Why I Am Not a Fan of Obama Part One

I have not been happy with Barack Obama's performance in office for quite some time now. Two of his egregious offences concern the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement and his recent visit to Saudi Arabia. In this post, I will deal with the T.P.P.

In truth, the T.P.P. has been in the pipeline for some time now. Its progenitor was known as Pacific Three Closer Economic Partnership according to Wikipedia and first reared its head as near as I can figure in 2002. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership]. Obama seems to be involved in the summits which have occurred since 2010 in some way that I cannot figure.

The thing is, the T.P.P. is comprehensive and lacks transparency unless you happen to be a Big Corporation. The rest of us, the public, have pretty much been left in the dark. This monster has proceeded and gained momentum without any input from those of us who are the public. Fortunately, Wikileaks has obtained a leaked document [https://wikileaks.org/tpp/#QQG] which was released in November 2013. Regardless of what you think about Julian Assange, if you care at all about intellectual property laws, the criminalization of D.R.M.-ripping devices in order to make copies for one's own use, the monitoring of your activities on-line by your I.S.P. and more, then go here [https://wikileaks.org/tpp/static/pdf/Wikileaks-secret-TPP-treaty-IP-chapter.pdf] right now and download your own copy of the thing. Then read it. At least read the parts pertaining to copyrights.

Copyrights are not the only thing at stake in the T.P.P. Concerns have also been expressed about benefits to Big Pharma at the detriment of specifically New Zealand. Doctors Without Borders [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership] and The Lancet [http://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/opinion/66226074/Trans-Pacific-Partnership-may-raise-drug-prices] have raised concerns about what the T.P.P. will do to drug prices.

Also at stake are product safety rules [http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/16/trading-us-democracy-for-corporate-profits-with-tpp/] for agricultural products coming into the United States. They will not be as stringent as the current safety protections that we have are. There is concern about jobs [http://www.buffalonews.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/letter-urge-congress-to-reject-trans-pacific-partnership-20150216], and a lessening of "environmental and health safeguards" [https://www.citizen.org/tpp].

After the T.P.P., watch out for the T.T.I.P. [http://americanfreepress.net/?p=22700] Trans-Atlantic Trade Investment Partnership which will be more of the same geared at Europe.

radical sapphoq says: The T.P.P. is due to be fast-tracked in D.C. sooner rather than later. There will be zero amendments or alterations allowed. Quite frankly, I intend to vote out of office any rep in my geographical region that votes yes on this monstrocity.

References [in no particular order]:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/opinion/66226074/Trans-Pacific-Partnership-may-raise-drug-prices

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/comment/editorials/66223914/Trans-Pacific-Partnership-Trade-deal-secrecy-par-for-the-course

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/16/trading-us-democracy-for-corporate-profits-with-tpp/

http://americanfreepress.net/?p=22700

http://www.buffalonews.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/letter-urge-congress-to-reject-trans-pacific-partnership-20150216

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership

https://www.citizen.org/tpp

http://tppinfo.org/

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/02/09/1362851/-Why-isn-t-President-Obama-talking-about-the-Trans-Pacific-Partnership-deal

https://wikileaks.org/tpp/#QQG

https://wikileaks.org/tpp/static/pdf/Wikileaks-secret-TPP-treaty-IP-chapter.pdf

It Happens

     Some overly-sensitive/ false egomaniac/ don't-you-know-who-I-am sort of author doesn't like a book review and threatens to sue.

     Some copyright troll/ copyright monopolist/ Big Hollywood type issues a take-down notice and threatens court action.

     Screw the first amendment.

     Screw fair use doctrine.

     What is justice when you don't have money to fight back???




     As for the first example, it has happened to me. I consulted legal counsel and followed their instruction.

     The thing is, if you are going to claim "special" knowledge then at some point you ought to think about how you are going to prove that you have taken courses, gotten a degree and another degree, do indeed possess special knowledge far and above that of most human beings on the planet. 
     Hiding behind the idea of "it was a secret ritual" doesn't cut it. Period.
     A diploma on your wall from a mail-order university that accepted thirty-five pages of your poorly written "thesis" about your personal experiences proves nothing. I can get that same "degree" for fifty bucks from that same company. Yes, I checked. The idea that bunches of people "love" you is not good enough.
     Fraud is fraud. Using your fake degree to charge insurance companies a rate similar to the rate that properly credentialed PhDs charge is fraud. That the insurance companies are too stupid to know it does not excuse your actions. 
     Claiming worldly success and having a lover verbally abuse you on-line does not require that I hang out to watch. Having a lover physically and emotionally abuse you in your home [and you denying that you want help to get out of it] means I excuse myself from your friendship. I refuse to bear witness to something that you feel is "love." I hope you are able to get out someday. Even if we never are able to become friends again, I hope you find the support and courage to split from that scene.

     The second example has not happened to me as of yet. I absolutely refuse to purchase anything with that D.R.M. crap on it. Whatever else I do-- if I do anything else-- to fight the unfair enforcement of copyright laws is not something I will publish here. There are far too many egofags around. And informants. The current number of informants seem to be hovering around twenty-five percent. 


radical sapphoq says: If you are in the fight, then shut up about it. If you aren't, then you may want to consider getting educated. Check out what Anonymous is doing. Check out what Electronic Frontier Foundation is doing. Check out what your lawmakers are doing. If you don't know what is happening around you, then you are subject to the illusion that "all is right with the world." It isn't. Justice is not always just. Word.
     

PRISM is not just rainbows anymore

Anonymous header which appeared on Twitter.

On June 6, 2013, Americans found out officially that the N.S.A. has been spying on bunches of people.  I say "officially" because this is something that has been suspected.  This happened through some documents that were found and leaked.  There are tons of articles all over the net detailing the story.  We are still waiting to find out what will happen to whistle-blower Ed Snowden who allowed his identity to come out via the media on June 9, 2013.  Great Britian has officially denied Snowden entry.  There has been some speculation that Snowden could apply for political asylum in a South American country or in Iceland.  Iceland is currently being ruled by conservatives so that may not actually happen.  One article suggested that Snowden could go to New Zealand where he could hang out with Kim Dot Com as both battle extradition to the United States.  June 11, 2013 was the day when Edward Snowden appeared to have vanished from his Hong Kong hotel room.  As far as I can make out right now, his whereabouts are currently unknown.

Obama has indicated that this spying is a-okay with him.  Clapper testified that this shit wasn't happening but of course it was. Americans are butt-hurt because who we are calling and how long each call lasts has been collected.  We've been informed that the e-mail snooping is limited to non-citizens living in other places and that the Fourth Amendment does not apply to them.  The F.I.S.A. court has been rubber-stamping anything that the government wants to do.  No warrants are necessary.  Internet companies denied that the government has access to their servers.  Maybe yes through a backdoor or maybe no.  At any rate, Google has admitted to giving the N.S.A. info on thumb drives.  How high tech of them.  Obama says, "American citizens, no one is listening in on your phone calls."  Well okay.  Maybe there are bots trained in voice recognition with a vocabulary list.  Folks from other countries are looking at the uproar and saying, "Hey the U.S.A. has been spying on us for years.  Where was your outrage about that?"  Some Anonymous folks have trolled the N.S.A. with communication utilizing the naughty word list that was published several years ago on the Internet.

PRISM is part of a larger program called Echelon. The word list circulating the Net came from Echelon.  Apparently, knowing geography or talking about the weather can get you under surveillance for using those words on-line.  The logo for PRISM seems to have been influenced in part by a certain Pink Floyd album cover.  At least one person on the net was blocked from selling t-shirts on the internet with the PRISM logo or something like it.  Now we have federal copyright trolls.  

radical sapphoq says:  I hope that Iceland or Ecuador or some other place gives Ed Snowden political asylum.  If not, I don't see this as ending too well for him.  A few of the articles I've read have maintained that there was at least one other whistle-blower in times past regarding spying on foreigners and that every big government spies on its' enemies.  If you read any articles about N.S.A. and PRISM, be sure to read the comments.  Often the comments are more informative than the articles.  An example is reproduced below:

 
[Comment from Scarlett in one of the comment sections of an article about PRISM:]

Don't ask your government for your Privacy, take it back:

• Browser Privacy: HTTPS Everywhere, AdBlock Plus + EasyList, Ghostery, NoScript (FireFox), NotScript(Chrome)
• VPNs: BTGuard (Canada), ItsHidden (Africa), Ipredator (Sweden), Faceless.me (Cyprus / Netherlands)
• Internet Anonymization: Tor, Tor Browser Bundle, I2P
• Disk Encryption: TrueCrypt (Windows / OSX / Linux), File Vault (Mac).
• File/Email Encryption: GPGTools + GPGMail (Mac), Enigmail (Windows / OSX / Linux)
• IM Encryption: Pidgin + Pidgin OTR
• IM/Voice Encryption: Mumble, Jitsi
• Phone/SMS Encryption: WhisperSystems, Ostel, Spore, Silent Circle ($$$)
• Google Alternative: DuckDuckGo
• Digital P2P Currency: BitCoin
• Live Anonymous/Secure Linux: TAILS Linux

If you have any problems installing or using the above software, please contact the projects. They would love to get feedback and help you use their software.
Have no clue what Cryptography is or why you should care? Checkout the Crypto Party Handbook or theEFF's Surveillance Self-Defense Project.
Just want some simple tips? Checkout EFF's Top 12 Ways to Protect Your Online Privacy.
If you liked this comment, feel free to copy/paste it.


A few references:  

http://www.tscm.com/NSAsecmanual1.html

http://rense.com/political/weapons/nsa.html

http://www.aclu.org/national-security/aclu-v-nsa-challenge-illegal-spying

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/

https://epic.org/privacy/nsa/epic_v_nsa.html
 
http://www.nsawatch.org/

http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/ECHELON/echelon.html
 
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/National_Security_Agency

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/sociopol_nsa.htm

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/13377-nsa-we-will-illegally-spy-on-citizens-only-when-absol

http://www.pcworld.com/article/188581/The_GoogleNSA_Alliance_Questions_and_Answers.html

http://www.fastcompany.com/3000879/nsa-wants-hackers-and-it-wants-them-its-side

 http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/03/04/nsa-utah-data-center-visit/

http://nsa.gov1.info/utah-data-center/ 

http://www.washingtonian.com/blogs/dead_drop/nsa/
 
http://www.naturalnews.com/NSA.html

http://www.examiner.com/topic/nsa

https://www.techdirt.com/blog/?tag=nsa

http://mashable.com/category/nsa/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/nsa

http://www.ndtv.com/topic/nsa

https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying

6/6/2013
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-collection-documents/
6/7/2013
http://www.nsa.gov/    *last modified 6/7/2013
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/nsa-memo-4th-amendment-92416.html
6/8/2013

6/9/2013
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/09/usa-security-identity-boozallen-urgent-c-idUSL2N0EL0A120130609
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-06-09/nsa-whistleblower-reveals-himself
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance 
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/10/1214996/-Ed-Snowden-Broke-The-Law
http://www.fourwinds10.net/siterun_data/government/homeland_security_patriot_act_fema/news.php?q=1370873093
6/10/2013
http://abcnews.go.com/US/secret-history-nsa-contractors/story?id=19366914#.Ub03ci_hdTE
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2013/06/hong-kong-edward-snowdens-mistake/66054/
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/10/us-usa-security-iceland-idUSBRE9590OK20130610
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/06/snowden-us-china-hacking/66242/ 
http://americablog.com/2013/06/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance.html
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130609/22400623385/nsa-whistleblower-ed-snowden-my-desk-i-could-wiretap-anyone-you-federal-judge-president-us.shtml
6/11/2013
http://mg.co.za/article/2013-06-11-nsa-offers-intelligence-to-uk-counterparts-to-skirt-uk-law
http://world.time.com/2013/06/11/last-seen-in-hong-kong-edward-snowden-slips-away/
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/06/what-extradition-proceedings-against-ed-snowden-would-look-like----and-how-the-us-might-get-around-t.php
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/06/11/report-nsa-contract-worker-is-surveillance-source/ 
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2013-06-11/news/bs-te-lindsay-mills-edward-snowden-20130611_1_nsa-laurel-girlfriend 
6/12/2013 
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/06/12/tester-actually-snowdens-leak-didnt-damage-national-security/
http://pundit.co.nz/content/ed-snowden-could-come-to-nz
6/13/2013
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jun/13/congress-interrogates-intelligence-officials-on-da/
http://news.yahoo.com/ed-snowden-got-secrets-185839357.html
6/14/2013
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jun/14/nsa-leaker-ed-snowden-used-banned-thumb-drive-exce/
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130613/17490723465/leaked-nsas-talking-points-defending-nsa-surveillance.shtml
http://mg.co.za/article/2013-06-13-ed-snowden-the-geek-who-blew-prism-to-pieces
6/15/2013
http://news.yahoo.com/companies-disclose-surveillance-deal-u-010442116.html;_ylt=Ah4lxcswrq.qP0oFzDdi4tus0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTRhaHU0Z3Y5BG1pdANTZWN0aW9uTGlzdCBGUCBUZWNobm9sb2d5BHBrZwMzM2Q1N2IwMS1hMjUzLTNhZDktYWJiNC01MWNjMjMxYjhhNDYEcG9zAzMEc2VjA01lZGlhU2VjdGlvbkxpc3QEdmVyA2RhMDkzOGEyLWQ1N2EtMTFlMi04ZWVmLTYzMDAwYzc0YTI0MA--;_ylg=X3oDMTFkcW51ZGliBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANob21lBHB0A3BtaA--;_ylv=3
http://news.yahoo.com/officials-nsa-programs-broke-plots-20-nations-233703820.html
6/16/2013
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/16/us-usa-security-idUSBRE95F00B20130616?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews