Jones Day | Congress Passes CLOUD Act to Facilitate Law Enforcement Access to Overseas Data April 11, 2018
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Two Key Takeaways Providers of electronic communications and certain cloud services should analyze how the Act will apply to them and be prepared to respond to legal process under the new regime. Companies and individuals who use such services should consider whether the privacy and other implications of the Act require any change in their practices.
Source: Jones Day | Congress Passes CLOUD Act to Facilitate Law Enforcement Access to Overseas Data
The U.S. CLOUD Act and the EU: A Privacy Protection Race to the Bottom | Electronic Frontier Foundation April 11, 2018
Posted by sandyclaus in Copyright and Trademark Enforcement, Security, Security State.add a comment
U.S. President Donald Trump’s $1.3 trillion government spending bill, signed March 23rd, offered 2,323 pages of budgeting on issues ranging from domestic drug policy to defense. The last-minute rush to fund the U.S. government through this all-or-nothing “omnibus” presented legislators with a golden opportunity to insert policies that would escape deep public scrutiny. Case in point: the Clarifying Lawful Use of Overseas Data (CLOUD) Act, whose broad ramifications for undermining global privacy should not be underestimated, was snuck into the final pages of the bill before the vote. Between the U.S. CLOUD Act and new European Union (EU) efforts to dismantle international rules for cross-border law enforcement investigations, the United States and EU are racing against one another towards an unfortunate finish-line: weaker privacy protections around the globe. The U.S. CLOUD Act allows the U.S. President to enter into “executive agreements” with qualifying foreign governments in order to directly access data held by U.S. technology companies at a lower standard than required by the Constitution of the United States. To qualify, foreign governments would need to be certified by the U.S. Attorney General, and meet certain human rights standards set in the act. Those qualifying governments will have the ability to bypass the legal safeguards of the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) regime.
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says he’s leaving Facebook April 9, 2018
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Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says he’s leaving Facebook, amid concerns about security safeguards on the personal information that users share with the social media giant. “I am in the process of leaving Facebook. It’s brought me more negatives than positives,” Wozniak wrote in a Facebook post on Sunday. “Apple has more secure ways to share things about yourself. I can still deal with old school email and text messages.”
Source: Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says he’s leaving Facebook
Steve Bannon and The Camp of the Saints. April 5, 2018
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The book, published in 1973 by a French writer named Jean Raspail, is called The Camp of the Saints. The Southern Poverty Law Center has described it as “a racist fantasy about an invasion of France and the white Western world by a fleet of starving, dark-skinned refugees.” (In the novel, the leader of the refugees is described as regularly eating human feces.) Raspail once said that “the proliferation of other races dooms our race, my race, to extinction.”
The Hubble Space Telescope has discovered the farthest individual star ever seen – CNN April 4, 2018
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The light turned out to be an individual star that only became visible with the help of gravitational lensing. Simply put, gravitational lensing is the concept that mass bends light. The mass in this case was a galaxy cluster about 5 billion light years from Earth, between our planet and Icarus. The cluster of galaxies act as a natural lens in space, bending and amplifying light while illuminating Icarus. “Being able to see one star at a time is helpful,” Kelly said. Without gravitational lensing, the star would’ve been impossible to see, even with a powerful telescope, he said.
Source: The Hubble Space Telescope has discovered the farthest individual star ever seen – CNN
If Russians Hacked 2016 Voting Machines, Our Republic Is in Trouble April 2, 2018
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We are inching ever closer to the revelation that the actual vote totals were hacked—some very smart people are already there, by the way—and, once that happens, I don’t know where we go from there. The Republican Party already has shown it will tolerate all manner of jacking around with the franchise in pursuit of power and its benefits for the Republican donor class. But, simply, I don’t know if either party truly has the sand to face up to the possibility that a president* was installed under those circumstances.
Source: If Russians Hacked 2016 Voting Machines, Our Republic Is in Trouble
How America’s Largest Local TV Owner Turned Its News Anchors Into Soldiers In Trump’s War On The Media April 2, 2018
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https://content.jwplatform.com/previews/wIs4mmG8?exp=1522654560&sig=7998ebd66f1777f32311599f50248792
Earlier this month, CNN’s Brian Stelter broke the news that Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner or operator of nearly 200 television stations in the U.S., would be forcing its news anchors to record a promo about “the troubling trend of irresponsible, one sided news stories plaguing our country.” The script, which parrots Donald Trump’s oft-declarations of developments negative to his presidency as “fake news,” brought upheaval to newsrooms already dismayed with Sinclair’s consistent interference to bring right-wing propaganda to local television broadcasts. You might remember Sinclair from its having been featured on John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight last year, or from its requiring in 2004 of affiliates to air anti-John Kerry propaganda, or perhaps because it’s your own local affiliate running inflammatory “Terrorism Alerts” or required editorials from former Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn, he of the famed Holocaust Remembrance Day statement that failed to mention Jewish people. (Sinclair also owns Ring of Honor wrestling, Tennis magazine, and the Tennis Channel.)
Our well regulated militia at work… April 1, 2018
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SHELBY, N.C. (AP) — Authorities in North Carolina say four men suffered gunshot wounds in a “running gun battle” while driving on a highway.
The Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release it appears shots were fired between the occupants of two vehicles around 2:15 a.m. Saturday on U.S. 74 near Kings Mountain.
One vehicle carrying three wounded men ended up stopped in the eastbound lane, and the other left the scene. The four men who got shot were treated at hospitals for wounds that did not appear to be life-threatening. All are in their mid-to-late 20s.
via 4 wounded in ‘running gun battle’ on North Carolina highway – Houston Chronicle
Culture Foam: Bubbling Up 