UPDATE
News Corp unit cleared of piracy in DISH suit

SANTA ANA, California (Reuters) - A federal court jury on Thursday broadly cleared News Corp’s NDS unit of satellite television piracy charges in a suit brought by DISH Network that could have been worth more than $1 billion.

The jury awarded only $1,500 in damages from NDS for a single test incident with a satellite television smart card.

Sometimes the bad guys win.

U.S. jury reaches verdict on NDS, mistrial possible  Read more 

Whether it’s such good news for us, the country to which the people (and their vast stores of everything from guns to hardened vehicles to helicopters) are supposed to be repatriated toot-sweet, is, um, another question. Via NYT:

The Interior Ministry said Monday that it was pulling the license of an American security firm allegedly involved in the fatal shooting of civilians during an attack on a U.S. State Department motorcade in Baghdad.

The ministry said it would prosecute any foreign contractors found to have used excessive force in the Sunday incident.

Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul-Karim Khalaf said eight people were killed and 13 were wounded when security contractors working for Blackwater USA opened fire in a predominantly Sunni neighborhood of western Baghdad.

”We have canceled the license of Blackwater and prevented them from working all over Iraqi territory. We will also refer those involved to Iraqi judicial authorities,” Khalaf said.

This of course assumes the “Iraqi authorities” involved can execute the orders they impose. Blackwater being better armed than the current Iraqi military, such as they are, this is somewhat questionable.  Read more 

I have no idea what this means. Have fun!

Sharon Gaudin, | September 6

Information Week - The Storm worm botnet has grown so massive and far-reaching that it easily overpowers the world’s top supercomputers.
That’s the latest word from security researchers who are tracking the burgeoning network of Microsoft Windows machines that have been compromised by the virulent Storm worm, which has pounded the Internet non-stop for the past three months. Despite the wide ranging estimates as to the size of the botnet, researchers tend to agree that it’s one of the largest zombie grids they’ve ever seen — one capable of doing great damage.  Read more 

When I was in college, my program had an arts requirement, that is, one needed several performance credits to graduate. I chose to take acting classes, and I confess: I sucked. But I did learn something about how the art of acting is to be found in so many parts of the rest of our world, even those in which truth telling and reality are supposedly paramount. I believe the saying goes, “If you can’t afford a meal, go see a show. If you can’t afford a show, go to the zoo. If you can’t afford the zoo, go see a politician.” I’ll let you ponder that order for a minute.

That said, Matt jumps on a bandwagon I’m proud to say we’ve been all over for some time now here at Corrente. It’s not Homeland Security, it’s The Homeland Security Show on Fox. Matt is 100% correct in pointing out that Republican policies on “securing our X” are usually ineffective, costly, wasteful and do little more than feed the fear-guzzling base addicted to the adrenalin rush of ’hate/fear/kill.’ Show me the last 100 million spent on new “security” programs, and I promise you I’ll show you a Republican crony now richer by 99 million, and some Potemkin village approximation of a device/program/training that makes no one safer. Moore pointed this out in Farenheit 911, in which he noted that for all the talk about borders and increased watchfulness, no real money has gone to places that are literally wide open to attack.  Read more 

I promise I won’t do a lot of it, but this rather cheeky note in the NYPost makes me wonder.

By TODD VENEZIA

December 27, 2006 — Prince Harry will soon be off to war in Iraq - and this time, he’ll be wearing proper British military gear and not a Nazi uniform.
The young royal reportedly will head to Iraq with his unit in May.

Harry will be stationed near the southern port city of Basra, and will likely be assigned to patrol the border with Iran.
The Daily Telegraph said Harry is determined to go, despite reports of resistance from many in the military who fear the prince would be a fat prize for terrorists.

They’re also worried that Harry - who had to apologize publicly for wearing a Nazi uniform to a costume party in 2005 - would attract attention and put his fellow soldiers in greater danger.  Read more 

This is the age for everyone to freak out over the idea that North Korea and Iran may have “the bomb” and other scary “mushroom cloud” induced nightmares, and frankly, I’d be really happy if Democrats began reversing that and started instead talking about actual serious threats to American and global security. I put this one under “Homeland Insecurity” because it’s only logical to understand that in the end, this depressing trend will someday come back and bite us in the ass. There are several reasons why this is true. The primary one is the two-pronged nightmare that Bush has created for us: an increase in the amount of terrorism around the globe as a result of his two failed wars of choice; and a decrease in actual “homeland” security as organizations like DHS are staffed with cronies and our money for it is spent on hookers and limos for their johns. I think shit like this is why Clemons is so up in arms against Bolton:

Washington’s desire to maintain the status quo was on display at a meeting at the United Nations on Oct. 26, when a UN panel voted to study whether a new treaty might be possible to regulate the sale of conventional arms. The United States was the only country out of 166 to vote no  Read more 

Don’t worry you’re covered. The Minority Report is here.
Seriously. I’d love to see old George Stephanopoulos (his name is in the spell check) ask a candidate – what is your position on the great grandson of CARNIVORE determining who gets rounded up? First carnivore, then TIA, now Tangram – the Air Force’s new strategic data mining program.  Read more