WHY DOES MEDIA AND YOUR THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRAT SIMPLY PRETEND THAT SELLING ALL OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION IS OK? WHAT'S A LITTLE PRIVACY EVASION IN EXCHANGE FOR USING SOCIAL MEDIA OR TO PROTECT YOU FROM TERRORISTS THEY SAY!
We are seeing much of what I have been saying for four years unfold as the powers are now not able to hide their intentions. They are confident that they are so well positioned as far a capture of politics and media that they will prevail, but I think not. It is already crumbling and more and more people are coming forward to shout out and make all public. I will say that some of these organizations or pundits calling themselves progressive that are only now commenting on what has been happening for years.....are not working for you and me!!
Regarding the campaign promise of 'NET NEUTRALITY' by all democratic candidates in 2008:
Before NPR became corporate they spoke often of net neutrality and indeed this issue was a major campaign issue that may have moved many voters to Obama from Hillary. Obama after all was the Community Organizer working for the people after all....until he wasn't. So, why has a critical issue for the future of American communications suddenly disappeared from media? It is all tied to NPR/APM telling us that the American people don't mind surveillance and data-mining unlike everyone else in the world. WE ACTUALLY DO REALLY HATE ALL THIS MORE THAN OTHER PEOPLE IN THE WORLD.. we simply no longer have a free press and journalism in media.
So what is NET NEUTRALITY now that it is never mentioned? The article below gives a good overview. Basically it addresses the fact that the Internet is a product of a taxpayer funded Department of Defense program and therefor is owned by the public......and it needs to be run as a public utility. Think of electricity. You turn on your lights, run your refrigerator, and watch TV with electricity that has one rate at which you are billed. You do not pay more to run your refrigerator than to run your TV for example. That is how the Internet needs to be run. When you pay a monthly charge of $40 for internet access that needs to be it. If a company wants to sell a product or service that you choose to add to your account, as we do with cable TV....they can charge. THE IDEA THAT A CONSUMER MUST BE AVAILABLE FOR DATA-MINING FOR PROFIT SIMPLY BECAUSE THEY ARE ON THE INTERNET IS WRONG AND IT IS AN EXAMPLE OF HOW YOUR THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRAT IS USING YOU FOR CORPORATE PROFIT! If the Internet is a public utility they do not have the right to suspend your Privacy with these huge contract disclaimers! The only reason they do is that Obama and the supermajority of democrats in 2009 ignored their campaign pledge of NET NEUTRALITY and now are making it more and more easy for corporations to charge you and sell your personal information. THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN IN MOST DEVELOPED NATIONS....IT IS THIRD WORLD AND NAKED CAPITALISM THAT IS NEO-LIBERALISM. THIRD WAY = THIRD WORLD.
We simply need to stop allowing the DNC which is controlled by Third Way corporate democrats to choose our candidates and run and vote for labor and justice candidates to reverse all of this bad policy.
Net Neutrality101
Free Press.net
When we log onto the Internet, we take lots of things for granted. We assume that we'll be able to access whatever Web site we want, whenever we want to go there. We assume that we can use any feature we like -- watching online video, listening to podcasts, searching, e-mailing and instant messaging -- anytime we choose. We assume that we can attach devices like wireless routers, game controllers or extra hard drives to make our online experience better.
What makes all these assumptions possible is "Network Neutrality," the guiding principle that preserves the free and open Internet. Net Neutrality means that Internet service providers may not discriminate between different kinds of content and applications online. It guarantees a level playing field for all Web sites and Internet technologies. But all that could change.
The biggest cable and telephone companies would like to charge money for smooth access to Web sites, speed to run applications, and permission to plug in devices. These network giants believe they should be able to charge Web site operators, application providers and device manufacturers for the right to use the network. Those who don't make a deal and pay up will experience discrimination: Their sites won't load as quickly, and their applications and devices won't work as well. Without legal protection, consumers could find that a network operator has blocked the Web site of a competitor, or slowed it down so much that it's unusable.
The network owners say they want a "tiered" Internet. If you pay to get in the top tier, your site and your service will run fast. If you don't, you'll be in the slow lane.
What's the Problem Here? Discrimination: The Internet was designed as an open medium. The fundamental idea since the Internet's inception has been that every Web site, every feature and every service should be treated without discrimination. That's how bloggers can compete with CNN or USA Today for readers. That's how up-and-coming musicians can build underground audiences before they get their first top-40 single. That's why when you use a search engine, you see a list of the sites that are the closest match to your request -- not those that paid the most to reach you. Discrimination endangers our basic Internet freedoms.
Double-dipping: Traditionally, network owners have built a business model by charging consumers for Internet access. Now they want to charge you for access to the network, and then charge you again for the things you do while you're online. They may not charge you directly via pay-per-view Web sites. But they will charge all the service providers you use. These providers will then pass those costs along to you in the form of price hikes or new charges to view content.
Stifling innovation: Net Neutrality ensures that innovators can start small and dream big about being the next EBay or Google without facing insurmountable hurdles. Unless we preserve Net Neutrality, startups and entrepreneurs will be muscled out of the marketplace by big corporations that pay for a top spot on the Web. On a tiered Internet controlled by the phone and cable companies, only their own content and services -- or those offered by corporate partners that pony up enough "protection money" -- will enjoy life in the fast lane.
The End of the Internet? Make no mistake: The free-flowing Internet as we know it could very well become history.
What does that mean? It means we could be headed toward a pay-per-view Internet where Web sites have fees. It means we may have to pay a network tax to run voice-over-the-Internet phones, use an advanced search engine, or chat via Instant Messenger. The next generation of inventions will be shut out of the top-tier service level. Meanwhile, the network owners will rake in even greater profits.
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Regarding NPR/APM's assertion that Americans are more accepting of surveillance and data-mining for profit:
Listening to Baltimore Sun's David Zurawik acting as NPR's one cheerleader and describing it as a 'public media' giant can be illustrated as propaganda by the issue below. It is sad to see current media people pretend to be journalists, but they themselves know they are not. I am constantly at public events and hear Sun writers say to the old school former Sun reporters...'You are a REAL JOURNALIST'. I ask Sun writers why they never incorporate my comments into their articles since all my comments are true and I'm told.....'We write what we are told'. INDEED. A friend vacationing overseas came back to tell me...'You should hear NPR overseas. They sound like Radio Free Chamber of Commerce; completely corporate'! INDEED. So, when Zurawik is brought on air to tote a commercial news outlet as public....YOU SEE THE MESS THAT IS AMERICAN CAPTURED MEDIA.
Let's take a look at the Snowden affair one more time. First, I'd like to say that Snowden is obviously a genius as is Assange. High school dropout like Bill Gates and many CEO geniuses only he has a conscience. It appears that outing Europe and China as to the spying against their citizens will get the world to pressure the US to stop being criminal. Citizens need to get out and fill the streets with protest and get rid of incumbents who 'are conveniently uninformed...they don't even know what is happening with TPP' REALLY? What we are seeing is the unraveling of globalism as nations are becoming more and more aware of the consequences. So all of this is adding to the dismantling of global infrastructure. Here is one issue the Chamber of Commerce NPR/APM fail to cover...
Below you see what is a common meme throughout Facebook and involves even those stalwart right wing Hillary fans. Yet, for some reason media, and corporate NPR/APM has not asked the question.......this is one of the comments on social media---
WHY IS THE NSA BEING RUN BY A PRIVATE FIRM ???????
You want a scandal, who the hell is Booz Allen Hamilton, and what is this country thinking in allowing a FOR PROFIT COMPANY to data mine the COUNTRY. Are they selling this Information?????
This is another carry over from the Disaster Called BUSH and this needs to be stopped. These firms run about 7 to 10 times more expensive than if the Government actually did the same JOB.
You wonder why the Military Budget is so out of touch to this country -- Privatized that is the answer and it must STOP.
From the Article:
In 1975, Senator Frank Church spoke of the National Security Agency in these terms:
"I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return."
Edward Snowden: saving us from the United Stasi of America
Snowden's whistleblowing gives us a chance to roll back what is tantamount to an 'executive coup' against the US constitution
Link to video: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: 'I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things'
In my estimation, there has not been in American history a more important leak than Edward Snowden's release of NSA material – and that definitely includes the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago. Snowden's whistleblowing gives us the possibility to roll back a key part of what has amounted to an "executive coup" against the US constitution.
Since 9/11, there has been, at first secretly but increasingly openly, a revocation of the bill of rights for which this country fought over 200 years ago. In particular, the fourth and fifth amendments of the US constitution, which safeguard citizens from unwarranted intrusion by the government into their private lives, have been virtually suspended.
The government claims it has a court warrant under Fisa – but that unconstitutionally sweeping warrant is from a secret court, shielded from effective oversight, almost totally deferential to executive requests. As Russell Tice, a former National Security Agency analyst, put it: "It is a kangaroo court with a rubber stamp."
For the president then to say that there is judicial oversight is nonsense – as is the alleged oversight function of the intelligence committees in Congress. Not for the first time – as with issues of torture, kidnapping, detention, assassination by drones and death squads –they have shown themselves to be thoroughly co-opted by the agencies they supposedly monitor. They are also black holes for information that the public needs to know.
The fact that congressional leaders were "briefed" on this and went along with it, without any open debate, hearings, staff analysis, or any real chance for effective dissent, only shows how broken the system of checks and balances is in this country.
Obviously, the United States is not now a police state. But given the extent of this invasion of people's privacy, we do have the full electronic and legislative infrastructure of such a state. If, for instance, there was now a war that led to a large-scale anti-war movement – like the one we had against the war in Vietnam – or, more likely, if we suffered one more attack on the scale of 9/11, I fear for our democracy. These powers are extremely dangerous.
There are legitimate reasons for secrecy, and specifically for secrecy about communications intelligence. That's why Bradley Mannning and I – both of whom had access to such intelligence with clearances higher than top-secret – chose not to disclose any information with that classification. And it is why Edward Snowden has committed himself to withhold publication of most of what he might have revealed.
But what is not legitimate is to use a secrecy system to hide programs that are blatantly unconstitutional in their breadth and potential abuse. Neither the president nor Congress as a whole may by themselves revoke the fourth amendment – and that's why what Snowden has revealed so far was secret from the American people.
In 1975, Senator Frank Church spoke of the National Security Agency in these terms:
"I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return."
The dangerous prospect of which he warned was that America's intelligence gathering capability – which is today beyond any comparison with what existed in his pre-digital era – "at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American would have any privacy left."
That has now happened. That is what Snowden has exposed, with official, secret documents. The NSA, FBI and CIA have, with the new digital technology, surveillance powers over our own citizens that the Stasi – the secret police in the former "democratic republic" of East Germany – could scarcely have dreamed of. Snowden reveals that the so-called intelligence community has become the United Stasi of America.
So we have fallen into Senator Church's abyss. The questions now are whether he was right or wrong that there is no return from it, and whether that means that effective democracy will become impossible. A week ago, I would have found it hard to argue with pessimistic answers to those conclusions.
But with Edward Snowden having put his life on the line to get this information out, quite possibly inspiring others with similar knowledge, conscience and patriotism to show comparable civil courage – in the public, in Congress, in the executive branch itself – I see the unexpected possibility of a way up and out of the abyss.
Pressure by an informed public on Congress to form a select committee to investigate the revelations by Snowden and, I hope, others to come might lead us to bring NSA and the rest of the intelligence community under real supervision and restraint and restore the protections of the bill of rights.
Snowden did what he did because he recognised the NSA's surveillance programs for what they are: dangerous, unconstitutional activity. This wholesale invasion of Americans' and foreign citizens' privacy does not contribute to our security; it puts in danger the very liberties we're trying to protect.
• Editor's note: this article was revised and updated at the author's behest, at 7.45am ET on 10 June
Exactly....BOOZ is an International Management corporation who works to design corporate structure to maximize profits...so an NSA job would be like the Insider Trading of data-mining....
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Maryland is co-opting all that is Texas these days including privatizing K-college and we are seeing the same thing at our universities and colleges as is happening in this article below. As I say over and again....they are making R and D and Human Resource facilities out of our public universities and having students and taxpayers pay for the operating costs of corporate business to maximize profits.....these are Third Way corporate democrats!!
Think about NET NEUTRALITY AND HOW THESE POLS ARE TRYING TO PRIVATIZE ALL PUBLIC EDUCATION BY ONLINE CLASSES THAT WILL HAVE TAXPAYERS AND STUDENTS PAYING FOR DIFFERENT LEVELS OF QUALITY IN EDUCATION....IT IS PERVERSE TO DEMOCRACY AND IT IS WHAT ALL OF MARYLAND/S THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRATS ARE WORKING!!!
Resisting Corporate Education: Is "Business Productivity" Coming to the University of Texas? Thursday, 13 June 2013 09:26 By Reihaneh Hajibeigi, Occupy.com | Report
Educational institutions are no longer safe from the reaches of profiteers. For the University of Texas at Austin, the “Smarter Systems for a Greater UT” is the newest move by the administration to treat the university not as a school but rather as a business.
Introduced early this year by UT President Bill Powers as a way for the university to survive state budget cuts, the school's so-called Business Productivity Initiative seeks to foster an educational system that is “reformed and always reforming.” In his January 29 speech, Powers said business operations and efficiency have always been a part of UT’s story and that the ideas proposed by 13 business leaders would save the university as much as $490 million over a decade.
But if we correctly consider businesses as organizations that work contrary to the interests of most people -- in this case especially, the consumers -- then Powers will achieve his goal. The Business Productivity Initiative will harm students greatly, in addition to faculty and workers.
According to Powers and his team, the plan will help run the university using less resources. Currently the state only funds 13 percent of UT’s costs, which is a problem in itself. But rather than prioritize the necessary costs of the university, the administration has turned to outsourcing all non-academic functions of the university in order to save money.
For concerned students like computer science sophomore Mukund Rathi, this is an issue that should not be overlooked by the community.
“Education is a public good, and the more selective it becomes, the more selective our success prospects will become,” Rathi said. “This plan takes education out of the right hands and into the hands of businessmen.”
The report is the epitome of the 1 percent ruling the 99 percent, Rathi added.
“The committee’s chairman is from Accenture, and this company’s negative effect on Texas’ food-stamp program shows what happens when businessmen are in charge.”
Active protesters like Rathi and UT senior Michelle Uche said it is necessary to bring as much attention to the university's profiteering efforts as possible.
“When this plan is implemented at UT, it will show other universities that they can also do whatever they want to cut costs while making a profit,” Uche said. “The administration says that it will save money, but the president never talks about the actual math of the report or what the human toll will be.”
In the plan, three areas of the University of Texas system will be targeted: Asset Utilization, Technology Commercialization and Administrative Service Transformation. Each of the areas has a group of either students, faculty, staff -- or even all three -- that will be penalized in the push to save costs.
“Asset Utilization” focuses directly on UT’s constituents, and introduces ways to make greater profits from parking, food and housing. It was noted at the start of the plan's business report that these areas are functioning well enough for the UT community and do not require change. Yet the Smarter Systems measure would either raise the prices to “market rates” – rates that are found in competitive industries outside the UT campus – or privatize those services altogether, putting them into the hands of companies not directly associated with the university.
Having their food, parking and basic living costs increase would put further strain on already cash-strapped students, and would also result in significant worker layoffs – a projected 64 percent in reduction in food and housing staff at the university.
The plans for “Technology Commercialization” and “Administrative Services Transformation” would consolidate and prioritize the school's academic departments. Once the plan is implemented, research initiatives will be evaluated and the ones that are deemed most profitable in various industries will be moved to the top of the funding list. This means liberal arts majors and departments will be given minimal funding if the benefits of those studies aren't seen as being profitable to UT.
Consolidation within information technology services may indeed save the university money after layoffs go into effect, but limiting access to these services will hinder students' and faculty’s ability to correct tech problems quickly.
Rathi said UT community members need to care about the impacts of a plan that will be directly affecting their livelihoods. Until now, though, the administration is successfully pulling off the heist without outrage from students, faculty or workers.
“The simple fact is that ‘privatization’ means that instead of socializing the costs of education to society, to which the benefits of education would ultimately flow when we graduate and get jobs, the costs will be privatized to individuals and their families,” Rathi said.
“This is a plan to save money, but they don’t bother to explain to us how they plan on doing this.”
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Baker is right! Absolutely not!!!! The 1% want the domestic economy to stay stagnant for decades as this allows them to exploit labor and profits while expanding overseas. They have no intentions of building the domestic economy!!! We will be swamped with cheap and unhealthy products so US global corporations can get into other nation's markets.
HE IS ABSOLUTELY WRONG WHEN HE ASSUMES WE CANNOT STOP THEM BECAUSE THESE TRADE DEALS ARE NOT CONSTITUTIONAL!!!
I was at a Progressive gathering in Washington a few years ago with Dean Baker on the panel. I and others raised a few major issues for which all of America's progressive academics were silent....that is that The Affordable Care Act was simply about making global health systems that would end up looking just like Wall Street and just as profit-driven and predatory on the public and should not be supported by democrats. The second was the existence of this TPP and how no one knew of the catastrophe these deals would be for American democracy. We knew a few years ago that these deals would usurp Constitutional rights of citizens to legislate.....a basic tenet of the US Constitution. So, these politicians are pretending it is legal to enter treaties that they say trump our Constitution.....which is illegal of course. They are basically preparing a 'coup' of the US government. Howard Dean and those members of the progressive panel not only ignored what was the most important issue brought forward......they lamented having opened the floor to questions. I am telling Dean now, you are wrong when you say the American people cannot stop this......it is illegal and if indeed a coup as many think it is.....it is treasonous.
The Trade Deal Scam
Wednesday, 12 June 2013 09:19 By Dean Baker, Truthout | News Analysis
President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference in the East Room of the White House. (Photo: Stephen Crowley / The New York Times)As part of its overall economic strategy the Obama administration is rushing full speed ahead with two major trade deals. On the one hand it has the Trans-Pacific Partnership which includes Japan and Australia and several other countries in East Asia and Latin America. On the other side there is an effort to craft a U.S.-EU trade agreement.
There are two key facts people should know about these proposed trade deals. First, they are mostly not about trade. Second they are not intended to boost the economy in a way that will help most of us. In fact, it is reasonable to say that these deals will likely be bad news for most people in the United States. Most of the people living in our partner countries are likely to be losers too.
On the first point, traditional trade issues, like the reduction of import tariffs and quotas, are a relatively small part of both deals. This is the case because these barriers have already been sharply reduced or even eliminated over the past three decades.
As a result, with a few notable exceptions, there is little room for further reductions in these sorts of barriers. Instead both deals focus on other issues, some of which may reasonably be considered barriers to trade, but many of which are matters of regulation that would ordinarily be left to national, regional, or even local levels of government to set for themselves. One purpose of locking regulatory rules into a trade deal is to push an agenda that favors certain interests (e.g. the large corporations who are at the center of the negotiating process) over the rest of society.
Both of these deals are likely to include restrictions on the sorts of health, safety, and environmental regulation that can be imposed by the countries that are parties to the agreements. While many of the regulations that are currently in place in these areas are far from perfect, there is not an obvious case for having them decided at the international level.
Suppose a country or region decides that the health risks posed by a particular pesticide are too great and therefore bans its use. If the risks are in fact small, then those imposing the ban will be the primary ones who suffer, presumably in the form of less productive agriculture and higher food prices. Is it necessary to have an international agreement to prevent this sort of "mistake?"
As a practical matter, the evidence on such issues will often be ambiguous. For example, does fracking pose a health hazard to the surrounding communities? These agreements could end up taking control of the decision as to whether or not to allow fracking away from the communities who would be most affected.
In addition to limiting local control in many areas these trade deals will almost certainly include provisions that make for stronger and longer copyright and patent protection, especially on prescription drugs. The latter is coming at the urging of the U.S. pharmaceutical industry, which has been a central player in all the trade agreements negotiated over the last quarter century. This is likely to mean much higher drug prices for our trading partners.
This is of course the opposite of free trade. Instead of reducing barriers, the drug companies want to increase them, banning competitors from selling the same drugs. The difference in prices can be quite large. Generic drugs, with few exceptions, are cheap to produce. When drugs sell for hundreds or thousands of dollars per prescription it is because patent monopolies allow them to be sold for high prices.
If these trade deals result in much higher drug prices for our trading partners, the concern should not just be a moral one about people being unable to afford drugs. The more money people in Vietnam or Malaysia have to pay Pfizer and Merck for their drugs, the less money they will have to spend on other exports from the United States. This means that everyone from manufacturing workers to workers in the tourist sector can expect to see fewer job opportunities because of the copyright and patent protection rules imposed through these trade deals.
To see this point, imagine someone operating a fruit stand in a farmers' market. If the person in the next stall selling meat has a clever way to short-change customers, then his scam will come at least partly at the expense of the fruit stand. The reason is that many potential fruit stand customers will have their wallets drained at the meat stand and won't have any money left to buy fruit.
The drug companies' efforts to get increased patent protection, along with the computer and entertainment industries efforts to get stronger copyright protection, will have the same effect. Insofar as they can force other countries to pay them more in royalties and licensing fees or directly for their products, these countries will have less money to spend on other goods and services produced in the United States. In other words, the short-change artist in the next stall is not our friend and neither are the pharmaceutical, computer, or entertainment industries.
However these industries all have friends in the Obama administration. As a result, these trade deals are likely to give them the protections they want. The public may not have the power to stop the high-powered lobbyists from getting their way on these trade pacts, but it should at least know what is going on. These trade deals are about pulling more money out of their pockets in order to make the rich even richer.
We are seeing much of what I have been saying for four years unfold as the powers are now not able to hide their intentions. They are confident that they are so well positioned as far a capture of politics and media that they will prevail, but I think not. It is already crumbling and more and more people are coming forward to shout out and make all public. I will say that some of these organizations or pundits calling themselves progressive that are only now commenting on what has been happening for years.....are not working for you and me!!
Regarding the campaign promise of 'NET NEUTRALITY' by all democratic candidates in 2008:
Before NPR became corporate they spoke often of net neutrality and indeed this issue was a major campaign issue that may have moved many voters to Obama from Hillary. Obama after all was the Community Organizer working for the people after all....until he wasn't. So, why has a critical issue for the future of American communications suddenly disappeared from media? It is all tied to NPR/APM telling us that the American people don't mind surveillance and data-mining unlike everyone else in the world. WE ACTUALLY DO REALLY HATE ALL THIS MORE THAN OTHER PEOPLE IN THE WORLD.. we simply no longer have a free press and journalism in media.
So what is NET NEUTRALITY now that it is never mentioned? The article below gives a good overview. Basically it addresses the fact that the Internet is a product of a taxpayer funded Department of Defense program and therefor is owned by the public......and it needs to be run as a public utility. Think of electricity. You turn on your lights, run your refrigerator, and watch TV with electricity that has one rate at which you are billed. You do not pay more to run your refrigerator than to run your TV for example. That is how the Internet needs to be run. When you pay a monthly charge of $40 for internet access that needs to be it. If a company wants to sell a product or service that you choose to add to your account, as we do with cable TV....they can charge. THE IDEA THAT A CONSUMER MUST BE AVAILABLE FOR DATA-MINING FOR PROFIT SIMPLY BECAUSE THEY ARE ON THE INTERNET IS WRONG AND IT IS AN EXAMPLE OF HOW YOUR THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRAT IS USING YOU FOR CORPORATE PROFIT! If the Internet is a public utility they do not have the right to suspend your Privacy with these huge contract disclaimers! The only reason they do is that Obama and the supermajority of democrats in 2009 ignored their campaign pledge of NET NEUTRALITY and now are making it more and more easy for corporations to charge you and sell your personal information. THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN IN MOST DEVELOPED NATIONS....IT IS THIRD WORLD AND NAKED CAPITALISM THAT IS NEO-LIBERALISM. THIRD WAY = THIRD WORLD.
We simply need to stop allowing the DNC which is controlled by Third Way corporate democrats to choose our candidates and run and vote for labor and justice candidates to reverse all of this bad policy.
Net Neutrality101
Free Press.net
When we log onto the Internet, we take lots of things for granted. We assume that we'll be able to access whatever Web site we want, whenever we want to go there. We assume that we can use any feature we like -- watching online video, listening to podcasts, searching, e-mailing and instant messaging -- anytime we choose. We assume that we can attach devices like wireless routers, game controllers or extra hard drives to make our online experience better.
What makes all these assumptions possible is "Network Neutrality," the guiding principle that preserves the free and open Internet. Net Neutrality means that Internet service providers may not discriminate between different kinds of content and applications online. It guarantees a level playing field for all Web sites and Internet technologies. But all that could change.
The biggest cable and telephone companies would like to charge money for smooth access to Web sites, speed to run applications, and permission to plug in devices. These network giants believe they should be able to charge Web site operators, application providers and device manufacturers for the right to use the network. Those who don't make a deal and pay up will experience discrimination: Their sites won't load as quickly, and their applications and devices won't work as well. Without legal protection, consumers could find that a network operator has blocked the Web site of a competitor, or slowed it down so much that it's unusable.
The network owners say they want a "tiered" Internet. If you pay to get in the top tier, your site and your service will run fast. If you don't, you'll be in the slow lane.
What's the Problem Here? Discrimination: The Internet was designed as an open medium. The fundamental idea since the Internet's inception has been that every Web site, every feature and every service should be treated without discrimination. That's how bloggers can compete with CNN or USA Today for readers. That's how up-and-coming musicians can build underground audiences before they get their first top-40 single. That's why when you use a search engine, you see a list of the sites that are the closest match to your request -- not those that paid the most to reach you. Discrimination endangers our basic Internet freedoms.
Double-dipping: Traditionally, network owners have built a business model by charging consumers for Internet access. Now they want to charge you for access to the network, and then charge you again for the things you do while you're online. They may not charge you directly via pay-per-view Web sites. But they will charge all the service providers you use. These providers will then pass those costs along to you in the form of price hikes or new charges to view content.
Stifling innovation: Net Neutrality ensures that innovators can start small and dream big about being the next EBay or Google without facing insurmountable hurdles. Unless we preserve Net Neutrality, startups and entrepreneurs will be muscled out of the marketplace by big corporations that pay for a top spot on the Web. On a tiered Internet controlled by the phone and cable companies, only their own content and services -- or those offered by corporate partners that pony up enough "protection money" -- will enjoy life in the fast lane.
The End of the Internet? Make no mistake: The free-flowing Internet as we know it could very well become history.
What does that mean? It means we could be headed toward a pay-per-view Internet where Web sites have fees. It means we may have to pay a network tax to run voice-over-the-Internet phones, use an advanced search engine, or chat via Instant Messenger. The next generation of inventions will be shut out of the top-tier service level. Meanwhile, the network owners will rake in even greater profits.
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Regarding NPR/APM's assertion that Americans are more accepting of surveillance and data-mining for profit:
Listening to Baltimore Sun's David Zurawik acting as NPR's one cheerleader and describing it as a 'public media' giant can be illustrated as propaganda by the issue below. It is sad to see current media people pretend to be journalists, but they themselves know they are not. I am constantly at public events and hear Sun writers say to the old school former Sun reporters...'You are a REAL JOURNALIST'. I ask Sun writers why they never incorporate my comments into their articles since all my comments are true and I'm told.....'We write what we are told'. INDEED. A friend vacationing overseas came back to tell me...'You should hear NPR overseas. They sound like Radio Free Chamber of Commerce; completely corporate'! INDEED. So, when Zurawik is brought on air to tote a commercial news outlet as public....YOU SEE THE MESS THAT IS AMERICAN CAPTURED MEDIA.
Let's take a look at the Snowden affair one more time. First, I'd like to say that Snowden is obviously a genius as is Assange. High school dropout like Bill Gates and many CEO geniuses only he has a conscience. It appears that outing Europe and China as to the spying against their citizens will get the world to pressure the US to stop being criminal. Citizens need to get out and fill the streets with protest and get rid of incumbents who 'are conveniently uninformed...they don't even know what is happening with TPP' REALLY? What we are seeing is the unraveling of globalism as nations are becoming more and more aware of the consequences. So all of this is adding to the dismantling of global infrastructure. Here is one issue the Chamber of Commerce NPR/APM fail to cover...
Below you see what is a common meme throughout Facebook and involves even those stalwart right wing Hillary fans. Yet, for some reason media, and corporate NPR/APM has not asked the question.......this is one of the comments on social media---
WHY IS THE NSA BEING RUN BY A PRIVATE FIRM ???????
You want a scandal, who the hell is Booz Allen Hamilton, and what is this country thinking in allowing a FOR PROFIT COMPANY to data mine the COUNTRY. Are they selling this Information?????
This is another carry over from the Disaster Called BUSH and this needs to be stopped. These firms run about 7 to 10 times more expensive than if the Government actually did the same JOB.
You wonder why the Military Budget is so out of touch to this country -- Privatized that is the answer and it must STOP.
From the Article:
In 1975, Senator Frank Church spoke of the National Security Agency in these terms:
"I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return."
Edward Snowden: saving us from the United Stasi of America
Snowden's whistleblowing gives us a chance to roll back what is tantamount to an 'executive coup' against the US constitution
Link to video: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: 'I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things'
In my estimation, there has not been in American history a more important leak than Edward Snowden's release of NSA material – and that definitely includes the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago. Snowden's whistleblowing gives us the possibility to roll back a key part of what has amounted to an "executive coup" against the US constitution.
Since 9/11, there has been, at first secretly but increasingly openly, a revocation of the bill of rights for which this country fought over 200 years ago. In particular, the fourth and fifth amendments of the US constitution, which safeguard citizens from unwarranted intrusion by the government into their private lives, have been virtually suspended.
The government claims it has a court warrant under Fisa – but that unconstitutionally sweeping warrant is from a secret court, shielded from effective oversight, almost totally deferential to executive requests. As Russell Tice, a former National Security Agency analyst, put it: "It is a kangaroo court with a rubber stamp."
For the president then to say that there is judicial oversight is nonsense – as is the alleged oversight function of the intelligence committees in Congress. Not for the first time – as with issues of torture, kidnapping, detention, assassination by drones and death squads –they have shown themselves to be thoroughly co-opted by the agencies they supposedly monitor. They are also black holes for information that the public needs to know.
The fact that congressional leaders were "briefed" on this and went along with it, without any open debate, hearings, staff analysis, or any real chance for effective dissent, only shows how broken the system of checks and balances is in this country.
Obviously, the United States is not now a police state. But given the extent of this invasion of people's privacy, we do have the full electronic and legislative infrastructure of such a state. If, for instance, there was now a war that led to a large-scale anti-war movement – like the one we had against the war in Vietnam – or, more likely, if we suffered one more attack on the scale of 9/11, I fear for our democracy. These powers are extremely dangerous.
There are legitimate reasons for secrecy, and specifically for secrecy about communications intelligence. That's why Bradley Mannning and I – both of whom had access to such intelligence with clearances higher than top-secret – chose not to disclose any information with that classification. And it is why Edward Snowden has committed himself to withhold publication of most of what he might have revealed.
But what is not legitimate is to use a secrecy system to hide programs that are blatantly unconstitutional in their breadth and potential abuse. Neither the president nor Congress as a whole may by themselves revoke the fourth amendment – and that's why what Snowden has revealed so far was secret from the American people.
In 1975, Senator Frank Church spoke of the National Security Agency in these terms:
"I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return."
The dangerous prospect of which he warned was that America's intelligence gathering capability – which is today beyond any comparison with what existed in his pre-digital era – "at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American would have any privacy left."
That has now happened. That is what Snowden has exposed, with official, secret documents. The NSA, FBI and CIA have, with the new digital technology, surveillance powers over our own citizens that the Stasi – the secret police in the former "democratic republic" of East Germany – could scarcely have dreamed of. Snowden reveals that the so-called intelligence community has become the United Stasi of America.
So we have fallen into Senator Church's abyss. The questions now are whether he was right or wrong that there is no return from it, and whether that means that effective democracy will become impossible. A week ago, I would have found it hard to argue with pessimistic answers to those conclusions.
But with Edward Snowden having put his life on the line to get this information out, quite possibly inspiring others with similar knowledge, conscience and patriotism to show comparable civil courage – in the public, in Congress, in the executive branch itself – I see the unexpected possibility of a way up and out of the abyss.
Pressure by an informed public on Congress to form a select committee to investigate the revelations by Snowden and, I hope, others to come might lead us to bring NSA and the rest of the intelligence community under real supervision and restraint and restore the protections of the bill of rights.
Snowden did what he did because he recognised the NSA's surveillance programs for what they are: dangerous, unconstitutional activity. This wholesale invasion of Americans' and foreign citizens' privacy does not contribute to our security; it puts in danger the very liberties we're trying to protect.
• Editor's note: this article was revised and updated at the author's behest, at 7.45am ET on 10 June
Exactly....BOOZ is an International Management corporation who works to design corporate structure to maximize profits...so an NSA job would be like the Insider Trading of data-mining....
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Maryland is co-opting all that is Texas these days including privatizing K-college and we are seeing the same thing at our universities and colleges as is happening in this article below. As I say over and again....they are making R and D and Human Resource facilities out of our public universities and having students and taxpayers pay for the operating costs of corporate business to maximize profits.....these are Third Way corporate democrats!!
Think about NET NEUTRALITY AND HOW THESE POLS ARE TRYING TO PRIVATIZE ALL PUBLIC EDUCATION BY ONLINE CLASSES THAT WILL HAVE TAXPAYERS AND STUDENTS PAYING FOR DIFFERENT LEVELS OF QUALITY IN EDUCATION....IT IS PERVERSE TO DEMOCRACY AND IT IS WHAT ALL OF MARYLAND/S THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRATS ARE WORKING!!!
Resisting Corporate Education: Is "Business Productivity" Coming to the University of Texas? Thursday, 13 June 2013 09:26 By Reihaneh Hajibeigi, Occupy.com | Report
Educational institutions are no longer safe from the reaches of profiteers. For the University of Texas at Austin, the “Smarter Systems for a Greater UT” is the newest move by the administration to treat the university not as a school but rather as a business.
Introduced early this year by UT President Bill Powers as a way for the university to survive state budget cuts, the school's so-called Business Productivity Initiative seeks to foster an educational system that is “reformed and always reforming.” In his January 29 speech, Powers said business operations and efficiency have always been a part of UT’s story and that the ideas proposed by 13 business leaders would save the university as much as $490 million over a decade.
But if we correctly consider businesses as organizations that work contrary to the interests of most people -- in this case especially, the consumers -- then Powers will achieve his goal. The Business Productivity Initiative will harm students greatly, in addition to faculty and workers.
According to Powers and his team, the plan will help run the university using less resources. Currently the state only funds 13 percent of UT’s costs, which is a problem in itself. But rather than prioritize the necessary costs of the university, the administration has turned to outsourcing all non-academic functions of the university in order to save money.
For concerned students like computer science sophomore Mukund Rathi, this is an issue that should not be overlooked by the community.
“Education is a public good, and the more selective it becomes, the more selective our success prospects will become,” Rathi said. “This plan takes education out of the right hands and into the hands of businessmen.”
The report is the epitome of the 1 percent ruling the 99 percent, Rathi added.
“The committee’s chairman is from Accenture, and this company’s negative effect on Texas’ food-stamp program shows what happens when businessmen are in charge.”
Active protesters like Rathi and UT senior Michelle Uche said it is necessary to bring as much attention to the university's profiteering efforts as possible.
“When this plan is implemented at UT, it will show other universities that they can also do whatever they want to cut costs while making a profit,” Uche said. “The administration says that it will save money, but the president never talks about the actual math of the report or what the human toll will be.”
In the plan, three areas of the University of Texas system will be targeted: Asset Utilization, Technology Commercialization and Administrative Service Transformation. Each of the areas has a group of either students, faculty, staff -- or even all three -- that will be penalized in the push to save costs.
“Asset Utilization” focuses directly on UT’s constituents, and introduces ways to make greater profits from parking, food and housing. It was noted at the start of the plan's business report that these areas are functioning well enough for the UT community and do not require change. Yet the Smarter Systems measure would either raise the prices to “market rates” – rates that are found in competitive industries outside the UT campus – or privatize those services altogether, putting them into the hands of companies not directly associated with the university.
Having their food, parking and basic living costs increase would put further strain on already cash-strapped students, and would also result in significant worker layoffs – a projected 64 percent in reduction in food and housing staff at the university.
The plans for “Technology Commercialization” and “Administrative Services Transformation” would consolidate and prioritize the school's academic departments. Once the plan is implemented, research initiatives will be evaluated and the ones that are deemed most profitable in various industries will be moved to the top of the funding list. This means liberal arts majors and departments will be given minimal funding if the benefits of those studies aren't seen as being profitable to UT.
Consolidation within information technology services may indeed save the university money after layoffs go into effect, but limiting access to these services will hinder students' and faculty’s ability to correct tech problems quickly.
Rathi said UT community members need to care about the impacts of a plan that will be directly affecting their livelihoods. Until now, though, the administration is successfully pulling off the heist without outrage from students, faculty or workers.
“The simple fact is that ‘privatization’ means that instead of socializing the costs of education to society, to which the benefits of education would ultimately flow when we graduate and get jobs, the costs will be privatized to individuals and their families,” Rathi said.
“This is a plan to save money, but they don’t bother to explain to us how they plan on doing this.”
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Baker is right! Absolutely not!!!! The 1% want the domestic economy to stay stagnant for decades as this allows them to exploit labor and profits while expanding overseas. They have no intentions of building the domestic economy!!! We will be swamped with cheap and unhealthy products so US global corporations can get into other nation's markets.
HE IS ABSOLUTELY WRONG WHEN HE ASSUMES WE CANNOT STOP THEM BECAUSE THESE TRADE DEALS ARE NOT CONSTITUTIONAL!!!
I was at a Progressive gathering in Washington a few years ago with Dean Baker on the panel. I and others raised a few major issues for which all of America's progressive academics were silent....that is that The Affordable Care Act was simply about making global health systems that would end up looking just like Wall Street and just as profit-driven and predatory on the public and should not be supported by democrats. The second was the existence of this TPP and how no one knew of the catastrophe these deals would be for American democracy. We knew a few years ago that these deals would usurp Constitutional rights of citizens to legislate.....a basic tenet of the US Constitution. So, these politicians are pretending it is legal to enter treaties that they say trump our Constitution.....which is illegal of course. They are basically preparing a 'coup' of the US government. Howard Dean and those members of the progressive panel not only ignored what was the most important issue brought forward......they lamented having opened the floor to questions. I am telling Dean now, you are wrong when you say the American people cannot stop this......it is illegal and if indeed a coup as many think it is.....it is treasonous.
The Trade Deal Scam
Wednesday, 12 June 2013 09:19 By Dean Baker, Truthout | News Analysis
President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference in the East Room of the White House. (Photo: Stephen Crowley / The New York Times)As part of its overall economic strategy the Obama administration is rushing full speed ahead with two major trade deals. On the one hand it has the Trans-Pacific Partnership which includes Japan and Australia and several other countries in East Asia and Latin America. On the other side there is an effort to craft a U.S.-EU trade agreement.
There are two key facts people should know about these proposed trade deals. First, they are mostly not about trade. Second they are not intended to boost the economy in a way that will help most of us. In fact, it is reasonable to say that these deals will likely be bad news for most people in the United States. Most of the people living in our partner countries are likely to be losers too.
On the first point, traditional trade issues, like the reduction of import tariffs and quotas, are a relatively small part of both deals. This is the case because these barriers have already been sharply reduced or even eliminated over the past three decades.
As a result, with a few notable exceptions, there is little room for further reductions in these sorts of barriers. Instead both deals focus on other issues, some of which may reasonably be considered barriers to trade, but many of which are matters of regulation that would ordinarily be left to national, regional, or even local levels of government to set for themselves. One purpose of locking regulatory rules into a trade deal is to push an agenda that favors certain interests (e.g. the large corporations who are at the center of the negotiating process) over the rest of society.
Both of these deals are likely to include restrictions on the sorts of health, safety, and environmental regulation that can be imposed by the countries that are parties to the agreements. While many of the regulations that are currently in place in these areas are far from perfect, there is not an obvious case for having them decided at the international level.
Suppose a country or region decides that the health risks posed by a particular pesticide are too great and therefore bans its use. If the risks are in fact small, then those imposing the ban will be the primary ones who suffer, presumably in the form of less productive agriculture and higher food prices. Is it necessary to have an international agreement to prevent this sort of "mistake?"
As a practical matter, the evidence on such issues will often be ambiguous. For example, does fracking pose a health hazard to the surrounding communities? These agreements could end up taking control of the decision as to whether or not to allow fracking away from the communities who would be most affected.
In addition to limiting local control in many areas these trade deals will almost certainly include provisions that make for stronger and longer copyright and patent protection, especially on prescription drugs. The latter is coming at the urging of the U.S. pharmaceutical industry, which has been a central player in all the trade agreements negotiated over the last quarter century. This is likely to mean much higher drug prices for our trading partners.
This is of course the opposite of free trade. Instead of reducing barriers, the drug companies want to increase them, banning competitors from selling the same drugs. The difference in prices can be quite large. Generic drugs, with few exceptions, are cheap to produce. When drugs sell for hundreds or thousands of dollars per prescription it is because patent monopolies allow them to be sold for high prices.
If these trade deals result in much higher drug prices for our trading partners, the concern should not just be a moral one about people being unable to afford drugs. The more money people in Vietnam or Malaysia have to pay Pfizer and Merck for their drugs, the less money they will have to spend on other exports from the United States. This means that everyone from manufacturing workers to workers in the tourist sector can expect to see fewer job opportunities because of the copyright and patent protection rules imposed through these trade deals.
To see this point, imagine someone operating a fruit stand in a farmers' market. If the person in the next stall selling meat has a clever way to short-change customers, then his scam will come at least partly at the expense of the fruit stand. The reason is that many potential fruit stand customers will have their wallets drained at the meat stand and won't have any money left to buy fruit.
The drug companies' efforts to get increased patent protection, along with the computer and entertainment industries efforts to get stronger copyright protection, will have the same effect. Insofar as they can force other countries to pay them more in royalties and licensing fees or directly for their products, these countries will have less money to spend on other goods and services produced in the United States. In other words, the short-change artist in the next stall is not our friend and neither are the pharmaceutical, computer, or entertainment industries.
However these industries all have friends in the Obama administration. As a result, these trade deals are likely to give them the protections they want. The public may not have the power to stop the high-powered lobbyists from getting their way on these trade pacts, but it should at least know what is going on. These trade deals are about pulling more money out of their pockets in order to make the rich even richer.
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