Civil Society – Page 294 – Public Intelligence Blog

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Corruption Chronicles is a labor of love by one citizen, and is replicated tens of thousands of times around the world. Goggle does not provide the needed architecture for being able to aggregate and then de-aggregate this kind of information by name, place, event, and so on, but the day is coming when the public will be able to amass and share better information about anyone in public service than the government bureacracies are now able to amass on indviduals. It's the difference between Weberian cetralization with its knowledge cubbies, and open decentralization with its infinite linkages. To understand this concept, start with David Weinberger's Everything Is Miscellaneous–The Power of the New Digital Disorder.

2009/12/07

Journal: Citizen Cyber-Detectives on the March

10 Security, 10 Transnational Crime, 11 Society, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Law Enforcement, Methods & Process, Mobile, Peace Intelligence, Real Time

Video 9:40 Min

The Internet Detective – Switzerland

There is a new breed of super-sleuth emerging in the virtual world of the web. For both petty criminals and major terrorist groups, internet detectives are fast becoming a force to be reckoned with. Making it his business to track down criminal activity through the web, Guido Rudolphi, the Sherlock Holmes of the cyber world, considers himself a legal hacker. “So much more information can be accessed, quite legally, than the individual user would ever imagine.” Rudolphi has taken advantage of this new free-flow of online information to catch paedophiles, fraudsters, and even unearth international cells of Al-Quaeda. He demonstrates how it takes less than twenty minutes to establish a persons credentials, locate them and hand them over to the police. “People seem to think theyre anonymous online, that nothing can happen to them there thats very naive.”

2009/12/07

Journal: US Public on Auditing the Fed

03 Economy, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Commercial Intelligence, Government

Eight of Ten Americans Want to Audit the Fed

Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke on Thursday voiced his opposition to legislation calling for regular audits of the Fed’s monetary policies, but 79% of Americans think auditing the Fed is a good idea.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that just seven percent (7%) of adults oppose auditing the Federal Reserve and making those results available to the public. Fourteen percent (14%) are not sure.

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2009/12/042009/12/04

Worth a Look: MicroPlace Giving to the Poor

11 Society, Civil Society, Commerce, Gift Intelligence, Key Players, Methods & Process, Mobile, Non-Governmental, Peace Intelligence, Real Time, Threats

MicroPlace for Poor

Level of poverty

Poor | Very poor | Extremely poor

Green Serves rural areas Focus on women Fair trade

Financial My financial return 1% – 3% | 4% – 6%

When I get repaid Anytime | < 1 yr | 1 – 3 yrs | > 3 yrs

My money is going to Single institution | Multiple institutions

Support small coffee growers in the mountains of Nicaragua

Support Fair Trade Coffee Farmers in Tanzania

Phi Beta Iota: Evidently an EBay initative with a PayPal front end, this impresses us. Subject to audit, it is precisely what we were thinking of (see our Denmark Briefing) as a means of connecting the one billion rich (80% of whom do not give to charity now) with the five billion poor at the household item level of need. The major FLAW with with implementation is that it relies on intermediaries that will suck off 50% or more of the actual value. Still needed: the Global Range of Needs Table. This would also benefit from a Twitter application and a near real time “close by can do easy” option.

2009/12/012009/12/01

Journal: Why they hate us (II): How many Muslims has the U.S. killed in the past 30 years?

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, Academia, Civil Society, Ethics, Government, Military

Tom Friedman had an especially fatuous column in Sunday's New York Times, which is saying something given his well-established capacity for smug self-assurance. According to Friedman, the big challenge we face in the Arab and Islamic world is “the Narrative” — his patronizing term for Muslim views about America's supposedly negative role in the region.

. . . . . . .

I heard a different take on this subject at a recent conference on U.S. relations with the Islamic world. In addition to hearing a diverse set of views from different Islamic countries, one of the other participants (a prominent English journalist) put it quite simply. “If the United States wants to improve its image in the Islamic world,” he said, “it should stop killing Muslims.”

Phi Beta Iota: The chart is below the fold, or at the Full Story Online

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2009/12/01

Journal: Vermont Commons, Secession, & Collapse

05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards, 11 Society, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Ethics, Reform

Vermont Commons Home Page

Secession is Constitutional, Abraham Lincoln's unconstitutional pillaging and looting of the South not-with-standing. Few are sufficiently educated to actually know that Lincoln did not free the slaves of the north and west and did not have the Constitutional authority to suspend habeas corpus, conscript men of the north, borrow money to wage war on peacefully seceeeding members of the Union of STATES that voluntarily entered a compact, or to occupy the south by force of arms for twelve years. In Canada the Supreme Court has found for Quebec on the matter of secession, and the Yukon and Northwest Territories are both acutely aware of the options they have. Further North Greenland has declared independence from Denmark. Alaska remains a wild card–Sarah Palin could have been President of the North, but got sucked into the ideological maelstrom of an imploding Republican Party. All that by way to introduction to the Vermont Commons. Maine and Vermont are two of the states most likely to actually seceed from the Union if the US Government does not heal itself fairly soon. The only way to preserve the Union going into the next decade is to rapidly restore the legitimacy and efficacy of governance–this can only be done by getting a grip on reality and devising policies, programs, and budgets in harmony with reality.

Below are some Reviews that bear on the above subject.

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2009/12/012015/05/04

Journal: Whaling Intercept Boat

03 Environmental Degradation, 11 Society, Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Law Enforcement, Methods & Process, Peace Intelligence, Real Time

Los Angeles, CA- At a fundraising event in Los Angeles on Saturday, October 17th, 2009, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society unveiled their newest ocean defense vessel: the Ady Gil. The vessel, previously known as the Earthrace, is a fast, futuristic looking trimaran that recently set the world record for global circumnavigation. The vessel renaming reflects the ship’s benefactor, Ady Gil, who helped acquire the vessel.

Sea Shepherd is currently preparing for it’s 6th Whale Defense Campaign Operation Waltzing Matilda. The campaign will launch from Australia in early December with Sea Shepherd’s flagship Steve Irwin, which will be accompanied to the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary by the new Ady Gil. Together, the ships and the volunteer crew will intervene in illegal Japanese whaling in Antarctica.

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Category: Civil Society

Worth a Look: Corruption Chronicles