Invasion of Love and Privacy

The people who brought you prop hate have decided to go after existing gay marriages:
The sponsors of Proposition 8 asked the California Supreme Court on Friday to nullify the marriages of the estimated 18,000 same-sex couples who exchanged vows before voters approved the ballot initiative that outlawed gay unions.
The religious right is literally tearing families [...]

Sean Tavis vs the Creationist

Via Majikthise, Sean Tavis is running a campaign for state representative in Kansas (inspired by xkcd and the 300) against a regressive fundamentalist.
He is running against this guy:

Arlen Siegfried (R), who is anti-choice, anti-gay, pro-creationism, anti-privacy, and pro-censorship.
His blog is here, and you can donate here (lower right).
Arlen Siegfried is a guy who ought to [...]

Facebook and Your Data

Facebook is watching you.  From the article:
Berteau claims the results of the tests prove that Facebook is able to collect information about its members’ surfing habits on affiliate sites, regardless of whether permission has been granted.
Facebook replied to CA’s concerns in a letter describing the ease with which user’s can opt out of having the [...]

Analysis: Obama’s Argument on FISA

The last thing Obama wants to do is move closer to John McCain and George Bush on issues of constitutional rights.  But take a look at his own rationale for his terrible decision to vote for the FISA bill (TPM, emphasis mine):

Obama on the FISA ‘Compromise’ …
“Given the grave threats that we face, our national [...]

Roll Call: Telecoms Allowed to Spy Illegally

I don’t see any reason to pretend this is anything other than an incredibly shitty decision to allow illegal and unconstitutional behavior.  Here’s roll call highlights:
Voting For this travesty: Obama, Lieberman, Hagel, Snowe, Specter, Webb, Warner, Hatch, Graham
Missing the bloody vote: McCain, Kennedy, Sessions
Voting Against: Clinton, Kerry, Feingold, Boxer, Schumer, Leahy
…
To the constituents of the [...]

Specter Calls to Finally Investigate Illegal Spying On Americans?

That’s what I first thought when I saw an opinion piece from SI.com on google news.  I quickly realized the venerable congress critter was talking about investigating a fucking football spying scandal.
The chances of anyone in the Bush administration ever seeing justice for illegally spying on Americans?  Still zero.

Internet Privacy: Republicans and Democrats Unite Against YOU

Issues come along every now and again which remind us how both parties ultimately consider us peasants.  We are to be controlled, not listened to.  We can see this in our farce of an electoral system, from the fractured primary season up to the electoral college and voting sans paper-trail.  We can see it when [...]

Arrested? Open Wide and Say DNA

Our Department of Homeland Security will begin swabbing the mouths of Americans arrested by the Feds, especially foreigners.  Privacy concerns will be raised, ignored, and run rough-shod over (AP/Yahoo):
The government plans to begin collecting DNA samples from anyone arrested by a federal law enforcement agency — a move intended to prevent violent crime but which [...]

Bush to Illegally Spy on Us

Washington Post (emphasis mine):
The Bush administration said yesterday that it plans to start using the nation’s most advanced spy technology for domestic purposes soon, rebuffing challenges by House Democrats over the idea’s legal authority.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said his department will activate his department’s new domestic satellite surveillance office in stages, starting as soon [...]

Privacy Rights and Candidates

One year ago today, we found this out (Boing Boing via this Slashdot thread):
More information has come to light about the arrest of Josh Kinberg, the hacker who made a “dot-matrix bike-printer” to ride through the streets of New York during the RNC in 2004. The oversize bike had a laptop-powered array of chalk-sprayers that [...]