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This site has moved on over to www.digitaldissent.org. I am also adding voter information for San Jose, San Francisco and California (which is where I live) and I plan on updating it MUCH more frequently. I hope that you will join us at our new location , which is both easier to remember and deviod of ads.
Thanks for visiting, James Ian Zamora
***
4-30-04 Today in a press release Secretary of State Kevin Shelley banned the Diebold Tsx voting machines in all four counties where they were in operation and decertified all touchscreen voting systems in California. Shelley also requested that the Attorney General investigate criminal and cival actions against Diebold regarding their unaproved installation of uncertified software and voting systems. “We will not tolerate the deceitful conduct of Diebold, and we must send a clear message to the rest of the industry: Don’t try to pull a fast one on the voters of California,” Shelley stated. All other touchscreen companies in operation within California must now either install a voter-verified paper trail or meet with 23 security measures before regaining certification for the November elections. “I want to state clearly and unequivocally: there will be a paper trail for every single vote cast in the state of California, and it will happen on my watch,” Shelley said. “By May 30, the state of California will have standards in place for Accessible, Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (AVVPAT).”
Last night, Sept 25th I attended an event by the Advanced Research Center (ARC) where people who felt a direct negative impact of post 9-11 discrimination were given a place to speak out. While they were all things that we surmised would happen, or warned against, it was still disturbing to hear about. To see the faces and hear the stories of actual people being affected was quite a experience. There should be no question that the laws ( USA Patriot Act • Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) • Operation Tarmac • Alien Absconder Apprehension Initiative • Terrorist Information Prevention System (TIPS) • National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS) • PATRIOT Act II) implemented have little or nothing to do with "National Security", they are merely means by which to harass, discriminate and terrorize the residents, both citizens and illegal immigrants, of our country. I would hope that each of us could afford a basic dignity to a person merely for them being a human, to treat them decently and with dignity, regardless of where they came from or their staus of residency, I would hope that we, in the future but starting now, could leave behind any trace of past ignorance and discrimination against any persons regardless of race, origins, or class. Ok well, that's just my opinion, you can of course take it or leave it.
- James Ian Zamora
To download the audio that I recorded of the event: Part 1 (one hour) and Part 2 (also one hour)
with the location of the SF Indy Media post here
July 23rd saw around 100 people come out to San Francisco in protest the appearance of Tom Ridge of the Homeland Security. When I arrived people began to gather on the sidewalk in front of the Hotel where Ridge was to speak, shortly thereafter the sidewalk was cleared of protesters and all were forced to get into a barricaded pen that was in one lane of the street, and about 200 or so feet long, there was only one way in and one way which seemed to unnerve everyone entering. My only other option as presented by the police was to stand on one of the other corners, which I did so that I could take pictures of the event, later I was allowed to stand on the previously cleared sidewalk when the police honored my SF Indy Media press pass, which was something of a surprise to me. However, the PA and the speakers had to be inside the pen, and that meant that most people would have to be in there as well in order to protest. A picket line was formed within the pen so that those with signs could be more visible to those passing by on the street, the picket remainded intact until the end of the protest. Topics covered by speakers were that of the Homeland Security, the PATRIOT Act and the Patriot Act II, a call for the freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier, and the Cuban five as well as all political prisoners within the United States and Gauntanamo Bay. The Protest lasted around 3 hours and ended peacfully with no arrests and only a few jeers from onlookers.
the pictures that I took can be found at SF Indy Media (here) as well as great photos from others (link here for pages 2,3,4,5,6 and 7)) the story can also be accessed on the main page of SF Indy Media
SF IMC Link
July 20th, The RIAA (The Recording Industry Association of America)
has issued close to one thousand subpoenas for those people sharing music
files over Peer to Peer services in the last week. As US Copyright law stands,
copyright owners can sue for damages of $750 to $150,000 for each song that
a person offers over the internet. Initially the RIAA said that they would
target those P2P users who were sharing large collections of files, this
past week has seen RIAA lawyers going after users with as few as five files.
Latest estimates show that over 60 million Americans use P2P networks such
as Kazaa, Kazaa lite, Morpheus and Limewire, which are more people than
voted for George Bush in the last Presidential election. To criminalize
the everyday actions of 60 million Americans overnight could bring the already
over-burdened US criminal system to a deadlock with this insurgance of new
"wrong-doers".
These new RIAA subpoenas come in the wake of U.S. District Judge John Bates
ruling that the RIAA can issue subpoenas to ISPs demanding the identification
of Internet users under the subpoena power of the DMCA (Digital Millenium
Copyright Act) based just on allegations of infringement, without prior
notice to the user and without judicial review of the claim.
Verizon claims that the RIAA's action is a violatation of the First Amendment's
right to anonymity and privacy rights of Internet users. Furthermore, a
Constitutional review of the DMCA is in order since the DMCA subpoena power
provision, unlike a usual subpoena, which requires some underlying claim
of a crime and must be signed by a judge or magistrate, under the DMCA a
subpoena can be issued by a court clerk without presenting evidence of a
crime being committed.
For more information please see:
EFF
Fair Use Faq
Stanford Fair
Use site
EFF DMCA Archive
Boycott RIAA
July 18th FCC Update
July 23rd Tom Ridge Protest info.
Listen to a report from Sarah Olsen of SF Indy Media and Enemy Combatant Radio covering the SS questioning of two Oakland high school students after they made statements in class about George Bush (story and mp3)
June 30th 2003, the California Supreme court handed down its ruling of Intel vs Hamidi in Hamidi's favor (more)
FindLaw columnist and human rights attorney Joanne Mariner discusses a possible connection between the Bush Administration's position in a case argued before the Supreme Court last week, and the fate of Yaser Hamdi and Jose Padilla, two American citizens currently held indefinitely and incommunicado in military prisons as "enemy combatants." The Administration's position, Mariner explains, holds that there is not really a "right to remain silent" as the Miranda decision suggested.(the story). also link to the archive for Joanne Mariner on the Findlaw site.
Justice Thomas announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion on May 27, 2003
San Jose Mercury News May 27, 2003: "Supreme Court further dilutes Miranda protections"
Patriot Act analysis from the EFF site as well as the Act itself, also in downloadable PDF form.
The RAVE Act ( H.R. 718 ) and Illicit Drugs Anti-Proliferation Act ( S. 226 ) makes it a punishable crime for someone to do drugs in your business, home or property, whether you know about it or not.
Cable giant Comcast has decided to sue the City of San Jose over a dispute concerning San Jose's request for Comcast to construct a voice, data and video network "free of charge" for the city's use. The cities request arose during contract negotions between the City of San Jose and Comcast for franchise renewal. Comcast claims that this is a violation of their First Ammendment rights, and that the cost of the proposed network would be passed onto the cable company's subscribers and thusly impose an unlawful tax under California law.
The CPI investigates Michael Powell (of the FCC) and the The Telecommunications Development Fund, which was set up to fund telecom start-ups, but has paid more that $7 million in executive salaries and expenses while only investing $9.4 million over the past six years. The CPI also looks into a conflict of interest for FCC chief Chairman Michael Powell who elected himself to the board.
June 27th Bush Protest
My San Francisco Indy Media blurb
Defining and Delimiting the Exemptions for Executive, Administrative,
Professional, Outside Sales and Computer Employees; Proposed Rule
[Federal Register: March 31, 2003 (Volume 68, Number 61)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Page 15559-15597]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr31mr03-43]
A proposal to redefine exemptions from the Fair Labor Standards
Act (FLSA) would cut the overtime pay of over 8 million "white-color"
workers, while another 1.3 million people would lose their over-time pay
under the proposed salary test that exempts all non-manual workers earning
$65,000 or more. Also new definitions of professional, administrative and
executive employees remove specific duties and education requirements, giving
employers wide latitude to reclassify their workers, potentially allowing
for further cuts of over-time pay.
For the full proposal link to: http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/fedreg/proposed/2003033101.htm
Comments can be sent to Department of labor by June 30 2003: Tammy D. McCutchen, Administrator, Wage and Hour Division, Employment Standards Administration, U.S. Department of Labor, Room S-3502, 200 Constitution Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 20210
Faxes of 20 pages or less can be sent to: (202) 693-1432, which is not a toll-free number
Emaiail can be sent to: whd-reg@fenix2.dol-esa.gov
FROM THE AP JUNE 26:
The top Medicare accountant has calculated how many milions of
senior citizens will be afected by bringing private manged care to the program,
but has refused to make the information available to the Hill. A report
from 2000 showed that the Rebuplican plan would increase premiums by as
much as 25 percent. When requests were made from Democrats on the Hill for
a revised or more current report, Medicare chief Tom Scully threatened to
fire his top actuary, Rick Foster, if Foster released the information. "They
don't have the right on the Hill to call up my actuary and demand things,"
said Scully, "These people work for the executive branch, period."
Scully said he would release the analysis "if I feel like it."
Democrats responded by pointing to legislative language approved in 1997
that specifically requires the top Medicare actuary to answer questions
from Congress.
"While the chief actuary is an official within the administration, this individual and his or her office often must work with the committees of jurisdiction in the development of legislation," said the legislative report.
"The administration is resisting the release of it because it's not good news for the Republican House plan," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
The vote on this topic should come down by the Friday, June 27th
(A collection of WIRED stories concerning the RIAA and P2P)
Are You in the RIAA's Cross Hairs? article concerning the RIAA's announcment that they are going after individual users of P2P systems
Hatch Wants to Fry Traders' PCsarticle concerning Sen. Orrin Hatch's desire to legalize the damaging of your computer
RIAA Wants to Hack Your PC article concerning the RIAA's desire to hack your computer
"SCO smear campaign can't defeat GNU community By Richard Stallman"
SCO's contract dispute with IBM has been accompanied by a smear campaign against the whole GNU/Linux system. But SCO made an obvious mistake when it erroneously quoted me as saying that "Linux is a copy of Unix." Many readers immediately smelled a rat--not only because I did not say that, and not only because the person who said it was talking about published ideas (which are uncopyrightable) rather than code, but because they know I would never compare Linux with Unix..(more)
A bipartisan majority of the Senate Commerce Committee on Thursday approved a bill that would reinstate key media-ownership rules that were loosened by regulators less than three weeks ago...(more)
Senate Commerce Committee action on media ownership updates
Background on the FCC vote from MediaReform.com
(From the NOW site)
Sham
Prescription Drug Benefit Would End Medicare
Right-wing Republicans are pushing legislation to destroy Medicare
under the guise of providing a prescription drug benefit to seniors. Tell
Congress that seniors—particularly women living on restricted incomes—deserve
better.
(My story also on the IMC and SF IMC site)
CIPA Upheld by US Supreme Court
June 23rd 2003
The US Supreme Court today ruled in favor of the Child Internet Protection Act (CIPA) with a 6-3 vote, ruling that it was not a violation of the First Amendment. The CIPA requires that libraries and schools use filtering software to block against pornography in order to recieve funding under the Library Services and Technologies Act. This same software is know to be flawed in that it often blocks an entire website for containing words such "assessment" because the software will flag the word "ass" contained within assessment". Also, there have been reports that show the blocking of many sites which are wholly unrelated to pornography, such as gay and lesbian rights groups, womens rights groups, civil rights, religious sites as well as hacking sites. While at the same time the manufactures of this sotware are under no obligation to list which sites the software blocks automaticly or the algorithms contained within the product. While there is provision within the ruling to allow adults to turn off the filters, this does not quell the opinion that the CIPA act is being used to keep underprivileged children away from important information. At the same time children who come from families that can afford computers can still access all information from their homes, while children who must rely upon their school and free libraries for internet access will feel what is often referred to as the "Digital Divide" and not have free access to information. There is still question as to whether or not adults will have full access to information either, the provision states that a librarian "may" unblock the computer, but not that the librarian "must" unblock the computer, and also, the process of unblocking may take up to a few days to do so and could require the library patron to provide reasons as to why the computer is to be unblocked. As Justice Souter wrote "Quite simply, we can smell a rat when a library blocks material already in its control, just as we do when a library removes books from its shelves for reasons having nothing to do with wear and tear. ... Content-based blocking and removal tells us something that mere absence from the shelves does not."
More information on the ruling can be found at:
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/02pdf/02-361.pdf
On wednesday the 28th of May Bush signed his $350 billion dollar
tax cut, which
included cuts for the wealthiest housholds in the nation and few others.
The
final draft had a closed door bait-and-switch where the $400 tax credit
for
low income families making just over minimum wage was eliminated, affecting
11 million children nationwide. In place was provision for stock dividend
cuts, and a reworking of a 1986 tax law that allowed for farmers to write
off
heavy farm equipment. The new version allows any buisiness to write off
a
vehicle weighing over 6,000lbs. and lifting the maximum cost up to $100,000
from the previous $25,000 maximum. At the same time Bush signed another
bill
behind closed doors to raise the debt ceiling to it's highest point in
history after shelving a report from the Treasury Department showing that
the
country faces a deficit of over 44 TRILLION dollars.
The tax provisions are of almost no benefit what-so-ever to low income
households. Taking from the Tax Policy Center's data; the botom one fifth
of
housholds will get tax cuts on average of about $1 this year, and the next
to
bottom fifth will get tax cuts averaging $38, while the average tax cut
for
those making over $1,000,000 will be in the range of about $93,500.
On June 2nd the FCC will vote on a media deregulation plan, the
details of
which have not been released to the public. We have already seen the results
of loosening regulations in media ownership, the buying up of news sources
by
a very few corporation.
The three key issues to be looked at on June 2nd will be "Cross Ownership"
which allows for one company to own a TV or radio station and a newspaper
in
the same market. The second proposal is to allow one company to own three
TV
stations in large cities, up from two. As well as one company owning two
TV
staions in smaller markets, up from one. The third provision would lift
the
total number of local TV stations that a national network can own. As it
stands now, one company can only own stations reaching a maximum of 35
percent of national viewers, that may be raised to 45 percent. Many believe
that this could lead to what happened in 1996 when the FCC changed the laws
concerning radio stations, where Clear Channel went from owning around 40
stations to their present day 1,200. The conglomeration of news sources
raises the threat that there will be a severe narrowing of diversity in
viewpoints.
A drive to halt the FCC can be found at:
A chart showing how a very few corporations own the vast majority
of news
outlets can be found at:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/d_read/digitaldissent/commcartel.pdf
also an article by Ted Turner on the subject can be found at:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/d_read/digitaldissent/TurnerFCC.html