One problem that is starting to surface is that corporations and some individuals would like to see the internet lose that anonymity.  For the purposes of data mining (a lucrative business practice) and to keep online discourse regulated, some would stop at nothing to see online free speech stifled or diminished.

From ArsTechnica: “Appeals Court: First Amendment protects forum trolls”

Anonymous trolls on the Internet are allowed to remain anonymous, a judge in a California appeals court ruled yesterday. Not only that, but they’re allowed to exercise their First Amendment rights and speak their minds, no matter how scathing their comments may be. The court opinion reversed a previous decision that would have allowed Lisa Krinsky, COO of a Florida-based drug service company, to subpoena 10 anonymous Yahoo message board posters’ real names.

Why is this important to you and me?  Why should we care if trolls are “outed” or tar-and-feathered for being jerks?  Well, for one, part of the value that the Internet brings to the world is not only freedom of speech and an expectation of privacy, but it also levels the playing field and allows people a forum to express themselves with the world.  Where else could you find a place for some random person to speak loudly and receive publicity for otherwise unpopular speech?  Where else can you speak the truth without feeling the pressure that comes from your boss or colleagues, friends or family?

The problem with trying to regulate speech online or allowing for the destruction of internet trolls is you essentially move in the direction of threatening individual privacy rights and pulling the plug on internet fantasies.  Whether you love trolls or hate them, there’s something to be said for policing the words of the masses and seeking to ruin people who push unpopular opinions.  In the grand scheme of things, the trolls may get their 15 seconds of fame… before being banned or ignored, or rebutted by an equally passionate person on the other side of the argument.

We should strive to push for a highly diverse Internet with myriad ideas that as a collective work to find problems to difficult solutions.  Additionally, we should also work to protect the ‘fantasy’ aspect of online interaction.  If people want to remain anonymous, why deny them that right?  If they are not breaking the law or committing acts of terrorism, why should the courts step in to help out corporations only intent on retaliating against individuals or stifling speech?  Let’s hope we never end up on the slippery slope of Internet censorship, because once that happens, the value of the online experience is lost.  If we succumb to regulation of speech or relent on privacy rights online, the Internet will be no different a forum than the “real world” that is dominated by corporations and special interest groups with lots of money.

House passes “Safe Act”

The SAFE Act requires that anyone providing an “electronic communication service” or “remote computing service” to the public who learns about the transmission or storage of information about certain illegal activities or an illegal image must (a) register their name, mailing address, phone number, and fax number with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s “CyberTipline” and (b) “make a report” to the CyberTipline that (c) must include any information about the person or Internet address behind the suspect activity and (d) the illegal images themselves. (By the way, “electronic communications service” and “remote computing service” providers already have some reporting requirements under existing law too.)

There isn’t an American alive that doesn’t want to help protect children from online perverts and predators. However, it’s a farce to think that regulating behavior by imposing ’strict’ guidelines on Internet users is the answer. Since the government seems to have no qualms about spying on its citizens, I can see why it decided to move in this direction. It’s sad that not a single Democrat stood up against this madness.

In the end, it means nothing as far as regulating Child Pornography goes. That is, I highly doubt that anyone that is “guilty” is going to turn straight or get caught for that matter. All it’s going to do is create a situation where these perverts find ways to be discrete and covert, online.

What did the House accomplish? It continued to put the clamps down on individual liberties, rights, and privacy. It only serves to make perverts and child pornographers learn how to hide their tracks and escape the authorities and nothing positive comes of the legislation. It’s an impossible issue to really take a tough stand on, because of the nature of the issues at question, but you have to wonder if our Democrats are ever going to show some backbone and stand up on principle.

No, we don’t want fascism in America, we don’t need a police State. Take your ultra patriotism and shove it, this is America, why don’t we start acting like liberty, freedom, privacy, and the Constitution matter?

Throughout the week, countless articles have been released that attack the founder of Facebook for alleged theft of code that helped create the latest social online phenomena. All sorts of dirty laundry have been aired regarding the 23 year old Harvard grad and owner of Facebook.

It’s alleged that Mark essentially stole Facebook and he’s being sued by Tyler Winklevos and his brother Cameron, pals at Harvard. Mark Zuckerberg is now a billionaire (at least on paper) and presumably he’d have to split the pie if the court agrees with the complainant.

While it seemed things couldn’t get any worse for Mark Zuckerberg, it turns out that his company is engaging in questionable if not downright unethical practices with regard to privacy. There was plenty of concern by Facebook users that their private data was being shared and sold without hesitation. Politicians in favor of a telecommunications industry that plays the role of big brother have used social networking sites, particularly face book, as a prime example that people don’t really care about their privacy in this “new world of social networking.”

Well, they’d be wrong on that point and here’s the latest frightening revelation coming out of the Facebook camp. It turns out that they’ve been keeping track of users even after they log out!

Facebook has confirmed findings of a CA security researcher that the social-networking site’s Beacon ad service is more intrusive and stealthy than previously acknowledged, an admission that contradicts statements made previously by Facebook executives and representatives.

If you’ve been a naughty citizen and perusing the naked ladies or cheating on your wife on the side with some hot college coed you met online, there’s a possibility that Facebook knows about it! Maybe it’s time to lead a revolution against these corporate giants that are getting fat off of our personal data. Question is, how do you destroy a multi-billion dollar corporation? Is it as easy as telling people to stop using the site? Will the younger generation wake up to this nasty reality we’re embarking upon?

Time will tell, stay tuned for more exciting gossip on ‘as the Facebook turns.’

I’ve been beyond angry at the “network you can trust — AT&T” over its willingness to open up customer records, bills, and Internet activity to the government. I’ve never been a sucker for the “if you aren’t doing anything wrong, what’s the big deal” pro-Government argument. Recently, it looks like the government has been putting similar pressure on other companies. For example, Amazon, Inc. has received “exigent circumstance” requests from the military for the records of thousands of users that purchased used books through their service.

While AT&T is spending billions trying to figure out how to spy on Americans, Amazon.com is defending American privacy rights.

Ars Technica’s Timothy Lee writes:

Recently unsealed documents show that a federal judge has rejected an attempt by federal prosecutors to obtain the records of thousands of people who bought used books on Amazon. The records were sought as part of an investigation of a Robert B. D’Angelo, a Madison city employee who is accused of underreporting his income to tax authorities and operating a private business using city resources. The ruling was released after a federal grand jury handed down a 39-count indictment against D’Angelo.

Just as the government has exploited telecommunications companies to do it’s bidding, it’s now trying to go after other corporations that control information. We all know that information is knowledge, whoever controls the information controls the world. It’s no surprise that the United States government under a pseudo-fascist regime is trying to dictate to corporations how they operate. Further, they’re trying to control the Internet in order to manipulate and force “the people” into submission.

AT&T’s joint operations with the NSA and illegal wireless surveillance, as per WIRED magazine: “Whistle-Blower outs NSA spy room“

AT&T provided National Security Agency eavesdroppers with full access to its customers’ phone calls, and shunted its customers’ internet traffic to data-mining equipment installed in a secret room in its San Francisco switching center, according to a former AT&T worker cooperating in the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s lawsuit against the company.Mark Klein, a retired AT&T communications technician, submitted an affidavit in support of the EFF’s lawsuit this week. That class action lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco last January, alleges that AT&T violated federal and state laws by surreptitiously allowing the government to monitor phone and internet communications of AT&T customers without warrants.

Think about it, if the government knows all about its citizens, from favorite books to sexual fantasies to privileged conversations between husbands and wife, friends and other family communications, what is sacred anymore? All this does is puts citizens in a position to distrust government, the telecommunication’s industry and gives terrorists a reason to hack phones and turn to rogue providers for their communication. If privacy is so easily disturbed by a government that wants so badly to win this “War on Terror” ™, where do you draw the line?

I am a great fan of Amazon.com now and I have to say that Ask.com’s privacy policy and desire to protect its users is equally attractive on the corporate front. If Google didn’t have a ridiculous monopoly on search, it would be even easier to abandon the government tainted companies for ‘lesser’ companies. I’ve got some major ideas to help protect citizen’s rights and make a major profit in the process, so if anyone has the resources or contacts, please feel free to contact me on the matter. I think the time has come to revolutionize the telecommunications industry, because if no one does it, the government is going to continue to get away with tampering in our everyday lives while they chase the bad guys.

Before I get any nut jobs that want to hang me for being anti-Establishment or whatever your cute phrases are for people like me, let me say I love America and what it once stood for. Today, our country isn’t the one I once knew. I am not proud of our country, in fact I’m downright ashamed of some of the fascist principles that we’ve allowed to creep into society. I don’t favor granting ‘additional’ rights to criminals or villains, but we need to buckle down and start defending our Constitution. Indeed, we need to protect and restore the rights of American citizens and citizens of the world that we’ve deprived over the last decade. Our Constitution has all but lost meaning in the United States and for us to continue to claim we’re spreading Democracy overseas while abandoning at home is hypocritical at best.

If you liked this article, you probably are of similar mind and I’d like to point you to a previous article that I wrote on topic. “The network you can trust is a fraud“

AT&T’s technology has proven useful for spying on American citizen

Freedom to Tinker : According to government documents studied by The New York Times, the FBI asked several phone companies to analyze phone-call patterns of Americans using a technology called “communities of interest”. Verizon refused, saying that it didn’t have any such technology. AT&T, famously, did not refuse.

What is the “communities of interest” technology? It’s spelled out very clearly in a 2001 research paper from AT&T itself, entitled “Communities of Interest” (by C. Cortes, D. Pregibon, and C. Volinsky). They use high-tech data-mining algorithms to scan through the huge daily logs of every call made on the AT&T network; then they use sophisticated algorithms to analyze the connections between phone numbers: who is talking to whom? The paper literally uses the term “Guilt by Association” to describe what they’re looking for: what phone numbers are in contact with other numbers that are in contact with the bad guys?

This story hits close to home, because recently, I was called paranoid and delusional for thinking that the government would bother to spy on Americans. (especially, insignificant Fred!) I’d love to agree with the sentiment so I could feel more at ease with the state of American politics. Sadly, life is rarely that simple; and I am left to wonder if the echoes and clicking sounds that come from my AT&T telephone are occurring because the service sucks or because I’ve managed to be among the lucky Americans to win the ‘potential terrorist’ lottery.

Typical cell phone interference happens… we’ve all experienced it. Yet, now we know that it could be the result of some schmuck listening in and recording my latest call to my 51 year old mother. The excuse for such an invasion of privacy? Protecting national security, of course! When I consider that there is a chance I’m on “a list”, it enrages me beyond belief. I’ve never so much as received a speeding ticket, much less plot to commit an act of terror.

Hard right wingers and some law enforcement types would say, “it is better to err on the side of caution, don’t ya think?” I’d disagree, lets err on the side of liberty and freedom from government interference in citizens’ daily lives instead of bend to the will of fear and fascism. If you want to live in fear of terrorists go right ahead, but don’t take me along for the a ride into an America that promotes pseudo fascist ideals. The tighter our wing nuts squeeze her neck, the more pain she’ll inflict on us all when their patriotic glass shatters from this grip of fear.