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HOW HADITHA HAPPENED; WHY IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN "You live like an animal. You learn to like killing. .. Hate civilians. Can't trust the bastards. You hate taking prisoners. You'd rather kill them. Why?" Read Vietnam vet Marc Levy's extraordinary Primer on the Whys and Wherefores of PTSD and understand what is happening in Iraq. PLUS Andrew Lack on the incredible frauds of the bottled water industry. Why you should drink tapwater out of a glass and save your money PLUS Jeffrey St Clair on the deadly secrets of America's oldest bomb factory PLUS Chris Reed on Eros and Militarization: how Japan's sexpot schoolgirls fit into the right's Re-Arm agenda. CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! |
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Today's Stories June 30, 2006 Marjorie Cohn June 29, 2006 Bill Quigley Ron Jacobs Paul Craig Roberts June 28, 2006 Jorge Mariscal Greg Moses Mark Weisbrot Ramzy Baroud Dave Lindorff William S.
Lind Mike Ferner Zoltan Grossman
Marjorie Cohn Benjamin /
Jarrar William Hughes Doug Giebel Uri Avnery Alexander Cockburn
June 26, 2006 Don Santina Ralph Nader Dave Lindorff Rafael Rodriguez-Cruz Evelyn Pringle Jonathan Cook
June 23, 2006 Youmans / Erakat Dave Lindorff Ron Jacobs Col. Dan Smith
June 22, 2006 Marjorie Cohn Winslow T.
Wheeler Tanya Reinhart Mike Marqusee William Blum
June 21, 2006 Ramzy Baroud Patrick Cockburn Gary Leupp Greg Moses
June 20, 2006 Fred Gardner Omar Waraich Christopher Reed CP Newswire Jonathan Cook
June 19, 2006 Bill Quigley John Walsh Mike Whitney Alexander Cockburn
June 16 / 18,
2006 Kathy / Bill
Christision Joseph Nevins Farrah Hassen Greg Moses Nicole Colson John Scagliotti Mokhiber / Weissmann
June 15, 2006 Kathy Kelly Norman Solomon Ron Jacobs Sam Bahour Ramzy Baroud CounterPunch Wire Gabriel Kolko Website of the Day
June 14, 2006 Nicole Colson Jonathan Cook Joseph Schechla Michael Carmichael Evelyn Pringle Ward Churchill Rev. William E. Alberts Website of the
Day
June 13, 2006 Medea Benjamin Anthony Alessandrini Paul D'Amato Dave Lindorff John Ross Gabriel Garcia Hilton Obenzinger Yitzhak Laor Juan Antonio
Ocasio Rivera Jennifer Van
Bergen Website of the
Day
June 12, 2006 Paul Craig Roberts Patrick Cockburn Mike Marqusee Lee Sustar Robert Fisk Michael J. Smith Felice Pace Jennifer Loewenstein Website of the Day
June 10 / 11,
2006 Robert Fisk Diane Christian Joe Allen Ralph Nader Fred Gardner Dave Lindorff Dave Zirin /
John Cox Dennis Perrin Greg Moses John Chuckman Michael J. Smith Roger Burbach Ira Moskowitz Sam Bahour Seth Sandronsky Michael Berg Kirsten Roberts Ron Jacobs Jeffrey St. Clair Poets' Basement Website of the
Weekend
June 9, 2006 Alexander Cockburn Paul Craig Roberts Gary Leupp Eric Ruder Evelyn Pringle Mickey Z. Michael J. Smith Patrick Cockburn Website of the
Day
June 8, 2006 Chris Floyd Michael Dickinson Ron Jacobs William S. Lind Joshua Frank Missy Comley Beattie Lloyd Williams Bill Christison Website of the Day
June 7, 2006 Dave Lindorff Sunsara Taylor John Walsh David MacMichael Mickey Z. Evelyn Pringle Myles Palmer Laura Ribeiro Website of the Day
June 6, 2006 Diane Christian Paul Craig Roberts Ralph Nader Norman Solomon Darmont / Genovali Manuel Garcia,
Jr. Subcomandante Marcos Patrick Cockburn Website of the Day
June 5, 2006 Bruce Jackson Chris Floyd Michael Neumann Heather Gray William Hughes David Swanson Alexander Cockburn Website of the Day
June 3 / 4, 2006 Robert Fisk James Petras Rosemary Radford Ruether Harry Clark Jeffrey St. Clair Ron Ridenour Ron Jacobs Fred Gardner Peter Montague John Walsh Greg Moses Sean Donahue Mike Whitney Dave Patten Ali Khan Robert Dotson,
MD Hammond Guthrie St. Clair / D'Antoni Poets' Basement Website of the
Day
June 2, 2006 Kathy Kelly Alan Maass Mickey Z. Dave Lindorff Chris Kutalik Sunsara Taylor Sam Husseini Mike Ferner Website of the
Day
June 1, 2006 Brian Cloughley David Peterson Lee Ballinger Jonathan Cook Mike Whitney Paul Rockwell Clifton Ross Kevin Zeese Website of the
Day
May 31, 2006 Dave Lindorff Joshua Frank Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz P. Sainath Ramzy Baroud Seth Sandronsky Mickey Z. Ralph Nader Jeffrey St. Clair Website of the Day
May 30, 2006 Lee Ballinger Jonathan Cook Gary Leupp John Ross Robert Jensen Michael Dickinson Michael Carmichael Tim Wise Harry Browne Website of the
Day
May 27 / 29,
2006 Paul Craig Roberts Kathleen Christison Kathy Kelly Christopher
Reed Lawrence R. Velvel Tom Barry Gary Leupp Col. Dan Smith Ron Jacobs Don Fitz Fred Gardner Peter Montague Raymond Garcia John Farley Seth Sandronsky Tia Steele Lenni Brenner Dr. Susan Block Scott Michael Perey Jeffrey St. Clair Poets' Basement Recipe of the
Weekend Website of the Weekend
May 26, 2006 Col. Douglas
MacGregor Brian J. Foley Michael Dickinson Missy Comley Beattie Pierre Tristam Joe Allen Kona Lowell Roger Burbach Website of the
Day
May 25, 2006 Les AuCoin Jeff Halper Dave Lindorff Ron Jacobs Bob Wing Elise Gould Robert Bryce Website of the Day
May 24, 2006 Michael Donnelly Patrick Cockburn Lucinda Marshall Dave Lindorff Shmuel Rosner Moshe Adler Heather Gray Pratyush Chandra Paul Craig Roberts Floyd Rudmin Website of the Day
May 23, 2006 Paul Craig Roberts Sharon Smith Sunsara Taylor Joel Whitney Alice Cherbonnier Ron Jacobs Kristen Ess Patrick Cockburn Website of the
Day
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June 30, 2006 Under the Broadcast FlagIntellectual Property is Intellectual Theft ... at Gun PointBy MICHAEL J. SMITH There's nothing more wonkish than intellectual-property regulation. But intellectual-property enforcement may well turn out to be the lever for government intrusions into private life every bit as profound and extensive as the better-known secret-police initiatives of the Patriot Act. You know all those old myths and stories about dead folk who just won't stay dead -- zombies, vampires, Richard Nixon? Well, there are ideas like that too -- ideas that won't stop clawing their way out of the grave and back into the light of day. One such idea is the "broadcast flag," recently returned aboveground, for the Nth time, tucked into an enormous telecommunications bill (S. 2686), now before the U.S. Senate. "Broadcast flag"? Before your eyes glaze over, give me a few seconds to get you good and scared. Because this one is a real flesh-eating zombie of an idea, and it just won't stay dead. "Broadcast flag" is shorthand for two different but interconnected things. One of them is a flag or tag or attribute, or whatever you want to call it, embedded in a digital audio or video stream, that says "don't copy me without permission." This is the "broadcast flag" in the literal sense. Which might seem harmless. It's like an electronic version of the copyright notice on a book, or that goofy thing about the FBI that leads off every video you rent. But if the government ever got serious about enforcing it.... that's where the Inquisition would come tiptoeing into your TV room, and maybe right onto your lap, as we will see a little later. Well, guess what: Big Media does want the government to enforce the broadcast flag, and the government, ever solicitous for the rights of large-scale property, is eager to oblige. The broadcast-flag initiative now before the Senate resuscitates an attempt by the FCC, back in 2003, to mandate broadcast flag compliance by all digital media devices. That regulation, known to aficionados as FCC 03-273, was subsequently buried with a stake through its heart by a Federal court. Now the Senate is digging it up again, with near-universal participation by Republicans and Democrats alike. The Flag just sailed through the Senate's commerce committee without a recorded vote, a pretty sure sign of bipartisan ownage by the relevant lobby; the frogs and the mice will not be fighting over this one. The only dissenter, so far, is Senator John Sununu of New Hampshire, who seems to have some real libertarian principles, not just a libertarian line of chat like most of his colleagues. The 2003 FCC rule, written to order for the Motion Picture Association of American (MPAA), Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the National Football League and other copyright rentiers, is a thicket of obscure, rebarbative language, vague definitions, cross-references, and cabbalistic terms of art. But if you stare at it for a while, the crux becomes pretty clear: "demodulators" must comply with the broadcast flag. And what is a demodulator? It is any device or component that takes a digital TV or audio signal and turns that signal into a stream of bits that can be written to a CD, or shown on a screen, or downloaded to your iPod. Sounds like some kind of electronic gizmo, right? A thing with transistors, and wires, and maybe some pretty blinking lights. Indeed, a demodulator can be just that. And maybe it doesn't seem so terribly tyrannical to mandate certain kinds of behavior on the part of a gizmo. There are plenty of precedents -- cars have to have seatbelts, for example. But here's the rub: a demodulator can also be just a piece of software, or part of a larger piece of software. Computers, including your 14-year-old's laptop, are rapidly becoming so powerful that it's only a matter of time before your 14-year-old can download a demodulator, or a program that includes a demodulator, from some other 14-year-old in Finland -- or write his own, for that matter. Now what happens when that wicked Finn, or your wicked offspring, decides to ignore the Broadcast Flag? Well, the FCC doesn't come right out and say. They don't explicitly include such "software demodulators" in the scope of their regulation, but they don't explicitly exclude them either, and the definition of "demodulator" is certainly broad enough to cover them. And the FCC haven't overlooked the possibility of software demodulators -- they write:
They go on to say, ominously, I think:
'Interplay' is good, isn't it? Interplay nice, kids. But think for a minute about the implications of all this. Obviously, you won't be able to buy a digital TV, or any other digital media device, whose manufacturers haven't certified to the Feds that it honors the Flag. Perhaps they will have to give the Feds the schematics, or the source code for their "firmware" -- the embedded programming that enables the device to operate. And if you want to get around this restriction, and load software onto your laptop that ignores the Flag, then technically, that software is probably contraband and you will have probably committed a federal crime. But will the law be enforced in such cases? I think, sooner or later, it will. Not tomorrow. For tomorrow, and next week, software demodulators will be a very geekish hobby, too small-scale to bother the MPAA and the RIAA. But we have all seen how quickly geekish hobbies can infect the millions. And when that happens with software demodulators, there'll be a crime wave, and the MPAA and RIAA will sit up and take notice. They'll want to find all these bad actors who have loaded non-compliant software onto their laptops. But that's not so easy. There's no way a "content provider" can tell, from his end of the wire, what software the recipient of his digital media stream is running. Ultimately, warrants will have to be issued. Fibbies in flak jackets will charge into your house and confiscate your 14-year-old's computer. Aha! He's running Linux! And he's been visiting Web sites in Finland! Twenty years for the little Commie song pirate! Does this sound unlikely? It shouldn't -- we've already seen it before, with the FBI breaking into houses and the RIAA filing thousands of lawsuits against people accused of "file sharing." Intellectual property enforcement, in other words, will lead to a kind of de facto government software regulation. The software police won't entirely succeed in suppressing contraband software -- we'll have an eternal war, a little like the Drug War, which suits the police just fine, of course. But certainly they will succeed to some extent; the prospect of a midnight raid will keep all but the bold and heedless safely inside the sheepfold of approved software, produced by Microsoft or Apple or Sony or some other large corporation. You know what the next step will be. The approved software manufacturers will be approached, just the way the NSA recently approached the telephone companies. Kiddie porn -- terrorism -- video piracy -- bad things, right? Surely you'll help us defeat terrorism and put child molesters behind bars? Your techies have probably left some back doors into that movie software, right? Tell us more. What's that? You're hesitating? You're not a, uh, child molester yourself -- are you? Y'know, your ex-wife tells some strange stories.... Paranoid, you say? Well, a few years ago it would been paranoid to predict that cops would be searching people's knapsacks in the New York subways, or that the NSA would be monitoring your grandmother's phone calls. There's been a vast expansion, in recent years, of the idea of "intellectual property." You can patent most anything -- Microsoft, I hear, owns all the transcendental numbers except pi, and they're suing Euclid's estate over that. (Just kidding. Sort of.) Copyright is forever, or as near as dammit. Fair use is narrower and narrower, and there are even public parks where it's a copyright violation to take pictures. And this is taking place at the same time that technology is making intellectual property a laughably obsolete idea. Once you've got a stream of bits on your hard drive, there is no power on earth that can stop you from copying it -- except the oldest power, the power of armed men to break your door down and take you away. Michael J. Smith is a computer programmer by day. By
night, he conspires to destroy the Democratic Party on his blog,
stopmebeforeivoteagain.org.
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from CounterPunch Books! The Case Against Israel By Michael Neumann  Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair          Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid? CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues, as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.                    |
