Folia lib.

Liebe Freunde des zelebrierten Kettentastaturmassakers,

“Wenn der Presse-Mob Kollegen zusammentritt…”

sind die Damen und Herren Kollegen mit Kollegen tendenziös beschäftigt, was not-amused Raungästen

“Einblicke in den total versauten Berufsstand der Journalisten”

verschafft:

http://www.danisch.de/blog/2014/07/28/wenn-der-presse-mob-kollegen-zusammentritt/

Das Aquarium des Journalismus ist eine Parallelwelt; seine Scheiben sind stumpf, seine Schreiben sind Sumpf…

Grüße aus der realen Welt.

PS: “Der Daten-Mob in den Straßen”
http://ariplex.com/folia/archives/682.htm

Dass Politiker Psychopathen sind, wissen wir doch!

Aber sie setzen alles daran, es täglich neu zu beweisen:

http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Urheberrecht-Spanien-besteuert-Web-Links-2268747.html

Zitat:

[*quote*]
——————————————
“Urheberrecht: Spanien besteuert Web-Links

Der spanische Kongress hat am gestrigen Freitag eine Novelle des Urheberrechts verabschiedet, der zufolge eine Abgabe auch auf beliebig geringfügige Textzitate, selbst auf Hyperlinks fällig wird.”
——————————————
[*/quote*]

1x URL
1x Zitat
1x Kritik

Darf ich noch nach Spanien einreisen?

Die NSA ist ein Segen.

Viele Menschen erleben zum ersten Mal, daß ihnen jemand wirklich richtig zuhört.

Today Bruce Schneier wrote a shocking post in his blog, in plain and clear words:

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/07/fingerprinting_.html
(highlighting by me)
[*quote*]
————————————————–
Schneier on Security

Fingerprinting Computers By Making Them Draw Images

Here’s a new way
(https://securehomes.esat.kuleuven.be/~gacar/persistent/index.html)
to identify individual computers over the Internet. The page instructs the browser to draw an image. Because each computer draws the image slightly differently, this can be used to uniquely identify each computer. This is a big deal, because there’s no way to block this right now.

Article:
http://www.propublica.org/article/meet-the-online-tracking-device-that-is-virtually-impossible-to-block

Posted on July 21, 2014 at 3:34 PM
————————————————–
[*/quote*]

.
That’s it. Plain and simple. Now let us look at the text at ProPublica:
.

http://www.propublica.org/article/meet-the-online-tracking-device-that-is-virtually-impossible-to-block
(highlighting by me)
[*quote*]
————————————————–
Meet the Online Tracking Device That is Virtually Impossible to Block

A new kind of tracking tool, canvas fingerprinting, is being used to follow visitors to thousands of top websites, from WhiteHouse.gov to YouPorn.

by Julia Angwin
ProPublica, July 21, 2014, 9 a.m.

This is part of an ongoing investigation:
Surveillance

ProPublica investigates the threats to privacy in an era of cellphones, data mining and cyberwar.

Connect with Facebook to share articles you read on ProPublica. Learn more »
Safeguard the public interest.

Support ProPublica’s award-winning investigative journalism.

Donate
Latest Stories in this Project

Here’s One Way to Land on the NSA’s Watch List
Privacy Tools: How to Block Online Tracking
Podcast: Mapping the NSA’s Spying
FAQ For Our NSA Chart
No Warrant, No Problem: How the Government Can Get Your Digital Data

Meet the Online Tracking Device That is Virtually Impossible to Block
California Halts Injection of Fracking Waste, Warning it May Be Contaminating Aquifers
Privacy Tools: How to Block Online Tracking
Error: You Have No Payments from Pharma
Podcast: Glaser, Cuomo, and the Refusals That Made the Story
Why Online Tracking Is Getting Creepier
Who Advised Cuomo on Mortgage Industry Investigation? A Mortgage Lobbyist
It’s Complicated: Facebook’s History of Tracking You
We’re Still Not Tracking Patient Harm
Dollars for Docs

(David Sleight/ProPublica)

Update: A YouPorn.com spokesperson said that the website was “completely unaware that AddThis contained a tracking software that had the potential to jeopardize the privacy of our users.” After this article was published, YouPorn removed AddThis technology from its website.

This story was co-published with Mashable.

A new, extremely persistent type of online tracking is shadowing visitors to thousands of top websites, from WhiteHouse.gov to YouPorn.com.

First documented in a forthcoming paper by researchers at Princeton University and KU Leuven University in Belgium, this type of tracking, called canvas fingerprinting, works by instructing the visitor’s Web browser to draw a hidden image. Because each computer draws the image slightly differently, the images can be used to assign each user’s device a number that uniquely identifies it.
Canvas Fingerprinting in Action

Watch your browser generate a unique fingerprint image. This is for informational purposes only and no fingerprint information is sent to ProPublica. (Mike Tigas, ProPublica)
See your browser’s fingerprint

Click the button above and your computer and web browser will draw a ProPublica-designed canvas fingerprint.

Like other tracking tools, canvas fingerprints are used to build profiles of users based on the websites they visit — profiles that shape which ads, news articles, or other types of content are displayed to them.

But fingerprints are unusually hard to block: They can’t be prevented by using standard Web browser privacy settings or using anti-tracking tools such as AdBlock Plus.

The researchers found canvas fingerprinting computer code, primarily written by a company called AddThis, on 5 percent of the top 100,000 websites. Most of the code was on websites that use AddThis’ social media sharing tools. Other fingerprinters include the German digital marketer Ligatus and the Canadian dating site Plentyoffish. (A list of all the websites on which researchers found the code is here
https://securehomes.esat.kuleuven.be/~gacar/sticky/index.html).

Rich Harris, chief executive of AddThis, said that the company began testing canvas fingerprinting earlier this year as a possible way to replace “cookies,” the traditional way that users are tracked, via text files installed on their computers.

“We’re looking for a cookie alternative,” Harris said in an interview.

Harris said the company considered the privacy implications of canvas fingerprinting before launching the test, but decided “this is well within the rules and regulations and laws and policies that we have.”

He added that the company has only used the data collected from canvas fingerprints for internal research and development. The company won’t use the data for ad targeting or personalization if users install the AddThis opt-out cookie on their computers, he said.

Arvind Narayanan, the computer science professor who led the Princeton research team, countered that forcing users to take AddThis at its word about how their data will be used, is “not the best privacy assurance.”

Device fingerprints rely on the fact that every computer is slightly different: Each contains different fonts, different software, different clock settings and other distinctive features. Computers automatically broadcast some of their attributes when they connect to another computer over the Internet.

Tracking companies have long sought to use those differences to uniquely identify devices for online advertising purposes, particularly as Web users are increasingly using ad-blocking software and deleting cookies.

In May 2012, researchers at the University of California, San Diego, noticed that a Web programming feature called “canvas” could allow for a new type of fingerprint — by pulling in different attributes than a typical device fingerprint.
How You Can Try to Thwart Canvas Fingerprinting

Use the Tor browser (Warning: can be slow)
Block JavaScript from loading in your browser (Warning: breaks a lot of web sites)
Use NoScript browser extension to block JavaScript from known fingerprinters such as AddThis (Warning: requires a lot of research and decision-making)
Try the experimental browser extension Chameleon that is designed to block fingerprinting (Warning: only recommended for tech-savvy users at this point)
Install opt-out cookies from known fingerprinters such as AddThis (Warning: fingerprint will likely still be collected, companies simply pledge not to use the data for ad targeting or personalization)

In June, the Tor Project added a feature to its privacy-protecting Web browser to notify users when a website attempts to use the canvas feature and sends a blank canvas image. But other Web browsers did not add notifications for canvas fingerprinting.

A year later, Russian programmer Valentin Vasilyev noticed the study and added a canvas feature to freely available fingerprint code that he had posted on the Internet. The code was immediately popular.

But Vasilyev said that the company he was working for at the time decided against using the fingerprint technology. “We collected several million fingerprints but we decided against using them because accuracy was 90 percent,” he said, “and many of our customers were on mobile and the fingerprinting doesn’t work well on mobile.”

Vasilyev added that he wasn’t worried about the privacy concerns of fingerprinting. “The fingerprint itself is a number which in no way is related to a personality,” he said.

AddThis improved upon Vasilyev’s code by adding new tests and using the canvas to draw a pangram “Cwm fjordbank glyphs vext quiz” — a sentence that uses every letter of the alphabet at least once. This allows the company to capture slight variations in how each letter is displayed.

AddThis said it rolled out the feature to a small portion of the 13 million websites on which its technology appears, but is considering ending its test soon. “It’s not uniquely identifying enough,” Harris said.

AddThis did not notify the websites on which the code was placed because “we conduct R&D projects in live environments to get the best results from testing,” according to a spokeswoman.

She added that the company does not use any of the data it collects — whether from canvas fingerprints or traditional cookie-based tracking — from government websites including WhiteHouse.gov for ad targeting or personalization.

The company offered no such assurances about data it routinely collects from visitors to other sites, such as YouPorn.com. YouPorn.com did not respond to inquiries from ProPublica about whether it was aware of AddThis’ test of canvas fingerprinting on its website.

Read our recent coverage about how online tracking is getting creepier, how Facebook has been tracking you, and what tools to use to protect yourself.
Like this story? Sign up for our daily newsletter to get more of our best work.
Julia Angwin

Julia Angwin is a senior reporter at ProPublica. From 2000 to 2013, she was a reporter at The Wall Street Journal, where she led a privacy investigative team that was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting in 2011 and won a Gerald Loeb Award in 2010.
————————————————–
[*/quote*]

.
Tracking is evil. Okay, we know.

Now we look at the policies of ProPublica.

http://www.propublica.org/about/steal-our-stories
(highlighting by me)
[*quote*]
————————————————–
Steal Our Stories

Unless otherwise noted, you can republish our articles and graphics for free. Here’s what you need to know:

You can’t edit our material, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style. (For example, “yesterday” can be changed to “last week,” and “Portland, Ore.” to “Portland” or “here.”)
If you’re republishing online, you have to link to us and to include all of the links from our story, as well as our PixelPing tag.
You can’t sell our material separately.
It’s okay to put our stories on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories. You can’t state or imply that donations to your organization support ProPublica’s work.
You can’t republish our material wholesale, or automatically; you need to select stories to be republished individually. You can’t use our work to populate a web site designed to improve rankings on search engines, or solely to gain revenue from network-based advertisements.
You cannot republish our photographs or illustrations without specific permission (ask our Communications Director Nicole Collins Bronzan if you’d like to).
Any web site our stories appear on must include a prominent and effective way to contact you.
You have to credit us — ideally in the byline. We prefer “Author Name, ProPublica.”
We do not generally permit translation of our stories into another language.

Note that you can grab HTML code for our stories easily. Click on the “republish” button “Republish” on the left sidebar of every story.

We’re licensed under Creative Commons, which provides the legal details. If you have questions, contact our president, Richard Tofel.
————————————————–
[*/quote*]

“We’re licensed under Creative Commons”. Oh, really? How about the “PixelPing tag”? Let’s see:

http://www.propublica.org/about/pixelping
(highlighting by me)
[*quote*]
————————————————–
PixelPing
What is it?

ProPublica’s PixelPing is a small snippet of javascript code that we’re asking all of our partners to paste into stories we publish together to let us know how well our story is doing.

Why are you doing this?

Our mission is to effect real change through investigative journalism. One of the ways we do this is by providing world-class reporting free of charge to news outlets with large, influential audiences.

An important piece of information we need in return is a sense of the size of the audience our stories reach on our partners’ web sites. PixelPing is simply an efficient way of getting basic page-view statistics quickly.

How does it work?

PixelPing functions much like Google Analytics, Tacoda, Quantcast, and other beacons—only much more simply. All you have to do is copy and paste the following line of code anywhere in the body of the article we’re co-publishing in your website’s content management system—if possible, somewhere close to the top of the story.

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://pixel.propublica.org/pixel.js” async=”true”></script>

What will my users see?

Nothing. This will not affect your web page layout at all.
What does it track?

Quite simply, it only counts the number of page views to the story on which the code appears. It doesn’t count unique visitors. It also doesn’t count anything on pages other than the one on which you loaded it.

Who will see the data?

We will hold the page view data PixelPing collects as confidential, and we will not share it with outsiders, period.

Does this violate my privacy policy?

We’re keenly aware of how seriously all of our partners take the privacy of their users. PixelPing does not attempt to track anything at all about visitors—neither individually nor in the aggregate—nor does it attempt to set or read any cookies.

Will it slow down my page or break my web pages?

No. We’ve tested our code extensively. Our code is designed to deal with heavy loads, and it’s designed to “fail gracefully,” meaning that even if our servers are overloaded or down, your web page will not be “blocked,” or prevented from loading . The javascript code on your page will always take precedence over PixelPing.

Who can I contact with questions about it?

Call Scott Klein, our Editor of News Applications at 917-512-0205 or e-mail him at scott.klein@propublica.org.
————————————————–
[*/quote*]

Tracking is spying, and spying is evil.

We do know that.

But that is not all. The plain text of the ProPublica article is about 9093 Bytes in size. But, no, that is NOT what you download onto your computer to read that web-page. This is a list of what is stored (at least in the RAM of your PC) when the browser accesses that very web-page

http://www.propublica.org/article/meet-the-online-tracking-device-that-is-virtually-impossible-to-block

Files list:

[*quote*]
--------------------------------------------------
10848 140717_ap_frack_water_TX_300x200-220x147.jpg
14164 140717_gt_patient_illo_300x200-220x147.jpg
77537 20140720-canvas-tracking-630x420.jpg
8547 20140720-drug-payment-errors-300x200-220x147.jpg
1575 ads
1514 ads_002
1291 ads_003
332 ads_004
1133 ads_005
330 ads_006
168376 all_002.js
240121 all.js
336 alternatives
24490 analytics.js
529 article_pages.js
1714 beacons.js
216776 behemoth.css
2304 btn.js
1253 button3.js
1960 cc-logo-30x30gray.png
18106 chartbeat.js
12151 client.js
239 count-data.js
98228 d.css
252 downArrow.png
44128 embed.js
3024 fb_anon_50x50.png
266995 fonts_002.css
818627 fonts.css
16520 get
200 google_ads_boot.js
1035 google_ads.js
40520 gpt.js
42601 gtm.js
23956 hml8xqy.js
1589 icn-footer-commons.png
1264 icn-search.png
604 icon-fb-top-nav_002.png
604 icon-fb-top-nav.png
4153 icon-mail-28.png
765 icon-tw-top-nav.png
3711 in.js
3429 istock_cellphone_map_140x140_120816-70x70.jpg
28063 lightgl.js
21211 loader.js
309044 margarita.css
25376 muckreads-briefing-300_5-220x147.png
163769 nonSecureAnonymousFramework
44139 osd.js
40588 outbrain.js
1454 pocket-logo-30x30-gray.png
9378 ppfp2.js
24731 print-2011.css
89642 pubads_impl_44.js
4188 ss-social.js
11773 ss-standard.js
780 telephoneline.html
667 typekit.js
99152 widgets.js
260771 woland.css

a_data:
total 904
3100 avatar92_002.jpg
2386 avatar92_003.jpg
5356 avatar92_004.jpg
1547 avatar92_005.jpg
4709 avatar92_006.jpg
1941 avatar92_007.jpg
1547 avatar92_008.jpg
4322 avatar92_009.jpg
3392 avatar92.jpg
262371 common.js
2050 config.js
30481 discovery.css
67737 discovery.js
39 event_002.js
40 event_003.js
40 event.js
40219 ga.js
247634 lounge_002.js
151961 lounge.css
20112 lounge.js
1083 noavatar92_002.png
1644 noavatar92.png

a_data:
total 904
3100 avatar92_002.jpg
2386 avatar92_003.jpg
5356 avatar92_004.jpg
1547 avatar92_005.jpg
4709 avatar92_006.jpg
1941 avatar92_007.jpg
1547 avatar92_008.jpg
4322 avatar92_009.jpg
3392 avatar92.jpg
262371 common.js
2050 config.js
30481 discovery.css
67737 discovery.js
39 event_002.js
40 event_003.js
40 event.js
40219 ga.js
247634 lounge_002.js
151961 lounge.css
20112 lounge.js
1083 noavatar92_002.png
1644 noavatar92.png

button3_data:
total 272
2541 blog_snoo.png
13130 button.js
91342 jquery.js
153768 reddit.css

button3_data:
total 272
2541 blog_snoo.png
13130 button.js
91342 jquery.js
153768 reddit.css

button_data:
total 12
3045 button.css
2309 button.js
1262 shared.js

button_data:
total 12
3045 button.css
2309 button.js
1262 shared.js

comScore_data:
total 4
1900 beacon.js

comScore_data:
total 4
1900 beacon.js

follow_button_data:
total 4
235 info.js

follow_button_data:
total 4
235 info.js

like_box_data:
total 320
1632 1017427_10203469917295163_236486091_n.jpg
45711 10409080_10152590133149445_4917190480511645048_n.png
1781 10462526_10152200185590893_7053101618144386478_n.jpg
11163 10476274_10152590336794445_4839032174365312900_n.jpg
1035 10501749_10152531274399445_2641136824263975971_n.jpg
1274 1173778_10201114396436529_500688041_n.jpg
1278 1922174_1386034441669544_1502972313_n.jpg
1548 262386_113398238864171_404739224_n.jpg
1567 300049_2415469462690_970759569_n.jpg
1432 35009_4709402008728_176015776_n.jpg
1658 394084_2536124019943_257728864_n.jpg
1407 470_10151385422193542_1237461544_n.jpg
1700 576259_429920833702654_50965550_n.jpg
522 GsNJNwuI-UM.gif
11919 safe_image.jpeg
196732 sh9-faBNTLB.js

like_box_data:
total 320
1632 1017427_10203469917295163_236486091_n.jpg
45711 10409080_10152590133149445_4917190480511645048_n.png
1781 10462526_10152200185590893_7053101618144386478_n.jpg
11163 10476274_10152590336794445_4839032174365312900_n.jpg
1035 10501749_10152531274399445_2641136824263975971_n.jpg
1274 1173778_10201114396436529_500688041_n.jpg
1278 1922174_1386034441669544_1502972313_n.jpg
1548 262386_113398238864171_404739224_n.jpg
1567 300049_2415469462690_970759569_n.jpg
1432 35009_4709402008728_176015776_n.jpg
1658 394084_2536124019943_257728864_n.jpg
1407 470_10151385422193542_1237461544_n.jpg
1700 576259_429920833702654_50965550_n.jpg
522 GsNJNwuI-UM.gif
11919 safe_image.jpeg
196732 sh9-faBNTLB.js

login_button_data:
total 380
374060 e1Gxr4mnnN5.js
1056 iqVGY7gYXlg.gif
348 teE39sffXW8.png

tweet_button_data:
total 4
156 count.js
--------------------------------------------------
[*/quote*]

In total: 8 directories, 123 files, 5 MegaBytes.

The plain article text is mere 9093 Bytes. The web-page one must load, is 560 times as large.

9093 Bytes, that is about 4 pages of text on typewriter paper sized A4. 5 MegaBytes is roughly 2240 pages. ProPublica bloats the web-pages, jams the lines, pours Javashit junk into their readers’ computers.

Is that journalism?

I say: NO!

And, not to forget the PixelPing tag: to track the readers.

The NSA is attacked because of spying. But that is their job.

The media (see the article!) commit INTENSIVE spying on all of us.

It is a crime.

Daß innerhalb so kurzer Zeit 4 Meilensteine entdeckt werden, dürfte nicht allzu häufig vorkommen, nehme ich an.

Meilenstein 1: die Steuerungsregion des Bewußtseins räumlich lokalisiert

[*quote*]
———————————————————
Consciousness on-off switch discovered deep in brain
02 July 2014 by Helen Thomson
Magazine issue 2976

ONE moment you’re conscious, the next you’re not. For the first time,
researchers have switched off consciousness by electrically stimulating a
single brain area.

Scientists have been probing individual regions of the brain for over a
century, exploring their function by zapping them with electricity and
temporarily putting them out of action. Despite this, they have never been
able to turn off consciousness – until now.
———————————————————
[*/quote*]

mehr:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329762.700-consciousness-onoff-switch-discovered-deep-in-brain.html

#

Meilenstein 2: Hirnverletzungen erhöhen die Wahrscheinlichkeit für Demenz

Die bisherigen Forschungen haben gezeigt, daß Kopfstöße beim Fußball Schäden hervorrufen. Wie ist es dann erst zu verantworten, daß GEZIELT in Schulen Boxen “unterrichtet” wird?

[*quote*]
———————————————————
Traumatic brain injury and risk of dementia in older veterans

Deborah E. Barnes, PhD, MPH,
Allison Kaup, PhD,
Katharine A. Kirby, MA,
Amy L. Byers, PhD, MPH,
Ramon Diaz-Arrastia, MD, PhD and
Kristine Yaffe, MD

Published online before print June 25, 2014,
doi:
10.1212/WNL.0000000000000616 Neurology 10.1212/WNL.0000000000000616

Abstract

Objectives: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is common in military personnel,
and there is growing concern about the long-term effects of TBI on the
brain; however, few studies have examined the association between TBI and
risk of dementia in veterans.

Methods: We performed a retrospective cohort study of 188,764 US veterans
aged 55 years or older who had at least one inpatient or outpatient visit
during both the baseline (2000–2003) and follow-up (2003–2012) periods and
did not have a dementia diagnosis at baseline. TBI and dementia diagnoses
were determined using ICD-9 codes in electronic medical records. Fine-Gray
proportional hazards models were used to determine whether TBI was
associated with greater risk of incident dementia, accounting for the
competing risk of death and adjusting for demographics, medical
comorbidities, and psychiatric disorders.
———————————————————
[*/quote*]

mehr:
http://www.neurology.org/content/early/2014/06/20/WNL.0000000000000616

#

Meilenstein 3: Neugeborene bei Sauerstoffmangel, zum Beispiel durch Geburtskomplikationen, zu unterkühlen, erhöht die Überlebenswahrscheinlichkeit und verbessert langfristig die Wahrscheinlichkeit einer normalen Hirnleistung

[*quote*]
———————————————————
Cooling protects oxygen-deprived infants

Use of hypothermia in babies at risk of brain damage lessens risk of long-term disability.

Erika Check Hayden

09 July 2014

Nearly 750,000 babies born each year in the United Kingdom are at risk of
brain damage because of low oxygen during birth.

Cooling babies who are at risk of brain damage provides long-lasting
prevention of such injuries, researchers report today in the New England
Journal of Medicine1.

A team led by Denis Azzopardi, a neonatologist at King’s College London,
lowered the body temperature of 145 full-term babies who were born after
at least 36 weeks of gestation. All were at risk of brain damage because
they had been deprived of oxygen during birth.

The researchers cooled the infants to between 33°C and 34°C for 72 hours,
starting within 6 hours of birth. The technique is known to boost the
chances that children avoid brain damage until they become toddlers2, but
any longer-term benefits have remained unclear.

The study finds treated babies had better mental and physical health than
untreated infants through to ages 6 or 7: they were 60% more likely to
have normal intelligence, hearing and vision. Those who survived to
childhood also had fewer disabilities such as difficulty walking and
seeing.

“The bottom line is that this doubles a child’s chance of normal
survival,” says David Edwards, a neonatologist at King’s College London
and an author of the study.
———————————————————
[*/quote*]

mehr:
http://www.nature.com/news/cooling-protects-oxygen-deprived-infants-1.15525

#

Meilenstein 4: eine der Grundfunktionen des Gedächtnisbildung in den Hirnzellen entschlüsselt

[*quote*]
———————————————————
Light switches memories on and off

Researchers use optogenetics to provide the first hard evidence that long-term potentiation at brain synapses is crucial for memory formation

Optogenetics Optogenetics allows researchers to control the activity of nerve cells using pulses of laser light delivered into the brain with an optical fibre.

A team of researchers from the University of California, San Diego, has determined the cellular mechanism of memory formation, putting an end to decades of speculation about the matter.

Most neuroscientists agree that memory formation involves the strengthening of synapses in the brain, and have assumed that this strengthening occurs by a form of synaptic plasticity called long-term potentiation (LTP), even though there was no hard evidence that this is the case.

The new research uses state-of-the-art neurotechnology to show not only that that the strengthening of synapses by LTP is required for the formation of fearful memories, but also that weakening of the same synapses by a similar, opposing mechanism can erase the memories.

LTP was discovered in the 1960s by a Norwegian scientist named Terje Lømo, who was using pairs of electrodes to examine the activity of nerve cells in the rabbit hippocampus. Lømo used one electrode to stimulate cells in one region, and the other to simultaneously measure changes in the activity of connected cells in a neighbouring area.
———————————————————
[*/quote*]

mehr:
http://www.theguardian.com/science/neurophilosophy/2014/jun/03/optogenetic-memory-switch

Steven Aftergood kindly allowed me to reproduce his article here.

[*quote*]
————————————————————————
*SECRECY NEWSfrom the FAS Project on Government SecrecyVolume 2014, Issue
No. 44
June 30, 2014
*Secrecy News Blog:
http://blogs.fas.org/secrecy/

*** ESPIONAGE ACT CASE WAS “OVERCHARGED,” DEFENSE SAYS*
*** ARMY DOCTRINE ON GEOSPATIAL ENGINEERING*
*** ODNI DECLASSIFIES DATA ON FREQUENCY OF SURVEILLANCE*

*ESPIONAGE ACT CASE WAS “OVERCHARGED,” DEFENSE SAYS*

In 2012, former Navy linguist James F. Hitselberger was indicted
(http://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/2012/11/collector_charged/)
on two felony counts under the Espionage Act statutes after several classified documents were found in his possession. In 2013, a superseding indictment
(http://fas.org/sgp/jud/hitsel/indict-sup.pdf)
charged him with another four felony counts.

But in the end, Mr. Hitselberger pleaded guilty
(http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2014/04/exnavy-lingust-pleads-guilty-in-secret-documents-case-187436.html)
this year to a single misdemeanor charge of removing classified documents without authorization.

Now both the defense
(http://fas.org/sgp/jud/hitsel/062414-defsent.pdf)
and the prosecution
(http://fas.org/sgp/jud/hitsel/062414-govsent.pdf)
are endorsing Hitselberger’s request that any jail penalty be limited to the time he has already served, including two months in DC jail and eight months of home confinement. The sentencing hearing is scheduled for July 17.

Despite the stark disparity between the multiple felony counts with which Hitselberger was charged, and the single misdemeanor of which he was convicted, the prosecution said that it had no second thoughts about the way the matter was handled.

“It is important to note that the government’s case against Mr. Hitselberger did not collapse,” prosecutors said
(http://fas.org/sgp/jud/hitsel/062414-govsent.pdf)
in a June 27 sentencing memorandum. To the contrary, prosecutors wrote, “in several ways, the government’s case became stronger than what it had been when the charges were first obtained.”

Defense attorneys disputed that assertion and said the government had overreached.

“At a minimum, the evidence demonstrates that the government significantly overcharged the case, and the guilty plea to a misdemeanor not only was the appropriate result, but also demonstrates how the offense should have been charged from the beginning,” the defense wrote in a June 27 reply
(http://fas.org/sgp/jud/hitsel/062714-reply.pdf)

The mountain of Espionage Act charges that yielded a molehill of a misdemeanor in this case recalls a similar progression in the prosecution of former NSA official Thomas Drake, where ten felony counts gave way
(http://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/2011/07/drake_transcript/)
to a technical misdemeanor. This recurring pattern may indicate that overcharging is a standard prosecutorial approach to such cases, or that the judicial process is effectively winnowing out excessive felony charges, or perhaps both.

A June 26 sentencing memorandum submitted by the defense
(http://fas.org/sgp/jud/hitsel/062414-defsent.pdf)
presented its own account of the facts of the case, along with several moving testimonials from Hitselberger’s friends and relatives as to his character.

In another pending Espionage Act case, the Obama Administration must decide if it will pursue a subpoena against New York Times reporter James Risen.
For a current update, see Reporter’s Case Poses Dilemma for Justice Dept.
(http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/28/us/case-of-james-risen-times-reporter-poses-dilemma-for-justice-department.html)
by Jonathan Mahler, New York Times, June 27.

*ARMY DOCTRINE ON GEOSPATIAL ENGINEERING*

Those who are involved (or merely interested) in the field of geospatial intelligence will want to know about a new Army doctrinal publication on the subject.

“Geospatial intelligence is the exploitation and analysis of imagery and geospatial information to describe, assess, and visually depict physical features and geographically referenced activities on the earth. Geospatial intelligence consists of imagery, imagery intelligence, and geospatial information.”

The new publication provides a comprehensive introduction to the theory and practice of the field. See Geospatial Engineering
(http://fas.org/irp/doddir/army/atp3-34-80.pdf)
,ATP 3-34.80, June 2014 (very large pdf).

*ODNI DECLASSIFIES DATA ON FREQUENCY OF SURVEILLANCE*

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released
(http://icontherecord.tumblr.com/transparency/odni_transparencyreport_cy2013)

the “2013 Statistical Transparency Report” detailing the frequency of use of various intelligence surveillance authorities and the estimated number of targets affected by the surveillance.

While the reported numbers give some rough sense of the scale of intelligence surveillance — civil liberties groups said the estimated numbers are bound to be misleadingly low — the report provides no basis for evaluating the utility or legitimacy of the surveillance activities.

How many of the collection activities were authorized on the basis of erroneous information? How many actually produced useful intelligence? The report
(http://fas.org/sgp/othergov/intel/stat-2013.pdf)
doesn’t say, and the raw numbers are not a substitute. If they were ten times higher, or ten times lower, we would be none the wiser.

(A supplemental response
(http://fas.org/irp/news/2014/06/odni-062714.pdf)
from ODNI to Senator Wyden was released
(http://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-releases-details-of-backdoor-searches-of-americans-communications)
today.)

See U.S. Phone Searches Expanded in 2013
(http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/u-s-phone-searches-expanded-in-2013-1403914720-lMyQjAxMTA0MDIwNzEyNDcyWj)
by Siobhan Gorman, *Wall Street Journal*, June 27, and related coverage elsewhere
(WashPost
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-releases-data-on-sensitive-surveillance-programs-for-first-time/2014/06/27/46bbd47e-fe3a-11e3-8176-f2c941cf35f1_story.html)
,Wired
(http://www.wired.com/2014/06/90000-foreigners-targeted-for-spying/)
,Openthegovernment.org
(http://classifiedsection.openthegovernment.org/2014/06/30/odnis-transparency-report-what-it-tells-us-and-what-it-doesnt/)
,Huffington Post
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/27/nsa-transparency-report_n_5538171.html)
).

From a secrecy policy point of view, perhaps the most intriguing feature of the new release is the unconventional timing of its declassification. The report
(http://fas.org/sgp/othergov/intel/stat-2013.pdf)
is dated June 26, 2014 and was classified at the TOP SECRET/NOFORN level. But it says it was declassified by DNI Clapper three days *earlier* on June 23, 2014!

This temporally fluid approach to declassification could have many useful applications.

______________________________________________
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation
of American Scientists.

The Secrecy News Blog is at:
http://blogs.fas.org/secrecy/

To SUBSCRIBE to Secrecy News, go to:
http://fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/subscribe.html

OR email your request to saftergood[at]@fas.org

Secrecy News is also archived at:
http://fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/index.html

Support the FAS Project on Government Secrecy with a donation:
http://fas.org/join/

_______________________
Steven Aftergood
Project on Government Secrecy
Federation of American Scientists
web: http://www.fas.org/sgp/index.html
email: saftergood[at]fas.org
voice: (202)454-4691
twitter: @saftergood

————————————————————————
[*/quote*]