"Warner Bros. has just announced that Jesse Eisenberg will play Lex Luthor and Jeremy Irons will play Alfred in Batman vs. Superman."
TSA, still useless. - TSA Agent Confession - POLITICO Magazine:
"I hated it from the beginning. It was a job that had me patting down the crotches of children, the elderly and even infants as part of the post-9/11 airport security show. I confiscated jars of homemade apple butter on the pretense that they could pose threats to national security. I was even required to confiscate nail clippers from airline pilots—the implied logic being that pilots could use the nail clippers to hijack the very planes they were flying.
Once, in 2008, I had to confiscate a bottle of alcohol from a group of Marines coming home from Afghanistan. It was celebration champagne intended for one of the men in the group—a young, decorated soldier. He was in a wheelchair, both legs lost to an I.E.D., and it fell to me to tell this kid who would never walk again that his homecoming champagne had to be taken away in the name of national security. There I was, an aspiring satire writer, earnestly acting on orders straight out of Catch-22...
In private, most TSA officers I talked to told me they felt the agency’s day-to-day operations represented an abuse of public trust and funds.
...all TSA officers worked with a secret list printed on small slips of paper that many of us taped to the back of our TSA badges for easy reference: the Selectee Passport List... The selectee list was purely political, of course, with diplomacy playing its role as always: There was no Saudi Arabia or Pakistan on a list of states historically known to harbor, aid and abet terrorists...
We knew the full-body scanners didn’t work before they were even installed. Not long after the Underwear Bomber incident, all TSA officers at O’Hare were informed that training for the Rapiscan Systems full-body scanners would soon begin. The machines cost about $150,000 a pop. Our instructor was a balding middle-aged man who shrugged his shoulders after everything he said, as though in apology. At the conclusion of our crash course, one of the officers in our class asked him to tell us, off the record, what he really thought about the machines. “They’re shit,” he said, shrugging. He said we wouldn’t be able to distinguish plastic explosives from body fat and that guns were practically invisible if they were turned sideways in a pocket."
"Obama: Well, first of all, what is and isn't a Schedule I narcotic is a job for Congress.
Tapper: I think it's the DEA that decides that.
Obama: It's not something by ourselves that we start changing. No, there are laws undergirding those determinations.
...notice that Obama at first denied that the executive branch has the power to reschedule drugs, saying "what is and isn't a Schedule I narcotic is a job for Congress." As Tapper pointed out, that's not true. While Congress can amend the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to increase or reduce restrictions on particular drugs, the statute also gives that power to the attorney general, who has delegated it to the Drug Enforcement Administration (a division of the Justice Department). In fact, the DEA has repeatedly rejected petitions to reschedule marijuana, most recently in 2011. I forget: Who was president then?
...Apparently Obama forgot too. Obama often speaks as if he is an outside observer of his own administration—condemning excessively long prison sentences while hardly ever using his clemency power to shorten them, sounding the alarm about his own abuses of executive power in the name of fighting terrorism, worrying about the threat to privacy posed by surveillance programs he authorized. Now here he is, trying to distance himself from his own administration's refusal to reclassify marijuana."
"Dating sites exist to make a profit, and that means by necessity and in accord with the nature of their market and consumer sentiment they must push a silo full of pretty lies. If they were to come out and say “ugly, fat and older women and boring, poor and loser men need not apply”, that would cut into revenues. "
*BREAKING NEWS*
"Omaha police officer Bradley D Canterbury was fired after he beat up a suspect and then participated in a brutal, illegal retaliatory raid on the home of a citizen who'd video-recorded the incident. Canterbury was one of over 30 Omaha police officers who broke into a family home without a warrant intending to destroy mobile phone video evidence of his violent actions, and was one of six officers from that cohort who were fired for the beating. Now he's got his job back."
"Courts and policymakers typically talk about these raids in terms of “no-knock” and “knock and announce.” There’s long legal and common-law history behind the requirement that police knock and announce before entering a residence. So court rulings have naturally focused on hashing out when that requirement can and can’t be discarded. But in the real world, the difference between the two is negligible. If the police are serving a warrant on your home at 3 a.m., whether they immediately batter down your door or they knock, announce themselves, and wait 10 seconds before commencing with the battering ram is of little consequence to you. If you’re asleep in a back bedroom, you probably aren’t going to hear them. When you wake up, you’re going to be terrified, confused, and disoriented, especially since these raids are designed to confuse, disorient, and overwhelm the occupants of the house."
"1. Tools and methods
- NSA uses implants in USB cables and small circuit boards, combined with a nearby relay station with a radio transmitter, to download data from and upload data to target computers even if they are not connected to the internet.
- NSA intercepts data from Microsoft Windows’ crash reporting tool to identify vulnerabilities in target computers.
- NSA sends spam email with links to infected websites to plant malware on target computers.
- NSA purchases software vulnerabilities from malware vendors.
- NSA and GCHQ use fake LinkedIn pages to place malware on target computers.
- NSA diverts packages containing target systems and installs malware on the systems before delivery.
- NSA has developed modified monitor cables to record information displayed on target computers.
- NSA uses its own GSM base stations to mimic cell phone towers, enabling it to monitor communications and locate phones.
- NSA prefers to install malware in BIOS, rather than on hard drives.
- NSA uses a combination of hardware implants placed inside a target room and a radio transmitter aimed at the room from the outside to collect information about the position of objects, sound, and information displayed on monitors inside the room.
- NSA has developed tools to insert malware packets for Microsoft Windows systems into wireless LAN networks from the outside.
- NSA has developed a system to map wireless LAN networks from a UAV.
- NSA has developed a tool to send an alert as soon as a particular cell phone enters its range.
- NSA has developed a keystroke logger that functions even when the target computer is not connected to the internet.
- NSA has developed a program to correlate American operations officers’ cell phone signals with other cell phone signals in the area, enabling NSA to identify foreign officers who might be tailing the American officers.
- NSA intercepts cell phone app advertising data to locate phones.
- NSA and GCHQ use cookies, including PREF cookies, to identify targets for cyber exploitation.
- US intelligence agencies conduct human intelligence operations within World of Warcraft and Second Life.
- NSA intercepts communications from the SEA-ME-WE-3 and SEA-ME-WE-4 undersea cable systems.
- NSA and GCHQ have used fake internet cafes to collect information about users.
2. Overseas USG locations from which operations are undertaken
- NSA has established two data centers in China to insert malware into target computers.
- A Tailored Access Operations liaison office is located at a US military base near Frankfurt.
- Special Collection Service offices are located at the US embassy in Rome and the US consulate in Milan.
- A Special Collection Service office was located at the US embassy in Berlin. This office closed after the media reported on it in October 2013.
- Special Collection Service offices are located at the US embassies in Paris, Madrid, and Prague, and the US mission in Geneva.
- Special Collection Service offices are located at the US embassies in Mexico City and BrasÃlia.
3. Foreign officials and systems that NSA has targeted
- NSA penetrated the network of Mexico’s Secretariat of Public Security to collect information about drug and human trafficking along the US-Mexico border. This collection stopped after the media reported on it in October 2013.
- NSA and GCHQ have monitored the communications of a variety of charities and intergovernmental organizations, including the UN Development Programme, UNICEF, Médecins du Monde, the Economic Community of West African States, and the European Commission.
- NSA and GCHQ have monitored the communications of several Israeli officials, including the Prime Minister and Defense Minister.
- NSA and GCHQ have monitored the communications of the Thales Group, a defense contractor that is partially owned by the French government.
- NSA has monitored the communications of the Italian embassy in Washington.
- NSA has monitored the communications of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
- NSA tracks Israeli drones and Black Sparrow missiles.
- NSA has collected draft email messages written by leaders of the Islamic State of Iraq.
- NSA has monitored the communications of the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and UN officials in Afghanistan.
- NSA has monitored the communications of Venezuela’s Ministry of Planning and Finance.
- NSA and GCHQ have penetrated OPEC’s network to collect economic data.
- NSA has monitored the communications of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
- NSA has monitored the communications of the Italian leadership and Ministry of Defense.
- NSA has monitored the communications of the French embassy in Washington and the French mission in New York.
- NSA has monitored the communications of several Mexican and Brazilian officials, including the presidents of both countries.
- NSA has monitored the communications of Petrobas, an oil company that is partially owned by the Brazilian government.
- NSA has penetrated the network of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
- NSA has monitored the communications of Al Jazeera.
- NSA has penetrated Aeroflot’s reservation system.
- NSA has monitored the unencrypted communications of the Syrian military.
- NSA and GCHQ monitored the communications of several delegations to the 2009 G20 summit in London, including the South African, Turkish, and Russian delegations.
4. Encryption that NSA has broken
- NSA has broken the A5/1 encryption used by many GSM cell phones.
5. Identity of ISPs and platforms that NSA has penetrated or attempted to penetrate
- NSA has developed hardware and software implants for Juniper, Cisco, and Huaweil firewalls.
- NSA has developed software to target the firmware of Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor and Samsung hard drives.
- NSA has developed hardware and software implants for Dell and HP servers.
- NSA has developed software to target users of Juniper and Huaweil routers.
- NSA has developed an implant for first-generation iPhones that enables downloading and uploading data, activating the phone’s microphone and camera, and locating the phone.
- NSA has developed modified Eastcom and Samsung cell phones, which can be swapped with a target’s own phone of the same model and then used to collect information.
- NSA and GCHQ have penetrated the Xbox Live gaming system to collect information about foreign targets.
- NSA and GCHQ have intercepted communications at communication links outside the United States that connect Google and Yahoo data centers.
- NSA has harvested email and instant messaging contact lists from Yahoo, Hotmail, Facebook, and Gmail.
- NSA and GCHQ have attempted to develop techniques to identify Tor users but have been largely unsuccessful.
- NSA has collected financial transaction information from Visa and SWIFT.
- NSA and GCHQ have developed capabilities to access user data from iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android devices.
6. Identities of cooperating companies and governments
- NSA entered into a contract with RSA to use an NSA formula as the default option for number generation in the Bsafe security software, enabling NSA to penetrate the software more easily. RSA asked consumers to stop using the formula after the Snowden leaks revealed its weaknesses.
- The Norwegian Intelligence Service cooperates with NSA to collect information about Russia, particularly Russian military activities in the Kola Peninsula and Russian energy policy.
- The Communications Security Establishment Canada has established listening posts in approximately twenty countries at NSA’s request.
- The Swedish Defence Radio Establishment cooperates with NSA to collect information about Russia.
- The Australian Signals Directorate has been more willing than other allies to share unminimized bulk metadata with NSA.
- The Communications Security Establishment Canada cooperated with NSA to collect information about the 2010 G20 summit in Toronto.
- The Australian Signals Directorate cooperated with NSA in an attempt to monitor the communications of senior Indonesian officials, including the President, the Vice President, and several ministers.
- As of 2009, NSA was considering establishing an intelligence-sharing relationship with Vietnam.
- NSA has an intelligence-sharing relationship with the Israeli SIGINT National Unit.
- The Communications Security Establishment Canada cooperated with NSA to monitor the communications of Brazil’s Ministry of Mines and Energy.
- NSA has collected international communications from Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, YouTube, Skype, AOL, and Apple as part of its PRISM program."
