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July 20, 2006
"The world of men is dreaming, it has gone mad in its sleep, and a snake is strangling it, but it can’t wake up."
The feds and AT&T were just denied their motion to dismiss the domestic NSA internet spying lawsuit. That's the NSA scandal wherein AT&T forwards all the data from their peering sites (where they exchange data with other major internet backbones) to the NSA, infringing on the privacy of pretty much every American without any legal basis, even under the USA PATRIOT Act. This is the program that uses advanced network-sniffers from an NSA-spawned commercial entity called Narus to watch over the shoulder of millions of Americans at a time as they surf the web, chat with friends, and use e-mail.
In a 72-page written decision (.pdf) issued Thursday, U.S. District Court chief judge Vaughn Walker rejected the government's argument that merely allowing the case to proceed would cause critical harm to U.S. national security -- a ruling that marks a significant victory for EFF, and puts a rare limitation on the reach of the president's "state secrets privilege" to sweep alleged illegal government activities under the cloak of national security.
This, by the way, has nothing to do with the "War on Terror." Bush authorized the NSA to spy on Americans' internet traffic within days of stealing the Oval Office.
81. Within eleven (11) days of the onset of the Bush administration, and at least seven (7) months prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001, defendant ATT began development of a center for monitoring long distance calls and internet transmissions and other digital information for the exclusive use of the NSA.
82. The center was put into development by ATT following a proposal by the NSA for the construction and development of a network operations center identical to ATT's own network operations center located in Bedminster, New Jersey for the exclusive use of the NSA.
83. The NSA proposal was accepted by the ATT sales division and referred to ATT Solutions, an ATT project development division situated in Florham Park, New Jersey.
84. The NSA proposal sought construction of a duplicate ATT Network Operations Center for the exclusive use of the NSA with the capacity to monitor all calls and internet traffic placed on the ATT long distance network, as well as ATT's wide area, fiber optic, T-1, T-3, T-5 and high speed data networks.
85. Such a data center would also enable the NSA to tap into any call placed on the ATT network and to monitor the contents of all digital information transmitted over the ATT network.
86. The project was described in the ATT sales division documents as calling for the construction of a facility to store and retain data gathered by the NSA from its domestic and foreign intelligence operations but was to be in actuality a duplicate ATT Network Operations Center for the use and possession of the NSA that would give the NSA direct, unlimited, unrestricted and unfettered access to all call information and internet and digital traffic on ATT's long distance networks.
87. Said data center would enable the NSA to tap into any phone line and to monitor any digital transfer of information on ATT's networks including voice telephone calls, facsimile transmission and all internet traffic.
88. Such project was in development not later than February 1, 2001, within eleven (11) days of the onset of the Bush Administration.
89. The NSA program was initially conceived at least one year prior to 2001 but had been called off; it was reinstated within 11 days of the entry into office of defendant George W. Bush.
90. The NSA program was code-named Pioneer-Groundbreaker and was also known at ATT Solutions division as GEMS (Groundbreaker Enterprise System).
91. International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) was one of the parties working with ATT and the NSA to develop the monitoring center and IBM personnel participated in meetings with ATT and NSA officials in the development of the monitoring center.
92. Among the purposes of the Pioneer-Groundbreaker project was the storing and monitoring of all phone call information coming across ATT's networks; by means of this program NSA sought to duplicate all of the phone call information that came across ATT's networks for real time, contemporaneous analysis or, alternately, for downloading and later use by the NSA.
93. The proposed project was to be a storage entity modeled on ATT's network operations center in Bedminster, New Jersey, and would have the capability to monitor all data and traffic that came across ATT lines, including ATT traffic and traffic originating from other carriers that used ATT lines or that sent calls to ATT customers.
94. The NSA was seeking to duplicate the ATT network operations center and sought by means of the Pioneer-Groundbreaker program the ability to monitor all traffic coming across ATT's network.
Isbell suggests instead that primates developed good close-up eyesight to avoid a dangerous predator -- the snake.
"A snake is the only predator you really need to see close up. If it's a long way away it's not dangerous," Isbell said.
Neurological studies by others show that the structure of the brain's visual system does not actually fit with the idea that vision evolved along with reaching and grasping, Isbell said. But the visual system does seem to be well connected to the "fear module," brain structures involved in vigilance, fear and learning.
Fossils and DNA evidence show that snakes were likely the first serious predators of modern mammals, which evolved about 100 million years ago. Fossils of snakes with mouths big enough to eat those mammals appear at about the same time. Other animals that could have eaten our ancestors, such as big cats, and hawks and eagles, evolved much later.
In August of 2004, NASA had trouble when the Spirit rover on Mars insisted it was the year 2038. Did aliens send the robot hurtling through time, or was it a foreshadowing of Unix's Y2K.038 problem?
King Tut had glass before there was glass. via
In 1996 in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Italian mineralogist Vincenzo de Michele spotted an unusual yellow-green gem in the middle of one of Tutankhamun's necklaces.
The jewel was tested and found to be glass, but intriguingly it is older than the earliest Egyptian civilisation.
Working with Egyptian geologist Aly Barakat, they traced its origins to unexplained chunks of glass found scattered in the sand in a remote region of the Sahara Desert.
The simulation revealed that an impactor could indeed generate a blistering atmospheric fireball, creating surface temperatures of 1,800C, and leaving behind a field of glass.
"What I want to emphasise is that it is hugely bigger in energy than the atomic tests," says Boslough. "Ten thousand times more powerful."
Posted by Jon Rubin at July 20, 2006 09:22 PM
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