When people say the feds are monitoring what people are doing online, what does that mean? How does that work? When, and where, does it start?

Pete Ashdown, CEO of XMission, an internet service provider in Utah, knows. He received a Foreign Intelligence Service Act (FISA) warrant in 2010 mandating he let the feds monitor one of his customers, through his facility. He also received a broad gag order. In his own words:

The first thing I do when I get a law enforcement request is look for a court signature on it. Then I pass it to my attorneys and say, “Is this legitimate? Does this qualify as a warrant?” If it does, then we will respond to it. We are very up front that we respond to warrants.

If it isn’t, then the attorneys write back: “We don’t believe it is in jurisdiction or is constitutional. We are happy to respond if you do get an FBI request in jurisdiction or you get a court order to do so.”

Imagine taking a hike in your local woods and coming upon characters toting semi-automatic weapons, dressed in camo and wearing masks. Then imagine finding out they are militia-movement followers hired by a mining operation to protect against "eco-terrorists."

That's what's been happening to people living in northern Wisconsin lately. And these are the kinds of guys people are encountering in the woods...

...In short order, a new set of goons appeared as security for GTAC's President, Bill Williams, in his recent appearances in Wisconsin. And these men were wearing the logos of a Patriot/militia organization called the Watchmen of America -- though true to the "leaderless resistance" model of action these "Patriots" espouse, the Watchmen's organizational leaders are denying any involvement, while in effect conceding that members may be operating in Wisconsin without their approval...

...These denials are not particularly meaningful. After all, the Patriot/militia movement has been characterized by a "leaderless resistance" strategy that encourages individual "lone wolf" and small-cell action in which organizational leaders can plausibly deny responsibility and thus avoid any consequences for the actions of followers and colleagues.

Police launch investigations after arrest of photographer

5:03 PM, July 16, 2013

By Jim Schaefer and Gina Damron

Detroit Free Press Staff Writers
Detroit police and the department’s internal affairs officers have launched investigations following the arrest of a Free Press photographer who was filming a police action on a public street last week.

Police said they are looking into the conduct of photographer Mandi Wright and the actions of an officer who ordered her to stop filming and wrestled her phone away from her. They also are looking into the disappearance of a memory card from her newspaper-issued iPhone and whether she was briefly left alone with the crime suspect whom she had been filming.

Wright, 47, was arrested Thursday after she and a reporter came upon an arrest scene near Woodbridge and Riopelle, east of downtown. Police at the scene said Wright tussled with an officer after he had confiscated her iPhone; Wright said that she was concentrating on taking her video and did not realize the man who grabbed her phone was a police officer. Wright was handcuffed and later, she said, put in an interrogation room with the suspect.

Detroit Police Chief James Craig confirmed Monday that an internal affairs investigation is being conducted. Deputy Chief James Tolbert said no conclusions have been drawn, but if that investigation verifies that she was put into a room with the suspect and then left alone, “that could be a serious breach of department policy.”...

AP Exclusive: Daniels looked to censor opponents

Associated Press
TOM LoBIANCO July 16, 2013

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels pledged to promote academic freedom when he became president of Purdue University in January, but newly released emails show he attempted to eliminate what he considered liberal "propaganda" at Indiana's public universities while governor.

Emails obtained by The Associated Press through a Freedom of Information Act request show Daniels requested that historian and anti-war activist Howard Zinn's writings be banned from classrooms and asked for a "cleanup" of college courses. In another exchange, the Republican talks about cutting funding for a program run by a local university professor who was one of his sharpest critics...

In a rapid exchange of emails between top state education officials on Feb. 9, 2010, including then-Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett, Daniels sought assurance that a Zinn book exploring historical events that Zinn said got little attention was removed from Indiana classrooms.

"This terrible anti-American academic has finally passed away," Daniels wrote. "The obits and commentaries mentioned his book, 'A People's History of the United States,' is the 'textbook of choice in high schools and colleges around the country.' It is a truly execrable, anti-factual piece of disinformation that misstates American history on every page.

"Can someone assure me that it is not in use anywhere in Indiana? If it is, how do we get rid of it before more young people are force-fed a totally false version of our history?"

As with other RNA viruses, coronavirus replication is error-prone; the estimated mutation rate is ?4 × 10?4 nucleotide substitutions/site/year (13,14)

Mutation and recombination

Coronaviruses have large RNA genomes replicated by a virus-encoded replicase/polymerase. RNA polymerases have no proof-reading capability and typically have an error rate of about 1 in 10,000 nucleotides. Since the genome of an average coronavirus is about 30kB, this means that there will be several mutations in each progeny virus. There are also many deletion mutations formed in coronaviruses. There is a very high frequency of recombination in coronaviruses which is not typical of non-segmented RNA viruses. This may be due to the discontinuous mode of RNA replication in which the leader sequence is made and then the leader/polymerase may jump to another strand. This high rate of recombination results in rapid evolution of the virus and the formation of new strains.

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