BlackOut — SOPA’s Choice
Filed Under Bullshit, Orwellian, Technology | 1 Comment
(Illustration found here).
Today is a kind of watershed moment when the Internets respond to attempts to censor shit by banging down the back door, but a load of ‘Net peoples have chosen instead to go black.
Daily Kos has an action line to protest the twin online-control orbs SOPA ‘Stop Online Piracy Act,’ (US House) and PIPA ‘Protect Intellectual Property Act” (US Senate), which reportedly are designed to shut down access to overseas websites that traffic in stolen content or counterfeit goods, but like a lot of other surveillance-state-of-affairs, there’s more than just bullshit flying.
Copyright law can be a step away from censorship: “Like many other tech companies, we believe that there are smart, targeted ways to shut down foreign rogue websites without asking U.S. companies to censor the Internet,” a Google spokeswoman told Reuters on Monday.
And today (Wednesday) Google has a black band over its name on its search site, and Wikipedia leads to a Gothic-looking spot which proclaims “Imagine A World Without Free Knowledge,” in protest of the upcoming Congressional bills.
Along with Wiki, Reddit and Boing Boing, among others were also going black for awhile to protest.
Even HuffPost had a huge, black box at the top of his home page (where a photo/headline usually appears) early Wednesday, and supplies a factoid page here.
All authority hates freedom — one wonders how the popular uprisings in the Middle East, even the Occupy movement here in the US would fare under these laws, and how would freedom really be effected because as it is now, the real freedom is in the ability to get the truth out there.
Even in the most totalitarian regimes on earth, a little iPhone camera can change the outlook of the whole, entire world — in a real sense, currently there can’t be a total news black out and we need to keep it that way.
An understanding via the LA Times:
Sascha Meinrath, director of the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Initiative, said the bills set “a horrendous precedent globally” and that much of the content users put online — such as open publishing, crowd-sourced information gathering or comments sections — could all become “incredibly dangerous” if the bills passed.
“We would end up in a situation where we’re trying to do needlepoint with harpoons,” he said.
“You can’t target only pirated information, content or media without getting tons of collateral damage that removes entirely legal content.”
As a screenwriter, East Hollywood resident Steven Darancette, 40, uses Wikipedia often for background information. But he isn’t too concerned about the website going dark Wednesday, saying he supports the protest.
“If I need to get research, I’ll just Google,” he said.
“There are also these things called books.”
The way-big problem, though, is once that door is opened, then locked back again by SOPA/PIPA there’s no going back, the freedom of pure communication will be lost in an Orwellian influenced society, and that ain’t good at all.
Journalism-i
Filed Under Bullshit, Media, Orwellian, War & Politics | Leave a Comment
I have given my whole life to newspapers.
I am convinced that they have abandoned their functions, and in an abject and ignominious manner, in the present war.
Nine-tenths of them, and even more than nine-tenths, print the official blather without any attempt to scrutinize it… It is a disgraceful spectacle, but I do not believe that anything can be done about it.
Roosevelt has taken the press into camp as certainly has he has taken the Supreme Court.
It has ceased altogether to be independent and has become docilely official.
– H.L. Mencken, June 10, 1944
Shift a few items around, and Mr. Mencken could be writing about the nowadays — the above quote comes from a diary entry.
Journalism as practiced today sucks through a small straw, and one wonders at the astonishment faced by Mencken if he was around right now, marveling at how even-more shitty the rank-and-file news business has become in just the last decade.
A decade of terror-induced hysteria.
(Illustration found here).
The so-called mainstream media — dubbed MSM, a set of letters which in its appearance intuits a sexual preference — has degraded itself into nothing more than a stenographer, printing lies and misinformation as if were plain truth.
One huge example: The 2008 Pulitzer Prize went to the New York Times for its story on those nit-twit military ‘advisors’ on MSM TV in 2003 waxing wonderful on the invasion of Iraq, who were, in fact, in the pocket of the Pentagon — delivering to a naive (and hysterical) US public George Jr.’s line on the whole Iraqi bullshit.
Great story, deserving of a Pulitzer, but who knows of it?
I’ve a good friend who follows the news real close, but he’s never heard of the NYT article — and he’s not The Lone Ranger, a vast-majority of US peoples have never heard of it either.
My friend’s problem?
He doesn’t go online.
In my humble opinion, the Internet keeps the MSM from becoming a government mouthpiece.
And now that might be a problem.
Via antiwar.com and blogger Crystal L. Cox:
A federal judge in Oregon has ruled that a Montana woman sued for defamation was not a journalist when she posted online that an Oregon lawyer acted criminally during a bankruptcy case, a decision with implications for bloggers around the country.
…
U.S. District Judge Marco Hernandez found last week that as a blogger, Cox was not a journalist and cannot claim the protections afforded to mainstream reporters and news outlets.
Although media experts said Wednesday that the ruling would have little effect on the definition of journalism, it casts a shadow on those who work in nontraditional media since it highlights the lack of case law that could protect them and the fact that current state shield laws for journalists are not covering recent developments in online media.
…
Hernandez said Cox was not a journalist because she offered no professional qualifications as a journalist or legitimate news outlet.
She had no journalism education, credentials or affiliation with a recognized news outlet, proof of adhering to journalistic standards such as editing or checking her facts, evidence she produced an independent product or evidence she ever tried to get both sides of the story.
Cox said she considered herself a journalist, producing more than 400 blogs over the past five years, with a proprietary technique to get her postings on the top of search engines where they get the most notice.
“What could be more mainstream than the Internet and the top of the search engine?” she said.
…
Ellyn Angelotti, who teaches about digital trends and social media at The Poynter Institute, said the ruling was significant because so little case law has built up on online media.
But she believed it would have little impact on bloggers in general until the U.S. Supreme Court takes up a case, or more federal courts rule.
Kyu Ho Youm, a First Amendment expert and journalism professor at the University of Oregon, called the judge’s strict definition of a journalist “outdated” since so-called citizen journalists currently outnumber traditional journalists.
“When we talk about the shield law, we should pay more attention to the function people are doing than whether people are connected to traditional and established news media,” he said.
Yes, indeed.
And the time is approaching, case in point: The Protect IP Act, and its sister, Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which would allow the U.S. Department of Justice to seek court orders focused on shutting down websites accused of copyright infringement, and in the process, will limit free speech and innovation.
Both of these pending laws will change the outlook of the Net — both of which are called “Intolerable Acts” by Slate in a post yesterday:
SOPA would go even further, creating a system of private regulation to shut down websites that are accused of not doing enough to prevent infringement.
Keep in mind that these shutdowns would happen before a site owner could defend himself in court—SOPA could punish sites without even establishing whether they are guilty of the charges brought against them.
…
Rather than blocking online copyright infringement, legislation like SOPA and Protect IP would instigate a data obfuscation arms race, making legitimate law enforcement efforts all the more difficult.
If the United States decides that copyright infringement must be stopped at any cost, the required censorship regime will depend on ever more invasive practices, such as monitoring users’ personal Web traffic.
This counterproductive cat-and-mouse game of censorship and circumvention would drive savvy scofflaws to darknets while increasing surveillance of less technically proficient Internet users.
The Net could go a bit darker.
And a sense of why was captured last Sept. 11 by Spencer Ackerman at Wired:
Ten years ago today, 2,996 people were murdered, unleashing a pair of destructive, mutually reinforcing trends.
To prove their relevance, terrorists keep trying to attack the United States at home.
And the media and politicians react to it with hysteria, running in fear of getting blamed for a successful attack and perpetuating the gigantic, expensive, counterproductive National Security State.
As awful as the snuffing of so many souls on 9/11 was, the second trend has often proved more dangerous than the first.
I-Journalism might become ‘more dangerous‘ in the near future, and in its fashion, the MSM will end up the new porn.
Watchers/Listeners
Filed Under Bullshit, Orwellian, Technology, War & Politics | Leave a Comment
“Even the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages was tolerant by modern standards.
Part of the reason for this was that in the past no government had the power to keep its citizens under constant surveillance.
The invention of print, however, made it easier to manipulate public opinion, and the film and the radio carried the process further.
With the development of television, and the technical advance which made it possible to receive and transmit simultaneously on the same instrument, private life came to an end.”
– George Orwell, 1984 (quote found here)
(Illustration found here).
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange spoke Monday during a panel discussion at London’s Bureau of Investigative Journalism — he was announcing another WikiLeaks dump, this time the files concern private surveillance companies who have worked with various world governments to track whoever via monitoring software integrated into electronic devices.
“Who here has a BlackBerry?
Who here uses Gmail?
Well you are all screwed!” Assange exclaimed.
“The reality is intelligence contractors are selling right to countries around the world mass surveillance systems for all of those products.”
Meanwhile, just yesterday, Sen. Al Franken demanded an explanation on how the so-called ‘Carrier IQ,’ installed all new Android smartphones, really works — this hidden software is supposedly meant to help mobile carriers monitor and diagnose problems with their devices, but in reality may transmit personal information.
In a letter to Carrier IQ President and CEO Larry Lenhart, Franken wanted more information on the capabilities of the device.
Via Raw Story:
“I am very concerned by recent reports that your company’s software—pre-installed on smartphones used by millions of Americans—is logging and may be transmitting extraordinarily sensitive information from consumers’ phones…
“I understand the need to provide usage and diagnostic information to carriers,” he continued.
“I also understand that carriers can modify Carrier IQ’s software.
But it appears that Carrier IQ’s software captures a broad swath of extremely sensitive information from users that would appear to have nothing to do with diagnostics—including who they are calling, the contents of the texts they are receiving, the contents of their searches, and the websites they visit.”
“These actions may violate federal privacy laws, including the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act,” Franken warned.
“This is potentially a very serious matter.”
Serious indeed.
Franken was responding to a claim from Trevor Eckhart, a 25-year-old electronics expert, that the Carrier IQ operation can be used in nefarious ways.
On Eckhart’s blog he explains how this works, and despite a lot of geek shit (non-sensible to me), he concludes:
The fact that it’s embedded into the shipped device raises very serious security and privacy concerns.
…
The CIQ application is embedded so deeply in the device that it can’t be fully removed without rebuilding the phone from source code.
This is only possible for a user with advanced skills and a FULLY unlocked device.
…
If a bad actor discovered a vulnerability or used malware, he could potentially exploit that opportunity to become a “CIQ operator,” leaving many users helpless against the extensive collection and misuse of their own information and no way to stop it.
With so much moving code across the operating system, I would say the chances of malware looking here isn’t that far-fetched.
Of course, Carrier IQ got pissed at Eckhart, fired off a cease-and-desist letter and demanded he issue an apology for calling its software a”rootkit,” but back-tracked when Electronic Frontier Foundation became involved.
The EFF is an US-based non-profit digital rights advocacy and legal organization.
From CNET News:
Just days later, Carrier IQ did an about face after the Electronic Frontier Foundation responded to its cease-and-desist letter, saying that Eckhart’s comments and research are protected under the Copyright Act’s fair use provision.
“Our action was misguided and we are deeply sorry for any concern or trouble that our letter may have caused Mr. Eckhart,” the company said in response to the EFF’s letter.
“We sincerely appreciate and respect EFF’s work on his behalf, and share their commitment to protecting free speech in a rapidly changing technological world.”
In dumping the surveillance logs, termed “The Spy Files,” WikiLeaks on its Web site explains:
International surveillance companies are based in the more technologically sophisticated countries, and they sell their technology on to every country of the world.
This industry is, in practice, unregulated.
Intelligence agencies, military forces and police authorities are able to silently, and on mass, and secretly intercept calls and take over computers without the help or knowledge of the telecommunication providers.
Users’ physical location can be tracked if they are carrying a mobile phone, even if it is only on stand by.
…
When citizens overthrew the dictatorships in Egypt and Libya this year, they uncovered listening rooms where devices from Gamma corporation of the UK, Amesys of France, VASTech of South Africa and ZTE Corp of China monitored their every move online and on the phone.
…
The CIA officials have bought software that allows them to match phone signals and voice prints instantly and pinpoint the specific identity and location of individuals.
Intelligence Integration Systems, Inc., based in Massachusetts — sells a “location-based analytics” software called Geospatial Toolkit for this purpose.
Another Massachusetts company named Netezza, which bought a copy of the software, allegedly reverse engineered the code and sold a hacked version to the Central Intelligence Agency for use in remotely piloted drone aircraft.
And this is beyond just the old ‘looking over you shoulder‘ routine — be aware and be watchful, they are.
Monday Mourning
Filed Under Cloud gazing, history, Orwellian, Politics | Leave a Comment
Another thin-skinned GOP asshole caught being an asshole — Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback got his panties in a bind when a high school student Tweeted that the good governor, “#heblowsalot:”
Emma Sullivan, 18, was hauled into her principal’s office and ordered to write letters of apology after one of Governor Sam Brownback’s office contacted the tour organizer to complain about the offending note on the social networking site Twitter.
Ms Sullivan, however, will not backtrack, saying she isn’t sorry and doesn’t think such a letter would be sincere.
And her mother agrees: I raised my kids to be independent, to be strong, to be free thinkers. If she wants to tweet her opinion about Gov. Brownback, I say for her to go for it and I stand totally behind her.”
(Illustration found here).
Reportedly, young Emma had disagreed with Brownback’s veto of the Kansas Arts Commission’s entire budget, making it the only state in the nation to eliminate arts funding — join the crowd, Emma.
“I think it would be interesting to have a dialogue with him,” she said.
“I don’t know if he would do it or not though.
And I don’t know that he would listen to what I have to say.”
And Emma is most-perceptive about the two-faced GOP — Think Progress reports Brownback’s baby-like over-reaction caused Emma’s high school to violate her First Amendment rights: Moreover, because the school district violated Sullivan’s clearly established federal constitutional rights, she is likely entitled to have the district or the principal pay her attorney’s fees if she decides to bring a lawsuit challenging this unconstitutional disciplinary action. In other words, the district could be wise to settle this case immediately if Sullivan decides to bring them to court.
Republicans don’t seem to care about the US Constitution, the rule of law or even for the general welfare of US peoples — the GOP is most-likely the most anti-American group in existence today.
And maybe, too, anti-life-as-we-know-it.
The biggest catch for action on climate change comes from the right-sided GOP, even as COP17 starts today in South Africa.
From Agence France-Presse via Raw Story:
When lawmakers cannot agree that climate change is a problem for which solutions must be sought, gridlock ensues, according to Democratic lawmaker Henry Waxman.
“During this Congress, the Republican-controlled House has voted 21 times to block actions to address climate change,” he said at a hearing this month.
“History will look back on this science denial with profound regret.”
Henry, it’s a profound regret right this freakin’ now.
And even right-wingers know it — Norm Ornstein, a congressional scholar with the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank, says the GOP needs to get a good beating: “The best way to reach a deal for Obama is to pull out the partisan cudgel and slam them between the eyes repeatedly,” says Ornstein. “They’ll only come to the table if their political brand is damaged. They’re not coming for the good of the country.”
The dollar, they’re coming for the dollar.
One must also keep in mind the kind of country the US is today, thanks to Republicans with aid from spineless, chickenshit Democrats.
From Peter Van Buren at Tomdispatch yesterday:
As the occupiers of Zuccotti Park, like those pepper-sprayed at UC Davis or the Marine veteran shot in Oakland, recently found out, the government’s ability to limit free speech, to stopper the First Amendment, to undercut the right to peaceably assemble and petition for redress of grievances, is perhaps the most critical issue our republic can face.
If you were to write the history of the last decade in Washington, it might well be a story of how, issue by issue, the government freed itself from legal and constitutional bounds when it came to torture, the assassination of U.S. citizens, the holding of prisoners without trial or access to a court of law, the illegal surveillance of American citizens, and so on.
In the process, it has entrenched itself in a comfortable shadowland of ever more impenetrable secrecy, while going after any whistleblower who might shine a light in.
Read the whole post, it gets even more shitty.
Anything the GOP does should be scorned and pushed way-aside, or else the mourning will be in earnest.
‘Lone Wolf’ — Update
Filed Under Bullshit, Orwellian, Terror | Leave a Comment
(Off my post this morning)
The case against that guy arrested in New York City yesterday and charged with plotting to blow up U.S. targets, including American soldiers returning from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and of preparing to launch a one-man holy war in New York City — 27-year-old unemployed ‘lone wolf‘ Jose Pimentel — was apparently considered way-too dicey and not serious-enough for the FBI.
Hence, Pimentel was arraigned on state, not federal charges.
From TPM this afternoon:
The 27-year-old accused of plotting to attack New York with pipe bombs was operating a website that espoused his beliefs in committing terror against the U.S. and was relatively well known in law enforcement circles.
Federal authorities passed on the case — with one source telling TPM on Sunday night that the FBI passed several times, and an official telling the Associated Press on Monday that Pimentel “didn’t have the predisposition or the ability to do anything on his own.”
That’s leaving observers wondering what exactly the feds didn’t like about the case and setting up another squabble in the long-running turf war between the New York Police Department and the FBI.
In the scope of modern life, hard to imagine anything more dangerously dumb.
And incompetently useless.
The tale sounds like the bullshit in September when Mansour Arbabsiar, a naturalized US citizen with an Iranian passport from Corpus Christi, Texas, a failed used-car salesman, “sort of a hustler,” though, “no mastermind,” and “was likable, albeit a bit lazy,” was charged this time by the FBI with plotting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in a Washington DC restaurant.
And Mr. Arbabsiar was supposed to do this via a complicated plot involving murderous Mexican drug lords and Iran.
On more occasions nowadays, reality seems to have taken a holiday.