Monthly Archives: November 2013

U.S. Supreme Court declines to review NSA phone spying case

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“The U.S. Supreme Court has denied the Electronic Privacy Information Center’s petition for it to review a National Security Agency (NSA) phone record data collection program.  EPIC asked the Supreme Court to vacate an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) that requires the Verizon telephone company to turn over all phone records on all of its customers to the NSA.  The group petitioned the Supreme Court directly, skipping lower courts, arguing that only the Supreme Court had the proper jurisdiction to review a FISC order.  On Monday, however, the Supreme Court declined to review the order without explaining why. It simply stated that EPIC’s request was denied.”

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2064820/us-supreme-court-declines-to-review-nsa-phone-spying-case.html

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UN Drug Bureaucrats Fret About Uruguay’s Marijuana Legalization

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“Uruguay is blowing off the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) as it prepares to become the first country to legalize marijuana commerce, and the INCB is ‘concerned.’ The South American nation failed to send a delegation to Vienna to listen to the INCB complain about its plans. The INCB is also ‘very concerned that the draft legislation currently being considered in Uruguay would, if adopted, legalize production, sale and consumption of cannabis for recreational purposes.’  Uruguay’s marijuana legalization bill, backed by President Jose Mujica, has already passed the lower house of parliament and is set for a vote soon in the upper house.”

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2013/nov/19/un_drug_bureaucrats_fret_about_u

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Bill Bonner: How I Explained Bitcoin to My 94-Year-Old Mother

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“Will it go up in price? We don’t know.  But what we like about bitcoin is the same thing the feds don’t like about it. They can’t control it. So, they can’t use it to steal from people. And they can’t use it to bail out their friends… support zombies… or finance pointless wars.  Nor can they use bitcoin to cover their deficits or to manipulate the economy.  But wait…  Why can’t the feds put their enormous computing power to work mining for bitcoin? That way, if bitcoin becomes the coin of the realm, they could still control it… with a huge reserve of their own.  Are they too busy spying on people?  Are they too thick to see the potential?  Are we missing something?”

http://www.bonnerandpartners.com/how-i-explained-bitcoin-to-my-94-year-old-mother/

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Open the Window and Let Out Tedious Tapering

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“The exercise of power is often a ludicrously simple thing. And Federal Reserve deliberations often partake of such simplicity.  The tapering debate is yet one more example. It is symptomatic of a dialectic that everyone can understand and participate in. We are meant to examine two choices, and two choices only: Either the Fed tightens or it doesn’t. Either of these choices acknowledges the primacy of the Fed and its central importance. The Fed is NOT intrinsically important. Absent the force of the state, there is no way that a tiny group of mis-educated people would be able to gather in a well-appointed room to fix the value and volume of money for hundreds of millions.”

http://www.thedailybell.com/news-analysis/34767/Open-the-Window-and-Let-Out-Tedious-Tapering/

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Median CPI Up 0.1% in October

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“My advice: ignore all price inflation statistics that are not accompanied by publicly available methodologies.  The Median CPI is accompanied by public explanations. It is published monthly by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. The trend of the Median CPI is toward lower price inflation. It is not yet price deflation. But prices are barely rising.  This leaves the Federal Open Market Committee lots of room to continue its quantitative easing policy of buying half a trillion dollars a year of long-term Treasury bonds and half a trillion worth of Freddie/Fannie bonds. The FOMC can continue to subsidize the housing market without fear of political repercussions.”

http://teapartyeconomist.com/2013/11/21/median-cpi-0-1-october/

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Census Fakery and Banana Republics

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“In the home stretch of the 2012 presidential campaign, from August to September, the unemployment rate fell sharply — raising eyebrows from Wall Street to Washington. The decline – from 8.1 percent in August to 7.8 percent in September – might not have been all it seemed. The numbers, according to a reliable source, were manipulated. And the Census Bureau, which does the unemployment survey, knew it. Just two years before the presidential election, the Census Bureau had caught an employee fabricating data that went into the unemployment report, which is one of the most closely watched measures of the economy.”

http://www.thedailybell.com/news-analysis/34766/Census-Fakery-and-Banana-Republics/

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Privacy nightmare: Company advertises over 1bn license plate records

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“According to a statement made by Vigilant Solutions earlier this month, the company has over one billion logs in its system of license plates caught by LPR cameras capable of capturing data on thousands of automobiles each day. With the right access, any individual with LEARN or a similar system at their disposable can scour this data to see where and when a specific automobile traveled over time. But as the ACLU adamantly noted throughout its report earlier this year, many jurisdictions have no retention policy in place, allowing private companies like Vigilant Solutions and their law enforcement associates to indefinitely expand the amount of information in their networks.”

http://rt.com/usa/license-plate-ldr-database-039/

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Michigan: Use Plate Scanners To Boot Cars With Overdue Library Books

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“Around the same time, Bridgeport, Connecticut began using license plate scanning cameras to hunt down vehicles owned by minor debtors. The first victim of the then-new system, Calvin Carter, had $200 in back property taxes. At the time his car was hit, he was 100 feet from city hall, about to pay his taxes. New Haven used its camera scanners to seize cars from parishioners attending Sunday Mass and shoppers while they were in Wal-Mart. The city later transitioned to using the Denver boot as a cheaper alternative to towing. To have the car released, the alleged debtor must pay the original fine plus recovery costs.”

http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/42/4224.asp

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Next Stop On The Road To Surveillance State: License Plate Scanners

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“In Sanford, Florida, police are already sending ‘Dear John’ notices in the mail the owners of cars that cops see ‘lingering in areas known for prostitution.’ The goal here isn’t to arrest would-be Johns. This is extra-judicial punishment. The goal is to embarrass these guys should their wives open the letters. Michigan lawmakers are currently considering a bill that would enable police to put a boot on any car whose owner owes state or local government any amount of money. Arlington County, Virginia, passed a similar law in 2005, causing county treasurer Frank O’Leary to say, ‘I rub my hands together in great glee and anticipation. I think it’s beautiful, it gives us a whole new dimension to collection.'”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/20/next-stop-on-the-train-to_n_4309261.html

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The Border-Industrial Complex Goes Abroad

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“It should never be claimed that this mania for what we insist on calling ‘security’ provides no security for anyone.  After all, it guarantees the safety of those officially guarding us.  They always know that some small set of maniacs or other will make sure the funding never stops, their jobs will remain secure, and the military-industrial-complex, homeland-security complex, and border-security complex will continue to thrive in a country that’s been looking a little on the peaked side of late.  In this context, TomDispatch regular Todd Miller, who covers our borderlands for this site, offers us the latest news about how to keep border security rolling in dough.”

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175774/tomgram:_todd_miller,_the_border-industrial_complex_goes_abroad/

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