EFF Christmas carol

The only xxxmas carol I feel like singing. Remember, because of Bush and his publically acceptable psychopaths, they are trying to step on every right you have. See this link at the EFF for more information on how the fight to restore the constitution has progressed in 2008, with a strong focus on internet usage.

Remember, it is wrong for our government to spy, snoop, and treat you like you're guilty till proven innocent. What you do is your own business. This country belongs to us, not Bush, not private security companies, not paid mouthpieces, not commercial media, not churches & creepy religious interests.

Civil liberties violated in Washington, D.C.

Isn't it a bit creepy to have to answer to the police when you're just driving down the road minding your own business? Wouldn't it be better, if in Washington D.C. they turned the officers loose in the neighborhood to look for criminal activity based on reasonable suspicion, that is, let the police do their jobs, rather than, relying on already weak precedent, add one more crazy step to the blanket destruction of civil liberties? It is very wrong to order police to investigate everyone.

According to this article on the AP wire police in Washington, D.C. have been ordered to stop all vehicle traffic on a specific street, look in vehicles, demand identification, and permit or deny passage. Citing nothing except a crimewave in a torn inner city neighborhood, police decision-makers have crushed your freedom of movement. If you drive down this street, you will have to speak to police, answer questions, show identification. Then they will say whether or not you can drive down the fucking the street.

The final straw is that someone somewhere has decided to play like it's legal for cops to say, "Well, Mr. Jones, we're not going to let you drive down this street, you're going to have to turn around and get out of here."

It's a very old police tactic in poor neighborhoods to find a reason to stop someone and start asking questions about what they are doing there. This is usually because police are suspicious about something criminal.

What's new here is the blanket-approach, first legitimized by sobriety checkpoints, a blanket suspicion where everybody at a certain point gets checked for alcohol consumption. Police devote millions of dollars in overtime wages for this legally shaky activity, while statistics show they find several times more drunks by pulling over people driving like maniacs.

However, with this lazy, scatter-shot approach to law enforcement, in bending civil liberties, whoever it is makes these decisions accomplishes 2 objectives. One, they create what they apparently believe is a deterrent to drinking and driving, although if this kind of thing keeps on going, it will in reality be more like a deterrent to leaving your own house. Two, they believe they score a publicity victory. In their mind, nobody can say they're not tough on alcohol-related crime, by God, just look: they stopped 8,000 drivers in one night and found 15 drunks.

So on one hand you've got ruling by fear, and on the other you've got cop-theatre. So you're not only afraid to leave your own house to pick up that six pack, but you're apprehended on the way to the Quickie Mart, and held up as a shining example of how hard the Police decision-makers are working to prevent drunk driving. Who cares if you've not had a beer since last Thursday? Certainly not the person (more likely a committee, i.e. not just one bonehead but multiple boneheads) who decided to allow this wholesale invasion of privacy and blatant violation of constitutional rights.

But the American people do care. According to the article, Civil Liberties groups, that is, patriotic and gutsy American citizens, will also speak to the folks who are stopped. They will gather data, and eventually will fight, legally, to restore trendy damage to principles that have made the United States of American a wonderful, and free, nation.

strip-search at Arizona middle school

Looking for ibuprofen, following rumors, unnamed school administrators at a middle school in Safford Arizona detained a 13 year old student for 2 hours, refused to let her call her mother, and strip-searched her. The Captiol Media Services' story by Howard Fischer was carried by the Arizona Daily Star here.

That this happened, that the girl's mother filed suit, that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals supported the search, are some of the reasons we should be ashamed of Arizona, and ashamed the Federal court upheld such barbaric behavior.

Using TOR at Bowling Green State

This story, which was posted on the loveable Boing Boing, shows what can happen when you start anonymously using the web at work. A professor got a visit from the campus computer security expert and 2 of the campus police detectives. The trio was chasing an actual wrongdoer but thought the professor's use of the ubiquitous Onion Router (see the EFF's info and download page here) was enough to come and question the professor. They also felt it necessary encourage him to stop using TOR.

A good way to describe The Onion Router, and our current use of the internet, is to point to an obvious analog with postal mail, AKA snail mail. You usually put your letters in an envelope, right? Maybe an envelope made with opaque paper so no one can hold it up to the light and see what's inside? We seal the envelope, too, right? Why do you do this- to simply contain the pages, or because IT'S NOBODY'S FUCKING BUSINESS WHAT YOU DO WITH YOUR MAIL?

We live in an age, thanks to BushCo, where you can become a suspect- a suspect of nothing specific, mind you, for resisting violations of privacy. Furthermore, according to the ACLU, it is currently commonplace for the military and the police to spy on people who belong to peace advocacy and anti-war groups.

New FBI internet snooping on massive scale

1/31/07 UPDATE: DOJ replies to author of article in this news.com post. They say they follow the law, and the sources quoted in McCullagh's story are incorrect. Let's hope so, because the idea of massive government surveillance is a disgusting one and it's really time the law was shown some respect in this country. Journalism is all about verifying your sources and statements. Given the Bush Administration track record on telling the truth, it's pretty hard to believe anything they say these days tho.

Do you like living in a free society?

Hey wow, Big Brother has been watching over your shoulder as you email, web surf, conduct e-commerce, even, potentially, as you tap away at your keyboard at your job.

Wow, and all this time I thought our government was there to represent and serve us.

ZDNet's Declan McCullagh has published this article detailing the new "vacuum cleaner" approach the FBI has adopted to surveiling U.S. internet traffic, and by proxy, those millions and millions of U.S. citizens who use the internet.

Writin' your Momma? In touch w/ your partner, maybe writing a sexy letter to her or him while he or she is out of town? Chatting w/ co-workers, blowing off steam about the boss, joking with friends, seducing lovers? Reading up on anything, anything at all? Reading up on BushCo? Hmm. Looking at Pr0n?? Hmm?? Buying new shoes, looking at videos on uTube, visiting the iTunes store? Doing anything? The FBI is "recording" internet traffic at ISP's across the nation. Warrants barely enter into it- it is as if they were routinely recording any community's telephone and mail traffic for no reason at all.

Who allowed this? Take a guess. We sure didn't allow this. I don't remember a vote on it.

Why should the government be allowed to snoop at random? Is this because we have a massively unpopular president and administration who fear the very people they are supposed to represent?

Is this our government or not? Just whose government is this?

Is the FBI in charge of protecting us against large scale crime, or are they jailkeepers now?

Or now maybe our lovely government can become judge, jury and executioner?

Don't let's forget that people who work for the government are public servants, they work for us, and they are human beings. We pay their salaries, AND we don't have to put up with them, or anyone, looking into our business every time we cut a fart, step out for breath of fresh air, or walk down the road, or in this case, walk down what used to be referred to as the information superhighway.

In case you think snooping is OK, or that BushCo is not really a threat to freedom, or that your rights don't matter, now might be a good time to read the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. Especially a good time to read George Orwell's 1984. Or maybe read a book on this history of Argentina, because I think that is where we're headed unless we quit feeling helpless in face of BushCo transgressions.

How the fuck does it make you feel to have everything do on the internet recorded by the FBI for posterity? Look up "chilling effect" in a legal dictionary. Think of the government recording each of your phone calls, or photocopying each piece of mail you send or receive. Think of the government recording everything you buy. Ask, why?

Is the internet that much of a threat? Is information that much of a threat? Why should it be treated as such? What minds, in all their managerial genius, have come up with this paranoid nonsense? Is there a bit of an intimidation factor going on here?

There are too many of us for them to mind everyone's business, and real FBI agents and real cops, who give a shit about this country, are worried about catching people who are your worst nightmare- those types who murder, torture, break into our homes kidnap families, and worse.

However, not everybody in this country is a suspected criminal. But this is, unfortunately, the approach Bush, Gonzales and all the other clowns responsible for this mindless stormtrooping seem to be adopting. In their actions, they are more and more treating each United States citizen as a criminal suspect, based on nothing, no fucking evidence at all.

It is time for us to put our collective foot down and not tolerate warrantless searches and random snooping. Write your congressperson, tell the whole world what you think about this misuse of public servants and tax dollars. Remember, your life is nobody's business but your own and privacy is a constitutional guarantee. Privacy never needs an excuse, and privacy is a component of a free society.

UCLA: Police power gone wild

In this story in the UCLA Daily Bruin you can read the sad tale of a student library user grabbed and tasered by police officers for the amazing crime of not identifying himself. Wow. Judge, jury and executioner in the library! Quoting from the article,

"At around 11:30 p.m., CSOs asked a male student using a computer in the back of the room to leave when he was unable to produce a BruinCard during a random check. The student did not exit the building immediately.

The CSOs left, returning minutes later, and police officers arrived to escort the student out. By this time the student had begun to walk toward the door with his backpack when an officer approached him and grabbed his arm, at which point the student told the officer to let him go. A second officer then approached the student as well.

The student began to yell "get off me," repeating himself several times.

It was at this point that the officers shot the student with a Taser for the first time, causing him to fall to the floor and cry out in pain. The student also told the officers he had a medical condition.

UCPD officers confirmed that the man involved in the incident was a student, but did not give a name or any additional information about his identity.

Video shot from a student's camera phone captured the student yelling, "Here's your Patriot Act, here's your fucking abuse of power," while he struggled with the officers.

As the student was screaming, UCPD officers repeatedly told him to stand up and said "stop fighting us." The student did not stand up as the officers requested and they shot him with the Taser at least once more.

"It was the most disgusting and vile act I had ever seen in my life," said David Remesnitsky, a 2006 UCLA alumnus who witnessed the incident.

As the student and the officers were struggling, bystanders repeatedly asked the police officers to stop, and at one point officers told the gathered crowd to stand back and threatened to use a Taser on anyone who got too close.
"

So, not only did the police zap the hell out of the poor student library user, they threatened onlookers who complained about the obvious abuse of police power, the trampling of civil rights- last time I looked, the Constitution is pretty strong on the issue of not being subjected to military force for not having an ID in a fucking library, for yelling "get off me," for not standing up again after they zap you with how-many-fucking-thousand volts of electricity.

But there are a lot more citizens than police. The fact that everybody is carrying a movie camera these days- the cell phone- makes it easy, if you're brave enough to withstand police threats, to document such abuses. Here is the link to the Youtube posting. As I've said before, true police will be shocked at this behavior. True police work to help us, protect us, not kick us around.

This is the second recent incident where people started crying stormtrooper, or gestapo, at military-style police tactics used in civilian settings, and got hauled off, humiliated, terrified, and not charged with a crime. Here in Tucson, an artfest hosted by a lovely Tucson sculptor at a guest ranch in the desert was raided by insane-acting sheriffs deputies. The incident was covered by the local Weekly, treated with kid-gloves in the major daily. Last I heard the deputy who was frothing at the mouth at the gathering of artists, families, senior citizens and aging blues-rock musicians was in deep trouble over his actions and demeanor.

The point is police are supposed to serve us, not define us as instant threats whenever we don't show ID, question them, or gather at a peaceful arts-fest. It's up to us to remind the government that police serve us, not the government.

BushCo and the 5th ammendment

Editorial writer Sarah Garrecht Gassen has a piece in today's (8/13/05) Arizona Daily Star detailing provisions and relevance of the constitution's 5th ammendment. Her premise is basically the 5th ammendment is about not getting scooped up and trampled by the government on a whim, i.e. "protecting the ordinary from the powerful."

In a day when the constitution is being dismantled, trampled by people like Dick Cheney and his pals at BushCo, and the word "freedom" is reduced to cheap stickers on the back of pickup trucks, keeping informed about our rights is more important than ever.

It's worth a look at the comments link at the bottom of the editorial to see the moron viewpoints and the more realistic arguments of those who read the Star.

Egyptian blogger gets out of jail / "Believe it or Else"

Yes I read about on Boing Boing.

His name is Alaa. What, Ah-LAA? Yes, A-LAA.

"Al-AH." I've posted his picture here, I do not happen to have the link to his blog, I don't know what his blog was about.

Read about it here in the wondeful permalink from our wonderful friends at Boing Boing, who I love.

My point here is a dream I had where I met a man named Al-AH, in my kitchen sitting in the dark, with another gnarly looking biker dude. The guy was full of fresh energy and not at all mean or wierd.

I am not saying anything about religion here, your religion, my religion, or your or my lack thereof, or anyone else's, etc. I am saying, What If, all the fundamentalism and rules and repression, and sexism, and controlling, and guilt, ON BOTH SIDES of fundamentalism, both Christian and Muslim, what if all that is just a bunch of bullshit with a built in guilty verdict? For both sides. Invented. Bullshit. With a built in verbal argument to the effect of "you believe this or else."

What if.

My own dream, or my own website post to this effect, is here, on my site, posted about 2 years ago, not long after I had the dream where I met the character called "Al-LA" and shortly after coming across a group of skinny Tibetan monks blowing horns and burning tons of incense on the Univerity of Arizona mall, one sunny February day.

What is my point here?

And what if you live in a country where they get the cops, or private security companies, after you if you don't say what they want you to say? Old news in most parts of the world, a new thing here in the U.S.A. Here in the U.S.A, any constitutional rights we once had are certainly being trampled on by the Bush Administration. Take your pick.

The debate over national ID

In this Cnet article Dean McCullagh presents a well rounded look at the threat to civil liberties represented by what is being called The Real ID Act. The article is full of links providing background on the subject, but focuses on the issue by describing New Hampshire's efforet to outlaw National ID. What National ID would boil down to would be a card that everyone would probably be required to carry which has all your personal data on it, and which card can be read via radio at any time. In other words, privacy and the concept of personal information would be pretty much out the window. I have to agree with the article's thesis that most people won't tolerate something like this and the outcry against it will be huge.

My own point here is that we all need to make it clear to our government that we won't tolerate the trashing the of the Bill of Rights.

Yes, I did find the article via a post in the excellent Boing Boing.

Interlibrary loan and Homeland Security

[12/27/05-- this story was a HOAX. Of course we should be asking ourselves what we are going to say when they come knocking at your door, looking at your library records, tapping your phone, snooping in your house, following your web-surfing and reading your email] I'm posting Boingboing's permalink regarding this story since Boingboing pretty much sums it up:

Update: "DHS visits student over Little Red Book" report

Interlibrary loan is a service you use if, say, your library does not have a copy of a book you'd like to read and cite in a history or sociology paper you're working on. Your library contacts another library and the book is sent. We have a workteam dedicated to that function at the libary I work at, and it is all in the name of scholarly sharing of information, academic freedom, and libraries doing what libraries are meant to do: help you out when you'd like to research, report, read, relate, study, communicate knowledge, etc.

The college student in the story borrowed a book via ILL and supposedly because the book was written by Mao Tse Tung, and the student travels internationally Homeland Security officers visited the student at his house and questioned him.

The student, if this is true, must've been terrified, and my point here is about a chilling effect police behavior like this has- you can get in trouble for reading a book.

Of course there are doubts that this happened- it's too ridiculous to be true & there are supposedly holes in the story.

But really, think about how stupid this is- it's like saying if I read Marx I want to be a communist, if I read a book about Hitler I want to be a nazi, if I read a book by St. Augustine I want to be a christian. And what the hell does communism have to do w/ homeland security anyway? Nothing, obviously- there must be thousands of communists in the U.S. & who gives a shit?

My other point is that once you give these shady police agencies the power to snoop, they are going to snoop. They're don't seem to be accountable to anyone, certainly not the people of the U.S. They are like a private security force.

BushCo, the Patritot Act and civil liberties

THIS IS HUGE

The Senate blocked BushCo's insane version of the so-called Patriot Act. Both Reps and Dems are sick of BushCo's attempts to diffuse the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights is the true foundation of our freedom. The freedom Bush talks about so much- lies about so much, I should say, as the Patriot Act stands for nothing but the loss of freedom.

Celebrate, people. And keep hope alive that when they finally hammer out a version of the Patriot Act, (because, unfortunately they will do this) it'll be a sane one. A version that fights criminaliy and attacks against the U.S. based on evidence, not based on snooping into the lives of U.S. citizens.

I think people are getting wise to the fact that BushCo, the neocons and the religious right are all about control, all about the loss of freedom. I get the feeling they are so interested in abolishing civil liberties because they know people are getting wise to NeoCon lies.

Watch The ACLU Freedom Files November 9th or 24th 2005 at at 8 pm EDT/PDT. Also available at www.aclutv.com starting November 11 2005. The American Civil Liberties Union is an important voice in this time when BushCo is stepping all over basic consititutional rights. This week's episode of the ACLU Freedom Files features Lewis Black - from Comedy Central's The Daily Show - providing a funny, biting commentary on the state of dissent in America.