NSA leaker charged with espionage, theft

This photo provided by The Guardian Newspaper in London shows Edward Snowden, who worked as a contract employee at the National Security Agency, in Hong Kong, Sunday, June 9, 2013. The man who told the world about the U.S. government?s gigantic data grab also talked a lot about himself. Mostly through his own words, a picture of Edward Snowden is emerging: fresh-faced computer whiz, high school and Army dropout, independent thinker, trustee of official secrets. And leaker on the lam. (AP Photo/The Guardian) MANDATORY CREDIT

This photo provided by The Guardian Newspaper in London shows Edward Snowden, who worked as a contract employee at the National Security Agency, in Hong Kong, Sunday, June 9, 2013. The man who told the world about the U.S. government?s gigantic data grab also talked a lot about himself. Mostly through his own words, a picture of Edward Snowden is emerging: fresh-faced computer whiz, high school and Army dropout, independent thinker, trustee of official secrets. And leaker on the lam. (AP Photo/The Guardian) MANDATORY CREDIT

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Justice Department has charged former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden with espionage and theft of government property in the NSA surveillance case.

Snowden, believed to be holed up in Hong Kong, has admitted providing information to the news media about two highly classified NSA surveillance programs.

A one-page criminal complaint unsealed Friday in federal court in Alexandria, Va., says Snowden engaged in unauthorized communication of national defense information and willful communication of classified communications intelligence information. Both are charges under the Espionage Act. Snowden also is charged with theft of government property. All three crimes carry a maximum 10-year prison penalty.

The federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia where the complaint was filed is headquarters for Snowden's former employer, government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton.

The complaint is dated June 14, five days after Snowden's name first surfaced as the leaker of information about the two programs in which the NSA gathered telephone and Internet records to ferret out terror plots.

The complaint is an integral part of the U.S. government's effort to have Snowden extradited from Hong Kong, a process that could turn into a prolonged legal battle. Snowden could contest extradition on grounds of political persecution. In general, the extradition agreement between the U.S. and Hong Kong excepts political offenses from the obligation to turn over a person.

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, welcomed the charges. "I've always thought this was a treasonous act," he said in a statement. "I hope Hong Kong's government will take him into custody and extradite him to the U.S."

Michael di Pretoro, a retired 30-year veteran with the FBI who served from 1990 to 1994 as the legal liaison officer at the American consulate in Hong Kong, said "relations between U.S. and Hong Kong law enforcement personnel are historically quite good."

"In my time, I felt the degree of cooperation was outstanding to the extent that I almost felt I was in an FBI field office," said di Pretoro.

The success or failure of any extradition proceeding depends on what the suspect is charged with under U.S. law and how it corresponds to Hong Kong law under the treaty. In order for Hong Kong officials to honor the extradition request, they have to have some applicable statute under their law that corresponds with a violation of U.S. law.

However, Snowden's appeal rights could drag out any extradition proceeding.

Disclosure of the criminal complaint came as President Barack Obama held his first meeting with a privacy and civil liberties board as his intelligence chief sought ways to help Americans understand more about sweeping government surveillance efforts exposed by Snowden.

The five members of the little-known Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board met with Obama for an hour in the White House Situation Room, questioning the president on the two NSA programs that have stoked controversy.

One program collects billions of U.S. phone records. The second gathers audio, video, email, photographic and Internet search usage of foreign nationals overseas, and probably some Americans in the process, who use major providers such as Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Yahoo.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-06-21-NSA%20Surveillance/id-5a399e4670b34b789b09ee1bf63e24b4

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Meet B, the flying car that'll make it even easier to terrorize local wildlife (video)

Sometimes, when a remote-control car and a remote-control helicopter love each other very much, they come together and produce something like the B. Well, okay, that's not exactly how this small flying car came about, but it's a nice story. Witold Mielniczek, a computational engineering Ph.D. candidate at the University of Southampton, is currently running a Kickstarter for the simply named B, a hybrid car-helicopter that can handle both challenging terrains and limited air travel. Equipped with a sleek polycarbonate chassis, four propeller driving units (a fancy way of saying wheels) and an HD 1,280 x 720 camera to record one's travels, B seems to be the little flying car that could. In the greater scheme of things, Mielniczek hopes that B will one day be able to operate on water in addition to land and air. While it's no Avengers helicarrier, we suppose every journey begins with a single step. To see B in action, check out the video after the break.

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Source: Kickstarter

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Graphene-based system could lead to improved information processing

June 21, 2013 ? Researchers at MIT have proposed a new system that combines ferroelectric materials -- the kind often used for data storage -- with graphene, a two-dimensional form of carbon known for its exceptional electronic and mechanical properties. The resulting hybrid technology could eventually lead to computer and data-storage chips that pack more components in a given area and are faster and less power-hungry.

The new system works by controlling waves called surface plasmons. These waves are oscillations of electrons confined at interfaces between materials; in the new system the waves operate at terahertz frequencies. Such frequencies lie between those of far-infrared light and microwave radio transmissions, and are considered ideal for next-generation computing devices.

The findings were reported in a paper in Applied Physics Letters by associate professor of mechanical engineering Nicholas Fang, postdoc Dafei Jin and three others.

The system would provide a new way to construct interconnected devices that use light waves, such as fiber-optic cables and photonic chips, with electronic wires and devices. Currently, such interconnection points often form a bottleneck that slows the transfer of data and adds to the number of components needed.

The team's new system allows waves to be concentrated at much smaller length scales, which could lead to a tenfold gain in the density of components that could be placed in a given area of a chip, Fang says.

The team's initial proof-of-concept device uses a small piece of graphene sandwiched between two layers of the ferroelectric material to make simple, switchable plasmonic waveguides. This work used lithium niobate, but many other such materials could be used, the researchers say.

Light can be confined in these waveguides down to one part in a few hundreds of the free-space wavelength, Jin says, which represents an order-of-magnitude improvement over any comparable waveguide system. "This opens up exciting areas for transmitting and processing optical signals," he says.

Moreover, the work may provide a new way to read and write electronic data into ferroelectric memory devices at very high speed, the MIT researchers say.

Dimitri Basov, a professor of physics at the University of California at San Diego who was not connected with this research, says the MIT team "proposed a very interesting plasmonic structure, suitable for operation in the technologically significant [terahertz] range. ? I am confident that many research groups will try to implement these devices."

Basov cautions, however, "The key issue, as in all of plasmonics, is losses. Losses need to be thoroughly explored and understood."

In addition to Fang and Jin, the research was carried out by graduate student Anshuman Kumar, former postdoc Kin Hung Fung (now at Hong Kong Polytechnic University), and research scientist Jun Xu. It was supported by the National Science Foundation and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/matter_energy/physics/~3/4eQl1-5Fu_M/130621095620.htm

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Gillmor Gang Live 06.21.13. (TCTV)

Gillmor Gang Live - Robert Scoble, Kevin Marks, Keith Teare, and Steve Gillmor. Recording for today has concluded.

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Watchdog faults background check of NSA leaker

WASHINGTON (AP) ? A government watchdog testified Thursday there may have been problems with a security clearance background check conducted on the 29-year-old federal contractor who disclosed previously secret National Security Agency programs for collecting phone records and Internet data ? just as news media disclosed more information about those programs.

Appearing at a Senate hearing, Patrick McFarland, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management's inspector general, said USIS, the company that conducted the background investigation of former NSA systems analyst Edward Snowden, is now under investigation itself.

McFarland declined to say what triggered the inquiry of USIS or whether the probe is related to Snowden. But when asked by Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., if there were any concerns about the USIS background check on Snowden, McFarland answered: "Yes, we do believe that there may be some problems."

Meanwhile, new details emerged about the scope of two recently disclosed NSA programs ? one that gathers U.S. phone records and another that is designed to track the use of U.S.-based Internet servers by foreigners with possible links to terrorism.

Two new documents published Thursday by The Guardian newspaper ? one labeled "top secret" and the other "secret" ? said NSA can keep copies of intercepted communications from or about U.S. citizens indefinitely if the material contains significant intelligence or evidence of crimes.

McFarland declined after the Senate hearing to describe to reporters the type of investigation his office is conducting. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said she was told the inquiry is a criminal investigation related "to USIS' systemic failure to adequately conduct investigations under its contract."

"We are limited in what we can say about this investigation because it is an ongoing criminal matter," said McCaskill, chairwoman of the Senate subcommittee on financial and contracting oversight. "But it is a reminder that background investigations can have real consequences for our national security."

McCaskill's panel conducted the hearing jointly with Tester's subcommittee on efficiency and effectiveness of federal programs.

USIS, based in Falls Church, Va., said in a statement that it has never been informed that it is under criminal investigation. USIS received a subpoena from the inspector general's office in January 2012 for records, the statement said. "USIS complied with that subpoena and has cooperated fully with the government's civil investigative efforts," according to the company.

USIS declined to comment on whether it conducted a background investigation of Snowden. The company said it performs thousands of background investigations each year for OPM and other government agencies. "These investigations are confidential and USIS does not comment on them," the USIS statement said.

The background check USIS performed on Snowden was done in 2011 and was part of periodic reinvestigations that are required for employees who hold security clearances, according to McFarland and Michelle Schmitz, the assistant inspector general for investigations at OPM.

Schmitz said the investigation of USIS commenced later in 2011.

Booz Allen Hamilton, the company where Snowden was working at the time of the disclosures, fired him for violations of the firm's code of ethics and firm policy. The company said he had been a Booz Allen employee for less than three months.

Snowden worked previously at the CIA and probably obtained his security clearance there. But like others who leave the government to join private contractors, he was able to keep his clearance after he left and began working for outside firms.

Of the 4.9 million people with clearance to access "confidential and secret" government information, 1.1 million, or 21 percent, work for outside contractors, according to a January report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Of the 1.4 million who have the higher "top secret" access, 483,000, or 34 percent, work for contractors.

OPM's Federal Investigative Services division performs almost all the background investigations for federal agencies and nearly 75 percent of the investigators who perform background checks are contractors, according to information on the agency's website.

At the hearing, McFarland called for much closer oversight of the investigators who conduct background checks. He said that 18 background investigators and record searchers have been criminally convicted since 2006 for fabricating information in background reports.

McFarland's office is actively working on 11 fabrication cases and another 36 cases involving background investigators are pending, according to data he provided to the subcommittees.

Of the 18 investigators who were criminally convicted, 11 were federal employees and seven were contractors. Of the 47 active and pending cases, six involve federal employees and 41 involve contractors, according to McFarland.

The new documents revealed by The Guardian were signed by Attorney General Eric Holder. They include point-by-point directions on how an NSA employee must work to determine that a person being targeted has not entered the United States. If NSA finds the target has entered the U.S., it will stop gathering phone and Internet data immediately, the documents say.

If supervisors determine that information on a U.S. person or a target who entered the U.S. was intentionally targeted, that information is destroyed, according to the documents.

But if a foreign target has conversations with an American or a U.S.-based person whom NSA supervisors determine is related to terrorism, or contains significant intelligence or evidence of crimes, that call or email or text message can be kept indefinitely. Encrypted communications also can be kept indefinitely, according the documents.

Administration officials had said the U.S. phone records NSA gathered could only be kept for five years. A fact sheet those officials provided to reporters mentioned no exceptions.

The documents outline fairly broad authority when the NSA monitors a foreigner's communications. For instance, if the monitored foreigner has been criminally indicted in the U.S. and is speaking to legal counsel, NSA has to cease monitoring the call. The agency, however, can log the call and mine it later so long as conversation protected by attorney-client privilege is not used in legal proceedings against the foreigner.

The NSA had no comment when asked about the newly revealed documents.

___

Follow Lardner on Twitter at https://twitter.com/rplardner and Dozier on Twitter at http://twitter.com/kimberlydozier

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/watchdog-faults-background-check-nsa-leaker-235639806.html

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Senators announce border security compromise

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Republican senators searching for compromise on an immigration bill have announced an amendment to dramatically increase agents, technology and fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The deal was announced on the Senate floor Thursday afternoon by GOP Sens. John Hoeven of North Dakota and Bob Corker of Tennessee. It would double border patrol agents on the border, build 700 new miles of fencing and spend billions to deploy additional high-tech tools including drones, radar and seisimic monitoring.

Corker says it amounts to "investing resources to secure our border that have never been invested before."

Even before being formally introduced the amendment was adding powerful momentum to the White House-backed legislation, which looked likely to pass the Senate with a bipartisan majority in coming days.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/senators-announce-border-security-compromise-182812632.html

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Video Ad Buying Platform TubeMogul Hires Google Media Platforms Head Chip Scovic As CRO

TubeMogul has come a long way since being founded in 2006. The company, which originally provided an analytics service for video distributors, moved into advertising a couple of years ago. With a platform that brand advertisers can use to systematically purchase online video inventory, it's gotten pretty big since then -- and it keeps getting bigger.

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