Welcome! "The Evening Blues" is a casual community diary (published Monday - Friday, 8:00 PM Eastern) where we hang out, share and talk about news, music, photography and other things of interest to the community.
Just about anything goes, but attacks and pie fights are not welcome here. This is a community diary and a friendly, peaceful, supportive place for people to interact.
Everyone who wants to join in peaceful interaction is very welcome here.
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Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features delta bluesman Skip James. Enjoy!
Skip James - Crow Jane
"You measure a democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists."
-- Abbie Hoffman
News and Opinion
Thou Shalt Not Praise His Name: Rep. Lewis Praises Snowden . . . Then Quickly Retracts Praise
The degree of pressure on reporters and politicians from the White House and Democratic leadership in the Snowden controversy was in full and embarrassing view yesterday when Rep. John Lewis walked back from an interview that he gave to the Guardian praising Snowden. He appears not to have gotten the memo: Snowden is not to be praised in the media or by members of Congress. Various reporters and new organizations have held the line in mocking Snowden or refusing to call him a “whistleblower” rather than a “leaker.” After all, the fear seems to be that Snowden has to be a traitor or Obama would look like a tyrant. ...
Lewis seemed to be frog marched back before cameras within 24 hours and denied everything short of his name, rank, and serial number: “News reports about my interview with The Guardian are misleading, and they do not reflect my complete opinion. Let me be clear. I do not agree with what Mr. Snowden did. He has damaged American international relations and compromised our national security. He leaked classified information and may have jeopardized human lives. That must be condemned.”
Whew, that was close. Snowden is back being a traitor and Lewis is back on script.
Oops, another Obama supporting talking head goes off script:
Van Jones rips Obama’s ‘ridiculous’ denial of domestic spying operations
“I love this president, everybody knows I love this president, but this is ridiculous,” he said on CNN. “First of all, we do have a domestic spying program, and what we need to be able to do is figure out how to balance these things, not pretend like there’s no balancing to be done.”
“But much more important, he said something else that I thought that was really awful,” Jones continued. “He said that if somebody like Snowden wanted to be a whistle-blower, they could have gone ahead.
“Well, hold on a second, sir. That is — you are right now prosecuting more whistleblowers – not only than any American president, that every American president combined! So, you can’t then come out on Leno and yuck it up and say, well, whistleblowers, come on out and we’ll treat you right because you haven’t been doing that.”
Email Company Reportedly Used By Edward Snowden Shuts Down Rather Than Hand Data Over To Feds
When Edward Snowden emailed journalists and activists in July to invite them to a briefing at the Moscow airport during his long stay there, he used the email account “edsnowden@lavabit.com” according to one of the invitees. Texas-based Lavabit came into being in 2004 as an alternative to Google’s Gmail, as an email provider that wouldn’t scan users’ email for keywords. Being identified as the provider of choice for the country’s most famous NSA whistleblower led to a flurry of attention for Lavabit, from journalists. and also, apparently, from government investigators. Lavabit founder Ladar Levison announced today that he’s shutting the service down rather than providing information to the government.
Lavabit’s website now displays a message about the shutdown, available in full below, along with a request for help paying the legal bill to fight the government in court.
Presumably, the government is seeking access to Edward Snowden’s email. And presumably, Levison doesn’t want to grant that access. Here’s his full letter:
My Fellow Users,
I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes against the American people or walk away from nearly ten years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit. After significant soul searching, I have decided to suspend operations. I wish that I could legally share with you the events that led to my decision. I cannot. I feel you deserve to know what’s going on–the first amendment is supposed to guarantee me the freedom to speak out in situations like this. Unfortunately, Congress has passed laws that say otherwise. As things currently stand, I cannot share my experiences over the last six weeks, even though I have twice made the appropriate requests.
What’s going to happen now? We’ve already started preparing the paperwork needed to continue to fight for the Constitution in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. A favorable decision would allow me resurrect Lavabit as an American company.
This experience has taught me one very important lesson: without congressional action or a strong judicial precedent, I would strongly recommend against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States.
Sincerely,
Ladar Levison
Owner and Operator, Lavabit LLC
Priceless
Future Australian Senator, Julian Assange:
How cryptography is a key weapon in the fight against empire states
The original cypherpunks were mostly Californian libertarians. I was from a different tradition but we all sought to protect individual freedom from state tyranny. Cryptography was our secret weapon. It has been forgotten how subversive this was. Cryptography was then the exclusive property of states, for use in their various wars. By writing our own software and disseminating it far and wide we liberated cryptography, democratised it and spread it through the frontiers of the new internet.
The resulting crackdown, under various "arms trafficking" laws, failed. Cryptography became standardised in web browsers and other software that people now use on a daily basis. Strong cryptography is a vital tool in fighting state oppression. ... Our work in WikiLeaks imparts a keen understanding of the dynamics of the international order and the logic of empire. During WikiLeaks' rise we have seen evidence of small countries bullied and dominated by larger ones or infiltrated by foreign enterprise and made to act against themselves. We have seen the popular will denied expression, elections bought and sold, and the riches of countries such as Kenya stolen and auctioned off to plutocrats in London and New York. ...
Meanwhile, the United States is accelerating the next great arms race. The discoveries of the Stuxnet virus – and then the Duqu and Flame viruses – herald a new era of highly complex weaponised software made by powerful states to attack weaker states. Their aggressive first-strike use on Iran is determined to undermine Iranian efforts at national sovereignty, a prospect that is anathema to US and Israeli interests in the region.
Once upon a time the use of computer viruses as offensive weapons was a plot device in science fiction novels. Now it is a global reality spurred on by the reckless behaviour of the Barack Obama administration in violation of international law. Other states will now follow suit, enhancing their offensive capacity to catch up.
Bradley Manning, the Nuremberg Charter and Refusing to Collaborate with War Crimes
Criminal defense lawyers demand access to secret DEA evidence
Criminal defense lawyers are challenging a U.S. government practice of hiding the tips that led to some drug investigations, information that the lawyers say is essential to fair trials in U.S. courts. ...
Kenneth Bailey, who defends drug cases in Sandusky, Ohio, said his firm was drafting new motions in light of the documents made public by Reuters.
“Evidence which could prove my clients’ innocence is being intentionally concealed,” Bailey said. “This is why criminal defense lawyers are working so hard to protect the (U.S.) Constitution, because the government is working so hard to destroy it.” ...
Court decisions going back decades hold that prosecutors in the United States have a responsibility to turn over to a defendant any information that they or police have that is material to establishing the defendant’s guilt or innocence. The responsibility is known as the government’s Brady obligations, after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1963 ruling in the case of Brady v. Maryland.
Obama-Putin talks are off, but the fallout is unclear
President Barack Obama’s decision to scrap a meeting in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin reflects the White House’s growing frustration with the Russian government over its embrace of intelligence leaker Edward Snowden, as well as its reluctance to engage over a host of issues that are key to the relationship. ...
The rebuke, which came after a year of deteriorating relations between the superpowers, was viewed as an indication that the White House doesn’t see much gain for Obama, with Moscow resisting efforts to engage in talks over issues that include a new nuclear arms treaty, trade and investment.
“There will be a temptation to say this was due to Snowden. That was a minor factor,” said Steven Pifer, a Russia specialist at the Brookings Institution, a research center in Washington. Pifer added that it became apparent in recent weeks that Moscow was unwilling to move on any of the U.S. priorities. “ ... But canceling the meeting is unlikely to result in the administration’s desired effect: cooperation from Putin, said Matthew Rojansky, the director of the Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute on Russia.
“This is not the way you get results, by whacking them on the knuckles,” Rojansky said. “We’re starting to push pretty close to a line of deep violation of diplomatic protocol. It’s a pretty deep affront.”
Obama Snubs, Russia Laughs, Putin Wins
In the U.S., President Barack Obama's decision to cancel a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin for harboring fugitive Edward Snowden is seen as an important diplomatic demarche.
From the Russian perspective, it's a bit of a joke. ...
The fact that Obama stopped short of skipping the entire G-20 meeting was seen in the Putin camp as a sign of weakness. The dominant theory is that the U.S. president did not really want to make hostile moves against Russia, but domestic interests forced him to make a show of chastising Putin.
"Obama is under powerful pressure from the cold war lobby," political analyst Sergei Markov told the news agency Interfax.
"This is clearly a political defeat for Obama," pro-Putin newspaper editor Vitaly Tretyakov wrote on the social network Vkontakte. In an eerie echo of the White House statement, Tretyakov added: "Russia, strictly speaking, does not care. What could we expect from Obama's visit? A second reset? But the first one failed. A second detente? Who even remembers the first one?"
I wonder if the guy who leaked about the US' ability to listen in on Al-Qaeda's conference calls of doom and thus tipped them off will be hunted down and persecuted under the Espionage Act? Will Obama throw them in a gulag and torture the leaker like he did to Bradley Manning? After all, Holder didn't make any promises in this case. What about the journo's Eli Lake and Josh Rogin? Is there a naked waterboarding party in their future?
Al Qaeda Conference Call Intercepted by U.S. Officials Sparked Alerts
Several news outlets reported Monday on an intercepted communication last week between Zawahiri and Nasser al-Wuhayshi, the leader of al Qaeda’s affiliate based in Yemen. But The Daily Beast has learned that the discussion between the two al Qaeda leaders happened in a conference call that included the leaders or representatives of the top leadership of al Qaeda and its affiliates calling in from different locations, according to three U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence. All told, said one U.S. intelligence official, more than 20 al Qaeda operatives were on the call. ...
Al Qaeda leaders had assumed the conference calls, which give Zawahiri the ability to manage his organization from a remote location, were secure. But leaks about the original intercepts have likely exposed the operation that allowed the U.S. intelligence community to listen in on the al Qaeda board meetings. ...
Also during the meeting, the various al Qaeda leaders discussed in vague terms plans for a pending attack and mentioned that a team or teams were already in place for such an attack. For some leading members of Congress, the revelation that al Qaeda’s leadership in Pakistan is actively managing and directing the operations of several affiliates directly refutes the Obama administration’s repeated assertion that the leadership of the core of the group has been decimated by American drone strikes and special operations forces while the affiliate groups have been strengthened.
Terror Alert: a Blank Check for Assassinations
NSA Chief: Solution To Stopping The Next Snowden Is Replacing His Former Job With A Machine
The director of the National Security Agency said Thursday that the agency has found a way to prevent further leaks about American surveillance by replacing nearly all its system administrators with machines.
At a cybersecurity conference, Gen. Keith B. Alexander told the audience that intelligence agencies plan to reduce by 90 percent the number of people in the system administrator position. ...The NSA employs or contracts with about 1,000 system administrators, Alexander has previously said.
The general said Thursday that the NSA planned to replace system administrators with new technology that will make computer networks "more defensible and more secure."
“We’ve put people in the loop of transferring data, securing networks and doing things that machines are probably better at doing,” Alexander said during a panel discussion with the heads of the FBI and CIA, which was attended by about 300 people.
Glenn Greenwald offered Brazilian protection from U.S.
A Brazilian official has taken the unusual step of publicly announcing that the Brazilian government will offer Guardian writer Glenn Greenwald protection from the U.S. government after determining he risks facing legal action if he returns to the U.S.
To receive protection from Brazil, Greenwald would have to officially request it. But though he takes the risk of prosecution seriously, Greenwald tells me he has no intention of taking the Brazilian government up on the offer — and that he plans to return to the U.S. sooner than later, come what may.
“I haven’t requested any protection from the Brazilian government or any other government because, rather obviously, I’ve committed no crime — unless investigative journalism is now a felony in the U.S.,” Greenwald said via email. “But the fact that Brazilian authorities believe there is a real possibility that the U.S. would unjustly prosecute journalists for the ‘crime’ of reporting what the U.S. government is doing is a powerful indictment of the U.S.’s current image in the world — just as was the requirement that the U.S. promise it will not torture or kill Snowden if he’s returned. It’s an equally potent reflection of the massive gap in opinion between the U.S. Government and the rest of the world when it comes to how the NSA disclosures, my reporting, and Snowden are perceived.”
What It Means to Be An NSA "Target": New Information Shows Why We Need Immediate FISA Amendments Act Reform
The government has previously tried to reassure the public about its use of FISA Amendments Act Section 702 surveillance practices, emphasizing that, under Section 702, the government may not “intentionally target any U.S. citizen, any other U.S. person, or anyone located within the United States." Indeed, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee Senator Feinstein, in a letter to constituents who wrote to her expressing concern about the NSA's spying program, said this: "[T]he government cannot listen to an American’s telephone calls or read their emails without a court warrant issued upon a showing of probable cause."
We’ve written before about the word games the government plays in describing its surveillance practices: “acquire,” “collect,” and “content” are all old government favorites. The New York Times report proves Feinstein statement is false, and it's clear it’s time to add “target” to the list of word games as well. ...
NSA believes it not only can (1) intercept the communications of the target, but also (2) intercept communications about a target, even if the target isn’t a party to the communication. The most likely way to assess if a communication is “about” a target is to conduct a content analysis of communications, probably based on specific search terms or selectors.
And that, folks, is what we call a content dragnet.
Importantly, under the NSA’s rules, when the agency intercepts communications about a target, the author or speaker of those communications does not, thereby, become a target: the target remains the original, non-US person. But, because the target remains a non-US person, the most robust protection for Americans’ communications under the FISA Amendments Act (and, indeed, the primary reassurance the government has given about the surveillance) flies out the window. If you communicate about a target of NSA surveillance, your citizenship is irrelevant: the only thing standing between you and NSA surveillance is your IP address or the fiber optic path through which your communications flow.
Feds Set To Mandate "Black Box" Data Recorders In Every Car And Truck
Many motorists don't know it, but it's likely that every time they get behind the wheel, there's a snitch along for the ride.
This week ended the public comment period on a proposed law that would put so-called black boxes in every new car sold by September 1, 2014. The thing is, most cars already have them unbeknownst to many drivers. ...
When a car is involved in a crash or when its airbags deploy, inputs from the vehicle's sensors during the 5 to 10 seconds before impact are automatically preserved. That's usually enough to record things like how fast the car was traveling and whether the driver applied the brake, was steering erratically or had a seat belt on. This data has been used recently, for example, to determine what was happening in cars before accidents when some Toyota owners were claiming their cars were accelerating out of control as they were driving.
The idea behind mandating black box data recorders is to gather information that can help investigators determine the causes of accidents and lead to safer vehicles. But privacy advocates say government regulators and automakers are spreading an intrusive technology without first putting in place policies to prevent misuse of the information collected.
The Detroit Blueprint To Bankrupt America
Shot to Death by Police for Betting on a Football Game? The Rise of Paramilitary Force in America
Sal Culosi is dead because he bet on a football game — but it wasn’t a bookie or a loan shark who killed him. His local government killed him, ostensibly to protect him from his gambling habit.
Several months earlier at a local bar, Fairfax County, Virginia, detective David Baucum overheard the thirty-eight-year-old optometrist and some friends wagering on a college football game. “To Sal, betting a few bills on the Redskins was a stress reliever, done among friends,” a friend of Culosi’s told me shortly after his death. “None of us single, successful professionals ever thought that betting fifty bucks or so on the Virginia–Virginia Tech football game was a crime worthy of investigation.” Baucum apparently did. After overhearing the men wagering, Baucum befriended Culosi as a cover to begin investigating him. During the next several months, he talked Culosi into raising the stakes of what Culosi thought were just more fun wagers between friends to make watching sports more interesting. Eventually Culosi and Baucum bet more than $2,000 in a single day. Under Virginia law, that was enough for police to charge Culosi with running a gambling operation. And that’s when they brought in the SWAT team.
On the night of January 24, 2006, Baucum called Culosi and arranged a time to drop by to collect his winnings. When Culosi, barefoot and clad in a T-shirt and jeans, stepped out of his house to meet the man he thought was a friend, the SWAT team began to move in. Seconds later, Det. Deval Bullock, who had been on duty since 4:00 AM and hadn’t slept in seventeen hours, fired a bullet that pierced Culosi’s heart.
D.C. May Decriminalize Pot to Reduce Criminal Convictions, ‘Piss Off Obama’
A majority of Washington D.C. Council members have signed a bill to decriminalize marijuana in order to reduce the number of drug-related criminal convictions in the District, but its authors admit that the bill is intended “mostly to mess with President Obama.”
The bill, which the council will vote on in the fall, would make possession of up to an ounce of marijuana subject to a $100 fine.
“This bill is about ending unnecessary criminal convictions for small amounts of possession, which has resulted in the disproportionate incarceration of black men,” said Council member Marion Barry (D-Ward 8). “But mainly, this bill is intended to piss off Obama.”...
“This bill is not about condoning drug use,” added Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), who co-wrote the bill with Barry. “It is about healing communities broken apart by excessive incarcerations. It is about racial justice. But mostly, as councilman Barry noted, the president is going to shit a brick when he finds out about this. On a personal note, I cannot wait to see how Congress reacts when they hear about this, either.”
Power On: Greek activists fight poverty with guerrilla-style stunts
Australia Has $16 Minimum Wage and is the Only Rich Country to Dodge the Global Recession
The Evening Greens
CNRL Cold Lake bitumen geyser continues
Last week, after a frenzy of press coverage of the ongoing underground bitumen geyser at the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range, CNRL, the company responsible for the spill, released a press statement suggesting the incident was contained. ...
Cara Tobin from the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) says the spill is still ongoing and has yet to be brought under control.
“It’s ongoing. The spill is still ongoing. There is still bitumen coming up from the ground. With my language I would say it is not under control [because] bitumen is still coming up from the ground.” ...
But beyond cordoning off the spill site, Tobin says, “it’s a release that is still ongoing. It is a very slow release but it is still ongoing.”
AER updated the total volume released on Friday to 1060 cubic metres – just over 6600 barrels of oil or more than 1 million litres. The volume of the Kalamazoo tar sands disaster, the largest and most expensive on shore oil spill in US history, was around 3 million litres.
BP Attacks Oil Spill Victims, Tries To Hide Criminal Past
In recent corporate public relations attempts, BP has tried to shift the public’s focus from its corporate wrongdoing and outright criminal behavior to criticizing BP's victims and their legal representatives. According to a privileged, plaintiff’s attorney work document, BP has dumped over $500 million into PR, attacking “judges, special masters, and claimants’ lawyers - trying to change the focus from its tragic track record of ignoring safety and deepwater despair.”
BP CEO Bob Dudley said that, instead of the victims of his corporation's recklessness, the “biggest beneficiaries” in the suit are the plaintiff’s attorneys. According to the document, BP has spent at least $4.5 billion on defense lawyers in 2012, and that number is dispersed through only four lawyers. On average, that’s in the neighborhood of $750 - $2,000 per hour. Which litigators are the “biggest beneficiaries” again?
Enbridge asks EPA for Extension to Finish Dredging Kalamazoo River
Enbridge, Inc. has asked the United Stated Environmental Protection Agency for an extension to complete dredging of the Kalamazoo River due to continued opposition of two chosen dredge pad sites surrounding Morrow Lake.
In a letter sent by Rich Adams, senior vice president of operations for Enbridge, to Jeff Kimble, EPA Federal On-Scene Coordinator and Incident Commander, Adams asks for the EPA to extend its deadline past Dec. 31, 2013, saying in part:
"Enbridge’s preparation for dredging in the Delta and Morrow Lake area has been discontinued due to an unanticipated issue with securing a dredge pad site," Adams wrote. "Enbridge originally selected a site for the dredge pad that met all technical and practical requirements and promptly applied for the appropriate permit from the Township of Comstock. Unfortunately, some local residents and business owners have vigorously opposed granting the permit. As a result, the Township of Comstock has not yet issued the required permit to allow use of the specific site selected for the dredge pad."
Onondaga Leader Oren Lyons, Pete Seeger On International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin'
Transgender Life in the US Military
A Little Night Music
Skip James - Devil Got My Woman
Skip James - Hard Time Killin' Floor Blues
Skip James - I'm So Glad
Skip James - Cypress Grove Blues
Skip James - Illinois Blues
Skip James - 22 20 Blues
Skip James - Skip´s Worried Blues
Skip James - My Last Boogie
Skip James - Keep Your Lamp Trimmed And Burning
It's National Pie Day!
The election is over, it's a new year and it's time to work on real change in new ways... and it's National Pie Day. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to tell you a little more about our new site and to start getting people signed up.
Come on over and sign up so that we can send you announcements about the site, the launch, and information about participating in our public beta testing.
Why is National Pie Day the perfect opportunity to tell you more about us? Well you'll see why very soon. So what are you waiting for?! Head on over now and be one of the first!
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