Technology issues that concern the urban minority community
State Department: Someone snooped in Obamas passport file – CNN.com
I always fell like…
somebody’s watchin’ me…
And I have no privacy.
Oh,Oh, Oh,
RIAA Training Video Leaked onto Torrent Sites Updated | Listening Post from Wired.com
“But it also includes some choice lines, such as this one, about how piracy accusations can help take down people who are skirting other laws think Al Capone:
Jim Dedman, National District Attorneys Association: “If I have my drug officers out there, and they see what seems like a nice music collection, this may be something you could help me out with.”
Deborah Robinson, Regional Counsel, Anti-Piracy Div., RIAA: “Exactly, exactly. And sometimes drug officers call us and say, we know theyre selling music, can you help us?… Were trying to arrest this drug dealer, what should I look for, what should I put in that affidavit?”
I have said it over and over again. The telcos relationship with the feds will produce disastrous effects. The RIAA is now making a case that their pursuit of piracy will lead to other criminal activities such as drugs and you guessed it, terrorism. This is will give them the excuse to search all digital content as they have been doing since 9/11 until last weekend.
Blog Posts related to NSA Spying | Electronic Frontier Foundation
“Sixty-seven senators chose to side with corporate interests rather than uphold the Constitution today, passing the FISA Amendments Act FAA and voting to reject every amendment that would have improved the bill and protected American civil liberties.”
What so sad is that Arkansas’ two senators voted for the telecommunication companies. I can’t quite see why Sen. Mark Pryor did. I mean he has only gotten a total $108, 000 in donations from the telecommunications industry since 1989. Even though this sounds like a lot, this industry is number 18 out of the top 20 industries that donated to him. AT$T barely made the top 20 contributors with a total of $18, 250 since 1989.
Now Blanche Lincoln is a different story. Although the telecommunications industry is 16 out of the top 20 industries at $180,268.00, AT$T is the largest contributor of $74,000 since 1989. (source: opensecrets.org)
(special note:The organizations themselves did not donate, rather the money came from the organization’s PAC, its individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals’ immediate families.) opensecrets.org
Now what exactly did the telecoms do? Contrary to popular belief, they were not going through pages and pages of phone bills. They split the fiber optic data that was coming through the telcos and ran into their equipment and copied it. Sophisticated search algorithms sifted through the emails, voice and computer data to find the terrorist electronic communications , or at least that’s what we were led to believe. They now have to ability to listen and see everything that comes across their network, and I mean everything. This will not stop with just terrorism. I believe that the telcoms will use this to further their efforts to put up the gates on the internet to remove the innovation, free speech and overall freedom that the internet has given us. They will partner even more with the media companies to destroy Google and Apple. Music and movies companies have just won a small victory in helping them continue pushing out shiggity and calling it art. Who needs DRM when you got control of the net which is the world’s largest and most open distribution channel. We must make our last stand in the House before its too late. Check out this chart. (Source: http://eff.org)
URGENT: Telecom Immunity Showdown in the Senate!
From EFF:
“For more than five years, AT&T and other telephone companies broke the law and violated their customers’ privacy rights by sending billions of private domestic internet and telephone communications and records to the National Security Agency.
Now, after months of pressure from the Bush Administration, the full Senate is poised to grant retroactive immunity to these companies, which would effectively ensure that the full extent of their complicty will never be known.
The critical make-or-break vote is being held Monday– contact your Senator immediately and urge them to oppose telecom immunity!
Senate lawmakers must support Senator Chris Dodd and other heroes in allowing a full debate to proceed on Monday, and they must vote to strip telecom immunity from the bill.
The Senate should not let the telecoms off the hook. Granting immunity sets a dangerous precedent, sending the message that lawbreaking is acceptable and that the rights of Americans can be freely infringed by private companies in defiance of the law. And though the debate about the proper process of collecting foreign intelligence is complex, the issue of telecom immunity is not. The facts are simple enough: the telecoms broke the law, so the Senate should let Americans have their day in court.”