Latest revision as of 08:22, 30 September 2015

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Indefinite solitary confinement

Whistleblower Chelsea Manning is now facing the serious threat of "indefinite solitary confinement" in prison at Fort Leavenworth, where she is serving a 35-year sentence for providing WikiLeaks with documentation of a vast array of war crimes and deception by the U.S. government ^[1][2][3][4].

Fined for posting picture of police car

Unnamed woman from Alicante ordered to pay €800 under controversial gagging law for posting photo on her Facebook page. A Spanish woman has been fined €800 (£570) under the country’s controversial new gagging law for posting a photograph of a police car parked illegally in a disabled bay. The unnamed woman, a resident of Petrer in Alicante, south-east Spain, posted the photo on her Facebook page with the comment “Park where you bloody well please and you won’t even be fined” ^[5].

Irrational, unpredictable authorities

US, 09/02/2015, on Barrett Brown vs. the Dept of Justice – Defining the Right To Link: It is clear from the indictment and the transcript that prosecutor Candina Heath is willing to go after people on flimsy theories, and catching a case alone can be punishment enough. If defendants are denied bail, they can be detained for years—prior to his final sentencing, Brown spent more than 850 days behind bars. If they hire lawyers, they must pay legal costs. No matter what the accused try to do, the odds are incredibly stacked against them: 97 percent of federal cases end in plea bargains ^[6].

The authorities’ arguments do not even have to make sense. As the defense’s motion to dismiss the indictment points out, the first count alleges Brown trafficked in “authentication features”—but the law defines those as springing only from governmental “issuing authorities,” not credit card companies ^[7]. The flat-out error is reminiscent of the prosecution’s earlier indictment, regarding Brown’s threats, crazily interpreting the writer’s disapproving retweet of Fox News analyst Bob Beckel advocating the murder of WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange—“illegally shoot the son of a bitch”—as Brown somehow threatening the FBI agent. These irrational accusations are the Department of Justice wildly swinging punches wherever it can, aiming to take down the journalist, but not in any accordance with reason and only allowed to box because we let it.^[8]

Smart Cities

"They will lead to unprecedented improvements in the quality of life." You have *got* to be kidding me. And knowing current practices of "giving people a choice" there is no opt-in (by default we are all in) and we may be allowed to opt-out (but only for a part of it). Sensors everywhere. Access points everywhere. Smaaaart. Not. http://www.smart-cities.eu/

Fictional internet policy is bad for India, good only for Facebook

Zuckerberg's "Free Basics" is a scam against its supposed beneficiaries for several reasons. First, rather than offering "the Internet," his service requires its users to route all their traffic to "free websites" through his servers, where the users' identities are logged so that their traffic can be paid for by the spy, rather than by them. So the first actual charge is that the poor will be comprehensively surveilled by Facebook, losing any shred of personal privacy, while the rich using the real Internet do not route all their traffic through Facebook.

Second, Zuckerberg destroys the security of his users, the benefited poor. As announced, Zuckerberg's service prohibited all use of the secure web protocol HTTPS (the one that lights up the little lock image on the status bar of your browser). HTTPS, and its authentication mechanism, are the only reasons that online banking and e-commerce are safe for consumers. So not only were the Indian poor to lose all chance of anonymity on the Net with respect to Zuckerberg, but they were also to abandon any possibility of common safety in the Net. http://tech.firstpost.com/news-analysis/fictional-internet-policy-is-bad-for-india-good-only-for-facebook-282664.html

Resources

• Chapter Six – Removing The Veil (Part 1) http://underminers.org/the-book/chapter-6/chapter-6-part-1/
• Chapter Six – Removing The Veil (Part 2) http://underminers.org/the-book/chapter-6/chapter-6-part-2/
• Chapter Six – Removing The Veil (Part 3) http://underminers.org/the-book/chapter-6/chapter-6-part-3/

Related

• Roleplay
• Elicitation
• Wordsmithing

References

1. ↑ Chelsea Manning Faces Solitary Confinement http://www.newsweek.com/chelsea-manning-faces-indefinite-solitary-confinement-having-caitlyn-jenner-362471
2. ↑ Trevor Timm: Chelsea Manning Threatened with ‘Indefinite Solitary Confinement’ http://boingboing.net/2015/08/12/chelsea-manning-threatened-wit.html
3. ↑ BuzzFeed News: Chelsea Manning Faces Solitary Confinement http://www.buzzfeed.com/chrisgeidner/chelsea-manning-faces-solitary-confinement-under-new-charges
4. ↑ Urgent Petition in Support of Chelsea Manning's Human Rights http://act.rootsaction.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=11573
5. ↑ Spanish woman fined for posting picture of police parked in disabled bay http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/16/spanish-woman-fined-gagging-law-photographing-police
6. ↑ Stronger Hand for Judges in the ‘Bazaar’ of Plea Deals http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/23/us/stronger-hand-for-judges-after-rulings-on-plea-deals.html
7. ↑ 18 U.S. Code § 1028 - Fraud and related activity in connection with identification documents, authentication features, and information https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1028
8. ↑ Barrett Brown vs. the Dept of Justice – Defining the Right To Link http://revolution-news.com/barrett-brown-vs-the-dept-of-justice-defining-the-right-to-link/