Bill Wilson - A Megaload of Unintended Consequences

http://netrightdaily.com/2012/01/a-megaload-of-unintended-consequences/

 

By Bill Wilson

After an outpouring of opposition by millions of Internet users and tens of thousands of websites against the "Stop Online Piracy Act" (SOPA) and the "Protect Intellectual Property Act" (PIPA) in the House and Senate, congressional proponents of the bills have delayed votes on Capitol Hill.

That is not stopping the Obama Administration, however, which has been acting as if the proposals have already been passed.  The most recent example is the shutdown of Megaupload.com, a web-based data storage company that boasted over 150 million users, by the Justice Department and New Zealand law enforcement officials. 

According to the indictment, the company was accused of facilitating the distribution of pirated movies, television shows, music, and other copyrighted material.  Allegedly, the company refused to process Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown requests, and falsely told copyright owners materials had been removed when members of the company took steps to keep the pirated material on their servers.

Finally, according to the indictment, the company allegedly "made payments to uploaders who were known to have uploaded infringing copies of copyrighted works" and that members of the company itself were uploading infringing works.

If true, the members of the company would certainly be in a lot of trouble.  However, this case has broader implications that should be considered.

Over 150 million users worldwide — millions of whom were premium subscribers — have lost access to their data files.  By some estimates, there were over 8 billion files stored on Megaupload, just a fraction of which contained infringing material according to the indictment, which only claims that "many millions" of the files are infringing.  Like many alleged criminal enterprises, Megaupload carried on several legitimate business dealings.

So, whether the company is guilty or not, Megaupload had millions of users who were using its servers for legitimate purposes — and they've just had their data seized without cause. 

This, in turn, sets up a series of dangerous precedents.

The future of information technology is in cloud-based applications.  When the feds can seize the entire cloud based on the actions a few or even many participants, it violates the property rights of its legitimate users. 

The Justice Department has responded to media inquiries about the status of the legitimate files that were stored at Megaupload, saying that users had no reasonable expectation of long-term data storage from the company: "the vast majority of Megaupload.com users do not have significant capabilities to store private content long-term since anything that isn't repeatedly downloaded is automatically deleted from the system."

However, premium users had an expectation that their data would be stored for a period lasting at least 90 days or forever if it was regularly accessed.  Now, it looks like everything on the Megaupload servers could be deleted as soon as Feb. 2.

To draw a real world analogy, this would be like a bank being accused of violating some law, and so all of the innocent depositors' assets were also seized.  Or if a mobster owned an apartment building and was arrested, all of the building's blameless occupants were exiled and their property taken into custody, based merely on criminal activity taking place in one of the apartment units.

Even more alarming is the Obama Administration's expansion of executive powers to police the Internet in this manner, based on a reading of existing federal forfeiture laws in a manner that was never necessarily intended.

Already, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has used this basis to seize domains in error, including the cases of mooo.com and dajaz1.com, only to be returned weeks and months later respectively without any compensation for loss of revenues or even a good explanation for the mishaps.

Overall, the Obama Administration's actions to date with Megaupload.com, mooo.com and dajaz1.com raise significant due process, First Amendment, and property rights concerns.  The world has witnessed attempts by governments to shut down political speech using the same rationale and technologies that the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security have employed already.

Congress needs to act now to tie their hands while the courts move to rein in this aggressive, arrogant overreach by an out-of-control government.

Bill Wilson is the President of Americans for Limited Government.

Carol Shea-Porter - JUST SAY YES TO THE JOBS ACT

President Obama came out—finally—with a jobs bill last week. Members of Congress, who have not passed a single jobs bill of their own, immediately started to pick at it. Republicans thought it spent too much, some Democrats thought it was not bold enough. And so it begins again. The endless tussling, the fighting, the political partisanship and games have started. While most disguise their partisanship with polished phrases, one senior Republican aide actually told the truth straight-out when he told Politico, “Obama is on the ropes. Why do we appear ready to hand him a win?”

And meanwhile, millions of Americans wait, either jobless or feeling insecure about their own jobs. The millions who are unemployed worry about unemployment benefits ending, and about how to find work in a country that keeps focusing just on deficits, and on cutting jobs instead of growing them. America lost eight million jobs in the Recession, but the economy had been growing jobs until last month. All of the cutting led to zero job growth last month. In their zeal to cut budgets and jobs, our leaders forgot a basic rule for economic growth. There has to be consumer demand for businesses to grow. Consumer demand is 70% of our economy. If people aren’t working, they cannot spend. The best way to reduce deficits is to grow the economy, not to just slash spending and lay off government and private workers. And for those who always say the government does not create jobs, just ask government workers who lost theirs. Ask companies that rely on government contracts, and ask their employees if government creates jobs.

The President’s plan invests in the economy, and offers many of the ideas that each party has embraced in the past. There are tax cuts in there for individuals and for businesses. Although I worry about the payroll tax reduction because I believe it could ultimately weaken Social Security, I also know that we have hit a red light in our economic recovery, and I think compromise is essential if we are going to move forward. Most economists have been positive about the president’s plan, USA Today reported, and that includes being positive about those payroll tax cuts. “Payroll tax cuts are very powerful," said Allen Sinai, chief economist of Decision Economics. "They provide a boost to direct income and, in turn, spending, which is important to growth." The newspaper also covered Mark Zandi’s supportive comments. Zandi was John McCain’s economic advisor during his campaign for president, and is now the chief economist at Moody's Analytics. The paper said that Zandi “estimated that the president's plan would boost economic growth by 2 percentage points, add 2 million jobs and reduce unemployment by a full percentage point next year compared with existing law.” There is a possibility that President Obama is wrong, and that these economists are also wrong. But given the current situation we find ourselves in, doing nothing or continuing to just slash spending and slash jobs presents the greater danger.

We have to take care of the unemployed veterans who cannot find work, especially the wounded. This bill does that. We have to work on infrastructure and put construction workers back on the job. This bill does that. We have to protect unemployment insurance for 6 million people, while trying new and innovative programs to get them back to work. This bill does that. We have to help small businesses with their taxes and we also have to help them compete on infrastructure projects. This bill does that. We need to keep cops and firefighters on the job. This bill does that. And we need to create jobs for low-income youth and adults, who cannot get a leg up into the middle class if there is no work. This bill does that also. There is finally a plan on the table, an idea to move our country out of the quicksand. This bill is not the one the Republicans would have written, if they had written one at all. It is not the one that will get a ringing endorsement from all of the Democrats in Washington. It is the bill that requires compromise and working together. Pass this bill.

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Former Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter represented New Hampshire’s First District from 2007-2011, she is seeking a third term in the November, 2012 election.  She wrote the proposal for and established a non-profit, social service agency, which continues to serve all ages.  She taught politics and history and is a strong supporter of Medicare and Social Security.

Peter Bearse - THE DEBT LIMIT, A VOTE TO SEPARATE THE SHEEP FROM THE GOATS

Now we know, at last. The vote to exorcise the media-Halloween specter of “economic Armeggedon” or “Global Meltdown” has been cast. All the hue and cry ended in a whimper. Except for cries of default by “Tea Party” Republicans -- default of courage.

 

The acid test vote on the federal debt limit indicates just how far we’ve got to go -- those of  us who spoke about and supported “real change in the way Washington does “We the People”s business.” The Republican veto-proof majority did well to approve a “Cut, Cap and Balance” [CC&B] approach to the issue. Only nine Republicans, including Michelle Bachmann, defected -- because they thought the CC&B cuts didn’t go far enough! Even with this, backed by support of CC&B by nearly 3/4 of Americans polled, the U.S. Senate voted down the initiative with a thud.# House leadership, however, didn’t have the “stones…testicular fortitude” to then draw a line in the sand and say to the Senate and its President: “Enough is enough; this is our position; DEAL WITH IT!”#

 

Thus, as of Friday, “We the People” were confronted with yet another bill and another House vote. The Boehner bill that finally passed was “Dead on Arrival” in the Senate, to become the subject of a backroom deal cut by the Senate President [still smarting from a Tea Party that had the temerity to challenge his senile eminence in 2010], the U.S. President [Teleprompter Reader-in-Chief] and the Speaker of the House [prime sponsor of the boner bill]. So we could look forward to another piece of major legislation cooked up through “secretive deals, gimmicks and tax increases.”#

 

Opportunities -- for the Tea Party to change the GOP or take it over -- all these were highlighted by the tiring debate, fear mongering and “political posturing” over the debt limit. The ultimate possibility, as advocated by several TP-associated Members of Congress (MoCs) led by Rep. Ron Paul, would have been to refuse to vote to increase the debt limit. This would have provided the kind of real barrier to increased federal spending and debt that most people voted for in 2010.

During his July 19th floor speech, Rep. Paul stated: “If the debt is the problem…how is raising the debt limit the solution”? Our current federal deficit is $1.6 trillion [T]. So, we owe the Federal Reserve $1.6T. This is not real debt subject to default. Let them eat it. Then we can get down to serious business. Default is not a matter of “failing to send out checks.” We’ll do that. Effective default is lose of people’s purchasing power and depreciation of their incomes via higher prices & interest rates (&c). This looms whether or not the current debt limit is increased. 

 

According to the mainstream media, compromise failed; Obama won; the GOP and TP lost. But the real losers are “We the People.” For the public was never well-informed. We got a pile of hype and fear mongering, as noted earlier. This included releases from two leading bond-raters, Moody’s and S&P -- whose misrepresentations helped cause the Great Recession! -- that “default” would spell a down-grade of the U.S. government‘s Triple-A-rated debt. What the agencies really stated was that there was a 50:50 chance that they would downgrade the debt within 90 days even if a “technical default” were avoided, if there was no credible plan to reduce the federal debt over the “long term.”

Opponents of the limit increase had repeatedly stated, and proponents had not denied, that failure to increase it by Aug. 2nd need not lead to a technical default. Why? -- Because the Federal Reserve could rearrange the government’s accounts payable enough so that interest payments on the debt would continue to be made in the short term. The President could instruct the Treasury to pay Social Security recipients on schedule [Aug.3rd]. In the meantime, up to three months, ways could be found so that the federal government would “live within its means” as established by the current, un-raised, debt limit. 

 

Was this scenario feasible? Yes, but here again, the public was ill-informed. On the one hand, media “economics” commentators were talking about anemic GDP and “jobs” reports, how government cutbacks and the threat of “default” were already starting to take the economy back down. On the other, they failed to specify precisely what default meant and what its implications might be, including short-term and long-term impacts on government spending and jobs. MoCs also seemed to be poorly informed except by “BeJesus” reactions to the media and ratings agencies’ fear-mongering.

 

Was the opponents’ scenario also credible? Yes. It is credible as the only position that really comes to grips with the basic problem of national over-spending and huge intergenerational accumulation of unsustainable debt. Over-reliance upon debt had become addictive. Like Nancy Reagan on drugs, somebody had to stand up and insist: “Just say NO!” TP Rep.’s were not altogether “somebody”. With some exceptions, they failed to fulfill a fundamental responsibility  -- to provide full, timely information to their constituents. When push came to shove, many lost the spines shown in their campaign advertising. Had they had forgotten the Biblical question: “Are we like sheep…?”

 

The GOP/TP overlap/on-again/off-again alliance failed again to face down Obama. Although the President bears responsibility for immediate negative impacts of the failure to raise the debt limit,  it is the GOP’s new, spine-less TP members that should pay the piper in 2012. If the TP is to regain its credibility, it should prepare to run candidates in primaries against those who voted for the “boner.” Like someone vs. Guinta in NH CD1. He was not among the 22 who had the courage to vote against the “boner.”

 

PETER BEARSE, Ph.D., International Consulting Economist and author of A NEW AMERICAN REVOLUTION: How “We the People” can truly “take back” our government (forthcoming).

 

Obama is a War Criminal

By Nathaniel Gurien

Nobel Peace Prize winner President Barack Obama should be impeached immediately then prosecuted for war crimes for making unprovoked war on Libya in direct violation of the US Constitution, in abuse of the limited War Powers Resolution of 1973, and in violation of international law prohibiting the unprovoked invasion of sovereign nations.

During his campaign for president, constitutional scholar Obama stated unequivocally and in writing:

“The President does not have the power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”

The Constitution specifically reserves the following powers EXCLUSIVELY to Congress:  “TO DECLARE WAR…. make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water; To raise and support Armies…; To provide and maintain a Navy; To make Rules for….. the land and naval Forces; To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia…” and so on.

Libya did not attack the US; Libya is not a threat to the US.  The pretext of “humanitarian intervention” is a transparent big lie.

If his humanitarian pretext was sincere, where’s our war criminal president’s similar concern about the killing of innocent civilians in IRAQ, PAKISTAN, AFGHANISTAN, YEMEN, PALESTINE, BAHRAIN & SOMALIA, most of where he already has civilian blood on his hands?  How protected do you think innocent civilians feel when the missiles and bombs we’re dropping on them are tipped with depleted uranium?

To understand how absurd on its face this pretext is, imagine if instead of the US, it was Iran that invaded Libya. Do you think anyone would blindly accept that its credible intention was the humanitarian protection of civilians solely or at all?

Why hasn’t our news media reported that hundreds of US, British and French military “advisors”, including intelligence officers and  special forces were dropped from warships and missile boats at the coastal towns of Benghazi and Tobruk on Thursday, February 24^th for a covert mission that included co-opting the uprising, organizing locals into paramilitary units, teaching them how to use the weapons they captured from Libyan army facilities, providing military and combat training and preparing infrastructure for the intake of additional foreign troops? (www.debka.com/article/20708).

As recently revealed in the NY Times, the leaders of the “freedom-loving” rebels are directly supported American puppets who co-opted and empowered the fledgling rebellion, and appear to have in fact fomented and organized it to begin with.  Just as in Iraq, we have our ‘Ahmed Chalabi’ in place to take over as soon as we overthrow Qaddafi. (http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/03/26/111109/new-rebel-leader-spent-much-of.html)

These facts alone alter the whole complexion of this enterprise rather dramatically, don’t you think?

As an interesting footnote, why do the rebels in Benghazi use as their flag the red, black and green banner with the crescent and star (the flag of the monarchy of King Idris) which symbolized the rule of the former colonial powers? Couldn’t the CIA’s graphics dept at least design them their own flag? I guess they thought we wouldn’t notice.

Of course, our true objective of invading Libya is not the propaganda canard of establishing democracy or saving civilian lives, but twofold:  1. to take possession of Libya’s oil and gas reserves and transfer its wealth (including 3.5% of the world’s oil reserves, more than twice that of the US) into foreign hands. For more on this see: (www.globalreasearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23605)  2. with Libya one of the last sovereign nations (along with Syria & Lebanon) not under our domination in the Mediterranean, and Qaddaffi  having refused to join our ‘Mediterranean Dialogue’, NATO’s ‘Partnership for Peace’ and/or the US Africa Command (AFRICOM), the US is vitally interested in toppling and dominating Libya to cement its imperial grip on the region. (http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23940)

And don’t forget the billions of dollars of Libyan assets in deposited in Western banks that the US and its confederates plan to steal.

The US dollar is the world’s reserve currency. If Libya wants to sell its oil to other nations it is obliged to accept payment in US dollars. So the US recently placed hard sanctions on Libya prohibiting any trade in US dollars in anticipation of this planned invasion. Now international banks refuse to exchange US dollars with Libya so they can’t sell their oil except via limited back channels, thus putting a severe squeeze on their economy. (http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFLDE7271YJ20110308).

Our repeatedly tried and proven playbook for conquest, now being reprised in Libya is:  (1) Destabilize the nation’s economy;  (2) Foment tribal, ethnic and/or sectional strife via provocateurs, puppets and false-flag operations;  (3) Inject disinformation, propaganda and psy-ops directed within the country and to the outside world, especially in the US; (4) covertly support with arms, money and training, then install and recognize our puppet(s) as our new ‘democratic partners’.

Sound familiar?  Light the fuse, get away fast, use under adult supervision, right?

Further evidence of advance invasion planning is the fact that financial institutions which had prior knowledge or intelligence of events in Libya have already made billions of dollars in speculative gains in the futures and options markets for crude oil. Advance knowledge of political or military events and how they affect markets combined with manipulation and/or control of financial news relevant to these events are indispensible to this investment racket.

It should come as no surprise that powerful institutional speculators on Wall Street with links to the US military and intelligence establishment are raking in billions of dollars in speculative gains not only in the oil market but also in the commodity and foreign exchange markets.

Whatever one thinks about the policy of destabilizing, invading and stealing the resources of sovereign nations, it is illegal, unconstitutional and a war crime. Our congressional representatives, as corrupt as most of them may be, are being denied their constitutionally-mandated right to declare or not declare war on our behalf that then demands our lives, our honor and our money.

President Obama is not just our first black president. He is also our first undisputed Emperor, and is lording over the final transformation of our democratic republic into a ‘big dog’ corporate ‘banana republic’ at home and a vast and powerful empire abroad.

Nathaniel Gurien lives in North Conway and is the Executive Director of NH Asks, Inc., a non-profit, non-partisan organization which promotes full disclosure, truth and civility in our political discourse. He may be reached at:  nathaniel@nh-asks.org

Obama AGAINST Raising The Debt Ceiling?

By Nick Fortune

 

"The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure.

It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. … Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here. Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better."

---

Why was Obama against raising the debt ceiling in 2006, but now is pushing for it?

Obama voted against raising the debt limit in 2006; he voted against increasing the ceiling.

In 2007 and in 2008, when the Senate voted to increase the limit by $850 billion and $800 billion respectively, Obama did not bother to vote. (He did vote for TARP, which increased the debt limit by $700 billion.)

So is Obama admitting to a leadership failure?

Is he being a hypocrite?????

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/256…