Thursday, July 19, 2012
Wall Street's Biggest Heist Yet? How the High Wizards of Finance Gutted Our Schools and Cities
Wall Street banks have hollowed out our communities with fraudulently sold mortgages and illegal foreclosures and settled the crimes for pennies on the dollar. They’ve set back property records to the early 1900s, skipping the recording of deeds in county registry offices and using their own front called MERS. They lobbied to kill fixed pension plans and then shaved a decade of growth off our 401(K)s with exorbitant fees, rigged research and trading for the house.
Read the full story here...
Read the full story here...
Facebook hit with tough questions on facial recognition in Senate hearing
Facial recognition data may seem like a minor feature, but it’s had some major consequences for Facebook.
The latest of these came today as Minnesota Senator Al Franken called a hearing to explore some of the issues related to the increase in facial recognition technology. And Facebook was in his crosshairs.
Representing the social network was Facebook Privacy and Policy manager Rob Sherman, who defended Facebook’s efforts but was ultimately unable to answer some of Senator Franken’s most pressing questions.
Topping Franken’s list of concerns was Facebook’s tendency to turn on major features like tag suggestions by default. Sherman defended the move by arguing that those kind of changes were a fundamental part of the Facebook product and that users always had the option to not use them.
“Facebook itself is an opt-in experience. People choose to be on Facebook because they want to share with each other. We think that it’s the right choice to let people who are uncomfortable with it to decide to opt out,” he said.
Franken, however, disagreed, adding that Google leaves the facial recognition software off by default in Google+. “I think this information is so sensitive that it’s the kind of thing users have to consciously opt themselves into,” he said.
Read the full story here...
The latest of these came today as Minnesota Senator Al Franken called a hearing to explore some of the issues related to the increase in facial recognition technology. And Facebook was in his crosshairs.
Representing the social network was Facebook Privacy and Policy manager Rob Sherman, who defended Facebook’s efforts but was ultimately unable to answer some of Senator Franken’s most pressing questions.
Topping Franken’s list of concerns was Facebook’s tendency to turn on major features like tag suggestions by default. Sherman defended the move by arguing that those kind of changes were a fundamental part of the Facebook product and that users always had the option to not use them.
“Facebook itself is an opt-in experience. People choose to be on Facebook because they want to share with each other. We think that it’s the right choice to let people who are uncomfortable with it to decide to opt out,” he said.
Franken, however, disagreed, adding that Google leaves the facial recognition software off by default in Google+. “I think this information is so sensitive that it’s the kind of thing users have to consciously opt themselves into,” he said.
Read the full story here...
Zuckerberg saves money on 1% mortgage rate
The Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg enjoys a below market 1% mortgage rate after he refinanced a $5.95 million adjustable loan on his Palo Alto, California, home.
Zuckerberg’s latest mortgage replaced an adjustable-rate loan from Morgan Stanley with a 1.75% rate, helping the Facebook founder save up to $2,000 per month in payments, Bloomberg reports. Monthly payments on the $5.95 million home would start at $19,275.
Meanwhile the average rate on a one-year adjustable mortgage was 2.69% on July 12, according to the McLean, Virginia-based mortgage-finance company. The average rate for a 30-year fixed loan fell to a record low 3.56% on July 12.
The Palo Alto house cost $7 million in March of last year. The two-floor white wood-sided home built in 1903 boast five bedrooms. It is situated three miles from Stanford University and three miles from Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters. Zuckerberg married his long-term girlfriend Priscilla Chan in the backyard on May 19.
Savvy homeowner Zuckerberg is the world’s 40th wealthiest person, with a net worth of $15.7 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. In May his company went public in a $16 billion IPO, but the shares have fallen 19% since then.
Families of U.S. citizens killedindrone strikes sue CIA
The killing of three US citizens, one a 16-year-old boy, in targeted drone strikes last year were unlawful and violated their constitutional rights by not affording them due process, according to a lawsuit filed by their relatives on Wednesday.
Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric who was placed on a CIA “kill list” last year, died in a targeted strike in Yemen on 30 September that also killed Samir Khan, an alleged propagandist for al-Qaida, in the Arabian Pensinsula. Al-Awlaki’s teenage son, Abdulrahman, was killed in a separate strike 200 miles away in which six others died two weeks later.
Read the full story here...
Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric who was placed on a CIA “kill list” last year, died in a targeted strike in Yemen on 30 September that also killed Samir Khan, an alleged propagandist for al-Qaida, in the Arabian Pensinsula. Al-Awlaki’s teenage son, Abdulrahman, was killed in a separate strike 200 miles away in which six others died two weeks later.
Read the full story here...
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