The former disaster of a FEMA chief, Michael Brown, will be teaching a class on the Patriot Act at the University of Denver law school, reports TPMmuckraker.
TPM Reader JC has to hit the off switch on the email …
I finally had to block emails from a couple of my cousins, because they were sending me thinly veiled racist diatribes about the death of America, Muslims, Democrats being the party of the big-city ghettos and the responsibility of poor people for the world economic crisis.
Lotta amendments, huffing and puffing and positioning. But what does it all amount to? Brian Beutler brings us up to speed on the latest and what it actually means in terms of a bill getting passed.
This has been bubbling among tech types and civil liberty advocates for a few days, but once we looked into it decided it was worth a bit more attention.
The big revelation is that one wireless telecom company in a single year processed 8 million law enforcement requests for GPS data on the company’s wireless users. And that’s just one company.
For non-techies, law enforcement isn’t tapping into the GPS interface you might use to get directions from the airport. Rather, it’s the GPS capability that all phones manufactured today are required by federal regulations to have so that if you dial 911 from the phone, first responders can find you.
It’s a fascinating (and, yes, alarming) story. Justin Elliott has talked to the company, Sprint, and fills out the picture of how your cell phone can be used to track your whereabouts, with what appears to be minimal, if any, judicial oversight.
Looks like this isn’t turning out to be a fun evening for Max Baucus.
Harry Reid gets key liberal and conservative Dems into a room together to hammer out a public option compromise. “There’s no question about that,” Sen. Rockefeller (D-WV) told reporters. “This should have started a long time ago and thankfully Harry Reid caught it in time to put us together.”
Here’s a fun story to end the week with.
Guy sends an email to friends and family recounting his single-handedly thwarting a potential terrorist plane hijacking at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport by man-handling a group of Arabs in “full attire” and tossing them from the plane. The email goes viral on the right-wing interwebs, even ending up on Glenn Beck’s Project 9/12 website.
Turns out the incident was actually a misunderstanding that happened when a Spanish-speaking passenger didn’t understand a flight attendant’s instructions to turn off his cell phone. And even better, the “hero” who wrote the email wasn’t even in Atlanta when the events happened. He was supposed to be, but missed his connecting flight. (The airline debunks the email in great detail here.)
But hey, let’s not let that stop us from enjoying Tedd Petruna’s description of his swashbuckling run-in with the terrorists.
I think my favorite part is the moment when two of the Muslim terrorists, apparently getting ready to hijack the plane, “began to show footage of a porno they had taped the night before, and were very loud about it.” Now, I don’t know terrorist best practices. But it seems like an odd time to bust out some porn. Petruna explains the significance of this odd behavior …
Now….they are only permitted to do this prior to Jihad. If a Muslim man goes into a strip club, he has to view the woman via mirror with his back to her. (don’t ask me….I don’t make the rules, but I’ve studied) The 3rd stewardess informed them that they were not to have electronic devices on at this time. To which one of the men said “shut up infidel dog!” She went to take the camcorder and he began to scream in her face in Arabic.
Full email after the jump … Read More
Sarah Palin encamped with her corps of revolutionaries at a book signing this morning in Fairfax, Virginia, not far from the battlefield at Manassas. Our reporter filed this report.
Sarah Palin and Barney Frank are keynoting tonight’s Gridiron Club dinner in Washington.
We’re looking for a New York City-based graphic designer to help put the finishing touches on a project we’re working on. (We have a strong preference for someone who can visit and consult with us in our office. But we’re not ruling out someone who could do the work remotely.)
The key to this project is not so much graphics and imagery as finding ways to intuitively and elegantly organize data. So it falls somewhere on the spectrum between graphic design and information architecture. And we need someone with real experience and skills in that area.
If you’re interested, please email us at the comments email address at the upper right with the subject line “Design Project” and provide examples or descriptions of work you’ve done that would be relevant to the kind of project described above.