I guess if had a "religion" This may offend me, but because i have a saviour and way of life it does not bother me.
I guess there is hope after all
An Iranian cleric said he was beaten by a woman in the northern province of Semnan after giving her a warning for being “badly covered,” the state-run Mehr news agency reported. Hojatoleslam Ali Beheshti said he encountered the woman in the street while on his way to the mosque in the town of Shahmirzad, and asked her to cover herself up, to which she replied “you, cover your eyes,” according to Mehr. The cleric repeated his warning, which he said prompted her to insult and push him.
.“I fell on my back on the floor,” Beheshti said in the report. “I don’t know what happened after that, all I could feel was the kicks of this woman who was insulting me and attacking me.”
Since the 1979 revolution that brought Shiite Muslim religious leaders to power, women in Iran have been required to cover their hair and body curves in public with head-scarves and loose-fitting coats, to protect religious values and “preserve society’s morals and security.”
The government condemns short, tight and colorful coats and loosely tied head-scarves, and routinely organizes police patrols to enforce the Islamic dress code. Public surveillance increases in summer when some women opt for flimsier clothing.
Beheshti said he was hospitalized for three days. The Iranian cleric said it was his religious duty to apply the principle of “commanding right and forbidding wrong,” and that he would continue to do so even after living through what he called “the worst day of my life.”
It isn’t the first time that clerics in Iran have been beaten up after delivering warnings, Mehr said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-19/iran-cleric-pummeled-by-badly-covered-woman-after-warning-her.html
In case you did not know already, but things maybe changing a little, all they have to do is ask now. They need a warrent to find out what movies you rent, or what library books you check out, but not to have access to your emails.
Cops might finally need a warrant to read your Gmail
Major surveillance law change arrives in the Senate—and it might well pass.
Right now, if the cops want to read my e-mail, it’s pretty trivial for them to do so. All they have to do is ask my online e-mail provider. But a new bill set to be introduced Thursday in the Senate Judiciary Committee by its chair, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), seems to stand the best chance of finally changing that situation and giving e-mail stored on remote servers the same privacy protections as e-mail stored on one's home computer.
When Congress passed the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), a time when massive online storage of e-mail was essentially unimaginable, it was presumed that if you hadn’t actually bothered to download your e-mail, it could be considered "abandoned" after 180 days. By that logic, law enforcement would not need a warrant to go to the e-mail provider or ISP to get the messages that are older than 180 days; police only need to show that they have "reasonable grounds to believe" the information gathered would be useful in an investigation. Many Americans and legal scholars have found this standard, in today’s world, problematic.
Leahy, who was one of ECPA’s original authors, proposed similar changes in May 2011, but that was never even brought to a vote in the committee. The new version, which keeps the most important element of the 2011 proposal, will be incorporated into a larger bill aimed at revising the 1988 Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA).
A more politically-palatable maneuver
As we reported last year, the House passed a revision to the VPPA, making it easier for online video rental services (yep, Netflix is a fan of this bill!) to share information about customers’ rental history through a simple online consent form, rather than explicit, printed, written consent. This is a legislative moved aimed squarely at making the bill more palatable to Republicans (who comprised 8 of 10 members on the Judiciary Committee), and who are generally opposed to weakening law enforcement tools.
Leahy’s new amendement would provide a major change to the privacy standard of all electronic correspondence by finally requiring a probable cause-driven warrant. If this bill does pass, it would instantaneously provide significantly more privacy to everyone in America who sends e-mail, uses Facebook, Twitter, Google Docs, or communicates online in essentially any way.
"[Currently] there’s a standard for what’s electronic communications services, and that’s where there’s the 180-day rule," said Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, in an interview with Ars.
"There’s a whole class of remote computing services, which were ones that did data processing back in the 1980s], but are now cloud computing. What this does is eliminate the distinction between the two and eliminate the 180 day rule and raise them all up to a warrant. It’s very solid legislative language. It covers all private communications and would require a warrant to access them. Something that’s long overdue. We’re talking about a huge class of very private information and stuff that is so undisputedly private."
Judicial clarity
Many advocacy groups and tech companies, including Apple, Google, Amazon, Dropbox, Google, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Facebook, the ACLU and many others (collectively under an umbrella group known as Digital Due Process) have been lobbying Congress for some time now. All of these entities likely would be in favor of such a bill.
"The ECPA fix would be a major step forward for e-mail privacy," wrote Lee Tien, a staff attorney at the EFF, in an e-mail to Ars.
But more interestingly, beyond the list of usual suspects of supporters (groups like the EFF and the ACLU), are the other parties supporting the bill.
On Wednesday, members of the Judiciary Committee received copies of two letters from prominent former government officials: former Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA) and Marc J. Zwillinger, who spent three years prosecuting cybercrime from the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section of the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice. Barr is also a former federal prosecutor and Zwilinger is now in private practice and also teaches law at Georgetown University.
Both men argued that one of the primary reasons for the new bill’s passage would be to provide clarity between current case law and investigatory practice. In 2010, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Fourth Amendement protecting unreasonable searches and seizures also protects e-mail, even if it’s over 180 days old.
Because online e-mail providers (like Google’s Gmail, for instance) can’t know if their customers fall under the Sixth Circuit jurisdiction, many have taken to requiring a warrant from law enforcement when they may not need to
"This has created uncertainty the Leahy amendment would replace with clarity: law enforcement officers would no longer wonder whether they should seek communications content without a warrant, or whether the warrant requirement applies in one jurisdiction but not another," wrote former Rep. Barr. "This clarity will help ensure that seized evidence will not be suppressed at the end of the prosecution, thereby allowing a guilty party to escape punishment."
The content of an e-mail would be protected, other data, less so
In a further bid to potentially assuage conservative committee members, Zwillinger also points out that the new amendment would "leave in place lower legal standards for the building blocks of law enforcement investigations."
Such information could include name, address, e-mail address, IP addresses, and other transactional data such as when, where, with whom and for how long someone communicated.
"This is the type of information that prosecutors use to build probable cause that enables them to seek court-ordered access to more sensitive information, such as communications content," Zwillinger wrote.
Ars e-mailed staffers of Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the committee’s ranking Republican, to see what the senator thought of the Leahy amendment—as of press time they had not responded.
"E-mail and its eventual successors are simply too important to be governed by inconsistent and confusing standards," wrote Woodrow Hartzog, a professor at the Cumberland School of Law at Samford University, in an e-mail sent to Ars. "While more comprehensive and adaptable privacy protections for electronic communications are needed, I imagine dramatic improvement in the electronic surveillance regime will be politically and logistically challenging."
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/09/cops-might-finally-need-a-warrant-to-read-your-gmail/
2C-I or 'Smiles': The New Killer Drug Every Parent Should Know About
The Grand Forks, North Dakota teenager's fatal overdose has been blamed on a drug called 2C-I. The night before Stai's overdose, another area teen, Christian Bjerk, 18, was found face down on a sidewalk. His death was also linked to the drug.
2C-I--known by its eerie street name "Smiles"--has become a serious problem in the Grand Forks area, according to local police. Overdoses of the drug have also be reported in Indiana and Minnesota. But if the internet is any indication, Smiles is on the rise all over the country.
DEA cracks down on new versions of hard drugs
"At the moment I am completely and fully submerged, if you can't tell by my eyes, in a psychedelic world known as 2C-I," says a man who appears to be in his late teens or early 20s on a YouTube video posted back in October. His pupils are dilated. He struggles to formulate a description of what he's feeling-it's hard to tell if its because his experience is profound or if his speech skills are simply blunted. He's one of dozens of users providing Youtube "reports" of their experiences on the synthetic drug.
Smile's effects have been called a combination of MDMA and LSD, only far more potent. Users have reported a speedy charge along with intense visual and aural hallucinations that can last anywhere from hours to days.
"At first I'd think something was extremely beautiful and then it look really strange," another user says in a recorded online account."I looked at my girlfriend's face for a minute and it was pitch black…the black started dripping out of her eye."
Because the drug is relatively new--it first surfaced around 2003 in European party scenes and only recently made its way to the states--the most readily accessible information about 2C-I comes from user accounts, many of which detail frightening experiences.
Elijah Stai's fatal overdose has prompted a crackdown on the drug in North Dakota.
On an internet forum one user describes the high as a "roller coaster ride through hell," while another warns "do not drive on this drug," after recounting his own failed attempt on the roadway.
Over the past few years, synthetic drugs like K-2, Spice and Bath Salts, have become increasing popular with teenagers and young adults. Their ingredients are relatively easy to obtain and order online and until recently, they weren't classified as illegal substances. But as they come under legal scrutiny, one by one, they've triggered a domino effect of newer, altered, and more potent versions.
"I think [the drugs] just keep changing to try to circumvent the law," Lindsay Wold, a detective with the Grand Forks police department, told Yahoo Shine. "Anytime we try to figure something out, it changes." Since July, her department has launched an awareness campaign in an effort to crack down on 2C-I's growing popularity with teens and young adults in the area. While reports of overdoses have spiked, Wold says it's difficult to measure it's growth in numbers.
The horrifying side effects of Bath Salts drug
According data obtained by the American Association of Poison Control, half of those exposed to 2C-I in 2011 were teenagers. That statistic was before two fatalities and multiple overdoses were linked to the drug in North Dakota.
"The unfortunate thing is if kids who are overdosing on 2C-I go in to the hospital with a physical problem, a lot of times they can't test for it so it doesn't show up as a drug overdose," says Wold.
The fact that 2C-I is untraceable in tests makes it more of a challenge for doctors to treat. It also contributes to drug's growing popularity among high school and college-age kids.
"Synthetic drugs don't generally show up on drug tests and that's made it popular with young adults, as well as people entering the military, college athletes, or anyone who gets tested for drugs," Barbara Carreno, a spokesperson for the Drug Enforcement Agency, tells Shine.
2C-I may be undetected in drug tests, but it's effects are evident in emergency rooms.
According to James Mowry, the director of Indiana's Poison Control Center, 2-CI overdoses--on the rise in the state--and have been known to cause seizures, kidney failure, and fatally high blood pressure.
"They do something that is called 'uncoupling." Mowry told an Indianapolis news station this month. "Basically, their muscles get to the point they cannot uncontract, so they sort of get rigid and then your temperature goes up really high and if you don't treat them really aggressively, those people usually end up dying."
Officials are taking aggressive measures to address this new national drug problem. In July, the DEA announced Operation Log Jam, the first nationwide coordinated US Law enforcement strike specifically targeting designer synthetic drugs. That same month, 2C-I was classified as a Schedule 1 subtance, making possession and distribution of the drug illegal. Those caught distributing even a small amount are facing serious criminal charges. Stai's friend, who allegedly obtained the drug that caused his overdose, has been charged with third degree murder.
While the drug's potential for overdose is apparent, the specific cases of fatalities are confounding. According to one site designed as a "fact sheet" for users, the dosage of the drug, which also comes as a liquid or a pill, is difficult to measure in powder form. When users snort the drug they could end up taking more than they realize, prompting an overdose. But in the case of Stai, the powder wasn't snorted, but melted into a chocolate bar and eaten.
Some speculate those "hobby chemists"--making the drug using powders shipped from China, acetone and plant-based materials--are to blame for concocting particularly strong or toxic batches.
"Anybody with a little money to front can import chemicals, mix, and sell it," says Carreno. "Many of these types of drugs were originally designed for research to be used on animals, not people." In fact, 2C-I was first synthesized by Alexander Shulgin, a psychopharmacologist and scientific researcher. He's responsible for identifying the chemical make-up of the so-called "2C" family, a group of hyper-potent psychedelic synthetics. In 2011, 2C-E, a twin sister drug to 2C-I, was blamed for the death of a Minnesota teenager and the overdose of 11 others.
Because of his medical research, Shulgin has unintentionally become a godfather of the synthetic drug movement, and his work has been reprinted and reduced to plain language on drug-related web forums.
"Drugs used to take longer to get around but now with the internet they can spread by word of mouth online," says Carreno. If drugs like Smiles are as viral as an internet meme, they have a similarly brief life-span. Already, a newer, re-booted version of the drug is cropping up on the other side of the planet, and by early accounts it's terrifying.
The new drug called 25b-Nbome, is a derivative of 2C-I, that's sold in tab form. This past month, the drug has been linked to the non-fatal overdoses of two young adults in Perth, Australia. It's also be blamed for the death of a young man in the same area, who died after repeatedly slamming his body into trees and power line poles while high on the drug.
"Overdose on these drugs is a reality... and can obviously result in dire consequences," a Perth police department official warned.
It isn't obvious to everyone. "I can't recommend for anyone to go out and use this legally," says one alleged 2C-I user in a YouTube video with 12,000 views, "but why not?"
The rise in dangerous synthetic drugs and how officials are trying to curb the problem.
http://shine.yahoo.com/healthy-living/2c-smiles-killer-drug-every-parent-know-234200299.html
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