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05.07.16

[ES] Fuerzas Viles Para el Abuso de Patentes y Patentes de Software en los EE.UU,. Australia, India, Korea, y Europe

Posted in America, Asia, Australia, Deception, Europe, Patents at 7:25 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

English/Original

Article as ODF

Publicado en America, Asia, Australia, Deception, Europe, Patentes at 7:36 am por el Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Necesitamos más soplos, e.g. soplos UPC, para sacar a la luz a quienes están moviéndo a las mariónetas

TPP
Polución de patentes y “calentamiénto global de patentes,” como Benjamin Henrion ocasiónalmenete lo llama [1, 2]

Sumario: un sumario de noticias del fin de semana y hoy, con énfasis en los elementos dentro del sistema (o los medios) que impulsan políticas reacciónarias/recesivas que los beneficia financiéramente a costa de todos los demás

Hay progresos ocurriéndo hacia la justicia de patentes, aunque hay elementos egoístas que son parásiticos y no-productivos. Ellos batallan para mantener el status quo, e incluso hacerlo peor. Abajo están los últimos ejemplos.

Estados Únidos

El otro día mencionamos el último movimiento decepcionante de la CAFC, que en esencia defendió a los trolles de patentes en los EE.UU. (donde se usan las patentes de software por extorsión, incluso cuando estas patentes no resistir el escrutinio de un tribunal). Que la CAFC apoye a los trolles de patentes de soporte no sorprende a nadie dada la historia de CAFC. Joe Mullin reacciona de la siguiente manera: “los defensores de la reforma de Patentes que esperaban”apagar al Distrito Este de Texas ” estan con cara decepción de hoy, cuando el tribunal superior de apelaciones de patentes de Estados Unidos resolvió (PDF) en contra de una transferencia de lugar en una disputa entre dos empresas de alimentos.”

No esperen que la reforma de patentes provenga de la CAFC, el iniciador de ellas mismas. De ¿SCOTUS? Talvez. ¿Hay una apelación pendiente en la agenda? ¿Alcanzará esto a SCOTUS?

Australia

Hay una nueva moción para persuadir al gobierno Australiano para prohibir las patentes de software (oficialmente). Es parte de una moción más amplia que también sugiere algo de los siguientes cambios como cubrimos hace unos días:

En su proyecto de informe publicado el viernes por la comisión recomienda que se deben tomar medidas para “reequilibrar” las leyes de propiedad intelectual existentes con un nuevo sistema que equilibre los intereses de los titulares de derechos y usuarios.

La comisión dice que mientras que un buen sistema equilibra los intereses de los titulares de derechos y usuarios, sistema de IP de Australia se ha inclinado demasiado a favor de los titulares de derechos de propiedad intelectual vocales y naciones influyentes exportación.

El abogado de patentes de Mark Summerfield, junto con otros maximalistas de patentes (con quienes coquetea online), ya atacó/burló a la Comisión por haberse atrevido a hacer estas sugerencias. Tal vez pone en peligro su fuente de ingresos, que es básicamente guerras de patentes, la confrontación, ruido de sables, etc.

“Ahora que un Comité de Australia propuso la prohibición de swpats,” Benjamin Henrion observó correctamente, “IBM (Sagrada Familia) y otros agentes de patentes llama al movimiento” defectuoso “…”

Mencionamos al jefe de la patentes de IBM y su respuesta ayer (señalado hacia el final).

India

La India todavía está bajo fuerte ataque por los cabilderos de patentes (por casi un año, y se intensífico el último verano). Los medios Indios acaban de publicar esta opinión que se resume como sigue: “Para crédito de los hacedores de políticas que constantemente han estado rechazándo besar a este puerco llamado ‘patentes de software’, a pesar de estar maquillado con el lápiz labial de la ‘innovación’” (no sólo en software).

El artículo se titula “Cerdo con Lápiz labial” y “El cerdo en cuestión es el régimen de patentes de software que defienden algunos corporaciones multinacionales (CMN)”, señala el autor. Indios deben involucrarse en este proceso y proporcionar información con la que hacer frente a los grupos de presión, que nunca se c

Korea

La ‘Revista’ IAM, un maximálista de patentes, quiere que creamos que “trollear” es ahora “unidad de obtención de ingresos” (pidiendo ‘dinero de protección’, mientras que apenas, nada en absoluto desarrollan cualquier cosa). En relación con las patentes de software IBM en Corea (se llama a estas patentes “Fintech”) que insta al país, que es tradicionalmente no agresivo/asertivo en el sentido de las patentes, para trollear más. IAM en es financiado por los trolles de patentes (en parte). Como jodes IAM, como jodes …

EU

En el continénte donde los oficiales de la EPO cabildean regularmente a los oficiales de la EU, a pesar de que la EPO es un cuerpo no-Europeo, hay un contínuo esfuerzo de implantar/enyucar las patentes de software a los estados miembors.

Aquí la MIP se esta conviertiéndo en la plataforma de los máximalistas de patentes quienes advocan por la UPC (para vender sus servicios). Bueno, de acuerdo a este tweet, el artículo es “promovido” (i.e. promocional) y dice:

La posibilidad de exclusión que ofrece el artículo 83 UPCA presta mucha atención a las opciones de los titulares de patentes se enfrentan con respecto a su estrategia de presentación. Nos centramos aquí en estrategias de defensa en el nuevo marco legislativo, en particular sobre las acciones ante los tribunales nacionales.

[...]

Estas incertidumbres hacen que sea difícil para las partes poner en práctica una estrategia defensiva. ¿Vale la pena invertir en una acción de nulidad ante un tribunal nacional, antes de la entrada en vigor de la UPC? Suponiendo que tales elecciones del impacto de un acción titulares de patentes en absoluto, tendrá que evitar por completo el uso de la UPC, o sólo impedir el uso de la UPC para una acción de nulidad?

Con las “incertidumbres de la UPC se hace díficil para las partes implementar una estratégia defensiva,” para que así recurran a los abogados de patentes. La UPC es muy buena para los agresores y abogados de patentes, es mal para el resto de nosotros.

Links 7/5/2016: LibreOffice 5.0.6, gNewSense 4

Posted in News Roundup at 5:16 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

Leftovers

  • “Captain America: Civil War” Is a Big Dumb Movie You Will Enjoy

    My main problem with this movie: Captain America is sort of just a selfish hypocrite. Also, boring. And he isn’t even super. (He is strong, though.) And he could just be shot with a bullet. (There are a bunch of times in this movie when he loses his shield.) His whole team, in fact, save the Olsen twin who is a Witch, could just be shot to death by any old infantry unit.

  • Science

    • Junk Science on Trial in Bill Richards Bite-Mark Appeal

      This week, in an airy courtroom in San Francisco, the California Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the notorious case of Bill Richards, who in 1997 was sentenced to life in prison for the brutal beating death of his wife, Pamela. The Richards case has long been viewed as a clear case of wrongful conviction that was based on the discredited forensic science of bite-mark analysis. The court’s eventual decision, due within 90 days, could finally vacate Richards’s conviction and clear a path toward his ultimate exoneration.

      Junk science and the fallibility of expert opinion are key to Richards’s case. After two hung juries failed to convict him of his wife’s grisly murder, in a third trial San Bernardino County prosecutors introduced new evidence that Richards had supposedly bitten Pamela’s hand while murdering her. If the mark on her hand was in fact a human bite mark that matched Richards’s teeth, that would prove Richards was present when Pamela died, a circumstance Richards has consistently and vehemently denied.

  • Health/Nutrition

    • ‘We need fundamental changes’: US doctors call for universal healthcare

      A group of more than 2,000 physicians is calling for the establishment of a universal government-run health system in the US, in a paper in the American Journal of Public Health.

      According to the proposal released Thursday, the Affordable Care Act did not go far enough in removing barriers to healthcare access. The physicians’ bold plan calls for implementing a single-payer system similar to Canada’s, called the National Health Program, that would guarantee all residents healthcare.

    • Should you be worried about PFOA in drinking water? Here’s what we know

      Over the past few months, several communities in upstate New York and New England have detected PFOA – perfluorooctanoic acid, or C8, a chemical linked to a range of health issues from cancer to thyroid disease – in their drinking water.

  • Security

    • Friday’s security updates
    • OpenSSL Patches Six Vulnerabilities

      Only two of the flaws patched are rated as high impact, and none is getting the Heartbleed treatment.
      The open-source OpenSSL cryptographic library project issued a security update this week that patched six issues, though only two of them are rated “critical.”

    • Critical Linux Kernel Update for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Patches 15 Vulnerabilities

      Canonical published a new security notice to inform the community about the availability of an important kernel update for the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) operating system.

    • Linus Torvalds Talks IoT, Smart Devices, Security Concerns, and More [Video]

      Torvalds remained customarily philosophical when Hohndel asked about the gaping security holes in IoT. “I don’t worry about security because there’s not a lot we can do,” he said. “IoT is unpatchable — it’s a fact of life.”

      The Linux creator seemed more concerned about the lack of timely upstream contributions from one-off embedded projects, although he noted there have been significant improvements in recent years, partially due to consolidation on hardware.

      “The embedded world has traditionally been hard to interact with as an open source developer, but I think that’s improving,” Torvalds said. “The ARM community has become so much better. Kernel people can now actually keep up with some of the hardware improvements. It’s improving, but we’re not nearly there yet.”

      Torvalds admitted to being more at home on the desktop than in embedded and to having “two left hands” when it comes to hardware.

      “I’ve destroyed things with a soldering iron many times,” he said. “I’m not really set up to do hardware.” On the other hand, Torvalds guessed that if he were a teenager today, he would be fiddling around with a Raspberry Pi or BeagleBone. “The great part is if you’re not great at soldering, you can just buy a new one.”

  • Defence/Aggression

    • Troubling Hidden Camera Video Reveals Why Children Should Never Be Left Around Guns

      Toddlers have shot a total of 23 people this year, and the issue of accidental shootings involving small children getting hold of guns has been making headlines.

    • Report: Toddlers have shot 23 people so far this year

      Toddlers ages three and younger have shot at least 23 people in the United States this year, according to an analysis by The Washington Post, with 18 of those incidents involving children shooting themselves.

    • Obama’s Last Gasp Imperialism

      …Obama shows no signs of giving up his role as the most aggressively imperialist American president in modern history.

    • Film Review: National Bird Looks Deeply in the Drone War’s Abyss

      National Bird, a new documentary by filmmaker Sonia Kennebeck, co-produced with Errol Morris and Wim Wenders, is a deep, multilayered, look into America’s drone wars, a tactic which became a strategy which became a post-9/11 policy. To many in Iraq, Afghanistan and throughout the world, America’s new national symbol is not the bald eagle, but a gray shadow overhead armed with Hellfire missiles.

      [...]

      The anonymity of that violence comes at a price, in this case in the minds of the Americans who decide who lives and dies. National Bird presents three brave whistleblowers, two former uniformed Air Force veterans (Lisa Ling, Heather Linebaugh) and a former civilian intelligence analyst (Dan), people who have broken cover to tell the world what happens behind the scenes of the drone war. There are elements of “old hat” here, chilling in that we have grown used to hearing that drone strikes kill more innocents than terrorists, that the people who make war justify their actions by calling their victims hajjis and ragheads, that America draws often naive young people into its national security state on the false promises of hollow patriotism and turns them into assassins.

    • Remembering Father Dan Berrigan, a prophet of peace

      A prophet of peace has passed. Daniel Berrigan, a Catholic Jesuit priest, a protester, a poet, a dedicated uncle and brother, died last weekend at the age of 94. His near-century on Earth was marked by compassion and love for humanity, and an unflinching commitment to justice and peace. He spent years in prison for his courageous, peaceful actions against war, living and practising the gospel that he preached. He launched movements, inspired millions, wrote beautifully and, with a wry smile, shared his love of life with family, friends and those with whom he prayed and fought for peace.

    • Human rights violations in south-east Turkey: failed peace talks followed by increasing violence
    • Does the Erdoğan-Davutoğlu split provide an opening for Turkish democracy?
    • 15 Steps for Turkish-Kurdish peace
    • Former U.S. Diplomats Decry the U.S.-Backed Saudi War in Yemen

      Saudi Arabia and the other Arab states that form the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have been brutally bombing Yemen for more than a year, hoping to drive Houthi rebels out of the capital they overran in 2014 and restore Saudi-backed President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

      The United States has forcefully backed the Saudi-led war. In addition to sharing intelligence, the U.S. has sold tens of billions of dollars in munitions to the Saudis since the war began. The kingdom has used U.S.-produced aircraft, laser-guided bombs, and internationally-banned cluster bombs to target and destroy schools, markets, power plants, and a hospital, resulting in thousands of civilian deaths.

      Despite all that, U.S. officials have done little to explain this support, have failed to explain the U.S. interests in the campaign, and have made scant mention of the humanitarian toll. In the absence of an official response, The Intercept raised those concerns with half a dozen former senior diplomatic officials, including U.S. ambassadors to Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

    • One Last Chance for Peace in Yemen

      Absent much stronger U.S. and European pressure on their Saudi allies, Yemen’s latest ceasefire threatens to collapse — which could mean a return to massive civilian bombardments.

    • US Military Medical Ethics Guidelines in Limbo

      Health care professionals should have the freedom to follow their conscience and their professional association’s code of ethics during their service in the military. The DHB report will not only ensure the moral comfort of our medical service personnel, it also stands as a moral document that can frame our moral intent as we go forward into turbulent times.

    • How friends and family remember Daniel Berrigan

      One special memory I have is from 1972 when I was 13 and opened the door of the Danbury State Prison to free my uncle Dan after he had completed his prison sentence from Catonsville. As the door opened, we were mobbed by friends and reporters, and I remember feeling overwhelmed. I was always in awe of how Dan would keep calm and stoic with the media frenzy that tended to follow him. We ended the night having dinner, and sleeping in wicker ‘cat beds’ at Leonard Bernstein’s house in New York City.

    • Cowardice and Exoneration in Kunduz

      “The people are being reduced to blood and dust. They are in pieces.”

      The doctor who uttered these words still thought the hospital itself was a safe zone. He was with Doctors Without Borders, working in Kunduz, Afghanistan, where the Taliban and government forces were engaged in hellish fighting and civilians, as always, were caught in the middle. The wounded, including children, had been flowing in all week, and the staff were unrelieved in their duties, working an unending shift.

    • How Obama ‘Legalized’ the War on Terror

      Among the troubling legacies of Barack Obama’s presidency is his consolidation of the dubious legal principles that George W. Bush cobbled together to justify the Global War on Terror, explains Michael Brenner.

    • Obama’s Drone War is a Shameful Part of His Legacy

      Father Daniel Berrigan died Saturday at 94. The longtime peace activist gained national attention in 1968 when he and eight others, including his brother Philip (also a priest), burned draft records taken from a Selective Service office in Maryland. Decades later, he remains a powerful example of a man who never wavered in his beliefs, standing up time and again for the poor and oppressed. In his last years, Berrigan no longer had the energy to protest as frequently. But if he had been a few generations younger, can there be any doubt that he would have been at forefront of those protesting the expansion of the drone war under President Obama?

    • Afghanistan: Bombing the Land of the Snow Leopard

      News alert! Despite what you may have heard, the war in Afghanistan is still raging. Nearly 10,000 US troops remain, and since 2014 the Obama administration has carried out almost 2,000 airstrikes on whatever they damn well please in the country. No question the mounting Afghan death toll and the bombing of hospitals and civilian infrastructure ought to infuriate the few remaining antiwar activists out there; but the toll the Afghanistan war is having on the environment should also force nature lovers into the streets in protest.

    • Daniel Berrigan, a Leader of Peaceful Opposition to Vietnam War, Inspired a Generation of Activists

      In 1970, Spellman’s friend and ally inside the government in matters of protest and war, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, took the extraordinary step of publicly and falsely accusing Daniel and Philip Berrigan of conspiring to blow up tunnels under federal buildings in Washington, D.C. and to kidnap President Nixon’s national security adviser, Henry Kissinger. Hoover did this despite knowing that FBI investigators and Department of Justice officials had officially concluded there was no such conspiracy. But to save Hoover’s reputation after his public comments, Justice officials convinced a grand jury to bring charges against Philip Berrigan and others; Daniel Berrigan was named an unindicted co-conspirator. The 1972 trial ended in a hung jury.

    • Court victory gives momentum to long struggle against London arms fair

      After a week-long trial that ended on April 15, a judge from the Stratford Magistrate Court in London found me and seven co-defendants not guilty for our actions last September to shut down the Defence Security and Equipment International arms fair, or DSEI, on the basis that we were preventing a greater crime. This is a huge victory in the long struggle to shut down one of the largest arms fairs in the world, which takes place in east London every other year.

      The last fair was in September 2015, and it saw more than 1,500 exhibitors from around the world displaying the latest technology of the war industry. DSEI is an invitation-only event, where invites go to governments, industry representatives and specialized press. Delegations from repressive regimes and countries violating human rights — such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Israel — walk through its corridors every other year browsing the latest weaponry. This huge event is not just to showcase the latest technology, but also to facilitate new sales.

    • The Wall Street Journal is Playing Dirty in El Salvador, Again

      As usual, Wall Street Journal columnist Mary Anastasia O’Grady has raked up such a scandalous mountain of defamation, fabrication and redbaiting in her most recent piece on the power struggles within El Salvador’s oligarchic private sector that it’s hard to know where to start. The task of refuting Ms. O’Grady is daunting to the point of exhaustion. That is, of course, a hallmark of this kind of Reaganite Cold War propaganda: overwhelm the public with so much misinformation that those seeking the truth are left far behind as they scramble to disprove, fact-by-fact, the long-cold trail of lies.

    • Top Gun Lobbyist Calls Hundreds of Child Gun Deaths “Occasional Mishaps”

      In an in-depth investigation in 2013, Mother Jones found that guns kill hundreds of children per year in the United States. Many die in homicides, and many others die in accidents—mostly when children themselves pull the trigger. The kids shooting themselves or others have often been as young as two or three years old. Invariably these “tragedies” result from adults leaving unsecured firearms lying around in their homes or, in some cases, in their cars.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

    • Contamination at Largest US Air Force Base in Asia: Kadena, Okinawa

      Located in the center of Okinawa Island, Kadena Air Base is the largest United States Air Force installation in Asia.

      Equipped with two 3.7 kilometer runways and thousands of hangars, homes and workshops, the base and its adjoining arsenal at Chibana sprawl across 46 square kilometers of Okinawa’s main island. Approximately 20,000 American service members, contractors and their families live or work here alongside 3,000 Japanese employees. More than 16,000 Okinawans own the land upon which the installation sits.

      [...]

      In January, the USAF released 8725 pages of accident reports, environmental investigations and emails related to contamination at Kadena Air Base. Dated from the mid-1990s to August 2015, the documents are believed to be the first time such recent information detailing pollution on an active U.S. base in Japan has been made public.

    • Organizers Say Peabody Coal Will Not Escape Justice Through Bankruptcy

      Missouri activists have long struggled against the environmental devastation, residential displacement and unsafe labor practices of Peabody Coal, the world’s second-largest coal producer, which is based in St. Louis. Peabody’s acts of destruction have been vast and numerous, from contaminating aquifers with toxic coal sludge to its disregard of labor safety standards, and even the looting of sacred Native artifacts. But the company’s recent bankruptcy filing has brought little comfort to those most affected by Peabody’s conquest and avarice.

    • Florida Mayors Rush To Prepare For Rising Seas

      Cindy Lerner and Carlos Gimenez are, in many ways, typical local politicians. Both are mayors, and both are intimately familiar with the trials and tribulations that their constituents face on a daily basis, from trash pickup to traffic. Both serve communities along the southeastern Florida coast — Gimenez is mayor of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida and the seventh-most populous county in the United States, while Lerner is mayor of the village of Pinecrest, a suburban village of about 18,000 residents located within Miami-Dade County.

    • Polluters In South Carolina Are About To Get A Huge Boost From The State House

      Coal ash is a byproduct of coal-fired power plants. For decades, plant operators have dumped the toxic waste — which can contain heavy metals and carcinogenic chemicals — in unlined pits near waterways. ​That, in and of itself, is not illegal. But the pits have been tied to groundwater contamination and, in some cases, the companies have been found to dump the waste directly into the waterway, which is illegal. Coal ash is an ongoing environmental issue across much of the southeast.

    • Fort McMurray Wildfire Grows Tenfold as Mass Evacuations Continue

      The devastating wildfire in the Canadian province of Alberta has grown tenfold, destroying more than 100,000 hectares (roughly 247,000 acres) by Friday morning as convoys of trucks and helicopter airlifts continued evacuating the town of Fort McMurray.

      Between 80,000 and 90,000 people have already been forced to flee from their homes as Alberta declared a state of emergency. Officials said about 25,000 people have taken refuge in nearby tar sands work camps, and the trucks will escort them further south.

    • There’s more to Fort McMurray than oil sands – it’s a real community

      Fort McMurray is a real place, not a Dante-esque metaphor for hell, despite the wildfires currently raging, which has forced its entire evacuation.

      An urban service area at the heart of the municipality of Wood Buffalo in north-eastern Alberta, one of Canada’s western provinces and currently in a state of emergency, it is not some frontier gold rush town huddled under a blanket of perpetual snow. It is not a work camp, although different work and service camps located at the mining sites, from 20 to 100 miles away, circle it. And it is not actually very far north in Canadian terms: the boreal forest just nudges the edge of the near north, and the far and the extreme north (yes, Canada has a near, far, and extreme north) are much farther beyond. It lies roughly between the longitudes of Edinburgh and Aberdeen, and no one would dare to call either Edinburgh or Aberdeen remote.

    • Donald Trump’s Hairspray Woes Inspire Climate Denial Riff

      Donald Trump launched into a bizarre riff on Thursday night, denying climate science in remarks to West Virginia coal miners by comparing the regulation of their industry to the ban on something closer to his personal experience: aerosol hairspray.

    • These Activists Are Building A Sanctuary For SeaWorld’s Remaining Orcas

      The nonprofit is using an initial donation of $200,000 from Munchkin, Inc. — better known for making sippy cups and other baby products and toys — out of a pledge of a million, to fund a team of 35 experts. This team includes experts in marine mammal science and behavior, veterinary medicine, husbandry, engineering, and law. They are now laying the groundwork for a sanctuary that would ideally have a budget in the tens of millions. “It’s not going to be cheap, but when you think about it, it is certainly doable,” Marino said.

    • Alberta Declares State Of Emergency As Thousands Flee Massive Wildfire

      The Canadian province of Alberta declared a state of emergency Wednesday as 88,000 people in the city of Fort McMurray were forced to flee a fast-moving, immense wildfire. The blaze has already destroyed 1,600 buildings, including a school.

    • Fort McMurray and the Fires of Climate Change

      The town of Fort McMurray, some four hundred miles north of Calgary, in Canada, grew up very quickly on both sides of the Athabasca River. During the nineteen-seventies, the population of the town tripled, and since then it has nearly tripled again. All this growth has been fuelled by a single activity: extracting oil from a Florida-sized formation known as the tar sands. When the price of oil was high, there was so much currency coursing through Fort McMurray’s check-cashing joints that the town was dubbed “Fort McMoney.”

    • ALEC Appoints New Chair To Climate Denial Task Force

      The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has named a new corporate chair for its task force that works to oppose action to tackle climate change: Jennifer Jura of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA).

      NRECA is a powerful trade association that represents more than 900 independent electric utilities. Its annual spending lobbying Congress regularly exceeds $2 million each year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. This has included lobbying in support of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. It’s Political Action Committee gives nearly $3 million per electoral cycle, with the majority going to Republicans.

    • Climate confusion creeps into Trump camp

      Despite the Republican US presidential candidate’s claim that climate change is a hoax, a new survey has found that more than half of his supporters believe global warming is happening.

  • Finance

    • Economic Update: What Inequality Does

      This episode addresses wealthy tax evaders, Takata airbags, equalized wealth data and the money in Chicago’s politics. We also discuss corporate food scandals, government fiscal “crises” and why we should build worker co-op sectors.

    • Ready for the Coming Assault on Social Security? Five Things Paul Ryan and Friends Don’t Want You to Think About

      It’s disturbing to hear young people say that Social Security won’t be around when they retire. But it’s not just young people. I’ve heard older Americans–some of them receiving SS benefits–claim that SS is dying. I think that if young and old knew the facts, they would be armed to support SS against the Party of Bads and Stupids that wants to tear it down. Here are common views and my responses.

    • American Tax Havens: Elites Don’t Have to go to Panama to Hide Their Money–They’ve Got Delaware

      The first thing you notice on the cab ride from the airport to downtown Panama City is the skyscrapers. They’re architecturally beautiful, but jumbled together as if there was no plan or consideration for how they might look next to one another.

      What you might not notice is that they’re nearly all empty.

      Panama, a small Central American country with just 4 million people, has dominated the news in recent weeks.

      For that you can thank the Panama Papers — a massive leak of private documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, which serves well-heeled companies and individuals all over the world. The leaks exposed a vast global system of shady offshore tax shelters and the global elites that benefit from them.

      A few months before Panama landed on the front pages of nearly every newspaper in the world, I visited the country and got a look at those empty buildings firsthand.

    • This Town Ran An Illegal Debtor’s Prison For Years. Now It Has To Pay Back The People It Jailed.

      Colorado Springs will pay back destitute people it illegally jailed because they couldn’t pay court fines, the city announced Thursday.

      The city will also discontinue its debtor’s prison policy, which violated both the U.S. Constitution and a 2014 state law in Colorado. The system usually targeted non-jailable offenses like jaywalking, violating park curfews, or drinking in public.

      More than 60 victims of the city’s debtor’s prison policy are getting repaid with interest under the $103,000 settlement with the state’s American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) chapter. Under the city’s previous “pay or serve” sentencing policy, people who couldn’t afford fines for non-criminal violations like panhandling near highways were forced to spend one day behind bars for every $50 the court said they owed. The settlement sets compensation for 66 pay-or-serve victims at the rate of $125 per day they were jailed.

    • ‘Why? And Why Now?’ Panama Papers ‘John Doe’ Steps Out of Shadows

      The anonymous source behind the Panama Papers stepped out of the shadows on Friday to offer justification for what has been called the biggest leak in history.

      The whistleblower’s gender and name remain secret, as does their occupation. German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, the leaker’s initial contact, has authenticated that the statement came from the Panama Papers source.

    • C.F.P.B. Proposes Class Action Boost for Bank Victims

      The rule would prohibit so-called “forced arbitration” clauses, which firms have used to deny customers an opportunity to file class action lawsuits. Forced into one-on-one proceedings, cheated Americans are often over-matched by their corporate abuser’s legal resources, and unlikely to recoup any damages.

    • Job Growth Slows in April

      Some of the news in the household survey was positive. Most of the duration measures of unemployment fell and the share of unemployment due to voluntary quits rose to 10.8 percent, the highest level of the recovery to date.

      Also, the number of workers involuntarily working part-time fell by 161,000 more than reversing a jump in March.

      On the whole this report suggests that job growth may be coming in line with the slow pace of economic growth.

    • Americans Finally Get A Raise, But Fewer People Get Jobs

      The economy added 160,000 jobs in April while the unemployment rate held steady at 5 percent, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Analysts had expected 202,000 jobs to be added. That’s the weakest job creation since September 2015.

    • The chart that shows the UK economic recovery is ‘on its knees’

      The latest survey of the UK’s dominant services sector has today rounded off a dismal hat-trick of disappointment for the British economy.

      The Markit/CIPs PMI Index for April came in at 52.3. That’s above the 50 point that separates contraction from growth. But it’s also the weakest reading since February 2013, when the economy’s recovery was just starting.

    • Mayor of Cupertino Clashes with Tax-Dodging Apple: Company ‘Abuses Us’
    • Germans increasingly doubtful of TTIP

      Germans are growing increasingly wary of a vast EU-US trade pact currently under negotiation, an opinion poll showed on 5 May, as Chancellor Angela Merkel said she hoped for a deal by December.

      Some 70% of Germans polled by the dimap institute for broadcaster ARD said the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) deal would bring “mostly disadvantages”, up from 55% in a similar poll in June 2014.

    • Scott Walker Implements Backdoor Way To Drug Test People For Unemployment Benefits

      Under current law, states aren’t allowed to institute drug tests for unemployment benefits. But that hasn’t kept Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) from trying.

      In July, Walker approved legislation that would implement drug tests for both unemployment benefits and food stamps, neither of which are currently permissible. To get his way, he’s suing the government to allow him to move forward with implementation, arguing that these programs are “welfare” just the same as the welfare cash assistance program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, that does in fact allow states to implement drug tests.

    • Irish beef farmers protest over ‘sell-out’ trade talks

      Dozens of Irish farmers staged a demonstration outside the offices of the EU Commission in Dublin, claiming that plans being discussed as part of European trade talks will “sell out” the EU’s beef sector.

      The protest was staged by the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA) and was focused on the Mercosur deal being negotiated with South America and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) being hammered out with the US.

    • Panama Papers source breaks silence over ‘scale of injustices’

      The whistleblower behind the Panama Papers broke their silence on Friday to explain in detail how the injustices of offshore tax havens drove them to the biggest data leak in history.

      The source, whose identity and gender remain a secret, denied being a spy.

      “For the record, I do not work for any government or intelligence agency, directly or as a contractor, and I never have. My viewpoint is entirely my own.”

      The whistleblower said the leak of 11.5m documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca had triggered a “new, encouraging global debate”, thanks to the publication last month of stories by an international consortium of newspapers, including the Guardian.

    • Karen Hansen-Kuhn on TTIP Leak, Josmar Trujillo on Bronx Police Raid

      This week on CounterSpin: Despite the impact it would have on millions of people and the planet, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), like all such agreements, was being negotiated in secret. That is, until Greenpeace Netherlands released classified documents revealing elements of the deal the EU and the US were moving merrily toward — now some say the pact may be scuttled. What’s in those documents? We’ll hear from Karen Hansen-Kuhn of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.

    • Inequality Soars as Retirement Benefits Dwindle for All But the Rich

      A report released Thursday from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) offers more evidence that the shift away from traditional pensions to 401(k)-like plans contributes to inequality.

      As Bloomberg reported Friday, “The U.S. retirement landscape is starting to look like a Charles Dickens novel.”

    • Retired Truckers Duck Pension Cuts – For Now

      The Treasury Department on Friday rejected a bid by the Central States Pension Fund to cut current retiree benefits for 270,000 Teamster truckers by as much as 50 percent.

      Kenneth Feinberg, the special master to the Treasury tasked with handling proposals by pension funds to cut benefits, said he was not persuaded that the plan would solve Central States’s solvency problems because of faulty assumptions.

    • Panama Papers Source Wants Whistleblower Immunity to Aid Law Enforcement

      The anonymous source responsible for leaking the vast document trove known as the Panama Papers said in a manifesto published on Friday that she or he “would be willing to cooperate with law enforcement” to ensure the prosecution of wrongdoing revealed by the paper trail — but only once “governments codify legal protections for whistleblowers into law.”

      The source wrote that the leaked files on offshore business dealings and shell companies organized by Mossack Fonseca, a law firm based in Panama, revealed “the scandal of what is legal and allowed.”

      But the source, who took the name “John Doe,” argued that since “the law firm, its founders, and employees actually did knowingly violate myriad laws worldwide, repeatedly,” the wrongdoers there should now be prosecuted.

      Doe added that prosecutors require access to the original documents, noting that media outlets “have rightly stated that they will not provide them to law enforcement agencies. I, however, would be willing to cooperate with law enforcement to the extent that I am able.”

    • Quote of the Day: Debt? What Debt?

      There you have it. If Trump crashes the economy, he’ll just default on our sovereign debt. Easy peasy. Why is everyone so worried?

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Rick Perry Endorses Cancer for President, Would Be Willing to Accept Position as Cancer’s Running Mate

      During his brief, run for the GOP presidential nomination last year, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry emerged as one of the loudest and harshest voices of criticism against Donald Trump. Last July, shortly after Trump entered the race, Perry devoted an entire speech to blasting Trump as a form of “cancer” on the conservative movement.

    • The Need for Progressive Voices

      The media industry reshaped our precious public commons into a fortress of exclusion that blocks dissenting, innovative and majoritarian viewpoints on matters that address society’s most basic needs,” writes Nader. “One thing is clear―something’s gotta give.”

    • This Teen Went to Prom With a Cardboard Cutout of Bernie Sanders

      Prom is a big deal for most teenagers. For high school social events in general, the less you take it seriously, the more fun you’re likely to have. Teen hero Chloe Raynaud didn’t have a date for prom and so she went to prom with a cutout of Bernie Sanders. Her pictures have since gone viral and this is the best kind of way to go viral in my opinion.

    • Hey, Bernie, Leave Them Kids Alone

      Many of Sanders’ older fans are disappointed that Sanders will clearly end up as another episode in the bigger stories told by Stauber, Yates, Shoup and other veteran radical intellectuals (myself included). But I doubt that the nation’s leading left intellectual Noam Chomsky (87 years old) is losing much sleep about the Sanders fade.

    • May Looking Bright for Sanders as Political Revolution Marches On

      Coming off a big win in Indiana and with the Democratic Party holding four more primaries this month, May could end up showing a resilient Bernie Sanders campaign despite the concerted effort of the mainstream press to count him out.

    • NYC Board of Elections Suspends 2nd Official, Delays Hillary Clinton v. Bernie Sanders Results Certification

      New York City’s Board of Elections (BOE) was expected to certify results of the primary contest between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders at 3:30pm Thursday. Instead, around 5:30pm BOE Director Michael Ryan officially announced the suspension-without-pay of a second high-ranking Board employee from Brooklyn and delayed certification of the results at least until 1:30pm on Friday, according to reporting from Gothamist journalist Nathan Tempey.

    • Sheldon Adelson Pledges to Support Donald Trump

      As for Trump, he appeared to have sought Adelson’s approval from the outset: Last summer, Trump sent Adelson a book of photographs of himself receiving an award for promoting US-Israel relations with the note, “Sheldon, no one will be a bigger friend to Israel than me” on the cover.

    • KING: Bernie Sanders would be Donald Trump’s worst nightmare; Hillary, not so much

      You may not like Donald Trump. Hell, you may hate his guts and think he is the worst thing to ever happen to American politics in modern history.

      If you called him an offensive, sexist, xenophobic bigot, I’d be first in line to agree with you.

      Yes, his skin is orange and his hair is ridiculous. He’s also an incredibly formidable politician who just beat the dog crap out of more than a dozen different Republicans including the current governors from Ohio, Wisconsin and New Jersey, two widely-known multi-term governors from Florida and Texas, four current U.S. senators from Kentucky, South Carolina, Florida and Texas, a doctor and a former tech CEO.

    • Donald Trump’s Sacking of GOP Forces Elected Officials and Party Leaders to Make a Decision
    • Across Los Angeles, Hope Remains for a Big Upset in the California Primary

      If Sanders wins California, it would be a big upset. Yet even if he does, he probably wouldn’t get enough delegates to force the convention into a second ballot and to stop a Clinton nomination. But what happens after the convention is important, too. Will the Sanders movement remain intact? Will Lauren Steiner, Julie Tyler, Nasim Thompson and Ismael Parra get behind Clinton for the fall campaign against Donald Trump?

    • BBC Spread the Hatred

      No matter how terrible the BBC is, it constantly manages to get worse. The BBC News this evening appears like an especially rabid Tory Party broadcast. Sarah Smith was just breathtaking, while I thought Laura Kuenssberg must be the Chairman of the Conservative Party.

      Sarah Smith’s report from Holyrood was so astonishingly biased that a rather bemused BBC correspondent named Keane followed it with “But after Sarah Smith’s report let’s not forget that the SNP have won an historic third election”. Sarah Smith’s contribution was a voiceover of a photo montage of Ruth Davidson. Smith told us the election was all about Independence and the “stunning” Tory result was evidence that voters were firmly rejecting the idea of any second referendum. Cut to Ruth Davidson saying the Tories were firmly rejecting any second referendum.

      Let us for a moment accept Sarah Smith’s contention that the Tories attracted those voters who do not want a second referendum. The truth of the matter is that just 1 in 9 of eligible Scottish voters, voted Tory. 21% of those who voted. So the proper conclusion should be that the Tories came a distant second and most people rather fancy a second referendum. Sarah Smith’s anti-independence tirade was gobsmacking, but then it was topped by some BBC pundit comparing Ruth Davidson’s Tories to Leicester City.

    • Pundits Will Pay No Price for Being Arrogantly Wrong About Trump

      These experts, it would seem, were wrong—and confidently, arrogantly, condescendingly so. But as noted by Glenn Greenwald and Zaid Jilani, who corralled many examples for The Intercept (5/4/16), they will pay absolutely no price for it. And that’s a problem. It isn’t that journalists should never make predictions; or that they’re expected to always be right. But you do have to wonder why so much energy is devoted to crystal-ball gazing when nothing seems to be learned when pundits are way off target.

    • Robert Scheer Discusses What a Clinton Versus Trump Election Would Mean for Progressives

      Truthdig went live with Editor in Chief Robert Scheer as he examined the potential impact of a Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump election and how it would affect progressives.

    • This Taco Bowl Is What Donald Trump Is Offering As Hispanic Outreach

      If a taco bowl is presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s way of reaching out to the Hispanic community, he might want to rethink his strategy.

      Trump, who has focused much of this election cycle on making inflammatory remarks about Latino immigrants, declared his love for Cinco de Mayo with a taco bowl at his namesake building in New York City on Thursday.

    • Sometimes There Is No Lesser of Two Evils

      The Republic will survive an election cycle but the Republican party may not

    • The General Strike to Corbyn: 90 years of BBC establishment bias

      On the anniversary of the 1926 General Strike, looking back to the early BBC helps us understand the latest bias scandal, over coverage of Labour’s anti-semitism scandal vs Tory election fraud.

    • Here Is the Wrong Way to Go About Defeating Trump

      Democrats are as much to blame as Republicans for the conditions that produced Trumpism.

    • Pro-Clinton Super PAC Caught Astroturfing on Social Media, Op-Ed Pages

      An anti-Bernie Sanders column allegedly penned by Atlanta’s “influential” Democratic Mayor Kasim Reed ahead of Georgia’s Super Tuesday primary appears to have been “primarily written by a corporate lobbyist” and “edited by Correct the Record, one of several pro-Clinton Super PACs,” according to The Intercept on Friday.

      “Sanders’ record is simply not strong when compared to Obama and Clinton,” Reed’s op-ed read, “both of whom have prioritized reducing gun violence in our cities and across our country.”

    • Atlanta Mayor’s Column Ripping Bernie Sanders Drafted by Lobbyist, Emails Show

      A few days before the Georgia primary, influential Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed published a column on CNN.com praising Hillary Clinton and ripping her opponent, Bernie Sanders. Reed attacked Sanders as being out of step with Democrats on gun policy, and accused him of elevating a “one-issue platform” that ignores the plight of the “single mother riding two buses to her second job.”

      But emails released from Reed’s office indicate that the column, which pilloried Sanders as out of touch with the poor, was primarily written by a corporate lobbyist, and was edited by Correct the Record, one of several pro-Clinton Super PACs.

      Anne Torres, the mayor’s director of communications, told The Intercept this week that the column was not written by the mayor, but by Tharon Johnson, a former Reed adviser who now works as a lobbyist for UnitedHealth, Honda, and MGM Resorts, among other clients. The column’s revisions by staffers from Correct the Record are documented in the emails.

    • The Intelligence Community Casts Its Vote for Hillary Clinton

      Since Donald Trump all-but sealed the nomination the other day, there has been a bit of a tizzy because he’ll receive intelligence briefing(s). Several spooks and former spooks complained to the Daily Beast that Trump might run his mouth and let something slip.

    • Election 2016: Not Donald Trump vs Not Hillary Clinton

      The candidates likely voters are backing in the upcoming presidential election appear to be Not Donald Trump and Not Hillary Clinton.

      That’s according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Thursday, which looks at a general election hypothetical matchup between Clinton and Trump, and found the Democrat leading the Republican 45 to 36 percent.

    • Hillary Clinton and the End of the Democratic Party

      Liberal incredulity at Charles Koch’s (Koch Bros.) recent (soft) endorsement of Hillary Clinton — assertions that is was either a non-sequitur or a ploy to discredit her, was to dismiss the endorsement without answering the question: what about Mrs. Clinton’s policies, or those of any other establishment Democrat for that matter, could inheritance babies, oil and gas industry magnates and long-term supporters of the radical Right like Mr. Koch possibly object to? Mr. Koch was simply saying out loud what anyone paying attention to American politics in recent decades already knows: the Democratic Party is the Party of Wall Street and of corporate America.

    • Global press reaction to Sadiq Khan a mix of curiosity and ignorance

      Labour candidate for London mayor judged by his faith, rather than actions or politics, in several European and US media outlets

    • London’s FIRST Muslim Mayor: Sadiq Khan ahead as Goldsmith slammed for anti-Islam campaign

      The fight to run the British capital has pitted the Labour Party’s Khan, 45, the son of a bus driver who grew up in public housing, against Conservative Zac Goldsmith, 41, the elite-educated son of a billionaire financier.

      But rather than their social backgrounds, it has been accusations of smears over Khan’s Muslim faith and anti-Semitism in the Labour Party that have dominated the campaign to replace Conservative Boris Johnson as mayor of the city of 8.6 million people which is usually known for its tolerance.

      [...]

      Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn in turn accused the Conservatives of “smearing” Khan. He said one of the men Cameron had accused Khan of sharing a platform with had also been close to Goldsmith.

    • Uber picks up ex-EU digital chief Neelie Kroes—after cooling-off period

      Europe’s former digital agenda commissioner Neelie Kroes has landed a senior role with ride sharing app, Uber.

      The appointment is significant, given that the company faces a legal backlash in several countries across the EU.

      Uber has had difficulty retaining higher-ups in recent years. Last year, French authorities arrested two executives after Uber failed to comply with draconian new taxi laws that were widely viewed as targeting Uber and its ilk.

  • Censorship/Free Speech

    • Media Censorship: The News That Didn’t Make the News

      The presidential primaries offer a single choice for both Democrats and Republicans to vote for empire and permanent war. This year’s entertainment spectacle, what we call democratic elections, is a particularly gross circus of meaninglessness, misinformation, sound bites, and lies. Both parties are in support in the continuation of the US/NATO global empire of permanent war and the protection of the capital of the global 1%. Even Bernie Sanders calls for drone strikes and continued war on Isis and other evil terrorists.

    • Censorship or lack of confidence

      Pakistan Censor Board has banned this year’s much anticipated movie “Maalik” after three weeks of its release for being “biased”, inciting violence and promoting vigilantism. The Ministry of Information, Broadcasting, and National Heritage issued a notification declaring the Urdu feature film “uncertified” according to Section 9 of the Motion Pictures Ordinance, 1979. According to government officials the film had generated complaints regarding its controversial depiction of the some politicians, Sindhi people and the assassination of a prominent government official by his personal security guard.

    • Baidu Pushes Back On Chinese Gov’t Investigation By Freeing Up Images Related To Tiananmen Square

      So we’ve talked a lot about the Great Firewall of China and how it works. Contrary to what many believe, it’s not just a giant government bureaucracy blacklisting content, but a huge ecosystem that partially relies on unpredictability and the lack of intermediary liability protections online. That is, rather than directly say “this and that are blocked,” the Chinese government will often just let companies know when they’ve failed to properly block content and threaten them with serious consequences. Because of this, you get a culture of overblocking, to avoid running afoul of the demands. This is one of the reasons why we believe that strong intermediary liability protections are so important. Without them, you’re basically begging for widespread censorship to avoid legal consequences.

    • Elsevier Keeps Whac’ing Moles In Trying To Take Down Repository Of Academic Papers

      We’ve written a few times now about Sci-Hub — the website put together by Alexandra Elbakyan, an academic from Kazakhstan. It’s a somewhat creative hack on the idea that many academics are more than willing to share PDFs of useful research with each other, basically building a search engine of such research, which is actually stored in a different repository (called LibGen). But the really clever part of Sci-Hub was that it also had some people sharing their login tokens to various research databases, so that if the LibGen doesn’t have the document, Sci-Hub uses a login to retrieve the document, deliver it to the user who requested it and then uploads it to LibGen to make it available for anyone else. Publishing giant Elsevier has been particularly upset by all of this — despite the fact that its argument appears to go 100% against the stated purpose of copyright law.

      Remember, this isn’t about sharing some sort of commercial music or video or anything. This is about academic research, much of which has been paid for with public tax dollars, and which Elsevier paid no money to create. Elsevier not only gets academics to submit papers for publishing, but to also hand over their copyrights to Elsevier. In some subject areas, it even makes the academics pay to submit their papers for publishing. Then Elsevier gets free editing help from other academics who do peer review for free. Some publications even have unpaid editors as well. And then Elsevier goes out and charges hundreds of thousands of dollars for subscriptions to universities for research it had no hand in creating, for which it paid no money, but where it gets the copyright.

    • UK Sports Star Threatens American Newspaper For Posting Public Information About His New Home

      People don’t always like it, but home ownership records are public information in the US, and they often get reported on. There are all sorts of things that people do to deal with this, including using shell companies to buy homes or, like most people, just sucking it up and recognizing that such information is public. But, sometimes that message is hard to get across, and then you have a lawyer come and do something stupid. As you may know (or as you absolutely know if you even remotely follow football — the non-American kind), in the world of UK Premier League football, there was just quite an insane and unexpected victory by Leicester City (beating 5000 to 1 odds).

      At about the very same time, reporters at the NY-based Observer noted that one of the team’s players, Christian Fuchs, not only won the title, but also had purchased a nice new townhome in Manhattan. Again, this is a public record, and it is not uncommon for the news to report home purchases of celebrities.

    • Media Blackout on Nuit Debout

      One of the fastest growing social and political movements in recent history has been sweeping across France, spreading through Europe and now developing in North America and elsewhere. In the space of just over a month, it has transformed countless public and private spaces, in nearly 300 cities, by making them into dynamic centers of non-violent protest and political experimentation. Although the future is unpredictable, it has the potential to significantly transform the horizons of social and political possibility.

    • Funnyman Cyrus Broacha bristles at the idea of censorship as he describes how comedy in India has become a tough business

      Cyrus Broacha is staying away from risks.

      “From now on I will write a letter to the PM every month, with a list of mistakes I have made over the past 30 days, and with due apologies,” he says.

      The mock resolution is meant to highlight the current state of affairs all around, for comedy seems to have has become tough business in India right now.

      “India is a funny democracy. Our laws are never clear and there is confusion all around. Comedy is a natural outcome of confusion but we as a nation are happy only when the joke is on someone else. People are too quick to take offence if they are the butt of a joke,” he says.

    • Censorship is an outdated concept: Kunaal Roy Kapur

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Mexico’s Supreme Court Won’t Halt Data Retention: Activists Plan to Take Case to International Court

      In a disappointing decision, Mexico’s Supreme Court rejected a challenge to Mexico’s Ley Telecom data retention mandates and its lack of legal safeguards. The challenge, or writ of amparo—a remedy available to any person whose rights have been violated—was filed by R3D.mx on behalf of a coalition of journalists, human rights NGOs, students arguing that Articles 189 and 190 of Ley Telcom violate the privacy rights of Mexican citizens. The articles compel the country’s telephone operators and ISPs, to retain a massive amount of metadata — including the precise location of its users — for 24 months.

      In a statement, our colleagues at Red en Defensa de los Derechos Digitales (R3D.mx), who filed the case, declared that the court “missed an historic opportunity to establish a precedent for the privacy and safety of all users of telecommunications services.”

    • Why Government Use of Social Media Monitoring Software Is a Direct Threat to Our Liberty and Privacy

      Rather than accepting SMMS’s use by police as inevitable, we should consider the serious implications for our society.

      A version of this post originally appeared at the ACLU of Oregon.

      As we’ve previously written about, analysts at the Oregon Department of Justice used a tool called Digital Stakeout to surveil people — including the department’s very own director of civil rights — who used over 30 hashtags on social media, such as #BlackLivesMatter and #fuckthepolice. While an internal investigation confirmed the illegal surveillance and made recommendations to ensure it doesn’t happen again, much less attention has been paid to the tool itself.

      Digital Stakeout is social media monitoring software (SMMS) that can be used to covertly monitor, collect, and analyze our social media data from platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. It is part of a rapidly expanding industry that the public knows little about. Our goal here is to answer a few basic questions about SMMS: What can the technology do? How widespread is the use of SMMS by law enforcement in Oregon? What privacy concerns does it raise? And how we can protect free speech and privacy moving forward?

    • Oregon DOJ Encourages Surveillance Of First Amendment Activities; Acts Surprised When Agents Do Exactly That

      According to documents released to the ACLU, the Oregon DOJ has problems complying with both state and federal laws. Law enforcement agencies are forbidden from conducting surveillance of First Amendment-protected activities unless they can demonstrate beforehand that there is evidence of criminal activity tied to it.

      But the DOJ’s own presentations suggest agents should perform surveillance first and fix it in post. According to its instructions, agents should be “creative” when looking for justification for surveillance of First Amendment-protected activities. Literally, “any crime will do.”

    • Homeland Security Wants To Subpoena Us Over A Clearly Hyperbolic Techdirt Comment

      Earlier this week, one of our writers, Tim Cushing, had a story about yet another abuse of the civil asset forfeiture procedure. You can read that whole story for the details, but the short version is that US Customs & Border Patrol, along with Hancock County (Indiana) Sheriff’s Dept. officers, decided to seize $240,000 in cash from a guy named Najeh Muhana. Muhana sought to get that cash back, but after a series of ridiculous communications, his lawyer was told that Customs and Border Patrol in Ohio was keeping the money, and that Muhana had “waived his rights to the currency.” This was not true, and certainly appeared to be pretty sketchy. Because of all of this, Muhana filed a lawsuit against US Customs & Border Patrol asking for his money back.

      Not surprisingly, this story of what many would argue is just blatant theft by law enforcement (the people who are supposed to be protecting us from theft) upset a number of folks who expressed their frustrations in the comments — some using colorful language. That kind of language might not necessarily be considered appropriate in polite company, but isn’t entirely out of place in internet forums and discussions where rhetorical hyperbole is not uncommon.

      So I have to admit that I was rather surprised yesterday afternoon when we received a phone call from an agent with Homeland Security Investigations (the organization formerly known as ICE for Immigration and Customs Enforcement), asking where they could send a subpoena to identify a commenter on our site.

    • NSA Spying: Another Foreign Intervention Come Home

      The Washington Post recently ran an article titled, “Surprise! NSA data will soon routinely be used for domestic policing that has nothing to do with terrorism.” In the article, journalist Radley Balko explains that provisions in the Patriot Act have allowed the NSA to share information with a variety of other agencies, including the FBI and state and local law enforcement. The issue has received additional attention from the ACLU, but it’s made practically zero difference.

      He goes on to say that now the NSA will be able to share data with agencies like the FBI and others “without first applying any screens for privacy.” This means that a variety of agencies will now have access to incredible amounts of data obtained without warrants. In the event one of these agencies looks through the data in the course of another investigation, they can use the data uncovered to put people in prison. Balko notes that, while shocking, this new revelation is simply the formalization of what we’ve seen for the past several years—the NSA sending data to the DEA and IRS to be used for purposes other than counterterrorism.

    • US Intelligence Agencies Expand Electronic Surveillance Worldwide

      The US National Security Agency and Central Intelligence Agency approximately doubled their surveillance of telephone and electronic communications in 2015, according to documents released in a US government “transparency report” this week.

      US intelligence analysts carried out some 25,000 analytical searches of archived communications data derived from the NSA’s sweeping data collection programs last year, including nearly 5,000 searches of data collected from communications by US citizens.

      The figure represents a more than twofold increase over 2013, which saw the agencies conduct 9,500 searches of the surveillance database.

    • ‘Too Much Data’: Why US Intelligence Unable to Prevent Terrorism

      US intelligence agencies can’t cope with the vast amount of information they receive, former US National Security Agency employee William Binney said in an interview with RT. He explained that due to their inability to process the huge inflow of personal data the work of intelligence agencies is becoming inefficient.

    • NSA Discloses Hundreds of Hardware, Software Bugs Per Year [Ed: NSA as the ‘good guys’. Puff pieces nearly outnumber the signal now.]
    • NSA recognizes Embry Riddle as a top school for cyber defense
    • Embry-Riddle Designated a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education [Ed: NSA is thinking about the children. More puff pieces.]
    • UK’s Spy Agency Wants Users to Stop Resetting Their Passwords – No Joke [Ed: cui bono? We already know, based on leaked documents, that they 'hunt' sysadmins for passwords.]
    • Stop resetting your passwords, says UK govt’s spy network
    • You Can’t Handle It: UK Spy Agency Tells Public to Stop Resetting Passwords
    • Stop resetting passwords often says British intelligence agency
    • Why Changing Passwords Often Could Make Them Weaker
    • Companies should NOT force customers to keep changing their passwords – GCHQ
    • FBI Harassing TOR Software Developer, Refusing To Explain Why They Want To Meet Her

      Little did Isis Agora know that working for the Tor would land her into a land of troubles. This account of a series of events that happened between her and the FBI is sufficient to explain the intention of the FBI and what traumatic and post-traumatic behavioural changes a normal citizen has to go through after such incidents.

    • Court Upholds Sentence For Ex-Cop Who Abused Law Enforcement Database Access

      The defendant, Taylor (MI) police officer Michael Calabrese, was originally charged with 11 counts of misusing the Law Enforcement Information Network (LEIN). This makes Calabrese somewhat of an anomaly. While every user of the LEIN is warned that improper access could result in criminal charges, this almost never actually happens. Suspensions may be handed out, but they tend to be minimal (three days at most). Others just receive written reprimands. Someone actually convicted of abusive access is a rarity.

    • What you’re asked when interviewing with the NSA, according to GlassDoor [Ed: back to puff pieces]
    • NSA Silent on Spies’ Child Porn Problem

      Two senior U.S. intelligence officials said recently that defense and intelligence employees have an “unbelievable” amount of child pornography on their work computers and devices, and that child porn has been found on the systems of the National Security Agency, the country’s biggest intelligence organization.

      But the NSA, which is responsible for keeping tabs on its own computers as well as military and intelligence agency networks, cannot say just how many times employees have been found to posesses or share child pornography, or how many times such cases have been referred to law enforcement for investigation and potential criminal prosecution.

  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • How Connecticut Plans To Break The School-To-Prison Pipeline

      Months after Connecticut’s governor announced he would shut down the state’s abusive juvenile jail, lawmakers hope to divert young people from the juvenile justice system.

      On Wednesday, Connecticut’s Senate approved an omnibus bill that cracks down on the school-to-prison pipeline by forcing school officials to handle disciplinary matters in-house. And in order to reduce the likelihood of ending up in the juvenile justice system, school administrators will be required to ensure educational alternatives for kids who are expelled.

      On average, the state has 1,000 expulsions a year, and students fall far behind in school as a result.

    • Conservative Christian Tow Truck Driver Abandons Disabled Woman Because of Her Bernie Bumper Sticker

      North Carolina tow truck driver and self-proclaimed “conservative Christian” Ken Shupe followed the example of Jesus on Monday by providing roadside assistance to disabled Bernie Sanders supporter Cassandra McWade even though Shupe himself professes loyalty to God’s Own Party. Oh. Wait. I got that backward. Shupe saw the Sanders sign in McWade’s car and drove off, leaving her stranded on the roadside—the exact opposite of what Jesus teaches in the New Testament story of the Good Samaritan.

    • Support Diego Garcia Football

      This blog makes a point of never asking for money or taking advertising, yet has asked for donations for good causes twice in a fortnight. I apologise but I love this idea, both for the spirit of football and to support the islanders in affirming their right to be considered a nation and to return to their homeland. I have carefully checked it out and this football team – based in Croydon – really does consist of the Chagos community, and it is important to them in helping the young people preserve their identity.

    • Lawmakers In Missouri Just Passed A Voter ID Bill That Could Disenfranchise 220,000 People

      Republicans in Missouri have been trying to pass a voter ID bill for more than a decade, and they may soon claim victory.

      This week, a supermajority of lawmakers sent a bill to the desk of Gov. Jay Nixon (D). Even if the governor vetoes, as he did to a similar one in 2011, lawmakers may have the votes to override it.

      Democrats in the state Senate staged an all-night filibuster last week to stop the ID bill, but backed down after striking a compromise deal with Republicans.

    • The limits of borders

      Borders are constructed to separate people, but they become a permanent point of contact and violence between the two sides.

    • Gangbusters: Law Enforcement’s Dubious Means to Police Public Housing Residents

      Taylonn Murphy Jr. was 14 years old when law enforcement began to monitor him. He is to be sentenced next month, two years after a raid that forever changed the lives of dozens of families in West Harlem.

    • Rep. Issa Calls Out Civil Asset Forfeiture As Letting ‘Cops Go Treasure Hunting’

      We’ve been writing an awful lot about civil asset forfeiture over the past few years, and how it’s basically a program that lets law enforcement steal money (and goods) from people and businesses without ever charging them with a crime. Instead, they just charge the thing with being part of a crime and then keep the proceeds. Just recently, the federal government reopened its asset forfeiture “sharing” program that basically makes it even more lucrative for police to just take people’s money and things. Most people don’t even realize this is happening, but when they find out the details, they are almost all opposed to the program, that looks like little more than supporting legalized theft for law enforcement, with basically no recourse. In that last link, we noted that most lawmakers don’t seem to care about this issue at all, perhaps because of the fear of being branded as “anti-cop” or something silly like that.

    • European Greens Present Draft Law On Protecting Whistleblowers

      It’s a sad commentary on the state of transparency these days that whistleblowers have come to play such an important role in revealing wrongdoing and abuse, as numerous stories on Techdirt attest. At the same time, whistleblowers enjoy very little protection around the world. Indeed, a countervailing trend to strengthen protection for so-called “trade secrets” makes it increasingly risky to be a whistleblower today. A case in point is the European Union’s new law on trade secrets, which completed its passage through the EU legislative process last month. Although it contains some protections for whistleblowers, many feel they are insufficient.

    • Report Shows There Aren’t Enough Teachers Of Color Coming Through Traditional Teacher Pipelines

      The U.S. teaching workforce is still very white, according to a new report on diversity in the teaching workforce released Friday from the U.S. Department of Education. In public schools, 82 percent of teachers are white, compared to 51 percent of students.

    • After Arresting Driver for Silence, Cops Tell Her She Has a Right to Remain Silent

      After New Jersey state troopers arrested Rebecca Musarra for remaining silent, they informed her, “You have the right to remain silent.” That should have been a clue that something was amiss with their legal justification for hauling her off to jail.

      According to a federal lawsuit filed by Musarra, a Philadelphia attorney, and dashcam footage recently obtained by NJ Advance Media, Trooper Matthew Stazzone pulled her over for speeding on October 16 and asked for her license, registration, and proof of insurance. She handed over the documents but did not respond when Stazzone asked her a question. He repeated the question several times, becoming increasingly agitated and warning her that she would be arrested if she did not answer. Here is the vitally important question that Stazzone kept asking: “Do you know why you’re being pulled over tonight?”

      In other words, Stazzone was trying to get Musarra to incriminate herself. She declined to do so. Mind you, she did not say, “I decline to answer on the grounds that it may incriminate me,” or “I am asserting my Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.” But she did eventually identify herself as an attorney, saying she was not legally required to answer Stazzone’s question. Unimpressed, he proceeded to handcuff and arrest her with the assistance of another trooper, Demetric Gosa.

    • What does an anti-Semitic party look like in Europe today?

      While people are distracted by the debate over anti-Semitism and the left in Britain, genuinely anti-Semitic and racist parties are on the rise across Europe.

    • Sadiq Khan Overcomes Nasty Attacks From Conservatives, Becomes London’s First Muslim Mayor

      Londoners elected the city’s first Muslim mayor in a historic victory Friday, against the backdrop of rising xenophobia and anti-Muslim sentiment throughout Europe.

      The Labour Party’s Sadiq Khan, 45, an MP and son of working class Pakistani immigrants, defeated the Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith, who is the son of a billionaire. London’s 8.6 million overwhelmingly elected Khan, despite attacks that portrayed him as a “radical” and linked him to “extremist” figures.

    • How London’s Sadiq Khan Triumphed Over Race-Baiting

      This year’s London mayoral election, only the fifth time citizens of Great Britain’s capital have directly elected a mayor for the whole of the metropolis, initially promised to be the boring one. Previous polls had been dominated by two big beasts: Ken Livingstone, the ultimate left-wing machine politician and scourge of Margaret Thatcher when he led the Greater London Council in the 1980s, and Conservative Boris Johnson, the charismatic, floppy-haired, classics-quoting, New York-born buffoon whose reign as leader of the city has largely been characterized by vanity projects (a pointless new design for the city’s famous red buses, a bizarre “garden bridge” that no one apart from the mayor seems to want or understand, a cable car over the river that goes from nowhere to nowhere else).

    • Transcending Ugly Campaign, London Elects First-Ever Muslim Mayor
    • How Opponents of UK Labour Leader Corbyn Advanced a Political Coup with Antisemitism Smears

      Chris Mullins’ 1982 political thriller, A Very British Coup, introduced British readers to a Marxist former steelworker named Harry Perkins who sends his country’s political elite into a frenzy by winning a dramatic election for prime minister. Desperate to foil his plans to remove American military bases from British soil, nationalize the country’s industries and abolish the aristocratic House of Lords, a convergence of powerful forces led by MI5 security forces initiate a plot to undermine Perkins through surveillance and subterfuge. When their machinations fail against a resolute and surprisingly wily politician, the security forces resort to fabricating a scandal, hoping to force him to abdicate power to a more pliable member of his own party.

    • The Enduring Racism of Wonder Woman

      The superhero’s creator, William Marston, linked her superpowers to her whiteness.

    • The New Wave of Repression in Puerto Rico

      On April 20 the FBI detained Puerto Rican pro-independence activist Orlando González-Claudio. He was driving his car along the Caribbean island nation’s Route 2 when several US government vehicles intercepted him and forced him to stop. They told him they would take DNA samples from his body and that they were fully authorized to force him to comply. If he did not cooperate they would sedate him, they said. They would sample his DNA the easy way or the hard way. González-Claudio voluntarily got off his car and entered the FBI vehicle he was led to. He was then handcuffed and driven to the San Juan Medical Center, where the samples were taken. Afterwards he was released and taken back to his car. The agents would not tell him what were they investigating, and he was not charged with anything.

    • White Power Meets Business Casual

      “Thank God for Donald J. Trump,” cried National Policy Institute director Richard Spencer into the microphone.

      Spencer, 37, has a boyish, straitlaced look about him. With his well-tailored suit and a nicely kempt undercut, he’d meld perfectly into the swarms of youthful think tank employees trotting down Massachusetts Avenue. But NPI is no ordinary Washington think tank. Founded by an heir to a conservative publishing fortune, it drew white nationalists and sympathizers from around the country—and at least one from Canada—to its innocuously named “Identity Politics” conference a couple of days after Donald Trump dominated the field on Super Tuesday. For $45, I snagged the last ticket designated for millennials.

      It is the rise of the bombastic Republican frontrunner that brought this amalgam of aggrieved crusaders together for an evening of cocktails, appetizers, and songs of praise to the candidate who’s inspired them to dip a toe into the stream of establishment politics.

      To get in, I waded through a throng of protesters gathered around the entrance of the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, yelling “Nazi,” “racist,” and “KKK” at attendees. A few protestors got close enough to snap pictures.

    • Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect?

      Do police in the United States keep anyone safe and secure other than the very wealthy? How do history and global context explain recent police killings of young Black people in the US?

    • Will Our Love of Cheap Clothing Doom the Sustainable Fashion Movement?

      An Associated Press–GFK poll released late last week found that when it comes to purchasing clothes, the majority of Americans prefer cheap prices over a “Made in the USA” label. The poll, inspired by campaign trail promises by presidential candidates to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S., asked respondents to choose between two pairs of pants of the same fabric and design. The pair manufactured in the United States would set the shopper back $85, while the one sewn overseas would cost $50. A full 67 percent of respondents, regardless of household income, said they’d choose the cheaper pair of pants.

  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • Congress Scolds The FCC For Making The Cable Set Top Box Market More Competitive

      Congress is simply fed up with the FCC’s pesky new habit of standing up to giant cable and broadband companies. Congress was outraged when the FCC announced it wanted to stop states from letting large ISPs write horrible, protectionist state laws. Congress was outraged when the FCC announced it wanted to pass actual, functioning net neutrality rules. Congress was even outraged when the FCC decided to raise the standard definition of broadband to 25 Mbps, since it only served to highlight a lack of competition for next-generation broadband service.

      Now, not too surprisingly, Congress is just pissed that the FCC wants to try and bring some competition to the cable set top box space.

    • FCC Officially Approves Merger to Create ‘Price-Gouging Cable Giant’

      The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has approved a $90 billion merger between three telecom corporations, a move that consumer advocates warn will create a “price-gouging cable giant.”

      According to FCC chairman Tom Wheeler, the conditions of Charter’s acquisition of Time Warner and Bright House Networks will include data caps for broadband customers and fees for online services, including for video providers.

    • FCC Approves Horrible Merger, Hurting Consumers Nationwide

      Instead of standing with the people who use the Internet, he sided with the companies that want to control it.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Trademarks

      • Game Developer Forced To Change Game’s Name Because ‘Wasteland’ Is A Trademark, Apparently

        Several years ago, we wrote about InXile, a game studio that rode Kickstarter success to producing Wasteland 2. The theme of the post was about how open and awesome InXile had been to its backers and other Kickstarter projects, bringing a gracious attitude to the former and promising to use some of the game’s proceeds to pay it forward to the latter. These actions built a nice reputation for InXile, somewhat unique in gaming circles, by engaging with fans and customers alike, while also acknowledging the rest of the industry. In short, InXile was human and awesome.

        Yet, since then, InXile has occasionally acted aggressively in enforcing the trademark it has on the term “Wasteland” for the gaming industry. First, in 2013, it forced a smalll gaming studio to change the name of a game it had originally called Wasteland Kings to Nuclear Throne after InXile contacted them. And, now, InXile has gone a step further and fired off a cease and desist letter to a single developer attempting to produce his own shooter game, which he had entitled Alien Wasteland.

      • Advice To Immediately Trademark Kickstarter Projects Rests On Crowdfunding Not Being Commerce

        Because we talk a great deal about trademark law here at Techdirt, it occasionally leads us writers down interesting reading paths. One such path I recently traveled led me to a Gamasutra community post written by attorney Stephen McArthur, a lawyer who has built something of a specialty in video game industry law. The theme of the post is that anyone crowdfunding the production of a video game, via Kickstarter for example, should be registering the trademarks for their game during or before the crowdfunding process, rather than waiting until the production is funded successfully. Putting aside the heavy importance McArthur places on trademark registration, his argument is more of a PSA on the procedural timelines and what he considers to be a misunderstanding about both when common law trademark kicks in and when certain aspects of the trademark-ability of a product or service are initiated.

    • Copyrights

      • Do You Own What You Own? Not So Much Anymore, Thanks To Copyright

        Do you own the things you own? No, that is not a riddle being served up by the Cat in the Hat. Nor is it a rhyme spoken by the Lorax — after all, he speaks for the trees, not for copyright laws.

        It seems like every week there is a debate about a new topic involving ownership rights. Consumers are engaged in a constant tug of war with rights holders over what they can do with the products that they already purchased from them. A wide array of questions has confused the understanding of fundamental issues such as when people can resell or repair the things that they bought. The First Sale Doctrine stipulates that a rights holder is no longer entitled to control the distribution of a good once it has gone through a legitimate first sale. However, recent technological developments have created a new disagreement to this long-standing law — do people ever actually own the things that they purchased? Were the products ever truly sold to them, or is everything instead just a temporary lease?

        Take the recent debate over Nest products. Nest is one of the leading companies in “smart” thermostats for personal use. These products utilize a variety of light, sound, and heating sensors to automatically regulate the climate in a home and increase energy efficiency. Back in 2014, Nest purchased a company named Revolv that also made “smart” thermostats and proceeded to continue selling them for $300 each.

05.06.16

Links 6/5/2016: Neptune 4.5.1, Parts of Basho DB Liberated

Posted in News Roundup at 5:47 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Open the curtains on network function virtualization with open source

    The Open Platform for NFV can accelerate NFV deployment while unlocking the door to multiple processing architecture.

  • Open Source Projects Are Transforming Machine Learning and AI

    Machine learning and artificial intelligence have quickly gained traction with the public through applications such as Apple’s Siri and Microsoft’s Cortana. The true promise of these disciplines, though, extends far beyond simple speech recognition performed on our smartphones. New, open source tools are arriving that can run on affordable hardware and allow individuals and small organizations to perform prodigious data crunching and predictive tasks.

  • Open Source Projects Are Transforming Machine Learning and AI

    The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy announced a decision to create a new subcommittee on Artificial Intelligence to look for ways to use the technology as American citizens interact with the federal government.

    “The Federal Government also is working to leverage AI for public good and toward a more effective government,” Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer Ed Felten in a statement.

  • ReactOS 0.4.1 Is En Route For Open-Source Windows

    For fans of ReactOS as a project long working on providing an open-source, drop-in-replacement for Windows, a new release is being prepared.

    Building off the recent ReactOS 0.4 release is the v0.4.1 point release in development. A few hours ago, ReactOS 0.4.1 RC1 was released for those wishing to test this open-source OS implementation of Windows.

  • PBS Digital Studios Asks ‘Should Everything Be Open Source?’

    The DMCA doesn’t just make it illegal for you to circumvent DRM to rip and burn a DVD of ‘War Games’ or to install a pirated copy of Windows. It also can make it illegal for you to repair or modify things you own.

    Public television and radio in the United States have been surprisingly shy about covering the open source movement, but this video by Mike Rugnetta at PBS Digital Studios shows that they may be waking up.

  • Langpacks Support added to Pulp 2.9.0

    Pulp 2.9.0 is still in development, but since langpacks support has been merged, here is a video highlighting this up-and-coming feature.

  • Events

    • Tracing Microconference Accepted into 2016 Linux Plumbers Conference

      After taking a break in 2015, Tracing is back at Plumbers this year! Tracing is heavily used throughout the Linux ecosystem, and provides an essential method for extracting information about the underlying code that is running on the system. Although tracing is simple in concept, effective usage and implementation can be quite involved.

    • Ubuntu Online Summit

      There’s a fundamental difference between conferences for community-driven projects and closed-source commercial software. While Microsoft, Apple and other large companies hold regular meetings to keep developers updated, the information almost always flows in one direction. They (the software owners) tell us (the software users) what they are working on and what they are about to release. These releases almost always come out of the blue often leave the developer community scrabbling to catch up.

    • Libocon 2016: accommodation

      We’re progressing with the organization of LibreOffice Conference 2016 in Brno. Italo Vignoli of The Document Foundation visited Brno last month, we showed him the venue and also places where we could hold a party, have a hacknight etc.

  • SaaS/Back End

    • Mashing Up OpenStack With Hyperconverged Storage

      While innovators in the HPC and hyperscale arenas usually have the talent and often have the desire to get into the code for the tools that they use to create their infrastructure, most enterprises want their software with a bit more fit and finish, and if they can get it so it is easy to operate and yet still in some ways open, they are willing to pay a decent amount of cash to get commercial-grade support.

    • Calculating NPV for Open Source Big Data Projects

      Mention the words “open source” and all kinds ideas probably come to mind such as “free”, “agility”, and “speed”. However, with any IT project, it is important to look at business benefits vs. costs in a manner that goes beyond generalizations. One method for benefit-cost analysis for open source big data projects is Net Present Value (NPV).

  • Databases

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

  • Education

    • Global competition to develop open-source educational software launched

      The Global Learning XPRIZE was first announced during the UN General Assembly week in 2014: as the Closing Keynote session of the Clinton Global Initiative’s annual meeting with XPRIZE founder and executive chairman Peter Diamandis and President Clinton, and at a special ceremony with Keller and the UN’s Special Envoy for Global Education, former UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown.

  • Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)

  • Funding

  • BSD

    • PC-BSD’s Lumina Desktop 0.9.0 Environment Launches with Compositing Effects

      PC-BSD’s Ken Moore today, May 5, 2016, announced the release of the Lumina Desktop 0.9.0 environment for his FreeBSD-based, desktop-oriented PC-BSD operating system.

    • Lumina Desktop 0.9 Adds Window Compositing Support, New Text Editor

      The BSD-focused Lumina Desktop Environment has released version 0.9 of their open-source, Qt-powered desktop while version 1.0 is expected later this year in step with PC-BSD/FreeBSD 11.0.

      Lumina 0.9 still lacks its own window manager, but they have added compositing window manager support via xcompmgr. For systems without xcompmgr or not being able to run a composited desktop, Lumina will still fall back to not using any compositing effects with the Fluxbox window manager. Lumina’s own window manager is now delayed until after their 1.0 desktop release.

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • GCC 4.8 To GCC 6.1 Benchmarks For A Complex Program

      Here are some more compiler performance metrics to share of the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) for a complex program.

      The latest GCC benchmarks I have to share are of Open Porous Media, the initiative providing software for modeling and simulations around porous media processes. Long story short, software for areas like enhanced oil recovery along with other scientific and industrial fields. With the particular OPM benchmark component being used today, a reservoir simulator for three-phase black-oil problems.

    • GNU LibreJS 6.0.13 released

      There’s a new version of LibreJS – version 6.0.13.

      LibreJS is a Mozilla add-on that prevents nonfree JavaScript programs from running in your web browser.

      Originally this release was going to be 6.0.11, but I had some trouble registering this add-on with Mozilla which required me to increment the version to 6.0.13.

    • How to campaign for the cause of software freedom

      Free Software communities produce tons of great software. This software drives innovation and enables everybody to access and use computers, whether or not they can afford new hardware or commercial software. So that’s that, the benefit to society is obvious. Everybody should just get behind it and support it. Right? Well, it is not that easy. Especially when it comes to principles of individual freedom or trade-offs between self-determination and convenience, it is difficult to communicate the message in a way that it reaches and activates a wider audience. How can we explain the difference between Free Software and services available at no cost (except them spying at you) best? Campaigning for software freedom is not easy. However, it is part of the Free Software Foundation Europe’s mission. The FSFE teamed up with Peng! Collective to learn how to run influential campaigns to promote the cause of Free Software. The Peng Collective is a Berlin based group of activists who are known for their successful and quite subversive campaigns for political causes. And Endocode? Endocode is a sponsor of the Free Software Foundation Europe. We are a sponsor because free software is essential to us, both as a company and as members of society. And so here we are.

    • Special Friday Free Software Directory IRC meetup and LIVE STREAM: May 6th
    • GNU Spotlight with Brandon Invergo: Twenty new GNU releases in the last month

  • Public Services/Government

    • European Unified Patent Court goes Open Source

      Using Private Cloud and Drupal as a starting point together with small expert partners and agile management the new platform for the European UPC has been shaped to the exact requirements and quickly adapted while more needs surfaced. The only ready to use Open Source tool used has been Zarafa Collaboration Platform which integrated with the Case Management System will provide secure email, instant messaging, file sharing and video conferencing to the platform’s users.

      The result is that, thanks to Open Source based platform and by working with SMEs, the UK IPO team has been able to deliver to the Unified Patent Court team the project earlier than planned and under budget.

  • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

    • BNP Paribas Works With Blockchain Startup to Open Source Law

      The complex and fragmented legal arena could use some standardization, at least according to 35-year veteran lawyer, Jim Hazard, the founder of blockchain smart contracts startup, CommonAccord.

      CommonAccord, which was recently selected by BNP Paribas’ new FinTech accelerator, L’Atelier, is developing global text codes for transferring legal documents via distributed ledgers.

Leftovers

  • No, Cinco de Mayo Is Not Mexican Independence Day — Here’s What It Is

    Today marks the 154th anniversary of Cinco de Mayo, a bicultural celebration that has become synonymous with margaritas, cervezas (beer) and the occasional controversy. But we found most people don’t know the real story behind this holiday.

  • Forbes Is Confused: You Can View Content Using An Adblocker By Promising Not To Use An Adblocker

    Forbes, an organization with a website presumably built on the value of its content, also has made the unfortunate decision recently to try to block off access to anyone using adblocker software, apparently so that it could successfully allow malicious “ads” to infect its readers’ machines. This set of circumstances would seem to be one that would have Forbes re-thinking its adblocker policy, assuming it wishes to retain the trust of its readership. And it turns out that Forbes is doing so. And then not! Or maybe? Allow me to explain.

    Rob Leathern recently noticed that going to Forbes.com and refreshing the screen after being told that he should disable his adblocker suddenly offered up a new option: becoming a member. That membership would allow the viewing of the content for free. And, hey, all it wanted in return was the ability to manage his social media contacts for him.

  • Health/Nutrition

    • Not Just For Corn and Soy; A Look at Glyphosate Use in Food Crops

      As the active ingredient in Monsanto’s branded Roundup weed killer, along with hundreds of other weed-killing products, the chemical called glyphosate spells billions of dollars in sales for Monsanto and other companies each year as farmers around the world use it in their fields and orchards. Ubiquitous in food production, glyphosate is used not just with row crops like corn, soybeans and wheat but also a range of fruits, nuts and veggies. Even spinach growers use glyphosate.

    • 2000+ Doctors Declare: “It’s Time for Single Payer to be Back on the Table”

      Despite limited advances provided by the Affordable Care Act, the U.S. healthcare system remains “uniquely wasteful” and profit-driven, leaving tens of millions without any insurance and even more underinsured.

      As a result, say leading physicians, “the right to medical care remains a dream deferred.”

    • Bernie Sanders Misses Chance to Explain Government’s Role in Life Expectancy Gap

      What Sanders didn’t explain is why that a drive would take you from one of the poorest locales in America to one of the richest.

      McDowell County has long been one of the epicenters of America’s failure to end intergenerational poverty. John Kennedy campaigned there in the ’60s, citing the region’s poverty as an affront in the face of the country’s wealth. Its coal-dependent economy remained stagnant and between 1980 and 1990 it had a net population loss of 42 percent. The decline of American steel and coal has left the county with few economic engines; the New York Times reported in 2014 that almost 47 percent of the income in the county was generated by federal safety net programs like Social Security and food stamps.

      Fairfax, Virginia, too, is reliant on federal aid to generate income — but a far more lucrative kind. Last year, the Northern Virginia Regional Commission conducted a comprehensive study to examine the impact of federal contracting — both defense-related and non-defense related — on the economy of the region.

    • Toxic Phthalates Are Everywhere: Report Reveals Ubiquity of ‘Hormone-Assaulting Chemicals’

      A new report puts the spotlight on the widespread use of toxic chemicals known as phthalates, finding them in products from paints to shoelaces to greeting cards.

      The report, What Stinks? Toxic Phthalates in Your Home (pdf), used data submitted to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, as the New England state requires manufacturers to disclose their use of four kinds phthalates.

      “This data provides new examples of products that are letting these hormone-assaulting chemicals infiltrate our bathrooms, kitchens, schools–and, ultimately, our bodies,” said Mike Belliveau, executive director of the Maine-based Environmental Health Strategy Center and Prevent Harm, lead sponsors of the new report.

      “Because of the breadth of reporting that Maine requires,” according to the report, “the data reported includes never- before available information.”

      The reports lays out what’s at stake from exposure thusly: “Strong science shows that even at very low levels of exposure, phthalates—a class of more than 40 closely related chemicals–are linked to reproductive harm, learning disabilities, and asthma and allergies.”

      Fourteen manufacturers reported the use of the four phthalates in 130 products, the report states. The chemicals are often used to soften vinyl plastic–that was the case in over one-third of the products reported—but for over half of the products, phthalates were used as fragrance.

    • It Costs $84,000 to Cure Hepatitis C Through U.S. Insurance: I Did It for $1,500 Ordering the Same Drug From India

      When I went in for my annual physical in 2011, I knew something was up when the physician’s assistant who usually dealt with me deferred to the actual doctor. It was up to him to take on more serious issues, and as he soon explained, I had one. My blood work had come back showing I was infected with the hepatitis C virus. Hep C is a serious, life-threatening illness that attacks the liver and can result in fatty liver, cirrhotic liver and liver cancer. One out of five people carrying the hep C virus will die of liver disease within 20 years. And a lot of people have it—at least 3 million, and perhaps as many as 7 million, in the United States alone.

  • Security

    • Security updates for Thursday
    • OpenSSL patches two high-severity flaws

      OpenSSL has released versions 1.0.2h and 1.0.1t of its open source cryptographic library, fixing multiple security vulnerabilities that can lead to traffic being decrypted, denial-of-service attacks, and arbitrary code execution. One of the high-severity vulnerabilities is actually a hybrid of two low-risk bugs and can cause OpenSSL to crash.

    • Linux Foundation Advances Security Efforts via Badging Program

      The Linux Foundation Core Infrastructure Initiative’s badging program matures, as the first projects to achieve security badges are announced.

    • Linux Foundation tackles open source security with new badge program
    • WordPress Plugin ‘Ninja Forms’ Security Vulnerability

      FOSS Force has just learned from Wordfence, a security company that focuses on the open source WordPress content management platform, that a popular plugin used by over 500,000 sites, Ninja Forms, contains serious security vulnerabilities.

    • Preparing Your Network for the IoT Revolution

      While there is no denying that IP-based connectivity continues to become more and more pervasive, this is not a fundamentally new thing. What is new is the target audience is changing and connectivity is becoming much more personal. It’s no longer limited to high end technology consumers (watches and drones) but rather, it is showing up in nearly everything from children’s toys to kitchen appliances (yes again) and media devices. The purchasers of these new technology-enabled products are far from security experts, or even security aware. Their primary purchasing requirements are ease of use.

    • regarding embargoes

      Yesterday I jumped the gun committing some patches to LibreSSL. We receive advance copies of the advisory and patches so that when the new OpenSSL ships, we’re ready to ship as well. Between the time we receive advance notice and the public release, we’re supposed to keep this information confidential. This is the embargo. During the embargo time we get patches lined up and a source tree for each cvs branch in a precommit state. Then we wait with our fingers on the trigger.

      What happened yesterday was I woke up to a couple OpenBSD developers talking about the EBCDIC CVE. Oh, it’s public already? Check the OpenSSL git repo and sure enough, there are a bunch of commits for embargoed issues. Pull the trigger! Pull the trigger! Launch the missiles! Alas, we didn’t look closely enough at the exact issues fixed and had missed the fact that only low severity issues had been made public. The high severity issues were still secret. We were too hasty.

    • Medical Equipment Crashes During Heart Procedure Because of Antivirus Scan [Ed: Windows]

      A critical medical equipment crashed during a heart procedure due to a timely scan triggered by the antivirus software installed on the PC to which the said device was sending data for logging and monitoring.

    • Hotel sector faces cybercrime surge as data breaches start to bite

      Since 2014, things have become a lot more serious with a cross section of mostly US hotels suffering major breaches during Point-of-Sale (POS) terminals. Panda Security lists a string of attacks on big brands including on Trump Hotels, Hilton Worldwide, Hyatt, Starwood, Rosen Hotels & Resorts as well two separate attacks on hotel management outfit White Lodging and another on non-US hotel Mandarin Oriental.

  • Defence/Aggression

    • Cowardice and Exoneration in Kunduz
    • Doctors Without Borders Pulls Out Of Humanitarian Summit, Calls It ‘Fig-Leaf Of Good Intentions’

      75 Doctors Without Borders hospitals around the world were bombed last year.

    • Kunduz Bombing: Proof the Pentagon Should Not Be Allowed to Investigate Itself for War Crimes

      The Pentagon just made it official: No war crime was committed when a U.S. plane attacked the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan last year, killing 42 patients and health workers and injuring many more.

      At least, that’s the conclusion of its own investigation — nearly all of which remains classified.

      No war crime, despite the U.S. military having full knowledge of the hospital’s location before the bombing. No war crime, despite desperate hospital staffers calling military liaison officers while the rampage was underway. No war crime, despite their calls being routed without response through layers of lethal bureaucracy for an hour or more as the deadly bombing continued.

      No war crime, says the Pentagon.

    • Welcome to Fortified Europe: the Militarization of Europe’s Borders

      It’s late in the afternoon and we are stuck behind a school bus in Northern Croatia as we drive through the what the GPS says is the miserable little town of Apatija, which my Croatian friend Juraj says literally translates to “apathy” in Croatian.

      We are following Balkan Route in the footsteps of hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Middle East, Afghanistan, and Africa who are fleeing the Syrian Civil War, ISIS, Al-Shabbab, the Taliban, African despots and America’s drone war.

      I’m impressed with how the school bus can navigate the dirt and gravel roads that crisscross this Croatian nowhere. Before the Croatian government set up transit camps to provide people with food, shelter, medical care bus and train rides to Western Europe, refugees without the money to pay for their own transportation had to walk these roads.

    • If Russia Had ‘Freed’ Canada

      The U.S. government defined events in Ukraine as a “pro-democracy” revolution battling “Russian aggression” — at least as far as the world’s mainstream media was concerned. But what if the script were flipped, asks Joe Lauria.

    • The Media Is Spreading A Myth of ‘Donald The Dove.’ It’s Wrong.

      There’s just one problem with this narrative: none of it actually happened. Today, Trump may indeed hold all of these views, but at the time, he held none of them, at least as far as the public record shows. And by obscuring the difference between judgments in real-time and in retrospect, we risk allowing unaccountable Monday-morning quarterbacking to pass for an ability to make tough calls from inside the huddle.

  • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

    • Clinton’s Email Security Procedures Won’t Be Released Until After the Election

      The State Department says it won’t release any documents relating to Hillary Clinton’s email security procedures and protocol until after the November presidential election.

      In March 2015, soon after Clinton’s secret personal email account was reported by the New York Times, I filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the State Department asking for “communications, presentations, and procedures created by the State Department to secure Hillary Clinton’s email from electronic threats.” I filed a separate FOIA asking for emails sent to her personal @clintonemail.com account.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

    • Wildfire Researchers Tell Us Why Our Future Is Flames

      The images emerging out of forest-fire ravaged Fort McMurray are devastating. The skeletons of smoldering homes and charred metal truck carcasses conjure the image of some post-apocalyptic wasteland in what was, just the day before, a residential neighbourhood. As of Thursday, more than 80,000 people had been evacuated from the burning town. A province-wide state of emergency has been declared, and neighbouring communities are now under threat.

    • Why today’s global warming has roots in Indonesia’s genocidal past

      There has been tremendous concern over the ways climate change will affect human rights, but little attention to how human rights abuse affects our global climate.

      Fifty years ago, Indonesia went through a genocide. The massacres may be relatively unknown, but in a terrible way the destruction continues, and threatens us all. In 1965, the Indonesian army organised paramilitary death squads and exterminated between 500,000 and 1 million people who had hastily been identified as enemies of General Suharto’s new military dictatorship. Today, the killers and their protégés are comfortable establishment figures whose impunity, political power and capacity for intimidation endure.

    • The EPA Hasn’t Updated Fracking Rules In Nearly 3 Decades. Now, Environmental Groups Are Suing.

      A coalition of environmental organizations is suing the Environmental Protection Agency, claiming federal regulators have for three decades failed to update rules for disposing of fracking and drilling wastes that may threaten public health and the environment.

      The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, asks the court to set deadlines for the EPA to update its disposal rules.

    • Fossil Fuel Billionaires Kill Children

      Donald Trump is the Republican nominee, Prince may have had a drug problem and a record-breaking 88,000 people have been evacuated from Fort McMurray, Canada.

      If you’ve turned on a corporate 24-hour news network in the last couple of days, those are three things that you have definitely heard about.

      But what you didn’t hear from the mainstream media is that the wildfires in Alberta, and in Alaska, are directly related to climate change.

    • The time has come to turn up the heat on those who are wrecking planet Earth

      Global warming is the biggest problem we’ve ever faced as a civilisation — certainly you want to act to slow it down, but perhaps you’ve been waiting for just the right moment.

      The moment when, oh, marine biologists across the Pacific begin weeping in their scuba masks as they dive on reefs bleached of life in a matter of days. The moment when drought in India gets deep enough that there are armed guards on dams to prevent the theft of water. The moment when we record the hottest month ever measured on the planet, and then smash that record the next month, and then smash that record the next month? The moment when scientists reassessing the stability of the Antarctic ice sheet have what one calls an ‘OMG moment’ and start talking about massive sea level rise in the next 30 years?

    • When Compassion is Terrorism: Animal Rights in a Post-911 World

      Buddenberg will soon begin a two year prison sentence after accepting a plea deal, rather than face trial, over conspiracy charges brought under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA). Kissane also accepted a plea deal, and will be sentenced in June. It should be noted that, as with most AETA cases, defendants are offered opportunities to rat out fellow activists or become informants in exchange for lighter sentences. Buddenberg and Kissane declined to do so, and they deserve praise for this. Their non-cooperation will allow others like them to continue saving lives, while risking their own.

    • American forests face major changes

      North America’s great forests could change in dramatic ways by the end of the century, according to new research.

      Subtropical species may colonise the forests of the Cascade mountain range straddling the US-Canada border, the woodlands of the US Gulf Coast may end up looking more like Cuba, and parts of Texas might become home to the hot, dry forests now found in Mexico.

      Scientists from Washington State University in Vancouver, Canada, have made a mathematical model of how forests might respond to climate change.

    • Zimbabwe’s Extreme Response To Extreme Drought: Sell The Animals

      The dentist who shot Cecil the Lion can rest easy. Animal lovers have a new villain in Zimbabwe — climate change.

      This week, Zimbabwe put its wildlife up for sale in an effort save the animals from a devastating drought, Reuters reports. The state Parks and Wildlife Management Authority reached out to buyers “with the capacity to acquire and manage wildlife” and enough land to house the beasts. The agency did not specify exactly which animals would be sold, their cost, or whether they could be exported to foreign countries. Large mammals, including elephants, rhinos, and lions, are plentiful in Zimbabwe’s parks.

      The drought has strained the resources of the parks authority, which receives meager government funding and limited income from hunting and tourism. Facing water shortages and financial hardship, Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park has turned to donors to pay the cost of pumping underground wells to provide water for wildlife, including elephants.

    • ‘All You See is Red Flames’: State of Emergency as Wildfire Rages in Alberta

      A state of emergency has been declared in the Canadian province of Alberta, where a massive wildfire has grown to five times its initial size and continues to rage.

      An estimated 1,600 destroyed homes and businesses had been destroyed, and a mandatory evacuation order was expanded late Wednesday to encompass additional communities in and around the tar sands capital of Fort McMurray. Between 80,000 and 90,000 people have fled since the fire intensified on Tuesday.

    • Fort McMurray exodus widens as fires rage: A lot of people are ‘working to get you out’

      Officials ordered people to leave Anzac, Gregoire Lake Estates, and Fort McMurray First Nation late Wednesday. Anzac’s recreational centre, which is nearly 50 kilometres southeast of Fort Mac, was housing hundreds of evacuees from the embattled city prior to the most recent evacuation order.

    • Native Communities Stand Up To Proposed Oil Pipeline: ‘This Is Keystone 3’

      By some accounts, the Dakota Access oil pipeline seems like done deal. Iowa, the last state out of the four the pipeline would cut through to grant a permit, approved the pipeline in March, leaving the project with just one federal approval to gain. And the company in charge of the pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners, appears to not be waiting until that federal permit is granted: It’s already started construction on the 1,154-mile pipeline.

    • Honduran Authorities Arrest Four in Connection to Murder of Activist Berta Cáceres

      Authorities in Honduras have arrested four men allegedly connected to the murder of Berta Cáceres, the country’s most recognized activist. While the president celebrated the arrests as evidence of progress on the case, Cáceres’ family continues to demand an independent investigation by international experts. Shannon Young has more.

    • Colorado Supreme Court Rules Against Cities’ Fracking Bans

      This week the Colorado Supreme Court ruled unanimously against two cities’ bans on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, as it’s also known. The Colorado Oil and Gas Association, the group which brought the original lawsuits against the cities of Fort Collins and Longmont, is hailing the decisions as “a win for the energy industry.”

      The Colorado Supreme Court framed its rulings not as a decision on the safety of fracking but as an assertion of state law’s authority over local legislation — even if that legislation was formed following successful ballot initiatives.

    • Groups to TransCanada: Take This $15 Billion Voided Check and Shove It

      Environmental advocates on Thursday delivered a giant voided check for $15 billion to TransCanada’s office in Washington, D.C., in a symbolic rejection of the “frivolous investment lawsuits authorized by trade agreements” like the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and NAFTA.

      TransCanada announced earlier this year its plans to sue the United States under NAFTA provisions for $15 billion in damages over the Obama administration’s rejection of the company’s Keystone XL pipeline project.

  • Finance

    • Consumer Protection Agency Moves To Ban Fine Print That Cuts Americans Off From Their Courts
    • Finally, Justice For Consumers Wronged By Banks Is Within Reach

      The big win for financial institutions and other businesses in requiring binding arbitration is that consumers who have the same problem can’t come together to file a class action suit. It means that companies can commit the same injustice millions of times, but can proceed with impunity knowing that only a handful of people will challenge it – and not under the purview of a judge with the power to order the company to stop the unjust practice.

    • Verizon Strike Surges as Workers Demand Right to ‘Make a Decent Living’

      Arrests in Albuquerque as protesters converge on Verizon shareholder meeting to deliver petition asking for reforms to corporate governance

    • Cupertino’s mayor urges Apple to pay more tax: ‘where’s the fairness?’

      The last time the mayor of Cupertino walked into Apple – the largest company in his small Californian town and, it so happens, the most valuable company in the world – he hoped to have a meeting to talk about traffic congestion.

      Barry Chang barely made it into the lobby when Apple’s security team asked him to leave, he said.

      “They said ‘you cannot come in, you’re not invited’. After that I left and have not gone back,” said an exasperated Chang, who’s been mayor since December 2015 and had approached the computing firm when he was serving on the city council three years ago.

    • Cupertino Mayor Calls Out Apple: ‘They Abuse Us’

      Speaking to The Guardian in a wide-ranging interview published on Thursday, Cupertino mayor Barry Chang argued that Apple isn’t doing enough for the city where its headquarters lives, adding that he believes the company is abusing its hometown.

    • The Threat of Evangelical Clintons

      After being proclaimed close to politically dead, Bernie Sanders resurrected his campaign with an upset victory over Hillary Clinton. Despite this win – many in the mainstream continue to portray Sanders and his allies as bordering on delusional. “Sanders declares war on reality” blared the headline of at least one major newspaper.

    • Onshore Tax Havens

      American elites don’t have to go to Panama to hide their money — they can go to Delaware.

    • Hot Air in the Saudi Desert: a Kingdom in Descent?

      The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is in financial dire straits. Since the plunge in oil prices, the kingdom has been hemorrhaging money left, right and center. It has provided billions of dollars to shore up counter-revolutionary governments around the Middle East, especially Egypt, it is heavily involved in the Syrian conflict, and is burning through some $6 billion a month waging war on impoverished Yemen. The country needs oil to be $104.6 a barrel, according to the Institute of International Finance, for its budget to break-even; the current price is around $45.

    • At Conference of Elites, the Distress of Others Is an Investment Opportunity

      At the root, the Milken conference is an investor conference. Attendees want to know about national politics and global military campaigns, but only insofar as that intelligence produces new opportunities to make money. A panel called “Value in Turmoil” was as packed as any that I attended. “Opportunities in distress” was a recurring theme.

      “There’s a lot more hope in emerging markets,” said Steve Tananbaum, a vulture fund investor with GoldenTree Asset Management during a panel in the International Ballroom, the same place where they hold the Golden Globes. “Argentina and Brazil, there’s a reaction that’s a positive, pro-market reaction,” he added, referring to the attempted coup on Dilma Roussef. Discussion of the effect on people living in these countries was outside the frame of reference.

      At a different panel, Jim McCaughan of Principal Global Investors pronounced himself “a heretic on infrastructure,” because Uber and driverless cars were so efficient that we didn’t need to spend as much on building roads anymore.

      Even former Vice President Al Gore, who gave a version of his famed climate change PowerPoint, pitched it as an investment opportunity. “We are facing not just a moral imperative, but a financial imperative,” Gore said, noting that investors have a unique ability to drive change.

    • On His First Day As Presumptive GOP Nominee, Trump Completely Reverses His Position On Minimum Wage

      Becoming the presumptive Republican presidential nominee seems to have changed Donald Trump.

      Shortly after his opponents Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich dropped out of the race, Trump revealed that he has flipped on one of his key policy positions: the minimum wage.

      In November, Trump said unequivocally that he “would not” raise wages if elected president. But he told CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday that he is now “open to doing something with it.”

      “I’m actually looking at that because I am very different from most Republicans,” Trump said. “You have to have something that you can live on.”

    • Here’s How Much Trump’s Mass Deportation Policy Would Cost Everyone
    • Disappearing Money and Opportunistic Candidates

      There’s a pile of money hiding offshore. It’s true that jobs are also leaving the United States because American companies find it convenient to cut labor costs by moving manufacturing abroad, the economic issue you’re hearing most about in this election season. But the stunning amount of money that continues to flow across American borders (and those of other countries), and eventually disappears into the pockets of the corporate and political elite, ultimately causes even more damage to our finances and our lives.

    • Which Democratic Party? Bernie Sanders and FDR’s Second Bill of Rights

      To become relevant to my students, to the millions of Americans who are swimming in debt and decimated by low wages, unaffordable health care, and rising housing costs the Democratic Party must unequivocally reclaim the mantle of the Second Bill of Rights.

    • In Cowboy Capitalism, High Technology Worsens Economic Inequities

      The growth in the economy’s capacity to produce since the 1930s, or even the 1960s, has been extraordinary, much as these economists anticipated. If the experts we used as counsel for this chapter are anywhere near accurate, the next four or five decades could make the twentieth century look like the twelfth century.

      In popular economic theory, such revolutionary increases in productive capacity are supposed to translate into higher living standards, much shorter workweeks, richer public infrastructure, and a greater overall social security. Society should have the resources to tackle vexing environmental problems with the least amount of pain possible. In fact, however, nothing on the horizon suggests that this is in the offing. As automation and computerization take productive capacity to undreamed-of heights, jobs grow more scarce and are de-skilled, many people are poorer, and all the talk is of austerity and seemingly endless cutbacks in social services. There is growing wealth for the few combined with greater insecurity for the many. Washington, we’ve got a problem.

    • Economic policy could determine the political results in Venezuela

      The opposition in Venezuela has stepped up its campaign to remove President Nicolás Maduro from office, having announced — in accordance with its numerous divisions — that it would pursue a three-pronged strategy: a constitutional amendment to shorten the president’s term of office; a recall referendum, as permitted under the constitution; and “protests.” The first tactic was struck down by Venezuela’s Supreme Court, as it would be in any country — you can’t change the legal term of a president who was already elected for a certain number of years. For the recall referendum, the process of gathering signatures is under way.

      The government, meanwhile, clearly needs to fix the economy if it is to regain popularity. The opposition, which has a large majority in the national legislature, has made it clear that it will not cooperate in any such efforts. On the contrary, it has acted to block the government from spending money.

    • This strike needs to be a line in the sand

      THE BIGGEST U.S. strike in years has entered its third week, with 39,000 Verizon workers walking the picket lines and holding fiery protests across the Northeast U.S.

      Involving the Communication Workers of America (CWA) and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), the Verizon strike is the nation’s largest since the last walkout at Verizon almost five years ago. And the stakes couldn’t be higher–not only for Verizon employees, but all workers.

    • Protest never changes anything? Look at how TTIP has been derailed

      For those of us who want societies run in the interests of the majority rather than unaccountable corporate interests, this era can be best defined as an uphill struggle. So when victories occur, they should be loudly trumpeted to encourage us in a wider fight against a powerful elite of big businesses, media organisations, politicians, bureaucrats and corporate-funded thinktanks.

      Today is one such moment. The Transatlantic Trade Investment Partnership (TTIP) – that notorious proposed trade agreement that hands even more sweeping powers to corporate titans – lies wounded, perhaps fatally. It isn’t dead yet, but TTIP is a tangled wreckage that will be difficult to reassemble.

    • TTIP: we were right all along

      Attacked and ridiculued, the leak of 243 pages of TTIP negotiations concerning climate, environment and public health prove that civil society organisations were right all along.

    • ‘Free Trade’ vs. Actual Free Trade

      “Free trade” is nowadays used to further the globalist agenda, which seeks to substitute supra-national “standards” enforced by international “commissions” for the rule of law at home. NAFTA’s numerous “side agreements” set up a whole raft of rules, regulations, and enforcement mechanisms to “harmonize” environmental and labor regulations, taking them out of our hands and giving ultimate authority to unaccountable international bureaucracies. TPP follows the same centralizing, supranational statist pattern.

    • Politicians across the EU back away from TTIP after leak—but Cameron ploughs on

      As expected, in the wake of this week’s important leak of the US negotiating position for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) talks, many European politicians are starting to distance themselves from the deal.

      The UK prime minister, David Cameron, however, told the House of Commons that TTIP was not dead, but admitted it would take “political courage to get it over the line.”

      As Ars reported earlier in the week, the chairman of the European Parliament’s important trade committee, Bernd Lange, indicated that he thought the negotiations would probably fail. Although the official European Commission line is that everything is fine, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that there are doubts at the highest levels of the Commission that TTIP will ever be agreed.

    • Somnolent Europe, Russia, and China

      As I have previously written, Washington believes that it is easier to control one government, the EU, than to control many separate European governments. As Washington has a long term investment in orchestrating the European Union, Washington is totally opposed to any country exiting the arrangement. That is why President Obama recently went to London to tell his lapdog, the British Prime Minister, that there could be no British exit.

    • Taking on ‘Rip-Off Clauses,’ New Proposal Allows Consumers to Join Together to Sue Big Banks

      A new proposal from the U.S. financial watchdog for consumers has been applauded for its ability to help prevent big banks from evading liability for wrongdoing.

      The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s proposal, unveiled Thursday, curtails mandatory arbitration clauses in financial products like credit cards, bank accounts, and student loans, thereby affording consumers the power to join together in class action lawsuits to sue a financial company.

    • The Bailouts Were for the Banks: Study Confirms Rescue Loans Didn’t Serve Greeks

      A new study offers more confirmation that the so-called bailout packages the European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) delivered to Greece primarily served European banks rather than the Greek people.

      The study released Wednesday by the Berlin-based European School of Management and Technology (ESMT) analyzed where funds from the two aid bailout deals—received on the condition of imposing harsh austerity measures—since 2010 went.

      “Contrary to widely held beliefs,” ESMT states, of the €215.9 billion (roughly $246 billion), less than 5 percent went to the Greek fiscal budget. The other 95 percent of the funds “disbursed to Greece since the start of the financial crisis as loans from the bailout mechanism has been directed toward saving the European banks,” Ekathimerini reports.

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Making Sanders’ Dream a Reality Through Political Activism

      They can quickly get behind the Jill Stein campaign for the Green Party nomination while she fights to not only eliminate college tuition but has called for eliminating all current college debt. She has been a leader in the fight for a $15 an hour minimum wage, and she loudly supports universal healthcare.

    • Noam Chomsky Predicted the Rise of Trump Six Years Ago

      “It is very similar to late Weimar Germany,” Chomsky said. “The parallels are striking. There was also tremendous disillusionment with the parliamentary system. The most striking fact about Weimar was not that the Nazis managed to destroy the Social Democrats and the Communists but that the traditional parties, the Conservative and Liberal parties, were hated and disappeared. It left a vacuum which the Nazis very cleverly and intelligently managed to take over.”

    • 6 Artists Who Told Donald Trump, ‘Hey, Stop Using Our Music!’ (Video)

      Choosing the playlist for political campaign rallies is a tricky business. First and foremost, candidates need to make sure their musical picks inspire feelings of patriotism, optimism and positivity. They also need to make sure the artist behind the song doesn’t disavow their campaign entirely.

    • TV Is Donald’s Free Trump Card to Stoke Racism

      Trump has used corporate TV news networks to stoke right-wing voters’ fears, anger and racism.

    • WATCH: Seth Meyers Definitively Proves Trump Is ‘No Fluke’ Given Recent GOP History
    • Watch: Colbert Asks God Why He Let Trump Be the Republican Nominee
    • Clinton fundraising leaves little for state parties

      The Democratic front-runner says she’s raising big checks to help state committees, but they’ve gotten to keep only 1 percent of the $60 million raised.

    • Why Are Democrats “With” Hillary Clinton
    • A Need to Clear Up Clinton Questions

      “Some people think they can lie and get away with it,” said former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with feigned outrage. And, of course, he has never been held accountable for his lies, proving his dictum true.

      The question today is: Will former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Teflon coat be as impermeable to deep scratches as Rumsfeld’s has proven to be?

    • Republicans and Democrats Must Work Together to Not Mainstream Donald Trump

      Donald Trump’s Republican primary triumph means that this cannot be a normal election. Americans who see our country as a model of tolerance, inclusion, rationality and liberty must come together across party lines to defeat him decisively.

      Many forces will be at work in the coming weeks to normalize Trump—and, yes, the media will play a big role in this. On both the right and the left, there will be strong temptations to go along.

      Refusing to fall into line behind Trump will ask more of conservatives. Beating Trump means electing Hillary Clinton, the last thing most conservatives want to do. It would likely lead to a liberal majority on the Supreme Court and the ratification of the achievements of President Obama’s administration, including the Affordable Care Act. Conservative opposition could deepen a popular revulsion against Trump that in turn could help Democrats take over the Senate and gain House seats.

    • Foreign Intelligence Services Targeted 2008 Campaign, Officials Were Warned

      The Intelligence Community evidently gave some incoming members of the Obama administration a star-spangled welcome briefing — complete with a stern warning.

      In a newly disclosed document titled “Unlocking the Secrets: How to Use The Intelligence Community,” intelligence officials told incoming officials that foreign intelligence services had been extensively spying on the 2008 political campaigns.

      “Foreign intelligence services have been tracking this election cycle like no other,” the authors from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence wrote.

    • The Highest Ranking Republican Will Not Support Donald Trump
    • Hillary’s Big Dilemma

      Even against Trump, attracting both moderate Republicans and Sanders supporters will not be easy for Clinton.

    • Let’s Stop the ‘Hispandering’ by Politicians This Cinco de Mayo

      Many people in the U.S. are confused regarding the Mexican Cinco de Mayo celebration. They believe it’s Mexico’s Independence Day, which is actually Sept. 15 and 16.

      Cinco de Mayo commemorates the Battle of Puebla when the Mexican army defeated the better-equipped French army in 1862. While it isn’t a widely celebrated holiday in Mexico, in the U.S. Cinco de Mayo has grown in popularity in the period after the height of the Chicano movement in the 60s and 70s. For the past thirty years, marketers have latched onto the holiday to promote alcohol, Mexican food products, and pretty much anything that can be marketed to the masses. Cinco de Mayo has also given politicians in the U.S. an opportunity to pander to Mexican American voters.

    • Are Hillary Clinton and Neoconservatives Ready to Join Forces?

      As Donald Trump is declared the presumptive Republican nominee for president, members of the neoconservative establishment, disgusted by the prospect of Trump in the White House, appear to be heading into the welcoming arms of someone more sympathetic to their imperial worldview: Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton.

    • One Stalwart Woman Vs. 300 Stone-Faced Nazis

      Bravo to fearless Afro-Swedish activist Tess Asplund, 42, and the photographer who caught the moment Asplund ferociously, instinctively charged a march of over 300 anti-immigrant neo-Nazis with her head and fist held high, and Nelson Mandela in her mind. Asplund, a longtime anti-racism activist, was returning from another protest when she came upon an International Workers’ Day rally in Borlange, Dalarna, in central Sweden, by the violent white supremacist Nordic Resistance Movement. Marching stiffly in homemade uniforms of white shirts and dark green ties, their members are part of an alarming resurgence in Sweden and across Europe of right-wing racist groups fuelled by an influx of refugees. In an odd twist of fate and timing, the rally came days before a top Israeli military official caused an uproar when, during a Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony, he seemed to compare Israel’s similar rising nationalism to the “abhorrent processes” in Germany that led to the Holocaust, warning, “Nothing could be easier than hating the other.”

    • Researcher: Communist teaching experiment much broader than thought

      New research has shown that a controversial 1970s experiment aimed at inserting communist propaganda into Finnish teaching syllabuses was much more widespread than originally thought. The researcher says that this experiment in Pirkkala was the result of systematic attempts by left social democrats to get Marxist material into Finnish school books.

  • Censorship/Free Speech

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Do you have a secret? The way you write emails may give it away

      The woman has a big secret: unknown to her family, she’s running a phone-sex business from home. Only her best friend knows the truth.

      It sounds like the plot of a good soap. But this woman is one of 61 participants in a study looking at the way we cover up secrets in our emails. The results suggest we’re not as good at hiding them as we think.

      Yla Tausczik at the University of Maryland in College Park and her colleagues recruited people who admitted to having had an “enormous secret” in the last seven years. They posted flyers in major cities, sent out emails and posted ads on Amazon Mechanical Turk and Craig’s List. The response was pretty high: 1133 people completed an initial questionnaire. Of these, 179 met the researchers’ requirements and 61 ultimately took part.

      Studying secrets is tough, says Tausczik. “You can’t bring people with secrets into the lab, you can’t bring in their friends without raising suspicion.” To get round this, the team decided to look at people’s emails.

    • FBI Told Cops to Recreate Evidence From Secret Cell-Phone Trackers

      A recently disclosed document shows the FBI telling a local police department that the bureau’s covert cell-phone tracking equipment is so secret that any evidence acquired through its use needs to be recreated in some other way before being introduced at trial.

      “Information obtained through the use of the equipment is FOR LEAD PURPOSES ONLY,” FBI special agent James E. Finch wrote to Chief Bill Citty of the Oklahoma City Police Department.

      The official notice, dated September 2014, said such information “may not be used as primary evidence in any affidavits, hearings or trials. This equipment provides general location information about a cellular device, and your agency understands it is required to use additional and independent investigative means and methods, such as historical cellular analysis, that would be admissible at trial to corroborate information concerning the location of the target obtained through the use of this equipment.”

    • Key evidence in city murder case tossed due to stingray use
    • Judge Tosses Evidence In Murder Case Where Suspect Was Located With A Stingray Device

      This will likely be the most spectacular flame out of the Baltimore Police Department’s long history of warrantless Stingray use. The Maryland Special Appeals Court recently found that tracking people’s location using Stingrays is a search under the Fourth Amendment, meaning law enforcement will need to obtain warrants before using the devices. The fact that this finding doesn’t affect use previous to this decision (and there was a LOT of it) doesn’t mean other judges won’t arrive at the same conclusion independently.

      The Baltimore Sun reports a suspected murder will likely walk away from charges after the suppression of “key evidence” obtained with Stingray.

    • NSA Heats Up Controversy Amid Decision to Destroy Complaint Files

      The National Security Agency announced it would destroy internal records concerning issues surrounding workplace conflicts, causing a stir that the agency may be suppressing information about retaliation against whistleblowers within the organization.

    • NSA reveals hundreds of bugs a year, says former official [Ed: puff piece frames NSA as bug fixer (same PR now used in British media for GCHQ)]
    • Unsealed Yahoo/FISA Documents Show NSA Expected Company, FISC Judge To Operate On Zero Information

      Late last week, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a stack of documents from Yahoo’s challenge of the NSA’s internet dragnet. The new declassified and unsealed documents have been dumped into one, 309-page PDF along with everything the ODNI has already released — one of the small things the office routinely does to slow the dissemination of previously-unseen information.

    • FBI Harassing Core Tor Developer, Demanding She Meet With Them, But Refusing To Explain Why

      She’s (reasonably) worried that whatever the FBI is planning to ask her about or serve her with comes with a gag order and she won’t be able to speak about it. She also notes that she’s got a personal warrant canary, which might be worth watching for obvious reasons.

      But, honestly, the part that struck me as most interesting about all of this is the incredible amount of stress that this obviously caused for her. It doesn’t matter if the FBI says she’s “not a target,” having the FBI come looking for you can really shake you up.

      [...]

      That, right there, is a clear description of the chilling effects that this kind of thing can cause. And that’s a shame. As she later notes, her paychecks for working on Tor come from the US government. She’s not a spy or a criminal. She’s working on software that makes everyone safer. And no matter what the reason for the FBI’s interest, it’s ridiculous that someone should have to go through this kind of process.

    • How Safe Is Your Data in the Gig Economy?

      San Francisco – The “sharing” or “gig” economy is booming—you can get rides with companies like Uber, hire people to run errands with services like Taskrabbit, or find a places to stay on websites like Airbnb. These companies connect people offering services to people purchasing them, and in the process they have access to vast amounts of personal data. But how well do these companies protect your information from the government? The sixth annual “Who Has Your Back” report from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) surveyed the biggest providers in the gig economy to find out.

      “These companies collect information on what you buy, where you sleep, and where you travel—whether you are offering services, or purchasing them,” said EFF Activism Director Rainey Reitman. “Often they go even further, collecting contents of communications and geolocation information from your cell phone. But are these companies respecting their users’ rights when the government comes knocking? For much of the gig economy, the answer is no.”

    • Tor Developer Created Malware for FBI to Hack Tor Users

      Espionage works like this: identify a target who has the info you need. Determine what he wants to cooperate (usually money.) Be sure to appeal to his vanity and/or patriotism. Create a situation where he can never go back to his old life, and give him a path forward where it favors his ongoing cooperation in a new life. Recruit him, because you own him.

      The FBI appears to have run a very successful, very classic, textbook recruitment on the guy above, Matt Edman, to use his insider-knowledge to defeat one of the best encryption/privacy software tools available. Aloha, privacy, and f*ck you, Fourth Amendment rights against unwarranted search and seizure.

      Edman is a former Tor Project developer who created malware for the FBI that allows agents to unmask users of the anonymity software.

    • ‘NSA totally dysfunctional – too much data to detect threats’ – whistleblower

      By collecting all the data on everybody on the planet the NSA is just buried; they have too much data to be able to sort out and detect threats in advance, NSA veteran and whistleblower William Binney told RT.

    • Feds Ramp Up Searches of U.S. Citizens’ Data without a Warrant

      The report says 4,672 surveillance queries were made on citizens, a two-fold increase since the 2013 report.

    • NSA, CIA Double Warrantless Searches In Two Years

      The estimated number of search terms “concerning a known U.S. person” to get contents of communications within what is known as the 702 database was 4,672 — more than double the 2013 figure.

    • NSA and CIA doubled warrantless searches in recent years

      “The number of backdoor searches doubling since last reported shows that warrantless Section 702 surveillance is a significant and growing problem for Americans,” Jake Laperruque, privacy fellow at The Constitution Project, recently told The Intercept in an interview.

  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • As the old parties offer dull prospects for London, what can they learn from Take Back the City?

      What a boring contest the local elections in London have produced. Like many loyal Labour party members, I will be voting for Sadiq Khan for mayor. He seems like a decent enough candidate. But I wish he had stood on a platform which came close to addressing London’s fundamental problems.

    • Glenn Ford Spent 30 Years on Death Row, Was Exonerated, Died, Yet is Still on Trial

      Glenn Ford spent 30 years on Louisiana’s death row for a murder he didn’t commit, only to die of cancer a year after being exonerated and released from prison in 2014.

      The prosecutor who put him there, A.M. “Marty” Stroud III, has apologized for relying on “junk science” during the trial and for pursuing a court victory at all costs, at the expense of justice. Stroud even went so far as to admit that knowing what he knows now, Ford should never have even been arrested, since the hardest evidence against him was a statement from a witness who later recanted.

      Yet, somehow, members of the Louisiana legal establishment still insist on questioning Ford’s innocence and even accuse him of things which were either never proven or proven to be false, all to protect the state from having to bear the modest financial cost of paying for the life they stole.

    • My Visit to a Las Vegas Jail

      “The degree of civilization in a society,” wrote the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky, “can be judged by entering its prisons.” As a frequent visitor to Nevada in recent years, I have often been surprised by the cultural diversity and spiritual richness that can be found in Las Vegas. Still, I think that Dostoyevsky was right. A more accurate assessment of the degree of civilization in Las Vegas and for the broader society that the city claims to be “The Entertainment Capital” of can be made by entering the cells of the Clark County Correctional Center than by going to the top of the Stratosphere, cruising the Strip or even by taking in a Cirque du Soleil show.

    • Former Death Row Prisoner Moreese Bickham Dies at 98: He Served 37 Years for Killing Klansmen Cops

      We spend the hour with Dave Isay, the founder of StoryCorps, the award-winning national oral history project. In a 1989 radio documentary, Tossing Away the Keys, he chronicled the case of Moreese Bickham, a former death row prisoner who recently died at the age of 98. In 1958, Bickham, an African American, was sentenced to death for shooting and killing two police officers in Mandeville, Louisiana, even though Bickham said the officers were Klansmen who had come to kill him and shot him on the front porch of his own home. Many other people in the community also said the officers worked with the Ku Klux Klan, which was a common practice in small Southern towns. Moreese Bickham served 37 years at Angola State Penitentiary, in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day. He won seven stays of execution, but Louisiana’s governors repeatedly denied him clemency until, under enormous pressure, he was finally released in 1996. Days after he was released, he traveled to New York, where he was interviewed on WBAI’s “Wake-Up Call” by Amy Goodman, Bernard White and others. “Wake-Up Call” had closely followed Bickham’s case and helped give it national attention. We play an excerpt from the interview for Isay and discuss Bickham’s life and legacy.

    • When A Fingerprint IS The Password, Where Does The Fifth Amendment Come Into Play?

      FBI Director James Comey is still complaining about encryption but it doesn’t seem to be preventing law enforcement from accessing devices. To date, law enforcement has paid hackers to break into a phone, had an iPhone owner suddenly “remember” his password, seen a person jailed for 7 months (so far) for refusing to provide a password and, now, a law enforcement agency has used a warrant to force a suspect to unlock an iPhone using a fingerprint.

    • Amtrak Officer Misleads Traveler About Drug Dog Behavior In Order To Perform An Illegal Search

      Drug dogs are permission slips for warrantless searches. That’s it. They may have been legitimate when they first became part of law enforcement work, but they’ve devolved into malleable props in the ongoing farce that is the the Drug War. Despite these failures, they’re heralded by law enforcement as superpowered miracle workers who can do things like sniff out hidden people in moving vehicles full of other (non-hidden) people.

    • On Holocaust Remembrance Day, Israel Army Deputy Chief Warns Israeli Society Exhibiting Similarities to 1930s Germany

      Across the world and especially in the West, it is widely considered to be highly offensive to suggest that there are similarities between the State of Israel and Nazi Germany, the racist regime responsible for the murder of millions of Jews. But after seven years of a succession of arguably the most right-wing governments in the country’s history, Israelis themselves are beginning to make the shocking comparison with ever-increasing frequency.

      On Wednesday night, as Israelis marked Yom HaShoah – Holocaust Remembrance Day – the country’s second-highest-ranking military officer courted controversy when he publicly compared contemporary Israeli racists with anti-semitic attackers in Germany on the eve of the Holocaust.

    • Edward Snowden Explains What Makes Whistleblowing Permissible

      “Unrestrained power may be many things, but it’s not American,” writes Edward Snowden. “It is in this sense that the act of whistleblowing increasingly has become an act of political resistance.”

      Who better to explain these moral and legal intricacies than Snowden? The ex-CIA whistleblower, who exposed the secret surveillance programs of the NSA in 2013, recently published an opinion piece at The Intercept in which he delves into the political and moral responsibilities of whistleblowers.

    • Hate Crimes Rise Along With Donald Trump’s Anti-Muslim Rhetoric

      A new report published by Georgetown University’s Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding has documented an upsurge in violence against Muslims in the United States coinciding with the 2016 election campaign.

    • Girl, 16, is burned alive on the orders of a Pakistani village council after she helped her friend to elope – and her mother is arrested for BACKING the death sentence

      A 16-year-old girl in rural Pakistan was drugged, strangled and burned alive on the orders of village elders for helping a couple elope.

      Pakistani police arrested 15 members of a tribal council in in Makol in northwest Pakistan accused ofordering the killing of the teenager – including her mother and brother.

      The murder of the girl has been labelled an ‘honour killing’, with her family members present at her ‘trial’ and allegedly supporting her death sentence.

    • Donald Trump’s Muslim Travel Ban Still “Stupid and Wrong,” David Cameron Says

      British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Thursday that Donald Trump “certainly deserves our respect” for winning the Republican presidential nomination, but refused to apologize for calling the billionaire showman’s proposed ban on Muslims entering the United States “divisive, stupid and wrong.”

    • Doing business at the border: abuse, complicity and legality

      As abuses in Australia’s detention centres become increasingly stark, there are growing calls for the boycott of a global system of inhumane, but profitable, mistreatment of refugees.

    • On the Dangers of Travelling, and on Elections

      In England, for the first time in my entire life I find myself wishing well to the Labour Party. This is because the Blairites are self-evidently hoping their own party crashes and burns so they can launch a coup. I hope Labour does well in England because the media campaign against Corbyn has been absolutely disgusting – and because I hate the blue Tories. But even in England, I could never actually vote Labour myself until they expel all the Blairite and Brownite war criminals.

    • Separating Super PACs From ‘Campaign Spending,’ Media Embrace Core Myth of Citizens United

      Correct the Record, headed by Media Matters’ David Brock, has posted dozens of videos targeting Sanders online, and spent upwards of a million dollars to run a network of Twitter and Reddit personas saying negative things about the Vermont senator on social media. They issue negative press releases, graphics and talking points—some of which the Clinton campaign’s Twitter account tweets out.

    • Women should not travel more than 48 miles without a male escort – Muslim group

      Women should not be allowed to go on long journeys without a male chaperone a British Muslim group has advised followers.

      Justine Greening, the International Development Secretary, condemned the advice from Blackburn Muslim Association as “disgraceful” and said such views had “no place” in modern Britain.

      Instructions from the association’s “Department of Theology” insist that it is “not permissible” for a woman to go more than 48 miles – deemed to be the equivalent of three days walk – without her husband or a close male relative.

    • Israeli Justice Minister: It’s Anti-Semitic To Ever Criticize Israel

      Israel’s notoriously militant Justice Minister, Ayelet Shaked, equated criticism of Israel to anti-Semitism on Wednesday, in light of rising European support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS).

  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • Europe’s Flimsy Net Neutrality Rules Go Live, Are Actually Worse Than No Rules At All

      While the date didn’t receive much fanfare in the media, net neutrality rules formally took effect in the European Union as of April 30. The full rules were approved after a vote last October (pdf), though as we noted at the time, the rules don’t actually do much of anything. That’s quite by design; European ISP lobbyists spent years ensuring that while the rules sound great in a press release, they’re so filled with loopholes as to be largely useless. In that sense they’re much like the awful rules the U.S. (with help from AT&T, Verizon and Google) crafted in 2010, ultimately forcing the States to revisit the ugly political skirmish down the line.

    • AT&T Buries Language In Missouri Traffic Bill To Hinder Broadband Competition

      Prompted by AT&T, Missouri passed a state law in 1997 that hamstrings towns and cities looking to build local networks to shore up broadband coverage gaps. Since then, AT&T has made repeated attempts to expand those restrictions further, fearing a growing rise in public/private partnerships from the likes of Google Fiber, Ting, or the countless towns and cities tired of AT&T’s pricey, slow broadband service. After a failed attempt last year, AT&T this year introduced protectionist bill HB 2078, shortly after shoveling $62,000 in campaign contributions to state leaders.

    • Over 70 Groups Urge EU Telecom Regulators To Uphold Net Neutrality

      Dozens of civil society organisations this week sent a letter urging European telecommunications regulators to preserve internet neutrality in their current negotiations about the future of the internet in Europe.

  • DRM

    • Standardized DRM Will Make Us Less Safe

      The vulnerability is a grave one. These DVRs are designed to be connected to whole networks of security cameras. By compromising them, thieves can spy on their targets using the targets’ own cameras. In fact, Kerner was part of a team at RSA who published a report in 2014 that showed that thieves were using these vulnerable system to locate and target cash-registers for robberies.

      In the two years since the initial report, Kerner tracked down the original manufacturer, a Chinese company called TVT, and repeatedly notified them about the problems with their system. Not receiving any reply, and alarmed that the vulnerable system was showing up in the product offerings of companies all over the world–more than 70 of them!–Kerner came forward, hoping to at least warn the owners of these systems that they were relying on defective products for their security.

    • Apple Stole My Music. No, Seriously.

      I had just explained to Amber that 122 GB of music files were missing from my laptop. I’d already visited the online forum, I said, and they were no help. Although several people had described problems similar to mine, they were all dismissed by condescending “gurus” who simply said that we had mislocated our files (I had the free drive space to prove that wasn’t the case) or that we must have accidentally deleted the files ourselves (we hadn’t). Amber explained that I should blow off these dismissive “solutions” offered online because Apple employees don’t officially use the forums—evidently, that honor is reserved for lost, frustrated people like me, and (at least in this case) know-it-alls who would rather believe we were incompetent, or lying, than face the ugly truth that Apple has vastly overstepped its boundaries.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • What the Defend Trade Secrets Act Means for Trade Secret Defendants

      The Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (DTSA)—arguably the most sweeping change to the nation’s intellectual property laws in a generation or more—is about to become law. The bill recently passed both houses of Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support. President Obama is certain to sign the bill into law.

    • Africa Should Speed Formation Of Pan-African IP Body, UN Report Says

      A recent report by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) is calling for faster establishment of a Pan-African Intellectual Property Organisation (PAIPO) to bring about what it sees as badly needed IP policy coherence on the continent.

      The report, Innovation, Competitiveness and Regional Integration [pdf], was authored in collaboration with the African Union (AU) and the African Development Bank (AfDB). It found that two regional IP bodies in Africa, the anglophone Africa Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) and the francophone Organisation Africaine de la Propriété Intellectuelle (OAPI), do not help countries to exercise their patent rights and counter intellectual property “mercantilism,” nor do they have links to free trade and bilateral investment agreements with external partners.

    • No Law: Intellectual Property In The Image Of An Absolute First Amendment

      With copyright reform a big topic again these days, we’ve been talking about some worthwhile books to read in thinking about the topic. The last couple weeks we wrote about some important books by Bill Patry in thinking about how to reform copyright, and this week I’m going to recommend No Law: Intellectual Property in the Image of an Absolute First Amendment by David Lange and H. Jefferson Powell. I had actually just mentioned this book a few weeks ago in discussing copyright’s free speech problem, and I’ll recommend it again. I’m not sure why the book never seemed to get that much attention, even in copyright circles, because it’s really worth reading.

    • Trademarks

      • ITMA opens the lid on Trunki

        The IPKat never likes to miss a gathering of IP experts, particularly when the experts are as renowned as the group who congregated together last week to talk about design law following the Supreme Court’s decision in the Trunki case (reported here).

        The event was a seminar held by ITMA (the Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys) on 27 April at the offices of Gowling WLG. The IPKat was delighted to receive the following report from Lydia Birch and John Coldham (who chaired the seminar), both of Gowlings, who write as follows.

    • Copyrights

      • Flood of Abusive Piracy Notices Crashed Verizon’s Mail Server

        Verizon is taking a stand against the millions of invalid DMCA notices it receives for allegedly pirating subscribers. At one point the ISP received two million piracy warnings in one day from anti-piracy outfit Rightscorp, which effectively crashed one of Verizon’s mail servers.

      • The Bipolar Nature Of Academic Publishing

        The outcome, well-documented around the world, is distress for all except celebrity academics. In terms of publications, the distress is engendered by a fundamental narrowing of author rights. While Open Access is one answer, it nonetheless fails to address the issues of copyright and the overriding concern of Moral Rights – irreducibly the right to determine how one’s work is exploited. While it is all but impossible to return to Common Law, that does not preclude the fortification of Moral Rights on behalf of authors on the brink of losing all rights – including long-standing economic rights – through a change in statutory law. The alternative is further atomization in the Knowledge Commons with individual authors fighting to protect their own works from abject exploitation.

      • Geo-blocking could be banned in Australia
      • Copyright law in Australia – major changes recommended by the Productivity Commission
      • It’s Time To Future-Proof Australia’s Copyright Laws For The 21st Century

        The award-winning Australian author Jackie French is wrong. In her open letter, she blasts the Productivity Commission’s report on intellectual property, released last month.

      • Fair use does not mean free: Copyright recommendations would crush Australian content [Ed: Corporate media/copyright monopoly bemoans Fair Use]
      • Knowing Or Distributing This Illegal Prime Number Could Get You Arrested

        What if I told you that there exist few numbers that will get you arrested in America if your write them down or publish them on some website? Well, this isn’t some kind of April Fools’ Day joke and even some casual affair with these number could get you in trouble in States.

        If your knowledge extends deep into the waters of security and cryptography, you might be knowing that prime numbers are really important in the field of encryption. Earlier this year in January, cryptographers were elated when a new world’s largest prime number was discovered.

        Coming back to our illegal prime numbers, this weirdness deals with the Digital Millenium Copyright Act that prohibits people from circumventing copyright protected measures and dissemination of tools.

        In a video, YouTube channel Wendoverproductions has told these complex things in a simpler manner and told about the intricate relation between the prime numbers and cryptography. “There are an infinite number of primes as there is an infinite number of numbers, but it just takes an enormous amount of computing power to find these primes,” the video explains.

      • Paramount Objects to Klingon Language Amicus Brief by Language Creation Society

        Paramount Pictures, which is embroiled in an expansive copyright lawsuit against Axanar Productions over the latter’s Star Trek fan film, has filed an objection to the Language Creation Society (LCS) filing an amicus brief regarding the copyrightability of the Klingon language.

      • To boldly go where no copyright holder has gone before

        Unsurprisingly, there is a wide range of copyright matter defined in Paramount’s complaint. Faced with an enterprise seen to be profiting from its own famous franchise, they did not hold back: as amended, the brief claims more than 50 copyright infringements, pleaded in full Technicolor®. That’s one infringement for every 20 seconds that Prelude to Axanar runs.

05.05.16

IBM Comes Under Growing Scrutiny for Increasingly Acting Just Like a Patent Troll Amid Layoffs

Posted in IBM, Law, Patents at 8:51 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

The ‘Microsoft syndrome’ strikes or spreads to IBM, its cross-licensing buddy

Ginni Rometty

Photo source (modified slightly): The 10 Most Powerful Women in Technology Today

Summary: Deservedly if not belatedly too, more and more pundits come to recognise the rogue element which is IBM, having promoted software patents all around the world, utilised software patents aggressively (to attack/marginalise/tax rivals), lobbied the government to antagonise the Supreme Court’s decision on Alice (using former IBM staff which it had somehow snuck into the USPTO), created bogus solutions to the side effects (such as patent trolls) and so on

“Patent Trolls have already begun to try & discredit the FTC PAE Report & it’s not even been released yet,” Anti-Software Patents wrote earlier this week. All this while the software patents lobby trash-talks SCOTUS (and one particular Associate Justice in particular), PTAB, an Australian report against software patents etc. As we showed here in recent days, IBM played a major role in this lobby. Are they thugs or trolls? Or both maybe?

“Patent Trolls have already begun to try & discredit the FTC PAE Report & it’s not even been released yet”
      –Anonymous“PTABWatch”, a blog of patent lawyers (Marshall Gerstein & Borun LLP) now evokes David Kappos again (his lobbying is now funded by massive patent aggressors including Apple, IBM, Microsoft etc. but he came from IBM) and to quote the relevant portion: “In a recent speech at a Federal Circuit Judicial Conference, David Kappos, former Under Secretary of Commerce and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, suggested § 101 should be abolished because recent case law in this area has resulted in “a real mess.” Like many practitioners, Mr. Kappos reiterated that courts can ensure basic concepts are not patented while protecting innovation by applying other areas of patent law to make sure patents are novel and non-obvious. Consistent with Mr. Kappos’s criticisms of the developing case law on § 101, Sequenom recently has sought the Supreme Court’s review of the Federal Circuit’s application of § 101 in the Ariosa decision, and many companies and industry organizations have filed amicus briefs supporting Sequenom. What will happen remains to be seen, but there is a growing and significant consensus (among practitioners at least) that something needs to be done at a higher level to clean up this “real mess.” Until such time, this blog will keep a close watch on the developments of decisions relating to §101 in IPRs and how patent eligibility is being viewed at the PTAB and the courts.”

It should be clear that the same forces which lobby for software patents often, unsurprisingly, oppose patent reform. Pieter Hintjens, who has not much time left to live, reminisces: “well, they were just lying. IBM was the one that broke the US patent system to allow software patents.”

“IBM was the one that broke the US patent system to allow software patents.”
      –Pieter Hintjens“IBM says software patents drive OSS development,” he recalls (from a 2009 article). We never forgot that.

Now that IBM openly attacks companies using software patents John C. Dvorak publishes the article “IBM Is the World’s Biggest Patent Troll” in which he says:

IBM’s real value is with the R&D folks who have helped IBM top the list of companies with the largest number of US patents granted year after year. This has never stopped growing. Last year it was 7,355 patents granted for IBM (followed by 5,072 for Samsung and 4,134 for Canon, with a big drop-off after that to Qualcomm with 2,900 and Google with 2,835).

The patent system is out of control since many of these patents are idiotic software algorithm or blocking patents, designed to keep others away from certain technologies. The point, though, is that IBM has been leading this pack for over two decades and shows no signs of slowing down. That is unless you think 7,355 is slowing down from its 2014 tally of 7,534 patents. In 2013, it secured a mere 6,809.

These numbers are outrageous when you stop to consider that patents were intended to protect small inventors and companies. Now the system is used to dominate that small fry. Good work, USPTO.

Many of IBM’s current patents are about data analytics and so-called cognitive computing, like Watson. It in turn collects “over” a billion dollars a year from licensing, which sounds low to me. I say this because on its licensing page, IBM claims to have 250,000 experts who will work with you to find the right patents for your company.

Those experts likely generate at least $100,000 in business each every year, which I think is conservative. You do the math and that’s $25 billion. This makes sense when the company claims to drop $6 billion into R&D each year. In fact, it would not surprise me if most of its revenues were from licensing, and far more than $25 billion. IBM’s overall revenues are around $82 billion.

With puff pieces like this new one about IBM, no wonder few people care to have noticed what IBM recently turned into (amid layoffs).

“Just last week, the Federal Circuit declined to fix this problem, leaving it up to Congress or the Supreme Court to act.”
      –EFFPatent trolling is a very serious problem in the US and CAFC, which brought software patents to the US, refuses to stop these trolls [1, 2]. The trolls typically use software patents. Here is an MIP report about it and here is the EFF expressing frustration over it: “As the law stands now, patent owners have almost complete control over which federal district to file a case in. That’s a major problem. It lets patent owners exploit significant differences between courts, an advantage that the alleged infringers in patent suits don’t have. It effectively leads to outcomes being determined not by the merits of a case, but rather by the cost of litigation. Just last week, the Federal Circuit declined to fix this problem, leaving it up to Congress or the Supreme Court to act.”

“Mossoff just can’t help attacking the messenger for trying to stop patent trolls.”Trolls’ apologists aren’t idle either right now. Consider Adam Mossoff, who works for some kind of patent maximalism think tank (“The Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property at Mason Law promotes the scholarly analysis of IP rights and the creative innovation they make possible,” by its own description), so it’s not too shocking that he keeps protecting patent trolls, attacks their critics, and now picks on the EFF. Mossoff just can’t help attacking the messenger for trying to stop patent trolls. This isn’t a new thing from him.

“How to Kill a Patent Troll” is a new article which speaks about what patent trolls are and then promotes the IBM-connected RPX as the solution. It’s not the solution at all. To quote portions from this article:

Anecdotally, NPEs are trolls. But Cohen, Gurun, and Kominers wanted some hard proof. For that, they turned to data from RPX Corporation, which maintains a database on NPE litigation going back to 1977. (RPX also offers its clients a novel and slightly odd solution to patent trolling: It buys patents from NPEs before they start suing others for licensing fees. RPX asserts they are not themselves patent trolls.)

Both the RPX data and other sources make it clear that NPEs are predominantly trolls, mainly because of who NPEs go after: cash-rich tech companies. Cohen, Gurun, and Kominers calculate that the likelihood of getting sued by an NPE is roughly 16 percent among companies with the most cash, roughly double the baseline rate. By comparison, the likelihood of getting sued by a practicing entity—that is, a company that actually worked to create its patents—is less than five percent. NPEs are also more likely to sue firms with small legal teams and those dealing with other lawsuits. In other words, they go after companies with the biggest wallets and the fewest available minutes.

They conveniently neglect to mention that RPX is now a powerhouse of huge ‘patent trolls’ such as IBM. Not good advice at all… this is even more useless than OIN, which was also (co-)created by IBM and was originally led by IBM staff, Jerry Rosenthal. █

Enemies of Europe: A Month After Promoting UPC in London, Benoît Battistelli and the EPO Do This in Helsinki

Posted in Europe, Patents at 8:06 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Benoît Battistelli and his attack dogs can’t help attacking Europeans and undermining EU interests

Dog attack

Summary: The US-leaning corporate occupation by Battistelli and his big corporate clients (or bosses) comes up north, approaching even Russia’s border

Benoît Battistelli and his bodyguards are going places. They’re pushing the UPC into countries that now consider quitting the EU altogether (jeopardising this entire UPC plot as a whole).

If Battistelli had to face actual citizens of Europe, he’d get nothing but rotten tomatoes. He knows that. So he’s finding clever ways to rig the debates, keeping them limited to his own choir, typically behind closed doors (or expensive entrance fees). Here is how to staff/stuff panels like the Administrative Council of the EPO (already staffed/stuffed by NPOs’ heads). Based on publicly available photos and posts, e.g. [1, 2], PATLIB 2016 was staffed/stuffed with NPOs; where’s the balancing factor? The EPO’s own propaganda was soon promoted by the EPO’s PR people, who shed light on Benoît Battistelli’s lobbying for UPC in Finland. To quote their own words (warning: epo.org link, signed by Battistelli in his blog, also promoted by his obedient PR people): “During his visit to Helsinki, the EPO President met Jari Gustafsson, Permanent Secretary of the Finnish Ministry of Economy and Employment, and representatives of major Finnish companies, including Nokia, KONE, Orion, UPN and Beneq. The industry speakers highly praised the quality of the examination work at the EPO and the progress made in the timely processing of their applications.

“The President also gave interviews to Finnish business and technology media. Here the focus was strongly on the unitary patent and on developments in the European patent system.

“In late January, Finland became the 9th country to ratify the Unified Patent Court (UPC) Agreement, which needs 13 ratifications (including France, Germany and the UK) to enter into force. The Finnish and European partners agreed that when the unitary patent arrives – hopefully at the beginning of 2017 – it will bring benefits to Finnish and other European companies, especially SMEs and universities, by offering more choice, enhanced legal certainty and simplified administration.”

The UPC would harm European businesses, including Finnish businesses [1, 2], but the EPO cares not at all about Europe’s interests. Like TTIP, it’s an effort to give large corporations (usually foreign) free reign over Europe. Recall the EPO’s controversial acceptance of patents on plants (vetoed and vigorously opposed by European authorities) and read this new article from Dr. Glyn Moody on the subject. Remember only this: the EPO is not European and it does not care what’s good for Europe. The EPO often promotes policies that directly harm Europe and it’s not an accident or a design flaw. █

You Need to Become Proprietary Software Customer (Microsoft Recommended) to Interact with the European Patent Office

Posted in Europe, Microsoft, Patents at 7:45 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Become a Microsoft client first, then the EPO will be willing to serve you…

Microsoft at EPO

Summary: The European Patent Office (EPO) continues to show technical and bureaucratic anomalies that have essentially turned it into agent of monopolisation, benefiting firms from across the Atlantic

THE EPO‘s Microsoft favouritism [1, 2, 3] was explored here before and it’s only getting worse the deeper we look. Remember the French CIO who flushes money down the toilet (not literally)? We still wish to see what kind of contract he and/or his colleagues signed with Microsoft (leaks might be imperative). We might never find out, however, for reasons that are explained below:

Financial (de-)regulation

In October Mr Battistelli submitted to the Council a document, CA/38/15, entitled “Periodical review of the Financial Regulations”. As most documents produced by the Battistelli administration it claims to increase efficiency, this time in procurement. And as with most documents produced by the Battistelli administration, its title is misleading: the document proposes the introduction of a new procurement procedure “with negotiation”, as opposed to the normal tender procedure where the requirements are set out and published in advance, i.e. the same and clear (transparent) for all potential competitors. The CA document (point 15) claims to have been “inspired” by the procedure with the same name recently introduced in the EU (Directive 2014/24/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 February 2014). The EU regulation should itself already raise eyebrows because it reduces transparency. But the EPO is taking things several steps further. In the EU the new procedure is meant as an exceptional procedure to be used only in specific defined situations. In the EPO it is meant as a full alternative to the normal open tender mechanism. We refer again to point 15 of CA/38/15 “the new procedure is applicable to all procurements below the threshold without any specific justification.“ The threshold will be one million (!) euro. The EU directive foresees that combinations of smaller lots, the value of which, if added up, reach the threshold, fall under the normal rules. CA/38/15 does not bother with such niceties. The EU directive sets out compliance audit and enforcement measures. None of these are mentioned in CA/38/15. Mere telephone conversations between an examiner and applicant require minutes to be recorded and made public. For the new up-to-one-million-euro negotiations foresee no recording, let alone publication of the negotiations. Last but not least the “efficiency” (apparently 4-6 weeks) foreseen with the new procedure is truly frightening: this hardly leaves the time forthe submission and evaluation of several serious offers. The overall impression is the Mr Battistelli has given himself the power to award direct placements of (over) one million euro at his discretion.

Battistelli’s EPO is worse than a joke. It’s structured and further optimised to mask/hide misconduct. There is no transparency and it’s easy to see why. As the old saying goes, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear, right? Well, presumably, Battistelli has a lot to fear.

Meanwhile, judging by this tweet from earlier this week, the EPO’s new Web site is causing issues for Firefox users (proprietary Web browsers of firms from the US work however). How many Free/Open Source software (FOSS) Web browsers remain usable at the EPO then? How many people who work with or for the EPO can even still use any operating system other than Windows, which comes with US back doors and is now officially malware?

Nina Milanov wrote: “I have some problems with your new web site? Don’t you support Firefox any more? IE and Chrome seem to work.”

Well, both IE and Chrome are proprietary and we suppose Milanov uses these on Windows, which is also proprietary. On numerous occasions this year I reported Web site issues (over at Twitter) to the EPO. The whole Web site is a mess and it was built using all sorts of proprietary software, so this should not be surprising (proprietary browser plugins are at times needed).

The EPO supports Microsoft like no other body in Europe, in our humble assessment. It is also hyper-sensitive about bloggers who mention this (enough to threaten them), so we urge EPO staff to leak to us any details they have about the technical relationship, never mind the well-documented nepotism. █

US Congress Should Investigate EPO and Battistelli, Not Just WIPO and Francis Gurry

Posted in America, Europe, Patents at 7:22 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

EPO is not really European (US firms rely on it), so it shouldn’t be unthinkable for the US to launch a probe

Francis Gurry
Francis Gurry. Photo source: WIPO

Summary: The US takes more and more actions against WIPO for abuses against workers, but why not the European Patent Office (EPO) as well?

EARLIER this year we mentioned Federal/US scrutiny against WIPO. Why go only as far as WIPO though?

Crucial fact to note here is that both Gurry and Battistelli (two notorious self-righteous sociopaths) competed for the same WIPO post. Members of the US Congress should investigate EPO abuses (it’s not a European body but an international one), but instead they go after WIPO ([1] below). The main difference is that EPO employs European citizens, whereas WIPO employs (and habitually abuses) US citizens, among others.

There is meanwhile a WIPO event in Geneva (Europe) and it is expected to have software patents promotion, as Benjamin Henrion noticed yesterday (Battistelli and his EPO maximalists surely would approve such a move). █

Reference/s:

  1. Citing “Toxic” Environment, US Congress Members Urge Secretary Kerry To Get UN Report On Gurry

    WIPO Director General Francis Gurry was investigated after charges were levelled by a deputy director that he wrongfully ordered DNA samples to be taken from several unknowing staff members, and that he improperly influenced a WIPO contract to steer it toward a particular businessman. The congressional members said Gurry is “engaging in a lobbying effort to prevent disclosure of the report or to have the report heavily redacted.” Redacted means sections are blacked out.

Amid French Political Actions Against EPO Management French Consulate the Target of Next Week’s EPO Staff Protest

Posted in Europe, Patents at 7:10 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Largely French management the culprit, so can French politicians correct these ills?

French consulate
French consulate area
As protests grow broader, larger venues required (Consulat Général de France à Munich above)

Summary: Next Wednesday at lunchtime staff of the European Patent Office will march to the French consulate in Munich in pursuit of labour rights, human rights etc. (not just of EPO staff but also, by extension, all staff in such unaccountable international institutions)

YESTERDAY it was announced by the staff union of the EPO that “actions [shall] continue at the European Patent Office” (the usual template), just shortly after French politicians had shown interest in the pleas of this union (we speculate there is a strategic correlation). “On Wednesday 11 May 2016,” unnamed SUEPO officials wrote (it’s highly risky identifying oneself these days), “a demonstration will take place in Munich (Germany) starting from the Kurt Haertel passage at 12.15h and ending at the French consulate.”

We have only found one instance of press coverage about it so far. It came from WIPR this morning and it provided some background as follows:

Staff members at the European Patent Office (EPO) will hold another demonstration next week, a month after nearly 3,000 workers went on strike.

According to the Staff Union of the European Patent Office, the next demo will be held on May 11.

The protest, at the EPO’s Munich branch, will start at Kurt Haertel passage, next to the EPO, at 12.15pm (local time) and end at the French consulate.

Last month, more than 2,600 staff went on strike in what an EPO source claimed was the highest number of strikers the office has seen.

According to the source, 2,078 employees were on strike for the full day, while 579 people went on a half-day strike. The total number of strikers throughout the day stood at 2,657 across the EPO’s four sites.

If thousands of workers are brave enough to go on strike in this climate of fear and intimidation by EPO management, then surely several thousands can gather in front of the French consulate (pictured above). █

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