Once again the War on Drugs threatens the fundamental rights of ordinary Americans.

Despite protections afforded under the U.S. Constitution, the federal DEA is trying to initiate a blanket sweep of all license plates traveling along Interstate 15 in Utah, with the intent to store the information in a centralized database.

Furthermore, as noted by the ACLU which attended a recent hearing about the rollout, this federal agency is employing a scanning technology called ALPR to collect data from "unspecified other sources and sharing it with over ten thousand law enforcement agencies around the nation." ...

Susanne Posel, Contributor
Activist Post

The UK Home Office (UKHO) has British officials surveying its citizens as part of the government’s annual legislative program.

This is an extensive expansion of the current laws to allow the MI5 data securitization.

UKHO claims they are not snooping through private emails and messages, but rather deciphering where the communications are originating from, who sent it, its length and format.

The 4 billion hours of phone calls, 1 million emails and 130 billion text messages that are expected to be prime source information.

The proposed bill, if passed would place massive amounts of personal data into the hands of the British government. How they use that data is purely at their discretion...

Eric Blair
Activist Post

Google is making a big change to how it displays results in its dominant search engine. It is rolling out a new feature called the Knowledge Graph which breaks from the traditional practice of matching keywords with webpages.

According to an article on Blog Tips about Google's Knowledge Graph, immediate answers or "facts" from pre-selected sources like the CIA Factbook, Wikipedia, and the World Bank will be provided in search results along side the organic results...

revor Timm
EFF

A series of events in the last two weeks have set the stage for how surveillance drones will be operated by local law enforcement in the United States and how citizens can demand privacy protections as domestic use escalates. As EFF has previously reported, Congress passed a bill in February mandating the FAA must open national airspace to drones, despite the extensive and unprecedented civil liberties dangers they pose to every American.

The FAA, in new rules announced on Monday, made the authorization procedure easier, stating they have “streamlined the process” for “public agencies”—which includes local law enforcement—to legally operate drones in U.S. skies. We know that dozens of law enforcement agencies already have drones, based on information from EFF’s Freedom of Information Act lawsuit over the FAA’s initial refusal to release the list of authorizations. And one of the biggest cities with a police department on the list was Seattle...

As the run on the banks spread in Europe, with 30% of customers pulling cash out of UK branches of Spain's Santander bank, the Euro spikes on absolutely no news.

The site just isn’t for me so I never log in. Haven’t for months at least. Yet just in these last few days the site has been sending me emails when anything happens there. It doesn’t normally do this. I just can’t get it out of my head that perhaps they’re trying to make sure that all those dormant accounts wake up and log in, even if just to see what the alert email is talking about, so that usage numbers go up nicely in the next set of quarterly figures.

Facebook opened its shares for stock market trading today, opening at $42.05 only to immediately crash nearly 10% to $38 per share.

The House-approved legislation that would erode Internet privacy for Americans might have just bypassed a major hurdle. The White House official who publically condemned CISPA has suddenly stepped down as Obama’s cybersecurity coordinator.

Police - or anyone with a piece of spying software - can track everything you do on your iPhone without needing physical access to your phone.

The software, called Phone Password Breaker, can download all of the data from Apple's iCloud service - which backs up all of your pictures, text messages, emails, calendar appointments, call logs, website you have visited, and contacts.

As iPhones sync nearly instantaneously with iCloud, anyone who is listening will have near-instantaneous access to your phone - without the owner noticing a thing.

Nicholas West
Activist Post

Do you want to tap into your local scene? Are you a tourist looking for some action-packed nightlife? Or do you want to find a quiet out-of-the way place for a romantic evening?

A new facial "detection" app has hit the bar market in San Francisco, and its intentions are coming under scrutiny by potential patrons.

SceneTap is one of a plethora of private companies who are using the military tech of biometrics to database your face in a quest to offer convenience and enhanced social networking, paving the way toward making "anonymous" biometric information part of one's entertainment repertoire with trendy tech applications...

After congress recently approved the deployment of 30,000 drones over US skies, police in Austin, Texas are now training to use them.

Gwen Hinze
EFF

Fifty leading U.S. legal scholars cast fresh doubt on the constitutionality of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement in an open letter to the Senate Finance Committee today. (Press Release). At issue is whether the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) had authority to enter into the controversial IP enforcement agreement on behalf of the United States when the Deputy U.S. Trade Ambassador signed ACTA in October 2011.

The law professors say no, and call on the Senators to “exercise your constitutional responsibility to ensure that the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is submitted to the Senate for approval as an Article II treaty, or to the Congress as an ex-post Congressional-Executive Agreement.” ...

So, the OEMs make money from installing crapware onto PCs, and now Microsoft is making money removing it. Makes you realize why more and more people are buying Apple hardware.

A new academic paper by a researcher from the North Carolina State University has examined the link between BitTorrent downloads and music album sales. Contrary to what’s often claimed by the major record labels, the paper concludes that there is absolutely no evidence that unauthorized downloads negatively impact sales. Instead, the research finds that more piracy directly leads to more album sales.

Forrester analyst Nate Elliott has this to say:

One global consumer goods company told us recently that Facebook was getting worse, rather than better, at helping marketers succeed. And companies in industries from consumer electronics to financial services tell us they’re no longer sure Facebook is the best place to dedicate their social marketing budget – a shocking fact given the site’s dominance among users.

Schools are being forced to gain parental permission if they want to use pupils' fingerprints or other biometric data, the government has confirmed.

Some schools and colleges have already been using facial scanning and fingerprint identification to record attendance and allow pupils to access facilities like the school library.

But under new rules schools will be required to gain written permission from parents who will be given the right to veto the use of such sensitive data.

"I have heard from many angry parents after they have learned that their children's personal data was being used by schools without their knowledge," said schools minister Nick Gibb.

"The new legislation gives the power back to parents, as it requires parental consent before the information can be collected.

"Biometrics in schools is a sensitive issue. We want schools to be in no doubt of their responsibilities when it comes to young people's personal data."

The treasonous sleazebags at Google are removing From the Trenches articles from the searches. We know Google’s start up was funded by the CIA and that Google works hand in hand with that agency to spy on we the people and to suppress information that shows the international socialist insurgency for the reality it is. The people who own Google and operate it are nothing but Zionist lapdogs. They serve Benjamin Netanyahu, the King of Israel and are protected by the traitors within our own government.

Unless you can employ a law firm, you cannot even so much as complain about Google’s actions, hence they are above any of the laws of we the American people. Hell, you cannot even write an email to Google. What other business in the United States is so protected that you cannot even file an administrative complaint with the agency that regulates it?

Eva Galperin
EFF

Iran Continues March Towards “Halal Internet”

This past weekend, Iran’s minister of telecommunications announced that domestic institutions including banks, telecom companies, insurance firms, and universities are now prohibited from dealing with emails that do not come from an “.ir” domain name.

This means that customers who use foreign email clients such as Gmail, Yahoo!, and Hotmail will have to switch to domestic Iranian accounts, which are subject to Iranian legal jurisdiction...

Individual articles on websites will no longer carry the same pagerank as the hosting website since Google is now indexing each article as if they were unique pages. Is this the end of syndication, guest posting, or sponsored guest posts as we know it?

If you have a Google PageRank tool on your browser, go to CNN.com. You'll notice that their homepage has an enviable Google PageRank 8. Then click on the headline story on the front page and you'll notice that the pagerank disappears to nothing.

Although I used CNN as an example, I hardly feel bad for them as this move by Google seems to protect the big guys and put the small independent bloggers at a distinct disadvantage...

The former head of U.S. counter-espionage says the Harper government is putting North American security at risk by allowing a giant Chinese technology company to participate in major Canadian telecommunications projects.

In an exclusive interview in Washington, Michelle K. Van Cleave told CBC News the involvement of Huawei Technologies in Canadian telecom networks risks turning the information highway into a freeway for Chinese espionage against both the U.S. and Canada.

(StingRay's comment: Strange the former head of US counter-espionage is silent on the participation of foreign, Israeli, high-tech firms and telecom equipment providers (many with Mossad connections) in building and maintaining the US telecommunications infrastructure! Oh, sorry, my mistake. I get it. Israel is, cough, cough, our ally in the war on terror, so you think it's ok to trust them having access to sensitive information. LOL)

Brandon Turbeville
Activist Post

If you needed one more example of how DNA will soon cease to exist as a private piece of information, you need look no further than the latest product launch by Applied DNA Sciences.

On May 10, the company announced that it is releasing a new QR (Quick Read) Code secured by nothing other than DNA. Without a doubt, this new product launch is yet another step toward the ultimate collection, databasing, and use of DNA by governments and corporations on a universal basis...

According to Emma Draper, a spokesperson for the event organisers, “Based on our conversations with MPs and leading experts, we understand that there are two prongs to this new policy. … CCDP is likely to require that third party services [e.g., Facebook and Google] grant government agencies access to data [and to install] black boxes at ISPs and network providers to monitor and store all communications data…kit that performs deep packet inspection (DPI).”

Medical and social security records kept by public bodies are being unlawfully or inappropriately accessed dozens of times a month and hundreds of civil servants disciplined for data offences, according to Government records.

The DWP figures show that between April 2010 and last March a total of 513 staff members were disciplined for “unauthorised disclosure of official, sensitive, private and/or personal information... to anyone” from its database holding the records of 98 million people, which can be accessed by 200,000 people. For the 10 months from April 2011 to this January, the figure was 463.

Madison Ruppert, Contributor
Activist Post

If you needed any more proof that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is doing absolutely nothing to keep Americans safe – since there is, in reality, no terrorist threat whatsoever – aside from the constant “mistakes” and allowing airport employees to work without background checks, now you have it.

Bimbo Olumuyiwa Oyewole, a Nigerian immigrant, lived under the name Jerry Thomas for around 20 years and somehow was not only able to hold a job but hold a job supervising security officers at a relatively large airport.

The real Jerry Thomas was reportedly murdered in 1992 in Queens, New York, yet somehow Oyewole was able to pass both state and federal background checks in order to hold his position supervising 30 security guards at Newark Liberty International Airport...

Maira Sutton
EFF

The U.S. content industry will try anything to preserve its profit margin and power over the creative content market at the expense of the Internet. They will use any tactic that circumvents democratic processes to make new rules for the Internet that favor their interests and not the interests of Internet users or the technical community that actually builds the Internet as we know it. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is yet another example of these tactics.

14 MAY 2012

Nasty Revere MA Mayor's Office Calls Cops on Pesky EPA 21-E EPA Coverup Reporter at 525 Beach Street

The movie shown is from today. The movie shown at the post is from last week. In that post is your back story, and a good background journal entry.
http://christopher-king.blogspot.com/2012/04/kingcast-and-clifford-pis...

Oh, wait, I forgot. According to developer's Counsel Howard Brown I am not "real media." I know, I know... because "real media" doesn't do this sort of thing too much anymore but I'm just one of those old school types.... sorry.

Brit Dee, Contributor
Activist Post

Yet another potential danger has been added to the ever-growing and increasingly absurd list of supposed terror threats - the "E-Bomb".

An "E-bomb" is a weapon designed to be detonated in the upper atmosphere, and which emits a strong electromagnetic pulse. British Defence Secretary Phillip Hammond, speaking today at a conference in London attended by the US Assistant Defence Secretary, warned that terrorists or "rogue states" could use such a device to devastate Britain's infrastructure.

The E-bomb, if detonated some 500 miles above the Earth, would apparently take out satellites, radar and the National Grid with 'devastating' results. Key military installations, transport systems, power and water supplies would also be hit...

Documents show the White House, DHS, and the Pentagon coordinating and orchestrating the Occupy Wall Street crackdown while attempting to cover their tracks.

More than a decade after 9/11, heightened security at U.S. airports has become routine, yet some religious and minority groups say they're unfairly singled out for even more screening. Well, now there's an app for that.

The mobile app is called FlyRights. Travelers who suspect they have been profiled take out their smartphone, tap a finger on the app and answer about a dozen questions. Then they hit "submit" and an official complaint is filed immediately with the Transportation Security Administration.

The top-secret US National Security Agency is not required to reveal any deal it may have with Google to help protect against cyber attacks, an appeals court ruled Friday.

This week yet another court order was handed down in Europe with the aim of censoring The Pirate Bay. The ruling forbids the Dutch Pirate Party from not only running a direct proxy, but also telling people how to circumvent an earlier court ordered blockade. However, according to Pirate Party founder Rick Falkvinge, the judge in the case has a history of corruption relating to another file-sharing case he presided over in the Netherlands.

You can see something happening with a Bill for Internet snoopery. How long before details of what websites I have been looking at are passed on to ‘interested parties’? Of course the Internet itself is quite capable of doing this already, to great effect (the ability of Google to read the contents of emails and suggest linked ads based on this content is as impressive as it is disturbing) but the imprimatur of national security agencies and the police will add a certain sting to this loss of privacy.

How long before local councils (which have already been caught out using ‘anti-terrorism’ legislation to justify actions that have nothing to do with terrorism) are given the same powers as the police to see what we are up to online?
**Councils used Terrorist laws to ensure your rubbish bins were put out on the right day.

The ease with which private investigators can access highly personal and sensitive information stored in secure government databases has been exposed by a report that will intensify calls to regulate the industry.

An investigation by Channel 4's Dispatches programme reveals how a London firm of private detectives sold personal data on individuals, including details of bank accounts, benefit claims and even a national insurance number.

Undercover reporters also recorded Stephen Anderson, director of private investigators Crown Intelligence, disclosing medical details including the name of one of the volunteers' doctors, recent appointments with a GP and, in one instance, confirmation of a medical condition. On several occasions, the investigator provided information for payment that appears to be covered by the Data Protection Act, which makes it an offence to "obtain or disclose data without permission or procure the disclosure to another person

It doesn't take long. Several minutes into their first meeting, the director of Crown Intelligence offers an undercover reporter a broad range of highly sensitive and potentially illegal personal data.

A hidden camera monitors Stephen Anderson leaning across his desk in a plush office near Hyde Park, central London, saying: "I could go through his criminal history, his financial history, bank accounts, loans, medical history."

It is 5 May 2011, two months before David Cameron announced the Leveson inquiry into press ethics and the media's use of private investigators to access personal data. At a time when broader debate over privacy, data protection and press intrusion is raging, Anderson confirms that the most sensitive of personal information is easily available so long as you are prepared to pay.

Rebecca Bowe
EFF

Who’s playing fast and loose with your data? The Big Brother Awards, billed as the “Oscars for data leeches” by the hackers and privacy advocates who hand out the prizes, shine a high-intensity spotlight on companies and individuals with poor privacy track records. Since 1998, Privacy International and a host of affiliated organizations have singled out the worst privacy violators in various countries including the UK, Austria, France, Switzerland, Denmark, Belgium, Japan, New Zealand and the U.S. The title evokes the totalitarian cult personality featured in George Orwell’s 1984, set in a dystopic world of mass surveillance...

The Netherlands has become the first EU member country to pass into law new net neutrality regulations, following in the footsteps of Chile, which became the first country in the world to make net neutrality laws back in July 2010. The new Telecom Law was approved unanimously by the Dutch Senate and is set to ensure that access to the internet remains neutral and unfiltered.

Digital piracy advocates predict users will evade the ban by accessing the site indirectly.

One of the Blessings why I do not have an Iphone and use my cell phone very limited because too many prying eyes

The same email shows that News Corp was given an “extremely helpful” tip-off by Mr Hunt’s office that he would refer to phone-hacking in a statement to Parliament.

It was released to the Leveson Inquiry by Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of News International, as part of her witness statement to the Inquiry.

As well as dragging Mr Hunt further into the row which has already claimed the scalp of his special adviser Adam Smith , the email makes uncomfortable reading for David Cameron, as it suggests his response to the phone-hacking scandal was being guided by the owner of the News of the World.

In a blatant example of the dangers of the NDAA and drone strikes, the US government’s terrorist profiling algorithm flagged an 18 month old baby as terrorist.

Madison Ruppert, Contributor
Activist Post

In yet another example of the federal government trampling on state’s rights – a battle which has recently surfaced most visibly in the fight against states’ legal medical marijuana programs which has turned into a war on the patients themselves and even their children – U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has announced that they will completely ignore Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick’s objections and implement the so-called Secure Communities program...

London School of Economics:

This argument relies on a fundamental misconception. Despite any superficial similarities between old and new communication technologies, it is both disingenuous and dangerously simplistic to consider access to phone records as a useful analogy for making policy about combined access to email, web, social media and other internet traffic. The extent to which we use these new services is vastly greater, the information that they reveal about our habits and interactions greater still. This is further amplified by the ease with which these separate records can be correlated and cross-referenced. A closer analogy than logging telephone calls is the noting of every conversation we have, every book or newspaper article that we read, every shop that we visit and what we buy, as well as a host of other interactions that together make up a frighteningly detailed picture of our life and habits.

That leaves open the question of who the government – more precisely, the police and security services, since they are the ones who have been pushing for this measure – think they are going to catch with this scheme.

Clearly, they must have an idea. Here's what a Home Office spokesman said by way of explanation: "It is vital that police and security services are able to obtain communications data in certain circumstances to investigate serious crime and terrorism and to protect the public.

Let's be more precise. It's going to be useful against the less well-organised groups, gangs and rings, where some or all of the members aren't well-schooled in the computing field. That effectively means "the older ones" or those who are operating at the bottom of the ladder, because anyone further up the rungs of criminality or terrorism will already be familar with swapping sims, disposable phones, encryption services, and so on.

The bill to track everyone's email, Facebook, text and internet use has proved to be one of the most controversial within the coalition and has been slow-streamed in the government's legislative timetable after last-minute coalition talks.

The measure, criticised by civil liberty campaigners as a "snooper's charter", has been taken out of a more general Home Office- and Ministry of Justice-sponsored crime and courts bill, which ministers need to get on to the statute book as fast as possible.

The decision to have a standalone bill follows Nick Clegg's insistence that it must be accompanied by the "strongest possible safeguards". These are expected to include oversight case by case by a surveillance commissioner, a review of existing measures to protect the security of everyone's data and the publication of a privacy impact statement.

On Wednesday, US Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Robert Mueller urged Congress to grant the agency widespread surveillance powers. With the recent foiled terror plots, the FBI is seeking to have websites alter their code so that they can access users' personal information therefore preventing another potential terror attack. Declan McCullagh, chief political correspondent for CNet, weighs in.

CNN warns an entire outfit of Al-Qaeda terrorist are planning to conduct attacks on US soil using sophisticate high-tech bombs undetectable by security systems.

Their report quotes a Stratfor VP, a company the corporate media recently told us wasn't a realible source of information.

So what to take from this: 1) Apparently Strafor IS a reliable source of information - otherise the entire CNN report must be false propaganda and they would never do such a thing 2) A terrorist attack will soon occur against the US in a the near future which will be used to justify more constitution trampling laws that permanently revoke our civil rights. It's either that or the TSA will not be happy until everyone is subjected to a naked full cavity search and this is their way of justifying it.

The FBI sees the anonymous Bitcoin payment network as an alarming haven for money laundering and other criminal activity — including as a tool for hackers to rip off fellow Bitcoin users.

*(booga booga, I see criminals everywhere...FBI)

Noah Bonn, Contributor
Activist Post

In case you haven't looked up from your cave in a while, the biggest, messiest clash of titans so far in 2012 is currently being fought on the world stage. I'm referring to the battle between bills like CISPA and file sharing sites like The Pirate Bay.

Some of the players in this epic include: Internet moguls, governments around the world, media empires, military intelligence, and the ever-ominous power of the people.

The question to be answered is simple: Can Internet users freely share files on the Internet? How you respond to it will decidedly affect the future of not just music, but every industry in the world...

In 1845, Abraham Lincoln had tried to patent an idea very similar to Facebook, it has been revealed.

According to blogger Nate St. Pierre, the idea was rejected by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

St. Pierre described a visit to the Lincoln Museum in Springfield, Ill., where he was shown a paper, the Springfield Gazette. Resembling a newspaper, it was instead “the visual appendix to a patent application” for a 19th-century social network, he said.

The federal reserves has approved the first take over of a US bank by China while approving 3 communist state-owned Chinese banks to enter the US market.

Take, for example, the predecessor to SOPA/PIPA: the ProIP Act, which passed in 2008. A report by the Congressional Budget Office showed that the cost of this bill, which is almost entirely focused on increased enforcement was $435 million. Yes, you read that right. Taxpayers have been on the hook for nearly half a billion dollars for the increased enforcement initiatives -- like the spectacular flop known as Operation In Our Sites. Is this really a wise use of taxpayer resources?

Two years ago, we wrote about one of the most bizarre copyright lawsuits we've ever heard of. News giant AFP (Agence France Presse) -- for reasons that I still cannot begin to comprehend -- decided to proactively sue a photographer, Daniel Morel, after it (AFP) had taken his photos (of the earthquake in Haiti) from TwitPic without permission, and distributed them for sale via Getty Images. So why did AFP sue? Because Morel contacted them upon discovering this, demanding lots of money. And what was AFP's reasoning? Well, it tried to claim that Twitter's terms of service allowed this.

Activist Post

As if the NDAA wasn't bad enough -- essentially turning the whole planet, including America into one giant battlefield -- Congress is set to introduce an amendment that would grant even more power to the military for offensive operations in cyberspace...

Michael Snyder, Contributor
Activist Post

What would you do if someday the government made it mandatory for everyone to receive an implantable microchip for identification purposes?

Would you take it? Such a scenario may not be as far off as you might think...

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation is on a mission to wiretap the Internet. With more people communicating through the Internet, traditional land-line communication is slowly becoming obsolete. The FBI is seeking to have websites alter their codes to gain access to users' personal information, but the notion has posed a challenge and could cause a "going dark problem." David Seaman, journalist and host of the DL Show, joins us with his take on the FBI's request.

Joe Wright
Activist Post

If one ever needed a case of clear war profiteering with zero concern for the fallout, one need look no further than the international market in drone warfare...

EFF

There has been no lack of ink spilled on the legal battle between Oracle and Google surrounding Google’s use of Java APIs in its Android OS.

And no wonder, what with testimony by both Larrys (Page and Ellison), claims of damages up to $1 billion, and rampant speculation that a ruling in Oracle’s favor could change the way we all use the Internet...

Communication firms will be forced to store data on customers’ phone calls, email and internet browsing to allow spies and the police to track terrorists, serious criminals and paedophile rings.

The scheme has been opposed by the Conservative back benches and civil liberties groups.

The databases will track the calls and web activity of millions of people and the technology has already been concluded to be “fail-safe”. All broadband, landline and mobile phone companies will hold the telephone numbers dialled, the location of the caller, who was texting or emailing whom, and which websites have been visited. The content of messages will not be stored.

GCHQ, the government “listening post” has pushed heavily for the new powers, saying a quarter of their requests to communication firms for data are fruitless.

Continuing a recent trend, The Pirate Bay and other large BitTorrent sites are now being blocked by Internet providers in India. Visitors who try to access the sites are redirected to a banner which informs them that the Department of Telecommunications ordered a blackout. Torrent sites are not the only target, as the blockade also censors the video sharing site Vimeo, one of the largest communities of indie filmmakers.

File-sharing was firmly on the agenda when the head of the US Department of Homeland Security touched down in the Australian capital last week. The four new agreements – promptly signed before Secretary Janet Napolitano flew back out of Canberra – were less about sharing season two of Game of Thrones and more about sharing the private, government held information of Australian citizens with US authorities.

Joe Wright
Activist Post

In a move that signifies a private surveillance war between news networks, Arizona station KVOA has installed a network of remote-controlled, high-definition cameras around Tucson, AZ to "scan the streets for pretty much whatever's out there." ...

**Avoid MySpace
**Avoid Sprint, AT&T and Verizon
**Google charges $25 for your email account.
**Yahoo charges $20 for your email account.

Damning evidence from a Phd Student who details abuse of power by the US Government. :)

NSA whistleblower James Bamford and former Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller discuss Obama’s crusade against leaks and the journalists who report on them.

Mike Adams | This is, without question, the most important article I’ve ever penned, because it discusses the idea that the human race is being destroyed in the name of science.

Susanne Posel, Contributor
Activist Post

The Obama administration is attempting to force Congressional law to rewrite cellular phone privacy rights...

High Frequency Computer Trading Algorithms are once again caught in the act, this time pulling the trigger to reverse a massive stock market crash.

A new wave of malware freezes a computer and demands payment to unlock it, this time falsely alleging victims have infringed copyright.

The campaign, spotted by Roman Hussy, who authors the abuse.ch blog, targets users in the U.K., Switzerland, Germany, Austria, France and the Netherlands.

Hussy posted a screenshot of the warning that users in the U.K. would see. It bears the logos of the Performing Right Society (PRS), a royalties collection organization, and the Metropolitan Police.

The US government is bypassing criminal courts and going after websites centered around political discourse or on behalf of corporate interests.

Here is a small Info-graphics about the future of Smartphones, the features, the models, the hardware, the design, and many more which we are going to see and use very soon.

Joe Wright
Activist Post

Copyright trolls like the infamous Righthaven continue to fail in their attempt to intimidate people into settling cases that amount to nothing more than a shakedown for cash...

Who needs SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) or the international ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) when companies can have websites or YouTube channels removed simply by claiming their content has been infringed?

That is exactly what happened to the hip hop blog Dajaz1.com when the US government seized and censored it for over a year at the behest of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). RIAA claimed, while providing no evidence, that Dajaz1 was infringing on their copyrights and demanded they be shut down.

The government obliged the request before receiving any proof of the infringement. As it turns out, the RIAA couldn't provide any evidence and the government was forced to return the website with not so much as even an apology. Fortunately, Dajaz1 had their property returned to them, but not before they lost a year of revenue plus the aggravation involved in battling false claims.

Brandon Turbeville
Activist Post

Only three months ago, I wrote an article entitled “Cashless Society: India Implements First Biometric ID Program for all of its 1.2 Billion Residents,” where I discussed the implementation of a relatively new policy in India geared toward the creation of a massive biometric identification database for all 1.2 billion Indian residents.

The system consists of fingerprints, iris scans, and facial photographs - information which will be attached to a Unique Identification Number to be referenced when combined with the traditional methods of identification and included on the chip-enhanced National ID card.

Nicholas West
Activist Post

The outsourcing of human jobs as a side effect of globalization has arguably contributed to the current unemployment crisis. However, a growing trend sees humans done away with altogether, even in the low-wage countries where many American jobs have landed...

In a bid to make critical infrastructure vendors to take cyber security threats seriously, researchers release Stuxnet inspired exploits.

The United States has successfully launched a multi-million-dollar rocket carrying an undisclosed cargo believed to be a top-secret spy satellite.

Prosectors are shifting their focus to warrantless cell-tower locational tracking of suspects in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling that law enforcement should acquire probable-cause warrants from judges to affix GPS devices to vehicles and monitor their every move, according to court records.

Scientists have created a working quantum computer inside a diamond that includes protection against decoherence noise that prevents it from functioning properly.

Brandon Turbeville
Activist Post

Recently, CIA Director David Petraeus made headlines with a speech given at the summit for In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital firm. In this talk, Petraeus discussed the emerging “internet of things” and the implications it will have for increased levels of surveillance. Petraeus explained that, because of the rise of gadgets which are connected and controlled by apps, intelligence agencies will no longer need to place spy devices inside your home – you will do it for them.

A new computer trojan has infected 550,000 machines running Apple's Mac OS X - and many could still be vulnerable.

The infected machines are now part of a 'botnet' of zombie machines which can be controlled by cyber criminals and 'told' to download new malicious software.

The attack has been described as a 'rude awakening' for Mac users.

YouTube has censored a video critical of a global warming alarmists, who says global warming skeptics need to be treated, as a violation of community guidelines.

A new cybersecurity bill will allow the government to bypass privacy laws to monitor, censor, and stop any online activity deemed disruptive to the government or private parties.

Joe Wright
Activist Post

After nearly unprecedented pushback against bills SOPA and PIPA, their apparent defeat cannot yet be claimed. Most skeptics presumed that the defeat of the aforementioned would only serve to offer a compromised "SOPA light" at some point to circumvent criticism over government censorship. Well, it didn't take long...

H.R. 3523, a piece of legislation dubbed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (or CISPA for short), has been created under the guise of being a necessary implement in America’s war against cyberattacks. But the vague verbiage contained within the pages of the paper could allow Congress to circumvent existing exemptions to online privacy laws and essentially monitor, censor and stop any online communication that it considers disruptive to the government or private parties. Critics have already come after CISPA for the capabilities that it will give to seemingly any federal entity that claims it is threatened by online interactions, but unlike the Stop Online Privacy Act and the Protect IP Acts that were discarded on the Capitol Building floor after incredibly successful online campaigns to crush them, widespread recognition of what the latest would-be law will do has yet to surface to the same degree.

EFF

New data from law enforcement agencies across the country has confirmed what EFF has long been afraid of: while police are routinely using cell phone location tracking information, only a handful of agencies are bothering to obtain search warrants.

Since 2005, we've been beating the drum loudly, warning that the government's attempts to track a person's physical location through their cell phone requires a search warrant.

As we've said again and again, because cell phone tracking can give the government a snapshot of a person's life through their movements, a search warrant is necessary to safeguard against privacy intrusions...