More Interesting News
2012
Here are a few more interesting news items you might have
missed...
Will You Be Spied On?
The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA,
may have worked its way through Congress by the time you read
this. This internet monitoring bill will permit the government
and private companies to view your private online communications,
without a warrant or even any judicial oversight. According to
Congressman Ron Paul, to exercise this power they need only "do
so in the name of 'cybersecurity.'" Ron Paul adds;
The bill is very broadly written, and allows the Department
of Homeland Security to obtain large swaths of personal information
contained in your emails or other online communication. It also
allows emails and private information found online to be used
for purposes far beyond any reasonable definition of fighting
cyberterrorism.
CISPA represents an alarming form of corporatism, as it
further intertwines government with companies like Google and
Facebook. It permits them to hand over your private communications
to government officials without a warrant, circumventing well-established
federal laws like the Wiretap Act and the Electronic Communications
Privacy Act. It also grants them broad immunity from lawsuits
for doing so, leaving you without recourse for invasions of privacy.
Simply put, CISPA encourages some of our most successful internet
companies to act as government spies, sowing distrust of social
media and chilling communication in one segment of the world
economy where America still leads.
Update: By the time I loaded this page onto the site
the bill had passed. It was scheduled for a vote April 27th,
but it was moved up to the 26th (to avoid more criticism perhaps?).
The house voted for it 248-168. Amendments were added that made
it more dangerous. Leigh Beadon argues in an article on TechDirt.com: "Basically it
says the 4th Amendment does not apply online, at all... CISPA
is now a completely unsupportable bill that rewrites (and effectively
eliminates) all privacy laws for any situation that involves
a computer."
Trying to Silence Dissent
The Obama administration has been more active than most when
it comes to going after whistleblowers or those who leak information.
According to an article in the Atlantic Wire;
The extent to which the administration is prosecuting leakers
has troubled those who see leakers as speakers of truth to power.
"In President Obama’s 26 months in office, civilian
and military prosecutors have charged five people in cases involving
leaking information, more than all previous presidents combined,"
reports the Times. Here's a list of prominent leakers with various
agendas currently under pressure from the government.
The article continues with information on five people targeted
by the administration. For example, Thomas Drake, who had been
a senior executive at the National Security Agency, was tried
under the Espionage Act of 1917. His crime? He was disgusted
by the mismanagement, wastefulness and possible constitutional
violations at the National Security Agency. More specifically,
he thought the government was wasting money on a surveillance
system called Trailblazer, when there was a cheaper more efficient
system (one which he says would have stopped the 9/11 attacks),
so he talked. He might have broken a law, but this was clearly
not "espionage." He faced up to 35 years in prison
(fortunately for him he pled to a misdemeanor to resolve the
matter).
We will never know the whole story in this case or the others,
but the pattern seems to one of be going after those who speak
up in ways that are politically damaging. There has been at least
one other prosecution of this sort since that article was published
a year ago.
States With the Most Freedom
The Mercatus Center at George Mason University tracks laws
and regulations around the country in order to maintain an index
of "personal and economic" freedom. New Hampshire often
tops the list, as it did again last year. Here are the top ten
states on the Index of Personal and Economic Freedom:
1. New Hampshire
2. South Dakota
3. Indiana
4. Idaho
5. Missouri
6. Nevada
7. Colorado
8. Oregon
9. Virginia
10. North Dakota
The bottom five were Massachusetts, Hawaii, California, New
Jersey, and New York.
Of course, freedom can be measured in many ways, so if you
are looking to move on the basis of having more, you might want
to consider what types of freedom you value most and look for
the states that meet your personal criteria. New Hampshire, for
example, has low taxes in general, but very high property taxes.
If you value the freedom to live simply on your property without
the necessity to work too much for the "rent" the government
demands, this might not be your favorite state.
The Free State Project
If you haven't heard of it before, this is how the website
for The Free State Project
describes its goals:
The Free State Project is an effort to recruit 20,000 liberty-loving
people to move to New Hampshire. We are looking for neighborly,
productive, tolerant folks from all walks of life, of all ages,
creeds, and colors who agree to the political philosophy expressed
in our Statement of Intent, that government exists at most to
protect people's rights, and should neither provide for people
nor punish them for activities that interfere with no one else.
What is not mentioned on the website (as far as I could find
anyhow), is that many libertarians who are a part of this movement
hope that New Hampshire can someday secede from the nation. In
fact, this state was chosen over Wyoming in part because, as
its own country, it would be more able to engage with the rest
of the world thanks to its access to the seas. New Hampshire
has only 13 miles of coastline, but it does have a port at Portsmouth,
next to the state line of Maine.
Copyright Webhiker LLC - Terms
/ Privacy / Contact |
