Olivia Newton-John: "Let Me Be There"
Every Move You Make, Every Call You Take...
Democratic Senators Mark Udall and Ron Wyden are raising a red flag about abuses of the Patriot Act:
Ten years after 9/11, new questions are being raised about what the US government is secretly doing on the internet and through satellites, using the Patriot Act and other national security law as justification.It is not "reasonably possible" to know how many people have been tracked by the US government. Yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiikes.
Two American senators with access to top-secret intelligence raised the alarm in May, suggesting that the invasion of law-abiding Americans' privacy was being carried out clandestinely - and that people would be shocked if they knew the extent.
"I want to deliver a warning this afternoon," Senator Ron Wyden said on May 26 during a Senate debate. "When the American people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the Patriot Act, they will be stunned and they will be angry."
Exactly what activities US agencies are carrying out remains unclear. Senator Wyden and Senator Mark Udall - also on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence - have been unable to elaborate on their accusations because of official secrecy law.
...As debate took place in May on a vote to extend the Patriot Act for another four years, Senators Wyden and Udall warned that the executive branch had come up with a secret legal theory about what personal information it could collect, which didn't dovetail with a plain reading of the text.
Wyden and Udall continued to press for transparency after the Patriot Act extension was passed in late May. They sent a letter to the Director of National Intelligence, James R Clapper, who oversees 16 spy agencies, including the National Security Agency and Central Intelligence Agency. The senators asked whether legal safeguards were in place to protect the electronic communications of law-abiding Americans under another security law, the Foreign Intelligence Service Act (FISA).
"It is a matter of public record that there have been incidents in which intelligence agencies have failed to comply with the FISA Amendments Act, and that certain types of compliance violations have continued to recur," Wyden and Udall wrote. "We believe it is particularly important to gain an understanding of how many Americans may have had their communications reviewed as a result of these violations."
Kathleen Turner, from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, told the senators that it was not "reasonably possible to identify the number of people located in the United States whose communications may have been reviewed."
Michael German, however, who worked for the FBI in counterterrorism operations for 16 years and quit to join the ACLU, tells Al Jazeera: "It's clear the government is broadly collecting information regarding innocent Americans. It appears officials no longer need individualised suspicion, and a person's good conduct does not protect them from scrutiny." Which gives us a pretty good picture of the scope of the surveillance.
Every time some evidence of a government breach of trust (i.e. illegal spying) is made public, there raises a chorus of "it doesn't matter if you've got nothing to hide." Sure. Except for how innocent people are convicted of crimes they did not commit in the US justice system with alarming frequency, often using cooked evidence, coerced confessions, coached witness testimony, or some combination thereof. That is, evidence formed to fit the crime, to close a case.
It's no coincidence that it tends to be straight white cis middle- or upper-class men who toss out the old "nothing to hide" chestnut, when they are the least likely population to be railroaded and framed for a crime they did not commit.
The rest of us (and even they, frankly) should be very concerned about "the government surreptitiously tracking an individual's movements using a mobile electronic device," when it's entirely predictable that being (provably, irrefutably) in the area of a crime at the time of commission will axiomatically make one a suspect, without even the benefit of a witness ID.
"Nothing to hide" implicitly assumes that the people doing the tracking are always, invariably more interested in protecting the innocent than in closing cases. That is a particularly bad assumption in an era of elected law enforcement, job performance (i.e. closed-case) incentives, and 24/7 media pressure.
German said that it is "official culture" to collect as much data on people as possible. The attitude is "while this person may not being doing something wrong today, what if they do something bad a year from now?"And then there's this: What if something you're doing isn't illegal today, but is a year from now?
Yesterday: "The newly enacted Idaho law banning late-term abortions was not yet in effect when McCormack terminated her own pregnancy using abortion pills she obtained from an online distributor."
The problem with "nothing to hide" is that what isn't worth hiding today may be worth hiding tomorrow.
Top Chef: Just Desserts Open Thread
Holy cake wrecks, Batman! Frank Gehry must be spinning in his grave at the site of this "tribute" to his Walt Disney Concert Hall. Oof! That's some Lovecraftian non-Euclidean architecture right there.
Last night's episode will be discussed in detail, so if you haven't seen it, and don't want any spoilers, pack your fudge and go...
Cool War Profiteering, Robber Barons!
[Trigger warning for torture.]
Remember when the Iraq War started—SHOCK AND AWE! USA!—and all the dirty hippies were saying things like, "This is a war of choice being justified by invented intel with no purpose except to allow the friends of Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld at firms like Halliburton and Blackwater to make shitloads of money from bloated defense contracts doing profoundly unethical things," and everyone else was like, "Shut up, dirty hippies! You are wrong about everything and you smell like patchouli!" and then it turned out the dirty hippies were totally right, and then everyone on the left pretended that what the dirty hippies had been saying was so totally self-evident no doy and everyone had known it all along and everyone on the right pretended that no one, not even the dirty hippies, had correctly predicted all of the things and no one could have foreseen any of the things? Remember that? Good times.
Anyway! I just want to cast your minds back to that glorious time in America when the dirty hippies were talking about war profiteering, and the government of their country was literally calling them traitors for even daring to suggest such a thing, and even Democratic presidential candidates were all, "Whoa, let's not get carried away there, hippies!" as if it was an incredible accusation and everyone knows that nothing could ever go wrong with no-bid contracts to megacorps with ties to the White House.
Because—and I know you're shocked—it turns out that the Bush administration was rewarding war profiteers of all descriptions, including the private companies chartered to fly terrorism suspects around the world to deposit them in one of the CIA's network of secret jails all over the globe. Yep, that's right: The Bush administration even turned extraordinary rendition into a for-profit enterprise.
The invisible hand belongs not just to a thief and a bully, but a torturer.
Adfail
In yet another hilaritragic example of content-generated ad failery, I am being served JC Penney adverts all over the place this morning.
Whooooooooooooops!
Question of the Day
What is your favorite television show with a female lead?
Doesn't have to be a current show, and doesn't have to have exclusively a female lead, but does have to have a legit female lead (appears in every episode and has own story arcs not exclusively in service to male lead/s) even if it's an ensemble.
Quote of the Day
"The irresponsible actions of my party, the Republican Party, over [the debt ceiling debacle] was astounding. I'd never seen anything like it in my lifetime. I think about some of the presidents we've had on my side of the aisle—Ronald Reagan, George Bush Sr., go right through them, Eisenhower—they would be stunned."—Former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel (Nebraska), who said his party has moved too far rightward and called the debt negotiations "an astounding lack of responsible leadership by many in the Republican party, and I say that as a Republican."
Yup.
Picture of the Day
I went to Santa Fe, New Mexico, last weekend for a family celebration. This was taken south of town -- near Sun Mountain -- facing west.
Damn
Marie at Think Progress: "Kaiser Health News reports that federal subsidies to help laid-off workers continue their health care coverage—'one of the key consumer benefits of the federal stimulus package'—will end today. Millions of laid-off workers benefited from federal subsidies for COBRA, a program that allows people who lose their jobs to keep employer-provided insurance, usually for 18 months, if they pay the entire premium and some part of the administrative fees. Congress extended the COBRA subsidy three times to cover workers who lost their jobs through May 2010, but increasing concern about the national deficit led them to decline another extension last year. Health care costs for the unemployed are expected to rise sharply and with them, concerns about how millions of families will cover those expenses."
I don't even know what to say, at least in terms of saying something I haven't already said a million times before.
The US needs socialized healthcare. Healthcare should not be a for-profit enterprise: It is a right, not a privilege. Or it should be, anyway.
I'm so tired of hearing conservatives wailing about the devilry of universal healthcare. The same people who natter endlessly about job creators and small business and entrepreneurship ought to be the most keenly aware that inextricably tying people to jobs just to retain their healthcare stifles business creativity and makes the market less robust, as one of the major risks of starting a small business in the US is abandoning the employer-sponsored healthcare system.
Of course, conservatives aren't actually interested in people starting small businesses, despite their claims to the contrary. Not really. That might mean competition for the global corporations to whom they're beholden, or even the slightest of delays in turning the US into a giant feudal oligarchy.
Number of the Day
$60 billion: The amount of US tax dollars estimated by a commission to have been lost to waste and fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade.
And to covert war profiteering, no doubt.
[Via Shark-fu.]
Daily Dose of Cute
I've mentioned previously that Zelda doesn't like having her paws touched, which makes clipping her claws difficult. So earlier today, when the groomer was here to give Matilda a new lion cut (no, there are no pictures yet, because Tilsy is pouting, thankyouverymuch), she met Zelda for the first time, and I mentioned the paws issue. I said the vet had suggested she might have to be sedated for getting her nails trimmed, and our groomer (have I mentioned she's awesome? she is awesome) said with an amusingly unrestrained eyeroll that she didn't think that would be necessary and she'd give it a try.
Well, guess who got her claws clipped like a GOOD GIRL and didn't even need to be muzzled and was completely unstressed by the entire event?
When she came back in from the grooming truck, Zelda wasn't the slightest bit anxious and had, in fact, made fast friends with the groomer. And she now has perfectly trimmed nails. For a total of $5.
Dudley, meanwhile, took a nap after a hard morning of napping.
"What?"
Who Is John Galt?
[Video description: A two minute montage of people saying "I am John Galt."]
A while back the Online Marketing Director for Atlas Shrugged: Part I: The Great Shruggening asked fans of his movie to tumblr themselves saying "I am John Galt." And they did. All 1440 of them. Oof!
And oh, happy day! They're all getting their faces in a bonus feature on the DVD! The above video is a sneak peek. Yes, it's terribly edited, and the sound is a muddled mess where you can barely hear anything because the music is drowning everything else out.
But, Objectivism, so it's cool: People grabbing their webcams and SD cards and Skypes and "Going Godard" by filming themselves. (Neo-realism in action, you Eberts!)
I've yet to see the movie, and I hope they'll send me a review copy of the DVD soon. (You hear me, Online Marketing Director for Atlas Shrugged: Part I DVDs? Send me a copy!) I don't know if this is something that happens in the film. But I do know it's something that happens in Spartacus when a Ragtag Band of Rebels pull together to help a comrade. Which, I think, is the exact opposite of the whole Objectivist philosophy.
In Atlas Shrugged I thought John Galt was the guy who took his ball and went home, figuratively speaking. He up and disappears, thereby denying an ingrateful world his special brand of genius. I guess then maybe all these people are going to "Go Galt" and leave? Is that what they're saying?
I mean, that sounds like an okay idea, honestly. Except for the kids. There are a lot of kids in the video. I don't think they should just run away. Most kids probably can't look after themselves. Except maybe this guy.
Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by sleepy dogs and frisky cats.
Recommended Reading:
Vance: [TW for racism] Flying While Black & Reading Antique Aviation Books
Kat: [TW for misogyny] Proposed Rule Threatens Choice in Britain
Renee: [TW for racism] Peter Pan and What Makes the Red Man Red
Living ~400lbs: [TW for fat hatred] Proper Treatment
Andy: New 'Amazing Race' Cast Includes Gay Couple, 'Survivor' Winners, and Olympic Snowboarders
Tigtog: Ducklings!
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Liquefy Me!
Neat! New body 'liquefaction' unit unveiled in Florida funeral home:
A Glasgow-based company has installed its first commercial "alkaline hydrolysis" unit at a Florida funeral home.Long-time Shakers may wonder about my macabre fascination with after-death body disposal, since I have blogged about half a dozen different alternatives to traditional burial and cremation over the years, but, the truth is, I just have zero interest in being buried and I'm interested in environmentally-friendly options to dispose of whatever's left over after everything that can be harvested for donation has been hauled away.
The unit by Resomation Ltd is billed as a green alternative to cremation and works by dissolving the body in heated alkaline water.
The facility has been installed at the Anderson-McQueen funeral home in St Petersburg, and will be used for the first time in the coming weeks. It is hoped other units will follow in the US, Canada and Europe.
The makers claim the process produces a third less greenhouse gas than cremation, uses a seventh of the energy, and allows for the complete separation of dental amalgam for safe disposal.
Mercury from amalgam vaporised in crematoria is blamed for up to 16% of UK airborne mercury emissions, and many UK crematoria are currently fitting mercury filtration systems to meet reduced emission targets.
"Resomation was developed in response to the public's increasing environmental concerns," company founder Sandy Sullivan told BBC News. "It gives them that working third choice, which allows them to express those concerns in a very positive and I think personal way."
The installation was only made possible after the state legislature in Florida approved the use of the technology, one of seven US states in which the process has now been legalised.
The system works by submerging the body in a solution of water and potassium hydroxide which is pressurised to 10 atmospheres and heated to 180C for between two-and-a-half and three hours.
Body tissue is dissolved and the liquid poured into the municipal water system. Mr Sullivan, a biochemist by training, says tests have proven the effluent is sterile and contains no DNA, and poses no environmental risk.
A Challenge to Idaho's New Abortion Laws
Jennie Linn McCormack will inevitably be described as an "unlikely abortion crusader," or some variation on that theme, because she is a poor mother of three and doesn't fit some media-constructed version of the Glamorous Big City Women's Activist, but that gets it precisely wrong. McCormack is the most likely of abortion advocates because she is a poor mother of three who lives in a small town in Idaho where she doesn't have access to a legal medical procedure.
Which is why she ordered RU486 over the internet to terminate a pregnancy, for which she was subsequently charged—both under a 1972 Idaho law making it a felony to end one's own pregnancy and under the 20-week "fetal pain" ban (patterned after the Nebraska law) that went into effect earlier this year.
The charges were later dismissed for lack of evidence, but now McCormack has filed suit, challenging the laws under which she was charged. (Rock the fuck on!)
The lawsuit is believed to be the first federal court case against any of several late-term abortion bans enacted in Idaho and four other states during the past year, based on controversial medical research suggesting a fetus feels pain starting at 20 weeks of development.I can only begin to imagine the blowback McCormack will get for filing this suit. I fervently hope that the message she is a hero to women fighting for their reproductive rights, and to their male allies, manages to penetrate the vitriol.
...The 1972 Idaho law discriminates against McCormack and other women of limited means in southeastern Idaho, which lacks any abortion providers, by forcing them to seek more costly surgical abortions far from home, the lawsuit says.
The newly enacted Idaho law banning late-term abortions was not yet in effect when McCormack terminated her own pregnancy using abortion pills she obtained from an online distributor at between 20 and 21 weeks of gestation on December 24, 2010, according to her lawyer, Richard Hearn.
But Hearn, also a physician, argues that both the 1972 law and the newly enacted Idaho statute pose other unconstitutional barriers to abortion. He cited, for example, the failure to exempt third-trimester pregnancies (25 weeks or more) in cases where a woman's health, not just her life, is at risk.
According to court documents, McCormack, a mother of three, learned she was pregnant in the fall of 2010 and ordered pills online she believed were prescribed by a distant healthcare provider to induce an abortion.
She hoped to avoid seeking a surgical abortion in Utah that she could ill afford on a monthly income of $200 to $250.
"I learned that medication for inducing abortions had been approved for use in the United States and could be purchased over the Internet," she wrote in a sworn statement.
...Hearn seeks to bar county prosecutors from charging other women with crimes under the state's abortion laws until their constitutionality is determined. A hearing on the request is set for September 8 in Boise.
Twittering! With Liss and Deeky!
Yesterday, on Twitter:
Shakestweetz: In which Professional Homosexual Deeky W. Gashlycrumb suggests an alternative hobby for the homosex-obsessed: http://bit.ly/p2oEKL
DeekyMD: I love that I am a Professional Homosexual now.
Shakestweetz: I'm totes gonna get you business cards.
[Later that day...]
Shakestweetz: You're open for business. (Pun intended, obviously.) http://bit.ly/pFCwYJ
DeekyMD: You're such a doofus! LOLOLOL!!
This is a real thing in the world.
Shaker Suzanne emails that JC Penney is currently selling this girls' shirt on its website. And not only are they selling a shirt reading "I'm too pretty to do homework so my brother has to do it for me," but the catalog blurb reads: "Who has time for homework when there's a new Justin Bieber album out? She'll love this tee that's just as cute and sassy as she is."
Are you kidding me?
What makes this even more tragically hilarious is JC Penney's "Commitment to Inclusion & Diversity" on their corporate website, which asserts that their "long-term success depends on our ability to leverage the unique skills of our diverse workforce." Presumably, that includes women. Presumably, their female employees need to know basic skills that they learned doing their own homework.
JC Penney also claims to "believe in doing what is 'right and just'; jcpenney is committed to being a good corporate citizen through the support of environmental, social and ethical initiatives." Here's a neat social and ethical initiative for you: FEMINISM. Or, if you prefer: Not treating girls like garbage.
Contact JC Penney and politely ask them to remove this item from their catalog and their stores: Tel: 1.972.431.1000
Twitter: @jcpenney
Facebook: JC Penney's Page
