From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Feb 17 21:39:38 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 18 Feb 2017 03:39:38 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - NPR: From Alternative Facts To Alternative Language Message-ID: With 'Fake News,' Trump Moves From Alternative Facts To Alternative Language February 17, 20178:27 PM ET http://www.npr.org/2017/02/17/515630467/with-fake-news-trump-moves-from-alternative-facts-to-alternative-language From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Feb 17 21:41:06 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 18 Feb 2017 03:41:06 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Is a T-Mobile-Sprint merger about to be revived? Message-ID: (As a TMo customer, ye gods I hope not! -- rick) Is a T-Mobile-Sprint merger about to be revived? Edward C. Baig , USA TODAY Published 3:59 p.m. ET Feb. 17, 2017 http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2017/02/17/report-softbank-trying-revive-t-mobile-sprint-merger/98058554/ Both T-Mobile and Sprint?s stock prices rallied Friday afternoon following a Reuters report that Japan's SoftBank Group is considering ceding control of Sprint to Deutsche Telekom, bolstering the possibility of a long speculated merger between the third and fourth largest U.S. wireless carriers. SoftBank hasn?t approached Deutsche Telekom, the majority owner of T-Mobile, yet, the report says. That's because the Federal Communications Commission had banned discussions among rivals during an ongoing wireless spectrum auction. But Reuters, which pinned the report on people familiar with the matter, said merger discussions could begin in April. T-Mobile?s stock closed up around 5.5%; Sprint's stock climbed 3.3%. Sprint and T-Mobile declined comment on the report. Back in August 2014, the two rivals called off merger talks, because it was believed that the U.S. regulatory hurdles were too steep. But in December, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son met at Trump Tower with then-President-elect Donald Trump, rekindling speculation that a merger could indeed take place. "Both parties have been interested in (a merger) for quite some time," says wireless analyst Chetan Sharma, who estimated a merger price tag of $70 billion. "SoftBank would have to part with a lot of cash, but it has the assets" to get the deal done, Sharma says. According to Reuters, Softbank would be willing to give up its control of Sprint and retain a minority stake in a merged telecom company. In an interview earlier this week, T-Mobile's chief operating officer Mike Sievert told USA TODAY, "We're very strong on a standalone basis. And that being said, we're also opportunistic and our stance on that has been consistent for years. And if the right opportunities came along to turbo-charge our strategy, our brand, our set of assets, we'd be open to it." Despite the speculation expressed after the Trump-Son meeting, it remains to be seen how receptive the Trump Administration will be to a Sprint-T-Mobile pairing. Equally uncertain is how willing Deutsch Telekom CEO Tim Hoettges is in reviving merger talks. Speaking at an investors' conference in November, Hoettges indicated that he was "not in the mood" to sell T-Mobile, Reuters reported. Deutsch Telekom owns about a 65% stake in T-Mobile, whereas SoftBank owns about 83% of Sprint. The latest merger speculation follows a wild week kicked off by Verizon in which the four major U.S. wireless carriers each tried to one-up the other with fresh "unlimited" consumer offerings, possibly creating a counter-argument to any such deal. "Isn't Verizon's pricing response a sign that the four player market is working precisely as it should?" asked MoffettNathanson telecom analyst Craig Moffett after T-Mobile reported its quarterly earnings this past Tuesday. Email: ebaig at usatoday.com; Follow USA TODAY Personal Tech Columnist @edbaig on Twitter From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Feb 17 21:43:02 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 18 Feb 2017 03:43:02 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?utf-8?b?V29yayBTdG9wcyBhdCBDLkQuQy7igJlzIFRv?= =?utf-8?q?p_Deadly_Germ_Lab_Over_Air_Hose_Safety?= Message-ID: Work Stops at C.D.C.?s Top Deadly Germ Lab Over Air Hose Safety Denise Grady https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/17/health/cdc-germ-lab-safety.html Work at the high-security government lab that handles deadly pathogens like the Ebola virus has been suspended since Monday, when it was discovered that nylon hoses used to pump air into the scientists? protective suits had not been designed or tested for breathing safety, officials said on Friday. The hoses have been in use since 2005. The problem, at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, involved about 100 lab workers, said Steve Monroe, the associate director for Laboratory Science and Safety there. But there is no evidence that anyone has become ill as a result, he said. There is no risk to the public. The hoses are used with protective gear that looks like a spacesuit, fully enclosing the wearer and providing its own air supply to avoid any possible contact with pathogens, some of which may be airborne. The potential worry is not that germs could have invaded the air the workers were breathing, but that chemicals released into the air supply from the hose material might have been unsafe to breathe. Air samples from the hoses are being tested to see if any harmful chemicals are present. Results are expected next week. Dr. Monroe said nylon was a stable compound, and he did not expect that anything of concern would be found. Widely publicized accidents in recent years at the disease centers and other government labs, involving germs that cause influenza, anthrax and smallpox, have led to efforts to tighten procedures and reporting of mistakes. The discovery and response of this latest problem shows that the C.D.C. is succeeding, Dr. Monroe said, ?in our ongoing efforts to improve accountability for lab safety and empower staff to report things that come to their attention.? Ebola experiments had been underway in the lab that is now closed, he said. New hoses were expected to arrive Friday night, Dr. Monroe said, adding that they were certified for breathing, but that he did not know what they were made of. Work will resume once the hoses are installed. He said scientists who worked in the lab expressed some health concerns when they were told about the hoses, but were eager to get back to work. The problem came to light when the C.D.C. ordered new hoses to replace the original ones, which had been installed when the laboratory opened in 2005. The manufacturer ? the same one that had provided the original hoses ? informed the C.D.C. that its products were not meant for breathing. Dr. Monroe declined to name the company. Why the unsuitability of the hoses was not recognized in 2005 is not clear, Dr. Monroe said, adding that he did not know whether the disclaimer about breathing was something that the company adopted after 2005. But he said there was no indication that the company had any knowledge or concerns about the presence of anything toxic in the hoses. The hoses were meant to carry compressed air for industrial tools like nail guns and paint sprayers, Dr. Monroe said. They did not come with the fitting needed to attach them to the protective suits worn in germ labs. In theory, that mismatch could have been a warning sign: Medical equipment is often manufactured with unique fittings and nozzles so that pieces that do not belong together cannot be joined. The same principle is used at gas stations, where the nozzle for diesel fuel often will not fit into a gasoline tank. But in the C.D.C. case, instead of looking for hoses created to fit the suits, the lab designer found a manufacturer that could make fittings that would let the industrial hoses hook up with the suits. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Feb 18 08:20:36 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 18 Feb 2017 14:20:36 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - The Cognitive Bias POTUS Understands Better Than You Message-ID: <9F5941D8-BFBE-4429-8ECF-CC006BC5139F@infowarrior.org> The Cognitive Bias President Trump Understands Better Than You Author: Emily Dreyfuss. Emily Dreyfuss Culture https://www.wired.com/2017/02/cognitive-bias-president-trump-understands-better/ Americans born in the United States are more murderous than undocumented immigrants. Fighting words, I know. But why? After all, that?s just what the numbers say. Still, be honest: you wouldn?t linger over a story with that headline. It?s ?dog bites man.? It?s the norm. And norms aren?t news. Instead, you?ll see two dozen reporters flock to a single burning trash can during an Inauguration protest. The aberrant occurrence is the story you?ll read and the picture you?ll see. It?s news because it?s new. The problem here is not just that this singling out creates a distorted, fish-eye lens version of what?s really happeneing. It?s that the human psyche is predisposed to take an aberration?what linguist George Lakoff has called the ?salient exemplar??and conflate it with the norm. This cognitive bias itself isn?t new. But in a media environment driven by clicks, where politicians can bypass journalistic filters entirely to deliver themselves straight to citizens, it?s newly exploitable. You know who else isn?t as likely to commit murders in the US as native-born citizens? Refugees. Or immigrants from the seven countries singled out in President Trump?s shot-down travel ban. Or for that matter, immigrants at all. According to numerous studies, increased immigration correlates with lower violent crime rates in a community. Yet next week, Trump is promising a revised travel ban in the name of safety. In the past, the president has also promised to publish a weekly list of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants. What he hasn?t promised to publish is a list of crimes committed by Americans. That?s not news. But his list is likely to create the false impression that undocumented immigrants are especially prone to commit violent crimes?an impression in which the human brain is complicit. Taking Advantage of Bias Lakoff, a University of California, Berkeley linguist and well-known Democratic activist, cites Ronald Reagan?s ?welfare queen? as the signature ?salient exemplar.? Reagan?s straw woman?a minority mother who uses her government money on fancy bling rather than on food for her family?became an effective rhetorical bludgeon to curb public assistance programs even though the vast majority of recipients didn?t abuse the system in that way. The image became iconic, even though it was the exception rather than the rule. Psychologists call this bias the ?availability heuristic,? an effect Trump has sought to exploit since the launch of his presidential campaign, when he referred to undocumented Mexican immigrants as rapists. ?It basically works the way memory works: you judge the frequency, the probability, of something based on how easily you can bring it to mind,? says Northeastern University psychologist John Coley. ?Creating a vivid, salient image like that is a great way to make it memorable.? This is the same bias that makes you fear swimming in the ocean lest you get attacked by a shark, despite shark attacks being far less common than, say, death by coconut. When something is memorable, it tends to be the thing you think of first, and then it has an outsize influence on your understanding of the world. After the movie Jaws came out, a generation of people was afraid to swim in the sea?not because shark attacks were more likely but because all those movie viewers could more readily imagine them. (Disclosure.) Psychologists stress that your brain has to work this way, to a certain extent?otherwise you?d have a very hard time differentiating and prioritizing the avalanche of inputs you receive throughout your life. ?It?s not a cognitive malfunction,? says Coley. ?But it can be purposefully exploited.? When Trump uses a salient exemplar that will lodge in your brain, he?s manipulating your brain?s natural way of sorting information. But if you can?t totally eliminate your brain?s predisposition, you can at least work against the potential for bias it creates by understanding that it exists. Journalists in particular need to be mindful because exploiters of this bias, such as the president, are taking advantage not just of the way the human brain works but the way journalism works. The daily news at its worst becomes a catalog of salacious salient exemplars that only serve to distort the reality journalism in its most ideal version aspires to reflect. ?We haven?t done as good a job of actually explaining how things function at a higher level, the success stories,? says Ann Marie Lipinski, curator of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. This failing aided Trump during the campaign, Lipinski says. By focusing on negative stories, the news helped to paint of a picture of an America in need of ?being made great again.? Recently, Trump told an audience of senior military commanders at CENTCOM that the ?very, very dishonest media? didn?t report on terrorism. The implication was that journalists bury important news about terrorism because of some alternate agenda. Later that day, Trump spokesman Sean Spicer released a list of terrorist acts the president felt that journalists didn?t spend enough time covering. Journalists pounced: Hey, we reported on ALL OF THOSE! We won Pulitzers for our reporting! Here are a bazillion front page headlines proving it! In doing so, journalists took the bait. The stories about their stories fed the narrative that terrorism is everywhere (it?s not). Instead, reporters need to get smarter about covering the non-aberrant, to show that commonplace does not equal mundane. It may not be rare, but it?s reality. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Feb 20 09:44:31 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2017 15:44:31 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?utf-8?q?Why_I=E2=80=99m_Concerned_About_the_Ind?= =?utf-8?q?ependence_of_U=2ES=2E_Statistical_Agencies?= Message-ID: Why I?m Concerned About the Independence of U.S. Statistical Agencies Brent Moulton January 24, 2017 https://politicalarithmetick.com/2017/01/24/why-im-concerned-about-the-independence-of-u-s-statistical-agencies/ From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Feb 20 12:33:21 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2017 18:33:21 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Donate to TechDirt's survival fund Message-ID: <7F96395D-6342-4C6F-9E39-7684B02AA319@infowarrior.org> Please donate to techdirt's survival fund: https://www.isupportjournalism.com/ Background: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170111/11440836465/techdirts-first-amendment-fight-life.shtml ?Inventor of Email? Slaps Tech Site With $15M Libel Suit for Mocking His Claim http://fortune.com/2017/01/05/email-inventor-techdirt/ From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Feb 21 17:04:06 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 21 Feb 2017 23:04:06 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Bernard Fall: The Man Who Knew the War Message-ID: <720B1AF0-176B-44AB-A24A-355A6300760D@infowarrior.org> (Fall's books are must-read references for serious practitioners/scholars of low intensity/counterinsurgency warfare. They are mind-grippingly written and the military lessons are timeless....several of his works are on my bookshelf. -- rick) Bernard Fall: The Man Who Knew the War Fredrik Logevall VIETNAM '67 FEB. 21, 2017 Fifty years ago today, on Feb. 21, 1967, the journalist Bernard Fall stepped on a land mine while accompanying Marines on a mission near Hue, in South Vietnam. He died instantly. He was 40 years old. The literature on the Vietnam War is enormous and growing, but Fall?s work still stands out for its insight and sagacity. He remains our greatest writer on the struggle, despite the fact that he died before the period of heavy American military involvement had reached its halfway point. Fall wrote six books on the Indochina conflict, along with more than 100 articles in popular publications like The New York Times Magazine, The Saturday Evening Post and The New Republic, as well as academic journals. Many an officer who shipped out to Saigon carried with him a dog-eared copy of ?Street Without Joy: Indochina at War, 1946?1954,? published in 1961. In early 1968, when it seemed possible that American forces could be in for a disastrous siege at Khe Sanh, officers scrambled to get their hands on ?Hell in a Very Small Place,? Fall?s searing account of the siege at Dien Bien Phu, 14 years earlier, in which the French suffered the decisive loss in their own struggle to control the country. Born in Vienna in 1926, Fall moved to Paris after Germany annexed Austria, and as a teenager he fought for the French resistance. (His father, who also fought for the resistance, was executed by the Germans; his mother died at Auschwitz.) He came to the United States for graduate school in international relations and eventually became a professor at Howard University. He also began traveling to Vietnam in the 1950s and writing about what he saw. Passionate, tireless, intensely ambitious, Fall set out to become, as he put it, ?the foremost military writer of my generation.? Arguably, he succeeded, or came close. Always wishing to be seen as a soldier?s historian, from early on he earned the respect of French and American servicemen and their superiors for his close attention to their experiences, and for his penetrating and dispassionate analyses of strategic and tactical matters. Journalists and Foreign Service officers seeking to make sense of the war likewise devoured his books and articles, as did general readers drawn in by this transplanted Frenchman?s acute powers of observation and robust and engaging English prose. < - > https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/21/opinion/bernard-fall-the-man-who-knew-the-war.html From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Feb 23 06:55:19 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2017 12:55:19 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - McRaven backs journalists, stresses value of communication in Moody talk Message-ID: <7FA929D8-AC78-43E6-A290-A6F15A4F7631@infowarrior.org> (c/o D) https://www.dailytexanonline.com/2017/02/22/mcraven-backs-journalists-stresses-value-of-communication-in-moody-talk McRaven backs journalists, stresses value of communication in Moody talk William H. McRaven, retired U.S. Admiral and UT System Chancellor, championed the role of the news media in a speech to Moody College of Communications students and faculty on Tuesday. ?We must challenge this statement and this sentiment that the news media is the enemy of the American people,? McRaven said. ?This sentiment may be the greatest threat to democracy in my lifetime.? McRaven, a UT journalism graduate of 1977, shared stories from his experience as a Navy SEAL trainee, as a commanding officer in Iraq and Afghanistan and as the man credited with organizing and overseeing the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden, connecting each allegory to one common refrain: To be a great leader, one must effectively use communication in everything they do. ?To be a good leader you have to be a good communicator,? McRaven said. ?As a leader you have to communicate your intent every chance you get and if you fail to do that, you will pay the consequences.? [?] https://www.dailytexanonline.com/2017/02/22/mcraven-backs-journalists-stresses-value-of-communication-in-moody-talk From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Feb 23 06:55:19 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2017 12:55:19 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?utf-8?q?Judge=3A_No=2C_feds_can=E2=80=99t_nab_a?= =?utf-8?q?ll_Apple_devices_and_try_everyone=E2=80=99s_fingerprints?= Message-ID: <76002D88-69D9-4DEA-9C49-A95321151DA0@infowarrior.org> Judge: No, feds can?t nab all Apple devices and try everyone?s fingerprints "Such Fourth Amendment intrusions are [not] justified based on the facts articulated." Cyrus Farivar - 2/23/2017, 3:45 AM https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/02/judge-no-feds-cant-nab-all-apple-devices-and-try-everyones-fingerprints/ To beat crypto, feds have tried to force fingerprint unlocking in 2 cases A federal magistrate judge in Chicago recently denied the government?s attempt to force people in a particular building to depress their fingerprints in an attempt to open any seized Apple devices as part of a child pornography investigation. This prosecution, nearly all of which remains sealed, is one of a small but growing number of criminal cases that pit modern smartphone encryption against both the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure, and also the Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination. According to the judge?s opinion, quoting from a still-sealed government filing, "forced fingerprinting" is part of a broader government strategy, likely to combat the prevalence of encrypted devices. Last year, federal investigators sought a similar permission to force residents of two houses in Southern California to fingerprint-unlock a seized phone in a case that also remains sealed. In those cases, and likely in the Illinois case as well, the prosecutors' legal analysis states that there is no Fifth Amendment implication at play. Under the Constitution, defendants cannot be compelled to provide self-incriminating testimony (?what you know?). However, traditionally, giving a fingerprint (?what you are?) for the purposes of identification or matching to an unknown fingerprint found at a crime scene has been allowed. It wasn?t until relatively recently, however, that fingerprints could be used to unlock a smartphone. In a 14-page opinion and order, which was published on February 16 but only began to circulate amongst privacy lawyers and legal scholars on Twitter on Wednesday, Judge M. David Weisman wrote that while investigators did have probable cause to search a particular home, "these limitations do impact the ability of the government to seek the extraordinary authority related to compelling individuals to provide their fingerprints to unlock an Apple electronic device." However, unlike the California warrant applications, this case doesn?t involve one particular seized device to check to see if anyone?s fingerprint unlocks it. Rather, authorities seem to be using the particular fact that most modern Apple iPhones and iPads can be unlocked and decrypted if Touch ID is enabled. While some Android devices also have a similar fingerprint scanning function, the warrant application (which remains sealed) apparently only sought out Apple devices. (Under both operating systems, the fingerprint unlock stops working after your phone has been unlocked for 48 hours.) As the judge, who is both a former federal prosecutor and a former FBI special agent, wrote: The request is made without any specific facts as to who is involved in the criminal conduct linked to the subject premises, or specific facts as to what particular Apple-branded encrypted device is being employed (if any). First, the Court finds that the warrant does not establish sufficient probable cause to compel any person who happens to be at the subject premises at the time of the search to give his fingerprint to unlock an unspecified Apple electronic device. ? This Court agrees that the context in which fingerprints are taken, and not the fingerprints themselves, can raise concerns under the Fourth Amendment. In the instant case, the government is seeking the authority to seize any individual at the subject premises and force the application of their fingerprints as directed by government agents. Based on the facts presented in the application, the Court does not believe such Fourth Amendment intrusions are justified based on the facts articulated. Neither the Department of Justice nor the FBI immediately responded to Ars? request for comment. Prosecutors could seek to appeal the opinion to a more senior judge. Gov't may be shooting itself in the foot with novel legal theory Ars spoke with several lawyers about this case, most of whom largely agreed with the judge?s ruling. "As I read the opinion, the government relies on old fingerprinting cases to argue that the Fourth and Fifth Amendments don?t stand in the way of what they are seeking to do here," Abraham Rein, a Philadelphia-based tech lawyer told Ars by e-mail. "But (as the court points out) there is a big difference between using a fingerprint to identify a person and using one to gain access to a potentially vast trove of data about them, and possibly about innocent third parties too. The old fingerprinting cases aren?t really good analogs for this new situation. Same is true with old cases about using keys to unlock locks?here, we?re not talking about a key but about part of a person?s body." Orin Kerr, a well-known privacy and tech law expert, and a professor at George Washington University, told Ars that the judge had largely reached the right result, but only on Fourth Amendment, and specifically not Fifth Amendment grounds. "I just think that it's really clear that that [fingerprints are] not testimonial?because you?re not using your brain," he said. "It can?t be testimonial if you can cut their finger off." Similarly, Paul Rosenzweig, an attorney and former Homeland Security official, argued that it?s essentially impossible for a fingerprint, even a digital fingerprint, to have any Fifth Amendment implications. "We could have gone down the road of saying that providing physical evidence is testimony against yourself," he said. "But we long ago made the decision that the Fifth Amendment applied to testimony and testimony meant only oral utterances or other things that conveyed a message. For this distinction lies at the core of Breathalyzer tests. If we roll that back, Breathalyzer tests go out the window. Blowing your air would be testifying against yourself." Riana Pfefferkorn, one of the lawyers who first found this judicial opinion and publicized it on Twitter, told Ars that part of the problem with these types of cases is that this cutting edge of judicial analysis is largely happening "outside the public eye." "In many instances, there may be little or no legal analysis by the court when it approves a request for a search warrant or other court order," she wrote. "Examples like this may be the tip of an iceberg. I hope that more judges will join this Illinois judge in not only conducting a thorough legal analysis of novel requests for gathering electronic evidence, but also publishing those opinions publicly." Yet another lawyer suggested that cases like this would push companies like Apple to harden their devices even further: rather than allow a simple fingerprint to unlock a phone, future versions of its software will likely require a fingerprint or other biometric in combination with a traditional passcode. "I think we will see authentication systems evolve with these kinds of mass searches (not to mention border searches and the like) as a new part of the threat model of unauthorized access," Blake Reid, a law professor at the University of Colorado told Ars. "An additional risk of what the government is doing here is creating incentives for manufacturers to design authentication systems that are less susceptible from a technical and architectural perspective to these types of searches." Cyrus Farivar Cyrus is the Senior Business Editor at Ars Technica, and is also a radio producer and author. His first book, The Internet of Elsewhere, was published in April 2011. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Feb 23 08:31:44 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2017 14:31:44 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Arizona Senate votes to seize assets of those who plan, participate in protests that turn violent Message-ID: <87E1CE54-F279-49A1-B110-C69B00B9601B@infowarrior.org> Arizona Senate votes to seize assets of those who plan, participate in protests that turn violent By: Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services February 22, 2017 , 5:11 pm http://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2017/02/22/arizona-senate-crackdown-on-protests/ Claiming people are being paid to riot, Republican state senators voted Wednesday to give police new power to arrest anyone who is involved in a peaceful demonstration that may turn bad ? even before anything actually happened. SB1142 expands the state?s racketeering laws, now aimed at organized crime, to also include rioting. And it redefines what constitutes rioting to include actions that result in damage to the property of others. But the real heart of the legislation is what Democrats say is the guilt by association ? and giving the government the right to criminally prosecute and seize the assets of everyone who planned a protest and everyone who participated. And what?s worse, said Sen. Steve Farley, D-Tucson, is that the person who may have broken a window, triggering the claim there was a riot, might actually not be a member of the group but someone from the other side. Sen. Martin Quezada, D-Phoenix, acknowledged that sometimes what?s planned as a peaceful demonstration can go south. ?When people want to express themselves as a group during a time of turmoil, during a time of controversy, during a time of high emotions, that?s exactly when people gather as a community,?? he said. ?Sometimes they yell, sometimes they scream, sometimes they do go too far.?? Quezada said, though, that everything that constitutes rioting already is a crime, ranging from assault to criminal damage, and those responsible can be individually prosecuted. He said the purpose of this bill appears to be designed to chill the First Amendment rights of people to decide to demonstrate in the first place for fear something could wrong. But Sen. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, said that chilling effect is aimed at a very specific group of protesters. ?You now have a situation where you have full-time, almost professional agent-provocateurs that attempt to create public disorder,?? he said. ?A lot of them are ideologues, some of them are anarchists,?? Kavanagh continued. ?But this stuff is all planned.?? There?s something else: By including rioting in racketeering laws, it actually permits police to arrest those who are planning events. And Kavanagh, a former police officer, said if there are organized groups, ?I should certainly hope that our law enforcement people have some undercover people there.?? ?Wouldn?t you rather stop a riot before it starts??? Kavanagh asked colleagues during debate. ?Do you really want to wait until people are injuring each other, throwing Molotov cocktails, picking up barricades and smashing them through businesses in downtown Phoenix??? Sen. Sylvia Allen, R-Snowflake, said the new criminal laws are necessary. ?I have been heartsick with what?s been going on in our country, what young people are being encouraged to do,?? she said. She agreed with Quezada that there already are laws that cover overt acts. But Allen said they don?t work. ?If they get thrown in jail, somebody pays to get them out,?? she said. ?There has to be something to deter them from that.?? Farley, however, said the legislation does far more than simply going after those who might incite people to riot, something which actually already is a crime. And he warned Republicans that such a broad law could end up being used against some of their allies. For example, he said, a ?Tea Party?? group wanting to protest a property tax hike might get permits, publicize the event and have a peaceful demonstration. ?And one person, possibly from the other side, starts breaking the windows of a car,?? Farley said. ?And all of a sudden the organizers of that march, the local Tea Party, are going to be under indictment from the county attorney in the county that raised those property taxes,?? he said. ?That will have a chilling effect on anybody, right or left, who wants to protest something the government has done.?? Sen. Katie Hobbs, D-Phoenix, said the whole legislation is based on a false premise of how disturbances happen. ?This idea that people are being paid to come out and do that??? she said. ?I?m sorry, but I think that is fake news.?? Sen. Andrea Dalessandro, D-Green Valley, had her own concerns. ?I?m fearful that ?riot? is in the eyes of the beholder and that this bill will apply more strictly to minorities and people trying to have their voice heard,?? she said. The 17-13 party-line vote sends the bill to the House. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Feb 23 08:35:07 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2017 14:35:07 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Announcing the first SHA1 collision Message-ID: <03A8F15C-BAF2-468E-B627-407E518609FE@infowarrior.org> (c/o KM) Announcing the first SHA1 collision February 23, 2017 Cryptographic hash functions like SHA-1 are a cryptographer?s swiss army knife. You?ll find that hashes play a role in browser security, managing code repositories, or even just detecting duplicate files in storage. Hash functions compress large amounts of data into a small message digest. As a cryptographic requirement for wide-spread use, finding two messages that lead to the same digest should be computationally infeasible. Over time however, this requirement can fail due to attacks on the mathematical underpinnings of hash functions or to increases in computational power. Today, 10 years after of SHA-1 was first introduced, we are announcing the first practical technique for generating a collision. This represents the culmination of two years of research that sprung from a collaboration between the CWI Institute in Amsterdam and Google. We?ve summarized how we went about generating a collision below. As a proof of the attack, we are releasing two PDFs that have identical SHA-1 hashes but different content. < - > https://security.googleblog.com/2017/02/announcing-first-sha1-collision.html From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Feb 23 09:31:05 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2017 15:31:05 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Obama aggressively lobbied to kill transparency reform Message-ID: Most....transparent....administration.....ever? (NOT) --rick New documents show the Obama admin aggressively lobbied to kill transparency reform in Congress Trevor Timm Executive director, Freedom of the Press Foundation March 8, 2016 New documents obtained through Freedom of the Press Foundation?s lawsuit against the Justice Department reveal that the Obama administration - the self described ?most transparent administration ever? - aggressively lobbied behind the scenes in 2014 to kill modest Freedom of Information Act reform that had virtually unanimous support in Congress. Three months ago, we sued the Justice Department (DOJ) under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for communications between the DOJ and Congress, since there were vague reports that the DOJ may have opposed the bill - despite much of it being based word-for-word based on the Justice Department?s own policies. Today, we are publishing a detailed memo authored by the Justice Department that strongly objected to almost every aspect of FOIA reform put forth by the House of Representatives at the time. The bill in question - known as the FOIA Act - was unanimously passed by the House in early 2014. The Senate passed a similar bill - known as the FOIA Improvement Act - in December of 2014, but a final vote in the House to merge the two bills was held up at the last minute by then-Speaker of the House John Boehner and the session of Congress ended before it could become law. It was unclear at the time why the bill did not come up for a final vote, but the Washington Post later reported that a few federal agencies?including the Justice Department?had ?warned? lawmakers about some provisions in the bill. But these new documents show it went well beyond that: the Justice Department vehemently objected to both House and Senate members on nearly all aspects of the bill from the very start, and made clear: ?The Administration strongly opposes passage of [the FOIA Act].?Notably, the Justice Department indicates that this policy memo (published in full below) is not just the agency?s individual opinion, but that it is speaking for the entire Obama administration. < - > https://freedom.press/news-advocacy/new-documents-show-the-obama-admin-aggressively-lobbied-to-kill-transparency-reform-in-congress/ From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Feb 23 15:21:54 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2017 21:21:54 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Memos outline Apple's very early DRM work, 1979-80 Message-ID: (The PDF is well-worth perusing. For me, it brings back memories. --rick) Documents unearthed from early Apple history show shift in company focus from hobbyists to businesses By Mike Wuerthele Thursday, February 23, 2017, 10:51 am PT (01:51 pm ET) http://appleinsider.com/articles/17/02/23/documents-unearthed-from-early-apple-history-show-shift-in-company-focus-from-hobbyist-to-businesses Published on Wednesday in a blog titled Applememos, the 116 pages of collected notes and memos details Apple's "SSAFE - Software Security from Apple's Friends and Enemies" initiative, to develop, implement, and ultimately sell copy protection routines for software. The memos, apparently belonging to Apple engineer and section leader Jack MacDonald, span from Jan. 10, 1979 through Jun. 25, 1980. While apple co-founder Steve Jobs isn't mentioned in the paperwork, co-founder Steve Wozniak is on the distribution list,. Early Apple engineer Randy Wiggington features prominently in the correspondence. Based on the memos, the initiative was launched shortly after the release of Apple DOS 3.2 and the auto-boot capable Apple II plus, and deployed in part in DOS 3.2.1. The notes cite the need for a protection system to preserve both business investment in hardware and software, as well as a way to continue the earning potential of developers. A hand-scrawled memo suggested that businesses selling software would be interested in paying "a lot!" for a workable system. Apple apparently initially envisioned a system with several layers of security. Originally, the software prohibited users from using normal file system commands like RUN and CATALOG to duplicate software and diskettes. Countermeasures were quickly implemented by the user community, with programs like Locksmith and Copy 2 Plus allowing for the protected software to be copied despite Apple's early efforts. Very shortly after the initial, easily circumventable, security measures were implemented, Apple moved on to examining serial number validation. The measure was mostly dismissed it as an Apple-provided solution, calling it "costly and error-prone" needing diskette customization during the mass-manufacture process. As the debate, and the technology, marched on, Apple considered a "key module" approach, similar to that used for copy protection in the '90s with serial and ADB "dongles" authenticating users. While the memos overlap the 1980 release of DOS 3.3, it is unclear what advances were made in the routines for future releases. The routines appear to have remained mostly intact throughout the silent updates of DOS 3.3 through the Apple IIe years. Some routines followed into the Apple III SOS-derived ProDOS system, implemented in 1983, with a final official discontinuation in 1993 ?but enthusiasts continue to improve the software. Throughout the '80s, it mostly remained up to software vendors themselves to implement copy protection schemes. It is unknown exactly how many titles used Apple's protection routines developed for the SSAFE program. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Feb 23 16:20:08 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2017 22:20:08 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - WH adviser calls Twitter critic, threatens legal action Message-ID: Trump adviser calls Twitter critic, threatens legal action By Olivia Beavers - 02/23/17 02:56 PM EST http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/320890-trump-adviser-calls-twitter-critic-threatens-legal-action A White House adviser made an angry phone call and threatened a lawsuit over a critic's tweets about him, Newsweek reported Thursday. The Newsweek story includes a recording of the lengthy phone call Gorka made after counterterrorism expert Michael S. Smith II questioned Gorka's qualifications to be a national security adviser. Gorka, whose experience and views on Islam have come under recent fire, phoned Smith Tuesday, asking to know ?why this vitriol? was coming from him. Gorka repeatedly expressed confusion as to why Smith would attack him, emphasizing the fact that they have never met in person. ?I look at your Twitter feed once or twice a day, and it?s half a dozen tweets about me, and I?ve never even met you,? Gorka said. ?Wow, are you defeating jihad by monitoring or trolling my Twitter feed?? Smith shot back. Smith, in response to Gorka's questioning, continued to stress that he had ?very serious concerns? about Gorka and his views on national security. During the phone call, Gorka tried to invite Smith to talk face-to-face, but Gorka withdrew the invitation Wednesday because of Smith?s ?latest attack piece and continued disparaging tweets.? Gorka reportedly used a cellphone rather than a government phone to place the call, meaning that the call wouldn't be logged or archived, Smith told Newsweek. Smith suggested suspected Gorka ?was trying to conceal the call.? Smith said he started recording the call after Gorka threatened legal action. ?Gorka asserted my tweets about him merited examination by the White House legal counsel,? Smith told Newsweek. ?In effect, he was threatening to entangle me in a legal battle for voicing my concerns on Twitter that he does not possess expertise sufficient to assist the president of the United States with formulating and guiding national security policies,? he continued. Gorka did not respond to Newsweek?s request for comment. Smith first began criticizing Gorka after learning White House senior adviser Stephen Bannon hired Gorka, who had worked with Bannon at Breitbart News as the national security editor. Smith has repeatedly bashed and publicly questioned Gorka?s credentials for the job, creating the Twitter hashtag ?#FakeTerrorismExpert" to describe his view of Gorka. And Smith is not alone. He has joined the rising group of security analysts including Cindy Storer, a former CIA expert who specialized in religious extremism and terrorism, and Mia Bloom, a George State University professor who focuses on ?transcultural violence." The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal also recently published articles questioning Gorka?s views on terrorism and Islam. Before Breitbart, Gorka worked for the College of International Security Affairs (CISA), after getting his doctorate from a Hungarian university in 2008. CISA is a school working toward accreditation that is funded by the Pentagon, The Washington Post reported. ?According to an online biography, he is also an associate fellow at the Joint Special Operations University, at the U.S. Special Operations Command,? Newsweek reports. Smith is a Republican terrorism expert who has advised congressional committees and shares his expertise regularly in television appearances. Foreign Policy magazine included him in their ?100 Leading Global Thinkers.? From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Feb 24 06:17:20 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 24 Feb 2017 12:17:20 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Border Patrol Agents Stop Domestic Travelers at New York Airport Message-ID: <4E4C239B-E985-4680-9DD1-25B8BE53C785@infowarrior.org> Border Patrol Agents Stop Domestic Travelers at New York Airport A search for a deportation target leads to a demand for travelers' "papers" at JFK http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/border-patrol-agents-stop-domestic-travelers-at-new-york-airport-w468643By Tim Dickinson 13 hours ago Passengers of a domestic Delta flight from San Francisco to New York were told to show their identity documents to uniformed agents of the Customs and Border Protection agency upon their arrival at John F. Kennedy airport on Wednesday evening. CBP officers are border agents, whose statutory authority is generally limited to international arrivals. CBP agents inspected passenger identifications on the jetbridge by the door of the aircraft. A CBP spokesman insisted to Rolling Stone that this action is "nothing new" and that there is "no new policy." But the unusual ? and legally questionable ? search of domestic travelers comes days after the Department of Homeland Security outlined its plans to implement President Trump's sweeping executive ordertargeting millions of "removable aliens" for deportation. Upon deplaning from Delta Flight 1583 in New York, passenger Anne Garrett tweeted, "We were told we couldn't disembark without showing our 'documents.'" Another passenger, Matt O'Rourke, snapped a similar picture. O'Rourke tells Rolling Stone that the Delta flight attendant alerted passengers, "You'll need to show your papers to agents waiting outside the door." "She was weirded out by it," he says. The agents, O'Rourke says, said nothing to him, but took his ID and scrutinized it for nearly 30 seconds before letting him pass. He describes the experience as "a little bit alarming." Only later did O'Rourke find himself asking, "Why is a customs agent doing this search? The flight didn't enter from another country." In a statement to Rolling Stone, a spokesperson for CBP said the agency had been asked "to assist in locating an individual possibly aboard Delta flight 1583" who had been "ordered removed by an immigration judge." The spokesman added that CBP agents "requested identification from those on the flight" but that ultimately "[t]he individual was determined not to be on the flight." Rolling Stone asked CBP to point to its statutory authority to stop and examine the identity documents of deplaning domestic passengers. The spokesman sent a link to a document titled CBP Search Authority. The document refers to CBP's authority to inspect international arrivals. Specifically, it cites 19 C.F.R. 162.6, which states, "All persons, baggage and merchandise arriving in the Customs territory of the United States from places outside thereof are liable to inspection by a CBP officer." The CBP document adds: "CBP has the authority to collect passenger name record information on all travelers entering or leaving the United States." (Emphasis added.) Asked to clarify CBP's authority over domestic passengers, the spokesman replied that "at this time this is all I have." Rolling Stone asked CBP to clarify whether the CBP document search was truly a "request" ? or instead a legally binding demand by the agents. The spokesman again could not clarify CBP's legal authority, warning only, "It is always best to cooperate with law enforcement, so as to expedite your exiting the airport in a timely manner." Rolling Stone asked the New York Civil Liberties Union for its understanding of the law in this incident. NYCLU Staff Attorney Jordan Wells writes that "CBP does not have carte blanche to refuse to let people off a domestic flight until they show ID." His advice: "While one may choose to produce identity documents to avoid further hassle, it is important to remember that in the United States people have a constitutionally protected right to remain silent." From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Feb 24 06:27:06 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 24 Feb 2017 12:27:06 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - FBI refused White House request to knock down recent Trump-Russia stories Message-ID: FBI refused White House request to knock down recent Trump-Russia stories By Jim Sciutto, Evan Perez, Shimon Prokupecz, Manu Raju and Pamela Brown, CNN Updated 12:19 AM ET, Fri February 24, 2017 http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/23/politics/fbi-refused-white-house-request-to-knock-down-recent-trump-russia-stories/index.html Washington (CNN)The FBI rejected a recent White House request to publicly knock down media reports about communications between Donald Trump's associates and Russians known to US intelligence during the 2016 presidential campaign, multiple US officials briefed on the matter tell CNN. But a White House official said late Thursday that the request was only made after the FBI indicated to the White House it did not believe the reporting to be accurate. White House officials had sought the help of the bureau and other agencies investigating the Russia matter to say that the reports were wrong and that there had been no contacts, the officials said. The reports of the contacts were first published by The New York Times and CNN on February 14. The direct communications between the White House and the FBI were unusual because of decade-old restrictions on such contacts. Such a request from the White House is a violation of procedures that limit communications with the FBI on pending investigations. Late Thursday night, White House press secretary Sean Spicer objected to CNN's characterization of the White House request to the FBI. "We didn't try to knock the story down. We asked them to tell the truth," Spicer said. The FBI declined to comment for this story. Trump aides were in constant touch with senior Russian officials during campaign The discussions between the White House and the bureau began with FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus on the sidelines of a separate White House meeting the day after the stories were published, according to a US law enforcement official. The White House initially disputed that account, saying that McCabe called Priebus early that morning and said The New York Times story vastly overstates what the FBI knows about the contacts. But a White House official later corrected their version of events to confirm what the law enforcement official described. The same White House official said that Priebus later reached out again to McCabe and to FBI Director James Comey asking for the FBI to at least talk to reporters on background to dispute the stories. A law enforcement official says McCabe didn't discuss aspects of the case but wouldn't say exactly what McCabe told Priebus. Comey rejected the request for the FBI to comment on the stories, according to sources, because the alleged communications between Trump associates and Russians known to US intelligence are the subject of an ongoing investigation. The White House did issue its own denial, with Priebus calling The New York Times story "complete garbage." "The New York Times put out an article with no direct sources that said that the Trump campaign had constant contacts with Russian spies, basically, you know, some treasonous type of accusations. We have now all kinds of people looking into this. I can assure you and I have been approved to say this -- that the top levels of the intelligence community have assured me that that story is not only inaccurate, but it's grossly overstated and it was wrong. And there's nothing to it," Preibus said on "Fox News Sunday" last weekend. CNN has previously reported that there was constant communication between high-level advisers to then-candidate Trump, Russian officials and other Russians known to US intelligence during the summer of 2016. Several members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees tell CNN that the congressional investigations are continuing into those alleged Russian contacts with the Trump campaign, despite Priebus' assertion that there is nothing to those reports. It is uncertain what the committees will eventually find and whether any of the information will ever be declassified and publicly released. But the push to investigate further shows that Capitol Hill is digging deeper into areas that may not be comfortable for the White House. The Trump administration's efforts to press Comey run contrary to Justice Department procedure memos issued in 2007 and 2009 that limit direct communications on pending investigations between the White House and the FBI. "Initial communications between the [Justice] Department and the White House concerning pending or contemplated criminal investigations or cases will involve only the Attorney General or the Deputy Attorney General, from the side of the Department, and the Counsel to the President, the Principal Deputy Counsel to the President, the President, or the Vice President from the side of the White House," reads the 2009 memo. The memos say the communication should only happen when it is important for the President's duties and where appropriate from a law enforcement perspective. A Department of Justice spokesman said Attorney General Jeff Sessions is reviewing the memos and that "the Department is following the guidelines in its communications with the White House." The effort to refute the CNN and New York Times stories came as increasing numbers of congressional members were voicing concern about Russia's efforts to influence individuals with ties to Trump. On February 17, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence held a briefing with Comey. It's unclear what was said, but senators suggested there was new information discussed about Russia. "Every briefing we go through we gain new information," said Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, a member of the committee. Lankford declined to be more specific about the briefing. Sen. Angus King of Maine also declined to reveal what was discussed during the Comey briefing. In response to a question on Priebus' strong denial of the claims, King said he was "surprised" that Priebus would be "that categorical." Rep. Eric Swalwell of California, a Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, said the goal of his panel's inquiry is to follow "leads wherever they go even if they may be uncomfortable to Republicans." "The American public will want to know if the President had personal or financial ties to the Russian government," Swalwell said. UPDATED: This story has been updated to reflect new information and comment from the White House. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Feb 24 06:30:27 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 24 Feb 2017 12:30:27 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Serious Cloudflare bug exposed a potpourri of secret customer data Message-ID: <236A3CA5-3ED5-4751-8C35-AF0DF869BF15@infowarrior.org> Serious Cloudflare bug exposed a potpourri of secret customer data Service used by 5.5 million websites may have leaked passwords and authentication tokens. Dan Goodin - 2/23/2017, 8:35 PM Cloudflare, a service that helps optimize the security and performance of more than 5.5 million websites, warned customers today that a recently fixed software bug exposed a range of sensitive information that could have included passwords, and cookies and tokens used to authenticate users. A combination of factors made the bug particularly severe. First, the leakage may have been active since September 22, nearly five months before it was discovered, although the greatest period of impact was from February 13 and February 18. Second, some of the highly sensitive data that was leaked was cached by Google and other search engines. The result was that for the entire time the bug was active, hackers had the ability to access the data in real-time, by making Web requests to affected websites, and to access some of the leaked data later by crafting queries on search engines. "The bug was serious because the leaked memory could contain private information and because it had been cached by search engines," Cloudflare CTO John Graham-Cumming wrote in a blog post published Thursday. "We are disclosing this problem now as we are satisfied that search engine caches have now been cleared of sensitive information. We have also not discovered any evidence of malicious exploits of the bug or other reports of its existence." The leakage was the result of a bug in an HTML parser chain Cloudflare uses to modify Web pages as they pass through the service's edge servers. The parser performs a variety of tasks, such as inserting Google Analytics tags, converting HTTP links to the more secure HTTPS variety, obfuscating email addresses, and excluding parts of a page from malicious Web bots. When the parser was used in combination with three Cloudflare features?e-mail obfuscation, server-side Cusexcludes, and Automatic HTTPS Rewrites?it caused Cloudflare edge servers to leak pseudo random memory contents into certain HTTP responses. < - > https://arstechnica.com/security/2017/02/serious-cloudflare-bug-exposed-a-potpourri-of-secret-customer-data/ From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Feb 24 14:56:22 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 24 Feb 2017 20:56:22 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - White House Bars Times and Other News Outlets From Briefing Message-ID: <25A51FF1-3102-40A4-86E4-AFF46E97D0A3@infowarrior.org> White House Bars Times and Other News Outlets From Briefing Michael M. Grynbaum https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/us/politics/white-house-sean-spicer-briefing.html?hp WASHINGTON ? Journalists from The New York Times and several other news organizations were prohibited from attending a briefing by President Trump?s press secretary on Friday, a highly unusual breach of relations between the White House and its press corps. Reporters from The Times, BuzzFeed News, CNN, The Los Angeles Times and Politico were not allowed to enter the West Wing office of the press secretary, Sean M. Spicer, for the scheduled briefing. Aides to Mr. Spicer only allowed in reporters from a handpicked group of news organizations that, the White House said, had been previously confirmed. Those organizations included Breitbart News, the One America News Network and The Washington Times, all with conservative leanings. Journalists from ABC, CBS, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and Fox News also attended. Reporters from Time magazine and The Associated Press, who were set to be allowed in, chose not to attend the briefing in protest of the White House?s actions. ?Nothing like this has ever happened at the White House in our long history of covering multiple administrations of different parties,? Dean Baquet, the executive editor of The Times, said in a statement. ?We strongly protest the exclusion of The New York Times and the other news organizations. Free media access to a transparent government is obviously of crucial national interest.? The White House Correspondents? Association, which represents the press corps, quickly rebuked the White House?s actions. ?The W.H.C.A. board is protesting strongly against how today?s gaggle is being handled by the White House,? the association president, Jeff Mason, said in a statement. ?We encourage the organizations that were allowed in to share the material with others in the press corps who were not. The board will be discussing this further with White House staff.? The White House move came hours after Mr. Trump delivered a slashing attack on the news media in a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference. The president denounced news organizations as ?dishonest? purveyors of ?fake news? and mocked journalists for claiming free speech rights. ?They always bring up the First Amendment,? Mr. Trump said to cheers. A White House spokeswoman, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, played down the events in an email on Friday afternoon. ?We invited the pool so everyone was represented,? Ms. Sanders wrote. ?We decided to add a couple of additional people beyond the pool. Nothing more than that.? Mr. Spicer?s small-group Friday session, known as a gaggle, was scheduled as a no-camera event, less formal than his usual briefings that are carried live on cable news. But past administrations have not hand-selected outlets that can attend such sessions. ?It was clear that they let in a lot of news outlets with less reach who are Trump-friendly,? said Noah Bierman, a White House reporter for The Los Angeles Times, who was barred. ?They let in almost every network but CNN. That?s concerning, the handpicking aspect of it.? Two of the barred outlets, CNN and The Times, have been a particular focus of Mr. Trump?s ire. And during the presidential campaign, some journalists from BuzzFeed News and Politico were prohibited from attending Trump rallies. Representatives of the barred news organizations made clear that they believed the White House?s actions on Friday were punitive. ?Apparently this is how they retaliate when you report facts they don?t like,? CNN said in a statement. Ben Smith, editor in chief of BuzzFeed, called it ?the White House?s apparent attempt to punish news outlets whose coverage it does not like.? From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Feb 27 08:24:11 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2017 14:24:11 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Defense Against the Dark Arts: Networked Propaganda and Counter-Propaganda Message-ID: Defense Against the Dark Arts: Networked Propaganda and Counter-Propaganda February 24, 2017 Author Jonathan Stray In honor of MisinfoCon this weekend, it?s time for a brain dump on propaganda ? that is, getting large numbers of people to believe something for political gain. Many of my journalist and technologist colleagues have started to think about propaganda in the wake of the US election, and related issues like ?fake news? and organized trolling. My goal here is to connect this new wave of enthusiasm to history and research. This post is about persuasion. I?m not going to spend much time on the ethics of these techniques, and even less on the question of who is actually right on any particular point. That?s for another conversation. Instead, I want to talk about what works. All of these methods are just tools, and some are more just than others. Think of this as Defense Against the Dark Arts. < - > http://jonathanstray.com/networked-propaganda-and-counter-propaganda From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Feb 28 06:32:48 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2017 12:32:48 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?utf-8?b?RmFtb3VzIHBhdGVudCDigJx0cm9sbOKAmXM=?= =?utf-8?q?=E2=80=9D_lawsuit_against_Google_booted_out_of_East_Texas?= Message-ID: Famous patent ?troll?s? lawsuit against Google booted out of East Texas Eolas has new patents, even after an epic trial loss. Joe Mullin - 2/27/2017, 8:30 PM https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/02/famous-patent-trolls-lawsuit-against-google-booted-out-of-east-texas/ Eolas Technologies, which has been called a "patent troll," has continued to file against big companies, even after losing a landmark 2012 trial. But following an appeals court order (PDF) last week, Eolas will have to pursue its lawsuits in California?not its preferred patent hotspot of East Texas. As of Friday, Eolas' lawsuits against Google, Amazon, and Wal-Mart have been transferred to the Northern District of California. The move could reduce Eolas' chances of winning a settlement or verdict since East Texas courts have been viewed by some as favoring patent holders. To understand the context, let's briefly sum up the history of Eolas. The company was formed out of a patent filed by Michael Doyle, who was the head of IT at the University of California, San Francisco, campus in the 1990s. Doyle says that, while at UCSF, he created the first program that allowed users to interact with images inside of a Web browser. He claimed that patent entitled him to royalties on a vast swath of features related to the "interactive Web," including online video, user-manipulated images on shopping websites, and suggestions that pop up in search bars. Doyle and Eolas sued Microsoft in 1999. After years of litigation, Eolas ultimately won a settlement from Microsoft believed to be more than $100 million. (The University of California was paid $30.4 million, and its deal was believed to be roughly 25 percent.) A subsequent case resulted in dozens of settlements from big companies, but Google, Yahoo, and JC Penney defeated the Eolas patent at trial. The jury was convinced by presentations of earlier interactive Web technologies, like the Viola browser and the HTML tag. The creator of the World Wide Web himself, Tim Berners-Lee, testified in the defendants' favor. Yet, Eolas lawyers were able to continue to get more patents granted as "continuations" of that original patent, even after a jury invalidated it, and the jury's verdict was upheld on appeal. Eolas was granted US Patent No. 9,195,507 on November 24, 2015. The company sued Google, Wal-Mart, and Amazon the same day. A single employee All three defendants filed motions seeking to transfer the case, but US District Judge Robert Schroeder denied them in November. Schroeder said that judicial economy favored keeping the cases in Texas. Schroeder also said that East Texas had "institutional knowledge" that could be valuable in overseeing the matter, even though US District Judge Leonard Davis, who oversaw the original Eolas cases, stepped down from the bench in 2015. Google lawyers took the unusual step of taking the venue issue to an appeals court, saying Judge Schroeder's ruling was out of line. Last week, the top US patent court issued its 2-1 split decision (PDF) in Google's favor. The district court said that the "locations and sources of proof" only slightly favored Google. In the view of the appeals judges, though, "the evidence overwhelmingly supports a conclusion that this factor weighs strongly in Google's favor." That's because the "vast majority" of Google employees work in Northern California?while "Eolas has a single employee currently residing in the Eastern District of Texas." (Emphasis in order.) The district court was also in error when it relied on the existence of the two other cases as a major reason for favoring Eolas, the appeals judges held. "Based on the district court's rationale, therefore, the mere co-pendency of related suits in a particular district would automatically tip the balance in non-movants favor," wrote US Circuit Judge Sharon Prost. "This cannot be correct." Finally, the judges noted Davis' retirement and said that the idea that Texas courts could benefit from "institutional knowledge" was untenable. "By relying on these cases, the district court committed clear error." A Google spokesperson declined to comment on the transfer order. Eolas lawyers didn't respond to a request for comment. The appeals court order was issued on Thursday, and the docket in Schroeder's court accordingly transferred the case the following day. The transfer is clearly a victory for Google and suggests that the end of Eolas is finally at hand. Then again, that's what onlookers thought in 2013 when Eolas lost its original appeal. Another important question remains unanswered: How can a patent-holding company like Eolas continue to acquire patents that are nearly-identical to patents that have been invalidated in court? The Electronic Frontier Foundation has complained about the US Patent and Trademark Office being too lenient in handing out "continuation" patents. The fact that the patent office seemingly does not take into account judicial rulings on related patents?even the rare patent invalidation that garners worldwide press?exacerbates that problem. Joe Mullin Joe has covered the intersection of law and technology, including the world's biggest copyright and patent battles, since 2007. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Feb 10 07:48:17 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2017 13:48:17 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - State-sponsored hackers targeting prominent journalists, Google warns Message-ID: <3F7D0425-5C4C-4B39-B062-852C7EDC1A98@infowarrior.org> State-sponsored hackers targeting prominent journalists, Google warns By Richard Primus http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/google-hackers-russia-journalists-234859 Google has warned a number of prominent journalists that state-sponsored hackers are attempting to steal their passwords and break into their inboxes, the journalists tell POLITICO. Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine said he received several messages from Google warning him about an attack from a government-backed hacker starting shortly after the election. He said the most recent warning came two to three weeks ago. Julia Ioffe, who recently started at The Atlantic and has covered Russia for years, said she got warnings as recently as two weeks ago. (See one of the warnings: http://bit.ly/2kMUyRb) Some journalists getting the warnings say they suspect the hackers could be Russians looking to find incriminating emails they could leak to embarrass journalists, either by revealing alleged liberal bias or to expose the sausage-making of D.C. journalism. "The fact that all this started right after the election suggests to me that journalists are the next wave to be targeted by state-sponsored hackers in the way that Democrats were during it," said one journalist who got the warning. "I worry that the outcome is going to be the same: Someone, somewhere, is going to get hacked, and then the contents of their gmail will be weaponized against them ? and by extension all media." The Russian embassy did not respond to a request for comment. Google cautioned that the warnings did not mean the accounts had been compromised already and were sent due to "an abundance of caution." ?Since 2012, we?ve notified users when we believe their Google accounts are being targeted by government-backed attackers,? said a Google spokesperson in a statement. ?We send these warnings out of an abundance of caution ? they do not indicate that a user?s account has already been compromised or that a more widespread attack is occurring when they receive the notice.? Ezra Klein, the founder of Vox, said he had received the warning as recently as a few days back. CNN senior media reporter Brian Stelter said he has been getting the alerts for the past few months. Other journalists who confirmed they?ve recently gotten the warnings include New York Times national security correspondent David Sanger, Times columnist Paul Krugman and Yahoo Washington bureau chief Garance Franke-Ruta. GQ special contributor Keith Olbermann said the warnings started a few weeks after the election, and he received the most recent alert earlier this week, a ?big bright red bar? across the top of his Gmail. Some of the reporters say they are tightening up their email security to try to prevent the hackers from getting in. Chait also said he was ?contacted over email by a stranger who offered to help me by giving me an encryption key to protect me from hackers. He would not give me his name, meet me or talk on the phone, despite repeated requests.? The stranger also emailed The Atlantic?s David Frum, James Fallows and Adam Serwer, Andrew Sullivan and Ars Technica?s Dan Goodin. Stanford professor Michael McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia, said he also received hacking warnings from Google. He added: ?Given my background, one would have to guess that it?s the Russians.? From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Feb 10 07:56:12 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2017 13:56:12 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Surveillance in the Age of Populism Message-ID: <5BB7EDAF-3C63-4D7E-B273-9508CBCAE722@infowarrior.org> February 7, 2017 6:28PM EST Surveillance in the Age of Populism Published in Newsweek Cynthia M. Wong Senior Researcher, Internet and Human Rights cynthiamw https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/02/07/surveillance-age-populism Surveillance laws should always be written as if the government we most fear is in power. It is one of the most insidious controls authorities can wield and, if unchecked, can corrode democratic institutions and give governments a sinister degree of power over their citizens. Yet the exact opposite has happened in Europe since Edward Snowden revealed mass surveillance abuses by the United States. Despite the outrage he sparked, governments across Europe have steadily adopted the US ?collect it all? approach. With growing support for populist extremist parties, now is not the time to abandon privacy protections. Doing so risks enabling abusive surveillance by future illiberal governments. President Donald Trump's rise has emboldened European far-right and nationalist parties, who have achieved electoral gains in recent years and seek to expand them in upcoming elections in several states. Imagine if a demagogue comes to power in upcoming elections in a European country with far-reaching surveillance powers, riding a wave of populist appeals to nativism, xenophobia, and economic dislocation. What would stop this leader from using surveillance to target political opponents, journalists, and critics? Or from mining massive databases of personal information to deny basic rights based on race, ethnicity, or religion? What would stop a demagogue from turning surveillance?s all-seeing eye on the electorate to remain in power? In the US, the National Security Agency continues its information dragnet on millions of people every day, despite modest reforms in 2015. Now the keys to the world?s most sophisticated surveillance apparatus have been handed over to President Trump, who as a candidate threatened to imprison his political opponent, register and ban Muslims, deport millions of immigrants, and menace the free press. Since taking office, he has refused to divest from his businesses, though surveillance powers at his disposal might be deployed against competitors as well as terrorists. He has followed through with his campaign promise of ?extreme vetting? for immigrants coming from predominantly Muslim countries, raising fears that surveillance could be used for racial and religious discrimination. Existing safeguards against abuse of surveillance are entirely insufficient. Europe is already struggling to respond to governments in Hungary and Poland that have eroded checks and balances and undermined the rule of law. If populist extremists came to power in Western Europe, people could find their privacy and wider human rights under similar grave threat. The UK passed the Investigatory Powers Act in December, which Snowden described as legalizing ?the most extreme surveillance in the history of Western democracy.? It allows mass surveillance and hacking and requires internet companies to store a record of every website their users visit. Almost 50 government departments can access such browsing histories without judicial oversight. In the past three years, France has also passed laws that enable sweeping surveillance with minimal safeguards. Authorities can collect data in real time and will force service providers to install ?black boxes? on their networks to indiscriminately search for ?suspicious? patterns. The government is also about to create an unprecedented national database of identity information on 60 million people in France, which leads to serious concerns about the potential use for biometric identification purposes. In September, Switzerland approved expanded snooping powers by a wide margin. Although the new law requires judicial oversight, it will allow intelligence agencies to scan Internet backbone traffic for key words and hack into computers abroad. Germany also lifted limits on intelligence agencies? ability to massively eavesdrop on people outside the country. Although the German and Swiss laws target foreigners, both programs will unavoidably scoop up citizens? communications. Finally, Austria and Poland have also expanded their security agencies? powers, and the Netherlands is considering dragnet snooping legislation. Digital surveillance can expose our innermost thoughts and desires?our late-night web searches, the identities of our associates, the secrets we share over chat, our religious and political beliefs, our sexual orientation, the history of our cell phone?s movements. Armed with this information, governments can alter our behaviour and undermine dissent. For example, this can take overt form in blackmail or, as recent headlines remind us, ?kompromat? efforts. Police can monitor journalists and civil society groups and retaliate against sources and activists, silencing critics through intimidation and damaging the free press. But pervasive surveillance can also lead to subtler harm, from the chilling effect of knowing every web search may be recorded, to discriminatory profiling based on mass data collection. Those who lived under the constant watch of the Stasi or KGB understand these risks. Yet if European governments don?t reverse course, citizens could find themselves one election away from a populist demagogue able to monitor their every move. The need for unchecked surveillance to counter terrorism can appear compelling, while the harm seems hypothetical. But history shows the speed with which the harm can become all too real. That is why we must constrain surveillance powers today. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Feb 11 09:00:41 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 11 Feb 2017 15:00:41 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?utf-8?q?Republicans_push_bill_to_split_up_?= =?utf-8?b?4oCYbnV0dHkgOXRoIENpcmN1aXTigJk=?= Message-ID: <6A6CAD7E-420E-4EE7-8049-4CAEC421823F@infowarrior.org> (c/o D) Republicans push bill to split up ?nutty 9th Circuit? By Barnini Chakraborty Published February 09, 2017 FoxNews.com http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/02/09/bill-to-split-nutty-9th-circuit-gains-momentum.html As judges on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals weigh the legality of President Trump?s immigration executive order, a Republican push to split up the controversial court -- and shrink its clout -- is gaining steam on Capitol Hill. Republican Sens. Jeff Flake and John McCain of Arizona introduced legislation last month to carve six states out of the San Francisco-based court circuit and create a brand new 12th Circuit. They argue that the 9th is too big, too liberal and too slow resolving cases. If they succeed, only California, Oregon, Hawaii and two island districts would remain in the 9th's judicial fiefdom. Right now, Flake said, the circuit is far too sprawling. ?It represents 20 percent of the population -- and 40 percent of the land mass is in that jurisdiction. It?s just too big,? Flake told Fox News on Wednesday. ?We have a bedrock principle of swift justice and if you live in Arizona or anywhere in the 9th Circuit, you just don?t have it.? Flake says it typically takes the court 15 months to hand down a decision. ?It?s far too long,? he added. Conservatives have mocked the 9th Circuit for years, often calling it the ?Nutty 9th? or the ?9th Circus,? in part because so many of its rulings have been overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. The court has a reputation as one of the most liberal in the country, in large part because of its makeup. Eighteen of the court?s 25 active judges have been appointed by Democrats. Former President George W. Bush appointed six justices, while former President Barack Obama appointed seven. Under Flake?s bill, the new circuit would cover Nevada, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Arizona and Alaska, leaving the 9th with three Pacific states as well as the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam. A separate House version introduced by Rep. Andy Biggs and four other Arizona Republicans would leave Washington state in the 9th Circuit. Congressional efforts to split the circuit go back to 1941. ?The problem is the judges in the 9th Circuit, particularly the liberal judges, don?t want to give up any of their jurisdiction,? Flake said. Congress created the court in 1891. At the time, the area was sparsely inhabited ? only four percent of the U.S. population lived in the area compared to today?s 20 percent. In 1998, Congress appointed a commission to reexamine the federal appeals courts? structure. The commission ultimately recommended against splitting the 9th Circuit. But carving up the large circuit isn?t out of the realm of possibility. In 1929, Congress split the 8th Circuit to accommodate a population boom and increased caseloads. Democratic strategist Joe Lestingi pushed back on accusations the court leans left. ?We don?t complain about courts being too conservative,? he told Fox News. ?The truth is? the liberal side of that court provides the conflict we need to settle our most basic disagreements.? He added that the 9th Circuit?s track record of rulings being overturned -- sometimes unanimously by the U.S. Supreme Court -- is all part of the judicial process. ?If the Supreme Court wasn?t going to overturn lower courts' decisions, then we don?t need a Supreme Court anymore,? Lestingi argued. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Feb 11 09:08:52 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 11 Feb 2017 15:08:52 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Four Kinds of Dystopia Message-ID: Four Kinds of Dystopia http://expressiveegg.org/2017/01/03/four-kinds-dystopia/ The twentieth century saw four basic visions of hell on earth, or dystopia. These were: Orwellian. Rule by autocratic totalitarian people, party or elite group, limitation of choice, repression of speech and repression of minorities, belief in order, routine and rational-morality. Control by enclosure, fear and explicit violence. Violent repression of dissent (via ?the party line?). Erotic physicality and sexual freedom suppressed via control of sexual impulses. Control of thought by explicitly policing language (Orwellian Newspeak). Huxleyan Rule by democratic totalitarian systems, excess of choice, limitation of access to speech platforms, assimilation of minorities, belief in emotional-morality, ?imagination? and flexibility, and control by desire, debt and implicit threat of violence. No overt control of dissent (system selects for system-friendly voices). Erotic physicality and sexual freedom suppressed via promotion of pornographic sensuality and dissolution. Control of thought by implicitly enclosing language within professional boundaries (Illichian Newspeak, or Uniquack). Kafkaesque Rule by bureaucracy. Control of populace via putting them into writing, forcing people to spend free time on bureaucratic tasks, thereby inducing tractable stress and the schizoid, self-regulating self-consciousness (anxiety about low marks, unlikes, official judgements and the like) that bureaucratic surveillance engenders. Generation of a system which structurally rewards those who seek an indirect relationship with their fellows or who, through fear of life, seek to control it through the flow of paperwork. Phildickian Rule by replacing reality with an abstract, ersatz virtual image of it. This technique of social control began with literacy*?and the creation of written symbols, which devalued soft conscious sensuous inspiration, fostered a private (reader-text) interaction with society, created the illusion that language is a thing,?that meaning can be stored, owned and perfectly duplicated, that elite-language is standard and so on?and ended with virtuality?the conversion of classrooms, offices, prisons, shops and similar social spaces into ?immersive? on-line holodecks which control and reward participants through permanent, perfect surveillance, the stimulation of positive and negative emotion, offers of godlike powers, and threats to nonconformists of either narco-withdrawal or banishment to an off-line reality now so degraded by the demands of manufacturing an entire artificial universe, that only hellish production-facilities, shoddy living-units and prisons can materially function there. The reader can decide for herself under which of above we currently struggle to eke out a life worth living. I would like to suggest that all modern societies are both Kafkaesque and Phildickian with either a Huxleyan or Orwellian overarching framework; modern, western, capitalist societies tend to be basically Huxleyan (HKP) and pre-modern, eastern, communist countries tend to be basically Orwellian (OKP). The reason why ideological managers** (academics, film directors, journalists, etc) prefer to have two (or more) dystopian systems is that it makes us seem like the goodies and them the baddies. Communism is to blame for their foodbanks and breadlines, but capitalism has nothing to do with ours (or vice versa). Sure our masses have the same miserable lives as theirs, reel under the same bureaucratic insanity, stumble around the same shoddy unreal worlds, and witness the same catastrophic destruction of nature and beauty as theirs do, but at least we?ve got democracy! / at least our families stick together! / at least the trains run on time! / at least GTA 9 is coming out soon / at least the Olympics will cheer us up (delete as appropriate). This is an adapted extract from The Apocalypedia. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Feb 12 14:33:20 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 12 Feb 2017 20:33:20 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - The Cybersecurity Executive Orders: A Tale of Two Trumps Message-ID: (x-posted) The Cybersecurity Executive Orders: A Tale of Two Trumps Written by Milton Mueller http://www.internetgovernance.org/2017/02/12/the-cybersecurity-executive-orders-a-tale-of-two-trumps/ One of President Trump?s planned Executive Orders was on Cybersecurity. Two weeks ago, a draft was circulating ? but it was never signed and released. Last week, a new draft was leaked. While we can?t verify its validity, the leaker is a well-connected Beltway consultant with ties to the Heritage Foundation; he claims he has received the draft text from 3 different sources. We did a side-by-side comparison of the two drafts. There is a huge difference. It?s like night and day, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, or maybe Steve Bannon and Paul Ryan. The first draft managed to be both aggressively nationalistic and short on useful substance. The second draft is calmer, more focused and better-informed; it reads like it was vetted and amended by an interagency task force that included the Commerce Department, NIST, the State Department and the tech industry and not just the Administration, the military and DHS. It starts with the title. The old EO says it?s all about strengthening the nation?s security and cyber-capabilities. Its first section emphasizes nationalism and strength; the U.S. is so, so tough and intends to shape cyberspace more than anyone else. < - > http://www.internetgovernance.org/2017/02/12/the-cybersecurity-executive-orders-a-tale-of-two-trumps/ From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Feb 12 16:10:44 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 12 Feb 2017 22:10:44 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Border Agent Demands NASA Scientist Unlock Phone Before Entering the Country Message-ID: Border Agent Demands NASA Scientist Unlock Phone Before Entering the Country https://gizmodo.com/border-agent-demands-nasa-scientist-unlock-phone-before-1792275942 Sidd Bikkannavar is a natural-born US citizen who works at NASA?s Jet Propulsion Lab. He?s also a prolific traveler who found himself reentering the United States right as the controversial immigration ban took effect. For unexplained reasons, he was detained and border agents demanded access to his NASA-issued phone which could contain highly sensitive information. < - > https://gizmodo.com/border-agent-demands-nasa-scientist-unlock-phone-before-1792275942 From rforno at infowarrior.org Sun Feb 12 20:19:32 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2017 02:19:32 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - scary reading ... The Spy Revolt Against Trump Begins Message-ID: The Spy Revolt Against Trump Begins http://observer.com/2017/02/donald-trump-administration-mike-flynn-russian-embassy/ Intelligence Community pushes back against a White House it considers leaky, untruthful and penetrated by the Kremlin By John R. Schindler ? 02/12/17 10:00am < - > Some of our spy agencies have begun withholding intelligence from the Oval Office. Why risk your most sensitive information if the president may ignore it anyway? A senior National Security Agency official explained that NSA was systematically holding back some of the ?good stuff? from the White House, in an unprecedented move. For decades, NSA has prepared special reports for the president?s eyes only, containing enormously sensitive intelligence. In the last three weeks, however, NSA has ceased doing this, fearing Trump and his staff cannot keep their best SIGINT secrets. Since NSA provides something like 80 percent of the actionable intelligence in our government, what?s being kept from the White House may be very significant indeed. However, such concerns are widely shared across the IC, and NSA doesn?t appear to be the only agency withholding intelligence from the administration out of security fears. What?s going on was explained lucidly by a senior Pentagon intelligence official, who stated that ?since January 20, we?ve assumed that the Kremlin has ears inside the SITROOM,? meaning the White House Situation Room, the 5,500 square-foot conference room in the West Wing where the president and his top staffers get intelligence briefings. ?There?s not much the Russians don?t know at this point,? the official added in wry frustration. < - > http://observer.com/2017/02/donald-trump-administration-mike-flynn-russian-embassy/ From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Feb 13 09:24:39 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2017 15:24:39 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - A List of Privacy Law Fellowships Message-ID: A List of Privacy Law Fellowships https://www.teachprivacy.com/list-of-privacy-law-fellowships/ Daniel Solove @danielsolove Founder of TeachPrivacy One way to enter the privacy profession is to do a fellowship, and fortunately, an increasing number of fellowship opportunities are emerging. I have written about the challenges of breaking in to the privacy law profession, especially the challenges that recent law school graduates will face. There are no established career paths in this field yet, so it takes some effort to get started. Once you?re in the club, you?ll be in big demand, but there?s a bottleneck at the entrance. This is why fellowships can be a great way to kick start a career in privacy law. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Feb 13 21:34:21 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2017 03:34:21 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - OT: RIP Lt.Gen. Harold Moore, USA Message-ID: <3FC9E56E-15B1-4408-813A-51BD5979B86E@infowarrior.org> Lt. Gen. Harold Moore, Whose Vietnam Heroism Was Depicted in Film, Dies at 94 Sam Roberts Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore, whose fortitude saved most of his outnumbered battalion in 1965 in the first major battle between American and North Vietnamese troops ? exploits immortalized in a book and a movie starring Mel Gibson ? died on Friday at his home in Auburn, Ala. He was 94. His death was confirmed by his son Col. David Moore who, like his brother Lt. Col. Stephen Moore and their father, was a West Point graduate. General Moore recounted his battlefield heroics in 1992 in a best-selling book, ?We Were Soldiers Once ? and Young,? written with Joseph L. Galloway. Mr. Galloway, as a 24-year-old war correspondent for United Press International, had witnessed the battle, one of the war?s bloodiest, in the I Drang Valley in November 1965. Mr. Gibson played General Moore in ?We Were Soldiers,? the 2002 film adaptation of the book. <-big snip-> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/13/us/harold-moore-dead-general-author-we-were-soldiers-once.html From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Feb 14 06:58:09 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2017 12:58:09 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Flynn resigns as national security adviser Message-ID: <398C435D-45C5-4A72-98BF-56DDAE18BCC5@infowarrior.org> (Reportedly Paul Blart is being vetted as his permanent replacement. -- rick) Michael Flynn resigns as national security adviser By Greg Miller and Philip Rucker February 14 at 12:30 AM https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/michael-flynn-resigns-as-national-security-adviser/2017/02/13/0007c0a8-f26e-11e6-8d72-263470bf0401_story.html Michael Flynn, the national security adviser to President Trump, resigned late Monday over revelations about his potentially illegal contacts with the Russian ambassador to the United States, and his misleading statements about the matter to senior Trump administration officials. Flynn stepped down amid mounting pressure on the Trump administration to account for its false statements about Flynn?s conduct after The Washington Post reported Monday that the Justice Department had warned the White House last month that Flynn had so mischaracterized his communications with the Russian diplomat that he might be vulnerable to blackmail by Moscow. In a letter to Trump, Flynn said he had ?inadvertently briefed the Vice President Elect and others with incomplete information regarding my phone calls with the Russian ambassador. I have sincerely apologized to the president and the vice president.? Flynn was referring to his disproven claims to Vice President Pence and others a month ago that he had never discussed U.S. sanctions against Moscow with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Pence, White House spokesman Sean Spicer and others, relying on Flynn?s accounts, publicly defended him and repeatedly declared in categorial terms that sanctions were never discussed. President Trump accepted Flynn?s resignation letter and appointed Keith Kellogg, a decorated retired Army lieutenant general, as acting national security adviser. Flynn?s resignation ? after just 24 days on the job ? caps a decorated career in public service for the retired lieutenant general and intelligence official. Kellogg is one of three candidates Trump is considering as a permanent replacement for Flynn, according to a senior White House official. The other two are David H. Petraeus, a former CIA director and retired general, and Vice Adm. Robert Harward, a former deputy commander of the U.S. Central Command. One senior White House official said that Trump did not fire Flynn; rather, Flynn made the decision to resign on his own late Monday evening because of what this official said was ?the cumulative effect? of damaging news coverage about his conversations with the Russian envoy. This official, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the situation, said Trump does not relish firing people ? despite his television persona on ?The Apprentice? ? and had intended to wait several more days before deciding whether to seek Flynn?s resignation. ?There obviously were a lot of issues, but the president was hanging in there,? this official said. ?Buying some time was part of the plan, and I think Flynn just figured, if it?s imminent to the boss, then let?s make it immediate.? Flynn?s departure just weeks into the Trump administration compounds the confusion in the National Security Council that is supposed to serve as a disciplined coordination center for the administration?s handling of international affairs. Instead, the White House faces an escalating court fight over an immigration ban aimed at Muslim-majority countries, has alienated key allies with Trump?s brusque phone calls to foreign leaders, and seemed so caught off-guard by North Korea?s recent ballistic missile test that Trump and senior officials were shown learning of the development on cell phones in full view of patrons at Trump?s Mar-a Lago resort. Flynn was forced out less than a week after it was disclosed that he had discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia with that country?s ambassador before Trump was sworn in as president. But Flynn?s undoing was more directly tied to his inaccurate accounts of those contacts to senior Trump officials including Pence, who officials said was incensed to learn that Flynn has not told him the truth. Flynn again denied that he had discussed the subject in an interview with The Washington Post last week, only to back away from that statement a day later by acknowledging, through a spokesman, that while he couldn?t recall speaking about sanctions he could not rule it out. In fact, U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials have said that sanctions was a main subject of Flynn?s conversation with Kislyak on the day that the Obama administration announced a series of punitive measures aimed at punishing Moscow for its meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. U.S. officials said that Flynn told Kislyak that Moscow should not overreact to the sanctions, indicating that the two sides would soon be in position to revisit the matter, presumably in Moscow?s favor. In conveying that message, Flynn may have broken a law against unauthorized individuals negotiating with foreign governments over conflicts. He is unlikely to face legal sanction, however, because that law dates to 1799 and has never been prosecuted. But Flynn?s departure is unlikely to end the trouble the issue has created for the Trump administration. The Post reported Monday that then-acting U.S. Attorney General Sally Q. Yates told the White House counsel last month that Flynn?s misleading statements to Pence and others made him vulnerable to blackmail by Russia, whose own government would have known that sanctions were discussed. The White House appears to have let its repeated false statements about Flynn stand for weeks after that notification from Yates, and has yet to account for what it did with the warning she conveyed. The disclosures about Flynn have added to the swirling suspicion about the Trump administration?s relationship with Moscow ? suspicion based in part on Trump?s repeated expressions of admiration for Russian President Vladi?mir Putin. Flynn?s resignation appears to end the career of a highly decorated U.S. military intelligence officer, who served repeated tours in Afghanistan and Iraq but became a polarizing figure in last year?s presidential campaign. In a speech at the Republican National Convention, Flynn led vitriolic attacks on Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, leading chants of ?Lock Her Up? and declaring that if he had been even partly as careless as she was in her handling of sensitive material by email he would be in jail. Flynn spent last weekend at Mar-a-Lago with Trump, staffing the president during his visit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Back at the White House on Monday, Flynn attended classified briefings, helped orchestrate the visit of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and led Trump?s morning intelligence briefing, this official said. Some of Trump?s political advisers felt Flynn should not be fired in the midst of intense media scrutiny and calls for his resignation from Democratic opponents. ?Part of me said, nobody should be firing this guy ? not on the day that Nancy Pelosi said fire this guy,? the official said. ?You?ve got hashtag ?Fire Flynn? blazing across the Internet by a bunch of Trump detractors.? But by Monday evening, Flynn had decided he could not survive. ?It was when you feel like you?re looking around the room and asking, ?Where?s my friend??? the White House official said. ?The Pence thing was huge. He is not somebody who?s quick to anger. That was very telling to everybody.? Flynn presented his resignation letter to Trump roughly around 9 p.m., shortly after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin?s swearing-in ceremony in the Oval Office. Trump accepted the letter. ?It was a sad moment,? the White House official said. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Feb 14 07:07:31 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2017 13:07:31 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - After Passing Worst Surveillance Law In A Democracy, UK Now Proposes Worst Anti-Whistleblowing Law Message-ID: After Passing Worst Surveillance Law In A Democracy, UK Now Proposes Worst Anti-Whistleblowing Law Last November, the UK government finally passed the Snooper's Charter, officially known as the Investigatory Powers Act. That was largely because everyone in the UK was too busy arguing over the Brexit mess to notice that Theresa May had finally achieved her goal, and pushed through what the Open Rights Group called "the most extreme surveillance law ever passed in a democracy." Now that May has provided the police with the ability to rummage through a year's worth of every Brit's browsing history without a warrant, and given permission for the intelligence agencies to break into any computer and demand backdoors to be installed for any software or online service used in the UK, it seems she has a new target: whistleblowers. The Guardian reports on big changes the authorities want to make to the laws protecting government secrets, doubtless with an eye to dissuading any future Snowden/Guardian-type partnerships in the UK .... https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170213/08484736698/after-passing-worst-surveillance-law-democracy-uk-now-proposes-worst-anti-whistleblowing-law.shtml From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Feb 14 07:19:20 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2017 13:19:20 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Now sites can fingerprint you online even when you use multiple browsers Message-ID: <27D63B49-FF49-4561-A278-CE566F39050C@infowarrior.org> Now sites can fingerprint you online even when you use multiple browsers Online tracking gets more accurate and harder to evade. https://arstechnica.co.uk/security/2017/02/now-sites-can-fingerprint-you-online-even-when-you-use-multiple-browsers/ From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Feb 14 14:24:32 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2017 20:24:32 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Conservatives demanding details on federal workers' encryption use Message-ID: <3AFEA561-9C25-4B7B-9F16-47475D608DC4@infowarrior.org> Conservatives demanding details on federal workers' encryption use By Andrew Restuccia 02/14/17 03:09 PM EST http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/federal-workers-encrypted-messaging-apps-congress-235012 Republicans in Congress and their conservative allies are demanding details about federal workers' use of encrypted messaging apps, part of a broader counterattack on employees suspected of opposing President Donald Trump's agenda. Congressional Republicans are also pondering changes to longstanding laws that protect government workers, further stoking fears among some federal employees that the new administration's supporters are out to squash dissent. Republicans on the House Science Committee took up the cause on Tuesday by asking EPA's inspector general to review reports that agency employees are using an app called Signal, which allows people to exchange encrypted text messages and phone calls. POLITICO reported this month that a group of fewer than a dozen EPA employees were using the app to discuss what they would do if Trump's political appointees flout the law or delete valuable scientific data. The anti-Trump resistance has infuriated Republicans, who fear that dissenters in the government could undercut the president's policy proposals by unleashing even more embarrassing leaks. They also contend that the use of encrypted messaging circumvents federal record-keeping laws ? an argument Science Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) echoed in Tuesday's letter. "[T]he Committee is concerned that these encrypted and off-the-record communication practices, if true, run afoul of federal record-keeping requirements, leaving information that could be responsive to future Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and congressional requests unattainable," wrote Smith, who organized the letter to the IG. The panel has jurisdiction over many cybersecurity issues. Outside conservative groups have launched similar efforts. Citing POLITICO's story, the Cause of Action Institute, a right-leaning watchdog group, filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act this month seeking EPA employees' communications using Signal. "The bottom line is: An encrypted app is basically a way to avoid transparency," Institute Assistant Vice President Henry Kerner said in an interview. It's not just encryption that is raising eyebrows. Republican research firm America Rising filed a FOIA request this month seeking all emails sent by John O'Grady, a top union official at the EPA, that "mentions or refers to President Trump." The FOIA request came in response to O'Grady's comments to The Washington Post that Trump's decision to firing then-acting Attorney General Sally Yates "sends kind of a chilling effect" through agencies. O'Grady did not respond to a request for comment. "The public is entitled to know whether career federal government employees are engaged in partisan politics on the taxpayers? dime," said Allan Blutstein, vice president of FOIA operations at America Rising. EPA employees said they are not using Signal for official government business, and they raised concerns that they're being targeted because they are critical of Trump. "I don't think anybody can dictate which apps we use on our personal time, for personal conversations," one EPA employee told POLITICO. The debate comes as employees across the government ? political appointees and career officials alike ? are increasingly relying on encrypted messaging apps, fearing repercussions if their private conversations are made public. National security officials have long used encrypted mobile phone software like Signal and WhatsApp to communicate with reporters and other staffers. Signal frequently comes up in articles advising people how they can communicate free of snooping from government officials or hackers, especially following the massive leaks of stolen Democratic Party emails that roiled last year's presidential election. Trump's appointees have gotten into the act, too: The Washington Post reported this week that administration staff are using an app called Confide, which deletes messages once they are read, because they're afraid of being accused of leaking to the press. Asked if the House Science Committee will pursue a similar probe of White House staffers use' of encrypted messaging apps, spokeswoman Kristina Baum declined to make any commitments. But she said the panel "intends to continue to monitor" cyber issues. The growing tension across the government has some career employees worried that Republicans will try to make radical changes to laws protecting federal workers ? a move that could make people more fearful to speak out against Trump. Trump has already imposed a freeze on most federal hires and has promised to reduce the size of the workforce. "Frankly, the climate has shifted rather dramatically and we?ve gone from a chief executive who respects civil servants to a rather bombastic, disdainful chief executive who unfortunately empowers their disparagement," Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) said in an interview. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, is eyeing a major overhaul of the civil service system. He has discussed phasing out pensions for new government employees, instead relying on a defined-contribution plan like a 401(k), and has advocated making it easier to fire problem workers. Chaffetz reportedly talked about some of these issues during a recent meeting with Trump. Connolly said he's concerned that the Republican Congress could win enough support to move a bill gutting civil service protections. "It is very alarming and I think frankly very destructive in terms of the fabric of a free government and a free society," he said. In the Senate, lawmakers are also considering changes to civil service laws, but Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) said he is eyeing targeted tweaks that can win bipartisan support, such as efforts to improve the hiring process. "If we can keep it small and we can keep it targeted, I think we can move it through unanimous consent," said Lankford, who chairs the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee's panel on regulatory affairs and federal management. "We need to be better at hiring. If we?re better at hiring we don?t have to worry about firing." Alex Guill?n contributed to this story. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Feb 14 16:14:25 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2017 22:14:25 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - WH repeatedly posts wrong versions of exec orders Message-ID: White House posts wrong versions of Trump's orders on its website Gregory Korte , USA TODAY http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/02/14/white-house-posts-wrong-versions-trumps-orders-its-website/97845888/ WASHINGTON ? The White House has posted inaccurate texts of President Trump's own executive orders on the White House website, raising further questions about how thorough the Trump administration has been in drafting some of his most controversial actions. A USA TODAY review of presidential documents found at least five cases where the version posted on the White House website doesn't match the official version sent to the Federal Register. The differences include minor grammatical changes, missing words and paragraph renumbering ? but also two cases where the original text referred to inaccurate or non-existent provisions of law. By law, the Federal Register version is the legally controlling language. But it can often take several days for the order to be published, meaning that the public must often rely on what the White House puts out ? and that's sometimes inaccurate. For example: ? The controversial travel ban executive order suspended the Visa Interview Waiver Program and required the secretary of State to enforce a section of the Immigration and Naturalization Act requiring an in-person interview for everyone seeking a non-immigrant visa. But the White House version of the order referred to that provision as 8 U.S.C. 1222, which requires a physical and mental examination ? not 8 U.S.C. 1202, which requires an interview. ? An executive order on ethical standards for administration appointees, as it appears on the White House website, refers to"section 207 of title 28" of the U.S. Code. As the nonprofit news site Pro Publica reported last week, that section does not exist. The Federal Register correctly cited section 207 of title 18, which does exist. Transparency advocates said the discrepancies raise unnecessary concerns about Trump's executive actions. "These last-minute edits suggest the Trump White House needs to revisit their vetting, sign-off, and publication processes for executive orders," said John Wonderlich, executive director of the nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation. The White House has faced questions about the vetting of executive orders, especially the order suspending travel for nationals of seven majority-Muslim countries. That order caused confusion inside and outside the administration and led to the firing of acting Attorney General Sally Yates when she refused to defend it in court. Trump has signed almost all of his executive orders in public ceremonies. The White House Staff Secretary's office then sends the original, signed copy to the Office of the Federal Register, which is part of the National Archives. The Federal Register says its version is the exact text of what the president approved. "We would never correct something that the president signs," said Jim Hemphill, special assistant to the director of the Federal Register. "Once the president's signature is on that, that's a legal document that we would never change." The White House did not respond to a request for comment Monday. It's unclear whether the press office somehow released out-of-date copies of executive orders, or whether the president signed new orders correcting mistakes before they were sent to the Federal Register. Among the other discrepancies: ? An executive order asking the secretary of Labor to re-examine the "Fiduciary Rule" is missing the beginning of a sentence describing what rule the memo is referring to. The official version reads, "The Department of Labor's (Department) final rule entitled, Definition of the Term ?Fiduciary.' " The White House version simply says "Term 'Fiduciary.' " ? A memorandum on construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline contained minor grammatical changes, with the official version putting instructions to the secretary of the Army in the passive voice. Instead of "the Secretary of the Army shall promptly provide a copy of this memorandum" to Congress, the final text said "a copy of this memorandum shall be provided immediately." ? The Federal Register renumbered a presidential memorandum on a plan to defeat the Islamic State to include a Section 3. The White House version put all the effective clauses in Section 2. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Feb 15 13:39:01 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 15 Feb 2017 19:39:01 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Oh, Sure, Suddenly Now The House Intelligence Boss Is Concerned About Surveillance... Of Mike Flynn Message-ID: Oh, Sure, Suddenly Now The House Intelligence Boss Is Concerned About Surveillance... Of Mike Flynn from the high-court,-low-court dept We've written a few times about Rep. Devin Nunes, who heads the House Intelligence Committee. He's been a long-time vocal supporter of NSA surveillance. He insisted that there was no need for reform after the Snowden leaks and he actively misled the public and other members of Congress to shoot down an amendment that would have stopped so-called backdoor searches of "incidentally collected" information on Americans. Nunes falsely claimed that by blocking backdoor searches of the 702 database, it would have blocked things such as tracking whether or not the Orlando nightclub shooter had overseas contacts (it would not have done that at all). So it's fairly hilarious to see that Nunes' first reaction to the news of National Security Advisor Mike Flynn's resignation was to demand answers on why Flynn's calls with Russian officials were recorded. < - > https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170215/01080436715/sure-suddenly-now-house-intelligence-boss-is-concerned-about-surveillance-mike-flynn.shtml From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Feb 15 13:39:41 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 15 Feb 2017 19:39:41 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?utf-8?q?The_Leakers_Who_Exposed_Gen=2E_Flynn?= =?utf-8?q?=E2=80=99s_Lie_Committed_Serious_=E2=80=94_and_Wholly_Justified?= =?utf-8?q?_=E2=80=94_Felonies?= Message-ID: The Leakers Who Exposed Gen. Flynn?s Lie Committed Serious ? and Wholly Justified ? Felonies Glenn Greenwald?glenn.greenwald@?theintercept.comt at ggreenwald President Trump?s national security adviser, Gen. Michael Flynn, was forced to resign on Monday night as a result of getting caught lying about whether he discussed sanctions in a December telephone call with a Russian diplomat. The only reason the public learned about Flynn?s lie is because someone inside the U.S. government violated the criminal law by leaking the contents of Flynn?s intercepted communications. In the spectrum of crimes involving the leaking of classified information, publicly revealing the contents of SIGINT ? signals intelligence ? is one of the most serious felonies. Journalists (and all other nongovernmental citizens) can be prosecuted under federal law for disclosing classified information only under the narrowest circumstances; reflecting how serious SIGINT is considered to be, one of those circumstances includes leaking the contents of intercepted communications, as defined this way by 18 ? 798 of the U.S. Code... < - > https://theintercept.com/2017/02/14/the-leakers-who-exposed-gen-flynns-lie-committed-serious-and-wholly-justified-felonies/ From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Feb 15 13:43:33 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 15 Feb 2017 19:43:33 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - For those still using Yahoo for email ... Message-ID: <6B44790D-BF30-4081-9118-036CEF0D2EDA@infowarrior.org> Yahoo Issues New Warning of Potential Email Account Breach The Associated Press https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2017/02/15/world/europe/ap-eu-yahoo-cybersecurity.html LONDON ? Yahoo is warning users of potentially malicious activity on their accounts between 2015 and 2016, the latest development in the internet company's investigation of a mega-breach that exposed 1 billion users' data several years ago. Yahoo confirmed Wednesday that it was notifying users that their accounts had potentially been compromised but declined to say how many people were affected. In a statement, Yahoo tied some of the potential compromises to what it has described as the "state-sponsored actor" responsible for the theft of private data from more than 1 billion user accounts in 2013 and 2014. The stolen data included email addresses, birth dates and answers to security questions. The catastrophic breach raised questions about Yahoo's security and destabilized the company's deal to sell its email service, websites and mobile applications to Verizon Communications. The newly reported malicious activity revolved around the use of "forged cookies" ? strings of data which are used across the web and can sometimes allow people to access online accounts without re-entering their passwords. A warning message sent to Yahoo users Wednesday read: "Based on the ongoing investigation, we believe a forged cookie may have been used in 2015 or 2016 to access your account." Some users posted the ones they received to Twitter. "Within six people in our lab group, at least one other person has gotten this email," Joshua Plotkin, a biology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said. "That's just anecdotal of course, but for two people in a group of six to have gotten it, I imagine it's a considerable amount." Plotkin said in a telephone interview that he wasn't concerned because he used his Yahoo email for messages that were "close to spam." In the message he posted to Twitter , he joked that "hopefully the cookie was forged by a state known for such delicacies." ___ AP Writer Paisley Dodds contributed to this story. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Feb 15 20:07:26 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2017 02:07:26 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Spies Keep Intelligence From POTUS Message-ID: <75926F70-5D3C-40F7-ACAF-CDD24B260FA3@infowarrior.org> Spies Keep Intelligence From Donald Trump By Shane Harris and Carol E. Lee Feb. 15, 2017 8:42 p.m. ET https://www.wsj.com/articles/spies-keep-intelligence-from-donald-trump-1487209351 U.S. intelligence officials have withheld sensitive intelligence from President Donald Trump because they are concerned it could be leaked or compromised, according to current and former officials familiar with the matter. The officials? decision to keep information from Mr. Trump underscores the deep mistrust that has developed between the intelligence community and the president over his team?s contacts with the Russian government, as well as the enmity he has shown toward U.S. spy agencies. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump accused the agencies of leaking information to undermine him. In some of these cases of withheld information, officials have decided not to show Mr. Trump the sources and methods that the intelligence agencies use to collect information, the current and former officials said. Those sources and methods could include, for instance, the means that an agency uses to spy on a foreign government. A White House official said: ?There is nothing that leads us to believe that this is an accurate account of what is actually happening.? Intelligence officials have in the past not told a president or members of Congress about the ins and outs of how they ply their trade. At times, they have decided that secrecy is essential for protecting a source, and that all a president needs to know is what that source revealed and what the intelligence community thinks is important about it. But in these previous cases in which information was withheld, the decision wasn?t motivated by a concern about a president?s trustworthiness or discretion, the current and former officials said. It wasn?t clear Wednesday how many times officials have held back information from Mr. Trump. The officials emphasized that they know of no instance in which crucial information about security threats or potential plotting has been omitted. Still, the misgivings that have emerged among intelligence officials point to the fissures spreading between the White House and the U.S. spy agencies. Mr. Trump, a Republican, asked Monday night for the resignation of Mike Flynn, his national security adviser, after the White House said the president lost trust in him, in part, because he misstated the nature of his conversations with the Russian ambassador. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump castigated the intelligence agencies and the news media, blaming them for Mr. Flynn?s downfall. ?The real scandal here is that classified information is illegally given out by ?intelligence? like candy. Very un-American!? Mr. Trump tweeted. Mr. Trump doesn?t immerse himself in intelligence information, and it isn?t clear that he has expressed a desire to know sources and methods. The intelligence agencies have been told to dramatically pare down the president?s daily intelligence briefing, both the number of topics and how much information is described under each topic, an official said. Compared with his immediate predecessors, Mr. Trump so far has chosen to rely less on the daily briefing than they did. The current and former officials said the decision to avoid revealing sources and methods with Mr. Trump stems in large part from the president?s repeated expressions of admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his call, during the presidential campaign for Russia to continue hacking the emails of his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia stole and leaked emails from Mrs. Clinton?s campaign to undermine the election process and try to boost Mr. Trump?s chances of winning, an allegation denied by Russian officials. Several of Mr. Trump?s current and former advisers are under investigation for the nature of their ties to Moscow, according to people familiar with the matter. After Mr. Flynn?s dismissal, lawmakers have called on the government to release the transcripts of his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and to disclose whether Mr. Trump was aware of or directed Mr. Flynn?s conversations. Rep. Adam Schiff (D., Calif.), the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said he has heard concerns from officials about sharing especially sensitive information with Mr. Trump. ?I?ve talked with people in the intelligence community that do have concerns about the White House, about the president, and I think those concerns take a number of forms,? Mr. Schiff said, without confirming any specific incidents. ?What the intelligence community considers their most sacred obligation is to protect the very best intelligence and to protect the people that are producing it.? ?I?m sure there are people in the community who feel they don?t know where he?s coming from on Russia,? Mr. Schiff said. Tensions between the spy agencies and Mr. Trump were pronounced even before he took office, after he publicly accused the Central Intelligence Agency and others of leaking information about alleged Russian hacking operations to undermine the legitimacy of his election win. In a meandering speech in front of a revered CIA memorial the day after his inauguration, Mr. Trump boasted about the size of his inaugural crowd and accused the media of inventing a conflict between him and the agencies. In a news conference on Wednesday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, Mr. Trump again lashed out at the media and intelligence officials, whom he accused of ?criminal? leaks about Mr. Flynn?s conversations with the Russian ambassador last December. Mr. Trump didn?t explain Wednesday why he asked for Mr. Flynn?s resignation. Instead, he suggested the leaks and the media were to blame for his ouster. ?General Flynn is a wonderful man. I think he?s been treated very, very unfairly by the media,? Mr. Trump said. ?And I think it?s really a sad thing that he was treated so badly.? ?I think in addition to that from intelligence, papers are being leaked, things are being leaked,? Mr. Trump said. ?It?s criminal action. It?s a criminal act and it?s been going on for a long time before me but now it?s really going on.? Reviving his line of criticism against intelligence officials during the transition, Mr. Trump said the ?illegally leaked? information was from people with political motivations. ?People are trying to cover up for a terrible loss that the Democrats had under Hillary Clinton,? Mr. Trump said. A person close to Mr. Trump said he was reluctant to let go of Mr. Flynn because Mr. Flynn had vigorously supported him at a stage of his presidential campaign when few people did. Mr. Trump also felt Mr. Flynn did nothing wrong in his conversations with the U.S. ambassador to Russia and had good intentions. ?They both continue to support each other,? this person said. For intelligence veterans, who had hoped that Mr. Trump?s feud with the agencies might have subsided, Wednesday?s comments renewed and deepened concerns. ?This is not about who won the election. This is about concerns about institutional integrity,? said Mark Lowenthal, a former senior intelligence official. ?It?s probably unprecedented to have this difficult a relationship between a president and the intelligence agencies,? Mr. Lowenthal said. ?I can?t recall ever seeing this level of friction. And it?s just not good for the country.? Several congressional probes are examining Russia?s alleged meddling in the election. On Wednesday, the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee requested a Justice Department briefing and documents related to Mr. Flynn?s resignation, including details of his communications with Russian officials. ?Damian Paletta contributed to this article. Write to Shane Harris at share.harris at wsj.com and Carol E. Lee at carol.lee at wsj.com From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Feb 16 07:40:45 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2017 13:40:45 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - A Robot May Have Written This Story Message-ID: <419883B5-B266-49C9-A928-BDA80CB54264@infowarrior.org> wired.com A Robot May Have Written This Story Klint Finley This story is part of our special coverage, The News in Crisis. https://www.wired.com/2017/02/robots-wrote-this-story/ When Republican Steve King beat back Democratic challenger Kim Weaver in the race for Iowa?s 4th congressional district seat in November, The Washington Post snapped into action, covering both the win and the wider electoral trend. ?Republicans retained control of the House and lost only a handful of seats from their commanding majority,? the article read, ?a stunning reversal of fortune after many GOP leaders feared double-digit losses.? The dispatch came with the clarity and verve for which Post reporters are known, with one key difference: It was generated by Heliograf, a bot that made its debut on the Post?s website last year and marked the most sophisticated use of artificial intelligence in journalism to date. When Jeff Bezos bought the Post back in 2013, AI-powered journalism was in its infancy. A handful of companies with automated content-generating systems, like Narrative Science and Automated Insights, were capable of producing the bare-bones, data-heavy news items familiar to sports fans and stock analysts. But strategists at the Post saw the potential for an AI system that could generate explanatory, insightful articles. What?s more, they wanted a system that could foster ?a seamless interaction? between human and machine, says Jeremy Gilbert, who joined the Post as director of strategic initiatives in 2014. ?What we were interested in doing is looking at whether we can evolve stories over time,? he says. After a few months of development, Heliograf debuted last year. An early version auto?published stories on the Rio Olympics; a more advanced version, with a stronger editorial voice, was soon introduced to cover the election. It works like this: Editors create narrative templates for the stories, including key phrases that account for a variety of potential outcomes (from ?Republicans retained control of the House? to ?Democrats regained control of the House?), and then they hook Heliograf up to any source of structured data?in the case of the election, the data clearinghouse VoteSmart.org. The Heliograf software identifies the relevant data, matches it with the corresponding phrases in the template, merges them, and then publishes different versions across different platforms. The system can also alert reporters via Slack of any anomalies it finds in the data?for instance, wider margins than predicted?so they can investigate. ?It?s just one more way to get a tip? on a potential scoop, Gilbert says. The Post?s main goal with the project at this point is twofold. First: Grow its audience. Instead of targeting a big audience with a small number of labor-intensive human-written stories, Heliograf can target many small audiences with a huge number of automated stories about niche or local topics. There may not be a wide audience for stories about the race for the Iowa 4th, but there is some audience, and, with local news outlets floundering, the Post can tap it. ?It?s the Bezos concept of the Everything Store,? says Shailesh Prakash, CIO and VP of digital product development at the Post. ?But growing is where you need a machine to help you, because we can?t have that many humans. We?d go bankrupt.? Three more AI-powered tools for journalists. ?Greg Barber Wibbitz USA Today has used this AI-driven production software to create short videos. It can condense news articles into a script, string together a selection of images or video footage, and even add narration with a synthesized newscaster voice. News Tracer Reuters? algorithmic prediction tool helps journalists gauge the integrity of a tweet. The tech scores emerging stories on the basis of ?credibility? and ?newsworthiness? by evaluating who?s tweeting about it, how it?s spreading across the network, and if nearby users have taken to Twitter to confirm or deny breaking developments. BuzzBot Originally designed to crowdsource reporting from the Republican and Democra?tic National Conventions, BuzzFeed?s software collects information from on-the-ground sources at news events. BuzzBot has since been open-sourced, portending a wave of bot-aided reporting tools. Prakash and Gilbert take pains to stress that the system is not here to usher reporters into obsolescence. And that brings them to the second objective of Heliograf: Make the newsroom more efficient. By removing tasks like incessant poll coverage and real-time election results from reporters? plates, Heliograf frees them up to focus on the stories that actually require human thought. ?If we took someone like Dan Balz, who?s been covering politics for the Post for more than 30 years, and had him write a story that a template could write, that?s a crime,? Gilbert says. ?It?s a huge waste of his time.? So far, response from the Post newsroom has been positive. ?We?re naturally wary about any technology that could replace human beings,? says Fredrick Kunkle, a Post reporter and cochair of the Washington-?Baltimore News Guild, which represents the Post?s newsroom. ?But this technology seems to have taken over only some of the grunt work.? Consider the election returns: In November 2012, it took four employees 25 hours to compile and post just a fraction of the election results manually. In November 2016, Heliograf created more than 500 articles, with little human intervention, that drew more than 500,000 clicks. (A drop in the bucket for the Post?s 1.1 billion pageviews that month, but it?s early days.) Gilbert says the next step is to use Heliograf to keep the data in both machine- and human-written stories up-to-date. For instance, if someone shares a Tuesday story on Thursday, and the facts change in the meantime, Heliograf will automatically update the story with the most recent facts. Gilbert sees Heliograf developing the potential to function like a rewrite desk, in which ?the reporters who gather information write more discrete chunks?here?s some facts, here?s some analysis?and let the system assemble them.? With the rapid advances in AI technology driven by cheap computing power, Prakash sees Heliograf moving beyond mere grunt work. In time, he believes, it could do things like search the web to see what people are talking about, check the Post to see if that story is being covered, and, if not, alert editors or just write the piece itself. Of course, that?s where things could get sticky?when Facebook fired the human editors of its Trending module last year and let an algorithm curate the news, the world soon learned (falsely) that Megyn Kelly had been fired from Fox News. ?Will there be controversy when the bot thinks this is important, and humans say this is important, and they?re the exact opposite thing?? Prakash asks. ?It?s going to get interesting.? The Post, like every other major news organization, is looking to tap new revenue streams, and it?s reportedly in talks to license out its CMS to clients like Tronc, a consortium that includes the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, and dozens of other regional papers. As those newsrooms struggle with dwindling resources, it?s not hard to imagine a future in which AI plays a larger and larger role in creating journalism. Whether that?s good news for journalists and readers is another story. Joe Keohane is a (human) writer living in New York City. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Feb 16 11:03:39 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2017 17:03:39 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Then and now: POTUS's reversal on leaks Message-ID: <6A843396-5FBD-4909-A2F3-BD9C66B7A691@infowarrior.org> Then and now: Donald Trump's reversal on leaks By Gregory Krieg and Will Mullery, CNN Updated 11:07 AM ET, Thu February 16, 2017 http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/16/politics/donald-trump-russia-leaks-wikileaks/ From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Feb 16 11:07:51 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2017 17:07:51 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - The Privacy Enthusiast's Guide to Using Android Message-ID: <0601F223-0351-48C2-8244-79F177D8804D@infowarrior.org> The Privacy Enthusiast's Guide to Using Android Eric Ravenscraft 49 minutes ago With everyone from local scammers to government agencies trying to get hands on your data, there?s never been a better time to beef up your privacy game. Fortunately, there are a ton of options out there to keep your messages, files, and phone safe on Android. Before we begin, we should point this out: using a smartphone is always going to be a risk. Especially one running services from Google. You can use these tips and apps to protect some of your communication, but you?re never going to be totally off the grid as long as you?re using an Android phone. That doesn?t mean you have to make it easy on an attacker, though. < - > http://lifehacker.com/the-privacy-enthusiasts-guide-to-using-android-1792432725 From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Feb 16 12:35:46 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2017 18:35:46 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - PSU: What is Fake News? Message-ID: <4B2B862F-C088-4C3A-9E91-48925941EF54@infowarrior.org> (For the first entry "Fake News" may I humbly offer the following addition to that definition: "This is not to be confused with news stories that run prominently announced corrections or retractions following additional editorial review, reporting analysis, or emerging facts that have been corroborated with other objective sources." -- rick) What is Fake News? - Eric Novotny, PSU Library http://guides.libraries.psu.edu/c.php?g=620262&p=4319238 Fake news is in the News these days, so what is it? The term is most often used to describe completely fabricated stories, but can also be applied to a broader continuum of news. ?Many news outlets will exhibit some form of explicit or implicit bias while not falling into the fake news category. Assessing the quality of the content is crucial to understanding whether what you are viewing is true or not. It is up to you to do the legwork to make sure your information is good. Fake News: Sources that intentionally fabricate information, disseminate deceptive content, or grossly distort actual news reports. Satire: Sources that use humor, irony, exaggeration, ridicule, and false information to comment on current events. Bias: Sources that come from a particular point of view and may rely on propaganda, decontextualized information, and opinions distorted as facts. Rumor Mill: Sources that traffic in rumors, gossip, innuendo, and unverified claims. State News: Sources in repressive states operating under government sanction. Junk Science: Sources that promote pseudoscience, metaphysics, naturalistic fallacies, and other scientifically dubious claims. Clickbait: A strategically placed hyperlink designed to drive traffic to sources that provide generally credible content, but use exaggerated, misleading, or questionable headlines, social media descriptions, and/or images. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Feb 16 12:41:03 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2017 18:41:03 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Granick: Eavesdropping on Flynn was the legal, obvious intelligence move Message-ID: <3B138174-A4ED-4870-A812-7327F1479227@infowarrior.org> Eavesdropping on Flynn was the legal, obvious intelligence move By Jennifer Granick, opinion contributor - 02/16/17 01:20 PM EST http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/the-administration/319890-yes-eavesdropping-on-flynn-was-the-legal-obvious After all, that committee is charged with oversight over the United States? vast surveillance bureaucracy. And yet, comments from the chair of the committee, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), suggest that he is unclear on the concept. This week, President Donald J. Trump?s national security adviser Michael Flynn stepped down amid news that he had discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak before Trump was sworn in as president. By doing so, Flynn may have violated the Logan Act, a law prohibiting private individuals from talking with a foreign governments in an effort to influence foreign policy contrary to the interests of the United States. Flynn had assured Vice President Mike Pence and others that he had not discussed the sanctions or the incoming Trump administration?s likely position on them with Kislyak. However, the Washington Post reported that intelligence officials had recorded Flynn?s conversations with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. before Trump took office. The recordings reportedly contradict Flynn?s reassurances. The man had to go. Upon learning of Flynn?s resignation, Nunes said, ?the big problem I see here is that you have an American citizen who had his phone calls recorded.? That?s the big problem here? Actually, recording Flynn is a pretty obvious result of American foreign intelligence practices. First, he was talking to the Russian ambassador, who is an agent of a foreign power. Agents of foreign powers are acceptable foreign intelligence targets and the government could have a warrant to surveil Kislyak under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) since 1978. Next, phone calls are wiretappable. Congress ensured that would be true with the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (CALEA). Further, while wiretapping in the criminal context involves only recording when the targets talk about illegal activity, foreign intelligence wiretapping is comprehensive. All conversations are collected and important bits mined out after the fact. So when Flynn talks on the telephone to Kislyak, it?s practically certain he?s going to get recorded since Kislyak is being recorded. The intelligence jargon for this is ?incidental collection,? which means, among other things, that Americans? communications get collected when we talk to targets. It is amazing that Flynn, who once served as Assistant Director of National Intelligence, didn?t know that. Nunez, as chair of the intelligence committee, should understand this as well. Some have suggested that, because Flynn is an American citizen, minimization procedures should have protected his privacy. Minimization procedures are policies which govern how electronic surveillance of United States persons may be used and disclosed. While different minimization procedures apply depending on the legal authority under which the government conducted the surveillance, as a general matter, the procedures require that a U.S. person?s name be redacted and replaced with ?(U.S. Person)? to protect that individual?s privacy. However, an exception to that rule is if the U.S. person?s name is necessary to understand the foreign intelligence information or assess its importance. Flynn?s identity was essential to understanding why his conversation with Kislyak was important. If I had called the Russian Embassy to discuss President Obama?s sanctions, the ambassador wouldn?t even bother to pick up the phone. But when the president-elect?s future national security advisor calls to discuss them, the conversation matters. Politicians? reactions of surprise to surveillance revelations are themselves surprising. Civil libertarians have been complaining about the vast scope of incidental collection and the inadequacy of minimization procedures for years. Leaders on the intelligence committees have responded with a big yawn; ?Trust us, we have to collect it all to keep America safe.? But now that Nunes has learned that one of his own has been spied on, it?s cause for alarm, even though this surveillance of the Russian ambassador was legal, unavoidable, and justified. Perhaps Nunes? concern over Flynn?s rights will mean that, in the future, civil libertarians? warnings about overbroad government spying taking place under other legal authorities, involving wiretapping people who are neither agents of foreign powers nor foreign intelligence targets, including Americans, will find a more receptive audience. Jennifer Granick is the author of ?American Spies: Modern Surveillance, Why You Should Care, And What to Do About It,? available now from Cambridge University Press, and Director of Civil Liberties at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Feb 17 09:47:33 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2017 15:47:33 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - WH considering Nat Guard for immigration roundups Message-ID: (Has this been blasted by the WH as "fake news" yet? -- rick) Trump weighs mobilizing Nat Guard for immigration roundups By GARANCE BURKE 22 minutes ago https://apnews.com/5508111d59554a33be8001bdac4ef830 The Trump administration is considering a proposal to mobilize as many as 100,000 National Guard troops to round up unauthorized immigrants, including millions living nowhere near the Mexico border, according to a draft memo obtained by The Associated Press. The 11-page document calls for the unprecedented militarization of immigration enforcement as far north as Portland, Oregon, and as far east as New Orleans, Louisiana. Four states that border on Mexico are included in the proposal ? California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas ? but it also encompasses seven states contiguous to those four ? Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana. Governors in the 11 states would have a choice whether to have their guard troops participate, according to the memo, written by U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general. While National Guard personnel have been used to assist with immigration-related missions on the U.S.-Mexico border before, they have never been used as broadly or as far north. The memo is addressed to the then-acting heads of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. It would serve as guidance to implement the wide-ranging executive order on immigration and border security that President Donald Trump signed Jan. 25. Such memos are routinely issued to supplement executive orders. Also dated Jan. 25, the draft memo says participating troops would be authorized "to perform the functions of an immigration officer in relation to the investigation, apprehension and detention of aliens in the United States." It describes how the troops would be activated under a revived state-federal partnership program, and states that personnel would be authorized to conduct searches and identify and arrest any unauthorized immigrants. Requests to the White House and the Department of Homeland Security for comment and a status report on the proposal were not answered. The draft document has circulated among DHS staff over the last two weeks. As recently as Friday, staffers in several different offices reported discussions were underway. If implemented, the impact could be significant. Nearly one-half of the 11.1 million people residing in the U.S. without authorization live in the 11 states, according to Pew Research Center estimates based on 2014 Census data. Use of National Guard troops would greatly increase the number of immigrants targeted in one of Trump's executive orders last month, which expanded the definition of who could be considered a criminal and therefore a potential target for deportation. That order also allows immigration agents to prioritize removing anyone who has "committed acts that constitute a chargeable criminal offense." Under current rules, even if the proposal is implemented, there would not be immediate mass deportations. Those with existing deportation orders could be sent back to their countries of origin without additional court proceedings. But deportation orders generally would be needed for most other unauthorized immigrants. The troops would not be nationalized, remaining under state control. Spokespeople for the governors of Arizona, Utah, Nevada, California, Colorado, Oklahoma, Oregon and New Mexico said they were unaware of the proposal, and either declined to comment or said it was premature to discuss whether they would participate. The other three states did not immediately respond to the AP. The proposal would extend the federal-local partnership program that President Barack Obama's administration began scaling back in 2012 to address complaints that it promoted racial profiling. The 287(g) program, which Trump included in his immigration executive order, gives local police, sheriff's deputies and state troopers the authority to assist in the detection of immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally as a regular part of their law enforcement duties on the streets and in jails. The draft memo also mentions other items included in Trump's executive order, including the hiring of an additional 5,000 border agents, which needs financing from Congress, and his campaign promise to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico. The signed order contained no mention of the possible use of state National Guard troops. According to the draft memo, the militarization effort would be proactive, specifically empowering Guard troops to solely carry out immigration enforcement, not as an add-on the way local law enforcement is used in the program. Allowing Guard troops to operate inside non-border states also would go far beyond past deployments. In addition to responding to natural or man-made disasters or for military protection of the population or critical infrastructure, state Guard forces have been used to assist with immigration-related tasks on the U.S.-Mexico border, including the construction of fences. In the mid-2000s, President George W. Bush twice deployed Guard troops on the border to focus on non-law enforcement duties to help augment the Border Patrol as it bolstered its ranks. And in 2010, then-Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer announced a border security plan that included Guard reconnaissance, aerial patrolling and military exercises. In July 2014, then-Texas Gov. Rick Perry ordered 1,000 National Guard troops to the border when the surge of migrant children fleeing violence in Central America overwhelmed U.S. officials responsible for their care. The Guard troops' stated role on the border at the time was to provide extra sets of eyes but not make arrests. Bush initiated the federal 287(g) program ? named for a section of a 1996 immigration law ? to allow specially trained local law enforcement officials to participate in immigration enforcement on the streets and check whether people held in local jails were in the country illegally. ICE trained and certified roughly 1,600 officers to carry out those checks from 2006 to 2015. The memo describes the program as a "highly successful force multiplier" that identified more than 402,000 "removable aliens." But federal watchdogs were critical of how DHS ran the program, saying it was poorly supervised and provided insufficient training to officers, including on civil rights law. Obama phased out all the arrest power agreements in 2013 to instead focus on deporting recent border crossers and immigrants in the country illegally who posed a safety or national security threat. Trump's immigration strategy emerges as detentions at the nation's southern border are down significantly from levels seen in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Last year, the arrest tally was the fifth-lowest since 1972. Deportations of people living in the U.S. illegally also increased under the Obama administration, though Republicans criticized Obama for setting prosecution guidelines that spared some groups from the threat of deportation, including those brought to the U.S. illegally as children. Last week, ICE officers arrested more than 680 people around the country in what Kelly said were routine, targeted operations; advocates called the actions stepped-up enforcement under Trump. ___ The AP National Investigative Team can be reached at investigate at ap.org Follow Garance Burke on Twitter at @garanceburke From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Feb 17 09:55:04 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2017 15:55:04 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - followup: WH denies National Guard plan for deportations Message-ID: <06FE90B9-45C0-4354-9FF9-402814965DEE@infowarrior.org> (Ok, spoke too soon. But then again, it's not like this WH has ever *not* sent out horrifically mixed messages to the public before.... -- rick) White House denies National Guard plan for deportations By Jordan Fabian - 02/17/17 10:49 AM EST http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/320090-wh-strongly-denies-report-national-guard-will-be-used-to-round-up The White House on Friday strongly denied an Associated Press report that the Trump administration is considering a plan to mobilize National Guard troops to arrest immigrants living illegally in the U.S. ?There is no effort at all to round up, to utilize the National Guard to round up illegal immigrants,? White House press secretary Sean Spicer said of the report, according to pool reports. ?That is 100% not true. It is false. It is irresponsible to be saying this.? Spicer said he could not categorically say the idea was never discussed by the administration. ?I don?t know what could potentially be out there, but I know that there is no effort to do what is potentially suggested,? he said. The AP, citing a draft memo, earlier Friday reported the White House is considering mobilizing as many as 100,000 National Guard troops in an anti-illegal immigration effort. Spicer said the draft memo AP referenced was ?not a White House document.? Trump promised during his campaign to form a ?deportation force? to deport the more than 11 million people living in the U.S. illegally. But it would be highly unusual for the National Guard, which is typically called up to respond to natural disasters or violent unrest, to carry out deportations. Some of the first steps Trump has taken in the early days of his presidency have been designed to ramp up deportations. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents rounded up nearly 700 undocumented immigrants in a five-day nationwide operation. The Department of Homeland Security said 75 percent of those arrested were convicted criminals. But a directive issued by Trump during his first week in office expands the definition of criminals who are targeted for deportation to include those who entered the country illegally, which is a misdemeanor offense. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Feb 17 12:34:56 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2017 18:34:56 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - BuzzFeed Tries to Break Readers Out of Their Social-Media Bubbles Message-ID: <748069AB-BAE3-40E6-9F4A-8EE4CF9AA9BB@infowarrior.org> BuzzFeed Tries to Break Readers Out of Their Social-Media Bubbles BuzzFeed News, attempting to address a problem media companies have grappled with since the presidential election, introduced a feature to help readers see what people outside their social-media networks are saying about the news. The idea is an attempt to get readers to understand -- or even acknowledge the existence of -- the viewpoints of people who don?t think like them. BuzzFeed?s ?Outside Your Bubble? feature will appear at the bottom of its widely-shared articles. A BuzzFeed staffer will curate different opinions from Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, blogs and elsewhere with help from data tools, Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith said in an interview. ?We?re all living in filter bubbles, on social media in particular,? Smith said. ?Anybody who works in news has spent the last year watching how social media affects people?s views of the world and can close you off to dissenting views.? < - > https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-17/buzzfeed-tries-way-to-break-readers-out-of-social-media-bubbles From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Feb 17 15:50:15 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2017 21:50:15 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?utf-8?q?Child=E2=80=99s_Play=3A_Team_Trump_Rewr?= =?utf-8?q?ites_a_Department_of_Energy_Website_for_Kids?= Message-ID: <955C1E25-D328-4E9F-9440-4A9990F85D1C@infowarrior.org> Child?s Play: Team Trump Rewrites a Department of Energy Website for Kids Effort meant to inform younger generations about energy and the environment sees sentences reworked and pie charts eliminated. by Patrick G. Lee ProPublica, Feb. 17, 2017, 8 a.m. Almost 20 years ago, the U.S. Energy Information Administration had an idea: Make an educational website for children about energy sources and the science behind them. In short order, the EIA created ?Energy Kids,? which now features energy-themed sudoku and crossword puzzles, colorful pie charts and a know-it-all mascot called Energy Ant. Images of a school bus parked between a coal plant and an oil rig adorn the bottom of the web page, along with drawings of wind turbines, solar panels and an energy-efficient lightbulb. During the Obama administration, Energy Kids even won multiple international awards for its content and design, as well as one from a digital publishing company that hailed it as ?the best of the best in open and engaging government.? The Trump administration, it seems, wasn?t altogether impressed with the site or its awards. In recent weeks, language on the website describing the environmental impacts of energy sources has been reworked, and two pie charts concerning the link between coal and greenhouse gas emissions have been removed altogether. < - > https://www.propublica.org/article/childs-play-team-trump-rewrites-a-department-of-energy-website-for-kids From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Feb 17 16:44:49 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2017 22:44:49 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Trump proposes including Chinese visitors in social media checks Message-ID: Trump proposes including Chinese visitors in social media checks By Josh Gerstein http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2017/02/trump-chinese-visitors-social-media-check-235146 02/17/17 02:41 PM EST The Trump administration is moving to expand social media checks to cover Chinese citizens traveling to the U.S. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials are proposing to ask Chinese visitors to disclose their social media "handles" or other identifiers on common social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. The question would be asked online as part of an electronic system Chinese holders of long-term U.S. business and visitor visas use to advise of upcoming travel. Answering the question would be "optional," CBP said in a notice set for publication Tuesday in the Federal Register. Those who don't wish to answer will have their travel requests processed "without a negative interpretation or inference," the notice said. The Obama administration rolled out a similar, voluntary, social-media screening effort late last year for travelers eligible to enter the U.S. through the Visa Waiver Program, which includes many European countries and other highly-developed nations. The move to cover Chinese visitors in the social-media-focused screening comes as Trump administration officials are publicly discussing far more intrusive steps to vet foreigners seeking to enter the U.S., including asking for social media passwords. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly told a Congressional hearing last week that the administration was considering asking visitors from some countries to turn over those codes as part of an attempt to screen out potential terrorists. "If they come in, we want to say, what websites do they visit, and give us your passwords. So, we can see what they do on the internet," Kelly said. Online privacy advocates and technology firms are deeply wary of the security and privacy implications of that idea. Some activists are concerned that expanding the current social-media collection effort is the Trump administration's first formal step in that direction. "This is the first concrete proposal that we've seen" under Trump, said Emma Llanso of the Center for Democracy and Technology. Llanso warned that U.S. requests or demands for social media profiles will almost certainly lead to similar demands from other countries. "So many countries around the world grant visas or visa waiver on a reciprocity basis, if the U.S. starts demanding greater information from different countries or different groups of travelers, we should not be surprised at all if other governments do the same thing," Llanso said. It's unclear how helpful the information the U.S. receives through social-media screening is. Obviously, people looking to hide something could decline to provide their social media handles or "forget" to list one of them. The query alone could also prompt some individuals to scrub their profiles or change privacy settings to hide them. U.S. surveillance systems could potentially penetrate such protections, but the new notice says CBP officers will review postings "consistent with the privacy settings the applicant has chosen to adopt." The initial iteration of the program to collect social media handles asked travelers about profiles on sites like Facebook, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube. However, residents of China tend to use other social media platforms, in part because U.S. sites are often blocked by the Chinese Government. A CBP spokeswoman had no immediate comment on whether Chinese social media platforms would be included. Josh Gerstein is a senior reporter for POLITICO. From rforno at infowarrior.org Fri Feb 17 17:59:08 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2017 23:59:08 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - AP's National Guard Story Is A Lesson About How News Works In The Trump Era Message-ID: <40FAA89E-85B4-4FD5-9A2D-90CDE8E23DD5@infowarrior.org> AP's National Guard Story Is A Lesson About How News Works In The Trump Era Is the White House playing the media? Are we playing ourselves? Just...take a breath. By Jason Linkins On Friday morning, The Associated Press reported that it had obtained an 11-page draft memo that suggested the Department of Homeland Security was contemplating a National Guard mobilization to round up unauthorized immigrants en masse across several states. The White House almost immediately denied the authenticity of the memo. And with that, the press was back in a wilderness of confusion, asking, ?How did this memo come to exist, then?? I doubt the American political scene is full of 12-dimensional chess grandmasters, leaking memos and then denying them to make the press look bad. Most politicians are shallow and stupid! But the chaos surrounding the memo story shows the deep need for journalists to think carefully about how to approach big, breaking news in the age of President Donald Trump.... < - > http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ap-national-guard-trump-media_us_58a76c45e4b045cd34c1970c From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Feb 1 06:25:42 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 01 Feb 2017 12:25:42 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - China's Response To Study Confirms It Uses 'Strategic Distraction' To Prevent Collective Action. Sound Familiar? Message-ID: <154F36D3-6B04-4121-B285-EC67859DFD39@infowarrior.org> China's Response To Study Confirms It Uses 'Strategic Distraction' To Prevent Collective Action. Sound Familiar? https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170123/02362636542/chinas-response-to-study-confirms-it-uses-strategic-distraction-to-prevent-collective-action-sound-familiar.shtml From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Feb 1 09:32:53 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Wed, 01 Feb 2017 15:32:53 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Cops use pacemaker data to charge homeowner with arson, insurance fraud Message-ID: Cops use pacemaker data to charge homeowner with arson, insurance fraud Police called pacemaker data an 'excellent investigative tool' that provided 'key pieces of evidence' to charge a man with arson and insurance fraud Network World | Jan 30, 2017 7:08 AM PT http://www.networkworld.com/article/3162740/security/cops-use-pacemaker-data-as-evidence-to-charge-homeowner-with-arson-insurance-fraud.html If you are dependent upon an embedded medical device, should the device that helps keep you alive also be allowed to incriminate you in a crime? After all, the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects a person from being forced to incriminate themselves. Nonetheless, that?s what happened after a house fire in Middletown, Ohio. WCPO Cincinnati caught video of the actual fire, as well delivered news that the owner?s cat died in the fire. As a pet owner, it would be hard to believe that a person would set a fire and leave their pet to die in that fire. The fire in question occurred back in September 2016; the fire department was just starting an investigation to determine the cause of the blaze. A month later, 59-year-old homeowner Ross Compton was arrested and charged with felony aggravated arson and insurance fraud. The cause of the fire was still undetermined, but it had resulted $400,000 in damages to the house and contents of the 2,000-square-foot home. Fire investigators knew there had been ?multiple points of origin of the fire from the outside of the residence.? At the time, the police cited inconsistencies in Compton?s statements when compared with the evidence from the fire. There were additional ?conflicting statements? given to the 911 operator; Compton had said ?everyone? was out of the house, yet the 911 operator also heard him tell someone to ?get out of here now.? In the 911 call published by WLWT5, an out-of-breath Compton claimed he had ?grabbed a bunch of stuff, threw it out the window.? He claimed to have packed his suitcases, broken the glass out of bedroom window with his walking stick, and tossed the suitcases outside. Compton also told the dispatcher he had ?an artificial heart.? After this, things really get interesting because police investigators used data from Compton?s electronic heart device against him. Isn?t that self-incrimination? Can a person ?plead the Fifth? when it comes to self-incriminating data collected from their medical device? Police set out to disprove Compton?s story about the fire by obtaining a search warrant to collect data from Compton?s pacemaker. WLWT5 reported that the cops wanted to know ?Compton?s heart rate, pacer demand and cardiac rhythms before, during and after the fire.? On Friday, Jan. 27, the Journal-News reported that court documents stated: ?A cardiologist who reviewed that data determined ?it is highly improbable Mr. Compton would have been able to collect, pack and remove the number of items from the house, exit his bedroom window and carry numerous large and heavy items to the front of his residence during the short period of time he has indicated due to his medical conditions.'? Middletown Police said this was the first time it had used data from a heart device to make an arrest, but the pacemaker data proved to be an ?excellent investigative tool;? the data from the pacemaker didn?t correspond with Compton?s version of what happened. The retrieved data help to indict Compton. Lt. Jimmy Cunningham told WLWT5, ?It was one of the key pieces of evidence that allowed us to charge him.? It?s worth noting that gasoline was also found on various pieces of Compton?s clothing. Could police have indicted him without using the data from his pacemaker against him? From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Feb 1 20:03:49 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 02 Feb 2017 02:03:49 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Cybersecurity researchers halt work with law enforcement, cancel conferences in travel ban's wake Message-ID: <53D4D778-61E9-48F0-A1BD-7A606DC03597@infowarrior.org> Cybersecurity researchers halt work with law enforcement, cancel conferences in travel ban's wake Joe Uchill http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/317355-travel-ban-sways-researchers-not-to-work-with-law-enforcement-cancel Cybersecurity researchers are not working with law enforcement agencies and conferences are reconsidering events in the U.S. in the wake of President Trump?s executive order temporarily halting travel from seven predominantly Muslim countries and refugee resettlement. ?I have incredible respect for the law enforcement community,? Jon Sawyer, a well-known Android phone hacker, told The Hill in an interview. ?I have a brother that?s a sheriff ? who is a good sheriff. But when you have law enforcement blatantly ignoring the courts, that?s a big issue.? Sawyer announced via Twitter over the weekend that he would no longer assist law enforcement in forensic investigations until Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) ?complies with the court orders, and again when we have sane leadership.? Though the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) won a spate of lawsuits over the executive order, the CBP did not immediately comply with several court orders involving detainment of travelers who took off before the order was signed. The ACLU remains unconvinced the administration is fully compliant with the judge's order. An email from government lawyers to the ACLU Tuesday evening said CBP could not yet confirm it had released all detained travelers across the country. ?We may have no choice but to go back to court,? Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU?s Immigrants? Rights Project, told The Hill via email. At a press conference Tuesday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said ?no member of the Homeland Security team knowingly ignored a court order.? But whether or not the intention was there, initial reports CPB had not abided by the judicial orders jarred many researchers. University of Washington robotics law expert Ryan Calo said via email that while Homeland Security has ?amazing and dedicated" people, ?I'm not going to organize another workshop for them or advise as an expert if it turns out the agency defied a lawful court order.? Sawyer said that he is also concerned by reports that Border Patrol agents were requiring travelers to unlock phones and provide access to social media accounts for inspection before allowing them to cross. ?It makes me wonder if something I coded to help with one kind of investigation might be used to violate someone?s privacy in a different investigation,? he said. Sawyer says he does formal forensic work for law enforcement agencies ?several? times a year and provides help via email even more often. ?My brother, the sheriff, could call me tomorrow and ask for help and I would have to turn him down,? he said. Tech conferences have been similarly impacted by Trump?s travel ban, in part because the order makes it difficult to gather international researchers into the same place. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), for example, is already reconsidering future American events. The IETF determines communications standards used on the internet. ?The IETF does not make comments on political matters. But we do comment on topics that affect the IETF and the Internet. Specifically, the recent action by the United States government to bar entry by individuals from specific nations raises concerns for us?not only because upcoming IETF meetings are currently scheduled to take place in the U.S., but also because the action raises uncertainty about the ability of U.S.-based IETF participants to travel to and return from IETF meetings held outside the United States,? it wrote on its website Monday. The reaction comes after a sibling organization in internet governance, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, discovered that one of its 20 board members is now barred from entering the United States despite living in the Netherlands and serving as the chief information officer of RIPE NCC, the organization in charge of allotting Europe?s domain names. ?I have both Iranian and Dutch nationalities and passports and I even have a multiple entry US visa in my Dutch passport but apparently none of that matters! Being born in Tehran means that at least for the next 90 days, I can?t get into the US. This also means I will miss Chicago IETF, where I am being officially appointed as [the Internet Architecture Board?s] liaison to the [IETF Administrative Oversight Committee],? Kaveh Ranijabar wrote Monday on Facebook. Organizer Per Thorsheim outright canceled the U.S. date of PasswordsCon. The conference, pitched as ?the first and only conference about passwords,? had held yearly events in both the United States and Netherlands. Its U.S. gathering had been affiliated with the BSides Las Vegas conference in June since 2015. ?As a Norwegian I can pretty much go anywhere in the world without fear based on my country of origin. It troubles me deeply that people ? refugees ? are excluded solely on their country of origin. Or religion, as this #MuslimBan EO really seems to be about,? wrote Thorsheim in a post on PasteBin. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Feb 2 06:20:01 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 02 Feb 2017 12:20:01 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Federal workers turn to encryption to thwart Trump Message-ID: <5AFBC01D-73A5-43B5-9459-D73D920C6CE2@infowarrior.org> Federal workers turn to encryption to thwart Trump http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/federal-workers-signal-app-234510 From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Feb 2 20:09:25 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Fri, 03 Feb 2017 02:09:25 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - POTUS team 'want to remove white supremacists from the terror watch programme' Message-ID: <1C7A7B2F-4474-4554-A66B-BBB98C80A778@infowarrior.org> Trump team 'want to remove white supremacists from the terror watch programme' Lizzie Dearden http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-cut-white-supremacism-countering-violent-extremism-programme-neo-nazi-counter-extremism-a7558796.html Donald Trump?s administration is reportedly pushing to erase neo-Nazis and white supremacists from the US government?s counter-extremism programme by moving it to focus exclusively on Islamist terrorism. American officials briefed on the proposed changes told Reuters the Countering Violent Extremism (DVE) initiative could be renamed to ?Countering Radical Islamic Extremism?. The reclassification would remove its work combating far-right attacks and mass shootings, such as the massacre of black churchgoers in Charleston, which are rarely classified as terrorism by American authorities. ?Violent extremist threats come from a range of groups and individuals, including domestic terrorists and homegrown violent extremists in the United States, as well as international terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and Isil (Isis),? reads the current description of CVE on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) website. But Mr Trump?s rhetoric has focused exclusively on the dangers of ?radical Islam?, seeing him criticise Barack Obama for being ?weak? on Isis. The position sparked his executive order suspending the US refugee programme and immigration from seven predominantly Muslim ?countries of concern?. The President claimed the move would prevent ?bad dudes? coming to the US, despite the fact countries linked to previous terror attacks were not on the list, as well as warnings the ?Muslim ban? would fuel propaganda efforts by Isis and other jihadi groups. Proponents of the existing CVE programme fear any move to rebrand it would make it more difficult for the government to work with Muslim counter-extremism groups already unsettled by Mr Trump?s policies and divisive statements. Dylann Roof, the Charleston shooter, wrote a racist manifesto before massacring black churchgoers (AP) It aims to deter groups or potential lone attackers within the US through community partnerships and education and counter-messaging campaigns in cooperation with companies such as Google and Facebook, and is separate from military and intelligence efforts against online extremism. Some Republicans in Congress have accused the programme of being too ?politically correct ?and ineffective, claiming that that singling out Islamist extremism as the trigger for many violent attacks would help focus deterrence efforts. A source who has worked closely with the DGS told Reuters that members of the Trump transition team first met with a CVE task force in December and floated the idea of changing the name and focus. In a meeting last Thursday attended by senior staff for DHS Secretary John Kelly, government employees were reportedly asked to defend why they chose certain community organisations as recipients of CVE grants. Mr Kelly is reviewing the funding, which has been appropriated by Congress and the grant recipients including local authorities, police, universities and non-profit groups were notified in the final days of the Obama administration but has not yet been transferred. The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Among anti-jihadi groups, grants also went to Life After Hate, which rehabilitates former neo-Nazis and other domestic extremists. Terrorism is defined in the US Code of Federal Regulations as ?the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives?. The definition, used by the FBI and other American agencies, does not specify any groups and encapsulates all extremism from Islamism to anti-Semitism and neo-Nazism. MI5, the UK?s domestic security agency, admits that there is ?no agreed definition of terrorism internationally?, while the Terrorism Act 2000 defines it as violent threats or action ?for the purposes of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause?. The DHS and White House did not respond to requests for comment. From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Feb 4 15:52:59 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sat, 04 Feb 2017 21:52:59 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Google, unlike Microsoft, must turn over foreign emails: U.S. judge Message-ID: <760D6A81-39F2-4857-A3C1-BA0B34ADF5AB@infowarrior.org> Technology News | Sat Feb 4, 2017 | 11:47am EST Google, unlike Microsoft, must turn over foreign emails: U.S. judge By Jonathan Stempel http://www.reuters.com/article/us-google-usa-warrant-idUSKBN15J0ON A U.S. judge has ordered Google to comply with search warrants seeking customer emails stored outside the United States, diverging from a federal appeals court that reached the opposite conclusion in a similar case involving Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O). U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Rueter in Philadelphia ruled on Friday that transferring emails from a foreign server so FBI agents could review them locally as part of a domestic fraud probe did not qualify as a seizure. The judge said this was because there was "no meaningful interference" with the account holder's "possessory interest" in the data sought. "Though the retrieval of the electronic data by Google from its multiple data centers abroad has the potential for an invasion of privacy, the actual infringement of privacy occurs at the time of disclosure in the United States," Rueter wrote. Google, a unit of Mountain View, California-based Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O), said in a statement on Saturday: "The magistrate in this case departed from precedent, and we plan to appeal the decision. We will continue to push back on overbroad warrants." The ruling came less than seven months after the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York said Microsoft could not be forced to turn over emails stored on a server in Dublin, Ireland that U.S. investigators sought in a narcotics case. That decision last July 14 was welcomed by dozens of technology and media companies, privacy advocates, and both the American Civil Liberties Union and U.S. Chamber of Commerce. On Jan. 24, the same appeals court voted not to revisit the decision. The four dissenting judges called on the U.S. Supreme Court or Congress to reverse it, saying the decision hurt law enforcement and raised national security concerns. Both cases involved warrants issued under the Stored Communications Act, a 1986 federal law that many technology companies and privacy advocates consider outdated. In court papers, Google said it sometimes breaks up emails into pieces to improve its network's performance, and did not necessarily know where particular emails might be stored. Relying on the Microsoft decision, Google said it believed it had complied with the warrants it received, by turning over data it knew were stored in the United States. Google receives more than 25,000 requests annually from U.S. authorities for disclosures of user data in criminal matters, according to Rueter's ruling. The cases are In re: Search Warrant No. 16-960-M-01 to Google and In re: Search Warrant No. 16-1061-M to Google, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Nos. 16-mj-00960, 16-mj-01061. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama) From rforno at infowarrior.org Sat Feb 4 18:03:05 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Sun, 05 Feb 2017 00:03:05 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - OT: Why Nobody Cares the President Is Lying Message-ID: <2B7F6EEF-6C4D-4F67-B293-DBBFDA23C169@infowarrior.org> (c/o TJ) Why Nobody Cares the President Is Lying Charles J. Sykes https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/04/opinion/sunday/why-nobody-cares-the-president-is-lying.html Mr. Trump understands that attacking the media is the reddest of meat for his base, which has been conditioned to reject reporting from news sites outside of the conservative media ecosystem. For years, as a conservative radio talk show host, I played a role in that conditioning by hammering the mainstream media for its bias and double standards. But the price turned out to be far higher than I imagined. The cumulative effect of the attacks was to delegitimize those outlets and essentially destroy much of the right?s immunity to false information. We thought we were creating a savvier, more skeptical audience. Instead, we opened the door for President Trump, who found an audience that could be easily misled. The news media?s spectacular failure to get the election right has made it only easier for many conservatives to ignore anything that happens outside the right?s bubble and for the Trump White House to fabricate facts with little fear of alienating its base. Unfortunately, that also means that the more the fact-based media tries to debunk the president?s falsehoods, the further it will entrench the battle lines. During his first week in office, Mr. Trump reiterated the unfounded charge that millions of people had voted illegally. When challenged on the evident falsehood, Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, seemed to argue that Mr. Trump?s belief that something was true qualified as evidence. The press secretary also declined to answer a straightforward question about the unemployment rate, suggesting that the number will henceforth be whatever the Trump administration wants it to be. He can do this because members of the Trump administration feel confident that the alternative-reality media will provide air cover, even if they are caught fabricating facts or twisting words (like claiming that the ?ban? on Muslim immigrants wasn?t really a ?ban?). Indeed, they believe they have shifted the paradigm of media coverage, replacing the traditional media with their own. In a stunning demonstration of the power and resiliency of our new post-factual political culture, Mr. Trump and his allies in the right media have already turned the term ?fake news? against its critics, essentially draining it of any meaning. During the campaign, actual ?fake news? ? deliberate hoaxes ? polluted political discourse and clogged social media timelines. Some outlets opened the door, by helping spread conspiracy theories and indulging the paranoia of the fever swamps. For years, the widely read Drudge Report has linked to the bizarre conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who believes that both the attacks of Sept. 11 and the Sandy Hook shootings were government-inspired ?false flag? operations. For conservatives, this should have made it clear that something was badly amiss in their media ecosystem. But now any news deemed to be biased, annoying or negative can be labeled ?fake news.? Erroneous reports that the bust of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had been removed from the Oval Office or misleading reports that sanctions against Russia had been lifted will be seized on by Mr. Trump?s White House to reinforce his indictment. Even as he continues to attack the ?dishonest media,? Mr. Trump and his allies are empowering this alt-reality media, providing White House access to Breitbart and other post-factual outlets that are already morphing into fierce defenders of the administration. The relationship appears to be symbiotic, as Mr. Trump often seems to pick up on talking points from Fox News and has tweeted out links from websites notorious for their casual relationship to the truth, including sites like Gateway Pundit, a hoax-peddling site that announced, shortly after the inauguration, that it would have a White House correspondent. By now, it ought to be evident that enemies are important to this administration, whether they are foreigners, refugees, international bankers or the press. But discrediting independent sources of information also has two major advantages for Mr. Trump: It helps insulate him from criticism and it allows him to create his own narratives, metrics and ?alternative facts.? All administrations lie, but what we are seeing here is an attack on credibility itself. The Russian dissident and chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov drew upon long familiarity with that process when he tweeted: ?The point of modern propaganda isn?t only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.? Mr. Kasparov grasps that the real threat is not merely that a large number of Americans have become accustomed to rejecting factual information, or even that they have become habituated to believing hoaxes. The real danger is that, inundated with ?alternative facts,? many voters will simply shrug, asking, ?What is truth?? ? and not wait for an answer. In that world, the leader becomes the only reliable source of truth; a familiar phenomenon in an authoritarian state, but a radical departure from the norms of a democratic society. The battle over truth is now central to our politics. This may explain one of the more revealing moments from after the election, when one of Mr. Trump?s campaign surrogates, Scottie Nell Hughes, was asked to defend the clearly false statement by Mr. Trump that millions of votes had been cast illegally. She answered by explaining that everybody now had their own way of interpreting whether a fact was true or not. ?There?s no such thing, unfortunately, anymore as facts,? she declared. Among ?a large part of the population? what Mr. Trump said was the truth. ?When he says that millions of people illegally voted,? she said, his supporters believe him ? and ?people believe they have facts to back that up.? Or as George Orwell said: ?The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.? But Ms. Hughes?s comment was perhaps unintentionally insightful. Mr. Trump and company seem to be betting that much of the electorate will not care if the president tells demonstrable lies, and will pick and choose whatever ?alternative facts? confirm their views. The next few years will be a test of that thesis. In the meantime, we must recognize the magnitude of the challenge. If we want to restore respect for facts and break through the intellectual ghettos on both the right and left, the mainstream media will have to be aggressive without being hysterical and adversarial without being unduly oppositional. Perhaps just as important, it will be incumbent on conservative media outlets to push back as well. Conservatism should be a reality-based philosophy, and the movement will be better off if it recognizes that facts really do matter. There may be short-term advantages to running headlines about millions of illegal immigrants voting or secret United Nations plots to steal your guns, but the longer the right enables such fabrications, the weaker it will be in the long run. As uncomfortable as it may be, it will fall to the conservative media to police its worst actors. The conservative media ecosystem ? like the rest of us ? has to recognize how critical, but also how fragile, credibility is in the Orwellian age of Donald Trump. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Feb 6 14:19:02 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 06 Feb 2017 20:19:02 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - The Media's Risky Love Affair With Leaks References: <20170206135804.9F878A07078@palinka.tinho.net> Message-ID: > Begin forwarded message: > > From: dan at geer.org > > The Media's Risky Love Affair With Leaks > https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/06/magazine/the-medias-risky-love-affair-with-leaks.html > > ... > [I]n the weeks following the election, Twitter was flooded with > entreaties from reporters, who begged federal employees to leak > them stories. Old media and new rushed to create or fortify high-tech, > encrypted channels for leaking documents and tips, embracing the > sorts of tools and technologies previously associated with activists, > dissidents and hackers. The calls signaled a willingness to serve > as conduits for information, and a budding awareness that, in some > circumstances, a story's status as a leak is more persuasive than > the imprimatur of its publisher. They promised safety above impact > or reach; they offered assistance, not access to their audiences. > These calls provide clues as to what a media reverse-engineered > around motivated leakers could offer: context, explanation, meaning > and narrative. > ... > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Feb 6 14:29:10 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 06 Feb 2017 20:29:10 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - SFPD Suspends Participation with FBI JTTF Message-ID: (which, as others have noted, suggest the JTTFs may not really be *that* useful in the grand scheme of things, at least for local law enforcement. In this case, SFPD probably is taking a stand against helping the federal government target certain populations. -- rick) #SFPD Suspends Participation with the Joint Terrorism Task Force Wednesday, February 01, 2017 http://sanfranciscopolice.org/article/sfpd-suspends-participation-joint-terrorism-task-force The JTTF Memoranda of Understanding (?JTTF MOU?) was signed in 2007 and is now approaching its 10th year in existence. Under Charter Section 9.118, all contracts in excess of ten years require Board of Supervisors? approval. In addition, Administrative Code section 2A.74 requires any new JTTF MOU to come before the Police Commission for approval at a public meeting. The Department plans on updating General Order, 8.10, Guideline for First Amendment Activities, in the near future and will seek clarification from the Police Commission as to the application of General Order 8.10 to JTTF investigations. The Department is committed to community policing and will work collaboratively with the stakeholders when work on the General Order begins. Once the new General Order is adopted, the Department may consider renegotiating the JTTF MOU with the FBI, only after seeking guidance from the Police Commission. As of today, The San Francisco Police Department has suspended participation with the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF). The SFPD is committed to public safety and will continue to work diligently to keep San Francisco safe for everyone. From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Feb 6 14:31:00 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 06 Feb 2017 20:31:00 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Vizio tracked and sold your TV viewing habits without consent (updated) Message-ID: <42DE8AA6-0233-4187-A7EF-E1F752F2F40E@infowarrior.org> Vizio tracked and sold your TV viewing habits without consent (updated) https://www.engadget.com/2017/02/06/vizio-smart-tv-viewing-history-settlement-ftc/ What's more, Vizio must delete any user data collected before March 1, 2016. According to the original complaint filed by the FTC and New Jersey AG, the company worked with a third party to build smart TVs that could capture "second-by-second" viewing information about what's on the screen. That includes details on content from cable, internet, set-top boxes, DVD players, over-the-air broadcasts and other streaming devices. In a blog post explaining the case, FTC senior attorney Lesley Fair says Vizio began making smart TVs in 2014 that automatically tracked the owners viewing habits and beamed that info back to its servers. Fair explains the company also added the tracking tech to older models via a software update. All of this was done without clearly informing customers or getting the proper consent to do so. Fair also says that Vizio sold the collected viewing data to advertisers. Those details included IP addresses that could be matched to the owner and household. From there, third parties could use the information to gather personal details like sex, age, income, marital status, household size, education, and home ownership. Vizio didn't allow the companies it was working with to identify users by name, but it did allow those third parties to track user habits across devices. Vizio will pay $1.5 million to the FTC to settle the charges in addition to a civil penalty to the state of New Jersey that brings the total to $2.2 million. The company must also implement a privacy program that evaluates its use of consumer data on a regular basis in addition to deleting most of the information it gathered. We've reached out to Vizio for a comment on the matter and we'll update this post when we hear back. Update: In a statement to Engadget on the FTC settlement, Vizio says the program never paired collected data with "personally identifiable information" like names or contact details as the commission noted in its blog post. The company also explains that before today's announcement, it had already updated both online and on-screen disclosures, including notifications about data collection, how to disable it and how the information is used. Here's the full statement from Vizio general counsel Jerry Huang: "VIZIO is pleased to reach this resolution with the FTC and the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs. Going forward, this resolution sets a new standard for best industry privacy practices for the collection and analysis of data collected from today's internet-connected televisions and other home devices. The ACR program never paired viewing data with personally identifiable information such as name or contact information, and the Commission did not allege or contend otherwise. Instead, as the Complaint notes, the practices challenged by the government related only to the use of viewing data in the 'aggregate' to create summary reports measuring viewing audiences or behaviors." "Today, the FTC has made clear that all smart TV makers should get people's consent before collecting and sharing television viewing information and VIZIO now is leading the way." From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Feb 6 14:42:47 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 06 Feb 2017 20:42:47 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Chrome 56 quietly added Bluetooth snitch API Message-ID: Chrome 56 quietly added Bluetooth snitch API Trust us, says Google, we understand privacy 5 Feb 2017 at 21:41, Richard Chirgwin https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/05/chrome_56_quietly_added_bluetooth_snitch_api/ +Comment When Google popped out Chrome 56 at the end of January it was keen to remind us it's making the web safer by flagging non-HTTPS sites. But Google made little effort to publicise another feature that's decidedly less friendly to privacy, because it lets websites connect to Bluetooth devices and harvest information from them through the browser. Here's Pete LePage of the Chrome Developers team describing the feature: LePage, in the video, says: ?Until now, the ability to communicate with Bluetooth devices has been possible only for native apps. With Chrome 56, your Web app can communicate with nearby Bluetooth devices in a private and secure manner, using the Web Bluetooth API. ?The Web Bluetooth API uses the GATT [Generic Attribute Profile ? ed.] protocol, which enables your app to connect to devices such as light bulbs, toys, heart-rate monitors, LED displays and more, with just a few lines of JavaScript.? Let's start with LePage's security-and-privacy claims: what Google means is that the server-to-browser connection is over TLS, and users have to allow connection with a touch or a mouse click. To reiterate: as a user, you have to explicitly grant the remote web app access to your Bluetooth gadgets before anything happens. Then you select a device to pair with the webpage, and away you go. The webpage can filter for devices, so for example, a health site can ask to be paired with gadgets that have a heart rate sensor. The site can't see any devices until it is paired. The programming interface for this is described here and here. As pointed out to The Register last year by privacy researcher Lukasz Olejnik, the API makes it possible for site owners like Google to gather a huge amount of privacy-intrusive information from your nearby electronics. The Bluetooth Web API community would have trouble denying this, since its first example code is for retrieving data from a heart rate monitor. Reg comment It's perfectly reasonable to consider this API as another means for webpages to gather and aggregate information about users; and if challenged the industry will use familiar weasel-words about how users can experience wonderful new services users will get if they just hand over a little more private data. It basically invites the user to gradually cough up the contents of their homes and offices ? from the keyboards and mice to the smart bulbs and wearables. There's nothing in the Bluetooth Web API to stipulate how all that data is stored by the site owner, so we also suppose Troy Hunt will soon need to add new fields to haveibeenpwned.com. In 2016, the Internet of s**t Things taught us that most firmware implementations look like 4:30pm-Friday-afternoon work by the last developer not to go to the pub. A vendor's canned SDK is lifted wholesale, complete with example code and default credentials and shipped. There's no reason to think this won't happen in Bluetooth Web API development. The reaction on Twitter was even harsher than ours: ... https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/05/chrome_56_quietly_added_bluetooth_snitch_api/ From rforno at infowarrior.org Mon Feb 6 16:27:05 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Mon, 06 Feb 2017 22:27:05 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Farewell, CVN-65 Message-ID: <51B1A3A5-AD84-4CAA-887E-4D8BB77C0B5A@infowarrior.org> US Navy decommissions the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier The USS Enterprise made history both through its service and its technology. Jon Fingas, @jonfingas 02.05.17 in Transportation https://www.engadget.com/2017/02/05/navy-decommissions-first-nuclear-powered-aircraft-carrier/ It's the end of an era for the US sea power, in more ways than one: the Navy has decommissioned the USS Enterprise (CVN-65), the world's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. The vessel launched in 1961 and is mainly known for playing a pivotal role in several major incidents and conflicts, including the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War and the 2003 Iraq War. However, it also served as the quintessential showcase for what nuclear ships could do. Its eight reactors let it run for years at a time, all the while making more room for the aircraft and their fuel. As you might guess, the decommissioning process (which started when the Enterprise went inactive in 2012) is considerably trickier than it would be for a conventional warship. It wasn't until December 2016 that crews finished extracting nuclear fuel, and the ship will have to be partly dismantled to remove the reactors. They'll be disposed of relatively safely at Hanford Site, home of the world's first plutonium reactor. It's hard to know what the long-term environmental impact of the ship will be -- while there's no question that the radioactive material is dangerous, this isn't the same as shutting down a land-based nuclear power plant. Whatever you think of the tech, the ship leaves a long legacy on top of its military accomplishments. It proved the viability of nuclear aircraft carriers, leading the US to build the largest such fleet in the world. Also, this definitely isn't the last (real-world) ship to bear the Enterprise name -- the future CVN-80 will build on its predecessor with both more efficient reactors and systems designed for modern combat, where drones and stealth are as important as fighters and bombers. It won't be ready until 2027, but it should reflect many of the lessons learned over the outgoing Enterprise's 55 years of service. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Feb 7 06:10:01 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 07 Feb 2017 12:10:01 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - =?utf-8?q?WH_leaving_the_public_in_the_dark=2E_Is?= =?utf-8?q?_it_growing_pains_=E2=80=93_or_a_plan=3F?= Message-ID: White House is leaving the public in the dark. Is it growing pains ? or a plan? By Anita Kumar akumar at mcclatchydc.com WASHINGTON Is Donald Trump shutting Americans out of his presidency? The White House comment line is shut down. New signatures aren?t being counted on petitions posted on the White House?s website. Federal agencies are not allowed to respond to requests. Americans aren?t just failing to get their voices heard. The administration, too, is failing to provide information to them. Transcripts, executive orders and news releases aren?t being posted online. Social media accounts, including Flickr, Pinterest and Tumblr, are no longer in use. Sending information to the Federal Register, the daily journal of the U.S. government, is delayed. On Friday, a national research watchdog group condemned the administration for removing thousands of documents relevant to enforcement of the Animal Welfare Act and the Horse Protection Act from the Department of Agriculture?s website. The removed documents included reports on fines, official warnings, inspection reports and annual reports. ?This is clearly a calculated move to protect from public scrutiny criminal entities who regularly break federal laws, endangering human health,? said Michael A. Budkie, the executive director of Stop Animal Exploitation Now, an Ohio-based nonprofit that monitors U.S. research facilities for animal cruelty. ?Even at the height of disagreement this has never happened,? said Maryanne Cottmeyer, 72, a retired federal worker from outside Olympia, Washington, who has called the White House comment line daily since Trump was sworn in, with no success. ?They don?t want to hear.? < - > http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article130602434.html From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Feb 7 07:02:33 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 07 Feb 2017 13:02:33 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - WH "working the (media) refs" Message-ID: The White House released a list of ?under covered? terror attacks it would like you to look at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/02/06/the-white-house-releases-a-list-of-under-covered-terror-attacks-it-would-like-you-to-look-at/ After President Trump made the baffling claim in a speech on Monday that the media was not reporting on terror attacks (?It?s gotten to a point where it?s not even being reported. And in many cases the very, very dishonest press doesn?t want to report it. They have their reasons, and you understand that.?), press secretary Sean Spicer hurried to do damage control. It wasn?t that the attacks weren?t being reported at all, Spicer told reporters on Air Force One. It was that the attacks weren?t being reported enough. ?Protests will get blown out of the water, and yet an attack or a foiled attack doesn?t necessarily get the same coverage,? he said. He promised to release a list of those so-called under reported attacks shortly. White House press secretary Sean Spicer said on Feb. 6 that terror attacks in the U.S. were "under reported" by the news media. Spicer didn't elaborate on what those terror attacks were. (The Washington Post) A few hours later, he did. The White House produced a list of 78 attacks that it felt met the criterion of receiving less attention than deserved, unlike, say, anti-Trump protests involving millions of people. We decided to take a quick look at the list and see how many hadn?t been reported in the American media. Below are the first 25 attacks on the list, with links to coverage. ? Melbourne, Sept. 2014. Deaths: 0 ? Tizi-Ouzou, Sept. 2014. Deaths: 1 ? Quebec, Oct. 2014. Deaths: 1 ? Ottawa, Oct. 2014. Deaths: 1 ? New York, Oct. 2014. Deaths: 0 ? Riyadh, Nov. 2014. Deaths: 0 ? Abu Dhabi, Dec. 2014. Deaths: 1 ? Sydney, Dec. 2014. Deaths: 2 ? Tours, Dec. 2014. Deaths: 0 ? Paris, Jan. 2015. Deaths: 5 ? Tripoli, Jan. 2015. Deaths: 10 ? Riyadh, Jan. 2015. Deaths: 0 ? Nice, Feb. 2015. Deaths: 0 ? Copenhagen, Feb. 2015. Deaths: 1 ? Tunis, March 2015. Deaths: 21 ? Karachi, April 2015. Deaths: 0 ? Paris, April 2015. Deaths: 1 ? Zvornik, April 2015. Deaths: 1 ? Garland, May 2015. Deaths: 0 ? Boston, June 2015. Deaths: 0 ? El Gora, June 2015. Deaths: 0 ? Luxor, June 2015. Deaths: 1 ? Sousse, June 2015. Deaths: 38 ? Lyon, June 2015. Deaths: 1 ? Cairo, July 2015. Deaths: 1 ? Cairo, July 2015. Deaths: 1 ? Paris, Aug. 2015. Deaths: 0 This is a somewhat arbitrary point at which to stop, but there?s a reason for it. There?s a concept in interactions with the press called ?working the refs.? The idea is that it?s worth paying attention to trying to shape the coverage you receive before you receive it by offering criticisms that hopefully push the media where you want. Trump?s point about the media not reporting on terror attacks wasn?t necessarily that he thought the media was burying stories ? though it very well may have been. Spicer, at least, was smart enough to understand that this was an opportunity to get the media to run with a lengthy list of terror attacks that, he hoped, would reinforce Trump?s broader message that terror attacks were a constant threat that demanded a strong response. Spicer, in other words, hoped to work the refs. The problem with this effort is that it?s both transparent and irrational. Should the media write dozens of stories about terror attacks in Egypt in which a couple of people were wounded? Notice that in the first 25 attacks listed above, only three were in America. In none of those three was anyone killed. And notice that the attack in Garland, Tex., is included in that list. That story, an attack on an event showing cartoons of Muhammad, received tons of media attention. So did the attack in Souse, Tunisia: This was the attack on a beach resort that left nearly 40 people dead. You likely remember that story ? because it received a lot of media attention. Missing are attacks that don?t involve a Muslim or Islamic State-sympathetic attacker. But the list does includes stories that no person in his or her right mind could consider undercovered. The bombing in New York City. The attacks in Paris on cafes and the Bataclan theater. The shooting in San Bernardino, Calif. (misspelled on the White House list). The bombing at the airport in Brussels. The shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. These stories received wall-to-wall coverage, and deservedly so. They also give the lie to the intent of Spicer offering the list. The point wasn?t to complain that there was not enough coverage of the shooting in San Bernardino. It was to turn Trump?s baffling remarks into an opportunity to make a broader point in service to Trump?s policies. The list was rushed ? ?attacker? is misspelled repeatedly and there is incorrect information, such as the statement that multiple people were involved in the recent attack at Ohio State University. This wasn?t something that the White House was sitting on, waiting to raise as a legitimate critique of how the media approached an issue central to Trump?s presidency. It was, instead, an attempt to make lemonade. You may be the refs of whether or not it worked. From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Feb 7 07:06:50 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 07 Feb 2017 13:06:50 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - The FBI Can Engage In All Sorts Of Surveillance And Snooping Without Actually Placing Someone Under Investigation Message-ID: <658294E7-A5DE-4C7D-BCAD-433168E7EAD0@infowarrior.org> The FBI Can Engage In All Sorts Of Surveillance And Snooping Without Actually Placing Someone Under Investigation from the massessments dept It's unclear how many Americans are under surveillance by the FBI. Not only would the agency be extremely unwilling to even provide a broad estimate, but the underlying basis for a preliminary investigation is so thin it could conceivably cover a majority of US residents. A previously-classified document [pdf] obtained by The Intercept gives more insight into the FBI's use of "assessments" -- an investigation the agency doesn't consider an investigation. < - > https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170131/09445136599/fbi-can-engage-all-sorts-surveillance-snooping-without-actually-placing-someone-under-investigation.shtml From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Feb 7 07:54:16 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 07 Feb 2017 13:54:16 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - FBI will revert to using fax machines, snail mail for FOIA requests Message-ID: <2E8EACA5-5EE2-48CB-82CB-100E304AF8A1@infowarrior.org> FBI will revert to using fax machines, snail mail for FOIA requests Nidia Cavazos ? 2017-02-07 11:30 a.m. http://www.dailydot.com/layer8/fbi-foia-records-requests-email-fax The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) will implement a new policy next month likely to further frustrate people seeking public records under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). At the beginning of March, the FBI will no longer accept FOIA requests via email. Instead, requesters will have to rely on fax machines and standard mail (?snail mail?) in order to communicate with the agency?s records management division. The agency will also accept a fraction of requests through an online portal, provided users agree to a terms-of-service agreement and are willing to provide the FBI with personal information, including a phone number and physical address. The new procedure mirrors that of other agencies that intentionally rely on archaic technologies to process public records requests. The Central Intelligence Agency, for instance, only accepts such requests by fax, while the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which researches advanced technologies on behalf of the Pentagon, also ditched email a few years ago in favor of old-school fax machines. The FBI?s records division has also been known to use computers from the 1980s specifically to create technological roadblocks. < - > ?If you ever doubted that #FOIA can be a powerful tool,? FOIA researcher Michael Best tweeted on Monday, ?just look at how hard the FBI is trying to fight it.? From rforno at infowarrior.org Tue Feb 7 16:10:22 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Tue, 07 Feb 2017 22:10:22 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - House committee votes to eliminate independent election commission Message-ID: House committee votes to eliminate independent election commission https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/07/republicans-congress-election-assistance-commission-voter-fraud A Republican-led House committee voted on Tuesday to eliminate an independent election commission charged with helping states improve their voting systems as Donald Trump erroneously claims widespread voter fraud cost him the popular vote. The party-line vote came less than two days after the US president vowed to set up a White House commission helmed by the vice-president, Mike Pence, to pursue his accusations of election fraud. ?We?re going to look at it very, very carefully,? Trump said of voter fraud in an interview with Fox News that aired Sunday. ?It has to do with the registration, and when you look at the registration and you see dead people that have voted.? Reports that Trump told congressional leaders in a meeting last month that 3 to 5 million ballots had been cast illegally during the 2016 race were met with discomfort on Capitol Hill. While top Republicans have refused to disavow his charges of election fraud, they have not pushed for action on the issue, which remains a low priority for congressional leadership. The vote in the House Administration Committee underscored, once again, the political differences between the Republican president and the party?s rank-and-file. The GOP majority on the committee eliminated the Election Assistance Commission, which was created by Congress after the 2000 Florida recount to upgrade voting technology and provide election-related information to federal entities, state officials and election administrators. Republicans, who lead the effort to terminate the agency, say it is a prime example of government waste. They have been introducing legislation to end the commission for years with little success. ?If we?re looking at reducing the size of government, this is a perfect example of something that can be eliminated,? said Representative Gregg Harper, the committee chairman, after the bill passed on a 6-3 vote. ?We don?t need fluff.? Harper said he hadn?t spoken to Trump about the legislation. ?He?s certainly welcome to call me at any time,? he said. The bill was opposed by committee Democrats and voting rights groups, who argued that the federal agency played a vital role in protecting elections from hacking and other types of interference. ?At a time when the vast majority of the country?s voting machines are outdated and in need of replacement, and after an election in which foreign criminals already tried to hack state voter registration systems, eliminating the EAC poses a risky and irresponsible threat to our election infrastructure,? said Wendy Weiser, the democracy program director at the Brennan Center for Justice. Follow daily updates on the 45th president of the United States as we track Trump one day at a time Congress allotted nearly $3.3bn to states and territories to support upgrading voting systems, and much of that money was placed into bank accounts where it gained interest. As of Oct. 2015, the most recent date available, nearly $376 million remained unspent in dozens of states across the country. As of today, the commission?s independent inspector general has not released audit reports for nine of a total of 55 states and territories, according to the EAC. ?Each day we hear from state and local election officials who need our help to navigate the challenges they face,? said EAC chair Thomas Hicks, in a statement. ?We are focused on serving them and the American voters. Congress should remain a trusted partner in that effort.? The committee also voted to terminate the public financing system, which provides major party presidential nominees a lump sum grant of roughly $94.14mn in the general election. But a candidate who accepts the grant may not raise any additional funds and is severely limited in how much of his own money he can give or lend to his campaign. Barack Obama in effect ended the practice of candidates taking general election public financing in 2008, when he chose not to accept it. His Republican rival John McCain took the grant that year and was swamped by the Obama campaign?s spending. Neither Hillary Clinton nor Trump accepted public financing last year. Money for the public financing of campaigns is collected through voluntary $3 checkoffs on taxpayers? returns. The checkoffs do not affect how much money a taxpayer owes. The legislation would devote $63mn of the available funds to pediatric cancer research. The remainder would be returned to the treasury for deficit reduction. It is not clear if the full House will vote on the measures. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Feb 8 18:46:52 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 09 Feb 2017 00:46:52 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Senate confirms Sessions as attorney general Message-ID: Senate confirms Sessions as attorney general By Blake Hounshell and Nahal Toosi http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/senate-confirms-sessions-as-attorney-general-234823 The Senate on Wednesday voted to install Sen. Jeff Sessions as the nation?s next attorney general, ending a confirmation battle that plunged the chamber into bitter acrimony and shattered all notions of senatorial courtesy. The narrow confirmation of the Alabama Republican as head of the Justice Department, finalized with a 52-47 vote Wednesday evening, was never in doubt as Republicans stuck together to elevate their colleague to President Donald Trump?s Cabinet. But the final hours of the confirmation fight over Sessions and his fitness to serve as attorney general came to a head over the extremely rare and dramatic rebuke of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), whom Republican senators deemed had violated Senate rules forbidding one member from impugning another. ?Frankly, Jeff Sessions is a very fine person, and they all admit that,? Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who has been incensed for weeks over how Democrats have fought the nomination, said Wednesday. ?I guess because he?s from Alabama, they think every white male is a racist, or at least might be. So that?s wrong. I just think that?s wrong, it?s obnoxious and it?s something that we ought all decry.? Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) took it one step further during an interview on Fox News, calling Warren?s criticisms against Sessions ?demonstrably false? and accusing Democrats of being the ?party of the Ku Klux Klan.? The nomination of Sessions ? one of the Senate?s most affable characters ? has been fraught with controversy since the beginning. The veteran Alabama senator had been rejected for a federal judgeship more than three decades ago over accusations of racism as a prosecutor, which was an immediate focus in his latest confirmation fight. Democrats also charged that Sessions? deeply conservative stances on issues like immigration, civil rights, abortion and criminal justice reform was out of line for what was expected of the nation?s chief law enforcement official. His surrogates attempted to fight off the racism charges early on, lining up scores of African-American surrogates who testified on Sessions? behalf, both through the media and in his confirmation hearing in January. During his own testimony, Sessions directly rejected the racism allegations, calling them ?damnably false charges.? ?The caricature of me in 1986 was not correct,? Sessions testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, on which he served for years. ?I do not harbor the kind of animosity and race-based discrimination ideas that I was accused of. I did not.? But many civil-rights groups and influential black lawmakers quickly mobilized against him. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) took the remarkable step of testifying against another senator in line for a Cabinet position ? an act that had never been done before in the history of the chamber. For weeks, Senate Republicans have defended one of their own. Traditionally, senators have shown a deference to a colleagues who are promoted to the Cabinet ? but for Sessions, that wasn?t the case. ?We all know our colleague from Alabama. He?s honest. He?s fair. He?s been a friend of many of us on both sides of the aisle,? Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Wednesday. ?It?s been tough to watch all this good man has been put through in recent weeks. This is a well-qualified colleague with a deep reverence for the law.? One conservative group, the Judicial Crisis Network, launched ads in an attempt to pressure red-state Democrats up for reelection next year to support Sessions. But ultimately, all Democrats save one ? Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia ? opposed the Alabama senator. ?As attorney general, Sen. Sessions will serve as the people?s lawyer, not the president?s lawyer,? Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) said. ?I?m worried he will not be an independent voice from the president as the job requires, and will instead defend all pieces of the president?s agenda without question ? whether constitutional or not.? Sessions was a close Trump ally during the presidential campaign and was his first endorser from the Senate. And then there was the Warren episode. On Tuesday, the Massachusetts senator had been reading a letter from Coretta Scott King, the widow of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., that she sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1986. One of King?s criticisms that Warren repeated on the floor ? that Sessions would ?chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens? ? was deemed a violation of Senate rules silenced, and Warren was forced to be silent for the rest of the debate. The chaos that ensued only served to elevate Warren?s initial cause: Shine a light on Sessions? record and try to defeat him at all costs. ?I just wanted to read the letter, and I want everybody to read the letter,? Warren said in an interview with POLITICO on Wednesday. ?That?s how I see it. Burgess Everett contributed to this report. From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Feb 8 18:48:50 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 09 Feb 2017 00:48:50 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Wikipedia bans Daily Mail as 'unreliable' source Message-ID: <007AFE88-95B4-4C4C-BB1B-F4DDEEA52495@infowarrior.org> Wikipedia bans Daily Mail as 'unreliable' source Online encyclopaedia editors rule out publisher as a reference citing ?reputation for poor fact checking and sensationalism? https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/feb/08/wikipedia-bans-daily-mail-as-unreliable-source-for-website From rforno at infowarrior.org Wed Feb 8 18:49:48 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 09 Feb 2017 00:49:48 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Comcast Isn't Allowed to Say It Has 'America's Fastest Internet' Anymore Message-ID: https://gizmodo.com/comcast-isnt-allowed-to-say-it-has-americas-fastest-int-1792143242 Comcast Isn't Allowed to Say It Has 'America's Fastest Internet' Anymore Adam Clark Estes Today 3:40pm Hey, guys, guess what, big newsflash coming right up: Sometimes Comcast doesn?t tell the truth. The National Advertising Review Board (NARB) just ruled that the telecom behemoth can?t prove that it offers ?America?s fastest internet? or the ?fastest in-home wi-fi.? Because, well, these are not true statements. The NARB just rejected Comcast?s appeal that it did indeed offer ?America?s fastest internet? and the ?fastest in-home wi-fi.? The new ruling from the advertising industry?s watchdog comes after Verizon argued last year that Comcast was full of shit and also spread misinformation about Verizon services. Comcast has now agreed to comply with the NARB ruling and will presumably stop making bogus claims. Despite how much you might hate your Comcast service, however, the details of the telecom giants? backing and forthing are actually a little bit tricky. Basically, Comcast pointed to crowdsourced Ookla?s Speedtest.net data, but the NARB says that these results are misleading, if not altogether incorrect. ?Ookla found that the top 10 percent of XFINITY consumers had download speeds of at least 104.56 Mbps, and the top 10 percent of Verizon FiOS consumers had download speeds of at least 83.39 Mbps,? the NARB said in a statement. ?Based on these findings, Ookla determined that XFINITY was ?America?s Fastest Internet.?? The NARB chalks up the discrepancy between Comcast?s claims and its own findings to the crowdsourcing of the speed test data. Comcast, the agency said, pulled its numbers from customers who subscribed to higher broadband speeds which skewed the results in aggregate. None of these revelations should imply that Verizon FiOS is a great service. It?s actually so hard to get FiOS, you could assume that Verizon just keeps the high speeds around to make its marketing efforts more fun. Then again, nothing?s very fun about America?s shitty internet, and it?s probably going to get worse under the Trump administration. So enjoy this small splash of schadenfreude while you can. Dark days are just around the corner. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Feb 9 15:38:14 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 09 Feb 2017 21:38:14 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Court backs Microsoft suit over surveillance gag orders Message-ID: <1FDA6CF9-80F6-4F9E-961B-52B5ED9BFE29@infowarrior.org> Court backs Microsoft suit over surveillance gag orders By Josh Gerstein 02/09/17 02:08 PM EST http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2017/02/microsoft-lawsuit-gag-orders-court-ruling-234855 A federal judge currently in the spotlight for blocking President Donald Trump's executive order banning immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries is now questioning the constitutionality of secrecy orders that accompany government surveillance demands. U.S. District Court Judge James Robart issued a 47-page opinion Thursday allowing Microsoft to proceed with a lawsuit claiming a First Amendment violation when the government restricts internet providers from notifying subscribers about requests for their data. "The orders at issue here are more analogous to permanent injunctions preventing speech from taking place before it occurs," Robart wrote. "The court concludes that Microsoft has alleged sufficient facts that when taken as true state a claim that certain provisions of Section 2705(b) fail strict scrutiny review and violate the First Amendment." The Seattle-based judge's ruling on Microsoft's lawsuit was not a final one. Robart, an appointee of President George W. Bush, simply rejected the government's motion to dismiss and allowed Microsoft to press forward with its First Amendment claims. "We?re pleased this ruling enables our case to move forward toward a reasonable solution that works for law enforcement and ensures secrecy is used only when necessary," Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith said in a statement. Robart did dismiss a claim from the tech giant that the non-disclosure provisions violate the Fourth Amendment's ban on unreasonable searches and seizures. A Justice Department spokeswoman said officials are reviewing the opinion. She declined further comment, citing the pending litigation. Josh Gerstein is a senior reporter for POLITICO. From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Feb 9 16:25:48 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 09 Feb 2017 22:25:48 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - WH CISO departs Message-ID: <8988A7CC-8AE6-4BAB-9791-C71EC5ED978A@infowarrior.org> (x-posted) Secrecy surrounds White House cybersecurity staff shakeup Zack Whittaker http://www.zdnet.com/article/white-house-chief-information-security-officer-departs/ The chief information security officer for the White House's Executive Office of the President has been removed from his position, sources have confirmed. Cory Louie was appointed to the position by former President Obama in 2015, charged with keeping safe the staff closest to the president -- including the president himself -- from cyber-threats posed by hackers and nation-state attackers. But circumstances surrounding his departure, weeks after President Donald Trump took office, remain unclear. It's thought he was either fired or asked to resign last Thursday evening, and he was escorted out from his office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building across the street from the West Wing. His LinkedIn profile remains unchanged at the time of writing. Since then, there has been a near-absolute wall of silence from the White House -- from both the staff, which up until last week worked for Louie, and spokespeople for the Trump administration. However, one source said it's because the remaining staff have "targets on their back" and are afraid of speaking out, calling the actions a "witch hunt" for former Obama appointees. Accusations of poor management were said to be reasons or excuses for his forced departure amid what was described as a "toxic" working environment. < - > Louie remained on after the transition of power to the Trump administration, while a number of other key senior staff vacated their positions. < - > http://www.zdnet.com/article/white-house-chief-information-security-officer-departs/ From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Feb 9 16:30:42 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 09 Feb 2017 22:30:42 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - iCloud Was Storing Deleted Safari Browser History for Months, but Apple Fixed the Issue Message-ID: <718A73A4-6422-4EB5-BE45-725DF38A0A94@infowarrior.org> iCloud Was Storing Deleted Safari Browser History for Months, but Apple Fixed the Issue Thursday February 9, 2017 10:51 am PST by Juli Clover When clearing Safari browser history, iPhone and iPad users expect all records to be permanently deleted from their devices, but it appears Apple's cross-device browser syncing feature caused iCloud to secretly store browsing history for a much longer period of time ranging from several months to over a year. iCloud was caught storing deleted browser history by software company Elcomsoft, which develops cracking tools for extracting protected data from iOS devices. Speaking to Forbes, Elcomsoft CEO Vladimir Katalov explained that the company had been able to retrieve "deleted" browser history dating back more than a year. < - > https://www.macrumors.com/2017/02/09/icloud-storing-deleted-safari-browser-history/ From rforno at infowarrior.org Thu Feb 9 17:20:49 2017 From: rforno at infowarrior.org (Richard Forno) Date: Thu, 09 Feb 2017 23:20:49 -0000 Subject: [Infowarrior] - Appeals Court Keeps U.S. Doors Open During Immigration Fight Message-ID: <08798D96-975B-4A91-87BC-283DD64842DA@infowarrior.org> Appeals Court Keeps U.S. Doors Open During Immigration Fight by Erik Larson and Kartikay Mehrotra February 9, 2017, 6:11 PM EST https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-02-09/appeals-court-keeps-u-s-doors-open-during-immigration-fight The U.S. will remain open to refugees and visa holders from seven Muslim-majority countries while the Trump administration fights to reinstate a travel ban in the name of national security. A San Francisco-based appeals court on Thursday spurned the government?s request to close the doors after days of public debate over President Donald Trump?s attacks on the judicial system and a rush of fearful immigrants. The ruling increases the likelihood that the administration will ask the Supreme Court to step into a case that?s the biggest test of Trump?s executive power yet. The panel?s ruling in favor of immigrants is a victory not only for Washington and Minnesota -- the states that sued -- but for Facebook Inc., Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp., which said in court papers that the measure would hinder their global businesses. ?The courts seem to be so political,? Trump said in a speech on Wednesday. ?It?s so sad.? Traditionally, presidents have shied from commenting on active cases for fear of being accused of trying to influence judges. Trump?s Jan. 27 executive order followed campaign promises to stop Muslims from entering the country and roiled world politics. It shut out citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, which Trump argues nurture enemies of the U.S. The government recommended that more than 1,200 people not be allowed on flights and revoked about 60,000 visas. The appeals court refused to reinstate Trump?s order after a Seattle judge halted enforcement while courts decide whether it?s constitutional. The executive order has been the most consequential act of a young and aggressive administration that wants to minimize America?s engagement with the world. Trump and his advisers see Islamist terrorism as a threat best defused by halting the flow of people who might be secretly planning attacks. The president?s action initially denied entry to an Iraqi who helped U.S. military, professors at University of Massachusetts and a student seeking to bring her daughter for medical treatment. The ban set off angry protests nationwide and attracted a flurry of lawsuits and adverse rulings. None was more sweeping than that of U.S. District Judge James Robart in Seattle. Washington and Minnesota won the order temporarily blocking the ban nationwide after arguing it hurt their residents and employers including Microsoft, Amazon.com Inc. and the Mayo Clinic. The fight is far from over. The court battle so far has focused on whether the president?s order should be paused while courts weigh larger issues. Robart already ordered both sides to submit additional arguments focusing on the substance of the case: whether the states have a right to sue and whether Trump?s order discriminates against Muslims.