Starvin Larry

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — China is “creating a great wall of sand” through land reclamation in the South China Sea, causing serious concerns about its territorial intentions, the commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet said Tuesday.

Admiral Harry Harris Jr. told a naval conference in Australia that competing territorial claims by several nations in the South China Sea are “increasing regional tensions and the potential for miscalculation.”

“But what’s really drawing a lot of concern in the here and now is the unprecedented land reclamation currently being conducted by China,” he said.

“China is building artificial land by pumping sand on to live coral reefs — some of them submerged — and paving over them with concrete. China has now created over 4 square kilometers (1.5 square miles) of artificial landmass,” he said.

Harris said the region is known for its beautiful natural islands, but “in sharp contrast, China is creating a great wall of sand with dredges and bulldozers over the course of months.”

China claims virtually all of the South China Sea. The Philippines and other countries which have territorial disputes with China in the busy sea have been particularly concerned by the land reclamation projects, which have turned a number of previously submerged reefs in the Spratlys archipelago into artificial islands with buildings, runways and wharves. The islands could be used for military and other facilities to bolster China’s territorial claims.

Harris said the pace of China’s construction of artificial islands “raises serious questions about Chinese intentions.”

He said the United States continues to urge all claimants to conform to the 2002 China-ASEAN Declaration of Conduct, in which the parties committed to “exercise self-restraint in the conduct of activities that would complicate or escalate disputes and affect peace and stability.”

“How China proceeds will be a key indicator of whether the region is heading toward confrontation or cooperation,” he said.

The U.S. says it has a national interest in the peaceful resolution of the disputes in a region crucial for world trade. China says its territorial claims have a historical basis and objects to what it considers U.S. meddling.

Harris said the United States is on track to reposition 60 percent of its navy to the Pacific Fleet by 2020.

“By maintaining a capable and credible forward presence in the region, we’re able to improve our ability to maintain stability and security,” he said. “If any crisis does break out, we’re better positioned to quickly respond.”

h/t Wirecutter

Ignorance of the law, we are often told, is no excuse. “Every man is presumed to know the law,” says a long-established legal aphorism. And if you are charged with a crime, you would be well advised to rely on some other defense than “I had no idea that was illegal.”

But not everybody favors this state of affairs. While a century or two ago nearly all crime was traditional common-law crime — rape, murder, theft and other things that pretty much everyone should know are bad — nowadays we face all sorts of “regulatory crimes” in which intuitions of right and wrong play no role, but for which the penalties are high.

If you walk down the sidewalk, pick up a pretty feather, and take it home, you could be a felon — if it happens to be a bald eagle feather. Bald eagles are plentiful now, and were taken off the endangered species list years ago, but the federal law making possession of them a crime for most people is still on the books, and federal agents are even infiltrating some Native-American powwows in order to find and arrest people. (And feathers from lesser-known birds, like the red-tailed hawk are also covered). Other examples abound, from getting lost in a storm and snowmobiling on the wrong bit of federal land, to diverting storm sewer water around a building.

“Regulatory crimes” of this sort are incredibly numerous and a category that is growing quickly. They are the ones likely to trap unwary individuals into being felons without knowing it. That is why Michael Cottone, in a just-published Tennessee Law Review article, suggests that maybe the old presumption that individuals know the law is outdated, unfair and maybe even unconstitutional. “Tellingly,” he writes, “no exact count of the number of federal statutes that impose criminal sanctions has ever been given, but estimates from the last 15 years range from 3,600 to approximately 4,500.” Meanwhile, according to recent congressional testimony, the number of federal regulations (enacted by administrative agencies under loose authority from Congress) carrying criminal penalties may be as many as 300,000.

And it gets worse. While the old-fashioned common law crimes typically required a culpable mental state — you had to realize you were doing something wrong — the regulatory crimes generally don’t require any knowledge that you’re breaking the law. This seems quite unfair. As Cottone asks, “How can people be expected to know all the laws governing their conduct when no one even knows exactly how many criminal laws exist?”

Of course, we may hope that prosecutorial discretion will save us: Just explain to the nice prosecutor that we meant no harm, and violated the law by accident, and he or she will drop the charges and tell us to be more careful next time. And sometimes things work that way. But other times, the prosecutors are out to get you for your politics, your ethnicity, or just in order to fulfill a quota, in which case you will hear that the law is the law, and that ignorance is no excuse. (Amusingly, government officials who break the law do get to plead ignorance and good intentions, under the doctrine of good faith “qualified immunity.” Just not us proles.)

To solve this problem we need for judges to abandon the presumption that people know the law, at least where regulatory crimes are concerned, and require some proof that the accused knew or should reasonably have known that his conduct was illegal. Alternatively, Congress should adopt legislation requiring such proof. (And I would favor allowing defendants in any action brought by the federal government — civil or criminal — to have the option of arguing to the jury that the government’s action against them is unfair or biased, with the charges dropped and legal fees being charged to the government if the jury agrees.)

Under the vagueness doctrine, a law is void if a person of reasonable intelligence would have to guess at its meaning, because it would be unfair to punish someone for violating a law that cannot be understood. It seems just as unfair to punish people for violating a law that they couldn’t reasonably be expected to know about.

Law that can’t be known is no law at all. If we wish to remain a nation of laws, Congress and the courts need to address this problem, before it’s too late.

Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor, is the author of The New School: How the Information Age Will Save American Education from Itself.

Affordable options to get you on the air so you can get some practice.

Obama’s attempt to end the war on terror by limiting its scope has failed miserably.

The Associated Press
A Hands-Off War on Violent Extremism
Obama’s attempt to end the war on terror by limiting its scope has failed miserably.
The Associated Press

This threat isn’t going away, Mr. President.
By Evan Moore March 30, 2015 | 1:35 p.m. EDT + More

In May 2013, President Barack Obama tried to end the war on terror by limiting its scope. In a high-profile speech at the National Defense University, he said, “we must define our effort … as a series of persistent, targeted efforts to dismantle specific networks of violent extremists that threaten America.” These groups, he said, were the core al-Qaida leadership and its regional affiliate organizations. Recent events in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia have demonstrated just how short-sighted the Obama administration’s vision was.

Nearly two years later, the violent Islamist threat to the United States is much wider in scope. Not only do al-Qaida and its affiliates threaten the United States and the West, but they are also struggling for territory and power with other extremists from Africa to Afghanistan. These not only include the Islamic State group – a one-time al-Qaida affiliate that has since splintered off, grown and now rivals its parent organization – but also Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and Tehran’s local proxy militias. This three-way competition is not weakening them, but is instead rejuvenating jihadi networks across the world.

Today’s Islamist extremist threat emanates from four major theaters:

Afghanistan and Pakistan. The situation in South Asia remains perilous. Although Obama has slowed the planned drawdown of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, he still plans to end the U.S. mission there before he leaves office. While the United States is drawing down, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani warned that the Taliban and the Islamic State group are ramping up. As he told U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday, the Islamic State group “is already sending advanced guards to southwestern Afghanistan.”

In response, the Institute for the Study of War noted in a recent study that it is vital that the Afghan National Security Forces receive “robust, long-term assistance from the United States.” Moreover, Obama should maintain the current level of troops in Afghanistan through the end of 2016 and even reconsider his decision to withdraw all forces by the end of his term, thereby allowing his successor to determine the future U.S. role there.

Meanwhile, while the Taliban’s senior leadership is still located in Pakistan, it is unclear that they have safe haven there. Gen. John Campbell, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, reported that in the wake of the Peshawar school massacre by the Taliban, senior Pakistani military leaders are re-examining their long policy of supporting some terrorist groups that act as proxies for their own interests. “Senior Pakistani military officers have said that they can no longer discriminate between ‘good and bad’ terrorists,” he said. Again, however, a continued U.S. presence in the region is necessary because, as former National Counterterrorism Center director Michael Leiter told lawmakers, the “deep engagement and strategic patience” that these troops provide is critical to pressure Pakistan to maintain its offensive against all Islamist groups.

Iraq and Syria. With as much as one-third of Syria now controlled by the Islamic State group, and the Iraqi offensive against the Islamic State group stronghold of Tikrit stalled, the group retains nearly all of its key territory across both countries. Even now, while the United States is conducting airstrikes against the Islamic State group, it is unclear whether these efforts are having much effect. Although thousands of fighters have been killed in the U.S.-led campaign, military and intelligence officials told Eli Lake and Josh Rogin of Bloomberg View earlier this month that the group’s senior leadership has been “largely untouched.”

The effort to defeat this enemy will likely take several years, and it will certainly require closer cooperation with the Iraqi government, Kurdish and Sunni militias, and the moderate Syrian opposition. The United States should deploy additional trainers and support personnel to bolster their forces, as well as special operations personnel to help identify Islamic State group forces and direct airstrikes against them.

Iran’s exploitation of this conflict to expand its influence in the region is equally troubling. Qasem Soleimani is the leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force and has directly overseen military operations led by Shiite militias in Iraq. Iran’s behavior in Iraq reflects its conduct in Syria, where it has long conducted “an extensive, expensive, and integrated effort to keep President Bashar al-Assad in power as long as possible” by supplying the regime with arms, training and fighters.

Yemen. America’s counterterrorism strategy in Yemen has suffered a severe blow in recent months. The Iran-backed Houthi rebels have overthrown the country’s government and forced U.S. personnel to withdraw. The Los Angeles Times also reported on Thursday that “Secret files held by Yemeni security forces that contain details of American intelligence operations in the country have been looted by Iran-backed militia leaders, exposing names of confidential informants and plans for U.S.-backed counter-terrorism strikes.”

Other Islamist organizations are also making their presence felt in Yemen. Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula has embedded its fighters alongside local forces that are opposed to the Shiite rebels. In so doing, the terrorist group is expanding its influence throughout the country – just as al-Qaida’s organization in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra, has done in that country’s conflict. What’s more, recent bombings that killed over 130 people indicate that the Islamic State group is attempting to ignite a full-blown sectarian war in Yemen. The current Saudi-led intervention may exacerbate these tensions.

In response, Katherine Zimmerman of the American Enterprise Institute has recommended that the United States should work to build “coalitions of locals willing to fight against AQAP [al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula] while also seeking to mediate the disputes that are tearing Yemeni society apart and creating openings for AQAP to expand.” Without a legitimate and viable partner that reflects and responds to the will of the Yemeni people, America’s efforts to combat terrorism in the Arabian Peninsula will likely be fruitless.

North Africa. Even before the recent terror attack against Tunisia’s National Bardo Museum, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper warned Congress, “Extremists and terrorists from al-Qaida-affiliated and allied groups are using Libya’s permissive security environment as a safe haven to plot attacks, including against Western interests in Libya and the region.”

Tunisia faces daunting challenges in establishing security due to its recent transition to democracy. However, Larry Diamond of the Hoover Institution reported that “there is genuine revulsion with the violent jihadist ideology that apparently propelled the attackers, and broad concern that such terrorism could endanger the unprecedented scope of freedom Tunisians have fought so hard to achieve.” Diamond recommended “an immediate response to specific Tunisian security needs for equipment, intelligence, and special-forces training to combat the threat,” conditional upon continued economic and political reform from Tunis.

The situation in Libya, however, is far worse. Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week that the country “needs a new military, one that is apolitical and professional, capable of defeating all of the partisan forces and then serving as the kind of strong, institution around which a new political system could be organized and enforced.” Without Western countries providing the military, economic and political resources needed to stabilize Libya, the country will continue to spawn instability throughout the region, and provide terrorists the safe haven they need to train and plan future attacks.

Clapper has also warned that the rest of the region is under threat. Al-Qaida’s North African affiliate, al-Qaida in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb, “and affiliated groups are committed to continuing their terrorist activity in the Sahel, including against Western interests. They will probably seek to increase the frequency and scale of attacks in northern Mali.”

Conclusion. Throughout the Middle East and North Africa, Iran-backed Shiite forces are contending with the Sunni terrorist groups al-Qaida and the Islamic State group for territory and influence. Dangerously, this conflict is strengthening each of these actors by inspiring a new generation of jihadi recruits.

The Wall Street Journal noted in an editorial last week that “The temptation in some American circles, including in parts of the right, will be to let the Sunnis and Shiites kill each other until they get tired of it. But that’s what the same sages said about Syria’s civil war, which proceeded to spill into Iraq and midwife Islamic State, which is now gaining adherents around the world.” Across these conflicts, the United States must work instead to establish and support legitimate governments that are not beholden to extremism, and that reflect and respond to the will of their people. This effort will require attention, planning and resources that the Obama administration has neglected to provide. It is time for the president to recognize that a largely hands-off approach to the war on terror has failed, and his successor will be left with a vastly more dangerous world if he doesn’t change course now.

***There’s a lot of great info contained in the links in the original story @

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/world-report/2015/03/30/obamas-hands-off-war-on-terror-has-left-us-vulnerable-to-islamist-threats?int=935d08

First time’s the charm.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy said Monday there’s no backup plan in case the agency’s proposed Clean Power Plan – the first federal measure limiting carbon emissions from existing power plants – is overturned in court.

“It will be legally solid,” McCarthy said during a lunch event hosted by Politico. “I don’t need a Plan B if I’m solid on my Plan A.”

She added: “We’re going to deliver.”

RELATED

EPA’s Clean Power Plan May See Changes, McCarthy Says

Oil and coal groups, certain utilities and conservative lawmakers in statehouses and on Capitol Hill have loudly opposed the Clean Power Plan, a still-to-be-finalized measure that aims to slash power plants’ carbon emissions by 30 percent from 2005 levels by 2030.

Opponents say the plan, by forcing older and more heavily polluting coal and oil plants offline, will raise electricity rates and decrease the electric grid’s reliability. Already, it faces a challenge in a federal appeals court, while the Supreme Court last week heard arguments over separate EPA rules on toxic air pollutants.

“EPA’s [Clean Power Plan] will cost Americans more … out of their own pocket to use less energy,” Laura Sheehan, a spokeswoman for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, posted on Twitter on Monday.

Clean Power Plan and EPA supporters are skeptical of opponents’ claims, and states that generate a greater share of energy from renewable sources like wind and solar have experienced lower electricity prices compared to those that rely more heavily on fossil fuels, according to a study published earlier this month by the venture capital firm DBL Investors, which funds clean energy projects.

McCarthy in particular has emphasized that the Clean Power Plan will prove a boon to state economies by reducing health costs for people living downwind of coal- and oil-fired power plants, and by spurring investment in clean energy facilities.

“Under this administration we’re seeing basically solar move tenfold, and we’ve seen wind move threefold,” McCarthy said Monday. “There’s more job growth.”

President Barack Obama has made confronting climate change a central issue of his second term, harnessing the EPA, Energy Department and Interior Department to sidestep opposition in Congress and reduce the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions.

This week, he is expected to unveil the nation’s plan to cut emissions ahead of a U.N. climate summit in Paris.

“My hope and my full expectation is he has outlined an ambitious but compelling argument on why we need to take action now,” McCarthy said. “I have a clear path forward, and we’re going to move ahead.”

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/03/30/gina-mccarthy-clean-power-plan-doesnt-need-a-plan-b

A New Jersey video game shop fell victim to a calculated “swatting” attempt on Saturday night—one that, according to reports, nearly saw the victim play an active role in inflaming the police response.

The story began by resembling far too many other recent swatting attempts. As Jersey area news site Cliff View Pilot reported, Passaic County officers received an anonymous, phony tip about a hostage situation with shotguns and wounded victims. The location in question was a video game store in Clifton, New Jersey, called Digital Press. The store was hosting its usual monthly gaming meetup that night—ironically, one devoted to “super cute” video games—and the county sheriff’s department sent a SWAT team to the shopping strip in question to investigate.

What made this swatting different from other recent high-profile cases, according to tips sent to gaming site Kotaku, was that the victims also received an anonymous call that attempted to pour gasoline on the fire. The game shop’s Web administrator, Frankie Viturello, told a story of seeing a police presence begin to descend upon the store’s shopping district, at which point the 40-strong crowd of gamers locked the shop’s doors and relocated away from the windows and toward the building’s basement. Soon afterward, the shop received a call from a supposed fire department representative.

“Full riot gear with assault weapons”

That caller asked the store to close its blinds, which it did. After that, the caller asked the store employee to peek outdoors and “shout something to the effect of, ‘Clear the area, somebody has a gun,'” at which point the store owner interfered, hung up, and contacted the local police department. The incident ended with the SWAT team entering the building “in full riot gear with assault weapons,” handcuffing all of the attendees and examining the premises before concluding that the anonymous hostage-situation tip was indeed false.

In a statement to New Jersey newspaper The Record, Clifton Police Detective Sergeant Robert Bracken confirmed that the department was actively seeking the phony tipster, who would foot the bill for the SWAT response’s expenses upon being apprehended. He noted that the tip had been vetted for credibility before being acted upon, but Bracken declined to clarify what that meant exactly. We have reached out to the Passaic County Sheriff’s Office with questions about the incident, and we will update this report if we get a response.

Two American teenagers have faced high-profile swatting charges in the past two months. Like this incident, both alleged perpetrators targeted fans of video games, and the practice has been used to attack other gaming fans and critics of the GamerGate hashtag. In the meantime, Digital Press is taking the incident in stride, and Viturello suggested to Kotaku that the monthly game night’s next iteration would revolve around classic, law enforcement-themed video games like Virtua Cop and NARC.

Source-

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/03/game-store-swatted-nearly-became-complicit-in-inciting-police-response/

A group of gunsmiths just 3D printed a bigger, better caliber rifle.

PrintedFirearm.com , a website devoted to 3D printing of guns, announced that one of its members successfully developed a lower receiver for a Colt CM901 rifle. The receiver for the CM901—which is considered to be a much stronger brother of the infamous AR-15 assault rifle—was crafted on a XYZ Da Vinci printer, which normally costs around $500 – considered cheap in the 3D printer world. While they were not the first to 3D print a lower receiver, it seems as if Printed Firearm has taken an evolutionary step.

“This is the FIRST EVER 3d Printed AR-10 (CM901/LE901) lower receiver by JT,” reads a blog post on PrintedFirearm.com. “OH YES WE DID!!!!!!! Yes people its pure awesome sauce and it has been tested, fired with little to no issues.”

The CM901 has a similar design to the AR-15 but can fire a heavier and more powerful 7.62 millimeter round, which results in higher range and stopping power. The standard NATO rifle cartridge has a 7.62 mm diameter and a 51 mm case length.

The rifle is also a modular weapons system, which allows for multiple modifications, so it is also capable of firing lighter 5.56-millimeter rounds as well.

Printed Firearm posted a five-second GIF of the lower receiver in action at a firing range. Like most 3D printed objects, the part is made from a plastic-like filament so it is not clear how many shots could be fired before it breaks or becomes damaged.

“This receiver is durable enough to work,” The Author of Printed Firearm’s blog, who asked that his name be withheld, told FoxNews.com.  “The reality is the lower receiver in an AR style weapon does not need to be that strong.

Schematics for the lower receiver. (printedfirearm.com)

“Is it as strong as metal, no, is it as strong as wood, probably not, is it strong enough to work, yes and it has proven just that.”

The blogger adds that the creator of the part claims to have fired over 100 rounds of ammunition without any issues of visible wear and tear.

Blueprints for parts like a lower receiver for the AR-15, have been available on the web to download for several years but this is the first instance where it has been drafted with an affordable printer and has raised the question among some in the community that an affordable rifle — from barrel to stock — will eventually be as simple as hitting the print button.

(printedfirearm.com)

Others say it will be a long while before that is a reality.

“It’s good for the narrative for the improvements in 3D printing,” Cody Wilson of Defense Distributed, another group that made what was considered the first working 3D printed handgun back in 2013, told FoxNews.Com “But it’s going to be a long time before a rifle can be made on an affordable 3D printer.”

Makeshift gunsmiths have focused mostly on printing lower receivers because it is the only part of the rifle that has federal regulations. Every other part, such as the barrel or the handgrip can be purchased without any sort of permit.

Under current law, there are no federal restrictions on making a gun for personal use – so long as it is under the parameters of both the Gun Control Act and the National Firearms Act.

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2015/03/30/powerful-3d-printed-rifle-fires-nato-rounds/