When you think of radical religious leaders trying to maintain absolute control of their followers you normally think of the Muslims and certain fanatical imams.
–How about thinking instead about Israel’s Haredi rabbis.
These ultra-Orthodox rabbis, who’s followers live in walled enclaves, isolated from the rest of society, yearn for a return to the dark ages where religion ruled everything and outside influence was forbidden.
These religious leaders have ranted and raved about the dangers of the internet for years and want kosher filters on cellphones so no one may read or see anything that they haven’t pre-approved.
In one infamous incident, the family of Israel’s Sephardic chief rabbi, Shlomo Amar, had a 17-year-old boy kidnapped and beaten at knifepoint after he became acquainted with the rabbi’s daughter through an Internet chat room and later met her unchaperoned – an ultra-Orthodox taboo. Amar was not charged in the case.
Now according to the Washington Post a number of Haredi rabbis are calling for a boycott of web sites built and run by Haredi Jews. Saying the sites, which allow free discussion, with irreverent and unmonitored reader responses – including direct criticism of rabbis’ authority, are disseminating “gossip, slander … filth and abominations.” –None of these sites offer porn, profanity or other material that has traditionally raised the ire of these rabbis. They simply allow freedom tho discuss topics that make the rabbis uncomfortable and challenge their authority..
It’s impossible for a stone age mentality to compete with the freedom of the internet so they fear it.
Johnathan Swift: “We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.”
In Vietnam four men were arrested in June and charged with spreading spreading anti-government propaganda.
Le Cong Dinh, a human rights attorney, best known for defending Vietnamese interests in the selling of cheap catfish against charges brought by US catfish farmers.
Tran Huynh Duy Thuc, a man described as an internet entrepreneur.
Nguyen Tien Trung, the leader of the Assembly of Vietnamese Youth for Democracy.
Le Thang Long, a member of the “Chan research group.” –In his “defense?” Le Thang Long produced 29 documents, 13 of which contained information describing plans to encourage the people to overthrow the government.
Early this month state prosecutors dropped the propaganda charges and the men were charged instead with subversion, which carries a maximum possible sentence of death.
After a day-long trial, all four men were convicted of “activities aimed at subverting the people’s administration”. With sentences ranging from five years for Le Cong Dinh to sixteen years for Tran Huynh Duy Thuc.
Four men tried and convicted under differing parts of the penal code, with one trial lasting one day. Now that’s efficient.
Read more here.
Governor Jim Gibbons of Nevada is talking about Opting out of Medicaid. Saying that the state would struggle to pay the unfunded costs.
From LasVegasNow.com:
Rhea Gertken of Nevada Legal Services agrees. She believes dropping Medicaid may not be the best option. “For some people, it’s a lifeline,” Gertken said. “It’s astounding really to think that we would do away with a really huge program on the hopes that the new health care bill would cover the same people.”
But, the conservative think-tank Nevada Policy Research Institute believes otherwise. “The mandated expansion on Medicaid would impose a new unfunded mandate on Nevada,” NPRI Fiscal Policy Analyst Geoffrey Lawrence said. Lawrence says depending on the details of a health care reform bill, the state could save serious money. Plus, he says people would still get the health care they need. “Individuals currently on Medicaid would be eligible for… federal subsidies. So, they could go out and buy their own personal insurance plan,” he said.
You will notice the vague references to federal subsidies without telling specifically where or how these could be obtained. Much less what qualifications would be required to obtain these subsidies. –Typical elitist Neo-Cons.
The governor and his cronies are among those people who have never had to worry about paying the bills. And as such, have no idea what it’s like to try struggle to afford medications and doctors visits.
As far as buying personal insurance goes; what insurance company under the current rules will cover pre-existing conditions at prices normal people can afford?
Trust me. This bit about forcing insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions is mostly rhetoric. No matter how well intentioned some politicians are, by the time the insurance companies’ bought and paid for politicians are done negotiating and folding in exemptions, nobody will be any better off than they are now.
The US government has decided not to seek a fifth racketeering trial against John “Junior” Gotti, son of the notorious Gambino family crime boss.
After four trials and a series of hung juries government prosecutors have given up. The “Teflon Son” of the “Teflon Don” is free to get on with his life.
Federal prosecutors in Tampa, Florida, brought the latest case in 2008, but it was returned to Manhattan by a judge who said he was left with the “unmistakable and disquieting impression” that the government had shopped for a trial location where it might finally win.
The John “Senior” Gotti escaped conviction in a series of trials in the 1980s and early 1990s, gaining him the nickname “Teflon Don” because the charges wouldn’t stick to him. Now, aside from being sentenced to five years in ‘99 after pleading guilty –over his father’s objections– to racketeering, “Junior” –who swears he left the business in the 90’s– is following the same path.
Tags: crime, Gotti, hung jury
Do you remember the scheme to hide missiles by putting them on rails and moving them around. -Or perhaps your old enough to remember the low budget version: A Winnebago and a six pack?
In keeping with the tradition of hiding from your enemies in plain sight, Tow and Grow offers a stealth grow room.
Yes boys and girls, you can now give the DEA nervous twitches, as they try and figure out which travel trailer, out of the hundreds on the road, they should bust.
For added security you could paint the logo of a fictitious rv rental company on the back and install some blacked out windows with painted on curtains.
President Obama said that the intelligence had “failed to connect the dots” in the case of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. The man who “allegedly” tried to blow-up the Northwest flight Christmas day.
“Failed to connect the dots” my ass, with the amount of intel being collected the dots are so close together that the page is black.
What happened, and will continue to happen, is the bureaucrats will shuffle papers, the intelligence people will write reports saying what their supervisor, who’s final report will be geared to please the politicians, wants them to say, the politicians will make speeches and the people on the ground will continue to be automatons. Shuffling bureaucracies and area of responsibility won’t change anything.
The problem is amazingly simple: There was a report floating around that al-Queda was planning an attack on the US during the holidays and a Nigerian was involved. This man’s father went to the US Embassy and told them his son was radicalized with ties to al-Queda and had talked of “sacrificing himself.”. Some mid-level bureaucrat at the embassy dutifully wrote it all down and sent this information on up the food chain where Abdulmutallab was put on a generic terrorist list along with a half a million other names.
As I understand it, this man boarded an international flight in Amsterdam without any luggage. –Who the hell flies across the Atlantic with nothing but a passport and a pair of loaded underwear? Wouldn’t that make you stop and wonder, just a little?
Back in 2007 they deployed full body scanners in Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport. They also have iris scanners and all kinds of other security. –All of which failed.
The equipment didn’t fail. Everyone involved, who’s job it is to be on the front lines, failed.
The man at the embassy in Nigeria that handled the case either wasn’t informed or more likely did it all on autopilot. –Maybe there are so many extremists with ties to al-Queda wanting to sacrifice themselves in Nigeria that this didn’t raise any alarms, or perhaps this is a common way for parents to get embassy personnel to help them find wayward children. –My bet is that he’s just putting in his time.
In the airport they process so many passengers that everything is done automatically. Nobody thinks. They just stand around waiting for something they can see. Like maybe a Browning 50 cal. tucked into somebody’s carry-on bag.
We don’t need more intelligence gathering, we need more common sense.
Back in the day when this airport insanity first started and you couldn’t bring liquids on board because they might be explosive, I watch as security tossed bottle after bottle in trash cans right behind them.
I don’t know about you, but if I think something is going to explod,e I am not about to toss it anywhere near me. Neither are those security personnel who were collecting anything liquid. They were simply going through the motions. They knew none of it was likely to do anything worse than possibly stain someone’s clothes. But the rules are the rules, and somebody in charge, who also had no clue, told them to do it
The system is broken and it has so little to do with intelligence that to say the dots weren’t connected is laughable.
It’s the TSA hiring hundreds of people and putting them to work without the proper training for the job they’re being asked to do.
It’s the bureaucrats protecting their turf.
It’s a dog and pony show as opposed to real change.
It’s an intelligence Czar who can’t get the CIA, NSA or FBI to share data.
It’s disparate computer systems. –Even within the individual agencies.
But mostly it’s the people on the ground failing to do their jobs.
If the guy at the embassy had said “hey I think we may have something here” instead of filling out forms.
If the people farther up the food chain had done anything other that file the report and put his name on a generic list.
If the airline had required something less than a history of blowing himself up to put his name on a cautionary list.
And most importantly, if the airport screeners had used that fancy equipment or had paused long enough to think that a man with no luggage might warrant a second look.
–We wouldn’t have had to rely on a failed detonator and fast thinking passengers to save lives..
Here’s a little something for you paranoid types: Did you know that your smart phone can tell the world your approximate location even without a gps?
I was reading an email from Code Project when I came across this article.
The title is: Learn How to Find GPS Location on Any SmartPhone, and Then Make it Relevant.
From a coder’s point of view this has the potential to be extremely useful, but from the point of view of some guy on the street who would like a little privacy the implications are a frightening.
This is from the coder:
The fact that GPS isn’t (yet) ubiquitous is the real difficulty in location-aware development. The goal here is to get the location from any phone, not just GPS-capable phones. Therein lies the difficulty.
A quick peek under the Mobile Map hood reveals a couple things. First, Google is posting requests to http://www.google.com/glm/mmap for location data. I’ve scoured their APIs, and this isn’t something that appears to be documented. That means, we’re on our own for figuring out how to package and send data. Secondly, it’s clear that they’re sending four key pieces of data:
* Cell Tower ID
* Location Area Code (LAC)
* Mobile Network Code (MNC)
* Mobile Country Code (MCC)
That’s great news! As it turns out, almost all cell phones have this data readily available. Windows Mobile (5 and 6) has a native API to get those four pieces of data called the Radio Interface Layer
As you can see, “They” really can watch your every move.
Fortunately there are so many of us that, aside from keywords sniffed by whatever replaced Carnivore or good old fashioned guilt by association, there’s no simple way to decide who to follow. And if your life is anything like mine you’ll just bore the bloody buggers to tears.
Tags: cell phone, gps, location, tracking
Reprinted from Some Old Dude:
China is so afraid of the internet that they have announced a plan to register all domain names. Those that aren’t registered will presumably not be accessible to Chinese web surfers.
BEIJING (Reuters) – China has issued new Internet regulations, including what appears to be an effort to create a “whitelist” of approved websites that could potentially place much of the Internet off-limits to Chinese readers.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology ordered domain management institutions and internet service providers to tighten control over domain name registration, in a three-phase plan laid out on its website (www.miit.gov.cn) late on Sunday.
“Domain names that have not registered will not be resolved or transferred,” MIIT said, in an action plan to “further deepen” an ongoing anti-pornography campaign that has resulted in significant tightening of Chinese Internet controls.
They claim this is to control pornography, but regardless of the “official” reason, anyone who is even slightly aware of the behavior of the mainland Chinese government, knows that they want absolute control of what the Chinese people see, hear, or say.
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Iran has tried in vain to control access to the internet so they can control what the people hear, see, or say.
Two days ahead of a new round of planned protests against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Internet access in the nation’s capital is largely down, according to Agence France Presse.
Sources close to Iran’s technical services told AFP the cut was the result of “a decision by the authorities” rather than a technical breakdown, but telecommunications ministry officials were unavailable for comment.
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Russia has also tried to control the internet.
In January of 2000 then acting President Vladimir Putin put a law into effect that grants eight different security authorities direct access to all Internet transactions. Beside the domestic secret service FSB, other agencies given access to Internet monitoring include the tax police; the Interior Ministry; the border guard; the customs committee; the security agencies of the Kremlin, the president and parliament, as well as the foreign intelligence agency.
Now Russia wants to allow the use of Cyrillic for Web addresses. This seems fair enough but many people are so afraid of the Russian government and the FSB in particular they think that the push for Cyrillic amounts to a plot by the security services to restrict access to the Internet.
They fear greater isolation and the possible creation of an hermetic Web. What someone described as a cyber-ghetto.
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Vietnam extensively regulates Internet access to its citizens, using both legal and technical means. The collaborative project OpenNet Initiative classifies Vietnam’s level of online political censorship to be “pervasive” while Reporters without Borders considers Vietnam one of 15 “internet enemies”. While the government of Vietnam claims to safeguard the country against obscene or sexually-explicit content through its blocking efforts, much of the filtered sites contain politically or religiously sensitive materials that might undermine the Communist Party’s hold on power. Amnesty International reported many instances of Internet activists being arrested for their online activities.
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You may not think that this applies to you, here in the US you should consider the pervasive spying by the Government as well as the spying by communication companies on behalf of our government.
You also need to add the all inclusive record keeping by companies like Google to this equation.
Perhaps you should consider filtered search results, that supposedly help you by showing selected selected web pages rather than everything related to your search. –With the exclusion of most websites from your search results these companies control what you see, This is called censorship.
Considering our government’s ubiquitous spying, and their history of insidious relationships with the major ISPs, I would think that blocking certain material of domains would be irresistible.
The internet is still the wild west but it is rapidly being corralled by people who are afraid of anything they don’t understand. Or worse, anything that goes against their religious beliefs, their personal opinions, their moral standards, and their political ideology. –And we mustn’t forget those JR. J Edgars that would monitor and control us in the name of security.
Enjoy your freedom while you have it, because unless you’re one of the sheeple who are willing to let big brother make all your decisions for you, you will soon miss it.
Tags: domain names, fear, government control, internet
According to this article in the Wall Street Journal the insurgents in Afghanistan Iran and Iraq are watching live video feeds from the US predator drones.
The $26.95 software that allows this was not designed by some nefarious hacker with a cryptic “l33t” name but rather by a legitimate programmer who wanted something that would allow people to watch commercial video feeds from other countries.
Today, the Air Force is buying hundreds of Reaper drones, a newer model, whose video feeds could be intercepted in much the same way as with the Predators, according to people familiar with the matter. A Reaper costs between $10 million and $12 million each and is faster and better armed than the Predator. General Atomics expects the Air Force to buy as many as 375 Reapers.
Nothing changes.
A conversation somewhere on the Afghan border:
“Assalmu Alaikum, Ahkmed.” “Watcha Watching?”
“Wa Aliakum a Salaam, Mustafa.” “I’m watching drone tv.”
“Don’t watch feed two.” “That stupid infidel is all over the sky.” “It’ll make you dizzy.”
“Hey Aarash! Come Quickly! Your house is on TV and the Americans are targeting it”
“Inshallah.” “May my mother-in-law be home.”
“He’s launching”
“Allah Akbar!”
“Shit! He missed”
“How do you use the latest and greatest technology and miss an entire house?”
“I tell you Mustafa, I can’t get a break.”
Tags: Air Force, Al Queda, drone, intercept video, Taliban, video, video feed
In case you missed the latest cluster F*** brought to you by our very own TSA. –They gave the bad guys of the world an absolutely wonderful Christmas gift. They published their security manual online for all to see.
It was an effort to hire a contractor to rewrite the manual with certain parts redacted(blacked out) on the website. –It turns out that the redacted parts were visible if you highlighted them copied and pasted into any text reader.
The TSA: Those people who think the world will be safer if we take off our shoes.
Those people who hired felons to keep us safe.
Those people who couldn’t figure out what a Macbook Air was.
And yet in spite of the presence ot the ever vigilant, highly trained, experts from the TSA who guard our airports Major airports fail security tests every time. (a 70% failure rate is what I’ve read)
Now Congress is asking TSA for proof that all these expensive security measures are working, because it turns out that, despite rigorous training, screeners continue to miss things that government inspectors smuggle through the checkpoints.
This report was filed by 60 minutes in December 2008 and updated in July 2009.
Go to a checkpoint and you’ll find passengers bellyaching about the undressing, the unbuckling, and the taking off of their shoes – which they don’t have to do in Europe or even Israel, where airline security is especially tight.
There are fewer headaches in a country with as many active enemies as Israel??
But the TSA has a record of tracking and stopping innocent passengers, which has contributed to the agency’s overall credibility problem. In focus groups, travelers questioned the TSA’s ability to keep us safe and also complained about “pointless” security measures and rude and incompetent screeners.
On the other hand, if you’re into strip searches the TSA is the way to go.
Tags: security manual, TSA, TSA screwup
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