Governments are better than people. People shouldn't question governments.

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=3657

Administration seeks to keep terror watch-List data secret

September 6, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Featured Headlines, Govt, Surveillance, U.S.

Ellen Nakashima reports:

The Obama administration wants to maintain the secrecy of terrorist watch-list information it routinely shares with federal, state and local agencies, a move that rights groups say would make it difficult for people who have been improperly included on such lists to challenge the government.

Intelligence officials in the administration are pressing for legislation that would exempt “terrorist identity information” from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. Such information — which includes names, aliases, fingerprints and other biometric identifiers — is widely shared with law enforcement agencies and intelligence “fusion centers,” which combine state and federal counterterrorism resources.

Read more in The Washington Post.

Defense strategy for the Internet Age? At minimum, a new 'theory of the crime'

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/09/06/224223/Accused-Killer-Asks-For-Online-Media-Users-IDs?from=rss

Accused Killer Asks For Online Media Users' IDs

Posted by timothy on Sunday September 06, @06:16PM from the who's-poisoned-which-well dept.

SpaceGhost writes

"According to the Houston Chronicle, the attorney for a Texas man charged in the death of a four-year-old 'has asked several local media outlets to provide the names of readers and listeners who commented about his client online,' stating that his client 'was struck by the conclusions people drew about his client and the specificity of some comments that made it appear they came from people with personal knowledge of the case.' Media outlets who have been subpoenaed include The Houston Chronicle, the Conroe Courier, KHOU (Houston area Channel 11, CBS affiliate) and KTRK (Houston area Channel 13, ABC affiliate)."

Tools & Techniques Zoom and drag your image

http://www.killerstartups.com/Video-Music-Photo/seadragon-com-pictures-much-more

SeaDragon.com - Pictures & Much More

http://www.seadragon.com/

… you just need to indicate any image’s url and the system will give you the chance to have an interactive animation with the image and a coded so you can upload it to your site.

[For example, try this image that was the basis for “the Streisand Effect”: http://www.starmagazin.cz/wp-content/uploads/streisand-malibu-house.jpg

Tools for stalking the government!

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/022245.html

September 06, 2009

Political Tools and Visualizations

5 Online tools for following US government officials: "The 2008 U.S. election season may be over, but the real work has only just begun. The following tools are tracking the every move of President Barack Obama and Congress in easy to use online tools that can turn any user into a political watchdog."

Technology evolves. Blame Darwin.

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/09/06/1816203/Has-the-WebOS-Finally-Arrived?from=rss

Has the WebOS Finally Arrived?

Posted by timothy on Sunday September 06, @02:54PM from the alien-craft-constructed-entirely-of-buzzwords dept.

SphereOfInfluence writes

"Dion Hinchcliffe over on ZDNet declared in a new post that the Web OS has finally arrived and that businesses and IT departments must adjust to the fact that everything's starting to move to the cloud. He cites John Hagel's so-called big business shifts of the 21st century and claims cloud computing, crowdsourcing, open APIs, Software-as-a-Service are the future of the workplace. He goes on to present a compelling visual model of the Web OS circa 2009 and examples to back up some of the statements."

Oh Canada! See what happens when the nose of the camel is in the tent? Next it will be any recording device, including paper (you could write down copyrighted lyrics!)

http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/09/07/055207/iPod-Fee-Proposed-For-Canada?from=rss

iPod Fee Proposed For Canada

Posted by timothy on Monday September 07, @01:15AM from the when-organized-interests-meet-diffuse-ones dept.

innocent_white_lamb writes

"The Canadian Private Copying Collective is pushing for the implementation of an iPod fee in Canada to compensate them for 'losses' when people copy music to their digital music players. They have collected a fee from every CDR sold in Canada since 1997 and now want to extend that to digital music players. From the article: 'Some have argued that once they buy a CD they shouldn't have to pay again and again to listen to those songs — which they already purchased — on a personal compilation CD or on their MP3 player. But for people like Milman and Basskin, it's about recognizing the value of those works. "There has to be some sort of way to compensate the artist for the hours and the sweat and the blood and the tears and the extreme, extreme expense that goes into making music," Milman said.'"

(Related) What do you say we take the source code and create one for the US?

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/09/06/1155227/Cell-Phone-Cost-Calculator-Killed-In-Canada?from=rss

Cell Phone Cost Calculator Killed In Canada

Posted by Soulskill on Sunday September 06, @09:26AM from the careful-with-that-light-of-day dept.

inject_hotmail.com writes

"Internet and law genius Michael Geist writes about some shenanigans by the cell phone carriers and the Canadian government in his column in The Star. Canadian taxpayers funded a 'Cell Phone Cost Calculator' so that the average person could theoretically wade through the disjointed and incongruent package offerings. The calculator wound up being yanked a couple weeks before launch. Geist suggests that the major cell carriers lobbied the appropriate public officials to have the program nixed because it would bite into their profit if the general public could make sense out of pricing and fees. Geist continues, 'Sensing that [Tony] Clement (Industry Minister) was facing pressure to block the calculator, Canadian consumer groups wrote to the minister, urging him to stick with it.' Moving forward, Michael makes a novel suggestion, one that would show an immense level of understanding by the government: 'With public dollars having funded the mothballed project, the government should now consider releasing the calculator's source code and enable other groups to pick up where the OCA (Office of Consumer Affairs) left off.'"

The world, she is a changing.

http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/09/09/06/166202/Has-Texting-Replaced-Talking-For-Teens?from=rss

Has Texting Replaced Talking For Teens?

Posted by Soulskill on Sunday September 06, @12:38PM from the children-should-be-seen-and-not-heard dept.

Hugh Pickens writes

"Sue Shellenbarger has an interesting essay in the WSJ where she talks about the 2,000 incoming text messages her son racks up every month — more than 60 two-way communications via text message every day — and her surprise that 2,000 monthly text messages is about average for today's teenagers. 'I have seen my son suffer no apparent ill effects (except a sore thumb now and then), and he reaps a big benefit, of easy, continuing contact with many friends,' writes Shellenbarger. 'Also, the time he spends texting replaces the hours teens used to spend on the phone; both my kids dislike talking on the phone, and say they really don't need to do so to stay in touch with friends and family.' But does texting make today's kids stupid, as Mark Bauerlein writes in his book ' The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future? 'I don't think so. It may make them annoying, when they try to text and talk to you at the same time,' writes Shellenbarger, adding, 'I have found him more engaged and easier to communicate with from afar, because he is constantly available via text message and responds with a faithfulness and speed that any mother would find reassuring.'"

Tools & Techniques

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/trash-all-your-duplicate-files-with-auslogics-duplicate-file-finder/

Trash All Your Duplicate Files with Auslogics Duplicate File Finder

Sep. 6th, 2009 By Saikat Basu

Find Dave Brubeck's “Blue Rondo A La Turk ” (for the search engine challenged: http://www.geocities.com/bourbonstreet/delta/3469/alaturk.mid )

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/022246.html

September 06, 2009

Google MP3 Search

MP3 SEARCH - Search mp3 download sites