title: PRISM

text: The slide presentation stated that much of the world's electronic communications pass through the U.S., because electronic communications data tend to follow the least expensive route rather than the most physically direct route, and the bulk of the world's internet infrastructure is based in the United States. The presentation noted that these facts provide United States intelligence analysts with opportunities for intercepting the communications of foreign targets as their electronic data pass into or through the United States.


title: PRISM

text: Snowden's subsequent disclosures included statements that government agencies such as the United Kingdom's GCHQ also undertook mass interception and tracking of internet and communications data described by Germany as "nightmarish" if true allegations that the NSA engaged in "dangerous" and "criminal" activity by "hacking" civilian infrastructure networks in other countries such as "universities, hospitals, and private businesses", and alleged that compliance offered only very limited restrictive effect on mass data collection practices (including of Americans) since restrictions "are policy-based, not technically based, and can change at any time", adding that "Additionally, audits are cursory, incomplete, and easily fooled by fake justifications", with numerous self-granted exceptions, and that NSA policies encourage staff to assume the benefit of the doubt in cases of uncertainty.


title: PRISM

text: Below are a number of slides released by Edward Snowden showing the operation and processes behind the PRISM program. The "FAA" referred to is Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act ("FAA"), and not the Federal Aviation Administration, which is more widely known by the same FAA initialism.


title: PRISM

text: The French newspaper "Le Monde" disclosed new PRISM slides (see pages 4, 7 and 8) coming from the "PRISM/US-984XN Overview" presentation on October 21, 2013. The British newspaper "The Guardian" disclosed new PRISM slides (see pages 3 and 6) in November 2013 which on the one hand compares PRISM with the Upstream program, and on the other hand deals with collaboration between the NSA's Threat Operations Center and the FBI.


title: PRISM

text: PRISM is a program from the Special Source Operations (SSO) division of the NSA, which in the tradition of NSA's intelligence alliances, cooperates with as many as 100 trusted U.S. companies since the 1970s. A prior program, the Terrorist Surveillance Program, was implemented in the wake of the September 11 attacks under the George W. Bush Administration but was widely criticized and challenged as illegal, because it did not include warrants obtained from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. PRISM was authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.


title: PRISM

text: PRISM was enabled under President Bush by the Protect America Act of 2007 and by the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which immunizes private companies from legal action when they cooperate with U.S. government agencies in intelligence collection. In 2012 the act was renewed by Congress under President Obama for an additional five years, through December 2017. According to "The Register", the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 "specifically authorizes intelligence agencies to monitor the phone, email, and other communications of U.S. citizens for up to a week without obtaining a warrant" when one of the parties is outside the U.S.


title: PRISM

text: The most detailed description of the PRISM program can be found in a report about NSA's collection efforts under Section 702 FAA, that was released by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) on July 2, 2014.


title: PRISM

text: According to this report, PRISM is only used to collect internet communications, not telephone conversations. These internet communications are not collected in bulk, but in a targeted way: only communications that are to or from specific selectors, like e-mail addresses, can be gathered. Under PRISM, there's no collection based upon keywords or names.


title: PRISM

text: The actual collection process is done by the Data Intercept Technology Unit (DITU) of the FBI, which on behalf of the NSA sends the selectors to the U.S. internet service providers, which were previously served with a Section 702 Directive. Under this directive, the provider is legally obliged to hand over (to DITU) all communications to or from the selectors provided by the government. DITU then sends these communications to NSA, where they are stored in various databases, depending on their type.


title: PRISM

text: Data, both content and metadata, that already have been collected under the PRISM program, may be searched for both US and non-US person identifiers. These kinds of queries became known as "back-door searches" and are conducted by NSA, FBI and CIA. Each of these agencies has slightly different protocols and safeguards to protect searches with a US person identifier.


title: PRISM

text: Internal NSA presentation slides included in the various media disclosures show that the NSA could unilaterally access data and perform "extensive, in-depth surveillance on live communications and stored information" with examples including email, video and voice chat, videos, photos, voice-over-IP chats (such as Skype), file transfers, and social networking details. Snowden summarized that "in general, the reality is this: if an NSA, FBI, CIA, DIA, etc. analyst has access to query raw SIGINT [signals intelligence] databases, they can enter and get results for anything they want."


title: PRISM

text: According to "The Washington Post", the intelligence analysts search PRISM data using terms intended to identify suspicious communications of targets whom the analysts suspect with at least 51 percent confidence to not be U.S. citizens, but in the process, communication data of some U.S. citizens are also collected unintentionally. Training materials for analysts tell them that while they should periodically report such accidental collection of non-foreign U.S. data, "it's nothing to worry about."


title: PRISM

text: According to "The Guardian", NSA had access to chats and emails on Hotmail.com and Skype because Microsoft had "developed a surveillance capability to deal" with the interception of chats, and "for Prism collection against Microsoft email services will be unaffected because Prism collects this data prior to encryption."


title: PRISM

text: Also according to The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald even low-level NSA analysts are allowed to search and listen to the communications of Americans and other people without court approval and supervision. Greenwald said low level Analysts can, via systems like PRISM, "listen to whatever emails they want, whatever telephone calls, browsing histories, Microsoft Word documents. And it's all done with no need to go to a court, with no need to even get supervisor approval on the part of the analyst."


title: PRISM

text: He added that the NSA databank, with its years of collected communications, allows analysts to search that database and listen "to the calls or read the emails of everything that the NSA has stored, or look at the browsing histories or Google search terms that you've entered, and it also alerts them to any further activity that people connected to that email address or that IP address do in the future." Greenwald was referring in the context of the foregoing quotes to the NSA program XKeyscore.


title: PRISM

text: Shortly after publication of the reports by "The Guardian" and "The Washington Post", the United States Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, on June 7, 2013, released a statement confirming that for nearly six years the government of the United States had been using large internet services companies such as Facebook to collect information on foreigners outside the United States as a defense against national security threats. The statement read in part, ""The Guardian" and "The Washington Post" articles refer to collection of communications pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. They contain numerous inaccuracies." He went on to say, "Section 702 is a provision of FISA that is designed to facilitate the acquisition of foreign intelligence information concerning non-U.S. persons located outside the United States. It cannot be used to intentionally target any U.S. citizen, any other U.S. person, or anyone located within the United States." Clapper concluded his statement by stating, "The unauthorized disclosure of information about this important and entirely legal program is reprehensible and risks important protections for the security of Americans." On March 12, 2013, Clapper had told the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that the NSA does "not wittingly" collect any type of data on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans. Clapper later admitted the statement he made on March 12, 2013, was a lie, or in his words "I responded in what I thought was the most truthful, or least untruthful manner by saying no."


title: PRISM

text: On June 7, 2013, U.S. President Barack Obama, referring to the PRISM program and the NSA's telephone calls logging program, said, "What you've got is two programs that were originally authorized by Congress, have been repeatedly authorized by Congress. Bipartisan majorities have approved them. Congress is continually briefed on how these are conducted. There are a whole range of safeguards involved. And federal judges are overseeing the entire program throughout." He also said, "You can't have 100 percent security and then also have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience. You know, we're going to have to make some choices as a society." In separate statements, senior Obama administration officials (not mentioned by name in source) said that Congress had been briefed 13 times on the programs since 2009.


title: PRISM

text: On June 8, 2013, Director of National Intelligence Clapper made an additional public statement about PRISM and released a fact sheet providing further information about the program, which he described as "an internal government computer system used to facilitate the government's statutorily authorized collection of foreign intelligence information from electronic communication service providers under court supervision, as authorized by Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) (50 U.S.C. § 1881a)." The fact sheet stated that "the surveillance activities published in "The Guardian" and the "Washington Post" are lawful and conducted under authorities widely known and discussed, and fully debated and authorized by Congress." The fact sheet also stated that "the United States Government does not unilaterally obtain information from the servers of U.S. electronic communication service providers. All such information is obtained with FISA Court approval and with the knowledge of the provider based upon a written directive from the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence." It said that the attorney general provides FISA Court rulings and semi-annual reports about PRISM activities to Congress, "provid[ing] an unprecedented degree of accountability and transparency." Democratic senators Udall and Wyden, who serve on the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, subsequently criticized the fact sheet as being inaccurate. NSA Director General Keith Alexander acknowledged the errors, stating that the fact sheet "could have more precisely described" the requirements governing the collection of e-mail and other internet content from US companies. The fact sheet was withdrawn from the NSA's website around June 26.


title: PRISM

text: In a closed-doors Senate hearing around June 11, FBI Director Robert Mueller said that Snowden's leaks had caused "significant harm to our nation and to our safety." In the same Senate hearing, NSA Director Alexander defended the program. Alexander's defense was immediately criticized by Senators Udall and Wyden, who said they saw no evidence that the NSA programs had produced "uniquely valuable intelligence." In a joint statement, they wrote, "Gen Alexander's testimony yesterday suggested that the NSA's bulk phone records collection program helped thwart 'dozens' of terrorist attacks, but all of the plots that he mentioned appear to have been identified using other collection methods."


title: PRISM

text: On June 18, NSA Director Alexander said in an open hearing before the House Intelligence Committee of Congress that communications surveillance had helped prevent more than 50 potential terrorist attacks worldwide (at least 10 of them involving terrorism suspects or targets in the United States) between 2001 and 2013, and that the PRISM web traffic surveillance program contributed in over 90 percent of those cases. According to court records, one example Alexander gave regarding a thwarted attack by al Qaeda on the New York Stock Exchange was not in fact foiled by surveillance. Several senators wrote Director of National Intelligence Clapper asking him to provide other examples.


title: PRISM

text: U.S. intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told various news outlets that by June 24 they were already seeing what they said was evidence that suspected terrorists had begun changing their communication practices in order to evade detection by the surveillance tools disclosed by Snowden.


title: PRISM

text: In contrast to their swift and forceful reactions the previous day to allegations that the government had been conducting surveillance of United States citizens' telephone records, Congressional leaders initially had little to say about the PRISM program the day after leaked information about the program was published. Several lawmakers declined to discuss PRISM, citing its top-secret classification, and others said that they had not been aware of the program. After statements had been released by the president and the Director of National Intelligence, some lawmakers began to comment:


title: PRISM

text: Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), member of Senate Intelligence Committee and past member of Homeland Security Committee


title: PRISM

text: Following these statements some lawmakers from both parties warned national security officials during a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee that they must change their use of sweeping National Security Agency surveillance programs or face losing the provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that have allowed for the agency's mass collection of telephone metadata. "Section 215 expires at the end of 2015, and unless you realize you've got a problem, that is not going to be renewed," Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., author of the USA Patriot Act, threatened during the hearing. "It's got to be changed, and you've got to change how you operate section 215. Otherwise, in two and a half years, you're not going to have it anymore."


title: PRISM

text: Leaks of classified documents pointed to the role of a special court in enabling the government's secret surveillance programs, but members of the court maintained they were not collaborating with the executive branch. "The New York Times", however, reported in July 2013 that in "more than a dozen classified rulings, the nation's surveillance court has created a secret body of law giving the National Security Agency the power to amass vast collections of data on Americans while pursuing not only terrorism suspects, but also people possibly involved in nuclear proliferation, espionage and cyberattacks." After Members of the U.S. Congress pressed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to release declassified versions of its secret ruling, the court dismissed those requests arguing that the decisions can't be declassified because they contain classified information. Reggie Walton, the current FISA presiding judge, said in a statement: "The perception that the court is a rubber stamp is absolutely false. There is a rigorous review process of applications submitted by the executive branch, spearheaded initially by five judicial branch lawyers who are national security experts, and then by the judges, to ensure that the court's authorizations comport with what the applicable statutes authorize." The accusation of being a "rubber stamp" was further rejected by Walton who wrote in a letter to Senator Patrick J. Leahy: "The annual statistics provided to Congress by the Attorney General ...—frequently cited to in press reports as a suggestion that the Court's approval rate of application is over 99%—reflect only the number of "final" applications submitted to and acted on by the Court. These statistics do not reflect the fact that many applications are altered to prior or final submission or even withheld from final submission entirely, often after an indication that a judge would not approve them."


title: PRISM

text: The U.S. military has acknowledged blocking access to parts of "The Guardian" website for thousands of defense personnel across the country, and blocking the entire "Guardian" website for personnel stationed throughout Afghanistan, the Middle East, and South Asia. A spokesman said the military was filtering out reports and content relating to government surveillance programs to preserve "network hygiene" and prevent any classified material from appearing on unclassified parts of its computer systems. Access to "the Washington Post", which also published information on classified NSA surveillance programs disclosed by Edward Snowden, had not been blocked at the time the blocking of access to "The Guardian" was reported.


title: PRISM

text: The former head of the Austrian Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counterterrorism, Gert-René Polli, stated he knew the PRISM program under a different name and stated that surveillance activities had occurred in Austria as well. Polli had publicly stated in 2009 that he had received requests from US intelligence agencies to do things that would be in violation of Austrian law, which Polli refused to allow.


title: PRISM

text: The Australian government has said it will investigate the impact of the PRISM program and the use of the Pine Gap surveillance facility on the privacy of Australian citizens. Australia's former foreign minister Bob Carr said that Australians should not be concerned about PRISM but that cybersecurity is high on the government's list of concerns. The Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop stated that the acts of Edward Snowden were treachery and offered a staunch defence of her nation's intelligence co-operation with the United States.


title: PRISM

text: Brazil's president at the time, Dilma Rousseff, responded to Snowden's reports that the NSA spied on her phone calls and emails by cancelling a planned October 2013 state visit to the United States, demanding an official apology, which by October 20, 2013, hadn't come. Also, Rousseff classified the spying as unacceptable between more harsh words in a speech before the UN General Assembly on September 24, 2013. As a result, Boeing lost out on a US$4.5 billion contract for fighter jets to Sweden's Saab Group.


title: PRISM

text: Canada's national cryptologic agency, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE), said that commenting on PRISM "would undermine CSE's ability to carry out its mandate." Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart lamented Canada's standards when it comes to protecting personal online privacy stating "We have fallen too far behind" in her report. "While other nations' data protection authorities have the legal power to make binding orders, levy hefty fines and take meaningful action in the event of serious data breaches, we are restricted to a 'soft' approach: persuasion, encouragement and, at the most, the potential to publish the names of transgressors in the public interest." And, "when push comes to shove," Stoddart wrote, "short of a costly and time-consuming court battle, we have no power to enforce our recommendations."


title: PRISM

text: On 20 October 2013 a committee at the European Parliament backed a measure that, if it is enacted, would require American companies to seek clearance from European officials before complying with United States warrants seeking private data. The legislation has been under consideration for two years. The vote is part of efforts in Europe to shield citizens from online surveillance in the wake of revelations about a far-reaching spying program by the U.S. National Security Agency. Germany and France have also had ongoing mutual talks about how they can keep European email traffic from going across American servers.


title: PRISM

text: On October 21, 2013, the French Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius, summoned the U.S. Ambassador, Charles Rivkin, to the Quai d'Orsay in Paris to protest large-scale spying on French citizens by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). Paris prosecutors had opened preliminary inquiries into the NSA program in July, but Fabius said, "... obviously we need to go further" and "we must quickly assure that these practices aren't repeated."


title: PRISM

text: Germany did not receive any raw PRISM data, according to a Reuters report. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that "the internet is new to all of us" to explain the nature of the program; Matthew Schofield of McClatchy Washington Bureau said, "She was roundly mocked for that statement." Gert-René Polli, a former Austrian counter-terrorism official, said in 2013 that it is "absurd and unnatural" for the German authorities to pretend not to have known anything. The German Army was using PRISM to support its operations in Afghanistan as early as 2011.


title: PRISM

text: In October 2013, it was reported that the NSA monitored Merkel's cell phone. The United States denied the report, but following the allegations, Merkel called President Obama and told him that spying on friends was "never acceptable, no matter in what situation."


title: PRISM

text: Israeli newspaper "Calcalist" discussed the "Business Insider" article about the possible involvement of technologies from two secretive Israeli companies in the PRISM program—Verint Systems and Narus.


title: PRISM

text: After finding out about the PRISM program, the Mexican Government has started constructing its own spying program to spy on its own citizens. According to Jenaro Villamil, a writer from "Proceso", CISEN, Mexico's intelligence agency has started to work with IBM and Hewlett Packard to develop its own data gathering software. "Facebook, Twitter, Emails and other social network sites are going to be priority."


title: PRISM

text: In New Zealand, University of Otago information science Associate Professor Hank Wolfe said that "under what was unofficially known as the Five Eyes Alliance, New Zealand and other governments, including the United States, Australia, Canada, and Britain, dealt with internal spying by saying they didn't do it. But they have all the partners doing it for them and then they share all the information."


title: PRISM

text: Edward Snowden, in a live streamed Google Hangout to Kim Dotcom and Julian Assange, alleged that he had received intelligence from New Zealand, and the NSA has listening posts in New Zealand.


title: PRISM

text: At a meeting of European Union leaders held the week of 21 October 2013, Mariano Rajoy, Spain's prime minister, said that "spying activities aren't proper among partner countries and allies". On 28 October 2013 the Spanish government summoned the American ambassador, James Costos, to address allegations that the U.S. had collected data on 60 million telephone calls in Spain. Separately, Íñigo Méndez de Vigo, a Spanish secretary of state, referred to the need to maintain "a necessary balance" between security and privacy concerns, but said that the recent allegations of spying, "if proven to be true, are improper and unacceptable between partners and friendly countries".


title: PRISM

text: In the United Kingdom, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), which also has its own surveillance program, Tempora, had access to the PRISM program on or before June 2010 and wrote 197 reports with it in 2012 alone. The Intelligence and Security Committee of the UK Parliament reviewed the reports GCHQ produced on the basis of intelligence sought from the US. They found in each case a warrant for interception was in place in accordance with the legal safeguards contained in UK law.


title: PRISM

text: In August 2013, "The Guardian" newspaper's offices were visited by technicians from GCHQ, who ordered and supervised the destruction of the hard drives containing information acquired from Snowden.


title: PRISM

text: The original "Washington Post" and "Guardian" articles reporting on PRISM noted that one of the leaked briefing documents said PRISM involves collection of data "directly from the servers" of several major internet services providers.


title: PRISM

text: Corporate executives of several companies identified in the leaked documents told "The Guardian" that they had no knowledge of the PRISM program in particular and also denied making information available to the government on the scale alleged by news reports. Statements of several of the companies named in the leaked documents were reported by TechCrunch and "The Washington Post" as follows:


title: PRISM

text: In response to the technology companies' confirmation of the NSA being able to directly access the companies' servers, "The New York Times" reported that sources had stated the NSA was gathering the surveillance data from the companies using other technical means in response to court orders for specific sets of data. "The Washington Post" suggested, "It is possible that the conflict between the PRISM slides and the company spokesmen is the result of imprecision on the part of the NSA author. In another classified report obtained by The Post, the arrangement is described as allowing 'collection managers [to send] content tasking instructions directly to equipment installed at company-controlled locations,' rather than directly to company servers." "[I]n context, 'direct' is more likely to mean that the NSA is receiving data sent to them deliberately by the tech companies, as opposed to intercepting communications as they're transmitted to some other destination.


title: PRISM

text: "If these companies received an order under the FISA amendments act, they are forbidden by law from disclosing having received the order and disclosing any information about the order at all," Mark Rumold, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told ABC News.


title: PRISM

text: On May 28, 2013, Google was ordered by United States District Court Judge Susan Illston to comply with a National Security Letter issued by the FBI to provide user data without a warrant. Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, in an interview with VentureBeat said, "I certainly appreciate that Google put out a transparency report, but it appears that the transparency didn't include this. I wouldn't be surprised if they were subject to a gag order."


title: PRISM

text: "The New York Times" reported on June 7, 2013, that "Twitter declined to make it easier for the government. But other companies were more compliant, according to people briefed on the negotiations." The other companies held discussions with national security personnel on how to make data available more efficiently and securely. In some cases, these companies made modifications to their systems in support of the intelligence collection effort. The dialogues have continued in recent months, as General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has met with executives including those at Facebook, Microsoft, Google and Intel. These details on the discussions provide insight into the disparity between initial descriptions of the government program including a training slide which states, "Collection directly from the servers" and the companies' denials.


title: PRISM

text: While providing data in response to a legitimate FISA request approved by the FISA Court is a legal requirement, modifying systems to make it easier for the government to collect the data is not. This is why Twitter could legally decline to provide an enhanced mechanism for data transmission. Other than Twitter, the companies were effectively asked to construct a locked mailbox and provide the key to the government, people briefed on the negotiations said. Facebook, for instance, built such a system for requesting and sharing the information. Google does not provide a lockbox system, but instead transmits required data by hand delivery or ssh.


title: PRISM

text: In response to the publicity surrounding media reports of data-sharing, several companies requested permission to reveal more public information about the nature and scope of information provided in response to National Security requests.


title: PRISM

text: On June 14, 2013, Facebook reported that the U.S. government had authorized the communication of "about these numbers in aggregate, and as a range." In a press release posted to its web site, the company reported, "For the six months ending December 31, 2012, the total number of user-data requests Facebook received from any and all government entities in the U.S. (including local, state, and federal, and including criminal and national security-related requests) – was between 9,000 and 10,000." The company further reported that the requests impacted "between 18,000 and 19,000" user accounts, a "tiny fraction of one percent" of more than 1.1 billion active user accounts.


title: PRISM

text: That same day, Microsoft reported that for the same period, it received "between 6,000 and 7,000 criminal and national security warrants, subpoenas and orders affecting between 31,000 and 32,000 consumer accounts from U.S. governmental entities (including local, state and federal)" which impacted "a tiny fraction of Microsoft's global customer base."


title: PRISM

text: Google issued a statement criticizing the requirement that data be reported in aggregated form, stating that lumping national security requests with criminal request data would be "a step backwards" from its previous, more detailed practices on its website's transparency report. The company said that it would continue to seek government permission to publish the number and extent of FISA requests.


title: PRISM

text: Cisco Systems saw a huge drop in export sales because of fears that the National Security Agency could be using backdoors in its products.


title: PRISM

text: On September 12, 2014, Yahoo! reported the U.S. Government threatened the imposition of $250,000 in fines per day if Yahoo didn't hand over user data as part of the NSA's PRISM program. It is not known if other companies were threatened or fined for not providing data in response to a legitimate FISA requests.


title: PRISM

text: "The New York Times" editorial board charged that the Obama administration "has now lost all credibility on this issue," and lamented that "for years, members of Congress ignored evidence that domestic intelligence-gathering had grown beyond their control, and, even now, few seem disturbed to learn that every detail about the public's calling and texting habits now reside in a N.S.A. database." It wrote with respect to the FISA-Court in context of PRISM that it is "a perversion of the American justice system" when "judicial secrecy is coupled with a one-sided presentation of the issues." According to the New York Times, "the result is a court whose reach is expanding far beyond its original mandate and without any substantive check."


title: PRISM

text: James Robertson, a former federal district judge based in Washington who served on the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court for three years between 2002 and 2005 and who ruled against the Bush administration in the landmark "Hamdan v. Rumsfeld" case, said FISA court is independent but flawed because only the government's side is represented effectively in its deliberations. "Anyone who has been a judge will tell you a judge needs to hear both sides of a case," said James Robertson. Without this judges do not benefit from adversarial debate. He suggested creating an advocate with security clearance who would argue against government filings. Robertson questioned whether the secret FISA court should provide overall legal approval for the surveillance programs, saying the court "has turned into something like an administrative agency." Under the changes brought by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 Amendments Act of 2008, which expanded the US government's authority by forcing the court to approve entire surveillance systems and not just surveillance warrants as it previously handled, "the court is now approving programmatic surveillance. I don't think that is a judicial function." Robertson also said he was "frankly stunned" by the New York Times report that FISA court rulings had created a new body of law broadening the ability of the NSA to use its surveillance programs to target not only terrorists but suspects in cases involving espionage, cyberattacks and weapons of mass destruction.


title: PRISM

text: Former CIA analyst Valerie Plame Wilson and former U.S. diplomat Joseph Wilson, writing in an op-ed article published in "The Guardian", said that "Prism and other NSA data-mining programs might indeed be very effective in hunting and capturing actual terrorists, but we don't have enough information as a society to make that decision."


title: PRISM

text: The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), an international non-profit digital-rights group based in the U.S., is hosting a tool, by which an American resident can write to their government representatives regarding their opposition to mass spying.


title: PRISM

text: The Obama administration's argument that NSA surveillance programs such as PRISM and Boundless Informant had been necessary to prevent acts of terrorism was challenged by several parties. Ed Pilkington and Nicholas Watt of "The Guardian" said of the case of Najibullah Zazi, who had planned to bomb the New York City Subway, that interviews with involved parties and U.S. and British court documents indicated that the investigation into the case had actually been initiated in response to "conventional" surveillance methods such as "old-fashioned tip-offs" of the British intelligence services, rather than to leads produced by NSA surveillance. Michael Daly of "The Daily Beast" stated that even though Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who conducted the Boston Marathon bombing with his brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, had visited the Al Qaeda-affiliated "Inspire" magazine website, and even though Russian intelligence officials had raised concerns with U.S. intelligence officials about Tamerlan Tsarnaev, PRISM did not prevent him from carrying out the Boston attacks. Daly observed that, "The problem is not just what the National Security Agency is gathering at the risk of our privacy but what it is apparently unable to monitor at the risk of our safety."


title: PRISM

text: Ron Paul, a former Republican member of Congress and prominent libertarian, thanked Snowden and Greenwald and denounced the mass surveillance as unhelpful and damaging, urging instead more transparency in U.S. government actions. He called Congress "derelict in giving that much power to the government," and said that had he been elected president, he would have ordered searches only when there was probable cause of a crime having been committed, which he said was not how the PRISM program was being operated.


title: PRISM

text: "New York Times" columnist Thomas L. Friedman defended limited government surveillance programs intended to protect the American people from terrorist acts:


title: PRISM

text: Yes, I worry about potential government abuse of privacy from a program designed to prevent another 9/11—abuse that, so far, does not appear to have happened. But I worry even more about another 9/11. ... If there were another 9/11, I fear that 99 percent of Americans would tell their members of Congress: "Do whatever you need to do to, privacy be damned, just make sure this does not happen again." "That" is what I fear most.


title: PRISM

text: That is why I'll reluctantly, very reluctantly, trade off the government using data mining to look for suspicious patterns in phone numbers called and e-mail addresses—and then have to go to a judge to get a warrant to actually look at the content under guidelines set by Congress—to prevent a day where, out of fear, we give government a license to look at anyone, any e-mail, any phone call, anywhere, anytime.


title: PRISM

text: Political commentator David Brooks similarly cautioned that government data surveillance programs are a necessary evil: "if you don't have mass data sweeps, well, then these agencies are going to want to go back to the old-fashioned eavesdropping, which is a lot more intrusive."


title: PRISM

text: Conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer worried less about the legality of PRISM and other NSA surveillance tools than about the potential for their abuse without more stringent oversight. "The problem here is not constitutionality. ... We need a toughening of both congressional oversight and judicial review, perhaps even some independent outside scrutiny. Plus periodic legislative revision—say, reauthorization every couple of years—in light of the efficacy of the safeguards and the nature of the external threat. The object is not to abolish these vital programs. It's to fix them."


title: PRISM

text: In a blog post, David Simon, the creator of "The Wire", compared the NSA's programs, including PRISM, to a 1980s effort by the City of Baltimore to add dialed number recorders to all pay phones to know which individuals were being called by the callers; the city believed that drug traffickers were using pay phones and pagers, and a municipal judge allowed the city to place the recorders. The placement of the dialers formed the basis of the show's first season. Simon argued that the media attention regarding the NSA programs is a "faux scandal." Simon had stated that many classes of people in American society had already faced constant government surveillance.


title: PRISM

text: Political activist, and frequent critic of U.S. government policies, Noam Chomsky argued, "Governments should not have this capacity. But governments will use whatever technology is available to them to combat their primary enemy – which is their own population."


title: PRISM

text: A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll conducted June 11 through 13 found that 66% of Americans generally supported the program. However, a Quinnipiac University poll conducted June 28 through July 8 found that 45% of registered voters think the surveillance programs have gone too far, with 40% saying they do not go far enough, compared to 25% saying they had gone too far and 63% saying not far enough in 2010. Other polls have shown similar shifts in public opinion as revelations about the programs were leaked.


title: PRISM

text: In terms of economic impact, a study released in August by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation found that the disclosure of PRISM could cost the U.S. economy between $21.5 and $35 billion in lost cloud computing business over three years.


title: PRISM

text: Sentiment around the world was that of general displeasure upon learning the extent of world communication data mining. Some national leaders spoke against the NSA and some spoke against their own national surveillance. One national minister had scathing comments on the National Security Agency's data-mining program, citing Benjamin Franklin: "The more a society monitors, controls, and observes its citizens, the less free it is." Some question if the costs of hunting terrorists now overshadows the loss of citizen privacy.


title: PRISM

text: Nick Xenophon, an Australian independent senator, asked Bob Carr, the Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs, if e-mail addresses of Australian parliamentarians were exempt from PRISM, Mainway, Marina, and/or Nucleon. After Carr replied that there was a legal framework to protect Australians but that the government would not comment on intelligence matters, Xenophon argued that this was not a specific answer to his question.


title: PRISM

text: Taliban spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid said, "We knew about their past efforts to trace our system. We have used our technical resources to foil their efforts and have been able to stop them from succeeding so far." However CNN has reported that terrorist groups have changed their "communications behaviors" in response to the leaks.


title: PRISM

text: In 2013 the Cloud Security Alliance surveyed cloud computing stakeholders about their reactions to the US PRISM spying scandal. About 10% of non-US residents indicated that they had cancelled a project with a US-based cloud computing provider, in the wake of PRISM; 56% said that they would be less likely to use a US-based cloud computing service. The Alliance predicted that US cloud computing providers might lose as much as €26 billion and 20% of its share of cloud services in foreign markets because of the PRISM spying scandal.


title: PRISM

text: Reactions of internet users in China were mixed between viewing a loss of freedom worldwide and seeing state surveillance coming out of secrecy. The story broke just before U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in California. When asked about NSA hacking China, the spokeswoman of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China said, "China strongly advocates cybersecurity." The party-owned newspaper "Liberation Daily" described this surveillance like "Nineteen Eighty-Four"-style. Hong Kong legislators Gary Fan and Claudia Mo wrote a letter to Obama stating, "the revelations of blanket surveillance of global communications by the world's leading democracy have damaged the image of the U.S. among freedom-loving peoples around the world." Ai Weiwei, a Chinese dissident, said, "Even though we know governments do all kinds of things I was shocked by the information about the US surveillance operation, Prism. To me, it's abusively using government powers to interfere in individuals' privacy. This is an important moment for international society to reconsider and protect individual rights."


title: PRISM

text: The German Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information, Peter Schaar, condemned the program as "monstrous." He further added that White House claims do "not reassure me at all" and that "given the large number of German users of Google, Facebook, Apple or Microsoft services, I expect the German government ... is committed to clarification and limitation of surveillance." Steffen Seibert, press secretary of the Chancellor's office, announced that Angela Merkel will put these issues on the agenda of the talks with Barack Obama during his pending visit in Berlin. Wolfgang Schmidt, a former lieutenant colonel with the Stasi, said that the Stasi would have seen such a program as a "dream come true" since the Stasi lacked the technology that made PRISM possible. Schmidt expressed opposition, saying, "It is the height of naivete to think that once collected this information won't be used. This is the nature of secret government organizations. The only way to protect the people's privacy is not to allow the government to collect their information in the first place." Many Germans organized protests, including one at Checkpoint Charlie, when Obama went to Berlin to speak. Matthew Schofield of the McClatchy Washington Bureau said, "Germans are dismayed at Obama's role in allowing the collection of so much information."


title: PRISM

text: The Italian president of the Guarantor for the protection of personal data, Antonello Soro, said that the surveillance dragnet "would not be legal in Italy" and would be "contrary to the principles of our legislation and would represent a very serious violation."


title: PRISM

text: CNIL (French data protection watchdog) ordered Google to change its privacy policies within three months or risk fines up to 150,000 euros. Spanish Agency of data protection (AEPD) planned to fine Google between 40,000 and 300,000 euros if it failed to clear stored data on the Spanish users.


title: PRISM

text: William Hague, the foreign secretary of the United Kingdom, dismissed accusations that British security agencies had been circumventing British law by using information gathered on British citizens by PRISM saying, "Any data obtained by us from the United States involving UK nationals is subject to proper UK statutory controls and safeguards." David Cameron said Britain's spy agencies that received data collected from PRISM acted within the law: "I'm satisfied that we have intelligence agencies that do a fantastically important job for this country to keep us safe, and they operate within the law." Malcolm Rifkind, the chairman of parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee, said that if the British intelligence agencies were seeking to know the content of emails about people living in the UK, then they actually have to get lawful authority. The UK's Information Commissioner's Office was more cautious, saying it would investigate PRISM alongside other European data agencies: "There are real issues about the extent to which U.S. law agencies can access personal data of UK and other European citizens. Aspects of U.S. law under which companies can be compelled to provide information to U.S. agencies potentially conflict with European data protection law, including the UK's own Data Protection Act. The ICO has raised this with its European counterparts, and the issue is being considered by the European Commission, who are in discussions with the U.S. Government."


title: PRISM

text: Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, accused western governments of practicing hypocrisy, as they conducted spying on the internet while they criticized other countries for spying on the internet. He stated that internet spying can make people feel reluctant to access intimate and private information that is important to them. In a statement given to Financial Times following the Snowden revelations, Berners-Lee stated "Unwarranted government surveillance is an intrusion on basic human rights that threatens the very foundations of a democratic society."


title: PRISM

text: Minister of External Affairs Salman Khurshid defended the PRISM program saying, "This is not scrutiny and access to actual messages. It is only computer analysis of patterns of calls and emails that are being sent. It is not actually snooping specifically on content of anybody's message or conversation. Some of the information they got out of their scrutiny, they were able to use it to prevent serious terrorist attacks in several countries." His comments contradicted his Foreign Ministry's characterization of violations of privacy as "unacceptable." When the then Minister of Communications and Information Technology Kapil Sibal was asked about Khurshid's comments, he refused to comment on them directly, but said, "We do not know the nature of data or information sought [as part of PRISM]. Even the external ministry does not have any idea." The media felt that Khurshid's defence of PRISM was because the India government was rolling out the Central Monitoring System (CMS), which is similar to the PRISM program.


title: PRISM

text: Khurshid's comments were criticized by the Indian media, as well as opposition party CPI(M) who stated, "The UPA government should have strongly protested against such surveillance and bugging. Instead, it is shocking that Khurshid has sought to justify it. This shameful remark has come at a time when even the close allies of the US like Germany and France have protested against the snooping on their countries."


title: PRISM

text: Rajya Sabha MP P. Rajeev told "The Times of India" that "The act of the USA is a clear violation of Vienna convention on diplomatic relations. But Khurshid is trying to justify it. And the speed of the government of India to reject the asylum application of Edward Snowden is shameful."


title: PRISM

text: On June 8, 2013, the Director of National Intelligence issued a fact sheet stating that PRISM "is not an undisclosed collection or data mining program," but rather "an internal government computer system" used to facilitate the collection of foreign intelligence information "under court supervision, as authorized by Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) (50 U.S.C. § 1881a)." Section 702 provides that "the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence may authorize jointly, for a period of up to 1 year from the effective date of the authorization, the targeting of persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States to acquire foreign intelligence information." In order to authorize the targeting, the attorney general and Director of National Intelligence need to obtain an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA Court) pursuant to Section 702 or certify that "intelligence important to the national security of the United States may be lost or not timely acquired and time does not permit the issuance of an order." When requesting an order, the attorney general and Director of National Intelligence must certify to the FISA Court that "a significant purpose of the acquisition is to obtain foreign intelligence information." They do not need to specify which facilities or property will be targeted.


title: PRISM

text: After receiving a FISA Court order or determining that there are emergency circumstances, the attorney general and Director of National Intelligence can direct an electronic communication service provider to give them access to information or facilities to carry out the targeting and keep the targeting secret. The provider then has the option to: (1) comply with the directive; (2) reject it; or (3) challenge it with the FISA Court. If the provider complies with the directive, it is released from liability to its users for providing the information and is reimbursed for the cost of providing it, while if the provider rejects the directive, the attorney general may request an order from the FISA Court to enforce it. A provider that fails to comply with the FISA Court's order can be punished with contempt of court.


title: PRISM

text: Finally, a provider can petition the FISA Court to reject the directive. In case the FISA Court denies the petition and orders the provider to comply with the directive, the provider risks contempt of court if it refuses to comply with the FISA Court's order. The provider can appeal the FISA Court's denial to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review and then appeal the Court of Review's decision to the Supreme Court by a writ of certiorari for review under seal.


title: PRISM

text: The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the FISA Courts had been put in place to oversee intelligence operations in the period after the death of J. Edgar Hoover. Beverly Gage of "Slate" said, "When they were created, these new mechanisms were supposed to stop the kinds of abuses that men like Hoover had engineered. Instead, it now looks as if they have come to function as rubber stamps for the expansive ambitions of the intelligence community. J. Edgar Hoover no longer rules Washington, but it turns out we didn't need him anyway."


title: PRISM

text: Laura Donohue, a law professor at the Georgetown University Law Center and its Center on National Security and the Law, has called PRISM and other NSA mass surveillance programs unconstitutional.


title: PRISM

text: Woodrow Hartzog, an affiliate at Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society commented that "[The ACLU will] likely have to demonstrate legitimate First Amendment harms (such as chilling effects) or Fourth Amendment harms (perhaps a violation of a reasonable expectation of privacy) ... Is it a harm to merely know with certainty that you are being monitored by the government? There's certainly an argument that it is. People under surveillance act differently, experience a loss of autonomy, are less likely to engage in self exploration and reflection, and are less willing to engage in core expressive political activities such as dissenting speech and government criticism. Such interests are what First and Fourth Amendment seek to protect."


title: PRISM

text: The FISA Amendments Act (FAA) Section 702 is referenced in PRISM documents detailing the electronic interception, capture and analysis of metadata. Many reports and letters of concern written by members of Congress suggest that this section of FAA in particular is legally and constitutionally problematic, such as by targeting U.S. persons, insofar as "Collections occur in U.S." as published documents indicate.


title: PRISM

text: The ACLU has asserted the following regarding the FAA: "Regardless of abuses, the problem with the FAA is more fundamental: the statute itself is unconstitutional."


title: PRISM

text: Senator Rand Paul is introducing new legislation called the Fourth Amendment Restoration Act of 2013 to stop the NSA or other agencies of the United States government from violating the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution using technology and big data information systems like PRISM and Boundless Informant.


title: PRISM

text: Besides the information collection program started in 2007, there are two other programs sharing the name PRISM:


title: PRISM

text: Parallel programs, known collectively as SIGADs gather data and metadata from other sources, each SIGAD has a set of defined sources, targets, types of data collected, legal authorities, and software associated with it. Some SIGADs have the same name as the umbrella under which they sit, BLARNEY's (the SIGAD) summary, set down in the slides alongside a cartoon insignia of a shamrock and a leprechaun hat, describes it as "an ongoing collection program that leverages IC [intelligence community] and commercial partnerships to gain access and exploit foreign intelligence obtained from global networks."


title: PRISM

text: Some SIGADs, like PRISM, collect data at the ISP level, but others take it from the top-level infrastructure. This type of collection is known as "upstream". Upstream collection includes programs known by the blanket terms BLARNEY, FAIRVIEW, OAKSTAR and STORMBREW, under each of these are individual SIGADs. Data that is integrated into a SIGAD can be gathered in other ways besides upstream, and from the service providers, for instance it can be collected from passive sensors around embassies, or even stolen from an individual computer network in a hacking attack.


title: PRISM

text: Not all SIGADs involve upstream collection, for instance, data could be taken directly from a service provider, either by agreement (as is the case with PRISM), by means of hacking, or other ways.


title: PRISM

text: According to "the Washington Post", the much less known MUSCULAR program, which directly taps the unencrypted data inside the Google and Yahoo private clouds, collects more than twice as many data points compared to PRISM. Because the Google and Yahoo clouds span the globe, and because the tap was done outside of the United States, unlike PRISM, the MUSCULAR program requires no (FISA or other type of) warrants.


title: Crysencio Summerville

text: Crysencio Jilbert Sylverio Cirro Summerville (born 30 October 2001) is a Dutch professional footballer who plays as a winger for side Leeds United. He has represented the Netherlands at youth international level. He is known by his team mates as 'Cree'.


title: Crysencio Summerville

text: Progressing through the Feyenoord academy, Summerville made his first senior starts on loan for FC Dordrecht and ADO Den Haag. After turning down an offer to extend his contract, he joined Leeds United.


title: Crysencio Summerville

text: Born in Rotterdam to Surinamese parents, Summerville played youth football at RVVV Noorderkwartier before joining the Feyenoord academy in 2008. In March 2018, he signed his first professional contract with Feyenoord; a contract lasting until the summer of 2021.


title: Crysencio Summerville

text: On 12 December 2018, he joined FC Dordrecht on loan until the end of the 2018–19 season. He made his Eerste Divisie debut for Dordrecht on 13 January 2019 in a game against Den Bosch, as a 70th-minute substitute for Oussama Zamouri. On 29 January 2019, he made his starting eleven debut for the club, scoring his first goal as a professional footballer in the sixth minute.


title: Crysencio Summerville

text: In August 2019, he joined fellow Eredivisie side ADO Den Haag on loan. He made his debut for the club on 31 August 2019 in a 1–0 win against VVV Venlo in a 1–0 victory. On 26 October 2019, he scored his first Eredivisie goal for ADO Den Haag on 26 October 2019 in a 2–0 win against Vitesse Arnhem, becoming the youngest goalscorer for the club in the Eredivisie. He impressed for the club during his spell, scoring two goals and gained three assists for the side.


title: Crysencio Summerville

text: He returned to Feyenoord at the end of his loan spell ahead of the 2020–21 Eredivisie season, with Voetbal International reporting on 17 August 2020 that Summerville had turned down a new extended contract offer at Feyenoord.


title: Crysencio Summerville

text: On 16 September 2020, Summerville joined Leeds United for an undisclosed fee, signing a three-year contract. He made his debut on 17 September 2021 against Newcastle United, in the Premier League, coming on for Raphinha in the 67th minute. On 23 October 2022, he scored his first Premier League goal in a 3–2 defeat against Fulham. On 29 October 2022, he scored the winning goal in the 89th minute in a 2–1 victory over Liverpool, making it his club's first win at Anfield since April 2001, simultaneously ending Liverpool's 29-game unbeaten streak at home in the Premier League. On 5 November 2022, he scored another late winning goal to give Leeds a come-from-behind 4–3 win at home against Bournemouth. His goal in Leeds’ 4–3 away loss at Spurs on 12 November brought Summerville's 2022-23 league tally to four goals in four games as the Premier League went on hiatus for the World Cup.


title: Crysencio Summerville

text: Born in the Netherlands, Summerville is of Surinamese descent. He won the 2018 UEFA European Under-17 Championship with the Netherlands national under-17 football team, scoring a goal in the group game against Germany and appearing as a substitute in the final against Italy.


title: 1992 NFL Draft

text: The 1992 NFL draft was the procedure by which National Football League teams selected amateur college football players. It is officially known as the NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting. The draft was held April 26–27, 1992, at the Marriott Marquis in New York City, New York. The league also held a supplemental draft after the regular draft and before the regular season.


title: 1992 NFL Draft

text: The 1992 draft was notable because for the first time since 1958 one team, the Indianapolis Colts, held the first two overall picks, selecting defensive end Steve Emtman and then linebacker Quentin Coryatt. Neither made a major impact in the league, and the 1992 draft in retrospect is considered one of the worst in league history. It is the only draft since 1984 to produce no Pro Football Hall of Famers. It was also the final NFL Draft featuring twelve rounds of selections; the league would reduce the rounds to eight the following season, and then seven the year after that, where it has remained since.


title: 1992 NFL Draft

text: To date, no member of the 1992 NFL draft has been inducted into the Professional Football Hall of Fame.


title: 1992 NFL Draft

text: In the explanations below, (D) denotes trades that took place during the 1992 Draft, while (PD) indicates trades completed pre-draft.


title: Codd-neck bottle

text: A Codd-neck bottle (more commonly known as a Codd bottle or a marble bottle) is a type of bottle used for carbonated drinks. It has a closing design based on a glass marble which is held against a rubber seal, which sits within a recess in the lip.


title: Codd-neck bottle

text: In 1872, soft-drink maker Hiram Codd of Camberwell, London, designed and patented a bottle designed specifically for carbonated drinks. The bottle was designed and manufactured with thick glass to withstand internal pressure, and a chamber to enclose a marble and a rubber washer in the neck. The bottles are filled upside down, and pressure of the gas in the bottle forced the marble against the washer, sealing in the carbonation. The bottle is pinched into a special shape to provide a chamber into which the marble is pushed to open the bottle. This prevents the marble from blocking the neck as the drink is poured. Some older examples had the bullet shape of soda bottles.


title: Codd-neck bottle

text: Soon after its introduction, the bottle became extremely popular with the soft-drink and brewing industries mainly in Europe, India and Australasia, though some alcohol drinkers disdained the use of the bottle. One etymology of the term "codswallop" originates from beer sold in Codd’s bottles, though this is generally dismissed as a folk etymology.


title: Codd-neck bottle

text: The bottles were regularly produced for many decades, but gradually declined in usage after the introduction of the steel crown cork bottlecap. Since children smashed the bottles to retrieve the marbles, vintage bottles are relatively scarce and have become collector items, particularly in the UK. A cobalt-coloured Codd bottle can fetch thousands of British pounds at auction. Bilas, a company in Portugal, created a soda named after the bottle design (Pirulito). However, the marble inside did not seal the liquid; instead it was a normal cap which could be removed without breaking the bottle.


title: Mind Game (film)

text: It is unusual among features other than anthology films in using a series of disparate visual styles to tell one continuous story. As Yuasa commented in a "Japan Times" interview, "Instead of telling it serious and straight, I went for a look that was a bit wild and patchy. I think that Japanese animation fans today don't necessarily demand something that's so polished. You can throw different styles at them and they can still usually enjoy it."


title: Mind Game (film)

text: The film received a cult audience and was well received, winning multiple awards worldwide, and has been praised by directors Satoshi Kon and Bill Plympton.


title: Mind Game (film)

text: Nishi is a 20-year-old loser with dreams of becoming a comic book artist. One late evening he runs into his childhood crush, Myon, on the subway. She tells Nishi she is due to marry. They go to her father's yakitori restaurant, and see Myon's father and her elder sister Yan (who runs the restaurant). Nishi also meets Myon's fiancée, Ryo. Two yakuza gangsters enter, Atsu and a senior yakuza whom Atsu calls Aniki (literally 'brother', a term used by Yakuza to refer to each other). They are looking for Myon's father who hid under the table when the gangsters walked in. Atsu is after him as he had seduced and stole Atsu's girlfriend.


title: Mind Game (film)

text: As Atsu threatens Myon with a gun, Ryo steps in and tries to punch Atsu, but instead gets knocked out. Atsu then prepares to rape Myon, who calls out Nishi's name. Atsu turns on Nishi, who is rolled in a ball, terrified, placing his pistol against Nishi's anus. Atsu fires when Nishi finally musters the courage to yell, "I will hurt you!", thus killing him instantly. The senior Yakuza, offended by Atsu's lack of control, shoots him dead.


title: Mind Game (film)

text: Meanwhile, Nishi is in some sort of limbo where he encounters a being whose physical image changes every fraction of a second, "Kami-sama" (God). "Kami-sama" directs Nishi to walk into a red portal where he will disappear, but at the last moment Nishi runs for the opposite blue portal in order to return to life. "Kami-sama" becomes impressed by Nishi's sheer will to live, and so lets him escape.


title: Mind Game (film)

text: Nishi returns to the moment just before Atsu pulled the trigger. This time, Nishi seizes Atsu's gun with his buttocks, and shoots him dead. He, Yan and Myon all pile into the yakuza's car, leaving the father and Ryo (still unconscious) behind. They speed off, followed by the massed yakuzas. The Yakuza boss calls Nishi using the yakuza's car phone and threatens to frame the three for armed robbery and murder. Then after further chase the boss has his men force the trio in to a dead end on a bridge. However, Nishi steers the car off the bridge and they are swallowed up by an enormous whale.


title: Mind Game (film)

text: Inside the whale, they meet an old man who was formerly yakuza and has been trapped in the whale for more than 30 years. He shows them to the elaborate suspended house he has constructed over the 'sea' inside the whale's belly. Nishi attempts to escape the whale but he fails and they resign themselves to life inside the whale. Yan practices dancing and art, Myon practices swimming (a dream she gave up when her breasts got bigger), Nishi practices writing and drawing humorous manga and he and Myon finally become sexually intimate.


title: Mind Game (film)

text: They attempt to leave the whale, again failing. The old man reveals that the water level inside the whale is rising, and he believes the whale is probably dying. They concoct a plan to make a motor boat using spare parts and fuel from the car they arrived in. On the day before the final match of the soccer World Cup, the whale returns to Osaka (their home town) and Yan, Nishi, and Myon, as well as the Old Man, manage to escape.


title: Mind Game (film)

text: As the four fly through the air, the film returns to its very first scene, with Myon running from the Yakuza, only this time she does not get her leg caught in the door of the train, and the Yakuza is left behind on the platform. This is followed by a lengthy montage, similar to that of the opening credits, showing the histories of the various characters. The movie ends ambiguously, with the phrase "This Story Has Never Ended" appearing before the credits roll.


title: Mind Game (film)

text: The film's music, produced by Shinichirō Watanabe, as well as the score by Seiichi Yamamoto includes an image song by Fayray and piano performed by Yōko Kanno.


title: Mind Game (film)

text: As of July 2011, the film's only home video release in a primarily English-speaking country is a region 4-locked, "PAL" DVD-Video released in Australia by Madman Entertainment in 2008, though the Japanese (region 2, "NTSC") DVDs have English subtitles for the feature itself. According to "Tekkonkinkreet" director Michael Arias, there was consideration for a release of the film on R1 DVD but it fell through. GKIDS announced that they licensed the film, which streamed on VRV Select on December 29, 2017 followed by a limited theatrical run in February 2018 and a home video release in spring 2018. On April Fool's Day in 2018, the movie aired on Adult Swim's Toonami block with Japanese audio and English subtitles.


title: Mind Game (film)

text: The film has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 12 reviews. The film's accolades include the Ōfuji Noburō Award at the 2005 Mainichi Film Awards and the Animation Division Grand Prize at the Japan Media Arts Festival in 2004, outranking nominee "Howl's Moving Castle". Outside Japan, the film had its international premiere at the New York Asian Film Festival in June 2005. It had possibly its biggest success at the Fantasia Festival in Canada in July 2005, wherein it beat many live-action films to win all three of the festival's own jury awards it qualified for: Best Film, Best Director (tying with Gen Sekiguchi for "Survive Style 5+") and Best Script. It also received an additional Special Award for "Visual Accomplishment", as well as placing first (Golden Prize) in the audience award for Best Animation Film and second (Silver Prize), behind "Survive Style 5+", for Most Groundbreaking Film.


title: Artem Vakhitov

text: Artem Olegovich Vakhitov (; born April 4, 1991) is a Russian Muay Thai kickboxer who competes in the cruiserweight and heavyweight divisions. Having begun practicing Muay Thai at eleven years old, Vakhitov first came to prominence due to a successful amateur career by winning three world championships as well as taking gold in 2013 at the World Combat Games and silver in 2010. He turned professional in 2009, and signed with Glory in 2013, where he would twice be crowned the Glory Light Heavyweight (-95 kg/209 lb) champion.


title: Artem Vakhitov

text: As of September 2022, he is ranked the #1 light-heavyweight and #5 pound-for-pound kickboxer in the world by Combat Press, as well as the #1 light-heavyweight and #3 pound-for-pound kickboxer by Beyond Kick.


title: Artem Vakhitov

text: Artem Vakhitov was born in Prokopyevsk on April 4, 1991, and began basic martial arts training under his father's tutelage at the age of five years before going on to study karate at the age of six, which he practiced for five years. He was forced to give up karate aged eleven when he and his family moved to another part of the city, but he soon found the Kuzbass Muay Thai gym where he is trained by Vitaly Miller and is a training partner of Artem Levin. Vakhitov holds the classification of Master of Sports in muay Thai, and is also a classically trained musician.


title: Artem Vakhitov

text: Vakhitov first came to prominence when he won the IFMA Russian Championships in 2008 aged seventeen. Following this, he would go on to win the Russian Championships four more times (2009, 2010, 2011 and 2013), the European Championships four times (2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012) and the World Championships three times (2010, 2011 and 2012).


title: Artem Vakhitov

text: He also won a silver medal in the -81 kg/178 lb division at the 2010 World Combat Games, held in Beijing, China between August 28 and September 4, 2010. After taking unanimous decision wins over Kim Olsen and Nurbolat Sengirov in the quarter-finals and semis, respectively, he then lost to Simon Marcus by split decision in the final.


title: Artem Vakhitov

text: Competing in the -91 kg/200 lb division at the 2013 World Combat Games in Saint Petersburg, Russia between October 18 and 26, 2013, Vakhitov outpointed Dzianis Hancharonak in the quarters, TKO'd Thomas Alizier and knocked out Emidio Barone with a knee in the final to take the gold medal.


title: Artem Vakhitov

text: In his first outing as a professional, Vakhitov competed in the "Souboj Titánů" tournament in Plzeň, Czech Republic on November 21, 2009, and made it to the final where he faced Jiri Zak. The bout was ruled a draw after the regulation three rounds and so it went to an extension round to decide the winner, after which Žák took the judges' decision.


title: Artem Vakhitov

text: The following year, he entered the Tatneft Cup 2010 at -80 kg/176 lb. After beating Saiseelek Nor-Seepun in the opening round on January 31, 2010, and Yordan Yankov in the quarter-finals on April 30, 2010, both by unanimous decision, Vakhitov then exited the competition when he was defeated by his longtime teammate Artem Levin in the semi-finals on July 29, 2010, retiring in his corner at the end of the third round. He then re-entered the tournament, however, when Levin was unable to fight Alexander Stetsurenko in the final due to injury and Vakhitov was selected as his replacement. In a close match on October 20, 2010, Vakhitov took Stetsurenko into an extension round before losing by UD.


title: Artem Vakhitov

text: Having signed with the short-lived Muaythai Premier League, Vakhitov made his promotional debut on September 2, 2011, at "Muaythai Premier League: Stars and Stripes" in Long Beach, California, United States where he rematched Simon Marcus. It was a closely contested affair but Marcus edged ahead by successfully scoring from the clinch with elbows and knees on various occasions to win a unanimous decision. He faced another familiar foe in his sophomore MPL appearance, taking on Jiri Zak at "Muaythai Premier League: Blood and Steel" in The Hague, Netherlands on November 6, 2011. He avenged his earlier loss to the Czech by winning via unanimous decision.


title: Artem Vakhitov

text: On December 2, 2011, Vakhitov won his first title as a professional, defeating Vando Cabral via TKO due to a cut caused by an elbow in round three at "Battle of Champions 6" in Moscow, Russia to become the WMC European Super Light Heavyweight (-82.55 kg/182 lb) Champion.


title: Artem Vakhitov

text: He was set to replace Artem Levin in a fight with Joe Schilling for the WBC Muaythai Interim World Light Heavyweight Championship at "Battle for the Belts" in Bangkok, Thailand on June 9, 2012. He withdrew from the bout, however, after conceding that he would be unable to meet the -79.3 kg/175 lb weight limit and his place was taken by Karapet Karapetyan.


title: Artem Vakhitov

text: Continuing to move up in weight, Vakhitov beat Alexander Oleynik on points in a -91 kg/200 lb bout at the "Alpha Cup" in Moscow on May 18, 2013. It was the third meeting between the pair, with Vakhitov defeating Oleynik twice previously in the amateur ranks.


title: Artem Vakhitov

text: Vakhitov signed with Glory shortly after, as a competitor in the kickboxing organization's -95 kg/209 lb light heavyweight division. He gave an impressive performance in his first fight under the Glory banner, scoring an early knockdown over Luis Tavares before finishing him with a liver shot just over a minute into the first round at "" in New York City, New York, US on June 22, 2013.


title: Artem Vakhitov

text: He defeated fellow amateur standout Nenad Pagonis by unanimous decision at "" in New York City on November 23, 2013.


title: Artem Vakhitov

text: Vakhitov defeated Igor Jurković via UD at "" in Broomfield, Colorado, US on May 3, 2014. He rematched Dzianis Hancharonak at "Monte Carlo Fighting Masters 2014" in Monte Carlo, Monaco on June 14, 2014, winning by unanimous decision and taking the vacant WMC World Heavyweight (-95.0 kg/209 lb) Championship.


title: Artem Vakhitov

text: He was expected to fight against Andrei Stoica at on April 3, 2014. The Romanian withdrew for undisclosed reasons, however, and was replaced by Saulo Cavalari. Vakhitov lost the fight by split decision.


title: Artem Vakhitov

text: Vakhitov returned at against Danyo Ilunga and won the fight by unanimous decision and won the opportunity to re-match Saulo Cavalari for the Glory Light Heavyweight championship.


title: Artem Vakhitov

text: Vakhitov successfully re-matched and defeated Saulo Cavalari by unanimous decision at and won the Glory Light Heavyweight championship.


title: Artem Vakhitov

text: It was announced that Vakhitov would fight light heavyweight title contender Zack Mwekassa at in France. Vakhitov successfully defended his championship and stopped Mwekassa by knocking him down three times; declaring Vakhitov the winner by TKO.


title: Artem Vakhitov

text: As his second title defense, Vakhitov was scheduled to rematch Saulo Cavalari at and dominated the fight, winning by TKO in the second round.


title: Artem Vakhitov

text: Vakhitov fought and successfully defended his Light Heavyweight championship against Brazilian contender, Ariel Machado at . Vakhitov knocked Machado down in the second round with a head kick, but after beating the 10 count, Vakhitov continued to beat Machado and won the fight by unanimous decision.


title: Artem Vakhitov

text: It was announced that Vakhitov would re-match former opponent Danyo Ilunga at Glory 56: Denver which will mark Vakhitov's fourth title fight in Glory. Vakhitov won the fight by unanimous decision. During the bout he injured his right hand, which kept him out of the ring for nearly a year.


title: Artem Vakhitov

text: He was scheduled to defend his title, for the fifth time, against Donegi Abena at Glory 66. He won the fight by split decision, although it was considered controversial by some fans. During the fight, Vakhitov once again injured his hand. As the repeated hand injuries kept him limited to just four appearances over the course of 29 months, he underwent surgery to repair the hand in July 2019. He is expected to defend against the interim Glory Light Heavyweight champion Alex Pereira, after he recovers from the surgery.


title: Artem Vakhitov

text: Vakhitov was scheduled to make his sixth title defense against the current GLORY Middleweight and interim Light Heavyweight champion Alex Pereira at . He lost the fight by split decision.


title: Artem Vakhitov

text: Due to the close nature of the match, Vakthitov called for a rematch. Glory granted his wish and scheduled the rematch with Pereira for on September 4, 2021. Vakhitov successfully regained the title with a majority decision victory.


title: Artem Vakhitov

text: Vakhitov was booked to make his first title defense against the #1 light heavyweight contender Luis Tavares at Glory 80 on March 19, 2022. Vakhitov was rescheduled to face Tarik Khbabez in a non-title bout at the same event, after Tavares refused to face him due to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Vakhitov withdrew from the bout on March 12.


title: Artem Vakhitov

text: Glory released Vakhitov from their roster on June 17, 2022, in protest of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.


title: Sammy Baugh

text: Samuel Adrian Baugh (March 17, 1914 – December 17, 2008) was an American professional football player and coach. During his college and professional careers, he most notably played quarterback, but also played as a safety and punter. He played college football for the Horned Frogs at Texas Christian University, where he was a twice All-American. He then played in the National Football League (NFL) for the Washington Redskins from 1937 to 1952. After his playing career, he served as a college coach for Hardin–Simmons University before coaching professionally for the New York Titans and the Houston Oilers.


title: Sammy Baugh

text: Baugh led the Washington Redskins to winning the NFL Championship in and and was named NFL Player of the Year by the Washington D.C. Touchdown Club in and for his play. In both of his Player of the Year seasons, he led the league in completions, attempts, completion percentage, and yards. In 1947, he also led the league in passing touchdowns, interception percentage and passer rating.


title: Sammy Baugh

text: Primarily known for his passing prowess, Baugh led the league in completion percentage a record eight times, passing yards four times, and three times in passer rating, among other statistics. However, he was also known for his versatility—having the ability to play at a high level as a punter as well as a defensive back. Throughout his career, he led the league in yards per punt five times, as well as yardage in , a year in which he also led the league in defensive interceptions, with 11. His yards per punt of 51.4 during the season still stands as an NFL record as of 2020.


title: Sammy Baugh

text: Baugh was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in the 17-member charter class of 1963, and was also selected to the NFL 75th Anniversary All-Time Team in 1994 and the NFL 100th Anniversary All-Time Team in 2019.


title: Sammy Baugh

text: Samuel Adrian Baugh was born on a farm near Temple, Texas, the second son of James, a worker on the Santa Fe Railroad, and Lucy Baugh. His parents later divorced and his mother raised the three children. When he was 16, the family then moved to Sweetwater, Texas, and he attended Sweetwater High School. As the quarterback of his high school football team (Sweetwater Mustangs), he would practice for hours throwing a football through a swinging automobile tire, often on the run. Baugh would practice punting more than throwing.


title: Sammy Baugh

text: Baugh, however, really wanted to become a professional baseball player and almost received a scholarship to play at Washington State University. About a month before he started at Washington State, however, Baugh hurt his knee while sliding into second base during a game, and the scholarship fell through.


title: Sammy Baugh

text: After coach Dutch Meyer told him he could play three sports (football, baseball, and basketball), Baugh attended Texas Christian University. While at Texas Christian, he threw 587 passes in his three varsity seasons for 39 touchdowns. Baugh was named an All-American in 1935 and 1936. He also led TCU to two bowl game wins, a 3–2 victory over LSU in the 1936 Sugar Bowl, and a 16–6 victory over Marquette in the first annual Cotton Bowl Classic in 1937 after which he was named MVP. He finished fourth in voting for the Heisman Trophy in 1936.


title: Sammy Baugh

text: In the spring of his senior year, Redskins owner George Preston Marshall offered Baugh $4,000 to play with the franchise. Originally unsure about playing professional football (coach Meyer offered him a job as the freshman coach and he still thought about playing professional baseball), he did not agree to the contract until after the College All-Star Game, where the team beat the Green Bay Packers 6–0.


title: Sammy Baugh

text: Baugh was also a baseball player at Texas Christian, where he played third base. It was during his time as a baseball player that he earned the nickname "Slingin' Sammy", which he got from a Texas sportswriter. After college, Sammy signed a contract with the St. Louis Cardinals and was sent to the minor leagues to play with the American Association Columbus Red Birds in Columbus, Ohio after being converted to shortstop. He was then sent to the International League's Rochester, New York Red Wings, St. Louis's other top farm club. While there he received little playing time behind starting shortstop Marty Marion and was unhappy with his prospects. He then turned to professional football.


title: Sammy Baugh

text: As expected, Baugh was drafted in the first round (sixth overall) of the 1937 NFL Draft by the Washington Redskins, the same year the team moved from Boston. He signed a one-year contract with the Redskins and received $8,000, making him the highest-paid player on the team.


title: Sammy Baugh

text: During his rookie season in 1937, Baugh played quarterback (although in Washington's formation he was officially lined up as a tailback or halfback until 1944), defensive back, and punter, set an NFL record for completions with 91 in 218 attempts and threw for a league-high 1,127 yards. He led the Redskins to the NFL Championship game against the Chicago Bears, where he finished 17 of 33 for 335 yards and his second-half touchdown passes of 55, 78 and 33 yards gave Washington a 28–21 victory. His 335 passing yards remained the most ever in a playoff game by any rookie quarterback in NFL history until Russell Wilson broke the record in 2012. The Redskins and Bears would meet three times in championship games between 1940 and 1943. In the 1940 Championship game, the Bears recorded the most one-sided victory in NFL history, beating Washington 73–0. After the game, Baugh was asked what would have happened if the Redskins' first drive had resulted in a touchdown. He shrugged and replied "What? The score would have been 73–7."


title: Sammy Baugh

text: Baugh's heyday would come during World War II. In 1942, Baugh and the Redskins won the East Conference with a 10–1 record. During the same season the Bears went 11–0 and outscored their opponents 376–84. In the 1942 Championship game, Baugh threw a touchdown pass and kept the Bears in their own territory with some strong punts, including an 85-yard quick kick, and Washington won 14–6.


title: Sammy Baugh

text: Baugh had what many consider to be the greatest single-season performance by a pro football player during 1943 in which he led the league in pass completions, punting (45.9-yard average) and interceptions (11). One of Baugh's more memorable single-game performances during the season was when he threw four touchdown passes and intercepted four passes in a 42–20 victory over Detroit. He was selected as an All-Pro tailback that year. The Redskins again made it to the championship game, but lost to the Bears 41–21. During the game, Baugh suffered a concussion while tackling Bears quarterback Sid Luckman and had to leave.


title: Sammy Baugh

text: During the 1945 season, Baugh completed 128 of 182 passes for a 70.33 completion percentage, which was an NFL record then and remains the fourth-best today (to Ken Anderson, 70.55 in 1982, and Drew Brees, 70.62 in 2009, 71.23 in 2011). He threw 11 touchdown passes and only four interceptions. The Redskins again won the East Conference but lost 15–14 in the 1945 Championship game against the Cleveland Rams. The one-point margin of victory came under scrutiny because of a safety that occurred early in the game. In the first quarter, the Redskins had the ball at their own 5-yard line. Dropping back into the end zone, Baugh threw to an open receiver, but the ball hit the goal post (which at the time was on the goal line instead of at the back of the end zone) and bounced back to the ground in the end zone. Under the rules at the time, this was ruled as a safety and thus gave the Rams a 2–0 lead. It was that safety that proved to be the margin of victory. Owner Marshall was so angry at the outcome that he became a major force in passing the following major rule change after the season: A forward pass that strikes the goal posts is automatically ruled incomplete. This later became known as the "Baugh/Marshall Rule".


title: Sammy Baugh

text: One of Baugh's more memorable single performances came on "Sammy Baugh Day" on November 23, 1947. That day, the Washington D.C. Touchdown Club honored him at Griffith Stadium and gave him a station wagon. Against the Chicago Cardinals he passed for 355 yards and six touchdowns. That season, the Redskins finished 4–8, but Baugh had career highs in completions (210), attempts (354), yards (2,938) and touchdown passes (25), leading the league in all four categories.


title: Sammy Baugh

text: Baugh played for five more years—leading the league in completion percentage for the sixth and seventh times in 1948 and 1949. He then retired after the 1952 season. In his final game, a 27–21 win over Philadelphia at Griffith Stadium, he played for several minutes before retiring to a prolonged standing ovation from the crowd. Baugh won numerous NFL passing titles and earned first-team All-NFL honors four times in his career. He completed 1,693 of 2,995 passes for 21,886 yards.


title: Sammy Baugh

text: By the time he retired, Baugh set 13 NFL records in three player positions: quarterback, punter, and defensive back. He is considered one of the all-time great football players. He gave birth to the fanaticism of Redskins fans. As Michael Wilbon of "The Washington Post" says: "He brought not just victories but thrills and ignited Washington with a passion even the worst Redskins periods can barely diminish." He was the first to play the position of quarterback as it is played today, the first to make of the forward pass an effective weapon rather than an "act of desperation".


title: Sammy Baugh

text: Two of his records as quarterback still stand: most seasons leading the league in passing (six; tied with Steve Young) and most seasons leading the league with the lowest interception percentage (five). He is also fourth in highest single-season completion percentage (70.33), most seasons leading the league in yards gained (four) and most seasons leading the league in completion percentage (seven).


title: Sammy Baugh

text: As a punter, Baugh retired with the NFL record for highest punting average in a career (45.1 yards), and is still second all-time (Shane Lechler 46.5 yards), and has the best (51.4 in 1940) and fourth-best (48.7 in 1941) season marks. He led the league in punting from 1940 through 1943. As a defensive back, he was the first player in league history to intercept four passes in a game, and is the only player to lead the league in passing, punting, and interceptions in the same season.


title: Sammy Baugh

text: As one of the best-known of the early NFL quarterbacks, Baugh is likely to be compared to more recent great players. As noted by Michael Wilbon in "The Washington Post", the football of Baugh's era was rounder at the ends and fatter in the middle than the one used today, making it far more difficult to pass well (or even to create a proper spiral). Additionally, it is important to point out that pass-interference rules have intensified dramatically, inflating modern quarterbacks' statistics.


title: Sammy Baugh

text: While playing for the Redskins, Baugh and teammate Wayne Millner were assistant coaches with The Catholic University of America's Cardinals, and went with them to the 1940 Sun Bowl. Baugh left Washington, D.C. in 1952. He chose not to return for Redskins team functions, despite repeated organization invitations. After his playing career, he became head coach at Hardin–Simmons University where he compiled a 23–28 record between 1955 and 1959.


title: Sammy Baugh

text: Baugh was the first coach of the New York Titans (which eventually became the New York Jets) of the American Football League in 1960 and 1961 compiling a record of 14–14. He was an assistant at the University of Tulsa in 1963 under head coach Glenn Dobbs. At Tulsa, he coached All-American quarterback Jerry Rhome. In 1964, Baugh coached the AFL's Houston Oilers and went 4–10.


title: Sammy Baugh

text: Baugh also took up acting. In 1941, he made $6,400 for starring in a 12-week serial as a dark-haired Texas Ranger named Tom King. The serial, called "King of the Texas Rangers", was released by Republic Studios. The episodes ran in theaters as Saturday matinees; it also starred Duncan Renaldo, later famous as TV's Cisco Kid.


title: Sammy Baugh

text: Robert Duvall patterned the role of Gus McCrae in the television series "Lonesome Dove" after Baugh, particularly his arm movements, after visiting him at his home in Texas in 1988.


title: Sammy Baugh

text: After retiring from football, Baugh and his wife Edmonia Smith moved to his Double Mountain ranch west of Aspermont, Texas, where they had four boys and a girl. Edmonia died in 1990, after 52 years of marriage to Baugh, who was her high school sweetheart. According to his son, Baugh derived far more pleasure from ranching than he ever had from football, saying that he enjoyed the game, but if he could live his life over again, he probably wouldn't play sports at all.


title: Sammy Baugh

text: Similar to the nicknaming of fellow football great Byron "Whizzer" White of Colorado, he said sports writers had tagged him with "Slingin' Sammy" whereas Sam was his preferred name. He always introduced himself as Sam Baugh and signed his papers and autographs that way. TCU named its football practice center the Sam Baugh Football Center with that perspective in mind.


title: Sammy Baugh

text: Baugh's health began to decline after the death of his wife. During his last years, he lived in a nursing home in a little West Texas town called Jayton not far from Double Mountain Ranch. The ranch is now in the hands of Baugh's son David and is still a cow-calf operation, on .


title: Sammy Baugh

text: The Associated Press quoted Baugh's son on December 17, 2008, saying Baugh had died after numerous health issues, including Alzheimer's disease, at Fisher County Hospital in Rotan, Texas. He is interred at Belvieu Cemetery in Rotan.


title: Sammy Baugh

text: Baugh was the last surviving member of the 17-member charter class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Additionally, he was honored by the Redskins with the retirement of his jersey number, No. 33, one of only three numbers officially retired by the team.


title: Sammy Baugh

text: Hip hop artist Jay-Z wore Baugh's Mitchell & Ness 1947 Washington jersey in his 2002 video for "Girls, Girls, Girls." This increased demand for the throwback jersey and renewed popular awareness of Baugh.


title: Imam Husayn Shrine

text: The Imam Husayn Shrine () is the mosque and burial site of Husayn ibn Ali, the third Imam of Shia Islam, in the city of Karbala, Iraq. It stands on the site of the Mausoleum of Husayn, who was a grandson of Muhammad, near the place where he embraced martyrdom during the Battle of Karbala in 680 CE The tomb of Husayn is one of the holiest sites in Shia Islam, outside of Mecca and Medina, and many make pilgrimages to the site. Every year, millions of pilgrims visit the city to observe Ashura, which marks the commemoration of Husayn's death for all muslims.


title: Imam Husayn Shrine

text: The boundary wall of the shrine surrounds wooden gates covered with glass decorations. The gates open into a courtyard separated into smaller rooms or precincts with many ""Iwans"" along the walls. The grave of Husayn(a.s) is enclosed within a metal-mesh like structure, found directly beneath the golden dome. On 5 March 2013 the process of replacing the zarih (metal mesh like structure) over the tomb of Husayn(a.s) was completed and the new zarih inaugurated. Al Abbas Mosque is located nearby. Plans to replace the shrine's historic dome with a modern steel framed one, have been met with controversy especially by historic preservationists as it would severely distort the shrine's historic integrity and character.


title: Imam Husayn Shrine

text: The first dome is high and completely covered with gold. At the bottom, it is surrounded with twelve windows, each of which is about away from the other, from the inside, and from the outside. The shrine has an area of by with ten gates, and about 65 decorated rooms used for studying.


title: Imam Husayn Shrine

text: The grave of Husayn ibn Ali is found in the middle of the precinct, it is called the ("garden") and it has several doors. The most famous one is called or . On the right hand side of the entrance is the tomb of Habīb ibn Madhahir al-Asadī (حبیب ابن مظاہر الاسدی), a friend and companion of Husayn since their childhood and a casualty of the Battle of Karbala.


title: Imam Husayn Shrine

text: Within the shrine of Husayn can also be found a grave of all the 72 martyrs of Karbalā’. They were buried in a mass grave which was then covered with soil to the ground level. This mass grave is at the foot of Husayn's grave. As well, beside Husayn's grave are the graves of his two sons: ‘Alī al-Akbar and the six-month old, ‘Alī al-Asghar.


title: Imam Husayn Shrine

text: Husayn bought a piece of land after his arrival at Karbala’ from Bani Asad. He and his Ahl al-Bayt are buried in that portion, known as (الحائر), where the Shrines are presently located. The history of destruction and reconstruction of the Shrines of Karbala’ is long. Both the Shrines were greatly extended by successive Muslim rulers, but suffered repeated destruction from attacking armies. Several rulers extended, decorated and kept the Shrines and its precincts in good condition. Among them is Fath-Ali Shah Qajar, who in 1250 AH ordered the construction of two Shrines, one over Husayn's grave and the other over the grave of his half-brother, Abbas ibn Ali.


title: Imam Husayn Shrine

text: From the time of Husayn ibn Ali's death in 680, pilgrimages to commemorate the massacre have often been repressed. Despite many attempts by successive rulers, such as Al-Rashīd and Al-Mutawakkil, to put a restriction on the development of the area, it has nonetheless evolved into a city.


title: Imam Husayn Shrine

text: The historian Ibn Kuluwayh mentioned that those who buried Husayn ibn ‘Alī constructed a special, durable identifying marker for the gravesite.


title: Imam Husayn Shrine

text: Larger, more significant construction on the gravesite began during the rule of al-Saffah (reign: 750–754 AD), the first caliph of the long-lasting Abbasid caliphate (an Islamic dynasty). However, heavy restrictions were put in place to prevent people from visiting the grave during the rule of Hārūn al-Rashīd, the fifth Abbasid caliph (reign: 786–809 AD).


title: Imam Husayn Shrine

text: During the rule of al-Mā'mūn, the seventh Abbasid caliph (reign: 813–833 AD), gravesite construction resumed until the year 850 AD, when al-Mutawakkil ordered the destruction of the grave and the filling of the resulting pit with water. His son who succeeded him as caliph, al-Muntasir, allowed people to visit the gravesite, and since then building the precinct to the grave increased and developed step by step.


title: Imam Husayn Shrine

text: On the other hand, the historian Ibn al-Athir, stated that in the year 981 AD (371 AH), ‘Adhud ad-Dawlah became the first to expansively lay the foundations for large-scale construction and to generously decorate the place. He also built houses and markets around the precinct, and surrounded Karbalā with a high boundary wall, turning it into a strong castle.


title: Imam Husayn Shrine

text: In the year 407 AH (1016 AD), the precinct caught fire due to the dropping of two large candles on the wooden decorations. The state minister at the time, Hasan ibn Fadl, rebuilt the damaged sections.


title: Imam Husayn Shrine

text: The following events are in chronological order, stating instances that widely involved the shrine, impressing its construction, renovation and series of extremist activities that reduced its structure and killed pilgrims from time to time.


title: Nicholas Meyer

text: Nicholas Meyer (born December 24, 1945) is an American writer and director, known for his best-selling novel "The Seven-Per-Cent Solution", and for directing the films "Time After Time", two of the "Star Trek" feature films, the 1983 television film "The Day After", and the 1999 HBO original film "Vendetta".


title: Nicholas Meyer

text: Meyer was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the film "The Seven-Per-Cent Solution" (1976), where he adapted his own novel into a screenplay. He has also been nominated for a Satellite Award, three Emmy Awards, and has won four Saturn Awards. He appeared as himself during the 2017 On Cinema spinoff series "The Trial", during which he testified about "Star Trek" and San Francisco.


title: Nicholas Meyer

text: Meyer was born in New York City, New York, to a Jewish family. He is the son of Bernard Constant Meyer (1910–1988), a Manhattan psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, and his first wife, concert pianist Elly (died 1960; née Kassman). He has three sisters. Meyer graduated from the University of Iowa with a degree in theater and filmmaking, and also wrote film reviews for the campus newspaper.


title: Nicholas Meyer

text: Meyer first gained public attention for his best-selling 1974 Sherlock Holmes novel "The Seven-Per-Cent Solution", a story of Holmes confronting his cocaine addiction with the help of Sigmund Freud.