Friday, December 27, 2019

EVERYONE IS WATCHING YOU: The Intercept's 2019 Technology Coverage

Everybody’s Watching You:
The Intercept’s 2019 Technology Coverage
The Intercept
The Intercept

Video and internal emails show how Amazon’s Ring has blurred the line between private innovation and public law enforcement.
By Sam Biddle

Law enforcement in Davao City familiar with the IBM program said the technology had assisted them in carrying out Duterte’s controversial anti-crime agenda.
By George Joseph

The danger of China compromising hardware supply chains is very real, judging from classified intelligence documents, even if a Bloomberg story on the matter is highly disputed.
By Micah Lee, Henrik Moltke

MUST-READ STORIES FROM 2019 IN YEAR-END REVIEW
 

 
An examination of court filings in all seven leak cases filed under Trump yields a detailed picture of how the government tries to unmask confidential sources.
By Micah Lee

The revolutionary NSA system merged different sources of electronic surveillance to rapidly map enemy fighters.
The ramifications are still being felt.
By Henrik Moltke


Spies working for the United Arab Emirates discussed the attack with operatives at controversial firm DarkMatter.
By Sam Biddle, Matthew Cole

Palantir previously claimed its software was strictly involved in criminal investigations as opposed to deportations. This was false.By Sam Biddle, Ryan Devereux
A nonprofit led by Google and IBM executives is working with Semptian, whose technology is monitoring the internet activity of 200 million people in China.
By Ryan Gallagher 

The CEO of Perceptics, which makes license plate readers, claimed that “CBP has none of the privacy concerns at the border that all agencies have inland.”
By Cora Currie

Twitter doesn’t care when its users are abused by Nazi accounts. But what happens when the feelings of the Nazis get hurt? Then Twitter springs into action.
By Jon Schwarz
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A 2019 Re-View > A look Back at The Intercept's Must-Read National Security Stories

Revealing the Real Threats and the Manufactured Ones:

The Intercept’s 2019 National Security Coverage

The Intercept  25 Dec 2019 @ 05:00 am

 





There are ten (10) included


 
Erik Prince - The Intercept
theintercept.com › erik-prince-trump-ukraine-china


Blackwater Founder Erik Prince's New Company Is Operating ...

www.buzzfeednews.com › article › rosalindadams

_________________________________________________________________________________
Interview / Amy Goodman Democracy Now May 2019
War & Peace
Ex-Blackwater CEO Erik Prince Makes a Comeback Under Trump
LINK > TruthOut.org VIDEO ".  . . Erik Prince in the spotlight after more than a decade of largely working in the shadows after Blackwater shut down.

In a major new report, The Intercept looks at Prince’s latest actions, including his pitch to privatize the war in Afghanistan
his creation of a mercenary army for the United Arab Emirates
a history of mismanaged projects that have soured his relationships with leaders around the world
and his comeback, made possible with the help of the Trump administration. We speak with Matthew Cole, the investigative journalist who wrote the story.
It’s titled “The Complete Mercenary: How Erik Prince Used the Rise of Trump to Make an Improbable Comeback.”

THE COMPLETE MERCENTARY:
HOW ERIC PRICE USED THE RISE OF TRUMP
TO MAKE AN IMPROBABLE COMEBACK
Erik Prince now offers a complete mercenary supply chain: anything from military hardware to social media manipulation in partnership with Project Veritas.
By Matthew Cole __________________________________________________________________________________
Complete List:
https://theintercept.com/2019/12/25/the-intercept-2019-national-security/

Who the Justice Department decides to prosecute as a domestic terrorist has little to do with the harm they’ve inflicted or the threat they pose to human life.
By Trevor Aaronson, Margot Williams, Alleen Brown, Alice Sperm
Rashid Al-Malik reported to UAE intelligence on the Trump administration’s Middle East policy as part of a broader influence effort.
By Alex Emmons, Matthew Cole

The writer Heshmat Alavi pushes regime change in Iran. But an MEK defector says the controversial, exiled opposition group created the persona.
By Murtaza Hussein
Erik Prince now offers a complete mercenary supply chain: anything from military hardware to social media manipulation in partnership with Project Veritas.
By Matthew Cole

Donald Trump says Saudi Arabia could turn to Russia or China for arms, but the French intelligence report emphasizes its dependence on the West.
By Alex Emmons

Many observers now seem to think this suddenly hot story came out of nowhere this year, but that is not true.
By James Risen

“I wasn’t running,” Sater told The Intercept. “I don’t need to worry about the morality of ‘should a candidate be involved in business?’”
By Johnny Dwyer

Giuliani’s entire post-government life has been a case study in ethical adventurism, if not actual criminal conduct.
By Johnny Dwyer

The rumor that Joe Biden abused his power to protect his son’s business interests in Ukraine is “absolute nonsense,” leading anti-corruption activist says.
By Robert Mackey

British authorities will have to decide whether to send the WikiLeaks founder to stand trial in the United States for publishing true information.
By Robert Mackey
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SHOW YOU SUPPORT
INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM
 
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Brave New World > Meet Sophia The Sentient Humanoid Robot

Let's dive into another dimension today - into the crossover realm of natural and artificial intelligence and machine learning. It's here. So let's go there!
It involves some 'stage magic' using the visuals of a frequently used for centuries device called ex machina when an unexpected something suddenly appears from nowhere to arrive in front of our eyes that changes the entire human drama.
First some words of introduction:
INNOVATION
MIND MATTERS
Is it ieven possible to make a non-human person out of machines?
We may as well think that if we make sci-fi life-like enough, we should start worrying about Darth Vader really taking over the galaxy.


Fast Company followed up this salvo with another one: "Imagine a world where humans co-existed with beings who, like us, had minds, thoughts, feelings, self-conscious awareness, and the capacity to perform purposeful actions—but, unlike us, these beings had artificial mechanical bodies that could be switched on and off. "
HUGH MCLACHLAN, “What rights will robots deserve?” at Fast Company
If we were able to make intelligent and sentient AIs, wouldn’t that mean we would have to stop programming them? It would be unethical for me to force you to do my will, so wouldn’t the same thing be true with AIs? If AIs were really sentient beings, what would be the practical difference between programming an AI and brainwashing a human?
-- extract from   MIND MATTERS AI Hype Countdown

_________________________________________________________________________________
Counting back: 2019 AI Hype Countdown
#8: Media started doing their job!
Yes, this year, there has been a reassuring trend:
Media are offering more critical assessment of off-the-wall AI hype.
One factor in the growing sobriety may be that, as AI technology transitions from dreams to reality, the future belongs to leaders who are pragmatic about its abilities and limitations._________________________________________________________________________


Sophia the Robot remarks at #TAS2019 Opening Ceremony | Kigali,15th May 2019

77,786 views
 
 
Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence
2019 AI Hype Countdown #7: “Robot rights” grabs the
mike
2019 AI Hype Countdown #7: “Robot rights” grabs the mike ... 10: Sophia the Robot Still Gives “Interviews” In other news, few popular media ...
22 hours ago


 
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Thursday, December 26, 2019

NutCracker: Just Busting Your Balls - or Banging Your Clangers?

Headline - if you have a short attention span, skip this post  
Sugarplums or Lumps of Coal?
White House's 192 Big Rules in Pipeline Herald More Regulation than Deregulation
Clyde Wayne Crews•
Competitive Enterprise Institute | December 18, 2019
We got a partial reprieve from Washington’s big government ways in 2017 from Trump administration moves like the executive order requiring that agencies ditch at least two rules for every one they add.

In the White House’s new 2019 Regulatory Plan and Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions, as well as in the “Regulatory Reform Results for Fiscal Year 2019” roundup, the administration touts progress in adhering to President Trump’s goal to eliminate two “significant regulatory actions” for every one adopted, but falls a bit short.
The most costly subset of rules in the Agenda are classified as “economically significant,” which loosely means they have $100 million in effect, either imposing costs, reducing costs, or otherwise exhibiting heft.
The Fall 2019 Unified Agenda reports on 3,752 rules and regulations at the “active,” “completed,” and “long-term” stages of the regulatory pipeline, many of them holdovers from earlier volumes.
Among these, there were 192 “economically significant” rules in the queue
119 active, 29 long-term, and 44 recently completed. The overall flow of economically significant rules in Trump’s fist (2017) Fall Unified Agenda started out 27 percent lower than Obama’s final year, but they’ve been creeping up since.
________________________________________________________________________ On a positive note, Trump’s figures contain numerous rules that are classified as “deregulatory”—there’s even a radio button to click to sort them out. But there is also a “regulatory” button, and the one-in, two-out mandate notwithstanding, 67 percent of economically significant rules in the pipeline are regulatory. There are 33 deregulatory and 67 regulatory; just by coincidence, these classifications add up to 100 this time.

The trends are wrong for two-for-one to ever work again, which is why other approaches to restraint, disclosure, and accountability will rise in importance.
The full list of the 192 economically significant rules and regulations in the Fall 2019 Unified Agenda appears below, broken down by department or agency, and by stage of completion.
_________________________________________________________________________
Source: Compiled by Wayne Crews from “The Regulatory Plan and the Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions,” at reginfo.gov. 
Note: The “Regulation Identifier Number” or RIN appears at the end of each entry below. For additional information see the publication “How to Use the Unified Agenda.”
33 deregulatory actions highlighted in bold.
67 regulatory actions highlighted in italics.
ACTIVE RULEMAKINGS (119 actions, 20 of them deregulatory, 39 regulatory)
> DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
USDA/AMS, Final Rule Stage, Establishment of a Domestic Hemp Production Program, 0581-AD82
> DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
  1. DHS/OS, Prerule Stage, Collection of Alien Biometric Data Upon Exit From the United States at Air and Sea Ports of Departure, 1601-AA34
> DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT
  1. HUD/HUDSEC, Final Rule Stage, Housing and Community Development of 1980: Verification of Eligible Status, 2501-AD89
  2. HUD/CPD, Final Rule Stage, Housing Trust Fund (FR-5246), 2506-AC30
> DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
70. DOL/ETA, Final Rule Stage, Labor Certification Process for Temporary Agricultural Employment in the United States (H-2A workers), 1205-AB89
  1. DOL/EBSA, Proposed Rule Stage, Default Electronic Disclosures by Employee Pension Benefit Plans Under ERISA, 1210-AB90
  2. DOL/EBSA, Proposed Rule Stage, Transparency in Coverage, 1210-AB93
  3. DOL/OSHA, Prerule Stage, Emergency Response, 1218-AC91
  4. DOL/WHD, Proposed Rule Stage, Tip Regulations Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 1235-AA21
  5. DOL/WHD, Final Rule Stage, Joint Employer Status Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, 1235-AA26

> DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURYTREAS/FINCEN,
83. Proposed Rule Stage, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network: Cross-Border Electronic Transmittals of Funds, 1506-AB01
  1. TREAS/FINCEN, Final Rule Stage, Anti-Money Laundering Program and Suspicious Activity Report Filing Requirements for Investment Advisers, 1506-AB10

  4. TREAS/CUSTOMS, Final Rule Stage, Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) Required for Electronic Entry/Entry Summary (Cargo Release and Related Entry) Filings, 1515-AE03
  5. TREAS/IRS, Proposed Rule Stage, Treatment of Certain Interests in Corporations as Stock or Indebtedness, 1545-BO18
  6. TREAS/IRS, Proposed Rule Stage, Rules for Denial of Deduction for Certain Fines, Penalties, and Other Amounts, 1545-BO67
  7. TREAS/IRS, Proposed Rule Stage, Guidance on the Elimination of Interbank Offered Rates, 1545-BO91
  8. TREAS/IRS, Proposed Rule Stage, Revisions to the Section 168(k) Final Regulations, 1545-BP32
  9. TREAS/IRS, Final Rule Stage, Hybrid Dividends and Payments, 1545-BO53
  10. TREAS/IRS, Final Rule Stage, Section 250 Regulations, 1545-BO55
  11. TREAS/IRS, Final Rule Stage, Section 59A Proposed Regulations, 1545-BO56
  12. TREAS/IRS, Final Rule Stage, Rules Regarding Business Interest Limitation Under Section 163(j), 1545-BO73
  13. TREAS/IRS, Final Rule Stage, Additional First-Year Depreciation
  14. TREAS/IRS, Final Rule Stage, Capital Gains Invested in Opportunity Zones, 1545-BP03
  15. TREAS/IRS, Final Rule Stage, Qualified Opportunity Funds, 1545-BP04
  16. TREAS/IRS, Final Rule Stage, Guidance Under Section 199A (RIC-REIT), 1545-BP12
  17. TREAS/IRS, Final Rule Stage, Guidance Under Sections 951(b) and 951A, 1545-BP15
  18. TREAS/IRS, Final Rule Stage, Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) Foreign Tax Credit Guidance, 1545-BP19
  19. TREAS/OCC, Proposed Rule Stage, Reforming the Community Reinvestment Act Regulatory Framework, 1557-AE34
  20. TREAS/OCC, Final Rule Stage, Net Stable Funding Ratio, 1557-AD97
_________________________________________________________________________________
COMMODITY FUTURES TRADING COMMISSION
  1. CFTC, Final Rule Stage, Proposed Revisions to Prohibitions and Restrictions on Proprietary Trading and Certain Interests in,and Relationships With, Hedge Funds and Private Equity Funds (Volcker Rule), 3038-A
DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY
  1. TREAS/IRS, Application of Various Provisions of Section 2711 of the Public Health Service Act, the Affordable Care Act, and the Internal Revenue Code to Health Reimbursement Arrangements, 1545-BO46
  2. TREAS/IRS, Guidance Related to Section 951A (Global Intangible Low-Taxed Income Regulations), 1545-BO54
  3. TREAS/IRS, Foreign Tax Credit Guidance Under Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), 1545-BO62
  4. TREAS/IRS, State and Local Tax (SALT) Credits and Charitable Contributions, 1545-BO89
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Flashback to November 2017: Welcome to The Land of OZ

The GOP Tax Cut is Highway Robbery
"If the tax cut passes, it will constitute the largest heist in human history. This is daylight robbery by the super-rich against the rest of society: homeowners, students, the middle class, the young, the poor, indeed everybody who doesn’t own a significant stock portfolio. . ."
Well, it did pass two years ago now.
WELCOME TO LAND OF OZ
Opportunity Zones
". . . The robbery is nearly complete, with just a few more votes needed in the Republican-led Congress. The perpetrators will use corporate media to keep the public distracted. Their well-funded campaign will flood the mass media to assure Americans that up is down, black is white, and that gifts to the super-rich mark a giant stride for workers.
From The Boston Globe/opinion/2017/11/17By Jeffrey Sacks
Jeffrey D. Sachs is university professor and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, and author of “The Age of Sustainable Development.”
__________________________________________________________________________
The most recent data by the bipartisan Joint Tax Committee suggest that in 2019 the tax cut proposed by the Republican House leaders would cut federal taxes by $192 billion. The top 1 percent of taxpayers, with incomes of around $500,000 and above, would pocket around 28 percent of the overall tax cut. The richest 6 percent of taxpayers, with incomes of around $200,000 and above, would pocket 56 percent of the total tax cut.
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Contractor-At-Risk Mails Out A Solicitation for Your Questions & Comments [That ASU Scheme]

If you got this delivered in your mailbox during the holiday rush
DON'T IGNORE IT!
It's a 360-Degree Public Dilemma, based on questionable presentations by city officials that tricked Mesa voters to approve the financing for $100,000,000 by taking money out-of-their pockets using increases in sales-and-use taxes and hikes in utility charges.  
ASU has a billion-dollar endowment and could have paid for it if they wanted to ...
You were tricked!
Friends of the mayor stand to benefit the most from the rampant real estate speculation here in downtown for their own private wealth-creation._________________________________________________________________________


Costs have escalated. A major disruption
The Devil's in the details
Please take the time to find out more by using the Searchbox on this blog.
Then you can call 480-644-3800
CITY OF MESA ENGINEERING
PUBLIC RELATIONS DEPARTMENT
Curt Albright
Lucy Lopez
Michelle Arrollado

Find them where?
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Attention Deficit Dis-Order > Fractured, Flitting and Over-Whelming

Data and infographic from Axios
Why it matters: The chart, based on search trends compiled by Google News Lab, highlights how short the public's attention span was as the media darted from one big thing to another.
The insane news cycles of 2019
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