Dakryn's Batshit Theory of the Week

[zabu of nΩd]

Congratulations to all UK citizens - your days of privacy from the government are officially over:

State to 'spy' on every phone call, email and web search
Every phone call, text message, email and website visit made by private citizens is to be stored for a year and will be available for monitoring by government bodies.

By Richard Edwards, Crime Correspondent
Published: 7:00AM GMT 10 Nov 2009

All telecoms companies and internet service providers will be required by law to keep a record of every customer’s personal communications, showing who they have contacted, when and where, as well as the websites they have visited.

Despite widespread opposition to the increasing amount of surveillance in Britain, 653 public bodies will be given access to the information, including police, local councils, the Financial Services Authority, the ambulance service, fire authorities and even prison governors.

They will not require the permission of a judge or a magistrate to obtain the information, but simply the authorisation of a senior police officer or the equivalent of a deputy head of department at a local authority.

Ministers had originally wanted to store the information on a single government-run database, but chose not to because of privacy concerns.

However the Government announced yesterday it was pressing ahead with privately held “Big Brother” databases that opposition leaders said amounted to “state-spying” and a form of “covert surveillance” on the public.

It is doing so despite its own consultation showing that it has little public support.

The Home Office admitted that only one third of respondents to its six-month consultation on the issue supported its proposals, with 50 per cent fearing that the scheme lacked sufficient safeguards to protect the highly personal data from abuse.

The new law will increase the amount of personal data that can be obtained by officials through the controversial Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), which is supposed to be used for fighting terrorism.

Although most private firms already hold details of every customer’s private calls and emails for their own business purposes, most only do so on an ad hoc basis and only for a period of several months.

The new rules, known as the Intercept Modernisation Programme, will not only force communications companies to keep their records for longer, but to expand the type of data they keep to include details of every website their customers visit, effectively registering every online click.

While public authorities will not be able to view the contents of these emails or phone calls, they can see the internet addresses, dates, times and identify recipients of calls.

Firms involved in storing the data, including Orange, BT and Vodafone, will be reimbursed at a cost to the taxpayer of £2 billion over 10 years.

Chris Grayling, the shadow home secretary, said he had fears about the abuse of the data. He said: “The big danger in all of this is 'mission creep’. This government keeps on introducing new powers to tackle terrorism and organised crime which end up being used for completely different purposes. We have to stop that from happening”.

David Davis, the former shadow home secretary, added: “Whilst this is no doubt necessary in pursuing terrorist suspects, the proposals are so intrusive that they should be subject to legal approval, and should not be available except in pursuit of the most serious crimes.”

The Information Commissioner’s Office also opposed the moves.

“The Information Commissioner believes that the case has yet to be made for the collection and processing of additional communications data for the population as a whole being relevant and not excessive,” a spokesman said.

Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, has criticised the amount the scheme will cost for what he said is effectively “state spying”.

He added yesterday: “It is simply not that easy to separate the bare details of a call from its content. What if a leading business person is ringing Alcoholics Anonymous?”

Ministers said that they still have to work with the communications industry to find the correct way of framing the proposal in law — meaning it will not come before Parliament until after the general election. But the Home Office yesterday insisted it would push the legislation through. Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, originally released a consultation paper in April.

Only 29 per cent of respondents supported the Government approach. Meanwhile the communications providers themselves questioned the cost of the scheme and whether it was even technically feasible.

John Yates, Britain’s head of anti-terrorism, has argued that the legislation is vital for his investigators.

David Hanson, the Home Office minister, said: “The consultation showed widespread recognition of the importance of communications data in protecting the public .. we will now work with communications service providers and others to develop these proposals, and aim to introduce necessary legislation as soon as possible.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/new...on-every-phone-call-email-and-web-search.html

Enjoy your police state!

 

[cookiecutter]

I'm pretty sure no educated 'liberal' leaning individual whole-heartedly supports this fraud of a bill but is jaded and pessimistic enough to acknowledge that this is most likely the best it's going to get.

Yep

so I would say that this bill is very relevant to cookiecutter's admittedly loaded response to the antagonism against the bill in question.

I am sort of half trolling at this point so feel free to ignore me

 

[Savern]

@ Vihris - thats unlikely to make it through the Commons with Labour's fragile majority, let alone the Lords. Will probably get pushed back for ammendments by which time the Conservatives will be in Govt. Labour are really such fucking retards.

 

[King Richard]

This made me laugh out loud.

Muggers Return Wallet After Seeing Army ID

MILWAUKEE — A Milwaukee Army reservist's military identification earned him some street cred Tuesday, when he says four men who mugged him at gunpoint returned his belongings and thanked him for his service after finding the ID.

The 21-year-old University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee student said he was walking home from work about 1:15 a.m. Tuesday when he was pulled into an alley and told to lay face down and with a gun to his neck. Four men took his wallet, $16, keys, his cell phone and even a PowerBar wrapper from his pants pockets, he said.

But the hostile tone quickly changed when one of the robbers, whom the reservist presumed was the leader, saw an Army ID in the wallet. The robber told the others to return the items and they put most of his belongings on the ground next to him, including the wrapper, the reservist said.

"The guy continued to say throughout the situation that he respects what I do and at one point he actually thanked me and he actually apologized," said the reservist, who asked not to be identified Tuesday because the robbers still had his keys.

The reservist said he asked the men, who all had hoods or hats covering their faces, if he could get up and they said he could before starting to walk away.

"The leader of the group actually walked back, gave me a quick fist bump, which was very strange," he said.

Milwaukee police spokeswoman Anne E. Schwartz said the reservist is credible and that officers still were looking for the suspects Tuesday.

The reservist didn't realize until later that his keys were not with him and he doesn't know if the robbers intended to keep those, he said. Still, he said he feels lucky.

"I'm just kind of awe struck that everything was given back to me due to just being in the military, " he said. "I realize in pretty much every other situation that wouldn't happen."

He said he's never been deployed, only having signed up for the Army Reserves about a year ago. He said he is the first person in his immediate family to join the military.

Schwartz said there were two other incidents within 40 minutes in the same area and police suspect the four men were involved in all of them. The robbers were unsuccessful at 12:35 a.m., when the 39-year-old man they approached ran into the street and started screaming.

Schwartz said within 10 minutes of that they approached a 47-year-old man — a convicted burglar who had a Department of Corrections inmate ID in his wallet — ordered him to the ground and pointed a gun at him. They took his wallet, apparently unfazed by that ID.

 

[unknown]

wow. that story is full of win

 

[audiophileguy]

http://www.cnn.com/news/loudobbs/

OMG. LOU DOBBS WAS AN ILLEGAL ALIEN AND HAS BEEN DEPORTED TO MEXICO!

 

[The Ozzman]

World gold supply running out; Goldfinger unavailable for comment

Aaron Regent, president of the Canadian gold giant, said that global output has been falling by roughly 1m ounces a year since the start of the decade. Total mine supply has dropped by 10pc as ore quality erodes, implying that the roaring bull market of the last eight years may have further to run.

"There is a strong case to be made that we are already at 'peak gold'," he told The Daily Telegraph at the RBC's annual gold conference in London.

Related Articles

*
Gold: how high can the price go?

"Production peaked around 2000 and it has been in decline ever since, and we forecast that decline to continue. It is increasingly difficult to find ore," he said.

Ore grades have fallen from around 12 grams per tonne in 1950 to nearer 3 grams in the US, Canada, and Australia. South Africa's output has halved since peaking in 1970.

The supply crunch has helped push gold to an all-time high, reaching $1,118 an ounce at one stage yesterday. The key driver over recent days has been the move by India's central bank to soak up half of the gold being sold by the International Monetary Fund. It is the latest sign that the rising powers of Asia and the commodity bloc are growing wary of Western paper money and debt.

China has quietly doubled holdings to 1,054 tonnes and is thought to be adding gradually on price dips, creating a market floor. Gold remains a tiny fraction of its $2.3 trillion in foreign reserves.

Gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs) – dubbed the "People's Central Bank" – have accumulated 1,778 tonnes, making them the fifth biggest holder after the US, Germany, France, and Italy.

Ross Norman, director of theBullionDesk.com, said exploration budgets had tripled since the start of the decade with stubbornly disappointing results so far.

Output fell a further 14pc in South Africa last year as companies were forced to dig ever deeper - at greater cost - to replace depleted reserves, not helped by "social uplift" rules and power cuts. Harmony Gold said yesterday that it may close two more mines over coming months due to poor ore grades.

Mr Norman said the "false mine of central banks" had been the only new source of gold supply this decade as they auction off reserves, but they are switching sides to become net buyers.

Barrick is moving fast to wind down the remaining 3m ounces of its infamous hedge book over the next twelve months, an implicit bet on rising gold prices over time.

Mr Regent said the company had waited too long to ditch the policy, which has made the company enemy number one among 'gold bug' enthusiasts. The hedges oblige Barrick to deliver part of its gold into futures contracts set long ago at levels far below today's spot prices.

The strategy worked well in the falling market of the 1990s, but has cost the company dear in lost profits this decade. "Hindsight is always 20/20," said Mr Regent, who was appointed from the outside earlier this year.

Barrick bit the bullet in the third quarter, taking a $5.7bn charge against earnings on hedge contracts. Liberation is at last in sight. In 2001 the hedge book topped 20m ounces.

Mr Regent said the hedge policy has weighed badly on the share price and irked investors, becoming a bone of contention at every meeting. The financial crisis brought matters to a head as markets fretted about counterparty risk. "It was clear to me that there were a significant number of institutions who wouldn't invest in Barrick because of the hedge book," he said.

Barrick produced 1.9m ounces of gold last quarter, down from 1.95m a year earlier. Costs have been "trending down" to $456 an ounce, though rising energy prices pose a fresh threat. Total reserves are 139m ounces, far ahead of rival Newmont Mining at 86m.

The hedge book venture has not been a happy one, but those who predicted that Barrick would eventually "blow up" on its contracts may owe the company an apology.

 

[Dak]

This bill is a step in the right direction that will hopefully lead to a single payer system. (not likely but maybe..)

36 million more people will be insured or become eligible for Medicaid
There will be a trillion dollars raised to help subsidize this.
There will be multiple measures to help control the costs of Medicare
We will stop subsidizing private insurers in Medicare Advantage
Closes the donut hole
Allows Medicare negotiation for drugs
Includes the seeds of a public option
Prohibits denials based on prior conditions; ends rescissions except for fraud
funds more education for doctors/nurses
Begins dozens of health prevention programs, pilots, surveys
Creates entities to evaluate and recommend better treatment, cost saving



The public option in this bill isn't nearly good enough but it raises medicaid coverage to 150% of the poverty line, outlaws recissions, and prevents insurance companies from raising premiums based on gender and medical conditions.

So yeah, dodens is correct in saying this is the best thing we are going to get. But honestly this is probably going to get gutted by the senate. With a public option you lose votes from Snowe, lieberman etc.

I love how proponents of this bill are still ignoring the glaring problem of cost. As usual with social program advocates, no one talks about how it is to be paid for.

It's cool though, China is in the process of taking us to task with the World Court right now over our debt, so lets see what happens after that.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

It's cool though, China is in the process of taking us to task with the World Court right now over our debt, so lets see what happens after that.

link?

 

[cookiecutter]

I love how proponents of this bill are still ignoring the glaring problem of cost. As usual with social program advocates, no one talks about how it is to be paid for.

It's cool though, China is in the process of taking us to task with the World Court right now over our debt, so lets see what happens after that.

The Congressional budget office said it was going to be deficit neutral so I don't know what your problem is.

 

[Cythraul]

I strongly suggest that you take the CBO's cost projections with respect to major policy changes with a very large grain of salt. Not only are CBO projections often wildly off the mark, but it is notoriously difficult to make accurate quantitative predictions about this sort of stuff since it relies on a whole host of assumptions about economic reality that are difficult, if not impossible, to predict. But I guess if you want to live in fantasy land, you can just swallow those numbers uncritically.

 

[cookiecutter]

It doesn't matter what because it will be passed either way

EDIT: We can pay for it by taxing the rich. America has become a socialist country after all.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

Along with probably another 300 pages tacked on the night before the vote, like with the climate/cap-and-trade bill. There's some seriously fucked up shit going on in Congress (and the White House) these days.

 

[cookiecutter]

If only we could go back to the glory days of America when we spent the money we didn't have on massive military buildups and overthrowing central american democracies.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

Obviously Bush's presidency was a travesty, but Obama's looks to be turning out no less of one. He actually seems more secretive and deceptive about what he's doing than Bush/Cheney were.

 

[Dak]

If only we could go back to the glory days of America when we spent the money we didn't have on massive military buildups and overthrowing central american democracies.

Who said those were the glory days? You are arguing with Libertarians, not neocons.

 

[skeptik]

He actually seems more secretive and deceptive about what he's doing than Bush/Cheney were.

I find this virtually impossible to buy, so elaborate.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

I find this virtually impossible to buy, so elaborate.

Obama's state secrets mistake

the US department of justice – the Barack Obama department of justice – has decided to uphold a Bush-era holding that Mohamed and four other torture victims should not have their day in a California court. The evidence those men might bring to light would threaten US national security, the government says, and so their case against the company that facilitated their extraordinary renditions should be thrown out entirely.

Obama Administration Invokes State Secrets Privilege…Again

Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement about the case, Shubert et. al v. Obama, that "there is no way for this case to move forward without jeopardizing ongoing intelligence activities that we rely upon to protect the safety of the American people."

The case is a class action suit brought by four Brooklynites alleging that the Bush administration engaged in wholesale dragnet surveillance of ordinary Americans in which they were unjustly caught because they regularly made phone calls and sent emails to individuals outside the U.S., specifically in the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Egypt, the Netherlands, and Norway.

Obama administration officials argued that even addressing or attempting to refute the plaintiffs’ claim would require the administration "to disclose intelligence sources and methods, or the lack thereof."

Wikileaks Airs U.S. Plans to Kill Pirate Bay, Monitor ISPs With Multinational ACTA Proposal

The new bill would place the internet under the firm grasp of international law authorities and industry officials. ISPs operating within the U.S. and the involved nations would be forced to fully disclose consumer information. Meanwhile, use of internet privacy tools would be greatly restricted and made illegal in many cases.

Obama names 110 White House visitors

No previous administration has released such a list, though the information out so far is incomplete. Only about 110 names —and 481 visits —out of the hundreds of thousands who have visited the Obama White House were made public. Like the Bush administration before it, Obama is arguing that any release is voluntary, not required by law, despite two federal court rulings to the contrary.

More Obama Secrecy -- This Time On Cheney's Plame Interview

The Justice Department is declining to release Dick Cheney's interview with federal investigators looking into the Valerie Plame leak, arguing -- as it did under President Bush -- that doing so would discourage future high-level officials from cooperating with criminal investigations.

Obama's Press List

Presidents are free to conduct press conferences however they like, but the decision to preselect questioners is an odd one, especially for a White House famously pledged to openness. We doubt that President Bush, who was notorious for being parsimonious with follow-ups, would have gotten away with prescreening his interlocutors. Mr. Obama can more than handle his own, so our guess is that this is an attempt to discipline reporters who aren't White House favorites.

So it's probably roughly on par with the Bush era. That's bad enough, but it's worse that Obama made such a big deal about transparency in his campaign promises. He's taken more of a "stance" toward openness than the Bush admin did, but most of it just looks like lip service. He also broke his promise to allow five days of public scrutiny before signing any non-emergency bills into law.

It doesn't help that we have these massive climate and health bills going through Congress right now, and the Democratic leadership is doing its damnedest to rushed them through without sufficient time for public analysis and debate:

Limbaugh claims the climate bill wasn't written when it came up for a vote

In the early morning of June 26, more than 300 pages of changes were adopted by the Rules Committee. And later in the day, the House voted 217-205 to accept those changes.

Limbaugh claimed that "there was not even a copy of the bill in the well of the House. . . . It wasn't even written." And indeed, it's clear from the Congressional Record that many lawmakers were frustrated that the copy at the desk consisted of two parts: the original bill and a second part that included changes that were compiled by the Rules Committee and adopted by the entire chamber. So in that sense, there is some truth to Limbaugh's claim that the bill "wasn't even written."

Speed-reading the health care reform bill?

"The pattern over the last several years has been to bring them up with no notice in the middle of the night, so given that, I'll settle for an ironclad 72 hours," he said.

Harper doesn't think three months is unreasonable. "When you're talking about legislation as significant and complex as the health care legislation, three months is not too long at all," Harper said. "In my opinion, it's too big an issue to handle between January and October of a single year."

 

[Dak]

I admit being impressed with someone doing some of their own research around here instead of just blindly following Obamamania.

 

[cookiecutter]

Obama is the new Stalin. I predict the mustache will appear in less than a year.