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$22.99
By Michael Dobbs
$19.11
$20
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Robert Scoble (CC-BY)
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Verizon Wireless has confirmed plans to charge a $2 “convenience fee” to customers who have the nerve to pay their bill with a credit card either online or over the phone. (Update: Verizon backs down.)
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Courtesy of Apple
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Apple announced Tuesday the first new iPhone in 16 months. It says the 4S is twice as fast, has a better camera and can communicate with you like a virtual manservant. But it looks just like the old version and that seems to have disappointed those of us who spent months fantasizing about a mythical “iPhone 5.” (more)
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Flickr/nrkbeta (CC-BY-SA)
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By Peter Z. Scheer — The world’s most successful technology companies are engaged in all-out war to power the plastic in your hand, so much more than a mere phone or computer.
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Sprint
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America’s third-place carrier doesn’t get that many high-five opportunities, but somewhere Sprint executives are bruising their palms after announcing the EVO 4G, the first phone in America to run on a next-generation wireless network. (continued)
Posted on Mar 23, 2010
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Flickr / The White House
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The president has signed a one-year extension of several provisions in the Patriot Act that would have expired Sunday, renewing the government’s authority to spy on phones and seize records and property of citizens.
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Flickr / Adam Pieniazek
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Thanks to the runaway success of the iPhone, AT&T has the largest wireless network in the country—and the lousiest. Fed-up subscribers, who pay the telco about $30 a month just for data (and another $40 or so for voice), are planning an assault this Friday called Operation Chokehold. (continued)
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Sprint
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By Peter Z. Scheer — The Samsung Reclaim is an odd little device that raises the question: Why isn’t everything made out of corn?
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Samsung / Sprint
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Samsung and Sprint are coming out with a new cell phone for the green crowd. The “Reclaim” is made from recycled materials and corn-based plastic and comes in eco-friendly packaging complete with soy-based ink. It’s enough to make one long for the day when all electronics are manufactured sustainably and iPhones grow on trees.
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Global Graphica / Ivan Corsa
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In a reactionary move against technology and the beasts who wield it, the NYPD has announced it wants to jam cell phone frequencies in case of a terrorist attack, citing Mumbai as an example of how mobile phones allowed attackers in that Indian city to micromanage their assault in real time.
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myspace.com
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Calls have been going out in Virginia and Pennsylvania, telling people to vote tomorrow, on Nov. 5, according to Jonah Goldman, director of Election Protection at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights. Goldman says he doesn’t know who’s responsible, but similar misleading messages are being distributed via e-mail, FaceBook and fliers, often targeting young and minority voters.
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Flickr / soggydan / emrank
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John McCain’s robocalls, which are bombarding swing-state voters with the message that Barack Obama “worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers,” are reportedly scaring children who make the mistake of answering their phones. Sarah Palin, who may or may not realize she’s on a sinking ship, says she disapproves of the robocalls.
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By Andy Borowitz — The satirist says the president doesn’t understand Hillary Clinton’s “red phone” ad. He just sends all those calls to voice mail.
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Ellen DeGeneres put Jenna Bush on the spot on Wednesday’s episode of “Ellen,” asking her if she couldn’t, you know, just pick up the phone and talk to her dad, “like, right now.” So, the first daughter, in turn, put President Bush on the spot, nervously asking him if he was mad at her for the impromptu call.
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peakaction.files.wordpress.com
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By Bill Boyarsky — If the Illinois senator beats Hillary Clinton and the others for the nomination, a good portion of credit will go to the volunteers now making phone calls in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, California and other places.
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By Elliot D. Cohen — The “Last Days of Democracy” author warns that Congress is about to aid the Bush administration with its Orwellian plans by granting retroactive immunity to the telecommunications giants for helping the government spy on Americans.
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intomobile.com
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All those eager Apple aficionados who waited in line for days to get their grabby hands on the first crop of iPhones for $599 a pop, only to watch in despair as stragglers bought them but two months later for a whopping $200 less, may sympathize with an angry New York woman who clearly will not be placated by Steve Jobs’ scrambly attempt at refunding his way back into customers’ hearts.
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Béatrice de Géa / LAT
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With the governor’s signature, California becomes the fourth state to ban drivers from holding cellphones while driving. The law goes into effect in July 2008, and motorists will still be allowed to use hands-free phone technology.
Cool tidbit: Schwarzenegger said he sometimes follows his 16-year-old daughter to make sure she’s not driving while holding a phone.
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Dutch authorities detained 12 passengers on a flight headed to Mumbai, India, after the plane was turned around under fighter escort. The passengers were reported to have behaved suspiciously?using and exchanging cellphones midflight. Later, authorities said the incident probably had nothing to do with terrorism and that the 12 passengers would be released today.
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From dottocomu.com
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Driving while talking on your cell cuts by half the brain’s ability to recognize and respond to traffic conditions, according to a study. Says a researcher: “Twentysomethings on a cellphone have the same reaction time as 70-year-olds.”
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Calls made to the Palestinian territories will carry their own designation, rather than appearing on AT&T bills as calls to Israel.
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From popularitydialer.com
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Have you ever hoped your cell phone would ring in order to extricate you from a boring date or an unpleasant meeting? Well, The Popularity Dialer, via a Web interface, will ring you up and supply half of a conversation you can use to make your apologies and get the hell out.
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The guy indicted in the jamming of Democratic phone lines on election day in 2002 is set to argue that his scheme had the approval of both the Republican National Committee and the White House.
If true, this would be huge: a White House-led attempt to sabotage a Senate election in favor of a Republican.
Posted on Jul 7, 2006
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The NSA asked AT&T to help it set up a domestic call monitoring site seven months before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, allege lawyers filing a lawsuit on behalf of telephone company customers.
This is huge because, according to a lawyer on the case, “The Bush Administration asserted this became necessary after 9/11…. This undermines that assertion.’‘
Posted on Jul 2, 2006
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The newspaper originally reported that AT&T, BellSouth and Verizon have been providing phone call data to the NSA. But now USA Today says it can’t confirm that either BellSouth or Verizon provided the data. (AT&T definitely appears to have done so.)
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Officials from the Dept. of Homeland Security and the FBI are paying private data brokers to gather personal phone record information—circumventing the need to obtain warrants for such data.
It’s ironic that some federal agents are availing themselves of this potentially illegal service; other federal agents (from the FCC) are already investigating the practice. See “Feds Probe Sale of Private Phone Records”
And earlier: All Your Phone Call Records Are for Sale, Cheap
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The attorney general, in defending the NSA’s collection of millions of U.S. phone records, claims it is constitutional—but conveniently ignores the fact that it appears to be illegal.
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Via Business Week, we learn that an entire niche industry has sprung up to provide the government with commercially purchased telecommunications records that the government isn’t allowed to purchase itself. (TPM Muckraker has a good sum-up.)
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From AMERICAblog
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You won’t believe the envelope that the phone company has apparently been sending out. If it’s not a hoax, the irony is so thick that not even an NSA eavesdropper could penetrate it.
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“The Daily Show” host tees off on the recent report of the NSA’s phone call database. “It turns out that there was one specific type of domestic call the government was keeping tabs on. All of them.”
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From ThinkProgress
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Amazing. (Or maybe not.) The new White House press secretary (a former Fox News host) kicked off his tenure with a misleading statement about Bush and the NSA program.
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The phone company says that, despite the claims made in the USA Today story, it never provided phone records to the NSA.
Posted on May 15, 2006
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A “senior law enforcement official” has told ABC News that the government, in trying to root out confidential sources, is tracking the phone numbers the news organization calls.
Maybe we should just start calling him George “Big Brother” Bush.
Update: An official acknowledges its “backtracking” of journalists’ phone records.
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Al Gore addresses the nation as if he were president in this “Saturday Night Live” clip. Watch for the parody of Bush’s spying programs.
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In the wake of Sept. 11, the vice president argued that the NSA should intercept purely domestic calls and e-mails without warrants, reports the N.Y. Times.
The NSA ultimately decided against the idea, but this report leaves no doubt about Cheney’s regard for civil liberties.
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The Washington Post loaded a poll so it would appear that most Americans support the NSA’s phone record collection program. Blogger Jane Hamsher did the original analysis on this sloppy poll, and Buzzflash sums it up.
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The telecom giant faces two suits—one for $20 billion, another for $5 billion—for handing over customers’ phone records to the NSA.
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Images: From "The Charlie Rose Show"
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Truthdig salutes Leslie Cauley, the USA Today reporter who broke the blockbuster story about the NSA’s program to amass the records of every phone call made in America. Her scoop laid waste to President Bush’s assertion that his domestic spying targets only a handful of suspected terrorists living in the U.S. In the wake of her story, GOP Sen. Arlen Specter is calling for congressional hearings.
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From thezreview.co.uk
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President Bush will deliver a rare (for him) television address, a Monday night talk on immigration reform.
Is it too cynical to ask whether he’s wagging the dog to distract attention from the NSA phone record issue?
Is it possible to be too cynical about Bush’s motives?
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Before the USA Today story, The Nation magazine had loads of details on the NSA-telecom spying program: a lawsuit against AT&T; links between telecom officials and the White House; and a history of how these insidious relationships developed.
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The Sept. 11 attacks “did not give the president the limitless power he now claims to intrude on the private communications of the American people,” the N.Y. Times says in an editorial about the NSA spying story.
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hardnewsnow.com
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“We’re not mining or trolling though the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans,’’ Bush says, without directly addressing the NSA program reported in USA Today.
Meanwhile, GOP Sen. Arlen Specter demands that phone company executives testify before Congress about the data they provided to the NSA.
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From wcsh6.com
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Many Republican and Democratic lawmakers are furious over the alleged NSA phone record collection program.
GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham: “The idea of collecting millions or thousands of phone numbers, how does that fit into following the enemy?”
Democratic Sen. Pat Leahy: “It is our government, it’s not one party’s government.”
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“The NSA’s gathering of phone call records of millions of Americans is “something that would make the late Leonid Brezhnev proud of Bush—and [Gen.] Michael Hayden, the Pentagon apparatchik, who saw it through,” Buzzflash writes in an editorial.
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Late coming to the story about the NSA’s massive telephone record collection program? The Washington Post does a 360-degree report.
Neither Bush nor his aides denied any facts in the original USA Today story.
Senate Intel Chair Pat Roberts wants to shoot the messenger (USA Today).
Bush’s pick for CIA chief, Gen. Michael Hayden, oversaw this program at the NSA, a fact that guarantees fireworks at his confirmation hearing.
Check out the original story.
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From NSA.gov
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By Robert Scheer — UPDATE: Michael V. Hayden, nominated by President Bush to head the CIA, is the man responsible for the most extensive attack ever on the privacy of U.S. citizens.
While head of the NSA, he oversaw the program that recorded the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans.
Want to take action? Check out StopHayden.org (includes video proof that Hayden is smugly incorrect about the privacy foundation of the Fourth Amendment).
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