Archive
China to Require Microblog Users to Register Using Real Names
China’s top Internet regulator says Beijing will soon require all users of microblogs to register under their real names to post comments online.
Wang Chen, who heads China’s State Council Information Office, said Wednesday increased Internet monitoring is necessary in order to prevent the spread of harmful information.
“We must impose control and management measures on some phenomena on the Internet, such as inventing rumors, damaging social stability, delivering bad information such as pornography, and even conducting illegal commercial activity,” said Wang.
Last month, Beijing and several other major Chinese cities began a trial program requiring all new microblogs users to disclose their identities to the government. Wang said the program will be expanded to Read more…
Iran’s Ahmadinejad touring Latin American countries
Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi announced during the weekend that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad began his low-key tour of Latin American countries, according to a report obtained by the Terrorism Committee of the National Association of Chiefs of Police.
FM Salehi stated that the planned Latin American tour will take the Ahmadinejad to Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba and Ecuador, all nations run by left-wing governments hostile to the United States.
According to several intelligence reports from U.S. agencies and the U.S. Congress, Venezuela is home to a number of Iranian intelligence and military officers, as well as members of the Lebanon-based terrorist group Hezbollah, which is supported by the Iranian regime.
During his tour, the President Ahmadinejad is expected to Read more…
US customs can and will seize laptops and cellphones, demand passwords
The American Civil Liberties Union has brought a suit against the US government over its seizure of the laptop of a computer security consultant – a seizure carried out at a Chicago airport about a year ago without a search warrant or any charges of crimes.
According to a report in Sunday’s Boston Globe, the consultant – a former MIT researcher, David House – was returning from rest and relaxation in Mexico when federal agents seized his laptop.
According to the Globe, the government wanted to know more about House’s connections to Bradley Manning, the US Army private accused of leaking classified information to WikiLeaks.
The seizure comes as no surprise. As Globe writer Katie Johnston notes, United States ports of entry are dubbed “Constitution-free zones” by civil liberties advocates.
Barring invasive techniques such as strip seizures, government agents are free to Read more…
Group urges U.S. to adopt electronic ID cards for citizens
Source: NextGov
As the Obama administration works on a set of voluntary online credentials for American Web surfers, some technologists say the government should examine Estonia’s mandatory electronic identification cards as a model.
In the United States, opposition to national ID cards has long prevented the government from assigning citizens electronic credentials for online authentication purposes. But, certain aspects of e-credentials may protect personal information better than the passwords and PIN numbers people currently use for Read more…
Congress Could Make Facebooking at Work a Felony
“Imagine that President Obama could order the arrest of anyone who broke a promise on the Internet.” That’s what The Wall Street Journal‘s Orin Kerr thinks the latest cyber-security legislation will lead to: An assault on checking Facebook at work. Today the Senate Judiciary Committee will vote on proposed changes to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which would seek tougher sentences for digital offenses. As more of the world moves online, so has crime. And legislation needs to adapt. But, does the latest updates to the bill target the right cyber criminals?
No, regular folk are in danger. The way the law is worded, it Read more…
Liberty Dollars may be subject to seizure (Your private stash of silver&gold)
Liberty Dollars held by collectors may be subject to seizure as contraband by federal law enforcement, officials with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and Secret Service said Aug. 24.
Statements by officials for those two federal law enforcement agencies seem to reverse the position taken in comments released from the United States Attorney’s Office in Charlotte, N.C., and published in Coin World in April, that mere possession of Liberty Dollars did not constitute a violation of any federal statute.
That position has apparently changed, although officials of the U.S. Secret Service — which would be the federal agency likely charged with executing any possible seizures — would not provide any definitive comments concerning under what circumstances Liberty Dollars would be seized.
The revised stance is tied to the Liberty Dollar being determined in a federal court to violate federal counterfeiting statutes. Liberty Dollars, metallic medallic pieces, were privately Read more…
The Charts The Government Doesn’t Want You To See
A healthy skepticism of government statistics is one of those self-preservation mechanisms that keeps us from hurting ourselves. Misleading official statistics too often lead people and businesses to act contrary to their own best interests and plan for scenarios that never happen.
We have always questioned what the government gives us; it’s not only a self-preservation mechanism, it’s part of our patriotic duty in the democratic system.
Take these two charts, presented by Robin Harding over at the Financial Times Money Supply blog. One is of the U.S.’s real GDP in dollars, and one is of the percent change of real GDP. The green bars are the government’s GDP estimates in June 2010, the blue are estimates from a year later in June 2011, and the red are the most recent estimates, from July 29, 2011.
What the charts are screaming is that the government has a consistent tendency to overinflate GDP numbers, and that the United States never really emerged from recession.
Take the second quarter of 2009—which has been continuously revised lower to the tune of a quarter trillion dollars. That’s enough to pay the annual median income ($52,000) for 4.8 million U.S. families—no small error. The percentage change chart shows something starker—a consistent fall of GDP since early 2010
Super Congress To Target Second Amendment
The so-called “Super Congress” that is about to be created with the debt ceiling vote will have powers far beyond just controlling the nation’s purse strings – its authority will extend to target the second amendment – eviscerating normal protections that prevent unconstitutional legislation from being fast-tracked into law.As the Huffington Post reported last month, the debt deal that has already been passed by the House and faces the Senate tomorrow will create an unconstitutional “Super Congress” that will be comprised of six Republicans and six Democrats and granted “extraordinary new powers” to quickly force legislation through both chambers.
Legislation decided on by the Super Congress would be immune from amendment and lawmakers would only be able to register an up or down vote, eliminating the ability to filibuster. The Speaker of the House would effectively lose the power to prevent unpopular bills from making it to the House floor.
But far from just being a committee that would make recommendations concerning the debt ceiling, the body is now to be granted Read more…
Internet takeover: New legislation would allow state to arbitrarily shut down, seize websites
Freedom of speech is under attack once again as the bloated US federal government continues its quest to destroy the last bastion of free and open communication — the internet.
Sen. Patrick Leahy’s (D-Vt.) “Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property” bill, also known as the Protect IP Act, is more oppressive and restrictive to free speech than even communist China’s internet censorship protocols, and a group of law professors recently wrote an open letter warning that the bill would allow the government to freely pull websites without any proper legal restrictions.
Last November, NaturalNews reported that the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had already begun seizing website domains and ordering that they be shut down permanently for supposed copyright infringement — and the agency did this apart from due process or a proper trial (http://www.naturalnews.com/030542_c…).
No law or legal precedent permitted this rogue agency — which is a tyrannical spawn of post-9/11 hysteria that is not even constitutionally legitimate to begin with, by the way — to undergo its website seizing operation. The agency simply decided to break the law and do as it pleased.
Now, certain members of Congress are pushing to turn this oppressive, illegal tyranny into law through the Protect IP Act, which by all appearances is even more severe than Read more…
U.S. Law Allows Chemical and Biological Testing On Populace
The following document is horrific — public law that allows chemical and biological agents to be tested on the U.S. populace. See the full document: U-2.S. Law Allows Testing of Chemicals and Biological Agents on Civilian Population.
How do you feel about being a human test subject?
PUBLIC LAW 105–85—NOV. 18, 1997 111 STAT. 1915
(2) The table of sections at the beginning of such chapter is amended by adding at the end the following new item:
‘‘985. Persons convicted of capital crimes: denial of certain burial-related benefits.’’.
(b) APPLICABILITY.—Section 985 of title 10, United States Code, as added by subsection (a), applies with respect to persons dying after January 1, 1997.
SEC. 1078. RESTRICTIONS ON THE USE OF HUMAN SUBJECTS FOR TESTING OF CHEMICAL OR BIOLOGICAL AGENTS.
(a) PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES.—The Secretary of Defense may not conduct (directly or by contract)—
(1) any test or experiment involving the use of a chemical agent or biological agent on a civilian population; or
(2) any other testing of a chemical agent or biological agent on human subjects. Read more…
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