Blaze

cross-posted from: https://ani.social/post/1960896

Source is from season 1, episode 1.

This show might not be the first thing you think of when somebody asks about an anime, but it is made by the same anime studios as all the other series we watch and discuss here (season 1 also has an AniList page)

In case you weren't aware, George Lucas drew huge inspiration from the works of Akira Kurosawa when he created Star Wars (article all about it). So, when they announced a show in which Japanese studios were allowed to create original stories inspired by Star Wars, it felt a bit like closing the loop. This also is why I chose a clip from this episode, because it is the most clearly Kurosawa influenced in both style and story.

Each episode of this series is made by a different studio (with Trigger and Science SARU doing two episodes each) and is a standalone story. This episode was made by Kamikaze Douga. If you are looking for recommendations for other episodes to watch, I would recommend in no particular order:

• The Village Bride - Episode 4 - Kinema Citrus
• The Twins - Episode 3 - Trigger
• The Ninth Jedi - Episode 5 - Production I. G.
• The Elder - Episode 7 - Trigger

Always seems funny to use spoilers for a book released almost 20 years ago. Which makes me thing, does the Star Wars fandom still practice spoilers for events that happened in the 80s original trilogy? Anyway

cross-posted from: https://links.hackliberty.org/post/897256

The NSA’s long history of often legally sketchy mass surveillance continues, despite some of the agency’s activities getting exposed more than a decade ago by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Now, the National Security Agency has had to reveal, in response to a senator’s questions, that it is, as one report put it, “sidestepping” obtaining warrants first before it buys people’s information, put on sale by data brokers.

This came to light in an exchange of letters between Senator Ron Wyden and several top security officials.

And this time – because of NSA’s own interest being at stake – he has been able to reveal the information he obtained.

Wyden’s January 25 letter to Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines contained a fairly straight-forward request: US intelligence agencies should only buy American’s data “that has been obtained in a lawful manner.”

We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.

With the implication that something entirely different is happening, the senator went on to explain what: if these agencies went to communications companies themselves for the data, that would require a court order.

Instead, Wyden continued, they go the roundabout way to get information (like location data) taken from people’s phones – collected via apps, and finally ending up with commercial brokers, who sell it to the likes of the NSA. And, this particular agency is also buying “Americans’ domestic internet metadata.”

In other words, a comprehensive, yet legally questionable mass surveillance scheme.

Wyden “reinforced” his letter to Haines by attaching NSA Director General Paul Nakasone’s December response to one of his earlier queries – a back-and-forth that has been going on for almost three years, he says, and concerned other agencies as well and their practice of data acquisition.

But now that he said he would block the Senate confirmation of Nakasone’s successor – the information he received finally “got cleared” for release and pretty quickly.

Nakasone confirmed the practice, and then went on to justify it by saying it only pertains to “records” of online traffic, rather than “emails and documents.” He said what the NSA purchases is “netflow data” that comes from devices where “one or both” ends of the connection is in the US.

And why? It is “critical,” wrote Nakasone, in “protecting US defense contractors from cyber threats.”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/11335380

we'll find these aliens yet!