We covered several issues surrounding the latest developments with the official Coors parade can that has led to controversy in New York City's Puerto Rican community. We also discussed the request by the state attorney ...
By Andrea Shalal-Esa and Joseph Menn
WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO, June 8 (Reuters) - The Obama administration's cybersecurity agenda, which includes expanding the military's Cyber Command and beefing up protection for critical infrastructure, faces more intense scrutiny after two vast domestic surveillance programs were exposed this week.
Civil liberties groups say the revelations give new life to several privacy lawsuits against the National Security Agency, which hit the headlines twice in two days for secretly monitoring Americans' phone records and internet activity.
Renewed concerns about the spy agency's domestic surveillance programs could also hamper efforts to give it a broader role in defending the country's infrastructure, and put pressure on lawmakers to update laws protecting online privacy, say congressional aides and defense and security experts.
"They're going to make it harder to do the work that is now going on," said former chief Pentagon weapons buyer Mike Wynne, who also served as Air Force secretary from 2005 to 2008.
Wynne said growing unease about domestic surveillance could have a chilling effect on proposed cyber legislation that calls for greater information-sharing between government and industry.
Republican Mike Rogers and Democrat Dutch Ruppersberger, who are top lawmakers in the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, had rewritten the cyber bill to designate the civilian Department of Homeland Security, and not the NSA, as the hub of information exchange between the government and private sector.
But the bill still allows sharing of information with the NSA, which could prove troubling to some lawmakers disturbed by the scope of the intelligence agency's surveillance powers.
The Democratic-controlled Senate already represented a steep obstacle for the cyber bill, which has been passed by the Republican House, even before this week's revelations.
While support for strong national security measures is one of the few issues that crosses Washington's party lines in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, a few lawmakers did call for probes or closed-door hearings on the NSA's surveillance programs.
"Our investment in protecting American lives and liberties simultaneously is not a blank check," said Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, who called on Friday for a "thorough vetting of this policy."
President Barack Obama on Friday staunchly defended the sweeping U.S. surveillance of Americans' phone and internet activity, calling it a "modest encroachment" on privacy that was necessary to defend the United States from attack.
Since news of the surveillance programs broke in the Guardian and Washington Post, more lawmakers have signed on to legislation that would strengthen privacy protections in the Electronic Communications Privacy Act in 1986, according to the offices of the bill's backers.
Republican Senator Rand Paul became the latest supporter of the Senate version of the bill, co-sponsored by Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy and Republican Senator Mike Lee.
Leahy and Lee have said the law should be strengthened so that law enforcement authorities need a search warrant if they want to read personal emails stored with third-party providers.
Currently, government investigators only need a subpoena, which has a lower threshold than a warrant because it does not need a judge to sign off. A subpoena can give investigators access to emails that are more than 180 days old, and sometimes newer emails if they are already opened by recipients.
Companion legislation in the House garnered 16 co-sponsors this week, said Matt Manda, spokesman for the bill's co-author, Republican Kevin Yoder.
CYBERSECURITY CHALLENGES
Some security industry insiders said this week's news could also increase pressure on the Pentagon to appoint separate officials to head Cyber Command, the military command that oversees offensive and defensive operations in cyberspace, and the NSA. Both hats are now worn by Army General Keith Alexander.
"This concept of civilian control over the military applies here," Wynne said.
Alexander has pushed to elevate Cyber Command to an independent military entity and to quadruple its size. But the latest controversy could make officials skittish about what some already see as a dangerous power grab.
"It's definitely going to make people think twice about expanding and elevating Cyber Command and new cyber legislation," said Jesselyn Radack, a lawyer who represented NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake. "People are going to take a more careful look now, and those overreaching laws will be blocked."
Civil liberties groups that have sued the government over suspected call-record programs and wiretapping, said they would use this week's new disclosures to bolster their cases.
In particular, they plan to argue against two of the main defenses used by the Justice Department to date - that a full trial on the issues would be impossible without revealing "state secrets" and that consumers lack standing to sue because they cannot show impact from the spying programs.
But privacy advocates say such arguments have been punctured by the disclosures of the surveillance programs, which have been largely confirmed by federal authorities and lawmakers.
"I hope it means that the court will agree that we need to get to the bottom of this," said Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is suing the NSA in a San Francisco case.
"It would be a terrible tragedy if we can talk about it in the press and in the halls of Congress, and the courts decide they can't hear it."
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal-Esa and Alina Selyukh in Washington and Joseph Menn in San Francisco; Editing by Karey Van Hall, Tiffany Wu and Peter Cooney)
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Goats Standing On Things (VIDEO) by Amber Genuske
Goats are kind of trending right now. Like the piggies that sent a buzz around the animal world a couple months ago, goats are now all the rage. HuffPost even has a news page dedicated to the barnyard creatures.
Though before you go out and snag yourself a cute billy, you might want to consider a particular quirk of theirs -- climbing. Yes, the hoofed animals like to scale, well, just about anything. Be it a massive pig, a tree, or even a person, goats have a penchant for climbing and standing on things. So much so the blog world caught on and there's a Tumblr dedicated to this habit.
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Though before you go out and snag yourself a cute billy, you might want to consider a particular quirk of theirs -- climbing. Yes, the hoofed animals like to scale, well, just about anything. Be it a massive pig, a tree, or even a person, goats have a penchant for climbing and standing on things. So much so the blog world caught on and there's a Tumblr dedicated to this habit.
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The soldier facing trial for giving classified material to WikiLeaks deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, writer Norman Solomon argued during a HuffPost Live interview Friday.
Solomon, author of the book War Made Easy is among the nearly 65,000 people who support a petition to award Bradley Manning the Nobel Prize for the way the information he passed to WikiLeaks contributed to withdrawing troops from Iraq, he told host Mike Sacks.
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Solomon, author of the book War Made Easy is among the nearly 65,000 people who support a petition to award Bradley Manning the Nobel Prize for the way the information he passed to WikiLeaks contributed to withdrawing troops from Iraq, he told host Mike Sacks.
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Let the Attorney General Do His Job by Rep. Charles Rangel
The actions of the attorney general and the Department of Justice have been criticized for infringing on our fundamental freedoms as Americans. It seems that the security of our freedoms has been questioned several times in the last few months, and "scandal" seems to be the Republican theme of the year. However, we must ask ourselves whether these manufactured scandals have true substance and threaten the liberties and freedoms we cherish, or whether they are simply products of an ongoing political satire.
It is without doubt that freedoms of the press and speech need to be protected, but there are undisputed limits to these freedoms, limits that often come into play when national security is threatened. Rather than playing distracting and unnecessary political games, we should allow the legal institutions which protect these freedoms to do their job. All the facts are needed before jumping to conclusions. We cannot afford to take shortcuts when such fundamental rights are at stake.
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It is without doubt that freedoms of the press and speech need to be protected, but there are undisputed limits to these freedoms, limits that often come into play when national security is threatened. Rather than playing distracting and unnecessary political games, we should allow the legal institutions which protect these freedoms to do their job. All the facts are needed before jumping to conclusions. We cannot afford to take shortcuts when such fundamental rights are at stake.
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¿Qué mejor manera de pasar el tiempo que tienes que estar esperando porque tu vuelo se retrasa tres horas? Escuchar un concierto de música clásica.
Como informan nuestros compañeros de Le Huffington Post, eso es lo que les sucedió a los pasajeros de un vuelo que permaneció durante varias horas en la pista de aterrizaje del aeropuerto de Pekín. A bordo de la aeronave iban los miembros de la Orquesta Filarmónica de Filadelfia, que no dudaron en coger sus instrumentos y ponerse a tocar para los otros pasajeros.
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Como informan nuestros compañeros de Le Huffington Post, eso es lo que les sucedió a los pasajeros de un vuelo que permaneció durante varias horas en la pista de aterrizaje del aeropuerto de Pekín. A bordo de la aeronave iban los miembros de la Orquesta Filarmónica de Filadelfia, que no dudaron en coger sus instrumentos y ponerse a tocar para los otros pasajeros.
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El Celta de Vigo ha anunciado este sábado la contratación de Luis Enrique Martínez como entrenador de la primera plantilla celeste, tras alcanzar un acuerdo para las dos próximas temporadas.
El técnico asturiano, cuya última experiencia en un banquillo fue en Italia -al mando de la AS Roma- comenzó su carrera como técnico en el filial del Barcelona, al que dirigió en Segunda División tras ascenderle, algo que no ocurría desde hace 11 años.
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El técnico asturiano, cuya última experiencia en un banquillo fue en Italia -al mando de la AS Roma- comenzó su carrera como técnico en el filial del Barcelona, al que dirigió en Segunda División tras ascenderle, algo que no ocurría desde hace 11 años.
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We received the following Tumblr post last night from Bare-Life. The author describes a new DoSomething.org campaign that asks people to be “undocumented for a day.” As the site says: “Send your friends this experience to show them the challenges of being undocumented (i.e. living with no citizenship). You’ll qualify for a $3,000 scholarship.” We applaud DoSomething for creating such a major campaign, however, as the author explains in her post below, undocumented DREAMers are not eligible for the scholarships being offered. It seems like someone might want to rethink the campaign’s rules and focus, since we think it is a good one to have, yet the optics right now are a bit off. It also raises several important issues that we hope the undocumented youth community can discuss openly. Let the author explain below:
A major political ‘awareness’ website, DoSomething, has launched a campaign where you can play a game pretending to be an undocumented immigrant. The game was made in conjunction with a major corporatized immigration reform non-profit, Reform Immigration for America.
By pretending you are an undocumented immigrant in a virtual simulation, you may be entered into a $3000 scholarship drawing. Sounds like a good way to raise awareness about immigration reform, right?
On top of that, three famous undocumented activists have let their names and stories be used to give a face to the campaign. I am currently arguing with one about how it is unethical to use our experiences in a ridiculous virtual simulation when we could be financing and supporting REAL UNDOCUMENTED PEOPLE.
I need you to go to this campaign’s site and give them a piece of your mind. Email them atundocumented@dosomething.org. This is the email I sent to them:
I’m an undocumented youth activist and I find your scholarship contest to be incredibly disrespectful. You are giving US citizens and legal residents who have many opportunities in the first place a chance at scholarship funding which could go towards undocumented residents. As an immigrant student without papers, I have had to move heaven and earth to graduate from the University of Texas- Austin. While you may feature many undocumented activists’ and their stories, you are exploiting their struggle to benefit and reward those who will never deal with these issues directly. Please do not continue this poverty voyeurism. I do not need allies patting themselves on the back for pretending to be in my shoes, for dealing with fake scenarios that do not mean life or death to them. I have faced enormous economic struggle and violence, and I am incredibly discouraged by your campaign because I do not think awareness is a fair enough trade off. You need to encourage action, and stop glorifying allies for simply pretending in a computer game!! Or at least find a way to finance undocumented students and support them. A few people becoming more aware does not do us any good. We are already at the point where immigration reform will be a reality. We need proper support, and not exploitative, tokenizing treatment.
PLEASE. SIGNAL BOOST THIS AND PROMOTE THIS. GET THIS CAMPAIGN SHUT DOWN OR ELSE FORCE THEM TO GIVE THE SCHOLARSHIP TO REAL UNDOCUMENTED RESIDENTS.
You can email them here: undocumented@dosomething.org.
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Last year we wrote about VIVA LUCHE LIBRE, a short documentary about one of Mexico’s greatest sport and cultural traditions.
Tomorrow June 9, the film will screen on the Jersey Shore, as part of the Lighthouse International Film Festival. VIVA LUCHA LIBRE is an official selection of the festival, and it will be screened with a collection of four short films at the Long Beach Island Historical Museum.
Here are the details about the festival:
Lighthouse International Film Festival
129 Engleside Ave; Beach Haven, NJ 08008 – Google Maps Link: http://goo.gl/b0gA0
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Start Time: 1:30PM (total run time 120 min)
Tickets: $10.00
Information & Ticket Sales
The film festival website is - http://www.lighthousefilmfestival.org/
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Puerto Rican Flag Sellers Prep For Another Parade In NYC
WKNO FM In the run-up to the parade, rows of street vendors have lined up north of the parade route, in New York's East Harlem neighborhood, also known as Spanish Harlem for the wave of Puerto Ricansthat settled here after World War II. These days, this ... |
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