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Comment oversight? (Score 1) 1

by SolKeshNaranek (#49593195) Attached to: "Patriot Act" to be revised

The data would instead be stored by the phone companies themselves, and could be accessed by intelligence agencies only after approval of the secret "Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court.

They mean the same FISA court that has been rubber stamping every request put before it since the court was created?

This is nothing more than moving the stored data from the government to the telcos. The ability of the government to troll your data has not been lessened in the least.

More lip service... still no privacy. Typical Washington tone deafness.

Submission + - Site of 1976 'Atomic Man' accident to be cleaned (nzherald.co.nz)

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes: "Workers are finally preparing to enter one of the most dangerous rooms in the world — the site of a 1976 blast in the United States that exposed a technician to a massive dose of radiation and led to his nickname: the "Atomic Man."

Harold McCluskey, then 64, was working in the room at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation when a chemical reaction caused a glass glove box to explode.

He was exposed to the highest dose of radiation from the chemical element americium ever recorded — 500 times the occupational standard.

Hanford, located in central Washington state, made plutonium for nuclear weapons for decades. The room was used to recover radioactive americium, a byproduct of plutonium.

Covered with blood, McCluskey was dragged from the room and put into an ambulance headed for the decontamination center. Because he was too hot to handle, he was removed by remote control and transported to a steel-and-concrete isolation tank.

During the next five months, doctors laboriously extracted tiny bits of glass and razor-sharp pieces of metal embedded in his skin.

Nurses scrubbed him down three times a day and shaved every inch of his body every day. The radioactive bathwater and thousands of towels became nuclear waste."

Comment Re:Gen Alexander lied again (Score 1) 7

by SolKeshNaranek (#45711269) Attached to: CBS 60 MInutes: NSA speaks out on Snowden, spying

Since you do not appear to be keeping up with the news, permit me to enlighten you.

By the NSA’s own recent admission, they do not know how many, nor which documents were taken by Snowden. This is due to both poor oversight of those accessing the data, we well as poor auditing of access to those same documents.

From this it is simple to conclude that they are also unable to know how many people are abusing the system. The articles you quoted only point to people the NSA is aware of. I would also point out some of those abuses occurred years ago and were only caught when the employees confessed, they were not caught by NSA auditing or oversight.

It would be foolish to think these few people that have faced discipline are the only ones abusing the records held by the NSA. The system appears to be far too easy to abuse, the oversight and auditing is near to nonexistent, and the sheer number of people with access to the data is enormous.

I am going to say with my belief that you are a shill and also possibly a fool to boot.

Submission + - Scientific American's silencing of a blogger (wired.com)

Submitted by Lasrick
Lasrick writes: This is pretty astonishing: Danielle N. Lee, Ph.D, the Urban Scientist blogger at Scientific American, has been mistreated twice: once by the blog editor at biology-online.org and now by SciAm itself. The blog editor asked Dr. Lee to contribute a blog post at Biology-Online, and when she declined (presumably for lack of monetary compensation), the blog editor asked her whether she was "an urban scientist or an urban whore." Wow. Then, SciAm deleted her blog post, in which she wrote about the incident. Very disappointing.
Canada

Submission + - Sony Rootkit Redux: Canadian Business Groups Lobby For Right To Install Spyware (michaelgeist.ca)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Michael Geist reports that a coalition of Canadian industry groups, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Marketing Association, the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association and the Entertainment Software Association of Canada, are demanding legalized spyware for private enforcement purposes. The potential scope of coverage is breathtaking: a software program secretly installed by an entertainment software company designed to detect or investigate alleged copyright infringement would be covered by this exception. This exception could potentially cover programs designed to block access to certain websites (preventing the contravention of a law as would have been the case with SOPA), attempts to access wireless networks without authorization, or even keylogger programs tracking unsuspecting users (detection and investigation).
The Internet

Submission + - U.S Congressman Wants to Ban Internet Bills (gizmodo.com)

Submitted by
SchrodingerZ
SchrodingerZ writes: "Representative Darrell Issa, a republican congressman from California, has drafted a bill for the internet. The bill, aptly named the Internet American Moratorium Act (IAMA), is, "a two-year moratorium on any new laws, rules or regulations governing the Internet." In short it hopes to deny any new government bills related to lawmaking on the internet for the next two years. The bill was first made public on the website Reddit, and is currently on the front page of Keepthewebopen.com, a website advocating internet rights. "Together we can make Washington take a break from messing w/ the Internet," Issa writes on his Reddit post. The initial response to the bill has been mixed. Users of Reddit are skeptical of the paper's motives and credibility. As of now, the bill is just a discussion draft, whether it will gain footing in the future is up in the air."
Space

Submission + - The tech behind Felix Baumgartner's stratospheric skydive (extremetech.com)

Submitted by
MrSeb
MrSeb writes: "Felix Baumgartner has successfully completed his stratospheric skydive from 128,000 feet (39km), breaking a record that was set 52 years ago by Air Force Captain Joe Kittinger — that much we know. From the balloon, to the capsule, to the gear that Baumgartner wore during his 730 mph (1174 kph) free fall, the technology behind the scenes is impressive, and in some cases bleeding edge. ExtremeTech takes a deep dive into the tech that kept Baumgartner alive during the three-hour ascent and (much shorter) descent — and the tech that allowed us to watch every moment of the Red Bull Stratos mission live, as captured by no less than 15 digital cameras and numerous other scientific instruments."
Privacy

Submission + - Cybersecurity Bill Fails Today in US Senate (securityweek.com)

Submitted by wiredmikey
wiredmikey writes: A development following the recently posted story Senate Cybersecurity Bill Stalled By Ridiculous Amendments — The Cybersecurity Act of 2012 failed to advance in the US Senate on Thursday. The measure was blocked amid opposition from an unusual coalition of civil libertarians — who feared it could allow too much government snooping — and conservatives who said it would create a new bureaucracy.

The bill needed 60 votes in the 100-member Senate to advance under rules in the chamber, but got only 52. The failure came despite pleas from Obama and top US defense officials. The US Chamber of Commerce argued that the bill "could actually impede US cybersecurity by shifting businesses' resources away from implementing robust and effective security measures and toward meeting government mandates."
Privacy

Submission + - Congressman releases draft of legislation on domestic drones and privacy (huffingtonpost.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Police would be required to get a warrant to use drones for certain types of surveillance under legislation introduced on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. The proposed bill would also tighten regulations on what kind of data can be collected by the government and private companies and how it can be used.

To safeguard against abuses, Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), co-chair of the Bipartisan Congressional Privacy Caucus and a longtime member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, released a draft of the Drone Aircraft Privacy and Transparency Act of 2012 on Wednesday.
Crime

Submission + - Justice Dept., FBI to review use of forensic evidence in thousands of cases (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by NotSanguine
NotSanguine writes: From The Washington Post Article:

The Justice Department and the FBI have launched a review of thousands of criminal cases to determine whether any defendants were wrongly convicted or deserve a new trial because of flawed forensic evidence, officials said Tuesday. The undertaking is the largest post-conviction review ever done by the FBI. It will include cases conducted by all FBI Laboratory hair and fiber examiners since at least 1985 and may reach earlier if records are available, people familiar with the process said. Such FBI examinations have taken place in federal and local cases across the country, often in violent crimes, such as rape, murder and robbery.
Censorship

Submission + - Washington Needs to Rethink How it Pushes These Copyright Laws (vice.com)

Submitted by
pigrabbitbear
pigrabbitbear writes: "Lamar Smith just can’t do anything right. The Texas congressman and widely despised author of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) ruffled the Internet’s feathers once again this week with the quiet unveiling of a new piece of legislation that’s drawing criticism for being plucked out of SOPA’s language and rushed through Congress. The Intellectual Property Attaché Act (IPAA) would streamline the process by which the U.S. protects its intellectual property by enforcing U.S. copyright law abroad through specially assigned diplomats or attachés. These officers would report to a new agency-level position, the Assistant Secretary for Intellectual Property and push agendas that, according to the bill’s language, are “consistent with the economic interests of the United States, both domestically and abroad.”"

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