Outis

Is my hero.

Slashdot: FBI Taps Cell Phone Microphones in Mafia Case.

I had no idea the FBI could turn on the microphones in the OnStar system. Can they do the same with the Nintendo DS? jk.

The take-away, from another source:

The last thing that ought to happen is that these matters get decided without public awareness, let alone debate. If our Government thinks it has good reason to start monitoring our actions and collecting and storing detailed data about how we live our lives — including the millions of citizens suspected of no crimes — then it ought to say what it wants to do and we can then debate if it ought to have that power. Why is that proposition controversial? …

Aggressively investigating what the administration has been doing over the last five years, behind the impenetrable wall of secrecy it erected, is not an option, and it isn’t something to do for drama, political gain, or emotional retribution. It is vital because our democracy can only function if citizens know what its Government is doing.

Related: Tracking Cell Phones for Real-Time Traffic Data

NPR : U.S. Embassy in Berlin Reaches Out to Muslims

The often cited Glenn Greenwald profiles Mel Martinez, a monumental hypocrite. He joins the rogues gallery of Cuban-Americans with historical amnesia alongside, for starters, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

Without the contradictions rife in the Batista regime, Castro could never have laid claim to the cause of freedom. If not for the injustice of colonization, the Soviets could not have appealed to the nascent nationalism of independence movements throughout the Third World.

The bad guys claim to power not just by force, but by exploiting frustration and pessimism.

A follow-up to my previous post:

Boing Boing, NPR “Xeni Tech”: Tech Solutions to Iraqi-U.S. Language Barrier