Sunday 29 September 2013

USAHitman | Conspiracy News

Posted: 29 Sep 2013 10:00 AM PDT

Islamist-gunmen-attack-Nigeria-college-50-students-feared-killed

Attack on dormitory of agriculture college in town in Yobe state is latest in a series of attacks blamed on Boko Haram.
As many as 50 students are reported to have died after armed men stormed a college dormitory in Nigeria’s northeast, shooting at them as they slept, according to the military.
Sunday’s attack, believed to be carried out by the armed group Boko Haram, targeted the College of Agriculture in the town of Gujba in Yobe state, Lazarus Eli, the area military spokesman, said.
“There was an attack at the College of Agriculture in Gujba this morning by Boko Haram terrorists who went into the school and opened fire on students,” while they were asleep, Eli said.
Boko Haram is a Nigerian armed group that claims to be fighting Western influence and wants to form an Islamic state.
The literal translation of Boko Haram is “Western education is forbidden”.
Molima Idi Mato of the College of Agriculture told AP news agency that classrooms were torched in the attack, which occurred at about 1am local time.
“They attacked our students while they were sleeping in their hostels, they opened fire at them,” he said.
He said security forces were still are recovering bodies of students mostly aged between 18 and 22.
The gunmen rode into the college in two double-cabin pickup all-terrain vehicles and on motorcycles, some dressed in Nigerian military camouflage uniforms, Ibrahim Mohammed, a surviving student, told the AP.
He said they appeared to know the layout of the college, attacking the four male hostels but avoiding the one hostel reserved for women.
“We ran into the bush, nobody is left in the school now,” Mohammed said.
The college is about 40km from the scene of similar school attacks around Damaturu town.
Northeastern Nigeria is under a military state of emergency to battle Boko Haram fighters who have killed more than 1,700 people since 2010 in their quest to install an Islamic state. Half the country’s 160 million citizens are Christian.
Source

NSA uses metadata ‘to create sophisticated graphs’ of US citizens’ social connections

Posted: 28 Sep 2013 06:56 PM PDT

The US National Security Agency has been exploiting US citizens’ personal information drawn from its large collection of metadata to create complex graphs of social connections for foreign intelligence purposes, the latest Snowden leaks have revealed.
Documents obtained by the New York Times from the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden say that the practice has been going on since November 2010, after restrictions prohibiting the agency from working with US citizens’ data were “lifted” by NSA officials.
The NSA was then authorized to conduct “large-scale graph analysis on very large sets of communications metadata without having to check foreignness” of the e-mail addresses, phone numbers or any other identifiers, the documents reportedly said.
The policy shift was intended to help the agency “discover and track” connections between intelligence targets overseas and people in the US, a January 2011 NSA memorandum cited in the documents explained.
According to the report, the agency has been allowed to “enrich” their communications data with materials obtained from public, commercial and other sources while preparing the graphs. Such sources reportedly include Facebook profiles, bank codes, insurance information, passenger manifests, voter registration rolls and GPS location information, as well as property records and unspecified tax data.
The sophisticated graphs provide the agents with direct and indirect “contact chains” between an unspecified number of Americans and people or organizations overseas that are of foreign intelligence interest, the report says.
Not only do they identify the list of possible associates, but also note their locations at certain times, their traveling companions and other personal information, it adds.
The documents provided no information on the results of the NSA surveillance. According to the NYT, the agency’s officials declined to say how many Americans have been caught up in the effort.
The NSA has denied it abuses its practice of vast data collection, which includes the private information of the US citizens, with the agency’s spokeswoman saying that “all of NSA’s work has a foreign intelligence purpose” and that “all data queries must include a foreign intelligence justification.”
In justifying the warrantless analysis of metadata on US soil, the spokeswoman referred to a 1979 Supreme Court ruling saying that Americans could have no expectation of privacy about what numbers they had called.
When asked whether the NSA collects Americans’ locations based on cell phone signals data, the agency’s director Keith B. Alexander on Thursday told a Senate Intelligence Committee that the agency was not doing so as part of the the Patriot Act, but added that a fuller response would be classified.
While the agents are said to be allowed to analyze the metadata, but not the contents of the calls or e-mails, the experts argue that this information alone is enough to produce a portrait of a person based on his contacts, as well as to pick up some sensitive details of an individuals’s private life.
“Metadata can be very revealing. Knowing things like the number someone just dialed or the location of the person’s cellphone is going to allow to assemble a picture of what someone is up to. It’s the digital equivalent of tailing a suspect,” Orin S. Kerr, a law professor at George Washington University, told the NYT.
The leaked documents, which are said to provide a rare window into what the NSA actually does with the information it gathers, and how it unlocks “as many secrets about individuals as possible,” are the latest revelations obtained via former CIA employee and NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
In the US, Snowden is wanted on espionage charges for leaking classified documents that focused on the massive electronic surveillance by the US government and its foreign allies which collaborated with the NSA.
Snowden was granted temporary asylum in Russia on August 1 after being stuck in a transit zone of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport for more than a month. He is now staying in an undisclosed location, with reports saying he has done some travel and already speaks some Russian.
Source

DHS has purchased a new radar which detects a humans heartbeat

Posted: 28 Sep 2013 05:25 PM PDT

NASA and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security are collaborating on a first-of-its-kind portable radar device to detect the heartbeats and breathing patterns of victims trapped in large piles of rubble resulting from a disaster.
The prototype technology, called Finding Individuals for Disaster and Emergency Response (FINDER) can locate individuals buried as deep as 30 feet (about 9 meters) in crushed materials, hidden behind 20 feet (about 6 meters) of solid concrete, and from a distance of 100 feet (about 30 meters) in open spaces.
Developed in conjunction with Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate, FINDER is based on remote-sensing radar technology developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., to monitor the location of spacecraft JPL manages for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
“FINDER is bringing NASA technology that explores other planets to the effort to save lives on ours,” said Mason Peck, chief technologist for NASA and principal advisor on technology policy and programs. “This is a prime example of intergovernmental collaboration and expertise that has a direct benefit to the American taxpayer.”
The technology was demonstrated to the media today at the DHS’s Virginia Task Force 1 Training Facility in Lorton, Va. Media participated in demonstrations that featured the device locating volunteers hiding under heaps of debris. FINDER also will be tested further by the Federal Emergency Management Agency this year and next.
“The ultimate goal of FINDER is to help emergency responders efficiently rescue victims of disasters,” said John Price, program manager for the First Responders Group in Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate in Washington. “The technology has the potential to quickly identify the presence of living victims, allowing rescue workers to more precisely deploy their limited resources.”
The technology works by beaming microwave radar signals into the piles of debris and analyzing the patterns of signals that bounce back. NASA’s Deep Space Network regularly uses similar radar technology to locate spacecraft. A light wave is sent to a spacecraft, and the time it takes for the signal to get back reveals how far away the spacecraft is. This technique is used for science research, too. For example, the Deep Space Network monitors the location of the Cassini mission’s orbit around Saturn to learn about the ringed planet’s internal structure.
“Detecting small motions from the victim’s heartbeat and breathing from a distance uses the same kind of signal processing as detecting the small changes in motion of spacecraft like Cassini as it orbits Saturn,” said James Lux, task manager for FINDER at JPL.
In disaster scenarios, the use of radar signals can be particularly complex. Earthquakes and tornadoes produce twisted and shattered wreckage, such that any radar signals bouncing back from these piles are tangled and hard to decipher. JPL’s expertise in data processing helped with this challenge. Advanced algorithms isolate the tiny signals from a person’s moving chest by filtering out other signals, such as those from moving trees and animals.
Similar technology has potential applications in NASA’s future human missions to space habitats. The astronauts’ vital signs could be monitored without the need for wires.
Source

Iran-backed hackers infiltrated Navy computers – US officials

Posted: 28 Sep 2013 05:12 PM PDT

US officials have accused Iran of recently hacking unclassified Navy computers. If the allegations prove true, the incident would be one of the most serious cyberintrusions of American computer systems by the Islamic Republic.
The officials said hackers working for the Iranian government or a proxy group with approval from Iranian leaders are responsible for penetrating the unclassified Navy computer network.
US officials said they do not believe information of significant value was lifted, though the potency of such a cyberattack that accessed military data set off alarms at the Pentagon, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Iran’s cyber abilities have increased gradually, gaining further recognition from the US military, according to anonymous officials.
“Their ability to also play in this [cyber] sandbox compounds that concern,” a US official said.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey were briefed on the infiltration and how the Pentagon is boosting its network strength. Congress has also been briefed on the hack, officials said.
Previous Iran-backed hacks and surveillance efforts have gone after US banks and energy industry computer networks.
The allegations occur as the US and Iranian governments have increased negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. US President Barack Obama and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani spoke on Friday, after both leaders delivered speeches this week before the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Iranian officials did not return requests for comment, the WSJ reported.
The US led a cyberattack — dubbed ‘Olympic Games’ — on Iranian uranium enrichment facilities during the Bush and the Obama administrations, the New York Times reported last July. The program included a collaboration with Israeli hackers to develop the Stuxnet computer worm, which was used to infect Iranian computer networks and damage hundreds of centrifuges at the Natanz enrichment facility.
Source

MoD to recruit hundreds of IT warriors for cyber task force

Posted: 28 Sep 2013 05:03 PM PDT

Britain’s Defense Ministry has announced it is creating a military cyber unit and has welcomed tech-savvy hackers to consider taking the Queen’s virtual shilling in a recruitment drive starting October.
The UK is channeling part of its military budget on recruiting hundreds of computer experts to constitute the new Joint Cyber Reserve Unit, the country’s Defense Secretary, Philip Hammond, announced Sunday.
For the first time, the UK’s would-be cyber warriors will be tasked with offensive missions.
“In response to the growing cyber threat, we are developing a full-spectrum military cyber capability, including a strike capability, to enhance the UK’s range of military capabilities,” AFP reported Hammond as saying.
The Defense Secretary said he believed that a purely defensive cyber unit was no longer enough for the country’s security. “You deter people by having an offensive capability,” he told The Daily Mail in an interview.
“We will build in Britain a cyber-strike capability so we can strike back in cyberspace against enemies who attack us, putting cyber alongside land, sea, air and space as a mainstream military activity. Our commanders can use cyber weapons alongside conventional weapons in future conflicts.”
Hammond described the ministry’s initiative as “an exciting opportunity” for computer geniuses “to put their skills to good use for the nation.”
Striking a patriotic chord is just part of the strategy for luring IT geeks into the army. Cyber National Guard reservists will be spared the current Territorial Army fitness tests, Hammond said in the interview, where he touted the army going digital as its biggest reform since World War I, when tanks started replacing cavalry.
Hammond revealed the cyber unit plan to journalists in the MoD’s nuclear bunker, becoming the first Defense Secretary to have been photographed or interviewed there.
“Cyber weapons provide the tantalizing possibility of being able to cripple the enemy without inflicting lasting damage on them. No cities to rebuild, no infrastructure to reconstruct.” Hammond said, adding the innovation was very much in tune with attitudes in the US. “One of my American counterparts put it to me like this: Why would you want to bomb someone’s airfield if you could just switch it off with a cyber-attack?”
The United States announced in March it was developing 40 new teams of cyber-agents, citing alleged Iranian and Chinese hacker attacks as reason behind the decision. Gen. Keith Alexander, the head of the US Cyber Command who is also in charge of the National Security Agency, announced 13 of the 40 cyber-squads would be devoted toward offensive operations.
Britain’s capability to fully staff its own cyber military force was questioned by a National Audit Office report in February, which revealed a shortage of UK IT experts able to combat cyber-attacks.
The report blamed the government for not promoting science and technology enough and quoted education officials saying that it could take “up to 20 years to address the skills gap at all levels of education.”
The research also questioned the government’s capability to attract IT experts to the public sector from more lucrative private companies.
British MPs have also warned about the country’s susceptibility to cyber-attacks. In January, the House of Commons Defense Select Committee expressed particular alarm that the military were excessively reliant on cyber systems for communication, which could make them an easy target for hackers.
Source

Mass shootings prompt millions for additional police officers at schools nationwide

Posted: 28 Sep 2013 05:01 PM PDT

The US Department of Justice has pledged $44mn in grants to provide 356 school resource officers to 141 cities and counties nationwide in what it calls an effort to make schools safer following events like the Newtown, Connecticut, shooting in December.
Grants intended to fund more police officers in schools will go to law enforcement agencies across the country, the Justice Department (DOJ) said Friday as it unveiled the entire list of recipients.
In Modesto, Calif., for example, the city school district will receive $1mln to fund eight new school resource officers.
Though spending details for the program are not yet available, in Modesto the City Council will have to approve the program, which requires grantees to match award totals two-to-one.
“Not only do they deter crime, but they provide opportunities for positive relations between students and law enforcement,” Karen Servas, a Modesto City School District grant writer who worked with the city police department to appeal for funding, told McClatchy.
Yet many critics say more armed police officers in schools is no guarantee for a safer environment, and will likely contribute to worsen the “school-to-prison pipeline” that groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) say disproportionately targets youth of color and youth with disabilities.
The “school-to-prison pipeline” operates directly and indirectly, the ACLU writes in its research on punitive school discipline.
“Directly, schools send their students into the Pipeline through zero tolerance policies, and involving the police in minor discipline incidents. All too often school rules are enforced through metal detectors, pat-downs and frisks, arrests, and referrals to the juvenile justice system. And schools pressured to raise graduation and testing numbers can sometimes artificially achieve this by pushing out low-performing students into GED programs and the juvenile justice system.
“Indirectly, schools push students towards the criminal justice system by excluding them from the learning environment and isolating them from their peer groups through suspension, expulsion, ineffective retention policies, transfers, and high-stakes testing requirements.”
Marc Schindler, director of the Justice Policy Institute which seeks to reduce mass incarceration, believes the policy is misguided.
“There is no indication that the presence of (resource officers) makes schools safer,” Schindler said to McClatchy. “In fact, there’s research supporting that there’s likely unwanted consequences.”
The institute published a 2012 report entitled ‘The Case Against Police in Schools,’ which shows schools with officers make more arrests for minor offenses, among other issues.
“In terms of safe schools, research favors a supporting and nurturing environment based around counselors, social workers and teachers, which makes kids feel that they’re in a safe place,” Schindler said. “Because of rare but high-profile tragedies like Newtown, many are concerned about school safety. I have kids in school and I want them to be safe. … Unfortunately, things that sound good are not always the best response.”
The grants are part of Obama administration efforts to secure schools in the wake of shootings such as the December 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, where 26 people, mostly small children, were shot and killed by a gunman who took his own life upon arrival of police at the scene.
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Saudi Sheikh warns women that driving could affect ovaries and pelvis

Posted: 28 Sep 2013 05:00 PM PDT

Saudi Sheikh Saleh Bin Saad Al-Luhaydan, Private Attorney General and the Psychological Advisor of the Psychological Association in the Gulf states, advised Saudi women to prioritize mind over heart.
This was in response to the the driving campaign held by Saudi female activists on October 26 through the website oct26driving.com. The declaration on the website has been signed by more than 11,000 women and states “Since there are no clear justifications for the state to ban adult, capable women from driving. We call for enabling women to have driving tests and for issuing licenses for those who pass.”
The Sheikh said that the result of this is bad and they should wait and consider the disadvantages, Arabic newspaper Sabq reported.
Al-Luhaidan stated that in the days of Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him), muslim women who were his companions used to ride horses and camels as means of transportation but never rode alone and were always accompanied by a ‘mahram’.
Al-Luhaidan further explained that there are exceptional cases that allow women to drive in Saudi Arabia such as when a husband is driving accompanied by his wife and daughter and an accident occurred. It is then allowed for women to drive due to the urgency of the situation.
Al-Luhaidan added that driving could have a reverse physiological impact on women and could affect her ovaries and push the pelvis higher as a result of which their children are born with clinical disorders of varying degrees.
He further stated that 33% female drivers caused car accidents in Arab countries as opposed to 9% male.
Source

Kenya False Flag: Some Got Warning To Avoid Westgate Before Bloody Siege

Posted: 27 Sep 2013 06:47 PM PDT

Paul Joseph Watson

Kenya’s National Intelligence Agency (NIS) warned some people not to visit the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi before the bloody siege, a warning that was not received by the 67 victims who lost their lives during the attack.

Buried at the end of a London Independent report about the incident is the revelation that NIS, “did warn the police and officials inside the President’s office before the Westgate siege, but its warnings went unheeded.”

Individual officials with NIS also told their family members to avoid the Westgate mall on Saturday because it would be the target of an attack. A pregnant policewoman was warned by her brother, an NIS officer, not to visit Westgate.

“She has told police that her brother who is a NIS officer warned her not to visit Westgate that Saturday because she would not be able to run,” a senior officer said.

Evidence of prior knowledge that went unheeded is just one of the many questions that are still circulating in the aftermath of the horrific attack, details about which are only becoming more gruesome.

Doctors who have had the chance to examine victims say that their injuries are consistent with rape and brutal torture, including eyeballs being gouged out and fingers and parts of noses ripped off using pliers.

Dozens of hostages are still unaccounted for, while the fate of the attackers is still being kept under wraps by authorities. An explanation as to why part of the mall collapsed after an explosion in the final stages of the siege has also not been forthcoming, causing mounting public anger.

As we highlighted earlier this week, the attack was carried out by Somalia’s Al Shabaab terror group, which is the African branch of Al-Qaeda, and is ideologically aligned with the same jihadists that the US and NATO backed in Libya and are currently supporting in Syria. The 2011 invasion of Libya expanded Al-Qaeda’s operational capacity in both Africa and the Middle East.

Source: Infowars

CDC: Too many young and middle-aged people skipping flu vaccine

Posted: 27 Sep 2013 05:54 PM PDT

More children than ever got vaccinated against the flu last year, and health officials urged families Thursday to do even better this time around.
Far too many young and middle-aged adults still forego the yearly protection, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned.
And this year, Americans have an unprecedented number of vaccine options to choose from: The regular shot; the nasal spray; an egg-free shot for those allergic to eggs; a high-dose shot just for those 65 and older; and a tiny-needle shot for the squeamish. The bigger change: A small number of the regular flu shots, and all of the FluMist nasal vaccine, will protect against four strains of influenza rather than the traditional three.
“There’s something for everyone this year,” said CDC’s Dr. Anne Schuchat.
A severe flu strain swept the country last winter, sparking a scramble for last-minute vaccinations. There’s no way to predict if this year will be as bad. But it takes about two weeks for the vaccine to take effect, so health officials say early fall — before flu begins spreading widely — is the best time to start immunizations.
“Now is the time to get vaccinated,” said Dr. Paul Biddinger of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. “Don’t wait until it’s in your community.”
Flu vaccine is recommended for nearly everyone ages 6 months and older. Yet just 45 percent of the population followed that advice last year. Flu is particularly risky for seniors, children, pregnant women and people of any age with asthma, heart disease and other chronic diseases.
Two-thirds of adults 65 and older were vaccinated last year. So were nearly 57 percent of children, an increase of 13 percentage points over the past two years. The number is even higher among babies and toddlers — 77 percent — and Schuchat said pediatricians get the credit for pushing flu vaccination in recent years.
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NSA agents illegally spied on love interests ‘only’ 12 times

Posted: 27 Sep 2013 05:33 PM PDT

Employees at the National Security Agency intentionally misused their power and spied on boyfriends or girlfriends at least 12 times over the last year, a direct violation according to a newly unveiled letter from the agency’s inspector general.
US lawmakers and intelligence community higher-ups have consistently asserted that instances of NSA analysts abusing their power is rare to the point of irrelevance. Yet on top of the dozen violations, officials are investigating two more cases and considering a third.
The revelations were made public late Thursday in a letter from NSA inspector general George Ellard to Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa).
Grassley requested a report from the inspector general last month after a report surfaced indicating intelligence agents had assigned a shorthand code to describe their internal activity. Signal intelligence, for example, is expressed with SIGINT. Another, LOVEINT, was apparently used when agents would use surveillance on a specific love interest.
The US Department of Justice was notified about at least six of the 12 cases, although the offending employee was often allowed to retire from the NSA before they could be punished. In other cases workers were suspended without pay, had their promotions cancelled, or saw brief reductions in pay or rank.
“Where (a media report) says we’re sweeping up the communications of civilians overseas that aren’t targets of collection systems is wrong,” NSA Director General Keith Alexander said in a congressional hearing Thursday. “If our folks do that, we hold them accountable.”
One case consisted of a civilian NSA employee, who after suspecting her husband of being unfaithful, searched for foreign telephone numbers she previously found in his phone. She resigned before any disciplinary action could be taken.
In 2005 another employee was caught monitoring his foreign national girlfriend “Without an authorized purpose” for at least one month. He claimed, according to the inspector general’s letter, he was attempting to find out if she was “involved” with any foreign officials or participating in activity that “might get him in trouble.”
Alexander and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee Thursday, encouraged lawmakers not to believe the headlines.
“The press claims evidence of thousands of privacy violations,” Alexander said. “This is false and misleading. According to NSA’s independent Inspect General that have been only 12 substantiated cases of willful violations over 10 years, essentially one per year.”
But Senator Grassley was unsatisfied, saying “We shouldn’t tolerate even one misuse of this program.”
Civil liberty advocates, a community of lawyers and concerned citizens that has long been at odds with the NSA, remain unimpressed by the latest news.
“What’s clear about the instances of abuse is that these have nothing to do with terrorism,” Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, told NBC. “This is about individuals prying into the personal lives of the people closest to them. It’s an abuse of government data that should not be in the government’s hands.”
Source

Lavabit was targeted by govt day after Snowden went public as NSA leaker

Posted: 27 Sep 2013 05:07 PM PDT

An appeals court filing Friday suggests the US Department of Justice was quick to serve a court order on encrypted email provider Lavabit after customer Edward Snowden, presumably the target, went public as an NSA whistleblower.
Snowden, an NSA contractor who distributed to news outlets classified information about National Security Agency mass-surveillance programs, revealed himself as the leaker on June 9 in Hong Kong. The next day, the Justice Department (DOJ) demanded Texas-based Lavabit hand over metadata on an unnamed customer that timing suggests was Snowden, who used Lavabit for protected email service.
The records order was “issued under 18 USC 2703(d), a 1994 amendment to the Stored Communications Act that allows law enforcement access to non-content internet records without demonstrating the ‘probable cause’ needed for a search warrant,” according to Wired. Such records can include ‘To’ and ‘From’ lines in emails and the IP addresses used to access the account, but not the content of any emails.
The June 10 order was followed on June 28 with what’s known as a ‘pen register order,’ an aggressive disclosure which similarly demands metadata for every new email received or sent by the account.
On July 9, a court issued an ‘Order to Show Cause,’ which indicates the DOJ asked the court to enforce a demand yet to be complied with to the government’s satisfaction, according to Wired.
The new revelations come to light via a government filing in Lavabit’s appeal in the case. Lavabit attorney Jesse Binnall asked the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals to unseal some of the case background so public interest groups were informed enough to possibly file amicus briefs. The DOJ on Friday filed its non-public opposition to the unsealing in response. It also released to the public information about past orders to keep the case secret.
“The entire record in the district court, including all applications, subpoenas, motions, warrants, and orders, remains under seal,” prosecutors wrote in the public offering.
Lavabit owner Ladar Levison shut down the service on August 8, saying to supporters he felt forced to scuttle Lavabit in order to protect his customers’ privacy rights.
“I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes against the American people or walk away from nearly 10 years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit,” Levison wrote in early August. “After significant soul searching, I have decided to suspend operations.”
Neither Levison, nor his counsel are allowed to discuss the case or identify whether the target is Snowden.
Wired wrote Levison may have come to his decision after the pen register order, given Lavabit offers a secure encrypted email service in which the user is the only one who can access messages stored. Thus, Lavabit did not have access and could not have complied without working around its entire privacy system.
Levison appealed the order on August 29. The opening brief in his appeal is due on October 3.
Source

Industrial hemp is now legal in California

Posted: 27 Sep 2013 05:06 PM PDT

By Reed Nelson
After being stuck in legislative limbo for 14 years, industrial hemp is now a sanctioned agricultural crop in the state of California.
The California Industrial Hemp Farming Act (SB 566) was signed into law on Wednesday by Gov. Jerry Brown, after years of deliberation dating back to 1999, a process that included multiple gubernatorial vetoes. The freshly signed law will allow approved California residents to grow hemp for industrial purposes by reclassifying the once-felonious plant as a “fiber or oilseed crop.”
SB 566, a bill championed since 2005 by Sen. Mark Leno (D), defines industrial hemp as the “nonpsychoactive types of the plant Cannabis saliva L. and the seed produced therefrom, having no more than 3/10 of 1 percent of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) contained in the dried flowering tops.”
In simpler terms: It doesn’t protect marijuana, but rather marijuana’s less mind-bending cousin, which is far more useful as a raw industrial material.
“We are very pleased to have the signature,” Sen. Leno told the Guardian. “It’s been a 10-year effort to get here. It’s a job still, but [the passing of SB 566] will help sustain family farms in California for the future and likely create more job opportunities. Hemp is a $500 million a year industry in California, and it’s growing at 10 percent annually.”
California now follows in the footsteps of nine other states and 30 other countries that have reclassified the innocuous plant as a crop with agricultural and commercial value. And it is quite valuable.
“This is a miracle plant that has served the planet earth well for, literally, millennia, and that we currently legally manufacture and sell thousands of hemp products including food, clothing, shelter, paper, fuel, all biodegradable products,” said Leno. “It’s renewable every 90 days, grows without herbicides, pesticides and fungicides, and needs less water than corn. It is the definition of sustainability.”
But the reputation of hemp hasn’t always had champions like Sen. Leno. Since the initial proposal of HR 32 back in 1999, the bill has been vetoed four times by three different governors. Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger cited a “false sense of security” he feared would be cultivated amongst the growers of the crop, due to its illegality at a federal level.
Gov. Brown had previously shot down the proposed legislation in 2011, citing a gap in state and federal law as the reason. However, he did remark in his veto message at the time that “it is absurd that hemp is being imported into the state, but our farmers cannot grow it.”
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Multi-million dollar domestic drone program lacks sufficient privacy safeguards

Posted: 27 Sep 2013 05:04 PM PDT

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and other Department of Justice agencies have spent almost $5 million during the last few years on an underreported domestic drone program that a government auditor says lacks sufficient privacy safeguards.
A report released on Thursday by the Justice Department’s internal office of the inspector general revealed that the DoJ has invested roughly $4.9 million since 2004 on unmanned aerial systems (UAS) that allow for law enforcement agencies to conduct surveillance from the sky during certain missions.
Robert Mueller, then the head of the FBI, acknowledged only this past June that surveillance drones have been deployed within the United States.
“It’s very seldom used and generally used in a particular incident where you need the capability,” he said at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
But with this week’s report, the department’s inspector general determined that the FBI is in need of an updated set of guidelines to govern the way unmanned systems are deployed with respect to the constitutionally-guaranteed protection from unreasonable searches.
The report revealed that while the FBI has deployed drones during the last several years, the agency failed to develop new guidelines and has instead relied on the same standards in place for traditional, manned aircraft.

The auditor found that although several Justice Department entities have either used drones or plan to do so soon, they’ve refused to adopt updated privacy standards.
Although the FBI is the only federal agency found to have used drones domestically, the auditor said that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) plans to deploy unmanned aircraft, and that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the United States Marshals Service (USMS) have acquired unmanned aerial vehicles.
“While both the FBI and ATF have developed procedures guiding how to receive approval to operate UAS, officials with both components told us they did not believe that there was a need to develop specialized UAS privacy protocols,” the auditor wrote. “During our review, FBI and ATF officials stated that they did not believe there was any practical difference between how UAS collect evidence through aerial surveillance as compared to manned aircraft. Consequently, we found that the FBI has been applying its existing aerial surveillance policies to guide how agents should use UAS.”
Citing the vast technological advances that drones have over manned aircraft, the auditor said new privacy policies should be issued to protect the privacy of Americans.
“Unlike manned aircraft, UAS can be used in close proximity to a home and, with longer-lasting power systems, may be capable of flying for several hours or even days at a time, raising unique concerns about privacy and the collection of evidence with UAS,” the report reads.
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Christian group claims teaching science promotes ‘atheistic’ worldview for Kansas students

Posted: 27 Sep 2013 05:01 PM PDT

A religious group has filed suit against the Kansas Board of Education seeking to stop educators from adopting global warming and evolution into the state curriculum. The Christian organization said such lessons would violate parents’ religious freedom.
The non-profit group, known as Citizens for Objective Public Education (COPE), has attacked Kansas along with 25 other states and the National Research Council for implementing new standards which mandate that mainstream science be taught in classrooms. COPE is based in the small town of Peck, Kansas, to the south of Wichita.
Fifteen parents and their 18 children joined the suit, with one telling the Associated Press they are Christians who want their children to believe “life is a creation made for a purpose.” The Kansas state Department of Education and the state board are named in the suit.
“The state’s job is simply to say to students, ‘How life arises continues to be a scientific mystery and there are competing ideas about it,’” said John Calvert, a local attorney involved in the case.
The evolution vs. creationism controversy was rendered irrelevant by scientists and the court system decades ago but the debate rages on in the US between religious groups, primarily Christians, and school administrators trying to keep education modern.
Joshua Rosenau, programs and policy director for the California-based National Center for Science Education, told AP that Calvert, the attorney arguing against the school, has been making such arguments for years, although “no one in the legal community has put much stock in it.”
“They’re trying to say anything that’s not promoting their religion is promoting some other religion,” he said, going on to deem the discussion “silly.”
Kansas in particular has a long history of conflict between creationists and the scientific community. In 2005, after a heated court battle, the Kansas Board of Education agreed to amend its scientific standard with a number of stipulations, one of which states “that evolution is a theory and not a fact.”
The suit in question claims that the Kansas public school system seeks to promote a “non-theistic religious worldview” by instructing students about Charles Darwin’s widely adopted theory.
Evolution, which he first proposed in the mid-19th Century, suggests that not all species can survive and that only those best able to survive in their environment will continue to exist. By that logic, humans and animals will adapt traits that allow them to thrive over time.
By including this material, COPE’s legal action says schools would be allowing “materialistic” and “atheistic” answers to scientific questions. Kansas would be “indoctrinating” students, which is in direct contrast to the First Amendment to the constitution, which guarantees an individual the right to celebrate their own religion without fear of persecution.
“By the time you get into the third grade, you learn all the essential elements of Darwinian evolution,” Calvert said. “By the time you’re in middle school you’re a Darwinist.”
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Machine gun found hidden in closet at New York’s JFK Airport

Posted: 26 Sep 2013 05:04 PM PDT

Investigators are trying to figure out how a machine gun ended up hidden in the ceiling of an office at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport before being discovered this week.
An electrician was doing renovation work at JFK’s Terminal One on Thursday when he stumbled upon a Mac-11, a subcompact machine pistol that can unload its 32-round magazine in under two seconds.
Port Authority officers were immediately deployed to to scene to run ballistics tests and conduct an investigation, but so far officials aren’t sure how the gun ended up there or how long it had been stowed away. Through testing, they hope to determine if the weapon was ever used in a crime.
According to a statement issued by the Port Authority Police Department, the room where the gun was found is locked, accessible only to a few people and located outside the terminal’s secure area.
The electrician found the weapon in the ceiling of a maintenance closet in the office, ABC News reported, inside a plastic box covered in dust.
Terminal One serves as an international used by Air France, Turkish Airlines, Korean Air and others at JFK, a Queens, NY airport that was ranked the busiest in the world with regards to non-domestic travel in 2011.
The New York Daily News quotes an anonymous source as saying the particular office in the terminal has been untouched for ages, suggesting that the gun could have gone undetected for years.
“The office in the terminal where the gun was found hasn’t been upgraded or renovated since the late 1990s — so the gun could have been hidden there for years,” the Daily News reported.
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Pennsylvania school sued for suspending student over his toy pen

Posted: 26 Sep 2013 05:02 PM PDT

A Pennsylvania elementary school is being sued by the parents of a 7-year-old student who was suspended for bringing a novelty pen to class earlier this year.
The child, identified only in court documents as G.B., was barred from attending Hershey Elementary School in Pennsylvania for four days earlier this year after a bus driver confiscated the pen, a writing implement that emits a small buzz when triggered.
Later, the school’s principal said the toy was in violation of the school’s weapon policy and issued the suspension.
Principal Joy MacKenzie, the eight members of the Derry Township School Board and the acting superintendent of schools are all being sued by attorney’s representing the student’s family.
According to the parents, educators arbitrarily deprived their child “of his state-created property interest in public schooling without due process of law on the basis of nothing but hysterical and overly-zealous application of a constitutionally-deficient school policy.”
The pen, attorneys for the parents claim, is “similar to a ‘clown’ type buzzer that one would hold in the palm of one’s hand to emit a small buzz when shaking hands.”
MacKenzie said the pen was in violation of the school’s weapons policy, however, which bans “any poison gas, knife, cutting instrument, cutting tools, nunchaku stick, firearm, shotgun, rifle, and any other tool, instrument or implement capable of inflicting bodily injury or property damage” from being brought to class.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs said the school went too far by using the rule to remove the child from class.
“For G’s simple act of taking this pen with him on the bus to school, G was disciplined with a four-day suspension and G has now been permanently classified by the school district as a violator of the district’s weapons policy. G’s permanent disciplinary record has been marred, and he has been regulated to the same category as violent criminals who bring knives, guns and explosives onto school property for the purpose of assault, murder and even terrorism,” they write.
The policy, attorneys add, is unconstitutional because “it fails to define with specificity the kind of activity that is proscribed so that a student can conform his or her conduct to the Policy’s requirements.”
“Pennsylvania criminal law requires that any potential bodily harm from an item alleged to be a weapon be ‘serious’ as an appropriate limiting condition,” they attorneys write, adding that the buzzing pen shouldn’t be considered an implement that fits that criteria.
The parents are asking the court to place a permanent injunction against enforcement of the school’s weapons policy and to expunge “the incomprehensibly absurd ‘weapons violator’ status G now bears.”
A spokesman for the school district told Courthouse News Service that “out of respect for confidentiality we would never discuss the discipline of an individual minor student, and for that matter we don’t comment on active litigation either.”

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Obama speaks to Irans Rouhani, believes resolution of nuclear issues is possible

Posted: 26 Sep 2013 05:01 PM PDT

For the first time in more than 30 years the President of the United States has spoken with Iran’s leadership. Barack Obama announced he believes the two sides can reach a deal regarding the future of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.
From the White House Friday afternoon, Obama said he just got off the phone with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and discussed “our ongoing efforts to reach an agreement over Iran’s nuclear program.”
“I believe we can reach a comprehensive solution,” Obama said, adding that he has asked US Secretary of State John Kerry to continue pursuing a deal with Iran that would prohibit Tehran from pursuing the development of nuclear weapons.
“I do believe that there is a basis for a resolution,” Obama said.
“Rouhani has indicated that Iran will never develop nuclear weapons,” Obama said, hailing that sentiment as a “major step forward in a new relationship between the United States and the Islamic Republican of Iran.”
Obama said his conversation with Rouhani earlier that day marked the first communication between an American and Iranian president since 1979 and “underscores the deep mistrust between our countries” that he hopes to now bury.
After a historic phone conversation with Barack Obama, President Rouhani has left the United States tweeting his reaction to the breakthrough in diplomatic relations between the two countries, which itself is an unusual development.
“In regards to the nuclear issue, with political will, there is a way to rapidly solve the matter,” Rouhani tweeted the US President.
Rouhani stressed that the next round of negotiations with the P5+1 should prove fruitful.
“We’re hopeful about what we will see from P5+1 and your government in particular in coming weeks and months,” the tweet read adding that “I express my gratitude for your hospitality and your phone call,” Iranian’s leader said at the end of the conversation “Have a good day Mr President.”
The US President, according to Rouhani’s Tweets, expressed his respect for the Iranian people.
“I express my respect for you and people of Iran. I’m convinced that relations between Iran and US will greatly affect region. If we can make progress on nuclear file, other issues such as Syria will certainly be positively affected,” Obama reportedly told Rouhani during the phone call.
At the end of the call Obama wished Rouhani farewell saying, “Thank you, Khodahafez,” a common parting phrase in the Persian language, while Rouhani wished Obama does not get caught in horrendous traffic jam in New York City.
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9.7 Earthquake Coming to West Coast On October 3, 2013 ?

Posted: 23 Sep 2013 05:01 PM PDT

By James Bailey
Three independent sources have recently claimed the Lord told them a large earthquake is going to hit the west coast of the United States on Thursday, October 3, 2013. Two of these sources identified the earthquake will measure 9.7 on the Richter scale. That would make it the largest earthquake in recorded history.
Since 1900 when earthquake records began, the largest earthquake was 53 years ago, a 9.5 in Chile in 1960. That earthquake was also accompanied by a 38 foot tsunami, which caused most of the casualties. The devastating earthquake and tsunami that destroyed northeastern Japan in 2011 was a 9.0 on the Richter scale. It caused a 133 foot tsunami. A 9.7 earthquake would be seven times stronger than the one that hit Japan. There have only been five earthquakes in history measuring 9.0 or higher, so it is very rare.
It is also rare for the Lord to give people specific dates and Richter scale measurements for these events. Usually people only see scenes from what is coming, but no dates. So to hear three independent sources all hearing the same date makes this all very unusual.
According to these sources, the Golden Gate Bridge will be broken in half by the tsunami. The remains of the bridge will be moved into a vertical position. The San Francisco valley will be flooded with water. The following provides testimonies from each of these three sources.
Warning from Adam H:
Adam H. posted the video shown below on his Youtube page. The following is the transcript of his testimony.

This video is about what my mom has been telling me for the last day and a half. She has been having dreams and visions about a large earthquake off the west coast of the United States. She has had something like this happened to her once before. It was right before the Japan earthquake and tsunami. She basically predicted it. It was pretty intense. It was about two days before the event. This one though she says she has seen numbers and dates and times. It is early October in the daytime, sometime in the morning, on a Thursday. The warning we are hearing is a 9.7 earthquake on the West Coast.

Adam was reluctant to give the exact date in the video. There he only identified the date as a Thursday in early October. However, in the comments section on his YouTube page he identified the date is Thursday, October 3, 2013. Also, he said the earthquake will be off the west coast, which means it would likely create a very big tsunami.
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