U.S. Senate to telecoms -- I'll scratch your back, if you scratch mine. Telecoms and many in the federal Executive branch seemed quite content with the increased usage of warrantless phone surveillance, which some people feel violates Americans' legal rights. The telecoms received large paychecks for every wiretap put in place; Comcast's rate was a modest $1,000 per tap. Meanwhile, politicians are happy because they were able to extend their surveillance programs as planned. The program may toss due process out the window, but, in their opinion, that is a necessary loss to deal with today's troubled world. Then all of a sudden the good times ended, when a few members of Congress demanded telecom's spy records for hearings on the legality of the program. The phone companies refused, and all of a sudden, their dirty laundry was aired to the public. The public exposure opened the NSA and telecoms up to legal action from civil liberties groups and citizens. Sure enough, the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed for a class action lawsuit for the warrantless eavesdropping practices. Such a lawsuit could cost telecoms and the U.S.

Wild Card -- Tuesday PM

Ada County prosecutors have charged BSU footballer Cam Hall with three counts of felony vehicular manslaughter for his role in a triple highway fatality here.

Jeff Thelen's Blog

Anyways often I see reporters and newspaper articles selling the sizzle so to speak on the article. For example USA Today did a pc that you should check out "Five Ways to shield Your Money from recession" by John Waggoner Feb 8, 2008 - Not a bad article but it was written with a slant to security products and did not take into account "Safe Money Solutions" which protects your priciple from loss even if the market takes a dive. As we approach retriement the Brokers wants to leave all your money in the market but in reality a person needs to put together a plan that protects those assets they want to use in retirement. The Rule of 100 applies (note any rule of thumb is just a starting point each person must look at their paticular case) but the rules work this way if you age 55 then 100 - 55 = 45% that you can risk in the market for potential gain but the other 55% should have principle protection.

RIAA boss: Move copyright filtering from ISPs to users’ PCs

Filtering sounds so wholesome. As with filtered water, Internet filtering backers suggest that their products simply keep the sludge from passing through, and who wants to drink unfiltered sludge? The big difference between the two kinds of filtering is that sludge can't use 128-bit keys and AES encryption to hide its sludgy nature; Internet traffic can. It's a key problem for any Internet filtering regime, including the one being studied right now by AT&T. Once strong encryption is slapped on Internet traffic, the effectiveness of filters drops off dramatically.

At a Washington, DC, tech conference last week, RIAA boss Cary Sherman suggested that Internet filtering was a super idea but that he saw no reason to mandate it. Turns out that was only part of the story, though; Sherman's a sharp guy, and he's fully aware that filtering will prompt an encryption arms race that is going to be impossible to win...

Salamanders, headwater streams critical in food chain

University of Missouri scientist Ray Semlitsch studies creatures most people don't ever see. These creatures are active only at night and thrive in the shallow, cool, wet surroundings of headwater streams, an oft-overlooked biological environment.

A collaborative study, with MU graduate student Bill Peterman, recently published in the journal Freshwater Biology, revealed the biomass (total mass of an organism in an area) of the black-bellied salamander far exceeds any previous estimates, and the contribution of the species and its habitat may be critical in the food chain. While the ecological role of the salamander is not fully understood, radio-telemetry and mark-recapture tracking methods used in the study indicate the salamanders are a critical component in the productivity of headwater streams, possibly ensuring the survival of other species of fauna.