America #39;s Forum | Gen. Michael Hayden former director of the NSA and CIA | Part 1
Retired Air Force general and former director of the NSA and CIA talks about yesterday #39;s terrorist attack in Jerusalem, the beheading of another American hostage over the weekend, and what...
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America's Forum | Gen. Michael Hayden former director of the NSA and CIA | Part 1 - Video
America #39;s Forum | Gen. Michael Hayden former director of the NSA and CIA | Part 2
Retired Air Force general and former director of the NSA and CIA talks about yesterday #39;s terrorist attack in Jerusalem, the beheading of another American hostage over the weekend, and what...
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America's Forum | Gen. Michael Hayden former director of the NSA and CIA | Part 2 - Video
Senate Republicans Block NSA Phone Spying Bill
Senate Republicans Block NSA Phone Spying Bill.
By: The Christian Broadcasting Network
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Why Senate Halted NSA Surveillance Reforms
The USA FREEDOM Act would have ended much of the NSA #39;s surveillance activity, but it didn #39;t collect enough votes to proceed through the Senate. Follow Elizabeth Hagedorn: http://www.twitter.com/...
By: Newsy Politics
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Senate kills bill to overhaul NSA spying
A promised end to mass surveillance after whistleblower Edward Snowden rocked the world with his revelations of how much America was spying have fallen apart. But who cares about Snowden ...
By: IN THE NOW
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NWO and the United States: NSA, police state and increased surveillance (2)
FAIR USE NOTICE: This video may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes only. This constitutes a #39;fair use #39; of any such copyrighted material as...
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NWO and the United States: NSA, police state and increased surveillance (2) - Video
Whats next for NSA reform in Congress?
A bill to limit the National Security Agency #39;s domestic metadata collection effectively died on the Senate floor. The USA Freedom Act would have forced the NSA to get court orders for specific...
By: PBS NewsHour
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June 6, 2013: A sign stands outside the National Security Agency (NSA) campus in Fort Meade, Md.(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)
WASHINGTON Dissenters within the National Security Agency, led by a senior agency executive, warned in 2009 that the program to secretly collect American phone records wasn't providing enough intelligence to justify the backlash it would cause if revealed, current and former intelligence officials say.
The NSA took the concerns seriously, and many senior officials shared them. But after an internal debate that has not been previously reported, NSA leaders, White House officials and key lawmakers opted to continue the collection and storage of American calling records, a domestic surveillance program without parallel in the agency's recent history.
The warnings proved prophetic last year after the calling records program was made public in the first and most significant leak by Edward Snowden, a former NSA systems administrator who cited the government's deception about the program as one of his chief motivations for turning over classified documents to journalists. Many Americans were shocked and dismayed to learn that an intelligence agency collects and stores all their landline calling records.
In response, President Barack Obama is now trying to stop the NSA collection but preserve the agency's ability to search the records in the hands of the telephone companies an arrangement similar to the one the administration quietly rejected in 2009. But his plan, drawing opposition from most Republicans, fell two votes short of advancing in the Senate on Tuesday.
A now-retired NSA senior executive, who was a longtime code-breaker who rose to top management, had just learned in 2009 about the top secret program that was created shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He says he argued to then-NSA Director Keith Alexander that storing the calling records of nearly every American fundamentally changed the character of the agency, which is supposed to eavesdrop on foreigners, not Americans.
Alexander politely disagreed, the former official told The Associated Press.
The former official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because he didn't have permission to discuss a classified matter, said he knows of no evidence the program was used for anything other than hunting for terrorism plots in the U.S. But he said he and others made the case that the collection of American records in bulk crossed a line that had been sacrosanct.
He said he also warned of a scandal if it should be disclosed that the NSA was storing records of private calls by Americans to psychiatrists, lovers and suicide hotlines, among other contacts.
Alexander, who led the NSA from 2005 until he retired last year, did not dispute the former official's account, though he said he disagreed that the program was improper.
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NSA continued to collect phone data despite internal warning of backlash
The U.S. National Security Agency is planning no major changes in its domestic telephone records collection program after a bill to rein in those efforts failed in the Senate this week, the agencys director said.
The NSA will continue to collect U.S. telephone records in bulk, while operating under some restrictions President Barack Obama put on the program back in January, Admiral Michael Rogers, the NSAs director, said during a House of Representatives hearing on cybersecurity Thursday. The NSA would rather wait to see what specific changes to the program Congress will require before making major changes, he told the House Intelligence Committee.
The NSA had hoped to get direction from Congress in the short term, but the agency may have to re-evaluate the telephone records program if were unable to gain consensus in the window that we thought, Rogers said. I dont have an answer to that in my own mind.
The NSA should take steps to end its bulk collection of U.S. phone records even though the USA Freedom Act, a bill that would have left the data in the hands of telecom carriers, failed in the Senate this week, said Representative Adam Schiff, a California Democrat. Theres nothing in statute that requires the government to gather bulk data, so you could move forward on your own with making the technological changes, Schiff said. You dont have to wait for the USA Freedom Act.
Theres no reason for the NSA to wait for congressional approval to put additional limits on the program if you think this is the correct policy, Schiff added. Why continue to gather the bulk metadata if [Obama administration officials] dont think this is the best approach?
But Rogers defended the phone records program, saying it has provided valuable antiterrorism intelligence to federal investigators.
The program operates under court and congressional oversight, and since January the NSA has needed approval from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court before querying the database of collected phone records, he said. Obama in January largely left the program intact while Congress debates it, Rogers said.
I dont think Ive heard the president or the [director of national intelligence] say that the access to the data is not of value, Rogers said. What I think Ive heard is, the question gets to be who should hold the data.
The public has several misconceptions about NSA surveillance programs, said Representative Mike Rogers, the Intelligence Committees chairman and a Michigan Republican. The NSA is not penetrating U.S. computer networks, he said.
The NSA is not on American domestic networks, but the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, and multiple other bad actors are, Representative Rogers said.
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NSA director: No changes in telephone record collection coming
The USA Freedom Act died in the SenateTuesdaynight. With it went a provision for a weak advocate to provide at least the beginnings of anadversarial position in the secret FISA court for more exotic requests. The measure would haveallowedthe FISC to consider viewpoints outside that of the government while still retaining the courts secrecy.
Even as that effort to do something to make the FISA court less like as Sen. Richard Blumenthal said during Tuesdaysdebate theStar Chamber, the British kings old secret court, failed, the government released atranscriptfrom a hearing at the FISA Court of Review, the appellate court to the FISC. The hearing considered Yahoos challenge to the Protect America Act, a precursor to todays PRISM program, which required the Internet provider to hand over customer data in response to government directives rather than warrants.
Some of the claims judges made in the secret hearing would be funny perhaps were meant to be if they werent so alarming, coming from a judge working in secret. For example,perhapsas a way of arguing the Fourth Amendment only requires searches to be reasonable, not require warrants, Judge Morris Arnold noted that the warrant clause is at the bottom end of the Fourth Amendment. As if sticking the requirement for warrants at the back end of a constitutional amendment made it optional.
Other commentswere downright troubling, as when Arnold suggested Yahoo hadnt been injured by the governments demand that it help it spy on their customers. Well, if this order is enforced and its secret, how can you be hurt? Arnold asked. The people dont know that that theyre being monitored in some way. Arnold continued, I mean, whats whats the whats your whats the damage to your consumer?
The most substantively outrageous comments came from Acting Solicitor General Gregory Garre. To dismiss any Fourth Amendment concerns about the American side of communications collected along with a target, Garre claimed incidentally collected Americans content is either destroyed and not used or disseminated. He then claimed there is no database that is taken from incidental collections.
That claim made it intoFISCRs final rulingto justify the courts finding that the incidental collection of large amounts of Americans data did not implicate the Fourth Amendment. The government assures us that it does not maintain a database of incidentally collected information from non-targeted United States persons, and there is no evidence to the contrary, the opinion read. On these facts, incidentally collected communications of non-targeted United States persons do not violate the Fourth Amendment. Even when that claim was first revealedfive years ago, it waspretty clear it was not true. Since then weve learned the government not only keeps that data, meaning it does, in fact, have thedatabase it claimed in secret it didnt have. Weve also learned the governmentsearchesAmericans names and email addresses, even before it has evidence of wrongdoing against them. The FBI does it so frequently, they cannot count how often they do.
Thats not the only gross misrepresentation the government told in the secrecy of Americas Star Chamber.
Later in the hearing, Garre pointed tothe order the government uses to authorizeits spying activities,Executive Order 12333, to prove that it did not spy on Americans overseas without conducting some kind of review that theAmerican is some kind of agent of a foreign power. He emphasized the longevity of the EO. It was issued in 1981, Garre said in 2008, and that is an order that has been followed. I dont think anyone disputes that its been followed. Garre offered up but did not deliver a discussion or explanation of the manner in which Section 2.5 has been carried out over the past few decades. Judge Arnold asked, Your main point is that this wasnt just something hoped [sic] up for present purposes; its been in effect for quite some time? Garre answered, Thats exactly right.
Only it wasnt exactly right.
AsSalon has noted, just six months before Garre made those comments, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouserevealedhow the EO had in reality been treated during the years it authorized a warrantless wiretap program. In fact, sometimeearlier in the Bush administration, DOJs Office of Legal Counsel, a department that interprets the law for the executive branch, had ruled that,An executive order cannot limit a President, Whitehouse read from language he got declassified to read before the Senate.There is no constitutional requirement for a President to issue a new executive order whenever he wishes to depart from the terms of a previous executive order.Rather than violate an executive order, the President has instead modified or waived it. As described, the EO Garre claimed was so rock solid was actually closer to pixie dust.
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This is America? Secret courts, no Fourth Amendment and magic pixie dust
The Pueblo County Planning and Zoning Commission voted unanimously Tuesday night to approve a fourth amendment to a special use permit regarding a gun range operated by the Pueblo West Sportsmans Association on the 600 block of East Loma Drive.
Seven members of the commission voted yes to approve the amendment. One member was absent and one abstained from voting. The special use permit allowing the PWSA facility was originally approved by the commission in 1986 and has had three prior amendments approved in 1990, 1993 and 2011.
The vote of approval was given by the commission provided 14 amended conditions are met by the gun range, which help satisfy safety concerns that have been brought up about it consisting mainly of berm heights and bullet ricochets potentially leaving the confines of the range.
In addition to the conditions of approval, a directive was ordered for the Department of Planning and Development to conduct an administrative review of the property in May and present a report to the planning commission about how the gun range is complying with the Pueblo County code and the conditions of approval.
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Ahead of a weekend trip to Iowa, potential 2016 Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson sought to assure supporters Wednesday evening that he's a strong Second Amendment supporter.
As he inches closer to the prospect of a presidential campaign, Carson used a conference call to try to address questions about his loyalty to gun rights.Skepticsoften point to a statement the neurosurgeon-turned-conservative-activist made in 2013 to conservative talk-show host Glenn Beck, whoasked whether people have the right to own semi-automatic weapons.
It depends on where you live, Carson told Beck. If you live in the midst of a lot of people, and Im afraid that that semi-automatic weapon is going to fall into the hands of a crazy person, I would rather you not have it.
Sometimes people just hear one little thing and they don't hear anything else.
Ben Carson
That statement has led some to unfairly label him as tepid on the Second Amendment, Carson said on the call.
There seemed to be group of peopleI don't know exactly who they arewho seize upon one part of something that I said, Carson said on the call, which Bloomberg Politics was allowed to dial into. Sometimes people just hear one little thing and they don't hear anything else.
Carson said that he could have been more precise in his answer to Beck.
Perhaps I didnt convey it appropriately, he said. I wanted to convey that, you know, I've lived in urban areas. I've worked in urban areas. I've seen a lot of carnage, and I'd prefer a situation where the kinds of weapons that create that kind of carnage don't fall to the hands of criminal elements or insane people. But that is secondary to the desire to always defend the Second Amendment.
Carson said that under no circumstances would he allow a bureaucrat to remove any law-abiding citizen's rights for any kind of weapon that they want to protect themselves.
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Park service tells me no 1st amendment at parks
Well this park employee on the rail trail told me I can #39;t have any "political " signs on my bike. Well I am exercising my first amendment rights , free speech,freedom of the press, right to...
By: That guy for 2a defend the constitution
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MORE THAN 25 percent of teens and adolescents have been bullied reportedly through the Internet or their cell phones. These statistics were obtained by the i-SAFE foundation. More than a quarter of Americas teens report being harassed and humiliated through electronic media. It is up to the schools to ensure that the learning environment remains undisturbed, up to fellow students to report cyberbullying they may witness, and up to the courts to uphold the First Amendment without allowing these students to be harmed.
The First Amendment of the United States Constitution states that Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech. However, our First Amendment right does not need to be limited to limit the impact of social comments conveyed through social media. In 1969, the Supreme Court case of Tinker v. Des Moines centered on students protesting the Vietnam war by wearing black arm bands to school. The school insisted the students remove the bands, and the students argued that this limited their right to free speech.
The court ruled in favor of the students, stating that this case does not concern speech or action that intrudes upon the work of the schools or the rights of other students. Although the school did not win in this case, it set the precedent that schools can combat bullying that intrudes upon the work of the schools or the rights of other students, disrupting students education.
However, while a school has the right to punish a cyberbully for disrupting education, it does not have the right to invade students online accounts without cause, as this does violate a bullys First Amendment right. Therefore, it is the duty of the target and the fellow students to stand up and report cyberbullying so the school may then determine whether a students education is being disrupted and, if so, decide consequences for the bully. The saying sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me is less accurate today. Between texting and social media, the words written electronically are forever. A hurtful comment to a peer is no longer just a passing insult in the hallway.The psychological and emotional torture of cyberbullying is real and devastating.
According to ABC News, 160,000 kids stay home from school each day to avoid bullying. About 4,000 young people commit suicide each year, with bully victims being two to nine times more likely to consider suicide, according to Yale University.
While the First Amendment must be protected, so must the lives and the education of students. When students opportunity to learn is ripped from them as a result of cyberbullying, schools have a right and a duty to intervene on behalf of the victim.
As Andrew Johnson once said, honest conviction is my courage; the Constitution is my guide. With the Constitution as a guide, schools must honestly convict those perverting the First Amendment to infringe upon any students right to education.
.
Kayla Bullwinkel is a senior at Millford High School. With this essay, she won this years New Hampshire Constitution Day essay contest, sponsored by the New Hampshire Supreme Court, the Nackey Loeb School of Communications, and several New Hampshire newspapers,
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Kayla Bullwinkel Schools must go after cyber bullies while respecting the First Amendment
Yesterday the City Council Consumer Affairs Committee heard testimony relating to a bill that would require costumed characters across New York City to register with the Department of Consumer Affairs in order to accept tips or donations. "This straight up seems like fascism to me," Keith Albahaye, a.k.a. The New York Joker, told the councilmembers. "The First Amendment is the First Amendment. I'm not gonna be allowed on 52nd Street and Broadway in the United States of America?"
At the outset of the hearing, the bill's sponsor, Bronx Councilmember Andy King, testified that "the bill is not designed to take away anyone's First Amendment rights," and he added that his aim wasn't to raise questions about a performer's immigration status either. King said that his own five-year-old daughter was traumatized by an encounter with a character this past summer.
"Strawberry Shortcake didn't get the proper tip she wanted, she ripped off her own head and started to berate her father and her family," King said. "In the mind of a five year old, how do you comprehend a head being snatched off? In cartoons you can erase the head and you can draw it back on, but in human life you can't do that. We want to make sure we can maintain that kind of innocence for our children and our families."
Midtown South Commander Edward Winski testified that since 2009, the police have arrested 38 costumed performers in Times Square, 18 of those occurring this year. Most were for aggressive solicitation, but others were more serious, such as when a Spiderman struck a police officer and when Woody from Toy Story was arrested for sexually assaulted a woman by grabbing her buttock.
Councilmember Dan Garodnick, whose district covers a portion of Times Square, noted that King's bill merely reiterates the law prohibiting aggressive solicitation, the enforcement of which is currently up to the NYPD.
"Even under the bill as proposed, those same subtle questions exist," Garodnick said. "I think it still leaves open a lot of those questions which ultimately, if the police are not there to enforce, we're just where we are today."
Int. 467 would make it illegal "for any costumed individual while wearing a costume to solicit in return for posing for photographs or otherwise interacting with the public in public places without having first obtained a license."
Steven Shiffrin, professor emeritus at Cornell Law School and the author of numerous books on the First Amendment, told us in September that a law like this may not pass constitutional muster.
"Wearing costumes is a form of First Amendment expression, and the First Amendment does not permit government to charge its citizens as a pre-condition of exercising their rights," Shiffrin wrote in an email. "This principle takes on special force when the charge is exorbitant and when the purported justification for its imposition is so obviously a pretext."
A representative from the Department of Consumer Affairs also revealed that in addition to the $175 fee for the two-year license, characters would have to pay a $75 fingerprinting fee. There are 14 other licensed professions that require fingerprinting, including auctioneers, auto repair workers, bingo hosts, process servers, pawn brokers, and tow truck drivers. The representative noted that the costume license would be the cheapest, though a general vendor license costs $200. A tow truck company pays $600 per truck.
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Times Square Joker Says Costume Law Is "Straight Up Fascism"
World Bank releases report saying bitcoin is not Ponzi scheme, while Ethereum trumps Facebook(IBTimes UK)
The price of bitcoin has continued to slump, falling by a further 6% over the last 24 hours to take its value below $360.
Most other major cryptocurrencies have followed in bitcoin's lead, with litecoin, dogecoin, darkcoin and namecoin all falling by between 4% and 6%.
One of the biggest movers across all markets was czechcrowncoin. The unofficial altcoin of the Czech Republic shot up by more than 50%.
Vitalik Buterin, the developer of the bitcoin 2.0 platform Ethereum, has beaten Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to a prize at the World Technology Awards.
Buterin trumped Zuckerberg in the award for IT software, making him the only person from the digital currency industry to win an award this year.
Other winners on the night included Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk and co-founders of Y-Combinator Paul Graham, Jessica Livingston, Robert Morris and Trevor Blackwell.
Finland has broken the conventional EU mould in its approach to cryptocurrency by classifying bitcoin as a financial service.
The classification by the Finnish Central Board of Taxes makes bitcoin VAT exempt under Finnish law.
"By making bitcoins a recognized payment instrument, Finland has pushed it towards being regarded as a formal currency," Richard Asquith, vice president of global tax compliance at Alavara, told theInternational Tax Review.
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Cryptocurrency Round-Up: Ethereum Beats Facebook in Tech Award and Bitcoin 'Not a Ponzi Scheme'
ZebPay - Bitcoin Mobile Wallet
ZebPay, a mobile Bitcoin wallet, aims to make Bitcoin transactions easier. One can send and receive Bitcoins by simply registering on your mobile number. Zeb...
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Spells Of Genesis Innovating The Game Economy With Bitcoin
Participate in a Q A with our team - Find out how you can contribute to our project, tell us what you think, ask us anything you want to know about Spells of Genesis!
By: Everdreamsoft
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Spells Of Genesis Innovating The Game Economy With Bitcoin - Video
Ambasada Bitcoin Tv odcinek 3 (18.11.2014)
Trzeci odcinek wiadomoci Bitcoinowych. Zapraszamy do ogldania 🙂
By: AmbasadaBitcoinTV
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Bitcoin Giveaway - Join the Revolution
If you have been wanting to buy some bitcoin for the first time, this is your opportunity to win some for free! Simply create a digital wallet and post the public key in the comment section...
By: Brett Sanders
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