Wednesday, November 25, 2015
Another Young Black Man Shot By Chicago Police:
How police are trained in this country is responsible for their fearful & overly violent response to just about any situation. How can there be a lack of procedure for each officer having both lethal and non-lethal means at their disposal, and the proper understanding of when to use each, when they go on patrol. How is a person with a knife, walking away from police an imminent threat to the officer? Reckless & contemptuous disregard for human life is what I see here.
Chicago police release dash cam video of officer killing Laquan McDonald
"...The last minute or so of the video of the October 20, 2014 incident shows McDonald walking away from police officers in the street. He then spins abruptly and falls as the first shot or shots hit him. Puffs of smoke and his writhing body can be seen as Van Dyke continues to fire shots into his body. Officers then kick away the small knife and refuse McDonald medical attention, standing on the scene until the video ends. It’s hard to imagine that with this video it took Cook County prosecutor Anita Alvarez a year to indict Van Dyke, and even less fathomable that Van Dyke was not dismissed from police payroll until well after the shooting. It is also hard to imagine that high-ranking officials like Mayor Emanuel did not see the video. Also, news that a local Burger King employee claims that police deleted additional security footage of the incident adds more layers to what appears to be an unmistakable heinous crime."
How police are trained in this country is responsible for their fearful & overly violent response to just about any situation. How can there be a lack of procedure for each officer having both lethal and non-lethal means at their disposal, and the proper understanding of when to use each, when they go on patrol. How is a person with a knife, walking away from police an imminent threat to the officer? Reckless & contemptuous disregard for human life is what I see here.
Chicago police release dash cam video of officer killing Laquan McDonald
"...The last minute or so of the video of the October 20, 2014 incident shows McDonald walking away from police officers in the street. He then spins abruptly and falls as the first shot or shots hit him. Puffs of smoke and his writhing body can be seen as Van Dyke continues to fire shots into his body. Officers then kick away the small knife and refuse McDonald medical attention, standing on the scene until the video ends. It’s hard to imagine that with this video it took Cook County prosecutor Anita Alvarez a year to indict Van Dyke, and even less fathomable that Van Dyke was not dismissed from police payroll until well after the shooting. It is also hard to imagine that high-ranking officials like Mayor Emanuel did not see the video. Also, news that a local Burger King employee claims that police deleted additional security footage of the incident adds more layers to what appears to be an unmistakable heinous crime."
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
Human Health & The Environment vs Private Profit:
Elliott Negin: Toxic Influence: How a Chemical Industry Trade Group You've Never Heard of Threatens Your Health
"Lumber Liquidators, North America's largest hardwood flooring retailer, took a major hit earlier this year when CBS's 60 Minutes reported that the company was selling Chinese-made laminate flooring containing dangerous amounts of the carcinogen formaldehyde.
A day after the broadcast, the company punched back, insisting that its laminate flooring is "completely safe to use as intended" and that the news program's tests were flawed. "We stand by every plank of wood and laminate we sell all around the country," the company declared.
Despite those assurances, Lumber Liquidators pulled the suspect flooring off the market and provided thousands of customers with home air-quality test kits. But even that wasn't enough to stanch the bleeding. Sales plummeted, its stock tanked, several top company officials resigned, and irate homeowners filed at least 135 lawsuits. Meanwhile, the Consumer Product Safety Commission is investigating the case and the Justice Department is expected to file criminal charges.
Largely lost in the coverage of Lumber Liquidators' debacle, however, is a bigger issue: Why are there no federal restrictions on formaldehyde emissions in the home considering it was first recognized as a health threat some 30 years ago?..."
Elliott Negin: Toxic Influence: How a Chemical Industry Trade Group You've Never Heard of Threatens Your Health
"Lumber Liquidators, North America's largest hardwood flooring retailer, took a major hit earlier this year when CBS's 60 Minutes reported that the company was selling Chinese-made laminate flooring containing dangerous amounts of the carcinogen formaldehyde.
A day after the broadcast, the company punched back, insisting that its laminate flooring is "completely safe to use as intended" and that the news program's tests were flawed. "We stand by every plank of wood and laminate we sell all around the country," the company declared.
Despite those assurances, Lumber Liquidators pulled the suspect flooring off the market and provided thousands of customers with home air-quality test kits. But even that wasn't enough to stanch the bleeding. Sales plummeted, its stock tanked, several top company officials resigned, and irate homeowners filed at least 135 lawsuits. Meanwhile, the Consumer Product Safety Commission is investigating the case and the Justice Department is expected to file criminal charges.
Largely lost in the coverage of Lumber Liquidators' debacle, however, is a bigger issue: Why are there no federal restrictions on formaldehyde emissions in the home considering it was first recognized as a health threat some 30 years ago?..."
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
Technology & Privacy:
Megan Geuss: SIM card makers hacked by NSA and GCHQ leaving cell networks wide open
(Feb. 2015) "In a new report on some of the confidential documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, The Intercept wrote that operatives from both the National Security Agency (NSA) and the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) joined forces in April 2010 to crack mobile phone encryption. The Mobile Handset Exploitation Team (MHET) succeeded in stealing untold numbers of encryption keys from SIM card makers and mobile networks, specifically Dutch SIM card maker Gemalto, one of the largest SIM manufacturers in the world. Gemalto produces 2 billion SIM cards a year, which are used all over the world.
Although the SIM card in a cell phone was originally used to verify billing to mobile phone users, today a SIM also stores the encryption keys that protect a user's voice, text, and data-based communications and make them difficult for spies to listen in on. The mobile carrier holds the corresponding key that allows the phone to connect to the mobile carrier's network. Each SIM card is manufactured with an encryption key (called a “Ki”) that is physically burned into the chip. When you go to use the phone, it “conducts a secret 'handshake' that validates that the Ki on the SIM matches the Ki held by the mobile company,” The Intercept explains. “Once that happens, the communications between the phone and the network are encrypted.” Using a fake cell tower and holding SIM encryption keys, spies are able to listen into conversations over mobile networks without asking the courts for permission for a wiretap. The method is also difficult to trace, so risk of discovery is low.
To steal the SIM encryption keys, MHET exploited a weakness in SIM manufacturers' business routine—that SIM card manufacturers tend to deliver the corresponding Kis to mobile carriers via e-mail or File Transfer Protocol. By doing basic cyberstalking of Gemalto employees, the NSA and GCHQ were able to pilfer “millions” of SIM Kis, which have a slow turnover rate (your phone's Ki will likely remain the same as long as you keep the SIM in the phone) and can be used to decrypt data that has been stored for months or even years..."
Megan Geuss: SIM card makers hacked by NSA and GCHQ leaving cell networks wide open
(Feb. 2015) "In a new report on some of the confidential documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, The Intercept wrote that operatives from both the National Security Agency (NSA) and the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) joined forces in April 2010 to crack mobile phone encryption. The Mobile Handset Exploitation Team (MHET) succeeded in stealing untold numbers of encryption keys from SIM card makers and mobile networks, specifically Dutch SIM card maker Gemalto, one of the largest SIM manufacturers in the world. Gemalto produces 2 billion SIM cards a year, which are used all over the world.
Although the SIM card in a cell phone was originally used to verify billing to mobile phone users, today a SIM also stores the encryption keys that protect a user's voice, text, and data-based communications and make them difficult for spies to listen in on. The mobile carrier holds the corresponding key that allows the phone to connect to the mobile carrier's network. Each SIM card is manufactured with an encryption key (called a “Ki”) that is physically burned into the chip. When you go to use the phone, it “conducts a secret 'handshake' that validates that the Ki on the SIM matches the Ki held by the mobile company,” The Intercept explains. “Once that happens, the communications between the phone and the network are encrypted.” Using a fake cell tower and holding SIM encryption keys, spies are able to listen into conversations over mobile networks without asking the courts for permission for a wiretap. The method is also difficult to trace, so risk of discovery is low.
To steal the SIM encryption keys, MHET exploited a weakness in SIM manufacturers' business routine—that SIM card manufacturers tend to deliver the corresponding Kis to mobile carriers via e-mail or File Transfer Protocol. By doing basic cyberstalking of Gemalto employees, the NSA and GCHQ were able to pilfer “millions” of SIM Kis, which have a slow turnover rate (your phone's Ki will likely remain the same as long as you keep the SIM in the phone) and can be used to decrypt data that has been stored for months or even years..."
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
The Case Against The Roberts Court:
Paul Butler: Think Police Can’t Use Illegally Obtained Evidence Against You? Think Again
"Hudson v. Michigan (2006) is one in a series of cases in which the Roberts Court has blessed police officers with extraordinary power. This power authorizes cops to engage in the kind of violent and undemocratic policing that make places like Ferguson and Baltimore look less like American cities and more like the outposts of some totalitarian regime. The scandal, it turns out, is not bad-apple cops. The scandal is that the conservative justices on the Roberts Court have provided the legal framework for black lives not to matter to the police. The Constitution be damned: This was apparently the perspective of a Detroit police officer named Jamal Good, who admitted that he routinely violated the long-standing requirement that police “knock and announce” their presence before entering a home. Good found that the Fourth Amendment—with its pesky insistence that searches be reasonable—limited his ability to obtain evidence, so he simply ignored it. Usually, the Supreme Court decides whether there has been a violation of the Constitution. In Hudson, the Court faced a different question: When a cop admits that he has broken the rules, should there be any meaningful sanction? The issue was whether the classic remedy for Fourth Amendment violations—the “exclusionary rule,” which renders evidence collected through unconstitutional means inadmissible in criminal court—applies to the knock-and-announce rule. In a 5–4 decision, the Court held that it does not..."
Theodore M. Shaw: John Roberts Dismantled the ‘Crown Jewel’ of the Civil-Rights Movement
"The Supreme Court said that times have changed. So why were 180 restrictive voting laws passed after it gutted the Voting Rights Act?"
Arthur R. Miller: It Just Got a Lot Harder for Americans to Have Their Day in Court
"By rewriting the rules for civil complaints, the Supreme Court denied access to poor and middle-class people—and handed a big gift to corporate interests."
Nan Aron & Kyle C. Barry: The Case Against the Roberts Court
"To show what’s at stake, The Nation has asked 10 astute Court watchers to review a case from each year of the Roberts Court, situating it within the last decade of decisions and reflecting on what it reveals about the Court’s biases. The result is a wide-angle portrait that thoroughly debunks the myth of Roberts as unbiased umpire. Rather than provide “equal justice under law,” Roberts has led a narrow conservative majority that consistently favors the privileged and powerful (especially corporations) at the expense of everyone else (especially women, workers, consumers, people of color, and the accused). For all of its claim to judicial restraint, the Roberts Court aggressively enacts conservative policy, unafraid to overturn long-standing precedent or second-guess the elected branches in order to strike down progressive reforms..."
Paul Butler: Think Police Can’t Use Illegally Obtained Evidence Against You? Think Again
"Hudson v. Michigan (2006) is one in a series of cases in which the Roberts Court has blessed police officers with extraordinary power. This power authorizes cops to engage in the kind of violent and undemocratic policing that make places like Ferguson and Baltimore look less like American cities and more like the outposts of some totalitarian regime. The scandal, it turns out, is not bad-apple cops. The scandal is that the conservative justices on the Roberts Court have provided the legal framework for black lives not to matter to the police. The Constitution be damned: This was apparently the perspective of a Detroit police officer named Jamal Good, who admitted that he routinely violated the long-standing requirement that police “knock and announce” their presence before entering a home. Good found that the Fourth Amendment—with its pesky insistence that searches be reasonable—limited his ability to obtain evidence, so he simply ignored it. Usually, the Supreme Court decides whether there has been a violation of the Constitution. In Hudson, the Court faced a different question: When a cop admits that he has broken the rules, should there be any meaningful sanction? The issue was whether the classic remedy for Fourth Amendment violations—the “exclusionary rule,” which renders evidence collected through unconstitutional means inadmissible in criminal court—applies to the knock-and-announce rule. In a 5–4 decision, the Court held that it does not..."
Theodore M. Shaw: John Roberts Dismantled the ‘Crown Jewel’ of the Civil-Rights Movement
"The Supreme Court said that times have changed. So why were 180 restrictive voting laws passed after it gutted the Voting Rights Act?"
Arthur R. Miller: It Just Got a Lot Harder for Americans to Have Their Day in Court
"By rewriting the rules for civil complaints, the Supreme Court denied access to poor and middle-class people—and handed a big gift to corporate interests."
Nan Aron & Kyle C. Barry: The Case Against the Roberts Court
"To show what’s at stake, The Nation has asked 10 astute Court watchers to review a case from each year of the Roberts Court, situating it within the last decade of decisions and reflecting on what it reveals about the Court’s biases. The result is a wide-angle portrait that thoroughly debunks the myth of Roberts as unbiased umpire. Rather than provide “equal justice under law,” Roberts has led a narrow conservative majority that consistently favors the privileged and powerful (especially corporations) at the expense of everyone else (especially women, workers, consumers, people of color, and the accused). For all of its claim to judicial restraint, the Roberts Court aggressively enacts conservative policy, unafraid to overturn long-standing precedent or second-guess the elected branches in order to strike down progressive reforms..."
