"Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."
After going down in a spiral of paranoid stupidity—called out for saving body scan images, ridiculed for patting down an almost-naked woman or nailed for harrassing a kid at airport security—the TSA has reached a new low. It's surreal.
Say you don't have the dough to add the fashions you see at Sunday's Academy Awards ceremony to your closet. If you buy knockoffs instead, are you shopping smart or stealing?
Today it's perfectly legal to copy whatever you see on the red carpet and sell it yourself. To some, such as Diane Von Furstenberg, this s... (more)
The U.S. Army illegally ordered a team of soldiers specializing in "psychological operations" to manipulate visiting American senators into providing more troops and funding for the war, Rolling Stone has learned – and when an officer tried to stop the operation, he was railroaded by military investigators.
The orders came from the command of Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, a three-star general in charge of training Afghan troops – the linchpin of U.S. strategy in the war. ... (more)
An undercover TSA agent was able to get through security at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport with a handgun during testing of the enhanced-imaging body scanners, according to a high-ranking, inside source at the Transportation Security Administration.
The source said the undercover agent carried a pistol in her undergarments when she put the body scanners to the test. The officer successfully made it through the airport's body scanners every time she tried, the source said.... (more)
“Trust sounds good. It’s a good cliché,” says Batelli. “[But] to stick your head in the sand and think that, in 9th, 10th, 8th grade, your child is not going to be exposed to alcohol, is not going to be exposed to drugs is kind of a naïve way to go about it.” [...]
“If you sugar-coat it, parents just don’t get it. Read the paper any day of the week and you’ll see an abduction [or] a sexual assault that’s the result ... (more)
God help this pathetic creature's children. - Chris
Last fall it came out that the feds were going to push for a law that would require wiretap backdoors in all forms of internet communications. As many people pointed out at the time, there are all sorts of reasons why this is a very bad idea, starting with the fact that putting such backdoors into all forms of communication wi... (more)
The US Government has yet again shuttered several domain names this week. The Department of Justice and Homeland Security’s ICE office proudly announced that they had seized domains related to counterfeit goods and child pornography. What they failed to mention, however, is that one of the targeted domains belongs to a free DNS provider, and that 84,000 websites were wrongfully accused of links to child pornography crimes.
As part of “Operation Save Our Children”... (more)
As expected, Congress is holding hearings as it prepares to reintroduce COICA, a horribly written piece of legislation that effectively gives the US government more powers to censor websites (even beyond the Homeland Security domain seizures) by forcing companies to block the site, turn off hosting or refuse to provide other services to the site -- and this can be done with little or no due process, in violation of the basic principles of the Constitution. At least the hearings aren't totally o... (more)
Ah, the power of censorship. It appears that some other countries may be jealous of Homeland Security getting to seize all those domain names, or the proposed COICA law that would allow even more domain seizures in the US. drew points out that, over in the UK, law enforcement is also asking for official power to force Nominet to shut down domains that it claims were "used by criminals." That seems pretty broad. Lots of domains... (more)
As a bunch of the proprietors of domain names seized in earlier questionable domain seizures are preparing to fight back against the seizures, Homeland Security can't resist seizing more domain names. This time, it looks like the seizures were more focused on sites selling counterfeit physical goods, and the seizures were purposely timed to Valentine's Day. Going after sites that sell counterfeit goods makes a lot ... (more)
We had serious questions from the beginning about Senator Patrick Leahy's "ProIP" bill, which was pushed very strongly by the lobbying group, the US Chamber of Commerce, using widely debunked stats to claim that there needed to be an "IP Enforcement Coordinator" in the White House. Yet, as we explained, such a position makes absolutely no sense. Even "pro intellectual property" folks noted that the law was anything but "p... (more)
A few days after everyone already knew it had seized the domains of some sites that apparently were associated with streaming sporting events online, Homeland Security has put out its official press release about the domain name seizures. As many people thought, Homeland Security basically admits that it decided to seize these domains at... (more)
During the past 24 hours the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have seized several domains belonging to major sports streaming sites. While the authorities have not yet officially commented on the actions, there is little doubt that we’re dealing with a “Super Bowl Crackdown”. Whether the actions will have much effect has to be doubted, as the affected sites are continuing on other domains.
Just as with last time Homeland Security's Immigrations & Customs Enforcement (ICE) group seized a bunch of domain names, the deeper you look into what sites were targeted, the more questions are raised about how ICE seems to interpret the law in its own unique manner. Lots of people do this, but usually they're not the federal government with the ability to simply seize property with no adversarial hearing and no concern for either due process or the First Amendment.
