The Flower

Jonas, 32, sewed up his own leg after ER wait

A 32-year-old took the needle into his hands when he tired of the wait at Sundsvall hospital in northern Sweden and sewed up the cut in his leg himself. The man was later reported to the police for his impromptu handiwork.

"It took such a long time," the man told the local Sundsvall Tidning daily.

The man incurred the deep cut when he sliced his leg on the sharp edge of a kitchen stove while he was renovating at home.

"I first went to the health clinic, but it was closed. So I rang the medical help line and they told me that it shouldn't be closed, so I went to emergency and sat there," the man named only as Jonas told the newspaper.

After an hour-long wait in a treatment room, he lost patience and proceeded to sew up his own wound.

"They had set out a needle and thread and so I decided to take the matter into my hands," he said.

But hospital staff were not as impressed by his initiative and have reported the man on suspicion of criminal dispossession (egenmäktigt förfarande) for having used hospital equipment without authorization.

While Jonas admitted to the newspaper that he has no prior experience of sewing up himself he sought to play down the fuss that his handiwork has caused, arguing that "through the ages people have always sewn themselves up".

Cranberry rape victim's suit revived

By Brian Bowling

A federal appeals court Monday revived a Butler County woman's lawsuit against a Cranberry police detective who charged her with falsely reporting a crime after she was robbed and raped at gunpoint.

The Tribune-Review usually does not reveal the names of accusers in sexual assault cases, but Sara R. Reedy asked in 2005 to be identified so she could clear her name of any stigma from the criminal charges.

She was attacked on July 14, 2004, while working alone as a cashier at the JG Gulf Station in Cranberry. Detective Frank Evanson said Reedy made up the attack to cover her own theft of about $600 from the store. He charged her with falsely reporting a crime, theft and receiving stolen property.

Reedy spent five days in jail before she could post bail and was a month away from trial when police in Jefferson County in 2005 arrested Wilbur Cyrus Brown II as he sexually assaulted a store clerk.

Brown confessed to the attack on Reedy and to another attack that occurred three months later in Cranberry at the Landmark North Office Building. Butler County prosecutors dropped the charges against Reedy on Sept. 1, 2005.

A three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that evidence shows Evanson was the lead investigator of that second attack and knew the description of the assailant and the assault matched the description Reedy gave.

Evanson knew, before filing his charges against Reedy, that DNA from the Landmark assault connected the assailant to a series of rapes being investigated by a state police task force, the ruling said.

U.S. District Judge David Cercone, in a March 31, 2009, ruling, granted Evanson "qualified immunity" for his actions and dismissed the lawsuit. The appeals court said a jury, rather than the judge, should determine whether Evanson had probable cause for his charges or whether he knew he was violating Reedy's constitutional rights when he charged and arrested her.

Cercone said Evanson knowingly or recklessly included false statements in his arrest affidavit while omitting relevant information that would have prevented him from obtaining an arrest warrant, but the judge ruled that a "corrected" affidavit still established probable cause for the charges against Reedy.

The appeals judges disagreed. Cercone interpreted every fact in the light most favorable to Evanson when federal law requires him, in a summary judgment motion, to consider in the light most favorable to Reedy, the ruling said.

"Viewing the facts in the light most favorable to Reedy, no reasonably competent officer could have concluded at the time of Reedy's arrest that there was probable cause for the arrest," the ruling said.

The appeals court sent the case back to Cercone so it can proceed to trial. A lawyer for Evanson couldn't be reached for comment.

AMA report on CIA physicians' role in torture

Xeni Jardin

The Journal of the American Medical Association today published a report on the role of CIA doctors and psychiatrists in developing innovative torture techniques during the Bush-Cheney administration—techniques which are presumably still in use today.

Notes Andrew Sullivan (who also posts highlights of the AMA's subscribers-only report), "These individuals need to be stripped of their medical licenses and prosecuted under the Geneva Conventions. Fat chance under Obama."

See also this previous Boing Boing post, an interview with Physicians for Human Rights on the same topic earlier this year: Experiments in Torture: Physicians group alleges US conducted illegal research on detainees.

Mall implements 'youth escort policy'

By: Adam Marshall

CINCINNATI - As you walk through the doors at Tri-County Mall on a Friday or Saturday night you'll now see security guards checking identification for everyone who looks under 25.

It's all part of the new Youth Escort Policy.

The new rules require anyone under the age of 18 to have an escort with them 21 years of age or older.

The policy applies every Friday and Saturday from 4 p.m. to close.

Management at Tri-County Mall says it should make for a more pleasant shopping experience for their customers.

"Being youth, and being in large numbers unsupervised, they tend to get loud and rowdy and detract from a comfortable shopping atmosphere.,” said General Manager Michael Lyons.

To enforce the rules, there will be extra security at every entrance of the mall.

Some customers say the new rules are not necessary, while others agree with what mall management is trying to do.

"To this extent? Wristbands and security at every door, it's not fair. It's not right,” said 18 year-old Jahnise Bowie.

"Doing nothing but hanging out that that can be disruptive and therefore I'm OK with that part of it. But on the other hand, if you have a teenager that is here to shop, and that person is here to just pick up an item or two, I think he or she should be able to do that as well," said customer Derwin Jamison.

Management says they understand not everyone will be thrilled with the new policy, however the long-term effect on mall business should be positive.

"I think it's important to remember that this program is only going to be in place Friday evenings and Saturday evenings. There are five other days when the program isn't going to be in place at all," Lyons said.

Other facilities in the area do have similar policies, however none are this strict.

Feds admit storing checkpoint body scan images

by Declan McCullagh

TSA's X-ray backscatter scanning with "privacy filter"

For the last few years, federal agencies have defended body scanning by insisting that all images will be discarded as soon as they're viewed. The Transportation Security Administration claimed last summer, for instance, that "scanned images cannot be stored or recorded."

Now it turns out that some police agencies are storing the controversial images after all. The U.S. Marshals Service admitted this week that it had surreptitiously saved tens of thousands of images recorded with a millimeter wave system at the security checkpoint of a single Florida courthouse.

This follows an earlier disclosure (PDF) by the TSA that it requires all airport body scanners it purchases to be able to store and transmit images for "testing, training, and evaluation purposes." The agency says, however, that those capabilities are not normally activated when the devices are installed at airports.

Body scanners penetrate clothing to provide a highly detailed image so accurate that critics have likened it to a virtual strip search. Technologies vary, with millimeter wave systems capturing fuzzier images, and backscatter X-ray machines able to show precise anatomical detail. The U.S. government likes the idea because body scanners can detect concealed weapons better than traditional magnetometers.

This privacy debate, which has been simmering since the days of the Bush administration, came to a boil two weeks ago when Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that scanners would soon appear at virtually every major airport. The updated list includes airports in New York City, Dallas, Washington, Miami, San Francisco, Seattle, and Philadelphia.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, has filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to grant an immediate injunction pulling the plug on TSA's body scanning program. In a separate lawsuit, EPIC obtained a letter (PDF) from the Marshals Service, part of the Justice Department, and released it on Tuesday afternoon.

These "devices are designed and deployed in a way that allows the images to be routinely stored and recorded, which is exactly what the Marshals Service is doing," EPIC executive director Marc Rotenberg told CNET. "We think it's significant."

William Bordley, an associate general counsel with the Marshals Service, acknowledged in the letter that "approximately 35,314 images...have been stored on the Brijot Gen2 machine" used in the Orlando, Fla. federal courthouse. In addition, Bordley wrote, a Millivision machine was tested in the Washington, D.C. federal courthouse but it was sent back to the manufacturer, which now apparently possesses the image database.

The Gen 2 machine, manufactured by Brijot of Lake Mary, Fla., uses a millimeter wave radiometer and accompanying video camera to store up to 40,000 images and records. Brijot boasts that it can even be operated remotely: "The Gen 2 detection engine capability eliminates the need for constant user observation and local operation for effective monitoring. Using our APIs, instantly connect to your units from a remote location via the Brijot Client interface."

TSA's millimeter wave body scan

(Credit: TSA.gov)

This trickle of disclosures about the true capabilities of body scanners--and how they're being used in practice--is probably what alarms privacy advocates more than anything else.

A 70-page document (PDF) showing the TSA's procurement specifications, classified as "sensitive security information," says that in some modes the scanner must "allow exporting of image data in real time" and provide a mechanism for "high-speed transfer of image data" over the network. (It also says that image filters will "protect the identity, modesty, and privacy of the passenger.")

"TSA is not being straightforward with the public about the capabilities of these devices," Rotenberg said. "This is the Department of Homeland Security subjecting every U.S. traveler to an intrusive search that can be recorded without any suspicion--I think it's outrageous." EPIC's lawsuit says that the TSA should have announced formal regulations, and argues that the body scanners violate the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits "unreasonable" searches.

TSA spokeswoman Sari Koshetz told CNET on Wednesday that the agency's scanners are delivered to airports with the image recording functions turned off. "We're not recording them," she said. "I'm reiterating that to the public. We are not ever activating those capabilities at the airport."

The TSA maintains that body scanning is perfectly constitutional: "The program is designed to respect individual sensibilities regarding privacy, modesty and personal autonomy to the maximum extent possible, while still performing its crucial function of protecting all members of the public from potentially catastrophic events."

<i submit to you that there has never been a single case, ever, where the government said (of some new technology) "we will not use it for that purpose" and then did not.>

Red-Light Runners Could Get Refund

City May Have To Reimburse Those Who Paid Tickets From Cameras

ORLANDO, Fla. -- A recent ruling that states Orlando's ordinance governing red light ticket cameras is pre-empted by state law may mean reimbursements for those who paid tickets.Nearly 50,000 people were issued red light tickets in Orlando in the past two years, and the city still has all of that revenue."The money collected has not been spent, but held in an account in case the city would be required to pay any damages," said a city spokeswoman.Tyler Shepard received a ticket in the mail for more than $100 after the city snapped a picture of him running the light at Conroy and Vineland roads."I was not very happy about it, because I don't have a lot of money. I'm in college, so it was a very hard ticket to pay," Shepard said.Now, a judge's Monday afternoon ruling may mean the city might have to return the money.The ruling came after a local man who was fined sued the city.The city said it is reviewing the possibility of an appeal, and issued the following statement:"Although we are disappointed in the ruling, the City's red light program's impact on safety in our community is undisputed. Accidents have been reduced by 33 percent at intersections where the red light cameras have been installed. The ordinance has been successful in protecting the lives and property of our citizens and visitors."In July, statewide red-light camera laws went into effect. The city said from now on, Orlando's ordinance will mimic the current state law.The city has collected $4 million since the cameras went in place.

Man faces jail for videotaping gun-waving cop

Rob Beschizza

Police officer Joseph Uhler was caught on film charging out of his unmarked car and waving his gun at a unarmed motorcyclist pulled over for speeding. When the footage was uploaded to YouTube, authorities raided Anthony Graber's home, seized his computers, arrested him, and charged him with "wiretapping" offenses that could land him in jail for 16 years. Glyn writes in:

The ACLU of Maryland is defending Anthony Graber, who potentially faces 16 years in prison if found guilty of violating state wiretap laws because he recorded video of an officer drawing a gun during a traffic stop. The ACLU attorney handling the case says, "To charge Graber with violating the law, you would have to conclude that a police officer on a public road, wearing a badge and a uniform, performing his official duty, pulling someone over, somehow has a right to privacy when it comes to the conversation he has with the motorist."

Indeed, Maryland contends that Uhler had a reasonable expectation of privacy while waving his gun around in public and yelling at a motorist with a giant video camera mounted on the top of his helmet.

Remarkably, the state Attorney General has already opined that when police record in public, that is not a private conversation subject to the same laws. In other words, in any public interaction between a police officer and a member of the public in Maryland, it is private for one of them but not the other.

"We have looked, and have not been able to find a single court anywhere in the country that has found an expectation of privacy for an officer in such circumstances," writes the ACLU.

Brainless slime mould makes decisions like humans

A couple arrive at a fancy restaurant and they’re offered the wine list. This establishment only has two bottles on offer, one costing £5 and the other costing £25. The second bottle seems too expensive and the diners select the cheaper one. The next week, they return. Now, there’s a third bottle on the list but it’s a vintage, priced at a staggering £1,000. Suddenly, the £25 bottle doesn’t seem all that expensive, and this time, the diners choose it instead.

Businesses use this tactic all the time – an extremely expensive option is used to make mid-range ones suddenly seem like attractive buys. The strategy only works because humans like to compare our options, rather than paying attention to their absolute values. In the wine example, the existence of the third bottle shouldn’t matter – the £25 option costs the same amount either way, but in one scenario it looks like a rip-off and in another, it looks like a steal. The simple fact is that to us, a thing’s value depends on the things around it. Economists often refer to this as “irrational”.

But if that’s the case, we’re not alone in our folly. Other animals, from birds to bees, make choices in the same way. Now, Tanya Latty and Madeleine Beekman from the University of Sydney, have found the same style of decision-making in a creature that’s completely unlike any of these animals – the slime mould, Physarum polycephalum. It’s a single-celled, amoeba-like creature that doesn’t have a brain.

Physarum spends most of its life as a large mat called a ‘plasmodium’, which is a single cell that contains many nuclei. The plasmodium searches for food by moving along like an amoeba and sending out a network of tendrils. Its search patterns are very sophisticated for a brainless organism. A Japanese group found that if they placed the mould among food sources arranged like Tokyo’s urban centres, it created a network that closely resembled Tokyo’s actual railway system. The slimy network was optimised to transport nutrients to the main plasmodium.

Scientists have long since discovered that you can run simple decision-making experiments with Physarum by presenting it with several food sources and seeing how it behaves. Typically, the plasmodium touches all the potential meals and then either ‘decides’ to move towards one, or splits itself among many.

Latty and Beekman did one such test using two food sources – one containing 3% oatmeal and covered in darkness (known as 3D), and another with 5% oatmeal that was brightly lit (5L). Bright light easily damages Physarum, so it had to choose between a heftier but more irritating food source, and a smaller but more pleasant one. With no clear winner, it’s not surprising that the slime mould had no preference – it oozed towards each option just as often as the other.

But things changed when Latty and Beekman added a third option into the mix – a food source containing 1% oatmeal and shrouded in shadow (1D). This third alternative is clearly the inferior one, and Physarum had little time for it. However, its presence changed the mould’s attitude toward the previous two options. Now, 80% of the plasmodia headed towards the 3D source, while around 20% chose the brightly-lit 5L one.

These results strongly suggest that, like humans, Physarum doesn’t attach any intrinsic value to the options that are available to it. Instead, it compares its alternatives. Add something new into the mix, and its decisions change. The presence of the 1D option made the 3D one more attractive by comparison, even though the 3D and 5L alternatives were fundamentally unchanged.

This style of ‘comparative valuation’ may seem uncannily human, but it’s also one that’s shared by hummingbirds, starlings, honeybees and many other animals. In fact, Latty and Beekman think that it’s a “common feature of biological decision-making”. Certainly, it’s a much easier process – comparing two nearby options is less “computationally intensive” than making absolute judgments about each of them.

But how does Physarum make decisions at all without a brain? The answer is deceptively simple – it does so by committee. Every plasmodium is basically a big sac of fluid, where each part rhythmically contracts and expands, pushing the fluid inside back-and-forth. The rate of the contractions depends on what neighbouring parts of the sac are doing, and by the local environment. They happen faster when the plasmodium touches something attractive like food, and they slow down when repellent things like sunlight are nearby.

Despite being a single cell, each part of the plasmodium acts like a tiny individual, reacting to information from its environment. By combining these reactions, the entire plasmodium flows towards things it likes and away from things it doesn’t, all without a single conscious thought. It’s the ultimate in collective decision-making and it allows Physarum to perform remarkable feats of “intelligence”, including simulating Tokyo’s transport network, solving mazes, and even driving robots.

Reference: Proc Roy Soc B http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2010.1045

Why democracy sucks

Anti-terrorist hotline ad banned for being 'offensive'

Police said the advert highlighted the fact that terrorists were living within communities

A radio advert urging listeners to report suspected terrorists has been banned by a watchdog for potentially offending law-abiding people.

The anti-terrorist hotline ad suggests suspicious behaviour may include paying with cash and keeping curtains drawn.

The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), which was behind the campaign, said seemingly insignificant behaviour could be linked to terrorism.

But the Advertising Standards Authority ruled it could cause "serious offence".

Some 18 listeners who heard the advert, broadcast on Talksport, complained to the watchdog.

Of those, 10 said it could be offensive to law-abiding citizens, while the rest said it could encourage people to harass or victimise their neighbours and was appealing to people's fear.

In the advert, a man says: "The man at the end of the street doesn't talk to his neighbours much, because he likes to keep himself to himself.

"He pays with cash because he doesn't have a bank card, and he keeps his curtains closed because his house is on a bus route."

It then says: "If you suspect it, report it."

The campaign by the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) was aimed at promoting the confidential anti-terrorist hotline.

The Metropolitan Police, speaking on Acpo's behalf, said the ad addressed the issue of terrorists living within communities "and sometimes what appeared to be an insignificant behaviour could potentially be linked to terrorist activities".

It said the behaviour mentioned was based on trends identified by the police and evidence given in court.

Reporting neighbours

Talksport said the script avoided stereotyping and made no appeals to prejudice.

But the ASA concluded the ad could describe the behaviour of a number of law-abiding people within a community.

"We considered that some listeners, who might identify with the behaviours referred to in the ad, could find the implication that their behaviour was suspicious, offensive.

"We also considered that some listeners might be offended by the suggestion that they report members of their community for acting in the way described.

"We therefore concluded that the ad could cause serious offence."

However the ASA also found the advert was not sensationalist, nor did it encourage victimisation or make an undue appeal to fear.

The ASA banned the advert in its current form.

<you gotta love how it was banned for being offensive instead of criminally insane>

Tracking your car? Cops need a warrant, says judge

By Jacqui Cheng

Police cannot surreptitiously stick a GPS unit on your car and track your movements without a warrant, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has ruled. In an opinion published Friday, the court said that police use of GPS evidence to convict two individuals was a violation of the Fourth Amendment, and that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy when it comes to their movements over an extended period of time.

Warrantless GPS tracking has always been a contentious issue, with supporters arguing that an individual can make similar observations about the location of your car just by driving around town and noting that you're at home, you're at the grocery store, you're at the strip club, and so on.

Detractors, which include the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union, argue that it's one thing to note someone's car location and another to keep hourly data on every single stop you make along a specific route for days or months on end.

In this particular case, two nightclub owners, Antoine Jones and Lawrence Maynard, had been convicted on narcotics charges in part due to police-collected GPS data. Police had planted* the GPS unit on a car that was parked on private property, then tracked its whereabouts for a month. The government argued that the suspects had no reasonable expectation of privacy because their movements took place out in public.

The appeals court disagreed. "Society recognizes Jones‘ expectation of privacy in his movements over the course of a month as reasonable, and the use of the GPS device to monitor those movements defeated that reasonable expectation," wrote the court.

Both the ACLU and EFF applauded the decision, saying that the Supreme Court had not considered location tracking in such depth and for such a long period of time.

"GPS tracking enables the police to know when you visit your doctor, your lawyer, your church, or your lover," ACLU-NCA Legal Director Arthur Spitzer said in a statement. "And if many people are tracked, GPS data will show when and where they cross paths. Judicial supervision of this powerful technology is essential if we are to preserve individual liberty. Today's decision helps brings the Fourth Amendment into the 21st Century."

The decision does indeed help set a precedent for future cases, though similar decisions vary by state. In 2009, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals ruled that warrantless GPS tracking did not violate an individual's Fourth Amendment rights, while the New York Court of Appeals said that it did.

In Jones' case, his conviction was heavily dependent upon the GPS data collected by police; as a result, the court reversed his conviction. (Maynard wasn't so lucky, as there was other convincing evidence against him.)

* The court documents don't say what police used in this specific situation, but the court's opinion includes a description of a miniature GPS dart, a radio transmitter, and a battery in "a sticky compound material" that will stick to a vehicle when fired. Perhaps we're late to the party, but this is some serious Spiderman tech going on here.

A simple plan to ruin your boss: plant child porn on his PC

By Jon Stokes

A disgruntled maintenance worker at a UK secondary school has been accused of planting child pornography on his boss' computer in order to have his boss fired and to ruin the man's life.

The perpetrator allegedly mailed a CD containing child pornography to the police, claiming that it came from his boss' computer. He also planted child porn on his boss' laptop and then phoned in an anonymous tip to the police, who seized the laptop and arrested the victim.

Police eventually traced the anonymous mobile call back to the disgruntled employee, who had been bragging at a barbecue that he planned to carry out just such a scheme against his boss.

Why would he do such a thing? The boss was a real jerk.

According to the UK Press Association, that boss was maintenance supervisor Eddie Thompson, who last week told a court that his relationship with other staff at the school "was not a good one. I have a reputation of being exceedingly grumpy, bad tempered, and irascible—that's what I am."

What's frightening about this story is not only that it happened, but that the original porn planting and subsequent arrest happened in 2006, and real story didn't come out until 2007, when the disgruntled employee was finally arrested. The boss and his wife spent the intervening year being terrorized by angry neighbors and shunned by friends, family, and coworkers. The case is currently being tried in court, which is why all of the details are in the public eye now (and UK papers have been having a field day with them).

The stigma of possessing child porn means that such allegations, even if later proven untrue, can be damning. And the allegation can indeed turn out to be untrue. In 2002, UK police accused over 7,000 people of purchasing child porn from a website, but it later turned out that hundreds of them were merely victims of credit card fraud. Their credit cards had been stolen and used to purchase child porn, so they ended up getting caught in the police dragnet. One of those victims was Simon Bunce, a UK resident whose identity was stolen by a pedophile. Bunce was caught up in the aforementioned pedophile sting, dubbed Operation Ore. Before being fully cleared by the police, Bunce lost his high-paying job, and his family members disowned him. He may never be able to repair the damage to his reputation.

Correction: Operation Ore was in 2002, not 2007. It was only later in the decade that many of the stories of those falsely accused began to emerge.

An American Stasi?: The surveillance state

The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette reported on July 25 that “there are 72 fusion centers around the nation, analyzing and disseminating data and information of all kinds. That is one for every state and others for large urban cities.”

What is a fusion center?

The answer depends on your perspective. If you work for the Department of Homeland Security, it is a federal, state, local, or regional data-coordination units, designed to improve the sharing of anti-terrorism and anti-crime data in order to make America safer. If you are privacy or civil-rights advocate, it is part of a powerful new domestic surveillance infrastructure that combines data from both the public and private sectors to track innocent people and so makes Americans less safe from their own government. In that respect, the fusion center is reminiscent of the East German stasi, which used tens of thousands of state police and hundreds of thousands of informers to monitor an estimated one-third of the population.

The history of fusion centers provides insight into which answer is correct.

Fusion centers began in 2003 under the administration of George W. Bush as a joint project between the departments of Justice and Homeland Security. The purpose (pdf) is to coordinate federal and local law enforcement by using the “800,000 plus law enforcement officers across the country” whose intimate awareness of their own communities makes them “best placed to function as the ‘eyes and ears’ of an extended national security community.” The fusion centers are hubs for the coordination. By April 2008 there were 58.

The growth has continued under the Obama administration. Indeed, Obama has also continued Bush’s concealment of domestic intelligence activity by threatening to veto legislation that authorizes broader congressional oversight or review of intelligence agencies by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). As a result of that threat, the GAO provision was removed from the Intelligence Authorization Act.

Due to secrecy, it is difficult to describe a typical fusion center. But if the Indiana Intelligence Fusion Center is typical, this is what one looks like.

Indiana’s center has essentially become an arm of Indiana law enforcement…. It has 31 full-time staffers and two part-time employees. Some … are state employees. Others are assigned to the center from other agencies, such as the FBI, Transportation Security Administration, and Marion County Sheriff’s Department. They are joined by workers from the Department of Correction, the Indiana National Guard, the Indiana State Police, the Department of Natural Resources and local campus police…. There are also private sector analysts on contract. Previously those analysts were from EG&G Technical Services of California. The most recent contract with EG&G called for payment of $1.1 million….

Fusion centers invite reports from public employees such as firemen, ambulance drivers, and sanitation workers as well as from the private sector such as hospitals and neighborhood watch groups. They often operate tip hotlines; this means a “suspect’s” name could be submitted by a disgruntled employee, a hostile neighbor, or an ex-spouse who seeks child custody.

What or who is targeted by this sweeping coordination of data?

To get an idea, let’s look at the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) program, which the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence said “should be a national model.” In June 2008 the departments of Justice and Homeland Security recommended expansion of the LAPD program to other cities.

In April 2008 the Wall Street Journal reported on a new LAPD policy that compelled officers to report “suspicious behaviors” to the local fusion center. LAPD Special Order #11, dated March 5, 2008, defined a list of 65 suspicious behaviors, including using binoculars, taking pictures or video footage “with no apparent esthetic value,” abandoning a vehicle, taking notes, and espousing extremist views. Local police were converted into domestic surveillance agents.

Voices of caution were present from the inception of fusion centers. Former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr stated

Using the resources of federal and state law enforcement to encourage the citizenry to submit to the government information on the political, social and even religious views of other people, is in itself outrageous. For the government to then data-base that information, disseminate it widely, and clearly imply that views with which it may disagree provides an appropriate basis on which to surveil citizens and collect information on them, is beyond the pale. It is also a poor and inefficient use of police resources.

Political Abuse

Violation of privacy rights, excessive secrecy, lack of congressional oversight, the inevitability of inaccurate and noncorrectable information, the lack of due process for the accused, the encouragement of racial/religious profiling, the creation of a “snitch” nation, the merging of the military with the private sector, the political abuse of dissidents – the objections scroll on. Specific abuses scroll on as well. They include:

Maryland: Fifty-three nonviolent political activists, including antiwar and anti-death penalty activists, were labeled as terrorists and actively surveilled for 14 months.

Minnesota: Eight anarchist protesters who planned to protest the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis were preemptively arrested and charged with terrorism. In Minnesota, a crime can become terrorism if it disrupts the conduct of government.

Texas: A leaked intelligence bulletin from the North Central Texas Fusion System asked police officers to report on Islamic and antiwar lobbying groups

Missouri: Supporters of third party presidential candidates, pro-life activists, and conspiracy theorists were targeted as potential militia members.

Virginia (pdf): A terrorism threat assessment included certain universities as breeding grounds for terrorism, including historically black colleges.

A more comprehensive list of fusion abuse is available in the ACLU’s Survey of Reported Incidents (pdf). See also the ACLU’s interactive map for what’s happening in your state.

Only Aberrations?

Clearly, the elaborate infrastructure of fusion centers has spied on peaceful citizens. Those who believe the abuses are aberrations, rather than an inherent or intended function, may argue that increased transparency will bring accountability and solve the problem. But that belief is naive. At least four reasons indicate that a lack of transparency and accountability are built into the system — the absence of real congressional oversight being number one.

Second, the ACLU and others have filed numerous Freedom of Information Act requests. They have had to fight tooth-and-nail for any scrap of information.

Third, as the ACLU (pdf) notes, “[T]here appears to be an effort by the federal government to coerce states into exempting their fusion centers from state open government laws. For those living in Virginia, it’s already too late; the Virginia General Assembly passed a law in April 2008 exempting the state’s fusion center from the Freedom of Information Act. According to comments by the commander of the Virginia State Police Criminal Intelligence Division and the administrative head of the center, the federal government pressured Virginia into passing the law…. [T]here is a real danger fusion centers will become a ‘one-way mirror’ in which citizens are subject to ever-greater scrutiny by the authorities, even while the authorities are increasingly protected from scrutiny by the public.”

Fourth, much of the information used by fusion centers comes from private databases such as Accurate, Choice Point, Lexis-Nexus, Locate Plus, insurance claims, and credit reports. Moreover, the centers access millions of government files like the Federal Trade Commission ID theft reports and DMV records. Why is this important? The federal government has adopted various laws to prevent the maintenance of databases on average Americans, but if fusion centers access the other existing files, they would bypass those laws.

A massive database on peaceful citizens, a tip hotline that encourages turning in of neighbors, the casting of suspicion on daily activities, enlisting private workers as national surveillance agents — this is a police state in the making. And if its creation is invisible to most people, well, that is another characteristic of a police state. You are not a believer until it knocks on your door … in the middle of the night.

UAE to suspend Blackberry services in October

The United Arab Emirates will suspend use of Blackberry services in October, citing concerns about security risks, the state news agency said on Sunday.

The UAE said it would halt Blackberry services until an "acceptable solution" is developed and applied.

"In the public interest, we have today informed the providers of telecommunications services in the country of our decision to suspend the Blackberry services of messenger, email and electronic browsing," Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) chief Mohammed al-Ghanem said.

"It's a final decision but we are continuing discussions with them," Ghanem, told Reuters. "Censorship has got nothing to do with this. What we are talking about is suspension due to the lack of compliance with UAE telecommunications regulations." Officials at the smartphone's manufacturer Research In Motion of Canada were not immediately available for comment. The suspension of Blackberry Messenger, email and web browsing services comes after attempts dating back to 2007 to bring the service into line with regulations, according to the TRA. "Today's decision is based on the fact that, in their current form, certain Blackberry services allow users to act without any legal accountability, causing judicial, social and national security concerns for the UAE," the state news agency WAM reported. "Blackberry data is immediately exported offshore, where it is managed by a foreign, commercial organization. Blackberry data services are currently the only data services operating in the UAE where this is the case." The decision will not affect users of rival Nokia and Apple's iPhone smartphones. BlackBerry, which holds around 20 percent of the global smartphone market behind Nokia but ahead of Apple, has an estimated 500,000 users in the UAE. Last week, the Gulf Arab state said that the Blackberry, is open to misuse that poses security risks. Bahrain in April warned against the use of Blackberry Messenger software to distribute local news and India raised security concerns with the Canadian company last week .

"Animal connection" helps separate humans from other species

By Kate Shaw

For centuries, people have tried to pinpoint what makes humans unique. The most current scientific theory suggests that three main qualities separate Homo sapiens from other animals: the construction and use of complex tools, the use of symbolic behavior including language, art, and ritual, and the domestication of other plants and animals. However, in a new paper in Current Anthropology, Dr. Pat Shipman suggests a fourth trait unique to humans.

Shipman cites humans' long history of learning about and understanding animals as a unique trait, calling this tendency "the animal connection." She claims that this relationship is the common unifying factor that underlies each of the other three previously recognized human traits, and has played a major role in human evolution over the last 2.6 million years.

It’s undeniable that humans have a very close relationship with animals. Here in the US, we spend $41.2 billion on our pets every year. Over 60 percent of Australian households have animals. There are more dogs in Japan than there are children under 12. In tribal societies, there are reports of women breast-feeding young animals. Humans' intimate connection with animals is nearly universal across cultures, yet interspecies relationships are extremely rare in other animals.

Among nonhumans, there are very few instances in which a member of one species has been observed adopting the young of another species, a behavior scientists call "cross-species alloparenting." Most reports of this type of adoption are the result of human involvement; cross-species alloparenting occurs incredibly rarely in the wild but instances have occasionally been observed, such as a female capuchin monkey nursing a young marmoset.

Shipman asserts that humans' invention and use of stone tools about 2.6 million years ago helped them successfully hunt and quickly dispatch large carcasses, allowing them to become major players in the predatory guild. As a result, humans became much more in tune with animals for two reasons: the better they understood their prey, the more efficient hunters they would be, and the better they could evade and outcompete other carnivores. Thus, the animal connection began; because it enhanced survival, learning about animals' anatomy and behavior became a very advantageous pursuit.

The animal connection is strongly evident in another trait that is considered unique to humans: symbolic behavior, specifically art. Animals were the main subject of prehistoric art. Incredibly specific details can be recognized from early cave drawings, including animals' colors, particular behaviors, and dimorphism between the sexes.

Other topics that one would expect to be important to early humans, such as landscapes, shelters, weather, and water sources, are conspicuously absent from prehistoric art. Early humans not only spent a great amount of time learning about animals, but they also saw the value of depicting them in images and communicating information about them.

Finally, Shipman claims that by domesticating animals, humans used them as "living tools." Evidence shows that dogs were the first animals to be domesticated, suggesting that the first domesticates were not used as food sources. In early societies, animals served many purposes, such as carrying heavy loads, providing raw materials such as wool, producing fertilizer, protecting people, hunting game, and transporting goods. By using their accumulated knowledge and understanding of animals, humans were able to transform other species into "living tools" that enhanced their own fitness.

According to the author, each of these three uniquely "human" qualities—learning to make and use stone tools, engaging in symbolic behavior, and domesticating other species— illustrates the adaptive advantages conferred to humans by having a deep understanding of animals.

However, the paper is not without its shortcomings. Shipman discusses the divide between animals and humans as if the differences were a dichotomy, rather than a spectrum. For instance, chimpanzees are extremely adept at making and using tools, and some ant species can be said to domesticate fungi; however, Shipman has drawn a firm line between the abilities of humans and those of other animals without sufficient time spent justifying it.

Similarly, while Shipman acknowledges that domestication is a "reciprocal" process, she fails to fully flesh out the consequences of this reciprocity. If domestication is a result of humans' supposedly unique animal connection, yet domestication is reciprocal, it follows that animals also have some innate ability to relate to and understand humans as well. Dogs, for instance, are very skilled at interacting with humans, and this ability has certainly enhanced their fitness and influenced their evolution. However, this line of reasoning goes undiscussed in the article.

Despite these issues, the evidence in the paper is persuasive, strongly suggesting that humans' inclination and ability to understand animals have had major implications for our evolution. It remains to be seen whether or not these four qualities are actually unique to Homo sapiens, but "the animal connection" is a novel and interesting way to consider the implications of the long and intimate history between humans and animals.

Senator: Internet gatekeepers biggest threat to free speech

By Nate Anderson

Comedian-turned-senator Al Franken (D-MN) has ditched the potty jokes and Stuart Smalley routine since taking office, turning himself into a surprisingly articulate and strident voice in favor of net neutrality and against the Comcast/NBC merger. Back in February, when a Senate hearing offered him the chance to grill Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, Franken took it.

"In other words," Franken lectured, "looking to get approval for this merger, you sat there in my office and told me to my face that these rules would protect consumers, but your lawyers had just finished arguing in front of the Commission that it would be unconstitutional to apply these rules."

Feisty! But it turns out he was just getting warmed up. At last week's Netroots Nation conference in Las Vegas, Franken put aside all pretense of subtlety. While government was once the greatest threat to First Amendment rights regarding freedom of speech, Franken argued that the great threat now is corporations. Specifically, the threat comes from corporations who also control the major Internet pipes.

"I believe that net neutrality is the First Amendment issue of our time," Franken said.

"Comcast merges with NBC. How long do you think it will take for Verizon and AT&T to start looking at CBS/Viacom and ABC/Disney? If no one stops them, how long do you think it will take before four or five mega-corporations effectively control the flow of information in America, not only on television but online? If we don't protect net neutrality now, how long do you think it will take before Comcast/NBC/Universal or Verizon/CBS/Viacom or AT&T/ABC/DirecTV or BP/Halliburton/Walmart/Fox/Domino's Pizza [laughter] will start favoring its content over everyone else's?"

But how many others in Congress share this view? While net neutrality was a hot topic last year and the year before, it has languished on Capitol Hill as the Republican and Democrat FCC Chairmen asserted their rights to regulate ISP behavior. Now that a federal court has shot down the FCC's legal arguments and the new "third way" proposal has attracted plenty of criticism, passing an unambiguous law might be the simplest way to resolve the debate.

It's safe to say that Franken would vote in favor of such a bill, and other top Democrats have expressed support, as have a few Republicans like Susan Collins of Maine. Political will to tackle the issue looks limited, however, even if it is the "First Amendment issue of our time."

(Bonus discussion question: is net neutrality the First Amendment issue of our time?)