SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN (Ranking, Armed Services Committee): First of all let me repeat what you just said, Bob. I have opposed torture. It's violation of the Geneva Conventions. I worry about treatment of Americans in future conflicts.

SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN: The-- the allegations are that they gave the wrong counsel that’s and—- and that bad things were done. And we violated fundamental commitments that the United States of America made when we signed the Geneva Conventions. And we disregarded what might happen to Americans who are held captive in the future. And by the way, those who say our enemies won’t abide the Geneva Conventions they will if they know there’s going to retribution for their violation of it.

Through the eyepiece of Michael Backes’s small Celestron telescope, the 18-point letters on the laptop screen at the end of the hall look nearly as clear as if the notebook computer were on my lap. I do a double take. Not only is the laptop 10 meters (33 feet) down the corridor, it faces away from the telescope. The image that seems so legible is a reflection off a glass teapot on a nearby table. In experiments here at his laboratory at Saarland University in Germany, Backes has discovered that an alarmingly wide range of objects can bounce secrets right off our screens and into an eavesdropper’s camera. Spectacles work just fine, as do coffee cups, plastic bottles, metal jewelry--even, in his most recent work, the eyeballs of the computer user. The mere act of viewing information can give it away.

Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) last week introduced three bills that he said were needed to limit presidential power and to restore the proper constitutional balance among the three branches of government.

The first bill (S.875) would instruct courts not to rely on a presidential signing statement when interpreting the meaning of any statute. (Similar legislation was introduced in previous sessions of Congress, but was not passed.)

President Bush used signing statements “in a way that threatened to render the legislative process a virtual nullity, making it completely unpredictable how certain laws will be enforced,” said Sen. Specter on April 23. “As outrageous as these signing statements are,… it is even more outrageous that Congress has done nothing to protect its constitutional powers,” he said.

The second bill (S.876) would substitute the United States as the defendant in place of telecommunications companies in pending lawsuits alleging unlawful surveillance. (Sen. Specter also introduced such a bill in 2008.)

“It is not too late to provide for judicial review of controversial post-9/11 intelligence surveillance activities,” Sen. Specter said. “The cases before Judge Vaughn Walker [alleging unlawful surveillance] are still pending and, even if he were to dismiss them under the statutory defenses dubbed ‘retroactive immunity’, Congress can and should permit the cases to be refiled against the Government, standing in the shoes of the carriers.”

“The legislation also establishes a limited waiver of sovereign immunity… to prevent the Government from asserting immunity in the event it is substituted for the current defendants,” Sen. Specter explained. (As for the likelihood that the Government would assert the “state secrets privilege” to abort such litigation, that is addressed in another pending bill.)

The third bill (S.877) would require the Supreme Court to review certain cases concerning the constitutionality of intelligence surveillance, statutory immunity for telecommunications providers, and other communications intelligence activities, and would eliminate the Court’s discretion as to whether or not to grant “certiorari.” The bill was necessitated, he said, by the Supreme Court’s refusal to review an appeals court decision that overturned a 2006 ruling by Judge Anna Diggs Taylor which found the Terrorist Surveillance Program to be unconstitutional.

Sen. Specter discussed his approach to these matters in “The Need to Roll Back Presidential Power Grabs,” New York Review of Books, May 14, 2009.

jeffwik

Whole villages are being abandoned as civilians flee attacks by Rwandan Hutu militia and Ugandan rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, just weeks after joint army operations to oust the militias ended.

peaseblossom

The Genius led them out the rear of the building into a private garden that abutted the back of the Diamond Center. It was one of the few places in the district that wasn't under video surveillance. Using a ladder he had previously hidden there, the Genius climbed up to a small terrace on the second floor. A heat-sensing infrared detector monitored the terrace, but he approached it slowly from behind a large, homemade polyester shield. The low thermal conductivity of the polyester blocked his body heat from reaching the sensor. He placed the shield directly in front of the detector, preventing it from sensing anything.

A plutonium sample recently found at a U.S. waste dump is leftover from a batch used in 1945 for the world's first nuclear bomb test, a team of chemists has announced.

The female California two-spotted octopus swam to the top of her tank, disassembled a valve with her powerful arm, and released at least 200 gallons (757 liters) of seawater into nearby exhibits and offices.

Save-vs-DM: This is probably a very geeky question, but have you actually made character sheets for the main crew, using whatever system you favor? (I know that I've done it using Spirit of the Century) I know that you mentioned that all the characters have Thief 101 skills, but in your mind do you actually prevent them from doing something because "it's not on the character sheet"?

Seriously, e-mail the SoC character builds to the kfmonkey@gmail.com account. I want to see those. SoC is really frustrating to me, actually. A lot of great stuff, but as soon as you ge tinto tagging aspects of the setting, it all goes to mush for me. A simple system that they overcomplicate a bit in the rules book. FWIW, I'd go True20 or Savage Worlds for a Leverage game.

A spy is above all a man of politics . . . He must have the breadth of thought of a strategist, and meticulous powers of observation. Espionage is a continuous and demanding labor which never ceases. – John Le Carré, “To Russia, with Greetings” (1966)