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Bitcoin Association and Cambridge Partner Over Bitcoin SV – Live Bitcoin News

Posted on October 12, 2019 by Danzig

The Bitcoin Association has joined hands with the Cambridge University Meta Net Society to sponsor a new study program that will allow students to learn about bitcoin SV (BSV).

Bitcoin SV has been something of a controversial coin since it first emerged roughly one year ago. First off, its a product invented by Australian bitcoin developer Craig Wright, who seems to have mustered up just as many enemies as he has fans. In addition, bitcoin SV is the child of bitcoin cash and resulted from the bitcoin cash hard fork that occurred around November of 2018.

Sadly, this hard fork has garnered a rather harsh reputation in the previous months, as many blame it for the sudden bitcoin crash that ultimately occurred a few weeks after it came to be. Bitcoin had spent much of the summer of 2018 trading at the $6,000 range, but the hard fork ultimately led to a massive drop in its price, and by the time Thanksgiving rolled around, bitcoin was trading in the mid-$3,000 range. It took approximately five months for the currency to show any signs of recovery.

Still, bitcoin SV appears to have garnered a few followers along the way, and the Bitcoin Association seems to be one of them. The group is planning to host events, meetups and conferences regarding bitcoin SV to help students better understand the properties of cryptocurrency and prepare them for careers in both crypto and blockchain.

Robin Kohze president of the Cambridge Meta Net Society explains:

Cambridge is traditionally a place to bring the bright and creative together to explore daring ideas and challenge the status quo. We thank the Bitcoin Association for its financial support, enabling us to host 22 events this academic year to teach and support a new generation of bitcoin developers that focus on real world utility applications.

The organization has already announced the first two speakers for the year: bitcoin SV creator Craig Wright himself, and Jimmy Nguyen, the president of the Bitcoin Association. Both will be featured at an event taking place on October 17.

Nguyen comments:

As bitcoins true power is finally being unlocked in bitcoin SV, we are thrilled to support bright, daring minds at Cambridge University and help them learn how to build the meta net. Their work will contribute to a future internet that truly rewards users for their data, creates monetary value in user online activity, and incentivizes higher quality content all only possible on BSV.

The Bitcoin Association supports bitcoin SV as the primary currency of the industry, stating it is exactly how Satoshi Nakamoto originally envisioned bitcoin to work. It says that the BSV blockchain is the only one in existence that appropriately scales and has robust utility.

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Bitcoin Association and Cambridge Partner Over Bitcoin SV - Live Bitcoin News

Analyzing the Bitcoin Phenomenon – ChartAttack

Posted on October 12, 2019 by Danzig

The popularity of Bitcoin has been increasing rapidly. It seems that the amount of people who become supporters of this cryptocurrency, or invest in it, is becoming bigger on a daily basis. However, the number of skeptical people has been increasing accordingly. Even though the story about Bitcoin provides many interesting and brilliant ideas, there are some things (like its mysterious creator, criticism regarding the unstable price, or the negative campaign in the media) which lead people to believe that the whole thing simply isnt worth considering.

The following article will try to analyze this phenomenon. Therefore, it will provide possible answers to questions such as:

The simple definition states that it is a digital and global money system currency. Furthermore, through this currency people use Internet in order to either receive or send money. The transaction can occur without the revealing of the true identity. The basis of the whole system is cryptography.

Created in 2009, it started to attract a great deal of attention, primarily because the inventor was unknown. All that was familiar about the creator of Bitcoin, was his/her name Satoshi Nakamoto. It was also speculated that this person doesnt even exist, and that the name is a pseudonym for a group of people. Therefore, who Satoshi Nakamoto really is, remains unknown to this day.

The opinions on this topic are divided. While some are passionately following the daily status of Bitcoin, others are completely rejecting it. Regardless of the strong affection or equally strong criticism, people seem to be highly engaged in the story. Why is it so?

Followed by a strong campaign, the new money system currency managed to shake the public opinion due to the modern and somewhat revolutionary ideas it proposed. Furthermore, the core of this system is related to the ideas which can potentially change the whole financial system we know today. As suggested on BitcoinTrader No banks, no fees, no inflation, the traditional banking system may not exist in the future.

It can be observed that people seem so engaged in this system due to the revolutionary and game-changing ideas it proposes.

The fact is that Bitcoin has reached a huge level of popularity, which led to it becoming a worldwide phenomenon. Since 2012, its presence in the media has been more and more prominent, and it doesnt seem to stop anytime soon. Not only is it popular among the consumers, but it is also used by companies. Therefore, it can be concluded that the Bitcoin phenomenon, other than its creator and original idea, has been influenced by numerous factors such as the consumers, media, excellent campaign, etc.

Analyzing the Bitcoin Phenomenon - ChartAttack

Latest cryptocurrency news and prices, 09 October 2019 – The South African

Posted on October 12, 2019 by Danzig

Bitcoins price continues to hold onto to the $8,000 support area, while the top 20 cryptocurrencies experienced another day of mixed signals. Here are your latest cryptocurrency news and prices.

Close to 7% of the entire circulating supply of Bitcoin (BTC) is held in the wallets of eight major cryptocurrency exchanges as per data from The Token Analyst, a popular crypto-Twitter commentator.

Alipay Claps Back at Binance, Reaffirms Ban on Bitcoin & Other Cryptocurrencies – BlockPublisher

Posted on October 12, 2019 by Danzig

Alipay, the digital arm of the famous Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, is the latest to declare an outright ban on transactions related to Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies.

Based in China, Alipay is a third-party mobile and online payment platform and since its establishment back in 2004, it has managed to become one of the most popular financial services companies. The platforms success was granted considering it is a part of the Alibaba ecosystem, the multinational conglomerate company that has managed to capture the market well beyond the Chinese border.

On October 11th, in a series of tweets, Alipay announced its anti-crypto stance loud and clear. In the Twitter thread the financial services platform warned its users that the company keeps a close eye on over-the-counter transactions in order to detect any irregular behavior and to ensure compliance with relevant regulations

If any transactions are identified as being related to bitcoin or other virtual currencies, @Alipay immediately stops the relevant payment services

Cryptocurrencies have come a long way since Satoshi Nakamoto launched the first decentralized cryptocurrency, Bitcoin back in 2009. However, they havent been entirely accepted by several regulatory authorities and governments, China being one of them. The country declared war with the crypto ecosystem back in 2017 when it enforced a blanket ban on all initial coin offerings (ICOs), crypto trading and exchange operations as well.

READ ALSO:Bitcoin Ransomware Attackers Tasted their Own Medicine

Considering the facts that China is at odds with the crypto ecosystem and that Alipay is a Chinese platform, the question arises what fueled such reports in the first place that the platform had to publicly denounce cryptocurrencies.

Did it spring out of some FinTech gossip or a simple word on the street? Quite the contrary, it can be charted back to one of the most popular cryptocurrency exchange platforms of the industry, Binance.

The exchange platform, in a recent attempt to spread crypto adoption and to bring in more revenue from Chinese consumers, it supposedly added support for two new fiat on-ramps, through popular messenger service WeChat, and through payment platform Alipay.

According to reports on October 9th, the platform announced the launch of a P2P crypto trading service, with support for trading BTC, ETH and USDT against CNY (Chinese Yuan). Additionally, the new payment options will be accessible on the Binance mobile app. The rumors started the moment Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) victoriously unveiled the news on Twitter.

READ ALSO:Alleged Hack in a Blockchain Voting App, Was Blockchain the Culprit?

However, it seems that Alipay was not onboard and strongly rebuked the exchange giant for attempting to implement it as a fiat on-ramp, in an all caps NO on twitter, a virtual slap on the face of the crypto spheres largest exchange platform.

READ ALSO:Zuckerberg Vs Congress 2.0 Testifying for Project Libra

Following the Twitter thread, Alipay also went on to share an official statement on its Weibo account. Crypto venture capitalist Dovey Wan took a snapshot of the platforms announcement and translating it in her tweet that read:

Alipays rather harsh response to Binance might be because of the pressure from the Chinese government. Reports claim that even local police is taking various actions against crypto and Bitcoin transactions, it is highly likely that the platform did not want be caught in the crossfire, which could hurt its business in the end.

Be that as it may, Alipay did publicly clap back at Binance, clearly leaving CZ slightly ruffled and he tweeted back an explanation claiming that the announcement got lost in translation, which blew way out of proportion. His clarification tweet read:

Some confusion by some news outlets.@Binanceis not working directly with WeChat or Alipay. However, users are able to use them in P2P transactions for payment.

It was a tough day for Binance, as soon after being torched by Alipay, WeChat joined in. The Chinese multi-purpose messaging, social media and mobile payment app, reaffirmed their stringent position on cryptocurrencies.

WeChat will never support cryptocurrencies trading, and has never integrated with any crypto merchant We welcome any whistle blower to report such behavior.

This whole debacle if anything, reaffirms Chinas stance on cryptocurrencies and their acceptance. A while ago the crypto community was expecting that the Peoples Bank of China will launch its own central bank digital currency (CBDC). But the bank put those expectations to bed denying that the country is ready to roll out the new financial asset, and it will not be ready for it any time soon by the looks of it.

READ ALSO:NBAs Sacramento Kings To Launch its Own Fan Token

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Alipay Claps Back at Binance, Reaffirms Ban on Bitcoin & Other Cryptocurrencies - BlockPublisher

Huge Demand of Cryonics Technology Market 2019 Predictable to Witness Sustainable Evolution Over 2024 Including Leading Vendors- Praxair, Cellulis,…

Posted on October 12, 2019 by Danzig

The Alcor Life Extension Foundation is the world leader incryonics,cryonicsresearch, andcryonics technology.Cryonicsis the practice of using ultra-cold temperature to preserve a human body with the intent of restoring good health when thetechnologybecomes available to do.

The Cryonics Technology Market to raise in terms of revenues and CAGR values during the forecast period 2019-2024

The report, titled Cryonics Technology Market defines and briefs readers about its products, applications, and specifications. The research lists key companies operating in the global market and also highlights the key changing trends adopted by the companies to maintain their dominance. By using SWOT analysis and Porters five force analysis tools, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of key companies are all mentioned in the report. All leading players in this global market are profiled with details such as product types, business overview, sales, manufacturing base, competitors, applications, and specifications.

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Top Key Players of Cryonics Technology Market: Praxair, Cellulis, Cryologics, Cryotherm, KrioRus, VWR, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Custom Biogenic Systems, Oregon Cryonics, Alcor Life Extension Foundation, Osiris Cryonics, Sigma-Aldrich

The Research Corporation report focuses on the Cryonics Technology Market provides the analysis report includes the drivers and restraints of the market space along with data regarding the innovative progress in the field. Moreover, it explains the essential constituents to gain stability and maintain a persistent evolution in this industry. It elaborates on the variety of techniques that are implemented by the present key players and sheds light upon the amendments required to suit the developments in the market.

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The region segments of Cryonics Technology Market are: United States, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, India, Central & South America.

By Market Product: Slow freezing, Vitrification, Ultra-rapidBy Application: Animal husbandry, Fishery science, Medical science, Preservation of microbiology culture, Conserving plant biodiversity

In This Study, The Years Considered To Estimate The Size Of Cryonics Technology Market Are As Follows:

Table of Content:

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About Us

The Research Corporation symbolizes current market trends in the global industry. Our mastery in the field of market insights and analysis makes our company an ideal platform for clients seeking pioneering research in the lucrative global market fields.

At The Research Corporation we work diligently on delivering prudent market insights with sound market intelligence; with that we take pride in delivering comprehensive industry insights based on the market, market competitors, products and global customers. Through our erudite market approach, The Research Corporation has become synonymous to delivering best product service.

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Huge Demand of Cryonics Technology Market 2019 Predictable to Witness Sustainable Evolution Over 2024 Including Leading Vendors- Praxair, Cellulis,...

Cryonics Technology Market Strategic New Technology Advancements and Future Outlook – TheLoop21

Posted on October 12, 2019 by Danzig

New York, NY,Oct 07, 2019 (WiredRelease):Market.us offers a 10-year forecast for the Global Cryonics Technology Market from 2019 to 2029. The report brings about the long-term and all-encompassing study of the Cryonics Technology Market with all its important factors that might have a real impact on market growth. This research report delivers a complete evaluation of the global cryonics technology industry covering scope, dynamics, potential, growth factors, Competitive Perspective, retrains and limitations in the global market. The report is designed to help clients, officials, Cryonics Technology industry companies, investors and researchers to find out the overall market size, industry associations, top industry players, top products, etc.

The investigators also have investigated drawbacks with on-going cryonics technology trends and the convenience which are devoting to the heightened growth of the market. Worldwide Cryonics Technology market research report provides the context of this competitive landscape of market over the globe. The report offers circumstances that arise from the study of the focused market. Also, it focuses on innovative trends, shares, cost, and CAGR value by cryonics technology industry experts to keep a consistent investigation.

Get The Sample Copy of Global Cryonics Technology Market Report 2019 (Use Company eMail ID to Get Higher Priority) at:https://market.us/report/cryonics-technology-market/request-sample/

The main aim of this report is to provide up-to-date information relating to the cryonics technology market and also discover all the opportunities for enlargement in the market. The report offers a comprehensive study on industry size, shares, demand & supply analysis, sales volume and value analysis of various firms along with segmentation analysis related to significant geographies. The report provides market synopsis, market definition and summary of the cryonics technology market which comprises market dynamics entailing restraints, expansion drivers, trends and opportunities in the market trailed by estimate analysis and value chain analysis.

The report has been distinguished into key segments by product type, application, Key Players and region.

Market segmentation by Type

Slow freezingVitrificationUltra-rapid

Market segmentation by Application

Animal husbandryFishery scienceMedical sciencePreservation of microbiology cultureConserving plant biodiversity

Market segmentation by Key Players

PraxairCellulisCryologicsCryothermKrioRusVWRThermo Fisher ScientificCustom Biogenic SystemsOregon CryonicsAlcor Life Extension FoundationOsiris CryonicsSigma-AldrichSouthern Cryonics

Market segmentation by Key Region

North America

Europe

Asia Pacific

Latin America

Middle East and Africa

Key questions included in the GlobalCryonics Technology Market:

1. What will be the market growth rate and also the market size by 2029?

2. What will be the factors driving the cryonics technologymarket?

3. What will be the latest market trends influencing growth?

4. What would be the cryonics technology retrains, limitations and challenges for development?

5. Who are the top vendors of the market?

6. Which would be cryonics technologyindustry opportunities and challenges faced with most vendors in the industry?

7. What are the valuables affecting the cryonics technologymarket share of North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East and Africa?

8. What will be the result of this market SWOT analysis?

DoAn Inquiry Before Acquiring the report (Use Corporate Details Only):https://market.us/report/cryonics-technology-market/#inquiry

Objectives of Information Mining:

1. To study and evaluate the global cryonics technologymarket size by key regions, product type and application, historic data from 2012 to 2017 and forecast to 2029.

2. To learn the structure of cryonics technologymarket by determining its various subsegments.

3. Focuses on the key global cryonics technologyplayers to define, illustrate and analyze the value, market share, competition landscape, SWOT analysis and development plan of action in the next few years.

4. To analyze the cryonics technologywith respect to individual future prospects, growth trends and their input to the total market.

5. To provide detailed information about the important factors affecting the growth of the market(technological advancement, esteem and volume, industry size, shares, demand & supply analysis).

Some of the Major Points of TOC covers:

Chapter 1: Techniques & Scope

1.1 Definition and forecast parameters

1.2 Methodology and forecast parameters

1.3 Information Sources

Chapter 2: Latest Trends Summary

2.1 Regional trends

2.2 Product trends

2.3 End-use trends

2.4 Business trends

Chapter 3: Cryonics Technology Industry Insights

3.1 Industry fragmentation

3.2 Industry landscape

3.3 Vendor matrix

3.4 Technological and innovative landscape

Chapter 4: Cryonics Technology Market, By Region

4.1 North America region countries

4.1. North America

4.1.1 US

4.1.2 Canada

4.1.3 Mexico

4.2. Europe

4.2.1 Germany

4.2.2 France

4.2.3 UK

4.2.4 Russia

4.2.5 Italy

4.2.6 Rest of Europe

4.3 Asia-Pacific

4.3.1 China

4.3.2 Japan

4.3.3 Korea

4.3.4 India

4.3.5 Rest of Asia

4.4 Latin America

4.4.1 Brazil

4.4.2 Argentina

4.4.3 Rest of Latin America

4.5 The Middle East and Africa

4.5.1 GCC

4.5.2 South Africa

4.5.3 Israel

4.5.4 Rest of MEA

Chapter 5: Company Profiles(Praxair, Cellulis, Cryologics, Cryotherm, KrioRus, VWR, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Custom Biogenic Systems, Oregon Cryonics, Alcor Life Extension Foundation, Osiris Cryonics, Sigma-Aldrich, Southern Cryonics)

5.1 Company Overview

5.2 Financial elements

5.3 Product Landscape

5.4 SWOT Analysis

5.5Systematic Outlook

Chapter 6:Assumptions and Acronyms

Chapter 7:Research Methodology

Chapter 8:Contact

To getfull details ofCryonics TechnologyMarket Research Report, click the link here:https://market.us/report/cryonics-technology-market/

Inthe end, Global Cryonics Technology Market in terms of investment capability in numerous segments of the market and describes the feasibleness of explained to achieve success in the future. The core categorization of the global market analyzes product values, SMEs and large firms. Furthermore, the Cryonics Technology report consists of information for every major player in the industry associated with current company profiles, sales costs, revenue, gross margins, volume, and product specifications.

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Cryonics Technology Market Strategic New Technology Advancements and Future Outlook - TheLoop21

A Novel That Riffs on Sex Dolls, Mary Shelley and Brexit – The New York Times

Posted on October 12, 2019 by Danzig

[ To me, a proper dictionary is a book of spells, Winterson said in her recent By the Book interview. ]

Ry is also falling for a version of Marys creation: Dr. Victor Stein, a TED-talking tech disrupter with a God complex and a keen fashion sense. Thanks to cryonics, in which Ry once dabbled, the grisly horror of reanimating a body is now entirely feasible, but Stein wants to go further into the realms of transhumanism and beyond: The world I imagine, the world A.I. will make possible, will not be a world of labels and that includes binaries like male and female, black and white, rich and poor. It sounds like a utopia, but anyone who has even a passing acquaintance with Westworld, HAL 9000 and Philip K. Dick will know that this is dangerous territory. Ry has serious concerns about these visionary goals, even while empathizing with them: I am part of a small group of transgender medical professionals. Some of us are transhuman enthusiasts too. That isnt surprising; we feel or have felt that were in the wrong body. We can understand the feeling that anybody is the wrong body.

This understanding aside, at times, its difficult to figure out why self-aware Ry falls so hard for Stein (although, admittedly, they have great sex). For someone whose eventual goal is to be free of the meat that makes up the body, he has an initial, almost prurient fascination with Rys choice to identify as hybrid, and is repeatedly at pains to assure Ry hes not gay (another sly nod to the contemporary discourse around gender and sexual identity). Occasionally, he comes across as little more than a TED Talk himself, spouting chunks of research and philosophical meanderings that, while fascinating, stall the novel. Its as if Winterson is at pains to remind us that issues around gender, notions of the self and fears of automatons supplanting human agency are not new concerns theyre as old as Ovids Metamorphoses. But these forays into didacticism are balanced with gleeful, highly imaginative set pieces rich with black humor: Dr. Steins lab lurks, Young Frankenstein-style, in decommissioned tunnels under Manchester, complete with its own pub. Severed, reanimated hands skitter, Addams Family-like, through the bowels of the lab, where Ron has been invited to create a Christian Companion sex doll for the evangelical market.

[ Peek inside Wintersons writing studio. ]

Weaving through all of this is the heart of the novel the primary love story promised on the cover, an uneasy, love-hate relationship between the author and her creation. As the Inventor of Dreams, Mary Shelley looses her novel into the world and mourns the loss of her lover and her children, were invited to consider what happens when a creation outlives and surpasses its creator (Yet, suppose my story has a life of its own?). The original novel has achieved immortality, and Wintersons Mary can never shake off the specter of her creation and the inventions it inspires. In parallel, and against their better judgment, Ry provides Stein with body parts snaffled from the hospital, laying them at his feet like a cat. They include a cryogenically frozen head in a flask that Polly D. hilariously dubs the iHead and that Stein hopes will be his key to the Singularity the moment A.I. changes the way we live, forever. Rys gifts will possibly give birth to another form of immortality the queasy notion of the consciousness living forever, disembodied, in the cloud and who knows where that will lead the human race?

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A Novel That Riffs on Sex Dolls, Mary Shelley and Brexit - The New York Times

FISA Court Finds The FBI Is Still Violating The Fourth Amendment With Its Abuse Of NSA Collections – Techdirt

Posted on October 12, 2019 by Danzig

from the no-surprises-here dept

The NSA isn't the only agency to abuse its surveillance powers. The FBI's ability to access unminimized data harvested by the NSA has resulted in abuse after abuse, as the FBI loves to use the massive data haul to perform "backdoor searches" of its domestic targets.

This concern has been raised repeatedly, most notably by Sen. Ron Wyden, who has been calling out surveillance abuses for years -- specifically calling out these backdoor searches and hinting (strongly) that they are much more prevalent than most people believed. Nothing much has been done about it, other than multiple federal agencies suggesting they too should be put on the ever-growing list of entities with access to the NSA's multiple collections.

A FISA Court opinion released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) details even more abuse of the NSA's Section 702 collections by the FBI. When you give an agency the power to dig into massive amounts of data with minimal oversight, abuses will happen. But this goes further than "inadvertent" collections or erroneous access of unminimized data. This ruling [PDF] -- first reported on by the Wall Street Journal -- shows the FBI treats sensitive collections as its personal playground.

The October 2018 court ruling identifies improper searches of raw intelligence databases by the bureau in 2017 and 2018 that were deemed problematic in part because of their breadth, which sometimes involved queries related to thousands or tens of thousands of pieces of data, such as emails or telephone numbers. In one case, the ruling suggested, the FBI was using the intelligence information to vet its personnel and cooperating sources. Federal law requires that the database only be searched by the FBI as part of seeking evidence of a crime or for foreign-intelligence information.

In other instances, the court ruled that the database had been improperly used by individuals. In one case, an FBI contractor ran a query of an intelligence databasesearching information on himself, other FBI personnel and his relatives, the court revealed.

The partially-redacted, 138-page opinion makes it clear the FBI has frequently abused its access to the NSA's surveillance collections, which include emails, phone numbers, and a host of other digital detritus. Using collections authorized only to be used for national security purposes to perform security reviews of FBI personnel is obviously contrary to the intention of the program -- a purpose that is always reiterated loudly any time someone suggests surveillance should be curtailed. This opinion vindicates Wyden's incessant demands the FBI come clean about its backdoor searches. Wyden argued the FBI abused this power frequently. This opinion makes it clear the FBI abuses its "backdoor" access to domestic data constantly.

The weirdest thing is the Trump DOJ argued in court the program the FBI abused cannot be modified without harming the security of the nation. Yep, the administration that claims the "Deep State" is out to get it showed up in court to argue the Deep State should not have its power curtailed.

The court rejected this faulty premise. It also pointed out how severely any misuse of this power contains the potential to harm dozens, if not thousands, of people. Considering the breadth of the collection, running a single improper search returns hundreds, if not thousands, of records the FBI has no business retrieving. Using the database to vet employees or perform natsec vanity searches does not comply with the restrictions on the FBI's searches, which are only supposed to return data related to criminal activity (and then only certain crimes) and/or foreign intelligence information.

As usual, Sen. Ron Wyden was the first to go on record criticizing the FBI and its backdoor searches following the release of the FISA opinion.

Last year, when Congress reauthorized Section 702 of FISA, it accepted the FBI's outright refusal to account for all its warrantless backdoor searches of Americans. Today's release demonstrates how baseless the FBI's position was and highlights Congress' constitutional obligation to act independently and strengthen the checks and balances on government surveillance. The information released today also reveals serious abuses in the FB's backdoor searches, underscoring the need for the government to seek a warrant before searching through mountains of private data on Americans. Finally, I am concerned that the government has redacted information in these releases that the public deserves to know.

Wyden makes good points. And they're points he's made for years. Unfortunately, the FBI continues to do the stuff it shouldn't and the public has to read between the redactions in an (often vain) attempt to see what's being done to them in the name of "national security."

The abuses will continue until Congress or the FISA Court decide they've seen enough. While both entities have chastised agencies with access to NSA collections, neither have taken any action that will head off future misuse of surveillance databases in the future. We're a reactionary nation when it comes to surveillance abuse and that's just not going to prevent future abuses. But that's the nature of the national security beast. No one's allowed to know what's going on until after everything bad has happened.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, backdoor searches, fbi, fisa court, fisc, nsa, odni, ron wyden, vanity searches

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FISA Court Finds The FBI Is Still Violating The Fourth Amendment With Its Abuse Of NSA Collections - Techdirt

Column: Facebook May Be the Solution To Guarantee Citizens’ Liberty – Southern Pines Pilot

Posted on October 12, 2019 by Danzig

As the fog of Donald Trump obscures our political visibility, there are issues much more important than whether the president called Ukraine to obtain campaign dirt on Joe Biden.

Such issues are even more important than determining whether the dirt the president found forms evidence of a crime committed by Biden.

In the end, the fate of the former vice president and our current president are only important to a few pundits and Mitt Romney. It is more important to consider that the U.S. Justice Department and the global government gang are in a battle with Facebook to keep worldwide intelligence services in control of our private communications.

Facebook wants to technologically nullify the warrantless searches of electronic messaging heretofore open to government spy machines. Facebook wants to begin end-to-end encryption of such messages. The system would scramble all conversations so that they could be read only by the computer of the sender and the computer of the intended receiver. Not even Facebook would have the key.

In order to read such a message, a government official would need to go to court and obtain a warrant to seize hardware. Essentially, government would have to obey the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which forbids warrantless searches without an oath attesting to probable cause.

Last week, in a letter from the U.S. attorney general and the home secretaries of the U.K. and Australia, there was an urgent plea to stop the project. They insisted that intelligence services be issued a back door key to read our mail. These agencies want government collection of intelligence to trump citizens right to privacy.

To understand what is at stake, we actually need to bring Edward Snowden back from Russia. I would prefer to first honor him with a pardon, a medal and a ticker tape parade, in that order. Then his presence would enlighten the debate.

In 2013, Snowden revealed numerous global intelligence surveillance programs run by the U.S. National Security Agency and the Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance, a consortium of the U.S., Canada, New Zealand, The United Kingdom and Australia. These programs claimed access to almost all electronic communications worldwide. When Snowden revealed it, he was charged with espionage.

The intelligence services want us to believe that they only use such access for good. They want us to believe that without the power to read our private communications, terrorists will invade and more towers will come crashing down. Since the passage of the Patriot Act almost a generation ago, we believed them.

But these services did not use their powers for good. The most significant use of such power was a plot to spy on Donald Trump and his political campaign. Within Americas deep state, some think these powers are used to surveil the Trump administration.

For both Trump and the general public, lack of privacy creates an omnipresent state of surveillance, an existence incompatible with liberty.

I sympathize with those who want government to read the emails of drug dealers or airplane hijackers. Even James Madison, the probable author of our Fourth Amendment, understood that giving the good guys the right to feel secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects would pose an obstacle for the state.

But the 1778 anti-Federalist who wrote under the pseudonym Federal Farmer (probably Richard Henry Lee) in support of our Bill of Rights stated clearly that hasty and unreasonable (searches) not based on a warrant on oath and issued with due caution violate the rights of a free people.

It is time that we evolve from a nation in constant fear of attack.

In truth, our nation has not experienced a significant foreign invasion since the British burned Washington during the War of 1812. That is not to say we should be unconcerned about the possibility of an isolated terrorist attack; but neither should we give up our right to keep our private communications private. Our government demonstrates daily that it cannot be trusted with such authority. Such a potential for tyranny has been understood for centuries.

Hopefully, Facebook will restore its image as the champion of free communications by offering hack-proof encryption of our email. It will make government interception of privacy more difficult and will restore our right to be secure in our persons, houses, papers, and effects.

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Column: Facebook May Be the Solution To Guarantee Citizens' Liberty - Southern Pines Pilot

Editorial: FBI violates the Constitution – Opinion – The Providence Journal

Posted on October 12, 2019 by Danzig

After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, when it seemed only a matter of time that weapons of mass destruction would kill thousands more Americans, Congress moved to make it possible to spy on people through warrants issued by a secret court.

Officials repeatedly assured Congress and the American people that this system would not be exploited for improper purposes and that sufficient checks were in place to protect civil liberties.

Unfortunately, they were wrong.

Last week, the intelligence community disclosed a finding by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

The court ruled that, in 2017 and 2018, the Federal Bureau of Investigation violated Americans Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches by the government.

As The Wall Street Journal reported in a front-page story (FBIs Use of Database Violated Privacy Rights, Secret Court Ruled, Oct. 9), the FBI searched a database of raw intelligence for information on Americans raising concerns about oversight of a spy program that operates in near total secrecy.

The FBI in 2017 and 2018 searched thousands or tens of thousands of pieces of data, such as emails or telephone numbers. In one case, an FBI contractor ran a query of an intelligence database searching information on himself, other FBI personnel and his relatives.

In the opinion released last week, U.S. District Judge James Boesberg said the FBIs procedures were not consistent with the requirements of the Fourth Amendment. That seemed to be putting it mildly.

The program was supposed to be used principally by the National Security Agency, the Journal noted, to collect certain categories of foreign intelligence from international phone calls and emails about terrorism suspects, cyber threats and other security risks. This is a proper and vital use of the information.

Indeed, the Trump administration argued against modifying the program, maintaining it was effective in stopping terrorists. But after the judges ruling, it agreed to apply new procedures that will supposedly better protect the public.

We wonder: Where are the punishments for government officials and contractors who violated Americans constitutional rights? And when is Congress going to step in and make certain there is better oversight of the program?

Justice Department officials are currently investigating whether the secret court improperly provided warrants to the Obama administration to spy, in effect, on the 2016 campaign of Donald Trump. The great danger with secret courts, of course raised before they were first put in place is that government's spying powers could be improperly used against citizens, especially for political purposes.

Our constitutional republic cannot function unless the rights of citizens are recognized and enforced. Government must not use its immense intelligence powers for improper or political purposes, something that could very quickly turn America into a banana republic. The danger of surveillance of Americans is especially acute in our age of digital information, when virtually every step taken by a citizen with a cell phone or an email account could be tracked.

Congress and our free press must make sure that government powers are not abused and that constitutional rights are rigorously enforced.

Original post:

Editorial: FBI violates the Constitution - Opinion - The Providence Journal

Supreme Court May Be Preparing to Consider Several Major Cases on Qualified Immunity – Cato Institute

Posted on October 12, 2019 by Danzig

For the last couple of years, the Cato Institute, along with other public interest groups, academics, and lower court judges from across the ideological spectrum, has been urging the Supreme Court to reconsider the doctrine of qualified immunity. This atextual, ahistorical doctrine -- which shields public officials from liability, even when they break the law -- was essentially invented out of whole cloth by the Supreme Court in 1967. And the modern version of the doctrine, in addition to being unjust and unlawful, has proven incapable of consistent, principled application in the lower courts. There is thus every reason for the Court to reconsider its precedent on this subject, as many of the Justices themselves have already suggested. And now, with several major qualified immunity cases on the horizon, it appears the Court may finally be preparing to take up the matter.

The main reason for my suspicion here has to do with recent developments in Baxter v. Bracey. This is the case where the Sixth Circuit granted qualified immunity to two officers who deployed a police dog against a suspect who had already surrendered and was sitting on the ground with his hands up. A prior case had held that it was unlawful to use a police dog without warning against an unarmed suspect laying on the ground with his hands at his sides. But despite the apparent similarity, the Sixth Circuit found this precedent insufficient to overcome qualified immunity because Baxter does not point us to any case law suggesting that raising his hands, on its own, is enough to put [the defendant] on notice that a canine apprehension was unlawful in these circumstances" (emphasis added). In other words, prior case law holding unlawful the use of police dogs against non-threatening suspects who surrendered by laying on the ground did not clearly establish that it was unlawful to deploy police dogs against non-threatening suspects who surrendered by sitting on the ground with their hands up.

The ACLU filed a cert petition on behalf of Mr. Baxter, asking the Supreme Court to consider whether "the judge-made doctrine of qualified immunity" should "be narrowed or abolished." The Cato Institute filed a brief in support of this petition, as did a vast, cross-ideological array of other public interest groups and leading scholars of qualified immunity. The petition was originally set to be considered at the Supreme Court's long conference on October 1st -- that is, the first conference of the term, where the Justices resolve a large number of petitions that were submitted over the summer recess. Emma Andersson (one of the ACLU attorneys on the case) and I wrote a joint op-ed discussing the case back in July, and Law360 recently ran a detailed story on Baxter, asking "Could A Dog Bite Bring An End To Qualified Immunity?" All of us were holding our breath as the Supreme Court prepared to start its new term...

But then, something curious happened. On September 23rd, just a week before the Baxter cert petition was set to go to conference, the Court rescheduled the case for the conference of October 11th. ("Rescheduling" means the petition will be considered at a later date, and that the Justices have yet to formally consider it -- as opposed to "relisting," which happens after a petition has already been considered at conference.) Then, on October 8th, the case was rescheduled again -- no conference date is listed on the docket yet, but the next scheduled conference would be October 18th.

Why is the Court repeatedly rescheduling Baxter? It's impossible to know for sure, of course, but I suspect the Court may be waiting to consider the case simultaneously with at least two other cert petitions which will also raise the question of whether qualified immunity should be reconsidered -- specifically, those in Zadeh v. Robinson and Corbitt v. Vickers. Zadeh is the case where the Fifth Circuit granted qualified immunity to state investigators that entered a doctor's office and, without notice and without a warrant, demanded to rifle through the medical records of 16 patients. Judge Don Willett dissented in Zadeh, arguing that the Fourth Amendment violation in this case was "clearly established," but also discussing his "broader unease with the real-world functioning of modern immunity practice." And Corbitt is the case I discussed in detail here, in which the Eleventh Circuit granted immunity to a deputy sheriff who shot a ten-year-old child lying on the ground, while repeatedly attempting to shoot a pet dog that wasnt posing any threat.

Cert petitions have yet to be filed in Zadeh or Corbitt. However, the civil rights plaintiffs in these cases are now both represented by Paul Hughes -- co-chair of the Supreme Court and Appellate Practice Group at McDermott Will & Emery -- who has filed applications for extensions of time to file a cert petition in both cases. These applications explicitly state that the petitions will raise the question of "whether the doctrine of qualified immunity should be narrowed or revisited entirely," which is essentially the exact same question in Baxter. And these applications were granted, respectively, on September 17th and September 20th -- just days before the Baxter cert petition was rescheduled! Therefore, it seems quite likely to me that Court is planning to hold Baxter until around the time that the Zadeh and Corbitt cert petitions are also filed (which will likely be in mid-November), so that it can consider all three cases together. And that in turn suggests to me that the Justices are, at the very least, seriously considering the fundamental underlying question of whether qualified immunity should be considered.

Of course, this prediction is only speculation at this point, and even if the Justices are holding Baxter for something like the reasons I've sketched out above, that's no guarantee that they'll grant the petition. But this is, in my view, a promising development, especially in light of the Court's disappointing denial of the cert petition in Doe v. Woodard (which also asked the Court to reconsider qualified immunity) at the end of the last term. Perhaps, for whatever reason, the Justices preferred Baxter et al. as the vehiclefor taking up this question. Or perhaps they've realized that this issue is simply not going away. But by the end of this term, I suspect that we'll have a much clearer sense, for better or worse, of whether the Supreme Court intends to correct the unlawful, unworkable, and unjust doctrine it has foisted upon us all.

The rest is here:

Supreme Court May Be Preparing to Consider Several Major Cases on Qualified Immunity - Cato Institute

FBI worries Facebooks privacy first policy will be a child predators dream – The Sociable

Posted on October 12, 2019 by Danzig

An incredibly sensitive subject Facebook is looking to push a privacy first policy with end-to-end encryption, but the FBI worries it will be a child predators dream.

Facebook would transform from the main provider of child exploitation tips to a dream-come-true for predators and child pornographers

On October 4 FBI Director Christopher Wray gave usa sobering insight into how complicated the idea of privacy really is when dealing with child predators online.

Acknowledging that Facebook is saving livesby employing many people to help identify child sexual abuse imagery and alert the proper authorities, Wray said that we risk falling off a cliff if Facebook goes through with its privacy first policy.

Read More:Are you really buying Facebooks privacy-focused vision? Op-ed

Most of the tips Facebook currently provides are based oncontent. With end-to-end encryption, those would dry up. Facebook itself would no longer be able to see the content of its users accounts, the FBI director said.

Facebook would transform from the main provider of child exploitation tips to a dream-come-true for predators and child pornographers.

A platform that allows them to find and connect with kids, and like-minded criminals, with little fear of consequences. A lawless space created not by the American people, or their elected officials, but by the owners of one big company, he added.

The right to privacy is essential to any republic, but with privacy comes secrecy, and with secrecy comes shady deeds done in the dark a pendulum in constant swing between privacy and tyranny.

Read More:Politicians on both sides agree big tech needs regulation, American citizens are split

Im not going to pretend to take any moral position on this issue. Crimes against children are most horrific.

But using exploited children as a pretext for the most sophisticated law enforcement agency in the world to gain access to the allegedly private data of 2.4 billion people on Facebook would be one step towards tyranny.

The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny Aesop

The FBI director added, We also have no interest in any back door, another straw man. Wethe FBI, our state and local partnerswe go through the front door. With a warrant, from a neutral judge, only after weve met the requirements of the Fourth Amendment.

Weve got to look at the concerns here more broadly, taking into account the American publics interest in the security and safety of our society, and our way of life.

I can understand director Wrays frustration. Theres a serious problem with child predators, but the FBI wants cooperation from all tech companies in helping to eradicate this atrocity online, and once again were at the intersection of freedom and security a constant struggle between the people and the government.

Bad apples ruin everything. Remedies for bad apples can be poisonous as well. The FBI has had its share of bad apples, too. Many at the top have been forcefully removed from office, and trust in the upper echelons of the agency has seriously dwindled in public opinion.

We also have no interest in any back door, another straw man. Wethe FBI, our state and local partnerswe go through the front door. With a warrant, from a neutral judge

When Wray spoke of the FBI going through the front door with a warrant from neutral judge, I believe he was trying to do PR for the agency that has been implicated in secret FISA court abuses.

And just yesterday Ars Technica ran a story called FBI misused surveillance data, spied on its own, FISA ruling finds.

Bad press aside, FBI director Wray called on all tech companies to take measures to stop child predators.

But this is not just about Facebook, he said, adding, weve got to make sure tech companiesall of themarent taking steps that will place content beyond the reach of the courts. Or to blind themselves deliberately to whats happening on their platforms, where so much child exploitation takes place.

Weve got to make sure that companies cant keep creating unfettered spaces beyond the protection of law. Because there are kids out there we havent found, and dangerous criminals we havent caught, who are already moving on to their next victims.

And to his credit the FBI director did leave the conversation open, asking industry experts for their solutions to the problem of child abuse online.

So to those out there who are resisting the need for lawful access, I would ask: Whats your solution? How do you propose to ensure that the hardworking men and women of law enforcement, sworn to protect you and your families, actually maintain lawful access to the information they need to do their jobs?

Good questions indeed. What about you, dear reader? What are your thoughts?

Link:

FBI worries Facebooks privacy first policy will be a child predators dream - The Sociable

Impeachment and analysis by Sharyl Attkisson and James Rosen (Podcast) – Sharyl Attkisson

Posted on October 12, 2019 by Danzig

You are here: Home / Podcasts / Impeachment and analysis by Sharyl Attkisson and James Rosen (Podcast)

October 11, 2019 by Sharyl Attkisson 1 Comment

For those who want to understand the Democrats effort to impeach President Trump, the controversy surrounding the whistleblower, and what it all has to do with Ukraine, this podcast is a half hour well spent.

Investigative reporter James Rosen joins Sharyl in this episode. Subscribe to Full Measure After Hours and The Sharyl Attkisson Podcast on your favorite distributor and follow on Twitter @FullMeasureAF @SharylPodcast

Fight improper government surveillance. Support Attkisson v. DOJ and FBI over the government computer intrusions of Attkissons work while she was a CBS News investigative correspondent. Visit the Attkisson Fourth Amendment Litigation Fund. Click here.

Filed Under: Podcasts Tagged With: impeachment, James Rosen, Ukraine

Emmy-Award Winning Investigative Journalist, New York Times Best Selling Author, Host of Sinclair's Full Measure

Impeachment and analysis by Sharyl Attkisson and James Rosen (Podcast) - Sharyl Attkisson

What Cars Can Teach Us About New Policing Technologies – The New York Review of Books

Posted on October 12, 2019 by Danzig

Whitney Curtis for The Washington Post via Getty ImagesA traffic stop in St. Louis, Missouri, July 25, 2017

This is not the usual story about cars and freedom: open roads, self-determination, adventure, individualism. The mass production of the automobile transformed twentieth-century America in unexpected and important ways. Foremost, and little-known, it revolutionized policing, spurring the development of police surveillance and increasing individual officers discretionary authority. Although this expansion of the states power didnt begin with discriminatory motives, the history of policing drivers makes clear that law enforcements surveillance practices havent invaded peoples privacy equally, but have reinforced existing inequalities. This is important to remember as contemporary concerns in the face of new technologies abound.

As I explain in my book Policing the Open Road (2019), modern policing developed in response to the challenge of managing all drivers. In the early 1910s, when mass-produced automobiles first appeared on streets originally intended for pedestrians, carriages, carts, and trolleys, they gave new meaning to the word traffic. If municipal officials were not dealing with the chaos of gridlock, then they were worrying about automotive speed, which posed dangers to life and limb that prompted comparisons to the recent Great War. One expert, speaking at a 1924 traffic conference at Yale University, claimed that during the nineteen months of the world war it was estimated that the loss of life by highway traffic accidents in the United States was pretty nearly twice as great as our loss of life through the war itself. According to the National Safety Council, the death toll from car accidents exploded from 4,200 in 1913 to 29,500 in 1932a 500 percent increase.

Local governments throughout the country immediately passed a long list of laws regulating the operation of motor vehicles. But they quickly ran into an enforcement problem: everybody violated traffic laws. In the 1920s and 1930s, few assumed that the police would enforce them. Before cars, when private citizens and businesses were the ones who investigated crimes committed against them, most towns and cities had small police departments that, by and large, dealt with those on the margins of society, like vagrants and drunks.

Overseeing the rest of society, the so-called law-abiding citizenry, was largely the task of voluntary associations. Churches enforced moral standards, trade groups managed business relations, civic groups instilled communal spirit, and fraternities and clubs maintained social harmony. The premise of voluntarism was that reasonable, respectable citizens would do the right thing out of a sense of decency or shame, reinforced by a watchful community. When individuals could not resolve disputes within these associations, they sued each other for tort or breach of contract. In both associational and common-law governance, the police typically did not get involved.

With the advent of the automobile, injured parties in car accidents continued to sue for tort damages. But not every act of bad or reckless driving resulted in a litigable claim, so it fell on voluntary associations to persuade drivers to obey traffic laws. Church ministers delivered sermons on Safety Sunday. Automobile clubs erected safety signs on busy intersections and helped direct traffic. The California Development Association mobilized a safety pledge drive, asking motorists to sign a certificate solemnly vowing to actively practice all safety precautions to the end that the appalling sacrifice of human life and unnecessary suffering caused by carelessness may be stopped.

Voluntarism, however, proved disastrously inadequate to the task of enforcing norms in the anonymous and rapidly developing new world of automobility. As a result, municipalities expanded their police forces to govern the streets, replacing the social scrutiny of neighbors and the community with that of individual officers. Predictably, many Americans chafed at law enforcements meddling in their freedom machines. At the same time, though, most people recognized that they needed to be policedor, rather, they wanted everybody else to be policed.

Traffic cops soon became regular patrollers on the lookout for more than traffic infractions. In a car society, auto theft became one of the most common crimes. The early decades of the automobile also overlapped with National Prohibition, and bootleggers and moonshiners preferred to move their goods under cover in trucks and cars. Officers realized that while they checked for safety violations, they could also search for alcohol and for telltale signs of a stolen car.

To keep up with these developments in police functions, courts throughout the country modified well-established laws to give officers more search powers. So, too, did the US Supreme Court in the 1925 case Carroll v.United States, which set forth the automobile exception that, to this day, allows officers to decide for themselves whether to stop and search a car without first obtaining a warrant from a judge. To justify these expansions of power and to give officers discretionary authority to inspect automobiles, courts pointed to the extensive traffic regulations that undercut drivers privacy claims. Ever since the 1920s, judicial opinions have reiterated that individuals have a lesser expectation of privacy in their cars whenever rationalizing the polices actions.

Police surveillance on the streets and highways, however, did not affect all drivers equally. Officers used their discretionary power to treat some as ordinary traffic violators and others as suspected criminals. The former were generally met with courtesy during traffic stops, while the latter were subjected to investigatory searches. Unsurprisingly, the assumptions and prejudices of individual officers informed their conduct. Although police departments didnt keep statistics on the number of traffic stops by categories like race, a wide range of sourcescourt cases, law review articles, letters to the NAACP, and even police textbooksindicate which groups tended to fall under police suspicion.

A 1963 article in the trade magazine Police listed characteristics of people who warranted special scrutiny, including lone male sitting in car and loiterers around public rest rooms, profiles that targeted gay men. The landmark 1972 case Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville, which overturned centuries-old vagrancy laws and celebrated freedom even in the seemingly mundane acts of wandering and strolling, involved two interracial couples who were arrestedapropos in the automobile agefor prowling by auto. Most citizens encounters with the police never became a legal case and would have been lost to history if organizations like the NAACP had not kept a record of their stories. In the 1950s, NAACP leaders in Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas reported a southwide pattern of arresting civil rights activists and fining them for minor traffic infractions. In 1956, the president of the Florida branch was beaten and arrested for double-parking his car in front of the local NAACP office. In an automotive society, police harassment of nonconformists, dissenters, and minorities often took place under the guise of enforcing highway safety.

By centurys end, the war on drugs blatantly relied on racial profiling on the highways, known officially by the US Drug Enforcement Agency as Operation Pipeline and, more colloquially, as Driving While Black. It is not surprising that many Fourth Amendment cases since the late 1980s involved a car stop of a minority driver for a minor traffic violation. The widespread practice of discriminatory traffic stops has not just contributed to the countrys disproportionate incarceration of black and brown people, but has also violated the dignity and rights of countless innocent citizens unjustifiably subjected to investigatory car searches.

Newer technologies have only bolstered the polices traffic surveillance capabilities. Computer-equipped patrol cars have now made it possible for officers on the road to check for outstanding warrants and revoked licenses, both of which often stem from unpaid fines or traffic tickets and disproportionately affect poor and minority citizens. A car stop on suspicion for driving with a revoked license is a common enough occurrence that a case challenging its constitutionality is before the Supreme Court this term. Once pulled over, the police, using their discretion, can continue the investigation beyond the initial traffic violation. The odor of marijuanaeasy to allege and difficult to disprove later in a court of lawhas so often been used to justify car searches that one New York judge declared that the time has come to reject the canard of marijuana emanating from nearly every vehicle subject to a traffic stop. Traffic law enforcement was originally intended to protect all citizens, but it has ultimately paved the way for discriminatory policing.

Just as the mass production of the automobile created unprecedented threats to the public sphere, new digital technologies are posing novel dangers. With constant news of data breaches, privacy violations, online harassment, and cybercrime, Americans are increasingly calling for greater regulation of the Information Superhighway, which, in turn, will require enforcement and surveillance.

Consider the proliferation of doxing, fake news, hate speech, and child porn on social media, which can undermine individual security as well as our democracy. Lawyer and sexual-privacy advocate Carrie Goldberg has criticized laws that shield tech companies from liability for what their users post. But calls for Facebook, Twitter, or Grindr to crack down on violent, offensive, and abusive content essentially amount to demands that they monitor everyone who uses their platforms. In short, our well-being depends on some intrusion into each others privacy, much as citizen-drivers realized a century ago.

Technological innovation also presents new issues regarding law enforcement that raise difficult questions about the tradeoffs between individual security and privacy. Cameras and drones that offer persistent surveillance are touted to reduce crime. DNA testing has the potential to solve cold cases. For example, in the 2012 Supreme Court case Maryland v. King, the defendant was arrested for assault, and when his DNA, collected as part of the routine booking procedure, matched a DNA sample from an unrelated, unsolved rape case from six years prior, he was convicted for that crime. During oral argument, Justice Samuel Alito remarked that the casethe first to challenge DNA collectionwas perhaps the most important criminal procedure case that this Court has heard in decades. The problem of new technologies is not just about shielding our personal information, but, more than that, about balancing the social benefits of surveillance with its threats to individual privacy.

In striking this balance, we must consider the specific harms to especially vulnerable groups that, in US history, have borne the real costs of surveillance in the name of keeping Americans safe. During the Cold War, for example, the FBIs COINTELPRO spied on and sought to neutralize dissenters from the established political order said to be a threat to American security, such as members of the Communist Party and activists in the civil rights movement, including Martin Luther King, Jr. In more recent echoes of this history, after the terrorist attacks on September 11, the police launched a surveillance program against innocent Muslim New Yorkers based solely on their religion. Some of the strategies included old-fashioned snooping, such as enlisting informants to spy on people, while others involved cameras mounted on light poles aimed at places of worship.

Big data poses another privacy concern, but these dangers do not affect us equally. The life-altering uses of big data are more concrete and dire for those caught in the criminal justice system. More jurisdictions now rely on risk assessment programs to determine an individuals likelihood of recidivism for bail, sentencing, and parole decisions. These programs use algorithms that compile and evaluate all sorts of life facts to try to predict a persons propensity for crime, and this information is used to determine whether that person gets bail and how long a sentence he or she will serve. Ostensibly color-blind, these algorithms actually rely on factors that not only correlate with race, gender, and class, but also incorporate the criminal justice systems pervasive biases. Once embedded in computer programs, these biases become much more difficult to challenge than those of human police, prosecutors, and judges. Big datas potential to threaten liberty is already a dystopian present, not the future, for criminal defendants.

Just as terrifying as the use of technology to forecast a persons future crimes is the governments efforts to build a DNA database. Justice Antonin Scalia dissented in Maryland v. King, arguing that gathering DNA samples from felony arresteesfrom those who had not yet been charged and convicted of a crimewas a significant intrusion into their privacy. He pointed out that the Supreme Courts decision was based on the assumption that DNA collection will not befall thee and me, dear reader, but only those arrested for serious offenses. Scalias indictment explains why more ink has been spilled over the privacy concerns implicated in consumer genetic testing than over the everyday privacy violations that are a routine feature of the criminal justice system.

Recent reports from Hong Kong not only highlight the dual nature of surveillance, but also provide a cautionary tale. What started in March as demonstrations against an extradition bill have grown into a broader, ongoing protest movement for greater democratic rights. As violence escalated, especially after the police started removing their identification numbers from their uniforms, demonstrators exposed police officers identities online as a way to check misconduct. But at the same time, authorities have relied on similar tactics, using facial recognition programs to identify protesters and to arrest leaders of the demonstrations. Surveillance technologies can keep officials accountable, but authoritarian governments can also use them to suppress dissent.

The health of our democracy depends on a vigorous debate about when and how the government can use technology, and these debates must include participation from all parts of society. Take, for instance, facial recognition software, which will, in all likelihood, become a standard feature of police surveillance tools in the United States in the near future. Its difficult to argue against aiding law enforcement in identifying criminals and exonerating innocent suspects. In fact, many early proponents of using facial recognition software, aside from law enforcement, came from minority and poor neighborhoods that were experiencing rising rates of violent crime. But facial recognition technology encountered significant pushback when it became evident that the software was highly inaccurate in identifying women and people of color. A new bill in New York would prohibit the use of such technology in federally funded public housing, and just this week, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed The Body Camera Accountability Act, which bans facial recognition capabilities on police body cams in California.

The goal of a democratic society should not be to stifle technological innovation, but to constantly reassess how we, as a society, will use these technologies. Under what circumstances can the police use cameras and facial recognition programs responsibly? How can the government ensure our security online without policing free speech? What ought to be the limits on law enforcements use of DNA to solve crimes? Which factors can the justice system use to determine pretrial detention, punishment, and probation?

In answering these difficult questions, we must give special attention to the ways that technology has historically and disproportionately affected political dissidents, minorities, and the poor. The history of policing and the automobile suggests that in the hands of human actors, technology tends to replicate the kinds of injustice and inequality that already exist in society. This is precisely why the struggle for equality is crucial to safeguard the privacy and civil rights of all, especially when new technologies are setting up another revolution in policing. In fact, we must treat the two goals as one and the same.

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What Cars Can Teach Us About New Policing Technologies - The New York Review of Books

From Gemini Man to Living with Yourself, Hollywood has an obsession with clones – digitalspy.com

Posted on October 12, 2019 by Danzig

In Gemini Man, Will Smith is forced to battle a younger version of himself who can predict his every move. Paul Rudd merely has to cohabit with his own better self in Netflix's imminent Living With Yourself. In doing so, they join a small group of stars, including Keanu Reeves, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Michael Keaton, whom Hollywood has cloned or otherwise duplicated for our entertainment.

Cinema has a long-held fascination with its actors taking on multiple roles. While some of English-language filmmaking's earliest stars, like William Bergman and Buster Keaton, would often play more than one role within any one picture, the first doppelgnger film was a 1913 German art film, A Student of Prague, co-directed by Stellen Rye and Paul Wegener.

A young college student, played by Wegener, trades his own mirror reflection to a sorcerer for gold so he may court a rich Countess. Eventually driven mad by the constant pursuit of his exact double, he tries to murder his twin, killing himself in the process. A macabre piece of fantasy-horror, the picture spearheaded technology that allowed the same actor to appear on screen with himself, creating a template for others to follow suit.

In 1936, British-made comedy The Man in the Mirror took a similar approach, having Edward Everett Horton's reflection begin talking to him before stepping out of the mirror and living the hard-partying life he never had the confidence for.

Though it's played more light-heartedly here, the existential terror of replacement would become a prevalent theme within the subgenre.

Works during the fifties like The Invasion of the Body Snatchers and I Married An Astro-Monster channeled the same fear through a political lens. Aliens trying to invade Earth through cloning or taking human identities were used as a stand-in for American paranoia over the 'invisible invasion' of Communism. The doubles acted suspiciously out of character and it was up to those who knew something was different to put things right.

1970's The Man Who Haunted Himself took this a step further, as Roger Moore's protagonist wakes from a car accident to find his life upended by someone everyone else thought to be him. In what Moore considers his best film, this Basil Dearden-directed thriller explores the psychological underpinnings of the concept by earnestly following Moore's perspective to the last, only revealing the truth in the climax.

The second, more well-known and distinctly darker version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers followed towards the end of the decade, whose morbid twist on the ending contains this heavily-giffed final shot. Filmmakers were shedding the inherent belief that someone would figure out a clone from the original, using the mystery to captivate audiences and dig into themes of conformity, humanity and personhood.

John Carpenter brought much of this to a head in The Thing, a tightly wound fusion of high-concept sci-fi and horror that turned Kurt Russell into a one-man army against a shape-shifting alien force that usurps his Antarctic colleagues one by one.

Thanks to movies such as Robocop, Evil Dead and Nightmare on Elm Street, science fiction and horror moved towards a more satirical, self-aware tone during the '80s and '90s.

Actors playing multiple roles came back in popularity, including cloning rom-com Multiplicity starring multiple Michael Keatons. Jackie Chan shouldered double duty in the quasi-doppelgnger action film involving estranged twins, Twin Dragons, as did Jean-Claude van Damme for Double Impact.

Director Sheldon Lettich commented that Van Damme enjoyed playing twins because they let him showcase his range, and the picture was so successful, Van Damme did it twice more for Maximum Risk in 1997 and Replicant in 2001. Jeremy Irons played less boisterous (but much weirder) twins in David Cronenberg's body horror Dead Ringers.

Arnold Schwarzenegger has played more Terminators than we can count (and to pull off its special effects T2: Judgment Day employed real-life identical twins Linda and Leslie Hamilton and Don and Dan Stanton). He returned to replication in The 6th Day awash in technological anxiety, this 2000 movie imagines a future where cloning anything except a human is legal and widely accepted.

Explosive and markedly less neurological than the likes of previously mentioned The Man Who Haunted Himself, there's still a poignancy to Schwarzenegger's turn as a family man stuck chasing bad guys rather than having a quiet night in. Being a performer for a living doesn't often include much down time, and the threat of being replaced by the next best version of you is forever looming.

Doppelgnger movies made a gradual resurgence later in the 2000s, particularly among indie and arthouse directors and actors. Duncan Jones' minimalist drama Moon contains a career-best pair of performances from Sam Rockwell as two conveyor belt clones who decide to burn down the factory, while Jesse Eisenberg is driven to madness when a sleeker, smoother model of him takes over his life before his very eyes in Richard Ayoade's The Double.

Similarly, in Denis Villeneuve's Enemy, Jake Gyllenhaal portrays a shy, introverted, emotionally closed off college lecturer who develops an obsession with a lookalike who proves to be his exact opposite.

These all use symbolism of clones and exact doubles to visualise difficult, deep-rooted fears surrounding identity, labour, personal value and desirability. They ponder the surreal mix of terror and curiosity that would result from seeing your fully formed self, but different, existing in the world. They contrast the life you have with the life you could have had, if you were just a tad more confident and a mite less neurotic; if you were raised in an altogether better environment.

Claudette BariusUniversal

That quandary forms the spine of Jordan Peele's Us, released earlier this year, where Lupita Nyong'o's family are terrorised by their clones. In Us, clones are "tethered" to the originals, forced to copy their every move as a population of copies live out their lives in an abandoned underground facility. As in Moon, Peele uses man-made doppelgngers to discuss the expendability of the lower class and lower-skilled labour.

One of the creepier moments features Elisabeth Moss' Tethered putting on lipstick in the mirror for the first time, finally getting to see herself the way her counterpart did. In Us, Peele shows us the Tethered's point-of-view, letting us feel the resentment and animosity and demonstrating that we would be as uncanny to any clone as they would be to us.

Will Smith has his work cut out keeping up with his double in Gemini Man. The former Fresh Prince and Man In Black is squaring up against his own youth, a terrifying prospect for anyone. Paul Rudd, meanwhile, only has to face his own inadequacy in Living With Yourself.

For better or worse, it seems Hollywood is finally taking a long hard look at itself.

Gemini Man is out in cinemas on Friday, October 11. Living with Yourself is on Netflix on October 18

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From Gemini Man to Living with Yourself, Hollywood has an obsession with clones - digitalspy.com

Theatre review: A Life Twice Given – E&T Magazine

Posted on October 12, 2019 by Danzig

This family drama about a couple who challenge Gods authority by cloning their deceased son has some enjoyable and moving moments, but fails to humanise the conflict at its heart.

A Life Twice Given is based on a novel by David Daniel, who explored his own fantasy of cloning his firstborn, David, after his death at the age of seven. The story has been adapted for the stage by playwright Gail Louw, in a production directed by John Burrows.

The play follows a mostly-secular Jewish couple living in rural Virginia, David (Johnny Neal) and Lisa (Natalia Campbell), who lose their young son David (Damian Reyes-Fox) in a car accident. While Lisa grieves, David quietly plots to replace his lost child with a clone, having had the foresight to scrape and preserve skin cells from his dying sons ear.

When he finally shares his plan with his wife, Lisa is appropriately horrified, insisting that they accept their loss and move on to have more children the old-fashioned way. Unfortunately for Lisa, Davids plan is already set in motion; he has the approval of a sympathetic rabbi who advises that man was intended to be Gods partner in creation. After rejecting Davids plans twice, Lisa relents when he takes her to meet a morally ambiguous academic in Prague, who uses both rational and otherworldly arguments suggesting that Young Davids spirit is wandering, desiring a second chance at life to convince her to carry a clone. The pushy academic is also portrayed by Reyes-Fox, decked out in spectacles, overcoat, and enjoyable accent, hinting at the possibility that Young Davids spirit is not so much wandering lost as much as sitting at the table opposite Lisa, prodding her towards agreement.

Reyes-Fox delivers convincing performances as three different characters, handling David 2s discovery of his origins with a burst of pain and anger at his parents selfishness which never spills into overacting.

There are some amusing moments, particularly Lisas incredulity when she discovers that David took cells from his sons ear (Did he cut off his ear? Did he store it in his wallet?), and the playful dance breaks performed by Reyes-Fox between scenes. The play also has its moments of clumsiness: an extended discussion between David and his son about new worms being regenerated from damaged bodies is as subtle as a brick through a window; Young Davids twin brother Noah vanishes halfway through the play never to be mentioned again; and the slightly wonky projections should probably have been abandoned in favour of a true black box.

A Life Twice Given could be accused of being regressive; it appears to conclude that technology cannot be harnessed to cheat Gods plans and the malach hamavet. However, the complications faced by David 2 and his parents in the plays final moments could just as legitimately be blamed on the hurried adoption of technology before it is fit for purpose; given the growing international pushback against tech bros and their move fast and break things culture, this interpretation feels more relevant and satisfying.

Despite intentions to explore the clash of deep-set religious tradition with biotechnology empowering humans to play God, A Life Twice Given does not plunge into the emotional stakes of this debate with the depth we should expect from a drama. Numerous references to tradition unavoidably bring to mind Fiddler on the Roof: the gold standard for theatrical depictions of conflict between traditional Jewish life and the exciting possibilities offered by the modern world (a conflict that tears Tevye and his family apart). In A Life Twice Given, however, David and Lisa exchange familiar arguments in the cloning debate, and in spite of the emotive context of a lost child, the conflict never felt truly personal.

A Life Twice Given is performed at London's Gatehouse, Guildfords Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Londons Jermyn Street Theatre, Kents Astor Community Theatre, and Brightons Rialto Theatre. Tickets from 16.

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Theatre review: A Life Twice Given - E&T Magazine

What is Genetic Privacy and Does it Matter? – TechNadu

Posted on October 12, 2019 by Danzig

Genetic privacy is a topic that should be on everyones lips. Life is information and information is life, after all. With new technologies that allow us to sequence the genes of anyone quickly and cheaply, there are major ethical concerns popping up all the time. Modern and future genetic science as a whole holds immense promise. A promise to make our lives better, but at the same time, it can be abused towards horrific ends. Just like atomic energy or any other branch of scientific knowledge, its how we decide to use these powers that determine if they are ethical or not.

So what the heck is genetic privacy? Its a pretty complex topic, but before we can talk about the privacy aspect, we need to talk about the genes themselves.

The entire blueprint for who you are physically is in your genes. Every cell in your body (with some exceptions) contains a copy of your genome. The instructions that describe how a particular person should be put together. All human beings have genes that are 99% identical. We are, after all, a single species. However, the remaining 1% is responsible for some pretty dramatic differences between individuals. Your hair and skin color, your build and other physical traits are all determined by your genes.

Your genes even determine how you will react to certain environmental factors. Many problems that result from lifestyle choices, such as obesity or addiction to certain substances, have at least some link to your genes.

With the exception of identical twins, every person has a unique combination of genes. The odds of two people who are not twins (or clones) having identical DNA are astronomical. So much so that it is for all intents and purposes impossible.

You also leave your DNA around everywhere. Since its in every cell, wherever you shed cells there youll find copies of your DNA. With the cost of genetic sequencing falling rapidly, there are plenty of privacy issues to worry about when it comes to your genes.

What does it mean to have genetic privacy? As a whole, it seems we are still figuring this out. While some countries have laws in place that describe what third-parties are allowed to do with your genetic information, others still have to catch up.

Its pretty common that technology outpaces the ability of laws and policies to keep up with it. We dont know that we need certain laws until people do things with these new technologies that are harmful but couldnt be predicted.

One of the big problems is that you have no choice but to hand over your genes to other people. If you get a blood test, you have to give blood. That blood has pristine copies of your DNA in it. This goes for just about all medical waste. If you blow your nose and throw it away, it probably isnt illegal for someone to fish the tissue out of the bin and go sequence your genes.

So it should be obvious that genetic privacy is not about limiting whether someone can harvest your genetic material. It would be impossible to prevent it. Rather, genetic privacy is about limiting what others candowith your genetic information without your explicit consent.

Depending on where in the world you live, the legal protection of your genes can be rather good or decidedly spotty. The US, in particular, has large gaps in its genetic privacy laws. In 2017 a bill was approved that would allow your employer in the US to demand access to your genetic information.

The fact is that theres no adequate legal protection for your genetic information anywhere in the world. Even if you are resident in a part of the world with comprehensive genetic data protection, nothing can provide a 100% guarantee that your genes wont end up where they shouldnt.

In almost every country there are one or more medical certification boards. Anyone working in the medical field needs to be registered with this board in order to legally practice their profession. This obviously includes physicians but also includes people like radiologists and lab technicians who handle human materials.

These medical boards already have a significant role in protecting patient privacy. If your doctor breaches the strict rules of patient confidentiality they can be fined or lose their license to practice. With the advent of cheap, fast gene sequencing its important for such boards to update their conception and practice of patient privacy.

These boards have significant powers over what those in the medical field are allowed to do, but their scope is limited when it comes to who they can fine or punish. Which means medical boards alone arent enough to enforce genetic privacy.

Genetic privacy doesnt mean someone cant look at the contents of your genes. At least not in every context. Its also about controlling what they are allowed to do in that context.

Lets say you have a genetic predisposition to heart disease or diabetes. Life insurance companies may be unwilling to cover you if your genes say you are likely to get these diseases. Even if your lifestyle or other non-genetic factors meant you were never actually going to get the disorders. In the wrong hands, your genetic information can be used against you in a number of ways. Even for forms of prejudice based on your ancestry.

Its very important that strict rules are in place to dictate what an organization is allowed to do with genetic information about you. To ensure a free and fair society.

When routine samples are taken from your body that contains genetic information, should gene sequencing be done without your consent? If rapid DNA testing machines become commonplace and truly cheap, its not far-fetched to think that a given lab might just throw sequencing in as a normal part of the test battery.

The thing is, genetic sequencing isnt the same as cholesterol or blood sugar test. While clever cross-referencing of multiple test results mightpoint someone to a specific individual, these tests are just not unique enough to reveal someones identity.

A gene sequence is 100% specific to the individual by itself. If you have someones genetic information, you have their identity and procuring another sample to test against for confirmation is relatively trivial.

This absolutely means that you need the full informed consent of someone before running their samples through a sequencer and storing it on your computer systems. They need to know your policies and security measures before handing over that information.

As new medical tests and methods become affordable, there is a certain branch of thought that says we should afford every newborn the potential benefits of that technology. We had more or less the same conversation when the power of stem cells became apparent. Today we can make stem cells from other types of cells, but at first, scientists thought only stem cells harvested from newborns (or fetuses) could be used for practical therapy. So they proposed storing stem cells harvested at birth by freezing them. Then, one day when you need a new organ or other body parts, your own frozen stem cells could be used to regrow the missing or sickly bits.

So parents had to choose whether their child got this procedure at birth and some people are still doing it today. We also routinely screen unborn children for signs of specific diseases such as downs syndrome. Leaving the decision about what a positive test means to the parents.

Now imagine that every baby gets gene sequencing at birth. The idea would be to give the parents a heads up on whether their child is at higher risk to develop certain disorders. As we understand our genes more over time, the stored genetic information could even reveal new things not known when it was first taken. There are clearly many health benefits to getting a genetic screening at birth. However, at the same time universally digitizing the genes of newborns comes with a long list of ethical and privacy concerns. Especially since we dont know what the long term consequences of storing this information will be. If your genes are put on file at birth, is any sort of privacy possible for you?

Cloning is basically the act of artificially making an identical twin of someone. Scientists made history when they clone Dolly the sheep, but since then have cloned all sorts of animals. As far as we know, there arent any artificial human clones, but in principle, theres nothing special about cloning humans.

At the moment, cloning humans is illegal in most countries. You also need to get samples of the right cells to clone a person. So its not easy to do without their knowledge.

That might not be true for long, however. For example, scientists Craig Venter has created a protein printer where you can simply describe a novel protein sequence and create it from purely digital data. A more advanced version of this machine might one day print out DNA based on a file. That file could be the sequence of a persons DNA exactly as it was when sampled or it could be edited as easily as you can edit words in a document. Long after you are dead, someone in the future could call up your sequence from a computer database and create an identical twin based on your genes. You might not personally have a problem with that, but it would cross many lines.

So what is the answer to the issue of genetic privacy? Obviously, laws and policies have to be in place. Laws that, if enforced, provide effective protection against the misuse of our genetic data. Thats just one part of the puzzle though. The other is physically preventing the unauthorized use of your genetic information.

One approach to this is by having a shared, state-controlled database. One that uses encryption to protect the information from being stolen or copied. When a legitimate user (such as your doctor) needs access to the information, they can read it from the cloud, but not download it. Keeping all that genetic data under lock and key might be one way to prevent third-party agents from exploiting the information without your consent.

Another approach that may help ensure better genetic privacy is data that self destructs or policies that ensure deletion. For example, you may go for a genetic disease screening, but the data isnt kept. You just get a report that says whether you are susceptible or not. Individual people can, of course, choose whether they want their data destroyed and have to accept the possible medical consequences in the future. It would be similar to the Right to be forgotten that is now enshrined in EU law. Basically, you should have the right to destroy copies of your digital genetic data. And then simply sequence your genes again if you need to.

So back to our original question: does genetic privacy matter? In principle and in theory it certainly does. However, I have a feeling that the general public isnt going to be all interested in this issue until it starts to affect them. The problems are mostly theoretical and philosophical at this point. The thing is, its at the point of conception where we have the opportunity to avert some of the foreseeable privacy issues and their consequences.

So yes, itdoesmatter. Pay attention to the laws in your country that are being proposed. Do they favor you or do they protect biotech companies. Who stands to get rich off whats effectively your intellectual property? Whenever you are asked to hand over a copy of your genes for sequencing, make sure you know who stands to benefit. Gaining from that exchange and whether you are an equal partner in it.

Are you worried about your genetic privacy at all? Let us know down below in the comments. Lastly, wed like to ask you to share this article online. And dont forget that you can follow TechNadu on FacebookandTwitter. Thanks!

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What is Genetic Privacy and Does it Matter? - TechNadu

18 Things About Rick And Morty That Make No Sense – TheThings

Posted on October 12, 2019 by Danzig

From multiverse theory to inter-dimensional travel to cloning, there are lots of scientific theories (and pseudo-science) that Rick and Morty exploit to try to seem like the smartest show out there. And some of the science is actually backed up by evidence. But at the end of the day, the show is a narrative endeavorit often fits science around its plot-lines, to make the episodes work, whether the science is true or not.

Theres a reason why it took so long for season 3 (and now season 4) to come out: these pseudo-scientific ideas are complicated, and once Pandoras Box has been opened, its hard to close it. There are millions of Reddit theories out there explaining everything, but were here to point out a few things that simply dont make sense.

In a show with so much hoopla and head-scratching ideas, it isnt hard to come up with a nonsensical list. And no, you dont have to be a genius to understand these 18things in Rick and Morty that make no sense (just like you dont have to be a genius to enjoy or understand the show).

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Many scientists believe in some sort of multiverse theory these days, which basically says that there is an infinite number of universes where the actions we didnt take are being played out. In a nutshell, these parallel universes comprise of everything that exists. In Rick Potion #9, Rick explains that there is an infinite number of realities, but even multiverse theory calculated a huge number of possible universes, but not infinite. The number is roughly 1 with 500 zeroes, according to cosmologist Richard Matzner. The estimate derives from string theory.

In one strange episode, Morty accidentally impregnates an extraterrestrial doll (Gwendolyn), who successfully bears a human-alien hybrid. We already know that its impossible to crossbreed chimpanzees and humans, and they have a 98% DNA sequence similarity, so what are the odds of impregnating an alien with 0% DNA sequence homology? Not very likely, but it still made for a hilarious episode.

The main deus ex machina in Rick and Morty is Ricks portal gun, which allows him to jump to different dimensions at will. The problem is that we dont actually know how Ricks portal gun works. He showed it being made, and we assume it shoots wormhole-like blasts. Inter-dimensional travel isnt always as carefree as Rick would like it to be. Ricks portal gun might explain how quantum theory can be used, or we might be overcomplicating something that doesnt need a unified theory to form its basis.

In Rick Potion #9, Morty receives a love potion to have his high school crush instantly infatuated with him. The potion is a mixture of oxytocin extracted from a volea rodent that mates for lifeand some of Mortys DNA. And it works like a charm! But oxytocin wouldnt really work like that in real life. While it does play a part in social bonding and sexual attraction, it can also augment memories and induce crazed thoughts (which sort of happens, in the episode).

Just like Inception, Ricks dream hopper doesnt make a lot of sense. A device that lets someone enter someone elses dreams is so far off the realm of possibility, that even pseudo-science cant really explain this one. If we were all connected by means of digital devices, with a common server, maybe it could work (which many futurists believe in). But as it stands, wed need a neural implant (see: Black Mirror) for this to ever have a hope of working.

Ricks freeze gun showed up on the pilot episode, so maybe all the scientific kinks werent worked out yet. The gun is a high-powered liquid nitrogen weapon that turns Rick into Mr. Freeze, basically. Ricks gun works too fast and localized for modern technology, though, and liquid nitrogen wouldnt instantly freeze someone like in the show. This might be a bit nitpicky, but its the truth, and were sure Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon knew that.

Rick is supposed to be the smartest person in the multiverse, and hes also a jerk. Most people who become more knowledgeable of the world become wiser, and thus kinder, but this isnt true for Rickhis ego trumps all. He is the epitome of individualism but does contradictory things all the time that are counterintuitive to his own growth. Basically, he has no growthyet he can be kind, which we see him do on occasion (usually to Morty). It leads us to believe that the Rick we know and love isnt as wise or knowledgeable as he would have us believe.

Here are some examples of Ricks counterintuitive contradictions of character. He has no problem letting Unity take over an entire planet but tries to save Earth when a Cromulon appears. He destroys an entire universe (via throwing a battery on the ground), but saves a homeless man and creates a navigable park inside of him. Rick goes into Mortys teachers mind to manipulate him into giving Morty an A, but Rick also doesnt like the Devil trying to manipulate people. In a way, Rick encapsulates Absurdism at its finest (according to Medium.com).

For a man who seems so sure of himself all the time (one episode even hinges on this fact), we dont really know what Rick believes in. Hes ambiguous, purposefully, and were led to believe that maybe HE doesnt even know what he believes in. For instance, in one episode when he thinks hes going to die, he prays to Godimplying he believes in god, deep down. Rick knows he doesnt matterthat no one matters, and it makes him supremely arrogant, and sometimes even suicidal.

Even though Rick is supposedly the smartest man in the multiversethe idea of the multiverse alone refutes that thought. Rick knows that hes not a unique person, and he believes no one is. There is an infinite combination of events that can happen, infinite times, so the only thing that he resorts to his personal gain. Personal gain explains his motivations a bit, and also shows that Rick isnt the smartest person in the multiverse because hes not unique and there are infinite other Ricks out there who should be just as smart.

In the episode Mortynight Run, Rick drops off Jerry at the Jerryboree daycare center, and we make an interesting discovery when he fills out the form to admit Jerry. We know Rick is from dimension C-137 (he writes it on the form), but he puts N/A for Dimension of your Jerry. But Rick manually entered (into his portal gun) the dimension where he got his Jerry from, so he knows which dimension Jerry originates from. Why would he keep it a secret from us, unless theres something significant hes trying to hide?

The Bootstrap Paradox is a phenomenon where an object travels back in time and is trapped within an infinite cause-effect loop, wherein the item no longer has a point of origin. The item is self-created or uncaused, meaning its just always been. In the season 3 opener, Rick goes back in time to retrieve the secret to his portal gun technology, so he can invent (or reinvent) the portal gunbut that secret wouldnt exist, given the Bootstrap Paradox, in that timeline if that makes any sense.

Rick has been away from his family for an indeterminate amount of time at the start of the show after things spiraled out of control and he had to relocate to another dimension. We learned that he escaped to another dimension to find a Beth that is still alivethough is this Beth the one we follow on the show, or is this a fabricated memory of Ricks? Are the Morty, Beth, Jerry, and Summer from C-137 actually adopted from another dimension of Ricks?

And that brings us to another question: Which Morty is Evil Morty (given that hes the main antagonist at this point)? Evil Morty first appeared in S1E10, and theres a long-running theory that Evil Morty is actually the original Mortya.k.a Ricks Morty from C-137. The idea is that Rick returned to his family after 20 years, but Morty is only 14it doesnt take a mathematician to know that doesnt add up. So perhaps our Morty isnt the Mortiest Morty, and the Morty from Ricks dreams that he cared for in another dimension could be the one who later grew up to be Evil Morty.

Theres an episode where Mortys brainwaves cancel Ricks because hes as stupid as Rick is smart. But is Morty really that stupid? (Also, thats not how waves work.) Morty can think fast on his feet, is good at deducing situations (such as figuring out the weakness of the Parasites when Rick was clueless to it), and he has sensible reactions to Ricks insanity. And perhaps the most telling clue: Evil Morty is found out to be remote-controlling Evil Rick with a transmitter under his eye-patch. Is this malevolent, genius Morty smarter than all the Ricks?!

The shows logline tells us that Rick has returned after two decades to his family, after being in hiding in another dimension. But Morty is only 14, which means that the Morty were following in the show isnt Ricks original Morty. The relationship between Rick and Morty that we know is not all it seems to be! This is a big reason why people believe the Morty from Ricks dreams is the Original Morty, who grew up to become Evil Morty to get back at Rick for betraying his family, and is on a vengeance mission.

There have been hundreds of Ricks and Mortys weve run into throughout the showmost recently shown visiting the Citadel of Ricks. The show has had several subplots involving Doofus Rick, Pickle Rick, Cyclops Morty, The One True Morty, etc. The bottom line is that theres an infinite variety of Ricks and Mortys out there, enough to populate a governing council of alternate universes, so we might never really know who is who.

There are some scientific theories that Rick and Morty get right, but cloning humans is a bit of a stretch. In several episodes, Rick clones people: himself to send a younger Rick to hunt vampires in high school; Beth so she can abandon her family to replace Beths childhood friend Timmy, and to save Timmys father. A clone is an organism created from identical copies of genetic information, and while it would be biologically possible to clone a human, developmental deformities would be a high risk, and the brainwashing that Rick puts his clones through probably wouldnt happen.

References: medium.com, vulture.com, reddit.com, livescience.com

18 Things About Rick And Morty That Make No Sense - TheThings

Cryotherapy, cupping and TMS: New forms of alternative medicine treatment in St. George – The Spectrum

Posted on October 11, 2019 by Danzig

Sometimes, pills and medications just don't cut it for people with serious illnesses of both the mental or physical variety.

Depression, pain and inflammation are just a few of the ailments that plague millions of Americans every single day.

For those that are tired of medicating to get rid of their problems or feel like they have been ineffective, there are new alternative therapy treatments to testout.

Cryotherapy, transcranial magnetic stimulation and cupping are three techniques now availablein St. George where people can treat their bodies in an effort tofeel like their natural selvesagain.

Weston Ivison tries out the cryotherapy chamber at Cool It! Cryotherapy and Massage in St. George(Photo: Terell Wilkins/The Spectrum & Daily News)

Developed in Japan in 1978 as a treatment for rheumatoid arthritisand brought to the United States in the late 2000s, cryotherapy is a cooling treatment that involves exposing the body to extremely cold temperatures in order to relieve pain and reduce inflammation.

"Liquid nitrogen is used and my machine will pull the liquid into it and then convert it to a gas and then we're just surrounding a person withthe gas." said Jody Wright, owner of St. George's sole cryotherapy location, Cool It! Cryotherapy.

Temperatures in the chamber are reduced anywhere from-200 to -250 degrees for up to threeminutes.

The nitrogen bursts are circulated around the chamber and directed away from the skin of the patient to prevent them from freezing but maintaining the temperature that gives cryo its therapeutic effects.

Ten-second nitrogen bursts with 20-30 seconds between them keep the ambient temperature withinrange of being helpful to the patient, according to Wright.

"If you've ever been in a cold-weather climate that's what it's like so imagine being in Cedar City standing out with a breeze almost totally naked and standing there for three minutes," Wright said. "It's not as extreme as jumping into an ice bath but it's still cold, you'll feel it."

Wright jumped on the cryotherapy wave early after it gained popularity in Dallas with a man named Mark Murdock.

Murdock, a Division II basketball coach for 17 years, tried the treatment in 2009 and liked it so much that he created a company called CryoUSA that does cryotherapyand has become a vendor for cryo chambers.

Murdock met Wright while in Las Vegas and invited him back to Dallas to try it out for himself.

"I got this guy on my phone, Mark Murdock, who was the guy that installed them for Tony Robbins and he was visiting Vegas on an expo sohe told me to come to Dallas and he said 'we will feed you lunch, we'll tell you all about cryo businesses and you can try everything at our facilities'," Wright said. "He and his buddy had heard about a Russian salon in Dallas that had this machine. He was a basketball coach so he tried it out, loved it and they ended up getting a machine and started working with the Dallas Mavericks."

The Mavericks were the first team to use cryotherapy consistently and their NBA championship in 2011 opened people's eyes to just how beneficial the treatment can be to physical performance.

Wright took his experience in Dallas back west to Southern Utah and opened Cool It! in 2015 in St. George.

Spectrum writer Jud Burkett stands in a cryotherapy machine Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2016. (Photo: Chris Caldwell / The Spectrum & Daily News)

He says he has plenty of clients with a wide range of ailments from local marathon runners to people who have had injuries and use cryotherapy to maintain their lifestyle.

"It's all relative so I have a guy that broke a bunch of bones from a work injury who comes in every day, I have a little older lady who has bad arthritis and she comes in every day that she can," Wright said. "I have athletes who will come in when they're in heavy training mode to recover too so some people just do it consistently and some less often, it depends on how they feel individually."

Wright says that he does hear from cryotherapy skeptics but stays firm in his beliefthat henever forces anyone to trustthe science behind it. All he asks is that people try it out for themselves and decide on their own whether it works for them.

"I'm not going to try and convince anybody because usually people are convinced one way or another," Wright said."I just say that I'm not making medical claims and I have people that do it just because it makes them feel good and sharpens the senses."

A close look at the transcranial magnetic stimulation machine at TMS Success that helps patients treat depression and a few other mental conditions.(Photo: Terell Wilkins/The Spectrum & Daily News)

One of the newer forms of alternative treatment comes in the form of transcranial magnetic stimulation or TMS.

"We use a magnet to help stimulate people's neurotransmission processes andthose processes are where we as humans produce chemicals that make us feel good like dopamine and serotonin," Janis Hatch, who works at TMS Success, said. "When we are depressed, we don't produce these naturally so usually a person would take anti-depressant medications and those medications work but only because they're supplying with the chemicals that it's lacking."

Anti-depressant medications bring the necessary chemicals to curb depression for a short time,but they don't do anything to help teach the brainhow to produce those chemicals themselves.

"You're giving the brain dopamine and serotonin but you're not teaching it how to create them on it's own," Hatch said. "It's like the story of taking a man to fish versus teaching him how to fish for himself."

According to Hatch,transcranial magnetic stimulation does not just solve briefly solve depression, it brings your brain the knowledge of how to produce the chemicals to keepit away effectively.

The transcranial magnetic stimulation machine at TMS Success in St. George.(Photo: Terell Wilkins/The Spectrum & Daily News)

The magnet on the machine consists of pulses that, when put on a person's scalp, taps on their head to stimulate the brain.

The treatment takes place over a six-week period where patients come in Monday through Fridayfor 18minutes a day.

"Usually people will just squeeze it in, either in their lunch breakor after work but we do whatever time is best for them during the day," Hatch said. "They come in and we just strap them up to the chair and it's nice because they can be on their phone to listen to music or podcasts or whatever they want so it goes bysuper fast."

The magnetitself has two bumps that tapthe left side of the head and pulse over 3,000 times in the 18-minute treatment session, a feeling that Hatch says is uncomfortable at first but not painful.

"People on their very first day will tell me it is uncomfortable because it's new but by about the third day, you get used to it and it doesn't ever really hurt at all," Hatch said. "It goes pretty fast but there's no pain involved it's just awkward at first."

Most insurance providers docover the cost of the treatment, which is important because that price tag is not cheap.

"It's good that insurance companies do cover this treatment because it is prettyexpensive, it costs $10,000," Hatch said. "That's for six weeks so it is kind of steep but insurance does pay forit if you meet the criteria. As in, you're diagnosed with depression, anxiety disorder and things like that."

TMS Success is one of two locations in St. George where people can get TMS treatment for their depression and has been around for about a year now.

Though it is a relatively new treatment, Hatch says its effects are undeniable in the patients she has gotten to observe.

"What is great about TMS treatment is that a year after people finish their treatment, their success rate is higher sothey have better results a year later than they had even at the end of the six week mark," Hatch said. "Their brains just kept working and working and itstarted developing those healthy chemicals on it's own."

A look at the cups and suctions used in different cupping techniques at Synergy Massage & Personal Fitness in St. George.(Photo: Terell Wilkins/The Spectrum & Daily News)

Made popular in the mainstream by Michael Phelps using the technique during the 2016Olympics before his meets, cupping is a massage technique that involves using tiny cups and suction to utilize negative energy.

"With cupping, the difference between a massage and cupping is that with a massage there is positive pressure so someone is pushing down and massaging but with cupping, there is a negative pressure so it pulls things up and out of your skin," saidJacque Heaton of Synergy Massage and Personal Fitness in St. George.

Heaton likens cupping therapy to sucking out all of the toxins in your skin and bringing them to the surface so they can be cleaned out.

"When you take chicken skin away and you see that white fiber material underneath, that's in our bodies and it basically acts like fiber optics so it goes in all different directions," said Jacque Heaton of Synergy Massage and Personal Fitness in St. George. "Well when that gets tangled up, then communication from the brain to other parts of the body slows down or stops. So your brain is like this fabulous communication systemand our bodies are meant to heal themselves, but when you get these clogs, that's where inflammation and pain comes in."

Instead of force being applied to iron out all the kinks in our bodies in a traditional massage, cupping straightens it out through suction and leaves the dark circles suction marks that Heaton calls "cup kisses" behind for about a week or so.

"We do have people that will say negative things or they think it's broken capillaries but it's not broken capillaries, it's just bringing things up to the surface so your body can get rid of it," Heaton said."We have found out through cupping that actually just that negative pressure does the job so we just use suction and there's no heat to it."

United States swimmer Michael Phelps swimming with dark circles on his shoulders as a result of his cupping therapy during the 2016 summer Olympic Games.(Photo: David Eulitt/Kansas City Star)

In the same way that the Dallas Mavericks put cryotherapy on the map, Michael Phelps did it for cupping.

The dark circles seen on his body while he swam his way to five gold medals led to general curiosity and an increased belief that the practice of cupping does have its benefits.

"I just tell people they need to come experience it and see. Expect that it's going to leave rings and they're going to have some cup kisses but just come and try it and see because it really is positive," Heaton said."Especially if you like massages already, you'll find a definite benefit to cupping."

Follow reporter Terell Wilkins on Twitter,@SpeedyVeritas, call himat 252-367-8463or email himat twilkins@thespectrum.com.

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Cryotherapy, cupping and TMS: New forms of alternative medicine treatment in St. George - The Spectrum

Group of physicians in Carrboro aims to provide alternative to conventional medicine – The Daily Tar Heel

Posted on October 11, 2019 by Danzig

Susan Delaney, a naturopathic and homeopathic physician, has been at Ray House since it opened its doors in 1994. She said she believes there has been a shift in popular culture when it comes to peoples views on alternative medicine.

When people think about herbal medicine or homeopathy they think, Oh, you know, this is California woo-hoo, foo-foo. But this is a form of medicine that has been practiced for thousands of years, she said.

Delaney said this craving for change in healthcare options is echoed in the student body, too. Many of the patients she already sees at the Ray House are UNC students.

Conventional science is trying to embrace and open its doors as much as they can to natural medicine because the culture has changed," she said. "People want something different.

Even those who are not familiar with the work of the Wellness Alliance, like Thomas Harley, a first-year chemistry major at UNC, are intrigued by the new possibilities that their work presents.

Ive always been interested in sort of finding new and different ways to treat illness, Harley said.

After a visit to Campus Health last week left him uncertain of what actions he should take to craft a healthier lifestyle, Harley found himself more open to the idea of alternative medicine.

Maybe if there was another course of treatment available, I wouldve felt more comforted by it. I want more options.

Those options are exactly what Delaney and the practitioners at Ray House aim to provide, along with further ways to inform the population about the different methods that she and her colleagues use to promote health and wellness in her community.

Delaney said she is excited about the growth of alternative medicine, claiming there has been a shift in public and scientific opinion on the fields she and her colleagues specialize in.

Who knows," Delaney said. "Maybe in five years student health at UNC will have some of these services for you. Wouldnt that be nice?

The Wellness Alliance will celebrate its 25th anniversary in December and hopes to continue to serve the community at large for many years to come.

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Group of physicians in Carrboro aims to provide alternative to conventional medicine - The Daily Tar Heel

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