Washington District Court Judge Landmark Ruling: You Are Not Your IP Address

by Nomad

A Washington judge's ruling in a copyright infringement case may have profound implications on the ability to prosecute cybercrime and to issue surveillance warrants by the NSA.

According to Judge Robert Lasnik, a United States federal judge, on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, evidence made up purely of IP addresses does not meet the legal requirements of pleading standards for pursuing the case against online pirates. He has ruled that IP address alone do not provide a sufficient means of identification.  

According one source:

The fact of the matter and the law is that it is almost impossible to associate piracy based on the IP address and the IP address alone. The actual culprit might have been a family member, guest, or even a hacker. At the very least, the subscriber with that IP address can be scolded for not safeguarding his or her home computer.

In other words, the evidence may show that a particular IP was used but that doesn't mean that the accused in the courtroom is the one who used that IP address. 

That's really not news. The big law firms who have made a fortune bounty hunting for large media giants, have been successful using this prosecutorial method for years. 

Courts have been not questioned it. But they are starting to wake up, it seems.

FATCA Repeal : Tax-Avoiding Super Wealthy with Secret Bank Accounts Find a Friend in GOP

by Nomad

Once again, the Republican Party has demonstrated which side it supports. Between the average taxpayer or the 1%, its call for a repeal of Obama's anti-tax haven law of 2009- before it has even had a chance to be put into effect- provides us with a clear answer.  

Some Facts on FATCA

Reuters is reporting that the Republican Party is expected to approve a resolution this week, calling for repeal of an Obama administration law that is designed to crack down on offshore tax dodging.

The law, Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) requires foreign banks to find any American account holders and disclose their balances, receipts, and withdrawals to the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS), or be subject to a 30-percent withholding tax on income from US financial assets held by the banks. Owners of these foreign-held assets must report them on US tax returns if they are worth more than $50,000.

It was always going to be controversial and not beloved by banks, libertarians and some Americans living abroad. Another example of Big Government overreach, they howled. Lobbyists have been successful at delaying the law in operation. Its effective date has been pushed back repeatedly, with enforcement now set to start on July 1. 

If the Republicans have their way- and there doesn't seem to be much chance they will- FATCA would never start at all.

Why Rand Paul's Lawsuit against Obama Administration on Spying Could Backfire on the GOP

by Nomad

Exclusive: Rand Paul's latest gimmick about suing the Obama administration over NSA surveillance operations, like PRISM might just backfire.  A thorough review of the legislation of Congress during the Bush era and the mixed messages from the Republican conservatives ever since 2001 could be a major humiliation in the 2014 election year.  But only if American citizens genuinely care about the truth.

The other day Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky announced that he was planning to open a class-action lawsuit against the Obama Administration over the NSA data-collection policies. Never one to miss an opportunity to make an issue into a spectacle, Rand told reporters that people needed to tell the government that it can't have access to emails and phone records without permission or without a specific warrant.  The folks at Brietbart.com and Fox News went all starry-eyed at the news:

This allows the American people to join together in a grassroots manner against President Obama’s NSA for the first time in the legal system, as all other lawsuits have been individuals suing against the agency.

The irony about it is that a quick glance at history will show us that Rand really needs to turn his attention to his own party -even to his own state. The answer to who relaxed the existing (though inadequate) oversight over the NSA is right under Rand's nose.

The Patriot Act and FISA

In the hysteria that followed the terror attacks on New York and Washington in 2001, Americans were more than ready to accept radical measures to thwart further attacks. What resulted was The Patriot Act. How this constitutionally-questionable legislation was ever passed into law reveals so much about how the Bush administration was able to achieve its goals. The techniques used would be used time and time again, right up until the end with the emergency Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) bailout.

On October 23, 2001, just over a month after the September 11th attacks, (actually only 25 working days) Republican Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner introduced H.R. 3162 (later to be known as The Patriot Act ) on the House floor. 
In just two days, the bill passed both the House (357 to 66) and the Senate (98 to 1) and was signed into law by President Bush on October 26, 2001.  Thus, one of the most controversial pieces of legislation, one that gave unheard of powers to the executive branch and one that effectively shredded long cherished rights in the Constitution, was passed into law in just three days. 

Christian Family's Special Message: We aren't ALL like that!

by Nomad

We interrupt our normal broadcasting to bring you this message from the Lord family from Memphis, Tennessee. 

Of course, the sad truth of the matter is that as long as Christians like this remain silent, it's only natural to think that the Westboro Church,  Tony Perkins, Pat Robertson and groups like Focus on the Family and American Family Association are the actual representatives of the Christian faith. Of course, I have met a lot of Christians in my life and the majority were quiet, down-to-earth types, wishing no harm on anybody as far as I could see. It's the loud ones you have to be wary of, I guess.

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Water Bottle Art: Eye-Catching Sculpture With a Environmental Message

by Nomad

Sequester Cuts and Killing Unemployment Benefit Extensions: When GOP Values Make no Sense

by Nomad

This week the Republicans appeared to be sticking to its tried and true conservative principles by blocking a vote on extending unemployment benefits. 

Add to that the impact of sequester cuts to state jobs training programs and you have a campaign issue nightmare. The question is: can any party get elected by hurting its most vulnerable voters? 
Not once but twice?

Two days ago, Republican conservatives used the power of the filibuster to block a Democratic bill to restore unemployment benefits to over a million Americans, hit hard by the recession. According to an announcement of this decision, the lawmakers declared they were standing on conservative principle.

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) stated:

"People, if you pay 'em for years and years, they won't look for a job." 

Who is the "'em" and who are the "they"? What happened to "us" and "we"? 

Extending unemployment benefits, he added, creates no jobs. At a cost of $6.4 billion, the cost of the extension could not be justified, according to the Republicans. Shelby told an interviewer,

"That is a huge expenditure. What we need to do is spend that money on retraining these people that are unemployed -- help them for a few months and get them retrained and get them back in the job market. That's the problem."

As we shall see, there is a major problem with that idea. 

Other Republicans cited their conservative principles to support the filibuster. Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said:

"I certainly ran because we're mortgaging our children's future. We're bankrupting this nation."

It's not hard to imagine the possible fallout from this decision come election time. With more than.1.3 million people Americans left without any kind of safety net nationwide, it could make a difference who controls the houses of Congress.

Oklahoma Federal Judge Delivers Yet Another Blow against Same-Sex Marriage Bans

by Nomad

Across the nation, state-by-state same-sex marriage bans are being overturned by federal justices. Yesterday it was Oklahoma's turn. The governor of that state has invested a lot of political capital in attempting to stop marriage equality for gay Oklahoma couples. Has Conservative governor Mary Fallin's crusade finally come to the end? 

In what campaigners for marriage equality will see as a victory a federal judge ruled on Tuesday that an Oklahoma law limiting marriage to heterosexual couples violates the U.S. Constitution. The judge ruled that Oklahoma’s constitutional amendment violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Fourteenth Amendment has been the basis for most civil rights legislation since it provides that no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. (This is, incidentally, the basis for corporate personhood.)

Oklahoma now joins California, Connecticut, Iowa Massachusetts), New Jersey, Utah and New Mexico where courts have ruled against same-sex marriage bans. A further 8 states have voted for recognition by legislative action and 3 more by popular vote.

By any measure, it has been a political disaster for conservatives. 

And a costly one for political groups. Millions of dollars have been spent by conservative Christian organizations like The Arlington Group to pass same-sex marriage bans in 13 states. Today there are 17 states that legally recognize same-sex marriages and that number will undoubtedly continue to rise.

Oklahoma Governor Fallin: Flailing and Failing 

This will come as a blow to many conservatives in the state who have politicized the issue. For example, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin had taken an active role in the matter since taking office. As if Oklahoma has absolutely nothing else to worry about.

In November, in order to stop same-sex couples from receiving benefits, she ordered the Oklahoma National Guard to stop processing benefits for all service members regardless of whether they are same-sex or opposite-sex. She told reporters that the reason for this was purely legislative.