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NSA secretly collecting and analyzing data from 9 major internet firms

Kevin Johnson, Scott Martin, Jayne O'Donnell and Michael Winter,
USA Today
Thu, 06 Jun 2013 00:00 UTC
Keeping top-secret tabs on your phone calls
The U.S. government is secretly collecting and analyzing the phone records of millions of Americans. One operation, authorized by a secret court order, requires a subsidiary of telecom giant Verizon to give the National Security Agency extensive data on phone calls of customers from April 25 to July 19. One possible process of how the NSA and Verizon are operating:

Image
© Kevin A. Kepple, Jeff Dionise and George Petras, USA Today

Comment: Children's guide to why NSA surveillance is bad

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Comet

Researchers claim that life arrived on Earth via asteroids and comets

Graham Templeton
ExtremeTech
Sun, 09 Jun 2013 17:55 UTC
comet life
© Unknown

Not so long ago, there was quite a bit of skepticism about the panspermia hypothesis - the idea that life on Earth got started by using alien molecules deposited by stellar travelers like comets or asteroids. At the time, this was presented as the somewhat harebrained imagining of overzealous science fiction fans. The more grounded alternative was to assume that all molecules necessary for life sprung exclusively from the conditions on ancient Earth. These days, however, there is significantly more credence given to the idea that life got a kickstart from alien molecules, and the support is beginning to come from all corners of the scientific world.

Now, even supercomputers are getting in on the action. A forthcoming study from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) claims that new supercomputer simulations of comet impacts predict the formation of some of the most crucial organic compounds for life. By making use of new and highly efficient computational models, the researchers were able to look into a comet impact for much longer than ever before - in this case, up to several hundred picoseconds. That might not sound like much, but it's enough to see a wide array of organic molecules come together.

The famous Miller-Urey experiment tried to replicate the conditions of early Earth, and produced many complex organic molecules.
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Attention

Children's guide to why NSA surveillance is bad

Peter Van Buren
Huffington Post
Fri, 07 Jun 2013 17:53 UTC
NSA Eye
© n/a
NSA surveillance is legal.

True, as was slavery in the U.S., the Holocaust under Nazi Germany, Apartheid in South Africa and so forth. Laws mean very little when they are manipulated for evil.

I'm not doing anything wrong, so why should I care? If you're doing nothing wrong, then you've got nothing to hide!

See above. The definition of "wrong" can change very quickly.

I trust Obama on this.

All of your personal data is in the hands of the same people that run the TSA, the IRS and likely the DMV. Do you trust all of them all the time to never make mistakes or act on personal grudges or political biases? Do you believe none of them would ever sell your data for personal profit ever? In fact, the NSA is already sharing your data with, at minimum, British intelligence. That's a foreign government that your American government is informing on you to, FYI.

I really trust Obama on this.

Comment: Edward Snowden, Prism Whistleblower, why should people care about surveillance?


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Fireball 2

Life producing phosphorus carried to Earth by meteorites


Science Daily
Tue, 04 Jun 2013 00:00 UTC
planet
© NASA
This artist's conception shows a young, hypothetical planet around a cool star. A soupy mix of potentially life-forming chemicals can be seen pooling around the base of the jagged rocks.
Scientists may not know for certain whether life exists in outer space, but new research from a team of scientists led by a University of South Florida astrobiologist now shows that one key element that produced life on Earth was carried here on meteorites.

In an article published in the new edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USF Assistant Professor of Geology Matthew Pasek and researchers from the University of Washington and the Edinburg Centre for Carbon Innovation, revealed new findings that explain how the reactive phosphorus that was an essential component for creating the earliest life forms came to Earth.

The scientists found that during the Hadean and Archean eons -- the first of the four principal eons of Earth's earliest history -- the heavy bombardment of meteorites provided reactive phosphorus that when released in water could be incorporated into prebiotic molecules. The scientists documented the phosphorus in early Archean limestone, showing it was abundant some 3.5 billion years ago.

The scientists concluded that the meteorites delivered phosphorus in minerals that are not seen on the surface of Earth, and these minerals corroded in water to release phosphorus in a form seen only on the early Earth.

The discovery answers one of the key questions for scientist trying to unlock the processes that gave rise to early life forms: Why don't we see new life forms today?
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Comet 2

New Comet: C/2013 H1 (La Sagra)

Seiichi Yoshida
Aerith Net
Sun, 09 Jun 2013 17:30 UTC
Discovery Date: April 19, 2013

Magnitude: 17.7 mag

Discoverer: J. Nomen (La Sagra Sky Survey)

C/2013 H1
© Aerith Net
Magnitudes Graph
The orbital elements are published on M.P.E.C. 2013-K38.
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Comet

New Comet: C/2013 L2 (CATALINA)

Ernesto Guido & Nick Howes
Remanzacco Observatory
Sun, 09 Jun 2013 13:30 UTC
Cbet nr. 3548, issued on 2013, June 09, announces the discovery of an apparently asteroidal object (discovery magnitude ~19.6) by R. A. Kowalski on CCD images obtained with the Catalina Sky Survey 0.68-m Schmidt telescopeon June 02. After posting on the Minor Planet Center's NEOCP webpage, this apparently asteroidal object as been found to show cometary features by by astrometric observers elsewhere. The new comet has been designated C/2013 L2 (CATALINA).

We performed follow-up measurements of this object, while it was still on the neocp. Stacking of 18 R-filtered exposures, 30-sec each, obtained remotely, from the Haleakala-Faulkes Telescope North on 2013, June 04.5, through a 2.0-m f/10.0 Ritchey-Chretien + CCD (operated by Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network), shows that this object is a comet: sharp central condensation, surrounded by a faint coma nearly 4" in diameter.

Below you can see our image.
C/2013 L2
© Remanzacco Observatory
M.P.E.C. 2013-L41 assigns the following preliminary parabolic orbital elements to comet C/2013 L2: T 2012 Apr. 29.80; e= 1.0; Peri. = 359.60; q = 4.77; Incl.= 106.44
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Eye 1

CISPA will legalize PRISM surveillance program

Eric Blair
Activist Post
Sat, 08 Jun 2013 08:52 UTC
CISPA
© n/a
Give them an inch and they will take a mile. That is how power-hungry tyrants interpret any law.

The PATRIOT Act and the FISA court led to the blanket wiretapping of every American citizen and a PRISM lens into all Internet activity for the NSA.

Now we are supposed to trust this Peeping Tom government by giving them more authority for "cybersecurity" with the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA)?
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Eye 1

Report states tech giants worked with government surveillance program, companies deny role in PRISM

Madison Ruppert
End the Lie
Sun, 09 Jun 2013 05:18 UTC
PRISM
© documents obtained by the Guardian
This slide shows when each company joined the PRISM program
The New York Times reports that the Internet giants involved in the secret PRISM surveillance program agreed to cooperate with the government. The same companies have issued denials which some argue are actually cleverly worded attempts to obscure their involvement.

All of this comes in response to the reports exposing the NSA's massive surveillance program known as PRISM which gives them access to the servers of some of the largest Internet companies which was quickly defended by Obama. The information about PRISM was released shortly after it was revealed that Verizon was secretly ordered to hand over all the records of U.S. phone calls in their system.

Now the New York Times reports that in some cases the companies actually changed their computer systems to make it more efficient and secure for the government to conduct surveillance.

These changes were made after a series of secret negotiations that "illustrate how intricately the government and tech companies work together, and the depth of their behind-the-scenes transactions."
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Eye 1

Easily abused, domestic drones raise enormous privacy concerns

Linda Lye
ACLU
Fri, 19 Oct 2012 05:06 UTC
domestic drones
© flickr/@developmentseed
Shortly before next week's one-year anniversary of the Oakland Police Department's brutal crackdown on Occupy Oakland, Alameda County Sheriff Greg Ahern announced that he was seeking funds to purchase a drone to engage in unspecified unmanned aerial surveillance. One of the many unfortunate lessons of OPD's Occupy crackdown is that when law enforcement has powerful and dangerous tools in its arsenal, it will use them. Drones raise enormous privacy concerns and can easily be abused. Before any drone acquisition proceeds, we need to ask a threshold question - are drones really necessary in our community? - and have a transparent and democratic process for debating that question. In addition, if the decision is made to acquire a drone, do we have rigid safeguards and accountability mechanisms in place, so that law enforcement does not use drones to engage in warrantless mass surveillance? The ACLU of Northern California has sent the Sheriff a Public Records Act request, demanding answers to these crucial questions.
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Comet 2

New Comet: 2013 LA2

Seiichi Yoshida
Aerith Net
Sat, 08 Jun 2013 13:11 UTC
Discovery Date: June 1, 2013

Magnitude: 21.5 mag

Discoverer: Pan-STARRS 1 telescope (Haleakala)
2013 LA
© Aerith Net
Magnitudes Graph
The orbital elements are published on M.P.E.C. 2013-L23.
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