When in the Course of Human Events, it becomes necessary to vocalize opposition to a repressive law that removes due process from an arbitrarily decreed class of people, we must transform ourselves into an anonymously convened network of activists in order to fight such an oppressive regime.
The NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012) officially codifies the gross abuse of human rights known as indefinite military detention, and extends its foul reach to any US citizen who is merely suspected of materially aiding the so-called terrorists, even on American soil.
If you haven’t already contacted your congress-critter about SOPA, the so-called Stop Online Piracy Act, please do. This awful bill has the potential to destroy everything that’s good about the internet. It would make it illegal to even link to copyright-infringing material, which would completely annihilate the search engines. Additionally, this oppressive law wouldn’t even accomplish what it purports to address, because inevitably, alternet darknets would spontaneously form to host all the information that wants to be free.
The story of Stuxnet reads like a cross between a work of cyberpunk fiction and an international spy novel. In 2009 the world community was intensely debating the immediacy of Iran’s nuclear weapon program readiness. Meanwhile, a clandestine software project, sponsored by a cyber superpower with vast resources, was engaged in coding the first known malware rootkit to monitor and subvert the programmable logic controllers of an industrial system, allegedly the Iranian Natanz uranium enrichment facility.
Since its mainstream popularity blossomed in the late 1990’s, the Internet has become tightly woven into the fabric of modern society. Linking together many formerly disconnected institutions and technics, the invention of this high-speed communication medium has also pushed freedom of speech issues to the forefront of the debate about protecting the highly pervasive technology and the critical infrastructure it serves from disruptive events. There is a protectable national security interest in ensuring that the Internet does not serve as a route for terrorists or hackers to commit digital attacks on the many vital services which are now inextricably connected to the network.
Sebastopol is a bucolic little hamlet seated in the western portion of Sonoma County, California. Formerly known for its Gravenstein apples, most orchards have long been planted with vineyards, or converted into the corporate grounds of the tech publishing firm O’Reilly Media. But several years ago a heated battle served to overturn the relative serenity of this community. The conflict erupted over the town’s implementation of a contract for a public Wi-Fi network in its main plaza.
I know so many Democrats who’ve really lost ‘faith’ in their party. The problem is that politics now is all about campaigning, and not so much about policy. People’s attention spans are quite short and they’ve already forgotten that Bush and the Republicans caused the great mess; all they see is the constant bombardment of the corporate media. However, Democrats are not helping themselves by caving at the slightest Republican (or corporate) pressure to weaken extremely necessary legislation.
Listen All Y’all, It’s a Republican Sabotage! There’s a Double-Dip Recession, aka Depression, headed our way: the GOP would rather score some mirage political points for the upcoming 2010 elections than save people from homelessness and persistent joblessness. They’ve refused to renew federal unemployment extensions for those who haven’t been able to find work in the worst employment market since the 1940’s. Never in American history has any Congress denied emergency unemployment extensions while the official jobless rate is above 7.
Today is my daughter’s first birthday. This weekend we both went to Pete Stark’s Healthcare Townhall in Fremont to voice our support for a strong public option. Now I want to share with you my story of why I take this so personally. Stories of Health is a new website with video diaries of people’s health care horror stories. People from all over California told them about their experiences with a system in dire need of reform.