Freenet or die

CISPA Is Back

Anytime I Hear This Bullshit -

- “We want a bill that people are comfortable with, that people fully understand what it does, not what they think it does, and then move it.”

This is what I actually hear -

“We want a bill that people are comfortable with, that people fully understand what we want them to understand, not what they know, and then move it.”

Anytime I Hear This Bullshit -

- Asked about the many negatives about CISPA, he replied: “Our job is to educate.”

This is what I actually hear -

- “our job is to obfuscate.”

It’s official: The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act was reintroduced in the House of Representatives.

CISPA is the contentious bill civil liberties advocates fought last year, which would provide a poorly-defined “cybersecurity” exception to existing privacy law. CISPA offers broad immunities to companies who choose to share data with government agencies (including the private communications of users) in the name of cybersecurity. It also creates avenues for companies to share data with any federal agencies, including military intelligence agencies like the National Security Agency (NSA).

EFF is adamantly opposed to CISPA. Will you join us in calling on Congress to stop this and any other privacy-invasive cybersecurity legislation?

As others have noted, “CISPA is deeply flawed. Under a broad cybersecurity umbrella, it permits companies to share user communications directly with the super secret NSA and permits the NSA to use that information for non-cybersecurity reasons. This risks turning the cybersecurity program into a back door intelligence surveillance program run by a military entity with little transparency or public accountability.”  

Last year, CISPA passed the House with a few handful of amendments that tried to fix some of its vague language. But the amendments didn’t address many of the significant civil liberties concerns. Those remaining problems were reintroduced in today’s version of CISPA. Here’s a brief overview of the issues:

Companies have new rights to monitor user actions and share data—including potentially sensitive user data—with the government without a warrant.

First, CISPA would still give businesses1 the power to use “cybersecurity systems” to obtain any “cybersecurity threat information” (CTI)—which could include personal communications—about a percieved threat to their networks or systems.  The only limitation is that the company must act for a “cybersecurity purpose,” which is vaguely defined to include such things as “safeguarding” networks.

CISPA overrides existing privacy law, and grants broad immunities to participating companies.

At the same time, CISPA would also create a broad immunity from legal liability for monitoring, acquiring, or sharing CTI, so long as the entity acted “in good faith.”  Our concern from day one has been that these combined power and immunity provisions would override existing privacy laws like the Wiretap Act and the Stored Communications Act. 

Worse, the law provides immunity “for decisions made based on” CTI. A rogue or misguided company could easily make bad “decisions” that would do a lot more harm than good, and should not be immunized.  

CISPA also raises major transparency and accountability issues.

Information provided to the federal government under CISPA would be exempt from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and other state laws that could otherwise require disclosure (unless some law other than CISPA already requires its provision to the government).  

Users probably won’t know if their private data is compromised under CISPA, and will have little recourse. 

CISPA’s authors argue that the bill contains limitations on how the federal government can use and disclose information by permitting lawsuits against the government. But if a company sends information about a user that is not cyberthreat information, the government agency does not notify the user, only the company. 

CISPA is a dangerous bill

These are just a couple of reasons of why CISPA is a dangerous bill and why President Obama threatened to veto the bill last year. CISPA essentially equates greater cybersecurity with greater surveillance and  information sharing. But many of our cybersecurity problems arise from software vulnerabilities and human failings, issues CISPA fails to address. For instance, the recent series of hacks suffered by New York Times were suspected to be from spearphishing and victims downloading malicious software masked as email attachments—the types of issues that CISPA doesn’t deal with.

We were heartened to hear that President Obama’s new Executive Order on cybersecurity will encourage government agencies to more readily share cybersecurity information with companies, and may even reduce unnecessary secrecy around cybersecurity information. Let’s use the momentum from the Executive Order to turn a new leaf in the cybersecurity debate, beginning a broader public dialogue about cybersecurity that doesn’t assume that surveillance is the right solution.

(via giftswithoutterms)

CETA Is Being Negotiated In Secret for a Nation of Mindless Consumer Zombies

The shadow of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is back in Europe. It is disguised as CETA, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between Canada and the European Union. As reported by EDRI, a rather strange and surprising e-mail was sent this summer from the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union to the Member States and the European Commission. The e-mail explained that the criminal sanctions provisions of the draft CETA are modeled on those in ACTA.

A comparison of the leaked draft Canada-EU agreement shows the treaty includes a number of the same controversial provisions, specifically concerning criminal enforcement, private enforcement by Internet Service Providers (ISPs), and harsh damages. These provisions are particularly problematic, and were the key reasons why the European Parliament rejected ACTA. However, given the lack of transparency associated with the CETA discussions (both Canada and EU insist that the draft text remain secret), the concerns that CETA may replicate ACTA appear to be very real despite denials from some members of the European Commission.

CETA is a trade agreement designed to strengthen economic ties between Canada and the EU through “free” trade and increased investment. However, hidden within this treaty are provisions that were essentially lifted from ACTA word-for-word. And just like its close cousins, ACTA, KORUS, and TPP—and other trade agreements that are applauded by the entertainment industry for carrying expansive intellectual property provisions—CETA is being negotiated in secret.

Scratch the Cybersecurity Act

once the Cybersecurity Act passes the Senate, it will have to be merged with CISPA during conference committee negotiations. There is a real danger that in order to placate extremists in the House, the conference committee will strip out all of the provisions in the Cybersecurity Act which have strengthened privacy protections.

Click Here to Send an email to your senators, telling them to vote “no” on the Cybersecurity Act. The vote is the week of July 30.

Tell Congress: No Cyber Spying, No CISPA

The House of Representatives is preparing to vote on legislation that would give the government, including military spy agencies like the National Security Agency, unprecedented powers to snoop through people’s personal information — medical records, private emails, financial information — all without a warrant, proper oversight or limits.

Death To CISPA, PIPA, SOPA and ACTA.

1) Americans are not the sharpest tools in the shed. We American’s spend the mostest money on education and we Americans are the dumbest no-minds walking. Americans fall for the condemnation of our government on the grounds specifically, that our government is too big.

American’s continued ignorance and American’s embrace of noncritical thought and no study gives life to the pervading myth that all America’s problems are explained by, “government is too big”, “government is inherently bad” or “it is government’s fault”. This ingrained long standing stagnant national mental illness, beats us down and holds us hostage to the will of the monied interests, giving the monied interests our life. Shackled by a lack of mental insight, no confidence and little understanding we Americans languish under a tremendous weight such a gullible idiocy festers. It is simply not true that government is cursed. We the people are free to think, but we must also be absolutely free to converse, share ideas, and no authority no mandate is greater than our freedom to communicate. We are too many to be stopped from using the Freenet as a bastion of free, open and uncensored communication for the people; all other considerations concerning the Internet should stand in the shadow of the people’s need to communicate. The people’s need to be part of America is the soul, the essence the heart and the reason within the US Constitution, “For the people, by the people and to the people”. The Constitutional message could be no clearer: America is for the people and belongs to the people and thus it certainly follows that if America is the people’s then the people without question and with the encouragement and sanction of our leaders must participate in America’s direction. These Internet crushing bills are promoted by traitors from both parties and yes that includes our incumbent traitor Barrack Obama.

The chant of the living dead is that, Government is bad. It is as if we are immature children in a gang picking on a lone child we never see and who never speaks. American state of mind is a degenerate mob mentality, encouraged of course by corporations. And corporations benefit greatly from American’s confusion and misplaced rage; corporations inherit the people’s power when a people condemn their government while not participating in their government.

2) Corporations will have no regard for the people, but a democracy is designed for just that purpose but only if the people participate. Actually, to corporations, people must serve the stock holders insatiable drive for profit or become enemies of the corporate state. Possibly, excessive corporate control of the media, our banks and our legislators and us is the reason our American government is ineffectual and dying. We the people have abandoned our duty to balance out those monied interests who would pervert our country by any means and to any extent possible.

3) Every 4 to 8 years we get a newbie as president. It takes the new Pres some time to find the reigns and if they do, at all, then they must soon step down. The corporations do not have a coup d’état every 4 or 8 years. There is no similar disruption to corporate power. Corporate influence on our government is escalating, persistent and seamless and profoundly harmful. And dare I say, anyone who would suggest that “corporations are people” is a loser born with a silver spoon in their mouth and gifted only with the ability to suck the “right” one.

Who must counteract this disruptive transition of power in our government that occurs every 4 to 8 years? We the people must take up the slack. And unequivocally, we don’t participate in our democracy. We whine, we blame, we hate.

We the people, like George Bush, are not that bright to begin with. We Americans are thwarted again by corporations, by the corporate owned Dumbing Down American Media (DuhDAM). England, for example, has racism like America does and England’s racial problems are all over the BBC, but very little of America’s racism problem is seen on ABC, CBS and NBC, the US mainstream corporate media. Racism is a problem in America and we Americans intentionally ignore it. By any measure, American media and American’s adherence to our media is a corruption of the human spirit to learn. In Iran, Iranians say their media will not criticize their government, the only news for Iranians is on the Internet. Likewise, the only news for American’s is on the Internet. The Internet is the reason Obama was elected. The Internet is the reason the Republican right wing is on the skids. The Internet is the only way the people can participate in their country.

4) Our legislators and Obama want to destroy the Internet. So lets be clear, when you hear someone blame the government for the destruction of the Internet, you are listening to a lie. Obama and legislators who are corporate owned or indifferent to the will of the people and we the people who are indifferent will kill the Internet. People are responsible for the death or survival of the Internet. There is no “big government”. There is an erosion of of government effectiveness by corporations owning public officials due to indifferent Americans and this disconnect and ignorance is multiplied greatly by the people’s information system being owned by those same harmful lying corporations that want to own our minds, our communication and our Freenet.

5) The corporate and legislative push behind SOPA, PIPA, ACTA and CISPA is not founded upon illegal downloading of movies and music. The number one reason for these Internet destroying bills is to cripple the Internet and squash government transparency; the number two reason is that China is hacking into government and corporate web sites. Obama and Congress could effortlessly deal with China’s misbehavior by means other than destroying the Freenet. However, Obama and our Legislatewhores want to squash government transparency. Most of our politicians are corrupt failures, fearing government transparency, aware that their life in office would die like a Vampire in sunlight under the humiliating Wikispotlight.

6) We the people have a window of opportunity to become a part of America’s direction. No one in government, including Obama will help keep the people “in the game”. The powers that be must be convinced that America is ours. We must keep up the fight.

It truly is about the 1% ruling with greed and arrogance. Saving the Freenet is the only way the people of the United States can win. We must stay in the game.

Obama Administration: McCarthyism

1) The Obama Administration Suddenly Fixated on Stomping out Medical Pot.

The DEA acknowledged that it was investigating a Montana state lawmaker for potentially conspiring to violate federal anti-marijuana laws. The lawmaker, Rep. Diane Sands – a Democrat from Missoula, Montana – served as the chairwoman of a 2011 interim legislative committee that sought to enact statewide regulations governing the production and distribution of medical pot, which has been legal in the state since 2004. “Can you say McCarthy?” she told The Missoulian newspaper. “This sounds like stuff from the House Un-American Activities Committee and Joe McCarthy. So once you talk about medical marijuana in reasonable terms, you’re on some sort of list of possible conspirators. … It’s ridiculous, of course, but it’s also threatening to think that the federal government is willing to use its influence and try to chill discussion about this subject.”

Worse, it looks as if Obama is setting up big pharma to take control of marijuana, resulting in pot not only staying illegal, but staying illegal with its “heroin classification” intact just so an obamacorporation can profit from Americans use of this truly recreational drug.

2) President Obama Doesn’t Support SOPA, But Signs ACTA

ACTA, SOPA, PIPA and CISPA are all Internet destroying bills or treaties that will violate privacy rights of Americans, destroy the openness of the Internet, destroy the free exchange of the internet, reduce the virtual real time discussion of information on the Internet and destroy the interactivity, the give and take of the Internet (as opposed to, “sit and listen to a corporate employee tell you what to think…one way monologue”).

Most importantly, what will be protected by destroying the Internet is a lack of government transparency. And a lack of government transparency is what Obama is all about: remember Obama’s hunt for whistleblowers? A destruction of government transparency by Obama and his associate legislatewhores is veiled thinly by their slight of hand argument for protection against online theft. Theft, greed and alakazam, corporations design the Internet, the same corporations that created peer to peer software, the same corporations that made billions from peer to peer software, the same corporations that wiped their asses on the Internet creating peer to peer software facilitating all the illegal downloading.

Obama would have the Internet be a lackey to corporate greed and the Internet be thereby castrated in its ability to effect government transparency. Obama, like most of our elected officials operates within a culture of incompetence: remember Wikileaks? No one died because of Wikileaks but a great number of public officials were embarrassed due to the Wikispotlight on their incompetence. Wikileaks is the essence of the Internet. Wikileaks is the greatest creation of the Internet and this our pitifully incompetent public servants fear rather than embrace as it could herald a rebirth of citizen participation and a rebirth of America’s health and vigor. Obama and our legislatewhores are cowards.

Yes, Obama and legislatewhores like him are definitely shallow, cowardly, small minded, greedy, corporate sycophants but mostly our politicians simply suck at what they do. If ACTA, SOPA, PIPA and CISPA are enacted, you the people, my fellow Americans are back to watching corporate state TV and maybe one of the laughing hyenas you put in office will throw you a biscuit.

The Freenet is the only way to bring more people back into participating in their country. That these useless talking heads, like Obama, would destroy the constitutional powers at the core of the Internet is clearly an indication of what these abject traitors, like Obama think of Americans, the essence of The US Constitution and all those Americans that sacrificed greatly, down through the years. It is not what politicians say; it is what politicians do and a politician supporting anything like ACTA, SOPA, PIPA or CISPA believes that Americans are little more than cattle.

In Many Ways, Obama, Like George Bush, Is Just One More Sick Bastard in Public Office.

Arizona To Outlaw… Internet Trolling?

Politicians’ complete and willful ignorance of the way the Internet really works would be entertaining, if it weren’t so dangerous. For instance: In Arizona (oh, always Arizona), the state legislature has passed HB 2549, which states (in part):

It is unlawful for any person, with intent to terrify, intimidate, threaten, harass, annoy or offend, to use any electronic or digital device and use any obscene, lewd or profane language or suggest any lewd or lascivious act, or threaten to inflict physical harm to the person or property of any person.

Of course the bill is pretty much indefensible on grounds of free speech, intent, general vagueness, whiny-titty-babytude, and basic geography. But the Arizona government has demonstrated that silly concerns like reason aren’t high on their priority list. So all y’all who are just out to annoy me and offend me using your computers (or cell phones or tablets orwhatever)? Y’all had better not be from Arizona, is all.

Obama’s Contribution to Making America a Fascist Shithole: CISPA

Can you believe this?  After the largest online protest in history, the Obama administration is still voicing support for SOPA. Just the other day, the administration sent a letter to Congress to demonstrate their support for new internet censorship legislation. Victoria Espinel, Obama’s so-called “copyright czar” just said: “We still need legislation for blocking foreign websites.” You can read the full statement here.

Obama is one of the 1% elitist who see no point in involving the people in running America. Everything he might have done is eclipsed by his support of these Internet censorship bills and treaties. Obama could not be a bigger fail as President. It is as if George Bush has been given a third term.