world blog

That Which Is Seen -- may I unerringly consider All to be imbued with Divine Presence

03:46:21 pm re: surveillance of mobile phone GPS location

Categories: Uncategorized, Shady

"Sprint received over 8 million requests for its customers' information in the past 13 months. That doesn't count requests for basic identification and billing information, or wiretapping requests, or requests to monitor who is calling who, or even requests for less-precise location data based on which cell phone towers a cell phone was in contact with. That's just GPS. And, that's not including legal requests from civil litigants, or from foreign intelligence investigators. That's just law enforcement. And, that's not counting the few other major cell phone carriers like AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile. That's just Sprint."

Read the entire article at eff.org

You may be interested in an earlier link I made to an article "FBI taps cell phone mic as eavesdropping tool" -- even when it's "powered off"

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08:34:33 pm Newspeak Newsweek

Categories: Shady

I saw a Newsweek at a coffeeshop today that said on the front in huge letters... "We are all socialists now"

I noticed that someone had made it a point to strategically place it on top of an International Socialist Review. That was funny...

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02:08:49 pm David Swanson: Dangerous Executive Orders

Categories: Shady

The Center for Constitutional Rights has expressed concern that President Obama's executive order banning torture may contain a loophole. But no president has any right to declare torture legal or illegal, with or without loopholes. And if we accept that presidents have such powers, even if our new president does good with them, then loopholes will be the least of our worries.

Torture is, and has long been, illegal in every case, without exception. It is banned by our Bill of Rights, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and Title 18, U.S. Code, Section 2340A. Nothing any president can do can change this or unchange it, weaken it or strengthen it in any way.

Read more at http://www.afterdowningstreet.org

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02:58:20 am politics of Facebook you may want to consider

Categories: Shady, Nursing / Breastfeeding

And, like MySpace and probably others, Facebook won't even let a mom publish a photo of a nursing baby. Enough said. Relevant link follows:

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20090101/facebook-nudity-policy-draws-nursing-moms-ire.htm

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09:17:40 pm People were paid to riot and stop the vote recount in Miami in 2000, remember?

Categories: Elections, Shady

People were paid to riot and stop the vote recount in Miami in 2000.

Here is a newer article regarding that Supreme Court's decision.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/121108.html

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05:58:53 am Is your printer spying on you?

Categories: Shady, Computers

"the US government has succeeded in persuading some color laser printer manufacturers to encode each page with identifying information."

also see http://www.eff.org/pages/list-printers-which-do-or-do-not-display-tracking-dots

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12:47:13 am NSA Spied on US Service Members and Aid Workers

Categories: Shady, People under attack

October 10th, 2008

New NSA Whistleblowers Say NSA Spied on US Service Members and Aid Workers

Deeplink by Hugh D'Andrade

This has been a bad week for President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program. First, a government study reported that data-mining is actually a hindrance in the fight against terrorism. And now, two new whistleblowers have come forward with firsthand accounts of how innocent Americans' communications have been swept up in the NSA's dragnet.

According to ABC News and a new book by James Bamford, David Murfee Faulk and Adrienne Kinne witnessed and participated in the interception of hundreds of personal, intimate calls from American service members and aid workers. They say NSA employees have been routinely intercepting the calls of individuals with no involvement in terrorism.

Full story »

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10:04:31 am Seizing Cell Phone Location Records

Categories: Uncategorized, Shady

New Court Decision Affirms that 4th Amendment Protects Location Information

Government Must Get a Warrant Before Seizing Cell Phone Location Records

San Francisco - In an unprecedented victory for cell phone privacy, a federal court has affirmed that cell phone location information stored by a mobile phone provider is protected by the Fourth Amendment and that the government must obtain a warrant based on probable cause before seizing such records.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) had asked the federal court in the Western District of Pennsylvania to overturn a magistrate judge's decision requiring the government to obtain a warrant for stored location data, arguing that the government could obtain such information without probable cause. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), at the invitation of the court, filed a friend-of-the-court brief opposing the government's appeal and arguing that the magistrate was correct to require a warrant. Wednesday, the court agreed with EFF and issued an order affirming the magistrate's decision.

Read more at the EFF site...

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02:38:58 pm Frequently Awkward Questions for the Entertainment Industry

Categories: Shady, Computers

There are many useful links available from the linked version of this article on the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) site. Go there to see the latest version.

Frequently Awkward Questions for the Entertainment Industry

Learn More About These Issues

• Intellectual Property
• The Battle for Your Digital Media Devices
• Digital Video
• A User's Guide to DRM in Online Music

The RIAA and MPAA trot out their spokespeople at conferences and public events all over the country, repeating their misleading talking points. Innovators are pirates, fair use is theft, the sky is falling, up is down, and so on. Their rhetoric shouldn't be given a free pass.

To that end, EFF has prepared a sample list of tough questions for times when you hear entertainment industry representatives speaking and want to challenge their positions.

Full story »

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09:02:28 pm US government survey: Most corporations pay no taxes

Categories: Shady

Everyone who paid taxes this year, raise your hand. If you made at least $8,750 as an individual in the US last year, I think you were obligated to by law.

Corporations are supposed to pay a percentage of their income, but the Government Accountability Office recently disclosed that many of them do not pay anything.

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11:27:42 am Regarding the olympic protests

Categories: Shady

"The anti-Chinese protests, which, while vociferous, have not mobilized massive numbers of participants, have received wide coverage in the US media. It should simply be noted that vast worldwide demonstrations against American intervention in Iraq in February 2003, which numbered in the millions, did not garner one-tenth the airtime or column space."

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11:12:29 am CA court: "go ahead and discriminate against medical marijuana patients"

Categories: Criminal Injustice, Shady

...on January 24, 2008, in a 5-2 opinion, the California Supreme Court narrowly construed the Compassionate Use Act to rule in favor of [an] employer and hold that medical marijuana patients cannot state civil causes of action for employment discrimination.

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02:14:00 pm ambiguous language to categorize people exercising First Amendment rights and people in targeted communities as "homegrown terrorists".

Categories: Uncategorized, Shady

Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007

From the Bill of Rights Defense Committee (http://bordc.org)

• http://bordc.org/#thought
• http://bordc.org/threats/legislation/index.php#intelligence

"Thought Crime" Bill Still Threatens in Senate

The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act (H.R. 1955) passed by an overwhelming 404-6 in the House last October, and is currently in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Critics say the bill uses ambiguous language to categorize people exercising First Amendment rights and people in targeted communities as "homegrown terrorists".

Center for Constitutional Rights factsheet:

• http://ccrjustice.org/learn-more/faqs/factsheet%3A-violent-radicalization-and-homegrown-terrorism-prevention-act-2007

National Lawyers Guild opposes along with the Society of American Law Teachers

• http://nlg.org/news/index.php?entry=entry071127-093332

The National Lawyers Guild and the Society of American Law Teachers strongly oppose this legislation because it will likely lead to the criminalization of beliefs, dissent and protest, and invite more draconian surveillance of Internet communications.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HR_1955

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