Big Brother is Watching You

[O Really]

I don't have Uverse, but I've got an ATT hotspot. It thinks I'm all sort of places I'm not.

I figure it's just a ruse by the NSA to make me think they can't find out what I had for breakfast and then come take away my guns.

[Seth Milner]

I don't have Uverse, but I've got an ATT hotspot. It thinks I'm all sort of places I'm not.

I figure it's just a ruse by the NSA to make me think they can't find out what I had for breakfast and then come take away my guns.

Or to find out if you're planning to join ISIS.

[rstrong]

I had figured shipping rates on my purchase when the outage hit, and when it came back on within 30 seconds, I got a pop-up stating my shipping rates would be higher than I entered because I stated I was in SC instead of Kansas City. Finally, both went out totally for about an hour. When everything came back on, I got a recorded call from AT&T stating a fiber optic cable had been cut. All's well except this: When I visit a retailing-type website, it's tracking (which I supposedly have turned off) says I'm in K.C., Texas, Charleston, or Ft. Lauderdale. How can big brother be watching me with this scrambled mess-up?

IP addresses aren't tied to geographic locations beyond country level. Instead, online stores and anyone else who wants geolocation usually relies on companies that maintain their own databases tying IP addresses to locations. Sometimes they get updates from the phone/cable companies, and sometimes they're guessing or out of date. When I got my static IP address the geolocation services thought it was in another province. It took a few months for them to catch up.

There are only so many IPV4 (version 4) addresses to go around. No-one in the 1980s expected this many addresses to be needed. The world has been slow to adopt the incompatible IPV6, which allows many orders of magnitude more addresses. And now we've run out of IP addresses.

Lacking new addresses to hand to customers, the ISPs are shuffling around blocks of addresses to use them more efficiently. The geolocation services are going to find it hard to keep up.

[rstrong]

Techdirt: EU Parliament Calls On EU Countries To Drop All Charges Against Snowden, Protect Him From Extradition

Again, as mere resolutions, these efforts have little binding authority, but at least people are coming to terms with the damage done and looking to move in the right direction. Declaring Snowden a whistleblower and protecting him against bogus legal threats and extradition would be a really huge step forward.

[Vrede too]

... "more likely to cause you personal harm" is a bit of a red herring.
Websites and corporations are more likely to harm you by getting you on spam and junk mail lists.
"the people trying to steal your identity" want your money.
"a foul ex-spouse" wants the kids, wants the property and alimony, and/or wants to wreck your friendships.

All of these are bad and "more likely", but what the NSA can want, and government has proved it wanted in the past like with the FBI, the Un-American Activities Committees and witch hunts is to punish dissent or to chill it before it happens. This harms the foundation of democracy and civil society more.

Exposed: FBI Surveillance of School of the Americas Watch

FBI Documents Reveal Secret Nationwide Occupy Monitoring

Out from the Shadows: The Hidden Role of the Fusion Centers in the Nationwide Spying Operation against the Occupy Movement and Peaceful Protest in America

[O Really]

Under, I suppose, the category of Devil advocacy, I'd pose some questions:

If you were wanting to get an opportunity to create some violent anti-government havoc, would you create a group that called itself "Bombers R Us" and give members open seminars on how to get access to an Army base or municipal water supply? Or might you pick a peaceful protest type group, wear them like camo, and maybe pick up a few members who might like a bit more direct action?

Or, let's say you wanted to drive some planes into some buildings. Might you have legal papers, get training along with hundreds of regular, peaceful non-political pilot wannabes at a non-controversial training center, and blend in with your neighbors in a peaceful apartment complex with no known or suspected terrorists anywhere around?

Of course, it's entirely possible that the jack-boots could use this argument as camo for simply trying to stifle free speech, but that makes the original argument no less valid.

[Vrede too]

If I was wanting to get an opportunity to create some violent anti-government havoc, I would not join any group. I would outwardly be boringly normal, maybe a lawyer.

If I wanted to pick up a few violent cohorts, I would not look to an elderly, Catholic led pacifist outfit with transparent tactics and goals.

...Or, let's say you wanted to drive some planes into some buildings. Might you have legal papers, get training along with hundreds of regular, peaceful non-political pilot wannabes at a non-controversial training center, and blend in with your neighbors in a peaceful apartment complex with no known or suspected terrorists anywhere around?

:?: That's an excuse for surveilling everyone doing anything that might somehow, someday be used in terrorism all the time, not for targeting peaceful dissent.

Of course, it's entirely possible that the jack-boots could use this argument as camo for simply trying to stifle free speech, but that makes the original argument no less valid.

Yes, it does. We have decades or more of history about what the goals and effects are.

[Vrede too]

Human Rights Watch demands U.S. criminal probe of CIA torture

[Vrede too]

From freepress.net:

Bad news: Despite our best efforts, today Congress passed a budget bill that includes the Cybersecurity Sharing Information Act (CISA) — which legalizes violations of your privacy rights.

While spending bills should be used to determine funding for government agencies, some in Congress like to exploit the urgency to pass such bills by attaching legislation that might not survive debate on its own. That's exactly what happened with CISA.

Ignoring the voices of concerned people across the country, leading Internet-security technologists, and members of the privacy community, including the Free Press Action Fund, Congress circumvented the standard procedures and snuck the dangerous bill into the budget deal.

CISA will allow credit-card companies, health-care insurers and other companies to sidestep crucial privacy laws and share your info with law enforcement and government agencies — creating yet another tool for invasive government surveillance.

President Obama has indicated that he will sign the spending bill. In 2016 we'll redouble our efforts to pass legislation that will curb the government's surveillance operations once and for all.

Thank you for all that you do—

[rstrong]

President Obama has indicated that he will sign the spending bill.

Not that he really has a choice.

When the Zadroga Act to cover health care costs for 9/11 first responders needed to be reauthorized two months ago, but GOP leaders largely ignored it and it expired. It was then supposed to be included in a transportation bill, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) stripped the Zadroga provisions from the larger package.

With Jon Stewart again rallying public support for it, it went into the Omnibus bill. But that was likely the plan all along:

No matter how awful the other provisions of the Omnibus spending bill, no matter how well they understand them, Democrats don't dare vote against it. Obama dare not refuse to sign it. Because otherwise the big story - replacing BENGHAZI! BENGHAZI! BENGHAZI!!! - would be how Obama and the Democrats voted against Zadroga and cut off medical care to 9/11 first responders.

That's what Omnibus and Defence Authorization bills are for. Obama wouldn't sign a bill allowing indefinite military detention of Americans without trial? Republicans made it part of 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, which HAD to be passed.

[Vrede too]

Rightwingers are calling Paul Ryan a RINO for negotiating and mustering support for the bill as it is. My understanding is that it could have been much worse.

Just one interest group's take, Common Cause:

Thank you! It was because of your actions that some very dangerous special interest giveaways were kept out of the government funding bill passed yesterday.

But the $1.15 trillion omnibus spending bill is far from perfect -- here are just three ways this bill will tie regulators hands and weaken our democracy in the coming year:

The Securities and Exchange Commission won’t be able to require publicly-traded corporations to disclose their political spending -- even though over one million Americans have asked the SEC to do so.

The IRS is prohibited from writing new rules to stop billionaire donors from hiding their identities behind phony “social welfare” groups while spending millions to influence elections.

The FCC can no longer hold broadcasters accountable when they exploit a loophole that lets them set up shell companies to get around restrictions on media monopolies.

Loading a must-pass spending bill with nasty unrelated provisions (also known as riders) has become something of an annual tradition in this dysfunctional Congress. In fact, last year Congress passed a “CROmnibus” bill with even more giveaways for big donors.

So here’s the good news: This year, our voices and actions kept out the worst of these riders. Over 30,000 Common Cause activists contacted their representatives to demand that they fund the government without any special interest strings attached.

In fact, it’s almost more important what’s NOT in this bill, like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s rider that would have let billionaires donate unlimited amounts to Super PACs coordinating directly with candidates for office -- making it even easier for wealthy donors to buy influence. We -- you -- stopped that.

Another provision would have blocked the FCC from enforcing its historic net neutrality rules, striking a blow to the Open Internet and negating years of citizen activism -- but thanks to citizen activists like you, we kept it out of the final bill.

Over 30,000 Common Cause activists contacted their representatives to demand they scrap those riders -- and every other rider, from the spending bill. If you can’t pass your legislation through normal votes, you shouldn’t be allowed to sneak it into a must-pass budget bill. This is not how our government should work.

And even though the special interests still got some terrible giveaways, it’s clear that when we speak out, politicians feel the pressure.

So let’s look on the bright side -- organized people power made 2015 a great year for the fight to take back our democracy, and it’ll make 2016 even better.

Nearly 4 million Americans called on the Federal Communications Commission to protect net neutrality, and we won the strongest Open Internet protections ever to ensure freedom online without roadblocks from Big Cable.

We’ve also pushed voting rights forward in Congress and in the states -- winning bipartisan support to restore the Voting Rights Act and passing automatic voter registration in California and Oregon.

Plus, voters took matters into their own hands, placing and passing ballot initiatives that took strong measures against partisan gerrymandering in Ohio and strengthened citizen-funded elections in Maine.

I know it’s easy to feel despondent looking at what just happened in Congress.

But when you look at the big picture, and see how citizen activism kept this spending bill from being much worse while winning huge democracy victories day by day, I’m excited for the future, and you should be too.

[Vrede too]

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: 2015 Federal Legislative Round-Up

[Vrede too]

Bush cancels Europe trip amid calls for his arrest
Amnesty International and other groups asked Swiss authorities to investigate the former president for torture

Awww.

[Vrede too]

Top CCR (Center for Constitutional Rights) Victories of 2015

[Vrede too]

Nicholas Merrill Overturns National Security Letter Gag Order

Imagine it is February 2004. You are Nicholas Merrill, the CEO of Calyx Internet Access, a small internet service provider in New York City. You are about to receive a National Security Letter (NSL). National Security Letters don’t come in the mail. They are hand-delivered by FBI agents. Nick Merrill told The Guardian that his agent was wearing a trench coat and “looked like an FBI agent from central casting.”

You read your NSL and become very anxious, frightened, and upset. A National Security Letter does not ask for your cooperation with the federal government; it demands your cooperation.... the FBI has issued 300,000 NSL attachments since 2001.

... You probably want to talk to your friends and loved ones about all of this as soon as you possibly can, but an NSL comes with a gag order, so you can’t tell anyone. Not a soul.

That is what happened to Nick Merrill, despite the fact that, as he stated in the Frontline film United States of Secrecy (watch it here), and as was quoted in an article at pbs.org, “It was not a warrant. It was not stamped or signed by a court or a judge.” The orders are so secret, the only entity named in them is the FBI.

According to Merrill, the gag order took its toll on his life: “It cut me off from the people who in normal life would be your support network. Close friends, family. So it was extremely weird.” But Nick did call someone. He called his lawyer, and soon after that he became the first person ever to initiate a court challenge to a gag order associated with an NSL attachment. His name on the case was listed as “John Doe.”

It took over 11 years for Merrill to win the right to be “ungagged.” For his final case, opened in 2014, he was assisted by the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic at Yale Law School. This article on their web site provides details about the case and quotes from the law students who represented him.

Merrill’s case is a First Amendment victory, but it is far from the end of the problem of NSLs. Imagine you just got one today, in December 2015. You are now in the same situation that Nicholas Merrill found himself in 11 years ago. You are a victim of the imbalance of power, a lonely figure trapped in secrecy. But as least you have the benefit of Edward Snowden, who made privacy a hot topic, and Nicholas Merrill, who fought the system and won. So go ahead, call your lawyer.

Protection for FBI Whistleblowers? Grassley and Leahy Hope So.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Ranking Member Patrick Leahy (D-VT) have introduced legislation to improve the response to FBI employees who call attention to fraud, waste or misconduct within the bureau. The FBI Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (S. 2390) brings the FBI’s whistleblower disclosure protocols in line with all other federal law enforcement and civil service agencies and streamlines procedures for investigation, adjudication and oversight of employee claims....

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: 2015 Federal Legislative Round-Up

[Vrede too]

Guatemalan authorities arrest SOA (U.S. Army's School of the Americas)-trained officers for massacres, disappearances

SOA Watch maintains that in order for there to truly be justice, those responsible in the U.S. for the training and funding one of Latin America's most brutal conflicts must be held to account in any and all courts applicable, whether they be domestic, regional or foreign. The U.S. doesn't have to look to far to see that lessons on justice and accountability can be learned through what is happening throughout Latin America.

Whether for the direct US torture under Cheney/Shrub or the sponsorship of torture and other gross abuses that has been going on far longer, there has never been US accountability.

[rstrong]

Q: What is the difference between USA and USB?
A: One connects to all of your devices and accesses the data, the other is a hardware standard.

[bannination]

Q: What is the difference between USA and USB?
A: One connects to all of your devices and accesses the data, the other is a hardware standard.

Also known as Windows 10.

[Vrede too]

Q: What is the difference between Americans and Canadians?
A: None, never trust anyone that polite.

[rstrong]

I'm sorry that you feel that way, but I respect your opinion.