Open Thread: Late Afternoon News Update
Posted: June 25, 2013 Filed under: Barack Obama, open thread, Republican politics, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: Climate change, coal stocks, data encryption, David Gomez, Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald, Keystone XL pipeline, Rep. John Lewis, spycraft, Voting Rights Act 27 Comments
Good Afternoon Sky Dancers!!
Here’s an fresh thread, since the morning reads one is getting so long. I have several updates for you on the Snowden/NSA story.
Eli Lake of The Daily Beast got some disturbing news from Glenn Greenwald: Snowden’s Files Are Out There if “Anything Happens” To Him. I posted this link on the previous thread, but it should be highlighted. According to Greenwald, Snowden gave complete copies of the the secret NSA files he stole to “many people around the world.” Supposedly the files are encrypted, but from what we know of Snowden’s spycraft knowledge, I don’t think that’s a guarantee that they’ll stay secret. From The Daily Beast article:
Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian Newspaper journalist Snowden first contacted in February, told the Daily Beast Tuesday that Snowden “has taken extreme precautions to make sure many different people around the world have these archives to insure the stories will inevitably be published.” Greenwald added that the people in possession of these files “cannot access them yet because they are highly encrypted and they do not have the passwords.” But, Greenwald said, “if anything happens at all to Edward Snowden, he told me he has arranged for them to get access to the full archives.” [….]
A former U.S. counter-intelligence officer following the Snowden saga closely said his contacts inside the U.S. intelligence community “think Snowden has been planning this for years and has stashed files all over the internet.” This source added, “At this point there is very little anyone can do about this.”
Greenwald assured Lake that although he (Greenwald) is in possession of top secret information about “the technical specifications of NSA systems,” but that he won’t publish them. I wonder how well Greenwald’s computer is protected?
On Snowden’s aforementioned spycraft skills, let’s see what a real former spy thinks. From Foreign Policy:
We reached out to FP contributor David Gomez, a former assistant special agent-in-charge and counterterrorism program manager with the FBI, to get his take. When was Snowden being savvy — and when did it seem as if he’d just watched a few too many spy movies?
Cell phones in the fridge
While it’s true that cell phones can easily be compromised and turned into recording devices, Gomez says it’s unlikely that anyone seeking to record Snowden would have used a phone anyway. If someone had wanted to eavesdrop, Gomez explains, he or she more likely would have worn a concealed wire. Or, if a government’s agents had been trying to listen in from outside of the room, they might have deployed a long-range microphone, among other techniques. The bottom line: a refrigerated cell phone probably wasn’t stopping anyone who wanted to listen badly enough — though it may have extended the phone’s battery life.
Lining the hotel door with pillows
While not particularly effective at stopping anyone actively seeking to spy on Snowden, pillows could have muffled the sounds of any conversations going on in his Hong Kong hotel room enough that an unsuspecting person passing by wouldn’t overhear something alarming, Gomez says.
Wearing a hood while entering computer passwords, to avoid hidden cameras
The danger while entering computer passwords is unlikely to come from a hidden camera planted in the hotel, Gomez says, but rather from keystroke-logging software, against which a hoodie provides little protection.
Signaling his identity to reporters by carrying a Rubik’s Cube through a hotel
While spies do at times use signals to identify one another, the idea in doing so is to not draw attention to yourself, Gomez explains. Thus, when arranging a meeting, as Snowden did with a group of journalists in Hong Kong, it is both unhelpful and unnecessary to carry something as out of place as a Rubik’s Cube. It would have been better, Gomez adds, for Snowden to have simply described, say, his clothing in detail. “If you’re going to meet with all these people, what’s the point of being Sneaky Pete?” Gomez asks.
Gomez says Snowden seems to be an amateur.
Annals of Victim Blaming: First Serena, Then Whoopie
Posted: June 20, 2013 Filed under: Crime, Criminal Justice System, misogyny, open thread, Violence against women, War on Women | Tags: Barabara Walters, Margaret Cho, rape culture, Serena Williams, Sherri Shepherd, Steubenville rape case, The View, Whoopie Goldberg 23 Comments
You probably heard about the remarks tennis star Serena Williams made about the victim in the Steubenville rape case in an interview with Rolling Stone Magazine. According to Deadspin,
The RS story is by Stephen Rodrick, author of the new book The Magical Strangerand this great Dennis Rodman profile that you can read at The Stacks. He visited Serena in Florida three months ago, and she gave him, well, a few pungent quotes.
Here, for instance, is Serena with an unfortunate “she wore the dress” take on Steubenville:
We watch the news for a while, and the infamous Steubenville rape case flashes on the TV—two high school football players raped a 16-year-old, while other students watched and texted details of the crime. Serena just shakes her head. “Do you think it was fair, what they got? They did something stupid, but I don’t know. I’m not blaming the girl, but if you’re a 16-year-old and you’re drunk like that, your parents should teach you: don’t take drinks from other people. She’s 16, why was she that drunk where she doesn’t remember? It could have been much worse. She’s lucky. Obviously I don’t know, maybe she wasn’t a virgin, but she shouldn’t have put herself in that position, unless they slipped her something, then that’s different.”
Now Serena has publicly apologized for her insensitive comments, and according to ESPN she also
spoke to the victim, her mother and a family lawyer for about 30 minutes Wednesday….”Serena was very nice, very sincere and it was a very well-received conversation among two women and a young lady,” attorney Bob Fitzsimmons said Thursday….
The victim’s family welcomed Williams’ apology in its own statement Wednesday, saying it was “proud of her” for the updated remarks.
“We are sure Serena has & will continue to use her God given talents to advance women’s equality and send the message that rape is never acceptable under any circumstance,” according to the statement released by Fitzsimmons.
“We are fans of Serena and will continue rooting for many more championships but more importantly watching her advance the cause of rape victims who are never to blame.”
Unfortunately, the ladies of the View decided to discuss Williams’ remarks yesterday and managed to dredge up lots more victim-blaming stereotypes. Whoopie was the worst, but some of the other women said offensive things too. Luckily Margaret Cho was there to counter some of the nonsense. Here’s the video:
And some commentary from Jezebel:
In the segment’s intro, Whoopi says that the Steubenville victim was “allegedly” raped, later in the clip, Sherri Shepherd says that boys who rape are “just as culpable” (not more) than girls who go out and drink too much and Barbara Walters, when discussing convicted rapist Mike Tyson, feels the need to qualify that Tyson is now “a wonderful performer.” (Thank the powers that be that Margaret Cho was there to act as a voice of reason and empathy, otherwise our collective head might actually explode.)
As a closer, Whoopi — she of the infamous rape-rape comment — turned the conversation into a discussion of women’s personal responsibility in situations like the Steubenville one. While she would like for boys to better respect women and maybe not rape them, she put more emphasis on what girls should do — which is always wear clean underwear (???), carry cab money and avoid getting drunk. Congrats, Whoopi! You just solved rape!
“Neither party comes out of this well,” she says at the end of the segment. “So we have to do a better job with our young women.”
What is wrong with these women? None of them even seemed to notice that the Steubenville victim was an underage child! Isn’t it bad enough that we have to put up with these kinds of excuses for rape from a lot of men? But let’s face it, plenty of women buy into the rape culture. I can almost understand it from Barbara Walters who is older than dirt–but even she was more in touch with reality than Whoopie Goldberg who is quite a bit younger than I am. How does someone move in 21st century entertainment circles and hold onto such 1950s attitudes? I just don’t get it.
Please discuss or use this as an open thread.
Another Piece of the Snowden-NSA Leaks Puzzle Falls into Place
Posted: June 13, 2013 Filed under: Crime, NSA, National Security Agency, open thread, U.S. Politics | Tags: campaign donations, classified documents, domestic spying, Edward Snowden, Ken Dilanian, Ron Paul, The Guardian 49 Comments
64 Gigabyte thumb drive
Another piece of the puzzle fell into place this morning when Ken Dilanian of the LA Times broke the news that Edward Snowden somehow managed to save stolen data on a thumb drive and walk out of the NSA facility in Hawaii with it.
Former National Security Agency contract employee Edward Snowden used a computer thumb drive to smuggle highly classified documents out of an NSA facility in Hawaii, using a portable digital device supposedly barred inside the cyber spying agency, U.S. officials said.
Investigators “know how many documents he downloaded and what server he took them from,” said one official who would not be named while speaking about the ongoing investigation.
Snowden worked as a system administrator, a technical job that gave him wide access to NSA computer networks and presumably a keen understanding of how those networks are monitored for unauthorized downloads.
On Tuesday the Guardian reported that Snowden arrived at Hong Kong airport carrying four laptops. From the article:
As he pulled a small black suitcase and carried a selection of laptop bags over his shoulders, no one would have paid much attention to Ed Snowden as he arrived at Hong Kong International Airport. But Snowden was not your average tourist or businessman. In all, he was carrying four computers that enabled him to gain access to some of the US government’s most highly-classified secrets.
This led a number of security experts to wonder if Snowden had absconded with four NSA computers, which would have been an incredible security failure for the agency. It’s not clear why the Guardian focused on these computers as carrying the stolen classified secrets, but the Guardian’s reporting on this story has so far been flawed by misinformation–perhaps because of a lack of understanding of the relevant technology.
Back to the LA Times article:
Officials said they still don’t know how Snowden got access to an order marked “Top Secret” from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, or a highly-classified directive from President Obama authorizing a military target list for cyber attacks. Neither document would be widely shared, or normally available to a low-level NSA employee.
A larger number of NSA employees and contractors might have access to a PowerPoint slide show on PRISM, which uses online data from nine U.S. Internet and technology companies. Snowden said he provided the slides to the Washington Post and The Guardian.
There is another disturbing aspect to Snowden’s actions that is still mysterious. When did he decide to steal the data and when did he begin copying the classified documents? We know that Snowden first contacted journalist and film-maker Laura Poitras in January 2013, and he contacted Glenn Greenwald in February.
But Snowden did not begin working for Booz Allen Hamilton as an NSA contractor until either late March; because when Booz Allen fired him on June 10, they stated that Snowden had worked for them for less than 3 months. This strongly suggests that Snowden deliberately too the job with Booz Allen in order to steal government secrets.
In March of 2012, Snowden was apparently working for Dell, because there is a record of his donating $250 to Ron Paul’s campaign as a Dell employee living at an address in Maryland. When he gave an additional $250 to Paul in May 2012, he gave an address in Waipahu, Hawaii and listed his occupation as “Senior Advisor,” with no employer noted. So what was Snowden doing between May 2012 and March 2012 when he went to work as an NSA contractor for Booz Allen?
I guess we’ll find out eventually. Stay tuned.
This is an open thread.
Saturday Morning Open Thread: Umbrella-Gate
Posted: May 18, 2013 Filed under: Barack Obama, open thread, Republican politics, Surreality, U.S. Military, U.S. Politics, War on Women | Tags: gender specific umbrella protocols, military umbrella rules, rain, tiresome right win nuts, Umbrella-gate 25 Comments
Good Morning Sky Dancers!!
I’m not sure why, but I’m feeling really wiped out this morning. It could be all the pollen that is making my allergies act up. My nose is stuffy and my eyes are scratchy and watering.
Anyway, I’m going to start you off with an open thread, and I’ll try to put up a better Saturday reads post later on. I do have some things I want to share with you.
Yesterday President Obama angered Republicans by asking (the horror!) a couple of marines to hold umbrellas over him and his guest Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey during a press conference at the White House. Because, you know, the Commander-in-Chief shouldn’t inconvenience U.S servicemen in any way. The nerve of that annoying black man!
Rachel Weiner at The Washington Post: Even Obama’s umbrellas are a scandal now
Even President Obama’s use of umbrellas has become a scandal in the eyes of some Republicans.
On Thursday, during a joint press conference with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan, Obama signaled to two Marines and asked them to protect him and his guest from the rain.“I am going to go ahead and ask folks — why don’t we get a couple of Marines, they’re going to look good next to us. Just because I’ve got a change of suits, but I don’t know about our prime minister.” Gesturing to the unprotected press, he added, “You guys, I’m sorry about…”
Republicans were outraged, because for some reason male marines are not permitted to use umbrellas when they are in uniform even though female marines can use them. But as Captain Eric Flanagan explained, when the President requests something, marines are supposed to do what he asks.
“Marines are always out getting rained on, that’s sort of what we do,” said Capt. Eric Flanagan, a Marine spokesman. A request from the president to a Marine who serves in the White House, however, would be an “extenuating circumstance.”
Flanagan also pointed to Title 10 of the U.S. Code, which states that members of the Marine Corps shall “perform such other duties as the President may direct.”
Because, you know, he’s the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, even though Republicans don’t like to admit that.
It was a lighthearted moment in the midst of a grim few days for the White House. But in a week of Benghazi e-mails, Justice Department subpoenas and Internal Revenue Service targeting, some of the administration’s critics saw another example of overreach.
“Obama breaches Marine umbrella protocol,” read the headline on one conservative blog.
Of course no one can explain why the military has gender-specific umbrella rules. They’re just the rulz!
Neither Flanagan nor an Army spokesman could explain the reasoning behind the gender divide. An attempt to change the policy in the 1990s failed, with some suggesting that there was something effeminate about umbrellas.
“They seem to be very nervous what constitutes unmanly behavior,” said Cynthia Enloe, a professor at Clark University who researched military uniform codes in the book “Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women’s Lives.”
I suppose that could partially explain the reaction of the right wing women-haters.
“Obama expects our troops to hold damn umbrellas rather than go inside: It’s disrespectful, inconsiderate, classless,” tweeted Lou Dobbs.
“Mr. President, when it rains it pours, but most Americans hold their own umbrellas,” former Alaska governor Sarah Palin added on Facebook.
The conservative Move America Forward PAC likened the umbrella-holding to what conservatives view as Obama’s weak response to September’s attack in Benghazi, Libya. A fundraising
e-mail from the group read, “Rain: ‘Hold My Umbrella.’ Benghazi: ‘Stand Down.’ ”
Why must they all be so childishly tiresome? It gives me a headache. Maybe that’s partly why I’m feeling so tired this morning.
Wonkette invited an actual U.S. Marine to comment on the latest Obama scandal: Guest Post From A U.S. Marine About Barack Obama’s Shocking And Disgusting Use Of An Umbrella
Yesterday we learned of one more reason to impeach the Kenyan impostor: as he was giving his press conference with the Turkish whoever, it began to rain, and he summoned two United States Marines over to hold umbrellas over himself and his Very Important Guest. Commentors [sic] at the Free Republic howled that PBO was trying to “humiliate” the Marine Corps by “demeaning them” and “demoralizing them.” They were very mad! Then one M. Joseph Sheppard, to whom apparently we have not been paying enough attention, tried to explain: we were wrong to simply point out other presidents having umbrellas held for them. The shocking scandal was that Barack Nobumer had made Marines disregard their own code, by holding umbrellas. He cited some uniform regulations, as if a Marine performing a service for his Commander-in-Chief were the same as a Marine delicately shielding himself from the elements while humping up a mountain or to keep his hair dry while doing drillsies.
So Wonkette writer Rebecca Schoenkopf called her brother the marine to see what he thought about Obama’s horrifying behavior. Here’s what he said.
“I GUARANTEE YOU!” he yelled, “IF THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF GIVES YOU A LAWFUL ORDER YOU FOLLOW THE MOTHERFUCKING LAWFUL ORDER. IF THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF WANTS AN UMBRELLA YOU BETTER BELIEVE A WHOLE FUCKING GRIP OF JARHEARDS ARE GONNA BE HIGH-STEPPING TO BRING HIM A MOTHERFUCKING UMBRELLA!”
And then he warmed up. “IN FACT! THE REAL FUCKING SCANDAL IS THAT THE CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF WASN’T THE ONE HOLDING IT. ‘YOU! CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS! HOLD MY MOTHERFUCKING UMBRELLA!’”
That should settle that. But it won’t of course.
Finally, at The Atlantic Garrance Franke-Ruta tells Democrats to “calm down” as she explains why none of the current “scandals” matter–Obama’s second term was “already in tatters.”
Are the AP snooping, Benghazi, and IRS scandals about to destroy Obama’s second term? Not really—because hyperpartisanship in Washington had already stalled the president’s agenda and put the 113th Congress on track to become another one of the young 21st century’s already-legendary do-nothing bodies.
Most of what a president can accomplish takes place early in a term. But as Republican communications pros are fond of reminding reporters, Obama’s second term was already off to a rocky start.
Read the depressing details at the link if you dare.
Now what’s on your reading list this morning? Please share your links–on any topic–in the comment thread, and have a fabulous Saturday morning!!
Late Night: Three Men Deported By Saudi Arabia For Being Too Handsome
Posted: April 24, 2013 Filed under: open thread | Tags: Omar Borkan Al Gala, Saudi Arabia, too handsome, United Arab Emirates 37 Comments
Omar Borkan Al Gala, fashion photographer, actor, and poet from Dubai
You may have heard about this already; but, as you can see, I have photos!
Time Magazine reports: “Saudi Arabia Reportedly Deports Men for Being ‘Too Handsome’”
The men were visiting Saudi Arabia from the United Arab Emirates to attend the annual Jenadrivah Heritage & Cultural Festival in Riyadh. They were apparently minding their own business when members of Saudi Arabia’s religious police entered the pavilion and forcibly removed them from the festival. Their offense? They were considered “too handsome” to stay for fear that women would find them irresistible, according to the Arabic-language newspaper Elaph.
A festival official said the three Emiratis were taken out on the grounds they are too handsome and that the Commission [for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice] members feared female visitors could fall for them,” Elaph reported this week, as quoted on the website Arabian Business. The Emirati men were subsequently deported to Abu Dhabi. In Saudi Arabia women are largely prohibited from interacting with unrelated males.
Apparently the incident was triggered by the appearance at the festival of a female singer named Ayram
UAE Singer Aryam
The UAE female singer Aryam was at the heart of an incident involving storming of the country’s stand at an a Saudi cultural festival by a member of the Gulf Kingdom’s feared religious police, the signer has said.
Aryam confirmed she went to the UAE pavilion at the annual Genaderia festivities but added she was there as a delegate of the UAE and had no intention to sing.
“I went to the UAE stand as a delegate and congratulated them on their folklore…I stayed there for 20 seconds and had no intention to sing,” she said, quoted by Arabic language newspapers in the region. “I strongly respect the traditions of Saudi Arabia and all Gulf states and I consider myself a Saudi woman.”
Aryam, of Egyptian origin, said she had been invited by the Abu Dhabi Culture and Tourism Authority to visit the national pavilion when the incident took place.
“I respect their traditions and had no intention to sign or perform anything,” said the 33-year-old Dubai-based Aryam, whose real name is Reem Shaaban Hassan.
The man in the photo above, Omar Borkan Al Gala, is reported to be one of the men who was “forcibly” deported for being “too handsome.” I have no idea if he is really one of the three men, but he’s pretty good looking and he does seem to be from the UAE. Here’s his Facebook page, Twitter feed, and Flicker page.
A couple more photos:
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
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