The NSA Is Recording Every Cell Phone Call in the Bahamas
May 20th, 2014Via: First Look:
The National Security Agency is secretly intercepting, recording, and archiving the audio of virtually every cell phone conversation on the island nation of the Bahamas.
According to documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the surveillance is part of a top-secret system – code-named SOMALGET – that was implemented without the knowledge or consent of the Bahamian government. Instead, the agency appears to have used access legally obtained in cooperation with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to open a backdoor to the country’s cellular telephone network, enabling it to covertly record and store the “full-take audio” of every mobile call made to, from and within the Bahamas – and to replay those calls for up to a month.
SOMALGET is part of a broader NSA program called MYSTIC, which The Intercept has learned is being used to secretly monitor the telecommunications systems of the Bahamas and several other countries, including Mexico, the Philippines, and Kenya. But while MYSTIC scrapes mobile networks for so-called “metadata” – information that reveals the time, source, and destination of calls – SOMALGET is a cutting-edge tool that enables the NSA to vacuum up and store the actual content of every conversation in an entire country.
Related: NSA Capable of Recording Audio from 100% of Unnamed Country’s Phone Calls
U.S. Army’s Creepy Sci-Fi Helmets Come With Built-In A/C
May 20th, 2014Via: Bloomberg:
If the U.S. Army greenlights a radical new helmet design, its soldiers may have a harder time winning hearts and minds overseas. Quite simply, the thing is frightening—think motocross storm trooper.
Functionally, however, the helmet unveiled Tuesday marks a major advance. The same features that make it look so fierce—a full face mask and eye shield—filter out chemical attacks and biological pathogens. The screen over the eyes will populate with real-time data, like a sort of G.I. Google Glass.
The real masterstroke is a lightweight fan that cools the head and runs off batteries attached to a soldier’s hip or back. The next version will “sense,” using body sensors, when the fan needs to turn itself on, according to the Army’s Edgewood Chemical Biological Center.
Research Credit: emulsified
Cars Could Drive Themselves Sooner than Expected
May 19th, 2014Via: Reuters:
Cars could be driving themselves down the world’s streets far sooner than expected, thanks to a change in a global treaty backed by European countries.
A little-noticed amendment to the United Nations Convention on Road Traffic agreed last month would let drivers take their hands off the wheel of self-driving cars. It was pushed by Germany, Italy and France, whose high-end carmakers believe they are ready to zoom past American tech pioneers and bring the first “autonomous vehicles” to market.
“Today I am only allowed to take my hands off the wheel to a limited extent. Thankfully the Vienna Convention on Road Traffic has been changed,” said Thomas Weber, head of Group research at Daimler and head of development at Mercedes-Benz.
For years, so-called “autonomous vehicles” have been a futuristic dream pioneered by silicon valley companies like Google.
But as the technology becomes more affordable, Europe’s luxury automakers say they are well placed to take advantage of it because of their deeper experience in engineering, manufacturing, marketing and sales. There is no point in waiting while California upstarts catch up.
What If U.S. Cities Just Stopped Participating in the War on Drugs?
May 17th, 2014Via: Citylab:
Novick describes himself as “ambivalent” about drug legalization, and says his proposal is about the best use of tax dollars. “We can limit our inefficient expenditures of money without repealing drug laws,” he says. “It’s up to the city to determine how much money it’s going to spend chasing drugs dealers.”
Hood Disease: Inner City Oakland Youth Suffering From Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
May 16th, 2014Via: CBS:
In the inner city, a health problem is making it harder for young people to learn. The Centers for Disease Control said 30 percent of inner city kids suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
The CDC said these children often live in virtual war zones. Doctors at Harvard said they actually suffer from a more complex form of PTSD that some call “hood disease.”
Unlike soldiers, children in the inner city never leave the combat zone. They often experience trauma, repeatedly.
“You could take anyone who is experiencing the symptoms of PTSD, and the things we are currently emphasizing in school will fall off their radar. Because frankly it does not matter in our biology if we don’t survive the walk home,” said Jeff Duncan-Andrade, Ph.D. of San Francisco State University.
In Oakland, about two thirds of the murders last year were actually clustered in East Oakland, 59 people killed.
Teachers and administrators who graduated from Fremont High School in East Oakland and have gone back to work there spoke with KPIX 5.
“These cards that (students) are suddenly wearing around their neck that say ‘Rest in peace.’ You have some kids that are walking around with six of them. Laminated cards that are tributes to their slain friends,” said teacher Jasmene Miranda.
Jaliza Collins, also a teacher at Fremont, said, “It’s depression, it’s stress, it’s withdrawal, it’s denial. It’s so many things that is encompassed and embodied in them. And when somebody pushes that one button where it can be like, ‘please go have a seat,’ and that can be the one thing that just sets them off.”
In 2013, there were 47 recorded lockdowns in Oakland public schools – again, almost all in East and West Oakland.
From Rothschild To Koch Industries: Meet The People Who “Fix” The Price Of Gold
May 16th, 2014Via: ZeroHedge:
London Gold Market Fixing Ltd., a company controlled by the five banks that administers the benchmark, has no permanent employees. A call from Bloomberg News was referred to Douglas Beadle, 68, a former Rothschild banker, who acts as a consultant to the company from his home in Caterham, a small commuter town 45 minutes south of London by train. Beadle declined to comment on the benchmark-setting process.
Research Credit: bretwalda
Tesla-Led Consortium to Build Massive Battery Factory
May 16th, 2014Via: San Jose Mercury News:
Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk said Tuesday that Tesla will partner with several companies besides Panasonic for its planned “gigafactory” for battery production, painting a portrait of a facility resembling a massive industrial park and saying that there eventually will be a need for several more.
Musk said that the gigafactory will drive battery costs down by more than 30 percent.
FCC Approves Plan to Consider Paid Priority on Internet
May 15th, 2014Via: Washington Post:
The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday voted in favor of advancing a proposal that could dramatically reshape the way consumers experience the Internet, opening the possibility of Internet service providers charging Web sites for higher-quality delivery of their content to American consumers.
The plan, approved in a three-to-two vote along party lines, could unleash a new economy on the Web where an Internet service provider such as Verizon would charge a Web site such as Netflix for the guarantee of flawless video streaming.
The proposal is not a final rule, but the vote on Thursday is a significant step forward on a controversial idea that has invited fierce opposition from consumer advocates, Silicon Valley heavyweights, and Democratic lawmakers. The FCC will now open the proposal to a total 120 days of public comment. Final rules, aimed for the end of the year, could be rewritten after the agency reviews the public comments.
“Quantum Compass” Could Replace GPS
May 15th, 2014Via: Financial Times:
The Ministry of Defence is investing millions of pounds to look for the holy grail of navigation: a tamper and interference-proof device capable of pinpointing a location anywhere on the globe.
Scientists at Porton Down and the National Physical Laboratory believe they are three to five years away from developing a “quantum compass” that would be able to locate itself based on the subatomic effects of the earth’s magnetic field.
The technology, which would have no need for satellites or fixed points of reference such as radio masts, is of military interest around the world, because of the limitations of space-based navigation systems.
…
“There is nothing in physics that could be used – given the knowledge we have now – to disrupt one of these [new] devices,” said Bob Cockshott at the NPL.
Scientists say the MoD technology could have civilian applications, as GPS does, and may eventually be available for use in smart phones.
U.S. Air Force to Dismantle HAARP
May 15th, 2014Via: Anchorage Daily News:
The U.S. Air Force gave official notice to Congress Wednesday that it intends to dismantle the $300 million High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program in Gakona this summer.
The shutdown of HAARP, a project created by the late Sen. Ted Stevens when he wielded great control over the U.S. defense budget, will start after a final research experiment takes place in mid-June, the Air Force said in a letter to Congress Tuesday.
The University of Alaska has expressed interest in taking over the research site, which is off the Tok Cutoff in an area where black spruce was cleared a quarter-century ago for the Air Force backscatter radar project that was never completed. But the school has not volunteered to pay $5 million a year to run HAARP.
Responding to questions from Sen. Lisa Murkowski during a Senate hearing Wednesday, David Walker, deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for science, technology and engineering, said this is “not an area that we have any need for in the future” and it would not be a good use of Air Force research funds to keep HAARP going. “We’re moving on to other ways of managing the ionosphere, which the HAARP was really designed to do,” he said. “To inject energy into the ionosphere to be able to actually control it. But that work has been completed.”
Comments of that sort have given rise to endless conspiracy theories, portraying HAARP as a superweapon capable of mind control or weather control, with enough juice to trigger hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes.
Scientists say all of that is nonsense, and that the degree of ionosphere control possible through HAARP is akin to controlling the Pacific Ocean by tossing a rock into it.
