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Floyd Mayweather Doesn’t Want The World To Know He’s A Serial Wife Beater

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Floyd Mayweather Doesn’t Want The World To Know He’s A Serial Wife Beater

While the American public and the boxing world watch the hotly anticipated fight between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, there are a few people who won’t be there: The sports reporters who’ve spoken openly about Mayweather’s history of domestic violence, and have publicly questioned supporting him as an athlete.

Respected sports journalists Rachel Nichols, Michelle Beadle and Chris Mannix, among others, were denied media credentials for the event at the request of the Mayweather camp. All three, as well as other journalists denied passes, have a history of talking openly about Mayweathers past assaults on women. The assaults have been so serious, that despite the millions he’s thrown at the cases, he’s done jail time.

While the world watches in awe of his spendthrift ways, opulent life and amazing physique its important to remember: if Mayweather was an NFL player, he would have been banned from the league for life. Long ago.

With an event as closely covered by the media as this one, it’s shocking that veteran reporters from major outlets like HBO, ESPN, and USA Today would be banned from the bout. It especially suspicious when their perhaps-lesser qualified colleagues at the same outlets have been approved.

Beadle has in the past promoted the #BoycottMayweather Twitter hashtag, while Nichols has confronted him openly about his history of abusing women.

Mayweather has had seven domestic violence incidents that resulted in arrests and citations against five different women, including an arrest in 2010.

He pled guilty in March 2002 to two counts of domestic violence for a particularly viscous attack in which he struck the mother of his children in the face with a car door in front of their family, and then punched her repeatedly.

‘Champ’ did 90 days in jail in 2011 after being convicted of punching, and pulling the hair of his ex-girlfriend Josie Harris while two of their children watched in September 2010.

On a night where we are supposed to celebrate an outstanding American do battle, perhaps we should instead reflect on just where the spotlight ought to shined.

Is Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Too Big To Fail?

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At his annual meeting on Saturday, Warren Buffett predictably rejected the idea that Berkshire Hathaway Inc, a sprawling conglomerate he has built over 50 years, has grown so big that it is now too big to fail.

The implications of being too big to fail are whether it needs increased regulatory oversight, similar to other large, systemically important financial institutions.

“There is no reason, in logic or in terms of what we’ve heard, to think that Berkshire would be designated as a SIFI,” Buffett said at Berkshire’s annual meeting. SIFI is the acronym for systemically important financial institution. “I do not think Berkshire comes within miles of qualifying as a SIFI.”

The SIFI designation means companies must be monitored by the Federal Reserve, which could make them adopt tighter capital and liquidity requirements that likely impede growth and profitability.

The scrutiny on Berkshire’s size has grown over the years as the company has amassed more than 80 businesses, including capital-intensive businesses such as the Burlington Northern railroad, and units that insure against major catastrophes.

Those catastrophes are always costly, with both the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon as well as Hurricane Katrina in 2005 costing the company billions of dollars.

To counter the risk of default, Buffett has pledged to maintain a $20 billion cash cushion at Berkshire which now sits at $63.7 billion.

While the cash cushion seems reassuring other big insurance operations that compete directly with Berkshire already have the SIFI moniker including American International Group Inc, MetLife Inc and Prudential Financial Inc.

The designations also raise fresh questions about crony capitalism. Is Warren Buffett too well politically connected so as to be beyond reproach? Its a theory many have thrown around, given his tight communication with the Federal Reserve as well as all of the nation’s senior politicians. When Warren calls, you pick up the phone. This surely has some influence over the decision whether to designate his company or its subsidiaries despite the seemingly straightforward explanation.

After all, this is the man who hold billions of dollars in instruments he deemed “weapons of financial mass destruction”. While he says one thing he may do the next so perhaps Washington to give a little more scrutiny to Uncle Warren and his sprawling empire.

Judge Dismisses Case Over Cheap ‘Hidden City’ Airline Tickets

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Judge Dismisses Case Over Cheap ‘Hidden City’ Airline Tickets

Despite not losing for the right reasons, United Airlines lost the latest round in its effort to stop a website that helps people find “hidden city” ticket pairs.

The airline, as well as online travel site Orbitz, sued New York-based Skiplagged.com and its founder, Aktarer Zaman, in November seeking to stop the site from sending users to Orbitz to purchase United tickets.

A federal judge ruled Thursday that Illinois isn’t the proper venue for the carrier’s claims.

The “hidden city” ticketing method involves buying an airline ticket between two cities with a connection, but ditching the rest of the trip.

For example, if you want to fly from Las Vegas to Philadelphia but find a ticket from Vegas to Boston, with a connection in Philadelphia, that’s cheaper you land in Philly and leave the airport, retaining the savings.

The fact large corporations are suing over the practice shows just how far big companies will go to force their customers give them as much money as possible. If you find an error in their pricing they feel entitled to sue you rather than honor the posted price.

It also allows airlines and travel websites to effectively gang up on consumers and not have to price their offerings as efficiently as possible. They can set prices that make no sense in order to maximize their profits and not allow consumers the choice to honor only one leg of a multi-leg flight, should it make sense. The absurd way airlines try to price gouge means it does often make sense for consumers to skip a leg.

In short the airlines, long known for their love of pricing games, are arguing that they can be very clever with pricing but any human who figures out how to be smarter is not allowed to do so. The move is quintessentially un-American.

In defending their actions, United made the laughable claim that “hidden-city ticketing can delay flights as gate agents await travelers who don’t show up”, which as any traveler late for a flight can tell you is never the case. If you are mere seconds late, the door closes and the planes go on their way. You’re stuck trying to arrange another flight.

While the ruling ensures awareness of the practice can continue to spread, U.S. District Judge John Blakey ruled Thursday that Illinois isn’t the appropriate place for Chicago-based United to bring its lawsuit, given that neither Zaman nor Skiplagged has “relevant, meaningful contacts” in the state. “This dismissal does not preclude Plaintiff from refiling and litigating its claims in a proper forum,” Blakey wrote in his decision.

Any decision for United would be a massive blow to savvy American consumers. The airlines are trying to create a ‘heads I win tails you lose’ pricing system that is predatory to American consumers. It will be interesting to see if a fair venue, free from massive corporate influence, can be found for the trial.

Human Pros Dominating Poker Robot – For Now

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Human Pros Dominating Poker Robot – For Now

At the halfway point of the “Brains Vs. Artificial Intelligence” poker tournament between software developed at Carnegie Mellon University and four of the world’s top players, the humans are handily winning.

The CMU computer program, named Claudico, is playing a total of approximately 80,000 hands of Heads-Up No-limit Texas Hold’em against Doug Polk, Dong Kim, Bjorn Li and Jason Les. After 42,100 hands, together the humans lead by 626,892 chips.

Claudico is in 4th place out of 5 people. Though much could change in the week remaining, the lead of 600,000 chips is considered statistically significant and means it is likely the computer will not win.

The team behind Claudico are hopeful, however, because the program is learning to adapt to the humans’ style of play. It may do better in the second half of the competition as a result.

“Claudico performs real-time reasoning while playing a hand and improves its strategy during the match by continuously computing,” says Tuomas Sandholm, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon who led the development of Claudico. “I know many people are rooting for the humans, but I’m still hopeful that Claudico will give them a run for their money.”

“This is quite possibly the highest-quality poker ever seen,” Sandholm continued. “Furthermore, both Claudico and the humans are improving their game throughout the event. Both sides are already playing stronger than they were at the start. I have been extremely impressed by the pros’ ability to improve and adjust their game no matter what curve balls Claudico has thrown at them.”

If Claudico pulls out the win, it would be a massive achievement for artificial intelligence research. Heads-up no-limit Texas Hold’em poker is one of the hardest games for a computer to win because it involves mind-boggling amounts of possible decisions, not all of them immediately logical.

The game will continue this week until a winner is crowned.

Iowa Declares State Of Emergency Over Bird Flu Outbreak

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Iowa Declares State Of Emergency Over Bird Flu Outbreak

Iowa Governor Terry Branstad declared a state of emergency on Friday to confront a spiraling bird flu outbreak. The farming of chicken, ducks and geese as a key part of that state’s economy and has been severely impacted by the outbreak.

Millions of birds across the country have been infected by the highly contagious H5 avian flu in the most recent outbreak, which will result in the largest avian death toll in U.S. history according to Reuters.

“While the avian influenza outbreak does not pose a risk to humans, we are taking the matter very seriously and believe declaring a state of emergency is the best way to make all resources available,” Branstad said in a statement. “We’ll continue our work – as we’ve been doing since the first outbreak in Buena Vista County – in hopes of stopping the virus’ aggressive spread throughout Iowa.”

In Iowa, 21 sites have presumed or confirmed cases. Already over 5 million birds have been euthanized and then destroyed in efforts to curb the outbreak. Those efforts are likely to hasten given the new resources available.

There is currently no known cure for the disease.

Nobody In Jail After Yet Another Record Bank Scandal

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Nobody In Jail After Yet Another Record Bank Scandal

It wouldn’t be a week in America without a criminal banking scandal and this week did not disappoint. BNP Paribas SA was sentenced to just five years probation by a U.S. judge on Friday in connection with a record $8.9 billion fine for violating sanctions against Sudan, Cuba and Iran.

The case is yet another record ‘fine’ for a bank in connection with criminal actions used to make obscene profits and pay even larger bonuses. The fine shows that while the banks are clearly operating as criminal enterprises, the sort that would land an Italian from Chicago or New Jersey in jail for life, the bankers are above the law and are able to pay their way out – with the same profits they got illegally, no less.

To highlight the insanity of the ‘sanctions’ U.S. District Judge Lorna Schofield in Manhattan formally ordered the French bank to forfeit $8.83 billion of ill-gotten gains and pay a paltry $140 million fine.

The $140 million fine makes the settlement the cheapest on record – a mere few thousand dollars per employee to keep on committing crime and stay out of jail.

The case marked the first time a global bank pleaded guilty to violations of U.S. economic sanctions, the Justice Department said, although its clear this mean very little and is mere wordplay, designed to assure hard working Americans this type of thing will ‘never happen again’.

Yet this conduct happens all the time, at all the banks. In BNP’s case it came after a guilty plea in July to conspiring from 2004 to 2012 to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the Trading with the Enemy Act.

New year, different criminal racket used to hit the numbers.

In this case authorities said that BNP essentially functioned as the “central bank for the government of Sudan,” concealing its tracks and failing to cooperate when first contacted by law enforcement.

Prosecutors said BNP also evaded sanctions against companies in Iran and Cuba, by stripping information from wire transfers so they could pass through the U.S. system without raising red flags. The information stripping was a widespread industry practice used to launder money for both sanctions busting and tax evasion. Megabank UBS was found guilty for the practice earlier this year.

BNP’s sentence was a big win for the bank as it was reached along with an agreement with the U.S. Labor Department that would allow it to continue to manage retirement plans despite the plea. The department granted BNP that exemption this month, which was integral to the deal.

Highlighting this is just business as usual at the bank, this is the second multi-billion dollar settlement for the bank this month alone. Yes, you read that correctly – this month alone.

A New York state court judge on April 15 sentenced BNP Paribas in a related case in which it agreed to forfeit $2.24 billion. No fines were rendered in that case, which allows BNP to pay the government with criminal proceeds and which effectively allows the bank to try various criminal activities and then if it gets caught, it simply gives the stolen money back with no actual penalty.

Friday’s sentencing came a day after BNP Paribas reported first-quarter net income of 1.65 billion euros ($1.83 billion), up 17.5 percent. Revenue grew 11.6 percent to 11.1 billion euros.

The numbers beg the question: what illegal scheme has the company concocted now to have such astounding financial results? It surely musn’t be legal.

U.S. Government Liable For New Orleans Flooding

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U.S. Government Liable For New Orleans Flooding

A judge ruled Friday that the federal government must pay for a portion of the flooding damage from Hurricane Katrina, which she found to be caused by failures of the hurricane protection system in the New Orleans area.

Judge Susan G. Braden, of the United States Court of Federal Claims in Washington, focused on a navigation project built by the Army Corps of Engineers. The project is a canal known as the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet.

The canal is linked to devastating flood damage in the Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood and damage to nearby St. Bernard Parish when the hurricane struck on Aug. 29, 2005. The canal was closed following the disaster.

Judge Braden found that the canal had “substantially expanded and eroded” over the years, and was a “ticking time bomb.”

She praised the Army in the suit, saying that it had been “open, transparent and helpful in educating the court to understand what happened.” She was, however, harshly critical of the Department of Justice, stating that it had “pursued a litigation strategy of contesting each and every issue.”

The judge didn’t determine how much the government should pay, but set a hearing for Wednesday to see whether a mediator can determine the matter. The payment is likely to be massive.

Up to this point efforts to force the federal government to pay for flooding from Hurricane Katrina have been unsuccessful, because the government is usually immune to claims resulting from failures of flood control projects.

A federal judge in New Orleans, Stanwood R. Duval Jr., ruled that damage related to the disputed canal was different because the canal’s purpose was navigation and not flood protection, even though it contained a number of levees. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit initially confirmed that decision but then withdrew its decision and overturned Judge Duval. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

Judge Braden cited Judge Duval’s findings of fact in the case.

While the earlier cases were brought before Judge Duval under the federal tort act, the case announced on Friday, which was brought by private plaintiffs and the St. Bernard Parish government, was decided on the basis of the Fifth Amendment.

New Test Shows If You Will Get Cancer Within 13 Years

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New Test Shows If You Will Get Cancer Within 13 Years

A new test can predict with 100 per cent accuracy whether someone will develop cancer up to 13 years in the future.

Harvard and Northwestern University discovered that tiny but important changes took place in the body more than a decade before cancer was diagnosed.

Protective caps on the ends of chromosomes, which stop DNA damage, had significantly more wear and tear in those who went on to develop cancer. The caps looked like they belonged to a person who was 15 years older in people who went on to develop cancer.

The caps, known as telomeres, were shorter than they should have been and continued to get shorter until about four years before the cancer developed After the disease begins they suddenly stopped shrinking.

“Understanding this pattern of telomere growth may mean it can be a predictive biomarker for cancer,” said Dr Lifang Hou, the lead author and a professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern. “Because we saw a strong relationship in the pattern across a wide variety of cancers, with the right testing these procedures could be used eventually to diagnose a wide variety of cancers.”

Although some people may not want to know that they will develop cancer in the future, it could allow them to make lifestyle changes to greatly lower their risk. Researchers are also looking at how telomeres can be regrown.

Insurance companies, though, warn that such a test could push up policy premiums.

Matt Sanders, who runs the protection products group at GoCompare, said people with such a diagnosis could be priced out of the insurance market. “If this test showed 100 per cent probability over a certain number of years then it could affect premiums. It would be the equivalent of living in a high theft area for someone looking for home insurance,” he said.

This stance highlights how cutting edge data can be used by big corporation to prey on everyday Americans. The rate at which corporations can adopt and price in these advancements is much faster than our lawmakers can impose rules on how to fairly account for the new findings.

Milan Expo’s Glitzy Opening Marred By Violence

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Milan’s flashy international expo was beset by violence on opening day as demonstrators clashed with Italian police on Friday. Police responded with tear gas on Friday as protests against the event overshadowed the start of the global fair, which the government had hoped would lift a gloomy national mood.

Dark clouds of smoke from burning cars filled the center of Milan as groups of protesters, wearing masks, threw stones and faced off against lines of police in riot gear.

The demonstrations came just hours after a glitzy opening ceremony at the Expo site where Prime Minister Matteo Renzi welcomed the start of a six-month-long showpiece of culture and technology. The theme is sustainable food production.

Thousands of police have been deployed to counter the threat of violence. Renzi has been counting on the event to reinforce fragile signs of economic recovery after years of stagnation and recession.

“Today it is as though Italy is embracing the world,” he said at the opening, which featured an overflight by jets trailing the colors of the Italian flag. “All you experts who kept saying ‘We’ll never do it’ — this is your answer,” he said. “I like to think that tomorrow begins today.”

Instead, the glittering center of Milan was transformed into a battle ground, with sirens and periodic bangs from flash bombs and firecrackers occasionally eclipsing the shouts of protesters.

With 10 million tickets sold, officials are counting on at least 20 million people attending, and hope overall revenues will top $10.75 billion, half from foreign visitors drawn to Milan.

Yet the event was already tarnished by a corruption investigation that saw several top officials arrested. It has also been plagued by cost overruns and construction hold-ups. Many parts of the site were not ready for opening day.

The fair, which is the successor to the 2010 Expo in Shanghai, mobilized a wide range of left-wing protesters, from anti-globalization and environmental activists to students and anti-austerity campaigners, who see the lavish event as a symbol of waste and corruption.

Pope Francis, speaking via a televised link-up, referred to the irony of a global mega-spectacle dependent on corporate donations being devoted to sustainable development and feeding the poor.

“In certain ways, the Expo itself is part of this paradox of abundance, it obeys the culture of waste and does not contribute to a model of equitable and sustainable development,” he said.

The real focus of the event should be “the faces of the men and women who are hungry, who fall ill and even die because of an insufficient or harmful diet,” he said.

Hawaii’s Kilauea Volcano Puts On Rare Lava Show

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Hawaii’s Kilauea Volcano Puts On Rare Lava Show

The lake of lava at Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano has been rising over the past week and, sometimes, overflowing in a spectacular show.

Janet Babb, a lead geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, said Thursday that it is the first time lava has come into view from the public platform within Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on Hawaii’s Big Island.

“It’s always been out of view for visitors who were in the park public viewing areas,” she said.

But this week, because of lava rising inside the volcano, the lava lake rose high enough that it was visible.

The last time red-hot lava was visible in the crater was in 1982. The last time there was a lake of lava was in 1974.

The vent within the Halemaumau Crater opened in March, 2008 and has been rising and falling ever since. Even at its previous highest level, the lake was too low for people to see. During the day people could just make out the gas rising from the lake, and at night people could see the orange glow from the lava but nobody could see it directly.

But in the early 1800s right up until 1924, there was a continuous lake of lava at Kilauea summit within Halemaumau. At the time, the crater was approximately half the diameter of what it is now.

A huge eruption in 1924, which occurred inside the volcano, doubled the size of the crater.

Since 1924, lava lakes have occurred at various times. For instance in 1967 and 1968 the entire crater was filled with molten lava. You can still make out a “bathtub ring” on the walls of the crater where the lava had risen to at that time.

But you have to act fast if you want to see the show. As of Thursday morning, the lava was beginning to recede, part of its natural ebb and flow.

Russian Bombers Violated U.S. Airspace Last Week

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Russian Bombers Violated U.S. Airspace Last Week

Russian heavy bombers capable of delivering nuclear warheads, flew into a U.S. air defense zone near Alaska last week, it was reported Friday.

Two Tu-95 Bear H bombers reportedly flew into the airspace on April 22 – a sign, officials said, that Russia has begun its long-range aviation spring training cycle.

U.S. defense officials would not confirm the incursion but did tell the Washington Free Beacon that no fighter jets were dispatched near Alaska last week to monitor any invading aircraft, which would typically be standard procedure.

Most analysts see the flights of Russian military aircraft into U.S. air space as saber rattling by Moscow, which has raised international tensions recently with a steady stream of anti-U.S. rhetoric and its invasion of Ukraine last year.

If the reports are true, the Russian intrusion would mark the first of its kind in U.S. or Canadian zones this year. Similar incidents have been recorded in the past. Just last year alone, U.S. fighter jets intercepted Russian aircraft at least six times.

In September, U.S. warplanes intercepted six Russian military aircraft – two refueling tankers, two Mig-31 fighter jets and two long-range bombers – in the air defense identification zone (ADIZ) west of the Alaskan coast.

In June of last year, four Russian bombers flew within 50 miles of the California coast.

An intrusion into the ADIZ, however, isn’t a violation of international law since the zones are not considered sovereign airspace. Aircraft flying in the zone, however, are required to identify themselves and their location.

More flights into the ADIZ near our coast are expected, a defense official reportedly said off the record.

The purpose of the flights near the U.S. isn’t obvious, but analysts believe they are the flexing of Moscow’s military might.

“They’re obviously messaging us,” Air Force Col. Frank Flores, who is in charge of 14 radar stations along the Alaskan coast, said earlier this month. “We still don’t know their intent.”

AT&T Fined For Price Gouging Poor Via Government Program

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Cellphone monopolist AT&T has been fined $10.9 milling by the FCC for overcharging the government on phone plans for the poor.

The regulator said the telco over-billed the U.S. government between 2012 and 2013 while fulfilling a contract for the Lifeline service. Lifeline is where the cell networks offer discounted or free phone plans to people on low incomes, and then bill the U.S. government to make up the difference.

The FCC alleges that AT&T’s Southern New England Telephone (SNET) subsidiary charged the government for providing Lifeline service to citizens who were, based on their income, ineligible for the plan.

Exactly how much AT&T overcharged isn’t known – but the cash has been paid back according to the company.

“American consumers trust that the companies who receive federal funds will use that money appropriately,” said FCC enforcement chief Travis LeBlanc. “We expect companies to be vigilant in protecting public funds and complying with FCC rules.”

AT&T offered the hollow sounding ‘this was just a big misunderstanding’ excuse.

“We discovered this issue in the course of an internal review, voluntarily reported it, and reimbursed the Universal Service Fund about a year ago,” the telco stated. “We also have implemented process enhancements so this does not happen again.”

Under the terms of the FCC’s settlement, AT&T will pay $6.9 million, while SNET will cover $4 million. The companies must also adopt FCC-written compliance plans that make sure customers who don’t qualify for the discounted plans can not do so.

Astronauts Travelling To Mars Could Suffer Brain Damage

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Astronauts Travelling To Mars Could Suffer Brain Damage

A new NASA-funded study into the effects of long-term space travel on humans has reached a troubling conclusion: astronauts flying to Mars could arrive with severe brain damage.

The research was conducted by the University of California Irvine and published in the journal Science Advances. It involved bombarding mice with ionized oxygen and titanium nuclei for six weeks. The dose of particle radiation is equivalent to what they would experience during a trip to Mars using today’s propulsion technology and spacecraft shielding.

The results were troubling. The mice all experienced acute brain inflammation that changed the way their neurons fired, making their brains poor at transmitting electrochemical signals. This in turn reduced their puzzle-solving skills and memory.

The effects are similar to those shown by brain cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.

“This is not positive news for astronauts deployed on a two to three-year round trip to Mars,” stated Dr Charles Limoli, a professor of radiation oncology in UC Irvine School of Medicine.

“Performance decrements, memory deficits, and loss of awareness and focus during spaceflight may affect mission-critical activities, and exposure to these particles may have long-term adverse consequences to cognition throughout life.”

Damage was particularly acute in the medial prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, which would inhibit an astronaut’s ability to process complex problems and deal with unexpected events – both cases that are likely to occur when exploring a new planet.

NASA understands that getting humans to Mars will take a lot of shielding to keep the fragile beings safe. But the study highlights just how difficult this will be, considering the “very low” levels of simulated cosmic radiation used in the study. Depending on solar conditions, the astronauts on a voyage to Mars could experience much more radiation than the mice in the study.

The simple solution is to build shielding around spaceships making the trip, but that has its problems. Shielding adds weight to the craft, spiking the cost of construction as well as the amount of fuel needed to get it to the Red Planet.

Metals like aluminium also aren’t very good at radiation shielding. Plastics are a bit better, and some designs even call for using water, or human waste, as a shield. But the research team thinks there may be a medical answer.

“We are working on pharmacologic strategies involving compounds that scavenge free radicals and protect neurotransmission,” Limoli said. “But these remain to be optimised and are under development.”

It’s A Girl!

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It’s A Girl!

The countdown to the second royal baby is over. And it’s a princess!

The Duchess of Cambridge gave birth to a girl Saturday at a London hospital, Kensington Palace tweeted. The baby princess weighed 8 pounds and 3 ounces, and the Duke of Cambridge was present for the birth, the palace confirmed.

“Her Royal Highness and her child are both doing well,” it said.

This is the second child for Prince William and Kate Middleton after their son, Prince George, who was born in July of 2013.

Predictably, a media frenzy ensued outside St. Mary’s Hospital as journalists congregated following the announcement that she had gone into labor. Some even wore pink or blue — depending on their preference for a boy or a girl.

China Isn’t The Only One: Airbus Sues Over NSA Blueprint Theft

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China Isn’t The Only One: Airbus Sues Over NSA Blueprint Theft

Fresh evidence emerged Friday that China isn’t the only country engaged in rampant industrial espionage. European aerospace giant Airbus is promising legal action over claims its top secret blueprints were stolen by German spies and then given to the NSA.

The revelations make it increasingly difficult for the United States to take issue with China’s massive industrial espionage campaign against both the U.S. and international targets.

“We are aware that as a large company in the sector, we are a target and subject of espionage,” the company said in a release to the AFP newswire.

“However, in this case we are alarmed because there is concrete suspicion of industrial espionage. We will now file a criminal complaint against persons unknown on suspicion of industrial espionage.”

The announcement comes after days of speculation in the German media over reports that the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) – the German intelligence agency – has been spying on German and European companies on behalf of the United States since at least 2008.

Spiegel Online revealed that the BND’s listening station at Bad Aibling in southern Bavaria was used to target up to 2,000 European concerns, including European defense company EADS, the helicopter manufacturer Eurocopter, and various French companies. This spying was done at the urging of the NSA, and the information was then fed back to American businesses.

The allegations are startling, as while there are many disclosures of state on state spying, industrial espionage between allied countries has had a very low to no media profile.

Following complaints in the German parliament, the BND launched an investigation and found 40,000 suspicious searches against Europeans – some of whom hold senior business positions across the continent, particularly in the defense and aerospace sectors. The search requests were allegedly given by NSA analysts.

“The spying scandal shows that the intelligence agencies have a life of their own and are uncontrollable,” said the senior German Left Party representative Martina Renner. “There have to be personnel consequences and German public prosecutors must investigate.”

The German government is also being accused of lying about the affair.

On April 14th, in response to a question from the opposition Left Party, the German Interior Ministry said in a statement: “We have no knowledge of alleged economic espionage by the NSA or other U.S. agencies in other countries.” The government has since said it is “now checking whether parliamentary answers in this case remain totally valid.”

The report is a severe political embarrassment for both Chancellor Merkel and President Obama. It is also embarrassing for plane-maker Boeing, who was no doubt the main beneficiary of the EADS blueprints.

Merkel was apparently furious when it emerged the NSA had been tapping her personal mobile phone, and President Obama went on German television to promise that spying was only carried out in Europe to hunt down terrorists. As is the case with most White House statements, this was evidently a lie.

It remains to be seen what the response to the latest revelations will be but no doubt there will be economic repercussions. Google, IBM and Microsoft have all complained that since the NSA spying allegations they have lost business from countries such as China and it is likely that Boeing in particular will face similar backlash after the latest revelations.

SpaceX Has Competition: Blue Origin Successful In First Test

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SpaceX Has Competition: Blue Origin Successful In First Test

The golden age of rocketry may be upon us. Billionaires who made quick dot-com cash successfully launching commercial rockets is officially a trend, now that Jeff Bezos, of Amazon fame, has followed in the footsteps of Elon Musk with Wednesday’s successful test flight of Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket.

Bezos’ company has been slowly working on the rocket, with tests of its liquid hydrogen BE-3 engine over the past few years, both at its test facility in Van Horn, Texas and at NASA facilities.

According to a blog post by Bezos, the engine successfully powered the unmanned crew capsule at Mach 3 to the planned test altitude of 307,000 feet, where separation was successful.

“Any astronauts on board would have had a very nice journey into space and a smooth return,” writes Bezos.

Yet the test was not a complete success. Much like SpaceX’s Falcon 9, one of Blue Origin’s goals is for its rockets to be reusable, and the test module was unable to be recovered due to a loss of pressure in its hydraulic system during descent.

Bezos claims improved hydraulics are already in the works and test rockets number two and three are in the process of being assembled. Blue Origin is also working on a bigger, more powerful launch system in partnership with incumbent United Launch Alliance that will power ULA’s next-generation launches.

The successful launch is reminiscent of early American commercial aviation where successes came fast and thick and there were a multitude of commercial airplane makers. As the industry matured the number of truly viable firms shrank to the handful that exist today. It remains to be seen where Blue Origin fits, as the commercial space market will undoubtedly experience a similar shakeout.

Oil By Rail Faces Tough New Regulations, Eventually

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Oil By Rail Faces Tough New Regulations, Eventually

U.S. and Canadian regulators unveiled tough new regulations on Friday that will require railways to transition to tougher tank cars and use new braking systems for trains carrying flammable liquids. The long-awaited steps are aimed at reducing the frequency of fiery crude oil train derailments in North America.

The regulations announced on Friday, while tough, will only be phased in over a 10-year schedule. The railway industry has opposed all of the new regulations, despite numerous incidents that have harmed both the environment and human life.

During a press conference on Friday, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx tied the new rules to the “staggering” growth in the amount of crude oil that is being shipped via rail throughout North America.

The stunning growth can largely be attributed to increased production from shale deposits in Texas and North Dakota.

Crude oil produced from North American shale deposits is more flammable than traditional oil and has been involved in numerous explosive derailments in the U.S. and Canada, including a devastating accident in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, nearly two years ago. The July 2013 incident occurred when a crude oil train came loose from its brakes and slammed into the center of the small Quebec town. The incident killed 47 people.

“We can never undo the damage that took place in Lac-Mégantic or in any other railway accident,” Ms. Raitt said. “But we can and we must learn from those events and improve our system.”

Ottawa and Washington have issued a patchwork of new regulations since the disaster, covering speed limits, emergency planning and other issues. However, safety experts have long called for a more co-ordinated approach.

Predictably The Association of American Railroads, who represents large railways and related suppliers, called the new U.S. braking rule “misguided” and said it would threaten rail capacity and service. “This is an imprudent decision made without supporting data or analysis,” AAR president Edward Hamberger said in a statement. “I have a hard time believing the determination to impose ECP brakes is anything but a rash rush to judgment.”

That position is at odds with the 47 families who lost loved ones in Lac-Mégantic and who would consider the tragedy the ultimate data point that should govern rules. The fact U.S. and Canadian regulators agreed on the issue underscores just how serious the danger really is.

Psychologists Met In Secret To Help Bush Justify Torture Program

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Disturbing revelations about just how far our government will go to justify their actions to the public have emerged today.

A watchdog analysis released on Thursday shows that the leading American professional group for psychologists secretly worked with the Bush administration to help justify the post 9-11 U.S. detainee torture program.

Written by six leading health professionals and human rights activists, the report is the first to examine the alleged complicity of the American Psychological Association (APA) in the “enhanced interrogation” program. It raises deep concerns about the level of complicity between academia and government with serious consequences for objective, un-biased scientific research in our country.

Those involved in fraudulently justifying, via supposed-academic methods, could risk their entire careers due to academic dishonesty.

The group of concerned academics analyzed more than 600 newly disclosed emails and found that the APA coordinated with Bush-era government officials – namely in the CIA, White House and Department of Defense – to ethically justify the interrogation policy in 2004 and 2005, when the program came under increased scrutiny for prisoner abuse by military personnel at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Through a series of clandestine meetings the two parties created “an APA ethics policy in national security interrogations which comported with then-classified legal guidance authorizing the CIA torture program,” the team found.

The APA is the biggest organization representing psychologists in the US, with more than 122,500 members. That mental health professionals – let alone members of the APA – played any role in the justification or enhancement of the interrogation program undoubtedly gave the program an air of legitimacy, even if not made public.

In secret opinions, the Department of Justice argued that the torture program did not constitute torture and was therefore legal, since they were being monitored by medical professionals.

The implications here raise serious questions about both the closeness of U.S. academic and professional organizations to secret police organizations and also what exactly gets discussed at secret court hearings.

The second point is particularly important, in that if secret courts are hearing falsified evidence to justify otherwise illegal actions, they amount to nothing more than a show, where the outcome is pre-ordained and all proceeding are a theatrical production designed to look legitimate.

The sad part is this type of manipulation appears to be standard operating procedure, with the CIA, White House, NSA and DoD all now very good at manufacturing academic-sounding and looking evidence to justify their illegal and unconstitutional behavior.

Latest Tests Show Impossible Sounding Space Engine Quite Possible

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A team of NASA scientists have been working hard on a project many have called utterly impossible. Yet there are new signs, that in typical NASA fashion, what some say is possible is actually well within reach of our genius space engineers.

The team has been working on a potentially revolutionary space engine that doesn’t require rocket fuel and could cut down the time to reach Mars to only 10 weeks.

Blocking their progress has been the prospect that they could be looking at a scientific error in violation of one of classic physics’ core rules.

They’ve been trying to work out which it is for months. Newly released test results are now showing that they’re calculations are no error, according to NASA. In a thorough breakdown of the new engine, called an EM Drive, NASA says the recent tests are a major breakthrough in space flight research.

The new round of tests were conducted in a vacuum, unlike all the prior tests, and the EM Drive was still found to function correctly.

This allows NASA to rule out the possibility that the drive’s thrust is being created by heat transfer outside of the engine, rather than inside of it. The theory at work is that this drive can create force by bouncing electromagnetic waves around inside of a chamber, with some of their energy being transferred to a reflector to produce thrust.

At face value, this sounds a lot like something that violates the conservation of momentum, though the inventor of the idea believes that this is not actually the case.

Naturally there’s still quite a bit of work to be done here. NASA says that the focus should remain on how this thrust is being created — meaning it’s still a matter of verifying that a working EM Drive is possible.

NASA, through its Eagleworks lab, intends to do further tests on EM Drives in a vacuum after seeing these latest encouraging results. Should the drive pan out, the belief is that it would dramatically reduce the weight of what NASA has to launch into space.

It could also prevent a body like the International Space Station from having to continually rely on boosts from docking vehicles. Such an engine would also be useful for space travel, be it to the moon or something much farther out.

While production wouldn’t be possible until well into the future, such an engine would mark the first new space propulsion system in almost 50 years. It would truly revolutionize space travel, in a way similar to man first visiting the moon.

New York Port Authority Rife With Corruption

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New York Port Authority Rife With Corruption

While Bridgegate stinks like a dead fish on the Jersey Shore, David Wildstein, a key figure in the scandal is set to plead guilty on Thursday and is cooperating with prosecutors probing the Fort Lee traffic jams.

Wildstein is currently scheduled to appear in federal court in Newark, New Jersey, where grand jurors have heard testimony in secret for months, according to anonymous sources. It isn’t known what charge he’s set to plead guilty to.

What isn’t apparent outside of New York is that Bridgegate is merely an example of a chronic problem: the corruption of one of America’s most vital infrastructure agencies, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Governor Chris Christie and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo have used the agency as a slush fund, doling out patronage jobs and steering money and resources from those they don’t like to those they do. In doing so they’ve followed in a long line of governors to have done so.

The magnitude of the slush funds becomes apparent when you look the fees charged by the agency. A big rig driving from Philadelphia to Boston passing through New York City on I-95 pays a cash toll at the bridge of $114. Regular cars pay a whopping $14.

The annual revenue from tolls is $650 million, far more than the agency needs for the upkeep of the span.

But the slush fund gets bigger. You also overpay if passing through John F. Kennedy International Airport, La Guardia Airport, or Newark Liberty International Airport. All are being milked as cash cows even though they are chronically under-invested in.

While a 1982 federal law prohibits airport revenue from being spent on non-airport uses, the New York airports are grandfathered in along with a handful of others around the country, including those of Chicago, San Francisco, Denver, and Boston.

The scale of the rot is tremendous. Mid-level public officials around the country are able to seriously interfere with trade while allocating the ill-gotten resources to pet projects that further their political careers and help their friend.

The Port Authority’s byzantine structure of cross-subsidies results in New York’s most critical facilities being starved of investment.

TV host John Oliver named the Port Authority Bus Terminal “the worst place on planet Earth” and said even the cockroaches want to escape. When Joe Biden wanted to make a point about infrastructure last year, he said anyone brought to La Guardia Airport in blindfold would think, “I must be in some Third World country.”

The testimony of Mr Wildstein could have far reaching implications. After stories of EMS vehicles and school buses being delayed to political fighting the feds, and American in general, have taken notice. It would not be surprising to see serious charges drawn up against those responsible for the mismanagement of these institutions.

It would also not be surprising to see Chris Christie dragged neck deep into any such actions, especially if he decides to make a serious run for President.

U.S. Navy To Escort All U.S. Flagged Ships Through Persian Gulf

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In a move that underscores America’s commitment to her commercial interests and her citizens, the U.S. Navy announced that battleships will begin to accompany U.S. flagged vessels as they travel the Strait of Hormuz. The move comes on the heels of Iran seizing a cargo ship.

The Obama administration is very carefully monitoring Iran’s takeover of the ship, as it involved a Marshall Islands-flagged vessel. The Marshall Islands and the United States have a longstanding security agreement, and officials said Thursday the two nations are in close contact over the incident.

In a clear response to that incident a defense department official said the U.S. Navy will now accompany all U.S.-flagged ships going through the area. The significant move is the latest development in a high-stakes chess match in the region, with the Iran nuclear talks continuing to unfold in the background.

Technically, the Navy makes a distinction between accompanying ships and escorting them.

Officials said on the record that the Navy won’t technically escort these ships but will let them know in advance that they will monitor the situation as they travel through the narrow Strait from the Persian Gulf toward the Arabian Sea.

Bu the Navy has already dispatched a guided-missile destroyer, the USS Farragut, to the region and it seems as though that action alone is tantamount to an escort, even if not officially.

Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren said Wednesday the destroyer is just “keeping an eye on things,” and in close enough proximity to the seized ship that they “will be able to respond if a response is required”. The language is likely purposefully vague, in order not to trouble the ongoing nuclear negotiations. Rumor in Washington is the Obama administration is deeply concerned about the seized vessel and would likely take a more than firm stand should such an action happen to U.S. flagged ships.

When pressed on what kind of incident would elicit a U.S. Navy response, he was vague, saying: “These [U.S. Navy] assets give commanders options.” He claimed not to know “what the possibilities are,” and the U.S. government is “in discussions with the Marshall Islands on the way ahead.”

It is likely, however, the latest moves have got the attention of Iran. U.S. forces in the region are capable of a wide range of deadly response options should they feel U.S. interests are threatened.

Starbucks’ Ethos Water Actually Comes From Drought-Ridden California

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Starbucks’ Ethos Water Actually Comes From Drought-Ridden California

Celebrities like Matt Damon and Leo DiCaprio have advocated for Starbucks’ Ethos Water, those bottles in the cold case that are supposedly help alleviate the world’s water crisis.

But beware celebrities pitching quick fix solutions to world problems, for they are often not at all in the know. Case in point Ethos Water, where a not-insignificant portion of what’s inside them comes straight out of bone-dry California.

Fresh after revelations that Nestlé bottles water in some of California’s most drought stricken regions, environmental website Mother Jones poked around and discovered Ethos bottles distributed in the western U.S. come from a plant located in Merced, an area the government considers to be in “exceptional drought.”

The facility has been blasted by residents a while ago, but it was news to them too that Starbucks’ $1.95 bottles of Ethos water were getting produced here. A mere five cents from every one of them goes to the Ethos Water Fund, Starbucks’ charity that provides “water, sanitation and hygiene education programs in water-stressed countries.”

How much water the plant uses is private, but Starbucks defends the unknown amount in the same fashion Nestlé does: It comes from “a private spring source that is not used for municipal water for any communities.”

This rings hollow as it still depletes the groundwater, hurts nearby agriculture, and likely has long-lasting ecological consequences.

These effects are some of those Ethos purports to address. It seems as though Starbucks, if they aren’t already, will need to re-think just how the water is sourced and advertised.

Tesla Unveils Game Changing Battery Packs

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Elon Musk revealed on Friday Tesla’s long-expected battery products, with the hope they put an end to humanity’s production of carbon dioxide as a side effect of energy generation.

“No incremental CO2 is the future we need to have,” Musk said, during the product launch, stating that charging his new products with solar energy is the way to go.

There are two versions of the battery packs.

The Powerwall is intended for home use, is a rechargeable lithium ion battery boasting liquid thermal control and capacity of 10 kilowatt hours for US$3,500. In addition there is a 7 kWh version for $3000. Both deliver 2.0 kW continuously with a 3.3 kW peak. Tesla is offering a ten year warranty on the device and is willing to extend that by another decade.

The 10 kWH model is intended as a backup for when the grid goes down, while the 7 kWh model is suggested for daily loads. Up to nine Powerwalls can be connected into a single rig, which raises some interesting use cases.

The device can be installed inside or outside a home and is compatible with solar power systems. It even comes in several colours, in case you want Tesla’s logo and battery to become a part of your decor.

The Powerpack, its second offering, is aimed at large-scale installations. Musk said it can scale to gigawatt setups such as a group of wind turbines.

Musk displayed his usual optimism at the launch, as he proclaimed that all of humanity’s energy needs could be met by two billion Powerwalls. It’s not a crazy number, he said, because it’s about how many cars and trucks are currently in service. If he built 100 million a year converting humanity to battery power is a 20-year project.

Musk said the company will open-source the IP it is generating during the construction of its Nevada “Gigafactory” that will make the newly-announced batteries so that others will be free to build their own factories.

The Powerwall is available to order now now but shipments won’t start for three or four months. A slow trickle of devices will emerge in the first few month, before the Gigafactory goes online and brings with it a flood of them.

Twitter And Others Banned From EU Lobbying

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Twitter And Others Banned From EU Lobbying

Twitter could soon find itself ignored by top European lawmakers. Twitter, as well as media companies BSkyB, TalkTalk, LG Electronics and Angry Birds maker Rovio missed an annual deadline to register their lobbying operations to the European Union Commission.

The news is significant because the Commission, under president Jean-Claude Juncker, has decided not to meet any lobbyists not on the register.

In past years this was not treated as strictly so the annual update was more important than usual this year.

Despite the clearly communicated position, more than 1,500 companies failed to update their information. If they do not re-register in the next two weeks they will be permanently deleted from the EU’s register of approved lobbyists.

It’s possible that they decided to let their lobbying plans lapse, but given a new EU copyright directive is in the pipeline it’s surprising they have dropped the ball.

Who didn’t miss the deadline? Google for one, which has doubled its official lobbying over the last few months and looks poised to aggressively ramp its efforts in the face of an anti-trust complaint. Google will officially spend as much as $5 million this year, while the actually total is likely a few times this.

Topping the biggest spenders on the register is Microsoft, another monopolist, with an estimated spend of $6 million. Chinese state computer company Huawei is another big spender in the tech-telco sector with $4 million in officially registered spending.

Boeing 787 Software Bug Shuts Down Generators Mid Flight

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Boeing 787 Software Bug Shuts Down Generators Mid Flight

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued an advisory for Boeing’s 787 because a software bug shuts down the plane’s electricity generators every 248 days, even if the plane is mid-flight.

“We have been advised by Boeing of an issue identified during laboratory testing,” the directive says. “The software counter internal to the generator control units (GCUs) will overflow after 248 days of continuous power, causing that GCU to go into failsafe mode.”

That’s be bad news if all four of the GCUs are powered up at the same time, because all will then shut down, “resulting in a loss of all AC electrical power regardless of flight phase.”

As the 787 runs on fully electronic, fly-by-wire systems, flight controls, navigation, lighting, climate control and in-flight entertainment will all be shut down as well.

In short, the multi-million dollar aircraft will turn into a flying brick.

The fix outlined by the FAA is rather simple: make sure you turn the GCUs off before 248 days elapse.

Boeing is working on a permanent fix and the FAA says “Once this software is developed, approved, and available, we might consider additional rulemaking.”

Travelers are unlikely to be affected by the issue but it highlights that as technology progresses into nearly every system we use to travel,drive,cook,communicate or measure our health, there are lots of opportunities for issues to crop up that are life or death. Thankfully for the aviation space the regulations are extremely strict and procedures are in place to both catch and rectify serious issues like the one found this week.

The same cannot be said for all industries which is food for thought as we go bravely into this new world.

U.S. Senate Takes Aim At Patent Trolls With Reform Legislation

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U.S. Senate Takes Aim At Patent Trolls With Reform Legislation

Last year, bipartisan legislation designed to curb patent trolls got stuck in a Senate bottleneck, with then-Judiciary Chairman Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont saying he was “furious” with his fellow Democrat, then-Majority Leader Harry Reid, for keeping the bill off the floor.

Knowing Reid would no longer control the floor schedule in 2015, staff for Majority Whip John Cornyn and Reid heir apparent Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., went back to work on assembling a new bill.

“This is as close as you get to legislative shock and awe,” Cornyn said to a mix of Judiciary Committee members assembled at a news conference on Wednesday afternoon.

“I had a hard time explaining when the White House is for something, the president’s for patent reform, when Republicans are for something, when Democrats are for something, we still can’t get it done,” Cornyn said. “I think this is the beginning of a new opportunity for us to show that we can work together in the best interests of the American people … which will improve the quality of their lives.”

Beginning in February, the two senate leaders, held a meeting in Cornyn’s hideaway to lay out their priorities and reach an agreement to build support of both committee and chamber leadership.

The two managed to get both Leahy, now the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary panel, and new Chairman Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, on board. The also got support from a lengthy list of panel members.

Asked what’s different in 2015, Grassley didn’t hold back.

“Last year it was stalled by a significant person running the United States Senate. I don’t think there’ll be that stall this time,” he said.

Leahy highlighted that the last patent overhaul to become law, which came when he was chairman of the committee, took several years and more than one administration to be developed.

That bill ultimately became law as the America Invents Act in 2011.

Patent reform is an issue where the divide isn’t partisan, and President Barack Obama has called for getting an overhaul to his desk, including in the 2014 State of the Union address.

Schumer hopes to see action before the August recess.

A person who has seen the bill said that among the provisions is a requirement that courts impose a stay on discovery while working through some motions early in the legal process, a move to reduce legal costs.

Another provision was created to stop frivolous lawsuits in the patent space by providing for the award of attorney’s fees in cases that are deemed unreasonable.

The new legislation would address unscrupulous demand letters, as well as a variety of other concerns, a source said.

“There will be special interests that oppose this. There will be people who don’t see beyond their own little narrow interest who say no,” Schumer said before highlighting the importance to the technology sector, which he called “seed-corn” for job creation.

“We cannot let it get blown away by such, such preying … on these fine, young startups that want to grow,” Schumer said.

The bill offers hope for for legitimate users of technology that they will no longer face harsh legal demand by extremely well financed patent trolls. It also means that for everyday Americans, our legal system will cease to be tied up in the squabbling of large companies over trivial intellectual property disputes. Such cases are a major burden on the legal system and distract our judiciary from focusing on the cases that are most important to hard working Americans.

French Special Forces Caught Abusing Children In Africa

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Starving, homeless young boys in the Central African Republic were made to perform sex acts on French soldiers in return for food or money, the director of an advocacy group announced on Thursday, citing a yet to be released United Nations report on the alleged abuses.

Paula Donovan, director of AIDS-Free World, said the report detailed testimony from six children interviewed last year by staff from UNICEF and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The children give vivid accounts of their own experiences as well as abuses they had witnessed.

“There are a few cases where a boy describes the sodomizing of a friend by soldiers who are threatening to beat him if he tells anyone about what they are doing,” Donovan said.

The allegations are against French soldiers deployed to the Central African Republic. The troops were there as peacekeepers.

The abuses were committed against approximately a dozen children at a displaced persons’ camp at M’Poko International Airport in Bangui, the capital city, between December 2013 and June 2014.

The deeply disturbing allegations have prompted French President Francois Hollande to promise strong action if they are verified.

“If some soldiers behaved badly, I will be merciless,” he said in comments broadcast by CNN’s French affiliate BFMTV.

“If this information is confirmed, there will be exemplary sanctions.”

Donovan said the soldiers gave the children small amounts of food, water and sometimes some cash in return for sex, adding, “The children were severely traumatized by the events.”

The report was sent to her in recent days, Donovan said, but she was would not disclose by whom. The advocacy group then shared it with the UK’s Guardian newspaper, which reported on the allegations late Wednesday, claiming the report had “confidential” stamped on every page.

French authorities were aware of the document and its allegations late last year.

A U.N. official has been suspended over the leak, a statement from the spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday.

The staffer in question is also accused of giving an unedited version of the internal U.N. report to French authorities before it reached senior management in the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Motel 6 Caught Uploading Guest Information To Police

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Motel 6 Caught Uploading Guest Information To Police

In yet another example of pervasive spying on Americans by law enforcement and big corporations, the Providence Journal reports on a newly signed agreement between Motel 6 in Warwick, R.I. and the local police force.

The company will now hand over all guest details to law enforcement on a daily basis so that they can be screened for outstanding warrants or other criminal history.

Further troubling, and possibly illegal, is that guests will not be informed that their presence at the motel is being relayed to the police.

They’ll also have no chance to ask questions, and, if they’re uncomfortable with being surveilled, take their business elsewhere.

The Rhode Island chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union is already condemning the information sharing policy; in a statement provided by email, executive director Steven Brown said “a family on vacation should not be fearful that police may come knocking on the door in the middle of the night, courtesy of the motel, because Dad has an outstanding parking ticket he never paid.”

Brown added that the ACLU is “deeply concerned about the precedent this agreement sets, for it can only embolden police to press for similar policies from other establishments.”

That’s just what Motel 6 is considering at another location that’s had problems with criminal activity in the past.

Overall it seems like this is the cheap and easy way out. Rather than this deeply creepy practice of treating all of its customers like criminals, the motel’s manager could simply pay a little extra attention to his property and make sure a meth lab isn’t being operated inside.

As a reference point, when a Taco Bell gets held up, it doesn’t start making customers get background checks before they order.

When asked for comment about privacy concerns and policy details, Raiza Rehkoff, a Motel 6 spokesperson, said “we are working on our corporate response to address this topic.”

The practice may well be illegal, in the face of large retailers being sued by the FTC for tracking their shoppers without informing them and without offering an opt-out mechanism. It remains to be seen how the Motel 6 policy would be any different, other than worse.

More Than 100 People Arrested In New York Protests

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More Than 100 People Arrested In New York Protests

Over 100 people were arrested in protests in support of Freddie Gray as the unrest spread to New York City Wednesday night, according to reports.

The New York protest, which began in Union Square, was comprised of at least 1,000 people and quickly spread across the city, shutting down parts of the Holland Tunnel, the West Side Highway and Times Square.

TV news outlet CBS reports most of the arrests were a result of protesters marching on the street and not the sidewalk, although there were isolated reports of people throwing bottles at officers.

There were too many arrests to track on the ground and some of them more dramatic than others.

A CBS news crew reported getting jostled around in the middle of the action and said the confrontation was more physical than those seen in Baltimore on Tuesday – the day immediately following the riots.

Three officers were observed carrying one man who was using every ounce of his energy to resist. Another handcuffed man was hunched in the street with his mouth gagged, and police also took several women into custody.

The protests show nationwide anger over the treatment of African-American men by police. The cold blooded shooting of Walter L. Scott in North Charleston, South Carolina, has brought nation-wide attention to the issue, resulting in several more disturbing videos hitting the internet. The latest incident, where Baltimore native Freddie Gray was taken into police custody but later died under mysterious circumstances, has caused nationwide uproar over how police deal with men of color.

Social Media Can Predict Unrest But Is This Ethical?

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While the broken glass and burned wreckage is being cleared in the wake of the riots that hit Baltimore’s streets this week, researchers are already analyzing the situation to see if such events can be predicted.

The trigger of the unrest was the funeral of a 25-year-old Freddie Gray, who had died in police custody, but there are many other root causes, from income inequality to racial discrimination also at play in the incident.

For the few researchers who are studying Baltimore’s unrest, the question is not the ultimate causes of the riot but its mechanism: How do such riots self-organize and spread?

One of those researchers, Dan Braha, who is a social scientist at the New England Complex Systems Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been collecting data from Twitter that spans the riot from buildup to aftermath. His work is part of a larger study of social media and social unrest around the world.

The protesters are mostly teens who use social media routinely. The riots that started around 3:30 pm were ignited by messages on social media urging high school students to “purge”, spread within 3 hours around the city.

The pattern of spread is much like forest fires, spreading in clusters and locally. The riots could easily spread across other cities in the United States where racial tensions are high and are close to a tipping point.

A key question for the researchers was how to tell that social media enables the spread of unrest, rather than simply serving to comment on it.

The researchers found that the rioting happens in just hours and sometimes minutes of the communications on social media, with thousands of people racing into the streets. Without social media coordinating the timing its unlikely the protests would happen.

In terms of the communications and patterns of spread, they are remarkably similar to Ferguson, London, and elsewhere. Even if the causes may be different, there seems to be a universal pattern to civil unrest which can be picked up in the data.

This means it is possible to predict social unrest but can this be a problem? After all, our right to peaceful assembly is fundamental

By tracking social media, you know exactly where and when to send the riot police. You can even inject misinformation into this system in an effort to head off riots. There is little doubt the NSA and perhaps other police forces already have this capability.

While there is a need to inhibit the damage and violence of unrest, but in a democratic society, we must ask ourselves if we want to do this. We have to find the right balance.

Protests are fundamental to our country and our democracy. To simply use technology to short circuit them could lead to dangerous unintended consequences and fundamentally undermine our system of governance.

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