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The correspondent for the disputed “60 Minutes'’ segment about the attack on the United States Special Mission in Benghazi, Libya, last year apologized on the air Friday morning, saying it was a “mistake'’ to put on a security officer whose credibility has since been undermined by his diverging accounts of his actions that night. The correspondent, Lara Logan, said on “CBS This Morning'’ that the news division was misled by the officer, adding, “We will apologize to our viewers, and we will correct the record on our broadcast on Sunday night.” The apology followed disclosure by The New York Times...

Full title: Judicial Watch: State Department Documents Show Its Security Contractor Operating without a License in Benghazi on Day of Terrorist Attack State Official Describes Benghazi as an ‘Emergency’ Situation (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch has obtained andreleased internal Department of State documentsdetailing the department’s $783,284.79 contract with U.K.-based Blue Mountain Group (BMG) to provide security at the diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya. The documents show that BMG did not have a license to operate in Libya at the time of the attack due to a business dispute with its partner in Libya, XPAND Corporation, and quote a State official...

Full title: Judicial Watch: Documents Reveal State Department Officials Told Three Months before Attack that Benghazi Security Guards Abandoning Posts Out of Fear for Safety Internal email reveals that three months before fatal terrorist attack, an explosion at compound wall “created a fear factor when it came to working the night shift” (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it has obtained 130 pages of new State Department documents revealing that local security guards working for Blue Mountain Group (BMG), the firm hired to protect the U.S. Special Mission in Benghazi, repeatedly abandoned their posts “out of fear of...

WASHINGTON/BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - The State Department's decision to hire Blue Mountain Group to guard the ill-fated U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, entrusted security tasks to a little-known British company instead of the large firms it usually uses in overseas danger zones. The contract was largely based on expediency, U.S. officials have said, since no one knew how long the temporary mission would remain in the Libyan city. The cradle of last year's uprising that ended Muammar Gaddafi's 42-year rule, Benghazi has been plagued by rising violence in recent months. Security practices at the diplomatic compound, where Blue Mountain...

Whether his birthday was 21 January 1855 or 23 January 1855, Americans were blessed the day he was born.

LA County Gun Task Force Serving Search Warrants LAPD & LASO Might Be Knocking On Your Door Next! LA County Gun Task Force Serving Search Warrants Officers from the Los Angeles County Gun Task Force in CA have begun serving search warrants on residents in that county who are suspected of holding un-registered "Assault Rifles" including 50 BMG target rifles. If you or any of your friends have not complied with the provisions of AB-50 that require you to register any 50 BMG rifles you own, you may very well expect a knock on your door at any time. This...

Can someone comment on this picture of this M2 and it's ammo?

The EFF's complaint [PDF] is now available, and it's a beaut. They filed it as a class action in California, with two California firms, (Green Welling, and Lerach, Coughlin, Stoia, Geller, Rudman & Robbins), and they include every charge you could think of. They even mention the warranty of merchantability. California has some laws that are useful, such as the Consumer Protection Against Computer Spyware Act and the Computer Legal Remedies Act, so they throw them in too. But this is the sentence I have not seen in any other complaint that made me happy: The CDs also condition use...

   Texas Sues Sony Over Alleged CD Spyware --  Here is the description by the guy who discovered it: http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/10/sony-rootkits-and-digital-rights.html along with a ton of commentary. --it's not just Sony - they just happened to be caught.  Just remember - many movie and music companies are not happy that you can burn CDs and send files over the internet, regardless of what you were going to burn or send - they would rather you not have the ability at all, end of story. In Canada they had resorted to getting a tax in place on recordable media and players,  Depends...

BOSTON (AP) -- The fallout from a hidden copy-protection program that Sony BMG Music Entertainment put on some CDs is only getting worse. Sony's suggested method for removing the program widened the security hole the original software created, researchers say. Sony has moved to recall the discs in question. But music fans who have listened to them on their computers or tried to remove the dangerous software they deposited could still be vulnerable. "This is a surprisingly bad design from a security standpoint," said Ed Felten, a Princeton University computer science professor who explored the removal program with a graduate...

The uninstall tool posted by Sony BMG to get rid of its controversial digital-rights management software is worse than the original software, a security company says. Computer Associates, maker of eTrust PestPatrol anti-spyware software, says that the technological protection measure (TPM) uninstall routine itself can be classified as spyware. Sony BMG equipped some of its music CDs with a "rootkit" that did not explicitly say it was being installed on a computer. Rootkits are tools used by hackers to hide their tracks when they take over an innocent user's machine. Sony's TPM went further, CA says. The media player that...

The spyware that Sony installs on the computers of music fans does not even seem to be correct in terms of copyright law. It turns out that the rootkit contains pieces of code that are identical to LAME, an open source mp3-encoder, and thereby breach the license....

Sony to Help Remove its DRM Rootkit By Nate Mook, BetaNews November 2, 2005, 4:04 PM When Mark Russinovich was testing his company's security software last week, he came across a disturbing find: a Sony BMG CD he purchased from Amazon had secretly installed DRM software on his PC and used "rootkit" cloaking methods to hide it. With the story sweeping across the Net, Sony is attempting to clean up its mess. DRM, or digital rights management, is nothing new to CDs. Record companies began employing software to prevent users from easily transferring tracks to a PC after the explosion...

Sony BMG admits to bribing radio stations to play its artists. IN 1980, according to a book about the music industry by Fredric Dannen called “Hit Men”, CBS Records decided to run an experiment with a band, Pink Floyd. Their concert dates were sold out in Los Angeles, and radio stations everywhere were playing “Another Brick in the Wall (Part Two)”. Dick Asher, the deputy president of CBS Records, wanted to find out whether the band's popularity meant he could refuse to pay the usual bribes, or illegal “payola”, to the four big Top-40 radio stations in Los Angeles. Like...

Friends and colleagues of mine, knowing that I’m keen on these kinds of puzzles, recently peppered me with messages that read along these lines: “Hey, I hear the new Dave Matthews CD can’t be copied! Know of a workaround?” And so, I dutifully purchased yet another copy of Stand Up (I’d already grabbed the album from the iTunes Music Store to check out iTunes’ new video feature) and took a look. For those new to the story, Sony BMG Music is in the early stages of releasing audio discs (they’re not official audio CDs as they don’t conform to the...

Big Rifle A Terrorist Tool? May 29, 2005 California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger decided there’s a weapon that’s too dangerous to be in the hands of private citizens. This year, a new law went into effect in California banning that weapon. It’s the .50-caliber rifle, the Rolls Royce of sniper rifles. It’s a big gun, a favorite of armies around the world, and it’s still available in 49 states in this country to anyone over 18 with a clean record. It is, without a doubt, the most powerful weapon you can buy. And, as Correspondent Ed Bradley first reported last...

Machine guns found near Kansas creek The Associated Press MILFORD -- A fisherman found a heavy machine gun on the ice of a creek near Fort Riley, and Geary County sheriff's deputies later found two more. The three Browning .50-caliber guns were all in working condition, Sheriff's Lt. Sandy Popovich said, but none was loaded. Sheriff Jim Jensen said he didn't know how the guns got there, and the Army's Criminal Investigation Division is looking into the matter. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers owns the land, Jensen said, and soldiers from Fort Riley have used it for training. The...

9/13 7:30 PM: Governor Shwarzenegger signed AB50 into law.

Web Photo Charleston police now have a Barrett Model 99 .50 calibre BMG single show sniper rifle. The gun can hit a target up to 4.2 miles away. AssociatedPress CHARLESTON -- The Charleston Police Department has bought what may be the largest-caliber sniper rifle owned by any police agency in West Virginia, a Barrett Model 99 .50 caliber BMG single shot that fires bullets slightly smaller than a hot dog. The bullets, which cost $2 each, can hit a target up to 4.2 miles away. Because of Charleston's hills, such a shot is unlikely, said Sgt. Steve Walker, who...

<p>A .50-caliber BMG sniper rifle, in the wrong hands, would be terrorism unleashed.</p> <p>The gun is powerful enough to punch a hole in an oil tank or take down a civilian airplane. Its 5 1/2-inch long bullets can pierce an inch of armor 40 yards away and hit a target a mile away. A massive weapon, with some models weighing in at 28 pounds, it's ill-suited for hunters -- it would take out a deer and the tree behind it -- but ideal for assassins.</p>