White House: Drone Strikes on Americans 'Legal'

Feb 5, 2013 3:54pm

The White House today defended the use of targeted drone strikes against U.S. citizens abroad suspected of high-level terrorist activity, but declined to detail the criteria for ordering such an attack.

“Sometimes we use remotely piloted aircraft to conduct targeted strikes against specific al Qaeda terrorists in order to prevent attacks on the United States and to save American lives,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters.

“We conduct those strikes because they are necessary to mitigate ongoing actual threats, to stop plots, to prevent future attacks and, again, save American lives. These strikes are legal, they are ethical, and they are wise,” he said.

U.S. Air Force

Administration lawyers found it is lawful to kill an American citizen if a “high-level” government official believes the target is an operational leader of al Qaeda who poses “an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States” and if capture is infeasible, according to a newly disclosed Justice Department document.

The 16-page white paper, first obtained by NBC News, finds there “exists no appropriate judicial forum to evaluate these constitutional considerations” and that the administration does not need to present evidence to a court before or after ordering such an attack.

“The condition that an operational leader present an ‘imminent’ threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future,” the document reads.

Carney repeatedly declined to discuss the details of the white paper.

“I would point you to the ample judicial precedent for the idea that someone who takes up arms against the United States in a war against the United States is an enemy and therefore could be targeted accordingly,” he told ABC News’ Jon Karl.

“[The president] takes his responsibility as commander in chief to protect the United States and its citizens very seriously. He takes the absolute necessity to conduct our war against al Qaeda and its affiliates in a way that’s consistent with the Constitution and our laws very seriously,” he said.

The white paper is believed to be a summary of the reported classified memo that outlined the legal justification for the drone attack that killed American-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in September 2011.

The American Civil Liberties Union has called the newly discovered document “profoundly disturbing.”

“It’s hard to believe that it was produced in a democracy built on a system of checks and balances. It summarizes in cold legal terms a stunning overreach of executive authority — the claimed power to declare Americans a threat and kill them far from a recognized battlefield and without any judicial involvement before or after the fact,” ACLU National Security Project director Hina Shamsi said in a written statement.

The Obama administration has carried out more than 300 CIA drown strikes in Pakistan, far more than his predecessor, President George W. Bush, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

Pressure is building from Capitol Hill for the White House to outline its legal authority to kill American citizens in counterterrorism operations.

“It is vitally important… for Congress and the American public to have a full understanding of how the executive branch interprets the limits and boundaries of this authority,” a group of eleven bipartisan Senators wrote in a letter to the president Monday, “so that Congress and the public can decide whether this authority has been properly defined, and whether the President’s power to deliberately kill American citizens is subject to appropriate limitations and safeguards.”

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Ice-age art hints at birth of modern mind

Sumit Paul-Choudhury, editor

Figurines from the Don river valley (Images: Kirstin Jennings)

The world’s oldest portrait, the world’s first fully carved sculpture, the world's oldest ceramic figure, the world’s earliest puppet - there’s no shortage of superlatives in the new exhibition of art from the ice age at the British Museum in London

But focus too closely on the exhibits’ record-breaking ages alone, and you might miss the broader point: these beautiful objects are the earliest evidence we have of humans who seem to have had minds like ours.

Consider, for example, the "lion man" found in 1939 in south-west Germany’s Stadel cave (pictured above). As the name suggests, this statue, standing 30 centimetres tall, harmoniously combines human and leonine features: the head is unmistakeably a lion’s, while the body and lower limbs are more human.

This is clearly the product of artistic creativity rather than a naturalistic drawing from life - suggesting that whoever carved it some 40,000 years ago had the capacity to express their imagination, as well as to replicate what they saw around them.

The temptation to speculate about what symbolic meaning the lion man might have had is, of course, irresistible. It was clearly valuable, taking around 400 hours and enormous skill to carve from a single piece of mammoth ivory.

The exhibition also includes a second, much smaller, feline figure found in another cave nearby, pointing to the idea that such imaginative objects might have cultural significance, perhaps as ritual objects within a shamanic belief system, rather than being isolated art objects.

Given what we know of modern traditions, that would make sense - but there is no hard evidence that anything resembling those traditions existed in Europe during the ice age.

Almost every object on show invites similarly thought-provoking consideration. Thumb-sized figurines from settlements along Russia's Don river (top) seem to present a woman's perception of her own pregnant body in an age before mirrors: no face, bowed head, the shelf of the bosom, the protrusion of the hips and buttock muscles and the swell of the belly. Were they carved by the women themselves, perhaps as protective talismans for themselves or their unborn children? And if so, what are we to make of those that were apparently deliberately destroyed subsequently?

Only a few of the animal models found at the Czech site of Dolní Věstonice are intact. The rest had shattered into thousands of clay fragments when they were heated while still wet. This must also have been deliberate: was the dramatic shattering part of a rite?

A tiny relief of a human figure with upraised arms invites interpretation as a celebrant or worshipper. Was he or she participating in a ceremony to promote social cohesion during tough times - perhaps to the accompaniment of music played on instruments such as the flute displayed nearby, which is precisely carved from a vulture's wing-bone?

Such interpretations deserve a healthy dose of caution, of course. The note accompanying an elegantly carved water bird (perhaps a cormorant) found near the smaller lion man drily reads: "This sculpture may be a spiritual symbol connecting the upper, middle and lower worlds of the cosmos reached by a bird that flies in the sky, moves on land and dives through water. Alternatively, it may be an image of a small meal and a bag of feathers."

In the total absence of documentary evidence, there is no way of telling which is correct: archaeological material might help clarify the utilitarian perspective, but it is far less helpful when it comes to discovering any symbolic value.

In any case, there is very little archaeological evidence on display at the British Museum. Curator Jill Cook says she was keen to avoid exhausting visitors with copious background material about the evolutionary and environmental contexts in which these objects were made.

Humans were capable of complex behaviour long before they reached Europe - as demonstrated by discoveries such as the 100,000-year old "artist's workshop" in South Africa's Blombos cave - but Cook thinks the explosion of art among Europeans 40,000 years ago may reflect changing social needs during the ice age.

When Homo sapiens first arrived in Europe some 45,000 years ago, "the living was initially probably reasonably easy", explains Cook. They would have found temperatures only about 5 °C lower than they are now, she says, and grassy prairies would have been well stocked with bison. As the human population grew, they would have had to find new ways of building, socialising and organising themselves.

“And as it turns desperately cold, around 40,000 years ago, suddenly we have all this art," she says.

That may have reflected the need to communicate and develop ideas - a need pressing enough for people to spend hundreds of hours creating objects that generally seem to have had little quotidian function.

"This is all about planning and preconceiving and organising and collaborating and compromising," suggests Cook, "and that is something art and music helps us do."

The dazzling array of objects on display, spanning tens of thousands of years, anticipate practically every modern artistic tradition. The first portrait, dating back 26,000 years, includes closely modelled details of its female subject's unusual physiognomy, perhaps the result of an injury or illness.

But nearby is an extraordinary figure of similar age whose facial features are utterly abstract, resembling a visor with a double slit in it.

Another (above) has a body whose angular patterns anticipate Cubism by some 23,000 years: Picasso kept two copies of it in his studio. Elsewhere, there are doll-like models of women with stylised faces, and female forms streamlined into little more than slender, strategically curved lines.

Representations of animals, too, come in all forms, from incredibly realistic illustrations scratched onto stone or ivory, to elegantly minimal sculptures; there are even carvings designed to create the illusion of movement when viewed from different angles or rotated (above) - a form of prehistoric animation.

The masterpieces in the latter part of the show include - and sometimes combine - both precisely observed, superbly rendered naturalism, and more abstract work that is still beautiful, but much harder to interpret.

Carved mammoth tusks

"The brain likes to tease us," says Cook. "We don't just represent things with great realism and naturalism, we like to break things down into patterns. That sparks your imagination, and makes you curious and questioning.

“What’s so spectacular about the modern brain, and the mind that it powers, is that it doesn't just make everything simple, it pushes us to new ideas and new thoughts."

After tens of thousands of years, the objects displayed in this extraordinary exhibition still have the power to do just that.

Ice Age Art: Arrival of the modern mind runs at the British Museum from 7 February 2013

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"Wild Thing" singer Reg Presley dies at 71

LONDON: Reg Presley, lead singer of British 1960s rock band The Troggs, has died aged 71, a friend said late Monday.

Presley, best known for hits including "Wild Thing" and "Love Is All Around", had announced a year ago that he was battling cancer and would retire from the band.

Veteran music journalist Keith Altham, a close friend of Presley's, wrote on his Facebook page that the singer had died "surrounded by family and friends" on Monday at his home in Andover, southeast England.

"My dear old pal Reg Presley of The Troggs died today," he wrote.

"He was one very real person in a sometimes very unreal world. Our thoughts are with his wife Brenda and the the family and those legion of fans who loved his music and his band. I will miss him hugely."

He added that the singer had suffered a number of recent strokes as well as being diagnosed with cancer.

Presley's daughter Karen told the music website WENN: "He passed away peacefully at home and myself, my brother and our mother were with him. We're absolutely heartbroken."

The singer had announced his retirement in January 2012 after he was taken ill during a gig in Germany the previous month.

"During my stay in hospital tests showed that in fact I have lung cancer," he wrote in a letter posted on the band's website.

"I am receiving chemotherapy treatment and at the moment not feeling too bad.

"However I've had to call time on The Troggs and retire. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for the cards and calls and for your love, loyalty and support over the years."

The Troggs' manager did not immediately respond when contacted by AFP.

-AFP/fl

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Hackers hit U.S. Department of Energy

The U.S. Department of Energy said that hackers have stolen personal data of its employees and contractors.

The U.S. Department of Energy has confirmed that its computer systems were hacked into last month. According to The New York Times, the federal agency sent around an internal e-mail on Friday telling its employees about the cyberattack.

"The Department of Energy has just confirmed a recent cyber incident that occurred in mid-January which targeted the Headquarters' network and resulted in the unauthorized disclosure of employee and contractor Personally Identifiable Information," the e-mail said.

The agency said that it is working to figure out the "nature and scope of the incident" but that so far it believes "no classified data was compromised." It's unclear which divisions within the Department of Energy were attacked or who was behind the hack.

The Department of Energy is in charge of much of the country's vital infrastructure, such as energy production, nuclear reactor production, and radioactive waste disposal. It has troves of classified and sensitive data that if leaked could be detrimental to the country's security. According to Reuters, the most highly classified information is stored on networks that aren't connected to the Internet.

The head of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano recently announced that she believes a wave of cyberattacks on U.S. infrastructure is a serious possibility. Dubbing such an event a "cyber 9/11," Napolitano warned that cyberterrorists could take down the nation's power grid, water infrastructure, transportation networks, and financial networks.

While it doesn't seem like the January cyberattack on the Department of Energy compromised any data or infrastructure, it does show that hackers were able to breach the government's computer systems. In the e-mail, the agency said it is working to fortify itself against future attacks.

"Once the full nature and extent of this incident is known, the Department will implement a full remediation plan," the e-mail said. "The Department is also leading an aggressive effort to reduce the likelihood of these events occurring again. These efforts include leveraging the combined expertise and capabilities of the Department's Joint Cybersecurity Coordination Center to address this incident, increasing monitoring across all of the Department's networks and deploying specialized defense tools to protect sensitive assets."

CNET contacted the Department of Energy for comment. We'll update the story when we get more information.

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Space Pictures This Week: A Space Monkey, Printing a Moon Base

Illustration courtesy Foster and Partners/ESA

The European Space Agency (ESA) announced January 31 that it is looking into building a moon base (pictured in an artist's conception) using a technique called 3-D printing.

It probably won't be as easy as whipping out a printer, hooking it to a computer, and pressing "print," but using lunar soils as the basis for actual building blocks could be a possibility.

"Terrestrial 3-D printing technology has produced entire structures," said Laurent Pambaguian, head of the project for ESA, in a statement.

On Earth, 3-D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, produces a three-dimensional object from a digital file. The computer takes cross-sectional slices of the structure to be printed and sends it to the 3-D printer. The printer bonds liquid or powder materials in the shape of each slice, gradually building up the structure. (Watch how future astronauts could print tools in space.)

The ESA and its industrial partners have already manufactured a 1.7 ton (1.5 tonne) honeycombed building block to demonstrate what future construction materials would look like.

—Jane J. Lee

Published February 4, 2013

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Boy Safe, Kidnapper Dead After Hidden Camera Tip

A week-long standoff in Alabama, where a retired trucker held a 5-year-old boy hostage in an underground bunker, has ended with the kidnapper dead and the child safe, according to law enforcement.

Officials had been able to insert a high-tech camera into the bunker to monitor the movements of the suspect, Richard Lee Dykes, and they had become increasingly concerned that he might act out, according to a law enforcement source with direct knowledge.

"FBI agents safely recovered the child who's been held hostage for nearly a week," FBI Special Agent Steve Richardson said at a news conference.

The agent said negotiations with Dykes "deteriorated" in the past 24 hours.

"Mr. Dykes was observed holding a gun," Richardson said. "At this point, the FBI agents, fearing the child was in imminent danger, entered the bunker and rescued the child."

The boy, identified only as Ethan, "appears physically unharmed" and is being treated at a hospital, authorities said.

Joe Songer/AL.com/AP Photo

Alabama Hostage Crisis: Boy Held Captive for 7 Days Watch Video

Hostage Standoff: Drones Fly Over Alabama Bunker Watch Video

Dykes, 65, is dead, but officials have not yet provided details on how he died.

"Right now, FBI special agent bomb technicians are in the process of clearing the property for improvised explosive devices," the FBI said in a written statement. "When it is safe to do so, our evidence response teams, paired with state and local crime scene technicians, will process the scene."

PHOTOS: Worst Hostage Situations

Dykes allegedly shot and killed a school bus driver last week and threatened to kill all the children on the bus before taking the boy, one of the students on the bus said.

"He said he was going to kill us, going to kill us all," Tarrica Singletary, 14, told ABC News.

Dykes had been holed up in his underground bunker near Midland City, Ala., with the abducted boy for a week as police tried to negotiate with him through a PVC pipe. Police had used the talks to send the child comfort items, including a red Hot Wheels car, coloring books, cheese crackers, potato chips and medicine.

Dykes was a decorated Vietnam vet who grew up in the area. He lived in Florida until two years ago, the AP reported, and has an adult daughter, but the two lost touch years ago, neighbor Michael Creel said. When he returned to Alabama, neighbors say he once beat a dog with a lead pipe and had threatened to shoot children who set foot on his property.

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Bug protects itself by turning its environment to gold

Mythical King Midas was ultimately doomed because everything he touched turned to gold. Now, the reverse has been found in bacteria that owe their survival to a natural Midas touch.

Delftia acidovorans lives in sticky biofilms that form on top of gold deposits, but exposure to dissolved gold ions can kill it. That's because although metallic gold is unreactive, the ions are toxic.

To protect itself, the bacterium has evolved a chemical that detoxifies gold ions by turning them into harmless gold nanoparticles. These accumulate safely outside the bacterial cells.

"This could have potential for gold extraction," says Nathan Magarvey of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, who led the team that uncovered the bugs' protective trick. "You could use the bug, or the molecules they secrete."

He says the discovery could be used to dissolve gold out of water carrying it, or to design sensors that would identify gold-rich streams and rivers.

The protective chemical is a protein dubbed delftibactin A. The bugs secrete it into the surroundings when they sense gold ions, and it chemically changes the ions into particles of gold 25 to 50 nanometres across. The particles accumulate wherever the bugs grow, creating patches of gold.

Deep purple gold

But don't go scanning streams for golden shimmers: the nanoparticle patches do not reflect light in the same way as bigger chunks of the metal – giving them a deep purple colour.

When Magarvey deliberately snipped out the gene that makes delftibactin A, the bacteria died or struggled to survive exposure to gold chloride. Adding the protein to the petri dish rescued them.

The bacterium Magarvey investigated is one of two species that thrive on gold, both identified a decade or so ago by Frank Reith of the University of Adelaide in Australia. In 2009 Reith discovered that the other species, Cupriavidus metallidurans, survives using the slightly riskier strategy of changing gold ions into gold inside its cells.

"If delftibactin is selective for gold, it might be useful for gold recovery or as a biosensor," says Reith. "But how much dissolved gold is out there is difficult to say."

Journal reference: Nature Chemical Biology, DOI: 10.1038/NCHEMBIO.1179

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Afghan and Pakistani presidents in Britain for talks

LONDON: Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari are set to hold key talks Monday with British Prime Minister David Cameron on the Afghan peace process.

The summit at Cameron's Chequers country retreat near London is aimed at boosting cooperation between Afghanistan and Pakistan, amid growing fears that a civil war could erupt when international troops leave Afghanistan next year.

"This trilateral process sends a very clear message to the Taliban -- now is the time for everyone to participate in a peaceful political process in Afghanistan," a British government spokeswoman said.

Support from Pakistan, which backed Afghanistan's 1996-2001 Taliban regime, is seen as crucial to peace after NATO troops depart -- but relations between the neighbours remain uneasy despite some recent improvements.

Both Kabul and Washington have regularly accused Pakistan of helping to destabilise Afghanistan.

But Afghan peace negotiators have welcomed Pakistan's release of dozens of Taliban prisoners in recent months, a move they believe could help bring militants to the negotiating table.

Cameron hosted a private dinner for Karzai and Zardari at Chequers on Sunday evening, ahead of Monday's in-depth talks between the leaders and their officials.

These are the third trilateral talks in a year following meetings in Kabul in July and New York last September -- but they are the first in which Pakistani and Afghan army and intelligence chiefs will also take part.

In an interview with Britain's Guardian newspaper and ITV television station released late Sunday, Karzai said the biggest threat to peace in Afghanistan was not the Taliban, but meddling from foreign powers.

"Peace will only come when the external elements involved in creating instability and fighting, or lawlessness in Afghanistan, are involved in talks," he said, without naming any particular country.

The president also suggested Western troops had been "fighting in the wrong place" in Afghanistan, saying security in the southern Helmand province was better before British troops arrived there.

A statement released by his office said the talks in Britain would be "focused on ways to accelerate peace process in Afghanistan and further strengthen cooperations between Afghanistan and Pakistan in the fight against terrorism and extremism".

Karzai is also due to meet the heir to the British throne Prince Charles during his three-day trip to Britain, which began on Saturday.

Britain still has around 9,000 troops in Afghanistan ahead of a scheduled withdrawal in 2014.

Afghan soldiers and police are taking on responsibility for battling Taliban militants from the 100,000 NATO troops due to depart by the end of next year.

But more than 60 foreign soldiers were killed in 2012 in "insider attacks" by members of Afghanistan's security forces, which have bred mistrust and threatened to derail the training process.

Afghan forces are also increasingly being targeted by Taliban bombers as they take on a greater security role.

-AFP/ac

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What was that BlackBerry commercial you just saw?

So did a clown just explode, or what?

(Credit:
BlackBerry)

Okay, so what now?

BlackBerry opted to go with the whimsical and fantastical with its Super Bowl commercial, showing what the new BlackBerry Z10
can't do instead of what it can do. To say it's a little strange would be an understatement.

Indeed, it's a bold choice, one that some would argue might be a little head-scratching. But it's one that BlackBerry Chief Marketing Officer Frank Boulben believes will turn some heads and get consumers primed for a launch that's still more than a month away.

"The Super Bowl is a big wake-up call saying BlackBerry is back," Boulben told CNET. "It says there's something worth checking out."

With the BlackBerry phones generally getting good reviews (read CNET's review here), much of the company's success will ride on how well it markets the phone, and how strongly the carriers support it in their stories and with their sales reps. There are many examples of companies that failed despite great products and services, and BlackBerry is looking to avoid their past mistakes.

Which is where the Super Bowl ad comes in. Boulben says the commercial is a one-off event to take advantage of the Super Bowl's massive reach. The commercial is basically everything Boulben has said he wouldn't do for the campaign.

The commercial offers an early glimpse at the Z10 before things get weird. After he starts using the phone, the new BlackBerry customer briefly erupts in flames, grows elephant legs, teleports himself with a colorful poof, and turns an out-of-control truck into thousands of rubber ducks. The tagline: "In 30 seconds, it's quicker to show you what it can't do."

The ad asks interested viewers to check out BlackBerry's Z10 Web site to find out more information about the features of the smartphone.

With so many splashy commercials filling the airwaves during the Super Bowl, BlackBerry wanted to do something different from the traditional ad showing off features such as the Z10's Hub or Peek. Boulben, however, said the testing on the commercial has been positive. He noted it would be a "one-off" spot unrelated to the rest of the campaign.

"We wanted to do something that breaks the conventions of the category," he said. "If you do a traditional commercial at the Super Bowl, it will fall flat."

While the Z10 has launched elsewhere around the world, and will debut in Canada next week, the U.S. will be among the last countries to get the phone, thanks in part to the more rigorous testing process that it undergoes here. So BlackBerry has to deal with keeping the interest level high until mid-March, which is roughly when the Z10 should arrive in carrier stories.

Boulben said that during the dead period, he will attempt to keep interest going through online campaigns, mobile ads, YouTube, and social networks. The company will seed devices to celebrities and other high-profile figure to build buzz for the products. The goal is to drive traffic to the BlackBerry Web site, and then on to the pre-registration pages run by the carriers.

BlackBerry won't start its full campaign, titled "Keep Moving," until the Z10 launches next month, Boulben said, noting that he wanted to maximize the impact of the ads by having the smartphone available to consumers. The campaign would be more traditional and highlight the practical advantage of the features found on
BlackBerry 10, he said.

BlackBerry would launch its campaign alongside the carriers, he said. But he wouldn't specify just how enthusiastically the carriers would support the new smartphones. He added that it was a good sign that the carriers came out during launch day to commit to the company, which is rarity in the industry.

"Behind the scenes, our teams and their teams are working night and day together," he said.

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Pictures We Love: Best of January

Photograph by Dieu Nalio Chery, AP

The magnitude 7 earthquake that struck near Port au Prince, Haiti, in January 2010 so devastated the country that recovery efforts are still ongoing.

Professional dancer Georges Exantus, one of the many casualties of that day, was trapped in his flattened apartment for three days, according to news reports. After friends dug him out, doctors amputated his right leg below the knee. With the help of a prosthetic leg, Exantus is able to dance again. (Read about his comeback.)

Why We Love It

"This is an intimate photo, taken in the subject's most personal space as he lies asleep and vulnerable, perhaps unaware of the photographer. The dancer's prosthetic leg lies in the foreground as an unavoidable reminder of the hardships he faced in the 2010 earthquake. This image makes me want to hear more of Georges' story."—Ben Fitch, associate photo editor

"This image uses aesthetics and the beauty of suggestion to tell a story. We are not given all the details in the image, but it is enough to make us question and wonder."—Janna Dotschkal, associate photo editor

Published February 1, 2013

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