Wow Shaunie You Got Some Bad Azz Shoes On Girlll..
I wonder who she thinks believes that crap about her and Shaq.. uhh ruhhh Shaunie, too late baby we already know the real deal. now you need to up your producer game so you can walk the walk; since you talkin the talk. just be sure that you keep wearin them shoes girl, cause they make sure everybody knows You are LARGE and Totally in charge, lil momma.
Our Advice – Shaunie, Do It Big Girlfriend ; cause you got a golden key and the combination to the safe.
Then We Have Mr. Snoop Dogg Dizzle talkin bout who runs the house. Yes Barbara we know he means it – cause he’s talking bout it everywhere. This is the Re-Marriage picture. apparently the single life wasn’t all that for the dogg.. like most puppys he ran back to the dog house as quickly as he could get that doggy door back open.
That Was A Very Smart Move Big Doggy,
Congrats to Snoop on his accomplishments of recent – being named CEO of Priority Records. this should be a dream job for Snoop since he will be working with the industry he helped to create. maybe some of that new fresh music will slowly begin to creep out of the west.
We also send a Big Hey MON ! to The Dizzle on his Football league and the Upcoming Championships. we have watched his teams grow from pee wee football, to a school league. that type of family activity provides a safe healthy alternative to the kids in the area; who choose not to engage in violence as an outlet.
As you can see, Once Again – Tiger seems to be the hottest topic on most of the recent talk shows - Hmmm, Wonder Why ? some are saying Tiger is on Suicide Watch; because Elin has her legal team doing a forensic analysis, of their finances and his earnings. heaven forbid they don’t add up.
lets just say, he betta call tyrone..
In Keeping with the holiday spirit, we wrap up with another of those resistent stars, who is still not sure who she really is – Mariah Carey.
Yes the Incredible Mimi was on George Lopez recently and she took the opportunity to spout off about her DNA Issues. apparently she sees’ the fact that her dad’s dna makes her Black, as an issue that she’s just learning how to accept. however she has lived her life as the daughter of an Irish Woman.
Mimi says that “In America post slavery if you have one drop of Black Blood you are Black.” but in some other places in the world, she is apparently Not Black. Mimi why you refuse to take the DNA test Baby Girl.. especially after talking all this “multiethnicmumbojumbo“..
Huh ?
Please somebody check her mouthwash, and call the clinic. it seems that old glitter is resurfacing. Mimi You are just Too Damn Magical for us.
Seriously Mimi Honey, Don’t you realize that you can’t emotionally appeal Your Dna by country baby ?
This lovely lady is a Nubian – which is why this song by Haifa Wehbe confuses us so much. this woman is from the same tribe that we originate from. we are all Nubians, and of many colors and hair types. not one of us looks like another. if Haifa Wehbe is a Nubian, she wouldn’t have sang those lyrics about herself. she would have known better than to be so defamatory, about herself and her family origins.
“We are one of the oldest civilizations on earth,” said Isaaq. “Instead, our image is constantly perpetuated as the uneducated doorman or waiter.”
Racism is a very seductive mistress; even for those who are products of it. Haifa Wehbe must not have looked into that date grove where she originated, very closely. Very sad indeed in 2009. a star of the stature of Haifa Wehbe being openly racist and ignorant. then thinking she can just be excused for it.
The line, Nubian representatives say, infers that members of the black Egyptian minority are monkeys.
This woman is lebanese, and that means she is a product of the Nile Valley. does she not know the truth of who originated there ? obviously not since her song belies her ignorance to her own dna and origins. She is a decendant of Nubians; thereby making her a Nubian.
Please Haifa, Get a Book and do a lil reading; it does a brain good.
Lebanese pop diva under fire for song comparing black Egyptians to monkeys
By Hadeel Al-Shalchi, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Thursday, November 19, 2009
In this Tuesday, May 19, 2009 file photo, Lebanese model, actress, and singerHaifa Wehbe arrives at the 62nd International film festival in Cannes, southern France. (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/Joel Ryan, File)
CAIRO, Egypt – A famous Lebanese pop singer, who normally stirs controversy for her seductive dresses and provocative dancing, has now been accused of singing a song with racist lyrics that compares black Egyptians to monkeys.
Haifa Wehbe, considered by many as one of the sexiest women in the Arab world, has the minority Nubian community in Egypt distraught over her latest children’s album “Baby Haifa” and the community’s activists have launched several lawsuits over the lyrics.
The Nubians took issue with a verse in the song “Where is Daddy?” in which Wehbe croons: “Where is my teddy bear and my Nubian monkey?”
The line, Nubian representatives say, infers that members of the black Egyptian minority are monkeys. In November, they slapped separate lawsuits on the singer, her record label and Wehbe’s Egyptian song writer.
“It may not be intentional racism on the part of the song writer, but it is still highly racist and offensive,” said Motez Isaaq, with the Committee for Nubian Issues.
Nubians come from the southernmost region of present-day Egypt, where a culture later known as Nubian first arose around 3,800 B.C. along the Nile and in northern Sudan. It was one of Africa’s earliest black civilizations, complete with an independent kingdom.
Isaaq said that stereotypes of minorities are so entrenched that referring to them in popular culture media is frequently done unconsciously.
“We are one of the oldest civilizations on earth,” said Isaaq. “Instead, our image is constantly perpetuated as the uneducated doorman or waiter.”
Isaaq alleged that Nubians are discriminated against because of their darker skin, and stressed that the community still holds in painful memory the political oppression in the 1960s, when the Egyptian government forced tens of thousands of Nubians to leave their homes and resettle elsewhere in southern Egypt, to make way for the building of the High Dam, 425 miles (685 kilometres) south of Cairo.
Wehbe has in the past tested the limits of a conservative Middle Eastern culture for her revealing outfits, suggestive lyrics and dancing.
But this time, Isaaq said the danger of her song is that it targets children.
“Kids can soak up the lyrics so quickly,” he said. “They could start calling their Nubian classmates monkeys.”
Isaaq’s group has held protests against the song, he said, and is also suing Egypt’s culture minister and the country’s state censorship board for allowing Wehbe’s latest album to be on the Egyptian market.
The Nubians want a formal apology and an end to airing the song in Egypt, Isaaq said, expressing also hope that the action would change the way other Egyptians treat their Nubian fellow countrymen.
“Egyptians have to stop treating us as second class citizens,” he said. “We are the original Egyptians and the country needs to remember it.”
She is Neither a She nor a He – so how does this play out ?
Damn, for once we are at a total loss of words -
Caster Semenya is hermaphrodite;
yes both sets.. Are There
The Telegraph report said tests had found Semenya had no womb or ovaries, but that she has internal testes, the male sexual organs which produce testosterone, and her levels of the hormone are three times that of a ‘normal’ female.
does the olympic committe have some experts on this or some kind of precedent to set here ? wow, this is really reaching into a whole new area of sexism. does this mean that now we will see the third indicator box for hermaphrodite soon ?
how does this effect the race, and her/his competetors ? there are so many questions on this one that we are going to be watching with baited breath for the final word from the IOCC.
Inquiring Minds Globally want to know,
Caster Semenya of South Africa celebrates after winning the women’s 800 metres final
KLEINMOND, South Africa — South Africa reacted angrily on Friday to a report that tests on its world champion runner Caster Semenya had found she was a hermaphrodite, threatening a “third world war” over the affair.
Athletics’ governing body declined to confirm the report in Australia’s Daily Telegraph newspaper, which said the 18-year-old runner had both male and female sexual characteristics.
The IAAF said medical experts were examining the results of gender tests on Semenya, who won the women’s 800 meters at last month’s World Championships in Berlin. No decision would be taken until late November.
“I think it would be the third world war. We will go to the highest levels in contesting such a decision. I think it would be totally unfair and totally unjust,” said Sports Minister Makhenkesi Stofile.
South African President Jacob Zuma decried the invasion of Semenya’s privacy and what he called the violation of her rights, although neither he nor Stofile denied the report.
“I don’t know why we should not respect the privilege between the doctor and the patient. Why, when the tests have been done, why was it published?” Zuma said.
The Telegraph report said tests had found Semenya had no womb or ovaries, but that she had internal testes, the male sexual organs which produce testosterone, and her levels of the hormone were three times that of a ‘normal’ female.
It said the IAAF was “ready to disqualify Semenya from future events and advise her to have immediate surgery because her condition carries grave health risks. They have also not ruled out stripping Semenya of her 800m world championships gold medal.”
‘SHOCK AND DISGUST’
Semenya, who was due to compete in a cross country race in Pretoria on Saturday, in her first competition since claiming the world title, withdrew from the event. Semenya’s coach Michael Seme said that she was not “feeling well.”
Stofile told a news conference his ministry had “noted with shock and disgust” media reports on the test results, which the South African government had not yet received.
“The issue here is that this girl has undesirable levels of testosterone — what does it matter? That is neither here not there. She does not have a womb — so what?,” he said.
Nick Davies, spokesman for the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), said media reports on the gender test results should not be considered as official statements by the sports body.
“There is a (IAAF) Council on 21 November and this will be the opportunity to conclusively finalize a decision,” he said.
Some South Africans have accused the IAAF of racism for ordering the gender tests on Semenya, saying her broad shoulders and imposing musculature are common in women’s athletics.
The controversy may have touched a raw nerve in a country where race is still a highly sensitive issue after decades of apartheid, which ended in 1994.
The militant Youth League of South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) said in a statement: “Even if a test is done, the ANC YL will never accept the categorization of Caster Semenya as a hermaphrodite, because in South Africa and the entire world of sanity, such does not exist.”
(Additional reporting by Ingrid Melander in Athens and Alison Raymond in South Africa; Editing by Giles Elgood)
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) — On paper, he has 20 possibly 21 children.
With a minimum wage job, he can’t afford to support them all.What is the state to do?
Desmond Hatchett, 29, told WVLT he wasn’t out to set a record, though he certainly holds it in Knox County Juvenile Child Support Court.
Hatchett’s children range in age from newborn 11.
There are at least 11 mothers; probably several more.
Constitutionally, there is nothing the state can do to limit him from having more.
“I had four kids in the same year. Twice.” Desmond Hatchett told Volunteer TV.
On Friday, his name appeared on the docket 11 times; Representing about 15 of his 21 children.
“Can you keep up with it all?” WVLT asked Hatchett.
“Yeah,” he said.
“You know all their names, and ages and birthdays?”
“Yeah.”
Hatchett’s name is pretty controversial at the old courthouse.
“The children can’t be supported all by Desmond, so the state of Tennessee has had to step in,” Hatchett’s attorney Keith Pope said.
It’s your tax dollars at work.
WVLT spoke with one mom who has two children with Hatchett.
She is supposed to get $67.50 a month. But many times, she gets a lot less than what she’s owed.
They all do.
“It’ll make it through half the month,” the unidentified mom said.
She told Volunteer TV, Hatchett is the father of her two sons. And she says her 4-year-old is expensive enough on his own. “He’s a heavy milk drinker. And milk is not cheap,” she said.
“It’s frustrating, but usually, when I ask he give it to me,” she continued.
It’s due process– the state is only allowed to take 50% of Hatchett’s paycheck.
That’s 50% split multiple times.
“You look at when they filed, how many children they have– he has several mothers that he has two children with. And, it’s tough” Pope explained.
Still, Hatchett says the women knew what they were getting into.
They were all aware of his large family.
One said, she doesn’t like it but she deals with it. “It’s about the kids. Not the parents,” she said.
Hatchett agrees he should do what’s best for the kids.
“Do you intend to keep having children?” WVLT asked.
“No.” Hatchett replied.
“You’re done?”
“I’m done. I’ll say I’m done.”
“What made you say that?”
“I didn’t intend to have this many. It just happened,” Hatchett said.
Desmond Hatchett spent part of Friday afternoon jailed while a child support referee decided how to split up the $400 he brought to court.
If he doesn’t pay what he owes, he will go back to jail because he is on an automatic jail order.
The mothers of Hatchett’s children are supposed to get anywhere from $25 to $309 a month, but when his paycheck is garnished amongst them all, some women only get a $1.98 a month.
I’m sure the babymommas would take a few of them checks and invest in this lil handy dandy appliance for the Bonus BabyDaddy. No Doubt, He Needs It.
The Mastronzo is a metal penis plug with a flexible segment in the middle for more comfortable, ergonomic wear. Attached to the end of the plug are a small ring, linkage, and head ring with ball designed to fit around the corona of the penis. The head ring works like a captured ball body piercing ring and is therefore removable.
Insertable length is 80mm (about 3 1/4″) and insertable diameter is 8mm (about 5/16″).
The head ring is available in a 30mm (1 3/16″) diameter.
Nuff Said..
We’ve been covering the stories on Albino and Kidnapping in East Africa for quite a while, but this seems to be reaching a new peak.
So Once Again We Ask – How Long must this BS Go On ?
Witnesses testify in albino trial
Many people with albinism are living in fear in Burundi
Witnesses have testified in the case of 11 men in Burundi, accused of the attempted murder of albino people and selling of their body parts.
Initial charges of murder have been dropped because the prosecution failed to produce enough evidence.
Police suspect the body parts are being sold in neighbouring Tanzania, for use in witchcraft.
Forty-six albino people have been murdered in Tanzania in the past 18 months, but no-one has been convicted.
But the violence against albinos is not restricted to Tanzania; last November a six-year-old albino girl in Burundi was found dead with her head and limbs removed.
‘Desecrating graves’
Thursday’s hearing in the eastern province of Ruyigi, near the Tanzanian border, has generated a great deal of interest.
Witnesses travelled from the remote north-east of Burundi to give testimony linking one of the defendants with the killers of a married man with albinism whose body parts were allegedly taken to Tanzania.
The case began last week, but had to be adjourned after witnesses failed to show up.
The BBC’s Prime Ndikumagenge says the courtroom is so crammed many people are waiting outside to hear details of the evidence second hand.
Our reporter says eight of the accused allegedly helped traffic albino body parts and desecrated a graveyard to take the parts of someone who was buried.
The rest of the defendants are accused of attempting to kill an albino child. The accused deny the charges.
Witchdoctors in the region are known to tell clients that potions made with albino body parts will bring them luck in love, life and business.
BBC East Africa correspondent Will Ross says Tanzania’s government has promised action and the fact that there have been no reported attacks or murders of albinos for two months in Tanzania provides some hope.
Hundreds of people including witchdoctors and business people have been arrested but the justice system in Tanzania is notoriously slow and corrupt and so far nobody has been convicted, he says.
Albinism affects one in 20,000 people worldwide, but in Tanzania the prevalence appears to be much higher.
The Albino Association of Tanzania says that although just 4,000 albinos are officially registered in the country, they believe the actual number could be as high as 173,000. A census is now under way to try to verify the figures
(end of bbcnews clipping)
and in Swaziland the Stupidity just gets deeper, each year. this year we have some absolute idiocy.
Brand AIDS on Those Infected with the disease ?
you must be kidding, because I think the person who would likely first need to be tattooed would be the stupid kingpimple mswati mcshitty.
and you think you’ve got it bad in the west, please..
SWAZI residents have been asked to debate a politician’s call for HIV positive citizens to be branded on the buttocks.
The Times of Swaziland asked for feedback on best ways to combat HIV and rights to freedom of speech after Timothy Myeni told fellow politicians that all Swazis should be tested for HIV and their backsides marked if infected.
“I have a solution to this virus. The solution will come from a law that will make it compulsory to test for HIV. Once you test positive, you should be branded on the buttocks,” the member of parliament said last week.
“Before having sex with anyone, people will then check the buttocks of their partners before proceeding with their mission,” the newspaper reported him saying.
Landlocked Swaziland is one of the world’s poorest nations with the highest HIV prevalence in the world under the rule of Africa’s last absolute monarch King Mswati III.
Miyeni, who leads a popular gospel group, has stuck to his call for compulsory HIV testing but apologised for the buttocks branding suggestion.
“I am very sorry for saying HIV positive people should be branded, I did not know it would turn out like this. I have seen that the suggestion was very offensive and many think I was discriminating, so I withdraw my statement,” he said last week.
Reader responses will be published in the Times of Swaziland next Tuesday, the newspaper said in its online edition.
Outrage: Swaziland MP Timothy Myeni suggested making HIV tests compulsory and forcing those who were infected to be permanently marked with a warning logo
The Daily Mail had the real splash out on it, including the photo of the MP.. too bad they left his address out.
A proposal to brand the buttocks of people suffering from HIV has caused outrage in a country ravaged by the disease.
Swaziland MP Timothy Myeni suggested making HIV tests compulsory for every person in the southern African state and then forcing those who were infected to be permanently marked with a warning logo.
Mr Myeni claimed the scheme would help stop the spread of the killer disease by reducing sexual activity between HIV positive people and uninfected partners.
Speaking at a workshop for MPs on how to tackle the AIDS epidemic, he added: ‘Before having sex with anyone, people will have to check their partners’ buttocks before proceeding,’
Campaigners furiously criticised the idea.
Swazi AIDS campaigner Siphiwe Hlophe said the system would contravene human rights laws.
She said: ‘How can a legislator lobby for the branding of HIV positive people?
‘We do not need legislators who think like him because some of the people who voted for him could be positive, why is he then discriminating them?
‘He must stop lobbying his colleagues for such but instead call for them to stop discriminating positive people.’
Swaziland Aids Support Organisation spokesman Vusi Matsebula added: ‘His utterances represent the views of someone who is still sleeping around.
‘Maybe the branding will help him know what kind of a person he is about to sleep with.’
Swaziland has the highest HIV infection rate in the world, with around 43 percent of the population believed to be living with the disease.
The tiny landlocked southern African kingdom has previously been criticised for its failure to tackle the condition.
In 2001 Swaziland’s king Maswati III was accused of dangerous double standards over HIV.
The monarch, who has at least 17 wives, urged Swazi teens to wait until their twenties before having sex and then publicly selected a 17-year-old girl as his latest bride.
And just incase you missed it, the police and others can now FORCIBLY Take and Retain YOUR DNA.. Yeaaahh.. how uncool is that. they strap you in for a strip down, all the way down baby.
In the first case of its type, a federal judge in California has ruled that police can forcibly take DNA samples, including drawing blood with a needle, from Americans who have been arrested but not convicted of a crime.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Gregory Hollows ruled on Thursday that a federal law allowing DNA samples upon arrest for a felony was constitutional and did not violate the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of “unreasonable searches and seizures.”
Hollows, who was appointed by President George H.W. Bush, said the procedure was no more invasive or worrisome than fingerprinting or a photograph. “The court agrees that DNA sampling is analogous to taking fingerprints as part of the routine booking process upon arrest,” he wrote, calling it “a law enforcement tool that is a technological progression from photographs and fingerprints.”
“The invasiveness of DNA testing is minimal,” Hollows wrote (PDF). “The DNA can be taken by an oral swab, and even blood tests have been held to be a minimal intrusion.”
“We are very gratified with the ruling,” Lawrence Brown, acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of California, said in a statement. It also said that the U.S. Department of Justice “exercised its authority under the statute earlier this year and issued direction to various federal agencies to begin collecting the DNA of individuals who are arrested or facing charges, as has historically been the case with the collection of fingerprints.”
A bill that President Bush signed in January 2006 said any federal police agency could “collect DNA samples from individuals who are arrested.” Anyone who fails to cooperate is, under federal law, guilty of an additional crime.
In addition, federal law and subsequent regulations from the Department of Justice authorize any means “reasonably necessary to detain, restrain, and collect a DNA sample from an individual who refuses to cooperate in the collection of the sample.” The cheek swab or blood tests can be outsourced to “private entities.”
While other courts have ruled on the constitutionality of DNA sampling after conviction, this is the first case to deal with defendants who have only been accused of a crime. (The 9th Circuit, in U.S. v. Kincade (PDF), ruled that mandatory DNA testing of violent convicted felons on supervised release was constitutional; a dissent by Judge Alex Kozinski said that same logic could lead to mandatory testing of every American citizen: “The more DNA samples are included in the database, the better off we are: More guilty parties will be found, more innocents will be cleared and more unknown crime victims will be identified…”)
The defendant in the current case in California, Jerry Albert Pool, is accused of possessing child pornography in the form of illegal images of minors on his computer, a felony. He has no prior criminal record and has pleaded not guilty. (to read the rest of the really great article click here)
Okies That’s A Wrap.
Now Leave A Comment, We Get Worried when You’re Quiet..
This is our post from Freedom Sunday – Read All About it, and Decide which story means most to you. then click on the title link and read the whole story; at it’s home blog. these stories were gleaned from Slashdot.
Make sure to leave us a comment, telling us What Freedom Means To You, Really.
Hugh Pickens writes “The NY Times reports that legal and operational problems surrounding the NSA’s surveillance activities have come under scrutiny from the Obama administration, Congressional intelligence committees, and a secret national security court, and that the NSA had been engaged in ‘overcollection’ of domestic communications of Americans.
The practice has been described as significant and systemic, although one official said it was believed to have been unintentional. The Justice Department has acknowledged that there had been problems with the NSA surveillance operation, but said they had been resolved.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the intelligence community, did not address specific aspects of the surveillance problems, but said in a statement that ‘when inadvertent mistakes are made, we take it very seriously and work immediately to correct them.’
The intelligence officials said the problems had grown out of changes enacted by Congress last July to the law that regulates the government’s wiretapping powers, as well as the challenges posed by enacting a new framework for collecting intelligence on terrorism and spying suspects.
Joe Klein at Time Magazine says the bad news is that ‘the NSA apparently has been overstepping the law,’ but the good news is that ‘one of the safeguards in the [FISA Reform] law is a review procedure that seems to have the ability to catch the NSA when it’s overstepping — and that the illegal activities have been exposed, and quickly.’”
By timothy on because-dna-evidence-is-unimpeachable
Mike writes “Starting this month, the Federal Bureau of Investigation will join 15 states that collect DNA samples from those awaiting trial and will also collect DNA from detained immigrants. For example, This year, California began taking DNA upon arrest and expects to nearly double the growth rate of its database, to 390,000 profiles a year, up from 200,000. Until now, the federal government genetically tracked only convicts, however law enforcement officials are expanding their collection of DNA to include millions of people who have only been arrested or detained, but not yet convicted. The move, intended to ‘help solve more crimes,’ is raising concerns about the privacy of petty offenders and people who are presumed innocent.”
Death Metal sends this excerpt from an AP report: “General Dynamics Information Technology put out an ad last month on behalf of the Homeland Security Department seeking someone who could ‘think like the bad guy.’ Applicants, it said, must understand hackers’ tools and tactics and be able to analyze Internet traffic and identify vulnerabilities in the federal systems. In the Pentagon’s budget request submitted last week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the Pentagon will increase the number of cyberexperts it can train each year from 80 to 250 by 2011. With warnings that the US is ill-prepared for a cyberattack, the White House conducted a 60-day study of how the government can better manage and use technology (PDF) to protect everything from the electrical grid and stock markets to tax data, airline flight systems, and nuclear launch codes. … Nadia Short, vice president at General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems, said the job posting for ethical hackers fills a critical need for the government.”
The EFF has released a beta version of a new search tool that lets you mine the documents the EFF has unearthed using FOIA requests and lawsuits over the years. Quoting: “In celebration of Sunshine Week, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today launched a sophisticated search tool that allows the public to closely examine thousands of pages of documents the organization has pried loose from secretive government agencies. The documents relate to a wide range of cutting-edge technology issues and government policies that affect civil liberties and personal privacy.” I tried a search for “border” among the documents relating to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement and turned up 21 results and fascinating reading.
krou writes “The National Security Archive at George Washington University has awarded its 2009 Rosemary Award to the FBI for worst freedom of information performance (PDF of the award). Previous winners have been the CIA and the Treasury. The NSA notes that ‘The FBI’s reports to Congress show that the Bureau is unable to find any records in response to two-thirds of its incoming FOIA requests on average over the past four years, when the other major government agencies averaged only a 13% “no records” response to public requests.’ The FBI’s explanation, according to the NSA, is that ‘files are indexed only by reference terms that have to be manually applied by individual agents,’ and even then, ‘agents don’t always index all relevant terms.’ Furthermore, ‘unless a requester specifically asks for a broader search, the FBI will only look in a central database of electronic file names at FBI headquarters in Washington.’ Any search will therefore ‘miss any internal or cross-references to people who are not the subject of an investigation, any records stored at other FBI offices around the country, and any records created before 1970.’”
angry tapir writes “One of the discussions at the Source Boston Security Showcase has been the militarization of the Internet. Governments looking to silence critics and stymie opposition have added DDOS attacks to their censoring methods, according to Jose Nazario, senior security researcher at Arbor Networks, with international political situations spawning DDOS attacks.”
Frequent Slashdot contributor Bennett Haselton writes “A New Zealand court has allowed a plaintiff to serve papers on a defendant via Facebook, following a similar ruling from an Australian court last year. But as these rulings do not necessarily mean, as Facebook announced in a press release, that the courts have endorsed Facebook ‘as a reliable, secure and private medium for communication.’ The trend could lead to abuses if courts start taking ‘Facebook service’ too seriously.” For more of the many words written by Bennett, hop on that curiously named link right below.
Defeat Globalism writes in with a Canadian court decision that has ordered a man suing over injuries from a car accident to answer questions about content on his private “friends only” Facebook page. “Lawyers for Janice Roman, the defendant in the lawsuit, believe information posted on John Leduc’s private Facebook site — normally accessible only to his approved ‘friends’ — may be relevant to his claim an accident in Lindsay in 2004 lessened his enjoyment of life. As a result of the ruling by Justice David Brown of Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice, Leduc must now submit to cross-examination by Roman’s lawyers about what his Facebook page contains. Brown’s Feb. 20 ruling also makes clear that lawyers must now explain to their clients ‘in appropriate cases’ that postings on Facebook or other networking sites — such as MySpace, LinkedIn and even blogs — may be relevant to allegations in a lawsuit, said Tariq Remtulla, a Toronto lawyer who has been following the issue.”
longacre writes “A man on trial in New York for possession of a weapon has been acquitted after subpoenaing his arresting officer’s Facebook and MySpace accounts. His defense: Officer Vaughan Ettienne’s MySpace ‘mood’ was set to ‘devious’ on the day of the arrest, and one day a few weeks before the trial, his Facebook status read ‘Vaughan is watching “Training Day” to brush up on proper police procedure.’ From the article: ‘”You have your Internet persona, and you have what you actually do on the street,” Officer Ettienne said on Tuesday. “What you say on the Internet is all bravado talk, like what you say in a locker room.” Except that trash talk in locker rooms almost never winds up preserved on a digital server somewhere, available for subpoena.’”
By ScuttleMonkey on tap-dancing-on-the-slippery-slope
Defeat Globalism writes to tell us that many journalists, bloggers, and media law specialists are concerned about a new ruling by a US Court of Appeals in Boston. The new ruling is allowing a former Staples employee to sue the company for libel after an email was sent out informing other employees that he had been fired for violations of company procedures regarding expenses reimbursements. “Staples has asked the full appeals court to reconsider the ruling, and 51 news organizations have filed a friend-of-the-court brief saying that the decision, if allowed to stand, ‘will create a precedent that hinders the media’s ability to rely on truthful publication to avoid defamation liability.’ But Wendy Sibbison, the Greenfield appellate lawyer for the fired Staples employee, Alan S. Noonan, said the ruling applies only to lawsuits by private figures against private defendants, that is, defendants not involved in the news business, over purely private matters.”
MJackson writes “The UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has published a draft set of proposals for tackling illegal broadband file sharing (P2P) downloads by persistent infringers, among other things. The proposals form part of a discussion piece concerning the role that a UK Digital Rights Agency (DRA) could play. UK Internet Providers will already be required to warn those suspected of such activity and collect anonymised information on serious repeat infringers, though they could soon be asked to go even further. The new discussion paper, while not going into much detail, has proposed two potential example solutions to the problem. UK ISPs could employ protocol blocking or bandwidth restrictions in relation to persistent infringers. In other words, P2P services could be blocked, or suspected users might find their service speeds seriously restricted.”
nloop writes “The Pentagon is intending to develop a new spy ship — a dirigible. At 65,000 feet it would provide a 10 year, solar power based, unblinkingly intricate and continuous view of the surface via radar surveillance. Because of its altitude it would be safe from surface-to-air missiles and most aircraft.
A 1/3-scale prototype, now being designed, is ‘known as ISIS, for Integrated Sensor Is the Structure, because the radar system will be built into the structure of the ship. … ‘If successful, the dirigible… could pave the way for a fleet of spy airships, military officials said.’”
Defeat Globalism writes with this excerpt from Wired: “Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles are pursuing a 6-month prison term for a Los Angeles man who pleaded guilty in December to one misdemeanor count of uploading pre-release Guns N’ Roses tracks, according to court documents. Kevin Cogill was arrested last summer at gunpoint and charged with uploading nine tracks of the Chinese Democracy album to his music site — antiquiet.com. The album, which cost millions and took 17 years to complete, was released November 23 and reached No. 3 in the charts. The sentence being sought — including the calculation of damages based on the illegal activity of as many as 1,310 websites that disseminated the music after Cogill released it — underscores how serious the government is about punishing those for uploading pre-release material.”
pnorth writes “Malware writers that sell toolkits online for as little as $400 will now configure and host the attacks as a service for another $50, according to email offers cited by security experts. A technical account manager at authentication firm Vasco said that cyber crime is becoming so business-like that online offerings of malicious code often include support and maintenance services. He said ‘it was inevitable that services would be sold to people who bought the malware toolkits but didn’t know how to configure them. Not only can you buy configuration as a service now, you can have the malware operated for you, too.’”
By timothy on please-send-me-some-polonium-antidote
An anonymous reader writes “Russia’s Kremlin-based youth movement Nashi admits being responsible for 2007 cyberattacks against Estonia. An interesting point is that when you DDoS the systems, it’s not the fault of some people who want to crash it but instead the systems’ for blocking their users due to technical limitations. So if I shot someone to death it’s not my fault for shooting them, but theirs instead because of technical limitations of their body.”
The US Department of Homeland Security is studying lies, damned lies, and smells. They hope to prove that human body odor could be used to tell when people are lying. The department says they are already “conducting experiments in deceptive behavior and collecting human odor samples” and that the research it hopes to fund “will consist primarily of the analysis and study of the human odor samples collected to determine if a deception indicator can be found.”
This is Freedom Sunday – Read All About it, and Decide which story means most to you. then click on the title link and read the whole story; at it’s home blog. these stories were gleaned from Slashdot.
Make sure to leave us a comment, telling us What Freedom Means To You, Really.
Hugh Pickens writes “The NY Times reports that legal and operational problems surrounding the NSA’s surveillance activities have come under scrutiny from the Obama administration, Congressional intelligence committees, and a secret national security court, and that the NSA had been engaged in ‘overcollection’ of domestic communications of Americans.
The practice has been described as significant and systemic, although one official said it was believed to have been unintentional. The Justice Department has acknowledged that there had been problems with the NSA surveillance operation, but said they had been resolved.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the intelligence community, did not address specific aspects of the surveillance problems, but said in a statement that ‘when inadvertent mistakes are made, we take it very seriously and work immediately to correct them.’
The intelligence officials said the problems had grown out of changes enacted by Congress last July to the law that regulates the government’s wiretapping powers, as well as the challenges posed by enacting a new framework for collecting intelligence on terrorism and spying suspects.
Joe Klein at Time Magazine says the bad news is that ‘the NSA apparently has been overstepping the law,’ but the good news is that ‘one of the safeguards in the [FISA Reform] law is a review procedure that seems to have the ability to catch the NSA when it’s overstepping — and that the illegal activities have been exposed, and quickly.’”
By timothy on because-dna-evidence-is-unimpeachable
Mike writes “Starting this month, the Federal Bureau of Investigation will join 15 states that collect DNA samples from those awaiting trial and will also collect DNA from detained immigrants. For example, This year, California began taking DNA upon arrest and expects to nearly double the growth rate of its database, to 390,000 profiles a year, up from 200,000. Until now, the federal government genetically tracked only convicts, however law enforcement officials are expanding their collection of DNA to include millions of people who have only been arrested or detained, but not yet convicted. The move, intended to ‘help solve more crimes,’ is raising concerns about the privacy of petty offenders and people who are presumed innocent.”
Death Metal sends this excerpt from an AP report: “General Dynamics Information Technology put out an ad last month on behalf of the Homeland Security Department seeking someone who could ‘think like the bad guy.’ Applicants, it said, must understand hackers’ tools and tactics and be able to analyze Internet traffic and identify vulnerabilities in the federal systems. In the Pentagon’s budget request submitted last week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the Pentagon will increase the number of cyberexperts it can train each year from 80 to 250 by 2011. With warnings that the US is ill-prepared for a cyberattack, the White House conducted a 60-day study of how the government can better manage and use technology (PDF) to protect everything from the electrical grid and stock markets to tax data, airline flight systems, and nuclear launch codes. … Nadia Short, vice president at General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems, said the job posting for ethical hackers fills a critical need for the government.”
The EFF has released a beta version of a new search tool that lets you mine the documents the EFF has unearthed using FOIA requests and lawsuits over the years. Quoting: “In celebration of Sunshine Week, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today launched a sophisticated search tool that allows the public to closely examine thousands of pages of documents the organization has pried loose from secretive government agencies. The documents relate to a wide range of cutting-edge technology issues and government policies that affect civil liberties and personal privacy.” I tried a search for “border” among the documents relating to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement and turned up 21 results and fascinating reading.
krou writes “The National Security Archive at George Washington University has awarded its 2009 Rosemary Award to the FBI for worst freedom of information performance (PDF of the award). Previous winners have been the CIA and the Treasury. The NSA notes that ‘The FBI’s reports to Congress show that the Bureau is unable to find any records in response to two-thirds of its incoming FOIA requests on average over the past four years, when the other major government agencies averaged only a 13% “no records” response to public requests.’ The FBI’s explanation, according to the NSA, is that ‘files are indexed only by reference terms that have to be manually applied by individual agents,’ and even then, ‘agents don’t always index all relevant terms.’ Furthermore, ‘unless a requester specifically asks for a broader search, the FBI will only look in a central database of electronic file names at FBI headquarters in Washington.’ Any search will therefore ‘miss any internal or cross-references to people who are not the subject of an investigation, any records stored at other FBI offices around the country, and any records created before 1970.’”
angry tapir writes “One of the discussions at the Source Boston Security Showcase has been the militarization of the Internet. Governments looking to silence critics and stymie opposition have added DDOS attacks to their censoring methods, according to Jose Nazario, senior security researcher at Arbor Networks, with international political situations spawning DDOS attacks.”
Frequent Slashdot contributor Bennett Haselton writes “A New Zealand court has allowed a plaintiff to serve papers on a defendant via Facebook, following a similar ruling from an Australian court last year. But as these rulings do not necessarily mean, as Facebook announced in a press release, that the courts have endorsed Facebook ‘as a reliable, secure and private medium for communication.’ The trend could lead to abuses if courts start taking ‘Facebook service’ too seriously.” For more of the many words written by Bennett, hop on that curiously named link right below.
Defeat Globalism writes in with a Canadian court decision that has ordered a man suing over injuries from a car accident to answer questions about content on his private “friends only” Facebook page. “Lawyers for Janice Roman, the defendant in the lawsuit, believe information posted on John Leduc’s private Facebook site — normally accessible only to his approved ‘friends’ — may be relevant to his claim an accident in Lindsay in 2004 lessened his enjoyment of life. As a result of the ruling by Justice David Brown of Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice, Leduc must now submit to cross-examination by Roman’s lawyers about what his Facebook page contains. Brown’s Feb. 20 ruling also makes clear that lawyers must now explain to their clients ‘in appropriate cases’ that postings on Facebook or other networking sites — such as MySpace, LinkedIn and even blogs — may be relevant to allegations in a lawsuit, said Tariq Remtulla, a Toronto lawyer who has been following the issue.”
longacre writes “A man on trial in New York for possession of a weapon has been acquitted after subpoenaing his arresting officer’s Facebook and MySpace accounts. His defense: Officer Vaughan Ettienne’s MySpace ‘mood’ was set to ‘devious’ on the day of the arrest, and one day a few weeks before the trial, his Facebook status read ‘Vaughan is watching “Training Day” to brush up on proper police procedure.’ From the article: ‘”You have your Internet persona, and you have what you actually do on the street,” Officer Ettienne said on Tuesday. “What you say on the Internet is all bravado talk, like what you say in a locker room.” Except that trash talk in locker rooms almost never winds up preserved on a digital server somewhere, available for subpoena.’”
By ScuttleMonkey on tap-dancing-on-the-slippery-slope
Defeat Globalism writes to tell us that many journalists, bloggers, and media law specialists are concerned about a new ruling by a US Court of Appeals in Boston. The new ruling is allowing a former Staples employee to sue the company for libel after an email was sent out informing other employees that he had been fired for violations of company procedures regarding expenses reimbursements. “Staples has asked the full appeals court to reconsider the ruling, and 51 news organizations have filed a friend-of-the-court brief saying that the decision, if allowed to stand, ‘will create a precedent that hinders the media’s ability to rely on truthful publication to avoid defamation liability.’ But Wendy Sibbison, the Greenfield appellate lawyer for the fired Staples employee, Alan S. Noonan, said the ruling applies only to lawsuits by private figures against private defendants, that is, defendants not involved in the news business, over purely private matters.”
Aryabhata writes in with news that should chill the hearts of evil dictators and tax cheats everywhere: one of the last bastions of strong banking secrecy, Switzerland, is bowing to international pressure and agreeing to cooperate with some foreign investigations of wrongdoing. “…the Swiss government announced on Friday that it would cooperate in international tax investigations, breaking with its long-standing tradition of protecting wealthy foreigners accused of hiding billions of dollars. Austria and Luxembourg also said they would help. … The famed ‘numbered accounts’ that do not bear the owner’s name will still be available for clients willing to pay for added anonymity. … Over the past month, leaders have made similar promises in Singapore, Liechtenstein, Bermuda, the British islands of Jersey and Guernsey, and tiny Andorra… other ‘offshore’ banking centers are still available in the Caribbean, Panama, Dubai and elsewhere.”
MJackson writes “The UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has published a draft set of proposals for tackling illegal broadband file sharing (P2P) downloads by persistent infringers, among other things. The proposals form part of a discussion piece concerning the role that a UK Digital Rights Agency (DRA) could play. UK Internet Providers will already be required to warn those suspected of such activity and collect anonymised information on serious repeat infringers, though they could soon be asked to go even further. The new discussion paper, while not going into much detail, has proposed two potential example solutions to the problem. UK ISPs could employ protocol blocking or bandwidth restrictions in relation to persistent infringers. In other words, P2P services could be blocked, or suspected users might find their service speeds seriously restricted.”
By ScuttleMonkey on daily-dose-of-unbridled-stupidity
TechDirt pointed out a recent bit of foolishness as a followup to California Assemblyman Joel Anderson’s push to force Google and other online mapping/satellite companies to blur out schools, churches, and government buildings. When pushed, apparently his justification was that leaving these buildings un-obscured is the same as shouting fire. “News.com ran an interview with Anderson, where he attempts to defend his proposed legislation as a matter of public safety. He claims that there is no good reason why anyone would need to clearly see these buildings online, and that it can only be used for bad purposes. [...] Apparently, Anderson is the final determiner of what good people do and what bad people do with online maps.”
By timothy on gentlemen-do-not-read-each-other’s-maps
thefickler writes “Gone are the days when governments could easily hide top secret bases. These days it’s a weekend pastime to see who can find top secret facilities using Google Earth. Now it’s the UK government’s turn to be outraged after a secret facility was revealed by a British tabloid. The facility is said to be located in Faslane on the River Clyde in Scotland. This nuclear base was previously blurred out by the request of the British Government.
However, with the latest update provided via Google Earth, many of the blurred out locations were accidentally revealed.” Update: 3/08 at 14:24 by SS: Multiple readers have pointed out that the issue here is not the location of the base — it’s simply that details of buildings and objects within the base (such as the location of a pair of nuclear submarines) are accidentally visible after the UK government specifically requested they be blurred out.
nloop writes “The Pentagon is intending to develop a new spy ship — a dirigible. At 65,000 feet it would provide a 10 year, solar power based, unblinkingly intricate and continuous view of the surface via radar surveillance. Because of its altitude it would be safe from surface-to-air missiles and most aircraft.
A 1/3-scale prototype, now being designed, is ‘known as ISIS, for Integrated Sensor Is the Structure, because the radar system will be built into the structure of the ship. … ‘If successful, the dirigible… could pave the way for a fleet of spy airships, military officials said.’”
Defeat Globalism writes with this excerpt from Wired: “Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles are pursuing a 6-month prison term for a Los Angeles man who pleaded guilty in December to one misdemeanor count of uploading pre-release Guns N’ Roses tracks, according to court documents. Kevin Cogill was arrested last summer at gunpoint and charged with uploading nine tracks of the Chinese Democracy album to his music site — antiquiet.com. The album, which cost millions and took 17 years to complete, was released November 23 and reached No. 3 in the charts. The sentence being sought — including the calculation of damages based on the illegal activity of as many as 1,310 websites that disseminated the music after Cogill released it — underscores how serious the government is about punishing those for uploading pre-release material.”
pnorth writes “Malware writers that sell toolkits online for as little as $400 will now configure and host the attacks as a service for another $50, according to email offers cited by security experts. A technical account manager at authentication firm Vasco said that cyber crime is becoming so business-like that online offerings of malicious code often include support and maintenance services. He said ‘it was inevitable that services would be sold to people who bought the malware toolkits but didn’t know how to configure them. Not only can you buy configuration as a service now, you can have the malware operated for you, too.’”
By timothy on please-send-me-some-polonium-antidote
An anonymous reader writes “Russia’s Kremlin-based youth movement Nashi admits being responsible for 2007 cyberattacks against Estonia. An interesting point is that when you DDoS the systems, it’s not the fault of some people who want to crash it but instead the systems’ for blocking their users due to technical limitations. So if I shot someone to death it’s not my fault for shooting them, but theirs instead because of technical limitations of their body.”
The US Department of Homeland Security is studying lies, damned lies, and smells. They hope to prove that human body odor could be used to tell when people are lying. The department says they are already “conducting experiments in deceptive behavior and collecting human odor samples” and that the research it hopes to fund “will consist primarily of the analysis and study of the human odor samples collected to determine if a deception indicator can be found.”
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