Anonymous speaks out against CISPA

another despicable piece of legislation carefully crafted by our super-rich elites to control the only free flow of information available to the masses...

anonymous...

Despite growing resistance to the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, CISPA has cleared its first legislative hurdle. But the battle over the widely-criticized information-sharing bill is just heating up.

In an earlier-than-expected vote Thursday evening, the House of Representatives voted 248 to 168 in favor of the bill , which was originally designed to allow more sharing of cybersecurity threat information with government agencies.

The legislation has drawn the ire of legislators, civil liberties groups, security practitioners and professors, and hundreds of thousands of petitioners, who say the bill tramples over users' privacy rights as it allows Web firms like Google and Facebook to give private users' information to government agencies irrespective of other laws that protect users' privacy. "It's basically a privacy nightmare," says Trevor Timm, a lawyer and activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "CISPA would allow companies to hand over private data to the government without a warrant, without anonymity, with no judicial review."

But even before it passed, the House voted to amend the bill to actually allow even more types of private sector information to be shared with government agencies, not merely in matters of cybersecurity or national security, but in the investigation of vaguely defined cybersecurity "crimes," "protection of individuals the danger of death or serious bodily harm," and cases where that involve the protection of minors from exploitation.

That statute, which in effect widened the most controversial portion of the bill just hours before it came to a vote, is sure to draw even more controversy as the bill works its way through the legislative branch and reaches President Obama's desk. President Obama currently backs a bill in the Senate put forward by Senators Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins, designed to increase the cybersecurity regulatory powers of the Department of Homeland security, which has been opposed by the GOP and stalled in the Senate.

The White House came out Wednesday with a strongly-worded statement slamming CISPA and pushing its regulatory approach in a threat to veto CISPA, writing that "cybersecurity and privacy are not mutually exclusive" and calling CISPA an intelligence bill rather than a security bill that treats civilians as subjects of surveillance. (White House watchers have observed, however, that the president's advisors similarly recommended that he veto the National Defense Authorization Act, which he instead signed into law.)

Regardless, reconciling the House bill in its new, even more controversial form with a Senate version, even as the White House opposes the central thrust of the legislation, will only rekindle the controversy that has grown around CISPA in the last week.

The EFF's Timm says he sees the House's early vote on CISPA as an attempt by its author, representative Mike Rogers, to squeeze the bill through before its opposition grew any stronger. "We've seen an explosion of a variety of groups and congressmen come out against the bill," he says. "As the Senate debates this, it's good that privacy and civil liberties will be front and center."

why does it have to be a constant battle to have access to information and, just possibly, the truth along with it...?

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Mr. Fish hits one out of the park

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40,000 Norwegians sing about love for others, regardless of creed, gender or skin color

this is truly inspiring... seeing people come together and re-affirm that we are all in this boat together is well worth celebrating...

For proving that love for others, regardless of creed, gender or skin color, is still a powerful force in human affairs, we honor the 40,000 Norwegians who sang out in an Oslo square on Thursday against the violent dogma of mass killer Anders Breivik. They are our Truthdiggers of the Week.

[...]

Taken as a solemn pledge, the public chorus of “Children of the Rainbow,” a song based on a 1973 hymn by American folk artist Pete Seeger and led on Thursday by Norwegian folksinger Lillebjorn Nilsen, seems more like an act of affirmation than dissent. Shaken by the horrific violence, these people braved a cold rain to tell the world they want to live in a society where all people have the opportunity to find their place. And such an experience emboldens those who may previously have felt alone in the suffering they felt after Breivik’s massacre.

 

One blue sky above us
One ocean lapping all our shore
One earth so green and round
Who could ask for more
And because I love you
I’ll give it one more try
To show my rainbow race
It’s too soon to die.

Some folks want to be like an ostrich,
Bury their heads in the sand.
Some hope that plastic dreams
Can unclench all those greedy hands.
Some hope to take the easy way:
Poisons, bombs. They think we need ‘em.
Don’t you know you can’t kill all the unbelievers?
There’s no shortcut to freedom.

Go tell, go tell all the little children.
Tell all the mothers and fathers too.
Now’s our last chance to learn to share
What’s been given to me and you.

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Pay for United CEO Jeff Smisek jumps to USD$14.7 million from USD$4.4 million

the obscenity of executive compensation is truly staggering...

Compensation for Jeff Smisek, chief executive of United Continental Holdings, surged in 2011, reflecting greater responsibilities after a 2010 merger that created the world's largest airline, according to a filing.
Total compensation rose to USD$14.7 million last year from USD$4.4 million the previous year, the company said in a proxy statement on Friday.

Much of the increase came from a USD$7.5 million stock award that vests over three years and is subject to performance goals including revenue and cost synergies from the merger of United and Continental Airlines, according to the filing.

Smisek was also awarded USD$4.4 million non-equity incentive compensation. About USD$2.4 million of that was payment for years 2009-2011 that was earned in 2011 and based partly on Continental's performance before the October 2010 merger.

even more staggering is that it comes on top of a $400M loss in the last quarter...

The parent of United Airlines reported a first-quarter loss that more than doubled from a year ago thanks to costs related to integrating Continental Airlines.

United Continental Holdings said it had a $448 million net loss, or a $1.36 loss per share, in the first three months of the year, not as bad as analysts expected.

Excluding $162 million in charges mainly linked to the integration costs, the loss amounted to $286 million, or 87 cents per share, UAL said. The Wall Street average estimate was for a $1.03 loss per share.

since i used to work at united, i know first-hand just how much the officers are focused on themselves and their own personal gains... i've already been "treated" to the "new" united and, believe me, it's no improvement... in fact, quite the contrary...

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Stiglitz: Austerity is economic suicide

but for our super-rich elites, austerity is boom times...

Austerity Measures Leading Europe To ‘Suicide’, Nobel Economist Says

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said Europe is in a “dire” situation as a focus on austerity pushes the continent toward “suicide.”

“There has never been any successful austerity program in any large country,” Stiglitz, 69, said in Vienna on Thursday. “The European approach definitely is the least promising. I think Europe is headed to a suicide. ”

Politicians across the 27 European Union members are implementing austerity measures totaling about 450 billion euros ($600 billion) amid a sovereign-debt crisis. At the same time the debt of the euro region rose last year to the highest since the start of the single currency as governments increased borrowing to plug budget deficits and fund bailouts of fellow nations.

If Greece was the only part of Europe that was having austerity, authorities could ignore it, Stiglitz said, “but if you have UK, France, you know all the countries having austerity, it’s like a joint austerity and the economic consequences of that are going to be dire.”

While euro-area leaders “realized that austerity itself won’t work and that we need growth,” no actions have followed and “what they agreed to do last December is a recipe to ensure that it dies,” he said, referring to the euro. “The problem is that with the euro, you’ve separated out the government from the central bank and the printing presses and you’ve created a big problem,” Stiglitz said, adding that “austerity combined with the constraints of the euro are a lethal combination.”

The economist said he sees a core euro area of “one or two countries” made up of Germany and possibly the Netherlands or Finland as the “likely scenario if Europe maintains the austerity approach,” he said. “The austerity approach will lead to high levels of unemployment that will be politically unacceptable and will make deficits get worse.”

Youth unemployment in Spain has been at 50 percent since the crisis in 2008 with “no hope of things getting better anytime soon,” said Stiglitz, who is a professor for economics at Columbia University. “What you are doing is destroying the human capital, you are creating alienated young people.” To push for growth, European leaders could refocus government spending to “fully utilize” institutions like the European Investment Bank, introduce taxes to improve economic performance and use balanced budget multipliers, he said.

what policies of severe austerity do is punish people for the greed pursued by their ruling super-rich elites... and as a result of that punishment, people are forced out of their homes and into menial wage jobs while the ruling class vacuums up ever more money and power... it's win-win for the ruling class and lose-lose for us peasants...

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The month of May

more from adbusters...

The May 2012 Insurrection 

Tactical Briefing #30

Hey you dreamers, strikers and new left redeemers out there,

For thirty-one magical days beginning this Tuesday, May 1, we take the plunge and Strike! We block the Golden Gate Bridge; occupy a Manhattan-bound tunnel; seize the ports. In 115 cities, we march into banks, erect tents and refuse to leave. We disrupt financial institutions forcing thousands to preemptively close. Five thousand of us pray, dance, sleep on Wall Street and in front of the Fed and if the Bloombergs of the world bring out paramilitary police to intimidate us, we use our social media fire to call out 50,000 more occupiers.

In the week before the G8 and NATO summits, we light the spark globally. We occupy hundreds of squares in cities on every continent – from Paris to Berlin, Toronto to Athens, São Paulo to Bucharest and beyond – we up the ante with direct actions that paralyze capitalism. For a few days, maybe for a full month, we act as if we already live in a world run by people, not corporations.

Our movement goes geopolitical later in May. We swarm Chicago and confront NATO. We tell the military elites there to stop their saber rattling against Iran, halt the global arms race and get behind what the majority of the people on Earth want: a nuclear-free world starting with a nuclear-free Middle East that includes both Iran and Israel.

And then when the G8 leaders meet in Camp David, we create a global spectacle the likes of which the world has never seen before … millions of us … individually, in flash groups and en masse, we burst out laughing at the lunacy of the eight most powerful political leaders on the planet thinking they can dictate the people’s business from behind closed doors and barbed wire fences. For one day, we take over the global mindspace with a whirlwind of #LAUGHRIOT jokes. (Like: Why did the G8 chickens cross to Camp David? / Cuz they’re on the other side. haha!) We laugh our heads off on every news broadcast in the world.

May 1968 was the first wildcat general strike in history … it lasted two weeks and was a grand gesture of refusal still remembered, but then it fizzled … maybe this May we won’t?
for the wild,

Culture Jammers HQ

OccupyWallStreet.org / Tactical Briefing #26, #27, #28 and #29 / Find out what your local Occupy has planned for May 1, May 12, and the #LAUGHRIOT then join the movement in Chicago

we don't need another "fizzle"...

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The prison industry needs a steady flow of new prisoners

it's all about growth and profitability, right...?

Prison Industries: "Don't Let Society Improve or We Lose Business"

[...]

If you have any doubt in your mind that improving society and lowering the number of prisoners in our country (normally considered a worthy social goal) is a threat to the prison industry business, all you need to do is to read about that concern in The GEO Group's 2011 annual report:

In particular, the demand for our correctional and detention facilities and services and BI's [a prison industry company Geo acquired in 2011] services could be adversely affected by changes in existing criminal or immigration laws, crime rates in jurisdictions in which we operate, the relaxation of criminal or immigration enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction, sentencing or deportation practices, and the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by criminal laws or the loosening of immigration laws. For example, any changes with respect to the decriminalization of drugs and controlled substances could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, sentenced and incarcerated, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them. Similarly, reductions in crime rates could lead to reductions in arrests, convictions and sentences requiring incarceration at correctional facilities. Immigration reform laws which are currently a focus for legislators and politicians at the federal, state and local level also could materially adversely impact us.

 This is an industry that needs misery, long sentences, rounded-up undocumented immigrants and increasing crime to flourish. In order to keep the prison beds filled, The GEO Group and others have paid out millions of dollars to lobbyists, federal and state legislators, and governors to allow our immigration problem to go unsolved, to make sure that no drugs are decriminalized and that an ineffective War on Drugs continues, and to make certain that long term prison sentences, like California's three-strikes-and-you're-imprisoned-for-life laws, keep a steady flow of revenue and profits flowing to their shareholders. They are also hoping that our national drop in crime is just a temporary trend.

it should be perfectly obvious that when public services are privatized and handed over to for-profit companies, the goal then becomes to continue to increase profitability... for privatized "correctional" facilities, that means at least a steady if not increasing supply of prisoners... the same applies to all for-profit businesses... grow or die... and therein lies the rub... 

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CISPA heads for a vote in the House

sopa, acta, pipa and now cispa... our rulers keep bringing this shit back in different guises, thinking that eventually we'll grow tired of fighting and let them have their way... it's a timely reminder that our super-rich elites will stop at nothing to control the internet and to make sure that absolutely nothing we do, whether it's on the internet or anywhere else, no matter how small or innocent, escapes the notice of the ptb... 

from democracy now...

As it heads toward a House vote, critics say the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) would allow private internet companies like Google, Facebook and Microsoft to hand over troves of confidential customer records and communications to the National Security Agency, FBI and Department of Homeland Security, effectively legalizing a secret domestic surveillance program already run by the NSA. Backers say the measure is needed to help private firms crackdown on foreign entities — including the Chinese and Russian governments — committing online economic espionage. The bill has faced widespread opposition from online privacy advocates and even the Obama administration, which has threatened a veto. "CISPA … will create an exception to all existing privacy laws so that companies can share very sensitive and personal information directly with the government, including military agencies like the National Security Agency," says Michelle Richardson, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "Once the government has it, they can repurpose it and use it for a number of things, including an undefined national security use."

still more from democracy now...

Computer security researcher Jacob Appelbaum argues the measures included in the proposed Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) would essentially legalize military surveillance of U.S. citizens. "When they want to dramatically expand their ability to do these things in a so-called legal manner, it’s important to note what they’re trying to do is to legalize what they have already been doing," Appelbaum says. He is a developer and advocate for the Tor Project, a network enabling its users to communicate anonymously on the internet, and has volunteered with WikiLeaks.

as much as i hate to repeat myself, i've been saying for years that you can be sure that anything and everything you do on an electronic network of whatever variety, whether it's using an atm or swiping your supermarket affinity card or making a phone call or even driving your car down the road in range of surveillance cameras, is being at minimum sniffed and most likely recorded for possible later retrieval... and when i say years, i mean at least since the early to mid 90s... 

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Glenn on Jose Rodriguez' new book

in case you need a memory jog, rodriguez is the cia officer who destroyed videotapes documenting the interrogation of two al qaeda operatives in the agency’s custody during congressional and legal scrutiny about the secret detention program and suffered zero consequences...

the title of rodriguez' book: “Hard Measures: How Aggressive CIA Actions After 9/11 Saved American Lives”...

glenn...

Rodriguez thus joins a long line of Bush officials — Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, et. al — who not only paid no price for the crimes they committed, but are free to run around boasting of those crimes for profit. That’s what happens when the most politically powerful officials are vested with immunity for their illegal acts. Both the criminals and their crimes become normalized. They feel free not only to admit their crimes openly but to justify and glorify them, because they know they will never be held accountable for them. Instead of having to explain himself as a criminal defendant, Rodriguez is instead permitted to wrap his conduct in the banner of heroism as a highly-paid Simon & Schuster author.

This will be one of the most enduring and consequential aspects of the Obama legacy: by working so hard, in so many ways, to shield Bush-era crimes from all forms of accountability, the Democratic President has ensured that they are not viewed as crimes at all, but at worst, run-of-the-mill political controversies. Given all this, why would any government officials tempted to commit these same crimes in the future possibly decide that they should not?

how pathetic... if you or i had done something similar, we would be locked away in a super-max facility for the rest of our lives...

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Chomsky: "There is a sector that’s doing fantastically well, mainly in financial capital. For the general public it’s a different story."

alternet posts excerpts from a conversation between alternet's joshua holland and noam chomsky... well worth reading/listening to...

Noam Chomsky on America's Declining Empire, Occupy and the Arab Spring

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Christianity in America has gone barking-mad insane

i knew just as soon as i put up the last post, i would run across something that simply screamed to be posted... it never fails... william rivers pitt posting in truthout...

It is brutally hard to be a Christian in America these days. Some of us Christians take that bit about doing unto the least of us deeply, deeply seriously. Some of us Christians think that it is wrong, sinful, and in fact a brazen form of Apartheid to deny certain Americans the rights enjoyed by other Americans based upon who they love. Mostly, some of us think Christianity in America has gone barking-mad insane.

I am a Christian. I make no apologies for it. I'm not sure if I believe that Jesus turned that water into wine, or if He raised up Lazarus, or even if He rose from the dead. That all sounds like a lot of magic nonsense from two thousand years ago when you think about it, which is why they call it The Mystery of Faith.

But I believe that I am my brother's keeper, that I should worship without bragging about it, that the poor will God-damned-right inherit the Earth, and that what you do to the least of my brothers and sisters, you do unto me. I believe that the first four books of the New Testament are a wonderful blueprint for being a decent person on this planet, and that's what I live by, as best I can.

I am an American Christian, and it is a burden to bear.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to drink some new wine, hang out with a familiar whore, and listen to the dead.

Amen.

i too have had a great deal of difficulty making sense out of how people can call themselves christians and followers of biblical principles while at the same time crying out for violence and vengeance on all those who are perceived as evil, "evil" as defined by them, that is... the message of christ in the gospels is clearly one of love, compassion and respect for all... to me, that is true christianity...

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SSDD

had nothin' yesterday, got nothin' today... yeah, there's stuff out there but, crikey, it's all crap i've been blathering about for years and, honest to god, i'm so-o-oooo sick of it...

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The bastards at American Airlines go to war

yes, they ARE bastards... amr wants to emasculate the unions and is relying on a business-friendly judicial environment to do it for them...

AMR Fires Opening Shot In Court Battle

American Airlines kicked off a week-long court hearing on its bid to abandon union contracts, telling a judge on Monday that its bankrupt parent, AMR, cannot survive without major concessions from its workforce. Hundreds of people, including lawyers and airline workers, filled the courtroom and two overflow rooms in US Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan for the start of the hearing, as other unionised workers rallied outside the courthouse. Cordoned off by police, the workers held signs and chanted for fairer work terms and against AMR's plan to cut about 13,000 union jobs. AMR wants to convince Judge Sean Lane not only that it desperately needs labour concessions, but that its unions have unreasonably rejected prior attempts to negotiate those concessions. AMR filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November, citing uncompetitive labour costs. In opening statements, AMR lawyer Jack Gallagher said the company needs 20 percent across-the-board reductions in employee costs, half of which must come from medical benefits.

bankruptcy should be a chance to make things right, not a hunting license...

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