Monday, August 25, 2014

The CIA Confesses To Spying On Congress, Obama Admits Torture Happened

Two dramatic confessions this last month. Story lines are developing ever more rapidly.

First, the CIA has admitted that it spied on members of Congress:

07/31/14   "CIA, On Careful Reflection, Remembers It Hacked Senate Computers After All"

08/06/14   "CIA Admits to Spying on Senate but No Prosecutions to Follow"

   Congress is supposed to oversee the intelligence agencies, but they overlook instead. As the story of CIA torture prisons grew over the years, the specific details of the suffering we imposed made it hard for our representatives to continue their elective blindness. So they set up shop over at CIA headquarters with a computer kindly loaned to them by the CIA that they could use to examine the CIA records. Which, of course, was bugged. And they noticed.
 
US lawmakers say CIA censored torture report to avoid embarrassment.
"Several people who have read the full report, and who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss still-classified material, say it shows that the CIA interrogation program was far more brutal than previously understood, and that CIA officials repeatedly misled Congress and the Justice Department about what was being done to al-Qaida detainees. The report asserts that no unique, life-saving intelligence was gleaned for the harsh techniques."

   Then the President admitted, "We tortured," referring to actions taken before he came into office.

08/02/14  Obama steps up to call Bush-era CIA Torture “Torture,” Despite Legal Implications
 
08/25/14  Obama: 'We Tortured Some Folks'

   He broke with his long-held position of letting the past be the past so that we can all move forward together into the bright new world of the future. America's past now stands in front of us, between us and that bright new world. Casting a shadow.

 The Geneva Convention:  No Exceptional Circumstances Whatsoever... May Be Invoked as a Justification of Torture

The past must be reconciled. If our future is to be firm and sure, torture must not be allowed ever again to occur.

What action Congress will take to make its creations manageable, what action the President will take to make our country's actions honorable before the world - this is up to them and up to us.

Body Cams For Everyone In Ten Years

Wearing a body cam tends to ensures good behavior on the part of others. Why should their use be limited to the police?

Body cams are digital technology. Their cost will probably decline about as fast as the price of other computer technology, which drops in half about every two years.

In 2014, outfitting a policeman with a body cam costs about $1000. ($400 for the cam, $600 for the monitoring system.)

In 2016, two years later, the cost will be halved to $500. Four years later, in 2020, $125. In 2024, the cost to outfit a person will be $31.25.

Every school kid can wear a cam. Bullying will be ended. But so will spontaneity, unless special places can be set aside where people can be as they are and not need to play to all the cameras.

Friday, August 22, 2014

Crowd-Source Police Body Cams For Your Own Police Department?

Crowd-source body cams for your own police?

Suppose a community equips every police officer with a body cam? This will record their every move and also every move of someone they are talking to. Police are tamer, so are citizens. People can trust police when they know that the police know that the whole world is - or soon could be - watching.

A movement that provides free body-cams to police will cut down on crime. How can they resist it?

Suppose it goes global?