The budget request for the fiscal year beginning October 1 has called for $79 million for detention operations, the same as the current year. An additional $20.5 million has been requested for the office of military commissions, the military tribunals set up in 2006 for prosecuting detainees. The current price tag on the Guantanamo military commission is $12.6 million. A further $40 million is needed for a fiber optic cable and $99 million for operation and maintenance of the facilities.The Pentagon is also mulling over a request from the Southern Command to spend about $200 million for renovating the camp, which will include the construction of a new prison building for “high value” detainees, as well as a new dining hall, barracks for prison guards, a hospital, a “legal meeting complex” and a “communications network facility” to store data.The increased budget request comes in stark contrast to President Obama’s recent push to shutter the facility, where 103 out of the camp’s 166 detainees have been carrying out an unprecedented hunger strike for more than 100 days. Human rights advocates have placed the number of hunger strikers as high as 130.Thirty of the hunger strikers are being force-fed through a nasal tube – a practice which the UN human rights office condemned as “torture” and a breach of international law. Three have been sent to the detainee hospital for observation. Lawyers for Guantanamo inmates have also claimed that prisoners who wish to talk to their legal representatives are being subjected to humiliating new cavity searches.The 166 prisoners have been detained for eleven and a half years, the vast majority of them have not been charged with a crime, and 86 of them have been cleared for release.The detention facility already ranks as one of the most expensive in the world, costing over $900,000 annually per prisoner. With 166 detainees, Gitmo consumes over $150 million each year.Obama moves to shutter Guantanamo?Obama is expected to make a major speech on Thursday at National Defense University, where he will outline his latest plan to close the detention facility, as well as his administration’s drone policy, targeted killing and the war against al Qaeda.The president’s new push to shut down Guantanamo comes after Congress blocked attempts to close Guantanamo during his first term in office, when Obama signed a 2009 executive order calling for the camp’s closure.”Guantanamo is not necessary to keep America safe,” the president said at a White House news conference last month. “It is expensive. It is inefficient. It hurts us in terms of our international standing. It lessens cooperation with our allies on counterterrorism efforts. It is a recruitment tool for extremists. It needs to be closed.”However, the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2013, the law that Congress passed and Obama signed in March to stem the possibility of a federal government shutdown, prohibits any additional funds for the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to the United States or its territories. It further blocks any expenditures on the renovation of any US facility on American soil to house detainees, effectively making it illegal for the government to transfer the men it plans to continue holding.It also remains unclear how Obama will win over both Republicans and members of his own party who remain staunchly opposed to transferring terror suspects to the US.While lawmakers have cited recidivism of released terror suspects as a reason to keep the camp open, in 2009 the Pentagon was only able to “confirm” that 18 former detainees – 4 percent of the camp’s population – had participated in attacks. A spokesman at the time said evidence of someone being “confirmed” could have included fingerprints, a conclusive photograph or “well-corroborated intelligence reporting.”Another issue involves the camp’s 86 detainees who have never been charged with a crime and have already been cleared for release.Earlier this month, Democratic Senator Carl Levin wrote a letter to the White House requesting that the White House appoint an official who will be tasked with relocating the dozens of detainees who were being held without charge.Levin, the Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman, said that although the defense authorization bill has restricted the administration’s ability to transfer detainees, a national security waiver provided a “clear route” to moving detainees to some third countries. Levin further urged Obama to find a way to close the camp without Congress’ blessing.“Congress has blocked it, so he’s going to have to find a way to remove the blockages of Congress, and hopefully he’ll let us know how he’ll do that,” Levin told reporters Tuesday.Levin told The Hill on Tuesday that he has yet to receive a response to his letter.Democratic representative Adam Smith (D-Wash.) questioned in an interview if the growing international outcry surrounding the hunger strike was enough to persuade resistant lawmakers to change their position on keeping the camp open.“It’s getting uglier and uglier at Gitmo…The level of embarrassment is growing and the cost is growing, so is that enough to persuade them that it’s time to change positions?” Smith asked.“We’re going to have that debate.” … Read More
Aid for F.C.C. in Defending Its Net Neutrality Rules
A Supreme Court decision seems to help the Federal Communications Commission’s high-profile attempt to defend its net neutrality rules against a court challenge. … Read More
Saudi Web Sites Under Attack Following Surveillance Accusations
Several Saudi Web sites came under attack this week by hackers who identify themselves as Anonymous, the loose hacking collective. Hackers said their motive was two-fold. They were retaliating for what they claim was a murder, and also for a report earlier this week by a U.S. security researcher who said he was approached by a Saudi telecom company to help monitor Saudi citizens’ mobile communications. … Read More
Sun unleashes four massive solar flares in two days (PHOTOS, VIDEO)
Four significant X-class solar flares left the Sun in just 48 hours, sending powerful bursts of radiation into space, according to Space Weather website.The first burst of solar energy was detected on Monday at 2:00 GMT. Fourteen hours later the Sun emitted a stronger X2.8-class flare, peaking at 16:05 GMT, according to NASA.The third flare occurred in under 24 hours, peaking at 2:11 GMT and was classified as an X3.2 flare, the strongest X-class flare of 2013 so far. The latest X1.2-flare occurred on Wednesday at 01:52 GMT.All of the flares were tens of times the size of Earth, originating from an AR1748 sunspot, an active region just out of sight over the left side of the Sun.The flares were associated with a solar phenomenon, called a coronal mass ejection (CME). Although the sunspot is not directly facing Earth, the last flare produced a CME with an Earth-directed component, the Space Weather website reports.If the flares associated with CME are directed at Earth they can cause long lasting radiation storms, according to NASA.When CME occurs it propels bursts of billions of tons of solar particles and electromagnetic fluctuations that can reach Earth’s atmosphere and harm satellites, communications systems, and even ground-based technologies and power grids.The March 1989 CME produced by a X15-class solar flare resulting in a geomagnetic storm that caused the collapse of Hydro-Québec’s electricity transmission system in Canada.The latest 2013 flares were of X-class that denotes the most intense flares. The smallest ones are A-class, followed by B, C, M and X. The number that follows the class provides information about its strength. An X2 is twice as intense as an X1, an X3 is three times as intense, and so on.According to NASA the most powerful flare measured by modern methods occurred on November 4, 2003 during the previous solar maximum. It was so strong that the sensors were cut off when estimating the burst of radiation at X28.Solar activity is currently ramping up toward what is known as solar maximum, which is expected in 2013. The solar maximum occurs approximately every 11 years.“However, this same solar cycle has occurred over millennia so anyone over the age of 11 has already lived through such a solar maximum with no harm” said NASA in a statement.The coming solar maximum explains the increased numbers of flares. The largest X-class flare in this cycle so far was an X6.9 on August 9, 2011.The solar cycle was discovered in 1843 and scientists have been tracking it ever since. … Read More
LinkedIn forbids prostitution listings, angering legal sex workers
The social network has never allowed “unlawful” profiles, which it categorizes as those advertising illegal services, but, as prostitution is not forbidden by law everywhere in the world or even everywhere in the United States, escorts have long taken advantage of the opportunity to bring attention to themselves. Under the section titled “Don’t undertake the following,” LinkedIn’s new privacy policy and user agreement stipulates, “Even if it is legal where you are located,” users must not “create profiles or provide content that promotes escort services or prostitution.” Legal sex workers displaced by the update have criticized LinkedIn for assuming the role of moral arbiter of the Internet. “What’s the problem? We have a license to do this stuff,” Dennis Hof, owner of multiple legal brothels including Nevada’s Moonlite Bunny Ranch, told NBC on Monday. “Our business is legal as theirs. We’re the good guys. We have no reason to be knocked off.” Hof said he hopes LinkedIn doesn’t try to remove his or his employees’ profiles as they, like so many other legal businesses in the information age, rely on social media to attract customers. “LinkedIn needs to realize they don’t need to filter out legal businesses in America,” he continued. “These are businesswomen, and some of them are making mid-six-figure incomes. If it’s okay to do that, is it okay to drop Dairy Queen too because it serves too much fat and calories?”A casual inspection of LinkedIn’s listings reveals that many young men and women, while not listing prostitution as one of their career skills, do advertise thinly-veiled massage services, independent escort professionalism, and companionship, among other professions. “I’m not saying we’re going to do a purge, though we very well may,” said Hani Durzy, LinkedIn’s director of corporate communications, during an interview with NBC. “In a nutshell, as we become aware of profiles that violate our policies we will take the appropriate actions. Does that mean shutting them down on day one? Or giving our members the benefit of the doubt, and telling them that’s a violation and you’ve got to change it? There is no hard and fast rule.” … Read More
FCC proposal may greatly improve airplane Wi-Fi
The FCC has proposed freeing up as much as 500MHz of spectrum for the purpose of impoving airplane Internet connectivity during flight. The bump in bandwidth could be a boon for airborne Internet junkies but may come at the expense of commercial satellite communications. … Read More
F.C.C. Advances Plan for Faster In-Flight Wi-Fi
The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday proposed auctioning off the rights to use newly available airwaves to provide better in-flight Wi-Fi connections, as the government agency seeks to improve the speed and lower the cost of Internet service on commercial flights. … Read More
