Thursday, February 20, 2003

Code Orange [Joi Ito's Web] 10:22:44 PM

Patriotism Perverted The Bush administration's hostility to our fundamental liberties is unrelenting. ... The most astonishing suggestion in this anti-freedom smorgasbord is a "Citizenship Death Penalty." Suppose you, as a citizen, attended a legal protest for which one of the hosts, unbeknownst to you, is an organization the government has listed as terrorist. Under this legislation, you may be deported and deemed no longer an American citizen. This can occur even if you are simply suspected of terrorist activity. [Dan Gillmor's eJournal] 10:13:29 PM

Cheney's Energy Task Force: Why We'll Never Know Who Was on It It may seem like old history at this point, but the Bush administration's stiffing of Congress -- and the American people -- on this matter set a tone that has persisted: We have no right to know what corporate influence there has been on administration policies. [Dan Gillmor's eJournal] 9:17:33 PM

US INS destroys Canadian woman's passport, sends her to India An Indian-born Canadian citizen was flying home from India to Toronto, and transferring at O'Hare. INS decided her passport was funny-looking, destroyed it, denied her access to the Canadian consul, and deported her to India via Kuwait with her papers in such disorder she might not have been able to get into India if Kuwaiti and Indian authorities hadn't been so co-operative." [Boing Boing Blog] 8:06:21 PM

$73 million from Baghdad not enough for Dick Cheney Arianna Huffington writes about Dick Cheney's deals with Iraq. The two were clearly on the outs back during the Gulf War, when Cheney was Secretary of Defense, and the first President Bush dubbed Saddam "Hitler revisited." Then Cheney moved to the private sector and suddenly things between him and Saddam warmed up considerably. With Cheney in the CEO's seat, Halliburton helped Iraq reconstruct its war-torn oil industry with $73 million worth of equipment and services -- becoming Baghdad's biggest such supplier. Kinda nice how that worked out for the vice-president, really: oversee the destruction of an industry that you then profit from by rebuilding. When, during the 2000 campaign, Cheney was asked about his company's Iraqi escapades, he flat out denied them. But the truth remains: When it came to making a buck, Cheney apparently had no qualms about doing business with "Hitler revisited." [Boing Boing Blog] 8:02:32 PM

US Department of Transportation proposal for huge surveillance database The Department of Transportation's proposal calls for a "system of records" tracking massive amounts of information about every air traveler. The proposal is extremely broad and vague, and they are requesting exemption from the requirements of the Privacy Act -- so you would not be allowed to see what information is stored about you, or challenge incorrect information. [Kuro5hin.org] 8:00:16 PM

Patriot II Ramifications of Patriot II - Perhaps the scariest thing I have ever read. [Ben Hammersley.com] 7:52:08 PM

CNN is my shepherd, I shall not question CNN is doing a bang up job. As Dan Hon investigates, their online transcript of Hans Blix's report to the UN is missing 866 words. The bits Blix said about Iraq complying with the UN resolution, and the bit where he refutes Colin Powell's evidence from the week before. Nice and subtle, boys. [Ben Hammersley.com] 7:51:17 PM

Summit: DMCA Blocks Tech Progress Silicon Valley executives and other insiders meet with lawmakers to discuss how the Digital Millennium Copyright Act adversely impacts technology innovation. [Wired News] 8:49:15 AM

© Copyright 2003 Michael Alderete.