Philly: White women rarely arrested for pot

In Philadelphia and other urban environments white women are the group least arrested for marijuana. Mainstream media has given significant attention recently to American women’s appreciation for cannabis. From Tyra Banks to The View and Marie Claire to the New York Times we can see businesswomen, celebrities and soccer moms smoking pot for medication and recreation.

But a look at the data for Philadelphia in August 2008 reveals that just 9 white women were arrested for marijuana possession of less than 30 grams. In sharp contrast, 362 black men were arrested that month alone for the very same offense.

The data comes from the Pennsylvania Uniform Crime Report and has been confirmed by Philadelphia Police representatives.

Nationally, statistics show that there is a stronger preference among men for marijuana (or at least to admit use on surveys). The same data shows that women of most ethnicities are well represented within America’s millions of marijuana consumers.

Several studies indicate that black and white women choose cannabis at near equal rates.

Still, black women were three times more likely to be arrested for pot in Philadelphia.

The city saw just 90 white women arrested in all of 2008 for minor marijuana possession while 345 black women were arrested for the same offense.

Overall in 2008 for Philadelphia: 4716 adults were arrested for simple pot possession: 3908 were black men.

Unfortunately Philadelphia is in no way unique. In New York City the data showcasing a racial and gender disparity in marijuana arrests is shocking: NYC saw over ten thousand arrests during just a single year for Marijuana in Public View (MPV), a criminal misdemeanor. Ninety percent of those arrests were black men. Read more

Again, the least arrested category for pot in NYC was white women.

The charge in Philly for cannabis possession less than 30 grams is rather harsh: A Class-A criminal misdemeanor. Unlike every other county in Pennsylvania it requires immediate custodial arrest in the city.

PhillyNORML met with Philadelphia city officials last May to discuss the local marijuana arrest statistics. A report quantifying those arrests in the city criminal justice system is still in progress.

Clearly though, the cumulative effect of marijuana prohibition enforcement in Philadelphia and many urban environments across America is a stark racial and gender disparity. Members of the cannabis reform effort point to such data as the civil rights and social justice core of the national legalization movement.

As more women are being showcased in the media, National NORML in Washington DC created a Women’s Alliance this year to focus on this aspect of reform. Locally at PhillyNORML and NORML-NJ, women are in leadership roles. More info: NORML Women’s Alliance

Women have been some of the strongest voices in the medical marijuana movement: WAMM’s Valerie Corral, OregonNORML’s Madeline Martinez and US Supreme Court litigant Angel Raich, have had a profound impact on the national debate.

Seventy years ago American women decried the effect alcohol prohibition was having on their fathers, brothers and sons. The voice of women made the final push to end the failed policy of alcohol prohibition in 1933.

Today, marijuana advocates are working to bring greater attention to the cannabis arrest disparity. Statistics in Philadelphia and New York City compel greater scrutiny of pot prohibition enforcement.

The infrequent arrest of white women underlines that marijuana legalization is a social policy issue with complex and far-reaching implications.

Source: http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-29881-Philadelphia-NORML-Examiner~y2010m2d22-White-women-rarely-arrested-for-pot

Facebook excommunicates WORM because of the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine

Rotterdam, 18th of February 2010

WORM's Facebook Suicide pt.1 from moddr_ on Vimeo.

Facebook excommunicates WORM because of the Web2.0 Suicide Machine

It is with great sorrow that we announce that Facebook Inc. has decided that WORM, the producer of the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine, will be excommunicated from Facebook.

The initiative to build the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine came from Moddr_, WORM’s media lab. By threatening WORM, Facebook is trying to take down the Suicide Machine.

The Web 2.0 Suicide Machine allows users of - among others - Facebook to commit ‘social network suicide’. Facebook threatens WORM with further legal action if WORM doesn’t stop targeting the FaceBook platform via the SuicideMachine. In addition, it has now also demanded that WORM immediately deletes its own Facebook profile (WORM_Rotterdam). According to Facebook and its lawyer, the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine has violated Facebook’s Terms of Service and with that WORM has forfeited it’s right to keep using the platform. WORM does not want to engage in a fight over this matter with Facebook. The idea behind the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine was to be able to ‘unfriend’ in an automated fashion and to make users of social networks aware that they should always be in control of their own data. Facebook won’t allow for this control and is also not willing to enter into this debate. We are pretty much done with that and are left with no other choice than to commit online suicide ourselves. The conditions and attitude of Facebook leave no other option as far as WORM is concerned.

WORM deeply regrets the current situation. The web 2.0 Suicide Machine was never intended to target Facebook as such, but meant as a tool for people who, for whatever reason, are tired of their online life. Facebook wants all access to their service, personal data of their users included, to run via their own ‘connect’ platform. In this way, Facebook can set, interpret and change its own rules as it sees fit...

The excommunication of WORM illustrates that data freedom and net neutrality of users is merely an illusion on many social network sites. Not only is it not allowed for people to unfriend (in an automated manner), but companies also have the power to expel users they do not like. Facebook shows that a user only has the rights that Facebook grants it.

Facebook claims all rights. WORM does not want to continue living in this 2.0 world. Which is why we say goodbye to all our friends. We wish you all the best.

No flowers, no speeches.

moddr_labs,
WORM, Rotterdam
worm.org
moddr.net
suicidemachine.org

Source: http://www.suicidemachine.org/

Stalked, drugged and raped: Is it happening in San Antonio?

Cynthia Vurbeff is moving. Her home, she says, has become a house of horrors.

“I feel that I've lost my mind, lost my life,” Vurbeff said.

Incident reports from law enforcement tell the tale: Numerous break-ins at the address. She suffered vandalism to her car, motorcycle and computer.

Vurbeff believes she was being targeted.

“Everything... They just went through everything,” she said.

But sheriff’s detectives had little to go on, because the vandals -- though often destructive -- stole nothing. Even from her portable safe, drilled into and torn apart, the contents -- the jewelry -- remained untouched.

'He told me ... I would be stalked'

Vurbeff says her troubles didn’t start until she met two men.

One would become her ex-boyfriend; the other was his partner in a San Antonio pain clinic, Dr. John Hall.

Vurbeff said: “The very first time I met him, we went to his house on the Fourth of July, and he told me that because I was already there in his house, that I would be the next victim, that I would be stalked.”

Vurbeff found the doctor’s prophecy to be correct. She suffered months of oddness:

Lights left on. Doors open. Furniture moved. Her clothes dryer disassembled. Her friends said they noticed the strange happenings. They tell the I-Team they even witnessed a gas oven left turned on.

“As soon as you walked in the house, you smelled gas," one friend said. "The whole house smelled of gas. Immediately turned it off, opened up the doors, but that thing doesn't turn on by itself. And it had been running a good length of time."

Another friend said she and Vurbeff were stalked at a mall.

Vurbeff said all these happenings culminated in an assault. The 39-year old believes someone drugged the food in her home and returned later to rape her.

“I know something happened to me, because... a woman knows,” Vurbeff stated.

She filed a report and was briefly hospitalized with signs of sexual assault.

Book about 'gang stalking'

Dr. Hall says what Vurbeff describes is known as “gang stalking.” Indeed, he writes about it in his book, “A New Breed: Satellite Terrorism in America.”

Vurbeff is not alone. Others in San Antonio have contacted the I-Team and described similar types of occurrences.

Linda Johnson says someone poisoned her water supply with heavy metals in northwest San Antonio. Then, there’s the story of the bracelet that went missing, and then reappeared.

Police, she says, have stopped listening to her. And like Vurbeff, she, too, believes she’s been sexually assaulted, although she never filed a police report.

Johnson said: “I've been to doctors many times, and I've been to the rape crisis center, yes."

Many of these so-called victims of what Hall describes as “gang stalking” meet up on the Internet, finding comfort and information from others who say they, too, suffer from electronic stalking, mind control and even rape.

Loosely defined, gang stalking is where organized groups target and harass unwilling victims to the point of paranoia, leaving the victims to deal with skeptical family members and skeptical law enforcement.

“This isn't stalking that's done by former spouse, or former boyfriend or someone you know is disgruntled at you, but stalking that's done by a total stranger in an organized fashion," Dr. Hall said.

And some Internet links take you to the book mentioned earlier, written by Dr. John Hall.

"The book is fact. It's not a book of fiction. What I've wrote about here is an isolated story in San Antonio,” Dr. Hall said.

Dr. Hall says it is a story about himself, and the harassment and rapes his ex-girlfriends allegedly suffered, beginning in 1996. Dr. Hall believes the people behind it are well-organized-operatives, using government satellite technology to terrorize him and other victims.

"All voicing the same complaints: organized stalking, weird, electronic disturbances going on in their homes. Most of the women complain of drugging and sexual assault. It's a big national problem," he said.

Vurbeff bought the book. And what she read she says caused her stomach to turn: Because within the chapters in the story, she found similarities to her own situation.

Vurbeff said: “I pulled out the book and I started reading it, and I'm like, 'Oh my God, that's exactly what's happening to me.'”

I-Team investigates

The account in Hall’s book is chilling, and the I-Team uncovered some truth to his story.

San Antonio police reports indicate there WAS a rape reported in 2007 in the same quad of condos where one of Dr. Hall’s girlfriends supposedly lived. San Antonio police say the condo rape remains under investigation.

And Bexar County detectives say Vurbeff’s assault case remains open as well.

Although there are some interesting connections to Dr. Hall and the book, law enforcement won’t and cannot say whether Dr. Hall is even a person of interest.

The I-Team thought the similarities were striking, and asked him if he was in fact bothering these women.

Dr. Hall responded: “That's actually one of the reasons why I got out of my ex-fiancé’s life: to make sure that they weren't victimizing her to get at me."

Dr. Hall said he’s been targeted by the same groups and even by fellow doctors. He said the Texas Medical Board retaliated against him for uncovering the gang stalking.

The I-Team confirmed one local hospital suspended Dr. Hall’s clinical privileges for 2 months in 2006.

In 2007, the Texas Medical Board ordered two mental evaluations for Dr. Hall. The first came back normal, but a second evaluation found a “probable delusional disorder” and ordered psychiatric treatment.

And in 2008, Hall’s license was suspended for testing positive for cocaine. In the book, he explains the operatives drugged him with cocaine periodically.

Dr. Hall’s medical license has since been reinstated.

"If you look nationwide, almost everyone who complains of this eventually gets sent to a psychiatrist. And the psychiatrists don't look into the technology. They don't do any research into whether or not any of this is possible," Dr. Hall said.

With his book published, the Dr. Hall is taking his message nationally.

He’s appeared on cable TV shows and late-night radio and even has his own radio program in the works.

Dr. Hall said: "There have been several people in my midst obviously that have been victimized. But if you look at it on a larger scale, it is a national problem."

Dr. Hall’s belief is that we all face some sort of terrorism in our lives that is mostly unseen and deadly. He contends criminals are tapping into our government’s surveillance systems to gain access to our lives and minds.

As for the alleged rapes mentioned in the story, no one has been charged. Both San Antonio police and Bexar County Sheriff’s deputies say they continue to investigate.

Source: http://www.kens5.com/news/Stalked-drugged-and-raped-Is-it-happening-in-San-Antonio.html

King Tut Was Disabled, Malarial, and Inbred, DNA Shows

"Frail boy" needed cane, says study, which also found oldest genetic proof of malaria.

One of several, this golden "coffinette" (detail pictured) held part of King Tut's organs.Photograph by Kenneth Garrett, National Geographic Stock

King Tut may be seen as the golden boy of ancient Egypt today, but during his reign, Tutankhamun wasn't exactly a strapping sun god.

Instead, a new DNA study says, King Tut was a frail pharaoh, beset by malaria and a bone disorder—and possibly compromised by his newly discovered incestuous origins.

The report is the first DNA study ever conducted with ancient Egyptian royal mummies. It apparently solves several mysteries surrounding King Tut, including how he died and who his parents were.

"He was not a very strong pharaoh. He was not riding the chariots," said study team member Carsten Pusch, a geneticist at Germany's University of Tübingen. "Picture instead a frail, weak boy who had a bit of a club foot and who needed a cane to walk."

Regarding the revelation that King Tut's mother and father were brother and sister, Pusch said, "Inbreeding is not an advantage for biological or genetic fitness. Normally the health and immune system are reduced and malformations increase," he said.

Short Reign, Lasting Impact of King Tut

Tutankhamun was a pharaoh during ancient Egypt's New Kingdom era, about 3,300 years ago. He ascended to the throne at the age of 9 but ruled for only ten years before dying at 19 around 1324 B.C.

Despite his brief reign, King Tut is perhaps Egypt's best known pharaoh because of the wealth of treasures—including a solid gold death mask—found during the surprise discovery of his intact tomb in 1922.

The new study, published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, marks the first time the Egyptian government has allowed genetic studies to be performed using royal mummies.

"This will open to us a new era," said project leader Zahi Hawass, the Secretary General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) and a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence.

"I'm very happy this is an Egyptian project, and I'm very proud of the work that we did."

King Tut's Close-Knit Family

In the new study, the mummies of King Tut and ten other royals that researchers have long suspected were his close relatives were examined. Of these ten, the identities of only three had been known for certain.

Using DNA samples taken from the mummies' bones, the scientists were able to create a five-generation family tree for the boy pharaoh.

The team looked for shared genetic sequences in the Y chromosome—a bundle of DNA passed only from father to son—to identify King Tut's male ancestors. The researchers then determined parentage for the mummies by looking for signs that a mummy's genes are a blend of a specific couple's DNA.

In this way, the team was able to determine that a mummy known until now as KV55 is the "heretic king" Akhenaten—and that he was King Tut's father. Akhenaten was best known for abolishing ancient Egypt's pantheon in favor of worshipping only one god.

Furthermore, the mummy known as KV35 was King Tut's grandfather, the pharaoh Amenhotep III, whose reign was marked by unprecedented prosperity.

Preliminary DNA evidence also indicates that two stillborn fetuses entombed with King Tut when he died were daughters whom he likely fathered with his chief queen Ankhensenamun, whose mummy may also have finally been identified.

Also, a mummy previously known as the Elder Lady is Queen Tiye, King Tut's grandmother and wife of Amenhotep III.

King Tut's mother is a mummy researchers had been calling the Younger Lady.

While the body of King Tut's mother has finally been revealed, her identity remains a mystery. DNA studies show that she was the daughter of Amenhotep III and Tiye and thus was the full sister of her husband, Akhenaten.

Some Egyptologists have speculated that King Tut's mother was Akhenaten's chief wife, Queen Nefertiti—made famous by an iconic bust (Nefertiti-bust picture). But the new findings seem to challenge this idea, because historical records do not indicate that Nefertiti and Akhenaten were related.

Instead, the sister with whom Akenhaten fathered King Tut may have been a minor wife or concubine, which would not have been unusual, said Willeke Wendrich, a UCLA Egyptologist who was not involved in the study.

"Egyptian pharaohs had multiple wives, and often multiple sons who would potentially compete for the throne after the death of their father," Wendrich said.

Inbreeding would also not have been considered unusual among Egyptian royalty of the time.

King Tut Plagued by Malaria, Required Cane

The team's examination of King Tut's body also revealed previously unknown deformations in the king's left foot, caused by the necrosis, or death, of bone tissue.

"Necrosis is always bad, because it means you have dying organic matter inside your body," study team member Pusch told National Geographic News.

The affliction would have been painful and forced King Tut to walk with a cane—many of which were found in his tomb—but it would not have been life threatening.

Malaria, however, would have been a serious danger.

The scientists found DNA from the mosquito-borne parasite that causes malaria in the young pharaoh's body—the oldest known genetic proof of the disease.

The team found more than one strain of malaria parasite, indicating that King Tut caught multiple malarial infections during his life. The strains belong to the parasite responsible for malaria tropica, the most virulent and deadly form of the disease.

The malaria would have weakened King Tut's immune system and interfered with the healing of his foot. These factors, combined with the fracture in his left thighbone, which scientists had discovered in 2005, may have ultimately been what killed the young king, the authors write.

Until now the best guesses as to how King Tut died have included a hunting accident, a blood infection, a blow to the head, and poisoning.

UCLA's Wendrich said the new finding "lays to rest the completely baseless theories about the murder of Tutankhamun."

King Tut's Father Not "Egyptian Quasimodo"

Another speculation apparently laid to rest by the new study is that Akhenaten had a genetic disorder that caused him to develop the feminine features seen in his statutes, including wide hips, a potbelly, and the female-like breasts associated with the condition gynecomastia.

When the team analyzed Akhenaten's body using medical scanners, no evidence of such abnormalities were found. Hawass and his team concluded that the feminized features found in the statues of Akenhaten created during his reign were done for religious and political reasons.

In ancient Egypt, Akhenaten was a god, Hawass explained. "The poems said of him, 'you are the man, and you are the woman,' so artists put the picture of a man and a woman in his body."

Egyptologist John Darnell of Yale University called the revelation that Akhenaten's appearance was not due to genetic disorders "the most important result" of the new study.

In his book Tutankhamun's Armies, Darnell proposes that Akhenaten's androgynous appearance in art was an attempt to associate himself with Aten, the original creator god in Egyptian theology, who was neither male nor female.

"Akenhaten is odd in his appearance because he belongs to the time of creation, not because he was physically different," said Darnell, who also did not participate in the DNA research.

"People will now need to consider Akenhaten as a thinker, and not just as an Egyptian Quasimodo."

"Beautiful DNA" Found in King Tut Study

The generally good condition of the DNA from the royal mummies of King Tut's family surprised many members of the team.

Indeed, its quality was better than DNA gathered from nonroyal Egyptian mummies several centuries younger, study co-author Pusch said.

The DNA of the Elder Lady, for example, "was the most beautiful DNA that I've ever seen from an ancient specimen," Pusch said.

The team suspects that the embalming method the ancient Egyptians used to preserve the royal mummies inadvertently protected DNA as well as flesh.

"The ingredients used to embalm the royals was completely different in both quantity and quality compared to the normal population in ancient times," Pusch explained.

Preserving DNA "was not the aim of the Egyptian priest of course, but the embalming method they used was lucky for us."

Source: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/02/100216-king-tut-malaria-bones-inbred-tutankhamun/

Feds push for tracking cell phones

Two years ago, when the FBI was stymied by a band of armed robbers known as the "Scarecrow Bandits" that had robbed more than 20 Texas banks, it came up with a novel method of locating the thieves.

FBI agents obtained logs from mobile phone companies corresponding to what their cellular towers had recorded at the time of a dozen different bank robberies in the Dallas area. The voluminous records showed that two phones had made calls around the time of all 12 heists, and that those phones belonged to men named Tony Hewitt and Corey Duffey. A jury eventually convicted the duo of multiple bank robbery and weapons charges.

Even though police are tapping into the locations of mobile phones thousands of times a year, the legal ground rules remain unclear, and federal privacy laws written a generation ago are ambiguous at best. On Friday, the first federal appeals court to consider the topic will hear oral arguments (PDF) in a case that could establish new standards for locating wireless devices.

In that case, the Obama administration has argued that warrantless tracking is permitted because Americans enjoy no "reasonable expectation of privacy" in their--or at least their cell phones'--whereabouts. U.S. Department of Justice lawyers say that "a customer's Fourth Amendment rights are not violated when the phone company reveals to the government its own records" that show where a mobile device placed and received calls.

Those claims have alarmed the ACLU and other civil liberties groups, which have opposed the Justice Department's request and plan to tell the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia that Americans' privacy deserves more protection and judicial oversight than what the administration has proposed.

"This is a critical question for privacy in the 21st century," says Kevin Bankston, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who will be arguing on Friday. "If the courts do side with the government, that means that everywhere we go, in the real world and online, will be an open book to the government unprotected by the Fourth Amendment."

Not long ago, the concept of tracking cell phones would have been the stuff of spy movies. In 1998's "Enemy of the State," Gene Hackman warned that the National Security Agency has "been in bed with the entire telecommunications industry since the '40s--they've infected everything." After a decade of appearances in "24" and "Live Free or Die Hard," location-tracking has become such a trope that it was satirized in a scene with Seth Rogen from "Pineapple Express" (2008).

Once a Hollywood plot, now 'commonplace'
Whether state and federal police have been paying attention to Hollywood, or whether it was the other way around, cell phone tracking has become a regular feature in criminal investigations. It comes in two forms: police obtaining retrospective data kept by mobile providers for their own billing purposes that may not be very detailed, or prospective data that reveals the minute-by-minute location of a handset or mobile device.

Obtaining location details is now "commonplace," says Al Gidari, a partner in the Seattle offices of Perkins Coie who represents wireless carriers. "It's in every pen register order these days."

Gidari says that the Third Circuit case could have a significant impact on police investigations within the court's jurisdiction, namely Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania; it could be persuasive beyond those states. But, he cautions, "if the privacy groups win, the case won't be over. It will certainly be appealed."

CNET was the first to report on prospective tracking in a 2005 news article. In a subsequent Arizona case, agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration tracked a tractor trailer with a drug shipment through a GPS-equipped Nextel phone owned by the suspect. Texas DEA agents have used cell site information in real time to locate a Chrysler 300M driving from Rio Grande City to a ranch about 50 miles away. Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile logs showing the location of mobile phones at the time calls became evidence in a Los Angeles murder trial.

And a mobile phone's fleeting connection with a remote cell tower operated by Edge Wireless is what led searchers to the family of the late James Kim, a CNET employee who died in the Oregon wilderness in 2006 after leaving a snowbound car to seek help.

"This is a critical question for privacy in the 21st century. If the courts do side with the government, that means that everywhere we go, in the real world and online, will be an open book to the government unprotected by the Fourth Amendment."
--Kevin Bankston, attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation

The way tracking works is simple: mobile phones are miniature radio transmitters and receivers. A cellular tower knows the general direction of a mobile phone (many cell sites have three antennas pointing in different directions), and if the phone is talking to multiple towers, triangulation yields a rough location fix. With this method, accuracy depends in part on the density of cell sites.

The Federal Communications Commission's "Enhanced 911" (E911) requirements allowed rough estimates to be transformed into precise coordinates. Wireless carriers using CDMA networks, such as Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel, tend to use embedded GPS technology to fulfill E911 requirements. AT&T and T-Mobile comply with E911 regulations using network-based technology that computes a phone's location using signal analysis and triangulation between towers.


T-Mobile, for instance, uses a GSM technology called Uplink Time Difference of Arrival, or U-TDOA, which calculates a position based on precisely how long it takes signals to reach towers. A company called TruePosition, which provides U-TDOA services to T-Mobile, boasts of "accuracy to under 50 meters" that's available "for start-of-call, midcall, or when idle."

A 2008 court order to T-Mobile in a criminal investigation of a marriage fraud scheme, which was originally sealed and later made public, says: "T-Mobile shall disclose at such intervals and times as directed by (the Department of Homeland Security), latitude and longitude data that establishes the approximate positions of the Subject Wireless Telephone, by unobtrusively initiating a signal on its network that will enable it to determine the locations of the Subject Wireless Telephone."

'No reasonable expectation of privacy'
In the case that's before the Third Circuit on Friday, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF, said it needed historical (meaning stored, not future) phone location information because a set of suspects "use their wireless telephones to arrange meetings and transactions in furtherance of their drug trafficking activities."

U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisa Lenihan in Pennsylvania denied the Justice Department's attempt to obtain stored location data without a search warrant; prosecutors had invoked a different legal procedure. Lenihan's ruling, in effect, would require police to obtain a search warrant based on probable cause--a more privacy-protective standard.

Lenihan's opinion (PDF)--which, in an unusual show of solidarity, was signed by four other magistrate judges--noted that location information can reveal sensitive information such as health treatments, financial difficulties, marital counseling, and extra-marital affairs.

In its appeal to the Third Circuit, the Justice Department claims that Lenihan's opinion "contains, and relies upon, numerous errors" and should be overruled. In addition to a search warrant not being necessary, prosecutors said, because location "records provide only a very general indication of a user's whereabouts at certain times in the past, the requested cell-site records do not implicate a Fourth Amendment privacy interest."

The Obama administration is not alone in making this argument. U.S. District Judge William Pauley, a Clinton appointee in New York, wrote in a 2009 opinion that a defendant in a drug trafficking case, Jose Navas, "did not have a legitimate expectation of privacy in the cell phone" location. That's because Navas only used the cell phone "on public thoroughfares en route from California to New York" and "if Navas intended to keep the cell phone's location private, he simply could have turned it off."

(Most cases have involved the ground rules for tracking cell phone users prospectively, and judges have disagreed over what legal rules apply. Only a minority has sided with the Justice Department, however.)

Cellular providers tend not to retain moment-by-moment logs of when each mobile device contacts the tower, in part because there's no business reason to store the data, and in part because the storage costs would be prohibitive. They do, however, keep records of what tower is in use when a call is initiated or answered--and those records are generally stored for six months to a year, depending on the company.

Verizon Wireless keeps "phone records including cell site location for 12 months," Drew Arena, Verizon's vice president and associate general counsel for law enforcement compliance, said at a federal task force meeting in Washington, D.C. last week. Arena said the company keeps "phone bills without cell site location for seven years," and stores SMS text messages for only a very brief time.

Gidari, the Seattle attorney, said that wireless carriers have recently extended how long they store this information. "Prior to a year or two ago when location-based services became more common, if it were 30 days it would be surprising," he said.

The ACLU, EFF, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and University of San Francisco law professor Susan Freiwald argue that the wording of the federal privacy law in question allows judges to require the level of proof required for a search warrant "before authorizing the disclosure of particularly novel or invasive types of information." In addition, they say, Americans do not "knowingly expose their location information and thereby surrender Fourth Amendment protection whenever they turn on or use their cell phones."

"The biggest issue at stake is whether or not courts are going to accept the government's minimal view of what is protected by the Fourth Amendment," says EFF's Bankston. "The government is arguing that based on precedents from the 1970s, any record held by a third party about us, no matter how invasively collected, is not protected by the Fourth Amendment."

Update 10:37 a.m. PT: A source inside the U.S. Attorney's Office for the northern district of Texas, which prosecuted the Scarecrow Bandits mentioned in the above article, tells me that this was the first and the only time that the FBI has used the location-data-mining technique to nab bank robbers. It's also worth noting that the leader of this gang, Corey Duffey, was sentenced last month to 354 years (not months, but years) in prison. Another member is facing 140 years in prison.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10451518-38.html

Google takes on Facebook and Twitter with network site

Google has taken the wraps off its latest social network known as Buzz.

The service - integrated directly with its e-mail service Gmail - allows users to post status updates, share content and read and comment on friends' posts.


The site pitches Google directly against rival networks such as Facebook, which has amassed nearly 400 million users since its launch in 2004.

Buzz will try to capitalise on the number of regular Gmail users, which is currently around 170 million people.

BBC News technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones said that the launch appeared to be a "major land grab by Google for the social networking space".

"They've launched Buzz with plenty of interesting new features, particularly for mobile users, but the real question is whether there's enough to entice social networkers away from sites like Facebook and Twitter," he said.

Rival Yahoo already offers a service that allows people to see updates from sites such as Twitter and Flickr from inside their Yahoo Mail page.

Local chatter

The new features are built directly into Google's free e-mail service Gmail.

Users can post private or public status updates - known as a buzz - and share content from other sites such as Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and Picassa.
Gmail logo
The service integrates directly with Gmail

The messages - highlighted with a Buzz symbol - are incorporated directly into a person's Gmail inbox. Private updates are automatically added to a user's profile page, whilst public updates will also be available to search engines.

The site also incorporates elements of Twitter, such as the ability to "follow" people that share updates, and features that appear in Facebook such as the ability to "like" content.

Buzz will also recommend content from people that it thinks you may like to see and incorporate it directly into a user's content stream.

Google Buzz product manager Todd Jackson described it as "an entirely new world in Gmail" during a press event at Google headquarters in Mountain View.

The firm has also integrated it with its mapping service and mobile platforms. For example, it has launched a mobile application for phones running its operating system Android.

Status updates sent from phones will record the location of the sender and add it to the message.

Other users can then search public messages from their phone.

"You can see what people in your neighbourhood are saying," said Google's Vic Gundotra.

Public updates will also be added to Google Places, a directory of businesses that include reviews of restaurants and theatres, for example.

The firm has also built the technology into the mobile versions of its maps.

It is not the first time Google has tried to launch a social network.

In 2004, it released Orkut. However, while it has become big in countries such as Brazil and India, it has been overshadowed by sites such as Facebook elsewhere.

The firm also recently launched Google Wave, a tool that mixes e-mail, with instant messaging and the ability for several people to collaborate on documents in real time.

Facebook is currently the most popular social network worldwide.

Last week it rolled out a new site layout and design for parts of the service to make it easier to search messages and chat.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8506148.stm

Haiti detains Americans taking kids across border

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Ten Americans were detained by Haitian police on Saturday as they tried to bus 33 children across the border into the Dominican Republic, allegedly without proper documents.

The Baptist church members from Idaho called it a "Haitian Orphan Rescue Mission," meant to save abandoned children from the chaos following Haiti's earthquake. Their plan was to scoop up 100 kids and take them by bus to a rented hotel at a beach resort in the Dominican Republic, where they planned to establish an orphanage.

Whether they realized it or not, these Americans — the first known to be taken into custody since the Jan. 12 earthquake — put themselves in the middle of a firestorm in Haiti, where government leaders have suspended adoptions amid fears that parentless or lost children are more vulnerable than ever to child trafficking.

"In this chaos the government is in right now we were just trying to do the right thing," the group's leader, Laura Silsby told The Associated Press at the judicial police headquarters in the capital, where the Americans were being held pending a Monday hearing before a judge.

Silsby said they only had the best of intentions and paid no money for the children. She said her group obtained them through a well-known Haitian pastor named Jean Sanbil of the Sharing Jesus Ministries.

Silsby, 40, of Boise, Idaho, was asked if she didn't consider it naive to cross the border without adoption papers at a time when Haitians are so concerned about child trafficking. "By no means are we any part of that. That's exactly what we are trying to combat," she said.

Social Affairs Minister Yves Cristallin told reporters the Americans were suspected of taking part in an illegal adoption scheme.

Cristallin said the 33 children were lodged late Saturday at an SOS Children's Village outside of Port-au-Prince. SOS Children's Villages is a global nonprofit based in Austria.

Many children in Haitian orphanages aren't actually orphans but have been abandoned by family who cannot afford to care for them. Advocates both here and abroad caution that with so many people unaccounted for, adoptions should not go forward until it can be determined that the children have no relatives who can raise them.

UNICEF and other NGOs have been registering children who may have been separated from their parents. Relief workers are locating children at camps housing the homeless around the capital and are placing them in temporary shelters while they try to locate their parents or a more permanent home.

The U.S. Embassy in Haiti sent consular officials, who met with the detained Americans and gave them bug spray and MREs to eat, according to Sean Lankford of Meridian, Idaho, whose wife and 18-year-old daughter were being held.

"They have to go in front of a judge on Monday," Lankford told The Associated Press.

"There are allegations of child trafficking and that really couldn't be farther from the truth," he added. The children "were going to get the medical attention they needed. They were going to get the clothes and the food and the love they need to be healthy and to start recovering from the tragedy that just happened."

Haiti has imposed new controls on adoptions since the earthquake, which left thousands of children separated from their parents or orphaned. The government now requires Prime Minister Max Bellerive to personally authorize the departure of any child as a way to prevent child trafficking.

Silsby said they had documents from the Dominican government, but did not seek any paperwork from the Haitian authorities before taking 33 children from 2 months to 12 years old to the border, where Haitian police stopped them Friday evening. She said the children were brought to the pastor by distant relatives, and that the only ones to be put up for adoption would be those without close family to care for them.

The 10 Americans include members of the Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho and the East Side Baptist Church in Twin Falls, Idaho, as well as people from Texas and Kansas. Idaho friends and relatives have been in touch with them through text messages and phone calls, Lankford said.

"The plan was never to go adopt all these kids. The plan was to create this orphanage where kids could live. And kids get adopted out of orphanages. People go down and they're going to fall in love with these kids, and many of these kids will end up getting adopted."

"Of course I'm concerned for my wife and my daughter," he added. "They were hoping to make a difference and be able to help those kids."

The group described their plans on a Web site where they also asked for tax-deductible contributions, saying they would "gather" 100 orphans and bus them to the Dominican resort of Cabarete, before building a more permanent orphanage in the Dominican town of Magante.

"Given the urgent needs from this earthquake, God has laid upon our hearts the need to go now versus waiting until the permanent facility is built," the group wrote.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/cb_haiti_earthquake_americans_detained

Experts stunned by swan 'divorce' at Slimbridge wetland

Experts have told of their surprise after witnessing a rare "divorce" between a pair of swans at a Gloucestershire wildfowl sanctuary.

The Bewick's swans have returned to winter at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust centre at Slimbridge - but both have brought new partners.

It is only the second time in more than 40 years that a "separation" has been recorded at the centre.

Staff have described the new couplings as "bizarre".

It is not unheard of for the birds, which usually mate for life, to find a new mate but it tends to be because one of the pair has died, they said.

Staff were initially concerned when Sarindi arrived with a new mate
During the past four decades 4,000 pairs of Bewick's swans have been studied at Slimbridge, with only one previous couple moving on to find new partners.

Normally loyal

First suspicions of the rare event were raised when male swan Sarindi turned up in the annual migration from Arctic Russia without his partner of two years Saruni and with a new female - newly-named Sarind - in tow.

The pair's arrival led conservationists to fear the worst for Saruni.

But shortly afterwards Saruni arrived at the wetlands site - also with a new mate, Surune.

And after observing them, the experts discovered the old relationship had ended and new ones had begun.

Failure to breed could be a possible reason, as they had been together for a couple of years but had never brought back a cygnet
Julia Newth
Wildlife health research officer

Julia Newth, wildlife health research officer at Slimbridge, said the situation had taken staff by surprise.

She said swans tended to have "real loyalties to one another" and long partnerships.

"As long as they are both still alive, they will try to stay together. If they have a change of mate it is perhaps because of mortality, not necessarily through choice," she said.

In this case, however, both swans and their new partners are now over-wintering in close proximity on the lake at Slimbridge.

Ms Newth said the old pair had not acknowledged each other with any signs of recognition or greeting - even though they are occupying the same part of the small lake.

As for why they may have split, she said: "Failure to breed could be a possible reason, as they had been together for a couple of years but had never brought back a cygnet, but it is difficult to say for sure."

Bewick's swans are the smallest and rarest of the three species found in the UK and each individual can be identified by their unique bill pattern.

Source http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/gloucestershire/8477351.stm

Burger King bar debuts in Miami

Burger King Corp. said Friday it plans to open a Whopper Bar in the South Beach area of Miami next month.

To keep up with Miami's night life, Burger King (BKC)'s new Whopper bar will offer American beer and Whopper sandwiches around the clock, staying open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

It will be the chain's first U.S. location to sell beer, and the restaurant will offer a delivery service for local customers, a walk-up window for orders on the go and an outdoor dining area.

"Not only is South Beach in our backyard, but the warm weather, famous nightlife and colorful personality of the destination make it a great fit for a Whopper Bar restaurant," Chuck Fallon, Burger King's North America president, said in a company statement.

Burger King's bar will offer variations on its traditional Whopper sandwich, including an exclusive addition: the Black & Bleu Steakhouse XT. Customers will be able to choose from 20 sauces, displayed in a "visible toppings theater."

And when South Beach locals pick up a 4 a.m. burger, they will also have their choice of Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors beer, including Budweiser, Miller Lite and Budlight Lime at a cost of $4.25.

"That adds a new element to the Burger King brand," said Tom Forte, an analyst at Telsey Advisory Group. "It also creates a different mystique for going to a Whopper Bar versus a traditional restaurant."

The Whopper Bar concept was introduced in March 2008, and the first bar opened a year later at Universal Orlando Resort in Florida. Burger King has also opened bars in Munich, Singapore and Venezuela.

Las Vegas, New York City and Los Angeles could be some of Burger King's next Whopper Bar targets, the company said.

Forte said he won't be surprised if beer pops up on the menus of other fast food restaurants as well.

"In the restaurant industry, if it works for one, others will try," said Forte. "Other operators are watching from the sidelines to see how effective this is for Burger King and then may consider it."

"Edgier" restaurants with the same core demographics as Burger King -- such as Carl's Junior and Jack and the Box -- may be next to jump on the bandwagon, he said.

Source: http://money.cnn.com/2010/01/22/news/companies/burger_king_whopper_bar/

Plastic Breaks Down in Ocean, After All -- And Fast

Carolyn Barry for National Geographic News
August 20, 2009

Though ocean-borne plastic trash has a reputation as an indestructible, immortal environmental villain, scientists announced yesterday that some plastics actually decompose rapidly in the ocean. And, the researchers say, that's not a good thing.

The team's new study is the first to show that degrading plastics are leaching potentially toxic chemicals such as bisphenol A into the seas, possibly threatening ocean animals, and us.

Scientists had previously thought plastics broke down only at very high temperatures and over hundreds of years.

The researchers behind a new study, however, found that plastic breaks down at cooler temperatures than expected, and within a year of the trash hitting the water.

The Japan-based team collected samples in waters from the U.S., Europe, India, Japan, and elsewhere, lead researcher Katsuhiko Saido, a chemist with the College of Pharmacy at Nihon University in Japan, said via email.

All the water samples were found to contain derivatives of polystyrene, a common plastic used in disposable cutlery, Styrofoam, and DVD cases, among other things, said Saido, who presented the findings at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Washington, D.C., today.

A plastic fork sticks out of the sand on the beach at Prestwick, Scotland, in 2005.

An August 2009 study says that plastics — including the polystyrene used to make many disposable forks — decompose much faster than thought, and emit toxic chemicals in the process.
Plastic, he said, should be considered a new source of chemical pollution in the ocean.


Cooking Up Plastic Soup in the Seas

The toxic compounds the team found don't occur naturally in the ocean, and the researchers thought plastic was the culprit.

The scientists later simulated the decomposition of polystyrene in the sea and found that it degraded at temperatures of 86 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius).

Left behind in the water were the same compounds detected in the ocean samples, such as styrene trimer, a polystyrene by-product, and bisphenol A, a chemical used in hard plastics such as reusable water bottles and the linings of aluminum cans.

Bisphenol A (BPA) has been shown to interfere with the reproductive systems of animals, while styrene monomer is a suspected carcinogen.

The pollutants are likely to be more concentrated in areas heavily littered with plastic debris, such as ocean vortices, which occur where currents meet.

(Related: "Giant Ocean-Trash Vortex Attracts Explorers.")


Plastic Breaks Down Fast

About 44 percent of all seabirds eat plastic, apparently by mistake, sometimes with fatal effects. And 267 marine species are affected by plastic garbage—animals are known to swallow plastic bags, which resemble jellyfish in mid-ocean, for example—according to a 2008 study in the journal Environmental Research by oceanographer and chemist Charles Moore, of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation.

Now, it seems, they also face the invisible threat of toxic, plastic-derived chemicals.

Once Styrofoam, for example, breaks down, the tiny polystyrene components start to sink, because they're heavier than water, Moore said. "So it's likely that this styrene pollutant is prevalent throughout the water column and not just at the surface."

Along with Moore, David Barnes, a marine ecologist from the British Antarctic Survey, doesn't think the Japanese team's lab results can be applied uniformly across the ocean, however. Water temperatures are typically much cooler than the 86 degrees Fahrenheit in the study, he said.

"We're talking about, effectively, what happens in [zones] of tropical and some subtropical coasts. And there, [the] study may be very important," Barnes said.


Ocean as "Plastic Soup"

Plastic hits marine creatures with a double whammy, Moore said. Along with the toxic chemicals released from the breakdown of plastic, animals also take in other chemicals that the plastic has accumulated from outside sources in the water.

"We knew ten years ago that plastic could be a million times more toxic than the seawater itself," because plastic items tend to accumulate a surface layer of chemicals from seawater, Moore said. "They're sponges."

Moore worries about the plastic-derived chemicals' potential damage to wildlife. The chemicals can potentially cause cancer in humans, he said, and simpler life-forms "may be more susceptible then we are."

Pollutants also become more concentrated as animals eat other contaminated animals—which could be bad news for us, the animals at the top of the food chain. (Read National Geographic magazine's "The Pollution Within.")

Moore estimates plastic debris—most of it smaller than a fifth of an inch (five millimeters)—is "dispersed over millions of square miles of ocean and miles' deep in the water column.

"The plastic soup we've made of the ocean is pretty universal—it's just a matter of degree," he said. "All these effects we're worried about are happening throughout the ocean as a unity."

Source: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/08/090820-plastic-decomposes-oceans-seas.html

'Jesus Guns': Two More Countries Rethink Using Weapons with Secret Bible References

New Zealand Will Erase Codes from Gun Scopes, and British Will Talk to Trijicon, Maker of Scopes

After an ABC News report that secret Bible messages are encoded on gun sights used by the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan, at least two other countries that also use the equipment in Afghanistan are now considering what action to take.

A spokesperson for New Zealand's Defence Force told the New Zealand newspaper The Press that the coded citations on Trijicon scopes were "inappropriate" and would be removed. A spokesperson for Britain's Ministry of Defence told the BBC that the ministry was contacting Trijicon, was unaware of the markings at time of purchase, and understood that the markings might be considered offensive.

In August of 2005 Trijicon was awarded a $660 million dollar, multi-year contract to provide up to 800,000 of its Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight (ACOG) to the U.S. Marine Corps. According to Trijicon, the ACOG is "designed to function in bright light, low light or no light conditions," and is "ideal for combat due to its high degree of discrimination, even among multiple moving targets." At the end of the scope's model number, you can read "JN8:12", which is a reference to the New Testament book of John, Chapter 8, Verse 12, which reads: "Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." (King James Version)

Major Kristian Dunne of the New Zealand Defence Force said his country's military was unaware of the Bible references and "unhappy" to learn of them from the media.

"It's put us in an uncomfortable situation," Dunne told The Press. "We can see how they would cause offense." Dunne said that in addition to removing the codes from its 260 existing scopes, New Zealand would ask Trijicon to remove the code from future weapons

According to the BBC, the British military recently ordered 480 Trijicon ACOG sights, and is already using versions of the ACOG sight.

As ABC News reported Monday, Michigan-based Trijicon has a $660 million multi-year contract to provide up to 800,000 sights to the Marine Corps, and additional contracts to provide sights to the U.S. Army.

The sights are used by U.S. troops and in the training of Iraqi and Afghan soldiers. The model numbers inscribed on the scopes include coded references to New Testament verses.

U.S. military rules specifically prohibit the proselytizing of any religion in Iraq or Afghanistan and were drawn up in order to prevent criticism that the U.S. was embarked on a religious "Crusade" in its war against al Qaeda and Iraqi insurgents.

A Marine Corps spokesperson told ABC News Tuesday that the Corps was concerned about the markings and considering what action to take. "We are aware of the issue and are concerned with how this may be perceived," Capt. Geraldine Carey, a spokesperson for the Marine Corps, said in a statement. "We will meet with the vendor to discuss future sight procurements." Carey said that when the initial deal was made in 2005 it was the only product that met the Corps needs.

'In God We Trust'

However, a spokesperson for CentCom, the U.S. military's overall command in Iraq and Afghanistan, said he did not understand why the issue was any different from U.S. money with religious inscriptions on it. "The perfect parallel that I see," said Maj. John Redfield, spokesperson for CentCom, told ABC News, "is between the statement that's on the back of our dollar bills, which is 'In God We Trust,' and we haven't moved away from that."

Said Redfield, "Unless the equipment that's being used that has these inscriptions proved to be less than effective for soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and military folks using it, I wouldn't see why we would stop using that."

Trijicon's Reflex scope, which according to the company, is "the fastest, most user-friendly gunsight in the field." According to Trijicon, "the U.S. Special Operations Command has designated the Trijicon Reflex as a vital part of the…Accessory Kit fielded by all Special Operations Forces. This scope is imprinted with the marking "2COR4:6", a reference to the second book of Corinthians in the New Testament, Chapter 4, Verse 6. The verse reads: "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." (King James Version)

One of the citations on the gun sights, 2COR4:6, is an apparent reference to Second Corinthians 4:6 of the New Testament, which reads: "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

Other references include citations from the books of Revelation, Matthew and John dealing with Jesus as "the light of the world." John 8:12, referred to on the gun sights as JN8:12, reads, "Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."

Trijicon confirmed to ABCNews.com that it adds the biblical codes to the sights sold to the U.S. military. Tom Munson, director of sales and marketing for Trijicon, which is based in Wixom, Michigan, said the inscriptions "have always been there" and said there was nothing wrong or illegal with adding them.

Munson said the issue was being raised by a group that is "not Christian." The company has said the practice began under its founder, Glyn Bindon, a devout Christian from South Africa who was killed in a 2003 plane crash.

Trijicon of Wixom, Michigan, confirmed to ABCNews.com that it adds the biblical codes to the sights sold to the U.S. military. The company says the practice began under the company founder, Glyn Bindon, a devout Christian from South Africa who was killed in a 2003 plane crash. The company's vision is described on its web site as, "Guided by our values, we endeavor to have our products used wherever precision aiming solutions are required to protect individual freedom."

On Monday, spokespeople for the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps both told ABC News their services were unaware of the biblical markings. On Tuesday, Redfield of CentCom told ABC News that the inscriptions did not violate the directive against proselytizing. "This does not constitute proselytizing because this equipment is not issued beyond the U.S. Defense Department personnel. It's not something we're giving away to the local folks."

'It Violates the Constitution'

A photo on a Department of Defense Web site shows Iraqi soldiers being trained by U.S. troops with a rifle equipped with the bible-coded sights.

"It's wrong, it violates the Constitution, it violates a number of federal laws," said Michael "Mikey" Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, an advocacy group that seeks to preserve the separation of church and state in the military.

"It allows the Mujahedeen, the Taliban, al Qaeda and the insurrectionists and jihadists to claim they're being shot by Jesus rifles," he said.

Weinstein, an attorney and former Air Force officer, said many members of his group who currently serve in the military have complained about the markings on the sights. He also claims they've told him that commanders have referred to weapons with the sights as "spiritually transformed firearm[s] of Jesus Christ."

He said coded biblical inscriptions play into the hands of "those who are calling this a Crusade."

Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/jesus-guns-countries-rethink-weapons-secret-bible-references/story?id=9617241

With friends like these ...

Facebook has 59 million users - and 2 million new ones join each week. But you won't catch Tom Hodgkinson volunteering his personal information - not now that he knows the politics of the people behind the social networking site

The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Wednesday January 16 2008

The US intelligence community's enthusiasm for hi-tech innovation after 9/11 and the creation of In-Q-Tel, its venture capital fund, in 1999 were anachronistically linked in the article below. Since 9/11 happened in 2001 it could not have led to the setting up of In-Q-Tel two years earlier.

The Independent Guide to Facebook



I despise Facebook. This enormously successful American business describes itself as "a social utility that connects you with the people around you". But hang on. Why on God's earth would I need a computer to connect with the people around me? Why should my relationships be mediated through the imagination of a bunch of supergeeks in California? What was wrong with the pub?

And does Facebook really connect people? Doesn't it rather disconnect us, since instead of doing something enjoyable such as talking and eating and dancing and drinking with my friends, I am merely sending them little ungrammatical notes and amusing photos in cyberspace, while chained to my desk? A friend of mine recently told me that he had spent a Saturday night at home alone on Facebook, drinking at his desk. What a gloomy image. Far from connecting us, Facebook actually isolates us at our workstations.

Facebook appeals to a kind of vanity and self-importance in us, too. If I put up a flattering picture of myself with a list of my favourite things, I can construct an artificial representation of who I am in order to get sex or approval. ("I like Facebook," said another friend. "I got a shag out of it.") It also encourages a disturbing competitivness around friendship: it seems that with friends today, quality counts for nothing and quantity is king. The more friends you have, the better you are. You are "popular", in the sense much loved in American high schools. Witness the cover line on Dennis Publishing's new Facebook magazine: "How To Double Your Friends List."

It seems, though, that I am very much alone in my hostility. At the time of writing Facebook claims 59 million active users, including 7 million in the UK, Facebook's third-biggest customer after the US and Canada. That's 59 million suckers, all of whom have volunteered their ID card information and consumer preferences to an American business they know nothing about. Right now, 2 million new people join each week. At the present rate of growth, Facebook will have more than 200 million active users by this time next year. And I would predict that, if anything, its rate of growth will accelerate over the coming months. As its spokesman Chris Hughes says: "It's embedded itself to an extent where it's hard to get rid of."

All of the above would have been enough to make me reject Facebook for ever. But there are more reasons to hate it. Many more.



Facebook is a well-funded project, and the people behind the funding, a group of Silicon Valley venture capitalists, have a clearly thought out ideology that they are hoping to spread around the world. Facebook is one manifestation of this ideology. Like PayPal before it, it is a social experiment, an expression of a particular kind of neoconservative libertarianism. On Facebook, you can be free to be who you want to be, as long as you don't mind being bombarded by adverts for the world's biggest brands. As with PayPal, national boundaries are a thing of the past.

Although the project was initially conceived by media cover star Mark Zuckerberg, the real face behind Facebook is the 40-year-old Silicon Valley venture capitalist and futurist philosopher Peter Thiel. There are only three board members on Facebook, and they are Thiel, Zuckerberg and a third investor called Jim Breyer from a venture capital firm called Accel Partners (more on him later). Thiel invested $500,000 in Facebook when Harvard students Zuckerberg, Chris Hughes and Dustin Moskowitz went to meet him in San Francisco in June 2004, soon after they had launched the site. Thiel now reportedly owns 7% of Facebook, which, at Facebook's current valuation of $15bn, would be worth more than $1bn. There is much debate on who exactly were the original co-founders of Facebook, but whoever they were, Zuckerberg is the only one left on the board, although Hughes and Moskowitz still work for the company.

Thiel is widely regarded in Silicon Valley and in the US venture capital scene as a libertarian genius. He is the co-founder and CEO of the virtual banking system PayPal, which he sold to Ebay for $1.5bn, taking $55m for himself. He also runs a £3bn hedge fund called Clarium Capital Management and a venture capital fund called Founders Fund. Bloomberg Markets magazine recently called him "one of the most successful hedge fund managers in the country". He has made money by betting on rising oil prices and by correctly predicting that the dollar would weaken. He and his absurdly wealthy Silicon Valley mates have recently been labelled "The PayPal Mafia" by Fortune magazine, whose reporter also observed that Thiel has a uniformed butler and a $500,000 McLaren supercar. Thiel is also a chess master and intensely competitive. He has been known to sweep the chessmen off the table in a fury when losing. And he does not apologise for this hyper-competitveness, saying: "Show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser."



But Thiel is more than just a clever and avaricious capitalist. He is a futurist philosopher and neocon activist. A philosophy graduate from Stanford, in 1998 he co-wrote a book called The Diversity Myth, which is a detailed attack on liberalism and the multiculturalist ideology that dominated Stanford. He claimed that the "multiculture" led to a lessening of individual freedoms. While a student at Stanford, Thiel founded a rightwing journal, still up and running, called The Stanford Review - motto: Fiat Lux ("Let there be light"). Thiel is a member of TheVanguard.Org, an internet-based neoconservative pressure group that was set up to attack MoveOn.org, a liberal pressure group that works on the web. Thiel calls himself "way libertarian".

TheVanguard is run by one Rod D Martin, a philosopher-capitalist whom Thiel greatly admires. On the site, Thiel says: "Rod is one of our nation's leading minds in the creation of new and needed ideas for public policy. He possesses a more complete understanding of America than most executives have of their own businesses."

This little taster from their website will give you an idea of their vision for the world: "TheVanguard.Org is an online community of Americans who believe in conservative values, the free market and limited government as the best means to bring hope and ever-increasing opportunity to everyone, especially the poorest among us." Their aim is to promote policies that will "reshape America and the globe". TheVanguard describes its politics as "Reaganite/Thatcherite". The chairman's message says: "Today we'll teach MoveOn [the liberal website], Hillary and the leftwing media some lessons they never imagined."

So, Thiel's politics are not in doubt. What about his philosophy? I listened to a podcast of an address Thiel gave about his ideas for the future. His philosophy, briefly, is this: since the 17th century, certain enlightened thinkers have been taking the world away from the old-fashioned nature-bound life, and here he quotes Thomas Hobbes' famous characterisation of life as "nasty, brutish and short", and towards a new virtual world where we have conquered nature. Value now exists in imaginary things. Thiel says that PayPal was motivated by this belief: that you can find value not in real manufactured objects, but in the relations between human beings. PayPal was a way of moving money around the world with no restriction. Bloomberg Markets puts it like this: "For Thiel, PayPal was all about freedom: it would enable people to skirt currency controls and move money around the globe."

Clearly, Facebook is another uber-capitalist experiment: can you make money out of friendship? Can you create communities free of national boundaries - and then sell Coca-Cola to them? Facebook is profoundly uncreative. It makes nothing at all. It simply mediates in relationships that were happening anyway.

Thiel's philosophical mentor is one René Girard of Stanford University, proponent of a theory of human behaviour called mimetic desire. Girard reckons that people are essentially sheep-like and will copy one another without much reflection. The theory would also seem to be proved correct in the case of Thiel's virtual worlds: the desired object is irrelevant; all you need to know is that human beings will tend to move in flocks. Hence financial bubbles. Hence the enormous popularity of Facebook. Girard is a regular at Thiel's intellectual soirees. What you don't hear about in Thiel's philosophy, by the way, are old-fashioned real-world concepts such as art, beauty, love, pleasure and truth.

The internet is immensely appealing to neocons such as Thiel because it promises a certain sort of freedom in human relations and in business, freedom from pesky national laws, national boundaries and suchlike. The internet opens up a world of free trade and laissez-faire expansion. Thiel also seems to approve of offshore tax havens, and claims that 40% of the world's wealth resides in places such as Vanuatu, the Cayman Islands, Monaco and Barbados. I think it's fair to say that Thiel, like Rupert Murdoch, is against tax. He also likes the globalisation of digital culture because it makes the banking overlords hard to attack: "You can't have a workers' revolution to take over a bank if the bank is in Vanuatu," he says.

If life in the past was nasty, brutish and short, then in the future Thiel wants to make it much longer, and to this end he has also invested in a firm that is exploring life-extension technologies. He has pledged £3.5m to a Cambridge-based gerontologist called Aubrey de Grey, who is searching for the key to immortality. Thiel is also on the board of advisers of something called the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence. From its fantastical website, the following: "The Singularity is the technological creation of smarter-than-human intelligence. There are several technologies ... heading in this direction ... Artificial Intelligence ... direct brain-computer interfaces ... genetic engineering ... different technologies which, if they reached a threshold level of sophistication, would enable the creation of smarter-than-human intelligence."

So by his own admission, Thiel is trying to destroy the real world, which he also calls "nature", and install a virtual world in its place, and it is in this context that we must view the rise of Facebook. Facebook is a deliberate experiment in global manipulation, and Thiel is a bright young thing in the neoconservative pantheon, with a penchant for far-out techno-utopian fantasies. Not someone I want to help get any richer.

The third board member of Facebook is Jim Breyer. He is a partner in the venture capital firm Accel Partners, who put $12.7m into Facebook in April 2005. On the board of such US giants as Wal-Mart and Marvel Entertainment, he is also a former chairman of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA). Now these are the people who are really making things happen in America, because they invest in the new young talent, the Zuckerbergs and the like. Facebook's most recent round of funding was led by a company called Greylock Venture Capital, who put in the sum of $27.5m. One of Greylock's senior partners is called Howard Cox, another former chairman of the NVCA, who is also on the board of In-Q-Tel. What's In-Q-Tel? Well, believe it or not (and check out their website), this is the venture-capital wing of the CIA. After 9/11, the US intelligence community became so excited by the possibilities of new technology and the innovations being made in the private sector, that in 1999 they set up their own venture capital fund, In-Q-Tel, which "identifies and partners with companies developing cutting-edge technologies to help deliver these solutions to the Central Intelligence Agency and the broader US Intelligence Community (IC) to further their missions".

The US defence department and the CIA love technology because it makes spying easier. "We need to find new ways to deter new adversaries," defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in 2003. "We need to make the leap into the information age, which is the critical foundation of our transformation efforts." In-Q-Tel's first chairman was Gilman Louie, who served on the board of the NVCA with Breyer. Another key figure in the In-Q-Tel team is Anita K Jones, former director of defence research and engineering for the US department of defence, and - with Breyer - board member of BBN Technologies. When she left the US department of defence, Senator Chuck Robb paid her the following tribute: "She brought the technology and operational military communities together to design detailed plans to sustain US dominance on the battlefield into the next century."



Now even if you don't buy the idea that Facebook is some kind of extension of the American imperialist programme crossed with a massive information-gathering tool, there is no way of denying that as a business, it is pure mega-genius. Some net nerds have suggsted that its $15bn valuation is excessive, but I would argue that if anything that is too modest. Its scale really is dizzying, and the potential for growth is virtually limitless. "We want everyone to be able to use Facebook," says the impersonal voice of Big Brother on the website. I'll bet they do. It is Facebook's enormous potential that led Microsoft to buy 1.6% for $240m. A recent rumour says that Asian investor Lee Ka-Shing, said to be the ninth richest man in the world, has bought 0.4% of Facebook for $60m.

The creators of the site need do very little bar fiddle with the programme. In the main, they simply sit back and watch as millions of Facebook addicts voluntarily upload their ID details, photographs and lists of their favourite consumer objects. Once in receipt of this vast database of human beings, Facebook then simply has to sell the information back to advertisers, or, as Zuckerberg puts it in a recent blog post, "to try to help people share information with their friends about things they do on the web". And indeed, this is precisely what's happening. On November 6 last year, Facebook announced that 12 global brands had climbed on board. They included Coca-Cola, Blockbuster, Verizon, Sony Pictures and Condé Nast. All trained in marketing bullshit of the highest order, their representatives made excited comments along the following lines:

"With Facebook Ads, our brands can become a part of the way users communicate and interact on Facebook," said Carol Kruse, vice president, global interactive marketing, the Coca-Cola Company.

"We view this as an innovative way to cultivate relationships with millions of Facebook users by enabling them to interact with Blockbuster in convenient, relevant and entertaining ways," said Jim Keyes, Blockbuster chairman and CEO. "This is beyond creating advertising impressions. This is about Blockbuster participating in the community of the consumer so that, in return, consumers feel motivated to share the benefits of our brand with their friends."

"Share" is Facebookspeak for "advertise". Sign up to Facebook and you become a free walking, talking advert for Blockbuster or Coke, extolling the virtues of these brands to your friends. We are seeing the commodification of human relationships, the extraction of capitalistic value from friendships.

Now, by comparision with Facebook, newspapers, for example, begin to look hopelessly outdated as a business model. A newspaper sells advertising space to businesses looking to sell stuff to their readers. But the system is far less sophisticated than Facebook for two reasons. One is that newspapers have to put up with the irksome expense of paying journalists to provide the content. Facebook gets its content for free. The other is that Facebook can target advertising with far greater precision than a newspaper. Admit on Facebook that your favourite film is This Is Spinal Tap, and when a Spinal Tap-esque movie comes out, you can be sure that they'll be sending ads your way.

Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg (Photo: Paul Sakuma/AP)

It's true that Facebook recently got into hot water with its Beacon advertising programme. Users were notified that one of their friends had made a purchase at certain online shops; 46,000 users felt that this level of advertising was intrusive, and signed a petition called "Facebook! Stop invading my privacy!" to say so. Zuckerberg apologised on his company blog. He has written that they have now changed the system from "opt-out" to "opt-in". But I suspect that this little rebellion about being so ruthlessly commodified will soon be forgotten: after all, there was a national outcry by the civil liberties movement when the idea of a police force was mooted in the UK in the mid 19th century.

Futhermore, have you Facebook users ever actually read the privacy policy? It tells you that you don't have much privacy. Facebook pretends to be about freedom, but isn't it really more like an ideologically motivated virtual totalitarian regime with a population that will very soon exceed the UK's? Thiel and the rest have created their own country, a country of consumers.

Now, you may, like Thiel and the other new masters of the cyberverse, find this social experiment tremendously exciting. Here at last is the Enlightenment state longed for since the Puritans of the 17th century sailed away to North America, a world where everyone is free to express themselves as they please, according to who is watching. National boundaries are a thing of the past and everyone cavorts together in freewheeling virtual space. Nature has been conquered through man's boundless ingenuity. Yes, and you may decide to send genius investor Thiel all your money, and certainly you'll be waiting impatiently for the public flotation of the unstoppable Facebook.

Or you might reflect that you don't really want to be part of this heavily-funded programme to create an arid global virtual republic, where your own self and your relationships with your friends are converted into commodites on sale to giant global brands. You may decide that you don't want to be part of this takeover bid for the world.

For my own part, I am going to retreat from the whole thing, remain as unplugged as possible, and spend the time I save by not going on Facebook doing something useful, such as reading books. Why would I want to waste my time on Facebook when I still haven't read Keats' Endymion? And when there are seeds to be sown in my own back yard? I don't want to retreat from nature, I want to reconnect with it. Damn air-conditioning! And if I want to connect with the people around me, I will revert to an old piece of technology. It's free, it's easy and it delivers a uniquely individual experience in sharing information: it's called talking.

Facebook's privacy policy

Just for fun, try substituting the words 'Big Brother' whenever you read the word 'Facebook'

1 We will advertise at you

"When you use Facebook, you may set up your personal profile, form relationships, send messages, perform searches and queries, form groups, set up events, add applications, and transmit information through various channels. We collect this information so that we can provide you the service and offer personalised features."

2 You can't delete anything

"When you update information, we usually keep a backup copy of the prior version for a reasonable period of time to enable reversion to the prior version of that information."

3 Anyone can glance at your intimate confessions

"... we cannot and do not guarantee that user content you post on the site will not be viewed by unauthorised persons. We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on the site. You understand and acknowledge that, even after removal, copies of user content may remain viewable in cached and archived pages or if other users have copied or stored your user content."

4 Our marketing profile of you will be unbeatable

"Facebook may also collect information about you from other sources, such as newspapers, blogs, instant messaging services, and other users of the Facebook service through the operation of the service (eg, photo tags) in order to provide you with more useful information and a more personalised experience."

5 Opting out doesn't mean opting out

"Facebook reserves the right to send you notices about your account even if you opt out of all voluntary email notifications."

6 The CIA may look at the stuff when they feel like it

"By using Facebook, you are consenting to have your personal data transferred to and processed in the United States ... We may be required to disclose user information pursuant to lawful requests, such as subpoenas or court orders, or in compliance with applicable laws. We do not reveal information until we have a good faith belief that an information request by law enforcement or private litigants meets applicable legal standards. Additionally, we may share account or other information when we believe it is necessary to comply with law, to protect our interests or property, to prevent fraud or other illegal activity perpetrated through the Facebook service or using the Facebook name, or to prevent imminent bodily harm. This may include sharing information with other companies, lawyers, agents or government agencies."

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook

French Bid to Ban Marital Abuse That's Psychological

rance will be the first country to ban psychological violence within marriages.

Virtually all couples argue over things like forgotten anniversaries and taking out the trash. Insults may even fly over whose spending busted the household budget. But in some relationships, accusations and harassment can become something more troubling — psychological abuse. French lawmakers are now recognizing this and are moving to offer people legal protection from repeated mental and emotional abuse in relationships.

Aside from passing laws in 1996 and 2006 to protect women from violent husbands and partners, France has largely tried to deal with the once hushed-up problem of domestic abuse through education and public awareness campaigns. In the coming weeks, however, conservative legislators are expected to introduce a bill that would outlaw "conjugal abuse of a psychological nature" in both married and unmarried relationships. Backed by President Nicolas Sarkozy's ruling party, which increases its chances of passing, the legislation seeks to target the verbal and mental denigration, humiliation and manipulation that typically lead to physical abuse. The hope is that the bill will help prevent the emotional wounds that words often cause before a punch is ever thrown.

"It's an important move forward, because the creation of this offense will let us tackle the most insidious situations — the ones that leave no physical scars but which still injure the victims inside," Prime Minister François Fillon said in November when he announced the government would pass a ban on psychological abuse before the end of this year.

Few contest that domestic abuse is a problem in France, which, like most Latin nations, has long viewed it as an unfortunate component of the permanent wrangling between the sexes. According to government statistics, 157 women and seven men died as a result of domestic violence in France in 2008. But French attitudes started to change in 2004 when the French actress Marie Trintignant was killed by her lover and several other women lost their lives in domestic disputes. Activists argued that the law defining domestic battery as simply illegal assault was insufficient, so they pushed for a law, passed in 2006, establishing domestic violence as grounds for immediate divorce and giving victims the means of obtaining protection from violent spouses.

But some say this is still not enough. According to government statistics, about 10% of all women in France are victims of domestic mistreatment of some kind, and 80% of women who make calls to state-funded help lines complain of severe verbal abuse, compared to 77% who report physical violence. Though preventive measures and the 2006 law have succeeded in reducing the instances of physical domestic abuse in the country, there's a growing sentiment that something must be done to halt the emotional and mental trauma that continues unabated behind closed doors.

"We know physical abuse is always preceded by psychological violence, but we also know there are countless people who live in fear, humiliation and in total submission to verbally brutal partners who never hit them," says Yaël Mellul, a lawyer for abused women who began the push to draw up the pending legislation over two years ago. "We need clear legal statutes prohibiting the repetitive, regular barrage of insult, denigration, threats, financial or familial blackmail and other ways people overpower victims into submission."

The bill has its opponents, though. Some sociologists, psychologists and legal experts argue that legislating what happens in a relationship is an invasion of privacy. Some pundits — especially journalists working for British papers — have even conjured up scenes of police raids of dinnertime spats, or husbands getting a hard time for telling their wives they spend too much. Mellul says that such comments miss the point.

"Domestic disputes and conflicts aren't just normal — they're usually salutary in releasing pressure and finding compromise," she says. "We're talking about the regular, repetitive verbal and psychological treatment characteristic of abusers vis-à-vis their victims. There's a clear difference between mental cruelty and having a row over where to go on vacation." (Read: "How We Get Addicted.")

Some skeptics also say that securing court convictions for psychological violence in relationships would be impossible. But while Mellul admits it would indeed be difficult, she says it wouldn't be impossible, particularly if victims provide ample evidence of the psychological abuse. "If a law putting a name to and describing the crime can help victims realize they're being wronged and do something to stop it, that in itself will be a major step," Mellul says. "What child dare stepped up to denounce abuse before they were told they should? How many women never bothered to report rape until they knew police would take them seriously? Well, this effort seeks to give victims of psychological violence the same backing and legal framework that victims of physical domestic abuse are using to stop their torment."

In other words, it may be a far-fetched idea — but one whose time appears to have come.

Source: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1952552,00.html