WASHINGTON, June 24 (Reuters) – The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy, introduced a bill on Monday seeking to rein in the sweeping U.S. government surveillance programs exposed by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
The bill would expand reporting requirements for the secret programs, add more court reviews and move up the expiration of the authorization for some of the data collection by 2-1/2 years.
It is similar to legislation that Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, has introduced twice before. But it may have more momentum now that Snowden has triggered a debate about the proper balance between Americans’ privacy and national security.
Snowden, who is believed to be in Moscow, has been charged by the United States for disclosing the secret U.S. surveillance programs made possible by the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the Patriot Act.
Leahy’s co-sponsors for the latest bill include Republican Senator Mike Lee and four Senate Democrats – Mark Udall, Ron Wyden, Richard Blumenthal and Jon Tester.
Among other things, the bill would let the government obtain records using Section 215 of the Patriot Act only when it can establish that the information is relevant to an authorized investigation and linked to a foreign terrorist group or power.
Critics have argued that Section 215 vastly expanded the U.S. government’s power to spy on Americans.
The legislation would also shorten the expiration of the FISA Amendments Act to June 2015 from December 2017, and require an audit on the impact of the surveillance on Americans’ privacy.
The FISA Amendments Act, passed in 2008 and reauthorized last year, grants the government wide surveillance powers.
Privacy advocates argue that the sweeping surveillance activities infringe on Americans’ civil liberties, and say the existing oversight is insufficient.
President Barack Obama’s administration and several high-profile lawmakers have defended the programs as a vital national security tool that is overseen by the administration, Congress and a special court. (Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; editing by Karey Van Hall and Christopher Wilson)
Ziphius aquatic drone hits Kickstarter, we go hands-on with an updated prototype
Posted in: Today's Chili
If you followed our Insert Coin: New Challengers contest at our first-ever Expand event, you may recognize this guy. The Ziphius, an WiFi-enabled aquatic drone powered by a Raspberry Pi, won $25,000 in prize money back in San Francisco, and three months later it’s taking the next big plunge: launching on Kickstarter. The bot launched its crowd-funding campaign tonight — at Engadget+ gdgt live in NYC, no less — and the Ziphius team says the $125,000 in requested money will go toward refining the device’s mold for the final-production version. As you can see from our gallery below, the package already looks sleeker, and it comes in pink along with several other new colors. Backers of all pocket sizes will be rewarded with everything from their name on the website ($1 pledge) to a Ziphius of their own ($195 and up). Click the source to check out the Kickstarter page for yourself and donate if you’re so inclined; the project has 29 days to meet that lofty funding goal.
Gallery: Ziphius aquatic drone hands-on
Zach Honig contributed to this report.
Filed under: Robots
Source: Kickstarter
We first heard about Rust-Oleum’s liquid-repelling product, NeverWet almost two years ago
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Google Cloud Playground lets you dip your toes in the Cloud Platform waters
Posted in: Today's Chili
Google’s Cloud Platform holds a certain amount of appeal for developers looking to quickly build robust web apps. Of course, getting started is a bit involved. You’ll first need to download and install several tools and an SDK on your local machine. Cloud Playground offers the chance to dip your toes in the water and experiment with services like App Engine, Cloud Storage and Cloud SQL sans the lengthy installation process. The browser-based tool is designed for testing out sample code, evaluating APIs and even sharing code snippets without the hassle of building a complete development environment. This isn’t a proper solution to web-based development, however. For now you’re limited to Python 2.7 App Engine apps, and the code editor and mimic development server have a rather basic feature set. Still, for those who are tempted by Cloud Platform, but not quite ready to dive in head first, the Playground is a welcome treat.
Via: TechCrunch
Source: Google Cloud Platform Blog
We’re Hiring a Deal Master
Posted in: Today's Chili
Gawker Media is hiring a tech writer to be Gizmodo’s new Dealzmaster (or commerce specialist). That means we’re looking for someone to write and curate Dealzmodo.
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This is My Boomstick T-shirt: BFSG
Posted in: Today's ChiliAll right listen up you primitive screwheads, this is my boomstick t-shirt! It has two short sleeves, a single hole for your head and another for your torso. Jimiyo’s top-of-the-line.You can find this on Yetee for the next 24 hours or on Red Bubble for as long as Jimiyo wants it to be there.
That’s right, this sweet baby is a mashup of the groundbreaking FPS Doom and the mind-breaking movie Army of Darkness, which gave birth to a classic line, and eventually this t-shirt design. And this post.
Retails for about $11 (USD) on Yetee and about $24 on Red Bubble. It’s got the Doom logo on it but it says “Boom” instead, a silhouette of Ashley Williams and some disembodied hands. That’s right. Shop Red Bubble. Shop R-Bubbz. Ya got that?!
[via Gamefreaks & TV Tropes]
Forget bulging muscles or a toned set of abs. If you really want to impress everyone on the beach this summer, a stunning sand castle is the way to go. And if your sculpting skills max out at Play-Doh snakes, these architectural sand castle molds will let you re-build the most stunning structures from past empires, ready to be lost to time once again once the tide rolls in.
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This close-up of the supermoon was taken by Crave reader Sherwin Coelho in the United Kingdom using a Canon PowerShot SX 50 HS Bridge camera.
(Credit: Sherwin Coelho)
Over the weekend we got as close to our moon as we’ll be for the next 14 months. The resulting perigee full “supermoon” appeared 13 percent larger and 30 percent brighter than normal, turning many amateur and pro photographers nocturnal over the past few nights.
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While some news outlets in places like the Philippines reported that the monster moon did wreak some minor havoc with the tides, it didn’t bring on the apocalyptic natural disasters that are sometimes predicted each time our satellite gets a little too close for the comfort of the more paranoid among us.
But it did bring out the skyward-gazing technophiles. (During… [Read more]
Related Links:
Watch full supermoon in HD here
Supermoon will be big, bright, and full on June 23
Stunning supermoon close-up taken with iPhone
Supermoon shots from across the globe (pictures)
Watch the enormous QE2 binary asteroid pass by Earth
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The January 1987 issue of the legendary (and sadly, now defunct) Omni magazine included predictions from 14 "great minds" about what the world might look like in twenty years. By the year 2007, musician David Byrne believed that computers would do little for future musicians outside of their bookkeeping. Noted rich guy Bill Gates wondered how much stimulation (read: overstimulation) people of the future might be able to handle. And feminist author Barbara Ehrenreich predicted that by the 21st century, ideas about sexual dysfunction and what constitutes a healthy sexual relationship will have changed dramatically.
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This week the folks at Microsoft Studios have made their intentions with classic games from the golden age of PC gaming clear: it’s time to go mobile. The first title to be moving to both Apple’s mobile operating system iOS and Google’s Android will be the castle defense game Age of Empires. This game is
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