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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 »

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 »

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 »

The APA and the DSM

Thursday, January 6th, 2011

Wired Magazine has an interesting perspective on the American Psychiatric Association’s struggle to amass cash and credibility by defining, redefining, and undefining that which defies definition. New for 2010 is Sexual Interest/Arousal Disorder while Histrionic Personality Disorder (hysteria) has been completely exorsized. The article elaborates on the frustration that accompanies the task of authoring such a catalog of behavioral problems:

Every so often Al Frances says something that seems to surprise even him. Just now, for instance, in the predawn darkness of his comfortable, rambling home in Carmel, California, he has broken off his exercise routine to declare that “there is no definition of a mental disorder. It’s bullshit. I mean, you just can’t define it.” Then an odd, reflective look crosses his face, as if he’s taking in the strangeness of this scene: Allen Frances, lead editor of the fourth edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (universally known as the DSM-IV), the guy who wrote the book on mental illness, confessing that “these concepts are virtually impossible to define precisely with bright lines at the boundaries.” For the first time in two days, the conversation comes to an awkward halt.

It’s not that much of an overstatement to suggest that psychiatry is quackery dressed up to look like science. That’s not to say that there is no science involved or that it doesn’t do any good, but rather that it can’t stand the fact that it is based more on guesswork than precise concrete understanding.

This is why, as one psychiatrist wrote after the APA voted homosexuality out of the DSM, “there is a terrible sense of shame among psychiatrists, always wanting to show that our diagnoses are as good as the scientific ones used in real medicine.”

In the immortal words of Thomas Szasz:

“Is psychiatry a medical enterprise concerned with treating diseases, or a humanistic enterprise concerned with helping persons with their personal problems? Psychiatry could be one or the other, but it cannot–despite the pretensions and protestations of psichiatrists–be both.”

Posted in United States | 5 Comments »

New revisionist edition of Huckleberry Finn

Thursday, January 6th, 2011

Mark Twain’s book, Huckleberry Finn is one of those literary works that is perpetually under attack for being racially offensive. Despite its acclaim as a literary classic, demands for its removal from school reading lists are so common as to not even be newsworthy anymore.

But, forget all that. Publisher NewSouth Books now intends to improve the book by printing an edition that will purge the word “nigger” and replace it with “slave”.

The new book will also remove usage of the word Injun. The effort is spearheaded by Twain expert Alan Gribben, who says his PC-ified version is not an attempt to neuter the classic but rather to update it.

Alan Gribben is an Auburn University (Montgomery) professor and the author of several books about Twain.

There have been numerous complaints that this amounts to censorship and all the internet polls that I’ve seen show that 85-93% of people oppose the alteration. To me it smacks of revisionism and reminds me of Winston Smith’s job at the Ministry of Truth in Orwell’s book, “Nineteen Eighty-Four“. His job was to review historical records and alter them to fit the government’s preferred version of events. Of course, NewSouth Books is not the government, but they are responding to social pressures which can be even more powerful than government. From the public response, it would seem they missed the mark, but there is no doubt that the word “nigger” has become so taboo that you would be hard pressed to find it mentioned in mainstream news articles covering this story even though the story is, in fact, about that very word. In other words, they won’t even print the word they’re discussing for fear of offending someone. That parnoid approach to journalism is reminiscent of the media’s fear of printing cartoons depicting the prophet Mohamed and underscores the need for nontraditional news outlets (now provided by the internet).

On the other hand, if this puts the book into the hands of kids who would not otherwise be allowed to read it due to forces beyond their control (overprotective parents and the school boards they frighten), then maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to judge.

Actually, nothing makes a book more appealing that banning it. Censorship almost always results in increased exposure and interest in uncensored versions of books, movies, and the arts.

The real problem here is that we are raising a generation of children who are being inculcated with the idea that a mere arrangement of letters is something to be feared independent of the context. Of course, that fits in quite nicely with the belief that it’s perfectly permissible to outlaw imagery that portrays verboten sexual fantasies. And these children will grow up with a view that freedom of expression should be restricted because of the potential for harm.

There is no such thing as a little censorship.

Posted in Bad Words, Books, Censorship, United States | 5 Comments »

Sydney Children’s Hospital steps on its own dick

Wednesday, January 5th, 2011

A charity event at the Sydney Children’s Hospital fell apart after hospital officials rejected one of the exhibited works by artist, Del Kathryn Barton. The offending piece is a photograph of the artist’s six year old son naked from the waist up.

While the decision cost the hospital a $200,000 from the proceeds of exhibit, the real stunner is that the hospital embarrassed itself so thoroughly in front of the entire world by abandoning the exhibit to begin with. The degree of paranoia associated with child nudity has soared way beyond the bounds of rationality into the land of utter lunacy.

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

Tamara Winikoff, the executive director of the National Association for the Visual Arts, said decisions such as this were ”absurd and tragic”.

She said that since the Henson scandal, when photographs of youths and children by Bill Henson, one of Australia’s most famous artists, prompted media outrage and a police investigation, authorities were scared to associate themselves with any images of children.

”In our zeal to protect children we are erasing them entirely,” she said.

She said nudity was being conflated with pornography, even though representations of nudity had been part of Australia’s artistic tradition throughout history.

I posted briefly about Australia’s reaction to Bill Hensen back in January, 2010 (3rd item down).

The Henson scandal came after similar incidents during the previous two decades in the US where groups – often Christian – attacked artworks, which prompted failed police actions.

Christian groups in the U.S. attacking art? I’m stunned! I guess they must only believe in the part of the First Amendment that pertains to their religious proclivities.

Posted in Art, Australia, Censorship, Nudity, Relgious Zealotry, United States | 4 Comments »

FCC suffers setback in its censorship crusade

Wednesday, January 5th, 2011

The Second Circuit ruled against the FCC and its attempt to fine ABC $1.4 million for showing actress actress Charlotte Ross nude in a scene of the TV show “NYPD Blue”.

From thewrap.com:

In overturning the citation, the court said the FCC’s “indecency policy” violated First Amendment rights and was constitutionally vague.

As we know, the FCC is the branch of the federal government in charge of making television safe for children by ensuring it never targets an audience above the third grade.

The Parents Television Council, condemned the decision:

“Once again the Second Circuit has proclaimed that it knows better than the Supreme Court, the Congress, the FCC, and the overwhelming majority of the American people. Regardless of one’s political viewpoint – left, center or right – this may well be the most egregious example of ‘legislating from the bench’ that our Federal Court system has ever witnessed,” said PTC President Tim Winter.

Mr. Winter apparently doesn’t understand that most children have only two parents and raising them is not the fucking responsibility of “the overwhelming majority of the American People”. One of the problems with democracy is that people think it can be used as a hammer to forge everyone into conformance with one social standard as determined by the loudest of moral crusaders. Guess what. Mr Winter. No one’s kid suffered irreparable brain damage at the sight of Charlotte Ross’s ass. In fact, their lives were probably enriched by it.

I found the clip on youtube last night, so if I remember when I get home, I’ll add it to this post. For the record, Charlotte Ross has a damn nice ass.

[UPDATE 1/6/11] I couldn’t find any clips without some added commentary, but this shows the essentials

Posted in Censorship, FCC, United States | 2 Comments »

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