September 2011
2 posts
1 tag
April 2011
1 post
Recording industry lobbyist appointed head of... →
soulabstracts:
Maria Martin-Prat, who took a leave from her job at the European Commission to work as Deputy General Counsel and Director of Legal Policy and Regulatory Affairs for the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI — thee international version of the RIAA, CRIA and BPI, though they’re all basically the same companies), has returned to the EC to run its copyright...
March 2011
8 posts
How the So-Called Guardians of Free Speech Are... →
As the United States and Britain look for an excuse to invade another oil-rich Arab country, the hypocrisy is familiar. Colonel Gaddafi is “delusional” and “blood-drenched” while the authors of an invasion that killed a million Iraqis, who have kidnapped and tortured in our name, are entirely sane, never blood-drenched and once again the arbiters of...
Liberty and Freedom: HACKING TUBE ADS WITH LONDON... →
socialisimo:
Plunderground protest by changing the adverts on the tube. Inspired by a situationist process ‘détournement’, they copy conservative propaganda that targets benefit cheats and replace it with their own posters, targeting corrupt bankers and tax avoiders. We sent Charlotte Pawle to find…
“Create a vision and never let the environment, other people’s beliefs, or...”
– ~Anthony Robbins
February 2011
5 posts
Hillary Hypocrisy? Clinton Calls for Free Speech,... →
soulabstracts:
On Tuesday, February 15th Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a speech on the importance of Freedom of Speech in the Internet age. She focused her attention on foreign countries and chided them for curtailing the speech of their citizens.
During that speech Ray McGovern, a veteran who also served for 27 years as a CIA analyst, exercised his freedom of speech by standing...
2 tags
US trade chief urges Europe to open market to GM... →
“When Europeans come to the United States, they come and enjoy our cuisine with no concerns whatsoever,” Deputy US Trade Representative Miriam Sapiro said ahead of talks with European Union trade commissioner Karel De Gucht’s senior officials. “Why should we have different standards in Europe?
Why should we have different standards? Excuse me?
CIA rewards mistakes with big promotions →
rtamerica:
In most careers mistakes are rarely rewarded with promotions and commendations – but, that is not the case in the CIA.
In December of 2003 the CIA snagged Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen, and held him for five months in secret. Few people knew where he was or why he was there. It was later learned he was being held and interrogated in a secret prison in Afghanistan.
Unfortunately,...
January 2011
5 posts
Sweden 'buying US time' in Assange case →
Julian Assange’s lawyer in Britain has accused Swedish authorities of secretly planning to extradite the WikiLeaks founder to the United States.
Attorney Mark Stephens told German newspaper Die Zeit that he believed Swedish officials were cooperating with US authorities with an eye to extraditing Assange as soon as the Americans have built a criminal case against him.
“We are hearing that the...
“The link between my experience as an entrepreneur and that of a politician is...”
–
2003: Quote
2011:Berlusconi lawyer: Premier immune from prosecution
(via soulabstracts)
Soldier's inhumane imprisonment →
Manning has been charged with unlawfully downloading classified information and transmitting it “with reason to believe that the information could cause injury to the United States.” He has been incarcerated at Quantico for five months and has yet to receive the military equivalent of a preliminary hearing. Nevertheless, Manning is in “maximum custody.” Also, under a...
December 2010
25 posts
2011: A Brave New Dystopia →
The two greatest visions of a future dystopia were George Orwell’s “1984” and Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.” The debate, between those who watched our descent towards corporate totalitarianism, was who was right. Would we be, as Orwell wrote, dominated by a repressive surveillance and security state that used crude and violent forms of control? Or would we be, as Huxley envisioned,...
Bank of America Wants You to Know Its Executives... →
Company defensively registers hundreds of domain names for its senior executives and board members.
As Bank of American awaits a possible release of information from WikiLeaks, it wants to ensure that you don’t think it’s executives suck. Or blow for that matter.
The company has been aggressively registering domain names including its Board of Directors’ and senior executives’ names followed...
3 tags
Karl Rove Suspected In Swedish-U.S. Political... →
Karl Rove’s help for Sweden as it assists the Obama administration’s prosecution against WikiLeaks could be the latest example of the adage, “Politics makes strange bedfellows.”
Rove has advised Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt for the past two years after resigning as Bush White House political advisor in mid-2007. Rove’s resignation followed the...
Catholic Priest: It’s Not Good to Have Imaginary... →
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 11.0px 0.0px; line-height: 18.0px; font: 11.0px Verdana; color: #19100a}
Would anyone like to break the news to him…?
Time Magazine 'wrong' person of the year
Share government’s secrets, go to jail. Share normal people’s secrets, TIME man of the year!
It is all about money. “TIME picks ‘wrong person’ this year: Commercial and political concerns may have led Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to beat WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange.”
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2010/12/201012169312449462.html
US Air Force blocks NY Times, Guardian over... →
Dec 14 (Reuters) – The U.S. Air Force has blocked access for computers on its network to The New York Times (NYT.N), the Guardian, and at least 23 other websites carrying WikiLeaks documents, a spokesman said on Tuesday.
Freedom…
US report adds details on Cold War Nazi intel →
NEW YORK – Newly released records reveal details on how U.S. intelligence officials used and protected some Nazi Gestapo agents after World War II, tracked Holocaust administrator Adolf Eichmann and relied on a suspected war criminal from Ukraine living in New York to try to disrupt the USSR, according to a report to Congress obtained by The Associated Press.
Wikileaks: Over 4600 comments on an open letter to... →
STD fears sparked case against Wikileaks boss →
WASHINGTON (Reuters) The two Swedish women who accuse WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange of sexual misconduct were at first not seeking to bring charges against him. They just wanted to track him down and persuade him to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases, according to several people in contact with his entourage at the time.
"I have been accused of treason, even though I am... →
hipsterlibertarian:
Here’s an Op Ed from Wikileaks’ Julian Assange. In it, he notes that the cables revealed so far (only like 300 out of some 250,000, by the way) show:
► The US asked its diplomats to steal personal human material and information from UN officials and human rights groups, including DNA, fingerprints, iris scans, credit card numbers, internet passwords and ID photos, in...
U.S. to Host World Press Freedom Day in 2011 →
The United States is pleased to announce that it will host UNESCO’s World Press Freedom Day event in 2011, from May 1 - May 3 in Washington, D.C. UNESCO is the only UN agency with the mandate to promote freedom of expression and its corollary, freedom of the press.
Julian Assange Captured by World's Dating Police →
Dear Interpol:
As a longtime feminist activist, I have been overjoyed to discover your new commitment to engaging in global manhunts to arrest and prosecute men who behave like narcissistic jerks to women they are dating. I see that Julian Assange is accused of having consensual sex with two women, in one case using a condom that broke. I understand, from the alleged victims’ complaints to the...
Citizens of Europe Rage Against the Machine →
The international bankster machine seeking to colonize Western nations through debt is now meeting resistance from Greece, to France, to Ireland, to Italy, to Spain, to Portugal, and to the U.K. The protesters are getting support from someone who is experiencing the outcome of resisting public bailouts of private banking debts. The President of Iceland recently remarked that they’re in...
Wikileaks: A Government Caught Up in Mendacity and... →
The reaction to WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange tells us all we need to know about the total corruption of our “modern” world, which in fact is a throwback to the Dark Ages.
Mike Huckabee, the redneck baptist preacher who was governor of Arkansas and, to America’s already overwhelming shame, was third runner up to the Republican presidential nomination, has called for Assange’s...
Noam Chomsky: WikiLeaks Cables Reveal "Profound... →
In a national broadcast exclusive interview, we speak with world-renowned political dissident and linguist Noam Chomsky about the release of more than 250,000 secret U.S. State Department cables by WikiLeaks. In 1971, Chomsky helped government whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg release the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret internal U.S. account of the Vietnam War. Commenting on the revelations that...
Why I Love WikiLeaks For restoring distrust in our... →
International scandals—such as the one precipitated by this week’s WikiLeaks cable dump—serve us by illustrating how our governments work. Better than any civics textbook, revisionist history, political speech, bumper sticker, or five-part investigative series, an international scandal unmasks presidents and kings, military commanders and buck privates, cabinet secretaries and diplomats,...
Interpol puts Assange on most-wanted list →
This is what happens when you threaten to expose big banks.
(CNN) — Interpol, at the request of a Swedish court looking into alleged sex crimes from earlier this year, has put WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on its most-wanted listed. The Stockholm Criminal Court two weeks ago issued an international arrest warrant for Assange on probable cause, saying he is suspected of rape, sexual...
November 2010
36 posts
BP among companies Obama excluded from US... →
A number of the nation’s biggest polluters received exemptions from basic environmental oversight for federally funded stimulus projects, according to a published report.
While the stimulus bill was being debated in Congress in 2009, numerous companies lobbied for environmental exemptions, but their efforts were ultimately rebuffed by environmental advocates.
But while companies may have...
NYTimes: Cables Obtained by WikiLeaks Shine Light... →
metaconscious:
By SCOTT SHANE and ANDREW W. LEHREN
Published: November 28, 2010
WASHINGTON — A cache of a quarter-million confidential American diplomatic cables, most of them from the past three years, provides an unprecedented look at backroom bargaining by embassies around the world, brutally candid views of foreign leaders and frank assessments of nuclear and terrorist threats.
Some...
Body Scanners Coming to Trains, Subways and Boats,... →
Brace yourselves, commuters — body scanners may be coming to trains, subways and boats, according to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. “[Terrorists] are going to continue to probe the system and try to find a way through,” Napolitano said in an interview that aired Monday night on “Charlie Rose.” She said as aviation security tightens, “we have to also be thinking now about going on...