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Cory Doctorow at 10:55 am • 
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Ruben "Tom the Dancing Bug" Bolling sez, "I organized this video, getting cartoonists as diverse as Trudeau (Doonesbury), Spiegelman (Maus, etc), Keane (Family Circus), Mazzucchelli (Batman etc), Mo Willems (Pigeon, Knuffle Bunny) and others to illustrate a script advocating gun law reform narrated by Julianne Moore (!) and Philip Seymour Hoffman (!!)."
Cory Doctorow at 7:27 am • •
Ape Lad sez, "I've got a shirt for sale on woot tonight. It depicts a former governor of California being stalked by a nine-foot-tall, fishnet clad, metal faced hunter with dreadlocks, in a style I hope comes somewhere near the cross hatched wonderfulness of Edward Gorey."
P is for Prey (Thanks, Ape Lad!)
Cory Doctorow at 1:34 am • •
In this startling debut episode, the renowned Professor Elemental receives a commission from the government to build a marvellous snooping machine with which to catch the badduns. The Home Secretary has the right man for the job -- with the good professor's marvellous device, the Home Office will be able to spy on every communique that traverses the British Information Superhighway!
(It's all about the Snooper's Charter, the barmy UK legislative proposal to give nearly unlimited snooping powers to the government and police, and this video is courtesy of the good people at the Open Rights Group.
Professor Elemental build a Great Machine for Catching Villains Chapter One (Thanks, Jim!)
Cory Doctorow at 7:00 am • •
Britain's Communications Data Bill -- AKA the Snooper's Charter -- would effectively eliminate private communications in the UK, giving government and the police the power to spy on virtually everything you do online (which is rapidly merging with everything you do, full stop). The major ISPs in the UK have apparently been turned to the government's cause, and have been quietly supporting the bill, which strips their customers of any semblance of privacy.
The government defends this proposal by saying that they're not intercepting "messages," only "envelopes." That is, they'll get the subject lines, social graph data, who is talking, where, how often, and who replies, how long the messages are, and so on. I like to imagine Alan Turing taking this approach to informational significance: "Mr Churchill, I'm sorry, there's no point in what you're asking us to do: all we can decode from the Nazis is who is sending messages, who receives them, what they're about, where they're sent from, how often they're sent, and how long they are. Nothing compromising." (Then I imagine the ghost of Turing haunting Home Secretary Teresa May, who claims that none of that kind of data compromises Britons' privacy).
In an open letter to the major ISPs, the Open Rights Group, Big Brother Watch, and Privacy International accuse the ISPs of entering into a conspiracy of silence on the surveillance system:
It has become clear that a critical component of the Communications Data Bill is that UK communication service providers will be required by law to create data they currently do not have any business purpose for, and store it for a period of 12 months.
Plainly, this crosses a line no democratic country has yet crossed – paying private companies to record what their customers are doing solely for the purposes of the state.
These proposals are not fit for purpose, which possibly explains why the Home Office is so keen to ensure they are not aired publicly.
There has been no public consultation, while on none of your websites is there any reference to these discussions. Meetings have been held behind closed doors as policy has been developed in secret, seemingly the same policy formulated several years ago despite widespread warnings from technical experts.
That your businesses appear willing to be co-opted as an arm of the state to monitor every single one of your customers is a dangerous step, exacerbated by your silence
Consumers are increasingly concerned about their privacy, both in terms of how much data is collected about them and how securely that data is kept. Many businesses have made a virtue of respecting consumer privacy and ensuring safe and secure internet access.
Sadly, your customers have not had the opportunity to comment on these proposals. Indeed, were it not for civil society groups and the media, they would have no idea such a policy was being considered.
We believe this is a critical failure not only of Government, but a betrayal of your customers' interests. You appear to be engaged in a conspiracy of silence with the Home Office, the only concern being whether or not you will be able to recover your costs.
ISPs In ‘Conspiracy Of Silence’ With Government On Snooper’s Charter (via ./)
Cory Doctorow at 6:25 am • •
Under Canada's newly gutted environmental laws, members of the public who want to comment on the upcoming hearings on the new Enbridge oil pipeline must beg for permission by fillling in an obscure, ten-page questionnaire and submitting a CV. It's as though the Harper government has fingerpainted FUCK OFF AND DIE on Parliament in heavy crude.
“The new rules are undemocratic. They attempt to restrict the public’s participation in these hearings and prevent a real dialogue about the environmental impacts of the Line 9 pipeline project,” said Adam Scott of Environmental Defence. “Canadians should not have to apply for permission to have their voices heard on projects that carry serious risks to their communities.”
Under the new rules, any Ontario resident who lives along the 639-km pipeline route who wants to send in a letter about their concerns must first apply to the NEB for permission to send in a letter. As of today, the public will have just two weeks to fill out a 10-page form which asks for a resume and references.
“Since when does someone’s resume determine if they have the right to be concerned about what’s happening in their home community?” said Keith Stewart of Greenpeace Canada. “Anyone who lives and works in southern Ontario could be affected by a spill and everyone is affected by climate change. The right to send a letter of comment and have it considered by public agencies is part of the basic rights and freedoms Canadians enjoy.”
Line 9 runs directly through the most populated part of the country, through backyards, under farms and next to schools. The pipeline crosses every Canadian river flowing into Lake Ontario, threatening the drinking water of millions.
New undemocratic rules create barrier to public participation in upcoming pipeline hearings: a consequence of weakened federal environmental laws under Bill C-38 [Environmental Defense]
(Thanks, Cliff!)
David Pescovitz at 10:45 am • •
Above is Anna Pierre, singing her 1990s Creole-language tune Suk Su Bon Bon. Pierre is currently running for mayor of North Miami, Florida, but she claims that sinister forces are trying to knock her out of the race. She's found evidence of Haitian Vodou spells left on her doorstep. “I found little dolls with needles in it. They put a lot of pennies at front of my office door,” Pierre told the Miami Herald. “I’m from Haiti I know what it is… (But) I have people in Haiti, Canada, and the U.S. praying for me. I have Jesus with me.” I briefly lived in Miami and had several friends whose relatives, usually grandparents, took Santería magic and ritual very seriously. I'm sure Haitian Vodou is also more common in that region than one might think. (via The Anomalist)
Cory Doctorow at 6:45 pm • •
Russell Brand's obituary for Margaret Thatcher is a beautiful and incisive piece of writing, and a good example of why he's not just another actor:
When I was a kid, Thatcher was the headmistress of our country. Her voice, a bellicose yawn, somehow both boring and boring – I could ignore the content but the intent drilled its way in. She became leader of the Conservatives the year I was born and prime minister when I was four. She remained in power till I was 15. I am, it's safe to say, one of Thatcher's children. How then do I feel on the day of this matriarchal mourning?
I grew up in Essex with a single mum and a go-getter Dagenham dad. I don't know if they ever voted for her, I don't know if they liked her. My dad, I suspect, did. He had enough Del Boy about him to admire her coiffured virility – but in a way Thatcher was so omnipotent; so omnipresent, so omni-everything that all opinion was redundant.
As I scan the statements of my memory bank for early deposits (it'd be a kid's memory bank account at a neurological NatWest where you're encouraged to become a greedy little capitalist with an escalating family of porcelain pigs), I see her in her hairy helmet, condescending on Nationwide, eviscerating eunuch MPs and baffled BBC fuddy duddies with her General Zodd stare and coldly condemning the IRA. And the miners. And the single mums. The dockers. The poll-tax rioters. The Brixton rioters, the Argentinians, teachers; everyone actually.
Thinking about it now, when I was a child she was just a strict woman telling everyone off and selling everything off. I didn't know what to think of this fearsome woman.
Russell Brand on Margaret Thatcher: 'I always felt sorry for her children' (via @TimMinchin)
(Image: Anti-Margaret Thatcher badge, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from dannybirchall's photostream)
Cory Doctorow at 9:46 pm • •
Larry Lessig presented at TED his new project, an effort to curb the corrupting influence of money in American politics with a reform to campaign finance, so that the government depends on the people alone. It's a wonderful talk:
There is a corruption at the heart of American politics, caused by the dependence of Congressional candidates on funding from the tiniest percentage of citizens. That's the argument at the core of this blistering talk by legal scholar Lawrence Lessig. With rapid-fire visuals, he shows how the funding process weakens the Republic in the most fundamental way, and issues a rallying bipartisan cry that will resonate with many in the U.S. and beyond.
Lawrence Lessig: We the People, and the Republic we must reclaim
Cory Doctorow at 7:32 pm • •
We already know that Congresscritters make huge bank through insider trading, exploiting a loophole that lets them place bets on the stock market based on rules they have yet to announce. But this game-rigging con isn't limited to elected officials: a whole class of unregulated beltway insiders make their living by wheedling "political intelligence" (that is, insider information about upcoming regulations and laws) out of politicians and their staff, and then selling it on to consultants who package it up into legal insider trading recommendations for the hyper-rich.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office has released Financial Market Value of Government Information Hinges on Materiality and Timing, a 34-page report on this practice, trying to figure out how pervasive the scam is. They didn't get any great answers:
"The political intelligence industry is flourishing, enriching itself and clients in the stock market, yet the report notes that it could not document who these people are or how much they profit," [Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist for government watchdog Public Citizen] said. "Without full transparency of the activity of these political intelligence consultants and their clients, it is nearly impossible to know if they are trading on illegal insider information."
Government Report Examines 'Political Intelligence,' But Questions Remain [Legal Times/Andrew Ramonas]
(Thanks, Alan!)
Cory Doctorow at 5:51 am • •
The Best Amendment is a pay-what-you-like Mac/Win/Flash game that plays out NRA
president Wayne LaPierre's infamous statement that "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."
The first level is straightforward. You’re a little white cone-shaped fella, and you need to go get the star before the timer runs out. With each successive level, a new black-colored cone guy is added, and you have to shoot them to get more stars. Sometimes they shoot back at you, or even at each other.
The catch: Their behavior is totally determined by your actions in previous levels. If you hang out near a wall and spray a machine gun wildly, on the next level there will be a new bad guy who does the exact same thing, and you’ll have to shoot him with a bazooka or shotgun or whatever the game has armed you with.
The result is an exponential increase in violence from level to level. The game has no set limit on the number of levels, and eventually you’ll be overwhelmed and destroyed by the perpetually repeating actions of one of your past selves.
The game was created by Paolo Pedercini, who previously created "Unmanned" (a game about drone pilots) "Operation Pedopriest" (a satirical game about the Catholic Church); Free Culture; McDonald's Video Game; and most notoriously, Phone Story, a game about mobile phone manufacture that was banned from the Ios App Store (you can still get it for Android).
Pedercini normally gives his games away, but he's asking for pay-what-you-like donations this time to fund a workshop series called "Imagining Better Living Through Play," an "initiative is meant to help activists and grassroots organizations make games for social change and personal empowerment."
The Best Amendment Indie Game Takes On the NRA [Wired/Ryan Rigney]
Cory Doctorow at 2:57 pm • •
Critics of Rob Ford, Toronto's laughable bumblefuck of a mayor, will tell you that at least he's good at teaching high-school football (maybe the only thing he truly enjoys). So it's newsworthy that the schools for which he coaches are considering firing him, and he won't show up to meetings to discuss his misconduct.
The school board is examining a Sun interview in which Ford made disparaging comments about the school community that have been called inaccurate by the board, parent council members, teachers and even one of Ford’s assistant coaches. The mayor asserted that Don Bosco players come from “broken homes” and would be dead or in jail if not for football.
Some parents have called for Ford’s removal.
“We haven’t made any decision whatsoever,” board spokesman John Yan said Thursday. “We’re trying to meet with the mayor, because we have to have an opportunity as part of the process to discuss his comments.
“Part of that process is for Mr. Ford to provide us with either with an explanation or a commentary on what transpired on the March 1 interview.
Rob Ford: Mayor cancels meeting with Toronto Catholic board to discuss his coaching future (Thanks, Gord!)
