Improves Both, But Especially the Dancing

If Only

In military slang, Predator drone operators often refer to kills as ‘bug splats’, since viewing the body through a grainy video image gives the sense of an insect being crushed.

To challenge this insensitivity as well as raise awareness of civilian casualties, an artist collective installed a massive portrait facing up in the heavily bombed Khyber Pukhtoonkhwa region of Pakistan, where drone attacks regularly occur. Now, when viewed by a drone camera, what an operator sees on his screen is not an anonymous dot on the landscape, but an innocent child victim’s face.

[...]

The group of artists traveled inside KPK province and, with the assistance of highly enthusiastic locals, unrolled the poster amongst mud huts and farms. It is their hope that this will create empathy and introspection amongst drone operators, and will create dialogue amongst policy makers, eventually leading to decisions that will save innocent lives.

  Not a Bug Splat

Well, I doubt it will have any effect on the people making the decisions, or even those operating the drones, but it’s an important statement to make.  As important as reminding the rest of us that the people ordering and operating these weapons are indeed insensitive.

Go to the link to see the actual installation.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Seriously?

President Obama will speak next month at a gala celebrating the 20th anniversary of a Holocaust history foundation established by director Steven Spielberg.

The USC Shoah Foundation, created by Spielberg after he completed the film Schindler's List, will honor Obama with its Ambassador to Humanity Award at an event in Los Angeles on May 7.

“President Obama's commitment to democracy and human rights has long been felt,” Spielberg said in a statement. “As a constitutional scholar and as president, his interest in expanding justice and opportunity and all is remarkably evident.”

  The Hill

Where has Stephen Spielberg been living that he doesn't have electricity or newspapers?

Cementing the Oligarchy

In McCutcheon v. FEC, the Roberts Court continued the trajectory of Citizens United and struck down aggregate contribution limits of $123,200 (already more than double the median household income). Wealthy donors, who already hold unbelievable sway in Washington, can now give up to $3.5 million to federal parties, candidates and committees.

[...]

The inability of Washington to raise the minimum wage is a prime example of how that elite donor dominance impacts real-world policymaking. Last week, House Republicans unanimously voted down the president’s proposal to increase the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour over three years. This flies in the face of popular will. A March Bloomberg poll showed nearly three-quarters of respondents backing the president’s proposal to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. Yet only 40 percent of wealthy Americans agree.

[...]

The implication of the divergence between the public and elites, which Demos explored in Stacked Deck, is why McCutcheon matters so much. A flood of money from a donor class that doesn’t see eye-to-eye with the public makes a minimum wage increase even less likely. Political and economic inequality will continue to mutually reinforce.

[...]

Wealth is taxed at a rate far lower than work and the federal minimum wage stays stagnant at $7.25 an hour.

  Bill Moyers

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Inching Toward the (Undoubtedly Heavily Redacted) Torture Report

After years of inquiry, $40m in expenses and an unprecedented clash with the Central Intelligence Agency, the Senate intelligence committee voted on Thursday to declassify portions of a study into the agency's use of torture on detainees suspected of being involved in terrorism.

[...]

And while the White House recommitted itself on Thursday to a prompt public release of portions of the report, it announced that the CIA will play the lead role in reviewing for publication a report that calls Langley lawless and deceitful.

“The CIA, in consultation with other agencies, will conduct the declassification review,” National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said.

  Guardian

And if that doesn’t satisfy you, nothing will.

WTF?

This is becoming standard operating procedure in our government: Put the agency being looked at in charge of the looking.

Feinstein pointedly noted after the vote that how much of what the administration makes public “in itself will indicate where we are on this.” She hoped for a partial declassification within 30 days, and said she would seek a fuller declassification of the 6,200-page document later – a move that could give the committee leverage over the scope of how much information the administration seeks to withhold from the executive summary release.

Please forgive me if I don’t expect to gain anything from that; if I don’t feel Dianne Feinstein has the world’s, much less Americans’, best interests at heart.

Alberto Mora, the former Navy general counsel who fought with the Bush administration over torture, said he considered the Senate vote to be a vindication.

“I think we’re going to have an authoritative, factual accounting of what actually happened with interrogations,” Mora said.

[...]

Mora said, it would help the United States “return to the principle in the future that anyone who commits this crime, regardless of rank, will be called to account and perhaps criminally prosecuted”.

Please forgive Mr. Mora his naiveté.

On Wednesday, defense lawyers for [Guantánamo detainee], Ammar al-Baluchi, said they filed a now-sealed motion for the Senate torture report to be entered as evidence in his case.

On 14 April, the tribunal will consider whether Baluchi’s co-defendant, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, is competent to stand trial. Bin al-Shibh was subjected to the so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” that are detailed in the Senate report.

Well, there’s at least that. Of course, then his lawyers have to face the perhaps insurmountable issue that military judges may not be opposed to torture – I mean “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Enhanced. Makes it sound like a good thing, doesn’t it?

And there’s this positive note, as well:

Two of the perceived swing voters on the Senate committee – independent Angus King and Republican Susan Collins, both of Maine – said that the techniques used on al-Baluchi and others “constituted torture”, a rebuke to a decade-long effort by the CIA and its allies to recast the interrogations as something less brutal.

Republican Susan Collins. She may lose her Senate seat – or at least her committee chair.

Steve Kleinman, [...] air force reserve colonel and former interrogator, said [...] “When anyone tortures, that’s not interrogation, that’s torture. We can’t conflate the two.”

Amen.

Do You Want to Fight a Cyber War, Or Do You Want to Prevent One?

In February, the security firm Mandiant Corp. confirmed, with plenty of hard evidence, what we've known for a long time: Chinese cyberespionage is staggeringly rampant.

[...]

Given that today's existing defenses and countermeasures have proven largely ineffective in thwarting these attacks, many otherwise sane people have discussed the idea of going on the offensive and "hacking back" by booby-trapping honeypot data or setting loose malicious software. Distressingly, this sort of cyberoffense is being repackaged -- and camouflaged -- in a clever and, ironically, "newspeak" way under the rubric "active defense."

[...]

In order for active defense to work, somebody needs to find a security hole (most likely in software) and develop an exploit for that hole. Then, get this, they need to keep the hole secret so that the exploit they just developed continues to work.

[...]

Now imagine that the attacker is smart enough to capture and isolate the "hack back" code. Ye olde zero-day exploit now belongs to the enemy. Oops!

[...]

Another issue is figuring out whom to "hack back."

[...]

[The real attacker may be hiding] behind a common enemy of the nation-state or a corporation you're attacking. Attackers have been doing it for decades.

[...]

In the end, it's clear that cyberespionage, though reprehensible and certainly worthy of response, is not the same as cyberwar.

[...]

A cyberwar will not unfold over years, months or even days. A cyberwar attack is likely to unfold over minutes, seconds or split seconds. Cyberwar attacks will happen at super-human speed.

[...]

Imagine a cyberattack against the power grid. By hacking in and controlling about 50,000 smart meters, intentionally causing a 300-megawatt stability problem in the grid is well within the realm of possibility. Properly carried out, a stability problem like this could destroy key transformers in the grid, causing permanent damage that would take months, or years to repair.

[...]

The only way forward in computer security is to build systems with fewer vulnerabilities.

   Gary McGraw at SearchSecurity

But…but…but…NSA! They positively RELY on vulnerabilities.

Getting Worse in Venezuela

The ID card, introduced this week, will limit Venezuelans to once-a-week shopping and will set off an alarm to halt any transaction if a purchaser breaks the rules. The government wants to prevent individual shoppers from "over-buying" in a country hit by acute shortages of basic items including milk, sugar and toilet paper. Critics say it is an admission of failure of economic policy in one of the world's big oil-producing nations.

By keeping a record of what is purchased and limiting shopping trips, the electronic card is supposed to curb hoarding and prevent speculative shoppers from buying to resell at a profit. But the larger aim is to halt the huge outflow of food to neighbouring Colombia, where it sells for up to 10 times as much. It is estimated that almost 40% of Venezuela's food is transported illegally across the border.

[...]

According to the food minister, Félix Osorio, registering for the card will not be mandatory and regular users may still shop at the network of subsidised food chains. But as with many customer loyalty programmes, cardholders will benefit from even lower prices, extra offers and even enter a raffle to win one of 500 houses in Venezuela's largest public housing programme.

  Guardian

Then I don’t see how that’s going to stop the illegal selling to Colombians or the food speculators.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

It's Sunday

Incredible

US officials on Friday slammed plans to construct an EU-centric communication system, designed to prevent emails and phone calls from being swept up by the NSA, warning that such a move is a violation of trade laws.

Calling Europe’s proposal to build its own integrated communication system “draconian,” the office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) said American tech companies, which are worth an estimated $8 trillion per year, would take a financial hit if Brussels gives the initiative the green light.

  RT

Seriously? Who ARE these people? We can spy on their officials and their businesses, but their decision to prevent us is "draconian"?

And if it does cost American tech companies trillions, I suppose the logical response would be for the tech companies to sue the American government for causing the situation. And that means you know who will pay the settlements.

SNAFU

The US State Department is unable to explain how it spent billions of dollars worth of contract funds in areas throughout the world, according to a newly unveiled report by the department's internal watchdog.

The Office of Inspector General explained in a March 20 “management alert” to department leaders that approximately $6 billion has gone unaccounted for over the past six years. The note said the number of missing documents “exposes the department to significant financial risk” and is a dangerous lack of oversight.

  RT