In the pre-dawn hours Saturday, the Senate approved a measure “to uphold Second Amendment rights and prevent the United States from entering into the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty.”
Aaron’s Swartz’s suicide in January triggered waves of indignation, and rightly so. He faced multiple felony counts and years in prison for what were, at worst, trivial transgressions of law. But his prosecution revealed the excess of both anti-hacking criminal statutes, particularly the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), and the fixation of federal prosecutors on severely punishing all forms of activism that challenge the power of the government and related entities to control the flow of information on the internet. Part of what drove the intense reaction to Swartz’s death was how sympathetic of a figure he was, but as noted by Orin Kerr, a former federal prosecutor in the DOJ’s computer crimes unit and now a law professor at GWU, what was done to Swartz is anything but unusual, and the reaction to his death will be meaningful only if channeled to protest other similar cases of prosecutorial abuse: Continue reading “The persecution of Barrett Brown – and how to fight it”
Breaking up is hard to do, especially when it is with a tracking service like a financial institution.
Sometimes you can make a clean break and other times you have to remain “just friends”.
The US government actually has a name for people who have no bank accounts – they call these folks “the unbanked”. The FDIC defines the unbanked as “those without an account at a bank or other financial institution and are considered to be outside the mainstream for one reason or another.” Another term is “the underbanked” – “people or businesses that have poor access to mainstream financial services normally offered by retail banks. The underbanked can be characterized by a strong reliance on non-traditional forms of finance and micro-finance often associated with disadvantaged and the poor, such as check cashers, loan sharks and pawnbrokers.” Continue reading “Unbanking vs. Underbanking: How to Break Up with the Financial System”
NEW YORK — A new $12 million television ad campaign from Mayors Against Illegal Guns will push senators in key states to back gun control efforts, including comprehensive background checks.
There are some stories that are so over the top as an example of the brazen disregard for human dignity that they defy imagination. But, we know that truth is stranger than fiction . . . and this latest event is certainly proof of that.
Cyprus has set an unpopular precedent; it has given us a grim look into the future. As our global debt bomb grows beyond any hope of sustainability, confiscation could be the next step.
Sadly, this threat is real, as demonstrated by the bank bailout proposed in Cyprus last week. The financial realm was shocked when the nation’s financial leaders agreed to steal cash from bank depositors in order to fund an emergency bailout. Continue reading “Debt Bomb on the Brink of Explosion”
In the Star Wars saga electromagnetic grenades are use do disable robots, but the U.S. Army is developing the weapon to disable the electronics on Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs). The Intense Electromagnetic Pulse (IMP) Grenade will be thrown and launched just like conventional grenades. When it is developed, it may also be made available to local police forces.
One of the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command (USASMDC/ARSTRAT) Army SBIR Phase II contractors, TRS Technologies, Inc., has been competitively selected to receive the Army Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Achievement Award for their effort titled “New Ferroelectric Components for Ferroelectric Generators (FEGs) and Capacitive Discharge Units (CDUs).” The technology developed under this Army SBIR is a critical component of the Intense Electromagnetic Pulse (IMP) Grenade being developed for counter improvised explosive device (IED) applications. Continue reading “Electromagnetic Pulse Grenade Under Development By U.S. Army”
Cyprus and the Troika have agreed to a 20 per cent tax on deposits over 100,000 euros at the Bank of Cyprus and 4 per cent on deposits held at other banks.
I would like to give a little background information.
My Mother was a very caring and straightforward person, a real person that said what she thought.
When my youngest sibling was being born, the nurses, one on each side held a sheet (Filled with ice packs) up toward my mom’s upper body to prevent birth until the Dr. arrived. My sister was already crowning. Continue reading “The Price of Medicaid – Everything You Have Left”
Two train enthusiasts who were arrested for photographing in the subway have won a big victory for all New Yorkers who don’t want to show their papers while commuting. Steve Barry and Michael Burkhart were arrested in August 2010 at Broad Channel while waiting for one of the MTA’s beloved nostalgia trains to roll in. Barry, the editor of Railfan & Railroad Magazine, and Burkhart were taking photos on the platform when a cop approached them and told them that photography was prohibited in the subway system. This, as most of us know, is not true, and when Barry questioned the legality of the officer’s order, they were told to produce identification. Continue reading “Cops Must Stop Arresting Straphangers Who Don’t Have I.D., Judge Rules”
LOS ANGELES — Hundreds of law enforcement officers on Friday raided Southern California auto parts shops and other businesses suspected of illegally selling nitrous oxide for use as a recreational drug, in what federal authorities said was the nation’s largest such raid ever. Continue reading “Feds raid 17 California businesses for nitrous oxide”
Early Thursday morning on July 8th, a friend and I were pulled over by police in Round Rock, TX on the way to an Iraq Veterans Against the Wars national convention. The officer Jeff Gogolewski accused my friend of driving 6 over the speed limit. After approaching my passenger window, the officer was quick to ask my friend to step out of the vehicle and come talk to him between it and his patrol car after stating that he didn’t want to talk across the car and over me. This raised my suspicion of the stop and at this point I was tempted to grab my video camera from my travel bag but decided that my opening of the bag would cause the officer to feel threatened. Continue reading “My Rights Violated By Round Rock Police Department, Texas”
The United States Constitution defines treason as waging war against a State or adhering to its enemies, and protects each State from invasion. Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence frames the American republic as one that can change its constituent member States, should the will of the people of any State desire it. All this was turned upside down by a political party which had seized unlimited power through Lincoln. After the war, Radical Republican strategy for political hegemony was to register all Southern black males using the infamous Union and Loyal Leagues as whips, and disenfranchise white voters who defended their country, the Confederate States. Continue reading ““…the difference (was) between martyrdom and suicide.””