Our Orwellian Society.

We all know that the state's "secret services" work in secret, that goes without saying, so we the people never know what they are up to, what we can be sure of is that they are not working for the public at large, but working to maintain the established power structure. So the various laws covering their actions are not laid down to tell them how they will work, but to protect them should they get caught snooping where we don't believe they should. Therefore legislation covering the "secret service" will always get ever more invasive as technical abilities allow ever great surveillance, Stingray, for example. Keep the state and you keep the cancer of "secret services"  For this reason I'm not a great lover of petitions as they never remove the real threat, the state, but what they can do is help highlight the murky details and intrusive nature of the state and its cavalier attitude to our liberties.        So I sign this petition and help broadcast it, not because I think it will sort the problem of state mass surveillance, but hoping it will alert more people to the truth about the illusion of democracy and the type of secret surveillance society we live under.  This from Care 2:        It's "worse than scary": This is the UN privacy chief's response to the UK government's new Investigatory Powers Bill, also known as the 'Snoopers' Charter'. The bill means an unprecedented loss of privacy within the UK, allowing police to hack computers and phones and to turn on microphones and bug conversations. If you have a modern mobile phone you are now vulnerable to police secretly recording your conversations wherever you are. Innocent or guilty, we are now under inescapable scrutiny. Please sign this petition to demand that the government repeals the Investigatory Powers Bill. The new surveillance laws will mean that everyone's web browsing histories will be stored for 12 months, and security services will have full access to this personal data. Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group said, "it is one of the most extreme surveillance laws ever passed in a democracy." This bill is not designed to protect us, it's designed to take away our freedom. Please sign this petition to demand that the bill be repealed. If enough people sign, it will send a clear message to the UK government that the world is watching and we will not accept this stripping away of our rights. Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

An Open Internet, Or A Corporate Controlled Internet?

President Obama is holding secret meetings in Asia to ram through the TPP’s Internet censorship plan, which would force ISPs to monitor our Internet use, censor content, and remove entire websites. To fight back we need your help to project an attention-grabbing message on key buildings in Washington D.C. Tell decision-makers to stop the secretive TPP now so we can deliver the message before it’s too late.

An urgent appeal from Open Media:

      This is urgent. An Internet censorship plan is being finalized in secret meetings right now. We need all hands on deck at this crucial moment. Click HERE to learn more and speak up.

      Here’s the situation: Obama himself is in secretive meetings with key political figures and lobbyists in Asia to lock the Trans-Pacific Partnership’s Internet censorship plan into place.

We know from leaked documents that this secretive plan will censor your use of the Internet and strip away your rights.1 If finalized, this plan would force ISPs to act as “Internet Police” monitoring our Internet use, censoring content, and removing whole websites.2

     It will give media conglomerates centralized control over what you can watch and share online.

We urgently need your help to fight back. Add your voice right now and we’ll project a Stop the Secrecy message on key buildings in Washington D.C. to ensure Obama, the media, and everyone else knows this censorship plan must be stopped.

       This is huge: covering 40% of the global economy, the TPP is being called a legal “blueprint” for the rest of the world.[3] Once key leaders finalize TPP Internet censorship plans today it will be used to globalize censorship across the world. You will be affected and this may be our only chance to stop it.

        Our attention-grabbing message will shine a light on their secret plan and will make clear to Washington lobbyists that the Internet community will never accept the TPP’s secrecy or censorship. The more who speak out, the larger our projection will become, and the more people we can reach.

This is a decisive moment: we need to act right now. Join with hundreds of thousands of people all over the world to shine a light on the TPP’s job-killing Internet censorship plan. Let’s send decision-makers and the lobbyists pulling the strings a message they can’t ignore: "Stop the secrecy now."

        With every voice that is added to our call, a donor will contribute to make Stop The Secrecy projection in Washington bigger and brighter. We’ve stalled them before and we can kill this censorship plan if we act together at this critical moment. The bureaucrats and lobbyists think they can ram through this damaging binding plan behind your back and without your consent. Will you let them get away with it, John?

      Thank you for being a part of history,

     Steve, Josh, Eva, and David, on behalf of your OpenMedia.org team

      P.S., If the TPP censorship plan goes through, the Internet as we know it will change forever. We’d be left with an Internet that’s far more expensive, censored, and policed. We know we can stop this - but we need to act right now. Can we count on you to stand with us, John?

Footnotes

[1] “Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP).” Source: WikiLeaks.

[2] TPP Creates Legal Incentives For ISPs To Police The Internet. What Is At Risk? Your Rights. Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation

[3] U.S. “Bullying” TPP Negotiators Amid Failure to Agree. Source: Inter Press Service News Agency. *Note: The U.S. and the E.U. are already discussing a similar secretive agreement called "Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)". Once the TPP is finalized there will be pressure to harmonize and extend its provisions to TTIP -- meaning the E.U. There are also reports of several others countries being added to the TPP once it is finalized.

OpenMedia.org is a non-profit organization that relies on donations from people like you to operate. Our small but dedicated team ensures even the smallest contributions go a long way to make your voice heard. Please donate today.     We are an award-winning network of people and organizations working to safeguard the possibilities of the open Internet. We work toward informed and participatory digital policy. You can follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook.
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Big Brother Ain't Leaving Of His Own Accord.

        Some interesting facts about our modern day “democracy”. No matter what you do, e-mail, phone, chat on social media, walk down your main street, stand at a bus stop, walk into a bar, shop at the local supermarket, draw cash from a cash machine, you are being watched and listened to, you are being profiled. Big Brother wants to know what you are up to, who you communicate with, who you meet and where. 

        This is the extent of your freedom, this is the shape of your “democracy”. Do you believe that they are doing this for your benefit? There was the day when you could expect the “bad guys” to be followed and spied on, but in today's “democracy”, everybody is treated like the “bad guys”. Today the state sees no reason why it shouldn't poke its nose into every aspect of everybody's life, to them, everybody is a possible “bad guy” and has to be watched constantly.

       This mass surveillance, this over all scrutiny of our every action, is not going to go away anytime soon. It will only get more intrusive as technology is driven by the paranoid state, which wants total control over its citizens. The state has a constant fear that people will always strive to control their own lives and this would negate the state's existence, obviously it can't let this happen.

     If you want a free democratic society, free from constant intrusive surveillance, then it has to be a society without the state, a community based society organised from the bottom up. The only answer is a society based on co-operation, mutual aid and mutual respect, not one of power and authority.

• The NSA "has secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers around the world." — The New York Times
• The NSA "is harvesting hundreds of millions of contact lists from personal e-mail and instant messaging accounts around the world." — Washington Post
• The NSA "is gathering nearly 5 billion records a day on the whereabouts of cellphones around the world." — Washington Post
• The NSA collects the content and metadata of emails, web activity, chats, social networks, and everything else from fiber-optic cables "that carry much of the world's Internet and phone data." — Washington Post
• NSA "officers on several occasions have channeled their agency's enormous eavesdropping power to spy on love interests." — The New York Times
• NSA "is secretly piggybacking” on Internet advertisers' "cookies" and location data “to pinpoint targets for government hacking and to bolster surveillance." — Washington Post
  
  
  Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk