Brindle

The Obama administration's war on whistleblowers was already fairly crazy, what with its official designation of "leakers" as "aiding the enemy," but now apparently it's extending even further. Federal agents have now launched criminal investigations into some instructors who claim they can teach you to beat a lie detector test, all done under the mandate of the war against whistleblowers.

Federal agents have launched a criminal investigation of instructors who claim they can teach job applicants how to pass lie detector tests as part of the Obama administration’s unprecedented crackdown on security violators and leakers.

The criminal inquiry, which hasn’t been acknowledged publicly, is aimed at discouraging criminals and spies from infiltrating the U.S. government by using the polygraph-beating techniques, which are said to include controlled breathing, muscle tensing, tongue biting and mental arithmetic.

Methods for how to beat lie detector tests have been around for ages, and they are unreliable to begin with — so much so that many experts and groups have expressed doubt about polygraphs or disavowed them entirely. The National Research Council, the National Academy of Sciences, the Congress Office of Technology Assessment, the American Psychological Association, the Supreme Court — the list of doubters goes on and on, and any discussion of the question inevitably covers the ways people intentionally trick the test, to the point that these methods are practically common knowledge. Even Mythbusters has tested whether or not you can beat the polygraph, as has Penn & Teller: Bullshit! in an episode where they taught volunteers how to beat a test on camera. I wonder if these shows should now be investigated as well?

Either way, it seems like a huge stretch to claim that merely teaching potential methods for beating a lie detector should be considered a crime. At the very least, that seems to test the bounds of the First Amendment. One of the instructors targeted has already plead guilty, but to "obstructing an agency proceeding and wire fraud," while the feds are pushing for two years in jail for the other one. While some of the details are under seal, it appears that federal agents basically set up a "sting" operation, in which they induced the two people to teach them how to trick a polygraph, and in the process "admitted" to the instructors certain crimes that they were involved in. This sounds a like borderline entrapment. In fact, the report notes that the people who "sought out" the information from the two men who were investigated generally just wanted books or videos -- not the "one on one" lessons the feds set up.

The impact of all of this is creating serious chilling effects just on those who oppose the use of polygraphs in general:

Some opponents of polygraph testing, including a Wisconsin police chief, said they were concerned that the federal government also might be secretly investigating them, not for helping criminals to lie but for being critical of the government’s polygraph programs. In his speech to the American Association of Police Polygraphists, Schwartz said he thought that those who “protest the loudest and the longest” against polygraph testing “are the ones that I believe we need to focus our attention on.”

The "Schwartz" quoted there is John Schwartz, a Customs and Border Patrol official who is involved in the investigations. So, yeah, that's a federal government agent specifically claiming that he wants to focus his criminal investigatory power on those who speak out against polygraph testing. If I were to take a polygraph test right now it would note that I'm telling the truth when I say that sounds a hell of a lot like a police state, where federal agents publicly declare that they're going to use their criminal investigation powers to target people who oppose a program they support. Talk about chilling effects and a massive First Amendment violation.

To have a federal official, with investigatory power, whose already involved in existing investigations flat out say that he wants to target those who speak out, is incredible. That's not the way our government is supposed to work.

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Unless you’ve been living under a rock lately, you have surely heard about AMC's hit show Breaking Bad, featuring Bryan Cranston cosplaying Gordon Freeman while making a ton of drugs and generally being an all-around badass. Fortunately for this story, journalistic integrity doesn't really include my opinion of the show, because I watch it enough that my dog and my fiancé can now recite the proper cooking method for a batch of blue crack-speed, which is a strange thing to hear from a dog, I have to tell you. Add to that AMC's being rather awesome when disputes with Dish Network prevented subscribers from seeing it on their TVs and I have something of a fanboi relationship with the show.

And yet, if I had a cable subscription and it went on the fritz during the latest episode, I probably wouldn't be on the horn with emergency services to get help like apparently everyone in Norwich, Connecticut was.

That's what happened last night in southern Connecticut when affected Optimum Cable subscribers decided that missing an episode of Breaking Bad or Eat Drink Love was akin to suffering a major heart attack. Service was down for about two hours during primetime because of a power outage in Norwich.

Confused as to what to do and too impatient to wait until the next day, people started calling 911. That unsurprisingly pissed off emergency dispatchers.

The result of this pissing-off of dispatchers was for emergency services to engage their snark-emitters on social media, informing everyone that abusing 911 services could result in arrest and that they wouldn't get cable in prison, either. Not bad, but I wonder how many of them had to resist the urge to dispatch SWAT to each and every caller to administer a bit of the old scared-straight tactic, because if my Gram-Gram needed an ambulance and couldn't get one because someone's cable was out, I'd be inclined to go full-psycho on them. So, please, people of the world and, more importantly, Connecticut, don't call for EMS because you can't watch Breaking Bad. Instead, Gawker offers a list of more productive activities you could engage in, such as swearing, eating a cookie, or maybe just wait until the morrow when AMC makes their episodes available on iTunes.

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The saga of Lavabit founder Ladar Levison is getting even more ridiculous, as he explains that the government has threatened him with criminal charges for his decision to shut down the business, rather than agree to some mysterious court order. The feds are apparently arguing that the act of shutting down the business, itself, was a violation of the order:

... a source familiar with the matter told NBC News that James Trump, a senior litigation counsel in the U.S. attorney’s office in Alexandria, Va., sent an email to Levison's lawyer last Thursday – the day Lavabit was shuttered -- stating that Levison may have "violated the court order," a statement that was interpreted as a possible threat to charge Levison with contempt of court.

That same article suggests that the decision to shut down Lavabit was over something much bigger than just looking at one individual's information -- since it appears that Lavabit has cooperated in the past on such cases. Instead, the suggestion now is that the government was seeking a tap on all accounts:

Levison stressed that he has complied with "upwards of two dozen court orders" for information in the past that were targeted at "specific users" and that "I never had a problem with that." But without disclosing details, he suggested that the order he received more recently was markedly different, requiring him to cooperate in broadly based surveillance that would scoop up information about all the users of his service. He likened the demands to a requirement to install a tap on his telephone.

It sounds like the feds were asking for a full on backdoor on the system, not unlike some previous reports of ISPs who have received surprise visits from the NSA.

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One of the directives ordered by Judge Scheindlin in her decision declaring New York City's stop and frisk program unconstitutional was to equip NYPD officers with body cameras. Mayor Bloomberg treated this suggestion derisively during his post-decision press conference apoplexy, as he sarcastically channeled the "common man's" complaints about cop-operated cameras.

A camera on the lapel or hat of a police officer... He didn't turn the right way. My god, he DELIBERATELY did it. It's a solution that's not a solution...

For a guy who really seems to love aiming cameras at civilians, Bloomberg sure isn't much for aiming any at his "personal army." I'm sure it galls him that his NYPD (and that's how he thinks of it -- his) might have to be subjected to extra scrutiny and accountability, like some sort of common police force in Podunksville, USA (read: anywhere other than NYC).

The thing is, the evidence (what exists of it) shows body cameras are a net gain, both for cops and civilians. As Hephaestus pointed out in his comment on another cops-and-cameras story, Rialto's (CA) police department saw significant improvements in a couple of problem areas as a result of department-issued body cams.

When cops in a Rialto, California were forced to wear cameras, their use of force dropped by over two-thirds. Additionally, the officers who were not made to wear the cameras used force twice as much as those who did. This strongly suggests the majority of the time police use force is unnecessary. In other words, the majority of the time these officers used force they were simply committing acts of violence which they don't feel comfortable committing if it's captured on film...

The Rialto study began in February 2012 and will run until this July. The results from the first 12 months are striking. Even with only half of the 54 uniformed patrol officers wearing cameras at any given time, the department over all had an 88 percent decline in the number of complaints filed against officers, compared with the 12 months before the study, to 3 from 24.

A better behaved police force is a more effective police force, one that's not bogged down in departmental paperwork, internal investigations and court battles that the deployment of excessive force tends to bring with it.

Out in Florida, police departments are seeing similar results.

Officer Rininger says one of the goals of using these [cameras] is to hold cops more accountable, and keep them from crossing the line.

"You have the video actually from the time of the incident and not just the officer's hearsay," says Officer Rininger. "Officers who are equipped with cameras, their use of forces are lower."

The statistics back that up. According to a new study by Cambridge University, agencies who used these cameras cut their excessive force complaints in half over the course of a year.

But it's not just cops being better behaved. Police officers using these cameras have discovered the citizens they interact with are also better behaved.

“They are great tools for not only recording what you would expect, but they also seem to have great impact in ensuring civility during police interactions,” said John DeCarlo, a University of New Haven associate professor of criminal justice and former Branford police chief.

Hamden Police Chief Thomas Wydra said law enforcement agencies using the technology across the country have seen improvement in the behavior of both parties, police and public.

“People behave more professionally, and they simply are more professional with each other,” Wydra said.

No cop wants to show up at a call and have to deal with nothing but assholes. Likewise for civilians. With a camera recording everything being said, the dialog tends to be lower key. Every encounter has a chance to be part of someone's (cop or member of the public) permanent record, so to speak. Being an asshole may not be a crime, but it's seldom helpful when one party insists on being antagonistic.

The presence of a body camera also levels the playing field somewhat, especially for cops who still are uncomfortable with citizens recording their actions. With every citizen carrying a cell phone, a cop's body camera puts a second set of "eyes" on the situation.

[I]n a world where 90 percent of adults have a recording device in their pocket — a cellphone or smartphone — perceptions are changing.

Some New Haven officers have purchased body cameras on their own, Esserman said. It’s a stark contrast from a time when many officers were highly skeptical of dashboard cameras.

“Years ago it was imposed on officers; now it seems many officers think it’s in their best interest,” he said. “I think the world has changed and people are much more comfortable with cameras than they used to be.”

In Branford, Halloran said body cameras have been embraced by his officers.

“Now the attitude of the officers are, if there’s a camera broken down, ‘Well, I want a camera. I’m not going on the road without a camera,’” Halloran said.

Mesa, AZ's police department has experienced a similar drop in uses of excessive force and citizen complaints.

The Mesa Police Department is currently in the eighth month of its own year-long trial program with body cameras. Sergeant Tony Landato said the cameras "really have been an assist." He added that "obviously we have mixed emotions among some of our members, there are people who don't want that 24-hour scrutiny. But overall it's been a very positive thing."

Taser International, the company that manufactures the eponymous stun gun, also makes body-worn cameras. Steve Tuttle, a Taser vice president, said the cameras can be a hard sell — until police officers discover the video can be used to back them up. And then, Tuttle mirrored Sergeant Landato's experience. "Once they've had a complaint, and realize 'Oh my gosh, there is a video of this,' that changes their feelings very quickly." Tuttle said the cameras reduced complaints against police by "a dramatic number."

With all these positives comes the negative aspects. Obviously, there's a privacy concern. Collected video can be considered a public record, but interactions with people inside their homes or places of business might still be subject to an expectation of privacy. There's also a concern about stored footage of people who happen to be at the scene but are not involved with the criminal activity or interaction being recorded.

Sergeant Robert Drager is the technical manager of the body camera program in Albuquerque. He says once you're crossed the logistical hurdles of the program -- is the camera recording? is the battery going to last longer than an hour? -- officers still have to deal with the massive amounts of data produced by the videos. An example: Drager says that in Albuquerque, in four months just 70 police officers have recorded 30,000 videos. And there's more.

"Officers a lot of times are seeing people on the worst day of their lives, and we're capturing that on video that's now a public record," he said. "We're in the process of trying to create an entire unit to deal with all the media requests and public records requests."

Another concern is that cop-controlled cameras will be abused in order to cover up wrongdoing. To that end, most camera systems have built-in safeguards to minimize any post-recording manipulation or gaps in coverage.

Rialto's camera system attacks this problem by running a constant 30-second "pre-event" buffer. This way the event that prompts the officer to turn on the camera is more likely to be caught on tape. This won't do much for officers who leave their cameras off, but its assumed that video reviews of the day's events will expose any glaring gaps or omissions.

Branford, CT's system auto-uploads all footage into cloud storage maintained by Amazon the moment the camera hits the charger. Bellvue, NE's system prevents video editing on the camera itself and uses a proprietary cord to download the video from the camera.

None of these systems are completely immune to abuse, but as the systems become more common, improvements in these areas will follow.

Even with limited evidence, Bloomberg's resistance to outfitting the NYPD with body cameras feels more like an authoritarian kneejerk reaction than one borne out of any serious thought. (Much like most of the press conference...) He and Ray Kelly's love for CCTV is similarly wrongheaded. The full report on Rialto's body camera experiment points out the limitations of surveillance cameras in terms of reducing certain kinds of criminal activity.

CCTV cameras were found to be weak behavior modifiers not because of a flaw in the self-awareness paradigm or the deterrence theory. Rather, the level of certainty of being apprehended necessary for the self-awareness mechanism, which would lead to socially-desirable behavior, is not high enough in CCTV. If cameras are expected to influence behavior and to serve as cues that social norms or legal rules must be followed, then the cue “dosage” of awareness must be intense. Mobile cameras are likely to have this effect.

Whoever ends up running the city will be faced with the possibility of outfitting the NYPD with body cameras. Let's hope it's someone who recognizes that the benefits to both the police department and the public will far outweigh any potential downsides. With Kelly possibly leaving his post as well, the new mayor may have an easier time implementing this should the NYPD's appeal of the decision fail. New Yorkers should hope this is done sooner rather than later as this tactic, more than any other order issued by the judge, has the greatest possibility of improving the NYPD's civil rights record.

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Agent Topple and Nicole debate the potential damage North Korea would cause by releasing a computer virus. When Topple realizes the virus could wipe out electronic music forever, he begins to reconsider if the hack would actually do more good ...

There are rules for the common people and rules for their "leaders," and only in rare cases do the same rules cover both. Chris Morran at the Consumerist points out how politicians (yet again) are being allowed to ignore the same laws that affect their constituents. Colorado legislators are immune from speeding tickets and parking tickets thanks to the special plates issued to lawmakers -- ones that aren't included in the DMV database.

According to CBS Denver, the info for these particular license plates is never entered into the DMV database, so when some state senator goes zooming by a speed camera, he or she won’t get a ticket, because the camera system looks up the license plate number through the DMV. Since no info comes up, no ticket is given.

This appears to be true for parking tickets as well. See, even though a parking enforcement officer might leave a ticket on the car, cities like Denver that rely on the DMV for addresses of vehicle owners come up empty when they try to collect on those tickets.

On the parking ticket side alone, there are $2,100 worth of unpaid tickets linked to these "invisible" plates. The Dept. of Public Works has decided it's "too costly" to pursue collection of those fines. Of course, now that this is public knowledge, a politician has "stepped up" to right the wrong.

One state lawmaker recently stated his intention to close this loophole through legislative action in the next session, by simply doing away with the plates altogether.

“[I]t’s absolutely unfair,” said state representative Chris Holbert. “We should be held accountable like any other citizen. We are elected to represent the people and there’s no reason for us to be treated differently.”

If only this sort of behavior were an aberration. Earlier this year, Iowa Governor Terry Branstad's speeding SUV was pursued by a highway patrol officer who decided (or was instructed) not to pull it over after realizing whose vehicle it was. Like in Colorado, certain public vehicles are issued plates that aren't listed with the Iowa DMV, which makes these vehicles automatically exempt from traffic cam tickets, parking violations and apparently, even speeding clocked by an on-duty state trooper. It should be noted that the trooper raising the complaint about the governor's speeding driver (another state trooper) was placed on leave after making this public.

After this small debacle, Governor Branstad too "stepped up" to rein in the injustice, except that his idea of "reining it in" falls far short of Colorado legislator Chris Holbert's plan. In Branstad's view, the problem isn't with the plates, per se. It's that there are too many of them.

Iowa Governor Terry Branstad is upset about the number of specialized license plates that have been given to state, local and federal agencies.

More than 3 thousand plates have been issued that exempt the vehicles from getting traffic camera tickets. Brandstad has ordered state transportation officials to cut the number of the special plates.

Over 350 agencies in Iowa have these plates at their disposal (over 3,000 issued so far), a ridiculous amount considering the plates were originally intended for undercover use by various arms of Iowa law enforcement. Branstad probably isn't looking to give up his ticket-dodging plate but presumably will be forcing several others to play by the same set of rules as the public -- that same public these public servants are supposed to be serving.

But that's nothing compared to the staggering level of abuse (ranking between 'Chris Brown' and 'Foster Home' on the Abuse Chart) taking place in our nation's capital. Back in 2008, a report by the US Committee on Transportation detailed the astounding number of violations racked up by government employees and officials.

Municipal, state and federal government agencies are among the biggest offenders when it comes to illegal parking and non-payment of parking citations. A report released last week by the US House Committee on Transportation documented 4000 cases last year where employees in federal vehicles skipped out on paying parking tickets worth $700,000 in Washington, DC and New York City. The total does not include unpaid tickets in foreign countries and other cities throughout the fifty states where 642,000 automobiles registered to the US government are in use.

"Over one-half of all workers in the southernmost section of Manhattan are government employees," the report explained. "Essentially, all of lower Manhattan is a free parking lot for government vehicles."

Federal workers were not alone in ignoring parking laws. City workers in Washington and New York also disregarded citations issued by fellow employees. DC government vehicles generated 329 unpaid tickets worth $33,360 while New York city and state vehicles skipped out on paying 2562 tickets worth $490,939.

The worst offender? The FBI, which the report found to be responsible for the largest number of delinquent parking tickets by a single agency. The FBI, properly chastened, examined the cases listed and, because it's such a shit-hot investigative agency, found itself "unable to come up any suspects who may have been responsible for illegally parking FBI vehicles on 218 occasions."

To the surprise of roughly no one, those responsible for enacting and enforcing laws are seldom as interested in following them. Apparently, performing the "business of government" is such a total sacrifice that illegal parking, speeding and other traffic violations should be waved off so that our nation's do-gooders are unimpeded in their good doings.



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Mmmmmm, it looks like little worms -- let me try it raw. Scientists took muscle cells from a cow, lab-cultured billions and billions more of them, mushed them all into a patty, then cooked it like a hamburger. How did it taste? Kinda like a burger! CRAZY. *stuffs mouth full of cocktail weenies, zip-lines off of balcony into street, tries to lift manhole cover, it's way heavier than I expected, gets laughed at and called a Ninja Tardle*

An independent study found that lab-grown beef uses 45% less energy than the average global representative figure for farming cattle. It also produces 96% fewer greenhouse gas emissions and requires 99% less land. Upon tasting the burger, Austrian food researcher Ms Ruetzler said: "I was expecting the texture to be more soft... there is quite some intense taste; it's close to meat, but it's not that juicy. The consistency is perfect, but I miss salt and pepper." She added: "This is meat to me. It's not falling apart." Food writer Mr Schonwald said: "The mouthfeel is like meat. I miss the fat, there's a leanness to it, but the general bite feels like a hamburger.

Hey, whatever works. They're gonna have to seriously ramp up production and lower costs (it cost over $300K to make this one) though because nobody's gonna pay a thousand bucks for a McPetridish. A McBunsenburger, MAYBE. That was a lab equipment joke. "Not a very good one." Just drown me in the chemical shower, I deserve it. Hit the jump for several more shots including the taste testers putting bites in their mouths with regretful looks on their faces. Thanks to koyote kid and dr venkman, who agree if there's something strange in your neighborhood DO NOT ASSUME IT'S FOOD AND TRY TO EAT IT.

Congress is quite incredible at times. Compare and contrast the following two articles. First, we've got the news that Congress is pushing very, very hard to roll back and limit the various NSA surveillance programs -- programs that we only really know the full details about because of the leaks from Ed Snowden to the press. Then, we've got a bunch of Senators calling Snowden a traitor and arguing that Russia has "stabbed us in the back" by taking Snowden in. It's as if they don't even realize what they're saying and how fundamentally ridiculous they look:

“Russia has stabbed us in the back, and each day that Mr. Snowden is allowed to roam free is another twist of the knife,” said Senator Chuck Schumer....

[....] “I think this is a troubling pattern,” Ayotte said, pointing to Putin’s support for Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, his crackdown on adoptions and a string of other decisions in which he’s “basically just trampling on what we’ve expressed to him that we want to see happen … we’re not just talking about Snowden here.”

[....] “I think Snowden is a traitor, and Putin did a wrong thing."... Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told BuzzFeed.

[....] “Russia’s action today is a disgrace and a deliberate effort to embarrass the United States,” McCain said in a statement.

So... he's a traitor, and Russia has "stabbed us in the back" by allowing him to stay in that country... and... oh yeah... we need to fix this whole spying thing that Congress really sorta kinda knew about all along, but didn't much care about until Snowden let the public in on it. Incredible.

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The news of the morning, of course, was that Russia had agreed to grant Ed Snowden a temporary one-year visa, so that he could at least leave the airport (which he promptly did). In response, US government officials seem to have lost all perspective in making it sound like this is the worst offense ever:

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., called it a "slap in the face of all Americans." Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez, D-N.J., called the development a "setback to U.S.-Russia relations."

[....]

"If these reports are accurate, Americans in Washington should consider this a game changer in our relationship with Russia," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in a statement, calling Russia's decision "provocative" and "a sign of Vladimir Putin's clear lack of respect for President Obama."

A slap in the face? A game changer? Who do they think they're kidding? The White House is being equally ridiculous if only slightly less hyperbolic, in suggesting it may cancel an upcoming Putin/Obama summit:

"We're extremely disappointed," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters. "We're evaluating the utility of a summit in light of this and other issues."

You know what? These arguments would have a lot more weight if they didn't come a day after the US government was able to successfully convict a guy who leaked classified documents to the press in order to blow the whistle on government wrongdoing. And the fact is that the American public is increasingly realizing that, yes, Ed Snowden is a whistleblower, not someone guilty of "espionage." And yet the US government is trying to paint him as some sort of evil hacker spy.

However, the very fact that Congress is actually having the debate about these programs, that the NSA and the FISA Court are declassifying various documents, and that it's clear that the NSA's surveillance powers are going to be somehow limited, seems to support, very strongly, the claim that Snowden was, in fact, a whistleblower. The defenders of the government can whine and moan about this or that, but if they wanted to have any credibility on this topic at all, perhaps they shouldn't have tried to brand Snowden as a criminal when everything that's happened since has proven he's a whistleblower.

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Last week we had a story about how Nancy Pelosi helped kill the Amash Amendment to defund the controversial practice of having the NSA collect tons of info on every phone call made, in part by dragging along a bunch of Democratic representatives. Now, the National Review has some of the story from the other side of the aisle, about how the GOP leadership tried very very hard to keep the amendment from even coming to the floor, trying all sorts of procedural tricks. Eventually, it appears that John Boehner allowed the amendment to be voted on after a brief chat with Amash -- though no one seems exactly sure why. Boehner supports the surveillance program and voted against the amendment (which they note is rare, since he normally abstains from such votes).

However, there is one tidbit in the article that struck me as interesting. We'd already mentioned how Keith Alexander of the NSA went on an emergency lobbying campaign with Congressional reps after learning that the amendment would actually come to a vote, but there's this little tidbit to add some color:

Alexander, the NSA chief, was forced to personally lobby members, calling their cell phones and opening with a joke that, yes, he already had their number.

I'm all for people in government having a sense of humor. In fact, I think the world might be a better place if more people had a sense of humor, but somehow it seems insanely out of line and not particularly funny that the guy in charge of this massive spy program that we now know is collecting data on every single phone call would then call someone and kick off with a joke about his access to their phone numbers. This is not exactly a joking matter.

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Even as many in Congress seem to recognize just how useful it was for Ed Snowden to reveal how the NSA was misinterpreting the law to collect data on nearly everyone, some still seem to want to go overboard in trying to blame him for telling the truth. The latest is that the Senate Appropriations Committee has supported a plan to instruct Secretary of State John Kerry to work with Congress in issuing sanctions against any country that grants Snowden asylum. Remember now, that this is the very same US Congress that flat out passed a law to give a Swiss bank security guard (and his entire family) asylum after he did almost the exact same thing as Snowden. In that case, some of the very same Senators who are now lining up against Snowden went on and on about how brave and heroic Michel Meili was. And, yet, now they're willing to start an entire trade war because some other country is willing to grant him asylum and protect Snowden against crazy attacks by grandstanding officials? How is that possibly a sane reaction?

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The folks from the Sunlight Foundation have noticed that the Change.gov website, which was set up by the Obama transition team after the election in 2008 has suddenly been scrubbed of all of its original content. They noted that the front page had pointed to the White House website for a while, but you could still access a variety of old material and agendas. They were wondering why the administration would suddenly pull all that interesting archival information... and hit upon a clue. A little bit from the "ethics agenda":

Protect Whistleblowers: Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled. We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance. Barack Obama will strengthen whistleblower laws to protect federal workers who expose waste, fraud, and abuse of authority in government. Obama will ensure that federal agencies expedite the process for reviewing whistleblower claims and whistleblowers have full access to courts and due process.

Yeah. That statement seems a bit embarrassing at the very same time Obama's administration is threatening trade sanctions against anyone who grants asylum to Ed Snowden. Also... at the same time that we get to see how whistleblower Bradley Manning's "full access to courts and due process" will turn out. So far, it's been anything but reasonable, considering that the UN has already condemned Manning's treatment as "cruel and inhuman." And people wonder why Snowden left the country...

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Over the past several years, there's been a rise in the number of law enforcement officers taking up residence in public schools. This rise corresponds with the proliferation of zero-tolerance policies. Combined, these two factors have resulted in criminalization of acts that were once nothing more than violations of school policies, something usually handled by school administrators. As infractions have morphed into criminal acts, the severity of law enforcement "liaison" responses has also escalated.

Here's a recent example of the severity of the response greatly outweighing the actual infraction.

The incident started when a Delaware State Police trooper, who was on assignment as a school resource officer in the Cape Henlopen School District, questioned the third-grader and a fifth-grader while investigating the theft of $1.

According to court papers, the questioning was so intense, complete with threats of the children being sent to a juvenile facility for lying, that the 8-year-old — who was not a suspect — burst into tears. His parents pulled him out of school because of the January 2008 incident and filed a lawsuit in January 2010 charging the officer violated the child’s rights.

The theft of a dollar shouldn't have warranted much more than a visit to the principal's office, if that. But, because of these policies, the school automatically turned it over to a state trooper, who then interrogated two children, presumably attempting to get the 8-year-old to testify against the fifth-grader. Unfortunately, incidents like these are far from rare.

- A water balloon fight towards the end of the school year results in seven students arrested.

- A high school student who changed another student's last name to something inappropriate in the school yearbook is arrested and facing first degree property damage charges, a felony.

- A 14-year-old student is arrested on two charges of "disrupting the educational process" and one count of "obstructing an officer" after wearing an NRA shirt to class -- something that did not violate the school dress code, which bans "depictions of violence" but not guns.

- In Mississippi, kids have been arrested (and incarcerated) for "dress code violations, flatulence, profanity and disrespect."

- In Stockton, CA, a 5-year-old with ADHD had his hands and feet zip-tied by the on-duty officer while he waited for the parents to show up. The child was then charged with "battery on a police officer."

- A cop who was not on duty at a Washington, DC school gave a 10-year-old student a concussion when he "grabbed the back of [the student's] head and slammed his head forward into the table." The student had been sent to the cafeteria for not participating in music class.

- A diabetic student who fell asleep in class claims the school police officer slammed her face into a filing cabinet before arresting her and taking her to jail.

There's more. That's just a sampling. This all builds up to the inevitable end result of cops vs. students, as detailed in this wrongful death suit.

Denys Lopez Moreno sued Officer Daniel Alvarado, Police Chief John Page and the Northside Independent School District in September 2011 for the death of her 14-year-old son, Derek Lopez.

The incident unfolded on Nov. 12, 2010, when Lopez allegedly exited a school bus and, in view of Alvarado, punched another student. Lopez ignored Alvarado's order to freeze and fled the scene with the school officer tailing him in a patrol car, according to the amended complaint.

With Lopez hiding in a shed at a nearby home, Alvarado drove back to the scene of the fight but allegedly refused to give up the search.

"Ignoring his supervisor's orders to 'stay with the victim and get the information from him,' Alvarado placed the second boy into the patrol car and sped into the neighborhood to search for Derek," the complaint states. Local homeowners then directed Alvarado to the shed, Moreno claimed.

"In violation of NISD police department procedures, Alvarado drew his weapon immediately after exiting the patrol car," the complaint states. "With his gun drawn, he rushed through the gate and into the back yard. Within seconds from arriving at the residence, Alvarado shot and killed the unarmed boy hiding in the shed."

Officer Alvarado disobeyed direct orders and school policy in order to pursue an unarmed teen, ultimately ending his life. Alvarado claims he fired at the student because he felt the teen "was coming after him" when the door to the shed the student was hiding in was pushed open and hit him in the face.

But the teen wasn't a threat at any moment up until that point, according to Officer Alvarado himself. Tracking down the teen to a shed in someone's yard, he told the homeowner that the boy "posed no threat" to the homeowner. He also testified that if he thought the teen was a threat he would have called for backup.

Despite these assurances and his own belief that the teen posed no threat, he approached the shed with his weapon drawn. The unexpected swing of the door suddenly turned the unarmed teen into a threat, something Alvarado felt could only be mitigated by shooting.

The whole situation might be deemed "unfortunate" if it wasn't for Alvarado's disciplinary record, which calls into question why he was still employed by the police department, much less allowed to work in a school.

"In approximately a four (4) year period leading up to the shooting, defendant Alvarado had been reprimanded sixteen (16) times," according to the complaint. "Specifically, he had been reprimanded for insubordination and failure to follow supervisors' directives seven (7) times. Due to his poor service record, Alvarado was suspended without pay on five (5) occasions. On May 21, 2008, Alvarado was recommended for termination by Page. Despite being recommended for termination for insubordination and for refusal to follow supervisor directives, Alvarado remained on the force without remedial training."

There's the other problem with bringing police officers into schools. Law enforcement agencies have earned the reputation over the years for protecting their own and allowing "rogue" officers to go largely unpunished. Termination is rare and prosecution even more so. When you turn over low-grade disciplinary issues to law enforcement, you run the very real risk of handing a student over to a cop like Alvarado -- someone who's been slapped on the wrist multiple times and sent back into the general population.

On one hand, you have schools with zero-tolerance policies. On the other, you have law enforcement agencies with all the tolerance in the world. And in the middle, you have kids as young as five being zip tied and charged with battering an officer and unarmed teens being pursued and killed over fistfights.

School administrators are wilfully handing their students over to law enforcement members that aren't even properly vetted by their own departments and then using "zero tolerance policies" to absolve themselves of the dismal results. There seems to be no real push to roll these policies back or for administrations to take charge of student discipline again, so odds are this will get a whole lot worse for students before it gets any better, much to the detriment of the next generation.

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House members who voted to continue the NSA's domestic phone-spying dragnet on Wednesday received more than double the campaign financing from the defense and intelligence industry than those voting to end the program, according to a new analysis commissioned by ...

The US government hasn't been happy at all that there is any press coverage of the Bradley Manning trial, and seems to bend over backwards to make their lives more difficult. However, it appears that they took things to an entirely new and ridiculous level this week in actively spying on and harassing journalists covering the trial.

@carwinb, @kgosztola, @nathanLfuller, and @wikileakstruck have tweeted about armed guards standing directly behind them as they type into laptops in the designated press area, being "screamed at" for having "windows" open on their computers that show Twitter in a browser tab, and having to undergo extensive, repeated, invasive physical searches.

Even the NY Times has noted how extreme it was:

Two military police officers in camouflage fatigues and armed with holstered handguns paced behind each row there, looking over the journalists’ shoulders, which had not happened during the trial. No explanation was given.

Reading through the various tweets, the MPs were specifically trying to stop journalists from using Twitter. Kevin Gosztola was directly told not to use Twitter and was later admonished for having "a window" open on his computer. No joke. The reporters also noted that they had to go through an incredibly detailed TSA-style search before they could enter the courtroom -- and that this had not happened previously in their coverage of the trial. Multiple journalists noted how "creepy" it was and how intimidating it is to have military police with guns looking over your shoulder and watching everything you do. Freedom of the press? Not at all.

In response to all of this attention, the judge apparently claims that she ordered the "extra security" because of "repeated rule violations" of rules that no one was told about. But, reading through the details, it sounds a hell of a lot more like intimidation of the press than than about any attempt to stop "rules violations."

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Imagine returning home from vacation and finding your home cleaned out. The thieves grabbed all the furniture, all the gadgets, all the kitchenware, and left you nothing. That’s what happened to an Ohio woman recently, and the police are refusing to help.

That’s because the perpetrator was First National Bank. Except Katie Barnett was not behind on her payments; the bank just repossessed the wrong house.

Fair enough. Mistakes happen. The bank is going to pay her back though, right?

Right?

The housing crisis has generated all manner of outrage and gnashing of teeth. Municipalities and pension funds were swindled, homes were lost, and taxpayers had to bail out the very entities that helped the crisis spiral out of control. But robbing (OK, burglaring, I’m being colloquial) completely unsuspecting bystanders is a new low:

Katie Barnett says that the First National Bank in Wellston foreclosed on her house, even though it was not her bank.

“They repossessed my house on accident, thinking it was the house across the street,” Barnett said.

Barnett, who had been away from the house for about two weeks, said she had to crawl through the window of her own house in order to get in after she used her own key that did not work.

Some of the items in her house had been hauled away, others were sold, given away and trashed.

How can something like this happen:

It turns out the bank sent someone to repossess the house located across the street from Barnett’s house, but by mistake broke into hers instead.

“They told me that the GPS led them to my house,” Barnett said. “My grass hadn’t been mowed and they just assumed.”

Damn you Apple Maps! Seriously though, this is why banks should only work with quality repossession agencies like Helping Hand Acceptance Corporation. Anyone get that? Pat yourself on the back.

I get why the police backed off the case — the bank made a mistake and presumably would set things right. Except the bank considered that, and opted for cartoonish supervillainy instead:

Barnett said that according to the bank president, this was the first time something like this has happened.

She presented him with an $18,000 estimate to replace the losses, but the president refused to pay.

“He got very firm with me and said, ‘We’re not paying you retail here, that’s just the way it is,’” Barnett said. “I did not tell them to come in my house and make me an offer. They took my stuff and I want it back.”

The shock of having her house broken into and belongings taken by mistake has now turned into anger.

“Now, I’m just angry,” Barnett said. “It wouldn’t be a big deal if they would step up and say ‘I’m sorry, we will replace your stuff.’ Instead, I’m getting attitude from them. They’re sarcastic when they talk to me. They make it sound like I’m trying to rip the bank off. All I want is my stuff back.”

Apparently, the bank thinks it lives in the world of The Purge. But no, you can’t steal people’s stuff and get away with it. This story is the most bipartisan thing ever, with DailyKos and The Blaze getting riled up over it.

Now an observer might be tempted to say, “Well, the bank has a right to protect itself from someone making an inflated estimate of the damages,” and that’s fair. Except that’s not what the guy is quoted as saying. When he says, “We’re not paying you retail here, that’s just the way it is,” he’s recognizing that the estimate accurately reflects replacement value and claiming that the bank is not willing to pay to replace the stuff they stole.

It’s all about not making the victim whole.

But the worst thing about this story is that it’s not as rare as one would hope:

Sadly, stories like this are all too common. In September 2012, subcontractors hired by Wells Fargo mistakenly foreclosed on the wrong home in California, destroying a man’s vacation home in the process.

A review of court records in 2012 by The Huffington Post revealed more than 50 lawsuits have been filed against banks and subcontractors who have entered and “foreclosed” on the wrong properties. Most of the suits are tied to two largest property management contractors in the U.S.: Safeguard Properties and Lender Processing Services.

Meanwhile, a petition has started to demand that the bank pay her back.

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In 'Great, now if my girlfriend reads this I'm going to have to learn how to hack Sonic the Hedgehog or risk getting turned down' news, Redditor Equinn0xX hacked a Contra cartridge to propose to his girlfriend. Curse you, Game Genie!

This is how I did it. In short, I bought Contra, dumped the ROM, hex edited the file, flashed it to a new ROM chip and soldered it all back together. Took some work but worth it. I changed player names to ours and also changed the ending text to ask her once she beat the game. She said yes!

Cool. But you know what would have been even cooler? If the marriage proposal was accessed via Konami code. Actually, wait -- NOBODY STEAL THAT. I came up with it, I get to use it first. Just kidding, I'm dying alone, have at it. Hit the jump for the proposal screen, the Frankenstein'd game cartridge, and a shot of the lovely couple dressed as Rainbow Brite and Shredder.

The Obama administration for the first time responded to a Spygate lawsuit, telling a federal judge the wholesale vacuuming up of all phone-call metadata in the United States is in the "public interest," does not breach the constitutional rights of ...

Another day, another crazy claim from the DOJ. The latest concerns a legal challenge to the administration's ability to use drone strikes against US citizens abroad. The US has been arguing that this issue cannot be tried in court because it's outside the court's jurisdiction and because of national security reasons. Most ridiculously of all, the DOJ has argued that there are Constitutional rights that cannot be challenged in court:

Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian Hauck argued there was a difference between having a constitutional right—which he said could be protected by the executive and legislative branches—and being able to make constitutional claims in court.

Think about that statement for a second. It's not just legally wrong, it's horrifying. Thankfully, Judge Rosemary Collyer found this claim equally bizarre.

"I'm really troubled…that you cannot explain to me where the end of it is," Collyer said. "That, yes, they have constitutional rights but there is no remedy for those constitutional rights."

In case you're wondering, Hauck apparently is relying on the Political Question Doctrine, which tends to be applied very narrowly and is only supposed to mean that courts should not take on cases that present a "political" question rather than a "legal" question. But, a Constitutional issue over whether or not the US government has the right to kill a US citizen like that certainly seems like a legal question, not a political one.

Hauck further argued the executive and legislative branches could be trusted to protect the rights of citizens. In other words: "Hey, courts, don't worry about US drone strikes killing US citizens, Congress and the administration have this one covered." But, um, that's not how it works. We have three branches of government for a reason, and the checks and balances they provide is the key reason. Having an administration that is in charge of using the drone strikes, along with a very compliant Congress, as the only ones capable of determining if the use is appropriate seems to completely ignore the basic premise of the checks and balances of government, especially when it comes to the Constitutional rights of US citizens.

"The problem is, how far does your argument take you?" Collyer said, adding that she found it "a little disconcerting" that the government was arguing that there could be no court review of a decision by the executive and Congress to target American citizens abroad.

It's good to see the judge is concerned, but this case has a long, long way to go, and the administration is going to try as hard as possible to keep this issue out of court entirely.

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The TSA apparently has too many Fourth Amendment-violating irons in the fire, what with having to perform random searches in bus stops and on federal highways in addition to the bang-up job they do everyday ensuring that plane-boarding procedures are a fine blend of the ridiculous and the sublimely annoying. Now, the TSA has extended its reach once more, and it's leaning on private individuals to search other private individuals parked cars.

Laurie Iacuzza walked to her waiting car at the Greater Rochester International Airport after returning from a trip and that's when she found it -- a notice saying her car was inspected after she left for her flight. She said, "I was furious. They never mentioned it to me when I booked the valet or when I picked up the car or when I dropped it off."

Iacuzza's car was inspected by valet attendants on orders from the TSA.

Take note of that, America. Your safety can only be guaranteed by a search of valet-parked vehicles, but not by a trained agent. Instead, your valet will do a brief search of your vehicle to ensure there's nothing inside the cabin, trunk or under the hood that looks like a bomb. (Like, for instance, a bundle of wires and some other stuff with a post-it attached saying, "NOT A BOMB.")

There's probably not any Fourth Amendment violating going on here. After all, the crack team of valet/security experts aren't authorized to dig through any of the really "secret" areas.

The report stated that the inspection involves looking into the trunk and engine and a "scan" of the inside of the car, which does not include opening the glove compartment or the console.

Granted, the cabin of the vehicle isn't really "private," but digging around in someone's trunk usually requires a warrant or reasonable suspicion. And I don't think I can stress this enough, but YOUR VALET is performing this warrantless, suspicionless search.

But is that the extent of vehicles being searched at airports?

[W]hy only valet parked cars? That's what News10NBC wanted to ask the TSA director about. We reached him by phone.

Berkeley Brean asked, "Are the cars in the short term lots and long term lots getting searched as well?"

John McCaffery, TSA, said, "No, those vehicles that are in the garage, short term long term parking, even if they carry pretty large amounts of explosives, they would not cause damage to the front of the airport. But for those who use the valet, the car could be there for a half hour or an hour so there is a vulnerability."

Well, that almost seems smart, except that cars waiting for a free valet/human bomb detector aren't the only vehicles lingering in front of airports, as J.D. Tucille at Reason points out.

If the TSA is truly worried about car bombs at the curb, all of those private vehicles and taxis making drop-offs and pickups would seem to be of equal concern to cars left with a valet.

His guess is that the TSA does it because it has "nominal consent," thanks to a sign posted at the valet window that announces valet-parked vehicles will be searched per TSA orders. Except that Iacuzza claims no sign was posted when she dropped off her vehicle and the valet agency refused to state when the sign was actually posted.

I think it goes farther than nominal consent. Whether or not it makes sense to search vehicles parked for more than X minutes in front of the airport (it doesn't -- at least if you're not searching non-valet-parked vehicles) is beside the point. Vehicles left for valets to park present both access and opportunity, two aspects our nation's security agencies never let go to waste.

The valet is going to be inside the vehicle to park it. That's a given. No expectation of privacy in terms of the interior of the vehicle. The attendant can also pop the hood once inside. Accessing the trunk may take a key or may have an interior release, but either way, the attendant has everything he or she needs to do a quick and dirty "search." A car waiting for a valet is a Christmas present for the TSA, which clearly has a jones to search as many forms of transport as possible.

And if you don't consent? Well, I suppose you're stuck parking your own car bomb at short-term or long-term parking where it can detonate in peace.

But don't worry, it could be worse. The DHS has noted that in cases of heightened security alerts, the TSA can randomly search any vehicle it wants to. Pushing this job to valets just sounds like the TSA would rather avoid more confrontations with pissed off travelers. Beyond that though, it just seems incredibly shitty to put untrained valets in potentially dangerous situations. You know, unless no one, not even the TSA, really believes anyone's leaving cars loaded with explosives at valet parking.

Update: J.D. Tucille reports that the TSA has responded to his queries with a noncommittal statement:

"Each airport authority, along with their state and local law enforcement partners, is responsible for securing airport property, including the outer perimeter."

Sounds like cans being kicked down the road. Tucille adds:

Suffice it to say, as you can tell from the official statement emphasizing airport authorities and local agencies, TSA doesn't want to take credit for the car searches at Rochester's airport. Also, I think it's a safe bet that Laurie Iacuzza, and anybody else who left cars with valets at the airport before this story broke, was very likely not properly informed that their vehicles would be searched.

Looks like some improper searches have been occurring at the Greater Rochester International Airport. And if the TSA didn't give the go-ahead for these search-and-park maneuvers, whoever whipped up the sign and the notice left in Iacuzza's vehicle will need to do a bit of explaining.

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A new video from the Cato Institute discusses the issue of overcriminalization, which is quite interesting: The video discusses the book Three Felonies a Day by Harvey Silvergate, which we've mentioned in the past. However, a point that was perhaps more stunning was mentioning how Rep. James Sensenbrenner asked the Congressional Research Service to list out the criminal offenses under federal law, and they refused, saying it would be too much work:

The task force staff asked the Congressional Research Service to update the calculation of criminal offenses in the federal code, which was last undertaken in 2008, said task force chairman Representative John Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.)

"CRS's initial response to our request was that they lack the manpower and resources to accomplish this task," Sensenbrenner said Friday. "I think this confirms the point that all of us have been making on this issue and demonstrates the breadth of overcriminalization."

There's clearly something very, very wrong about a criminal code where the governmental agency charged with doing basic research for Congress finds it too big a task to list out all of the crimes listed under federal law. At that point, you no longer have a "rule of law." You have a system of loopholes and gotchas, with enough tricks and traps that anyone can be made into a criminal if the authorities decide that's what they want to do. This isn't to suggest that law enforcement regularly goes after people with trumped up charges -- I don't think they do. However, it does happen sometimes. But, far more common, and equally worrisome, is how this allows law enforcement to pile on additional charges and potential punishment for people accused of relatively minor crimes.

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One of the most common results of disruptive technologies is that the legacy players scream to the heavens (or, rather, the politicians) about how dangerous the new technology is and how people will die if that new technology isn't crippled. One of the most ridiculous examples of this -- from over a century ago -- was with the introduction of automobiles. Some transportation competitors raised such a stink about how dangerous cars were, that a few governments passed so called red flag traffic laws, that required someone to walk in front of any car, waving a red flag to warn people of what was coming. One of the most famous, in the UK, included this:

... one of such persons, while any locomotive is in motion, shall precede such locomotive on foot by not less than sixty yards, and shall carry a red flag constantly displayed, and shall warn the riders and drivers of horses of the approach of such locomotives...

Of course, those who were once the disruptors often become the incumbents, so it should be little surprise that automakers are on the other side of things when it comes to the eventual roll out of Google's self-driving cars. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that politicians and automakers are pushing Google to cripple their self-driving cars while also delaying the roll out.

Google Inc. , under pressure to slow down development of driverless cars, may crimp the capabilities of the first auto products that it brings to market, people close to the company say. That may mean that cars using Google's software may not drive faster than 25 miles per hour and may feature a foam front end to limit the extent of damage caused in the event of a collision.

Yes, there are some irrational fears about self-driving cars. Undoubtedly, there will be some malfunctions and accidents. And a lot of legal issues are unsettled. However, crippling the cars to the point that they're almost useless seems rather silly. Regular, human-driven cars are notoriously unreliable and subject to accidents. It's quite likely that as more self-driving cars are on the road that accidents will decline massively, as the technology will actually make the roads much safer.

While the article highlights the potential legal concerns and "public perception" of self-driving cars as a reason to cripple the first round of those cars, there are also, not surprisingly, competing automakers and tech companies in the mix, with their fear that Google's willingness to keep innovating may leave them all far behind:

Auto makers and technology companies have made significant investments in the development of self-driving cars, although they favor a much more cautious, step-by-step approach than Google's leadership does. How the car research plays out will say a lot about how Google's innovative process will work as the company continues to mature and enter huge new markets such as transportation. It has run roughshod over the wireless phone industry for the last few years, quickly establishing the dominance of its Android operating system. But the auto industry has seen that story unfold, and doesn't want to be cast unwillingly in a sequel.

In other words, spreading FUD about self-driving cars means Google can't be as aggressive in pushing the envelope, and maybe we can hold back the tide for a few more profitable years of the old, more dangerous, kinds of cars.

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The hits just keep on coming. Each new leak or revelation fills in more details on the audacious breadth of the NSA's surveillance activities. Previous statements from intelligence agencies declared that surveillance efforts covered only "two hops" from suspected terrorists. This meant that the agencies watched who these suspects communicated with (the first hop) and who those people communicated with (the second hop).

The two-hop limit is still broad enough to drop the surveillance dragnet over thousands of people who weren't specifically targeted. It's a perverse form of "guilt by association" that opens up people twice removed from the original targets to further surveillance efforts.

Now, it has come to light that these agencies go even further.

Chris Inglis, the agency's deputy director, was one of several government representatives—including from the FBI and the office of the Director of National Intelligence—testifying before the House Judiciary Committee this morning. Most of the testimony largely echoed previous testimony by the agencies on the topic of the government's surveillance, including a retread of the same offered examples for how the Patriot Act and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act had stopped terror events.

But Inglis' statement was new. Analysts look "two or three hops" from terror suspects when evaluating terror activity, Inglis revealed.

This third "hop," delivered as an "aside" during testimony, effectively throws a dragnet over a majority of the world's population.

For a sense of scale, researchers at the University of Milan found in 2011 that everyone on the Internet was, on average, 4.74 steps away from anyone else.

In addition to marveling at the fact that these agencies apparently see nothing wrong with tracking millions of non-terrorists, one has to wonder what they sought to gain by clouding their own "search results" with millions of useless data points. This certainly falls under the NSA mantra of "collect it all," an attitude that indicates the agency collects this info because it can, not because it needs it. This also provides it with a way to "target" American citizens without actually targeting them, something that would run afoul of Section 702. Each additional "hop" exponentially increases the chance of including American citizens.

It also calls into (further) question claims that harvesting vast amounts of data is preventing terrorist attacks and making our country safer. Trolling a sea of data looking for bites isn't an effective way to fight anything, much less terrorism, something that is nebulous in both definition and aim. Asking the database "questions" and "connecting the dots" is significantly more difficult when the database is filled with tons of useless info and the number of "dots" has increased exponentially.

Inglis failed to explain why this additional hop was necessary, but that sort of casual omission may not be an option much longer. It looks as if these hearings are turning much more adversarial. A few legislators fired off some choice words in the direction of Inglis and the agency.

Ranking Minority Member John Conyers (MI): "You've already violated the law in my opinion."

Rep. Jerry Nadler (NY): "I believe it's totally unprecedented and goes way beyond the statute."

Rep. Ted Poe (TX): "Do you see a national security exemption in the Fourth Amendment? … We've abused the concept of rights in the name of national security."

It's heartening to see a few representatives stepping up to declare the NSA's actions reprehensible. Unfortunately, this conversation should have occurred a long time ago. What's been revealed is likely the tip of the iceberg, and while the agencies haven't been truthful with their overseers in Congress, the fact is that there were several opportunities for legislators to curb the overreach of the NSA and other intelligence agencies.

What's even more disappointing is that the current administration has made very few critical statements of these agencies and their policies, preferring to make small noises about "balance" and "debate." It, too, had an opportunity to roll this back, but instead chose to extend and expand the policies put in place by the previous administration.

The NSA is currently two "hops" away from effectively surveilling the entire world -- and that's only if we believe its latest claim. The NSA didn't get to this point alone. It had plenty of help, some tacit and some active, in its steady march towards omniscience.

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This is the 2013 York Corn Maze near York, England. It features a giant Dalek and a couple of the Doctor's faces. You see that Exterminate pun I made in the title? I am NOT PROUD OF IT AT ALL. If there is one thing I could take back today it would be that title. Unfortunately, I can't take it back because I already wasted my one take back on the frozen breakfast burrito I had for breakfast. *shaking fist at ass* LEARN HOW TO HOLD IT DOWN. Thanks to my pal Terry, who I would exterminate in a heartbeat if I didn't hate jail so much.

"Substantially improved support for the power management features of modern Radeon graphics cores is among the major new additions of the now available first release candidate of Linux 3.11. For this release, Linus Torvalds changed the code name from 'Unicycling Gorilla' to 'Linux for Workgroups' and modified the logo that some systems display when booting: it now depicts a Tux holding a flag with a symbol that is reminiscent of the logo of Windows for Workgroups 3.11, which was released in 1993." Just awesome. Nothing else.

The US government has a bit of a PR problem at the moment, thanks to Ed Snowden's leaks and a decade-plus of general antipathy towards its constituents' rights and liberties growing out of its War on Terror.

Fortunately, the government now has a chance to aim its official version of today's news at US citizens, thanks to the repeal of a so-called "anti-propaganda" law earlier this month.

For decades, a so-called anti-propaganda law prevented the U.S. government's mammoth broadcasting arm from delivering programming to American audiences. But on July 2, that came silently to an end with the implementation of a new reform passed in January. The result: an unleashing of thousands of hours per week of government-funded radio and TV programs for domestic U.S. consumption in a reform initially criticized as a green light for U.S. domestic propaganda efforts.

The Broadcast Board of Governors, which produces programming like the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, has been prevented from aiming its programming at Americans since the 1970's when the Smith-Mundt Act (which authorized the State Dept. to communicate with foreign audiences via many methods, radio being one of them) was amended to prohibit domestic dissemination of the BBG's broadcasts. This was done to distance the State Department's efforts from the internal propaganda machine operated by the Soviet Union.

Now, the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 (part of the National Defense Authorization Act) has repealed the domestic prohibition, allowing the government's broadcasting to be directed at/created for Americans for the first time in over 40 years.

BBG spokesperson Lynne Weil says these efforts aren't simply pro-government hype machines.

"They don't shy away from stories that don't shed the best light on the United States," she told The Cable. She pointed to the charters of VOA and RFE: "Our journalists provide what many people cannot get locally: uncensored news, responsible, discussion, and open debate."

A former U.S. government source with knowledge of the BBG says the organization is no Pravda, but it does advance U.S. interests in more subtle ways. In Somalia, for instance, VOA serves as counterprogramming to outlets peddling anti-American or jihadist sentiment. "Somalis have three options for news," the source said, "word of mouth, Al-Shabaab or VOA Somalia."

As Weil points out, this will bring a new level of transparency to the BBG as communicating to Americans is no longer prohibited. If nothing else, transcripts of BBG programming will be easier for Americans to get ahold of. A court ruled in 1998 that the limitations of the Smith-Mundt Act exempted the Voice of America from releasing transcripts in response to FOIA requests.

Another possible plus is the fact that the BBG will provide a free, "local" news source for immigrant populations.

The agency wants to reach diaspora communities, such as St. Paul Minnesota's significant Somali expat community. "Those people can get Al-Shabaab, they can get Russia Today, but they couldn't get access to their taxpayer-funded news sources like VOA Somalia," the source said.

These positives aside, the thought of a state-run news agency being allowed to direct its efforts at Americans is still uncomfortable. Despite claims of independence, it's hard to believe the source is 100% trustworthy when its stated purpose is to run flack for the State Department in foreign nations. (Of course, the mainstream media outlets haven't shown much reluctance to regurgitate talking points, which almost makes the BBG's efforts seem redundant.)

While the BBG may provide a less-biased source of news for many foreigners (or at least provide a different bias), the purpose of its broadcasts to its new American audience is less clear. The fact that the State Department is behind the effort doesn't do much to allay fears that the BBG will become a tool of domestic propaganda. The State Department's reaction to the leak of diplomatic correspondence by Wikileaks was to block its employees' access to the site (or any site containing the word "Wikileaks") and demand the digital documents be "returned." How will a state-run press react to developments like these? Will it be forced to play by the department's rules, no matter how illogical, or will it be able to deal with them in a more forthright manner?

In a time where the administration seems to be forced to play defense with increasing frequency, it's hard to believe it won't be willing to exploit this addition to its PR arsenal.



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After a crusade by League of Legends developer Riot Games, the US government now recognizes the game's professional players as professional athletes, and will award them visas to come to the country and work (read: play the game). MUST BE NICE.

"This is groundbreaking for eSports; now we can start looking at international players when they come over. It's a much easier process because they're actually recognized by the government. This is a huge thing." "This was a lengthy process; we had a lot of people fighting for this. It wasn't something that happened overnight," Allen continued. He further explained that Riot went back and forth with the government multiple times before enough evidence was provided to prove that the game is a legitimate sport.

Heck yeah! It's about time video gamers receive the professional athlete status they deserve. And I'm not just saying that because this is the best chance I stand of ever becoming a professional athlete, but I did score in the other team's goal playing for my middle school basketball team. Thanks to Fortune, who only video games in athletic shorts.

By now you've probably already heard about how the local Fox affiliate here in the Bay Area of California last week broadcast what it apparently believed were the names of the four pilots on the Asiana Air plane that crashed on landing at San Franciso Airport a week ago. Almost everyone I've spoken to about this is stunned that no one realized these were obviously fake, racist names. You could maybe see one of them getting through, but all four? And it's not like this is in an area without a large Asian population. Nearly 25% of the population in this region is of Asian heritage. You'd think someone would have caught that these were fake before it went on air. But, no one did. If you haven't seen the video of the newscaster reading out those names, it's really quite incredible: As you might imagine, KTVU quickly apologized, blaming the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) who it insisted had confirmed the names. At first the NTSB insisted that it had nothing to do with it, saying that "we do not release names" ever. However, a few hours later, the NTSB was forced to issue a statement apologizing, and saying that a summer intern, who was acting way, way, way outside the scope of his authority, had confirmed the names:

Earlier today, in response to an inquiry from a media outlet, a summer intern acted outside the scope of his authority when he erroneously confirmed the names of the flight crew on the aircraft.

The NTSB does not release or confirm the names of crewmembers or people involved in transportation accidents to the media. We work hard to ensure that only appropriate factual information regarding an investigation is released and deeply regret today's incident.

Appropriate actions will be taken to ensure that such a serious error is not repeated.

Of course, the NTSB has also said that the names "originated" with KTVU and that the intern was "trying to be helpful." Either way, the end result was pretty clear: KTVU (and, to some extent, the NTSB) were quickly mocked widely online.

I had figured the story would die down over the weekend but, apparently, Asiana Air is talking about potentially suing both KTVU and the NTSB over this incident, claiming that it harmed their reputation.

Asiana said Monday that it will sue a San Francisco TV station that damaged the airline's reputation by using bogus and racially offensive names for four pilots on a plane that crashed earlier this month in San Francisco.

Yes, the use of those names was racist and offensive. And, yes, it was absolutely ridiculous that it made it on the air. But it's almost as ridiculous to then file a lawsuit over such a thing. Asiana is going to have one hell of a time proving any "damage" to the airline's reputation from that report, as opposed to, I don't know, the actual crash landing. It seems that Asiana's reputation is already hurt, but not because of any fake names, but rather for its inability to properly land an airplane.

The whole reason the names became a story was that basically everyone who didn't work at KTVU knew they were fake and offensive names. No one actually thought that they were real. There was no damage done to Asiana from those names being used. The damage was to KTVU's credibility (not to mention the credibility of whoever hires summer interns at the NTSB). KTVU and the NTSB have both apologized, and Asiana should focus on making sure its pilots can land their planes rather than suing over this.

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The last dozen years haven't been too kind to our country. A brief surge of patriotism followed the 9/11 attacks, but the Bush administration managed to channel that national pride (and a large dose of fear) into a series of regrettable laws, policies, government expansion and wars. The rough sketches of a homegrown surveillance state have been present for several decades but it took the chaos of a terrorist attack to bring it into sudden, sharp focus.

The current administration didn't improve matters, embracing and expanding the model of government surveillance and control put into operation by its predecessors. Throughout it all, whistleblowers have emerged, filling in the details of the shadowy operations operating behind the scenes, safely out of the public eye and for the most part, beyond accountability.

The latest round of leaks have solidified the state's image as an untrustworthy guardian of the nation's "security," a premise so flimsy its aims and activities are still mostly shrouded in government-enforced secrecy, aided and abetted by the executive orders of a compliant president.

It's little surprise that a majority of Americans believe the founding fathers would be disappointed by US 2.0 -- a country whose representatives have shown the willingness to sacrifice their constituents' freedoms for "safety," all without having the courtesy to discuss these "sacrifices" until absolutely forced to.

Seventy-one percent of Americans think the signers of the Declaration of Independence would be disappointed by the way the United States has turned out, a Gallup survey released Thursday shows.

The country hasn't been deemed "pleasing" to the founding fathers by a majority of Americans since 2001, when it briefly hit a high of 54%. Since then, it has slid to half that -- 27% -- over the last decade.

Interestingly, a person's opinion on what the founding fathers might think of the country has little bearing on their own particular pride in being an American.

As the United States celebrates Independence Day, most of its adult residents continue to say they are proud to be an American, including 57% who are extremely proud and 28% who are very proud. This high level of pride in being an American has varied only moderately over the past 12 years since the question was first asked, but has been lower since 2005 than it was in the years prior.

That seeming dichotomy is something our legislators should take a long, hard look at. A person's pride in their nationality is almost completely divorced from their respect for the government. This shouldn't be viewed as a license to continue screwing things up. After all, the American public's confidence rating for Congress is in danger of slipping into single digits.

No, the takeaway should be this: patriotism isn't tied to government activity. It never has been and it never will be. Crafting bad laws to make America "better" or "safer," as happened post-9/11, is nothing more than a hideous form of coattail riding. It's a way to exploit emotional surges in order to expand government power.

Being proud to be an American despite the actions of those in power is a great thing. Our government long ago ceased to be truly representative of the population, instead searching for expansions of power and engaging in willing servitude to a variety of corporations and special interests. The divide continues to grow. Our nation is two entities: the people and the state.

Our founding fathers would be displeased, but maybe they too would hold out hope that our country will correct the course set by the last two administrations. More disappointed than angry. And still optimistic.

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It feels like it's been a while since I've seen Xtranormal videos, but someone who shall remain nameless has put together a rather hysterical video of President Obama explaining why massive NSA surveillance under his watch is different than when it was done by President George W. Bush. As you may recall, President Obama criticized these programs while he was "Candidate Obama," but has now expanded them massively. This video explains why -- and is likely to make you laugh: Below are some of my favorite lines... which is actually nearly a full transcript, because as I was picking out "favorite" lines, most of the video fell into that category.

It was concerning when the Bush administration was secretly collecting your information. Heck, I had concerns back then myself. But, everyone knows that George W. Bush was not a good President. Whereas, I am a good President. See the difference? So, while you could not trust George W. Bush to secretly collect your data, you can trust me. I'm a trustworthy guy.

Another important difference between my administration and the Bush administration is that when the Bush administration secretly spied on you, the Bush administration could not point to a single judge willing to say their program was legal. We, on the other hand, can point to such a judge. I'm not going to tell you who this judge is, or why he or she thinks our program is legal. If I did that, it would, obviously be harder for me to convince you that the program is legal. Instead, I'm just going to tell you that we secretly found one judge who was willingly to secretly say that it was legal for us to collect all of your data....

The Bush administration could not tell you that it had informed Congress. Whereas my administration took steps to ensure that if you ever found out about our secret surveillance program, we could tell you that we informed Congress. To be clear, when I say 'we informed Congress,' I am not saying that we did out best to ensure that Congress had enough information to have an informed debate on this vital national security issue. What I am saying is that we informed Congress enough for me to stand here and tell you that 'we informed Congress.' What Congress actually knew is not important....

If Congress did not want us to secretly interpret the law, then Congress should not have passed a law for us to secretly interpret....

If you, the American people, did not want me to secretly collect your data, then you should not have elected me President. Yes, I know many of you were probably unaware that I wanted to secretly collect your data, especially since I said I would not secretly collect your data. But, I choose to believe that you elected me to be your President, because you believe that if someone has to secretly collect your data, that someone should be me. And, as we all know, my secret interpretations of your support are more important than the reasons you actually supported me.

Finally, while I do not believe there is any reason to debate this issue, I will tell you that I welcome a debate on this issue. In fact, I'm so grateful that Edward Snowden started this debate that I have decided to stop at nothing to ensure he spends the rest of his life in a federal prison.

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