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NSA Claims It Is Unable to Search its Own Emails Due to Having an “Antiquated” System
It can vacuum up emails, phone calls, text messages from all over the country and the globe, and sift through mountains of metadata looking for signs of terrorists plots. But the National Security Agency (NSA) can’t conduct a common search of its own emails.
Elliott was told by an NSA official that they couldn’t complete his request because their email system is too “antiquated and archaic” to perform bulk searches. read more
Only 1 in 5 Americans Trust the Government to Do What Is Right
Americans under the age of 30 are particularly fed up with politics, and are significantly less likely than their parents to say participating in politics is a worthwhile expenditure of their time. Paul Light, a professor of public service at New York University, told USA Today, added that among the students he teaches, he sees “a general sense that politics is for losers, for ne’er-do-wells, for the corrupt and for the under-motivated and greedy.” read more
Is Angela Corey the Worst Prosecutor in the United States?
Last year, Corey prosecuted Marissa Alexander, an African-American woman who fired a warning shot at her abusive husband. Alexander had never been arrested before the incident, but that didn’t stop Corey from going after the domestic abuse victim. Alexander was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years in prison. read more
New Jersey Supreme Court First to Order Warrants for Cell Phone Tracking
Privacy advocates welcomed a rare win last week, as the New Jersey Supreme Court expanded privacy rights in the state, becoming the nation’s first state supreme court to rule that police must first obtain a search warrant if they want to track a suspect by tracing their cell phone signals, unless an emergency or other generally recognized exception to the warrant requirement applies. read more
Left and Right Unite to Sue NSA over Telephone Records Surveillance
When Barack Obama promised during the 2008 presidential campaign to unite Americans from both left and right, he surely did not intend to unite them in opposition to his policies, but that has certainly happened when it comes to his administration’s indiscriminate snooping on telephone records. Nineteen groups from across the political spectrum last Tuesday sued the NSA in federal court for its “Associational Tracking Program” dragnet collection of telephone records. read more
Homeowners Saddled with Extra Flood Insurance because FEMA Uses Outdated Maps
Since 2010, FEMA has had to make do with less money for mapmaking. Congress, with the support of the White House, has trimmed this funding for the map updating service by more than half in the last three years, from $221 million down to $100 million. read more
Detroit becomes Largest U.S. City to Declare Bankruptcy
On Friday, one day after Snyder’s declaration, Ingham County Judge Rosemarie Aquilina ruled that his action was unconstitutional because it automatically cut the pension benefits of retired state employees, which are protected by state law. Snyder’s administration immediately appealed Aquilina’s decision. read more
Killings by Whites Deemed “Justified” Far more Often than Killings by Blacks
In firearm-related killings in which the shooter and the victim are strangers, such as the George Zimmerman-Trayvon Martin case, Roman notes that “a little less than 3 percent of black-on-white homicides are ruled to be justified. When the races are reversed, the percentage of cases that are ruled to be justified climbs to more than 29 percent in non-SYG states and almost 36 percent in SYG states.” read more
License Plate Readers Collect Data on Millions of Americans
License plate data is captured by small cameras mounted to police vehicles, on light poles, bridges, street signs and buildings, allowing police or others to know someone’s whereabouts down to the second, the ACLU says.
This information “is being placed into databases, and is sometimes pooled into regional sharing systems. As a result, enormous databases of motorists’ location information are being created. All too frequently, these data are retained permanently and shared widely."
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If Supreme Court Says Corporations have same Rights as Humans, Can they be Charged with Murder?
It has been established by the highest court in the United States that corporations possess the same rights as humans. But does that mean they bare the same legal responsibilities? If a human murders another human, they face criminal proceedings for homicide. Can, or should, the same occur for companies that are responsible for someone’s death?
The reality today is that prosecutors rarely bring criminal charges against a corporation for the death of a worker.
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U.S. Will Begin Exporting Its “Fracked” Gas
Companies such as Exxon Mobil and Sempra Energy have asked the Obama administration for permission to export as much as 29 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day.
These efforts represent quite a turnaround for the industry. Less than a decade ago, domestic production of natural gas was so low that facilities were being built in U.S. ports to import foreign natural gas.
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Stores Spy on Customers while They Shop
Robert Plant, a computer information systems professor at the University of Miami School of Business Administration, told the Times that consumers can rarely control or have access to this data..
Thanks to technology provided by such tracking companies as California-based RetailNext, which boasts on its web site “Learn How Shoppers Behave in your Stores,” retailers can even track individual customers and tailor ads and discounts to them.
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Despite Dangers, U.S. Increases Dependence on Coal for Electricity
U.S. power plants in the past year have actually increased their use of coal while decreasing their use of natural gas, reversing a recent trend from gas to coal. The reason for the shift, according to EIA, is simply that the price of gas rose while that of coal dropped. Many utility companies have technology allowing them to switch between coal and natural gas, and do so depending on which option is cheaper. read more
Distant Earthquakes Linked to Problems at Fracking Sites in U.S.
There was an average of 21 earthquakes a year of magnitude 3.0 or higher in the central United States between 1967 and 2000. Between 2010 and 2012, that number grew to 200 a year, according to a study published in Science. The study said there was a direct connection between a 9.0 earthquake in Japan in 2011 and a swarm of smaller quakes in a West Texas oil field that used fracking. A 4.1 quake near fracking wells in Prague, Oklahoma, was linked to an 8.8 quake in Chile in 2010. read more
Youth Homicide Rate Lowest in at Least 30 Years
The homicide rate for people aged 10 to 24 was 7.5 per 100,000 in 2010, compared to 15.9 in 1993. In terms of actual numbers, about 4,800 young people under age 25 were murdered in 2010.
Teenagers and young adults are more likely to be killed than older adults, the CDC says, with homicide still being a leading cause of death for the young, behind automobile accidents.
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Are Saudi Missiles Aimed at Israel?
Located at al-Watah, about 125 miles west-southwest of the capital of Riyadh, some of the base’s truck-based DF-3 missiles appear to be pointed towards the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, and others in the direction of Iran’s capital, Tehran.
The DF-3s were first developed in the 1970s and sold to the Saudi royal family in 1987. They are not remotely-guided, which means they must be positioned in the direction of their intended target.
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