Wednesday, 16 October 2013

USAHitman | Conspiracy News

Sandy Hook Contractors Being Forced to Sign Confidentiality Agreements

Posted: 15 Oct 2013 08:11 PM PDT

When the old Sandy Hook Elementary School is demolished, building materials will be pulverized on site and metal will be taken away and melted down in an effort to eliminate nearly every trace of the building where a gunman killed 26 people last December.
Contractors also will be required to sign confidentiality agreements and workers will guard the property’s perimeter to prevent onlookers from taking photographs or videos.
The goal is to prevent exploitation of any remnants of the building, Newtown First Selectman E. Patricia Llodra said Tuesday.
“We want to be absolutely certain to do everything we can to protect the privacy of the families and the Sandy Hook community,” she said. “We’re going to every possible length to eliminate any possibility that any artifacts from the building would be taken from the campus and … end up on eBay.”
Demolition is set to begin next week and be finished before the Dec. 14 anniversary of the shootings. Town voters last month accepted a state grant of $49.3 million to raze the building and build a new school, which is expected to open by December 2016.
The contractors’ confidentiality agreements, which were first reported Monday by The News-Times of Danbury, forbid public discussion of the site as well as photographs or disclosure of any information about the building.
Most of the building will be completely crushed and hauled away to an undisclosed location. Some of the demolition dust may be used in the foundation and driveway of the new school, Llodra said. The town also is requiring documentation that metal and other materials that can’t be crushed and are hauled off-site are destroyed, she said.
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Grocery store ‘smart shelves’ will target consumers in real-time based on their facial features

Posted: 15 Oct 2013 05:59 PM PDT

Going to the grocery store is about to get a lot more personal: one of the biggest names in food is preparing to launch “smart shelves” to gather intelligence on consumers and customize their shopping experience.
Mondelēz International, the parent company of Kraft Foods, plans on having their space-age smart shelves rolled out on supermarket floors sometime in 2015. And if all goes as planned, soon after the multi-national corporation behind products such as Chips Ahoy, Oreo, Wheat Thins and Ritz will begin collecting analytics about impulse buys and learn new ways to bring customers the products they crave.
The devices — still in development — will rely on high-tech sensors to snoop in on the facial features of shoppers and predict roughly their age and sex. From there, a database of intelligence can be matched in real-time and allow Mondelēz to make recommendations, offer discounts and practically any other imaginable option. All, of course, specific to how the company’s data perceives that type of customer.
“Knowing that a consumer is showing interest in the product gives us the opportunity to engage with them in real-time,” Mondelēz CIO Mark Dajani told the Wall Street Journal recently.
Speaking to the Journal’s Clint Boulton, Dajani described how customizing what each consumer sees offers an array of new opportunities to the retailer.
“When people walk by, it’s a missed opportunity,” Dajani told the paper. “We must know how the consumer behaves in the store.”
And by relying on behavior and not identity, Dajani has had an easier time than one might imagine distancing the smart shelves from any sort of surveillance tool that actually identifies its subjects. Mondelēz’s product won’t involve cameras at all, instead prefering sensors to shape together the likely age and sex, according to the Journal, and matching that information about what the company already knows.
“The sensors use this data to alert the display to feature something that a teenage boy is more likely to buy, such as gum or a chocolate bar,” Boulton wrote. “The shelves also use sensors based on Microsoft Corp.’s gesture-based Kinect for Windows technology and if the boy looks at the shelf long enough, the shelf’s display may play a video targeted for his demographic.”
Those shelves, he added, will be more than just forward-facing interfaces to engage the customer. Weights sensors will reveal when products are picked up, and that information could also alert the grocer that its time to re-order — or re-think their inventory.
Boulton reported that the company may consider implementing data already stored in the enterprise database system it already has, and said no personally identifiable information will be collected about any customer caught shopping by the smart shelves’ sensors.
The end result, some hope, could be quite lucrative.
Dajani described the smart shelves as just the latest opportunity to connect another item to the ever-growing “Internet of Things” concept, essentially paving the way for anything imaginable to be wired to an information network. RawStory reporter Travis Gettys drew a correlation between Boulton’s article and another recent story in the Journal about a Gartner Inc. report which determined the technology being developed for smart shelves and similar products could generate $1.9 trillion by 2020.
Source

US Marshals Arrest Lawyer for DC Crash Mom… Why?

Posted: 15 Oct 2013 05:53 PM PDT

Here is his statement:
I apologize for the long email but, I need to address the fact that the facts and circumstances surrounding the shooting of Miriam Carey has not been vigorously challenged by the media and the general public. Now that we have the sworn affidavit filed in this case by the Metropolitan Police Department in federal court, we are more confident than ever that these police officers’ completely mishandled this simple “street encounter” and one or more of them should be criminally prosecuted for violating Miriam Carey’s civil rights.
First, basic common sense tells you that things should have been done differently. Quite frankly, any properly trained professional law enforcement person, such as myself (retired NYPD) will tell you that moving vehicles are not defined as “deadly weapons” under department Use of Force guidelines.
Quite frankly, just about every major police agency in the United States including the District of Columbia “strictly prohibits discharging service weapons towards moving vehicles” for a host of philosophical and safety reasons, unless the person operating the moving vehicle is using “deadly physical force by means other than a moving vehicle.” See, the onerous is on the United States Secret Service Uniformed Division, the United States Capitol Police or any other law enforcement agency to justify their use of force against Miriam Carey. If their legal argument is that they were protecting the United States Capitol, White House or any other “property”… Well, you know the result, their actions arenot justified. Remember, the use of force guidelines value life over property.
Secondly, from a law enforcement point of view, the Miriam Carey case is not “complex” from a police science perspective to understand. Yes, there is a science to policing.
These law enforcement officials completely mishandled at best, a simple “suspicious vehicle” car stop, such car stops are handled professionally by law enforcement officials all over the world everyday without incident including in other cities with so-called “high value targets.” Using the term “high value target” is nothing other than a emotionally charged red herring to distract the public from demanding relevant answers from government officials who obviously violated Miriam Carey’s civil rights under the guise of protecting society from “Terrorism.” I sarcastically call it the new civil rights Qualified Immunity defense.
To suggest that somehow in the District of Columbia there should a different legal standard, is intellectually disingenuous.
Thirdly, the Department of Homeland Security was established with the passage of Public Law 107-296 which in part, transferred the United States Secret Service from the Department of the Treasury, to the new department effective March 1, 2003.
Under the old guidelines, while part of the United States Treasury, the United States Secret Service discharge of their service weapons would NOT be justified… Read the old regulations.
As soon as I find some reference to the new guidelines, while part of the Department of Homeland Security, I am quite confident the result would be the same, NOT justified.http://www.treasury.gov/about/role-of-treasury/orders-directives/Pages/to105-12.aspx
Finally, can someone tell me where in the sworn affidavit does the affiant say that Miriam hit a damn gate? Or the outlandish claims made throughout the different media outlets?
The sworn affidavit for a Search Warrant clearly says on Page 1 “A USSS-UD (meaning United States Secret Service Uniformed Division) officer attempted to block the vehicle with a bicycle rack, however, the vehicle pushed over the bicycle rack, knocking the officer to the ground.”
Note her actions occurred after she allegedly “refused to stop” at the vehicle checkpoint and made a u-turn and allegedly began to “flee.” There were no laws violated as she was under no legal obligation to enter the checkpoint, turning around and leaving is also not violative of any laws. The question is: Why did the police pursue her? Later during this investigation, I will reconcile each sworn fact with the surveillance video, other police records and Google Maps. On the surface, the sworn facts are internally inconsistent but, I will know more later.
Further, there is NO MENTION that Miriam Carey struck any officers either. It is time to stop believing everything these so-called “Government Officials” are telling you.
http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/local/miriam-carey-search-warrant-vehicle/623/
An innocent unarmed United States Citizen with a toddler was killed right in front of us in the Nation’s capital. Period… If we do not see a problem with that, we are in serious trouble.
We in this country deserve to be treated better than as “mere chattel,” where personal legacies are much more important than human life. The framers of the United States Constitution fought for, died for and demanded it. We should expect no different in today’s society either.
After we somewhat rest Miriam’s soul on Tuesday, we are going to press a full frontal campaign to bring those who violated her civil rights to justice.

By Murray Weiss
U.S. Marshals armed with a warrant have arrested the prominent New York lawyer who represents the family of Miriam Carey, the Connecticut woman shot and killed in Washington, D.C. after she tried to crash her car through a White House gate, DNAinfo New York has learned.
Eric Sanders, a civil rights attorney best known for suing the NYPD, was arrested outside his house in Melville, L.I., Tuesday morning after Federal Bankruptcy Judge Dorothy Eisenberg issued a warrant last week. Eisenberg was furious that Sanders had flouted her authority for months — dragging his feet in court, failing to show up for hearings and ignoring her requests for documents, according to court documents.
Sanders surrendered without incident, sources said.
The final straw was when Sanders failed to pay $181,666 to several people who recently won settlements against him, including a lawyer in his firm who was fired because she got pregnant, according to court documents.
Sanders was processed at the federal courthouse in Central Islip before being transferred to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Sunset Park, where he will remain until Judge Eisenberg chooses to see him or he clears up his debts, sources said.
“He will sit there until she wants to talk to him or he pays his debt,” a source said.
Sanders’ office did not immediately return a call for comment.
The arrest came shortly after Sanders appeared with Carey’s family at her wake in Brooklyn on Monday night, where he once again criticized cops and federal officers in Washington, D.C. for killing the troubled 34-year-old Stamford, Conn. woman.
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Florida police to monitor cars driving near prostitution areas

Posted: 15 Oct 2013 05:49 PM PDT

florida-monitor-driving-prostitution-areas.si

Police in Florida have begun using surveillance methods to prevent prostitution by recording license plate information from cars that drive through areas frequented by sex workers and sending a letter to that individual’s home as a possible deterrent.
Starting this week, the Sanford Police Department – perhaps best known for its involvement in the recent George Zimmerman case – will employ a “Dear John” initiative to stop suspect “Johns” from hiring prostitutes. Automated license plate readers on patrol cars will be used to record suspects’ vehicles, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
The ensuing letter will include a picture of the vehicle prowling the streets late at night with a close-up image of the license plate and include reminders about the potential for sexually transmitted diseases. Police spokeswoman Shannon Cordingly told reporters the effort will discourage prostitution “by stripping away the anonymity of the exchange” under the watchful eye of a veteran patrolman.
“We’re not going to be generating letters for every vehicle that drives by slow or circles,” Cordingly said. “Obviously, the officer has common sense to know this vehicle’s actually looking for a prostitute or they happen to be lost.”
Authorities speaking to the media seemed to assume that someone’s mere presence near illegal activity presumes their guilt.
“If you’re loitering in the city at four or five o’clock in the morning or three o’clock in the morning after the bars let out and you’re in some of these neighborhoods and you’re in and out, in and out, in and out, yeah, that would kind of flag it,” said Sanford police Lieutenant Joe Santiago, one of the effort’s most vocal proponents.
While similar programs have already been launched in other areas of the US, civil liberties advocates have asserted that such a policy infringes on individual privacy rights.
Florida criminal defense attorney Richard Hornsby told the Sentinel that police should expect consequences if they wrongly target someone who only appears to be searching for a prostitute. By committing such a misidentification, police would “likely expose themselves to civil liberty complaints should they send these notices to innocent persons and inadvertently cause marital disruption.”
“If they have sufficient evidence to believe a person is ‘not lost, but in fact, circling the block looking for a prostitute,’ then they have a sufficient basis to make an investigative detention for the crime of solicitation of prostitution,” Hornsby continued.
The police department said that the city attorney had reviewed the Dear John program and approved it. The initiative was inspired by similar ones in Baltimore, Maryland, Oakland, California, and roughly 40 other cities.
Source

Greenwald quits Guardian for independent news project

Posted: 15 Oct 2013 05:32 PM PDT

Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald, who was one of the first journalists to break the NSA surveillance story, is leaving the British newspaper for a “once-in-a-career dream journalistic opportunity.”
“My partnership with the Guardian has been extremely fruitful and fulfilling: I have high regard for the editors and journalists with whom I worked and am incredibly proud of what we achieved,” Greenwald said in a statement after the news was broken by BuzzFeed. No concrete details were specified.
Sources familiar with the matter told Reuters that eBay founder Pierre Omidyar would finance Greenwald’s new venture.
Omidyar is known for his investment entity Omidyar Network, which funds numerous philanthropic, business, and political interests. Forbes estimated his net worth to be around US$8.5 billion. Omidyar already finances a news website called Civil Beat, which reports on public affairs in Hawaii and is based on subscriptions.
Glenn Greenwald, an American living in Brazil, said the new project will be “a very well-funded…very substantial new media outlet.” He added that “my role, aside from reporting and writing for it, is to create the entire journalism unit from the ground up by recruiting the journalists and editors who share the same journalistic ethos and shaping the whole thing – but especially the political journalism part – in the image of the journalism I respect most,” he told BuzzFeed.
He also pointed out that his plans were leaked prematurely, so he is unable to reveal any more information at this time. “Because this news leaked before we were prepared to announce it, I’m not yet able to provide any details of this momentous new venture, but it will be unveiled very shortly.”
He went on to say that his decision to leave the Guardian was “not an easy one” but that he was “presented with a once-in-a-career dream journalistic opportunity that no journalist could possibly decline.”
Guardian spokeswoman Jennifer Lindauer said in a statement posted on Greenwald’s site that “We are of course disappointed by Glenn’s decision to move on, but can appreciate the attraction of the new role he has been offered. We wish him all the best.”
Greenwald made international headlines earlier this year after reporting on former NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks, which revealed detailed information about US global surveillance programs. The journalist has since faced continuous pressure from Western authorities.
Following the first revelations regarding Washington’s global spy network, Glenn Greenwald’s partner, David Miranda, was detained for nine hours under the Terrorism Act at London’s Heathrow Airport. British authorities confiscated his phone, laptop, and memory storage devices and threatened him with imprisonment.
Greenwald decried Miranda’s detention as an act of “intimidation” by the UK government and an “abuse of power.”
In his latest interview with Radio France Internationale (RFI), Greenwald spoke candidly about the threats he had received from the US and the UK, and about his intention to publish all the documents handed to him by Snowden.
“I intend to publish all the documents I have. The more threats I get from the US and UK, the harder I will work to publish this information,” said Greenwald.
Source

Foodstamp Program Shutdown Imminent?

Posted: 15 Oct 2013 05:29 PM PDT

When over the weekend, a Xerox “glitch” shut down the EBT system, better known as foodstamps, for nearly the entire day across 17 states leaving millions without “funding” to pay for food leading to dramatic examples of the basest human behavior possible, some of the more conspiratorial elements saw this merely as a dress rehearsal for what may be coming in the immediate future. While there was no basis to believe that is the case, a USDA (the currently shuttered agency that administers the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) memo obtained by the Crossroads Urban Center in Utah carries in it a very disturbing warning for the 46+ million Americans currently on foodstamps.
To wit: “understanding the operational issues and constraints that States face, and in the interest of preserving maximum flexibility, we are directing States to hold their November issuance files and delay transmission to State electronic benefit transfer (EBT) vendors until further notice.” In other words, as Fox13News summarizes, “States across the country are being told to stop the supplemental nutrition assistance program for the month of November, pending further notice.”
The full memo first posted on the Crossroads Facebook page is shown below:

More on this dramatic development which, if implemented, would will result in significant unpredictable outcomes across the nation:

“This is going to create a huge hardship for the people we serve here in our food pantry,” says Bill Tibbits who is the Associate Director at Crossroads Urban Center.
They posted a letter from the USDA on its Facebook page. It says in part, “in the interest of preserving maximum flexibility, we are directing states to hold their November issuance files and delay transmission to state electronic benefit transfer vendors until further notice.”
“What this means if there’s not a deal, if Congress doesn’t reach a deal to get federal government back up and running, in Utah about 100,000 families won’t get food stamp benefit,” says Tibbits.
In other words, tens of thousands of Utah families may not be able to feed their children come November.
…
“People out here are going to go without food,” says Loralee Smith whose been homeless since August and says the uncertainty is making her uneasy about where her next meal will come from. “I’m on food stamps, I don’t know if I’m going to get them, a lot of people are on food stamps and they don’t know if they’re going to get them.”
Others say if SNAP shuts down, they’ll find a way to feed themselves.

One hopes such “alternative” feeding arrangements will be peaceful, although in the most heavily armed nation in the world, and arguably the one where a massive portion of the population is now fully reliant on the welfare state for virtually every daily need, it is easy to see cutting off daily bread to tens of millions has a less than happy ending.
As the report notes, for people out on the streets like Richard Phillips, “It could impact us and it’s going to cause problems because you’re going to come to find out that people are going to steal and do what they have to do to survive.”
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Freedom of the Press Foundation takes over Aaron Swartz’s whistleblower project

Posted: 15 Oct 2013 05:03 PM PDT

freedom-of-the-press-foundation-launches-securedrop_-an-open-source-submission-platform-for-whistleblowers.si

Whistleblowers, rejoice! The Freedom of the Press Foundation is taking the helm of a secure document-submission service co-created by late computer prodigy Aaron Swartz, and wants to make it more accessible than ever.
The foundation — launched less than a year ago “to crowd-source funding for cutting-edge, independent journalism and publishing outlets” lacking mainstream support — announced early Tuesday that it has taken charge of the DeadDrop project, an endeavor announced earlier this year after the death of Swartz, a transparency advocate who co-created the system with Wired journalist Kevin Poulsen.
DeadDrop was unveiled this past May and touted at the time as being a secure-way of submitting sensitive documents to a single publication: The New Yorker. But only five months after its debut, the Freedom of the Press Foundation said it has now inherited the project from Poulsen and will try to bring it to more media outlets needed to communicate securely with sources.
In a blog post authored by the foundation’s Trevor Timm and Rainey Reitman on Tuesday, they wrote that the project has been re-named SecureDrop, and within a matter of weeks it will be available to a number of journalistic outlets who’ve already expressed interest in getting involved.
The foundation has published the open-source instructions for SecureDrop on its website and claims “Any organization can install SecureDrop for free and can make modifications” now—not just the New Yorker.
When operating accordingly, the SecureDrop system works when an anonymous source accesses a website anonymously and provides documents to the news outlet that are encrypted and only available to select employees. Journalists and sources communicate using code words, and documents are deciphered using an air-gap computer that is never connected to the Internet.
That isn’t to say it’s easy to someone without a deep computer and security knowledge to get the system and up and running, however, and that’s what the foundation is offering to find help for organizations who want to use SecureDrop but might need assistance.
“Freedom of the Press Foundation will also help organizations install SecureDrop and train its journalists insecurity best practices to ensure the best protection for sources,” the group announced on their website.
A group of independent experts, including Jacob Appelbaum of the Tor Project and security guru Bruce Schneier, audited SecureDrop in August and have since released their findings. Their initial report revealed a number of flaws that caused concern, though, and the foundation has reportedly since begun correcting those errors.
Even before revamping the system to fix those issues, though, the the security experts said the system was still “technically decent” for allowing anonymous communication between sources and journalists. Since then, the foundation says it “has made a number of updates to SecureDrop based on these findings and will be making a significant investment in continually improving the system.”
“We’ve reached a time in America when the only way the press can assure the anonymity and safety of their sources is not to know who they are,” foundation co-founder John Perry Barlow said in a statement released this week. “SecureDrop is where real news can be slipped quietly under the door.”
Timm, the group’s executive director, added in a statement that “A truly free press hinges on the ability of investigative journalists to build trust with their sources.”
When the foundation was unveiled last year, it initially began processing donations and contributions to whistleblower-related groups including WikiLeaks and the Center for Public Inquiry. When the military court-martial of WikiLeaks source Chelsea Manning was conducted in de-facto secrecy, the foundation raised over $100,000 to hire stenographers so that the press could have transcriptions of proceedings that otherwise would not necessarily be made public.
Source

Boeing caught selling used parts as new to Pentagon

Posted: 15 Oct 2013 05:02 PM PDT

The Pentagon’s inspector general has found that Boeing repeatedly charged the United States military for “new” helicopter parts even as it installed used parts instead.
Since 2008, Chicago-based Boeing, the military’s second-largest contractor, has overcharged the United States on four separate occasions, to the tune of $16.6 billion.
According to a report obtained by Bloomberg News,“Boeing significantly overstated estimates” of new components necessary for the CH-47F Chinook helicopters and “primarily installed used parts instead” under a $4.4 billion contract awarded in 2008. Instead of delivering the new pieces it told the Army were necessary, Boeing restored parts from older aircraft and installed those in their place.
In addition to being overcharged, the military paid for parts that Boeing never installed at all but was allowed to keep for its own use in the future.
“The bottom line is that using reworked parts rather than new parts increased Boeing’s profit,” Bridget Serchak, a spokeswoman for the inspector general, said to Bloomberg. She added that the U.S. paid Boeing for parts “that were proposed but never installed,” and “is paying for additional parts that they do not need and may not use.”
For it’s part, Boeing disagrees with the conclusion reached by the inspector general.
“We believe we were fully compliant with all government contract policies and guidance applicable to the first CH-47F multiyear contract, and we provided evidence of that to the IG throughout this audit,” Boeing spokesman, Damien Mills, said in a statement.
It’s important to note that while the Pentagon report accuses Boeing of overcharging the Army, it also pins some of the blame on poor contract management/negotiation by defense agencies.
In fact, the inspector general’s former director for pricing and logistics, Henry Kleinknecht, underlined the need for the military’s personnel to become more capable in negotiating the types of contracts it is granting to companies like Boeing.
“Unfortunately, the Army does not have a cost/price analysis group, much less an experienced one,” Kleinknecht said to Bloomberg. Contracting officials don’t have “the technical expertise in a lot of these complex areas to go in and figure out what the problems are.”
Senator Tom Carper (D-Del.), leader of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, intends to hold a hearing later this year to discuss the situation and seek ways to eliminate wasteful spending.
Source

China confirms new human H7N9 infection

Posted: 15 Oct 2013 05:02 PM PDT

A new case of H7N9 has been reported in Zhejiang province, Zhejiang health authorities announced on Tuesday.
The male patient, 35, surnamed Liu, first went to see a doctor in a rural clinic on October 8. He was being treated at a Shaoxing city hospital and remained in critical condition, according to a statement released by Zhejiang authorities.
Liu was the first in Zhejiang to have tested positive for the deadly virus since April, said health authorities.
The H7N9 bird flu virus was first reported in late March, with most cases confined to eastern China. More than 40 people have died in the latest outbreak.
Cases of H7N9 have dropped significantly in recent months.
Source

New Pearl Jam album cover filled with symbolism

Posted: 15 Oct 2013 05:01 PM PDT

Google Fiber now explicitly permits home servers

Posted: 15 Oct 2013 05:01 PM PDT

by Jon Brodkin
Google Fiber’s terms of service caused some controversy in July when Google found itself defending the legality of a ban on servers. After a complaint, Google told the Federal Communications Commission that its clause stating that “you should not host any type of server using your Google Fiber connection” did not violate net neutrality rules because it was just “reasonable network management.”
At the time, Google told customers and reporters that its ban only applied to business servers and that the “use of applications such as multi-player gaming, video-conferencing, home security and others which may include server capabilities but are being used for legal and non-commercial purposes are acceptable and encouraged.” An FAQ on the Google Fiber site included that exception, but Google’s “Acceptable Use Policy” still read differently, banning “any type of server.” Google has now updated the policy to match the other, less-formal messaging it gave customers.
The new terms say that Google Fiber customers are not allowed to “operate servers for commercial purposes. However, personal, non-commercial use of servers that complies with this AUP is acceptable, including using virtual private networks (VPN) to access services in your home and using hardware or applications that include server capabilities for uses like multi-player gaming, video-conferencing, and home security.”
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Dry ice bombs explode in LA airport two days in a row

Posted: 15 Oct 2013 05:00 PM PDT

Security is on high alert at Los Angeles International Airport after three more dry ice bombs were discovered, including one that exploded on Monday night in a restricted part of the airport.
Monday’s blast was the second in two days – a dry ice bomb exploded in an employee restroom on Sunday, Oct 13 – and the explosions raised concern over the airport’s security measures. All four dry ice bombs were found in areas only accessible by employees. The three bombs discovered on Monday were near a plane at LAX’s Tom Bradley International Terminal, which has just had a $1.9 billion renovation.
“The focus is definitely in the restricted area, not in the areas where passengers have access,” Sgt. Karla Ortiz, LAPD, said to the Los Angeles Times. “We want to make sure that that get’s tightened up.”
No one was injured during the explosions. The Los Angeles Police Department and the FBI are currently investigating the situation, although at this point they do not suspect a connection to terrorism.
“We have to finish our investigations to find out what the cause was,” Ortiz told NBC News. “We always do our best to prevent such incidents but we will be keeping our eyes peeled following these similar events.”
Other law enforcement sources informed NBC that the bombs – plastic bottles containing dry ice – were most likely pranks. LAX spokeswoman Katherine Alvarado called the dry ice contraptions “harmless.”
Monday night’s explosion occurred at 8:30 pm local time (11:30 pm ET). No flights were affected, and the situation was resolved by 9:45 pm.
Sunday’s incident, meanwhile, shut down activity in Terminal 2 while the LAPD bomb squad reacted. A soda bottle containing dry ice had burst in an employee restroom around 7 pm local time (10 pm. ET). No injuries were reported, though some flights were delayed.

Brazil announces govt system to block NSA snooping

Posted: 14 Oct 2013 06:23 PM PDT

Brazil is creating an email system intended to shield the government from NSA spying. The country is set to vote on a cyber-security bill following revelations the US spy network had infiltrated the highest levels of Brazil’s administration.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff tweeted the news, stressing the need for greater security “to prevent possible espionage.”
Rousseff said the Federal Data Processing Service (SERPRO) had been charged with creating the spy-proof system for the Brazilian government.
“This is the first step toward extending the privacy and inviolability of official posts,” Rousseff said.
Furthermore, Brazil’s Minister of Communication Paulo Bernardo said that the new system would most probably be put to the test at the end of the month. SERPRO is also developing an email security system that will be freely available for the Brazilian public.
The initiatives are part of a number of measures being introduced by the Brazilian government to sure up internet security. It comes after security leaks by former CIA employee Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA had been spying on the communications of the Brazilian government.
The classified cables obtained by American journalist Glen Greenwald and published by Brazilian newspaper O Globo revealed that the US spy agency had infiltrated the state-run oil giant Petrobras. The NSA had even managed to hack into President Rousseff’s email account.
Canada was also implicated in the scandal for spying on Brazil’s Ministry of Mines and Energy and then disseminating the data among the others in the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence network – the US, UK, New Zealand and Australia.
“They [Five Eyes] are sharing all the information, handing over documents to let other countries know exactly what they are doing,” Glen Greenwald told Brazilian current affairs program Fantastico.
President Dilma condemned the NSA’s spying as a breach of Brazilian sovereignty and made it clear that Brazil would not tolerate such activities. She called on both Canada and the US to cease the ‘cyberwar’ they had started against Brazil.
“Without respect for [a nation’s] sovereignty, there is no basis for proper relations among nations. Those who want a strategic partnership cannot possibly allow recurring and illegal action to go on as if they were an ordinary practice,” she said in a speech to the UN in September.
In retaliation, Dilma postponed an official visit to Washington and announced that Brazil will host an international conference on internet governance next year.
Meanwhile, the White House has released a statement saying President Barack Obama had ordered an investigation into the US intelligence program in Brazil.
“As the president previously stated, he has directed a broad review of US intelligence posture, but the process will take several months to complete,” said the statement.
Source

Plan B: Central banks getting ready for financial Armageddon

Posted: 14 Oct 2013 06:03 PM PDT

If the US debt-ceiling debate goes past the eleventh hour, and the default of the world’s largest economy becomes a reality, leading central banks around the world are gearing up to minimize losses and keep the world economy functioning.
If US lawmakers don’t reach a budget consensus and raise the debt ceiling by Thursday October 17, the US will become the first Western power to default since Nazi Germany in 1933, and will send markets into uncharted territory.
The rest of the world is bracing itself for what would happen if the bill is rejected, and the US inches closer to defaulting on its debts, which are largely foreign- held in the form of US Treasury Bonds.
Central banks have begun preparing for the worst-case scenario if US does fault, which would result in a serious devaluation of Treasury bonds, delayed payments, and a more large-scale version of the current government shutdown.
“Because in the past it’s always been sorted out is absolutely not a reason to fail to do the contingency planning,” Jon Cunliffe, who will become the Bank of England’s deputy governor for financial stability in November, told UK lawmakers.
“I would expect the Bank of England to be planning for it [US default]. I’d expect private-sector actors to be doing that, and in other countries as well,” said Cunliffe, who acknowledged a default as “the main risk to the [global] financial system”.
The European Central Bank and the People’s Bank of China (PBC) have struck a deal that moves both banks farther from the dollar orbit. The two banks agreed to ‘swap’ $56 billion worth of yuan for $60.8 billion worth of euros.
Many central banks have reserves in the form of Sovereign Wealth Funds, which are also at risk if the US defaults, as many of the assets are held in dollars. These investment vehicles could be crippled by a default. China’s is estimated at more than $1.3 trillion – the world’s largest.
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Ex-mayor of San Diego pleads guilty to false imprisonment, battery

Posted: 14 Oct 2013 05:04 PM PDT

Former San Diego, California mayor Bob Filner pleaded guilty to felony false imprisonment and misdemeanor battery on Tuesday less than two months after he resigned from office amid a widespread sex scandal.
Charges were filed against the former mayor early Tuesday, days following reports that he had become the target of a grand jury investigation after leaving office.
A hearing was expected at 10 a.m. local time that morning, and moments later the Associated Press announced over Twitter: “Former San Diego Mayor Bob Filner pleads guilty to 3 criminal counts involving 3 women.”
San Diego Superior Court spokesperson Karen Dalton confirmed to the Washington Post earlier that day “The State Attorney General’s Office has charged Former Mayor Bob Filner with one felony count for false imprisonment by violence, fraud, menace and deceit (Penal Code Sections 236 and 237) and two misdemeanor counts of battery under Penal Code Sections 242 and 243.”
Filner, 71, resigned in August amid allegations of sexual misconduct and impropriety by at least 17 women. Before being elected to lead the Southern California city in 2012, Filner served ten terms as a Democratic congressman for the state.
In a farewell speech to San Diego, Filner apologized for “letting the city down,” but insisted he “never sexually harassed anyone” and blamed a “lynch mob” for his dramatic downfall.
The court did not elaborate on the circumstances surrounding the charges, and the AP has identified the victims only as three anonymous women.
Voice of San Diego managing editor Sara Libby reported that the felony charges relate to a March fundraising event, and the misdemeanor count stems from a “May Fiesta Island rally” earlier this year.
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