A tyrannical regime has a vested interest in ensuring the general populace remain ignorant of its atrocities. This is likely why the United States government has been pursuing Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, so veraciously and why they have been making the life of Bradly Manning a living hell. Manning has plead guilty to “aiding the enemy” (I’m guessing his other option was to face execution) but releasing information about atrocities being committed to the United States government. When you read Manning’s justification for leaking the information it makes you wonder who the United States government considers to be an enemy:
Manning said: “We were obsessed with capturing and killing human targets on lists and ignoring goals and missions. I believed if the public, particularly the American public, could see this it could spark a debate on the military and our foreign policy in general [that] might cause society to reconsider the need to engage in counter-terrorism while ignoring the human situation of the people we engaged with every day.”
It appears as though the United States government considers the people living in the United States to be enemies as they have been fighting the release of any information that makes their actions look less than honorable. I believe it’s important for the people living under a war happy state to understand the true costs of war, which involves death and destruction on both sides of a conflict. When people are punished for revealing atrocities committed by a government you know that government is worried about the ramifications of its actions.
FORT MYERS, Fla. – A 16-year-old Cypress Lake High School student, who wrestled a loaded revolver away from a teen threatening to shoot, is being punished.
The student grappled the gun away from the 15-year-old suspect on the bus ride home Tuesday after witnesses say he aimed the weapon point blank at another student and threatened to shoot him.
[…]
The teen we spoke to and authorities both confirm the Revolver was loaded. According to the arrest report the suspect, who Fox 4 is not naming because he is a minor, was “pointing the gun directly” at another student and “threatening to shoot him.”
That’s when the student we spoke with says he and others tackled the teen and wrestled away the gun. The next day the school slapped him with a three day suspension.
“It’s dumb,” he said. “How they going to suspend me for doing the right thing?”
According to the referral, he was suspended for being part of an “incident” where a weapon was present and given an “emergency suspension.”
I’m not sure if this is the result of another idiotic zero tolerance policy or if the school faculty are trying to discourage students from coming to the aid of their fellow students. Either way this reaction on behalf of the school seems incredibly idiotic unless there is a great deal more to the story than is being reported.
Neither Tor or HTTPS are perfect, especially when you’re accessing data outside of the Tor network (in other words, not accessing a hidden service). The anonymity that Tor provides cannot protect you if you chose to reveal personal information and HTTPS is only a secure as the trust chain created by issued certificates. The trust chain created by HTTPS has been compromised before when hackers were able to acquire the root signing certificates used by DigiNotar and it’s possible that many trusted certificate authorities are willing to issue fraudulent certificate to government entities. However both tools are relatively effective at what they do and when used in unison can do a great deal to protect your identify online.
Defense Distributed just released a video demonstrating their 3D printed AR-15 lower surviving 600 founds:
In my opinion this video demonstrates two important things: the utility of 3D prints and the fact that gun control is dead. When I said gun control is dead I don’t mean the state is going to stop passing laws, I mean that gun control laws are no longer relevant. Technology that allows an individual to easily construct a firearm in their home is now growing out of its infancy.Once a technology evolves beyond its infancy it cannot be stopped from continuing to grow. It is only a matter of time before all parts of a firearm can be produced on a 3D printer. In all likelihood it will only be a few years until affordable 3D printers capable of working with metal hit the market and enable the construction of parts such as bolts, barrels, and gas tubes.
While it may be easy to paint Wilson [the developer of the lower] as a 2nd Amendment-touting conservative, the 25-year-old second-year law student at the Univeristy of Texas, Austin told Ars on Thursday that he’s actually a “crypto-anarchist.”
I say it’s ironic because crypto-anarchism has been pooh-poohed by statists and many anarchists alike. Criticisms against crypto-anarchism revolved around the claim that it only dealt with cyberspace and was unable to affect the real world. What its critics failed to predict was the fall of the barriers separating cyberspace from the real world. 3D printers, in my opinion, were the tool that destroyed the last major barrier. With the invention of 3D printing it became possible to create real world objects based on designs created and distributed online. Suddenly the fabrication of goods is no longer relegated to a handful of individuals. Anybody with a 3D printer, material to feed the printer, a computer, and an Internet connection can download and fabricate a mind boggling number of goods. As the technology matures it will likely become common for basic goods to be replicated in homes instead of factories.
Social anarchists believed one day a worker revolution would occur. In their imagination they believed workers around the world, who finally became sick and tired of capitalist conditions, would rise up, seize the means of production, and usher in a world free of oppression. Things haven’t worked out that way and, if current technology trends are any indicator, things will not work out that way. The revolution won’t be violent, it won’t involve fighting in the streets, it won’t involved people rising up and overthrowing the governments of the world. What the revolution will involve is the continuous decentralization of power. Technology will continue to evolve in a manner that empowers individuals to separate themselves from their rulers. Powerful corporations who have enjoyed protection from competition through the state’s decrees will lose their power as an ever growing number of people are able to replicate their goods from the safety of their own homes. Enforcing patents and regulations will become impossible. As people begin to fabricate needed goods themselves the large corporations and the state will bring in less wealth. People will no longer be forced to buy goods from politically connected corporations or pay sales tax to the state.
The world is changing in a way that power is becoming more decentralized. Eventually, if technological trends continue, the concept of centralized power will be all but extinct.
The Government has secretly ramped up a controversial programme that strips people of their British citizenship on national security grounds – with two of the men subsequently killed by American drone attacks.
Governmental protections are more mythological than unicorns. Any supposed legal protection put into place is easily bypassed with the stroke of a pen.
US President Barack Obama has signed into effect a wave of steep spending cuts which he has warned could damage the US economy.
The cuts – known as the sequester and drawn up two years ago – will take $85bn (£56bn) from the US federal budget this year.
Last-ditch talks at the White House to avert the reductions before Friday’s deadline broke up without agreement.
White House scare tactics aside what this really means is that the federal budget will increase less than was wanted. Nothing was cut, budget increases were merely reduced. The sun will rise tomorrow, business in the United States will continue as usual, and the government will maintain it’s currently quality of service (which is to say they won’t provide any quality service).
I couldn’t come up with a new bad this week (not that I tried that hard) so we’re going to default to another Iron Maiden song. This week we’re listening to The Wicker Man from the Brave New World album, which marked the return of Bruce Dickinson as Maiden’s lead vocalist:
Michael Paymar, one of Minnesota’s most zealous gun control advocates, has unveiled his gun control plan now that the numerous hearing have concluded. Not surprisingly he said an “assault weapon” and standard capacity magazine ban will not be pursued at this time, instead his band of merry men will be looking at universal registration (to make a later implemented “assault weapon” ban easier):
After hours-long hearings on gun violence in both chambers this month, Rep. Michael Paymar has released a package of policy changes that focuses on expanding background checks and stepped up penalties for gun crimes, but tosses out proposed bans on assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazine clips.
The St. Paul Democrat and chair of the House Public Safety Finance and Policy Committee rolled out his “Gun Violence Prevention Act” at a press conference on Thursday. It includes his proposal to expand background checks and closes the so-called gun show loophole. The bill would also increase penalties for gun crimes and illegally selling firearms.
I’m not surprised to see the “assault weapon” and standard capacity magazine bans being tabled. As I mentioned in my post about the proposed increase of taxes on alcohol, the bans were likely a “worse option” presented primarily to make the serfs more accepting of a “better option.” Now that Paymar and his goons have been so magnanimous by removing the bans from the table they expect Minnesota gun owners to comply with stricter background checks out of gratitude. Beating people into submission with fear is probably the most common tool in the statist toolbox.
Pursuing stronger background checks and prohibiting private sales is a smart move on Paymar’s behalf. It’s easy to spin those bills in a positive light and gun rights advocates have practically handed them the ability to enact stronger background checks by focusing on mental health. Because the gun rights movement has spent so much time blaming mental illness the gun control advocates can propose strong background checks, under the auspices of preventing the mentally ill from possessing firearms, and claim it’s something both sides can agree on. Instead of proposing databases and more restrictions on those who have suffered from mental illness, the National Rifle Association (NRA), and other gun rights organizations, should have been explaining how the stigma of mental illness in this country encourages people to not seek treatment and proposed working on overcoming that stigma. Now the gun control advocates have ammunition to use against us, much of which we supplied them.
On the upside any law that makes it hard to legally acquire a firearm will encourage more individuals to illegally acquire firearms. The more commerce that happens on the “black” market the less tax dollars the state can collect and the sooner it will collapse.
A Russian law passed in November 2012 aimed at blacklisting sites promoting drug use has apparently just blocked the popular drug education website Erowid.org for certain users in the country according to a post on Reddit. A Russian government site listing prohibited sites shows that Erowid was added to the register earlier this month and was blocked on February 23. Russian user GreatfulListener says it is only “a matter of time” before the block affects more Russian internet service providers.
Erowid remains available in Russia via the Tor network. In fact, the Russian Tor community has undergone significant growth over the last year. RAMP, the Russian Anonymous MarketPlace, is now providing a leading Russian alternative to the English-speaking Silk Road.
Russia has begun blocking websites related to drug use. If history teaches us anything it’s that Russia will likely increase its censorship powers in the coming years. Fortunately the blocked site, Erowid, can still be accessed by Russians through Tor. Although I primarily discuss hidden services Tor is also very important in bypassing censorship of websites outside of the Tor network. Many countries block access to websites deemed undesirable but Tor works by sending traffic through exit nodes that are located in different countries, countries where the site being access may not be blocked.
The remainder of the article discusses the Russian Anonymous Marketplace (RAMP), a hidden service where Russians can perform anonymous transactions with Bitcoins. It’s akin to Silk Road, which I’ve discussed before. RAMP, like Silk Road, demonstrate that markets cannot be suppressed and that people will always find ways around state prohibitions. Today Tor and Bitcoins are integral tools for individuals wanting to avoid state prohibitions and censorship, which is why I believe it’s important to ensure these technologies become more widespread.
Aaron Swartz was facing 35 years in prison for the “crime” of making copies of academic works. These charges were likely a factor in his decision to end his own life. A life was basically destroyed to uphold intellectual property laws, which are destined to die sooner or later. What makes this case even more absurd is that it appears as though the prosecutors wanted to cage Swartz, not because of his actions but, to justify the charges:
Some congressional staffers left the briefing with the impression that prosecutors believed they needed to convict Swartz of a felony that would put him in jail for a short sentence in order to justify bringing the charges in the first place, according to two aides with knowledge of the briefing.
I think this demonstrates one of the biggest issues with the United States so-called justice system, it’s not based on justice. Justice would have required waiting for Swartz to commit a crime but the prosecutors used previous writings by Swartz to claim he intended to commit a crime:
A Justice Department representative told congressional staffers during a recent briefing on the computer fraud prosecution of Internet activist Aaron Swartz that Swartz’s “Guerilla Open Access Manifesto” played a role in the prosecution, sources told The Huffington Post.
Swartz’s 2008 manifesto said sharing information was a “moral imperative” and advocated for “civil disobedience” against copyright laws pushed by corporations “blinded by greed” that led to the “privatization of knowledge.”
“We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our copies and share them with the world. We need to take stuff that’s out of copyright and add it to the archive,” Swartz wrote in the manifesto. “We need to buy secret databases and put them on the Web. We need to download scientific journals and upload them to file sharing networks. We need to fight for Guerilla Open Access.”
Effectively the Department of Justice (DoJ) (talk about Orwellian doublespeak) brought their charges against Swartz because of something he wrote in 2008 and insisted on prison time because they felt it was necessary to justify the charges. This admittance by the DoJ also shows that censorship exists in this country, it’s just not overt. If you write something that the state disagrees with you will generally not be shutdown, blacklisted, or otherwise punished. What will happen is the state will bide its time until you do something that it believes is a prosecutable offense or usable to bully you into a plea bargain. At that point the state will use your previous works to generate more severe charges in which to hang you with. By using Swartz’s previous writings as justification for charging him the DoJ has sent a message that political dissidents can and will be punished. It’s an ultimatum. Either keep silent and avoid speaking out against the state or face the state’s wrath when it decides to finally descend upon you. In other words, shut up, slave.
A tip of the hat goes to TarenSK for this information.