Liberty and Justice

"Asa Dotzler, Mozilla's director of community development, used his personal blog to urge Firefox users away from Google and to use Microsoft's search engine Bing, instead. Dotzler cited privacy concerns, specifically pointing to comments recently made by Google CEO Eric Schmidt." - ovigia from Bookmarklet

yeah, I'm really going to ditch Google for Microsoft... #drugs #insane #wtf - Marcos Marado

"My Reaction to Eric Schmidt" - ovigia from Bookmarklet

"In this short essay, written for a symposium in the San Diego Law Review, Professor Daniel Solove examines the nothing to hide argument. When asked about government surveillance and data mining, many people respond by declaring: "I've got nothing to hide." According to the nothing to hide argument, there is no threat to privacy unless the government uncovers unlawful activity, in which case a person has no legitimate justification to claim that it remain private. The nothing to hide argument and its variants are quite prevalent, and thus are worth addressing. In this essay, Solove critiques the nothing to hide argument and exposes its faulty underpinnings." - ovigia from Bookmarklet

"Unlike the 'public option,' Congress doesn't ask if funding the Taleban to blow up contractors' bridges will add to the US deficit. WHY (besides protecting gas and opium pipelines) is the US is *still* in Afghanistan (and Pakistan)? WHY are US taxpayers funding infrastructure programs in *Afghanistan* (and Pakistan) instead of in the US? If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." - ovigia from Bookmarklet

"In the past our politicians offered us dreams of a better world. Now they promise to protect us from nightmares. The most frightening of these is the threat of an international terror network. But just as the dreams were not true, neither are these nightmares." - ovigia from Bookmarklet

"Do you know your online rights? Have you received a letter asking you to remove information from a Web site or to stop engaging in an activity? Are you concerned about liability for information that someone else posted to your online forum? If so, this site is for you." - ovigia from Bookmarklet

Yep. This site does not have the best of reps online - Schadenfreude

"It's interesting how what was once lambasted as "Constitution-shredding" under George Bush is now nothing more than: Obama's "civil liberties record hasn’t been exactly what I would have wanted." Also, the premise implicitly embedded in Matt's argument is the standard Beltway dogma that there would be serious political costs from reversing the Bush/Cheney abuses of the Constitution and civil liberties. The success of Obama's campaign -- which emphatically and repeatedly vowed to do exactly that -- ought to have permanently retired that excuse." - ovigia from Bookmarklet

"The two provisions include the “records” rule and the “roving wiretaps” provision. The so-called “records” rule grants federal officials with a court order the power to force private parties such as businesses, hospitals, and libraries to hand over "any tangible thing" they believe has "relevance" to a terrorist investigation. “Roving wiretaps” allow wiretapping multiple lines of communication without informing FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) courts which specific phone lines or communication media are being targeted." - ovigia from Bookmarklet

"The House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to consider a bill on November 5 that the Electronic Frontier Foundation believes is this year’s “best chance” for significant reform of the USA Patriot Act. Called the USA Patriot Amendments Act of 2009 (H.R. 3845), the bill was introduced by House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.) and co-sponsored by Representatives Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), Robert Scott (D-Va.), and several others. H.R. 3845 aims to put common-sense restraints in place that will at least somewhat limit the unconstitutional abuses of power the Patriot Act currently enables." - ovigia from Bookmarklet

"This week, Rupert Murdoch wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that exemplified this clever strategy. Aptly titled “Journalism and Freedom,” the article belittles the fair use doctrine and demands compensation for news content online, while going on to wax eloquent about the ideals of the Founding Fathers and the First Amendment. The problem here is that the right he claims to value above all else, the freedom of speech, is precisely what prevents media companies like News Corp. from claiming ownership in the news. Facts cannot be owned, so while News Corp. can certainly prevent third parties from reproducing stories in full, it has no right to control the facts within those stories. This is not a peculiarity of copyright law; it is a protection of the First Amendment and an effort to create the informed citizenry Murdoch claims to cherish." - LogEx from Bookmarklet

Yeah, I have sympathy for the plight of newspapers, but then again those companies can pull dick moves like what the AP tried with the Obama poster thing. (Shepherd Fairey based it on an AP photo, but the photographer retained copyright and thus the AP was totally out of bounds to act as if it owned the photo.) - Andrew C

"If the FCC gets it right, a network neutrality rule would preserve the practical freedom of speech Americans experience every day. The FCC’s policy likely will have far greater effect on how Americans speak with one another and participate in our democracy than many Supreme Court cases anthologized in First Amendment textbooks. The FCC hearing next week will help highlight that point—and hopefully put a nail in the coffin of arguments around the First Amendment rights of cable and phone companies to block speech." - LogEx from Bookmarklet

"Apparently, it is Facebook’s considered opinion that the way to avoid sharing data you don’t want shared is to not enter it Barry Schnitt, a Facebook spokesman, said users could avoid revealing some information to non-friends by leaving gender and location fields blank. I guess they’d agree, then, that the best option is to not use Facebook at all." - LogEx from Bookmarklet

No suggestions from Facebook on how to blank out (from the public) your list of friends, pages you are a fan of, and networks to which you belong? - LogEx

"A crack squad of London cops -- three cars and a riot van -- converged on a famous architectural photographer who was taking a picture of Christopher Wren's 300 year old Christ Church spire. Grant Smith, the photographer, refused to tell a Bank of America security guard what he was doing (he wasn't on B of A property) and so the guard called in the police. When the police arrived, Smith was searched and questioned under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act." - Schadenfreude from Bookmarklet

You couldn't make this stuff up. 7 Police and several police vehicles arrived to investigate a well-known photographer photographing a famous church. UK law enforcement have long ago become part of the problem :( - winckel

"Summary: Daniel Estulin, Bilderberg expert, undergoes the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and the Trilateral Commission (TC). The CFR was founded in 1921 and became an instrument in Rockefeller's hands. CFR was initially established to work for a one world government. For many years, CFR has delivered people to the U.S. administration's highest offices and ministries. Many presidents have been members and virtually all foreign and defense ministers after world War II, top generals, admirals and CIA leaders, etc. CFR founded the UN and rules U.S. and world media, so only CFRs allowable news is promulgated. Thereby, the Rockefeller family could shape public opinion in the desired globalist direction. David Rockefeller is CFRs former president and proud to participate in an international conspiracy to create one world against the best interests of the U.S., as he says in his memoirs. The Trilateral Commission was founded by David Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski. It brings... more... - ovigia from Bookmarklet

"Summary: So far, the one-world government protagonists managed to cover up their plot by simply saying "Pth! Conspiracy theory," although their groups have long been professing their quest to rule the world (world governance). Now in the EU Parliament, Italian MEP, Mario Borghezio, pointed out the farce which preceded the occupation of the office as the EU's first permanent president: Rompuy first had to be examined by the Bilderbergers to have their seal of approval. So had the U.S. presidential candidates, Obama and Clinton, in 2008. Already in 1987, Senator Jesse Helms in the US Senate pointed to the great power exerted by named secret societies - including Bilderberg - to promote their New World Order, world governance, which Mr Barroso, Gordon Brown, Sarkozy, and now the new EU President Rompuy, too etc.. are talking so much about. Daniel Estulin is probably the only uninvited person to attend a Bilderberg meeting, in 2005. He calls the Bilderbegers and their partne... more... - ovigia from Bookmarklet

"Dec. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Roche Holding AG’s antiviral drug Tamiflu may not prevent complications from influenza in healthy adults, according to a review by an independent research group that reversed its previous findings that the medicine warded off pneumonia and other deadly conditions linked to the disease." - ovigia from Bookmarklet

"Governments relied on the studies to justify the widespread use of Tamiflu, known chemically as oseltamivir, she said. The reviewers were unable to find any independent studies of the drug in healthy adults, she said." - ovigia

"The compilation of documents shows the influence of "Big Pharma" on the policy making decisions of the WHO, the UN body safeguarding public health. These confidential documents were obtained by the drug industry before their public release to WHO member states (scheduled to be released May 2010). The document also illustrates that the WHO expert group was highly responsive to industry lobbying — a result that public health groups had feared since early 2009, when the expert group met with the industry, but refused to meet with public health groups known to be industry critics." - ovigia from Bookmarklet

"A combination of interesting mainstream and alternative media reports reveal compelling links between president Obama and a privately owned carbon trading group, which also has direct ties with elitist groups such as the Club of Rome and the Trilateral Commission." - ovigia from Bookmarklet

"John Prescott expresses doubt over British support for Iraq invasion We all know George Bush is crap, former deputy prime minister tells New Statesman" - ovigia from Bookmarklet

"In a wide-ranging interview with the New Statesman magazine the former deputy prime minister asks himself: " I do wonder, looking back now, having the privilege of discussing with Tony about all this, how did I go along [with it]?" Listening to some of Blair's video-conferences with George Bush was, he admits, a hair-raising experience. "Bush is crap, you know it, I know it, the party knows it," he tells the magazine." - ovigia

"You’re confident your RFID passport is safe in its signal-blocking wallet as you pass through immigration. What you don’t know is that the man behind you is recording the data sent by your passport’s RFID chip as it is scanned. Your name, nationality, gender, birthday, birthplace and a nicely digitized photo is in his hands. With that info he can photoshop up a passport, get a copy of your Social Security card and with that get credit cards and bank accounts in your name." - ovigia from Bookmarklet

http://cacm.acm.org/magazin... - ovigia

"Update: Earlier today, I asked a Justice Department spokesperson which search engines other than Google received requests to provide search records. The answer: Yahoo, AOL, and MSN were also asked to supply search records information, and all complied. Google did not, and that is why the DoJ asked a federal judge on Wednesday to order the company to do so. Another fact to consider as you sift through news coverage: Justice is not requesting this data in the course of a criminal investigation, but in order to defend its argument that the Child Online Protection Act is constitutionally sound." - ovigia from Bookmarklet

"Publicly available information" [now] includes your name, profile photo, list of friends, pages you are a fan of, gender, networks to which you belong, and current city." - PAI used to include only Name and Networks. - LogEx

He who throws stones should not make others live in glass houses. Let me know when his social graph becomes public: http://www.facebook.com/zuck - LogEx

"A lot of people seem to be wondering how to hide their friend lists on their profile pages. This is no longer a privacy setting because friend lists have been declared publicly available information. However you can still hide the list on your profile page by clicking the pencil icon in the top right corner of the friends box and unchecking "Show my friends on my profile."... more... - LogEx

“Publicly Available Information” or "PAI" - "Unlike the other privacy settings, "publicly available information" is not an option. This is the category of information in your profile that Facebook has decided must be publicly available. This means that there are no privacy settings that can prevent disclosure of information in this category, and anyone who finds and visits your profile page can see this information, as can any application that you or your friends use. Facebook search and Internet search engines can also see this information if you do not adjust your search privacy settings." - LogEx

"Publicly available information" includes your name, profile photo, list of friends, pages you are a fan of, gender, networks to which you belong, and current city. - [PAI used to be only name and networks] - LogEx

"The existence and consequences of PAI are new. Before the current changes, from our experience it was possible to control the disclosure of everything but your name and the networks you belong to through the search privacy settings and through the profile option on the Profile: Basic Info privacy settings page. This option is no longer available to Facebook users." - LogEx

"Brave New Books is not like other bookstores. Brave New Books is one of the first brick-and-mortar bookstores in the country to focus on the myriad of political, economic, medical and spiritual scams that populate our mainstream media today." - ovigia from Bookmarklet

"Despite pledges by President George W. Bush and American intelligence officials to the contrary, hundreds of US citizens overseas have been eavesdropped on as they called friends and family back home, according to two former military intercept operators who worked at the giant National Security Agency (NSA) center in Fort Gordon, Georgia." - ovigia from Bookmarklet

"The Australian government announced this week that they wanted to extend the temporary anti-terrorist powers granted to them following September 11, 2001. They proposed allowing employers to intercept their employees’ emails and other Internet communications without their consent. The justification they used was that the nation’s IT infrastructure could be used to attack its financial systems, power grid and even its transport." - ovigia from Bookmarklet

"Amid an international climate-change scandal involving hacked e-mails just days before a major U.N. climate summit of world leaders, it is instructive to profile top White House officials who are drafting President Obama's climate policy." - ovigia from Bookmarklet

"FrontPageMag.com noted Holdren has endorsed "surrender of sovereignty" to "a comprehensive Planetary Regime" that would control all the world's resources, direct global redistribution of wealth, oversee the "de-development" of the West, control a World Army and taxation regime, and enforce world population limits." - ovigia

"What is clear from the record going back over nearly four decades is that White House science czar John Holdren is a climate alarmist, even if he can't make up his mind whether the crisis is the Earth warming up or cooling down. But long before Holdren was the global warming Cassandra he is today, he was a global cooling alarmist predicting a new ice age." - ovigia from Bookmarklet

"White House science czar John Holdren has predicted 1 billion people will die in "carbon-dioxide induced famines" in a coming new ice age by 2020." - ovigia from Bookmarklet

"As WND previously reported, Holdren predicted in a 1971 textbook co-authored with Malthusian population alarmist Paul Ehrlich that global over-population was heading the Earth to a new ice age unless the government mandated urgent measures to control population, including the possibility of involuntary birth control measures such as forced sterilization. " - ovigia

"This is the first of a three-part series of articles exploring Obama administration science czar John P. Holdren's self-acknowledged intellectual debt to geochemist Harrison Brown. The second part, to be published tomorrow, will feature Brown's endorsement of government-enforced eugenics as a necessary measure to prevent global over-population." - ovigia from Bookmarklet

"Lamenting on page 140 that "the earth's atmosphere contains only a minute concentration – about 0.03 percent" – Brown observed, "It has been demonstrated that a tripling of carbon-dioxide concentration in the air will approximately double the growth rates of tomatoes, alfalfa, and sugar beets." " - ovigia