The Williams sisters played in the Wimbledon tennis final, Venus Williams won her fifth Wimbledon title. Serena seemed headed to victory early but ran out of gas. The sisters are to be congratulated for their redemption and recovery from all the distractions and injuries they have had since the last time they dominated women's tennis some five years ago. It was good television what with the drama of the family watching and knowing that one had to lose. I don't know how they do it. I sometimes think that Venus as the older sis sandbags little sis Serena with some mind games, but then, you still have to hit the shots don't you. No doubt the Williams sisters will enjoy the extra shopping money they just shagged out of merry old England as they well should. They earned it!
You may have heard, "the truth is stranger than fiction," and indeed, often that seems the case. While that strange truth is usually just entertaining and innocuous, there are times when it is exactly the opposite... stupefying and malicious.
Here are a few instances which you may not have been aware. Not so surprisingly, many involve government and elected officials at various levels.
The entries here do not quote their referenced sources, except for maybe a one or two line teaser that might pique your interest, and, of course a link, along with maybe short comment. Hope you enjoy.
Standing Up Against Government Interference - including warrantless wiretapping, the assault on habeas corpus, the pursuit of Real ID cards, and retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that illegally helped the federal government spy on Americans.
No Surveillance on Law-Abiding Americans – Begich opposes efforts since 9/11 to take advantage of public fears, bypassing the courts and Congress to eavesdrop on Americans.
Repeal the Patriot Act – Begich believes national security resources should be built on human intelligence and Special Forces that will identify and respond to real threats of terrorism, not monitoring what books Americans read.
Restore Habeas Corpus – Begich called the Military Commissions Act, passed in 2006, the lowest point in our country’s response to the threat of terrorism. The Act suspends habeas corpus for millions of Americans, and that right needs to be restored.
That Begich is implementing civil liberties as a core element of his campaign shows how important these issues are to Western voters. It's a message that resonates particularly well out here in the Western part of the country. That's why Jon Tester wasn't hurt but was helped when he said that he didn't want to see the PATRIOT Act weakened, he wanted to see it repealed. It's why Gov. Brian Schweitzer has been able to lead a successful revolt among governors against the the Real ID act. It's why Gary Trauner is standing so strong against FISA in his red state of Wyoming.
If Democrats are really serious about turning the purple mountains majesty blue, particularly in this election, they should be paying attention to the messages successful Democratic candidates out here are sending: privacy matters, civil liberties matter to Western voters.
Hopefully, Mark Begich will be able to join his fellow Western Senator Tester on the floor next year, leading the charge to repeal the PATRIOT Act, restore habeas, and maybe even try to undo some of the damage the Senate is set to do on FISA next week.
Viacom (CBS, Comedy Central) is suing YouTube/Google for $1 billion for facilitating copyright violations when videos (e.g. Daily Show, Colbert, CBS News) are uploaded to the YouTube site.
During discovery, Viacom demanded that Google turn over just about everything in its database, and the trial judge has ruled that they will have to turn over:
* all data concerning what videos users watched and uploaded;
* usernames;
* user IP addresses.
It's yet another example of the copyright laws being used to suppress free speech. Don't buy it? Read below the fold.
Below is newsletter from Privacy Forum I subscribe to. The author has given me permission to quote these in toto, given it is published as a public newsletter electronically via a listserv that anyone can subscribe to, and the whole point is, after all, to try and get people to pay attention to the threats to their privacy that loom larger and out of control in our society every day.
There is little to say about it other than, well, is anyone surprised anymore at the arrogance of the corporations like AT&T? They have Congress eating out of their hands after pouring tens of millions of dollars into Congress' pockets.
Congress is going to pass a bill that unconstitutionally exempts them illegally and ex post facto from investigation for their crimes, committed at the behest of the Bush / Cheney administration.
The vast majority have not even read, and do not even know what is in the law that is about to be passed. They just know that in their secret meetings with the telecoms, as the money changed hand's they were assured is was best for them, and of course, best for America.
Remember the 90s? It was the dawn of an era of globalization and easy, instantaneous movement of information. The hero of this new age was the "road warrior" who jetted around the globe solving problems, selling Infomation Age products and making deals. And the warrior's chief weapon was the state-of-the-art laptap crammed with all the features and data needed to accomplish the task.
Not any more. The Patriot Act, zealous U. S. Customs and TSA officials and a Federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling giving a green light to warrantless searches and seizures has made traveling with a laptop very difficult. And if you carry sensitive data on that laptop these days, you're a fool.
Here is the text of my latest letter to Senator Feinstein on FISA and telecom immunity. It appears that we have been corresponding for so long that I now have a pretty good record to go by to understand her position. To see where she was, and where she's gone on this issue is not pretty.
Please note that I did take one thing out of this letter before I faxed it, but I left it in for the readers here to understand just how I feel.
We've all been there. A project is supposed to be done and turned in to the boss and for what ever reason you just can't turn it in. Maybe you blew the project off to go drinking. Maybe you just need a little more time to finish the project to your satisfaction. What ever the reason you need to weasel yourself a little time. Blaming the dog is perhaps a little archaic, now we complain about the network going down or a virus deleting all our hard work. So what did the FBI tell the GAO when it came looking for information on the $78,700,000 the FBI requested for a data mining operation that might violate our privacy? Take the red pill and jump to find out.
U.S. border agents are copying and seizing the contents of laptops, cell phones and digital cameras from U.S. and foreign travelers entering the United States, witnesses told a Senate subcommittee Wednesday.
The extent of this practice is unknown despite requests to the Department of Homeland Security from the Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution and several nonprofit agencies.
The department also declined to send a representative to the hearing. Subcommittee Chairman Russ Feingold, D-Wis., said Homeland Security had told him that its "preferred" witness was unavailable Wednesday.
We have no privacy. The genie is out of the bottle. There's relatively little left to protect.
I once saw a demo of a data mining product that integrated commercial and public data to lay bare anyone's private life. You gave someone's SSN or name & address and a whole life history came out, with social networks and all. It was shocking.
Total Information Awareness is already here whether we like it or not. It's really just a matter of degree from here on end. The problem is: it is in the wrong hands.
I agree with the concept in Mike McL's diary: we need to turn the table and strip our political appointees and their own appointees of their privacy in the conduct of our business, and I would say with few caveats for national security.
With all the concern shown in recent days about privacy and security, it's no surprise that more and more folks are hopping on to the Open Source bandwagon. If you are waiting for UltraMegaCorp or some politician to come the rescue on this, then good luck with that.
If, however, you wish to take matters into your own hands, then you may find something of worth here. Open Source operating systems are secure, stable, easy to set up and configure, and no longer reliant on command line inputs (similar to the Dos shell of old).
Within thirty minutes you can ensure that your system is controlled by you and you alone; a system that won't phone home without your knowledge, one that does not rely on 'Patch Tuesdays', and a system that is hidden inside a proprietary black box that may or may not have exploits, backdoors, and other nasties.
This is no longer rocket science. If you are handy enough to click a few buttons and fill out a few information boxes, you will have a system where all your data is yours to do with as you please, to be upgraded when you choose (or not), and be supported by a community that is always available and easily reached, 24/7/365.
By nature I’m not that suspicious. But there’s a trial about to begin in Pensacola, on the Redneck Riviera, that has me worried. It’s the State of Florida versus an alleged Internet pornographer.
As in these kinds of cases, the prosecutor has to prove that what the defendant is selling violates community obscenity standards, while the defense needs to demonstrate that what his client is peddling is not any different than what is commonly available and purchased in that seemingly conservative area.
First thing, thanks for keeping up on the FISA debacle. The longer this drags on, the more scum and muck can be dredged up, and the greater opportunity for a little, tiny bit of housekeeping. There's no end to the scum, I know, but still. Let's try and clear out as much as we can, shall we?
A key part of the argument in the ACLU case against the NSA (which failed in the 6th circuit court of appeals) was that the government was eavesdropping without a warrant.
The problem was, the ACLU and plaintiffs could not prove it, because NSA invoked State Secrets. And while it was probable that there were not warrants, it could not be proved. The secrecy of the Bush Administration was to blame, not the law itself.
Raise your hand if this happened to you:
You had a notebook in school, or a binder or a scrap of paper. You wrote something personal on it. Maybe it was just a sentence, like "Chris Jones is a total fox." Maybe it was the lyrics of a song stuck in your head, or a poem. Maybe it was a scrawl of rage against a teacher or classmate. And some kid saw it, someone you never meant to see it. And they took it from you, or told on you. And you were stuck there, ashamed, defenseless, violated. And you learned that day to never write anything down: not where they could find it, anyway.
Today, I was featured on CNN’s American Morning show in a clip about TSA’s new regulations about showing your ID at an airport. Starting Saturday, June 21st, only those who forget an ID will be allowed through security checkpoints at airports without presenting ID. For those of us who have been trying for years to change the security façade at these checkpoints by pointing out the inane, inefficient procedure of checking a passenger’s ID with their boarding pass, our quest has become that much harder.
If this has been diaried let me know and I'll delete...
An email from democrats.com (posted in full below) describes the sneaky and underhanded tactics of people like Steny Hoyer are using to try and give the Telcos retroactive immunity for invading the privacy of ordinary customers.
Even Steny Hoyer voted against immunity. But Hoyer kept conspiring with Bush to sneak immunity through Congress when no one was watching. And on Friday, Hoyer quietly announced a new bill to provide retroactive immunity for past warrantless wiretapping and allow new wiretapping for six more years.
