According to BBC News: a US court ruled that Google must release the viewing history of YouTube users to Viacom in order to comply with copyright infringement laws. Google’s legal counsel said: “We will ask Viacom to respect users’ privacy and allow us to anonymise the logs before producing them under the court’s order.”

Apparently, privacy experts find this ruling a tad, uh, frightening:  Read more 

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

Via the Guardian, the surveillance society is going global:

"A comprehensive transatlantic pact clearing the way for the unprecedented supply of private data on European citizens to the American authorities is to be promoted by France in support of the US-driven campaign to combat terrorism and transnational crime.

The French government is expected to use its six-month presidency of the EU, starting tomorrow, to build on 18 months of confidential negotiations between Washington and Brussels aimed at clearing the complex legal obstacles to the exchange of personal information with the Americans.

The controversial proposed pact, a "framework agreement" on common data protection principles, is likely to enable the Americans to access the credit card histories, banking details and travel habits of Europeans, although senior officials in Brussels deny US reports that the Americans will also be able to snoop on the internet browsing records of Europeans."  Read more 

Have I ever mentioned how much I dislike President Sarkozy and his administration?

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog

This third part of my report from the GSA conference (part 1 and part 2 ) was truly the best, from my point of view, because it featured a speech by one of my favorite sociologists (if not THE favorite), William Robinson, of UC Santa Barbara. He is the author of what I consider the authoritative social theory book on globalization: A Theory of Global Capitalism: Production, Class, and State in a Transnational World.

In his presentation, Robinson contrasted his approach to globalization as qualitatively different phenomenon (transnationalism) as opposed to the school of thought he labeled "new imperialism." Robinson’s view of globalization involves specific features:

• the rise of truly transnational capital with integration of all countries into that system;
• the rise of the transnational state (TNS) where class power is exercised through networks and by the transnational capitalist class (TCC - especially its political / executive component);
• the development of new relations of power and inequalities on a global scale
• the increased power of the transnational corporation (TNC)

So, for the maths-oriented among us: Globalization = TNS + TNC + TCC = true transnationalism.  Read more 

Former Governor Mark White spoke about the loss. Texas authorities are looking for the perpetrator, and offering a $50K reward. (I know this is a FoxNews video; their Austin station just happened to do the best story on this, or at least so far.)  Read more 

The Supreme Court by a vote of 5 to 4 has just handed down a ruling that prisoners at Guantanamo do have a right under the U.S. Constitution, and in particular, the ruling restores habeas corpus to them, giving them the right to challenge their detention in U.S. courts. It does not specifically invalidate the entirety of the odious MCA as far as I can tell.

Need I tell you who the five and who the four were?  Read more 

from Rachael Ray’s hateful Islamic terrorist, um, scarf.

I’m not kidding. You’ve got to read this to believe it. Click on the link.

Just how ridiculous is Michelle Malkin, anyway?

I guess the only thing more ridiculous is the fact that the Dunkin’ Donuts company gave in to Malkin and took the ad down.

You know, brave defenders of the first amendment over at Dunkin’ Donuts, this sort of reaction just empowers vapid pious pompadours like Michelle Malkin to do more things like this both to get attention and to provoke a reaction.

Wow. I really don’t know what else to say.

Conflicts of Interest Within FBI By Pegging Mole Pay To Arrests?  Read more 

Cross-posted from the Global Sociology Blog

Standard Operating Procedure is a book co-authored by Philip Gourevitch (also author of the great We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow, We Will Be killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda and writer for the New Yorker) and Errol Morris (director of the great documentary The Fog of War, among others) who also directed the documentary of the same title (incredible website that is well worth checking out with tons of great information that supplement the book very well and makes you impatient for the film to be shown in your area… not yet for me, unfortunately).

The book and documentary are about the Abu Ghraib scandal, of course. We might think that we had read, seen and heard (see also the excellent HBO documentary Ghosts of Abu Ghraib) everything we could probably stomach about this sorry mess but we were wrong. Besides, as a country, we deserve to have this thing shoved in our face on a regular basis because, as the book states, this stain is our own.

And let’s remember that the story of Guantanamo Bay has not been told yet. Who knows what horrors will come out of there? (Although this post by DDay over at Digby’s place, relating how the US offered its Gitmo facilities to the Chinese for torturing purposes and the fact that we’re stuck there because we have a whole bunch of people we can neither trial - because they’ve been tortured - nor release, because, huh, who cares about their excuses anymore… seems to me there will be no end to the evils to be dug up there). And there’s more coming out every day lately: see McClatchy (one of the only decent remaining reporting outfits), the BBC, and Jeralyn at Talk Left.  Read more 

But back to the book itself.

Hi-tech face recognition cameras used in Budgens to spot underage drinkers (h/t boingboing)

A supermarket chain is introducing face recognition cameras to prevent staff mistakenly selling cigarettes and alcohol to under-18s.

So in the UK they will automatically record every face who buys cigarettes or alcohol. In the US they have started doing this electronically by swiping your drivers license in many states.  Read more 

ACLU of WV at West VA Blue

After boldly standing up to The Bush administrations’ fear mongering in February, word comes that House leadership may now be working with Senator Jay Rockefeller to possibly rush a pro-telecom amnesty bill through Congress in the next few days.

Civil libertarians in the Mountain State, say no to back room deals.

The FireDogLake community is trying to do something about this.

Just dipping into the popcorn, munching out, watching the punches fly,

Obama has begun a “Truth Police” in Indiana,

The Clinton campaign calls the group’s creation “strange.”

The “Truth Squad” includes former U.S. Rep. Tim Roemer, who represented South Bend from 1991 to 2003; state Sen. Earline Rogers, D-Gary; state House Majority Leader Russ Stilwell, D-Boonville; and former aides to former Gov. Joe Kernan, former Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson and three attorneys general.

http://www.southbendtribune.com/apps/pbc…

Their first act is to um….lambast the independent commercial that maintains that BO does not have a plan BD talks about it :  Read more 

Ok, yes I saw the Wright speech on CNN tonight. I know I saw it because I just saw another thread on corrente where Wright talked about the right-brained creative black child vs the wrong brained who-gives-a-damn white child. I thought that I had fallen asleep on the couch and dreamed that. Now I have to reconcile reality with um reality. Yes, Virginia this is 2008 not 1846.
Letting that sink in.
Wright went on to say in a tone that was as if all whites during desegregation ran and met in a big assembly room and said “we know what to do, they are right-brained creative AFRICAN children, we will desegregate thus keeping them down forever and ever!”  Read more 

all right and here are Michelle’s response to hubby

“ Because Barack Obama is the only person in this race who understands that. That before we can work on the problems we have to fix our souls. Our souls are broken in this nation.

Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual; uninvolved, uninformed.”

Houston my obama translator is not working!

Hey Barack LEAVE MY SOUL ALONE!

Obama is the hopiate of the masses—jeqal

100 Years of War in Iraq
(sung to the tune of “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall”)

100 years of war in Iraq
100 years of war
You burn it down
Down to the ground
100 years of war in Iraq

99 years of war in Iraq
99 years of war
You burn it down
Down to the ground
99 years of war in Iraq…

Continue lyrics to “zero” years of war, then begin the negative numbers*, i.e.:

Minus one year of war in Iraq
Minus one year of war
You burn it down
Down to the ground
Minus one year of war in Iraq

++++

*Two negatives make a positive. Go figure.

++++

I’m sure this may come as a shock to you, but military is hiring bloggers to work as moles, “verbally attack[ing] specific person[s] or promot[ing] a specific message.”

Wait, sorry, wrong link.

Here’s the article.  Read more 

A Classic in the “No! They Would Never Do That!” Department. He himself admits it’s not going anywhere, so beyond political points for himself locally, what is the purpose of this sort of bill? To keep people talking about it as if it were a viable, reasonable option to ’keep the children safe’ or whatever the logic is behind it:

Kentucky Representative Tim Couch filed a bill this week to make anonymous posting online illegal.
The bill would require anyone who contributes to a website to register their real name, address and e-mail address with that site.
Their full name would be used anytime a comment is posted.
If the bill becomes law, the website operator would have to pay if someone was allowed to post anonymously on their site. The fine would be five-hundred dollars for a first offense and one-thousand dollars for each offense after that.
Representative Couch says he filed the bill in hopes of cutting down on online bullying. He says that has especially been a problem in his Eastern Kentucky district.

You know our rule here at Corrente: if a Republican is trying to legislate something out of existence, it’s because they are doing it in secret. Or not so secret; I bet his ex-boyfriend threatened to out him and Couch is too dumb to have actually gotten a real name out of him before the Drama began. When will Republicans learn that Hell hath no Fury like a twink left unpaid? Never, I suppose.  Read more 

So reading some email discussions, I was reminded of the old DFH saying: the first person at the meeting to suggest violence is the plant. Time-tested, that one is. Just sayin.

Meanwhile, Terrance rants well about getting our pols to say no to more Jesusjuice in public discourse.

I hate it when I have to truncate blogging for drudgery, don’t you? Have a good one, peeps.

Admitted, in my opinion, the Clintonista will most likely do a better job than the Oborg on progressive social issues.

The Oborg are heavily influenced by the TheoCons. Yes, they’re not the kind of cross-burning TheoCons that like Paul or Huckabee or Romney. But think more of the religious values of Clarence Thomas. Or Condaleeza Rice.

Black doesn’t mean progressive. Vastleft and Lambert and everyone else in the Clinton camp, you’re correct. On that point.

Yet there are other considerations.

Robert Naiman at HuffPo:  Read more 

(Updated with a post that totally proves my point) She of 18-hour support wonders, along with the Mighty Glenn:

At last, Glenn Greenwald has gotten down to the nitty-gritty and discussed what no one is saying about the original FISA legislation that was introduced in 1977 - that it was an outrageous ceding to government of the power to violate our Constitutional right to privacy (yes, privacy) as clearly spelled out in the 4th Amendment.
…
Indeed; the most liberal position in the public discourse is this: that it’s okay to take our time on constructing a new, more invasive FISA law, because the original law will cover us adequately in the meantime. But virtually no one is arguing that no updating at all of the original law has ever been necessary (except me and a few security geeks), and no one at all is pointing out that FISA itself is and always was a bridge too far. When the authorities violate the 4th Amendment, they should be put in jail, not given greater latitude to spy on us under a legal fiction of national security.

Am I the only one who thinks that we really don’t live in a nation of laws anymore? That this whole discussion is mostly one for wonks who love detail? Because it seems to me that between the AG refusing to do his job, and the “Constitutional scholar” and “experienced lawyer-stateswoman” both wimping out on major Senate debates about the Constitution, talk like this misses the point. I’m not harshing on A or GG, christ no. But I’m asking for a better way to frame the question. Right now the Constitution is a beautiful dream, but it’s clearly not “in force.” The law of the land is: who is closer to the security-military-contractor-prison complex, me or thee? If I am, I win. If you are, you win. This rule applies in confrontation, business, “the economy,” and across most elements of the social environment. And if you have enough of a connection to the MIC, you can get away with anything, anything at all…  Read more 

It says a lot about us as a society that this show even exists. There is something truly vulgar and horrid about a people who accept pedophilia as entertainment. OTOH, it’s nothing new and pedophilia is endemic in our culture; it’s only that when people like me start pointing it out we’re labeled as ’crazy feminazis’ and ’overly sensitive freedom haters’ or somesuch. It appears no one in this story is on the side of the “good guys,” and the dollar amount guarantees that the perversion will continue, abated by our “justice” system. Meanwhile, child abuse and sex slavery are real, unaddressed issues in our society; they are horrors perpetrated by corporations, gangs and our government alike. But most of us ignore those ugly truths, in favor of self-gratifying titillation like this show. The more I think about it, the more I think this moment in American culture sums up almost everything that’s wrong with our society. We have a deep, deep sickness and it’s called “denial.” Ersatz solutions to our problems won’t help anything, and in terms of real numbers/the bottom line, they often make things worse. In this case, all this attention only encourages would-be and practicing pedophiles. In the case of things like the environment, the monetary/market meltdown or the occupation/war, the “solutions” proposed by popular politicians guarantee that we put off and also increase the price we will ultimately pay, for our current folly of unwillingness to face the full scope of those problems.

Via Digby:

Delahunt: You said if an opinion was rendered, that would insulate him from any consequences.

[Mike Mukasey, Attorney General of the United States, before the House Judiciary Committee today]: We could not investigate or prosecute somebody for acting in reliance on a justice department opinion.

…

Delahunt: If that opinion was inaccurate and in fact violated a section of US Criminal Code, that reliance is in effect an immunity from any criminal culpability.

MM: Immunity connoted culpability. [Well, is anyone culpable? -scar]

…

Delahunt: I find that a new legal doctrine. The law is the law.  Read more 

God Save the Queen! I’m sure we won’t be far behind. The original link is 404 now, but there were about a million blog posts on it, including no less than Wired’s Bruce Sterling. I found it via Helen and Harry. Heh, grrl, I’m “hungry, angry and horny” too.

Ministers are planning to implant “machine-readable” microchips under the skin of thousands of offenders as part of an expansion of the electronic tagging scheme that would create more space in British jails.  Read more 

Steven D speaks for me. We don’t do much Israel/Palestine posting here, not for lack of interest so much as the need to write about things happening right here and not enough time to cover all of it. Let this story be an example to all those who believe that walling up America will help anything or anyone other than the wall-builders.

I found the story of the “breakout” particularly tragic and heartbreaking. Women and children, desperate for food and water…a real “Wailing Wall,” no? How they “deserved” this “collective punishment” is beyond the comprehension of decent people. I imagine good people in Israel are as ashamed of their government today as I have been of mine. But I will only reserve contempt and anger for American politicians too cowardly to stand up to the Likudnik lobby. Israel is our friend, and funding this kind of oppression to the tune of billions annually is not the act of a friend. There is no freedom for anyone, not on any side of any Ghetto wall.