Hillary's Flint Gambit
As I've noted repeatedly, when independent tests first publicized that decisions made by Governor Snyder's hand-picked Emergency Manager were poisoning Flint's children last October, he made a show of response, but it wasn't until the…
When Your Lived Reality becomes an Algorithm of the Popular
Yesterday, as people panicked about Twitter's plan to present tweets to users using algorithmic calculations of what that person might like, I wrote this:
What if humans started to experience time as an algorithm of the popular rather than…
One Reason CIA Is Claiming Drone Emails Are Top Secret: ACLU's FOIA
The NYT has a really helpful description of the emails to Hillary that intelligence agencies are claiming are Top Secret. It explained how several of the emails almost certainly couldn't derive from the intelligence the agency claimed they came…
Super Bowl 50 Trash Talk
It's the most wonderful time of the year again.....Super Bowl time! Yet, for all the incessant hype, this one feels a little flat to me. Maybe it is because I so wanted the Cardinals to be there. Maybe it is because, just as much, if not more,…
Flint Crisis: Harvey Hollins Not Giving Task Force Information that Implicates Harvey Hollins
Some weeks ago, I noted that Rick Snyder had picked his Director of Urban Initiatives, Harvey Hollins, to coordinate response with his hand-picked Task Force to respond to Flint, in spite of the fact that Hollins was intimately involved in all…
Pfizer's Vision of R&D
Recently I saw Ian Read, the CEO of Pfizer, on CNBC explaining that the Pfizer/Allergan merger would enable the combined companies to spend more on research and development of new drugs. He also confirmed that Pfizer raised prices on at…
On Pluralism, Bernie Sanders, and the Fight for 15
In one of the hot-take pieces on the Democratic primary many people are talking about today, Jonathan Chait -- fresh off being certified as a wonk by Paul Krugman -- distinguishes between what he calls Hillary Clinton's "pluralist" approach…
What Would It Take for the Government to Obtain Google's Counter-Terror Ads Algos?
Some weeks ago, the government went to Silicon Valley to ask for new ways to counter ISIS' propaganda. We're now seeing the response to that request, with the report that Google will show positive ads when people search for extremist content.
In…
Friday Morning: Nasty Habits
I got nasty habits; I take tea at three.
-- Mick Jagger
Hah. Just be careful what water you use to make that tea, Mick. Could be an entirely different realm of nasty.
Late start here, too much to read this morning. I'll keep updating…
DEQ Employees Seem Unwilling to Take the Fall for Flint
During yesterday's Congressional hearing -- and really, since the Governor's hand-picked Task Force first gave him an interim report in December -- employees from Michigan's Department of Environmental Quality have come in for most of the blame…
Data Mining Research Problem Book, Working Thread
Yesterday, Boing Boing liberated a fascinating 2011 GCHQ document from the Snowden collection on GCHQ's partnership with Heilbronn Institute for Mathematical Research on datamining. It's a fascinating overview of collection and usage. This will…
Thursday Morning: Better than a Week
You know the joke: 4:30 p.m. is better than an hour away from 5:00 p.m., right? Thursday is better than a week away from the weekend. For folks traveling home for the Lunar New Year holiday in China, there are four days left to get home, and…
The Government's Classified Briefing to HJC: A New Certificate?
As I noted, after years of legislating Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act in public, yesterday the House Judiciary Committee had a closed hearing on it, which raises all sorts of questions about what has changed.
The agencies presenting…
Wednesday Morning: Full of Whoa
Whoa. Halt. Stop. The brakes need firm application, even mid-week.
Zika virus infects media with crappy reporting
I can't tell you how many times in the last 24 hours I yelled at my computer, "Are you f****** kidding me with this crap?"…
Why Is the Postal Inspection Service Investigating the Flint Water Crisis?
I hope to have a further update about the ongoing effort to bury the Flint water crisis before the Oversight and Government Reform hearing on Wednesday morning.
But in the meantime I wanted to point to this passage, helpfully dropped out…
The Origins of Totalitarianism Part 5: Artistic and Intellectual Elites and the Rise of Fascism
Previous posts in this series:
The Origins of Totalitarianism Part 1: Introduction.
The Origins of Totalitarianism Part 2: Antisemitism
The Origins of Totalitarianism: Interlude on the Tea Party
The Origins of Totalitarianism…
NSA Reorganizing in Manner that Directly Conflicts with President's Review Group Recommendation
Back in 2013, the President's Review Group recommended that NSA's defensive function -- the Information Assurance Directorate -- be removed from NSA. I've put the entirety of that recommendation below, but PRG recommended the change to:
Eliminate…
What Secrets Are the Spooks Telling HJC about Section 702?
There's a paper that has been making waves, claiming it has found a formula to debunk conspiracies based on the likelihood if they were real, they would have already been leaked. Never mind that people have already found fault with the math,…
Tuesday Morning: Don't Drive Angry
Okay, campers, rise and shine! It's Groundhog Day! Like that genius film Groundhog Day we are stuck in an unending, repeating hell -- like the dark circus that is our general election cycle in the U.S.
The lesson: it's hell by choice. Let's…
A Whole Lot of Inspector General Scrutiny on Intelligence Community Networks
Between this report, released today, on DOD Inspector General's ongoing work and the Intelligence Community's Inspector General Semiannual report, released in mid-January, the Intelligence Community is doing a whole bunch of audits and inspections…