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Raw Story blogger: Chris Christie and his wife do not look Presidential

Tom Boggioni, of the Raw Story blog "Panic in Funland," today:



https://twitter.com/tbogg/status/397905141522636800

Inventor of the World Wide Web slams NSA, praises Snowden

Here's Tim Berners-Lee, a guy who knows a thing or two about the internet.

He said the agencies' decision to break the encryption software was "appalling" and "foolish", as it directly contradicted the efforts of both the US and UK governments to fight cybercrime and cyberwarfare, which they have identified as a top national security priority. Berners-Lee also decried the move as a betrayal of the technology industry.

In contrast to several senior British politicians – including prime minister David Cameron – who have called for the Guardian to be investigated over its reporting of the Snowden leaks, Berners-Lee sees both the news organisation and Snowden himself as having acted in the public interest.

"Whistleblowers, and responsible media outlets that work with them, play an important role in society. We need powerful agencies to combat criminal activity online – but any powerful agency needs checks and balances, and based on recent revelations it seems the current system of checks and balances has failed," he said.

Nate Cohn does some math, estimates McCauliffe victory by 2.4%

Assuming the rest of precincts vote the same way they did in 2010.

"Still very early---most urban areas outstanding--but I just got McC 47.8, C 45.4, S 6.7; assumes counties vote same share of elect as 10"

https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/397896937665331200

Cuccinelli's lead begins to dwindle

It was 12% not long ago. It's now 7.6% with 35% reporting: http://www.nytimes.com/projects/elections/2013/general/virginia/map.html

Nate Cohn explains Cuccinelli may lead in VA at first because rural places are counted first

This is normal. Let's not panic. Urban precincts are going to boost the Democrat at the end.

https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/397882682924744704

Sanford won't force Neighborhood Watch volunteers to leave guns at home

Source: Orlando Sentinel

ORLANDO, FLA. — The Sanford Police Department is backing off a proposal to ban Neighborhood Watch members from carrying guns, but it still wants volunteers to leave their firearms at home and will make that recommendation at a community meeting Tuesday night, police Chief Cecil Smith said Monday.

"We originally came out with a stern, 'You should not,' " Smith said. "We took a second look at it."

Smith now recommends that people forgo their guns while they are performing their Neighborhood Watch duties. Smith said he could legally have dictated a ban, but he decided it was better to include people rather than to exclude them.

"We want people to feel as though they are part of a movement," Smith said. "And it's smarter for us to say, listen, if you're going to be a part of it, you need to abide by the rules. And it's a voluntary organization and if you choose not to be a part of it, you don't have to be a part of it."



Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/11/04/207474/sanford-wont-force-neighborhood.html

LA Times editorial: "NSA's metadata program: End it, don't mend it"

By The Times editorial board
November 5, 2013

Five months after Americans learned that information about their telephone calls was being indiscriminately scooped up by the National Security Agency, Congress seems poised to place limits on the bulk collection of telephone "metadata" — information about the source, destination and duration of telephone calls but not their contents. That's a positive development.

But there is a world of difference between the legislation approved by the Senate Intelligence Committee, which would make only minor improvements in the program, and a superior proposal by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) that would bring the collection of phone records into compliance with the letter and the spirit of the 4th Amendment's ban on unreasonable searches and seizures.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the head of the Intelligence Committee, rightly says that the committee's bill "increases privacy protections and public transparency" in the phone records program. But the protections are minimal, and in return for the minor changes, Congress would give its explicit approval for the wholesale acquisition of metadata by the government. By contrast, the Leahy-Sensenbrenner bill would allow the government to acquire phone data only as part of an investigation tied to a specific suspected terrorist or foreign agent or an individual in contact with him. Bulk collection would end.

Yes, there actually is a huge difference between government and corporate surveillance

For those who argue that NSA spying is no big deal because companies such as Facebook and Google do the same:

Putting aside the government's power to capture or kill, your inability to refuse the government is what distinguishes the NSA from even the nosiest companies on Earth. In a functioning marketplace, boycotting a company that you dislike — for whatever reason — is fairly easy. Diners who object to eating fake meat can stop frequenting Taco Bell. Internet users that don't like Google collecting their search terms can try duckduckgo, an anonymous search engine.

By contrast, it's nearly impossible to simply pick up your belongings and quit the United States. For most people, that would carry some significant costs — quitting your job, for instance, or disrupting your children's education, or leaving friends and family. Those costs can be high enough to outweigh the benefits of recovering some hard-to-measure modicum of privacy. Besides, leaving the country would ironically expose you to even greater risk of surveillance, since you'd no longer be covered by the legal protections granted to people (even foreign terror suspects) that arrive to U.S. shores.

There are still some ways to shield yourself from the NSA. To the best of our knowledge, the government has yet to crack the encryption protocols behind Tor, the online traffic anonymizing service. But Tor's users are also inherently the object of greater suspicion precisely because they're making efforts to cover their tracks.

In the business world, no single company owns a monopoly over your privacy. The same can't really be said about the government.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/11/04/yes-there-actually-is-a-huge-difference-between-government-and-corporate-surveillance/