Justice Department’s Warrantless Spying Increased 600 Percent in Decade
September 29th, 2012Via: Wired:
The Justice Department use of warrantless internet and telephone surveillance methods known as pen register and trap-and-trace has exploded in the last decade, according to government documents the American Civil Liberties obtained via a Freedom of Information Act claim.
Pen registers obtain, in real time, non-content information of outbound telephone and internet communications, such as phone numbers dialed, and the sender and recipient (and sometimes subject line) of an e-mail message. A trap-and-trace acquires the same information, but for inbound communications to a target. No probable-cause warrant is needed to obtain the data. Judges are required to sign off on these orders when the authorities say the information is relevant to an investigation.
The One About the Unemployment Rate Dropping in Los Angeles
September 28th, 2012Via: CNN:
The unemployment rate has been falling lately in Los Angeles County, but not for the right reasons.
Last month, the jobless rate for the county fell to 11%, down from 12.4% a year earlier.
While that’s far higher than the 8.1% unemployment rate for the nation as a whole, it nevertheless seems to show progress for the City of Angels… right?
Wrong. In Los Angeles, the falling unemployment rate is slightly misleading, just as it has been for the country overall.
When surveyed by the government, fewer L.A. residents say they’re unemployed compared to a year ago. But it’s not because they’re finding jobs. It’s because they’re dropping out of the labor force altogether.
75% Tax on Top Incomes in France
September 28th, 2012Via: Reuters:
President Francois Hollande’s Socialist government unveiled sharp tax hikes on business and the rich on Friday in a 2013 budget aimed at showing France has the fiscal rigor to remain at the core of the euro zone.
…
To the dismay of business leaders who fear an exodus of top talent, the government confirmed a temporary 75 percent super-tax rate for earnings over one million euros and a new 45 percent band for revenues over 150,000 euros.
Virginia: Family Killed, Husband and Wife Both Had Direct Links to Black World Contractors
September 28th, 2012Update: ‘He said he wanted to expose something at work’
Where did Albert Peterson work after he left Northrop Grumman?
Update/Answer: BAE
Cryptogon reader Alma Verdad found his Linkedin page which indicates that he was a, “Senior Subcontracts Administrator at BAE Systems Information Technology.”
Via: Daily Mail:
Mr Peterson, also mentioned pressures at work that troubled Maggie.
Explaining his increasingly erratic behavior, she said: ‘He said he wanted to expose something at work. He also got the impression at work, that if they didn’t vote for Obama and get him elected, they would lose their jobs,’
—End Update—
Via: ABC News:
A Virginia man is believed to have killed his wife and two sons in a murder-suicide at their home in Virginia, police said today.
The bodies of Albert and Kathleen Peterson and their sons were found Tuesday morning by police performing a welfare check on the family after one of the adults did not show up to work for two days.
Today, Fairfax County police said that the investigation is now pointing toward Albert Peterson, 57, as the killer. All four members of the Peterson family received gun shot wounds to their upper bodies, according to a statement released by the police.
“The preliminary investigation indicates that Albert Peterson killed his wife and their children before taking his own life,” the Fairfax County police said in a statement.
Kathleen Peterson, 52, worked for defense contracting firm Blackbird Technologies in Herndon, Va., where the couple lived. Albert Peterson had worked for Northtrop Grumman until he resigned in 2009. It is not clear where he was working at the time of the incident.
The couple had two children: Matthew, 16, a high school sophomore, and Christhoper, 13, who was in eighth grade.
Neighbor Jeremy Wilcox told local news radio station WTOP that the family had attended a community picnic together on Sunday and “showed no signs of any problem.”
Another neighbor, Alvaro Lopes, told local news station WNEW that Albert Peterson had tried to commit suicide in the past, and that he had been taking new heart attack medication that seemed to affect his personality.
“He seemed dizzy, just different,” Lopes said. “Hearing about what happened today made me think that could have something to do with it.”
Police would not comment on any possible connection between the deaths and Peterson’s medication.
Major Banks Hit with Biggest Cyberattacks in History
September 27th, 2012Via: CNN:
Since Sept. 19, the websites of Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank and PNC Bank have all suffered day-long slowdowns and been sporadically unreachable for many customers. The attackers, who took aim at Bank of America first, went after their targets in sequence. Thursday’s victim, PNC’s website, was inaccessible at the time this article was published.
Security experts say the outages stem from one of the biggest cyberattacks they’ve ever seen. These “denial of service” attacks — huge amounts of traffic directed at a website to make it crash — were the largest ever recorded by a wide margin, according to two researchers.
Banks get hit by cyberattackers all the time and typically have some of the best defenses against them. This time, they were outgunned.
“The volume of traffic sent to these sites is frankly unprecedented,” said Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder of CrowdStrike, a security firm that has been investigating the attacks. “It’s 10 to 20 times the volume that we normally see, and twice the previous record for a denial of service attack.”
Honduras: Human Rights Lawyer Murdered, Had Helped Prepare Motions Declaring Proposed Private Cities Unconstitutional
September 27th, 2012Via: AP:
A prominent Honduran human rights lawyer gunned down after a weekend wedding had long complained about death threats, including in documents filed last year seeking protection from a powerful billionaire landowner.
Antonio Trejo Cabrera, 41, who died early Sunday after being ambushed by gunmen, was a lawyer for three peasant cooperatives in the Bajo Aguan, a fertile farming area plagued by violent conflicts between agrarian organizations and land owners. The most prominent is Dinant Corporation owned by Miguel Facusse, one of Honduras’ richest men. Thousands of once-landless workers hold about 12,000 acres (5,000 hectares) of plantations they seized from Dinant.
…
Before his death, Trejo had publicly said that if he were killed, Facusse would be responsible.
In a statement received by The Associated Press late Monday, Facusse denied any role, direct or indirect, in Trejo’s murder.
…
Trejo had also helped prepare motions declaring unconstitutional a proposal by the Honduran government and a U.S. company, MGK Group, to build three privately run cities with their own police, laws and tax systems.
Just hours before his murder, Trejo had participated in a televised debate in which he accused congressional leaders of using the private city projects to raise campaign funds.
MGK director Michael Strong said the company is “horrified” by Trejo’s killing.
“We believe that Antonio Trejo, had he lived long enough to get to know us, would have concluded that our approach is 100 percent beneficial to Honduras and Hondurans. We are saddened for his family and understand what a tragedy this is for trust and goodwill in Honduras,” Strong said in a statement to The Associated Press.
Research Credit: almaverdad2
Related: Honduras Sets Stage for 3 Privately Run Cities
Student Debt Weighs Down One-Fifth of U.S. Households
September 27th, 2012Via: The Exchange:
A record number of American households carry student loan debt, while the average outstanding loan balance is the highest it’s ever been, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center. The Pew analysis found that about one out of five (19%) households, or around 22.3 million, were burdened with student debt in 2010. That figure is more than double the 9% it was in 1989, and it marks a big jump from 15% in 2007.
Related: Young U.S. Adults Flock to Parents’ Homes
Secret Cold War Aerosol Experiments on Poor, Minority Communities in St. Louis
September 27th, 2012Make sure to stick with this video to the end and notice what the government did with the building where many of the the people (test subjects/victims) lived.
Via: Proquest / University of Missouri:
The Manhattan-Rochester Coalition, research on the health effects of radioactive materials, and tests on vulnerable populations without consent in St. Louis, 1945–1970
by Martino-Taylor, Lisa, Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI – COLUMBIA, 2011, 838 pages; 3515886
This piece analyzes a covert Manhattan Project spin-off organization referred to here as the Manhattan-Rochester Coalition, and an obscure aerosol study in St. Louis, Missouri, conducted under contract by the U.S. military from 1953–1954, and 1963–1965. The military-sponsored studies targeted a segregated, high-density urban area, where low-income persons of color predominantly resided. Examination of the Manhattan-Rochester Coalition and the St. Louis aerosol studies, reveal their connections to each other, and to a much larger military project that secretly tested humans, both alive and deceased, in an effort to understand the effects of weaponized radiation. Through this case study, the author explores how a large number of participants inside an organization will willingly participate in organizational acts that are harmful to others, and how large numbers of outsiders, who may or may not be victims of organizational activities, are unable to determine illegal or harmful activity by an organization. The author explains how ethical and observational lapses are engineered by the organization through several specific mechanisms, in an effort to disable critical analysis, and prevent both internal and external dissent of harmful organizational actions. Through studying the process of complex organizational deviance, we can develop public policies that protect the public’s right to know, and construct checks and methods to minimize the chance of covert projects that are contrary to societal norms.
New Zealand Prime Minister John Key Apologizes to Kim Dotcom for Illegal Surveillance
September 27th, 2012Via: New Zealand Herald:
Prime Minister John Key says he apologises to Kim Dotcom for what he has described as “basic errors” by the Government Communications and Security Bureau, but that has not stopped opposition parties from calling for a more detailed independent inquiry.
In a media conference after the release of the report into unlawful monitoring of Mr Dotcom and an acquaintance, Mr Key said he was “appalled” at the agency, saying it had “failed at the most basic of hurdles.”
“Of course I apologise to Mr Dotcom, and I apologise to New Zealanders.”
He said New Zealanders were entitled to be protected by the law “and we failed to provide that protection to them.”
He said he was ultimately accountable for the GCSB and had made his displeasure clear to the current director of the GCSB Ian Fletcher, but it was up to him what he did.
He said he did not believe any of the information collected had been passed onto the FBI, although information about the location of Mr Dotcom and his acquaintances was sent to police.
Related: Servility… Spies?
Chemical in Nonstick Cookware Linked to Child’s Weight
September 27th, 2012Via: NBC:
A group of compounds used in a variety of products, including nonstick cookware, may influence a baby’s growth in the womb and after birth, a new study suggests.
In the study, pregnant women who were exposed to high levels of polyfluoroalkyl compounds, or PFCs, had babies that were smaller at birth and larger at age 20 months compared with those born to women exposed to lower levels of the compounds.
The results held even after the researchers adjusted for factors that could influence the babies’ weights, including the mother’s smoking habits and weight before pregnancy.
The findings agree with previous studies on the effect of PFC exposure during in-utero development. A recent study in Denmark found that girls exposed to PFCs in the womb were more likely to be overweight at age 20, said study researcher Michele Marcus, a professor of epidemiology at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health.
It’s important to note the new study only found an association, and not a cause-effect link.
Research Credit: takelsd
