Category: Domestic Affairs,

EPA drops rule requiring mining companies to have money to clean up pollution

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Environment,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

Trump’s administration announced Friday that it won’t require mining companies to prove they have the financial wherewithal to clean up their pollution, despite an industry legacy of abandoned mines that have fouled waterways across the U.S.

The move came after mining groups and Western-state Republicans pushed back against a proposal under former President Barack Obama to make companies set aside money for future cleanup costs.

…The U.S. mining industry has a long history of abandoning contaminated sites and leaving taxpayers to foot the bill for cleanups. Thousands of shuttered mines leak contaminated water into rivers, streams and other waterways, including hundreds of cases in which the EPA has intervened, sometimes at huge expense.

The EPA spent $1.1 billion on cleanup work at abandoned hard-rock mining and processing sites across the U.S. from 2010 to 2014.

EPA drops rule requiring mining companies to have money to clean up pollution – Chicago Tribune

Grrrrrrrrrrrrr

State Police pay higher than reported, data hidden for years

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Boston,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

Revelations about an alleged overtime scam, a wave of suspensions, and hefty pay for Massachusetts State Police troopers have sparked scrutiny of the state’s largest law enforcement agency.

…Payroll records for an entire 140-trooper State Police division — including some of the department’s highest earners — have been hidden from public view and weren’t filed with the state comptroller for several years, the Globe has found.

…The records also show that 393 troopers normally assigned to other State Police divisions worked detail and fill-in shifts for Troop F, collecting another $6.4 million.

In the entire department, at least 299 troopers — about 14 percent — made more than $200,000 last year.

…On Tuesday, Colonel Kerry A. Gilpin revealed that 20 active troopers and one retiree face sanctions in an overtime abuse scandal in Troop E. The troopers allegedly logged hours they did not work, with some alleged violators putting in for as many as 100 no-show shifts.

On Friday, State Police said nine of those troopers were suspended without pay, nine more retired, and one was kept on active duty.

…There has also been infighting within the State Police, with unionized troopers arguing that higher-ranked nonunion workers should not be assigned to work overtime shifts.

…At least 79 percent of Troop F made more last year than Governor Charlie Baker, who earned $151,800. The percentage would be even higher if you included the pay that some workers received in 2017 for time spent in other State Police divisions.

Fourteen Troop F members earned more in overtime than in base pay.

State Police pay higher than reported, data hidden for years – The Boston Globe

Oi…..

Iranian firm hacked computers nationwide, including in Hawaii, FBI says

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Hawaii,, Privacy,Leave a comment

An Iranian consulting firm worked for years to steal secrets from universities and companies in the U.S. and around the globe, even hacking into the U.S. Department of Labor and the United Nations, according to an indictment unveiled today. The company is also accused of breaching the computers of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the states of Hawaii and Indiana.

The Mabna Institute, based in Tehran, worked for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other clients in the Iranian government to steal academic research, proprietary secrets and government data, the indictment claims. The hacking went on since at least 2013, the Justice Department said.

…The nine defendants, including company founders Gholamreza Rafatnejad and Ehsan Mohammadi, were charged with conspiracy, wire fraud and identity theft. But since Iran does not have an extradition treaty with the United States, it’s unlikely they will face trial, unless they leave the country.

Iranian firm hacked computers nationwide, including in Hawaii, FBI says

hmmmm

Army veteran deported to Mexico after drug conviction

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Domestic Affairs,, Drugs & Drink,, Military,, Race,Leave a comment

A veteran who did two tours of Afghanistan has been deported to Mexico after his citizenship was denied due to a felony drug conviction.

…Perez-Montes was sentenced to 15 years in prison and had his green card taken away after he was found guilty of delivering cocaine to an undercover cop, CNN reported. He served half of his sentence when deportation proceedings took place.

…“This case is a tragic example of what can happen when national immigration policies are based more in hate than on logic and ICE doesn’t feel accountable to anyone,” Duckworth said in a statement on Saturday.

Perez-Montes reportedly arrived in the U.S. when he was 8-years-old with his parents and sister who are now naturalized U.S. citizens. He has another sister who is an American citizen by birth.

Perez-Montes said his conviction was the result of his PTSD, according to CNN.

Army veteran deported to Mexico after drug conviction | TheHill

Sigh….

Kaine questions whether Bolton can get security clearance

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,Leave a comment

Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine on Sunday questioned whether former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, President Donald Trump’s newly chosen national security adviser, could get a security clearance.

“I wonder about that,” Kaine said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” pointing to Bolton’s 2013 appearance in a video recorded for a Russian gun rights group backed by an oligarch and ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Kaine questions whether Bolton can get security clearance – POLITICO

hmmm

Cambridge Analytica Sent Foreigners To Work On U.S. Elections, Former Employees Say

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Media and Culture,, Privacy,Leave a comment

Cambridge Analytica, the data firm at the center of a scandal about misused Facebook information, sent dozens of foreign nationals to work on U.S. elections in 2014, The Washington Post reported on Sunday.

Three of the firm’s former employees, including whistleblower Christopher Wylie, said the company was mostly staffed with non-U.S. citizens as it worked across several states to help elect Republicans.

…“Its dirty little secret was that there was no one American involved in it, that it was a de facto foreign agent, working on an American election,” Wylie told the Post.

Earlier this week he told NBC News that “it was not just me.”

“Like 20 other people were. We had Canadians, British, Eastern Europeans, Lithuanians, Germans, Romanians, Greeks,” Wylie said. “We weren’t just working on messaging. We were instructing campaigns on which messages go where and to who.”

Cambridge Analytica Sent Foreigners To Work On U.S. Elections, Former Employees Say | HuffPost

hmmmm

Cambridge Analytica misled MPs over work for Leave.EU

On By peanutgallerynhIn Europe,, Media and Culture,, Privacy,Leave a comment

Cambridge Analytica conducted data research for one of the leading Brexit campaign groups and then misled the public and MPs over the work the company had undertaken, according to a former employee who has spoken to the Guardian.

In an exclusive interview, Brittany Kaiser, Cambridge Analytica’s business development director until two weeks ago, said the work with Leave.EU involved analysis of data provided by Ukip.

Cambridge Analytica misled MPs over work for Leave.EU, says ex-director | News | The Guardian

hmmm

Facebook logged phone records from Android users with older devices

On By peanutgallerynhIn Media and Culture,, Privacy,Leave a comment

Recent reports indicate that the social media giant has also scraped records of phone calls and SMS data from its users with Android devices without explicit permission.

…So far, just under 900 people have responded to the poll, and more than 20 per cent confirmed they found call records and/or text metadata in their Facebook data archive. Another 74 people responded to the poll saying that MMS data was collected, 106 people responded saying that SMS data was collected, and 104 responded saying that cellular calls were collected.

…In recent years, the company has updated this process to clarify that when requesting access to your contact list, it intends to access all call logs and SMS text messages as well, but Android users in the past may have unknowingly given Facebook access to this data.

Facebook logged phone records from Android users with older devices: reports – National | Globalnews.ca

hmmmm

Dylan McKay on Twitter: “Downloaded my facebook data as a ZIP file Somehow it has my entire call history with my partner’s mum… “

On By peanutgallerynhIn Media and Culture,, Privacy,Leave a comment

Dylan McKay on Twitter: “Downloaded my facebook data as a ZIP file Somehow it has my entire call history with my partner’s mum… “

hmmm

Bolton Was Early Beneficiary of Cambridge Analytica’s Facebook Data

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Media and Culture,, Privacy,Leave a comment

“We are producing ads specifically designed for voters of a certain personality and demographic profile. So if you’re a young woman in New Hampshire with a specific kind of personality and a particular set of issues that you care about, our research allows us to connect with that voter in a way that truly resonates with her.”

 

…The political action committee founded by John R. Bolton, President Trump’s incoming national security adviser, was one of the earliest customers of Cambridge Analytica, which it hired specifically to develop psychological profiles of voters with data harvested from tens of millions of Facebook profiles, according to former Cambridge employees and company documents.

…In the two years that followed, Mr. Bolton’s super PAC spent nearly $1.2 million primarily for “survey research,” which is a term that campaigns use for polling, according to campaign finance records.

…The contract broadly describes the services to be delivered by Cambridge as “behavioral microtargeting with psychographic messaging.”

…“The Bolton PAC was obsessed with how America was becoming limp wristed and spineless and it wanted research and messaging for national security issues,” Mr. Wylie said.

“That really meant making people more militaristic in their worldview,” he added. “That’s what they said they wanted, anyway.”

Using the psychographic models, Cambridge helped design concepts for advertisements for candidates supported by Mr. Bolton’s PAC, including the 2014 campaign of Thom Tillis, the Republican senator from North Carolina.

…The firm took the psychographic profiles it was building off the Facebook data at the time and combined them with voter databases and other sets of data.

…The profiles would be used to “identify the personality traits of individuals” in states to be targeted by the Bolton PAC.

Bolton Was Early Beneficiary of Cambridge Analytica’s Facebook Data – The New York Times

hmmmm

Former Brexit volunteer alleges campaign ‘cheated’

On By peanutgallerynhIn Europe,, Privacy,Leave a comment

Shahmir Sanni told Channel 4 that the organization “Vote Leave” coordinated spending over the legal limit, using a Canadian data firm called Aggregate IQ, otherwise known as AIQ. British election law enforces a spending cap on donations, which includes when groups coordinate donations.

…Sanni claims a donation of £625,000 by Vote Leave to another Brexit group, “BeLeave,” was funneled to AIQ.

…Channel 4 says it has seen documents that it claims show multiple ties between AIQ and Cambridge Analytica’s parent company, SCL.

Former Brexit volunteer alleges campaign ‘cheated’ – CNNPolitics

hmmmm

Investigators raid Cambridge Analytica’s London offices

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Europe,, Privacy,Leave a comment

Elizabeth Denham, head of the ICO, sought the warrant after a whistleblower said Cambridge Analytica had gathered private information of 50 million Facebook users to support Donald Trump’s 2016 U.S. presidential campaign.

Britain is investigating whether Facebook, the world’s largest social media network, did enough to protect data.

…U.S. and European lawmakers have demanded an explanation of how the British consulting firm gained access to the data in 2014 and why Facebook failed to inform its users, raising broader industry questions about consumer privacy.

Investigators raid Cambridge Analytica’s London offices | VentureBeat

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