US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1714

Republican senators' letter to Iran about ongoing nuclear talks has prompted a lengthy response from Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who delivered an overview of international law as he critiqued the letter.

Zarif said he was astonished by the letter, saying it suggests the U.S. lawmakers "not only do not understand international law" — a subject in which he is a professor — "but are not fully cognizant of the nuances of their own Constitution when it comes to presidential powers in the conduct of foreign policy," according to Iran's Foreign Ministry.

The Iranian minister said that "in our view, this letter has no legal value and is mostly a propaganda ploy."

His response (we have more of it below) came after it was announced Monday that 47 Senate Republicans who oppose a potential deal with Iran over its nuclear program had signed a letter to the country's leaders.

Coming two weeks before the deadline for envoys to reach general terms with Iran, the signatories wrote that they had been observing the negotiations over potentially relaxing economic sanctions — and told Iran's leaders they were concerned "that you may not fully understand our constitutional system."

The letter seemed to strike a nerve for Zarif, who moved to the U.S. as a teenager and holds a doctorate and two other advanced degrees from American universities.

On March 11 2015 03:32 ticklishmusic wrote:


See, that's where the non-sequitur is. The current talks do not allow Iran to build a nuclear weapon, and thus your chain or reasoning falls apart.

What it does is effectively, in the worst case scenario, give us a reliable one year warning from the time Iran starts down the road to acquiring a nuclear weapon to the time it actually gets one. In the best case scenario, it's merely the first step to Iran signing the NPT.

Researchers at the Central Intelligence Agency have worked for nearly a decade to break the security protecting Apple phones and tablets, investigative news site The Intercept reported on Tuesday, citing documents obtained from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

It's not clear from the documents whether the intelligence service successfully breached Apple. The latest documents cover a period from 2006 to 2013.

The report cites top-secret U.S. documents that suggest U.S. government researchers had created a version of XCode, Apple's software application development tool, to create surveillance backdoors into programs distributed on Apple's App Store.

The Intercept has in the past published a number of reports from documents released by whistleblower Snowden. The site's editors include Glenn Greenwald, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his work in reporting on Snowden's revelations, and by Oscar-winning documentary maker Laura Poitras.

Efforts to break into Apple products by government security researchers started as early as 2006, a year before Apple introduced its first iPhone and continued through the launch of the iPad in 2010 and beyond, The Intercept said.

Breeching Apple security was part of a top-secret program by the U.S. government, aided by British intelligence researchers, to hack "secure communications products, both foreign and domestic" including Google Android phones, the news site said.

Silicon Valley technology companies have in recent months sought to restore trust among consumers around the world that their products have not become tools for widespread government surveillance of citizens.

Last September, Apple strengthened encryption methods for data stored on iPhones, saying the changes meant the company no longer had any way to extract customer data on the devices, even if a government ordered it to with a search warrant.

Silicon Valley rival Google Inc. said shortly afterward that it also planned to increase the use of stronger encryption tools. Both companies said the moves were aimed at protecting the privacy of users of their products and that this was partly a response to wide scale U.S. government spying on Internet users revealed by Snowden in the summer of 2013.

President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron have expressed concern that turning such privacy-enhancing tools into mass market features could prevent governments from tracking militants planning attacks. The CIA did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

An Apple spokesman pointed to public statements by Chief Executive Tim Cook on privacy, but declined to comment further.

On March 11 2015 03:01 xDaunt wrote:

I'm not as worried about Iranian state belligerence with nuclear weapons (though I'm not willing write this off entirely) as I am nuclear weapons finding their way into Islamist arsenals. If Iran get nuclear weapons, its regional competitors will also acquire nuclear weapons. Nuclear non-proliferation will be dead. Period. Please tell me how that's a good thing, as well as the prospect of having a Middle East full of lunatics armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons.

On March 11 2015 03:48 xDaunt wrote:

That's fine with me. Israel is an ally. Iran is not. I'm also much more confident in Israel being rationale with nuclear weapons than Iran.

On March 11 2015 04:26 Acrofales wrote:

You do realize that Iran having a nuclear weapon IS nuclear weapons finding their way into Islamist arsenal, or is it somehow okay that Iran is a Shi'ite and not a Sunni Islamist?

Nevertheless, nukes are already in the hands of Islamists: Pakistan is not Saudi Arabia, but it's hardly moderate. Just because the Salafists aren't in power does not mean it is not Islamist.

That said, nobody wants Iran to have nukes, but it is unrealistic and stupid to expect Iran to dismantle their nuclear program entirely when they need it for nuclear power. So that leaves inspection and a certain degree of trust. The latter is where politics currently disagree. Imho realpolitik dictates that Iran should be taken out of its isolation. It has too much of a role already in the region to be ignored, and it is more dangerous to ignore them in the search for a solution to the current middle eastern situation, than it is to accept some of their conditions with regards to nuclear power.

WASHINGTON -- A Florida effort to expand access to solar power has become a face-off between two factions of the conservative movement.

The group Conservatives for Energy Freedom is blasting Americans for Prosperity for what it called a "campaign of deception" against a ballot initiative that would make it easier for businesses and individuals to install rooftop solar energy. Conservatives for Energy Freedom, along with the state group Floridians for Solar Choice and a number of other organizations from across the political spectrum, have been working to gather enough signatures to get a measure on the November 2016 ballot that would allow direct sale of solar power to consumers.

Currently, Florida is one of only five states in the country where it is illegal to sell power from any source other than electric utilities. But if approved, the ballot measure would allow homes and businesses to install solar and sell excess energy they generate to their neighbors. It would also allow for power purchase agreements, where a solar company pays the upfront cost of installing solar generating systems on homes and businesses, and then the customers pay for the energy they use.

The ballot measure has gathered wide-ranging support, from national groups like the Tea Party Network and the Christian Coalition; in-state conservative groups like the Libertarian Party of Florida and the Republican Liberty Caucus of Florida; environmental groups like the Sierra Club's Florida chapter and the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy; and business groups like the Florida Retail Federation.

But one foe has emerged: Americans for Prosperity, the conservative political group backed by the Koch brothers.

On March 11 2015 03:48 xDaunt wrote:

That's fine with me. Israel is an ally. Iran is not. I'm also much more confident in Israel being rationale with nuclear weapons than Iran.

On March 11 2015 05:51 oneofthem wrote:

you are, but same cannot be said for iran. iran complaining about israel's nuclear weapons is indeed a legitimate complaint given the strength of ultranationalists in israel.

On March 11 2015 06:00 xDaunt wrote:

I'm not trying to be fair. The bottom line is that Iran is a geopolitical enemy of the US. It is in our interest to keep the boot on their throats UNLESS we are going to gain something meaningful in return for lifting it. And just to be clear, goading Iran into fighting ISIS isn't enough. Iran is going to do that anyway for obvious reasons germane to their national interests.

On March 11 2015 06:00 xDaunt wrote:

I'm not trying to be fair. The bottom line is that Iran is a geopolitical enemy of the US. It is in our interest to keep the boot on their throats UNLESS we are going to gain something meaningful in return for lifting it. And just to be clear, goading Iran into fighting ISIS isn't enough. Iran is going to do that anyway for obvious reasons germane to their national interests.

On March 11 2015 06:37 oneofthem wrote:

i'm not asking you to be fair or consider things from the iranian perspective, but you cited iran potentially having nukes as a regional destabilization factor, which is an objective consequence of what other regional entities think about the situation. the simple fact is, israel having nukes is the same sort of destabilizing, arms race fueling move, by your own logic.

iran and israel's positions are different enough so that iran having nukes won't be the same sort of stabilizing factor israel's weapons are. however, the fear of iranian nukes is more paranoia than reality.

On March 11 2015 08:26 dAPhREAk wrote:
whats the big deal with her using two accounts? i dont get it. based on what i read it sounds like adequate security was taken for her personal email. did she claim to disclose all emails and then only disclose from her work account?