Welcome! "The Evening Blues" is a casual community diary (published Monday - Friday, 8:00 PM Eastern) where we hang out, share and talk about news, music, photography and other things of interest to the community.
Just about anything goes, but attacks and pie fights are not welcome here. This is a community diary and a friendly, peaceful, supportive place for people to interact.
Everyone who wants to join in peaceful interaction is very welcome here.
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Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features eclectic jazz composer and performer Sun Ra. Enjoy!
Sun Ra - Searchlight Blues
“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”
-- Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
News and Opinion
NSA Confirms Dragnet Phone Records Collection, But Admits It Was Key In Stopping Just 1 Terror Plot
SPENCER ACKERMAN: What you heard was extraordinary. You heard the deputy director of the NSA say two things simultaneously—first, that the bulk phone records collection that’s gone on for at least seven years of all Americans’ phone records—hundreds of million, yours, mine, everyone’s, your neighbors’, your family members’—has in maybe one case—maybe—stopped a terrorist attack, maybe, at absolute most. And he also said—and this is the subtler thing that’s easier to miss but is very important to link with yesterday’s documents disclosure—he said that was the wrong way to view the program, that it wasn’t a sort of, as he put it, "but for" instance of actually directly stopping a plot. That’s not really the right way to view it, he said.
Well, look at what they told Congress in 2009 and 2011, the documents that the Obama administration disclosed yesterday. They present both of these programs—the one that we sort of commonly call PRISM, the Internet habits and communications collection program, and the bulk phone records program that they call 215—when you put them together, they describe them indistinctly, inseparably, and talk about how they directly disrupted terrorist plots, and tell Congress, in secret documents, that disclosing these programs would disrupt or potentially disrupt one of the most important safeguards to keeping the country safe since 9/11 and making sure that there’s not another terrorist attack. That’s what they told Congress ahead of key votes authorizing these programs. And now in open session, directly, they can’t even say that seven years’ worth of phone records collection, basically a network of everyone’s social interactions conducted over the telephone, which is very easy to tell from metadata, for seven years, from all Americans, has maybe stopped one terrorist plot.
Feds put heat on Web firms for master encryption keys
Whether the FBI and NSA have the legal authority to obtain the master keys that companies use for Web encryption remains an open question, but it hasn't stopped the U.S. government from trying.
The U.S. government has attempted to obtain the master encryption keys that Internet companies use to shield millions of users' private Web communications from eavesdropping.
These demands for master encryption keys, which have not been disclosed previously, represent a technological escalation in the clandestine methods that the FBI and the National Security Agency employ when conducting electronic surveillance against Internet users.
If the government obtains a company's master encryption key, agents could decrypt the contents of communications intercepted through a wiretap or by invoking the potent surveillance authorities of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Web encryption -- which often appears in a browser with a HTTPS lock icon when enabled -- uses a technique called SSL, or Secure Sockets Layer.
"The government is definitely demanding SSL keys from providers," said one person who has responded to government attempts to obtain encryption keys. The source spoke with CNET on condition of anonymity.
The person said that large Internet companies have resisted the requests on the grounds that they go beyond what the law permits, but voiced concern that smaller companies without well-staffed legal departments might be less willing to put up a fight. "I believe the government is beating up on the little guys," the person said. "The government's view is that anything we can think of, we can compel you to do."
NSA's Google: XKeyscore search engine for all private info
Looks like the NSA may be using the lax regulatory climate of the UK to get around US regulations limiting their ability to spy on Americans. Surprise, surprise, surprise!
NSA pays £100m in secret funding for GCHQ
• Secret payments revealed in leaks by Edward Snowden
• GCHQ expected to 'pull its weight' for Americans
• Weaker regulation of British spies 'a selling point' for
NSA
The US government has paid at least £100m to the UK spy agency GCHQ over the last three years to secure access to and influence over Britain's intelligence gathering programmes.
The top secret payments are set out in documents which make clear that the Americans expect a return on the investment, and that GCHQ has to work hard to meet their demands. "GCHQ must pull its weight and be seen to pull its weight," a GCHQ strategy briefing said. ...
Ministers have denied that GCHQ does the NSA's "dirty work", but in the documents GCHQ describes Britain's surveillance laws and regulatory regime as a "selling point" for the Americans. ...
No other detail is provided â but it raises the possibility that GCHQ might have been spying on an American living in the US. The NSA is prohibited from doing this by US law.
NSA Secrets Kill Our Trust
In July 2012, responding to allegations that the video-chat service Skype -- owned by Microsoft -- was changing its protocols to make it possible for the government to eavesdrop on users, Corporate Vice President Mark Gillett took to the company's blog to deny it.
Or at least he -- or the company's lawyers -- carefully crafted a statement that could be defended as true while completely deceiving the reader. You see, Skype wasn't changing its protocols to make it possible for the government to eavesdrop on users, because the government was already able to eavesdrop on users. ...
Google and Facebook insist that the NSA has no "direct access" to their servers. Of course not; the smart way for the NSA to get all the data is through sniffers.
Apple says it's never heard of PRISM. Of course not; that's the internal name of the NSA database. Companies are publishing reports purporting to show how few requests for customer-data access they've received, a meaningless number when a single Verizon request can cover all of their customers. The Guardian reported that Microsoft secretly worked with the NSA to subvert the security of Outlook, something it carefully denies. Even President Obama's justifications and denials are phrased with the intent that the listener will take his words very literally and not wonder what they really mean.
Both government agencies and corporations have cloaked themselves in so much secrecy that it's impossible to verify anything they say; revelation after revelation demonstrates that they've been lying to us regularly and tell the truth only when there's no alternative.
I'm posting this on the off chance that somebody missed Glennzilla's beautiful takedown of Jeffrey "I just love Obama's talking points" Toobin. It's too good to miss:
Glenn Greenwald Piers Morgan On XKEYSCORE
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism finds evidence of more US war crimes. Double-tap drone strikes, thought to have been terminated in 2011, have been revived as a tactic by the US. The Bureau also finds evidence of CIA lying and misrepresentations to Congressional overseers.
Bureau investigation finds fresh evidence of CIA drone strikes on rescuers
A field investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in Pakistan's tribal areas appears to confirm that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) last year briefly revived the controversial tactic of deliberately targeting rescuers at the scene of a previous drone strike. The tactic has previously been labelled a possible war crime by two UN investigators.
The Bureau's new study focused mainly on strikes around a single village in North Waziristan - attacks that were aimed at one of al Qaeda's few remaining senior figures, Yahya al-Libi. He was finally killed by a CIA drone strike on June 4 2012.
Congressional aides have previously been reported as describing to the Los Angeles Times reviewing a CIA video showing Yahya al-Libi alone being killed. But the Bureauâs field research appears to confirm what others reported at the time â that al-Libiâs death was part of a sequence of strikes on the same location that killed up to 16 people.
If correct, that would indicate that Congressional aides were not shown crucial additional video material.
The CIA has robustly rejected the charge. Spokesman Edward Price told the Bureau: "The CIA takes its commitment to Congressional oversight with the utmost seriousness. The Agency provides accurate and timely information consistent with our obligation to the oversight Committees. Any accusation alleging otherwise is baseless."
Saddle up fellas, it's going to be a longer ride than we were told.
Afghanistan, U.S. near agreement on post-2014 force
The United States and Afghanistan have resolved most issues and are nearing completion of an agreement that paves the way for an American military presence after 2014 that will include a limited U.S. counterterrorism force and military advisers.
"We're at the point now where we concluded the text," said a senior State Department official familiar with the negotiations. "We're in a period of endgame." The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the deal is not official.
Without the so-called bilateral security agreement, the United States would be unable to remain beyond 2014, jeopardizing Afghanistan's government and its armed forces.
The Afghans have agreed to continue to allow the United States to maintain legal jurisdiction over its troops in Afghanistan, a requirement the Pentagon said was not negotiable.
Welcome to Washington, Oh, While You Were Out We Bombed Your People and Killed a Kid
The U.S. has ushered in the hours ahead of a meeting between President Obama and Yemen's President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi with a drone attack on the poverty-stricken Arab state, marking the third such strike in five days.
The drone attack on Thursday hit the southeastern province of Hadramawt, killing four people described in corporate media reports as suspected Al-Qaida members, though Twitter users in Yemen have countered the Al-Qaida claim and indicate one of those killed was a child.
Among the expected topics of discussion for Obama and Hadi's meeting are how to "further strengthen our counter-terrorism partnership and enable the return of Yemeni detainees at Guantanamo Bay who have been designated for transfer."
Obama Shows World "Who We Are" Gitmo Officials Dole Out Solitary Confinement, Beatings to Break Hunger Strike
A first-hand account from a prisoner at Guantánamo reveals the abusive tactics prison authorities are using to break the prisoners' hunger strike.
A colonel in charge said that âAny person who continues on the hunger strike will be moved to a solitary confinement and will be removed from communal areas,â Yemeni detainee Samir Moqbel told his lawyer, Cori Crider, who works with the UK-based charity Reprieve.
When Moqbel, who's been held at the prison for 11 years without charge or trial, refused to hand over his blanket, shoes and toothbrush to authorities as punishment for taking part in the hunger strike, he told Crider that "they brought the ERF [Emergency Reaction Force] team. They came in and hit me, and beat me. I was bleeding from my mouth.â
"The guards who were holding me hit me on my face, my stomach, my legs. The person holding me on my neck and face held me very, very strongly and he hit me on my face with his hand," Moqbel told Crider during an unclassified phone call. ...
There are over 100 Guantanamo prisoners on hunger strike to protest their indefinite detention, with over 45 of them being force-fed, "an unequivocal violation of international human rights law."
Fast Food Strikes Catch Fire
Early this morning, fast food workers in New York, St. Louis and Kansas City, Mo. launched strikes demanding both a wage increase to $15 an hourâfrom a median of $8.94âand the right to form unions without employer interference.
Later this week, workers in Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit and Flint, Mich., will also go out on strike, expanding the reach of the movement of fast food workers (and, in Chicago, retail workers) that started with protests in New York and Chicago last year and grew into a series of one-day strikes throughout 2013. In Flint and Kansas City, strikes are taking place for the first time; in other cities, strikes will expand to target new franchises.
Organizers anticipate that thousands of fast food workers will join in the strikes, which coincide with heightened public awareness of wage stagnation and economic inequality. Some strikers may stay out longer than a single day.
The fast food strikes are part of a broader movement by low-wage workers for higher pay and union representation that has caught fire over the past year.
Targets include a range of employers, including Wal-Mart, federal subcontractors, warehouses, retail stores and car washes. Workers have typically formed loose local organizing committees that, with financial and logistical support from unions and community groups are growing into national networks, most prominently OUR Walmart.
Bailout Fallout: Germans fed up with ongoing Greek cash injections
The Evening Greens
TransCanada to push ahead with major new oil pipeline to Eastern Canada
TransCanada Corp. announced Thursday that it will push ahead with a major oil pipeline linking Western Canada with refineries and export terminals in the east, marking a significant step forward for Canadaâs goal to tap new export markets.
The Energy East pipeline would deliver some 850,000 barrels of crude a day from Western Canada to Quebec and New Brunswick, serving the three refineries in the two provinces. The project â labelled a ânation builderâ by New Brunswick Premier David Alward â has been endorsed by provincial and federal politicians, though Quebec Premier Pauline Marois said last week her province would have to study the proposal once TransCanada releases its detailed plans.
The planned pipeline is a strategic bid to open up new export opportunities for Canadian energy producers eager to diversify their markets beyond the oil-glutted U.S. Midwest. Alberta oil production is surging, but the province faces serious hurdles with other projects aimed at expanding crude-export capacity.
Frack Off protesters bring a little fire engine trouble to Balcombe oil site
Protests at a planned drilling site of a fracking company took an innovative turn on Thursday after activists stopped work by parking an antique fire engine outside the gates of the facility and locked themselves to the vehicle.
The campaign group Frack Off said the fire engine, bought by some of the protesters involved, arrived at the site near Balcombe, West Sussex â where the energy company Cuadrilla plans to drill wells in the hope of releasing oil from the rocks â at about 7am.
Two protesters climbed on the top of the vehicle, unfurled a banner and locked their ankles to the fire engine's ladder. Four others used other locks to attach themselves to the cab.
"Nothing can get into or out of the site while the fire engine is there," a Frack Off spokeswoman said. "The protesters are saying they won't move till Cuadrilla say they will end fracking operations. So they might be there for some time."
Here's an interesting graphic tool for understanding the impacts of the gas industry. You can create your own maps of fracking activities, pipeline disasters, etc., nationally or on a state-by-state basis with the tools at
Fractracker.org.
Here's a map of pipeline accidents (click to embiggen):
Here's a map of US shale (click to embiggen):
Can a carbon tax work without hurting the economy? Ask British Columbia
Five years in, BC's carbon tax has successfully reduced greenhouse gas emissions in a stable economy
In 2008, British Columbia implemented a carbon tax, with the revenue returned to citizens through lowered income taxes. A new peer-reviewed study examines the data through 2012 to see how British Columbia's emissions and economy have fared, and the results are impressive. Consumption of taxed fuels per capita has fallen 19 percent in British Columbia relative to the rest of Canada.
As a result, British Columbia's greenhouse gas emissions fell 10 percent between 2008 and 2011, as compared to a 1.1 percent decline for the rest of Canada.
The carbon tax was introduced right before the recession hit in 2008, so while Gross Domestic Product (GDP) fell slightly between 2008 and 2011 in British Columbia, that change was on par with the small decline in Canada's GDP. Thus while it's inconclusive whether the carbon tax is helping or hurting British Columbia's economy, it's certainly not having the seriously damaging economic effect that alarmist opponents claim that carbon taxes will have.
Kids, Don't Try This At Home!
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin'
How to Decode the True Meaning of What NSA Officials Say
Has the Gov't Lied on Snooping? Let's Go to the Videotape
Hat tip cosmic debris:
Obama Starting to Lose It Over Snowden
Updated~ AFL-CIO: President 'Lost in The Amazon'
Transgender Hero #5: Transgender Teen delivers petitions asking Gov. Brown to sign AB 1266
Laura Gottesdiener, The Backyard Shock Doctrine
A Little Night Music
Sun Ra - Thoughts under a dark blue light
Sun Ra - Blues at Midnight
Sun Ra and the Blues Project- Batman
Sun Ra - Inside The Blues
Sun Ra - Door Of The Cosmos
Sun Ra - Nuclear War
Sun Ra - Retrospective + Face The Music
It's National Pie Day!
The election is over, it's a new year and it's time to work on real change in new ways... and it's National Pie Day. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to tell you a little more about our new site and to start getting people signed up.
Come on over and sign up so that we can send you announcements about the site, the launch, and information about participating in our public beta testing.
Why is National Pie Day the perfect opportunity to tell you more about us? Well you'll see why very soon. So what are you waiting for?! Head on over now and be one of the first!
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