MEDIA ROOTS — With governments, citizens, and activists worldwide increasingly relying on the internet, the environment the internet fosters is a hotly contested issue.  Last summer, the United Nations declared that disconnecting people from the internet was a human rights violation and against international law.  Considering internet access as a human right and witnessing the vital contribution it has played in the Arab Spring and Occupy Movements, the sanctity of preserving a free and open internet, or net neutrality, can’t be understated.  Even the U.S. military recently acknowledged the critical role of cyberspace by including the digital domain in its latest concept of “full spectrum dominance.” 

As humanity’s relationship with the burgeoning information age matures, threats to a free and open internet continue to proliferate.  Indeed, when the printed press, radio, TV, and every other technological innovation, which have promised to revolutionize public access to a diversity of information, were developed, they’ve faced consolidation, monopolization, and the resultant transferences of power and control into few hands.  Now, potential predators stalk the digital realm; and they have been revealed as SOPA, PIPA and ACTA.

SOPA, PIPA and ACTA all generally share the same goals which are to ostensibly protect trademarks and intellectual property, while fending off counterfeiting and pirating.  SOPA and PIPA are U.S. pieces of legislation, while ACTA is a transnational agreement.  After recent public outcries, internet users defeated an attempt to pass SOPA and PIPA on Capitol Hill.  However, SOPA will be resurrected soon.  Meanwhile, countries around the world vigorously protest the enactment of ACTA.  What’s the significance of these acronyms on our digital routines?  Let’s break each one down individually and have a closer look.

PIPA: Protect IP Act – Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property

PIPA’s stated goal would have given the U.S. government and copyright holders additional capabilities to restrict access to websites involved in copyright infringement and the distribution of counterfeit goods.  Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) originally introduced Senate Bill 968 on May 12, 2011, but the motion to proceed with the legislation was withdrawn January 23, 2011. 

The most controversial aspect of the bill would have enabled Domain Name System (DNS) blocking and redirection.  DNS serves as the virtual yellow pages of the internet.  By blocking and redirecting DNS, this essentially tears entire pages out of the phone book, creating an incomplete version, no longer compatible with the rest of the world.  In this scenario, a simple search for a site would yield a message stating the site no longer exists. 

SOPA: Stop Online Piracy Act

SOPA (H.R. 3261) is the sister bill to PIPA in the House of Representatives.  SOPA was introduced by U.S. Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX).  Its legal aim was to provide law enforcement agencies greater online jurisdiction to prevent violation of copyrighted intellectual property and the creation of counterfeit goods. 

According to OpenCongress.org,

“This bill would establish a system for taking down websites that the Justice Department [DoJ] determines to be dedicated to copyright infringement. The DoJ or the copyright owner would be able to commence a legal action against any site they deem to have ‘only limited purpose or use other than infringement,’ and the DoJ would be allowed to demand that search engines, social networking sites and domain name services block access to the targeted site. It would also make unauthorized web streaming of copyrighted content a felony with a possible penalty up to five years in prison.”

The bill’s inherent dangers would have allowed the U.S. government and private companies to arbitrarily incapacitate websites, thus threatening freedom of speech.  Furthermore, thousands of websites would have been jeopardized based on their user-generated content, which in turn, frequently relies on copyrighted material.  Following the SOPA Blackout Day on January 18^th, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) rescinded H.R. 3261’s vote on January 24, 2012. 

This brief video offers a concise explanation of SOPA.

The battle for online freedom plows ahead, in light of a new bill originating in the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.  Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT), who chairs the Committee, is engineering the latest attempt to widely expand authority by Executive Branch departments over the internet.  The debut of this new cybersecurity bill is expected today, February 16, 2012.  Details of the cybersecurity bill have not been revealed, a result of the legislation’s crafters meeting behind closed doors.  Theories abound that the bill, which has benefited from bipartisan support, would grant the Department of Homeland Security expansive new powers to regulate and stake out the internet under the pretext of cybersecurity.  However, the persistent attempts to pass such legislation adversely impacting free speech and the flow of information must be questioned.  Large amounts of financial contributions to politicians, as well as dubious connections, may indicate that a broader agenda is at work.

Supporters of SOPA and PIPA will likely vigorously lobby for the new cybersecurity bill to be passed.  Backers of this type of legislation read like a who’s who list of Hollywood industry bosses.  From the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) to the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), major Hollywood power brokers angle to protect their interests.  A total of 161 entities have stumped for the passage of SOPA and PIPA.  Besides the MPAA and RIAA, they include the AFL-CIO, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Comcast, Disney, and Sony.  Based on some of the groups in favor, the entire matter appears to be a pet project of the Democrat Party.  This comes as no surprise when considering who the vanguard of Hollywood intellectual property has historically been.

Chris Dodd has made it his mission to crusade in Washington D.C. on behalf of Hollywood under the pretext of copyright protection legislation.  Dodd is the perfect bridge between Hollywood and the Beltway.  On March 1, 2011, Dodd was chosen as chairman of the MPAA.  On the side, he also lobbies for an organization called Creative America. 

According to Creative America’s website:

“…everyone in the community recognizes what a grave threat content theft poses to our livelihood and creativity – that thieves are making millions of dollars trafficking in stolen film and television while our jobs, pensions and residuals continue to decline.”

Some of the groups involved with Creative America include the CBS Corporation, NBC Universal, the Screen Actors Guild, Twentieth Century Fox, Viacom, and Warner Bros. Entertainment.  A simple search into Dodd’s previous career uncovers much cozier ties to D.C.

Dodd has enjoyed over three decades as a senator and has the distinction of being Connecticut’s longest serving senate member.  He’s one of the most recognizable Democratic senators of years past, with posts on the Committee on Foreign Relations, the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, and the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.  However, his post-political career has proven quite lucrative.  According to sources, Dodd rakes in a $1.5 million salary as chairman of the MPAA.  The appointment of Dodd to head the MPAA might be the biggest coup Hollywood has had in years. 

Further evidence from Dodd himself reinforces this as he threatened to cut off financial contributions from Hollywood to politicians who did not support SOPA and PIPA.  The pipeline of sizeable contributions from Hollywood going to politicians is a healthy one most on Capitol Hill would prefer to preserve.

Democrat Senator Harry Reid has also asserted himself a champion of SOPA and PIPA legislation.  He has brought various versions of the bill to the Senate floor and may be bound to three and half million vested interests to pass the legislation; Reid was the beneficiary of $3.5 million from SOPA and PIPA advocates during the last campaign cycle.  Although donations to Reid stand out by far, other elected officials supporting the legislation have received contributions, too:  Democrat Chuck Schumer ($2.6 million), Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand ($2 million), Democrat Barbara Boxer ($1.4 million), and Republican Michael Bennet ($1 million).  Clearly, millions of reasons jeopardize maintaining a free and open internet.  One of those reasons is another piece of little known legislation, called ACTA.

ACTA: Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement

ACTA protests have flashed across Europe over recent weeks.  Anti-ACTAvists have sprung up from the Netherlands to Germany to Poland and many other countries throughout Europe.  The contentious nature of ACTA attempts to normalize an international legal framework that enforces intellectual property rights, but also endeavors to target counterfeit goods and even generic medications.  On October 1^st, 2011, Australia, Japan, Canada, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, and the United States signed the agreement.  At the start of 2012, the European Union and 22 of its member states ratified ACTA, bringing the total signatories to 31. 

Battle lines have been drawn and two organizations are standing toe to toe—the MPAA and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).  According to the EFF, “[…] copyright industry rightsholder groups have sought stronger powers to enforce their intellectual property rights […] to preserve their business models.”  This sentiment essentially drives to the heart of the debate, one which also includes SOPA and PIPA.  Those opposed to restricting the internet view these efforts as a veiled and desperate attempt at trying to preserve an atrophying business model, being rendered obsolete by the age of digital file sharing.  This sentiment has galvanized many who sense that the true reason the public digital domain is under siege is in attempts to undermine free speech and democracy.  Due to what’s at stake, emotions have run high.  U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) has called it “more dangerous than SOPA.”  Popular opinion likely agrees with Issa, but is the truth harder to discern?

A lot of misinformation swirls around ACTA.  The hacktivist group Anonymous shares some of the blame.  A popular video produced by the amorphous, hacktivist collective shines light on ACTA’s pitfalls.  But is the hit piece video accurate?  According to ArsTechnica.com, there are four dubious claims that Anonymous makes:  ISPs will monitor all your data packets, ACTA obliges its member countries to assent to the worst features of SOPA and PIPA, generic drugs will be banned and seeds will be controlled via patents, and ISPs will be constantly required to scour their servers for even the smallest bits of copyrighted material.  The Anonymous video, which includes a qualifying disclaimer at the outset, has been widely embedded in articles online and reached nearly one million views.  Anonymous noted, “This video may not reflect the recent changes within the ACTA text.  However, it will give you an idea of what ACTA is about and why the internet should fight it.”  And, of course, after sorting any conflicting claims, ACTA still deserves a thumbs-down verdict.  We also bear in mind internet censorship, freedom of speech restrictions, loss of net neutrality, domestic surveillance, and civil rights erosions and police state repression have already been ongoing issues plaguing the U.S.  ACTA would simply codify existing repressive policies for people in the U.S. under the pretext of opposing counterfeiting.

ACTA is a poorly crafted agreement and simply bad.  ACTA’s basic criticisms are threefold:  the agreement’s designers are not democratically elected nor accountable, the ACTA negotiations were held in secret, and there was no discussion held in a public forum.  ReadWrite Enterprise does a fine job laying out ten reasons why ACTA fails.  Furthermore, even though ACTA probably won’t change U.S. law, it would lock us into a constrictive legal space in an area of law that changes rapidly.  Much like activists around the world can now respond more quickly to police brutality and government tactics of repression thanks to the internet, file sharing enthusiasts are finding new ways to circumvent internet censorship just as quickly.

The Internet Can’t Be Bound and Gagged

Already the hive mind of the internet has developed a solution to undercut potential censorship attempts.  Many people are unaware the internet exists similarly to an iceberg; only a small portion of it is visible to the average user.  A significant amount of the internet lies hidden in an area called the deep web.  The deep web lies obfuscated to the armchair web surfer due to an inability to access it by simply typing it into a search engine and accessing it.  For example, the deep web does not employ the use of meta tags or DNS and blocks search engines, among other characteristics, making navigation there challenging.  In this secretive environment, hackers have been diligently working on a new protocol called Tribler.

Tribler works in a similar fashion to other BitTorrent clients except that when search results are produced, they aren’t procured from a central index, rather they are directly produced from other peers.  According to TorrentFreak,

“Downloading a torrent is also totally decentralized. When a user clicks on one of the search results, the meta-data is pulled in from another peer and the download starts immediately. Tribler is based on the standard BitTorrent protocol and uses regular BitTorrent trackers to communicate with other peers. But, it can also continue downloading when a central tracker goes down.”

This type of decentralized structure would allow users to create ‘channels’ amongst themselves and make Tribler an indomitable force, making neutralization by censors extremely difficult.  Tribler will make it “impossible to shut down unless the whole Internet goes down with it.”  This will come as excellent news to millions of people witnessing attempts to stifle internet freedom with ACTA, SOPA, PIPA, and ongoing attacks on net neutrality. 

The race to control the internet rages on, but developments like this beg the question:  Does the internet adapt and evolve too quickly for elected officials to harness it?  This brings to mind Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner.  Some things can just never be caught.  However, U.S. voters continue to support the two-party system, which continually abandons them whilst representing corporate interests.  Time will tell.

Written by Adam Miezio for Media Roots

Photo by Flickr user DonkeyHotey

MEDIA ROOTS — Freddie Mac, aka the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, is one of America’s largest mortgage-insurance companies, chartered in 1970 by the federal government “to provide liquidity, stability and affordability to the U.S. housing market.”  However, the mortgage giant recently invested $5 billion in complex securities that pay when mortgage holders are unable to refinance and take advantage of the current record-low interest rates, effectively betting against U.S. homeowners. 

If Freddie Mac’s declared corporate mission is to make it “easier for consumers to afford a decent house or apartment,” then why is the company profiting from U.S. homeowners’ inability to refinance and reduce interest rates on their mortgages?  These investments constitute a clear conflict of interest, particularly since Freddie Mac also determines which homeowners are eligible to refinance.  Freddie Mac is essentially betting that homeowners will not be approved to refinance at lower interest rates, and meanwhile, creating new regulations, restrictions, and fees to limit eligibility, which a Federal Reserve paper qualified as “difficult to justify.”

Following the subprime mortgage crisis and a taxpayer-funded government bailout of over $200 billion, Freddie Mac, along with fellow GSE Fannie Mae (aka the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation), were taken over by the U.S. Government and placed into conservatorship under the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) in September 2008, an agency created under Bush.  The FHFA is, therefore, responsible for overseeing and regulating the lenders’ business practices.  However, recent reports of these unsavory transactions by NPR and nonprofit newsroom ProPublica raised the question of whether the FHFA’s interest is to help U.S. homeowners, or simply to ensure the companies’ financial success. 

Indeed, Catherine Austin-Fitts, former Assistant Secretary of Housing and Federal Housing Commissioner, has described collateral fraud in the housing market contributing to the 2007 housing bubble collapse and economic meltdown of 2008:

“It’s funny how few people need to be involved [to enable this level of fraud], particularly when you’re hiding behind the Federal credit.  So, if you’ve got control in the right places at Fannie, Freddie, and FHA, particularly, through the systems.  It’s a surprisingly few people.  What you do need is for everybody in 3,100 [U.S.] Counties involved in real estate to just shut up.  So, for example, you saw appraisers who knew that the appraisals were just, you know, going out of control and made no sense.  And if you had an appraiser who wouldn’t play ball, he’d kind of be dealt with.  So, you had this sort of five to ten percent who objected to the corruption and would try and do something and would be dealt with in a variety of ways.  But what you needed was for everybody to just play along and not ask questions.”

Today, some in Congress are asking a few questions about Fannie and Freddie, but will that be enough to protect the public interest?  Republican Senator, Johnny Isakson, of Georgia said, “We have a situation that’s obviously, at best, unsavory and, at worst, immoral.”  Democrat Senator Barbara Boxer argued, “They’re actually, in my view, turning against their mission.  And I truly blame the regulator here, Mr. DeMarco, because he had to approve this instrument.”  Notably, both stop short of questioning legality.

In response to allegations of conflict of interest, FHFA Director Edward DeMarco responded that the investments, known as inverse floaters, were “in the class of normal business transactions” and he is “completely puzzled at the notion that something immoral went on here.”  FHFA regulators maintain that a “firewall” separates the investment portion of Freddie Mac from the regulatory branch, which creates rules that make it difficult for homeowners to refinance.  The Inspector General of the FHFA is conducting an “open evaluation on capital markets, which encompasses this issue.”  The investments have drawn some scrutiny from members of Congress.  And the Senate is holding a hearing today on Capitol Hill to question Freddie Mac’s investment practices.

The current situation with Freddie Mac’s dubious investments in inverse floaters brings to mind the housing crisis caused by the breakdown of credit default swaps and the mortgage-backed securities they insured, which caused millions in the U.S. to lose their homes through foreclosure, often with rushed robo-signing, through threats and intimidation, particularly in immigrant communities, and without being able to provide appropriate documentation.  For example, Wells Fargo, which profits from private prisons housing entire immigrant families, has been linked with also targeting immigrant families to force them out of their homes and expedite foreclosures.

Ultimately, mortgage companies like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae essentially granted bad loans, often predatory loans, and bet that borrowers would default.  Now that mortgage interest rates have dropped, Freddie Mac, a government-controlled, taxpayer-owned company, has chosen to deny homeowners lower interest rates, once again putting profits before people, and betting against U.S. homeowners.  If the American Dream is in fact dead, then it’s corporate greed enabled by political corruption that killed it.

Written by Noelle Giambalvo Bortolai for Media Roots

Photo by Flickr user Mike Licht

“The President, Vice President, and all civil officers of the United States shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Article II, Section 4, U.S. Constitution

MEDIA ROOTS – Those who feel there is something terribly wrong with the influence of the federal government today must not revert to placing blame on a single party.  Attention must be shifted instead to the bigger picture: the actual offices that are now predominantly owned by the corporate elite.  While some individuals are occasionally elected to legitimately serve their constituents, most are obedient to only those with access to money and power.  The most powerful political office on Earth is of no exception.

Twenty-Five Years of Impeachment Attempts Stop with Obama

There have consistently been attempts made by members of Congress to initiate impeachment hearings for each of the previous four presidential administrations.  President Reagan’s involvement in the Iran Contra affair led to a congressional inquiry in the summer of 1987, while both Presidents George H. W. and George W. Bush unlawfully declared war with Iraq, among other charges, which resulted in separate calls for impeachment.  Even President Clinton was accused of having illegally accepted campaign funds from foreign sources months before anyone heard of Monica Lewinsky.

However, today’s Commander-in-Chief does not face investigation from any legislative representative and there are no real calls to impeach from the mainstream press.  To the utterly disillusioned, this could signify that America has finally elected an honest leader.  But to those who are more attentive, it is apparent that something else must be protecting President Obama from public scrutiny.

It is a constitutional paradox to believe that President Obama remains fit to preside as President of the United States.  After enslaving future taxpayers by endorsing corporate bailouts, continuing unlawful occupations and covert warfare in sovereign nations, and signing the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 into law which may suspend Americans’ most basic constitutional privileges, this president continues to operate unchecked in an unbalanced system.  Only those who are ignorant of the Constitution, and the oath taken to defend it, continue to approve of Obama’s job performance.  The impeachment of President Barack Obama is now supported by over a million petition signers online.

Why No Calls for Obama’s Impeachment?

Phillip II, King of Macedon and father of Alexander the Great, is credited with coining the phrase “divide et impera.”  Literally defined as “divide and rule,” modern society has adapted the colloquialism to “divide and conquer.”  All masters since Alexander the Great have understood that to maintain superiority, divisions must be fostered among the masses; increased divisions lead to increased dominion.

Race has always been a natural divider of peoples along with age and gender.  Contemporary divisions also include specific political priorities to further separate individuals which might otherwise unite.  In America, items such as abortion, gay marriage, and stem cell research have been used by corporate media to protect a corporate government and maintain corporate control.  It has become increasingly clear during the recent GOP debates that the media establishment continues to avoid discussing real issues such as those concerning the military-industrial complex.

Political partisanship might be the primary contributor for the lack of impeachment proceedings in this presidency.  A recent poll revealed that the majority of Democrats continue to support the President despite his continual disregard for the Constitution.  But with nine out of ten Republicans disapproving of who has been called the most polarizing president in American history, the question remains: why have there not been any attempts made to push for his removal?

An Intellectually Removed American Populace

The mainstream press, historically referred to as America’s fourth branch of government for their duty to hold the other three accountable, seems to increasingly ignore its moral compass.  While individual reporters and editors may attempt to seek justice, the fact remains that nearly all major outlets are controlled by executives whom possess virtually no interest in the advancement of democracy.  Profits supersede duty, resulting in an establishment that is seemingly no longer held accountable.  This leaves a citizenry that is either naïve or desensitized to the criminalities of the federal government.

The conglomeration of mass media outlets by the same corporate interests that fund political campaigns might be why there have not been many journalistic investigations into the largest atrocities of this generation.  Particularly during times of war, the Commander-in-Chief must be held under the microscope.  Because of the revolving door between the corporate media and the federal government, American society remains splintered, uninformed, and disenfranchised.

While the impeachment of President Obama will most likely not occur before the end of this year, his re-election is of popular debate.  His flagrant criminal acts are not only on par with those of President George W. Bush, his continuations and escalations of Bush-era policies are reasons why President Obama must not be re-elected.

Oskar Mosquito is a contributing writer for Media Roots and a producer for truth-march.

Photo by Flickr user Allesio85.

MEDIA ROOTS — How does one determine when one’s society becomes unfree?  A society loses its freedoms not in one fell swoop, but in a slow and systematic erosion of successive legislation.  Like Charles Sullivan’s proverbial frog brought to a slow boil in a pot, the loss of freedom can easily go unnoticed until it’s too late.  Perhaps chattel slavery simply morphed into wage slavery and creeping fascism.

Naomi Wolf’s ominous Letter of Warning to A Young Patriot rings eerily true, as we witness the shredding of the U.S. Constitution and our human rights, by both the Republican and Democrats perpetually elected to office. 

On the first of December, the Senate turned up the burner by passing Senate Bill S. 1867, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), co-sponsored by Republican Senator John McCain and Democrat Senator Carl Levin, which effectively suspends your Constitutional right to habeas corpus, a legal principal dating back a thousand years guaranteeing individuals the right to appear before a court of law and be provided with the body, or corpus, of evidence against them justifying their detention.  A detainee must be provided with the body of evidence for which they are being held.  If a court is unable to determine sufficient cause, per writ of habeas corpus, is duty-bound to order the individual be freed.

Obama went into immediate damage control mode when the S.1867 scandal broke– early on it was reported that President Obama would veto the NDAA if it passed the House and Senate. 

Then, in a disturbing revelation, Senator Carl Levin stated on the floor that it was Obama himself who insisted on the ‘indefinite detention’ wording within the NDAA.  One Forbes analyst notes, “the law as written is entirely too vague.”  Predictably, the Obama Administration dropped the veto threat and indicated that Obama would sign off on the NDAA the following week.

On Saturday, New Year’s Eve, Obama quietly signed the NDAA with the “truly pernicious” provision for arbitrary indefinite detention of any person anywhere on the planet.

According to the ACLU:

“While President Obama issued a signing statement saying he had “serious reservations” about the provisions, the statement only applies to how his administration would use the authorities granted by the NDAA, and would not affect how the law is interpreted by subsequent administrations.”

This sets a ghastly precedent for the Executive role and Wall Street marionettes to further abuse human rights.  Every future president will now have this power.  Thanks, Obama.

S. 1867’s provisions authorize the Executive to activate the U.S. Military within the U.S. borders to conduct domestic ‘terror’ investigations and detain U.S. citizens on U.S. soil indefinitely without a hearing, so long as the government arbitrarily deems them a terrorist threat.  This, essentially, codifies practices already being perpetrated by U.S. forces under pretext of national security and further obliterates the Posse Comitatus Act against activating the U.S. Military against its own people.   

Constitutionally, the writ of habeas corpus may only be suspended per the Constitution, or Congress, in the case of an open rebellion or an invasion of the nation by enemy forces.  These martial exceptions are intended to be used in rare circumstances, in which the well-being of the nation is under immediate threat.

S. 1867 construes the rules of exception in a way that makes them unexceptional. The decade-long War on Terrorism is a war on a tactic, making who might or might not be a threat to national security ambiguous and open to interpretation by those in power.

Denying citizens their most basic rights, such as the writ of habeas corpus, is a move that comes when those in control are especially frightened.  The last time it was suspended, 70 years ago, was in the wave of paranoia following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941, in which Asian Americans were tragically detained in Japanese Internment Camps.

We are committing a crime against ourselves by legislating the militarization of society and suspension of basic rights.  On this path, the Bill of Rights as the bedrock of US liberty is on its way to being fully cooked.

Obama’s new campaign slogan for 2012 should be “HOPE… you don’t get indefinitely detained!“

Written by Joel Hersch, Felipe Messina and Abby Martin for Media Roots

Photo by flickr user Bob Jagendorf

MEDIA ROOTS — Felipe Messina of Media Roots spoke with RT about the Occupy Movement and what it’s trying to achieve with the West Coast Port Shutdowns and ILWU rank-and-file solidarity, and peaceful direct action as well as the East Coast Goldman Sachs Shutdowns, on Monday, December 12, 2011.

MR

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RT speaks with Felipe Messina of Media Roots about the West Coast Port Shutdowns.