A Few Headlines: Facebook & Other Big Bros., & the Nasher v. Museum Tower

More at the links.

1. What Facebook Knows. "[O]n 219 million randomly chosen occasions, Facebook prevented someone from seeing a link shared by a friend. Hiding links this way created a control group . . . . the company is not above using its platform to tweak users' behavior. . . . By learning more about how small changes on Facebook can alter users' behavior outside the site, the company eventually 'could allow others to make use of Facebook in the same way' says Marlow."

(Rough translation of image at left: "I give the secrets of big companies to you, and I am a terrorist – Assange; I give your secrets to big companies, and I am Man of the Year – Zuckerberg.")

2. Three NSA Whistleblowers Back EFF's Lawsuit Re- Gov't's Massive Spying on US Civilians. "Three . . . former employees of the National Security Agency (NSA) . . . have come forward to . . . confirm that the NSA has, or is in the process of obtaining, the capability to seize and store most electronic communications passing through its U.S. intercept centers, such as the 'secret room' at the AT&T facility in San Francisco first disclosed by retired AT&T technician Mark Klein in early 2006." (Link added.)

3. US Nat'l Reconnaissance Office's Castoff 'Scopes Beat NASA's Hubbell. "The U.S. government’s secret space program has decided to give NASA two telescopes . . . . [d]esigned for surveillance [and] no longer needed for spy missions . . . . These telescopes will have 100 times the field of view of the Hubble . . . . NASA official Michael Moore gave some hint of what a Hubble-class space telescope might do if used for national security: 'With a Hubble here you could see a dime sitting on top of the Washington Monument.'"

4. A Modest Proposal. In case you missed it, Dallas's latest addition to housing for the 1%, Museum Tower, is frying everything within its line of sight on the Nasher Museum premises. "So [writes Christina Rees in Glasstire], one of Dallas’s more admirable enfant terribles, Erik Schuessler . . . came up with an early solution, and so far I haven’t seen one to beat it." (Link added; click on the images for larger versions.)

Why Republicans are Delaying Holder's Confirmation:

" . . . U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a former U.S. Attorney and Attorney General for Rhode Island, today sharply criticized the argument some Republican members of the Committee are making for delaying a vote on the nomination of Attorney General-Designate Eric Holder:

"'Republicans on the Judiciary Committee have asked Eric Holder to make a commitment, before he is even confirmed, that he will not prosecute any Bush Administration officials for their involvement in acts of torture during the last administration.

"'Anyone familiar with the criminal justice system . . . should know that a prosecutor should make no determination about who to prosecute before he or she has all the facts, and particularly not in response to legislative pressure.'"

I.e., we'll block you 'til you promise not to do your job ( -- exactly what we've had from Repub. gummint for the last 8 years {no one hired unless they could be relied on not to do their job}).

And if that weren't bad enough:

"'I believe they are delaying Holder's nomination to shorten the time between the day Holder takes over and the day the statute of limitations on [the] violations of FISA [that] Bush committed on March 11, 2004 start to expire -- that is, March 11, 2009, just seven weeks away.

"'At yesterday's Progressive Media Summit, I had an opportunity to remind Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of that timeline. I reminded him, too, that Bush seems intent on delaying the time when an Article III judge assesses the evidence in the al-Haramain document, which probably proves Bush broke the law.'"

I have not personally verified the facts or all of the law re- the statute-of-limitations issue, but I can confirm that if there's an applicable statute of limitations, and no prosecution is commenced before it expires, the "evil-doers" are home-free.

If you find this delay unacceptable for that or any other reason, pls tell the two senators blocking the nomination, Senators Spector and Cornyn (I'm especially talkin' to you, Pennsylvania and Texas residents!), which you can do here.

More details here, here, and here.