While he granted the injunction, he himself placed it on hold, awaiting the outcome of an appeal.

A federal judge ruled Monday that the National Security AgencyÂ’s bulk collection of phone records violates the ConstitutionÂ’s ban on unreasonable searches, but put his decision on hold pending a near-certain government appeal.

U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon granted a preliminary injunction sought by plaintiffs Larry Klayman and Charles Strange, concluding they were likely to prevail in their constitutional challenge. Leon, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, ruled Monday that the two men are likely to be able to show that their privacy interests outweigh the governmentÂ’s interest in collecting the data. Leon says that means that massive collection program is an unreasonable search under the ConstitutionÂ’s Fourth Amendment.

...

[I]n his a 68-page, heavily footnoted opinion, Leon concluded that the government didn’t cite a single instance in which the program “actually stopped an imminent terrorist attack.”

Some analysis from AllahPundit.

The judge found that a previous 1970s ruling did not control here, because of something I keep talking about: Changes in the power of technology to search and compare bits of data. Fifty years ago the police had a very limited ability to utilize your fingerprints record to harm you. If you became a suspect in a case -- and only in that case -- they could painstakingly compare your fingerprints to those found at a crime scene using slow, precious human labor resources.

There were serious practical limits on what could be done with citizen data held in government files. Yes, the government could use that data to put people in jail, but analysis and comparison was a labor intensive process that at least served as a naturally-existing limiting principle on government intrusion: Sure, the government could search your personally-identifying data to connect you with a crime, but, as a practical matter, it was so time-consuming to do so that they generally would not do so, not unless they had a strong suspicion you were actually a culprit.

They wouldn't just compare every fingerprint on file with every fingerprint found at unsolved crime scenes, after all.

Well, today, they can -- and do -- actually do that. So there is no longer any practical limitation on the government's ability to use your DNA to connect you with unknown DNA found at a crime. They can run everyone's DNA through the database with virtually no effort.

I exaggerate; there is some lab work needed to process the DNA and reduce it to a 13 allele "genetic fingerprint." Nevertheless, this can all be done fairly inexpensively, and running it through the database once reduced to a short code is very nearly cost-free.

But within the next ten years all of this will become entirely cost-free.

This is why I disagreed with the Supreme Court's reliance on an old precedent in claiming that the police can take a DNA sample from every single person arrested. Merely arrested, not convicted. They relied on a precedent established at the dawn of investigatory police science, that every arrestee's fingerprints may be collected and catalogued.

But way 'back then, there were natural limitations on the State's power to make use of such data which simply no longer exist. What would have been considered a silly hypothetical sci-fi objection back then -- "But what stops the state from merely searching these fingerprints against every fingerprint ever lifted at a crime scene?" -- is actual reality now.

We can't just treat precedent from the first half of the previous century as controlling, when obviously the world has changed a great deal since then.

Posted by: Ace at 01:06 PM | Comments (237)
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Update: Is this all a Sokol-like fake? See the updates.

Via wiserbud, first spotted by Leon Caruthers, some very silly stuff from a feminist.

The most surprising thing about this article is that it's not on Slate -- yet.

Her basic argument seems to be that programming language is sexist. Yes, sexist. Programming language's strictness of rules and idealization of "elegant" (simple, direct) solutions is a normative, standard-setting paradigm of thought that reinforces masculine thinking and male hegemony.

In the scope of my research, a feminist programming language is to be built around a non-normative paradigm that represents alternative ways of abstracting. The intent is to encourage and allow new ways of thinking about problems such that we can code using a feminist ideology.

To succinctly sum up my research thus far I will outline the decomposition of my question below:

The idea came about while discussing normative and feminist subject object theory. I realized that object oriented programmed reifies normative subject object theory.

Let me stop right there to say this is the common way post-modernists spin their nonsense -- they notice one word (such as "object") appears in several different contexts, so they begin making silly parallels between its use in one context and another. Women are allegedly "objects" of male desire and male subjugation; and there's also a sort of programming called "object oriented programming," so obviously these two very different ideas of what an "object" is must be somehow related and this all must be a male conspiracy against women.

This is a brief definition of "object oriented programming," from Wikipedia:

Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm that represents concepts as "objects" that have data fields (attributes that describe the object) and associated procedures known as methods. Objects, which are usually instances of classes, are used to interact with one another to design applications and computer programs.[1][2] C++, Objective-C, Smalltalk, Java, C#, Perl, Python and PHP are examples of object-oriented programming languages.

Object-Oriented programming is an approach to designing modular reusable software systems.... Although often hyped as a revolutionary way to develop software by zealous proponents, the object-oriented approach is in reality a logical extension of good design practices that go back to the very beginning of computer programming. Object-orientation is simply the logical extension of older techniques such as structured programming and abstract data types. An object is an abstract data type with the addition of polymorphism and inheritance.

Inheritance? I can almost smell the Patriarchy. more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:59 AM | Comments (555)
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Very good piece knocking Robert Reich's recent article (meet the old article, same as the old article) decrying a tax code which permits the wealthy tax deductions for charitable donations.

It's worth reading in full. But here's some of it. I'm digesting the key points made for people who want a shorter version, but seriously, just read the whole thing.
more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:06 AM | Comments (347)
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Via Hot Air, the nation's highest-paid employee (!!!) and an EPA "leading expert" on climate change defrauded the taxpayers for years by simply not showing up for his job.

For how long? For over a decade, prosecutors claim.

He claimed he couldn't show up for his job for ten years, as he had been recruited by the CIA to do some kind of secret mission in Pakistan. But he still drew a paycheck.

This is like that scene in an Army movie: "I don't know whether to put you up for a court martial or a Silver Star."

John C. Beale, who pled guilty in September to bilking the government out of nearly $1 million in salary and other benefits over a decade, will be sentenced in a Washington, D.C., federal court on Wednesday. In a newly filed sentencing memo, prosecutors said that his “historic” lies are “offensive” to those who actually do dangerous work for the CIA.

BealeÂ’s lawyer, while acknowledging his guilt, has asked for leniency and offered a psychological explanation for the climate expertÂ’s bizarre tales.

“With the help of his therapist,” wrote attorney John Kern, “Mr. Beale has come to recognize that, beyond the motive of greed, his theft and deception were animated by a highly self-destructive and dysfunctional need to engage in excessively reckless, risky behavior.” Kern also said Beale was driven “to manipulate those around him through the fabrication of grandiose narratives … that are fueled by his insecurities.”

You can tell an agency is useless and should be shuttered when its top-paid guy doesn't show up for ten years and no one seems to notice.

...

Beyond Beale’s individual fate, his case raises larger questions about how he was able to get away with his admitted fraud for so long, according to federal and congressional investigators. Two new reports by the EPA inspector general’s office conclude that top officials at the agency “enabled” Beale by failing to verify any of his phony cover stories about CIA work, and failing to check on hundreds of thousands of dollars paid him in undeserved bonuses and travel expenses -- including first-class trips to London where he stayed at five-star hotels and racked up thousands in bills for limos and taxis.

He was making $206,000 per year, plus all that free government travel.

...

To explain his long absences, Beale told agency officials -- including McCarthy -- that he was engaged in intelligence work for the CIA, either at agency headquarters or in Pakistan. At one point he claimed to be urgently needed in Pakistan because the Taliban was torturing his CIA replacement, according to Sullivan.

“Due to recent events that you have probably read about, I am in Pakistan,” he wrote McCarthy in a Dec. 18, 2010 email. “Got the call Thurs and left Fri. Hope to be back for Christmas ….Ho, ho, ho.”

In fact, Beale had no relationship with the CIA at all. Sullivan, the EPA investigator, said he confirmed Beale didnÂ’t even have a security clearance. He spent much of the time he was purportedly working for the CIA at his Northern Virginia home riding bikes, doing housework and reading books, or at a vacation house on Cape Cod.

Just over an eight year period, 2003 to 2011, Our Man in Lahore billed the government for 33 flights, 70% of which were first class tickets, racking up $266,190 in taxpayer-paid expenses. Spies gotta travel in style, you know. Because it's cover, you see.

He also spent double the government's approved per diem for hotel costs, staying at four star hotels, and each of his vouchers were approved by another EPA official.

Here's the kicker: He was only caught because he got even more brazen about fleecing the taxpayers. He retired in 2011, but sought to continue drawing his full salary for a year and a half after his "retirement." It was only that fact that alerted people in the EPA that this guy might be living large on the taxpayer dime.

If he had not gone back to the trough for one last frenzy of post-"retirement" gluttony, he would have gotten away with it, clean.

Posted by: Ace at 09:09 AM | Comments (215)
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As DrewM. says, they don't actually want to cut spending.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell recently delivered a direct pitch to one of America's top defense contractors: Get off the sidelines and start backing Republicans who will protect military spending.

Mr. McConnell's message, according to people who attended a Nov. 6 fundraiser with officials from BAE Systems Inc., was that if Republican lawmakers lose primary elections from challengers further to their right who have few qualms about trimming military budgets, the defense industry could expect dwindling support in Washington.

"In the current debate, spending cuts have trumped robust national-security spending," said one person at the McConnell fundraiser, held at a Capitol Hill townhouse. "The main message he was pushing was: Get involved, mainly to teach those who are primarying incumbents that it is not helpful to run against incumbents who are champions for the industry."

...

The effort to beat back challenges from the right goes beyond the defense industry. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups have been stepping in to help business-friendly Republicans aligned with the GOP leadership, a reaction to the government shutdown in October, which the business groups opposed, and a sign of worries that tea party-aligned candidates might try to eliminate tax breaks and spending favored by businesses.

Defense spending is the soft underbelly of the Republican message against federal spending. Almost all of us favor defense spending over most other kinds of spending; but some of us increasingly favor deficit reduction over any spending, including defense spending.

Defense spending is how the Tax and Spend Wing of the Republican Party check us; whenever we want to cut spending, they throw defense spending (and special tax breaks for businesses) in our faces.

I'm not in favor of the sequester cuts to defense spending per se, but I am in favor of the general principle that we must limit federal spending, whatever it takes. The sequester cuts are certainly not ideal -- they barely touched discretionary non-defense spending, for example -- but they did represent some cutting.

But even that much is too much for some.

Many in the Republican Party give lip-service to cutting spending. Now it seems they won't even be doing that, as they begin to affirmatively run on increased spending.

Posted by: Ace at 08:22 AM | Comments (256)
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Happy Monday.

Iowa poll finds Rep. Paul Ryan with the best favorability/unfavorability rating from GOP voters in the early state, 75/10. That's followed by Mike Huckabee (66/17), Rick Santorum (58/21), Rick Perry (55/19), and Chris Christie (51/30).

A new AP/GfK poll finds nearly half of folk with employer-based health insurance coverage believe their plans will change for the worse in the next year, with 4 out of 5 of those citing Obamacare. Also, 69 percent say their premiums will be going up, while 59 percent say annual deductibles or copayments are increasing.

Yesterday, the Yemen parliament banned drone strikes in the country. That'll do the trick.

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Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:49 AM | Comments (364)
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Why the Arapahoe School Shooting Ended So Quickly

Because there was an armed deputy sheriff at the school who raced towards the shooting and ended the attack in just 80 seconds. Thanks to his quick response only one student (still in critical condition) was shot.

The rampage might have resulted in many more casualties had it not been for the quick response of a deputy sheriff who was working as a school resource officer at the school, Robinson said.

Once he learned of the threat, he ran - accompanied by an unarmed school security officer and two administrators - from the cafeteria to the library, Robinson said. "It's a fairly long hallway, but the deputy sheriff got there very quickly."
The deputy was yelling for people to get down and identified himself as a county deputy sheriff, Robinson said. "We know for a fact that the shooter knew that the deputy was in the immediate area and, while the deputy was containing the shooter, the shooter took his own life."

He praised the deputy's response as "a critical element to the shooter's decision" to kill himself, and lauded his response to hearing gunshots. "He went to the thunder," he said. "He heard the noise of gunshot and, when many would run away from it, he ran toward it to make other people safe."

The shooter who was 18 apparently bought the shotgun legally and it turns out that he was an avowed socialist who was also anti-gun. But you'd never learn this fact if you only listened to the self-censoring MFM.

If You Like Your Checking Account, You Can Keep Your Checking Account (Minus a Lot of Money)

Giving the government direct access to your bank account via ObamaCare is going about as well as you'd expect.

Shannon Bruner of Indianola logged on to her checking account Monday morning, and found she was almost 800 dollars in the negative.

"The first thing I thought was, 'I got screwed,'" she said.

The Bruners enrolled for insurance on the Washington Healthplanfinder website, last October. They say they selected the bill pay date to be December 24th. Instead the Washington Healthplanfinder drafted the 835 dollar premium Monday.

One viewer emailed KING 5 saying, "They drafted my account this morning for a second time."

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:04 PM | Comments (563)
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• The Age Of Envy
  
• EPA's Highest Paid Employee Engaged In Crime Of Massive Proportions
  
• Bogus Signer At Mandela Memorial Part Of Group That Burned Men To Death
  
• Obamacare Disinformation Runs Deep
  
• The Failures Of The NHS
  
• John Kerry Doesn't Realize North Korea Has Nukes
  
• Obama Deliberately Stalled Controversial Regulations Prior To 2012 Election
  
• Steyn: Funeral Spice
  
• Remember Who The Real Enemy Is
  
• Cancer Survivor Still Can't Sign Up For Obamacare
  
• NSA Considers Giving Snowden Amnesty In Return For Documents
  
• IDF Claims Israeli Soldier Killed By Lebanese Sniper
  
• Bob Barker Endorses Republican In US House Special Election
  
• The Politicization Of Poverty
  
• Obama Voted No.111 Among Most Famous People In History
  
• Are Too Many Kids Taking Anti-Psychotic Drugs
  
• Cool Chart Of World's Largest Cities Since 4,000 BC
  
• Disney Really Pushing To Get Star Wars 7 Out By 2015
  
• Santa Brawl In The Streets Of NYC
  
• Peter O'Toole Dead At 81
  

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Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:30 AM | Comments (640)
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Apologies for a shorter edition of the astronomy thread this week, we will be back with the Winter Sky guide next Sunday. Since the ONT will be upon us in a bit, no Open Thread below. But I wanted to share some personal thoughts, along with a rather incredible 16,000 year old artwork.

more...

Posted by: CAC at 05:25 PM | Comments (49)
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Another Sunday, another day of pain if you're a Browns fan

Another Sunday, and another victory pissed away by the Sultan of Suck, the Chieftain of Choke, the Duke of Defeat, the Prince of Picks, Tony Romo.

That and their crappy play calling. Apparently, they've never heard of running the ball to take some time off the clock when you're ahead late in the game.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 04:21 PM | Comments (182)
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