Category Archives: Technology and innovation

ObamaCare Rollout: Punts on Income Verification and Employer Insurance Checks, Setting Stage for Insurers to Call Mistakes “Fraud” and Rescind Policies

By lambert strether of Corrente.

Obama’s career transition from selling hope and change to selling insurance seems to be, at least so far, a wee bit rocky. Kudos to WaPo’s Sarah Kliff and Sandhya Somashekhar for breaking the story of the newest #FAIL, which required them to process 600 pages of dense HHS prose on July 5; a classic Friday document dump, with bonus points for the holiday weekend, and super double bonus sparkle pony points for following hard on the heels of another huge #FAIL, Obama’s triage of the employer reporting mandate (chirped White House apparatchick Valerie Jarrett: “We are full steam ahead for the Marketplaces [exchanges] opening on October 1.” Right onto the rocks, Val!). Kliff and Somashekhar write:

Congrats Digg for Rescuing Me From Feedly! Gets Google Reader Replacement in Just Under the Wire and It WORKS!

I know it probably sounds really really REALLY silly to be happy that Digg’s replacement for Google Reader is up and was a total snap to get running and have import my feeds from Google Reader (which officially dies as of July 1).

To understand why I am so pleased, you need to appreciate several things:

How Much Are the NSA and CIA Front Running Markets?

Given what has already been revealed about the NSA’s data gathering, if you were a clever trader and had access to this information, how would you mine it? How would you go about finding patterns or events to exploit?

Extreme Energy, Extreme Implications: Interview with Michael Klare

If oil and gas is a profoundly dynamic phenomenon, then so too must be environmental risk and conflicts over natural resources—and we are not getting the full picture from the mainstream media, according to Michael T. Klare, professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College, TomDispatch blogger, and author of Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy (Metropolitan Books, 2008). As risk multiply, conventional sources evaporate and we are left with “extreme” energy, renewables may be the only way to avoid war and disaster.

Techies’ Efforts to Own #Snowden/NSA Surveillance Narrative = #Fail

Some Silicon Valley figures, along with some Democratic party-aligned media outlets, have tried assailing Glenn Greenwald, and indirectly, Edward Snowden, by trying to discredit certain aspects of the Guardian account of NSA surveillance in the US. But the tech pedants’ efforts to take down Greenwald and Snowden aren’t simply petty and disingenuous, they are ultimately destructive of the interests of American technology companies and American security.

What Are You Doing to Protect Yourself From NSA? #SafeData

I’m opening up the thread for readers to discuss what they have done or plan to do in the wake of the revelations about the extent of NSA surveillance.

Snowden Shows South China Morning Post Details of NSA Hacking in China

If such a thing is possible, the intelligence community’s unhappiness with Edward Snowden has ratcheted up another notch. It was bad enough that he revealed yesterday that the NSA had been hacking targets in mainland China and Hong Kong.

Yes, Congress and the President are Responsible for the Surveillance State

By Dan Fejes. Cross posted from Pruning Shears

There is an emerging theme on the left that the true blame for our metastasized domestic spying programs lies with the American people. And it’s nonsense.

Patrick Durusau: Social Security Numbers – Close Enough for a Drone Strike?

Yves here. It’s important to understand the scope and caliber of the police state apparatus that’s in place. The fact that it’s “dirty” meaning error-ridden and incomplete, is likely the big reason you have analysts like Edward Snowden with wide-ranging access. You still need humans to make connections and interpretations (and that introduces another layer for errors and plants to occur). And that also no doubt is used to justify even wider-ranging and more intrusive searches, such as NSA analysts listening to personal phone conversations of soldiers stationed in Iraq. That sort of casualness leads to abuses like NSA snoops inviting their colleagues to listen in on phone sex.

Edward Snowden Makes Himself an Even Bigger Problem to the Officialdom

Former CIA employee, most recently Booz Allen employee Edward Snowden was already the intel community’s biggest nightmare, and now this:

Obama Defends “Big Brother” Powers

The NC commentariat has already done a deep dive into the IT and practical issues surrounding the NSA surveillance program leaks from Glenn Greenwald and the Guardian. This Real News Network interview with Paul Jay looks at the Administration’s initial response to those revelations. It’s a useful piece to circulate to friends and colleagues who might be unduly receptive to the “this is all done for your safety” claims. I suppose it’s useful to have Obama make it explicit he thinks that his interpretation of security needs comes before upholding the Constitution.

Could the Verizon-NSA Metadata Collection Be a Stealth Political Kickback?

By Patrick Durusau, who consults on semantic integration and edits standards. Durusau is convener of JTC 1 SC 34/WG 3, co-editor of 13250-1 and 13250-5 (Topic Maps Introduction and Reference Model, respectively), and editor of the OpenDocument Format (ODF) standard at OASIS and ISO (ISO/IEC 26300). Originally published at Another Word for It.

Why Verizon?

The first question that came to mind when the Guardian broke the news on NSA-Verizon phone record metadata collection.

Here’s why I ask:

Wolf Richter: Lobbying And GMO Giant Monsanto Buckles In Europe

The “March Against Monsanto” in 52 countries, an unapproved strain of its genetically modified wheat growing profusely in Oregon, cancelled wheat export orders…. A rough week for Monsanto. Now it threw in the towel in Europe where its deep pockets and mastery of lobbying had failed: “It’s counterproductive to fight against windmills,” it explained.