To: The Judiciary Committee, U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. CongressOn November 20, 2003, a congressional report accused federal officials in Boston and Washington, DC, of inflicting “incalculable damage” on the public by protecting murderous government informants over the last 38 years.
The House Committee on Government Reform (HCGR) detailed misconduct by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and their supervisors (right up to former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover), in the 1965 murder of Edward “Teddy” Deegan. This is a case in which the FBI cultivated a Mafia hit man as a star informant and then government witness, and watched silently as he falsely accused four men of the murder.
Internal FBI documents show that FBI agents and their supervisors knew the identities of the real killers all along. Federal officials also took “affirmative steps” to make sure that the four innocent men convicted in the Deegan case “would not obtain post-conviction relief and that they would die in prison.” Two of the men DID die in prison.
There have been “no adverse consequences” for the law enforcement officials who permitted these atrocities to occur.
Is the Government Reform Committee really surprised by the outcome of their investigation? Are you, Congressmen?
For decades claims of official misconduct have been levied against the FBI by U.S. citizens, but Congress has turned a blind eye to such charges for the most part.
For nearly 30 years, for example, Congress – steeped in denial and fully believing the myth that has grown up around the FBI, i.e., that of premier law enforcement agency, protector of American rights, and defender of the U.S. Constitution – has failed to fully investigate the “Reign of Terror” on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota during the 1970s. It also has failed to investigate the now documented FBI misconduct in the case of American Indian activist Leonard Peltier.
I know the Deegan case isn’t an isolated incident. The case only provides additional proof of what many people – Leonard Peltier among them – already know from bitter experience. The FBI is plagued with a top-down malady characterized by thinking itself above the law, having no concern for justice, and desiring to squash all dissent. The U.S. Constitution is meaningless to an agency that now, as before, thinks the end justifies the means.
The HCGR said the Committee's report should spur a wider investigation. Yes, a wider investigation is indicated. Not just the misuse of informants but ALL FBI misconduct must be uncovered and the responsible parties held accountable.
I’m counting on you to seek out and expose the truth. Any official investigation of FBI misconduct MUST include the “Reign of Terror” on Pine Ridge and the Peltier case where the government has been shown to have: violated international law by using a false affidavit from an incompetent witness to obtain Leonard’s extradition from Canada; withheld critical evidence; fabricated other evidence; intimidated witnesses; hand-picked the trial judge; and prejudiced the jury against the American Indian Movement, in general, and Leonard Peltier, in particular. This was all to ensure that Leonard Peltier, an innocent man, would pay the collective price for the deaths of two FBI agents in 1975. It was and continues to be an act of vengeance only and a shameful perversion of our Constitution.
This is a simple matter of justice, Congressmen. I want it. I want it now. Conduct a full investigation into the FBI misconduct on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and the case of Leonard Peltier. Do it now.
Monday, 28 February 2011
FBI Misconduct - Pine Ridge "Reign of Terror" & Leonard Peltier Petition
Sunday, 27 February 2011
How to Build a Reminder Service Using Tropo and Ruby on Rails | The Tropo Blog
How to Build a Reminder Service Using Tropo and Ruby on Rails
February 27th, 2011 by cmatthieu
Have you ever thought about starting a Reminder Service company and getting millions of dollars in funding all from a weekend project? Tropo is here to help you with your communications needs in this endeavor!
The Reminder Service source code that I am about to share with you was started on the Nerd Bird (good to have in-flight WiFi) from Orlando to Phoenix, on my way back from the HIMSS conference. It’s written in Ruby on Rails 3.0.4 and the Tropo Scripting API.
This is Tropo application is designed to demonstrate building a Reminder Service application using both Voice and SMS alerts. The application will place an outbound reminder call to you 1 week in advance and then 1 day in advance and an SMS message 1 hour in advance of your appointment time.
You can demo the Reminder Service running on Heroku now. It’s a basic Ruby on Rails scaffolding interface with the ability to create, update, and delete reminders. All reminders are tracked in UTC time to simplify the demo and there is no authentication because IT’S A DEMO.
The source code is on GitHub. Simply clone this application from GitHub and run the following statements from your command line:
bundle installrake db:createrake db:migrateSetup an account at Tropo and create a new Scripting API application. Copy and paste the source code from tropo_scripting_api.rb into separate scripts running under the same application. One for placing outbound voice call reminders and one for sending SMS message reminders.
Here is the source code to place the phone call on Tropo.
1message($remindermessage, {
2:to => $phonenumber,
3:channel =>"VOICE"
4})Here is the source code to send an SMS message on Tropo.
1message($remindermessage, {
2:to => $phonenumber,
3:network =>"SMS"
4})Add a phone number to your Tropo application. SMS messages will not work without one.
The rest of the magic happens in the API controller as shown below:
01classApiController < ApplicationController
02def check
03require'time'
04
05@reminders= Reminder.where("(appointment > ?) and (appointment < ?) and ( flag1 IS NULL or flag2 IS NULL or flag3 IS NULL)", Time.now.utc, Time.now.utc+1.week )
06
07@reminders.eachdo|reminder|
08
09ifreminder.appointment-1.hour < Time.now.utc && reminder.flag3.nil?
10
11# Send SMS
12RestClient.get'https://api.tropo.com/1.0/sessions', {:params => {
13:action =>'create',
14:token =>'848b6b17c6229844827847b381...58eaa12683b6ea0a8aa5e166ee7bfcc8',
15:phonenumber => formatphone(reminder.phonenumber),
16:remindermessage =>'dont forget '+ reminder.message.to_s +' at '+ reminder.appointment.to_s}}
17
18# Write Flag3
19@reminder= Reminder.find(reminder.id)
20@reminder.flag3 =true
21@reminder.save
22
23elsif reminder.appointment-1.day < Time.now.utc && reminder.flag2.nil?
24
25# Place outbound reminder call
26RestClient.get'https://api.tropo.com/1.0/sessions', {:params => {
27:action =>'create',
28:token =>'3d5eed33429706408efcc0e92307b...d04af908e583112195de9ec7b05b9e',
29:phonenumber => formatphone(reminder.phonenumber),
30:remindermessage =>'dont forget '+ reminder.message.to_s +' at '+ reminder.appointment.to_s}}
31
32# Write Flag2
33@reminder= Reminder.find(reminder.id)
34@reminder.flag2 =true
35@reminder.save
36
37elsif reminder.appointment-1.week < Time.now.utc && reminder.flag1.nil?
38
39# Place outbound reminder call
40RestClient.get'https://api.tropo.com/1.0/sessions', {:params => {
41:action =>'create',
42:token =>'3d5eed33429706408efcc0e92307b04...908e583112195de9ec7b05b9e',
43:phonenumber => formatphone(reminder.phonenumber),
44:remindermessage =>'dont forget '+ reminder.message.to_s +' at '+ reminder.appointment.to_s}}
45
46# Write Flag1
47@reminder= Reminder.find(reminder.id)
48@reminder.flag1 =true
49@reminder.save
50end
51end
52
53if@reminders
54render :text =>"sent "+@reminders.length.to_s +" reminders"
55else
56render :text =>"no reminders"
57end
58end
59
60def formatphone(phone)
61@phone= phone.gsub("(","").gsub(")","").gsub("-","").gsub(".","").gsub(" ","")
62if@phone[0..0] !='1'
63@phone='1'+@phone
64end
65return@phone
66end
67endNow for the drum roll! Setup a cron job to call http://localhost:3000/api/check every 5 minutes, run rails server, and open your web browser to http://localhost:3000! Oh, one last thing…Go ask one of those “super angels” for some cash-money :)
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Why Did Burma's Leader Appear on TV in Women's Clothes? - TIME
General Than Shwe, right, greets guests at the 64th anniversary of Union Day Saturday on Feb. 12, 2011, in Naypyitaw, Burma
Khin Maung Win / AP
General Than Shwe of Burma, the dour and taciturn leader of one of the world's most repressive military regimes, isn't known for his feminine side. His contempt for pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is rooted in part, most Burma analysts say, to the fact that she is a woman.
And so many Burmese were baffled earlier this month when Than Shwe and other top generals, appearing at a nationally televised ceremony, shed their dress uniforms for the Burmese equivalent of women's dresses. "I don't understand why the generals were wearing women's [sarongs] but they looked very weird," said a Rangoon mechanic, Myint Oo. Others put a more sinister spin on the generals' sartorial selection. "It's yadaya," said a Rangoon-based astrologer who asked not to be named, referring to Burma's particular brand of black magic. (See pictures of Aung San Suu Kyi.)
Burma has had three rulers during the past half-century and all have been devotees of yadaya. Gen. Ne Win, who ruled from 1962 to 1988 reportedly shot his own reflection in a mirror, on the advice of a fortune teller, to foil a foretold assassination attempt. His obsession with numerology led him to demonetize all bank notes in 1987 so new notes could be printed — all divisible by his lucky number nine. The move wiped out the savings of most Burmese and contributed to an uprising one year later. His successor, Gen. Saw Muang, was replaced after erratic behavior that included a rambling, semi-coherent nationally televised speech brimming with references to magic and astrology. The man who replaced him, Than Shwe, is reported to have seven personal astrologers, several of whom are tasked with focusing solely on Aung San Suu Kyi, according to his biographer Ben Rogers.
Astrology, superstition and black magic are common in Southeast Asia, and Burma's rulers have rarely made any bones about their beliefs. But, in what appears to be an attempt to tamp down on all the talk over Than Shwe's television appearance, state-controlled media outlets have now denied access to Internet pages showing him attending the Feb. 12 ceremony for the national holiday Union Day. "I suspect that the Union day web page is being blocked precisely because there is speculation over whether Than Shwe is performing yadaya," says Ingrid Jordt, an anthropologist and specialist on Burma at the University of Wisconsin.
According to Wai Moe, a journalist with the Irrawaddy, an online magazine run by Burmese exiles, two interpretations of the the general sporting a ladies' sarong have gained the most currency. The first is that astrologers have predicted a woman will rule Burma, and so by donning women's clothes, Than Shwe and the other generals are attempting to fulfill the prophecy through some superstitious sleight of hand. The second, fuzzier interpretation, is that by dressing in women's clothing, the generals are somehow trying to neutralize Suu Kyi's power. After Than Shwe brutally suppressed an uprising led by Burmese monks in 2007, anti-regime activists launched a campaign asking people to send women's underwear to the leader because they said the generals believe that contact with women's underwear will sap their power. By wearing sarongs, they may believe they are cancelling out Suu Kyi's ability to sap what they view as the virile male power that underpins their leadership. (See TIME's top 10 elderly leaders.)
If this train of thought doesn't appear to follow logic, it is, after all, superstition. And these stories have circulated in Burma before, particularly about former intelligence chief Gen. Khin Nyunt, who was also said to have dressed as a woman to counter the power of Suu Kyi. Though these theories appear to be widely believed in Burma, the nation's rulers almost never give interviews, so they remain unconfirmed.
What isn't hard to confirm is that less than four months after releasing Suu Kyi from her latest term of house arrest, the regime's attitude towards the Nobel Peace Prize winner is once again hardening. After Suu Kyi recently reconfirmed her support for economic sanctions against the regime, a state-run newspaper ominously warned last week that she and her followers would meet a "tragic end." She and her supporters have little reason to think they're bluffing: In 2003, a government-organized mob attacked Suu Kyi and her followers in northern Burma, killing dozens. (Read more about superstition and politics in Burma.)
Burma held elections in November 2010 to try and put a democratic face on a country controlled by its military. But Than Shwe's notions of leadership are known to be based more on divine rule than democracy, and Jordt says his choice of dress that day may instead have to do with the fact that the patterns of some women's sarongs are based on patterns worn by Burma's royalty more than a century ago. "Than Shwe is simply trying to dress in the style of bygone kings. Than Shwe's evocation of royal politics asserts a very Burmese and Buddhist idea about what the terms of political legitimacy are,'' Jordt says. She added that, for some time now, Than Shwe has required that royal courtly language be used in reference to him and his wife, Kyaing Kyaing. (Comment on this story.)
If the other generals who joined their boss that day have any reservations about wearing women's sarongs, they aren't saying, lest they end up a victim of one of Than Shwe's periodic purges, as happened to former intelligence chief Gen. Khin Nyunt in 2004. Whether he's a reincarnated Burmese king, or just another old drag queen, Than Shwe's subordinates know it's never wise to cross Burma's cross-dressing senior general.
Interview with IBM's Watson Handler David Ferrucci - TIME
David Johnson for TIME
Why aren't you letting Watson speak for himself today?
Watson is trained to answer questions for Jeopardy! It's not an interactive dialogue system, so it can't conduct its own interviews. You can imagine giving it information so it could answer [impromptu] questions, but it would still be responding only from content it's been given and analyzed.What about aspirational questions? Could Watson respond if it was asked, "What do you want to be doing in five years?"
It would have to be given some information about itself as an entity in the world in order to do that. But that's not IBM's focus. Watson is designed to deeply analyze existing content and help people make decisions, not to be an independent entity. (See pictures of Watson and its creators.)People have said that Watson functions at the level of a precocious child. Do you agree?
When an artificial-intelligence system can perform a particular task, we have to be careful not to look beyond that task. Take Deep Blue, the [IBM] system that beat a grand-champion chess master. Few adults are smart enough to do that. But Deep Blue wasn't a system that could go off and even approach a child's ability to do language, to move, to think, to interact.And yet Watson does understand natural language.
But only in a way that we call statistical machine learning. It gives you the answer that makes sense to you, but it doesn't mean anything to the computer.Do you worry that Watson could be misused--to game the stock market, say?
A chair can be misused, so it's hard to answer that in the abstract. Watson's not being put in control of anything. It's not being hooked up to an environment where it's independently making decisions. This just strikes me as the least thing to worry about here. (See the top 10 man vs. machine moments.)IBM talks about Watson's being used to diagnose diseases. Can a machine make intuitive leaps like the ones Dr. House makes on the TV show?
That's a tough question, because I wonder what intuition really is. It's probably a process like connecting the logical dots, but we call it intuition simply because we're not fully conscious of the process.If I tell Watson a joke, will it get it? Could it tell me one?
One of the things we programmed it to do was recognize what humans would consider puns. It looks for word associations, for synonymy, for "sounds like." But does the computer appreciate the humor? No, it doesn't.So no chance Watson could be an artist or poet either?
Actually, it could be programmed to have those features. You could train Watson to recognize modern art or classical art, symmetry, shape and color. You could tell it, This is good art, this is bad art. But again, that's all.Will Watson or its kin ever come to work in our homes?
There's definite potential there. With speech recognition, you could talk to your TV, to your mobile devices, to your computer without having to type in a bunch of commands. I like to think about Star Trek, about a computer you could talk to while you're walking around.Artificial-intelligence pioneer Marvin Minsky once said that consciousness is like a simple memory chip in the brain. Is a conscious computer possible?
Over beers, I could talk for hours and hours about that. But it's a question best left to a philosophical treatment.
#HackDemocracy
February 26, 2011How do we extend the political reforms in North Africa to Nigeria
(submitted by Adewole Akinwale - you can also submit your post onhttp://HackDemocracy.org/submit)
Nigeria is one of the most populous nations in the world; endowed in Natural resource, the main cause of subversion and remote control by better organized polities, but whose fortunes are not very different from those in the ARAB world.
With the existence of high mobile phone density but poor internet penetration, how does HackDemocracy assist in the spontaneous reform of the Nigerian society.
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February 11, 2011Third Brussels Meetup: February 23rd 2011
HackDemocracy’s 3rd Brussels meetup will take place on February 23rd and will tacke three topics: using the internet to mobilize citizens, online voting platforms, and how technology can improve school enrollment policies.
Our guests:
- Simon Vanderecken, one of the organizers of the 40,000 people-strong SHAME demonstration, will share insights about mobilizing citizens online and the role of (social) media by analyzing website trafic to 230111.be
- Olivier de Marneffe, code-contributor to Helios Voting, will introduce the online-voting platform. He will describe the use of Helios Voting for the University of Louvain rector election of 2009 and help us envision the future of verifiable voting
- Estelle Cantillon will talk about public school enrollment problems (matching pupils to schools, waiting lists, …) and explain how technology will help make school enrollment fairer and more efficient. She has carried out simulations for LOP Brussel.
HackDemocracy will also say a few words about PublishTheNote.be, which led to the publication of Vande Lanotte’s negotiation note earlier this month.
Detailed programme
As usual, time-slots will be split 50/50 between presentation time and Q&A.
6.30 Welcome7.00 Introduction and a few words about PublishTheNote.be, Jonathan Van Parys
7.15 Mobilizing citizens online and the role of (social) media: insights from website trafic to 230111.be, Simon Vanderecken
7.30 Online voting platforms and the future of voting, Olivier de Marneffe
7.45 Using technology to improve public school enrollment policy, Estelle Cantillon
8.00 Networking
9.00 Everyone out :)
RSVPPlease RSVP on http://www.meetup.com/HackDemocracy
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February 1, 2011First HackDemocracy in Brussels, December 2010.
We had some issues with the recording so there is only the second part.
Thanks @ramonsuarez for the recording.
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January 29, 2011Video of the first HackDemocracy meetup in San Francisco, January 24th 2011
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January 19, 2011Second Meetup: Understanding Wikileaks
Understanding Wikileaks: how it works, how it’s being used and what it means for the world.
For its 2nd meetup, HackDemocracy, in collaboration withHacks/Hackers-Brussels (“when journalists meet developers”), invites you for an in-depth focus on Wikileaks: how it works, how journalists have made innovative use of the leaks, and what Wikileaks means for society at large.We will kick-off with a presentation by UCLouvain cryptographer Jean-Jacques Quisquater about the way in which organizations like Wikileaks can use technology to insure leakers remain anonymous.
Joining us next will be Owni.fr, who have worked closely with Wikileaks and whose award-winning data-journalism applications have been widely applauded. Owni also have a very particular organizational model: the team is composed of 1/3 journalists, 1/3 developers and 1/3 graphic designers… and is ad free! Nicolas Voisin (CEO), Nicolas Kaiser-Brill & Olivier Tesquet (data-journalists) will be on stage to talk about their work on Wikileaks, the future of journalism, and answer your questions.
We will close off the evening with a presentation by ULB-Researcher Sidney Leclercq about Wikileaks’ implications for international relations and diplomacy, and what aspects of the leaks could lead to greater transparancy in our democracies.
Detailed Program
6.30 Welcome
7.00 Introduction, by Jonathan Van Parys (HackDemocracy) and Damien Van Achter (Hacks/Hackers)
7.10 Presentations:
5’ + 5’ QA How organizations like Wikileaks can use technology to insure leakers remain anonymous, Jean-Jacques Quisquater (UCLouvain)
30’ + 30’ QA, Owni.fr about their work on Wikileaks and the future of journalism
5’ + 5’ QA Wikileaks’ implications for international relations and diplomacy, Sidney Leclercq (ULB)
8.30 Discussion
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December 12, 2010First meetup this Thursday 16th of December in Brussels 6:30pm.
(at the Betagroup Coworking Space - Rue des Peres Blancs 4, metro station Petillon)
Please register on http://meetup.com/HackDemocracy - open to hackers and to people who work in any public institution who want to contribute to build the future of our democracies.The goal of this first meetup is to get together and discuss about how we can develop this community of people working in public institutions and hackers.
There will be a few presentations of interesting projects/hacks, among them:
- “Pirate Party, Wikileaks & the Anonymous”
By @jurgenvoltaren- “Open data in public-private partnerships: how citizens can become true watchdogs”
By @jonvanparys from @WheresMyVillo- “TweetYourMep.eu: Connecting citizens to MEPs all over Europe”
By @acoomans- “Democracy-hacking and TEDx”
By @mishachellam- iRail: using openData to provide a better service to SNCB/MMBS commuters
By @pietercolpaert(format: 5mn presentation + 5mn Q&A in English)
Followed by drinks and networking.
At 9pm there will be a hackathon (for the courageous hackers out there!). Goal: hack in teams and come up with an app before the sun rises!
Please help us spread the word on Twitter, Facebook and offline by printing this poster.
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December 11, 2010WikiRebels – The Documentary | SVT Play
1h documentary on Wikileaks with interviews of key participants.
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December 11, 2010Welcome
Hi there,
Welcome to #HackDemocracy, the community of hackers and workers in public institutions who care about the future of our democracies.
We try to get together once a month to get to know each other and to better understand what are the challenges for our democracies in this new digital age.
We welcome people who work in public institutions at the heart of our democracies. You have probably ideas of things you would love to do to make your job easier and more efficient. Maybe you also have access to data that wait to be publicly available in a useful format for citizen or for journalists and bloggers.We welcome Hackers who are willing to devote some of their time to do things that matter: expose more data, foster citizen participation, share the knowledge and work all together to find solutions to the biggest challenges our society face today.
This blog is the blog of the community. It will feature links, videos, analysis, howtos, … on everything related to the hacking culture and democracy. Please join us and contribute by submitting tips or posts on http://HackDemocracy.org/submit or simply by adding the hashtag #HackDemocracy to your tweets.
A lesson about promises that I finally learned
I grew up in a religious family
I grew up knowing that if you promised to do something, or not say something, then breaking that promise was the same as loosing all trust of that person you promised to
but
time and time again I kept promising and, because of one reason or another, I kept 'having' to break those promises
I got married for the first time and promised so many things
but
because I was a complete head fuck (someone who had many problems in their head that they could not sort out, did not even know what those problems were many times) I ended up breaking those promises
Because I broke those promises I lost the woman that I dearly loved.
I cried my tears for a few years and then met another wonderful woman and eventually married her, promising again many things that, because I was still a head fuck, I could not keep.
We had three wonderful children.
I kept promising and breaking my promises to my new wife and even my children
Until
I realised that promising was stupid unless you knew that you really could keep those promises
So I stopped promising and started trying to find answers to all the head fucks that were in my head. I lost that love and nearly lost my children
It took me years and years of self examination and questioning.
and still I won't say I promise
If I am going to do something for someone then I don't promise
I just do it.
If I can't do it or am not sure whether I can do it
I leave it till the time when it needs to be done then do it if I possibly can.
But
I don't promise
Nick Clegg, David Cameron and all you other politicians
Take note
I think they call it growing up
and you lot have had good enough educations to know when you are lying or not
when you say
"I promise"
Grow up