Reference:
The Horan brothers inherited a small operation from their father, but today they use big machines to farm close to 4,000 acres, their invested capital runs into the millions, and their dad's old barn has been renovated into a modern office stuffed with computers and leather sofas.

Yet they fear their operation is not nearly big enough. Like many U.S. farmers, they already depend on federal subsidies to make a profit. And as countries like Brazil convert millions of acres of grassland to intensive farming, driving down commodity prices worldwide, matters are likely to get worse. "I stood in a 60,000-acre soybean field" on a visit to Brazil, Bill Horan said. "I thought, 'I've just attended my own funeral.' "

The only choice the Horans see is for American farmers, or at least the best ones, to start easing their way out of commodity crops to grow something more valuable. They've been experimenting for years with crops like high-value soybeans for tofu. But nothing has excited them as much as the idea that their farm could become the first step in a pharmaceutical production chain.

When they began studying the issue, years ago, the Horans realized that containing the crops and keeping them separate from food would be critical. After extensive planning, they flew to France to give one of the leading companies a PowerPoint demonstration of their capabilities. Meristem Therapeutics was impressed, and hired the Horan brothers to grow its gene-altered corn over the past two years. The company has entered human tests of a drug produced in the corn, lipase, that may be helpful for people with cystic fibrosis.

The Horan brothers say they have adopted stringent procedures to keep their pharmaceutical grain separate from food crops. They wrote and follow a fat manual of operating procedures that calls for labor-intensive steps throughout the growing season to keep pollen from drifting. At harvest, they use a separate harvester and other equipment, dedicated solely to the pharmaceutical crop, and store the corn in a separate, locked building that is off-limits to visitors. The Horans say that after the growing season, they keep a constant eye out for volunteer corn plants that need to be destroyed.

Most significant, perhaps, is that the Horans say they take personal responsibility for complying with the letter and spirit of government regulations. They, not Meristem, hold the permit with the Agriculture Department, and they say they realize their reputation is on the line. This tight control appears to be a notable contrast to the ProdiGene system of scattering various duties among growers, consultants and company employees.


Washinton Post

Notes:
Two issues:
1. That human resonsibility is key to the pharming system and there does not seem to be a technological way to mitigate this.

2. That the US is becoming more and more dependent on other countries for basics -- basic food, basic manufacturing and basic services (immigrants).

Reference:
Environmental groups want pharmaceutical crops strictly confined to greenhouses or laboratories, and food companies are pushing to have them grown only in plants never used as food. The biotech industry, with two decades and millions of dollars invested in learning to grow them in grains such as corn, opposes both restrictions.

the Center for Science in the Public Interest, is a consumer group that supports the technology but wants it more tightly regulated. Gregory Jaffe, director of biotechnology issues at the center...is pushing the idea that companies ought to be required to do early human safety assessments, before they begin field trials of a pharmaceutical crop, to rule out harmful effects. Rigorous efforts would still be made to keep the crops out of food, but Jaffe argues that such safety data could give federal agencies cover to avoid ordering huge recalls if some tiny amount of a protein trickled into the food supply.

Environmentalists and some consumer groups, such as Consumers Union, oppose this plan, reasoning that it could lead to pervasive sloppiness in handling the new crops. Food companies are wary of the idea too, since it probably wouldn't alleviate public fears in a contamination incident. And biotech firms have long resisted conducting expensive food-safety tests on proteins that they do not, after all, mean to sell as food.

But with the recent events threatening to derail what many people see as a promising technology, interest in Jaffe's plan has risen.

Washington Post

Notes:
And what do we do if the effects are long-term and the crops are then permanently poisoned?

Reference:
n the Pentagon research effort to detect terrorism by electronically monitoring the civilian population, the most remarkable detail may be this: Most of the pieces of the system are already in place.

Because of the inroads the Internet and other digital network technologies have made into everyday life over the last decade, it is increasingly possible to amass Big Brother-like surveillance powers through Little Brother means. The basic components include everyday digital technologies like e-mail, online shopping and travel booking, A.T.M. systems, cellphone networks, electronic toll-collection systems and credit-card payment terminals.

The development has a certain historical resonance because it was the Pentagon's research agency that in the 1960's financed the technology that led directly to the modern Internet. Now the same agency — the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa — is relying on commercial technology that has evolved from the network it pioneered.

The early version of the Total Information Awareness system employs a commercial software collaboration program called Groove. It was developed in 2000 by Ray Ozzie, a well-known software designer who is the inventor of Lotus Notes. Groove makes it possible for analysts at many different government agencies to share intelligence data instantly, and it links specialized programs that are designed to look for patterns of suspicious behavior.

Total Information Awareness also takes advantage of a simple and fundamental software technology called Extended Markup Language, or XML, that is at the heart of the third generation of Internet software. It was created by software designers at companies like Microsoft, Sun Microsystems and I.B.M., as well as independent Silicon Valley programmers.

NY Times

Notes:
1. This must have been the plan all along :)

2. Interesting, in that Groove is a p2p type of application, going client to client using the internet rather than using a web-server.

Reference:
Humane interface
raskin

Notes:

Reference:
A discussion about digID between luminaries of the digerati.
JOHO

Notes:
1. The discussion is mostly in reference to commerce, ie. markets. This ignores real threat to privacy from government/corporate invasions.
2. This is along the lines of the digital dna that Shirky refers to. (here and here).
3. The real deal of id in general is any government's drive for centralized control of it's means, i.e the population. Commerce controls resources and production, government controls people.
4. There is growing disucssion of a "secure" web and an "open" web. All "real" discussion will happen on secure web and all intrusive monitoring will happen on the "open" web.

Reference:
Through Imagine New York, we heard from the public about the most important elements of a rebuilt World Trade Center site. The elements that people identified as being most important to them are expressed in the following questions. You can use them as a guide to evaluate the latest plans:
How does the plan address the site as 'sacred space,' and does it allow enough flexibility for a creative memorial dedicated to the victims, survivors, and the events of 9/11?

Does the plan provide for a range of public and open spaces, from designated areas for quiet contemplation, to public parks and gathering places?

Does the plan achieve excellence in architectural and sustainable design?

How do the cultural facilities provided in the plan contribute to the needs of the community, the city, and future visitors to the site?

How does the plan address the need for economic development that benefits all income levels and ensures a diverse community?

How does the transportation infrastructure provided in the plan forge new connections and improve overall accessibility to and within Lower Manhattan?

How is the plan integrated into the existing community and historic context of Lower Manhattan?

Does the plan achieve a rich mix of uses, including office, retail, culture, housing and open space?

How does the plan ensure a vibrant street life for pedestrians?
imaginenewyork.com

Notes:

Reference:
One reason that's only ever stated in passing, if noted at all, is the need to replace the WTC's broadcast tower which reportedly (and I have no reason to doubt it) was used by the various TLAs (CIA, NSA, etc) stationed around the buildings. evidently, the FCC is all over the MTA -- the Metropolitan TV Alliance -- to Do Something.

The problem is that the NYS/NYC political scene is profoundly dysfunctional, and as a result the MTA's been looking to build something in NJ -- Bayonne is the main contender, but Jersey City hasn't given up. If that tower takes root, as it were, then there really isn't any need to build anything big at all. but 'need' is a very flexible concept, so for me a more interesting question is why no one has thought about it in context. If such a tower is built in Bayonne, it'll be a strange thing indeed: a tower substantially higher than the WTC ever was, but sitting on a pier-like peninsula miles to the south and across the water. or, if Jersey City gets it, it'll be *right* across the water -- indisputable proof that lower Manhattan is hemorrhaging its (former? alleged?) 'glory.'

And let us not forget that Parsons/Brinckherhoff, which was hired last May, at the same time as -- indeed *with* -- Beyer Blinder Bell has yet to hand over any of the materials it has generated about the subterranean side of the area.

-- Ted Byfield, Mail List Design-L, December 29, 2002
Cryptome

Notes:

Reference:
From: Brad Templeton
To: declan@well.com
Subject: Re: George Orwell, here we come
References:

Perhaps to scare you even more, we may have already passed "P-Day" a symbolic end to privacy.

Why? Well, snoops don't yet have good facial recongition software or the other biometric tools you spoke about to track everybody everywhere they go.

But storage has gotten cheap enough -- and it continues to get cheaper -- so now or soon they do have the capacity to _record_ what the cameras see, even if they don't have the technology to decode it.

The computer industry, following the trend declared by Gordon Moore, will soon give them that power. Give a few doublings of power and more research into algorithms and eventually it will become possible to do that tracking. Not just then, but backwards, _into the past_.

Yup, they will be able to call up those old recordings, from the ATMs and the zillions of other cameras, and, using the tools of the future, create records of everywhere you went and everything you did in view of the cameras back in time, before they had the real time face recognition.

So you're already being watched. The computer that is watching you just hasn't been born quite yet.
Politech

Notes:
Templeton is chair of EFF.

Reference:
The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a Washington group known for a moderate stance on the use of genetic engineering to alter food plants, contends that the Food and Drug Administration, the primary federal agency responsible for food safety, missed "obvious errors" in reviewing some gene-altered crops. Although crops now on the market appear to be safe to eat, the group said the FDA's procedures are so full of holes that continued safety cannot be ensured as companies press to bring many more genetically engineered plants to market.

....

Some gene-altered food plants, particularly if they contain foreign genes to help them fight bugs, fall under regulations requiring their creators to get mandatory approval from the Environmental Protection Agency before going to market. But others fall solely under the FDA's food-safety jurisdiction, and that agency has adopted only voluntary procedures for companies to follow in assuring the public their products are safe.

The food industry likes this voluntary system. Environmental groups, suspicious of all genetic manipulation of plants or animals, have long decried it. CSPI is one of the few consumer-oriented groups that supports genetic manipulation in principle but argues that the voluntary system must be scrapped.

....

Timothy Willard, a spokesman for the National Food Processors Association, said the food industry would support some changes, including making some type of FDA review mandatory. But he noted that no company has opted out of the current voluntary process, which has worked to date.
Washington Post

Notes:

Reference:
Among the draft's changes was the removal of an explicit recommendation for the White House to consult regularly with privacy advocates and other experts about how civil liberties might be affected by proposals to improve Internet security.

The draft notes that "care must be taken to respect privacy interests and other civil liberties." It also noted that the new Homeland Security Department will include a privacy officer to ensure that monitoring the Internet for attacks would balance privacy and civil liberties concerns.

"It's perplexing," said James X. Dempsey of the Washington-based Center for Democracy and Technology. "This administration is constantly on the receiving end of criticism on privacy issues. This looks like another example of willfully raising privacy concerns. They should know better by now."

Washington Post

Notes: