Unexploded munitions, a lingering peril as NATO ends Afghan war – Video

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Unexploded munitions, a lingering peril as NATO ends Afghan war
The end of NATO #39;s combat mission in Afghanistan could be a watershed moment in tackling unexploded ordnance littering the country, but experts complain US-led forces need to hand over more...

By: AFP news agency

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Unexploded munitions, a lingering peril as NATO ends Afghan war - Video

9 of 10 online accounts intercepted by NSA are not intended surveillance target

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Although NSA officials were not sure about what all documents Edward Snowden took with him, they've changed their tune a few times after some new leak proves their previous proclamations to be false...like when former NSA Chief Keith Alexander admitted to lying about phone surveillance stopping 54 terror plots. Despite a year of NSA officials claiming that Edward Snowden had access to reports about NSA surveillance, but no access to actual surveillance intercepts, that ends up being lie too.

Snowden gave the Washington Post a sampling of actual intercepted communications; after months of reviewing about 160,000 intercepted emails and instant messages and 7,900 documents taken from over 11,000 online accounts, the Post said nine out of 10 account holders in the large cache of intercepted communications were not even surveillance targets. In fact, the collateral damage is astounding. The Post reported:

Nearly half of the surveillance files, a strikingly high proportion, contained names, e-mail addresses or other details that the NSA marked as belonging to U.S. citizens or residents. NSA analysts masked, or "minimized," more than 65,000 such references to protect Americans' privacy, but The Post found nearly 900 additional e-mail addresses, unmasked in the files, that could be strongly linked to U.S. citizens or U.S. residents.

The intercepted communications were collected from 2009 to 2012, during President Obama's first term; under the President, formerly a "constitutional law professor," the Post noted that the NSA's domestic collection program underwent a "period of exponential growth." Interestingly, a research paper released last week explained how the government can exploit legal and technical loopholes in order to conduct warrantless surveillance on Americans. One way is through Executive Order 12333, which would allow Americans' communications to be sucked up when their network traffic is routed overseas or their data is stored abroad.

So what might put Americans in the NSA's collection crosshairs? People on the chat "buddy list" of a foreign national are considered foreigners as well as people who write emails in a foreign language. Then there's the use of a proxy, which might be an IP address from a different country.

If a target entered an online chat room, the NSA collected the words and identities of every person who posted there, regardless of subject, as well as every person who simply 'lurked,' reading passively what other people wrote.

One analyst reported wrote, "1 target, 38 others on there," but she collected data on them all. Others made notes that the surveillance was not relevant, yet the NSA sometimes designates as "its target the Internet protocol, or IP, address of a computer server used by hundreds of people."

The NSA treats all content intercepted incidentally from third parties as permissible to retain, store, search and distribute to its government customers.

Of these 160,000 intercepted messages, only 10% were official targets. The Post added:

Many other files, described as useless by the analysts but nonetheless retained, have a startlingly intimate, even voyeuristic quality. They tell stories of love and heartbreak, illicit sexual liaisons, mental-health crises, political and religious conversions, financial anxieties and disappointed hopes. The daily lives of more than 10,000 account holders who were not targeted are catalogued and recorded nevertheless.

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9 of 10 online accounts intercepted by NSA are not intended surveillance target

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GovBeat: Utah governor wont support proposal that would cut off the NSAs water supply

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Utah Gov. Gary Herbert (R) signaled his opposition to a proposed bill that would cut off water to the NSAs facility southof Salt Lake City.

I know people have had some frustration with the NSA, Herbert said on a conference call with reporters Tuesday, but the states agreement with the agency was,something I think we need to continue to honor.

The facility, located in Bluffdale, uses between 2 to 4 million gallons of water a month, according to public records. Bluffdale issued $3.5 million in bonds to pay for the water lines and sells the agency water for less than the priceset by city ordinances.

Thebill,sponsoredby state Rep.Marc Roberts (R), would prohibit municipalities from providing any support for any federal data collection and surveillance agency.

Herbert has said previously he has had concerns with the NSA, but it was Congress responsibility to provide oversight and he didnt have a problem with the facility being in Utah.

If its not stored in Utah, itll be stored somewhere else, hesaid Tuesday.

Hunter Schwarz covers state and local politics and policy across the country for the Washington Post.

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GovBeat: Utah governor wont support proposal that would cut off the NSAs water supply

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NSA cant crack common encryption software top hacker concludes

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Etihad passenger stranded in Thailand for several days to fly home on Friday

The National - Wednesday 7th January, 2015

ABU DHABI // A British tourist stranded in Thailand since Saturday because of fog at Abu Dhabi International Airport is finally flying home tomorrow with an upgrade to business class.Wayne ...

The Nation - Wednesday 7th January, 2015

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has received more than 1,000 greeting cards from children, youths and adults, which him happy on the New Year ...

The Nation - Wednesday 7th January, 2015

The United Front of Democracy against Dictatorship and other red-shirt groups will not hold a rally at Parliament on Thursday and Friday, former Pheu Thai MP and red-shirt leader Worachai Hema said ...

The Nation - Wednesday 7th January, 2015

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has instructed officials to put up his life-sized photo at the Government House on National Children's Day this Saturday for children to post for photos with if ...

The Nation - Wednesday 7th January, 2015

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NSA cant crack common encryption software top hacker concludes

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Facebook tries to recover bulk user data seized by New York law enforcement

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Facebook user data in bulk was sought last year by the New York County District Attorney's office and a court directed it to produce virtually all records and communications for 381 accounts, the company disclosed Thursday.

The social networking giant is now asking the court for the return or destruction of the data as well as a ruling on whether the bulk warrants violated the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and other laws. The Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures of property.

The company said that since last July it has been fighting a set of sweeping search warrants issued by the Supreme Court for New York County that demanded that it turn over to law enforcement nearly all data from the accounts of the 381 people, including photos, private messages and other information.

Facebook was also prohibited from informing the targeted persons, who included "high schoolers to grandparents, from all over New York and across the United States," and electricians, school teachers, and members of the country's armed services.

Of the 381 people whose accounts were covered under the warrants, 62 were later charged in a disability fraud case, Facebook's deputy general counsel Chris Sonderby wrote in a post on Thursday.

The request from New York is described by the company as the largest it has received, "by a magnitude of more than ten."

The social networking company last Friday asked the appellate division of the New York State Supreme Court to force the government to return the data it has seized and retained.

The government's own investigation confirms "that most of the Facebook user data seized by the Government is irrelevant to the charges alleged, and the search warrants are overbroad and constitutionally defective," the company wrote in the court filing.

After Facebook filed the appeal, the government unsealed the warrants and all court filings, which has enabled Facebook to notify the people whose accounts were affected about the warrants and its ongoing legal efforts, Sonderby wrote.

Facebook's appeal focuses on whether it has the standing to challenge the warrants, whether the warrants, which authorized collection of large amounts of personal information and communications without an "apparent connection to the crimes under investigation, or procedures requiring the return of the seized information" are in violation of the Fourth Amendment, and whether the gag provisions of the warrants violate the Stored Communications Act and the First Amendment.

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Facebook tries to recover bulk user data seized by New York law enforcement

Proposed bill wants to bring 2nd Amendment into the classroom

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GREENVILLE, SC (FOX Carolina) -

Lawmakers in South Carolina will soon discuss whether students across the state should focus extra attention learning about the Second Amendment and right to bear arms.

The bill's sponsors, including Greenville County Rep. Garry R. Smith, said the Second Amendment is the most important one and it needs to be promoted.

Others in the community, like Spartanburg licensed clinical social worker, Barry Keith, are concerned that mandating school curriculum, and overemphasizing guns, could cause confusion for kids.

The Second Amendment Education Act of 2015 would designate a day for school kids to recognize the amendment.

The bill would require public schools to "conduct poster or essay contests" about the second amendment and honor state winners.

It demands students in elementary, middle, and high school, receive Second Amendment lessons "at least three consecutive weeks in one grading period in each academic year," and recommends that the National Rifle Association (NRA) create the curriculum.

In these early stages, Rep. Smith knows the bill will be in for a lot of discussion and changes, but believes the Founding Fathers put the right to bear arms as number two on the Bill of Rights, because it helps protect all the other rights.

Keith said after hearing about other school shootings, he's dealt with children in Spartanburg with PTSD, or some who are scared to go to school.

He's concerned that a bill mandating three weeks of discussion about the second amendment would increase fear in students, especially young ones.

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Proposed bill wants to bring 2nd Amendment into the classroom

There is no but in our First Amendment rights

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Joseph Dobrian, Writers Group 9:51 a.m. CST January 7, 2015

Joseph Dobrian(Photo: Thomas Adam)

In the Press-Citizen, recently, appeared a letter from Iowa state Rep. Bobby Kaufmann, R-Wilton, in which he declared his intention to find a judge-proof way to criminalize desecration of the American flag. Many people agree with him, of course including, unfortunately, many elected officials but for the purposes of this article I'll regard him as the chief spokesman for that position.

In a single paragraph of that letter, Mr. Kaufmann parrots the three morally bankrupt pronouncements that his allies invariably bring to the argument. Then he tops it off with a coda so hypocritical and vainglorious that I literally turned my face away in disgust: "I value our First Amendment rights but just like you cannot shout 'fire' in a crowded movie theater, you should never, ever, be allowed to spit and stomp on our flag while protesting the funeral of someone who died fighting for our freedoms. count on me to fight with a fiery passion to defend the honor of our flag and our fallen soldiers."

No, Mr. Kaufmann: You do not "value our First Amendment rights." Manifestly, you despise them. A single word "but" reveals your contempt for them.

But nothing, Mr. Kaufmann. BUT NOTHING.

Our First Amendment does not exist to protect expressions that most people approve of. Such speech needs no protection. The laws exist, rather, to protect expressions we abominate: expressions that would be deeply offensive to most sensible people. Without the First Amendment, the rest of the U.S. Constitution doesn't much matter. And yet it's the most universally despised item in the Bill of Rights: constantly attacked from left and right.

When we stand up for the First Amendment, we're almost never supporting noble sentiments. Ninety-nine times out of 100, we're standing up for someone who's desecrating a flag or writing pornography about Jesus. Your position, sir, and the position of your allies, is identical to that of infantile liberals who want to suppress expressions that offend them. Same argument.

If anything, liberals are a little less hypocritical, since most of them are frank in their hatred of free speech and a free press. They make no pretense of respecting the First Amendment.

Don't insult our intelligence with that false equivalency about yelling "fire." The consequences of yelling "fire" if a stampede causes injuries or property damage, for example might be punishable. If no stampede ensues, the worst that will happen is that the fire-yeller will be escorted out. Arguably, that fire-yeller is creating a hazard, but in what way does the flag-spitter create a hazard?

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There is no but in our First Amendment rights

Student claims he was banned from reading the Bible in school

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MARSHALL, MO -- Did a school violate a student's first amendment rights?

Loyal Grandstaff says he loves reading his Bible and decided to bring it to school before the Christmas break so he could read it during his free time, but the 7th grader says his teacher told him it wasn't allowed.

"I like to read my bible because it's a good book," he said.

The 12-year-old says he wasn't reading out loud and he says he wasn't sharing the Bible with his classmates.

"I was just reading, reading because I had free time. A time to do what I wanted to, so I just broke it out and read."

Was he bothering anybody while reading it?

"I shouldn't have been," he replied.

"I feel like it violated his freedom of religion but also his freedom of speech," said Loyal's father, Justin Grandstaff, who says he is trying to raise his children to honor God, work hard and do the right things.

He can't believe his son was banned from reading the Bible. "There's kids walking around disrespecting their teachers, kids walking around cussing and everything else and they're practically getting into no trouble at all."

Lance Tobin, the Principal at Bueker Middle School, says Bibles are not banned from the school, but he needs to look into the situation to get the details before he elaborates further.

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Student claims he was banned from reading the Bible in school

EOBOT com Cryptocurrency mining bot how you can buy a Cloud Cloud Mining 2015 – Video

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EOBOT com Cryptocurrency mining bot how you can buy a Cloud Cloud Mining 2015 - Video