Did The Entertainment Industry Backdoor In Forcing ISPs To Kick People Offline, While Claiming It Did Not?Never underestimate just how sneaky entertainment industry lobbyists can be. They're able to push through all sorts of things that appear innocuous at first, but down the road turn out to be anything but. The ProIP Act (not to be confused with the PROTECT IP Act) is a perfect example of this. It had all sorts of awful provisions, originally, which lots of people protested about. But that allowed the industry to slip in a single "innocuous" provision almost entirely unnoticed. The pro... (more)
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Coming Soon to an Airport Near YouIf you fly within the United States in the future, keep your expression neutral, do not blink too much or too little, and do not sweat. Carefully maintain a normal respiration and heart beat as you submit to demands from Homeland Security agents. If you question or resist their demands, you could be detained as a pre-crime suspect, fined up to $11,000 and added to a No Fly list.
On July 5, a headline in the bioethical news source BioEdge declared, “‘Pre-crime&... (more)
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TSA Violates Its Own Policy To Stem Tide Of Pat Down Abuse FootageHot on the heels of its attempted cover-up surrounding the dangers of naked body scanners, the TSA has been caught in yet another act of public deception, telling passengers before they land that filming TSA security checkpoints is prohibited, contrary to the TSA’s own public policy, in an apparent effort to stem the tide of viral videos showing TSA harassment that have saturated the Int... (more)
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TSA Abuses and FailuresThe press reports are horrifying: 95 year-old women humiliated; children molested; disabled people abused; men and women subjected to unwarranted groping and touching of their most private areas; involuntary radiation exposure. If the perpetrators were a gang of criminals, their headquarters would be raided by SWAT teams and armed federal agents. Unfortunately, in this case the perpetrators are armed federal agents. This is the sorry situation ten years after the creation of the Transportation ... (more)
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US anti-piracy body targets foreign website owners for extraditionThe US's Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) is targeting overseas websites it believes are breaking US copyrights whether or not their servers are based in America or there is another direct US link, said Erik Barnett, the agency's assistant deputy director.
As long as a website's address ends in .com or .net, if it is implicated in the spread of pirated US-made films, TV or other media it is a legitimate target to be closed down or targeted for prosecution, Barnett ... (more)
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'Pirate' Admins Sweat As ICE Reveal Extradition CriteriaLast month it was revealed that the UK-based admin of TVShack.net is fighting an extradition request filed by the US government. The site’s domain was seized as part of Operation in Our Sites but according to new comments from ICE, more individuals could now be sought by US authorities. Cutting through jurisdictional issues, ICE say they only need to show one thing to seek extradition of an admin – that his or her ‘pirate’ site has a .COM or .NET domain.
On... (more)
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Microsoft admits Patriot Act can access EU-based cloud dataLONDON — At the Office 365 launch, Gordon Frazer, managing director of Microsoft UK, gave the first admission that cloud data — regardless of where it is in the world — is not protected against the USA PATRIOT Act.
It was honestly music to my ears. After a year of researching the Patriot Act’s breadth and ability to access data held within protected EU boundaries, Microsoft finally and openly admitted it.
The question put forward:
... (more)
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Cancer Surges In Body Scanner Operators; TSA Launches Cover-UpFearful of provoking further public resistance to naked airport body scanners, the TSA has been caught covering up a surge in cases of TSA workers developing cancer as a result of their close proximity to radiation-firing devices, perhaps the most shocking revelation to emerge from the latest FOIA documents obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
After Union representatives in Boston discovered a “cancer cluster” amongst TSA workers linked with radi... (more)
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Orwell, eat your heart out: 'TSA denies having required a 95-year-old woman to remove diaper'Orwell must be rolling in his grave. The TSA has just come out and stated they didn't require the 95-yr-old dying leukemia patient to remove her diaper. Instead, they told the woman they had to inspect it or else she couldn't board her plane, a requirement by any other name. Amazingly, CNN basically uncritically reports the TSA's bull and titles their article to give the passerby the impression they presented some sort of evidence to the contrary of the woman's claims, when instead all they d... (more)
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Patriot Act Debate: Is the FBI Collecting Your Phone Data?The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee is weighing fresh concerns about the sweeping nature of domestic spying using one controversial section of the Patriot Act. This particular part of that law is notable because it has been divisive for years — and because during those years President Obama has quietly moved from being a Senator skeptical of the provisions to being an enthusiastic spy chief whose Administration embraces them.
Last Tuesday the committee met to consider the... (more)
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95-yr-old woman dying of leukemia asked to remove adult diaper during TSA searchJean Weber of Destin filed a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security after her 95-year-old mother was detained and extensively searched last Saturday while trying to board a plane to fly to Michigan to be with family members during the final stages of her battle with leukemia.
Her mother, who was in a wheelchair, was asked to remove an adult diaper in order to complete a pat-down search.
“It’s something I couldn’t imagine happening on Am... (more)
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TSA stands by officers after pat-down of elderly woman in Florida(CNN) -- The Transportation Security Administration stood by its security officers Sunday after a Florida woman complained that her cancer-stricken, 95-year-old mother was patted down and forced to remove her adult diaper while going through security. [...]
The TSA released a statement Sunday defending its agents' actions at the Northwest Florida Regional Airport.
"While every person and item must be screened before entering the secure boarding area, TSA works with ... (more)
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Senator Leahy Praises US Gov't Censorship Of Websites As ICE Takes Another Victory LapIt really would be kind of funny to watch the US government congratulate itself for censorship of websites if it wasn't just kind of sad. At a Senate Judiciary committee hearing on intellectual property issues, Senator Patrick Leahy (top 3 campaign contribution sources: lawyers, entertainment industry, lobbyists -- you can't make this stuff up) praised administration officials ... (more)
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MPAA, RIAA, Major ISPs Preparing 'Graduated Response' To PiracyA partnership between the RIAA, MPAA and the major ISPs, which would see the latter taking action against infringing customers, has been confirmed. If final agreement is reached – a point believed to be as close as next month – ISPs including AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon will begin taking increasingly severe measures against pirating customers.
As the Department of Homeland Security and ICE continue to seize the domain names of any site they believe to be engaged in infr... (more)
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Leaked: UK copyright lobby holds closed-door meetings with gov't to discuss national Web-censorship regimeA group of UK copyright lobbyists held confidential, closed-door meetings with Ed Vaizey, Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries to discuss a plan to allow industry groups to censor the Internet in the UK. The proposal has leaked, and it reveals a plan to establish "expert bodies" that would decide which websites British people were allowed to see, to be approved by a judge using a "streamlined" procedure. The procedure will allow for "swift" blocking in order to shut down ... (more)
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TSA Lies About Policy "Change" On Child Pat DownsWith much fanfare this week, TSA head John Pistole announced before the Senate that the agency is changing its policy to stop airport screeners intrusively searching young children. However, we heard almost the exact same announcement last November, yet pat-downs on children have continued regardless.
At a meeting of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs C... (more)
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MPAA Directly Lobbies Law Enforcement To Be Its Own Private Police ForceFor years, we've discussed how questionable it is that federal law enforcement, including the Justice Department and Homeland Security, often acts as the private police force of the entertainment industry. At times there's been a bit of a revolving door, with the RIAA/MPAA hiring former federal law enforcement officials to head up their "anti-piracy" efforts, and the existing federal groups sometimes seem to return the fa... (more)
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MPAA Anti-Piracy Lobbying Targets FBI, DOJ, ICE, DHS and BidenAccording to a disclosure report, the MPAA spent $400,000 lobbying a wide range of US government departments in the first quarter of 2011 including the FBI, Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, ICE and the Vice President’s Office. Issues on the table include so-called “rogue sites” including RapidShare, streaming, graduated response (3 strikes) and domain seizures.
In its quest to stamp out piracy, the MPAA continues to pump money into its lobb... (more)
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