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5 Ways DHS Violates the Constitution with Website Domain Seizures
Last week, Bryan McCarthy, the 32 year old operator of ChannelSurfing.net, was arrested on charges of criminal copyright infringement. ChannelSurfing.net was one of the streaming sports sites that had its domain seized by federal authorities shortly before the Super Bowl as part of the “In Our Sites” program, run by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Prior to the seizure, McCarthy reportedly made more than $90,000 from advertisements on his site.
This arrest has once again raised questions about the In Our Sites program, in which the Government has seized thousands of domains accused, but not convicted, of copyright infringement, illegal streaming of sporting events, selling black market goods and distributing child pornography. Critics ranging from bloggers to individual Read more…
U.S. might be giving away sensitive military technology, report finds
Sensitive military technology might be slipping into enemy hands, in part because of a dramatic decline in the number of foreign workers that the Commerce Department screens, federal auditors have found.
For national security purposes, the United States controls the export of so-called dual-use technologies — items that have both civilian and military uses, including computer security tools — to countries of concern, including Iran and North Korea.
One way to restrict the transfer of such technology is for Commerce to screen visa applications from foreign nationals who wish to work in U.S. high-tech companies.
But the Commerce Department, the agency responsible for checking visa applications to identify potential unlicensed exports, is not screening thousands of those forms, according to a Government Accountability Office report released on Monday.
Reduced visa application vetting is one of several factors that “may indicate the continuing risk that foreign nationals could gain unauthorized access to controlled technology,” the auditors wrote.
Commerce checked only 150 visa forms in fiscal 2009, a dramatic drop from Read more…
North Korea Nears Completion of Electromagnetic Pulse Bomb
abcnews
N. Korea Disrupts Current Military Maneuvers With Russian Device To Jam GPS
North Korea appears to be protesting the joint U.S. and South Korean military maneuvers by jamming Global Positioning Devices in the south, which is a nuisance for cell phone and computers users — but is a hint of the looming menace for the military.
The scope of the damage has been minimal, putting some mobile phones and certain military equipment that use GPS signals on the fritz.
Large metropolitan areas including parts of Seoul, Incheon and Paju have been affected by the jamming, but “the situation is getting wrapped up, no severe damage has been reported for the last two days,” Kyoungwoo Lee, deputy director of Korea Communications Commission, said.
The jamming, however, has raised questions about whether the Korean peninsula is bracing for new electronic warfare.
The North is believed to be nearing completion of an electromagnetic pulse bomb that, if exploded 25 miles above ground would cause irreversible damage to electrical and electronic devices such as mobile phones, computers, radio and radar, experts say.
“We assume they are at a considerably substantial level of development,” Park Chang-kyu of the Agency for Defense Development said at a briefing to the parliament Monday.
Park confirmed that South Korea has also developed an advanced Read more…
Breaking: Newly Obtained Homeland Security Documents Reveal Radical Shift In Internet Policy
FIGHT BACK: Internet user arrested for linking to other websites.
Brian McCarthy ran a website, channelsurfing.net, that linked to various sites where you could watch online streams of TV shows and sports networks. A couple months ago, the government seized his domain name and on Friday they arrested him and charged him with criminal copyright infringement — punishable by five years in prison.
We just obtained a copy of the complaint (below) that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) made against him — and they don’t even allege that he made a copy of anything! Just that he ran what they call a “linking website” which linked to various sites with copyrighted material. Under that sort of thinking, everyone who’s sent around a link to a copyrighted YouTube video is a criminal.
This is another shocking overreach by DHS and ICE — a steamship-era department that’s proving once again that it doesn’t understand the Internet. We need to push back — and fast — before they try to lock up more Americans.
PETITION TO JANET NAPOLITANO, DIRECTOR OF HOMELAND SECURITY, AND JOHN MORTON, DIRECTOR OF IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT: There’s nothing wrong or illegal about posting a link to a website. This is another shocking overreach by ICE: You need to drop the charges against Brian McCarthy right away.
Middle East Unrest Could Harm WMD-Free Zone Talks
Protesters chant slogans on Saturday during a demonstration outside an Egyptian state security building in the outskirts of Cairo. Recent political instability throughout the Middle East could complicate efforts to establish a regional weapons of mass destruction-free zone, current and former officials said (Wissam Nassar/Getty Images).
The unrest and revolutions sweeping through the Middle East have raised doubts over the potential for regional nations to hold previously planned talks focused on forming a weapons of mass destruction-free zone, Arms Control Today reported in its March issue (see GSN, March 1).
At the 2010 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty review conference in New York, member nations agreed to hold a 2012 meeting on “the establishment of a Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons and all other weapons of mass destruction.”
“We are absolutely committed” to the WMD-free zone meeting, White House WMD point man Gary Samore said in an interview last month. “But there’s a lot of uncertainty because of the unrest in the Middle East.”
In the last two months, longstanding regimes in Tunisia and Egypt have fallen, and protests in Libya have escalated into full-scale fighting between militants and forces loyal to Col. Muammar Qadhafi. Protests have also erupted in Bahrain, Jordan, Oman and Read more…
People Of Earth: Prepare For Economic Disaster
It is not just the United States that is headed for an economic collapse. The truth is that the entire world is heading for a massive economic meltdown and the people of earth need to be warned about the coming economic disaster that is going to sweep the globe. The current world financial system is based on debt, and there are alarming signs that the gigantic global debt bubble is getting ready to burst. In addition, global prices for the key resources that the major economies of the planet depend on are rising very rapidly. Despite all of our advanced technology, the truth is that human civilization simply cannot function without oil and food. But now the price of oil and the price of food are both increasing dramatically. So how is the current global economy supposed to keep functioning properly if it soon costs much more to ship products between continents? How are the billions of people that are just barely surviving today supposed to feed themselves if the price of food goes up another 30 or 40 percent? For decades, most of the major economies around the globe have been able to Read more…
China – Security System on Steroids for Mega-City
The mega-city of Chongqing in southwest China plans to build a $2.6 billion security system that will be one of the world’s largest with 500,000 surveillance cameras, state media have said.
Chongqing police chief Wang Zhijun said the system would be the world’s largest new security network since the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, the Global Times reported.
The system would dwarf a network of 40,000 security cameras installed in the capital of China’s far-western Xinjiang region last year, following deadly July 2009 clashes between Muslim Uighurs and members of the majority Han group.
Chongqing’s more than 500,000 cameras, which are due to be installed by Read more…
Current US Gas Prices around the lower 48 States
Dollar dies, States rebel and FLEE to gold and silver standard !!!
China Takes Giant Step Towards Making the Yuan the World’s Reserve Currency
For years, I’ve been writing about the long-term decline of the Dollar, and the rise of the Chinese Yuan … and it’s potential to become the world’s next reserve currency.
As I pointed out in 2007, many countries have started moving out of the Dollar as the basis for international trade settlements, including:
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Venezuela and 12 other Latin American countries as well as Cuba
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Many other countries
In 2008, I wrote: Read more…
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