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Sunday, December 26, 2010

Fair Game!

"Fair Game", now playing at The Pickford Cinema in Bellingham, WA is a surprisingly engaging anti-war movie.  I learned quite a bit that was new to me, if the movie can be believed.  What do Daniel Ellsberg, Valerie Plame, and Julian Assange  have in common (besides high IQs, access to confidential information, and anti-war sentiment)? They have all been hunted and exposed by the White House. "Fair Game" is essentially the back story of a war-mongering Presidential administration hostile efforts to control CIA analysis. At times, the emphasis on this fact seems almost unbelievable and syrupy. The movie is peppered, as are Valerie Plame's and Joe Wilson available press interviews on youtube, with calls for citizens to have a commitment to creating a republic free of imperiousness and corruption. The premises of the movie have generated controversy (1,2,3,4) although Ms. Plame and Mr. Wilson have called the film an accurate depiction of events.  Sean Penn and Naomi Watts are dynamic as an embattled pair. Sam Shepard has a cameo role as Valerie Plame's father. Ms. Plame resigned from the CIA in 2006. She has worked lately on creating a movie "Countdown to Zero"  (available at Film is Truth in Bellingham, WA) that calls for disarming nuclear missiles and securing fissile material  across the world.

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Some alternative views on the "Wikileaks Crisis"

Two respected geo-political commentators have come up with separate, but interesting conclusions on the "Wiki-leaks Crisis" that point to further censure of the internet.  F. William  Engdahl warns us:

"The process of policing the Web was well underway before the current leaks scandal. In 2009 Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller and Republican Olympia Snowe introduced the Cybersecurity Act of 2009 (S.773). It would give the President unlimited power to disconnect private-sector computers from the internet. The bill "would allow the president to 'declare a cyber-security emergency' relating to 'non-governmental' computer networks and do what's necessary to respond to the threat." We can expect that now this controversial piece of legislation will get top priority when a new Republican House and the Senate convene in January."

Thursday, December 9, 2010

The Wikileaks Crisis...

You can no longer donate to Wikileaks by PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, or Swiss Bank Accounts,  leaving bank transfers and postal transfers as your only option.   Neither would be very secure or anonymous in the USA, I would think.  In response to these Wikileaks accounts being shut down, "Anonymous" hackers are successfully launching DDOS attacks against these organizations (and others who have criticized Wikileaks) just in time to help shut down the the Christmas shopping season. The world has been slipping into a permanent state of electronic informational warfare for some time now.  The decision to prosecute ex-hacker Julian Asange is now directly responsible for putting the bodies of the electronic masses against virtual street barriers. And they've come armed with DDOS weapons.
As Asange languishes without bail in a notorious British prison for "'consensual sex' sex crimes" he claims he did not commit, world leaders fall out on one side or the other in support or condemnation of Wikileaks (Lula for, H.Clinton against). Meanwhile Wikileaks keeps publishing intercepted American diplomatic cables daily and gaining hundreds of supporting mirrors daily across the world. In response, the right wing attacks corporal Bradley Manning for his sexuality while most of us who are network security professionals wonder just how it was possible that an E-1 was able to copy 250,000 or so diplomatic cables wholesale.  This gets weirder and weirder by the minute....

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Student Protests in Europe

In case you are not following it, the UK is in crisis. These explosive videos shows what happens to the social fabric of a Europe teetering on an economic crisis. In the second video, mounted police charge the protesters in an obvious attempt to physically intimidate them. In the third video, police entrap (kettle) the protesters, not allowing them to leave the protest. The protests and occupations are aimed at overturning or preventing the recent student fee increases.