The NSA has ordered Verizon to turn over millions of phone records. Privacy groups are up in arms about data being indiscriminately collected. What's the NSA doing with the data, and are Americans comfortable giving up this level of privacy in exchange for protection against terrorism? Also, a Stanford student has analytically determined that basketball should have 13 positions, and President Obama will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping to discuss cyber-espionage. Then, Daniel Bergner scientifically studied female sexuality to answer the age-old question, "What do women want?".
The potential impact of the NSA's collecting of phone records
On Wednesday, the UK newspaper The Guardian published this headline: "NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily." Under an on-going top-secret court order requested by the FBI, it turns out, the National Security Agency requires Verizon's business division to give the NSA the records of all the phone calls made in its system everyday.
An unnamed official in the Obama administration defended the program, telling the media that the order does not give NSA the right to listen in on phone calls but instead to collect massive amounts of "metadata," including phone numbers and lengths of calls. In a press conference this morning, California Senator Dianne Feinstein (D) told reporters, "There have been approximately 100 plots and also arrests made since 2009 by the FBI. I do not know to what extent metadata was used or if it was used, but I do know this: That terrorists will come after us if they can, and the only thing we have to deter this is good intelligence."
Feinstein also indicated that the program to gather this metadata has been in place for seven years. Republican Senator from Georgia, Saxby Chambliss, confirmed that lawmakers have known about the program for a while now, adding, "The information that they’re really looking for is on the other end of the call. It’s are they in contact, is somebody in contact with somebody that we know to be a known terrorist. And that’s why it’s metadata only." Neither senator could say whether or not the secret program extended to other phone companies.
But not everyone is on board with the program. Former Vice President Al Gore tweeted: "In digital era, privacy must be a priority. Is it just me, or is secret blanket surveillance obscenely outrageous?" Privacy groups are up in arms, concerned that the records of millions of Americans are being indiscriminately collected, regardless of whether they're suspected of wrongdoing or not. Regardless, the revelation about the NSA program opens a Pandora's box of questions about privacy and security.
What is the NSA doing with the data collected? How is it processed? Where is it stored? How far-reaching is the program? Are Americans comfortable giving up this level of privacy in exchange for protection against terrorism?
Guests:
Kenneth Cukier, Co-Author, “Big Data: A revolution that will transform how we live, work, and think” (Eamon Dolan/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013); he is also the Data Editor at the Economist magazine.
Robert Turner, Law Professor and Associate Director of the Center for National Security Law at the University of Virginia
Mike Thompson, Democratic Congressman for California’s Fifth District (district includes all of Napa and parts of Contra Costa, Lake, Solano and Sonoma Counties); member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, where he serves as Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Human Intelligence, Analysis and Counterintelligence
Peter Bibring, Senior Staff Attorney with ACLU Southern California
The 'Moneyball' of basketball
Oakland Athletics’ Billy Beane changed the way professional baseball recruits and builds teams. Now, a 20-something medical student at Stanford is looking to bring the same magic of statistical analytics to basketball.
Muthu Alagappan was interning at Ayasdi, a Palo-Alto-based startup when, on a whim, decided to feed the company’s proprietary data analysis software with NBA stats. The results led to him to the discovery that there are actually 13 player positions in basketball, as opposed to the standard 5. So instead of point guards or centers, you have "low-usage ball-handlers" or “mid-range big men”—more sophisticated and precise designations of what players do on the court. Better and more information, Alagappan believes, could help general managers and coaches curate better and more well-rounded teams.
Alagappan unveiled his discovery at MIT's Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in 2012, and took home first prize. NBA teams like the Miami Heat and Portland Trail Blazers have come knocking, wanting to find out more about what Alagappan has to offer.
Guest:
Muthu Alagappan, medical school student at Stanford School of Medicine at Stanford University who came up with these 13 new basketball player positions
China and cyber-espionage in the spotlight
Tomorrow, President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping will hold a two-day meeting in Rancho Mirage. On the top of the agenda will be cyber-espionage. The US Defense Department, for the first time, has named the Chinese government as the culprit behind a series of major cyber attacks on the US government and businesses, prompting China's top internet security chief to say he has plenty of evidence indicating that China has been the victim of extensive US hacking.
Guests:
Jeff Carr, CEO of Taia Global, a boutique security firm specializing in the protection of critical data at risk for espionage or theft
David Damato, Director of Mandiant, a cyber-security firm that protect data from targeted cyber attacks
New book asks 'What do women want?'
When it comes to sex, society teaches us that men and women are just different. Men are driven by lust, while women crave emotional connections. Plain and simple. But in “What Do Women Want: Adventures in the Science of Female Desire,” Daniel Bergner re-examines those societal assumptions about female sexuality.
Through years of research including interviews with sexologists, sex therapists and even orgasmic researchers, Bergner found that what society says about women’s desires may be very different from reality. While we tend to believe women are more drawn to monogamy, Bergner says women may be just as promiscuous as men innately, perhaps even more so.
So while there have been movies, songs and books devoted to answering the question, Bergner’s book may serve as a breakthrough in figuring out what it is that women really want.
Guest:
Daniel Bergner, author of “What Do Women Want: Adventures in the Science of Female Desire”
WHAT DO WOMEN WANT by Daniel Bergner