White House Emails Show Staffer Calling Fox News’ Bret Baier A ‘Lunatic’

July 15th, 2011

The Huffington Post

A cache of emails released by a conservative watchdog group on Thursday shows White House staffers complaining about Fox News and calling one of its anchors a “lunatic.”

Judicial Watch released 81 pages of email correspondence from October 2009 that it obtained through a FOIA request. The emails mostly show the back-and-forth between various White House aides, Treasury Department staffers and members of the media over a series of interviews with Kenneth Feinberg, who had been tapped to provide oversight of the TARP bailout program.

One email shows a White House staffer emailing a Treasury colleague, saying it would be better “if you skip Fox News” in a group of media outlets that was conducting a pooled interview with Feinberg.

Other members of the White House press pool balked at this, and Fox News’ Major Garrett ultimately interviewed Feinberg. At the time, though, the White House and the Treasury strongly denied that there had been any attempt to exclude the network. Most of the emails show staffers coming up with a response to the flurry of emails and published reports about the controversy from various journalists (including HuffPost’s own Michael Calderone, then working for Politico).

Another email lashes out at “Special Report” anchor Bret Baier: “Bret Baier just did a stupid piece about the [rumored exclusion] — but he is a lunatic.”

Click here to read all of the emails.

Click here for the full report from The Huffington Post

Documents Reveal TSA Lied About Safety of Naked Body Scanners

June 28th, 2011

Natural News

By: Ethan A. Huff

Remember when Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano claimed back in 2010 that the US Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) naked body scanners had been proven safe by research conducted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)? A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request recently brought to light internal emails that were sent by NIST to DHS that basically decry Napolitano’s false assertion that NIST had verified the safety of the naked body scanners.

Amid the string of emails discussing the matter, an undisclosed sender explains that NIST was “a little concerned” over Napolitano’s public reassurances that TSA’s naked body scanners are safe. After all, NIST does not test products, and it never tested the naked body scanners in the first place. Napolitano apparently took the individual machine dose measurements that NIST had gathered and twisted them to say what she wanted them to say, which was that the machines are safe.

You can view a partially-censored copy of that email exchange here: http://epic.org/privacy/backscatter/USAToday.pdf

Worse, NIST had actually warned DHS and TSA that the machines were not necessarily safe, and that airport screening agents should avoid standing next to them because of the harmful radiation they emit. It is unclear whether or not this warning was ever taken seriously by TSA officials.

Napolitano also falsely claimed that research conducted by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory confirms the safety of naked body scanners, even though the research actually suggests the opposite. Dr. Michael Love from the school publicly stated that the machines are going to give people skin cancer, and the specific findings of the report indicate that “radiation zones” around the machines emit enough radiation to exceed the “General Public Dose Limit.”

One thing is for sure, though. Many current and former TSA agents who have developed cancers are now speaking out against the machines, as they believe repeated and continual exposure to them is responsible for their conditions. Many TSA agents have repeatedly requested that they be given dosimeters to wear that will warn them of dangerous radiation exposure — but TSA higher-ups have never followed through in addressing their concerns, despite empty promises that they would.

Click here for the full report from Natural News

Google Data Breach Investigation Dropped By FTC

October 28, 2010

Financial Times

By: Stephanie Kierchgaessner and Richard Waters

The top US consumer protection agency has dropped an inquiry into data collection breaches by Google, even as regulators in Europe and Canada have stepped up their scrutiny of the internet giant’s privacy policies.

David Vladeck, the director of the bureau of consumer protection at the Federal Trade Commission, said the FTC had decided to drop its investigation into Google’s allegedly inadvertent collection of consumer data in 2007 because it was satisfied that Google had adequately addressed the issue internally.

The FTC decision marks the end of at least one major probe into the most damaging privacy breach to hit the company to date. But the company is still facing ongoing investigations by individual state attorneys general in the US, and regulators in Spain and Canada both last week concluded that Google had broken local laws while investigations are underway in other countries.

Google admitted for the first time last week that the cars it had used to photograph residential streets for its Street View mapping service had illicitly collected some personal e-mails and passwords from the homes it passed. The breach was first announced in May.

At that time, however, the company said it had only collected “fragments” of information. Mr Vladeck said the revelation had caused “concern” among FTC staff because Google had only discovered the 2007 breach in response to a request from data protection authorities in Germany.

But in a letter to a Google attorney posted on the commission’s website, Mr Vladeck said Google’s decision to improve its internal processes to address the FTC’s concerns, including the appointment of a new director of privacy for engineering, gave staff enough assurances that the company had addressed the issue. FTC chairman Jon Leibowitz declined to comment on the decision.

“Google has made assurances to the FTC that the company has not used and will not use any of the payload data collected in any Google product or service, now or in the future,” Mr Vladeck said. “The assurance is critical to mitigate the potential harm to consumers from the collection of payload data.”

Google said it was pleased by the news. But the decision was met by outrage from privacy advocates.

Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, accused the FTC of making its decision based solely on Google’s own representations, without making any “independent” determination on whether the company had broken privacy rules.

Jeffrey Chester, another privacy watchdog, said he believed the FTC was giving Google a pass in part because of the White House’s close relationship with the company. Even though the FTC is the top consumer protection agency in the US, it has limited statutory authority to take enforcement action against companies.

The commission is due to unveil a new set of voluntary privacy guidelines in coming weeks. Mr Leibowitz has said that addressing the rampant collection of personal data by internet companies is a top priority.

Click here for the full report from Financial Times

Five New Frightening Types of Cyberattacks

October 18th, 2010

AOL News

By: Sharon Weinberger

Worried about e-mails that appear to be from your bank but could well be part of a phishing scam? That may soon be the least of your problems. With concerns about cyberattacks on the rise, computer security experts are looking ahead to what they think might be the next wave of attacks.

What they find is that everything from your car to your computer webcam is vulnerable to attack. Here are five new types of attacks:

1) Social Network Attacks: Malware that steals your e-mail contacts, passwords and other personal information is old news. But a new technical paper by a group of Israeli researchers says the cybersecurity community is ignoring a new, more insidious type of attack: one that preys on your entire social network, working to slowly pilfer information about your behavior and life.

Dubbed “stealing reality,” these types of attacks, the researchers argue, are more insidious because the “victim of a ‘behavioral pattern’ theft cannot easily change her behavior and life patterns.”

“Most likely those attacks are currently happening,” lead author Yaniv Altshuler, a research scientist at Ben Gurion University, told AOL News.

Altshuler says the market for this sort of information already exists. “And If there is a buyer, there is a seller,” he added.

2) Attacks on Cars: Today’s automobiles often come equipped with the equivalent of advanced computer systems, which means that like your home computer, they could be vulnerable to attack. In a new paper, researchers at the University of Washington and the University of California, San Diego, say they have demonstrated “the ability to adversarially control a wide range of automotive functions and completely ignore driver input — including disabling the brakes, selectively braking individual wheels on demand, stopping the engine, and so on.”

Everything from your car’s wireless tire-pressure sensors to its stolen-vehicle tracking and recovery system provides opportunities for hackers to gain control of your vehicle without you even knowing.

3) Medical Devices: Today, wireless pacemakers can send your doctor or hospital real-time data on your heart, showing just how far medical devices have come with the help of modern electronics. But with that new technology comes a new threat: the possibility of someone hacking into your medical device or injecting malicious code that disrupts the lifesaving device. Prosthetic limbs, wireless pacemakers and other implantable medical devices might all be at risk.

“This is very real — the bad guys would buy the pieces and just work on them a little bit,” Greg Hoglund, who heads HBGary, a computer security company, told an audience earlier this year at a Northern California Hospital Cyberterrorism Seminar. “It’s amazing someone hasn’t pulled this off yet.”

4) Hacking Your Webcam: Watch out for the light on your computer that shows the webcam is on, even after you think you’ve turned it off. It could be a Trojan computer program operating the camera, taking pictures or even video, and sending it over the Internet without your knowledge. For those who leave their laptops on and open, that’s the equivalent of having Big Brother in your bedroom or office without you knowing.

There are already cases of this happening, for example, in Germany. “A man has been arrested for spying on more than 150 girls in their bedrooms by hacking into their computers and using their webcams to watch them, provoking warnings that others will be doing the same thing,” DPA, the German press agency, reported earlier this year.

5) Smart Phone Attacks: Most consumers worried about cyberattacks associate the threat with their home PCs or laptops. So they often think nothing of downloading applications to their smart phones, which often contain just as much personal information as their home computers.

“Nobody’s making money at the moment with mobile security,” said Mikko Hypponen, the chief research officer of Finland’s F-Secure, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. “But all the players assume that sooner or later we will see a major outbreak or some other major event that will change the situation forever.”

Click here for the full report from AOL

Authorities Plan To Trawl Phone Calls And E Mails For Signs Of “Resentment Toward Government”

September 30, 2010

Infowars.com

By: Paul Joseph Watson

Do you resent the government for enforcing Obamacare or raising your taxes? Write about it in an email or talk about it on the phone and you could be placed under surveillance as a potential terrorist, if frightening new technology being shopped to law enforcement agencies is implemented.

Forget pre-crime and get ready for face-crime, Big Brother is set to unleash a new wave of shockingly invasive and Orwellian technology on the American people if a recent symposium in Hamburg New York is anything to go by. Federal agencies, police departments and others were all in attendance to see a demonstration of a system that trawls phone conversations, emails and instant messages to detect “resentment toward government,” alerting authorities to potential “terrorists” who are then placed under surveillance.

The technology was demonstrated to law enforcement officials, mental health professionals, and military representatives at a recent International First Responder-Military Symposium held at Hilbert College.

“A Swiss professor working with a Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientist who heads the Mind Machine Project there outlined how this program operates through computerized scanning of phone calls and electronic messages sent through e-mail and social networking mechanisms,” reports the Buffalo News.

The system works by detecting “resentment in conversations through measurements in decibels and other voice biometrics,” more specifically the emotional spikes that characterize “hatred and deep resentment toward government.”

“As for written transmissions scrutinized by the computer program, it can detect the same patterns of fixation on specified subjects,” states the report.

Once an individual has been identified as harboring “resentment toward government,” the information can be “passed along to authorities so surveillance can begin.”

Besides law enforcement applications, the program is also designed to aid mental health professionals to help “war veterans” become emotionally stable, chillingly implying that distrust or hatred of government, which was hailed by the founding fathers as a vital virtue, is now considered a mental illness.

Of course, this technology completely violates the 4th amendment, but by introducing it as a tool to fight terrorism, authorities hope to skirt around the issue – the problem being that, as we have exhaustively documented, the federal government now sees any political activity whatsoever, be it anti-war protesters on the left, or anti-big government activists on the right, as potential domestic terrorists.

The technology is rationalized by its adherents, who claim that it will help stop terrorists in their tracks, while also being used against ‘troubled veterans and first responders’.

However, the introduction of a program that closely resembles George Orwell’s “facecrime” in 1984 has little to do with fighting extremist Muslims hiding in caves in central Asia, this is all about targeting the American people with total panopticon-style surveillance, while also creating a chilling atmosphere and reminding people that their every conversation, instant message or email is being scanned by super-computers for any sign of extremism or “resentment toward government”.

As we have seen from the MIAC report, the spying case in Pennsylvania, and a host of others in recent years, the federal government defines “terrorist propaganda” as any material critical of the state, therefore any dissent against Big Brother in a phone conversation or an email would automatically trigger the new technology.

This is not only a constitution killer, it represents a hammer blow to free speech. The Internet as a forum of open discourse and free exchange of ideas will be fundamentally damaged if people live in constant fear of being raided by the feds at any minute because they sounded off about the government in an e mail or a posting on a comment board.

Click here for the full report from Infowars.com

37 States Join Probe Into Google Wi-Spy Collection

July 22, 2010

Los Angeles Times

By: Kristena Hansen

A multistate investigation is raising more questions about how Google Inc. may have improperly gathered people’s private information through their unsecured wireless networks while collecting data for its Street View feature.

Connecticut Atty. Gen. Richard Blumenthal, who has been leading the month-old investigation, sent a third letter to Google on Wednesday asking, among other things, whether it had tested the feature’s software before putting it to use. Doing so, he said, should have uncovered any glitches responsible for the unwarranted collection of e-mails, passwords and other personal data of those who failed to protect their networks with passwords.

“Google’s responses continue to generate more questions than they answer,” he said in a statement. “Now the question is how it may have used — and secured — all this private information.”

Blumenthal, who is running for Sen. Christopher J. Dodd’s seat, also said that attorneys general from 37 states and the District of Columbia have officially joined the probe, including those from Texas, Florida, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri and Massachusetts. Eight states would not be identified because their laws bar them from disclosing investigations, he said.

The office of California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown has not yet responded to a question about whether the state is a participant.

“As we’ve said before, it was a mistake for us to include code in our software that collected payload data, but we believe we did nothing illegal,” a spokesperson for Mountain View, Calif.-based Google said in a statement. “We’re continuing to work with the relevant authorities to answer their questions and concerns.”

The investigation, which follows similar probes in Germany and Australia, is also considering whether federal and state laws need to be changed or updated as a preventative measure.

The Street View function was launched in 2007 and since expanded to most major cities in the U.S, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia. It uses vehicles to photograph street layouts in every direction to give Web users a 360-degree view of streets and roadways.

But the vehicles were also equipped to detect Wi-Fi access points, which Google hadn’t disclosed until recently, in order to help computers figure out where they are without having to use a GPS system.

At the same time, Google said it mistakenly picked up 600 gigabytes of data from unsecured networks over the last three years.

click here to read full article

No Jail, Contempt For TV Pitchman Trudeau

May 20, 2010

Reuters.com

by Jon Stempel

Thursday’s ruling by a unanimous panel of the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a February ruling by a federal district judge, who had scolded Trudeau for inciting fans to flood the judge’s e-mail with testimonials.

Trudeau has long battled federal regulators over his marketing of “cures” for such things as disease, memory loss, obesity and financial distress.

The case is Federal Trade Commission v. Trudeau, U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 10-1383.

Click here to read the full report

Infomercial pitchman’s contempt sentence appealed

April 8, 2010

Quad-City Times

By: Mike Robinson

The 30-day jail sentence for criminal contempt against infomercial pitchman Kevin Trudeau was appropriate, a lawyer told an appeals court Thursday, saying a federal judge had to act decisively after receiving a barrage of e-mails _ some alarming _ from the man’s supporters.

“Some were threatening,” attorney Gary Feinerman told the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, which is weighing Trudeau’s appeal. “One went so far as to say ‘we are watching you.’”

Trudeau’s attorney, Kimball Anderson, said Trudeau may have caused a problem by urging his supporters to flood the judge’s computer with messages, but added “there was no criminal intent to do so.” He suggested Trudeau hadn’t realized that he was doing anything wrong.

Anderson told the appeals court that U.S. District Judge Robert W. Gettleman should have held a hearing before imposing the jail term and did not follow the law when he found Trudeau guilty of criminal contempt. Gettleman sentenced Trudeau to 30 days and fined him $5,000 on Feb. 17.

The e-mails were an outgrowth of a long-running court battle between Trudeau and the Federal Trade Commission.

Trudeau is the author of books prescribing “natural cures” for a variety of physical ailments and other problems and advertises them on television infomercials. The Federal Trade Commission says ads for his book on how to lose weight have been deceptive _ a finding upheld by the court. Trudeau is facing a hefty fine from Gettleman for going ahead with such ads despite a court order.

Trudeau urged fans and followers to send messages to the judge that were essentially testimonials saying that his remedies for various ailments worked. Hundreds of e-mails flooded into Gettleman’s computer and BlackBerry.

The U.S. Marshals Service studied the e-mails to assess possible threats.

Anderson said Gettleman ignored federal law when sentencing Trudeau for criminal contempt, which he said must take place in court and have the judge must be a witness to it.

Feinerman said the judge’s computer counts as part of the court.

“The computer is part and parcel of the judicial toolbox _ as much as the gavel,” he said.

Feinerman himself has been nominated for a federal judgeship and is awaiting a vote in the Senate. He was appointed by the appeals court to argue in favor of Gettleman’s sentence.

Trudeau remains free on bond pending the appeals panel’s decision, which will come later. The court is under no deadline to act.

Neither of the lawyers, interviewed after court, would venture an opinion on which way the appeals judges seemed to be leaning and whether Trudeau would end up serving the time.

“My crystal ball has been broken lately,” Anderson said.

Click here for the full report.

Judges asked: Was infomercial king really contemptible

April 8, 2010

Chicago Sun Times

By: Natasha Korecki

There’s no question TV pitchman Kevin Trudeau urged his followers to deluge a federal judge with emails as the judge prepared to make a key decision in his case.

But appellate court judges this morning questioned whether U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman stepped out of bounds by ordering Trudeau to spend 30 days in jail for the shenanigans that shut down the judge’s Blackberry and clogged his email inbox.

In arguments before the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals — which stayed Trudeau’s sentence pending this appeal — Trudeau’s lawyer, Kimball Anderson, said even when the president is sent an email threat, the person accused of sending the threat gets a hearing and due process under the law.

After making a criminal contempt finding in February, Gettleman sentenced Trudeau on his own power.

“There’s nothing that says judges get more power than the president of the United States,” Anderson said.

Appellate Judge Ilana Rover looked around in mock surprise.

“Do you realize where you are?” she said, to laughter in the courtroom.

The three-judge panel hearing the argument seemed interested in whether Trudeau’s actions could be defined as criminal contempt of court because they happened outside of the court’s presence.

Anderson argued that such a finding could come only when the misbehavior occurs inside the courtroom, in front of the judge and that the behavior affects the “administration of justice.”

In February, Trudeau, who was not present in court today, urged his supporters over the radio and his Web site to email Judge Gettleman to influence him on an upcoming decision in Trudeau’s case.

Anderson said the hundreds of emails that were sent didn’t shut down any server.

“Maybe’s he’s not as popular as he thought,” Rovner quipped.

Gary Feinerman, appointed to argue on behalf of the judge’s order, said Trudeau intentionally stirred up his followers to send angry emails and that with today’s technology, a computer is considered part of the judge’s courtroom.

“The court, at that point, was under attack,” said Feinerman, a partner at Sidley Austin, who is awaiting confirmation of a federal judge position following a February appointment by President Obama.

The result: a U.S. Marshals threat assessment team has to comb through each email to determine whether any of the messages poses a threat to the judge.

“He asked for help in an angry way that elicited an angry response from his followers,” said Feinerman.

The appellate panel took the case under advisement and may rule at any time. Trudeau is still bound by terms of his bond, which bans him from traveling outside the Northern District of Illinois without court approval.

Click here for the full report.

Infomercial pitchman’s contempt sentence appealed

April 8, 2010

BND.com

By: Mike Robinson

The 30-day jail sentence for criminal contempt against infomercial pitchman Kevin Trudeau was appropriate, a lawyer told an appeals court Thursday, saying a federal judge had to act decisively after receiving a barrage of e-mails – some alarming – from the man’s supporters.

“Some were threatening,” attorney Gary Feinerman told the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, which is weighing Trudeau’s appeal. “One went so far as to say ‘we are watching you.’”

Trudeau’s attorney, Kimball Anderson, said Trudeau may have caused a problem by urging his supporters to flood the judge’s computer with messages, but added “there was no criminal intent to do so.” He suggested Trudeau hadn’t realized that he was doing anything wrong.

Anderson told the appeals court that U.S. District Judge Robert W. Gettleman should have held a hearing before imposing the jail term and did not follow the law when he found Trudeau guilty of criminal contempt. Gettleman sentenced Trudeau to 30 days and fined him $5,000 on Feb. 17.

The e-mails were an outgrowth of a long-running court battle between Trudeau and the Federal Trade Commission.

Trudeau is the author of books prescribing “natural cures” for a variety of physical ailments and other problems and advertises them on television infomercials. The Federal Trade Commission says ads for his book on how to lose weight have been deceptive – a finding upheld by the court. Trudeau is facing a hefty fine from Gettleman for going ahead with such ads despite a court order.

Trudeau urged fans and followers to send messages to the judge that were essentially testimonials saying that his remedies for various ailments worked. Hundreds of e-mails flooded into Gettleman’s computer and BlackBerry.

The U.S. Marshals Service studied the e-mails to assess possible threats.

Anderson said Gettleman ignored federal law when sentencing Trudeau for criminal contempt, which he said must take place in court and have the judge must be a witness to it.

Feinerman said the judge’s computer counts as part of the court.

“The computer is part and parcel of the judicial toolbox – as much as the gavel,” he said.

Feinerman himself has been nominated for a federal judgeship and is awaiting a vote in the Senate. He was appointed by the appeals court to argue in favor of Gettleman’s sentence.

Trudeau remains free on bond pending the appeals panel’s decision, which will come later. The court is under no deadline to act.

Neither of the lawyers, interviewed after court, would venture an opinion on which way the appeals judges seemed to be leaning and whether Trudeau would end up serving the time.

“My crystal ball has been broken lately,” Anderson said.

Click here for the full report.

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