Student finds tracking device on his car; FBI demands it back | Raw Story
Topic: Society
1:25 pm EDT, Oct 13, 2010
A Silicon Valley college student says the FBI confronted him and threatened to "make things difficult" for him if he didn't hand over a GPS tracking device he found on his car, says a report at Wired.com.
Yasir Afifi, a 20-year-old marketing student at Mission College who is partially of Egyptian extraction, said he found the device last Sunday when he took his car to a mechanic, and saw wires sticking out of the underside, near the exhaust pipe.
He told Wired he had "done nothing to merit attention from authorities."
A friend of Afifi's, identified only as Khaled, posted pictures of the device to Reddit.com, where a user quickly identified it as a Guardian ST820 tracking unit, manufactured by Cobham, which, according to Wired, only sells the device to law enforcement agencies.
As Afifi and Khaled pondered a number of plans for the device -- including selling it on Craigslist or attaching it to another car -- the FBI showed up, admitted it had planted the device, and demanded it back, Afifi told Wired.nullnull
American Thinker Blog: Amanpour Inadvertently Exposes the Real Issue with Islam
Topic: Society
10:45 pm EDT, Oct 12, 2010
Choudary proclaims that he disagrees with the entire focus of the segment, and argues that the notions of moderate Islam or extremist Islam are nonsense. There is only Islam, whose followers "submit to the creator." Then, in an effort to convey that Islam can live in peace with the Western world, he concludes, "We do believe as Muslims that the east and the west will one day be governed by the Sharia. Indeed we believe that one day the flag of Islam will fly over the White House."
It is obvious that his statements reinforce what some Christian panel guests believe to be the truth, and that those statements certainly don't support the notion of peaceful and tolerant Islam.
So a Muslim woman in the panel decided to take Choudary to task for his reckless and inflammatory statements, and she went on to instruct him that Islam is a faith of pluralism, and that it provides an allowance of other faiths to exist in a state of equal importance.
Had she been speaking to the panel's Christian reverend in that moment, she likely could have won the argument just as she has probably won countless others; by merely saying, "I know better than you Christians do about Islam. I'm a Muslim." But my guess is that she forgot that she was speaking with someone who had given far more study to the Quran and Hadith than most Christian theologians.
To her assumption of Islamic tolerance of other faiths and legal systems, Choudary simply suggests that she knows nothing of what Islam desires or requires; she doesn't even have the good sense to cover herself. Doesn't she know that the Quran forbids her appearance in that way? So in his eyes, she is not truly a Muslim, as true Muslims are not granted the liberty to sift through Islamic doctrine and select their preferred methods of religious practice. He even makes the comparison that she is a Muslim in the same way that a person who occasionally eats beef burgers is a vegetarian.
And she cannot argue. The holy book of her faith does explicitly forbid women to present themselves as she does.
Shoplifting is at its highest recorded levels, £4.88 billion a year according to the Centre for Retail Research. Internet Eyes has been designed to combat this rise by detecting these crimes as they happen.
Internet Eyes is an online instant event notification system allowing our registered Viewers to monitor live CCTV feed from our Business Customers, and notify them the instant a crime is observed.
A source working with the police in the field of CCTV monitoring stated.
"Internet Eyes has the potential to have a positive impact on reducing shoplifting and other crimes" join our mailing list * indicates required Email Address * Close
The sole purpose of Internet Eyes is to enable responsible members of the public to use the latest technology to help shopkeepers and the police combat the serious social harm that shoplifting causes. Images may not be copied or used for any other purpose. Misuse of personal data may be a crime under Data Protection Laws. Please read our Terms and Conditions before registering.nullnull
Google's CEO: 'The Laws Are Written by Lobbyists' - Derek Thompson - Technology - The Atlantic
Topic: Society
1:41 pm EDT, Oct 6, 2010
"The average American doesn't realize how much of the laws are written by lobbyists"
Yeah, thats true - people probably don't understand that. Congressional offices don't have enough staff to write the reams of legislation they put through. Those guys are merely a deliberative power brokering process. The actual law writing gets done across the street by lawyers who, incidentally, make a lot more money. People talk shit about lobbyists, but lobbyists are basically how laws get made. Should Congress employ more staff and pay them more? If they tried, everyone would be up in arms that they are becoming corrupt! For all the talk about "special interests" I'm not aware of anyone who has a serious proposal for an alternative.
But this article has more juicy nuggets:
"Google policy is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it," he said. Google implants, he added, probably crosses that line.
At the same time, Schmidt envisions a future where we embrace a larger role for machines and technology. "With your permission you give us more information about you, about your friends, and we can improve the quality of our searches," he said. "We don't need you to type at all. We know where you are. We know where you've been. We can more or less now what you're thinking about."
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Laws banning texting while driving actually may prompt a slight increase in road crashes, research out today shows.
The findings, to be unveiled at a meeting here of 550 traffic safety professionals from around the USA, come amid a heightened national debate over distracted driving.
"Texting bans haven't reduced crashes at all," says Adrian Lund, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, whose research arm studied the effectiveness of the laws.nullnullnull
Obama argues his assassination program is a "state secret" - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com
Topic: Society
3:50 pm EDT, Sep 27, 2010
At this point, I didn't believe it was possible, but the Obama administration has just reached an all-new low in its abysmal civil liberties record. In response to the lawsuit filed by Anwar Awlaki's father asking a court to enjoin the President from assassinating his son, a U.S. citizen, without any due process, the administration late last night, according to The Washington Post, filed a brief asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit without hearing the merits of the claims. That's not surprising: both the Bush and Obama administrations have repeatedly insisted that their secret conduct is legal but nonetheless urge courts not to even rule on its legality. But what's most notable here is that one of the arguments the Obama DOJ raises to demand dismissal of this lawsuit is "state secrets": in other words, not only does the President have the right to sentence Americans to death with no due process or charges of any kind, but his decisions as to who will be killed and why he wants them dead are "state secrets," and thus no court may adjudicate their legality.null
ALA | Top ten most frequently challenged books list of 2009
Topic: Society
3:22 pm EDT, Sep 27, 2010
Out of 460 challenges as reported to the Office for Intellectual Freedom 1. ttyl; ttfn; l8r, g8r (series), by Lauren Myracle Reasons: drugs, nudity, offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group 2. And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson Reasons: homosexuality 3. The Perks of Being A Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky Reasons: anti-family, drugs, homosexuality, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, suicide, unsuited to age group 4. To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee Reasons: offensive language, racism, unsuited to age group 5. Twilight (series) by Stephenie Meyer Reasons: religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group 6. Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group 7. My Sister’s Keeper, by Jodi Picoult Reasons: homosexuality, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexism, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, violence 8. The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things, by Carolyn Mackler Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group 9. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group 10. The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier Reasons: nudity, offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
