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| August 1, 2012 News and Thoughts for the day |
Front Porch Politics
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- Five ATF officials found responsible for Fast and Furious
- Company Cuts Expansion Over Obamacare - Places Pressure On Congress
- Judge Rules Obama's Appointees Obstructed Justice
- House Republicans Reject Obama Plan for Offshore Drilling
- Illegal Immigrants Take Month Long Trip To DNC
- Bakery Under Attack For Denying Homosexuals Wedding Cake
Gun-Grabbers Latch on to Cybersecurity Bill
The Cybersecurity Act of 2012 (S. 3414) is still alive in the U.S. Senate, and could be moved for a vote any day now.
That’s why you and I must remain vigilant!
Please, call your Senators IMMEDIATELY and demand they vote against this bill – including opposing cloture – at every opportunity.
As I’ve already told you, S. 3414 would create yet another government bureaucracy (a “National Cybersecurity Council”), and it could guarantee companies engage in more invasions of our privacy.
But the truth is, that’s not all.
The Cybersecurity Act could also threaten your Second Amendment freedoms.
In fact, a handful of anti-gun Senators – led by Chuck Schumer – are attempting to add the Schumer “Magazine Ban” as an amendment to the Cybersecurity Act.
That’s why it’s vital your U.S. Senators oppose the Cybersecurity Act at every opportunity.
So please click here to find your Senators' information.
Since the vote could come at any time, please call right away to urge them to oppose cloture on S. 3414!
In Liberty,
Matt Hawes
Vice President
P.S. The Cybersecurity Act of 2012 (S. 3414) is still under consideration by the Senate and could come up virtually any day.
Not only that, but a handful of Senators – led by New York Senator Chuck Schumer – are trying to insert an anti-gun provision in, as well!
So please call your Senators right away to urge them to oppose cloture on S. 3414 and allow their constituents time to look over the final bill.
As always, if you’re able at this time, you can help C4L expand our efforts to protect liberty on all fronts by chipping in $10 or $25.
Freedom Outpost
Patriot Update News
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Desperate: Obama Campaign Brings Up ‘Felons’ in Latest Ad The latest web ad from Barack Obama’s campaign goes after Mitt Romney for not releasing more tax returns than he already has. The ad, titled “Mitt Romney’s Tax Returns: When Will He Come Clean?,” at one ... READ MORE |
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The Real Reason They Want Your Guns I think I figured out why the federal government is so keen on getting private citizens’ guns. We all know the usual reasons: power, plans for martial law, selling out to the U.N., etc. But … READ MORE |
- Wednesday is National Support Chick-fil-A Day
- White House scrambles to prevent defense cut pinkslips before election
- Chicago church leaders roast Rahm Emanuel over Chick-fil-A stance
- Thanks, Obamacare: Doctor Shortages, Jobs Destroyed, Coverage Dropped
- US audit: $200M wasted on Iraqi police training
- Obama’s Pragmatism Stops U.N. Arms Treaty — for Now
- Does Barack Obama Expect The Upcoming Election To Spark Rampant Civil Unrest?
- Arizona 20-week abortion ban upheld by US judge
- Colorado Suspect Is Told He Faces 142 Counts as Case Inches Forward
- Mitt Romney Cheered in Poland, Endorsed by Walesa
- Tick-Off a Liberal: Take a Boy Scout to Chick-fil-A
- The Mighty Intolerance of the Left
- US Main Stream News Agencies Are Controlled by Communists
- Forgotten Misery Index Could Show How Rotten Things Are Under Obama
- The Real Act May Bring Us A National ID Card (Your Papers Please!)
- When Republicans Attack Bachmann but Love Democrats
- Multi-Culturalism – a Modern Achilles Heel against Good Politics
- Why We Must Stand
- Those Wacky (Very Scary) California Female Democrats
- Real Heroes Found Amid Terror of Aurora Shooting
- PatriotUpdate.com is dedicated to the ideals of a free press, featuring headlines submitted by our readers as well as daily commentary provided by our editors and guest writers. Of particular note are the regular syndicated columns of well-known thinkers, including Michelle Malkin, Thomas Sowell, Chuck Norris, Dick Morris, Floyd Brown, and Michael Reagan.
TODAY'S CARTOON
Keep the NSA out of your inbox | EFFector 25.22
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In our 617th issue:
Keep the NSA Out of Your Inbox
The Senate is voting this week on the Cybersecurity Act of 2012, which would let companies like Facebook and Google monitor our online communications and then pass that data to the government without a warrant. We need to amend the bill to put in stronger safeguards for privacy and stop attempts to remove privacy protections while maintaining opposition to the bill.- Use the American Library Association's tool to automatically call your U.S. senators' offices. You will be given talking points to help inform your Senators about the importance of privacy.
- Use EFF's interactive tool to tweet at your U.S. senators using #DefendPrivacy. Show them all the unnecessary personal info this cyber spying bill will collect on everyday Internet users.
Judge Blocks Enforcement of Washington State Statute
A federal district court judge granted a motion by the Internet Archive to block enforcement of an overbroad Washington state anti-sex trafficking statute. The law could make online service providers criminally liable for providing access to third parties' offensive materials and likely violates the First Amendment and the Federal Communications Decency Act. EFF is representing Internet Archive in the case.EFF Updates
Senators John McCain and Kay Bailey Hutchison have proposed several amendments to the latest cybersecurity bill that would hand the reins of the U.S.'s cybersecurity systems to the National Security Agency (NSA), which has proven it can't be trusted with protecting Americans' privacy.EFF is urging a Washington State judge to dismiss "cyberstalking" charges stemming from rude comments left on a blog. In an amicus brief, EFF argued that the case is based on an unconstitutional law that criminalizes free speech.
As Congress and the president rush to re-authorize the dangerous FISA Amendments Act (FAA), Americans' communications are still being unconstitutionally collected by the government without a warrant. On Friday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) begrudgingly agreed, acknowledging that, "on at least one occasion" the secret FISA court "held that some collection... used by the government was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment."
For more than a year now, EFF has encouraged mainstream press publications like the New York Times to aggressively defend WikiLeaks' First Amendment right to publish classified information in the public interest and denounce the ongoing grand jury investigating WikiLeaks as a threat to press freedom. At a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing on July 11th, some members of Congress made it clear they also want New York Times journalists charged under the Espionage Act for their recent stories on President Obama's 'Kill List' and secret U.S. cyberattacks against Iran.
YouTube recently unveiled a new face blurring tool that lets users choose to conceal every face in a video they have uploaded. This is a commendable step towards fostering anonymous speech on the Internet.
EFF has joined a diverse collection groups signing on to a brief prepared by the Competitive Enterprise Institute to support the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) in its call for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to conduct a legally required notice-and-comment rulemaking for its "advanced imaging" scanners.
The U.S. classification system is "dysfunctional" and "clearly lacks the ability to differentiate between trivial information and that which can truly damage our nation's well-being." Those are not the words of EFF, nor any other government transparency advocate, but instead came from the former classification czar himself.
EFF has been among several groups following the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the huge ramifications it would have for the future of the open Internet, access to knowledge, and innovation. One of the most problematic aspects of the TPP's intellectual property chapter as leaked is its proposed language regulating temporary copies. As currently drafted, the related provision creates chilling effects not just on how we behave online, but on the basic ability for people and companies to use and create on the Web.
At the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas last week, Javier Galbally revealed that it's possible to spoof a biometric iris scanning system using synthetic images derived from real irises. The Madrid-based security researcher's talk is timely, coming on the heels of a July 23 Israeli Supreme Court hearing where the potential vulnerabilities of a proposed governmental biometric database drove the debate.
The Mexican government shelled out $4.6 billion pesos ($355 million USD) to expand Mexican domestic surveillance equipment over the past year, a set of newly leaked documents has revealed. According to a July 16 press report, the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena) -- the body that oversees Mexico’s Army and Air Force -- awarded five surveillance contracts that were for the procurement of devices capable of intercepting mobile phone and online communications.
A heated debate is underway about whether Israel's Interior Ministry will move ahead with the creation of a governmental biometric database containing digital fingerprints and facial photographs, which would be linked to "smart" national ID cards. At the heart of the issue is a major concern about privacy: Aggregated personal information invites security breaches, and large databases of biometric information can be honeypots of sensitive data vulnerable to exploitation.
Earlier this month, the 47 member states of the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) passed a landmark Resolution (A/HRC/20/L.13) to include the "promotion, protection, and enjoyment of human rights on the Internet." The Resolution, which was presented by Sweden, was backed by more than 70 countries in all, both members and non-members of the HRC.
miniLinks
EFF's Jennifer Lynch explains how facial recognition may create problems for the social network.Professor Colleen Chien of Santa Clara University School of Law launched a survey on the impact of patent demands, especially on small businesses and entrepreneurs. Help her study the true effects of the patent system.
Again and again, copyright is being used to silence political campaign speech. One of the most recent culprits? The Olympics.
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