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November 17, 2011

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US LAWMAKERS VOTE FOR CONCEALED WEAPON BILL

November 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The US House of Representatives on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved legislation to make it easier for people with a concealed firearm permit in one state to take their weapon to another.

The Republican-held chamber voted 272-154 for the measure, which drew some Democratic support but faces an uncertain future in the Senate.

The bill would allow people with a permit to carry a concealed firearm in one state to do so in other states that allow concealed firearms and do not restrict non-residents from bearing them.

Only Illinois and the US capital Washington do not allow concealed firearms.

The White House has not formally taken a position on the bill, which touches on a historically volatile issue even as the campaign to the November 2012 elections has heated up.

Republican Representative Trent Franks, a supporter of the measure, said in a recent USA Today column that it would treat concealed firearm permits “much like driver’s licenses,” which are accepted in all 50 states despite variations in driving tests.

But “driving is far more regulated,” requiring licensed drivers and registered vehicles that must in most cases be insured, said Brian Malte, who tracks federal legislation for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

Malte told AFP by telephone that the measure “tramples states’ rights to determine who they allow or want to carry concealed handguns” by setting requirements such as live-fire training or criminal background checks.

He cited Utah, where “you don’t even have to be a resident to get a permit, you can get it through the mail without ever having set foot in the state” and noted that nearby Nevada and New Mexico rescinded reciprocal agreements with their neighbor in 2010 because of its permissive standards.

“Under this law, Congress would be saying, in effect, ‘too bad, you have to accept their (Utah’s) permits,’” he said.

 

Source: https://www.activistpost.com/2011/11/us-lawmakers-vote-for-concealed-weapon.html

Filed Under: America, Civil Liberties, Corporations, Democracy, Human Rights, Hunting, Law, Lobbying, Media, Military Industrial Complex, Money, Police, Politicians, Politics, Rights, Surveillance, Wealthy Elite

Why Bloomberg Fights Occupy Wall Street

November 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Why is New York City major Michael Bloomberg defending raids on Zuccotti Park to destroy the Occupy Wall Street protests?

 

 

Filed Under: America, Banks, Capitalism, Censorship, Civil Liberties, Corporations, Corruption, Education, Human Rights, Martial Law, Money, New World Order, Occupy, Police, Politicians, Politics, Poverty, Privacy, Propaganda, Protests, Revolution, Wealthy Elite

DEPT. OF JUSTICE SAYS LYING ON THE INTERNET IS A FEDERAL CRIME

November 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is backing a controversial component of an existing computer fraud law that makes it a crime to use a fake name on Facebook or embellish your weight on an online dating profile such as eHarmony. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), a 25-year-old law that mainly addresses hacking, password trafficking, and computer viruses, should enforce criminal penalties for users who violate websites’ terms of service agreements, alleges the Justice Department.

In a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on crime, terrorism and homeland security, federal officials deliberated over cyber threats to the country’s infrastructure and a perplexing interpretation of the law that makes lying on the Internet a crime. During the hearing, titled “Cyber Security: Protecting America’s New Frontier,” the DOJ’s deputy computer crime chief Richard Downing addressed Congress, asserting that the CFAA law must allow “prosecutions based upon a violation of terms of service or similar contractual agreement with an employer or provide[r].”

“Businesses should have confidence that they can allow customers to access certain information on the business’s servers, such as information about their own orders and customer information, but that customers who intentionally exceed those limitations and obtain access to the business’s proprietary information and the information of other customers can be prosecuted,” said Downing’s prepared remarks.

This interpretation of the law was applied by the DOJ in 2008 to prosecute Lori Drew, a woman who created a fake MySpace account and cyber attacked a 13-year-old girl who then committed suicide. The department contended that MySpace’s terms of service restricts users from creating fraudulent profiles, so Drew was convicted of violating the CFAA (although her conviction was dismissed in 2009). “It basically leaves it up to a website owner to determine what is a crime,” U.S. District Judge George Wu indicatedin his 2009 verdict, which acquitted Drew of the charges. “And therefore it criminalizes what would be a breach of contract.”

The DOJ justified the move by enforcing a dubious section of the CFAA that was supposedly never intended to be used in that manner, which is a general-purpose prohibition on any computer-related action that “exceeds authorized access” — meaning, a website’s terms of service determines what is “authorized” or not. This is how Downing put it in his testimony:

These are just a few cases, but this tool is used routinely. The plain meaning of the term ‘exceeds authorized access,’ as used in the CFAA, prohibits insiders from using their otherwise legitimate access to a computer system to engage in improper and often malicious activities. We believe that Congress intended to criminalize such conduct, and we believe that deterring it continues to be important. Because of this, we are highly concerned about the effects of restricting the definition of ‘exceeds authorized access’ in the CFAA to disallow prosecutions based upon a violation of terms of service or similar contractual agreement with an employer or provider.

In an August letter to the Senate, the ACLU, FreedomWorks, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Americans for Tax reform, warned that this convoluted interpretation of the law could make ignoring such “terms” a felony. “If a person assumes a fictitious identity at a party, there is no federal crime,” the letter read. “Yet if they assume that same identity on a social network that prohibits pseudonyms, there may again be a CFAA violation. This is a gross misuse of the law.” Orin Kerr, a former DOJ computer crime prosecutor and now law professor at George Washington University, says the government’s contentions are anemic, as he told CNET prior to the hearing:

The Justice Department claims to have an interest in enforcing Terms of Use and computer use policies under the CFAA, but its examples mostly consist of cases in which the conduct described has already been criminalized by statutes other than the CFAA. Further, my proposed statutory fix… would preserve the government’s ability to prosecute the remaining cases DOJ mentions while not raising the civil liberties problems of the current statute.

In combating the statute, Kerr is requesting that Congress follow the Senate Judiciary Committee’s lead, which recently approved an amendment to a pending bill that would narrow the “exceeding authorized access” interpretation of the CFAA. The amendment says the law would “not include access in violation of a contractual obligation or agreement, such as an acceptable use policy or terms of service agreement, with an Internet service provider, Internet website, or non-government employer, if such violation constitutes the sole basis for determining that access to a protected computer is unauthorized.” Downing and the DOJ requested that the House not approve the amendment.

However, beyond the devious doings of Facebook users and online dating prowlers are countless other terms of service stipulations that are littered throughout the World Wide Web. For instance, many Internet media outlets disclose various restrictions for users posting comments under articles, blogs, and forums. But how many people read the terms of service under the comments section of a website? What happens if a website’s terms of service contains a clause that prohibits users from posting opposing viewpoints? According to the DOJ, such actions are subject to prosecution.

“Terms of Use can be arbitrary and even nonsensical,” said Kerr, relaying the above note. “Anyone can set up a website and announce whatever Terms of Use they like. Perhaps the Terms of Use will declare that only registered Democrats can visit the website; or only people who have been to Alaska; or only people named “Frank.” Under the Justice Department’s interpretation of the statute, all of these Terms of Use can be criminally enforced… I do not see any serious argument why such conduct should be criminal.”

Lying on the Internet may be immoral, but should it really be criminalized by law? Moreover, is this the same DOJ headed by Attorney General Eric Holder who’s admitted lying about the “Fast and Furious” gunrunning scandal?

Indeed, the Big Brother police state, which continues to assail Americans’ civil liberties, strikes yet again.

 

Source: https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/9805-doj-says-lying-on-the-internet-is-a-federal-crime

Filed Under: America, Censorship, Civil Liberties, Consumer, Corporations, Corruption, CYBER WARFARE, Democracy, Education, Human Rights, Internet, Law, Lobbying, Media, Military Industrial Complex, Money, New World Order, Occupy, Police, Politicians, Politics, Privacy, Propaganda, Protests, Rights, Surveillance, Telecommunication, The Hidden Empire, Truth, Wealthy Elite

ANTI-HACKING LAW CRIMINALIZES MOST COMPUTER USERS, FORMER PROSECUTOR SAYS

November 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The nation’s premier anti-hacking law poses a threat to the civil liberties of millions of Americans who use computers and the internet and could lead to the arrest and prosecution of many users who violate the law on a regular basis, says a former federal prosecutor who wants the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act revised.

“In the Justice Department’s view, the CFAA criminalizes conduct as innocuous as using a fake name on Facebook or lying about your weight in an online dating profile. That situation is intolerable,” says Orin Kerr, George Washington University law professor and a former federal prosecutor in the Justice Department’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section in the Criminal Division.

Currently, the law punishes anyone who “intentionally … exceeds authorized access, and thereby obtains information from any protected computer.”

Kerr is testifying on Tuesday before the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, and is asking Congress to amend the law to narrow how prosecutors can interpret what it means to exceed authorized access on a computer.

When the legislation was first enacted in the 1980s, it specifically targeted computer hacking and other computer misuse, Kerr argues in a written version of the testimony (.pdf) he plans to give. But since then, Congress has broadened the statute significantly four times, expanding the law’s reach and rendering it “unconstitutionally vague.”

The law as it currently stands allows prosecutors to criminally prosecute users for violating an internet service provider’s terms of service agreement, something that would normally be a breach of contract issue handled in civil court rather than through criminal prosecution.

In 2008, federal prosecutors used this exact interpretation of the CFAA when they charged Missouri resident Lori Drew under the law in order to punish her for her role in a cyber-bullying incident that led a teenage girl to commit suicide.

Prosecutors argued that Drew was guilty under the CFAA for violating MySpace’s terms-of-service agreement in setting up a fraudulent account that was used to bully the teenage girl. The government argued that violating MySpace’s terms of service was the legal equivalent of computer hacking.

Drew was convicted on misdemeanor charges, but a judge subsequently threw out the verdict on grounds that the CFAA was constitutionally vague and that upholding the verdict would set a precedent for anyone who breaches similar contracts to be criminally prosecuted.

Kerr was part of Drew’s defense team as pro-bono co-counsel.

Prosecutors also used the CFAA last year to charge a ring of online ticketbrokers who wrote a script to circumvent CAPTCHA challenges used by TicketMaster and other ticket vendors to detect and slow down computers attempting to purchase large numbers of tickets.

Prosecutors asserted that bypassing CAPTCHA constituted unauthorized access of ticket-seller servers. U.S. District Judge Katharine S. Hayden allowed the case to proceed, saying, “The Court is satisfied that the indictment sufficiently alleges the elements of unauthorized access and exceeding authorized access under the CFAA, and sufficiently alleges conduct demonstrating defendants’ knowledge and intent to gain unauthorized access.”

The defendants ultimately pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and hacking.

In arguing that the statute needs to be revised, Kerr is calling on Congress to follow the Senate’s lead. The Senate Judiciary Committee recently approved an amendment to a pending bill that would limit the interpretation of exceeding authorized access under the CFAA. Per the amendment, it would ‘‘not include access in violation of a contractual obligation or agreement, such as an acceptable use policy or terms of service agreement, with an Internet service provider, Internet website, or non-government employer, if such violation constitutes the sole basis for determining that access to a protected computer is unauthorized.”

Kerr says this would still allow prosecutors to pursue cases against government employees for misusing sensitive government databases, but would not sweep in an entire class of other people for merely violating a contractual agreement with a web site or their ISP.

 

Source: https://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/11/anti-hacking-law-too-broad/

Filed Under: America, Banks, Censorship, Civil Liberties, Consumer, Corporations, Corruption, Education, Internet, Law, Lobbying, Media, Military Industrial Complex, Money, New World Order, Occupy, Police, Politicians, Politics, Prison, Privacy, Propaganda, Protests, Rights, Science, Surveillance, Telecommunication, The Hidden Empire, Wealthy Elite

WHITE HOUSE DENIES RESPONSIBILITY FOR CONFUSING EVERYONE ABOUT MEDICAL MARIJUANA

November 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

In a long piece detailing Obama’s badly botched approach to medical marijuana, the San Francisco Chronicle has a rather ridiculous quote from the White House:

A White House spokesman said that its position on medical marijuana “has been clear and consistent.”

“While the prosecution of drug traffickers is a core priority, targeting individuals with cancer and serious illnesses is not the best allocation of federal law enforcement resources,” said the spokesman, Adam Abrams.

It’s really an amazing thing to say, considering that literally nobody understands what the hell Obama’s position on medical marijuana is supposed to be anymore. To describe as “clear and consistent” something that has created sweeping confusion across the country is hilariously dishonest and insulting, but I guess it’s exactly the kind of crap we ought to expect from these people at this point.

I’d just love to hear someone at the White House explain to me why it is that their “clear and consistent” messaging about medical marijuana policy was so thoroughly misunderstood by the mainstream media, the medical marijuana industry, and the numerous state governments that invested countless hours developing new regulatory mechanisms as a direct result of the Obama administration’s statements. If every single interested party is horribly confused, then you are not in a good position to claim that you’ve been communicating clearly.

 

Source: https://www.activistpost.com/2011/11/white-house-denies-responsibility-for.html

Filed Under: America, Big Pharma, Campaigning, Censorship, Civil Liberties, Consumer, Corporations, Corruption, Drugs, Earth, Environment, Health, Law, Lobbying, Marijuana, Money, New World Order, Police, Politicians, Politics, Prison, Privacy, Propaganda, Protests, Rights, Self-Sustainability, The Hidden Empire

CRACKDOWNS REACH EPICENTER OF WALL STREET PROTESTS

November 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

JUDGE RULED THAT THEIR FREE SPEECH RIGHTS DO NOT EXTEND TO PITCHING A TENT AND SETTING UP CAMP FOR MONTHS AT A TIME

NEW YORK (AP) — Crackdowns against the Occupy Wall Street encampments across the country reached the epicenter of the movement Tuesday, when police rousted protesters from a Manhattan park and a judge ruled that their free speech rights do not extend to pitching a tent and setting up camp for months at a time.

It was a potentially devastating setback. If crowds of demonstrators return to Zuccotti Park, they will not be allowed to bring tents, sleeping bags and other equipment that turned the area into a makeshift city of dissent.

But demonstrators pledged to carry on with their message protesting corporate greed and economic inequality, either inZuccotti or a yet-to-be chosen new home.

“This is much bigger than a square plaza in downtown Manhattan,” said Hans Shan, an organizer who was working with churches to find places for protesters to sleep. “You can’t evict an idea whose time has come.”

State Supreme Court Justice Michael Stallman upheld the city’s eviction of the protesters after an emergency appeal by the National Lawyers Guild.

The protesters have been camped out in the privately owned park since mid-September. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he ordered the sweep because health and safety conditions had become “intolerable” in the crowded plaza. The raid was conducted in the middle of the night “to reduce the risk of confrontation” and “to minimize disruption to the surrounding neighborhood,” he said.

By early Tuesday evening, some protesters were being allowed back into the park two by two. But they could each take only a small bag.

Still, some protesters believed the loss of Zuccotti Park may be an opportunity to broaden and decentralize the protest to give it staying power.

“People are really recognizing that we need to build a movement here,” Shan said. “What we’re dedicated to is not just about occupying space. That’s a tactic.”

But without a place to congregate, protesters will have a harder time communicating with each other en masse. The leaders of the movement spent most of Tuesday gathering in small groups throughout the city — in church basements and on street corners — and relaying plans in scattered text messages and email.

Robert Harrington, owner of a small importing business in New York, stood outside the barricade with a sign calling for tighter banking regulations.

“To be effective it almost has to move out of the park,” Harrington said. “It’s like the antiwar movement in the ’60s, which started as street theater and grew into something else.”

“The issues,” he added, “are larger than just this camp.”

Protesters milling around Zuccotti Park said they were dismayed by the court ruling.

Chris Habib, a New York artist, said he hoped the group could settle on a new protest site during a meeting later Tuesday evening. He was confident the movement would continue even if its flagship camp was dismantled.

“A judge can’t erase a movement from the public mind,” he said. “The government is going to have to spend a lot of time in court to defend this.”

Pete Dutro, head of the group’s finances, said the loss of the movement’s original encampment will open up a dialogue with other cities.

“We all knew this was coming,” Dutro said. “Now it’s time for us to not be tucked away in Zuccotti Park, and have different areas of occupation throughout the city.”

The aggressive raid seemed to mark a shift in the city’s dealings with the Wall Street protests. Only a week ago, Bloomberg privately told a group of executives and journalists that he thought reports of problems at the park had been exaggerated and didn’t require any immediate intervention.

The New York raid was the third in three days for a major American city. Police broke up camps Sunday in Portland, Ore., and Monday in Oakland, Calif.

The timing did not appear to be coincidence. On Tuesday, authorities acknowledged that police departments across the nation consulted with each other about nonviolent ways to clear encampments. Officers in as many as 40 cities participated in the conference calls.

When New York police began their crackdown at 1 a.m., most of the Occupy Wall Street protesters were sleeping.

Officers arrived by the hundreds and set up powerful klieg lights to illuminate the block. They handed out notices from Brookfield Office Properties, the park’s owner, and the city saying that the plaza had to be cleared because it had become unsanitary and hazardous.

Many people left, carrying their belongings with them. Others tried to make a stand, locking arms or even chaining themselves together with bicycle locks.

Dennis Iturrralde was fast asleep on a cot when the shouting woke him up. Dark figures were running through the tents in the dim orange light of streetlamps. Something slammed into the cot, flipping him to the ground.

“They came in from both sides, yelling, ‘You have 20 minutes to vacate the premises!’” said Iturralde, a Manhattan cook.

Within minutes, police in riot gear had swarmed the park, ripping down tents and tarps. The air was filled with the sound of rustling tarps, rumbling garbage trucks, shouts and equipment crashing to the ground.

“They were tearing everything apart,” Iturralde said. “They were hitting people, spraying people if they didn’t move fast enough.”

Around 200 people were arrested, including a member of the City Council and at least a half-dozen journalists. The arrested journalists included a reporter and photographer from The Associated Press who were held for four hours before being released.

Earlier in the day, another judge had issued a temporary restraining order that appeared to bar the city from preventing protesters from re-entering the park, but it was unilaterally ignored by the police and city officials.

In contrast to the scene weeks ago in Oakland, where a similar eviction turned chaotic and violent, the police action was comparatively orderly. But some protesters complained of being hit by police batons and shoved to the ground.

City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez, who has been supportive of the Occupy movement, was among those arrested outside of the park. Police Commission Ray Kelly said Rodriguez was trying to get through police lines to reach the protesters.

“The law that created Zuccotti Park required that it be open for the public to enjoy for passive recreation 24 hours a day,” Bloomberg said. “Ever since the occupation began, that law has not been complied with, as the park has been taken over by protesters, making it unavailable to anyone else.”

The police commissioner said officers gave the crowd 45 minutes to retrieve their belongings before starting to dismantle tents, and let people leave voluntarily until around 3:30 a.m., when they moved in to make mass arrests.

“Arresting people is not easy,” he said, adding that he thought the officers “showed an awful lot of restraint in the face of “an awful lot of taunting, people getting in police officers’ faces, calling them names.”

The ouster at Zuccotti Park came as a rift within the movement had been widening between the park’s full-time residents and the movement’s power players, most of whom no longer lived in the park.

Some residents of the park have been grumbling about the recent formation of a “spokescouncil,” an upper echelon of organizers who held meetings at a high school near police headquarters. Some protesters felt that the selection of any leaders whatsoever wasn’t true to Occupy Wall Street’s original anti-government spirit: That no single person is more important or more powerful than another person.

 

Source: https://news.yahoo.com/crackdowns-reach-epicenter-wall-street-protests-235327049.html

Filed Under: America, Banks, Capitalism, Civil Liberties, Corporations, Corruption, Economy, Income Inequality, Law, Lobbying, Media, Money, New World Order, Occupy, Police, Politicians, Politics, Privacy, Propaganda, Protests, Revolution, Rights, Surveillance, Taxes

HERE’S THE RISK: OCCUPY ENDS UP DOING THE BIDDING OF THE GLOBAL ELITE

November 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

History shows us it is easy for ‘grassroots’ campaigns to become co-opted by the very interests they are fighting against

A 21st-century grassroots movement faces many pitfalls. This was as true back in 1968 as it is today. It could be infiltrated by law enforcement and intelligence agencies, or co-opted by a major party. As the state continues to creep further into our lives, activists can expect that it will use all its resources – not just the violent reaction seen in New York overnight, but also its agents, informants and surveillance packages – in its effort to monitor both sides of any serious social debate. Even bleaker, however, is the possibility that the movement was actually planned and launched by the very establishment activists thought they were waging a battle against in the first place. The larger the movement, the more interested a major party becomes in absorbing it into either the left or the right side of the current two-party paradigm.

The sudden emergence of America’s Tea Party movement in 2007 is a good example. Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, its inventor, used it as a springboard to highlight libertarian and constitutional issues during his 2008 campaign. Soon after, it was co-opted by key political and media influencers from the US right wing, associating itself less with a libertarian manifesto, and more with emerging figures within the Republican establishment. Now it is has morphed into nothing more than a block of voters whom the Republican party can rely to strike a deal with during an election cycle.

Arguably, the Occupy Wall Street movement has already drifted into the shadow of the Democratic party – with a number of Democratic establishment figures from the top down endorsing it. The Democrats’ own media fundraising and media machine, Move On, has visibly adopted the cause. Like the Tea Party before it, the Occupy block would swing a close election during a national two-party race, functioning as a pressure-release valve for any issue too radical for the traditional platform.

Alongside this is the threat of being infiltrated. Scores of declassified documents, along with accounts from veteran activists, will reveal many stories of members who were actually undercover police, FBI or M15. In the worst cases of infiltration, undercover agents have acted as provocateurs. Such incidents normally serve to radicalise a movement, thus demonising it in the eyes of society and effectively lessening its wider political appeal.

Although the global Occupy movement has branched out in an open-source way, many of its participants and spectators might be completely unaware of who actually launched it. Upon investigation, what one finds is a daisy chain of non-profit foundations, all tied together by hundreds of millions per year in operational funding. The original call for Occupy Wall Street came from non-profit international media foundation Adbusters. Like many non-profits, Adbusters receives its funding and operating capital from other behind-the-scenes organisations. According to research conducted by watchdog Activistcash, Adbusters takes a significant portion of its money from the Tides Foundation, an organisation partnered with one of Wall Street billionaire oligarch George Soros’s foundations, the Open Society Institute.

Although mostly hidden from the public eye, all major foundations and professional thinktanks undertake research and host training seminars, which are used to influence certain public and foreign policies, and thus, must have a political agenda. Theirs is the venue of choice for activities that cannot officially be conducted on the government clock.

Freedom House is another of Soros’s Open Society partners. It supports the Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (Canvas), an organisation started by Serbians Ivan Marovic and Srdja Popovic. After playing a pivotal role in the CIA-backed deposing of Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic, the western media hailed Marovic as a democratic genius, but it came out later that his programme came out of an elite Boston think tank’s “regime change” manual, From Dictatorship to Democracy, written by Harvard professor Gene Sharp. Sharp’s book is a bible of the colour revolutions – a “regime change for dummies”. His Albert Einstein Institution has received funds from the National Endowment for Democracy and the Open Society Foundations, and his work serves as a template for western-backed opposition leaders in soft coups all around the world.

There are also reports of Canvas activity during the early days of Occupy Wall Street, including a video of Marovic himself addressing the general assembly. Currently, Canvas are touting their recent role in working with Egyptian and Tunisian protesters from as early as 2009, teaching skills that helped bring down their presidents and spark regional revolt.

When the dust settles and it’s all said and done, millions of Occupy participants may very well be given a sober lesson under the heading of “controlled opposition”. In the end, the Occupy movement could easily end up doing the bidding of the very elite globalist powers that they were demonstrating against to begin with. To avoid such an outcome, it’s important for a movement to have a good knowledge of history and the levers of power in the 21st century.

 

Source: https://apps.facebook.com/theguardian/commentisfree/2011/nov/15/occupy-global-elite

Filed Under: America, Banks, Capitalism, Censorship, Civil Liberties, Corporations, Corruption, Democracy, Economy, Education, Law, Lobbying, Media, Military Industrial Complex, Money, New World Order, Occupy, Police, Politicians, Politics, Poverty, Privacy, Propaganda, Protests, Rights, Surveillance, Telecommunication

THE TOP FEDERAL CORPORATE SPONSORS (WHO DON’T WANT MARIJUANA LEGALIZED)

November 16, 2011 By 1 Comment

Mother Jones Magazine published last year an article detailing “Capitol Hill’s Top 75 Corporate Sponsors” based on their campaign contributions and lobbying expenditures in Washington DC from 1989-2010. I thought it might be interesting to review the list with an eye toward which ones could be pushing Washington hardest to hold the line on marijuana prohibition vs. which ones seek its end.

Big Banking & Finance: 3 Goldman Sachs, 5 Citigroup, 10 American Bankers Association, 14 JPMorgan Chase, 16 Morgan Stanley, 23 Bank of America, 24 Ernst & Young, 28Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, 29 Pricewaterhouse Coopers, 30 UBS,35 Merrill Lynch, 40 Credit Suisse, 44 American Financial Group, 51MBNA, 63 Securities Industry and Financial Market Association

Who knows if the titans of big finance are strong-arming politicians to maintain marijuana prohibition? With so many other issues important to their industry, from regulation to bail outs, why would they care if the herb is verboten? When you read The Guardian’s piece on $378 billion money-laundered by Wachovia for Mexican drug traffickers or Bloomberg’s report on Bank of America’s financing of three planes for traffickers to transport 10 tons of cocaine into America, you begin to see the motivation to keep that steady flow of illicit cash into the world finance system.

Big Pharma & Healthcare: 6 American Medical Association, 20 Pfizer,25 Blue Cross/Blue Shield, 27 American Hospital Association, 31 Aflac,45 GlaxoSmithKline, 62 American Health Care Association, 66 Eli Lilly, 74Bristol-Myers Squibb

Despite the AMA’s recent call to remove cannabis from Schedule I, they make the list because their reason for the call is to allow study of cannabis for its eventual pharmaceuticalization. It’s obvious why most of these companies would not wish to see patients growing their own medicine that reduces their need for prescription meds and leads to fewer doctor visits?

Big Alcohol & Tobacco: 9 Altria, 12 National Beer Wholesalers Association, 36 Reynolds American, 41 Anheuser-Busch, 52 UST

The motivations are transparent for the purveyors of legal recreational substances. While you can grow your own tobacco and brew your own beer, it’s time and labor intensive. Why would they wish to compete with a recreational substance the customer can grow on their own? They don’t, so much so that they were among the initial funders, along with Big Pharma, for the Partnership for a Drug-Free America.

The Top Federal Corporate Sponsors (Who Don’t Want Marijuana Legalized)

Mother Jones Magazine published last year an article detailing “Capitol Hill’s Top 75 Corporate Sponsors” based on their campaign contributions and lobbying expenditures in Washington DC from 1989-2010. I thought it might be interesting to review the list with an eye toward which ones could be pushing Washington hardest to hold the line on marijuana prohibition vs. which ones seek its end.

Big Banking & Finance: 3 Goldman Sachs, 5 Citigroup, 10 American Bankers Association, 14 JPMorgan Chase, 16 Morgan Stanley, 23 Bank of America, 24 Ernst & Young, 28Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, 29 Pricewaterhouse Coopers, 30 UBS,35 Merrill Lynch, 40 Credit Suisse, 44 American Financial Group, 51MBNA, 63 Securities Industry and Financial Market Association

Who knows if the titans of big finance are strong-arming politicians to maintain marijuana prohibition? With so many other issues important to their industry, from regulation to bail outs, why would they care if the herb is verboten? When you read The Guardian’s piece on $378 billion money-laundered by Wachovia for Mexican drug traffickers or Bloomberg’s report on Bank of America’s financing of three planes for traffickers to transport 10 tons of cocaine into America, you begin to see the motivation to keep that steady flow of illicit cash into the world finance system.

Big Pharma & Healthcare: 6 American Medical Association, 20 Pfizer,25 Blue Cross/Blue Shield, 27 American Hospital Association, 31 Aflac,45 GlaxoSmithKline, 62 American Health Care Association, 66 Eli Lilly, 74Bristol-Myers Squibb

Despite the AMA’s recent call to remove cannabis from Schedule I, they make the list because their reason for the call is to allow study of cannabis for its eventual pharmaceuticalization. It’s obvious why most of these companies would not wish to see patients growing their own medicine that reduces their need for prescription meds and leads to fewer doctor visits?

Big Alcohol & Tobacco: 9 Altria, 12 National Beer Wholesalers Association, 36 Reynolds American, 41 Anheuser-Busch, 52 UST

The motivations are transparent for the purveyors of legal recreational substances. While you can grow your own tobacco and brew your own beer, it’s time and labor intensive. Why would they wish to compete with a recreational substance the customer can grow on their own? They don’t, so much so that they were among the initial funders, along with Big Pharma, for the Partnership for a Drug-Free America.

Big Defense Contractors: 18 Lockheed Martin, 19 General Electric, 33Boeing, 37 Northrop Grumman, 43 General Dynamics

Defense contractors? When you sell weapons of war, you’ve got to have an armed enemy firing back at you to maintain production. That enemy needs ready cash to purchase illegal arms on the black market. When you learn how the opium trade fuels the Taliban in Afghanistan, how cocaine trafficking is making allies of Colombian rebels and al Qaeda terrorists, and how marijuana is setting up the next big shooting war just south of us in Mexico, you realize that these corporations can’t have global drug prohibition unraveling by the first step of marijuana legalization.

Big Energy: 46 Chevron, 49 ExxonMobil, 75 Enron

Switchgrass. Algae. Corn Ethanol. Natural Gas. “Clean” Coal. Everybody recognizes the need for alternative fuels to end our reliance on oil. It seems inconceivable that these companies would resist development of hempseed oil, the original fuel for the original diesel engine, but if they’ve already invested in other alternative fuel sources, why legalize hemp and create competitors or a need to re-direct investments?

Besides, they still have plenty of oil left to sell, and in products you never think of. Your plastic goods. Pesticides and fertilizers for your food. Building materials. Plus a few dozen other products whose manufacturers wouldn’t need to buy petroleum if they had cheaper sustainable hempseed oil to replace it with.

Big Agribusiness: 69 Archer Daniels Midland

Second only to oil in the “who knew it was in so much stuff?” category is corn. High fructose corn syrup accounts for about half of all sugars in the American diet. It’s in your ketchup, for Pete’s sake! There’s also a symbiotic relationship between the food industry producing ethanol for Big Energy and the returned favor of producing pesticides and herbicides for Big Agribusiness. A flourishing hemp industry would produce hempseed oil for energy and the remaining hempseed becmes nutritious protein for people and livestock. Even the remaining farmers of other crops would use less fertilizers as farmers use hemp as a rotational crop and revitalizes the soil naturally.

So remember: even though a slim majority of 300 million American People would like to see the end of marijuana prohibition, a slim majority of the 75 Biggest Corporate People probably would rather keep things the way they are.

 

Source: https://marijuanaphonebomb.com/drug-war/the-top-federal-corporate-sponsors-who-don%E2%80%99t-want-marijuana-legalized/

 

 

Filed Under: America, Banks, Capitalism, Civil Liberties, Consumer, Corporations, Corruption, Democracy, Drugs, Health, Law, Lobbying, Marijuana, Medical Industry, Military Industrial Complex, Money, New World Order, Police, Politicians, Politics, Propaganda, Protests, Rights, Surveillance, The Hidden Empire, Wealthy Elite

OCCUPY WALL STREET: POLICE VIOLENCE REVEALS A CORRUPT SYSTEM

November 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Better-off Occupy Wall Street protesters are learning something about the relationship between citizen and state

At four in the morning in lower Manhattan, as what remains of the Occupy Wall Street encampment is loaded into trash compacters, some protesters have still not given up on the police. Kevin Sheneberger tries to engage one NYPD officer in a serious debate about the role of law enforcement in public protest. Then he sees them loading his friend’s tent into the back of a rubbish truck. Behind him, a teenage girl holds a hastily written sign saying: “NYPD, we trusted you – you were supposed to protect us!”

The sentiment is a familiar one. Across Europe, over a year of demonstrations, occupations and civil disobedience, anti-austerity protesters have largely shifted from declaring solidarity with the police – as fellow workers whose jobs and pensions are also under threat – to outrage and anger at state violence against unarmed protesters. Following last month’s police brutality in Oakland, and today’s summary eviction of the Occupy Wall Street camp, American activists too are reaching the conclusion that “police protect the 1%”.

The notion that law enforcement is there to protect a wealthy elite from the rest of the population is not news to those protesters from deprived and ethnic minority backgrounds, many of whom have been subject to intimidation in their communities for years, but for those from more privileged backgrounds, the first spurt of pepper spray to the face is an important education in the nature of the relationship between state and citizen in the west. “Who do you guys work for?” Shouts one Manhattan protester, as police load arrestees into a van. “You work for JP Morgan Bank!”

In times of economic and democratic crisis, it makes sense for faltering governments to use police violence and the threat of arrest to bully citizens into compliance. In the context of protest, however, police harassment has three other, important effects. The first and most important of these is consciousness-raising.

The spectacle of police beating and brutalizing unarmed civilians for the crime of sitting on the pavement and demanding a fairer world brings home the point of the struggle to public and protesters alike. The second is galvanizing: attacks on peaceful protesters rarely make the police or government look anything but weak and cowardly, and have tended only to increase public support for civil disobedience. “This is going to explode now,” 26-year-old Katie tells me, as we watch demonstrators marched out of Zuccotti Park one by one. “They don’t realize what they’ve done.”

Fighting the police can focus the energy of a movement – but it can also drain that energy. In Britain, a year of arrests and vicious crackdowns have left anti-cuts protesters debilitated and depleted, and the challenge for the American movement will be to remember its purpose in the face of police brutality. “That’s the whole point of violent resistance,” says Sheneberger. “It exposes the corruption of the power that’s resisting you.”

 

Source: https://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/15-1

Filed Under: America, Banks, Capitalism, Censorship, Civil Liberties, Corporations, Corruption, CYBER WARFARE, Democracy, Education, Employment, Income Inequality, Law, Lobbying, Martial Law, Medical Industry, Military Industrial Complex, Money, Occupy, Police, Politicians, Politics, Poverty, Privacy, Propaganda, Protests, Psychology, Revolution, Rights, Surveillance, Taxes, Wealthy Elite

THE POLICE STATE MAKES ITS MOVE: RETAINING ONE’S HUMANITY IN THE FACE OF TYRANNY

November 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

For days now, we have endured demonstrably false propaganda that the fallen soldiers of U.S. wars sacrificed their lives for “our freedoms.” Yet, as that noxious nonsense still lingers in the air, militarized police have invaded OWS sites in numerous cities, including Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan, and, in the boilerplate description of the witless courtesans of the corporate media, with the mission to “evict the occupiers”.

Hundreds of NYC riot police forcibly evicted Occupy Wall Street from Zuccotti Park early on Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2011.U.S soldiers died protecting what and who again? These actions should make this much clear: The U.S. military and the police exist to protect the 1%. At this point, the ideal of freedom will be carried by those willing to resist cops and soldiers. There have been many who have struggled and often died for freedom-but scant few were clad in uniforms issued by governments.

Freedom rises despite cops and soldiers not because of them. And that is exactly why those who despise freedom propagate military hagiography and fetishize those wearing uniforms-so they can give the idea of liberty lip service as all the while they order it crushed.

When anyone tells you that dead soldiers and veterans died for your freedom, it is your duty to occupy reality and inform them of just how mistaken they are. And if you truly cherish the concepts of freedom and liberty, you just might be called on to face mindless arrays of fascist cops and lose your freedom, for a time, going to jail, so others might, at some point, gain their freedom.

I was born in Birmingham Alabama, at slightly past the mid-point of the decade of the 1950s. Many of my earliest memories involve the struggle for civil rights that was transpiring on the streets of my hometown.

My father was employed at a scrap metal yard but also worked as a freelance photojournalist who hawked his work to media photo syndicates such as Black Star who then sold his wares to the major newsmagazines of the day. A number of the iconic photographs of the era were captured by his Nikon camera e.g., of vicious police dogs unleashed on peaceful demonstrators; of demonstrators cartwheeled down city streets by the force of fire hoses; of Dr. King and other civil rights marchers kneeled in prayer before arrays of Police Chief Bull Connor’s thuggish ranks of racist cops.

In Birmingham, racist laws and racial and economic inequality were the progenitors of acts of official viciousness. The social structure in place was indefensible. Reason and common decency held no dominion in the justifications for the established order that was posited by the system’s apologists and enforcers; therefore, brutality filled the void created by the absence of their humanity.

And the same situation is extant in the growing suppression of the OWS movement in various cities, nationwide, including Liberty Park in Lower Manhattan. The 1% and their paid operatives-local city officials-are striving to protect an unjust, inherently dishonest status quo. Lacking a moral mandate, they are prone to the use of police state forms of repression.

Dr. King et al faced their oppressors on the streets of my hometown. Civil Rights activists knew that they had to hold their ground to retain their dignity…that it was imperative to sit down in those Jim Crow-tyrannized streets when necessary in order to stand up against the forces of oppression.

At present, we have arrived at a similar moment. If justice is to prevail, it seems, the air of U.S. cities will hold the acrid sting of tear gas, the jails will again be filled, the brave will endure brutality-yet the corrupt system will crumble. Because the system’s protectors themselves will bring it down by revealing its empty nature, and the corrupt structure will collapse from within.

Yet, when riot police attack unarmed, peacefully resisting protesters, the mainstream media often describes the events with standard boilerplate such as “police clash with demonstrators.”

This is inaccurate (at best) reportage. It suggest that both parties are equal aggressors in the situation, and the motive of the police is to restore order and maintain the peace, as opposed to, inflicting pain and creating an aura of intimidation.

This is analogous to describing a mugging as simply: two parties engaging in a financial transaction.

Although mainstream media demurred from limning the upwelling of mob violence at Penn. State as involving any criteria deeper than the mindless rage of a few football-besotted students unloosed by the dismissal of beloved sport figure.

Yet there exists an element that the Penn. State belligerents and OWS activists have in common: a sense of alienation.

Penn. State students rioted because life in the corporate state is so devoid of meaning…that identification with a sports team gives an empty existence said meaning…These are young people, coming of age in a time of debt-slavery and diminished job prospects, who were born and raised in, and know of no existence other than, life as lived in U.S. nothingvilles i.e., a public realm devoid of just that-a public realm-an atomizing center-bereft culture of strip malls, office parks, fast food eateries and the electronic ghosts wafting the air of social media.

Contrived sport spectacles provisionally give an empty life meaning…Take that away, and a mindless rampage might ensue…Anything but face the emptiness and acknowledge one’s complicity therein, and then direct one’s fury at the creators of the stultified conditions of this culture.

It is a given, the cameras of corporate media swivel towards reckless actions not mindful commitment…are attuned to verbal contretemps not thoughtful conviction-and then move on. And we will click our TV remotes and scan the Internet…restless, hollowed out…eating empty memes…skimming the surface of the electronic sheen…

These are the areas we are induced to direct our attention-as the oceans of the earth are dying…these massive life-sustaining bodies of water have less then 50 years before they will be dead. This fact alone should knock us to our knees in lamentation…should sent us reeling into the streets in displays of public grief…

Accordingly, we should not only occupy-but inhabit our rage. No more tittering at celebrity/political class contretemps-it is time for focused fury. The machinery of the corporate/police state must be dismantled.

If the corporate boardrooms have to be emptied-for the oceans to be replenished with abundant life-then so be it. If one must go to jail for committing acts of civil disobedience to free one’s heart-then it must be done.

Yet why does the act of challenging the degraded status quo provoke such a high decree of misapprehension, anxiety, and outright hostility from many, both in positions of authority and among so many of the exploited and dispossessed of the corporate/consumer state.

For example, why did the fatal shooting incident in Oakland, California, Nov. 1, that occurred near the Occupy Oakland Encampment-but, apparently, was wholly unrelated to OWS activity cause a firestorm of reckless speculation and false associations.

Because any exercise in freedom makes people in our habitually authoritarian nation damn uneasy…a sense of uncertainty brings on dread-the feeling that something terrible is to come from challenging a prevailing order, even as degraded as it is.

Tyrants always promise safety; their apologist warn of chaos if and when the soul-numbing order is challenged.

Granted, it is a given that there exists a sense of certainty in a prison routine: high walls and guards and gun mounts ensure continuity; an uncertainty-banishing schedule is enforced. Moreover, solitary confinement offers an even more orderly situation…uncertainty is circumscribed as freedom is banished.

The corporate/national security state, by its very nature is anti-liberty and anti-freedom. Of course, its defenders give lip service to the concept of freedom…much in the manner a pick-pocket working a subway train is very much in favor of the virtues of public transportation.

A heavy police presence has ringed Zuccotti Park from the get-go, and whose ranks have now staged a military style raid upon it, a defacto search and destroy mission-because the ruling elite want to suppress the very impulse of freedom. These authoritarian bullies don’t want the concept to escape the collective prison of the mind erected and maintained by the corrupt jailers comprising the 1% who claim they offer us protection as, all the while, they hold our chains…all for our own good, they insist…for our safety and the safety of others.

Although, from studying on these prison walls, the thought occurs to me…that what we might need is protection from all this safety.

 

Source: https://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/15

Filed Under: America, An Alternative World, Banks, Campaigning, Censorship, Civil Liberties, Consumer, Corporations, Corruption, CYBER WARFARE, Democracy, Earth, Economy, Education, Environment, Income Inequality, Law, Lobbying, Martial Law, Media, Military Industrial Complex, Money, New World Order, Occupy, Police, Politicians, Politics, Poverty, Privacy, Propaganda, Protests, Rights, Surveillance, Taxes, The Hidden Empire, Truth, Wealthy Elite
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