Absolutely amazing!
Year: 2013
Obama administration officials held 22 separate briefings or meetings for members of Congress on the law that has been used to justify the National Security Agency’s controversial email monitoring program, according to data provided by a senior administration official.
According to the official, the sessions that took place over the course of 14 months starting in October 2011 touched on Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments Act, which gives the attorney general and director of national intelligence the authority to gather intelligence on non-U.S. citizens for up to one year. Section 702 has been cited by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper as the legal basis for the NSA’s PRISM program, which has allowed the government to track email communication data.
The Guardian and The Washington Post revealed the existence of the PRISM program and another data-monitoring action last week. In defending PRISM from criticism, Clapper stated that U.S. citizens were not, and are not, targeted for the data dragnet. He and others have also insisted that Congress has had ample opportunity to review the program and provide feedback.
To buttress that claim, the senior administration official — discussing the matter only on condition of anonymity — sent over the following list of meetings and briefings that took place.
10/19/11: Meeting with Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Staff
1/10/12: House Judiciary Committee Staff Briefings (majority and minority separately briefed)
1/11/12: Senate Judiciary Committee Staff Briefings (majority and minority separately briefed)
3/5/12: Meeting with Nancy Pelosi
3/8/12: Meeting with Harry Reid Staff
3/15/12: Law Briefing for Senate Judiciary Committee staff
3/15/12: Briefing for Senate Leadership Staff
3/21/12: Meeting with Mitch McConnell Staff
3/23/12: Senate Judiciary Committee Staff Briefing at NSA
3/27/12: Meeting with Jim Langevin
3/28/12: Meeting with Jan Schakowsky
3/29/12: Thompson Meeting*
3/29/12: Sens. Ron Wyden and Mark Udall Meeting
4/10/12: Senate Judiciary Committee Staff Briefing (in Virginia)
4/20/12: Senate Judiciary Committee Staff Briefing at FBI
5/4/12: Senate Judiciary Committee Staff Briefing
5/31/12: House Judiciary Committee FAA Hearing (unclassified)
6/7/12: House Judiciary Committee MEMBER Briefing (classified)
6/11/12: Meeting with Patrick Leahy Staff
6/21/12: House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Hearing (classified)
7/18/12: Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse/Richard Blumenthal Meeting
12/10/12: Akaka Meeting
* The Washington Post reported the meeting as with Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.).
Note to all racists, do not film yourself being racist, and if you do, don’t put it on the internet.
A Florida woman who filmed herself berating Dunkin Donuts employees for not giving her free food has been identified as Taylor Chapman, a 27-year-old Broward County resident and former low-budget commercial spokeswoman, according to The Smoking Gun.
Chapman went off on workers at a Fort Lauderdale store last week after claiming an employee the night before didn’t honor the company’s policy of comping her meal after forgetting her receipt.
In the 8-minute video — which Chapman appears to have posted online — the iPhone-toting crackpot unleashes an avalanche of profanities and threats, at one point calling the employee who wronged her a “little f—-g sand n—-r.”
“Because I’m about to nuke your whole f—- planet from Mars,” Chapman seethes after spotting the worker who served her the night before.
“You think you all are tough big fat Arabs bombing the Trade Center? I’ll show you tough.”
“This s— is about to go live b—-h. Right on Facebook,” she says.
The Dunkin’ Donuts employees remained courteous during the ordeal and assured Chapman she could get whatever she wanted for no charge.
“I want my bacon crispy and I want my people to be nice,” she mutters at one point to another customer.
The video went viral on Sunday and Monday, and Chapman was quickly outed by The Smoking Gun and other sites as the Coolata-loving creep.
Thousands of commenters on YouTube and other sites slammed Champan for the abuse.
DETROIT (AP) — A Detroit grandmother testified Monday that she could only watch in terror as masked police officers with guns drawn stormed her home in a hunt for a murder suspect that led to the fatal shooting of her 7-year-old granddaughter.
Officer Joseph Weekley is charged with involuntary manslaughter in the May 2010 death of Aiyana Stanley-Jones, who was asleep on a couch when police raided the house.
Aiyana’s grandmother, 50-year-old Mertilla Jones, said after a flash-bang grenade exploded through a window she rolled onto the floor and was lying on her stomach facing the door when Detroit special response team members forced their way inside.
“As soon as they came in, their guns were just pointing right there, and he pulled the trigger,” Mertilla Jones said of Weekley. “I seen the light leave out of her eyes and the blood started gushing out her mouth and she was dead.”
h/t – the grio
And even when the tech people did warn us, we didn’t listen.
“In 1999, Scott McNealy, the chief executive of Sun Microsystems, summed up the valley’s attitude toward personal data in what became a defining comment of the dot-com boom. “You have zero privacy,” he said. “Get over it.”
But the naive attitude continues:
Mr. McNealy is not retracting that comment, not quite; but like Mr. Metcalfe he is more worried about potential government abuse than he used to be. “Should you be afraid if AT&T has your data? Google?” he asked. “They’re private entities. AT&T can’t hurt me. Jerry Brown and Barack Obama can.”
AT&T and Google can’t hurt me? Think again Scott. They can raise my bill with bogus charges or keep track of ads I click on and use that data against me if they want. It’s then up to me to cleanse my own record. The government can go after me too, but they don’t have the financial incentive to do so. Guess which one I’m more afraid of?
The people who brought us the computer revolution were smart, but were perhaps too smart. Their bias was toward maintaining data and recovering information if the system crashes. That’s why you truly cannot erase the footprints you make on your machine or in cyberspace. Now that the Congress has passed laws and the courts have upheld their legality, it should surprise no one that the government is mining the data in the name of national security.
For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and on Twitter @rigrundfest
A Polish news crew reporting live from outside an apartment complex in the north-eastern city of Łomża unwittingly captured some breaking news as their cameras inadvertently recorded a crime in progress.
As the reporter for 24-hour news channel TVN24 went on about two local parents accused of keeping their kids locked indoors for five years, a thief could be seen in the background stealing a bouquet of roses from a flower shop.
Two employees are then seen emerging from the store before quickly returning inside, presumably to phone the police.
Andrzej Czapka was ultimately identified and apprehended, thanks in large part to his appearance on the news.
“I’d broken up with my girlfriend and I wanted to win her back with some flowers but I had no money,” he is quoted as telling the police. “I didn’t even see the film crew.”
h/t Gawker
The decomposed body found this weekend in a Louisiana bayou was identified Monday as that of a teacher missing for three months, the New Orleans Police Department said.
The statement said Terrilynn Monette, who was last seen March 2, was identified through dental records. The death was ruled a drowning, and there were no signs of trauma to the body, police said.
On Saturday, a diver with the Slidell Police Department who was volunteering to dive the waterways in the search for Monette found her Honda Accord in the bayou.
‘I’m in shock’
Monette’s mother, Toni Enclade, told CNN earlier that she had been notified a body was found.
“To know that she could have possibly been there for three months,” she said, overcome with emotion.
Enclade said she does not know when she will be given a final answer.
“I can’t even begin to go there right now,” she said. “I’m in shock. I can’t believe this. I just can’t believe this.”
Monette, 26, was last seen leaving Parlay’s Dream Lounge in New Orleans, where she had been celebrating with friends her nomination for a “Teacher of the Year” award.
Authorities have focused a large part of their search efforts on the waterways because Monette would have had to drive across the bayou to get from the bar to her home.
Forget the 285 who died because of Hurricane Sandy. As far as Mitt Romney is concerned, they’re not that important. What’s important to the 2012 Republican presidential candidate is the timing of the Hurricane. You see, Mitt thinks Sandy’s timing was wrong. If it was left up to him, Sandy would have made its appearance another time… preferably after the November 7th election.
In an appearance on… wait for it… Fox News, Romney spoke about New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and his new found friend in President Obama, after Sandy destroyed the East Coast;
“…I’ve been a governor, and I know what happens when there’s been a national disaster — and that is, you look for help from the federal government. You want the president and you want the other agencies of the federal government to step in and provide help.
“And Gov. Christie did what he thought was best for the people of his state, and I don’t blame him for that at all. He was helpful to me and my campaign every way possible. I consider him a good friend. He has a great future, he’s a terrific governor, he’s doing a good job in New Jersey. I have no ill will.”
When Fox host Neil Cavuto asked Romney if Christie got too “chummy” with Obama after the hurricane struck the east coast, and whether that hurt his campaign, Romney replied;
“I can tell you the Hurricane didn’t come at the right time, that’s not because of Chris Christie. That’s because one of the advantages of incumbency is that when there is an event like that, you get to see the president in a fatherly roll and showing his sympathy for people who were harmed, who had been victims of the storm. And obviously, that gives a little boost to the president’s efforts.”
While many outlets went crazy today trying to decipher what the “TBD” on Hillary Clinton’s new twitter account means, we will let the profile speak for itself.
SIDENOTE: “TBD”… it’s simple. Future President of the United States. Why are they still trying to figure this out? It’s as clear as day!
It is the case that shocked the nation, shocked the world for that matter. And today, the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin trial officially began with jury selection.
Zimmerman, 29, is charged with second-degree murder and faces up to life in prison if convicted. He has pleaded not guilty, contending he acted in self-defense during a confrontation with Martin, 17, in a gated community in this central Florida town on February 26, 2012.
After a brief opening session in the courtroom, where Zimmerman was joined by his wife Shellie, Circuit Court Judge Debra Nelson called a recess so that she, the prosecutors and defense attorneys could meet briefly with a pool of about 100 potential jurors.
The jurors were then to fill out a questionnaire before being summoned one by one into the courtroom for individual questioning.
It is unclear how long it will take for the judge and lawyers to select a panel of six jurors.
At the time of the Martin killing, Zimmerman, a light-skinned Hispanic, was the self-appointed neighborhood watch captain in the Retreat at Twin Lakes community. During a struggle, he killed Martin with a single shot to the chest from a 9mm handgun.
Categories
Is Sitting Lethal to Health?
What is it about sitting that causes so much harm (and excitement in the media)? According to studies, sitting for long periods of time, day after day can lead to:
- Slower metabolism
- Weight gain
- Decreased insulin production leading to increased risk of Diabetes type 2
- Increased risk of premature death
- Possible increased risk of cancer
Additionally, Medicine & Science in Sports and Exercise Journal reviewed a study by Louisiana researchers at Pennington Medical Research who found people who sit for the majority of the day increase their risk of having a heart attack by 54%.
According to Dr. Hamilton who extensively researches and studies metabolism and was interviewed for the NY times article, sitting is “lethal”.
He has studied weight gain and loss for years and states that sitting is dangerous because, “your muscles go as silent as a dead horse.” When we sit, the body literally stops working like it normally would.
Even more interesting about Dr. Hamilton’s studies is that a person’s current body weight or exercise routine doesn’t seem to make a difference. Sitting for several hours each day equally harms the person who is 30 pounds overweight and the ultra-trim runner.
This means the 30 minute daily run probably won’t counteract the poor effects of sitting. It is the extended time sitting, not the brief periods of exercise at the beginning of the day that cause the problem.
The good news?
Reversing the lethality of sitting can be just as easy as getting up every 30 minutes or so and taking a stretch, a walk down the stairs, strolling to the water fountain or striking up a tree pose in the cubicle (maybe when no one else is around).
Sounds like a great reason to take a few “stretch” breaks during the day.
Not only will it make you more productive by re-awakening your muscles (and your level of alertness), you’ll live longer.
Melissa AuClair blogs at www.launchyourcreativelife.com. After reading about the extensive harm sitting can cause she integrates activity (and more coffee breaks) into her work day. Follow her on twitter @melissauclair