Google's Native Client reaches ARM-based Chromebooks

Google has finished a version of its Native Client programming technology that extends beyond mainstream x86 PC processors into the world of ARM chips.

Native Client, or NaCl for short, is designed to let programmers easily adapt the C or C++ software they've written for native software so that it can run as a part of Web apps, too. It's designed for high performance, but it's also got security mechanisms built in to counter the risks of running malicious code directly on the processor. The first version of NaCl, though, only worked on personal computers using Intel or AMD's x86 chips.

Google's David Sehr announced NaCl for ARM today with version 25 of its NaCl software developer kit, which programmers use to build NaCl programs.

The technology is designed so that programmers can bring their existing code to the Web -- for example, game designers who have written a physics engine in C++. But NaCl has been at odds with the Web philosophy in one important way, namely, that NaCl software doesn't simply run on any device with a browser.

Extending to ARM is thus an important for NaCl, because ARM chips power almost every smartphone out there. But this version of NaCl doesn't do that -- it only works on the new ARM-based Samsung Chromebooks.

To reach mobile phones, Google is banking on a revamp called Portable Native Client, or PNaCl. It adopts a low-level translation technology called LLVM that adapts native code to a variety of processors.

"With Portable Native Client, we'll be able to support not just today's architectures, but also those of tomorrow - and developers won't have to recompile their app," Sehr said in the blog post.

With PNaCl, programmers will be able to produce a single package (with the .pexe extension rather than NaCl's .nexe extension) that will run on all supported devices. With today's approach, programmers must produce separate .nexe files for ARM and for x86.

Another major challenge for Native Client is attracting support. It's built into Chrome, but no other major browser maker supports it, and Mozilla is downright frosty about NaCl.

So far you can only get NaCl software through Google's Chrome Web Store. That's also a big departure from the ordinary Web, where you simply point a browser at a Web page to fetch the necessary HTML, CSS, and JavaScript software.

That'll change with PNaCl, too, Google said. The Chrome Web Store is required today to ensure software is compatible with different chip architectures, Google said in a statement. PNaCl sheds this chip-architecture constraint.

Read More..

The Promise and Perils of Mining Asteroids

Encouraged by new space technologies, a growing fleet of commercial rockets and the vast potential to generate riches, a group of entrepreneurs announced Tuesday that they planned to mine the thousands of near-Earth asteroids in the coming decades.

The new company, Deep Space Industries (DSI), is not the first in the field, nor is it the most well-financed. But with their ambition to become the first asteroid prospectors, and ultimately miners and manufacturers, they are aggressively going after what Mark Sonter, a member of DSI's board of directors, called "the main resource opportunity of the 21st century." (Related: "Asteroid Hunter to Be First Private Deep-Space Mission?")

Prospecting using miniaturized "cubesat" probes the size of a laptop will begin by 2015, company executives announced. They plan to return collections of asteroid samples to Earth not long after.

"Using low cost technologies, and combining the legacy of [the United States'] space program with the innovation of today's young high tech geniuses, we will do things that would have been impossible just a few years ago," said Rick Tumlinson, company chairman and a longtime visionary and organizer in the world of commercial space [not sure what commercial space means].

"We sit in a sea of resources so infinite they're impossible to describe," Tumlinson said.

Added Value

There are some 9,000 asteroids described as "near-Earth," and they contain several classes of resources that entrepreneurs are now eyeing as economically valuable.

Elements such as gold and platinum can be found on some asteroids. But water, silicon, nickel, and iron are the elements expected to become central to a space "economy" should it ever develop.

Water can be "mined" for its hydrogen (a fuel) and oxygen (needed for humans in space), while silicon can be used for solar power systems, and the ubiquitous nickel and iron for potential space manufacturing. (See an interactive on asteroid mining.)

Sonter, an Australian mining consultant and asteroid specialist, said that 700 to 800 near-Earth asteroids are easier to reach and land on than the moon.

DSI's prospecting spacecraft will be called "FireFlies," a reference to the popular science fiction television series of the same name. The FireFlies will hitchhike on rockets carrying up communication satellites or scientific instruments, but they will be designed so that they also have their own propulsion systems. The larger mining spacecraft to follow have been named "DragonFlies."

Efficiencies

It all sounds like science fiction, but CEO David Gump said that the technology is evolving so quickly that a space economy can soon become a reality. Providing resources from beyond Earth to power spacecraft and keep space travelers alive is the logical way to go.

That's because the most expensive and resource-intensive aspect of space travel is pushing through the Earth's atmosphere. Some 90 percent of the weight lifted by a rocket sending a capsule to Mars is fuel. Speaking during a press conference at the Santa Monica Museum of Flying in California, Gump said that Mars exploration would be much cheaper, and more efficient, if some of the fuel could be picked up en route. (Related: "7 Ways You Could Blast Off by 2023.")

Although there is little competition in the asteroid mining field so far, DSI has some large hurdles ahead of it. The first company to announce plans for asteroid mining was Planetary Resources, Inc. in spring 2012—the group is backed by big-name investors such as Google's Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, filmmaker James Cameron, and early Google investor Ram Shriram. DSI is still looking for funding.

Owning Asteroids

While these potential space entrepreneurs are confident they can physically lay claim to resources beyond Earth, there remain untested legal issues.

The United Nations Space Treaty of 1967 expressly forbids ownership of other celestial bodies by governments on Earth. But American administrations have long argued that the same is not true of private companies and potential mining rights.

While an American court has ruled that an individual cannot own an asteroid—as in the case of Gregory Nemitz, who laid claim to 433 Eros as a NASA spacecraft was approaching it in 2001—the question of extraction rights has not been tested.

Moon rocks brought back to Earth during the Apollo program are considered to belong to the United States, and the Russian space agency has sold some moon samples it has returned to Earth-sales seen by some as setting a precedent.

Despite the potential for future legal issues, DSI's Gump said his group recently met with top NASA officials to discuss issues regarding technology and capital, and came away optimistic. "There's a great hunger for the idea of getting space missions done with smaller, cheaper 'cubesat' technology and for increased private sector involvement."

Everyone involved acknowledged the vast challenges and risks ahead, but they see an equally vast potential—both financial and societal.

"Over the decades, we believe these efforts will help expand the civilization of Earth into the cosmos, and change what it means to be a citizen of this planet," Tumlinson said.

Read More..

Al Qaeda Commander Killed for the 3rd Time

The second in command of al Qaeda's Yemen affiliate was reportedly killed in an airstrike in Yemen in December, according to a news report by Arabic television network Al Arabiya, the third time the former Guantanamo detainee has been reported dead since 2010.

According to the report, Said al-Shihri died last month after sustaining severe injuries from a joint U.S.-Yemeni airstrike that targeted a convoy in which he was riding. The al Arabiya account, based on information from "family sources," said that the airstrike left al-Shihri in a coma. He allegedly died soon after and was buried in Yemen.

On Tuesday afternoon, hours after the initial report, a Yemeni government official denied having any information regarding the death of al-Shihri, according to Arabic news site al-Bawaba.

No photos of a body have yet surfaced and no mention of his death has appeared on jihadi forums.
This is the third time al-Shihri, the second in command of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), has been reported killed since 2009. In 2010, the Yemeni government claimed it had captured him. In September 2012, Yemeni news sites reported he was killed in an American drone strike.

PHOTOS: Terrorists Who Came Back from the Grave

READ: Gitmo Detainee turned terror commander killed: Reports

Al-Shihri, a "veteran jihadist," traveled to Afghanistan shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks to fight coalition troops, only to be captured weeks later, according to West Point's Combating Terrorism Center. He was sent to the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he stayed for six years before being released to Saudi Arabia. There, he entered a so-called "jihadi rehab" program that attempted to turn terrorists into art students by getting them to get "negative energy out on paper," as the program's director told ABC News in 2009.

READ: Trading Bombs for Crayons: Terrorists Get 'Art Therapy'

But just months after he supposedly entered the fingerpainting camp, al-Shihri reappeared in Yemen where he was suspected to have been behind a deadly bombing at the U.S. embassy there.

At the time, critics of the "jihadi rehab" program used al-Shihri as evidence that extremists would just go through the motions in order to be freed.

Click Here for the Blotter Homepage.

Read More..

Could botox change your life for the better?

Michael Bond, consultant

(Image: Thierry Du Bois/Reporters/Eyevine)

In The Face of Emotion, Eric Finzi explores how one of the world's most popular cosmetic procedures could alleviate depression

THE idea that emotions and feelings are triggered by changes in the body, rather than the other way round, seems counter-intuitive. Yet this idea has been entertained by psychologists for more than a century. In 1890, the father of them all, William James, wrote: "Common-sense says, we lose our fortune, are sorry and weep; we meet a bear, are frightened and run; we are insulted by a rival, are angry and strike... The more rational statement is that we feel sorry because we cry, angry because we strike, afraid because we tremble."

Recent research has put flesh on the bones of these musings. Neurobiologists such as Antonio Damasio of the University of Southern California have demonstrated that emotions begin with actions - rapidly increased heart rate, for example - and end with the perception of those actions - the sensation of fear or anger. Damasio calls this the "body loop": the brain learns of the body's response to change via chemical and electric signals conveyed by the bloodstream and nervous system. Thus feeling follows behaviour; the mind follows the body.

In The Face of Emotion, Eric Finzi explores how this plays out in facial expressions. There is no doubt these are integral to the way we embody and experience emotions: simply forcing your face into a smile or frown will induce feelings of happiness or sadness. Finzi, an American dermatological surgeon, is a fundamentalist in the church of embodied emotion. He believes facial expressions are "the power behind the throne", the principal driver of our moods and feelings.

More than that, he thinks he can change people's feeling of mental well-being by manipulating what they can do with their face. And for some years he has been doing just that by injecting botox into the corrugator, or "frowning", muscle of depressed patients to prevent it from contracting. This, he reasons, interrupts the feedback loop to the brain that causes their negative outlook and thus improves their mood.

It sounds incredible. Finzi seems to be saying that people with depression can cure themselves just by looking happier, or by repressing their ability to look sad. Yet he describes some striking success stories. One person who had had severe depression for 13 years felt so much better after botox that he decided not to take his Prozac. Another who had tried therapy and various antidepressants with no effect reported a "dramatic improvement" after Finzi's work. Finzi mentions several clinical trials, such as one last year in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, that confirm his findings.

Is this a solution to depression or is it merely cosmetic? Time and more research will tell. Finzi does acknowledge the treatment is no cure, and that the injections need repeating every few months to maintain the effect. He says his patients do not feel better simply because they look better - not all of them had pronounced frown lines before treatment (a contracting corrugator does not always leave wrinkles). Yet given the effect of social interaction on mood, it is possible that some of the improvement is due to those around the treated person reacting more positively to a brighter countenance.

This is one of several questions that Finzi fails to address. He has a knack of glossing over or not recognising potential downsides. What are the effects of not being able to express sadness or anger? How might it affect the way we relate to others, beyond boosting our ability to bluff in poker? Some studies, not mentioned in the book, suggest that because botox impairs people's capacity to mimic facial expressions, it can make them seem less trustworthy or likeable. None of this gets much of a look-in. It all sounds a bit too good to be true.

Yet The Face of Emotion is well worth reading. The scientific debate about the regulation of the emotions is as lively as ever, and this is a provocative and insightful contribution. Some of the outcomes Finzi reports look remarkable, even if the mechanism is unclear. As one satisfied patient testifies after receiving botox to reduce his anger, "I don't really understand how this is working, but my wife says keep it up."

Book information:
The Face of Emotion: How botox affects our mood and relationships by Eric Finzi
Palgrave Macmillan
£16.99/$27

Follow @CultureLabNS on Twitter

Like us on Facebook

Read More..

Gold 90.5FM to hold first-ever Viennese Ball in Singapore

SINGAPORE: MediaCorp radio station Gold 90.5FM will bring a slice of Vienna to Singapore, when it holds The Gold Ball, the first-ever large-scale Viennese Ball in Singapore on Saturday, at the Shangri-La hotel.

"We have always wanted to do a white-tie event to cater to the well-heeled listeners.

"To give listeners a chance to experience the grandeur of an authentic Viennese Ball, complete with elegant dancing, good food and good music," said MediaCorp's Assistant Vice President Radio / Youth Engagement (Radio) Steven Choo of The Gold Ball.

Supported by the Austrian Embassy, the event will feature live music by the Schoebrunn Palace Orchestra, which will be flown in from Vienna especially for the event.

An Austrian dance master will also be brought in to help guide the guests, while an Austrian chef will be on hand to give guests a taste of exquisite Viennese cuisine.

Radio deejays Joe Augustin, Vernetta Lopez, Denise Tan and Maggie Lim are expected to grace the ball, which will run from 6.30pm to midnight.

Tickets are available at the MediaCorp Entertains website.

-CNA/ha

Read More..

North Korea lets foreigners bring in cell phones

North Korea's army.

(Credit:
CBS/Randy Schmidt)

North Korea is easing some of strict cell phone rules -- now, visitors can bring their own mobile devices into the country, according to the Associated Press.

While this may seem like a minor move on the part of the North Korean government, it is actually a big step for one of the most closed-off countries in the world. Despite the ease in regulations, foreigners are still not allowed to talk to any locals via mobile device.

For years North Korea's authorities made visitors leave their cell phones at the border or airport when arriving to the country, according to the Associated Press. Now, the new rules allow foreigners to bring their own WCDMA-compatible phones or rent a mobile and buy a local SIM card at the airport. These SIM cards allow calls to Japan and the U.S., but not South Korea.

This change in the rules may have been brought on by Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt's recent trip to the country in his push to get North Korea's government to give its citizens more Internet access. On his visit, Schmidt elected to leave his phone in China and rent a local handset.

"We left our phones and laptops behind in China, since we were warned they'd be confiscated in NK, and probably infected with lord knows what malware," Schmidt's daughter, who accompanied her father to North Korea, wrote in a blog post yesterday.

North Korea is known for restricting its citizens' access to cell phones. In 2008, the government banned the use of cell phones to prevent its residents from sharing news about a worsening food crisis. And in December 2010, after the death of president Kim Jong-il, all cell phone use was prohibited during a 100-day mourning period. Those people caught using a mobile device were considered war criminals and "punished accordingly."

The ongoing bans on cell phones seems to stem from the government's desire to keep a tight reign on information flow in and out of the country. According to the Associated Press, more than 1 million North Koreans now have cell phones and that number is growing. However, 1 million people is still less than 5 percent of the country's total population.

Read More..

Attack at Algeria Gas Plant Heralds New Risks for Energy Development

The siege by Islamic militants at a remote Sahara desert natural gas plant in Algeria this week signaled heightened dangers in the region for international oil companies, at a time when they have been expanding operations in Africa as one of the world's last energy frontiers. (See related story: "Pictures: Four New Offshore Drilling Frontiers.")

As BP, Norway's Statoil, Italy's Eni, and other companies evacuated personnel from Algeria, it was not immediately clear how widely the peril would spread in the wake of the hostage-taking at the sprawling In Amenas gas complex near the Libyan border.

Map by National Geographic

Algeria, the fourth-largest crude oil producer on the continent and a major exporter of natural gas and refined fuels, may not have been viewed as the most hospitable climate for foreign energy companies, but that was due to unfavorable financial terms, bureaucracy, and corruption. The energy facilities themselves appeared to be safe, with multiple layers of security provided both by the companies and by government forces, several experts said. (See related photos: "Oil States: Are They Stable? Why It Matters.")

"It is particularly striking not only because it hasn't happened before, but because it happened in Algeria, one of the stronger states in the region," says Hanan Amin-Salem, a senior manager at the industry consulting firm PFC Energy, who specializes in country risk. She noted that in the long civil war that gripped the country throughout the 1990s, there had never been an attack on Algeria's energy complex. But now, hazard has spread from weak surrounding states, as the assault on In Amenas was carried out in an apparent retaliation for a move by French forces against the Islamists who had taken over Timbuktu and other towns in neighboring Mali. (See related story: "Timbuktu Falls.")

"What you're really seeing is an intensification of the fundamental problem of weak states, and empowerment of heavily armed groups that are really well motivated and want to pursue a set of aims," said Amin-Salem. In PFC Energy's view, she says, risk has increased in Mauritania, Chad, and Niger—indeed, throughout Sahel, the belt that bisects North Africa, separating the Sahara in the north from the tropical forests further south.

On Thursday, the London-based corporate consulting firm Exclusive Analysis, which was recently acquired by the global consultancy IHS, sent an alert to clients warning that oil and gas facilities near the Libyan and Mauritanian borders and in Mauritania's Hodh Ech Chargui province were at "high risk" of attack by jihadis.

"A Hot Place to Drill"

The attack at In Amenas comes at a time of unprecedented growth for the oil industry in Africa. (See related gallery: "Pictures: The Year's Most Overlooked Energy Stories.") Forecasters expect that oil output throughout Africa will double by 2025, says Amy Myers Jaffe, executive director of the energy and sustainability program at the University of California, Davis, who has counted 20 rounds of bidding for new exploration at sites in Africa's six largest oil-producing states.

Oil and natural gas are a large part of the Algerian economy, accounting for 60 percent of government budget revenues, more than a third of GDP and more than 97 percent of its export earnings. But the nation's resources are seen as largely undeveloped, and Algeria has tried to attract new investment. Over the past year, the government has sought to reform the law to boost foreign companies' interests in their investments, although those efforts have foundered.

Technology has been one of the factors driving the opening up of Africa to deeper energy exploration. Offshore and deepwater drilling success in the Gulf of Mexico and Brazil led to prospecting now under way offshore in Ghana, Mozambique, and elsewhere. (See related story: "New Oil—And a Huge Challenge—for Ghana.") Jaffe says the Houston-based company Anadarko Petroleum has sought to transfer its success in "subsalt seismic" exploration technology, surveying reserves hidden beneath the hard salt layer at the bottom of the sea, to the equally challenging seismic exploration beneath the sands of the Sahara in Algeria, where it now has three oil and gas operations.

Africa also is seen as one of the few remaining oil-rich regions of the world where foreign oil companies can obtain production-sharing agreements with governments, contracts that allow them a share of the revenue from the barrels they produce, instead of more limited service contracts for work performed.

"You now have the technology to tap the resources more effectively, and the fiscal terms are going to be more attractive than elsewhere—you put these things together and it's been a hot place to drill," says Jaffe, who doesn't see the energy industry's interest in Africa waning, despite the increased terrorism risk. "What I think will happen in some of these countries is that the companies are going to reveal new securities systems and procedures they have to keep workers safe," she says. "I don't think they will abandon these countries."

This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge.

Read More..

Inauguration: 7.5 Things You Should Have Seen

A presidential inauguration is a big, long event that lasts all day and into the night–and who has time to really watch it? People have jobs, ones that don’t let you off for a federal holiday.

Everyone (or, at least, some) will be talking about it, which means potential embarrassment for anyone who doesn’t know what happened. Thankfully, ABC employs  news professionals stationed in Washington, D.C., to pay attention to these kinds of things and boil off some of the less noteworthy or interesting stuff, presenting you with short videos of everything that really mattered. Or at least the things a lot of people were talking about.

A full day of paying attention to President Obama’s second Inauguration leads one of those professionals to offer these 7 1/2 things:

1. Beyonce Sang the National Anthem

Boy, howdy! Did she ever? Beyonce has essentially become the Obama’s go-to female performer: She recorded a music video for Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” initiative in 2011, and she performed at the president’s last inauguration in 2009. Her velvety, soulful “Star Spangled Banner” is getting good reviews.

2. Kelly Clarkson Also Sang

Kelly Clarkson is not as “in” with the First Couple as Beyonce seems to be, but they let her sing “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” and she did a pretty good job with it. This was kind of weird, though, because at one point she said she loved Ron Paul, although she later said she would vote for Obama.

3.  Obama Talked About Gay Rights

This may not seem shocking since more than half the country, including President Obama, supports gay marriage. But the president made a point of mentioning gay rights during his speech, equating the struggles of the LGBT community with those of  past civil rights movements, and in doing so made history.

He name-checked Stonewall, the New York City bar that was raided by police in 1969 sparking riots to protest the anti-gay crackdown. And he actually used the word “gay”: “Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law – for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well,” Obama said in his address.

Plenty of inaugural addresses have been chock full of rhetoric about freedom and equality, but in the last four years, the political culture surrounding gay rights has changed significantly, as more states legalized same-sex marriage and as broad swaths of the country got more comfortable with homosexuality in general. Obama’s “evolution” on gay marriage, and now his inaugural address, have helped signify that change.

4. Joe Biden Made Jokes and Shook Hands With People

Could we expect anything less?

Here’s how the Vice President toasting Sen. Chuck Schumer instead of President Obama at the big luncheon:  ”I raise my glass to a man who never, never, never operates out of fear, only operates out of confidence, and a guy–I’m toasting you, Chuck.” Watch it:

And here he is, scurrying around and jovially shaking hands with people along the parade route:

5. Richard Blanco Read a Poem That Was Sort of Whitman-esque, But Not Entirely

Cuban-born Richard Blanco became America’s first openly gay, Latino Inauguration poet. He read a nine-stanza poem entitled “One Today,” which set a kind of unifying American tableau scene.

6. Obama and Michelle Walked Around Outside The Limo

President Obama walked part of the parade route, from the Capitol to the White House, with Michelle. They waved to people. It is not entirely abnormal for a president to do this at an inaugural parade. But they walked quite a ways.

7. John Boehner: ‘Godspeed’

The speaker of the House presented American flags to Obama and Biden, telling them: “To you gentlemen, I say congratulations and Godspeed.”

7 1/2. Sasha and Malia Were There. 

Obama’s daughters, Sasha and Malia, were there. They didn’t really do much, but they did wear coats of different shades of purple that got a lot of  attention on Twitter.

Reports of the daughters looking at smartphones and applying lip gloss highlighted their day. As did this .gif of Sasha yawning.

Read More..

Let's be clear on health risks from radiation

Gerry Thomas, contributor

(Image: Hamilton/REA)

Should Californians have had iodine after Fukushima? In Radiation Robert Peter Gale and Eric Lax clear up the confusion over radiation and health

CIGARETTE smokers have three times the amount of polonium-210 in their blood as non-smokers. Some medical uses of radiation expose us to a higher dose in one go than smokers get in a year, yet many are happy to accept these radiation risks.

Compare this with the global alarm following the Fukushima disaster in 2011. As Robert Peter Gale and Eric Lax tell us in Radiation, Californians reacted to the news by buying iodine tablets, which in the circumstances were "as useful as Californians buying raincoats to protect them from rain falling in Barcelona".

Humans are ill-equipped to deal with uncertainty, and we know too much about the uncertainties around data on health risks from radiation. Gale is a doctor specialising in treating patients exposed to high doses of radiation, and Lax is a scientific writer. Touring through various scenarios, from nuclear accidents to irradiated food, they show how our inability to put risk into context can have serious consequences.

They start with an account of an incident in Goiania, Brazil. In 1987, radiotherapy equipment was stolen and the thieves, tempted by the alluring blue glow inside, dismantled it carelessly. Because they didn't know how to handle and contain radiation many people were exposed to variable doses of caesium-137, some with fatal consequences.

Mishandling is not the only danger that flows from a dearth of proper knowledge about radiation. Confusion over the risks to health, both on the part of the public and politicians, can lead to societal stress and stagnation in energy policy.

The book navigates this troublesome territory without bias. The authors summarise health risks associated with various non-nuclear options, suggesting that energy policy should take into account all the possible health risks of a given strategy. Surprisingly, one conclusion is that the fly ash from coal power stations actually generates more radiation than is emitted by a nuclear power plant.

Gale and Lax aim to fill in the gaps in public understanding of all things nuclear, and they are adept at doing so. Throughout the book they present a host of interesting facts and figures in humorous and accessible prose, and their explanation of the biological effect of internal radiation is excellent.

These days we can measure radiation incredibly accurately, but are not good at putting health risks from radiation into perspective with all of the other risks that threaten our health. This book does a good job at explaining radiation and what it does, both good and bad. Radiation is integral to our planet and its use will shape our future here. In Radiation, Gale and Lax help us understand how and why.

Gerry Thomas is a molecular pathologist at Imperial College London

Book information:
Radiation: What it is, what you need to know by Robert Peter Gale and Eric Lax
Knopf
$26.95

Follow @CultureLabNS on Twitter

Like us on Facebook

Read More..

Sundance film denounces money flood in US politics

PARK CITY, USA: The US Supreme Court's 2010 decision to remove limits on political campaign financing dealt a heavy blow to American democracy, a documentary screened at the Sundance Film Festival claims.

"Citizen Koch" was brought to Sundance, which runs in the Utah mountain resort until January 27, by filmmakers Tia Lessin and Carl Deal.

Their new work is rooted in a highly controversial Supreme Court ruling that allowed large companies to set up political action committees (PACs) and provide unlimited campaign financing.

Dubbed "Super PACs," these committees cannot be formally linked to a candidate, but in effect support political campaigns through television ads.

One such committee, Americans for Prosperity, was founded and funded by two Koch brothers, owners of the conglomerate Koch Industries.

With their Super PAC, the two billionaires support Tea Party candidates, the ultra-conservative fringe of the Republican Party.

"There's been money in American elections for a very long time and certainly not only in the electoral system, but in the legislative level, the lobbying, for public policy," Lessin told AFP.

"But this is sort of a tsunami of money that we've never seen before. That's a real danger for democracy."

Lessin and Deal won the 2008 Sundance Grand Prix for "Trouble the Water," a documentary vividly describing the ravages of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

"Citizen Koch" details the process that led to the creation of Super PACs, including the alleged conflict of interest surrounding two Supreme Court justices involved in the case.

The film also looks at the court ruling's direct application on the ground, particularly in the state of Wisconsin, where Republican Governor Scott Walker in 2011 faced a popular revolt after he decided to renegotiate collective bargaining agreements and limit the power of labor unions.

His opponents succeeded in calling a new gubernatorial election for June 2012, but Walker won this, with massive support from a Super PAC set up by the Koch brothers.

The group poured tens of millions of dollars into the campaign, but the Super PAC was not required to disclose the names of donors or how much they contributed.

"A lot of this happens in secret, behind closed doors," Deal said.

"Nobody knows how much money really pours into these elections."

The film follows three Republican voters -- a prison guard, a librarian and a nurse -- who were disgusted by the politics of Governor Walker and decided to vote Democrat because they did not like the Tea Party.

"It's not about Republicans versus Democrats," Lessin said. "It's about the voices of the one percent and the wealthiest among us versus the voices of working people, and whose voices gets heard."

For the filmmakers, this power of corporations and lobbying groups deprives Americans of candidates who do not have the financial muscle to enter the game.

But the system also puts political parties in the service of private interests.

According to Lessin, after again losing to Democrat Barack Obama, the Republican Party might think of changing course.

"They may think that they need to get elected, to be more focused on the middle class," she said.

"But who's funding them?"

- AFP/ha

Read More..