Wikileaks leaks classified intelligence report about itself
Wikileaks, a website that aims to boost government transparency and accountability by publishing sensitive documents, has released a classified military counterintelligence analysis report that discusses the "threat posed to the US Army" by Wikileaks itself.The report outlines this perceived threat and contends that military security could be put at risk if classified information is made available through Wikileaks, where it can be accessed by foreign intelligence agents and terrorists. The report also points out that foreign governments could leak falsified information to the Wikileaks site in an attempt to undermine the credibility of the United States.One of the primary topics addressed in the report is potential strategies for deterring moles within the US government from disclosing information to Wikileaks. The author of the report suggests that identifying leakers and terminating their employment or pursuing legal action against them could undermine the relationship of trust between Wikileaks and its informants, thus diminishing the risk of future leaks."Recent unauthorized release of DoD sensitive and classified documents provide FISS, foreign terrorist groups, insurgents, and other foreign adversaries with potentially actionable information for targeting US forces," the report says. "The possibility that current employees or moles within DoD or elsewhere in the US government are providing sensitive or classified information to Wikileaks.org cannot be ruled out."The report concludes that the disclosure of classified information by Wikileaks reflects the need for stronger counterintelligence programs and better information security training for military personnel.
Wikileaks, a website that aims to boost government transparency and accountability by publishing sensitive documents, has released a classified military counterintelligence analysis report that discusses the "threat posed to the US Army" by Wikileaks itself.
The report outlines this perceived threat and contends that military security could be put at risk if classified information is made available through Wikileaks, where it can be accessed by foreign intelligence agents and terrorists. The report also points out that foreign governments could leak falsified information to the Wikileaks site in an attempt to undermine the credibility of the United States.
One of the primary topics addressed in the report is potential strategies for deterring moles within the US government from disclosing information to Wikileaks. The author of the report suggests that identifying leakers and terminating their employment or pursuing legal action against them could undermine the relationship of trust between Wikileaks and its informants, thus diminishing the risk of future leaks.
"Recent unauthorized release of DoD sensitive and classified documents provide FISS, foreign terrorist groups, insurgents, and other foreign adversaries with potentially actionable information for targeting US forces," the report says. "The possibility that current employees or moles within DoD or elsewhere in the US government are providing sensitive or classified information to Wikileaks.org cannot be ruled out."
The report concludes that the disclosure of classified information by Wikileaks reflects the need for stronger counterintelligence programs and better information security training for military personnel.
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Pension ruling hurts British retirees in Calgary
The European Court of Human Rights ruled Tuesday that British retirees living abroad -- including more than 150,000 in Canada -- will not have their pensions indexed to reflect inflation.
The decision means more than 500,000 British expatriates living in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa will continue to receive their payments at the unadjusted levels.
"We are deeply disappointed," said Calgary's Sheila Telford, director of the Conservative Party of Canada of British Pensioners.
"This impacts thousands of people who have paid into their British pensions for years, but now it will be frozen at the rate they got it.
"It's completely ridiculous, because if these same people lived in the U.S., their pension would be adjusted."
Telford, who is 62 and is deferring her British pension, explained that someone who retired in the 1970s, for instance, would be receiving as much as $145 Cdn a week if they were living in Britain. But because they are in Canada, the frozen rate leaves them with as little as $10 a week.
Because the majority of ex-Brits live in Commonwealth countries such as Canada, the decision is huge for the British government, saving it as much as $1 billion in payouts.
The case was first heard by the U.K. courts in 2002, but every level of the judicial system denied the pensioners' claim.
In 2009, the case was brought to the human rights tribunal by pensioners who claimed that the U.K.'s policy violated the European Convention on Human Rights.
Some retirees living abroad haven't seen their payments increase in 20 years.
That means they could be losing out on thousands of dollars a year compared to those living in the United Kingdom, the United States, or elsewhere in the European Union.
The U.K. government has bilateral agreements with the EU and 15 other countries that allow for inflation-indexing of pensions. But most Commonwealth nations do not have such agreements.
Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/life/Pension+ruling+hurts+British+retirees+Calgary/2692398/story.html#ixzz0iRdpGuR0
Off The Kuff
Charles Kuffner.
The school district squeeze
Everywhere you look there’s bad budget news.
“This is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” said Fort Bend ISD Chief Financial Officer Tracy Hoke, who’s worked in school finance for two decades. “I could turn out every light, and we’d still have a deficit.”Hoke isn’t exaggerating about the lights. The Fort Bend Independent School District is facing a $20 million deficit for the coming academic year. The district’s annual utility bill is expected to top $18 million, a $1 million increase over this year.The district’s other expenses also are rising — staffing three new schools will cost $2.3 million, for example — but its revenues are staying essentially flat under Texas’ school funding system. In 2006, state lawmakers slashed property tax rates and capped districts’ revenue at a certain amount per child. That amount varied widely and tended to penalize school systems with booming student enrollment. Fort Bend, for example, got $4,871 per student, while Tomball ISD earned $5,783.
Three things to note here. One is that any school finance system that cannot keep up with the needs of the fastest growing districts is a system that is built for failure, in every sense of the word. My thesaurus isn’t big enough to adequately describe the magnitude of the catastrophe that is brewing.
Two, education and health care are the biggest parts of the budget. As was recently pointed out to me, you could zero out the criminal justice article of the budget – shut down the prisons, set all the inmates free, close the courts – and you still wouldn’t cover even half of the revenue shortfall. (Don’t believe me – see for yourself. Schools are covered in Article 3, health and Human services in Article 2, with the biggest piece (Medicaid) being under the Health and Human Services Commission, and criminal justice is in Article 5, under Department of Criminal Justice.) We basically froze school spending in the 2006 special session where that giant unaffordable property tax cut originated, and the Lege is going to be forced to cut school spending further in 2011. Did I mention this was a giant disaster about to happen? Which leads to point three:
David Thompson is a Houston attorney who represented districts in a school finance lawsuit that was decided by the Texas Supreme Court in 2005. The court ruled for the districts, noting that they no longer had “meaningful discretion” over their property tax rates. The Legislature responded with revisions to the funding system in 2006.Thompson said the changes provided “temporary relief,” but schools now are struggling under their fourth year of the so-called target revenue system. He wouldn’t say whether school boards are considering suing again.“I will say that the trends to me are disturbingly looking like they looked prior to 2006,” Thompson said. “We have funding for schools that is arbitrary and not rational and not related to the standards we’re trying to accomplish. We have growing equity gaps in some places.”
You want to make a sure-fire bet on something? Bet on there being another school finance-related lawsuit in the coming decade, quite possibly in the early part of it. And before you say “well, maybe we can do more cuts on the health and human services side”, let me say three words to you: Frew v. Hawkins. It’s lawsuits all the way down. Fixing the revenue side of the equation is the only way out.
( It looks as if the real problem is in the move to more vans. Industry claims will protest technological progress in recession cannot be legislated. They will say the proposal is nuts : it will, at the least, drive companies under and add to unemployment. Using the legislative knout to excess will lead to bad results. If results must be had, less obvious ploys are necessary. One last thought : proliferation of legislation only ensures job security for public nuisances.)
Geithner Warns Unemployment Will Stay High in 2010
See full article from DailyFinance:http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/geithner-warns-unemployment-will-stay-high-in-2010/19401773/?igoogle=1&icid=sphere_copyright
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