June 2nd, 2019

It’s a move that has surprised national security experts and some former officials, given prosecutors’ recent decision to aggressively go after the WikiLeaks founder on more controversial Espionage Act charges that some legal experts said would not hold up in court. The decision also means that Assange will not face punishment for publishing one of the CIA’s most potent arsenals of digital code used to hack devices, dubbed Vault 7...

GREAT NEWS! #MAGA pic.twitter.com/91Yk8B11bP

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 31, 2019

Throughout the document and at a briefing, the government suggested a willingness to return to negotiations. "What truly matters is how to enhance mutual trust, promote cooperation and manage differences," the paper said. Vice Commerce Secretary Wang Shouwen told reporters, "We're willing to adopt a cooperative approach to find a solution."...

"Next year, our initial science and technology research will be on the lunar surface, which will help support sending the first woman and the next man to the Moon in five years," said NASA...

The move is the result of the FTC and the Department of Justice, the U.S. government's leading antitrust enforcement agencies, quietly divvying up competition oversight of two of the country's top tech companies... The FTC's plans for Amazon and the Justice Department's interest in Google are not immediately clear. But the kind of arrangement brokered between the Justice Department and the FTC typically presages more serious antitrust scrutiny, the likes of which many Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill have sought out of fear that tech companies have become too big and powerful...

Conversations between former Obama officials and Iranian government officials have been ongoing since November 2016. Zarif, who visits the U.S. every year for the U.N. General Assembly in New York, usually meets with lawmakers, think tanks, journalists, and former officials when he is in town. But the recent round of conversations, which took place over the phone and in person over the last two months...

Meanwhile, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)—formerly the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee—had dinner with Zarif “a few weeks ago,” according to a Politico report published May 23.

According to a report in the South China Morning Post, "Foxconn, the Taiwanese electronics manufacturer that assembles handsets for many phone brands including Apple and Xiaomi, has stopped several production lines for Huawei phones in recent days as the Shenzhen company reduced orders for new phones." The newspaper cited "people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named as the information is private."

Institutions can "monitor and record private activities of people on a scale that's broad enough that we can say it's close to all-powerful," said Snowden. They do this through "new platforms and algorithms," through which "they're able to shift our behavior. In some cases they're able to predict our decisions—and also nudge them—to different outcomes. And they do this by exploiting the human need for belonging."...

Most visa applicants, including temporary visitors, will be required to list their social media identifiers in a drop down menu along with other personal information. Applicants will have the option to say that they do not use social media if that is the case. The official noted that if a visa applicant lies about social media use that they could face "serious immigration consequences" as a result...

Applicants will also be required in the future to turn more extensive information on their travel history.

President Trump makes an unannounced stop at McLean Bible Church in Vienna, VA. pic.twitter.com/qBZzDi96vl

— The Hill (@thehill) June 2, 2019

Via the Daily Beast:

It’s conceivable that someone else actually edited the clip. But a Facebook official, confirming a Daily Beast investigation, said the video was first posted on Politics WatchDog directly from Brooks’ personal Facebook account. [emphasis ours]

If the Daily Beast’s description of Facebook’s actions is accurate, Facebook compromised the privacy of one of its user

It's a long piece, but here are some snippets of interest:

Prince Mohammed is almost unknown to the American public... he may be the richest man in the world. He controls sovereign wealth funds worth $1.3 trillion, more than any other country... he is obsessed with two enemies, Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood... it emerged that the Obama administration was in secret nuclear talks with Iran. “They felt not only ignored — they felt betrayed by the Obama administration, and I think Prince Mohammed felt it particularly and personally,” said Stephen Hadley...

Prince Mohammed hired a company linked to Erik Prince, the founder of the private security company formerly known as Blackwater, to create a force of Colombian, South African and other mercenaries. He crushed any hint of dissent... and rounding up dozens suspected of sympathizing with the Muslim Brotherhood...

Despite their sharp differences, Prince Mohammed had remained cordial with Mr. Obama... So when the prince requested a final meeting, as friends, Mr. Obama agreed to a lunch at the White House in December 2016. But Prince Mohammed backed out without much explanation. He flew instead to New York for his first face-to-face meeting with Jared Kushner...

Prior work has shown that it should be possible to deliver drugs to a target in a living human by injecting tiny robots into the bloodstream then directing them to a target using external magnets. In this new effort, the researchers have shown that the same should be possible for stem cells...

The MIT team urges caution on the project’s GitHub page, acknowledging that the tech raises worrisome questions about privacy and discrimination. “Although this is a purely academic investigation, we feel that it is important to explicitly discuss in the paper a set of ethical considerations due to the potential sensitivity of facial information,” they wrote...

Three days before the most sensitive political anniversary on the Chinese calendar, Twitter suspended the accounts of Chinese political commentators in what it said was an accident... Twitter’s action, which one human rights worker said affected more than 100 users, came over several hours late Friday and early Saturday. It hit human rights lawyers, activists, college students and nationalists, who use workarounds to get access to Twitter, which is banned in China.

A Pensacola woman who ran for Rep. Matt Gaetz’s seat was arrested Saturday and charged with battery after she threw a drink at the congressman during his “Won’t Back Down” town hall. Gaetz was leaving Brew Ha Ha restaurant when Amanda Kondrat'yev allegedly threw a drink at him. Kondrat'yev, 35, was one of several candidates running against Gaetz for Jeff Miller’s seat in 2016 before she withdrew from the race.

Trump late Friday announced that his administration was terminating India's designation as a developing nation under a trade program that allowed Indian exporters to ship 2,000 products into the US duty free. The decision to revoke India's preferential trade status, which mirrors Trump's decision to revoke Turkey's status under the program a few weeks back, comes one day after Modi was sworn in for a second term...

TSA-style body scanners are coming to public spaces, and that should scare the hell out of everyone. If you thought the NYPD's Z-Backscatter vans and police mini-Z's were intrusive, you have not seen anything yet...

Last year Australia and The Netherlands accused the Russian Federation of direct involvement in the plane’s fate after Dutch investigators announced they had “legal and convincing evidence that would stand up in a courtroom”... But in a bombshell speech to the Japanese Foreign Correspondents Club (JFCC) on Thursday, Dr Mahathir was having none of it, accusing those who blamed Russia of scapegoating the nation for “political” reasons... “They are accusing Russia but where is the evidence? We know the missile that brought down the plane is a Russian type missile, but it could also be made in Ukraine,” Dr Mahathir told the JFCC. “You need strong evidence to show it was fired by the Russians, it could be by the rebels in Ukraine, it could be Ukrainian government because they too have the same missile.”...