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Posted on Thursday, 3 December, 2009 By yours truly | TOOLS: Talk or Share
TreeHugger reports that the USDA has added PETA to its list of terrorist threats. So, have we seen the last of nude fashion models in cages or slightly offensive billboards? It’s sort of akin to labeling a Koala a dangerous animal. Call PETA several things: innacurate, trite, innefective, for example, and you might be on to something, but a threat to anyone, including their intended targets, they really are not. Still, as this blog points out, “Regardless of how you feel about PETA and their tactics, they are a lawful, above-ground, national non-profit.” It seems the word terrorism means whatever you want it to anymore.
Green is the New Red: “Animal industries are quite open about their desire to use terrorism laws to keep their practices out of the public spotlight. I recently posted about the Animal Agriculture Alliance calling for federal prosecution of undercover investigators. It’s not because the investigators are violent. It is because they pose an even greater threat: educating the public.”
If it’s true that factory farming industrylobbyists are behind the listing over PETA’s supposed undercover investigations, then let’s see more of that from the organization that up until recently was about to close shop. Forget the billboards and phony publicity stunts and get on with the fact finding, and releasing.
Posted on Wednesday, 24 June, 2009 By yours truly | TOOLS: Talk or Share
I recently contacted the administrators of parliamentlive.tv to see about getting access to about five minutes of footage from a House of Commons session I wanted to include in a video project.
Being that this was a public proceeding, lacking any sort of national security concerns and having to do with the common good, I thought this should be a fairly simple process. After all, the footage is openly available on a government website. It’s already been filmed, edited and posted. Getting the raw file should be no big deal. As it turns out, however, UK Parliament keeps about as tight a control on its content as the BBC does an episode of Doctor Who.
The response I got back cautioned me that “The situation relating to the use of Proceedings of Parliament on website is very complex.” And while I could freely link to any recording on the Parliament website I wanted to, should I actually choose to host and play a clip anywhere else or combine it with a video project, “this would be possible subject to a number of conditions.”
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Posted on Tuesday, 14 April, 2009 By yours truly | TOOLS: Talk or Share
UPDATE:
Quick thought for today: Under new rules already started in Europe, UK communications service providers will be would have been required to keep records of all emails, phone calls, text messages and any other communications made online by anyone. Now what could possibly ever go wrong by letting a government to have survelliance rights over an entire population? I mean, you know, when has that ever gone wrong?
“Britain is a surveillance society and surveillance is a collaborative activity so we’re all culpable, writes Michael Pincher, who illustrates his point with a well placed Jethro Tull lyric. We have a system in which anyone can be photographed or recorded by the state and in which individuals can be prosecuted for snapping shots of police (also known as “the state”).
Police are now targeting thousands of political campaigners through electronic surveillance, and storing their details on a database, used to arrest 114 people planning a protest on power plant. No charges were filed against any of the 114 who were subjected to government eavesdropping 12 hours after their arrest (and as of this writing) and the only threat of any vandalism was alleged by E.ON, the energy company that asked the police to take action.
We leave with a quote from John Naughton: “The only thing that will stop Britain’s descent into the National Surveillance State is a change of government. Fortunately, looking at the opinion polls, we might not have too long to wait.”
Also: Nation of suspects, Watching the Detectives
We are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power to turn against our creators. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators.
