You"ll want to know this if your #mobile service provider happens to be #AT&T. - http://clapway.com/2015/08/16/att-has-been-helping-the-nsa-spy-on-internet-traffic-333/

Some newly disclosed documents, dating from 2003 to 2013, cite that the telecom company, AT&T, has been helping the U.S. NSA to spy on the Internet traffic passing across the United States. The topic was first brought to light by the former NSA contractor, Edward Snowden and started a huge debate about individuals’ privacy.

WHAT’S NEW?

The New York Times reported on Saturday that AT&T gave technical support to the National Security Agency, after carrying out an undercover court order, which gave permission to the government of the United States to intercept all web communications of the company’s customers in the United Nations.

HOW DID THAT HELP THE NSA?

Also, the telecom giant helped the spy agency with a series of classified activities, and the documents describe the connection between the NSA and AT&T as “a partnership and not a contractual relationship.” The telecom company helped the NSA to organize and carry out surveillance of international web communications that weathered through junction networks in the United States, and according to the NSA document, AT&T has been providing access to other telecoms and Internet Service Providers as well.

The reason why this access provided is extremely important is because a huge amount of the world’s web communication is transmitted through U.S. cables. The surveillance equipment that AT&T installed in, at least, 17 of its Internet hubs in America is located far away from Verizon’s equipment, and the first who tried the new technology were the company’s engineers.

AT&T’S COMMENTS

The Times report that in 2011 AT&T started giving the agency access to more than 1.1 billion private cellphone calls on a daily basis, in order to prepare for the 9/11 10th anniversary, as the document cites.

AT&T spokesman, Brad Burns, was asked to comment on the New York Times report and he chose to respond by an email to Reuters, saying that the company provides selected information to investigating authorities, only when a person’s life is in danger and time is valuable: “For example, in a kidnapping situation we could provide help tracking down called numbers to assist law enforcement,” he continued.

Burns added that the company has nothing more to report.

AT&T Has Been Helping the NSA Spy on Internet Traffic

Wildfires Increase in Intensity and Frequency Due to Climate Change - http://clapway.com/2015/07/17/wildfires-increase-in-intensity-frequency-due-to-global-climate-change423/

Recently the number of ways in which global climate change has presented itself, rising waters, more sea-related natural disasters, higher temperatures, have been accompanied by new kinds of effects–extinction, and even political upheaval in places like the arctic sea. However, recently, a new study has proven that wildfires have been significantly aggravated, increasing in frequency worldwide due to the increasingly hot and arid climates climate change has induced.

WILDFIRES, TREES & COMMON SENSE

Even a child knows that trees absorb carbon in the atmosphere, and as these wildfires continue to increase in frequency, so too will the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere reduce at a slower rate, or rather, increase at a faster rate.

The study mentioned above was published in the journal Nature Communications, and it explains that wildfires’ global coverage has risen to more than a quarter of the planet’s total vegetated surface between the years of 1979 and 2013. Moreover, fire weather season has grown in duration by almost 19% worldwide.

“Fire weather season length and long fire weather season affected area significantly increased across all vegetated continents except Australia. If these trends continue, increased wildfire potential may have pronounced global socio-economic, ecological and climate system impacts,” explained the researchers who authored the study.

In this study, researchers analyzed climate data according to three indices of wildfire danger. This in turn eased the process of mapping wildfire patterns back to the late 70’s. Humidity, rainfall, wind speed and temperature play interlocking roles in creating wildfires, and each one is being exacerbated by climate change.

Now it can be said that wildfires are a natural, healthy, and even necessary part of the lives of forests, clearing out weeds, dead trees and improving the space for animal grazing, but this intensity and frequency of wildfire is not helping anyone. The season for such fires to kindle has actually grown to encompass 11.4 million square miles (29.6 million square kilometers) of the planet’s vegetated surfaces. So far, the US has spent roughly $1.7 billion dollars per year for the past decade to combat the spread of wildfires.

BUT ONLY YOU CAN STOP THE SPREAD

Global climate change once fell under the purview of biologists, geologists, but broadly within the scientific world. Now we are seeing a de-differentiation, as many mutually disparate categories of human knowledge and practice, who previously each had their own reactions to climate change as a distant threat, are now becoming subject to its direct effects, whether they accepted its existence in the last century or not. In other words, wildfires are a great example of how global climate change is not just a threat to ecology, but the economy, science at large, and even the arts and free expression.

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Wildfires Increase in Intensity and Frequency Due to Climate Change