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Super-Privacy-Protecting ISP In the Planning
h00manist writes "Nicholas Merrill ran a New York based ISP and got tired of federal 'information requests.' He is now planning an ISP which would be built from the ground up for privacy. Everything encrypted, maximum technical and legal resistance to information requests. Merrill has formed an advisory board with members including Sascha Meinrath from the New America Foundation; former NSA technical director Brian Snow; and Jacob Appelbaum from the Tor Project. Kickstarter-like IndieGoGo has a project page."
11.04.2012 11:43
By Vasily Georgevich
The recent outcry by the American Media complaining of mass riots over the Russian election has gotten me thinking. Do the youth in Russia protesting understand exactly how free they are compared with the American's slandering them? Consider the facts.
1. America's Free Press
Six Corporations control the American press (Walt Disney, General Electric, New Corporation, Viacom, CBS, and Time Warner), whether in print, or on the television. They even used the frequently derogatory term bloggers to refer to free publications that do not follow their talking points. In covering the protest in Russia the supposedly freest press in the world even saw many programs using falls footage, such as those from riots taking place in the European Union, and mimicking those of the Occupy and Tea Party movements happening coast to coast in America.
2. America's Free Speech
If you think you can say anything you want if you're an American consider the American president recently authorized the assassination of an American citizen who was known for recording tapes and CDs denouncing America's policies as immoral, and oppressive.
3. America's Freedom of Religion
Frequently in the last several decades children have had to rely on parents taking schools to court to avail themselves of the right to pray; Churches and Mosques are frequently having to show up in court to preserve their rights to call people to prayer, ring bells, or even maintain a cross that happens to be visible from a public highway.
4. America's Freedom from Taxation without Representation
American's Pay Almost 50% of their income in Taxes, and work the longest hours of any country in the world.
While Americans insist their tax burden is low, once one tallies the taxes on products, housing, transportation, and hidden taxes employers must pay on behalf of employees Americans work 6 months of the year before they see any profit for their labor.
The average American has 2 weeks of paid vacation, and 3 personal or sick days for unexpected absence at work. Many are so afraid of becoming unemployed they do not avail themselves even of these. Expecting mothers in most American jobs are expected to work to within a month of their expected due date and return to work in 6 to 8 weeks. With the effect of so many families where both parents work the prices of American products are such that only if one member of a married couple is independently wealthy it is impossible for them to survive on an income of a single worker. Women are not free to stay home and help raise children, and increasingly many children are raised by daycare workers, and school teachers.
5. America's Open and Transparent Courts, and Corruption Free Police
While other nations are changing the terminology of Militia to Police, America is enacting laws to the opposite. More and more anti terrorism legislation is targeting 'special instances' where American Citizens can be denied indefinitely rights to an attorney, and be held without being charged with a crime. Further these special situaions call for moving ruling on whether these Americans have committed any crime into Military courts which are not subject to the constitutional protections of traditional American courts.
6. Free Elections
International observers are not allowed at American elections, in fact foreigners present at American elections thought to be spying can be charged, and deported and not allowed to return to the United States. Increasingly exit polls conducted on those exiting voting sites in America show disparity with officially reported results; and Americans have little means to investigate why.
The electoral college system in America is legally able to elect whomever they choose for president regardless of whom Americans vote f
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Sorry to be off-topic, but this struck a (good) nerve.
I'm glad you don't like vouchers. I don't either, as I think it's a way to send public tax money to private, religious, and charter schools.
Charter schools, by the way, are a calculated mechanism to pay teachers less, break the NEA, and force school districts into bankruptcy by taking district funding without being forced to take any student.
The representatives of charter schools can go door to door for only the kids they want (read: the top-scoring students), and keep doing that until their enrollment is full. This steadily lowers the district average test score and increases their own, and breaks the federal fair-housing act.
For each above-average-test-scores-and-unlikely-to-have-behavioral-issues kid they school they take the average per-pupil cost (in money) from the school district, but that average cost is calculated from a total cost that includes special needs students. So the school districts are forced to educate special needs kids with less money than they would otherwise have, and increases the density of behaviorally-challenged kids who disrupt classrooms and other students in public schools. Additionally, the test scores of the special needs and behaviorally-challenged kids is used to calculate the average test score for a district. If you remove the high-scoring students and increase the number of distractions in each classroom then the average student test score in a school district will go down. This gives the charter school proponents the ability to say that charter schools result in higher test scores than public schools but completely ignores the additional constraints placed on public schools
Charter schools cannot openly discriminate by race or religion by law, but minority and religious (Christian) charter schools are very popular in my area. Charter schools also can selectively advertise to parents of minority students, which can be interpreted (the courts will have to decide) as breaking the federal fair-housing act. Once nearly 100% of students are a minority race in a charter school, other-race students may not feel as welcome, and choose other schools. This is less true (though still true to a certain extent) in public schools, but as public schools cannot turn anybody away due to race and cannot selectively advertise, public schools are much less likely to have a largely homogeneous-race students. This has the effect of reversing integration laws under the banner of parent choice; integration laws that were absolutely necessary, and will likely remain necessary, for integration to be achieved in any meaningful manner.
It is routinely said that school districts control which charter schools can be in their district, but at least in my state (CO), if any district votes to shut down a charter school, the charter school can appeal to the state charter board. A board which is staffed almost entirely with current and former charter school presidents and principles. The board, at least in my state, has rarely allowed any charter school to close, and as such the school districts in my state are hemorrhaging cash left and right. This system gives charter school proponents the right to say that school districts have complete control over the charter schools in their area, but in any historical or practical scenario, a charter school must basically be openly committing fraud to be shut down.
In addition, charter schools can ask states to construct their buildings for them with public tax money, and after a certain number of years (usually ten) the building becomes the property of the company that owns the charter school. This has the effect of giving charter schools and the companies that run them free real estate paid for by taxpayers.
Charter schools do not have to deal with the NEA (teachers union), can hire and fire teachers at will, pay them whatever they want to (which is roughly half what a ~30 year veteran public school teacher makes, which itself is _pitiful_), and does not
Absolutely, I would love to see how much AT&T has made in the last ten years of selling customer records.