For whom the bell tolls - An end to free press in America

Who says Congress never gets anything done?

On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved a bill that would give the Attorney General the right to shut down websites with a court order if copyright infringement is deemed “central to the activity” of the site — regardless if the website has actually committed a crime. The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) is among the most draconian laws ever considered to combat digital piracy, and contains what some have called the “nuclear option,” which would essentially allow the Attorney General to turn suspected websites “off.”

COICA is the latest effort by Hollywood, the recording industry and the big media companies to stem the tidal wave of internet file sharing that has upended those industries and, they claim, cost them tens of billions of dollars over the last decade.

The content companies have tried suing college students. They’ve tried suing internet startups. Now they want the federal government to act as their private security agents, policing the internet for suspected pirates before making them walk the digital plank.

Many people opposed to the bill agree in principle with its aims: Illegal music piracy is, well, illegal, and should be stopped. Musicians, artists and content creators should be compensated for their work. But the law’s critics do not believe that giving the federal government the right to shut down websites at will based upon a vague and arbitrary standard of evidence, even if no law-breaking has been proved, is a particularly good idea. COICA must still be approved by the full House and Senate before becoming law. A vote is unlikely before the new year.

Among the sites that could go dark if the law passes: Dropbox, RapidShare, SoundCloud, Hype Machine and any other site for which the Attorney General deems copyright infringement to be “central to the activity” of the site, according to Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group that opposes the bill. There need not even be illegal content on a site — links alone will qualify a site for digital death. Websites at risk could also theoretically include p2pnet and pirate-party.us or any other website that advocates for peer-to-peer file sharing or rejects copyright law, according to the group.

In short, COICA would allow the federal government to censor the internet without due process.

The mechanism by which the government would do this, according to the bill, is the internet’s Domain Name System (DNS), which translates web addresses into IP addresses. The bill would give the Attorney General the power to simply obtain a court order requiring internet service providers to pull the plug on suspected websites.

Scholars, lawyers, technologists, human rights groups and public interest groups have denounced the bill. Forty-nine prominent law professors called it “dangerous.” (pdf.) The American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch warned the bill could have “grave repercussions for global human rights.” (pdf.) Several dozen of the most prominent internet engineers in the country — many of whom were instrumental in the creation of the internet — said the bill will “create an environment of tremendous fear and uncertainty for technological innovation.” (pdf.) Several prominent conservative bloggers, including representatives from RedState.com, HotAir.com, The Next Right and Publius Forum, issued a call to help stop this “serious threat to the Internet.”

And Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the world wide web, said, “Neither governments nor corporations should be allowed to use disconnection from the internet as a way of arbitrarily furthering their own aims.” He added: “In the spirit going back to Magna Carta, we require a principle that no person or organization shall be deprived of their ability to connect to others at will without due process of law, with the presumption of innocence until found guilty.”

Critics of the bill object to it on a number of grounds, starting with this one: “The Act is an unconstitutional abridgment of the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment,” the 49 law professors wrote. “The Act permits the issuance of speech suppressing injunctions without any meaningful opportunity for any party to contest the Attorney General’s allegations of unlawful content.” (original emphasis.)

Because it is so ill-conceived and poorly written, the law professors wrote, “the Act, if enacted into law, will not survive judicial scrutiny, and will, therefore, never be used to address the problem (online copyright and trademark infringement) that it is designed to address. Its significance, therefore, is entirely symbolic — and the symbolism it presents is ugly and insidious. For the first time, the United States would be requiring Internet Service Providers to block speech because of its content.”

The law professors noted that the bill would actually undermine United States policy, enunciated forcefully by Secretary of State Clinton, which calls for global internet freedom and opposes web censorship. “Censorship should not be in any way accepted by any company anywhere,” Clinton said in her landmark speech on global internet freedom earlier this year. She was referring to China. Apparently some of Mrs. Clinton’s former colleagues in the U.S. Senate approve of internet censorship in the United States.

To be fair, COICA does have some supporters in addition to sponsor Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vermont) and his 17 co-sponsors including Schumer, Specter, Grassley, Gillibrand, Hatch, Klobuchar, Coburn, Durbin, Feinstein, Menendez and Whitehouse. Mark Corallo, who served as chief spokesperson for former Attorney General John Ashcroft and as spokesman for Karl Rove during the Valerie Plame affair, wrote Thursday on The Daily Caller: “The Internet is not at risk of being censored. But without robust protections that match technological advances making online theft easy, the creators of American products will continue to suffer.”

“Counterfeiting and online theft of intellectual property is having devastating effects on industries where millions of Americans make a living,” wrote Corallo, who now runs a Virginia-based public relations firm and freely admits that he has “represented copyright and patent-based businesses for years.” “Their futures are at risk due to Internet-based theft.”

The Recording Industry Association of America, which represents the major record labels, praised Leahy for his work, “to insure [sic] that the Internet is a civilized medium instead of a lawless one where foreign sites that put Americans at risk are allowed to flourish.”

Over the course of his career, Leahy has received $885,216 from the TV, movie and music industries, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

God Bless The Idiots Of WV- What a bunch of Sheep

What has Jay Rockefeller ever don for America?? (The Answer nothing!) No wonder Mommies boy and KKK Byrd both come from the smartest state in the union!

SEN. JAY ROCKEFELLER (D-WV): “There’s a little bug inside of me which wants to get the FCC to say to FOX and to MSNBC: ‘Out. Off. End. Goodbye.’ It would be a big favor to political discourse; our ability to do our work here in Congress, and to the American people, to be able to talk with each other and have some faith in their government and more importantly, in their future.”

Tens of Thousands could die with each launch- Death toll to rise in next Middle East blowup Expert expects 'many more casualties

The outgoing chief of Israeli military intelligence is warning against the possibility of a large-scale war – and a skyrocketing death toll – the next time there's a blowup in the Middle East, since Russia is providing superior weapons to Syria, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

"The next conflict, even if it is limited in scale," said Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, "will be much bigger, much broader, and with many more casualties than we saw in Operation Cast Lead or the Second Lebanon War."

The general said that modern air defense systems Russia is providing to Syria could send the Israel Defense Forces and Israeli Air Force capabilities "back to their status in the 1970s Suez years."

He pointed out that the Russians also are upgrading older Syrian weapons systems while providing some of Moscow's latest weapons systems.

He also claimed that the Iranians are developing two new nuclear sites but didn't reveal their locations.

"Iran is the greatest threat to Israel and to the well-being of the entire region," he said.

While Iran has sufficient uranium enriched at 20 percent that could be applied to developing a nuclear bomb if enrichment capabilities improve to some 90 percent, Yadlin said that Iran, with its 4,000 centrifuges, could go from civilian-grade enriched uranium to the level required for a bomb.

Really - Fox News and the US Government are now looking to bloggers to solve National Defense issues

It's a bird, no it's a plane, Obama now has a blogger solving our national security issues! The only problem with this airplane solution is the big red fiery glow coming off the back of that "commercial airliner"? Now I ask you when was the last time you saw commercial airliner with fire coming out the back that did not crash? I wonder if we should close down NORAD and the newly formed SPACE COMMAND. We can just use a blogger net work across the country, and they can alert us to out going or incoming missile threats. That should be a great cost savings.
_______________________________________

10-11-2010 Fox News Headline... Breaking News


A blogger reckons he may have solved the mystery over the vapor trail spotted off the southern coast of California on Monday.

On his blog "Time to Think," Liem Bahneman on Wednesday pinpointed America West Flight 808 as the likely cause -- backing up an explanation offered by a senior military official to Fox News Channel that the contrail caught on video by a news helicopter “was more likely caused by an airplane than anything else."

Bahneman wonders if he is the first to call it: "I did a lot of extrapolation of what flights could be at the right position (off the coast) at the right altitude (for contrail formation) and came down to two possibilities: UPS Flight 902 (UPS902) or America West Flight 808 (AWE808)."

He concluded: "As I was researching tonight (24 hours later), I realized that today's (Tuesday's) AWE808 current position (at around 4:50 p.m.) was almost the same as it was the day of the incident. I quickly pulled up a Newport Beach webcam and found that (apparently) AWE808 was making an identical contrail, 24 hours later!"

Bahneman cited another blog, ContrailScience.com, which lists a wealth of other details about jet airplane contrails. The blogger behind that site agreed with Bahneman, telling FoxNews.com that "the plane is flying directly TOWARD you, so it starts below the horizon. The contrail at the horizon is far away, maybe 50-100 miles behind the plane, and has been spread out by the wind, creating the illusion that it's closer."

The Department of Defense said Wednesday that it was satisfied the event was likely caused by an airplane.

"With all the information that we have gathered over the last day and a half about this condensation trail off the coast of southern California on Monday night, both within the DoD and other U.S. government agencies, we have no information to suggest this was anything other than a contrail caused by an aircraft," said Col. David Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman.

"As stated yesterday, NORAD and USNORTHCOM determined that there was no threat to the U.S. homeland."

Lapan said that in the mind of the DoD this case is closed.

Lapan said the government looked at lots of data sources other than the CBS news tape. He would not get into the details of what those data sources were, but said that evidence helped determine this was most likely an aircraft. But most importantly, it was the response from all other government agencies saying they did not launch anything that convinced them this was likely an aircraft.

"The Department of Defense, after gathering info over the last 36 hours from within the Department of Defense and other U.S. government agencies, is satisfied the contrail was likely caused by an aircraft."

But which flight? Todd Lehmacher, a spokesman for US Airways, could not confirm that Flight 808 was responsible for the vapor trail, though he did confirm details of the flight.

"Flight 808 did depart Honolulu at 9:53 a.m. yesterday morning local Honolulu time and arrived at Phoenix at 7:04 p.m.," Lehmacher told FoxNews.com, and the plane did travel along the planned route between those two destinations, he said. But that isn't conclusive evidence, Lehmacher stated.

"I can confirm that our aircraft traversed that route yesterday, but you'd need to talk to someone who's more versed in atmospheric conditions," Lehmacher said. Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the FAA, agreed with Lehmacher's diagnosis.

"We can't determine the exact source of the contrail because we don't know its location, trajectory or altitude," he told FoxNews.com. "Remember, we did a radar replay of an area based on MEDIA REPORTS of the location of the contrail, not on any precise location of the contrail."

These are just a handful of the blogs that have been weighing in on the matter, however. From space fanatics to conspiracy theorists to unrelated mommy blogs, the blogosphere has been working overtime in its hive efforts to solve the issue.

UniverseToday supports the plane theory, noting that "the Boeing Co. every so often will deploy aircraft from San Nicolas Island. These flights are part of an anti-missile laser testing program. However, the company has announced that it had nothing in the air on Monday."

Bloggers at New York Magazine weighed in with a whopping eight theories of their own on what might have caused the mystery, straying from the realm of the possible ("the military is just covering up its own missile launch") to the wacky ("a dejected Meg Whitman decided to leave Earth behind after spending $141 million of her fortune on a losing gubernatorial run").

And even unrelated bloggers weighed in on the subject. Gossip blog Gossip Jackal, hip-hopper at The Ill Community, and even auto-fanatics at Jalopnik weighed in.

Chat forums were ablaze with the mystery streak, too, from Body Building forums to conspiracy theorists. But despite all the buzz, until the FAA determines conclusively what caused the streak, the mystery may remain.

REALLY ? It's a plane no it's a weather balloon? Maybe it was Thunderbird 3 taking off from Tracy island -

I wonder could it be Thunderbird 3 from Tracy Island? Or Just Wonder Woman on a joy ride!


Could it be a super secret launch of the new Skylon project the shuttle replacement? ( below)


Notice the burn of the object the after burners or engines fire for almost 2 minutes?

Have you ever seen a commercial plane leave a contrail like this one ?

The large trail suggests a heavy payload being lifted, the larger the trail the greater the ratio of minutes of burn.


This was taken of the space shuttle Discovery 50 miles away from lunch site in Central Fl.


This was taken 25 miles away from Kennedy Space Center in Fl. of a Delta 5 Missile launch 2009

This was taken from a boat 20 miles from the lunch peninsula at Kennedy Space Center , it was Space shuttle Discovery 2005

Never Fear your Government is here to save the Day!

Our government with lighting quick reflexes and action has solved the mystery of the contrail over California. It was Wonder Woman and her invisible plane, that's why we only see the contrail. Problem solved, say Clouseau!

Now if it were a plane and Wonder Woman was flying it that would account for why the FAA having no glue of it's flight path.. She never files one. This would account for why it was not on any radar screens, it's an invisible plane.

Now silly me these are the questions I was asking before we were told it was Wonder Woman on a joy ride.

Was this an secret launch of the new Skylon project ahead of schedule? Opps That was not so secret!

Does what ever was launched have to do with the recent finding of billions of gallons of water on the moon? Thus the cause for a hasty launch that has no prior warning.

How do we know this was never a threat as the government has stated if we don't know what it is?

Was it launched to intercept a incoming meteor or other object hauling toward earth?

Why did it seem to mirror a Shuttle launch in such great detail? The burn signature and trajectory?

Was there an open window that day and time that would have made a space launch possible?

Why did the engines on this plane seem to burn and glow for so long and so bright until out of site, which seems again to mirror a shuttle or missile launch.. I am just saying.

If it where a plane and Wonder Woman was not flying it where did it land ?

Was this part of Nasa's new Muslim outreach program. Are we trying to show the Muslim world we know not what we do and you are great and so much more smart than we in the west?

We will never know as long as the press keeps repeating what they are being told by the Government. What happened to question everything and believe nothing the Government says?Where are the opposing views of thought??? What if or maybe? I'd like 5 minutes with the Nasa Administrator to ask some of these questions.

The point that disproves this as anything but a very large missile or even a military version of the Space shuttle is the burn ratio to minutes after launch . What I mean is when you watch the video, don’t watch the contrail watch and see how long the engines where firing on this object. I counted well over two minutes, until it went out of site. I believe at one point you can even see a flash and then separation of solid fuel tanks.

What Nasa and the press are not doing is comparing launch profiles of our space shuttle or large ICBM missiles with this object. Listen we have a far greater problems than a bad economy if our military satellites were not tracking this object on take off, and a far greater problem if we don’t know where it landed or where in space it ended up.

What goes up must come down unless it goes into space? For fun let’s say we were not tracking the take off, did we track the landing if this where a plane? If it where a plane were did it land? Why was Norad unable to get a fix on it so close to Vandenberg Air Force Base, California ??

Below is what the press is being feed by government sources! Don't believe it for one second .

___________________________________________

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon said Tuesday it did not know what created a vapor trail that crossed the skies off the Southern California coast and resembled a missile launch.

Video posted on the CBS News website shows an object flying through the evening sky Monday that left a large contrail, or vapor trail. A news helicopter owned by KCBS, a CBS affiliate in Los Angeles, shot the video.

Pentagon officials were stumped by the event. "Nobody within the Department of Defense that we've reached out to has been able to explain what this contrail is, where it came from," Pentagon spokesman Col. Dave Lapan said.

While the vapor cloud captured on video resembled that created by a rocket in flight, military officials said they didn't know of any launches in the area.

Lapan said that "all indications" were that the Defense Department was not involved with the object.

One expert called it an optical illusion. "It's an airplane that is heading toward the camera and the contrail is illuminated by the setting sun," said John Pike, director of the U.S.-based security analyst group globalsecurity.org.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, issued a statement jointly with the U.S. Northern Command, or NORTHCOM, saying that the contrail was not the result of a foreign military launching a missile. It provided no details.

"We can confirm that there is no threat to our nation," the statement said. "We will provide more information as it becomes available."

NORTHCOM is the U.S. defense command and NORAD is a U.S.-Canadian organization charged with protecting the U.S. from the threat of missiles or hostile aircraft.

Pike said the object could not have been a rocket because it appeared to alter its course.

"The local station chopped up the video and so it's hard to watch it continuously," Pike said. "But at one place you can see it has changed course - rockets don't do that."

Pike said he didn't understand why the military had not recognized the contrail of an aircraft. "The Air Force must ... understand how contrails are formed," he said. "Why they can't get some major out to belabor the obvious, I don't know."

Thank You Citizen Sentry - Keep sounding The Alarm Bell

I wanted to take time to thank all of you Patriots. Thank you for what my friend Shawn always says, “ Do the right thing”! You did. At Federal, State, and at Local levels! You voted fellow Tea Party Patriots into office.

I wanted to thank the over 300,000 of you that read and follow my websites. Libertyordeath1776.com – Presidentzero.com – RedDawn4473.com) I still find the numbers overwhelming. Thank you, you understand that Freedom is the bedrock to all of our liberties.

Over the past year we have had a great ride, influencing a major talk show host to adjust his website to information only. Michael Savage.com. We got my favorite book “ The Evil Tree “ on Glenn Beck’s Radio and TV show where millions where introduced to the evil of communism!

We sounded the alarm bell on cargo planes, and the threat they pose 6 month’s ago. We stated that UPS and Fed Ex would be the target. I’d like to think big brother was listening and reading.

Many thousands of you have asked how I can spend the hours I do sending the information I do for free. My answer is how can I not. Many of you have asked how you can help. You can, please keep telling your friends to read and be informed!

This movement is about your children and your grandchildren, and what kind of America will we leave them. There is no choice, It must be that Shining City On The Hill!

Many of you have started to call me Paul or PR, thank you he is one of my Hero’s.

Not because of the one if by land and two if by sea, or The Ride. It was the relationships that he built years before that made his ride so successful. His friends knew him to be a leader and a man of Honor. They followed his call because the believed in Paul and knew he was a man who could be trusted.

I am no modern day Paul Revere. I do believe in the cause of America. I know some one must sound the alarm bell. I know you can’t do that while selling your soul.

So if you believe what I believe, If you see what I see, then continue to read, and educate your friends and KEEP SOUNDING THE ALARM BELL. AMERICA NEEDS YOU NOW MORE THAN EVER!!

Thank you Friends

God Bless American

Gary

Lt. Col. Allen West wins big in a 3-1 democratic district in South Florida

In a race that has attracted national attention, retired Lt. Col. Allen West has taken a narrow lead over Democratic incumbent Rep. Ron Klein in South Florida's 22nd Congressional District, according to a new poll.

West drew became known to WND readers in 2003 when the Army prosecuted him for bold interrogation tactics he used to protect his soldiers in Iraq. Amid his controversial ordeal, he drew support from congressmen and many Americans who regarded him as a hero.

West lost by 10 points to Klein in 2008, but he leads the Democrat 47-44 in the survey of likely voters conducted Oct. 17-19 by Voter Survey Service and commissioned by Sunshine State News.

"West has to be the slight favorite here simply because of the turnout differential," Jim Lee, president of Voter Survey Service, told Sunshine State News.

West's passionately delivered emphasis on constitutional principles of liberty, fiscal responsibility, strong national defense and free-market solutions has attracted an audience well beyond Florida's 22nd district.



A video of his rally cry to the party base in preparation for his 2010 run has generated more than 2 million hits on YouTube.com.

See Allen West's speech:

Lee said the 22nd District race will clearly be a referendum on President Obama's performance, noting voters who approve of the president are voting for Klein 87-7, while those who disapprove are voting for West 84-8.

"Since Obama's overall job approval is inverted 52-43, we'd give the edge to West, because the enthusiasm favors the GOP this year," Lee said.

The South Florida district, which stretches along the coast from Fort Lauderdale north to Jupiter, has leaned Democratic in presidential election years but tends to be a tossup in midterm elections, when turnouts are lower, Sunshine State News said.

Republican Rep. Clay Shaw held the seat for 26 years until he was defeated by Klein in 2006.

Sept. 30 filings with the Federal Election Commission show West's campaign has brought in more than $5 million, with $1.6 million coming in the past quarter alone – four times the amount he raised in his entire 2008 campaign.

Grodin said 99 percent of the money comes from from individual contributions, with an average donation of $75.

Klein's has raised $3.1 million, according to the FEC report. But West has $1.6 million in cash on hand, while Klein has just $270,000.

'Bad guys are going to lose'

As WND reported in 2003, West was threatened with court-martial for tactics he used to flush out information from an uncooperative Iraqi policeman. Threatening to kill the Iraqi if he didn't talk, West fired a pistol near the policeman's head, producing an immediate flood of information that purportedly led to the arrest of two insurgents and cessation of attacks on West's 4th Infantry Division battalion.






In a 2008 interview with WND, West said his 2003 ordeal should tell voters what kind of a lawmaker he would be, particularly when it comes to issues of defense.

"If you're a bad guy, and you try to get between me and the safety and lives of American citizens, you're going to lose," West said.

Army prosecutors charged West with aggravated assault, and he faced the possibility of up to eight years in prison. At a hearing, West was asked by his defense attorney if he would do it again.

"If it's about the lives of my men and their safety, I'd go through hell with a gasoline can," he said.

West eventually accepted a nonjudicial punishment and the forfeiture of two months' pay. He retired from the military and moved with his wife, Angela, and two young daughters to Broward County, Florida, where he taught high school. He served in Afghanistan as an adviser to the Afghan army until November 2007.

The campaign, in its final weeks, is getting personal.

Klein's campaign ads have accused West of having ties to a motorcycle group, the Outlaws, that the U.S. Justice Department has labeled criminal.

A local TV station showed footage of leather-clad men at a West outdoor fundraiser who wore patches of a club affiliated with the Outlaws intimidating a Florida Democratic Party videographer into leaving. Democrats charge the men were following West's orders.

But West's campaign distributed photos showing Klein at an event with the same bikers, and one can be spotted with the same patch.

"In actuality, they're Vietnam veterans," West spokesman Josh Grodin told Sunshine State News.

"Frankly, Klein doesn't have a message. He's just running from his record and attacking Allen West," Grodin said.

An NBC News report by Lisa Myers picked up on the controversy, suggesting the alleged association shows West condones criminal activity.


Photo distributed by West's campaign shows Rep. Ron Klein with the same bikers Klein has tied to West.

West's campaign called the report a "political hatchet job by the liberal mainstream media."

"It should not come as a surprise to the good people of South Florida that incumbent Ron Klein and his cronies in the Democratic Party are playing dirty tricks to destroy the character of a man who served 22 years in the U.S. Army," said Grodin.

Noting the Florida Democratic Party sent West's Social Security number to hundreds of thousands of Florida residents, Grodin called the attempt to tie West to the Outlaws "another desperate move for a politician who sees his power slipping away." The Florida Democratic Party says the Social Security number was mistakenly sent out in a flier that featured a copy of a 2005 tax lien against West. The party apologized and offered up to two years of identity theft protection to West. The West campaign rejected the offer as a "backhanded apology." An ad highlighted the incident as a "desperate act."

"Let me be perfectly clear," Grodin said, "Allen West has absolutely no ties to the outlaw bikers club – an organization with a history of criminal activity, as well as racism against African Americans."

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, or DCCC, responded by pointing out Myers' NBC News report produced an e-mail from a West supporter warning that a "criminal organization members in leather riding up [Interstate]-95 is not the picture Allen wants."

NBC reported that West replied by emailing: "Please no more references to 'criminal'. I was never more amazed at how members of the Outlaws guarded me during an interview." The NBC report:

West denounced the NBC report as a "liberal character assassination attack" in an interview with the National Journal's online publication Hotline On Call,

"This most recent desperate insidious attack where Lisa Myers did her piece where they are trying to associate me as a member of the Outlaw motorcycle club," he said. "If she did her research, she'd know that the Outlaws do not accept blacks, Jews or gays."

The DCCC argued West has written a column for a South Florida biker magazine, Wheels On The Road, that appears to endorse the Outlaws and includes demeaning photos of women.

"There is no connection between the Outlaws motorcycle club and the magazine," West told Hotline On Call in the Oct. 14 interview. "There certainly is no connection with myself and the club."

West explained that the column is run by other blogs and magazines in addition to Wheels On The Road.

"I was asked to do that [column] by the editor because he wanted the South Florida biker community to learn more about politics," West said.

In an e-mail to supporters, West explained that after 22 years in the U.S. Army, including three combat zones, he "became an avid bike rider, and enjoy spending the occasional Saturday riding my bike with fellow veterans."

"I have neither belonged to an organization like the Outlaw Motorcycle Club, nor do I condone any of the kind of criminal behavior that they have been involved in," he said.

The DCCC also argued West was listed as a speaker on fliers for a rally hosted Oct. 16 by Wheels on the Road. But West didn't attend, explaining he decided to spend time with his family.