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Edward Snowden Didn’t Expose the NSA’s Bulk Phone Collection Program. Leslie Cauley Did.

by AracelyBaragwan Posted on June 4, 2015

Mother Jones

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The LA Times complains today that President Obama left someone out when he praised Congress for reforming the Patriot Act to end the NSA’s bulk collection of telephone records:

Unacknowledged by the president was the man who can fairly be called the ultimate author of this legislation: former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who has been charged with violating the Espionage Act and is now living in exile in Russia. Without Snowden’s unauthorized disclosures two years ago, neither the public nor many members of Congress would have known that the government, acting under a strained interpretation of the Patriot Act, was vacuuming up and storing millions of Americans’ telephone records. That program will end after a six-month transition period under the bill signed by Obama.

I don’t want to minimize Snowden’s contribution here. He exposed a vast amount of official secrecy and lying, and did it in a way that produced a lot of public attention. Whether you love him or hate him, he deserves a ton of credit for doing what he did.

But it’s been a long-running pet peeve of mine that hardly anyone ever credits the person who was really the first to expose the NSA’s bulk data collection program: Leslie Cauley of USA Today. Here she is in May 2006, seven years before Snowden’s disclosures:

The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY. The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans — most of whom aren’t suspected of any crime….The agency’s goal is “to create a database of every call ever made” within the nation’s borders.

….For the customers of these companies, it means that the government has detailed records of calls they made — across town or across the country — to family members, co-workers, business contacts and others….With access to records of billions of domestic calls, the NSA has gained a secret window into the communications habits of millions of Americans.

…..Among the big telecommunications companies, only Qwest has refused to help the NSA, the sources said. According to multiple sources, Qwest declined to participate because it was uneasy about the legal implications of handing over customer information to the government without warrants.

The big difference between Cauley and Snowden isn’t so much in what they revealed about the bulk collection program, but simply that the world yawned at Cauley and did nothing. It wasn’t until Snowden revealed far more about the NSA’s activities that the bulk collection program finally got the attention it deserved.

Snowden deserves credit for that—and, obviously, for providing lots of concrete evidence about the nature of the program. But when it comes to exposing the bulk collection program itself? Cauley told us all about it nearly a decade ago. She’s the one who deserves credit for making it public in the first place.

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Edward Snowden Didn’t Expose the NSA’s Bulk Phone Collection Program. Leslie Cauley Did.

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Move over, cotton. This smart fabric could change our lives

by WernerCordner Posted on June 1, 2015

DON’T GET HEATED

Move over, cotton. This smart fabric could change our lives

By on 1 Jun 2015commentsShare

World peace has always been an unachievable fantasy. Until now.

A group of researchers at UC San Diego just got $2.6 million from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) to make clothing that could regulate body temperature and thus reduce the amount of energy we use for heating and cooling. Here’s more from a press release out of UCSD:

The smart fabric will be designed to regulate the temperature of the wearer’s skin — keeping it at 93° F — by adapting to temperature changes in the room. When the room gets cooler, the fabric will become thicker. When the room gets hotter, the fabric will become thinner. To accomplish this feat, the researchers will insert polymers that expand in the cold and shrink in the heat inside the smart fabric.

According to one of the researchers on the project, 93 degrees is a comfortable skin temperature for most people (who knew?). Clothes made from the fabric will also include “supplemental heating and cooling devices” in certain spots that tend to get particularly uncomfortable (parts of the back, bottoms of feet, etc.).

So what does this have to do with world peace? Think about it: all that passive aggression that builds when your roommate cranks up the thermostat, and then you (resident environmentalist) turn it back down to save energy? Or that crankiness that creeps over you when a public place has the A.C. on arctic chill, but you didn’t bring a jacket because it’s 80 freaking degrees outside? Or that thing about violent crimes going up in the summer? It could all go away! Or, at least, cool down.

Joseph Wang, lead researcher on the project and a professor of nanoengineering at UCSD, is envisioning a smart fabric revolution:

“We are aiming to make the smart clothing look and feel as much like the clothes that people regularly wear. It will be washable, stretchable, bendable and lightweight. We also hope to make it look attractive and fashionable to wear,” said Wang.

A word of advice, Wang: If you want to start a smart fabric revolution, you better do more than just hope on that last point. We — the vainest of all species — put ourselves through all manner of discomfort in the name of fashion. You better believe that we’ll continue to suffer if that smart clothing doesn’t look good, too.

Source:
Engineers win grant to make smart clothes for personalized cooling and heating

, UC San Diego.

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Move over, cotton. This smart fabric could change our lives

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Here’s the Best Stuff from Edward Snowden’s Reddit "Ask Me Anything"

by ChristalBridges Posted on May 21, 2015

Mother Jones

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In the midst of the Congressional debate about mass surveillance and a Senate filibuster of a vote on the Patriot Act, it might be easy to forget how we got here. Arguably, none of would be happening if not for Edward Snowden, the erstwhile National Security Agency contractor who rocked the world when he leaked a trove of documents exposing the US government’s spying and surveillance operations.

Snowden took questions on Reddit during an AMA (“Ask Me Anything”) on Thursday. The whole thing is worth a read, but here are some highlights:

On Sen. Rand Paul’s filibuster of the Patriot Act’s renewal:

It represents a sea change from a few years ago, when intrusive new surveillance laws were passed without any kind of meaningful opposition or debate. Whatever you think about Rand Paul or his politics, it’s important to remember that when he took the floor to say “No” to any length of reauthorization of the Patriot Act, he was speaking for the majority of Americans — more than 60% of whom want to see this kind of mass surveillance reformed or ended.

On the American public’s apparent apathy about the NSA snooping revelations:

Jameel probably has a better answer, but we know from very recent, non-partisan polling that Americans (and everyone else around the world) care tremendously about mass surveillance.

The more central question, from my perspective, is “why don’t lawmakers seem to care?” After all, the entire reason they are in office in our system is to represent our views. The recent Princeton Study on politicians’ responsiveness to the policy preferences of different sections of society gives some indication of where things might be going wrong:

Out of all groups expressing a policy preference within society, the views of the public at large are given the very least weight, whereas those of economic elites (think bankers, lobbyists, and the people on the Board of Directors at defense contracting companies) exercise more than ten times as much influence on what laws get passed — and what laws don’t.

On why people should care:

Some might say “I don’t care if they violate my privacy; I’ve got nothing to hide.” Help them understand that they are misunderstanding the fundamental nature of human rights. Nobody needs to justify why they “need” a right: the burden of justification falls on the one seeking to infringe upon the right. But even if they did, you can’t give away the rights of others because they’re not useful to you. More simply, the majority cannot vote away the natural rights of the minority.

But even if they could, help them think for a moment about what they’re saying. Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.

A free press benefits more than just those who read the paper.

On what people should do if they want to push for reforms:

The first thing is to correct misinformation whenever you see this topic being debated. For example:

Supporters of mass surveillance say it keeps us safe. The problem is that that’s an allegation, not a fact, and there’s no evidence at all to support the claim. In fact, a White House review with unrestricted access to classified information found that not only is mass surveillance illegal, it has never made a concrete difference in even one terrorism investigation.

Some claim the Senate should keep Section 215 of the Patriot Act (which will be voted on in two days) because we need “more time for debate,” but even in the US, the public has already decided: 60% oppose reauthorization. This unconstitutional mass surveillance program was revealed in June 2013 and has been struck down by courts twice since then. If two years and two courts aren’t enough to satisfy them, what is?

A few try to say that Section 215 is legal. It’s not. Help them understand.

The bottom line is we need people everywhere — in the US, outside the US, and especially within their own communities — to push back and challenge anybody defending these programs. More than anything, we need to ordinary people to make it clear that a vote in favor of the extension or reauthorization of mass surveillance authorities is a vote in favor of a program that is illegal, ineffective, and illiberal.

On whether kids should pursue careers in cryptography:

Yes, but good luck keeping tabs on them as teens.
“Where have you been?” “Out.” “If you don’t tell me, I’ll just check your ph– Oh.”

On the potential of coming back to the states one day (the questioner said, “I hope so!”):

Me too. The White House has been working on that petition for a couple years, now, and the courts have finally confirmed that the 2013 revelations revealed unlawful activity on the part of the government. Maybe they’ll surprise us.

On whether he actually saw John Oliver’s penis:

( Í¡° Í&#156;Ê&#150; Í¡°)

On what he misses about the United States, and specifically, if he misses pizza:

This guy gets it.

Russia has Papa John’s. For real.

(follow up): What are your favorite toppings? I like Pepperoni, Bacon, and Tomato, but my go-to Papa John’s order is Pepperoni and Pineapple with extra sauce.

Snowden: Nice try, FBI profiler.

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Here’s the Best Stuff from Edward Snowden’s Reddit "Ask Me Anything"

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After a Mother Jones Investigation, Starbucks Says It Will Stop Bottling Water in California

by PhillipR65 Posted on May 8, 2015

Mother Jones

On the heels of a Mother Jones investigation last week that found that Starbucks sources its bottled water from a spring in the heart of California’s drought country, Starbucks announced yesterday that it will phase out use of its California bottling plant for Ethos Water over the next six months. Because of “the serious drought conditions” in California, the company will transition to its Pennsylvania supplier while looking for another source to cover the western United States, Starbucks officials said in a press release.

The California counties from which Starbucks sources and bottles Ethos have been in a drought emergency for years now. Placer County, where Ethos’ spring water is drawn, was already declared a natural disaster area by the USDA because of the drought back in 2012. Reports from more than a year ago noted that the county was already scrambling to deal with the area’s “extreme drought.” Merced county, where the bottling facility is located, declared a local emergency due to drought more than a year ago, as “extremely dry conditions have persisted since 2012.”

Meanwhile, the Pennsylvania county to which Starbucks is now shifting its entire national production of Ethos Water is itself facing drought conditions. While not as catastrophic as California’s historic water emergency, Luzerne County, where Starbucks’ east coast supplier sources and bottles Ethos, was declared to be under Drought Watch by Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection back in March. DEP issued the declaration after below-normal rainfall over the past year has led to low groundwater levels in the region, which the agency noted has the potential to cause well-fed water supplies to go dry. The state is asking local residents to voluntarily reduce water consumption and to “run water only when absolutely necessary.” DEP has put large water users on notice to plan for possible reductions in water supplies.

Nevertheless, Ethos’ Pennsylvania bottler, Nature’s Way Purewater, which bottles a number of other brands at its facility, announced in January that it planned to double production going forward.

This article was reported in partnership with the Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute, with support from the Puffin Foundation.

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After a Mother Jones Investigation, Starbucks Says It Will Stop Bottling Water in California

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These Scientists Just Lost Their Lives in the Arctic. They Were Heroes.

by KimberlyHollins Posted on May 7, 2015

Mother Jones

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Early last month, veteran polar explorers and scientists Marc Cornelissen and Philip de Roo set out on skis from Resolute Bay, a remote outpost in the patchwork of islands between Canada and Greenland. Their destination was Bathurst Island, a treacherous 70-mile trek to the northwest across the frozen sea, where they planned to document thinning Arctic sea ice just a few months after NASA reported that the winter ice cover was the lowest on record.

It wasn’t hard to find what they were looking for, according to a dispatch Cornelissen uploaded to Soundcloud on April 28.

“We’re nearing into the coast of Bathurst,” he said. “We think we see thin ice in front of us…Within 15 minutes of skiing it became really warm. In the end it was me skiing in my underwear…I don’t think it looked very nice, and it didn’t feel sexy either, but it was the only way to deal with the heat.”

His next message, a day later, was an emergency distress signal picked up by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. According to the Guardian, a pilot flying over the spot reported seeing open water, scattered equipment, and a lone sled dog sitting on the broken ice. By last Friday, rescuers had called off the search. The pair are presumed to have drowned, victims of the same thin ice they had come to study. Cornelissen was 46; de Roo had just turned 30.

Yesterday, Cold Facts, the nonprofit with whom the pair was working at the time, dispatched a snowmobile expedition to attempt to recover their belongings. You can follow their progress on Twitter here. The dog, Kimnik, was found a few days ago and is doing fine, the group said.

In a blog post on the website of the European Space Agency, Cornelissen was remembered by former colleagues as “an inspirational character, an explorer and a romantic. He had fallen in love with the spellbinding beauty of the poles and had made it a personal mission to highlight the magnitude of the human fingerprint on this last wilderness.”

It’s not clear whether the ice conditions the pair encountered were directly attributable to climate change, according to E&E News:

That the region had thin ice is evident. Perhaps the ice had been thinned by ocean currents that deliver warm water from below, or by the wind, which could generate open water areas. It is difficult to know. Climate change may have played a role, or it may not have…the impacts of the warming on ice thickness regionally can be unpredictable, ESA scientist Mark Drinkwater said.

Still, the Arctic is warming twice as fast as anywhere else on Earth. We rely on the work of scientists like these to know exactly what is happening there and how it will affect those of us who choose to stay safe in warmer, drier places. Their deaths are a testament to the dedication and fearlessness required to stand on the front lines of climate change.

Rest in peace, guys.

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These Scientists Just Lost Their Lives in the Arctic. They Were Heroes.

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New EPA carbon rules would save thousands of lives, science says

by CassieRZJyu Posted on May 5, 2015

E.P.Yay.

New EPA carbon rules would save thousands of lives, science says

By on 5 May 2015commentsShare

We’re all thinking it, I’ll just say it: Carbon emissions regulations are boring. Nine times out of 10, I’m yawning by the time I get to the “regulations” part. Plus, I don’t personally spew CO2 and other pollutants from industrial-scale smokestacks — even if I’m personally responsible for some of that spew — so it can be kinda hard to care about this or that incentive or check meant to keep big polluters in line.

Well, too bad, it’s time to pay attention. Carbon regulations save lives — we were already pretty sure about this, but now science can confirm just how many lives we’re talking: thousands. The Obama administration’s proposed regulations on carbon pollution from power plants would save thousands of lives every year. Here’s The New York Times with the gist:

[A new] study, led by researchers at Syracuse and Harvard Universities, used modeling to predict the effect on human health of changes to national carbon standards for power plants. The researchers calculated three different outcomes using data from the Census Bureau and detailed maps of the more than 2,400 fossil-fuel power plants across the country.

The model with the biggest health benefit was the one that most closely resembled the changes that the Environmental Protection Agency proposed in a rule in June. Under that plan, reductions in carbon emissions for the plants would be set by states and would include improvements to the energy efficiency of, for example, air-conditioners, refrigerators and power grids.

The health benefits of the rule would be indirect. While carbon emissions trap heat in the atmosphere, which contributes to a warming planet, they are not directly linked to health threats. Emissions from coal-fired power plants, however, also include a number of other pollutants, such as soot and ozone, that are directly linked to illnesses like asthma and lung disease.

Researchers calculated that the changes in the E.P.A. rule could prevent 3,500 premature deaths a year and more than 1,000 heart attacks and hospitalizations from air-pollution-related illness.

Nearly 5,000 lives saved and hospitalizations avoided — that’s about four suburban high schools (this is a unit I just made up) worth of people, which is a horrifying number to drop to preventable causes every year. 

Source:
E.P.A. Carbon Emissions Plan Could Save Thousands of Lives, Study Finds

, New York Times.

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New EPA carbon rules would save thousands of lives, science says

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How Californians Screwed Drought-Plagued California

by OliverSheets Posted on April 22, 2015

Mother Jones

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Solving California’s water crisis got a lot harder on Monday when a state appeals court struck down steeply tiered water rates in the city of San Juan Capistrano. Like many other California cities, this affluent Orange County town encourages conservation by charging customers who use small amounts of water a lower rate per gallon than customers who use larger amounts. The court ruled that the practice conflicts with Proposition 218, a ballot measure that, among other things, bars governments from charging more for a service than it costs to provide it.

The drought isn’t the only way Prop. 218 is hamstringing California cities. Early last year, San Francisco’s Municipal Transportation Agency announced a controversial pilot program that would allow Google buses and other tech shuttles to use public bus stops for $1 a stop. Activists, who saw the shuttles as symbols of inequality and out-of-control gentrification, wanted the agency to charge Google much more than that and use the profits to subsidize the city’s chronically underfunded public transit system. But MTA officials argued that their hands were tied: Prop. 218 prevented them from charging more than the estimated $1.5 million cost of administering the program.

Prop. 218, the “Right to Vote on Taxes Act,” was a constitutional amendment drafted in 1996 by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, the group that led the tax revolt that swept California in the 1970s and eventually helped elect President Ronald Reagan. After 1978, when the group’s signature initiative, Prop. 13, began severely limiting property tax increases, cities and counties moved to plug their budgetary holes with other types of taxes and fees. Prop 218 was designed to constrain those workarounds by requiring that any new tax be approved by voters or affected property owners. For the purposes of the act, taxes included any fees from which a government derived a profit.

Prop. 218 has been widely criticized for making it harder for cities to raise revenues, but the recent cases with water rates and tech shuttles point to another issue: the way the initiative prevents state and local governments from addressing urgent social and environmental problems. It’s worth remembering that withdrawing water from California’s dwindling reservoirs to feed verdant lawns is in itself a tax of sorts, and Mother Nature may not wait until the next election to revoke our ability to levy it.

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How Californians Screwed Drought-Plagued California

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The FDA Just Released Scary New Data on Antibiotics And Farms

by CeliaHdack Posted on April 14, 2015

Mother Jones

Back in April 2012, the Food and Drug Administration launched an effort to address a problem that had been festering for decades: the meat industry’s habit of feeding livestock daily low does of antibiotics, which keeps animals alive under stressful conditions and may help them grow faster, but also generates bacterial pathogens that can shake off antibiotics, and make people sick.

The FDA approached the task gingerly: It asked the industry to voluntarily wean itself from routine use of “medically important” antibiotics—those that are critical to human medicine, like tetracycline. In addition to the light touch, the agency plan included a massive loophole: that while livestock producers should no longer use antibiotics as a growth promoter, they’re welcome to use them to “prevent” disease—which often means using them in the same way (routinely), and at the same rate. How’s the FDA’s effort to ramp down antibiotic use on farms working? Last week, the FDA delivered an early look, releasing data for 2013, the year after it rolled out its plan. The results are … scary.

FDA

Note that use of medically important antibiotics actually grew 3 percent in 2013 compared to the previous year, while the industry’s appetite for non-medically import drugs, which it’s supposed to be shifting to, shrank 2 percent. A longer view reveals an even more worrisome trend: between 2009 and 2013, use of medically important drugs grew 20 percent.And the FDA data show that these livestock operations are particularly voracious for the same antibiotics doctors prescribe to people. Farms burn through 9.1 million kilograms of medically important antibiotics vs. 5.5 million kilograms of ones not currently used in human medicine. That means about 62 percent of their total antibiotic use could be be helping generate pathogens that resist the drugs we rely on. (According to Natural Resources Defense Council’s Avinash Kar, 70 percent of medically important antibiotics sold in the US go to farms.)

The report also delivers a stark view into just how routine antibiotics have become on farms.

FDA

Note that 74 percent of the medically important drugs being consumed on farms are delivered through feed, and another 24 percent go out in water. That means fully 95 percent is being fed to animals on a regular basis, not being given to specific animals to treat a particular infection. Just 5 percent (4 percent via injection, 1 percent orally) are administered that way.

Anyone wondering which species—chickens, pigs, turkeys, or cows—get the most antibiotics will have to take it up with the FDA. The agency doesn’t require companies to deliver that information, so it doesn’t exist, at least not in publicly available form. The FDA only began releasing any information at all on livestock antibiotic use in very recent years, after having its hand forced by a 2008 act of Congress.

Meanwhile, at least 2 million Americans get sick from antibiotic-resistant bacteria each year, and at least 23,000 of them die, the Centers for Disease Control estimates. And while all of that carnage can’t be blamed on the meat industry’s drug habit, it does play a major role, as the CDC makes clear in this handy infographic.

CDC

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The FDA Just Released Scary New Data on Antibiotics And Farms

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The Iranian Nuclear Deal: What the Experts Are Saying

by PreciouKKNV Posted on April 3, 2015

Mother Jones

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Shortly after the participants in the Iranian nuclear talks announced that a double-overtime framework had been crafted, I was on television with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, who is something of a celebrity rabbi, a failed congressional candidate, and an arch-neoconservative hawk who has been howling about a potential deal with Iran for months. Not surprisingly, he was not pleased by the news of the day. He declared that under these parameters, Iran would give up nothing and would “maintain their entire nuclear apparatus.” Elsewhere, a more serious critic, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who last month had organized the letter to Iran’s leaders signed by 47 GOP senators opposed to a deal, groused that the framework was “only a list of dangerous US concessions that will put Iran on the path to nuclear weapons.”

These criticisms were rhetorical bombs, not statements of fact. Under the framework, Iran would give up two-thirds of its centrifuges used to enrich uranium and would reduce its stockpile of low-enriched uranium (which is the raw material used to develop bomb-quality highly-enriched uranium) from 10,000 kilograms to 300 kilograms. These two developments alone—and the framework has many other provisions—would diminish Tehran’s ability to produce a nuclear weapon. Its nuclear apparatus would be smaller, and under these guidelines, Iran’s pathway to nuclear weapons, while certainly not impossible, would be much more difficult. Yet because politics dominates the debate over this deal—as it does so often with important policy matters—foes of the framework could hurl fact-free charges with impunity.

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The Iranian Nuclear Deal: What the Experts Are Saying

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This Declassified CIA Report Shows the Shaky Case for the Iraq War

by Ludie69E Posted on March 20, 2015

Mother Jones

The United States began its invasion of Iraq 12 years ago. Yesterday, a previously classified Central Intelligence Agency report containing supposed proof of the country’s weapons of mass destruction was published by Jason Leopold of Vice News. Put together nine months before the start of the war, the National Intelligence Estimate spells out what the CIA knew about Iraq’s ability to produce biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. It would become the backbone of the Bush administration’s mistaken assertions that Saddam Hussein possessed WMDs and posed a direct threat to the post-9/11 world.

The report is rife with what now are obvious red flags that the Bush White House oversold the case for war. It asserts that Iraq had an active chemical weapons program at one point, though it admits that the CIA had found no evidence of the program’s continuation. It repeatedly includes caveats like “credible evidence is limited.” It gives little space to the doubts of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, which found the CIA’s findings on Iraq’s nuclear program unconvincing and “at best ambiguous.”

This isn’t the first time the report’s been released in full: A version was made public in 2004, but nearly all the text was redacted. Last year, transparency advocate John Greenwald successfully petitioned the CIA for a more complete version. Greenwald shared the document with Leopold.

Here’s the full report:

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CIA 2002 Iraq Report (PDF)

CIA 2002 Iraq Report (Text)

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This Declassified CIA Report Shows the Shaky Case for the Iraq War

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