Congress struggles with ending the war in Afghanistan

Visitors gather around President Barack Obama, center, during his visit to Arlington on Memorial Day 2013. (Pablo??The war in Iraq is over, everybody knows that. ?I promised to end the war in Iraq?and I did? was one of President Barack Obama?s best-received stump speech applause lines last year.

Except it?s not. First, most obviously, because bombings and other acts of violence have killed more than 2,000 people there this year, as detailed in this amazing Agence France-Presse analysis. Pressed on that point last year by Yahoo News, White House press secretary Jay Carney said: "The president promised to responsibly end our war in Iraq, the United States military operation in Iraq. He did that and our troops came home."

Except that "our war" isn't technically over either: The "Authorization for Use of Military Force" in Iraq, signed into law on Oct. 16, 2002, is still the law of the land. (H/t to independent national-security writer Marcy Wheeler, who follows this issue?and many others?closely.)

Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is expected to offer legislation this year to repeal the Iraq AUMF. And he's expected to fail?his previous attempt, in November 2011, was routed in a 30-67 vote. (Among those voting no: then-Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, the current secretary of state.)

Asked whether Obama favored repealing the Iraq AUMF, the White House had no response at the time this post was published.

Obama made no mention of repealing the Iraq AUMF in a sweeping national security speech on May 23. But he made a case for ending the "perpetual wartime footing" against terrorism?and that means revising a separate AUMF, the founding document of the war on terrorism adopted immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist strikes.

That one, signed into law Sept. 18, 2001, gave then-President George W. Bush the authority to invade Afghanistan. But both he and Obama have used its vague wording to justify a wide range of actions.

"Unless we discipline our thinking and our actions, we may be drawn into more wars we don?t need to fight, or continue to grant Presidents unbound powers more suited for traditional armed conflicts between nation states," Obama said in his speech, arguing the time has come to wind down the global war on terror.

"This war, like all wars, must end," he said.

Enter Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California. Schiff, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, has introduced legislation to repeal the Afghanistan AUMF on Jan. 1, 2015?when America's combat troops are supposed to be out of that war-torn country. The problem, he explained to Yahoo News, is coming up with something to replace it.

"There's a lot of bipartisan recognition that we can't continue to rely on this," said Schiff, who has started to seek co-sponsors for his bill. "There's a lot less consensus about what should come after."

Some lawmakers want a much broader AUMF that explicitly expands the list of groups that can be targeted, perhaps to include Iran-backed Hezbollah, Schiff said.

Some believe "we should not have any further authorization" and instead should "use the criminal justice system" the way it was before Sept. 11, 2001, Schiff said, adding that some want a new AUMF "more narrowly tailored to the present threat."

The uncertainty about the post-AUMF legal framework is a "risk" and "the biggest obstacle" to the legislation, Schiff told Yahoo News.

Still, setting a Jan. 1, 2015, sunset date "gives us about 18 months to work with the administration," he said. "I have been working with" the administration in the sense of consulting top officials to find out what they think is necessary, Schiff said.

But "we can't abdicate our responsibility," he said. Without the pressure of a sunset date, "Congress will do what it does best, which is essentially kick the can down the road.

"We?re such a dysfunctional body," he said.

Where does Schiff stand? "It may be necessary to have a further authorization after 2014, but we should also look at extending the capacity of our criminal law system," he said. "It may very well be necessary, but should be much more narrowly constrained."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/congress-struggles-ending-war-afghanistan-iraq-213153386.html

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FAA moving toward easing electronic device use

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Relief may be on the way for airline passengers who can't bear to be separated even briefly from their personal electronic devices. The government is moving toward allowing gate-to-gate use of music players, tablets, laptops, smartphones and other gadgets, although it may take a few months.

Restrictions on cellphone calls and Internet use and transmission are not expected to be changed.

An industry-labor advisory committee was supposed to make recommendations next month to the Federal Aviation Administration on easing restrictions on using electronic devices during takeoffs and landings. But the agency said in a statement Friday the deadline has been extended to September because committee members asked for extra time to finish assessing whether it's safe to lift restrictions.

"The FAA recognizes consumers are intensely interested in the use of personal electronics aboard aircraft; that is why we tasked a government-industry group to examine the safety issues and the feasibility of changing the current restrictions," the statement said.

The agency is under public and political pressure to ease the restrictions as more people bring their devices with them when they fly in order to read e-books, listen to music, watch videos, and get work done.

Technically, the FAA doesn't bar use of electronic devices when aircraft are below 10,000 feet. But under FAA rules, airlines that want to let passengers use the devices are faced with a practical impossibility ? they would have to show that they've tested every type and make of device passengers would use to ensure there is no electromagnetic interference with aircraft radios and electrical and electronic systems.

As a result, U.S. airlines simply bar all electric device use below 10,000 feet. Airline accidents are most likely to occur during takeoffs, landings and taxiing.

Using cellphones to make calls on planes is regulated by the Federal Communications Commission. There is concern that making calls from fast-flying planes might strain cellular systems, interfering with service on the ground. There is also the potential annoyance factor ? whether passengers will be unhappy if they have to listen to other passengers yakking on the phone.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that a draft report by the advisory committee indicates its 28 members have reached a consensus that at least some of the current restrictions should be eased.

A member of the committee told The Associated Press that while the draft report is an attempt to reach consensus, no formal agreement has yet been reached. The member was not authorized to discuss the committee's private deliberations and requested anonymity.

There are also still safety concerns, the member said. The electrical interference generated by today's devices is much lower than those of a decade ago, but many more passengers today are carrying electronics.

Any plan to allow gate-to-gate electronic use would also come with certification processes for new and existing aircraft to ensure that they are built or modified to mitigate those risks. Steps to be taken could include ensuring that all navigational antennas are angled away from the plane's doors and windows. Planes that are already certified for Wi-Fi would probably be more easily certified.

Although the restrictions have been broadly criticized as unnecessary, committee members saw value in them.

One of the considerations being weighed is whether some heavier devices like laptops should continue to be restricted because they might become dangerous projectiles, hurting other passengers during a crash, the committee member said. There is less concern about tablets and other lighter devices.

FAA officials would still have the final say. An official familiar with FAA's efforts on the issue said agency officials would like to find a way to allow passengers to use electronic devices during takeoffs and landings the same way they're already allowed to use them when planes are cruising above 10,000 feet. The official requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak by name.

FAA Administrator Michael Huerta told a Senate panel in April that he convened the advisory committee in the hope of working out changes to the restrictions.

"It's good to see the FAA may be on the verge of acknowledging what the traveling public has suspected for years ? that current rules are arbitrary and lack real justification," Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., one of Congress' more outspoken critics of the restrictions, said in a statement. She contends that unless scientific evidence can be presented to justify the restrictions, they should be lifted.

Edward Pizzarello, the co-founder of frequent flier discussion site MilePoint, says lifting the restriction is "long overdue."

"I actually feel like this regulation has been toughest on flight attendants. Nobody wants to shut off their phone, and the flight attendants are always left to be the bad guys and gals," said Pizzarello, 38, of Leesburg, Va.

Actor Alec Baldwin became the face of passenger frustration with the restrictions in 2011 when he was kicked off a New York-bound flight in Los Angeles for refusing to turn off his cellphone. Baldwin later issued an apology to fellow American Airlines passengers who were delayed, but mocked the flight attendant on Twitter.

"I just hope they do the sensible thing and don't allow people to talk on their cellphones during flight," said Pizzarello, who flies 150,000 to 200,000 miles a year. "There are plenty of people that don't have the social skills necessary to make a phone call on a plane without annoying the people around them. Some things are better left alone."

___

Mayerowitz reported from New York.

___

Follow Joan Lowy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/AP_Joan_Lowy

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/faa-moving-toward-easing-electronic-device-183139775.html

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U.S. contractor that vetted Snowden is under investigation

By Matt Haldane and Mark Hosenball

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. government watchdog is examining a contractor that conducted a 2011 background investigation into Edward Snowden, the source of recent leaks about U.S. secret surveillance programs.

Patrick McFarland, the inspector general for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, told lawmakers on Thursday that his office is probing USIS, a Falls Church, Virginia-based company that is the largest private provider of federal government background checks.

The USIS investigation predates the Snowden scandal, but McFarland told the homeland security subcommittee hearing that there are now concerns that USIS may not have carried out its background check into Snowden in an appropriate or thorough manner.

The hearing helped underscore questions lawmakers have about the widespread use of contractors in sensitive intelligence work and the oversight of those employees.

Not only is much intelligence work handled by contractors, but private contractors also conduct roughly 75 percent of federal government background checks, according to lawmakers.

Snowden, who disclosed details of the U.S. government's vast phone and Internet surveillance, was a contractor formerly employed by Booz Allen Hamilton who worked at a National Security Agency facility in Hawaii.

USIS conducts federal employee background checks for the Office of Personnel management, the government agency primarily responsible for overseeing such investigations.

"Yes, we do believe that there - there may be some problems," McFarland said of Snowden review.

Senator Rob Portman said the government has a history of flaws in how it deals with security clearances, and said it is particularly critical to properly vet contractors. "Done poorly it can be incredibly damaging," said the Republican from Ohio.

Senator Claire McCaskill described the probe into USIS as a criminal investigation into allegations the company systemically failed to adequately conduct investigations under its contract.

But USIS said in a statement that it has never been informed that it is under "criminal investigation". It said it received a subpoena for records from McFarland's office in January 2012.

"USIS complied with that subpoena and has cooperated fully with the government's civil investigative efforts," the statement said. Regarding Snowden, USIS said it does not comment on confidential background investigations.

SECURITY CONSEQUENCES

Snowden, who is believed to be hiding in Hong Kong, went public in a video released by Britain's Guardian newspaper on June 9 as the source of documents about the U.S. government's surveillance programs.

An Icelandic businessman said on Thursday he has readied a private plane to take Snowden to Iceland if the government grants him asylum.

Snowden had a Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information level clearance.

Senators at the hearing on Thursday said they were concerned about whether people receiving top secret clearances are being properly vetted.

"It is a reminder that background investigations can have real consequences for our national security," McCaskill said of Snowden's leaks. McCaskill, a Democrat from Missouri, chairs the contracting oversight subcommittee of the Senate's Homeland Security Committee.

McCaskill said she was worried that there appears to be a pattern of falsified background checks. She pointed to how at least 18 investigators handling the checks have been convicted of falsifying investigations since 2007.

Senators also raised concerns about a 2009 watchdog investigation that found about 87 percent of OPM investigative reports used to make clearance decisions had incomplete documentation.

Merton Miller, an official in OPM's Federal Investigative Services unit, said the high number was the result of employers not cooperating or subjects being deployed to hostile areas where investigators could not conduct interviews.

He acknowledged his agency needs clearer quality standards. "Quality is in the eye of the beholder," Miller said.

Separately, Senator Bill Nelson on Thursday called for a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation into how contractors are handling employees with top secret clearance.

The Democrat from Florida is concerned there is a pattern of disturbing incidents. He pointed to a previous scandal in which Booz Allen Hamilton had hired an employee convicted of lying to the U.S. government for a position in which he would handle classified documents.

Senate Intelligence Chair Dianne Feinstein has already called for legislation that would limit contractors' access to highly classified information.

OUTSOURCING

McCaskill said USIS also has a contract to support the OPM by managing and overseeing background investigations, an arrangement she said appears to put USIS in a position of oversight of its own work. She added that the company received $200 million last year from OPM.

Security investigations for federal employees used to be conducted mainly by a large staff of full-time investigators who were civil servants at the OPM.

In 1996, the investigative functions of OPM were privatized and the resulting company, USIS, was awarded a contract with OPM to conduct background investigations for security clearances on employees of more than 95 federal agencies.

On its website, USIS says it presently has 100 federal contracts.

USIS is owned by a larger investigative company called Altegrity, which in turn is principally owned by private equity firm Providence Equity Partners.

(Reporting by Matt Haldane and Mark Hosenball; Writing by Karey Van Hall; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-contractor-vetted-snowden-under-investigation-002629356.html

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James Gandolfini Death: Colleagues, Fans React to Passing of "Genius"

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/06/james-gandolfini-death-colleagues-fans-react-to-passing-of-geniu/

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Bizarre supernova completely normal in every way, find astronomers

A nearby white dwarf went supernova in 2011, giving scientists an unprecedented look at a rare Type Ia supernova. They discovered that it's remarkably, stunningly, perfectly 'normal.'

By Liz Fuller-Wright,?Correspondent / June 19, 2013

Supernova 2011fe was discovered just hours after it exploded in the Pinwheel Galaxy in the Big Dipper. Studies by the Nearby Supernova Factory of its spectrum as it evolved over time have produced a benchmark atlas of data by which to measure all future Type Ia supernovae.

B. J. Fulton / Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network

Enlarge

Astronomers have weird names for things. Blame it on the fact that they started naming stars and planets a long, long time ago, back when they thought the sun went around the Earth. "Planet" means wanderer, even though planetary orbits are completely regular and predictable. A "planetary nebula" has nothing whatsoever to do with planets. And a Type II (aka Type 2, but astronomers insist on Roman numerals) supernova is common, but a Type Ia (1a) supernova is rare, with a bizarre origin story.?

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Rare, but useful. (We'll get to that.)

A group of astronomers just announced that they've found the perfect Type Ia supernova. The Platonic ideal of Type Ia supernovae: 2011fe.

What makes 2011fe so perfect? For one thing, the supernova spotters (known as the Nearby Supernova Factory) found it almost right away in August, 2011, when the supernova was less than 12 hours old.

?We?d never before seen a Type Ia supernova this early,? said Greg Aldering of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in a press release. For another, it's right in our galactic backyard ? just 21 million light years away ? so we got a crystal-clear view. Amateur astronomers could see it through binoculars.

Most of the Type Ia supernovae we've spotted before were far enough away that the light was distorted by interstellar dust. Astronomers can "correct" for those distortions, but in doing so, they have to make a lot of assumptions. That makes the data somewhat less trustworthy. This time, we got an undistorted view, giving us a gold standard against which to measure all future Type Ia supernovae. It's also "remarkably normal," the astronomers found ? the light curve fell right in the heart of normal distributions from past Type Ia observations, with no "peculiar" outliers to explain away.

Rollin Thomas, a member of the research team, remembers that as new data arrived from the telescope each night, he would think, ?Please don?t be peculiar, please don?t be peculiar.? His wish was granted: ?Our measurements showed how remarkably normal 2011fe is," says Dr. Aldering.

The researchers?began watching the supernova just hours after it began. Two weeks later, it reached its peak brightness, but they kept watching it, off and on, for another three months, as the light faded away. In the June (current) issue of Astronomy and Astrophysics, the Nearby Supernova Factory is releasing their 32 nights of data on 2011fe. They even made a movie of it.

Remind me: What's a supernova?

Nearly all supernovae are explosions caused by super-giant stars exploding. After a super-giant's core stops fusing, it begins to collapse on itself. As more and more mass falls inward, the atoms are forced to fuse together, resulting in a thermonuclear explosion. Think Nagasaki, but instead of something the size of a softball, it's a star 10 to 70 times bigger than our sun.

That's a Type II supernova.

But there are a few oddballs, known as Type Ia supernovae. Type Ias are also fusion explosions, but they're not caused by the sheer enormousness of the exploding star. In fact, Type Ia supernovae are kicked off by tiny white dwarfs.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/9-9CeVlDCwE/Bizarre-supernova-completely-normal-in-every-way-find-astronomers

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Spring Camp, Day 4?Up and Down in Downieville

Day four of Wired's Spring Camp is all about mountain biking. Bradley rides the Downieville Downhill, and Christina tackles the North Yuba River trail.

Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/06/spring-camp-day-4/

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HBO Picked Up That Silicon Valley TV Show That Might Be Good

We heard last year that HBO had greenlit a dark, single camera Silicon Valley comedy show pilot by Mike Judge (Office Space) but with the blink and you'll miss it nature of TV pilots, you never know what's going to happen until it hits the airwaves. Well, it's going to air. Deadline reports that HBO has picked it up and ordered a series.

The pilot starred TJ Miller, Thomas Middleditch, Josh Brener, Lindsey Broad, Amanda Crew, Angela Trimbur, Zach Woods and more. We don't know much about the show other than that it's by the Office Space guy (good), it's on HBO (even better) and it's not that stupid Bravo reality show (the best thing to not be). [Deadline]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/hbo-picked-up-that-silicon-valley-tv-show-that-might-be-507941497

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