occupyallstreets:

German Pirate Party Becomes Third Most Popular Political Grouping

Germany’s maverick Pirate Party has gone from electoral fluke to the third most popular party, according to a new poll for Stern magazine.

In just four years the new arrival has overtaken the Green Party to become Germany’s third most popular political grouping, with 13 per cent support.

“For many young people, the Greens have become a stale, old-fashioned party,” said Manfred Güllner, poll analyst with Forsa polling agency.

Related News: Pirate Party Refuses to Shutdown Pirate Bay Proxy, Faces Lawsuit

(via anarcho-queer)

occupyallstreets:

Facebook Will Give Complete, Detailed Printout of Your Activity to Police

If police officers were to file a subpoena for your Facebook information, they would receive a printout of the data from the social network. This printout would be so detailed, complete and creepy that you should strive to be a good law-abiding citizen, just to prevent it from ever existing. 

We have just learned about the true nature of Facebook’s responses to subpoenas thanks to documents uncovered by the Boston Phoenix, an alternative weekly. 

While researching a story about a man dubbed the “Craigslist Killer,” reporters at the Phoenix had access to “a huge trove of case files released by the Boston Police Department.” And in the process of sifting through all of those documents, they discovered the Boston Police’s subpoena of the suspect’s Facebook information - as well as the data provided by the social network. 

The data - which really did come in the form of an old-fashioned paper printout rather than as a digital file of some sort - included all of the suspect’s wall posts, photos he’d uploaded, photos he’d been tagged in, a list of his Facebook friends, and “a long table of login and IP data.” Based on a look at the actual documents, it appears the login and IP data actually lists which parts of Facebook the individual accessed - down to the photos, groups and profiles he viewed.

Source

(via anarcho-queer)

occupyallstreets:

The Obama Administration’s Disturbing Treatment of Whistleblowers

Over the past three and a half years the Obama White House has instead shown a ferocious hostility to many whistleblowers and earned itself the ire of progressive columnists like Salon’s Glenn Greenwald and whistleblower defence groups like the Project on Government Oversight and the Government Accountability Project.

Danielle Brian, of the PGO, has said the US department of justice in the Obama administration “sent a clear of message of fear and intimidation” to whistleblowers in the national security field. This is how the GAP’s Jesselyn Raddack – herself a former whistleblower at the DoJ – put it: “While the Bush administration treated whistleblowers unmercifully, the Obama administration has been far worse. It is actually prosecuting them,” she wrote recently.

To do that it is using the bluntest of tools: the Espionage Act, a first world war-era law intended to combat the threat from spies, not internal dissenters. So far six whistleblowers have been charged under the draconian law with the last one – CIA veteran John Kiriakou – being indicted on 3 April.

Kiriakou, who was a counter-terrorism expert in Pakistan and helped capture senior Al-Qaida operative Abu Zubaydah, has been a vocal critic of waterboarding. He spoke to journalists and wrote a book about it, calling it torture and exposing it as a deliberate policy, rather than the actions of a few rogues. Now a hefty jail term could be his reward.

Others, from across a spectrum of government departments, include people who have exposed wrongdoing at the National Security Agency or fears at the FBI that Israel might attack Iran. Another at the state department spoke out about North Korean nukes and, of course, there is the suspected WikiLeaks source, army private Bradley Manning.

Defenders of Obama’s record on these whistleblowers point to a national security defence and say they actively encourage people to speak out about wrongdoing elsewhere. Whistleblowing may be one thing, they say, but intelligence leaking is another. Every government has a right to protect its secrets. But one can also point to other areas where the Obama administration has shown a love of secrecy that should shame the Democrats who slammed President George Bush for a similar attitude.

Read More

(via anarcho-queer)

A self-appointed vigilante, carrying a loaded gun, decides to look for “danger” in his neighborhood. He begins to follow a 17-year-old boy, who is carrying candy and a soft drink. The boy asks why he is being followed; words are exchanged. The man aims his gun at the boy, fires, and kills the boy dead. The man claims he acted in “self-defense.”

A vigilante Super-State, armed to the teeth with thousands of WMDs, claims to perceive a threat from a small country, still battered and tattered from a war lost over a decade ago. However, international inspectors are allowed to scour the country and find no such threat (i.e., WMDs). Even so, to “prevent” any possibility of such a threat, the vigilante Super-State launches an all-out War on the small country—which is quickly pulverized, incinerated and murdered on a mass scale. Shortly thereafter, it is discovered that the small country was un-armed. “But the small country might still have made war!” the mass-murdering Super-State proclaimed. “We reserve the right to pre-emptively attack in the name of our security and interests!”

(via parkstepp)

youranonnews:

HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY NYAN CAT! NYAN NYAN NYAN! 

Thanks for an amazing year of lulz and kitties! 

Sincerely,

~Anonymous

(via d20dad)

major-hxh-redflag:

Join the Strike by ~Party9999999

(via proletarianinstinct)

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fralcon:

The State of California spends a little less than 8k a year per college student. It spends over 50k a year per prisoner. It’s obvious where their priorities lie, considering more black men are in prison than college. That’s what happens when you turn prisons into a for profit system. Personally, I think saying “Don’t become just another statistic” is patronizing and dishonest, putting all the blame squarely on black men. It should be more like “Don’t let them make you another statistic in their capitalistic system”.

(via communismandlove)

seekdivinewisdom:

Everyone should take off work for one week, and spend that week helping their neighbors. 

The Truth would come to the surface.

(via seekdivinewisdom-blog)

1. The Anchoring Trap: Over-Relying on First Thoughts

“Is the population of Turkey greater than 35 million? What’s your best estimate?” Researchers asked this question to a group of people, and the estimates were seldom too far off 35 million. The same question was posed to a second group, but…

(via proletarianinstinct)