Author: Trūists.ōrg

Roundup ingredient found in Cheerios, Quaker Oats, and other cereals

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“Days after a California jury awarded a school groundskeeper more than $289 million in damages after he claimed Monsanto’s best-selling weedkiller Roundup gave him cancer, the controversial ingredient – glyphosate — has been detected in popular kids’ breakfast cereals, including Cheerios, Lucky Charms and Quaker Old Fashioned Oats, according to an activist group.

Lab tests conducted by the left-leaning Environmental Working Group (EWG), a nonprofit advocacy group that specializes in toxic chemicals and corporate accountability, indicated almost three-fourths of the 45 food products tested detected high levels of glyphosate, which has been identified as a “probable carcinogen” by the World Health Organization in 2015…

Yet, Olga Naidenko, Ph.D., and senior science adviser for the EWG, says the bottom line is that glyphosate does not belong in children’s food and that recent biomonitoring studies show detectable levels of the ingredient in people’s urine, which likely comes from dietary exposure.”

Article: Roundup ingredient found in Cheerios, Quaker Oats, and other cereals

How US Sugar Subsidies Bring a Red Tide of Algae to Florida’s Shores

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“Though other factors play a role in the algae bloom crises, one of the most significant involves the sugar industry. A combination of federal sugar subsidies, federal regulations on pollution, and federal control of Lake Okeechobee (a giant lake in southern Florida) runoff guidelines has created a recipe for disaster.

The federal sugar subsidy prevents Americans from buying sugar from Cuba and other sources. This means that we have to produce our own sugar and that we pay the world’s highest price for sugar. It also means that we grow sugar and sugar substitutes in a high-cost fashion using a lot of fertilizer!

…the solutions are simple and straightforward. End the sugar subsidies and the EPA and its protection limits. Restore the right of the people to sue polluters that cause demonstrable harm.”

Story: How US Sugar Subsidies Bring a Red Tide of Algae to Florida’s Shores

One QUARTER of Suspended Feds Have Been Suspended Before

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Official data show serious discipline for feds is rare, but secret settlements obscure true figures.

One in four federal employees suspended by federal agencies in 2016 had been suspended before, according to a new review, which suggested an array of best practices for agencies to reduce misconduct in the workplace…

The review examined misconduct issues rather than poor performance. GAO cited as examples of misconduct “time and attendance infractions; intoxication; workplace violence; physical aggression toward an employee; improper use of a government-issued credit card; misuse of government equipment (such as viewing pornography or gambling); use of public position for private gain; and behavior that affects national security.”

Continued: One Quarter of Suspended Feds Have Been Suspended Before

Google Staff Tell Bosses China Censorship is “Moral and Ethical” Crisis

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Communist China GoogleGoogle is facing mounting pressure inside and outside the company over its plans for a censored search engine in China.

GOOGLE EMPLOYEES ARE demanding answers from the company’s leadership amid growing internal protests over plans to launch a censored search engine in China.

Staff inside the internet giant’s offices have agreed that the censorship project raises “urgent moral and ethical issues” and have circulated a letter saying so, calling on bosses to disclose more about the company’s work in China, which they say is shrouded in too much secrecy, according to three sources with knowledge of the matter…

Cynthia Wong, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, is one of the representatives on the GNI’s board of directors. Wong told The Intercept that Google “owes the Chinese people an explanation of how the firm can launch Dragonfly without being conscripted into human rights abuses.”

Continued: Google Staff Tell Bosses China Censorship is “Moral and Ethical” Crisis

Google tracks users who turn off location

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The study found that users had to turn off another setting in order to disable location being recorded
The study found that users had to turn off another setting in order to disable location being recorded

A study from Associated Press suggests that users are still tracked even if they turn off location history.

Google records users’ locations even when they have asked it not to, a report from the Associated Press has suggested.

The issue could affect up to two billion Android and Apple devices which use Google for maps or search.

The study, verified by researchers at Princeton University, has angered US law-makers…

The study found that users’ whereabouts are recorded even when location history has been disabled.

For example:

  • Google stores a snapshot of where you are when you open the Maps app
  • Automatic weather updates on Android phones pinpoint roughly where a user is
  • Searches that have nothing to do with location pinpoint precise longitude and latitude of users

Technology firms are under fire for not being clear about privacy settings and how to use them. In June, a report from the Norwegian Consumer Council found evidence that privacy-friendly options are hidden away or obscured.

Continue reading: Google tracks users who turn off location

Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi: Beware the Slippery Slope of Facebook Censorship

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Facebook’s alleged censoring of InfoWars and Alex Jones is not a free speech issue
Facebook’s alleged censoring of InfoWars and Alex Jones is not a free speech issue

‘You may have seen a story this week detailing how Facebook shut down a series of accounts. As noted by Politico, Facebook claimed these accounts “sought to inflame social and political tensions in the United States, and said their activity was similar — and in some cases connected — to that of Russian accounts during the 2016 election.”

Similar? What does “similar” mean?

The death-pit for civil liberties is usually found in a combination of fringe/unpopular people or ideas and a national security emergency …

Politicians are more interested in using than curtailing the power of these companies. The platforms, for their part, will cave rather than be regulated. The endgame here couldn’t be clearer. This is how authoritarian marriages begin, and people should be very worried.’

Continued Taibbi: Beware the Slippery Slope of Facebook Censorship

Military Bases Open Their Doors to Home-Schoolers

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“A growing number of military parents want to end the age-old tradition of switching schools for their kids.

They’ve embraced homeschooling, and are finding support on bases, which are providing resources for families and opening their doors for home schooling cooperatives and other events.
 
Like home schooling parents in the general population, military families at home often use online curriculum and materials to enhance instruction…”

Source: Military Bases Open Their Doors to Home-Schoolers

Feinstein’s Ties To China Go Way Deeper Than An Alleged Office Spy

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Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s warm relationship with and advocacy for Communist China go back decades and involve millions, if not billions, of dollars.

As media, intelligence agency, and political scrutiny of foreign meddling is seemingly at its apex, a story with big national security implications involving a high-ranking senator with access to America’s most sensitive intelligence information has been hiding in plain sight…

Feinstein’s dealings with the Chinese must be investigated. But so too ought the links between federal officials and all of our adversaries, be it the Chinese and Russians, the Pakistanis and Iranians, or the Muslim Brotherhood and its state supporters. Feinstein is only one politician. How many other relationships with American politicians have the Chinese and our other adversaries fostered? How many spies might they have recruited?

Continue reading: Feinstein’s Ties To China Go Way Deeper Than An Alleged Office Spy

New Trump administration rule will require hospitals post prices online

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Hospitals will be required to post online a list of their standard charges under a rule finalized Thursday by the Trump administration.

Increasing price transparency has been a priority for the administration as a way to drive down health-care costs.

“This is a small step towards providing our beneficiaries with price transparency, but our work in this area is only just beginning”, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma said in a speech last month. “Price transparency is core to patient empowerment and making sure American patients have the tools they need so they can make the best decisions for them and their families.”

Continued: New Trump administration rule will require hospitals post prices online | TheHill

TSA surveilling travelers’ behavior through secretive program

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© Getty Images
© Getty Images

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has begun collecting information on travelers through a program that monitors citizens not on a terror watch list or suspected of a crime, The Boston Globe reported.

The Globe reported Saturday that the program, titled “Quiet Skies,” aims to eliminate threats posed by “unknown or partially known terrorists.”

Undercover air marshals reportedly document passengers’ behavior, including whether they use technology when traveling, whether they change clothes at the airport, how closely they stand to the boarding area and other patterns…

Continued: TSA surveilling travelers’ behavior through secretive program: report | TheHill

MRI costs: why this surgeon is challenging NC’s certificate of need law

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Dr. Gajendra Singh, a surgeon in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, who opened his own medical imaging center. He is suing to overturn the state’s “certificate of need” law.  Courtesy of the Institute of Justice
Dr. Gajendra Singh, a surgeon in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, who opened his own medical imaging center. He is suing to overturn the state’s “certificate of need” law.  Courtesy of the Institute of Justice

Dr. Gajendra Singh walked out of his local hospital’s outpatient department last year, having been told an ultrasound for some vague abdominal pain he was feeling would cost $1,200 or so, and decided enough was enough. If he was balking at the price of a routine medical scan, what must people who weren’t well-paid medical professionals be thinking?

The India-born surgeon decided he would open his own imaging center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and charge a lot less. Singh launched his business in August and decided to post his prices, as low as $500 for an MRI, on a banner outside the office building and on his website.

There was just one barrier to fully realizing his vision: a North Carolina law that he and his lawyers argue essentially gives hospitals a monopoly over MRI scans and other services.

Singh ran into the state’s “certificate of need” law, which prohibited him from buying a permanent MRI machine, which meant his office couldn’t always offer patients one of the most important imaging services in medicine. He has resorted to renting a mobile MRI machine a couple of days a week. But it will cost him a lot more over time than a permanent machine would, and five days a week, his office can’t perform MRIs.

Now Singh has had enough. He filed a lawsuit Monday in North Carolina Superior Court to overturn the state law, news that he and his attorneys from the Institute for Justice shared exclusively with Vox…

Cont’d: MRI costs: why this surgeon is challenging certificate of need law (Vox)

Hospitals keep ER fees secret. Share your bill here to help change that.

Hackers break into voting machines within 2 hours at Defcon

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After nearly an hour and a half, Carsten Schürmann, an associate professor with IT-University of Copenhagen, successfully cracked into a voting machine at Las Vegas’ Defcon convention on Friday night, CNET reports.

Schürmann penetrated Advanced Voting Solutions’ 2000 WinVote machine through its Wi-Fi system. Using a Windows XP exploit from 2003, he was able to remotely access the machine, CNET reports.

The convention purchased more than 30 voting machines for the event, although, organizers didn’t specify how many models those units represented.

“The exposure of those devices to the people who do bug bounties or actually look at these kind of devices has been fairly limited”, Brian Knopf, director of security researcher for Neustar, told CNET. “And so Defcon is a great opportunity for those of us who hack hardware and firmware to look to these kind of devices and really answer that question, ‘Are they hackable?’”

A hacker tries to access and alter data from an electronic poll book in a Voting Machine Hacking Village during the Defcon hacker convention in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. on July 29, 2017.  REUTERS
 A hacker tries to access and alter data from an electronic poll book in a Voting Machine Hacking Village during the Defcon hacker convention in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. on July 29, 2017.  REUTERS

Synack, a San Francisco security platform, discovered serious flaws with the WinVote machine months ahead of this weekend’s convention. The team simply plugged in a mouse and keyboard and bypassed the voting software by clicking “ctrl-alt-del”.

“It’s really just a matter of plugging your USB drive in for five seconds and the thing’s completely compromised at that point”, Synack co-founder Jay Kaplan told CNET. “To the point where you can get remote access. It’s very simple.”

A hacker, who only identified himself as “Oyster,” tried to crack a Diebold voting machine after another team had compromised it.

Anne-Marie Hwang, a Synack intern, told CNET that changing votes can be as simple as updating a Microsoft Excel document…

Source: Hackers break into voting machines within 2 hours at Defcon (CBS News)