Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Sunday, June 8, 2014
Thursday, June 5, 2014
Monday, June 2, 2014
NSA scoops up images for facial recognition programs
![NSA spying]({"default":"http://newsbcpcol.stb.s-msn.com/amnews/i/52/a446cd4a7c7cbbd99fa29cd48af94b/_h353_w628_m6_otrue_lfalse.jpg"})
AFP
The US National Security Agency is scooping up large quantities of images of people for use in facial recognition programs, the New York Times reported Sunday, citing top secret documents.
The Times said documents, which were obtained from fugitive former US intelligence analyst Edward Snowden, show a significant increase in reliance on facial recognition technology at the agency over the past four years.
The report said the NSA was using new software to exploit a flood of images included in intercepted emails, text messages, social media posts, video conferences and other communications.
It cited leaked 2011 documents as saying the NSA intercepts "millions of images per day," including 55,000 "facial recognition quality images."
The images represented "tremendous untapped potential," according to the report, which said NSA officials believe advances in technology could revolutionize the way the agency finds intelligence targets.
“It’s not just the traditional communications we’re after: It’s taking a full-arsenal approach that digitally exploits the clues a target leaves behind in their regular activities on the net to compile biographic and biometric information” that can help “implement precision targeting,” a 2010 document quoted by the newspaper said.
The Times said it wasn't clear how many people, including how many Americans, had been caught up in the effort, but noted that neither US privacy laws nor US surveillance laws provide specific protections for facial images.
A NSA spokeswoman said, however, that the agency would be required to get court approval for imagery of Americans it collects through its surveillance programs.
The agency has been at the center of controversy over the scope of its global electronic surveillance program since they were first revealed by Snowden in June 2013.
The former intelligence contractor is in Russia, where he was granted temporary political asylum last year.
Next up at the ballot box: Undreaming California
![File photo of the California state flag flying above City Hall in Santa Monica]({"default":"http://newsbcpcol.stb.s-msn.com/amnews/i/ab/69f5ecbb12e5d7c3b650bdd6c6fe6d/_h353_w628_m6_otrue_lfalse.jpg"})
Reuters
File photo of the California state flag flying above City Hall in Santa Monica
![Reuters]({"default":"http://newsbcpcol.stb.s-msn.com/amnews/i/4a/e07b8dadb83df2faa22fa8d5ea4068/_h17_w0_m6_otrue_lfalse.gif"})
By Sarah McBride and Prudence Crowther of Reuters
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Creating the state of California took a revolt that led to the short-lived Bear Republic, a war with Mexico, and various international treaties. Now, some northern natives hope to take it apart, starting with a couple of ballot initiatives.
Tuesday, voters in Del Norte and Tehama Counties will consider a measure calling for separation from California and the formation of a new state. Supporters are hoping to generate momentum for pulling together portions of northern California and southern Oregon into an entity to be called Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson once imagined that part of western North America might develop into a freestanding republic.
Local vexations with state government were cited by Aaron Funk, an aptly named organizer of the movement: “lack of representation, lack of infrastructure, inability to use a lot of our resources.”
Heavy winter rains often wash out U.S. 101, a major artery in the region. That really rankles him. So do restrictions on timber harvesting. Most of all, Funk loathes the region's paltry representation in California's senate, with its population-based allocation. Just 28,000 people call Del Norte County home, compared to 38 million for the state overall.
Business owners are doubly confounded, he said, and face “mounds of paperwork, red tape.” Funk owns and lives in a recreational vehicle park in the coastal town of Klamath.
Opponents of the measure say it sounds an economic death knell for the area, given its poverty and high unemployment.
“We will continue to face the same challenges,” wrote Del Norte County officials in their formal argument against the measure. “Except we will no longer be subsidized by the State.”
Efforts to chop up California boast a long history. Disgruntled residents first proposed a state of Jefferson, also comprising counties in nearby southern Oregon, in the 1940s.
In 1993, after voters in 27 counties approved, the state Assembly agreed to a nonbinding statewide vote on whether to divide California into three. But the measure never made it into the state Senate, and the referendum was never held.
More recently, venture capitalist Tim Draper suggested splitting California into six separate states, while fellow venture capitalist Balaji Srinivasan proposed that Silicon Valley secede from the country.
Good luck to any of these measures, say scholars of constitutional law, who point out that such separations require approval of the state legislature and the U.S. Congress.
“There is no incentive,” said Ethan Rarick, director of the Robert T. Matsui Center for Politics and Public Service at the University of California, Berkeley. “If you’re one of 100 senators," he reasoned, "you don’t want to become one of 102.”
Supporters of the latest separation initiative say it has a better chance of passing in Tehama County than Del Norte County, where opposition has been well organized.
But advocates like Funk say they must try, at least to publicize their frustrations.
“It puts us at the table,” he said
Local vexations with state government were cited by Aaron Funk, an aptly named organizer of the movement: “lack of representation, lack of infrastructure, inability to use a lot of our resources.”
Heavy winter rains often wash out U.S. 101, a major artery in the region. That really rankles him. So do restrictions on timber harvesting. Most of all, Funk loathes the region's paltry representation in California's senate, with its population-based allocation. Just 28,000 people call Del Norte County home, compared to 38 million for the state overall.
Business owners are doubly confounded, he said, and face “mounds of paperwork, red tape.” Funk owns and lives in a recreational vehicle park in the coastal town of Klamath.
Opponents of the measure say it sounds an economic death knell for the area, given its poverty and high unemployment.
“We will continue to face the same challenges,” wrote Del Norte County officials in their formal argument against the measure. “Except we will no longer be subsidized by the State.”
Efforts to chop up California boast a long history. Disgruntled residents first proposed a state of Jefferson, also comprising counties in nearby southern Oregon, in the 1940s.
In 1993, after voters in 27 counties approved, the state Assembly agreed to a nonbinding statewide vote on whether to divide California into three. But the measure never made it into the state Senate, and the referendum was never held.
More recently, venture capitalist Tim Draper suggested splitting California into six separate states, while fellow venture capitalist Balaji Srinivasan proposed that Silicon Valley secede from the country.
Good luck to any of these measures, say scholars of constitutional law, who point out that such separations require approval of the state legislature and the U.S. Congress.
“There is no incentive,” said Ethan Rarick, director of the Robert T. Matsui Center for Politics and Public Service at the University of California, Berkeley. “If you’re one of 100 senators," he reasoned, "you don’t want to become one of 102.”
Supporters of the latest separation initiative say it has a better chance of passing in Tehama County than Del Norte County, where opposition has been well organized.
But advocates like Funk say they must try, at least to publicize their frustrations.
“It puts us at the table,” he said
Sunday, June 1, 2014
Breast Cancer Gene Also Causes Lung Cancer
Mutations in a gene best known for raising the risk of breast cancer can also double the risk of lung cancer in smokers, researchers reported Sunday.
Dave Martin / AP, file
One in four smokers with the mutation in BRCA2 will develop lung cancer, the researchers report in the journal Nature Genetics.
The finding adds another cancer type to the list of cancers that BRCA mutations can cause. They already greatly raise the risk of breast, ovarian and prostate cancers.
Smoking tobacco causes a range of ills, from heart disease to stroke, emphysema and, of course, cancer. But any individual smoker has only about a 15 percent chance of developing lung cancer. The researchers wanted to see if there might be a genetic factor at work.
They were not looking for mutations in BRCA2, even though it is a well-known cancer-associated gene. They did what’s called a genome-wide association study, which looks at all the known genes. There’s a big international study going on and the researchers compared genetic data on more than 11,000 lung cancer patients and 15,000 people who did not have lung cancer.
They found 50 potential mutations of interest, and then honed in on some mutations in the BRCA2 gene. One mutation in particular, found in about 2 percent of people of European descent, really raised the risk.
“For a smoker carrying this variant (2 percent of the population), the risk of developing lung cancer is approximately doubled, which may have implications for identifying high-risk ever-smoking subjects for lung cancer screening,” the researchers wrote.
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It’s “the strongest genetic association in lung cancer reported so far,” they added.
Cancer screening for smokers is controversial, but experts say at the least high-risk smokers should be screened. It is not yet clear whether this finding raises the possibility of adding people with the genetic mutation to that group.
More important, say some experts, is that the discovery suggests that cancer drugs called PARP inhibitors might help lung cancer patients with this mutation. The drugs are increasingly being shown to help patients with other cancers showing BRCA mutations.
Cancer experts have been debating whether to screen for many cancers, but in the case of people with a strong family history, many agree that cancer screening is a good idea.
One company called Myriad Genetics once held patents on the most common tests for BRCA mutations, but the Supreme Court ruled they cannot patent tests based on human DNA in this way and other companies have jumped in, lowering the price and potentially making the tests more widely available.
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