AT&T 'Ready to Filter' the Web

During a panel discussion at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show, AT&T’s top lobbyist said the company was ready to implement new technologies that would allow it to inspect and filter Web traffic.

James Cicconi, AT&T’s senior vice president for external and legal affairs, said that the time was right to start filtering for content at the network level. “We think a network-based solution is the optimal way to approach this,” Cicconi said, according to a New York Times reporter who attended the panel.

It’s no secret that major ISPs have been working with technology companies such as Cisco to filter content with deep-packet-inspection software. Last year, AT&T revealed its plans to work with MPAA, RIAA and broadcasters to use and deploy “digital fingerprinting techniques.

According to public statements, their rationale for playing traffic cop is to ferret out pirated content: sniffing through our digital packets for material that infringe on copyright.

Can You Trust the Filter?

But the technology can be used for other purposes, and the phone giant has shown that it has no qualms invading our communications to hand over our private records to government, or censor speech or block service “without prior notice and for any reason or no reason.”

AT&T has also touted plans to become gatekeepers to the Web with public relations bromides about “shaping” Web traffic to better serve the needs of an evolving Internet.

In reality, Cicconi and his cohorts within the entertainment industry are waging a quiet campaign to control how video and other rich content gets distributed via the Web. The popular trend in video, however, is streaming in the opposite direction. More and more people are becoming their own creators and distributors of homespun video content. YouTube now boasts more than 100 million views each day, but it is just the beginning of this revolution.

Peer-to-peer traffic is spreading via popular technologies like BitTorrent and Gnutella, which allow users to upload and share videos, music and other rich media without a middleman or content gatekeeper. The bulk of this traffic is legal.

Peer-to-Peer Traffic ‘Not Acceptable’

Also at the Las Vegas panel was NBC Universal’s general counsel Rick Cotton, who told the Times that the volume of peer-to-peer traffic online was “overwhelming.”

“That clearly should not be an acceptable, continuing status,” Cotton said, and AT&T seems more than happy to step in.

These executives’ vision of a better Internet ” AT&T’s “Your World Delivered” ” is not one that is shared by the more than 1.5 million people who have spoken out in favor of a neutral, open and free-flowing Internet.

For us, the Internet isn’t about one company delivering our world or filtering our content. It’s about simply offering a high-speed connection at reasonable rates ” and then getting out of our way.

This article is from SavetheInternet.com. If you found it informative and valuable, we strongly encourage you to visit their Web site and register an account, if necessary, to view all their articles on the Web. Support quality journalism.

Congressional Aide Tracker

Mr. Duke goes to Washington. Sixty-four of the members of the last Congress resigned, retired, were defeated, are now sitting in jail or have received pardons from pResident Bush. As last Sunday's Doonesbury cartoon featured above points out, many of them are on their way to fulfilling the grand Washington tradition of hiring themselves out as lobbyists to lean on their former colleagues. Ever since Grover Norquist and Tom Delay's 1995 "K Street Project" brought about the GOP takeover of K Street, its been hard to keep track of all the folks cashing in after public service. What often flies below the radar, however, are the huge number of congressional staffers who take the opportunity of their bosses leaving to join the lobbying corps themselves. They are prized by K Street not just for their insider knowledge of how Congress works, but also for the extensive contacts they still have with their former coworkers and subordinates as well as the lack of oversight and attention given them by anyone.

click to enlarge.

Now it's time to drag them into the sunshine, both Democrat and Republican alike. The Sunlight Foundation, CMD's partner in the Congresspedia project, has developed a cool distributed research tool to marry citizen brain power with a fancy new database to figure out who exactly is hiring these insiders, and they want you to participate. Like so many other participatory projects, many hands can make this formerly daunting task light work.

Once the results are in, the CMD staff will work with the participants to get the results entered into the SourceWatch profiles of the corporations and lobbyists, ensuring that professional reporters and citizen journalists alike will be able to use the information to perform some high-caliber muckraking on the DC influence scene. Even Craigslist's Craig Newmark is participating because, as he says, "This 'revolving door' thing is of great concern since some staffers, working for shadowy politicians, might do more damage as lobbyists."

Everything you need to know is at Sunlight's website. This is your chance to become vigilant citizens by participating in Democracy in an unprecedented way

Featured Participatory Project: Find the Newest Congressional Staffers-Turned-Lobbyists

Movie Industry Lobby Censors for Bush

The Motion Picture Association of America, lobby for big media, doesn't like showing picture the Bush Administration doesn't want you to see. Once again, the myth of liberal media stands exposed to truth... what do you think?

Alex Gibney's new, critically-acclaimed documentary Taxi to the Dark Side follows the path of Afghan taxi driver Dilawar, who was wrongly accused of terrorist ties and was tortured to death by interrogators in the U.S. prison at Bagram Air Base. The film critically examines the Bush administration's torture doctrine at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.



The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has rejected Taxi's poster as being not suitable for all audiences. The poster for the film simply shows two soldiers walking away from the camera, holding a hooded detainee between them.

The Taxi ad art is an actual photograph taken by Corbis Photographer, Shaun Schwarz, who's original image was intentionaly deleted by the military- but not before he transferred a copy to his flash drive. The original shot was of only one soldier and the hooded detainee, a second soldier was added digitally for balance and effect.

According to ThinkFilm, which produced the documentary, the MPAA objected to the image of the hood.

Last year, the MPAA also censored censored the poster for the documentary The Road to Guantanamo, because it showed a detainee hanging by his handcuffed wrists, with a burlap sack over his head and a blindfold tied around the hood.



Poster images for Taxi and Road are based on factual evidence. But interestingly, many horror films released for Christmas... as well as several slasher films shown on TV during the christmas holiday... show hoods, torture, dismemberment and far more horrific imagery.... but thats okay... cuz the Bush Administration doesn't mind showing images that create terror and fear... just not the ones they're actually doing in our name!!!

A look at some of the posters the MPAA has approved as suitable for all audiences this holiday season.

Morality of Politics

Adelheid Meirs created some excellent charts visualizing much of the teachings of George Lakoff regarding the differences between liberals and conservatives in todays... newspeak. What do you think?



heres one that focus's on the differences in educational concepts:


and another charting the differences in government spending ideology:

Who Killed John O'Neil?

Who Killed John O'Neil?

Heard of it? its an art-film made by a couple guys (ty rauber and ryan thurston) who do such a wonderfully disturbing job of not only connecting the dots of the whole conspiracy concept, but effectively showing the downside of such a rabbit-hole experimentations.

Not for your average citizen as its stark set and characterizations force the viewer into the data-intense dialog. Also important in viewing this film is the ability to pause and replay... as some of the connections require a near paradigm-shift to comprehend.

Have you seen it yet? http://www.wkjo.com




I've not been one to advocate for much discourse about this topic as it inevitably illicits a dramatic cessation from what we believe to be true... but that said, I found this very compelling and wonderfully creative in its aesthetics... let me know what you think.

c

One World Currency

Democracy v Despotism

Democracy vs Despotism... you decide which way this nation seems headed.
THis is a 1946 film... but surprisingly on point today.

Psychological Torture Okay?

On Wednesday November 7, 2007, the primary operations manual for running of the US detention facility in Guantanamo Bay named Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedure was published by the government transparency group Wikileaks. The 238 page manual clearly exposes among other things, systematic methods for extreme psychological torture and stress as well as clear instructions not to allow prisoners to meet with humanitarian agencies like the International Red Cross- in violation of international law. Even the American Psychological Association, the only remaining body of medicine NOT to condemn these practices is having to re-evaluate its policy and participation.

What the manual also describes are the details to the so-called "Leave No Marks" interrogation techniques that were confirmed recently by release of a handwritten memo by then Sec of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. As Sen John McCain, a vietnam POW who co-authored the McCain-Feingold torture law that was ignored through executive signing instruction by this pResident once said, " I would have gladly chosen physical torture to psychological...mental torture is far more inhumane"

With the release of yet another document clearly illustrating the Bush administration lied to the public on several occasions how has the government responded? The Pentagon is actively seeking to censor the document under the States Secret Act and the Whitehouse spokesmen are backpedaling and avoiding direct questions. Can Congress get to the bottom of yet another clear violation of the peoples trust? We'll have to see how the Bush team spins a cocoon around this story and buries it into its web of lies, distortions and blatant abuses of power. We'll also have to see how the media covers the details. Is this the kind of Leadership you think best emulates Freedom and Democracy?

At a time when we are supposedly trying to help Pakestan's fledgling democracy to be more like us, is this the us we mean? Musharif may already consider himself to be a student of George W Bush.

Support our Troops?

Do we really care about our Troops? Talk is cheap and our actions of late, even cheaper.... So many citizens, veterans and politicians wrap themselves up in the flag and talk tuff for the troops.... but the reality is far from the rhetoric.

On friday, Congressman Lindsey Graham of South Carolina cackled from the Senate floor against the $87 Billion Dollar troop funding bill with a timeline attached. Citing "our troops are winners, not losers". Veterans and citizen-bloggers have constantly taken to flag-waving and tuff talk about our "supporting our troops" and continuing the constant clammer against "cut and run".

New figures released this week site nearly 4700 troops deserted their posts this year alone, up from 3300 last year. This represents an 80% increase in the desertion rate and is the highest in nearly 30 years— and the pace is accelerating. Additionally figures showing one in four homeless people in the US are war veterans, a point relegated to minor news clips buried in the media. Troops in record numbers are returning home with PTSD and are finding inadequate -if any- treatment or help from the Government. A study yesterday reported that more than 6000 soldiers took their own lives in 2005.... thats 17 soldiers a day!

Meanwhile, with a huge budget for slick ads, flashy powerpoint presentations, uncensored access to our High School and University Student personal records and cafeterias...our proud military has taken to preying on youth through profiling and false advertising. With budgets of between $1600-4000 per recruit, the military sees no reason to invoke the draft.

I don't know about you all, but if thats the pride to which we want to defend our troops, then there is something terribly wrong with this nation and the conditioning these vets, politicians and gung-ho citizens have gotten from the media and the deceptive administration who to this day, says we are winning the war on terror.

Defending our troops... more correctly, our children and loved ones... means being certain our cause is just, our methods are above-board, our treatment of them upon returning is truthful and comprehensive and our media or information is honest and trustworthy. Anything less than that is not only a slap in the face to every soldier who ever served, but a reason to stand up and fight for our soldiers!

Certainly there is an allegiance to our troops from our veteran population, and certainly our citizens owe them a deep debt of gratitude for their service whether in the gulf or at any other time, but allegiance and ignorance are not compatible. The longer we allow our elected leaders to beat their breasts about troops being winners- while waging a war of aggression that we all agree was not started in good faith (no connection to 9/11-no WMDs, no alqaeda)...The longer we accept daily revelations of the staggering costs of this war both in loss of life and loss of integrity to our nation and its allies... The more we continue to listen to the mainstream media make headlines of success while barely covering their redactions and truthful statements of record losses... the more we truly disrespect our troops today, and the honor and dignity of our nation and its armed forces.

Truth is Relative

Hightower on Oil

Rally for Peace in Chicago

Get out and take action...
Be counted and hold our leaders accountable.

MurdockBlock

The Great Escape

Watch as the thieving destroyers of the Democratic Republic formerly known as the United States of America all begin to exit stage right. Watch as the visionaries, hitmen and henchmen of the New World Order leave what appears to be the sinking ship of the Bush Administration.

Don't be myopic, just yesterday Atria, parent of Phillip Morris, spun off its most profitable branches of the company from the US to Europe. Last month Halliburton moved its corporate headquarters to Dubai. By doing this, these multinationals are effectively cutting their umbilical cords... their corporate charters... the only legal binding jurisdiction to reign them in... and now they operate above international law.

We regularly appease the local branch of Walmart, McDonalds or Starbucks with tax braks, incentives and slacked enforcement of our laws... what will they ask for next? Once they no longer can be threatened by revocation of their charter, or liquidation of their assets?

There is no law maker saying they need to stay in their country of origin, and because too many law makers helped them leave America through offshore finances, global markets with trade sanctions and a laissez-faire international policy... we're about to fully confront the new world order we've created, and it ain't the warm fuzzy thing GeorgeSr. pledged. Heard of the NAU?


Watch the run on Gold as the Amero becomes the new North American Currency replacing the dollar.

The North American Union - or Security Prosperity Partnership has been the underlying cornerstone of much of the Bush Administration's actions the past seven years. Get the multinational Corporations out from underneath any legal ties, bankrupt the country through an endless war on terror, senseless tax cuts, privatization of our commons and the liquidation of our rights and privacy.

Did you realize both Mexico and Canada's last elections voted in right-wing business friendly candidates amid an unreal public consensus that both elections were hi-jacked... just like our 2000-2004 elections.

This end-game to create a North American Union to support global business interests in a world domination scheme to restructure global power in the hands of the elite sounds like something of a SCI-FI movie or 007Bond fantasy.... but I assure you its real.

Watch as Democratic Senator David Rockafeller speaks of the new world order to his dear friend Dick Cheney.

More last year on the secret plans of the Bush Administration

What we may be witnessing is the mass migration of the neocon fascists from the positions of power in our current governement, to their new leadership roles heading up the Global Corporate Kingdom created by our complacency and desire for materialism and greed. With our short attention span... we'll soon forget the names Rumsfeld, Rove, Gonzales, Ashcroft, Bolton and Abermoff... We'll barely be able to keep track of the TV wannabees fighting for best chef, best designer, best pickup artist, best slut and best at eating worms. Welcome to the new Fear Factor, the new Real World.

AT&T censors

Censored Show Proves AT&T’s Bad Faith
From Capital Times, August 16, 2007

By John Nichols

Telecommunications giant AT&T says no one should worry about their aggressive lobbying to eliminate Net neutrality — the First Amendment of the Internet that guarantees equality of access to all Web sites.

AT&T executives claim they would never interfere with Web content.

When Americans hear this spin, they should hang up on AT&T.

The truth is that, within business circles, the company is already promoting its schemes for “shaping” the Internet if Net neutrality protections fall.

And a good sense of how the telecommunications corporation would like to “shape” the World Wide Web can be gleaned from reports of how AT&T managed the live webcast of last weekend ‘s Lollapalooza concert when it came time for Pearl Jam to perform.

The Seattle-based band has a long history of highlighting smart political statements — about war and peace, protecting the environment and promoting tolerance — in its songs and in the on-stage comments of lead singer Eddie Vedder.

But on Sunday, when Pearl Jam was performing the song “Daughter” during the Lollapalooza festival in Chicago, the band broke into a version of Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall.” Reworking the lyrics of the classic rock song, Vedder sang, “George Bush, leave this world alone” and “George Bush, find yourself another home.”

The lyrics that criticized Bush were muted in the webcast.

Coincidence? Not at all.

AT&T admits that the censorship occurred. The company describes the muting of Vedder ‘s references to a president who appoints the members of the Federal Communications Commission — and thus has a major role in deciding whether AT&T gets what it wants — as “a mistake by a webcast vendor.”

Then, in a nice Orwellian twist, the company declares, “We have policies in place with respect to editing excessive profanity, but AT&T does not censor performances.”

In fact, “editing excessive profanity” is censorship.

And, of course, Vedder’s lyrics about Bush, which were not profane, did in fact get censored.

Web-savvy Pearl Jam fans noted the silencing of the message and immediately contacted the band. Pearl Jam members released a statement on the censorship incident that declared, “This, of course, troubles us as artists but also as citizens concerned with the issue of censorship and the increasingly consolidated control of the media. AT&T’s actions strike at the heart of the public’s concerns over the power that corporations have when it comes to determining what the public sees and hears through communications media.”

Pearl Jam’s statement continued: “What happened to us this weekend was a wake-up call, and it’s about something much bigger than the censorship of a rock band.”

The band’s right. The censorship of Pearl Jam by AT&T serves as a reminder of what will be lost if Net neutrality is eliminated and telecommunications corporations are free to decide which Web sites are on “the information superhighway of the future” and which are on the gravel road of slow or impossible connections.

“This event shows that companies like AT&T will risk the appearance of censorship by turning off the sound on a webcast that’s being viewed by thousands of people, just because it works counter to their financial interests,” says Jenny Toomey, the executive director of the Future of Music Coalition, which has been working to defend Net neutrality. “What do you think they will do to protect their financial interests on the Web when no one is looking?”

Tim Karr, of the Save the Internet.com Coalition, adds, “AT&T’s history of breaking trust with their customers includes: handing over private phone records to the government; promising to deliver services to underserved communities and then skipping town; and pledging never to interfere with the free flow of information online while hatching plans … to build and deploy technology that will spy on user traffic.”

“The moral of this story is put Net neutrality permanently into law and never trust AT&T at their word,” says Karr. “The company acts in bad faith toward the public interest and will do whatever it can to pad its bottom line — including sacrificing its users’ freedom to choose where they go, what they watch and whom they listen to online.”


Here's what FCC Chairman Michael Copps had to say about this debacle: