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Author: Mandy Nagy

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Mandy Nagy

Mandy Nagy (aka "Liberty Chick") was an investigative writer and researcher. She primarily covered the institutional left, protest movements, hacking and cybercrime, and technology. After suffering a serious stroke in September 2014, Mandy no longer was able to work at Legal Insurrection, but she's always on our minds and in our hearts. For more information, see here.

Posted by Mandy Nagy on October 26, 2013 5 Comments
#StopWatchingUs, the Rally Against Mass Surveillance, kicked off Saturday morning in Washington DC and continues into the afternoon.  It's been an interesting mix of demographics, with people there from both left and right.  The StopWatching.us coalition includes an equally (and oddly) diverse collection of organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union, FreePress, FreedomWorks, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Young Americans for Liberty, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and CAIR, among others. Some of the speeches have been well-grounded and interesting, others amusing and light-hearted, and there have been some with a bit more fiery rhetoric, many with mostly left-leaning viewpoints. You can watch the ongoing rally below, as well as view a collection of various photos, tweets and the hashtag feed.  [rally over, live feed removed] obamacam nsa-protest-banner

Posted by Mandy Nagy on October 25, 2013 6 Comments
The Polk County Sheriff's Office on Friday released private Facebook chats of two middle school girls, aged 12 and 14, who were recently charged with aggravated stalking in connection with the bullying case of Rebecca Sedwick. Sedwick, 12, who was allegedly bullied by the two for months, took her own life in September. video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player The Facebook chats reveal the reactions of the two girls after learning about Sedwick's death.  In one chat with an unidentified friend, the 14 year old defendant says, "it was best for everyone that she went to hell , no one [will] ever know the truth."
14 year old defendant: Cant believe Rebecca is dead , I thought they wouldn't find the body Friend: What r u talking about u thought they never find the body? Ik she died but what u mean by that Defendant: They found her body , I thought they weren't they "think" its sewcide hope it stays that way. Friend: Y u talking like that? What's wrong with u Defendant: No reason it was best for everyone that she went to hell , no one with ever know the truth
In a separate chat with the 12 year old defendant, the 14 year old initially seemed remorseful. (Excerpt)

Posted by Mandy Nagy on October 25, 2013 22 Comments
A few more updates today on the ongoing healthcare.gov website issues and what's apparently being done to address them. The most important of those being that the administration says the site will be in proper working order in a month, and that QSSI - which has been one of the contractors on the current website project - will serve as a general contractor in overseeing this cleanup phase. From USA Today:
The troubled HealthCare.gov website will be running properly by late November, said Jeffrey Zients, President Obama's appointee to fix the problems that have plagued the site since its Oct. 1 opening. "By the end of November, HealthCare.gov will work smoothly for the vast majority of users," Zients said Friday. "The HealthCare.gov site is fixable. It will take a lot of work, and there are a lot of problems that need to be addressed." Zients, former acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, was called in Monday to help with the site until it is fixed. He helped with other website glitches during Obama's first term. QSSI, a division of UnitedHealth Group, will serve as a general contractor to oversee the effort, he said. Their existing contract for the site has been renegotiated.
Philip Klein over at Washington Examiner was on a conference call this afternoon with Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and Jeff Zients, and offers a few additional pieces of information. (This is only an excerpt of several he mentions):

Posted by Mandy Nagy on October 24, 2013 19 Comments
(Photo: The Guardian) The US has begun the awkward process of notifying intelligence services in some countries that documents obtained by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden contained information about their cooperation with the US. From the Washington Post:
U.S. officials are alerting some foreign intelligence services that documents detailing their secret cooperation with the United States have been obtained by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, according to government officials. Snowden, U.S. officials said, took tens of thousands of documents containing sensitive material about collection programs against adversaries such as Iran, Russia and China, operations that in some cases involve countries not publicly allied with the United States. The process of informing officials in capital after capital about the risk of disclosure they face has been painful and delicate. In some cases, one part of the cooperating government may know about the collaboration while others — such as the foreign ministry — may not, the officials said. The documents, if disclosed, could compromise operations, officials said.
The duty of informing these other intelligence services, according to the Post, has fallen to the the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. This news comes as the administration is on the defensive about allegations that the NSA monitored the cell phone of German chancellor Angela Merkel.  President Obama spoke with Merkel on Wednesday, where he "assured the chancellor that the United States is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of the chancellor," according to Politico.

Posted by Mandy Nagy on October 23, 2013 11 Comments
The House GOP Conference issued the following statement today (received via email) regarding a conversation between a potential customer and an online chat customer service representative for Healthcare.gov:
Earlier today, the House Republican Conference released a video highlighting actual excerpts from an online chat between a potential customer and a customer service representative for Healthcare.gov.  The individual who experienced the chat session was Adrian Smith, 34, of New Jersey.  Smith released the following statement to confirm his story with Healthcare.gov: “Thank you for your inquiry about my experience on October 11, 2013 using the healthcare.gov support chat.  I can confirm that the excerpts used in the YouTube video and the full transcript posted at www.gop.gov/yourstory is authentic and exactly as I experienced on October 11. I am a resident of New Jersey and work for a higher education institution. I am not employed by the Republican Party. “After a recent job transition, my family needed to make an informed decision about healthcare options for the approaching year. After repeated registration problems, I was able to create a healthcare.gov account on October 11 and began the tedious process of entering specific personal information about our family. Each page resulted in a long wait before being able to proceed. At some point in the process it appeared that our family information became corrupted and I was unable to proceed with the family profile.

Posted by Mandy Nagy on October 23, 2013 40 Comments
In a Facebook posting over the weekend, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois alleged that a top House Republican leader told President Obama, "I cannot even stand to look at you," during a negotiation meeting over the government shutdown, according to a report last night in The Hill.  The claim drew sharp denials from Republican leadership and the White House.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said in a Facebook post that the alleged confrontation happened during a meeting between Republicans and the president. "Many Republicans searching for something to say in defense of the disastrous shutdown strategy will say President Obama just doesn't try hard enough to communicate with Republicans," Durbin said. "But in a 'negotiation' meeting with the president, one GOP House Leader told the president: 'I cannot even stand to look at you.'" "What are the chances of an honest conversation with someone who has just said something so disrespectful?" the Illinois Democrat added. An aide to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he had "no idea what [Durbin's] talking about."
Durbin did not name the individual to whom he referred in his Facebook post and offered no further specifics as to when the alleged exchange supposedly took place. Boehner’s spokesman Michael Steel denied the claim, saying, “The speaker certainly didn’t say that, and does not recall anyone else doing so,” according to National Review’s The Corner.  A spokesman for Eric Cantor also said the House Majority Leader does not remember anyone saying that. In today’s press briefing, White House press secretary Jay Carney flat out denied the exchange occurred, saying “it did not happen.” https://twitter.com/samsteinhp/status/393078474791206912

Posted by Mandy Nagy on October 23, 2013 9 Comments
It turns out the disappearance in recent days of a noted snarky national security tweeter was no Halloween prank after all.  The anonymous personality known to Twitter as @natsecwonk has not only been outed, but is out of a job. From Politico:
A senior National Security Council staffer who was a key member of the White House team negotiating on Iran’s nuclear weapons program told POLITICO he deeply regrets tweeting hundreds of anti-administration messages under the pseudonym @natsecwonk. Jofi Joseph, 40, was fired from his job on the NSC nuclear non-proliferation team a week ago after a months-long probe into a barrage of tweets that included caustic criticisms of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and top NSC officials, especially Ben Rhodes – whom he accused of dodging questions about Benghazi. “It has been a privilege to serve in this Administration and I deeply regret violating the trust and confidence placed in me,” Joseph told POLITICO in an email. “What started out as an intended parody account of DC culture developed over time into a series of inappropriate and mean-spirited comments.  I bear complete responsibility for this affair and I sincerely apologize to everyone I insulted.”
Joseph's @natsecwonk bio was an apt description, "Unapologetically says what everyone else only thinks. A keen observer of the foreign policy and national security scene. I'm abrasive and bring the snark." The Daily Beast, which first broke the story, collected many of the account’s tweets before it was shut down, and offered this sampling in its post:

Posted by Mandy Nagy on October 22, 2013 25 Comments
The fallout of the launch of the Obamacare website continues, and as the administration spins and deflects questions, media outlets are digging deeper for answers that are sure to bring new concerns to light.  And that's aside from all the other general concerns about the impact of the law itself. The Washington Post came out with a report yesterday that contained a few key pieces of information that reaffirms what many have already suspected.
Days before the launch of President Obama’s online health ­insurance marketplace, government officials and contractors tested a key part of the Web site to see whether it could handle tens of thousands of consumers at the same time. It crashed after a simulation in which just a few hundred people tried to log on simultaneously. Despite the failed test, federal health officials plowed ahead. When the Web site went live Oct. 1, it locked up shortly after midnight as about 2,000 users attempted to complete the first step, according to two people familiar with the project.
Later in the report, it indicates that "U.S. Chief Technology Officer Todd Park has said that the government expected HealthCare.gov to draw 50,000 to 60,000 simultaneous users but that the site was overwhelmed by up to five times as many users in the first week."  CGI, which worked on the shopping and enrollment applications, reportedly built it to accommodate 60,000 concurrent users, according to the Post.

Posted by Mandy Nagy on October 20, 2013 1 Comment

Several websites with the Qatar (.qa) domain extension have been restored to normal after being disrupted by the Syrian Electronic Army this weekend. The hackers targeted the Qatar Domains Registry and altered DNS records for several high profile domains, according to Softpedia, then defacing pages...

Posted by Mandy Nagy on October 20, 2013 29 Comments

A town council in England has taken down promotional circus posters after a complaint from one woman - in a town of 28,000 - who happens to have a fear of clowns, according to the Daily Mail. A council has removed posters advertising a circus following...

Posted by Mandy Nagy on October 19, 2013 3 Comments

The mayor of a small town in central Pennsylvania who is running unopposed for a second term is now telling voters not to vote for him. After missing the deadline to remove his name from the ballot, Mayor Bob Wiser decided that he wants to call...

Posted by Mandy Nagy on October 19, 2013 14 Comments

Tech blog Ars Technica asks Are partisan news sources polarizing Americans? as it takes a look at the book "Changing Channels or Changing Minds: Partisan News in an Age of Choice ."  The book focuses on, among other things, whether or not partisan news programs...

Posted by Mandy Nagy on October 18, 2013 17 Comments

The mother of a 14 year old girl charged with stalking in connection to the bullying case of Rebecca Sedwick, who later committed suicide, was arrested Friday on unrelated charges of child abuse and child neglect. From WTSP-10News: The mother of one of the girls facing charges...

Posted by Mandy Nagy on October 18, 2013 27 Comments

The House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on October 24th to address the issues surrounding the health care law’s rollout.  The committee sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius asking that she appear before the committee to respond...

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