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You might like to read this article about think tanks and science.
http://www.ssrc.org/publicatio...

This may be cautionary; what if the new law does to science publication what "Citizens United" did to political debate?
http://www.ssrc.org/workspace/images/crm/new_publication_3/%7Beee91c8f-ac35-de11-afac-001cc477ec70%7D.pdf
"The theoretical impetus behind the rise of the natural science think tanks is the belief that science progresses when everyone can buy the type of science they like, dispensing with whatever the academic disciplines say is mainstream or discredited science."

Hence, society rightfully sees "sharing" as criminal behavior

Law sees "sharing" as criminal behavior. Society is much more divided: 34% are opposed to any kind of punishment, and even in the 52% who think punishment is due, 75% only support relatively small fines (less than $100) and most don't support disconnections or throttling.

And that's now: in younger people (18-29), 70% have committed copyright infringement, so we'll see in a few years how large is that support.

http://piracy.ssrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/AA-Research-Note-Infringement-and-Enforcement-November-2011.pdf

This is just the sort of thing we have been vigorously advocating at WhyNotAskMe.org

To quote from our manifesto, "Given the opportunity, people are quite capable of working things out among themselves and coming to consensus. Crowd source the question, then leverage the wisdom of the crowd. Politicians are skilled at discerning the will of the people when their attention is properly focused and they are encouraged to do so. We must give them that encouragement and focus, by whatever means we have at our disposal."

Dare we believe this was inspired by our manifesto?

I heard nothing of this organization until now. Apparently Harold Feld is the inspiration behind Internet Blueprint, and this site says...

Harold Feld is legal director of Public Knowledge. Until 2009, he was Senior Vice President of the Media Access Project (MAP), a non-profit, public interest telecommunications law firm that promotes the public's First Amendment right to hear and be heard on the electronic media of today and tomorrow. An activist lawyer, he received his B.A. from Princeton University his J.D. from Boston University Law School. Haroldjoined MAP in August 1999 after practicing communications, Internet, and energy law at Covington & Burling. He also served as co-chair of the Federal Communications Bar Association's Online Committee and has written numerous articles on Internet law and communications policy for trade publications and legal journals. Harold has clerked for the Hon. John M. Ferren of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

We know nothing of any substance about his organization beyond a superficial glance. It can take quite some times for a person's motives and connections to become clear, but in the meantime mere discussion can do no harm.

The difficulty with the campaigns against SOPA and PIPA was that they attacked provisions in these proposals, rather than the entire process. Then proponents of those bills were able to parry and thrust with slogans such as "If you are against SOPA, then you are in favour of piracy!". Our manifesto was constructed in such a way as to be invulnerable to attack, because it takes no stand on what shape copyright reforms should take beyond the most obvious need. Instead, it merely advocates for democratization of copyright laws. At first it was thought there is no way to attack it. We could say to the critics, If you are against it, you are against democracy.

However, there is a way to attack it. We must be on eternal guard for some group that would attempt to co-opt it and pre-empt it.

Until we find reason not to, we applaud the efforts of Internet Blueprint. It is exactly the kind of thing we hope to inspire. However, just because this group is out there, it doesn't mean there isn't room for more. We would like to see groups like this spring up all over the internet, and vigorous discussions taking place everywhere.

In the end, our political representative have time-tested methods of discerning the will of the people, by employing a broad range of tools from Gallop poles, town hall meetings, down to feedback from the constituencies. There is no need to invent new unproven mechanisms if there is goodwill on the part of our elected representatives.

The Director,

WhyNotAskMe.org

The "civil war" is largely a creation of foreign and now AFRICOM interference.

http://webarchive.ssrc.org/Somalia_Hoehne_v10.pdf

"Thanks to half a century of pouring US arms stockpiles into Africa, the price of an assault rifle in Africa has for some time been cheaper than anyplace else on the planet."

http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/africom-americas-military-foot-africas-doorway

Somali "piracy" is the outcome of the illegal, exhaustive, industrialised over-fishing of Somali waters, by foreign fleets - leaving the coastal towns without any livelihood.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/you-are-being-lied-to-abo_b_155147.html

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/4/14/analysis_somalia_piracy_began_in_response

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1892376,00.html

The US manufactures foreign wars and "terrorists" the same way it used to lead in the creation of Automobiles and heavy manufacturing. But remember your Gibbon: The decline of Rome was seeded from its very rise on world's stage.

I really don't know what to say, other than you are wrong.

You know I'm wrong, but can't explain it. Clearly a commanding grasp of the subject.

Just read this and get back to me.

You're right. China has very different standard in testing on humans. They also have a very different view of the value of life. Look back through their history and see how they respond to disaster or even war. They consider their billion countrymen to be dispensible at times.

Yeah, guess we've never seen a lack of caring about human life in the United States before. Guess we value people if their skin isn't too dark and they're not too different ...

For a discussion of FOSS medical records systems, circa 2005, see http://www.ssrc.org/wiki/posa/index.php/F/OSS_Opportunities_in_the_Health_Care_Sector

Yes, the last mile tends to be the most expensive segment of any conventional resident broadband scheme in this country, because of our infrastructure's unhealthy dependence on unsustainable, top-down approaches. Why does every wired home need a twisted pair and associated telephone pole forest when ad-hoc wireless schemes like mesh node wifi could suffice for perhaps 80-90% of people affected?

Federally subsidized DSL, should it ever come about, would indeed increase broadband access in direly underserved markets like the inner cities and rural communities. But it would be expensive (we'd just be using taxpayer $$$ to further build out the top-down systems described above), it would most certainly not be competitive or innovative, and the actual details of its implementation would still be left to the very same telco monopolies we gripe about now.

Wireless technologies like mesh node wifi, WiMax, possibly even White Space, whenever that appears, could readily serve urban and suburban markets. We already use churches, post offices, school, etc as neighborhood polling places, why not also as uplinks for the local wireless broadband presence? It also need not be gov't mediated. Imagine running these wireless presences as neighborhood co-ops, similar to the century-old tradition of agricultural co-ops, or even wireless kibbutzes.

And for rural communities, why not approaches like the Tribal Digital Village?
http://www.sctdv.net/
http://mediaresearchhub.ssrc.org/southern-california-tribal-digital-village/institution_view
http://pactlab-dev.spcomm.uiuc.edu/home/archives/visualizations/tribal_digital_village_antenna_tower.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/communitytechnology/sets/72157594313899663/
This is a local community wireless network serving a tribal community in the mountains of Southern California, using community wifi technology and high-speed backhauls to the uplink on the coast.

"I don't get why are cellphones themselves a problem, and why the solution is jamming them."

http://mediaresearchhub.ssrc.org/grants/funded-projects/prison-phone-service-provider-contracts-kickbacks-and-fiscal-impact-on-prisoners2019-families

The state makes a fortune off prison telephones. All of the talk about "planning crimes" or "drug deals" is total BS.

The mission statements of the majority of correctional facilities in the U.S. require these facilities to protect the public while inmates are incarcerated. From 1996-1998 the Office of The Inspector General (a branch of the U.S. Department of Justice) conducted the most extensive investigation into criminal calls originating out of federal prisons ever undertaken. The report cataloged more than 200 different cases of inmates using inmate telephones to order the execution of witnesses, continue their drug dealing operations, continue fraud activities, conduct death threats, and several other criminal activities.

The report stated that the number of criminal calls originating out of the prisons were far greater than what the OIG report cataloged. OIG only reported on calls which eventually resulted in convictions.

The high level problem is that only a small fraction of inmates are placing criminal phone calls while they are incarcerated. However, that small fraction forces the industry to spend millions of dollars a year on technology to prevent and detect the small minority that are continuing their criminal activities.

Jamming cellphones is one small step towards helping assure that inmates are placing their phone calls on the existing facilities inmate phone systems which contain technology that records and tracks inmate phone calls.

They arnt doing this to stop illegal activities or contraband, they are doing this so they can have a monopoly on telephone services http://mediaresearchhub.ssrc.org/grants/funded-projects/prison-phone-service-provider-contracts-kickbacks-and-fiscal-impact-on-prisoners2019-families

they are just greedy fucks and think they can make shit up, not fallow the rules, and continue to make booku bucks, illegally off their inmates.
http://mediaresearchhub.ssrc.org/grants/funded-projects/prison-phone-service-provider-contracts-kickbacks-and-fiscal-impact-on-prisoners2019-families

They arnt doing this to stop illegal activities or contraband, they are doing this so they can have a monopoly on telephone services http://mediaresearchhub.ssrc.org/grants/funded-projects/prison-phone-service-provider-contracts-kickbacks-and-fiscal-impact-on-prisoners2019-families

they are just greedy fucks and think they can make shit up, not fallow the rules, and continue to make booku bucks, illegally off their inmates.
http://mediaresearchhub.ssrc.org/grants/funded-projects/prison-phone-service-provider-contracts-kickbacks-and-fiscal-impact-on-prisoners2019-families

"I don't get why are cellphones themselves a problem, and why the solution is jamming them."

http://mediaresearchhub.ssrc.org/grants/funded-projects/prison-phone-service-provider-contracts-kickbacks-and-fiscal-impact-on-prisoners2019-families

The state makes a fortune off prison telephones. All of the talk about "planning crimes" or "drug deals" is total BS.

You got that right. I worked in the inmate phone racket (as a peon engineer) many years ago, when the market first opened up. In the beginning, county jails and smaller prisons were served by independent phone companies. These companies were mostly local pay-telephone operators -- a market created with the AT&T breakup -- who discovered that it was far more profitable to operate jail-phones than coin operated pay phones. For one thing, you didn't need to go around collecting the coin: inmate phones were collect call only. Secondly, they charged the highest tariffed rate: person-to-person, operator-assisted, collect with sugar on top rates.

There was no actual operator to pay, the inmate just dialed and said his name at the voice prompt and the phone called up his mom/wife/girlfriend with the recorded message: "Will you accept a collect call from inmate x in the county jail? Dial 'one' to accept, 'two' to refuse." Even a local call would cost at least 25 cents plus $1.50 to $3.00 in fees. If the applicable tariff allowed, even these local calls were charged by the minute. An inmate's loved ones could easily get charged hundreds of dollars a month just to keep in touch. There was no warning that these calls would be that expensive.

The jails were happy to provide this service, since the commissions they would receive really helped the jail budget. The jail operators weren't too concerned with the ethics of taking kickbacks, since it was common practice for pay telephone operators to pay a site commission to the property manager in exchange for allowing the placement of the pay phone in the store/bar/restaurant/office building/etc. Of course, the inmates were literally captive consumers. There was no other legal method of real-time communication with the outside world.

Some places had laws that required that the commissions be used for inmate welfare and education only. And there were some particularly ethical jail administrators that also used site commissions only for benefit of the prisoners even without a law requiring it. But usually the commissions went right back into the general fund operating the facility, with the benefit that the administrator or his/her boss could spend it as they pleased, whereas government provided (tax) funding had to be spent where the governing authority specified.

There were also "gifts" provided to sheriffs and jail administrators. These were usually "in-kind", to provide some cover from bribery laws. An in-kind gift could be an artist-signed wildlife lithograph by a well-known, first-class illustrator.

I've long since been out of that field, and the small operators have consolidated and many have sold out to big communications firms, but the business model remains the same.

"I don't get why are cellphones themselves a problem, and why the solution is jamming them."

http://mediaresearchhub.ssrc.org/grants/funded-projects/prison-phone-service-provider-contracts-kickbacks-and-fiscal-impact-on-prisoners2019-families

The state makes a fortune off prison telephones. All of the talk about "planning crimes" or "drug deals" is total BS.

Attacks against The Enlightenment (see also: Age of Enlightenment) say for example, upon the idea of freedom of speech, in the name of one religion or another (let's just stick with this one religion for now) have been ongoing since reason began to displace superstition.

More recently, you may remember the cartoon controversy? This faded from the collective consciousness after "they" (people whose minds are captive to superstition of the islamic brand) repeatedly threatened, and then killed Dutch Filmmaker Theo van Gogh , great grandson of the brother (also named Theo) of the famous painter, Vincent. Contemporary Theo was guilty in the eyes of islam of making a film which was critical of the treatment of women under islam.

The great clash between Islam (unwittingly and unstably allied, by the way, with fundamentalist Christian radicals who are working within the western democracies to undermine the same feared Enlightenment values and institutions in favor of their own brand of superstition) on the one side, against the cultures and nations descended from The Enlightenment on the other, is coming to a head in Europe. The demographic trends, and the inability of the European cultures to assimilate their immigrant Muslim populations (alternatively, those populations are disinterested in assimilating), cause concern that Europe's democratic institutions will be subverted as instruments in the religious colonization of those European countries that gave birth to the Enlightenment by Islam, and their eventual conversion to theocracies in fact, if not in name.

March 2006:
"If Europe continues as it is now, the rising Muslim tide will, one at a time, transform the members of the European Union into Islamic Republics under Islamic Shari'a law as Muslims become the majority population."

February 2008:
The Archbishop of Canterbury says the adoption of certain aspects of Sharia law in the UK "seems unavoidable".

It has been suggested that this problem is exacerbated by limited economic opportunity for young people in these countries.
An Economist Considers the Riots in France (from 2005, there were more riots last spring, March 2007)

The non-political nature of the riots in France

sigh.

that site has general information about the Linux-Project and a link to this site:
http://www.ssrc.org/wiki/POSA/index.php?title=LiMu x%E2%80%94Free_Software_for_Munich