Planes, trains and automobiles: TSA’s ever-expanding jurisdiction

We love the TSA!

Straight from the Daily Caller: “Planes, trains and automobiles — the Transportation Security Administration is now inspecting them all. And trolleys, ferries, subways and even private cars. For several years now, TSA has coordinated with local and federal law enforcement agencies to perform inspections and large-scale training operations through its VIPR (Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response) program, targeting random transportation centers and giving unsuspecting citizens its trademark pat-downs.

TSA conducted more than 8,000 VIPR operations in the past 12 months alone, including more than 3,700 operations in mass transit and passenger railroad venues.

In 2009, the total cost to taxpayers was $30 million. And now the agency is requesting funding for 12 more VIPR teams, which would bring the total to 37 squads and a budget of almost $110 million a year.

TSA began the VIPR program in 2007. TSA Administrator John Pistole, testifying before a House committee, explained the purpose of the program.

“Working alongside local law enforcement agencies throughout the transportation domain, TSA’s VIPR teams enhance the agency’s ability to leverage a variety of resources quickly in order to increase security in any mode of transportation anywhere in the country,” Pistole said.

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

A recent news report said TSA was searching private cars and commercial trucks as they left a port in Brownsville, Texas. According to the report, it was a random operation and not in response to any specific threat.

Passengers at a Greyhound bus station in Tampa, Florida were recently subjected to pat-downs and screenings by TSA and local immigration officials. K-9 units and officers were also searching for large amounts of cash being smuggled into the country.  Again, it was not in response to any specific threat.

Greg Milano with the Department of Homeland Security said in a TV interview afterword that the operation was intended “to sort of invent the wheel in advance if we have to.”

“If there ever is specific intelligence requiring us to be here, that means us and our partners are ready to move in at a moment’s notice,” Milano said.

Earlier in June, TSA and Homeland Security officials conducted a similar search at a Des Moines Greyhound station, interviewing passengers and checking identifications.

“It’s just a visible deterrent,” Nico Melendez, a California-based spokesman for the TSA, told The Des Moines Register. “It’s a spot check to make sure that nothing out of the ordinary is going on. Anybody that might consider doing something wrong, you never know when we might be out there.”

But local civil rights activists and eyewitnesses said the officers were targeting Latinos.

In 2009, TSA and Border Patrol officers searched trolley cars in San Diego, resulting in the deportation of 21 people, including three teenagers on their way to school. VIPR searches have also targeted ferries and subways.

Civil liberties groups have lambasted the VIPR program’s random searches. Normally, law enforcement must have “reasonable suspicion or “probable cause” to search a person, but courts carved out an exception for airlines in the 1970s.

Jay Stanley, a policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union, warned of the “exception swallowing the rule.”

“Once you start expanding beyond that, what’s the difference between a bus station or a sidewalk where people are lined up at a movie theater — or a sidewalk of any kind?” Stanley said.

Julian Sanchez, a research fellow at the Cato Institute, said the VIPR searches fell outside the scope of TSA’s mission and the acceptable bounds of the Fourth Amendment.

“It’s clear these searches are just aiming to enforce normal criminal law,” Sanchez said. “Those kind of searches are not exempt from the Fourth Amendment. I just have trouble seeing how this just isn’t an attempt to shoehorn warrantless searches on citizens under the rubric of national security,” Sanchez said.

But if anything, TSA is only looking to expand the scope of its operations.

The agency recently conducted a massive training exercise that covered 5,000 square miles throughout Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia and also included federal air marshals, canine teams, bomb squads and even Blackhawk helicopters and fixed wing aircraft. The Charleston Gazette reported that more than 300 law enforcement and military personnel participated in a 100-mile sweep through the Ohio Valley.

“We’ll be back,” Milano said after the Tampa bus station search. “We won’t say when we’ll be back. This way the bad guys are on notice we’ll be back.””

Cancer Clusters Among TSA Workers Near Body Scanners

TSA: Tremendously Stupid Assholes

Straight from the Electronic Privacy Information Center: “On June 24, 2011, EPIC released documents obtained from DHS as a result of EPIC’s lawsuit.

The disclosed documents include agency emails, radiation studies, memoranda of agreement concerning radiation testing programs, and results of some radiation tests.

The documents raise new questions concerning the radiation risks posed by the TSA full body scanner program. The records demonstrate:

• TSA employees have identified cancer clusters allegedly linked to radiation exposure while operating body scanners and other screening technology. However, the agency failed to issue employees dosimeters – safety devices that would warn of radiation exposure.
• The DHS has publicly mischaracterized the findings of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, stating that NIST “affirmed the safety” of full body scanners. NIST stated that the Institute did not, in fact, test full body scanners for safety, and that the Institute does not do product testing.
• A Johns Hopkins University study revealed that radiation zones around body scanners could exceed the “General Public Dose Limit.”
• A NIST study warns airport screeners to avoid standing next to full body scanners.”

As we now know, due to secret GAO testing, the naked body scanner machines just don’t work [as discussed on the No Agenda Show #288]: Naked body scanners badly fail secret GAO testing

Mysterious fund allows Congress to spend freely, despite earmark ban

Straight from CNN: “The defense bill that just passed the House of Representatives includes a back-door fund that lets individual members of Congress funnel millions of dollars into projects of their choosing.

This is happening despite a congressional ban on earmarks — special, discretionary spending that has funded Congress’ pet projects back home in years past, but now has fallen out of favor among budget-conscious deficit hawks.

Under the cloak of a mysteriously-named “Mission Force Enhancement Transfer Fund,” Congress has been squirreling away money — like $9 million for “future undersea capabilities development,” $19 million for “Navy ship preliminary design and feasibility studies,” and more than $30 million for a “corrosion prevention program.”

So in a year dominated by demands for spending cuts, where did all the money come from?

Roughly $1 billion was quietly transferred from projects listed in the president’s defense budget and placed into the “transfer fund.” This fund, which wasn’t in previous year’s defense budgets (when earmarks were permitted), served as a piggy bank from which committee members were able to take money to cover the cost of programs introduced by their amendments.

And take they did.

More than $600 million went to a wide number of projects, many of which appear to directly benefit some congressional districts over others.

For example, that $9 million for “future undersea capabilities development” was requested by Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Connecticut, whose district happens to be home to General Dynamics Electric Boat, a major supplier of submarines and other technologies to the U.S. Navy.

And the $19 million for “Navy ship preliminary design and feasibility studies”? Rep. Steve Palazzo, R-Mississippi, asked for that. His district’s largest employer is Ingalls Shipbuilding — a major producer of surface combat ships for the Navy.

Nothing in these expenditures appears to be illegal, but critics say they still may violate the spirit, if not the language, of the earmark ban.

“These amendments may very likely duck the House’s specific definition of what constitutes an earmark, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t pork,” says Leslie Paige of Citizens Against Government Waste, a government-spending watchdog group. The group believes if modification of the National Defense Authorization Act generated savings, that money should have been put toward paying down the deficit.

In their defense, supporters say the amendments offered by various members may very well represent good governance. The $30 million Rep. Betty Sutton, D-Ohio, set aside for corrosion prevention could go far to help tackle the Defense Department’s corrosion problem, estimated to cost the military more than $15 billion a year.

However, there are two things worth considering: Sutton’s request comes on top of the $10 million already included in the bill for corrosion related programs, and Sutton’s district is home to The University of Akron, which created the country’s first bachelor’s degree program for corrosive engineering in 2008.

Then, on May 9, two days before the defense bill mark-up, it was announced that the Defense Department had given the University of Akron $11 million to build its new “National Center for Education and Research in Corrosion and Materials Performance.”

Sutton was the biggest supporter of that new spending.”

Media Malpractice: The Mississippi

Straight from Investors: “In a record year for natural disasters, the Mississippi’s worst flooding since 1927 may be the year’s most consequential. It ought to lead the news. But the Beltway media-political complex is more interested in press games.

Coming on the heels of the worst tornadoes in a century, the stealthy, silent destructive spread of floods through the heart of one of America’s most populous and economically productive centers ought to be cause for national, if not global, attention.

But it’s not, and to be fair, it’s not because the local press in affected areas haven’t done decent reporting.

The problem lies in Washington. The White House has made no declarations, showed no leadership, and done all it can to keep the issue off the front page.

It has quietly declared disaster areas in parts of Louisiana, Tennessee, Missouri, Kentucky, but not even issued a statement of support for the 4,000 families in this storied region of American literary and musical traditions who have lost their homes.

Nor, apparently, did Obama even look out his Air Force One window to see the devastation below as he flew to Texas to raise campaign funds.

Instead, we see the old Washington power game played out between White House operatives and the press: the steady drip, drip, drip of little details about the SEAL raid on Osama bin Laden.

This keeps that Obama-centered story on the front page — and the biggest flooding in a century, off.

Politics, and the love fest between the Obama administration and the mainstream media, are the root of this.

The flooding provides the White House with no political advantage. If anything, it shows that despite $787 billion in federal stimulus, the U.S. flood control system remains archaic. During Hurricane Katrina, that was a big issue. During this Mississippi crisis, it’s not.

But the Osama raid boosts Obama’s flagging polls.

Even so, the flood story won’t go away.

At a time when Americans pay $4 a gallon for gas, the floodwaters threaten at least two refineries in Tennessee and Louisiana. The U.S. hasn’t built a new one since 1976, yet the White House shows no leadership now.

Meanwhile, 100,000 acres of prime farm land is flooded and farmers say the waters likely won’t fully recede until summer, meaning a lost year for crops.

As futures prices for cotton, orange juice and other commodities surge, and fuel shortages drive up food prices, Americans can expect little relief. The White House and its press pals just hope no one notices.”

Government Powers Down SETI

Straight from Gizmodo: “SETI, the massive, international scientific effort to listen for life outside of earth, won’t be finding that life anytime soon, the Mercury News reports—too broke to continue, the project’s Allen Telescope Array is hanging up indefinitely.

The shutdown comes as both a shock and major disappointment to astronomers around the world. The 42-dish array, named after Microsoft founder Paul Allen’s thick-walleted donation, has only been operational for four years, and would just now be reaching its most valuable period of use: “There is a huge irony,” laments SETI Director Jill Tarter, “that a time when we discover so many planets to look at, we don’t have the operating funds to listen.” There are other dishes available to the project, but none as capable as the Allen Array. With these radio dishes out of commission, the project is completely hobbled. State and federal budgets are both tight, and many in Congress dismiss the project as trivial ET-chasing.

So the dishes will sit idle, for who knows how long. And if a broadcast from a distant intelligence happens to bounce in our vicinity, we’ll never know. “If we miss a distant signal,” says one amateur astronomer, “it would be a terrible loss.”

If you’d like to donate to a worthy cause today, consider throwing SETI some bones. It just might lead to the greatest scientific breakthrough in human history.

[SETI via Mercury News]“

Tiny Touchscreen-Controlled Drone Makes Spying on Bad Guys a Cinch

Aeryon Scout Quadrotor

Straight from Gizmodo: “Predator Drones are nifty, but all that hassle of private contractors and CIA control room is kind of a hassle! The Aeryon Scout Quadrotor makes aerial surveillance a breeze—snap it together, let it fly, and start peeking.

The drone, packing a camera that can ID a human from almost two miles away (using a standard digital cam or thermal vision), can be hand-assembled. Once in the sky, it gyro-orients itself to track whatever it is you’re tracking, can hit speeds of over 30 MPH, and is all controllable with a touch remote. Tap a target, and watch the drone zoom over. It’s not going to rain down and hellfire missiles, but hey, it only weighs a kilogram. And is sort of cute! Unless you’re a South American drug cartel goon getting busted by the drone—as Aeryon claims their tech’s responsible for so far. I just want one to send out and spy on my ex-girlfriends with. Just kidding, guys! [Aeryon via IEEE Spectrum]“

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIlWvlGxy3c&feature=player_embedded

Titan May Have Water Ocean Under the Surface

The Cassini Probe

Straight from Slashdot: “NASA’s Cassini probe, in orbit around Saturn, may have discovered evidence for a liquid water ocean under the surface of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. The data comes from radar observations of the surface that measure Titan’s rotation and tell how it is oriented relative to the plane of its orbit — its axial tilt. According to a paper to be published in an upcoming issue of Astronomy and Astrophysics (preprint PDF at arXiv.org), the new data showed that many of the planet’s surface features were in the wrong place, sometimes off by as much as 30 kilometers (19 miles). Titan always presents the same face toward Saturn, just like the Moon does to Earth. But in those situations, one expects that the moon will be in the ‘Cassini state,’ which means that the axial tilt will have a certain value. In Titan’s case, the axial tilt was measured at 0.3 degrees. That seemed too high if one assumed Titan was a solid body.”

Tantalizing Hits of Secretive Spaceship Builder’s Plans

Straight from Fox News: “Blue Origin, a highly secretive private rocket developer, was one of four companies chosen by NASA this week to receive funding toward the design and testing of a spacecraft to fly astronauts to and from low-Earth orbit.

As part of the second round of NASA’s Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program, the agency will award $22 million to Blue Origin as it continues the development of its launch vehicle and critical systems.

While the Kent, Wash., company remains tight-lipped about its work, the contract between Blue Origin and NASA, called a Space Act Agreement, sheds some light on the planned spacecraft and the milestones the company must meet during the next year to qualify for the funding. [Illustration of Blue Origin's orbital spaceship]

The agreement, which runs until May 2012, acknowledges that Blue Origin is developing a crew transportation system made up of a space vehicle “launched first on an Atlas V launch vehicle and then on Blue Origin’s own Reusable Booster System.”

NASA plans to rely on private spacecraft to launch American astronauts into space after its 30-year space shuttle program shuts down later this year.

The CCDev funding will be used to further the design of the spacecraft through a systems requirement review stage. This includes work on the spacecraft’s thermal protection system and aerodynamic analyses of its cone shape.

The money also will be used to complete vital tests on the vehicle’s engine and pusher escape system, which incorporates escape rockets around the base of the crew capsule rather than tower-mounted concepts, as were used for NASA’s Mercury and Apollo spacecraft. [Infographic: Spaceships of the World]

Blue Origin’s space vehicle will be able to carry seven astronauts and “will transfer NASA crew and cargo to and from the International Space Station, serve as an ISS emergency escape vehicle for up to 210 days, and perform a land landing to minimize the costs of recovery and reuse,” the document reads.[The Best Spaceships of All Time]

“It will also conduct separate commercial missions for science research, private adventure, and travel to other destinations” in low-Earth orbit.

The three other companies who were awarded funds April 18 in the second round of NASA’s CCDev program were Boeing, SpaceX and Sierra Nevada.

Blue Origin was established by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos. According to its Space Act Agreement, the company is developing its spacecraft to be compatible with multiple rockets; the Atlas V was initially selected because it has a dependable launch record and can be adapted for human spaceflight capabilities.

The company’s work on its New Shepard suborbital vertical launch vehicle will also be used to develop key technologies for its orbital spacecraft. New Shepard is being designed as a fully reusable vehicle capable of flying three or more astronauts on suborbital flights for science research and space tourism purposes.”

Will the Electoral College Become a Thing of the Past?

Straight from Fox News: “The Electoral College could be inching closer to extermination as California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill Monday that would award the state’s 55 electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote.

The bill would take effect only if the states that hold a majority of the 538 electoral votes approve similar legislation. With California’s addition, that total now stands at 132, almost 49 percent of the 270 needed.

Under the electoral college, people don’t actually vote for president. They vote for electors, who then vote for president. It was developed as a compromise between those who wanted Congress to elect the president and those who wanted the president elected by popular vote.

California Assemblyman Democrat Jerry Hill, who introduced the bill, said the change would make California more relevant in presidential elections by forcing candidates to campaign in the state.

Former Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger twice vetoed previous versions of the bill. At the time, Schwarzenegger said he did not want California’s electoral votes awarded to a candidate a majority of the state had not supported.

Seven states and the District of Columbia have passed similar bills.

The last person to win the presidency despite losing the popular vote was George W. Bush in 2000.”

World in crisis: Markets dive. Mobs burn London

Straight from the Debka File: “An air of crisis descended on the world Tuesday, Aug. 9 as markets continued to tumble steeply and in London, large parts of the city succumbed to uncontrolled violence joined by three major British cities. Far East stocks leveled out at 3 percent, Europe fell 3.5-5 percent Tuesday after Wall Street slid 5-7 percent Monday. More than $70 billion were wiped out in global trading Monday hours after US President Barack Obama said America will always be a Triple A country no matter what some agency may say.

The Bank of America took the worst punishment with a 23 percent decline in its stock. Investors did not miss the warning by a Standard & Poor executive that the US credit rating may be lowered again after its landmark downgrade from AAA to AA+.

Heads of the European Union and national leaders, with no solutions for the debt crises plaguing two major members Italy and Spain, are in a panic over the threat to the Eurozone and euro currency. Their fears are driving droves of investors across the world out of the markets in the hope of safe landings in gold (which shot up to $1.721 the ounce), the Japanese yen and the Swiss franc.

Some government spokesmen and pundits are blaming speculators for the crash, praising investors who take the long view and hold tight. Others lay the blame squarely at the door of various governments for mishandling the 2008 economic crisis and its social fallout – witness the consequences of tight austerity measures in Greece and now the United Kingdom.

AA+? Is Barack gonna have to slap a Bitch?

Thanks to deft footwork by its economic managers, Israel has so far escaped the worst of the backlash, but may not remain unscathed for much longer. Three alarm bells rang this week:

1. Standard & Poor applied its downgrade of America’s credit rating to Israel’s $6billion worth of US-backed bonds, lowing their rating from AAA to AA+.

2. The big demonstrations protesting soaring prices for housing and other essentials and demanding economic reforms to bridge the social gap – are now in their third week. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is skating on thin ice between expenditure for satisfying their demands and defusing a movement jeopardizing his government and keeping the economy on an even, stable keel.  Meeting even some of those demands could quickly tip Israel over into the abyss of economically-distressed countries, with attendant mass unemployment and a declining currency.

3.  Even in the unlikely event of the government keeping the national purse sealed against social demands, Israel is short of the reserves for weathering the fallout to its economic and export industries from the crises in the US and Europe.  Britain is now facing the sharpest edge of this dilemma with far less options.

The street violence, looting, burning, attacks on police – which erupted in the North London borough of Tottenham Saturday, Aug. 6, when a protest against the shooting by police of a local man got out of hand – has spread since with lightning speed into one London borough after another and, Monday night, to three major cities, Liverpool, Birmingham and Bristol.

Inadequate police and fire services are helpless to halt the looting and torching rampages of hooded teenagers in ethnically mixed and disadvantaged communities – even after 450 arrests. Owners of businesses and homes are forced to watch their properties burn down with no police or firemen in sight. Petrol bombs and knives are out against the police. Tuesday morning, armored vehicles appeared on the streets of Ealing Broadway and Clapham Junction after every second shop was looted. Police drafted in from other places are untrained and unequal to the mob tactics of abruptly moving on to their next target which may be an upend neighborhood.

The crisis caught most of the heads of the UK government away on holiday. As the situation degenerated by the hour, Prime Minister David Cameron flew home Tuesday and called an emergency Cobra committee meeting that day. Official government and police statements until then that the violence “is unacceptable” “pure criminality” and “lawbreakers will face the consequences “have made matters worse.

British authorities are criticized widely for being too soft with the mobs of mostly teenagers.

Cameron faces demands to bring in the army because the police are clearly unequal to the situation. He does not have the option of loosening up on the austerity measures which have reduced the average living standards by 25 percent and responding to real hardship in order to defuse the disturbances. The UK is in the verge of bankruptcy, financial institutions are in flight from the City of London, further deepening the crisis. Riots across the country will further deter investors.
Standard & Poor indicated Monday that some European countries may be headed for debt downgrades after the United States – with Britain in line.”

Battle Brews Over FBI’s Warrantless GPS Tracking

Warrant? I don't need a warrant to know where you are, Bitch!

Straight from Slashdot: “The FBI’s use of GPS vehicle tracking devices is becoming a contentious privacy issue in the courts, with the Obama administration seeking Supreme Court approval for its use of the devices without a warrant, and a federal civil rights lawsuit targeting the Justice Department for tracking the movements of an Arab-American student. In the midst of this legal controversy, Threat Level decided to take a look at the inside of one of the devices, with the help of the teardown artists at iFixit.”

Shut up and OBEY, SLAVE!

Boeing Phantom Ray: The Future of Unmanned Terror in the Sky

X-45 Phantom Ray

Straight from Gizmodo: “This aircraft is a peek at the future of unmanned aerial vehicles. Autonomous, stealthy, versatile.

The Phantom Ray made its 17-minute official maiden flight last week. It only zipped by at 204 mph at 7,500 feet—but the 36,500-pound drone is theoretically capable of reaching a cruising speed of 614 mph (0.8 Mach) with a combat radius of 1,200 nautical miles. It’s also meant to fly at 40,000 feet. Developed as a test platform for advanced and future unmanned aerial tech, the Phantom Ray is a stealth drone that’ll be able to fly and perform missions basically autonomously—no one has to sit at the controls while it’s up there, doing its deadly thing.

Right now, it’s designed to be capable of basically any kind of mission—from intelligence gathering/surveillance to suppression of enemy air defenses and electronic attack. There are a couple options for direct assault: Either two Joint Direct Attach Munitions or eight Small Diameter Bombs.

Part of what makes it radical is that it comes from Boeing’s Phantom Works, which rapidly prototypes and gets these things off the ground as fast as possible, even if when they’re not completely finished.

Here’s to hoping it never gets too temperamental. [Defense Tech, CNET, Boeing]

Monster Machines is all about the most exceptional machines in the world, from massive gadgets of destruction to tiny machines of precision, and everything in between.”

Former RIAA Lobbyist Now Handles File Sharing Cases as a Federal Judge

The RIAA Sucks!

Straight from Gizmodo: “While many judges around the country are throwing out file sharing lawsuits on account of questionable or faulty arguments, DC federal judge Beryl Howell just recently allowed three cases filed by copyright holders to proceed. What makes it intriguing is that she used to be a former RIAA lobbyist.

Sites like TorrentFreak are calling foul, saying that the lawsuits are just ploys for quick settlements and that Howell is allowing a acts of extortion to take place.

In layman’s terms her ruling means that copyright holders can easily request the personal details of people who have allegedly downloaded copyrighted works on BitTorrent. With this decision in hand the copyright holders have all they need. After all, the intention of these lawsuits was never to take the defendants to court, but to send them settlement letters to resolve the issue for a few thousand dollars.

Extortion seems a bit strong, but it’s definitely odd to have a former industry lobbyist hearing cases and promising objectivity. [TorrentFreak via Ars Technica]“

Feds Divert Florida High-Speed Rail Money to Amtrak, 15 States

Obama's Train Boondoggle, ALL ABOARD!

Straight from Fox News: “Amtrak and rail projects in 15 states are being awarded the $2 billion that Florida lost after the governor canceled plans for high-speed train service, the Department of Transportationsaid Monday.

The largest share of the money — nearly $800 million — will be used to upgrade train speeds from 135 mph to 160 mph on critical segments of the heavily traveled Northeast corridor, the department said in a statement..

Another $404 million will go to expand high-speed rail service in the Midwest, including newly constructed segments of 110-mph track between Detroit and Chicago that are expected to save passengers 30 minutes in travel time.

Nearly $340 million will go toward state-of-the-art locomotives and rail cars for California and the Midwest. California will also get another $300 million toward trains that will travel up to 220 mph between San Francisco and Los Angeles.

“These projects will put thousands of Americans to work, save hundreds of thousands of hours for American travelers every year, and boost U.S. manufacturing by investing hundreds of millions of dollars in next-generation, American-made locomotives and rail cars,” Vice President Joseph Biden said in a statement.

President Barack Obama has sought to make creation a national network of high-speed trains a signature project of his administration. He has said he wants to make fast trains accessible to 80 percent of Americans within 25 years.

The money — initially $2.4 billion — had been awarded to Florida for high-speed trains between Tampa and Orlando. After Gov. Rick Scott canceled the project, the Transportation Department invited other states to bid for the funds. It received 90 applications seeking a total of $10 billion.

Scott said he was concerned that the state government would be locked into years of operating subsidies. However, a report by the state’s transportation department forecast the rail line would be profitable. The project initially had been approved by Scott’s predecessor, Republican-turned-Independent Charlie Crist.

Two other Republican governors elected in November have canceled high-speed train projects in their states. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker turned down $810 million to build a Madison-to-Milwaukee high-speed line. Ohio Gov. John Kasich rejected $400 million for a project to connect Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus with slower-moving trains. Both the Ohio and Wisconsin projects had been approved by the governors’ Democratic predecessors.

Republican members of Congress have also opposed funds for high-speed trains, rescinding $400 million of the money previously awarded Florida as well as other unspent money designated for trains in budget deliberations with the administration.”

The Red Square Nebula rips a hole in space-time

Straight from io9: “This might look like some weird cosmic gateway straight out of 2001: A Space Odyssey or a particularly trippy old-school Doctor Whoadventure, but the Red Square Nebula is completely real. Just don’t ask astronomers to explain its bizarre shape.

Even if its name sounds downright un-American, the Red Square Nebula has got to be my new favorite celestial phenomenon, if only because it looks so ridiculously like something out of vintage science fiction, as you can see in this image created from various infrared exposures from Earth-based telescopes in Hawaii and California. Part of the reason the nebula looks so unreal is its unique square structure, for which astronomers still have no obvious explanation.

The leading hypothesis is that the star or stars at the heart of the nebula for some reason expelled unusual cones of gas at a late stage in their development, and these just happened to form a square-like shape. Sure, “for some reason” and “just happened” aren’t the most scientific argument ever, but that’s the thing about the universe – it’s so big that plenty of things can quite comfortably happen completely by chance.

Of course, we only see it like a square because that’s the shape that happens to be turned toward us at precisely the right angle to create this effect. The Red Square Nebula would look very different from other angles, and astronomers speculate that viewed from other angles its cones would look like the huge rings that we can observe on supernova 1987A, which suggests that a star inside this nebula is someday headed for a fierce supernova all its own.”

CCIA: copyright wiretaps are Hollywood’s “PATRIOT Act”‘s “PATRIOT Act”

(left to right) Douchebag and Victoria Espinel

Straight from Ars Technica: “Yesterday’s White House wish list of new intellectual property laws focused on things like counterfeit medicines, but it also included proposals to extend wiretaps into copyright cases and to ensure that illegal streaming video is a felony. A DC trade group representing companies like AMD, Facebook, Oracle, Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft today objected loudly to the plan, saying that legitimate concerns about counterfeiting have been “hijacked to create draconian proposals to alleviate the content industry of the burden of protecting its own interest using its own extensive resources.”

And that was just the beginning. Computer & Communications Industry Association chief Ed Black tapped his inner prophet to roll out a barnburner of a response to the White House. Over the top? Decide for yourself:

Some in Congress and the White House have apparently decided that no price is too high to pay to kowtow to Big Content’s every desire, including curtailing civil liberties by expanding wiretapping of electronic communications. Even the controversial USA PATRIOT Act exists because of extraordinary national security circumstances involving an attack on our country. Does Hollywood deserve its own PATRIOT Act?

This new punitive IP agenda follows just weeks after dictators spying on citizens online was the lead story in every major newspaper. Perhaps the obvious hypocrisy caused someone to decide to wait to announce the US goal of expanding our government’s powers to spy online. A screenwriter could almost market this plot as a comedy—if it weren’t so serious.

Maybe we should be grateful our government only wants to make streaming a song or movie a felony with potential prison time as punishment. What’s next, corporal punishment?

This is the latest indication of the extent to which the content industry has infiltrated this administration and managed to turn the Administration’s IP agenda into a policy which protects old business models at the expense of consumers, citizens’ rights, and our most innovative job creating industries.

That sound you hear is Obama “IP czar” Victoria Espinel scratching Black’s name off her Christmas card list.”

Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media

Did someone say, "Techno Experts?"

Straight from the Guardian: “The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda.

A Californian corporation has been awarded a contract with United States Central Command (Centcom), which oversees US armed operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, to develop what is described as an “online persona management service” that will allow one US serviceman or woman to control up to 10 separate identities based all over the world.

The project has been likened by web experts to China’s attempts to control and restrict free speech on the internet. Critics are likely to complain that it will allow the US military to create a false consensus in online conversations, crowd out unwelcome opinions and smother commentaries or reports that do not correspond with its own objectives.

The discovery that the US military is developing false online personalities – known to users of social media as “sock puppets” – could also encourage other governments, private companies and non-government organisations to do the same.

The Centcom contract stipulates that each fake online persona must have a convincing background, history and supporting details, and that up to 50 US-based controllers should be able to operate false identities from their workstations “without fear of being discovered by sophisticated adversaries”.

Centcom spokesman Commander Bill Speaks said: “The technology supports classified blogging activities on foreign-language websites to enable Centcom to counter violent extremist and enemy propaganda outside the US.”

He said none of the interventions would be in English, as it would be unlawful to “address US audiences” with such technology, and any English-language use of social media by Centcom was always clearly attributed. The languages in which the interventions are conducted include Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and Pashto.

Centcom said it was not targeting any US-based web sites, in English or any other language, and specifically said it was not targeting Facebook or Twitter.

Once developed, the software could allow US service personnel, working around the clock in one location, to respond to emerging online conversations with any number of co-ordinated messages, blogposts, chatroom posts and other interventions. Details of the contract suggest this location would be MacDill air force base near Tampa, Florida, home of US Special Operations Command.

Centcom’s contract requires for each controller the provision of one “virtual private server” located in the United States and others appearing to be outside the US to give the impression the fake personas are real people located in different parts of the world.

It also calls for “traffic mixing”, blending the persona controllers’ internet usage with the usage of people outside Centcom in a manner that must offer “excellent cover and powerful deniability”.

The multiple persona contract is thought to have been awarded as part of a programme called Operation Earnest Voice (OEV), which was first developed in Iraq as a psychological warfare weapon against the online presence of al-Qaida supporters and others ranged against coalition forces. Since then, OEV is reported to have expanded into a $200m programme and is thought to have been used against jihadists across Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Middle East.

OEV is seen by senior US commanders as a vital counter-terrorism and counter-radicalisation programme. In evidence to the US Senate’s armed services committee last year, General David Petraeus, then commander of Centcom, described the operation as an effort to “counter extremist ideology and propaganda and to ensure that credible voices in the region are heard”. He said the US military’s objective was to be “first with the truth”.

This month Petraeus’s successor, General James Mattis, told the same committee that OEV “supports all activities associated with degrading the enemy narrative, including web engagement and web-based product distribution capabilities”.

Centcom confirmed that the $2.76m contract was awarded to Ntrepid, a newly formed corporation registered in Los Angeles. It would not disclose whether the multiple persona project is already in operation or discuss any related contracts.

Nobody was available for comment at Ntrepid.

In his evidence to the Senate committee, Gen Mattis said: “OEV seeks to disrupt recruitment and training of suicide bombers; deny safe havens for our adversaries; and counter extremist ideology and propaganda.” He added that Centcom was working with “our coalition partners” to develop new techniques and tactics the US could use “to counter the adversary in the cyber domain”.

According to a report by the inspector general of the US defence department in Iraq, OEV was managed by the multinational forces rather than Centcom.

Asked whether any UK military personnel had been involved in OEV, Britain’s Ministry of Defence said it could find “no evidence”. The MoD refused to say whether it had been involved in the development of persona management programmes, saying: “We don’t comment on cyber capability.”

OEV was discussed last year at a gathering of electronic warfare specialists in Washington DC, where a senior Centcom officer told delegates that its purpose was to “communicate critical messages and to counter the propaganda of our adversaries”.

Persona management by the US military would face legal challenges if it were turned against citizens of the US, where a number of people engaged in sock puppetry have faced prosecution.

Last year a New York lawyer who impersonated a scholar was sentenced to jail after being convicted of “criminal impersonation” and identity theft.

It is unclear whether a persona management programme would contravene UK law. Legal experts say it could fall foul of the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981, which states that “a person is guilty of forgery if he makes a false instrument, with the intention that he or another shall use it to induce somebody to accept it as genuine, and by reason of so accepting it to do or not to do some act to his own or any other person’s prejudice”. However, this would apply only if a website or social network could be shown to have suffered “prejudice” as a result.

• This article was amended on 18 March 2011 to remove references to Facebook and Twitter, introduced during the editing process, and to add a comment from Centcom, received after publication, that it is not targeting those sites.”

Zomblog and Global Warming enter the United States Senate

Straight from the Zomblog: “How often do blog posts make it into the Senate record?

I’m not sure, but we now know at least one has made it that far:

Part of a post I wrote back in 2009 was read verbatim today in the United States Senate by Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) during a debate about the “global cooling” fad among scientists in the early 1970s.

As detailed succinctly by Ed Morrissey over at Hot Air, the argument started when Senator John Barrasso cited several media reports from the ’70s warning that scientists now think the planet is threatened by a looming “ice age.” Senators Barbara Boxer and Tom Udall then reply by entering into the Senate record a recent USA Today article which claims that the global cooling thesis in the ’70s never quite reached the level of complete scientific consensus.

It was at this point that Senator Inhofe shoots back a zinger, taking a page printed out from my zomblog post of September 16, 2009 entitled John Holdren in 1971: “New ice age” likely, and reading the words written by the man who is now Obama’s top “science czar,” John Holdren, warning of the perils of the coming ice age.

The reason I’m 100% positive that Inhofe was reading a page printed from zomblog is that he read not just the Holdren essay I dug up, but actually a short passage of my own introductory words before he gets to the Holdren part.

As you can see at my original post linked to above, I wrote in 2009,

“Below is a direct scan from pages 76-77 in the book Global Ecology…”

…followed by a transcription of Holdren’s essay.

Reading from a printout, here’s what Inhofe said (starting at 3:15 into the video):

“What he had written was, ‘Below is a direct scan from his pages 76-77 of his book, he said…”

…followed by the same transcription.

Now, even without this telltale recitation of my own words, I would have known that the testimony would have been at least based on my post, since I was the first person to dig deep and recover Holdren’s old writing from the memory hole, and that my posts were the first exposés on the topic. But the fact that Inhofe actually read my introductory sentence confirms it conclusively: zomblog is now part of the Senate record!

Here’s the video showing the whole exchange:

Side note, for those following the global warming debate:

As to the content of the back-and-forth dispute between, on one side Senators Barrasso and Inhofe, and on the other, Senators Boxer and Udall, over the extent of the “global cooling” hysteria in the early/mid -1970s: that is beyond the scope of this short post. By this point the argument has devolved into bickering over the details: It’s beyond dispute that the popular press trumpeted the global cooling scare widely at the time. And that a certain percentage of scientists believed the Earth was indeed cooling. The question then becomes: What percentage? The media of the time said that “most” or “many” scientists were predicting it, but the study cited by the USA Today article surveyed the literature in scientific journals at the time and found that the majority of the ones surveyed were not on board with the cooling thesis.

Keep in mind that I myself never pushed the thesis that “most” scientists in the ’70s predicted a new ice age, only that “some” did, John Holdren most notably among them. Even so, the “survey” of the literature of the era cited in the USA Today article was done by a global warming partisan, and we have no evidence that his survey was thorough or even-handed.

My only point was that Obama’s own science czar, now a leading advocate of the “catastrophic global warming” thesis, formerly used to warn of the exact opposite doomsday scenario — a looming ice age.”