Bad Deeds for 12-2-2009

 

‘Trigger-Happy’ Private Security Guards Undermine Mission in Afghanistan – The Army Times reported that “ill-disciplined private security guards escorting supply convoys to coalition bases are wreaking havoc as they pass through western Kandahar province … and undermining coalition efforts to bring a greater sense of security to the Afghan people, particularly because the locals associate the contractors with the coalition.”

According to one Afghan security official, private security guards have killed or wounded more than thirty civilians over the past four years in just the Marwand district, and the district chief there claims that “most of them are addicted to heroin.”

 

Feds ‘Pinged’ Sprint GPS Customer Location Data 8 Million Times Over a Year – Nextel provided law enforcement agencies with customer location data more than 8 million times between September 2008 and October 2009, according to a company manager who disclosed the statistic at a non-public interception and wiretapping conference in October.

The manager also revealed the existence of a previously undisclosed web portal that Sprint provides law enforcement to conduct automated “pings” to track users. Through the website, authorized agents can type in a mobile phone number and obtain global positioning system (GPS) coordinates of the phone.
The revelations, uncovered by blogger and privacy activist Christopher Soghoian, have spawned questions about the number of Sprint customers who have been under surveillance, as well as the legal process agents followed to obtain such data.

A single surveillance order against a lone target could generate thousands of GPS “pings” to the cell phone, as the police track the subject’s movements over the course of days or weeks. That, Sprint claims, is the source of the 8 million figure: it’s the cumulative number of times Sprint cell phones covertly reported their location to law enforcement over the year.

 

Yahoo & Verizon Say Their Spy Capabilities Would ‘Shock’, ‘Confuse’ Consumers – Indiana University graduate student Christopher Soghoian asked all agencies within the Department of Justice, under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request how much phone companies and internet service providers charge to funnel your private communications or records to U.S. law enforcement and spy agencies. But before the agencies could provide the data, Verizon and Yahoo intervened and filed an objection on grounds that, among other things, they would be ridiculed and publicly shamed were their surveillance price sheets made public.

Yahoo writes in its 12-page objection letter, that if its pricing information were disclosed to Soghoian, he would use it “to ’shame’ Yahoo! and other companies — and to ’shock’ their customers.”

Verizon took a different stance. It objected to the release of its Law Enforcement Legal Compliance Guide because it might “confuse” customers and lead them to think that records and surveillance capabilities available only to law enforcement would be available to them as well — resulting in a flood of customer calls to the company asking for trap and trace orders.

 

New Ugandan Law to Execute Homosexuals Supported by Fundamentalist Christian Group – A proposed law in Uganda that would execute homosexuals thought to be HIV positive, or for repeat “offenses.” According to U.S. author and Harper’s contributing editor Jeff Sharlet, a secretive group of American politicians are supporting the Ugandan lawmakers who are leading the charge to see the draconian bill become law.

Speaking to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Monday, Sharlet revealed even more about the connections between The Family, the secretive religious group which runs the C Street house in Washington, D.C., to the Ugandan officials. Specifically, Sharlet claimed that the Ugandan president and his ethics minister, both key players in pushing the vicious legislation, are official members of the powerful fundamentalist Christian group.

 

Family Research Council Says Obama Plans to Impose Homosexuality – Far-right Christian fundamentalist group Family Research Council has a clever idea for raising money: convince supporters that President Barack Obama will take away their Bibles and turn their kids gay.

That’s essentially what the group’s newest fundraising alert amounts to, with its claim that the president has a “plan” to “impose homosexuality” and “silence Christianity.”

The group’s four-page letter, available courtesy of Think Progress, reads like end-of-days fiction, with Godless liberals on the march and only your dollars keeping America from the fires of hell.

In truth, it’s a lengthy, deceptive rant about the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would ensure gay, lesbian and transgendered people have a right to work alongside other Americans without fear of reprisal by the employers due solely to their sexual orientation or appearance.

 

ClimateGate: The 7 Biggest Lies About The Supposed “Global Warming Hoax” – A few weeks ago, hackers broke into the emails of one of the Climate Research Unit of The University of East Anglia, and climate skeptics have been having a field day making mountains out of molehills about what the emails contain. The verdict on global warming is in — it’s caused by humans and it is happening and nothing in the emails remotely challenges that. However, with the internet abuzz about what has been labeled “ClimateGate,” we thought we should set the record straight about the rumors, lies and insinuations about what the emails actually contain — and what they “prove” about climate change. “ClimateGate” itself is a misnomer, the nickname should be “SwiftHack” for the way people with political agendas have “swiftboated” the global warming reality.

Below is one example:

CLAIM: Scientists have manipulated data.

TRUTH: Skeptics have been pointing to an email from scientist Phil Jones where he said he used a “trick” with his data. As climate expert Bob Ward writes, “Scientists say ‘trick’ not just to mean deception. They mean it as a clever way of doing something — a short cut can be a trick.” RealClimate also explained that “the ‘trick’ is just to plot the instrumental records along with reconstruction so that the context of the recent warming is clear. Scientists often use the term ‘trick’ to refer to … ‘a good way to deal with a problem’, rather than something that is ‘secret’, and so there is nothing problematic in this at all.”

P.S. As an electrical engineer, I can attest to engineers using this language, talking about some “trick” they used in designing a circuit. It just means they made it more efficient, or figured out how to do it with less parts, or using less power. – JLV

 

Sen. McCain Forgets All About His Best Friend, Phil ‘Mr. Enron’ Gramm, While Attacking Healthcare Reform – McCain falsely accused the Senate health care reform of using “Enron accounting” measures. His comments are ironic, however, in light of his close, personal relationship with Phil “Mr. Enron” Gramm. Gramm was National Co-Chairman Of McCain’s presidential campaign. [JohnMcCain.com, accessed 6/3/08]. Gramm was a co-sponsor of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. One provision of the bill is often referred to as the “Enron loophole” because some critics blame the provision for permitting the Enron scandal to occur. And Gramm’s wife headed the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from 1988 to 1993, which exempted Enron from regulation in trading of energy derivatives. Subsequently, Gramm resigned from the CFTC and took a seat on the Enron Board of Directors and served on its Audit Committee.

 

Republican Senator Pens Obstruction Manual For Health Care – Sen. Judd Gregg, (R-NH) has penned the equivalent of an obstruction manual — a how-to for holding up health care reform — and has distributed the document to his Republican colleagues. He highlights the use of hard quorum calls for any motion to proceed, as opposed to a far quicker unanimous consent provision. He reminds his colleagues that, absent unanimous consent, they can force the Majority Leader to read any “full-text substitute amendment.” And when it comes to offering amendments to the health care bill, the New Hampshire Republican argues that it is the personification of “full, complete, and informed debate,” to “offer an unlimited number of amendments — germane or non-germane — on any subject.”

The details of Gregg’s outline are a clear reflection of the extent to which Republicans are turning to the Byzantine processes of the Senate chamber as a means of holding up reform

 

Rise of the New McCarthyism – On December 2, 1954, the U.S. Senate voted to censure Sen. Joseph McCarthy, bringing to an end four years of political intimidation and character assassination so ferocious that McCarthy’s name is still synonymous with a particularly destructive form of demagoguery.

McCarthy’s campaign against supposedly widespread communist infiltration of the U.S. government brought down sitting Senators and intimidated even President Eisenhower (who loathed McCarthy) and his advisors. McCarthy’s campaign was boosted by conservative think tanks, media figures, and clergy, and abetted for years by the unwillingness of most of his colleagues to stand up against his false charges and clear abuses of power. McCarthy was fond of referring to the “Democrat Party” – using the term as a slur. The refusal to use the correct term “Democratic Party” was so associated with McCarthy that it went out of style for decades, but the rhetorical tactic has been resurrected and embraced by the Karl Rove-Newt Gingrich-Frank Luntz Republican Party of today.

Today’s McCarthyism has many faces and voices, including the household names of right-wing cable television, a plethora of radio hosts, Religious Right leaders, right-wing organizations and the bogus “grassroots” campaigns they generate – and Members of Congress and other Republican Party officials. Together they engage in character assassination and challenge the loyalty and patriotism of their targets.

McCarthy inflamed fears that the nation was being destroyed by enemies from within. Sound familiar? The attack on sinister Ivy League-educated elites is one of the essential rhetorical tools of far-right pundits and Republican politicians. Republican smear campaigns often make use of this “elites vs. real Americans” theme.

McCarthy frightened many Americans with charges that the government was infested with communist sympathizers. His current-day acolytes have made charges long considered beyond the pale of political discourse – comparisons of President Obama and other administration officials with tyrannical figures like Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, and Chairman Mao – so frequently that they are losing their shock value. Former and likely future presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is among many who have called Obama a socialist.

McCarthy was a master of guilt by association, smearing individuals as enemies of the country based on any association however indirect or tenuous, with a suspect organization, newspaper or other publication, labor union, or individual. Criticism of McCarthy’s tactics was itself evidence: his targets included non only communists, pro-communists, and former communists, but also “anti-anti-communists.” Today’s McCarthyite right abounds with guilt-by-association attacks. In fact Glenn Beck has made a sort of art form out of them. After right-wing activists engineered a public humiliation of the group ACORN, right-wing leaders have tried to use any relationship with the organization’s decades of organizing on behalf of poor people as a disqualification for public service. Attacks on widely respected judicial nominee David Hamilton treated his one-month job as a canvasser for ACORN thirty years ago when he was 22 years old as if it had constituted a major portion of his career.

McCarthy and his subcommittee’s investigator Roy Cohn did not only target people for destruction based on alleged communist sympathies; they also hunted for homosexuals in government service. In a striking parallel, right-wing leaders, dismayed and outraged by growing public support for legal equality for LGBT Americans, have used public debates over marriage equality to attack gay people as enemies of faith, family, and freedom, and they are engaged in ongoing smear campaigns against openly gay Obama administration officials and nominees.

 

Teabaggers Plan to Politicize Sugarland Christmas Tree Ceremony – In what could be a shoo-in for the Scrooges-of-the-Year Award, the Fort Bend County Tea Party Society (whatever that is) is encouraging its members to politicize the Sugarland Tree Lighting ceremony on Thursday, December 3rd being held by the City of Sugarland. On the baggers’ homepage, they have an announcement telling supporters to wear their Teabagger T-shirts to the lighting ceremony to be held at Sugarland Center that evening. People who are willing to exploit a Christmas celebration for political purposes – shameless.

 

Worst Toys To Buy Your Kids This ChristmasPlease do not buy your children these inappropriate, crazypants toys:

• Tongue-Kissing Pops – a pair of lips with a tongue-shaped lollipop that comes out.
• Pole-Dancing Doll – ‘nuff said.
• Lil Monkey – a black human baby doll with a monkey. It’s the black human that has a headband labeled “Lil Monkey.”
• Breastfeeding Doll – a girl wears a special halter top with flowers instead of nipples that cause the baby to make sucking sounds and move its mouth. The tagline for the toy reads, “Because you shouldn’t have to wait until you have breasts before you start breastfeeding your baby.”

Regards,

Jim