Fox News goes overboard. Stewart Baker says Fox News misrepresented his statements (below).

The FBI is likely to press providers of those services to centralize communications in nodes where interception will be more convenient, and it is likely to call on packet data services to build systems that provide more information about the communications of their subscribers.

The vehicle for this initiative is CALEA, the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, a 1994 enactment that actually requires telecom carriers to redesign their networks to provide better wiretap capabilities.

The act is supposed to exempt information services, but the vagueness of that provision has encouraged the FBI to expand its mandate into packet-data communications. The Bureau is now preparing a general CALEA proposal for all packet-data systems. While I have not seen it, the Bureau’s past interventions into packet-data and other communications architecture have had two characteristics — they have sought more centralization in order to simplify interception and they have asked providers to generate new data messages about their subscribers’ activities — messages that are of value only to law enforcement.

There are real legal and policy questions that should be raised about this effort. In my view, it goes beyond what Congress intended in 1994. And the implications for Internet users and technologies deserve to be debated. But making these points, as I did with Fox News, is not the same as saying that the FBI has a firm plan to centralize the Internet and build back doors into all ISP networks. [thanks to Lynette Millett]

FOIA Request by the Center for National Security Studies for expedited release of extensive information on the ‘individuals “arrested or detained” in the words of Attorney General Ashcroft, in the wake of the September 11 attack…’

Much, if not all, of this information is contained in public records to which there is a constitutional and common law right of access. In addition, please release documents containing this information pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act.

We do not believe that any of the requested information is exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. We do not believe that the requested information – who has been arrested, the names of their lawyers or what charges have been filed — properly could be classified for national security reasons and withheld on that ground. Nevertheless, to the extent that any of this information is marked classified, we request that you delete or redact such information and immediately provide us the remaining information. If you believe the identities of any of the detainees should be withheld on privacy grounds, please immediately provide information concerning whether the individual has requested that his or her name be withheld, and the legal basis for withholding the names of persons detained or arrested. In this connection, we note that there is an overriding public interest in knowing the activities of the government in detaining people in connection with the September 11 attack, as reflected in the statements by the highest government officials and that the identities of some of them have already been made known. [via The Nation, thanks to Jeff]

A Veto Over Presidential Papers — “President Bush signed an executive order last night allowing either the White House or former presidents to veto the release of their presidential papers, drawing criticism from former president Bill Clinton and several historians.” Washington Post

“Pincus presents his research — much of which deals with scientific information about the frontal lobes of the brain — in a nimble, absorbing and highly entertaining way. (His stories will have you checking the lock on your front door several times before you turn out the lights.) Although Pincus does not treat his subjects sympathetically, he also knows that to cast them off as evil, morally debased monsters limits our understanding of the ingredients that somehow get thrown together to create a killer.

“

Interview with neurologist Jonathan Pincus, author of Base Instincts: What Makes Killers Kill.

“Q: According to your book, three things intersect to create a killer: mental illness, neurological damage and child abuse. Are all three always there?

Pincus: Two-thirds of murderers have all three factors, and the others have two of the three. It’s pretty clear that mental illness is not enough to cause violence because most people who are mentally ill are not violent. It’s also evident that neurological damage is not enough to cause violence because the vast majority of people who are neurologically impaired are not violent. And it’s clear that the experience of horrendous child abuse is not enough to cause violence because most people who are abused that way are not violent. Yet, most violent people have these three factors, or two of the three. That’s an indisputable fact.

The theory that explains it is that abuse sets up an impulse toward violence that a good brain can control. If you get the abuse and the neurological damage and mental illness, then violent impulses are not easy to check. That’s why they are expressed under stress or at times of jealousy or anger.” Salon

Britons claim to have found ‘Yeti’. “A group of British explorers claim to have found irrefutable proof of a “Yeti-like” creature on an Indonesian island.

The team has discovered a footprint and hair samples of a primate which has long lived in the mythology of tribes people in Western Sumatra.” Ananova

Sickness in a cold climate: “There is a wealth of research showing that the arrival of cold weather changes the body’s chemistry and physiology sufficiently to bring about a rise in joint pain, heart attacks, stroke, depression and respiratory illnesses, as well as colds and influenza. Winter brings with it a 20 per cent increase in mortality.

So clear is the link that it has now received official acknowledgement in the UK. The Met Office has established a unit to forecast the nation’s health.” Times UK

Carnivore was just child’s play: FBI seeks to wiretap the net. “Stewart Baker, an attorney at the Washington D.C.-based Steptoe & Johnson and a former general consul to National Security Agency, said the FBI has plans to change the architecture of the Internet and route traffic through central servers that it would be able to monitor e-mail more easily.” Fox News

Am I in Pi? Search the digits of pi for a given string. For example, my birthday “41852” appears starting at digit 63283. “041852” occurs starting at digit 1142308. It didn’t find “4181952”; they only have the first 1.2 million digits of pi. If a string exists, it’s a great way to send it as a coded message by stipulating the starting digit and string length. For example, the five digits beginning at location 8269 would tell the waiting terrorists what day to board the planes and activate their suicide hijacking mission (“91101”). Obviously, even easier for shorter strings. With a codebook, three-digit strings could encode a thousand messages; I’m guessing that the first 1.2 million digits of pi include all of the thousand three-digit strings; any number theorists out there reading this who could verify it, so I don’t have to try all thousand searches, or all ten thousand four-digit searches?

Via boing boing, which I just noticed has an enticing new feature. They give a guest blogger some territory in their right-hand sidebar to do a mini-blog for a week at a time. boing (can I presume such familiarity?), which I’ve been reading ever since it was a print magazine, is one of my favorite weblogs but I can only surf to it around 1:10 attempts these days. Anyone else having difficulties? Is it their server or my ISP? [The other place I can’t get to anymore is Yahoo!’s news coverage; the idiotic form email from Yahoo customer support swears there’s nothing wrong at their end. I also can’t reach The Register most times I try.]

“New Continent” Found in Human Brain. This is from the English-language Chinese People’s Daily. I’ve never heard anything about this in following the neuroscience literature, it sounds abit like jingoistic propaganda, and the English is so lame it’s difficult to understand exactly what they claim this is, but I don’t rule it out.

‘A little larger than people’s nail, lying long in slumber and not known to the world in the depth of human brain it is the “new continent” found by Chinese scientist after more than ten years’ studies. Recognized by international authorities the new area in human brain is discovered to have close connection with the function of memory and study.’

A Puzzling Anthrax Death: “The answers

will not be known until medical detectives complete their examinations, but

there are reasons to be optimistic that these cases do not signify any

major change in the small-scale nature of the anthrax attacks that have

terrified the public.” New York Times editorial

Confessions of a Call Girl’s Friend

She wanted children and to be aroused by witty conversation and sweetly hushed affections. She loved reading poetry and watching sappy films; she was deeply emotional. But she couldn’t fit into the world she dreamed of — she was too jaded. She had seen too much of the detached, carnivorous side of men. She knew men who paid for their satisfaction as if it were a piece of steak. She knew men didn’t value what women valued. Men wanted to fuck aggressively and they got off when there was no love at all. She coped with these personal revelations by saying, “You might as well get paid.” After all, she would point out, other women prostituted themselves for love, a stable marriage, some kind of commitment or promise, or for dinner. But what they got was sex, and Toni at least got paid.

I don’t think she knew how jaded she had become, how a decade of prostitution had seeped into her attitude. She was drawn to rich men. Sometimes she tried to date, but invariably would end up treating the guy like a trick. She’d have sex with him immediately, because that’s what he wanted, and then expect him to pay — for dinner, a dress and, once, her dental bill. Once he found out she was a hooker, he’d want her to stop doing tricks, but then she’d have no money and it was up to him to provide. It never lasted very long. Her affection was too expensive. AlterNet