Klik GAMBAR Dibawah Untuk Lebih Info

Sumber Asal Berita :-

NST Online Top Stories - Google News

---

NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily - The Guardian Posted: 06 Jun 2013 03:06 AM PDT Glenn Greenwald Under the terms of the order, the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data and the time and duration of all calls. Photograph: Matt Rourke/AP The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America's largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April. The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an "ongoing, daily basis" to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries. The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing. The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19. Under the terms of the blanket order, the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered. The disclosure is likely to reignite longstanding debates in the US over the proper extent of the government's domestic spying powers. Under the Bush administration, officials in security agencies had disclosed to reporters the large-scale collection of call records data by the NSA, but this is the first time significant and top-secret documents have revealed the continuation of the practice on a massive scale under President Obama. The unlimited nature of the records being handed over to the NSA is extremely unusual. Fisa court orders typically direct the production of records pertaining to a specific named target who is suspected of being an agent of a terrorist group or foreign state, or a finite set of individually named targets. The Guardian approached the National Security Agency, the White House and the Department of Justice for comment in advance of publication on Wednesday. All declined. The agencies were also offered the opportunity to raise specific security concerns regarding the publication of the court order. The court order expressly bars Verizon from disclosing to the public either the existence of the FBI's request for its customers' records, or the court order itself. "We decline comment," said Ed McFadden, a Washington-based Verizon spokesman. The order, signed by Judge Roger Vinson, compels Verizon to produce to the NSA electronic copies of "all call detail records or 'telephony metadata' created by Verizon for communications between the United States and abroad" or "wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls". The order directs Verizon to "continue production on an ongoing daily basis thereafter for the duration of this order". It specifies that the records to be produced include "session identifying information", such as "originating and terminating number", the duration of each call, telephone calling card numbers, trunk identifiers, International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) number, and "comprehensive communication routing information". The information is classed as "metadata", or transactional information, rather than communications, and so does not require individual warrants to access. The document also specifies that such "metadata" is not limited to the aforementioned items. A 2005 court ruling judged that cell site location data – the nearest cell tower a phone was connected to – was also transactional data, and so could potentially fall under the scope of the order. While the order itself does not include either the contents of messages or the personal information of the subscriber of any particular cell number, its collection would allow the NSA to build easily a comprehensive picture of who any individual contacted, how and when, and possibly from where, retrospectively. It is not known whether Verizon is the only cell-phone provider to be targeted with such an order, although previous reporting has suggested the NSA has collected cell records from all major mobile networks. It is also unclear from the leaked document whether the three-month order was a one-off, or the latest in a series of similar orders. The court order appears to explain the numerous cryptic public warnings by two US senators, Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, about the scope of the Obama administration's surveillance activities. For roughly two years, the two Democrats have been stridently advising the public that the US government is relying on "secret legal interpretations" to claim surveillance powers so broad that the American public would be "stunned" to learn of the kind of domestic spying being conducted. Because those activities are classified, the senators, both members of the Senate intelligence committee, have been prevented from specifying which domestic surveillance programs they find so alarming. But the information they have been able to disclose in their public warnings perfectly tracks both the specific law cited by the April 25 court order as well as the vast scope of record-gathering it authorized. Julian Sanchez, a surveillance expert with the Cato Institute, explained: "We've certainly seen the government increasingly strain the bounds of 'relevance' to collect large numbers of records at once — everyone at one or two degrees of separation from a target — but vacuuming all metadata up indiscriminately would be an extraordinary repudiation of any pretence of constraint or particularized suspicion." The April order requested by the FBI and NSA does precisely that. The law on which the order explicitly relies is the so-called "business records" provision of the Patriot Act, 50 USC section 1861. That is the provision which Wyden and Udall have repeatedly cited when warning the public of what they believe is the Obama administration's extreme interpretation of the law to engage in excessive domestic surveillance. In a letter to attorney general Eric Holder last year, they argued that "there is now a significant gap between what most Americans think the law allows and what the government secretly claims the law allows." "We believe," they wrote, "that most Americans would be stunned to learn the details of how these secret court opinions have interpreted" the "business records" provision of the Patriot Act. Privacy advocates have long warned that allowing the government to collect and store unlimited "metadata" is a highly invasive form of surveillance of citizens' communications activities. Those records enable the government to know the identity of every person with whom an individual communicates electronically, how long they spoke, and their location at the time of the communication. Such metadata is what the US government has long attempted to obtain in order to discover an individual's network of associations and communication patterns. The request for the bulk collection of all Verizon domestic telephone records indicates that the agency is continuing some version of the data-mining program begun by the Bush administration in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attack. The NSA, as part of a program secretly authorized by President Bush on 4 October 2001, implemented a bulk collection program of domestic telephone, internet and email records. A furore erupted in 2006 when USA Today reported that the NSA had "been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth" and was "using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity." Until now, there has been no indication that the Obama administration implemented a similar program. These recent events reflect how profoundly the NSA's mission has transformed from an agency exclusively devoted to foreign intelligence gathering, into one that focuses increasingly on domestic communications. A 30-year employee of the NSA, William Binney, resigned from the agency shortly after 9/11 in protest at the agency's focus on domestic activities. In the mid-1970s, Congress, for the first time, investigated the surveillance activities of the US government. Back then, the mandate of the NSA was that it would never direct its surveillance apparatus domestically. At the conclusion of that investigation, Frank Church, the Democratic senator from Idaho who chaired the investigative committee, warned: "The NSA's capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn't matter." Additional reporting by Ewen MacAskill and Spencer Ackerman Sign up for the Guardian Today Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning. Sign up for the daily email Get the Guardian's daily US email Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning. Enter your email address to subscribe. Sign up for the daily email Sign up now Get the Guardian's daily Australia email Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox every weekday. Sign up for the daily email

FBI, police probe gunman in Santa Monica shooting spree - Los Angeles Times Posted: 08 Jun 2013 07:43 AM PDT The FBI joined local authorities on Saturday in seeking to determine a motive for a gunman's rampage that killed four people in Santa Monica. The gunman, who was also fatally shot by police to end Friday's harrowing incident, has not been identified. But law enforcement sources said his first victims were his father and brother, whose bodies were found in a burning home. The sources said they believe those deaths appeared to be tied to a family dispute. But they stressed the investigation is still in its early stages. Authorities said detectives were trying to look into the background of the alleged gunman as well as his family. They also want to know how he got the semiautomatic rifle he used. Police are expected to hold a news conference Saturday morning. The first signs of trouble came about 11:50 a.m. Friday, when gunshots rang out in the vicinity of Kansas and Yorkshire avenues, a quiet neighborhood nestled along the Santa Monica Freeway. Jerry Cunningham-Rathner had just watched her son walk out the front door of her home a few minutes earlier when she heard the shots. She rushed outside, fearing he had been hit. Instead, looking across the street, she saw a house engulfed in flames. A man standing in front of the house was dressed all in black, with an ammunition belt around his waist and a large rifle in his hands, she said. "He looked like a SWAT officer," she said. Firefighters later found the bodies of two men inside the house. Police sources, who requested anonymity because of the ongoing investigation, said the men were Samir Zawahri, 55, the owner of the house, and one of his adult sons. A second son is suspected of being the shooter, the sources said. Cunningham-Rathner looked on in horror as two cars approached. The man pointed his weapon at the first, a Mazda hatchback, and yelled at the driver to stop. Cunningham-Rathner said he motioned for the woman driving the second car to keep moving. When she hesitated, the man opened fire on her silver Infiniti, wounding the driver slightly. Laura Sisk, 41, the driver in the first car, froze, she later said. She knew President Obama was in town for an event a few miles away and thought momentarily the man might be a Secret Service agent. She quickly realized that wasn't the case. "You're going to drive me to Santa Monica College and let me out," she recalled the gunman saying. She begged him to take the car instead. "No. You're driving," he said. Before getting into the passenger's seat next to Sisk, witnesses said, the gunman fired several shots aimlessly around the neighborhood with what authorities later said was an "AR-15 style" semiautomatic rifle. Other than telling her where to turn, the man said little during the mile drive down Pico Boulevard toward the college campus, Sisk said. He was calm, she said. Sisk said she was crying and shaking as she drove. The gunman reassured her. "He told me to calm down," she said. "He said he'd let me go if I didn't do anything stupid." Near Cloverfield and Pico boulevards, the gunman fired at the outside of a public bus from front to back, shattering the windows. Passengers dived to the floor for cover, said Marta Fagerstroem, a student from Sweden, who was on the bus and studying for an exam. A woman sitting in the back row was grazed in the head by a bullet, witnesses said. "It happened so fast," said Fagerstroem, her voice quavering. "You don't expect this."

You are subscribed to email updates from Top Stories - Google News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610

Kredit: www.nst.com.my

Klik GAMBAR Dibawah Untuk Lebih Info

Sumber Asal Berita :-

NST Online Top Stories - Google News

---

Edison will shut down the San Onofre nuclear plant for good - Los Angeles Times Posted: 07 Jun 2013 07:49 AM PDT San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant Closing for Good By Joseph Serna and Abby Sewell June 7, 2013, 7:11 a.m. Southern California Edison announced Friday it would shut down the troubled San Onofre nuclear power plant. The move comes 17 months after the San Onofre plant was closed because of problems in steam generator systems. The plant powered about 1.4 million households in Southern California before the outage. Until now, Edison had vowed to restart the plant. But the company released a statement Friday saying it would stop the process to fire up the plant. Q&A: Why is it closing and what will it cost? "We have concluded that the continuing uncertainty about when or if [the plant] might return to service was not good for our customers, our investors, or the need to plan for our region's long-term electricity needs," said Ted Craver, chairman and chief executive of Edison International, parent company of SCE. SCE President Ron Litzinger said in a statement: "Looking ahead, we think that our decision to retire the units will eliminate uncertainty and facilitate orderly planning for California's energy future." In February, Edison estimated the closure had cost the company $400 million. FROM THE ARCHIVES: San Onofre Nuclear Generating station San Onofre was shuttered after a tube in the plant's replacement steam generator system leaked a small amount of radioactive steam on Jan. 31, 2012. Eight other tubes in the same reactor unit later failed pressure tests, an unprecedented number in the industry, and thousands more tubes in both of the plant's units showed signs of wear. The wear was blamed on tube vibration caused by excessively dry and high-velocity steam and inadequate support structures, particularly in one of the plant's two units. Tube vibration and wear has been a problem at other plants, but the specific type of vibration at San Onofre had not been experienced in the industry. Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric — which has a 20% stake in the plant — spent more than $780 million replacing the steam generators several years ago, which ratepayers are now repaying.

US intel chief blasts leaks on web, phone use tracking - CBS News Posted: 07 Jun 2013 09:16 AM PDT WASHINGTON Moving to tamp down a public uproar spurred by the disclosure of two secret surveillance programs, the nation's top intelligence official is declassifying key details about one of the programs while insisting the efforts to collect Americans' phone records and the U.S. internet use of foreign nationals overseas were legal, limited in scope and necessary to detect terrorist threats. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, in an unusual late-night statement Thursday, denounced the leaks of highly classified documents that revealed the programs and warned that America's security will suffer. He called the disclosure of a program that targets foreigners' Internet use "reprehensible," and said the leak of another program that lets the government collect Americans' phone records would change enemies' behavior and make it harder to understand their intentions. "The unauthorized disclosure of a top secret U.S. court document threatens potentially long-lasting and irreversible harm to our ability to identify and respond to the many threats facing our nation," Clapper said of the phone-tracking program. It was revealed late Wednesday that the National Security Agency has been collecting the phone records of hundreds of millions of U.S. phone customers. The leaked document first reported by the British newspaper the Guardian gave the NSA authority to collect from all of Verizon's land and mobile customers, but intelligence experts said the program swept up the records of other phone companies too. The possibility of a third secret program letting the NSA tap into credit card transaction records emerged late Thursday in a report in The Wall Street Journal. The White House did not immediately respond to an inquiry about that program. At the same time, Clapper offered new information about the phone program and another one that collects the audio, video, email, photographic and Internet search usage of foreign nationals overseas who use any of the nine major Internet providers: AOL Inc., Apple Inc., Facebook Inc., Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc., Skype, YouTube and Paltalk. In statements, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo said they only provide the government with user data required under the law. (Google runs YouTube and Microsoft owns Skype.) AOL and Paltalk didn't immediately respond to inquiries from The Associated Press. "I believe it is important for the American people to understand the limits of this targeted counterterrorism program and the principles that govern its use," Clapper said. Among the previously classified information about the phone records collection that Clapper revealed: -The program is conducted under authority granted by Congress and is authorized by the Foreign intelligence Surveillance Court which determines the legality of the program. -The government is prohibited from "indiscriminately sifting" through the data acquired. It can only be reviewed "when there is a reasonable suspicion, based on specific facts, that the particular basis for the query is associated with a foreign terrorist organization." He also said only counterterrorism personnel trained in the program may access the records. -The information acquired is overseen by the Justice Department and the FISA court. Only a very small fraction of the records are ever reviewed, he said. -The program is reviewed every 90 days. Play Video Miller on secret surveillance: "This is spying business" The Obama administration's defense of the two programs came as members of Congress were vowing to change a program they voted to authorize and exasperated civil liberties advocates were crying foul, questioning how President Barack Obama, a former constitutional scholar who sought privacy protections as a U.S. senator, could embrace policies aligned with President George W. Bush, whose approach to national security he had vowed to leave behind. "Senator Obama would not have supported this program under President Bush," Rep. RaDul M. Grijalva, D-Ariz., said Friday. "A secretive intelligence agency gathering millions of phone records and using them as it sees fit is the kind of excess many of us warned about after the Patriot Act became law." Clapper alleged that articles about the Internet program "contain numerous inaccuracies." He did not specify. Senior administration officials defended the programs as critical tools and said the intelligence they yield is among the most valuable data the U.S. collects. Clapper said the Internet program, known as PRISM, can't be used to intentionally target any Americans or anyone in the U.S, and that data accidentally collected about Americans is kept to a minimum. But leaders of Congress' intelligence panels dismissed the furor over what they said was standard three-month renewal to a program that's operated for seven years. Committee leaders also said the program recently helped thwart what would have been a significant domestic terrorist attack. CBS News senior correspondent John Miller described one such case, though it's unclear if it is the same referenced by lawmakers: "Najibullah Zazi is a classic example. ... So on September 6, 2009, around dawn, an e-mail comes from an IP address to another IP address. One of them is nothing we're paying attention to. The other is one that's been flagged as an al Qaeda mail drop that is rarely used. And so when that bell rings, they say, 'Hey, they hardly ever use this account, but it's associated with Rashid Rauf, who is al Qaeda's master bomb maker, behind the plot to blow up all the airplanes, 'Who's he talking to?' And when they find out the other IP address on the other end is connected to Aurora, Colo., outside Denver, the connection to Zazi, it takes them to the plot to blow up the New York subways, it's all prevented. That's how a program like this is supposed to work," Miller said. Play Video Why is the government tracking phone records? The NSA must collect the phone data in broad swaths, Clapper said, because collecting it narrowly would make it harder to identify terrorism-related communications. The data collected by the PRISM program is now a driving force in President Obama's daily intelligence briefing, his window into the world of ongoing and emerging threats, reports CBS News White House correspondent Major Garrett. The legal basis grew out of the Patriot Act, passed after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Only a handful of lawmakers knew of PRISM and all were sworn to secrecy. But revelations of the program this week raised alarms from both parties on Capitol Hill. "I'm angry, and I was the one that wrote the law. And I think that the Justice Department and the NSA have abused this by going to far," said Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wisc., who helped craft the Patriot Act. "When law-abiding Americans make phone calls, who they call, when they call and where they call from is private information," said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. "As a result of the disclosures that came to light today, now we're going to have a real debate in the Congress and the country and that's long overdue." Officials from Clapper's office, the Justice Department, NSA and FBI briefed 27 senators for some two hours late Thursday at a hurriedly convened session prompted by severe criticism and uncertainty about the program. "The National Security Agency's seizure and surveillance of virtually all of Verizon's phone customers is an astounding assault on the Constitution," said Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. "After revelations that the Internal Revenue Service targeted political dissidents and the Department of Justice seized reporters' phone records, it would appear that this administration has now sunk to a new low." Play Video NSA tracked phone records of millions of Americans Paul said he will introduce legislation ensuring that the Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures apply to government search of phone records. The surveillance powers are granted under the post-9/11 Patriot Act, which was renewed in 2006 and again in 2011. Republicans who usually don't miss a chance to criticize the administration offered full support. "I'm a Verizon customer. I could care less if they're looking at my phone records. ... If you're not getting a call from a terrorist organization, you got nothing to worry about," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. The disclosures come at a particularly inopportune time for Obama. His administration already faces questions over the Internal Revenue Service's improper targeting of conservative groups, the seizure of journalists' phone records in an investigation into who leaked information to the media, and the handling of the terrorist attack in Libya that left four Americans dead. At a minimum, it's all a distraction as the president tries to tackle big issues like immigration reform and taxes. And it could serve to erode trust in Obama as he tries to advance his second-term agenda and cement his presidential legacy. The Verizon order, granted by the secret FISA court on April 25 and good until July 19, requires information on the phone numbers of both parties on a call, as well as call time and duration, and unique identifiers, The Guardian reported. It does not authorize snooping into the content of phone calls. But with millions of phone records in hand, the NSA's computers can analyze them for patterns, spot unusual behavior and identify "communities of interest" — networks of people in contact with targets or suspicious phone numbers overseas. Once the government has zeroed in on numbers that it believes are tied to terrorism or foreign governments, it can go back to the court with a wiretap request. That allows the government to monitor the calls in real time, record them and store them indefinitely. House Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said that once the data has been collected, officials still must follow "a court-approved method and a series of checks and balances to even make the query on a particular number." The steps are shrouded in government secrecy, which some lawmakers say should change. "The American public can't be kept in the dark about the basic architecture of the programs designed to protect them," said Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn. Verizon Executive Vice President and General Counsel Randy Milch, in a blog post, said the company can't comment on any such court order. He said Verizon take steps to protect customers' privacy, but must comply with court orders. Verizon listed 121 million customers in its first-quarter earnings report this April. The NSA is sensitive to perceptions that it might be spying on Americans. It distributes a brochure that pledges the agency "is unwavering in its respect for U.S. laws and Americans' civil liberties — and its commitment to accountability." Emerging from the briefing, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Intelligence committee, said the government must gather intelligence to prevent plots and keep Americans alive. "That's the goal. If we can do it another way, we're looking to do it another way. We'd like to." She said Congress is always open to changes, "but that doesn't mean there will be any."

You are subscribed to email updates from Top Stories - Google News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610

Kredit: www.nst.com.my

Klik GAMBAR Dibawah Untuk Lebih Info

Sumber Asal Berita :-

NST Online Business Times : latest

---

Bursa opens higher on fresh interest Posted: 06 Jun 2013 06:32 PM PDT Share prices on Bursa Malaysia rebounded to open slightly higher on fresh buying interest, dealers said. The FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) opened 0.26 of a point higher at 1,769.86 but slipped 0.81 of a point to 1,768.79 one minute later. Gainers more than doubled losers 112 to 31, 83 counters were unchanged, 1,361 untraded and 14 others were suspended. Turnover stood at 24.89 million shares worth RM14.73 million. HwangDBS Vickers Research said taking the cue from the positive vibes in the US market, the benchmark index was expected to see an upward bias today but immediate resistance would remain at the 1,785 points level. "Wallstreet avoided a three-day losing streak as the major indices closed 0.5-0.9 per cent higher yesterday. "This could be mainly due to the anticipation of favorable figures from a major jobs report due to be released today," it said in a research note today. On the scoreboard, the Finance Index added 28.1 points to 16,830.97, the Industrial Index shed 5.91 points to 3,017.25 while the Plantation Index gained 15.88 points to 8,344.38. The FBM Emas Index rose 3.15 points to 12,336.45, the FBMT100 earned 0.17 of a point to 12,095.67, the FBM Mid 70 Index climbed 23.09 points to 14,316.1 but the FBM Ace Index fell 2.48 points to 4,616.11. Among actives, Malaysia Airline and Sino Hua-An added one sen each to 33.5 and 20 sen, respectively, GPA Holdings earned half-a-sen to 8.5 sen and Benalec Holdings rose two sen to RM1.51. Heavyweights, Maybank and Axiata Group were both flat at RM10.28 and RM6.47, respectively, CIMB added two sen to RM8.08 but Sime Darby erased 14 sen to RM9.35. Bernama

US stocks gain in erratic trading Posted: 06 Jun 2013 05:03 PM PDT NEW YORK: US stocks swung erratically on Thursday as the dollar sank and bond prices rose, but finished solidly higher a day ahead of the government's release of US employment data for May. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 80.03 points (0.53 percent) at 15,040.62, after having lost as much as 116 points at mid-session. The broad-based S&P 500 added 13.66 points (0.85 percent) at 1,622.56, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite rose 22.58 points (0.66 percent) to 3,424.05. The market continued to search for direction amid mixed signals from the US and global economies and traders appeared unnerved by the dollar's sharp fall against the euro and yen, which came after both the European and British central banks kept monetary policies unchanged. "The lows in the dollar index occurred at the same time as the lows in equities. Once the noise in currencies subsided, stocks began their afternoon rally," said Briefing.com. On Friday the Department of Labour releases its numbers on job creation and unemployment in May, data that give some idea of the direction of the economy and how and when the Fed might pull in its quantitative easing program. Leaders in large-cap stocks included Pfizer (+2.3 percent), Verizon (+3.5 percent) and Home Depot (+2.9 percent). Network systems specialist Ciena gained 17.4 percent after it beat forecasts with a smaller fiscal second-quarter loss and predicted continuing improvement in its market this year. That also helped push up shares of JDS Uniphase, a Ciena competitor, by 8.3 percent, while Juniper Networks fell 0.4 percent. VeriFone, which makes electronic payments equipment, plunged 20.9 percent after turning in a fiscal second-quarter loss driven in part by slower sales. SodaStream International, which sells kits and supplies for making soda drinks at home, surged 10 percent in early trade after rumors spread that Pepsi would take it over. Once denied, the shares settled for a 2.7 percent gain at the end of the session. -- AFP

You are subscribed to email updates from Business Times : latest To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610

Kredit: www.nst.com.my

Klik GAMBAR Dibawah Untuk Lebih Info

Sumber Asal Berita :-

NST Online Top Stories - Google News

---

White House defends NSA phone records collection as 'critical tool' - The Guardian Posted: 06 Jun 2013 09:36 AM PDT Dan Roberts and Spencer Ackerman in Washington Obama administration said the practice was 'a critical tool in protecting the nation'. Photograph: Rex Features The White House has sought to justify its surveillance of millions of Americans' phone records as anger grows over revelations that a secret court order gives the National Security Agency blanket authority to collect call data from a major phone carrier. Politicians and civil liberties campaigners described the disclosures, revealed by the Guardian on Wednesday, as the most sweeping intrusion into private data they had ever seen by the US government. But the Obama administration, while declining to comment on the specific order, said the practice was "a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats to the United States". The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19. Under the terms of the blanket order, the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered. The disclosure has reignited longstanding debates in the US over the proper extent of the government's domestic spying powers. Under the Bush administration, officials in security agencies had disclosed to reporters the large-scale collection of call records data by the NSA, but this is the first time significant and top-secret documents have revealed the continuation of the practice under President Obama. The White House stressed that orders such as the one disclosed by the Guardian would only cover data about the calls rather than their content. A senior administration official said: "Information of the sort described in the Guardian article has been a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats to the United States, as it allows counter-terrorism personnel to discover whether known or suspected terrorists have been in contact with other persons who may be engaged in terrorist activities, particularly people located inside the United States. "As we have publicly stated before, all three branches of government are involved in reviewing and authorising intelligence collection under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Congress passed that act and is regularly and fully briefed on how it is used, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court authorises such collection. There is a robust legal regime in place governing all activities conducted pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act." The administration stressed that the court order obtained by the Guardian relates to call data, and does not allow the government to listen in to anyone's calls. This point was also made by the chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, Dianne Feinstein. "This is just meta data. There is no content involved," she told reporters on Capitol Hill. "In other words, no content of a communication. … The records can only be accessed under heightened standards." Senators Dianne Feinstein, chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, and Saxby Chambliss, the vice chairman, speak to reporters about the NSA cull of phone records. Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images However, in 2013, such metadata can provide authorities with vast knowledge about a caller's identity. Particularly when cross-checked against other public records, the metadata can reveal someone's name, address, driver's licence, credit history, social security number and more. Government analysts would be able to work out whether the relationship between two people was ongoing, occasional or a one-off. "From a civil liberties perspective, the program could hardly be any more alarming. It's a program in which some untold number of innocent people have been put under the constant surveillance of government agents," said Jameel Jaffer, American Civil Liberties Union deputy legal director. "It is beyond Orwellian, and it provides further evidence of the extent to which basic democratic rights are being surrendered in secret to the demands of unaccountable intelligence agencies." The order names Verizon Business Services, a division of Verizon Communications. In its first-quarter earnings report, published in April, Verizon Communications listed about 10 million commercial lines out of a total of 121 million customers. The court order does not specify what type of lines are being tracked. It is not clear whether any additional orders exist to cover Verizon's wireless and residential customers, or those of other phone carriers. Fisa court orders typically direct the production of records pertaining to a specific, named target suspected of being an agent of a terrorist group or foreign state, or a finite set of individually named targets. The unlimited nature of the records being handed over to the NSA is extremely unusual. The Verizon order expressly bars the company from disclosing to the public either the existence of the FBI's request for its customers' records, or the court order itself. "We decline comment," said Ed McFadden, a Washington-based Verizon spokesman said on Wednesday. 'Secret blanket surveillance' Feinstein said she believed the order had been in place for some time. She said: "As far as I know this is the exact three-month renewal of what has been the case for the past seven years. This renewal is carried out by the [foreign intelligence surveillance] court under the business records section of the Patriot Act. Therefore it is lawful. It has been briefed to Congress." News of the order brought swift condemnation from senior US politicians. Former vice-president Al Gore described the "secret blanket surveillance" as "obscenely outrageous". "In [the] digital era, privacy must be a priority," he said. The court order appears to explain the numerous cryptic public warnings by two US senators, Mark Udall and Ron Wyden, about the scope of the Obama administration's surveillance activities. For about two years, the two Democrats have been stridently advising the public that the US government is relying on "secret legal interpretations" to claim surveillance powers so broad that the American public would be "stunned" to learn of the kind of domestic spying being conducted. Udall, a member of the Senate intelligence committee, said on Wednesday night: "While I cannot corroborate the details of this particular report, this sort of widescale surveillance should concern all of us and is the kind of government overreach I've said Americans would find shocking." Russell Tice, a retired National Security Agency intelligence analyst and whistleblower, said: "What is going on is much larger and more systemic than anything anyone has ever suspected or imagined." Although an anonymous senior Obama administration official said that "on its face" the court order revealed by the Guardian did not authorise the government to listen in on people's phone calls, Tice now believes the NSA has constructed such a capability. "I figured it would probably be about 2015" before the NSA had "the computer capacity ... to collect all digital communications word for word," Tice said. "But I think I'm wrong. I think they have it right now." The Center for Constitutional Rights said in a statement that the secret court order was unprecedented. "As far as we know this order from the Fisa court is the broadest surveillance order to ever have been issued: it requires no level of suspicion and applies to all Verizon [business services] subscribers anywhere in the US. "The Patriot Act's incredibly broad surveillance provision purportedly authorizes an order of this sort, though its constitutionality is in question and several senators have complained about it." Mark Rumold, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said: "This is confirmation of what we've long feared, that the NSA has been tracking the calling patterns of the entire country. We hope more than anything else that the government will allow a judge to decide whether this is constitutional, and we can finally put an end to this practice." Howard Wolfson, a deputy mayor of New York, described the revelations as "a shocking report that really exploded overnight". "A lot of people are waking up now and I think they will be horrified," he said. "It is not just the civil libertarian wings of the Republican and Democratic parties; I think most Americans will be really surprised that their government is having access to all of the phone calls they make." "I don't think the administration's response [so far] is anywhere near adequate. I think you will see a lot of questions being asked in the coming days." Oregon senator Jeff Merkley said: "This type of secret bulk data collection is an outrageous breach of Americans' privacy. Can the FBI or the NSA really claim that they need data scooped up on tens of millions of Americans?" Sign up for the Guardian Today Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning. Sign up for the daily email Get the Guardian's daily US email Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning. Enter your email address to subscribe. Sign up for the daily email Sign up now Get the Guardian's daily Australia email Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox every weekday. Sign up for the daily email

Search goes on after deadly Philadelphia building collapse - CBS News Posted: 06 Jun 2013 09:58 AM PDT Last Updated 12:40 p.m. ET PHILADELPHIA As a bulldozer began to clear away the debris of a collapsed building that killed six people, city officials said a search for the dead and injured was nearly complete Thursday and an investigation had already begun to determine how a relatively commonplace demolition job could have gone so wrong. Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers said crews still need to search about 20 percent of the site of the collapse, including the back of a thrift store onto which the vacant four-story building under demolition collapsed, an effort that was expected to last through the afternoon. Firefighters were hosing down piles of bricks as heavy machinery scooped up massive piles of debris and filled a large receptacle to be trucked away. Inside what was left of the Salvation Army thrift store, an undisturbed rack of clothing remained standing in a rear corner. Rescue efforts were buoyed early Thursday when a 61-year-old woman was pulled from the rubble alive and conscious 13 hours after the collapse. That woman, Myra Plekam, was hospitalized in critical condition and has floated in and out of consciousness. At least 14 others were hurt, many with minor injuries. "That's why we stay the course," Ayers said. "This person being pulled out alive is what this rescue operation is all about." Workers combed through bricks and rubble using buckets and their bare hands well into the night. It was unclear what role the demolition work might have played in the collapse, but the accident raised questions about how closely the highly visible spot on Market Street, one of Philadelphia's signature boulevards, was being monitored, particularly amid word of the demolition contractor's many legal and financial troubles. Officials from the U.S. Department of Labor and Occupational Safety and Health Administration were at the scene. "Buildings get demolished all the time in the city of Philadelphia with active buildings right next to them ... they're done safely in this city all the time," Mayor Michael Nutter said at a news conference late Thursday morning. "Something obviously went wrong here yesterday, and possibly in the days leading up to it. That's what the investigation is for." Civil engineers not directly involved in the demolition accident told CBS radio station KYW that they believe two key changes could have prevented the tragedy: the wall should have been temporarily supported, and the neighboring thrift shop should have been evacuated. Officials said every demolition project gets two inspections — one before work begins and a second when most of the building is down. The building that collapsed was one of three being taken down. Officials said they received a complaint in early May when the neighboring building was being demolished. An inspector visited the site on May 14 and found no violations, officials said. They said the building that collapsed was still fully intact on the date of that inspection. Play Video Aerials of building collapse in Philadelphia For weeks, people working nearby had watched with growing concern as a crew took down the vacant four-story building next to a Salvation Army thrift store at the edge of downtown. A roofer atop another building didn't think the operation looked safe. A pair of window washers across the street spotted an unbraced, 30-foot section of wall and predicted among themselves the whole building would simply fall down. On Wednesday, that's what happened. The unstable shell of a building collapsed into a massive heap of bricks and splintered wood, taking part of the thrift store with it. Witnesses said they heard a loud rumbling sound immediately before the collapse. "I was standing there looking out my window, watching the men at work on the building, and the next thing I know I heard something go kaboom," said Veronica Haynes, who was on the fifth floor of an apartment building across the street. "Then you saw the whole side of the wall fall down ... onto the other building." Several other witnesses said they had questioned how the demolition workers were tackling the job. Roofer Patrick Glynn said he had been watching workers take down the building over the past few weeks, and he said he suspected a collapse was inevitable because of the way they were going about it. "For weeks they've been standing on the edge, knocking bricks off," he said. "You could just see it was ready to go at any time. I knew it was going to happen." Steve Cramer, who has been working as a window washer across the street, said the demolition crew left 30 feet of a dividing wall up with no braces and it compromised the integrity of the building "We've been calling it for the past week — it's going to fall, it's going to fall," his co-worker Dan Gillis said. Officials said the demolition contractor was Griffin Campbell Construction in Philadelphia. Messages left for Campbell were not returned. Records show that Campbell was charged in 2005 with dealing crack cocaine near a playground. The charges were dismissed after prosecutors misplaced evidence. He pleaded guilty in an insurance fraud case in 2009, and was acquitted of aggravated assault and related offenses in 2007. Campbell has also filed for bankruptcy protection twice since 2010. The first bankruptcy was dismissed because he didn't follow through on a repayment plan approved by the court. A second bankruptcy petition was filed in March. There were no existing violations on the collapsed building, and Campbell had proper permits for the work being done, according to Carlton Williams, of the city's Department of Licenses and Inspections. The city issued a demolition permit for the four-story structure on Feb. 1. Records show the property owner as STB Investments Corp., a company linked to prominent businessman and developer Richard Basciano, who has been best known as the owner of porn theaters in New York City and Philadelphia. Messages left at the company's New York offices were not immediately returned. The accident happened on the western edge of downtown, between the city's business district and its main train terminal, 30th Street Station. The block had long been a seedy link between gleaming skyscrapers and the busy area around the station. The collapse involved an empty building that once housed a first-floor sandwich shop and apartments above. The thrift shop was on one side. The other side was an adult bookstore and theater that had been taken down within the last few months. A demolition expert wondered what precautions were taken to protect the Salvation Army store, especially since it remained open. Stephen Estrin, a Florida contractor who has testified as an expert at several trials involving building collapses, also questioned whether the demolition was being done by hand or with machinery. A piece of equipment with a claw device was seen amid the debris Wednesday. "This is an inner-city demolition of a masonry building, which would normally be done manually because of the inherent risk — predictable if certain things are not done very slowly and very carefully — of a collapse," Estrin said. "One of the problems with claw work is it sets up a vibration in the walls." Records show the collapsed building was sold to STB in 1994 for $385,894. Plans tentatively called for the block to be redeveloped into retail stores and apartments.

You are subscribed to email updates from Top Stories - Google News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610

Kredit: www.nst.com.my

Klik GAMBAR Dibawah Untuk Lebih Info

Sumber Asal Berita :-

NST Online Top Stories - Google News

---

Tom Donilon resigning as national security adviser; Susan Rice to replace him - Washington Post Posted: 05 Jun 2013 07:55 AM PDT National security adviser Thomas E. Donilon will resign his post, White House officials said Wednesday, and be replaced by U.N. Ambassador Susan E. Rice, a close confidant of President Obama who has been strongly criticized by Republicans but was widely expected to move into the job. White House officials said Donilon's resignation will take effect in early July. Rice, one of Obama's most trusted foreign policy advisers, does not need Senate confirmation to take his place. Earlier this year, she withdrew her name from consideration to become secretary of state — a position that does require Senate confirmation — in the face of extensive criticism of her role in the aftermath of the Sept. 11-12, 2012, attacks on two U.S. compounds in Benghazi, Libya. The attacks killed four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. Republicans on Capitol Hill have accused Rice of misleading the public over the nature of the attacks in an attempt to protect Obama from criticism during a difficult reelection campaign. White House officials said Obama will nominate Samantha Power to replace Rice at the United Nations. Power, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her book "A Problem from Hell," about the U.S. response to genocide, served as a senior director for multilateral affairs and human rights on the National Security Council during Obama's first term and the start of his second. Her nomination to become ambassador to the United Nations also has been much-anticipated. Unlike the security adviser job, it will require Senate confirmation. Some of Rice's toughest critics have said they are prepared to move on and work with her if, as expected, Donilon resigns and she is tapped to replace him. "She's going to have her plate full if she's chosen," said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) "I will not be petty. I will put my differences on Benghazi aside and work with her." But Republicans could decide to launch a fight against Power, whose book generated considerable reaction by focusing on what she deemed America's moral failure to act in the face of modern genocides in Africa and the Balkans. Power said the United States applied double standards — what she termed a la cartism — in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. Washington complained about a "shortage of democracy in Palestine, but not in Pakistan," she wrote, and bombed Serbs in defense of ethnic Albanians but said nothing about Russian excesses in Chechnya. Power argued that the United States' international standing and credibility required that Washington also confront the darker chapters of its foreign policy past — CIA-backed coups in Guatemala, Chile and Congo, for example, or the doubling of U.S. financial assistance to Iraq's Saddam Hussein the year he gassed the Kurds. "We need a historical reckoning with crimes committed, sponsored, permitted by the United States," she wrote. Keith Urbahn, a former chief of staff to Donald H. Rumsfeld, who served as defense secretary in the George W. Bush administration, tweeted Wednesday morning: "I don't know about you, but it might be helpful to have someone rep'ing America at UN who doesn't think we are the source of world's ills." Power has also turned her no-holds-barred commentary on the United Nations itself, writing in the New Republic in 2003, "The U.N. Security Council is anachronistic, undemocratic, and consists of countries that lack the standing to be considered good faith arbiters of how to balance the stability against democracy, peace against justice, and security against human rights." Donilon, a seasoned Washington insider, has held senior national security posts in the administration since Obama took office, rising from the principal deputy national security adviser to his current job. His reputation for trying to protect Obama politically has caused friction with other agencies over the years, beginning in the fall of 2009, when he advocated for a far smaller deployment of U.S. troops in Afghanistan than the Pentagon had requested. Executing the administration's shift to a stronger focus on Asia in its foreign policy has been one of Donilon's primary policy initiatives; his resignation is timed to follow the summit meeting he helped organize between Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping this weekend. The news of Donilon's resignation was first reported by the New York Times.

Desperate rescue effort underway after building collapse in downtown ... - Fox News Posted: 05 Jun 2013 08:55 AM PDT JUNE 5: Emergency crews are at the scene of a building collapse in Philadelphia.MyFoxPhilly.com JUNE 5: There is no immediate word on exactly what caused the building to collapse.MyFoxPhilly.com JUNE 5: Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers says as many as eight to ten people are believed trapped in the rubble.MyFoxPhilly.com Next Slide Previous Slide DEVELOPING: Philadelphia rescue crews are searching frantically for survivors after a building collapsed in downtown Philadelphia Wednesday morning, with initial reports indicating up to 10 people may trapped under the debris, MyFoxPhilly.com reported. Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey said police are "still pulling people out," and there is no way to know for sure how many people remain trapped. News helicopters have been asked to move from the scene because it is hindering the crews' ability to hear screams. It was considered a "hands-only" operation with no heavy equipment for about the first hour. It was firefighters with buckets moving bricks. A team of four search dogs are also deployed at the scene. The collapse occurred on 22nd and Market streets, in the city's downtown area. Dozens of firefighters and emergency personnel are at the scene actively searching for victims. At least three people have been pulled from the rubble and transported to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Initial reports indicate there were 11 total hospitalized. The collapse involved a Salvation Army corner thrift store and a four-story building next door with a sandwich shop on the first floor. It's not clear whether any other adjacent buildings were damaged. The building's facade and side wall came down shortly before 10:45 a.m. MyFoxPhilly.com reported that it appears firefighters are split into two groups: one group is focused on the back of the collapsed building while the other group is inside the Salvation Army. The Salvation Army next door was undergoing demolition, but it is not immediately clear if there is any connection, The Philadelphia Fire Department told Fox News. Police, however, said it appears the collapse was the result of an industrial accident.   Click for more from MyFoxPhilly.com   Print   Email   Share   Comments Recommend Tweet Share This Article

You are subscribed to email updates from Top Stories - Google News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610

Kredit: www.nst.com.my

Klik GAMBAR Dibawah Untuk Lebih Info

Sumber Asal Berita :-

NST Online Top Stories - Google News

---

Anti-government protests in Turkey - Washington Post Posted: 04 Jun 2013 07:04 AM PDT Photos of the day Turkish protests continue, floods inundate German towns, French Open tennis, elephant conservation and more. Animal views Fun and fascinating creatures around the world. Eye on entertainment Jackie Chan, Kerry Washington, Sofia Vergara, Glenn Close, Darius Rucker and more. East Coast feels the heat The sun sweltered over states in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic for a third straight day, with temperatures in the 90s. The hot weather is expected to stretch through the weekend.

Issa hauls 'Spock' before committee - Politico Posted: 04 Jun 2013 08:39 AM PDT House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa is hauling the man who plays Spock in the IRS "Star Trek" spoof before his committee this week. Faris Fink, the commissioner of the small business and self-employed division, will testify before the committee on Thursday at a hearing on IRS conference spending. Continue Reading Issa slams White House response Other witnesses include acting IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel, Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration chief watchdog J. Russell George — who will release a report Tuesday on the IRS conference budget — and Gregory Kutz, an assistant inspector general. (PHOTOS: 10 slams on the IRS) Issa (R-Calif.) has been aggressively probing the IRS since news broke last month that the tax-collecting agency had inappropriately singled out tea party groups as they applied for a tax exemption. He's suggested he'll bring Lois Lerner, the head of the tax-exempt division, back to the panel after some claimed she lost her Fifth Amendment right by delivering a statement last month proclaiming her innocence. And over the weekend, he released partial transcripts of the panel's interrogations of Cincinnati-based IRS employees, arguing that they show the IRS scandal directive came from Washington. Thursday's hearing will zero in on conference expenses, including those used to film the "Star Trek" parody and a separate dance video released over the weekend. In the six-minute video filmed for a 2010 California-based conference, Fink and other IRS employees star in a "Star Trek" parody in which Planet Notax has succumbed to taxpayer anarchy. But Starship Enterprise sends federal workers to assess the tax situation. And the "monster" they're fighting? Uncollected tax revenue. "I just received an emergency medical call from the planet! Chris, they're dying down there. … They call it the Tax Gap!" an agency employee says in the video. But Fink — playing Spock — says there's no reason for fear because they can just travel back in time to an IRS conference in the 21st century on planet Earth to "pick up some Tax Gap vaccine." "The travel expenses and medicine can be itemized," he said.

You are subscribed to email updates from Top Stories - Google News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610

Kredit: www.nst.com.my

Klik GAMBAR Dibawah Untuk Lebih Info

Sumber Asal Berita :-

NST Online Top Stories - Google News

---

Justices Allow Police to Take DNA Samples After Arrests - New York Times Posted: 03 Jun 2013 08:36 AM PDT By ADAM LIPTAK Published: June 3, 2013 WASHINGTON — Police may take D.N.A. samples from people arrested for serious crimes, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday in a 5-to-4 decision. "When officers make an arrest supported by probable cause to hold for a serious offense and they bring the suspect to the station to be detained in custody," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority, "taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee's D.N.A. is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment." Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas, Stephen G. Breyer and Samuel A. Alito Jr. joined the majority opinion. Justice Antonin Scalia summarized his dissent from the bench, a rare move signaling deep disagreement. "Make no mistake about it: because of today's decision, your D.N.A. can be taken and entered into a national database if you are ever arrested, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason," he said. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan joined the dissent. The case arose from the collection of D.N.A. in 2009 from Alonzo Jay King Jr. after his arrest on assault charges in Wicomico County, Md. His D.N.A. profile, obtained by swabbing his cheek, matched evidence in a 2003 rape case, and he was convicted of that crime. The Maryland Court of Appeals ruled that a state law authorizing D.N.A. collection from people arrested but not yet convicted violated the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of unreasonable searches. Collecting D.N.A. from people convicted of crimes was not at issue in the case, Maryland v. King, No. 12-207. The question was, rather, whether the Fourth Amendment allowed collecting it from people who have merely been arrested and so are presumed innocent.

Frank Lautenberg, 5-Term Senator From New Jersey, Dies at 89 - New York Times Posted: 03 Jun 2013 09:22 AM PDT By ADAM CLYMER Published: June 3, 2013 Frank R. Lautenberg, who fought the alcohol and tobacco industries and promoted Amtrak as a five-term United States senator from New Jersey, died on Monday morning in Manhattan. He was 89.

You are subscribed to email updates from Top Stories - Google News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610

Kredit: www.nst.com.my