Customers continue to have the option of requesting refunds for false charges
T-Mobile published a support FAQ today indicating that the carrier will take a stronger stance against bogus premium SMS charges as soon as possible. Following a realization that large-scale actions by the entire wireless industry were not completely effective, T-Mobile has decided to cease all billing for premium SMS other than charitable and political donations.
Premium SMS, while having its legitimate purposes, is seemingly primarily used as a tool for scamming wireless customers into paying outrageous SMS rates to unwanted companies. Realizing that few cases of premium SMS — outside of charitable and political donations — were actually being used for legitimate reasons, T-Mobile has already halted business dealings with one of the largest premium SMS service providers.
Going forward, the carrier plans to stop all non-charitable and political premium SMS, and reiterates that customers will continue to have the option of requesting refunds for fraudulent premium SMS charges
The fine folks at OUYA today have announced that a white version of the Android-based gaming console is now available for preorder for $129. That's an extra $30 over the original OUYA. But along with the limited-edition color comes double the on-board storage — a fuller 16 gigabytes.
It's only available in North America (for now, we suppose), and you'll want to order by Dec. 8 to have it delivered in time for the holidays, OUYA says.
Tonight’s third UFC 167 pay-per-view fight would again venture to the welterweight division as top challengers Rory MacDonald and Robbie Lawler squared off in the Octagon. The bout would see Lawler the victor after a solid fight that hopefully impressed the UFC brass.
It is somewhat fitting on a night that the UFC recognized its 20th anniversary that a longtime MMA veteran kept his recent run going as Robbie Lawler upset Rory MacDonald. Lawler pressed forward the majority of the fight with hard power shots that seemed to keep MacDonald from ever getting very comfortable. MacDonald seemed to lack a sense of urgency for the majority of the fight until Lawler put him on his heels with a vicious third round assault.
MacDonald would end up back on top at the end of the third and while he landed a nasty barrage of strikes to close out the fight. It was too little too late however, as Lawler would get the split decision win. Lawler is now 3-0 in his UFC return and has looked remarkably improved with each fight. The loss for MacDonald is particuarly harsh setback as it not only snaps a five-fight win streak but disrupts any thoughts of a title run for the time being.
Play-by-Play:
Rd. 1- Mario Yamasaki is tonight’s referee. No touch of gloves. Hard legkicks by Lawler earlier and he looks for a headkick. Rory is really trying to keep distance and play it smart so far. Teep to the body by Rory. Legkicks by Lawler. Both men kick each other at the same time. Lawler checks a MacDonald headkick and lands another big legkick. Rory is trying to establish the jab and the body teep. Lead uppercut by Lawler but Rory just avoids the full brunt of it. Nice combo by Lawler and he starts backing up Rory. Rory rotates off the cage wisely and we’re centered. Headkick that lands on the ribs by Lawler is caught but he lands some punches and Rory lets go. MMAFrenzy has it 10-9 Lawler.
Rd. 2- Rory tries a single and gives it up but lands a nice kick on the exit. Teep to the body by Rory. Light legkicks by Lawler and Rory with a good body kick. Nice strikes by Rory as Lawler backs him up. Nice hook by Lawler. Lawer tries another hook but gets caught by a legkick. Legkick by Lawler and Rory just has no urgency. Finally Rory with some offense and he connects on some nice shots. Good driving double leg by Rory now and Robbie gets double butterflies. Rory finally postures up but doesn’t do much until Lawler forces a scramble. Rory is using a cradle to hold Lawler down. Rory is just controlling posture on top and Robbie lands some punches from the bottom. Rory finally starts throwing elbows from his back at the 0:15 mark. MMAFrenzy has it 10-9 MacDonald (19-19)
Rd. 3- Body kick by Lawler and he connects with a solid punch and big uppercut that rocks Rory. Rory staggers around but catches Lawler coming in and lands a takedown. Again Rory does nothing and Yamasaki stands them up. Lawler tags him again and Rory shoots in and Lawler throws him over and takes top with some solid strikes. Rory lockshim down but Lawler backs out and stands him up. Rory is bloodied up and Lawler tags him again. Accidental eyepoke by Lawler and Rory is ready to go after a short break. Rory tries to tree top a takedown by Lawler fends it off in crazy fashion. Lawler drops Rory again and he is landing solid ground-and-poound from side control. Rory is clearly hurt and as he recovers guard he eats a big hook. Rory tries a sweep but Robbie recovers position with 0:40 left. Rory tries for an armbar but Lawler backs out and they are standing. Rory with a driving takedown and he is trying big elbows and ground-and-pound trying to win the fight. Too little, too late though. MMAFrenzy has the round 10-9 Lawler and the fight 29-28 Lawler.
Robbie Lawler def. Rory MacDonald via split decision (29-28,28-29,29-28)
Front-Page Photo Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Spor
>> BRUMMEL BOWS: Microsoft axes its controversial employee-ranking system, by Tom Warren: "Microsoft is killing off its controversial stack-ranking system today. While it could be viewed as an internal change that won't affect consumers directly, it will have a broad effect on current and future Microsoft employees that may just shape the future of the company... Stack ranking is a process where each business unit's management team has to review employees' performance and rank a certain percentage of them as top performers, or as average or poorly performing. Former Microsoft employees have claimed it leads to colleagues competing with each other, especially when some employees in a group of individuals need to be given poor reviews to match the method. It's a system that's similar to Yahoo's new alleged internal process of ranking employees." The Verge >>>> Yahoo is forcing employees to rank each other and they hate itValleyWag >>>> BACKGROUND: Microsoft's lost decadeVanity Fair
>> STAT DU JOUR: Google is now bigger than both the magazine and newspaper industries, by Jim Edwards: "In part this is because the print media has suffered such a precipitous decline. But note that Google's last full year results from 2012 are approaching the historic maximum (in ad revenue) that all magazines combined achieved back in 2007 before the crash. It's won't be long now, in other words, before Google not only eclipses magazines but also becomes bigger than magazines ever were -- even when there was no Internet to compete with." Business Insider
>> LAST ONE OUT: Fit to sprint: Top talent exits New York Times, by Dylan Byers: "The New York Times is suffering a brain drain.... In the past nine months, at least a dozen top reporters and editors have made for the exits. Among them are such well-known and respected journalists as Nate Silver, who sprinted to ESPN; David Pogue, who decamped to Yahoo News; Jeff Zeleny, who left for ABC News; and Rick Berke, who is en route to Politico.... On Tuesday, in a sucker punch to staff morale, the Gray Lady lost more: Brian Stelter, the paper's marquee media reporter, announced he would go to CNN; and Matt Bai, The New York Times Magazine's chief political correspondent, decamped to Yahoo." Politico >>>> TECHBRIEF FACTS OF LIFE: With his move to Yahoo News, Matt Bai becomes first political writer at The New York Times to go to all-digital news org. Politico
>> STEALING THE SHOW: Netflix introduces one unified TV interface to rule them all, by Bryan Bishop: "The experience is like parking your TV on a glossy, high-end station that's programmed just for you. Granted, much of that is dependent on Netflix actually having content you want to watch in the first place, but with the company's high-profile deals and own original content there's an increasingly diverse selection to choose from. I found myself drawn to programs that had been floating around in my queue for years, and ended up revisiting a favorite episode of Lost simply by exploring what the interface served up." The Verge >>>> Netflix ditches Webkit to roll out slick new UI for smart TVs, Roku boxes and game consolesGigaOM >>>> Hulu reportedly wants its subscription service available on pay-TV as it competes with NetflixTNW
>> ADULT SUPERVISION: Microsoft's Joe Belfiore takes over Internet Explorer app development, by Tom Warren: "Microsoft's Dean Hachamovitch revealed earlier this week that he is switching roles to a new team inside the software giant. Hachamovitch has essentially been the Internet Explorer man at Microsoft for a number of years now, heading up the development of the company's browser rendering engine and the apps across Windows, Windows Phone, and Xbox... Joe Belfiore will take over some of Hachamovitch's responsibilities for Internet Explorer... will lead a team focused on the app side of Internet Explorer and the user experience... Microsoft has had separate teams working on its trident rendering engine and the end user Internet Explorer apps that ship with Windows and other platforms, but the company is splitting the leadership of those teams even further... the trident rendering engine and IE platform remains in the core operating systems group." [TechBrief confirmed that Belfiore will also remain Windows Phone program manager.] The Verge >>>> Microsoft's IE chief, Dean Hachamovitch, to take on a new roleZDNet
>> SPY VS. SPY: In Lavabit appeal, US doubles down on access to Web crypto keys, by Kevin Poulsen: "A U.S. email provider can promise its users all the security and privacy it wants; it still has to do whatever it takes to give the government access. That's the gist of the Justice Department's 60-page appellate brief in the Lavabit surveillance case... the government defends its use of a search warrant and a grand jury subpoena to obtain the private encryption keys for Lavabit's email service and website, and tacitly impugns Texas-based proprietor Ladar Levison for shutting down the site and thwarting the FBI's surveillance plans." Wired >>>> DOJ says Lavabit cannot prevent search warrants by 'locking its front gate'InfoWorld
>> BLIND JUSTICE: Microsoft, Google, Facebook furious after denied full view of government reply to FISA court, by John Ribeiro: "Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Facebook, and LinkedIn are objecting to the U.S. government's decision to provide them only a redacted version of its response to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to a request by the companies that they be allowed to publish information on users' data requests from the government. The companies said in a filing in the court Tuesday that they have been provided only a 'heavily redacted version' of the government's submissions, which included its response and a supporting declaration, and all requests for greater access have been rejected." InfoWorld
>> UM, COOL: MIT invents a shapeshifting display you can reach through and touch, by John Brownlee: "We live in an age of touch-screen interfaces, but what will the UIs of the future look like? Will they continue to be made up of ghostly pixels, or will they be made of atoms that you can reach out and touch?... At the MIT Media Lab, the Tangible Media Group believes the future of computing is tactile. Unveiled today, the inFORM is MIT's new scrying pool for imagining the interfaces of tomorrow. Almost like a table of living clay, the inFORM is a surface that three-dimensionally changes shape, allowing users to not only interact with digital content in meatspace, but even hold hands with a person hundreds of miles away. And that's only the beginning." Fast Company
>> WHAT SERGEY IS READING: Why we are allowed to hate Silicon Valley, by Evgeny Morozov: 'It knows how to talk about tools but is barely capable of talking about social, political, and economic systems that these tools enable and disable, amplify and pacify. Why the "digital debate" leads us astray.' Frankfurter Allgemeine
>> WHAT IF: Elon Musk's next blue-sky idea, by William Alden: "Elon Musk has built rockets and electric cars. In the future, he may be building airplanes.... Mr. Musk, the chief executive of Tesla Motors and SpaceX, said on Tuesday that he had envisioned a design for an electric supersonic airplane, with the ability to take off and land vertically. He said he began to conceive of such a jet after the Concorde was grounded a decade ago." NYT DealBook
>> ET TU, MACRUMORS?: Hack of MacRumors forums exposes pasword data for 860,000 users, by Dan Goodin: "Assume your password is known, site's top brass tells account holders... MacRumors used the MD5 algorithm, along with a per-user cryptographic salt, to convert plain-text passwords into a one-way hash. The scheme is the standard protection provided by VBulletin, the Web software used on both the Ubuntu and MacRumors forums. Still, many password experts consider the MD5 with or without salt to be an inadequate means of protecting stored passwords." Ars Technica >>>> Hoping to avert 'collision' with disaster, Microsoft retires SHA1Ars Technica >>>> Facebook pushes password resets after Adobe hackPC Mag
>> DATAVIZ: Revenues per second of tech firms: current web design vs bar chartJack Schofield
>> BP locking down personal devices in the face of cyber warfareComputerworld UK
>> Intel plays catch-up to ARM with renewed Android pushInfoWorld
>> HAD TO RUN IT (AGAIN): Justin Bieber-backed 'Shots of Me' launches selfie sharing appTechCrunch
>> TWEET O' THE DAY: "Me: in real life, you don't need to worry about a dragon attacking you and all your hobbit friends. 9yo: Dwarf friends, Dad." @petemiron
Looking for a little more flair? A white Nexus 5 may be for you
The LG Nexus 5 is finally on sale, and yes, it comes in white. No matter the storage size choice you make you'll have the option to get a different colored back on the phone, and for some it'll be a better-looking option. There's a slight materials difference between the black and white models, with the white one being a little "harder" plastic on the back and having glossier plastic sides, but other than that you're basically getting the same phone in a different color. Hit the break for a photo gallery of the Nexus 5 in white.
Study using stem cells to improve organ transplantation to receive $12 million
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
7-Nov-2013
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Contact: Bret Coons [email protected] 312-926-2955 Northwestern Memorial Hospital
Northwestern Medicine promised $12 million to continue organ transplant research with stem cells to improve outcomes
CHICAGO An innovative Northwestern Medicine research program investigating if stem cells may be the key to allowing organ transplant patients to stop taking immunosuppressive drugs has received $12 million in research funding. The grant will allow researchers to finish Phase II of the clinical trials and begin Phase III. Northwestern began the study's clinical trial in early 2009 as part of a partnership with the University of Louisville, which engineers the specialized stem cells used in each transplant procedure.
"During our clinical trials, we have been able to take the novel stem cell technology that the University of Louisville pioneered from the bench to the bedside," said Joseph Leventhal, MD PhD, director of kidney and pancreas transplantation at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, and professor of Surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "The results of our clinical trial were a catalyst for Novartis' long-term investment in this new cellular based therapy for solid organ transplantation."
The clinical trial uses specially engineered stem cells from kidney donors to make the organ recipient's immune system recognize the new kidney as its own. In mainstream transplant procedures, a recipient faces the danger of their immune system treating a newly transplanted organ as a foreign body that should be removed, causing it to attack and try to kill the new organ. To prevent a recipient's immune system from attacking their new organ, doctors must currently prescribe toxic anti-rejection medicines to weaken the immune system and keep it at bay.
In March of 2012, Leventhal and his colleagues published the study's initial clinical results from eight participants in Science Translational Medicine. The article outlined that of the study's eight participants, five were able to successfully stop taking all anti-rejection medicines in just one year after they received a new kidney, and two required only low-doses of anti-rejection medicine to be maintained instead of a normal regimen. The final patient suffered an unrelated illness that required another kidney transplant to be performed.
"Northwestern's Comprehensive Transplant Center has demonstrated for the first time in the history of organ transplantation that we can safely achieve durable transplantation tolerance in mismatched and unrelated donor/recipient combinations," said Leventhal. "I am very excited to be able to continue this groundbreaking translational research."
The first subjects to participate in the research study underwent surgery on February 26, 2009. To date, more than 20 patients have been enrolled and have received new kidneys as part of the clinical trial, the majority of which have been successfully taken off of all anti-rejection medicines. In order to qualify, the donor and recipient pairs must be blood-type compatible and have a negative cross-match, which means that testing has been done to confirm the recipient does not have antibodies in the blood that would cause rejection of the kidney.
The grant is a result of a license and research collaboration agreement between Regenerex LLC and Novartis to provide access to the novel technology developed by the University of Louisville's Institute for Cellular Therapeutics. Leventhal does not receive financial incentives or payment from Novartis or Regenerex LLC.
###
Northwestern Memorial is home of the largest living donor kidney transplant program in the nation. For more information, visit transplant.nmh.org.
About Northwestern Memorial HealthCare
Northwestern Memorial HealthCare is the parent corporation of Chicago's Northwestern Memorial Hospital, an 894-bed academic medical center hospital and Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital, a 201-bed community hospital located in Lake Forest, Illinois.
About Northwestern Memorial Hospital
Northwestern Memorial is one of the country's premier academic medical center hospitals and is the primary teaching hospital of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Along with its Prentice Women's Hospital and Stone Institute of Psychiatry, the hospital has 1,705 affiliated physicians and 6,769 employees. Northwestern Memorial is recognized for providing exemplary patient care and state-of-the art advancements in the areas of cardiovascular care; women's health; oncology; neurology and neurosurgery; solid organ and soft tissue transplants and orthopaedics.
Northwestern Memorial has nursing Magnet Status, the nation's highest recognition for patient care and nursing excellence. Northwestern Memorial ranks 6th in the nation in the U.S. News & World Report 2013-14 Honor Roll of America's Best Hospitals. The hospital is recognized in 14 of 16 clinical specialties rated by U.S. News and is No. 1 in Illinois and Chicago in U.S. News' 2013-14 state and metro rankings, respectively. For 14 years running, Northwestern Memorial has been rated among the "100 Best Companies for Working Mothers" guide by Working Mother magazine. The hospital is a recipient of the prestigious National Quality Health Care Award and has been chosen by Chicagoans as the Consumer Choice according to the National Research Corporation's annual survey for 15 consecutive years.
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Study using stem cells to improve organ transplantation to receive $12 million
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
7-Nov-2013
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]
Share
Contact: Bret Coons [email protected] 312-926-2955 Northwestern Memorial Hospital
Northwestern Medicine promised $12 million to continue organ transplant research with stem cells to improve outcomes
CHICAGO An innovative Northwestern Medicine research program investigating if stem cells may be the key to allowing organ transplant patients to stop taking immunosuppressive drugs has received $12 million in research funding. The grant will allow researchers to finish Phase II of the clinical trials and begin Phase III. Northwestern began the study's clinical trial in early 2009 as part of a partnership with the University of Louisville, which engineers the specialized stem cells used in each transplant procedure.
"During our clinical trials, we have been able to take the novel stem cell technology that the University of Louisville pioneered from the bench to the bedside," said Joseph Leventhal, MD PhD, director of kidney and pancreas transplantation at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, and professor of Surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "The results of our clinical trial were a catalyst for Novartis' long-term investment in this new cellular based therapy for solid organ transplantation."
The clinical trial uses specially engineered stem cells from kidney donors to make the organ recipient's immune system recognize the new kidney as its own. In mainstream transplant procedures, a recipient faces the danger of their immune system treating a newly transplanted organ as a foreign body that should be removed, causing it to attack and try to kill the new organ. To prevent a recipient's immune system from attacking their new organ, doctors must currently prescribe toxic anti-rejection medicines to weaken the immune system and keep it at bay.
In March of 2012, Leventhal and his colleagues published the study's initial clinical results from eight participants in Science Translational Medicine. The article outlined that of the study's eight participants, five were able to successfully stop taking all anti-rejection medicines in just one year after they received a new kidney, and two required only low-doses of anti-rejection medicine to be maintained instead of a normal regimen. The final patient suffered an unrelated illness that required another kidney transplant to be performed.
"Northwestern's Comprehensive Transplant Center has demonstrated for the first time in the history of organ transplantation that we can safely achieve durable transplantation tolerance in mismatched and unrelated donor/recipient combinations," said Leventhal. "I am very excited to be able to continue this groundbreaking translational research."
The first subjects to participate in the research study underwent surgery on February 26, 2009. To date, more than 20 patients have been enrolled and have received new kidneys as part of the clinical trial, the majority of which have been successfully taken off of all anti-rejection medicines. In order to qualify, the donor and recipient pairs must be blood-type compatible and have a negative cross-match, which means that testing has been done to confirm the recipient does not have antibodies in the blood that would cause rejection of the kidney.
The grant is a result of a license and research collaboration agreement between Regenerex LLC and Novartis to provide access to the novel technology developed by the University of Louisville's Institute for Cellular Therapeutics. Leventhal does not receive financial incentives or payment from Novartis or Regenerex LLC.
###
Northwestern Memorial is home of the largest living donor kidney transplant program in the nation. For more information, visit transplant.nmh.org.
About Northwestern Memorial HealthCare
Northwestern Memorial HealthCare is the parent corporation of Chicago's Northwestern Memorial Hospital, an 894-bed academic medical center hospital and Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital, a 201-bed community hospital located in Lake Forest, Illinois.
About Northwestern Memorial Hospital
Northwestern Memorial is one of the country's premier academic medical center hospitals and is the primary teaching hospital of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Along with its Prentice Women's Hospital and Stone Institute of Psychiatry, the hospital has 1,705 affiliated physicians and 6,769 employees. Northwestern Memorial is recognized for providing exemplary patient care and state-of-the art advancements in the areas of cardiovascular care; women's health; oncology; neurology and neurosurgery; solid organ and soft tissue transplants and orthopaedics.
Northwestern Memorial has nursing Magnet Status, the nation's highest recognition for patient care and nursing excellence. Northwestern Memorial ranks 6th in the nation in the U.S. News & World Report 2013-14 Honor Roll of America's Best Hospitals. The hospital is recognized in 14 of 16 clinical specialties rated by U.S. News and is No. 1 in Illinois and Chicago in U.S. News' 2013-14 state and metro rankings, respectively. For 14 years running, Northwestern Memorial has been rated among the "100 Best Companies for Working Mothers" guide by Working Mother magazine. The hospital is a recipient of the prestigious National Quality Health Care Award and has been chosen by Chicagoans as the Consumer Choice according to the National Research Corporation's annual survey for 15 consecutive years.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
The Twitterscape has evolved steadily in the last five years, but maybe never more significantly than in the last week. With the addition of photo/video previews and inline interactions nestled directly into the tweets themselves, it's a whole other playing field—one your Twitter-phobic friends will actually like. Here's how to ease them in.
If you’re German, Mexican, or Brazilian, you can thank these guys for exposing surveillance of your country. But if you’re American, the equation has changed.
Photo illustration by Lisa Larson-Walker. Photos by Reuters & via Getty Images.
Five months ago, journalists working with Edward Snowden, a former contractor for the National Security Agency, began to publish embarrassing stories about the NSA’s secret surveillance programs. Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald, documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras, and their colleagues based these stories on Snowden’s cache of classified documents. They exposed a spying apparatus that had succumbed to the temptation of unprecedented access to electronic communication. Eventually, President Obama acknowledged that the government’s reach had exceeded its judgment. “Just because we can get information,” said Obama, “doesn't necessarily always mean that we should.”
Will Saletan writes about politics, science, technology, and other stuff for Slate. He’s the author of Bearing Right. Follow him on Twitter.
But that lesson doesn’t just apply to the government. It’s a weakness in all of us. We tend to exploit, and eventually abuse, power and information. Today, the United States faces worldwide outrage, frayed alliances, and economic threats not for spying on its own citizens, but for spying on other countries. Greenwald, Poitras, and their colleagues are digging deeper into Snowden’s trove of documents, exposing U.S. espionage against foreign leaders. What began as a crusade against unconstitutional surveillance within this country has degenerated into a campaign to expose all American spying.
Snowden says he began leaking documents because of the NSA’s warrantless domestic wiretapping. In an introductory video making his case to the public, he told Poitras, “The primary disclosures are the fact that the NSA doesn’t limit itself to foreign intelligence. It collects all communications that transit the United States.” To Greenwald, he added, “Originally we saw that focus very narrowly tailored as foreign intelligence gathered overseas. Now increasingly we see that it's happening domestically.”
Greenwald, too, emphasized domestic surveillance. A few days after publishing the initial documents, he told ABC News, “As an American citizen, I have every right, and even the obligation as a journalist, to tell my fellow citizens and our readers what it is that the government is doing that they don't want people in the United States to know about.” He told CNN, “The ability to surveil your own citizens is an incredibly significant and menacing power. It is one of the first powers that every single tyranny obtains for itself.” On MSNBC, he argued, “What we disclosed was of great public interest, of great importance in a democracy: that the U.S. government is building this massive spying apparatus aimed at its own population.” On Meet the Press, he added, “The only people who have learned anything are the American people, who have learned the spying apparatus is directed at them.”
Soon, however, Snowden began to reveal U.S. targets overseas. He had gone to Hong Kong, hoping China would resist his extradition. On June 13, the South China Morning Post reported that according to documents shown to its reporters by Snowden, “the NSA had been hacking computers in Hong Kong and on the mainland since 2009,” including “Chinese University and public officials.” Snowden told the newspaper his goal was “to help the public of the world, regardless of whether that public is American, European, or Asian.” He expressed hope that “world governments will refuse to be bullied by the United States.”
On June 22, Greenwald defended Snowden against charges that he had, in effect, spied against the U.S. Greenwald observed that the Espionage Act applied only to disclosures of classified information "with intent or reason to believe that the information is to be used to the injury of the United States.” He argued that Snowden was “devoted to informing the American people” that their government was “secretly constructing a mass and often illegal and unconstitutional surveillance apparatus aimed at American citizens.” According to Greenwald, the people whom U.S. leaders were “seeking to keep ignorant with selective and excessive leak prosecutions are not The Terrorists or The Chinese Communists. It's the American people.”
But Greenwald and Poitras were no longer focused on informing Americans. They were focused on informing other countries about U.S. surveillance abroad. On June 29, Poitras and three colleagues, citing Snowden’s documents, published an article in Der Spiegel under the headline, “Attacks from America: NSA Spied on European Union Offices.” A companion article warned Germans of American predation: “Partner and Target: NSA Snoops on 500 Million German Data Connections.” The Guardian disclosed that a document in Snowden’s collection listed 38 foreign embassies and missions as surveillance targets, including the embassies of France, Italy, Greece, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, India, and Turkey. Both the Guardian and Der Spiegel spelled out the surveillance devices and methods.
A week later, Greenwald co-authored a report in Brazil exposing NSA surveillance in that country. “The privacy rights of Americans aren't the only ones that matter,” he argued. He accused the U.S. of targeting “all of the world's citizens,” thereby acquiring “boundless power over those to whom it has no accountability.” The original rationale for exposing U.S. espionage—subversion of American democracy—had given way to a fantasy of global democracy, in which all espionage was illegitimate, since leaders of the perpetrator country were unelected by the people of the target country.
Snowden, Greenwald, and Poitras haven’t divulged any surveillance explicitly confined to military targets or terrorists. But they’ve reported NSA operations against the president of Brazil, the president of Mexico, the president of Russia, French diplomats, Indian diplomats, and dozens of unnamed “world leaders.” Their articles are often published in the targeted countries and timed to cause maximum disruption to U.S. relations with those countries.
If you’re German, Mexican, or Brazilian, you can thank these journalists for exposing surveillance of your country. But if you’re American, the equation has changed. The NSA leaks are no longer about your privacy. They’re about alerting the world to U.S. espionage against other governments, most of whom are simultaneously spying on us. Snowden’s collaborators are publishing these secrets because, like the NSA, they’re in the thrall of unprecedented access to information. But just because they can use it all doesn’t mean they should.
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Novo Nordisk is recalling 3 million insulin products used for diabetes treatment in 13 European countries due to a production problem that can affect the strength of the drug.
The Danish drug maker says Friday's recall affects certain batches of the prefilled insulin pen NovoMix30 FlexPen in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Iceland, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Norway and Slovakia.
It also affects three batches of NovoMix30 Penfill cartridges in Britain and Ireland.
Novo Nordisk says a quality control showed 0.14 percent of the products don't meet the specifications for insulin strength, which could lead to high or low blood sugar levels.
Company spokesman Mike Rulis said there had been no reports of health problems from patients using the affected products, which were first shipped in March.
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