Obama (D-IL), Yea

That is the sound of Obama voting to set your freedom, privacy, and security back to the days before Nixon. Again a major piece of legislation is pushed through with no real discussion and no in depth understanding of what the law does. Instead the Bush administration and the power hungry, do-nothing senators push their message of fear that has inexplicably continued to work for them for seven years. It helps that there isn't any press coverage.

Remember these are the same people who had sufficient intelligence to prevent 9/11 but failed to. Yet they continue to say they need to listen in on to all of our calls. They continue to say that we need to give protection to the phone companies that may have broken the law in their rush to give all of our information, calls, Internet traffic, and emails to the government. They also continue to say that if you aren't doing anything wrong you don't have anything to worry about. Ahh the old standby of the people who want a police state and the conformists who support them. In case you weren't paying attention in elementary school that is the kind of shit we don't stand for in America. The fourth amendment was the founding fathers declaration that Americans should not have to be subject to such a weak red herring. I have also explained in previous posts why law abiding persons have every reason to have lawful secrets and to fear a government with too much power or information. For example, what if the Democrats decide to create a political smear machine and hunt out every gay conservative through the massive amount of information this will create? Then the law abiding, republicans will see what they have to fear from the fruits of their own fear mongering and lust for power.

What I really came here to do is rail against Obama for voting for fear and against freedom. I was really excited by Obama after his first speech regarding the racist conspiracies circulating in his church. That speech showed real leadership and had the potential of elevating the national dialogue regarding race. I was particularly excited because after months of hearing nothing but the words "hope" and "change" I finally knew something of substance about Obama. I was beginning to understand the rock star level of excitement that surrounded him. The last week has completely eliminated any enthusiasm I once had. Despite the "embarrassing pejorative" Jessie Jackson leveled at Obama, it is true that he has been giving up his convictions to appear more mainstream. Obama has been a crusader against gun rights, and even though I disagree with him, I was disappointed to hear his quiet measured reaction to the decision by the supreme court that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to own a handgun. Then later it was announced that Obama was in favor of the death penalty. I don't particularly have an opinion on the issue but I do know that if you want to get elected in this country, especially at the national level, you better be in favor of the death penalty. Combined with his taking the side of the freedom haters in congress this all spells out that Obama is another political robot just to act as a face. He is the dickless face of a party with no balls. Hows that for a pejorative?

I Got Yer Millitia Right Here

Today the Supreme Court Ruled that the Second Amendment ensures an individuals right to own and possess a firearm. Few people were suprised by this decision. Either in its ultimate result or in its scope. Scalia, who wrote the position for the majority, has previously written opinions for the court in gun control cases that are fundamentally similar to this result. The Court has said in the past that the right enshrined in the second amendment is an individual right but it is not a right without restriction. This can be seen in past cases regarding the federal ban on fully automatic rifles such as in Staples v. United States, 511 U.S. 600 (1994).

The cases and statutes throughout the United States have created a general guideline that seems to indicate an individual may own as many guns as they wish for recreation, sporting, or self defense, but may not own military equipment, and may be restricted in time and place of usage and transport within reason. The definition of what is military equipment changes frequently as can be seen by the recent expiration of the Brady Bill which forbid removable magazines of a capacity over ten rounds among other things. This most recent ruling not only ensures the individual's right to own and possess firearms, it also sets a line that may not be crossed in restricting type of gun and how it may be possessed and transported. This is because the D.C. gun ban that is overturned forbid ownership of a handgun. The court has clearly declared that this type of restriction violates the Constitution. The law also required registration of other firearms and that those registered firearms be locked when in the home. It is already well settled law that when transpiorting a gun one must have it locked and the ammunition must be locked in a seperate container, but today's Supreme Court ruling seems to indicate that a local law may not require that one keep ones guns locked in ones own home.

The ruling also seems to indicate that legislation requiring registration of firearms also goes to far. Many may not understand why this would be objectionable. After all, you have to register your car. The principle difference there is that there is no constitutionaly protected right to own and operate a vehicle. This is more than just a trite observation. Though a car may seem more essential to one's daily life, Congress may decide one day that cars are too dangerous and too polluting to allow in private ownership and ban them. However possession of a weapon is a right granted to us by our creator, like freedom of speech, and is protected by the Bill of Rights. The second reason to object to registration of firearms is a bit more paranoid. Firearm registration just gives the government a list of what law abiding citizens have guns ans what they have in their arsenal. The fear of armed government agents going door to door with a list and confescating the firearms of law abiding citizens in a time of emergency, when they are more likely to need them, is less paranoid when you remember that it happened and happened recently. When Bush suspended posse comitatus after hurricans Katrina and the national guard confiscated guns from people who were just trying to defend themselves from looters and murders who were roaming the streets after the disaster.

Despite the apparent clarity, the actual bounds of the Supreme Court's decision will be heavily litigated and fought over. The lawsuits have already started. As this article indicates these lawsuits by the NRA were already in the works before the decision came down.

“Big Brother“ 應該怎麽翻譯？

If you think concerns about GPS positioning in cell phones is scary in a tin foil hat kind of way, or you're concerned about a few hundred thousand Social Security Numbers being inadvertently disclosed by Wisconsin state agencies, you might have read George Orwell's "nineteen eighty-four". Wang Jianzhou (王建宙）, head of China Mobile, made quite a splash at a panel about the future of cell phones, with the very literal disclosure, "We know where you are." Sure, Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, looking to break into the cell phone market, has every right to be enthusiastic about location-based advertising, but the definition of privacy has slightly different meaning in Chinese. For instance, in the first Legal Dictionary published in Chinese after the the opening up of the Chinese marketplace and the liberalization of state regulation (改革開放)　in 1980，the only mention of privacy (隱私) relates to the privacy concerns in the case of rape of other illicit sexual activity. Admittedly, a lot can happen in the 30 years, for instance, China has become an economic superpower with a maturing discourse in civil society. A tightly disciplined form of protest against the problems of development are being demonstrated with increasing regularity, for instance, the ongoing maglev protests in Shanghai.

Congressman Edward Markey (MA - 7th) and Sony CEO Howard Stringer stand on the other side of the issue here in the United States. I, however, still sleep comfortable and content in the knowledge that the Bill of Rights will protect me from an overly intrusive government intent on invading commonly accepted and legally protected norms of telecommunications privacy. Ooops. Rep. Markey, Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Log Cabin, wouldn't agree with that statement. On Friday, the Senate voted 60-36 to reject re-writing the laws governing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court, no matter how much Sen. Harry Reid wanted to to get Bush a bill before the February 1st deadline.

With 6 million new subscribers every month China Mobile has a significant share of the Chinese cell phone market,　and plans to list on a mainland stock exchange in the near future.　China Mobile covers their liability by mentioning in their privacy policy published online (中文) that government coercion is one reason your privacy could be violated.

Walk of Shame

As much of a dickhead as Bill Maher is occasionally, he sums up this year's biggest douchbags that should be filled with shame and remorse but are even more worthy of hate because they aren't asshamed.



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The First Amendment

As has been the case more times than necessary to enumerate here, the Bill of Rights in general, and the Freedom of Speech enshrined in the first Amendment specifically has come under attack in the years of the Bush administration. In a more local example, a blogger known as daTruthSquad has come under attack for revealing details of an underhanded land deal. The Township of Manalapan in New Jersey has gone so far as to file for an injunction to force Google to reveal the identity of the blogger in a tax-payer sponsored fishing expedition. Check it out, and here.