CISPA & C-30: Joined at the hip . . . .

From OpenMedia.ca today:



And from BGR today:

Thousands rally against CISPA cybersecurity bill

By: Dan Graziano | Apr 26th, 2012

The controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), which is supported by more than 100 members of the House of Representatives, is scheduled to be discussed in Congress on Friday, where it will be the first bill to go to a vote since the collapse of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in January. The bill looks to give businesses and the federal government legal protection to share cyber threats with one another in an effort to prevent online attacks. Internet privacy and neutrality advocates, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, feel the bill does not contain enough limits on how and when the government may monitor private information . . . .

Stay informed and stay involved . . . .

What the media ignored: 25,000 peacefully demonstrate against G20 policies in Toronto

Spread the word.



Take this viral and maybe the MSM will have to report it . . . .

Finally . . . .

(Update below)

Finally, some good news out of Iraq, by way of McClatchy:

Iraqi who threw shoes at Bush released to hero's welcome
Hannah Allam | McClatchy Newspapers | September 15, 2009

BAGHDAD, Iraq — The Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at then-President George W. Bush last year was freed from prison Tuesday, expressing no remorse for hurling what he called a "flower to the occupier."

Muntathar al Zaidi received a hero's welcome at the offices of his employer, al Baghdadiya television station, where his colleagues slaughtered sheep and danced in celebration of his release. Originally a three-year term for assaulting a head of state, Zaidi's sentence was reduced and he was released early because he had no criminal record.

Sporting a dark suit and a scarf printed with the Iraqi flag, a paler and thinner Zaidi told a news conference that Iraqi guards tortured him with whippings and electric shocks during his nine-month detention. He was missing at least one front tooth.

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Zaidi said the years of witnessing war's brutalities as a journalist built up inside him and exploded last Dec. 14, when Bush gave a farewell news conference alongside Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki in Baghdad. Zaidi interrupted Bush's remarks by throwing his shoes at the president, shouting the words that earned him admiration and notoriety around the globe: "This is a farewell kiss, you dog. This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq."

Bush ducked the flying shoes, and the episode quickly went viral via YouTube, spawning online shoe-throwing games, parodies, folk songs and poetry. A wealthy Saudi reportedly offered millions for the shoes, Arab women have written love letters to Zaidi and a statue of a giant shoe was erected in Saddam Hussein's hometown before the Iraqi government ordered it removed.

al Zaidi should be given the keys to the city and a statue erected in his honour . . . .


Update: Mutadhar al-Zaidi's statement after being released from prison is here.

Cover Your Heads, Here it Comes . . . .

The dems caving-in, that is.

Figured they would, and this looks like the beginning of the end courtesy of Reuters:

Top U.S. Democrat: accord near on spy bill, immunity
Sun Mar 2, 2008

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives may soon resolve a stalemate that has blocked efforts to renew an anti-terrorism spy law and shield phone companies from lawsuits, a key Democrat said on Sunday.

Lawmakers may consider a compromise bill that would renew the law, which expired last month, and possibly grant some sort of protection to phone companies from lawsuits. But it would differ from a Senate-passed measure backed by the White House that would provide blanket immunity.

"We think we're very close. Probably within the next week, we'll be able to hopefully bring it to a vote," House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes of Texas said of efforts to craft and pass such legislation.

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Many Democrats have opposed immunizing phone companies that participated in the warrantless domestic spying program begun by President George W. Bush after the September 11 attacks, saying they first needed to know what the companies did.

Reyes said House Democrats were now reviewing confidential U.S. documents they received in recent weeks about the warrantless electronic surveillance program and were talking with phone companies.

Consequently, Reyes said he now had an "open mind" on whether to shield companies from lawsuits.

Yes, and I'll bet the "open mind" of a lot of representatives includes an "open checkbook" for all those telecom company campaign contributions . . . .

Two Things . . . .

Item #1: We are honoured to be recognized as "Excellent" by His Excellency Dave over at The Galloping Beaver. Don't know if we qualify, but pats on the back are always appreciated, especially from someone we respect as much as Dave.

Our blogroll is much more limited than that at TGB, but here - in no particular order - are our picks as "Excellent":



Creekside
The Galloping Beaver (For obvious reasons)
The Gazetteer
Idealistic Pragmatist
Liberal Catnip

Immigration-related:

Canadian Hope
Two Moms to Canada
Our Journey toward Canadian Immigration
We Move to Canada
Life Without Borders

There are more that qualify as "Excellent" to be sure, but these are the faves.


Item #2: This post is the first using my new blog "handle" of West End Bob rather than West End Bound. The change still allows those of you that refer to me as "WEB" to knock yourselves out. As we get nearer to the actual move, and now that I have PR papers in hand, I'm not "bound" anymore. (Not that there's anything wrong with that!) With the June drive across the continent getting nearer with each passing day, it feels more and more like reality.

Pretty good feeling it is, too . . . .

Tough Dems ? ? ? ?

Let's see how tough the democrats are in standing up to bushco.

My money's on "Not Very."

The one hope for privacy advocates is Senator Chris Dodd's promise to filibuster any bill that included the telecom immunity provision. Note how the major presidential candidates have been silent on an issue that is of such importance. They're too busy sniping at each other in a "he said, she said" spat.

Go figure.


From Reuters today:

Committee head sees approval of phone immunity
Wed Jan 23, 2008 5:51pm EST - By Thomas Ferraro

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Democratic-led U.S. Senate will approve President George W. Bush's demand that telephone companies that participated in his warrantless domestic spying program receive retroactive immunity from lawsuits, a top lawmaker predicted on Wednesday.

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Yet it remained uncertain if the Senate could reach an agreement with the Democratic-led House of Representatives on such legislation before a surveillance law it would replace expires next week on February 1.

Vice President Dick Cheney joined the fray, saying, "We're reminding Congress that they must act now to modernize FISA," the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Speaking at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank, Cheney added, "Those who assist the government in tracking terrorists should not be punished with lawsuits."

Yeah, let's not punish the corporations and executives that were spying on US citizens.

That would be just wrong . . . .

Adbusters' Battle . . . .

Admittedly, I am not up-to-snuff on all Canadian issues of importance, but this one looks to be one we all should have on our radar. It popped up on my Google Reader today and bears watching:

Compliments of Adbusters : The Magazine:


Fighting For Air
From Adbusters #75, JAN-FEB 2008

Long-time readers of Adbusters may have noticed that we’ve been a little quiet about our ongoing legal battle to break the corporate monopoly on Canada’s broadcast media. It hasn’t been for lack of activity – in fact, some recent and welcome developments suggest that the case is about to pop back up onto the radar.

For those of you not quite up to speed, here’s the gist: After over a decade of having our consumer-awareness TV spots rejected by just about every major commercial broadcaster in North America (often with little or no explanation from the network reps who issued the refusals), we resolved to take our fight to the courts. In 2004, we filed a lawsuit against the government of Canada and some of the country’s biggest media barons, arguing that the public has a constitutionally protected right to expression over the public airwaves.

Following a series of false starts and the inevitable legal complications, the suit was whittled down to two main defendants: the government and CanWest Global Communications, Canada’s largest international media corporation. The case is currently awaiting the resolution of two preliminary motions: one by Adbusters to add the CBC, Canada’s publicly funded national broadcaster, as an additional defendant; the other by CanWest to strike the case before it even proceeds to trial.

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“We all watch television,” offers Dalziel, “and we (as the public) own the television airwaves. The question is, are the public airwaves the modern equivalent of the town square, in which all Canadians are free to express their views? Or can the government parcel the airwaves out to private companies who are free to exclude the rest of us from access, and keep us quiet?”

Having seen what the concentration of media outlets has done in the US, this looks like a case we all should be concerned about . . . .