February 23rd Nationwide Protests to Protect Individual Privacy From FBI and Government

We’re NOT protesting Apple, they are fighting back against this too. We’re protesting the government’s dangerous attempt to undermine our security by demanding a backdoor.- Below

The government is searching for an easy way to access and monitor all of us with iPhones. I’ve always been an Apple supporter; now more than ever for not simply selling us out and making a new OS with a backdoor for the FBI. They at least are resisting.

The AP states:

“Apple is fighting the court order issued in the case, arguing that the special software sought by the FBI could be used to break into millions of other iPhones. The FBI contends Apple is exaggerating the security risks of complying with the court order in a marketing ploy aimed at selling more iPhones.

Fight for the Future believes Apple’s concerns are warranted and is hoping the protests will persuade the Obama administration to take a stand against the way the FBI is trying to break into Farook’s iPhone, said Evan Greer, the group’s campaign director.”

 

Of course the Government thus far is supporting the FBI’s attack on the people and Apple. And the abusive, brutal and cruel NYPD has said the encryption Apple uses is, “A Gift From God to Criminals”….

That all by itself should be a huge red flag to all of us. Our privacy is at risk of being further invaded and violated. Join me and Apple at protesting the government! (See Links Below)

And from another article:

This is a huge.

“This is really dangerous. The FBI just got a judge to order Apple to build a software “backdoor” to help them hack into an iPhone. They’ve been wanting to do this for years, but now they’re exploiting the tragedy in San Bernardino, CA to push their agenda to weaken the security of all of our phones to enable more government surveillance.

Our basic safety and security is at stake! On Tuesday, February 23rd we will gather at Apple stores nationwide with two simple messages: “Don’t Break Our Phones!” and “Secure Phones Save Lives!”

We’re not protesting Apple, they are fighting back against this too. We’re protesting the government’s dangerous attempt to undermine our security by demanding a backdoor.

Scroll to the bottom of this event for a list of organized protests (coming soon), or simply show up at the most central Apple store in your town at 5:30pm. Check back soon for a simple tool that will allow you to turn your iPhone, tablet, or laptop into a protest sign you can bring to these events.

WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT:

Breaking the security features of our iPhones won’t just hurt our privacy, it puts all of our safety at risk. Once a backdoor is built, it won’t just be used by governments or law enforcement. It will enable malicious hackers, foreign governments, terrorists, thieves and stalkers to use our data against us.

What the FBI is doing is dangerous, but it’s also illegal. Apple has a right to offer customers secure devices that protect our most sensitive information. According to the ACLU, forcing Apple to hack their own customers is unconstitutional and will undermine our privacy and safety without improving national security.

So far, Apple is vowing to fight this unlawful and reckless demand by the government, but we need to show them that they’re not standing alone. Join us at one of these important events to stand up for everyone’s safety.”

Above Excerpt Found Here

National Facebook Events

AP Article

Why is America Allowed to Monitor and/or Imprison the Wrong People?

“The United States has about 5 percent of the world’s population, but we have 25 percent of the world’s prisoners – we incarcerate a greater percentage of our population than any country on Earth,” said Michael Jacobson (the director of the non-partisan Vera Institute of Justice, also running the NYC jail and probation systems throughout the ’90s.

Though we all know Facebook, in partnership with the government (and many others), monitor us and have been spying on innocent citizens via Facebook with the excuse that is for “national security” when actually it only really seems to aid in arresting people for things as insane as a teenager making a sarcastic remark to hunting down people who for using drugs.

US Marine Facing 15 yrs for Facebook Post ….

One more reason I don’t do facebook, one more reason I’ll keep speaking my mind. No threats are made rather opinions, I don’t believe he really meant it when in an angry rant he put “kill” -this is just another way they are trying to take out people who are fed up. Being fed up and using phrases that aren’t meant to be real but could be made to seem real is all I see his words as: talk, anger and rightful anger, at other governments harassment of people and drugs.
Keep your own opinions – it is are scaring them. Never stop educating others!
A repost from daily tech (link follows):

Speechcrime charges on the rise in the U.S., marine is also involuntarily committed for his protest speech

Frustrated with the U.S. “War on Drugs”, which he believed was a farce, and with a seeming increase in police violations of U.S. citizens’ civil liberties, Matthew Michael created a group on Facebook, Inc.’s (FB) social network targeting the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency with angry statements.

I. Protest the U.S. Government? Think Again

In one post, he reportedly wrote, “War is near. Anarchy and justice will be sought…I’ll kill whoever I deem to be in the way of harmony to the human race…BE WARNED IF U PULL ME OVER!!”

The posts — while threatening in a vague manner — did not name any specific DEA agents, or even make any clear plan for violent action.

Department of Justice caught wind of the post and has now been given the go-ahead by a federal judge — Judge William Lawrence of U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana — to charge Mr. Michael with three counts of transmitting threats in interstate commerce.

Each of those charges, according to 18 USC § 875 (the U.S. Criminal Code) carries up to a 5-year sentence. Under U.S. criminal law, sentences can be served consecutively or concurrently (see this helpful Yahoo! News post). The decision of how to assign the sentences, if the defendant is found guilty, is up to the Judge during the sentencing phase.

That means that Mr. Michael faces a maximum prison sentence of up to 15 years, all for speaking out against the government in an incendiary manner in Facebook.

Judge Lawrence argued the case should be allowed to proceed, despite the ambiguous nature of Mr. Michael’s comments, writing, “The First Amendment does not insulate all speech from criminal consequence. Certain categories of speech having little or no social value are not protected, and threats are one such category…. It would be inappropriate for the court to enter a verdict of not guilty based solely on the face of the indictment unless the court could imagine no facts that would render Michael’s posts unprotected. That is not the situation here.”

II. Marine Also Imprisoned Without Trial

The case echoes the story of U.S. Marine Brandon Raub. After honorably serving his country on tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mr. Raub, 26, had grown disillusioned with the U.S. federal government, and like Mr. Michael took to posting vague, frustrated, incendiary commentaries to Facebook.

Those posts led to local authorities and federal agents in Chesterfield, Virginia detaining Mr. Raub and then exploiting the state’s involuntary commitment laws to label the protester as “mentally ill”, effectively imprisoning him indefinitely and without trial in a state-run veteran’s hospital.

Such rulings are questionable given that in the 1969 case Brandenburg v. Ohio, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled,

“[T]he constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.”

In other words, unless specific, immediate violence is promised, you’re free to make statements of protest against the government — even violent ones.

III. Speech Crime — a Dark and Dangerous Road

But it’s also important to remember that speech is not action, and often times speechcrime legislation — even mild provisions outlawing threats of imminent violence — proves merely a vehicle to unload more severe censorship upon the unwitting public.

A critical example Germany’s 1933 decision to suspend “the Fundamental Rights” in its Articles of Government if “if public safety and order in the German Reich are considerably disturbed or endangered”. The Third Reich seized the opportunity by staging a fire at the Reichstag building, which they then blamed on protesters/terrorists, leading to a blanket suspension of protest speech against the ruling regime. That censorship proved critical to the atrocities and oppression that ensued, as the Reich was able to send anyone who spoke out against its policies to prisons or concentration camps.

In other words, treating threats of violence as speechcrime can be cleverly used as a prelude to suspending free speech in general, if the ruling regime can argue that a “terrorist” threat (possibly staged) mandates a broader removal of civil liberties. Already accustomed to seeing their speech somewhat limited, the public will provide far less resistance.

In a threatening display of power, the Nazi state would eventually commit to a bloody execution via gun and guillotine of convicted “speechcrime” offenders who belonged to the White Rose movement, who had distributed non-violent fliers in Berlin proclaiming, “Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and protection of the individual citizen from the arbitrary action of criminal dictator-states.”

Today both of America’s ruling parties support so-called “free speech zones”, or their various euphemisms, which essentially block citizens’ right to directly speak out with words or written signs against politicians at political rallies.

And today Mr. Michael faces speechcrime accusations, which echo those of historic regimes past. And while he does not face the death sentence for his speechcrime, he does face the prospect of spending over a decade of his life in prison; all for posting something the U.S. government found threatening.

Please view the original article here for links to resources and info included in original article that I couldn’t repost.

#OpPenPal – Don’t Let Them Feel Forgotten…

Late last night I was humbly reminded that we need not forget those who have given up their lives- be it to death, incarceration, persecution, (etc)- to try and give free access to truth, knowledge, and/or illegal activities engaged in by the government and then covered up, just to name a few of the reasons…
It’s beyond insane to even consider locking up people for computer/internet and information sharing when we have real criminals, such as rapists and child molesters, out there. The war on drugs is now extending to people who are activists; the war on drugs, the war on activists- all of it is nothing more than war on the people.

Right now we have Edward Snowden and Julian Assange having to worry about their lives, and we have too many young people locked up for using the computer and internet to achieve knowledge and justice; harming no one along the way, benefiting nothing personal from their activities. These people need to know they are not forgotten, that they are appreciated and will see life outside of bars again.

Please click the link HERE and write to as many of the new, young political prisoners as possible; thank them for what they’ve sacrificed and risked. Remind them they have people out here fighting for them, people who care for them.

If it were you in prison, that’s the least you would hope for, yeah?

“The whistleblowers are the new generation of American patriots” – agrees

This article is brilliant; I have fallen in love with the truths within. The author I have the utmost love and respect for as he speaks the truth just as it needs to be spoken. Love it-Follow the author on twitter @ garyyounge – link below.
——–
The whistleblowers are the new generation of American patriots

When Darrell Anderson, 22, joined the US military he knew there was going to be a war, and he wanted to fight it.

“I thought I was going to free Iraqi people,” he told me. “I thought I was going to do a good thing.”

Until, that is, he realised precisely what he had to do.While on patrol in Baghdad, he thought:

Edward Snowden Gives Information We Should all Listen To…

“…We collect more digital communications from America than we do from the Russians.”- Snowden, ex-CIA/NSA, Current Hero/Whistleblower

Rest assured, the media (government run) will make sure to try and discredit Edward Snowden’s name. They will try to make him into some evil person that he is not to scare the brain washed, and sadly, too many are brain washed enough to believe it without ever bothering to investigate or read the documents before making judgment. Instead, they let Fox News or CNN tell them what they should think. There are times when going against the law is the RIGHT thing to do; this is one of those times and every time a new whistleblower stands up I feel a bit of hope because there are still people out there willing to give up everything for the greater good of the world.

“There are more important things than money. If I were motivated by money, I could have sold these documents to any number of countries and gotten very rich.”– Snowden

I believe Edward Snowden, along with Manning, Assange and others, to be heroes. As this article asks, would you give up all that Snowden has, which is pretty much everything from money to family because it’s the right thing to do? He’s lost his job with the CIA/NSA (obviously), his girlfriend, family, a lot of money and a comfortable life for a belief and ideal of what is right and what is not. I have the most ultimate respect for any man or woman who dares venture where Snowden has.

If he wanted money, as he said, he could have sold a lot of information to other countries. But he didn’t. He released them freely to the American public. Because it should be something the public has a say in, not just the government. As Snowden put it, because he doesn’t want to be a part of or live in a world this disgusting, in silence. While the article says most American’s wouldn’t do what modern Whistleblowers have done, I hope that is not truly the case. I would like to think people are not cowards. It takes a lot of courage and strength, to say the least, to put your life on the line for truth and justice; especially when going up against the government. But he risked it all, knowing he was sacrificing literally his life for the greater good of society.

Write a Thank You for delivery to hero Edward #Snowden

The very least we can do! Please write a thank you note or simply add your name to the list of those thanking this real hero. The thank you notes & signatures will be delivered to the brave whistleblower, Edward Snowden.

Also on the link is information and the following video I thought I’d include as well.

After all he sacrificed for truth and the people, this is the least any of us can do… Please remind him how greatly appreciated & needed he is!

Link to sign or write your thanks is here.

Join Jeremy Hammond’s Brother & Tell Judge Loretta Preska To Give Some Justice

Please sign the petition to help Jeremy Hammond; a computer activist who has harmed no one, but been locked up since March 2012 “awaiting trial”. Please tell the American government pedophiles and rapists (ETC) should be in prison; not a young man whom is intelligent and wants to better society, again, harming not one soul!  It only takes a second. Please click the link below to read his twin brother’s plea for Jeremy. Here you can also add your name to the petition, and your reason for signing (the latter is optional for those who don’t desire to do it). Stand up for something REAL. Jeremy is being prosecuted under the same “law” they tried to get Aaron Swartz with. Sadly, we lost Aaron due to this. Like Jeremy, he had hurt not one soul and simply was a young, intelligent man that cared about society and where it is going. He tragically took his own life instead of being the victim of this unjust system. For his beautiful memory, for those taken from the struggle, please stand with us, and for us; for the life Jeremy has left to live; hell, the life all of us who care about the world have left to live! Are you telling us this is our destiny if we stand up for what is right?

http://freejeremy.net/press-release/join-jeremys-brother-in-calling-for-a-sentence-of-time-served/

If anyone is interested, this is what I wrote:

Show Your Support of Bradley Manning & Truth With an Evening of Art & Discussions in NYC

This is something I am looking forward to immensely! Anyone in the NYC area should make note to attend. Just going to repost from the bradleymanning.org  website.

On April 3rd, Icelandic Parliamentarian, activist WikiLeaks contributor and “poetician” Birgitta Jonsdottir is making her first visit to the United States since the release of the “Collateral Murder” video. This video is one of the most graphic and devastating pieces of journalism from the war in Iraq. Bradley Manning, who has now been in jail for over 1000 days without trial, leaked this video to raise awareness.

Why I Believe Smartphones -Including the iPhone- is Vital to the People

*A simple thought turned into a blog post… Be ware! 🙂

I love technology and I get so annoyed when fellow activists for any cause talk down about it with things such as “having an iPhone or smartphone is sellling out” because it supports corporations and other humanity issues. Fair enough, I see where they are coming from, however…