Tag: ALERT! Lawful Activity Detected

Department of Justice Deems Violating Website Terms of Service Illegal

We’ve all glossed over the Terms of Service (ToS) agreements of various websites and software packages. Most ToS agreements are composted of dense legalese that nobody without a law degree could possibly hope to translate. I view ToS agreements the same I view any broken contractual agreement where nothing of value has been lost, a non-issue. If you make an agreement with me to stand on one foot for an hour every Saturday morning in exchange for me agreeing to do a handstand at 21:00 every Thursday and one of us breaks the agreement neither party has actually lost anything. Even if there is a contractual agreement between the two of us as neither of us has actually suffered any loss of property no prosecutable offense has taken place.

If you signup for a Facebook account and use a fake name, something against Facebook’s ToS agreement, what is lost? Nothing, as the agreement stipulated no transfer of property and thus violation of the agreement is without consequence and therefore not a prosecutable offense. Unless, of course, you ask the Department of Justice (DoJ):

The U.S. Department of Justice is defending computer hacking laws that make it a crime to use a fake name on Facebook or lie about your weight in an online dating profile at a site like Match.com.

In a statement obtained by CNET that’s scheduled to be delivered tomorrow, the Justice Department argues that it must be able to prosecute violations of Web sites’ often-ignored, always-unintelligible “terms of service” policies.

The law must allow “prosecutions based upon a violation of terms of service or similar contractual agreement with an employer or provider,” Richard Downing, the Justice Department’s deputy computer crime chief, will tell the U.S. Congress tomorrow.

What the DoJ stance doesn’t take into consideration is the fact contractual agreements between an employer and employee or service provider and customer often involved actual loss of property. If you make a contractual agreement with a cell phone service provider that states the provier will give you a phone at a reduced cost in exchange for your commitment to two years of service a loss of property, the subsidized value of the phone, is inflicted upon the provider if you break the contract. This is why ending such a contract before the two years is up entitles paying an early termination fee, to reclaim the subsidized value of the phone.

A website doesn’t actually lose any property when you decide to use a fake name. In fact I’m unaware of a single ToS agrement violation that could lead to a provider losing property if violated, considering most of these services are free to use. Therefore there is no legitimate reason to prosecute somebody for violating a ToS agreement.

Either way don’t fret about violating my ToS agreement.

Police Officer Removed from Obama Visit Because Guns are Apparently Scary

Before I make any comment on this story let me first point out a big of fear mongering performed by the article’s author:

THE US Secret Service removed a woman with a gun from the audience minutes before President Barack Obama was due to speak to a crowd at Greensville County High School in Virginia yesterday.

Oh my god! A woman with a gun near the President? Obviously she must have been a crazy tea party participant! It’s a good thing the Secret Service moved in to stop this obviously violent individual… wait what:

The woman was not considered a personal threat to the US President – she was a uniformed African-American police officer from the local Greensville County Sheriff’s office.

False alarm everybody, the woman was a cop and they’re good enough to carry a gun and not be scary. The reason she was removed makes no sense whatsoever:

But her presence as an audience member standing with friends close to the stage where Mr Obama would soon speak about his jobs plan was a serious security lapse following supposedly thorough crowd screening.

The risk for the Secret Service, which is responsible for protecting the President, was that another person could have grabbed the pistol from her belt holster.

Right… because a person couldn’t grab a gun from one of the Secret Service members? What they really meant to say is that they removed the woman from the audience because the Secret Service like to feel big and tough by claiming they’re the only ones qualified to protect the President. A simpleton police officer is obviously only good enough to protect the peasantry.

It’s good to see actors of the state are completely assholes to one another and not just us.

Congress Takes 4th Grade Class Hostage; Demands $12 Trillion Ransom

There are times I absolutely love The Onion:

WASHINGTON — Brandishing shotguns and semiautomatic pistols, members of the 112th U.S. Congress took a class of visiting schoolchildren hostage today, barricading themselves inside the Capitol rotunda and demanding $12 trillion dollars in cash.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), who has emerged as spokesman for the bipartisan group, informed FBI negotiators this morning that the ransom was to be placed in stainless-steel suitcases and left on the Capitol steps by 4 p.m. sharp. If their demands are not met in full, the 11-term representative announced, “all the kids will die.”

[…]

Shaken witnesses reported that the ordeal broke out around 10 a.m. this morning, when in the midst of a Capitol building tour, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) suddenly burst into the National Statuary Hall with a pair of black panty hose over his head and began firing a Beretta 9 mm handgun into the air, shouting, “Everybody down! Everybody get the fuck down!”

Sadly unlike myself the federal government doesn’t have a sense of humor:

US police are investigating tweets by a satirical news website about a fake security alert at Washington DC’s Capitol building.

The Onion said on its Twitter account that “screams and gunfire” had been heard inside the Capitol. It later said schoolchildren had been taken hostage.

I’m pretty sure a vast majority of the people on the planet realize that The Onion is a satirical news source. When you see something going across their Twitter account you know it’s a lead up to new piece of satire.

Let’s also be honest, who here would be surprised if Congress took a class of 4th graders hostage? They use the it’s-for-the-children excuse to push through so much erroneous legislation that they might as well physically kidnap kids next time. Either way they would be doing the same thing they always do, hide behind children as an excuse to advance the police state.

The EPA isn’t About Environmental Protection, it’s About Extortion

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is one of those agencies that are deemed absolutely critical by most environmentalists. These tree huggers claim that the environment would be totally destroyed by evil corporations if it wasn’t for the EPA stepping in and protecting our fragile planet. What most environmentalists never do is actually look at what the EPA does because if they did they would see that the EPA isn’t in the business of protecting the environment, they’re in the business of extortion. Case in point a couple purchased a piece of land and started construction on a home until the EPA stepped in and threatened the couple with absurdly high fines unless they paid a fee to ask permission to build on the land:

Just imagine. You want to build a home, so you buy a $23,000 piece of land in a residential subdivision in your hometown and get started. The government then tells you to stop, threatens you with $40 million in fines and is not kidding.

That’s the case now before the U.S. Supreme Court, with briefs being filed today by the Pacific Legal Foundation on behalf of a Priest Lake, Idaho, family, Chantell and Mike Sackett.

See the couple made the mistake of buying an unassuming piece of land in a development that wasn’t located in any wetland registry. The EPA decided all of this was irrelevant and are treating the property as protected wetland:

The case developed when the Sacketts bought a .63-acre parcel of land for $23,000 in a subdivision in their hometown of Priest Lake, Idaho. The land is 500 feet from a lake, had a city water and sewer tap assigned, had no running or standing water and was in the middle of other developed properties.

[…]

Chantell reported she was told by the EPA that if “you’re buying a piece of property you should know if it’s in wetlands.”

“I started to do research. I said, ‘So how do I find this piece of property in the wetlands [registry]’? And she said, ‘Here’s the coordinates.’ When I actually pulled up the coordinates, it’s not there.”

Apparently you’re just supposed to know that a piece of land is protected even if it’s not listed in any registry of protected lands. If this piece of property is protected then the government should have noted as such by placing it in their registry. Remember how people say that ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it? How the fuck are you supposed to know you’re violating the law when there is no information available that would alert you to such?

Either way when you look a bit more into the story you’ll see that this move by the EPA has nothing to do with protecting a piece of wetland but instead it has everything to do with demanding the peasants pay their tribute to the ruling king:

So the Sacketts went to court, only to be told the courts can’t address a decision like this, as it’s an administrative decision. The couple would have to meet the demands of the “compliance order” and pay the $250,000 to apply for a building permit, then challenge the eventual decision.

Or they could expose themselves to $37,500 per day in fines by refusing to cooperate.

If the couple pays $250,000 for a permit I’m sure the EPA will suddenly see that it’s OK for the couple to build there. That’s usually how these government extortion schemes work. First the government waits for you to take an apparently legal action, then they step in and threaten you with fines for violating some obscure law, and finally they tell you if you pay them for a permit (which is always cheaper than the fines you’re facing) the entire mess will go away.

You know what the most sickening part about this story is? Tax dollars stolen from you and me are being used to steal even more money from other people.

And These Are the People Charged with Protecting the People

When you have scumbags like this “protecting” people who needs criminals:

Any residents of St. Helena Parish caught riding around the parish with assault weapons will be arrested, Sheriff Nat Williams warned Tuesday.

“As far as them riding around with an assault rifle, it will not be tolerated,” he said. “Somebody with an assault weapon is no different from a criminal and will be treated the same way.”

Did you get that? If you carry an “assault” weapon you’re no better than a person who breaks into somebody’s home and steals all of their stuff. See Sheriff Douche Bag is a bit peeved because he’s facing competition in the intimidation field:

Some residents of the parish’s 6th Ward, angered by a rash of recent break-ins, have conducted informal patrols, sometimes while armed with AR-15 semiautomatic rifles, the civilian version of the U.S. military’s M-16.

Since the police haven’t been capable of reducing crime to the satisfaction of the people a different solution was enacted. Namely a group of people have decided to perform their own patrols and smartly decide to arm themselves. Of course the government likes to maintain its monopoly on violence and are none to happy with the idea of little serfs walking around trying to keep their neighborhood safe:

Williams and other officials met with leaders of the ward’s newly formed Community Watch on Tuesday morning to let them know that those doing the patrolling did not need to be heavily armed.

If that’s the case then why do the police need to be heavily armed? These people aren’t walking around because they wish to enjoy the fine evening air, they’re walking around because the crime has increased to a point that they believe something needs to be done. As these people are performing the duty of police officers (because it seems the police can’t do it) they could potentially face the same situations as police officers, that is some criminal scumbags attacking during the patrols.

The police always claim they need better weaponry because they’re outgunned by the criminals. The people patrolling the afflicted area are simply taking what the police have learned over the years and making sure the same mistakes aren’t repeated.

Sheriff Williams is nothing but incompetent authoritarian scum. The inadequacies of his department lead private individuals to work together in common defense (a great thing). Being an authoritarian though Mr. Williams is angry that somebody else is walking the streets in an attempt to reduce crime. I’m sure Mr. Williams sees the very act of people outside of his department trying to reduce crime as a lack of respect for his authority and feels it must be stopped at all costs. Well fuck that guy.

If people are attempting to correct the department’s inadequacies then they should be allowed to protect themselves equipment equal to what the police have. Hell since the people paid for the polices’ weapons those going out on patrol should be able to checkout defensive weapons from the police station itself.

I’d also like to throw out some major dibs to the author of this story for the following paragraphs:

Both the M-16 and the AK-47 rifles are capable of full automatic and semiautomatic fire, but special licenses are required to possess fully automatic firearms in the U.S.

True assault rifles are capable of being operated in fully automatic and semiautomatic modes, at the user’s option. They are designed for, and used by, military forces, but they also are used by some law enforcement agencies.

Thank you for being a moral author instead of one that makes false claims that people are walking around with machine guns. You are a good man Faimon A. Roberts, author of this article. I hope others can learn to follow your example when writing firearm related stories.

The Government’s Attack on Bitcoin Has Begun

One thing many people fail to realize is that government’s like to control what is legal currency as it gives them unprecedented power. This tradition has gone back to the days of kings issuing coins with their images on them and disallowing commerce in their realm unless it was done with the use of coinage bearing their faces. It’s not at all surprising that the United States government eliminated the gold standard, a standard most often chosen in a free market, and created the Federal Reserve to issue all legal tender. Not only did the United States government switch to a fiat currency which they basically control they also made the possession of gold coins illegal and then confiscate coins in private hands.

Every time a new currency starts to make any headway the government steps in and shuts it down. These shut downs are always preceded by justifications for eliminating the potential alternative currency and now the government has unveiled their excuse for attacking Bitcoin, which not surprisingly involves the drug war:

Two U.S. senators have written an open letter to the United States attorney general, asking federal authorities to crack down on “Silk Road,” the Internet black market drug trade, and the digital currency that funds it, Bitcoins.

After reading the report on Silk Road, written by Gawker’s Adrian Chen, Democratic Senators Charles Schumer of New York and Joe Manchin of West Virginia wrote a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Reuters reports. The letter states:

“The only method of payment for these illegal purchases is an untraceable peer-to-peer currency known as Bitcoins. After purchasing Bitcoins through an exchange, a user can create an account on Silk Road and start purchasing illegal drugs from individuals around the world and have them delivered to their homes within days. We urge you to take immediate action and shut down the Silk Road network.”

The truth behind this attack though is the bankers aren’t happy with the idea of an alternative currency that they can’t control. Unlike previous currencies though Bitcoins aren’t controlled in any manner by a central system making the elimination of the currency difficult. That being said there is nothing stopping the government from making possession of Bitcoins illegal and then establishing a method of searching for Bitcoin related Internet traffic. It will be interesting to see how this continues to play out, especially if Bitcoins become more popular in commerce.

Dancing at the Jefferson Memorial Will Get You Beaten by the Police

Let us pretend for a second that some overzealous asshole in a robe (who calls himself a judge) rules that you don’t have the freedom to express yourself at national monuments… wait we don’t need to pretend, that actually happened. Well a group of people thought this ruling was stupid and they were right. So what did they do? Did they burn down the memorial? No clearly not. Did they attack the judge who made the ruling? Thankfully no. Did they silently dance at the Jefferson Memorial as a form of protest? Why yes they did. And what resulted from this completely non-violent and silent protest? The police physically assaulted the demonstrators:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jUU3yCy3uI]

I’m sorry but I fail to see where the police were justified in using physical force against the protesters. If you or I used physical violence against a non-violent person we would be brought up on charges of assault so quickly that our heads would spin. For some reason though our society finds this type of behavior acceptable when people in government approved uniforms do it.

Thankfully civil disobedience isn’t easily swayed and there is going to be another demonstration at the Jefferson Memorial on Saturday June 4th, 2011.

The Federal Government Threatens to Turn Texas Into a No-Fly Zone

Texas has been getting sick of the legal sexual assault performed by agents of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) which lead to legislation being put forth that banned such acts by those federal thugs. As the federal government has a long history of threatening any state that dares disobey their demands it’s no surprise to learn threats are being made against Texas:

Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Justice upped the ante in a high-stakes political game of chicken. Lobbying against pending legislation in the Texas legislature which would criminalize any searches conducted without probable cause, U.S. Attorney John E. Murphy sent a letter to a few high-ranking members of Texas’ government warning against promoting the bill and threatening a complete closure of all flights to and from the state.

The following is the threat made against Texas by the federal government:

“If HR [sic] 1937 were enacted, the federal government would likely seek an emergency stay of the statute,” Murphy wrote. “Unless or until such a stay were granted, TSA would likely be required to cancel any flight or series of flights for which it could not ensure the safety of passengers and crew.”

Basically the federal government would enact a form of sanctions that would bar all air travel into and out of Texas. This is what happens when a state abides by the 10th Amendment of the United States Constitution, threats of violence are brought against the legally acting state. The government of Texas has seen fit to prevent federal authorities from sexually assaulting its citizens which is a good thing and should be applauded. Other states should follow the example being put forth by Texas and if need be they should band together and resist the tyranny of the federal government.

Senator Frank Lautenberg Hates Due Process

A story recently surfaced dealing with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) so-called “terrorist watch list” and the rights of those on it. This post will demonstrated two things; how bias can be spun into two identical stories and that Frank Lautenberg is a complete asshole.

To demonstration the first point I direct you to this story and this story. The one from The Greenfield Reporter is titled More than 200 people on US terror watch list were able to legally buy firearms in 2010 while the Fox News article is titled FBI: 247 People on Terror Watch List Bought Guns in U.S. in 2010. It’s seldom that I can actually point to Fox News as being less biased but this is one of those rare cases.

The proper title The Greenfield Reporter should have used was More than 200 people not convicted of any crime by any court of law were able to legally buy firearms in 2010. This title would be far more factually correct as those on the FBI’s “terrorist watch list” haven’t actually been put through trial and found guilty of anything. There is a vast difference between having your name on the FBI’s “terrorist watch list” and being a terrorist. Although this escapes Lautenberg the difference is quite obvious in that a terrorist is somebody who has committed an act of terror while a person appearing on the FBI’s “terrorist watch list” have done nothing.

In this country the right to keep and bear arms stops the second you’ve met one or more criteria points. If you have been convicted of a felony, domestic abuse, have been diagnosed as mentally ill, etc. you can not legally possess a firearm in the United States. What all of these criteria points have in common is that you must have been convicted of them, not simply accused (although some politicians are trying to change this as well because they’re assholes).

Here is where I demonstrate that Lautenberg is a complete asshole:

It is not illegal for people listed on the government’s terror watch list to buy weapons. For years, that has bothered Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., who is trying again to change the law to keep weapons out of the hands of terrorists.

Lautenberg is trying to take away a right guaranteed in the United States Constitution without so much as due process. I’m not surprised a “representative” from New Jersey is looking to enact a backdoor gun control measure by making it illegal to purchase a firearm just because the FBI thinks you have the same name as somebody they suspect might have ties to a terrorist maybe. The criteria for getting on the FBI’s watch list is secret so it wouldn’t be difficult to toss on anybody’s name.

I will also come out and say that it’s a good thing that 247 people on the FBI’s “terrorist watch list” were able to buy firearms. Those people have done nothing illegal. Their only “crime” is appearing on a list controlled by a government agency. If such criteria becomes acceptable for denying a person his or her rights then we’re all fucked because each of our names makes an appearance on dozens of government operated lists.

Time For the ATF to Ban Staple Guns

The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF) went on a ban spree a while back because, according to them and nobody else, certain Airsoft rifles could be converted into real firearms. The ATF wrote up a report on this which coincided with their report on various unicorn sightings that their agents have observed over the years.

Well the ATF is going to shit bricks when they see this video explaining how to convert a regular staple gun into a 12 gauge shotgun. I’m kind of sad honestly, I use my stable gun a lot and there will be a void in my life when the ATF bans it for being easily converted into a destructive device.