You Need To Listen

At a December 11, 2011 town hall meeting with voters in Hudson, NH, Mitt Romney was asked about the National Defense Authorization Act. Mitt Romney had this to say in response to the question, “Let me look at the particular authorization, um and and and, I’ll make sure on our website we describe reaction to that particular amendment.”

It has now been over a month since the question was presented to him. Where is his reaction? I searched his website, searched Google for his reaction and nothing was found. I suspect that the issue is being avoided however, if you state you are going to do something in a public forum, it should be expected that you will follow through with what you state you will do.

As I sit here, poolside at our annual family weekend getaway, I can’t help but look at the multitude of people swimming and playing and think to myself, they have no idea. The NDAA is by far the most controversial bill in my lifetime. I have been following the discussions on the bill since just before its passage. There is good discussion out there but I have yet to see any real action on it.

Don’t get me wrong, the first step is in educating people about the bill. That step is proving to be the hardest. It is hard because the mainstream media is failing to provide Americans the coverage it deserves. Nearly every person I talk to knows nothing about the NDAA.

The Occupy movement has added the NDAA to its agenda with Occupy Congress. They have scheduled a rally on January 17, 2011 in Washington DC at the Capitol Building and you can follow it on Twitter with the hash tag #J17. Previously there was another event scheduled for January 3, 2011. I was not aware of this effort until the date passed and I am unable to find any results of the rally. I continue to follow #J17 but fear it may not be significant enough to draw any attention.

As I am writing this blog entry there are 9,054 people that like the Occupy Congress January 17th, 2012 Facebook Page. Of those individuals only 10% have RSVP to the event. Just over 950 people is not a significant crowd. I would imagine there will be more than 950 in attendance but even if there were 9,054. Will that be enough to change anything? Will that be enough to grab the media’s attention? I doubt it but hope I am wrong.

The point of this blog entry is not meant to discourage anyone. I am of the opinion any action is good action if it is directed toward repealing the NDAA. We must continue to educate the unaware public but we need to do more. We need an action plan that will be recognized. We need a call to action that will grab the attention of the media and the public and inform all.

Have any ideas? We would love to hear them.

The blogosphere is ramped with discussion about the newly passed National Defense Authorization Act. The hash tag #NDAA is alive with action on Twitter and was long before it was signed into law. Individuals are pleading with their peers to spread the word by using Facebook, Twitter and their email contacts.

This is much needed as the NDAA is a threat to our very rights as citizens of these United States. However, here is the issue as I see it. The people that are aware of the NDAA use unconventional means to obtain information. When I say unconventional what I mean is they aren’t getting the information from the mainstream media like CNN, ABC, CBS, FOX and the like. They are getting their reports from sources such as bloggers, RT, The Huffington Post, Infowars.com and by following other informed people on Twitter.

Before I go any farther, I now get my news from these sources as well. In this day and age you need to. There is too much political corruption happening in the mainstream media. These alternative sources reveal the real news not what some corporate fat cats wants you to see. Sure you need to take an objective look at the news that is being reported. Just because it is written doesn’t make it truth but you have to start somewhere. You can’t possibly be objective of something you know nothing about. Use these sources as a feed to look farther.

Here in lies the problem. The unfortunate fact is most people are still being led by the mainstream media. Most people still trust the CNNs or the FOXs of the world. What is even worse is too many people trust their government. I know I did until a few months ago, until I learned about the National Defense Authorization Act, the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect Intellectual Property Act.

I have been telling people to Google NDAA. When I first began to tell them to do this I didn’t elaborate other than it is important and I wanted them to do a little research and come to your own conclusions. I received little response, little response from family and friends that I would typically engage in an intellectual conversation with.

I feel the lack of response is because they feel the same that I did. They trust their news sources and they trust their government to do the right thing. When you Google NDAA you don’t get results from the mainstream media because they are simply not covering it. I think this is turning the average person off.

What we as enlightened individuals must do is keep up the education. There have never been issues of this much importance in our lifetimes. If there was ever a time that people needed to be educated the time is now. Don’t stop the fight.

As I was watching the Iowa Caucus tonight on C-Span President Obama did an interview. In his closing he stated, “You guys inspire me every single day. And I want us to remind ourselves, and to remind each other, that as much work as there may be out there before us, there is nothing we can’t accomplish when determined citizens come together and decide they want to make a difference.” Let’s prove him right. Together we can make a difference. Together we can fight the NDAA, SOPA and PIPA.

I continually read blog post after blog post about the National Defense Authorization Act, Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect Intellectual Property Act. These three items are top news stories in other countries. Yet, there is very little information being provided by the United States news outlets.

One would think that a bill that allows for indefinite detention of United States citizens would be headline news. One would think that two bills that have the ability to censor the internet would be headline news. Why aren’t they?

I can somewhat understand why the news outlets aren’t covering SOPA and PIPA. Most news outlets have a corporate entity that will benefit from the provisions of SOPA and PIPA. They don’t care about the repercussions of the bills. They only look at the power to prevent their copyrighted material from being pirated. This situation is motivated by self-interests. I don’t by any stretch of the imagination agree with this. The internet is alive with protest activity on these two bills and the media continues to ignore them.

The NDAA on the other hand, I can’t figure out what the motivation is to keep this action quiet. One person that I follow via Twitter stated they are probably avoiding covering the NDAA because it would create a revolution. I think that may be an overstatement but even so, are they not there to educate us on news? There is no bigger news than the government taking away our constitutional rights is there?

In my browsing of the internet I have not found one source of information that explains why the media isn’t covering this. Doesn’t the news thrive on controversy? There is no more controversial news story than the NDAA. Wouldn’t you think the news ratings would go through the roof if this was being covered?

Unfortunately this blog post has more questions than it does answers. It is time to get some answers to these questions. We must stand up and fight for our constitutional rights and demand that the media covers these stories and demand an answer as to why they have not been covering these horrific bills. There must be a reason and the only reason I can think of is censorship. I encourage you to submit your thoughts below.

Journal entry # 122 August 2, 2012 – John Q. Farmer

It has been 122 days since my detention. I remember it all like it was yesterday. One of the reasons I remember it so vividly is because the day was April 1, 2012. Yep, April Fool’s Day. Boy do I wish what happened on this day was someone’s horrible April Fool’s trick, it was anything but.

I was getting ready for my farming season. I was a pretty tech savvy farmer with GPS units in my Tractors. I also used the internet to see what was working for other farmers. I posted on forums and used Twitter and Facebook to see what other farmers were doing and also to share my successes.

There was one post that completely changed my life. While visiting a popular farming forum I came across some information that attracted my attention. It talked about ammonium nitrate and how it can be used to make bombs. I never heard of such tom foolery. Ammonium nitrate is used by farmers because it is a great fertilizer that has nearly no effect on the PH level of the soil and can be applied any time of the season, it isn’t used to make bombs?

It was the beginning of March when I originally read the article and I figured I would share it with the other farmers in my network. I decided to write up a little article that talked about how great ammonium nitrate is for farming but also reference how others are using it. I provided a link to what I thought was the original article that I referred to earlier. It turns out that article was copied.

On April 1^st, I awoke to a resounding knocking at my door. I remember because of the forcefulness of the knocking I jumped out of bed to see what all the ruckus was about. I was greeted at the door by three FBI officers and was immediately taken into custody.

I repeatedly asked why I was being detained. I say detained because to this day I haven’t been arrested. I haven’t even been read my rights; I now know that is because the government has stripped our rights from us. It wasn’t until much later that I was told I was a terrorist and I had been detained because of the stock of ammonium nitrate I had. I told them that I was a farmer and I fertilized my fields with it but they wouldn’t listen. I was told that what prompted the investigation was the article I wrote about ammonium nitrate. It turns out that the article that I linked to about bomb making was not the original article and under the Stop Online Piracy Act they tracked my link down and traced it back to me.

I was told that I was facing 5 years for providing a link to copyrighted material. That doesn’t really matter though. What is worse is the fact that they informed me that I did not have the right to a trial because of the National Defense Authorization Act and under that law I can be detained without trial indefinitely.

I can remember thinking, this is a horrible April Fool’s Joke but that passed quickly as did the days. So here I sit no contact with the outside world. No defense allowed for my honest actions, completely cut off from the “real world”.

This ridiculous fictional writing may sound out of this world; however, the provisions in SOPA, PIPA and the NDAA would allow this story to become reality. We must act now to protect our constitutional rights and stop these horrible laws from becoming reality. Educate yourself and contact your representative today.

I began keeping up with what is happening with the Stop Online Piracy Act at the beginning of the month when it was first brought to my attention. I was completely engaged with educating myself about the bill. I read the bill in its entirety, watched many of the congressional hearings live and kept up with discussions on Reddit and Twitter.

Since the House Judiciary Committee went on hiatus in regards to the Stop Online Piracy Act there has been an effective boycott of GoDaddy and some interesting videos posted on Youtube. Other than that there has not been a lot of new news on the subject. The Twitter feeds are rolling with comments about who is moving from GoDaddy and links to information about SOPA and of course continuing discussions about how bad this bill is.

In keeping up with the discussions I am beginning to have a difficult time reading the typical sources because of the redundancy. I watch the Twitter feed for SOPA and it is the same thing over and over. “So and so is moving from GoDaddy”, “it is too little too late for GoDaddy’s change of opinion”, “GoDaddy didn’t change their opinion they are just saying that”, and links to the same YouTube videos and the same articles over and over.

I would imagine that others are seeing this too. In response to this I have changed my direction when it comes to the Stop Online Piracy Act. Now instead of attempting to educate myself about SOPA I have started the mission of educating others. Since the media is not covering SOPA it is up to us, the educated, to share that information to others. I encourage you to educate yourself about SOPA and the dramatic effect if will have on the internet and if you are educated I encourage you to share that education with others. Post on your blogs, Facebook, Twitter, forums and use in real life interactions to educate those about SOPA. It is not as simple as you may think. Many have a rational ignorance thought process about SOPA and that is okay. That in itself is better than complete ignorance.

Alright America, it is time to listen up. The time is now to start asking some important questions. What is the United States Government planning? In the past there have been controversial laws that have been proposed, some passed. As of late, there are some major bills that are growing closer to passage that will greatly affect the citizens of the United States and beyond. I personally am beginning to wonder what the Government’s motive is and I hope others are as well.

The first bill that I am referring to is the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act. Here is an excerpt from the ACLU website on the bill, Say NO to Indefinite Detention and Endless Worldwide War “The Senate has passed a version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that includes a dangerous provision authorizing the U.S. military to pick up and imprison civilians — including Americans — without charge or trial, anywhere in the world, including in your own backyard. The provisions were negotiated by a few senators — in secret — and without proper Congressional review. The House of Representatives earlier passed its own version of the NDAA that authorizes worldwide war, and worldwide indefinite detention, even within America itself. And now, the House and Senate are meeting in secret to write a final version and find a way to rush this outrageous affront to our constitutional rights to President Obama’s desk.” It is a sad, sad day in America when our Government will be allowed to detain individuals without trial.

There are two other bills that are patently against the United States Constitution, Protect IP Act (Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011) or PIPA, and SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act). Both of these bills will have an extreme effect on the internet as we know it and they promote censorship and an attack against our right to free speech. What SOPA and PIPA will do is allow the United States Government to eliminate any website that has any copyrighted material presented on the website from the internet. It gives them the authority to require search engines to pull the alleged website from their listings, require payment processors to stop providing their services to the alleged website, requires internet service providers to disable the alleged websites IP address and more all without just cause or a trial.

All three of these bills were presented in 2011 and are in the process of becoming law. Now maybe I am being paranoid here, however at this point I don’t believe I am, but they are passing laws that basically say anyone can be detained indefinitely without trial and grossly prevent our freedom of speech by removing any website from the internet without justification. Are they preparing for something? With all the recent uprisings in Greece, Egypt and the recent Occupy Movement here in the United States, I am curious what is going to come out of all this. Hold on to your hats, we could be in for a wild ride in the near future. I would really like to hear your point of view. Please take a moment and share your thoughts below.

NEW: You can now follow SOPA LIVE. The site is still a work in progress but has great information.

I have been following SOPA for about two weeks now and I have taken the time to watch as much of the live debate as possible. There have been a lot of emotions in regards to this bill. Online protesters have said it will destroy the internet, cause the internet to go black and allow censorship of the internet by the U.S. Government. I took a look to see if that is really the case.

I am not sure how many individuals have actually read the bill in its entirety. It is difficult for many people to follow or understand all the legalese when reading these types of documents. I have taken the time to read the bill and I would like to share my thoughts about the bill with you.

First, I would like to take a moment to throw a disclaimer in here. I am not an attorney. I have been involved in local government and have drafted many ordinances and worked with municipal attorneys closely so I am somewhat versed in reading and understanding these types of documents. This is only my interpretation and there are sure to be many differing interpretations of the bill.

The nuts and bolts of the seventy-eight page bill really begin on the tenth page with Sec. 102. “ACTION BY ATTORNEY GENERAL TO PROTECT U.S. CUSTOMERS AND PREVENT U.S. SUPPORT OF FOREIGN INFRINGING SITES”. This section defines what a foreign infringing site is and what actions are to be taken against foreign infringing sites. First, we need to define a “foreign internet site”. A foreign internet site is any internet site where both the domain registrar of the domain name and the assigner of the IP address of the site are not located within a judicial district of the United States. In my opinion this section is really quite reasonable. If a foreign website is committing violations punishable under 2318, 2319, 2319A, 2319B, 2320, or chapter 90, of title 18, of the United States Code and is providing or attempting to provide their content or services to United States citizens and would be subject to seizure in the United States if the site was a US based site then the Attorney General will bring action against the owner of the website. In addition to the action against the owner or if the owner of the website is unreachable the Attorney General, after obtaining a court order, has the ability to require service providers located within the United States, to take steps to prevent their subscribers from accessing the foreign infringing site by blocking it, require search engines to take the infringing site out of their listings, require payment network providers to stop processing transactions for the infringing site, and require advertising agencies to stop publishing advertisements that direct United States citizens to the infringing site. This section also provides immunity to those providers from any suits that could arise by the infringing site. There is nothing in this section that relates to U.S. based internet sites.

The next section is,  SEC. 103. “MARKET-BASED SYSTEM TO PROTECT U.S. CUSTOMERS AND PREVENT U.S. FUNDING OF SITES DEDICATED TO THEFT OF U.S. PROPERTY.” This section is where it gets a lot more controversial. This section states that a website is dedicated to theft of U.S. Property if, it is an internet site, or a portion thereof, that is a U.S.-directed site and is used by users within the United States and its primary use is for offering goods or services in a manner that engages, enables or facilitates a violation of section 501 or section 1201, of title 17, of the United States Code, or engages, enables or facilitates the sale, distribution or promotion of goods, services, or materials bearing counterfeit marks as defined in section 34(d) of the Lanham Act or section 2320 of title 18, United States Code. A website is also considered a website that is dedicated to theft of U.S. Property if the operator of the U.S.-directed site does not take actions to avoid confirming a high probability of the use of the U.S.-directed site to carry out acts that constitute a violation of section 501 or 1201 of title 17, United States Code. This mean websites such as YouTube, Facebook, Reddit and virtually any other user generated website would be a target as everyone knows that it is possible to use those types of websites to share copyrighted material. From my understanding of the current law, it states that website owners cannot be held liable for content submitted by their users. This patently changes that. The section states that the owner of the copyrighted material can contact the offending website, and its service providers and have the site ultimately shut down. The service providers, such as advertising services, payment processors, domain name registrars and internet service providers are then required to take appropriate actions to cease the operation of the website as soon as possible but within no more than 5 days. If they do not take action against their allegedly offending client, they intern loose the immunity that is provided by the bill.

Section 105 of the SOPA bill states that there shall be no liability for damages to any service provider, payment network provider, internet advertising service, advertiser, Internet search engine, or domain name registrar for taking any action against their clients for violations described in this bill. That basically means that any website once accused is guilty until proven innocent and if the service providers do not take steps to ensure the website is shut down, they can be liable as well. However, if they do take the necessary steps and the website is deemed to be legitimate, they can’t be sued. That is some strong language.

In conclusion, this bill if passed in its current form will most certainly, in my opinion, have a substantial effect on the internet as we know it today. If you would like to monitor the bill bookmark the Stop Online Piracy Act Bill’s page on govtrack. At the time of writing this article govtrack.us has a poll by POPVOX where 98% of the 3,300 responders are opposed to the bill. The next scheduled meeting on the Stop Online Piracy Bill is Wednesday, December 21, 2011 at 9am Eastern Time you can watch it live.

If you don’t think people are taking the SOPA bill seriously, just take a look at the group that is already starting a “new” internet called The Meshnet Plan. They have started The Meshnet Facebook Group,and a Google + Group. The have also set up a map where individuals can plot their approximate location to help setup the initial infrastructure. Take a look at a basic explanation of what Meshnet is.

I have put some thought into this for a while now. The US Government is running at a huge deficit. I think it is about time for some major reform. This is going to sound extreme but give it some serious thought and then comment accordingly.

Step number one: Eliminate parties. Get rid of the Republican and Democratic parties all together. This is one of the biggest problems with our government today. Our government officials are literally afraid to vote against their party lines. This takes all the logical thought process out of the decisions they make. It also hinders them when it comes to making new laws. They will never submit a new law that is against their party even if it makes sense to them. So how does one go about eliminating the parties? I will get into that later in this post.

Step number two: Change the amount of representation. Currently the Senate has two representatives from each state with salaries of $174,000 per year each and the Senate majority and minority leaders each earn $193,000 per year. So if we do the math $174,000*48= $8,352,000 and $193,000*2= $386,000. $8,352,000 + $386,000 = $8,738,000. That is just for the current senators that are in office. I am not going to go into the 400+ members of congress that are receiving retirement benefits.

The House of Representatives currently have 435 representatives with salaries of $174,000 per year each and the House majority and minority leaders each earn $193,000 and the Speaker of the House earns $223,500 per year. If we do the math on the House, 432*$174,000 = $75,168,000 and 2*$193,000 = $386,000. $75,168,000 + $386,000 + $223,500 = $75,777,500 per year for the Representatives’ salaries.

Combine the Senate and House salaries and we are paying a total of $84,515,500 in salaries annually. That does not include insurance and other benefits we are paying for.

I propose we have a representative from each state in the Senate and one representative from each state in the House. That would make 50 Senators and 50 members of the House. $7,830,000 per year for regular members, $772,000 for majority and minority leaders and $223,500 per year for the Speaker of the house would total $17,525,500 in salaries for both the House and Senate. With this change we would save a total of $75,690,000 per year plus the other benefits we are paying for.

Step number three: Eliminate campaign financing. To do this we require candidates set up a website, which all do now anyway, to provide the public with the information relevant to their candidacy. Require local television stations to broadcast regularly televised information in regards to the top two candidates provided by the top two candidates as determined by a primary of all candidates running. This eliminates the need for the funding of commercials and other campaign promotions and puts everyone on a level playing field by giving each candidate an equal amount of promotional time.

While in office all members of the House and Senate would have their all their accounts monitored and audited by an authority to confirm there is no outside monies received to influence their decisions.

This in sense is how we eliminate the parties. If they are not allowed to finance a member of the House or Senate they have no influence on the member.

While this is a pie in the sky idea, I think it would be good for our nation. Our elected officials would be judged on their actions not the actions of their party. This is not likely to happen anytime soon simply because 435 individuals would have to vote to eliminate their positions.

Take a moment and let me know your thoughts on this topic. There are obviously many questions that may be raised by this post but I think it is a good discussion starting point.