We have met the enemy...

“If people can’t trust not only the executive branch but also don’t trust Congress and don’t trust federal judges to make sure we’re abiding by the Constitution, then we’re going to have some problems here."President Barack Obama

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Mr. President, I think that we are going to have some problems here. We don't trust you. Or them. You have chosen to decide what is best for us and we haven't even received a say in the matter.

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There are a lot of lessons to be drawn and things to ponder regarding the recent NSA revelations. The first axiom is that in today's world there are no secrets. In the new information age, eventually the genie will spill out of every bottle. Administrations should count on it.

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I have been of course wary of the scope of the government surveillance programs for a long time. Unfortunately this stuff doesn't really surprise me, it only confirms what I already sensed. In a strange way I am happy that the information on the scope and scale of the government intrusion and spying has come to light. It has unveiled a lot of deceitful and duplicitous behavior, not the least of which is the conduct of our very own president. Many of us were alarmed at Bush's version of the Patriot act. Things are probably even worse under his succesor. What we were sold was a bill of goods.

Barack Obama maintains that there are adequate checks and balances present, that these programs have been vetted by all three government branches. Interesting. Senator Richard Durbin says that the amount of people in Congress who were aware of the program could be counted on two hands. Obama says that we are set to have an interesting dialogue on balancing security and privacy. I would welcome that because so far it looks like it has merely been a one sided monologue, where the executive branch simply dictates its plans. Nobody can really say anything. Udall and Wyden tried.

Forget the SCOTUS also. Last year the court decided that Amnesty International had no Article III standing to sue the government regarding foreign surveillance since no one had any sure proof that they were actually being spied on. This sleight of hand type of venal sophistry is right out of Alice and Wonderland and adds to the notion of an out of control, imperial government, the kind many of the citizenry now fear is perilously close.

In Clapper vs. Amnesty International, the SCOTUS, by a 5–4 vote, it held that a group of human rights organizations, lawyers, activists, and journalists lacked standing to challenge the constitutionality of a congressionally authorized, warrantless government surveillance program.

The surveillance program was authorized by the 2008 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments Act (FAA), which permits the executive branch to engage in large-scale, programmatic surveillance of foreign targets outside the United States. The surveillance is subject to approval by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), and to procedures intended to minimize incidental interception of information regarding U.S. persons, a category encompasses citizens, lawful permanent residents, and certain associations and corporations.

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The FISA Court has been essentially a rubber stamp for the last several administrations.  Last year, according to this DOJ report, the government made 1,789 applications to the court — one was withdrawn by the government and 40 were modified by the court, but “the FISC did not deny any applications in whole or in part,” the report states. In 2011, there were 1,676 applications, of which two were withdrawn and 30 modified, but once again, “The FISC did not deny any applications in whole, or in part.” In 2010, there were 1,511 applications, of which five were withdrawn and 14 modified, but “The FISC did not deny any applications in whole, or in part.” Not one. In fact, only six applications have been denied in the last eleven years according to ex NSA operative Russell Tice. See this article in the Guardian..

Director Clapper says that if Americans data is collected, it is only incidental. Why does that not mollify the american people? Are we supposed to believe that it will not be utilized? Come now.

"It is a kangaroo court with a rubber stamp," said Russell Tice, a former National Security Agency analyst.

Of course now the DOJ is fighting to keep a FISC opinion that they actually lost last year with repercussions for PRISM secret. This 2011 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ruling found the U.S. government had unconstitutionally overreached in its use of a section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The National Security Agency uses the same section to justify its PRISM online data collection program. But that court opinion must remain secret, the Justice Department says, to avoid being "misleading to the public."

Hey Eric Holder, how about a little sunshine? You know we are going to find out anyway. We are not children, we can take it, unless of course it is unbelievably egregious and then somebody most definitely needs an ass whuppin'.

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Many of my liberal friends are very disappointed in this President, also Harry Reid and Dianne Feinstein. Obama talked a very good game but unfortunately lost his taste for the fourth amendment somewhere along the way. I guess we goofed. Because we as citizens value such antiquated concepts as the right to privacy and against unreasonable search  and we thought you shared our concern. Silly us.

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I believe that Edward Snowden's actions were necessary, if not heroic. Our security apparatus is becoming an out of control monster. No way do I equate his action's with Julian Assange's or Bradley Mannings. I would draw and quarter them and hang them from a tree. They outed some identities of people who were ultimately killed or never seen again. Snowden has merely lifted a veil on our misconceptions that we were guaranteed some rights to privately communicate without government interception.

Dude is going to spend a long time in jail. Thank you for your sacrifice, Edward. Somebody had to do it.

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How safe can a system be if it hinges on a 29 year old operative who never finished high school, articulate as he is? How many other contractors have our secrets within a touch stroke of their keyboards? Half a million? I guess it was only a matter of time...

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Lindsay Graham says that Snowden's actions may rise to the level of a felony. Horrors. I guess he won't be able to opt for diversion...

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"There's very little trust in the government, and that's for good reason.We're our own worst enemy." Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who sits on the House Intelligence Committee.

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"I think the times that this program's been reauthorized, much of this operates in levels where there are not that many people — members of Congress — who are fully engaged in what's going on. You know, the intelligence committees obviously are involved and homeland security, I think, to some degree but most members of Congress are given a piece of legislation to vote on and I don't believe that most members of Congress, perhaps, going into this were fully aware of how broad this program was and so yes, you vote because you're obviously concerned about protecting the country," Thune said. "You know, many of these tools have been used and have been effective in preventing terrorist attacks but I think now as more of these details are starting to come out, there are going to be additional questions raised and asked and hopefully some answers given that will give us a better understanding, not only of how this program works today, but how we might proceed with it in the future and the way that protects individual privacy but also gives us the necessary tools that we need to fight terrorism and to protect Americans."Sen. John Thune (R) S. Dakota

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From the ACLU:

The ACLU and Yale Law School's Media Freedom and Information Clinic filed a motion today with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), seeking the release of secret court opinions that permit the government to acquire Americans' phone records en masse. The public has a right to know the legal justification for the government's sweeping surveillance—but, until now, those judicial opinions have remained a heavily guarded secret.

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Why metadata matters - Electronic Frontier Foundation

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What's next in the power point deck? 36 slides still remain unseen. From Wired.

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Hey, remember Operation Carnivore? Think it actually was ever retired?

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The agency collects almost 100 billion pieces of information per month, according to a document from Snowden that is said to reflect information from an NSA data-mining tool, Boundless Informant. ZDNet

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Secret Surveillance and the Crisis of Legitimacy - Steven Aftergood

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Daniel Ellsberg: Edward Snowden, Saving Us From the United Stasi of America - The Guardian.

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NSA Monitoring and Partisan Hypocrisy - New York Times

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“There is no reason we cannot fight terrorism while maintaining our civil liberties. ... As president, Barack Obama would revisit the Patriot Act to ensure that there is real and robust oversight of tools like National Security Letters, sneak-and-peek searches, and the use of the material witness provision.”
Barack Obama - 2008

I want to deliver a warning this afternoon: when the American people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the Patriot Act, they will be stunned and they will be angry.
Senator Ron Wyden - May 2011
 

Turnkey Tyranny - Edward Snowden interview

"any analyst at any time can target anyone, any selector anywhere...even the president if I had his email." Edward Snowden

Shia Labeouf: One-In-Five Phone Calls Are Recorded (2008-09-16)

Tony Allen

Jimmie Rodgers

Fear and Loathing at the National Security Agency

I left the hospital and decided to take a drive and clear my head. Ken had suggested Annapolis, a very picturesque city that I don't think I have ever visited before. I was only in the car a few minutes when I saw the sign, I was going to pass the NSA, the behemoth of a building that has been in the news quite a bit of late. The National Security Agency is the seat of the United States Cyber Command, and presumably the brain center for much of our country's intelligence operations. Hot damn! This would be worth a detour.

The place looked fairly empty on a Saturday morning although I think one can assume that things were still buzzing on the inside in the wake of recent revelations. Still, heavy security was evident, with marked cars poised at several locations around the complex. I wasn't really expecting a tour of the place, even though I pay a sizable portion of the rent as a proud and loyal United States taxpayer.

I guess that I went through the wrong gate. A stern, hulk of a guard with a gun asked me what the hell I was doing? I told him that I was trying to find the National Cryptologic Museum that I had seen on the highway road signage. As you know, I have always been interested in that sort of thing. I asked him if I should back up between the barriers but he said that he would raise the barrier and that I needed to pull a u-turn and get out of there. Stat.

He gave me some vague directions that I must have misunderstood so I pulled my car off the road to try to figure the place out. My camera lens cap  had slipped between the seat so I got out of the car with the camera to fetch it. My location gave me an opportunity to take a picture of the neat sign but I must have also brought some attention to myself.

I got back on the freeway and then had second thoughts. I would never forgive myself if I missed the opportunity to see the museum so I doubled back and this time found the poorly marked road, around the gas station, that led to the Museum. Alas it was closed, only being open two saturdays a month. Bummer.

Well at least I got a chance to feel the vibes at the matrix of our nation's data collection. I needed to gas up the car before bringing it back and thought what the hell, might as well do it here... Then a crazy thing happened, a security vehicle pulled off into the grass right across from me and I swear that they were totally checking me out. The car's lights were flashing. I presume that they were taking pictures of me. I returned the favor.

I hightailed it out of there. Got back on the freeway when another weird thing happened; a brown toyota pickup with all kinds of normal type stickers on it pulled up right next to me and perfectly matched my speed. I saw the man inside turn to look at me, with his very short cropped hair, was definitely checking me out. His face screamed federal agent. At the last second he suddenly veered off the freeway towards the next exit.

My god, they were scoping me out! A normal joe from California who was back in Maryland visiting his sick mother. Now I was being analyzed like I was an enemy of the state. Had I made a mistake in visiting the belly of the beast?

I called a friend who shall go nameless. "Rob," he says, "By this time, they have read your blog, sifted through all of your correspondence, reviewed your medical history, put together a detailed map of all of your movements during the last 18 months, assembled a comprehensive report on your search habits on the computer, including any accidental searches for porn sites and photographed the stains in your underwear." "And what's your name again? I don't think I know you."

Damn, was it time to get paranoid? I have never engaged in any knowingly subversive activity, unless of course it was a crime to maybe think and write? Intruder-Intruder, vaporize.

I made it to Annapolis with no further weirdness or problems. Drove through the wonderful town, capital of Maryland, historic seat of U.S. Naval power, beautiful little historic buildings and colonial row houses and then drove over to Sandy Point to try to get a shot or two of the Chesapeake.

Beach was busy, not so great, Severn River was gorgeous with its giant and graceful mansions. I could imagine them being inhabited by the lords of their day. I stopped at a place that sold crabs by the bushel and went inside. Giant coolers of crab, male, backfin, whatever you wanted and lots of crabbing tools. Buckets of mallets, tongs, picks, the place was really sort of industrial.

I set the GPS to get to my destination and ambled forward, not really having a place to store or cook fifty lbs. of prime Chesapeake crab.

I tried to get on the freeway and guess what, there was a cop blocking the entrance. And the next one. I was starting to enter some sort of fear and loathing, Hunter S. Thompson style paranoia, by god were the local cops hip to me too? What had I ever done, short of stealing that super ball at the Woolworth's in Catalina when I was 11?

I was going to stop and ask a cop what was up but felt that I should probably chill, on second thought. What else would I be forced to admit to, while they were pulling my fingernails out, after I divulged the super ball incident?

Turns out that a New Jersey cop had just offed somebody in a road rage incident and they had to seal off the crime scene. Whew! Dodged that one.

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My mother woke me up at 3 to talk, I was at the airport by four, far too early, but I was on the 6:05, which entailed a brief reroute and stop in Detroit. The TSA man was a jerk. I was swabbed for explosives at a secondary station. I put my hands up and went into the spinning module compartment and then they must have not liked the look of something because I had to get a manual pat down.

"Empty your pockets," the guy says. "There's nothing in them," I say. He pulls a small piece of paper out of my right front, Jesus H. Christ, I thinks to myself, I thought you meant metal. Oddly, my wallet, which only has paper and plastic in it, set off a dangerous glow in their sensor both times.

Why are TSA guys so obnoxious? Why are so many of them assholes? My theory is that they were bullied or felt powerless in junior or high school and now had a giant chip on their shoulder which made them seek out jobs where they could feel powerful and bully people themselves...They sort of gravitate towards security jobs where they can use their authority. Would be perfect in the Waffen SS. I have met some nice ones but I can honestly say that the high percentage of the crew cut agents with the bowling alley physiques are dicks.

Anyway I am now back home. Les picked me up and we had great dim sum at Jasmine. Chicken and ginger shumai. Heavenly. Slept the sleep of death last night, amazingly great dreams and I feel great this morning.

I went to coffee and relayed my story of my adventures at the NSA. Bruce said,"Dude, it's the color of your skin and your curly hair." I hadn't thought of that. Middle eastern looking type, maybe being where he's not supposed to be. Had I been profiled as a terrorist?

I had tried to pull the pictures off my sdcard into my card reader at the airport, to no avail. Nothing registered, looked like the card was blank. Weird. One of the boys said that the intelligence service had a device that could disable cameras. Shit, had I been death rayed? Turns out it was just a bad card reader. They loaded up just fine this morning.

Glad I went, had to do it. Good to be back.

Compared To What

Privacy study - Nature

I am back from the east coast and needless to say, have a lot of things on my mind regarding the whole NSA privacy matter. As a person who has written extensively on this subject for the last several years I confess to a grim satisfaction regarding my worst fears being realized and the way things have shaken out. Hopefully I will have time to put my thoughts together tomorrow. The following is a partial look at an interesting but slightly pointy headed study published in Nature Magazine about how much identity information can be gleaned about the identity of a subject with merely four human data points. Highly technical but I am sure that some of you are smart enough to figure it out if you read the entire study. Then you can explain it to me.

Unique in the Crowd: The privacy bounds of human mobility

Yves-Alexandre de Montjoye, César A. Hidalgo, Michel Verleysen & Vincent D. Blondel

Scientific Reports 3, Article number: 1376 doi:10.1038/srep01376
Received 01 October 2012 Accepted 04 February 2013 Published 25 March 2013

We study fifteen months of human mobility data for one and a half million individuals and find that human mobility traces are highly unique. In fact, in a dataset where the location of an individual is specified hourly, and with a spatial resolution equal to that given by the carrier's antennas, four spatio-temporal points are enough to uniquely identify 95% of the individuals. We coarsen the data spatially and temporally to find a formula for the uniqueness of human mobility traces given their resolution and the available outside information. This formula shows that the uniqueness of mobility traces decays approximately as the 1/10 power of their resolution. Hence, even coarse datasets provide little anonymity. These findings represent fundamental constraints to an individual's privacy and have important implications for the design of frameworks and institutions dedicated to protect the privacy of individuals.

Derived from the Latin Privatus, meaning “withdraw from public life,” the notion of privacy has been foundational to the development of our diverse societies, forming the basis for individuals' rights such as free speech and religious freedom1. Despite its importance, privacy has mainly relied on informal protection mechanisms. For instance, tracking individuals' movements has been historically difficult, making them de-facto private. For centuries, information technologies have challenged these informal protection mechanisms. In 1086, William I of England commissioned the creation of the Doomsday book, a written record of major property holdings in England containing individual information collected for tax and draft purposes2. In the late 19th century, de-facto privacy was similarly threatened by photographs and yellow journalism. This resulted in one of the first publications advocating privacy in the U.S. in which Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis argued that privacy law must evolve in response to technological changes.

Modern information technologies such as the Internet and mobile phones, however, magnify the uniqueness of individuals, further enhancing the traditional challenges to privacy. Mobility data is among the most sensitive data currently being collected. Mobility data contains the approximate whereabouts of individuals and can be used to reconstruct individuals' movements across space and time. Individual mobility traces T [Fig. 1A–B] have been used in the past for research purposes and to provide personalized services to users. A list of potentially sensitive professional and personal information that could be inferred about an individual knowing only his mobility trace was published recently by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. These include the movements of a competitor sales force, attendance of a particular church or an individual's presence in a motel or at an abortion clinic...

You also might find the following article interesting at ProPublica; No Warrant, No Problem: How the Government Can Get Your Digital Data

Adelle

It was an odd feeling saying goodbye to my mother yesterday, not knowing if I would ever see her again. We have never had an exactly ideal relationship, no point getting in to the minutia. The reality is that you are only issued one mother and this one is mine. She tried to do her best, I am sure I wasn't the easiest kid either. The problem has always been that we know exactly which of either's buttons to push.

You ever hear about the superbug that killed all those people at NIH last year? The stuff that hid out in the pipes and that bleach and antibiotics couldn't kill? She has it. Three weeks ago we got word that she wouldn't make the weekend. She did.

She has what is known as a carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae called Klebsiella. No known cure at this point. They gave her a special antibiotic. She was told that the drug would either kill her or cure her. Came very close to the former, sending her into full blown renal failure and onto dialysis.

She has been in and out of the hospital all year, mostly in, the acute care wing. We hadn't spoke for the last seven months, a spat over some hurtful language and revisionist history. I broke down and called her on mother's day when I heard about how grave things were. I am glad I did. Due to a conflagration of problems none of my siblings could come out this week and it was my turn to bat. I stepped up.

After the requisite amount of guilt tripping, finger pointing and the like, we managed to share a good interval with each other. She just called me to tell me how glad she was that I made the trip. At 3:15 in the morning. I had a momentary second thought about the wisdom of plugging my phone number into her new Galaxy's contact list.

I spoke to all three of her doctors, including the kidney specialist. This Klebsiella is very difficult to beat. They are going to try the other antibiotic in the class but it is very dangerous too, he still can't give her better than 50/50 odds, maybe even 30/70 who knows? I think she will beat the odds. deep down, probably outlive all of us. Her will is so strong, her personality so big. Besides, her work is not finished, she isn't through torturing her children yet.

Yesterday I visited her home and grabbed a suitcase and paper for her and petted her cat, Lucy. The cat was starved for attention. I can see why she loves it. I told her that I would take the cat if anything bad happens to her.

It has been a very interesting week. Didn't do much but run around for her. Put a lot of miles on going here and there. Did have dinner with some old friends in Silver Spring one night. Never heard from the sister who lives nearby. Mostly ate shit food at the Holiday Inn and KFC. Rained a lot.

It is definitely not the time to get morbid or maudlin. She is ill but I don't think she is ready for her curtain call. Not by a long shot. Not this time. Which is good. We now have time to rekindle our relationship in the last chapters of life's saga. If anybody can summon the requisite super powers to fight this bug, it is my mother. The bug won't know what hit it.

You're a big girl now

Change in the weather is known to be extreme.

Long time climate change denier and Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe thinks that liberals are trying to exploit the recent tornados in his home state. In an interview with Newsmax he had this to say:

“We were being hit by tornadoes long before anyone talked about climate change, and even before it was called ‘global cooling,’ before it became ‘global warming,’ and then ‘climate change. The same thing that happened last week happened 14 years ago, 25 years ago, and 30 years ago.”

Ho-hum, no mamby pamby libs gonna tell us about tornadoes. I saw an interesting blurb the other day. While Oklahoma has indeed long been hit by the dangerous cyclones, the events are getting more powerful of late.

According to the National Weather Service last friday's tornado in Oklahoma was the widest tornado in American history. The El Reno, Okla., tornado had a damage path up to 2.6 miles wide and 16.2 miles long, an area wider and longer than Manhattan. That breaks the previous record of 2.5 miles held by the F-4 tornado that struck Wilber-Hallam, Nebraska on 22 May 2004.

The storm's rating was EF5, the highest possible rating. The storm had winds of up to 295 mph. This beats every world wind record except the more-than-300-mph reading measured during the Moore, Okla., tornado in 1999. Nineteen people died as a result of the most recent storm and flooding. The Moore tornado of May 20 was also an EF5.

Meteorologists say that it is extremely rare to have two tornados top the Enhanced Fujita scale in a one month period. There have only been eight F5/EF5 tornadoes in Oklahoma since 1950, the Weather Underground reports, and two of them have hit in the past two weeks. The Moore Tornado on May 20, killed 24 people.

On average, more than 1,000 tornadoes hit the U.S. each year, and only one might be an EF5, according to the National Climatic Data Center. By the way, 97% of all climate scientists believe that human activity is at least partially responsible for causing global warming and the resultant deleterious changes in earth's climate.

There is an interesting article on the subject by Harry Enten over at Mother Jones, Is Climate Change to Blame for the Oklahoma Tornado? Enten doesn't really answer the question conclusively but he does offer this:

...it's still not by accident that the six least active and four most active tornado seasons have been felt over the past decade. Another statistic that points to the irregular patterns is that the three earliest and four latest starts to the tornado season have all occurred in the past 15 years.
Basically, we've had this push and pull in recent history. Some years the number of tornadoes is quite high, and some years it is quite low. We're not seeing "average" seasons as much any more, though the average of the extremes has led to no meaningful change to the average number of tornadoes per year. Expect this variation to continue into the future as less wind shear and warmer moister air fight it out.

The Weather Channel's Senior Meteorologist Stu Ostrow is finally convinced. Here is an interesting panel discussion on the subject that took place yesterday:

Watch live streaming video from climatenexus at livestream.com

Bill Binney interview

Don't You Feel Small?

Frank and the feds

I received this email from neighbor J.R. Maurer this morning. Frank Capra was one of our most famous citizens. I hope I get a chance to see the film.

FRANK AND THE FEDS
A historical story by J. R. Maurer

In the early 1950’s a small town resident named Frank received a complaint that he was being sued “…by the United States acting on the authority of the Attorney General alleges that the defendants have repeatedly, through overt acts, displayed their disregard for the United States and are encroaching upon the already insufficient supply of water required for the nation’s defense. All of the rights of the United States are paramount to the right of the defendants.” The Federal government was being proclaimed to be superior to the ordinary citizen in this suit.

All 14,000 of his neighbors were being sued to have their water rights taken away. It was David vs Goliath. One of Frank’s neighbors had a sixteen-millimeter camera and happened to be a Hollywood cameraman.  They made a half hour movie. The case made national headlines. Much discussion and several months later President Truman fired Attorney General J. Howard McGrath. The lawsuit was dropped and the citizens of America won.

I just watched the short movie on DVD of how Frank Capra got Cecil B. de Mille to give the opening monolog on the film documenting the struggle of the residents of Fallbrook, CA.

Intelligence Hearing on NSA

3-12-13 hearing. Need to listen to the 6:40 mark.

I don't believe you

Within Reason

that sucking sound...

Last week, with a 5 to 4 majority vote, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Maryland law that allows police to collect DNA, without first getting a warrant, from persons who are arrested but not necessarily convicted.

In the majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy writes, "When officers make an arrest supported by probable cause to hold for a serious offense and bring the suspect to the station to be detained in custody, taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee's DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment."

I believe that this ruling is the first step to a national DNA database, I foresee a scenario arriving very soon where everybody will be required to submit a DNA sample during some routine rite of passage, perhaps when getting a drivers license or even a social security number.

It is another classic instance of institutional overreach. Kennedy needs to define two terms before I can be convinced; what crime is classified as "serious" and what is "reasonable?" I can envision law enforcement considering a lot of behavior serious that I might term trivial. Additionally are we talking about what is reasonable in the eyes of a private citizen or reasonable to law enforcement? I'm afraid that we probably already know the answer to that one.

If we understand anything about the John Glover Roberts court, it is that the rights of the state and the corporation always trump the rights of the United States citizenry. And once there is a national DNA database, you better believe that some governmental agency is going to data mine it at some point We may never hear about it but it will assuredly be utilized. That is the way it works.

I was talking about this with BigD this morning and he believes that the government is setting up a total information biometric database. They will know every hair on your body, favored brand of toothpaste, your handwriting, your movements, every person you communicate with and all this information will be stored forever. That is definitely the way things are heading. A not so brave new world.

What exactly does the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the Unites States of America say?

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Seems like we have lost sight of something along the way. Secure in their persons and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause...

“The reason I left the NSA is because they started spying on everybody in the country. Unfortunately, they took those programs that I built and turned them on you, and I’m sorry for that. I didn’t intend that. But they did that.” Former NSA official Bill Binney

Today comes news of yet another new government covert operation against its people, Prism. No, its not just Verizon, a day later comes word that the government is also mining your personal data from Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple. Remember all of the hullabaloo when word came down the pike regarding what plans Colonel Poindexter had for DARPA and total information awareness. It was supposedly shut down. Now it appears that it merely went underground.

Prism will sift through your audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs. It can target an individual or an entire network. No one in government is allowed to even talk about it. And of course all of your data is collected without a warrant. Accompanying Prism is a sister collection effort named Blarney, one that vacuums metadata, address packets and device signatures.

In exchange for immunity from lawsuits, companies such as Yahoo and AOL are obliged to accept a “directive” from the attorney general and the director of national intelligence to open their servers to the FBI’s Data Intercept Technology Unit, which handles liaison to U.S. companies from the NSA. In 2008, Congress gave the Justice Department authority for a secret order from the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Court to compel a reluctant company “to comply.”

Obviously, the amorphous enemy that we call terrorism is real. But we must ask ourselves if it is reasonable to surrender basic rights to privacy that we have held dear since the Redcoats were seen bursting into our countrymen's homes without warrant in the 1700's. If we surrender our rights so easily than clearly the terrorists have won. Do we want to grant them this victory?

I tip my hat to Senators Udall and Wyden, who saw this train coming down the tracks long ago but could say nothing and offer also brickbats to my home state Senator Diane Feinstein, who has become so institutionalized that she has turned her back on the civil liberties of the people she has long served.

The people of this country should have a say in what is reasonable or not, what rights they are willing to toss aside and forego. Our elected representatives have shirked their responsibility. Pardon me for not trusting you Senator Feinstein, or the FISA court, or the President, the SCOTUS and all the rest of the cronies in Washington that have run roughshod on our Bill of Rights.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - California cities and counties can ban pot shops, the state's highest court ruled Monday in a unanimous opinion likely to further diminish California's once-robust medical marijuana industry.

The California Supreme Court said neither the state's voter-approved law legalizing medical marijuana nor a companion measure adopted by the Legislature prevent local governments from using their land use and zoning powers to prohibit storefront dispensaries.

The California citizenry, using their legal power to petition and create a legal initiative, voted to allow medical marijuana 17 years ago. Proposition 215, or the Compassionate Use Act of 1996, was enacted, on November 5, 1996, by means of the initiative process, and passed with 5,382,915 (55.6%) votes in favor and 4,301,960 (44.4%) against. California Senate Bill 420 (colloquially known as the Medical Marijuana Program Act was a bill introduced by John Vasconcellos of the California State Senate, and subsequently passed by the California State Legislature and signed by Governor Gray Davis in 2003 "pursuant to the powers reserved to the State of California and its people under the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution." It clarified and fleshed out Proposition 215.

No matter. With the recent ruling the clear will of the majority of California voters has been thwarted once again. Is it any wonder that we become more cynical and less trusting of our government and elected representatives with each passing day?

don't you monkey with the monkey

Tase me

A Texas man was tasered today by police while trying to go into a burning house to rescue his 8 month old son. The child died. This comes on the heels of a video where a woman gets shown getting stomped and slammed into a countertop by a couple of officers in Houston. And a recent indictment of Houston police officers for the beating of a black teenager.

I decided to google texas and taser and see what else I could find. Wow.

Texas mom used stun gun on 14-year-old son as discipline.

Texas cops taser 72 year old great grandmother.

Handicapped 350-pound Texas man dies after police taser used.

Cops tase man while having a seizure, causing permanent brain damage.

Texas troopers tase man wearing statue of liberty costume.

Texas police tase pastor after traffic stop.

Man sues after Texas police tase him for wanting to use the restroom.

Diabetic teen hit with taser after crash.

Cops tase patient at hospital.

Meet Taser Joe Martinez.

There's even a new niche law practice in Dallas for wrongful taser death lawsuits. There are more of these but my fingers are getting tired.

Total Information Awareness

Senator Wyden warned about it two years ago. He said that the scope of government surveillance was beyond our ability to comprehend. I have written about it on many occasions. Today the Guardian publishes the secret order. The government has every single Verizon phone record. Calls made within this country and originating in this country. Millions of users. All of the metadata.

The court order expressly bars Verizon from disclosing to the public either the existence of the FBI's request for its customers' records, or the court order itself. Under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing. The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19.The order directs Verizon to "continue production on an ongoing daily basis thereafter for the duration of this order". It specifies that the records to be produced include "session identifying information", such as "originating and terminating number", the duration of each call, telephone calling card numbers, trunk identifiers, International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) number, and "comprehensive communication routing information".

It is assumed that all of the phone companies are spilling this stuff, not just big red. More to come, I am sure. By the way do you know what USA Patriot stands for? "Uniting and Strengthening America" by "Providing Appropriate Tools Required (to) Intercept (and) Obstruct Terrorism."  I think that it goes without saying that I expected more from our president.

Operation Stellar Wind.

Old Line State

I am in Maryland. My mother has been gravely ill and I flew back to see her yesterday, getting in late last night after a brief stop in Salt Lake City.

I don't know a hell of a lot about this state so I am not going to pretend that I do. There are a lot of trees everywhere, a lot of feds and military types as well. Supposedly one of the most densely populated states, it is the eighth smallest in land mass. The Chesapeake Bay casts a feathery plume up the middle of the state.

There are a lot of different races and foreign ethnicities represented here. I don't know if this is foreign embassy carryover from D.C. or something to do with the huge native spy apparatus.

I also notice a lot of biracial couples around; whereas in California you see more black men with white women, here the ethnicities and genders seem to be reversed. Lots of beautiful children in tow.

The place names are very different here, without the spanish appellations I am used to back home. I passed places with interesting names like Broken Land and King's Contrivance, causing me to wonder if there was some T.S. Eliot wannabee ensconsed in the local planning department.

The Nanticoke and Powhatan Indians once inhabited the state and you can still see a lot of their native algonquian language has survived on the street signs like the Little Patuxent Rd. I traveled on today.

I am staying in Jessup. Originally Thomas Spurrier's Tavern stood at this site. The father of our country liked to stop by once in a while after work for a few pops. It is located at the crossroads of two important colonial roads, now U.S. 1 and MD. 175. Spurrier's was also a place where revolutionary soldiers changed horses.

George Washington stopped here at least 25 times between 1789 and 1798. His diary noted July 18, 1795: "Dined and lodged at Spurrier's where my sick horse died."

After Spurrier left this earthly coil for his heavenly repose, the tavern was known as the Waterloo Inn but it met its own Waterloo long ago. Now all that is left is this sign and a Holiday Inn.

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Dark Hollow

See ya!

Going Andy Rooney on the phone company

I have been having recurring problems with my pacbell.net email address. After two years of going through various levels of yahoo and ATT support, I have tried to shift and synch everything to gmail. Unfortunately things get lost in the email abyss and I don't always get my messages. I think its something inherent with the old suffix, doesn't jibe with the new ATT.

I had heard that ATT was upgrading its mail service and thought that it was probably time to make my annual call. They wanted to know why I was still on DSL, since there was U-Verse int he neighborhood which promised four times the speed?

It turns out that somebody had made an application from my address but they really meant south main and do there had been a false pending order in the system for the last two years. After a bit of concerted wrangling, I got that fixed and scheduled an appointment with the ATT technician on Saturday.

Juan was a graying middle aged man, nice enough, make that very nice. Got everything hooked up in a jiffy. When he left he pointed me to a survey that I would soon be getting. He told me that it is very important to him that I answer in the affirmative. No problem, I say.

I got a survey call on the telephone yesterday. How happy are you with the work, one to ten? Very happy, ten. How likely are you to recommend Att to your friends and neighbors? I squirmed a little, phone service not being a high priority conversation amongst my cohorts, but what the hell, this was Juan, right? Ten. Did the technician talk about ATT and his cohorts in glowing, superlative terms? I really was starting to get pissed off now. He didn't but what if he had? Was I supposed to squeal? I gritted my teeth. Yes, he did. He talked about the company and his gratitude was so tangible I swear I saw a tear come to his eye. How likely are you to leave all of your earthly possessions to Juan and/or ATT if you were to prematurely expire?

I hate these online surveys, surveys of any kind. They are such a pointless waste of time but they manage to trap you. You either are happy with the service or you are not. And it's everybody, not just ATT, AmEx is in fact the worst offender. You can't make a call or payment of any kind without this time wasting  and stupid third degree. Do they have any idea how thick and dishonest they are, the position they put you in if you actually have dissatisfaction but don't want to cost some poor schmuck his job? Arrgh!

Thelonious Monk

Glasses, grasses or asses

One of the truisms most of us figure out after enough solar revolutions is that just because you can do something doesn't mean that you necessarily should. Hudgins sends this over today; Porn app comes to Google Glass — are you surprised?  Now the ne'er satiated can engage in their autoerotic daydreams 24 -7 and nobody else is the wiser.

If this isn't scary enough (I am thinking of Dan Ariely's test gauging people's poor decision making while engaged in masturbation), imagine people watching google glass porn while driving - try policing that!

My thoughts ran further. Remember Google Layers where you could drive past a building with your phone and know all the email addresses, social security numbers and other pertinent information of all the inhabitants within? Imagine if you will, you walk into a bar, you see a hot babe, the google glasses facial recognition feature not only i.d.'s the chick but you get an instant copy of every stupid sexting photo she drunkenly made when she was 16, her full sexual and medical history, outstanding warrants, internet passwords. The possibilities for successful extortion are almost limitless.

These glasses scare me! I swore I would never use them. My coffee buddies think I will be the first one to own a pair.

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Postscript 6/4/13 - Google bans adult apps on its connected glasses.

"We don't allow Glassware content that contains nudity, graphic sex acts or sexually explicit material," Google's Glass Platform Developer Policies now reads. A Google spokesperson added that "Any Glassware that violates this policy will be blocked from appearing on Glass."

Howard Wales

Early June bouillabaisse

I have learned a new word this weekend.

Pareidolia  (pæraɪˈdəʊlɪə ) - Noun - the imagined perception of a pattern or meaning where it does not actually exist, as in considering the moon to have human features.

From para and eidolon. I had to look up eidolon too. It is the greek word for apparition. Para is greek for beside. From Wiki:

In ancient Greek literature, an eidolon (plural: eidola) (Greek εἴδωλον: "image, idol, double, apparition, phantom, ghost") is a spirit-image of a living or dead person; a shade or phantom look-alike of the human form. The concept of Helen of Troy's eidolon was explored both by Homer and Euripides. However, where Homer uses the concept as a free-standing idea which gives Helen life after death, Euripides entangles it with the idea of kleos, one being the product of the other. Both Euripides and Stesichorus, in their respective works concerning the Trojan War, claim that Helen was never physically present in the city at all.

I have been a serial pareidoliac all my life, I see faces in trees, clouds, mold, stucco, belly button lint. Even martian rocks on occasion, Tails as well.

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Wild Bill turned me on to an interesting study today;  New Research Shows that Asking for a Precise Number During Negotiations Can Give You the Upper Hand. Some researchers from Columbia offer cautionary advice in regards to offering round numbers when in negotiation. I tend to have round price points, $1200, $1800, $2400, I have colleagues that are of the odd number school or the $2995 approach. Interesting concept to ponder. I think that the critical thing is to offer a discount chunk, lets say a spare $150.00. Nobody wants to pay full price.

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I learned this on my Double Helix genetics board this morning. 20% of the 23 and me genetic database customers carry an Alzheimer's marker. I have to assume that they reflect the total data set. From Peter Roche:

The gene is APOE and 20% of the population carry the e4 allele.  People with one copy of e4 have double the risk of Alzheimer's (from 7% for the average population, to 14%), whereas the homozygotes with 2 copies have a 50% risk...

The ApoE encoded by the e4 and e3 alleles have different activities and appear to compete for the same substrates and receptors, so they could be regarded as co-dominant.  Also Alzheimer's is a good example of a complex (multifactorial) disorder rather than a monogenic disorder, which has the classic dominant / recessive effect.  There are a range of genes involved in Alzheimer's, however ApoE has the biggest effect so far.  A further complexity is that the genetic component is probably 70% and environmental (diet, exercise, etc) the other 30%. 

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Is a cove not part of a lake? Exxon Mobil has engaged in a bit of lying and trickery in regards to the recent "Mayflower" oil spill in Arkansas. Read more about it here at AlterNet.

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Shawn in Thailand sends me this bird's eye blog about what is really happening in Istanbul.

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A brief moment of silence for Melanie's late cat, Bat. She sent this over Saturday:

Well today Bat the Cat left us and went to heaven.  He will disrupt and start his own cult probably already started!  Bat was the best cat.  He was a cat's cat.  He was smart and loyal (like a dog) fearless and lovable when he wanted to be.  He will be missed and not forgotten, I know he is in a happy place causing trouble.

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Clarinet with Cicadas - David Rothenburg c/o The New York Times

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All sorts of neat stuff at Scientific American today.

How to Really Eat Like a Hunter-Gatherer: Why the Paleo Diet Is Half-Baked by Ferris Jabr

Hallucinogens can ease existential terror by Erica Rex.

More Stories Scientific American Mind | Mind & BrainForgetting Is Harder for Older Brains News | SpaceNew Physics Complications Lend Support to Multiverse Hypothesis 60-Second Earth | Energy & Sustainability400-Year-Old Plant Resurrected Scientific American Mind | Mind & BrainMental Imagery May Hasten Recovery after Surgery @ScientificAmerican | More ScienceMore Powerful Search for ScientificAmerican.com MIND Guest Blog | Mind & BrainDecoding Space and Time in the Brain

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Move over Michele Bachmann. We have a new contender. Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said on Sunday that women "don't want" equal pay laws. Forget that women receive an average of approximately 80% of the money for the identical job that a man receives.

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Even though the three recent Obama scandals have not dented his poll numbers with the American citizenry, the GOP tactics are clear. More investigations, more hearings, more special counsels, throw everything you have at the wall and try to make something stick. Hell of a way to run a country. The latest push is for a Holder resignation. I say, have at him. He has certainly never done anything for the principles and policies I hold dear. Who knows, there may come a time when Obama needs that liberal base and finds out that they won't lift a finger for him.

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I couldn't help noticing that all of the antagonists in the recent terrorist incidents in both France and London were muslim converts. I have to wonder if these people are attracted to the Islamic creed precisely because it will allow them a way to actualize violent predispositions and tendencies under the rubric of religion? Ever see the American black muslim converts with the staffs on the street corners in New York preaching violence and hate? Same deal.

Van Morrison

Lonely avenue

18:27 2037 - Ptolemy Gulch Station - Valles Marineris, Red Planet

It is a tempting cliché to say that mars rat tastes like chicken. Truth be told it has been so long since we have had any terran food stuffs that I don't exactly remember what chicken tastes like, or any other animal protein for that matter.

I know for sure that it beats the hell out of a tube of tang and a proto bar. Although they contain all the required nutrients to maintain human life, after six years on the red planet the atavistic urge directs us to hunt and consume flesh. Any flesh. Close your eyes and pretend and you're right back on Coney Island eating a Nathan's hot dog. Try it. And it goes without saying that the regular space food tastes like crap.

Courtesy - JPL

The first JPL shot of the rat shocked everybody back home. Somebody had spied it near some rocks, not too far from the skeleton of the old Phoenix lander. The creatures were very cagey and this one had slipped up and got its picture taken. Not really a rodent of course, who would assume that the evolutionary tree on our sister planet would mimic our own? No idea of the exact species, all I know is that it bled. Due to a combination of what ever the hell it fed on and Mar's particular atmosphere, it did have a horrible stench that one had to tiptoe around but in time you get used to things like that.

It was close enough for us and we were hungry. Flesh was a bit stringy, like the guinea pig that they serve you when you are in the highlands in Peru. You get a taste for it, like anything else. If I ever get a furlough, I will catch one and try to bring it home. Of course, that might be a while, I put in for a visit last april and heard the same song as always, you knew what you were getting into when you signed up, is that not your John Hancock on the contract?

Of course nobody could tell you about the loneliness of living a million miles from home, not seeing another creature besides a Chinese astronaut who won't talk, you don't figure the thing out until you start doing your time. They say that the moon is a harsh mistress - well the fourth planet is an entirely different kettle of fish altogether.

For a supposedly fiery planet the place is pretty damn cold most of the time. Up to two hundred below at the ice cap. Think North Dakota without all the pleasantries. It's the thin air, the rarified atmosphere just won't trap heat. So you spend your time trying not to think of the bitter chill, trying to reach back and hold some nice childhood memory, that is until all of your internal tapes just get too old and ragged to use anymore.

Oh shit, there's that beep. Have to walk the perimeter and survey the quadrant. Fill in the damn log. Not like anything ever changes. What the hell could they do to me if I didn't? But I will. It's a job, my job. Hydraulics on the aqua-urine tank need to be greased as well, that is if I plan on having a drink of water any time soon.

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Will write again soon.

© robert sommers 2013

Mountain whipporwill

An old poem by Stephen Vincent Benét admirably performed by John McEuen. Saw Nitty Gritty play this a time or two long ago.

Hawk Child

I am a bit worried about the hawk eyeasses. This has been such a bizarre year. For one thing, no father on the scene the whole time, a first. This is my sixth year of close examination of the nest and things do not feel right. I only see one fledge, haven't seen number two in several days and have not seen the mother in a week.

In a normal year the baby hawks play on the nearby branches for as long as a month. This year I saw one day and then no more. If this fellow is alone I hope that he (or she) can soon fend.

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postscript - sunday morning - both fledglings back in nest.

Ruby Turner

6.1.13

Russia is planning to deliver more than 10 MiG fighter planes to the Syrian government of Bashar Assad, the head of the state-owned MIG corporation said Friday, in a move likely to draw harsh criticism from Western governments seeking Assad’s removal amid a bloody civil war in Syria.
MIG head Sergei Korotkov told journalists that a Syrian delegation was in Moscow on Friday determining the details of the contract to deliver the MiG-29M2 jets.

The middle east, always a powder keg, is on the precipice of a conflagration of epic proportions. The Syrian civil war has become a proxy fight between the Sunni and Shiite world, whose polestars originate in Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Russia is pouring gasoline on the flames, delivering new MIG fighter jets and advanced missiles with the capability of taking out perhaps any Israeli target. Israel has warned Moscow that it will not permit the missiles on their flank. Russia has said that it has already delivered two Bastion anti-ship missile systems equipped with seventy two Yakhont supersonic missiles to Syria.

Yesterday Syrian rebels lobbed eighteen of their own missiles into the Baalbek Valley of Lebanon, sending a blunt message to Iranian muscle Hezbollah. The whole landscape has the very real possibility of being torched in an instant, quickly and instantly turned into a denuded parking lot. And now Turkey has its own internal problems that may have unforeseeable consequences.

Assad says he already has the promised S -300 missiles but experts believe that he is bluffing and that it will be perhaps a month or more before they are delivered. It is of course the height of irresponsibility for the Russians to deliver these weapon systems to a regime already teetering so close to the edge.                                      

Russia has been a total enabler since the beginning of the crisis and are only now talking out of the other side of their mouth about new peace talks. Syrian rebels refuse to be drawn in, recognizing the eleventh hour entreaty as a sham. The United States is protesting the Russian armament vociferously while the Russians maintain that they are only fulfilling old contracts. Whatever. Perhaps they are merely wanting to see the efficacy of their systems in a real war. Show that the old bear still has some teeth.

There don't appear to be a lot of sympathetic players on the scene right now. Are we really this close to arming Al Qaeda as the lesser of two evils? I read a commenter the other day who intoned that the Syrians should fight each other to the last man. A Kissingerian real politic type doctrine, something similar occurred in the Iran Iraq War, a horrid eight year affair that killed perhaps a half a million from both sides and left many more maimed. If there is one thing that the muslims hate more than the Israelis and the west, it is of course, each other.

I think that Israelis and their tribe are always ready for the possibility of another Masada. I could envision a tete a tete with the former soviets that might deliver just that. In this case they need to stay on the sidelines if at all possible, with the exception of repelling serious threats to their survival. This could be a nuclear vortex that immolates all players. Let us hope that clearer heads prevail.

Nice Bill Maher riff

Plastic Fantastic Lover

We want your data

To the consternation of those very few people who still hold on to the antiquated belief that the government has no right to read your mail or other personal communications without probable cause of icky behavior and a warrant comes this:

A District Court Judge in San Francisco has ordered Google to hand over customer user data to the FBI. In a ruling written May 20 and released Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston ordered Google to comply with the FBI's demands.

The case deals with National Security letters that the government routinely mails out to telephone, financial and wireless companies when they want to go on their data fishing expeditions.

The judge rejected Google's position that handing over the material would be both unconstitutional and unnecessary. It is likely that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will have the next say on the matter.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation brought a separate case on the letters and the same judge ruled in March that the FBI's demand that recipients refrain from telling anyone – including customers – that they had received the letters was a violation of free speech rights.

Read more about the matter on Huffpo.

...In 2007, the Justice Department's inspector general found widespread violations in the FBI's use of the letters, including demands without proper authorization and information obtained in non-emergency circumstances. The FBI has tightened oversight of the system.
The FBI made 16,511 national security letter requests for information regarding 7,201 people in 2011, the latest data available.

And since we are on the subject, you might want to check out this from the Electronic Frontier Foundation. President Obama has devised even more and sneakier plans for reading your mail. President Foreshadows New Internet Surveillance Proposal During National Security Speech - Trevor Timm 

We certainly agree with the president we need new privacy protections for our digital communications, and it’s encouraging to hear him suggest support for such proposals. After all, we know the vast surveillance authorities given to law enforcement over the last decade’—like the Patriot Act, FISA Amendments Act, and National Security Letters—have been serially abused. Unfortunately, President Obama has actively defended these laws and policies in Congress and the courts, despite promising to reform them as a candidate....the first half of Obama’s statement—about “review[] the authorities of law enforcement, so we can intercept new types of communication”—is quite troubling. The line is likely an allusion to CALEA II, a dangerous proposal the New York Times has reported the administration “is on the verge of backing.” The measure would force companies like Google and Facebook to install backdoors in all of their products to facilitate law-enforcement access, putting both our privacy and security at risk.
Law enforcement certainly doesn’t need more legal authorities to conduct digital surveillance. As mentioned above, Congress has already been provided a huge amount of new surveillance authority that has been abused. As former White House Chief Counselor for Privacy Peter Swire said in 2011, "today [is] a golden age for surveillance."

Show me that spot in the constitution or the Bill of Rights again where it says that the government can read its citizen's mail and listen to anything they may privately say without a warrant.

Wild Night

I heard this on the radio yesterday. Don't remember ever having heard the Martha Reeves version of this great old Van Morrison tune before. Give it a listen.

Blue Heron Blast is Back

I just noticed, saw this for the first time this morning. Not bad. The guy in the hawaiian shirt has a rather squeaky voice. The author/videographer is Frank Donadee, the publisher of Collector Magazine. Interview took place in April.