Why Is the NYPD Waging a Shadow Drone War?

VICE

Imagine a small drone fluttering its way across the East River in New York City. Undetectable by radar, it's headed toward midtown Manhattan, and equipped with a destructive arsenal of weapons. Or a chemical agent. Or explosives. Or on a collision course with a jetliner. A hovering warcraft that can take out hundreds, if not thousands, of American citizens, controlled by a not-too-distant terrorist organization, and ready to unleash death from above on suspecting New Yorkers.

Sounds terrifying, right? According to top New York Police Department brass, this kind of nightmare scenario could be in Gotham's not-too-distant future.

Last week, CBS News ​repo​rted that the largest municipal police force in the country is seriously considering weaponized drones as the newest security threat to terrorists' favorite target.

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When Is Congress Going to Rein In FBI Surveillance?

According to ​James Comey, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, "Americans should be deeply skeptical of government power. You cannot trust people in power."

So it's been jarring to learn new details about his own agency's activity in recent months, many of which raise questions about whether the FBI is fulfilling its constitutional obligations. The most alarming of these revelations is that the Bureau is reading the emails of people--they don't know how many people--without court orders.

The FBI does this under what have been called "backdoor searches." When the feds collect content from people overseas who are suspected of terrorism or spying, they dump that into a database that the FBI can (and does) query when it gets tips. Director Comey said in response to a question after his s​pe​ech at the Brookings Institution last month that this only happens "pursuant to an investigation."

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Israel accused of war crimes during campaign in Gaza

Amnesty International has accused Israel of committing war crimes during its campaign in Gaza.

A report released by the group on Wednesday says Israel displayed “callous indifference” launching attacks on family homes in the densely populated coastal strip and in some cases its conduct amounted to war crimes. It adds that war crimes were also committed by Palestinian militants.

The 50-day war killed more than 2,100 Palestinians, most of them civilians, and 72 people on the Israeli side, all but six of whom were soldiers.

Israel’s Gaza operation came after increased rocket attacks by Gaza’s Islamic militant Hamas rulers. Israel also arrested scores of Hamas activists in the West Bank, following the abduction and murder of three Israeli teenagers.

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Police could be secretly tracking your phone

Your cell phone goes wherever you do, and now police can track your every move – without a warrant.

The 11Alive Investigators confirmed the Gwinnett County Police department is operating more than one 'Stingray' device. They're fake cell phone towers that can fit inside an unmarked surveillance van. Portable versions can be carried by detectives searching for suspects on foot.

"I think what people are most concerned about is this idea that prosecutors in particular out there dredging for information almost like a shrimp boat," said Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter. "We're not that way. We hunt rather than fish. We have individual targets that are suspects in crimes and we use the data on that individual, and we don't look at anything else," Porter added.

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U.S. scientists say uncertainties loom about Ebola's transmission, other key facts

(Reuters) - Even as government officials express confidence that researchers know the key facts about Ebola, many questions crucial to preventing an outbreak in the United States remain unanswered, scientists told a workshop at the National Academy's Institute of Medicine in Washington on Monday.

Virtually all the unknowns have practical consequences, participants emphasized, making it foolish and perhaps dangerous to base policy on weak science.

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Million Mask March descends on London

The Million Mask March will course through London on Wednesday November 5. The march, in which all demonstrators obscure their faces to protect their identity, is in protest against austerity, mass surveillance and attacks on human rights.

Organized by the global hacktivist group Anonymous, the London protest will march from Trafalgar Square and finish at the Houses of Parliament.

It is unknown how many demonstrators will join the march, as pleas from police for information have remained unanswered.

In 2013 the event gathered crowds of more than 2,500. The Facebook event suggests over 6,000 people may attend this year.

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Verizon Injecting Perma-Cookies to Track Mobile Customers

Verizon users might want to start looking for another provider. In an effort to better serve advertisers, Verizon Wireless has been silently modifying its users' web traffic on its network to inject a cookie-like tracker. This tracker, included in an HTTP header called X-UIDH, is sent to every unencrypted website a Verizon customer visits from a mobile device. It allows third-party advertisers and websites to assemble a deep, permanent profile of visitors' web browsing habits without their consent.

Verizon apparently created this mechanism to expand their advertising programs, but it has privacy implications far beyond those programs. Indeed, while we're concerned about Verizon's own use of the header, we're even more worried about what it allows others to find out about Verizon users.

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$1mn per card: Major flaw detected in new credit, debit cards

Scientists testing for card fraud on new contactless microchip debit and credit cards have found a critical flaw that could allow a criminal to steal up to $1 million just by coming into close contact with a person.

During a presentation at the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security in Arizona on Monday, Newcastle University scientists presented a paper that showed flaws in microchip credit and debit cards. With the new microchip cards, users can just swipe the chip for transactions up to $31, for speed and convenience.

However, researchers found the chips do not recognize limits with foreign currency transactions.

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US MILITARY TRAINED BURKINA FASO'S NEW LEADER

The army officer who has seized power in Burkina Faso amid popular protests in the West African country was twice selected to attend counterterrorism training programs sponsored by the U.S. government, U.S. military officials said.

Lt. Col. Isaac Zida, the former deputy commander of the presidential guard, emerged Saturday as the country’s ruler — at least on an interim basis — after angry demonstrators attacked government buildings and forced Burkina Faso’s longtime strongman to flee the country.

In 2012, when he was a major, Zida attended a 12-day counterterrorism training course at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida that was sponsored by the Defense Department’s Joint Special Operations University, said Army Lt. Col. Mark R. Cheadle, a spokesman for the U.S. Africa Command.

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BOMBSHELL MEMO: Jeanne Shaheen Conspired With White House Insider On IRS Targeting Scandal

Democratic New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen was principally involved in a plot with Lois Lerner and President Barack Obama’s political appointee at the IRS to lead a program of harassment against conservative nonprofit groups during the 2012 election, according to letters exclusively obtained by The Daily Caller.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) did not want to publicly release 2012 correspondences exchanged between the IRS and Jeanne Shaheen at her personal Washington office: the agency delayed releasing the information to a major conservative super PAC multiple times, even threatening to see the super PAC in court, according to emails.

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Fresh Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone raises fears of new infection chain

A fresh outbreak of Ebola in a part of Sierra Leone where the virus was thought to have been contained has raised fears of a new, uncontrolled infection chain that could send the death toll soaring.

A Red Cross ambulance team was sent to the remote district of Koinadugu, which had prided itself on being the only area to have kept Ebola at bay, from on Tuesday to urgently collect 30 corpses for medical burial.

The outbreak is a major setback for the Ebola response force and the district, which two weeks ago remained resolved to control the spread of the virus that has officially infected 5,338 people and claimed 1,510 lives in the country.

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NBC/WSJ Poll: 71% Back Mandatory Quarantines for Ebola Health Worker

More than seven in 10 Americans support mandatory quarantines for health professionals who have treated Ebola patients in West Africa, even if they have no symptoms, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

The survey shows that 71 percent of those surveyed say the health workers should be subject to a 21-day quarantine, while 24 percent disagree.

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Duke Hospital monitoring patient for possible Ebola

EDITOR'S NOTE: Why are these "medical professionals" still saying that Ebola can't be spread unless the infected individual is showing symptoms? A Nobel Prize winning doctor says otherwise! The patient rode on a bus from NJ to NC. Unless the bus was empty, there could be a serious problem if Ebola is diagnosed!

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services is monitoring a patient at Duke University Hospital in Durham who traveled from Liberia and has developed a fever.

State health officials said Sunday night that the patient departed Liberia and arrived Friday at Newark (N.J.) Liberty International Airport, had no symptoms upon arrival and had no known exposure to Ebola while in Liberia.

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UN worker with Ebola arrives in France for treatment

FRANCE 24

France is treating a UN employee who contracted Ebola while working with those infected in Sierra Leone, the health ministry said on Sunday. The victim is in an isolation unit under high security at an army training hospital in Saint-Mande.

"This person, who worked in Sierra Leone in the fight against Ebola, has undergone a secure medical evacuation by specialised aircraft," the French health ministry said in a statement.

A French nurse, who worked for Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Liberia, was treated for Ebola at the same hospital in September and subsequently recovered.

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Police can require cellphone fingerprint, not pass code

A Circuit Court judge has ruled that a criminal defendant can be compelled to give up his fingerprint, but not his pass code, to allow police to open and search his cellphone.

The question of whether a phone's pass code is constitutionally protected surfaced in the case of David Baust, an Emergency Medical Services captain charged in February with trying to strangle his girlfriend.

Prosecutors had said video equipment in Baust's bedroom may have recorded the couple's fight and, if so, the video could be on his cellphone. They wanted a judge to force Baust to unlock his phone, but Baust's attorney, James Broccoletti, argued pass codes are protected by the Fifth Amendment, which prohibits forced self-incrimination.

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Pentagon's Defense Clandestine Service plan to be scaled back

The Pentagon has scaled back its plan to assemble an overseas spy service that could have rivaled the CIA in size, backing away from a project that faced opposition from lawmakers who questioned its purpose and cost, current and former U.S. officials said.

Under the revised blueprint, the Defense Intelligence Agency will train and deploy up to 500 undercover officers, roughly half the size of the espionage network envisioned two years ago when the formation of the Defense Clandestine Service was announced.

The previous plan called for moving as many as 1,000 undercover case officers overseas to work alongside the CIA and the U.S. military’s Joint Special Operations Command on counterterrorism missions and other targets of broad national security concern.

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State of Maine Document Reports Kaci Hickox’s Roommate in Africa Developed Ebola

Sheila Pinette of the Maine CDC has released information that the roommate of Kaci Hickox, while in West Africa has displayed signs of ebola.  Pinette says “The respondents roommate in Africa became infected without knowing how she became infected with Ebola. (Any potential risk to respondent from that incident has passed).

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VANISHED>>> CDC Deletes Ebola Page On How You Can Catch Disease from Coughing, Sneezing

The CDC quietly took down the above page explaining how Ebola can be spread through coughing, sneezing and sex. The page actually said droplet spread diseases include Ebola and plague. Look at it yourself!

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This Eye-Opening Chart Shows What Nation Has the Most Ebola Cases Outside West Africa

In the raging debate about how to contain the Ebola epidemic from spreading outside of West Africa, the BBC dropped some much-needed context about how prevalent the disease is outside that region thus far.

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‘Entire villages disappeared’: Ebola deaths in Sierra Leone ‘underreported’

Ebola’s toll on Sierra Leone is much greater than previously thought, with entire villages killed off by the virus. This means up to 20,000 people could have succumbed to the disease by now, a senior coordinator for Doctors Without Borders (MSF) believes.

According to Rony Zachariah, coordinator of operational research for MSF, the Ebola impact on Sierra Leone is in fact “under-reported,” AFP quotes.

“The situation is catastrophic. There are several villages and communities that have been basically wiped out. In one of the villages I went to, there were 40 inhabitants and 39 died,” Zachariah told the agency.

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