Monday, July 15, 2002

Yahoo Helps Build China's Great Firewall We're heading rapidly toward a time where local jurisdictions will tell American Web sites what they may or may not show local audiences. It's Web zoning, and it's going to be more and more prevalent. It's a bad sign for freedom.[Dan Gillmor's eJournal] 7:30:56 PM

Saudia Arabia's Internet Firewall Our dictatorial and misogynist ally, Saudi Arabia, is also one of the world's most enthusiastic censors of the Internet, according to this study by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. [Dan Gillmor's eJournal] 7:28:02 PM

Advocacy groups claim free speech imperiled. Levy said the group wants all service providers to handle such subpoenas the way America Online Inc. does. When AOL gets a subpoena, it informs the individual that a company is making an attempt to discover his or her identity. This gives the person a chance to take action against the subpoena and the company. [Tomalak's Realm] 7:24:10 PM

"Newsweek: Halliburton CEO Says Cheney Knew About Firm's Accounting Practices; 'The Vice President Was Aware of Who Owed Us Money, And He Helped Us Collect It' [Daypop Top 40] The best part is this quotation: "The vice president's office says they won't discuss Halliburton issues. 'His view is that it would be a distraction from what he's trying to get done here,' said Mary Matalin, Cheney's chief political aide." Translated that means "Cheney doesn't want to have to resign, or go to jail, so he's stonewalling until the public forgets the issue." 7:22:52 PM

Harken Papers Offer Details on Bush Knowledge Although Bush has maintained over the years that the size of the losses took him by surprise, interviews and internal Harken documents provide a newly detailed picture of how much Bush knew about Harken's financial straits when he sold the stock. A confidential Harken chronology, obtained by the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity, said that 16 days before he sold the stock, Bush was sent the company's "weekly flash report," giving "information provided by subsidiaries regarding estimated historical and projected earnings." SEC investigators knew Bush had seen the flash report but still dropped the case. Bush agreed to be interviewed by the SEC, but the investigators did not take him up on it, provoking skepticism from some government officials about their thoroughness. [Daypop Top 40] In other words, since he was their CEO's son, the SEC didn't have the courage to do a proper investigation, since that might actually have resulted in criminal charges... 7:13:38 PM

US planning to recruit one in 24 Americans as citizen spies The Bush Administration aims to recruit millions of United States citizens as domestic informants in a program likely to alarm civil liberties groups. The Terrorism Information and Prevention System, or TIPS, means the US will have a higher percentage of citizen informants than the former East Germany through the infamous Stasi secret police. The program would use a minimum of 4 per cent of Americans to report "suspicious activity". [Daypop Top 40] The best part is the folks they're recruiting -- people with regular access to other people's homes, like postal workers, delivery company employees, meter readers, and the like. So the next time your mailman looks at you funny, or the UPS guy rings the doorbell, be careful, you could be reported. If you think this is a joke, read the article. 7:10:28 PM

Homeland Security: Slowing the Juggernaut. The Brookings Institute will tomorrow release a report which will urge Congress to refine and streamline the White House proposal to gather a flock of more than 170,000 employees and 22 separate government agencies under the new Department of Homeland Security. Congress is quickly running this legislation around the bases, towards a timely completion on September 11. This may be an important accomplishment by which they are judged at the next election. The Brookings folks, however, are urging congress to refine and streamline the scope of the legislation in a way which will reduce the number of organizations under, and authority of the juggernaut which will be Homeland Security. In related news, the Honorable Sen. Byrd, (D-W.Va) is threatening filibuster to "support and defend the constitution", and force congress to slow down and think clearly about this legislation. [kuro5hin.org] 7:01:56 PM

HDTV Battle Wages On. Digital television isn't quite here yet, but when it comes, it may be little use to anyone if a new copy protection scheme goes into effect. By Brad King. [Wired News] 6:56:10 PM

TiVo Use Might End Advertising, Free Up Our Airwaves. Jamie Kellner, chairman of Turner Broadcasting System, recently spoke to the Television Critics Association and warned them that free TV in the United States may be coming to an end. [...] As if it wasn't enough that the television companies are claiming to provide a free service which you the consumer are ultimately paying for, they're doing it over the airwaves owned by that same public. One thing I didn't realize until doing research for this article is that television broadcasters receive the rights to the public airwaves absolutely free. So on top of the real cost, in terms of increased product prices, we the public are paying the opportunity cost of not being able to use the airwaves for a better purpose. When you think of that it's absolutely mindboggling that Kellner has the nerve to say that commercial skippers are the ones doing the "stealing". [kuro5hin.org] 6:53:52 PM

Microsoft pulls Java from download page. Weeks before the software maker plans to reinstate Java in Windows XP, it shuts down a site that would automatically send Java software to Windows XP users. [CNET News.com] Java remains one of the strongest dikes that keeps Microsoft from overrunning the entirety of the technology landscape. Little surprise that Microsoft will hurt their customers in order to hurt Java more. 6:34:45 PM

US granted immunity from war crimes prosecution. According to this BBC report, the UN Security Council has voted unanimously to exempt US peacekeepers from war crimes prosecution by the new International Criminal Court in The Hague. The US claims that without immunity, its soldiers might be subject to politically-motivated or frivolous prosecutions. However supporters of the court point out that it can intervene only if a country cannot or will not prosecute crimes against humanity in its national courts. They stress how unlikely it is that American peacekeepers would commit such crimes; or that, if they did, the Americans would not deal with it themselves. Human rights group, Amnesty International, strongly opposes this agreement and is urging people all over the world to contact their Foreign Ministry to declare their full support for the International Criminal Court. More information can be found at this web page. [kuro5hin.org] More examples of how America appears to think itself above the law, in the eyes of our international brothers. This is not the stuff that international cooperation is made of, and is symptomatic of the reasons why our "war on terrorism" is starting to be America's alone, instead of civilization's. 6:30:10 PM

Microsoft tries to steal Macworld thunder. The software giant launches the first of several pre-emptive strikes against Apple's trade show by announcing new technologies far ahead of their delivery to market. [CNET News.com] 6:24:54 PM

Poor Dubya gave another speech about confidence in the economy, and yup the stock market responded by going down again, by hundreds of points. Analysts speculate that this is because he said nothing that inspires confidence. It's true, his manner of speaking does anything but inspire confidence. He still has that sing-song way of talking like he's reading off a cue card even when he's ad libbing, and the huge pauses in awkward places don't help in confidence inspiration. Then again what could he say that would get people to not be scared of their friends and neighbors continuing to dump stocks? [Scripting News] 6:22:24 PM

© Copyright 2003 Michael Alderete.