The Secret Plan To Kill Internet By 2012

[WaTcHeR]

ISP's have resolved to restrict the Internet to a TV-like subscription model where users will be forced to pay to visit selected corporate websites by 2012, while others will be blocked, according to a leaked report. Despite some people dismissing the story as a hoax, the wider plan to kill the traditional Internet and replace it with a regulated and controlled Internet 2 is manifestly provable.

"Bell Canada and TELUS (formerly owned by Verizon) employees officially confirm that by 2012 ISP's all over the globe will reduce Internet access to a TV-like subscription model, only offering access to a small standard amount of commercial sites and require extra fees for every other site you visit. These 'other' sites would then lose all their exposure and eventually shut down, resulting in what could be seen as the end of the Internet," warns a report that has spread like wildfire across the web over the last few days.

The article, which is accompanied by a You Tube clip, states that Time Magazine writer "Dylan Pattyn" has confirmed the information and is about to release a story - and that the move to effectively shut down the web could come as soon as 2010.

People have raised questions about the report's accuracy because the claims are not backed by another source, only the "promise" that a Time Magazine report is set to confirm the rumor. Until such a report emerges many have reserved judgment or outright dismissed the story as a hoax.

What is documented, as the story underscores, is the fact that TELUS' wireless web package allows only restricted pay-per-view access to a selection of corporate and news websites. This is the model that the post-2012 Internet would be based on.

People have noted that the authors of the video seem to be more concerned about getting people to subscribe to their You Tube account than fighting for net neutrality by prominently featuring an attractive woman who isn't shy about showing her cleavage. The vast majority of the other You Tube videos hosted on the same account consist of bizarre avante-garde satire skits on behalf of the same people featured in the Internet freedom clip. This has prompted many to suspect that the Internet story is merely a stunt to draw attention to the group.

Whether the report is accurate or merely a crude hoax, there is a very real agenda to restrict, regulate and suffocate the free use of the Internet and we have been documenting its progression for years.

The first steps in a move to charge for every e mail sent have already been taken. Under the pretext of eliminating spam, Bill Gates and other industry chieftains have proposed Internet users buy credit stamps which denote how many e mails they will be able to send. This of course is the death knell for political newsletters and mailing lists.

[WaTcHeR]

http://www.liveleak.com/e/fb4_1213286526

[KC]

YouTube Bans Videos That Incite Violence

The video-sharing service YouTube is banning submissions that involve "inciting others to violence," following criticism from Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) that the site was too open to terrorist groups disseminating militant propaganda.

The company earlier this year removed some of the videos that Lieberman targeted, many of which were marked with the logos of al-Qaeda and affiliated groups. But the company refused to take down most of the videos on the senator's list, saying they did not violate the Web site's guidelines against graphic violence or hate speech.

Now that videos inciting others to violence are banned, more videos by the terrorist groups in question may be removed.

"YouTube reviews its content guidelines a few times a year, and we take the community's input seriously," YouTube spokesman Ricardo Reyes said. "The senator made some good points."

"YouTube was being used by Islamist terrorist organizations to recruit and train followers via the Internet and to incite terrorist attacks around the world, including right here in the United States," Lieberman said in a statement. "I expect these stronger community guidelines to decrease the number of videos on YouTube produced by al-Qaeda and affiliated Islamist terrorist organizations."

The standoff between the senator and the nation's largest video-sharing site aroused arguments that have become commonplace since Sept. 11, 2001: It pitted civil rights -- in this case, free speech -- against demands to crack down on terrorism.

In May, Lieberman issued a bipartisan report by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs staff that described how al-Qaeda created and managed its online media.

Later that month, Lieberman wrote a letter to officials at Google [which owns YouTube] demanding that the company "immediately remove content produced by Islamic terrorist organizations from YouTube. This should be a straightforward task since so many of the Islamist terrorist organizations brand their material with logos or icons."

He also asked Google to explain what changes would be made to YouTube's guidelines to address "violent extremist material."

Because the volume of videos uploaded to YouTube is vast -- hundreds of thousands every day -- the company says it cannot monitor what gets posted. Instead, it relies on users to flag videos that violate its "Community Guidelines."

When the company removed videos after Lieberman's request in May, the company did so because they violated its existing guidelines prohibiting graphic violence and hate speech. Some of the videos depicted violent attacks on U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But most of the videos highlighted by Lieberman were not removed.

"While we respect and understand his[Lieberman's] views, YouTube encourages free speech and defends everyone's right to express unpopular points of view," the company said in a statement at the time.

The company's stance now appears to have changed.

Exactly what kind of videos will be deemed to be "inciting others to violence," will be considered on a case-by-case basis, though First Amendment experts said the company could run into trouble if the phrase is interpreted too broadly.

"We subscribe to the common sense rule," Reyes said. "Our guidelines are not written for lawyers."


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... eheadlines

[KC]

What better way to shut down the internet, tell the public lies and install fear.

[WaTcHeR]

Cyberwar Scam Designed to Destroy Open Internet

On March 1, Ryan Singel, writing for Wired, accused the government of plotting to destroy the open and freedom-loving internet. Readers of Infowars and Prison Planet have known this for some time, but it is nice to know a quasi-establishment publication is now telling the truth and warning its readers about the threat to liberty posed by the government.

“The biggest threat to the open internet is not Chinese government hackers or greedy anti-net-neutrality ISPs, it’s Michael McConnell, the former director of national intelligence,” writes Singel. “McConnell’s not dangerous because he knows anything about SQL injection hacks, but because he knows about social engineering. He’s the nice-seeming guy who’s willing and able to use fear-mongering to manipulate the federal bureaucracy for his own ends, while coming off like a straight shooter to those who are not in the know.”

The former intel boss, now vice president of the spooky Booz Allen Hamilton corporation (notorious for connections to 9/11 and a key DARPA client), has been trotted out to sell “Cybaremaggedon” (as Singel appropriately characterizes it) to the American people. McConnell insists the internet needs to be re-engineered:

We need to develop an early-warning system to monitor cyberspace, identify intrusions and locate the source of attacks with a trail of evidence that can support diplomatic, military and legal options — and we must be able to do this in milliseconds. More specifically, we need to re-engineer the Internet to make attribution, geo-location, intelligence analysis and impact assessment — who did it, from where, why and what was the result — more manageable. The technologies are already available from public and private sources and can be further developed if we have the will to build them into our systems and to work with our allies and trading partners so they will do the same.

“He’s talking about changing the internet to make everything anyone does on the net traceable and geo-located so the National Security Administration can pinpoint users and their computers for retaliation if the U.S. government doesn’t like what’s written in an e-mail, what search terms were used, what movies were downloaded,” writes Singel. “Or the tech could be useful if a computer got hijacked without your knowledge and used as part of a botnet.”

McConnell says the government needs to create a new Cold War, “one complete with the online equivalent of ICBMs and Eisenhower-era, secret-codenamed projects.”

Not directed against Muslims in remote backwater caves, mind you, but the real enemy — the American people who are increasingly aroused, thanks in large part to the internet.

The Bush era intel boss hyped the overblown Chinese hacker threat in “breathless” stories published in The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. The world’s largest security companies McAfee and Symantec have downplayed the story. Singel points out that such fear-mongering is almost completely void of facts.

The anti-open internet echo chamber includes a speech delivered by Lawrence E. Strickling, Assistant Commerce Secretary:

In fact, “leaving the Internet alone” has been the nation’s internet policy since the internet was first commercialized in the mid-1990s. The primary government imperative then was just to get out of the way to encourage its growth. And the policy set forth in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was: “to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet and other interactive computer services, unfettered by Federal or State regulation.”

This was the right policy for the United States in the early stages of the Internet, and the right message to send to the rest of the world. But that was then and this is now.

Now? The Pentagon wants to take out enemies with the online equivalent of ICBMs in order to prevent cyberattacks, privacy intrusions and copyright violations (and, of course, take out the real threat — the alternative media overshadowing the staid establishment corporate media).

“As anyone slightly versed in the internet knows, the net has flourished because no government has control over it,” writes Singel. “But there are creeping signs of danger.”

The primary creeping sign is the cybersecurity bill now in the Senate under the direction of the renown internet hater, senator Jay Rockefeller. If passed, Obama would have the ability to initiate “network contingency plans to ensure key federal or private services did not go offline during a counterattack of unprecedented scope,” according to Tony Romm of The Hill.

“Too much is at stake for us to pretend that today’s outdated cybersecurity policies are up to the task of protecting our nation and economic infrastructure,” Rockefeller said. “We have to do better and that means it will take a level of coordination and sophistication to outmatch our adversaries and minimize this enormous threat.”

Rockefeller and the government have but one serious adversary — the American people who are circumventing establishment propaganda via the internet.

The recently passed House cybersecurity bill and the Senate’s version now under considered are peddled as urgent action against Russian and Chinese hackers hellbent on taking down the power grid and the smart phone network.

In fact, all the fear-mongering is a smoke screen for the real purpose of this legislation — to close down the free and open internet and viciously attack those who dare tell the truth and organize opposition to a predatory and dictatorial government.

[WaTcHeR]

White House unveils system to create online identities

The White House is moving forward with a plan that will invite people to create online identities in order to streamline the online transaction process, combat identify theft and reduce the amount of personal information available on the Internet.

Information access groups are watching developments to see if the new system will have any negative affects on public access to information, particularly government-held information that identifies individuals.

The Obama administration introduced the new "Indentity Ecosystem" as a component of its National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace on June 25th. The effort is part of as part of President Obama’s Cyberspace Policy Review and the Department of Homeland Security assisted in developing the strategy.

“We want to create an environment, or an Identity Ecosystem as we refer to it in the Strategy, where individuals and organizations can complete online transactions with confidence, trusting the identities of each other and the identities of the infrastructure that the transaction runs on,” said the White House in a fact sheet outlining the program.

Under the system, users will obtain “digital credentials” such as a smart identity card or digital certificate on their cell phone, which will provide automatic authentication for a host of online transactions that includes banking, accessing health records and purchasing goods and services.

“No longer should individuals have to remember an ever-expanding and potentially insecure list of usernames and passwords to log into various online services,” said the White House in their blog.

The digital credentials would be provided by a variety of private and public organizations and an individual could choose the organization from which to obtain them. Each organization that supplies credentials would be responsible for validating the individual’s physical identity.

Participation in the Identity Ecosystem will be voluntary.

The White House also emphasizes that users will only have to disclose data that is necessary to the transaction. For example, when an individual shows a driver's license only for the purpose of verifying age, the individual is also disclosing other information, such as an address and full name, because that information is also included on the license. By using the new digital credentials, an individual would only need to disclose his or her age.

Even with the supposedly improved system, however, it is unclear whether identity thieves will truly be blocked from accessing personal data.

Alice Neff Lucan, a media law attorney, said that while she is not a technology expert, she did not see how the system would eliminate identity theft, particularly when a single set of digital credentials could be used to access a wide variety of personal information.

“If you have registered information on any type of record, it is always possible to find that record,” she said. “With a system of uniformity, you may actually be making it easier for hackers because you reduce the number of targets.”

The draft strategy will be posted on the web for public review and comments until July 19th. Approximately 70 industry advisory councils and associations gave input on the current draft.

The White House says the strategy should be finalized in October to coincide with National Cybersecurity Awareness Month.


http://www.rcfp.org/newsitems/index.php?i=11479

[WaTcHeR]

The U.S. government is sticking its nose up too many ass holes trying to control citizens in this country and other countries. It's no fucking wonder that we have terrorists that want to go after America and I don't blame them.

Some fucking government half way around the World wants to control my life? Tell me what Religion I can and can't believe in? Start Wars in my country and then just pull their sorry ass's up and leave? Beat, torture and rape my family and friends? What about testing experimental drugs on my people? I leave no stone unturned until I found them all. Isn't that even a red blooded American would do if it happened to us?

Yeah I go after your ass also. Unfortunately these Terrorists as we all know are going after the wrong group of people. American citizens shouldn't be retaliated against. How about the ones who made these decisions and had them carried out?

I love my country, I love my U.S. Constitution. As far as the current "run away" government we have , well as Tar Baby put it "it's time for a change!"

[WaTcHeR]

The Obama administration is seeking to make it easier for the FBI to compel companies to turn over records of an individual's Internet activity without a court order if agents deem the information relevant to a terrorism or intelligence investigation.

The administration wants to add just four words -- "electronic communication transactional records" -- to a list of items that the law says the FBI may demand without a judge's approval. Government lawyers say this category of information includes the addresses to which an Internet user sends e-mail; the times and dates e-mail was sent and received; and possibly a user's browser history. It does not include, the lawyers hasten to point out, the "content" of e-mail or other Internet communication.

But what officials portray as a technical clarification designed to remedy a legal ambiguity strikes industry lawyers and privacy advocates as an expansion of the power the government wields through so-called national security letters. These missives, which can be issued by an FBI field office on its own authority, require the recipient to provide the requested information and to keep the request secret. They are the mechanism the government would use to obtain the electronic records.

Stewart A. Baker, a former senior Bush administration Homeland Security official, said the proposed change would broaden the bureau's authority. "It'll be faster and easier to get the data," said Baker, who practices national security and surveillance law. "And for some Internet providers, it'll mean giving a lot more information to the FBI in response to an NSL."

Many Internet service providers have resisted the government's demands to turn over electronic records, arguing that surveillance law as written does not allow them to do so, industry lawyers say. One senior administration government official, who would discuss the proposed change only on condition of anonymity, countered that "most" Internet or e-mail providers do turn over such data.

To critics, the move is another example of an administration retreating from campaign pledges to enhance civil liberties in relation to national security. The proposal is "incredibly bold, given the amount of electronic data the government is already getting," said Michelle Richardson, American Civil Liberties Union legislative counsel.

The critics say its effect would be to greatly expand the amount and type of personal data the government can obtain without a court order. "You're bringing a big category of data -- records reflecting who someone is communicating with in the digital world, Web browsing history and potentially location information -- outside of judicial review," said Michael Sussmann, a Justice Department lawyer under President Bill Clinton who now represents Internet and other firms.

Privacy concerns

The use of the national security letters to obtain personal data on Americans has prompted concern. The Justice Department issued 192,500 national security letters from 2003 to 2006, according to a 2008 inspector general report, which did not indicate how many were demands for Internet records. A 2007 IG report found numerous possible violations of FBI regulations, including the issuance of NSLs without having an approved investigation to justify the request. In two cases, the report found, agents used NSLs to request content information "not permitted by the [surveillance] statute."

One issue with both the proposal and the current law is that the phrase "electronic communication transactional records" is not defined anywhere in statute. "Our biggest concern is that an expanded NSL power might be used to obtain Internet search queries and Web histories detailing every Web site visited and every file downloaded," said Kevin Bankston, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has sued AT&T for assisting the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program.

He said he does not object to the government obtaining access to electronic records, provided it has a judge's approval.

Senior administration officials said the proposal was prompted by a desire to overcome concerns and resistance from Internet and other companies that the existing statute did not allow them to provide such data without a court-approved order. "The statute as written causes confusion and the potential for unnecessary litigation," Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said. "This clarification will not allow the government to obtain or collect new categories of information, but it seeks to clarify what Congress intended when the statute was amended in 1993."

The administration has asked Congress to amend the statute, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, in the fiscal year that begins in October.

Read more about how scary it will get....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/28/AR2010072806141.html?hpid=topnews

[WaTcHeR]

Since his election in the nail-bitingly close campaign against former Republican Senator Norm Coleman, former Saturday Night Live comedian Al Franken has emerged as one of the strongest voices in favor of so-called "Net Neutrality" policies being considered by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Franken has called "Net Neutrality" the most pressing free speech issue in modern day America, and supports policies which would require Internet service providers to treat all legal traffic equally.

Speaking Thursday evening before an FCC public hearing on "Net Neutrality," Franken insisted that the U.S. government cannot allow companies to write the rules by which they'll later be forced to play.

"We don't just have a constitution problem here, we have a First Amendment problem, okay?" he said.

Search giant Google and telecom titan Verizon have both issued a series of "compromise" policy suggestions that would allow companies to create multi-tiered services over wireless networks offering specialty, premium service packages in what critics have called a plan to "cable-ize the Internet."

Critics of Google and Verizon's proposals were especially concerned that such services might become a non-public parallel wireless Internet where data could get special handling.

The proposal could simply be ignored by the FCC.

Advocacy group "Save the Internet," which promotes "Net Neutrality" policies, adds: "Our warnings are no longer speculation. Google, Verizon, ATT and Comcast are about to turn the Internet into cable TV --- where their favored websites and content will move fast, and everyone else will be left without a voice. These companies will kill the Web as an engine for free speech and equal opportunity. It is time for us all to stand up or get rolled."

Save the Internet is operating an online petition that asks Americans to send their thoughts on the issue of "Net Neutrality" to the FCC. Similarly, Sen. Franken also has an online petition advocating "Net Neutrality."

"What you're gonna have [if Net Neutrality does not become policy] is a handful of companies that own all the programming and provide all the Internet services," Franken said. "A handful of companies will have their hands on all of the information that all of us get, and that is very, very dangerous. All of these companies will have interests that are absolutely aligned, and this is very dangerous."

President Obama has said he is "committed" to ensuring "Net Neutrality" policies are implemented.

http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0819/watch- ... net-forum/