the daily revolution

anarcho-queer: Obama To Support Internet Surveillance...

Thu, 16 May 2013 00:46:27 -0400

Obama To Support Internet Surveillance Program

United States President Barack Obama is likely to endorse a Federal Bureau of Investigation effort that would ensure all Internet companies in the US provide a way for the government to conduct undetected, backdoor surveillance.

The FBI has been considering solutions to their so-called “Going Dark” problem as intricate methods of encryption and advances in technology have made it increasingly difficult for the federal government and law enforcement to gain access to online communications conducted in the shadows of the Web. Should the latest efforts of the FBI move forward, though, Internet companies that act as any conduit for correspondence of any kind would be heavily fined if they don’t include in their infrastructure a way for the government to eavesdrop on that dialogue in real time.

At a press conference in Washington, DC in March, FBI general counsel Andrew Weissmann said the Department of Justice was determined to have the means to wiretap any online communication by 2014 and called it “a huge priority for the FBI.” Further developments last month revealed that the FBI was considering a fine-based model under which Internet companies would be forced to comply or risk being penalized beyond repair.

On Tuesday, New York Times reporter Charlie Savage cited Obama administration officials as saying the president “is on the verge of backing” that very plan.

Savage explained that while companies would be allowed to operate without giving the government backdoor access, the fees would likely limit the number of entities willing to challenge the order. As RT reported last month, a company that doesn’t comply with the FBI’s orders would be fined $25,000 after 90 days. Additional penalties would then be tacked on every day an Internet service provider, website or other company fails to comply — with the price of the penalty doubling each day they don’t assist investigators.

On Wednesday morning, CNET reporter Declan McCullagh wrote that the Justice Department circulated memos in which they insisted that obtaining a search warrant isn’t necessary to eavesdrop on Internet communication of any sort.

“The US Department of Justice and the FBI believe they don’t need a search warrant to review Americans’ e-mails, Facebook chats, Twitter direct messages and other private files, internal documents reveal,” wrote McCullagh, citing a government documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union and provided to CNET.

In one memo unearthed by the ACLU, McCullagh said the US attorney for Manhattan instructed his office that an easy-to-obtain legal paper that requires no judicial oversight is all that’s needed to obtain personal correspondence.

“[A] subpoena — a piece of paper signed by a prosecutor, not a judge — is sufficient to obtain nearly ‘all records from an ISP,’” McCullagh wrote.

In another instance, McCullagh said the US attorney in Houston, Texas obtained the “contents of stored communications” from another ISP without getting a judge to sign a warrant.

German dialect in Texas is one of a kind, and dying out

Wed, 15 May 2013 21:40:29 -0400

German dialect in Texas is one of a kind, and dying out

Pakistanis are dying for democracy.

Sat, 11 May 2013 19:02:02 -0400

Pakistanis are dying for democracy.

Woman swims with great white shark and opines on...

Sat, 11 May 2013 14:10:00 -0400

Woman swims with great white shark and opines on humanity’s place in the ecosystem

Jill Stein - Why Capitalism is Killing the Planet - EcoSocialist...

Fri, 10 May 2013 15:31:16 -0400

Jill Stein - Why Capitalism is Killing the Planet - EcoSocialist Conference

theatlantic: How Humans Are Changing the Planet—in 7 Dramatic...

Thu, 09 May 2013 23:07:02 -0400

theatlantic:

How Humans Are Changing the Planet—in 7 Dramatic GIFs

“Much like the iconic image of Earth from the Apollo 17 mission—which had a profound effect on many of us—this time-lapse map is not only fascinating to explore,” Google Earth’s Rebecca Moore writes, “but we also hope it can inform the global community’s thinking about how we live on our planet and the policies that will guide us in the future.”

See more. [GIFs: Google/USGS/NASA/TIME]

THIS IS WATER (by SeeTheGlossary)

Wed, 08 May 2013 13:04:01 -0400

THIS IS WATER (by SeeTheGlossary)

Sitting by Theo Prins

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 19:03:50 -0400

Sitting by Theo Prins

On Writing by Stephen King. This book is a must-read for any aspiring writer.

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 13:29:00 -0400

On Writing by Stephen King. This book is a must-read for any aspiring writer.

Wow. A Japanese girl shouts out for a massacre in Tsruhashi as...

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 16:01:09 -0400

Wow. A Japanese girl shouts out for a massacre in Tsruhashi as in history. (by sylversterlo)

The Love of the Word

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 00:37:00 -0400

Watching On the Road. I remember reading the book. Back in my early twenties. It seems like there was so much romanticism surrounding writing back when it was written. You were a hero of the working man for writing then. You were a champion of The Real; a champion of Truth and What Matters in Life. Sitting here, I just realized that that’s not how it is anymore. People have so many other things to do. Unless it’s an epic fantasy trilogy, it’s not worth their time. No one cares about The Real, or Truth, or What Matters in Life. They’re not concerned with thought-frames; perspective-changing; growing as human beings; discovering the spirit. Writing is dead. Everything is politics and fantasy now. I can’t help but resent both. Something has been forgotten. It’s fallen off the truck of culture as it speeds through time. It’s lying there on the road. I think it’s something we’ll need. We need to turn around and get it.

“Soon.”

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 17:15:15 -0400

“Soon.”

Fides: I've met the Boston Bombers

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 15:01:17 -0400

Fides: I've met the Boston Bombers:

alyssalindley:

By Alyssa Lindley Kilzer

I started getting facials from Zubeidat Tsarnaeva (pronounced Zu-bey-da) six years ago when I was 17 at a spa in the Boston area. She soon after left the spa and contacted my mom to have us start coming to her house, at 410 Norfolk St., right on the line of Cambridge…

Why would you feel scared and offended just because someone says they believe 9/11 was an inside job? And what does “distinctly American” mean?

thedailywhat: Restored Faith in Humanity of the Day: New...

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 13:13:18 -0400

thedailywhat:

Restored Faith in Humanity of the Day: New Zealand Legislators Serenade Gay Marriage Amendment

Yesterday, New Zealand became the thirteenth country to legalize gay marriage after the Parliament voted 77 to 44 on an amendment to their 1955 marriage laws. Upon the formal announcement, many people in the crowd as well as a few lawmakers spontaneously burst into singing the traditional Māori love song “Pokarekare Ana.”

Photo

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 18:45:31 -0400

This is Martin Richard, the 8 year old boy who was killed...

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 17:01:17 -0400

This is Martin Richard, the 8 year old boy who was killed yesterday. He has a message for us.

Here’s where I run. Those are all bluebonnets. Texas. Fuck...

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 00:11:17 -0400

Here’s where I run. Those are all bluebonnets. Texas. Fuck yeah!

"I’m an eighty-six kilogram being walking on a habitable planet. Within me and without me, wars..."

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 04:39:00 -0400

“I’m an eighty-six kilogram being walking on a habitable planet. Within me and without me, wars are being waged; macrophages attacking pathogens while self-belief attacks self-doubt. North Korea and Syria, human beings versus jets, perhaps in both cases; dictatorship versus democracy. Who knows which side is which? What seems to be are just comforts afforded to us by adaptations to our environments. This rock we stand on soars through space, but feels still. Maybe our lives are the same way. Unknown to us, the battles that are taking place. Deadly viruses conquered by your body. Bodies conquered by deadly viral ideas. Grown up babies with walkie-talkies and heavy artillery. They want to die for the cause, they say. Reasons to live become reasons to die. We discover what it is; this life. We discover, slowly, where we fit inside of it. If Life and Death fight forever, then Life wins. But maybe ideas are worth the most. Which ones, though? It’s so political. I’ll just value Life, for now.”

bradofarrell: I didn’t want this to show up in the reblog notes...

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 03:41:01 -0400

bradofarrell:

I didn’t want this to show up in the reblog notes for this picture but I also wanted to give credit to the artist because it’s really good art. But I see this picture on my dash all the time and it’s really upsetting because it’s promoting and glamorizing behavior that is really unhealthy. It needs an additional 8 panels where they try to talk but they don’t have anything to talk about in person and they have no chemistry and they can’t kiss without it feeling weird and then it takes less than 4 hours for them to decide they’re better off being just friends.

When you talk to someone online for years and meet them for the first time in person you’re basically setting yourself up for an extremely awkward but extremely well researched blind date. Almost everything that matters in a romantic relationship is not something you can gauge by an online relationship. Things like how a person holds themselves in conversation and how they smell and how tall they are and how easy it is to hang out on the couch with them and how a solid week of hanging out together would unfold are all things you can not know from talking to someone online for years and they make up like 60% of what a relationship even is.

Pretending a relationship is “all mental” and assuming that if you get along on chat you’ll get along in person is really juvenile and unfair to yourself. Even if you’re gay. Even if you’re a sexual minority. Even if you think there is no one in your home town you can date, and even if you’re right, it’s still not smart to put all your stock into someone over the internet.

I mean it makes sense if you’re young and in high school because it doesn’t matter as much as your friendships with class mates don’t matter. But please please please don’t, like, not date people in your real life because you think you’re dating someone online or god forbid move to their city without spending several weeks with them first.

If you’re in a place in your life where you think you need to be in an online relationship the healthiest option is to tough it out until you can change your situation to the point that real life relationships are available to you. But by letting yourself fall in love with someone online (which is SUPER EASY when you don’t have to deal with the very real barrier of “chemistry”) you’re setting yourself up for this weird thing where one of you has to make a big move to live with a stranger, which is always a bad choice, or for the thing to just fizzle out anyway.

Don’t do that. Move to another city. Go to a queer bar. Meet a nice real human being.

Also I’m not going to actually argue against anyone in this post because I guarantee if you’re getting mad about reading this you’re going to realize I’m right a few hours after your awkward airport hug because I’m speaking from both personal experience and the aggregate experience of every one of my friends who’s tried to do this.

It doesn’t work, man, the internet is a venus flytrap for your heart.

Thoughts on the Creative Career (by zefrankenfriends) I...

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 03:34:00 -0400

Thoughts on the Creative Career (by zefrankenfriends)

I seriously wish someone had told me this stuff years ago, when I first started. Most of it you figure out on your own, as you pursue your craft. But I figure it’s worth reblogging (and tweeting) in case there’s someone out there just starting in their artistic pursuits.

It’s amazing to me how universal these things are. We all go through the same things and learn the same lessons. It can be a slow and painful process, but there’s nothing quite like the feeling you get… when you get it right.