Daily Archives: June 27, 2017

College panel: Free speech on campus under siege from students – Hot Air

Posted: June 27, 2017 at 6:57 am

TheNational Association of College and University Attorneys (NACUA) is holding its annual convention this week in Chicago. Inside Higher Ed reports on an interestingdiscussion that took place today about free speech on campus and how to protect it. Greg Lukianoff of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) says campus speech is mostly under assault these days not from misguided administrators, but from students.

For most of my career, we were usually running up against administrative overreach campus leaders doing things that were a bad idea, or were sometimes well intentioned but still flawed, Lukianoff said during a panel discussion about the tension between free speech and inclusivity on campuses at the associations annual conference here.

Students, he said, were traditionally the best constituents for freedom of speech. But thats no longer the case, with many more students demanding that speakers be disinvited, calling for the firing of professors or suspension of fellow students whose speech they deem hurtful, and the like.

There was agreement among the panel that what todays students mean by safety on campus is not what administrators are there to guarantee:

Students do come to college expecting to be in environment that supports them, said [Wake Forest Universitys vice president for campus life Penny] Rue. To the extent they come to college expecting safety, I can guarantee them physical safety. But psychological safety and leaning into learning moments are not always aligned.

Just because it creates hurt is not enough, [University of Chicagos Jeffrey] Stone said. Almost all controversial speech harms people, upsets or offends them The First Amendment does not allow you to restrict speech because it harms them.

Some on the panel felt many students simply dont understand the importance of the First Amendments protection of free speech because of a basic lack of civics education in high school. Rue, the campus lifeVPat Wake Forest, suggested that needed to be addressed in college as part of the curriculum. However, both Lukianoff and Stone suggested college professors may not be the best solution to this problem. Stone pointed out that many professors, think hate speech shouldnt be allowed on campuses.

The discussion at this panel event does suggest there are still some adults left in the room, but increasingly they are playing defense against waves of students and some professors who genuinely dont see free speech as a fundamental right that needs to be protected from the hecklers veto. Even when students go off the rails, as happened recently at Evergreen College, you have administrators like President George Bridges who seem intent on making sure students suffer no consequences for their illiberal actions.

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Atheism vs Faith – Aleteia – Aleteia EN

Posted: at 6:57 am

My father-in-law is one of the fairest, most patient, and most virtuous people that I know. Hes always available to help out, his capacity for forgiveness is immense, and when hes unavailable its usually because hes caring for or teaching people in his community. Hes intellectual honest, and hes a profoundly decent human being. Hes also an atheist.

Hes part of the reason why I have respect for people in the atheist community, and why when I write about atheism I usually have positive things to say. I dont think its true that all atheists are fundamentally driven by selfishness, pride or immorality. Sometimes people are atheists because theyve been intellectual or morally scandalized by poor catechesis or by the bad behavior of those who represent the gospel. Others may just be like those laborers standing around in the marketplace who havent yet been called into the fields. Conversion, after all, is a grace that comes to us according to Gods timetable.

Ive found, though, that when I speak well of the atheist community people often believe that I must be one of them or very shortly about to join their ranks. Of course I cant guarantee that I will never lose my faith (nobody can), but an atheist Im definitely not.

I am a skeptic, and Ive been around for long enough to know that skepticism is a deep-seated personality trait that isnt going anywhere. Ive never been capable of the kind of faith that is comfortable and stable. I constantly question everything and Im always searching for better answers not just in order to be able to better answer other peoples doubts, but also in order to be able to answer my own. I have tremendous respect for those who are capable of simple childlike trust in God and in the Church. Im just not that kind of kid. For me, being like a little child means being like that 3-year-old who always has to ask a hundred-thousand whys.

This kind of skepticism does, I think, represent a kind of sincere fidelity to truth. Its a difficult form of fidelity, however, because Christianity is not simple, easy or clean. I dont just mean that in the sense that its complex, demanding and youll get dirty so you should gird up your loins and take up your cross. I mean that the beauty of the faith is constantly obscured by power games, superstition, simony, charlatanism and various other forms of self-serving vainglory. We dont receive a pristine doctrine, because the teaching that we receive is presented to us by sinful human beings. We receive the Body of Christ the Body of Truth scarred, broken, pierced and crucified.

Because religious truth is so often abused and misused, it can be tempting to just be done with it. For me, though, thats not really a live option. Basically, whenever I get to the point where I can no longer see God through all of the mirages and smokescreens that men have erected in order to make God into an instrument of human purposes, I have a crisis of faith. Usually, I decide that Im for sure leaving the Church. Often, I conclude that atheism is the only intellectually honest option.

Now, this is the point where I do something that I wouldnt do if I actually were an atheist. I go and talk to God about it. And God listens very patiently while I explain all of the reasons why I cant believe anymore. And we talk it through. And usually there are some jokes at my expense. And by the end of the conversation, I remember that ultimately religion is about forging a relationship with a Being who is my author, my creator, my lover and my friend. A Being who is infinitely greater than even the most beautiful human representations, and who can never be reduced to any simple human agenda. A Being who is both revealed and concealed in every molecule, every galaxy, every human heart, every word that is uttered, every inmost thought, and every grand historical movement. A God who is in all, with all, through all, for all, of all, beyond all, beneath all, and above all.

When it comes right down to it, this relationship is sufficiently real, sufficiently profound, and sufficiently important to me that Im not sure that Im actually capable of atheism. No matter how skeptical I may be, the fundamental claim that there is a God with whom it is possible to have a deep and life-giving relationship is one I find it impossible to deny. I just have way more first-hand experience of grace than I can easily explain away.

For me this is the bottom line. I know God. I love God. And having encountered Him, I cannot go back to being an atheist.

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Colorful Nebula Forms a Cosmic ‘Spirograph’ in Hubble Telescope … – Space.com

Posted: at 6:55 am

Planetary nebula IC 418 looks like a glowing orange and purple jewel in this Hubble image from 2000.

Space is bejeweled with the stunning IC 418, a planetary nebula with purple and orange coloring enveloping a bright white core. The nebula lies close to 2,000 light-years from Earth on the way to the Lepus constellation.

Planetary nebulas like IC 418 are thelast stage of evolution for a star like our sun; it was once ared giant before it ejected its outer layers into space several thousand years ago. Since its eruption, the nebula has expanded to about 0.1 light-year in diameter, representitives from Space Telescope Science Institute in Marylandsaid in a statement.

The hot, white core visible in the image is the stellar remnant of the red giant, and its ultraviolet radiation creates the fluorescence in the nebula around it. The ejecta will continue to spread into the cosmos over the next several thousand years. The star will cool and fade over billions of years as a white dwarf.

This isthe fate of Earth's own sunin some 5 billion years from now.

The camera filters used to isolate light from different chemical elements are represented by the added colors. Red, at the outer edge of the nebula, shows ionized nitrogen emission this is the coolest gas in the nebula. Green shows hydrogen gas emission. Blue, at the center closest to the star, reveals ionized oxygen emissions this is the hottest gas in the nebula. TheHubble Space Telescope revealed the designs and textures within the nebula for the first time, and experts are still searching for their origin.

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Bloomberg View: NATO can fight terrorism one sinking boat at a time … – Omaha World-Herald

Posted: at 6:55 am

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has now formally enlisted in the fight against Islamic State. It can begin by helping to stem the flow of refugees trying to reach Europe from North Africa.

This would be more than a humanitarian exercise; it would be a counterterrorism operation. Wherever refugees gather in hopelessness, violent extremists have a fertile recruiting ground. And the number of refugees is staggering.

Nearly 200,000 people fleeing violence and poverty tried to cross the Mediterranean last year, and at least 5,000 died in the attempt. The U.N. estimates there are more than half a million refugees, asylum seekers and displaced people in Libya alone.

Neither the fractured Libyan government nor the European Union can cope with the numbers, leaving hundreds of thousands of people in makeshift refugee camps some of which are controlled by human traffickers and resemble concentration camps, according to a German government report.

Those who make it across the Mediterranean dont fare much better. Most end up in overcrowded camps in Italy, where social services are lacking and applications for asylum languish.

Those intercepted in Libyan waters are sent back. Sometimes the traffickers dump their human cargo in the sea to avoid capture.

So what can NATO do? With more than 700 ships at its disposal, it can do a lot.

For starters, it can build on Italian-led Operation Sophia, which has saved thousands of lives but is woefully inadequate to the task.

NATOs sophisticated surveillance capabilities, such as long-range patrol airplanes and satellite imagery, can monitor ports in Africa and the Middle East and aid in search-and-rescue efforts.

NATO can also help the EUs efforts to professionalize the Libyan coast guard.

The alliance can foster far more naval cooperation and intelligence sharing among its members, and with intergovernmental entities such as Interpol. This should also involve another underutilized asset: private shipping companies, which are obligated to respond to other vessels in distress.

NATO could also encourage member states to build more camps on Mediterranean islands and could aid with construction, perimeter security, health care and the like.

NATO patrols in the Mediterranean could provide a more direct benefit in the fight against terrorists: stemming the flow of arms from the Middle East to Islamist terrorists in North Africa. Islamic State already has a foothold in Libya and is trying to expand into Tunisia.

Two years ago, the civil war in Syria caused the exodus of millions, which set off a political crisis from Greece to the U.K. and created a lasting rift between Turkey and its NATO allies.

That time, the alliance watched from the sidelines. Now, as fighting intensifies and conditions deteriorate in Syria, NATO cant afford to make the same mistake.

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NATO general sounds warning about Putin’s HUGE modernisation of Russian military machine – Express.co.uk

Posted: at 6:55 am

General Petr Pavel, chairman of the NATO Military Committee issued the stern warning during a breakfast briefing hosted by Politico.

General Pavel said: We in uniform, we define the threat based on two major elements. One is the capability, the other is the intent.

When it comes to capability there is no doubt that Russia is developing their capabilities both in conventional and nuclear components.

When it comes to exercises, their ability to deploy troops for long distance and to use them effectively quite far away from their own territory, there are no doubts.

Politico/Fox News/Getty

We face a huge modernisation of all Russia military

General Petr Pavel

When it comes to intent, its not so clear because we cannot clearly say that Russia has aggressive intents against NATO.

The General went on to add that the North Atlantic alliance was bolstering its own capabilities saying; there are elements that have to worry us and we have to stay ready.

So we take this even potential threat very seriously. We do everything possible to be ready both in terms of capabilities and readiness, to face any potential threat that would mirror the situation we know from Crimea, from eastern Ukraine, not to be repeated against any NATO ally.

He added: We also observe an increased and more assertive attitude in both political and militaryleadershiptalking about taking all necessary measures to face NATO military build-up. We face a huge modernisation of all Russia military.

REUTERS

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U.S. President Donald Trump and Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May react during a ceremony at the new NATO headquarters in Brussels

General Pavel dismissed the idea the vote for Britain to leave the European Union posed a challenge to the alliance.

He said the UK would continue to be a pillar state despite uncertainty after 17.4million people voted to exit the EU.

He said: In my view, it doesnt pose a challenge to Nato the United Kingdom is firm and one of the pillar states of the alliance, its one of the strongest Nato allies military wise in Europe so we dont see any direct challenge for Nato coming out from Brexit.

He suggested the opposite was happening with many representatives of the UK expressing their more focused approach to the military alliance.

The comments come after the US and Donald Trump a key ally to the UK post-Brexit continued to send warning signals to Nato over its spending commitments.

Speaking last month at a Nato meeting of member states, the US President reminded fellow members they were not paying their fair share.

He said: I have been very very direct in saying that Nato members must finally contribute their fair share and meet their financial obligations.

But 23 of the 28 member nations are still not paying what they should be paying and what theyre supposed to be paying for their defence.

Nato members are expected to spend two per cent of GDP on their military budget, as the alliance looks to bolster its global presence.

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There Is Now Proof the NSA Overindulges in Data Collection – Observer

Posted: at 6:54 am

National security officials are continually reassuring Americans that their communications arent getting caught in massive dragnets, and that when it does happen, the communications are handled responsibly. But recently-released opinions from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC)the seven-judge panel charged with oversight of National Security Agency (NSA) spying programsshow just the opposite is true.

The heavily redacted documents, released on June 13 by the Department of Justice in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), show troubling abuses of surveillance powers granted under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act.

Section 702, signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2008, authorizes the intelligence community to collect data and metadata of foreign communications, while preventing the agencies from intentionally targeting American people. The goal of this type of online surveillance is to catch the communications of foreign terrorists before they make their way to the United States. Two of the main programs, PRISM and UPSTREAM, were disclosed by the leaks from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in 2013.

As the Washington Post pointed out in 2014, nine out of 10 internet users who have had their data collected under Section 702 were ordinary internet users and not actual surveillance targets. According to the FISC, around 56,000 Americans per year have their communications accidentally sucked up in this process. That means the types of hiccups and compliance issues that these new documents illustrate could be impacting thousands of Americans annually.

One Court opinion, released last week, shows the NSA has engaged in significant overcollection of the content of communications of non-target U.S. persons and persons in the U.S. This type of data collection is supposed to be expressly prohibited. If these allegations are true, this shows even more rampant hypocrisy within the intelligence community, who constantly defend and justify Section 702. If this overcollection is happening, theyve been blatantly lying.

During a June 7 Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, NSA Director Mike Rogers continually downplayed issues of inadvertent collection of Americans communications under Section 702. Amid bipartisan questioning from Sens. Ron Wyden and Marco Rubio, he defended the program, calling it vital to national security andsaying it offers insight into foreign powers that could not be matched without the program.

Its bad enough that the intelligence apparatus is collecting too much of Americans communications under Section 702, but theyre also mishandling it once they have it. A 2010 FISC opinion states that the NSA had a compliance incident and failure to purge information that was required to be destroyed under the targeting and minimization procedures from certain NSA data repositories. Minimization procedures require the NSA to stop collecting data once it is determined that the target is within the United States. If the surveillance state is failing to comply with such a basic check on its power and holding onto communications that it should not be keeping, that is an egregious abuse of the powers it is given. It shows a lack of responsibility and failure to own up to mistakes on the part of the NSA.

A 2013 document, also released this week, highlights a similar compliance incident that concerned the [redacted] post-tasking checks NSA conducts to help ensure that [redacted] tasked for collection pursuant Sections 702, 704 and 705(b) of the Act are not being used from inside the United States. The term tasking refersto NSA requests for data or metadata from private companies, which can help NSA officials track the whereabouts of a target. This is particularly used under PRISM, which allows NSA to collect data from at least nine major internet companies servers.

Despite all of the abuses the documents highlight, some members of Congress continue to wholeheartedly endorse Section 702. On June 6, Sen. Tom Cotton introduced legislation to make Section 702 permanent, getting rid of the requirement that it be voted on every five years.

As a justification for the program, Cotton invokes the same need for foreign insights that Rogers mentioned in his testimony, while ignoring the inadvertent collection of Americans data. That type of disregard for Americans privacy is pervasive on both the left and the right.

While not surprising, these documents serve as yet another reminder of the continuing abuse of surveillance powers granted under Section 702. Hopefully the vast revelations of surveillance overreach from groups like EFF can jolt congressional representatives to let Section 702 sunset when its time comes on December 31. But based on Congress overwhelming support for reauthorizing Section 702 in 2012, and Cottons introduction of a bill to make it permit, civil libertarians shouldnt hold their collective breath.

Dan King is an advocate for Young Voices and a journalist residing in New Yorks Adirondacks. He writes about free speech, civil liberties and LGBT issues. He can be found on Twitter @Kinger_Editor.

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Washington Angels 14U win B NSA state title – Tri-City Herald

Posted: at 6:54 am


Tri-City Herald
Washington Angels 14U win B NSA state title
Tri-City Herald
The Washington Angels 14U softball team won the 14U B NSA state championship Sunday at Columbia Playfields in Richland. The Angels went 6-0 on the weekend, with a 6-2 win over the Monarch Crushers in the championship. Team members are: Lexi ...

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Court date for Kingsville woman who allegedly leaked NSA documen – KRISTV.com | Continuous News Coverage … – KRIS Corpus Christi News

Posted: at 6:54 am

GEORGIA -

A local woman who is charged with leaking classified documents is scheduled to be in court today.

Reality Winner, the Kingsville native and former National Security Agency contractor, is scheduled to appear in federal court in Georgia on Tuesday for what her attorney says is a status update on charges she faces.

The 25-year-old intelligence specialist is charged violating the Espionage Act by mailing highly classified documents about Russian interference during the 2016 U.S. election to the media.

Winner remains in custody at a jail in Lincoln County, Georgia.

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Apple, the Apple logo, iPod, and iTunes are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. iPhone is a trademark of Apple Inc.

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Court date for Kingsville woman who allegedly leaked NSA documen - KRISTV.com | Continuous News Coverage ... - KRIS Corpus Christi News

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Second Amendment violations targeted by criminal code experts – Washington Times

Posted: at 6:53 am


Washington Times
Second Amendment violations targeted by criminal code experts
Washington Times
Heller, the U.S. Supreme Court held that Washington, D.C.'s ban on handgun possession unconstitutionally infringed on Second Amendment rights. Yet a District law prohibiting with few exceptions ammunition in residents' homes lingers on the books.

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SCOTUS deals a blow to Second Amendment in Peruta v. California – Hot Air

Posted: at 6:53 am

Wait a minute I thought we were supposed to be winning these cases now.

A huge disappointment came out of the Supreme Court today when the justices declined to hear the appeal of the case of Peruta v. California, a potentially game changing case when it comes to the right to carry firearms, particularly concealed, in public. The LA Times has the brief summary, including the fact that there was, unusually, a written dissent to the decision published.

The Supreme Court has rejected a major 2nd Amendment challenge to Californias strict limits on carrying concealed guns in public.

The justices turned away an appeal from gun rights advocates who contended most law-abiding gun owners in San Diego, Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area are being wrongly denied permits to carry a weapon when they leave home

In dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas said the courts action reflects a distressing trend in the treatment of the 2nd Amendment as a disfavored right. Justice Neil M. Gorsuch joined his dissent.

Thomas clearly has it right, since this is once again a case where the courts are allowing the states to regularly impose far greater limitations on Second Amendment rights than virtually any of the others. By declining to hear the appeal, the Supreme Court has a allowed a decision from the 9th Circuit (where else) to stand, supporting those limitations in California.

This was a key case challenging the right of the states to declare that citizens have to show good cause before exercising their natural right to keep and bear arms. California passed a law indicating that concealed carry permits would not be issued to anyone unless they could prove that they faced some level of danger above and beyond that of the average citizen. Earlier this year, William Gore, the Sheriff of San Diego County, wrote an op-ed for the San Diego Union Tribune in which he explained the (heavily flawed, in my opinion) reason for the laws existence.

The good cause requirement is at the heart of the Peruta case. The Sheriffs Department has, since well before my time as sheriff, defined good cause as a set of circumstances that distinguishes the applicant from other members of the general public and causes him or her to be placed in harms way.

The issue in the Peruta lawsuit is really whether Californias good cause requirement can be satisfied by an applicant who simply states that he or she wants to carry a concealed firearm for self-defense, without providing anything more to the issuing agency.

The federal district court held that the San Diego County Sheriffs Departments interpretation of good cause under California law was not unconstitutional and dismissed the applicants case.

The applicants then appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where the state of California eventually stepped in to defend the constitutionality of its concealed licensing statutes.

Todays result throws Heller and a number of other decisions into reverse gear, at least potentially. The Peruta decision seems to apply specifically to concealed carry, but if youre going to release the good cause genie out of the bottle, who knows where that train ride ends? Openly carrying a firearm actually only allows you slightly faster access to it if the need for self-defense arises. This hands an incredible amount of dangerous power to states and municipalities since they can now make themselves the arbiters of what qualifies as good cause for virtually any request. Will you have to be someone who has already been attacked once in order to qualify in the cities and more liberal states? And what if you were only attacked with fists or a knife or a bat? Perhaps such assaults wouldnt qualify either.

If you live in a neighborhood with a high crime rate and regular assaults, I suppose that wont make any difference either. After all, as the Sheriff said, you need to be able to distinguish yourself from other members of the general public in terms of being placed in harms way. If everyone on the West Side of Baltimore is equally liable to be murdered there on any given night, then nobody is particularly distinguishable as being at more risk than anyone else, right?

We need to turn over a number of additional of seats on this court. I have little more to say than this is a disgusting result.

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