The populist menace

Skynet is real, and it could flag you as a terrorist

Summary:If you visit airports or swap SIM cards often, you might be flagged by "Skynet."

By Zack Whittaker for Zero Day | May 11, 2015 -- 16:41 GMT (09:41 PDT)

A scene from "Terminator." (Screenshot: Warner Bros. via CNET/CBS Interactive)

It may not be quite the self-aware computer network that takes over millions of computers and machines, but "Skynet" is real.

Documents published by The Intercept, leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, confirm that the Skynet program exists -- at least in name only. Its name comes from the intelligent computer defense system in the "Terminator" films, which later destroys most of humanity in a nuclear apocalypse.

As the Snowden leaks began, there was "fear and panic" in Congress
Just a few minutes after the first NSA leak was published, the phones of US lawmakers began to buzz, hours before most of America would find out over their morning coffee.

• Read More

The National Security Agency program analyzes location and metadata from phone records to detect potentially suspicious patterns, according to the publication. In one example, it was used to identify people that act as couriers between al-Qaeda leadership. (This may have been the program that helped identify Osama bin Laden's courier, leading to his targeted killing in Pakistan by US forces in 2011.)

According to one of the documents, it uses "behavior-based analytics," such as low-use phones that only take incoming calls, SIM card or handset swapping, or frequent disconnections from the phone network (such as powering down cellphones). Also, repeated trips mapped out by location data, including visits to other countries or airports, can flag a person as being suspicious -- or a potential terrorist.

More than 55 million cell records collected from major Pakistani telecom companies were fed into the Skynet system to determine targets of interest, the document said.

But questions remain around why the program flagged a prominent Al Jazeera journalist as a "member" of al-Qaeda. It's probably not a surprise that the system alerted on Ahmad Muaffaq Zaidan, a Syrian national, based on his frequent travel between Afghanistan and Pakistan. But the fact that it identified him as a member of a terrorist group is a mystery, as well as a great concern.

Zaidan "absolutely" denied that he is a member of al-Qaeda, and criticized the US government's "attempt at using questionable techniques to target our journalists."

We reached out to the NSA to see why it used the name, but didn't hear back at the time of writing.

Chris Christie spent $82,000 on food at NFL games

By Igor Bobic

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) spent more than $82,000 in taxpayer money on concessions at NFL games - a sum that Republicans later reimbursed to the state Treasury to avoid impropriety.


According to a New Jersey Watchdog analysis of records from the governor's office that was published Monday, Christie used $300,000 of his $360,000 state allowance over five years to purchase food, alcohol and desserts. Some $82,594 of that sum went to Delaware North Sportservice, which operates the concessions at MetLife Stadium, the home of both the New York Giants and Jets teams.

To avoid a potential scandal that could embarrass their rising political star, the New Jersey Republican State Committee reimbursed the Treasury in March 2012 for Christie’s purchases from “DNS Sports.” Since then, the governor has refrained from using his expense account at MetLife and other sports venues.

According to the analysis, Christie was also a big fan of the grocery store Wegmans Food Markets, where he spent $76,373 in 53 shopping runs. A spokesman for the governor defended the nature of the expenses, explaining they were for "official" and "business" purposes.

This isn't the first time the potential 2016 presidential candidate's expenses have come under scrutiny. In February, The New York Times detailed the governor's taste for private jets and access to celebrities. And earlier this year, ethics watchdogs raised concerns about Christie's all-expense-paid trip to watch a playoff game featuring the Dallas Cowboys -- of which the governor is a fan -- that was paid for by team owner Jerry Jones.

CHIP - $9 Computer To Beat Pi & Arduino

Written by Harry Fairhead

Monday, 11 May 2015

I have seen a lot of amazing low-cost, single-board computers recently, but the CHIP is perhaps an amazement too far. It's not that I don't believe in it, I do, it is more that this really does threaten to be a revolution and I hope it succeeds. The C.H.I.P is a small computer, similar to the Raspberry Pi with Arduino compatible I/O, that is set to cost only $9! Even if it cost a little more it would still be a revolution because it has Bluetooth and WiFi built in. If this isn't enough for you, then consider that is powered by a LiPO battery without needing any extras. There is a Kickstarter running at the moment and it has already exceeded its goal of $50,000 reaching over $350,000 with 28 days still to go. It has been funded but you can still buy a CHIP for a $9 pledge. The company behind the project has run one successful Kickstarter project before, see OTTO - The Hackable Raspberry Pi GIF Camera.    If you are expecting some limited PIC chip running the show then you would be wrong. The device has a 1GHz ARM A13 (Single core Cortex A8) compatible processor with 512MB of RAM and 4GB of Flash storage. It also has a Mali GPU with OpenGL support.  Notice that the latest Pi 2 has quad core A7 running at 900MHz and the original Pi has a single core version 6 ARM running at 700MHz - so the CHIP is some where between the original Pi and the new Pi in terms of processor. It is also more powerful and an Arduino and it has a composite video output which can be converted to VGA or HDMI as required. The first models to be available will only have the composite output converters will be available later. You can connect a keyboard and mouse via Bluetooth or via USB. There are two USB ports a full size USB and a micro USB with OTG. This means that you can use a CHIP as a "desktop" computer if you want to. And if you do want to then there is Pocket CHIP. This is a slightly unlikely, tiny, case for the CHIP complete with tiny keyboard and 4.3-inch touch screen. It claims to operate for 5 hours from a battery and it will fit in your pocket. I'm not at all sure what this could be useful for, but I still want one. The case also has a full GPIO breakout connector on the back so one possible use is as a teaching/experimental IoT setup. A CHIP plus a Pocket CHIP costs $49. Turning to its IoT capabilities, the first thing to say is that this is already WiFi-enabled so no need to use Zigbee or Zwave to get connected. The basic CHIP has connectors that are compatible with Arduino shields, although there is no way to know what will or will not work. As standard you get eight GPIO lines, PWM, I2C, SPI and a UART. There is also support for MIPI-CSI cameras and LCD display. The connector for  the 3.7V LiPo battery is also a charger and power can be supplied via the microUSB connector. There is also an audio connector. It comes with a version of Debian Linux and a lot of standard software such as LibreOffice and Scratch. Of course you can install other applications using the usual package manager. Take a look at this OTT video and try not to be put off the really good idea: Why is CHIP so cheap? The answer given is: "QUANTITY. Our partners at Allwinner worked hard to help us find how to reduce costs, so that we could introduce C.H.I.P. to EVERYBODY. To sell C.H.I.P. for $9, we need to order tens of thousands of chips. By using common, available, and volume-produced processor, memory, and wifi chips, we are able to leverage the scales at which tablet manufacturers operate to get everyone the best price." Allwinner is a Chinese chip manufacturer responsible for the chips that power so many of the low cost (around $50) Android tablets that you can buy at the moment. Even so, $9 seems like a very low price and it is hard to see where the profit is coming from on the basic model. However, if you want a VGA or HDMI adaptor as well the price rises to $19 and $24 respectively.  Add a PocketCHIP and an HDMI adapter to the basic CHIP and you arrive at a cost of $64. Still amazing value, but there might be a little more margin built in. You might be wondering why I think this might be a revolution? There are two aspects to the revolution that a successful CHIP might bring about. The first is in the hi-tech world of IoT. A battery-backed SBC with WiFi connection for $9 makes it possible to think of building disposable sensors. If you need to measure something, throw a CHIP with a sensor at it. You can instrument lots and lots of things without having to justify the cost. In the same way an appliance module based on CHIP could control lights, motors and other equipment without using unreliable and complex radio protocols such as Z-wave. This might just be where the IoT revolution actually starts. The second is in computers as appliances. If an additional computer just costs $9, you can always throw another CPU at the problem. In education you can use Pocket CHIP and give one per student and still have some over for spares. You can assign a media server to each TV, have your own VPN server, mail server and so on. This is the move from personal computing to personal disposable computing and it could be as revolutionary as the move from the fine handcrafted pen to the ballpoint. And, of course, it is all open source. The first units should ship in December. More Information CHIP - The World's First Nine Dollar Computer Related Articles OTTO - The Hackable Raspberry Pi GIF Camera        Arduino Zero Pro Released Amid Legal Dispute Raspberry Pi 2 - Quad Core And Runs Windows Intel IoT Dev Kit Reaches v1.0 New Raspberry Pi A+ Just $20 BBC Giving Away 1 Million Microcomputers  Raspberry Pi or Programming - What shall we teach the children? To be informed about new articles on I Programmer, install the I Programmer Toolbar, subscribe to the RSS feed, follow us on, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or Linkedin,  or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Conan O'Brien Plays The Witcher 3

How To Avoid Online Surveillance

TPP: Race to the bottom

Undercover documentaries reveal horrible working conditions in parts of Asia, raising questions about America's ability to regulate trade partners practices. Ed Schultz, Charles Kernaghan, Jim Keady and Lori Wallach discuss.

Social Security In Far Worse Shape Than Official Numbers Show

By Janet Novack, Forbes Staff

Over the last 15 years, the Social Security Administration’s Office of the Chief Actuary has consistently underestimated retirees’ life expectancy and made other errors that make the finances of the retirement system look significantly better than they are, a new study by two Harvard and one Dartmouth academics concludes. The report, being published today by the Journal of Economic Perspectives, is the first, the authors say, to compare the government agency’s past demographic and financial forecasts with actual results.

In a second paper appearing today in Political Analysis, the three researchers offer their theory of why the Actuary Office’s predictions have apparently grown less reliable since 2000: The civil servants who run it have responded to increased political polarization surrounding Social Security “by hunkering down” and resisting outside pressures—not only from the politicians, but also from outside technical experts.

“While they’re insulating themselves from the politics, they also insulate themselves from the data and this big change in the world –people started living longer lives,’’ coauthor Gary King, a leading political scientist and director of Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science, said in an interview Thursday. “They need to take that into account and change the forecast as a result of that.”

In its annual report last July, Social Security predicted its old age and disability trust funds, combined, would be exhausted in 2033 and that after that point the government will have enough payroll tax revenues coming in to pay only about three quarters of  promised benefits. King said his team hasn’t estimated how much sooner the fund might run out, but described it as in “significantly worse shape” than official forecasts indicate.

In addition to underestimating recent declines in mortality (i.e. increases in life expectancy) for those 65 and older, the Actuary has overestimated the birth rate—meaning the number of new workers who will be available to pay baby boomers their benefits 20 years from now , the researchers assert.

Before 2000, the Actuary also made errors, but they went in both directions and the Actuary was readier to adjust the forecasts from year to year as new evidence came in, King said. Since 2000, he added, the errors “all are biased in the direction of making the system seem healthier than it really is.’’

A Social Security spokesman said today that Chief Actuary Stephen Goss couldn’t comment on the papers because he wasn’t provided them in advance and is tied up today in meeting with the Social Security Advisory Board Technical Panel. But he pointed to an Actuarial Note Goss and three colleagues published in 2013 in response to a New York Times op-ed by King and one of his current coauthors,  Samir Soneji, an assistant professor at Dartmouth’s Institute for HealthPolicy & Clinical Practice.

In that op-ed, they attacked the Actuary’s methods of projecting mortality rates and predicted the trust fund would be depleted two years earlier than predicted. In their response, Goss and his colleagues called Kind and Soneji’s methods of predicting death rates “highly questionable” and noted that the Actuary’s methods have been audited since 2006 by an independent accounting firm and received unqualified opinions.

The dust-up might be ignored as bickering by the pointy heads, if it weren’t so consequential.  In a recent Gallup survey, 36% of workers said they were counting on Social Security as a major source of retirement income. Differences over the estimates are important, King observed, because they affect “basically half of the spending of the U.S. government,’’ including Medicare.  Moreover, the forecasting assumptions affect the projected impact of any proposed changes to the program.

In their political paper, King, Soneji and Konstantin Kashin, a PhD candidate at King’s institute, recount how partisan fighting over Social Security intensified in the late 1990s, when conservatives began arguing the program was unsustainable and should be partially privatized, with younger workers offered individual savings accounts. In 2001, newly elected President George W. Bush appointed a commission intended to support such a change, but he put the issue aside after the September 11 terrorist attacks. After his reelection in 2005, however, Bush started pushing for changes in a series of town halls and speeches that, the paper notes, put the Social Security actuaries under “an extreme form of political pressure.’’

Democrats and news reports pointed to changes in the language used by the Social Security Administration that seemed (in line with White House policy) to emphasize that the program was not financially sustainable. Goss openly clashed with a Republican Social Security Commissioner.
Bush’s privatization push flopped and during recent elections Republicans have attempted to cast themselves as the protectors of Social Security, which enjoys strong support from voters across the political spectrum. In 2013, after President Obama proposed a deficit reduction deal that, along with raising taxes on the rich, would have chipped away at inflation adjustments in Social Security, the idea was attacked by politicians from both parties.

But the problem of how to solve the system’s long term funding deficit has hardly gone away and the partisan divide seems to be widening again. Democrats have slammed a provision adopted by the new Republican Congress that they would block a transfer of money from the Social Security old age fund to the Social Security disability fund, which will be depleted next year. They say such transfers have been routine in the past and that it is a ploy by Republicans to force cuts tor retirement program too. Last month, Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a possible Presidential candidate, proposed that the age for receiving full Social Security benefits be raised gradually to 69 and that benefits be limited for individuals with more than $80,000 in other income and ended completely for those earning more than $200,000.

King emphasized that there is “no evidence whatsoever,” that Goss and his actuaries are bending to political pressure from either Democrats or Republicans.  On the contrary, he said, while resisting such pressure, they’ve put too high a value on remaining consistent in their forecasts, in part because they don’t want to “panic” the public.  “They’re trying to show the numbers don’t change because they think it will inspire confidence. Maybe in the very short run it will inspire confidence by not changing the numbers. But having the numbers be wrong doesn’t  inspire confidence at all,’’ King said.

The political paper asserts that  Goss has resisted changes in forecasting assumptions suggested by the  Social Security Advisory Board’s Technical Panel on Assumptions and Methods—a panel of actuaries and economists that meets once every four years and is in session now. In some cases, the paper claims, the Actuary has made some  suggested change in an assumption, but then changed another, unrelated assumption in the opposite direction “to counterbalance the first and keep the ultimate solvency forecasts largely unchanged.”

In their 2013 Actuarial Note, however, Goss and his colleagues say that while the 2011 Panel did push for faster changes in mortality assumptions, the panel’s recommendations, if adopted in full, would have actually resulted in a projection that the Social Security trust funds would run out a year later.

King, who presented his own findings to the Technical Panel yesterday, is pushing for one big change in the Actuary’s practices that he says the Panel has also favored: making all the Actuary’s data and methods open for scrutiny by others. 

“This is a period of big data. When you let other people have access to data, things like Money Ball happen,’’ King said. In addition to new algorithms, he said, the government actuaries need to take note of recent findings about unconscious bias by researchers and apply new methods social scientists have developed to guard against such bias.

“Four hundred years ago you had people sitting in a monastery and thinking they thought great thoughts and that was their entire life,’’ King said. “Now we check on each other. If they would leave things open they’d have so much help and they’d be better off politically because their forecasts would be better.”

Malwarebytes: look out for PUPS masquerading as the GOG Galaxy client

By james_fudge

Less than 30 hours after GOG.com launched its Galaxy beta client, scammers were lining up to trick gamers into infecting their computers with malware, according to a new blog post from security research firm and anti-virus software maker Malwarebytes. Malwarebytes security analyst Jovi Umawing details how some users are getting tricked in a new blog post today.

Once a scammer tricks users into visiting their fraudulent download site and jumping through several web pages, they give them access to a fake client download. Once executed, the file displays a dialog box claiming that it is initializing, followed by an error window. Ultimately, nothing is stalled, save a PUP.

What is a PUP? The short answer is a "potentially unwanted program." The long answer can be found on the Malwarebytes web site. You can learn about this GOG Galaxy related scam here.

Of course, the only real place you can get the GOG Galaxy client is on GOG.com.

Ring of Fire: Koch Brothers Launching Republican Fear Campaign

The Koch brothers are at it again. POLITICO recently revealed that Americans for Prosperity will be putting $125 million into “Get Out The Vote’ campaigns in deep red states like Alabama and Utah. The only reason for this is to drum up cultural wars in these areas to incite the craziest of the crazies for the 2016 election.

Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.

Ancestry.com Caught Sharing Customer DNA Data With Police With No Warrant

By Jay Syrmopoulos

Idaho Falls, Idaho – Would you find it frightening— perhaps even downright Orwellian — to know that a DNA swab that you sent to a company for recreational purposes would surface years later in the hands of police? What if it caused your child to end up in a police interrogation room as the primary suspect in a murder investigation?

In an extremely troubling case out of Idaho Falls, that’s exactly what happened.

Police investigating the 1996 murder of Angie Dodge targeted the wrong man as the suspect, after looking to Ancestry.com owned Sorensen Database labs for help. The labs look for familial matches between the murderers DNA and DNA submitted for genealogical testing after failing to find a match using traditional methods.

According to The Electronic Frontier Foundation:

The cops chose to use a lab linked to a private collection of genetic genealogical data called the Sorenson Database (now owned by Ancestry.com), which claims it’s “the foremost collection of genetic genealogy data in the world.” The reason the Sorenson Database can make such an audacious claim is because it has obtained its more than 100,000 DNA samples and documented multi-generational family histories from “volunteers in more than 100 countries around the world.” Some of these volunteers were encouraged by the Mormon Church—well-known for its interest in genealogy—to provide their genetic material to the database. Sorenson promised volunteers their genetic data would only be used for “genealogical services, including the determination of family migration patterns and geographic origins” and would not be shared outside Sorenson.

Its consent form states:

The only individuals who will have access to the codes and genealogy information will be the principal investigator and the others specifically authorized by the Principal Investigator, including the SMGF research staff.

Despite this promise, Sorenson shared its vast collection of data with the Idaho police.

Without a warrant or court order, investigators asked the lab to run the crime scene DNA against Sorenson’s private genealogical DNA database. Sorenson found 41 potential familial matches, one of which matched on 34 out of 35 alleles—a very close match that would generally indicate a close familial relationship. The cops then asked, not only for the “protected” name associated with that profile, but also for all “all information including full names, date of births, date and other information pertaining to the original donor to the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy project.”

Ancestry.com failed to respond to questions about how frequently it receives court orders in criminal investigations or if the company attempts to resist law enforcement requests for peoples’ private genetic information, according to The New Orleans Advocate.

This is when things become even more convoluted. The DNA from the Ancestry.com database linked a man, Michael Usry, to the case that didn’t fit the police profile, as he was born in 1952.

The cops then used the genetic information and traced his line of male descendants, ultimately finding his son Michael Usry Jr., born in 1979, which much more closely fit the police profile of the killer.

Once they had targeted Ursy Jr. as the suspect, they began to scour his Facebook page looking for connections to Idaho, finding a couple of Facebook friends that lived in the area of Idaho Falls.

Police then, by Google searching, realized that Usry Jr. was a filmmaker and had done some short films containing murder scenes. Law enforcement subsequently got a warrant for Usry Jr.’s DNA based upon the completely circumstantial evidence presented by Idaho investigators.

The cops then called Usry Jr. and asked him to meet them, under the guise that they were investigating a hit-and-run accident. Thinking he “had nothing to hide,” he agreed to meet with the investigators, without an attorney present. He was subsequently taken to an interrogation room where he eventually allowed them to collect his DNA.

Despite the flimsy circumstantial evidence used to get the warrant, ultimately the test showed that although there were a number of familial alleles shared with the murderers sample, Usry Jr.’s DNA did not conclusively match the killers.

This case is particularly troubling as it seems to decimate an individual’s right to privacy in the name of “public safety,” while allowing the police to run roughshod over people’s civil rights.

“It’s not very common to see this sort of thing, and I frankly hope it doesn’t become very common because an awful lot of people won’t bother testing” their DNA, Judy G. Russell, a genealogist and attorney who writes The Legal Genealogist blog, told The New Orleans Advocate.

There is one key difference between traditional DNA testing and familial testing. The traditional method consists of taking a sample and looking for a specific match with a given database, such as the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System, while familial searching looks for common alleles, or gene variants.

According to Voices of Liberty:

Proponents argue familial searching is a harmless way for police to crack otherwise unsolvable cases. The closest partial matches can steer investigators toward a criminal’s family members, whose DNA profiles closely resemble those of a convicted or incarcerated relative.

Skeptics like Murphy, the NYU law professor, warn that the technique drastically expands DNA testing beyond the function envisioned by states that compel criminal defendants to submit DNA samples upon arrest. Many states lack formal legal rules governing the use of familial searching by law enforcement, while Maryland has explicitly outlawed the practice.

This case exposes the very real danger posed to privacy and civil liberties by familial DNA searches and by private, unregulated DNA databases.This case only serves as a glimpse into the dystopian reality we will soon find ourselves living in, according to The Electronic Frontier Foundation.

“This risk will increase further as state and local law enforcement agencies begin to use Rapid DNA analyzers—portable machines that can process DNA in less than an hour. These machines will make it much easier for police to collect and analyze DNA on their own outside a lab. Currently, because forensic DNA analysis in a lab takes so long, we generally see its use limited to high-level felonies like rape and murder. However, Rapid DNA manufacturers are now encouraging local police agencies to analyze DNA found at the scene of low-level property crimes. This means much more DNA will be collected and stored, often in under-regulated local DNA databases. And, because most of the forensic DNA found at property crime scenes is likely to be touch DNA—this only increases the risk that people will be implicated in crimes they didn’t commit.”

Is this really the kind of future we want to create for our children? Shouldn’t we be able to research and learn about our family’s genealogical ancestry without fear that police will be reviewing our genetic information without our consent?

This case makes it clear that even when a private business states in writing that your data will be held as private and safe from prying eyes, that may very well not be what transpires.

Jay Syrmopoulos is an investigative journalist, freethinker, researcher, and ardent opponent of authoritarianism. He is currently a graduate student at University of Denver pursuing a masters in Global Affairs. Jay’s work has previously been published on BenSwann.com and WeAreChange.org.

You can follow him on Twitter @sirmetropolis, on Facebook at Sir Metropolis and now on tsu.

Chuck Todd had to be schooled again, this time by Martin O'Malley

By Egberto Willies


Likely Democratic Presidential Candidate slams... by ewillies

Once again Chuck Todd showed how gullible he is to Right Wing manipulation. Luckily, likely Democratic Presidential Candidate Martin O'Malley would have none of it. It started innocently enough.

"I want you to respond to something that Speaker Boehner said to me about blame when it comes to America's inner cities," Chuck Todd said. "Let's take a listen."

He then played a clip from Speaker John Boehner. "Chuck, what we have here," Speaker Boehner said. "is 50 years of liberal policies that have not worked to help the very people that we want to help." That comment is to be expected from any Republican as their Ayn Rand ideology dictates policies lacking in social assistance.

Chuck Todd then referenced the Washington Post article titled "Why couldn’t $130 million transform one of Baltimore’s poorest places?" He must have forgotten that many times editors give stories titles that have very little to do with the conclusions the article would come to. He must not have read the article. "A hundred million dollars was poured into this community over the last 20 years," Todd said.
"Are we not spending the money correctly? What are we getting wrong here? Money has been there."

Martin O'Malley would have none of it. "Chuck that's just not true," Martin O'Malley said. "We haven't had an agenda for America's cities for at least two decades."

Chuck Todd snapped back with a simplistically silly statement. "So we've had money but no agenda."

Martin O'Malley went on to state that there has not been an agenda for cities since Democratic President Jimmy Carter. He pointed out that even with limited support because of the dedication and innovation of mayors, cities are actually coming back. He pointed out that the failure to invest in infrastructure, the off-shoring of American jobs, and the basic lack of investment was the problem.

Most importantly he pointed out that the $130 million over 20 years Chuck Todd speaks about is a spit in a bucket.

Had Chuck Todd read the article he would have understood the following.

The effort to revive Sandtown was massive. More than 1,000 homes were eventually renovated or built. Schools were bolstered. Education and health services were launched. ... The most significant problem, according to community organizers and the Enterprise report, was that new businesses and jobs never materialized. And as Baltimore’s decent-paying manufacturing jobs vanished — a problem shared by Detroit, Cleveland and other Rust Belt cities — there were fewer and fewer opportunities for Sandtown residents to find meaningful work.

In the absence of jobs, the drug trade flourished.

In other words the $130 million was invested mostly in real estate capital and not human capital. It was not sustainable and the results are probative.
Chuck Todd once again allowed his program to be used as an Ayn Rand message conduit. Many cities are on the brink of rebellion because of the despair and income inequality. The Right Wing machine needs to convince these people that real investment in both physical and human capital are not the answers lest these 'rebellions' force progressive change.

It is for this reason why a Democratic primary is necessary. It will give America a vision of what it means to have a real progressive agenda. It provides the platform to remind America that it has been living under a conservative biased agenda for north of thirty years. The catastrophic results surround us all. 

Guide to recording the police

By Alessandra Ram

It’s Your Right to Film the Police. These Apps Can Help

Police in riot gear push back on media and a crowd gathering in the street after a 10 p.m. curfew went into effect Thursday, April 30, 2015, in Baltimore. David Goldman/AP

On April 12 police in West Baltimore took 25-year-old Freddie Gray into custody, where he sustained a fatal spinal injury that led to his death. On Friday, the Maryland DA charged the six police officers involved with manslaughter, false imprisonment, and in the case of one officer, homicide. Since Gray’s death, the city of Baltimore has been at the center of renewed public outrage over the role of racial discrimination and violence in the criminal justice system, and specifically, fatal interactions between black residents and police officers.

And like the shooting death of Michael Brown by a policeman before this, and the choking death of Eric Garner before this, and most recently the murder of Walter Scott in South Carolina, justice in the case of Freddie Gray seems to hinge upon camera evidence from bystanders.

With smartphones, we the citizens have in our pockets the power to hold our government responsible.
Apps are cropping up to make it easier to videotape incidents like this. And organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and National Lawyers Guild are working to make sure we, the people with cameras in our hands, know our rights under the law.

First of all, it’s important to state up front that it is completely within a US citizen’s constitutional rights to record interactions with police officers, according to the ACLU. The EFF has created a guide for knowing your legal rights to digital property. Unless you are on private property, you have the right to photograph, film, or record anything in plain sight. Officers are not allowed to confiscate this material—or even search your cell phone—without a warrant.

Yet, law enforcement frequently confiscates these recordings, while harassing, detaining, and arresting those who fail to comply.

It is also true that if you film a crime, you may inadvertently become part of the investigation, and may become subject to attention from police yourself.

Take, for instance, the individual who filmed the choking of Eric Garner, Ramsey Orta. Orta has been in and out of Rikers since that tragic day. Speaking with VICE, Orta, who was friendly with Garner, decided to start documenting police misconduct in the summer of 2014 around his heavily-policed neighborhood of Staten Island. But since Garner’s death, Orta and his family allege that police have zeroed in on him, following close family members as well as his girlfriend. Police charged Orta with gun and drug possession as well as armed robbery. On April 6, the Free Thought Project wrote about Orta’s imprisonment. His case went viral, and soon a GoFundMe campaign had collected over $54,000 to free him. Orta was released on April 10.

If an individual is already marginalized in society, or lacks resources, the implications are huge: On Thursday, for instance, Mashable reported that police had arrested a transgender woman who was filming the Baltimore protests, and then forced her to stay in a male holding cell, remove her bra, and wear men’s clothing. Her bail is currently set at $100,000.

Apps for Witnesses

In 2012, the ACLU created an app that allowed anyone to film interactions between police and citizens and upload footage to the ACLU’s website. Similar apps have cropped up since then, with new features allowing for quick and automatic upload to the Cloud or to YouTube, in case of confiscation or destruction of your device.

Duncan Kirkwood’s app, “Hands Up 4 Justice,” allows people to discreetly record interactions with police officers during traffic stops, etc. The app integrates emergency contacts and GPS, uploads to YouTube or a Dropbox account, and is available for download in the iTunes store. Inspired by his own experience at a traffic stop, Kirkwood wanted to make it easier for people of color (who are disproportionately stopped by police on US highways) to record their interactions without fear of intimidation.

Inspired by Occupy Wall Street, “I’m Getting Arrested,” is a free Android app that instantly sends texts to emergency contacts that you’ve pre-programmed into your phone.

Other apps like “Swat,” “Five-O,” and “Stop and Frisk Watch” allow you to report police misconduct as well as educate yourself about your rights and connect with other users via community feeds. All of these were modeled after social justice movements like Occupy and Ferguson, but their founders developed them as a result of personal experience with police brutality.

Reports and recordings via apps like these, or stand-alone camera footage, might be the only piece of evidence to stand against an officer’s account of events. If it were not for that video of the fatal shooting of Walter Scott in South Carolina, the officer might never have been charged with murder.

Responses To Baltimore

Loretta Lynch Unveils $20,000,000 Program to Expand Cop Body Cameras

The new U.S. attorney general said “body-worn cameras” would enhance transparency and promote police accountability.

By Lynette Holloway

Loretta Lynch, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, speaks at a press conference on April 28, 2014 in New York City.
Andrew Burton/Getty Images

Just a week on the job, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch on Friday unveiled a $20 million pilot program to expand the use of police body cameras for “transparency” amid nationwide protests over law enforcement treatment of suspects, according to NBC News.

"Body-worn cameras hold tremendous promise for enhancing transparency, promoting accountability, and advancing public safety for law enforcement officers and the communities they serve," Lynch said in a press release, notes the television news outlet.

The move follows protests over allegations of police brutality in black communities across the nation following several high profile deaths, including Michael Brown by a white officer in Ferguson, Mo., the killing of a homeless man on Los Angeles' Skid Row and most recently the spinal injury while in police custody that led to the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray, the report says.

NBC says the program includes $17 million in competitive grants for cameras, $2 million for training and technical assistance, and $1 million for evaluation.

Police departments around the nation have begun equipping officers with the cameras, with encouragement from the Obama administration, which has asked Congress for increased funding for the cameras, notes NBC.

A day after Lynch announced the program, the Democratic National Committee at its quarterly meeting on Saturday in San Francisco, Calif., supported the program and passed a resolution calling for reform of the criminal justice system and community investment.

“Since Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, we have witnessed over a dozen high profile officer-involved shooting cases and the loss of dozens more unarmed black men and women whose names we do not see in headlines or hashtags,” the resolution reads in part. “We can no longer endure the pain, heartbreak and destruction.”

With Attacks on Foreigners, South Africa Exposes Its Anti-Africa Bias

Some call it Afrophobia—the denial of African heritage and history by black South Africans that has led to violence. Now there’s a growing opposition by a new generation that is embracing its African identity.

 By Kenneth Walker

Students in Cape Town, South Africa, cheer after the statue of British colonialist Cecil Rhodes is removed from the University of Cape Town April 9, 2015. The statue was removed as a result of a monthlong protest by students saying the statue glorified someone “who exploited black labor and stole land from indigenous people.”   Charlie Shoemaker/Getty Images

South Africa is struggling with the diplomatic and economic fallout from a recent episode of xenophobic violence that saw seven foreigners killed, scores wounded and thousands of people displaced.

Several African governments have sharply criticized South Africa’s tardy response and sent buses and planes to repatriate their citizens. Some threatened to retaliate against South African businesses operating in their countries. Nigeria recalled its ambassador, and a human rights group in Lagos filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court in the Hague against Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini, whom many blame for sparking the recent violence in a recent speech telling foreigners to pack up and go home.

The African National Congress ruling party responded first by deploying troops and police in the black townships to arrest perpetrators of the violence; and more recently it has been using the soldiers in a crackdown to deport undocumented immigrants.

The government has resisted the term “xenophobia” and blames the violence on poverty and economic competition with foreign-owned businesses. This was also its reaction in 2008 to violence against foreigners that left 67 people dead and displaced tens of thousands of migrants, amid mass looting and destruction of foreign-owned homes, property and businesses across the country.

However, critics of the government response point to deeper historical reasons as the cause of what they believe is “Afrophobic” sentiments among black South Africans, rather than “xenophobic.”

“You don’t see Australians and Brits being hunted in the streets,” one local commentator noted.

Newly arrived African Americans to South Africa are often amused to find many black South Africans ask, “Have you to been to Africa?” Centuries of colonialism and apartheid have persuaded many black South Africans that Africa is someplace else, and Africans are somebody else.

It’s what they were taught.

Under apartheid, history teachers had two choices: the version of the Afrikaners—the descendants of German, Dutch and French Huguenots—or history as written by the descendants of British settlers. In both accounts, Africans, when mentioned at all, were treated as if they didn’t exist at all before being conquered and subjugated by whites.

This history as taught in South African schools and universities is little changed because of the continuing tremendous resistance of the white academic establishment—in South Africa and internationally.

When Mongane Wally Serote was helping to establish the Freedom Park, a national monument that is the government’s leading attempt at cultural and historical redress, he said in an interview that he was surprised to find “strong opposition” from some of the leading white American and European international academics.

“They feel threatened by it. For many of them, the very phrase ‘African history,’ or ‘African historian,’ is a contradiction in terms,” he suggested. “Their view of the African role in history is as cargo. But we can’t go on being told that architecture was founded in the West and that we were living in trees and didn’t design any shelter. We can’t be told that we made no substantial contributions to science, medicine and the arts. We have to liberate ourselves from this thinking. The same kind of leading intellectuals and philosophers who distorted our history in the past are the very ones who are objecting to an African voice today.”

The South African government has failed to transform an education system that remains firmly Eurocentric, which might explain why South Africa may be in urgent need of a Black History Month.

Xbox Game Streaming Demonstrated At Build

By Brett Howse on April 30, 2015 6:35 PM EST

Today I got a chance to try the new game streaming ability of Xbox One at a breakout session. For those that are unaware, Xbox Game Streaming will allow you to broadcast your console gaming experience to any Windows 10 PC on the network, and with the Xbox controller drivers being built into Windows 10 now, it makes for a pretty interesting experience.

Now let’s be honest. This is certainly not the first game streaming that has been announced, and some companies already have shipping solutions for this. Steam for instance can game stream from you desktop PC with a GPU to another lighter weight PC. There are also solutions that will stream from your PC to your TV for playing games on the couch.

So they are not the first, but one of the nice things about streaming from the Xbox to a PC is that, especially these days, most PCs are not capable of running games. Laptops in particular do not have enough GPU in order to play many games at good frame rates. Using the Xbox for this solves this issue since the hardware is a known quantity (and yes, maybe not enough but that’s for another time).
In my hands on, there was no perceivable latency, so the experience was excellent. Controls on the controller were every bit as good as if playing right on the console.

The Xbox experience on the PC using the Xbox app

Being able to stream games to a tablet like a Surface Pro 3 makes a lot of sense, since the Xbox is often tucked away in the room with the big TV and it may be used by other members of your house. It worked, and it worked well.

I did ask about being able to stream games while someone else is using the Xbox for media (like Netflix or live TV) and unfortunately this is not going to be the case, at least not initially. It is basically mirroring the display on the Xbox to the PC, so the Xbox is well and truly tied up during any sessions. I kind of think this is a missed opportunity for the Xbox team since they have made such a push to use the Xbox as a hub.

In my house, the Xbox is in between the cable box and the TV, so it is not a trivial task to use “switch inputs” and the whole point of doing it this way is to avoid having to switch inputs all the time. Hopefully they can add this in a future update, but it is not clear if the hardware can even support this so we shall have to wait and see.

For what it does do, it does really well, and I can see this being a very popular feature.

Racist Idiot Loses His Business Because He's a Racist Idiot

Posted By Rude One

Jim Boggess is a motherfucking idiot. About as stupid as a shithead can be. Boggess owns - no, wait...owned a deli in Flemington, New Jersey. He obviously gets his political views shoved down his throat and up his ass in a Chinese fingercuffs fucking by Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, with Internet rage mavens jacking off on him as he is thrusted back and forth between talk radio and Fox "news." So he decided, as any good business owner would, to put his opinions on race right on the front of his place, Jimbo's Deli on Main Street.

How startlingly, breathtakingly, mouth-droolingly dumb is Jim Boggess?  This fucking dumb:

And you'll never guess what Boggess said to explain his sign. No, really, go ahead and guess. Did he just say, "Ah, fuck it. I hate coloreds and immigrants"? Did he say, "Black History Month is bullshit"? No, of course not. Because contemporary racists aren't honest about their racism. He said, "No matter what you are -- Muslim, Jewish, black, white, gay, straight -- you should be proud of what you are. I shouldn't have to feel bad about being white."

When he was called on it by a biracial customer and eventually took the sign down, Boggess said, really, "I never meant it to be a black/white thing. I only meant it to be a white thing." The deli man also made reference to a website for White History Month, which is supposedly going on now. A Facebook page for the celebration is a charming mix of anti-Obama shit and, strangely, a whole bunch of stuff on how blacks in Africa are mean to white people.

And now Boggess has gone out of business, closed the deli, and is begging for money on Go Fund Me, perhaps hoping for a little of that homophobic green that let Memories Pizza's owners in Indiana make sacks of coin. Says Boggess, who has earned $20 as of today, "I don't think I deserve this just because I wanted to be proud of being white and be able to celebrate my heritage like everyone else does." Self-awareness is obviously not Jimbo's strong suit.

Boggess should become an example in colleges about how capitalism operates: if you offend everyone except a narrow bunch of fucknuts, the market will wipe you off the map. And if you gamble your business on the stupidity people forward you or post on your Facebook wall, you reap what you have sown.

Bernie Sanders Expected To Announce 2016 Candidacy On Thursday

By Josh Feldman | 4:59 pm, April 28th, 2015  
 

Senator Bernie Sanders, one of two Independents in the entire Senate, is planning to announce a presidential run on the Democratic side this week. VPR News reported earlier that Sanders will announce his 2016 campaign in a short statement Thursday and then kick things off with a rally within the next few weeks.

Sanders has openly described himself as a socialist, and has talked quite a lot recently about income inequality and the ever-growing gap between the rich and the poor.

Of course, anyone on the Democratic side will have to go up against the Hillary Clinton juggernaut.

Sanders said earlier this month that he could beat Clinton in the primary, and has been publicly questioning what exactly it is she’s running on.
[image via screengrab]
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Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac

Police procedural 2015: Kill all suspects

By John Shirley

American Policing 101, for the year 2015: Principles to memorize.
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HOW TO STOP A SUSPECT

1. It’s best to shoot to kill with all suspects. Do not call for back up to help take them down. Do not rely on pepper spray or non lethal ammunition. Do not tackle them–you might slightly injure yourself. Do not shoot them just because they’re black. Shoot them because they’re afraid or trying to get away–and black.

2.  Shoot to kill, every time. Do not shoot at their legs or hips, since that might stop them without killing them.

3.  If they’re white you need not shoot them unless they’re acting crazy (or “crazy”). If they’re white (or any other color) but seem to be suffering hallucinations, whether from a bipolar condition or drugs, kill them immediately. Do it quicker if they have an ink pen or a small broken bottle or some other deadly implement.

4.  If they have what is likely a toy gun, shoot them. You can’t take a chance. A ten year old boy can be as deadly as a thirty year old man. Shoot them and then check.

5.  If you have back-up, wait till the back-up has its guns drawn as well, so that everyone can shoot the suspect together.

6.  If the suspect comes at you with a knife, no matter how small, shoot him dead instantly. Sure, if it’s in his right hand, your shot at his right shoulder is as good a shot as hitting his heart, or head, but don’t shoot him in the shoulder, because that would stop him, and he might live.

7.  If they or their relatives or friends have a dog of any kind, SHOOT THE DOG. Even a toy poodle can bite.

Always opt for panic. Using judgment about when to shoot to kill will only delay shooting to kill.

HOW TO SEARCH A SUSPECT

1.  If they reach into pockets for identification you have just asked for, shoot them. Maybe there was a little knife under the identification.

2.  If they seem frightened by the search, shoot them. Don’t take a chance!

John Shirley is the author of numerous books and many, many short stories. His novels include Bleak History, Crawlers, Demons, In Darkness Waiting, and seminal cyberpunk works City Come A-Walkin’, and the A Song Called Youth trilogy of Eclipse, Eclipse Penumbra, and Eclipse Corona. His collections include the Bram Stoker and International Horror Guild award-winning Black Butterflies, Living Shadows: Stories: New & Pre-owned, and In Extremis: The Most Extreme Short Stories of John Shirley. He also writes for screen (The Crow) and television. As a musician Shirley has fronted his own bands and written lyrics for Blue Öyster Cult and others.