Can the Playboy Mansion make you ill? Hugh Hefner's iconic bachelor pad is under investigation after more than 80 guests at a conference and party there became sick with a suspected strain of Legionnaires' disease.
Scores of attendees at the Domainfest conference in Santa Monica, held Feb. 1 to 3, came down with symptoms including fever, respiratory infections and violent headaches. Four Swedish guests were diagnosed with Legionellosis or pontiac fever -- a milder form of Legionnaires' caused by bacteria that thrives in warm air-conditioning systems.
Now some victims are blaming a fog machine which steamed up the conference finale party on Feb. 3. DNJournal.com editor Ron Jackson, whose wife, Diana, was stricken, said, "So far, the number [of victims] is around 80. Everybody says they became ill around 24 hours after the party.
Jackson said, "Four guys from Sweden were diagnosed with [Legionellosis], and they have the same symptoms as everyone else. I don't want to point the finger at the Playboy Mansion, but the disease lives in warm water, and people were engulfed in mist at that party." He's filed a report with the CDC.
New Yorker Elliot J. Silver, who runs Silver Internet Ventures, also fell prey to the bug. He said, "It is scary everyone came down with the same thing at the same time. It knocked me on my ass. A lot of people are blaming the Playboy Mansion on the blogs, but you can't be sure."
A rep for Domainfest said it was working with the LA County Health Department to investigate: "There were events every night, and we are giving them a list of all the venues. We have no idea what this is or where it came from. The mansion being to blame is, at the moment, pure speculation."
A Playboy rep claimed, "There is no truth in the rumor that anyone caught anything at the Playboy Mansion. Nor is there any evidence. None of the Playboy staff became ill, the deejay was in the middle of the fog and she didn't get ill. We have been contacted by the Health Department and the Playboy Mansion is cooperating fully with the investigation."
Source: http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/outbreak_at_playboy_mansion_0I8zi6kVnvCbDHE1F33TEJ
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Thursday, February 3, 2011
U.S. Tries to Make It Easier to Wiretap the Internet
WASHINGTON — Federal law enforcement and national security officials are preparing to seek sweeping new regulations for the Internet, arguing that their ability to wiretap criminal and terrorism suspects is “going dark” as people increasingly communicate online instead of by telephone.
Essentially, officials want Congress to require all services that enable communications — including encrypted e-mail transmitters like BlackBerry, social networking Web sites like Facebook and software that allows direct “peer to peer” messaging like Skype — to be technically capable of complying if served with a wiretap order. The mandate would include being able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages.
The bill, which the Obama administration plans to submit to lawmakers next year, raises fresh questions about how to balance security needs with protecting privacy and fostering innovation. And because security services around the world face the same problem, it could set an example that is copied globally.
James X. Dempsey, vice president of the Center for Democracy and Technology, an Internet policy group, said the proposal had “huge implications” and challenged “fundamental elements of the Internet revolution” — including its decentralized design.
“They are really asking for the authority to redesign services that take advantage of the unique, and now pervasive, architecture of the Internet,” he said. “They basically want to turn back the clock and make Internet services function the way that the telephone system used to function.”
But law enforcement officials contend that imposing such a mandate is reasonable and necessary to prevent the erosion of their investigative powers.
“We’re talking about lawfully authorized intercepts,” said Valerie E. Caproni, general counsel for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. “We’re not talking expanding authority. We’re talking about preserving our ability to execute our existing authority in order to protect the public safety and national security.”
Investigators have been concerned for years that changing communications technology could damage their ability to conduct surveillance. In recent months, officials from the F.B.I., the Justice Department, the National Security Agency, the White House and other agencies have been meeting to develop a proposed solution.
There is not yet agreement on important elements, like how to word statutory language defining who counts as a communications service provider, according to several officials familiar with the deliberations.
But they want it to apply broadly, including to companies that operate from servers abroad, like Research in Motion, the Canadian maker of BlackBerry devices. In recent months, that company has come into conflict with the governments of Dubai and India over their inability to conduct surveillance of messages sent via its encrypted service.
In the United States, phone and broadband networks are already required to have interception capabilities, under a 1994 law called the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act. It aimed to ensure that government surveillance abilities would remain intact during the evolution from a copper-wire phone system to digital networks and cellphones.
Often, investigators can intercept communications at a switch operated by the network company. But sometimes — like when the target uses a service that encrypts messages between his computer and its servers — they must instead serve the order on a service provider to get unscrambled versions.
Like phone companies, communication service providers are subject to wiretap orders. But the 1994 law does not apply to them. While some maintain interception capacities, others wait until they are served with orders to try to develop them.
The F.B.I.’s operational technologies division spent $9.75 million last year helping communication companies — including some subject to the 1994 law that had difficulties — do so. And its 2010 budget included $9 million for a “Going Dark Program” to bolster its electronic surveillance capabilities.
Beyond such costs, Ms. Caproni said, F.B.I. efforts to help retrofit services have a major shortcoming: the process can delay their ability to wiretap a suspect for months.
Moreover, some services encrypt messages between users, so that even the provider cannot unscramble them.
There is no public data about how often court-approved surveillance is frustrated because of a service’s technical design.
But as an example, one official said, an investigation into a drug cartel earlier this year was stymied because smugglers used peer-to-peer software, which is difficult to intercept because it is not routed through a central hub. Agents eventually installed surveillance equipment in a suspect’s office, but that tactic was “risky,” the official said, and the delay “prevented the interception of pertinent communications.”
Moreover, according to several other officials, after the failed Times Square bombing in May, investigators discovered that the suspect, Faisal Shahzad, had been communicating with a service that lacked prebuilt interception capacity. If he had aroused suspicion beforehand, there would have been a delay before he could have been wiretapped.
To counter such problems, officials are coalescing around several of the proposal’s likely requirements:
¶ Communications services that encrypt messages must have a way to unscramble them.
¶ Foreign-based providers that do business inside the United States must install a domestic office capable of performing intercepts.
¶ Developers of software that enables peer-to-peer communication must redesign their service to allow interception.
Providers that failed to comply would face fines or some other penalty. But the proposal is likely to direct companies to come up with their own way to meet the mandates. Writing any statute in “technologically neutral” terms would also help prevent it from becoming obsolete, officials said.
Even with such a law, some gaps could remain. It is not clear how it could compel compliance by overseas services that do no domestic business, or from a “freeware” application developed by volunteers.
In their battle with Research in Motion, countries like Dubai have sought leverage by threatening to block BlackBerry data from their networks. But Ms. Caproni said the F.B.I. did not support filtering the Internet in the United States.
Still, even a proposal that consists only of a legal mandate is likely to be controversial, said Michael A. Sussmann, a former Justice Department lawyer who advises communications providers.
“It would be an enormous change for newly covered companies,” he said. “Implementation would be a huge technology and security headache, and the investigative burden and costs will shift to providers.”
Several privacy and technology advocates argued that requiring interception capabilities would create holes that would inevitably be exploited by hackers.
Steven M. Bellovin, a Columbia University computer science professor, pointed to an episode in Greece: In 2005, it was discovered that hackers had taken advantage of a legally mandated wiretap function to spy on top officials’ phones, including the prime minister’s.
“I think it’s a disaster waiting to happen,” he said. “If they start building in all these back doors, they will be exploited.”
Susan Landau, a Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study fellow and former Sun Microsystems engineer, argued that the proposal would raise costly impediments to innovation by small startups.
“Every engineer who is developing the wiretap system is an engineer who is not building in greater security, more features, or getting the product out faster,” she said.
Moreover, providers of services featuring user-to-user encryption are likely to object to watering it down. Similarly, in the late 1990s, encryption makers fought off a proposal to require them to include a back door enabling wiretapping, arguing it would cripple their products in the global market.
But law enforcement officials rejected such arguments. They said including an interception capability from the start was less likely to inadvertently create security holes than retrofitting it after receiving a wiretap order.
They also noted that critics predicted that the 1994 law would impede cellphone innovation, but that technology continued to improve. And their envisioned decryption mandate is modest, they contended, because service providers — not the government — would hold the key.
“No one should be promising their customers that they will thumb their nose at a U.S. court order,” Ms. Caproni said. “They can promise strong encryption. They just need to figure out how they can provide us plain text.”
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/us/27wiretap.html
Essentially, officials want Congress to require all services that enable communications — including encrypted e-mail transmitters like BlackBerry, social networking Web sites like Facebook and software that allows direct “peer to peer” messaging like Skype — to be technically capable of complying if served with a wiretap order. The mandate would include being able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages.
The bill, which the Obama administration plans to submit to lawmakers next year, raises fresh questions about how to balance security needs with protecting privacy and fostering innovation. And because security services around the world face the same problem, it could set an example that is copied globally.
James X. Dempsey, vice president of the Center for Democracy and Technology, an Internet policy group, said the proposal had “huge implications” and challenged “fundamental elements of the Internet revolution” — including its decentralized design.
“They are really asking for the authority to redesign services that take advantage of the unique, and now pervasive, architecture of the Internet,” he said. “They basically want to turn back the clock and make Internet services function the way that the telephone system used to function.”
But law enforcement officials contend that imposing such a mandate is reasonable and necessary to prevent the erosion of their investigative powers.
“We’re talking about lawfully authorized intercepts,” said Valerie E. Caproni, general counsel for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. “We’re not talking expanding authority. We’re talking about preserving our ability to execute our existing authority in order to protect the public safety and national security.”
Investigators have been concerned for years that changing communications technology could damage their ability to conduct surveillance. In recent months, officials from the F.B.I., the Justice Department, the National Security Agency, the White House and other agencies have been meeting to develop a proposed solution.
There is not yet agreement on important elements, like how to word statutory language defining who counts as a communications service provider, according to several officials familiar with the deliberations.
But they want it to apply broadly, including to companies that operate from servers abroad, like Research in Motion, the Canadian maker of BlackBerry devices. In recent months, that company has come into conflict with the governments of Dubai and India over their inability to conduct surveillance of messages sent via its encrypted service.
In the United States, phone and broadband networks are already required to have interception capabilities, under a 1994 law called the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act. It aimed to ensure that government surveillance abilities would remain intact during the evolution from a copper-wire phone system to digital networks and cellphones.
Often, investigators can intercept communications at a switch operated by the network company. But sometimes — like when the target uses a service that encrypts messages between his computer and its servers — they must instead serve the order on a service provider to get unscrambled versions.
Like phone companies, communication service providers are subject to wiretap orders. But the 1994 law does not apply to them. While some maintain interception capacities, others wait until they are served with orders to try to develop them.
The F.B.I.’s operational technologies division spent $9.75 million last year helping communication companies — including some subject to the 1994 law that had difficulties — do so. And its 2010 budget included $9 million for a “Going Dark Program” to bolster its electronic surveillance capabilities.
Beyond such costs, Ms. Caproni said, F.B.I. efforts to help retrofit services have a major shortcoming: the process can delay their ability to wiretap a suspect for months.
Moreover, some services encrypt messages between users, so that even the provider cannot unscramble them.
There is no public data about how often court-approved surveillance is frustrated because of a service’s technical design.
But as an example, one official said, an investigation into a drug cartel earlier this year was stymied because smugglers used peer-to-peer software, which is difficult to intercept because it is not routed through a central hub. Agents eventually installed surveillance equipment in a suspect’s office, but that tactic was “risky,” the official said, and the delay “prevented the interception of pertinent communications.”
Moreover, according to several other officials, after the failed Times Square bombing in May, investigators discovered that the suspect, Faisal Shahzad, had been communicating with a service that lacked prebuilt interception capacity. If he had aroused suspicion beforehand, there would have been a delay before he could have been wiretapped.
To counter such problems, officials are coalescing around several of the proposal’s likely requirements:
¶ Communications services that encrypt messages must have a way to unscramble them.
¶ Foreign-based providers that do business inside the United States must install a domestic office capable of performing intercepts.
¶ Developers of software that enables peer-to-peer communication must redesign their service to allow interception.
Providers that failed to comply would face fines or some other penalty. But the proposal is likely to direct companies to come up with their own way to meet the mandates. Writing any statute in “technologically neutral” terms would also help prevent it from becoming obsolete, officials said.
Even with such a law, some gaps could remain. It is not clear how it could compel compliance by overseas services that do no domestic business, or from a “freeware” application developed by volunteers.
In their battle with Research in Motion, countries like Dubai have sought leverage by threatening to block BlackBerry data from their networks. But Ms. Caproni said the F.B.I. did not support filtering the Internet in the United States.
Still, even a proposal that consists only of a legal mandate is likely to be controversial, said Michael A. Sussmann, a former Justice Department lawyer who advises communications providers.
“It would be an enormous change for newly covered companies,” he said. “Implementation would be a huge technology and security headache, and the investigative burden and costs will shift to providers.”
Several privacy and technology advocates argued that requiring interception capabilities would create holes that would inevitably be exploited by hackers.
Steven M. Bellovin, a Columbia University computer science professor, pointed to an episode in Greece: In 2005, it was discovered that hackers had taken advantage of a legally mandated wiretap function to spy on top officials’ phones, including the prime minister’s.
“I think it’s a disaster waiting to happen,” he said. “If they start building in all these back doors, they will be exploited.”
Susan Landau, a Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study fellow and former Sun Microsystems engineer, argued that the proposal would raise costly impediments to innovation by small startups.
“Every engineer who is developing the wiretap system is an engineer who is not building in greater security, more features, or getting the product out faster,” she said.
Moreover, providers of services featuring user-to-user encryption are likely to object to watering it down. Similarly, in the late 1990s, encryption makers fought off a proposal to require them to include a back door enabling wiretapping, arguing it would cripple their products in the global market.
But law enforcement officials rejected such arguments. They said including an interception capability from the start was less likely to inadvertently create security holes than retrofitting it after receiving a wiretap order.
They also noted that critics predicted that the 1994 law would impede cellphone innovation, but that technology continued to improve. And their envisioned decryption mandate is modest, they contended, because service providers — not the government — would hold the key.
“No one should be promising their customers that they will thumb their nose at a U.S. court order,” Ms. Caproni said. “They can promise strong encryption. They just need to figure out how they can provide us plain text.”
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/us/27wiretap.html
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Photos released to protect threatened Amazonians
BRASILIA (AFP) – Brazil has allowed the release of rare photographs of an uncontacted Amazonian tribe to bring attention to the plight of indigenous people who rights groups say are faced with possible annihilation.
The astonishing images, showing curious adults and children peering skyward with their faces dyed reddish-orange and toting bows, arrows and spears, were taken by Brazil's National Indian Foundation (FUNAI).
Rights group Survival International, which accompanied the government agency on the overflight near the Brazil-Peru border, said their baskets were full of papaya and manioc grown in a communal garden.
"Illegal loggers will destroy this indigenous people. It is essential that the Peruvian government stop them before it is too late," warned Survival's director Stephen Corry.
FUNAI has released similar photographs in the past and acknowledged that Peruvian loggers are sending some indigenous people fleeing across the border to less-affected rainforests in Brazil.
The coordinator of Brazil's Amazon Indian organization COIAB, Marcos Apurina, said he hoped the images would draw attention to the plight of the indigenous peoples and encourage their protection.
"It is necessary to reaffirm that these peoples exist, so we support the use of images that prove these facts. These peoples have had their most fundamental rights, particularly their right to life, ignored -- it is therefore crucial that we protect them," he said.
FUNAI says there are 67 tribes in Brazil that do not have sustained contact with the outside world. Some are often referred to as "uncontacted" tribes even though they have some kind of, albeit limited, contacts.
A year ago, rights groups sent a letter to then president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva voicing concern that the very survival of indigenous groups was under threat.
Brazil's latest census counted more than 500,000 indigenous people among more than 190 million Brazilians. Millions in the country, however, have some indigenous ancestry.
Most indigenous people in the Americas descend from Asian people who crossed a land bridge from Siberia, an estimated 13,000-17,000 years ago. One notable exception: the indigenous people on Chile's Easter island, in the Pacific, are ethnic (Rapa Nui) Polynesians.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110201/sc_afp/brazilperunativerights_20110201110827
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Text message blows up suicide bomber by accident
airport on January 24, 2011, shortly after a deadly explosion.
A "Black Widow" suicide bomber planned a terrorist attack in central Moscow on New Year's Eve but was killed when an unexpected text message set off her bomb too early, according to Russian security sources.
The unnamed woman, who is thought to be part of the same group that struck Moscow's Domodedovo airport on Monday, intended to detonate a suicide belt near Red Square on New Year's Eve in an attack that could have killed hundreds.
Security sources believe a message from her mobile phone operator wishing her a happy new year received just hours before the planned attack triggered her suicide belt, killing her at a safe house.
Islamist terrorists in Russia often use mobile phones as detonators. The bomber's handler, who is usually watching their charge, sends the bomber a text message in order to set off his or her explosive belt at the moment when it is thought they can inflict maximum casualties.
The dead woman has not been identified, but her husband is apparently serving time in jail for being a member of a radical Islamist terror group.
Security sources believe the New Year's Eve bomber and the airport bombers may have been members of a suicide squad trained in Pakistan's al-Qaida strongholds which was sent to target the Russian capital's transport system.
Nobody has been arrested in connection with Monday's bombing, which left 35 people dead. Police are trying to identify the severed head of a male suicide bomber recovered from the scene.
Source: http://www.leaderpost.com/news/Text+message+blows+suicide+bomber+accident/4172966/story.html
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Facebook to let advertisers republish user posts
Facebook to let advertisers republish users' check-ins as 'sponsored stories'
NEW YORK (AP) -- Facebook users who check in to a store or click the "like" button for a brand may soon find those actions retransmitted on their friends' pages as a "Sponsored Story" paid for by advertisers.
Currently there is no way for users to decline this feature.
Facebook says this lets advertisers promote word-of-mouth recommendations that people already made on the site. They play up things people do on the site that might get lost in the mass of links, photos, status updates and other content users share on the world's largest social network.
The new, promoted posts would keep the same privacy setting that the original posting had. So if you limit your check-ins to a specific group of friends, only these same friends would see the "Sponsored Story" version later.
The promoted content will appear on the right side of users' home pages, not in their main news feed. That's where regular ads, friend requests and other content are located.
Involving users in advertisements without their consent has been a thorny issue for Facebook. Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said in this case the company is making money off a person's name or likeness without their consent. He calls it "subtle and misleading" and says users should object.
Twitter already offers advertisers something similar, called "promoted tweets." These are Twitter posts paid for by advertisers to show up in search results and on top of popular topic lists on the site. But while Twitter's ads are written by the companies that pay for them, Facebook's sponsored stories are created by users.
Both represent an effort to make advertisements more akin to what people are already experiencing on the site instead of putting up virtual billboards that users might ignore or find tacky.
Online Video from Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v10100328087082670
Source: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Facebook-to-let-advertisers-apf-1912961417.html?x=0
NEW YORK (AP) -- Facebook users who check in to a store or click the "like" button for a brand may soon find those actions retransmitted on their friends' pages as a "Sponsored Story" paid for by advertisers.
Currently there is no way for users to decline this feature.
Facebook says this lets advertisers promote word-of-mouth recommendations that people already made on the site. They play up things people do on the site that might get lost in the mass of links, photos, status updates and other content users share on the world's largest social network.
The new, promoted posts would keep the same privacy setting that the original posting had. So if you limit your check-ins to a specific group of friends, only these same friends would see the "Sponsored Story" version later.
The promoted content will appear on the right side of users' home pages, not in their main news feed. That's where regular ads, friend requests and other content are located.
Involving users in advertisements without their consent has been a thorny issue for Facebook. Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said in this case the company is making money off a person's name or likeness without their consent. He calls it "subtle and misleading" and says users should object.
Twitter already offers advertisers something similar, called "promoted tweets." These are Twitter posts paid for by advertisers to show up in search results and on top of popular topic lists on the site. But while Twitter's ads are written by the companies that pay for them, Facebook's sponsored stories are created by users.
Both represent an effort to make advertisements more akin to what people are already experiencing on the site instead of putting up virtual billboards that users might ignore or find tacky.
Online Video from Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v10100328087082670
Source: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Facebook-to-let-advertisers-apf-1912961417.html?x=0
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Postal Service Eyes Closing Thousands of Post Offices
HOLMES MILL, Ky.—The U.S. Postal Service plays two roles in America: an agency that keeps rural areas linked to the rest of the nation, and one that loses a lot of money.
Now, with the red ink showing no sign of stopping, the postal service is hoping to ramp up a cost-cutting program that is already eliciting yelps of pain around the country. Beginning in March, the agency will start the process of closing as many as 2,000 post offices, on top of the 491 it said it would close starting at the end of last year. In addition, it is reviewing another 16,000—half of the nation's existing post offices—that are operating at a deficit, and lobbying Congress to allow it to change the law so it can close the most unprofitable among them. The law currently allows the postal service to close post offices only for maintenance problems, lease expirations or other reasons that don't include profitability.
The news is crushing in many remote communities where the post office is often the heart of the town and the closest link to the rest of the country. Shuttering them, critics say, also puts an enormous burden on people, particularly on the elderly, who find it difficult to travel out of town.
The postal service argues that its network of some 32,000 brick-and-mortar post offices, many built in the horse-and-buggy days, is outmoded in an era when people are more mobile, often pay bills online and text or email rather than put pen to paper. It also wants post offices to be profitable to help it overcome record $8.5 billion in losses in fiscal year 2010.
A disproportionate number of the thousands of post offices under review are in rural or smaller suburban areas, though the postal service declined to provide any estimate on how many beyond those slated to begin closure in March might ultimately close or which ones are being targeted. "We want to make the smartest decisions possible with the smallest impact on communities," Dean Granholm, vice president for delivery and post office operations, said in an interview. He said the agency is identifying locations that are operating at a deficit and looking "for the opportunity to start the process of closing."
In addition to reducing employees—it has cut staffing by a third since 1999— the postal service has sought for years to deal with financial woes by raising rates or cutting services, such as a proposal to drop Saturday delivery. It has also talked in the past about closing a much smaller number of post offices. But while closures have been "on the table" in the past, this push is the agency's most serious yet, Mr. Granholm said, and is drawing widespread interest from a cost-cutting Congress. Still, shutting down post offices is often politically unpopular: elected officials in several communities have already written the Postal Regulatory Commission protesting planned closures.
Eighty-three specific post offices were approved for closing during the three months ending Nov. 15, more closings than in any quarter in the agency's history, according to the postal service. In addition, 408 post offices where service has been suspended for various reasons won't reopen amid the fiscal crisis, Mr. Granholm said.
Some of those suspensions are being contested by the Postal Regulatory Commission, independent from the postal service and reporting to Congress, which is investigating whether the postal service has been illegally using reasons such as lease expirations to close small, underused branches. The agency has denied wrongdoing.
While paring down is a common survival tactic for organizations these days, efforts by the postal service to do so routinely raise alarms because many citizens see post offices as an essential public service. Postal service dates to the founding fathers, with Benjamin Franklin serving as the first U.S. postmaster general and the Constitution explicitly authorizing Congress to establish post offices. Critics in Washington argue the postal service should reduce what they say is too much spending on employee benefits before resorting to closures.
As closure notices go up, citizens are rallying around their post offices in Millville, W.V., Hamilton, Tenn., Prairie City, S.D., and elsewhere, fearing not only a loss of convenience but a death knell for their small towns.
"It ain't right doing this to our community," says Delmer Clark, a 70-year-old retired coal miner in Eastern Kentucky's Appalachian Mountains, in the no-stoplight town of Holmes Mill. The post office here is set to close next month after more than 100 years. About the size of a garage, it has long been a part of the town's identity, and the pending closing is fueling local suspicion that public officials don't care about them. The local school closed years ago and reliable cable, Internet and cellphone reception has yet to arrive, residents say. "When they close the post office, they probably won't even come up here anymore and clean the roads," says Mr. Clark.
"It will hurt us real bad," says Esther Sizemore, a 62-year-old retired school-bus driver. Not owning a computer, and aching from hip arthritis that makes driving significant distances difficult, Ms. Sizemore drives down the street to the post office to mail her handmade quilts, trade news with friends and pick up packages, since she does her shopping by catalog. She also feels her mail is safer using a post office box; mail thefts have been a problem in the area, says Deputy Winston Yeary, of the Harlan County Sheriff's Department.
The Holmes Mill post office is closing in a consolidation set to claim more than 30 small Kentucky post offices this year, according to local postal officials. It's in the red, costing the postal service $12,748 in fiscal year 2010, according to the agency.
Residents will still have home delivery, and can use the post office and maintain P.O. boxes in the next town, but some locals fear the drive: The 12-mile roundtrip is on a winding mountain road bordering a steep drop-off to the river and named "Coal Miner's Highway" for the coal trucks that take much of the road.
Some lawmakers say closing post offices is the wrong answer. Sen. Susan Collins (R., Maine) says the agency should instead cut waste in its ranks. Although the postal service has cut its work force through attrition in recent years, it is still weighed down by overly generous employee benefits, she says.
Postal workers pay "significantly" lower premiums for their health and life insurance plans than other government employees because of union agreements, according to a September study sponsored by the Office of Inspector General. The report said the postal service could save $700 million this year alone by asking employees to pay more. The report, however, also said the postal service's contribution into employee benefits has started to decline, and that more reductions are planned as a result of recent union agreements.
"One of my frustrations is that the first approach the post office seems to take is to reduce service…when instead it needs to tackle a benefit structure that is too expensive, and it needs to look for ways to stay in business and deal with the digital age," says Sen. Collins.
Communities that lose post offices will still get deliveries, either at homes or at clusters of mailboxes set up in town, and there are multiple options for getting postal services, including stamps by mail, said Mr. Granholm of the postal service. Also, he says, many rural dwellers already travel to nearby cities for groceries and other services. "Why can't they go there for the post office?" he says.
Under U.S. law, mail delivery is a "basic and fundamental" government function meant to "bind the nation together" by providing service to "all communities" at a reasonable price. The nation's philosophy of universal postal service has resulted in stamp prices that are among the lowest in the industrial world and post offices from the far reaches of Alaska to easternmost Maine. Yet more than half lose money and "are located in areas where people no longer live, work or shop," U.S. Postmaster Patrick Donahoe testified to the Senate in December.
Legislation filed in Congress and supported by Mr. Donahoe would make it easier for the postal service to close the thousands of unprofitable post offices.
A bill introduced by Sen. Thomas Carper (D., Del.) would repeal wording in U.S. law that says "no small post office shall be closed solely for operating at a deficit." Currently, the postal service must cite other reasons—in addition to finances—such as unsafe conditions or a retiring postmaster.
Mr. Carper says it isn't his intent to reduce access to service, and says the postal service could explore moving more postal counters into existing retail establishments, like banks or supermarkets. "Allowing the postal service the ability to close offices that fail to cover their costs is a huge step toward our future viability," Mr. Donahoe said.
While government owned, the postal service is an independent agency supported primarily by postage fees, though it's allowed to—and does—borrow from federal coffers. Mail traffic, particularly the more lucrative first-class mail, peaked in 2006 at 213 billion pieces, then fell 20% by 2010. The recession contributed to the drop. But a digital revolution is also at play, and with fewer people sending letters, mail volume could fall further to 150 billion pieces, an unprecedented decline, in the next 10 years, according to a September study sponsored by the Office of Inspector General.
Along with shifting consumer behavior, the agency is saddled with billions in unusually burdensome retiree health costs, the inspector general said. Historically, the postal service, which employs 532,800 workers, paid for retiree health benefits when they came due. But postal reform law passed by Congress in 2006 mandated the agency to plan ahead by pre-funding retiree health benefits at around $5 billion a year for 10 years starting in 2007. "No other federal agency or private sector companies have a similar burden," Mr. Donahoe testified.
Both Sens. Collins and Carper have introduced legislation addressing retiree-health funding.
The pre-funding obligation contributed heavily to recent record losses, and has forced the postal service to borrow from the federal government to meet shortfalls, he said. The agency now owes the U.S. Treasury $12 billion, and said it expects to max out its statutory $15 billion line of credit by the year's end.
In towns losing post offices, some citizens believe they are paying for mismanagement at the agency. "From what I understand, the upper crust in the post office gets plenty of money, but they can take away what we have," says Ruby VanDenBerg, who is 86, and lives in Prairie City, S.D., a ranching community of more than 100 farms. The post office officially closed on Dec. 30 after 102 years. Ms. VanDenBerg now drives 40 miles to a post office.
The Prairie City post office cost $19,000 a year after revenue, says the postal service, which blamed "safety deficiencies" for the closing. Residents say the problem was a faulty furnace, and say they offered to make repairs themselves but were ignored. They have appealed the closing with the Postal Regulatory Commission; their case is under review.
Prairie City postal clerks kept a pot of coffee brewing and posted birth and death notices. "That was the gathering place for people to come in the mornings, have a cup of coffee or a can of pop, and visit, but we don't have that no more," says Daniel Beckman, a recently widowed farmer. "All that's left in the town now is just a church; it's totally depressing."
The closing also crimped an informal local method for delivering medicine to isolated corners of the prairie, rural doctors and pharmacists wrote to the commission.
The area's only major hospital and pharmacy is in Hettinger, N.D., 40 miles away and over the state line from Prairie City. Before, when an elderly person or farmer in Prairie City quickly needed an antibiotic or other medication, a pharmacist in Hettinger would rush prescriptions to the Hettinger post office, catching the mail carrier who each day traveled from Hettinger to the Prairie City post office.
The closing eliminated that direct route, and now Prairie City mail is sorted and delivered on a rural route out of Bison, S.D., delaying the delivery of medicine from Hettinger by two or three days, says Dr. Brian Willoughby, of West River Health Services in Hettinger.
"When they cut these services, there are multiple spinoff consequences for these older people out there in the middle of nowhere, but the bureaucrats sort of forget about that," he says.
Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704881304576094000352599050.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStoriesyhoofront#printMode
Now, with the red ink showing no sign of stopping, the postal service is hoping to ramp up a cost-cutting program that is already eliciting yelps of pain around the country. Beginning in March, the agency will start the process of closing as many as 2,000 post offices, on top of the 491 it said it would close starting at the end of last year. In addition, it is reviewing another 16,000—half of the nation's existing post offices—that are operating at a deficit, and lobbying Congress to allow it to change the law so it can close the most unprofitable among them. The law currently allows the postal service to close post offices only for maintenance problems, lease expirations or other reasons that don't include profitability.
The news is crushing in many remote communities where the post office is often the heart of the town and the closest link to the rest of the country. Shuttering them, critics say, also puts an enormous burden on people, particularly on the elderly, who find it difficult to travel out of town.
The postal service argues that its network of some 32,000 brick-and-mortar post offices, many built in the horse-and-buggy days, is outmoded in an era when people are more mobile, often pay bills online and text or email rather than put pen to paper. It also wants post offices to be profitable to help it overcome record $8.5 billion in losses in fiscal year 2010.
A disproportionate number of the thousands of post offices under review are in rural or smaller suburban areas, though the postal service declined to provide any estimate on how many beyond those slated to begin closure in March might ultimately close or which ones are being targeted. "We want to make the smartest decisions possible with the smallest impact on communities," Dean Granholm, vice president for delivery and post office operations, said in an interview. He said the agency is identifying locations that are operating at a deficit and looking "for the opportunity to start the process of closing."
In addition to reducing employees—it has cut staffing by a third since 1999— the postal service has sought for years to deal with financial woes by raising rates or cutting services, such as a proposal to drop Saturday delivery. It has also talked in the past about closing a much smaller number of post offices. But while closures have been "on the table" in the past, this push is the agency's most serious yet, Mr. Granholm said, and is drawing widespread interest from a cost-cutting Congress. Still, shutting down post offices is often politically unpopular: elected officials in several communities have already written the Postal Regulatory Commission protesting planned closures.
Eighty-three specific post offices were approved for closing during the three months ending Nov. 15, more closings than in any quarter in the agency's history, according to the postal service. In addition, 408 post offices where service has been suspended for various reasons won't reopen amid the fiscal crisis, Mr. Granholm said.
Some of those suspensions are being contested by the Postal Regulatory Commission, independent from the postal service and reporting to Congress, which is investigating whether the postal service has been illegally using reasons such as lease expirations to close small, underused branches. The agency has denied wrongdoing.
While paring down is a common survival tactic for organizations these days, efforts by the postal service to do so routinely raise alarms because many citizens see post offices as an essential public service. Postal service dates to the founding fathers, with Benjamin Franklin serving as the first U.S. postmaster general and the Constitution explicitly authorizing Congress to establish post offices. Critics in Washington argue the postal service should reduce what they say is too much spending on employee benefits before resorting to closures.
As closure notices go up, citizens are rallying around their post offices in Millville, W.V., Hamilton, Tenn., Prairie City, S.D., and elsewhere, fearing not only a loss of convenience but a death knell for their small towns.
"It ain't right doing this to our community," says Delmer Clark, a 70-year-old retired coal miner in Eastern Kentucky's Appalachian Mountains, in the no-stoplight town of Holmes Mill. The post office here is set to close next month after more than 100 years. About the size of a garage, it has long been a part of the town's identity, and the pending closing is fueling local suspicion that public officials don't care about them. The local school closed years ago and reliable cable, Internet and cellphone reception has yet to arrive, residents say. "When they close the post office, they probably won't even come up here anymore and clean the roads," says Mr. Clark.
"It will hurt us real bad," says Esther Sizemore, a 62-year-old retired school-bus driver. Not owning a computer, and aching from hip arthritis that makes driving significant distances difficult, Ms. Sizemore drives down the street to the post office to mail her handmade quilts, trade news with friends and pick up packages, since she does her shopping by catalog. She also feels her mail is safer using a post office box; mail thefts have been a problem in the area, says Deputy Winston Yeary, of the Harlan County Sheriff's Department.
The Holmes Mill post office is closing in a consolidation set to claim more than 30 small Kentucky post offices this year, according to local postal officials. It's in the red, costing the postal service $12,748 in fiscal year 2010, according to the agency.
Residents will still have home delivery, and can use the post office and maintain P.O. boxes in the next town, but some locals fear the drive: The 12-mile roundtrip is on a winding mountain road bordering a steep drop-off to the river and named "Coal Miner's Highway" for the coal trucks that take much of the road.
Some lawmakers say closing post offices is the wrong answer. Sen. Susan Collins (R., Maine) says the agency should instead cut waste in its ranks. Although the postal service has cut its work force through attrition in recent years, it is still weighed down by overly generous employee benefits, she says.
Postal workers pay "significantly" lower premiums for their health and life insurance plans than other government employees because of union agreements, according to a September study sponsored by the Office of Inspector General. The report said the postal service could save $700 million this year alone by asking employees to pay more. The report, however, also said the postal service's contribution into employee benefits has started to decline, and that more reductions are planned as a result of recent union agreements.
"One of my frustrations is that the first approach the post office seems to take is to reduce service…when instead it needs to tackle a benefit structure that is too expensive, and it needs to look for ways to stay in business and deal with the digital age," says Sen. Collins.
Communities that lose post offices will still get deliveries, either at homes or at clusters of mailboxes set up in town, and there are multiple options for getting postal services, including stamps by mail, said Mr. Granholm of the postal service. Also, he says, many rural dwellers already travel to nearby cities for groceries and other services. "Why can't they go there for the post office?" he says.
Under U.S. law, mail delivery is a "basic and fundamental" government function meant to "bind the nation together" by providing service to "all communities" at a reasonable price. The nation's philosophy of universal postal service has resulted in stamp prices that are among the lowest in the industrial world and post offices from the far reaches of Alaska to easternmost Maine. Yet more than half lose money and "are located in areas where people no longer live, work or shop," U.S. Postmaster Patrick Donahoe testified to the Senate in December.
Legislation filed in Congress and supported by Mr. Donahoe would make it easier for the postal service to close the thousands of unprofitable post offices.
A bill introduced by Sen. Thomas Carper (D., Del.) would repeal wording in U.S. law that says "no small post office shall be closed solely for operating at a deficit." Currently, the postal service must cite other reasons—in addition to finances—such as unsafe conditions or a retiring postmaster.
Mr. Carper says it isn't his intent to reduce access to service, and says the postal service could explore moving more postal counters into existing retail establishments, like banks or supermarkets. "Allowing the postal service the ability to close offices that fail to cover their costs is a huge step toward our future viability," Mr. Donahoe said.
While government owned, the postal service is an independent agency supported primarily by postage fees, though it's allowed to—and does—borrow from federal coffers. Mail traffic, particularly the more lucrative first-class mail, peaked in 2006 at 213 billion pieces, then fell 20% by 2010. The recession contributed to the drop. But a digital revolution is also at play, and with fewer people sending letters, mail volume could fall further to 150 billion pieces, an unprecedented decline, in the next 10 years, according to a September study sponsored by the Office of Inspector General.
Along with shifting consumer behavior, the agency is saddled with billions in unusually burdensome retiree health costs, the inspector general said. Historically, the postal service, which employs 532,800 workers, paid for retiree health benefits when they came due. But postal reform law passed by Congress in 2006 mandated the agency to plan ahead by pre-funding retiree health benefits at around $5 billion a year for 10 years starting in 2007. "No other federal agency or private sector companies have a similar burden," Mr. Donahoe testified.
Both Sens. Collins and Carper have introduced legislation addressing retiree-health funding.
The pre-funding obligation contributed heavily to recent record losses, and has forced the postal service to borrow from the federal government to meet shortfalls, he said. The agency now owes the U.S. Treasury $12 billion, and said it expects to max out its statutory $15 billion line of credit by the year's end.
In towns losing post offices, some citizens believe they are paying for mismanagement at the agency. "From what I understand, the upper crust in the post office gets plenty of money, but they can take away what we have," says Ruby VanDenBerg, who is 86, and lives in Prairie City, S.D., a ranching community of more than 100 farms. The post office officially closed on Dec. 30 after 102 years. Ms. VanDenBerg now drives 40 miles to a post office.
The Prairie City post office cost $19,000 a year after revenue, says the postal service, which blamed "safety deficiencies" for the closing. Residents say the problem was a faulty furnace, and say they offered to make repairs themselves but were ignored. They have appealed the closing with the Postal Regulatory Commission; their case is under review.
Prairie City postal clerks kept a pot of coffee brewing and posted birth and death notices. "That was the gathering place for people to come in the mornings, have a cup of coffee or a can of pop, and visit, but we don't have that no more," says Daniel Beckman, a recently widowed farmer. "All that's left in the town now is just a church; it's totally depressing."
The closing also crimped an informal local method for delivering medicine to isolated corners of the prairie, rural doctors and pharmacists wrote to the commission.
The area's only major hospital and pharmacy is in Hettinger, N.D., 40 miles away and over the state line from Prairie City. Before, when an elderly person or farmer in Prairie City quickly needed an antibiotic or other medication, a pharmacist in Hettinger would rush prescriptions to the Hettinger post office, catching the mail carrier who each day traveled from Hettinger to the Prairie City post office.
The closing eliminated that direct route, and now Prairie City mail is sorted and delivered on a rural route out of Bison, S.D., delaying the delivery of medicine from Hettinger by two or three days, says Dr. Brian Willoughby, of West River Health Services in Hettinger.
"When they cut these services, there are multiple spinoff consequences for these older people out there in the middle of nowhere, but the bureaucrats sort of forget about that," he says.
Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704881304576094000352599050.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStoriesyhoofront#printMode
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Court: No warrant needed to search cell phone
The next time you're in California, you might not want to bring your cell phone with you. The California Supreme Court ruled Monday that police can search the cell phone of a person who's been arrested -- including text messages -- without obtaining a warrant, and use that data as evidence.
The ruling opens up disturbing possibilities, such as broad, warrantless searches of e-mails, documents and contacts on smart phones, tablet computers, and perhaps even laptop computers, according to legal expert Mark Rasch.
The ruling handed down by California's top court involves the 2007 arrest of Gregory Diaz, who purchased drugs from a police informant. Investigators later looked through Diaz's phone and found text messages that implicated him in a drug deal. Diaz appealed his conviction, saying the evidence was gathered in violation of the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. The court disagreed, comparing Diaz cell phone to personal effects like clothing, which can be searched by arresting officers.
"The cell phone was an item (of personal property) on (Diaz's) person at the time of his arrest and during the administrative processing at the police station," the justices wrote. "Because the cell phone was immediately associated with defendant’s person, (police were) entitled to inspect its contents without a warrant."
In fact, the ruling goes further, saying essentially that the Diaz case didn't involve an exception -- such as a need to search the phone to stop a "crime in progress." In other words, this case was not an exception, but rather the rule.
Rasch, former head of the Justice Department's computer crime unit, pulled no punches in his reaction to the ruling.
"This ruling isn't just wrong, it's dangerous," said Rasch, now director of cybersecurity and privacy at computer security firm CSC in Virginia. "It's remarkable, because it simply misunderstands the nature of these devices."
The door is open for police to search the entire contents of iPhones or other smart phones that people routinely carry, he said.
"In fact, I would be shocked if police weren't getting instructions right now to do just that," he said.
By applying the "personal property on the defendant's person" standard, Rasch said, the ruling could logically extend to tablets or even laptop computers, he said.
It also flies in the face of established law, which prohibits the warrantless search of briefcases by police, other than a quick search for weapons, Rasch said.
In its ruling, the majority likened cell phone inspection to police inspection of a cigarette pack taken from a suspect, which was ruled a legal search in a prior case. A second ruling was cited involving the search of clothing removed from a suspect.
Rasch said the analogies don't hold, however, as modern phones that can store years' worth of personal information are a far cry from drugs hidden in a cigarette case or clothes pockets.
"There is a process for looking at data inside devices,” he said. “It's called a warrant."
Grants police 'carte blanche'
The California ruling was not unanimous. Dissenting Justice Kathryn Werdegar raised similar concerns in her opinion.
"The majority’s holding ... (grants) police carte blanche, with no showing of exigency, to rummage at leisure through the wealth of personal and business information that can be carried on a mobile phone or handheld computer merely because the device was taken from an arrestee’s person," she wrote. "The majority thus sanctions a highly intrusive and unjustified type of search, one meeting neither the warrant requirement nor the reasonableness requirement of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution."
Jonathan Turley, a Constitutional law expert at George Washington University, took to his blog to raise his concerns about the ruling.
"The Court has left the Fourth Amendment in tatters and this ruling is the natural extension of that trend," he wrote. "While the Framers wanted to require warrants for searches and seizures, the Court now allows the vast majority of searches and seizures to occur without warrants. As a result, the California Supreme Court would allow police to open cell phone files — the modern equivalent of letter and personal messages.”
Diaz’s lawyer, Lyn A. Woodward, has said she plans to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. In the meantime, warrantless searches of cell phones are essentially the law of the land in California.
Password-protection of smart phones might be a useful tool to ward off a warrantless search -- it's not clear that an arrested suspect could be compelled to divulge his or her password to police -- but that legal argument has not yet been made.
Source: http://redtape.msnbc.com/2011/01/court-cops-can-search-cell-phone-without-warrant.html
The ruling opens up disturbing possibilities, such as broad, warrantless searches of e-mails, documents and contacts on smart phones, tablet computers, and perhaps even laptop computers, according to legal expert Mark Rasch.
The ruling handed down by California's top court involves the 2007 arrest of Gregory Diaz, who purchased drugs from a police informant. Investigators later looked through Diaz's phone and found text messages that implicated him in a drug deal. Diaz appealed his conviction, saying the evidence was gathered in violation of the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. The court disagreed, comparing Diaz cell phone to personal effects like clothing, which can be searched by arresting officers.
"The cell phone was an item (of personal property) on (Diaz's) person at the time of his arrest and during the administrative processing at the police station," the justices wrote. "Because the cell phone was immediately associated with defendant’s person, (police were) entitled to inspect its contents without a warrant."
In fact, the ruling goes further, saying essentially that the Diaz case didn't involve an exception -- such as a need to search the phone to stop a "crime in progress." In other words, this case was not an exception, but rather the rule.
Rasch, former head of the Justice Department's computer crime unit, pulled no punches in his reaction to the ruling.
"This ruling isn't just wrong, it's dangerous," said Rasch, now director of cybersecurity and privacy at computer security firm CSC in Virginia. "It's remarkable, because it simply misunderstands the nature of these devices."
The door is open for police to search the entire contents of iPhones or other smart phones that people routinely carry, he said.
"In fact, I would be shocked if police weren't getting instructions right now to do just that," he said.
By applying the "personal property on the defendant's person" standard, Rasch said, the ruling could logically extend to tablets or even laptop computers, he said.
It also flies in the face of established law, which prohibits the warrantless search of briefcases by police, other than a quick search for weapons, Rasch said.
In its ruling, the majority likened cell phone inspection to police inspection of a cigarette pack taken from a suspect, which was ruled a legal search in a prior case. A second ruling was cited involving the search of clothing removed from a suspect.
Rasch said the analogies don't hold, however, as modern phones that can store years' worth of personal information are a far cry from drugs hidden in a cigarette case or clothes pockets.
"There is a process for looking at data inside devices,” he said. “It's called a warrant."
Grants police 'carte blanche'
The California ruling was not unanimous. Dissenting Justice Kathryn Werdegar raised similar concerns in her opinion.
"The majority’s holding ... (grants) police carte blanche, with no showing of exigency, to rummage at leisure through the wealth of personal and business information that can be carried on a mobile phone or handheld computer merely because the device was taken from an arrestee’s person," she wrote. "The majority thus sanctions a highly intrusive and unjustified type of search, one meeting neither the warrant requirement nor the reasonableness requirement of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution."
Jonathan Turley, a Constitutional law expert at George Washington University, took to his blog to raise his concerns about the ruling.
"The Court has left the Fourth Amendment in tatters and this ruling is the natural extension of that trend," he wrote. "While the Framers wanted to require warrants for searches and seizures, the Court now allows the vast majority of searches and seizures to occur without warrants. As a result, the California Supreme Court would allow police to open cell phone files — the modern equivalent of letter and personal messages.”
Diaz’s lawyer, Lyn A. Woodward, has said she plans to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. In the meantime, warrantless searches of cell phones are essentially the law of the land in California.
Password-protection of smart phones might be a useful tool to ward off a warrantless search -- it's not clear that an arrested suspect could be compelled to divulge his or her password to police -- but that legal argument has not yet been made.
Source: http://redtape.msnbc.com/2011/01/court-cops-can-search-cell-phone-without-warrant.html
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Judge caught with drugs, stripper, guns
In this November 20, 2008 photo, Senior U.S. District Judge Jack T. Camp poses for a photo in Atlanta. Camp, 67, was arrested Friday, Oct. 1, 2010, minutes after he handed an undercover law enforcement agent $160 for cocaine and Roxycodone, a narcotic pain medication, that he intended to use with the exotic dancer, as stated in a court document released Monday. (AP Photo / Zachary D. Porter) 
ATLANTA -- A 67-year-old federal judge's wild relationship with a stripper started with a lap dance, prosecutors said, and quickly escalated into escapades of prostitution and gun-toting drug deals for cocaine and prescription pills.
Senior Judge Jack T. Camp, a veteran jurist who had achieved a status that allowed him a lighter caseload, now finds himself in a peculiar position, in front of one of his peers, and with lawyers combing through his decisions, wondering whether they have grounds to challenge them.
"I don't know whether the allegations are true or whether they infected the decision making, but it's incumbent upon me to raise these issues," said Gerry Weber, a civil rights attorney who is readying an appeal in a case that Camp ruled on in June.
Camp, a Vietnam War veteran who was appointed by Ronald Reagan, built a reputation for handing out stiff sentences, including for drug convictions. He could face years behind bars on drug and gun charges. The judge's attorney has said he intends to plead not guilty.
The stripper, who previously had a felony drug trafficking conviction, had been secretly working with the FBI since the spring to build a case against the judge. In exchange, prosecutors pledged not to charge her.
Camp's relationship with the dancer, who was not identified in court documents, began earlier this year. A day after receiving his first dance, he returned to the Goldrush Showbar for more dances, and added sex and cocaine to his tab, authorities said.
Over the next few months, the two used cocaine and other drugs together, sometimes at the strip club, and the judge would pay $40 to $50 to join her getting high, according to a sworn statement.
In June, the judge followed the stripper to a house in the Atlanta suburb of Marietta to buy drugs, carrying a semiautomatic handgun with him he later told her he brought to protect her, the affidavit said.
The relationship finally unraveled Friday. Camp told the stripper he would try to help with her criminal record and advised her to tell a potential employer who had rejected her application that "it was a minor offense and that one of the judges on the court can explain that to him," according to the affidavit.
A few hours later, the dancer asked Camp to follow her to the Publix grocery store parking lot in northeast Atlanta to meet a drug dealer. When she said she feared for her safety, authorities said he responded with a dash of bravado: "I not only have my little pistol, I've got my big pistol so, uh, we'll take care of any problems that come up."
Camp, who is married with two grown children, then gave the stripper $160 to buy the drugs from an undercover officer. When the agent, posing as a dealer, told Camp he had given the two a few extra pills, the judge sounded pleased. "We'll call you again," the judge said.
FBI agents swarmed the judge's car about 10 minutes later when he drove to the Velvet Room, a nearby night club. They recovered the plastic bag containing blue pills and a white substance, along with two guns from his front seat.
Not only has the case shocked the legal community, it has created a conflict of interest mess. For Camp's bail hearing, prosecutors were flown in from Washington and a magistrate traveled from Alabama because the local judges recused themselves from the case.
Camp supervised several cases while he was being investigated, including an April trial involving a pilot charged with shipping cocaine for drug traffickers. A jury acquitted the pilot after a trial in which prosecutors carted out 174 kilograms of cocaine in front of the jury several times.
It's unclear whether any of the judge's decisions will be revisited.
"If you could establish that a judge was under the influence of some substance at the time he presided or ruled, then you could conceive of a basis for a challenge," said Pete Donaldson, a criminal defense attorney based in Albany, Ga. "You can envision all manner of circumstances where that might come into play."
The judge grew up on a working farm in rural Coweta County, and he enjoyed talking to colleagues about raising timber, pumpkins and cows on a plot of land he still owns.
During his more than two decades on the federal bench, he hated when attorneys grandstanded and sometimes required them to cite the specific federal code when they dared raise an objection. But he always maintained a cordial relationship, said defense attorney Page Pate.
"He was a true Southern gentleman who was definitely tough with defenders - even more so in drug cases," said Pate.
Camp sentenced two men accused of killing DeKalb County Sheriff-elect Derwin Brown to life in prison without parole in 2004, and gave the personal doctor to a professional wrestler who killed himself, his wife and their 7-year-old son 10 years behind bars for prescription drug-related charges.
At a brief hearing Monday, the judge found himself surrounded by four defense attorneys. He flashed a quick smile to his family before he was released on a $50,000 bond.
William Morrison, who tried several cases before Camp before becoming his attorney, assured the judge's family that he was doing fine, and then told reporters Camp would likely take a leave of absence.
"This is really a case between Judge Camp and his wife. It's not about Judge Camp being a judge. It's about him being a husband," said Morrison, who added: "It is not a case about judging. It's a case about judgment."
Source: http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news%2Fnational_world&id=7709589
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
BP digitally alters press photo, confesses it's a fake
Amateurish use of Photoshop causes yet another BP embarrassment
The image on top is an altered image of BP's Houston command center 
The image on the bottom is the photo that BP released AFTER the alteration was uncovered by a blogger, who spotted it due to poor Photoshop handiwork.
It's been a long season of embarrassment for BP, but leaking oil isn't what the blogosphere is ripping the company for today. A site called Americablog spotted a press photo of BP's Houston command center, ostensibly taken on July 16. The image had quite visibly been Photoshopped — badly — to include more on-screen camera action.
Once word got out — the story was picked up by the Washington Post, where it was then spotted by the tech blog Gizmodo and others — BP 'fessed up. A spokesman admitted that the image was altered, said that a photographer had inserted shots where the TV screens were blank, and provided the original image.
"We've instructed our post-production team to refrain from doing this in the future," said the spokesman in an e-mail to the Washington Post.
Though the command center alteration doesn't seem to be an attempt to hide facts or confuse the public, it heightens skepticism for the company at a time when it should be trying to build trust. As the Americablog reporter John Aravosis wrote, "I guess if you're doing fake crisis response, you might as well fake a photo of the crisis response center."
As it happens, the command center shot isn't the end of the issue. Today, Aravosis published evidence of another altered press photo, this one depicting a meeting from the failed "top kill" maneuver. "How many other crisis response photos from BP have been faked?" wrote Aravosis. "Did they fake any videos?"
Please don't tell us that the people in those sucking-it-up-and-taking-responsibilty ads are actually paid models!
Catch up with Wilson (the author of this story) on Twitter at @wjrothman. Fourth-grade Photoshop skills required.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38333456/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/?gt1=43001
It's been a long season of embarrassment for BP, but leaking oil isn't what the blogosphere is ripping the company for today. A site called Americablog spotted a press photo of BP's Houston command center, ostensibly taken on July 16. The image had quite visibly been Photoshopped — badly — to include more on-screen camera action.
Once word got out — the story was picked up by the Washington Post, where it was then spotted by the tech blog Gizmodo and others — BP 'fessed up. A spokesman admitted that the image was altered, said that a photographer had inserted shots where the TV screens were blank, and provided the original image.
"We've instructed our post-production team to refrain from doing this in the future," said the spokesman in an e-mail to the Washington Post.
Though the command center alteration doesn't seem to be an attempt to hide facts or confuse the public, it heightens skepticism for the company at a time when it should be trying to build trust. As the Americablog reporter John Aravosis wrote, "I guess if you're doing fake crisis response, you might as well fake a photo of the crisis response center."
As it happens, the command center shot isn't the end of the issue. Today, Aravosis published evidence of another altered press photo, this one depicting a meeting from the failed "top kill" maneuver. "How many other crisis response photos from BP have been faked?" wrote Aravosis. "Did they fake any videos?"
Please don't tell us that the people in those sucking-it-up-and-taking-responsibilty ads are actually paid models!
Catch up with Wilson (the author of this story) on Twitter at @wjrothman. Fourth-grade Photoshop skills required.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38333456/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/?gt1=43001
Sunday, July 11, 2010
"How porn is warping a generation of men"
Today’s porn is not your father’s Playboy. Type porn into Google and you won’t see anything that looks like the old pinups; instead, you will be catapulted into a world of sexual cruelty and brutality where women are subject to body-punishing sex and called vile names.
It’s not surprising how little women really know about porn today, since most women avoid looking at these sites. Not true for the men I meet, especially the college-age and even high-school boys. They have grown up with porn and, for them, this has been their major form of sex education.
In porn, sex is not about making love. The feelings and emotions we normally associate with such an act — connection, empathy, tenderness, caring, affection — are missing, and in their place are those we normally associate with hate — fear, disgust, anger, loathing and contempt. In porn, the man “makes hate” to the woman, as each sex act is designed to deliver the maximum amount of degradation. Whether it be choking her or violent intercourse, the goal of porn sex is to illustrate how much power he has over her. Yet the women are still portrayed as enjoying these scenes. It is images like these that are now commonplace all over the Internet and are shaping the way men think about sex, relationships and intimacy.
The size of the industry today is staggering. Though reliable numbers are hard to find, the global industry has been estimated to be worth around $96 billion in 2006, with the US market worth approximately $13 billion.
Each year, more than 13,000 films are released, and despite their modest budgets, pornography revenues rival those of all the major Hollywood studio films combined. According to Internet Filter Reviews, there are 420 million Internet porn pages, 4.2 million porn websites, and 68 million daily porn search engine requests.
A recent study from Optenet, an online security firm, found that approximately 37% of online pages contain pornographic content. Meanwhile, the number of porn sites increased 17% from last year.
Without a doubt, a key factor driving the growth of the porn market has been the development of technologies allowing users to buy and consume porn in private, without embarrassing trips to seedy stores or video rental shops. These technologies also enable pornography to be viewed anywhere, anytime; even the global cellphone market for porn is expected to reach $3.5 billion this year, according to the Britain-based Juniper Research.
This is a business with considerable political clout, with the capacity to lobby politicians, engage in expensive legal battles, and use public relations to influence public debate. Like the tobacco industry, this is not a simple matter of consumer choice; rather the business is increasingly able to deploy a sophisticated and well-resourced marketing machine, not just to push its wares but also to cast the industry’s image in a positive light. Indeed, one of the key myths that the industry promotes is that porn is harmless fun: that it is all about fantasy and play, and that we should not take it too seriously.
My interviews with college-age men tell a very different story. When I talk to men about their experiences with porn, it is clear that not all are affected in the same way, but affected they are. Remember, this is the generation that grew up with Internet porn, and some studies put the first age of viewing porn at 11 years. Unlike previous generations, these boys and men have an unlimited supply of hardcore porn 24 hours a day.
Many of the men I talk to believe that porn sex is what women want, and they become upset and angry when their sex partner, perhaps their wife, girlfriend or a one night hook-up, refuses to look or behave like their favorite porn star. The women often refuse to perform the sex acts the men have routinely enjoyed watching, and next to the screaming orgasms and sexual gymnastics of porn sex, real sex with real women starts to feel boring and bland.
One student told me that “I love porn and I try out the sex on my girlfriend, but she isn’t interested. I dumped the last girl I was with because she wanted to keep the sex straight. That’s not for me. If women don’t want to try different things, then I am not interested.”
These men have become so accustomed to porn sex that some are disappointed by their own sexual performance. When they compare themselves to Viagra-fortified actors, the guys I talk to often admit to feeling like sexual losers and worry that something is wrong with them. Adam grew up watching his father’s porn and felt that “porn taught me all I know about sex. My parents never mentioned the word sex at home, and sex ed in school was a . . . joke. I had this image of how great sex would be, both of us going at it for hours. So it was kind of a shock the way the real thing turned out . . .”
What troubles many of these men most is that they need to pull up the porn images in their head in order to be satisfied with their partner. They replay porn scenes in their minds, or think about having sex with their favorite porn star when they are with their partners. Dan was concerned about his sexual performance with women. He told me that “I am not really focusing on the girl but on the last scene I watched.” I asked him if he thought porn had in any way affected his sexuality. He said, “I don’t know. I started looking at porn before I had sex, so porn is pretty much how I learned about sex. It can be a kind of problem to think about porn as much as I do, especially when I’m with my girlfriend. It means I’m not really present with her. My head is somewhere else.”
Porn has become so violent and degrading that we ignore it at our peril. We are now bringing up a generation of boys on cruel, violent porn and given that images shape the way people think and behave, this is going to have a profound effect on their sexuality and on the culture as a whole. Porn use is one of the major public health issues of our time and one that needs to be tackled now before we bring up a new generation of boys on even harder images.
Unfortunately, there are no easy answers. Parents face a daunting technical challenge to keep porn from their children. With education and growing awareness, we can only hope that eventually society will rebel, to make it socially unacceptable for there to be such easy access to porn, for men to spend so much time looking at it, for our ideas about sexuality to be so warped.
Gail Dines is the author of “Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality” (Beacon Press), out this week.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/how_porn_is_warping_generation_of_dRhzBsl8CJFGS3ytfeMAqI/1#ixzz0tQQgMvs4
Source: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/how_porn_is_warping_generation_of_dRhzBsl8CJFGS3ytfeMAqI
It’s not surprising how little women really know about porn today, since most women avoid looking at these sites. Not true for the men I meet, especially the college-age and even high-school boys. They have grown up with porn and, for them, this has been their major form of sex education.
In porn, sex is not about making love. The feelings and emotions we normally associate with such an act — connection, empathy, tenderness, caring, affection — are missing, and in their place are those we normally associate with hate — fear, disgust, anger, loathing and contempt. In porn, the man “makes hate” to the woman, as each sex act is designed to deliver the maximum amount of degradation. Whether it be choking her or violent intercourse, the goal of porn sex is to illustrate how much power he has over her. Yet the women are still portrayed as enjoying these scenes. It is images like these that are now commonplace all over the Internet and are shaping the way men think about sex, relationships and intimacy.
The size of the industry today is staggering. Though reliable numbers are hard to find, the global industry has been estimated to be worth around $96 billion in 2006, with the US market worth approximately $13 billion.
Each year, more than 13,000 films are released, and despite their modest budgets, pornography revenues rival those of all the major Hollywood studio films combined. According to Internet Filter Reviews, there are 420 million Internet porn pages, 4.2 million porn websites, and 68 million daily porn search engine requests.
A recent study from Optenet, an online security firm, found that approximately 37% of online pages contain pornographic content. Meanwhile, the number of porn sites increased 17% from last year.
Without a doubt, a key factor driving the growth of the porn market has been the development of technologies allowing users to buy and consume porn in private, without embarrassing trips to seedy stores or video rental shops. These technologies also enable pornography to be viewed anywhere, anytime; even the global cellphone market for porn is expected to reach $3.5 billion this year, according to the Britain-based Juniper Research.
This is a business with considerable political clout, with the capacity to lobby politicians, engage in expensive legal battles, and use public relations to influence public debate. Like the tobacco industry, this is not a simple matter of consumer choice; rather the business is increasingly able to deploy a sophisticated and well-resourced marketing machine, not just to push its wares but also to cast the industry’s image in a positive light. Indeed, one of the key myths that the industry promotes is that porn is harmless fun: that it is all about fantasy and play, and that we should not take it too seriously.
My interviews with college-age men tell a very different story. When I talk to men about their experiences with porn, it is clear that not all are affected in the same way, but affected they are. Remember, this is the generation that grew up with Internet porn, and some studies put the first age of viewing porn at 11 years. Unlike previous generations, these boys and men have an unlimited supply of hardcore porn 24 hours a day.
Many of the men I talk to believe that porn sex is what women want, and they become upset and angry when their sex partner, perhaps their wife, girlfriend or a one night hook-up, refuses to look or behave like their favorite porn star. The women often refuse to perform the sex acts the men have routinely enjoyed watching, and next to the screaming orgasms and sexual gymnastics of porn sex, real sex with real women starts to feel boring and bland.
One student told me that “I love porn and I try out the sex on my girlfriend, but she isn’t interested. I dumped the last girl I was with because she wanted to keep the sex straight. That’s not for me. If women don’t want to try different things, then I am not interested.”
These men have become so accustomed to porn sex that some are disappointed by their own sexual performance. When they compare themselves to Viagra-fortified actors, the guys I talk to often admit to feeling like sexual losers and worry that something is wrong with them. Adam grew up watching his father’s porn and felt that “porn taught me all I know about sex. My parents never mentioned the word sex at home, and sex ed in school was a . . . joke. I had this image of how great sex would be, both of us going at it for hours. So it was kind of a shock the way the real thing turned out . . .”
What troubles many of these men most is that they need to pull up the porn images in their head in order to be satisfied with their partner. They replay porn scenes in their minds, or think about having sex with their favorite porn star when they are with their partners. Dan was concerned about his sexual performance with women. He told me that “I am not really focusing on the girl but on the last scene I watched.” I asked him if he thought porn had in any way affected his sexuality. He said, “I don’t know. I started looking at porn before I had sex, so porn is pretty much how I learned about sex. It can be a kind of problem to think about porn as much as I do, especially when I’m with my girlfriend. It means I’m not really present with her. My head is somewhere else.”
Porn has become so violent and degrading that we ignore it at our peril. We are now bringing up a generation of boys on cruel, violent porn and given that images shape the way people think and behave, this is going to have a profound effect on their sexuality and on the culture as a whole. Porn use is one of the major public health issues of our time and one that needs to be tackled now before we bring up a new generation of boys on even harder images.
Unfortunately, there are no easy answers. Parents face a daunting technical challenge to keep porn from their children. With education and growing awareness, we can only hope that eventually society will rebel, to make it socially unacceptable for there to be such easy access to porn, for men to spend so much time looking at it, for our ideas about sexuality to be so warped.
Gail Dines is the author of “Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality” (Beacon Press), out this week.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/how_porn_is_warping_generation_of_dRhzBsl8CJFGS3ytfeMAqI/1#ixzz0tQQgMvs4
Source: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/how_porn_is_warping_generation_of_dRhzBsl8CJFGS3ytfeMAqI
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Who Is 'Oakland Riots'?
As the jury deliberates the fate of ex-BART cop Johannes Mehserle, and Oakland braces for potentially disastrous consequences, we've got an interesting little story for you.
About three weeks ago, a Twitter account called "oaklandriots" mysteriously popped up and quickly built a following of several hundred users. The page's design featured a policeman in riot gear, and the content of account -- news stories about potential violence following the trial -- suggested that the creator was ready to rumble.
One of the first stories featured on the Twitter page was an announcement posted on Indybay.org. "Courts are not where we win victories, streets are!" it said.
But it turns out that Mr. Oakland Riots would rather you stay off the streets -- and respect the courts. After all, he's a lawyer. Turns out, the account was created by a tech-savvy attorney from "deep east Oakland." Like most Oaklanders, Kevin Thomason is actually petrified by the the idea of riots -- but not for the usual reasons. He wants to make sure that, should mayhem hit the streets, he can get home in time to care for his dogs -- Sam (German Shepherd) and Blanca (Dogo Argentino).
"I have two dogs that are like my kids," Thomason, told SF Weekly. "I don't want them to get stuck without food and water."
Three weeks ago, Thomasson became seriously concerned about the riots and what it would mean for getting to and from work (and his dogs). He does the marketing for a small law firm in downtown San Francisco, and usually drives a motorcycle to work. He wanted to know immediately if it looked like rioters might shut down the routes to Oakland.
Ideally, he wanted to receive a text message alerting him about potential riots. When he couldn't figure out how to make that happen, he used his technology background to create an alert system for himself via Twitter. First he used the Google search function to collect all stories related to Oscar Grant or Johannes Mehserle or Oakland riots in an RSS feed.
"Then I took that feed, ran it through twitterfeed.com, and linked it to my Twitter account," he said. Presto. He had created a log of everything going on with the trial and possible riot situation.
Thomason had no intention of amassing any followers, but now that he has them, he wants to educate them about what riots really look like. (He witnessed the Oscar Grant riots in 2009, and believes the media failed to relay the extent of the damage.) If violence does erupt, he plans to feed and walk his dogs, then ride into the heart of the chaos to take photographs, which he will post on the feed.
"I just really hope that nothing happens," he said. "I love Oakland. Most of the people in Oakland are good, decent people. All a riot does is destroy Oakland's infrastructure and its reputation on a national stage."
Source: http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2010/07/oakland_riots_twitter_account.php
Sunday, July 4, 2010
South African doctor invents female condoms with 'teeth' to fight rape
South African Dr. Sonnet Ehlers was on call one night four decades ago when a devastated rape victim walked in. Her eyes were lifeless; she was like a breathing corpse.
"She looked at me and said, 'If only I had teeth down there,'" recalled Ehlers, who was a 20-year-old medical researcher at the time. "I promised her I'd do something to help people like her one day."
Forty years later, Rape-aXe was born.
Ehlers is distributing the female condoms in the various South African cities where the World Cup soccer games are taking place.
The woman inserts the latex condom like a tampon. Jagged rows of teeth-like hooks line its inside and attach on a man's penis during penetration, Ehlers said.
Once it lodges, only a doctor can remove it -- a procedure Ehlers hopes will be done with authorities on standby to make an arrest.
"It hurts, he cannot pee and walk when it's on," she said. "If he tries to remove it, it will clasp even tighter... however, it doesn't break the skin, and there's no danger of fluid exposure."
Ehlers said she sold her house and car to launch the project, and she planned to distribute 30,000 free devices under supervision during the World Cup period.
"I consulted engineers, gynecologists and psychologists to help in the design and make sure it was safe," she said.
After the trial period, they'll be available for about $2 a piece. She hopes the women will report back to her.
"The ideal situation would be for a woman to wear this when she's going out on some kind of blind date ... or to an area she's not comfortable with," she said.
The mother of two daughters said she visited prisons and talked to convicted rapists to find out whether such a device would have made them rethink their actions.
Some said it would have, Ehlers said.
Critics say the female condom is not a long-term solution and makes women vulnerable to more violence from men trapped by the device.
I's also a form of "enslavement," said Victoria Kajja, a fellow for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the east African country of Uganda. "The fears surrounding the victim, the act of wearing the condom in anticipation of being assaulted all represent enslavement that no woman should be subjected to."
Kajja said the device constantly reminds women of their vulnerability.
"It not only presents the victim with a false sense of security, but psychological trauma," she added. "It also does not help with the psychological problems that manifest after assaults."
However, its one advantage is it allows justice to be served, she said.
Various rights organizations that work in South Africa declined to comment, including Human Rights Watch and Care International.
South Africa has one of the highest rape rates in the world, Human Rights Watch says on its website. A 2009 report by the nation's Medical Research Council found that 28 percent of men surveyed had raped a woman or girl, with one in 20 saying they had raped in the past year, according to Human Rights Watch.
In most African countries, rape convictions are not common. Affected women don't get immediate access to medical care, and DNA tests to provide evidence are unaffordable.
"Women and girls who experience these violations are denied justice, factors that contribute to the normalization of rape and violence in South African society," Human Rights Watch says.
Women take drastic measures to prevent rape in South Africa, Ehlers said, with some wearing extra tight biker shorts and others inserting razor blades wrapped in sponges in their private parts.
Critics have accused her of developing a medieval device to fight rape.
"Yes, my device may be a medieval, but it's for a medieval deed that has been around for decades," she said. "I believe something's got to be done ... and this will make some men rethink before they assault a woman."
Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/06/20/south.africa.female.condom/
"She looked at me and said, 'If only I had teeth down there,'" recalled Ehlers, who was a 20-year-old medical researcher at the time. "I promised her I'd do something to help people like her one day."
Forty years later, Rape-aXe was born.
Ehlers is distributing the female condoms in the various South African cities where the World Cup soccer games are taking place.
The woman inserts the latex condom like a tampon. Jagged rows of teeth-like hooks line its inside and attach on a man's penis during penetration, Ehlers said.
Once it lodges, only a doctor can remove it -- a procedure Ehlers hopes will be done with authorities on standby to make an arrest.
"It hurts, he cannot pee and walk when it's on," she said. "If he tries to remove it, it will clasp even tighter... however, it doesn't break the skin, and there's no danger of fluid exposure."
Ehlers said she sold her house and car to launch the project, and she planned to distribute 30,000 free devices under supervision during the World Cup period.
"I consulted engineers, gynecologists and psychologists to help in the design and make sure it was safe," she said.
After the trial period, they'll be available for about $2 a piece. She hopes the women will report back to her.
"The ideal situation would be for a woman to wear this when she's going out on some kind of blind date ... or to an area she's not comfortable with," she said.
The mother of two daughters said she visited prisons and talked to convicted rapists to find out whether such a device would have made them rethink their actions.
Some said it would have, Ehlers said.
Critics say the female condom is not a long-term solution and makes women vulnerable to more violence from men trapped by the device.
I's also a form of "enslavement," said Victoria Kajja, a fellow for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the east African country of Uganda. "The fears surrounding the victim, the act of wearing the condom in anticipation of being assaulted all represent enslavement that no woman should be subjected to."
Kajja said the device constantly reminds women of their vulnerability.
"It not only presents the victim with a false sense of security, but psychological trauma," she added. "It also does not help with the psychological problems that manifest after assaults."
However, its one advantage is it allows justice to be served, she said.
Various rights organizations that work in South Africa declined to comment, including Human Rights Watch and Care International.
South Africa has one of the highest rape rates in the world, Human Rights Watch says on its website. A 2009 report by the nation's Medical Research Council found that 28 percent of men surveyed had raped a woman or girl, with one in 20 saying they had raped in the past year, according to Human Rights Watch.
In most African countries, rape convictions are not common. Affected women don't get immediate access to medical care, and DNA tests to provide evidence are unaffordable.
"Women and girls who experience these violations are denied justice, factors that contribute to the normalization of rape and violence in South African society," Human Rights Watch says.
Women take drastic measures to prevent rape in South Africa, Ehlers said, with some wearing extra tight biker shorts and others inserting razor blades wrapped in sponges in their private parts.
Critics have accused her of developing a medieval device to fight rape.
"Yes, my device may be a medieval, but it's for a medieval deed that has been around for decades," she said. "I believe something's got to be done ... and this will make some men rethink before they assault a woman."
Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/06/20/south.africa.female.condom/
David Livingstone letter deciphered at last
LONDON – The contents of a long-illegible letter written by famed 19th century explorer David Livingstone have finally been deciphered, a British university said Friday, nearly 140 years after he wrote of his despair at ever leaving Africa alive.
Researchers say that the letter — which required state of the art imaging techniques to decipher — helps round out the picture of a man traditionally cast as an intrepid Victorian hero, revealing the self-doubt that tormented the missionary-explorer in one of his darkest hours.
"I am terribly knocked up but this is for your own eye only," Livingstone wrote to close friend Horace Waller in the newly revealed correspondence. "Doubtful if I live to see you again."
Livingstone was a national hero when he set off to find the source of the River Nile in 1866, but by the time he composed his four-page missive he was at the lowest point in his professional life, according to Debbie Harrison, a researcher at Birkbeck University of London.
The explorer was stuck in the village of Bambarre, in present-day Congo, in February of 1871. He was a long way off from his intended goal, most of his expedition either died or deserted him, and he was still suffering the effects of pneumonia, fever, and tropical eating ulcers — a nasty condition that consumes skin and flesh.
Adding insult to injury, Livingstone, a crusading abolitionist, had been forced to seek help from Arab slave traders while he waited for outside support. Bedridden for weeks on end, Livingstone had read the Bible several times over and started hallucinating.
"He'd gone slightly mad by this point, to be honest," Harrison said.
Back home, Livingstone's supporters were going mad with worry. No one had heard from him in years, and as Livingstone recovered, search parties set out into the interior to discover his fate. He was eventually located near the eastern shore of the massive Lake Tanganyika by journalist Henry Morton Stanley, whose memorable quip, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" immortalized their encounter.
But Livingstone refused to leave Africa, continuing his obsessive quest for the source of the continent's longest river. His warning to Waller was prescient: He finally succumbed to illness in May 1873, at Chitambo in what is now Zambia.
It's not clear how Livingstone's letter ever left the continent, although presumably Stanley took it back to Waller. The document disappeared from view for nearly a century before surfacing again at auction in 1966.
By then it was indecipherable. Out of paper and low on ink, Livingstone tore pages from books and newspapers and wrote with a pigment improvised from the seeds of a local berry. A century later, the makeshift ink had nearly faded to invisibility, a problem compounded by the brittle paper and Livingstone's chaotic handwriting.
A team of scientists and academics — including spectral imaging specialists from the United States — analyzed the fragile paper, carefully drawing out Livingstone's original text.
The university said the newly revealed letter projects an image at odds with the fearless hero depicted by Waller, who heavily sanitized Livingstone's writings before they were published posthumously.
"It's an opportunity to rewrite history," said Harrison of Birkbeck, which announced the find. "It's giving us a new way of looking at Livingstone. He got depressed, he did think he'd failed at times. But he never gave up ... It makes him human."
Harrison said that while the explorer was "very politically incorrect in his writings and his ramblings," his friend was "very concerned to maintain that image of Livingstone as a saintly martyr and to suppress anything that might have offended Victorians."
The letter published Friday is part of an 18-month project to produce a new — and unvarnished — edition of the diary Livingstone kept between 1870 and 1871.
___
Online: http://emelibrary.org/livingstoneletter/
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_britain_livingstone_letter
Friday, July 2, 2010
Grad Sues Father for College Tuition and Wins
Arguing over money is nothing new for most families, especially when recent college graduates with massive student loans start looking to their parents for economic assistance in today's tough job market. And things can get tense when parents try to decide how much of that debt they're willing to help out with.
Most of the time, though, that decision isn't decreed in a court of law.
But that's exactly what happened when Dana Soderberg sued her father to force him to fulfill their agreement to pay for her education at Southern Connecticut State University.
Dana didn't take a lawsuit against her own father based on a mere promise, however—she had a legal document to back her up.
When Howard and Deborah Soderberg divorced in 2004, Howard—a property developer—agreed to pay for the education of their three children.
Apparently Dana foresaw that his word wouldn't be enough. In 2005, she convinced her father to sign a written contract that would require him to pay for her college tuition until she turned 25, as well as cover related expenses such as textbooks and car insurance. For her part, she agreed to apply for student loans that her father would cover if she received them.
But Howard stopped paying her tuition just before her senior year, forcing Dana to take out a $20,000 student loan (co-signed by her mother). After graduating as an art major, Dana filed a breach of contract lawsuit against her father with the aid of family attorney Renee C. Berman.
Representing himself in court, Howard contended that his daughter nullified their contract first when she—supposedly—didn't try hard enough to apply for student loans. He even filed a counterclaim alleging that she dropped a few classes and kept the money for herself. In Dana's defense, Berman pointed out that Dana was forced to drop some courses due to the continued tardiness of her father's tuition payments.
"They just don't have a relationship," Berman said about Dana and Howard. "It has to be weak to begin with if you enter into that agreement."
Berman also noted how unperturbed Dana's dad seemed throughout the trial. "Here his daughter's bringing him to court and there's no sadness, no remorse that his daughter was in this situation having to sue him."
After two-day trial, the judge ruled that Dana had indeed fulfilled her part of the contract and awarded her about $47,000 in damages, which covered the initial loan, interest and attorney fees.
If a daughter successfully suing her father for nearly $50,000 to recoup the cost of her college loans sounds unusual, Dana's attorney would be the first to agree. "Nothing that I've researched has shown any cases like this and hopefully there won't be any more, because it's a sad situation," Berman admitted.
As an art major-turned-teacher facing a grim economy (liberal arts majors' salaries' dropped 8.9 percent in the last year), Dana's legal victory should ease some of her monetary concerns. But most college grads can't turn to the legal system to relieve them of their student loan woes. Unlike other types of debt—such as mortgage or credit card—student loans aren't wiped away by declaring bankruptcy.
That means grads who can't afford to make ends meet can end up defaulting on their loans, which effectively ruins their credit. What's worse, defaulting means being turned over to a collection agency—and the fee that incurs can turn an already imposing amount of debt into downright terrifying numbers.
Dr. Michelle Bisutti, for instance, finished medical school in 2003 with $250,000 in student loans. Today, she owes $555,000—and $53,000 of that is just a fee for being turned over to a collection agency.
The New York Times recently shared the story of Cortney Munna, a college grad who was convinced her NYU degree was worth the approximately $97,000 in loans she took out to pay for it. Now almost a third of Munna's income goes to covering the federal and private loans she took out to nab that NYU degree.
While most college grads don't owe money in excess of $100,000 (10 percent of the 2007-08 class owes more than $40,000), at least two-thirds of those who complete a four-year program end up owing an average of $23,000 in student loans.
And that's bad news for people who are slowly finding out a college degree isn't necessarily as profitable as they have been led to believe.
Recent studies indicate that while having a college degree tends to ensure a higher salary than those with a high school diploma, the increase in pay scale isn't as large as society often assumes. According to a study conducted for Bloomberg Businessweek, most of the people who recoup the cost of their higher education and out-earn high school grads by over a million dollars (over the course of their lives) primarily come from elite private schools.
For the majority of Americans who can't afford an Ivy League education, there are plenty of state schools that offer competitive academics at much more reasonable prices. The University of North Carolina recently topped Kiplinger's "Best Value in Public Colleges" list, and UNC grads don't seem to be hit as hard by the student debt crisis. The average UNC grad ends up with $14,936 worth of debt—a full $8,000 less than the national average.
So, for those whose parents aren't legally bound to cover the cost of their education, there's still hope for earning back the money you invest in your education.
Source: http://finance.yahoo.com/college-education/article/109991/college-grad-sues-dad-to-cover-student-debt?mod=edu-continuing_education
Most of the time, though, that decision isn't decreed in a court of law.
But that's exactly what happened when Dana Soderberg sued her father to force him to fulfill their agreement to pay for her education at Southern Connecticut State University.
Dana didn't take a lawsuit against her own father based on a mere promise, however—she had a legal document to back her up.
When Howard and Deborah Soderberg divorced in 2004, Howard—a property developer—agreed to pay for the education of their three children.
Apparently Dana foresaw that his word wouldn't be enough. In 2005, she convinced her father to sign a written contract that would require him to pay for her college tuition until she turned 25, as well as cover related expenses such as textbooks and car insurance. For her part, she agreed to apply for student loans that her father would cover if she received them.
But Howard stopped paying her tuition just before her senior year, forcing Dana to take out a $20,000 student loan (co-signed by her mother). After graduating as an art major, Dana filed a breach of contract lawsuit against her father with the aid of family attorney Renee C. Berman.
Representing himself in court, Howard contended that his daughter nullified their contract first when she—supposedly—didn't try hard enough to apply for student loans. He even filed a counterclaim alleging that she dropped a few classes and kept the money for herself. In Dana's defense, Berman pointed out that Dana was forced to drop some courses due to the continued tardiness of her father's tuition payments.
"They just don't have a relationship," Berman said about Dana and Howard. "It has to be weak to begin with if you enter into that agreement."
Berman also noted how unperturbed Dana's dad seemed throughout the trial. "Here his daughter's bringing him to court and there's no sadness, no remorse that his daughter was in this situation having to sue him."
After two-day trial, the judge ruled that Dana had indeed fulfilled her part of the contract and awarded her about $47,000 in damages, which covered the initial loan, interest and attorney fees.
If a daughter successfully suing her father for nearly $50,000 to recoup the cost of her college loans sounds unusual, Dana's attorney would be the first to agree. "Nothing that I've researched has shown any cases like this and hopefully there won't be any more, because it's a sad situation," Berman admitted.
As an art major-turned-teacher facing a grim economy (liberal arts majors' salaries' dropped 8.9 percent in the last year), Dana's legal victory should ease some of her monetary concerns. But most college grads can't turn to the legal system to relieve them of their student loan woes. Unlike other types of debt—such as mortgage or credit card—student loans aren't wiped away by declaring bankruptcy.
That means grads who can't afford to make ends meet can end up defaulting on their loans, which effectively ruins their credit. What's worse, defaulting means being turned over to a collection agency—and the fee that incurs can turn an already imposing amount of debt into downright terrifying numbers.
Dr. Michelle Bisutti, for instance, finished medical school in 2003 with $250,000 in student loans. Today, she owes $555,000—and $53,000 of that is just a fee for being turned over to a collection agency.
The New York Times recently shared the story of Cortney Munna, a college grad who was convinced her NYU degree was worth the approximately $97,000 in loans she took out to pay for it. Now almost a third of Munna's income goes to covering the federal and private loans she took out to nab that NYU degree.
While most college grads don't owe money in excess of $100,000 (10 percent of the 2007-08 class owes more than $40,000), at least two-thirds of those who complete a four-year program end up owing an average of $23,000 in student loans.
And that's bad news for people who are slowly finding out a college degree isn't necessarily as profitable as they have been led to believe.
Recent studies indicate that while having a college degree tends to ensure a higher salary than those with a high school diploma, the increase in pay scale isn't as large as society often assumes. According to a study conducted for Bloomberg Businessweek, most of the people who recoup the cost of their higher education and out-earn high school grads by over a million dollars (over the course of their lives) primarily come from elite private schools.
For the majority of Americans who can't afford an Ivy League education, there are plenty of state schools that offer competitive academics at much more reasonable prices. The University of North Carolina recently topped Kiplinger's "Best Value in Public Colleges" list, and UNC grads don't seem to be hit as hard by the student debt crisis. The average UNC grad ends up with $14,936 worth of debt—a full $8,000 less than the national average.
So, for those whose parents aren't legally bound to cover the cost of their education, there's still hope for earning back the money you invest in your education.
Source: http://finance.yahoo.com/college-education/article/109991/college-grad-sues-dad-to-cover-student-debt?mod=edu-continuing_education
Monday, June 28, 2010
Supreme Court limits local gun bans
Justices rebuff Chicago, which defended ban as reasonable exercise of local power
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Monday that the Constitution's "right to keep and bear arms" applies nationwide as a restraint on the ability of the federal, state and local governments to substantially limit its reach.
By a 5-4 vote split along familiar ideological lines, the nation's highest court extended its landmark 2008 ruling that individual Americans have a constitutional right to own guns to all the cities and states for the first time.
In doing so, the justices signaled that less severe restrictions could survive legal challenges. The ruling involved a 28-year-old handgun ban in the Chicago area.
The ruling was a victory for four Chicago-area residents, two gun rights groups and the politically powerful National Rifle Association.
It was a defeat for Chicago, which defended its ban as a reasonable exercise of local power to protect public safety. The law and a similar handgun ban in suburban Oak Park, Ill., were the nation's most restrictive gun control measures.
Monday's decision did not explicitly strike down the Chicago area laws, ordering a federal appeals court to reconsider its ruling. It left little doubt, however, that they would fall eventually.
Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the court, said the Second Amendment right "applies equally to the federal government and the states."
Five conservative-moderate justices were in favor of gun rights and the four liberals, opposed.
Two years ago, the court declared that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to possess guns, at least for purposes of self-defense in the home.
That ruling applied only to federal laws. It struck down a ban on handguns and a trigger lock requirement for other guns in the District of Columbia, a federal city with a unique legal standing. At the same time, the court was careful not to cast doubt on other regulations of firearms here.
Gun rights proponents almost immediately filed a federal lawsuit challenging gun control laws in Chicago and Oak Park, Ill. The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence says those laws appear to be the last two remaining outright bans.
Lower federal courts upheld the two laws, noting that judges on those benches were bound by Supreme Court precedent and that it would be up to the high court justices to ultimately rule on the true reach of the Second Amendment.
'Freedom'
The Supreme Court already has said that most of the guarantees in the Bill of Rights serve as a check on state and local, as well as federal, laws.
Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the NRA, told MSNBC that the ruling reiterated that gun ownership was a "constitutional freedom ... for every American citizen."
"It's a landmark decision," LaPierre said. "The Second Amendment as an individual right now becomes a real part of American Constitutional law.
"The question before the court was 'can law-abiding citizens go out and buy and own a firearm?' And the court said, 'Yes, anywhere they live.'"
The ruling on gun rights and three other cases came in its last meeting until the fall and the final day of Justice John Paul Stevens' long service.
The Supreme Court also rejected appeals by the Obama administration and the nation's largest tobacco companies to get involved in a legal fight about the dangers of cigarette smoking that has stretched more than 10 years.
The court's action, issued without comment Monday, leaves in place court rulings that the tobacco industry illegally concealed the dangers of smoking for decades. But it also prevents the administration from trying to extract billions of dollars from the industry either in past profits or to fund a national campaign to curb smoking.
Retirement
The court met Monday morning just a couple of hours before high court nominee Elena Kagan goes before the Senate Judiciary Committee for her confirmation hearing.
The 90-year-old Stevens announced his retirement in April, paving the way for President Barack Obama to nominate Kagan to replace him. Kagan's hearing begins early afternoon in Washington, in a Senate hearing room a short walk from the court.
Stevens will retire as the second-oldest justice, after Oliver Wendell Holmes, and tied for second-longest tenure with Stephen Field, whose service began during the Civil War. Stevens' retirement will take effect on Tuesday, after 34 years, six months and 11 days as a justice.
William Douglas has the record, with more than 36 years on the Supreme Court.
Supreme court rules that the "right to bear arms" applies nationwide casting doubt on a Chicago-area handgun ban that has been in place since 1982. NBC's Pete Williams reports.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37972148/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/?GT1=43001
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Monday that the Constitution's "right to keep and bear arms" applies nationwide as a restraint on the ability of the federal, state and local governments to substantially limit its reach.
By a 5-4 vote split along familiar ideological lines, the nation's highest court extended its landmark 2008 ruling that individual Americans have a constitutional right to own guns to all the cities and states for the first time.
In doing so, the justices signaled that less severe restrictions could survive legal challenges. The ruling involved a 28-year-old handgun ban in the Chicago area.
The ruling was a victory for four Chicago-area residents, two gun rights groups and the politically powerful National Rifle Association.
It was a defeat for Chicago, which defended its ban as a reasonable exercise of local power to protect public safety. The law and a similar handgun ban in suburban Oak Park, Ill., were the nation's most restrictive gun control measures.
Monday's decision did not explicitly strike down the Chicago area laws, ordering a federal appeals court to reconsider its ruling. It left little doubt, however, that they would fall eventually.
Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the court, said the Second Amendment right "applies equally to the federal government and the states."
Five conservative-moderate justices were in favor of gun rights and the four liberals, opposed.
Two years ago, the court declared that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to possess guns, at least for purposes of self-defense in the home.
That ruling applied only to federal laws. It struck down a ban on handguns and a trigger lock requirement for other guns in the District of Columbia, a federal city with a unique legal standing. At the same time, the court was careful not to cast doubt on other regulations of firearms here.
Gun rights proponents almost immediately filed a federal lawsuit challenging gun control laws in Chicago and Oak Park, Ill. The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence says those laws appear to be the last two remaining outright bans.
Lower federal courts upheld the two laws, noting that judges on those benches were bound by Supreme Court precedent and that it would be up to the high court justices to ultimately rule on the true reach of the Second Amendment.
'Freedom'
The Supreme Court already has said that most of the guarantees in the Bill of Rights serve as a check on state and local, as well as federal, laws.
Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the NRA, told MSNBC that the ruling reiterated that gun ownership was a "constitutional freedom ... for every American citizen."
"It's a landmark decision," LaPierre said. "The Second Amendment as an individual right now becomes a real part of American Constitutional law.
"The question before the court was 'can law-abiding citizens go out and buy and own a firearm?' And the court said, 'Yes, anywhere they live.'"
The ruling on gun rights and three other cases came in its last meeting until the fall and the final day of Justice John Paul Stevens' long service.
The Supreme Court also rejected appeals by the Obama administration and the nation's largest tobacco companies to get involved in a legal fight about the dangers of cigarette smoking that has stretched more than 10 years.
The court's action, issued without comment Monday, leaves in place court rulings that the tobacco industry illegally concealed the dangers of smoking for decades. But it also prevents the administration from trying to extract billions of dollars from the industry either in past profits or to fund a national campaign to curb smoking.
Retirement
The court met Monday morning just a couple of hours before high court nominee Elena Kagan goes before the Senate Judiciary Committee for her confirmation hearing.
The 90-year-old Stevens announced his retirement in April, paving the way for President Barack Obama to nominate Kagan to replace him. Kagan's hearing begins early afternoon in Washington, in a Senate hearing room a short walk from the court.
Stevens will retire as the second-oldest justice, after Oliver Wendell Holmes, and tied for second-longest tenure with Stephen Field, whose service began during the Civil War. Stevens' retirement will take effect on Tuesday, after 34 years, six months and 11 days as a justice.
William Douglas has the record, with more than 36 years on the Supreme Court.
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Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37972148/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/?GT1=43001
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