Archive for the ‘Countries’ Category

« Older Entries

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 »

Facebook played a “starring role” in revolution

Monday, February 14th, 2011

According to this New York Times article, Facebook played an important role in the recent events in Egypt that brought down their government. Indeed, American politicians are urging Facebook to go further in aiding such uprisings:

Last week, Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, urged Facebook to take “immediate and tangible steps” to help protect democracy and human rights activists who use its services, including addressing concerns about not being able to use pseudonyms.

Of course, I’m pretty certain that Facebook would be expected to immediately share any and all info about its users should the U.S. government demand it (regardless of any Constitutional prohibitions) as they have been known to do in the past.

It should also be noted that, while Facebook has no policy specifically prohibiting the use of its network to bring down a government, you’d better not be posting pictures of women breast feeding their babies.  I mean, there are limits to what a socially responsible mega-network will do in the name of freedom…

Posted in Censorship, Egypt, Nudity, Politics | 1 Comment »

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 »

The idiocy of typical sex trafficking articles

Monday, January 31st, 2011

I came across an article about sex trafficking in Chron that typifies the  way the problem is vaguely hyped by law enforcement and the way it’s mindlessly reported by the media who simply parrot what they hear from government.  The article begins immediately with claim followed by a disclaimer that says they can’t prove the claim.

Authorities know that thousands of men, women and children are trafficked into Texas. Proving it in a court of law is another matter.

What differentiates trafficking from illegal immigration is the use of force.  But here is where it starts to get goofy.

“They may be victims of trafficking that do not even know it,” Sean McElroy of Homeland Security Investigations told the newspaper.

Yeah, they probably thought they were over here voluntarily, but DHS clearly knows what’s going on in their heads better than they do.

McElroy handles trafficking and smuggling investigations for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Houston office. He said many victims initially appear to be illegal immigration cases until weeks of interviews show that they entered the United States against their will.

When it comes to cops, no does not mean no.  They just keep asking until you say yes.  In 1989, law enforcement was able to get four innocent people to confess to the notorious “Central Park Jogger” rape case after hours of “interviews”, so it should come as no surprise that incarcerated illegals can eventually be pressured to agree to the government’s version of events.

So, of the thousands of trafficking cases alluded to in the first paragraph, hpw many have been prosecuted?

Federal court records show no cases of human trafficking in 10 South Texas counties since 2000. Corpus Christi police said they cannot recall any cases where they were able to charge a suspect with trafficking, despite suspicions.

And what is the state doing to crack down on this epidemic of non-identifiable crime?

Beginning this year, state law requires newly sworn law enforcement officers to take a basic course in human trafficking. Legislation has been proposed with the aim of equipping local law enforcement to crack down on human trafficking rings that lead to or pass through Texas.

And where is all this trafficking not happening?

The attorney general’s study said the state’s busiest trafficking artery was the 900 miles of Interstate 10 that runs from El Paso to Houston, making both cities the state’s busiest trafficking centers.

Articles like these are common and so self-contradictory that they don’t hold up under even the slightest bit of analysis.

Said Hunter, “We still depend largely on kidnapping and prostitution laws to address human trafficking cases. A missing or kidnapped child whose face appears on a milk carton could actually be the victim of human trafficking.”

Well, I guess that last sentence is true.  They may not be able to identify a single case of trafficking, but they have no problem prosecuting prostitution and then calling it trafficking.

Posted in Prostitution, Texas, Trafficking, United States | 2 Comments »

Cops in Cairo threaten CNN camera operator

Saturday, January 29th, 2011

Apparently there is no freedom to record events in Egypt during the current unrest as reporters face police harassment, intimidation, and violence.

CNN senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman, along with photojournalist Mary Rogers, recounted how Egyptian police came up to them and, after a struggle, took the camera from Rogers and broke its viewfinder. Wederman tried to convince the officers to return the camera, telling them it would help show that Egypt believes in freedom of the press, but they refused – and threatened to beat him.

Video recording is a threat to government and law enforcement officials  everywhere because it limits their power to fabricate a version of events that favors those officials.

Of course, that could never happen here…

Posted in Censorship, Egypt, Police Misconduct, United States | 2 Comments »

Braving the limits of permissible expression

Sunday, January 23rd, 2011

In connection to MTV’s decision to tone down its new show “Skins” rather than risk prosecution under child porn laws, Solon has an interesting summary of how the participation of children mainstream imagery has tested the boundaries of expression permitted in the “land of the free”.  Most of the examples will probably be familiar to you, but it’s interesting to revisit the pictures in the current  environment of fear encouraged by government and the media in their perpetual pursuit of self-serving public attention.

I watched the 1978 movie “Pretty Baby” last night.   While I had already seen it soon after it was released, I don’t really recall any sense of shock at its content.  This time, watching it in the context of today’s paranoia that a pedophile lurks behind every tree, I sincerely doubt the movie, if released today, would have seen the inside of a theater without serious editing.

While these examples are about child nudity, U.S. Justice Department  has again moved the line so as to broaden their definition of a prosecutable offense, under the term “child erotica“.  Under this strategy, Alabama photographer Jeff Pierson was indicted in 2006:

In a federal indictment announced this week, the U.S. Department of Justice accused Pierson, 43, of being a child pornographer–even though even prosecutors acknowledge there’s no evidence he has ever taken a single photograph of an unclothed minor.

Rather, they argue, his models struck poses that were illegally provocative. “The images charged are not legitimate child modeling, but rather lascivious poses one would expect to see in an adult magazine,” Alice Martin, U.S. attorney for the northern district of Alabama, said in a statement.

The ease with which the government can curtail free expression in the name of protecting children encourages more and more of it and, indeed, almost all internet censorship crusades worldwide currently leverage off the public’s enthusiasm to sign over their freedom in exchange for a vague promise of security for children.

Posted in Art, Censorship, Child Pornography, Movies, Nudity, Television and Radio, United States | 6 Comments »

One stop shopping: dental tools & sex toys

Friday, January 14th, 2011

For those of you who like to pick up a few beautiful stainless steel sex toys when you’re shopping for dental instruments (or vice versa), I suggest you check out Pakistan’s Engravo Surgico.  I highly recommend the Anal Hook, Penis Stick, and Cock and Ball Torture categories.

I like how they proudly sell sex toys side by side with medical instruments as if they are both equally legitimate and respectable markets.  It’s no wonder the U.S. has been bombing the shit out of them.

Posted in Humor, Pakistan, Sex Toys and Paraphernalia | Comments Off

God sent this blizzard to punish gays

Friday, January 14th, 2011

According to Yahoo News:

Rev. Pat Robertson sparked controversy in today’s broadcast of his “700 Club” program when he claimed that God created the blizzard currently battering the Northeast “to punish Americans who were planning to drive to do something gay.”

The Reverend Robertson should probably be commended for converting more Christians to atheism than any other single person on earth.

And Robertson seems to have a special place in his heart for New Yorkers:

As for the millions of straight people in New York City who were also grounded by the bad weather, the televangelist said, “I think God probably wonders: If these people are really straight, then what are they doing in New York?”

I’m sure God has created a special place in Heaven just for ol’ Pat.

Posted in LGBT, New York, Relgious Zealotry, United States | 3 Comments »

Luxembourg considers legalizing prostitution

Thursday, January 13th, 2011

Station.lu reports that Luxembourg may legalize brothels.

Currently brothels are legal in Belgium, Germany, Holland and the Czech Republic. Although Amsterdam is well-known for its sex tourism, the largest brothel in Europe, the Pascha, is in Cologne, Germany.

Posted in Luxembourg, Prostitution | Comments Off

Hope for the old and disabled who can’t get laid

Thursday, January 13th, 2011

Legalized prostitution in Germany is resulting is specialization in bringing sex serviced to the old and disabled.  From The Local:

Still other prostitutes, such as Klee herself, focus on providing sex for seniors in retirement homes or for the disabled – an area the BSD spokeswoman said she expects to grow swiftly as Germany’s population ages.

One director of a Berlin retirement home told the paper she would like to create a “room for intimate encounters,” but is still in discussions with the religious organisation behind the operation.

Even large brothels such as Artemis have recognised this potential, making their facilities barrier-free.

Wow, if prostitution were legalized in the U.S. that would mean that hookers would have to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.  They’d have to have handicapped parking, huge bathroom stalls, and wheel chair accommodations.   Of course, they could always just do house calls…  :)

Posted in Germany, Prostitution | 3 Comments »

« Older Entries