Archive for the 'Dictatorship' Category
The Story of Your Enslavement
December 16th, 2013It’s really The Story of Humanity’s Enslavement. The piece ends with the following message: “Wake up. To see the farm is to leave it.” Many of you might think something like, “That’s a bit of a parsimonious way to conclude. Now what? I get it, but I still have to show up to work tomorrow […]
Former Governor of the Bank of Israel to Become Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve
December 16th, 2013Via: Bloomberg: Former Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer is President Barack Obama’s leading candidate to become vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, people familiar with the selection process said. Fischer, 70, would replace Janet Yellen as the Fed’s No. 2 official, according to the people, who asked for anonymity because the decision isn’t final. […]
China Landed Rover on Moon
December 14th, 2013Update: Chinese Rover Landed on Moon and Launched Successfully Via: CNN: China’s first lunar rover deployed successfully from the unmanned spacecraft Chang’e-3 that landed on the moon Saturday. Jade Rabbit (called Yutu in Chinese) is a six-wheeled lunar rover equipped with at least four cameras and two mechanical legs that can dig up soil samples […]
Air Strike Kills 15 Civilians in Yemen by Mistake
December 13th, 2013This is worth seeing: Via: Reuters: Fifteen people on their way to a wedding in Yemen were killed in an air strike after their party was mistaken for an al Qaeda convoy, local security officials said on Thursday. The officials did not identify the plane in the strike in central al-Bayda province, but tribal and […]
ATF Uses Rogue Tactics in Storefront Stings Across Nation
December 13th, 2013Via: Journal Sentinel: The Journal Sentinel reviewed thousands of pages of court records, police reports and other documents and interviewed dozens of people involved in six ATF operations nationwide that were publicly praised by the ATF in recent years for nabbing violent criminals and making cities safer. Agents with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, […]
New Zealand: Customs Seizes Man’s Electronic Equipment
December 13th, 2013Via: New Zealand Herald: A backpacker coming home for Christmas had every bit of electronic equipment stripped from him at the airport. A Customs officer at Auckland International Airport took law graduate Sam Blackman’s two smartphones, iPad, an external hard drive and laptop – and demanded his passwords. Mr Blackman, 27, who was breaking up […]
Intel Contractors Give Millions to Lawmakers Overseeing Government Surveillance
December 12th, 2013Via: Maplight: In response to documents leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden, the congressional committees in charge of overseeing the government’s intelligence operations have come to the defense of the surveillance and data collection programs, and the agencies that administer them. The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate […]
Chinese Pilots Must Learn to Land in Thick Smog
December 12th, 2013Via: Guardian: Chinese authorities have told pilots who fly to Beijing they must be qualified to land their aircraft in the low visibility bought about by smog – the latest missive related to the capital’s heavy air pollution, which the government this week lauded as a beneficial shield against missile attacks. From 1 January pilots […]
FreeBSD Developers: Don’t Trust Intel/Via Random Number Generators
December 10th, 2013Via: Ars Technica: Developers of the FreeBSD operating system will no longer allow users to trust processors manufactured by Intel and Via Technologies as the sole source of random numbers needed to generate cryptographic keys that can’t easily be cracked by government spies and other adversaries. The change, which will be effective in the upcoming […]
What The Government Could Do With All That Location Data
December 10th, 2013Via: ACLU: We now know that the NSA is collecting location information en masse. As we’ve long said, location data is an extremely powerful set of information about people. To flesh out why that is true, here is the kind of future memo that we fear may someday soon be uncovered…
