The Globe and Mail<\/em>, includes a list of corporate networks that names Royal Bank of Canada and Rogers Communications Inc. The presentation, titled \u201cPrivate Networks: Analysis, Contextualization and Setting the Vision,\u201d is among the NSA documents taken by former contractor Edward Snowden. Canada\u2019s biggest bank and its largest wireless carrier are on a list of 15 entities that are visible in a drop-down menu on one of the presentation\u2019s 40 pages. It shows part of an alphabetical list of entries beginning with the letter \u201cR\u201d that also includes two U.K.-headquartered companies \u2013 Rolls Royce Marine and Rio Tinto \u2013 and U.S.-based RigNet, among other global firms involved in telecom, finance, oil and manufacturing. The document does not say what data the NSA has collected about these firms, or spell out the agency\u2019s objective. A comparison of this document with previous Snowden leaks suggests it may be a preliminary step in broad efforts to identify, study and, if deemed necessary, \u201cexploit\u201d organizations\u2019 internal communication networks. Markings on the document, which is labelled \u201ctop secret,\u201d indicate it was shared with the NSA\u2019s Canadian counterpart, the Communications Security Establishment. The Canadian companies named in the document say they have no reason to believe their computer systems or customer records were compromised and insist their networks are secure.<\/p>\nLIFE STYLE\/SOCIAL TRENDS AND VALUES<\/b><\/p>\n
A Student-Debt Revolt Begins \u2013 (New Yorker \u2013 February 23, 2015)<\/a><\/b>
\nCorinthian was one of the world\u2019s largest for-profit operators of colleges; at its height, in 2010, more than a hundred thousand students were enrolled in its schools throughout the U.S. and part of Canada. These days, the company can hardly be said to exist. Over the past few years, the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the attorney general of California, and the attorney general of Massachusetts have brought separate lawsuits accusing the company of all kinds of bad behavior: pressuring students into signing up for huge loans, misleading them about their prospects after graduation, and strong-arming them into beginning to repay their private loans before they had even graduated. Students and graduates of Corinthian-owned colleges are finding that their degrees are all but worthless; when they try to transfer, they discover that other colleges won\u2019t recognize their course credits and, when they try to get work, they learn that employers are not at all impressed by Corinthian coursework. In December, a group of Democrats in the Senate, led by Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, wrote to the Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, calling on the Department of Education to \u201cimmediately discharge\u201d the federal loans of at least some students who attended Corinthian. The department, the senators noted, has the power to cancel federal loans for students who attended institutions that violated their rights. In fact, they pointed out, the department\u2019s federal-loan agreements with students go as far as to spell this out. Corinthian\u2019s students have taken out more than a billion dollars in federal loans annually. Kevin Carey, a fellow at the New America foundation who studies higher education, predicts that the Education Department will likely be wary of setting a precedent that could inspire students who attended other troubled institutions also to seek loan forgiveness. \u201cDrawing legally and logically defensible lines around this situation will be tricky for them,\u201d he told me. Still, Carey said, \u201cIn this particular case, I think there\u2019s a pretty strong argument that they ought to forgive a lot of the debt.\u201d<\/p>\n