Copyright Protection vs Big Brother Howling at the Door

Posted: January 11, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: cyber security, First Amendment, Free Speech, just because, SOPA, the internet | Tags: , , | 6 Comments

The United States Congress has been racking up historically low approval ratings, numbers bouncing from 3-9% over the last year.  Why?  Our legislative process has become paralyzed by partisan politics and perhaps, more importantly, the influence of massive amounts of money.  When lobbyists outnumber our representatives in the Halls of Congress by 5-1, the current inability and/or refusal to work in the interests of the American public is a given.

Money speaks.  Even the Supreme Court agreed in their disastrous Citizens United decision.  The more money, the bigger the noise.  The Do-Nothing Congress has earned its title.

Yet with all the pressing problems facing the Nation, one piece of legislation was kicked through the process and then flown, until recently, under the radar.  Specifically, that’s SOPA, Stop Online Piracy Act, and its kissing cousin IPPA, Protect IP Act.

Last October, I wrote about this legislation here.  With a quick followup here.

On the face of it, copyright concerns are absolutely legitimate.  Any artist, musician, writer, etc., wants and expects protection of his/her creative efforts from rip-off artists.  You create something, it takes off, you expect the financial and psychic reward from that success.  There have been [and probably will continue to be] amoral individuals who plagiarize [steal] with abandon.  Corporations–those that still develop ideas and products–are also open to thievery by competitors.  Governments are vulnerable as well, which if anything [at least in my pea brain] demands that security measures around highly sensitive material be strong and effective, including careful clearance of those working with said materials.  Regardless of where one falls on the Manning case [hero or villain], anyone ever wonder how Bradley Manning, a private first class, was able to so easily tap records for Wikileaks, particularly after several red flags were ignored by Army personnel?

Accountability for lousy security anyone?

However, are we as a population willing to accept the radical tradeoff that SOPA represents, a serious curtailment of free expression and innovation, a barrier in the exchange of information between individuals and groups around the world to protect the financial and security issues of other entities?  And if so, what will the Internet be reduced to?

Think about the information that has circulated on the Net, regarding corrupt practices on Wall St. that led to the financial meltdown, the collusion of political partners, the failure of government bodies to investigate and prosecute guilty parties.  Do you think this information would have been disseminated as widely without the Internet access? Have we heard much about it in the mainstream press/newscasts?  Beyond Dylan Ratigan, that is, a MSNBC commentator.  Or, the ongoing global protests—The Arab Spring, the European Summer, the American Autumn, the Russian Winter.  Do you think these Movements would have gotten off the ground without Facebook and other social media outlets? Do you imagine we would have known of subsequent police over reactions?

Here’s the scoop from Techdirt on the byproduct of this asinine proposal, which is now suppose to be cleaned up and improved—the 2.0 version:

End result: SOPA 2.0 contains a crazy scary clause that’s going to make it crazy easy to cut off websites with no recourse whatsoever. And this part isn’t just limited to payment providers/ad networks — but to service providers, search engines and domain registrars/registries as well. Yes. Search engines. So you can send a notice to a search engine, and if they want to keep their immunity, they have to take the actions in either Section 102(c)(2) or 103(c)(2), which are basically all of the “cut ’em off, block ’em” remedies. That’s crazy. This basically encourages search engines to disappear sites upon a single notice. It encourages domain registries to kill domains based on notices. With no recourse at all, because the providers have broad immunity.

Look, I’m all for protecting the copyright of artists and other creators.  But not at the expense of free speech, open channels of communication and political discourse.

Here’s another question—do you not find it odd that so little time [make that anytime at all] has been spent by the mainstream press to discuss the problems with this legislation?  This is the same mainstream press that is suppose to be ‘free’ but has been consistently found wanting in actual reporting the news or investigating much of anything.  Yes, there are exceptions [Dylan Ratigan and recently 60 Minutes].  But by and large, the press today is held captive by the very forces paralyzing the government and buying off politicians.  These forces are keenly aware that restriction of a free-information vehicle, the Internet, is in their best interests.  There’s no doubt major news outlets are concerned by online sources ripping off their reports word-for-word.  But as far as distribution, information sharing and dissemination?  They’ve lost that battle to the Electronic Age.  And frankly, if the MSM had been doing their jobs–speaking truth to power–instead of playing lapdogs, their market share would not be as dismal.

In addition to the music and movie industries supporting this legislation [which at least makes sense], the American Bankers Association is a sponsor as well.  In fact, here’s a list of sponsors [interested parties].

If that link turns to gobblety-gook on you, check here at Wikipedia:

The link turning to gibberish was pretty weird—maybe a sign of things to come.  It worked perfectly fine the first time I checked it.

We do not need a bazooka to bring down a mouse.  The collateral damage can be significant, sometimes worse than the original problem.  That’s what this legislation represents.  And by collateral damage, I mean you, me and anyone plugged in at moment.  Sorry, but there’s something very disturbing that a complaint against a website can result in that site being ‘disappeared’ without explanation or appeal.

Consider this the ‘indefinite detention’ for objectionable sites on the Internet.

For additional information on the legislation itself, go here, here, here, and here.  Note that numerous online bigwigs [Google, Facebook,  Amazon, etc.] strongly oppose SOPA and have threatened a boycott/blackout, most likely on January 23rd in opposition to the upcoming cloture vote on the 24th.  Yves Smith has a good essay on what we’re looking at in terms of implications.

This is an important issue.  Citizen/online pressure can bring results.  Paul Ryan, for instance, stepped back just this past Monday from his initial support.  Resistance is everywhere and comes in many forms.  Here’s a boycott of another flavor.

An informed public is the best weapon against Big Brother and the invisible supporters of authoritative repress-freedom-for-the-sake-of-security measures.  We need to protect access to information to protect the present and future. We need access to information to save and preserve the core of our freedoms.

Huhn?

Posted: January 11, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Surreality, Teddy Roosevelt | Tags: , | 19 Comments

There seems to be a set of “progressive” bloggers who are arguing that democratic voters need to sort and rank their values and decide which ones to “overlook”.  There’s also this accusation of hypocrisy and selling out.   The discussion started with Matt Stoller and Glenn Greenwald and started expanding from there.  They argue that Ron Paul is way more “progressive” than Obama. They argue that liberals sell out all kinds of things to support him.  They supposedly do this without endorsing Paul.  It’s just to point out liberal hypocrisy.  It’s also to further some imaginary conversation in the media happening because of Paul’s bottom line on the war and certain civil liberties. (I’m still trying to find any links to that.)  I first stepped into it when I posted this Ian Welsh blog post with the comment that Welsh had decided women’s rights, autonomy, privacy, and moral personhood weren’t as important as middle east war issues (i.e. abortion vs dead Pakistani wedding guests).   I was accused of being a single issue voter who didn’t care about dead brown people.  Check out the exchange in the comments on this post.

To me, it’s deeper than that.  It’s saying that all kinds of other things aren’t as important as their specific pet prog issues.  It’s also saying that it makes no difference how you morally or conceptually arrive at those positions.  This just doesn’t pass the smell test for me.  So, I’m stepping in it again fully aware of the stank.

Our Quixote already noted that women’s rights–and I might add the rights of minorities in general–were never on any of these guys’ radars.    Cannonfire took up the argument against admiring any Paul position today based on the incoherence of how those positions developed and what the underlying arguments represent.   I do not have to be an insufferable Obot to figure out that Ron Paul’s rationale for ending US military adventurism abroad and stopping certain civil liberty violations domestically come under the heading of two old cautionary tales.   One is the blind squirrel who trips across a nut now and then.  The other one is about the stopped clock being right two times a day. The deal is that the same intellectual concepts that bring him to not supporting the 1964 civil rights act are the same arguments that he makes against presidential overstep.  His reasoning leads to far more bad positions than good and the reasoning should be morally objectionable to progressives, liberals, or for that matter empathetic, caring people. There’s more to a joke than the punch line.

I’d like to say a few things about all these folks suddenly looking at Ron Paul with less than jaundiced eyes. First, they are all white males.  Second, what they suggest every one downgrade to not important (e.g. abortion, civil rights, the entire new deal agenda) aren’t things they need to care about. It certainly is easy to scold others about being single issue voters or being concerned about unimportant things when you have no dog in the hunt.

Stoller’s latest and Sirota’s opportunistic foray into the discussion today makes me realize how much I really hate the “progressive” moniker.  I’ve always thought these guys were poseurs of some kind.  Get this thesis from Sirota.

At the same time, though, when it comes to war, surveillance, police power, bank bailouts, cutting the defense budget, eliminating corporate welfare and civil liberties, Paul is more in line with progressive goals than any candidate running in 2012 (or almost any Democrat who has held a federal office in the last 30 years). This, too, is indisputable.

Evidently, how you arrive at those positions intellectually and conceptually are less important than just having a similar goal.  Again, note the appalling oversight of civil rights which tends to be an easy thing to overlook when you’re young, straight, white and sport that extra, dangly appendage of privilege. Stoller demonizes liberals as being the grease of  the war machine.  I’d like to note that Stoller does in fact share the same bizarre notions about the Federal Reserve Bank held by Ron Paul.  I admit to getting the creeps every time I read him. It’s the same creeps I get when Ron Paul says “We’re all Austrians now” and waves the Von Mises Institute Flag.   Stoller snidely suggests liberal sell out to the war machine while holding up the idea of selling out everything else to stop the war machine.  Sirota jumps on the band wagon to take it to the point where it becomes a multiple choice question.  Which of your deeply held values do you believe is worthy frittering away to a fascist to achieve one or two policies in the agenda that I really care about?

In seeing Paul’s economic views, positions on a woman’s right to choose, regulatory ideas and ties to racist newsletters as disqualifying factors for their electoral support, many self-identified liberal Obama supporters are essentially deciding that, for purposes of voting, those set of issues are simply more important to them than the issues of war, foreign policy, militarism, Wall Street bailouts, surveillance, police power and civil liberties — that is, issues in which Paul is far more progressive than the sitting president.

There’s certainly a logic to that position, and that logic fits within the conventionally accepted rubric of progressivism. But let’s not pretend here: Holding this position about what is and is not a disqualifying factor is a clear statement of priorities — more specifically, a statement that Paul’s odious economics, regulatory ideas, position on reproductive rights and ties to bigotry should be more electorally disqualifying than President Obama’s odious escalation of wars, drone killing of innocents, due-process-free assassinations, expansion of surveillance, increases in the defense budget, massive ongoing bank bailouts and continuation of the racist drug war.

By contrast, Paul’s progressive-minded supporters are simply taking the other position — they are basically saying that, for purposes of voting, President Obama’s record on militarism, civil liberties, foreign policy, defense budgets and bailouts are more disqualifying than Paul’s newsletter, economics, abortion and regulatory positions. Again, there’s an obvious logic to this position — one that also fits well within the conventional definition of progressivism. And just as Obama supporters shouldn’t pretend they aren’t expressing their preferences, Paul’s supporters shouldn’t do that either. Their support of the Republican congressman is a statement of personal priorities within the larger progressive agenda.

Hence, we reach one of those impossible questions: From a progressive perspective, which is a more legitimate camp to be in?

Again, I’d just like to toss that “progressive” label out with the rest of the trash just because people like the intellectually incoherent Sirota overuse it.  I’ve never seen it applied to any one with a cohesive set of values.  I’ve started associating it with facile vapidity.   It’s like those folks that scream they are conservative will trying to pass some of the most radical laws the country’s ever seen.   Oh, like Ron Paul.  Political labels have become a meaningless blob of mushiness which is why I can’t figure out how none of these folks challenge how Paul got THESE positions instead of where they fit.   Paul came to his positions through the back door of Fascism.  He’s heir to arguments made by Von Mises, Pinochet, Mussolini and Jefferson Davis. 

Which brings me to ask why do they keep prolonging this conversation?  Why is this flirtation with the neoconfederate Paul coming from reformed Obots?  I know, they’re all saying they’re not endorsing him. But, isn’t this all just an intellectual exercise to get people to make some kind of Hobson’s choice based on their criteria  and/or beat themselves for not prioritizing the prog list correctly? These guys remind me of the anti-war protestors that quit protesting the war the minute the draft ended.  I keep smelling self interest in all of this which is the same smell that comes off of Ron Paul and his libertarians.  If it doesn’t directly benefit them, they don’t want to pay for it, die for it, fiddle with it.   I think how you arrive at a position is as important as the position itself.  I think your motivation for a position is as important as the position itself.  I think that’s just another door into the hypocrite’s club.  They are accusing every one of selling out without fully exploring the implications of how Ron Paul arrives at is positions. It is just an appalling ego exercise.

It reminds me of the Von Mises apologia for Mussolini and Hitler.  They saved European civilization since they blocked the spread of “communism”. Ignore everything else.

It cannot be denied that Fascism and similar movements aimed at the establishment of dictatorships are full of the best intentions and that their intervention has for the moment saved European civilization. The merit that Fascism has thereby won for itself will live on eternally in history.

Who cares about everything else?  The trains ran on time in Italy and the hyperinflation created by the Weimar Republican ended.  Right?    And GEE, we’re getting so many conversations on CNN and FOX News about the horrors of war and the patriot act, what’s a little snuggle with Ron Paul?

Something is happening here, Mr. Jones

Posted: January 11, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Climate Change | Tags: , , | 23 Comments

First you read about Nome, Alaska. It’s had such tough weather, a Russian tanker and a US Coast Guard icebreaker are painstakingly trying to deliver emergency fuel supplies. icebreaker in field of sea ice The icebreaker is facing backward because [T]he ice is under so much pressure, it closes up almost as soon as it’s broken. So the ship has to double back and re-break it. [Update: The view is from the icebreaker toward the tanker, which is facing forward. The icebreaker does double back, but that’s not what the picture shows. Sorry for the brain fart.]

You get the picture. Very severe winter in Alaska. They’ve declared a state of emergency and called out the National Guard. That’s in Alaska, where they are anything but pansies about winter.

satellite image of snow-covered Europe Now, a year or two back, Siberia and China had super-deep winters. Last year, Europe was in a deep freeze and showing up all white on satellite photos.

And then I remembered that the Europeans had connected their deep freeze with climate change. It works like this. As the Arctic sea ice melts, there’s more dark ocean to absorb the sun’s heat and less white ice to reflect it back. The overlying polar winter air is then much colder than the surface. Warm air rises, but the displaced cold polar air has to come down somewhere. And that place is south (and also north, I would guess) of the unnaturally warm zone. (It’s all horribly cold by our standards, but our standards don’t count.) So places like Siberia and Scotland get more snow and cold and the sea freezes thicker and harder. Maybe Alaska is just joining the club.

Isn’t messing with Nature fun? You never know what to expect.

Cross-posted from Acid Test

New Hampshire Republican Primary Results Live Blog

Posted: January 10, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Live, Live Blog | Tags: | 63 Comments

New Hampshire’s primary voting began with the nine voters in Dixville Notch cast their votes today.

The polls opened here at midnight and closed less than a minute later, and the tally was final by 12:05 a.m. On the Republican side, Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman tied, with two votes each. Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul each got one vote. President Obama received his very first live votes of confidence — three of them.

The New Hampshire primary, the nation’s first of the 2012 presidential campaign, is Tuesday. That means the tiny village of Dixville Notch casts the first ballots of the contest just after midnight, a tradition since 1960. (Jan. 10)

In Hart’s Location, another village that traditionally votes minutes after Dixville Notch, Romney was a clear winner. There, the former Massachusetts governor took five votes to four votes for Paul. Huntsman took two votes, Texas Gov. Rick Perry took one and Gingrich took one.

New Hampshire election law permits unincorporated towns of fewer than 100 residents to open for polling at midnight, and Dixville Notch has done so since 1960, at The Balsams Grand Resort Hotel high in the North Country, about 20 miles south of the Canadian border. There were nine votes cast that year, too, all for Richard Nixon.

Most of the polls will close at 7 pm eastern.  A few close at 8 pm.  CNN is reporting that early exit polling show that most voters have at least a $50k a year salary.   Of those voting, 69 percent are concerned about the economy.  CNN breaking news also sent this interesting tidbit to its subscribers.

One in four said the deficit was the most important issue. Also, more than three-quarters of respondents said the series of Republican debates was important to their final decision, while less than half said television ads were important.

CNN also reports they are expecting a record turnout in the Republican votes.  New Hampshire is having ‘unseasonably’ warm weather and that should improve turnout.  That makes me wonder if New Hampshire Republicans are  climate change deniers.  Probably not.  New Hampshire is it’s own little state.  John Avalon tells us that New Hampshire is all about the independents.

While Iowa’s caucuses are disproportionately dominated by social conservatives, in New Hampshire’s open primary, independents can vote — and they make up more than 40% of the local electorate.

That’s right — in New Hampshire, registered independents outnumber Republicans or Democrats.

It’s a libertarian instinct reflected in the state’s motto, “Live Free or Die.” It’s captured in the wonderful fact that in the northern town named “Freedom,” independents make up the bulk of the 1,000-plus voters.

It’s also reflected in the fact that New Hampshire is one of the least religious states in the nation.

Likewise, a Pew Research Center poll conducted before the 2008 primary found that 55% of New Hampshire Republican primary voters believed that abortion should be always or mostly legal, while just 13% of New Hampshire GOP primary voters said abortion should be always illegal — posing a problem for fundamentalists like Rick Santorum who support a constitutional ban on abortion.

Fiscal conservatives rule the roost in the New Hampshire Republican Party, which is committed to the state’s anti-income tax tradition with a focus on balanced budgets and a concurrent aversion to deficit spending.

Events surrounding the Democratic primary in New Hampshire made me very fond of the state four years ago.   This youtube shows them moment that really drove me to firmly support Hillary.  Well, that and her heartfelt speech about why she was really running.

“Some people think elections are a game: who’s up or who’s down,” Clinton said, her voice breaking and tears welling. “It’s about our country. It’s about our kids’ future. It’s about all of us together. Some of us put ourselves out there and do this against some difficult odds.”

I doubt we’ll have any sincere, heartfelt moments tonight, but we’ll be watching!!!  What’s it look like from where you’re at?

Crowd Heckles Romney at NH Polling Place

Posted: January 10, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Mitt Romney, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , | 11 Comments

Mitt Romney in Manchester, NH today

Buzzfeed reports that Mitt Romney was Heckled a couple of hours ago at a Manchester, NH polling place. Voters seemed unhappy about Romney’s statement yesterday that he likes to fire people.

At what was meant to be an invigorating warmup to Mitt Romney’s primary-day victory lap here, the candidate’s flub at a Chamber of Commerce breakfast yesterday continued to dog him.

Stopping by a polling place at Webster School in Manchester, Romney was greeted by enthusiastic crowds of supporters chanting, “Let’s go MItt!” and rowdy libertarian voters shouting “Ron Paul! Ron Paul!”

But as media surrounded him to collect obligatory quotes about how “the entire nation is watching,” antagonists were committed to continuing the narrative of Romney’s record of a heartless job-slasher.

As the candidate held one voter’s infant, an activist repeatedly shouted, “Are you going to fire the baby?” Another shouted, “I don’t like firing people!”

Romney attempted to explain that his comment was taken out of context. He meant that he thinks people should be able to fire their insurance companies. I guess he doesn’t know that if he gets rid of Obamacare, as he has promised, nothing will prevent insurance companies from dropping sick people and refusing to insure people with preexisting conditions.

Funny how when you’re worth a quarter of a billion dollars, little problems like that don’t seem so troubling.

Nevertheless, Romney is anticipating a big win tonight. But the LA Times suggests that unless he gets more than 37% of the vote, a win may still be perceived as a loss because of the media expectations game.

Romney could still lose ground in the eyes of the media and professional political strategists if he fails to win by a convincing margin here, a northeastern state where he’s been campaigning for years.

How big a vote does Romney need to look like a winner? Reporters and pundits –- the unofficial Board of Expectations, if you will -– have been debating that question in Manchester’s restaurants and bars for the last week.

Here’s what they say: Romney’s standing in New Hampshire polls over the last month has ranged between 33% and 46%. If the former Massachusetts governor comes in at the low end of that range — say, 35% or below — most reporters will see it as a setback. But at 40% or higher, Romney will be declared a clear winner, with momentum that can carry him through the next contests in South Carolina and Florida –- even though he won’t have come near a majority.

We’ll know the outcome later tonight. Be sure to join us for Dakinikat’s live blog of the returns at 8PM Eastern.

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →