Gangs Ruled Prison as For-Profit Model Put Blood on Floor
July 13th, 2013Via: Bloomberg:
In the four privately run prisons holding Mississippi (BEESMS) inmates last year, the assault rate was three times higher on average than in state-run lockups. None was as violent as the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility.
The for-profit detention center, surrounded by razor wire and near the forests and farms of central Mississippi, had 27 assaults per 100 offenders last year, more than any other prison in the state, according to an April court filing. Staff shortages, mismanagement and lax oversight had long turned it into a cauldron of violence, where female employees had sex with inmates, pitted them against each other, gave them weapons and joined their gangs, according to court records, interviews and a U.S. Justice Department report.
“It was like a jungle,” said Craig Kincaid, 24, a former inmate. “It was an awful place to go when you’re trying to get your life together.”
More than 130,000 state and federal convicts throughout the U.S. — 8 percent of the total — now live in private prisons such as Walnut Grove, as public officials buy into claims that the institutions can deliver profits while preparing inmates for life after release, saving tax dollars and creating jobs.
No national data tracks whether the facilities are run as well as public ones, and private-prison lobbyists for years have successfully fought efforts to bring them under federal open-records law. Yet regulatory, court and state records show that the industry has repeatedly experienced the kind of staffing shortages and worker turnover that helped produce years of chaos at Walnut Grove.
Research Credit: RJ
Boston Police Officer Arrested in Plymouth for Possession of Military Grade Explosives
July 13th, 2013Via: CBS:
A Boston police officer is free on $1,000 bail after police in Plymouth say they found a cache of military grade explosives in a shed at his former home.
Kirk Merricks, 43, of Dorchester, was charged Friday with 11 counts of possession of explosives, along with theft and ammunition charges.
Police say they received a call on Thursday from the homeowner, identified as Merricks’ estranged wife, saying she was cleaning out a bedroom closet and found four ¼ sticks of TNT and assorted ammunition in a metal box marked “highly explosive.”
The bomb squad responded to the home on Paddington Way, where explosives experts recovered a briefcase from a shed outside the home that had “a bandolier that contained four military-grade M203 rounds, six detonator cords with attached blasting caps and two rolls of timed fused cord connected to non-electric fixing mechanisms,” District Attorney’s office reported.
Merricks is accused of stealing those explosives and storing them in the shed.
Kremlin Security Agency to Buy Typewriters to Avoid Leaks
July 13th, 2013Is this real?
As a fan of Meanwhile in Russia, nothing would surprise me.
Via: BBC:
Russia’s agency responsible for the Kremlin security is buying typewriters – a move reportedly prompted by recent leaks by WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden.
A 486,540-rouble (£9,860) order for electric typewriters has been placed by the FSO agency on the state procurement website.
The FSO has not commented on why it needs the old-fashioned devices.
But an agency source told Russia’s Izvestiya newspaper the aim was to prevent leaks from computer hardware.
“After scandals with the distribution of secret documents by WikiLeaks, the exposes by Edward Snowden, reports about Dmitry Medvedev being bugged during his visit to the G20 London summit (in 2009), it has been decided to expand the practice of creating paper documents,” the source said.
The source added that typewriters were already being used at Russia’s defence and emergencies ministries for drafts and secret notes, and some reports had been prepared for President Vladimir Putin by typewriter.
Unlike printers, every typewriter had its own individual typing pattern which made it possible to link every document to a particular machine, Izvestiya said.
Japan Withdraws HPV Vaccine Recommendation for Girls
July 13th, 2013Via: Medscape:
The Japanese government withdrew its recommendation to use human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines in girls last week, citing concerns from the public about adverse effects, according to news reports.
The announcement is in stark contrast to the pronouncement last week by health officials in the United States that vaccination rates in teenage girls should be increased after a study concluded that estimated vaccine effectiveness is “high.”
The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare is not suspending vaccination, but has instructed local governments not to promote the use of the medicine while analyses are conducted about adverse effects, such as long-term pain and numbness, according to the Japanese newspaper The Asahi Shimbun.
“The decision does not mean that the vaccine itself is problematic from the viewpoint of safety,” said Mariko Momoi, who heads a ministry task force looking into the controversy and is a vice president of the International University of Health and Welfare in O-tawara, Tochigi, Japan. “By implementing investigations, we want to offer information that can make the people feel more at ease.”
According to a report in the Japan Times, 8.29 million people had received the HPV vaccine as of December 2012, and there were 1968 cases of concerning adverse events reported as of March 2013. Of these adverse events, 106 were described as “serious cases of pains or body convulsions, pains in joints, or difficulty in walking.”
Research Credit: almaverdad2
ATLAS Humanoid Robot
July 12th, 2013Via: DARPA / Boston Dynamics:
Say hello to ATLAS, one of the most advanced humanoid robots ever built!
ATLAS was developed for DARPA by Boston Dynamics. Software-focused teams from Tracks B and C of the DARPA Robotics Challenge will use the robot to compete in the first physical competition of the Challenge in December 2013 at the Homestead-Miami Speedway.
The DARPA Robotics Challenge seeks to advance the technology necessary to create robots capable of assisting humans in disaster response.
For more information on ATLAS and the Challenge, please visit www.theroboticschallenge.org.
Secretary Of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano To Become Head Of UC System
July 12th, 2013Via: CBS:
U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano will become the first female president of the University of California system, officials announced Friday.
“I am pleased to announce that the Special Committee has nominated Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano to serve as the 20th president of the University of California,” UC Regent and Committee Chair Sherry Lansing said.
Napolitano, who will resign from her federal post Friday, will head the 145-year-old, 10-campus system that includes local schools such as UCLA, UC Riverside and UC Irvine. The UC system also includes five medical centers, three affiliated national laboratories and a statewide agriculture and natural resources program.
NSA Code Used in Google Phone to “Enhance Security” *wink*
July 12th, 2013Via: Democracy Now:
The tech giant Google has confirmed the National Security Agency furnished some of the code installed in its new Android phone. The NSA says the code is intended to enhance security against hackers and marketers, but will not confirm whether it also aids the agency’s PRISM program monitoring the global Internet.
Australia: Telstra Has Been Storing Customer Data on Behalf of U.S. Government for Over a Decade
July 12th, 2013Via: Sydney Morning Herald:
Telstra agreed more than a decade ago to store huge volumes of electronic communications it carried between Asia and America for potential surveillance by United States intelligence agencies.
Under the previously secret agreement, the telco was required to route all communications involving a US point of contact through a secure storage facility on US soil that was staffed exclusively by US citizens carrying a top-level security clearance.
The data Telstra stored for the US government includes the actual content of emails, online messages and phone calls.
The US Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation also demanded that Telstra “provide technical or other assistance to facilitate … electronic surveillance”.
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In 2001, when the “network security agreement” was signed, Telstra was 50.1 per cent owned by the Commonwealth Government.
Encryption According to Microsoft: Cops and Spooks Can Access Your Data
July 12th, 2013Via: Guardian:
Microsoft has collaborated closely with US intelligence services to allow users’ communications to be intercepted, including helping the National Security Agency to circumvent the company’s own encryption, according to top-secret documents obtained by the Guardian.
The files provided by Edward Snowden illustrate the scale of co-operation between Silicon Valley and the intelligence agencies over the last three years. They also shed new light on the workings of the top-secret Prism program, which was disclosed by the Guardian and the Washington Post last month.
The documents show that:
* Microsoft helped the NSA to circumvent its encryption to address concerns that the agency would be unable to intercept web chats on the new Outlook.com portal;
* The agency already had pre-encryption stage access to email on Outlook.com, including Hotmail;
* The company worked with the FBI this year to allow the NSA easier access via Prism to its cloud storage service SkyDrive, which now has more than 250 million users worldwide;
* Microsoft also worked with the FBI’s Data Intercept Unit to “understand” potential issues with a feature in Outlook.com that allows users to create email aliases;
* In July last year, nine months after Microsoft bought Skype, the NSA boasted that a new capability had tripled the amount of Skype video calls being collected through Prism;
* Material collected through Prism is routinely shared with the FBI and CIA, with one NSA document describing the program as a “team sport”.
Scientists Create Artificial Human Chromosome
July 11th, 2013Via: Independent:
Scientists have created genetically-engineered mice with artificial human chromosomes in every cell of their bodies, as part of a series of studies showing that it may be possible to treat genetic diseases with a radically new form of gene therapy.
In one of the unpublished studies, researchers made a human artificial chromosome in the laboratory from chemical building blocks rather than chipping away at an existing human chromosome, indicating the increasingly powerful technology behind the new field of synthetic biology.
The development comes as the Government announces today that it will invest tens of millions of pounds in synthetic biology research in Britain, including an international project to construct all the 16 individual chromosomes of the yeast fungus in order to produce the first synthetic organism with a complex genome.
A synthetic yeast with man-made chromosomes could eventually be used as a platform for making new kinds of biological materials, such as antibiotics or vaccines, while human artificial chromosomes could be used to introduce healthy copies of genes into the diseased organs or tissues of people with genetic illnesses, scientists said.
