Mystic Politics

As House Passes CISPA, The Fight Is Just Beginning

‘Despite growing resistance to the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, CISPA has cleared its first legislative hurdle. But the battle over the widely-criticized information-sharing bill is just heating up.’

Reading (and Misreading) Anonymous

‘Over the past year, the U.S. government has begun to think of Anonymous, the online network phenomenon, as a threat to national security.’

CISPA: 6 Things You Need to Know About the Government’s New Spy Law

‘Congress is seriously considering a bill called the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA). Intended to allow information-sharing both between corporations and between corporations and the government, it presents serious dangers to individual privacy.’

CISPA gets a rewrite but still threatens Americans’s Privacy

‘Foes of controversial legislation rally before expected vote next week, with scant success so far: latest draft still allows Internet companies to share customer data and communications with the National Security Agency.’

Revealed: CISPA Internet Spying Law Pushed by For-Profit Private Spy Lobby

‘A cyber security bill moving swiftly through Congress would give government intelligence agencies broad powers to work with private companies to share information about Internet users.’

PCFIPA: SOPA replacement uses child porn as excuse to spy on 99.7 percent of Americans

‘The SOPA and PIPA bills that went down in flames earlier this year for their unbearable intrusiveness, used content piracy as an excuse to give the government powerful tools with which to censor Internet content. For 2012 the primary author of those bills has switched to a fallback tactic: using child porn as an excuse to create a vast surveillance network from which the government can demand data on every email sent, site visited or link clicked on by all but a fraction of one percent of the U.S. population.’

NDAA, ACTA, & The Police Surveillance State: Creeping Fascism

‘The list contines to grow. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The essentially unprovoked police attacks on protesters, bystanders and journalists at Occupy protests around the nation. The continuing murder of (mostly young and black) men by police departments around the nation with few or no legal repercussions to the murderers. The growing surveillance state and the denial of basic freedoms via emergency legislation in cities facing political protest usually from the left. The permanence of that legislation even after the protests have ended. The continuing pursuit of “material support” charges against antiwar and solidarity activists involved in work against US and Israeli policies. The infant US police state is no longer learning to crawl; it has learned to walk and will soon be stomping its boots in a neighborhood near you.’

Anonymous takes down government sites in massive anti-ACTA attack

‘Early Friday, several websites owned and operated by the US government were defaced as part of latest protest against online censorship. Anonymous, the elusive hacktivist group known for masterminding similar assaults, is taking credit.’

Anonymous is shutting down the internet?

‘“To protest SOPA, Wallstreet, our irresponsible leaders and the beloved bankers who are starving the world for their own selfish needs out of sheer sadistic fun, On March 31, anonymous will shut the Internet down,” says the group.’

More than 30,000 Germans turn out against anti-piracy treaty ACTA

‘Tens of thousands of Germans have protested against ACTA, a controversial international anti-piracy agreement that has embroiled Germany’s politicians in a heated debate on whether the treaty is a useful tool to protect intellectual property or an infringement of personal freedom.

On Saturday, people turned out in droves for demonstrations all over Germany, in spite of temperatures as low as 5 degrees Fahrenheit. The biggest protests took place in Munich, where about 16,000 people took to the streets, and in Berlin, with 10,000 participants. Police estimate that all in all more than 30,000 demonstrators turned out in German towns and cities. The organizers of the protest put the number closer to 100,000.’