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Archive for March, 2010

source: AfterDawn.com
After nearly two years of excuses for the secrecy of negotiations over ACTA, the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a full draft of the proposed treaty has been leaked online and it looks just as bad as critics have suggested.

Among the worst provisions of the proposal is the requirement that third party service providers must implement measures to proactively identify and elminate access to content that’s in violation of copyright law.

Failure to do so would make them liable for such infringement. Even worse, according to a note from New Zealand’s negotiators this would even include search engines.

Assuming some service finds a way to implement this sort of proactive system, their ability to safeguard the privacy of users would be severely diminished.

Under current laws, when content owners identify content they believe infringes on their copyrights they can notify the service provider, such as YouTube, and demand that the content be removed. This is known as notice and takedown.

Under the ACTA proposal content owners would also be entitled to any information the service provider has which could identify the user responsible for the content without any judicial oversight.

If you post a 30 second video of your child dancing to a copyrighted song on YouTube and a record label believes it infringes on their copyright they could demand that YouTube not only takedown the video, but also provide them with your private account information unless you come up with evidence that the takedown request was in error.

And service providers aren’t the only parties whose obligations to enforce other people’s intellectual property rights would be drastically increased. Governments would be be forced into a new role as well.

For starters it would make customs officials responsible for proactively identifying intellectual property infringement in goods crossing national borders. They would, of course, be trained in this role by IP holders rather than some sort of actual legal education.

The courts would also be affected by ACTA. It would require that judges be given the power to issue injunctions for “imminent infringement,” meaning infringement that hasn’t even taken place yet.

Additionally, each government that’s a party to the treaty would be required to “educate” the public about the evils of IP infringement.

At the end of the day ACTA isn’t about protecting the people who create goods and content. Its real aim is to protect businesses which have traditionally relied on the artificial monopoly of intellectual property to make a profit.

Rather than the government regulating business, those businesses would be regulating the government. Accusations would be given the weight of judgements and the presumption of innocence would be replaced by the assumption of guilt.

source: truthout.com

Immigration reform has been pegged as the next big political battleground, according to an editorial in The Chicago Tribune and reports by CNN. Though it was overshadowed by the health care reform negotiations, advocates say a national march on Sunday, March 21, in Washington, DC, demanding immigration reform has set the stage for a move toward reforming the America’s immigration law.

“This is the only issue area that had a concerted movement behind it,” said Martine Apodaca, communications director at the National Immigrant Forum, which organized Sunday’s march.

The march, which brought more than 150,000 people out to Washington’s Mall, followed the announcement of a new plan sponsored by Sens. Charles Schumer (D-New York) and Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina). Their blueprint would offer a path to legalization, as well as a temporary worker program and tighter border controls.

President Obama said he would only consider working on immigration reform legislation if it had bipartisan support.

However, some roadblocks remain. In a statement March 19, Graham said: “The first casualty of the Democratic health care bill will be immigration reform. If the health care bill goes through this weekend, that will, in my view, pretty much kill any chance of immigration reform passing the Senate this year.”

The issue of immigration reform has been sidelined since the Bush administration failed to push through its proposal in 2007. His bill was also a bipartisan effort and supported a path to legalization for undocumented immigrants, but it died with a Senate filibuster at a time when the US unemployment rate was less than 5 percent.

However, as The Chicago Tribune editorial states, the push from below is clear: “Their message, punctuated by Sunday’s meet-up, was not subtle: Get off the dime or lose the support of the growing Latino electorate.”

source: truthout.com
Where the Tea Party Rule and the Tea-hadis Roam

What if the Tea Party ruled? Imagine a land, let’s call it Glennbeckistan, where white, patriarchal, religiously zealous, Tea Party-type patriots hold a super-majority in both houses of the legislature, sit in the governor’s mansion, and control most local governments. It’s a place so out of sync with the rest of the nation that states’ rights and even secession are always on the agenda. It’s a place where gun-ownership trumps all other rights, climate change is considered an insidious socialist conspiracy, and a miscarriage can be investigated as a potential crime. Welcome to Utah.

Our rightwing red-state legislature just finished its annual 2010 session. So-called message bills challenged the federal government’s right to govern federal lands, enforce gun controls, legalize abortion, and mandate health reform. In addition, Utah’s lawmakers cut the education budget, raised tuitions, and slashed services to the disabled. In fairness, state legislators across the nation, faced with disastrous drops in revenue, have likewise slashed social services and balanced budgets on the backs of the poor. In Utah, however, they also shelved pensions for public employees. That they could take such draconian action is instructive — organized labor is weak here, unions being another manifestation of creeping socialism. Utah’s history of labor organizing, or grass roots and civil rights organizing for that matter, is anemic compared to most of America. This is the place, after all, where IWW radical Joe Hill was arrested and executed.

Although Utah may be unique in some ways, Republican leaders here want the rest of the nation to be more like us. In fact, a survey of the 2010 Utah legislative session could be considered a trailer for a movie the national Republican base would like all Americans to star in. This movie would be for the Tea Party movement what Avatar is to tree huggers.

Hot-Tubbing With a Naked Fifteen-Year-Old

Before we get to this movie’s best scenes, let’s identify some of the actors: The posse that goes after the bad guys — the black-hatted Obamacrats — are easy to identify. They wear white hats (and skins). They also wear their superior principles like shiny badges, and they claim to be the underdogs in this script, even while acting like schoolyard bullies. And the bad guys? In our state, they’re nowhere in sight unless you’re looking at Glenn Beck’s chalkboard.

Demonizing opponents is a creative activity for the posse and paranoia comes in endless variations, so the bad guys could be tax-and-spend liberals, illegal immigrants, gays (or at least those following “the gay agenda”), non-Republican blacks, federalists, socialists, environmentalists, pornographers, feminists, or those nature worshippers who believe in evolution. The cast of evil-doers changes each year. So this year, for example, immigrants and gays got a break. Proposed bills to scuttle Salt Lake City’s new nondiscrimination ordinances were shelved until a future session of the state legislature — the Utah-based Mormon church is already catching enough flack for its support of Proposition 8 that banned same-sex marriage in California. Further antagonizing the national gay community just now was deemed unwise. Immigrants were beaten up enough in last year’s session.

The good guys are easy to recognize because they’re the ones constantly telling the audience how good they are. Sadly, as is so often the case with holier-than-thou-heroes, there are visible stains on the white hats. In fact, the 2010 session was bookended by scandal. As the doors opened, Sheldon Killpack, the State Senate majority leader and an outspoken proponent of tougher drunk-driving laws, was busted for… drunk-driving. He promptly resigned.

On the last night of the session, Kevin Garn, the House majority leader, dramatically stood before packed chambers and declared that years earlier he had shared a hot tub with a naked fifteen-year-old and then paid her $150,000 to keep quiet. He could no longer “live a lie,” he insisted, and so was confessing and apologizing — as it happened, right after the young woman reneged on that deal and went public. His colleagues were “shocked,” but gave him a prolonged standing ovation anyway. Apparently, they find honesty inspiring, even from pedophiles. Hey, at least he wasn’t a polygamist.

So the white hats are a bit soiled, but by now that’s an old story — hypocrisy seems to be the evil twin of self-righteousness. Recent examples are too numerous to list.

Miscarriage Cops

Perhaps the most outrageous legislative move the posse made this year was to turn miscarriage into a crime. State Representative Carl Wimmer’s bill was admittedly directed at a very specific case of miscarriage. In 2009, a woman who had been abused by her boyfriend and feared his reaction if he discovered she was pregnant paid some dirt bag $150 to beat her up so she’d abort.

The crime was as rare as it was horrific and didn’t need its own bill. A rational person might reason that if the woman had access to affordable healthcare, including abortion, or if she had alternatives to living with an abusive partner, she might never have taken such drastic measures. Not Representative Wimmer, who was frank about his desire to challenge and “whittle away” at Roe v. Wade. Every year some Utah legislator takes a shot at limiting abortion or making women who get abortions feel guilty and scared.

The bill was, in the end, amended to ensure that only a woman who repeated the specific act that generated Wimmer’s concern could be prosecuted. Lawmakers, however, seemed oblivious to the fact that, although only a self-arranged, beating-induced miscarriage could land a woman in jail, all women who miscarry are potentially subject to investigation. If you miscarry in Utah, you’d better be sure you have an alibi ready. So much for keeping the damn guvmint off our backs.

Health Reform and Climate Change Banned

It looks like that woman will wait a long time for access to health care. Legislators passed a bill aimed at preventing Obamacare, as it is popularly known here, from coming to Utah without their explicit permission, no matter what the U.S. Congress does. They made it clear that if Utah’s citizens are required to buy insurance, the state will challenge the federal government’s right to mandate that in court. Opposition to health care reform is a centerpiece in a broader “states’ rights” campaign that even includes the weather.

So anti-climate change resolutions passed despite pleas from Brigham Young University and University of Utah professors to heed an overwhelming scientific consensus on the subject. Representative Mike Noel, a rancher, was successful in convincing his colleagues that global warming is just a hoax. They called on the Environmental Protection Agency and Congress to avoid carbon dioxide regulation until “a full and independent investigation of climate change science” is conducted. Give them some credit: language was stripped from the resolution accusing global warming advocates of “conspiracy” because, hey, they don’t want to come across as nuts.

Another resolution called on Governor Gary Herbert to pull Utah out of the Western Climate Initiative, organized by a group of governors concerned about how climate change might affect fragile Western ecosystems. Then the posse passed another bill to protect utilities and energy producers from potential lawsuits claiming damage from greenhouse gasses. And they warned those pesky professors to shut up, too.

We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Wolves… or Stinkin’ Rangers Either

Legislators also tried to ban wolves. There is little evidence wolves have migrated south from Idaho or Wyoming into Utah — but they might. And if they do: bang! The lawmakers were actually using the assault on the (prospective) wolves to aim at another Big Bad Wolf, the federal government, which reintroduced the dang critters up north, protects them, and obviously cares more for the animals, fish, and reptiles on the endangered species list than it does for real human beings with guns and jeeps that will be more or less useless if pointy-headed Beltway types are allowed to boss the good people of Utah around. Advised by their lawyers that their wolf bill was clearly unconstitutional, they turned it into a strongly worded letter to the Interior Department instead.

Another bill challenged the power of federal law enforcement on roads running through federal lands, like our newest national monument, Grand Staircase Escalante. Local commissioners are still ticked off at President Bill Clinton for declaring a monument in southern Utah and so locking up large coal deposits owned by a foreign corporation that wanted to dig it up and send it to Asia.

And if telling forest rangers to take a hike wasn’t enough, yet another bill aimed to take over federal lands altogether, wielding the right of eminent domain. They know many consider that one laughable, but they’ve vowed to fight for it all the way to the Supreme Court, if they have to. Some $3 million was designated for lawyers in a year that saw education budgets slashed. You can look forward to oil derricks in national parks if they win.

Each region of Tea Party Nation has its own peculiar reasons for feeling oppressed. Westerners complain that they are bullied by big, distant bureaucracies like the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service that oversee most of their open lands. Law enforcement on public lands is intermittent and timid. Under Bush, the federal agencies kowtowed to local politicians. Nevertheless, rangers are right up there with the IRS on the posse’s most-wanted list. Oddly enough, Utahans did not object when, during the Cold War era, the military bombed, poisoned, and irradiated their vast land holdings in the Great Basin Desert.

Mr. Browning’s Holiday and the Ghost of Patrick Henry

It’s only right in a culture that celebrates guns for John Browning, the inventor of the automatic rifle, to get his own holiday, especially since he was born in Utah. State lawmakers originally intended to make his holiday the same as Martin Luther King’s — so they’d feel better about taking the day off, I suppose. Knowing that would cause controversy, though, they finally moved the date. In a more substantive show of support for gun owners, they just officially declared that guns made in Utah were not subject to federal regulation. So there. That one is also headed for the courts. (After all the lawyers are paid, we’ll be lucky if we have funds left over to pay teachers, but at least we have our priorities straight.)

Utah’s states-rights advocates even have their own caucus now. They call it the Patrick Henry Caucus, and they have a website with videos extolling their own patriotism and love of liberty (unless you miscarry, are gay, or enjoy the idea of a future benign climate). Also featured is a Glenn Beck interview of Representative Wimmer, a self-described “9/12er,” who proudly declares, “no doubt we’re going to add to that terrorist watch list.” It isn’t clear if he is talking about the potential actions of the caucus’s most militant supporters or if he wants to label his opponents as terrorists. Another featured video shows Beck interviewing a Texas state legislator who describes a project to pass “sovereignty” legislation and, like Utah, declare federal gun control null and void in the state.

The Ghost of Lester Maddox

The last time we witnessed such a hyperbolic states’ rights rebellion, it was led by strident segregationists like George Wallace and Lester Maddox. As Alabama’s governor, Wallace blocked the integration of the University of Alabama, and Maddox, who was later elected governor of Georgia, closed his restaurant rather than serve black customers. Back then, states’ rights was clearly a cover for shameful racism. Maddox was not a constitutional scholar — he ran a fried-chicken joint. Advocating states’ rights was the means to resist federal mandates to integrate restaurants, swimming pools, and schools. Is today’s talk of states’ rights and secession a response to the integration of the White House?

Proponents howl with indignation when that charge is made, but the Tea Party crowd that hurled racial epithets at a civil rights icon and spit on a Black congressman the day before the big vote on healthcare reform made mincemeat of such claims of innocence. Clearly, some of them see health-care reform as a scheme to make white taxpayers pay for services to blacks. Their resentment taps into old hatreds and fears from the days of Maddox and Wallace. Let’s hope that it doesn’t also tap into the old violence and terror that went with them.

Usually, however, the prejudice is subtler. For several years, Utah’s lily-white legislature defiantly insisted on opening its session on Martin Luther King Day, which they refused to call by its name (substituting “Civil Rights Day” instead). There are no powerful black leaders here in our state, where African Americans were excluded from the dominant Mormon church until 1978, and our miniscule population of African Americans is not a significant voting block, so politicians who disdained Dr. King felt unconstrained. And unguarded: last year, Representative Chris Buttars stood on the floor and denounced a bill he opposed as a “black baby — a dark and ugly thing.”

The states’ rights movement here is also rife with “Birthers” who understand that saying Barack Obama can’t be president because he wasn’t born here is a more socially acceptable stance than saying a black man cannot be president because he is… well, black. If you take Birthers at face value — that their complaint is constitutional in nature and not merely bigoted — then it is fair to ask: Were they also outraged in 2000 when George Bush lost the popular vote, tied in the Electoral College, and won by one vote among Supreme Court judges appointed by his daddy? No, at that time they were counseling Democrats to be good losers and quit whining. The question is: If not racism, why the double standard?

Fightin’ Words!

There was little talk of secession in this session of the legislature, but the rural newspapers and talk-radio shows that fan Tea Party sentiments in the state regularly entertain the notion that we should go our own way. Such talk is delusional. Utah is a net recipient of federal largesse. We can’t pay for our kids’ education by ourselves; we certainly couldn’t afford all those dams and pipelines that bring us life-giving water. Forget about maintaining the highways that run over a vast horizon. Most rural communities have fire stations, water tanks, community centers, and medical clinics made possible by federal grants. Utah’s economy is wedded to jobs generated by Hill Air Force Base. Why, then, so much animosity towards the hand that feeds us?

Because feeding from that hand radically contradicts our cherished image as independent, self-reliant, freedom-loving cowboys who don’t need stinkin’ handouts. We are proud to embody an American way of life that is seen mostly in the rear-view mirror, John Wayne westerns on Netflix, and in our own imaginations. The worst thing you can call a cowboy is a “welfare rancher,” especially when it’s true.

Coming Soon to a Theater Near You

Utah’s legislators are self-conscious about their image. For example, a bill sponsored by Chris (”Black Baby”) Buttars a few years ago to force the teaching of creationism was killed, not because his colleagues didn’t share his anti-evolution beliefs but because they feared more ridicule. After all, our Mormon majority has already suffered the embarrassment of Jon Krakauer’s best selling Under the Banner of Heaven and an ongoing, less than flattering television series, Big Love, about modern day polygamy.

Although it’s easy to scoff at the state’s buffoonish legislators, it would be a mistake to look at their shenanigans, outrageous as they are, and think: it can’t happen here. Maybe not all of it, but if the Republican base and its Tea Party allies can get their hooks into your state or local government, some of it will come your way, too. Utah, after all, is where the right wing shows its hand. Right-wing jihadis get their training in Glennbeckistan and then march off to places like California to battle gay marriage.

Guess where polluters will go if Utah exempts itself from environmental laws that the rest of the country decides are reasonable to protect your health? If Utah-made guns are exempt from federal regulation, guess where guns will be made? And that’s the idea — to create “nullification sanctuaries” where congressional laws and presidential directives cannot be enforced. Asserting state rights is not simply a way of pursuing regional independence and expressing differences, it is a means of avoiding and undermining the national consensus on any number of important issues.

States-rights legislators are not shy about their long-range goals. Representative Keith Grover said of the 2010 session, “It doesn’t end at midnight.” Members of the Patrick Henry caucus have already contacted lawmakers in Nevada, Montana, Wyoming, Texas, Arizona, and Virginia to trade ideas and strategies. South Dakota and Wyoming have also declared their gun-makers exempt from federal law, and Oklahoma’s legislature will also try to block health-care reform.

Better pay attention: tea-hadi warriors from the Republic of Glennbeckistan could be coming soon to a legislative theater near you.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (or as I like to call it, ADL South), has published a post on yet another group of people it hates (because it doesn’t fit into the SPLC’s socialist view of the world): FEMA conspiracy theorists. Of course, SPLC’s “expert” sources for the condemnation of the theorists are the highly-esteemed scholarly journals Popular Mechanics and Newsweek, CNN’s “American Morning” show, and (drum roll, please) the latest Establishment pseudo-Libertarian shill Glenn Beck. Well, if those New World Order/One World Government media puppets say that there is no truth to the government building FEMA detention camps for political prisoners, that cinches it for me. That’ll show those conspiracy nuts. Or does it?

It seems that a rogue Establishment public broadcast station, KBDI Colorado Public Television, had the temerity to air a documentary called Camp FEMA: American Lockdown three times. The film explores the possibility that the government is building FEMA detention camps for political prisoners. This has ruffled the fascist feathers of the SPLC. The SPLC post also disparages the late Libertarian Aaron Russo’s documentary on the secret history of the Fed that KBDI aired alongside the FEMA documentary. The SPLC proclaims that Russo’s documentary was “debunked” by the “Federal” Reserve Banksters’ own personal mouthpiece, The New York Times. (That’ll show those conspiracy nuts again.) And, of course, where would any post on “hate” groups be without it throwing in the anti-hate warning du jour that some groups are anti-Jewish. Yep, it’s in this SPLC post also. Phew! Now we can all sleep better.

source: American Free Press

While the American people are kept in the dark like mushrooms and fed bull manure, Scotland’s award-winning newspaper The Sunday Herald Scotland ran an exclusive revealing that hundreds of tons of powerful U.S. “bunker-buster” bombs and other weapons are secretly being shipped from California to the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean—strategically placed for missions to Iran—in preparation for an impending attack on the Persian nation.

The Sunday Herald expos� revealed that “the U.S. government signed a contract in January to transport 10 ammunition containers to the island. According to a cargo manifest from the Navy, this included 387 ‘Blu’ bombs, used for blasting hardened or underground structures.”

Superior Maritime Services of Florida has a $699,500 contract to ship many thousands of military items from Concord, Calif., to Diego Garcia. The cargo includes 195 1,000-lb Blu-110 bombs and 192 massive 2,000-lb Blu-117 bombs.

“They are gearing up totally for the destruction of Iran. . . . U.S. bombers are ready today to destroy 10,000 targets in Iran in a few hours,” said Dan Plesch, director of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at the University of London, co-author of a recent study on U.S. preparations for an attack on Iran.

Ian Davis, director of the new independent think-tank, Nato Watch, warned the shipment to Diego Garcia is a major concern.

“We would urge the U.S. to clarify its intentions for these weapons, and the [UK] Foreign Office to clarify its attitude to the use of Diego Garcia for an attack on Iran,” he said.

For Alan Mackinnon, chair of Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the revelation was “extremely worrying.” He stated: “It is clear that the U.S. government continues to beat the drums of war over Iran, most recently in the statements of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. . . . It is depressingly similar to the rhetoric we heard prior to the war in Iraq in 2003.”

The utter insanity of war against Iran would—at best—be the worst disaster to ever strike the United States. At a bare minimum it would kill the economy of the United States and the world. It could trigger the demise of the United States, or even destroy the Earth.

And yet the madmen who misrule Israel, and their Israel-first minions high up in the U.S. government, are working feverishly to start this unnecessary, unjust war.

source: Washingtons Blog

A leaked CIA report says:

Public apathy enables leaders to ignore voters.

The report is discussing apathy among the French and German people to their countries’ involvement in the war in Afghanistan, but the same is true to the apathy of Americans towards the Iraq and other wars as well.

For a little background on the manipulation of public opinion, see this and this.

CIA Afghanistan

Leaked CIA Report: Public Apathy Enables Leaders To Ignore Voters In Waging Endless Wars

source:Telegraph.co.uk

George W Bush has been accused of insensitivity during a visit to Haiti after apparently shaking a man’s hand then quickly wiping it on the shirt of the man next to him.

The gesture, whether intentional or accidental, was criticised as insulting to the disaster-stricken country. Then, as the shirt belonged to Bill Clinton, it was suggested that Bush was demeaning him.

However, the truth is not easy to judge. As has been pointed out, one version of the BBC footage which is circulating on the internet appeared to have been speeded up or edited to make the “wipe” seem more obvious.

A version on the BBC’s own site seems to show the handshake and Mr Bush patting Mr Clinton twice on the shoulder as if to encourage him to hurry up.

Mr Clinton has a reputation for lingering in crowds while Mr Bush is thought to be rather more businesslike.

The two former US presidents were taking part in a humanitarian trip to the Caribbean country to raise funds and awareness following the earthquake on January 12.

During the trip they visited a camp for many of the people made homeless in the capital Port-au-Prince, where the handshake took place.

Sounds as though “they” may be preparing to start cracking skulls.

source:homelandsecurityus.com
A federal intelligence source reported in an interview last evening that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security have been called in to “actively investigate incidents of violence and threats” made to at least ten Democrats
and one Republican lawmaker since Sunday. Their involvement was reportedly requested by top House leadership and one unnamed, high-level White House official. According to this source, who agreed to speak to this writer under the strict condition of anonymity, “a ‘watch list’ has already been created that specifically names and turns their focus on various pro-life and tea-party organizations and individuals who are considered a threat to domestic security, continuity of government operations, and to the lives of lawmakers and their families.”

While published reports confirm that Capitol Police have been contacted and are addressing security concerns of lawmakers and the incidents of vandalism, the involvement of federal agencies has not been publicly disclosed, nor will it likely be on any official level. The reason, according to this source, is that high-level discussions between top lawmakers and agency heads are “exploring the application of the Patriot Act against any right-wing individual or group that poses a danger to government operations.” He added that “threat assessments and security measures for public assemblies at the Capitol, specifically focusing on conservative groups are being re-evaluated at the request of the White House and Democratic lawmakers.”

Dissemination of the list is obviously limited to avoid another “MIAC” episode, referring to the release of a document leaked from the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC).

According to this federal official, lawmakers and White House officials were stunned by the strong response against the health care bill, citing the protests at the Capitol. “Based on what I’ve heard, I don’t think they were expecting the type of response seen in not only the demonstrations, but in poll numbers and by conservative talk radio and television. “They have been monitoring all aspects of this situation, not just the physical assemblies,” he stated. “Watch lists are being created and updated to include anyone who appears to be organizing or acting as a galvanizing force behind the actual protesters.”

The media outlets have also been reporting the allegations of racial slurs and anti-gay remarks shouted at Representatives John Lewis, Andre Carson, and Barney Frank this weekend, supposedly during the protests of members of the Tea Party. According to this source, there does not appear to be any direct evidence of such behavior beyond the allegations themselves.

On Saturday, Capitol Police reportedly reviewed at least two videos – one from a cellular telephone and another from a video camera – that supposedly captured the event. “There was a contemporaneous review of audio and video at the site of the protest when they [Capitol Police] created a physical barrier for the lawmakers and when the comments were allegedly made. The officers were even instructed to make arrests, but could not find anything that supported the allegations rising to the level of disorderly conduct,” stated this source.