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+ - Reminder: Colleen Rowley's memo to Mueller and what the FBI knew before 9/11

Submitted by Presto Vivace
Presto Vivace writes "With FBI Director Mueller alleging that our current surveillance tactics could have foiled 9/11 it is worth revisiting Colleen Rowley's memo to Mueller which documents what the FBI did know.

1) The Minneapolis agents who responded to the call about Moussaoui's flight training identified him as a terrorist threat from a very early point. The decision to take him into custody on August 15, 2001, on the INS "overstay" charge was a deliberate one to counter that threat and was based on the agents' reasonable suspicions. While it can be said that Moussaoui's overstay status was fortuitous, because it allowed for him to be taken into immediate custody and prevented him receiving any more flight training, it was certainly not something the INS coincidentally undertook of their own volition. I base this on the conversation I had when the agents called me at home late on the evening Moussaoui was taken into custody to confer and ask for legal advice about their next course of action. The INS agent was assigned to the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force and was therefore working in tandem with FBI agents.

2) As the Minneapolis agents' reasonable suspicions quickly ripened into probable cause, which, at the latest, occurred within days of Moussaoui's arrest when the French Intelligence Service confirmed his affiliations with radical fundamentalist Islamic groups and activities connected to Osama Bin Laden, they became desperate to search the computer lap top that had been taken from Moussaoui as well as conduct a more thorough search of his personal effects. The agents in particular believed that Moussaoui signaled he had something to hide in the way he refused to allow them to search his computer.

3) The Minneapolis agents' initial thought was to obtain a criminal search warrant, but in order to do so, they needed to get FBI Headquarters' (FBIHQ's) approval in order to ask for DOJ OIPR's approval to contact the United States Attorney's Office in Minnesota. Prior to and even after receipt of information provided by the French, FBIHQ personnel disputed with the Minneapolis agents the existence of probable cause to believe that a criminal violation had occurred/was occurring. As such, FBIHQ personnel refused to contact OIPR to attempt to get the authority. While reasonable minds may differ as to whether probable cause existed prior to receipt of the French intelligence information, it was certainly established after that point and became even greater with successive, more detailed information from the French and other intelligence sources.

"

+ - Nevermind the epidemic, who gets patent rights for the cure?

Submitted by Presto Vivace
Presto Vivace writes "Why a Saudi Virus Is Spreading Alarm

But impeding an effective response is a dispute over rights to develop a treatment for the virus. The case brings to the fore a growing debate over International Health Regulations, interpretations of patent rights, and the free exchange of scientific samples and information. Meanwhile, the epidemic has already caused forty-nine cases in seven countries, killing twenty-seven of them.

At the center of the dispute is a Dutch laboratory that claims all rights to the genetic sequence of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus [MERS-CoV]. Saudi Arabia's deputy health minister, Ziad Memish, told the WHO meeting that "someone"--a reference to Egyptian virologist Ali Zaki--mailed a sample of the new SARS-like virus out of his country without government consent in June 2012, giving it to Dutch virologist Ron Fouchier of Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam.

"

+ - DRM: How Book Publishers failed to learn from the music industry

Submitted by Presto Vivace
Presto Vivace writes "danps writes how the music industry initially thought that the Internet meant that people wanted their music for free. In 2003 Apple persuaded the industry to use an online music store with DRM. But DRM just does not work for consumers, so by 2011 online music stores were DRM free. Sadly, the book industry has not learned these lessons. And there are larger lessons for the gadget industry:

The tech industry right now is churning out lots of different devices, operating systems and form factors in an attempt to get the One True Gadget — the thing you'll take with you everywhere and use for everything. That's a lovely aspiration, but I don't see it happening.

What I see instead is people wanting to only carry around one thing at a time, and rotating through several: Smart phone for everyday use, tablet for the beach, laptop for the road, etc. If you can't get the book you paid for on each of those devices, it's a pain. As a reader I want to be able to put a book on everything as soon as I buy it so I always have a local (non-Internet dependent) copy — no matter which thing I run out of the house with.

"

+ - Trace your online trail

Submitted by Presto Vivace
Presto Vivace writes "My Shadow traces Internet users' online trails

Me and My Shadow, a project run by the Tactical Technology Collective, keeps track of exactly what information people leave behind when they sign up for online services, surf the Internet, shop online and send text messages on mobile phones. The project won Deutsche Welle's 2013 The Bobs award for the best in online activism in the Most Creative and Original category

"

+ - Veteran tech workers face unemployment

Submitted by Presto Vivace
Presto Vivace writes "IT workers with 15 or more years of experience say they're passed over for employment

A recent study from left-leaning think tank, the Economic Policy Institute, seems to back up claims by Wade and other veteran IT workers. The U.S. has plenty of workers in the science and technology fields, the EPI study said. Only half of U.S. students who graduate in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields, however, gets a job in those fields, the study said.

An employer based health insurance systems is a standing invitation to age discrimination."

+ - Sen. Rockefeller says that CISPA's privacy protections are "insufficient."

Submitted by Presto Vivace
Presto Vivace writes "The chairman of a key Senate committee cited "insufficient" privacy protections in the cybersecurity bill, recently passed by the House. A new report says the Senate is drafting separate bills.

Clearly we are making a difference. If we keep the pressure it up it is just possible we could defeat CISPA."

+ - NIEM 3.0 Public Review

Submitted by Presto Vivace
Presto Vivace writes "The National Information Exchange Model (the data model used by law enforcement and first responders) has now made NIEM 3.0 available for public review from today until May 6, 2013. NIEM is looking for both technical and non-technical comments. If you have an opinion about this now is the time to comment"

+ - Microsoft hit with Raspberry Pi

Submitted by Presto Vivace
Presto Vivace writes "The computing story nobody is writing about, at least nobody who is anybody

Maybe the market for three- and four-figure PC's is dying because two-figure PCs are eating its lunch. A million computers is a lot, even by world standards.

NOTE 512K on the Model B. That's the RAM in my first Mac, on which I did a ton of writing and a ton of desktop publishing using PageMaker 3. The screen was tiny, but two bits is wicked fast, and if you want stuff to line up, bang, you zoom and no lag at all.

"

+ - Notes from the April 3 Cyber Security Framework Workshop->

Submitted by Presto Vivace
Presto Vivace writes "I thought that the Slashdot community would be interested in my notes from NIST's April 3 Cyber Security Framework Workshop. The first panel had Russell Schrader of VISA, Terry Rice of Merck, Michael Paypay of Northrop Grumman, and Reid Stephan of St. Lukes Health System. There were no earth shaking developments, mostly thanking the Department of Commerce for hosting the event and its willingness to lead on the issue. There were also calls for the government to integrate existing standards into the Framework and not "reinvent the wheel". Reid Stephan of St. Lukes Health System called for protection of privacy and "our civil liberties". The next event will take place in Pittsburgh from May 29 through 31. I won't be able to go, so I hope someone from Slashdot will be able to tell the rest of us what happened."
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