Bits Blog: Obama Administration Overturns Ban on Apple Products

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Trayvon Martin by R-Stonze

Justice for Trayvon Martin. I break it all down for everyone so they can hear the truth about what's really going on with the case, and why George Zimmerman won.

This track will be featured on R-Stonze's upcoming mixtape "Interview With The Vampire" set for release late August.

Check out his #Sophomore "Rock S.T.A.R." available on iTunes (Here)

Follow R-Stonze on Twitter @SMGStoney

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Obama Promises Internet Upgrade for U.S. Schools

MOORESVILLE, N.C. — President Obama visited an innovative middle school in central North Carolina on Thursday to demonstrate the Internet-based education programs that he is proposing to make available nationwide.

Speaking to an audience of excited teenagers in a steamy gymnasium, Mr. Obama called on the Federal Communications Commission to expand an existing program to provide discounted high-speed Internet service to schools and libraries, even if it meant increasing the fees that for years had been added to consumers’ phone bills. He said the initiative could lead to better technology at 99 percent of schools in five years.

“There’s no reason why we can’t replicate the success you’ve found here,” Mr. Obama said to the students’ cheers. “And for those of you who follow politics in Washington, here’s the best news — none of this requires an act of Congress.” To further applause, he added, “We can and we will get started right away.”

Mr. Obama was joined by his education secretary, Arne Duncan, whose department would work with the F.C.C. to revamp the initiative, known as the Schools and Libraries program or E-rate, to provide local schools with Internet speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second, among the fastest commercially available. With the federal money that Mr. Obama proposes to redirect for this purpose, schools also could pay for wireless networks throughout their buildings and campuses.

The president singled out Mooresville for its program, which not only upgraded technology but also provided a computer to each student and extra training for teachers. School performance has improved in turn.

Mr. Duncan, speaking to reporters on Air Force One en route to North Carolina, said that he had learned of the innovations in Mooresville, a town near Charlotte, because the local school superintendent was a friend. Mr. Duncan said the school quit purchasing textbooks several years ago to pay for the technology. Mr. Obama, he added, wants to “shine a spotlight on best practices and try to take them to scale.”

To pay for a similar technology expansion throughout the United States, the administration wants to improve the efficiency of the current program, and for telephone customers to pay up to $5 a year extra, or about 40 cents monthly, on their bills.

The Schools and Libraries program is part of the Universal Service Fund, an $8.7 billion program that distributes money for several purposes. Nearly half the money goes to a program that has long subsidized telephone and Internet service to rural or remote areas. About $2.2 billion goes to Schools and Libraries, a similar amount supports phone service to low-income consumers, and $200 million pays for telephone and Internet service to health care professionals in rural areas.

As an independent agency, the F.C.C. does not answer directly to the president, but he nominates the agency’s chairman. Any changes to the program’s structure would have to go through a rule-making procedure and be approved by a majority of the commission’s members. Currently there are three members; two seats are vacant.

The program assesses the fees on phone companies, but they typically pass the cost to consumers. The tax is roughly 15 percent on the long-distance portion of phone bills, resulting in a monthly assessment of a few dollars on the average combined home and mobile phone plan.

Schools and libraries that qualify for E-rate support receive discounts of 20 to 90 percent on services and equipment, depending on the household income levels of students and whether the school is in an urban or rural area.

Administration officials say that while the E-rate program, established in 1996, provides low-cost Internet connections to community institutions, the speed of those services is rarely different from those that home subscribers can receive, about 20 megabits per second.

That is fast enough for the average home consumer to stream video, but if dozens of classrooms are trying to view video or listen to digital audio files at the same time, a school’s network will operate much more slowly.

Officials say they also expect private companies to expand their offerings of devices and products like electronic textbooks in response to the expanded program.

Jackie Calmes reported from Mooresville, N.C., and Edward Wyatt from Washington.

Obama May Back F.B.I. Plan to Wiretap Web Users

The F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, has argued that the bureau’s ability to carry out court-approved eavesdropping on suspects is “going dark” as communications technology evolves, and since 2010 has pushed for a legal mandate requiring companies like Facebook and Google to build into their instant-messaging and other such systems a capacity to comply with wiretap orders. That proposal, however, bogged down amid concerns by other agencies, like the Commerce Department, about quashing Silicon Valley innovation.

While the F.B.I.’s original proposal would have required Internet communications services to each build in a wiretapping capacity, the revised one, which must now be reviewed by the White House, focuses on fining companies that do not comply with wiretap orders. The difference, officials say, means that start-ups with a small number of users would have fewer worries about wiretapping issues unless the companies became popular enough to come to the Justice Department’s attention.

Still, the plan is likely to set off a debate over the future of the Internet if the White House submits it to Congress, according to lawyers for technology companies and advocates of Internet privacy and freedom.

“I think the F.B.I.’s proposal would render Internet communications less secure and more vulnerable to hackers and identity thieves,” said Gregory T. Nojeim of the Center for Democracy and Technology. “It would also mean that innovators who want to avoid new and expensive mandates will take their innovations abroad and develop them there, where there aren’t the same mandates.”

Andrew Weissmann, the general counsel of the F.B.I., said in a statement that the proposal was aimed only at preserving law enforcement officials’ longstanding ability to investigate suspected criminals, spies and terrorists subject to a court’s permission.

“This doesn’t create any new legal surveillance authority,” he said. “This always requires a court order. None of the ‘going dark’ solutions would do anything except update the law given means of modern communications.”

A central element of the F.B.I.’s 2010 proposal was to expand the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act — a 1994 law that already requires phone and network carriers to build interception capabilities into their systems — so that it would also cover Internet-based services that allow people to converse. But the bureau has now largely moved away from that one-size-fits-all mandate.

Instead, the new proposal focuses on strengthening wiretap orders issued by judges. Currently, such orders instruct recipients to provide technical assistance to law enforcement agencies, leaving wiggle room for companies to say they tried but could not make the technology work. Under the new proposal, providers could be ordered to comply, and judges could impose fines if they did not. The shift in thinking toward the judicial fines was first reported by The Washington Post, and additional details were described to The New York Times by several officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Under the proposal, officials said, for a company to be eligible for the strictest deadlines and fines — starting at $25,000 a day — it must first have been put on notice that it needed surveillance capabilities, triggering a 30-day period to consult with the government on any technical problems.

Such notice could be the receipt of its first wiretap order or a warning from the attorney general that it might receive a surveillance request in the future, officials said, arguing that most small start-ups would never receive either.

Michael Sussmann, a former Justice Department lawyer who advises communications providers, said that aspect of the plan appeared to be modeled on a British law, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act of 2000.

Foreign-based communications services that do business in the United States would be subject to the same procedures, and would be required to have a point of contact on domestic soil who could be served with a wiretap order, officials said.

Albert Gidari Jr., who represents technology companies on law enforcement matters, criticized that proposed procedure. He argued that if the United States started imposing fines on foreign Internet firms, it would encourage other countries, some of which may be looking for political dissidents, to penalize American companies if they refused to turn over users’ information.

“We’ll look a lot more like China than America after this,” Mr. Gidari said.

The expanded fines would also apply to phone and network carriers, like Verizon and AT&T, which are separately subject to the 1994 wiretapping capacity law. The FBI has argued that such companies sometimes roll out system upgrades without making sure that their wiretap capabilities will keep working.

The 1994 law would be expanded to cover peer-to-peer voice-over-Internet protocol, or VoIP — calls between computers that do not connect to the regular phone network. Such services typically do not route data packets through any central hub, making them difficult to intercept.

The F.B.I. has abandoned a component of its original proposal that would have required companies that facilitate the encryption of users’ messages to always have a key to unscramble them if presented with a court order. Critics had charged that such a law would create back doors for hackers. The current proposal would allow services that fully encrypt messages between users to keep operating, officials said.

In November 2010, Mr. Mueller toured Silicon Valley and briefed executives on the proposal as it then existed, urging them not to lobby against it, but the firms have adopted a cautious stance. In February 2011, the F.B.I.’s top lawyer at the time testified about the “going dark” problem at a House hearing, emphasizing that there was no administration proposal yet. Still, several top lawmakers at the hearing expressed skepticism, raising fears about innovation and security.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: May 8, 2013

An earlier version of this article misspelled the surname of a former Justice Department lawyer who advises communications providers and commented on one aspect of the F.B.I.’s plan to overhaul surveillance laws. He is Michael Sussmann, not Sussman.

Obama Fund-Raiser Is Likely Pick to Lead F.C.C.

Mr. Wheeler, who more than a decade ago led two telecommunications industry trade groups, has prompted concern in recent weeks by some consumer advocacy groups that anticipated his nomination and said they were troubled by his background investing in and lobbying for cable and wireless companies.

Many of them contended that the departing chairman, Julius Genachowski, refused to stand up to powerful telecommunications companies during his four-year tenure.

But on Tuesday, Mr. Wheeler received cautious approval from Public Knowledge, one of Mr. Genachowski’s harshest critics. Officials at Public Knowledge pointed out that when Mr. Wheeler lobbied for cable companies and the cellphone industry, they were upstarts or far less concentrated than they are today.

Gigi B. Sohn, president and chief executive of Public Knowledge, said Mr. Wheeler would be unlikely to elicit concern about the so-called revolving door between Washington and the private sector. Mr. Wheeler, she noted, is 67 and wealthy, meaning that he is unlikely to want a job in the telecommunications industry after a term as a regulator. “This is the capstone of his career,” she said. “Why take over an agency at that point in your life and guide it into irrelevancy?”

A White House official said that Mignon L. Clyburn, an F.C.C. commissioner since August 2009, would be appointed as acting chairwoman until Mr. Wheeler is confirmed and sworn in. Before joining the F.C.C., she served for 11 years on the South Carolina Public Service Commission, two of them as its chairwoman.

Mr. Wheeler is a managing director at Core Capital Partners, a Washington investment firm with $350 million under management. He has helped to oversee the firm’s investments in an array of start-ups and small- to mid-size technology companies, including GoMobo, Twisted Pair Solutions and Jacked. He also is a member of the board of EarthLink, an Internet service provider that competes aggressively with Verizon and AT&T.

In columns on his Web site, www.mobilemusings.net, Mr. Wheeler has expressed strong opinions about some of the issues that he would address at the F.C.C.

He has supported the voluntary incentive auctions that the F.C.C. has been planning. The agency is seeking to reclaim airwaves from television broadcasters and sell them to wireless phone companies for use in mobile broadband services.

In 2011, Mr. Wheeler criticized the broadcast industry for not moving more aggressively to use its airwaves for mobile digital television, or the broadcast of television signals to smartphones. At the same time, he said, broadcasters have been reluctant to let go of the part of the nation’s airwaves, or spectrum, that they do not fully use. The F.C.C., backed by Congress, is preparing to auction off many of those unused airwaves, potentially for billions of dollars.

“I’ve been mystified why broadcasters have declared jihad against the voluntary spectrum auction,” Mr. Wheeler wrote.

“Getting big dollars for an asset for which you paid nothing while still being able to run your traditional business over cable,” he added, “seems a pretty good business proposition — unless you really are serious about providing new and innovative services and need all that spectrum.”

The broadcasters association said that it had begun digital broadcasting to smartphones, with programming from more than 140 local television stations now available in 51 large cities. While Mr. Wheeler has gained some support, he will have to overcome critics.

Telecommunications industry watchers who have expressed misgivings about Mr. Wheeler’s work as a lobbyist point out that he oversaw the National Cable Television Association from 1979 to 1984. That could mean that he would look kindly on companies like Comcast, one of the largest cable and broadband service providers.

Free Press, a group that often opposes telecommunications industry proposals, said the F.C.C. needs as its chairman “someone who will use this powerful position to stand up to industry giants and protect the public interest.”

“On paper, Tom Wheeler does not appear to be that person, having headed not one but two major trade associations,” the group said. “But he now has the opportunity to prove his critics wrong.”

But others said Mr. Wheeler had promoted competition. He backed passage of the Cable Communications Act of 1984, which deregulated rates and let the industry compete more effectively with broadcasters.

From 1992 to 2004, Mr. Wheeler was chief executive of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association, the wireless industry group now known as CTIA — The Wireless Association. Mr. Wheeler’s wife, Carol, formerly worked in government affairs for the National Association of Broadcasters.

He co-founded SmartBrief, an online news service, and he served on the F.C.C.’s Technology Advisory Council and the president’s Intelligence Advisory Board. He recently was chairman of the State Department’s communications policy committee.

In March, Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, a West Virginia Democrat, sent a letter signed by 37 senators to Mr. Obama recommending Jessica Rosenworcel, the other Democrat on the five-member commission and a former aide to Mr. Rockefeller, for the top job.

A group of Washington technology policy advisers later wrote to Mr. Obama saying that Mr. Wheeler should be the nominee. “He has consistently fought on the side of increasing competition,” the group wrote.

The Wall Street Journal Web site was the first to report that the president was expected to nominate Mr. Wheeler. Any nomination would be subject to Senate confirmation.

“I Have 99 Problems and Now Jay-Z Is One,” President Obama at White House Correspondent’s Dinner

The annual White House Correspondent’s Dinner is typically a light-hearted affair, and this year’s installment was no exception. The Dinner tends to serve as an opportunity for the President to show off his sense of humor and pop culture savvy, and with a President as charismatic as Barack Obama, these events tend to be ripe with entertaining moments.

While Obama obviously poked fun at himself and at those right wing media outlets who consistently have derided him throughout his two terms in office, he made sure to offer up enough hip-hop references to have the community talking for quite some time. Prior to the President stepping to the podium, the crowd in attendance was treated to DJ Khaled’s “All I Do Is Win.” Obama clearly enjoyed the moment, even synchronizing his hand gestures to match the chorus.

“How do you like my new entrance music?” Obama jokingly asked the audience, waiting for those assembled to sit back down before going right into the rest of the speech.

Later on, Obama had the chance to take a slick jab at Jay-Z, who caused a media frenzy with his visit to Cuba and subsequent “Open Letter.” Talking about issues that he has to deal with that are out of his control, Obama said, “It’s unbelievable… I have 99 problems and now Jay-Z is one of them.” Interestingly enough, the President does not appear to be as concerned about Beyonce, who also went on the trip with her husband and created her own controversy at the recent inauguration by apparently lip-synching the National Anthem.

With the President entrenched in office for three more years at least, will the President continue to embrace hip-hop as openly as he did tonight, albeit in a joking manner? Is there any way Hov can offer up an appropriate response to Obama’s comments? More importantly, has the President discovered that Khaled’s ad-libs provide the self-confidence boost one needs to win a grueling election?

Obama to Unveil Initiative to Map the Human Brain

A senior administration scientist compared the new initiative to the Human Genome Project, in that it is directed at a problem that has seemed insoluble up to now: the recording and mapping of brain circuits in action in an effort to “show how millions of brain cells interact.”

It is different, however, in that it has, as yet, no clearly defined goals or endpoint. Coming up with those goals will be up to the scientists involved and may take more than year.

The effort will require the development of new tools not yet available to neuroscientists and, eventually, perhaps lead to progress in treating diseases like Alzheimer’s and epilepsy and traumatic brain injury. It will involve both government agencies and private institutions.

The initiative, which scientists involved in promoting the idea have been calling the Brain Activity Map project, will officially be known as Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies, or Brain for short; it has been designated a grand challenge of the 21st century by the Obama administration.

Three government agencies will be involved: the National Institutes of Health, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the National Science Foundation. A working group at the N.I.H., described by the officials as a “dream team,” and led by Cori Bargmann of Rockefeller University and William Newsome of Stanford University, will be charged with coming up with a plan, a time frame, specific goals and cost estimates for future budgets.

The initiative exists as part of a vast landscape of neuroscience research supported by billions of dollars in federal money. But Dr. Newsome said that he thought a small amount of money applied in the right way could nudge neuroscience in a new direction.

“The goal here is a whole new playing field, whole new ways of thinking,” he said. “We are really out to catalyze a paradigm shift.”

Brain researchers can now insert wires in the brain of animals, or sometimes human beings, to record the electrical activity of brain cells called neurons, as they communicate with each other. But, Dr. Newsome said, they can record at most hundreds at a time.

New technology would need to be developed to record thousands or hundreds of thousands of neurons at once. And, Dr. Newsome said, new theoretical approaches, new mathematics and new computer science are all needed to deal with the amount of data that will be garnered.

As part of the initiative, the president will require a study of the ethical implications of these sorts of advances in neuroscience.

While news of the announcement has been greeted with enthusiasm by many researchers in fields as diverse as neuroscience, nanotechnology and computer science, there are skeptics.

“The underlying assumptions about ‘mapping the entire brain’ are very controversial,” said Donald Stein, a neuroscientist at Emory University in Atlanta. He said changes in brain chemistry were “not likely to be able to be imaged by the current technologies that these people are proposing.”

Emphasizing the development of technologies first, he said, is not a good approach. “I think the monies could be better spent by first figuring out what needs to be measured and then figuring out the most appropriate means to measure them.” he said. “In my mind, the technology ought to follow the concepts rather than the other way around.”

However, supporters of the initiative argued that it could have a similar impact as the Sputnik satellite had in the 1950s, when the United States started a significant nationwide effort to invest in science and technology.

“This is a different time,” said Michael Roukes, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology. “It makes sense to have a brain activity map now because the maturation of an array of nanotechnologies can be brought to bear on the problem.”

While the dollar amount committed by the Obama administration does not match the level of spending on the Human Genome Project, scientists said that whatever was spent on the brain initiative would have a significant multiplier effect. The Salk Institute in La Jolla, Calif., is contributing money, said Terrence J. Sejnowski, head of the institute’s computational biology laboratory, adding that the project would have an impact at the neighboring University of California, San Diego, campus.

“One concrete example is that the chancellor has gotten excited about this and has decided that it is a great thing to invest in,” Dr. Sejnowski said. “That means hiring new faculty and creating new space.”

The project grew out of an interdisciplinary meeting of neuroscientists and nanoscientists in London in September 2011. Miyoung Chun, a molecular biologist who is vice president of scientific programs at the Kavli Foundation, had organized the conference. Her foundation, she said, supports the idea that the next big scientific discoveries will come from interdisciplinary research.

“Federal funding is scarce these days, and I realized we need inspiring projects that can awake everyone’s imagination,” she said. “It occurred to me that this is a very inspiring idea.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: April 4, 2013

An article on Tuesday about a research initiative to invent and refine technologies to understand the human brain misstated the relationship between the Salk Institute and the University of California, San Diego. The Salk Institute, which is giving money to the research initiative, is an independent institute; it is not based at, or part of, the university.

Bits Blog: Cyberattacks a Topic in Obama Call With New Chinese President

Feng Li/Getty Images Xi Jinping, the newly elected president of China.

Cyberthreats featured prominently in President Obama’s congratulatory call to the new Chinese president, Xi Jinping, on Thursday.

The president used the occasion to discuss the loss of United States intellectual property from cyberattacks. The mere mention of cyberthreats is a step forward for an administration that has been reluctant to confront Beijing on Chinese military attacks even as billions of dollars’ worth of trade secrets have been stolen.

But a spate of recent headlines about Chinese cyberattacks on The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and others have thrust the issue on the diplomatic stage.  A report by Mandiant, a computer security firm, tying hundreds of attacks back to one Chinese military unit, made the issue even harder to ignore.

Mr. Obama has been increasingly vocal about cyberthreats, but has not gone as far as to call out China by name. In his State of the Union address, he was careful to omit China when he said “we know foreign countries and companies swipe our corporate secrets.” And when the Obama administration sent the nation’s Internet providers a confidential list of Internet addresses tied to a hacking group that had stolen terabytes of data from American corporations, it failed to mention that every single address could be traced to the Chinese military cybercommand.

But privately, administration officials have said they plan to tell China’s new leaders that the volume and sophistication of Chinese cyberattacks have become so intense that they threaten the relationship between Washington and Beijing.

“In any discussion with China, the U.S. needs to have three agenda items: One, cybersecurity; two, cybersecurity; and three, cybersecurity,” Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said in an interview.

China has long denied that it is responsible for cyberattacks on American companies and has said that it too is a victim of such attacks. And in discussions with American officials, Chinese representatives often refuse to discuss economic espionage.

“They say that the topic of economic espionage is ‘embarrassing’ for them,” said James A. Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who has participated in such discussions. “They say, in the U.S. cyberwarriors are treated as heroes but those who participate in economic espionage are treated like criminals. In China, the line is not so clear.”

Bits Blog: Obama Discusses Computer Security With Corporate Chiefs

WASHINGTON – President Obama met with an invited group of 13 chief executives at the White House on Wednesday to discuss growing concerns about cybersecurity and enlist them to get behind his proposed legislation to combat the threat of computer warfare and corporate espionage.

Among those present were Rex W. Tillerson of Exxon Mobil, Randall L. Stephenson of AT&T, Wesley G. Bush of Northrop Grumman, Brian T. Moynihan of Bank of America, and Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, which had been attacked by foreign hackers as recently as Tuesday.

White House officials said the meeting in the White House Situation Room was intended as a “two way” information exchange. Aides said Mr. Obama wanted to hear directly from industry leaders about how vulnerable their companies were to computer attacks. The president also wanted to discuss efforts the government was taking to address threats.

“He has seen as various corporations and business leaders have gone public with their concerns about cybersecurity and the effects of breaches of cybersecurity on their operations,” said Jay Carney, the White House press secretary.

In recent weeks, Apple, Twitter, Facebook, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times have all stepped forward to say that their computer systems had been attacked. And since September, online banking sites of several American banks have been intermittently pulled offline by attacks that officials say originated in Iran.

But the president is also looking to drum up public support as he makes a renewed push for legislation that would give the administration new technological tools and broader authority in the battle against computer attacks by foreign governments. The president’s previous bill was killed by a Republican filibuster last year after intensive lobbying by the United States Chamber of Commerce and other business groups, which argued that the legislation would prove onerous.

“He also wants to convey to them how seriously he takes this issue and what he believes the right steps are moving forward,” Mr. Carney said. “And he certainly hopes that out of this meeting and the many others he has on this topic, that we will build the kind of consensus necessary to compel Congress to take appropriate action.”

The meeting Wednesday, which also included chief executives from American Electric Power, Xerox, Marathon Oil, Honeywell, United Parcel Service, ITT Exelis, Siemens and Frontier Communications, was just the latest step in the administration’s campaign to persuade Congress to pass a computer security bill.

In recent months, several senior administration officials — including Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security; Robert S. Mueller III, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; and Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — have provided closed-door briefings to members of Congress about the threat.

As a stopgap measure, the president signed an executive order last month that promotes increased the sharing of information between the government and private companies.

The president has also been making his case directly to the public in speeches and media appearances in recent months. In his State of the Union speech, Mr. Obama spent more time on the topic of computer attacks than he did on North Korea and Iran combined.

In an interview on ABC News broadcast on Wednesday, Mr. Obama was careful to avoid saying that the United States is engaged in a computer war with China. He said officials need to “be careful with war analogies” in discussions about the topics.

But the president said that billions of dollars are lost when industrial secrets were stolen online. And he said that some of the attacks on the nation’s private and public computer networks were sponsored by foreign governments.

“Our companies are put into competitive disadvantage. You know, there are disruptions to our systems that, you know, involve everything from our financial systems to some of our infrastructure,” Mr. Obama said. “And this is why I’ve taken some very aggressive executive actions. But we need Congress to act.”

He said that the government was limited in what it could do to confront China and other sponsors of computer attacks. And he said the government needed the authority to require that critical infrastructure in the country is hardened against such attacks.

“There are ways that we can harden our critical infrastructure, our financial sector,” Mr. Obama said. “And the only thing that’s holding us back from doing that right now is we haven’t gotten the legislative authority out of Congress. They need to get this done.”

Geraldo and Fox News Screaming Match Over Attempts To Blame Obama Admin. For Benghazi Deaths

On Friday’s Fox & Friends, Geraldo Rivera andEric Bolling engaged in what nearly became a screaming match as they hashed out the continuing scandal regarding the White House’s response to September’s attack on an American consulate in Libya. Rivera became agitated with Bolling who he said was disseminating false information in order to make a political point against President Barack Obama. 

RELATED: Geraldo And Eric Bolling Battle Over Violent Threat Posed By The Muslim Brotherhood

Rivera detailed precisely why he thought that the United States government did all that they could at the time of the attack, and that investigation into this incident is flawed given its proximity to the upcoming election.

He said that the fighting in the compound in Benghazi was over by the time Washington became aware of the crisis.

“So, Washington, the State Department, the CIA sends no help,” Bolling said.

“That is an obscene lie,” Rivera shot back. “You are a politician looking to make a political point.”

Bolling and Rivera engaged in crosstalk as Rivera attempted to claim that there were no assets available to rescue the trapped American diplomats in a safe house near the compound. Bolling claimed that regional rescue teams were available to help the besieged diplomats and Marines.

“You are misleading the American people because you want to make a political point,” Rivera said. “We have never in the history of this republic mounted a raid on the circumstance described here ever.”

Rivera said that the outspoken father of the slain American soldier who died in Benghazi, Charles Woods, is being misled in an attempt to smear President Obama.

Watch the clip below via Fox News Channel:

Bits Blog: Romney and Obama Campaigns Leaking Web Site Visitor Data

Some pages titles on Mitt Romney’s campaign site included a user’s name, giving third parties the opportunity to collect identifying data.

The presidential campaign sites BarackObama.com and MittRomney.com have recently ratcheted up their use of third-party Web trackers. These are companies, like ad networks and data brokers working on behalf of the campaigns, that collect information about users’ online activities to show political ads to people tailored to their own interests and beliefs.

Spokesmen for each campaign have separately said that their own campaign had put safeguards in place to protect that user data, as Charles Duhigg and I reported in an article published in The New York Times on Oct. 28.

But now a new study by Jonathan Mayer, a graduate student in computer science and law at Stanford University, reports that both sites are leaking information about site visitors to a number of third-party trackers operating on their pages.

Several pages on the Obama site included a user’s personal information in the page title at the top of the page or in the URL address, Mr. Mayer said, thereby giving third parties operating on the site the opportunity to collect identifying data. The information flowing to third parties, he said, variously included the username; the proper name under which a person registered; and their street address and ZIP code.

On the Romney site, Mr. Mayer said, he found that a number of pages included the user’s name in the page title. Many pages also included a unique numerical ID number in the URL, which flowed to third parties, he said.

“Are the campaigns identifying their supporters to third-party trackers? Are they directly undermining the anonymity properties that they are so quick to invoke?” Mr. Mayer wrote in a blog post published on Thursday morning. “Yes, they are.”

Several pages on President Obama’s campaign site include personal information, like a user’s home address, in the URL.

In an e-mail, Adam Fetcher, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, wrote that, regardless of the kinds of data that flows from the site to its third-party partners, the campaign does not allow those trackers to use the voter data collected on the site for any other clients or purposes.

“We do not provide any personal information to outside entities for their commercial use or for reasons other than what’s related to the work they do with us,” Mr. Fetcher wrote, “and we stipulate that third party partners not use data collected on the site for other purposes.”

A spokesman for the Romney campaign did not return an e-mail request seeking comment.

Mr. Mayer tested the Obama and Romney sites by registering as a user and examining the page codes and layouts that resulted as he visited the sites.

In registering for the Obama site with his e-mail address, for example, Mr. Mayer found that the site by default assigned him a username that was the first part of his e-mail address. On certain pages on the site, he reported, that username appeared in the URL, thereby sharing part of his e-mail address with ten tracking companies operating on the page. Because many consumers tend to use the same e-mail address or username on many sites, leaking such data could allow third parties to link other public accounts on the Web to individual users, Mr. Mayer said.

Meanwhile, after Mr. Mayer found that the Romney site leaked his member ID number in the URL, he logged out and then immediately tried to access his own information on the site using that ID number — a tactic a third party who collected that data could hypothetically use. When he used that ID number on the site without being logged in, the site showed a message that said “Access Denied.” At the same time, he said, the very same “access denied” page leaked more information on that page: the name under which he had registered.

I registered on both campaign sites on Wednesday night and had a similar experience.

The Obama site automatically assigned me a user name —nsinger — taken from my e-mail address that was visible in the URL on various pages. Using a tracker identification program called Ghostery, I found four different trackers that could collect that information.

On the Romney site, certain pages leaked the ID number I had been assigned in the URL. Other pages, I noted, leaked my ZIP code or state in the URL.

Advertising industry executives have long argued that third-party tracking is beneficial to online consumers because it helps brands show relevant digital ads. They also argue the data collection about online consumers is “anonymous” because the third parties do not collect identifying information like people’s names and home addresses.

But Mr. Mayer said his study, and previous research by other computer experts, indicated that many sites leak users’ personal information to third parties — challenging the claims about “anonymous” data.

“I think that for both campaigns this leakage is likely totally inadvertent,” Mr. Mayer said in a phone interview. “But claiming this tracking data is anonymous just ignores the reality.”

He also took a reporter to task for failing to sufficiently investigate the campaigns’ claims about their data protection practices.

“The Gray Lady also deserves a light rap on the knuckles for insufficiently scrutinizing the campaigns’ anonymity assertions,” Mr. Mayer wrote.

Point taken.

Donald Trump — My Obama Announcement Could Change the Election | TMZ.com

You are Here: Hip Hop News Daily » HIP HOP NEWS » Donald Trump Calls Touré “Racist,” Wants Him Fired From MSNBC

Donald Trump has made it clear … the information he has concerning the President of the United States is HUUUUGE … and he tells TMZ he’s going to reveal the info on Wednesday. 

Trump just called in to “TMZ Live” and told us the information is nothing short of “a big fact.”

When asked if his secret will make Obama happy – Trump replied, “I don’t wanna comment … that’s up to him.”

Earlier this morning, Trump described his information to "Fox & Friends" … saying it’s “something very, very big concerning the president of the United States … It’s going to be very big. I know one thing — you will cover it in a very big fashion.”

Read more: http://www.tmz.com/2012/10/22/donald-trump-obama-tmz-live-information/#ixzz2A8sMAxcx

President Obama Reveals What Advice He Gave Jay-Z

Friday, Oct 19, 2012 3:45PM

Written by Cyrus Langhorne

United States President Barack Obama recently revealed some fatherly tips he gave Jay-Z in light of raising his first-born daughter, Blue Ivy Carter.

According to President Obama, he told Young Hov to help Beyoncé and mother-in-law Tina Knowles with the baby duties.

"I've gotten to know these guys over the first several years. They're good people," President Obama said in an interview. "Beyoncé, [she] could not be sweeter to Michelle and the girls. So they're good friends. We talk about the same things I talk about with all my friends. ... I made sure that Jay-Z was helping Beyoncé out [with the baby], and not leaving it all with Beyoncé; and the mother-in-law." (Z107.9)

Last month, Bey talked about raising her first child with the help of Jigga.

"It just gives you purpose and all of the things my self-esteem was associated with, it's all completely different. I've realized why I was born and more than anything, all of the things I want to pass on to my child and the best way of doing that is not by preaching or telling her, but showing her by example, which is one of the reasons I'm here. I sing nursery rhymes and I'm mommy. Today was the first time she saw me perform in rehearsal. She was very confused. [What nursery songs do I sing?] I make up a lot of crazy, corny songs. I'm not singing it, unless you do 'Single Ladies.' [laughs] [Changing diapers, my husband,] he's very good. I love changing diapers. I love it. I love every moment of it. It's so beautiful. I really do. I love changing diapers. I love it all." (Anderson Live)

Recently, Jay addressed the perception of Blue Ivy only experiencing wealth and not coming up through the same environmental struggles he endured as a child.

At the last minute, I remembered to ask after his family, "Oh, my family's amazing." And the baby? "She's four months." Marcy raised me, and whether right or wrong/Streets gave me all I write in the song. But what will TriBeCa give Blue? "I actually thought about that more before she was born. Once she got here I've been in shock until maybe last week?" Her childhood won't be like his, and this fact he takes in his stride. "We would fight each other. My brother would beat me up," he says, but it was all in preparation for the outside. "I was going to have to fight, I was going to have to go through some things, and they were preparing me." He smiles: "She doesn't have to be tough. She has to love herself, she has to know who she is, she has to be respectful, and be a moral person." It's a new day. (New York Times)

A few weeks ago, President Obama attended a funraiser by Jay and Bey.

"Jay-Z now knows, you know, what my life is like. We both have daughters. And our wives are more popular than we are ... So we've got a little bond there. It's hard, but it's okay. Beyoncé could not be a better role model for our daughters because she carries herself with such class and poise. And has so much talent ... We're on the brink of an election, but more importantly, we're on the brink of moving America in a direction where we're going to be more just, more fair. The economy's going to grow in a way that includes everybody, an America that's respected around the world because we're putting forward our best values and out best ideals." (New York Times)

Presidential Debate Instant Polls Show Narrow Win For Obama

WASHINGTON — After a poor performance in the first presidential debate two weeks ago, President Barack Obama came back strong in the second one, winning perceived victories over Mitt Romney in two instant-reaction polls — one of debate-watching registered voters, the other of debate-watchers who went into the debate uncommitted to either candidate.

A CNN survey of registered voters who watched the debate found that 46 percent said Obama won the debate and 39 percent said Romney did. The survey’s margin of error was four percentage points.

After a weak performance in the first debate, Obama outperformed expectations in the second: Seventy-three percent of respondents said Obama did better than they expected, 10 percent said he did worse, and 16 percent said he did about the same as expected. Romney, who had a much stronger performance than Obama did in the first debate, performed closer to expectations: 37 percent said he did better than expected, 28 percent said worse, and 33 percent said he performed the same.

Romney performed better on convincing respondents that he has a clear plan for solving the country’s problems: 49 percent said Romney did and 50 percent said he did not. Only 38 percent said Obama did, and 61 percent said he did not.

Respondents favored Romney on a variety of issues, including the economy (58 percent to 40 percent over Obama), taxes (51 percent to 44 percent) and the budget deficit (59 percent to 36 percent). Romney held a narrower advantage on health care, 49 percent to 46 percent. On foreign policy, 49 percent said Obama would handle it better and 47 percent said Romney would.

Obama and Romney split the advantage on more intangible measures. Romney took a slight (49 percent to 46 percent) advantage on being a stronger leader, while Obama scored points for being more likable (47 percent to 41 percent) and caring more about the audience (44 percent to 40 percent). Forty-five percent of respondents said Romney answered questions more directly and 43 percent said Obama did, while 49 percent said Obama spent more time attacking his opponent and 35 percent said Romney did.

The debate was unlikely to change many minds among CNN’s respondents: 25 percent said they were more likely to vote for Obama after the debate and 25 percent said the same about Romney. But 48 percent said they weren’t more likely to vote for either one. Debate watchers generally are more likely to be paying close attention to the campaign and more likely to already be committed to a candidate than the general population.

According to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, the sample was composed of about 33 percent Democrats and 33 percent Republicans, or about 8 percentage points more Republican than the average of all CNN polls in 2012 among all adults (not registered voters specifically). CNN surveyed 457 registered voters who had participated in a poll earlier this week, said they watched the debate, and had agreed to be re-interviewed for the post-debate poll. The margin of error of the poll is 4.5 percentage points.

A CBS News poll conducted using an online panel of uncommitted voters found a 37 percent plurality said Obama won the debate, while 30 percent said Romney did and 33 percent said it was a tie.

Romney came into the debate with a big advantage on the handling the economy among the CBS respondents, and Obama was able to close that gap slightly. Before the debate, 71 percent of respondents said Romney had the edge on handling the economy and 27 percent said Obama did. After the debate, that narrowed somewhat to a 65 percent to 34 percent advantage for Romney.

Obama held the advantage on better handling the middle class, 56 percent to 43 percent. Fifty-five percent of poll respondents said Obama gave direct answers to questions, while 49 percent said the same about Romney.

The CBS News post-debate polls are conducted using the GfK KnowledgePanel, a representative Internet panel. CBS surveyed 525 uncommitted voters who watched the debate, for a four percentage point margin of error. The CBS defines uncommitted voters as those who are totally undecided before the debate or who were leaning to a candidate, but said they may still change their minds. The survey sample was composed of 56 percent who described themselves as independents, 23 percent Democrats and 21 percent Republicans.

Microsoft Xbox, working in partnership with the the polling company YouGov, conducted a live poll among more than 30,000 respondents who tuned in to watch the debate and answered survey questions via Xbox Live’s election channel.

The Xbox sample was neither randomly selected nor scientifically projective of any larger population, and the adult participants skewed heavily younger and male.

However, the sheer size of the participant pool allowed the Xbox/YouGov pollsters to isolate 988 respondents who said they were completely undecided before the debate, and they judged Obama the winner by a 51 percent to 17 percent margin. After the debate, most remained undecided, but 28 percent said they now will vote or lean to Obama, while just 10 percent said they will vote for Romney.

Surveys from CBS and CNN, plus a Democracy Corps/Women’s Voices Women Vote focus group, found that the first debate was a resounding victory for Romney among uncommitted voters as well as debate-watchers more generally. Since that debate, national polling has trended broadly toward Romney, and the current HuffPost Pollster estimate shows the two candidates essentially tied, with Romney at 47.1 percent and Obama at 46.9 percent.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

President Obama Speaks On Nicki Minaj And Mariah Carey

President Barack Obama has a message for Nicki Minaj and Mariah Carey — GIVE PEACE A CHANCE!!!!!

The war at the “American Idol” judges’ table was escalated all the way to the Commander In Chief this weekend when POTUS appeared on Michael Yo’s radio show.

“I think that they are going to be able to sort it out,” Obama said … “I am confident.”

Obama continued, “I’m all about bringing people together, working for the same cause. I think both outstanding artists are going to be able to make sure that they’re moving forward and not going backwards.”

And when asked who’s his favorite, Obama actually picked a side — replying, “Mariah. She’s actually done some events for us. I’ve gotten to know her and Nick [Cannon]. She’s a wonderful lady.”

He added … “Nicki, I don’t know, but I’ve got her on my iPod.”

Jay Z New Commercial For President Obama

With the presidential election just a few weeks away, rap mogul Jay-Z continues to show support for President Barack Obama by appearing in a new campaign advertisement.

In the ad, titled “Power of Our Vote,” Jay stresses the values President Obama has instilled into Americans

Big Bird Blasts Obama — TAKE ME OUT OF YOUR ATTACK AD

 

This article is brought to you by the letter P … as in Sesame Street is PISSED that Barack Obama used Big Bird in an anti-Romney attack ad without permission! 

In case you haven’t seen it … Team Obama released the ad following the debate, in which they mock Mitt Romney‘s vow to cut off government funding to PBS. The ad portrays Big Bird as an enemy of America who towered over criminals like Bernie Madoff and Ken Lay. 

But Big Bird isn’t laughing … and neither is Ernie, Bert, Oscar or Elmo (and that dude laughs at EVERYTHING) … claiming Team Obama never asked for permission before using the Sesame Street character. 

In fact, Sesame Workshop released a statement saying, “We have approved no campaign ads, and as is our general practice, have requested that the ad be taken down.“

SW also explains, “Sesame Workshop is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization and we do not endorse candidates or participate in political campaigns.“

Obama’s camp says they have heard Sesame Street’s complaints and will be reviewing SS’s concerns.

Barack Obama Support Gone Wrong

Leaked Footage - Colorado County Clerk Registering Only Romney Voters

Leaked Footage ! This woman seen in this video works for the Colorado County Clerk's office. She gets caught registering votes for Mitt Romney only, all the Obama votes were thrown out. Damn, people want Obama out of office so bad that they are willing to cheat to get Romney in, just like they did for Bush, smh at America.

This is how the 2012 election will turn out this year. People are willing to cheat to get Romney into office just so he can continue to fuck up America even more.

Reporter’s Notebook: At Times, Obama And His Cyberself Differ on Tactics

Speaking to 1,400 supporters at a high school here, President Obama voiced his familiar lament that “there is so much negativity and so much cynicism” in politics that he could understand if voters tuned out the election. Minutes earlier on Twitter, he had written, “Why Mitt Romney’s end date at his buyout firm matters,” linking to a blog post about the tempest over his Republican challenger’s departure from Bain Capital.

Mr. Obama’s Twitter account is maintained by his campaign staff, which makes clear that only posts signed with the initials B.O. are actually written by him. That’s fairly obvious, given that on Thursday, in between pounding Mr. Romney for perceived discrepancies in the Bain story, “Barack Obama” tweeted: “Stickers! Get them here.”

But it underscores the vivid contrast between what Mr. Obama says, and what is often said in his name. The president did not address the questions about Bain Capital in his stump speech. In his first stop of the day, he even left out a line he has used about how Mr. Romney’s buyout firm was celebrated as a “pioneer” of outsourcing.

As a busy day of campaigning unfolded, however, Mr. Obama shrugged off his reluctance to talk about Mr. Romney and Bain. The line about Bain being an outsourcing pioneer reappeared later in a speech in Hampton. And in an interview with a local TV station, WJLA, Mr. Obama said that Mr. Romney ought to answer questions about his relationship with the firm after he left in 1999 to run the Salt Lake City Olympics.

“Ultimately, Mr. Romney, I think, is going to have to answer those questions because if he aspires to being president, one of the things you learn is, you are ultimately responsible for the conduct of your operations,” he said.

The Romney campaign did not give Mr. Obama any quarter either. Mr. Romney welcomed the president to Virginia with an open letter in The Virginian-Pilot, in which he said, “Your insistence on slashing our military to pay the tab for your irresponsible spending could see over 200,000 troops forced from service.”

Virginia, a once reliably Republican state that Mr. Obama became the first Democrat to win since 1964, looms as one of the most hotly contested battlegrounds in 2012. The president acknowledged its potentially decisive role, telling an overflow crowd in Hampton before his speech, “If and when we get Virginia, we will win this election.”

“Virginia, the reason I ran and the reason you supported me wasn’t just to get back to where we were in 2007,” the president said. “The reason we came together was to restore that promise for middle-class families, and all who are striving to get into the middle class. That’s what we’re fighting for, and we’ve got a lot more work to do.”

Time to Talk Coaching

Mr. Obama’s advisers say he savors unscripted encounters with voters, and occasionally these moments can be revelatory.

Dropping in for a beer last week at Ziggy’s Pub and Restaurant in Amherst, Ohio, the president found himself explaining to a table of curious school administrators why the White House was waiving states’ compliance with the No Child Left Behind law. Moments earlier, he had an intense exchange with Art Davis, a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, who complained about delays in processing disability claims for veterans.

But then there are encounters like his kitchen-table conversation with a Cedar Rapids couple, Jason and Ali McLaughlin. Though avidly promoted by the campaign, it got off to a desultory start, with Mr. McLaughlin and the president comparing notes about how they coach girls’ sports teams (“Now, they run plays!” Mr. Obama marveled about his daughter Sasha’s team). Neither said a word about middle-class tax cuts — the ostensible subject of the meeting — until after the reporters had been ushered out.

Help for Veterans

Mr. Obama has assiduously cultivated military veterans, giving tax credits to employers that hire returning veterans and extracting pledges from companies like Procter & Gamble and Tyson Foods to hire 100,000 veterans and their spouses. He also brought home the last soldiers from Iraq and is winding down the war in Afghanistan.

The Romney campaign, however, is determined to sour any affection these voters have for Mr. Obama, warning that the automatic cuts in Pentagon spending that are part of the White House’s budget deal with Congress could undermine the military-dependent economy in Virginia, with its large bases and shipbuilding industry.

“Virginia is probably going to be more devastated than any state in the union by this,” said John F. Lehman Jr., a secretary of the Navy in the Reagan administration and foreign-policy adviser to Mr. Romney, on a call organized by the campaign. “The president just doesn’t understand defense. He just doesn’t understand how it works.”

On Friday, Mr. Obama stopped at a smoky Veterans of Foreign Wars hall here and had lunch at Rick’s Cafe with three wives of servicemen. “I love the fact that this administration is focusing more on military families,” said one, Jennifer Farlin. “Prior to this, we felt lost.”

While the president is likely to make inroads with veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq, the broader military vote seems destined to stay in the Republican column. According to a Gallup poll conducted in April and May, 58 percent of veterans said they favored Mitt Romney, while only 34 percent supported Mr. Obama.

Music to Suit the Crowd

As Mr. Obama’s campaign rallies settle into a routine, so, too, does his choice of music: a mix tape released by the campaign that runs the gamut from Arcade Fire to REO Speedwagon. The president usually takes the stage to U2’s hit “City of Blinding Lights,” as he did in 2008. The opportunities for creativity, such as they are, come at the end of his stump speech, when Mr. Obama shakes hands and poses for pictures.

Then, the campaign seems to tailor its music to local tastes. Mr. Obama greeted auto workers in Toledo, Ohio, and veterans in Virginia Beach to the thumping chords of Bruce Springsteen’s blue-collar anthem “We Take Care of Our Own.” In Cedar Rapids, the artsy city in Iowa where voters have known Mr. Obama from the earliest days of his first campaign in 2007, the soundtrack was U2’s “Even Better than the Real Thing.”

In Sandusky, Ohio, the local organizers chose a tune not on the playlist: “Only in America,” the politically androgynous country hit by Brooks & Dunn that has been a standard for years at Republican and Democratic rallies.