Public Intelligence Blog

Boing Boing will go dark on Jan 18 to fight SOPA

By Cory Doctorow

BooingBoing, 14 January 2012

On January 18, Boing Boing will join Reddit and other sites around the Internet in “going dark” to oppose SOPA and PIPA, the pending US legislation that creates a punishing Internet censorship regime and exports it to the rest of the world. Boing Boing could never co-exist with a SOPA world: we could not ever link to another website unless we were sure that no links to anything that infringes copyright appeared on that site.

So in order to link to a URL on LiveJournal or WordPress or Twitter or Blogspot, we'd have to first confirm that no one had ever made an infringing link, anywhere on that site. Making one link would require checking millions (even tens of millions) of pages, just to be sure that we weren't in some way impinging on the ability of five Hollywood studios, four multinational record labels, and six global publishers to maximize their profits.

If we failed to take this precaution, our finances could be frozen, our ad broker forced to pull ads from our site, and depending on which version of the bill goes to the vote, our domains confiscated, and, because our server is in Canada, our IP address would be added to a US-wide blacklist that every ISP in the country would be required to censor.

This is the part of the post where I'm supposed to say something reasonable like, “Everyone agrees that piracy is wrong, but this is the wrong way to fight it.”

But you know what? Screw that.

Even though a substantial portion of my living comes from the entertainment industry, I don't think that any amount of “piracy” justifies this kind of depraved indifference to the consequences of one's actions. Big Content haven't just declared war on Boing Boing and Reddit and the rest of the “fun” Internet: they've declared war on every person who uses the net to publicize police brutality, every oppressed person in the Arab Spring who used the net to organize protests and publicize the blood spilled by their oppressors, every abused kid who used the net to reveal her father as a brutalizer of children, every gay kid who used the net to discover that life is worth living despite the torment she's experiencing, every grassroots political campaigner who uses the net to make her community a better place — as well as the scientists who collaborate online, the rescue workers who coordinate online, the makers who trade tips online, the people with rare diseases who support each other online, and the independent creators who use the Internet to earn their livings.

The contempt for human rights on display with SOPA and PIPA is more than foolish. Foolishness can be excused. It's more than greed. Greed is only to be expected. It is evil, and it must be fought.

SOPA Strike is compiling a list of sites that are also going dark for Jan 18. If you want an Internet where human rights, free speech and the rule of law are not subordinated to the entertainment industry's profits, I hope you'll join us on it.

Thank you.

Report calls for prosecution of top government officials for acts of torture

People's Blog for the Constitution, 11 January 2012

EXTRACT:

For those who would like to see torturers brought to justice, a recent report issued by Human Rights USA and the American University Washington College of Law International Human Rights Law Clinic, INDEFENSIBLE: A Reference for Prosecuting Torture and Other Felonies Committed By U.S. Officials Following September 11th, is a step in the right direction. The report details the way in which the Bush administration issued policies which authorized abuse and created a legal rationale in support of illegal interrogation techniques, and calls for the investigation and prosecution of senior officials responsible for torture.

Karl Denninger is an amazing human being who combines history and mathematics to draw documented conclusions on energy, money, and other topics.

Click on his photo to see his DuckDuckGo line up.

Here is just one of his impressive pieces.

Let's Talk About An ACTUAL Energy Policy

The Missing Quote from the King Memorial

“The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own Government…I cannot be silent.” – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

By Don DeBar

While the insiders in Washington parse the meaning of the paraphrased words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. regarding his own epitaph, his true legacy – the one that many believe led to his murder – has been whitewashed from the King Memorial entirely.

Read full article.

Four articles on the Marine urination issue follow.  Would not be surprised if they and others like them trigger a round of navel contemplation within the DoD military Services that will result in command micromanagement (exacerbating coming end strength challenges), undermine concepts such as the Marine Corps' “Strategic Corporal,” and generate untold “programs” on professional military values under PAO-generated slick and trendy names.  An excerpt from a fifth article, this one about Haditha, seems applicable here because I think the quoted Coast Guard officer has it right:

“… Relying on junior military personnel to make high-stakes decisions in remote foreign clashes can have grave consequences for U.S. foreign policy, said Capt. Glenn Sulmasy, a judge advocate and national security law professor at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New Haven, Conn. He pointed to the international outrage stirred by the images of U.S. soldiers abusing prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison. …”

In context, to “make high stakes decisions” can be roughly equated to “do the right think when no one is watching.”  Within the Army, I think the response will be framed through ever-exacting adherence to the minutiae of peacetime garrison soldiering.

Corpse abuse a ‘war crime'

How the Marines video made the Afghan war even tougher

We’re all guilty of dehumanizing the enemy

Marine video: Desecration of the dead is as old as war itself

Phi Beta Iota:  Culture matters–culture and commander's intent are all a Marine has when they are cut off from micro-management by pasty-faced staff pukes far in the rear.  The strongest cultures are deeply rooted in historical consistency and have integrity as their centerpiece.  The desecration of corpses on the battlefield is a direct consequence of the descecration of democracy by the two-party tyranny and the various complexes that a corrupt Congress has created in order to stay in power at public expense and without regard to the public interest.

This appears to be a bluff, issues appears to distill down to how soon does our cut and run from Afghanistan become total.

Decision Time In Afghanistan

Anthony Cordesman

Washington Post, 15 January 2012

…withdrawal of U.S. and allied troops from Afghanistan could plunge that country into a recession or depression by the end of 2014 unless Kabul receives a massive new aid package. Afghanistan would need major assistance to compensate for the phaseout of U.S. and allied military spending that has kept its economy alive during the past 10 years of war, to pay for the services its government must provide to win and retain the loyalty of its people, to pay for the military and security forces it must develop, and to sustain the government until the Taliban and other insurgents are defeated or accept a political settlement.

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota:  For Cordesman to focus on Afghanistan going into a recession while ignoring the fact that the US is in a depression and heading for a major collapse in 2013-2014 is to celebrate the insanity and amoral idiocy of the Washington environment.  America desperately needs to pull back, consolidate, restore its core values, and live to fight another day.  We are at 22.4% unemployment going toward 40%.  There is NO ONE now running for President or pretending to be President (the incumbent) who combines both intelligence and integrity on all the core issues.  This includes Ron Paul, who is great on Liberty but ignores General Welfare.  The Preamble to the Constitution is provided below as a reference point:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.