Bessler Report

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office is getting an "indefinite delivery" of an "indefinite quantity" of .40 caliber ammunition from defense contractor ATK. U.S. agents will receive a maximum of 450 million rounds over five years, according to a press release on the deal. The high performance HST bullets are designed for law enforcement and ATK says they offer "optimum penetration for terminal performance." We've also learned that the Department has an open bid for a stockpile of rifle ammo. Listed on the federal business opportunities network, they're looking for up to 175 million rounds of .223 caliber ammo to be exact. The .223 is almost exactly the same round used by NATO forces, the 5.56 x 45mm..read more @ Business Insider

Kenneth Chamberlain Sr., a former Marine who had heart problems and wheezed if he walked more than 40 feet, triggered his medical alert system pendant. The system operator came on the loudspeaker in his one-bedroom apartment, asking: “Mr. Chamberlain, are you O.K.?”..Mr. Chamberlain didn’t respond. So the operator signaled for an ambulance. Police patrol cars fell in behind — standard operating procedure in towns across America. Except an hour later, even as Mr. Chamberlain insisted he was in good health, the police had snapped the locks on the apartment door. They fired electric charges from Tasers, and beanbags from shotguns. Then they said they saw Mr. Chamberlain grab a knife, and an officer fired his handgun..read more @ NY Times

The mother of Trayvon Martin has filed two applications to secure trademarks containing her late son’s name, records show. Sabrina Fulton is seeking marks for the phrases “I Am Trayvon” and “Justice for Trayvon,” according to filings made last week with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. In both instances, Fulton is seeking the trademarks for use on “Digital materials, namely, CDs and DVDs featuring Trayvon Martin,” and other products. The March 21 USPTO applications, each of which cost $325, were filed by an Orlando, Florida law firm representing Fulton..read more @ The Smoking Gun

In recent weeks the battle has continued to save the data stored at the now-defunct site Megaupload. Contrary to the image painted by the entertainment industries, untold numbers of people used the file-hosting service for completely legitimate sharing. Today we can reveal that not only did people at the Senate, Department of Homeland Security, FBI and NASA hold Megaupload accounts, so did more than 15,600 members of the US Military. Ever since Megaupload was dismantled in January there have been concerns about data being held on the site’s servers. While the MPAA and RIAA insist that the site was simply a huge piracy hub, the facts point to a much bigger picture of people using the site for countless legitimate transfers of files simply too big to email..read more @ Torrent Freak

China unveils new legislation on police powers of detention. Experts warned that original draft legislation would have legalised disappearances, allowing police to hold suspects without informing families. The revisions to the criminal procedure law were unveiled at the National People's Congress on Thursday, and will be passed by what is essentially a rubber stamp parliament. Lawyers have welcomed other elements offering additional protection to suspects. Reformers have long battled for such measures – which include improving legal access, increasing protection for juveniles and outlawing evidence gathered through torture – although many are sceptical about how they will be observed..read more @ The Gaurdian

Google was awarded a patent Tuesday for advertising based on based on "environmental conditions," as the search giant calls it in the patent documents. Advertising can be served on the basis of a sensor that detects temperature, humidity, sound, light or air composition near a device, and ads are served accordingly. The patented technology is meant for personal computers, digital billboards, digital kiosks, vending machines and mobile phones. This raises the question whether Google is planning to serve ads based on background noises picked up during phone conversations. "While Google isn’t technically 'listening' to your calls, meaning there isn’t someone on the other line listening to your conversation, the fact that the company could unleash technology that monitors our calls in real-time is weird,"..read more @ PC World

In an astonishing admission that goes to the heart of the intelligence surveillance of Muslim communities in America in the years after 9/11. While police and FBI leaders have insisted they are acting to defend America from a terrorist attack, civil liberties groups have insisted they have repeatedly gone too far and treated an entire religious group as suspicious. Monteilh was involved in one of the most controversial tactics: the use of "confidential informants" in so-called entrapment cases. This is when suspects carry out or plot fake terrorist "attacks" at the request or under the close supervision of an FBI undercover operation using secret informants. Often those informants have serious criminal records or are supplied with a financial motivation to net suspects..read more @ The Guardian

The 6-foot wide metal cylinder partially made of titanium steel was found near Otradnensky, a village two thousand miles from Moscow, according to the Daily Mail. Locals have labeled it as space junk, a UFO fragment or the fuel tank of a ballistic missile. The Russian space agency has said the object is not from space, a piece of space technology nor a missile fragment. It has been evaluated for radiation and none was found. Weighing 200 kilograms and around two metres in height, locals fixed it onto a trailer and took across the snow to the village where local inspectors checked it. ‘The object found is not related to space technology. A final conclusion can be made after a detailed study of the object by experts,' said the Russian space agency Roscosmos..read more @ Daily Mail

Despite calls for stricter guns laws in response to the shooting of Trayvon Martin, firearm stocks are soaring as gun companies struggle to keep up with high demand. Shares of Sturm Ruger & Co. (RGR) were up as high as 14 percent Thursday afternoon after CEO Michael Fifer announced the company was temporarily suspending its acceptance of new orders in an effort to meet a dramatic surge in demand for its products. Shares of rival firearm maker Smith & Wesson (SWHC) were similarly up about 13 percent Thursday — a sign, gun proponents say, that Americans are not swayed by the recent protests..read more @ Free Beacon

Seagate breaks 1 terabit barrier, 60TB hard drives possible. That breakthrough is managing to squeeze 1 terabit (1 trillion bits) of data into a square inch or space, effectively opening the way for larger hard drives over the coming years beyond the 3TB maximum we currently enjoy. How much of an improvement does this storage milestone offer? Current hard drives max out at around 620 gigabits per square inch, meaning Seagate has improved upon that by over 50%. However, that’s just the beginning. With the introduction of HAMR, Seagate has effectively guaranteed hard drives will continue to play a role in the storage market for the next decade. Within 5 years we could all be carrying around double-digit terabyte drives in our laptops..read more @ Geek

John Lovell is a lobbyist who makes a lot of money from making sure you can’t smoke a joint. That’s his job. He’s a lobbyist for the police unions in Sacramento, and he is a driving force behind grabbing Federal dollars to shut down the California marijuana industry. Some of the groups who want to keep the drug illegal are police unions that want more members to pay more dues. One of the primary sources for cash for more policing activities are Federal grants for penalizing illegal drug use, which help pay for overtime, additional police officers, and equipment for the force..read more @ Republic Report

The legal question at the heart of the case involves Florida's so-called "stand your ground" law, which the legislature passed, at the behest of the National Rifle Association, in 2005. Before that time, Florida law resembled that of most other states; during confrontations, individuals had a duty to retreat rather than to respond to provocations. Under the new law, a person is allowed to use deadly force if he is in a place he has a right to be and feels reasonably threatened with serious harm. In this case, then, the question is whether Zimmerman was in such a place and felt reasonably threatened. The 911 operator told Zimmerman to keep his distance from Martin, but Zimmerman had a right to be on the street. That's where neighborhood watch volunteers work..read more @ CNN

Samsung’s 2012 top-of-the-line plasmas and LED HDTVs offer new features never before available within a television including a built-in, internally wired HD camera, twin microphones, face tracking and speech recognition. While these features give you unprecedented control over an HDTV, the devices themselves, more similar than ever to a personal computer, may allow hackers or even Samsung to see and hear you and your family, and collect extremely personal data. Samsung has not released a privacy policy clarifying what data it is collecting and sharing with regard to the new TV sets...read more @ MSNBC

Sweden has been moving towards a cashless economy for several years now, encouraging transactions to be made by cards instead of money. Robberies are down and bank processes are more efficient without cash to manage. But not everyone is happy with the change. Buses no longer accept cash after a series of robberies.  Now, in order to get on the bus, you can use a prepaid ticket or cell phone text message.  Card payments are now the norm.  A cash-reduced culture gives rise to new concerns — of cybersecurity and, of course, about privacy. Oscar Swartz, the founder of Banhof, Sweden’s first Internet provider, puts it like so: “One should be able to send money and donate money to different organizations without being traced every time.”..read more @ ZD Net

The world’s largest and most resilient BitTorrent site plans to redefine “cloud computing” with a plan to move at least some of its servers onto unmanned drones miles above Sweden. The group said: "One of the technical things we always optimise is where to put our front machines. They are the ones that re-direct your traffic to a secret location. "We have now decided to try to build something extraordinary." The plan is to mount cheap radio devices and computers on GPS-enabled drones ('Low Orbit Server Stations') and launch them high above neutral territory in the ocean. The Pirate Bay say they can get "over 100Mbps per node up to 50km away" which is "more than enough" to keep the site serving magnet links for torrent files..read more @ US News

CIA director David Petraeus has said that the rise of new “smart” gadgets means that Americans are effectively bugging their own homes, saving US spy agencies a job when it identifies any “persons of interest”. All those new online devices are a treasure trove of data if you’re a “person of interest” to the spy community. Once upon a time, spies had to place a bug in your chandelier to hear your conversation. With the rise of the “smart home,” you’d be sending tagged, geolocated data that a spy agency can intercept in real time when you use the lighting app on your phone to adjust your living room’s ambiance. All those new online devices are a treasure trove of data if you’re a “person of interest” to the spy community. Once upon a time, spies had to place a bug in your chandelier to hear your conversation. With the rise of the “smart home,” you’d be sending tagged, geolocated data that a spy agency can intercept in real time when you use the lighting app on your phone to adjust your living room’s ambiance..read more @ Wired

"What we need to do is change the way in which people think about guns, especially young people, and make it something that's not cool, that it's not acceptable, it's not hip to carry a gun anymore, in the way in which we changed our attitudes about cigarettes."..Local political leaders and celebrities, Holder said, including Mayor Marion Barry and Jesse Jackson, had been asked to help. In addition, he reported, he had asked the local school board to make the anti-gun message a part of "every day, every school, and every level."..Local political leaders and celebrities, Holder said, including Mayor Marion Barry and Jesse Jackson, had been asked to help. In addition, he reported, he had asked the local school board to make the anti-gun message a part of "every day, every school, and every level."Read more @ Breitbart