Social Media Nerd

theatlantic: In Focus: Protests Spread Across Brazil Starting...

mythopoetic-monsterling — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 13:21:43 -0700

In Focus: Protests Spread Across Brazil

Starting late last week, with several small protests denouncing a hike in public transport fares, demonstrations flared up yesterday, encompassing larger public anger at poor public services, police violence and government corruption. More than 200,000 took to the streets of Brazil’s biggest cities yesterday, voicing frustration with the billions of dollars set aside for upcoming sports events like the World Cup and the 2014 Olympics, despite crushing levels of poverty in some places, and underfunded public education, health, security and transportation. Though the majority of the protests were peaceful, a few violent demonstrations were broken up by police in Rio de Janeiro.

See more. [Images: AP, Reuters, Getty]

13 Reasons Why Your Brain Craves Infographics [HTML 5]

mythopoetic-monsterling — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 10:16:35 -0700

13 Reasons Why Your Brain Craves Infographics [HTML 5]:

ebookporn:

Enjoy our HTML 5 interactive infographic that exaplains why infographics are so successful

Click link. Nicely done and worth a look.

"One senior member of a leading national magazine when asked how someone could pay the bills to..."

mythopoetic-monsterling — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 22:35:26 -0700

“One senior member of a leading national magazine when asked how someone could pay the bills to affording life in New York while working a full-time internship famously told us that if we couldn’t pull an unpaid internship off, then we didn’t want to succeed badly enough. When we asked how he pulled it off, he told us about how he lived in his parents’ spare apartment upstate while working his internship.”

- Unpaid internships and a culture of privilege are ruining journalism

(via satanic2chainz)

You jut didn’t want it bad enough when you were conceived to be born into a rich white family.

(via trebaolofarabia)

shortformblog: What you should know about the Black Swan unpaid...

mythopoetic-monsterling — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 19:07:17 -0700

shortformblog:

What you should know about the Black Swan unpaid intern case

The ballerinas weren’t the only tortured souls on the set of Black Swan. Some of the unpaid interns on the set found themselves doing the kind of menial labor (i.e. grabbing coffee) that they didn’t go to school for. And on Wednesday, a court agreed, ruling that 1) the interns should have been paid for their time and 2) opened up the company behind the film, Fox Entertainment Group, up for a class-action lawsuit. “Judge [William H.] Pauley’s ruling might still symbolize the tipping point in the battle over unpaid internships. Unless a higher court steps in, some judges might choose to follow his lead in the future,” The Atlantic’s Jordan Weissmann writes, noting that the case could scare some companies off from using unpaid interns for liability reasons. (Side note: We’ve been following the unpaid internship issue lately, and I wrote a Medium post about the topic you should read.)

(thanks Sara Schwartz)

"The incomparable A. J. Liebling wrote once that there are three kinds of journalists: the reporter,..."

mythopoetic-monsterling — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 15:16:13 -0700

“The incomparable A. J. Liebling wrote once that there are three kinds of journalists: the reporter, who says what he’s seen; the interpretive reporter, who says what he thinks is the meaning of what he’s seen; and the expert, who says what he thinks is the meaning of what he hasn’t seen. The first two—reporters and interpretive reporters—have been largely undermined by economics and incuriosity. But the third category never stops growing. We are now a nation of experts, with millions of people who know the meaning of everything that they haven’t actually experienced.”

- Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker (via @LineHolm1)

tastefullyoffensive: [timesunion]

mythopoetic-monsterling — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 13:31:59 -0700

tastefullyoffensive:

[timesunion]

"I do not see how Obama can talk his way out of this one. Snowden is not Bradley Manning: he’s not a..."

mythopoetic-monsterling — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 21:52:54 -0700

“I do not see how Obama can talk his way out of this one. Snowden is not Bradley Manning: he’s not a disturbed disco bunny but a highly articulate network security specialist who has left behind a $200,000 salary and girlfriend in Hawaii for a life on the run. He’s not a sleazy opportunist like Julian Assange, either. As he says: “I’m willing to sacrifice all of that because I can’t in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building.”

It will be very difficult for the Obama administration to portray Snowden as a traitor. For a start, I don’t think US public opinion will allow it. …

Suddenly the worse-than-Watergate rhetoric doesn’t seem overblown. And I do wonder: can a president who’s presided over, and possibly encouraged, Chinese-style surveillance of The Land of the Free honestly expect to serve out his full term?”

- Damian Thompson, The Telegraph - Edward Snowden has blown the whistle on this presidency. You have to wonder: Will Obama see out his full term?
(via brooklynmutt)

"The largest group of people likely to care about the NSA’s intrusions are non-American customers of..."

mythopoetic-monsterling — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 21:49:32 -0700

“

The largest group of people likely to care about the NSA’s intrusions are non-American customers of U.S. Internet companies. Facebook alone has more than one billion of them. Google completely dominates search in most of the world, with its market share across Europe significantly exceeding 90%. And its YouTube distributes citizen videos worldwide. It will be hard now to ever again assure users of these services that their behavior or opinions can be protected from the U.S. government. Some reports on the NSA surveillance suggest that the court orders given these companies can be as broad as forcing them to turn over all traffic to and from a specific country.

It’s quite possible that Obama has undermined the effectiveness and attractiveness for political speech and protest of what have been the most potent communications tools for activism in history. Political and commercial opponents of the U.S. in every country as well as governments themselves will likely alert citizens to the potential that U.S. companies could pass their info back to US authorities.

Do we really want to impair such powerful tools for spreading dialogue, political discourse, and U.S. values? Is it worthwhile to impair the extraordinary financial and commercial success of these great flagships for the American economy? Does Obama want Facebook et al just to be seen as tools of American power? That is certainly not the way the average user in Bolivia sees it. They see it as a tool of their own personal power, and they don’t want governments interfering with that.

”

- Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?
(via bare-life)

thepoliticalfreakshow: Graphics, Grids, And 4 More Secret Years...

mythopoetic-monsterling — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 11:44:52 -0700

thepoliticalfreakshow:

Graphics, Grids, And 4 More Secret Years of PRISM: What Anonymous Knows

In light of another breathtaking NSA revelation — from “a career intelligence officer” exposing the U.S. government’s PRISM collaboration with U.S. Internet companies based on “a gross intrusion on privacy” including a spy operation that “can watch your ideas form as you type” — the hacking collective Anonymous has retaliated, naturally, against the National Security Agency, a long-time nemesis. Friday morning’s leak of 13 NSA documents, which Anonymous claims “prove that the NSA is spying on you,” result in mostly intelligible government gibberish — goofy graphics included — but one of the most fascinating documents led us to a whistleblower site called Cryptome, which suggests the PRISM program has been around since at least 2006, and maybe as early as 2003.

PRISM, like the NSA’s phone metadata collection reported the night before, is thought to have started in 2007 under the Bush administration — as a technical fix to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, one of several measures by Congress after the creation of the PATRIOT Act. But according to a resumé apparently obtained by Cryptome — a site called the “Google of National Security” for hosting national-security documents, including this information relating to PRISM — the tech company/government PRISM data share has been around since 2003, as one of the bullet points reads:

Imagery Collection Manager
Joint Interagency Task Force East
March 2003 – April 2005 (2 years 2 months)

Responsible for the collection of all imagery related intelligence requirements. Evaluated, edited, and drafted national and theater-level requirements for validation and approval via requirements tools, including PRISM and GIMS (RMS).

It’s unclear how seriously to take this information, of course. This government funded start-up allegedly behind the technology wasn’t founded until 2004 — though, the responsibilities of an applicant for this position with PRISM could have started in 2004 or 2005.

Other than that, the Anonymous documents don’t provide much more clarification on the PRISM program. None of the documents, all found here, specifically mentions PRISM, but as Bruce Schneier explained at The Atlantic, that’s just one of the many domestic-surveillance and data-mining programs at the NSA’s disposal. He says the government ”deliberately using different codenames for similar programs to stymie oversight and conceal what’s really going on.”

Many of the new PRISM documents, however, mention GiG — the Global Information Grid — which Anonymous alleges….

Will enable the secure, agile, robust, dependable, interoperable data sharing environment for the Department where warfighter, business, and intelligence users share knowledge on a global network that facilitates information superiority, accelerates decision-making, effective operations, and Net-Centric transformation.

On the NSA’s publicly accessible website, the agency describes GiG as such:

The overarching objective of the GIG vision is to provide the National Command Authority (NCA), warfighters, DoD personnel, Intelligence Community, business, policy-makers, and non-DoD users with information superiority, decision superiority, and full-spectrum dominance.

In other words, GiG is the means by which the government collects data, as the leaked 2008 Department of Defense NetOps Strategic Vision further explains:

The GIG includes all owned and leased communications and computing systems and services, software (including applications), data, security services, and other associated services necessary to achieve Information Superiority. It also includes National Security Systems as defined in section 5142 of the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996. The GIG supports all Department of Defense, National Security, and related Intelligence Community missions and functions (strategic, operational, tactical, and business), in war and in peace. The GIG provides capabilities from all operating locations (bases, posts, camps, stations, facilities, mobile platforms, and deployed sites). The GIG provides interfaces to coalition, allied, and non-DoD users and systems

While the documents spend a lot of time talking about the collection and processing of data (and metadata!), there is not much mention of who and where — so it’s hard to tell if anything illegal is going on. But if the last two days are any indication, the leakers might be coming out of the woodwork, and after the contentious relationship between Anonymous and the NSA over the years, the wooden walls may be crumbling fast.

The Political Notebook: Can you hear me now? Metadata, civil liberties and homeland security

mythopoetic-monsterling — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 11:14:16 -0700

The Political Notebook: Can you hear me now? Metadata, civil liberties and homeland security:

thepoliticalnotebook:

While there has been due outrage about the news regarding the NSA’s Verizon surveillance program, there has also been a loud echo of Senator Lindsey Graham’s “I am a Verizon customer. It doesn’t bother me one bit for the NSA to have my phone number.” See this Twitter account for a collection…

anarchistpeopleofcolor: Which Internet Companies Are Gving Our...

mythopoetic-monsterling — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 10:42:42 -0700

anarchistpeopleofcolor:

Which Internet Companies Are Gving Our Private Data to the Government? (by TheYoungTurks)

how’s that “voted for a lesser evil” thing working out for everybody

however: don’t just blame Obama, a huge portion of responsibility lies with Congress

…who were ALSO voted in

theatlantic: These 2 Maps About Student Loans Explode One of...

mythopoetic-monsterling — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 09:28:59 -0700

theatlantic:

These 2 Maps About Student Loans Explode One of the Biggest Myths About Student Loans

The media fixates on the overall size of student debt. But where you go to school, whether you graduate, and what kind of job you get later may matter much more.

Read more. [Images: FRBNY Consumer Credit Panel]

shortformblog: matthewkeys: According to a slide published by...

mythopoetic-monsterling — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 18:22:47 -0700

shortformblog:

matthewkeys:

According to a slide published by the Washington Post, “PRISM,” the data collecting program used by the National Security Administration, runs at an annual cost of $20 million.

That budget apparently does not include a graphic artist, as it looks like the NSA stole a piece of clipart for the program’s logo.

They were too busy hacking the Gibson to come up with a better logo.

Nine Dashed-Off Points on the NSA "Scandal"

mythopoetic-monsterling — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 14:15:27 -0700

Nine Dashed-Off Points on the NSA "Scandal":

joshsternberg:

Joshua Foust — or Froust or Frost (the HuffPo finally fixed his name in the piece, but not in the URL) — has some smart takes on the NSA thingy. You should read it — it’s nine points that don’t seem to be made from other reporters. Like this one:

All of the opprobrium you should feel at the government’s ridiculously broad surveillance powers needs to be directed at CONGRESS, which keeps approving them while voting they stay secret.

If you read the NYT editorial board’s piece, you’ll notice it’s about the executive. “The administration has now lost all credibility.”

thepeoplesrecord: anarcho-queer: freedomofwhat: anarcho-queer:...

mythopoetic-monsterling — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 09:55:00 -0700

thepeoplesrecord:

anarcho-queer:

freedomofwhat:

anarcho-queer:

Revealed: U.S. Government Collecting Phone Records of Millions of Verizon Users Daily

The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America’s largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April.

The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an “ongoing, daily basis” to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries.

The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.

The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19.

Under the terms of the blanket order, the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered.

The disclosure is likely to reignite longstanding debates in the US over the proper extent of the government’s domestic spying powers.

The court order expressly bars Verizon from disclosing to the public either the existence of the FBI’s request for its customers’ records, or the court order itself.

“We decline comment,” said Ed McFadden, a Washington-based Verizon spokesman.

The order, signed by Judge Roger Vinson, compels Verizon to produce to the NSA electronic copies of “all call detail records or ‘telephony metadata’ created by Verizon for communications between the United States and abroad” or “wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls”.

It is not known whether Verizon is the only cell-phone provider to be targeted with such an order, although previous reporting has suggested the NSA has collected cell records from all major mobile networks. It is also unclear from the leaked document whether the three-month order was a one-off, or the latest in a series of similar orders.

The news comes just days after Obama suggested he will push for increased electronic surveillance.

Glad I’m on ATT for now, but damn. This is the kind of stuff that makes me mad.

AT&T is just as bad if not worse. They willfully give your info to the government without warrants.

In 2007 it was revealed that the FBI paid multimillion-dollar contracts to AT&T and Verizon requiring the companies to station employees inside the FBI and to give these employees access to the telecom databases so they could immediately service FBI requests for telephone records.

The Obama administration has come out to defend this surveillance saying the practice was “a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats to the United States”.

“Information of the sort described in the Guardian article has been a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats to the United States, as it allows counter-terrorism personnel to discover whether known or suspected terrorists have been in contact with other persons who may be engaged in terrorist activities, particularly people located inside the United States.”

probably doing a show on this

very exciting

"I’m starting to lose my ability to write rationally about this stuff. I just don’t know any longer..."

mythopoetic-monsterling — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 19:06:08 -0700

“I’m starting to lose my ability to write rationally about this stuff. I just don’t know any longer what I’m supposed to think about a political movement whose primary raison d’être, one they no longer even bother to conceal, is an almost gleeful immiseration of the poor for the benefit of the rich. How is it that the wealthiest country on earth has come to this?”

- Immiserating the Poor for the Benefit of the Rich

Kevin Drum is as fed up with the Republicans as I am.

(via wilwheaton)

“Objectivity” on these sorts of topics is toxic.

dantes-disco-inferno: Sometimes the jokes write themselves

mythopoetic-monsterling — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 19:46:56 -0700

dantes-disco-inferno:

Sometimes the jokes write themselves

"As I write, Istanbul, Ankara - Turkey’s capital - Izmir and Adana are burning. Massive police..."

mythopoetic-monsterling — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 09:17:53 -0700

“As I write, Istanbul, Ankara - Turkey’s capital - Izmir and Adana are burning. Massive police violence is taking place. And in my middle class Istanbul neighbourhood, like many others, people are banging on their frying pans to protest. People are exchanging information about safe places to take shelter from police, the telephone numbers of doctors and lawyers. In Taksim Square, on the building of Atatürk Cultural Center, some people are hanging a huge banner. There are only two words on it: “Don’t surrender!””

- People have killed their fear of authority - and the protests are growing

Turkish journalist Ece Temelkuran’s report from Turkey, found via the brilliant Alia Malek on Twitter.
(via differentclasswar)

"We need to get to know the children victims of US foreign policy as well as we do the victims of..."

mythopoetic-monsterling — Fri, 31 May 2013 20:45:59 -0700

“We need to get to know the children victims of US foreign policy as well as we do the victims of school shootings”

- Jeremy Scahill (via redplebeian)

neil-gaiman: actegratuit: Protesters #OccupyGezi to save...

mythopoetic-monsterling — Fri, 31 May 2013 17:04:01 -0700

neil-gaiman:

actegratuit:

Protesters #OccupyGezi to save Istanbul park

Activists defy bulldozers to block demolition of city’s ‘last public green space’.

Unconfirmed reports suggest more than 10,000 people are currently gathered in Taksim’s Gezi Park.

pics from http://occupygezipics.tumblr.com/

please share and support these brave people!

Wishing them luck and safety and that they win…