The Downside of monitoring public waste programs

c/o DownSize DC

Somebody could be snooping in your trash . . . and you're paying for it!

In a growing number of cities across the U.S., local governments are placing computer chips in recycling bins to collect data on refuse disposal, and then fining residents who don't participate in recycling efforts and forcing others into educational programs meant to instill respect for the environment.

In at least one city, Dayton, Ohio, this invasion of your privacy is paid for by federal "Stimulus" funds.

Worse, there is evidence that recycling programs actually HARM the environment! Dayton's recycling subsidy is just one of thousands of examples of misspent Stimulus funds, and another piece of evidence that the Stimulus should never have passed.

So please send another letter telling Congress to rescind all remaining Stimulus funds using DownsizeDC.org's Cut Spending Campaign.

You may borrow from or copy this letter . . .

The Stimulus was advertised as putting money in "shovel-ready" projects that would create jobs. But it is a gigantic waste and you must rescind all remaining funds. 

For example: $500,000 went to the city of Dayton, Ohio to snoop in people's garbage and rearrange trash bins! 

http://www.whiotv.com/money/24513951/detail.html 

This isn't job creation, it's social engineering. 

Dayton's trash disposal policy is Dayton's concern, not mine or yours. The Constitution does not authorize the federal government to give aid to states or cities, which means federal funding of this program violates the Tenth Amendment. 

There are 99 similarly wasteful projects listed in a report by Sens. McCain and Coburn that you should read. 

http://coburn.senate.gov/public//index.cfm?a=Files.Serve&File_id=a7e82141-1a9e-4eec-b160-6a8e62427efb 

I resent my dollars paying for projects like these. Rescind the Stimulus!

END LETTER

You can send your letter through DownsizeDC.org's Educate the Powerful System.

"Don't Let the Back Door Hit You"

As featured in The San Mateo Examiner:

Waking Up Orwell: FBI misbehavin' & shadowy ways of the Flexians

This week on Waking Up Orwell....

**** KPDO PREMIERE DELAYED***
The station, in an ambitious 4 day effort to install a new programming board and equipment, is still in its testing stages and was automated through the broadcast scheduled for 9/29/2010.

This gives us an additional week to upgrade graphics, develop the website and come up with ways to promote the show.

" 22nd Century" music by Kelis, from the Fleshtone album

THIS WEEKS NEWS: This about sums the national state of affairs pertaining to civil liberty this week.

"A bad weekend for civil liberties"


DIY Government

This weeks bid for sanity is to add your public comments about the Dept. Homeland Security's request to for exemption from legal conditions set by the ECPA or Electronic Privacy Act of 1974 to monitor e-mail, phone calls, and anything else that creates a record from an electronic pulse.

*Big Thanks to Lady Axxiom for throwing this out there.

PUBLIC COMMENT DETAILS HERE:
http://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2010/09/10/2010-22639/privacy-act-of-1974-implementation-of-exemptions-department-of-homeland-securityall031-information

GUESTS:

• Public Knowledge about ECPA, COICA and a return to the days of the "clipper chip" with special guest, Art Brodsky.

• Jessica Sundin for the Minnesota Anti-war Committee tells us what it's like when the FBI raids you when they HAVE a warrent. More news about "improper" FBI conduct. 

• Professor and social anthropologist, Janine Wedel, teaches us about the world of Washington D.C.'s Shadow elite public-private policy drivers called "flexians"

• Tony Fish reverse engineers the properties of a digital footprint towards the body of online reputation. 

REDUX: Waves of DOMINT surveillance of activists

BTC - Special thanks to Amy Ferrer @ BORDC.





Here's second life for news that matters:

Inspector General Criticism Doesn't Faze FBI Raids on Midwestern Anti-war Activists

Software for dissidents : 

On Writing, Funding, and Distributing Software to Activists Against Authoritarian Regimes

FBI Launching Mass Raids of Antiwar Activists’ Homes

"Don't F*** With Our Activists" 

The Obama administration's war on privacy

Feds: Privacy Does Not Exist in ‘Public Places’

How the Chinese surveill their activists

ACLU seeks privacy records from secretive state police "fusion center"

A Reminder for the F.B.I.

Killings of Journalists Lead to News Blackouts in Mexico

NSA chief envisions 'secure zone' on Internet to guard against attacks

REDUX: COICA, NSA seeks to "tap" Skype- P2P, weekend update

Here is second life for news that matters (weekend update):

Is Deidentification Sufficient to Protect 
Health Privacy in Research?

NYT : U.S. Tries to Make It Easier to Wiretap the Internet

"Essentially, officials want Congress to require all services that enable communications — including encrypted e-mail transmitters like BlackBerry, social networking Web sites like Facebook and software that allows direct “peer to peer” messaging like Skype — to be technically capable of complying if served with a wiretap order. The mandate would include being able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages."

COMMENTARY c/o Seth Schoen, for EFF :
"US Government Seeks Back Door Into All Our Communications"

WHAT THE HELL IS "COICA"?   Senator Patrick Leahy ... introduced the "Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act" (COICA) = Censorship of the Internet.  

Meanwhile... in the UK: 'They asked me where Bin Laden was, then they took my DNA'
See also: The CIA and U.S.

Database of suspicious activity going live with little attention c/o Center for Invesitagtive Reporting


REAL ID OP-ED: To serve and protect: Or, enslave and oppress

"Only Michigan and North Carolina have joined Florida in aggressively upgrading their I.D.s since 9/11. While Alabama, California and North Dakota have made progress in complying with Real I.D., not the many other states Mrs. Sikes' letter infers.

There is a rule of thumb that I always use, Mrs. Sikes, any time a government worker or politician uses terms such as "To serve and protect," I always substitute "To enslave and oppress."

Therefore, your letter should have read "The Legislature enacted this law in order to oppress the citizens of Florida!"

ESTA fees: the whole is worse than the sum of its parts
c/o Papers, Please

New U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) regulations took effect this month that combine two bad ideas — fees to encourage foreigners to visit the US by charging them more to do so, and fees for the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) — in a way that creates new possibilities for travel surveillance and control that are far worse than either component alone.

ALSO SEE: How will Secure Flight be enforced?

Robocopywright  ACTA c/o Loss of Privacy 

HOT SHEETS:  ECPA Reform and the Revolution in Cloud Computing

A Surveillance State Coda

Proposed upgrades and exemptions for the Electronic Privacy Act of 1974 (EPCA)

BTC - Digital Privacy, like most things over 35 years of age,  is in need of a little in need of shaping up around the middle as Senators push to update to electronic privacy law in spite of elections.

Almost on cue, Washington domestic intelligence agencies are expressing resistance to this new regimen of reduced budget diet and political exercise to cut the fat.

To start, DHS is asking to be exempted from the dated provisions in the 1974 Privacy Act in a new National Proposed Rule or NPRM concerning "electronic records".  Yes, that would include e-mail, phone calls and anything else that creates a record from an electronic pulse. This is possibly so they won't have to pass an additional appropriations bill or comply with the development of more stringent Privacy codes designed to protect citizens from non-criminal surveillance.

"The Department of Homeland Security is giving concurrent notice of a newly established system of records pursuant to the Privacy Act of 1974 [EPCA] for the “Department of Homeland Security/ALL-031 Information Sharing Environment Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative System of Records” and this proposed rulemaking. In this proposed rulemaking, the Department proposes to exempt portions of the system of records from one or more provisions of the Privacy Act because of criminal, civil, and administrative enforcement requirements."

[They are seeking public input on this for the next 19 days.]

NPRM's are a chronic source of irritation for electronic privacy advocates seeking ways to cut funding to bureacratic tech adoptions in local and national governance; which are later used for broad public surveillance.  Domestic federal intelligence agencies, like the FBI, are trying to hang onto the vagueries which allow them to veer into places they have no right to go.  However, in all fairness, the government is only one aspect of our society where upgrades to the EPCA will face resistance.

Wireless, social networking, and cloud computing companies, like Google, have been compromising the public cache, divesting analytics, or information gained by use of their technology, for profit or for leverage in a tough economy.  Strange concessions from these companies have started to emerge, maybe to demonstrate how they can change their evil ways.  Perhaps more so they won't get the heavy legal hit expected if the EPCA gets the legal upgrade necessary to constrict the private tap of consumer information being abused today.

One thing is clear ; as the EPCA is updated it should end the festive looting of your private digital records at the convenience of the US government and private information brokers.

RELATED NEWS:  Stephen Colbert's, Colbertlist 

Waking Up Orwell Debuts KPDO 89.3FM live 9/29

READY.... SET.... GO!  On KPDO 89.3 fm Pescadero

AHOY! LAND.. ye scurvey pirates!!

BTC - It looks like Wednesdays 10 AM  - Noon  PST are THE good day to broadcast Waking Up Orwell up the Golden Coast.

Waking Up Orwell, the dystopian program you all know and love, will re-broadcast in South Bay and Penninsula.   The show is looking for the following:

• Guests
• Segment Sponsors and special reports
• Station affiliates for syndicated programming
• Station Underwriters
• Volunteers for press, web and promotion 
• Activists networking (for D.I.Y Government segments, specials and PSAs) 

Waking Up Orwell will continue to be featured initially online via Podomatic.com.   Waking Up Orwell's website is still under construction.

NOW... please support KPDO by sending $$$ support to develop KPDO's youth programming.