Those who have criticized WikiLeaks and its founder for targeting U.S. misdeeds and not Russia’s or China’s are about to get their wish. And in terms of Russian politics, this is sure to be a Battle Royal. That’s because Russia’s Novaya Gazeta, a newspaper partly owned by former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, has just entered into a partnership with WikiLeaks. And according...

One of the most interesting and exciting assignments during my U.S. Air Force career was my tour of duty at the North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD) complex some 1,400 feet beneath granite Cheyenne Mountain, south of Colorado Springs, Colorado, at the height of the Cold War. I still remember walking or busing through the long tunnel, entering the “vault,” then waiting for the 25-ton steel blast door...

Update 2, 11.35 am Pacific: On a 3-2 vote, the FCC passed “controversial” rules on net neutrality today. From Politico: Led by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, the Democrats on the panel voted Tuesday to approve the first enforceable Net neutrality rules, which will prohibit Internet service providers such as AT&T, Verizon and Comcast from blocking access to lawful content and websites. The...

What would it be like to remember everything that happened to you in detail over the years? This science-fiction premise comes to life on 60 Minutes with people who have been laboratory-tested and diagnosed with “superior autobiographical memory.” This is no parlor trick, watching men and women instantly reach back 20, 30 years or more for a randomly chosen date and bring it back it in verifiable...

Out here in the warm, desert sun, it is quite possible to visualize the original setting of the birth of Jesus Christ. It can get uncomfortably cold at night in the desert but the days are replete with sun and relative warmth in comparison to much of the Northern Hemisphere. Considering the three great monotheistic global religions all originated in the desert, the modern-day geographic and climatic equivalent...

Foursquare is going “social.” Foursquare adds photos and comments, Techmeme tells me this morning. Color me unimpressed; I’d much prefer the developers focus on functionality. Here’s why.

Over at 9-to-5 Mac, Mark Gurman reports that BestBuy is bundling the iPad with mobile hotspot hardware. The catch? A two-year contract with either Verizon, AT&T or Sprint. Clear and Virgin not part of the deal for obvious reasons when you look at their non-promo service plans. According to ThinkMobile, the MiFi is not locked to the iPad (reportedly it is with Verizon) in this short-lived promo (ends January...

According to columnist Sergio Malbergier of Brazil’s Folha newspaper, the controversy over WikiLeaks’ release of classified U.S. diplomatic cables will be remembered not for its ‘rich collection of truisms and gossip,’ but for announcing a global cyberwar. And all of us are its foot soldiers. For Folha, Sergio Malbergier writes in part: This is a war that’s anything but virtual, and...

Mike Keefe, The Denver Post This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

Is the U.S. government hypocritical to castigate China for limiting press and Internet freedom, while seeking to jail WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for making use of these very same freedoms? According to this painfully ironic editorial from China’s state-controlled Global Times, in pursing the arrest of Julian Assange, America only inflicts further damage to its already tarnished public image. The Global...

Score one for the good guys. In a landmark decision issued [Tuesday] in the criminal appeal of U.S. v. Warshak, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the government must have a search warrant before it can secretly seize and search emails stored by email service providers. Closely tracking arguments made by EFF in its amicus brief, the court found that email users have the same reasonable expectation...

Hacktivism for Cyber Democracy by Joel S. Hirschhorn Because of the attacks on WikiLeaks and its founder there has been considerable media attention to the hacktivism practiced by supporters of WikiLeaks. That has been manifested as cyber attacks on mainstream commercial websites that acted against WikiLeaks. Hacktivism as retribution and strategy to gain political objectives is bound to become much more...

After our nine-year war in Iraq and Afghanistan, we finally have a living Medal of Honor recipient, Army Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta. Sgt. Giunta, however, is only the eighth hero to receive our nation’s highest decoration for valor in combat in those wars. In contrast, there were 245 Medal of Honor recipients during the Vietnam War, and 27 Medals of Honor were awarded for the single World War II battle...

And some thought The Social Network would hurt him. The 26-year-old man once derided as the “toddler CEO” (a comment recently rescinded in a 60 Minutes love-fest) sits comfortably on top of the world. Or, at least, on top of Time’s read of the zeitgeist. USA Today: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, 26, the second youngest person in the publication’s history. (Charles Lindbergh was younger.) Editor...

Is Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, being persecuted for the crimes of his accusers? Patrik Etschmayer of Switzerland’s News writes that the world’s power elite don’t like – and aren’t used to – having their incompetence and misbehavior so roundly exposed, and in an effort to deflect public angst directed at them, are trying to make Julian Assange the issue. For...

When a corporation screws up and your account information is compromised by “unauthorized access” (code for “someone broke into our database and stole your data”), current law seems to side with the corporate behemoths. They send you an “oops, we’re sorry” email and you have to suck it up. Liability? Seems AWOL. This weekend, Gawker lost all information on about 1.3...

Has WikiLeaks turned the pecking order of global decision making upside down? For Liberation, French historian Elisabeth Roudinesco asserts that if the recent massive disclosure of classified U.S. diplomatic cables through five of the world’s best known newspapers tells us nothing else, it’s that hackers now rule the world. Historian Elisabeth Roudinesco, for Liberation, writes in part: If the hacker...

The above is via Barry Ritholz.  Can you read it?  You should be able to – your mind works in strange ways.  In case you are having trouble research at Cambridge University determined that when we read we don’t look at every letter and as long as the first and last letter are where they should be the mind can decode the rest.

The US administration’s clumsy handling of the WikiLeaks affair is endangering America’s traditionally strong ties with Australia, its trusted comrade-in-arms. In fact Australia’s prime minister Ms Julia Gillard and the Aussie foreign minister Kevin Rudd have begun to sing different tunes. (Kevin Rudd was removed from his post as prime minister owing to an internal coup and Ms Gillard became...

As most obsevers expected, a federal judge in Virginia has ruled that the portion of the health care reform bill that mandates everyone obtain coverage violates the Constitution. Judge Henry E. Hudson ruled that Congress does not have the power to compel people to purchase coverage. Supporters had claimed that the Commerce clause of Article One does allow them to do so while opponents disagreed. I am of somewhat...

A good German counterpoint to yesterday’s article from the Berliner Zeitung headlined U.S. Assault on Assange Betrays America’s Founding Principles is this article from Die Welt, headlined WikiLeaks Threat to America is Nothing for Europe to Snicker About by columnist Thomas Kielinger. Kielinger warns readers that to encourage and support organizations that undermine U.S. power and credibility...

My 11-year-old grandson has been taking violin lessons. He is getting quite good at it. Today he appeared at a Christmas music recital for the residents of a senior citizens assisted living center. He was one of several young boys and girls who dedicated a Saturday afternoon, in addition to many hours of practice and preparation, to get the senior citizens a little bit into the Christmas spirit. My grandson...

When people in other countries quote the Founding Fathers to Americans, they are almost invariably seeking to strike a nerve that they hope will get the United States to change course. Columnist Holger Schmale in this article from of Germany’s Berliner Zeitung asserts to his readers that by seeking the arrest and prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Washington is acting hypocritically and...

It’s been a few months since I’ve kept track of my bet to no one in particular that 2010 would be the hottest recorded year. With the conclusion of the Cancun climate meetings proving fruitless and NASA releasing data for November, it’s time to see how I did. To briefly recap, in fall 2009 I started to tell people that I believed there was a 99.9% chance that we’d see at least one new...

Time for an exploration of some of the continuing myths, falsehoods, unsupported claims, and just plain nonsense surrounding the November 28 release by Wikileaks of, as of today, 1,269 U.S. State Department cables.