They are used by the FBI to bypass courts and conduct secret surveillance. But now, in what could prove to be a major blow to the Department of Justice, a federal court has found that National Security Letters are unconstitutional.

In a ruling released today, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston said that NSLs suffer from “significant constitutional defects” and violate the First Amendment because of the way they can be used to effectively gag companies that receive them. Illston has ordered the FBI to stop issuing NSLs and cease enforcing their gag provisions in all cases. However, the ruling has been stayed for 90 days, giving the government the chance to appeal to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals because of the “constitutional and national security issues at stake.”

NSLs were created in the late 1970s to help the FBI obtain information about suspected foreign spies. But their use was expanded under the Patriot Act following 9/11, and they can now be used to order companies to provide data on Americans. Last week, Google disclosed that it had been forced to hand over data on thousands of its users in recent years after being served with NSLs—but it was able to divulge only vague information, rather than exact numbers. A company that receives a NSL can be forbidden from talking about it with anyone but a lawyer, or else potentially face years in prison.

The California case was brought in 2011 by civil rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is representing a telecom company that has not yet been named. "We are very pleased that the court recognized the fatal constitutional shortcomings of the NSL statute," EFF senior staff attorney Matt Zimmerman said in a statement today following the ruling. "The government's gags have truncated the public debate on these controversial surveillance tools


http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/03/15/susan_illston_district_court_judge_declares_national_security_letters_unconstitutional.html


Mueller and Holder take that !!!

Determining the atmospheric structure and chemical composition of an exoplanet remains a formidable goal. Fortunately, advancements in the study of exoplanets and their atmospheres have come in the form of direct imaging—spatially resolving the planet from its parent star—which enables high-resolution spectroscopy of self-luminous planets in jovian-like orbits. Here, we present a spectrum with numerous, well-resolved molecular lines from both water and carbon monoxide from a massive planet orbiting less than 40 astronomical units from the star HR 8799. These data reveal the planet's chemical composition, atmospheric structure, and surface gravity, confirming that it is indeed a young planet. The spectral lines suggest an atmospheric carbon-to-oxygen ratio that is greater than that of the host star, providing hints about the planet's formation.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2013/03/13/science.1232003


LIFE.....I would guess if true.

Rush’s rant was based one of the most poorly researched pieces of ratings comparison ever written. Over at Breitbart, one of their crack geniuses is contending that reruns of “The O’Reilly Factor” are more popular than HBO’s Girls. His conclusion is that the success of “Girls” is nothing but left wing hype by the mainstream media. Of course, this right wing “intellectual giant” doesn’t bother to tell his readers that HBO is pay channel with 25-30 million US subscribers while Fox News is available in 90 million American homes. Fox News is in more than twice as many homes, so they should have twice as many viewers. Something would be seriously wrong if they didn’t. In the facts optional conservative mind O’Reilly beats all, so the “liberal mainstream media” are a bunch of liars.

Limbaugh is blaming the decline of television on the fact that women are getting some limited opportunities to put their visions on the small screen. “Girls” is a great show. It speaks volumes about Rush Limbaugh as a man that he is so intimidated by it. Tina Feys’ “30 Rock” just concluded a great and innovative run.

http://www.politicususa.com/cave-pig-rush-limbaugh-blames-emotional-decisions-women-ruining-tv.html


I like Rush's new title .... Cave Pig....LOL

Secret Army:

In this series, inspired by real events during World War II, the kind, intelligent and worrisome Albert Foiret runs both a café, which is the only notable public house in a small Belgian town, where locals therefore naturally mix with the Nazi occupation forces, and a just as publicity-shy (even his bed-ridden wife knows nothing) network of the Belgian resistance, devoted to the evacuation of shot-down Allied pilots to Britain. He and his secret 'army' (including some of his staff and the Brussels Dr. Pascal Keldermans), taking orders by illegal radio from London, constantly risk their lives -and if caught by the professionally torturing Gestapo, possibly everyone else's- to find the pilots, hide, nurse and prepare them for the long, dangerous journey out of the Reich under the Nazis' noses, a never ending cat-and-mouse game against specialized German hunters, run by the gentleman Luftwaffe (Air Force)- Major Erwin Brandt and the ruthless Nazi 'secret state police' run by the cunning,... Written by KGF Vissers

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075579/?ref_=tt_ov_inf

Colditz

This grim and claustrophobic drama chronicles the lives of the prisoners in Colditz Castle from the arrival of the first British prisoners after Dunkirk until the liberation of the castle by the Americans in 1945. Colditz was a "special" camp, designed by the Nazis to hold high-risk and politically important prisoners. Many of the series' plots are based on real events.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068059/?ref_=fn_al_tt_5


High production values and acting in both series, edge of your seat suspense.
Highly recommended.

n a display of “Huh?” worthy of Clint Eastwood and the Empty Chair, Donald Trump gave what Business Insider is describing as “confusing and terrible:”

Trump said he was upset that President Barack Obama did not return his calls about a free ballroom he offered to build. He also made a strange statement about how he wants the U.S. to go back to Iraq to take some oil.

Conservative writer David Freddoso tweeted that the crowd stopped applauding before Trump had even left the stage. He also said:

“I feel dumber for having listened.”


http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/03/15/trump-tops-eastwoods-rambling-empty-chair-speech-with-rambling-empty-room-speech/

Got ya........
Go Canada

Astronaut Chris Hadfield became the first Canadian commander of the International Space Station this afternoon, when he officially took the reins of the orbiting laboratory.

Outgoing NASA Commander Kevin Ford, who has held the role since November 2012, passed responsibility for the Station to Hadfield during a transfer-of-command ceremony at 5:10 p.m. ET.

Expedition 34 will end tomorrow when Ford and his crewmates undock from the Station.


[Hadfield] has a vision for [Expedition] 35. He knows what's going to happen," Ford said from the ISS. "He's really a people person. He's out there, he shares things with everybody. He's a uniquely talented person on the planet and he's now a uniquely talented person off the planet."

Hadfield arrived at the Station in December, where he has been conducting experiments and sharing his experiences on social media.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2013/03/13/sci-chris-hadfield-iss-handover.html

I thought this was amusing and science related.
Go Canada.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll announced her resignation Wednesday, a day after she was questioned by authorities investigating an Internet cafe company that she once represented.

Carroll’s resignation letter to Gov. Rick Scott, dated Tuesday, offered no details about her reason for leaving. But Scott’s chief of staff, Adam Hollingsworth, said she was interviewed by Florida Department of Law Enforcement officers Tuesday regarding her work with Allied Veterans of the World.

She resigned to ensure her ties to the company would not be a distraction for the administration, he said. Carroll, a Navy veteran, had owned a public relations firm that represented that company.

While serving as a state lawmaker, Carroll’s ties to the company were also questioned when she proposed a bill that would benefit internet cafes.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/news/fl-lieutenant-governor-resigns.php?m=1

The Florida bartender responsible for capturing former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s infamous “47 percent” remarks will reveal his identity in an interview with MSNBC host Ed Schultz that will air Wednesday.

Both Schultz and Mother Jones, which released the video in September 2012, announced the interview on Tuesday, with Schultz playing clips from the interview.

“I debated for a little while, but in the end I really felt it had to be put out,” the bartender said of his decision to leak the video, secretly filmed at a May 2012 fundraiser for Romney. “I felt I owed it to the people who couldn’t afford to be there themselves to hear what he really thought.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/03/13/report-man-behind-romney-47-percent-video-will-reveal-himself-wednesday/




A real hero

Neanderthals' keen vision may explain why they couldn't cope with environmental change and died out, despite having the same sized brains as modern humans, new research suggests.

The findings, published today (March 12) in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, suggest that Neanderthals developed massive visual regions in their brains to compensate for Europe's low light levels. That, however, reduced the brain space available for social cognition.

"We have a social brain, whereas Neanderthals appear to have a visual brain," said Clive Gamble, an archaeologist at the University of Southampton, who was not involved in the study. As a result, the extinct hominids had smaller social and trading networks to rely on when conditions got tough. That may have caused Neanderthals to die off around 35,000 years ago.
snip

Neanderthals were has been a long-standing debate.
"Either they get regarded as lumbering brutes, or the other side says, 'No, they weren't that stupid. They had enormous brains, so they must have been as smart as we are,'" said study co-author Robin Dunbar, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Oxford.

snip

http://news.yahoo.com/neanderthals-doomed-vision-centered-brains-002516901.html