“You can say whatever you want (on the internet) to whomever you want, whenever you want, however you want and the government can’t regulate you, the government can’t punish you and you don’t need the government’s permission. That’s terrific, because if the government enters in this, soon you will need their permission, they will punish you, they will restrict you and they will know what’s going on,” said Napolitano.
From Al Jazeera English:
This week, Listening Post gets to the heart of the story – a story that involves the Communist Party and its effort to redefine itself for a new decade under Xi Jinping. His talk of a ‘Chinese Dream’ envisages a new, more in-touch Communist Party that will stamp out corruption and usher in a new era of prosperity. But does that dream include a constitution that protects liberties and freedom for the press?
Penguin classics has issued a new edition of 1984. Here’s the new cover, designed by David Pearson.
It’s a shame they didn’t go all the way. Fortunately, Timothy Krause on flickr has a brilliantly inspired cover as well.
Another year has passed and yet another year in which the media ignores some of the more important stories in the world.
Project Censored, the US media watchdog group, has released their annual report examining the shortcomings of reporting in 2012.
Amongst the key topics: the rising police state and the erosion of civil liberties, climate change and the destruction of oceans, and the rising disparity between the one percent and the 99 percent.
Project Censored argues that the lack of proper reporting on issues like these by the corporate media is leading to an erosion of democracy.
Anyone who intends on participating in a protest should be aware that Apple has a patent that can block the transmission of videos and photographs. This technology would allow police and government officials to prevent the free dissemination of information to any public gathering.
And while the company says the affected sites are to be mostly cinemas, theaters, concert grounds and similar locations, Apple Inc. also says “covert police or government operations may require complete ‘blackout’ conditions.”
“Additionally,” Apple says,” the wireless transmission of sensitive information to a remote source is one example of a threat to security. This sensitive information could be anything from classified government information to questions or answers to an examination administered in an academic setting.”
Who decides what is sensitive in a public place where the courts have already decided there are no expectations of privacy? If I own a cell phone or video camera, it belongs to me. If you tamper with its proper use, you are the one in violation of the law. Law enforcement is in place to uphold the law. It is not up to them to enforce what they think the law is. Allowing the police to hack into someone’s electrical equipment to break its functionality is against the law.
Apple patented the means to transmit an encoded signal to all wireless devices, commanding them to disable recording functions.
Those policies would be activated by GPS, and WiFi or mobile base-stations, which would ring-fence (“geofence”) around a building or a “sensitive area” to prevent phone cameras from taking pictures or recording video.
While governments and businesses would ultimately have the final say in what would be blocked, the potential is too great for abuse.
