Big Brother is Watching You

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U.S. Government silences 84,000 websites

Sunday, February 20th, 2011

In it ever increasing fervor to reign with supreme authority over all the communications of Americans, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recently closed down, under a secret court order, 84,000 websites using the all-powerful justification of protecting children.

Basically, among a hand full of other sites seized by ICE was mooo.com which is used to resolve the domain names of the 84,000 other websites. Until the matter was rectified, visitors to sites that use mooo.com were greeted with the following banner:

“Advertisement, distribution, transportation, receipt, and possession of child pornography constitute federal crimes that carry penalties for first time offenders of up to 30 years in federal prison, a $250,000 fine, forfeiture and restitution.”

Nice work, ICE. You slandered thousands of people in the worst possible way and then have the nerve to brag about the great job you’ve done.

Anyone who thinks the United States is in some way different from any other country that wields absolute control over the internet is in for a surprise. The fact that the U.S. uses secrecy to shield itself from the public eye is ominous. There is, in fact, no way to know what the shuttered sites contain and the owners of those sites are not about to risk their legal defense by publicly refuting the government’s claims.

The mere mention of protecting children cuts the average IQ of the American public in half. Just like the 9/11 attacks had people stampeding to give up their Fourth Amendment rights, the mention of child porn has them stampeding to hand over their First Amendment protections.

The fact that this story barely gained any exposure in the mainstream media is a pretty powerful indication that the press can no longer be counted on to hold government accountable. In fact, if anything, the mainstream press is more a partner of the government than a watchdog over it.

Posted in Big Brother is Watching You, Child Pornography, Police Misconduct, Rights of the Accused, United States | 1 Comment »

Iowa dispenses with due process to save kids

Monday, February 14th, 2011

Iowa is no different from every other state that imagines child abuse everywhere they look. Except Iowa is more innovative. Given the popularity of sex offender registries throughout the country, Iowa has instituted a child abuse registry, but they decided this registry is too important to allow the courts to hinder it with inconvenient demands for due process:

It takes no conviction in court to end up on the registry – only a finding by Iowa Department of Human Services staff that it was “more likely than not” that the person neglected a child or, in a much smaller number of cases, abused a child.

Of course, state agencies, with their act first and ask questions later approach to child protection, have established reputation for harming children almost as bad as the accused child abusers themselves. It’s no wonder that the credibility of the child abuse registry is being questioned:

Iowa’s 51,960-name child abuse registry could get an overhaul in the wake of complaints that the list damages reputations and job prospects for the accused before they’ve had a fair hearing.

“There are too many innocent people on that registry list,” said Rep. Bruce Hunter, D-Des Moines. “This isn’t about letting people guilty of child abuse off the hook. Those people shouldn’t be anywhere around children.”

So, Iowa DHS is willing to smear people without due process, effectively denying them employment in their career, and encouraging future persecution of them all in the name of protecting children?

Nice work Iowa. How much longer before you start crucifying citizens on Main Street to set an example to others that, when it comes to protecting children, you are willing to destroy as many innocent people as it takes?

Posted in Big Brother is Watching You, Iowa, Rights of the Accused | 3 Comments »

Egyption internet kill switch comes to the U.S.

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011

Senator Joe Lieberman, former Presidential candidate and active proponent of internet censorship, is co-sponsoring a bill to give the President the same kind of internet kill switch recently made famous as the weapon of first resort in quelling the popular discontent in Egypt.

From the HuffPo:

The authority granted to the government in the bill, known as the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act (PCNAA), has been likened to an Internet “kill switch.”

The bill would require that private companies–such as “broadband providers, search engines, or software firms,” CNET explains–”immediately comply with any emergency measure or action” put in place by the Department of Homeland Security, or else face fines.

And how will this new security measure be administered?

[The law] would also see the creation of a new agency within the Department of Homeland Security, the National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications (NCCC).

Because, if there’s anything that the bloated and largely incompetent Department of Homeland Security needs more of, it’s bureaucracy.

But wait, there’s more! The bill not only subjugates the privately operated internet infrastructure to the government, it also provides for additional violation of your privacy and Fourth Amendment rights.

Any private company reliant on “the Internet, the telephone system, or any other component of the U.S. ‘information infrastructure’” would be “subject to command” by the NCCC, and some would be required to engage in “information sharing” with the agency, says CBS4.

As the government learned from the warrantless wiretap fiasco, the government needs a way to assure private corporations that they won’t be held accountable when the government tells them to violate the Constitution.

He added that the bill is necessary for it would reduce the liability of companies that may need to resort to extreme measures in an emergency situation. Companies might have to “do things in a normal business sense you’d be hesitant to do but national security requires you to do,” Lieberman explained, adding “We protect them from that because the action the government is ordering them to take is in national security or economic interest.”

We probably don’t give our “leaders” enough credit for thinking ahead. It’s clear that Lieberman sees that what’s happening in Egypt could happen here. Anyone who remembers the civil rights or Vietnam war protests and riots (as Lieberman certainly does) can attest to that. But, if and when the U.S. has a popular uprising like we’re seeing in Tunisia, Greece, and Egypt, by God our government is going to be ready. They are going to be able to summarily kill the internet and phone service but rather than looking like an oppressive tyrannical response to citizen unrest, it will be all dressed up in the rule of law.

The government has finally found a way to put the internet firmly under the thumb of government as the public silently goes about its business.

Posted in Big Brother is Watching You, Censorship, Egypt, Greece, Politics, Tunisia, United States | 4 Comments »

Legislating fashion in Selma, Alabama

Friday, January 14th, 2011

No study of the American Civil Rights movement leaves out the historic events that took place in Selma, Alabama back in the 1960swhen the law was different for people who looked different. If you were black, you were treated as something less that other people.

Then, as now, Selma is mostly black, but now they have the same rights as everyone else and they can vote like everyone else.

But not everything about Selma has changed. In December the Selma city council once again decided to embark down the path of treating people who look different as something less than other people. They passed a law legalizing police harassment of people who wear their pants too low.

Nice work Selma, Alabama. You are once again an icon of social intolerance.

Josh Moon at the Montgomery Advertiser offers additional perspective:

Things are great in Selma.

The crime rate is near zero. The economy is so good they hand out hundred-dollar bills on the courthouse square. The streets are pothole-free. And the court dockets are all up to date.

I don’t have stats to verify any of that — in fact, the stats I have seen directly contradict all of it — but still, it has to be true. Because if it’s not, I’m going to need a Selma City Council member to explain to me how a group of elected officials — presumably adults — would ever set aside problems in any one of those aforementioned areas and choose instead to spend their time writing, debating and passing a law that bans saggy pants.

Yes, you read that correctly. Saggy pants — they outlawed them.

We think we’ve come a long way since the Jim Crow days, but have we? When we still see nothing wrong in passing laws that simply target people for looking different than us, I’d stay we still have a long way to go. Is this what they pay the city council in Selma to do?

Posted in Alabama, Big Brother is Watching You, Censorship | 6 Comments »

The three varieties of Junk Touchers explained

Tuesday, December 28th, 2010

Chart comes from Chart Porn.

Posted in Big Brother is Watching You, Law Enforcement Abuses, Prostitution, United States | 2 Comments »

Supercomputer watches as you surf the web

Monday, December 13th, 2010

What task could possibly be more important for America’s most powerful computer than to watch over your shoulder as you surf the web just in case you’re transmitting kiddie porn (or maybe something else the government doesn’t like)?

According to the Daily Mail:

The most powerful computer in America is being used in the hunt for paedophiles.

The Jaguar supercomputer, which can carry out trillions of calculations a second, has been put to use help track down people who send child porn over the internet.

Scientists at the Oak Ridge Facility in Tennessee have been able to use the lightning fast supercomputer to find where the vile images originate from.

The article goes on to explain that law enforcement can easily find those who possess child porn, but have a hard time finding the source of the material. To the government and anti-porn crusaders, simple possession is as great an evil as producing the material even though only the latter actually abuses children. But, since arrests on possession are much easier to score (thanks to sting tactics) and prosecute, that’s where the resources or assigned.

The lead investigator on the project at Oak Ridge, Robert Patton, has developed algorithms that analyse traffic, looking at the search terms people are using on peer-to-peer, file-sharing networks.

Search terms that indicate someone is looking for child porn are flagged, and the algorithm watches to see how different IP addresses respond to the queries.

It’s not like there are any Fourth Amendment issues involved in wading through everyone’s internet activities hoping to find a crime they can pin on someone. Of course, maybe the computer is already monitoring everything we do on the internet and this simply amounts to one more screening algorithm. One thing is for certain. Nothing generates a rush to give up Constitutional protections like the claim that it’s to protect children.

‘ We want to be able to say ‘Hey, of all of the data you’re looking at right now, here are a handful of IP addresses that you should investigate further.

‘Hopefully, the work that I’m doing here will help save somebody’s life.’

Probably not. More likely is that will lead to another high profile prosecution for the creation of cartoons (like Japanese anime or the Simpsons) that the government doesn’t approve, but which don’t hurt any children.

Probably just discussing child porn probably gets their attention…

Posted in Big Brother is Watching You, Child Pornography, Tennessee | 7 Comments »

New fears about Australia’s internet filter

Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010

I have written much in the past about Australia’s plan to filter content from the internet that has been “refused classification”. Over the past several months, the scheme seemed to be all but dead. Support for it was dropped just prior to recent elections and it has seemingly fallen off the international news radar.

As reported in the Sydney Morning Herald, Stephen Conroy, the plan’s foremost advocate has suggested it could not be implemented at the national broadband level.

“The filter doesn’t work through the wholesale network, it works through the [internet service providers] or [retail service providers (RSP)], the Telstras, Optuses, Primuses, that’s the level that it works at,” he said.

“It’s not technically possible for the filter to be applied at the National Broadband Network level, it can only be applied at the RSP level.”

While that may be true, the government could still bring pressure to bear on ISPs and RSPs to accomplish the same end:

But David Vaile, the executive director of the University of NSW’s Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre, said the government could still use its ownership of the wholesale fibre-optic network to “lean on” ISPs.

“If you have a commercial relationship when you’re the monopoly supplier, the terms you set are the terms people must follow,” Mr Vaile said.

“They’re re-nationalising the internet and to a large extent the telephone system as well.

This could mean that the government, rather than caving in to public complaints about the filtering have just decied to take a more circuitous route to accomplish the same end:

Mr Vaile said announcements in July that telcos Telstra, Optus and Primus had agreed to voluntarily block online child pornography material were classic examples of indirect pressure being applied.

“Telstra and Optus have voluntarily agreed to implement a form of the blacklist already, without legislation or any form of transparency,” he said.

“That’s pure persuasion and leaning on.”

And while the official pretense has been about blocking child porn, the fact is that the Australian black list goes beyond child porn sites into the realm of blocking political content.

Posted in Australia, Big Brother is Watching You, Censorship, Child Pornography, Politics | Comments Off

Sex offender living next door? Maybe, maybe not.

Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010

The National Sex Offender Registry says there are three registered sex offenders living at Walker’s Deluxe Motel in Dothan, Alabama. There’s nothing unusual about that except for the tiny detail that there really aren’t any sex offenders living at the hotel. The Registry shows seven sex offenders living at another nearby hotel, but the reality is there are only two living there.

The article in the Dothan Eagle explains the reasons for the inaccuracies and the registry website itself provides the following disclaimer:

“It is possible that information accessed or obtained through this website may not reflect current residences, employment, school attendance, or other information regarding such individuals, and users are forewarned that it is incumbent upon them to verify information.”

It’s interesting that the owner says they evict people from the hotel when they receive the notification that they are registered sex offenders, but they are apparently not permitted to ask in advance. So, the notifications from the registry result in offenders being forced to move which is a factor in making the registry inaccurate.

The last place to expect a rational response to sex crimes would be a government office. Politicians just aren’t equipped with the require critical thinking skills.

Posted in Alabama, Big Brother is Watching You, Sex Offender Registries | Comments Off

The persistent threat of internet censorship.

Monday, November 1st, 2010

The UK is considering a plan to have internet service providers censor content based on user complaints without a court order.

From ISPReview:

The UK governments Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries, Ed Vaizey, has ominously proposed that broadband ISPs could introduce a new Mediation Service that would allow them the freedom to censor third party content on the internet, without court intervention, in response to little more than a public complaint.

A few things about the above paragraph are disturbing. First, it is inherently contradictory for a so-called free country have a ministry for things like culture and creativity. That belongs in the same category as fucking for virginity.

Secondly, you gotta love the shear idiocy of the phrase “freedom to censor”. Unfortunately, concepts like freedom and liberty have become so convoluted to the average citizen that most would never spot such a glaring oxymoron.

And why should internet content carriers not be pressured into censorship? Since the state has taken the position that some types of objectionable speech are punishable as a crime, it should not delegate the determination of what constitutes illegal speech to a non-governmental body. ISPs have no incentive to protect challenged expression and every incentive to heroically protect the public from offensive content regardless of its legality.

In other words, ISP censorship of third-party content would cripple the most powerful means of public communications since the invention of the pen. It would result in the suppression of much, otherwise protected, expression simply because it would be easy to do. Suppressing someone’s right to free speech should be a difficult task requiring a court order.

The free exchange of information over the internet is the biggest threat to government (and I mean all governments everywhere) ever conceived and no one knows that as well as government. Despite rhetoric to the contrary, governments will continue to pursue schemes that permit them to control and monitor that medium in the name of protecting children, national security, crime control, etc. It is inevitable that the public will slowly yield to that fear mongering. Enjoy it while you can.

[Update 11-2-10] Another treatment of this plan worth reading has been posted on CNET.

Posted in Big Brother is Watching You, Censorship, United Kingdom | 2 Comments »

New Haven uses SWAT team to harass strip club

Tuesday, October 26th, 2010

Well, strip clubs are, of course, fair game for governmental harassment. After all, what righteous citizen is going to complain about the rights of mere strip club patrons and owners?

According to the New Haven Register:

For a moment, employees at a St. John Street cabaret said, they thought they were being robbed when masked gunmen with assault rifles stormed in Monday night.

That’s just standard law enforcement protocol. For your common drug enforcement thug, nothing quite satisfies like violently busting into a place dressed in black, disguised with masks, and scaring the crap out of people by recklessly waving firearms in their faces.

New Haven police Lt. Jeff Hoffman, who heads the narcotics squad, stressed the warrant wasn’t specifically for Crazy Horse Cabaret, the former Stage Door Johnny’s, at 85 St. John St., but rather for the 15,000-square-foot building, an old clock factory that takes up an entire block on Hamilton Street.

He confirmed the search warrant was part of an ongoing drug investigation. He declined to say what police found, but the owner of the club Tuesday said he understood police found a marijuana grow operation in another part of the sprawling complex.

Ooooouh! Scary. Someone was growing pot! If anything demands an armed paramilitary invasion it’s got to be people who are interested in getting high and happy on weed.

“Battering rams, bulletproof shields, assault rifles. They had 30 to 35 people on the floor in cuffs and this whole building was locked down in a matter of three or four minutes,” the man said, not wanting to provide his name.

Hey, humiliating and threatening 35 people is a small price to pay when it comes to rescuing the world from the terror of marijuana.

He didn’t stick around after police let him go.

“They were starting to tear apart the place when I was leaving.”

Of course, they were. Wrecking a place is all part of the fun of being a drug cop.

Let’s hope California passes prop 19 next week. The drug war is nothing but a jobs program for self important, intellectually challenged, neanderthal drug cops. It’s time to start the ball rolling on dismantling it and forcing those assholes to get real jobs.

Posted in Big Brother is Watching You, Connecticut | 2 Comments »

Sex Hysteria!