Loss of Privacy

Unfortunately for Senator Kyl, we know the truth and we all hate censorship.

Here’s what he actually said.

If you want an abortion you go to Planned Parenthood and that’s well over 90% of what Planned Parenthood does.

Here’s what the Congressional Record now says.

If you want an abortion you go to Planned Parenthood and that is what Planned Parenthood does.

Here’s the video of what Senator Kyl said.

Senator Kyl can edit the Congressional Record all he wants. The major news outlets ran the story as well as The Daily Show. It’s also archived at C-SPAN. Good luck Senator. You’re going to need it.

If you haven’t, here’s a letter from a user on reddit to get the ball rolling. Remember, personalize it in some way and it’s always best to send a handwritten letter instead of a form letter. If you must email it, you can contact your representatives in Congress here.

Dear [your Representative] :

I am a person who believes the primary role of government is to protect its citizens. That role shines beautifully throughout the Bill of Rights, a document that rightfully limits the federal government’s ability to encroach on the people. Since then many laws have acted to abridge freedom rather than preserve it. I am asking that you to proactively take a much needed step to, like the Bill of Rights before, define, for the benefit of the citizenry, an inalienable right that should not be ignored: the freedom to photograph and record on-duty law enforcement.

Nearly every police department, if not all of them, employs the use of recording devices during traffic stops by the way of dash-cam videos, in interrogation rooms, inmate telephone calls from corrections facilities, and so on. Since the camera never lies, these recordings are often used to build a case against offenders. Every action is scrutinized, allowing prosecutors to maximize the number of charges against an offender. However, when it comes to the rights of the citizens to protect themselves with an unblinking, ever-truthful record of an interaction with the police, or if a person chooses to peacefully and un-obstructively document the actions of the police, his liberty is trampled on by an officer who acts out of a desire, more often than not, to protect his own image and position rather than protecting and serving the people. Unfortunately, the occasional bullying that citizen photographers receive from law enforcement is supported by the District Attorneys who choose to prosecute such erroneous and fabricated charges as obstruction, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest. A recent occurrence can be seen on a report from Baltimore’s WMAR: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNcDGqzAB30

I am asking you to help create parity when it comes to the rights of both law enforcement and the citizens to record one another. Citizens should be free from interference and bullying from both officers who may decide to step outside of their defined role, and from prosecutors who choose to maliciously punish individuals who want to protect themselves with a recording. Please take the lead in upholding our nation’s tradition of limiting government and protecting its citizens by authoring a bill unequivocally protecting the rights of the people to photograph law enforcement.

Thank you very much for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

[your name]

I actually email my representatives quite often. My Congressman and one Senator always call me back. Not surprisingly, Ben Nelson never calls back, but he’s an asshat who is on the opposite side from me so I don’t expect he will ever return a call. I live in a small town and I don’t think many people call, write or email. After a few months of doing this, I’ve come home with messages on my answering machine (yes, I still have a landline) to call them back.

Once, Senator Johann’s called and spoke to me for over an hour about net neutrality. Both Senator Johanns and Rep. Smith have always answered my letters, though Rep. Smith sometimes sends form letters back. I’m a registered independent in a very republican state, but I make sure my voice is heard.

It does work, though responses may vary. If enough people take the time to just write once a month, they will sit up and listen.

Only you can make your representatives pay attention and look at changing the law. If you don’t participate, you can’t blame anyone but yourself when a law comes back on you. Get writing.

Last Spring, everyone was surprised when a draft bill was introduced that would allow the president to control the internet.  Senator Jay Rockefeller, the man behind the bill, has reintroduced the bill, S.773, after spending months revising it.  People are even less happy about it now.

CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.

If the bill becomes a law, government liaison officers at local cable and internet companies would need to be federally certified, at the company’s cost, and be given the power to switch of any user when demanded by the government.  The GLO would be under the control of bureaucrats and censors in Washington, allowing them to monitor just about everything.  This will, in effect, become state controlled internet.

The language in the bill also implies that we are going to be one step closer to requiring some sort of federally mandated certificate for IT personnel.

“I think the redraft, while improved, remains troubling due to its vagueness,” said Larry Clinton, president of the Internet Security Alliance, which counts representatives of Verizon, Verisign, Nortel, and Carnegie Mellon University on its board. “It is unclear what authority Sen. Rockefeller thinks is necessary over the private sector. Unless this is clarified, we cannot properly analyze, let alone support the bill.”

Rockefeller’s revised legislation…..requires a “cybersecurity workforce plan” from every federal agency, a “dashboard” pilot project, measurements of hiring effectiveness, and the implementation of a “comprehensive national cybersecurity strategy” in six months–even though its mandatory legal review will take a year to complete.

Probably the most controversial language begins in Section 201, which permits the president to “direct the national response to the cyber threat” if necessary for “the national defense and security.” The White House is supposed to engage in “periodic mapping” of private networks deemed to be critical, and those companies “shall share” requested information with the federal government. (“Cyber” is defined as anything having to do with the Internet, telecommunications, computers, or computer networks.)

“The language has changed but it doesn’t contain any real additional limits,” EFF’s Tien says. “It simply switches the more direct and obvious language they had originally to the more ambiguous (version)…The designation of what is a critical infrastructure system or network as far as I can tell has no specific process. There’s no provision for any administrative process or review. That’s where the problems seem to start. And then you have the amorphous powers that go along with it.”

The problem with legislation such as this is that the people who are creating the bill lack a fundamental understanding of how the internet works.  If an outage occurs, the internet will reroute around it.  If a  backbone or ISP is taken down, the internet will reroute around it.  This is how the internet was designed to work.

Now, if a major part of the internet was attacked, it can be corrected.  Therefore, a terrorist would need to simultaneously need to knock out every router and backbone in the USA for this bill to even remotely be relevant.

If the government tells my ISP to shut off all its customers, we are all left in the dark.  We have to then rely on news and information that is given to us by the government.  We will have no way to fact check the information for validity.

As long as two nodes are connected, you will be online.  But if your one source of connection is cut off, you aren’t getting any information that the government doesn’t want you to have.  The USA only needs to shut down 23 companies for 75% of the country to lose access.

If you’re angry about this, write to your senators.  They aren’t going to read your twitter about it and they probably aren’t going to read my article either.  Then, go to the EFF and give them a couple of bucks.  If you don’t fight it, who will?