Archive for the 'Dictatorship' Category
The U.N. Threat to Internet Freedom
February 22nd, 2012Via: Wall Street Journal: On Feb. 27, a diplomatic process will begin in Geneva that could result in a new treaty giving the United Nations unprecedented powers over the Internet. Dozens of countries, including Russia and China, are pushing hard to reach this goal by year’s end. As Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said last […]
U.S. Super-Sizing Afghan Jail It Promised to Abandon
February 20th, 2012Via: Wired: There once was a plan to turn over the main U.S. detention center in Afghanistan to control of the Afghans in 2011. That’s out the window. Instead, the military is offering millions to vastly expand the center’s inmate intake. Specifically, $35 million will fund expansions necessary to house “approximately 2,000 detainees” at the […]
Canada: Section 34 of the Online Surveillance Bill Would Give Orwellian Powers to Government-Appointed ‘Inspectors’
February 20th, 2012Via: CBC: Among other things, the bill requires ISPs to install surveillance technology and software to enable monitoring of phone and internet traffic. Section 34 is there to make sure ISPs comply. So what, exactly, does it say? Essentially, it says that government agents may enter an ISP when they wish, without a warrant, and […]
Britain: Details of Every Phone Call, Text Message, Email and Websites Visited Will Be Stored in Vast Corporate Databases for the Government to Access
February 20th, 2012Via: Telegraph: Landline and mobile phone companies and broadband providers will be ordered to store the data for a year and make it available to the security services under the scheme. The databases would not record the contents of calls, texts or emails but the numbers or email addresses of who they are sent and […]
‘What will the millions of middle-age, unskilled workers do when they are displaced by technology?’
February 19th, 2012My guess is that something like this will be part of the answer: Engineered H5N1: A Rare Time for Restraint in Science: Two scientific teams have recently engineered the H5N1 virus to make it readily transmissible between ferrets. Given that ferrets are considered the most reliable animal surrogate for human influenza infection, the newly engineered […]
SWIFT READY TO BLOCK IRANIAN BANK TRANSACTIONS
February 18th, 2012When I studied International Relations in college, we were taught that economic sanctions could be on par with, “Rockets and bombs,” as one professor put it, and potentially much worse. Questions about economic sanctions amounting to collective punishment and other violations of International Law are ignored by the perpetrators. These types of policies resulted in […]
FBI Manages to Produce Another ‘Homegrown’ Terrorism Spectacle
February 18th, 2012Via: Washington Post: The FBI and the U.S. Capitol Police arrested a Moroccan man Friday in downtown Washington after a lengthy investigation into an alleged plot to carry out a shooting spree and a suicide bombing at the Capitol. Amine el-Khalifi, 29, was picked up while carrying an inoperable MAC-10 automatic weapon and a fake […]
Members of UK Parliament Recommend Censoring Online ‘Extremism’
February 17th, 2012Via: Electronic Frontier Foundation: In a report published last week, members of the United Kingdom Parliament concluded that the Internet plays a major role in the radicalization of terrorists and called on the government to pressure Internet Service Providers in Britain and abroad to censor online speech. The Roots of Violent Radicalisation places the Internet […]
Egregious Vote Fraud in Maine
February 16th, 2012Update: Busted—Maine GOP Allegedly Recounting Caucus Votes Via: Politico: The Maine Republican Party, under fire from Ron Paul supporters for its mishandling of the state’s recent caucuses, is now re-canvassing counties and municipalities to recount vote totals. POLITICO obtained an email from the State Republican Party asking local chairmen to send them the vote totals […]
The Pentagon’s $51 Billion ‘Black’ Budget
February 16th, 2012If you find this Wired piece interesting, definitely check out, Blank Spots on the Map: The Dark Geography of the Pentagon’s Secret World by Trevor Paglen. As an outsider, Paglen has no access to the black world, but he sort of feels around the edges of it and you really start to get a sense […]
