Not that this is a shock but hope springs eternal . . . but yes the Senate has renewed the Patriot Act. With 16 provisions of the act set to expire next week, the bill would make 14 of them permanent and extend two others by four years. … on the way to the Presidents desk.
Blogs and their cooperative identity known as the “blogosphere” have become an extraordinary method for global information sharing. Moreover, no matter what topics they discuss or what political inclination they advocate they are threatened.
The threat involves the issue of “net neutrality”. Net neutrality is an idea that information networks ought to be as neutral as possible between competing content, applications and services and not discriminate as to who uses them.
Major cable and telecommunications companies lobbying Congress want to abolish net neutrality and set up the virtual equivalent of toll fees on the Internet. The idea would be to set up separate tiers of Internet access. If you want to access the superhighway, you would have to pay extra fees – a virtual toll for that access. Great if you can afford the high-speed but if you cannot then you are stuck with low band thus limiting poorer users access to multimedia content.
AT&T’s Ed Whitacre wants consumers and content providers to pay for use of his network. “”Now they might pass it on to their customers who are looking at a movie, for example. But that ought to be a cost of doing business for them. They shouldn’t get on [the network] and expect a free ride.” I think the content providers should be paying for the use of the network- obviously not the piece from the customer to the network,which has already been paid for by the customer in Internet access fees- but for accessng the so-called Internet cloud” Financial Times
BellSouth’s William Smith told reporters that he would like to turn the Internet into a “pay-for-performance marketplace” where his company could charge for the “right” to have certain services load faster than others. Washington Post
Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg says that Web applications need to “share the cost” of the broadband services already paid for by consumers. “We need to pay for the pipe.” Tech Web
Here is the problem for bloggers and other alternative and independent media producers who distribute media via the Internet: Those who cannot afford that privileged access will far outnumber those who can. This may discourage online postings of up and coming musicians, poets, writers, and it will strike a blow to the blogoshere’s diversity and variety. Limited upload speeds make it difficult for a young person in an impoverished area to post a picture to demonstrate a point.
Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, is introducing new legislation today that would stop Internet network operators from charging companies for faster delivery of their content or to consumers.
What do you think?
President Bush Signed the Nanotechnology Research and Development Act s189 in Dec., 2004 authorizing funding for nanotechnology research and development over four years and implementation of a National Nanotechnology Program. The President’s 2007 Budget provides over $1.2 billion for the multi-agency National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI). The hope is that the research will channel towards medical and energy projects.
It can also lead to the mass production of weapons with terrible consequences. Federal agencies that participate in the National Nanotechnology Initiative under the auspices of the Nanoscale Science, Engineering and Technology (NSET) Subcommittee of the National Science and Technology Council include Department of Homeland Security ( includes Transportation Security Administration ), Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Defense.
At an address at the 1995 Foresight Conference on Molecular Nanotechnology, Admiral David E. Jeremiah, Vice-Chairman (ret.), U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said: “Military applications of molecular manufacturing have even greater potential than nuclear weapons to radically change the balance of power.”
A Nano, by definition is a Billionth (10 to the -9th power) (0.000 000 001), a small insect is about 200 microns (10 to the –6th power) ( 0.000 001).
“…this creates a plausible size estimate for a nanotech-built antipersonnel weapon capable of seeking and injecting toxin into unprotected humans. The human lethal dose of botulism toxin is about 100 nanograms, or about 1/100 the volume of the weapon. As many as 50 billion toxin-carrying devices—theoretically enough to kill every human on earth—could be packed into a single suitcase. Guns of all sizes would be far more powerful, and their bullets could be self-guided. Aerospace hardware would be far lighter and higher performance; built with minimal or no metal, it would be much harder to spot on radar. Embedded computers would allow remote activation of any weapon, and more compact power handling would allow greatly improved robotics. These ideas barely scratch the surface of what’s possible.” CRN (Center for Responsible Nanotechnology)
“The future cannot be predicted, but it can be invented.
-Hungarian scientist and author Dennis Gabor
.
With all the surveillance initiatives, programs, and policies it would be easy to think that we are safer than ever. I personally do not see how scanning my email, web communications, or listening in on my phone conversations with my mother can be a good thing. I have only heard of one account where this use of technology has saved me from anyone. I guess that is classified. I have read numerous accounts of Homeland Security taken overboard and blog authors discussing privacy rights.
Not to worry some say, the government is doing all this to keep us safe and secure. What are we sacrificing? Pre Patriot Act and warrant less times, I never thought much about discussing topics that might include the words bomb, a terrorist related name, nasty comments about the President, Congressional members, or the ELF fires. Now, I think about these words and how I use them. I would like to tell you that I have nothing to fear, after all if I am not doing anything wrong, why worry. I am not as worried as I am disgusted. I assume that if I were a terrorist that I would know enough to realize that Uncle Sam is listening and would circumvent the system somehow.
How many citizens will be falsely accused, questioned, maybe detained over false computer interpretations analyzing threat potentials. We already know our government disregards the grand daddy of law, our Constitution. Some wayward military personal find nothing wrong with torturing their prisoners and to heck with the Geneva Convention. I no longer trust my governments system to work for me and not against me if caught in this situation.
Racial profiling, our presence in Iraq, and rhetoric about the Clash of Civilizations creates more terror. Mass surveillance, tracking, biometrics, Echelon, Carnivore, Magic Lantern, MATRIX the infrastructure of the operations roadmap is surrounding us, systems that may convert our constitutional republic into a very large panopticon.
“… each man is a coded number and the telescreens spy on every activity.”
“Science and technology were developing at a prodigious speed, and it seemed natural to assume that they would go on developing. This failed to happen, partly because of the impoverishment caused by a long series of wars and revolutions, partly because scientific and technical progress depended on the empirical habit of thought, which could not survive in a strictly regimented society.”
George Orwell in 1984
Winston Smith, the protagonist in George Orwell’s novel, 1984, ultimately had nowhere to hide.