● 06.18.13

● Links 18/6/2013: Ubuntu Linux for Phones Attracts Carriers, Nokia Might be Saved by China/Android

Posted in News Roundup at 4:55 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

• Researchers at EPFL’s Biorobotics Laboratory (Biorob) announced a cat-like robot that is claimed to be the fastest quadruped robot under 30 kilograms. The Cheetah-cub Robot, which runs real-time Xenomai Linux on an x86-based RoBoard control board, mimics the biomechanics of a cat to increase the speed and stability of it quadroped legs, helping it achieve speeds of 1.42m/s.

Desktop

• In Northern California where I live, summer is here, which means family vacations, kids’ camps, BBQs and hopefully some relaxation. But it also means back-to-school shopping is just around the corner. So in case you’re on the hunt for a laptop in addition to pens, paper, and stylish new outfits, your search just got a whole lot easier. Chromebooks—a fast, simple, secure laptop that won’t break the bank—will now be carried in over 3 times more stores than before, or more than 6,600 stores around the world.

• Google’s Chromebook laptop will be carried by over 6,600 stores around the world, as the company signs on more retailers.

• Starting Monday, Walmart is offering an Acer Chromebook, which has a 16GB Solid State Drive, in about 2,800 stores across the U.S. for US$199, while from this weekend, Staples will offer Chromebooks from Acer, Hewlett-Packard and Samsung Electronics in its over 1,500 stores in the country.

Server

• Cloud infrastructure providers like Amazon Web Service sell virtual machines. EC2 revenue is expected to surpass $1B in revenue this year. That’s a lot of VMs.

• China’s Tianhe-2 is the world’s fastest supercomputer, according to the latest semiannual Top 500 list of the 500 most powerful computer systems in the world.

• Developed by China’s National University of Defense Technology, the system appeared two years ahead of schedule and will be deployed at the National Supercomputer Center in Guangzho, China, before the end of the year.

• If you want a really fast computer, then Linux is your operating system and Intel may be your chip manufacturer.

Kernel Space

Graphics Stack

• Intel’s Daniel Vetter is attempting for the Intel DRM graphics driver to remove support for its FBDEV frame-buffer layer with a new patch-set entitled “fbdev no more!”, but will this finally usher in the killing of the Linux kernel’s FBDEV subsystem?

• In recent days there have been a number of interesting code commits made to the growing Google-backed Coreboot project.

• Ninety-three percent of employers plan to hire a Linux pro in the next six months. Ninety percent of hiring managers say it’s difficult to find experienced Linux professionals. When they do find them, they’re offering higher salaries and more perks.

• These are the startling and exciting facts that are surfaced in this year’s Linux Jobs Report (Dice.com/Linux Foundation). But they pose both an opportunity and a challenge for the Linux community: the need to increase access to in-depth Linux training opportunities to help meet this unprecedented demand. And, The Linux Foundation is working on tackling this challenge with its comprehensive set of in-depth Linux training courses.

Applications

• The Gnome Encfs Manager (or short GEncfsM) is an easy to use manager and mounter for encfs stashes featuring per-stash configuration, Gnome Keyring support, a tray menu inspired by Cryptkeeper but using the AppIndicator API and lots of unique features. Whether you want to let it do things as simple as mounting a stash at startup, which is often used in conjunction with cloud-synced folders on services like Dropbox and Ubuntu one, or whether you want to let it automatically mount and unmount your stashes on removeable drives like USB-sticks, SD cards or even network-resources, GEncfsM is designed to do all the work for you.

Proprietary

Instructionals/Technical

Games

• Northway Games’ Incredipede is on sale for half price on Steam for the next week, and the Linux version is now free on the game’s website, the studio announced today.

• The physics-based puzzle game, which was nominated for a 2013 Independent Games Festival award, is available on Windows PC, Mac and Linux. It regularly costs $9.99 on Steam, but the PC and Mac versions are available for $4.99 from today through June 24.

• Incredipede developer Colin Northway says he made the Linux version free “because Linux users are such strong supporters of indie games,” and because he enjoys its open source philosophy. Incredipede is available for Linux right here, and though it will run fine out of the gate Northway includes a list of tweaks to make it extra pretty.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

• As we announced in the tittle, Muses project will be delayed until September. But there is one good new for those who have done the pre-order.

Distributions

New Releases

Red Hat Family

• Red Hat executives say OpenStack – the open source cloud computing platform – is just like Linux. The code just needs to be massaged into a commercially-hardened package before enterprises will really use it. But just because Red Hat successfully commercialized Linux does not guarantee its OpenStack effort will go as well.

• There was a story recently that Red Hat would replace MySQL with MariaDB in the next version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Actually, Red Hat isn’t saying yet which DBMS, or any other specific program, will be shipping in RHEL 7.

• A recent acquisition and product launch have shifted attention toward Platform as a Service, but it’s still too early to predict whether many enterprises will jump on the PaaS bandwagon.

Debian Family

• Newly stable Debian 7 “wheezy” is receiving its first update, 7.1, which mainly includes bug fixes and corrections to security issues

Derivatives

• The second Alpha release of the upcoming Skolelinux 7.0 (formerly Debian Edu) Linux operating system has been made available for download and testing last evening, June 10, 2013.

• Skolelinux 7.0.0 Alpha 2 is still based on the stable Debian GNU/Linux 7.0 (Wheezy) distribution and features Iceweasel 17, the xoscope oscilloscope application, the GTick metronome software, the Lingot musical instrument tuner, and Piano Booster, a MIDI file player.

Canonical/Ubuntu

• Linux boutique System76 pulled the wraps off several new laptops yesterday, including the Galago UltraPro. It’s a sleek new notebook that runs an Intel Core i7 Haswell chip — which means it should offer plenty of power and exceptional battery life. According to System76, the Galago UltraPro is also the first laptop under one inch thick to ship with Intel’s Iris Pro graphics.

• Logic Supply has signed a deal with RapidRollout to offer the latter’s custom Linux appliance platforms on embedded computers aimed at non-desktop applications such as interactive kiosks and digital signage. RapidRollout is a lightweight, customized version of Ubuntu enhanced with features like remote management tools and easy-to-use configuration and set-up utilities, says the company.

• RapidRollout’s “appliance OS” is a customized, open source version of Ubuntu Linux designed for kiosks and digital signage appliances. Aimed at customers that lack Linux expertise, the lightweight stack adds kiosk/signage features such as touchcscreen support, and removes unwanted desktop Linux features.

• Ever since we first announced Ubuntu for phones on January 2nd this year, a fantastic relationship with our friends in the XDA community has formed. For quite some time now we have been releasing daily images of Ubuntu for phones/tablets and our friends in the XDA community have been working to enable these images for a wide range of devices.

• Ubuntu Phone has been gradually getting attention not only of users and developers but also of network carriers, who will eventually make the device available to the masses. Canonical, the parent company of Ubuntu, announced today a new Carrier Advisory Group formed with founding members Deutsche Telekom, Everything Everywhere, Korea Telecom, Telecom Italia, LG UPlus, Portugal Telecom, SK Telecom and the leading Spanish international carrier. More information on CAG on Ubuntu’s Phone page.

• We are working on a powerful vision with Ubuntu; to build a convergent Operating System that runs on phones, tablets, desktops, and TVs. A core part of this vision is that this is a platform and ecosystem that you can influence, improve, and be a part of, significantly more-so than our competitors.

• Linux International boss suggests wiring brains into computers as a backup plan

• Canonical has formed a “Carrier Advisory Group” of eight mobile operators who will collaborate to influence the development of Ubuntu for smartphones.

• Canonical said the first members of the group are Deutsche Telekom, Everything Everywhere, Korea Telecom, Telecom Italia, LG UPlus, Portugal Telecom, SK Telecom, and “the leading Spanish international carrier.” Canonical declined to identify the Spanish carrier when we contacted them, although based on the description it may be Telefónica (also known as O2). With the exception of Deutsche Telekom, the owner of T-Mobile, the list doesn’t include any major US carriers. Canonical said that “any national or multinational carrier” may join.

Devices/Embedded

• The Via Technologies recycled cardboard-housed Android mini-PC received a Design and Innovation award at Computex 2013 earlier this month. The hackable $99 “APC Paper” and its internal $79 “APC Rock” motherboard run a custom Android 4.0 OS on an 800MHz Via WonderMedia ARM Cortex-A9 SoC, and offer 512MB RAM and 4GB flash, along with HDMI, USB, and Ethernet connections.

Phones

• The Chinese smartphone giant is “considering” buying Nokia, but it all depends on whether or not the ailing Finnish phone maker finally cracks.

Free Software/Open Source

• One of OSI’s main activities at present is to switch governance to become a member-based organization. Towards that goal, earlier this year we held an Affiliate election, and we are now announcing our first Individual Members Election.

• Don’t like Microsoft Office? Just build your own office suite—this guy did.

• Project Cauã, the Free and Open Source Software and Hardware (FOSSH) project conceived by Linux International executive director Jon “Maddog” Hall to make it possible for people to make a living as a systems administrator, is set to launch in Brazil next month.

• The vision of Project Cauã is to promote more efficient computing following the thin client/server model, while creating up to two million privately-funded high-tech jobs in Brazil, and another three to four million in the rest of Latin America.

Web Browsers

Chrome

• Google finishes defining its VP9 video codec, adds it to Chromium ahead of Chrome and YouTube rollout

Mozilla

• Today we’re proud to announce the start of the 2014 Knight-Mozilla OpenNews Fellow application process.

Funding

• Last week we launched our Steam Greenlight campaign to get Leadwerks into the hands of the Steam community. This week, we’re rolling out the second stage of our plan with a Kickstarter campaign to bring Leadwerks to Linux. This will let you build and play games, without ever leaving Linux. The result of this campaign will be Leadwerks 3.1 with a high-end AAA renderer running on Linux, Mac, and Windows, with an estimated release date before Christmas.

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

• MediaGoblin’s newest release is here, 0.4.0! We’ve got a whole lot of cool things, most excitingly document support and an improved plugin infrastructure. Now more than ever before MediaGoblin has the tooling to become a real library of knowledge. Sounds exciting? Read on!

Programming

• The LLVM Loop Vectorizer is now being utilized by default at new optimization levels, in the name of faster performance.

• LLVM 3.3 is the result of an incredible number of people working together over the last six months, but this release would not be possible without our volunteer release team! Thanks to Bill Wendling for shepherding the release, and to Ben Pope, Dimitry Andric, Nikola Smiljanic, Renato Golin, Duncan Sands, Arnaud A. de Grandmaison, Sebastian Dreßler, Sylvestre Ledru, Pawel Worach, Tom Stellard, Kevin Kim, and Erik Verbruggen for all of their contributions.

Leftovers

Science

• Fish aggregating devices, also knows as FADs, generally refer to artificial structures that are deployed in the ocean to attract schools of fish. FADs function as open-ocean “meeting points” with multiple species gathering underneath them.

• While FAD fishing can be an efficient method for catching large schools of tuna, industrial-scale FAD fisheries can have significant adverse impacts on tunas and other species. Since the late twentieth century, FAD use in the world’s oceans has soared due to the new technologies that have allowed for their widespread use by industrial-scale purse seine vessels targeting tuna.

Security

• The exploit uses BlackBerry Protect, a service that allows users to manage their device without having to use the BlackBerry Enterprise Service (BES). Protect can use BES find lost devices, lock or delete them, and reset the password. It can also back up and restore data. Protect is off by default and must be activated by the user.

Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

• On Monday in Ohio, animal control Officer Barry Accorti shot and killed a litter of kittens in front of freaked-out children nearby. “He informed [a witness] that shelters were full and that these cats would be going to kitty heaven,” Ohio SPCA Executive Director Teresa Landon told the Sun News.

• Landon said the home owner, who had called for help, assumed the officer “would be trapping them or something and taking them to a shelter and they would be humanely euthanized if they were not adopted.”

• “Instead, he went to his truck and got a gun, which she thought was a tranquilizer gun, and walked around to the back of the house and approximately 15 feet from her back door shot and killed the 8- to 10-week-old kittens.”

• The stunned observer alerted the Ohio SPCA to the officer’s actions, and the animal rights group responded with a Facebook campaign to “expose” the behavior and call for accountability.

• That’s the kind of language you’re likely to hear in the corporate media when it comes to Syria. And while it demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of what the word “confirm” means, it also betrays a lack of skepticism when it comes to government claims about the WMDs of “enemy” countries.

• Amendment would allow strikes on those ‘actively engaged in combat’ against the United States

• A senior undercover CIA officer, accused by the spy agency of “war crimes”, has alleged that it halted an internal investigation that could have exonerated him and placed him under surveillance instead.

• The lawsuit, which comes as US intelligence is reeling from controversy over its surveillance of Americans’ communications records, is expected to be filed Friday in a Washington federal court by longtime intelligence attorney Mark Zaid.

• A new documentary claims the showbiz psychic is involved in global espionage – and that after 9/11 he was ‘reactivated’ as a pyschic spy. Geoffrey Macnab finds out more

• Uri Geller allegedly worked as a CIA spy during the Cold War, according to a new documentary.

• The spoon-bender is said to have helped the US in a “psychic arms race” against Russia.

• The issue of secret CIA prisons has resurfaced in Poland again. Waleed Mohammed Bin Attash, a native of Yemen, appears as a victim of the new secret CIA prisons scandal. Amnesty International and the ECHR have already joined the case, while Poland has found itself in a storm of criticism. However, the official Warsaw continues to hold the line and drag out the investigation of the case.

• Agencies like the NSA and CIA — and private contractors like Booz Allen — can’t be sure that all employees will obey the rules without interference from their own idealism. This is a basic dilemma for the warfare/surveillance state, which must hire and retain a huge pool of young talent to service the digital innards of a growing Big Brother.

• With private firms scrambling to recruit workers for top-secret government contracts, the current situation was foreshadowed by novelist John Hersey in his 1960 book The Child Buyer. When the vice president of a contractor named United Lymphomilloid, “in charge of materials procurement,” goes shopping for a very bright ten-year-old, he explains that “my duties have an extremely high national-defense rating.” And he adds: “When a commodity that you need falls in short supply, you have to get out and hustle. I buy brains.”

• It is February, shortly after his raucous confirmation hearings for the top job at Langley, and he has agreed to a rare interview—so far as I can tell, still his only one this year—to talk about America’s drone campaign, a program he’d helped to steer. Outside estimates of the death toll range as high as 4,000 (numbers the administration scoffs at), including at least four American citizens. And though you and I are probably never going to join Al Qaeda or hang out with militants in Yemen, our government definitely thinks it could kill you if it thought you had joined up with Al Qaeda or were hanging out with militants in Yemen. It is a worrying indication of where things are headed that in his May counterterrorism speech, the president actually had to reassure people, “For the record: I do not believe it would be constitutional for the government to target and kill any U.S. citizen—with a drone, or with a shotgun—without due process, nor should any president deploy armed drones over U.S. soil.”

• Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) is blocking millions in State Department funds for Afghanistan, until President Obama discloses details abut the CIA’s decade-long effort to funnel cash to Afghan leaders, including President Hamid Karzai.

• The ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations panel has put a hold on $75 million in government aid to Kabul “until such time as I receive sufficient information” on the CIA program, Corker said Monday.

• Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) is blocking millions in State Department funds for Afghanistan, until President Obama discloses details abut the CIA’s decade-long effort to funnel cash to Afghan leaders, including President Hamid Karzai.

• The ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations panel has put a hold on $75 million in government aid to Kabul “until such time as I receive sufficient information” on the CIA program, Corker said Monday.

• Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/policy-and-strategy/305991-corker-blocks-afghan-war-funds-over-cia-ghost-money-to-karzai-government-#ixzz2WYtabKZx Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook

• Last week, President Obama made history by announcing the first-ever female deputy director of the CIA. Avril Haines immediately started getting all the attention the media gives to people once they realize this person exists and therefore they need to cover some kind of interesting angle on them for viewers/readers. The Daily Beast dug up a story that in the 90s, Haines ran a bookstore where a lot of erotic fiction was read. No, you did not read that wrong. Media Matters raises an important question about the highlighting of this particular detail: is this the kind of profile that only women get, and is it fair?

• In the past the government of Pakistan involved itself in Afghanistan alongside America, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and other Gulf nations. The upshot of this was that Gulf petrodollars spread Takfiri and Salafi Islam alongside supporting indigenous Sunni Islamist militant organizations. America, Pakistan and the United Kingdom utilized the CIA, ISI and MI6 respectively in order to train Islamist fanatics against the communist government of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Several decades later and the folly of this policy can be seen by the fact that so many women reside in shadows in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Of course, you have places in both nations which are more open but the darkness of religious bigotry resides within terrorist organizations and in state institutions in both countries.

• A Yemeni man held at Guantánamo has become the third person to seek “victim status” in an ongoing investigation by the Polish Prosecutor’s Office into Poland’s involvement in the US-led rendition and secret detention programmes.

• This morning Mariusz Paplaczyk, the Polish lawyer of Yemeni national Walid bin Attash, announced that yesterday he had submitted an application requesting the Prosecutor’s Office grant his client “injured person” (victim) status. After his arrest in Pakistan in 2003, Bin Attash passed through a number of CIA “black sites”, including one in Poland, before being taken to Guantánamo, where he currently awaits trial by military commission.

• On Saturday, the Washington Post reported that clandestine bases in Jordan and Turkey would serve as conduits for arms being delivered to the rebel fighters amidst fears American armaments would fall into the hands of Syria’s many Islamist factions.

• Thirty-year CIA veteran Milton Bearden knows a thing or two about providing arms to rebels. As a field officer in Pakistan and Afghanistan from 1986 to 1989, he oversaw the $3 billion covert program to arm the Afghan mujahideen to fight the Soviet occupation — a program that has become the textbook example of how arming rebel groups can have unintended consequences once the war is over.

• The murder of Marine Colonel James E. Sabow and other Marines whose deaths (officially ruled ‘suicides’) are linked to the use of El Toro assets during the 1980s and 1990s to import South American cocaine into the U.S and to export weapons to the Contra Rebel faction of Nicaragua.

• The Swiss government has formally asked the U.S. for “clarification” on a claim from alleged NSA leaker Edward Snowden that CIA agents in Geneva pushed a banker to drink and drive as part of a dangerous recruitment ploy.

• Snowden, the man who claims to have given top secret documents on the National Security Agency’s vast surveillance programs to two major newspapers, briefly discusses the scheme in an interview with the U.K. newspaper The Guardian, saying it was a “formative” moment that led him to question the “rightness” of U.S. intelligence.

• Former CIA Director Michael Hayden told Meet the Press’ David Gregory on Sunday morning that security and transparency were a zero-sum game.

• CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell, who defended harsh interrogation techniques and was involved with the fallout after the attack on the diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, announced his retirement Wednesday.

• Michael Davidson is a former member of the CIA, a foreign affairs expert on Russia and author of the book Incubus all of which he discusses in this conversation with Bill Leff.

Cablegate

• Ecuador’s foreign minister, Ricardo Patino, has met the founder of the Wikileaks website, Julian Assange, at his country’s embassy in London.

• Mr Assange, who has been living in the building for a year was “in good spirits” despite the “limitations of his accommodations”, Mr Patino said.

• US diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks appear to support claims by a Danish judge that the American head of the war crimes court for the former Yugoslavia furthered US administration aims to acquit senior suspects, a Danish newspaper said Tuesday.

• Julian Assange, the Australian-born founder of WikiLeaks who faces extradition to Sweden over alleged sex crimes, said on Sunday he believed the UK’s position on his plight is “softening”.

• Mr Assange has been living under the protection of the Ecuadorian embassy in London for the past year, and has been granted political asylum by the country – a move that has sparked a diplomatic spat between London and Quito, as Britain has refused to grant him safe passage to the South American country.

• As he prepares to mark the first anniversary of his arrival at the embassy, since when he has not set foot outside, he claimed a deal could still be reached between Ecuador and the UK “within a year” that would see him leave.

• “I think the position in the UK is softening,” he told the AFP news agency. “Of course, it will never publicly humiliate the United States by offering me safe passage in a manner that doesn’t seem to be forced.”

• AS Britain and Ecuador failed to agree over his future, WikiLeaks’ founder, Julian Assange, has signified his intention to stay holed up in the Ecuadorean embassy for five years, the country’s foreign minister has said.

• Wikileaks founder Julian Assange says he has had indirect contact with people associated with Edward Snowden, an ex-CIA contractor behind massive leaks over top-secret US surveillance programs.

• There was “no breakthrough” on the situation of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, the British Foreign Office said Monday, after Ecuador’s foreign minister held talks with his British counterpart.

• Well, if Kim Dotcom can be a popstar (in the “posted a few mediocre tracks on YouTube” sense of the word ‘popstar’), why not Julian Assange?

• The WikiLeaks founder is still holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, fearing extradition to Sweden to face sexual assault charges if he leaves the embassy building (and, he would argue, from there further extradition to the US to face charges relating to the WikiLeaking of all those confidential papers belonging to the American government).

• Julian Assange says he’s prepared to stay in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for five years. Ecuador’s Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino says the embassy will continue to provide asylum to the Wikileaks founder, who sought refuge there a year ago. VoR’s Vivienne Nunis reports.

• Snowden asked for Hrafnsson’s help communicating Snowden’s desire to seek asylum in Iceland.

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

• In a 7-2 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down an Arizona statute that imposes restrictions on voter registration, finding it conflicts with federal law. After becoming law in Arizona, the legislation at issue was adopted as a “model” by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

• The decision in Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona reaffirmed Congress’ power under the Elections Clause to determine when, where, and how elections are held. An Arizona law requiring that voters show proof of citizenship to register to vote, wrote Justice Antonin Scalia for the seven justice majority, conflicted with the federal National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and was therefore preempted.

• Gun Owners of America (GOA) has declared immigration reform a gun issue, warning that under the “scamnesty bill” currently in the U.S. Senate, “you can say buh bye to your guns and buh bye to the rest of your freedom.”

Censorship

• Tough new anti-piracy legislation that allows for sites to be quickly blocked by ISPs following allegations of copyright infringement has been passed by Russia’s State Duma. Opposition to the bill has been growing, not only from regular Internet users but tech giants including Google, who are alarmed that domains could be censored without the intervention of the courts.

Privacy

• It’s becoming pretty clear, particularly from today’s Snowden Q&A and the partial transcript from President Obama’s Charlie Rose interview, that we’re zeroing in on how the government accesses private individual data.

• If you’re not a “U.S. person,” there are few restrictions on what the U.S. government can do to monitor you. If you are a U.S. person then there are at least some restrictions, and the involvement of at least the secret FISA court, before that data can be accessed.

• What’s also clear are that these are just policy decisions, as Snowden puts it, and that things may have been different in the past and can be different in the future.

• [...]

• But here’s what journalists should be asking at this point: What data does the government store? How long have they been storing it? Do they ever delete it?

• As with so many significant privacy violations of late by government agencies — from the NSA to the IRS — it’s become clear that technology has far outpaced law. Federal laws meant to protect our Fourth Amendment right “to be secure in [our] persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable search and seizure” do not adequately cover Americans’ property online.

• As news websites around the globe are publishing story after story about dragnet surveillance, these news sites all have one thing in common: when you visit these websites, your personal information is broadcast to dozens of companies, many of which have the ability to track your surfing habits, and many of which are subject to government data requests.

• Basically, he’s arguing that if the NSA orders companies to do something illegal, the companies shouldn’t be liable for that. There’s some logic behind that, because when you get an order from the government, you often feel compelled to obey. But, of course, the reality is that this will give blanket cover for companies voluntarily violating all sorts of privacy laws in giving the NSA data. And, theoretically you could then sue the government over those violations, but we’ve seen in the past how well that goes over. First, the courts won’t give you “standing” if you can’t prove absolutely that your data was included. Then, if you get past that hurdle, the government will claim “national security” or sovereign immunity to try to get out of the case. And, even if it gets past all of that, and you win against the government, the feds shrug their shoulders and say “now what are you going to do?”

• Schieffer is, like a lot of other establishment journalists, no fan of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

• As he explained on his Face the Nation program (6/16/13), “I don’t remember Martin Luther King Jr. or Rosa Parks running off and hiding in China.”

• Some critics of the recent NSA surveillance stories by the Guardian and Washington Post say the reports are filled with so many errors that they amount to “journalistic malfeasance.” But is this really the case?

• I fear the collateral damage the NSA’s spying via technology will do to that technology. The essential problem is not the internet or internet companies or even the spies. The real problem is the law and what it does not prevent the American government from doing with technology, and how it does not protect the principles upon which this nation was founded.

• The damage to the net and its freedoms will take many forms: users may come to distrust the net for communication, sharing, and storage because they now fear – with cause – that the government will be spying on them, whether or not they are the object of that surveillance. International users – properly concerned that they are afforded even less protection than Americans – may ditch American platforms. The European Union and other national governments, which already were threatening laws targeting US technology companies, will work harder to keep their citizens’ data away from the US. Technologists may find it necessary to build in so many protections, so much encryption and caution, that the openness that is a key value of the net becomes lost.

• After recent revelations of NSA spying, it’s difficult to trust large Internet corporations like Facebook to host our online social networks. Facebook is one of nine companies tied to PRISM––perhaps the largest government surveillance effort in world history. Even before this story broke, many social media addicts had lost trust in the company. Maybe now they’ll finally start thinking seriously about leaving the social network giant.

• In an interview with PBS’s Charlie Rose, Obama argued it’s a “false choice” to suggest freedom must be sacrificed to achieve security, a phrasing that echoes comments he made on the campaign trail in 2008.

• Data protection is to the communication age is what environmental protection was for the age of industrialisation. We must not leave it too late to act

• Hundreds of people in Hong Kong have marched to the US consulate in support of ex-CIA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

• Former Vice President Dick Cheney was on “Fox News Sunday” on June 16, and one of the topics was the National Security Agency surveillance program. Mr. Cheney related how and why the program was originally implemented after Sept. 11, 2001, and I have no problem that. The problem I have with Mr. Cheney and others cheerleading the current NSA surveillance program is that they do not have current information to back up their claims. As for Mr. Cheney, he has been out of office for more than four years and admitted he has no current knowledge about the program.

• A new administration has made changes to the program, and naturally, they are all classified for obvious reasons, so how can anyone really know outside of NSA what is going on today?

• Following an official complaint submitted last month, the European Privacy Association (EPA) has now updated its entry in the EU’s lobby transparency register. Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) had complained to the register secretariat about the EPA’s failure to disclose its industry members (and funders), in violation of the rules of the transparency register.

• The National Security Agency contractor who disclosed the spy agency’s collection of data on billions of telephone calls made by Americans apparently obtained a highly-classified court order about the program during a training stint at NSA’s headquarters in Maryland, NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander said Tuesday.

• Alexander told reporters after a House Intelligence Committee hearing that the man who’s acknowledged being the source of the recent leaks, Booz Allen Hamilton information technology specialist Edward Snowden, had access to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court order and related materials during an orientation at NSA.

• We’ve already had a few posts discussing why the whole “if you’ve done nothing wrong, you’ve got nothing to hide” argument is bogus, but this weekend’s edition of the radio show This American Life had a fantastic short section in which the host, Ira Glass, spoke to lawyers for detainees at Guantanamo Bay, who are all pretty certain that every one of their phone calls is being recorded and listened to. What’s amazing is the emotional response you hear from most of these lawyers, who recognize that they can no longer comfortably speak freely to anyone on the phone ever again. The stories of them not being able to be emotional with their children when speaking to them on the phone, or in which their friends accuse them of being especially curt and officious whenever they call are somewhat heartbreaking.

• In the 1950s and 60s, the NSA spied on all telegrams entering and exiting the country. The egregious actions were only uncovered after Congress set up an independent investgation called the Church Committee in the 1970s after Watergate. When the American public learned about NSA’s actions, they demanded change. And the Church Committee delivered it by providing more information about the programs and by curtailing the spying.

• On Tuesday, National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander told a congressional hearing of the Intelligence Committee that the agency is implementing a “two-person” system to prevent future leaks of classified information like the one pulled off by 29-year-old Booz Allen contractor Edward Snowden, who exfiltrated “thousands” of files according to the Guardian, to whom he has given several of the secret documents.

• In the week since we launched, the stopwatching.us campaign has gathered over 215,000 signatures from individuals opposed to NSA surveillance. And we’ve made huge waves in the media with a coalition of companies and organization that the Atlantic called “perhaps the most diverse collection of groups in the modern history of American politics.”

• A boycott of Facebook, Microsoft, Google et al is easy to talk about, but almost impossible to achieve

• NORTH KOREA has somewhat ironically waded into the NSA spying scandal currently causing outrage across the globe, rushing to the defence of American civil liberties.

• Over the last few weeks the world has been treated to a feast of information about how America’s most secretive intelligence outfit, the National Security Agency, does its work — courtesy of celebrity traitor Edward Snowden. If you’re one of those people who thinks the world is awash in conspiracies, then it’s no surprise that NSA is conducting domestic surveillance of the Internet and other communications. However, if you live in the real world of limited government and lawyers, NSA’s domestic surveillance program is a bit of a puzzle.

• The National Security Agency’s blanket collection of US citizens’ phone records was “not really the American way”, Al Gore said on Friday, declaring that he believed the practice to be unlawful.

• In his most expansive comments to date on the NSA revelations, the former vice-president was unsparing in his criticism of the surveillance apparatus, telling the Guardian security considerations should never overwhelm the basic rights of American citizens.

• Too many Americans think of their nation as inherently Christian and worthy of absolute trust, but the state is not benign

• The former National Security Agency contractor who revealed the U.S. government’s top-secret monitoring of Americans’ phone and Internet data fought back against his critics on Monday, saying the government’s “litany of lies” about the programs compelled him to act.

• President Obama has dismissed claims that the US is spying on its citizens and said any intelligence gathering done by the security forces is legal and “transparent”, while at the same time asking the security services to look at how to declassify aspects of the programme.

• I have held back from writ­ing about the Edward Snowden NSA whis­tleblow­ing case for the last week — partly because I was immersed in the res­ult­ing media inter­views and talks, and partly because I wanted to watch how the story developed, both polit­ic­ally and in the old media. The reac­tion of both can tell you a lot.

• That does not mean that I did not have a very pos­it­ive response to what Snowden has done. Far from it. The same night the story broke about who was behind the leaks, I dis­cussed the implic­a­tions on an RT inter­view and called what he did Whis­tleblow­ing 2.0.

• Last Monday the Foreign Secretary William Hague gave a statement to and answered questions from Parliament related to surveillance being conducted by the US National Security Agency (NSA). There are concerns about how UK citizens have been placed under surveillance, and whether UK authorities have had access to surveillance information from the NSA.

Civil Rights

• The United States Supreme Court decided two criminal law cases Monday morning that have very little in common, except that they both further define the contours of what jurors get to hear during the course of a criminal trial. In both cases, on issues of guilt and innocence and sentencing, the justices decided that jurors could be trusted to hear more, not less, about the evidence presented to them by lawyers and witnesses. You can decide for yourself whether these are good developments or bad ones. Whatever they are, and whatever they mean, they surely highlighted anew the Court’s ideological divide.

• Despite the efforts of Libety Republicans in the House of Representatives, an amendment to the 2014 NDAA bill that would have prohibited the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens without due process was defeated by a narrow margin today.

• When the 2012 version of the National Defense Authorization Act passed, it included the controversial provision to permit the indefinite detention of United States citizens without charges. The controversy over indefinite detention was an issue in the election and likely contributed to the defeat of some Tea Party Republicans like Allen West, whose denial of the existence of indefinite detention and support for the NDAA was seen as a betrayal of the grassroots voters who put them in office.

• The most important thing you can do – right now – is act locally. On a local level, you have a far greater chance of finding an elected politician to listen to you, who might agree with you, and who could move legislation forward.

• Radel said the amendments are designed to preserve the rights of citizens on American soil and allow them due process rather than face detention without formal charges or justification.

• A Liberty Preservation Act that would have nullified indefinite detention in Colorado died during the recent legislative session.

• Political maneuvering by a few powerful lawmakers killed HB 13-1045, despite support on both sides of the aisle. Their lack of courage left Coloradans at the mercy of federal agents should they decide to exercise indefinite detention provisions written into the NDAA.

• In it, Frauenfelder alleges that the TSA agent “humiliated and shamed my 15-year-old daughter.”

• “Here’s what happened, as my daughter described it in text messages to us,” he wrote.

• “She was at the station where the TSA checks IDs,” Frauenfelder continued. “She said the officer was ‘glaring’ at her and mumbling. She said, ‘Excuse me?’ and he said, ‘You’re only 15, COVER YOURSELF!’ in a hostile tone. She said she was shaken up by his abusive manner.”

• Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/transportation-report/tsa/305963-tsa-agent-tells-teen-to-cover-herself#ixzz2WbL0Tedr Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook

Intellectual Monopolies

Copyrights

• This seems a bit wacky. MPAA boss Chris Dodd has been named the chairperson of the “advisory council” for “free speech week” in 2013. Now, I’m assuming that most people have no clue what “Free Speech Week” is, but it’s supposed to be a “celebration” promoting the First Amendment. That’s why it strikes me as completely ridiculous that Dodd would be put in charge of it. While the MPAA was a major proponent of the First Amendment a few decades ago (back when there were efforts to try to censor movies — which saw the MPAA stepping in to create a self-censorship regime known as the movie rating system), Chris Dodd’s contribution to the MPAA has been to push SOPA, a bill whose main purpose was directly in contrast to the First Amendment and free speech by setting up a system for internet censorship.

• The Swedish co-founder of the Pirate Bay file-sharing website can be extradited to Denmark to face hacking charges, a Swedish court has ruled.

• Gottfrid Svartholm Warg is accused of involvement in one of Denmark’s biggest hacking attacks – on databases holding driving licence records, official email messages and millions of social security numbers. The attacks on the databases, all run by a Danish subsidiary of the US technology company CSC, took place between April and August last year. A 20-year-old Danish man, alleged to be Warg’s accomplice, is being held in custody in Denmark, having pleaded not guilty.

• Pirate Bay founder Gottfrid Svartholm will be extradited to Denmark where he faces several new hacking charges. In Denmark, Gottfrid is accused of downloading a large number of files, including police records, from the mainframe of IT company CSC. The timing of the extradition is still unknown since among other things the Pirate Bay founder has to await the verdict in his Swedish hacking trial which is due later this week.

• You’d think those are signs that copyright law was working (largest film industry in the world, largest employment sectors, over 1,000 films produced annually — about double Hollywood) and that this would imply that whatever level of copyright there is in India — which is supposed to be an incentive to creativity — was doing a decent job. But, no, apparently it’s all broken.

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