IRS Investigators See No Need For A Warrant To Snoop On Emails

from the time-for-an-audit-of-aclu-folks dept

The ACLU filed a freedom of information act (FOIA) request last year, asking for details about whether not IRS investigators get warrants before reading people's private communications. After finally getting 247 pages of records (which don't fully answer the questions asked), the ACLU has noted that the documents suggest that the IRS likely read private emails regularly without obtaining a warrant. In their blog post, they note that in the US v. Warshak case, the 6th Circuit made it clear that the government must get a warrant to turn over emails, and it seems clear that the IRS had to change its policy because of that.

The documents the ACLU obtained make clear that, before Warshak, it was the policy of the IRS to read people’s email without getting a warrant. Not only that, but the IRS believed that the Fourth Amendment did not apply to email at all. A 2009 “Search Warrant Handbook” from the IRS Criminal Tax Division’s Office of Chief Counsel baldly asserts that “the Fourth Amendment does not protect communications held in electronic storage, such as email messages stored on a server, because internet users do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in such communications.” Again in 2010, a presentation by the IRS Office of Chief Counsel asserts that the “4^th Amendment Does Not Protect Emails Stored on Server” and there is “No Privacy Expectation” in those emails.

Other older documents corroborate that the IRS did not get warrants across the board. For example, the 2009 edition of the Internal Revenue Manual (the official compilation of IRS policies and procedures) explains that “the government may obtain the contents of electronic communication that has been in storage for more than 180 days” without a warrant.

Of course, the IRS is not alone in this. That's the same way other government agencies have treated email thanks to the outdated nature of ECPA, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, a law written nearly 30 years ago, which assumed that any content left on a server for over 180 days was "abandoned," because the idea of online messaging systems was foreign to folks in Congress at the time.

The bigger question, though, is whether or not the IRS paid attention to the ruling in Warshak and started getting warrants. As the ACLU notes, while not entirely clear, the answer is likely "no."

Then came Warshak, decided on December 14, 2010. The key question our FOIA request seeks to answer is whether the IRS’s policy changed after Warshak, which should have put the agency on notice that the Fourth Amendment does in fact protect the contents of emails. The first indication of the IRS’s position, from an email exchange in mid-January 2011, does not bode well. In an email titled “US v. Warshak,” an employee of the IRS Criminal Investigation unit asks two lawyers in the IRS Criminal Tax Division whether Warshak will have any effect on the IRS’s work. A Special Counsel in the Criminal Tax Division replies: “I have not heard anything related to this opinion. We have always taken the position that a warrant is necessary when retrieving e-mails that are less than 180 days old.” But that’s just the ECPA standard. The real question is whether the IRS is obtaining warrants for emails more than 180 days old. Shortly after Warshak, apparently it still was not

The IRS had an opportunity to officially reconsider its position when it issued edits to the Internal Revenue Manual in March 2011. But its policy stayed the same: the Manual explained that under ECPA, “Investigators can obtain everything in an account except for unopened e-mail or voice mail stored with a provider for 180 days or less using a [relevant-and-material-standard] court order” instead of a warrant. Again, no suggestion that the Fourth Amendment might require more.

As the ACLU notes, the IRS owes the American public a clear explanation of its view on warrants... and it should put in place a clear warrant requirement before snooping through emails.

Sports memorabilia dealer ADMITS he trimmed corners on most valuable baseball card ever sold at $2.8million... but the value is likely to INCREASE

• The 1908 T206 Honus Wanger card once owned by Wayne Gretzky is the most famous and most valuable trading card in history
• Bill Mastro, once the 'King of Memorabilia, admitted he altered the card after he was charged in fraud in a separate case
• Card was bought by Arizona Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick in 2007 for $2.8million
• Trimming the corners of the card would have given it a fresher, newer appearance and made it more valuable

By Michael Zennie
PUBLISHED: 13:28 EST, 10 April 2013 | UPDATED: 22:06 EST, 10 April 2013

• http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2307048/Honus-Wagner-card-Memorabilia-dealer-Bill-Mastro-admits-trimming-corners-2-8million-dollar-baseball-card.html

A shyster sports memorabilia dealer has admitted he trimmed the corners on the most valuable baseball card ever sold, but the $2.8million 1908 Honus Wagner is likely to increase in value as a result.
Bill Mastro, Chicago's 'King of Memorabilia,' made the confession on Tuesday as he pleaded guilty to defrauding customers by using straw bidders to drive up the price of his rare sports merchandise. 
The famous card, which has a well-documented story, was famously purchased by hockey legend Wayne Gretzky after it was discovered by a small-time collector in 1985.

Proud owner: This is the infamous Gretzky Honus Wagner card, being displayed by Ken Kendrick after he bought it for $2.8million

On trial: Bill Mastro was once the 'King of Memorabilia.' He is now on trial for selling fakes and manipulating prices. He admitted to doctoring the most famous card in the world

It broke baseball card-collecting records in 2007 when Arizona Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick paid $2.8million for it.
Trimming the corners of the card would have given it a fresher, newer appearance and made it more valuable.
Despite the alteration, the so-called 'Gretzky card' won't lose value. In fact, it could go up as a result of the news, Steve Levine, of Goldin Auctions in New Jersey, told MailOnline.

'I think in this industry and hobby, the bigger the story, the better. Also, especially if you can verify it,' he said.
'We all know that this has happened with that card. Now it’s the infamous Bill Mastro-trimmed-Gretzky-Honus Wagner card,' Levin said.
Last week, Goldin Auctions sold a different T206 Wagner card for $2.1million. The condition of that card was three grades lower than the Gretzky card that Master altered.

Most famous card in the world: This 1909 Honus Wagner baseball card is the most famous collecting card ever sold

Levin said the Gretzky card could easily fetch $3million is it were sold today.
In a statement released by the Diamondbacks on Wednesday, Kendrick said: 'As a collector of rare cards and a fan who enjoys the history of the game of baseball, today's news does not change my pride in owning the Honus Wagner T-206 card.

Value: This card is worth so much because of its rarity - only 30 left - and its documented history

'In fact, I've been advised that the notoriety of this turn of events has actually increased the value of the card and I will continue to enjoy having it as part of the "Diamondbacks collection."'
Despite Mastro's admission, a judge on Tuesday threw out his plea deal and said that the two and a half years of prison time promised by prosecutors might not be enough.
In addition to artificially driving up the price of goods at his Mastro Auctions company, Mastro is also accused of selling fake collectables.
Among his alleged forgeries a bogus lock of Elvis Presley's hair and a fake 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings trophy.
Rumors have long circulated about the Gretzky card. It is a remarkable example of an exceptionally rare collectible.
Pittsburgh Pirates star Honus Wagner is considered one of the best shortstops in the history of the game.
The T206 Wagner card was larger than normal baseball trading cards and was sold in packs of American Tobacco cigarettes. 
Wager ordered American Tobacco to stop printing his card after just 200 were made, objecting to the card being sold in cigarette packs because he didn't want kids smoking.
He destroyed most of the originals himself.
Only about 30 are known to remain.
Mastro came upon the Gretzky T206 card in 1985 when a small-time collector from Hicksville, New York, sought to sell it for $25,000.
In 1991, Gretzky bought the card for $410,000. He sold it to WalMart in 1995 for $500,000.

Legend: Honus Wagner was one the greatest baseball players of his day and is considered among the great shortstop ever. However his baseball card is so valuable because it is so rare

WalMart then gave the card away on live TV as part of a nationwide promotion to increase its baseball card sales.
A Florida postal worker won the card, but had to immediately sell it because she couldn't afford the taxes on such a large gift.
After being sold several more times at auction, Kendrick later purchased it in 2007.
Collectors have long speculated that the card had been altered. One of the original owners, who sold it to Mastro, even publicly alleged that Mastro had cut the corners.
However, Mastro had never confirmed that until Tuesday.

               

Could Brain Scans Find Would-Be Criminals Before They Offend?

April 11th, 2013 | by Charles Q. Choi          

Is there a way to predict who is most likely to commit a crime in the future, and if so, what should the authorities do about it? In work that seems like science fiction, researchers have found that brain scans could help detect which convicts might get arrested for new crimes once they leave prison.
Forecasting crimes before they happen might seem to echo the film “Minority Report,” where sci-fi advances enable police to capture would-be criminals before they carry out the acts they get arrested for. However, “I wouldn’t draw the parallel at all with our work,” cautions neuroscientist Kent Kiehl at the nonprofit Mind Research Network and the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. “We’re not saying anything is predetermined. This is just a slightly different way of judging risks.”
Convicts often reoffend after leaving prison — one study found that more than four in 10 inmates nationwide return to state prison within three years of their release, a massive problem the Pew Center on the States called “the revolving door of America’s prisons.”
“The best economic analyses suggests that about the same amount of money is spent on crime as on all healthcare in the United States, so about $2.3 trillion. That’s the annual burden of crime — police, prosecution, prison and so on — and recidivism is a huge part of that,” Kiehl says.
Given the enormity of this problem, the authorities would like to find better ways to figure out which convicts are most likely to commit more crime when deciding whether they receive bail, jail, probation and parole or involuntary commitment to a facility like a psychiatric institution. Such attempts to predict future antisocial behavior by offenders are already done using a range of factors, such as the age when they committed the crime and the kind of offense.
Searching for a better measuring stick
One of the strongest risk factors for recidivism is impulsivity. This is currently measured via personality exams and other means, but Kiehl and his colleagues wondered if they could directly test brains to judge how impulsive a person is and try to predict future antisocial behavior.
“When you’re trying to understand and make judicial decisions, you want the best science available in front of you,” Kiehl says.
The researchers investigated 96 adult male convicts at two New Mexico state prisons. The inmates voluntarily completed a battery of psychological and behavioral tests. Then they got their brains scanned with a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine as they took a test measuring impulse control — their aim was to push a button when the letter “X” flashed on a video screen and resist pressing the button when the letter “K” was displayed.
After the convicts were released from prison, the researchers tracked them for four years from 2007 to 2010. Excluding minor parole and probation violations, about half were rearrested at least once.
The scientists focused on a brain region known as the anterior cingulate cortex, which is linked with impulse control. They found that offenders with relatively low activity in this area were 2.5 times as likely to get rearrested than offenders with high activity in this region, holding constant other known risk factors like alcohol or drug abuse or dependence. Their research, which was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the MacArthur Foundation’s Law and Neuroscience Project, was detailed online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“We have a system of the brain linked with risk we can study now, and we can identify changes in that system that promote recidivism. That’s really exciting,” Kiehl says.
Neuroscience is playing an increasingly large role in courtrooms. A study in the journal Science in 2012 even found that presenting scientific evidence about biological factors behind a defendant’s mental illness caused judges to be slightly more lenient in their sentencing decisions.
Kiehl says a lot more research is needed before brain scans for impulsivity find use in a legal setting. Others not associated with his work agree.
“This is a preliminary study,” says lawyer and psychologist Stephen Morse at the University of Pennsylvania, who did not take part in the study. “More research is now needed to see if expensive scanning technology can do sufficiently better than conventional behavioral predictive measures.”
Future use and questions
Morse says broader questions would also come into play should this technology start proving accurate. Though authorities already make predictions about the future behavior of prisoners, “if people were involuntarily scanned, constitutional and civil liberties issues could be raised,” he says. “And if this was used not just in the context of prisoners, but for more general screening of people, there would be enormous constitutional and civil liberties issues.”
Future research might also find ways convicts could change for the better. For instance, it might be possible to increase activity in this brain region and see if doing so reduces poor decision-making and recidivism.
“My hope would be to leverage this data to help develop treatments that can reduce violence and crime in society,” Kiehl says. “Our goal is to make society a better place.”
Questions remain over whether such differences in the brain actually reflect whether a person is more or less likely to commit a crime. Perhaps they are only signs of how likely a person will get caught.
“It could be that higher anterior cingulate cortex activity is indicative of people who are better at avoiding detection,” Morse says. “Or people may be capable of countermeasures against these scans that might make it difficult to obtain valid predictive results. That’s why we need more studies.”
Top Image: Police tape at a crime scene via Shutterstock.

Charles Q. Choi has written for Scientific American, The New York Times, Wired, Science and Nature, among others. In his spare time, he has traveled to all seven continents, including scaling the side of an iceberg in Antarctica, investigating mummies from Siberia, snorkeling in the Galapagos, climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, camping in the Outback, avoiding thieves near Shaolin Temple and hunting for mammoth DNA in Yukon.

  

Reid’s Gun Control Bill Makes a Missing Firearm a Ticket to Five Years in Prison

David S. Addington

April 4, 2013 http://blog.heritage.org/2013/04/04/reids-gun-control-bill-makes-a-missing-firearm-a-ticket-to-five-years-in-prison/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email

Newscom

Under Senator Harry Reid’s (D-NV) gun control bill (S. 649), if somebody steals your firearm or you lose it, you can go to prison for up to five years if you have not reported the theft or loss to local police and to Attorney General Eric Holder within 24 hours.
The provision merits ridicule for treating as a felon someone who misplaces a firearm and does not report it to the police and the federal government fast enough.
Section 123 of the Reid bill adds a new provision to section 922 of title 18 of the U.S. Code:

It shall be unlawful for any person who lawfully possesses or owns a firearm that has been shipped or transported in, or has been possessed in or affecting, interstate or foreign commerce, to fail to report the theft or loss of the firearm, within 24 hours after the person discovers the theft or loss, to the Attorney General and to the appropriate local authorities.

It also amends section 924 of title 18 so that a violation of the 24-hour reporting requirement committed “knowingly” is punishable by up to five years in prison or a criminal fine, or both. To punish someone who “knowingly” violates the 24-hour rule might sound reasonable to some people—until you know what a lawyer means by the word “knowingly” when it comes to a criminal statute.
The Supreme Court said in Bryan v. U.S. in 1994 that when a federal statute punishes someone for a crime committed “willfully,” the federal government must prove at trial that the individual knew that his conduct was unlawful. However, the Court also said that, when the statute provides that the government must prove merely that the crime was committed “knowingly,” the government does not have to prove that the individual knew that his or her conduct was unlawful. Thus, an individual who knew his or her gun was missing and did not report it to local authorities and the Attorney General in 24 hours would potentially face five years in prison.
It is not reasonable to send an individual to prison for up to five years for failing to tell local authorities and the federal government, within 24 hours, that his or her firearm is lost or was stolen, given that a reasonable person would never know that failure to make such a report, let alone within 24 hours, is a crime. Even someone who has the presence of mind to report promptly to local police or the sheriff’s office that a firearm is missing would be highly unlikely to know that such a report to local authorities was not good enough and that he or she must tell the Attorney General of the United States, too.
It is one thing to assign a legal duty to a firearms owner to report missing firearms, but it is quite another thing to exercise the draconian power of the federal government to make failing in that duty a federal crime. It is doubly inappropriate to give someone prison time for failing to tell the Attorney General that his or her gun was missing, when no reasonable person would know that failing to make such a report within 24 hours was a federal crime.
Also, the drafters of the legislation failed to take sufficiently into account the nature of rural life and hunting in the United States. Some people who own firearms within the United States do not have the ability to communicate with anybody (let alone the Attorney General of the United States) within 24 hours—think, for example, of a hunter deep in the wilds of Alaska who loses a firearm in a river.
Under no circumstances should Congress make it a federal crime to fail to report a missing firearm within 24 hours to local authorities and the Attorney General. It is an unreasonable use of power to define as a federal crime conduct that no reasonable person would know was a federal crime.

Posted in Featured, Rule of Law

......INVEST in each other    ..soon very soon we R gonna find out             ...that either we all go up together  or we go down together                    

Why Are The Banksters Telling Us To Sell Our Gold When They Are Hoarding Gold Like Crazy?

By Michael, on April 10th, 2013

 

The big banks are breathlessly proclaiming that now is the time to sell your gold.  They are warning that we have now entered a "bear market" for gold and that the price of gold will continue to decline for the rest of the year.  So should we believe them?  Well, their warnings might be more credible if the central banks of the world were not hoarding gold like crazy.  During 2012, central bank gold buying was at the highest level that we have seen in almost 50 years.  Meanwhile, insider buying of gold stocks has now reached multi-year highs and the U.S. Mint cannot even keep up with the insatiable demand for silver eagle coins.  So what in the world is actually going on here?  Right now, the central banks of the world are indulging in a money printing binge that reminds many of what happened during the early days of the Weimar Republic.  When you flood the financial system with paper money, that is eventually going to cause the prices for hard assets to go up dramatically.  Could it be possible that the banksters are trying to drive down the price of both gold and silver so that they can gobble it up cheaply?  Do they want to be the ones sitting on all of the "real money" once the paper money bubble that we are living in finally bursts?
Over the past few weeks, nearly every major newspaper in the world has run at least one story telling people that it is time to sell their gold.  For example, the following is from a recent Wall Street Journal article entitled "Goldman Sachs Turns Bearish on Gold"...

Another longtime gold bull is turning tail.
Investment bank Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said Wednesday that gold's prospects for the year have eroded, recommending investors close out long positions and initiate bearish bets, or shorts. The shift in outlook was the latest among banks and investors who have soured on gold as its dozen-year runup has been followed by a 12% decline in the last six months.
Goldman began the year predicting gold would decline in the second half of 2013, but said Wednesday the drop began earlier than expected and doesn't appear likely to reverse. Like others, the firm said the usual catalysts that have been bullish for gold during its run are no longer working.

Major banks over in Europe are issuing similar warnings about the price of gold.  The following is from a Marketwatch article entitled "Sell gold, buy oil, Societe Generale analysts say"...

Analysts at Societe Generale predict in a note Thursday that gold prices will fall below $1,400 by the year’s end and continue heading south next year.
They cite two main reasons:
1.  Inflation has so far stayed low and now investors are beginning to see economic conditions that would justify an end to the Fed’s quantitative easing program.
2.  The dollar has started trending higher, which should make gold prices move lower as the physical gold market is extremely oversupplied without continued large-scale investor buying.

And even Asian banks are telling people to sell their gold at this point.  According to CNBC, Japanese banking giant Nomura is another major international bank that has turned "bearish" on gold...

Nomura forecast gold prices will fall in 2013, on Thursday, becoming the latest bank to turn bearish on the precious metal which has been a favorite hedge for investors who fear aggressive monetary stimulus will lead to rising inflation.
"For the first time since 2008, in our view, the investment environment for gold is deteriorating as economic recovery, rising interest rates and still benign Western inflation (for now) will likely leave some investors rethinking their cumulative $240 billion investment in gold over the past four years," wrote Nomura analysts in a sector note on Thursday.

A lot of financial analysts are urging people to dump gold and to jump into stocks where they "can get a much better return".  They make it sound like it is only going to be downhill for gold from here.  The following is from a recent CNBC article entitled "Gold's 'Death Cross' Isn't All Investors Are Worried About"...

Gold is flashing the "death cross" but the bearish chart pattern is not the only thing scaring investors.
The magnetic appeal of a rising stock market has pulled some investment funds away from the yellow metal. Since the beginning of the year, stocks are up nearly 7 percent and gold is down nearly 6 percent.

But if gold is such a bad investment, then why are the central banks of the world hoarding gold like crazy?
According to the World Gold Council, gold buying by global central banks in 2012 was at the highest level that we have seen since 1964...

Worldwide gold demand in 2012 was another record high of $236.4 billion in the World Gold Council’s latest report. This was up 6% in value terms in the fourth quarter to $66.2 billion, the highest fourth quarter on record. Global gold demand in the fourth quarter of 2012 was up 4% to 1,195.9 tonnes.

Central bank buying for 2012 rose by 17% over 2011 to some 534.6 tonnes. As far as central bank gold buying, this was the highest level since 1964. Central bank purchases stood at 145 tonnes in the fourth quarter. That is up 9% from the fourth quarter of 2011, and the eighth consecutive quarter in which central banks were net purchasers of gold.

This all comes on the heels of decades when global central banks were net sellers of gold.  Marcus Grubb, a Managing Director at the World Gold Council, says that we are witnessing a fundamental change in behavior by global central banks...

Central banks’ move from net sellers of gold, to net buyers that we have seen in recent years, has continued apace.  The official sector purchases across the world are now at their highest level for almost half a century.

Meanwhile, insiders seem to think that gold stocks are actually quite undervalued right now.  In fact, insider buying of gold stocks is now at a level that we have not seen in quite some time.  The following is an excerpt from a recent Globe and Mail article entitled "Insider buying of gold stocks surges to multi-year highs"...

The TSX global gold index has lost about a third of its value over the past two years. The S&P/TSX Venture Exchange, stock full of gold mining juniors, hit a multi-year low this month.
Yet, executives and officers who work within those businesses are showing remarkable confidence that the sector is poised for better times.

In addition, the demand for physical silver in the United States seems to be greater than ever before.  According to the U.S. Mint, demand for physical silver coins hit a new all-time record high during the month of February.
And demand for silver coins has not abated since then.  Just check out what has been happening in April so far...

The US Mint has updated April sales statistics for the first time since last week, and to no surprise, the Mint again reported more massive sales, with another 833,000 silver eagles reported sold Monday!   The April total through 6 business days is now 1.645 million ounces, bringing the 2013 total to a massive 15.868 million ounces.  In response to the continued massive demand for silver eagles, the mint also has begun rationing sales of silver eagles to primary dealers resulting in supply delays!  Just as was seen in January, tight physical supplies have seen premiums on ASE’s skyrocketing over the weekend and throughout the day, as ASE’s are rapidly becoming as scarce as 90%!

Something does not appear to add up here.
I also found it very interesting that according to Reuters, Cyprus is being forced to sell most of their gold reserves in order to help fund the bailout of their banking system...

Cyprus has agreed to sell excess gold reserves to raise around 400 million euros (341 million pounds) and help finance its part of its bailout, an assessment of Cypriot financing needs prepared by the European Commission showed.

So exactly who will they be selling that gold to?
And I also found it very interesting to learn that Comex gold inventories have been falling dramatically over the last few months.  The following is from a recent article by Tekoa Da Silva...

A stunning piece of information was brought to my attention yesterday. Amid all the mainstream talk of the end of the gold bull market (and the end of the gold mining industry), something has been discretely happening behind the scenes.
Over the last 90 days without any announcement, stocks of gold held at Comex warehouses plunged by the largest figure ever on record during a single quarter since eligible record keeping began in 2001 (roughly the beginning of the bull market).

In particular, something very unusual appears to be happening with JP Morgan Chase's gold...

JP Morgan Chase’s reported gold stockpile dropped by over 1.2 million oz.’s, or rather, a staggering $1.8 billion dollars worth of physical gold was removed from it’s vaults during the last 120 days.

So what does all of this mean?
I don't know.  But I would like to find out.  Someone is definitely up to something.
Meanwhile, the central banks of the globe seem determined to put their reckless money printing into overdrive.
For example, the Bank of Japan actually plans to double the monetary base of that country by the end of 2014 as a recent Time Magazine article described...

On Thursday, the new governor of the Bank of Japan (BOJ), Haruhiko Kuroda, announced that the central bank would double the monetary base of the country — adding an additional $1.4 trillion — by the end of 2014 in an attempt to end the deflation plaguing the economy. To achieve that, Kuroda will buy government bonds and other assets to inject cash into the economy — what has now become familiar as quantitative easing, or QE — to bump inflation up to a targeted 2%. The plan is part of a greater strategy ushered in by new Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to restart the economy through massive fiscal and monetary stimulus. It also expands on the efforts by the Federal Reserve, Bank of England and European Central Bank to stimulate growth and smooth over financial turmoil by infusing huge sums of new money into the global economy.

Many in the western world have been extremely critical of this move, but the truth is that we actually started this "currency war".  The Federal Reserve has been recklessly printing money for years, and even though we are now supposedly in the midst of an "economic recovery", the Fed is actually doing more quantitative easing than ever.
Anyone that thinks that gold and silver are bad investments for the long-term when the central banks of the world are being so reckless should have their heads examined.
However, I do believe that gold and silver will experience wild fluctuations in price over the next several years.  When the next stock market crash happens, gold and silver will go down.  It happened back in 2008 and it will happen again.
But in response to the next major financial crisis, I believe that the central banks of the globe will become more reckless than anyone ever dreamed possible.  At that point I believe that we will see gold and silver soar to unprecedented heights.
Yes, there will be huge ups and downs for gold and silver.  But in the long-term, both gold and silver are going to go far, far higher than they are today.
So what do you think will happen to gold and silver in the years ahead?  Please feel free to post a comment with your thoughts below...

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The Tunnel People That Live Under The Streets Of America

By Michael, on April 9th, 2013

 

Did you know that there are thousands upon thousands of homeless people that are living underground beneath the streets of major U.S. cities?  It is happening in Las Vegas, it is happening in New York City and it is even happening in Kansas City.  As the economy crumbles, poverty in the United States is absolutely exploding and so is homelessness.  In addition to the thousands of "tunnel people" living under the streets of America, there are also thousands that are living in tent cities, there are tens of thousands that are living in their vehicles and there are more than a million public school children that do not have a home to go back to at night.  The federal government tells us that the recession "is over" and that "things are getting better", and yet poverty and homelessness in this country continue to rise with no end in sight.  So what in the world are things going to look like when the next economic crisis hits?
When I heard that there were homeless people living in a network of underground tunnels beneath the streets of Kansas City, I was absolutely stunned.  I have relatives that live in that area.  I never thought of Kansas City as one of the more troubled cities in the United States.
But according to the Daily Mail, police recently discovered a network of tunnels under the city that people had been living in...

Below the streets of Kansas City, there are deep underground tunnels where a group of vagrant homeless people lived in camps.
These so-called homeless camps have now been uncovered by the Kansas City Police, who then evicted the residents because of the unsafe environment.
Authorities said these people were living in squalor, with piles of garbage and dirty diapers left around wooded areas.

The saddest part is the fact that authorities found dirty diapers in the areas near these tunnels.  That must mean that babies were being raised in that kind of an environment.
Unfortunately, this kind of thing is happening all over the nation.  In recent years, the tunnel people of Las Vegas have received quite a bit of publicity all over the world.  It has been estimated that more than 1,000 people live in the massive network of flood tunnels under the city...

Deep beneath Vegas’s glittering lights lies a sinister labyrinth inhabited by poisonous spiders and a man nicknamed The Troll who wields an iron bar.

But astonishingly, the 200 miles of flood tunnels are also home to 1,000 people who eke out a living in the strip’s dark underbelly.

Some, like Steven and his girlfriend Kathryn, have furnished their home with considerable care - their 400sq ft 'bungalow' boasts a double bed, a wardrobe and even a bookshelf.

Could you imagine living like that?  Sadly, for an increasing number of Americans a "normal lifestyle" is no longer an option.  Either they have to go to the homeless shelters or they have to try to eke out an existence on their own any way that they can.
In New York City, authorities are constantly trying to root out the people that live in the tunnels under the city and yet they never seem to be able to find them all.  The following is from a New York Post article about the "Mole People" that live underneath New York City...

The homeless people who live down here are called Mole People. They do not, as many believe, exist in a separate, organized underground society. It's more of a solitary existence and loose-knit community of secretive, hard-luck individuals.

The New York Post followed one homeless man known as "John Travolta" on a tour through the underground world.  What they discovered was a world that is very much different from what most New Yorkers experience...

In the tunnels, their world is one of malt liquor, tight spaces, schizophrenic neighbors, hunger and spells of heat and cold. Travolta and the others eat fairly well, living on a regimented schedule of restaurant leftovers, dumped each night at different times around the neighborhood above his foreboding home.

Even as the Dow hits record high after record high, poverty in New York City continues to rise at a very frightening pace.  Incredibly, the number of homeless people sleeping in the homeless shelters of New York City has increased by a whopping 19 percent over the past year.
In many of our major cities, the homeless shelters are already at maximum capacity and are absolutely packed night after night.  Large numbers of homeless people are often left to fend for themselves.
That is one reason why we have seen the rise of so many tent cities.
Yes, the tent cities are still there, they just aren't getting as much attention these days because they do not fit in with the "economic recovery" narrative that the mainstream media is currently pushing.
In fact, many of the tent cities are larger than ever.  For example, you can check out a Reuters video about a growing tent city in New Jersey that was posted on YouTube at the end of March right here.  A lot of these tent cities have now become permanent fixtures, and unfortunately they will probably become much larger when the next major economic crisis strikes.
But perhaps the saddest part of all of this is the massive number of children that are suffering night after night.
For the first time ever, more than a million public school children in the United States are homeless.  That number has risen by 57 percent since the 2006-2007 school year.
So if things are really "getting better", then why in the world do we have more than a million public school children without homes?
These days a lot of families that have lost their homes have ended up living in their vehicles.  The following is an excerpt from a 60 Minutes interview with one family that is living in their truck...

This is the home of the Metzger family. Arielle,15. Her brother Austin, 13. Their mother died when they were very young. Their dad, Tom, is a carpenter. And, he's been looking for work ever since Florida's construction industry collapsed. When foreclosure took their house, he bought the truck on Craigslist with his last thousand dollars. Tom's a little camera shy - thought we ought to talk to the kids - and it didn't take long to see why.
Pelley: How long have you been living in this truck?
Arielle Metzger: About five months.
Pelley: What's that like?
Arielle Metzger: It's an adventure.
Austin Metzger: That's how we see it.
Pelley: When kids at school ask you where you live, what do you tell 'em?
Austin Metzger: When they see the truck they ask me if I live in it, and when I hesitate they kinda realize. And they say they won't tell anybody.
Arielle Metzger: Yeah it's not really that much an embarrassment. I mean, it's only life. You do what you need to do, right?

But after watching a news report or reading something on the Internet about these people we rapidly forget about them because they are not a part of "our world".
Another place where a lot of poor people end up is in prison.  In a previous article, I detailed how the prison population in the United States has been booming in recent years.  If you can believe it, the United States now has approximately 25 percent of the entire global prison population even though it only has about 5 percent of the total global population.
And these days it is not just violent criminals that get thrown into prison.  If you lose your job and get behind on your bills, you could be thrown into prison as well.  The following is from a recent CBS News article...

Roughly a third of U.S. states today jail people for not paying off their debts, from court-related fines and fees to credit card and car loans, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. Such practices contravene a 1983 United States Supreme Court ruling that they violate the Constitutions's Equal Protection Clause.
Some states apply "poverty penalties," such as late fees, payment plan fees and interest, when people are unable to pay all their debts at once. Alabama charges a 30 percent collection fee, for instance, while Florida allows private debt collectors to add a 40 percent surcharge on the original debt. Some Florida counties also use so-called collection courts, where debtors can be jailed but have no right to a public defender. In North Carolina, people are charged for using a public defender, so poor defendants who can't afford such costs may be forced to forgo legal counsel.
The high rates of unemployment and government fiscal shortfalls that followed the housing crash have increased the use of debtors' prisons, as states look for ways to replenish their coffers. Said Chettiar, "It's like drawing blood from a stone. States are trying to increase their revenue on the backs of the poor."

If you are poor, the United States can be an incredibly cold and cruel place.  Mercy and compassion are in very short supply.
The middle class continues to shrink and poverty continues to grow with each passing year.  According to the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately one out of every six Americans is now living in poverty.  And if you throw in those that are considered to be "near poverty", that number becomes much larger.  According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 146 million Americans are either "poor" or "low income".
For many more facts about the rapid increase of poverty in this country, please see my previous article entitled "21 Statistics About The Explosive Growth Of Poverty In America That Everyone Should Know".
But even as poverty grows, it seems like the hearts of those that still do have money are getting colder.  Just check out what happened recently at a grocery store that was in the process of closing down in Augusta, Georgia...

Residents filled the parking lot with bags and baskets hoping to get some of the baby food, canned goods, noodles and other non-perishables. But a local church never came to pick up the food, as the storeowner prior to the eviction said they had arranged. By the time the people showed up for the food, what was left inside the premises—as with any eviction—came into the ownership of the property holder, SunTrust Bank.
The bank ordered the food to be loaded into dumpsters and hauled to a landfill instead of distributed. The people that gathered had to be restrained by police as they saw perfectly good food destroyed. Local Sheriff Richard Roundtree told the news “a potential for a riot was extremely high.”

Can you imagine watching that happen?
But of course handouts and charity are only temporary solutions.  What the poor in this country really need are jobs, and unfortunately there has not been a jobs recovery in the United States since the recession ended.
In fact, the employment crisis looks like it is starting to take another turn for the worse.  The number of layoffs in the month of March was 30 percent higher than the same time a year ago.
Meanwhile, small businesses are indicating that hiring is about to slow down significantly.  According to a recent survey by the National Federation of Independent Businesses, small businesses in the United States are extremely pessimistic right now.  The following is what Goldman Sachs had to say about this survey...

Components of the survey were consistent with the decline in headline optimism, as the net percent of respondents planning to hire fell to 0% (from +4%), those expecting higher sales fell to -4% (from +1%), and those reporting that it is a good time to expand ticked down to +4% (from +5%). The net percent of respondents expecting the economy to improve was unchanged at -28%, a very depressed level. However, on the positive side, +25% of respondents plan increased capital spending [ZH: With Alcoa CapEx spending at a 2 year low]. Small business owners continue to place poor sales, taxes, and red tape at the top of their list of business problems, as they have for the past several years.

So why aren't our politicians doing anything to fix this?
For example, why in the world don't they stop millions of our jobs from being sent out of the country?
Well, the truth is that they don't think we have a problem.  In fact, U.S. Senator Ron Johnson recently said that U.S. trade deficits "don't matter".
He apparently does not seem alarmed that more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities have been shut down in the United States since 2001.
And since the last election, the White House has seemed to have gone into permanent party mode.
On Tuesday, another extravagant party will be held at the White House.  It is being called "In Performance at the White House: Memphis Soul", and it is going to include some of the biggest names in the music industry...

As the White House has previously announced, Justin Timberlake (who will be making his White House debut), Al Green, Ben Harper, Queen Latifah, Cyndi Lauper, Joshua Ledet, Sam Moore, Charlie Musselwhite, Mavis Staples, and others will be performing at the exclusive event.

And so who will be paying for all of this?
You and I will be.  Even as the Obamas cry about all of the other "spending cuts" that are happening, they continue to blow millions of taxpayer dollars on wildly extravagant parties and vacations.
Overall, U.S. taxpayers will spend well over a billion dollars on the Obamas this year.
I wonder what the tunnel people that live under the streets of America think about that.

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CISPA Amendment Proves Everyone's Fears Were Justified While Failing To Assuage Them

from the the-more-things-change dept          http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130410/15550522671/cispa-amendment-proves-everyones-fears-were-justified-while-failing-to-assuage-them.shtml

The single biggest criticism of CISPA is that it could be used by the federal government in a way that infringes on people's privacy, allowing government agencies, including the NSA, to sift through the private data of American citizens with little to no oversight. It's pretty obvious why that fear exists — just look at the relevant paragraph in what, until the recent and final round of markup, was the text of the bill:

(7) PROTECTION OF INDIVIDUAL INFORMATION—The Federal Government may, consistent with the need to protect Federal systems and critical information infrastructure from cybersecurity threats and to mitigate such threats, undertake reasonable efforts to limit the impact on privacy and civil liberties of the sharing of cyber threat information with the Federal Government pursuant to this subsection.

So, um, the feds may worry about privacy, if they want to and as long as it doesn't hinder their cybersecurity efforts. It's disconcerting that this even needed to be spelled out, and it certainly doesn't count as a safeguard. The response to criticism from the bill's authors has been the same since last year: they deny that this bill has anything to do with spying on people, and insist it's just about sharing technical threat data. Just this week, Rep. Rogers flatly stated this is not a surveillance bill. Still, in an attempt to placate the opposition, they backed an amendment (pdf and embedded below) from Rep. Hines replacing that paragraph, which passed in the markup phase. Here's the new text:

PRIVACY AND CIVIL LIBERTIES.—

(A) POLICIES AND PROCEDURES.—The Director of National Intelligence, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Attorney General, shall establish and periodically review policies and procedures governing the receipt, retention, use, and disclosure of non-publicly available cyber threat information shared with the Federal Government in accordance with paragraph (1). Such policies and procedures shall, consistent with the need to protect systems and networks from cyber threats and mitigate cyber threats in a timely manner—

(i) minimize the impact on privacy and civil liberties;
(ii) reasonably limit the receipt, retention, use, and disclosure of cyber threat information associated with specific persons that is not necessary to protect systems or networks from cyber threats or mitigate cyber threats in a timely manner;
(iii) include requirements to safeguard non-publicly available cyber threat information that may be used to identify specific persons from unauthorized access or acquisition;
(iv) protect the confidentiality of cyber threat information associated with specific persons to the greatest extent practicable; and
(v) not delay or impede the flow of cyber threat information necessary to defend against or mitigate a cyber threat.

It seems to me they are hoping that by making the section longer and more complicated, people will miss the fact that very little has changed. But what's truly astonishing is that this new text reads like a confession that CISPA does involve all the stuff that they've been insisting it has nothing to do with.
The big thing, of course, is that this oversight now involves civilian agencies, which is really the only meaningful change — and its impact has been rather minimized. Rather than putting the DHS or another agency in between the public and military agencies like the NSA, they've simply given them some input — and it's hard to say how meaningful that input will be. The provisions are bookended by escape clauses: first we're told that they only count when "consistent with the need to protect systems and networks from cyber threats", and then at the end we're reminded that they must "not delay or impede the flow of cyber threat information". That alone renders the rest of the text virtually moot, and it also seems to be acknowledging that the type of information sharing they want to do does threaten privacy.
If that weren't clear enough, there's a third out hiding in clause (ii), where we're reminded that personal information will only be limited if it's "not necessary to protect systems or networks from cyber threats". If this bill is really just about getting technical threat data, why would personal information ever be necessary? Once again, it serves as both an escape clause and a tacit admission that they do plan on doing the things that they have denied so vocally, or at least that they want to keep the option open.
But you can bet that the next time Rep. Rogers or Ruppersberger is questioned about it, they'll insist that CISPA has nothing to do with personal information and couldn't possibly threaten anyone's privacy. They'll insist that they addressed any concerns with this amendment, when in fact all they did was confirm just how warranted those concerns are. Nothing has changed: CISPA is still a dangerous bill, perhaps more explicitly so now than ever.

DHS Tests Gun-Sensing Drones In Oklahoma

Source: HS Today
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is testing a wide variety of Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (SUAS) sensor platforms, including one that can determine whether individuals are armed or unarmed, for use by first responders and frontline homeland security professionals.
The testing is taking place at the Oklahoma Training Center for Unmanned Systems (OTC-UC), a unit of University Multispectral Laboratories (UML), a not-for-profit scientific institution operated for Oklahoma State University (OSU) by Anchor Dynamics, Inc. UML is a “Trusted Agent” for the federal government, technology developers and operators.

DHS’s Science and Technology Directorate’s (S&T) Borders and Maritime Security Division’s Robotic Aircraft for Public Safety (RAPS) testing program is evaluating numerous SUA and sensor systems to identify possible applications for first responders, including search-and-rescue scenarios, response to radiological and chemical incidents and fire response and mapping. In addition, the testing will help to determine whether SUAs are suitable for use by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and US Coast Guard to provide lower altitude, quick response situational awareness in tactical situations.
SUAS sensor platforms are being tested for use by ”first responder and homeland security operational communities” that “can distinguish between unarmed and armed (exposed) personnel,” as well as conducting detection, surveillance, tracking and laser designation of targets of interest at stand-off ranges, according to the RAPS Test Planobtained by Homeland Security Today.
There’s also a requirement to test SUAS sensors for how well they can capture crime and accident “scene data with still-frame, high definition photos.”
But there’s nothing nefarious about having these sensor capabilities on SUAs for the needs of law enforcement and other first responders, said a RAPS program official, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the program publicly. DHS’s chief privacy official concluded that the testing program posed no privacy issues in the Nov. 16 Privacy Impact Assessment for the RAPS Project.
The RAPS Test Plan also involves testing sensor suites to “enhance the search and rescue capabilities of first responders by increasing [their] situational awareness.” And to that end, SUA sensors are being tested for their ability to “locate and provide the position of targets of interest satisfactorily for search and rescue personnel in a variety of terrain and day conditions.”
To enhance fire and disaster response capabilities of first responders by increasing their situational awareness, SUA sensors are being tested for their ability to locate and provide the position of fire or hot spots despite the presence of objects that obscure their line-of-site; locate and provide the position and concentration of chemical agents; and locate and provide the position and concentration of radiological agents.
The RAPS Test Plan explained that “Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems may soon become valuable tools for first and emergency responders and for those responsible for US border security.” It emphasized that “SUAS can provide tactical, rapid-response capabilities and much better situational awareness before field officers and agents respond to and engage in potentially dangerous operations.”
The test plan explained that “Within the United States, almost 50,000 police and fire departments exist but only about 300 (less than 1 percent) have aviation departments, owing primarily to the significant cost of acquiring, operating and maintaining manned fixed-wing and rotary-wing platforms. The estimated cost per flight hour for these assets is 300 times more expensive than commercially available SUAS which can be operated at costs lower than those of a typical police cruiser. But for state, county or city entities to become potential users of SUAS, their adoption must be justifiable and affordable. Improved sensor and platform capabilities, and economies of scale, now bring SUAS within reach of the budgets of many small first responder organizations.”
“Considering the size and diversity of the user communities targeted by this program,” the RAPS Test Plan said, “our approach concerning SUAS requirements is to focus primarily on advancing the near-term transition of good, affordable SUAS capabilities using relatively mature solutions. Working closely with senior law enforcement and fire operators in the field, we derived high-level SUAS needs tied to notional, top-priority scenarios for SUAS that, if realized, may or would provide good value to users — depending partly on the results of testing as envisioned” in the RAPS testing plan.

Consequently, the test plan explained that “The purpose of [the RAPS] project is to assess the extent to which SUAS can enhance situational awareness in support of first responder and border security events,” the test plan says, noting that “such events include, but are not limited to, law enforcement response, fire response, search and rescue, response to hazardous material (HAZMAT) spills or incidents and response to intrusions at US international borders.” In addition, “Where feasible and applicable, our testing will verify SUAS performance characteristics that may impact their eventual integration into the National Air Space System.”
“As one of many first responder support initiatives within DHS S&T, the primary outcome of RAPS will be a knowledge and database resource consisting of test reports, user testimonials and guidelines for adoption by the operational community,” the RAPS Test Plan pointed out. “The RAPS team will study fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft having gross takeoff weights of 25 lbs. or less, typically, using key performance measures in a variety of simulated but realistic, real-world operational scenarios that focus on the use of SUAS technology in response to situations where human lives are in imminent danger.”
The RAPS testing is being carried out at the Ft. Sill Army Post near Lawton, Okla. because DHS found the Army base “to be the optimal site to conduct RAPS test operations,” the test plan said. “The ready availability of restricted airspace at Ft. Sill and its central location within the continental US make it logistically accessible and convenient to participating vendors.” In addition, the test plan said “the Ft. Sill test sites offer good flying conditions year-round and provide a variety of terrain features needed for conducting search-and-rescue and other test scenarios.”
Oklahoma has emerged as a leader in Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS). DHS is working closely with the state on the RAPS program through Gov. Mary Fallin’s Unmanned Aerial Systems Council, as the federal initiative is being conducted through OSU’s University Multispectral Laboratories’ advanced testing facility that’s uniquely positioned within Ft. Sill’s 200 square miles of restricted airspace.
“The strong support of the State of Oklahoma first responder community underscored the benefits of the Ft. Sill test site,” DHS said.
“Aerospace represents a significant portion of our state economy and UAS is expected to be the most dynamic growth sector within the aerospace industry in the next decade,” said Unmanned Systems Alliance of Oklahoma (USA-OK) President, James L. Grimsley. “This is an important time for the unmanned aerial systems industry and for Oklahoma.”
“Successful SUAS test operations at Ft. Sill may lead, later, to more complex SUAS operational testing at two other Oklahoma sites,” the RAPS Test Plan said. These sites are the Oklahoma National Guard’s Camp Gruber and the University Multispectral Laboratory’s test site at Chilocco, Okla., “both of which have varied and realistic urban complex facilities.”
The RAPS program began with DHS’s Request for Information (RFI) issued on Sept. 24, 2012 seeking white papers from SUAS vendors interested in participating in the testing project. The deadline for the papers was Oct. 31, 2012.
However, the testing program “is not linked to any intended procurement action, nor does it imply intent to initiate such action,” DHS explained.
Public and congressional concerns over the expanding use of UAVs of all kinds by federal, state and local law enforcement were exacerbated recently following a report by CNET.com that DHS has “customized its Predator drones” to be able to “identify civilians carrying guns and tracking their cell phones.”
CNET.com reported that DHS’s “specifications for its drones … ‘shall be capable of identifying a standing human being at night as likely armed or not,’” and that “They also specify ‘signals interception’ technology that can capture communications in the frequency ranges used by mobile phones and ‘direction finding’ technology that can identify the locations of mobile devices or two-way radios.”
The disclosure was based on an apparent “unredacted copy” of the May 26, 2005, CBP Office of Air and Marine (OAM) Performance Specification for the DHS/Customs and Border Protection Unmanned Aerial Vehicle System documentthat DHS released in redacted form to the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
An updated March 10, 2010 CBP OAM performance specifications document for CBP’s Predator B UAV also was obtained by EPIC under the FOIA, and portions of it also were redacted.
Most of the redactions, though, were made pursuant to legitimate FOIA exemptions authorizing the withholding of records compiled for law enforcement purposes or that would disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations.
Much of the redacted information deals with sensitive operational and performance capabilities of CBP’s fleet of Predators, as well sensitive technical data on the UAVs’ sensor packages and specifications.
A CBP spokesman told CNET.com the agency “is not deploying signals interception capabilities on its UAS fleet. Any potential deployment of such technology in the future would be implemented in full consideration of civil rights, civil liberties and privacy interests and in a manner consistent with the law and long-standing law enforcement practices.”
DHS’s RAPS Program Manager, Dr. John Appleby, told Homeland Security Today the department “is very sensitive to the privacy and civil rights issues that are involved with our [UAV] systems and testing.”
But privacy rights advocates don’t see it that way. EPIC’s Ginger McCall, director of the group’s Open Government Project, has said CBP’s UAS requirements documents “clearly evidence that the Department of Homeland Security is developing drones with signals interception technology and the capability to identify people on the ground,” and that “This allows for invasive surveillance, including potential communications surveillance, that could run afoul of federal privacy laws.”
A DHS official who spoke to Homeland Security Today on background about the issue explained that CBP needed to have “a whole host of requirements for its [Predators] for all possible needs to support border security operations, but that doesn’t mean they’re all being used … people jump to all sorts of conclusions based on what they think they know or understand.”
The official said the Predators are capable of distinguishing whether objects detected on the ground are people, animals, vehicles or something else, and emphasized that this capability is needed when, for example, the UAVs are being used to support Border Patrol agents on the ground who are trying to apprehend human- or narco-traffickers in difficult terrain or circumstances, or when conducting border surveillance missions for potential illegal cross-border activity.
But this capability isn’t any different from ground-based radar that can distinguish between a human and a truck CBP has tested that may be incorporated into its Integrated Fixed Tower program Homeland Security Today examined in detail last Oct.
As for the deployment of communications interception technology on CBP’s Predators, officials adamantly said there are numerous legal issues involved “that would have to be worked out” before this capability can routinely be used.

Mysterious Stone Structure Discovered Beneath Sea of Galilee

By Owen Jarus, LiveScience Contributor | LiveScience.com – Wed, Apr 10, 2013

http://news.yahoo.com/mysterious-stone-structure-discovered-beneath-sea-galilee-111707097.html

• View PhotoThe circular structure was first …
• View PhotoPutting all the data together researchers …

A giant "monumental" stone structure discovered beneath the waters of the Sea of Galilee in Israel has archaeologists puzzled as to its purpose and even how long ago it was built.

The mysterious structure is cone shaped, made of "unhewn basalt cobbles and boulders," and weighs an estimated 60,000 tons the researchers said. That makes it heavier than most modern-day warships.
Rising nearly 32 feet (10 meters) high, it has a diameter of about 230 feet (70 meters). To put that in perspective, the outer stone circle of Stonehenge has a diameter just half that with its tallest stones not reaching that height.
It appears to be a giant cairn, rocks piled on top of each other. Structures like this are known from elsewhere in the world and are sometimes used to mark burials. Researchers do not know if the newly discovered structure was used for this purpose.

The structure was first detected in the summer of 2003 during a sonar survey of the southwest portion of the sea. Divers have since been down to investigate, they write in the latest issue of the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology. 

"Close inspection by scuba diving revealed that the structure is made of basalt boulders up to 1 m (3.2 feet) long with no apparent construction pattern," the researchers write in their journal article. "The boulders have natural faces with no signs of cutting or chiselling. Similarly, we did not find any sign of arrangement or walls that delineate this structure." [See Photos of the Mysterious Sea of Galilee Structure]
They say it is definitely human-made and probably was built on land, only later to be covered by the Sea of Galilee as the water level rose. "The shape and composition of the submerged structure does not resemble any natural feature. We therefore conclude that it is man-made and might be termed a cairn," the researchers write.
More than 4,000 years old?
Underwater archaeological excavation is needed so scientists can find associated artifacts and determine the structure's date and purpose, the researchers said.

Researcher Yitzhak Paz, of the Israel Antiquities Authority and Ben-Gurion University, believes it could date back more than 4,000 years. "The more logical possibility is that it belongs to the third millennium B.C., because there are other megalithic phenomena [from that time] that are found close by," Paz told LiveScience in an interview, noting that those sites are associated with fortified settlements. 

The researchers list several examples of megalithic structures found close to the Sea of Galilee that are more than 4,000 years-old. One example is the monumental site of Khirbet Beteiha, located some 19 miles (30 kilometers) north-east of the submerged stone structure, the researchers write. It "comprises three concentric stone circles, the largest of which is 56 m [184 feet] in diameter." [Gallery: Aerial Photos Reveal Mysterious Stone Structures]
An ancient city
If the third-millennium B.C. date idea proves correct it would put the structure about a mile to the north of a city that researchers call "Bet Yerah" or "Khirbet Kerak."
During the third millennium B.C. the city was one of the biggest sites in the region, Paz said. "It's the most powerful and fortified town in this region and, as a matter of fact, in the whole of Israel."
Archaeologist Raphael Greenberg describes it in a chapter of the book "Daily Life, Materiality, and Complexity in Early Urban Communities of the Southern Levant" (Eisenbrauns, 2011) as being a heavily fortified 74-acre (30 hectares) site with up to 5,000 inhabitants.
With paved streets and towering defenses its people were clearly well organized. "They also indicate the existence of some kind of municipal authority able to maintain public structures ..." Greenberg writes.
The research team says that, like the leaders of Bet Yerah, whoever built the newly discovered Sea of Galilee structure needed sophisticated organization and planning skills to construct it. The "effort invested in such an enterprise is indicative of a complex, well-organized society, with planning skills and economic ability," they write in their journal paper.
Paz added that "in order to build such a structure a lot of working hours were required" in an organized community effort.
Future exploration
Paz said that he hopes soon that an underwater archaeological expedition will set out to excavate the structure. They can search for artifacts and try to determine its date with certainty.
He said that the Israel Antiquities Authority has a research branch capable of excavating it. "We will try to do it in the near future, I hope, but it depends on a lot of factors."
  Original article on LiveScience.com.

Fast contact search puts Israeli start-up on Fortune 500 map

SphereUp’s technology helps users wade through the morass of names, phone numbers, and email addresses, to find the person they need almost instantaneously

By David Shamah April 9, 2013http://www.timesofisrael.com/fast-contact-search-puts-israeli-start-up-on-fortune-500-map/

Yevgeny Safovich (Photo credit: Courtesy)

Related Topics

• Israeli start-ups
• search technology
• SphereUp

In a world where patience is at a premium, and where information on almost any topic can be found instantaneously – thanks to the Internet – tracking down individuals can still be a time-consuming chore. There’s really been no equivalent to a Google search for contacts, whether you’re on your own or in an academic or business institution.

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Until Israeli start-up SphereUp came up with one, that is – enabling users to do lightning-fast searches for individuals based on name, job description, location, or any other significant attribute. SphereUp’s approach is so unique that the company has been drawing attention from corporations, hospitals, universities, investors – and some of the biggest data companies in the world, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Although SphereUp CEO Yevgeny Safovich wouldn’t confirm any of the rumors that sites with large numbers of members — like Facebook or LinkedIn — have expressed interest in partnering with SphereUp, the fact is that several high-profile investors who have “been around” the tech scene have invested significant amounts in the company, in the belief that SphereUp is a start-up with a big future. In its most recent funding round, SphereUp raised $2.5 million, with financing led by US investment fund AJJS Holdings, managed by CEO Alex Jurovitsky and Jacob Shochat, who sold Dynamic Imaging to GE Healthcare in 2007, along with Ofer Ben-Shachar, who founded Java software platform NetDynamics and sold the company to Sun Microsystems (since acquired by Oracle).

SphereUp’s specialty, said Safovich, is “smart contact search,” which means giving users the ability to find anyone on a website, smart phone, contact database, or any other information source with a quick, easy search on any website or other user interface. For example, if you were searching for a doctor on a hospital website — where there could be hundreds, if not thousands, of contact names to wade through — SphereUp will let you search by name, specialty, department, or any other criteria. The search is nearly instantaneous, with SphereUp indexing all the relevant information using its patented system.

One of the big advantages of SphereUp is its ability to eliminate duplicates and triplicates in contact lists, a chronic aspect of nearly all contact collections. Often, business users will have five or six entries for the same person, with different phone numbers (some outdated), email addresses, and other contact information. Sorting through the data and figuring out which one is the “right” person can be a frustrating experience, to say the least.

But SphereUp has the ability to parse through the relevant sources and aggregate the information, letting users have quick access to all contact information, displaying it on one screen. “We can collect data from unstructured sources as well as organized databases, eliminating duplicates and displaying only the relevant data.” The information displayed is just about everything available associated with the person being searched — phone numbers, email, photos, websites, etc., said Safovich.

Safovich (former r&d group manager at Comverse) and his founding partner Ronen Abramov began SphereUp in 2009, but only started marketing the service in the past year or so. Since then, the company has landed numerous high-profile Israeli clients, including Leumit Health Funds, FedEx Israel, the Wolfson Medical Center, and others.

Meanwhile, word is getting out to the rest of the world about SphereUp, said Safovich. “We expect to soon be signing contracts with some large companies in the US. Many large enterprise firms are interested in our technology.” And those Facebook or LinkedIn sale rumors? “I really can’t say anything about that, but we are getting a very positive reputation among Fortune 500 companies. They see our technology on other websites, and they are interested in it for themselves. Companies like Facebook and LinkedIn, where users have many contacts, would benefit greatly from our technology. I am sure we will find a way to work with them.”