Yes it's a known and real problem. Sad - I used to listen to a lot of shoutcast. There used to be some tricks to install the sc plugin into amarok, but I think they are gone now. Once again AOL proves they keep their heads where the sun don't shine."
Friday, May 20, 2011
Green Party Platform
Preamble
This platform was adopted by the delegates of the membership of the Greens/Green Party USA (G/GPUSA) at their annual Green Congress, meeting in Chicago, May 26-28, 2000. It reflects the majority views of the G/GPUSA membership.
G/GPUSA's national officers, spokespeople, and National Committee are expected to act in a manner consistent with the policy framework set by this platform. In keeping with G/GPUSA's structure of "democratic decentralism" where accountability is bottom-up, not top-down, the platform is not binding on the state and local affiliates of the Greens/Green Party USA.
This platform, therefore, does not necessarily reflect in every respect the views of Green Party candidates at any level, including Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke, Green Party candidates for President and Vice-President in 2000.
The Greens/Green Party USA is the original Green Party organization in the USA. It carries forward the radical vision of the early Greens based on grassroots political and economic democracy, nonviolence, social justice, and ecological sustainability.
Formed as the Committees of Correspondence in 1984, the annual Green Congress changed the name to Green Committees of Correspondence in 1989 and to The Greens/Green Party USA in 1991. G/GPUSA is a membership organization of individual members who participate in affiliated local and state organizations and support the organization with dues scaled to their ability to pay.
Green politics is an ecological approach to politics that links social and ecological problems. Ecology studies the relationships among organisms and their environment. Political ecology brings human institutions and ideologies into this holistic perspective.
We find that the same institutions and ideas that cause the exploitation and oppression of humans also cause the degradation and destruction of the environment. Both are rooted in a hierarchical, exploitative, and alienated social system that systematically produces human oppression and ecological destruction.
For the Greens, therefore, the fights against racism, sexism, class exploitation, bureaucratic domination, war, and all other forms of social domination and violence are central to the movement for an ecologically sustainable society. In order to harmonize society with nature, we must harmonize human with human.
The Greens carry forward the traditional values of the Left: freedom, equality, and solidarity. We want to create a truly democratic society without class exploitation or social domination. But Greens expand this notion of a classless, nonhierarchical society that is harmonized with itself to include an ecological society that is harmonized with nature as well.
To the social movements, the Greens say that in order for humanity to progress toward a democratic society, we must resolve the ecological crisis so that people are still around to enjoy democracy. To the environmental movements, the Greens say that in order to have an ecological society, we must have a democratic society so that people have the power to choose ecological sustainability. To survive, we must have ecological sustainability. To choose ecological sustainability, we must have the power of democracy.
The following platform planks are the immediate policy goals we support to move us toward an ecological democracy.
G/GPUSA's national officers, spokespeople, and National Committee are expected to act in a manner consistent with the policy framework set by this platform. In keeping with G/GPUSA's structure of "democratic decentralism" where accountability is bottom-up, not top-down, the platform is not binding on the state and local affiliates of the Greens/Green Party USA.
This platform, therefore, does not necessarily reflect in every respect the views of Green Party candidates at any level, including Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke, Green Party candidates for President and Vice-President in 2000.
The Greens/Green Party USA is the original Green Party organization in the USA. It carries forward the radical vision of the early Greens based on grassroots political and economic democracy, nonviolence, social justice, and ecological sustainability.
Formed as the Committees of Correspondence in 1984, the annual Green Congress changed the name to Green Committees of Correspondence in 1989 and to The Greens/Green Party USA in 1991. G/GPUSA is a membership organization of individual members who participate in affiliated local and state organizations and support the organization with dues scaled to their ability to pay.
Green politics is an ecological approach to politics that links social and ecological problems. Ecology studies the relationships among organisms and their environment. Political ecology brings human institutions and ideologies into this holistic perspective.
We find that the same institutions and ideas that cause the exploitation and oppression of humans also cause the degradation and destruction of the environment. Both are rooted in a hierarchical, exploitative, and alienated social system that systematically produces human oppression and ecological destruction.
For the Greens, therefore, the fights against racism, sexism, class exploitation, bureaucratic domination, war, and all other forms of social domination and violence are central to the movement for an ecologically sustainable society. In order to harmonize society with nature, we must harmonize human with human.
The Greens carry forward the traditional values of the Left: freedom, equality, and solidarity. We want to create a truly democratic society without class exploitation or social domination. But Greens expand this notion of a classless, nonhierarchical society that is harmonized with itself to include an ecological society that is harmonized with nature as well.
To the social movements, the Greens say that in order for humanity to progress toward a democratic society, we must resolve the ecological crisis so that people are still around to enjoy democracy. To the environmental movements, the Greens say that in order to have an ecological society, we must have a democratic society so that people have the power to choose ecological sustainability. To survive, we must have ecological sustainability. To choose ecological sustainability, we must have the power of democracy.
The following platform planks are the immediate policy goals we support to move us toward an ecological democracy.
- Universal Social Security: Taxable Basic Income Grants for all, structured into the progressive income tax, that guarantee an adequate income sufficient to maintain a modest standard of living. Start at $500/week ($26,000/year) for a family of four, with $62.50/week ($3,250/year) adjustments for more or fewer household members in 2000 and index to the cost of living.
- Jobs for All: A guaranteed right to job. Full employment through community-based public works and community service jobs programs, federally financed and community controlled.
- Living Wages: A family-supporting minimum wage. Start at $12.50 per hour in 2000 and index to the cost of living.
- 30-Hour Work Week: A 6-hour day with no cut in pay for the bottom 80% of the pay scale.
- Social Dividends: A "second paycheck" for workers enabling them to receive 40 hours pay for 30 hours work. Paid by the government out of progressive taxes so that social productivity gains are shared equitably.
- Universal Health Care: A single-payer National Health Program to provide free medical and dental care for all, with freedom of choice for consumers among both conventional and alternative health care providers, federally financed and controlled by democratically elected local boards.
- Free Child Care: Available voluntarily and free for all who need it, modeled after Head Start, federally financed, and community controlled.
- Lifelong Public Education: Free, quality public education from pre-school through graduate school at public institutions.
- Affordable Housing: Expand rental and home ownership assistance, fair housing enforcement, public housing, and capital grants to non-profit developers of affordable housing until all people can obtain decent housing at no more than 25% of their income. Democratic community control of publicly funded housing programs.
- Community Assemblies: Ground political representation in a foundation of participatory, direct democracy: a Community Assembly in every neighborhood, open to all of its residents, acting as a grassroots legislative body, with its own budget for local administration, and the power (in concert with other Citizens Assemblies who share a representative) to monitor, instruct, and recall representatives elected to municipal, state, and federal office.
- A Proportional, Single-Chamber US Congress: Abolish the disproportional, aristocratic US Senate. Create a single-chamber US Congress, elected by a system of mixed-member proportional representation that combines district representatives elected by preference voting and party representatives seated in proportion to each party's vote.
- Environmental Home Rule: Establish the right of every state, county, and municipality to restrict or prohibit the production, sale, distribution, storage, or transportation of any substance it designates as dangerous or toxic.
- Average Workers' Pay for Elected Officials: Pay elected officials average workers' salaries so that they understand the needs of average people and stop being an elite of professional politicians with separate class interests.
- DC Statehood: Full self-government and congressional representation for the people of Washington DC.
- Proportional Representation: Elect legislative bodies by proportional representation where each party has representation in proportion to its total vote.
- Preference Voting: Elect single offices by majority preference voting where voters rank candidates in order of preference and votes are distributed according to preferences in instant runoffs until a winner receives a majority of votes.
- Public Campaign and Party Financing:Equal public campaign financing and free broadcast media time for all candidates who agree not to use private money. Equal free broadcast media time for party broadcasts. Public financing of parties through matching funds for party dues and small donations up to $300 a year.
- Fair Ballot Access: Federal legislation to require each state to enable a new party or any independent candidate to qualify for the ballot through a petition of no greater than 1/10th of 1% of the total vote cast in the district in the last gubernatorial election, with a 10,000 signature maximum.
- Eliminate Mandatory Primaries: Allow parties the right to nominate by membership convention instead of state-run primaries.
- Ecological Production: Set goals and timetables to phase out and ban the production and release of synthetic chemicals and to convert all production to materials that are bio-degradable, bio-inert, or confined to closed-loop industrial cycles. Use federal investments, purchasing, mandates, and incentives to:
- Phase out most chlorinated and other synthetic petrochemicals and phase in natural, biodegradable substitutes.
- Phase out synthetic fertilizers and pesticides and phase in organic agriculture.
- Shut down waste incinerators, phase out landfills, and phase in full recycling.
- Require manufacturers to be responsible for the whole life cycle of their products by taking back used packaging and products for re-manufacturing, reuse, or recycling.
- Legalize industrial hemp as an ecological source for wood pulp, paper, cloth, lubricants, fibers, and many other products.
- Renewable Energy: Invest non-renewable energy sources in the creation of self-reproducing, renewable energy systems. Use federal investments, purchasing, mandates, and incentives to:
- Shut down nuclear power plants.
- Phase out fossil fuels and phase in clean renewable energy sources.
- Reduce auto-based transportation and expand pedestrian, bicycle, and rail transportation.
- Biotechnology-No Patents on Life; No Transgenic Organisms:
- Ban patents on life forms in order to preserve genetic diversity and common access to our common inheritance of nature, including farmers' access to seeds and breeds.
- Ban the release into the environment and the use in food production of genetically modified organisms that result from splicing the genes of one species into another.
- Environmental Defense and Restoration:
- Full funding for anti-pollution enforcement and toxic sites clean-up
- Preserve ecosystems and biodiversity by strengthening the Endangered Species Act and expanding areas designated as wildlife refuges and wilderness areas.
- Ban old-growth logging, clear cutting, and strip mining.
- End all commercial exploitation of public lands by private timber, mining, and cattle grazing interests.
- Ban off-road vehicles on federal lands. Decommission National Forest logging roads.
- Restoration of public lands degraded by commercial interests.
- Manage federal lands primarily for ecosystem protection and restoration.
- Support large-scale ecological restoration based on conservation biology.
- Environmental Justice: Strengthen and enforce laws that prevent toxic industries, toxic dumps and air pollution from targeting ethnic minority communities.
- A Just Transition: A Superfund for Workers to guarantee full income and benefits for all workers displaced by ecological conversion until they find new jobs with comparable income and benefits.
- Fair Farm Price Supports: Reform farm price supports to cover the costs of production plus a living income for family farmers and farmworker cooperatives.
- Subsidize Transition to Organic Agriculture: Subsidize farmers' transition to organic agriculture while natural systems of soil fertility and pest control are being restored.
- Support Small Farmers: Create family farms and farm worker cooperatives through a homesteading program and land reform based on acreage limitations and residency requirements.
- Break Up Corporate Agribusiness: Create family farms and farmworker cooperatives through a homesteading program and land reform based on acreage limitations and residency requirements.
- Eliminate Corporate Personhood: Legislation or constitutional amendment to end the legal fiction of corporate personhood.
- End Corporate Limited Liability: Make corporate shareholders bear the same liabilities as other property owners.
- Federal Chartering of Interstate Corporations
- Periodic Review of Corporate Charters: A public corporate charter review process for each corporation above $20 million in assets every 20 years to see if it is serving the public interest according to social and ecological as well as financial criteria.
- Strengthen Anti-Trust Enforcement: Require breakup of any firm with more than 10% market share unless it makes a compelling case every five years in a public regulatory proceeding that it serves the public interest to keep the firm intact.
- Democratic Production: Establish the right of citizens to vote on the expansion or phasing out of products and industries, especially in areas of dangerous or toxic production.
- Workplace Democracy: Establish the right of workers at every enterprise over 10 employees to elect supervisors and managers and to determine how to organize work.
- Worker Control of Worker Assets-Pension Funds and ESOP Shares: Pension funds representing over $5 trillion in deferred wages account for nearly one-third of financial assets in the US. 11 million workers participate in employee stock-option plans (ESOPs). Reform ERISA, labor laws, and ESOP tax provisions to enable workers to democratically control their assets.
- Democratic Conversion of Big Business: Mandatory break-up and conversion to democratic worker, consumer, and/or public ownership on a human scale of the largest 500 US industrial and commercial corporations that account for about 10% of employees, 50% of profits, 70% of sales, and 90% of manufacturing assets.
- Democratic Conversion of Small and Medium Business: Financial and technical incentives and assistance for voluntary conversion of the 22.5 million small and medium non-farm businesses in the US to worker or consumer cooperatives or democratic public enterprises. Mandate that workers and the community have the first option to buy on preferential terms in cases of plant closures, the sale or merger of significant assets, or the revocation of corporate charters.
- Democratic Banking: Mandatory conversion of the 200 largest banks with 80% of all bank assets into democratic publicly-owned community banks. Financial and technical incentives and assistance for voluntary conversion of other privately-owned banks into publicly-owned community banks or consumer-owned credit unions.
- Democratize Monetary Policy and the Federal Reserve System: Place a 100% reserve requirement on demand deposits in order to return control of monetary policy from private bankers to elected government. Selection of Federal Reserve officers by our elected representatives, not private bankers. Strengthen the regional development mission of the regional Federal Reserve Banks by directing them to target investments to promote key policy objectives, such as high-wage employment, worker and community ownership, ecological production, and inner city reconstruction.
- Ecological Taxes: Tax pollution, resource extraction, harmful products, and the use of our common wealth of natural capital (land sites according to land value, timber and grazing lands, ocean and freshwater resources, oil and minerals, electromagnetic spectrum, satellite orbital zones).
- Simple, Progressive Income Taxes: Enact a no-loopholes, graduated personal income tax with equal taxation of all income, regardless of source. Provide an income tax credit for each dependent to replace and fully compensate for the current exemptions and deductions that benefit to the average taxpayer, such as the home mortgage deduction and medical deductions.
- Eliminate Regressive Payroll Taxes: Fund Social Security, Health Care, Unemployment Insurance, and Workers Compensation out of progressive income and wealth taxes.
- Guaranteed Adequate Income: Build taxable Basic Income Grants into the progressive income tax structure to create a Universal Social Security system that ensures everyone has income for at least a modest standard of living above the poverty line.
- Maximum Income: Build into the progressive income tax a 100% tax on all income over ten times the minimum wage.
- End Corporate Welfare: Target subsidies for worker- and community-owned enterprises, not absentee-owned corporations. Put subsidies in the public budgets where they can be scrutinized, not hidden as tax breaks in complicated tax codes. Progressively Graduated Corporate Revenue and Asset Taxes
- Wealth Tax: Enact a steeply progressive tax on net wealth over $2.5 million (the top 5% of households).
- Inheritance Tax: Replace the loophole-ridden estate tax with a no-loopholes, progressive inheritance tax on inheritances over $1 million.
- Stock and Bond Transfer Tax: Encourage a shift from speculative to productive investments through a federal stock and bond transfer tax on all securities transactions.
- Currency Speculation Tax: An internationally uniform tax on currency conversion to discourage speculation. Revenues from the currency speculation tax should be channeled through international agencies into ecologically sustainable, democratically controlled development in poor countries.
- Advertising Tax: A tax on advertising to fund a decentralized, pluralistic media system of real public broadcasting, public service broadcasting on commercial media, and independent nonprofit, noncommercial media.
- Federal Revenue Sharing: Reduce state and local government dependence on regressive sales and property taxes through federal revenue sharing that combines centralized collection of progressive and ecological taxes with decentralized decisions on spending.
- Ecological and Feminist Economic Accounting: Expand the Bureau of Labor Statistics into a Bureau of Household, Labor, and Environmental Statistics with revised national economic accounts, statistics, and indicators that include stocks and flows of natural wealth, household production, and labor time values. Existing national income accounts and indicators such as gross domestic product (GDP) ignore the ecological foundations of the economy and the value of household production. Ecological accounting will identify the true costs of resource depletion and pollution and hence appropriate eco-taxes to internalize full costs. Social accounting will identify the true value of household production and its contribution to the economy and social well-being. Labor time accounting will record and publish the current and dated labor time for goods and services, establishing the average labor time required for each product. These labor time values will serve as shadow prices against which to judge the fairness of actual market prices.
- End Institutionalized Racism, Sexism, and Oppression of People with Disabilities: Strengthen civil rights, anti-discrimination, and affirmative action laws, programs, and enforcement.
- African American Reparations: A national commission on reparations for African Americans.
- Indian Treaty Rights: Honor all treaty obligations with Native Americans and Chicanos.
- Immigrant Rights: Support the rights of immigrants to housing, education, health care, jobs, and civil, legal, and political rights.
- Reproductive Freedom: People should be free from government interference in making their reproductive choices, including abortion, which should be covered by all publicly funded medical insurance programs.
- Comparable Worth: Legislation to enable women and minorities to receive equal pay for work of equal value.
- End Discrimination Against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered People: Outlaw discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in housing, employment, benefits, and child custody.
- Same-Sex Marriage: Legal recognition of same-sex marriages.
- Abolish the Death Penalty
- Prosecute Police Brutality-The Jonny Gammage Law: Require independent federal investigation and prosecution of law enforcement officers charged with violating the civil rights or causing the bodily injury or death of a human being.
- End Political and Racial Persecution by the Criminal Justice System: Freedom for all political prisoners and prisoners of racial injustice. Clemency for Leonard Peltier. New trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal.
- Restorative Justice: Establish a humane criminal sanction system based on prevention, restitution, rehabilitation, and reconciliation rather than vengeance, forced labor, and profits for the Prison-Industrial Complex. Restore full funding for college degree granting programs in state and federal prisons. Jobs and justice, not more police and prisons.
- Legal Aid: Expand funding of legal aid and public defender programs so all people can have competent legal representation.
- Fight Corporate Crime: Strengthen laws and enforcement against corporate crime with penalties that include incarceration of executives and revocation of corporate charters.
- Oppose Tort Reform that Limits Class Action Lawsuits and Caps Victims' Compensation: The threat of high victim compensation awards by civil juries must be maintained as an important deterrent to corporate crime.
- Civil Liberties: Support the Bill of Rights. No compromise on civil liberties and due process for "national security," "anti-terrorism," or "the war on drugs." Repeal the 1994 Crime and 1996 Anti-Terrorism bills. End domestic political spying by police, military, and intelligence agencies.
- End the "War on Drugs:" Decriminalize possession of drugs. Regulate and tax drug distribution. Release nonviolent drug war prisoners. Treat drug abuse as a health problem, not a criminal problem. Drug abuse treatment on demand.
- Repeal Repressive Labor Laws: Repeal the Taft-Hartley Act, the Landrum-Griffin Act, the Hatch Act, and state "Right-To-Work" laws which have crippled labor's ability to organize by outlawing or severely restricting labor's basic organizing tools: strikes, boycotts, pickets, and political action.
- A Workers' Bill of Rights: Enact a set of legally enforceable civil rights, independent of collective bargaining, which (1) extends the Bill of Rights protections of free speech, association, and assembly into all workplaces, (2) establishes workers' rights to living wages, portable pensions, information about chemicals used, report labor and environmental violations, refuse unsafe work, and participate in enterprise governance, and (3) establishes workers' rights to freedom from discharge at will, employer search and seizure in the workplace, sexual harassment, and unequal pay for work of comparable worth.
- Expand Worker' Rights to Organize and Enjoy Free Time:
- Majority Card-Check Recognition of Unions
- Strong and Speedy Penalties for Employers Who Break Labor Laws
- Ban Striker Replacements
- Triple Back Pay for Illegally Locked-Out Workers
- Unemployment Compensation for Striking and Locked-Out Workers
- Binding Contract Arbitration at Union Request
- Full Rights for Farmworkers, Public Employees, and "Workfare" Workers under the Fair Labor Standards Act
- Ban Prison Slave Labor: End the use of US prisoners to produce goods and services for sale to the public.
- Double-Time Pay for All Overtime
- Prohibit Mandatory Overtime
- 6 Weeks Paid Vacation Annually in addition to Federal Holidays
- 1 Year Paid Educational Leave for Every 7 Years Worked
- 1 Year Parental Leave for Each Child Born with No Loss of Seniority
- Right to Work Short Hours: No discrimination in pay and promotion against workers who choose to work short hours.
- Equalize School Funding with Federal Revenue Sharing: Federal financing of all public education (instead of by regressive local property taxes) so that every school has the resources it needs to provide the highest quality education for every child. Use a simple formula based on student population with adjustments based on need to help bring up school quality and student performance in poor communities.
- Decentralized Administration: Cut through stifling centralized administration with site-based planning, policy-making, and management with participation by parents and teachers with release-time. Maintain central support staff for decentrally administered schools.
- Class Size Reduction: Federal legislation and financing to reduce student-teacher ratios in classrooms to 15 to 1 in all public schools.
- Preschool Programs: Federal legislation and financing for public schools to make available Head Start-type programs for pre-Kindergarten children starting at age 3.
- After School Programs: Federal legislation and financing to make available after-school recreational and educational programs for all school age children.
- Children's Health: Clinics in all schools to check eyes, teeth, and general health at all grade levels. Healthy food at breakfast, lunch, and after school programs. Birth control information at middle and high schools.
- Improve Teacher Training and Pay: Improve the quality of teachers with support for career-long training. On-the-jobs apprenticeships for teachers-in-training. Teacher pay scales comparable to other professionals with similar education and responsibilities.
- Multicultural Teaching Staffs: Strengthen affirmative action programs to recruit and support ethnic minorities to enter teaching at every level: teacher, aide, assistant, apprentice.
- Tuition-Free Higher Education: Federal legislation and financing for tuition free education at public universities and technical schools for everyone who wants it.
- Oppose the Privatization of Public Schools: We oppose all schemes for corporations to pursue private profits at the expense of public schools and schoolchildren.
- No School Vouchers: No school vouchers from public budgets for private schools.
- No For-Profit or Religious Charter Schools: Stop the diversion of public funds to for-profit corporations or religious organizations running charter schools with unaccountable administrations, uncertified teachers, and segregated student bodies.
- No Commercialization: Stop turning school children into a captive market for commercial marketing interests with franchises that undermine democratic funding and accountability.
- No High-Stakes Testing: Stop the curriculum takeover by commercial standardized test and test-prep corporations. Stop linking administrator and teacher pay and student graduation and retention to standardized test performance. Stop reducing education to answering multiple choice questions. Put teachers back in charge of ongoing, genuine assessment in the classroom.
- Curriculum for a Multicultural Participatory Democracy: We support a democratic public school curriculum that fosters curiosity, critical thinking, and free expression, that explicitly promotes democratic and egalitarian anti-racist, anti-sexist, and multicultural values, that replaces Eurocentric with multicultural textbooks and other curriculum materials, that does not sort children into academic and non-academic tracks, and that is academically rigorous with high expectations for all children.
- Support Bilingual Education: Minority-language children with limited English proficiency must have instructional programs that build on their native language and culture while building English proficiency.
- Infodiversity: An uninformed people is not free. Create a vital, democratic, diverse media system, delinked from corporate profit objectives and able to present a wide range of issues and ideas in their full complexity, free from censorship by government or by private corporate power.
- Support Nonprofit and Noncommercial Media: A decentralized, democratic system of public funding of diverse nonprofit, noncommercial media, including broadcast, print, film, website, and other cultural production. Funding to exceed existing support for for-profit media, including lower mailing rates and tax deductions for donors. Guarantee free, universal Internet access.
- Real Public Broadcasting: Complete public funding for real public radio and television broadcasting, with no advertising or grants from private corporations or foundations. Support a decentralized, pluralistic system of multiple national networks and local stations, all independently controlled by boards elected by their publics and their workers.
- Regulate Public Airwaves in the Public Interest: Reassert the public's right as owners of the electromagnetic spectrum used as broadcast airwaves to regulate their use in the public interest. Re-appropriate 6 prime-time hours a day of commercial broadcast time on each station for real public service broadcasting: ad-free children's and news/public affairs programming. Fund this liberated time by charging commercial broadcasters rents for the bandwidths they use, a tax on sales of commercial stations, and a tax on advertising. Program this ad-free time under the control of artists' and educators for the children's programs and journalists for the news and public affairs programs. Restore the Fairness Doctrine. Free time for all candidates for public office. Prohibit paid political ads or require free ads of equal time for opponents. Redistribute substantial bandwidth concessions to public, nonprofit, and locally owned commercial stations, including low-power stations. Increase stakeholder representation on and public accountability of the Federal Communications Commission.
- Antitrust Actions to Break Up Media Conglomerates: Reform antitrust legislation to require the break up of corporate giants because their concentrated power threatens democracy, not just competitive pricing, especially with regard to media concentration where a few media conglomerates control the public's access to information. Require separate, independent firms for all TV stations, TV networks, TV show producers, radio stations, newspapers, magazines, book publishers, film producers, music recorders, Internet service providers, cable TV systems, cable TV stations, amusement parks, retail stores, and so forth. Repeal the pro-conglomeration Telecommunications Act of 1996. Subsidize the existence of multiple newspapers and magazines to express a diversity of opinion in all communities.
- A Global Green Deal: Build world peace and security through a Global Green Deal. First, the US should finance universal access to primary education, adequate food, clean water and sanitation, preventive health care, and family planning services for every human being on Earth. According to the 1999 UN Development Report, it would take only an additional $40 billion to Fund Global Basic Human Needs, an amount that is only 13% of the 2000 US military budget. Second, the US, which now spends half of the world's military expenditures by itself, should demilitarize its economy and reinvest the Peace Dividend in financing and technical assistance for an Ecological Conversion of Human Civilization to Sustainable Systems of Production.
- Peace Conversion: Cut US military spending unilaterally by 75% in two years to establish a non-interventionist, non-offensive, strictly defensive military posture and save nearly $250 billion a year.
- Peace Dividend: Dedicate the $250 billion a year Peace Dividend to the Global Green Deal, Ecological Conversion, the Economic Bill of Rights, and providing full income and benefits for all workers and soldiers displaced by demilitarization until they find new jobs at comparable income and benefits.
- Unilateral Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Disarmament: These weapons of mass destruction have no place in a non-offensive military. The US should set the example and demand that other nations match our lead before the proliferation of weapons to countries around the world leads to mass destruction.
- Cooperative Security: Pursue a "cooperative security" strategy that seeks mutual arms reductions, progressive elimination of cross-border offensive capabilities, and further cuts in military spending. The goal is to progressively demilitarize down to a non-offensive defense of U.S. national territory using a coast guard, border guard, national guard, and light air defense system, which would cost about $3 billion, or less than 1% of current US military spending.
- Democratize the United Nations: Cooperative security cannot work as long as the United Nations remains a US puppet. Support reforms to democratize the United Nations, such as more proportionality and power in the General Assembly, an elected Security Council, and the elimination of the Great Power Veto on the Security Council.
- A Pro-Democracy Foreign Policy: We call for a fundamental shift in US foreign policy, from supporting repressive regimes in the interests global corporations to supporting the pro-democracy labor, social, and environmental movements of the people.
- Support International, Multilateral Peacekeeping to Stop Aggression and Genocide
- No Unilateral US Intervention in the Internal Affairs of Other Countries
- Close All Overseas US Military Bases
- Disband NATO and All Aggressive Military Alliances
- Ban US Arms Exports
- Abolish the CIA, NSA, US Army School of the Americas, and All US Agencies of Covert Warfare
- End the Economic Blockades of Cuba, Iraq, and Yugoslavia
- Cut Off US Military Aid to Counter-Insurgency Wars in Colombia and Mexico
- Freedom for Lori Berenson and All Political Prisoners
- Require a National Referendum to Declare War
- End Global Financial Exploitation: Cancel the debt owed by poor countries to global banks. End the exploitation of poor countries by IMF "structural adjustment" policies. Abolish the IMF and World Bank and replace them with a democratic international financial institution for balancing international accounts and financing short-term current account balances.
- Fair Trade: Withdraw from the World Trade Organization, NAFTA, and all other corporate-managed trade agreements that are driving down labor and environmental conditions globally. Establish an internationalist social tariff system that equalizes trade by accounting for the differences among countries in wages, social benefits, environmental conditions, and political rights. Tariff revenues to a democratic, international fund for ecological production and democratic development in poor countries in order to level up social and environmental conditions to a high common standard.
Protest on war and capitalism Portland OR
Bank of America = Bare Ass Bank ------------- Wells Fargo = Welts Fragin
Cut Them Credit Cards into ribbons
bill of rights
Preamble
- Congress of the United States begun and held at the City of New-York, on Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine
- THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.
- RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all, or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.
- ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.[4]
Amendments
- First Amendment – Establishment Clause, Free Exercise Clause; freedom of speech, of the press, and of assembly; right to petition
- Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
- A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. [5]
- Third Amendment – Protection from quartering of troops.
- No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
- Fourth Amendment – Protection from unreasonable search and seizure.
- The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
- No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
- Sixth Amendment – Trial by jury and rights of the accused; Confrontation Clause, speedy trial, public trial, right to counsel
- In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.
- Seventh Amendment – Civil trial by jury.
- In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
- Eighth Amendment – Prohibition of excessive bail and cruel and unusual punishment.
- Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
- Ninth Amendment – Protection of rights not specifically enumerated in the Constitution.
- The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
- Tenth Amendment – Powers of States and people.
- The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
V - Verizon
"The Verizons are not our friends... They have come to kill net neutrality and rip us all off.
Greed is good, right, Verizon
Greed is good, right, Verizon
Thursday, May 19, 2011
against the homeless
The Portland business alliance and the PDX police have teamed up to harass homeless people. They restrict the use of public bathrooms, and businesses kick out homeless people, calling them "bums". Also, the Portland police fail to read a person's rights on arrest. All the times I got arrested, I never got my rights read.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Network neutrality
The corporations that are against net neutrality, which guarantees an open free speech internet and one that is affordable to all, includes AT&T, Comcast, Viacom, FOX News, Verizon and other phone, broadcasting and cable companies. These corporations want the end of net neutrality so they can jack up the prices on thier rates for both the average consumer and Internet sites like Google and You Tube. If Obama goes back on his campaign promises, especially Net Neutrality, I am going to give him a vote of no confidence and vote for an independent or a Green (If one runs for President) in November, 2012.
"Take, for example, YouTube, the most popular video site online today and one owned by Google. In a world without net neutrality, where Comcast could block any content it wanted to, or charge more for certain types of content, YouTube may have never came to be. If Comcast wanted to develop its own video site, without net neutrality it could have blocked the competition like YouTube, even if the competition was a better product. If Comcast wanted to make an extra buck, it could have charged users an extra monthly fee to access sites like YouTube, impacting YouTube’s growth and popularity.
For companies that make their money delivering services over the Internet, net neutrality is a key business concern. So where’s their fight?
The opposition to net neutrality – rabid teabaggers like Grover Norquist, Glenn Beck, FreedomWorks and the like – are being funded by the phone and cable companies. And these companies have launched a massive advertising and lobbying blitz to get legislators to block the FCC from protecting the Internet, an effort 74 duped Democrats have been stupid enough to sign on to. So where’s the lobbying blitz from companies in favor of net neutrality?"
kudos to Wikkileaks
"Well it does sound like the charges against him are trumped up. The women that say he sexual assaulted them actually hung out with him, threw a party and gave money to him after the alleged incident. Does that sound like something a normal woman would do if that actually happened to her? And the U.S. and some other gov'ts have said they would like to charge him with some sort of anti-gov't crime. So is he in danger? Yes, I would say so.....in danger for telling the truth. Isn't that sad. What kind of message are we sending young people these days? Not to tell the truth?
I think most of what he has exposed is mainly political b.s.......as far as the deep rooted exposes of the U.S. secret ops, like 911, Haarp, Bilderbergs, Soros, Wall Street, JFK, etc.......no I don't think he would be able to access that."
Wikkileaks told the truth about the various shenatigans of the federal government. The US governent had no business arresting the webmaster of Wikkileaks and shuting it down. In my opinion, he is a political prisoner and I feel that Amnesty Int'l should get involved. It shows that our freedoms are being slowly taken away from us on a regular basis, due to corporate bribes to the elected officials. Corruption is running rampant in local, state and possibly federal government. There are even corrupt local officials making back-room deals with organizations like the Portland Business Alliance. By the way, the President has the power to shut down the Internet with a kill switch. We probably could call the President "Barack Herbert Hoover Obama" (yep, here comes the Hoovervilles again - those shacks are almost in style,) This would lead to telecoms losing money. In the event of this, dissenters and activists can use land lines for their phones (the Egyptian gov't cut off cell phone services too), dial-up modems and BBS's (Bulletian Board Systems) again.
Mister Rogers: Boys and girls, Can you say "1984 - Orwell"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/17/internet-kill-switch-woul_n_615923.html
"A new Senate bill, sponsored by Senator Joseph Lieberman, proposes to give the president the authority "to seize control of or even shut down portions of the Internet," according to CNET.
The authority granted to the government in the bill, known as the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act (PCNAA), has been likened to an Internet "kill switch."
The bill would require that private companies--such as "broadband providers, search engines, or software firms," CNET explains--"immediately comply with any emergency measure or action" put in place by the Department of Homeland Security, or else face fines.
It would also see the creation of a new agency within the Department of Homeland Security, the National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications (NCCC). Any private company reliant on "the Internet, the telephone system, or any other component of the U.S. 'information infrastructure'" would be "subject to command" by the NCCC, and some would be required to engage in "information sharing" with the agency, says CBS4.
Numerous groups, such as TechAmerica, have criticized the bill, warning of the "potential for absolute power" and expressing reservations about the "unintended consequences that would result from the legislation's regulatory approach."
Liberman recently defended the PCNAA, arguing that it was imperative the president had the ability to "say to an electric company or to say to Verizon, in the national interest, 'There's an attack about to come, and I hereby order you to put a patch on this, or put your network down on this part, or stop accepting any incoming from country A.'"
He added that the bill is necessary for it would reduce the liability of companies that may need to resort to extreme measures in an emergency situation. Companies might have to "do things in a normal business sense you'd be hesitant to do but national security requires you to do," Lieberman explained, adding 'We protect them from that because the action the government is ordering them to take is in national security or economic interest.' "
"CNET notes an Internet "kill switch" has been proposed before:"
voice to skull weapons
voice to skull weapons are used for mind manipulation and harassment. Mentally ill people can sometimes hear the messages comming from the devices. These are also known as V2K.
"This week the Sierra Nevada Corporation stated that it will begin production on the MEDUSA. This weapon bypasses the ear drum and using pulsed microwave, microwave audio effect, to create voices and sounds in the heads of the targeted person. These sounds can be heard by the target person, or persons, although they can also be below the awareness threshold of the individual. When they are above the US Supreme Court states it is torture. There are as many concerns when the weapon is used below the awareness threshold.
Many suffer harm and hardship from one, or both, types of this type of weapon. I do have material to support and document this technology. I will have it put together in the very near future. Although, I had thought this was important enough to get on the server before I fully develop the page, and before they have time to smoke screen the use of such weapons."
"Nonlethal weapon which includes (1) a neuro-electromagnetic device which uses microwave transmission of sound into the skull of persons or animals by way of pulse-modulated microwave radiation; and (2) a silent sound device which can transmit sound into the skull of person or animals. NOTE: The sound modulation may be voice or audio subliminal messages. One application of V2K is use as an electronic scarecrow to frighten birds in the vicinity of airports."
Monday, May 16, 2011
The rich and powerful
"It’s nothing new for Republicans to favor the rich over the poor; that preference is as old as the Grand Old Party itself. And there’s nothing new about the rich buying off politicians in order to get richer. It’s the world’s second-oldest profession, and it has much in common with the first. Today’s GOP agenda aims to overturn the Great Society, and the New Deal, and to return America to the laissez-faire policies of Herbert Hoover — only this time, with multinational corporations, globalization and an information-technology-enabled financial bubble machine."
The rich and the corporations get away with not paying their fair share in taxes, influencing the laws of this country with fancy lobbyists and expensive lawyers. They also run the propaganda cartels known as mass media (TV and newspapers). It is a myth that we have a free and independent press. O.J. Simpson got away with murder due to his expensive lawyers. Motley Crue's Vice Neil got off a drunk driving charge with community service. Anyone else would get prison time for these acts. Big companies pollute with impunity, such as Exxon and BP. They in fact actually buy off the politicians and take advantage of loopholes with corrupt attorneys, getting out of paying taxes and getting themselves off the hook for crimes they commit.
"The current economic downturn has opened up enormous gaps between revenues and expenditures in the budgets of the vast majority of states. Tax revenues are flat or declining, and spending pressures are growing as families with unemployed workers require state-financed medical assistance and income support. New spending demands associated with security and public health concerns are compounding the states' fiscal crises.
As they work to close these budget gaps, state policymakers are facing difficult decisions about whether to cut state services and/or raise taxes.[1] State officials may also wish to consider policy options that could increase the yield of existing revenue sources. In particular, they may wish to scrutinize their tax structures for unintended and unrecognized loopholes that allow some individuals and businesses to avoid paying their fair share of taxes, and then take steps to minimize such tax-avoidance opportunities.
The Corporate Income Tax Is a Fading Source of State Revenue
State corporate income taxes are long overdue for a thorough examination. The corporate income tax laws of the majority of states are riddled with loopholes that permit many large multistate corporations to avoid paying tax on a significant share of their profits. The growing sophistication of corporations in exploiting these flaws has undoubtedly contributed to the declining significance of the corporate income tax in state tax structures over the past two decades. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, corporate income taxes supplied 10.2 percent of state tax revenue in the states levying them in 1979, but just 6.3 percent in 2000.[2] (See Table 1.)
The steady erosion of state corporate income taxes is revealed as well in estimates of the effective state corporate income tax rate. The effective corporate tax rate is the rate at which corporations actually pay tax on their profits, as opposed to the rate that is nominally imposed. The effective corporate tax rate is measured by dividing actual corporate tax collections by an estimate of "true" corporate profits. Top nominal state corporate tax rates are generally in the range of 6-10 percent; only five of the 45 states imposing corporate taxes (including the District of Columbia) have top nominal rates less than 6 percent. A recent report by the Congressional Research Service estimated, however, that the average effective state corporate income tax rate declined from 5.3 percent in 1979 to 3.8 percent in 1998."
Microsoft and software patents
"Summary: The Obama administration is said to considering a fundamental rethink of software patents” just as Microsoft bets heavily on software patents
WHEN SCO attacked Linux it did not take long for everyone to find out that Microsoft had quietly paid SCO. People have generally known since then (and beforehand) that in line with the leaked Halloween Documents, Microsoft will do anything is can to get Linux distributors sued. The same strategies remain, but the types of imaginary monopolies change and also the sources of litigation. Motorola shows the limits of Microsoft’s hastily-thought through strategy; Microsoft cannot just cycle through every single company which sells Linux because sooner or later products like Xbox 360 risk a ban from the market. If Microsoft is willing to go down this lane, then it sure is a sign of desperation and Groklaw had a good article about that yesterday, claiming pretty much the same thing because Microsoft is now running even to antitrust regulators, hoping that they too can rescue the dying monopoly (nobody violates antitrust law as much as Microsoft).Fortunately we know that this week’s academic FUD is in fact secretly funded by Microsoft. Microsoft Florian, who admits being a campaigner for hire (he tries to avoid the word “lobbyist”), parrots Steve Ballmer today, in response to dents that I made in Identica. This is so telling that it’s not even funny and the 451 Group asks, “Is Android FUD a forebearer of Linux-like success?”
I’ve seen some criticisms of Android and Google indicating it is clear or should be clear what is open source and what is not. I would argue, however, that is has become quite unclear what is open source and what is not in all circumstances and particularly in smartphones, as we covered in our special report Mobility Matters two-and-a-half long years ago. There’s no denying the constant pressure for Android and Google and others in the ecosystem to be true to the spirit and letter of open source and its licenses, however painful, serves to strengthen its open source aspects. However, the statements and signals crying foul against Android are quite similar to the complaints, threats and, yes, FUD we saw swirling around Linux a decade ago. And let’s not forget the lesson of open enough, which becomes even more significant given cloud computing and the capabilities it is extending to smartphones and other mobile devices.Microsoft has has put too many eggs in one basket because rather than create new products it kept its workers busy writing patent applications — patents being just another monopolistic paradigm which relies on pieces of paper rather than bundling in the channel. The government could, in principle, pull the carpet from underneath Microsoft’s feet by passing a patent reform that’s better than the one we’ve mentioned a lot recently. Obama plans fundamental rethink of software patents according to a new report and more articles that are being published right now provide justifications for such a move:
Bottom line, developers, handset manufacturers and consumers are heavily more focused on new releases every six months than who is suing whom in the IP infringement claim game and software patent ’system.’ To predict where Android is headed and what is likely to happen as a result of the FUD, we can look at Linux, which emerged stronger, more competitive and more enterprise-ready after the infamous SCO threats and lawsuits.
Based on the current status, you essentially can not write an app that doesn’t somehow infringe on someone else’s patent. One might think this is an exaggeration, but let’s take a look at the following list of legal no-no’s:When/if software patents are invalidated en masse, Micro$haft’s house of cards will fall. So let us spread the message about software patents a little further."
1) Pop-up note
Yes, the patent for a trusty old mouseover pop-up, used by most applications out there, was granted to Microsoft. If you want your app to be legal, you can’t use them.
2) In-game messaging
That’s a tough one for game developers – Yahoo holds a patent that basically covers sending in-game messages. And they are not afraid to use it.
3) Online games
Why not ban all massively multiplayer online (MMO) games altogether? That’s what Sheldon Goodberg could do, as he holds a very broad patent for “networking gaming system”. He had enough sense not to go after World of Warcraft, and he’s targeting online solitaire for a start. Who knows what will happen If he succeeds?
4) Progress bar
It seems that IBM is the only kid on the block cool enough to use a progress bar!
5) One-click checkout
This one goes to Amazon, because the idea of storing client’s information is so innovative. However, it shouldn’t matter to you, because you are not allowed to conduct internet sales anyway. Just check the next point.
To put it bluntly, you cannot copyright an idea. Only a verbatim copy, with the exact program coding in whole or in part should be protected by law.
RIAA sucks
The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of Amerika) is a greedy organizaton of corporate leeches. Boycott all RIAA labels and have a protest in front of their offices.
The RIAA also pays the telcos to block p2p traffic and bit torrent traffic.
http://www.riaaradar.com/
"That's possibly a fairly long answer, but just the highlights of the RIAA's practices involve price-fixing, blaming its poor financial state on unfounded digital piracy claims (and in turn, blaming and suing its own consumers), lobbying for changes that hinder technological innovation and change copyright laws, underpaying the artists it represents, invading personal privacy to enforce copyrights, and dismantling entire computer networks just because of their ability (of their users) to share copyrighted files. (Feel free to visit the RIAA and Boycott-RIAA.com to learn more!)"
The RIAA also pays the telcos to block p2p traffic and bit torrent traffic.
http://www.riaaradar.com/
fucking c*nt sucking leech DRM
those greedy icecast stations DRM their music so we cannot record it. This is utter bullsh*t. Boycott AOL!!! Damn leeches.
AOL and shoutcast internet radio
AOL has fucked up shoutcast, making it unaccessable. I say boycott Amerika Online and devest in them. In other words, kill their bottom line: $$$.
Site: FedoraForum.org - Fedora Core Support...
Forum: Linux Chat 
Total authors: 2 authors Total thread posts: 2 posts Thread activity: no new posts during last week Domain info for: fedoraforum.org Other posts in this thread:
"Being the one that wrote this article and press release, maybe I can help people understanding the issue.Basically, AOL send us a mail last summer asking us to ask for an API key for their new API, and the license was just fuckingly amazingly blocking for everything related to open source. More detail can be asked, if needed.So anyway, 1.0.0 was just out, so it was quite impossible to comply, since people would be able to use the shoutcast plugin from 1.0.0 in all 1.0.x versions of VLC, since we keep modules API/ABI during a whole cycle. Therefore useless...So, we waited for the 1.1.0 release to remove the module. And make a fuss about it. Of course, we could have talked to them before, but of course, nothing would have happened then, since big corporation only care about bad press... And moreover, the license was so fking blocking that we didn't even see where the point was.Finally, we have a complete extensions framework which means that now people can write their own scripts in lua to do exactly the same, without asking us :D
I hope this explains a bit more, don't hesitate to contact me if you want a bit more than a "funny" press release..."
Sunday, May 15, 2011
FBI and Police got hackers on staff
The FBI and local police employ expert hackers to break into activists' computers to harass them. Obama obviously condones this action or he is so much of a reagan style retarded imbicle that he does not know what is going on. Or he is too stoned to care.
Monday, July 28, 2003
Hacker claims he was working for FBIBy Dan Horn
Feds not talking, but county forging ahead on case
The Cincinnati Enquirer
"Jesse Tuttle was sure he had made a good deal two years ago when he agreed to help the government safeguard sensitive computer systems against hackers, thieves and terrorists.
Jesse Tuttle, a computer hacker better known as 'Hackah Jak.'
(Joseph Fuqua II photo)
| ZOOM |
For Tuttle, a computer hacker known around the world as "Hackah Jak," it was the chance of a lifetime.
The deal would help him avoid prosecution on computer hacking charges and would pay him to do something he loves: search the Internet for vulnerable computer systems. If he found one, he says, he wrote a report about it for the FBI in Cincinnati.
"He is a genius with computers," says Tuttle's lawyer, Firooz Namei. "He was basically the eyes and ears of the FBI on this world that no one knows exists."
But Tuttle's Internet sleuthing ended in May, when Hamilton County sheriff's deputies charged the 23-year-old Camp Dennison man with breaking into the county's computer network and accused him of storing child pornography on his home computer.
Tuttle says his work with federal authorities explains everything, and that he was arrested because one government agency didn't know what another was doing.
But the FBI isn't talking and county officials stand by Tuttle's arrest.
Tuttle's case is the product of an intensifying cyber war between hackers and law enforcement officials around the world. It's a high-tech war with high stakes.
The fight will decide who has access to everything from credit card numbers to military secrets to designs for the next generation of space shuttles.
And as Tuttle's case illustrates, it's not always easy to tell the good guys from the bad.
"You never really know what (a hacker's) motives are and who else they may be working with," says Dorothy Denning, a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School who has written about cyber terrorism. "There is some risk involved."
But with the number of computer intrusions nationwide jumping from 22,000 to 82,000 in the past three years, authorities and private companies are increasingly willing to work with hackers like Tuttle in hopes of preventing online attacks.
The trend has sometimes caused disagreements and confusion among law enforcement agencies, as Tuttle claims happened in his case. And it has forced hackers who traditionally guard their independence to choose sides.
Hackers dedicated to making the Internet more secure call themselves "white hats," while those determined to damage or steal from Web sites consider themselves "black hats."
Tuttle refers to himself as a "gray hat," someone who does no serious harm but still enjoys the illicit thrill of cracking a system.
"It's always been like a sport for me," says Tuttle, who is free pending his trial. "Being able to do it, outsmarting the system. ... I find a lot of pleasure in it."
Whatever Tuttle's motives - and whether he was really working for or against the government, or both - his story is a cautionary tale from the front lines of a war most Americans never see.
Contact with the FBI
Tuttle says his motives have been clear since the day he agreed to help the government. He says everything he did - from tapping into computer systems to posing as a teenage girl online - was related to his work with the FBI.
He says he helped make several highly sensitive government networks more secure and, in one case, helped federal agents track a pedophile's online activities.
"I never tried to steal goods or services," Tuttle says. "If I found out about (a vulnerable system), I'd hack the system. If there was a problem ... I'd call the FBI and say there is a hole."
That's what he says he was doing earlier this year when he tapped into the county's Regional Computer Center, which stores electronic versions of court records, property tax information and other data.
Although Tuttle says the FBI never asked him to crack specific systems - including the county's system - he says the agency encouraged his work and paid him up to $1,000 cash at a time for information.
As a matter of policy, FBI officials neither confirm nor deny working with specific informants. But court records and other sources show a link between Tuttle and federal authorities.
Tuttle signed an agreement with federal prosecutors in August 2001 that helped him avoid criminal charges for hacking into the computer system of a New York brokerage firm. Although it was not a formal cooperation agreement, the document states that Tuttle "agreed to provide the government with information."
Tuttle and his lawyer at the time, C. Ransom Hudson, say it was understood that Tuttle would continue to help the FBI. Tuttle has business cards from agents in New York and Cincinnati and says he remained in regular contact.
"They decided to see how he could be useful," Hudson says of the FBI.
He says federal authorities delivered a new CD burner for Tuttle to his law office so the young computer hacker could take it home, copy information that he gathered on the Internet and share it with the FBI.
The CD burner, along with the rest of Tuttle's computer equipment, is now in the hands of sheriff's investigators.
Prosecutor Mike Allen says the man known as Hackah Jak is a criminal, regardless of whatever else he may have been doing. He says he has not yet contacted the FBI about the case.
"We don't know anything about it," Allen says. "We're just concerned about our case."
Namei says the FBI's efforts in the worldwide cyber war will suffer as long as local authorities prosecute his client.
"These charges could be destructive to a relationship that the FBI has nurtured," says Namei, who says he has spoken several times to FBI agents about their work with Tuttle. "
Tuttle says he just wants his name cleared.
He says he knows nothing about child pornography on his computer but speculates it may stem from his work on the pedophile case. And he says his brief invasion of the county's system was typical of his work with the FBI.
Typically, Tuttle learned about potentially vulnerable systems from talking to other hackers online. The only wrinkle this time was that he says he investigated the county's system after a freelance writer asked him whether he thought it might be vulnerable. "I gained access in two seconds," Tuttle says of the county's system.
He says he was preparing a report about it for the FBI at the time of his arrest.
An online celebrity
Even before his arrest, Tuttle had numerous brushes with controversy. Though most know him as a bartender who lives with his parents in Camp Dennison, his alter ego, Hackah Jak, has been an online celebrity for years.
His hacker resume includes raids on Web sites for Sony Corp., Comedy Central and even the Girl Scouts. In each case, he says, he left a calling card but rarely did significant damage.
After cracking a food Web site, for example, he added a series of recipes for meals "you can eat while hacking."
Like many hackers, some of whom have dubbed themselves "hacktivists," Tuttle says there is good in what he does. Hackers can make political statements, he says, and their raids often lead to improvements in computer security.
While that may be true, some experts say, it also may be nothing more than an excuse for bad behavior.
"I think there's a lot of people who say they are hacktivists when in reality they are just interested in sophomoric attempts to get notoriety," says Dan Moniz, a staff technologist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit group dedicated to protecting people's freedoms online.
But Tuttle says he's more interested in hacktivism than showing off.
He points out that Hackah Jak was among the most vocal of the hackers who raided Chinese government Web sites after China seized an American spy plane more than two years ago.
He said he did much the same after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks when he helped create "The Dispatchers," a group of hackers that targeted government sites in several Middle Eastern countries.
Tuttle says the same sense of patriotism that drove him then was one of the reasons his deal with the FBI was so appealing.
He acknowledges he had another motive, too: The opportunity to avoid criminal charges for hacking the New York brokerage firm.
A risky business
It is that mix of motives that makes any deal with hackers a risky proposition. Hackers, by their very nature, walk a fine line between harmless fun and serious legal trouble.
But as computer crime continues to rise, hackers have found their skills are marketable.
"We won't hire them, but some will," says Peggy Weigle, chief executive officer of Sanctum Inc., a security consulting firm in Santa Clara, Calif. "There is a kind of religious debate about it. Some feel once they do that sort of thing, they've gone too far."
There are risks for hackers, too. While most security work is done with full disclosure to the parties involved, hackers like Tuttle work in a less defined, more dangerous world.
That's because the act of cracking a system is usually a crime, even if the hacker does no harm and later tells the Web site manager how to fix the security breach.
"How that's received depends on who is on the other end," Moniz says. "Some will say 'thanks,' and some will file a lawsuit or criminal charges."
Hamilton County officials have taken the latter approach with Tuttle.
"He didn't do anything malicious. He just got in there," says Ed DePompei, a project manager at the Regional Computer Center. "But if you leave your door open and somebody walks in and sits down in your chair, would you consider that a crime? Just because the door is open, it doesn't mean I'm inviting you in."
Tuttle says he doesn't understand how an act he considers a good deed could be turned into criminal charges and a possible 80 years in prison.
But despite his predicament, he says he is eager to get back online and back into the cyber war.
"The work I do for the FBI," Tuttle says, 'I can still do that work for them.' "
![[img]](http://enquirer.com/editions/2003/07/28/hacker_zoom.jpg)
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