To ensure the Internet is open to all on an equal basis we must act now to prevent mega-corporations from destroying Internet Freedom.

It is time for escalating actions against the FCC before their vote on May 15th to end net neutrality.

What Should Be Done?

John Nichols writes in the Nation:

“A free and open Internet is essential to modern democracy. But that freedom and openness will be maintained only if Americans use their great democratic voice to demand it.”

It is up to us to prevent the further corporatization of the Internet and to keep it free, equal and open to all. It will take more than our voices, it will taking our bodies stopping the machine of corporatocracy. What are our demands?
Reject the proposal. This is the Obama FCC. Obama appointed three Democrats and two Republicans to the Commission, as required by law. The political apparatus of the Democratic Party needs to demand this proposal be rejected.

Reclassify broadband Internet access as a telecommunications service that can be regulated in the public interest. Under President Bush the Internet was redefined as an “information service” limiting the FCC’s ability to regulate in the public interest. This decision needs to be reversed so the FCC can properly regulate the Internet.Wheeler opposes this but said in response to opposition to his proposal that reclassification is on the table.
Put in place net neutrality regulations. The Commission should act consistently with President Obama’s campaign position – net neutrality. Acting opposite of what the people voted for undermines the democratic legitimacy of government on the critical issue Internet freedom.

Read more

Petitions:

http://www.popularresistance.org/internet-for-the-wealthy/

http://act.credoaction.com/sign/verizon_netneutrality?akid=10524.7284604.mFMHOz&rd=1&t=2

http://other98.com/we-want-net-neutrality-not-corporate-takeover/

https://www.dailykos.com/campaigns/785

http://act.sumofus.org/go/4400?t=2&akid=5203.2777050.OJJfIW

NSA has a 50-page catalog of exploits for software, hardware, and firmware

Cory Doctorow, boingboing

A Snowden leak accompanying today's story on the NSA's Tailored Access Operations group (TAO) details the NSA's toolbox of exploits, developed by an NSA group called ANT (Advanced or Access Network Technology).
The ANT division doesn't just manufacture surveillance hardware. It also develops software for special tasks. The ANT developers have a clear preference for planting their malicious code in so-called BIOS, software located on a computer's motherboard that is the first thing to load when a computer is turned on.

ANT's catalog runs to 50 pages, and lists electronic break-in tools, wiretaps, and other spook toys. For example, the catalog offers FEEDTROUGH, an exploit kit for Juniper Networks' firewalls; gimmicked monitor cables that leak video-signals; BIOS-based malware that compromises the computer even before the operating system is loaded; and compromised firmware for hard drives from Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor and Samsung.
Many of the exploited products are made by American companies, and hundreds of millions of everyday people are at risk from the unpatched vulnerabilities that the NSA has discovered in their products.

This has a number of valuable advantages: an infected PC or server appears to be functioning normally, so the infection remains invisible to virus protection and other security programs. And even if the hard drive of an infected computer has been completely erased and a new operating system is installed, the ANT malware can continue to function and ensures that new spyware can once again be loaded onto what is presumed to be a clean computer. The ANT developers call this "Persistence" and believe this approach has provided them with the possibility of permanent access.
Another program attacks the firmware in hard drives manufactured by Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor and Samsung, all of which, with the exception of latter, are American companies. Here, too, it appears the US intelligence agency is compromising the technology and products of American companies.

Basically, don't buy American (or Samsung) if you want your privacy. It's what Snowden's revelation has been saying for months, if you recall my previous journal on it.

I'll conclude with some tools for encryption. What you do with this information is up to you.

First, install HTTPS Everywhere to your browser. For the moment, they are only available for Firefox, Chrome, and Opera.

“Encryption Works" a guide written by former EFF Staff Technologist Micah Lee for the Freedom of the Press Foundation (an EFF client)

CyanogenMod adopted TextSecure to protect the text messages of its ten million users against mass surveillance

crypto parties teaches people about adopting encryption tools

In which Jacob Applebaum discusses US dragnet surveillance, including the revelation of NSA's intent to implant surveillance firmware to US electronic products.

Language and Education

We're at the border of losing our language. If less than 20% are fluent speakers, you're going to lose your language. We're even less than that now. And once you lose the language, you lose the connection because it's a different way of thinking. What people don't know and what linguists have ascertained is that the indigenous languages of the western hemisphere are the most expressive languages in the world. And the languages become less expressive as you move west. And everyone knows, anyone that knows languages, knows that English is the last language. So if English is the last language and it's the least expressive—which it is—ascertained by linguists of the world, then anything you translate in English is a half truth, at best. At best!

—Russell Means (November 10, 1939-October 22, 2012)

Watch the interview hosted by Gabriel of Urantia. 

What he also said about education brainwashing our children is true. RSA can explain it better than I could, though. So here it is.

Why reverse racism doesn't work

-“I got bullied in school for being white. You can’t tell me that’s not racist!”

No, this is called you being picked on by a mean child.

-“Someone called me cracker!”

This is someone calling you by your privilege.

-“People can be racist against white people too.”

No, they cannot. There is an inherent logical fallacy in your argument that will never make it true. However, white people can be discriminated against. Discrimination is different from racism.

Let’s start from the beginning. Your first step is to accept that “a hatred or intolerance of another race” is not the definition of racism. The dictionary is wrong. Get over it.

Racism is when intolerance in government laws, attitudes and ideals of a society are ingrained in a culture to the point where patterns of discrimination towards a certain race are institutionalized as normal. If you keep this in mind, you’ll understand that reverse racism doesn’t- and can’t- exist.

There is another saying “Racism (or sexism) = prejudice + power. POC (people of color) can be prejudiced against white people. But they can never have power, i.e. a whole system of structured support that backs them. White people often don’t understand how much power they have. Just ONE white person has more power to do actual harm to a black person than one hundred black people do to that white person. A white person can KILL a black person without any consequences, while if the situation was reversed you can bet the killer wouldn’t see the outside of a prison cell for a long, long time.

When white people complain about reverse racism, they are not complaining about losing their RIGHTS. What they are complaining about is losing their PRIVILEGE.

White people can never call someone else racist against them because that ‘someone else’ does not have the power to OPPRESS them. The person has the power to be mean. To hurt feelings. But not to OPPRESS.

THAT is the key difference. When a POC is mean to you, they are JUST being mean to you. Their entire society is not ACTIVELY discriminating against and oppressing you.

Calling Out Bigotry

Kerry's transcript and Declassfied information

If you missed Kerry's statement on Syria, here is the transcript.

If you're looking for the declassified information Kerry's speaking of, here it is (linked from Business Insider). You can also download it if you like.

Source

Stop SOPA

SOPA is back. Sign this while you're at it.

First of all, it's an attack on secondary liability. A site that is posting embeds of content hosted elsewhere shouldn't be held criminally liable for that content -- especially when that content may change over time and they have no direct control over it. If the original content is infringing, go after whoever uploaded/hosted the original content. Not the sites that merely have an embed. Furthermore, because the lines between reproducing, distributing and public performance can get blurry at times, it's very likely that any increased criminality for public performance will be stretched and abused to cover things that people think should be perfectly legal. As Harvard law professor Jonathan Zittrain explained in detail last year, the streaming provisions could clearly apply to something as simple as posting videos of yourself performing a cover of a popular song you don't have a license to... If you "transmit or otherwise communicate a performance or display of the work" for the purpose of having it performed or displayed at a place open to the public, you may be involved in a public performance. It's not hard to see how that might be used to include people posting videos on YouTube.

And, really, this whole idea is misguided. It comes from the entertainment industry's ridiculous belief that if they just keep playing Whac-a-mole with whomever they've decided is the "enemy" this week, it will eventually bring back old business models. Sites that embed streams from elsewhere aren't the enemy. Trying their operators into felons is fraught with all sorts of dangerous unintended consequences.

—TechDirt