All-purpose news and politics thread: One Step Beyond!

[JeffreyWKramer]

Yeah, this is completely bad. I have a lot of sympathy for the needs of law enforcement, but civil liberties exist to protect people from excessive intrusion by the government. The needs of law enforcement should almost never - except in the most extreme and obvious circumstances - outweigh the rights of the individual.

I'll be writing Senator Grassley, who serves on the Judiciary committee, today to urge a vote against this.

Update: Email sent to Sen. Grassley. Why knows, maybe this time it will get a response beyond a lame, condescending form email.

[Vibranium]

Democrats are why video games have a rating system now...Censorship in the name of "what's best" is one of their hallmarks

in other scuzzy news...a second accuser has come forward in the Kevin Clash matter and Clash has tendered his resignation to Sesame Street

[Loren]

I'll be writing Senator Grassley, who serves on the Judiciary committee, today to urge a vote against this.

Update: Email sent to Sen. Grassley. Why knows, maybe this time it will get a response beyond a lame, condescending form email.

I have a friend who interned for Chuck Hagel a few years back, and he told me that emails typically get ignored. They're too many of them, and there's too little assurance that they're from actual constituents.

He said that to get a real answer, it's FAR better to call or to mail a physical letter. Letters, he said, are the best way to communicate.

[Vibranium]

I have a friend who interned for Chuck Hagel a few years back, and he told me that emails typically get ignored. They're too many of them, and there's too little assurance that they're from actual constituents.

He said that to get a real answer, it's FAR better to call or to mail a physical letter. Letters, he said, are the best way to communicate.

and that applies in the entertainment industry as well....most tv stations/radio stations ignore or emails or make PAs and interns sort through them

[king mob]

Someone at the Beeb felt snarky that day!

I do like the sound of an independent look at Bristol's budget though.

No, he really is best known for wearing red trousers, however the swearing in revealed that there's something like another 70 million worth of cuts that need to be made in the city's budget and nobody quite knows where the fuck that's going to come from without putting up council tax, so I fully expect that to go up in the New Year. One way of helping is the idea of bringing wealthy areas just outside the city in Somerset or Gloucestershire and make them part of Bristol but that could be a serious pain.

[king mob]

Multi millionaire tax exile Lord McAlpine is setting out to sue every single Twitter user who won't apologise for naming his as a paedophile after getting 185 grand of license payers money from the BBC after they didn't name him, and is suing ITV for half a million quid for not naming him. Obviously he isn't a paedophile and would never, ever be associated with any known paedophile in any way at all but his actions have managed to censor and silence journalists, and the internet of course is quiet apart from the usual suspects and the story of institutionalised child abuse and the covering up of that is well and truly off the front pages.

In cheerier news Rebekah Brooks has been charged.

[7thangel]

i don't feel like risking carpal tunnel syndrome to give my views on what's going on in Israel. however, i will say this, it's disturbing the way the IDF has used their official twitter to promote the latest operation and live tweeting, not to mention some members joining the 'fun' and adding their own jokes to #HamasBumperStickers

[Charles RB]

Not just Wade, also Andy Coulson and two journos! Happy days!

This is from the Anonymous website, with the comments in regards to their attacks on Israeli web space.

I quite like the Gizmodo report on that - Anonymous aren't doing very well at all with OpIsrael.

Aw, crap:

Senate bill rewrite lets feds read your e-mail without warrants

That is very disturbing. Private correspondence is the sort of thing warrrants are for.

[Charles RB]

Now the UK recognises the Syrian opposition as a government-in-exile.

[Nick Soapdish]

Aw, crap:

Senate bill rewrite lets feds read your e-mail without warrants


CNET offers these highlights from the revised bill:

And lest anyone forget, this is a bill sponsored by a Democratic Senator, which is about to be voted on by a Democratic-controlled Senate.

Didn't the previous rule allow them to get permission after-the-fact? How much easier do they have to make it for law enforcement? Next, they'll just start requiring ISPs to start turning over all of their records so agencies don't have to take the trouble to identify individuals or ask.

Way to be tough on privacy, Democrats!

[Spike-X]

Multi millionaire tax exile Lord McAlpine is setting out to sue every single Twitter user who won't apologise for naming his as a paedophile after getting 185 grand of license payers money from the BBC after they didn't name him, and is suing ITV for half a million quid for not naming him. Obviously he isn't a paedophile and would never, ever be associated with any known paedophile in any way at all but his actions have managed to censor and silence journalists, and the internet of course is quiet apart from the usual suspects and the story of institutionalised child abuse and the covering up of that is well and truly off the front pages.

After Josie Long started a false story on Twitter yesterday saying that Lord McAlpine was going to donate any compensation he gets from the aforementioned Tweeterers to charity, it turns out he's decided to do exactly that.

[Charles RB]

That's dead clever of him - when he started suing random people from Twitter, he looked draconian, but this way he gets to have revenge and spin it so he looks like the nice guy.

[dupersuper]

Democrats are why video games have a rating system now...Censorship in the name of "what's best" is one of their hallmarks

To be fair, ratings system =/= censorship. I do recall, though, when Hilary Clinton made a bit of a fuss because there was a hidden sex scene in 1 of the Grand Theft Auto games. I thought it odd that she was upset about a poorly animated sex scene in which the guy leaves his pants on in a game that I had - in the past - flown a harrier jet in: strafing the city, blown every one - including the army eventually - away on a second story building roof with a bazooka and infinite ammo cheat and - my personal favourite - ran around in a gimp outfit beating the elderly to death with a giant dildo.

[JCAll]

To be fair, ratings system =/= censorship. I do recall, though, when Hilary Clinton made a bit of a fuss because there was a hidden sex scent in 1 of the Grand Theft Auto games. I thought it odd that she was upset about a poorly animated sex scene in which the guy leaves his pants on in a game that I had - in the past - flown a harrier jet in: strafing the city, blown every one - including the army eventually - away on a second story building roof with a bazooka and infinite ammo cheat and - my personal favourite - ran around in a gimp outfit beating the elderly to death with a giant dildo.

1 half finished scene that couldn't be accessed without taking apart the code. The people that make actual porn games must laugh at america sometimes.

[Ed Gauthier]

I think the next move in the anti-privacy arena will be to just outlaw both warrants and anyone named Warren, and be done with it.