Secretive figure tells our man release is coming
The promised dump of its emails from News International by hacktivist group LulzSec failed to materialise on Tuesday. However a prominent affiliate of the group told El Reg that the release had only been delayed, rather than postponed.
The UK end of the Murdoch media empire was hacked on Monday night, so that surfers visiting The Sun's website were redirected towards a spoof story on the fictitious suicide of Rupert Murdoch. The hack involved exploiting weaknesses on a retired site, running Solaris, set up by NI at the time NI was building a paywall for The Times.
This pwnage was then used in a stepping stone attack that ultimately allowed the hackers to gain root on a server that gave them the ability to add a redirection script to the "breaking news" element of The Sun's website.
Puppet Masters
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Peaceful protesters and bystanders were beaten, pepper sprayed, shot with rubber bullets, detained without counsel, denied food and water for hours, and crammed into overcrowded cells - handcuffed the whole time. (http://truthandshadows.wordpress.com)
In true Orwellian fashion, masked rioters were allowed free reign to go on a destructive rampage while peaceful protesters were beaten, rounded up and denied any semblance of their civil rights.
The scene was Toronto, Canada's largest city, and the event was the G20 Summit held June 26-27, 2010. The event - for which security cost in the vicinity of $1 billion - led to the largest mass arrest in Canadian history. It was an exercise in crushing dissent, and it left the impression that those in power are only willing to support free speech until people most need to exercise it.
While police were allowing the masked Black Bloc rioters to destroy anything they wanted, they weren't shy about beating and arresting peaceful protestors. In fact, they arrested many who weren't even protesting, but who were just trying to walk down the street. One journalist, despite identifying himself, was punched several times in the face by a riot officer. A reporter for The Guardian was held by two officers while a third punched him in the stomach and when he was on the ground, elbowed him in the back of the head.
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Arnon Milchan in the center
Arnon Milchan in the center
New biography outs Israeli producer as man who purchased components for Israel's nuclear arsenal.
Could one of Hollywood's greatest Israeli producers have been a Mossad agent? In a new biography called Confidential: The Life of Secret Agent Turned Hollywood Tycoon Arnon Milchan, authors Meir Doron and Joseph Gelman claim that the producer took part in secret Mossad operations.
According to the book, Milchan supervised accounts and financed "the essential needs of Israel intelligence operations outside the country." Those "essential needs" include purchasing components for Israel's nuclear arsenal.
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Ayalon
Ayalon
In a press briefing on Monday, Mr Ayalon urged the international community to stand behind Israel and reject the Palestinian effort, instead persuading the Palestinian leadership to return to direct negotiations with Israel.
''The issue here is the basic route which the Palestinians opt for,'' Mr Ayalon said. ''Are they opting for negotiations, are they opting for co-operation, are they opting for normalisation of relations ... or do they want to go for this unilateral route of confrontation and conflict? ...''
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Mr Ayalon, who over the past six months has travelled throughout Europe and South America to weaken the Palestinian effort, said it would be another low moment for the UN if a clear majority voted to recognise a Palestinian state.
© Reuters/Yuriko Nakao
A customer tries out the iPhone 4 at Apple Inc's store in the Ginza district of Tokyo June 24, 2010.
A customer tries out the iPhone 4 at Apple Inc's store in the Ginza district of Tokyo June 24, 2010.
The so-called "biometric" technology, which seems to take a page from TV shows like MI-5 or CSI, could improve speed and accuracy in some routine police work in the field. However, its use has set off alarms with some who are concerned about possible civil liberties and privacy issues.
The smartphone-based scanner, named Mobile Offender Recognition and Information System, or MORIS, is made by BI2 Technologies in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and can be deployed by officers out on the beat or back at the station.
An iris scan, which detects unique patterns in a person's eyes, can reduce to seconds the time it takes to identify a suspect in custody. This technique also is significantly more accurate than results from other fingerprinting technology long in use by police, BI2 says.
When attached to an iPhone, MORIS can photograph a person's face and run the image through software that hunts for a match in a BI2-managed database of U.S. criminal records. Each unit costs about $3,000.
Some experts fret police may be randomly scanning the population, using potentially intrusive techniques to search for criminals, sex offenders, and illegal aliens, but the manufacturer says that would be a difficult task for officers to carry out.
Sean Mullin, BI2's CEO, says it is difficult, if not impossible, to covertly photograph someone and obtain a clear, usable image without that person knowing about it, because the MORIS should be used close up.
"It requires a level of cooperation that makes it very overt -- a person knows that you're taking a picture for this purpose," Mullin said.
© The Associated Press / Jim Mone
Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton is handed one of the bills as he signs the state budget bill which ends the government shutdown, Wednesday, July 20, 2011 in St. Paul, Minn. Dayton's signature came just hours after lawmakers gave their own approval to the deal after meeting in special session that started Tuesday afternoon and lasted until early Wednesday morning. After signing the budget, Dayton said he was "not entirely happy" with it.
Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton is handed one of the bills as he signs the state budget bill which ends the government shutdown, Wednesday, July 20, 2011 in St. Paul, Minn. Dayton's signature came just hours after lawmakers gave their own approval to the deal after meeting in special session that started Tuesday afternoon and lasted until early Wednesday morning. After signing the budget, Dayton said he was "not entirely happy" with it.
Dayton's signature came just hours after lawmakers gave their own approval to the deal after meeting in special session that started Tuesday afternoon and lasted until early Wednesday morning. All sides formalized an agreement that Dayton struck with leading Republicans late last week.
The two sides argued bitterly over taxes and spending for months. When government shut down July 1, it closed state parks and rest stops, laid off 22,000 state employees, stopped road projects and much more.
The end to the shutdown began when Dayton moved last week to accept a borrowing plan offered by the GOP shortly before the stoppage began.
After signing the budget, Dayton said he was "not entirely happy" with it.
"It's not what I wanted, but it's the best option that was available and would be for any time," he said. Dayton said the budget "gets Minnesota back to work."
Details were still emerging Wednesday about how quickly state operations would restart. Dayton said he expected most state employees to be back on the job Thursday.
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Donald Rumsfeld may have smiled through his TSA pat down in Chicago last week, but my friend Barb is not smiling about her recent TSA encounters. Like Rumsfeld, Barb is sporting a metal joint or two, which is not uncommon.
In the Peoria Journal Start, Dr. Tom Mulvey of Midwest Orthopedic, is quoted as saying:
"There are now more than 1 million hip and knee replacements per year in the United States," said Mulvey, a hip and knee reconstructive surgeon in Peoria.
"Unbelievable."
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The Christian Right's assault on America is frightening, and, as someone who grew up in a world of religious fanaticism, my personal experience gives me a sharp sense of where this is heading. In his 2007 book, American Fascists, the Christian Right and the War on America, Chris Hedges describes what America would look like if evangelicals, or dominionists, complete their takeover of the American political system
"America becomes, in this militant Biblicism, an agent of god, and all political and intellectual opponents of America's Christian leaders are viewed, quite simply, as agents of Satan. Under Christian dominion, America will be no longer a sinful and fallen nation but one in which the 10 Commandments form the basis of our legal system, creationism and 'Christian values' form the basis of our educational system, and the media and government proclaim the Good News to one and all. Labor unions, civil rights laws and public schools will be abolished. Women will be removed from the workforce to stay at home, and all those deemed insufficiently Christian will be denied citizenship. Aside from its proselytizing mandate, the federal government will be reduced to the protection of property rights and 'homeland security...' The only legitimate voices in this state will be Christian. All others will be silenced."
© Charles Ommanney/Getty Images
Eliot Spitzer, the former New York governor, is among American political voices calling for Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation to be prosecuted in the US for bribery in the News of the World scandal.
Eliot Spitzer, the former New York governor, is among American political voices calling for Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation to be prosecuted in the US for bribery in the News of the World scandal.
Rupert Murdoch donated $1m to a pro-business lobby in the US months before the group launched a high-profile campaign to alter the anti-bribery law - the same law that could potentially be brought to bear against News Corporation over the phone-hacking scandal.
News Corporation contributed $1m to the US Chamber of Commerce last summer. In October the chamber put forward a six-point programme for amending the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, or FCPA, a law that punishes US-based companies for engaging in the bribery of foreign officials.
Progressive groups in the US have speculated that there is no coincidence in the contemporaneous timing of the Murdoch donation and the launch of the chamber's FCPA campaign, which they claim is designed to weaken the anti-bribery legislation. "The timing certainly raises questions about who is bankrolling this campaign - if it's not News Corporation who is it?" said Joshua Dorner of the Centre for American Progress action fund.
Naser Al Raas
This lack of action by the Harper government is in spite of the fact that the Canadian Consuls in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia are fully aware of the case. The official silence may be due to a bilateral trade deal Canada is in the process of completing with the Bahraini regime, and also Ottawa's increasing subordinance to Washington's foreign policy and therefore unwillingness to upset an important US ally in the Persian Gulf.
Naser Al Raas (28), who resides in Ottawa, was caught up in the popular uprising in the oil-rich Gulf kingdom that erupted in mid-February while on a family holiday. He arrived in Bahrain on 6 March to visit his five sisters who live there.
But when the former Microsoft IT specialist went to exit the country on 20 March, he was stopped while boarding his flight by ministry of interior officers. Although Al Raas was travelling on a Canadian passport, he was hauled into a room at Bahrain's international airport and detained for several hours during which time he was hooded, interrogated and physically assaulted. That was just the beginning of his nightmare.
Comment: While the writer has made some good observations about the lack of common sense in both the TSA and the government's horrible distribution of tax-payer money, she concludes by asking, "When will the U.S. follow Israeli security models" . This is basically asking the people to give up one form of tyranny for another, which shows pathocracy at its finest.
For more information on pathocracy, read: Political Ponerology: The Scientific Study of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes by Andrew M. Lobaczewski