Elle Macpherson's adviser: Hacking cost me my job (omg!)

British actor Steve Coogan arrives to testify at the Leveson inquiry at the Royal Courts of Justice in central London, Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2011. The Leveson inquiry is Britain's media ethics probe that was set up in the wake of the scandal over phone hacking at Rupert Murdoch's News of the World, which was shut in July. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

LONDON (AP) ? Phone hacking by the media cost me my job advising Elle Macpherson, a business adviser told a U.K. inquiry Tuesday, describing how the Australian supermodel wrongly blamed her for leaking intimate secrets to the press.

Mary-Ellen Field told an inquiry into British media ethics that the leaks cast a shadow of suspicion over her, with Macpherson becoming convinced that Field was an alcoholic and ordering her to an American rehabilitation clinic. Field said she was shocked by the allegations that she was a drunk who'd been blabbing about her employer, but went along with Macpherson's recommendation because she needed her job.

"I have a severely disabled child who can never look after himself so walking away from a high-paying position is not a good idea," Field said.

The rehab was grueling ? she described it as being "like one of those CIA renditions, except they don't put you in chains" ? but it didn't do her much good.

Even though staff at the clinic said she was not an alcoholic, Macpherson fired her anyway, and Field lost her job at her firm shortly afterward. She told the inquiry there was no doubt the sacking was the result of what happened with Macpherson.

Field said her employer told her that "I'd been indiscreet, that the clients didn't trust me."

Although it has since emerged that the media leaks were the result of phone hacking not indiscretion, Field said she has not heard from fellow Australian Macpherson in years.

Field was one of several victims of press intrusion testifying Tuesday at Britain's Royal Courts of Justice. The inquiry was set up after the scandal over phone hacking and other underhanded tactics used at the News of the World, which was closed in July amid allegations of widespread criminality.

Among those due to testify Tuesday were British comedian Steve Coogan, soccer player Garry Flitcroft, and Margaret Watson, whose daughter Diane was stabbed to death at her Scottish school two decades ago.

The parents of murdered British schoolgirl Milly Dowler and film star Hugh Grant were the first victims to testify on Monday, with Grant being particularly scathing.

He described mysterious break-ins, leaked medical details and hacked voice mails. Grant attacked the Mail on Sunday tabloid, accusing it of spying on his conversations. The paper denies the charge, but lawyers at the inquiry said Tuesday the tabloid's response smacked of an attempt to intimidate witnesses.

David Sherborne and Neil Garnham pointed to an article on the Mail's website describing Grant's allegations as "mendacious smears driven by his hatred of the media."

"(Is) everyone who has the temerity to give evidence critical of the press is going to face this the following morning?" Garnham asked.

Sherborne also invoked the Mail article when he said many witnesses were worried about "the sort of intimidatory tactics that we've seen in the press this morning."

The Mail's lead counsel was not at the hearing but was expected to reply later Tuesday.

___

Online:

http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/

British actor Steve Coogan arrives to testify at the Leveson inquiry at the Royal Courts of Justice in central London, Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2011. The Leveson inquiry is Britain's media ethics probe that was set up in the wake of the scandal over phone hacking at Rupert Murdoch's News of the World, which was shut in July. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/omg_rss/rss_omg_en/news_elle_macphersons_adviser_hacking_cost_job122748265/43680753/*http%3A//omg.yahoo.com/news/elle-macphersons-adviser-hacking-cost-job-122748265.html

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Turn Pizza Boxes Into Computer Interfaces With ?Invoked Computing? (Video)

invoked computingWould you like to be able to turn your pizza box into a computer interface or use a banana as an alternative to your phone? Invoked Computing, a concept developed at the Ishikawa-Oku lab at Tokyo University, makes that possible via "ubiquitous" augmented reality (video and sound). The idea here is to project screens, keyboards and other elements on everyday objects so users ideally wouldn't need specific hardware anymore.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/OnIUuveOTaM/

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President Obama Ignoring America to Save Face Abroad (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | Over the last few weeks, President Barack Obama has toured Australia and many Asian countries. At the same time, the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reductions is nearing the deficit Armageddon date without a plan. Occupy protests are becoming more violent. The investigations into Solyndra, Fast and Furious and ECSI allegations are heating up. Is the president ignoring his responsibilities at home to try to promote himself as a strong world leader?

With less than a year until the 2012 election, President Obama needs to promote himself as a well-rounded leader. The president has been critiqued for being soft on foreign policy so he needs to do extra work to win over the opposition. Of course, there is a right time and a wrong time to do anything.

We hear about revolt in Syria and Egypt. The world is paying attention to what is going on between Israel and Iran. At the same time, though, our own country is spiraling out of control. People do not have money to put on the table and are clamoring in the streets in protests. The supercommittee cannot figure out to balance the budget and the fears about what might happen outweigh what is currently happening.

As a former political consultant, I know that there are times in which leaders have to push off their current schedule to deal with the problems at home. Knowing when to go and when to stay home is the mark of a strong leader. Note that if Syria's President Bashar Assad were to go on a world tour right now, the entire world would cry out about how he was ignoring the tensions at home to save face with the rest of the world.

I have stated before that President Obama should be working to calm the frustration of the Occupy Movement. He was so eager to get involved with the violence that was breaking out in Egypt but now turns a blind eye to the violence in our own streets. He has spoken with world leaders about the world's economic crisis, but has not sat down with the Super Committee to help them to work out a plan. The primary job of the president is to lead the American people. Why can't he understand this in a great time of need? Why can't he stop his campaign for a few weeks to do his job?

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20111120/us_ac/10485293_president_obama_ignoring_america_to_save_face_abroad

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Truck strikes Yale-Harvard tailgaters, killing 1 (AP)

NEW HAVEN, Conn. ? NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) ? Police say someone driving a U-Haul truck into a tailgating area at the Yale-Harvard game accelerated into three women, killing one and injuring the other two.

Police spokesman David Hartman says the truck entered a parking lot designated for pre-game tailgating Saturday, sped up for unknown reasons and hit the women. The truck then crashed into other U-Haul vans in the lot.

He said a 30-year-old woman was taken to Yale-New Haven hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Another woman was seriously hurt, but was in stable condition. The third woman suffered minor injuries.

Hartman says police were questioning the driver of the U-Haul.

Officials did not immediately return calls seeking more details.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111119/ap_on_sp_co_ne/fbc_yale_harvard_tailgate_accident

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Syria's Assad: crackdown to continue (AP)

BEIRUT ? Syria's President Bashar Assad has vowed to continue with a security crackdown to crush 'militants' who he says are massacring Syrians on daily basis.

Assad said in an interview with Britain's Sunday Times newspaper published Sunday that Syria will not bow and will continue to resist the pressures being imposed on it.

The embattled president said he feels "pain and sorrow" for the bloodshed in Syria but added the solution was to eliminate the militants he blames for much of the violence.

He said 800 Syrian officers and members of the security forces have been killed since the start of the revolt eight months ago.

The U.N. says some 3,500 have been killed in the unrest and the crackdown in Syria since mid-March.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111120/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_syria

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Passive Occupy protesters take pepper spray blast

In this image made from video, a police officer uses pepper spray as he walks down a line of Occupy demonstrators sitting on the ground at the University of California, Davis on Friday, Nov. 18, 2011. The video - posted on YouTube - was shot Friday as police moved in on more than a dozen tents erected on campus and arrested 10 people, nine of them students. (AP Photo/Thomas K. Fowler)

In this image made from video, a police officer uses pepper spray as he walks down a line of Occupy demonstrators sitting on the ground at the University of California, Davis on Friday, Nov. 18, 2011. The video - posted on YouTube - was shot Friday as police moved in on more than a dozen tents erected on campus and arrested 10 people, nine of them students. (AP Photo/Thomas K. Fowler)

In this image made from video, a police officer uses pepper spray as he walks down a line of Occupy demonstrators sitting on the ground at the University of California, Davis on Friday, Nov. 18, 2011. The video - posted on YouTube - was shot Friday as police moved in on more than a dozen tents erected on campus and arrested 10 people, nine of them students. (AP Photo/Thomas K. Fowler)

In this frame grab from video provided by Jamie Hall, a police officer pepper sprays Occupy demonstrators Friday, Nov. 18, 2011, at the University of California, Davis. (AP Photo/Jamie Hall)

University of California, Davis, student Mike Fetterman, receives a treatment for pepper spray by UC Davis firefighter Nate Potter, after campus police dismantled an Occupy Wall Street encampment on the campus quad in Davis, Calif., Friday, Nov. 18, 2011. UC Davis officials say eight men and two women were taken into custody. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

(AP) ? Protesters sitting on the ground supporting the Occupy Wall Street movement on the campus of the University of California, Davis took a face full of pepper spray at close range from an officer in riot gear in an incident that was captured on cellphone video and spread virally across the Internet Saturday.

UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi described the video images as "chilling" and said she was forming a task force to investigate even as a faculty group called for her resignation because of the police action Friday.

However, a law enforcement official who watched the clip called the use of force "fairly standard police procedure."

In the video, an officer dispassionately pepper-sprays a line of several sitting protesters who flinch and cover their faces but remain passive with their arms interlocked as onlookers shriek and scream out for the officer to stop.

"The use of the pepper spray as shown on the video is chilling to us all and raises many questions about how best to handle situations like this," Chancellor Linda Katehi said in a message posted on the school's website Saturday.

The protest was held in support of the overall Occupy Wall Street movement and in solidarity with protesters at the University of California, Berkeley who were jabbed by police with batons on Nov. 9.

The UC Davis video images, which were circulated on YouTube and widely elsewhere online, prompted immediate outrage among faculty and students, with the Davis Faculty Association saying in a letter Saturday that Katehi should resign.

"The Chancellor's role is to enable open and free inquiry, not to suppress it," the faculty association said in its letter.

It called Katehi's authorization of police force a "gross failure of leadership."

At a news conference later on Saturday, Katehi said what the video shows is "sad and really very inappropriate." The events surrounding the protest have been hard on her personally, but she had no plans to resign, she said.

"I do not think that I have violated the policies of the institution. I have worked personally very hard to make this campus a safe campus for all," she said.

Charles J. Kelly, a former Baltimore Police Department lieutenant who wrote the department's use of force guidelines, said pepper spray is a "compliance tool" that can be used on subjects who do not resist, and is preferable to simply lifting protesters.

"When you start picking up human bodies, you risk hurting them," Kelly said. "Bodies don't have handles on them."

After reviewing the video, Kelly said he observed at least two cases of "active resistance" from protesters. In one instance, a woman pulls her arm back from an officer. In the second instance, a protester curls into a ball. Each of those actions could have warranted more force, including baton strikes and pressure-point techniques.

"What I'm looking at is fairly standard police procedure," Kelly said.

Images of police actions have served to galvanize support during the Occupy Wall Street movement, from the clash between protesters and police in Oakland last month that left an Iraq War veteran with serious injuries to more recent skirmishes in New York City, San Diego, Denver and Portland, Ore.

The forcible Oakland protest eviction, the first of its kind on a large scale, marred the national reputation of the city's mayor and police department while rallying encampments nationwide beset with their own public safety and sanitation issues.

Police chiefs and mayors held conference calls to discuss containment strategies in the days after the Oct. 25 Oakland eviction. The use of rubber bullets and tear gas dropped off, though police departments have turned to pepper spray when trying to quell large crowds.

Some of the most notorious instances went viral online, including the use of pepper spray on an 84-year-old activist in Seattle and a group of women in New York. Seattle's mayor apologized to the activist, and the New York Police Department official shown using pepper spray on the group of women lost 10 vacation days after an internal review.

In the video of the UC Davis protest, the officer, a member of the UC Davis police force, displays a bottle before spraying its contents on the seated protesters in a sweeping motion while walking back and forth. Most of the protesters have their heads down, but several were hit directly in the face.

Some members of a crowd gathered at the scene scream and cry out. The crowd then chants, "Shame on You," as the protesters on the ground are led away. The officers retreat minutes later with helmets on and batons drawn.

Ten people were arrested.

University spokeswoman Karen Nikos said nine people hit by pepper spray were treated at the scene. Another two were taken to hospitals and later released.

Nikos declined to release the identity of the officer in the video.

At Saturday's news conference, UC Davis Police Chief Annette Spicuzza said the decision to use pepper spray was made at the scene.

"The students had encircled the officers," she said. "They needed to exit. They were looking to leave but were unable to get out."

Many Twitter and Facebook comments supported the students and criticized the response.

"Stomach churning video of police using pepper spray on seated anti-Wall Street protesters in Davis, Calif.," actress and model Mia Farrow wrote in a retweet of the video.

Elsewhere in California on Saturday, protesters in Oakland tore down a chain-link fence surrounding a city-owned vacant lot where they planned to set up a new encampment.

After a march, several hundred Occupy Oakland protesters breached the fence and poured into the lot next to the Fox Theater on Telegraph Avenue, police said.

One organizer shouted "More Tents! More Tents!" over a loudspeaker, the Oakland Tribune reported.

Police removed the main Occupy Oakland encampment Monday at City Hall, and city officials said they won't tolerate new camps.

Police spokeswoman Johnna Watson said surrounding streets had been closed and officers were protecting surrounding buildings.

Watson said there had been no arrests or citations, but the city's position remains that the protesters can't stay overnight.

San Francisco public works crews removed tents at two Occupy sites in the city. The San Francisco Chronicle reports (http://bit.ly/ui5yIa ) that the workers moved in on the encampments in Justin Herman Plaza and in front of the Federal Reserve Bank, removing dozens of tents on grassy areas.

There were no reports of violence, according to San Francisco police spokesman Albie Esparza. He said the action was not a raid.

Police were present but did not become involved.

___

Associated Press reporters Nigel Duara in Portland, Ore., and Meghan Barr in New York City contributed.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-11-19-Occupy-Pepper%20Spray/id-8de53816100646ec99062f0b8dded6e8

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Apple Rumors: The MacBook Pro Shrinks, iPad And iPhone Grow

whispersI suspect we'll have to start picking and choosing our Apple rumor posts carefully in the coming months as the speculations begin flying fast and free, but until then a bit of gossip portending the next year's changes won't hurt anybody. iLounge is hawking some intel from their "most reliable source," who claims to have the inside scoop on Apple's upcoming revisions. It's nothing mind-blowing, but it might be enough to make you unconsciously start saving money.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/kGzY062u5mI/

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Congress takes up controversial anti-piracy legislation

By Bob Sullivan

Congress began debating Wednesday another controversial effort by the movie industry and other content makers to stem Internet piracy through federal legislation. The measure, known as SOPA, for Stop Online Piracy Act, would empower the nation's attorney general to tell search engines and other Internet providers to stop sending Web surfers to alleged piracy sites, a measure opponents describe as "an Internet blacklist."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation calls the proposal "the most extreme, anti-Internet, anti-privacy, anti-free speech copyright proposal in U.S. legislative history."

Some websites, such?FreePress.net,?turned themselves black on Wednesday to protest the legislation, which was discussed in a House Judiciary Committee hearing.?

A coalition of rights holders, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, supports the effort, and claims that advocacy groups are overreacting to the legislation's provisions. It claims the law would not create a blacklist.

?Websites that blatantly steal the creativity and innovation of American industries violate a fundamental right to property,? Thomas J. Donohue, CEO of the U.S. Chamber, said when the legislation was introduced. ?Operators of rogue sites threaten American jobs, endanger consumer safety and undermine the vitality of the online marketplace." The coalition claims that "rogue sites" attract 53 billion visits per year, jeopardizing the more than $7.7 trillion of U.S. gross domestic product.

This battle of titans pits consumer groups and tech firms like Google, Facebook, and eBay against much of Hollywood.

The legislation would allow the U.S. attorney general to order pirate websites be cut off through alternations to entries in the Domain Name System (DNS), a process opponents call blacklisting. It also creates mechanisms for content owners to tell payment processors like Visa and MasterCard to stop processing payments for alleged offending sites.

The DNS proposal is most offensive to technology firms.? Andrew Lee, CEO of security firm ESET, compared the technique to the "clickjacking" tools uncovered recently by FBI agents that hackers used recently to steal $14 million worth of advertising. In that scam, computer criminals allegedly altered DNS instructions to place rogue advertisements on major websites like ESPN.com, then collected the commissions.

"(SOPA) would require DNS server operators in the US to replace the correct IP address for a website with an alternate address provided by the Attorney General's Office if the website was ?infringing,'? he wrote in an open letter to Congress. "While we are all in favor of stopping piracy, messing about with DNS and legalizing state-controlled DNS changing seems like overkill."

But Michael O'Leary, policy chief for the Motion Picture Association, rejected complaints that the law would harm consumers or stifle innovation.

"You and your colleagues have heard a great deal from those who suggest this bill, and our efforts to fight online theft, will 'break the Internet,' or harm legitimate online social media platforms and Internet services," O'Leary said, according to a written version of his testimony published by CNet.com. "Nothing could be further from the truth."?

He went on to complain that the current system for removing content that violates copyright -- governed by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DCMA -- doesn't work with rogue websites that ignore the law. He argued that law enforcement officials already have the right to redirect traffic away from criminal websites, and that suspected pirates would have access to due process to appeal DNS changes.

No date for a Judiciary Committee vote on the legislation, or on its companion PROTECT IP Act in the Senate, has been announced.

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Source: http://redtape.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/16/8841061-congress-takes-up-controversial-anti-piracy-sopa-legislation

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