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Zebra 3 Report by Joe Anybody
Thursday, 23 June 2011
Capitalist Corporate Big Brother Censorship - Apple's Video Kill Switch
Mood:
don't ask
Now Playing: Apple's Strike Against Free Speech - Kill Switch for Camera Phones
Topic: MEDIA
So you think you control your smartphone? Think again. Late last week reports uncovered a plan by Apple, manufacturer of the iPhone, to patent technology that can detect when people are using their phone cameras and shut them down. Apple says this technology was intended to stop people from recording video at live concerts, which should worry the creative commons crowd. But a remote "kill switch" has far more sinister applications in the hands of repressive governments. And it further raises concerns about the power new media companies hold over our right to connect and communicate. Imagine if Apple's device had been available to the Mubarak regime earlier this year, and Egyptian security forces had deployed it around Tahrir Square to disable cameras just before they sent in their thugs to disperse the crowd. Would the global outcry that helped drive Mubarak from office have occurred if a blackout of protest videos had prevented us from viewing the crackdown? What would we know of Neda had it not been for one witness holding up a cellphone? This is more than speculation. Thousands of people across the Middle East and North Africa have used cellphone cameras to document human rights abuses and share them with millions via social media. In a February speech, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton credited the viral spread of a cellphone video depicting the shooting death of a young Iranian woman named Neda for bringing world attention to the human rights abuses of the regime. What would we know of Neda's shocking death had Iranian security forces disabled that camera? Social Media's Wild West But here's the rub. The First Amendment and Article 19 of the U.N.'s Declaration on Human Rights don't really apply to the corporations that build these cellphones and run these social networks. Free speech rules don't apply to Silicon Valley. And while platforms such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Flickr might enable individual expression more than governments do, many governments are at least accountable by law for protecting your right to speech and assembly. The social networks are only beholden to their terms of service, which in most cases extend them the power to take down your communications "for any or no reason." That's why Flickr got away with taking down the photographs and files of Egyptian security officers, which were posted by a local activist wanting to draw attention to their crimes. That's why Amazon.com could kick Wikileaks off its hosting platform after it released a series of diplomatic cables that exposed abuses of power by American agents. And that's why Facebook could shut down the pages of any anonymous political protester who decides to use the network to build a community of like-minded activists. Rochester: Where using a cellphone camera will get you arrested "Hosting your political movement on YouTube is a little like trying to hold a rally in a shopping mall. It looks like a public space, but it's not," writes Ethan Zuckerman of Harvard's Berkman Center. "Even if YouTube's rulers take their function as a free speech platform seriously and work to ensure you've got rights to post content, they're a benevolent despot, not a representative government." A Pre-emptive Strike What Apple is proposing to develop is worse in many ways. Its cellphone camera kill switch can be used as a pre-emptive strike against free speech. In its patent application, Apple describes the technology as making it impossible to capture video or pictures at events where cameras and video recorders are prohibited. Your phone determines whether an image includes an infrared beam with encoded data. This data is sent from an emitter that directs the cellphone or a similar device to shut down image capture. Disabling emitters could be mounted on stages, throughout public squares or, conceivably, on police helmets. While the technology might not be available now, the grave consequences of its use far outweigh any worry Apple and its entertainment industry allies have about video piracy. More than ten thousand people have already signed a letter imploring Apple CEO Steve Jobs to pull the plug on this technology. Smartphones like the iPhone and Droid are becoming extensions of ourselves. They are not simply tools to connect with friends and family, but a means to document the world around us, engage in political issues and organize with others. They literally put the power of the media in our own hands. Apple's proposed technology would take that power away. As the Campaign Director for Free Press and SavetheInternet.com, Karr oversees campaigns on public broadcasting and noncommercial media, fake news and propaganda, journalism in crisis, and the future of the Internet. Before joining Free Press, Tim served as executive director of MediaChannel.org and vice president of Globalvision New Media and the Globalvision News Network.
Posted by Joe Anybody
at 5:38 AM PDT
Monday, 13 June 2011
Intel Foxconn and workers lives are on the line 2011
Mood:
accident prone
Now Playing: Foxconn - working conditions in China
Topic: CORPORATE CRAP
12 June 2011 | Angeline Albert http://www.supplymanagement.com/news/2011/foxconn-comes-under-the-scrutiny-of-intel/
Intel’s supply chain executives are working with supplier Foxconn to help improve working conditions at a factory in China.In 2010, 10 employees committed suicide at the Shenzhen facility. News of the deaths prompted Intel to conduct an analysis of what had happened and an on-site audit. Foxconn, which is part of Taiwanese-owned Hon Hai Industries, makes motherboards for Intel. Intel’s 2010 Corporate Responsibility Report said: “Like many other companies in our industry that work with this supplier, Intel was deeply concerned about this tragic situation. Executives from our supply chain organisation have been in continuing discussions with Foxconn’s senior management, and we have offered them our assistance in the form of human resources staff expertise and other general support.” Intel joined the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition’s (EICC) employee health and welfare taskforce to conduct an audit on-site to identify both major and minor areas of non-compliance to the EICC code of conduct which the company has signed up to. This code covers labour, health and safety, environment, management systems and ethics. More than 40 global IT companies and their suppliers are part of the EICC. Intel’s audits revealed that the most common breaches of compliance in 2010 were in the areas of health and safety (including emergency preparedness), labour and working hours. The report said: “In 2011, we will further monitor the issues identified in the audit to ensure that progress continues to be made.” Overall, the group completed 172 in-depth risk assessments of supplier facilities in 2010 (up from 74 in 2009). Areas identified as potentially high risk included employee issues, such as child labour and excessive working hours.
Posted by Joe Anybody
at 12:01 PM PDT
Whistle Blowers, Bradley Manning and Government Coverups
Mood:
irritated
Now Playing: Governement protects its own - mo accountability
Topic: FAILURE by the GOVERNMENT
People who leak state crimes are always insiders who have no other way to find justice for the crimes the state is committing. The state is not going to prosecute itself, the state is going to try to protect itself and insulate itself from liability and seek immunity for war crimes. The same is true for corporations and any powerful entity. It is near impossible to correct corruption from the inside if the entire branch or department or entire entity is operating from the grounds of corruption, often corrupt leaders at the tops. These people can only take the case to the public through journalists and publishers because complaints to superiors can lead to a dangerous dead end. This kind of leak is what we refer to as whistle blowing. Just like it sounds, the person is blowing the whistle and asking for intervention by the public, the media, and any interested parties or organizations. http://www.presstorm.com/2011/06/fair-trial-for-bradley-manning-not-likely/
Published By Venus On Saturday, June 4th 2011 Written by: Venus on June 4, 2011.
There is a big difference between leaking state secrets and leaking state crimes. Those who leak state secrets are usually going after monetary gain, character assassination, or any number of self serving interests. These are people like Scooter Libby and Karl Rove who leaked the identity of a US spy, Valerie Plame, because her husband made a comment against the war in Iraq (although Libby nor Rove were never charged with this crime). In this case, those who leaked her identity were not fully prosecuted because US officials don’t prosecute themselves. The journalist apparently did not know she was a spy and faced no charges, but did cooperate in the so called investigation. See original article Novak wrote here. When criminal justice failed, the Plame’s filed civil suit against Libby, Rove, Cheney, and Armitage (who took public credit for her ousting) but that case was dismissed. Bradley Manning is accused of transferring classified material to Wikileaks for publishing. What may have been what we know as the Collateral Murder video in which 2 Reuters journalists were gunned down and killed by helicopter fire in Iraq, among others. This was the first initial accusation that was believed to have been leaked by Manning. The material here is not at all sensitive in the sense that military operations are time sensitive. Therefore, this video really never belonged in classified status anyway. (military secrets are kept before and during an operation- not after it is over) Furthermore, it illustrates quite clearly state crimes. If you are not familiar with the rules of engagement in battle for US soldiers see it here. This means Bradley Manning leaked state crimes, not state secrets. People who leak state crimes are always insiders who have no other way to find justice for the crimes the state is committing. The state is not going to prosecute itself, the state is going to try to protect itself and insulate itself from liability and seek immunity for war crimes. The same is true for corporations and any powerful entity. It is near impossible to correct corruption from the inside if the entire branch or department or entire entity is operating from the grounds of corruption, often corrupt leaders at the tops. These people can only take the case to the public through journalists and publishers because complaints to superiors can lead to a dangerous dead end. This kind of leak is what we refer to as whistle blowing. Just like it sounds, the person is blowing the whistle and asking for intervention by the public, the media, and any interested parties or organizations. This case became entangled in public prosecution and pre-trial media guilty verdicts when alleged chats between Bradley Manning and Adrian Lamo were made public. We cannot authenticate these chats, but they do something very dangerous in this case. These alleged chats would attach Manning to the leaking of the State Dept. Cables. The problem is people are treating the chat logs as if they are legitimate when we don’t know anything about them, other than they were produced by former hacker Adrian Lamo. Wired, the Washington Post, and Adrian Lamo refuse to release the chat logs in full to the public, leading some to question journalistic integrity. See more about the chats here. See more about Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com criticism of those who possess the chat logs in full here. As if this were not bad enough, prominent public figures actually called for Manning to be executed long before the accused faced a court room. (House Intelligence Committee Mike Rogers, former Gov. of Arkansas Mike Huckabee) The leaking of the State Department Diplomatic Cables is another matter entirely, which legally could fall under state secrets. Like it or not, these people schmooze with officials in other nations in an effort to collect information and form some kind of relationship. Even if those leaders are horrible dictators. As a journalist, these are an excellent source for the whole world to benefit from, and it is in the public interest to publish these and bring understanding to them. We appreciate the valuable work of diplomats. There are a few that border upon state crimes. If any diplomat was committing crimes then we go back to Manning as a whistle blower. This makes the task of delving into the cables and identifying state crimes extremely important, at least for the defense. With President Barack Obama along with everyone else in official capacity beating the drum of his guilt, there will be no fair trial. Julian Assange said fairly accurately: “we cannot stop publishing because someone takes a hostage,”
in his PBS interview. I agree. Bradley Manning is a whistle blower, and should be treated as such. Instead of impeaching fraudulent officials and charging them with war crimes, the state has decided to make an example out of a single soldier of conscience.
Posted by Joe Anybody
at 11:31 AM PDT
Updated: Monday, 13 June 2011 12:05 PM PDT
Video Conferencing - Is your Network Ready
Mood:
suave
Now Playing: 7 Ways to Preparing Your Network
Topic: MEDIA
Seven Ways to Prepare Your Network for Videoconferencing http://www.shoretel.com/about/newsroom/newsletter/Seven_Ways_to_Prepare_Your_Network_for_Videoconferencing_.html?utm_source=eloqua&utm_medium=email&utm_id=&utm_campaign= Seven Ways to Prepare Your Network for Videoconferencing More workers are embracing desktop video and videoconferencing as they become accustomed to visual communications. Video and collaboration tools can lift the burden of distance, allowing people in different offices to collaborate as if they were in the same room. Workers can manage their real-time communications and move seamlessly between voice, video and instant messaging as needed. With easy-to-use integrated collaboration tools, organizations can cut travel costs and improve productivity. Accustomed to high-definition television and streaming media, workers have high expectations for quality video experiences in the office. Proper planning and preparation can help organizations avoid surprises when deploying IP voice and video and ensure a quality user experience. Workers want high-quality video, and without the proper preparation, organizations can slow the adoption of an important productivity tool for today’s distributed workforce. Here are seven considerations to prepare your organization’s network for IP video and voice.
- Real-time communications are not forgiving. First and foremost, unified communications and collaboration (UCC) applications take place in real time. Unlike an email exchange or downloading a file from a server, where the time between sending and receiving the message is of little consequence, a phone or video call is highly sensitive to network latency, packet loss and jitter. Distance on the WAN circuit can also cause delays, which can ultimately interrupt the conversation flow. Make sure the delay, packet loss and jitter are below the acceptable thresholds for voice and video. Otherwise, users can experience interruptions or dropped connections.
- Does your network infrastructure have the design and capacity to support real-time communications? Most organizations have designed their networks to support data communications between users and centralized servers. But with voice and video, the communications patterns become a mesh, rather than a hub-and-spoke, as people in different offices communicate directly with each other. Video is bandwidth-hungry and can consume 10 times more bandwidth than a typical data transmission. That may mean upgrading the campus network to use modern, high-performance switches. And it will likely mean using high-performance Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) connections for the WAN.
- Quality of service is important. Many organizations use virtual LANs (VLANs) to segment voice traffic in their campus networks. But for a multi-site deployment with voice and video, using quality of service (QoS) across the entire LAN/WAN can make a big difference in the user experience. With QoS, voice and video traffic can be given priority access to the network bandwidth over less sensitive traffic, such as email, backup or Web surfing. It’s also helpful to allocate a specified amount of bandwidth per link to support the anticipated number of simultaneous voice or video calls. Using QoS can also help prevent packet loss and jitter for real-time applications, which will deliver a better user experience.
- Is the WAN connection to branch offices sufficient? Many organizations use Internet VPNs as an affordable connection for small branch offices. However, the performance can be unpredictable, which makes it unsuitable for supporting voice and video. Consider deploying MPLS to branch offices.
- What’s your plan for network resiliency? With essential voice and video communications on the network, a best practice is to install redundant WAN connections between critical sites to ensure that an unplanned network outage doesn’t disrupt communication.
- What’s your security plan? Strong security supports high availability of the overall system. And while cybercriminals have shown little interest in attacking UCC, it’s important to have protection. Using internal firewalls or session border controllers will give you protection.
- Consider adding WAN optimization controllers. WAN optimization appliances can also improve overall application performance for a medium or large multi-site organization. These appliances use a variety of compression and caching techniques that can effectively increase the capacity of the WAN links—and make room for real-time communications.
Resources Download the whitepaper, “Is Your Network Ready for IP Telephony?” Learn more about ShoreTel Implementation Services.
Posted by Joe Anybody
at 5:40 AM PDT
Updated: Thursday, 21 July 2011 12:52 PM PDT
Sunday, 12 June 2011
Police Confiscate Cameras - And is not Legal
Mood:
irritated
Now Playing: Police steal cameras in 2011 to hide there illagal activities
Topic: POLICE
Activists Using Qik To Salvage Videos After Police Confiscate CamerasJune 6, 2011 @ 1:20AM - see the video footage on the link below - http://www.pixiq.com/article/using-qik-to-salvage-videos-after-police-confiscate-cameras
As police continue to blatantly steal and destroy cameras from citizens without any legal authority whatsoever, it is essential to store our video footage online so it can accessed regardless of what happens to our cameras. At this time, the most popular method to do this is through the Qik mobile phone application. I personally have never used it because I tend not to use my phone for video recording, but I am going to download the app because it seems that police are getting bolder about stealing our cameras. Just this week, we've had at least three incidents, including the one from Miami Beach on Monday, the one in Broward County on Thursday and one from this weekend in Manchester, New Hampshire. Fortunately, the last victim was using the Qik app when police walked up to her and demanded her phone as "evidence," even though they had no legal right to do so. The incident can be seen beginning at 12:30 in the above video where Antigone Darling is recording the aftermath of a protest against police in which eight activists were arrested. She is actually walking away from police who chase her down and steal her phone. The law states that police are required to obtain a subpoena or warrant before they can confiscate your camera unless your camera is being used in the commission of crime such as child pornography or upskirting. I addressed this issue two years ago where I interviewed a couple of attorneys. Sometimes police know the law but will lie to the citizen anyway as they tried to do to us in my first Metrorail incident (beginning at 2:08 in the video). But many cops do not know the law as we learned in March when cops in New Haven, Connecticut had to go through special classes to learn how to deal with photographers. The truth is, regardless if they know they are breaking the law or not, the worse that can happen to them is that prosecutors will force them to return the phone. And that can take weeks. Just ask Benjamin Bartholomew who was arrested with his brother in April in Northern California for protesting while wearing masks. They do it for political theater as I wrote about back in February. Last time they did it, they were charged for wearing masks and for posting signs on state property. Police confiscated his phone because he was recording the entire interaction. Even after prosecutors dropped the mask charge, they have yet to return his phone to him, which after five weeks, is a huge inconvenience. But at least the footage was salvaged and has been online since his arrest. That video is below.
Posted by Joe Anybody
at 9:22 AM PDT
Saturday, 11 June 2011
Youth held in GITMO is more than US is admitting
Mood:
irritated
Now Playing: More youth at Guantánamo than U.S. claimed
Topic: TORTURE
More youth at Guantánamo than U.S. claimedJune 7, 2011 The original artilcle is here: http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=9918 A number of the 779 Guantanamo prisoners came to the prison as children, including these four. (Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas/photos) Fifteen juveniles spent time as prisoners at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp — three more than the U.S. State Department had publicly acknowledged, the UC Davis Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas reported today on its website. The finding is based on an analysis of military documents recently made public by the transparency organization WikiLeaks. “This new report shows that even more children have been imprisoned at Guantánamo than our earlier research revealed,” said Almerindo Ojeda, director of the center and principal investigators for its Guantanamo Testimonials Project. “This is one more reason for a full, independent, and transparent inquiry into the policies and practices of detention we have engaged in since 9/11.” A 2008 study by the Guantánamo Testimonials Project found that the U.S. Department of State had underreported by 50 percent the number of juveniles seized and sent to Guantanamo. The State Department subsequently adjusted the number of juvenile detainees from eight to 12. “This is three more than the 12 the State Department acknowledged to the public after our earlier report on the subject, and seven more than the eight the State Department originally reported to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child,” Ojeda said. More details about the latest WikiLeaks information can be found in a report on the center’s website: http://tinyurl.com/3oj528h. Ojeda and other scholars at UC Davis and beyond, as well as human rights specialists, attorneys and retired military officers, have repeatedly called for investigation into post-9/11 U.S. detention policies and practices. Referred to as the Davis Group — as it was convened by the center and the law school — their 2009 work can be found at http://tinyurl.com/3hb999k. Thirteen of the one-time juvenile detainees who were identified in the latest WikiLeaks documents have been released. Of the other two, one is the first child in history to have been convicted of war crimes, according to Ojeda. The other is reported to have killed himself in his Guantanamo cell at age 21. Photos of the individuals are also on the website. WikiLeaks began to release classified documents for all 779 Guantanamo prisoners in April. The volunteer-staffed Guantánamo Testimonials Project also gathers accounts of torture of Guantánamo Bay prisoners found in news media reports, e-mails, diaries and other sources worldwide. The project has published a book, "The Trauma of Psychological Torture," that contains the proceedings of a September 2006 conference sponsored by the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain, which drew psychologists, psychiatrists, neurobiologists, lawyers and historians from nine institutions in the U.S. and Germany. About UC DavisFor more than 100 years, UC Davis has engaged in teaching, research and public service that matter to California and transform the world. Located close to the state capital, UC Davis has more than 32,000 students, more than 2,500 faculty and more than 21,000 staff, an annual research budget that exceeds $678 million, a comprehensive health system and 13 specialized research centers. The university offers interdisciplinary graduate study and more than 100 undergraduate majors in four colleges — Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Biological Sciences, Engineering, and Letters and Science. It also houses six professional schools — Education, Law, Management, Medicine, Veterinary Medicine and the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing. Media contact(s):
Posted by Joe Anybody
at 9:44 AM PDT
Friday, 10 June 2011
my moms baggy yellow shirt
Mood:
chatty
Now Playing: The Yellow Sweatshirt and the story behind it
Topic: SMILE SMILE SMILE
The baggy yellow shirt had long sleeves, four extra-large pockets trimmed in black thread and snaps up the front. It was faded from years of wear, but still in decent shape. I found it in 1963 when I was home from college on Christmas break, rummaging through bags of clothes Mom intended to give away. "You're not taking that old thing, are you?" Mom said when she saw me packing the yellow shirt. "I wore that when I was pregnant with your brother in 1954!" "It's just the thing to wear over my clothes during art class, Mom. Thanks!" I slipped it into my suitcase before she could object. The yellow shirt be came a part of my college wardrobe. I loved it. After graduation, I wore the shirt the day I moved into my new apartment and on Saturday mornings when I cleaned. The next year, I married. When I became pregnant, I wore the yellow shirt during big-belly days. I missed Mom and the rest of my family, since we were in Colorado and they were in Illinois. But that shirt helped. I smiled, remembering that Mother had worn it when she was pregnant, 15 years earlier. That Christmas, mindful of the warm feelings the shirt had given me, I patched one elbow, wrapped it in holiday paper and sent it to Mom. When Mom wrote to thank me for her "real" gifts, she said the yellow shirt was lovely. She never mentioned it again. The next year, my husband, daughter and I stopped at Mom and Dad's to pick up some furniture. Days later, when we uncrated the kitchen table, I noticed something yellow taped to its bottom. The shirt! And so the pattern was set. On our next visit home, I secretly placed the shirt under Mom and Dad's mattress. I don't know how long it took for her to find it, but almost two years passed before I discovered it under the base of our living-room floor lamp. The yellow shirt was just what I needed now while refinishing furniture. The walnut stains added character. In 1975 my husband and I divorced. With my three children, I prepared to move back to Illinois. As I packed, a deep depression overtook me. I wondered if I could make it on my own. I wondered if I would find a job. I paged through the Bible, looking for comfort. In Ephesians, I read, "So use every piece of God's armor to resist the enemy whenever he attacks, and when it is all over, you will be standing up." I tried to picture myself wearing God's armor, but all I saw was the stained yellow shirt. Slowly, it dawned on me. Wasn't my mother's love a piece of God's armor? My courage was renewed. Unpacking in our new home, I knew I had to get the shirt back to Mother. The next time I visited her, I tucked it in her bottom dresser drawer. Meanwhile, I found a good job at a radio station. A year later I discovered the yellow shirt hidden in a rag bag in my cleaning closet. Something new had been added. Embroidered in bright green across the breast pocket were the words "I BELONG TO PAT." Not to be outdone, I got out my own embroidery materials and added an apostrophe and seven more letters. Now the shirt proudly proclaimed, "I BELONG TO PAT'S MOTHER." But I didn't stop there. I zig-zagged all the frayed seams, then had a friend mail the shirt in a fancy box to Mom from Arlington, VA. We enclosed an official looking letter from "The Institute for the Destitute," announcing that she was the recipient of an award for good deeds. I would have given anything to see Mom's face when she opened the box. But, of course, she never mentioned it. Two years later, in 1978, I remarried. The day of our wedding, Harold and I put our car in a friend's garage to avoid practical jokers. After the wedding, while my husband drove us to our honeymoon suite, I reached for a pillow in the car to rest my head. It felt lumpy. I unzipped the case and found, wrapped in wedding paper, the yellow shirt. Inside a pocket was a note: "Read John 14:27-29. I love you both, Mother." That night I paged through the Bible in a hotel room and found the verses: "I am leaving you with a gift: peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give isn't fragile like the peace the world gives. So don't be troubled or afraid. Remember what I told you: I am going away, but I will come back to you again. If you really love me, you will be very happy for me, for now I can go to the Father, who is greater than I am. I have told you these things before they happen so that when they do, you will believe in me." The shirt was Mother's final gift. She had known for three months that she had terminal Lou Gehrig's disease. Mother died the following year at age 57. I was tempted to send the yellow shirt with her to her grave. But I'm glad I didn't, because it is a vivid reminder of the love-filled game she and I played for 16 years. Besides, my older daughter is in college now, majoring in art. And every art student needs a baggy yellow shirt with big pockets. |
Posted by Joe Anybody
at 6:00 AM PDT
Wednesday, 8 June 2011
So is the US nearing the Anti - War tipping point ?
Mood:
celebratory
Now Playing: The DC location: Freedom Plaza, is on Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., within marching distance of the Capitol and other federal offic
Topic: WAR
Nearing the tipping point in the United States?
COMMENTARY | June 08, 2011 http://niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=background.view&backgroundid=00550 Demonstrators with the Military Families Speak Out group in an anti-war march to mark the 6,000th death in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Tuesday April 26, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo) With Tahrir Square in mind, activist groups and individuals, some of them well known, are planning ongoing, nonviolent protests in Washington, D.C., starting in October. Their goal is to end the war in Afghanistan and work for sharp change in domestic policies. The mainstream media are not seen as friends, exactly. One in a Nieman Watchdog series, 'Reporting the Endgame' By John Hanrahan hanrahan@niemanwatchdog.org
A plaza two blocks from the White House is being envisioned as a Tahrir Square or Madison, Wisconsin – a place for ongoing, nonviolent citizen protest – under plans by a coalition of activist organizations and prominent individuals. Their demand: withdrawal of all “U.S. troops, contractors or mercenaries” from Afghanistan. Organizers have begun an online campaign to solicit endorsements from groups and pledges from at least 50,000 individuals to say they would be willing to come to the nation’s capital beginning Oct. 6 – a Thursday and the 10th anniversary of the start of the war in Afghanistan. One of the organizers, single-payer healthcare advocate and pediatrician Dr. Margaret Flowers, told Nieman Watchdog that the group hopes for “a sustained occupation of the square beginning on the 6th of October.” The location, Freedom Plaza, is on Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., within marching distance of the Capitol and other federal offices.
“This will not be another rally and march on a Saturday, make home movies, pat ourselves on the back, and go home,” said best-selling author (“War Is a Lie”) and activist David Swanson, another of the organizers. “We are coming to Washington to stay.” Swanson said the organizers would get permits, “but not for the length of time we will probably be there.”
As it expands, Flowers said, the coalition will add to its demands beyond ending the Afghanistan war to include other issues relating to peace, and to social, economic and environmental justice. For now, though, “we are still early in the process and have not worked out our demand process,” she said. “We want broad input into this and to use a decentralized, bottom-up consensus model of decision-making.”
On the first day of the posting for the October action, she said, hundreds of people signed up. The number of organizations endorsing the event stands at 25 as of this writing, with many more expected as these groups go through their endorsement processes.
In announcing the call for the action, organizers said they believed a tipping point has been reached in the American people’s disgust with “the atrocities of U.S. foreign and military policy” and “a U.S. domestic policy that steals from the people to add to the already hideously bursting pockets of the wealthy.” The time is ripe, they said, for a Tahrir Square-style outpouring.
“When the tipping point is reached, it seems at once both unexpected and completely obvious. We are nearing that tipping point in the United States. We have witnessed the Arab Spring and the blossoming of the European Summer. We ask ourselves if now we will experience the American Autumn,” wrote organizers Flowers, Kevin Zeese (head of Come Home America and ItsOurEconomy.us), Tarak Kauff (Veterans for Peace) and Elaine Brower (a military mother and a leader of the antiwar group World Can’t Wait) in announcing the action.
Swanson told Nieman Watchdog he expected the mainstream media to continue to ignore antiwar activities until “we significantly prevent business as usual by nonviolently blocking doors, buildings, offices and streets. Then and only then will we rapidly transition from the ‘first they ignore you stage’, to the ‘then they mock you stage’, to be followed by the ‘then they attack you stage – only if and when some major success appears likely.”
Swanson said he would “be delighted to be proved wrong” about the mainstream media, but he said “the majority positions of Americans on ending wars, taxing corporations and billionaires, providing healthcare and safe retirement, investing in education and jobs and clean energy, and so forth, are routinely ignored and belittled” by major news organizations.
Kevin Zeese echoed Swanson’s critique, indicating activists’ general distrust of major news organizations and increasing reliance on online alternative media to spread and report their message.
“We have so little faith in the corporate media that we did not even emphasize sending an announcement of our plans to them,” Zeese told Nieman Watchdog. “We know they will either ignore or denigrate us, so why bother.”
Major news organizations do indeed ignore antiwar events. It’s understandable that the big media outlets can’t cover every protest, especially in Washington, D.C., where there are so many – but by ignoring antiwar protests almost totally, editors are treating opposition to the war much as they handled the run-up to the war in Iraq: they are missing an important story and contributing to the perception that there is no visible opposition to the Afghanistan war – even as polls show overwhelming support for a U.S. military withdrawal.
Exhibit A: Last Dec. 16, in a demonstration organized by Veterans for Peace, 500 or more people gathered outside the White House, as snow was falling, to protest the war and to support Wikileaks and accused leaker PFC Bradley Manning. There were 131 arrests – including a sizable number of veterans – for nonviolent acts of civil disobedience. One of the arrestees had chained himself to the White House fence and another to a lamppost. Additional newsworthy factors: Among those arrested were the nation’s most famous whistleblower (Daniel Ellsberg); a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter (Chris Hedges); a much-praised FBI whistleblower (Coleen Rowley); a former CIA analyst who used to prepare daily presidential briefings (Ray McGovern), among others. Additionally, the demonstration seemed newsworthy because it coincided with both the release of the Pentagon’s latest progress report on Afghanistan to President Obama and, as blogger David Lindorff noted, the results of a new ABC/Washington Post poll in which 60 percent of Americans responded that the Afghanistan war had not been “worth fighting.”
Our own research confirmed what Lindorff wrote at the time: “It was blacked out of the New York Times...the Philadelphia Inquirer...the Los Angeles Times..the Wall Street Journal...and even blacked out of the capital’s local daily, the Washington Post.” NPR gave it 143 words, and USA Today 74 words. Using videos and text, the protest – including the arrests, interviews of veterans as to why they were planning to be arrested, as well as excerpts from speeches by participants – was covered by nontraditional media: The Huffington Post , the Socialist Worker, OpEd News, Salem-News.com in Oregon, and...the Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald.
The Washington Post ran a wire service photo of Daniel Ellsberg inside the Metro section with the cutline that he and “several others” were arrested for not dispersing. When some readers complained to Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander about the lack of coverage, he checked with the U.S. Park Service and learned that the 131 arrests was the biggest mass arrest of the year for park police – another newsworthy factor. Alexander allowed as how 131 arrests “warrant more than an inaccurate cutline” but also revealingly stated what would seem to be a common newsroom attitude: “Staged events with mass arrests don’t necessarily have high news value.” As if other large rallies just break out spontaneously without any planning.
“Happily,” Zeese continued, “more and more Americans do not trust the media” and rely instead for news on “independent media sources telling the truth,” detracting from what he called “the corporate media’s credibility.” There is also the possibility that a successful action at Freedom Plaza could attract overseas media attention.
Flowers, a congressional fellow with Physicians for a National Health Program, told Nieman Watchdog that the October nonviolent action is “a very important project in furthering the cause about which I am so passionate – truly universal health care, a single payer health system in the United States, and creating a healthier society and environment.”
Flowers said that even given the “corporate domination of the political process and the media message...Our strength is in our numbers. The majority of people want to end corporate control, end the wars, have single payer health care, better jobs and education, stable climate.” The only chance to achieve this, she said, “is to unite and engage in nonviolent resistance to wrest this corporate control away and create a functional situation.”
The online pledge to attend the Freedom Plaza protest reads, in part: “I pledge that if any U.S. troops, contractors, or mercenaries remain in Afghanistan on Thursday, October 6, 2011, as that criminal occupation goes into its 11th year, I will commit to being in Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C., with others on that day with the intention of making it our Tahrir Square, our Madison, Wisconsin, where we will nonviolently resist the corporate machine until our resources are invested in human needs and environmental protection instead of war and exploitation...” President Obama has indicated a goal of a 2014 full withdrawal date, if Afghan security forces are ready to take over from U.S. and NATO troops then.
Among the other initial signers in support of the pledge are Cornel West (author and professor of African American studies and religion, Princeton University); radio and television political show host Thom Hartmann; Rabbi Michael Lerner (editor, Tikkun Magazine); Glen Ford (executive editor, Black Agenda Report); former FBI agent and whistleblower Coleen Rowley (a Time magazine co-person-of-the-year in 2002); noted civil rights and civil liberties attorney Bill Quigley; former New York Times war correspondent and Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hedges; retired colonel, State Department diplomat and activist Ann Wright; Matthew Rothschild (editor, The Progressive magazine); former CIA analyst Ray McGovern; the antiwar group Code Pink cofounder Medea Benjamin; longtime peace activist Kathy Kelly (co-founder, Voices for Creative Nonviolence); military mother Elaine Brower (a leader of the antiwar group World Can’t Wait); and prominent Washington, D.C. activist and religious leader, the Rev. Graylan Hagler (Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ).
Initial organizations supporting the action include the major antiwar group the ANSWER Coalition, Veterans for Peace, United National Antiwar Committee, Single Payer Action, Code Pink, Voices for Creative Nonviolence, the Green Party, firedoglake, World Can’t Wait, National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance, Black Agenda Report, War Is A Crime, Network of Spiritual Progressives, Tikkun, and Pax Christi Metro DC-Baltimore, among others. | John Hanrahan is a former executive director of The Fund for Investigative Journalism and reporter for The Washington Post, The Washington Star, UPI, and other news organizations. He is now on special assignment for Nieman Watchdog. E-mail: hanrahan@niemanwatchdog.org
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Posted by Joe Anybody
at 6:00 AM PDT
Updated: Thursday, 9 June 2011 8:12 AM PDT
Saturday, 4 June 2011
Fukushima and the Lessons we are not learning in the US
Mood:
blue
Now Playing: Nukes and Mother Nature - The risks are not worth the price.
Topic: ENVIRONMENTAL
Was Fukushima too big to fail? A blog by Tom Hastings: Posted: 04 Jun 2011 08:11 AM PDT When George Bush started bailing out corporations and Barack Obama continued we were told that those corporations were too big to fail. The dangers of massive corporations dragging down all of us were noted, they were bailed out, and were they then downsized? Nope. What is up with that? Fukushima was out of the control of the Japanese government. It was big and the tsunami was bigger. It failed. So, put up your hand if you learned anything from that. Germany? Yes, we see you learned. Japan? We hope so! The US? No hand? We have just been told today that the economy is tanking again in part because of Fukushima. A Japanese disaster is an American disaster these days. We have 110 nuclear reactors in the US. How many could suffer massive damage like Fukushima before we wreck our economy for many years to come? "Only" four of these plants are in similar earthquake and tsunami zones? Well, what else might surprise us? What if a nuclear power plant gets hit by a massive tornado? Lucky thing there was no nuke in Joplin, Missouri. How many 200 mph trucks flying through the air would it take to breach a reactor? What happens when floods overwhelm a nuke on the Mississippi River? Can't happen? Right. Neither could Fukushima. I've been to the Prairie Island nuclear power plants and on-site storage of massive amounts of high-level nuclear waste. They are smack in the floodplain of the biggest river in North America. The potential exists there to poison that river for generations. All it takes is one bad hand from Mother Nature, one demented terrorist in a small airplane loaded with explosives, one human operator error. The reality is that nuclear power has always been for too risky, so it cannot exist without government exemption from liability. The risks are just plain stupid. And, of course, the nuclear executives and p.r. people are quick to claim that it's 70 percent of the emissions-free base load. Well, it's 100 percent of the radioactive baseload. Baseload? Bonneville Power Administration literally cannot even give away electric power right now, the hydro base is so rampant. Shut down the nukes and buy it cheap from BPA! No hydro, wind or solar disasters can come close to a nuclear disaster. Insurance companies will happily handle solar and wind without government shields. If our economy and our ecology--in the long run, they are the same--are too big to fail we should stop using nuclear power.
Posted by Joe Anybody
at 9:05 PM PDT
Thursday, 2 June 2011
The Cure for Plutocracy: Strike!
Mood:
loud
Now Playing: The Cure for Plutocracy: Strike!by DAVID SWANSON
Topic: PROTEST!
· BY DAVID SWANSON: The Cure for Plutocracy: Strike!
The Cure for Plutocracy: Strike!by DAVID SWANSON
The central tool that must be revived is the strike that halts production and imposes a cost on an employer. A strike is not a public relations stunt, but a tool for shifting power from a few people to a great many. The era of the death of labor, the era we have been living in, is the era of the scab or replacement worker. Scabs were uncommon in the 1950s, spotted here and there in the 1960s and 1970s, and widespread from the 1980s forward.
In the absence of understanding the need to truly strike, the labor movement has tried everything else for the past 30 years: pretend strikes for publicity, working to the rule (slowing down in every permitted way), corporate campaigns pressuring employers from various angles, social unionism and coalition building outside of the house of labor, living wage campaigns, and organizing for the sake of organizing. These approaches have all had some defensive successes, but they all appear powerless to turn the ship around.
"[T]he idea that the labor movement can resolve its crisis simply by adding new members -- without a powerful strike in place," writes Burns, "actually constitutes one of the greatest theoretical impediments to union revival." From 1995 to 2008, with unions focused on organizing the unorganized, the U.S. labor movement shrank from 9.4 million to 8.2 million members. The Service Employee International Union (SEIU)'s famous organizing success is in large part the takeover of other unions, that is of people already unionized, and in large part the bribing of politicians (through "campaign contributions" and other pressure) to allow the organizing of public home health-care workers. What's left of the labor movement is, in fact, so concentrated in the public sphere, that unionized workers are being effectively attacked as living off the hard-earned pay of private tax-payers.
The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), so much a part of candidate Obama's campaign, and now long forgotten, might not fix anything if passed, in Burns' analysis. To succeed, the labor movement needs the sort of exponential growth it has had at certain moments in the past. Easier organizing alone would not persuade enough workers that joining a union is good for them. But persuading them that joining a union holds immediate advantages for them would revive labor with or without EFCA. And EFCA might make things worse. EFCA tries to legislate the right to quickly create new contracts, to avoid employer stalling. But it does this by subjecting workers to the decisions of arbitrators. Rather than empowering a class of arbitrators, the labor movement we had until 30 years ago would have considered the obvious solution to be empowering workers to compel the creation of contracts through the power of the production-halting strike.
Striking does not require a union or majority support but is itself a tool of organizing and radicalizing, with a minority of leaders moving others to join in what they would not choose to do alone. Solidarity is the process as well as the product of a labor movement. And it is by building strikes with the power to halt entire sectors of the economy, not through bribes and emails and marches, that ordinary people gain power over their so-called representatives in government. "Imagine telling Samuel Gompers or Mother Jones or the Reuther brothers or Jimmy Hoffa that trade unions could exist without a strike. However, in the name of pragmatism," Burns writes, "the 'progressive' trade unionists of today have fit themselves into a decaying structure. On a deeper level, they have abandoned the goal of creating the type of labor movement capable of transforming society."
To turn this around, Burns suggests, we will have to change the way we think about workplaces. According to our courts, a man or woman can work for decades in a business and nonetheless have no legal interest in it, the legal interest belonging entirely to the employer. The employer can move the business to another country without violating a labor contract. The employer can sell out to another employer and eliminate a labor contract in the process. The employer can break a strike with scabs. The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) of 1935 might have looked good on paper, but its interpretation by courts and restriction by other legislation -- notably the Taft Hartley Act of 1947 -- have made clear its weaknesses. Labor has no choice left, Burns argues, but to repeal the NLRA by noncompliance.
Posted by Joe Anybody
at 6:29 AM PDT
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30 Comments so far
Show AllAnother reason not to buy Apple. I have been peripherally involved with Apple on and off for years and I can tell you that there exists no company on the planet, Microsoft included, that wants to control your experience and YOU more than Apple. Their vision of the electronic world will have you making micro-payments to them in one form or another for every video, every song, every transaction. All they want is a penny a transaction.... from everyone on the planet... every day.
Apple stuff is cool and it is good, but you end up a Lotus Eater in the end if you go down their path.
Apple is proving to be quite a fascist operation.
Operating under the guise of "coolness" (er, like Obama the Murderer) both are proving to be more dubious by the day. Get the kids and you've got the future.
"Get the kids and you've got the future."
Hitler couldn't have said it better. Come to think of it, he did!
So did Loyola. Oops, Stalin, too.
"Get the kids and you've got the future."
Hitler couldn't have said it better. Come to think of it, he did!
So did Loyola. Oops, Stalin, too.
But this article uses Apple as a starting point. The whole elctronic internet is basically the private property of the web hosting and server owners - and the US First Amandment or the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights does not apply for practical purposes on private property. To see the significance - try exercising you first amendment rights by holding a demonstration or passing out leaflets in a shopping mall.
Excesive reliance on the internet is potentially very dangerous for organized activism. It needs to be backed-up by traditional organizing methods - posters, flyers, portable electronic media and phone-trees using ordinary copper-wire land lines - which are still covered by common-carrier and state public utility comission laws, and therefore to some degree, public space. Also, mass organizing will continue to remain far more effectvie in urban spaces - where public spaces exist. Mobilizing suburban spaces - especially the outer sprawling sun-belt style suburbs, will always be very difficult.
Good points pjd. All of them.
One electronic "alternative", still in its infancy, is Wire. Link at: ( http://wire.0xf.nl ) Right now its merely a shell. I log on here and there to see what updates have been added and whatnot. I think it will be interesting to watch grow at the very least and could be very useful to activists in the near future.
It offers service based on the originator's servers or the source code is open source and available for download to be tweaked as you wish and hosted on your own servers. It won't get the publicity face book does. But, with everything you mentioned why would anyone really want that anyway?
Very well said. Apple is to Microsoft as Democrats are to Republicans.
We see it again and again. Capitalism starts out with new ideas and technologies spread between innovative companies. Then, over time, thanks to mergers and acquisitions, we end up with a few 'too big to fail' companies and very few choices. Next, Big Companies and Big Government become interchangeable.
In addition to this, the amount of meaningful innovation that Apple is responsible for is basically zero. They make good (often excellent) products that people buy, and sometimes popularize some marginally interesting technology, but they've invented nothing.
I am not aware that Apple makes anything. Most of their garbage comes from Foxconn, who makes much better and cheaper things without the Apple label on them.
They make the software and the "design", the "intellectual property". A typical "hollow corporation", you're right about that.
Well, as long as you feel safe, that's all that matters. Will you ever feel safe enough?
well, the camera is good for documenting abuse, but doesn't really do much regarding stopping the abuse...
our technological window is closing, as the natural world is losing the ability to support...
soon, we will be back to watching cops beat us, rather than capturing a digital data stream of them doing so...
what's the difference, really?
one of the founding features of Heaven must be Internal Censure...
I don't like and will never use anything made by apple. I didn't like their OS back in the system7 days, and see no reason to think it's any better now. They have exhibited as closed minded a philosophy as possible for a tech company, and haven't been a friend to even their own users. If it's MY machine, and I PAID for it, making it MY machine, then you have no business telling me what I can and can't do with it. This is the same reason why Sony is on my never buy list as well. Why tech companies think that the rules of ownership should be different for them, I will never understand. Just like the whole idea of "leasing" MS software. You don't actually OWN that, you know. Next to NO rights to speak of, just the right to PAY for it.
No thanks. I don't need, want, or trust companies like Apple. And the friendlier they try to make themselves look, the LESS I trust them.
Think this WON'T be abused by every cop station in the country that wants to screw you one way or another? COUNT ON IT.
Activists please note...
Film cameras work just fine
And...you can develop film yourself
Apple- bringin' back the super 8.
It's an interesting turnaround since cell phones are regularly used to spy on us, can be activated remotely as a eye or ear with no trouble at all, but now they'll kill them if endangering the entrenched system. The lady being arrested is pretty disturbing since police have guns and the right to kill citizens while this poor woman, on her own property, had a camera. There is no justice, no freedom of speech, no bill of rights in America any longer in spite of the cardboard cutout parade. Apple is only one of the tools of the current regime.
So, Apple is now "Junior Neighborhood Patrol".
"Pant, pant...Sir, can I have a *badge*, please Sir?"
Technology always has the potential to be abused, and this is just one example. The way to stop this one: simple. Stop buying Apple cellphones. That's one message Jobs will hear. And do Canadians a favour: buy a Blackberry instead, and help out Research In Motion (RIM). As for the comment that capturing images doesn't stop abuse: that's not true. At the Toronto G20 debacle last summer, the major media were all ready to demonize peaceful protesters and cheer the police for arresting ordinary citizens, but attitudes began to change when photos and video footage from citizen witnesses showed clearly that police were allowed to suspend the law. This has raised all sorts of unnerving questions about the degree to which we have given up our liberties -- questions we need to ask.
Missing from this dialogue is the absurd idea that anyone taking a picture or video at some venue, like a concert, is going to deprive anyone of their desperate income. I originally had this discussion with a lawyer friend revolving around the copying of software. The idea that "X" number of dollars are lost to pirates is a stretch because you'd have to prove that anyone who had received a copy of some software was going to buy it for full value to start with. Most people forget that full retail costs for something like Microsoft Office Pro is $500. As for shutting off cameras during a concert, I don't get it. I guess the logic is that someone will watch a crappy, shaky, video with shitty sound over actually going to a concert? I've been to a few and you go because it's a live performance. If I want to see Katy Perry or Rod Stewart live I go to the concert, if not, I can watch the over 200,000 videos of Katy Perry on YouTube.
At last an undeniable and memorably vivid demonstration of the Big Lies of Internet "freedom" and its potential for "revolution."
As I have been saying for years, any medium that can be suppressed merely by the flick of a switch offers neither freedom nor revolutionary potential.
Indeed the primary function of the computer and its associated technologies is to further enslave us: tens of millions of jobs abolished forever, the advent of surveillance technologies of which the Nazis could only dream. Why else would the Ruling Class have so enthusiastically embraced it?
As I myself can attest, in the fields of journalism, publishing and graphic arts alone, the advent of the computer reduced employment by as much as 75 percent: a single newspaper reporter now, thanks to computers, does all the work formerly done by at least five people: copy editor, linotype operator, engraver, stereotyper, proof reader: all these jobs gone forever, the workers typically flung into permanent under-employment or unemployment, their skills and careers sacrificed on the altar of capitalist greed.
Meanwhile by our consumeroid acceptance of not just computers but every other associated gew-gaw we have imposed on ourselves a surveillance network that enables the government and/or the Ruling Class to not only monitor us 24/7 but -- literally by the aforementioned flick -- render us deaf, mute, blind and therefore utterly powerless.
Somewhere in Hell, Heinrich Himmler is surely cackling with glee.
You want maybe someone else should hold the patent?
You think M$, Sony, who exactly, is going to listen to your complaints? http://www.businessweek.com/interactive_reports/customer_service_2010.html Apple's A+ at #3, no other computer companies in the top 25.
I love Apple, and the twenty years of help and support their products have given me. (disclaimer: I am not a cell/i-phone user.)
Hate/Love aside, what alternative is there to the Apple patent?
You want to make the technology illegal? Good luck (honest!)
It can't be uninvented.
I don't want it in the phone. I don't want it in the world;
but the genie is released.
1) lobby Apple not to use it.
2) don't buy the iPhone.
or
3) fume.
I have not and will not purchase any of Apple's WAY OVERPRICED crap.
What the hell are you talking about? Just like there are regulations for cars, there are regulations for cell phones, and the use of this quite trivial "technology" could simply be disallowed or mandated. Nothing to invent or uninvent, it's a question of social decision, not technology.
I think I'll keep my old SLR (film) camera awhile longer...
I think that everyone living in urban merka should continue to buy their apple iphones and lexus suvs, continue to vote demoks into power, and continue to pretend that everything's kosher in urban merka.
This is story about Apple, but I would like to say something about the XBOX 360 Kinect.
In George Orwell's book "1984", you got to watch the TV, but the TV had a camera that watches you. The book did not mention what would happen to you if you covered the camera lens with duct tape. The fiction seemed implausible, because I could not imagine why people would put up with Big Brother watching inside their own home.
But wait, the XBOX 360 is as good as that, and more. The Kinect has a camera (or two) and a microphone. Although it is to be used for games, there is absolutely nothing to stop Microsoft from straming information back to wherever, should the government request that of Microsoft.
Microsoft have insisted that they wont peek through the camera. That sounds a bit re-assuring, you may think, until you read the End User License, that you have agreed to by using the XBOX 360, and realise that you have agreed that Microsoft is permitted to catch any photos and video that they please, and furthermore, you have agreed that they have the right to pass those photos or videos on to commercial partners.
Once the XBOX is connected to the internet (via ethernet cable or wireless), it automatically connects to Microsoft. Once connected, Microsoft will update your XBOX 360 software with anything that Microsoft chooses to put on it. That software can (and most likely does) include backdoors for spying for use by the CIA, Homeland security, etc. Microsoft have been caught before with some of their backdoors, that permit Big Brother to have secret internet access to Microsoft Windows. There is also nothing to stop special software being targeted to a particular IP address (your home).
The XBOX 360 has a hypervisor, which means that it simply will not run any software that has not been approved and digitally signed by Microsoft. For example, if you attempt to run Linux on your XBOX 360, you will find that you cannot. There has been a game between pro-Linux hackers and Microsoft, and Microsoft has basically won. Any useful wires have been hidden where a hardware hacker cannot connect to it, and nobody has been able to crack the hypervisor. This means that Microsoft have complete control over what software can run on the machine and you, on the other hand, have no control.
In summary, the XBOX 360 with Kinect is a games machine that doubles as a spy camera for your living room, and comes with its own license which makes it legal for them to do the spying. And yet the general public have payed money to put this machine in their living room. Given what it can do, it seems that Homeland Security should have purchased this and given one to every household for free.
I would recommend disconnecting the XBOX 360 from the internet except where needed. I would recommend disconnecting the Kinect, except where you actually were going to use it.
Well, you know, since SCOTUS has declared that corporations are people now, it seems to me that these "people" ought to also do what most of the rest of us do: OBEY THE LAW! (no duh)
This so called "kill switch" is about protecting Apple users from mal-ware, not about Big Brother deciding when we can use our phones and when we can't. If you you feel paranoid, and don't want it built into your phone, it'll take about 5 secs to google hack sites that will tell you how to disable it. Personally I prefer to know my software will work properly. Haven't we got enough real civil liberty issues to worry about, without re-inventing the somewhat liberal Steve Jobs and his seemingly very benign company, as a monster of depravity? Come on folks - keep it real
Re: "...Your phone determines whether an image includes an infrared beam with encoded data..."
Solution: YOU determine whether an infrared beam enters YOUR lens... by attaching a little optical filter...
From: http://www.optics-online.com/irc.asp :
"... An IR cut-off filter blocks the transmission of the infrared while passing the visible. This can be done with two optical techniques: absorption or reflection. Absorptive filters are made with special optical glass that absorbs near infrared radiation. Reflection type filters are short-pass interference filters that reflect infrared light with high efficiency..."
I expect to see a snap-on filter in their inventory the week of Apple's rollout.
Boo-ya!