Orwellian

Texas Governor Rick Perry Signs a Pair of Bills Upholding Fourth Amendment

"With Governor Perry’s signature on HB 912, Texas now joins Idaho, Virginia, Florida, Montana, and Tennessee on the list of states that have enacted laws regulating the use of drones in their sovereign skies. Meanwhile, on June 14, Governor Perry signed into another important bill. As explained prior to Governor Perry’s signing of the bill by the blog Law360, HB 2268 'would establish the strongest email privacy protections in the U.S. by becoming the first measure to override a provision in the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act that allows law enforcement to access emails that are open or more than 180 days old using only a subpoena.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingTexas Governor Rick Perry Signs a Pair of Bills Upholding Fourth Amendment

Government considers using search engines as source of cheap info on citizens’ lives

"It takes a lot to make the prospect of filling in a 52-page census form appealing. But the suggestion that Google’s vast stores of data could soon help replace it probably does the trick. Internet search engines could be used as a source of cheap information on citizens’ lives, interests and movements, a government paper has suggested. It could spell the end of the national census, which was first conducted in 1801 and has been carried out every ten years since, apart from during the Second World War. It aims to cover every home in the country but the last census – the 52-page giant in 2011 – missed out three-and-a-half million people." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingGovernment considers using search engines as source of cheap info on citizens’ lives

Donald Trump: Extradition Process Is Too Slow; Just Kill Edward Snowden

"You know, spies in the old days used to be executed. This guy is becoming a hero in some circles. Now, I will say, with the passage of time, even people that were sort of liking him and were trying to go on his side are maybe dropping out… We have to get him back and we have to get him back fast. It could take months or it could take years, and that would be pathetic. This guy’s a bad guy and, you know, there’s still a thing called execution. You really have to take a strong… You have thousands of people with access to material like this. We’re not going to have a country any longer." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingDonald Trump: Extradition Process Is Too Slow; Just Kill Edward Snowden

Don’t Fall Victim to Hoarding

"Thanks to the courageous Edward Snowden, America now knows the NSA has, for seven years, collected data on many millions of our phone calls, emails and other communications, even when its top officials have testified that it had not. And things look like they are going to get even worse. Hot on the heels of the NSA revelations, now the habitually anti-tax haven and pro-tax Organization for Economic and Community Development (OECD) wants in on the action, by forcing all countries into useless data-hoarding of private information in a very big way." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingDon’t Fall Victim to Hoarding

The Trick is to Suspend the Constitution Without Admitting It

"The executive branch has routinely invoked the so-called PATRIOT act, and the Authorization for Use of Military Force to supposedly permit the President and his subordinates to wage war anywhere on the face of the earth, carry out all-encompassing electronic surveillance of the entire population, and even carry out summary executions of anyone – including U.S. citizens – deemed to be enemies of the state. Pakistan endured a similar period of executive rule under the reign of military dictator Pervez Musharraf between 1999 and 2008. The Pakistani government is preparing to put Musharraf on trial for treason for suspending that country’s constitution." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingThe Trick is to Suspend the Constitution Without Admitting It

Edward Snowden versus Jay Carney

"There is no doubt that Edward Snowden has created a huge public relations crisis for the Obama administration. The government appears to be not only stupid, but utterly impotent. Here we have this gigantic spying system, and it looks like the Keystone Kops. It cannot locate him. It cannot stop him. It revoked his passport. Nobody cares. Obama has remained silent on all of this. In his place is Jay Carney. Who in the world is Jay Carney? The implications of what Snowden has revealed are monumental. We have moved formally and legally into a police state. The only thing protecting us is the utter incompetence of the police state to enforce its will on people." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingEdward Snowden versus Jay Carney

Der Spiegel: Public Must Fight against Prism and Tempora Surveillance

"The fact that the Americans and the British -- it is yet to be revealed who else participated -- have granted themselves this enormous power, without ever informing their own people, is a scandal of historic proportions. To the initiated, all the recent public debate about data retention, Internet privacy and the practices of Facebook and Google must have been downright amusing. The state, as it turns out, knew everything all along. The next weeks and months will show whether democratic societies across the world are strong enough to take a stand against the unlimited, totalitarian ambitions of Western secret services -- or not." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingDer Spiegel: Public Must Fight against Prism and Tempora Surveillance

Privacy groups push back against Sheriff’s Department license plate database

"The massive storage of license plate and vehicle data by law enforcement agencies across Southern California is sparking a debate over the privacy rights of citizens in their cars. On average, a cruiser equipped with an ALPR camera can collect data on 10,000 cars in a single shift, according to industry reports. A lawsuit filed by two privacy rights groups says each of the 7 million registered cars in greater Los Angeles has had its license plate scanned an average of 22 times since the program launched. The curation of so much information on personal vehicles has raised the ire of privacy groups, which are beginning to push back against the data mining efforts." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingPrivacy groups push back against Sheriff’s Department license plate database

Object of Intrigue: Mickey Mouse Gas Mask

"About 1,000 of them were made by the Sun Rubber Company, each with glass eyes staring out from the cartoonish face connected to an air filter. Since chemical warfare never made it to the United States in World War II, they weren't used, but in England there was a British version that used bright red and blue colors to attract children. It was also called a 'Mickey Mouse' gas mask, although had nothing to do with the character. Instead the name was supposed to be part of the 'game' to get children to wear them." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingObject of Intrigue: Mickey Mouse Gas Mask