Civilization Means PrivacySince the details of the NSA programs became publicly known a short time ago, already there are signs of market pressures being brought to bear to curtail the actions of the agency and its partner companies. There are early signs of emerging boycotts of US-based internet and telecommunications companies, and customer migration to firms operating outside the United States.[1] One observer has even suggested that the next desirable IT feature will b... (more)
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Prime Minister David Cameron: Google, Bing and Yahoo! 'Enable' Child Porn"I'm going to try to regulate [insert concept or technology here] because I really have no idea how it works," said no politician ever. "Bad things are happening and we're going to do something about it!" said too many government officials to count.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron is at it again, fretting about child porn and saying grumbly things about holding search engines responsible for the actions of others. This is one of Cameron's favorite hobby horses: porn on the interne... (more)
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UK Blocks Porn, 'Conspiracy Theories' Next?The British government has set the precedent for establishing the state’s power to censor web content of its choosing by automatically blocking online porn via mandatory web filters set to be in place by the end of next year.
“Every household in the UK is to have pornography blocked by their internet provider unless they choose to receive it, David Cameron is to announce,” reports BBC News. During an interview with the BBC, Cameron focused almost exclusively... (more)
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Texas School District Drops Embattled RFID Student IDs; Opts For Tons Of Cameras InsteadThe Northside Independent School District (NISD) of Texas, best known for being sued by a student over its mandatory RFID card policy, is dropping the technology that originally landed it in the courtroom.
These chipped student ID cards were deployed to track students in hopes of bumping up ... (more)
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MIT Trying To Block The Release Of Aaron Swartz's Secret Service FileIt's not all that uncommon to see government agencies try to refuse to release information that is subject to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request -- but to have a non-governmental third party jump into a FOIA request to seek to block the info from being released? That's pretty damn rare. But it's happened -- and, amazingly, the third party is MIT, a school that is supposedly dedicated to advancing knowledge. Except, apparently, if that knowledge is going to make MIT look bad.
... (more)
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Bar Hit With $45,000 Fine for "Pirated" Karaoke SongsA collection of music label affiliates and the royalty collection agency BMI have won a legal battle with the Texan hotel / bar Clarion Inn. A Texas District Court concluded that the establishment was hosting illegal karaoke events featuring music from Otis Redding, Willy Nelson and Johnny Cash and others, and awarded $45,000 in damages. The lawsuit is one of the many of its kind that are filed every year, with the 2013 total sitting at 81 thus far.
Royalty collection agencies ... (more)
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ACLU Report Exposes Extent Of License Plate SurveillanceThe American Civil Liberties Union has been gathering information on police use of motorist surveillance technologies for more than a year. The group's report, issued Wednesday, adds to the national debate on domestic spying in the wake of the revelation that the National Security Agency has been collecting and storing emails and telephone GPS location data on everyone.
"License plate readers are just one example of a disturbing phenomenon: the government is increasingly using ne... (more)
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Technology to Protect Against Mass Surveillance In the past several weeks, EFF has received many requests for advice about privacy tools that provide technological shields against mass surveillance. We've been interested for many years in software tools that help people protect their own privacy; we've defended your right to develop and use cryptographic software, we've supported the development of the Tor software, and written privacy software of our own.
This article is part one of a two-part series. In this part, we'll take... (more)
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Internet Fascism and the Surveillance StateWhat is the purpose of telecommunication and internet surveillance?
The NSA presents its surveillance operations as being directed toward security issues, claiming that the programs are needed to counter terrorist attacks. Bald assertions of plots foiled are intended to bolster this claim.[1] However, secret NSA documents reveal that their surveillance is used to gather intelligence to achieve political goals for the US government.... (more)
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Greenwald: Snowden Has NSA Blueprint
Journalist Glenn Greenwald says Former NSA Systems Analyst Edward Snowden has documents that blueprint what the National Security Agency does and how it works. He says these documents prove that everything Snowden leaked is true. (July 15)
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Dear FAKE Journalist! Please Take SOME Personal Responsibility For YOUR "Reporting"
MSNBC presstitute attacks Ed Snowden for exposing the beloved Dear Leader, she begs him to come back to the land of the free to be put in a cage.
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Teen's Joke 'Threat' Lands Him In Solitary; While Cop Saying He Wants To 'Kill' The First Lady Walks FreeIn life, there are often (at minimum) two sets of rules -- one that applies to average people, and one that applies to those on a more rarefied plane. Our legislators do it all the time, enacting laws that they have little intention of following or carving out exceptions in those that already exist.
The law enforcement communit... (more)
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Latest Snowden Poll Results: 55% Say Whistleblower; 34% Say TraitorImmediately in the aftermath of the Snowden revelations, various political action committees and their ideologically affiliated polling services took to convincing the general public that according to “popular opinion”, a “majority” of Americans found Snowden to be a [traitor|hero]. A month later, with the the dust having settled somewhat, the US public has had some more time to consider the implications of living in the United Stasi States of America. And sure enough, an... (more)
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In What World Is Having Three Judges Set The Price Of Streaming Music 'Free Market Capitalism'?Greg Sandoval over at The Verge has an interesting post about "Pandora's PR problem" concerning its attempt to get out from under ridiculously draconian royalty rates that are clearly unsustainable. I agree that Pandora has failed on almost every aspect of the PR front, though the article seems seriously one-sided on a few points. First, it compares Pandora's situat... (more)
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