Obama calls for 3 year prison sentence for critical infrastructure hackers

Fine, but will this also include the damage to the critical infrastructure caused by Wall Street? Why the hard line with hackers and the soft touch for the people who lost trillions of dollars and caused the recession? Wired:

Hackers who breach and cause substantial harm to critical infrastructure systems would face a mandatory minimum three-year prison sentence if the White House gets its way.

The Obama administration is requesting the mandatory prison sentence in a legislative proposal it submitted to Congress on Thursday, which outlines a long but vague list of cybersecurity provisions the White House would like included in upcoming bills. The list includes a number of changes to laws governing hacking (.pdf), as well as laws authorizing the federal government to assist private companies in securing their computer networks when asked to mitigate threats.

The administration also wants to create a national data-breach law that would help standardize the patchwork of state laws and force companies that operate critical-infrastructure systems to produce a security plan customized to protect against threats to their systems. The plans would be subject to evaluation by an independent commercial auditor and give the Department of Homeland Security authority to request changes to the plans if the government deems them insufficient.

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It isn’t just Florida — the Koch Brothers control many universities, and may own the next Sec’y of Commerce

Joan McCarter at Daily Kos asks a very interesting question: "Should the next Commerce Secretary be part of the Koch machine?"

Let's take that apart a little at a time, starting with the end — the Koch Brothers Machine. You see, it's not just Florida State's economics department they've bought. The Koch Brothers own a lot of university econ departments. From those departments come economists, and among those economists are political appointees.

So, let's start with universities owned by the Koch Brothers. McCarter points us to this story from ThinkProgress about the Koch Brothers take-over of universities (my emphasis throughout):

Yesterday, ThinkProgress highlighted reports from the St. Petersburg Times and the Tallahassee Democrat regarding a Koch-funded economics department at Florida State University (FSU). FSU had accepted a $1.5 million grant from a foundation controlled by petrochemical billionaire Charles Koch on the condition that Koch’s operatives would have a free hand in selecting professors and approving publications. The simmering controversy sheds light on the vast influence of the Koch political machine, which spans from the top conservative think tanks, Republican politicians, a small army of contracted lobbyists, and Tea Party front groups in nearly every state.

As reporter Kris Hundley notes, Koch virtually owns much of George Mason University, another public university, through grants and direct control over think tanks within the school. For instance, Koch controls the Mercatus Center of George Mason University, an institute that set much of the Bush administration’s environmental deregulation policy. And similar conditional agreements have been made with schools like Clemson and West Virginia University. ThinkProgress has analyzed data from the Charles Koch Foundation, and found that this trend is actually much larger than previous known. Many of the Koch university grants [pdf] finance far right, pro-polluter professors, and dictate that students read Charles Koch’s book as part of their academic study[.]

The list of schools is shocking; read the ThinkProgress article for the details. Schools named include:

Florida State University
George Mason University
Clemson University
West Virginia University
Brown University
Troy University
Utah State University

And that's just the big guys. The article adds:

Charles Koch Foundation grants, along with direct Koch Industries grants, are distributed to dozens of other universities around the country every year, to both public and private institutions. Some of the programs, like the Charles Koch Student Research Colloquium at Beloit College, are funded by grants of little over $130,000 and simply support conservative speakers on campuses. We have reached out to several of the schools to learn more about the agreements, but none so far have returned our calls.

And then there's this, the command-and-control mechanism:

Part of the effort is coordinated through operatives like Richard Fink, who doubles as a vice president at Koch’s corporate lobbying office. Through an organization called the Association of Private Enterprise Education, Koch organizes these corporate-funded university departments into a powerful intellectual movement.

This truly is a machine. It's amazing what two determined, hubris-crazed guys can do with $43 billion dollars to throw around. These two guys, as an entity, control the fifth largest fortune in America. Every time they sit down to dinner, it's a business meeting. If you like your government efficient, plutocracy beats democracy every single time.

So what about the next Secretary of Commerce? Back to McCarter:

One of the key candidates to replace Gary Locke as Commerce Secretary is none other than Tim Roemer, a former "distinguished scholar at the Mercatus Center."

Way back when, in early 2005 when Roemer was being considered for DNC chair, Markos wrote about Roemer's position with this key "part of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, a Scaife funded right-wing think tank." He wrote that, "[o]ne of the ways the Right 'educates' public officials, opinion leaders,etc., is to send them to expensive 'retreats' at exclusive resorts, nice hotels, etc. where they are wined and dined and treated to first-class amenities."

(See above for the Mercatus Center; look for George Mason University.)

During the Bush II run at Social Security, Roemer was speaking at gatherings and "retreats" like the ones mentioned, to "fellow Democrats" no less, about "market-based solutions" to Social Security. A made man.

Roemer is a Movement Conservative operative, a retainer rather than a baron (that is, he does the work of the barons, as opposed to being one). He's also Barack Obama's Ambassador to India.

Barack, Barack — shades of soon-to-be-former FCC Commissioner Meredith Baker, whom you put in charge of the Comcast-NBC merger. You do mean business, don't you. (I'll be writing more about Baker shortly, just as soon as Google/Blogger restores our draft posts — hint.)

In the meantime, keep your eye on the next Commerce Secretary appointment. It will tell you a lot about where Obama is taking us. There's not much spinning room in the decision to appoint a Koch-anointed op like Roemer.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Texas moves to ban TSA "groping"

As long as it includes the rent-a-TSA (that the GOP loves so much) this is good. It's still unclear why the GOP thinks that rent-a-TSA solves the TSA problems, because it doesn't since they still follow the same procedures as the TSA. Reuters:

Transportation Security Administration agents could be charged with a misdemeanor crime, face a $4,000 fine and one year in jail under the measure.

The proposal would classify any airport inspection that "touches the anus, sexual organ, buttocks, or breast of another person including through the clothing, or touches the other person in a manner that would be offensive to a reasonable person" as an offense of sexual harassment under official oppression.

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SEAL’s helmet cams recorded entire bin Laden raid

I know we're never going to see the video, but damn I want to. Read the rest of this post...

Amnesty International praises WikiLeaks for spring uprisings in Arab world

Deservedly so. It's a pity we haven't seen more about the banks in the western world though. Wouldn't that be nice as well?

The rights group singles out WikiLeaks and the newspapers that pored over its previously confidential government files, among them the Guardian, as a catalyst in a series of uprisings against repressive regimes, notably the overthrow of Tunisia's long-serving president, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.

"The year 2010 may well be remembered as a watershed year when activists and journalists used new technology to speak truth to power and, in so doing, pushed for greater respect for human rights," Amnesty's secretary general, Salil Shetty, says in an introduction to the document. "It is also the year when repressive governments faced the real possibility that their days were numbered."

But, Shetty adds, the situation in the Middle East and North Africa, and elsewhere, remains unpredictable: "There is a serious fightback from the forces of repression. The international community must seize the opportunity for change and ensure that 2011 is not a false dawn for human rights."

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The Cars - Bye Bye Love

The Cars were such a fun band back in the day. Ric Ocasek looks as mellow as ever in this performance.

So far, so good with the weather today. We were supposed to see a bit of rain but nothing yet. It's a bit breezy out there so maybe it's coming. The wall of hydrangeas is growing and more color is emerging. Next to the rhododendron that's always my favorite part of the garden. Read the rest of this post...

Hosni Mubarak's wife detained by police for 15 days

Egypt is still struggling to get through this interim period, but they're very serious about going after corruption, right up to the top of the old regime. Now there's a lesson quite a few countries should study and learn. The Guardian:

The largest rally to be held in the Egyptian capital in recent weeks took place as Suzanne Mubarak, wife of ousted president Hosni Mubarak, was detained by investigators for 15 days on suspicion of illegally acquiring wealth.

Cheers erupted in the square as news broke of Mrs Mubarak's incarceration. The 70-year-old former first lady now joins her husband, two sons and more than 20 other ministers and business figures from the Mubarak regime on the list of those being investigated for crimes against the state.

Last week former interior minister Habib Al-Adly was sentenced to 12 years in prison for financial fraud. He also stands accused of having ordered the killing of peaceful protesters, a charge that can carry the death penalty.

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Europe moving to reinstate intra-European border controls

It was kind of cool, being able to travel between member states of the EU and not have your passport checked. But still, I was wondering when one country's liberal immigration/refugee policies would run afoul of another country's more conservative views.

From the Guardian:

European nations moved to reverse decades of unfettered travel across the continent when a majority of EU governments agreed the need to reinstate national passport controls amid fears of a flood of immigrants fleeing the upheaval in north Africa.

In a serious blow to one of the cornerstones of a united, integrated Europe, EU interior ministers embarked on a radical revision of the passport-free travel regime known as the Schengen system to allow the 26 participating governments to restore border controls.

I remember the first time I ran afoul of Europe's border controls. I was, I think, 23 or so, and taking an overnight train down to Italy (I don't remember where I was coming from, possibly Germany - I remember we were crossing from Switzerland into Italy). Anyway, back then the conductor would take your passport and check them at the border while you slept.

Well, it's way in the middle of the night, we're all dead asleep, me and my 5 Neapolitan bunkmates in the 6-person couchette (I didn't know any of them), when there was a knock at the door. None of us answered - back then there were concerns of getting drugged and robbed in the overnight trains, so you really didn't answer knocks at 3am,  The knocking continues, then I hear, in a very loud Italian accent, a voicing yelling "ARAVOSIS!"

I get up, open the door, and there's some border police guy yelling at me, in Italian, that my passport is a fake. I still to this day have no idea why he was so convinced it wasn't real. So the guy is the yelling at me, and I'm trying in my rather-newly-learned Italian, only half a awake but heart running a mile a minute, to explain to the guy that it's a real US passport.  Meanwhile, my five Napolitani bunkmates, still in their beds, are all yelling at the police guy, "shut up!"

Yeah, it's funny now. Read the rest of this post...