In The News

[Effectz]

It saying on Sky news one is dead and one has escaped???

[BANE]

And yet the entire nation is holding hands and singing campfire songs at hockey games and belting out the national anthem with tears in their eyes like they'd just won World War 2.

Because we have Spirit. And Patriotism.

And hyperactive tear ducts.

And BMI's that are through the roof. 

You're a f**king idiot. Now continue with yours and SM's little circle jerk.

[Bat Chain Puller]

The Tsarnaev brothers huh?

Spoiler

[close]

[Aspie]

Seems people are assuming the the two suspects are the ones who bombed the Marathon.

[Bat Chain Puller]

Seems people are assuming the the two suspects are the ones who bombed the Marathon.

You are right Asp. We shouldn't question the innocence of people who hurl explosive devices at police officers.

[PVTDukeMorrison]

Chechen's, not really a surprise there...

[coolbreeze]

And yet the entire nation is holding hands and singing campfire songs at hockey games and belting out the national anthem with tears in their eyes like they'd just won World War 2.

Because we have Spirit. And Patriotism.

And hyperactive tear ducts.

And BMI's that are through the roof. 

Well I lol'd. 

[Rick Grimes]

With all these things happening in Massachusetts from Marathon bombings, to late night shootouts and now nationwide manhunt, it seems like Congress was being sneaky and passed CISPA Bill under our noses while we were distracted over the past week.

The controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) just passed the U.S. House, and will now head to the upper Senate chamber for further deliberation.

Rinse and repeat. This isn't the first time that this has happened, but it still poses a major threat to Fourth Amendment rights, according to civil liberties campaigners.

The Bill was passed 288-127 in favor of the Bill after two days of debate and discussion on the House floor. Only 18 members of the House abstained from the vote.

CISPA will allow private sector firms to search personal and sensitive user data of ordinary U.S. residents to identify "threat information," which can then be shared with other opt-in firms and the U.S. government — without the need for a court-ordered warrant.

This means a company like Facebook, Twitter, Google, or any other technology or telecoms company, including your cell service provider, would be legally able to hand over vast amounts of data to the U.S. government and its law enforcement — for whatever purpose it deems necessary — and face no legal reprisals.

nd despite numerous amendments and changes, there are no requirements that personal data, such as health records or banking information, should be anonymized before sharing it with the government.

It's hoped that the data can be used in real time to stop cyberattacks in their tracks, or even trace back to the source of the attack. Because cyberattacks nowadays as weapons in the virtual battlefield could lead to all-out war.

The Bill will also amend the National Security Act to allow U.S. intelligence services to hand over classified information to entities and people that do not have security clearance. The idea is that this will be used in order to help companies fight back against and prevent cyberattacks on their systems in the future.

A great deal of controversy has stirred around this Bill. Having amendments passed in a veil of secrecy did not help matters, either.

To make things even more complicated, a new amendment, voted down by lawmakers on Wednesday in the U.S. House, would have allowed U.S. companies to keep their privacy policies intact and their promises valid, including terms of service, legally enforceable in the future.

It means that the many who signed up to such services under terms that promised their data would not be shared with anyone — unless a subpoena or court order was served — would no longer have such rights going forward.

Though it would have weakened CISPA's overall weight, now it gives additional legal immunity to companies sharing their customer data. Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO), in speaking to ZDNet's sister site CNET, said that such firms are "completely exonerated from any risk of liability."

It violates our Constitutional Rights of the 4th Amendment. The key provision of CISPA is that it allows government entities to acquire your data without a warrant, should a private company holding your data hand it over.

The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized"

"Upon probable cause." That means the U.S. government has to seek out data based on evidence and intelligence. But while the U.S. government and its law enforcement agencies, intelligence services, and more than 600 agencies that can use your data cannot force a company to hand over data, it doesn't mean your data is safe.

The Fourth Amendment does not protect private companies from accessing and data mining your information for its own gain. It only protects against the U.S. government unlawfully accessing your data without a search warrant.
CISPA bridges a gap between the private firms that can access your data for nefarious purposes — they would likely never do this — to the U.S. government.

U.S. firms voluntarily handing data along the one-way street to the U.S. government effectively means the Fourth Amendment doesn't have to apply; it's not snooping if it was handed to the government under "cybersecurity" grounds.

By this point, the U.S. government can do just about anything it likes with your data once it's in its hands, in spite of the Fourth Amendment and notwithstanding lacking a search warrant. The kicker is that this is allowed as long as it's lawful and pertains to "cybersecurity purposes," rather than "national security" purposes. But because the language in CISPA is so ill defined, it could be used for many more reasons than were initially considered.

According to privacy and civil liberties group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), even though the data was passed to the government for reasons pertaining only to "cybersecurity," it can then be used to investigate other crime, not limited to cybersecurity crime, such as the "criminal exploitation of minor, protecting individuals from death or serious physical injury, or protecting the national security of the United States."

But it all flows through the U.S. Department of Justice, first and foremost, which can then be disseminated throughout government and its agencies, onto the FBI, the National Security Agency (NSA), Immigration and Customs, and so on. Even the U.S. Department of Agriculture can take on your data and use it against you, should you be fishing without a license.

And because this is done behind the scenes and private companies do not have to tell you that they've handed your data to the government, you may never know about it. And private firms are exempt from Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, with such provisions disallowed under CISPA.

The EFF said on its site:

"As it stands, CISPA is dangerously vague, and should not allow for any expansion of government powers through a series of poorly worded definitions. If the drafters intend to give new powers to the government's already extensive capacity to examine your private information, they should propose clear and specific language so we can have a real debate."

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has called CISPA "fatally flawed."

"The core problem is that CISPA allows too much sensitive information to be shared with too many people in the first place, including the National Security Agency," the privacy group said. In a statement today, it went further, calling the Bill "extreme."

CISPA is an extreme proposal that allows companies that hold our very sensitive information to share it with any company or government entity they choose, even directly with military agencies like the NSA, without first stripping out personally identifiable information.

What next?
Under CISPA, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, others can't promise to protect your privacy.
Many civil liberties campaigners are hoping for similar action based on last year's events, when the upper house chamber shelved the Bill as it sought to develop its own cybersecurity legislation.

CISPA will likely face yet another roadblock when it reaches President Obama's desk. This week, the White House threw its weight behind a threat that would see CISPA vetoed by President Obama should it pass through Congress unimpeded.

It repeats a similar sentiment by the Obama administration last year, when CISPA reached as far as passing the House but failed in the upper Senate chamber.

In a letter, the White House said: "The administration still seeks additional improvements, and if the Bill, as currently crafted, were presented to the president, his senior advisors would recommend that he veto the Bill."

Hopefully, Obama does the right thing and veto's the Bill.

[Sexy Poot]

I knew it wasn't white people. Honkys can do no wrong. 

Spoiler

Hope they skin the f**k alive.

[close]

[SpreadEagleBeagle]

You realise that Muslims aren't a race, right? You can have white Muslims, Chinese Muslims - any kind of ethnicity you want. It means nothing. The 'shoe bomber' was white. Al Qaeda has been known for many years to be actively seeking out white recruits, specifically to get around ethnic profiling strategies.

I know that very well thank you and I'm surprised that you interpreted me that way. I know internet is not the right place to read between the lines to get the gist of things, but still...

Guess I'll have to word things down better the next time.

Islamic extremism isn't an ethnicity. It's an ideology. An ideology which just so happens to be the one most entangled in wanting to strike US targets and lots of experience in building these types of devices. If you don't consider Islamic radicals to be one of the more obvious potential suspects, then you're ignoring reality.

Which I pretty much made clear in my post.

I never said that militant Islamists (read, Islamism, not Islamic or Islam or Muslim, but Islamism and Islamist) and such were out of the question. I just found the bombings not characteristic to "Middle Eastern" terrorist acts outside of the Middle East. Sure, bombing a subway train or station would seemingly be the same, but it isn't since the subway is a part of the infrastructure that much of the everyday society relies upon and is a the network connecting a city and maybe even the whole nation - it has a symbolic value, especially if it's in the capital city. Marathons on the other hand?

Doesn't mean to say they are responsible. Just that it's a likelihood which needs to be considered.

Of course they should be considered, just like any other domestic or foreign terrorist organization or group.

Ironically enough it seems like the people who committed these heinous terror acts were (and one of them still is...) white Muslims (Chechens are genetically closer to Europeans than to Middle Easterners) who pretty much grew up in the US and all. Which kind of makes it a hybrid terrorist case. It's neither domestic or foreign. Them being Muslims though, and a possible link to the Chechen struggle in Russia, will have an effect on how this whole thing will be perceived and dealt with.

Nothing good will come out of this though, other than then culprits being taken care of. Other than that this will be seen as another reason why Muslims are evil and Islam twists people into demons and foreigners and people that don't look white enough are not to be trusted, while in the meantime white "Christian" Right-winger extremists are free to sabotage and blow up abortion clinics, gay bars, schools etc., threaten and kill people of color, different religious believes, teachers etc., and then we forget about it within a week or two. It never stacks.

[DoomRulz]

I never said that militant Islamists (read, Islamism, not Islamic or Islam or Muslim, but Islamism and Islamist) and such were out of the question. I just found the bombings not characteristic to "Middle Eastern" terrorist acts outside of the Middle East. Sure, bombing a subway train or station would seemingly be the same, but it isn't since the subway is a part of the infrastructure that much of the everyday society relies upon and is a the network connecting a city and maybe even the whole nation - it has a symbolic value, especially if it's in the capital city. Marathons on the other hand?

I don't mean to be pedantic, but the use of "Islamist" and "Islamism" really pisses me off. Where the hell did those terms even come from? Is this some way of distinguishing between a Muslim that isn't a terrorist and one that is? For God's sake, they're Muslims, plain and simple. This doesn't change with the actions they choose to make.

[ShadowPred]

I never said that militant Islamists (read, Islamism, not Islamic or Islam or Muslim, but Islamism and Islamist) and such were out of the question. I just found the bombings not characteristic to "Middle Eastern" terrorist acts outside of the Middle East. Sure, bombing a subway train or station would seemingly be the same, but it isn't since the subway is a part of the infrastructure that much of the everyday society relies upon and is a the network connecting a city and maybe even the whole nation - it has a symbolic value, especially if it's in the capital city. Marathons on the other hand?

I don't mean to be pedantic, but the use of "Islamist" and "Islamism" really pisses me off. Where the hell did those terms even come from?

After 9/11 this happened.

[SpreadEagleBeagle]

I don't mean to be pedantic, but the use of "Islamist" and "Islamism" really pisses me off. Where the hell did those terms even come from? Is this some way of distinguishing between a Muslim that isn't a terrorist and one that is? For God's sake, they're Muslims, plain and simple.

I think it makes a huge difference.

A person may be Muslim or Christian (or whatever), but when this person turns his/her religion into a more or less hostile and intolerant political ideology, and furthermore forces it on others in large in one enforcing way or another, you're no longer just an innocent practitioner of that religion - you have turned your view and stance on that religion into a political agenda.

That's why I think it's important to make a distinction between Muslims and Islamists, Jews and Zionists, Christians and Christianists (more known as the Christian Right, Theonomists, Dominionists, Evangelical Fundementalists etc.).

This doesn't change with the actions they choose to make.

You're completely right about that.

[SM]

'Christianist' is a thing?

[ShadowPred]

'Christianist' is a thing?

It's a person who is a follower of Christ and his teachings, but completely does the opposite of what Christ taught and such.