Tuesday, November 11, 2014


News Clips For The Day


http://news.yahoo.com/insights-hummingbird-travel-life-span-revealed-161925332.html

Insights on hummingbird travel, life span revealed
By KEITH RIDLER
November 9, 2014

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Hummingbirds are giving up some of their secrets.

The perfecting of placing tiny numbered bands on their legs in the last decade has led researchers to discover hummingbirds can live longer than 10 years as opposed to the two or three once thought likely.

And astonishing migrations have been found, with a Rufous hummingbird caught in Florida one winter showing up the following summer more than 3,500 miles away in southeast Alaska. Some birds have even been discovered wintering in areas where temperatures drop below zero degrees.

"We're learning a lot about hummingbirds through banding we never would have learned otherwise," said Bruce Peterjohn, chief of the bird banding laboratory for the U.S. Geological Survey's Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Laurel, Maryland.

Federal and state permits are required to capture hummingbirds, which are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

In the United States, Peterjohn said, there are some 225 hummingbird banders. About 125 are considered master bird banders because of the years they have spent perfecting the technique. An additional 100 banders trained by a master bird bander have sub-permits, though they are allowed to capture hummingbirds unsupervised.

Despite the obstacles, the number of hummingbird banders has increased from about a dozen in the mid-1990s.

That's about when Fred Bassett started banding hummingbirds.

"They know exactly what's going on," said Bassett, 68, a master bird bander who caught 1,900 hummingbirds in Idaho last summer but spends much of the winter at his home in Alabama. "They know humans are supposed to put up the feeders. They consider us to be their personal servants."

Bassett flew fighter jets before retiring from the U.S. Air Force in 1988 and still finds hummingbird flight amazing.

"I envy them greatly for being able to fly like that — how they can maneuver, go from 0 to 50 miles per hour in about 10 feet," he said.

Besides advances in the tiny metal bands — which banders have to prepare themselves — breakthroughs have also been made in trapping equipment. Just as important, said Jessica Pollock, a research biologist with the Intermountain Bird Observatory at Boise State University, have been refinements in gathering information to give it greater relevance.

"You need to have a standardized protocol," she said. "You just can't be willy-nilly."
Her group last year caught a record 635 hummingbirds, including 105 recaptures, during nine capture days between May and August on private property located about a mile south of Idaho City. Key to capturing hummingbirds, she said, is to go where there is an established feeding site put up by humans that has had time to attract generations of hummingbirds.

"They'll bring their kids, and there baby hummingbirds will bring theirs the next year," Pollock said. "So you just get more and more every year."

Carl Rudeen, another hummingbird bander in Idaho, captured a record 768 hummingbirds in the state. He's discovered that a new species of hummingbird, the Anna's hummingbird, is starting to move into Idaho.

"This year we caught two juveniles in August," he said, "the first documentation of juveniles in Idaho."

His theory is that the species, which thrives in urban environments with human helpers, is moving from coastal areas to Idaho expecting to find hummingbird feeders at the ready.

All the new information has led to yet more questions.

For example, Peterjohn said, it's not clear if hummingbirds on their long migrations fly hundreds of miles at a time and make long layovers to refuel, or if they are making relatively short 30-mile flights. The longevity of hummingbirds is also unknown, with Peterjohn predicting birds in their teens will likely start showing as the banding program continues. A lack of banders in Mexico and central America is a problem though, he added.

And in Idaho, local banders are at a loss to explain why record numbers of hummingbirds were captured last summer. Some possibilities, Pollock said, range from a better breeding year to better migrating conditions. But researchers can only speculate.

"Our knowledge has increased and made us realize how little we know and how much there still is to learn about hummingbirds," Peterjohn said.




“The perfecting of placing tiny numbered bands on their legs in the last decade has led researchers to discover hummingbirds can live longer than 10 years as opposed to the two or three once thought likely. And astonishing migrations have been found, with a Rufous hummingbird caught in Florida one winter showing up the following summer more than 3,500 miles away in southeast Alaska. Some birds have even been discovered wintering in areas where temperatures drop below zero degrees.... Federal and state permits are required to capture hummingbirds, which are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.... 'They know exactly what's going on,' said Bassett, 68, a master bird bander who caught 1,900 hummingbirds in Idaho last summer but spends much of the winter at his home in Alabama. 'They know humans are supposed to put up the feeders. They consider us to be their personal servants.'... 'I envy them greatly for being able to fly like that — how they can maneuver, go from 0 to 50 miles per hour in about 10 feet,' he said.... Key to capturing hummingbirds, she said, is to go where there is an established feeding site put up by humans that has had time to attract generations of hummingbirds. 'They'll bring their kids, and there baby hummingbirds will bring theirs the next year,' Pollock said. 'So you just get more and more every year.'... He's discovered that a new species of hummingbird, the Anna's hummingbird, is starting to move into Idaho. 'This year we caught two juveniles in August," he said, "the first documentation of juveniles in Idaho.' His theory is that the species, which thrives in urban environments with human helpers, is moving from coastal areas to Idaho expecting to find hummingbird feeders at the ready.... The longevity of hummingbirds is also unknown, with Peterjohn predicting birds in their teens will likely start showing as the banding program continues. A lack of banders in Mexico and central America is a problem though, he added.”

Hummingbirds are so awe inspiring and beautiful that in at least one society they were considered gods. Among the Aztecs the war god Huitzilopochtli was the patron god of the people who called themselves called “Mexica.” It may sound funny that a tiny bird would be a war god, but if you have ever put out a couple of feeders near your porch where you can spend an hour or so watching them, you have seen fierce battles among the half dozen or so which are drawn to the feeders. The newly learned fact that they migrate many miles and can tolerate the Alaskan winter.

It is also clear that there a great many of them hanging around, though they are hard to see until they zoom up to the feeder with a noticeable buzzing sound. They, like mountain lions and bears, are drawn to human dwelling areas, and for the same reason. “'They know humans are supposed to put up the feeders. They consider us to be theirpersonal servants.'" It is amazing to me that a tiny bird (you've heard the term “birdbrain” from your older brother or sister) with a minute brain can adapt to human activity. I suspect they are able to smell sugar water, or their eyes very readily see the bright red artificial flower that is on a hummingbird feeder. They are known to be attracted to red flowers above other colors. See the Wikipedia article entitled “Huitzilopochtli”.

“In the Aztec religion, Huitzilopochtli (Classical Nahuatl: Huītzilōpōchtli/wi:t͡siloːˈpoːt͡ʃt͡ɬi/), is a Mesoamerican deity of war, sun, human sacrifice and the patron of the city of Tenochtitlan. He was also the national god of theMexicas, also known as Aztecs, of Tenochtitlan. Many in the pantheon of deities of the Aztecs were inclined to have a fondness for a particular aspect of warfare. However, Huitzilopochtli was known as the primary god of war in ancient Mexico. Since he was the patron god of the Mexica, he was credited with both the victories and defeats that the Mexica people had on the battlefield.[1]”





http://finance.yahoo.com/news/obama-s-call-for-net-neutrality-spells-trouble-for-time-warner-cable-comcast-deal-154738302.html

Obama's call for net neutrality spells trouble for Time Warner Cable-Comcast deal
By Aaron Pressman
November 10, 2014

The fight for an open Internet just got a lot stronger, as President Obama waded into the fray and issued a call for utility-style regulation to limit the power of phone and cable companies.

The president isn’t likely to get his way entirely, with strong opposition already coming from those industries and Republicans in Congress. But Obama's move also reduces the odds that regulators will approve Comcast's (CMCSA) $45 billion take over bid for Time Warner Cable (TWC). 

The Federal Communications Commission, headed by Obama appointee Thomas Wheeler, has been working on new “net neutrality” regulations after courts struck down previous efforts intended to prevent Internet service providers from discriminating against web sites and other online content. Without such protection, regulators fear companies that dominate delivering Internet connections to consumers will be able to thwart new which has received almost 4 million comments on its open Internet proceeding, isn't expected to take action until next year.

"I believe the FCC should create a new set of rules protecting net neutrality and ensuring that neither the cable company nor the phone company will be able to act as a gatekeeper, restricting what you can do or see online,” the president said in a surprise statement on Monday. Cable and phone companies should be banned from slowing down or blocking web sites and services, as well as charging more to give some faster access to consumers, Obama said.

Stocks of leading cable and telecom carriers quickly dropped as much as 7% before recovering somewhat. Time Warner Cable, Comcast and Charter Communications (CHTR) were down 4% or more each at midday, while Cablevision Systems (CVC) lost 2%. Shares of Netflix (NFLX), a poster child for net neutrality after it was forced to pay some big Internet providers for better connections to its customers, gained almost 1%.

“Shares of major cable companies dropped after President Obama announced a plan to strengthen net neutrality...”

[Get the Latest Market Data and News with the Yahoo Finance App]

But as some investors hit the panic button, here are three quick thoughts to keep in mind before open Internet nirvana arrives:

1. Just because the president wants it doesn't mean it will happen. Republicans just solidified control of the House and won majority in the Senate. They’ve never been fans of regulating the Internet like a utility and have close ties to big telecom and cable firms. (Sen. Ted Cruz is already calling the plan "Obamacare for the Internet.") Also, the federal courts would have a field day over any FCC action. They dismantled much of the force of the 1996 Telecommunications Act -- a vast effort to create more competition in the cable and telecommunications markets -- piece by piece until there was nothing left but a gutted shell.

Verizon (VZ) already released a statement saying Obama’s plan “will likely also face strong legal challenges and would likely not stand up in court.” Despite the passive voice, it is Verizon and its allies that are most likely to file a lawsuit.services and stymie innovation. The FCC,which has received almost 4 million comments on its open Internet proceeding, isn't expected to take action until next year.

"I believe the FCC should create a new set of rules protecting net neutrality and ensuring that neither the cable company nor the phone company will be able to act as a gatekeeper, restricting what you can do or see online,” the president said in a surprise statement on Monday. Cable and phone companies should be banned from slowing down or blocking web sites and services, as well as charging more to give some faster access to consumers, Obama said.

Stocks of leading cable and telecom carriers quickly dropped as much as 7% before recovering somewhat. Time Warner Cable, Comcast and Charter Communications (CHTR) were down 4% or more each at midday, while Cablevision Systems (CVC) lost 2%. Shares of Netflix (NFLX), a poster child for net neutrality after it was forced to pay some big Internet providers for better connections to its customers, gained almost 1%.

“Shares of major cable companies dropped after President Obama announced a plan to strengthen net neutrality...”

[Get the Latest Market Data and News with the Yahoo Finance App]

But as some investors hit the panic button, here are three quick thoughts to keep in mind before open Internet nirvana arrives:

1. Just because the president wants it doesn't mean it will happen. Republicans just solidified control of the House and won majority in the Senate. They’ve never been fans of regulating the Internet like a utility and have close ties to big telecom and cable firms. (Sen. Ted Cruz is already calling the plan "Obamacare for the Internet.") Also, the federal courts would have a field day over any FCC action. They dismantled much of the force of the 1996 Telecommunications Act -- a vast effort to create more competition in the cable and telecommunications markets -- piece by piece until there was nothing left but a gutted shell.

Verizon (VZ) already released a statement saying Obama’s plan “will likely also face strong legal challenges and would likely not stand up in court.” Despite the passive voice, it is Verizon and its allies that are most likely to file a lawsuit.

Still, even if the full proposal is blocked or watered down, it should invigorate and widen the debate, which will likely make the end result closer to what proponents of an open Internet seek. FCC chairman Wheeler has been discussing focusing heavier regulation on Internet connections among big companies, including cable and telecom companies, web sites like Netflix and network wholesalers like Level 3 Communications (LVLT), not consumer connections. He reacted with caution to Obama's statement. "We must take the time to get the job done correctly, once and for all, in order to successfully protect consumers and innovators online," Wheeler said.

2. The proposed merger of Time Warner Cable and Comcast is in big, big trouble. As much as setting out an Internet regulatory policy, Obama’s statement also signals significant concerns with the amount of power cable companies already have over the Internet, even before the proposed merger. And the pending mega-deal would give the resulting company control over some 35% of consumer Internet connections. Federal regulators, all appointed by Obama, alone can block the merger, or impose onerous conditions. Odds of that $45 billion deal going through just fell through the floor.

3. On the other hand, Obama is not seeking to regulate the Internet to the same degree as traditional telecommunications rules. While anti-discrimination rules would be enforced, Obama said he did not favor pricing regulations or other “less relevant” types of rules. The ultimate impact on cable providers may be less than Wall Street fears, even if the entire proposal is fully adopted.




“The fight for an open Internet just got a lot stronger, as President Obama waded into the fray and issued a call for utility-style regulation to limit the power of phone and cable companies. The president isn’t likely to get his way entirely, with strong opposition already coming from those industries and Republicans in Congress. But Obama's move also reduces the odds that regulators will approve Comcast's (CMCSA) $45 billion take over bid for Time Warner Cable (TWC).... Without such protection, regulators fear companies that dominate delivering Internet connections to consumers will be able to thwart new services and stymie innovation. The FCC, which has received almost 4 million comments on its open Internet proceeding, isn't expected to take action until next year. … They dismantled much of the force of the 1996 Telecommunications Act -- a vast effort to create more competition in the cable and telecommunications markets -- piece by piece until there was nothing left but a gutted shell.... Still, even if the full proposal is blocked or watered down, it should invigorate and widen the debate, which will likely make the end result closer to what proponents of an open Internet seek.... Obama’s statement also signals significant concerns with the amount of power cable companies already have over the Internet, even before the proposed merger. And the pending mega-deal would give the resulting company control over some 35% of consumer Internet connections.”

"'I believe the FCC should create a new set of rules protecting net neutrality and ensuring that neither the cable company nor the phone company will be able to act as a gatekeeper, restricting what you can do or see online,' the president said in a surprise statement on Monday. Cable and phone companies should be banned from slowing down or blocking web sites and services, as well as charging more to give some faster access to consumers, Obama said.” Even though, the article says, Obama's rules would not be as stringent as current rules, Republicans are going to try to block them. Unfortunately Obama doesn't have full control over what Tom Wheeler does.

Personally, I do fear the increasing trend toward monopoly. It only leads to unfair business practices and increased costs to consumers, and less competition from new start-ups which tend to provide better goods, services and prices. We have too many huge companies already and we don't need a monster like the union of Times Warner and Comcast. I am glad to see that the Obama proposal will probably make that merger less likely, and make the power of the Big Boys over Internet site content less dominant.





http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/09/1341749/-Spying-on-students-Are-we-raising-a-generation-comfortable-with-being-under-surveillance?detail=email

Spying on students: Are we raising a generation comfortable with being under surveillance?
By Susan Grigsby
SUN NOV 09, 2014

“These contractors are hired to help Washington determine the scale and scope of the terrorist threat; they make no money if they determine that the threat is overblown or, God forbid, if the war on terror ever comes to an end. It looks like some of them are not waiting for the war on terror to end, they are just refocusing on the threats, not from Al Qaeda, but from the boys basketball team.”

Are we intentionally raising a generation that will be fully acclimated to total state surveillance by the time they graduate from middle school? Or can we wait for them to at least complete high school or college?

People behave differently when they know they are being watched. We become a bit more circumspect in our actions. We become a tiny bit less free. When we are watched constantly, we are forced to be on our guard constantly. It is one thing to be on guard, as an adult, while interacting online. We know who we are so we can clearly see those behavior modifications and accept them as temporary restraints, or reject them knowing the consequences.

But what about children? What about the preteen or the adolescent who is still trying to figure out who she is? How likely is it that that young student will accept the fact that she is spied on and incorporate that behavior modification into her personality without ever being aware of the freedom she is relinquishing?

There was a news story last week about a school district that spied on its students' social media accounts after, they claim, they received a tip from the NSA. To learn more, please follow me below the fold into the darker realm of data mining, and monitoring, of children.

Over a year-and-a-half ago, in Huntsville, Alabama, Chris McRae, chief of security for the city's schools, claimed that he received a telephone tip from the NSA about a Facebook posting that included a threat to a teacher.

NSA has denied making any such call because a) they never, ever, ever spy on Americans at home and b) even if they did, which they never, ever do, they would not notify the school, but "any information about a domestic safety issue would be sent to another federal agency, like the FBI," according to reporting by the local Alabama newspaper, AL.com.

As a result of this NSA phone tip, the school superintendent, Casey Wardysnki, decided to start monitoring the social media of his students to the tune of $157,000 a year.

Acting on tips from students or teachers or others, schools security staff scour numerous social media sites, including Facebook, twitter, instagram, pinterest, and more. They look for evidence of imminent threats to the schools or of gang activity. Wardysnki said the program has led to about a dozen expulsions each year so far and that security is actively monitoring social media at all times.

Of the 14 students expelled last year, 12, or 86 percent, were African American, even though recent studies show that 78 percent of school shootings are done by white males.

The obvious over-representation of black students among those being punished with suspension and/or expulsion may have been what led the ACLU to send an open records request to the Huntsville School District in June of this year.

"A student whose online speech is deemed inappropriate could face punishment, including in-school or out-of-school suspension and sometimes even expulsion," the ACLU letter stated. "These punishments can constitute significant violations of students' rights to privacy and freedom of expression online."

The ACLU letter said that in the 2011-12 academic year – the most recent data available – 41 percent of Huntsville's students were black but 71 percent of the students receiving out-of-school suspensions were black and 60 percent of students expelled were black.

The tip that started it all involved tweets made by Auseel Yousefi, then a student at Lee High School, born and raised in Alabama of Yemini parents. He claims the tweets were some very bad attempts at humor that were misinterpreted by the school administration. He told AL.comthat the administrators mentioned NSA and an NSA affiliate in their discussions with him. Later, he texted the paper that he thought the name of the firm GEOCOP might have been included.

GEOCOP, like the NSA, has denied having anything to do with the tip. According to their website:
 
Geospatial Common Operating Picture (GEOCOP) is a Sensitive But Unclassified web-based voice, video, and data overlay technology that instantly connects people, Geospatial applications, and knowledge with operational processes.

GEOCOP was invented by a former NCIS and FBI watch officer to provide law enforcement and intelligence agencies with an improved situational awareness tool. …

Overcoming traditional obstacles, GEOCOP supports multi-organizational collaboration, both cached and in real-time. The result is a highly secure, tactical, intuitive environment in which diverse groups can work together effectively across geographical and institutional boundaries.

They have, however, been credited with tipping off schools in Texas and Arizona to possible student threats. Firms like GEOCOP call these tips a "get," that are used as sales tools to demonstrate to the schools how GEOCOP can provide real-time information on possible threats.

But GEOCOP is only one of many firms that offer spying capabilities to their clients. STG Sentinel is another:

STG Sentinel is an open source social and platform media monitoring subsidiary of STG Group, Inc., combining Intelligence Community tradecraft with the world’s most advanced surveillance technologies. Our Mission is to provide our global customers with enhanced and proactive security and situation awareness services. In an unsettled world where security threats are pervasive, we rapidly evolve our state of the art technology and tradecraft to accommodate sensor and data infusion that equates to predictive threat detection and security awareness for the 21st century. We are not your traditional monitoring and alerting service. STG SENTINEL is Persistent, Predictive, and Preemptive.
And there is GeoListening, which specializes in spying on students and is providing monitoring for schools in Glendale, California:
James Risen, in his book Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War, wrote:

Now, another abstract fear was driving hundreds of billions of dollars a year into building the infrastructure necessary to wage a permanent war on terror, and it had grown like kudzu around the CIA, FBI, Department of Homeland Security, Treasury Department, Pentagon, and dozens of other smaller offices and federal agencies. The post-9/11 panic led Congress to throw cash at counterterrorism faster than the FBI, CIA, and other agencies were able to spend it. One 2012 estimate concluded that the decade of war had cost Americans nearly $4 trillion. …

The new homeland security–industrial complex operates differently. It is largely made up of a web of intelligence agencies and their contractors, companies that mostly provide secret services rather than large weapons systems and equipment. These contractors are hired to help Washington determine the scale and scope of the terrorist threat; they make no money if they determine that the threat is overblown or, God forbid, if the war on terror ever comes to an end.

It looks like some of them are not waiting for the war on terror to end, they are just refocusing on the threats, not from Al Qaeda, but from the boys basketball team.

But wait, there is more. According to GovTech.com, modern technology can do more than monitor students' social media activity. Much more.

Do you know where your student is? At school? On the bus? Paying for lunch in the cafeteria?

Principals in thousands of the nation’s schools know the answer because radio frequency chips are embedded in students’ ID cards, or their schools are equipped with biometric scanners that can identify portions of a student’s fingerprint, the iris of an eye or a vein in a palm.

Such technologies have become increasingly common in schools, which use them to take attendance, alert parents where their children get off the school bus or speed up lunch lines. …

Jay Fry, CEO of the biometric-in-schools firm identiMetrics, said biometric identification is used in more than 1,000 school districts in 40 states from Alaska to Long Island, New York. West Virginia uses the technology in 70 percent of its 57 school districts, he said.

Fortunately, many states are backing away from the use of RFID chips, partly out of respect for student privacy and partly out of a concern over the security of the student information that is being collected. And according to "A day in the life of a data mined kid," an article at Marketwatch Learning Curve, that concern is well-founded. With the introduction of high tech into our schools, more and more data is being harvested from our students.

“We live in a 24/7 data mining universe today,” says Jim Steyer, CEO of Common Sense Media. “And I think most of us parents and teachers and kids don’t realize how much of our data is out there and used by other people.”

The promise of the massive database collection is to improve the educational experience of the students. The federal government has invested $600 million over the last decade in the program, hoping that the data will eventually be able to show us what works and what doesn't in the field of education.

However, a study done by a Fordham Law professor, Joel Reidenberg, has pointed out some of the problems that the data-mining operations present. A total of 95 percent of school districts use cloud storage services "which are poorly understood, non-transparent, and weakly governed." Less than 7 percent of the districts restrict the use or marketing of the data stored by vendors in spite of FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) requirements to the contrary. Cloud service agreements with school districts generally do not provide for data security and often allow vendors to retain student data in perpetuity.

Jose Ferreira is CEO of one of the biggest of the data-mining firms, Knewton, which claims …

... to gather millions of data points on millions of children each day. Ferreira calls education "the world’s most data-mineable industry by far."
"We have five orders of magnitude more data about you than Google has," he says in the video. "We literally have more data about our students than any company has about anybody else about anything, and it’s not even close."

Nothing that any of the data-mining firms or the security-monitoring firms are doing is technically illegal. The problem is that our technology is, once again, outpacing our legal structure, making a Student Privacy Bill of Rights needed. Now.

Khaliah Barnes, director of the Student Privacy Project and administrative law counsel for the non-profit Electronic Privacy Information Center, has proposed these guidelines:

1. Access and Amendment: Students have the right to access and amend their erroneous, misleading, or otherwise inappropriate records, regardless of who collects or maintains the information.

2. Focused collection: Students have the right to reasonably limit student data thatcompanies and schools collect and retain.

3. Respect for Context: Students have the right to expect that companies and schools will collect, use, and disclose student information solely in ways that are compatible with the context in which students provide data.

4. Security: Students have the right to secure and responsible data practices.

5. Transparency: Students have the right to clear and accessible information privacy and security practices.

6. Accountability: Students should have the right to hold schools and private companies handling student data accountable for adhering to the Student Privacy Bill of Rights.

Growing up is all about testing boundaries and defining characters. In addition to an education that encourages them to question authority instead of submitting to it, students need privacy to try on new personalities and to make some mistakes. To explore who they will become.

But mostly, they need to avoid being warped by the knowledge that they are being watched.




“Are we intentionally raising a generation that will be fully acclimated to total state surveillance by the time they graduate from middle school? Or can we wait for them to at least complete high school or college? People behave differently when they know they are being watched. We become a bit more circumspect in our actions. We become a tiny bit less free. When we are watched constantly, we are forced to be on our guard constantly.... What about the preteen or the adolescent who is still trying to figure out who she is? How likely is it that that young student will accept the fact that she is spied on and incorporate that behavior modification into her personality without ever being aware of the freedom she is relinquishing?... 41 percent of Huntsville's students were black but 71 percent of the students receiving out-of-school suspensions were black and 60 percent of students expelled were black.... Auseel Yousefi, then a student at Lee High School, born and raised in Alabama of Yemini parents. He claims the tweets were some very bad attempts at humor that were misinterpreted by the school administration.... Firms like GEOCOP call these tips a "get," that are used as sales tools to demonstrate to the schools how GEOCOP can provide real-time information on possible threats.... STG Sentinel is an open source social and platform media monitoring subsidiary of STG Group, Inc., combining Intelligence Community tradecraft with the world’s most advanced surveillance technologies. Our Mission is to provide our global customers with enhanced and proactive security and situation awareness services. In an unsettled world where security threats are pervasive, we rapidly evolve our state of the art technology and tradecraft to accommodate sensor and data infusion that equates to predictive threat detection and security awareness for the 21st century. We are not your traditional monitoring and alerting service. STG SENTINEL is Persistent, Predictive, and Preemptive.... These contractors are hired to help Washington determine the scale and scope of the terrorist threat; they make no money if they determine that the threat is overblown or, God forbid, if the war on terror ever comes to an end. It looks like some of them are not waiting for the war on terror to end, they are just refocusing on the threats, not from Al Qaeda, but from the boys basketball team. ... The federal government has invested $600 million over the last decade in the program, hoping that the data will eventually be able to show us what works and what doesn't in the field of education.... Acting on tips from students or teachers or others, schools security staff scour numerous social media sites, including Facebook, twitter, instagram, pinterest, and more. They look for evidence of imminent threats to the schools or of gang activity. Wardysnki said the program has led to about a dozen expulsions each year so far and that security is actively monitoring social media at all times. Of the 14 students expelled last year, 12, or 86 percent, were African American, even though recent studies show that 78 percent of school shootings are done by white males....

“Nothing that any of the data-mining firms or the security-monitoring firms are doing is technically illegal. The problem is that our technology is, once again, outpacing our legal structure, making a Student Privacy Bill of Rights needed. Now.” The article uses the term “intentionally” in a way that caused me to look for proof of intention, and I found none. However, without the intention of a federal government to establish firmly a network of utter control on young people, so that as adults they will likewise not question the surveillance, it still has become a problem. I don't think that most of our congress and senate representatives, or the Pentagon, or the President have done this intentionally. If it is intentional, it is probably fueled by a fear of terroristic groups or individuals, which is trying to overwhelm our nation's structure of human rights. Unfortunately I have taken those rights for granted. Until now we didn't have the technology for such a government overreach. As the article says, our technology is now “outpacing out legal structure.”

The fact that this massive surveillance which is obviously in place and no longer merely something to fear in the future, makes me feel that we need Senate congressional oversight on such companies as GEOCOP and STG SENTINEL, and their use by school systems across the country. At the very least we need a law making them applicable only to terrorists and other plots to overthrow the government. At the time that 9/11 occurred both the FBI and CIA had information on the plot among Islamists, but they didn't “connect the dots” and stop the horrible plot. It was made known afterward that there was a longstanding rivalry between the two organizations, and they for some fairly paranoid reasons were not in the practice of exchanging information. A large and suspicious number of Islamic men had enrolled in a number of flight schools, often quitting before they learned how to guide the plane to a safe stop. Why? Because they weren't going to stop until they hit the World Trade buildings, and then they planned to go to heaven as a martyr, so why continue to take the whole course?

Okay. I see the need for surveillance, but just like our telephone calls, our Facebook, etc. should not be perused randomly in the hope of discovering something illegal, or perhaps even simply “unpatriotic?” To many a Republican, being a Democrat is unpatriotic. The ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center, atheists and agnostics, people with PhDs in the social sciences, gays and lesbians, people who write progressive news blogs, and many others who do not uphold the Republican way of life, are all unpatriotic. The fact that some of us don't say “Rah! Rah!” Loud enough is unpatriotic. Right? The thing that started as a reasonable fear of attack from al Qaeda and now from ISIS, has become a noose around the American people's throats. We need to oppose and put a stop to this pointless massive surveillance.

“Such technologies have become increasingly common in schools, which use them to take attendance, alert parents where their children get off the school bus or speed up lunch lines. …” There is no sufficient reason here for such overkill. Not even gang activity is worth the loss of privacy that is involved with these surveillance practices, and I really, really don't want our society to simply get used to a constant constraint upon us which is no better than the hated Chinese, North korean and Russian systems. Indeed there is no difference that I can see betweenthem and us if this continues. Just because our nation is large doesn't mean that it should become a huge and very abusive bully, ready at any moment to attack it's people. We need to stand up in opposition to this threat. Write your legislators and the President. I would hate to do it, but it may be time for me to get out of Facebook. It's fun, but I can definitely do without it. I can still communicate by pen and paper.






China's Uighur problem rooted in terrorism or racism?
CBS NEWS November 11, 2014, 3:38 AM

BEIJING -- The Chinese government has blamed every major terrorist attack in the country in recent years on extremists from the ethnic Uighur Muslim minority.

Uighur separatists were sentenced to death for an October 2013 suicide-attack when an SUV was driven into a crowded Tiananamen Square sidewalk in Beijing. Four alleged Uighur activists were killed by police after waging a knife attack at a train station in the southern Chinese city of Kunming in March 2014.

Two months later, Uighurs were blamed when bombs tore through a market in the Xinjiang province, killing 39 bystanders.

The government's accusations are swift, and evidence is rarely made public.

Non-violent Uighurs -- most of whom live in Xinjiang, in China's far west -- say they're often made guilty by association, and have long-argued they live as second-class citizens in a country dominated by ethnic Han Chinese.

CBS News was able to set up an interview with Guzaili Nu'er, the wife of a prominent Uighur scholar. She had cancelled our interviews in the past and warned us to expect secret police to be waiting outside her house.

Nu'er's husband, Ilham Tohti, was detained in early 2014, accused of "inciting ethnic hatred" and "spreading separatist ideology."

We made it into Nu'er's Beijing apartment building and got up the elevator, to find men waiting outside her door -- who didn't want to let us in.

They said they were with "property management."

Then, Nu'er came into the hallway, shouting at the government goons that she is allowed to have guests. Such is the nature of trying to do an interview with a Uighur in China.

Inside the apartment, Nu'er told CBS News that government agents frighten her kids, even sleeping outside her apartment.

"They've (been) here since January, when my husband was taken away," she said. "He did not do anything illegal. He lov(s this country."

Nu'er insists her husband is not a terrorist, nor a separatist. Rather, he's a respected academic -- one of the few who have risked everything to articulate the minority Uighur perspective in public.

"He's a university professor," she told us. "He only wrote about Xinjiang's population, economy, religion, it's just research."

CBS News met Nu'er in June, months before the September trial of her husband, where he faced charges that he led a group that pushed for the creation of an independent Uighur state.

His lawyer Li Fangping said Tohti had refuted every charge against him, but at the end of his trial, he was sentenced to life in prison.

Even the U.S. government was critical of the sentence. "Peaceful dissent is not a crime," Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement.

Now, China's government has confiscated all of Tohti's assets, and Nu'er will have to figure out how to raise the kids alone. She says she's even been robbed of family memories.

"Our photos were in our phones and the computer," she told CBS News. "They took away everything."

Chinese President Xi Jinping promised to crack down on "terrorist attacks," but Tohti's family argues that amid the violence and accusations, the moderate, peaceful Uighur voices, calling for nothing more than equality, are seldom heard.



Uyghur people
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Uyghurs /uː.iˈɡʊr/ (Uyghur: ئۇيغۇر‎, ULY: Uyghur ;[7] [ʔʊjˈʁʊː];Old Turkic:  ;[8] simplified Chinese: 维吾尔; traditional Chinese: 維吾爾; pinyin: Wéiwú'ěr) are a Turkic ethnic group living in Eastern andCentral Asia. Today, Uyghurs live primarily in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China (referred to by most of them as East Turkestan), where they are officially recognized as one of the 56 ethnic minorities. An estimated 80% of Xinjiang's Uyghurs live in the southwestern portion of the region, the Tarim Basin.[9] Outside Xinjiang, the largest community of Uyghurs in China is in Taoyuan County, in south-central Hunan province.[10] Outside of China, significant diasporic communities of Uyghurs exist in the Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. Smaller communities are found in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Germany,Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Russia, Saudi Arabia,Canada, the United States, and Turkey.[11]


Tarim mummies
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Tarim mummies are a series of mummiesdiscovered in the Tarim Basin in present-dayXinjiang, China, which date from 1800 BCE to the first centuries BCE.[1][2] The mummies, particularly the early ones, are frequently associated with the presence of the Indo-European Tocharian languages in the Tarim Basin,[3] although the evidence is not totally conclusive and many centuries separate these mummies from the first attestation of the Tocharian languages in writing. Victor H. Mair's team concluded that the mummies areEuropoid, likely speakers of Indo-European languages.[4]

At the beginning of the 20th century, European explorers such as Sven Hedin,Albert von Le Coq and Sir Aurel Stein all recounted their discoveries ofdesiccated bodies in their search for antiquities in Central Asia.[5] Since then, numerous other mummies have been found and analysed, many of them now displayed in the museums of Xinjiang. Most of these mummies were found on the eastern end of the Tarim Basin (around the area of Lopnur, Subeshi nearTurpan, Kroran, Kumul), or along the southern edge of the Tarim Basin (Khotan,Niya, and Cherchen or Qiemo).

The earliest Tarim mummies, found at Qäwrighul and dated to 1800 BCE, are of a Europoid physical type whose closest affiliation is to the Bronze Agepopulations of southern Siberia, Kazakhstan, Central Asia, and the Lower Volga.[1]

The cemetery at Yanbulaq contained 29 mummies which date from 1100–500 BCE, 21 of which are Mongoloid—the earliest Mongoloid mummies found in the Tarim Basin—and eight of which are of the same Europoid physical type found at Qäwrighul.[1]

Notable mummies are the tall, red-haired "Chärchän man" or the "Ur-David" (1000 BCE); his son (1000 BCE), a small 1-year-old baby with brown hair protruding from under a red and blue felt cap, with two stones positioned over its eyes; the "Hami Mummy" (c. 1400–800 BCE), a "red-headed beauty" found in Qizilchoqa; and the "Witches of Subeshi" (4th or 3rd century BCE), who wore 2-foot-long (0.61 m) black felt conical hats with a flat brim.[6] Also found at Subeshi was a man with traces of a surgical operation on his abdomen; the incision is sewn up with sutures made of horsehair.[7]

Many of the mummies have been found in very good condition, owing to the dryness of the desert and the desiccation it produced in the corpses. The mummies share many typical Europoid body features (elongated bodies, angular faces, recessed eyes), and many of them have their hair physically intact, ranging in color from blond to red to deep brown, and generally long, curly and braided. It is not known whether their hair has been bleached by interment in salt. Their costumes, and especially textiles, may indicate a common origin with Indo-European neolithic clothing techniques or a common low-level textile technology. Chärchän man wore a red twill tunic and tartan leggings. Textile expert Elizabeth Wayland Barber, who examined the tartan-style cloth, discusses similarities between it and fragments recovered from salt mines associated with the Hallstatt culture.[8]

A 2008 study by Jilin University that the Yuansha population has relatively close relationships with the modern populations of South Central Asia and Indus Valley, as well as with the ancient population of Chawuhu.[9]

In 2007 the Chinese government allowed a National Geographic Society team headed by Spencer Wells to examine the mummies' DNA. Wells was able to extract undegraded DNA from the internal tissues. The scientists extracted enough material to suggest the Tarim Basin was continually inhabited from 2000 BCE to 300 BCE and preliminary results indicate the people, rather than having a single origin, originated from Europe, Mesopotamia, Indus Valley and other regions yet to be determined.[10]

In 2009, the remains of individuals found at a site in Xiaohe were analyzed for Y-DNA and mtDNA markers. They suggest that an admixed population of both west and east origin lived in the Tarim basin since the early Bronze Age. The maternal lineages were predominantly East Eurasian haplogroup C with smaller numbers of H and K, while the paternal lines were all West Eurasian R1a1a. The geographic location of where this admixing took place is unknown, although south Siberia is likely.[11]

It has been asserted that the textiles found with the mummies are of an early European textile type based on close similarities to fragmentary textiles found in salt mines in Austria, dating from the second millennium BCE. Anthropologist Irene Good, a specialist in early Eurasian textiles, noted the woven diagonal twill pattern indicated the use of a rather sophisticated loom and said that the textile is "the easternmost known example of this kind of weaving technique."

Mair claims that "the earliest mummies in the Tarim Basin were exclusively Caucasoid, or Europoid" with east Asian migrants arriving in the eastern portions of the Tarim Basin around 3,000 years ago while the Uyghur peoples arrived around the year 842.[4] In trying to trace the origins of these populations, Victor Mair's team suggested that they may have arrived in the region by way of the Pamir Mountains about 5,000 years ago.
Mair has claimed that:

The new finds are also forcing a reexamination of old Chinese books that describe historical or legendary figures of great height, with deep-set blue or green eyes, long noses, full beards, and red or blond hair. Scholars have traditionally scoffed at these accounts, but it now seems that they may be accurate.[12]

Chinese historian Ji Xianlin says China "supported and admired" research by foreign experts into the mummies. "However, within China a small group of ethnic separatists have taken advantage of this opportunity to stir up trouble and are acting like buffoons. Some of them have even styled themselves the descendants of these ancient 'white people with the aim of dividing the motherland. But these perverse acts will not succeed'".[4] Barber addresses these claims by noting that "[The Loulan Beauty] is scarcely closer to 'Turkic' in her anthropological type than she is to Han Chinese. The body and facial forms associated with Turks and Mongols began to appear in the Tarim cemeteries only in the first millennium BCE, fifteen hundred years after this woman lived.[13] Due to the "fear of fuelling separatist currents", the Xinjiang museum, regardless of dating, displays all their mummies, both Tarim and Han, together.[4]

Physical anthropologists propose the movement of at least two Europoid physical types into the Tarim Basin. Mallory and Mair associate these types with the Tocharian and Iranian (Saka) branches of the Indo-European language family, respectively.[14] However, archaeology and linguistics professorElizabeth Wayland Barber cautions against assuming the mummies spoke Tocharian, noting a gap of about a thousand years between the mummies and the documented Tocharians: "people can change their language at will, without altering a single gene or freckle."[15]
Mallory and Mair associate this later (700 BCE–200 CE) Europoid physical type with the populations who introduced theIranian Saka language to the western part of the Tarim basin.[19]

Mair concluded:
"From the evidence available, we have found that during the first 1,000 years after the Loulan Beauty, the only settlers in the Tarim Basin were Caucasoid. East Asian peoples only began showing up in the eastern portions of the Tarim Basin about 3,000 years ago, Mair said, while the Uighur peoples arrived after the collapse of the Orkon Uighur Kingdom, largely based in modern day Mongolia, around the year 842."[4]

Roman accounts[edit]
Pliny the Elder (, Chap XXIV "Taprobane") reports a curious description of the Seres (in the territories of northwestern China) made by an embassy from Taprobane (Ceylon) to Emperor Claudius, saying that they "exceeded the ordinary human height, had flaxen hair, and blue eyes, and made an uncouth sort of noise by way of talking", suggesting they may be referring to the ancient Europoid populations of the Tarim Basin:[citation needed][improper synthesis?]

Photograph – Wooden tablet with an inscription showing Tocharian B in its Brahmic form. Kucha, China, 5th-8th century (Tokyo National Museum)

The Indo-European Tocharian languages also have been attested in the same geographical area, and although the first known epigraphic evidence dates to the 6th century CE, the degree of differentiation between Tocharian A and Tocharian B, and the absence of Tocharian language remains beyond that area, tends to indicate that a common Tocharian language existed in the same area during the second half of the 1st millennium BCE. Although Tocharian texts have never been found in direct relation with the mummies, their identical geographical location and common non-Chinese origin suggest that the mummies were related to the Tocharians and spoke a similar Indo-European language.

The Tocharians were described as having full beards, red or blond hair, deep-set blue or green eyes and high noses[12] and with no sign of decline as attestation in the Chinese sources for the past 1,000 years. This was first noted after the Tocharians had come under the steppe nomads and Chinese subjugation. During the 3rd to 4th century CE, the Tocharians reached their height by incorporating adjoining states.[21]




“The government's accusations are swift, and evidence is rarely made public. Non-violent Uighurs -- most of whom live in Xinjiang, in China's far west -- say they're often made guilty by association, and have long-argued they live as second-class citizens in a country dominated by ethnic Han Chinese.... CBS News was able to set up an interview with Guzaili Nu'er, the wife of a prominent Uighur scholar. She had cancelled our interviews in the past and warned us to expect secret police to be waiting outside her house. Nu'er's husband, Ilham Tohti, was detained in early 2014, accused of 'inciting ethnic hatred' and 'spreading separatist ideology.'... Nu'er insists her husband is not a terrorist, nor a separatist. Rather, he's a respected academic -- one of the few who have risked everything to articulate the minority Uighur perspective in public. 'He's a university professor,' she told us. 'He only wrote about Xinjiang's population, economy, religion, it's just research.'... Chinese President Xi Jinping promised to crack down on 'terrorist attacks,' but Tohti's family argues that amid the violence and accusations, the moderate, peaceful Uighur voices, calling for nothing more than equality, are seldom heard.”

The Uyghurs are of special interest to me because there is a greater than average chance that their people go back to some of the earliest inhabitants of the Tarim Basin, who were of Caucasoid heritage and related by language family, body type, coloring, and tenacity to my forebears the Scots. Their mummies, wearing tartan cloth, and seeming to have a good deal of wealth, are naturally preserved by the very dry environment rather than embalmed like the Egyptians. They were based in an area accessible by what became the Silk Road, which may explain the presence of genes from Iran and India in their DNA. They were probably traders who grew sheep, as their cloth was made of wool. One of the mummies had a healed cut that had been sewn together by hand as we do in modern surgery, so at least in some ways they were an advanced group of people. Two of the mummies were women and had the tall, conical felt hat with wide brim that we associate today with – of all things – witches.

It just goes to show that where human groups have been allowed to continue in the same place down through thousands of years, there is a fair amount of culture, from language to technology and art, that is actually passed down to the present day. I have always believed that those old fairy tales we grew up with came directly from the ancient Celtic culture in Northern Europe and the UK, and possibly bearing more than just a nugget of truth among the dramatized and embroidered fiction. For this reason, I care to a more than average degree what the Chinese do to the Uyghurs, as they are very likely our distant relatives. They are also clever and educated people, of whom we might reasonably be proud. The US government has taken a high degree of interest in their mistreatment by Beijing. China, of course, considers them to be dissidents who are dangerous to the government because they want autonomy. Like so many minority ethnic groups, they have nowhere to go to unless it's the US or Western Europe. It's one more sad story.





http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/09/1342595/-President-Obama-must-seize-this-moment-and-stake-his-claim-to-historical-greatness?detail=email

President Obama must seize this moment and stake his claim to historical greatness
By Laurence Lewis
SUN NOV 09, 2014

In terms of pure horse race, the Democrats on Tuesday took an electoral drubbing, losing all the major races that were expected to be close, and additionally some that they were expected to win easily. The media dutifully reported it as a wave election for the Republicans, but that would be a misreading of what actually happened. The big story, as usual, was the lousy national turnout, the paltry number of eligible voters who registered, and the barely more than a third of them who made the effort to vote. If this was a wave, it was a wave of apathy and disdain. With an unpopular president, an unclear agenda, and its usual mid-term malaise, the Democrats did worse, which other than horse race should not be confused for the Republicans having done well. This wasn't a mandate for the Republican agenda, it was a rejection of the entire political process.

The approval rating for Congress remains in the toilet, with the Republicans continuing to poll worse than the Democrats. Voters approved ballot initiatives that Republicans opposed and rejected initiatives that Republicans supported. The president's lousy approval ratings remain significantly less worse than those of the congressional Republicans who were just empowered to make his job much more difficult. It would be a mistake for the president and congressional Democrats to interpret this election as a demand for acquiescence. This election was a demand for change, but that doesn't mean that voters were demanding what the Republicans were selling. In fact, many Republicans deliberately obfuscated their extreme agenda in an effort to make themselves seem more moderate. Don't expect them to attempt to govern with moderation. And don't expect voters to be happy with what comes next. Systemic change was not on the ballots.

A year ago, the Republican brand was all but dead. After yet another government shutdown, polls showed Democrats not only had a good chance of holding the Senate, despite a tough slate of races in Republican-dominated states, but also might win back the House, despite the extreme gerrymandering whereby Republicans have ensured that rather than voters choosing their congressional representatives, congressional representatives have chosen their voters. But the lousy rollout of Obamacare, and the media's dutifully focusing on the problems meeting the demand rather than the meaning of the demand itself, tanked the Democrats' numbers. And despite the subsequent millions of people who did take advantage of their new access to health insurance, the media never managed to make that a significant part of their narrative.

The Democrats lost campaigns on Tuesday, but they should not be manipulated into believing they have lost the initiative. It is still there, if they take it. People want jobs, and the Republicans will not offer jobs programs. People want more income, and except for those who already have plenty, the Republicans will not offer opportunity for more income. People don't want free handouts, they want fairness and justice and equality, and the Republicans never offer fairness and justice and equality. Democrats should. Democrats must. Democrats have to reclaim the mantle of being the people's party, and they must fight any Republican efforts that will widen the income gap, undermine civil and human rights, or loosen protections on workers, consumers, the environment, and the historically and institutionally disadvantaged. Democrats must stop playing political football with people's dreams and aspirations, they must fight for them in ways that are clear and consistent and that draw the broadest possible distinctions with the Republican agenda of greed and exclusion. The opportunities for Democrats now are huge, if they take them.

President Obama is a brave man. The fact of his presidency is testament to his profound personal courage. He is an historic figure not just because he is the first African American to win the presidency, but because he is the first president who was not a white male, and only the second who was not a white male Protestant. His victory opened the door not only to future African-American presidents, but to the possibility that any child born in the United States might some day grow up to be president. And the backlash against his shattering of that glass ceiling has been fierce and ugly, and given the anomalously large number of death threats he has received, genuinely dangerous. No one should underestimate this president's personal courage.

Politically, however, President Obama has been remarkably mild. Despite his great personal courage, and despite having come to office with a mandate for serious change, with a Democratic Congress with which to implement it, his agenda turned out to be centrist, accommodating, and incrementalist. For his entire first term, many liberals were frustrated and infuriated by Obama's usual refusal to fight for an agenda that was bold and visionary. Where was the political courage of a man with such personal courage? And then he stood at a question-and-answer session with congressional Republicans, and calmly, cooly, smacked them around so hard that their lead propagandist network fled in fear and shame. The same thing happened in his re-election campaign, when he attempted to be cool and civil during his first debate with a persistently dishonest Mitt Romney, and took a hit in the polls, then came out fighting in the second debate, leaving the pundits trembling and Romney in his political rearview mirror. Those were clues.

The public likes when this president fights against Republican dishonesty and extremism. His initial efforts to accommodate and acquiesce, during the first Republican government shutdowns, emboldened them and made him look weak. When he finally stood up to them, just one year ago, the public backed him, the Republicans backed down, and the political fallout looked to be devastating. If not for the bungled rollout of Obamacare and the media's typically manipulative reaction to it, this campaign season likely would have gone very differently. Every time the Republicans assert themselves, the American people reject them. As previously noted, even the Republicans themselves know that to win politically they have to hide who they really are. But that is not how they intend to govern. Already they are stating that the top two items on their agenda next year will be to pass a budget and to force President Obama to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. Already they are warning him not to pursue his own agenda. He must do the opposite of what they are demanding.

If the Republicans seek another budget heavy on tax cuts for the wealthy and service cuts for everyone else, President Obama must veto it. He must be specific and consistent in identifying and emphasizing how the Republican agenda will make most people's lives more difficult. He must not compromise on cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, or Obamacare. He must move forward with immigration reform. He must not allow the deficit, which already has been falling under his agenda, to be used as an excuse for an agenda that will punish people and actually also make the deficit worse. With every Republican initiative he must demand answers as to how it will create jobs and financial security and how it will help people. Because inevitably, the Republicans will have no answers. With every Republican initiative he must point to who will benefit and who will suffer, because inevitably it will be the wealthiest who will benefit and everyone else who will not. The Republicans haven't changed their spots, they have merely cloaked them. President Obama and congressional Democrats must remove the cloaks and once again reveal the Republicans for who they are.

On no issue does the president have a greater political and historical opportunity than on the Keystone XL pipeline and climate change. On climate change he can stake his legacy. In the days before the election, as dutifully ignored by the major media, the most comprehensive scientific assessment ever taken of climate change made clear that the crisis is even worse than had previously been thought, and that serious action must be taken with no delay if we are to avert the most devastating climate impacts. The Republicans are uniformly opposedto taking action on climate change. They are climate change deniers, they give megaphones to discredited climate change deniers, and they will attempt to force the president to accept policies that will make the climate crisis worse. He must not compromise on anything climate-related. If they send the Keystone XL pipeline to his desk, he must cite the scientists andveto it. He must use all available executive options to implement responsible climate action. If Republicans cry executive overreach, he must not hesitate. If they threaten impeachment, he must not blink. He must, in fact, dare them to try their worst.

The next two years can be the moment in history when national consciousness finally awakens to the imminent danger of climate change. The next two years can be the moment in history when climate science itself finally supersedes politics, greed, and media complicity and incompetence in how people are distracted from or misperceive climate change. President Obama can make it happen. He can reject the Keystone XL pipeline. He can use every available means to implement responsible climate policies. He can dare Republicans to try to impeach him over his climate agenda, and force this nation finally to take a clear hard look at what the scientists actually are saying. He can point to the military leaders who say climate change is a national security issue. If the Republicans do try to remove him from office for being as bold as he must be on climate issues, the media will not be able to turn away. Everyone everywhere will be discussing climate change, and it will be impossible for the climate scientists to be ignored. The military experts will not be ignored. For every climate change denier the Republicans trot in front of the camera, the president will be able to present nearly a hundred to rebut. For every obscure and dishonest claim the Republicans make about climate, the president will be able to present the overwhelming scientific consensus. Climate change finally will be widely recognized as the critical issue it is.

This ugly election is an historic opportunity not merely to change the political conversation in this country, but to create the political conversation that the entire world needs. President Obama must be bold. He must dare the Republicans to do their worst. He must make an example of them, and he must set an example for the entire world. This was a wave election not for the Republicans, but against the entire American political system. By standing tall in defense of the common economic good, by opening the door to the realization of people's greatest dreams, and by staking his presidency itself on responsibly addressing the climate crisis, President Obama can prove to future eligible voters both the necessity of engaging in the political process and that the Democrats are the only political party intelligent enough, responsible enough, and compassionate enough to use the political process for the betterment of all.

The stakes could not be higher. The entire world cannot afford anything less. The mere fact of his presidency makes Barack Obama an historic figure, but in the final two years of his presidency he can redefine the future not only of this nation, but of humanity itself.




“Democrats have to reclaim the mantle of being the people's party, and they must fight any Republican efforts that will widen the income gap, undermine civil and human rights, or loosen protections on workers, consumers, the environment, and the historically and institutionally disadvantaged. Democrats must stop playing political football with people's dreams and aspirations, they must fight for them in ways that are clear and consistent and that draw the broadest possible distinctions with the Republican agenda of greed and exclusion. The opportunities for Democrats now are huge, if they take them.”

This article is a highly passionate defense of President Obama and Democratic political viewpoints. It is a call to arms in a time when many of our members are discouraged. I did wake up the morning after the election thinking of how we could fight harder and more effectively. To me we will fail when we do not work hard enough to bring out the minority vote. If that means canvassing to get all eligible voters registered and yes, with their precious picture ID card in hand, and right now, long before the next election, forming political action groups of the poor and disenfranchised.

Our natural political bases are the poor and the lower Middle Class city dwellers, who will suffer without Democratic social and economic aid; and on the other end of the scale, those highly educated liberals who have been behind social change and service to the poor for as long as I have been voting. They are white, but have no link with racists and other rightist radicals. Many of them verge onto the position of socialism. They are at the upper end of the income range, but they believe in sharing their wealth and interacting personally with those who are not as lucky or economically savvy. They're the good guys.

We Democrats tend to be more open on issues like economic group status, personal non-conformity, freedom from fundamentalist religion on the level of government and the schools, learning lessons from our history and that of Western thought in general, and using scientific knowledge or other documented facts for our information sources. The Republicans don't usually like NPR, while I love it. The Republicans, at least the Tea Party branch, are trying to close the public school system, stop dark skinned minorities from voting, and gut the Social Security, WIC, Medicare and Medicaid upon which many of our population depend for their health and survival. Personally, I am nowhere near the radical left, but I would like to see our tax structure and social safety net to be much more like that of Scandinavian countries where the people are highly educated and, yes, dependent on the government for their healthcare system. If President Obama had set up a “one payer” system with his medical reform, I would be happier. He couldn't have passed that, of course. The conservative outcry would have been heard all the way to China. Even now many rightists in Congress are vowing to dismantle the Affordable Healthcare Act completely. I don't know if they can manage it, of course. That is what we have to fight against, though. The war goes on.






Police Can Seize And Sell Assets Even When The Owner Broke No Law – NPR
By Laura Sullivan
November 10, 2014

You don't have to be convicted of a crime — or even accused of one — for police to seize your car or other property. It's legal. Several videos online are shedding some light on the controversial practice.

The practice is called civil asset forfeiture, and every year it brings cities millions of dollars in revenue, which often goes directly to the police budget. Police confiscate cars, jewelry, cash and homes they think are connected to crime. But the people these things belong to may have done nothing wrong.

In one video posted by The New York Times, Harry S. Connelly, the city attorney of Las Cruces, N.M., gleefully describes how the city collects these "little goodies," calling it a "gold mine."

He describes to a roomful of local officials from across the state how Las Cruces police officers waited outside a bar for a man they hoped would walk out drunk because they "could hardly wait" to get their hands on his 2008 Mercedes, which they then hoped to put up for auction.

"We could be czars," he tells the room. "We could own the city. We could be in the real estate business."

It is legal for law enforcement agencies to take property from people who haven't been convicted of a crime.

Ezekiel Edwards, director of the criminal law reform project at the ACLU, tells NPR you don't even have to be charged with a crime.

"That's one of the surprising things to people," Edwards says. "It's also what makes it so rife for abuse."

The concept is that police are, in theory, bringing charges against the property. They are saying this property is being used in the furtherance of a crime. That's why, Edwards says, the cases are titled U.S. v. $4,000. Or U.S. v. White Cadillac.

Prosecutors say the seizures are helpful tools to combat drug dealers and drunken drivers. But for people who haven't committed a crime, the cases are expensive to contest and often disproportionately affect people without means or access to a lawyer.

Some states in recent years have told local police departments they can no longer keep the proceeds of the seizures for the general fund for the department. The money, for example, may have to be earmarked for a fund for drunk driving prevention. But some local municipalities have gotten around that rule by partnering in seizure cases with the federal government, which shares the money collected and has no such restrictions.




“You don't have to be convicted of a crime — or even accused of one — for police to seize your car or other property. It's legal. Several videos online are shedding some light on the controversial practice. The practice is called civil asset forfeiture, and every year it brings cities millions of dollars in revenue, which often goes directly to the police budget. Police confiscate cars, jewelry, cash and homes they think are connected to crime. But the people these things belong to may have done nothing wrong.... Harry S. Connelly, the city attorney of Las Cruces, N.M., gleefully describes how the city collects these 'little goodies,' calling it a 'gold mine.' He describes to a roomful of local officials from across the state how Las Cruces police officers waited outside a bar for a man they hoped would walk out drunk because they 'could hardly wait' to get their hands on his 2008 Mercedes, which they then hoped to put up for auction. 'We could be czars,' he tells the room. 'We could own the city. We could be in the real estate business.'... Ezekiel Edwards, director of the criminal law reform project at the ACLU, tells NPR you don't even have to be charged with a crime. 'That's one of the surprising things to people,' Edwards says. 'It's also what makes it so rife for abuse.' The concept is that police are, in theory, bringing charges against the property. They are saying this property is being used in the furtherance of a crime. That's why, Edwards says, the cases are titled U.S. v. $4,000. Or U.S. v. White Cadillac.... But some local municipalities have gotten around that rule by partnering in seizure cases with the federal government, which shares the money collected and has no such restrictions.”

It's hard for me to see how this outright theft could really be legal. Surely the Constitution has something to say about it. See this website on the subject. https://www.aclu.org/criminal-law-reform – and also the Wikipedia article called “Asset Forfeiture.” Much of what is now going on along these lines comes from the RICO Act OF 1970 and the US PATRIOT ACT of 2001. In cases of egregious police activity, the ACLU has been involved. It is such an indirect tactic that it seems grossly unfair to me, and it is clear that it is being abused by some cities just to put money into their coffers. It should be unconstitutional. If it's not, maybe an amendment to the Constitution needs to be written to outlaw this process of waiting outside a bar for a drunk to come staggering out so the cops can impound his car and sell it for their own income. I hate to use such crude terminology, but that really sucks!

ACLU Criminal Law Reform – “Founded in 1998 and formerly known as the Drug Law Reform Project, the Criminal Law Reform Project focuses its work at the “front end” of the criminal justice system, from policing to sentencing, with an emphasis on ending our nation's punitive drug policies, which have failed to achieve public safety and health while putting unprecedented numbers of people behind bars and eroding constitutional rights.

Read More About the Criminal Law Reform Project »
In order to put an end to the mass an end to excessively harsh crime policies that result in mass incarceration and stand in the way of a just and equal society, we should focus on several areas including:

The goal of the criminal justice system should be humane and sensible policies that respect basic human rights and liberties and make the best use of limited resources to help keep us safe.

October 24, 2012

The Criminal Law Reform Project is a division of the national ACLU. Our goal is to put an end to excessively harsh crime policies that result in mass incarceration and stand in the way of a just and equal society.

Founded in 1998 and formerly known as the Drug Law Reform Project, the Project focuses its work at the “front end” of the criminal justice system, from policing to sentencing, with an emphasis on ending our nation's punitive drug policies, which have failed to achieve public safety and health while putting unprecedented numbers of people behind bars and eroding constitutional rights. We fulfill our mission through strategic litigation and advocacy that promotes reform of the criminal justice system and drug laws in particular, reduces the number of people entering the system, and protects the constitutional rights of those in the system.

The Project's current priorities include: challenging police and prosecutorial misconduct and other government abuses of power; reducing reliance on incarceration, with a focus on decriminalizing drug offenses and shortening sentencing schemes overall; and reducing racial disparity in the criminal justice system through challenging the selective enforcement of criminal laws. In addition to these core priorities, the Project also works in the following areas: marijuana law reform, including protecting emerging rights of the seriously-ill to use medical marijuana; reducing the collateral consequences of drug convictions; and addressing the criminal justice implications of emerging surveillance technologies.



Asset forfeiture
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Asset forfeiture or asset seizure is a form of confiscation of assets by the state, pursuant to law. It typically applies to the alleged proceeds or instrumentalities[Note 1] of crime. Some jurisdictions specifically use the term "confiscation" instead of forfeiture. Civil and administrative asset forfeiture, or forfeiture without a conviction and sometimes in the absence of evidence, both draw major criticism.

Civil and criminal law

Most legal systems distinguish between the criminal and the civil, generally using separate courts, different procedures and different evidentiary rules. The traditional view is that crimes are public wrongs and that the criminal law addresses those who harm society through morally culpable acts in order that punishment may be imposed and potential offenders may thereby be deterred from committing similar offenses. Criminal proceedings are therefore “officially designated ceremonies of guilt designation” and the label “criminal” carries with it a social stigma, which is not imposed on the losing party in a civil action. Because of this stigma and the potential punishment, which may be imposed by a criminal court, legal systems provide procedural protections above those available to a respondent in a civil case. For example, criminal proceedings require a higher standard of proof.

While the traditional view of civil and criminal proceedings might be described as neighboring countries divided by a common border, this dichotomy is not as distinct as that metaphor might suggest. In recent years there has been a growing homogeneity between criminal and civil procedures. Criminal cases now often involve civil, or quasi-civil, procedures and some civil litigation has become quasi-criminal. Indeed it has been said that almost every attribute associated with the criminal law also appears in civil law and vice versa. This “significant disintegration of the wall between criminal and civil proceedings” has occurred on a number of fronts and is due, at least in part, to the fact that multiple strategies are now used to deal with crime. An early example was the use of injunctions to protect victims of domestic violence, even though, to obtain such an injunction, the plaintiff may be alleging the commission of a criminal assault. Rather than the traditional dichotomize perspective therefore, legal proceedings might be better seen as a continuum, with distinctly civil proceedings at one end and clearly criminal proceedings at the other. Between the two ends of the continuum are a range of possibilities, each of which may be more or less criminal or civil.

Civil asset forfeiture has been harshly criticized by civil liberties advocates for its greatly reduced standards for conviction, reverse onus, and financial conflicts of interests arising when the law enforcement agencies who decide whether or not to seize assets stand to keep those assets for themselves.[1][2][3][4]

Effectiveness[edit]

Proponents of seizure suggest that it is a necessary tool to prevent drug trafficking or other crimes. Statistics submitted by the South African Police during the civil asset forfeiture trial of Simon Prophet indicate that civil asset forfeiture has failed to prevent methamphetamine drug crime in South Africa. Former United States president George H. W. Bush said, "Asset forfeiture laws allow [the government] to take the alleged ill-gotten gains of drug kingpins and use them to put more cops on the streets."

United States

There are two types of forfeiture cases, criminal and civil. Approximately half of all forfeiture cases practiced today are civil, although many of those are filed in parallel to a related criminal case. In civil forfeiture cases, the US Government sues the item of property, not the person; the owner is effectively a third-party claimant. The burden is on the Government to establish that the property is subject to forfeiture by a "preponderance of the evidence." If it is successful, the owner may yet prevail by establishing an "innocent owner" defense.

Federal civil forfeiture cases usually start with a seizure of property followed by the mailing of a notice of seizure from the seizing agency (generally the DEA or FBI) to the owner. The owner then has 35 days to file a claim with the seizing agency. The owner must file this claim in order to later protect his property in court. Once the claim is filed with the agency, the U.S. Attorney has 90 days to review the claim and to file a civil complaint in U.S. District Court. The owner then has 35 days to file a judicial claim in court asserting his ownership interest. Within 21 days of filing the judicial claim, the owner must also file an answer denying the allegations in the complaint. Once done, the forfeiture case is fully litigated in court.[17]

In civil cases, the owner need not be judged guilty of any crime; it is possible for the Government to prevail by proving that someone other than the owner used the property to commit a crime. In contrast, criminal forfeiture is usually carried out in a sentence following a conviction and is a punitive act against the offender.

The United States Marshals Service is responsible for managing and disposing of properties seized and forfeited by Department of Justice agencies. It currently manages around $2.4 billion worth of property. The United States Treasury Department is responsible for managing and disposing of properties seized by Treasury agencies. The goal of both programs is to maximize the net return from seized property by selling at auctions and to the private sector and then using the property and proceeds for law enforcement purposes.

History[edit]

Congress has incrementally expanded the government's authority to disrupt and dismantle criminal enterprises and their money laundering activities since the early 1970s. They have done this by enacting various anti-money laundering and forfeiture laws such as the RICO Act of 1970 and the US Patriot Act of 2001.