451 error code, inspired by Ray Bradbury's " Faranheit 451", will be used on pages censored by the government for legal reasons.

 

Error 451: New Bradbury-inspired HTTP code to show legal censorship

 

 

Published time: 22 Dec, 2015 21:32Edited time: 22 Dec, 2015 21:55

 

 

© Samantha Sais / Reuters

 

A newly approved 451 error code will be used on pages which have been censored by the government for legal reasons. The code number was inspired by the famous dystopian Ray Bradbury novel ‘Fahrenheit 451.’

 

The Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) approved on Monday a new Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) status – code 451 that will be seen by internet users when the page is blocked by government due to ‘legal obstacles.’

“This status code indicates that the server is denying access to the resource as a consequence of a legal demand,” the body, responsible for internet operating standards, said in a statement.

Mark Nottingham @mnot

The IESG has approved the 451 (Unavailable for Legal Reasons) #HTTP Status code; great job @timbray! #censorshiphttps://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-httpbis-legally-restricted-status/ …

10:49 PM - 17 Dec 2015

 

 

 

IESG said that it advises the authorities to include the information on who and why blocked a certain website.

However, “it is possible that certain legal authorities might wish to avoid transparency, and not only demand the restriction of access to certain resources, but also avoid disclosing that the demand was made.”

Though it said that in many cases the sites could still be accessed using a VPN or the Tor network.




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The Ghosts of War: Understanding the Shocking Suicide Rate of US Vets

 Sputnik

 

© AFP 2015/ Jewel Samad

Opinion

20:17 08.11.2015(updated 20:43 08.11.2015) Get short URL

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Why are suicide rates among veterans higher than in the general US population, American author David Swanson asks, posing yet another question: why does the subject of war as a suicide-related motive never arise in official studies?

 

 

The problem of high suicide rates among war veterans is widely discussed in the United States: the latest study has found that the suicide rate among recent veterans is 50 percent higher than non-military civilians.Incredible as it may seem, official reports brush aside the idea that war itself has anything to do with the problem, American activist and author David Swanson notes.
"Remarkably, the subject of war, their role in war, their thoughts about the supposed justifications (or lack thereof) of a war, never come up," Swanson wrote in his article for Information Clearing House.
The psychiatric studies and mass media reports are being focused on various "factors to blame" from "prior suicidality" to "poverty." However, they tell us virtually nothing, according to Swanson.

"Perhaps their goal isn't to tell us something factual so much as to shift the conversation away from why war causes murder and suicide, to the question of what was wrong with these soldiers before they enlisted," the author remarked.

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The Center For Public Integrity

Suicide rate for veterans far exceeds that of civilian population

Nearly one in five suicides nationally is a veteran, 49,000 took own lives between 2005 and 2011

By Jeff HargartenForrest BurnsonBonnie CampoChase Cook

6:00 am, August 30, 2013 Updated: 12:19 pm, May 19, 2014

Victim's mother speaks out about military suicide

The mother of Kimberly Agar, Margy Agar, talks about her daughter's struggles with symptoms related to a traumatic brain injury. Kimberly died by suicide in Germany in 2011. Margy Agar now spends her time at home, suffering from depression and post-traumatic stress, and speaking out against mental illness stigma in the military.
Video by Chase Cook, News21

Veterans are killing themselves at more than double the rate of the civilian population with about 49,000 taking their own lives between 2005 and 2011, according to data collected over eight months by News21.

Records from 48 states show the annual suicide rate among veterans is about 30 for every 100,000 of the population, compared to a civilian rate of about 14 per 100,000. The suicide rate among veterans increased an average 2.6 percent a year from 2005 to 2011, or more than double that of the 1.1 percent civilian rate, according to News21’s analysis of states’ mortality data.

Nearly one in every five suicides nationally is a veteran — 18 to 20 percent annually — compared with Census data that shows veterans make up about 10 percent of the U.S. adult population.
“Anytime a veteran who fought our enemies abroad or helped defend America from within our borders dies by their own hand, it’s completely unacceptable,” Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of the House Committee on Veteran’s Affairs, told an American Legion conference in Washington earlier this year. The suicide rate has remained consistently high, he said, adding that more work was needed to address gaps in veterans’ mental health care.

“It’s not enough that the veteran suicide problem isn’t getting worse,” he said, “it isn’t getting any better.”



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Report: Suicide rate spikes among young veterans

 

By Leo Shane III

Stars and Stripes

Published: January 9, 2014

WASHINGTON -- The number of young veterans committing suicide jumped dramatically from 2009 to 2011, a worrying trend that Veterans Affairs officials hope can be reversed with more treatment and intervention.

New suicide data released by the department on Thursday showed that the rate of veterans suicide remained largely unchanged over that three-year period, the latest for which statistics are available. About 22 veterans a day take their own life, according to department estimates.

But while older veterans saw a slight decrease in suicides, male veterans under 30 saw a 44 percent increase in the rate of suicides. That’s roughly two young veterans a day who take their own life, most just a few years after leaving the service.

“Their rates are astronomically high and climbing,” said Jan Kemp, VA’s National Mental Health Director for Suicide Prevention. “That’s concerning to us.”

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Related

• Death rate unusually high for young veterans
• Report: VA's mental health efforts fall short now, won't keep pace in the future
• Report: Stigmas stop veterans in need from seeking health care
• Iraq vet biking across US to raise awareness about military suicide
• More Stars and Stripes coverage of veterans

Turns Out Police Stingray Spy Tools Can Indeed Record Calls

...

A real cell tower. (Image: Flickr, Carl Lender via Bus. Insider)

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WIRED

• Kim Zetter Security
• Date of Publication: 10.28.15. 10.28.15
• Time of Publication: 3:00 pm. 3:00 pm

The federal government has been fighting hard for years hide details about its use of so-called stingray surveillance technology from the public.

The surveillance devices simulate cell phone towers in order to trick nearby mobile phones into connecting to them and revealing the phones’ locations.

Now newly released documents confirm long-held suspicions that the controversial devices are also capable of recording numbers for a mobile phone’s incoming and outgoing calls, as well as intercepting the content of voice and text communications. The documents also discuss the possibility of flashing a phone’s firmware “so that you can intercept conversations using a suspect’s cell phone as a bug.”

The information appears in a 2008 guideline prepared by the Justice Department to advise law enforcement agents on when and how the equipment can be legally used.

The Department of Justice ironically acknowledges in the documents that the use of the surveillance technology to locate cellular phones 'is an issue of some controversy.'

The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California obtained the documents (.pdf) after a protracted legal battle involving a two-year-old public records request. The documents include not only policy guidelines, but also templates for submitting requests to courts to obtain permission to use the technology.




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Court Ruling to Halt DEA from Harassing Medical Marijuana Shops

A 'promise' Obama made years ago

 

by Christina Sarich
Posted on October 28, 2015

 

 

 

In a huge legal win, a federal judge in San Francisco has issued a landmark ruling that could serve to halt the DEA’s overly liberal interpretation of laws that have allowed them power to conduct search and destroy missions for medical marijuana.

In possibly the first-ever federal decision of its kind, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, slapped more than the DEA’s wrists. His decision stated that the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment clearly prevents the Justice Department from spending taxpayer money to hunt and chase marijuana users in states that have established medical marijuana programs.

 

The federal ruling comes from a case involving the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana founder, Lynette Shaw, who was forced to close down her medical marijuana dispensary in 2011 after the Justice Department served her with a federal injunction.

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Death toll in Saudi haj disaster at least 2,070 - Reuters tally

World | Thu Oct 29, 2015 8:11pm GMT

Reuters

 

Rescue workers carry the body of a Muslim pilgrim after a stampede at Mina, outside the holy Muslim city of Mecca, in this September 24, 2015 file photo.

Reuters/Stringer/Files

 

 

The deadly crush that occurred at the haj near Mecca last month killed at least 2,070 people, nearly triple the number accounted for in a death toll maintained by Saudi authorities, a Reuters tally indicated on Thursday.

Saudi Arabia has come under heavy criticism for its handling of the disaster. Safety during the pilgrimage is a politically sensitive issue for the kingdom's ruling Al Saud dynasty, which presents itself as the guardian of Islam and custodian of its holiest sites in Mecca and Medina.

The figure, based on information provided by the state and religious authorities and local media reports in the home countries of the victims, would make it the worst such catastrophe to befall the annual pilgrimage since 1,400 people were crushed to death in a tunnel in 1990.

Saudi officials have stood by their official counts of 769 dead and 934 injured, which have not been updated since two days after the crush. The healthy ministry has said any discrepancies in death tolls may stem from countries counting pilgrims who had died of natural causes.

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Monsanto and its Promoters vs. Freedom of Information

 

October 2, 2015

Ralph Nader  

Consumer advocate, lawyer and author

Next year, the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) will celebrate its 50th anniversary as one of the finest laws our Congress has ever passed. It is a vital investigative tool for exposing government and corporate wrongdoing.

The FOIA was championed by Congressman John E. Moss (D-CA), who strove to "guarantee the right of every citizen to know the facts of his Government." Moss, with whom I worked closely as an outside citizen advocate, said that "without the fullest possible access to Government information, it is impossible to gain the knowledge necessary to discharge the responsibilities of citizenship."
All fifty states have adopted FOIA statutes.

As the FOIA approaches its 50th year, it faces a disturbing backlash from scientists tied to the agrichemical company Monsanto and its allies. Here are some examples.

On March 9th, three former presidents of the American Association for the Advancement of Science - all with ties to Monsanto or the biotech industry - wrote in the pages of the Guardian to criticize the use of the state FOIA laws to investigate taxpayer-funded scientists who vocally defend Monsanto, the agrichemical industry, their pesticides, and genetically engineered food. They called the FOIAs an "organized attack on science."

The super-secretive Monsanto has stated, regarding the FOIAs, that "agenda-driven groups often take individual documents or quotes out of context in an attempt to distort the facts, advance their agenda, and stop legitimate research."

Advocates with the venerable Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) do worry that the FOIA can be abused to harass scientists for ideological reasons. This is true; for example, human-caused global warming deniers have abused the FOIA against climate scientists working at state universities like Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University.



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Nevada Father told his request for his childrens student records will cost him over $10,000

• The New American

Tuesday, 13 May 2014 16:44

Nevada Tells Father: Over $10K to Access Kids' School Records

Written by  Raven Clabough

 

A conscientious father in Nevada received shocking news when he requested to see the permanent records of his four children from state education officials: His request would cost $10,194.
John Eppolito, the father, was concerned about a recent decision in Nevada to join a multi-state consortium that would share student data.
Fox News explains, "Nevada has spent an estimated $10 million in its seven-year-old System of Accountability Information in Nevada, known as SAIN. Data from county school systems is uploaded nightly to a state database, and, under the new arrangement, potentially shared with other counties and states."
 
Eppolito was interested in accessing his children’s records in order to learn what information had been compiled on his children. It was then that he learned that he would have to pay significant fees as well as special programming costs to run a report of that kind.
The total, Eppolito was told, would come to $10,194.
“The problem is that I can’t stop them from collecting the data,” said Eppolito. “I just wanted to know what it was. It almost seems impossible. Certainly $10,000 is enough reason to prevent a parent from getting the data.”
Department of Public Information officer Judy Osgood attempted to explain the reason for such a high price: “Please understand that the primary purpose of the Department of Education’s database it to support required state and federal reporting, funding of local education agencies, education accountability, and public reporting,” Osgood states. “The system currently is not capable of responding to the type of individual student data request you have presented.”
Eppolito was not satisfied with the response. “This data is for everyone except the parents. It’s wrong,” he asserts.
The federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) allows parents to view their children’s records and permits small fees to be issued in order to access those records. Ironically, under the act, the fees are not supposed to be so substantial that they ultimately prevent parents from obtaining them.
“Unless the imposition of a fee effectively prevents a parent or eligible student from exercising the right to inspect and review the student's education records, an educational agency or institution may charge a fee for a copy of an education record which is made for the parent or eligible student,” reads a section of the act. “An educational agency or institution may not charge a fee to search for or to retrieve the education records of a student.”
According to the regulations, the above criteria apply to “any state educational agency and its components.”
The state, by requiring the fee of over $10,000, appears to be acting in violation of FERPA.
“They are supposed to provide [parents] the opportunity to inspect and review [records] upon request,” explained one official at the Family Policy Compliance Office (FCPO), the federal agency over FERPA. “There shouldn’t be a fee for inspecting and reviewing the records.”
But Osgood does not view it that way. “NDE does provide free access to education records,” she said. “SAIN was not designed for student-level inspection. Our understanding of FERPA is that this level of inspection applies to the LEA [local education authority—i.e., school district] and school.”

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Chicago - The Gun Control model advocates want implemented throughout the US : 13 wounded in late-night attack on Chicago park

Deonta (pronounced Deontay) Howard, 3, was shot in Cornell Square Park, Chicago, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2013. (@photojeskos/Twitter)

Image Source

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King 5  .com

13 wounded in late-night attack on Chicago park

Credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images

A police officer stands guard outside a home where a man was shot in the chest in the Humboldt Park neighborhood on the city's Westside on September 20, 2013 in Chicago, Illinois. At least 20 people have been reported shot in the city, including at least one fatally, in less than an eight-hour period Thursday evening through early Friday morning.

by HERBERT G. MCCANN / Associated Press

Posted on September 19, 2013 at 10:02 PM

Updated today at 8:02 AM

CHICAGO -- A 3-year-old boy who was among 13 people wounded in a late-night attack on a southwest Chicago park was alert when he arrived at the hospital and was apparently doing well, his family and friends said early Friday.
The attack late Thursday in the city's Back of the Yards neighborhood left three victims, including the boy, in critical condition. The others were reportedly in serious or fair condition.
The child's uncle, Julian Harris, told the Chicago Sun-Times that dreadlocked men in a gray sedan shot at him Thursday night before turning toward nearby Cornell Square Park and opening fire. He said his nephew was shot in the cheek.
"They hit the light pole next to me, but I ducked down and ran into the house," Harris said. "They've been coming round here looking for people to shoot every night, just gang-banging stuff. It's what they do."
Police officials declined to discuss details of the investigation. Ron Gaines, a department spokesman, said no arrests had been made and that victims were being interviewed to try to determine the circumstances surrounding the attack, which happened shortly after 10 p.m.
The shooting comes nearly three weeks after Chicago saw an outburst of violence over the Labor Day weekend that ended with eight dead and 20 others injured. Chicago's police superintendent has said that overall violence is down so far this year compared to 2012, when the number of homicides topped 500 for the first time since 2008.


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Chicago shooting: 13 wounded in late-night attack

A three-year-old boy and two other minors among 13 people wounded in a late-night attack in a southwest Chicago park

• Associated Press in Chicago
• theguardian.com, Friday 20 September 2013 10.14 EDT

 

Chicago detectives at the scene where 12 people, including a three-year-old, were reportedly shot in a city park on the South Side. Photograph: Paul Beaty/AP

 

 

A three-year-old boy who was among 13 people wounded in a late-night attack on a southwest Chicago park was alert when he arrived at the hospital and was apparently doing well, his family and friends said early Friday.
The attack late Thursday in the city's Back of the Yards neighbourhood left three victims, including the boy, in critical condition. The others were reportedly in serious or fair condition.
The child's uncle, Julian Harris, told the Chicago Sun-Times that dreadlocked men in a gray sedan shot at him Thursday night before turning toward nearby Cornell Square Park and opening fire. He said his nephew was shot in the cheek.
"They hit the light pole next to me, but I ducked down and ran into the house," Harris said. "They've been coming round here looking for people to shoot every night, just gang-banging stuff. It's what they do."
Police officials declined to discuss details of the investigation. Ron Gaines, a department spokesman, said no arrests had been made and that victims were being interviewed to try to determine the circumstances surrounding the attack, which happened shortly after 10 pm.
Officer Amina Greer said at least 10 ambulances responded to the scene and took victims to several area hospitals. One victim transported himself to a hospital, police said.
Among the 13 victims were at least two other minors, ages 15 and 17.
The 3-year-old boy was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital. Hospital officials declined to disclose his condition, but fire officials said the boy's condition was critical.


Read More Here


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Heated controversy has surrounded the Mandela health issue, with reports of unpleasant family disputes over funeral and burial arrangements. Yet Former president Thabo Mbeki said that he expects him to be discharged from hospital to recuperate at home.

Nelson Mandela, Dead or Alive, Could be Discharged from the Hospital

Added by Laura Oneale on July 14, 2013.

 

 

South Africa – The African National Congress Party (ANC) is clutching at straws with their latest prediction about the health issues of Nelson Mandela. Former president Thabo Mbeki said that he expects Nelson Mandela to be discharged from hospital to recuperate at home.

Thabo Mbeki, ousted from the presidency during his second term, was speaking at a memorable service yesterday, when he made this predication. This is a prediction only and also points to how the current government will use any means possible to avoid the truth.
Mbeki announced his resignation from government after being recalled by the ANC’s National Executive Committee, following a conclusion of improper interference of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), including the prosecution of the current president Jacob Zuma for corruption. The judgment was overturned, but his resignation stood.
Nelson Mandela was admitted to the hospital on June 8 for a recurring lung infection amidst high security and ambulance trauma. Daily updates from the government including members of the Mandela family continually report that the health aspect of Nelson Mandela remains critical but stable, nothing more nothing less.
Heated controversy has surrounded the Mandela health issue, with reports of his family creating unpleasant disputes over funeral and burial arrangements. From the time Nelson Mandela was admitted to the hospital with this serious health issue, reports from both the family and the government remained a worrying element and suggested that the truth is being withheld.



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