era

      Two years before Donald Trump declared his candidacy for president, he took to Fox & Friends to discuss Edward Snowden’s then-recent revelation of the unconstitutional mass surveillance of innocent Americans by the National Security Agency (NSA).

    • Three Years Later: How Snowden Helped the U.S. Intelligence Community

      Three years ago today, The Guardian published the first story based on the huge archive of documents that that Edward Snowden stole from the National Security Agency while working as an NSA contractor. Then-Attorney General Holder’s Justice Department quickly charged Snowden with felonies for theft of government property and mishandling classified information. Last week, however, Holder praised Snowden. “I think that he actually performed a public service by raising the debate that we engaged in and by the changes that we made,” Holder said.

    • Snowden Attempted To Address Privacy Concerns Multiple Times Before Going Public

      Three years after news first broke of the government’s mass telephone data collection program based on NSA documents leaked by Edward Snowden, there’s proof that going public might have been his only option.

      According to a Vice News investigation published Saturday, NSA officials ignored Snowden’s multiple attempts to report his concerns about the NSA’s surveillance programs.

    • NSA Emails Provide Little Insight Into Snowden’s Pre-Leak Concerns, But Speak Volumes About Agency’s Internal Controls

      Jason Leopold has secured another comprehensive set of Snowden-related documents from the NSA, dealing with the agency’s search for evidence backing up his claim that he tried to take his complaints to intelligence community officials before heading to Hong Kong with a drive full of secret documents.

      The long, detailed post — written with the help of Marcy Wheeler and Ky Henderson — covers the 800+ pages of internal emails released to Vice in response to a FOIA request. The headline suggests there’s a smoking gun, but a few thousand words later, the conclusion seems to be, “There’s possibly a smoking gun… and the NSA, due to malice or just incompetence, is going to be of no help in locating it.”

      What is undoubtedly true is that there was more to Snowden’s concerns than the single email released to shore up the NSA’s side of the story. There is evidence Snowden contacted other officials about his concerns, but the agency decided to present the single email as though that were the extent of Snowden’s complaints.

    • Edward Snowden Claims United States Is Performing Mass Surveillance in Japan

      The infamous former NSA contractor Edward Snowden is speaking out again, now claiming that the United States is carrying out mass surveillance and data storage operations in Japan.

      The claims came this weekend during a video conference in Tokyo, where Snowden spoke to a collected group of journalists and lawyers from his home in Moscow, Russia. Snowden was granted temporary asylum in Russia in 2013 after his whistleblowing efforts on American data collection programs yielding an international controversy.

    • NSA dumps docs about its Snowden response, reveals that Snowden repeatedly raised alarms about spying

      Since the earliest days of the Snowden revelations, apologists for the NSA’s criminal spying program have said that Snowden should have gone “through channels” to report his concerns, rather than giving evidence to journalists and going public.

      Snowden has vigorously disputed this narrative, insisting that he repeatedly contacted his superiors about the spying he was being asked to abet. The NSA denied that they had any record of this, and Snowden supplied specifics.

    • Documents reveal feds’ effort to discredit Snowden, reveal CIA ties

      Newly declassified NSA documents provide official confirmation that Edward Snowden was a CIA asset, and show the extent to which the government went to discredit him after he told lawmakers in Europe that he tried to blow the whistle on a secret federal program that snooped on private citizens.

      The documents, obtained by Vice News, do not conclusively confirm claims by Snowden, then a private contractor working for the NSA, that he tried to alert supervisors of what he believed to be illegal spying before going public. They do show that following a flurry of claims by Snowden in early 2014 that his supposed concerns the agency was violating the constitutional rights of citizens were ignored, Obama administration officials sought to discredit him with his own words.

    • Appeals Court: As Long As The Government Has ‘Good Faith,’ It Can Root Around In Your Digital Files As Much As It Wants

      A case dealing with a warrant issued in 2003, a subsequent warrant issued in 2006, and a whole lot of judicial work in between finally concludes — with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals coming down on the side of the government’s apparent “right” to seize everything, hold it for an indefinite period of time, and pore through unrelated documents in hopes of finding evidence of additional criminal activity.

      The government, in the form of the US Army, first went after Stavros Ganias for billing improprieties and theft of copper wire. Over the next three years, this morphed into an IRS investigation for tax fraud, using the same hard drives the Army seized three years before the IRS showed any interest. The IRS obtained its own warrant and began looking for evidence related to its suspicions.

    • Libertarian Gary Johnson: I’d eliminate NSA, IRS if elected

      Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson says he would abolish the National Security Agency (NSA), Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and other federal agencies if elected.

      In an interview with The Hill on Monday, Johnson said he would sign an executive order as president eliminating the NSA, which sparked controversy with its domestic surveillance programs.

      Johnson promised to turn “the NSA satellites away from you and I as citizens of the United States.”

    • Libertarian Gary Johnson Wants To Abolish The NSA

      Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson says he wants to abolish the National Security Agency.

      Johnson, a former Republican who was governor of New Mexico, says he wants to turn “the NSA satellites away from you and I as citizens of the United States.”

    • Carrie Cordero’s Counterintelligence Complaints

      Without noting the parts of the article that show that, nine months into the Snowden leaks and multiple hearings on the subject, Keith Alexander still didn’t know how contractors might raise complaints, and that the NSA editing of its Q&A on Snowden show real questions about the publicity and viability of reporting even to the IG, especially for legal violations, Cordero complains that he did not do so. Then she asserts that had Snowden gone to NSA’s IG (ignoring the record of what happened to Thomas Drake when he did the same), the programs would not have changed.

      And yet, having taken a different approach, some of them have changed. Some of the programs — notably Section 215, but also tech companies’ relationship with the government, when exposed to democratic and non-FISA court review, and FISA court process itself — did get changed. I think all but the tech company changes have largely been cosmetic, Cordero has tended to think reforms would go too far. But the record shows that Snowden’s leaks, along with whatever else damage critics want to claim they caused, also led to a democratic decision to shift the US approach on surveillance somewhat. Cordero accuses Snowden of doing what he did because of ego — again, that’s her prerogative; I’m not going to persuade people who’ve already decided to think differently of Snowden — but she also argues that had Snowden followed the already problematic methods to officially report concerns, he would have had less effect raising concerns than he had in fact. Some of what he exposed may have been legally (when argued in secret) sustainable before Snowden, but they turned out not to be democratically sustainable.

    • Holder’s Dangerous Ignorance About Snowden [Ed: article prepared with help/review by CIA and uses completely bizarre and ludicrous claims about Snowden]
    • 3 Years Later, the Snowden Leaks Have Changed How the World Sees NSA Surveillance

      Three years ago today, the world got powerful confirmation that the NSA was spying on the digital lives of hundreds of millions of innocent people. It started with a secret order written by the FISA court authorizing the mass surveillance of Verizon Business telephone records—an order that members of Congress quickly confirmed was similar to orders that had been issued every 3 months for years. Over the next year, we saw a steady drumbeat of damning evidence, creating a detailed, horrifying picture of an intelligence agency unrestrained by Congress and shielded from public oversight by a broken classification system.

    • Documents Show Snowden Tried To Raise Concerns About Spying With NSA

      Several documents have been obtained by Vice News through the Freedom of Information Act which reveal that whistleblower Edward Snowden tried to take up his concerns against the government’s spying programs with the National Security Agency before ultimately deciding to hand over top-secret documents to journalists. These documents contradict earlier claims by federal agencies that Snowden never went through the proper channels to have his concerns addressed.

      The NSA maintains that Edward Snowden never came to them with concerns about the constitutionality of some of their electronic spying programs. It only released an email from Snowden to the public which had a question about legal authority but as the NSA put it, the email “did not raise allegations or concerns about wrongdoing or abuse.”

    • Snowden did more to raise NSA concerns than officials claimed

      For the longest time, US officials denied that Edward Snowden made serious attempts to raise concerns about NSA surveillance activities before he took off with classified data. There was only evidence of one not-so-worrisome email, they said. However, it’s now clear that this isn’t the whole story. Documents obtained by Vice News (and published by the NSA) show that Snowden likely did more to raise concerns with the NSA than officials claimed. While there’s no smoking gun, two out of three previously unmentioned Snowden interactions with the Oversight and Compliance Office involved disputes over an open-book test on foreign intelligence gathering. The findings suggest that Snowden might have disagreed with the test’s interpretation of the law, which would be in sync with the previously released email.

    • How To Listen (And Delete) Every Word You’ve Ever Said To Google

      This could be one of the creepiest things you would have come across in recent times. You’ll be surprised to know that Google gives you the option to listen (and delete) everything you have ever said to Google while using its voice search feature.

    • Let’s Stop Google from Gobbling Up Our Schools

      Google’s educational packages include things like the google calendar, Google docs, Google classroom, gmail, and most recently it has added the Chromebook. Chromebooks are low-cost and easy-to-use notebooks that come with support and built-in access to Google Apps. They are offered to schools participating in Google for Education for $149. Google reports that it sold more than 1 million Chromebooks in just the second quarter of 2014. In November of 2014, the New York City School Department of Education adopted Chromebook as part of its approved and supported tools in its 1800 schools.

      [...]

      Finally, as was alluded to above, it is critical to note that Google’s aim is to expand its market share. By getting Google products in the hands of users before they can read, Google is building a giant base of people who will likely be life-long users of its products. By spoon feeding young people on easy-to-use applications, they will become addicted to Google. They may not even become aware that there are alternatives, since all of their classmates, friends, and teachers use Google. And since they grew up on Google, they will likely find other applications daunting. Educators themselves lack awareness of the non-corporate software and internet service options that are available, since their institutions are usually captured by the likes of Google and Microsoft. Few colleges and universities in the United States, for instance, support Linux operating systems. The process of corporate capture is not unlike the efforts of junk food companies to use promotional school contracts to gain captive audiences for their products.

    • Signal and Mobile XMPP Update

      The main downside (which Signal faces as well) is that you have to contend with the complexities of sending SMS messages on top of the work needed to write a well-functioning XMPP client. As I mentioned in my Signal blog, there are no shortage of MMS bugs against Signal. Nobody wants that head-ache.

      Additinally, we would still lose one Signal feature: with Signal, when a user joins, everyone automatically sends them encrypted messages. With this proposed app, each user would have to manually add the XMPP address and have no way of knowing when one of their friends gets an XMPP address.

  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • Karl Rove Made A Joke About Slavery To A Bunch Of Hedge Fund Managers. It Didn’t Go Well.

      Politics has gotten very ugly. Arguments that used to be limited to fringe groups and the dark corners of the internet are now embraced by presidential candidates.

      So what are things like behind closed doors? Even worse.

      A column in the Financial Times published Tuesday gave us a peek. Mary Childs, a financial correspondent for FT, reported on what she observed at a private hedge fund conference in May.

    • BDS and the Eternal Holocaust

      While innocently attempting to access an article on the Haaretz website the other day, I was accosted by a sequence of intrusive advertisements inviting me to “Fight BDS”—the popular boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement that aims to force an end to Israel’s denial of Palestinian rights.

    • The women who are taking on Wal-Mart

      Pico Rivera is a dusty working-class Latino suburb of Los Angeles. After the school district, Wal-Mart is the city’s largest employer and the source of 10 percent of its tax revenue. More than 500 families in the town depend on income from the store.

      The town is also the epicenter of activism by Wal-Mart workers in the United States.

    • NYT’s Edsall Stands Up for ‘Grievances of White America’

      Times op-ed writer Thomas Edsall (6/1/16) sets out to examine the role resentment plays in fueling the movement behind Donald Trump—but does so in such an uncritical way that he seems to adopt Trump voters’ resentments as his own.

      These voters, he says, “are evidently enraged by the imposition of norms of political correctness that they see as enforced by ‘Stalinist orthodoxy,’” and “perceive the network of state, local and federal anti-discrimination laws and directives as censorious and coercive.” Trump, according to Edsall, “has capitalized on the visceral belief of many white voters that government-enforced diversity and other related regulations are designed ‘to bring Americans to submission.‘”

    • Muhammad Ali Speaks to the Activist Soul

      Today we are experiencing a global activist wave, the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the 1960s. Here in this country, the Black Lives Matter movement has become a powerful force for change. Sen. Bernie Sanders has energized millions of Americans across demographic lines, especially millennials of all races and backgrounds. Labor efforts like the drive for a $15 minimum wage, and movements for the rights of LGBT people and other oppressed communities, are gaining force and winning victories.

    • Sufi Boxer Muhammad Ali’s last fight was against Extremism & Politicians’ Islamophobia

      Boxer Muhammad Ali, born Cassius Marcellus Clay in Louisville, Kentucky, on 17 January 1942, is dead at 74.

      Ali was on the US team for the Rome Olympics in 1960, and became the Olympic light-heavyweight champion. He and the team were lionized when he came back. But then in Kentucky he was refused a table at a restaurant.

      In 1964 he defeated Sonny Liston. He became famous for his footwork in the ring, for his boasts and his taunting of his opponents, naming the round in which he would defeat them.

    • 6 conspiracy theories that actually turned out to be true

      The Snowden revelations were not the first time it was revealed that powerful organisations carried out large scale, disturbing operations in secret, however.

      Here are just a few examples of things that, even when we hear them now, sound incredibly far-fetched – but they were sadly all too real.

    • Trump Suggests Muslim Judges Can’t Be Trusted Either

      Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump spent most of the last week under fire for claiming that Judge Gonzalo Curiel, the judge overseeing a case alleging that a Trump company was an elaborate scam, cannot fairly decide this case because Curiel is “of Mexican heritage.” The judge is an American citizen born in Indiana to immigrants from Mexico.

      Appearing on Face the Nation Sunday morning, Trump added another category of individuals who may not be trustworthy on the bench — Muslims. In response to a question from host John Dickerson about whether an Islamic judge wouldn’t be able to treat Trump fairly, the Republican presidential candidate replied “it’s possible, yes.”

    • FBI, Prosecutors Given Copies Of Defense Documents By Duplication Service Defense Was Instructed To Use

      The government has responded with a filing [PDF] claiming it has done nothing wrong. It acknowledges the FBI and the US Attorney’s office received copies of the files from the duplication service, but claims it never asked the company to perform this “service.” That’s at odds with other information gleaned by the defense, as well as an admission by a federal prosecutor.

    • Lawyer Who Filed Crime Report against SSCI Staffer, Robert Eatinger, Complains about Lack of Trust

      Robert Eatinger, whose name was redacted 1,600 times in the Senate Torture report, and who went on to file a crime report against Senate staffers for using materials provided to them by CIA, is complaining about lack of trust in this summary of Edward Snowden’s role in surveillance debates.

    • In 1977, the CIA’s top lawyer said Espionage Act shouldn’t be applied to press leaks

      Yesterday, the State Department declassified and released Organization and Management of Foreign Policy: 1977-80, volume 28, a Carter-era document that includes startling statements by CIA General Counsel Anthony Lapham on the role of the WWI-era Espionage Act in prosecuting leaks of classified material to the press.

    • Intelligence Reform in the Jimmy Carter Era

      A 1977 memorandum from CIA General Counsel Anthony Lapham stated that when it comes to prosecuting leaks of classified information to the press, “It is extremely doubtful that the provisions [of the Espionage Act] were intended to have application in such situations, and as a matter of historical fact, leaving aside the unsuccessful Ellsberg prosecution and possibly one or two other cases, they never have been so applied.”

    • 40 Years Ago, The CIA’s Top Lawyer Said Bringing Espionage Charges Against Leakers Was Useless

      Our current Justice Department is more than happy to prosecute, pushed along by a president who shows little sympathy for those who expose this country’s abuses, errors, and shortcomings. The government has bagged one significant trophy — Chelsea Manning — along with a handful of other whistleblowers, and shows zero interest in holding back should Ed Snowden ever return to the US.

      But with all the prosecutions, the stripping of protections for whistleblowers, the campaigns to eradicate “insider threats,” the US government still can’t stop the leaks. It has punished whistleblower after whistleblower, but Snowden continues to frustrate it, and he’s been joined by other leakers yet to be identified.

      Part of the problem, as Lapham saw it four decades ago, is the government’s desire to treat every leak as threatening to national security — a desire that has only grown in size and intensity over the past 15 years.

    • Horror House on the Prairie: Hard Labor and Harsh Treatment for Group of Disabled Men in Iowa

      Over the years, their hands began to curl. Their fingers formed into hooks from decades spent using them to rip the innards from turkeys in a remote processing plant in rural Iowa. They feared their overseers: disobedience could spell the denial of basic privileges, like access to the radio or television; worse, they might be forced to endure hours spent standing in a corner, staring at a wall, alone and scared. One of the men fled, only to be discovered months later, his remains decaying in the newly thawed Iowa snow.

      These are some of the stories of the 32 intellectually disabled men in “The Boys in the Bunkhouse: Servitude and Salvation in the Heartland,” a new book by New York Times reporter Dan Barry. Barry began writing about the experience of the men for the Times in 2014. Referred to as the “boys” by their abusive employers, the men were ostensibly brought to Iowa to be cared for by professionals and schooled in a basic trade. Their reality became something far different. They were held against their will in a decrepit schoolhouse and forced to work in bleak, arduous conditions at a turkey processing plant for a paltry $65 dollars a month. It took 35 years before state authorities rescued the men in 2009. Barry joined our podcast to describe how he was alerted to the story and how he achieved a few of his breakthroughs.

    • The EU referendum matters for Global Justice Now. Here’s why.

      We spend our time fighting against EU policies. But now, we’re campaigning to stay in.

    • Ghosted away: UK’s secret removal flights examined

      Lately one Australian family’s immigration case and prospect of forced removal from the UK made front-page news across Scottish national newspapers, was discussed in the House of Commons, picked up by The Guardian, The Independent, the Daily Mail, and BBC News — resulting in a job offer that might help keep the family here, and a crowdfunder page that has raised more than £4000.

      In the same week, around 100 people were torn from their long-standing communities in the UK and forcibly removed to a country from which they fled, or hadn’t lived in for up to 20 years. Of these people, their family, their friends, their distress, the fate that awaits them, there is no public awareness, nor any media reporting. With the exception of Shine A Light at openDemocracy, no journalists or media outlets picked up the multiple press releases widely issued by The Unity Centre in the lead up to the flight.

      In the early hours of Wednesday 25 May — at 1am — a delayed private charter plane left Stansted airport, bound for Nigeria and Ghana. The UK government does not publicly reveal the location of departure (even to detainees who are set to be on the plane). The flight itself does not appear on airport flight schedules or online as a planned flight. However, we can reveal that the contracted airline is Titan Airways.

    • FBI Whistleblowers Have No Legal Protection For Making Reports Of Wrongdoing

      A Senate Judiciary Committee report concludes Federal Bureau of Investigation employees, including those in the intelligence community, “enjoy no legal protection for making reports of wrongdoing to supervisors or others in their chain of command.” It supports the passage of legislation to institute and expand whistleblower protections for FBI employees.

      In 2014, the Justice Department refused to adopt key reforms that would benefit FBI whistleblowers. The department rejected “judicial review, the incorporation of administrative law judges, time limits for decisions on cases, hearings upon request, and a requirement that federal government employees be produced to provide testimony if it would be relevant to the resolution of a case.”

      The proposed Federal Bureau of Investigation Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2016 seeks to correct a system the Justice Department will not change, by offering FBI employees opportunities for judicial review outside the Justice Department. It expands the list of individuals an FBI employee may make “protected disclosures” to when blowing the whistle.

    • Muhammad Ali: a Torchbearer of Resistance

      Ali paid a terrible price for his apostasy, subjected to withering columns by sportswriters, commentators, politicians, and even black leaders of the day. People lined up to attack both him and his beliefs, and ticket sales for his fights plummeted. And this was before his stance on the war in Vietnam, when after being reclassified he told a reporter that “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Vietcong.”

    • Kenneth Roth’s Strange Review of Noam Chomsky’s New Book

      However, in his review of Chomsky’s book Roth failed to apply the principle of universality to U.S. national security policy, HRW’s third priority program, including U.S. policy toward the Israel-Palestine conflict. This was one problematic aspect of Roth’s review, in addition to his apparent lack of familiarity with the UN Charter and the Nuremberg Principles. These problem areas were exacerbated by Roth’s petty criticisms of Chomsky’s book (see below), and his apparent ignorance of Chomsky’s lifelong work that is grounded to a very significant extent in the principle of universality and the rules of the UN Charter that Roth, in turn, did some damage to in his review for the New York Review.

    • How an Arabic Translator Got Caught in a Net Designed for Terror and Gang Leaders

      In 1993, Yousry received a job offer to work as an Arabic translator for the defense team of Omar Abdel Rahman, also known as the “Blind Sheikh.” Abdel Rahman, the spiritual leader of the Egyptian militant group Gamaa Islamiya, had been arrested earlier that year on accusations of plotting terrorist attacks against public landmarks in New York City.

    • The Moral Courage of Muhammad Ali

      “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong — no Viet Cong ever called me nigger.”

      With those pointed words, Muhammad Ali explained his opposition to the US war in Vietnam and justified his refusal to submit himself to the draft. He declared himself a conscientious objector. After declining three times to step forward for induction into the US Armed Forces in April of 1967 in Houston, Texas, the reigning world heavyweight boxing champion was arrested, stripped of his title and state boxing licenses, and thrown into a three-year legal battle ending with his exoneration (on technical grounds) by the US Supreme Court.

    • Police Officer Who Shot Naked Black Man Pleads Not Guilty

      A white former police officer who shot and killed an unarmed, naked, mentally ill black veteran just outside Atlanta pleaded not guilty Monday to murder and other charges against him.

      Robert Olsen shot Anthony Hill on March 9, 2015, while responding to a call about a naked man behaving erratically outside a suburban Atlanta apartment complex. He was indicted in January on numerous charges, including felony murder and has since resigned from the force.

      Olsen appeared in DeKalb County Superior Court on Monday and waived formal arraignment. His attorney Don Samuel told the judge his client pleads not guilty.

      Samuel and Olsen left the courtroom immediately after entering the not guilty plea and declined to make any further comment.

    • #BlackLivesMatter makes some people angry. Isn’t that good?

      Black Lives Matter (BLM) began in 2014 as a hashtag after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the Trayvon Martin case and evolved into a social movement. Since its inception, it has grown to 28 chapters in over 17 states in the USA, and one international chapter in Toronto. There’s no denying that the movement wants to disrupt the status quo, and that makes some people angry. They have shut airports and stopped Black Friday sales with their protests against police brutality.

    • Assault Of Muslim Man In NYC Comes Amid Rising Islamophobia Nationwide

      A Muslim man was assaulted and beaten after leaving his mosque in Queens, New York last Wednesday in an incident advocates are urging police to investigate as a possible hate crime.

      Mohammed Rasheed Khan, 59, left prayers at the Center for Islamic Studies in Jamaica, Queens, around 10:30 p.m. on Wednesday night. According to CAIR-NY Executive Director Afaf Nasher, he got on his bike to make the short trip home, and before he’d even traveled half a block, he was assaulted by three men who repeatedly punched him in the head and face. He’s now suffering from at least five broken bones in his face, including his nose and eye socket, along with a concussion and fractured ribs. He’s due to have surgery today.

    • In 1971, Muhammad Ali Helped Undermine the FBI’s Illegal Spying on Americans

      It was March 8, 1971, the night of Ali’s first fight with Joe Frazier, and the noise from that epic battle provided cover for the break-in of an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania. The burglary, by eight activists who stole every file in the office, revealed the illegal spying operations that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had organized against a broad swathe of Americans, including Martin Luther King, Jr. The revelations led to congressional investigations and major reforms of all intelligence agencies.

    • Man indicted for disabling red light cameras faces 7 years in prison

      Stephen Ruth, who remains free on bail, was arrested in April shortly after he told a CBS affiliate that he was the culprit and that he dismantled the cameras “in order to save lives.” He said the county shortened the yellow light duration from 5 seconds to 3 seconds in a bid to make more money.

      He’s accused of 17 felonies and faces a maximum seven-year prison sentence if convicted on all the charges. He pleaded not guilty Friday in a local court and wants to go to trial for snipping the wires on as many as 16 red light cameras on intersections on Route 25 between Coram and Centereach.

  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • Study Shows Comcast Sucks Just A Tiny Bit Less This Year

      The good news for Comcast? The latest edition of the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) indicates that the nation’s largest cable company actually has a slightly better customer satisfaction rating than last year. The bad news? Comcast remains among the worst-rated companies of any industry in America thanks to limited competition. According to the firm’s full ratings for cable providers, Comcast saw an eight point rise in customer satisfaction, thanks in part to crazy ideas like actually showing up on time for appointments and a website that actually works.

    • Press release- BEREC seeks views on guidelines to implement new net neutrality rules

      The Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) has today published for public consultation draft guidelines on the implementation by regulators of new net neutrality rules and is seeking the views of stakeholders over the next six weeks, with the consultation closing on 18 July.

    • EU net neutrality draft guidelines split the crowd—public told to wade in

      Europe’s telecoms watchdog has set out its first ideas on how to implement regulation for so-called net neutrality, even though that term isn’t once used by the body overseeing implementation of the law.

      The guidelines from the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) do not create any new rules, but will clarify how the legislation—adopted by the European Parliament last October—will be enforced. However before setting those guidelines in stone on August 31, BEREC is holding a public consultation that will run until mid-July.

      Ofcom’s international policy manager Ben Wallis, who also co-chairs BEREC’s network neutrality expert working group, said that the end of August was a “very hard deadline which we have no intention of missing.”

    • TiVo’s new owner isn’t that interested in making set-top boxes

      Rovi, the company that’s buying TiVo, isn’t very interested in staying in the hardware business.

      The combined company will be looking to partner with set-top box makers instead of continuing to sell set-top boxes directly to consumers, Rovi Chief Financial Officer Peter Halt said at an investors conference last week. (See transcript and this Light Reading article.)

      Halt noted that TiVo’s direct relationship with consumers has “been a source of great innovation for them and stuff like that.” But he then said that “being in the hardware business isn’t something that necessarily excites us.” It sounds like TV watchers could still get boxes powered by TiVo software and services, but the hardware would be made by another company.

  • DRM

    • W3C, EME and EFF: Frequently Asked Questions

      What is EFF worried about?

      The W3C effort to standardize Encrypted Media Extensions (EME, part of the Media Extensions Working Group) marks a new era in W3C standardization. For the first time, implementations of a W3C standard will be covered by “anti-circumvention” laws such as the Section 1201 of the US DMCA; European laws that implement Article 6 of the EUCD; and Canada’s Bill C-11.

      These laws have been used by companies and rightsholders to threaten security and privacy researchers who came forward to report defects in their products. These laws may also create legal risks for entities who independently implement EME-compatible systems.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • YouTuber Sued Over Stanley Kubrick Movies Analysis

        A YouTube user who creates video essays has been hit with a punishing lawsuit after selecting Stanley Kubrick as a subject matter and uploading his work to YouTube. UK-based Lewis Bond from Channel Criswell is being targeted by the music publishers behind the 1971 classic ‘A Clockwork Orange’ who want huge damages for willful infringement.

      • Circuit split over Madonna copyright case tipped to go to Supreme Court

        A Ninth Circuit ruling that a 0.23 second sample in Madonna’s Vogue did not infringe copyright creates a split with the Sixth Circuit’s Bridgeport ruling that could be sent to the Supreme Court

      • “Obscurity is a greater threat than piracy”

        The IPKat was delighted to receive the following guest post from Katfriend Ben Williams. Complete with Star Wars quotes, Ben looks at recent discussions in DRM and the impact of piracy. Have we really moved on in the last 15 years?

      • Ninth Circuit Finds De Minimis Sampling of Sound Recordings Non-Infringing

        Is the Ninth Circuit ripe for intervention by the U.S. Supreme Court? The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has decided that the de minimis doctrine applies to the infringement of sound recordings. The Ninth Circuit has rejected the 2005 Bridgeport Music Inc. v. Dimension Films decision that essentially any sampling of a sound recording results in infringement.

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