Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Talked for 16 Hours Before He Was Read His Rights
April 27th, 2013Via: Salon:
According to the AP, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev answered questions for 16 hours before he was read the Miranda warning that he could remain silent and could ask for a lawyer. Once Tsarnaev was told that, he stopped talking. (So much for the idea that everyone has heard Miranda warnings so many times on TV that they have become an empty ritual.) The AP also reports that the investigators questioning him were “surprised when a magistrate judge and a representative from the U.S. Attorney’s office entered the hospital room.” The investigators “had planned to keep questioning him.”
Wow. That’s bad no matter your point of view. If you think Tsarnaev doesn’t deserve the normal protections American law affords criminal suspects, then you’d want the FBI to keep at him as long as they chose. Or if, like me, you’re worried about how far the Obama administration’s Justice Department has stretched the limited “public safety” exception the Supreme Court has allowed for questioning suspects about ongoing danger without Miranda warnings, 16 hours sounds expansive.
Gold Futures Log Biggest One-Day Gain of the Year
April 26th, 2013Via: MarketWatch:
Gold futures jumped by nearly $40 an ounce on Thursday to log the biggest one-day gain of the year, supported by physical demand for the precious metal, prospects for easier global monetary policies and a weaker U.S. dollar.
Thursday’s rally has brought gold back to roughly 50% of the massive recent sell off, said Phil Storer, director of trading at Dillion Gage Inc., a precious-metals dealer and refiner.
Corexit: Countless Gulf Residents with Symptoms Resembling Something from a Sci-Fi Horror Film, Bleeding from Nose, Ears, Breasts, Anus; Others Complain of Cognitive Damage
April 26th, 2013Via: Huffington Post:
Three years ago, when BP’s Deepwater Horizon began leaking some 210 million gallons of Louisiana Crude into the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. government allowed the company to apply chemical “dispersants” to the blossoming oil slick to prevent toxic gunk from reaching the fragile bays, beaches, and mangroves of the coast, where so much marine life originates. But a number of recent studies show that BP and the feds may have made a huge mistake, for which everything from microscopic organisms to bottlenose dolphins are now paying the highest price.
DHS Used 1,000 More Rounds Per Person than Army in 2012
April 26th, 2013Via: Fox:
Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz said Thursday that the Department of Homeland Security is using roughly 1,000 rounds of ammunition more per person than the U.S. Army, as he and other lawmakers sharply questioned DHS officials on their “massive” bullet buys.
“It is entirely … inexplicable why the Department of Homeland Security needs so much ammunition,” Chaffetz, R-Utah, said at a hearing.
…
Chaffetz, who chairs one of the House oversight subcommittees holding the hearing Thursday, revealed that the department currently has more than 260 million rounds in stock. He said the department bought more than 103 million rounds in 2012 and used 116 million that same year — among roughly 70,000 agents.
Comparing that with the small-arms purchases procured by the U.S. Army, he said the DHS is churning through between 1,300 and 1,600 rounds per officer, while the U.S. Army goes through roughly 350 rounds per soldier.
He noted that is “roughly 1,000 rounds more per person.”
“Their officers use what seems to be an exorbitant amount of ammunition,” he said.
Nick Nayak, chief procurement officer for the Department of Homeland Security, did not challenge Chaffetz’s numbers.
U.S. Believes Syria Used Chemical Weapons
April 25th, 2013Here we go again.
Via: USA Today:
The United States now believes the Syrian government has used chemical weapons against its people, according to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and a White House letter to Congress.
The White House informed Congress about the chemical weapons use in letters to Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and John McCain, R-Ariz., on Thursday. These announcements are the first U.S. indication of confidence in claims of Syria’s chemical weapons use.
“The intelligence community has been assessing information for some time on this issue,” Hagel said. “The decision to make this conclusion was reached in the last 24 hours.”
The Defense secretary, speaking to reporters in Abu Dhabi, also said the U.S. government believes “any use of chemical weapons in Syria very likely originated” with the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
President Obama has said the use of chemical weapons would be a “red line” that could trigger U.S. reaction.
But the assessment of likely chemical weapon use in Syria will not automatically trigger action, including military intervention, said a senior Defense department official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the issue.
More: Syrian Blood Tests Positive for Sarin Gas, U.S. Spies Say
DARPA Developing Alternative to GPS; Doesn’t Depend on Satellites
April 25th, 2013Via: AFP:
To that end, researchers at DARPA and the University of Michigan have created a new system that works without satellites to determine position, time and direction, all contained within a eight-cubic-millimeter chip.
The tiny chip holds three gyroscopes, three accelerometers and an atomic clock, which, together, work as an autonomous navigation system.
DARPA envisages using this technology to replace GPS in some contexts, especially in small-caliber ammunition or for monitoring people.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Unarmed When Barrage of Bullets Hit Boat
April 25th, 2013Via: Washington Post:
Although police feared he was heavily armed, the suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing had no firearms when he came under a barrage of police gunfire that struck the boat where he was hiding, according to multiple federal law enforcement officials.
Authorities said they were desperate to capture Dzhokhar Tsarnaev so he could be questioned. The FBI, however, declined to discuss what prompted the gunfire.
Other law enforcement officials said the shooting may have been prompted by the chaos of the moment and some action that led the officers to believe Tsarnaev had fired a weapon or was about to detonate explosives.
Israel Airport Security ‘Allowed to Read Tourists’ Email’
April 25th, 2013If you think this is good, why not go for the bonus round: Israel Cloned Travelers’ Passports to Carry Out Assassination.
Via: AFP:
Israeli security officials at Ben Gurion airport are legally allowed to demand access to tourists’ email accounts and deny them entry if they refuse, the country’s top legal official said on Wednesday.
Details of the policy were laid out by Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein in a written response to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), the group said in a statement.
In June 2012, ACRI’s Lila Margalit wrote to the attorney general demanding clarification following media reports about security officials demanding access to tourists’ email accounts before allowing them into the country.
“In a response dated April 24, 2013, the attorney general’s office confirmed this practice,” ACRI said, quoting sections of the document which said it was only done in exceptional cases where “relevant suspicious signs” were evident and only done with the tourist’s “consent”.
IBM Robotic Coworker Will Help Engineers Fix Broken Systems
April 25th, 2013Via: Network World:
When it comes to fixing broken systems, especially in remote locations, engineers could soon turn to a new mobile robotic system IBM is developing that could help them more easily find the broken equipment, offer up information about the system and provide real-time visual support from supervising experts.
The mobile maintenance, repair and operations prototype includes an application that lets a supervisor monitor an engineer’s progress towards the maintenance site, and a robotic arm coupled with a camera system, a microphone and laser pointer.
Airborne Terrorist Attack Study To Be Conducted In Subways By NYPD, Brookhaven Laboratory
April 25th, 2013Via: Huffington Post:
A multimillion-dollar airflow study will be conducted this summer to help authorities better understand the risks of airborne terrorist attacks on New York City and its subway system, including those posed by chemical, biological and radiological weapons.
The NYPD and experts from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory will conduct the tests in July. The Subway-Surface Air Flow Exchange study, or S-SAFE, is funded by a $3.4-million transit security grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The study, according to a statement released Wednesday by NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne, is “the first of its scale to study airflow in a dense, complex urban environment both below and above-ground.” Researchers from the Argonne National Laboratory and the Los Alamos National Laboratory, along with other meteorologists and engineers, will assist scientists from BNL as they “track the movement of harmless tracer gases” through the urban atmosphere — monitoring that movement through about 200 air-sampling tracking devices placed both at street-level and in the subway system.
