Here is a copy of the document – att_klien_wired.pdf. The original link for the PDF was http://blog.wired.com/27BStroke6/att_klein_wired.pdf.

Several civil rights groups and news organizations are working to release all documents in this case to the public.

We are filing a motion to intervene in the case in order to request that the court unseal the evidence, joining other news and civil rights organizations that have already done so, including the EFF, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times, the San Jose Mercury News, the Associated Press and Bloomberg.

Before publishing these documents we showed them to independent security experts, who agreed they pose no danger to AT&T. For example, they do not reveal sensitive information that hackers might use to attack the company’s systems.

Looks like a lot more than just our phone calls are being spied upon folks.

Via:
Wired News, Why We Published the AT&T Docs

Wired News, Stumbling Into a Spy Scandal

Wired News, Whistle-Blower’s Evidence, Uncut

Norgs are news organizations that may produce a printed newspaper, a website, podcasts, blogs or any combination of these and other news products. Norgs have certain qualities, including wide distribution of news, ethical standards, resiliency, interactivity, giving voice to the audience, aiding media literacy, and a positive cash flow. Will Bunch, a writer and blogger with the Philadelphia Daily News, coined the word in October 2005 [1]. A discussion group met in an unconference on March 25, 2006, at the University of Pennsylvania to outline guidelines for an initial Norg architecture. Usage is common on websites discussing the future of news, particularly local news. See phillyfuture [2], buzzmachine [3], and blinq [4] .

Check out Albert’s photos and watch the PhillyIMC video. I’m podcasting – vlogging – that video, btw. My favorite part of the video is Amy Webb’s comments. Go 3min 46sec into the video to view. Basically she expresses concern about the “great digital divide” between newspaper editors and their young readers. Hearing the words blog and podcast from editors makes her cringe. It’s evidence that they still don’t get it. Because people, who editors are trying to reach, knew those words (blog and podcast) years ago.

She is also concerned about people claiming we need paper news because everybody can’t afford computers. Ten years, or less from now, she says everyone will. Paper based news is a romantic ideal that will be gone. If it isn’t completely gone in 10-20 years it will be supplanted by other deliver methods. These words are prophetic!

To make it super clear the video linked to bellow and encluded in my podcast was created by the PhillyIMC. Thank you PhillyIMC for making it and allowing the public to “rebroadcast” it. I podcast it from my server space to save them the bandwidth costs.

MOV 7m 41s 11.46MB 44.1kHz 320×240

From the Freepress site:

ATandT and BellSouth plan to merge into a single colossus. This deal must be stopped.

The merger resurrects the Ma Bell monopoly that was busted up in 1984. But it’s far worse today. These companies no longer just control telephone calls. They want to become gatekeepers to all digital media — television, telephone and Internet — at prices that many Americans can’t afford.

The merger is now in the hands of the FCC, FTC and Congress. They’ll rubber-stamp the deal unless the public speaks up. Stop the merger now.

Wasn’t there a good reason to split up Ma Bell in the first place? Times certainly have changed but duopolies (AT&T and Verizon) are just as bad as monopolies. The deregulation of the telecommunications industry has been a disaster for consumers and the free flow of information. It has lead to the consolidation of corporate competitors who once provided a mediocre amount of choice, service, and pricing. Now our choices could be fewer and worse. (Choice is one of the consumers greatest powers.)

This new corporate giant could make it much harder for our Congressional representatives to resist the privatization of the Internet. A bigger company has more resources to create armies of lobbyist with pockets full of cash.

The effect upon localities could be big too. Having a large multinational corporation breathing down your neck when you try to negotiate any kind of deal for your citizens is going to be hard. Not to mention the notoriously bad customer support AT&T provides. Not just bad for individuals but bad support for towns themselves. (I snagged the graphic from MediaGeeks site. Thanks man!)

This news raises the urgency level even higher. Local communities need to create their own municipal networks. (Voice and Data) Citizens need their cities and towns to provide them equal access to municipal networks now more than ever!

To get much better analysis and links to lots of good info about this merger read MediaGeek’s blog posts It’s Confirmed — AT&T Planning To Gobble Up BellSouth, Public Interest Be Damned and Recreating a Monopoly.

Read the whole story by clicking more. (I include here under fair use.)

March 1, 2006

Video Shows Bush Warned Before Katrina Hit

by MARGARET EBRAHIM and JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writers 35 minutes ago

WASHINGTON – On the eve of Hurricane Katrina’s fateful landfall,
President Bush was confident. His homeland security chief appeared relaxed. And warnings of the coming destruction — breached or overrun levees, deaths at the New Orleans Superdome and overwhelming needs for post-storm rescues — were delivered in dramatic terms to all involved. All of it was captured on videotape.

The Associated Press obtained the confidential government video and made it public Wednesday, offering Americans their own inside glimpse into the government’s fateful final Katrina preparations after months of fingerpointing and political recriminations.

“My gut tells me … this is a bad one and a big one,” then-federal disaster chief Michael Brown told the final government-wide briefing the day before Katrina struck the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29.

The president didn’t ask a single question during the briefing but assured soon-to-be-battered state officials: “We are fully prepared.”

The footage — along with seven days of transcripts of briefings obtained by AP — show in excruciating detail that while federal officials anticipated the tragedy that unfolded in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, they were fatally slow to realize they had not mustered enough resources to deal with the unprecedented disaster.

A top hurricane expert voiced “grave concerns” about the levees and Brown, then the Federal Emergency Management Agency chief, told the president and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that he feared there weren’t enough disaster teams to help evacuees at the Superdome.

“I’m concerned about … their ability to respond to a catastrophe within a catastrophe,” Brown told his bosses the afternoon before Katrina made landfall.

The White House and Homeland Security Department urged the public Wednesday not to read too much into the footage.

“I hope people don’t draw conclusions from the president getting a single briefing,” Bush spokesman Trent Duffy said, citing a variety of orders and disaster declarations Bush signed before the storm made landfall. “He received multiple briefings from multiple officials, and he was completely engaged at all times.”

Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said his department would not release the full set of videotaped briefings, saying most transcripts — though not the videotapes — from the sessions were provided to congressional investigators months ago.

“There’s nothing new or insightful on these tapes,” Knocke said. “We actively participated in the lessons-learned review and we continue to participate in the Senate’s review and are working with them on their recommendation.”

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, a critic of the administration’s Katrina response, had a different take after watching the footage from an AP reporter’s camera.

“I have kind a sinking feeling in my gut right now,” Nagin said. “I was listening to what people were saying — they didn’t know, so therefore it was an issue of a learning curve. You know, from this tape it looks like everybody was fully aware.”

Some of the footage and transcripts from briefings Aug. 25-31 conflicts with the defenses that federal, state and local officials have made in trying to deflect blame and minimize the political fallout from the failed Katrina response:

• Homeland Security officials have said the “fog of war” blinded them early on to the magnitude of the disaster. But the video and transcripts show federal and local officials discussed threats clearly, reviewed long-made plans and understood Katrina would wreak devastation of historic proportions. “I’m sure it will be the top 10 or 15 when all is said and done,”National Hurricane Center’s Max Mayfield warned the day Katrina lashed the Gulf Coast.

“I don’t buy the `fog of war’ defense,” Brown told the AP in an interview Wednesday. “It was a fog of bureaucracy.”

• Bush declared four days after the storm, “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees” that gushed deadly flood waters into New Orleans. He later clarified, saying officials believed, wrongly, after the storm passed that the levees had survived. But the transcripts and video show there was plenty of talk about that possibility even before the storm — and Bush was worried too.

White House deputy chief of staff Joe Hagin, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and Brown discussed fears of a levee breach the day the storm hit.

“I talked to the president twice today, once in Crawford and then again on Air Force One,” Brown said. “He’s obviously watching the television a lot, and he had some questions about the Dome, he’s asking questions about reports of breaches.”

• Louisiana officials angrily blamed the federal government for not being prepared but the transcripts shows they were still praising FEMA as the storm roared toward the Gulf Coast and even two days afterward. “I think a lot of the planning FEMA has done with us the past year has really paid off,” Col. Jeff Smith, Louisiana’s emergency preparedness deputy director, said during the Aug. 28 briefing.

It wasn’t long before Smith and other state officials sounded overwhelmed.

“We appreciate everything that you all are doing for us, and all I would ask is that you realize that what’s going on and the sense of urgency needs to be ratcheted up,” Smith said Aug. 30.

Mississippi begged for more attention in that same briefing.

“We know that there are tens or hundreds of thousands of people in Louisiana that need to be rescued, but we would just ask you, we desperately need to get our share of assets because we’ll have people dying — not because of water coming up, but because we can’t get them medical treatment in our affected counties,” said a Mississippi state official whose name was not mentioned on the tape.

Video footage of the Aug. 28 briefing, the final one before Katrina struck, showed an intense Brown voicing concerns from the government’s disaster operation center and imploring colleagues to do whatever was necessary to help victims.

“Go ahead and do it,” Brown said. “I’ll figure out some way to justify it. … Just let them yell at me.”

Bush appeared from a narrow, windowless room at his vacation ranch in Texas, with his elbows on a table. Hagin was sitting alongside him.

“I want to assure the folks at the state level that we are fully prepared to not only help you during the storm, but we will move in whatever resources and assets we have at our disposal after the storm,” the president said.

A relaxed Chertoff, sporting a polo shirt, weighed in from Washington at Homeland Security’s operations center. He would later fly to Atlanta, outside of Katrina’s reach, for a bird flu event. Officials say he was frequently updated on the road about Katrina.

One snippet captures a missed opportunity on Aug. 28 for the government to have dispatched active-duty military troops to the region to augment the National Guard.

Chertoff: “Are there any DOD assets that might be available? Have we reached out to them?”

Brown: “We have DOD assets over here at EOC (emergency operations center). They are fully engaged. And we are having those discussions with them now.”

Chertoff: “Good job.”

In fact, active duty troops weren’t dispatched until days after the storm. And many states’ National Guards had yet to be deployed to the region despite offers of assistance, and it took days before the Pentagon deployed active-duty personnel to help overwhelmed Guardsmen.

The National Hurricane Center’s Mayfield told the final briefing before Katrina struck that storm models predicted minimal flooding inside New Orleans during the hurricane but he expressed concerns that counterclockwise winds and storm surges afterward could cause the levees at Lake Pontchartrain to be overrun.

“I don’t think any model can tell you with any confidence right now whether the levees will be topped or not but that is obviously a very, very grave concern,” Mayfield told the briefing.

Other officials expressed concerns about the large number of New Orleans residents who had not evacuated.

“They’re not taking patients out of hospitals, taking prisoners out of prisons and they’re leaving hotels open in downtown New Orleans. So I’m very concerned about that,” Brown said.

Despite the concerns, it ultimately took days for search and rescue teams to reach some hospitals and nursing homes.

Brown also told colleagues one of his top concerns was whether evacuees who went to the New Orleans Superdome — which became a symbol of the failed Katrina response — would be safe and have adequate medical care.

“The Superdome is about 12 feet below sea level…. I don’t know whether the roof is designed to stand, withstand a Category Five hurricane,” he said.

Brown also wanted to know whether there were enough federal medical teams in place to treat evacuees and the dead in the Superdome.

“Not to be (missing) kind of gross here,” Brown interjected, “but I’m concerned” about the medical and mortuary resources “and their ability to respond to a catastrophe within a catastrophe.”

___

Associated Press writers Ron Fournier and Lara Jakes Jordan contributed to this report.

Let me preface my comments with a technical explanation. A municipal network can provide wired and wireless access to the Internet and Intranets. WiFi networks are usually created to provide wireless access to EVERYTHING you can get to via the Internet. The term free WiFi describes the cost of the service at the time of use. Not the actual cost of the WiFi to all citizens or the Town. Dispersing or delaying the cost of access to the Internet can really help people like the working poor.

Here in Chapel Hill, NC fear of angering local businesses and large corporations is preventing a municipal network from being created by the Town. See how Bell South treats suffering New Orleans? Remember what Verizon did to Philadelphia? Imagine what big bad business will do to Chapel Hill if we dare give something to those in need!

Based on their actions and inactions many local citizens are against a free town WiFi network. I think they believe it’s wrong for the government to provide free services. They CLAIM free WiFi will unfairly compete with and disrupt businesses. This fear is incredibly short cited. The potential for other money making possibilities if the Internet is available to all is HUGE. The evidence is all over the place! Just look at how much money some business could make building the WiFi network and providing the network access. Somebody has to pay for this. Someone will profit from it.

So if there is money to be made in the private sector by the creation of a free town WiFi network then why is business against it? Network providers and ISPs understand that the real money isn’t in building networks but leveraging the data that is collected en mass about users network usage habits. All you have to do is look at Google’s billions and you can quickly understand that user data is big money. By retaining complete control over access to the Internet you can understand how it’s used. Over time this information becomes more and more detailed. A local government who controlled access to the Internet might have issues with a business watching how they use it.

The Internet has provided a more level playing field for making money. Individuals and small businesses can compete effectively with large business and government. This has put large business, like Bell South, on the defensive to protect what they already have and profit from generously. In the near future pipes to the Internet will be guarded much more diligently. They will become expensive toll roads to the public’s information super highway. Read the article Saving the Net: How to Keep the Carriers from Flushing the Net Down the Tubes by Doc Searls to get the details and context.

In my estimation the biggest reason for business opposition to a free town WiFi network boils down to GREED. By working against it businesses and business people are preventing a valuable public service from being utilized by those who need it most. In Chapel Hill this is mainly poor black people – children, senior citizens, teens, and adults.

I don’t need free internet access. I can afford it, own the hardware to use it, and have the skills to take advantage of it. So can all the anti-public/pro-business people. Why not open your caring hearts and give other people this amazing privilege?

In the US we finally obtained public water, sewer, roads, street lighting, slumlord regulations, public transportation, public TV, etc. etc. etc. Do you think we got all these great public services by just asking nicely for them? NO! People in need had to suffer and die before the robber barons of the 19th Century would relinquish one tiny bit. (See the book People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn for the details.)

Citizens aren’t just asking for a hand out. We work for public services everyday. Public services aren’t free. They are only loaned to us at the time we use them. We pay back the local government for them later in taxes of all kinds. Yet another issue business has. They don’t want local government to get more of their money.

How will we win FREE public internet access for all? We reframe the debate and publicly shame businesses. The issue right now isn’t a technical one or really one of cost. The core issue right now is greedy business unwilling to allow the public free access to the Internet. You can look at it how ever you wish but greed is preventing “liberal” Chapel Hill from doing the right thing and building a free town WiFi network.

From DemocracyNow:

The attack in Iraq killed Al Jazeera’s correspondent Tariq Ayub. Ayub’s widow, Dina, said she is now considering suing the U.S. government for her husband’s death. She said “America always claimed it was an accident. But I believe the new revelations prove that claim was false or at least not trustworthy.”

At first I was a bit skeptical that this blog was really by Al-Jazeera staff. Then I read about it on Global Voices Online, a blog I trust, and I saw the AlJazeera staff want answers flickr photo set. Propaganda? All depends on who you trust I guess. People in the US who still trust Bush will think so.

From the AlJazeera staff want answers flickr photo set:

Al Jazeera staff organised a symbolic gathering outside their offices Thursday, 24 November 2005.

We demand that the truth about Daily Mirror report to be revealed and that the Britsh and American governments tell us the truth about Bush wanting to bomb Al Jazeera.

These are a few examples why individual citizens using blogs and social software like Flickr are better than the main stream media. WE can develop personal trusted networks that can help to verify a story quickly AND democratically.

YES there are real human lives being taken by the US military! YES there are real people who live in fear of this violence! When we hear from people in danger US world domination becomes much less abstract. It’s not just some “terrorist TV station” or “evil other person” anymore. (Not that many of us ever belived these Bush government lies…) Blogs like Don’t Bomb Us can show the real potential of increased humanization that the Internet provides.

I have to agree with the commenters on Blog from Boliva that the focus on Che seems mostly hype. From the comments:

“Che was a white man trying to rally the indigenous around his favored issues. Evo is indigenous and trying to rally everyone simultaneously around his issues and those that affect everyone. If a purely classist stance is taken (Che,) the age-old ethnic divide will keep the indigenous from true liberation.”

Read the artilce, blog, and all of the comments to some context.

“It said it had donated $90 million to a new charitable foundation it started and would give another $175 million to nonprofit groups and what it considers socially useful businesses over the next two to three years.” By SAUL HANSELL

This could be a REALLY big deal to a lot of non-profits, foundations, and other charities. If you write grants for a non-profit or you’re an Executive Director of one KEEP AN EYE ON GOOGLE.

[via: Jon Stahl's Journal] NYT

Update: Google Starts Up Philanthropy Campaign | Washington Post

UPDATE: 9:20pm EST The plane has landed safely. The front landing gear just melted away without collapsing. They brought it to a complete stop with no apparent fire. Wow!

MSNBC says they have spoken ( or texted via a blackberry?) to a passenger on the plane “confirming” that the TVs on the plane were turned off. They also say that there were MSNBC Universial employees on-board whom have texted them.

9:42pm Now they are speaking to a passenger via cellphone who is on a bus just off the plane. He just said that the passengers where watching MSNBC and “getting great information from MSNBC”. He was sitting in the exit row. He also said they shut off the LIVE TV along with the air conditioning three to four minutes before landing.

In other news… The US Department of Homeland Security won’t let the American Red Cross into New Orleans. This is the Red Cross’s official FAQ about the matter. Here is a news story about it and here is another. IMHO ya’ll should still give blood and money to the Red Cross. So many people who’ve left N.O. need help, too. Just select your donations carefully with your heart and mind.

Here is a copy of the American Red Cross FAQ:

Disaster FAQs

Hurricane Katrina: Why is the Red Cross not in New Orleans?

* Acess to New Orleans is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities and while we are in constant contact with them, we simply cannot enter New Orleans against their orders.

* The state Homeland Security Department had requested–and continues to request–that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans following the hurricane. Our presence would keep people from evacuating and encourage others to come into the city.

* The Red Cross has been meeting the needs of thousands of New Orleans residents in some 90 shelters throughout the state of Louisiana and elsewhere since before landfall. All told, the Red Cross is today operating 149 shelters for almost 93,000 residents.

* The Red Cross shares the nation’s anguish over the worsening situation inside the city. We will continue to work under the direction of the military, state and local authorities and to focus all our efforts on our lifesaving mission of feeding and sheltering.

* The Red Cross does not conduct search and rescue operations. We are an organization of civilian volunteers and cannot get relief aid into any location until the local authorities say it is safe and provide us with security and access.

* The original plan was to evacuate all the residents of New Orleans to safe places outside the city. With the hurricane bearing down, the city government decided to open a shelter of last resort in the Superdome downtown. We applaud this decision and believe it saved a significant number of lives.

* As the remaining people are evacuated from New Orleans, the most appropriate role for the Red Cross is to provide a safe place for people to stay and to see that their emergency needs are met. We are fully staffed and equipped to handle these individuals once they are evacuated.

Network for Good has a lits of charities that could use your help.

Craigslist is doing amazing things. With their large national network people are mobilizing all by themselves. Here is their Katrina relief page. Craig Newmark has been linking to amazing acts of kindness on his blog.

Andy Carvin of the Digital Divide Network has set up a blog called Katrina Aftermath. Anyone can blog on the site via email, record a bit of audio on the phone that becomes a podcast, and put a picture up. He has also suggested that Friday, September 2 be International Blogging for Disaster Relief Day. So link to this technorati url here from your blog post about Hurricane Katrina relief. http://technorati.com/tag/International%20Blogging%20for%20Disaster%20Relief%20Day

“In the full conversation, which the government says was illegally wiretapped and then doctored, a woman who sounds like Arroyo asks senior election official Virgilio Garcillano whether she would win by more than 1 million votes in a southern area.” From: Khaleej Times

Imagine a world where we make our own media by recording what ever we hear with our cellphones and play the audio recordings back like voice mail or convert them into ring tones to “broadcast” to your immediate vicinity. We might huddle around our friends cell phones to get the latest news. Or maybe we’d hear it from a distance in the next cubicle over. After hearing about this story on BBC radio I kept imagining what it would be like if a large crowd played the same protest ring tone all at once. I’m not sure if that would be musical or unbearable noise. Whichever I say, Bring on the noise!

Whether or not the source audio is real, this is an amazing example of a swarm advocacy. This is media broadcast by the people!

Via: BBC radio, Boing Boing, Smart Mobs

As the One campaign video says, “We’re not asking you for your money, we’re asking for your voice.” Is this a real example of network centric advocacy on a massive scale or a sophisticated marketing campaign hustle? Or both? Either way it boils down to trust. I suspend my skepticism and give this action my trust.

All I really want for participating is to learn how the money and political capital raised from this event saved real lives in Africa. Live 8

Fifteen days before they have to leave Marie started podcasting and blogging. Here’s her blog wearemarie.blogspot.com and here’s her podcast feed feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/wearemarie. Please download the mp3s and listen to what she has to say.

This is one of the best examples of activist podcasting I’ve heard. It’s exactly what I’m trying to tell people is possible. Maria’s podcast demonstrates how a simple recorded phone call, nothing real fancy just a elegant and heartfelt message, can document the important moments in peoples lives. The experience of listening to her podcast is as if she called my phone voice mail and shared her thoughts just with me. I feel honored to listen to her story. Because of the first person conversation style we can all catch a crucial glimpse of peoples lives. It can really motivate you to act.

Here are some ways you can take action to help Marie and her family. Contact your elected representatives and tell them to intercede on their behalf. Specifically if you live in Missouri your Republican Senators — Kit Bond and James Talent can introduce a private bill on the Gonzalez behalf. Also there’s a electronic petition to sign.