Last night, less than 48 hours after George Bush left office, whistleblower and former NSA analyst Russell Tice revealed new information about the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program:

Countdown begins the segment with an appropriate clip of Ex-President Bush’s December 2005 talk on wiretapping, in which he claimed that the only communications being intercepted were those with “a clear link to terrorist networks.”

Tice, in his role as an NSA analyst, quickly came to understand that this just wasn’t true:

I don’t know what our former president knew or didn’t know. I’m sort of down in the weeds. But the National Security Agency had access to all Americans’ communications, faxes, phone calls, and their computer communications. And that doesn’t — it didn’t matter whether you were in Kansas, you know, in the middle of the country, and you never made a communication — foreign communications at all. They monitored all communications.

Tice also reveals how NSA officials lied to Congress and others in order to avoid oversight:

TICE: One of the things that could be done was you could take something that was part of the Department of Defense, make it part of the intelligence community, and put a caveat to that, and make that whatever the intelligence community is doing for support will ultimately be given a different caveat. So when the defense committees on the Hill come calling, you say, you can’t look at that because that’s an intelligence program.

OLBERMANN: Right.

TICE: But when the intelligence program comes calling, you say you can’t look at that because it is a Department of Defense program.

OLBERMANN: Right.

TICE: So you basically have a little shell game that you are playing back and forth.

The interview is riveting and full of other revealations. Olbermann promises us a follow-up interview with Tice tonight. MSNBC.com has the video and FishbowlDC has the transcript.

Originally posted by tim from EFF.org Updates, ReBlogged by josephdelpesco on Jan 24, 2009 at 10:39 AM

“Topshot helmet” (Video), 2006–2007 by Julius von Bismarck.

Originally posted by mail from VVORK, ReBlogged by josephdelpesco on Jan 24, 2009 at 10:36 AM

»Art Now vol.2«, 2008 by Art Fun Club.

Originally posted by mail from VVORK, ReBlogged by josephdelpesco on Jan 24, 2009 at 10:35 AM

Just want to say goodbye to the reblog for now and welcome Joseph. It has been interesting looking at what artists, technologists and scientists are doing during this continued economic crisis and the official Obama transition.

Some of the news has been encouraging, lots of great efforts to transform the transportation and energy industry, while other technologies have been doing blatant greenwashing. The news about increased melting in Antarctica and the possible collapse of the Wilkins ice shelf was something I expected having talked to a lot of the scientists down there last year, but sooner and more dramatic than many thought.

Off to Transmediale to connect with several fellow Eyebeamers!

-Andrea

Big thanks to Andrea Polli from all of us here for reblogging the past two weeks. And a big hello to Joseph del Pesco, our new reblogger for the next two weeks!

Joseph del Pesco is curator-at-large for Artists Space (New York). He has organized exhibitions and projects for Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin, Italy; the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco; Galerie Analix in Geneva Switzerland; and the Rooseum in Malmö, Sweden among others. His writing has appeared in many catalogues and publications including the magazines Proximity, Fillip, NUKE, Flash Art and online for the Shotgun Review. Documentation of selected exhibitions and projects can be found at www.delpesco.com

In Sweden, an initiative called Mobile Compost is aimed at taking old mobile phones out of circulation, and cashing in on the precious metals they contain. Deutsche Welle reports.

In the little mobile phone shop in a Stockholm suburb, the walls are dotted with the latest cell-phone models. Large-screen cell phones hang next to conventional keypad phones.

A colorful sign on the door that reads “Mobile Compost” informs people that they can also turn in their old phone models here.

… Some 15 million old telephones are tucked away in drawers somewhere in Sweden. Taken together, cashing them in could be worthwhile. One ton of cell phones contains a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of silver and some 300 grams of gold, according to the organization Sweden Refuse.

Related article: - Urban miners look for precious metals in cell phones and links to related articles on cell phone recycling in general.

Originally posted by emily from textually.org, ReBlogged by andreapolli on Jan 22, 2009 at 10:28 AM

The fourth in the “ToyCamera” series of iPhone apps developed by Takayuki Fukatsu, QuadCamera uses the device’s camera to create multiple multiple images taken moments apart from each other. Similar to the normal iPhone camera, the user sees a single image on the screen, but QuadCamera takes a handful of shots spaced by adjustable time intervals. You can also choose between four and eight serial shots that can be oriented in a line or two parallel rows.

The effect is similar to that of Lomography cameras, only in digital form, but complete with soft focus and slightly overexposed edges. Like Lomography does for film, QuadCamera takes the inferior capabilities of the iPhone camera and adds creative tweaks to increase the fun quotient.

QuadCamera can be purchased at the iPhone App Store for $2. See more sample images after the jump.

Originally posted by Josh Rubin from Cool Hunting, ReBlogged by andreapolli on Jan 22, 2009 at 10:24 AM

Cuts in air pollution in US cities have added an average of five months of life to their inhabitants, research suggests.

Originally from BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition, ReBlogged by andreapolli on Jan 22, 2009 at 10:24 AM

A DOT team received a mix of gratitude and derision at Tuesday’s public forum about recent pedestrian improvements in the Meatpacking District, which attracted an audience of about 100 people to the Housing Works offices on West 13th Street. It was an interesting window onto the competing interests now vying to shape what has been, from the beginning, a genuinely community-based project seeking to put pedestrians on equal footing with vehicle traffic.

Those who came to praise described the new sense of safety they feel walking around the area near Gansevoort Plaza. Those who came to scorn suggested rolling back those improvements in the hopes that livery passengers might not have to wait another minute or two to be dropped off right at their luxe destinations. The former enjoyed a two-to-one advantage over the latter among those who spoke, with much of crowd opinion resting with a sizable, aesthetically-driven middle ground — people who professed support for street reclamation in theory, but just don’t like the look of nipple bollards.

The goal of the meeting, said DOT Manhattan Borough Commissioner Margaret Forgione, was to get "a sense of the overall feeling and a sense of what can be tweaked" about the project, which is slated to enter a permanent design phase this July, followed by construction the next year. There was no shortage of thoughtful ideas — and clunkers — for a neighborhood attempting to deal with the influx of cab and limo traffic on weekend nights. Taxi stands, anyone?

On the side of preserving safety gains, longtime resident Cynthia Penney encapsulated the sentiment of many locals. "I love the fact that I can cross the street without taking my life in my hands," she said. "Judging by the crowds outside Pastis, I don’t think anyone is having trouble getting here."

<!–more–>

On the side of maximizing vehicular throughput, Andrew Winter, a representative of luxury resto/lounge tandem Vento and Level V (a favored haunt of "good-looking, well-heeled New Yorkers in their late twenties, happy about how, well, good-looking they are" says New York Mag), put it to DOT thusly: "Instead of spending money on moving these cement block things into new areas, can we focus our funds on how to get the traffic in and out much easier?"

Not that all testimony hewed to the residents-vs.-businesses pattern. Paolo Secondo, owner of the restaurant Revel on Little West 12th Street, was firmly in favor of the pedestrian improvements. "I believe that a privilege we can no longer afford in New York is to be able to arrive at a restaurant in a cab or a limo," he said, assigning blame for traffic congestion in the area to the willy-nilly pattern of livery pick-ups and drop-offs. "I would much prefer to have stands or drop-off zones." His call was bolstered by comments from a CB4 member who recounted how taxi stands had eased traffic tie-ups and quieted late-night honking in Chelsea’s nightclub district.

One of the most intriguing storylines to develop was — brace yourself — the question of management. As Project for Public Spaces can tell you, the success of any public space depends on programming and maintenance. Someone has to care for it. The Meatpacking District, unlike Madison Square and other areas where DOT plazas have bloomed, does not have a BID to assume this role. It does have a merchants’ association — the Meatpacking District Initiative — and here’s the Catch 22: The MPDI is funded through voluntary contributions, not mandatory assessments, so if the businesses don’t like the new public spaces, they don’t have to pay for things like putting on events or keeping planters looking good, and perceptions of the pedestrian zones will suffer.

"People want us to fund something that our members are not pleased with," said MPDI founder David Rabin, who called for some of the pedestrian areas on Ninth Avenue to be narrowed or removed. "It is unacceptable for me to hear people say they think it’s okay that it’s hard to get to the Meatpacking District."

Rabin was followed immediately by Florent Morellet, one of the first restaurateurs to set up in the area and a driving force behind the public space plan. "Cabs can come to the outskirts of the neighborhood but not to the middle," he said in a plea to fellow business owners. "The concept that people can drive wherever and whenever they want is over. You’re going to kill business with the old way of thinking. Don’t think the old way."

Judging by much of the testimony, many of Rabin’s design-conscious members would be satisfied with changes to surface appearances — nipple bollards, apparently, offend their haute sensibilities. As one boutique owner put it, the street furniture doesn’t match the "Paris-like setting" that first attracted her to the neighborhood. Finding a substitute may prove tougher than you’d think. Any device to demarcate pedestrian space will have to meet DOT traffic engineers’ exacting safety standards, which the reflective tops of nipple bollards manage to achieve.

With the final design phase slated to commence this July, the Gansevoort project is one to keep an eye on. Some changes may already be in the works. We checked in with DOT the day after the meeting, and the agency said they hope to install taxi stands in the next month or two.

Originally posted by Ben Fried from Streetsblog, ReBlogged by andreapolli on Jan 22, 2009 at 10:23 AM

Much of the Streetsblog Network seems to be distracted by the inauguration — who isn’t? — but we’ve got some new stuff up there for you to think about if you can tear yourself away from the wall-to-wall coverage.

From Detroit’s M-Bike.org, some thoughts about how the American fetish for speed can actually prevent us from getting where we need and want to go:

Accessibility/new mobility — being able to readily get between locations — is more valuable than high-speed mobility.

Also, WalkBikeCT offers up an essay from Todd Litman of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute debunking the safety myth that surrounds travel by car,

that air-tight excuse you’ll so often hear from people who have just used their car for a short trip that they could have easily made on bike, on foot, or, gasp — on the bus. I know this excuse well, it’s one I’ve heard from many a friend, and one I’ve shamefully employed myself on occasion.

The only real problem with this excuse is that it’s not actually true. Driving is not safe. It never was, and it isn’t now. Over 40,000 Americans die each year from automobile collisions. Any mode of travel that kills 40,000 people per year cannot rightfully be called "safe".

Also, the National Journal’s transportation blog challenges its experts to come up with improvements to the stimulus package, and Kaid Benfield at NRDC’s Switchboard looks at how transit has helped create an urban renaissance in Charlotte, NC.

Originally posted by Sarah Goodyear from Streetsblog, ReBlogged by andreapolli on Jan 22, 2009 at 10:22 AM