National security

The administration can do anything now, above the law or not. Regardless whether or not our rights are infringed or not, regardless of citizens privacy or civil liberties, regardless of respecting law and upholding the Constitution which is the law of the land. All under deceitful guise of "fighting terrorism!" "keeping America safe from big bad evil terrorists who hate our freedom and way of life!" or whatever flavor of the month phantom bogeyman 'enemy' they're currently promoting to scare us cattle into complacency so they can carry out their war fraud profiteering scam and resource grabbing uninterrupted. As the government destroys more of our rights, civil liberties and extinguishes the Bill of Rights and the Constitution in the process.

We have no security or real protection in this country. We are no more "safer" now than we were on 9/11 it's all a total FARCE.

Give us more "patriot act" garbage legislation and spy bills to search our computers without probable cause or consent, but leave Americas borders and ports wide open, completely unsecured right. Sounds like a real serious "terrorist threat" huh. What a joke. Why bother securing the borders when the real terrorists are in Washington wearing Brooks Brothers suits, right ?

It is not the duty of the so called "law enforcement" or police to protect you. Their job is to protect the Corporation of the US, inc. and arrest code breakers.

Any illusion of 'security' is to be used against us instead. The security state is to protect the elite crime syndicate in power, the bought, sold & paid for puppet parade, the fine clothed, makeup coated, script reading, vote seeking, trained and polished mis"leaders" who are very well protected from the common peoples plight. Not us.

The 'WAR ON TERROR" is a giant crock of shit. The war is on us.

No phantom terrorists are destroying this country. The mis-leaders, professional deceivers and organized crime in positions of power are destroying this country.

Wake the FUCK up people. What's it going to take, America?

"Today we are facing despots who are using "national security" and "classification" to push everything under a blanket of secrecy. To gag-order, and to call it a "privilege"..Unless we recognize the attacks for what they are, and stand up, and speak out, no -SHOUT OUT -,against those despots in government, then we are doomed to wake up one sad morning and wonder when and where our freedom DIED."

White House Says Feds Should Have Unfettered Access To Mobile Phone Location Info

The Obama administration says the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures does not apply to cell-site information mobile phone carriers retain on their customers.
At issue is whether the government can require federal judges to order mobile phone companies to release historical cell-tower information of a phone number without probable cause — the standard required for a search warrant. While judges have varied on the issue, the resulting evidence can be used in a criminal prosecution. This certainly seems like the sort of private info that, under the 4th Amendment, would require a warrant, but not according to the administration(s). It feels that mobile phone providers should freely hand over records of what mobile phone tower any phone was connected to, even without the administration bothering to get a warrant (i.e., whenever and for whomever it wants to keep tabs on). This is tremendously problematic if you believe in the basic principles of the 4th Amendment. The EFF and the ACLU have asked a court to stop this practice, and it's rather disappointing that the administration is pushing in the other direction.

Piracy Up - Global Warming Down

Check out these stats from Google Trends...

Bush's Secret Dictatorship

Glenn Greenwald blogs for Salon: "Over the last eight years, we had a system in place where we pretended that our 'laws' were the things enacted out in the open by our Congress and that were set forth by the Constitution. The reality, though, was that our Government secretly vested itself with the power to ignore those public laws, to declare them invalid, and instead, create a whole regimen of secret laws that vested tyrannical, monarchical power in the President. Nobody knew what those secret laws were because even Congress, despite a few lame and meek requests, was denied access to them."

Greenwald also writes, with some vindication: "Yet those who have spent the last several years pointing out how unprecedentedly extremist and radical was our political leadership (and how meek and complicit were our other key institutions) were invariably dismissed as shrill hysterics."

Nine previously undisclosed Office of Legal Counsel documents released by Obama's Justice Department yesterday, most of them making baldly spurious legal arguments to support any number of unprecedented tactics that were either contemplated or employed by the White House.

The Pirate Bay Trial Summations

The trial will soon wrap up, and a verdict will be made. The important thing to learn, for those of us paying attention, isn't the verdict but the trend. The death of Napster brought us Kazaa, the death of Kazaa brought up Limewire.

As long as there is information on the Internet, pirates will share it. The worst part of all this isn't that pirates are stealing from artists, but rather that the record labels are. The simple fact is that very little of the profits from an album trickle down to the actual artists. The vast majority of the money made by musicians comes from live performances and merchandise.

If the pirating of music doesn't damage the artist much, who files all these lawsuits? Who matters more to the public: the musicians we love or the suits who burn their albums and reap the benefits?

It may be wrong to pirate, but it is more wrong to profit from art that is not yours. That is why pirates will continue on - not out of the love of stealing, but from the love of music.

In the world of digital piracy, there are many ways to get what you want. Peer-to-peer sharing, direct download links and torrents are the most popular among the pirating community. Each has endured its share of attack from those who seek to profit from music, movie and book sales, and each has survived and thrived from those attacks.