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Suspected John Wayne Gacy Victim Actually Alive, Reunited with Family

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Suspected John Wayne Gacy Victim Actually Alive, Reunited with Family

A man thought to have been a victim of the killer clown, serial killer and rapist John Wayne Gacy, was just found very much alive in Montana, thanks to his sister who never stopped searching for him in the 40 years since he went missing.

ABC has the incredible story of how a determined sister found her brother nearly 42 years after his disappearance. Robert Hutton was last heard from in 1972 when he left New York for California. His sister Edyth was 24 at the time.

Hutton never made it to California, leading his family to believe that he could have encountered the clown serial killer somewhere near Chicago.

His sister was devastated but she never gave up searching.

In the '90s, Edyth turned to the internet and tracked down more than 500 Robert, Rob and Bob Huttons. She mailed them postcards that ended, "If this is not you, please forgive the intrusion and disregard this card."

In 2011, a detective trying to identify the last eight unclaimed Gacy victims met with Edyth, but soon figured out that her brother had up until recently lived in Colorado. But he had since moved, and no one seemed to know where.

That detective, Jason Moran of the Cook County Sheriff's Office, felt compelled to follow through once he learned Edyth's father was dying of cancer.

"I've been meeting with these families of missing persons, and … even after 30 or 40 years — they just have this sadness about them, like, 'Where is my missing child?'" Moran told ABC.

So, he found Hutton living in a small, rural Montana town. He called the local police station and had an officer dispatched to Hutton's house, where he told Hutton the story over the phone. Hutton was apparently amazed to hear they'd been looking for him.

"I got a call from [Moran], and he said, 'Edyth, are you sitting down?'" Edyth told ABC. "And my heart was pounding. I said, 'Yes, I am. Do you have some info for me?' He said, 'I do.' And very quickly he said, 'I found your brother and he's alive and well.' And [it] was just like a hole that I had not known the size of in my heart was filled. … It was fabulous news. I was crying and laughing at the same time."

Hutton told ABC that his disappearance was due to neglect — he spent years drifting through the Southwest with no fixed address, tried halfheartedly to find his family in the '90s and then spiraled out looking for work after the 2008 market crash.

"And, you know, procrastination is my middle name," he told ABC. "It just kind of happened that we got out of touch, and then when we tried to get in touch we had no contact [information]."

Hutton and his father have already been reunited, but he and Edyth haven't seen each other yet — they say Hutton's work hours and financial difficulties are currently keeping them apart.

But according to ABC, they speak every week.

"We will see each other as soon as we can. We know that," Edyth told ABC.

[image via AP]


Obama Commutes the Life Sentences of Six Nonviolent Drug Offenders

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Obama Commutes the Life Sentences of Six Nonviolent Drug Offenders

Today, President Obama commuted the sentences of eight nonviolent drug offenders — including Clarence Aaron, a man who was sentenced to three life sentences in 1993 for his role in arranging a cocaine deal.

“He was absolutely overcome,” Aaron's attorney told the New York Times. “Actually, I was, too. He was in tears. This has been a long haul for him, 20 years. He just was speechless, and it’s very exciting.”

Aaron's sentence was nearly commuted under the Bush White House when his file came up in a stack of files to be considered by the pardon office.

The White House, frustrated by how few pardons were being processed through the office, selected Aaron's file as a promising case in 2008.

The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama supported commuting his sentence. The judge involved in the case supported commuting his sentence, telling the pardon office Aaron "should be granted relief" immediately.

But unfortunately for Aaron, the pardon attorney at the time, Lt. Col. Ronald L. Rodgers, ignored their recommendations, and instead resubmitted a denial that he had penned for Aaron in 2004.

The Justice Department wouldn't comment on Rodgers or how he handled the Aaron case.

Six of the eight were serving life sentences for their nonviolent crimes — including Stephanie George, who got life in 1997 when she let her boyfriend stash his crack in her home.

All were convicted prior to the passage of the 2010 Fair Sentencing Act, which finally reduced the disparity between cocaine and crack sentencing.

More than 9,000 offenders still remain behind bars under the old sentencing guidelines.

[image via Shutterstock]

The FBI's been able to do it for years, but now any Joe Schmoe high school kid can figure out how to

Does a Dynasty end not with a whimper but a man's anus?

New Jersey Man Arrested After Showing Up Drunk for His Road Test

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New Jersey Man Arrested After Showing Up Drunk for His Road Test

A New Jersey man was arrested last week after he attempted to take a road test while intoxicated.

Fifty-three-year-old Stephen Goss was arrested for DWI and reckless driving charges after he blew a .18 at a New Jersey DMV.

The unlicensed driver apparently drove himself drunk to the test, where he breathed alcohol fumes all over his instructor, who called police.

When they arrived, he was apparently sitting behind the wheel with the engine running, still waiting to start the driving test. Instead, he got — and failed — a sobriety test.

He did not get a license.

[image via Shutterstock]

Obama Offers “Hardship Exemption” to People With Canceled Plans

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Obama Offers “Hardship Exemption” to People With Canceled Plans

Just days before the deadline to sign up for coverage, the Obama administration announced that the millions of Americans whose health care plans were canceled under the Affordable Care Act are now eligible for catastrophic coverage and will be granted an exemption from any health care-related penalties.

Kathleen Sebelius, the much beleaguered secretary of health and human services, announced the new plan in a letter to Senator Mark Warner and five other Democratic senators who'd pushed for the exemption. A catastrophic plan, which offers low premiums and minimal coverage, usually applies only to people under 30 or those who qualify for a hardship exemption.

"If the consumer believes that the plan options available in the marketplace in their area are more expensive than their canceled health insurance policy, they will be eligible for catastrophic coverage through a hardship exemption," the administration said Thursday.

The announcement comes just three days before the December 23 deadline to enroll in coverage for 2014 and six weeks after President Obama apologized to Americans who lost their existing plans because of the Affordable Care Act.

While it's not yet clear how many people will opt out of their coverage, insurance companies are worried that those who do will be the relatively healthy and young people who are cheaper to cover.

"This latest rule change could cause significant instability in the marketplace and lead to further confusion and disruption for consumers," said Karen Ignagni, president of America's Health Insurance Plans, the industry's main trade group.

Federal health officials, who estimate the number of people expected to enroll in the catastrophic coverage plan at fewer than 500,000, say it's unlikely that many of the previously insured will forgo more comprehensive coverage through the new option.

"This is a common-sense clarification of the law," Joanne Peters, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services, told the Washington Post. "For the limited number of consumers whose plans have been canceled and are seeking coverage, this is one more option."

[Image via AP]

Air Force General Fired for Awesomest Overseas Drunken Bender Ever

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Air Force General Fired for Awesomest Overseas Drunken Bender Ever

The top officer in charge of all the United States' land-based nuclear missiles was fired last July for unspecified reasons. Yesterday, the Air Force released a report detailing why he was relieved: He used a four-day mission to Moscow to get pickled, get sexy and party like a rock star.

When Maj. Gen Michael Carey went on the July trip to Russia, his behavior was so awful from start to finish that a member of his delegation who worked in the Secretary of Defense's office reported him to the Air Force's inspector general, which investigated the trip. Carey had started drinking on a layover in Zurich and while there, he "talked loudly about the importance of his position…and that he saved the world from war every day," according to the report, which was first posted by the Washington Post.

The delegation landed in Moscow and Carey made a beeline for the Marriott hotel's executive lounge, where he intoned on his airmen's bad morale, then he joined a colleague in dancing the night away at the rooftop bar of the nearby Ritz-Carlton. While there until 5 a.m., they caroused with two women who called themselves travel executives from Great Britain.

During a lunch banquet with the Russians, where toasts were exchanged, Carey got more blotto and "gave a toast to the group which included comments regarding Syria and Mr. Eric Snowden [sic], which were not well received" by the Russian hosts. He also bragged about the "hot women" he'd met the night before and made fun of the Russian translators.

Later, on a tour of a Russian monastery, Carey slurred and interrupted the tour guide, at one point trying to fist-bump her. "He was not totally coherent," one witness said.

He persuaded the group to go to a restaurant called La Cantina because "the General really wanted to see this Beatles cover band." As they mulled over how they'd ended up at a Mexican restaurant on a trip to Moscow, one witness said, Carey "was really intent on singing with the band."

About this time, the two "travel executives" showed up and made a beeline for Carey, in front of his subordinates. He left with them and tied another one on at some bars. The following night, he ended up drinking in the hotel lobby with the cigar sales lady, who "was asking questions about physics and optics."

Witnesses to Carey's bender said they were "mortified." "When the conference was done and we were in the airplane," said one, "I didn't want to have anything to do with him."

When questioned about the trip, "Carey either had a poor recall of significant events, perhaps due to his alcohol consumption, or was untruthful during the interview." He was, however, able to recall details about the banquet food. "I particularly liked, had a nice, uh, almost like a tortilla kind of cone with a caviar in it and a sprig of um, uh, like dill or something like that," he told investigators. "It was delicious."

[Photo credit: U.S. Air Force]

Wife Fights Back Against Abusive Husband, Yields Best Mugshot Ever

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Wife Fights Back Against Abusive Husband, Yields Best Mugshot Ever

Police in Oklahoma say a domestic violence victim managed to fend off her husband's vicious assault by roughing him up in return, resulting in this priceless mugshot of the suspect.

Derrick Maynard, 32, of Bartlesville, was drinking whiskey and likely drunk when he began throwing objects at his wife and verbally attacking her.

Maynard's wife told police her husband then grabbed his unloaded pellet rifle, pumped it several times, aimed it at her, and said, "you deserve to die."

A court affidavit states that after Maynard began punching his wife in the head, the woman defended herself by kicking him several times in the face.

Maynard then lost his balance, reportedly due to his inebriated state.

Police soon arrived and arrested Maynard on suspicion of aggravated assault with a weapon and threatening to kill.

According to court documents obtained by NewsOn6, Maynard was in the process of completing 52 weeks of court-ordered domestic violence counseling stemming from a September arrest for domestic assault and battery, to which he pleaded guilty.

Maynard will likely remain locked up until his upcoming court appearance on January 3.

[H/T: Arbroath, mugshot via Washington County Jail]


Deadspin The 12 Best Sports Infographics Of 2013 | io9 The Best and Worst Television Moments of 2013

Peggy Noonan Cannot Tolerate The Rigors of Air Travel

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Peggy Noonan Cannot Tolerate The Rigors of Air Travel

O Peggy, my Peggy, so heady—gentle Peg! She travels, unravels, then babbles—is she dead?

She's flying, she's crying, she's whining—breaking down!

She's wary, it's scary, is this plane... making sounds?

It's dirty, she's hurting, observing—with a frown!

Her seat was once used by a man that was brown.

There aren't really a lot of nice things about flying. It's scary, germy, full of delays. They don't clean the planes as they once did—the tray is not clean and as you open it and see the coke and coffee marks, you wonder if it was used on the last flight by a Senegalese tourist with typhus.

O Peg!

[Photo: Getty]

Did Mossad Secretly Train Nelson Mandela on Judo, Guns and Sabotage?

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Did Mossad Secretly Train Nelson Mandela on Judo, Guns and Sabotage?

South African freedom fighter Nelson Mandela secretly traveled to Ethiopia and received paramilitary training from Israeli spies shortly before he was arrested in 1962, according to a memo that was reportedly just unearthed from Israel's State Archives.

The letter was found by David Fachler, an Israeli attorney and "communal spiritual leader" with South African ties who was working in the archives to research a master's thesis. It was reportedly written as a "CYA" from Mossad to several members of Israel's Foreign Ministry, two months after Mandela was arrested and imprisoned by the South African government. Fachler shared it yesterday with the left-leaning Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz:

"As you may recall, three months ago we discussed the case of a trainee who arrived at the [Israeli] embassy in Ethiopia by the name of David Mobsari who came from Rhodesia," the letter said. "The aforementioned received training from the Ethiopians [Israeli embassy staff, almost certainly Mossad agents] in judo, sabotage and weaponry." The phrase "the Ethiopians" was apparently a code name for Mossad operatives working in Ethiopia.

The letter also noted that the subject in question "showed an interest in the methods of the Haganah and other Israeli underground movements. "It added that "he greeted our men with 'Shalom', was familiar with the problems of Jewry and of Israel, and gave the impression of being an intellectual. The staff tried to make him into a Zionist," the Mossad operative wrote.

"In conversations with him, he expressed socialist worldviews and at times created the impression that he leaned toward communism," the letter continued, noting that the man who called himself David Mobsari was the same man who had recently been arrested in South Africa...

Additional handwritten notes on the document appear to confirm Mossad officers' suspicion that their trainee was Mandela, the so-called "Black Pimpernel."

In a Ha'aretz op-ed accompanying the letter's release, Fachler blasted the current Israeli government for snubbing Mandela's funeral and showing "that it serially misunderstands the new South Africa." He argued that the letter and '60s-era anti-apartheid activity by the Israeli government showed the Jewish state had more in common with Mandela's politics than it has always acknowledged.

If authenticated, the letter's substance could complicate Mandela's legacy, however. As a revolutionary and a politician, he courted many leaders and movements—such as the Palestinian Liberation Organization and groups it had trained—whose aims were opposed to Israel's. Pictures of Mandela with PLO head Yassir Arafat, like the one above, are ubiquitious.

The letter is already being decried by some of his supporters as a fake to smear the dead man's legacy. As one South African political organizer tweeted of the story: "Twas only a matter of time before some try to 'discredit' Tata."

[Photo credit: AP]

Uber Backer Compares Company to Life-Saving Cancer Drugs

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The more Uber's price gouging is contested, the more its defense boils down to pay up, or fuck off. Menlo Ventures investor Venky Ganesan just offered up the most tone deaf version, comparing astronomically priced Uber rides to $200,000 cancer treatments.

In a conversation with Bloomberg TV's Emily Chang, Ganesan makes the idiotic analogy: Uber is so great, you won't mind paying extra. You'll just be glad you're in the car! Likewise, cancer medications might prevent you from dying, so you'll gladly pay up for that, too. What Ganesan might not realize that pharmaceuticals are, of course, the price gouging example par excellence—if only he could invest in an Uber-for-relating-to-the-rest-of-humanity.

Jon Stewart Defends Duck Dynasty Star's Right to Say 'Ignorant Shit'

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Jon Stewart Defends Duck Dynasty Star's Right to Say 'Ignorant Shit'

With Christmas right around the corner, most news outlets have already checked out, as evidenced by the fact that this week's biggest story by far was something some backswamp redneck reality show "personality" said about his juvenile aversion to putting his penis inside a man's anus because vaginas are better.

Jon Stewart also has one foot in his holiday vacation, but before leaving he felt the need to say something about this ducking non-troversy — and take an obligatory swipe at Fox News while he was at it.

"I don't actually watch Duck Dynasty," Stewart acknowledged, "and I had assumed it was a show where ducks reenact the show Dynasty — which, by the way, would have a huge gay audience."

Stewart made it clear he was not personally cool with Phil Robertson's homophobic comments. "But I also have an inclination to support a world where saying ignorant shit on television doesn't get you kicked off that medium," he said.

With his own defense of Robertson out of the way, Stewart turned his attention toward the hypocrisy very much apparent in the defense of Robertson coming from the right.

"I guess I stand with the free speech absolutists at Fox News, who don't believe you should have to adhere to the culture norms of speech," Stewart said, before adding, "Mostly."

He then launched into a truly lovely montage of Fox News clips showing the network's anchors, hosts, and talking heads getting hot under the festive collar over the use of "Happy Holidays" in lieu of "Merry Christmas."

Fox's "belief in free speech doesn't extend to the holidays where the word Christmas is mandatory," Stewart concluded.

Happy holidays.

[screengrab via The Daily Show]

Gay Sex Is Still Illegal in Louisiana, By the Way

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Gay Sex Is Still Illegal in Louisiana, By the Way

What with the big uproar over Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson piping up against gay sex, let's all remember: sodomy is still illegal down there in Louisiana. Phil Robertson for Louisiana Attorney General!

The LA Times' Matt Pearce puts this outrage in perspective:

Sodomy, meantime, is still technically a crime in Louisiana. State law allows a punishment of up to five years in prison for perpetrating a "crime against nature," as the statute calls it. The statute isn't really supposed to be functional anymore; the Supreme Court in 2003 struck down anti-sodomy laws across the U.S... [but a] Baton Rouge Advocate investigation published in July revealed that the East Baton Rouge Parish sheriff's office had arrested at least a dozen people under the anti-sodomy law since 2011.

Phil Robertson was merely reciting the law of the land in his home state, so everyone please apologize to him at this time, unless you're willing to concede that the entire state of Lousiana, like much of the rest of the South, is politically controlled by backwards fundamentalist hatemongers who are essentially still white supremacists who have been dragged unwillingly into the 21st century. And uh, that's a ridiculous notion.

[Photo: Getty]

More than you ever wanted to know about how to make good chocolate chip cookies.


Students Shut Down School After Gay Vice Principal Forced to Resign

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Students Shut Down School After Gay Vice Principal Forced to Resign

The forced resignation of a popular high school vice principal in Washington prompted hundreds of students to stage a protest that effectively shut the school down.

Sit-ins and walk-outs were held all day yesterday at Eastside Catholic High School in Sammamish following news that vice principal Mark Zmuda had been dismissed for marrying his same-sex partner back in July.

Same-sex marriage is legal in the state of Washington, but Zmuda's private love life reportedly ran afoul of the Archdiocese of Seattle, which oversees the school, and he was ordered to resign.

As word spread about the protest at Eastside Catholic, several other Catholic high school in the area joined in solidarity.

A Change.org petition calling on the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to reverse the Church's stance against gay marriage has racked up over 10,000 signatures in just 24 hours.

But it seems nothing short of a miracle will get Zmuda reinstated.

"He understood he could no longer be employed there because of his current circumstances," said Eastside Catholic spokesman Mike Patterson, referring to Zmuda, whom he call an "exemplary" administrator.

According to Patterson, the school, like other Catholic schools, makes every teacher sign a contract vowing to adhere to the Church's doctrine, which strictly prohibits same-sex marriage.

Zmuda himself spoke with rallying students, and took the opportunity to officially come out:

I just want to make one brief statement and that is to tell you that yes, I am gay. Yes, I did get married this past summer and I know it is against the Catholic teaching. I think a lot of you guys are raised in a generation that is more open and acceptable to things that are legal now in the State of Washington. But, I just want you to know that my personal life is a small part of who I am.

I am first a teacher and administrator. And, I try my best to be an educator to each and every one of you. And, I hope that no matter what happens to me and to the school, that all of you guys will seek a career and work very hard, find the love of your life, hopefully one day get married as well. At the same time, no matter what happens, strive to do your best.

Since news of the protest went national, several Eastside Catholic alumni have come forward to say they will cease their financial support of the institution.

The school's principal, Polly Skinner, sent out an email to one graduate, saying Zmuda's dismissal "was based on the Archdiocese of Seattle's authority over a Catholic school," and that "we are saddened and as a Catholic school, bound by Catholic Teaching regarding Same Sex marriage."

[H/T: BuzzFeed, Fark, Reddit]

Tech Titan: Let's Break Up California and Make Silicon Valley a State

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Tech Titan: Let's Break Up California and Make Silicon Valley a State

Old guard investor Tim Draper made a name for himself with mammoth VC returns on mainstream companies like Hotmail and Skype, then surprised many by retreating from his own firm firm. Now we know why: he's pushing to divide California into six new states, with Silicon Valley as the new separatist jewel of the union.

The "Six Californias" proposal, unearthed by TechCrunch, is an almost parodic capstone for a year that's seen plenty of kooky secessionist bluster. But Tim Draper is a man who's deadly serious about dumb ideas—and he has so much money, he'll command attention for a scheme as radical as this.

The plan (which would of course require federal affirmation even if Californians approved) is to subdivide the existing state into six smaller, new states: Jefferson, North California, Central California, West California, South California, and, of course, Silicon Valley, which would receive its own state government and elected officials in our federal legislature. The Sean Parkers and Peter Thiels of our nation would finally get their enclave, an anti-regulatory Xanadu comprised not of noble yeoman, toilers, artists, or thinkers, but app-hucksters and Tesla-driving engineers. Not content with squeezing tax breaks out of San Francisco, Draper's new state could be a haven for everything tech—a territory dedicated to an industry. The state song? This. The state bird? A homeless person with wings, flying far, far away from San Francisco, now a state capital.

Tech Titan: Let's Break Up California and Make Silicon Valley a State

TechCrunch points out that "getting such a measure on California's wacky ballot will be no easy task," as "attempts to get initiatives on the state ballot can cost millions of dollars, and often fail." Though it's a longshot, Draper absolutely has any requisite millions. He also has the fierce anti-government guts to push forward with something this insane—it's the same man who has decried Washington as a "cancer" in America, and urged its relocation.

Tech Titan: Let's Break Up California and Make Silicon Valley a State

It also makes a lot of stupid sense. Time and time again, Silicon Valley espouses, almost theatrically performs its disdain for the rest of the cosmos. There are the Hackers, the Makers, the Change the World-ers—and then there are the rest of us. There are the homeless, and there are the condo-dwelling. There are the people in the Twitter cafeteria, and then there's everyone else beneath it. Techies will go to greath lengths to insulate themselves from anyone else they don't consider insturmental to their hacker heaven on earth—whether that means holing up in a luxury commune, or absconding to a mountaintop. Californians who aren't actively contributing to the software GDP will be out on their own—not our problem anymore, farm boys!

It's safe to assume that California will not, for all Draper and his money's efforts, be split six ways. But tech's general will to divide, to retreat, to hole up with all the other jerks and build a billion new ways to have your dry cleaning picked up via iPhone—needs no vote, and is already strongly ratified.

Photo of Tim Draper: Getty

Six Californias Proposal

FBI Agent Leaves "Secret Interrogation Manual" in Library of Congress

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FBI Agent Leaves "Secret Interrogation Manual" in Library of Congress

Operational security, ladies and gentlemen. We have secrets, and we need to keep them! We also need to log them all. Now... where do I register this unredacted treatise on how to interrogate an Arab?

Via Mother Jones:

In a lapse that national security experts call baffling, a high-ranking FBI agent filed a sensitive internal manual detailing the bureau's secret interrogation procedures with the Library of Congress, where anyone with a library card can read it...

The 70-plus-page manual ended up in the Library of Congress, thanks to its author, an FBI official who made an unexplainable mistake. This FBI supervisory special agent, who once worked as a unit chief in the FBI's counterterrorism division, registered a copyright for the manual in 2010 and deposited a copy with the US Copyright Office, where members of the public can inspect it upon request. What's particularly strange about this episode is that government documents cannot be copyrighted.

It's still not exactly easy to get a glimpse of the uncut version, and the ACLU has long hosted a redacted copy online, where you can learn critical tidbits to help you squeeze hajjis for info, like: "To Arabs honor is more important than facts."

Still, Mother Jones compared the two versions and found some fun redactions:

Another section, blacked out in the version provided to the ACLU, encourages FBI agents to stage a "date-stamped full-body picture" of a detainee, complete with a bottle of water, for use in refuting abuse allegations at trial.

Can't do nothing wrong to a dude who's holding a bottle of water!

[Photo credit: elnavegante/Shutterstock]

How Many People Died Because of Batkid?

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How Many People Died Because of Batkid?

Batkid. Remember Batkid? A sick child, running around San Francisco, living a wonderful dream? Terrible use of resources, that kid was.

The Make-a-Wish foundation reportedly sought more than $100,000 to reimburse the city of San Francisco for what it spent making the Batkid dream of little leukemia patient Miles Scott come true. Writing in the Washington Post today, the utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer points out the uncomfortable fact: that charity money could have done a lot more.

According to Make-A-Wish, the average cost of realizing the wish of a child with a life-threatening illness is $7,500. That sum, if donated to the Against Malaria Foundation and used to provide bed nets to families in malaria-prone regions, could save the lives of at least two or three children (and that's a conservative estimate). If donated to the Fistula Foundation, it could pay for surgeries for approximately 17 young mothers who, without that assistance, will be unable to prevent their bodily wastes from leaking through their vaginas and hence are likely to be outcasts for the rest of their lives. If donated to the Seva Foundation to treat trachoma and other common causes of blindness in developing countries, it could protect 100 children from losing their sight as they grow older.

"It's obvious, isn't it," Singer asks, "that saving a child's life is better than fulfilling a child's wish to be Batkid?" Yes. It is just as obvious as obvious can be. Even a five year-old could see that it's obvious. But that will not stop this line of argument (and our perhaps overly provocative headline) from enraging those who prefer to luxuriate in a bath of warm and fuzzy emotional validation, rather than to think about this simple fact: In a world of scarce resources and limitless need, it's just common sense (and common decency) to direct our charitable resources to those who need it the most. It is not moral to pour charity money into non-life-and-death causes when that money could be used to actually save human lives.

Though it is not considered polite to say it, the fact is that most of the charity money we give to less important causes represents money not given to more important causes, and that means fewer lives saved, simply due to our own whimsical preferences. That's not nice.

Peter Singer recommends some good charities here. And here, he explains why people in poverty deserve our support. There's nothing better to read at Christmas than this.

[Photo:AP]

NSA Targeted Israeli Prime Minister, Top EU Officials, Aid Groups

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NSA Targeted Israeli Prime Minister, Top EU Officials, Aid Groups

Another big Edward Snowden reveal: Between 2008 and 2011, the NSA and British surveillance group GCHQ targeted the Israeli Prime Minister, German government buildings in Berlin, officials from international charity organizations, heads of state from various African countries, and top-ranking European Union officials.

The documents, provided by Snowden to the New York Times, the Guardian, and Der Spiegel, detail surveillance operations from 2008 to 2011, covering more than 1000 targets in more than 60 countries.

The NSA and GCHQ spied on aid organizations including UNICEF and Médecins du Monde. "Our doctors and medical professionals, many of whom are volunteers, risk their lives daily in some of the world's most dangerous places, like Mali, Somalia and in and around Syria," Leigh Daynes, an executive director of Médecins du Monde in the UK, told the Guardian. "There is absolutely no reason for our operations to be secretly monitored."

According to one 2009 document, the agencies hacked the emails of several Israeli officials, including then-Prime Minster Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, and monitored two Israeli embassies.

Olmert, for his part, did not seem bothered by the report. From the New York Times:

"This was an unimpressive target," Mr. Olmert said. He noted, for example, that his most sensitive discussions with President George W. Bush took place in private. "I would be surprised if there was any attempt by American intelligence in Israel to listen to the prime minister's lines," he said.

Britain also targeted several German government buildings, in Berlin and abroad, which, as the Guardian notes, might make things awkward for British PM David Cameron, who in October condemned reports that the NSA had spied on German Chancellor Angela Merkel's cell phone.

Joaquín Almunia, the vice president of the European Commission, was also monitored, according to the documents. Almunia, who is in charge of anti-trust issues in Europe, including cases involving high-profile American companies like Microsoft and Google, told the New York Times that he was "strongly upset" by the revelations.

The NSA was adamant their spying had nothing to do with the business interest of U.S. companies.

"We do not use our foreign intelligence capabilities to steal the trade secrets of foreign companies on behalf of — or give intelligence we collect to — U.S. companies to enhance their international competitiveness or increase their bottom line," Vanee Vines, an N.S.A. spokeswoman, told the Times.

The reports were released during an especially rough week for the NSA. On Monday, a federal judge ruled that the spy agency's phone data collection program was likely unconstitutional, and on Wednesday, a White House-appointed committee released a report suggesting substantial changes to the NSA, including discontinuing its metadata program.

[Image via AP]

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