Displaying items by tag: Politics

In what seems to be a tit-for-tat move, Chin has announced a ban on products from US chip maker, Micro. The reasons for this are vague with the Cybersecurity Administration of China (CAC) saying it is for National Security reasons. This move comes after the US has banned a couple of technology companies from China for the same reasons and as social time-wasting platform TikTok comes under greater scrutiny in possible preparation of a nationwide ban on the platform. Montana has already signed a ban into law although this ban might not bear the scrutiny of a Constitutional Review.

Questionable security practices aside, it seems that just about every "big" scandal lately has had leaked emails as some sort of component. In the latest such scandal we find that leaked Kaspersky emails are at the core of the US National Security policy maker's concerns over the company and the use of the product inside the US. According to "internal company emails obtained by Bloomberg Businessweek" Kaspersky has had a rather close relationship with Russian intelligence agencies.

If you have been living under a rock for the past few weeks (or are in the mainstream media) then you might not have heard about the Occupy the world movement that is going on. I am not just talking about Occupy Wall Street, but literally Occupy the world. In fact as I am writing this Occupy Orlando is starting up not all that far from where I am sitting. Although these protests are non-violent the ratings and profit based media companies will be sure to highlight anything that is remotely violence related, but I digress.

Many have wonder about the whys of these protests and have asked about the specific goals. What does Anonymous and the people that are actually at each days event want? The media has been very confusing here as well, they have pointed out multiple times that there have been no statements about why these protests are happening or what the goals are. This is despite numerous press releases from Anonymous and also from the people that are actually in the streets! You have to wonder if there is not someone trying to put out misinformation about these protests to downplay their importance.

One of my favorite statements that have been put out was reposted recently by a commenter on TorrentFreak.com

“We The People demand that ALL corporate influence in politics and the courts come to an immediate and permanent end. No more “Citizens United”, no more lobbying, no more “Justice that only money can buy”, no more corporate campaign contributions, no more lying sellout puppet politicians, no more illegal tax breaks for corporations, no more bailouts, no more pro-corporate legislation, no more corporate impunity, no more predatory lawyers, no more oppression. We demand the Voice of the People be heard loud and clear, and corporate money shuts the fuck up. It’s OUR world, it’s not for sale, and we’re taking it back!”

Anyone else think that is ambiguous? I did not think so. Now this comment (taken from another blog) was under an article that illustrates exactly what people are talking about with corporate involvement in politics and the judicial system. It appears that in many bit torrent cases Law Enforcement Officers, Politicians, Public Figures (most notably actors) and US Military serving overseas are excluded. Now wait a minute…. Haven’t the Big Media companies talked about the massive harm that Bit Torrent downloads cause and the importance of reclaiming the money lost from these activities? You would think that no one would be excluded especially people that have the ability to pay the disproportionately large settlements. It also raises the question of “why are politicians excluded from ANY law”. You would think that as lawmakers and leaders in our country that they would (and should) be held to a higher standard. Alas this is not and has not been the case for many years.

It shows that with the right amount of money or a lobbying group (which is also money based) you can get what you want in our legal system. This has impacted our technology sectors in many ways, where companies attempt to crush competition in the court room instead of in the market. All you have to do is look at the number of useless or broad patents and you will see how low we have sunk. I am all about a company protecting its inventions and their products from blatant theft and or reproduction, but someone has to draw the line and reign in these corporations. Soon there will be nothing new out there or we will be faced with bland and boring products that are nothing more than refreshes. This hurts the consumer and the economy. So the next time you hear one of the big media companies say that Anonymous or the Occupy movement has no clear goal, just take a quick look on the internet and you will quickly see what they are angry about. You might also find that you agree with them and what they are hoping to accomplish.

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