Dashboard TODAY, we are excited to announce the launch of Google Dashboard. Have you ever wondered what data is stored with your Google Account? The Google Dashboard offers a simple view into the data associated with your account – easily and concisely in one location. Over the past 11 years, Google has focused on building innovative products for our users. Today, with hundreds of millions of people using those products around the world, we are very aware of the trust that you have placed in us, and our responsibility to protect your privacy and data. In the past, we've taken numerous steps in this area, investing in educating our users with our Privacy Center, making it easier to move data in and out of Google with our Data Liberation Front, and allowing you to control the ads you see with interest-based advertising. Transparency, choice and control have become a key part of Google's philosophy, and today, we're happy to announce that we're doing even more. In an effort to provide you with greater transparency and control over their own data, we've built the Google Dashboard. Designed to be simple and useful, the Dashboard summarizes data for each product that you use (when signed in to your account) and provides you direct links to control your personal settings. – googleblog.blogspot.com New religion? A British man sued his employers for religious discrimination, claiming he was dismissed because of his environmental views. A British court has ruled that his suit has standing, allowing his environmental beliefs to be defined as a religion for the purposes of enforcing the nation's anti-discrimination laws. Apparently the court felt that Mr. Nichson's views had more to do with blind faith than science or reason. All chuckling aside, this ruling has some serious implications: “The ruling could open the door for employees to sue their companies for failing to account for their green lifestyles, such as providing recycling facilities or offering low-carbon travel.” Got that? If your company's cars aren't hybrids, if you don't have solar panels on your company's roof, you could be sued for discrimination. Unbelievable. – sayanythingblog.com Five dead Five dead is the biggest single loss of British life in one incident in Afghanistan since 2006 when 14 died in the Nimrod aircraft crash. And it comes at a time when British public opinion is increasingly sceptical of the war. But the way in which it happened is even more damaging. The five British men and three Afghans were shot dead by an Afghan policeman. The Afghan National Police (ANP), together with the Afghan National Army (ANA), are the exit strategy. The way out. The people NATO hand security over to. The last thing NATO strategy needs at this delicate moment of reassessment is a broad wave of distrust sweeping NATO troops towards their Afghan counterparts. – blogs.channel4.com Maher Arar IN 2002, Maher Arar was detained without charge by the INS and denied the right to counsel. Even though he was a Canadian citizen, the US government – based on Canadian intelligence – deported him to Syria to be tortured for information. For 10 months, Arar was thrown in a three-foot by six-foot “grave” and was brutally beaten with shredded electrical cables. His beatings were so severe that he became suicidal, claiming that death would be better than what he was made to endure. Arar noted that the Syrian interrogators asked the exact same questions that were asked by American interrogators, which led him to believe that this was a case of torture by proxy. After 374 days of repeated beatings, Arar was released without charge, and he was finally reunited with his family in Canada. The Syrian government declared that they could find no terrorist links, and Imad Moustapha, a Syrian official, stated: “We tried to find anything. We couldn't.” Arar sued the Canadian and American governments, demanding a formal apology for violating his constitutional rights. The Canadian government established the Commission of Inquiry to investigate the issue. After more than two years of investigation, the Commission of Inquiry ruled in Arar's favor, concluding that he had absolutely no terrorist links.
