for life and liberty

Muslim Brotherhood pushes for more protests after bloody ‘Day of Rage’

"The Muslim Brotherhood defiantly called for a week of protests across Egypt starting on Saturday, a day after more than 100 people died in clashes between Islamists and the security forces. Undeterred by the bloodshed in which about 700 have been killed since Wednesday, the Brotherhood urged its supporters back onto the streets to denounce the overthrow of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi and a crackdown on his followers. Saudi Arabia threw its weight behind the army-backed government on Friday, accusing its old foe the Muslim Brotherhood of trying to destabilize Egypt. The Coptic Church authority 'strongly supports the Egyptian police and armed forces'." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingMuslim Brotherhood pushes for more protests after bloody ‘Day of Rage’

Four suspected Egyptian militants killed in first confirmed Israeli drone strike

"Although reports of Israeli drone use over Sinai have surfaced in the past, this is the first to come with official acknowledgement. In a statement on its website, the jihadist Ansar Beit al-Maqdis group confirmed that its militants had been the target of the Friday strike. It listed the name of four fighters who had been killed. Security officials said that the attack had taken place with the consent of the Egyptian authorities, Reuters and the Associated Press reported. If true, this level of cooperation would be a departure from that experienced under the rule of President Mohamed Morsi, ousted during a military takeover last month." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingFour suspected Egyptian militants killed in first confirmed Israeli drone strike

Consequences of Power

"What we are seeing in Egypt and across the Middle East is the consequence of decades of US hegemony. Supporters of US policy in the region will argue that military aid to Egypt, arming Syrian rebels, drone strikes in Yemen, occupied forces in Afghanistan, etc, serve a national interest and that the 'Great Peacekeeping Armadas' of western nation states are doing exactly what they are supposed to: Maintain peace through strength. Is this a terribly misguided philosophy or a bold-faced lie? Does Obama really 'deplore violence against civilians?' Do US special interests really 'support universal rights essential to human dignity?' Has any administration?" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingConsequences of Power

Federal authorities now targeting lie detector coaches

"Federal authorities have launched investigations against instructors advertising training for people looking to beat lie detector tests. 'Nothing like this has been done before,' one Customs official, John Schwartz, said of 'Operation Lie Busters' at a polygraphers’ conference in June in Charlotte, North Carolina. 'Most certainly our nation’s security will be enhanced. There are a lot of bad people out there.' Schwartz did acknowledge in his speech that teaching someone how to beat a polygraph test is not illegal. 'When you identify insider threats and you eliminate insider threats, then that agency is more efficient and more effective,' Schwartz said in June." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingFederal authorities now targeting lie detector coaches

Bloomberg endorses fingerprinting housing project residents for their own good

"New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) put forward an idea on Friday to install fingerprint scanners in the city’s Housing Authority projects. 'If you have a stranger walking in the halls of your apartment building, don’t you want somebody to stop and say, ‘Who are you? Why’re you here?’ Bloomberg asked host John Gambling. WLNY-TV also reported on Friday that Bloomberg followed through on his promise to appeal a federal judge’s ruling that the city’s heavily-panned 'stop and frisk' policy was unconstitutional. 'What does she know about policing? Absolutely zero,' Bloomberg told Gambling, referring to District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBloomberg endorses fingerprinting housing project residents for their own good

PGP inventor and Silent Circle co-founder Phil Zimmermann on the surveillance society

"Right now Moore’s Law is being accelerated in a specific direction by policy pressures. The policy pressure of creating more surveillance as response to the 9/11 attacks. We have to work harder to push back on policies that 9/11 brought us. It is time to re-examine the Patriot Act and re-examine everything. We need engineers and technologists to guide technology in the right direction and not optimize for surveillance. I would like to see a pushback, both on the technology and policy fronts. The engineers tend to be more aware of these problems and they need to be politically aware of the dangers of developing tools of surveillance." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingPGP inventor and Silent Circle co-founder Phil Zimmermann on the surveillance society

Steve Gibson: The Lesson of Lavabit

"I am impressed that Ladar chose to shutdown his service rather than continue to promise something that he now unequivocally knew was no longer secure in the face of law enforcement’s quasi-legal incursions. It would have probably been better if he hadn’t attempted to offer security that was beyond his ability to provide. During my weekly Security Now! podcast with Leo Laporte, we use the acronym 'TNO' (Trust No One) to refer to any system where readily available cryptographic technology is properly employed in such a fashion that it is not necessary to trust the behavior of any third party." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingSteve Gibson: The Lesson of Lavabit

Has your life been stolen from you by the IRS?

"This stupid witch hunt which people inside the U.S. think is going after the uber rich 'off shoring' in 'tax havens' has done more to harm low and middle income 'targets' than anything I’ve seen them do down there in a long time. The comment by President Obama last week that they are paying to fix their infrastructure by 'repatriating taxes' is a LIE, it’s NOT 'taxes' It is fines and fees and penalties on paperwork nobody ever heard of outside the U.S. for the most part and they know it. If it were taxes it would even come close to being enough, as according to American Citizens Abroad, 82% of expats would owe zero taxes." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingHas your life been stolen from you by the IRS?

Will Europe pay the price for one-sided U.S. financial information demands?

"For example, under a law recently approved by the parliament of the United Kingdom (the first country to sign an IGA), HM Revenue & Customs commits explicitly to impose the American FATCA law on British institutions. The costs of regulatory implementation by HMRC would fall on British taxpayers. In turn, UK financial institutions (and their customers) would bear hundreds of millions of pounds in costs for collecting the information for transfer to the IRS. The direct revenue benefit to the Exchequer? Zero. What is the U.S. obligated to provide in return? Nothing, as it happens. The IGAs have no clear status in American law." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingWill Europe pay the price for one-sided U.S. financial information demands?

The Devolution of Financial Privacy

"It’s been no secret that China views FATCA very unfavorably and negotiations towards compliance are going nowhere. It seems unlikely that the US would hit China with the 30% withholding tax for non-compliance. With China holding roughly $1.2 trillion in US Treasuries, it’s not as if it lacks its own leverage over the US government. This leaves the FATCA juggernaut stuck in a Sino-US standoff. It appears the US will have to either make serious concessions to win China over or back down on the 30% non-compliance tax. Should China stand its ground and not compromise on FATCA, it would punch a massive hole in global compliance." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingThe Devolution of Financial Privacy