Blue_Tires
Blue_Tires's JournalThe Senate Kills Surveillance Reform and Glenn Greenwald Shrugs
The Senate yesterday buried—at least for now—surveillance reform, when Republican senators refused to allow the current draft of the measure to proceed to a vote. Glenn Greenwald has an interesting reaction to the legislative death of the grandiosely-named USA Freedom Act: It doesn’t matter. He writes, “it has been clear from the start that U.S. legislation is not going to impose meaningful limitations on the NSA’s powers of mass surveillance, at least not fundamentally.” Change, rather, is going to come from elsewhere: from the posture of the technology companies, from individual use of encryption, from policy decisions of countries other than the United States, and from court proceedings:
I find this argument a little perplexing coming from the man who considered the NSA’s bulk metadata program to be so important and so alarming that it was the very first program he broke in all of the documents Edward Snowden gave him.
Metadata can’t really be encrypted; it’s the information used to deliver content and thus has to be readable, after all. And the law as currently interpreted permits NSA to collect it in bulk. If one thinks this activity is offensive and important, one should not be too dismissive of legislative action to curtail it. Yet Greenwald suddenly does not sound quite so alarmed by the possibility that NSA would retain the authority to bulk collect metadata:
There is a real question about whether the defeat of this bill is good, bad, or irrelevant. To begin with, it sought to change only one small sliver of NSA mass surveillance (domestic bulk collection of phone records under section 215 of the Patriot Act) while leaving completely unchanged the primary means of NSA mass surveillance, which takes place under section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, based on the lovely and quintessentially American theory that all that matters are the privacy rights of Americans (and not the 95% of the planet called “non-Americans”).
Huh. There’s a lot in this short passage to unpack, but focus for now just on Greenwald’s contemplation of the possibility that killing the USA Freedom Act might be a “good” thing and his dismissal of the metadata program as merely a “small sliver” of NSA mass surveillance. He even goes so far as to dismiss the end of bulk collection of phone records under Section 215 as no more than “mildly positive.” I don’t recall his reaction to the underlying program, at the time he revealed it, as only that bulk telephony metadata collection was mildly negative. I recall a slightly more breathless, outraged response. So what then are we to make of his now-casual dismissal of a bill to curtail the program—much less the entire reform mechanism, which is to say legislation, that would enable that curtailing? How can bulk metadata collection be an intolerable outrage and ending the 215 program be merely “mildly positive” or even a net negative?
One possibility is that Greenwald doesn’t know how to take yes for an answer. He is outraged by bulk metadata collection. Congress contemplates ending bulk metadata collection. So it suddenly fades in his mind in importance relative to outrages Congress is not addressing.
http://www.lawfareblog.com/2014/11/the-senate-kills-surveillance-reform-and-glenn-greenwald-shrugs/
If you people don't want to believe me, or want to say I'm just too blinded by my Greenwald hatred, Wittes makes my case for me...
Or will you try to say now that Wittes of all people is some paid Pentagon authoritarian shill??
Erdogan vows to teach Turkish children Muslim discovery of Americas
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has instructed Turkey’s educational institutions to adopt a policy of highlighting the contribution of Islam to global science and arts, including the discovery of the American continent by Muslim sailors some 300 years before Columbus.
“I have to be clear that there is an important responsibility falling on the shoulders of our Education Ministry and YÖK [the Higher Education Board]. An objective writing of history will show the contribution of the East, the Middle East and Islam to the science and arts. As the president of my country, I cannot accept that our civilization is inferior to other civilizations,” Erdoğan said in his address to students at the opening of a religious school in Ankara on Nov. 18.
He also slammed criticisms from columnists and cartoonists mocking his claims that Muslim sailors discovered the Americas and constructed a mosque in Cuba centuries before Columbus.
“Why [do they not believe it]? Because they have never believed that a Muslim can do such a thing. They have never believed that their ancestors could manage to launch ships in the Golden Horn after transporting them across land,” Erdoğan said, referring to Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II’s conquest of Istanbul in 1453.
“They have never believed that their ancestors ended the Dark Age and opened the New Age. That’s a lack of self-confidence,” he added.
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/erdogan-vows-to-teach-turkish-children-muslim-discovery-of-americas.aspx?pageID=238&nid=74485
It's evident that people are trying to send us a very clear message on Ferguson
The KKK, LEO message boards, gun nutter message boards, the media, the FBI, the governor, the list goes on...All have been in the national media this past week predicting in no uncertain terms a Nat Turneresque uprising, if not an armed rebellion in place of the mere "riot" (so it's only natural that they need to arm themselves to the teeth and "monitor" our situation lest things get too much out of hand)...You know who rarely gets interviewed anymore? The black folks who actually live in Ferguson...
Is there any doubt that fear of black folks and what we may or may not do has completely overridden any sane discussion of the case? Because right now the cops and patriotic white gunners are so primed, I can easily see them opening fire on a crowd of us the second somebody drops their car keys or reaches for their cellphone...
Are all these messages in the media supposed to discourage black folks to protest lest we get caught up in a massacre??
The Senate rejected a bill to limit NSA spying. Here's what you need to know.
The original version of the USA Freedom Act, introduced by Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) in October 2013, had a number of provisions on the wish lists of civil liberties groups. But by the time the legislation was approved by the House of Representatives in May 2014, it had been watered down so much that leading civil liberties groups opposed it.
So, in July, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced his own version of the USA Freedom Act in the Senate. It is less radical than the original USA Freedom Act, but places more limits on the NSA than the legislation approved by the House.
Debate over the USA Freedom Act has focused on the best way to rein in bulk collection of Americans' phone records. The Senate version of the legislation requires any collection of phone records to focus on a suitably narrow "selector" — a search term that identifies an individual, phone line, or other specific entity.
The Senate bill would also take some other steps to make the NSA's activities more transparent and accountable. Right now, when the government asks the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to approve surveillance activities, there is no one around to present opposing arguments. The Senate bill would change that by creating several new positions for public advocates who could participate in FISC proceedings.
http://www.vox.com/2014/11/18/7241987/usa-freedom-senate-vote
(LOL at Rand Paul and his nutbar fanboys...)
NSA spying bill stalls in Senate vote
Source: USA Today
WASHINGTON — The Senate on Tuesday failed to get the 60 votes needed to advance a bill that would stop the National Security Agency from collecting the phone records of millions of Americans who are not suspected of any crime.
Senators voted 58-42 in favor of a motion to allow the USA Freedom Act to come to an up or down vote in the Senate. The motion required 60 votes to pass. The bill is effectively dead for this year and is unlikely to be revived when the new Congress convenes in January. However, the controversial NSA program will most likely be debated again next year as Congress decides whether to renew sections of the Patriot Act anti-terrorism law that are set to expire in June.
The Freedom Act would have brought an end to the NSA's mass collection of phone data more than a year after the program was revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Snowden's revelations outraged both liberal and conservative lawmakers, who decried the NSA's "big brother" snooping on innocent Americans. But some analysts said that anger has lessened as terrorist threats against the USA by the Islamic State and other extremist groups have gained attention.
"In the past five or six months, we have witnessed heightened U.S. national security concerns with terrorist threats, geopolitical problems, and cybersecurity challenges from Russia and China," said David Fidler, professor of law at Indiana University's Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research. "Addressing these concerns requires strong American intelligence and surveillance capabilities — creating the potential for stronger opposition to the Snowden-inspired reforms today than existed only a few months ago."
Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/11/18/leahy-usa-freedom-act-nsa-spying/19222895/
So how's that "Stand with Rand" thing working out for y'all? Funny how for all the big talk, spotlight whoring and bluster, Sen. Paul is the usual gutless wonder when the moment of truth arrives...
Ben Ray Luján named new head of DCCC
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi announced Monday that she had tapped Rep. Ben Ray Lujan to head the campaign committee and try to get the party back on track after a drubbing in midterm elections.
The 42-year-old Lujan, who would be the first Hispanic to hold the post, will succeed New York Rep. Steve Israel as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
The midterms of President Barack Obama's second term were widely expected to be tough for Democrats, but the party had an even tougher going as Republicans claimed a commanding majority and captured seats in typically favorable states such as New York, Illinois and Maine.
Democrats lost at least a dozen seats and Republicans should hold 246 in the next Congress, the most in nearly 70 years.
Lujan told reporters at a news conference that the 2016 presidential election year should be more favorable.
"We will be on the offensive to put the majority in play," he said.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/17/ben-ray-lujan-dccc_n_6173776.html
Virginia woman accused of attempting to aid Islamic State
Federal authorities have arrested and charged a Henrico County, Va., woman who they say wrote Facebook posts supportive of the Islamic State and offered to help someone connect with the terrorist group in Syria, court documents show.
Heather Elizabeth Coffman, 29, is charged with making a false statement regarding an offense involving international or domestic terrorism. Coffman, it seems, was caught in a sting and unknowingly offered to help an undercover FBI agent connect someone with the Islamic State in Syria, according to a federal affidavit. Authorities say she lied to investigators who were looking into her support of the extremist group.
The case seems to be another example of the Islamic State’s robust presence on social media and the influence it is having on Americans. Two months ago, a 19-year-old from suburban Denver pleaded guilty to trying to help the terrorist organization after she tried to board a flight to reach Turkey. She reportedly was trying to connect with a man she met online. And last month, three teenage girls from the Denver area were detained at an airport in Germany and questioned about possibly trying to join the Islamic State. A school official said the girls were victims of an “online predator.”
It is unclear what cultivated Coffman’s interest in the Islamic State or whether she possessed the means to connect anyone with the group.
Mark Henry Schmidt, Coffman’s defense attorney, said the young woman was born and raised in the United States, lived with her parents and cared for her 7-year-old child. He said that he was unaware of any tangible foreign connection, and initially the case seemed to him one of “Facebook going badly.”
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=post&forum=1081
http://heavy.com/news/2014/11/heather-coffman-brown-isis-islamic-state-facebook-posts/
Senate to debate S. 2520: FOIA Improvement Act of 2014 on Thursday
http://www.openthegovernment.org/sites/default/files/FOIA%20Improvement%20Act%20one-page%20V4.pdfhttps://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/s2520
https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-bill/2520/titles
Why you can't read our website in China anymore...
When Internet users in China fire up TheAtlantic.com, check out product specifications on Sony Mobile, or add a Firefox plugin, well, too bad. The Chinese authorities have blocked those and thousands of other sites—and just as the People’s Republic hosts the World Internet Conference, to boot. All of these have one thing in common: They use edgecastcdn.net, the content-delivery network (CDN) of Verizon’s EdgeCast, says Greatfire.org, a group that promotes Chinese Internet freedom.
Charlie Smith of Greatfire says he’s seen “nothing on this scale ever before,” though that’s “because so many companies use EdgeCast for hosting.” (“Charlie Smith” is a pseudonym, used by a Greatfire member because of the Chinese government’s sensitivity to the group’s efforts to expose and undermine censorship.)
It’s not that The Atlantic or Sony had just uploaded subversive content. What Smith thinks is going on is that the Chinese government tried to block certain sites served up by EdgeCast. But EdgeCast serves up content for tens of thousands of sites, and the Chinese authorities seem to be blocking many others as well. (CDNs cache websites’ content on servers that are physically located closer to users to speed access times, absorb traffic spikes, and provide more efficient delivery of the data.)
EdgeCast said in a blog post that this week it’s seen China’s content “filtering escalate with an increasing number of popular web properties impacted and even one of our many domains being partially blocked … with no rhyme or reason as to why.”
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/11/why-you-cant-read-the-atlantic-in-china/382883/
The Prison Coding Class That Might Have Inmates Making Six Figures On Their Release
Like everyone else in the San Francisco Bay Area, Jason Jones has an idea for a new app. Called "In Touch," the app would automatically upload information about a student's schoolwork, so that busy parents can make sure that their kids aren't flunking. Jones has a personal stake in this. He has three kids himself, and says his parents never cared whether he paid attention at school. "As a result, I was able to cheat my way through high school and college," he explains.
Jones is going through a coding bootcamp, so he will soon have the skills necessary to start working on his app. But the 31-year-old has never actually used a smartphone, and his Internet experience is limited to casual web browsing. He's an inmate at California's San Quentin State Prison—incarcerated since 2006 for assault—who is participating in Code 7370, a six-month intensive computer programming class developed by The Last Mile, a nonprofit program that offers entrepreneurship training for inmates.
Once Jones and his fellow students graduate, they'll have the opportunity to take real projects from clients. That way, when they're released from prison, they'll already have portfolios. Theoretically, they should be able to get work that pays in the six figure range.
I recently visited San Quentin to see the Code 7370 initiative in action. Walking through the gates of the prison, my first thought was that the landscaping of San Quentin made it look more like a slightly down-on-its-luck college campus than a place housing death row. My visit to the Code 7370 classroom—a formerly decrepit space that was once used as a printing shop—reinforced that initial impression. The well-lit space is filled with refurbished computers that were previously used by state employees.
http://www.fastcoexist.com/3038589/the-prison-coding-class-that-might-have-inmates-making-six-figures-on-their-release
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