New NATO Chief Jens Stoltenberg Brings Russia Ties to Job

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File Photo: Jens Stoltenberg (AFP Photo)

The former Norwegian prime minister -- the first NATO secretary general from a country bordering Russia -- is known for his good relations with President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

During his decade in power, the two countries signed milestone agreements on the delineation of their frontier in the Barents Sea and on visa exemptions for their border populations.

An economist by training, the former Labour Party head has never shown any particular fondness for defence or security matters.

But his experience has left him with a strong international network and honed his skills as a cross-border negotiator, both of which could prove essential.

The 55-year-old will take office on Wednesday, at a moment in history when NATO's face-off with Russia over Ukraine has sparked tensions not seen since the collapse of the Soviet bloc.

"It's very hard to anticipate how he will behave in this position regarding his rather positive past with Moscow," said Vivien Pertusot at the French Institute of International Relations in Brussels.

"He's been extremely silent these last months, since his appointment became public. Will he follow the firm steps of (his Danish predecessor Anders Fogh) Rasmussen or will he try to become a soothing mediator?"

Despite unrest in several countries of interest to NATO, including Ukraine, Syria, Libya and Afghanistan, Stoltenberg has remained tight-lipped.

The only hint he has given as to his stance was when he told Norwegian news agency NTB on September 23 that "continuing as before (with Russia) is not an option".

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New NATO Chief Jens Stoltenberg Brings Russia Ties to Job

Law enforcement and the NSA are worried about iPhone security

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Sept. 27 (UPI) -- The new iPhone has encryption technology that will make it very difficult for government agencies to access its information. Emails, your address book, your images and more will be encrypted to the point that the NSA and other law enforcement agencies will have a very hard time accessing that information, according to the New York Times. The new iPhone 6 uses an algorithm that makes it so even if Apple turned your information over to authorities, the information they received would essentially be nonsense until they spent significant time trying to decrypt it. Apple claims it will not retain the unique algorithm that can help break the code for each specific phone.

The director of the FBI, James Comey, said in a press conference that this kind of technology will let people "hold themselves beyond the law." He claims that having such elevated privacy protections could hinder investigations related to kidnappings and more. Besides the new iPhone, any smart phone user can download apps to protect their information from being seen. Many users across the globe use virtual private network apps that make it so their internet use cannot be monitored. The NSA, FBI and other agencies worry that these kinds of protections will become very popular soon and make it difficult for them to do their jobs.

2014 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

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Law enforcement and the NSA are worried about iPhone security

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Second Amendment Meant Musket Rifle–That was "The Right To Bear Arms" – Video

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Second Amendment Meant Musket Rifle--That was "The Right To Bear Arms"
I #39;ve never heard over all the years Of NRA BULLSHIT, that the second amendment of the constitution is referring to A MUSKET RIFLE. If the Founding Fathers kn...

By: Sean McCoy

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Second Amendment Meant Musket Rifle--That was "The Right To Bear Arms" - Video

Volokh Conspiracy: A rare Second Amendment exemption from federal ban on felons possessing guns

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In D.C. v. Heller, the Supreme Court stated that (emphasis added, citations omitted, as usual),

Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. For example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues. Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.

[Footnote: We identify these presumptively lawful regulatory measures only as examples; our list does not purport to be exhaustive.]

The question, then, is whether this presumpti[on] of validity can ever be rebutted for instance, if a persons felony conviction is many decades in the past, is for a not very serious felony, or both. Some federal courts have stated that the answer would be yes under the right circumstances. United States v. Moore, 666 F.3d 313, 320 (4th Cir. 2012); United States v. Barton, 633 F.3d 168, 174 (3d Cir. 2011); United States v. Williams, 616 F.3d 685, 693 (7th Cir. 2010); United States v. Duckett, 406 Fed. Appx. 185, 187 (9th Cir. 2010) (Ikuta, J., concurring); United States v. McCane, 573 F.3d 1037, 1049-50 (10th Cir. 2009) (Tymkovich, J., concurring). Some North Carolina state court decisions have actually set aside particular claimants state-law gun disabilities, under the North Carolina Constitutions right to bear arms provision. Britt v. State, 681 S.E.2d 320 (N.C. 2009) (holding that a nonviolent felon whose crime was long in the past regained his state constitutional right to keep and bear arms); Baysden v. State, 718 S.E.2d 699 (N.C. Ct. App. 2011) (same). But Thursdays Binderup v. Holder (E.D. Pa. Sept. 25, 2014) is, to my knowledge, the first federal court decision to actually set aside such a gun disability on Second Amendment grounds.

The court began by deciding whether Daniel Binderups conviction counts as a felony for federal felon-in-possession law, and concludes that it does. Federal felon-in-possession law actually bars gun possession by people who have state or federal convictions for any crime punishable by a year or more in prison or, if its labeled a misdemeanor by state law, by two years or more in prison. The focus isnt (solely) on the formal felony-vs.-misdemeanor label attached to a crime by state or federal law, nor on the actual sentence for the crime, but on the maximum sentence authorized for the crime (or so the Binderup court held, consistently with other cases). The crime in this case corruption of minors is labeled by Pennsylvania as a first-degree misdemeanor, which means it carries a maximum sentence of five years. It must therefore be treated, the court held, as a felony for purposes of the federal felon-in-possession statute.

But then, the court asked whether the Second Amendment nonetheless preempts federal felon-in-possession law in this particular case. In Barton, one of the cases cited above, the Third Circuit the federal appellate court that sets binding federal precedent for Pennsylvania and some other jurisdictions wrote:

To raise a successful as-applied challenge, [a defendant] must present facts about himself and his background that distinguish his circumstances from those of persons historically barred from Second Amendment protections. For instance, a felon convicted of a minor, non-violent crime might show that he is no more dangerous than a typical law-abiding citizen. Similarly, a court might find that a felon whose crime of conviction is decades-old poses no continuing threat to society. The North Carolina Supreme Court did just that in Britt v. State, 363 N.C. 546 (2009), finding that a felon convicted in 1979 of one count of possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute had a constitutional right to keep and bear arms, at least as that right is understood under the North Carolina Constitution.

And Binderup, the court held, did present such facts about himself and his background. His only conviction was nearly 17 years before. It stemmed from a nonviolent incident a consensual sexual relationship Binderup had with a 17-year-old employee. Pennsylvania law does not even treat the offense as a statutory rape; the formal age of consent in Pennsylvania (as in most other states) is 16, and sexual conduct by an adult with a 16- or 17-year-old is treated as consensual, though bad for a the minor and therefore the crime of corruption of minors. The statistics presented by the government, showing that people with criminal convictions even nonviolent ones are likely to commit other crimes arent probative given the nature of the crime, how long ago the crime was, and Binderups current age (59). For these reasons, the court held,

[P]laintiff has demonstrated that, if allowed to keep and bear arms in his home for purposes of self-defense, he would present no more threat to the community that the average law-abiding citizen.

And because of this, the presumption that theres no Second Amendment problem with barring felons from possessing guns, the court held, has been rebutted.

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Volokh Conspiracy: A rare Second Amendment exemption from federal ban on felons possessing guns

High School Students first amendment rights infringed at Wayzata High School. – Video

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High School Students first amendment rights infringed at Wayzata High School.
It #39;s not a dress code violation, but roughly a dozen boys at Wayzata High School are being told they can #39;t wear overalls anymore -- and it #39;s actually part of a bigger effort to get rid of a...

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High School Students first amendment rights infringed at Wayzata High School. - Video

Ambrose: 54 Democrats have lost their minds

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Published: Sunday, September 28, 2014 at 3:15 a.m. Last Modified: Friday, September 26, 2014 at 3:53 p.m.

By recently voicing full-hearted approval of a bill eviscerating the First Amendment guarantee of free speech, 54 Senate Democrats showed themselves to be among the most extreme, irresponsible, self-serving and historically ignorant establishment politicians of this era.

If they should actually get their way and they conceivably could short of voter outrage we could someday see a once strapping American spirit hopelessly hobbled when imperiousness comes its way.

It will never happen, say many who apparently haven't noticed what I've noticed in my lifetime, namely that almost every significant, broad political or cultural change was once something that would never happen.

No, it will not happen soon, and there are major hurdles, such as the need for supermajorities in Congress prior to ratification by states. But 54 Democrats getting behind a failed resolution in a party-line vote is hardly a timid start, and the amendment has much more going for it: fear of billionaire, special-interest fat cats, a public seemingly susceptible to cries of crisis and victimhood, and great numbers of pundits and academics who share these worries.

Some of us would insist in return that government should stay out of the way of our discourse. We would maintain that democracy entails the assumption that citizens themselves are the ones charged with evaluating what they hear, and we would add there's always an answer when politicians sell their souls: Throw the rascals out.

Of course, such reasoning carries something on the order of no weight at all with members of Congress forever crafting campaign finance laws supposedly aimed at ending the corruption of special interests buying political favors.

Such things are hard to test, but some say the laws have accomplished no such end. What they have done instead, some will tell you, is suppress nonprofit corporations concerned strictly with issues while assisting hugely advantaged incumbents by limiting funds campaign challengers can come up with.

The First Amendment is not foggy on any of this. It bluntly says Congress shall pass no law abridging free speech. These campaign laws clearly did, and in 2010 the Supreme Court looked at a case in which a group was being denied the right to criticize Hillary Clinton.

The organization had made a Clinton movie, wanted to advertise it on TV and pay to have it shown close to an election. Campaign law said no. The Supreme Court, figuring out this was no different in kind from banning a book, continued a prohibition against corporations contributing to candidates, but also ruled that they could speak out by other means.

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Ambrose: 54 Democrats have lost their minds