Why drug testing of welfare recipients is a bad idea

On July 1st, Florida will become the first state to begin mandatory drug-testing of welfare recipients. While at first glance this may seem to be a great idea, really it is an appeal to emotional rhetoric and typical knee-jerk reaction by the public which sells this bill. Under closer scrutiny, the public would see that this is a terrible idea, more bureaucracy, more government control, with no net gain for the public at large or the taxpayer. So let us look at the reasons, point by point, why drug testing of welfare recipients is actually a very bad idea.


Cost effectiveness

It's not. Plain and simple. The biggest reason that people are supporting this new law is that they believe there will be a major savings to the taxpayer by kicking a bunch of people off of welfare. Even if there were a savings, the voter must make an erroneous assumption that any such savings would grant them any tax relief in the first place or that the money would then be spent on “people who really need it.” But more to the point, this program will be enormously expensive and yet another huge burden on the taxpayers. A Congressional committee found that drug-testing government employees, would cost $77,000 for each positive drug test in 1992 dollars. Is it really worth spending somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred-grand, just to catch one drug user who may be getting twelve-grand a year in benefits?

According to some sources, drug tests may run as high as $75 per test. The average is expected to land around $42 per test. With 100,000 people on the welfare rolls in Florida, you are looking at a cost of $4.2 million to test everyone once a year for the 420. An expense that the very poorest people of the state will be expected to pay up-front, and then be reimbursed later if they pass the drug test. Of course, the cost of the tests are only the tip of the iceberg too, as all of this information will now have to be digested by the welfare bureaucracy. It would probably be conservative to estimate that the true cost might be three times the cost of the actual test itself, when you consider all the different social workers who will have to check and double check the paperwork, meet with recipients, speak with clinics, etcetera. A red-tape nightmare with a very hefty price tag. And for what? Arizona has also considered such a law. They projected they would save a measly $1.7 million by kicking people off of welfare. That is a net loss of $2.5 million to the taxpayer by comparison. And that is of course, if each person were only tested once per year.


Cronyism, Politics for Profit

That net loss by the taxpayer is a gross gain for the drug testing companies. As it turns out, Florida's governor Rick Scott co-founded and owns 70% of Solantic, the company that will be doing the drug-testing on welfare recipients.



False-positives

There is substantial risk that people will test positive for drugs even if they did not take any drugs. A “blank” false-positive, or one that would have come up positive regardless of what the specimen actually contained runs about 5-6%, even if it were distilled water. When you add to that the fact that things like poppy-seed buns, or Mountain Dew can trigger a false-positive, the rate increases to about 15%. Not to mention people who are taking prescription medications. Some sources indicate false-positive rates can run as high as 1 in 2. So there we will see 15-50,000 innocent people kicked off of welfare for using drugs, when in fact they were not drug users at all. A first offense will mean that the applicant can no re-apply for one year. A subsequent failure would bar the applicant from re-applying for another three years.

Will a second test be granted, and at who's expense, to re-test to insure that a false positive was not returned? Double-testing would of course double the cost to $8.4 million. But even granting a second test in an attempt to offset false-positives does not guarantee that innocent people will not by kicked off of welfare, leaving them and their kids to starve in the streets.

You can check out a huge list of substances that will return a false postitive at the link below this quote from AskDocWeb...

What is a false positive? It is a test result that is returned when a substance tests positive for another compound. It is a case of mistaken identity. For example if you eat a couple poppy seed cakes before testing, you can get a positive result for opiates.

The chances of you getting a false positive depends on the quality of the laboratory that does the testing. There seems to be about 1,200 of these labs in the United States currently testing for drugs. Less than a 100 of these meet federal standards and most of the individual states do not regulate drug test labs. The number of false positives returned range from 4% to over 50%, depending on the lab.

A concern here is that, if your company tests for drug usage, they are probably not required to use a certified drug testing lab, which means you have a greater chance of getting a false positive.

http://www.askdocweb.com/falsepositives.html

Ineffectiveness of drug testing, and substance bias

The truth is, drug-testing is actually a very ineffective way of uncovering substance abuse and addiction, especially when done randomly or sporadically. To even hope to be effective, recipients would have to be tested once a month or more. For a whopping total of $50.4 million a year cost to the taxpayer for the tests alone, and now triple that to guess what it will actually cost to process those results through the bureaucracy of Social Services.

Alcohol abuse is probably the most prevalent substance abuse problem in our society today, but welfare cannot test for that for two reasons. Firstly, because alcohol is not illegal and secondly, because it processes out of the system so quickly, unlike marijuana which can stay in the system for up to 30 days. Even the casual user can have lingering traces in the system for 10-13 days. Which makes pot smokers the real target of this witch-hunt among welfare recipients. Not drunks, and not even crack-heads or heroin junkies or meth freaks, since those substances only take a matter of hours to filter out of the system. So Florida is going to spend all of this money to catch pot-heads, while likely turning addicts toward harder, more dangerous drugs which are not so easily detected.

Even with just the pot-heads though, how effective will the testing be? Pot smokers have been getting around drug tests for years, with various methods, including elixirs that can be purchased at you local head-shop or online. I'm sure there are similar tricks available for any drug user. More complex tests will only cost even more money. So clearly, many people who are on welfare and doing drugs will never be detected despite the many many millions that will be spent searching for them.


Stigmatizing the poor

There is a false notion in our society today that people on welfare are there as a matter of choice. While there are certainly examples of people who lie and abuse the system, those instances are much more rare than we are led to believe. Again we can take drug abuse as an example. The popular notion is that most people who are poor and on welfare are drug addicts who simply don't want to work. The facts do not support this notion however. Before Michigan's drug testing of welfare recipients was struck down as un-Constitutional, they found that only 3% of recipients were using hard drugs such as cocaine or methamphetamine. That rate is about in line with the general population showing clearly that there is no rampant drug abuse among the poor and disenfranchised. Indeed, another study found that 70% of all drug users in the U.S. were between 18-49 and employed full-time.

Now some might say that if they are employed they have the “right” to do drugs. But by that logic, one must assume that their drug use will not affect their job and finances to the point that they might wind up on welfare in the end thanks to their drug abuse. Which then of course brings up the entire moral basis of even having welfare in the first place.

(Here is an excellent short film about the realities of poverty. It is a little dated in the statistics, but you will get the gist of it anyway I'm sure... )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YYG-f3qYE8



Morality

We as a society have seen fit to put money aside to help our fellow countrymen in their time of need. “Blame” is something that can be thrown around all the livelong day, but at the end of the day we still see a person in dire need of assistance for the basic necessities of life, regardless of the reasons why or how they got there, which more often than not is the result of our nation's terminally flawed economic policy, rather than personal choices. Does that need simply disappear because someone is battling with addiction? Or was their drug addiction necessarily the cause of their economic straits in the first place? Certainly not. As we just noted above, the stigma attached to the poor in regards to drug use is false.

Regardless, it is probably the addict who is most in need of assistance, as much as anyone else suffering from some debilitating disease. Should we kick a homeless vet off of welfare because he chose to join the Army and go to Afghanistan where his legs got blown off? Absolutely not. So we see that choices, mistakes, or anything of the sort is actually irrelevant to the moral question of whether or not a drug user should be given welfare benefits. We do in fact, have a moral obligation to help even the most wretched creatures among us, and the most destitute, regardless of how they got there or what their condition is today.



Forcing the hand is illogical

Simply put, you cannot force people to be, or to do what you believe they should be doing or who you think they should be. All too easy to judge someone else without having walked a mile in their moccasins. There is a long list of medical associations who oppose mandatory drug testing and treatment for any number of reasons.

American Public Health Association, National Association of Social
Workers, Inc., National Association of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse
Counselors, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, National
Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, Association of Maternal and
Child Health Programs, National Health Law Project, National Association
on Alcohol, Drugs and Disability, Inc., National Advocates for Pregnant
Women, National Black Women’s Health Project, Legal Action Center,
National Welfare Rights Union, Youth Law Center, Juvenile Law Center,
National Coalition for Child Protection Reform.

http://www.aclu.org/files/FilesPDFs/marchwinskiamicusbrief1_22_01.pdf

But perhaps the most glaringly obvious reason is that the addict must want to get better. Forcing someone into the streets, starving them, forcing them into a rehab program that they have no interest in is counterproductive and only compounds the addicts justification for their addiction. It will not make them better, it will not help them to become a productive member of society, it will not address the reasons why the addict turned to substance abuse in the first place.

Instead, the end result of forcing the hand will be an increase in criminality as these addicts will only become more desperate than ever. So we can pay to give addicts the basic necessities of life while they try to find their way to their own destiny and hopefully a moment of clarity where they might recover and once again be productive members of society. Or, we can pay to house and feed them in prisons after they have robbed or killed you or someone you love. Keep in mind too, that the U.S. already has the largest prison population in the world, housing a full 25% of the total global prison population.


Constitutionality

Now we come to the very bedrock of what it means to be an American citizen, with the promise of liberty as prescribed by the Founding Fathers in our beloved Constitution. In 2003 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in the case of Marchwinski v. Howard ruled that the state of Michigan's policy for mandatory drug testing for welfare recipients violated our Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure.

Some have argued that if we can be drug-tested at work, then the government has the right to drug-test welfare recipients. Again though, this is an illogical apples and oranges comparison. Aside from my own personal opinion that even employers should not be able to test workers without cause, a private company or employer is not the government. You have a choice to go work somewhere else. You have the choice to boycott the company that drug tests their employees. Granting the government this power over all the people of this country is a very dangerous precedent.

It is important to keep in mind here, that this isn't just about welfare recipients. This is about the balance of power between government intrusion into our own personal lives and liberty. This is about your rights, not just the rights of some pot-head buying Doritos with food stamps. You never know when you might be in need of welfare or some other public assistance of some kind. Indeed, this sentiment is echoed by U.S. District Court Judge Victoria Roberts when she ruled ruled that the state's rationale for testing welfare recipients...

“...could be used for testing the parents of all children who received Medicaid, State Emergency Relief, educational grants or loans, public education or any other benefit from that State.”

The ACLU adds...

Indeed, any of the justifications put forth to subject welfare recipients to random drug testing would also by logical extension apply to the entirety of our population that receives some public benefit and/or that is a parent. It is clear that our constitution – and common sense – would object to the random drug testing of this large group of people, making the drug testing of an equally absurd category of people – welfare recipients – unconstitutional as well.

We can even take it a step further and see that the government might use such a precedent to shove us down a slippery slope where you would have to pay for and submit to a drug test for any transaction at the DMV, or any time you are arrested, ticketed, even questioned by police. And then how long before it gets to the point where the government begins drawing blood from whoever they please, and profiling your DNA? How long then before you are forced to be implanted with a government chip that tracks your every movement and every word you say?

Sound far-fetched? If you had told me ten years ago that the government would be molesting children at airports under the guise of looking for bombs I would have told you that you were insane. And I am the police-state conspiracy nut. You can bet that if this is allowed to stand in Florida, the government will use that precedent to get into your life in ways you never imagined.

In conclusion, it is my humble opinion that rather than finding new and clever ways to fuck over the poor, they need to start finding ways to do more to help the poor. Namely, creating more jobs and better paying jobs. The government needs to take responsibility for their failures, rather than spending even more tax dollars to try to sweep the problems under the carpet. There is no reason why in the richest, most powerful country in the world anyone should want for the most very basic necessities of life, no matter who they are.

“There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.”

-James Madison

"What good fortune for governments that the people do not think." -Adolf Hitler

For further consideration:

Economic Bill of Rights

Unemployed forced to clean subways

Prison labor re-education camps for welfare recipients 

Cellphone providers now required to transmit government propaganda

As with all technology, this looks like yet another double-edged sword. On the one hand, I might like to be provided with news about emergency events and other alerts, via cellphone. Forcing me to receive those alerts however (and attaching a hidden cost to my cellphone service in the process) is not something I am comfortable with. And really, what better way to corral the masses into certain mindsets at a certain given time, to the point of even literally driving their physical movements within a city?

Emergency officials will soon be able to blast critical alerts to anyone with a cell phone in a certain section of the city.


If Times Square needs to be evacuated because of a bomb threat or if a hurricane is bearing down on Queens, warnings will be bounced from cell towers.

NY Daily News

Not only will I be forced to get these alerts, but these alerts will interrupt your service and whatever task you might be performing (data, voice call, text, etc.) in order to get these alerts. The crying wolf amber alert system may be something that someone might be interested in getting updates from, but I sure as hell don't want whatever important call I may be on to be dropped simply so that I can be notified of another custody battle gone wild.

Also from the Daily News Article...

The messages, including urgent blasts from the President, information on imminent threats and Amber Alerts about missing children, will supercede all other phone traffic so they won't be stalled or delayed.

While the mainstream media outlets such as the Associated Press and CBS have touted this latest government intrusion into our lives as something beneficial, with catchy little quotes/soundbytes from the likes of NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg who said this is a "quantum leap forward in using technology to help keep people safe," I prefer the counterspin reporting of infowars.com who reported...

It’s not enough the government and its corporate media propaganda tool commandeer the television and radio with phony terror alerts and incessant nonsense about Muslim miscreants who are inspired by FBI agents provocateurs to talk about terrorism.


Soon it this propaganda will reach out to your cell phone. It will be mandatory to receive this propaganda.


CBS and the AP report today that next year the government will mandate all new cell phones will be required to have a chip that receives government propaganda and fear-mongering. Many smart phones already have technology easily commandeered by the state. Government propaganda will supersede all other calls.


Carriers AT&T and Verizon say they will implement the technology. Eighty-five percent of Americans over 18 own a cell phone.


Following the debunked Osama death raid, the government announced it will alert the public to emergencies via cell phones. The Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Emergency Management Agency said the system will warn people about terrorist attacks, natural disasters or other emergencies.


The new system will be in place in New York City and Washington by the end of the year and in cities across the country by the end of next year, according to CBS New York.


In addition to Amber Alerts and warnings of imminent doom from terrorists who hate us for our freedom, the system will send out “urgent blasts from the president,” according to the New York Daily News.

This article compiled by station.6.underground.

Cellphone providers now required to transmit government propaganda

As with all technology, this looks like yet another double-edged sword. On the one hand, I might like to be provided with news about emergency events and other alerts, via cellphone. Forcing me to receive those alerts however (and attaching a hidden cost to my cellphone service in the process) is not something I am comfortable with. And really, what better way to corral the masses into certain mindsets at a certain given time, to the point of even literally driving their physical movements within a city?

Emergency officials will soon be able to blast critical alerts to anyone with a cell phone in a certain section of the city.


If Times Square needs to be evacuated because of a bomb threat or if a hurricane is bearing down on Queens, warnings will be bounced from cell towers.

NY Daily News

Not only will I be forced to get these alerts, but these alerts will interrupt your service and whatever task you might be performing (data, voice call, text, etc.) in order to get these alerts. The crying wolf amber alert system may be something that someone might be interested in getting updates from, but I sure as hell don't want whatever important call I may be on to be dropped simply so that I can be notified of another custody battle gone wild.

Also from the Daily News Article...

The messages, including urgent blasts from the President, information on imminent threats and Amber Alerts about missing children, will supercede all other phone traffic so they won't be stalled or delayed.

While the mainstream media outlets such as the Associated Press and CBS have touted this latest government intrusion into our lives as something beneficial, with catchy little quotes/soundbytes from the likes of NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg who said this is a "quantum leap forward in using technology to help keep people safe," I prefer the counterspin reporting of infowars.com who reported...

It’s not enough the government and its corporate media propaganda tool commandeer the television and radio with phony terror alerts and incessant nonsense about Muslim miscreants who are inspired by FBI agents provocateurs to talk about terrorism.


Soon it this propaganda will reach out to your cell phone. It will be mandatory to receive this propaganda.


CBS and the AP report today that next year the government will mandate all new cell phones will be required to have a chip that receives government propaganda and fear-mongering. Many smart phones already have technology easily commandeered by the state. Government propaganda will supersede all other calls.


Carriers AT&T and Verizon say they will implement the technology. Eighty-five percent of Americans over 18 own a cell phone.


Following the debunked Osama death raid, the government announced it will alert the public to emergencies via cell phones. The Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Emergency Management Agency said the system will warn people about terrorist attacks, natural disasters or other emergencies.


The new system will be in place in New York City and Washington by the end of the year and in cities across the country by the end of next year, according to CBS New York.


In addition to Amber Alerts and warnings of imminent doom from terrorists who hate us for our freedom, the system will send out “urgent blasts from the president,” according to the New York Daily News.

Internet Security vs. Civil Liberty

From Washington DC it is being reported that the US government is taking a look at a new program now set to be rolled out in Australia, to make the internet “safer.” Before we get right to the topic, as a side note, it is worth mentioning that this is not the first time the Land Down Under has become the proverbial canary in the coalmine. In the late 1990's these freedom-loving people in a land of vast wilderness expanses was subject to new draconian restrictions on citizens' firearms. Today, statistics show that these heavy-handed restrictions by the government have done nothing to improve public safety. A fair argument can even be made that the loss of gun rights put the citizens there in more danger, at a very high monetary cost, yet the failed policy remains in place more than a decade later. Moreover, those statistics cannot show what the real cost may be when it comes to the values of liberty and freedom heralded by America, but supposedly also cherished by the rest of the “free world.” It seems that the global powers-that-be like to use a freedom-loving but sparsely populated land like Australia as a testbed for their control mechanisms over populations.

Here is some information on the impact of gun-control in Australia, information that you may not be allowed to view much longer if you are in Australia and your ISP doesn't want you to see this web-page...

http://www.gunsandcrime.org/auresult.html

Today, information is power. So it only stands to reason that the internet, the last bastion of unrestricted exchange of information, would be viewed by some as an entity which must be controlled, like all the other facets of our lives that have come under restrictions. It seems most of the so-called rights we are left with today require a user handbook in order to know how you can actually apply those rights without violating the law or some civil statute that may leave you broke and destitute should you stray afield of these control mechanisms. The internet however, is not so easily policed, with rapid dissemination of information made easy and with violators of public code more difficult to identify.

So it is no surprise that the current Presidential administration is meeting with industry leaders in order to find a way to put clamps on the internet. To impose security measures in the name of “safety” while claiming that civil liberty concerns are being weighed as anything more than a stumbling block to symbiotic government/corporate control of the internet. They are looking closely at portions of Australia's plan that are set to go into affect in December.

There, internet service providers will be allowed to alert a customer if their computer has been taken over by hackers. Seems like a good idea on the surface. As White House cyber-coordinator Howard Schmidt puts it, "Without security you have no privacy. And many of us that care deeply about our privacy look to make sure our systems are secure," But of course, the question then is, how effective is the software that is being used to identify threats? This also opens the door to “selective” policing, and lulls the public into a false sense of security. A very good hacker working on the cutting edge of up to the minute technology probably won't be detected. Government intrusions will not be reported most likely, even if they were detected. And of course, the corporations with their varying agendas will exploit this inherent vulnerability in selective policing. If your ISP is gathering usage data on you and selling it to another company, they certainly aren't going to send you a report about it.Besides, who better to judge their own security need better than the individual? Are legislated or corporate imposed requirements actually necessary?

Schmidt went on to say that the American public would go along with it if a company is willing to give them better security. Sure, why not? That is the real question. What is the real cost here? Because “giving” us better cyber-security is bound to have some strings attached. Nothing is free in this world, and no company, nor the government are about to spend millions, even billions of dollars and go well out of their way to “give” you anything, except syphilis perhaps.

Cyber-security expert James Lewis, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies is of the opinion that the public would be amendable to the idea of having their ISP warn of cyber attacks, while helping them to clear malicious software from their systems through instructions, patches, and anti-virus programs. But isn't such help already out there? Well granted, security software and monitoring is not done by your ISP, but it's not like most of us are surfing the net without firewalls, malware removal tools at the ready, and even full retail grade security suites. Of course, much if it is not free, and some folks say in a sort of tongue-in-cheek manner that it is the cyber-security software companies themselves that are creating these threats in order to maintain the demand for their products and to insure continued update subscriptions. So will ISP's be providing for free what software companies have been charging for? Not for long, because as Mr. Lewis also explains, the public may be willing to pay a monthly service fee, just like all the other fees that are already attached to our utilities and communications services.

So rather than having the choice of whether or not you want to spend money on internet security, it will be mandatory that you now cover those costs as part of your standard contract with an internet service provider. For now though, the public is being softened up to the idea, like a crack dealer who give you your first few hits for free. Comcast is set to expand their Denver-based pilot program which alerts customers when their computers come under the control of a botnet. That program will go nationwide in the next few months. Seems all well and good, but even if the service is not itemized as a pay service, surely Comcast is not promising a freeze on general rate increases, which would help to cover the cost of the program, and whatever future security enhancements they may choose to “provide.”

Like Mr. Lewis said though, the public will probably be willing to pay a small fee with a non-chalant, “thanks for the info, good to know” sort of approach. After all, it could still be considered voluntary what company you choose as an ISP, though those options seem to have become more and more limited because of mergers. But in Australia, they are taking it a step further now. It's not just good-to-know info, but your ISP will insist that you do something about it. They are planning everything from warnings, to blocking outbound emails, to actually quarantining your entire system from the internet. That is not just one company, that is set to be the industry standard for all ISP's in Australia. It's one thing to be provided information to help keep your system safe and secure, it is quite another to have your access to the internet terminated because you are not up to date on your security maintenance tasks.

There are a few very big problems with that approach. Here in America, it could and should be seen as a direct assault on the First Amendment. To have your words, perhaps in the form of an email for example, being barred from distribution by some private corporation is a clear affront to liberty, even if it is in the interest of “internet security.” That's like saying that you cannot say what you want while standing on a street corner, because the guy who built the sidewalk is worried that you might cause damage to the sidewalk. Guess we'll have to go buy a pair of bowling shoes first. Freedom of speech, by paid permit only with proper attire.

Just because a person cannot afford internet security software, does not mean they should be barred access to the internet for one thing. But perhaps the ISP will be providing these fixes and software “free” of charge. Of course, then that means that your ISP could be installing who knows what into your system. What if the threat you are most concerned about is in fact your own ISP that you have been railing against on your web-page, or some other company that does business with your ISP, or the government who, no doubt, also have a cozy relationship with ISP's. What if these supposed fixes are malware themselves? What if these supposed fixes create system errors, as unnecessary system updates may do from time to time. But at least there, we still have a choice as to whether or not we update our systems. These new security ideas allow for no such freedom or choice in how you will maintain your system.

There is yet another serious concern, especially to folks like small business owners, folks who work from home, who depend on their computers for income. There may be times when a person is operating on a deadline, or may have some other immediate need for internet access such as a family emergency. A sudden and announced block could have serious and costly repercussions. Even for the person who is diligent with their system security knows that on occasion they may be subject to an attack or error that can take days to repair. Now you will be restricted or even barred from the internet during that time. Not to mention the fact that you might very well need internet access in the first place to make the repair. If you think they already thought this through, guess again. There is a whole nest of unforeseen problems that may or may not be fixed, as it is the consumer's problem, the citizens' problem, not theirs once these things are put in place.

Now a personal anecdote for a moment, if I may. In the US, a land-line telephone is considered so important, that even if you don't pay your bill, there are FCC regulations that bar outright and immediate termination of service. It can take months before that line is finally cut completely, and in that time the person who is in default will get many notices and still be able to dial the operator as well as 911. Several years ago I found out the hard way that digital communications are not governed by the same FCC regulations as the telephone company, and to not trust these companies any further than I can throw a television. I signed up for a triple-service plan with Cablevision, to have my telephone, television and internet all be provided by them for a single monthly rate. Because I made the switch part-way into the month, it created a billing error. I was told not to worry, that I had in fact been over-charged, and to not pay anything until my next regularly scheduled billing statement arrived. A few nights later, in the middle of the night, my roommate stopped breathing. I ran for the phone. I could not make a call. No, “sorry, your service has been suspended,” no dial-tone, no operator, no 911, nothing. I woke the neighbors, and got an ambulance there. My roommate was fine after a quick visit at the hospital. But you can bet that the next day I raised holy-hell with Cablevision, and a snotty supervisor that I finally got on the line from a neighbor's phone. That was how I learned the hard lesson of how not all service providers are the same or governed by the same regulations as technology advances. When I went back home, I found that she had in fact turned the telephone back on...and then an hour later my television and internet went dark. I ripped the box out of the wall and never dealt with Cablevision again.

Now just think of what an internet service provider like that will do if and when they are handed real power, as society becomes ever-more dependent on the internet. Are we really going to allow this sort of thing to be legislated into law, in the name of public safety, and then be forced to pay a fee on top of that? Apparently, because Mr. Lewis also tells us that it is inevitable that ISP's will play a role in internet security. Dale Meyerrose, vice president and general manager of Cyber Integrated Solutions at Harris Corporation states, "There are people starting to make the point that we've gone about as far as we can with voluntary kinds of things, we need to have things that have more teeth in them, like standards.” Teeth huh? Sounds like some folks are talking about sinking their teeth into the Constitution and our wallets. Standards? The same sort of standards that leave a person who has stopped breathing without a lifeline to the outside world? What threat justifies corporations or government imposing such standards and measures that will cause so many problems at considerable cost in time, money, and personal liberty?

According to former chief technology officer for the National Security Agency, Prescott Winter of California-based cyber-security firm ArcSight, the unfettered and unfenced technological wild-west is not secure, stating, “we need to take steps to make it safe, reliable and resilient.” Uh huh, so we keep hearing, but the reasons why are not so clear. It seems the spectre of oppressive corporate sponsored government is far more prevalent than the threat of any serious attack.

By what right does a corporation or government presume to dictate what level of security the individual may find necessary for their internet needs, or what they can afford? If one wants to buy some old laptop from a yard sale running windows 95 and go power up at the coffee shop to jump online, they should have every right to do so. But that is not the future envisioned by Mr. Meyerrose. Instead, he sees public wifi hotspots restricting access, blocking those laptops which are not equipped with certain security software, that do not meet whatever criteria the industry decides is the standard. Moreover, he sees that it will be your tax dollars that will be used to impose those standards, as tax breaks will be given to those providers who comply with the demands.

"I think that, quite frankly, there will be other governments who will finally say, at least for their parts of the Internet, as the Australians have apparently done, we think we can do better," says Prescott Winter. So it appears that they are indeed the canary in the coalmine, and that we are expected to go jump off the bridge behind them.

A report on this subject was made by the Associated Press and can be found at the following Yahoo News page...

US studying Australian Internet security program

For further reading on internet security, it is highly recommended that you read our previous article...

Book Burning in the Digital Age...and so it begins

Modern Feminist Narcissism and the Sperm Bank

There is far too much to cover in one article regarding the modern feminist movement as it pertains to social engineering, the degeneration of the family unit, and many of the ills we see today in modern society. Suffice to say though, that the movement as a whole has been a great disservice to humanity, and even to women in particular. Fatherless children is only one aspect of a much, much larger agenda, and in this piece we will be narrowing the view even further to focus specifically on women who deliberately become pregnant by anonymous sperm donors. But just to be clear, when we speak here on “modern feminism” we are not speaking about all women, or against any women, but against the socio-political agenda of the feminist movement that has actually done a great disservice to women and society as a whole.

Today, political correctness dictates that we are supposed to accept fatherless children as a sort of “new normal,” in direct contradiction to the laws of nature. We fancy ourselves gods, who can re-write the laws of nature on a whim, whenever we feel like it, and then act as if there will be no consequences for turning the natural order of things upside down. Children are meant to have a mother and a father. One can argue that point all day long in the interests of their modernist socio-political agenda, but the fact remains that our species, like so many others, reproduces sexually with both a male and female contribution of chromosomes. Balanced children will grow from the guidance and nurturing of both a man and a woman. Of course, there is tragedy in the world. One parent or another may be lost in some tragic accident, a war perhaps. But how do we suddenly make the jump to accept as normal, even preferable, what was once only the result of tragedy? The answer is simple. Narcissism. Unbalanced narcissism. The “I want what I want, and you can’t tell me no” mentality of our modern society, which is just as much a product of modern feminism as women wearing blue jeans. (Not that women in blue jeans is a bad thing of course.) Putting aside now the high rate of children raised by divorced parents, or born of unwed and unprotected sexual liaisons, we will maintain our focus here on the microcosm of clinical sperm donation. Of course, what we see here can be applied to the larger social arena as well, but unclouded by the arguments that often derail debate on the genuine core issues as the “blame” is tossed back and forth ad nauseum. When a woman chooses to impregnate herself clinically with anonymously donated sperm, then clearly there is no ambiguity when it comes to the responsibility of the pregnancy.

Now, there are a number of reasons why a woman might want to employ the services of a fertilization clinic. This article is not meant to be taken as some sort of assault on science, only to call into question the moral basis, or lack thereof, for certain applications. As with any knowledge, just because we can do something does not necessarily mean we should. So we will not question here in this piece when a clinic might assist a happy and stable heterosexual couple in joining their natural egg and seed. We will also put aside the debate as it pertains to deceased partners. The focus here is on when a woman solicits an anonymous sperm donor. In some cases, it might be that her mate is sterile, that the man in the couple does not have sufficient viable sperm to initiate a pregnancy. In other cases, the woman’s mate may be another woman, and therefore obviously, her sexual partner cannot provide the necessary component to initiate a pregnancy. In other cases still, the woman may be alone, for one reason or another, perhaps coming toward the end of her own natural viability as a mother and anxious to partake of the gift of life.

At first glance, these reasons seem, well, reasonable. It’s natural for women to want to be mothers after all. But wanting something does not necessarily mean it’s the right thing to do. One might really want to go out and buy a particular house, but it might not be such a good idea if you can’t actually afford it, or if the house happens to be in a very bad part of town. So let us look a little more closely at what is really at stake here. To see if the “wants” or perceived needs really outweigh the potential for negative consequences.

With a single woman who has not been able to secure a stable relationship with a man, we can chalk it up to a bad luck of the draw, perhaps. Random odds that sometimes go against emotional fulfillment. For one reason or another, every male suitor turned out to be not so suited. But we could also look at the woman herself. Perhaps the men she met were not so much the problem. It is just as likely that she herself was the problem. The product of this modern feminist agenda. It is little surprise that a woman who goes through life with an “I don’t need no man, I can do it all myself” sort of attitude, will in fact wind up by herself, without a man. A cold desert for a woman to be lost in no doubt. Caught between hating men for not meeting the undefined ideal of a perverted feminist agenda, and not fulfilling her own natural identity as a woman. Of course, some women don’t just wind up in that spot, but choose to, usually because of a career. But in either case, is such a woman really the ideal candidate for motherhood? A woman too busy with other obligations that she has no time to make a secure emotional investment in a man, yet somehow expects to have enough time to fill the role of both parents, with all the love, nurturing, and guidance that a child should receive? Or a woman so emotionally unstable, lacking in dedication, or of such abrasive personality that she has been unable to maintain a caring relationship with a man? This is not meant presume to dictate a woman’s choices or personality of course, only to examine whether or not they are really ideal candidates for voluntary and deliberate single-motherhood. It seems there is a high probability that a child is more of an object or a prize to fill a void created by their own selfishness and lack of fortitude. Just because a woman can bear a child, does not mean that she will make a good mother. A woman who, for whatever her reasons, cannot maintain an enduring stable relationship with a grown man is hardly an ideal candidate to maintain a balanced and stable home for a child over the course of eighteen years, much less a lifetime of devotion that a good parent will often commit to.

We also see lesbian couples who often seek out sperm donors so that they may become same-sex parents. This obviously flies in the face of any natural sense of parenthood, social constructs aside. Once again, this is not to denigrate a woman’s personal choices in any way, and we will leave the common debates regarding the morality of homosexuality at the door. Instead, we might conclude that homosexuality does indeed play into the natural order of things, just not natural parenthood. That homosexuality is a natural mechanism to prevent the overpopulation of our species. That folks like homosexuals and others who are unable to maintain a heterosexual relationship are the gatekeepers who are destined to cease the perpetuation of inherited natural traits that nature sees fit to extinguish as we evolve. If homosexuality is a choice by nature, and not the choice of the individual, then clearly it is also nature’s choice that a homosexual not bear children. If it were otherwise, we would all be androgynous beings reproducing asexually. So clearly here we have a natural inhibitor preventing lesbians from becoming mothers. (No inference should be made here that homosexuality itself is necessarily an inherited trait, nor that it is destined to become, or should be, eliminated through natural selection.) There are also strong social complications that will distress a child as it grows up in a household with same-sex parents. First, confusion no doubt as to the natural order of things on a biological level, and a need for explicit sexual education from a very young age. There is also the outside social influences that will complicate matters, right or wrong. Even if one sees homosexual parenthood as morally acceptable, a good parent would never bring a child into the world to be used a pawn to enforce their socio-political views and willingly subject a child to undue hardship. So in that respect, we again see the “I want what I want” attitude rear its head, at the expense of the child, regardless of what either nature or society have to say about it. As politically incorrect as it may sound, homosexual couples are not ideal candidates for parenthood any more than a one-armed man is an ideal candidate for the NY Yankees.

A third reason for a woman to seek out a clinical sperm donation is in a case where a woman’s male mate might not be able to produce his own viable seed. Again, it seems fairly reasonable at first glance. Of course, we have the natural selection argument here again though. That there are natural population inhibitors that we may be violating to allow this sort of procedure to go forward. But at least we see a greater potential for a stable home and upbringing in the traditional sense. Yet digging in a little deeper, we find not only the potential for serious problems, but the sort of problems that have actually occurred. A case outlined in a recent Associated Press article that you will find linked below, told of how a young woman of 20 years old suddenly found out that the father who had raised her had been infertile, and that her biological father was an anonymous sperm donor. The truth of the matter was revealed by her mother just as she was divorcing the man who raised the young woman as his own. So here we really get to see the ugly side of modern feminism, and surely this is happening more often than we will find in a news article. Here this woman used this man to be the father to a child that was not biologically his, and all of the financial support that went along with that no doubt. When she was done with the man, just as the child was grown, she divorced him and then she went ahead and severed the bond between him and the daughter whom he had raised. An act so narcissistic that her own need to be cruel toward the man she was now leaving outweighed the well-being of the daughter she had seen fit to lie to for 20 years. Was it really worth it?

Not according to Lindsay Greenawalt, the product of a donor conception, who wrote in her blog, “If I had to choose between being conceived with half of my identity and half of my kinship deliberately denied from me for eternity — or never being born — I'd choose never being born. We were created to carry a loss. A loss that no human being should have to endure.” Barked at by egotistical sorts, these children are often told to be grateful that they are alive, as if this heartache that their mothers cursed upon them was really some gift to be cherished. More twisted sense of reality brought to us by modern feminism and the notion that women can do whatever they want without consequences, and that the world should be grateful for their mere presence. Recent studies have shown that children conceived in such a manner are more troubled and depressed than their peers as they become young adults. But rather than questioning the practice, news articles and study groups instead point to the anonymity of the donors as the source of the problem, not the fact that these women chose this themselves!

The media is doing a bang-up job of ignoring the 800-pound gorilla in the room too, by deflecting, spinning, and emotionalizing the topic to suit the feminist agenda. We see articles like the one from the AP mentioned earlier, titled, “Sperm-donors’ kids seek more rights and respect.” Respect? Is there some sense of entitlement here, that they are somehow due more respect than any other child? That now society must make special allowances for the choices of a mother who also was filled with some self-centered sense of entitlement? Rights? What rights? This was the conscious and deliberate choice of their mothers. The child has no rights, or say in the matter, any more then if the mother was a Preying Mantis who slew the father post-copulation. And what of the rights of a donor who never had any intention of being anything more than an anonymous donor of chromosomes? Well, we have Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker to spin that angle saying, “The adult voices of donor offspring are a welcome counterbalance to an array of cultural forces aimed at further marginalizing fathers.” So somehow we are supposed to believe that reneging on or undermining anonymity contracts is not actually marginalizing the rights of these men? How about giving some rights to men paying hundreds, even thousands of dollars a month to kids they are never allowed to see? This society is so twisted and turned upside down that men who want to be fathers aren’t allowed to be, but those who don’t want to be, will be forced to, as if it were a favor to them, and that they should be grateful.

Here is a link to the AP article as it appeared in Yahoo:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100815/ap_on_re_us/us_sperm_donor_dads?mwp_success=NONJS_POST_SUCCESS#mwpphu-post-form

Now clearly we see that the real problem here rests with the practice of actually becoming pregnant through this method, not the fact that the donors wish to remain anonymous. To say any different would be to apply the sort of logic where you might blame the electric company for the fact that you stuck a fork in the socket and got burned. So why then the assault on the rights of the men, the donors, rather than on the practice by women of using those services? Well, the “it’s for the children” excuse will pull at the heartstrings of many Liberals, so now we need something to offend the Conservatives. How about brother and sister accidentally marrying each other because anonymity prevented them from researching their background? Well there were a few cases like that in the news in the past few years.

Here’s a case reported by the BBC where twins who were adopted separately wound up finding any marrying each other after they were grown, not knowing that they were actually siblings, and then were forced to have their marriage annulled:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7182817.stm

Now of course, the odds of such cases happening aren’t all that great, but that sort of thing is indeed possible, and even more possible when it comes to half-siblings or cousins as well. But even more pressing might be the need for medical information. The “right” of a child, or a child since grown to adulthood to have medical information of their biological paternal lineage. In fact, in some cases it could be seen as necessary to save a life, or to treat a debilitating disease.

These are all risks that the mother should consider before going ahead with this sort of pregnancy. There are so many risks, so many negative points to how it will affect the child, why would any reasonable woman actually go ahead with this sort of thing? The answer, a reasonable woman wouldn’t. Not generally speaking anyhow. There may be some exceptions of course, there always are, and many of these woman cannot be seen as downright bad mothers. But we are talking about the ideal here. What is really in the best interest of these children, and of society. Bringing a child into the world knowing full well that you are doing so deliberately putting them ad a disadvantage right from the start is not the sign of good responsible parent. That is the sign of a lonely, self-centered woman who puts her own needs before anyone else’s, including their own child. But rather than acknowledging that clear and simple premise, we have this convoluted campaign to shift responsibility back onto men and onto society for the deliberate choices made by these women.

Women who, by the way, are told that their choices are perfectly normal, so it’s not that we can really blame them either. Women are raised to believe that their actions have no consequences, that they can do as they please, while men and society pick up the tab and try to make the world a more comfortable place for them. This is where we see that the modern feminist movement is actually doing a great disservice to women, in the same way that a parent might spoil a child and let them run wild. One day, the child, or the women in this case, will have to pay the piper so to speak. For some women it may be the heartache of realizing just how much suffering they have actually condemned their child too by bringing them into the world without a father. For others, it will be an open assault against an inflated ego, when their child is not grateful at all to have been brought into this world. It’s no wonder women are more bitter and unhappy than ever before. They are trapped in a web of deceit. The modern feminist movement is no friend to them, it is an agenda put upon society, using women as pawns, for the shadowy figures who engineer the face of society to their own nefarious ends.

End like profiteering from misery. Think of all the dollars that could be had by stripping away donor anonymity. The lawyers could wind up having a field day with donors who might not have disclosed a family history of some affliction, or who hid certain facts about themselves which they refused to disclose. And now we have our “ah-ha!” moment. We start to get a glimmer of the real reasons why there is suddenly an assault on the anonymity of sperm donors. The lawyers are salivating at the chance to muck around in this sort of misery. The women and the offspring will be used as pawns as always, the face of irrational emotional appeal, but nevertheless quick to jump on that bandwagon when they are told that it is their “right” to demand compensation from the man. And the state? Will the state step in to stop such injustice? Absolutely not. They stand to profit from taxation, court fees, child-support processing, and will even be able to squeeze profits out of these matters that are found to be “criminal.” Already there have been cases in the news in the past few years where men were forced to pay support for children that were the product of in-vitro fertilization, for example.

Here’s an article from over three years ago that outlines some rather unjust rulings against sperm donors:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2883/can-a-sperm-donor-be-forced-to-pay-child-support

After having read this piece, perhaps some have been inspired to exercise more critical thinking rather than simply going along with what is easiest, or politically correct. Truth is the enemy of these spin-pages in the mainstream news and the agendas which they are well paid to support. Perhaps you found yourself offended at some points reading this piece. Good, that means you actually stopped to think rather then just listening to the drone of propaganda and everyone patting each other on the back while society is torn asunder. If we were to take the AP article mentioned up above at face value, me might have concluded that donor anonymity is a social scourge, and that men should be appreciative to have their rights undermined. The suffering of the children is very real, but that emotional appeal is misplaced in calling for an end to donor anonymity, rather than an end to the practice of donor pregnancies right from the start. This is all just setting the stage for precedents that will be set in the coming years, as nationalized healthcare and the legal system ramp-up the genetic mapping of society through DNA identification. Privacy is of no concern to the powers that be, and there is in fact a concerted effort to do away with the last few vestiges of it that we have.

For further reading on those concerns you may enjoy reading other articles posted here at the MSMReview:

Electronic Surveillance of Your Fat

L.A. Touts Serial Killer Arrest to Quash Civil Liberty Concerns

Technology and Police Hypocrisy

Book Burning in the Digital Age... and so it begins

The battle of the copyright is a long and sordid tale on the internet. Most folks are familiar with the old days of Napster, and the record companies suing the pants off of soccer-Moms because their kids had downloaded songs to the family computer. More recently as technology has continued to advance, we have seen movie companies also come into the fold along with the music companies, often suing to shut down websites that host torrent files of copyrighted material, as well as still going after the individual on occasion. At the end of the day though, most folks aren't overly concerned about those issues. Music and movies are creative expressions and public past-times for the most part, not exactly a priority in this day and age. It all sounds like a lot of hair-splitting over profits that no one really wants to be bothered with. Sure artists are entitled to make money from their work. But at the same time, when someone shells out $20 for a CD that has one good song on it, it's clearly a rip-off scheme by the recording industry too. A big ball of frustration and argument that is best left to the folks who have a vested interest in the fight. The whole debate has just soured many people to listening to music or watching movies at all. Easier just to flip on the radio or the TV and be done with it. Music and movies just aren't much fun as a hobby anymore, which is probably a bigger reason for any perceived loss of revenue for these big companies than anything else. Some folks have just decided to grow up faster than we would have liked to, wistfully leaving pop-culture behind to focus on more important issues. Like freedom of speech, perhaps.

Now anyone who has had contact with American society in the past fifteen years or so has heard all about these copyright lawsuits, and has probably heard the argument that it is all “really about freedom of speech.” Most of us never really bought into that though. It wasn't really about freedom of speech so much as buying a cable modem and ripping enough tracks to make a mix disc for the weekend, and to make it worth the money you were shelling out for the broadband connection. But as it turns out, these freedom-loving pirate pioneers might have had more insight than most of us ever gave them credit for. It's not just about ripping a free copy of some crappy pop jam anymore. The debates over sharing content over the internet are no longer the frontier of internet free-speech. The goalposts have been on the move it seems.

In 1993 there were about 50 corporations that controlled just about all of the media in the United States. Newspapers, magazines, radio, television, the works. By 2004, we were down to only five corporations controlling it all. Since the collapse of United Press International, the Associated Press has been the one and only national news service in the United States. This means that just about all the news you see is filtered through this one single company. Even local news from your home town is partially owned by the AP, as part of their agreement with smaller news agencies that make up their network. If there is a big enough story in your hometown, it gets handed up to the AP and sent out across the wires to be picked up by every other news agency across the country, as an AP article, not usually even giving a mention of your local hometown newspaper or reporter that broke the story. But in return, these smaller news agencies get to print other AP news, which accounts for just about anything that is being reported on any given day. This gives the AP a huge amount of leverage over how news gets reported, even if it does not originate with them. No news agency would dare defy the AP, and risk losing their agreement to print just about anything that is being considered news. It would be business suicide. The mainstream media in America is a network dominated by the AP. Not exactly an ideal arrangement for the promise of free speech. There was a time that we as freedom-loving Americans saw a singular state-controlled media as the hallmark of an evil totalitarian Communist regime, but would it really be any better to have a single corporation reporting all of the news rather than the state? Hardly. That would simply make it the hallmark of a Fascist totalitarian state rather then a Communist one. You see, Communism is what you get when the government controls business. Fascism is what you get when business controls government. In a nutshell anyway.

Thanks to technology, we still have a bastion of free speech with the internet. Even while your average American is content to sit back and zone out to regurgitated tabloid news, for many of us, the internet is as enlightening as it can be frustrating and confusing, navigating the back corridors of truth. The news here is not pre-packaged and heated in the microwave. It is raw, and requires critical thinking, cleverness, memory. In short, here you have to stop and think. If the truth is handed to you on a silver platter, it just might not be the truth, just like that might not be beef in that fast food taco. It's a shame that more folks aren't interested to look a little deeper into things, and are content to take the half-truths of the mainstream media as a complete source of important information. But at least the rest of us have the internet, this beacon of liberty and free speech. Well, for the moment anyway. It seems that our days may be numbered, and dwindling fast now.

Back in the summer of 2008, the Associated Press, a monolithic news agency with a litigious history decided it was going to set the precedent for how their material was disseminated across the internet, by issuing Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notices to bloggers and news aggregators they claimed were violating their copyright and additionally were accused of “hot news” misappropriation under New York State law. They had already slapped two companies with copyright lawsuits not long before, one in Florida. In essence, this was the beginning of the AP trying to force the entire U.S.-based internet to become another one of their subsidiaries under licensing agreement.

Now to really understand this, we need to have a look at what is called the “fair use” act. What it tells us first is that copyrighted material can be used without permission, for such purposes as “criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.” Seems quite reasonable, but too bad it's not quite that simple. You see, there really are no set guidelines. Even from that list there can be any number of exceptions based on the nature of the copyright work, potential profits from someone who is citing the work, and so forth. It is all so completely ambiguous that they might just as well have said, “Use whatever you want at your own risk because it's all up to the judge anyway.” That's really no exaggeration. Rulings in one case will not necessarily be used as a precedent in the next, particularly in civil suits, though copyright violation can be a criminal matter as well. There are no set standards for selected content, length or proportions of quotations, or potential market impact. Nevertheless, it has still been used as a general guideline for everyone from internet bloggers to public school teachers. An example might be the playing of a movie in the auditorium of a public school for students. It may not be considered a violation of copyright because it is being used for educational purposes. But if that same movie were to be played in an auditorium full of families at the ice-cream social gathering where goodies were being sold to raise money for a field trip, that could very well indeed be ruled as a liability through public dissemination of copyrighted material. Many restaurants can no longer sing the “Happy Birthday” song to patrons on their special day because of the threat of copyright lawsuits.

Across the internet though, it has been generally understood by bloggers and members of discussion forums and so forth, that news reports are not treated with the same level of copyright scrutiny as other media such as movies and music. After all, news is a relatively public matter anyway. Granted, reporters work hard often risking life and limb to get their stories, other staff all do their jobs, the news agencies have their expenses and financial obligations to investors, but at the end of the day the events they are reporting on are public events that they are willfully sharing with the greater public. In print they share it with the public for pocket change, but on their own internet sites they even share the news for free, and quite often encourage viewers to share it on networking tools such as Twitter or an RSS feed. The profitability in news reporting is not in the news itself, but in advertising revenues from companies who know that people will see their ad when they come to find out the news of the day, whether it be in print, over the airwaves, or over the internet. So really, it is in the best interest of any news agency to get the news out there as far and wide as possible, so long as they are referenced in some way. Let's not forget the old adage “there's no such thing as bad press.”

Copying and pasting an entire article may be seen as not really acting in good faith on the part of the blogger, but so long as it is properly attributed, it really should not be of serious concern to a news company. It's not really going to cost them anything. No one is going to decide that they would rather see their mainstream search engine news in some backwater blog day after day where the articles may be missing pictures, related links, and be generally mutilated in a hack paste job. Most folks will want to go right to the source, and see a copy/paste job merely as reference for discussion. Adding a link to any pasted article is certain to drive traffic back to the original news site, with folks who might never have even bothered to check the day's news otherwise. When most internet users post these articles, they are not posting it to circumvent the original news services and are not claiming the articles as their own original material, they are posting for the purposes of discussion, not plagiarism. Whether it be to critique the report itself, the news source overall, or as a general discussion related to the news being reported, the news article itself still becomes secondary to our own expression of free-speech. In this way we see that even a fully copied article could be seen as fair use, as a reference in these discussions.

So understanding all of this, one really has to ask, what was really behind the aggression of the AP against bloggers and other websites? Especially when you have a look at some of the specific instances they had issued the DMCA notices for. Many did not even copy the same headline, all of them contained links back to the original AP source, and none of them were even full posts of the article. They were merely snippets of the article, with a link back to the original complete article. You would think that the AP would be thanking them, not trying to sue them. You can see that down in the corner here of the MSMReview we even have a host-provided widget installed that runs an AP headline ticker. Is that something that we can be sued for? Could we be sued if we posted those same headlines without the widget?

By the end of 2008 it appears that the AP decided to back off a bit, and admitted that they might have been being a bit heavy-handed in the protection of their media. But one really has to wonder what set them on in the first place to such an ill-conceived venture. The only potential loss of revenue might have come from the fact that many news outlets in their network will pull an article after a bit of time, and then charge a fee for retrieval from an archive. In this way, a blog or forum could be seen as archiving these stories and undermining a very minor potential source of revenue. How often do folks actually go ahead and pay for an article for which the link is no longer active for, and especially in comparison to the potential for referral traffic generated by articles posted outside of the original site? Moreover, do they charge your local library a fee for making old newspapers available to the public after the articles have been pulled from the website? Granted, the library already paid 50-cents for a copy of the paper, but if that token amount were really the issue, then why do they not charge to read the headlines on their own websites and the large search engine hosts?

It just doesn't make sense, there is something missing from this picture still. Now we come to more recent news. It seems that other news sources are now hiring outside companies to do their dirty work for them, having a go at the bloggers and forums this summer in a similar manner that the AP did back in 2008, but on a much wider scale, and even more aggressively this time. Are they really so desperate for quick profits that they are willing to cut off their noses just to spite their faces? Are they really willing to alienate readers, and in turn their advertising clients, to scrape a few bucks away from bloggers? Was the whole AP fiasco just a “testing of the water” to to gauge reaction to an assault on free speech?

Steve Gibson, CEO of Las Vegas-based Righthaven has been buying up newspaper copyrights for the sole purpose of scouring the web to find and then sue anyone who has posted material without permission. He is able to compel quick settlements based on the fact that even a single violation can be a penalty of $150,000. Righthaven already has hundreds of lawsuits in the works, but estimates that there may be billions of violations. That will not doubt put any nickel and dime blogs and web sites right out of business. Many blogs and forums that could be seen as a profit company because of ad placement through services such as AdSense, really are not actually profitable at all, and are generally operated for reasons other than profit, such as practicing free speech and engaging their fellow human beings in discussion on current events via the internet. But even for larger sites, the threat is potent, seeing how much they stand to lose for even a single violation if they fight it in court then lose. One large internet forum that generates about 5 million hits a month with their user-generated discussion forum on alternative topics has decided to fight the lawsuit on the grounds that the site itself did not actually post the material, but that a forum user did, and therefore rather than file a lawsuit Righthaven should have served the site with a DMCA takedown notice. So in this case, we see that this company operating on behalf of the Las Vegas Review-Journal has actually gone well beyond what the AP did two summers ago. They aren't even bothering with take-down notices, they are going straight for the lawsuit. It is also interesting to note that this representative of the media has gone after one of the largest alternative subject matter forums on the internet, where open-minded free-thinking is highly valued (even if critically scrutinized.)

In another case, one of the above-mentioned forum's primary competitors has also been the subject of an action by a company representing Reuters news service, the AP of the British-influenced world. Again coming under fire is a forum on alternative subject matter where open-minded free-thinking is courted (even if dreadfully manipulated.) That case is part of a campaign launched in March by California-based Attributor with their FairShare Guardian model. In one 30-day scan with this new model, they found 75,000 sites with copies of un-licensed articles. Rather than suing them in court, Attributor offers discussion on syndication, in which they can pretty much demand any price they want for the syndication rights from the alleged violator. If negotiations fail, they will contact ad agencies doing business with the site. In the case of the specific site mentioned here already, the ad agencies did indeed pull their ads, the site's primary revenue stream for covering operating costs. Attributor also notifies search engines and web hosts, who are obligated under the DMCA to take down material they know to be in violation. So in essence, these forums are forced to pay the licensing fee for what might otherwise be considered fair-use, or be shut down entirely.

Now we finally see a pattern emerging. First, the somewhat failed attempt by AP to shutter blogs and websites that they had zeroed in on for whatever reason. Now we see on one hand a venture to force settlements that will likely shut down many thousands of blogs and websites. And on the other hand, we see due-process completely circumvented by a company demanding what can be assumed to be exorbitant licensing fees, and also sure to shut down thousands, even hundreds of thousands of websites. But can all this really be seen as a measure to protect profits? Certainly not when you consider that these blogs and websites are what drive traffic to these news sources in the first place. So then, this really isn't about profits so much as consolidation. One doesn't need a hundred-thousand blogs directing traffic to a few news sites, if a huge chunk of the web is shut right down entirely, and traffic can be directed through a few select mainstream social networking sites. This is about control, not profits. Controlling what you see, how you see it, and even the discussions you have about it. Bloggers are being forced to report the news under the terms dictated by licensing agreements, and whatever fine print that might entail aside from kicking up a fee as if news reporting were some mafia cartel. That is not free speech. This is about controlling our collective memory by editing and pulling articles and by preventing accessibility to archived copies of original stories floating around on the web. And that folks, is the real heart of the matter. Digital book burning. Remove our collective memory, mold the present, and dictate the future.

Whoa now. Maybe that's a bit of a jump there. A few select very powerful media monopolies shutting down the internet piece by piece? Sounds like a bit of a stretch into conspiracy-theory land there, no? Surely the government would have something to say about this, would step in to defend liberty and the Constitution? We have been like Gunny Hartman in the movie Full Metal Jacket here, rummaging through the unlocked footlocker of internet dirty laundry to “just see if anything's missing here.” And suddenly we find the jelly donut. Or better yet, that something is indeed missing. Something big. Something along the lines of 73,000 blogs shut down in a single day, with the flip of a switch. Here we get a good look at the relationship between business and the government.


On July 9 of this year, Toronto-based Blogetry.com, an internet blogging platform and Wordpress host-provider with approximately 73,000 clients, went dark. Less than a week later, Ipbfree.com, a site used to create web message boards, suddenly went offline. The shutdowns came with no notice, no pending legal action, and no explanation at all for some considerable time. Since then, some information has come out about the shut-down of Blogetry.com, so we are going to focus on that, as the information surrounding the Ipbfree.com seems to be far more scattered and less reliable. It should be noted that no direct correlation between the two events has been confirmed at this point, but there were some interesting similarities between the two events. Both said they were shut down by outside influence and not coming back, that the user-generated content violated no copyright laws, and that those who ordered the closures were legally bound to non-disclosure.

Initial speculation was that the shutdowns were part of a sweep by movie or record companies cracking down on illegal downloads and hosting of related files, with the support of the Obama Administration who has vowed to support the entertainment companies. It was not an unreasonable conclusion to reach, as these shutdowns came right on the heels of a number of scattered seizures by the Department of Justice along with Immigration and Customs Enforcement of assets and websites related to alleged illegal file-sharing, as part of an ongoing initiative called “Operation: In Our Sights.” So there we are back to the beginning of this article, with the “menace of digital piracy” that we have all been hearing about for years. One sure-fire method for Federal agents to conduct a “witch-hunt” by going after alleged pirates.

Other speculation was that perhaps there was child pornography involved. Another fantastic boogie man to get the people all riled up while being the perfect cover for officials to go right ahead and do just about anything they please. Now please understand, MSMR in no way is trying to make light of child pornography, or excuse the activities of deranged persons involved in that garbage in any way, but having to articulate that point goes to show just what a raw nerve there is there in society for the powers that be to poke at when they want to distract us. Even when they yell pedophile, we still have the right, nay, the obligation to question authority. But in cases of illegal file-sharing, and even in cases of illegal pornography, due process must still be applied. No agency has the right to arbitraliy march in and shut down a whole chunk of the internet. There is a lot of legal wrangling that can sometimes go on for years to get a specific website shutdown, much less an entire server of 73,000 clients. The DMCA protects internet service providers from liability of user content, as pointed out in the case mentioned earlier with Righthaven. Not to mention the fact that these sorts of takedowns are usually very public affairs, with publicity being exploited as a deterrent as much as possible.
In these cases, the cloak of secrecy is disturbing to say the least. As it turns out, the owner of Blogetry.com was just as confused as his clients, and tried repeatedly to contact his web-host BurstNet, before their first enigmatic reply. In a message to owner Alexander Yusupov they stated, “We are limited as to the details we can provide to you, but note that this was a critical matter and the only available option to us was to immediately deactivate the server.” In another message they went on to say, “Please note that this was not a typical case, in which suspension and notification would be the norm. This was a critical matter brought to our attention by law enforcement officials. We had to immediately remove the server. “ They refused to give him any more information though, and would not even disclose the law-enforcement agency involved. Nor did they disclose the agency to CNET news, when they were granted an interview with BurstNet VP, Benjamin Arcus. The VP did disclose however, that the service was terminated at the direction of a law-enforcement agency that he could not reveal, and that it was not a copyright issue. So this wasn't about digital pirates after all?

The latest news coming out now is that the secret agency was actually the FBI. BurstNet has also reversed themselves and is now stating that it was their own choice to terminate the server, and that the FBI had nothing to do with the decision. So apparently BurstNet was not in fact restricted to this “only available option” as they had stated, but freely and willingly chose to terminate the server of their own accord, and have tried to justify the unprecedented action by leveling an accusation against Blogetry that there was a history of abuses, though the FBI has not accused Alexander Yusupov of any wrong-doing. What is being reported now is that the bureau had merely requested “voluntary emergency disclosure of information" regarding links to bomb-making instructions and an al-Qaeda hit-list of Americans which appeared on as many as one Blogetry hosted blog. Ah-ha! And there we have another boogie man folks. The ubiquitous yet imaginary al-Qaeda. (You will remember in a previous article here at MSMR where we pointed out that al-Qaeda is actually a government generated fabrication.) Mention al-Qaeda, bomb, or terrorist, and the FBI can instantly shut down 73,000 free-speech platforms without any due-process or oversight whatsoever because of what may have been one single alleged offender. In the post 9/11 era there is nothing “voluntary” about what is expected during an “emergency.” BurstNet has stated that they cannot restore any Blogetry data, even with the offending material removed. All of those blogs are just gone, completely wiped out. Of course we are supposed to believe BurstNet's revised position now, that they did not cave in under pressure by the FBI in the face of some alleged terrorist threat, and that they wiped out 73,000 blogs because of two alleged previous violations of their policies by Blogetry.. It doesn't seem that it really makes much difference anyhow at this point. Either BurstNet threw themselves under the bus, doing irreparable damage to their credibility and the future of their business to cover for the FBI, or they were in fact the ones who decided to pull the plug as they are stating now, making themselves the bane of free-speech advocates around the globe.

When all is said and done, it is now abundantly clear that these companies and government agencies working in concert, have begun dismantling large swaths of the internet this summer, with a three-pronged assault on liberty, through lawsuits, through cutting financing, and through direct action by blocking and terminating access to the internet. Make no mistake about it folks, this is the burning of books in the digital age. The only question is if you are going to accept the excuses ever-ready at the hand despots the world over, and then bow down to the march of the jack-boot, while gleefully chanting the rhetoric that it is all for our safety, all for our children, all for our own good as we spiral down into the pit of totalitarianism. This is it, our last chance, the end game. There is nothing else left for them to take, but these last bastions of free expression and liberty, where the news can be pondered and debated without censorship, where we can collect our memories and look back to them to see what our tomorrow has come to. Do not forget what you have read here today. Remember the burning of the books.

“Where they burn books, they will ultimately also burn people”

~Heinrich Heine

Here's to hoping that no one gets sued over this, but here are links to related material and articles:
http://www.corporations.org/media/
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html
http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20010877-261.html?tag=mncol;txt
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=964013
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10692501
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/07/19/blogetery-owners-shut-down-bombs-al-qaeda/
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/07/22/the-curious-disappearance-of-blogetry/

Mystery shrouds closures of blog, forum platforms

Read article here:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20010877-261.html?tag=mncol;txt

Electronic Surveillance of Your Fat

No, this is not a joke. Universal adoption of electronic health records (EHRs), as outlined in the 2009 stimulus law, must now include a yearly updated BMI, or Body Mass Index rating. But really, that's just the tip of the iceberg. It is suddenly becoming all too apparent what the real meaning behind the universal healthcare law really is. It has nothing to do with making sure everyone who needs care, gets the care they need. It has nothing to do with making sure everyone has little or no cost insurance. It has nothing to do with regulating costs, or cutting waste. It has everything to do with making sure every last man, woman, and child has the parameters of their physical being tagged and profiled for a government database exchange.

Before we get off and running here though, it should be pointed out that the new healthcare laws passed under the Obama administration are not as partisan as the partisans would have you believe, or most mainstream media sources for that matter, but there were a few nuggets of truth left out there for us to find. Most folks are completely unaware of the fact that the Obama health insurance requirement was taken from the GOP. (That story has since been pulled from a few different media websites, but is still available linked there for the time-being.) Digging deeper, we can see that this government program to profile and tag each and every one of us has roots going back to at least 2004. This excerpt can be found on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services website:

On April 27, 2004, President Bush issued Executive Order (EO) 13335 “to provide leadership for the development and nationwide implementation of an interoperable health information technology infrastructure to improve the quality and efficiency of health care.” EO 13335 established the position of a National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (IT) within the Office of the Secretary of Health and Human Services...The timeframe of the Plan is 2008-2012.

How convenient for politics sake that the plan didn't go into affect until his last year in office. Another example of how the illusion of partisan politics in the U.S. is maintained, and how policy is dictated from behind the closed doors of groups like the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, and the Bilderberg group. No one paid any attention to some backwater little Executive Order that the press never even picked up on at all, surprise surprise, yet it was laying out the foundation and infrastructure for a liberal successor who would take on the mantle of healthcare reform. When Obama entered office, the economy was at the forefront of the public's mind, but the truth of the matter is that the President of the United States actually has very little influence over the economy going back even to the years of FDR and the Great Depression. Still, it was the perfect political cover for Obama's healthcare reform initiatives.

The February 2009 stimulus bill, which subsequently became law, included a provision to create an “Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology," called for that coordinator to create a national database and for that person to create a plan for “the utilization of an electronic health record (EHR) for each person in the United States by 2014.” Of course, they can't make electronic health records for everyone in the U.S. if everyone in the U.S. isn't seen by a doctor or healthcare professional of some sort. So clearly it was very important for Obama, and the agenda, to pass a bill that would require everyone to have healthcare insurance, thereby guaranteeing that every person in America would get at least the "once over" by a drug-pushing doctor. And although every last Republican made a good political circus side-show by voting against a bill that they had first drafted, it was a shoe-in and all according to plan.

Well now that we have gotten all of that cleared up, the title of this piece seems quite over-simplified. Truthfully, it was from the start. BMI does not measure fat directly, but is really a height to weight ratio calculation. Someone who has high bone density or muscle mass may be in perfect health and still have a high BMI rating, but according to the Centers for Disease Control, who will be a primary consumer of this data, "BMI provides a reliable indicator of body fatness for most people and is used to screen for weight categories that may lead to health problems." The military also uses this criteria. Someone who joins the Army may be in great physical shape, but have muscle mass that will deny them entry or cause them to fail inspection. That's right, it's possible to be Army too strong. So it seems that the government wants us all to fit a fairly specific set of parameters, or at least to be flagged for falling outside of those parameters for whatever reason.

If you have not done so already, be sure to read the article "Let them Eat Cake!" and the Boiling Frog Syndrome relating to obesity and public health. For now though, let's continue and look at what else has just become law...

“Electronically record, retrieve, and transmit syndrome based public health surveillance information to public health agencies,” the regulations read.

That Orwellian quotation stands in stark contrast, appearing to be an outright contradiction in fact, to what was being said when the stimulus bill was being passed in February of last year. On the website of Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) the question was posed in the FAQ section if the government would have access these electronic health records. The answer was an unambiguous sounding, "No. Federal law makes your medical records--whether they’re on paper or in a computer--confidential to you and your health provider.” But clearly, there most certainly is some ambiguity there that has yet to be explained.

It also seems to contradict this provision...

"Enable a user to electronically record and display patients' insurance eligibility, and submit insurance eligibility queries to public or private payers and receive an eligibility response..."

...when you consider that data like this is being collected as part of the new regulations...

"Enable a user to electronically record, modify, and retrieve the smoking status of a patient. Smoking status types must include: current smoker, former smoker, or never smoked."

So much for fair and equal treatment. What these new laws should have done was make it illegal to even check for insurance information in the first place, until the expense bill is finally sent, and then the insurance information should be provided if the patient does happen to have insurance. Does the mailman get to check what sort of homeowner's insurance you have before he walks through your gate and gets bit in the leg by Bowser? Do you have to provide your auto insurance info to your mechanic? Certainly not. In fact, even at the scene of a minor traffic accident, often times folks will shell out a few hundred bucks to cover damages rather than submit an insurance claim.

The new regulations include the aforementioned calculation of BMI, as well as standard vital signs such as pulse and blood pressure. These records will also be required to include growth charts for patients from 2-20 years old. Any lab work you have ever had done, or medications you have ever taken, must all be included. The new regulations also...

"Enable a user to electronically select, sort, retrieve, and output a list of patients and patients’ clinical information, based on user-defined demographic data, medication list, and specific conditions."

It is no exaggeration to say that the government has now passed all the laws and regulations necessary to tag, profile, categorize and monitor even the most intimate physical and mental details of every last person in the United States. Oh yes, the mental details. Psychiatric well-being is also a public health issue. On a recent visit to her eye doctor, a pleasant, 80-something years young woman found this at the bottom of her visit summary:

Mental Status Exam
Orientation: Oriented to time place and person.
Mood and affect: no depression, anxiety, or agitation.

Since when do ophthalmologists concern themselves with mental health examinations, and then include that in the documentation of a routine visit? Not something this woman had ever seen before, unusual indeed, but sad to say not unexpected in this day and age with new laws like this that will allow "users" to evaluate, analyze, categorize, compute, process, tag and profile the thought processes and every last physical detail of every last American. Are we all supposed to think that this is being done for our own good? To make things better for us? Hmmm, yes, so we've heard. A recurring theme popping up in the articles posted here at the MSMR. Even if we could expect the government to not exploit this data to their own ends, could we really trust them to keep the data secret, safe, secure? Doubtful when you read details in articles with titles like, "Ohio collects millions selling driving records with your personal information."


A recent article posted here at the MSMR questioned the integrity of DNA collection and processing. These new health codes will no doubt make the collection, processing, and dissemination of private DNA information that much easier for whatever purposes, without the individual even knowing about it or requiring their permission. The distribution of any of this information is not a matter of choice by the private individual, but is a matter of government policy that outlines who will and who will not be allowed to access this information. You have no say in the matter. Just as an insurance company can look at your credit score rather than your driving record to determine the rates you will pay for this government mandated service, so too will private companies be looking into our genetic coding, our mental health, our physical well being, when they decide to issue an insurance policy, give you a job, rent you an apartment. It's just around the corner now.

There was a time when conspiracy theorists imagined the day would come when we were all forced to take the Mark of the Beast, that we would all be implanted with a biometric chip to relay our health data to the government, and that every facet of our lives would be inspected and controlled. Between the cameras on every street corner and in the skies above, to the statutory undermining of everything the Constitution of the United States once stood for, and now this healthcare reform that will peer into the most minute details of who we are as a person, it seems that no stone has been left unturned, and that we will foot the bill ourselves for our own complete and total enslavement as human beings to this singular fate before us. There is no need to be implanted with some chip, they've already got us by the balls now, and this is not science-fiction.

Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, Title 45: Public Welfare, PART 170—HEALTH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY STANDARDS, IMPLEMENTATION SPECIFICATIONS, AND CERTIFICATION CRITERIA AND CERTIFICATION PROGRAMS FOR HEALTH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Citations from this article were taken from here...

Subpart C—Certification Criteria for Health Information Technology

e-CFR data current as of July 14, 2010.

Special thanks to the Lunaticoutpost discussion forum and its members for sharing relevant material that made this article possible.