Travel Light
(/Clapton)

OT, but critical to getting decisions on FISA, net neutrality and the Constitution right is educating not just policy makers, but the judiciary as well.

http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2008/07/03/youtube-viacom-lawsuit-poses-a-threat-to-more-than-just-civil-liberties/

"Now, Judge Louis Stanton has decided to force Google/YouTube to disclose a complete set of data on all YouTube users. As TechCrunch reports: “That data includes every YouTube username, the associated IP address and the videos that user has watched on YouTube. Google will also be required to hand over copies of every video removed from Youtube for any reason (DMCA notices or user-initiated deletions). Stanton dismissed Google’s argument that the order will violate user privacy, saying such privacy concerns are merely “speculative.”” "

What's speculative, of course, is the idea that each and every YouTube user is guilty until proven innocent, as though the Fair Use doctrine or showing a page on a book to a friend, or playing CD or video clip we own for them is, or has ever been, a crime.

What's not speculative is that it's nobody's business, and the 4th Amendment and others directly tie into these and related concerns.

We will need to see 4th Amendment privacy rights extend into the public square and into The Internets and be applied, most reasonably, closer to how you would in a home or library.

It's clear even some members of the judiciary don't really grasp either the fundamental laws of this land or the meaning of the technology they're ruling on.

Racial profiling and guilt by association >< freedom of association, and constant unwarranted monitoring eviscerates any real meaning of practicing and every real intent of guaranteeing freedom of assembly and speech. Decisions 'regulating' those activities were flimsily justified and did not, of course, acknowledge a 'tension' with other powers, but functionally eviscerated the definition of liberties and rights, both textually-linguistically and in practice.

We have no guarantee whatsoever our govt will go after the right guys or refrain from operating as a clasic secret police to squelch political dissent. Oh--yeah: it's the Bill of Rights itself which is that guarantee, and FISA, so why don't we just stick to those American legal methods? Nor is there any reason to believe our govt will enforce the law, or follow it, or act in the best interests of the United States. The last 8 years taught us that abuse of power makes no positive contribution to national security, but eviscerates the country that secrecy & abuse presumes to protect.

This has everything to do with telcom immunity. When the American Judiciary allows the Nuremberg Defense --- "I was only following orders" to retain legitimacy as a 'rationale', they're greasing the skids for a slide into oblivion.

Yahoo's cooperation with China sent web user and dissident journalist Shi Tao to a labor camp. AG Mukasey is turning the FBI into a domestic secret police, with the clear intent to go in the wrong direction, and all of us will be less safe and the country less secure.

Because guess what? The freedom fighters and patriots fighting authoritarian and totalitarian regimes abroad use cell phones and video to hold people like Robert Mugabe and Putin and Achmedinejad accountable.

From the article:
"Over the past few years democrats and other “subversives” in places like Iran, Morocco, Egypt, Zimbabwe, China and other hell-holes of civil liberties have used their camera-phones to send broadcasts directly from the front-line of vicious conflicts."

When you can push a button and send in aerial drones, it won't matter to lots of folks whether you're bombing a freedom fighter or wedding party. That's always the first response of politicos-administrators who refuse any political conduit or responsiveness to legitimate and reasonable citizen concerns. And it is THAT is the root cause of 'terrorism.'

One certainty is rapidly clarifying: whoever is fighting for liberty and national security in the world these days, much of the current American legal-judicial apparatus is pushing hard in the opposite direction. Sure, they're building on a legacy of poor legal decisions that misapprehend the basic nature of this nation. But that's no excuse. What's at stake is clear, and it is clearly recognizable. For trained legal minds to abdicate their loyalties and logical faculties will haunt their names as long as legal opinions are published in this country.

Before 4th of the July you should remember 3th of July ;In 1988 the U.S. Navy cruiser Vincennes shoots down an Iranian passenger jet and KILL all 290 passengers U.S. officials defended the action, claiming that the aircraft was outside the commercial jet flight corridor, flying at only 7,800 feet, and was on a descent toward the Vincennes. However, one month later, U.S. authorities acknowledged that the airbus was in the commercial flight corridor, flying at 12,000 feet, and not descending. The U.S. Navy report blamed crew error caused by psychological stress on men in combat for the first time
http://www.thehistorychannel.co.uk/site/this_day_in_history/this_day_July_3.php

Interesting?haaah? If Iran did such a mistake
What did happen? I think USA NUKE Iran but you
know what did happen for USA?
Noting ,Bush(the first) even didn't give an apology for that crime. and give the Captain medal of honor ....

In 1983 USSR drop a Koren air plane in similar way. Here is the speech by Reagan at that time:
"My fellow Americans:

I'm coming before you tonight about the Korean airline massacre, the attack by the Soviet Union against 269 innocent men, women, and children aboard an unarmed Korean passenger plane. This crime against humanity must never be forgotten, here or throughout the world......

"
http://reagan2020.us/speeches/soviet_attack_on_korean_airliner.asp

Do u see any similarity between these events?

Unfortunately Iranian blood was not red enough and so it was not a crime against humanity and could forgiven .

So you should not be surprise for events like
11 September 2001. Untie u act as savages u should respect reactions like yours. I don't support 11 September or action like that but
YOU(American) and your leaders are the main guilty
for that actions.

I'm really sorry for u

Guilin was the highlight of our recent trip. I hope you will spend time along the Li River, and stop in the TinTin bar on the Western Street in Yangshuo. Catch the sign out front.

Forgot to mention the evening performance of "Dreamlike LiJiang" in Guilin. It is amazing production that incorporates ballet and acrobatics. It's like Cirque de Soleil with a Chinese twist.