Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:57:38 GMT:Bill Maher - Irritable Bowl Syndrome
NFL-as a bunch of socialists?!
A short essay animated from the audio recording of 'The New New Rules: A Funny Look at How Everybody but Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass'. It was originally performed on 'Real Time with Bill Maher'.
Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:56:45 GMT:Left Forum 2012
A unique phenomenon in the U.S. and the world, Left Forum convenes the largest annual conference of a broad spectrum of left and progressive intellectuals, activists, academics, organizations and the interested public. Conference participants come together to engage a wide range of critical perspectives on the world, to discuss differences, commonalities, and alternatives to current predicaments, and to share ideas for understanding and transforming the world. The conference is held each spring in New York City.
Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:55:09 GMT:The WikiLeaks founder goes into battle again today.
Assange will appear in London today before seven of the 12 judges of Britain's Supreme Court, the highest court in the land, for his appeal against his extradition to Sweden, where is accused of rape, sexual molestation and coercion involving two women.
Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:54:13 GMT:EFF Requests Information from Innocent Megaupload Users
Megaupload, of course, had many lawful customers (see here and here, for example). Yet those people were given no notice that they might lose access to their data and no clear path to getting their property back. Setting aside the legal case against Megaupload, the government should try to avoid this kind of collateral damage, not create it.
Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:53:22 GMT:Misguided Twitter Protests... And Why Twitter Could Have Explained Itself Better
Unfortunately, many people interpreted this as Twitter giving in to censors and allowing censorship. But that's a misreading of the situation. Again: Twitter already takes down content when required by law. Now it's trying to limit such takedowns. However, because people interpreted this to mean it was getting into the censorship business, there were protests against Twitter, which I think missed the point entirely.
Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:52:45 GMT:Cuba Keeps One Party, Sets Term Limits
Cuba will continue into the future as a one-party socialist system, according to the address by President Raul Castro at the closing of the Cuban Communist Party’s (PCC) National Conference held this weekend in Havana.
President Castro, who is also the first secretary of the communist organization, stated that it will be necessary to build a more democratic society, one with a better relationship between the party and the people, as well as to have a more professionally functioning press.
Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:51:52 GMT:Pirate Party organizing lawsuit against FBI for MegaUpload seizure
“By closing the service they have impeded the access to millions of archives of both private individuals and organisations, potentially causing huge personal, economic and image damages to a vast number of people.”
Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:50:29 GMT:Mega Aftermath: Upheaval In Pirate Warez Land
While last week’s shutdown of MegaUpload is of huge interest in itself, but a wave of aftershocks and side-effects are proving equally fascinating to watch. In addition to causing all sorts of problems for legitimate users of file-sharing services, there is no avoiding the fact that certain elements of the piracy scene are in a mess. But amazingly, still the beat goes on.
Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:49:23 GMT:United Farm Workers endorses Barack Obama
United Farm Workers endorses Barack Obama, further alienating themselves from the working class
Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:48:42 GMT:2012 State of the Union Address Lacks Reality Contact
The State of the Union, 2012 disappoints many of us, but the official address is disturbing, if only for it's lack of reality contact. "anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned, doesn’t know what they’re talking about. That’s not the message we get from leaders around the world, all of whom are eager to work with us." There is evidence to the contrary, Mr. President, recently published.
Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:48:11 GMT:New Venezuelan Social Network Takes Off
The new Venezuela social network, called Plaxed, which allows streams of short posts (200 characters), as well as event invitations, polls, and questions, was created as an alternative site so that files or personal details found on the network “aren’t blocked, erased, or followed” by U.S laws, said its creator, Cesar Cotiz, a systems engineer student.
Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:47:36 GMT:Workers at Kosher Food Producer Score Legal Victory for Equal Rights: Labor Board Prohibits Employers from Engaging in Discriminatory 'Fishing Expeditions'
Washington, DC- Immigrant workers organizing for justice at a Brooklyn-based producer and distributor of kosher food products have taken a big step forward in their campaign and achieved a legal victory for workers around the country. Using discriminatory allegations about workers' immigration status, Flaum Appetizing has been resisting compliance with a 2009 trial decision that found the company illegally fired employees who came together seeking dignified working conditions. The National Labor Relations Board holding precludes Flaum from continuing to raise baseless immigration status defenses against at least eleven of the workers, and potentially as many as fifteen.
Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:05:31 GMT:PaulDotCom Security Wekly Episode 275 - Jon "maddog" Hall - Linux, Open-Source, Beer
PaulDotCom Security Wekly Episode 275 - Jon "maddog" Hall - Linux, Open-Source, Beer
Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:05:01 GMT:Minimum wage, ‘tip penalty’ bills will get a hearing on Jan. 31
As reported earlier in The Stand, Republicans have introduced a package of bills that are all aimed at creating a lower state minimum wage. Sponsored by Rep. Cary Condotta (R-East Wenatchee) and the other GOP members of the House Labor Committee, the three bills are scheduled for a public hearing on Tuesday, Jan. 31 at 10 a.m. in the House Committee on Labor & Workforce Development.
Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:04:24 GMT:Washington’s ‘business friendly’ tax climate
OLYMPIA (Jan. 29) — “We must no longer allow Washington to be one of the ten most expensive states in which to operate a business,” says Republican Attorney General Rob McKenna, as he makes his case for why he should be elected governor this fall.
Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:03:33 GMT:The Austerians Attack!
When the economic and financial crisis erupted in 2008, progressives hoped that it would trigger a popular revulsion against the right-wing economic policies that caused the crisis. It is now clear that these expectations are not being met. Moderate progressive policy moves have been overwhelmed
by public-sector layoffs and budget cuts as Republicans, too many Democrats and even President Barack Obama himself, have chosen austerity or “belt-tightening” as a main policy objective.
Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:02:31 GMT:The State We're In - Freedom's Road
Web warrior...Birgitta Jónsdóttir in Iceland is a poet, politician and Wikileaks co-producer of the controversial "Collateral Murder" video – which showed graphic footage of a US helicopter strike against civilians in Baghdad.
The video got over 12 million hits, and the US Department of Justice is after her.
Now she’s the driving force behind new legislation aimed at making Iceland a safe haven for journalists being harassed by repressive regimes.
Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:01:24 GMT:Don't Grieve for the Great A&P
Sometime in the next few weeks, the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company will emerge from bankruptcy. Shortly thereafter, it is likely to cease its corporate existence, swallowed up not for its devalued brand, but for its store locations around New York City. Aside from its remaining employees, no one will grieve.
Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:00:45 GMT:MY TWITTER CASE AND “THOUGHTCRIME”
All of who care for freedom of information, speech and expression should be thankful for the recent ruling in my Twitter case. Thankful because it exposes the reality in which we live, at least according to the U.S. Department of Justice and one U.S. judge. The judge’s ruling exposed the blatant truth: that as the U.S. DOJ sees it, and at least according to this first judge, users of the Internet and social media sites hosted in the USA do NOT have any rights as individuals to defend themselves against the tyranny of authorities wanting to use the often sensitive information about us collected by services like Twitter. This includes critical information about the location, timing and recipients of our emails, conversations, messaging and social networking that are now fair game for the “thought police.” It is good that we know that this is how the prosecutors and one judge in the court system in the land of the free views our rights, because now we can do something about regaining those rights!
Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:59:50 GMT:Kio estas vin, "distribution"?
What makes a distribution? and why does it matter? To answer the second question first, I think that it matters because expectation needs to be set. If you are rolling your own "distro" and I wander onto your site, then I expect to see the whole package avaiable for me: I want good documentation, I want to see a finessed workflow for typical system admin (local or networked) tasks, I expect to see a repository, and so on. Why? because that's what a distribution is. I think.
Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:58:39 GMT:EFF Asks Judge to Prevent ‘Catch-22’ in Porn-Downloading Lawsuit
Defendants Told They Must Reveal Their Identities Before Fighting to Protect Anonymity
Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:57:40 GMT:The Right to Anonymity is a Matter of Privacy
Throughout history, there have been a number of reasons why individuals have taken to writing or producing art under a pseudonym. In the 18th century, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay took on the pseudonym Publius to publish The Federalist Papers. In 19th century England, pseudonyms allowed women--like the Brontë sisters, who initially published under Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell--to be taken seriously as writers.
Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:56:57 GMT:What Does Twitter’s Country-by-Country Takedown System Mean for Freedom of Expression?
Yesterday, Twitter announced in a blog post that it was launching a system that would allow the company to take down content on a country-by-country basis, as opposed to taking it down across the Twitter system. The Internet immediately exploded with allegations of censorship, conspiracy theories about Twitter’s Saudi investors and automated content filtering, and calls for a January 28 protest. One thing is clear: there is widespread confusion over Twitter's new policy and what its implications are for freedom of expression all over the world.
Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:56:21 GMT:Pensions Aren’t the Problem for State Budgets
Virtually everyone agrees that our nation faces a retirement security crisis, but the Journal last week published a shameful op-ed calling for the elimination of pensions for nurses, firefighters, corrections officers and others who still have them. Having punched private-sector workers retirement in the gut, these folks won’t be happy until the whole concept of a secure retirement for working Americans is a thing of the past.
Sat, 28 Jan 2012 02:51:32 GMT:Socialist Response to the State of the Union
The phrase that came to mind immediately upon hearing President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech is “too little, too late.” After spending the last few years coddling the banks and the richest 1%, Obama has the nerve to now call for “economic fairness.” To him, this means tweaking payroll taxes and making a rhetorical call to reverse the Bush tax cuts for the rich. For working people in America real fairness means the right to a job, a guarantee of healthcare for all and an end to the Military Industrial Complex. Obama won’t deliver this. That’s why I am running for President against him.
Sat, 28 Jan 2012 02:50:46 GMT:State of the Oligarchy 2012
Listening to the speech on the television, and reading the speech on the Internet afterwards, the amount of right-wing militancy expressed was stunning. President Obama started his speech by praising American military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to him, these wars have made the “United States safer and more respected around the world.” Considering even some of the United States’ imperialist allies in NATO have become weary of these wars, I would be very interested to see where this foreign respect is coming from.
Sat, 28 Jan 2012 02:49:55 GMT:Interview with Socialist Party USA 2012 Presidential Candidate Stewart Alexander
The Stewart Alexander Presidential Campaign is committed to socialism, democracy, ecology, feminism and racial equality. My platform is committed to the transformation of capitalism through the creation of a democratic socialist society. To create a better future for working people, my platform will offer a guide that will establish a new social and economic order in which democracy will allow the 99% to shape our own future – in our neighborhoods, in our local government, and, perhaps most importantly, in our economy.
Sat, 28 Jan 2012 02:49:11 GMT:The Misadventure of Ron Paul
Yet, the idea that Ron Paul offers a kind of alternative to mainstream politics falls apart quite easily upon inspection. There are three primary reasons for this – two relate to Paul himself and the other is a function of mainstream politics more generally. In the end, it is more accurate to say that Ron Paul is mainstream politics unmasked, a raw version of what both Democrats and Republicans desire to become if left to their own devices.
Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:21:17 GMT:A Manufactured War
The most disgusting aspect of witch-hunts is the way that everyone from the village idiot to the pillar of the community jumps on the bandwagon; the most horrifying aspect is the way in which anyone who refuses to participate in the hunt is implicated as a target, and the saddest aspect is the way in which innocents whom the hunters pretend to defend are actually victimized by them. All three aspects are demonstrated in this CNN story on “child sex trafficking” which was linked by Jill Brenneman in Bound Not Gagged earlier today.
Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:20:31 GMT:Governor Nikki Haley's Rage Against Workers
This bill is nothing but desperate pandering fueled by Governor Haley’s selfish desire to regain fringe tea party support that is eroding following her ill-timed endorsement of Mitt Romney.
It’s understandable for Governor Haley to feel frustrated. South Carolina’s unemployment rate, at 9.9%, ties them for 10th worst in the nation. But taking away the rights of workers does nothing to create jobs
Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:19:23 GMT:Judge Approves $750 Million Bankruptcy Exit Financing For Grocer A&P
Judge Robert D. Drain of U.S. Bankruptcy Court in White Plains, N.Y., approved the $400 million revolving loan and $350 million term loan from J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Credit Suisse AG (CS, CSGN.VX), without which A&P said its exit from Chapter 11 would be "uncertain."
Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:18:41 GMT:He’s no Oprah: Assange takes whistleblowing to TV talk show
But for now Julian Assange, the world’s most famous whistleblower, has a diversion – launching his own television talk show. The show is slated to air in March and has already set off a Twitter-world flurry of suggestions for possible guests.
Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:17:39 GMT:Share Files Among Users
For a very long time, I ran a Linux laptop and only dreamt of what a real live multi-user setup would be like. As people in my life have slowly switched over to Linux (at least part-time), and as I have started working as a Linux administrator type person, I've actually been doing the real live, serious, no-kidding this is the real deal, multi user system.
Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:16:29 GMT:Safety in Numbers
As of today it has been viewed 3790 times, and that doesn’t count all the times it was viewed on the home page. I’m really quite proud of that article because as far as I know it’s the only realistic estimate ever done of the number of professional whores in the United States; previous estimates either counted only streetwalkers (and were therefore far too low), or else presented wild guesses dressed up as facts. Despite what the trafficking fanatics claim, figures based on sound methodology and realistic estimates are very important, unless of course one wants to sound like an idiot by claiming that about one in ninety teenage girls in America is a “sex slave”, that the number of “sex slaves” in the world exceeds the population of Australia by a considerable margin, or that there are as many one-year-old hookers as 25-year-olds.
Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:15:25 GMT:People’s State of the Union: A Green New Deal for America
People’s State of the Union: A Green New Deal for America from Jill Stein for President on Vimeo.
Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:14:32 GMT:Interview with Malte Spitz, German Politician and Privacy Advocate
This January 28 marks International Privacy Day. Different countries around the world are celebrating this day with their own events. This year, we are honoring the day by calling attention to recent international privacy threats and interviewing data protection authorities, government officials, and activists to gain insight into various aspects of privacy rights and related legislation in their own respective countries.
Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:13:43 GMT:Department of Justice Misdirection on Cloud Computing and Privacy
Does using cloud computing services based in the United States create a risk of US law enforcement access to people's data? The US Department of Justice (DOJ) seems to be trying to placate international concern by saying one thing in international fora; but it says something quite different in the US courts.
Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:12:56 GMT:Securely booting Linux a "difficult" proposition
Matthew Garrett, the Red Hat engineer who originally raised the issue of UEFI Secure Boot and Linux, points out in a new posting titled "Why UEFI secure boot is difficult for Linux" that, despite Microsoft's recent changes to its UEFI Secure Boot requirements, there are some major challenges left if users want secure-booted Linux.
Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:12:11 GMT:Megaupload wasn't just for pirates: angry users out of luck for now
Megaupload is most well known for the distribution of pirated movies, games, software and the like, but a certain percentage of the site's usage—how much, we don't know—was legitimate. We reached out to readers today to find out how and why they used Megaupload to distribute and acquire content that didn't infringe anyone's copyright, and what they plan to do now that the site is off the Internet.
Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:10:27 GMT:Megaupload Details Raise Significant Concerns About What DOJ Considers Evidence Of Criminal Behavior
Where my concerns come in is in some of the "evidence" that's used to add to the overall indictment. To be clear, in a case like this, the issue is the evidence as a whole, combined to show intent and a general pattern to actions. So the allegations in the indictment don't necessarily mean that any individual action is, by itself, illegal. But, I still worry that some of the specific actions used to paint this picture are (1) potentially taken out of context, (2) are presented in a way that likely misrepresents the actual situation and (3) could come back to haunt other online services who are providing perfectly legitimate services.
Mon, 23 Jan 2012 02:09:13 GMT:ACLU & EFF to Appeal Secrecy Ruling in Twitter/WikiLeaks Case
Fighting to make public government efforts to obtain Internet users' private information without a warrant, today the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) plan to file an appeal in the legal battle over the records of several Twitter users in connection with the government's WikiLeaks investigation.
Mon, 23 Jan 2012 02:08:23 GMT:Wikipedia on Z file system
Wikipedia on Z file system
Mon, 23 Jan 2012 02:07:47 GMT:zpool man page
Manpage for Z file system admin command.
Mon, 23 Jan 2012 02:07:01 GMT:No more back room deals -- Users must have a voice in governing the Internet
MPAA Chairman Chris Dodd gave an interview to the New York Times yesterday, in which "Mr. Dodd said he would welcome a summit meeting between Internet companies and content companies, perhaps convened by the White House, that could lead to a compromise." While framed by the Times as his acceptance of defeat (the MPAA had rejected a prior meeting), the article shows that Dodd still doesn't get it.
Mon, 23 Jan 2012 02:05:04 GMT:Court Approves Washington State System of Limiting November Ballot Access to Two Candidates
Approved by voters in 2004, it immediately came under legal attack by the state's Republican, Democratic and Libertarian parties. The parties sued on grounds that the open primary limited their constitutional right of association by taking away their power to choose their candidates.
Mon, 23 Jan 2012 02:04:11 GMT:California’s single-payer health bill moves forward
Backers of single-payer health care cheered Jan. 19 as California's SB 810, the California Universal Health Care Act, passed from the Senate Appropriations Committee onto the Senate floor.
Mon, 23 Jan 2012 02:03:32 GMT:MegaUpload: What Made It a Rogue Site Worthy of Destruction?
File-hosting services all around the world will have looked on in horror yesterday as MegaUpload, one of the world’s largest cyberlocker services, was taken apart by the FBI. Foreign citizens were arrested in foreign lands and at least $50 million in assets seized. So what exactly prompted this action? TorrentFreak read every word of the 72-page indictment so you don’t have to, and we were surprised by its contents.
Mon, 23 Jan 2012 02:02:37 GMT:Ron Paul Introduces Bill to Repeal Indefinite Detention of Americans
Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul took a break from his campaign to come out in opposition to the bill signed into law by President Barack Obama on New Year’s Eve that allows the indefinite detention of any terrorism suspect, including Americans arrested in the U.S.
Mon, 23 Jan 2012 02:01:25 GMT:MegaUpload Founder Denied Bail At Extradition Hearing
The founder of MegaUpload, Kim Dotcom, has been denied bail in an extradition hearing in New Zealand this morning. Dotcom, who was raided by 76 armed police in helicopters yesterday, is wanted in the United States alongside other key MegaUpload employees on racketeering, copyright infringement and money laundering charges.
Mon, 23 Jan 2012 02:00:41 GMT: Amazon DynamoDB: NoSQL in the Cloud
AWS's James Hamilton discusses nosql database in the cloud.
Mon, 23 Jan 2012 01:59:02 GMT: Innovative Datacenter Design: Ishikari Datacenter
the Ishikari Datacenter in Ishikari City, Hokkaido Japan. Phase I of this facility was just completed in November 2011. This facility is interesting for a variety of reasons but the design features I found most interesting are: 1) High voltage direct current power distribution, 2) whole building ductless cooling, and 3) aggressive free air cooling.
Mon, 23 Jan 2012 01:58:01 GMT:Calls for Julian Assange to be tried as terrorist under NDAA-like law in 2010
Suggestions made to the US House of Representatives for Julian Assange and WikiLeaks to be tried in a military court, under a style of law similar to the National Defense Authorization Act 2012 (NDAA), pre-date the NDAA by approximately one year.
Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:43:07 GMT:Internet Blackout Day Fires Up Digital Rights Activism Around the World
Yesterday was a defining moment for the global Internet community. The effects of the massive online blackout in protest of U.S. Internet blacklist legislation, SOPA and PIPA (H.R. 3261 and S. 968), were felt around the world as countless numbers of websites, including Google, Wikipedia, Mozilla, Reddit, BoingBoing, Flickr, Wired, and many others joined in the global action against over-broad and poorly drafted copyright laws that would break the fundamental architecture of the Internet. To quote [pdf] last year’s landmark Report of the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Opinion: “...Censorship measures should never be delegated to a private entity, and [..] no one should be held liable for content on the Internet of which they are not the author...” The massive opposition from both companies and individuals around the world demonstrates how much these and similar laws would hurt business and innovation, and most importantly, restrict online free expression.
Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:42:15 GMT:Not for Everybody
One of the central goals of this blog is to help people realize that prostitution is completely natural female behavior; it actually predates marriage in human development and similar behaviors appear even in non-primate species. Most women will not hesitate to use their “erotic capital” (as Catherine Hakim calls it) to get ahead, and many have no qualms about openly using sex for material gain. About 10% of all women have directly taken money for sex at least once, and about 1% have actually worked as prostitutes at some time in their lives. As George Bataille put it, “Not every woman is a prostitute, but prostitution is the natural apotheosis of the feminine attitude”; in other words, full-time professional prostitution occupies one end of a whole spectrum of female behaviors on which it is impossible to draw a line separating the whore from the non-whore.
Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:41:39 GMT:Facebook Ploy to Criminalize Add-On Service Hurts Users and Innovation
Power Ventures created a web-based tool to let users view information from different social networking accounts in the same browser window, enabling them to get a complete picture of what's happening across various platforms. Facebook has been trying to kill the service for several years and is currently claiming that criminal computer intrusion laws were violated when Facebook's users logged into their Facebook accounts automatically using Power's aggregation tool. In an amicus brief filed Tuesday, EFF argues that Facebook's claims are wrong legally and dangerous as a matter of policy.
Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:40:15 GMT:After Historic Protest, Members of Congress Abandon PIPA and SOPA in Droves
Yesterday, in the largest online protest in Internet history, more than 115,000 websites altered millions of web pages to stand in opposition to SOPA and PIPA, the Internet blacklist bills. Some sites — Wikipedia, Reddit, Boing Boing, Craigslist and others — completely shut down for the day, replacing their sites with material to educate the public about the bill’s dangers. Others, like Google and Mozilla, sent users to a petition or action center to express their concerns to Congress.
Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:39:33 GMT:For the Win
There is a shortage of literature on trade union organising, so it is a real pleasure to come across Cory Doctorow’s novel about the union organising efforts of a group of young workers in online games in the near future. Unions often seem stuck in the past, and we have suffered from a collective failure of imagination as we have been too busy fire fighting to look at how we might organise emerging sectors. It’s interesting that the best exploration of trade union organising in the information age comes from the world of science fiction.
Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:38:43 GMT:UPDATE: Anonymous takes down DoJ, UMG websites—attack on Whitehouse.gov underway
Anonymous has launched a pair of operations in response to the takedown of the Megaupload.com site earlier today by the FBI and other authorities and continued support for the Stop Online Piracy Act by members of Congress. So far, the sites of the Justice Department, Universal Music Group, and several congressional sites have been affected.
Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:38:06 GMT:Megaupload shut down by feds, seven charged, four arrested
The filesharing site Megaupload.com has been taken down by the FBI as the Justice Department unsealed an indictment charging seven people associated with the site. The 72-page indictment, handed down by a federal grand jury in Virginia on January 5, charges the seven people, including Megaupload's founders Kim Dotcom and Mathias Ortman, with conspiracy.
Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:37:36 GMT:Supreme Court rules Congress can re-copyright public domain works
Congress may take books, musical compositions and other works out of the public domain, where they can be freely used and adapted, and grant them copyright status again, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.
Sun, 15 Jan 2012 12:03:23 GMT:Presiding Officer Recommends Court-Martial for Manning
The alleged Army whistleblower Bradley Manning is closer to being court-martialed after the investigating officer presiding over his case recommended prosecution on all 22 charges for leaking classified documents and video to WikiLeaks. The decision by Lieutenant Colonel Paul Almanza now goes to a superior officer who will determine whether Manning should stand trial. Defense attorneys lost a bid to consolidate Manning’s charges on the grounds he is being unfairly prosecuted with charges including "aiding the enemy." In a statement, the Bradley Manning Support Network said, "We’re disappointed but by no means surprised... These charges contradict the administration’s own impact assessments which showed that these WikiLeaks revelations posed no threat to our national security."
Sun, 15 Jan 2012 12:02:48 GMT:Glitnir Winding-Up Committee Sues Executives
The winding-up committee of the defunct bank Glitnir has filed charges against former CEO of Glitnir Lárus Welding, the bank’s former board and former CEO, and later chairman of Baugur Group Jón Ásgeir Jóhannesson because of a yielding loan of ISK 15 billion (USD 121 million, EUR 94 million) granted to Baugur by Glitnir in December 2007.
Sun, 15 Jan 2012 12:03:59 GMT:New Hampshire Primary Results — No Not That One
Barack Obama was the ONLY candidate on the ballot and won 49,480 votes out of 60,996 cast. Even as the only one on the ballot, 18% of the Democrats WROTE IN another name!
Tue, 10 Jan 2012 11:41:55 GMT:The More the Better
In other words, despite the claims of yellow journalists and neofeminists the great majority of the inexperienced women entering sex work due to economic pressure find that work no more odious than that of other women forced by economic pressure into other jobs that might not have been their first choice. As I pointed out in “A False Dichotomy”,
Sun, 15 Jan 2012 12:02:19 GMT:Left, Right or the truth?
I have news for all of them, you understand nothing. You have never had to worry about paying the bills. You have never had to choose between feeding a child and and keeping the lights on. You have never had to take the bus to get to a minimum wage job. You have never had to swallow your pride and walk into a Welfare Office to get assistance for your child only to find out that you will receive $12.36 a month food in stamps. YOU KNOW NOTHING. You claim that people on Welfare are getting money for nothing, but do you even know anyone on Welfare? Have you tried to live with a minimum wage job? No. You have no clue.
Sun, 15 Jan 2012 11:58:37 GMT:The Internet Goes to Washington on January 18
...in the efforts to stop the Internet blacklist bills (SOPA/PIPA): Rep. .Issa...has announced that the Oversight and Government Reform Committee will hold a hearing on January 18 to hear from actual technical experts, technology job creators, Internet investors and legal scholars.
EFF’s activists will be providing live coverage of the event through our EFFLive Twitter account.
Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:07:09 GMT:Biometrics in Argentina: Mass Surveillance as a State Policy
Two years ago, the UK dismantled their national ID scheme and shredded their National Identity Registry in response to great public outcry over the privacy-invasive program. Unfortunately privacy protections have been less rosy elsewhere. In Argentina, the national ID fight was lost some time ago. A law enacted during the military dictatorship forced all individuals to obtain a government-mandated ID. Now, they are in the process of enhancing its mandatory National Registry of Persons (RENAPER) with biometric data such as fingerprints and digitized faces. The government plans to repurpose this database in order to facilitate “easy access” to law enforcement by merging this data into a new, security-focused integrated system. This raises the specter of mass surveillance, as Argentinean law enforcement will have access to mass repositories of citizen information and be able to leverage existing facial recognition and fingerprint matching technologies in order to identify any citizen anywhere.
Sun, 15 Jan 2012 11:59:36 GMT:The Pirate Bay Shows Futility of Domain and DNS Blocks
In October 2011, a court in Finland ordered local ISP Elisa to block The Pirate Bay to stop copyright infringement among its subscribers. Today, the blockade – which covers many domains and IP addresses – took effect, but behind the scenes there is an effort to unblock the site and render the court order useless. Meanwhile there is already collateral damage – the court order has succeeded in blocking a domain linking to Electronic Frontier Finland.
Sun, 15 Jan 2012 11:56:34 GMT:Why Apple Will Not Be Part Of The Real Tablet Revolution
The devices are perfect: they are compact, connect to the Net wirelessly, run off battery power for hours and can be used by children and adults alike with little or no training. There's just one problem, of course: the typical tablet's high-end pricing – hundreds of dollars – places it so far out of reach for most of the world's population that it might as well not exist for them. That is what makes India's Aakash tablet - basic cost around $50, but only $37 for Indian students thanks to a government subsidy – so remarkable, and so important.
Sun, 15 Jan 2012 12:00:19 GMT:The Pirate Bay Will Stop Serving Torrents
In a month The Pirate Bay will no longer offer downloads of .torrent files. Instead, the largest torrent site on the Internet will only provide so-called magnet links to its visitors. The first step in this direction was made today with The Pirate Bay replacing the current default torrent download links with magnets. Could this be the end of an era?
Sun, 15 Jan 2012 11:53:30 GMT:Calif. Carwashes Agree to $1 Million Back Pay Settlement
Eight California carwashes agreed to a historic $1 million settlement with the state’s attorney general for routinely failing to pay minimum wage or overtime, creating false records of work hours and not paying money owed to employees who quit, according to Attorney General Kamala Harris.
Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:11:01 GMT:New pilot project allows collecting society SACEM members to use Creative Commons licenses
A new pilot project between Creative Commons, Creative Commons’ legal affiliate in France, and the French collecting society SACEM allows SACEM members to license their works under one of the three non-commercial CC 3.0 licenses. Previously, authors and composers of musical works represented by SACEM (the biggest French collecting society) were prevented from using any of the CC licenses, as SACEM requires that its members transfer their rights to the collective on an exclusive basis.
Sun, 15 Jan 2012 11:52:58 GMT:Assange Extradition Fact Sheet: 15 Overlooked Facts
Julian Assange is wanted in Sweden for questioning. According to the law, Julian is not required to be present in the country for the interview to take place. It could instead be conducted using alternative methods, such as a simple phonecall...The extradition to Sweden insisted upon by prosecution would facilitate subsequent extradition to the US, as Sweden never once denied a US extradition request since 2000.
Sun, 15 Jan 2012 11:55:07 GMT:Argentina to Brazil: Please Don't Get the Bomb
It’s clear from just a superficial read that American diplomats are much more cautious and level-headed with the Brazilians than elsewhere in the Andes...An exporting dynamo and powerhouse with a growing middle class, Brazil is using its newfound economic clout to venture into world politics like never before. Unlike the Andean region, which has been plagued by chronic volatility, Brazil’s political institutions look relatively stable. Provided that Brazil’s economic fortunes continue to soar, the South American juggernaut will surely be a force to be reckoned with in future.
Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:05:38 GMT:100 Years After Lawrence Strike, the Cry for ‘Bread & Roses’ Still Resonates
The strike that started on January 12, 1912, created political tremors far beyond the Merrimack Valley. The shutdown of mills in Lawrence forced a national debate about factory conditions, child labor, the exploitation of immigrants and the free exercise of First Amendment rights during labor disputes. The strikers’ appeals for solidarity and financial support also created a stark “Which Side Are You On?” moment for mainstream unions and middle-class reformers, both of whom were nervous about the role played by “outside agitators” in Lawrence.
Sun, 15 Jan 2012 22:29:16 GMT:Universal Criminality
Want to know what it’s like to live in a police state? Look around you. Like the legendary frog, Americans have remained content to sit in the pot while the temperature has gradually increased, and we’re all well and truly cooking now. The last of our civil liberties are being stripped away at a frightening rate, Congress is moving to take control of the internet, and the president recently signed legislation giving himself the power to use the military to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens without charge or trial if they own guns, are missing fingers or have more than 7 days’ worth of food in their houses. The government no longer even pretends to answer to the people: half of all Americans now recognize it as “an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens”, only 5% of Americans believe that Congress is doing a decent job, and a White House spokesman recently declared the majority of Americans who support marijuana legalization to be “extremists”. If you haven’t yet read Václav Havel’s “The Power of the Powerless” (as featured in my January 7th column), now might be a good time to do so.
Sun, 15 Jan 2012 12:01:33 GMT:Maddow to the GOP: ‘Just how anti-gay do you want to be?’
die-hard social conservative in the race, Rick Santorum, was booed at multiple public appearances in New Hampshire when he voiced his anti-gay opinions, and placed fifth overall.
Sun, 15 Jan 2012 11:55:49 GMT:Opposition grows to Emanuel’s attack on free speech, assembly
What are dubbed the "sit down and shut up" ordinances were submitted to City Council in anticipation of demonstrations surrounding the May 19-21 G8 and NATO Summits being hosted by the city. In addition to heads of states and military leaders, thousands of protestors are expected, including peace and justice activists, trade unionists, environmentalists and representatives of NGOs.
Sun, 15 Jan 2012 11:51:20 GMT:100th Anniversary of Bread and Roses Strike— Was It the First Occupy?
On Jan. 12, 1912, some 25,000 workers at the mills of the American Woolen Company in Lawrence walked off the job when the company cut their pay—already a mere $8 a week for the men, and less for the women and children—after the state legislature passed a law shortening the length of their workweek from 56 hours to 54 hours. Workers stayed off the job for months, enduring beatings from police and the Massachusetts militia, who spared not even women and children.
Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:17:48 GMT:Social and Structural Factors Associated with Consistent Condom Use Among Female Entertainment Workers Trading Sex in the Philippines
This paper examined socio-structural factors of consistent condom use among female entertainment workers at high risk for acquiring HIV in Metro Manila, Quezon City, Philippines. Entertainers, aged 18 and over, from 25 establishments (spa/saunas, night clubs, karaoke bars), who traded sex during the previous 6 months, underwent crosssectional surveys. The 143 entertainers (42% not always using condoms, 58% always using condoms) had median age (23), duration in sex work (7 months), education (9 years), and 29% were married/had live-in boyfriends.
Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:16:28 GMT:Socialist Party Derides Rick Perry 'Fairy Tale' Of Obama As Socialist
"The notion that Barack Obama is a socialist ranks among the greatest fairy tales in American society -- right up there with the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, and the idea that if you work hard enough your children will live a better life than you," Socialist Party spokeswoman Lynn Lomibao said in an email. "Socialists know what Obama is: another corporate funded politician placed in the White House to protect the wealth and status of the 1 percent."
Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:15:48 GMT:A&P: Not Liable to Pension Partners
A&P further asked the court to disallow what it called “vague lease-related claims” intended to impede progress toward the retailer’s emergence from Chapter 11. “Ahold would undoubtedly prefer that the debtors liquidate and sell off their assets at a discount rather than reorganize in the best interests of the debtors’ stakeholders and emerge from bankruptcy as a formidable competitor — even if Ahold’s ‘claims’ were left worthless in the process,” A&P said in court papers. A hearing on the matter is scheduled Feb. 6 at U.S. Bankruptcy Court in White Plains, N.Y.
Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:14:25 GMT:A&P Plans 14 Store Closures
This article on the A&P closures lists all 14 closures.
Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:12:31 GMT:A strike for bread and roses
Elizabeth Schulte tells the story of the 1912 Lawrence strike on its 100th anniversary.
Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:09:58 GMT:They Did It: Google Personalizes Search & It Is Not Evil
Google heard the hue and cry over "search bubbling" and gave google plus users a choice between personalized and not-personalized google searchs.
Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:08:31 GMT:A Nightmare on Wall Street...
NNU produced this great, short (2 minutes) "Twilight-Zone" take off of a wall street banker's nightmare, a must see!
Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:06:26 GMT:Blacklist Bills Becoming Hot Button Issue in 2012 Election
When Congress comes back into session at the end of January, both the House and the Senate are expected to make passing the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT-IP (PIPA) a top priority. But represenatives may want to think twice before voting yes; voters are taking notice. Members of both parties are seeing election opponents explaining how SOPA will censor free speech and stifle innovation, and the presidential candidates are being asked pointed questions about whether they support the bill that will almost certainly kill jobs.
Tue, 10 Jan 2012 11:44:25 GMT:Donald Knuth Turns 74 Tomorrow
In my post over the weekend about how you don't need a diploma to code, I was thinking about the multi-volume The Art of Computer Programming that was written by former Stanford CS prof Donald Knuth. Knuth tomorrow turns 74 and it is worth taking a look at various things that you can find online as a means of celebrating his rich and varied life.
Tue, 10 Jan 2012 11:43:47 GMT:Spain’s Ley Sinde: New Revelations of U.S. Coercion
While U.S. officials are scrambling to pass domestic Internet censorship legislation in the name of curbing copyright infringement, they’ve been much more effective in their efforts to export these laws abroad. Previously, we’ve examined US attempts to pressure the prior Spanish presidential administration to enact harsh copyright laws. A new letter reported by the Spanish newspaper, El Pais, reveals that the U.S. government didn’t miss a beat when they renewed their threat to put in place trade penalties toward Spain unless the new government enacted a copyright law in a timely manner. The US was dangerously close to getting their dream legislation in Spain last year, but were disappointed when the Spanish executive office deferred to fully enact the copyright law, Ley Sinde, due to its wide unpopularity. Digital activists and Internet rights lawyers internationally recognized that this Spanish law would overtly skirt due process, violate personal privacy, and limit freedom of expression.
Tue, 10 Jan 2012 11:43:16 GMT:A&P to close 6 Long Island Waldbaum's
Employees at Waldbaum's in Rockville Centre, East Islip, West Babylon, Lake Ronkonkoma, Huntington Station and Commack were informed of the closures Monday morning, a union official said. The six supermarkets are among 14 closures in four states announced
Tue, 10 Jan 2012 11:42:32 GMT:Pathmark to close stores in Egg Harbor Township, Manahawkin
Pathmark stores in Egg Harbor Township and Manahawkin will close by mid-March, costing about 165 employees their jobs, a local union president said.
Tue, 10 Jan 2012 11:40:18 GMT:Hacker luminary to hit Melbourne for speech
news Jacob Appelbaum (pictured, above), independent computer security researcher and hacker, will be visiting Australia soon, with one item on his schedule being a ‘War on the Internet’ event, scheduled for 21 January, 2012 at Trades Hall, Melbourne between 3pm and 5pm. Supported by the Australian Greens Party and Electronic Frontiers Australia, the event will have speakers “challenging gatekeepers and proposing alternatives to the weaponisation of cyberspace.”
Tue, 10 Jan 2012 11:39:33 GMT:The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, Inc. to Close 14 Stores as Part of Turnaround Strategy
The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, Inc. (A&P) today announced that it has filed a motion with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York seeking approval to close 14 stores in four states as the Company prepares to emerge from Chapter 11. The store closures are expected to be completed in the Company's fiscal first quarter, subject to court approval.
Sun, 08 Jan 2012 19:53:49 GMT:Largest Dutch Pension Fund Pulls Investments in Walmart over Poor Labor Practices
Echoing the criticism of American labor unions, the Netherlands’ largest pension fund has cited Walmart’s poor labor practices as reason for withdrawing its investments from the world’s biggest retail chain.
Algemeen Burgerlijk Pensioenfonds (ABP), with more than $300 billion in assets, said it was pulling out of Walmart because it hasn’t complied with the United Nations Global Compact principles, which promote human rights, labor standards, the environment and anti-corruption efforts.
Sun, 08 Jan 2012 19:53:00 GMT:Yoani Sanchez Makes New Plea to Exit Cuba
HAVANA TIMES, Jan 5 — Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez says she and the rest of the Cuban population are virtual prisoners due to the mandatory exit visa the government requires in order to leave the island...In her latest attempt to travel from Cuba, Sanchez wants to attend a premiere next month in Bahia, Brazil of a documentary about journalism in Cuba and Honduras. The blogger participated in the Cuban segment of the film.
Sanchez, 36, says she been denied an exit visa to travel off the island 19 times in less than a decade, despite not having a criminal record.
Sun, 08 Jan 2012 19:51:31 GMT:Attacks on minimum wage are back in 2012
Washington just earned national notoriety for being the first state with a minimum wage above $9 an hour. With the latest inflationary increase, as required under a voter-approved state law, the lowest legal wage in 2012 is now $9.04 an hour.
Sun, 08 Jan 2012 19:50:31 GMT:Living in Truth
Václav Havel, the playwright turned politician who was the last president of Czechoslovakia and the first of the Czech Republic, died three weeks ago on December 18th. …Havel not only opposed the Communist regime, he articulated a theory of opposition...But his famous political essay — “The Power of the Powerless” — will live forever....In this essay, Havel didn’t talk about marches or demonstrations. Instead, he asked the inhabitants of totalitarian countries to “live in truth”: That is, to go about their daily lives as if the regime did not exist, to the extent that was possible…By the late 1980s, “living in truth” was widely practiced across central Europe.
Sun, 08 Jan 2012 19:47:36 GMT:Private Sector Cuban Workers to Join Unions
HAVANA TIMES, Jan 6 — About 80 percent of all private sector workers on the island have joined the trade union movement, said Salvador Valdes Mesa, the general secretary of the Confederation of Cuban Workers, who spoke to the Granma newspaper today.
Sun, 08 Jan 2012 19:46:00 GMT:Belarus Bans Browsing of All Foreign Websites
As citizens of the United States worry over the implications of the pending SOPA legislation, a small land-locked country on the fringes of Europe is showing how bad things can really get. Labeled by the United States as an “outpost of tyranny”, Belarus is certainly living up to its reputation. This Friday, browsing foreign websites will become an offense punishable by fines, with service providers taking responsibility for the actions of their users.
Sun, 08 Jan 2012 19:45:27 GMT:Thailand Continues Massive Crackdown of Online Speech
In Thailand, details of the most recent victim of lèse majesté laws emerged this week, adding to a long year of crackdowns on free speech in the country. Alongside the news coverage, Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT) published new analyses demonstrating the magnitude of measures the Southeast Asian state has taken to block websites it deems politically offensive.
Sun, 08 Jan 2012 19:44:31 GMT:BitTorrent Releases New “Share” Application
BitTorrent Inc. just released a new standalone file-sharing application called “Share.” The application aims to make it easier for tech novices to share large files with friends, without having to get familiar with all the BitTorrent customs and lingo. Share will eventually be integrated into BitTorrent’s flagship client uTorrent.
Sun, 08 Jan 2012 19:43:46 GMT:File-Sharing Recognized as Official Religion in Sweden
Since 2010 a group of self-confessed pirates have tried to get their beliefs recognized as an official religion in Sweden. After their request was denied several times, the Church of Kopimism – which holds CTRL+C and CTRL+V as sacred symbols – is now approved by the authorities as an official religion. The Church hopes that its official status will remove the legal stigma that surrounds file-sharing.
Sun, 08 Jan 2012 19:43:12 GMT:ARM V8 Architecture
Years ago, Dave Patterson remarked that most server innovations were coming from the mobile device world. He’s right. Commodity system innovation is driven by volume and nowhere is there more volume than in the mobile device world. The power management techniques applied fairly successfully over the last 5 years had their genesis in the mobile world. And, as processor power efficiency improves, memory is on track to become the biggest power consumer in the data center. I expect the ideas to rein in memory power consumption will again come from the mobile device world. Just as Eskimo’s are reported (apparently incorrectly) to have 7 words for snow, mobile memory systems have a large array of low power states with subtly different power dissipations and recovery times. I expect the same techniques will arrive fairly quickly to the server world.
Sat, 07 Jan 2012 11:52:52 GMT:Occupy the Electoral Process
It would be a mistake for members of the Occupy movement to ignore the 2012 elections.
Sat, 07 Jan 2012 11:48:42 GMT:Green Party Says Cuomo’s State of the State Does Little for 99% of New Yorkers
Governor Cuomo’s agenda for 2012 is designed to maintain the power and wealth of the 1%, promoting austerity rather than prosperity for the vast majority of New Yorkers.
Sat, 07 Jan 2012 11:52:22 GMT:Canaries in the Data Mines
Civil libertarians raise alarm over America’s national surveillance network.
Sat, 07 Jan 2012 11:45:09 GMT:Gigabit Wi-Fi chips emerge, will power super-fast home video streaming
The first wireless networking chips capable of powering gigabit-per-second speeds using the forthcoming IEEE 802.11ac standard are starting to emerge, with routers and other consumer networking products expected to launch in the second half of 2012. With speeds three times faster than the current generation of Wi-Fi routers, the new products will speed up synchronization between home devices and greatly improve the quality of in-home audio and video streaming, according to Gigabit Wi-Fi vendors.
Sun, 08 Jan 2012 19:39:37 GMT:The Truth about the Economics Behind the Blacklist Bills
Passing SOPA/PIPA could drastically impede this job growth. A study done by Booz and Company found that “Investors and venture capitalists ‘overwhelmingly’ said they would stop investing in Internet startups if SOPA/PIPA passed and website were liable for content posted by users.” A letter sent to Congress from an influential group of VCs echoes the study's conclusions.
Sat, 07 Jan 2012 11:57:10 GMT:PRESIDENT NICCOLLAI REPORTS ON LANGUAGE REGARDING A SEVERANCE PROGRAM, SUCCESSORSHIP AND DATE TO NEGOTIATE BUYOUT PKG
As promised, President Niccollai and Local 464A staff are engaged in ever-continuing discussions with A&P/Pathmark to tie up all the loose ends that remain from a year of protracted negotiations. We are pleased to report two programs have been finalized and the third concerning the Buyout will be discussed with the Company at a meeting on Wednesday, January 18, 2012. The two programs finalized are as follows:
Sat, 07 Jan 2012 11:56:32 GMT:A&P Updates Financial Outlook
MONTVALE, N.J. — A newly revised financial projection for A&P here predicts the company will still be showing a net loss by 2016, but EBITDA would rise to more than $300 million behind higher sales and more productive stores.
Sat, 07 Jan 2012 11:53:46 GMT:The Commodore 64 is 30
Celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Commodore 64.
Sat, 07 Jan 2012 11:51:45 GMT:Anti-Worker Trio Dominate Iowa Republican Caucuses
The first votes of the 2012 presidential election were cast last night in Iowa. Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and Ron Paul topped the polls. None is a friend of working families.
Sat, 07 Jan 2012 11:51:12 GMT:Let’s make 2012 a year to ‘act and do,’ not just ‘sit and watch’
If there’s a single lesson to be drawn from the events of 2011, it’s this: democracy is based on acting and doing, not sitting and watching.
The actions of a sole protestor in Algeria, magnified by thousands of others, toppled dictators in Algeria, Egypt, and Libya. People did not just watch – they marched, they protested, and they risked their livelihoods and their lives. No one even saw the “Arab Spring” coming until it had happened.
Sat, 07 Jan 2012 11:50:22 GMT:Attacks on minimum wage are back in 2012
Washington just earned national notoriety for being the first state with a minimum wage above $9 an hour. With the latest inflationary increase, as required under a voter-approved state law, the lowest legal wage in 2012 is now $9.04 an hour.
This year’s 37-cent increase is good news for an estimated 194,000 minimum-wage workers in Washington and another 87,000 who earn near that and are indirectly affected,
Sat, 07 Jan 2012 11:49:39 GMT:Crystal Ball
new means of mass communication (telephone and radio then, internet now) promoted the rapid dissemination of ideas by individuals, weakening the monopoly on such communication previously held by governments and multinational organizations such as religions. Furthermore, both eras saw dramatic increases in international migration, driven partly by cheaper travel and partly by rapid shifts in borders and governments; such migration tends to horrify racists and xenophobes, resulting in a moral panic.
Sat, 07 Jan 2012 11:46:50 GMT:Thailand Continues Massive Crackdown of Online Speech
In Thailand, details of the most recent victim of lèse majesté laws emerged this week, adding to a long year of crackdowns on free speech in the country. Alongside the news coverage, Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT) published new analyses demonstrating the magnitude of measures the Southeast Asian state has taken to block websites it deems politically offensive.
Sat, 07 Jan 2012 11:46:21 GMT:WikiLeaks Supporters Lose Court Bid to Protect Twitter Records
A U.S. District judge in Alexandria, Virginia, rejected a request by Birgitta Jonsdottir, Jacob Appelbaum and Rop Gonggrijp to block prosecutors from obtaining the data while a federal appeals court considers their challenge to the government’s request for the data.
Sat, 07 Jan 2012 11:45:42 GMT:Struggle changes people
This article discusses the idea that the experience of struggle and direct action transforms people.
Sun, 01 Jan 2012 20:58:47 GMT:‘Occupy Wall Street’ protesters return to Zuccotti Park
As many in New York turned their attention towards new resolutions in new places for 2012, “Occupy Wall Street” protesters enthusiastically returned to Zuccotti Park Saturday night.
According to the New York Daily News, demonstrators knocked down barricades surrounding the park 90 minutes prior to midnight in a full fledge re-occupying after being evicted in mid- November.
Authorities say one cop suffered a slight injury and was taken to a local hospital after a protester cut him with a pair of scissors.
Sun, 01 Jan 2012 20:57:44 GMT:Hacker Group Anonymous Claims Responsibility for Breaking into Global Intelligence Company Website
Members of the hacking group Anonymous have claimed credit for hacking into the website of the global intelligence company Stratfor and then making donations to charities using credit card information found unsecured on the Stratfor website. The hacking group also released the information on 4,000 credit cards owned by subscribers of Stratfor’s products. Stratfor’s website is still not functioning. A banner read, "Site is currently undergoing maintenance. Please check back soon." The action may have been tied to last week’s pretrial hearing for accused Army whistleblower Bradley Manning. One online post regarding the hacking of Stratfor said, "While the rich and powerful are enjoying themselves with all their bourgeois gifts and lavish meals, our comrade Bradley Manning is not having that great of a time in federal custody." The post went on to say, "Instead of being heralded as a fighter for free information and government transparency, he is criminalized, marginalized, and incarcerated, threatened with life imprisonment."
Sun, 01 Jan 2012 20:57:14 GMT:Iran Threatens to Block Oil Passage if U.S. Enacts Sanctions
Iran is vowing to block a key passage for the world’s oil supplies if the U.S. proceeds with new economic sanctions. On Tuesday, a top Iranian official said Iran would close off the Strait of Hormuz if the United States fully implements a measure that would sanction Iran’s oil exports, a major source of Iranian government revenue. About one-fifth of the world’s oil is said to pass through the Strait. The sanctions were passed as part of a congressional measure targeting Iran for its alleged nuclear activities and now await President Obama’s signature.
Sun, 01 Jan 2012 20:56:46 GMT:Argentine Dictator Sentenced for Crimes Against Humanity
HAVANA TIMES, Dec 30 — Former Argentinian dictator Reynaldo Bignone was sentenced Thursday to 15 years in prison for crimes against humanity. The once de facto president was already serving two life sentences for kidnapping and torture, reported the Pulsar news agency.
Sun, 01 Jan 2012 20:56:08 GMT:Lung Cancer Vaccine Tested in Cuban Province
HAVANA TIMES, Dec 30 — Polyclinics in Sancti Spiritus province are testing the lung cancer vaccine CIMAVAX-EGF, which was created in Cuba and is the only one registered in the world for this type of malignancy.
The drug has been in use for about nine months in five clinics in the province as part of a national study that now includes more than two thousand patients, reports the Prensa Latina news agency.
Sun, 01 Jan 2012 20:55:27 GMT:While Drafting SOPA, the U.S. House Harbors BitTorrent Pirates
In recent weeks we discovered BitTorrent pirates at the RIAA, Sony, Fox, Universal and even law-abiding organizations such as the Department of Homeland Security. By now it should be clear that people are using BitTorrent pretty much everywhere, and not only for lawful downloads. Today we can add the U.S. House of Representatives to that list, the place where lawmakers are drafting the much discussed “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA).
Sun, 01 Jan 2012 20:54:17 GMT:EU to Give Secret Anti-censorship Software to Human Rights Activists
The European Union plans to distribute new software to help human rights activists and dissidents in authoritarian regimes circumvent censorship.
Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes announced the “No Disconnect Strategy” on Monday to provide support to Internet users, bloggers and cyberactivists living in countries with poor track records on human rights.
Sun, 01 Jan 2012 20:53:33 GMT:Data Protection Regulation and the Politics of Interoperability
The United States Government is taking its stance pressuring the European Union to weaken its new strengtened data protection bill. The European Union has a history of strong data protection standards, emboldened by the European Charter’s explicit provisions upholding data protection as a fundamental right. European Digital Rights (EDRi) revealed today a widespread U.S. lobbying effort against the November 29th leaked version of the legislative proposal for a Data Protection Regulation (DPR). DPR will repeal the existing EU Data Protection Directive, which details regulations regarding personal data processing within the European Union, and is due for official release on January, 25th 2012.
Sun, 01 Jan 2012 20:52:27 GMT:How SOPA Creates The Architecture For Much More Widespread Censorship
We've discussed many times how the censorship provisions of SOPA and PIPA require US companies to set up a system that is technically identical to internet censorship systems in countries like China and Iran. This always upsets supporters of these bills, because they prefer to focus solely on what's being censored, with the argument being that as long as the target of the censorship is infringement, rather than, say, political speech, it's okay. I've had two different arguments for why that line of thinking is ridiculous. First, while the bill may target infringing works, it will, without doubt, end up censoring tons of non-infringing works, as with the Dajaz1 seizure. The second point is that countries have a history of censoring political speech under the guise of copyright law. So, even if the intent is not to censor political speech, we have enough examples of it happening that it seems like a perfectly legitimate point to raise.
Sun, 01 Jan 2012 20:51:35 GMT:Dutch Parliament: Downloading Movies and Music Will Stay Legal
In an attempt to reduce widespread piracy in the Netherlands, the government there recently introduced a plan that would make downloading movies and music unlawful. However, this proposal was binned yesterday by a motion from the Dutch parliament due to concerns it would restrict the free flow of information, invade the privacy of citizens and invite copyright trolls. Instead, they encourage the entertainment industry to focus their attention on providing authorized alternatives.
Sun, 01 Jan 2012 20:49:42 GMT:Anatomy of the 1%
Who comprises the nation’s wealthiest—and most infamous—percentage?
Sun, 01 Jan 2012 20:48:56 GMT:Obama Year Three: Continuing His Rogue Agenda
In 2011, Obama continued the destructive pattern he followed in years one and two. Throughout his tenure, he's done what supporters thought impossible.
Across the board on domestic and foreign issues, he governed to the right of George Bush. He's waged multiple imperial wars, plans others, looted the nation's wealth, wrecked the economy, consigned growing millions to impoverishment without jobs, and institutionalized tyranny to target dissenters challenging political corruption, corporate crooks, or abuse of power lawlessness.
Sun, 01 Jan 2012 20:47:53 GMT:New Edition of Tor-Ramdisk Released
Use the Tor anonymizing software off of a bootable cd image.
Sun, 01 Jan 2012 20:44:54 GMT:State of the arms race between repressive governments and anti-censorship/surveillance Tor technology
Last night's Chaos Computer Congress (28C3) presentation from Jacob Applebaum and Roger Dingledine on the state of the arms race between the Tor anti-censorship/surveillance technology and the world's repressive governments was by turns depressing and inspiring. Dingledine and Applebaum have unique insights into the workings of the technocrats in Iranian, Chinese, Tunisian, Syrian and other repressive states, and the relationship between censorship and other human rights abuses (for example, when other privacy technologies failed, governments sometimes discovered who was discussing revolution and used that as the basis for torture and murder).
Sun, 01 Jan 2012 20:44:04 GMT:Being the bigger person
Union organizer with the IWW Starbucks Workers Union dispels the sentiment that 'being the better person' must entail living as a doormat.