How to Assert Your Rights

Use them or lose them.

(Not to mention the waste of public funds.)

A Few Recent Headlines

Been out of town; so, in cased you missed these (more re- each item at the headline link) . . .

1. Don't Forget to Sign Up for the "Do Not Kill" List

A number of sources (including the Wall Street Journal) report that someone has used the White House's "We the People" website to start a petition asking it to create a "Do Not Kill" list similar to the "Do Not Call" list that has been reasonably successful against telemarketers. This follows the New York Times report that every week or so, a bunch of National Security People get together to flip through some PowerPoint slides and "recommend to the President who should be the next to die." The President, who you may recall won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, then personally approves names on the "kill list" for execution targeted killing by drone.

Sign the "Do Not Kill" Petition here. (For more on the "Kill List," see here and links therein.)

2. Occupy Buffalo Helps Convince City to Divest from JPMorgan Chase

City Comptroller Mark J.F. Schroeder has agreed to transfer $45 million . . . from a JPMorgan Chase account to local bank First Niagara Financial Group after Occupy Buffalo raised concerns about leaving the money at JPMorgan, the Buffalo News reports. The move comes with a number of benefits, including a higher interest rate and more local branches that make it easier for employees to cash paychecks . . . .

“It also sends a crystal-clear message to JPMorgan Chase that the City of Buffalo is not happy with their business practices," Schroeder told Buffalo News.

3. Collateral Damage in the War on Protesters: Neighbors of the NATO3 Cuffed, Held at Gunpoint

The . . . officer came up to me and told me he had a hard time believing I wasn’t associated with the people downstairs. His quote exactly was that I had ‘hateful revolutionary things’ in my house. He asked me why I had so many red-colored things (Olli got similar accusations because he was wearing his red work uniform). They were commenting about the red color – I have red curtains and my brother’s an artist, so all his paintings are hanging up, and they found that very suspicious and were trying to say it was part of some kind of conspiracy.

* * * * *
“They acted like asking for a warrant and a lawyer was unreasonable . . . ” Ben said, “but they didn’t seem to realize that they had kidnapped us in our own home. We were handcuffed on the ground in our own living room."

4. The US Government Is Running a Massive Spy Campaign on Occupy Wall Street

The US Dept. of Homeland Security finally released some docs in response to repeated Freedom of Information Act requests by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund. Although the docs are partially blacked out,

[Per the PCJF's Director, "t]hese documents show not only intense government monitoring and coordination in response to the Occupy Movement, but reveal a glimpse into the interior of a vast, tentacled, national intelligence and domestic spying network that the U.S. government operates against its own people."

* * * * *
In particular, the role of the “Fusion Centers,” a series of 72 federally-funded information hubs run by the NOC, raises questions about the government’s expansive definition of “Homeland Security.”

Created in the wake of 9/11, the Fusion Centers were founded to expedite the sharing of information among state and local law enforcement and the federal government, to monitor localized terrorist threats, and to sidestep the regulations and legislation preventing the CIA and the military from carrying out domestic surveillance (namely, the CIA ban on domestic spying and the Posse Comitatus Act).

5. Speaking of JPMorgan Chase . . . the bank's risk committee lacks any members who've actually worked at a bank or as risk managers; one of them was on AIG’s governance committee in 2008.

6. Congressmen Seek to Lift Propaganda Ban

An amendment that would legalize the use of propaganda on American audiences is being inserted into the latest defense authorization bill, BuzzFeed has learned.

The amendment would “strike the current ban on domestic dissemination” of propaganda material produced by the State Department and the independent Broadcasting Board of Governors . . . . The tweak to the bill would essentially neutralize two previous acts—the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 and Foreign Relations Authorization Act in 1987—that had been passed to protect U.S. audiences from our own government’s misinformation campaigns.

The bi-partisan amendment is sponsored by Rep. Mac Thornberry from Texas and Rep. Adam Smith from Washington State.

7. US E-Voting System Cracked in Less than 48 Hours

Researchers at the University of Michigan have reported that . . . . "Within 48 hours of the system going live, we had gained near complete control of the election server", the researchers wrote in a paper that has now been released. "We successfully changed every vote and revealed almost every secret ballot." The hack was only discovered after about two business days – and most likely only because the intruders left a visible trail on purpose.

(Yes, electronic voting and/or tabulation is still a very, very bad idea.)

Google vs. Bloggers

A new user interface is being forced on us bloggers. My and others' experience indicates it's harder to use and offers much less control over the look of posts. Presumably it's also designed to facilitate greater incursions on our privacy. So far, we've been allowed the option to continue to use the old interface, but that's supposed to end soon.

Tenuously related UPDATE: Google's now getting heat from regulators for its collection of people's emails and other private data in the course of its street view photography – invading our privacy without our permission or knowledge – and then lying about it to regulators; more at Wired.

If You Wish to Avoid the Dept. of Homeland Security's Attention

. . . you should minimize your use of the hundreds of terms listed at Animal on social media sites (or elsewhere online?) I was going to list some of them for you so you could see how ridiculous many of them are, but I prefer to avoid the DHS's attentions – although just mentioning them may be all it takes. (But really, terrorists might be planning a tornado?)

More Re- the Infowar

Don't miss Michael Hasting's excellent, recent interview of Julian Assange in Rolling Stone.

Assange mentions the speaker in the video below, Jacob Appelbaum, ("[t]he Tor Project, which protects people around the world from being spied on or censored, lost some $600,000 to the U.S. government, as a result of one of their people, Jacob Appelbaum, having filled in for me once at a conference in New York.") If you haven't seen much of Appelbaum before, his presentation's also not to be missed (you can skip the first 2 min.):



Assange's appeal of extradiction proceedings in the U.K. is due to be heard by the nation's supreme court tomorrow.

Rightlessness Creep

Ok, we need a better term. The basic idea is, the fundamental rights recognized by the Founding Fathers, such as the right not to be killed without due process of law, belong to ALL people, not just US citizens; and that when we acquiesce in violations of that right of others, we should expect soon to suffer the same ourselves.

Per WaPo,

[N]o president has ever relied so extensively on the secret killing of individuals to advance the nation’s security goals. . . . CIA and military strikes this fall killed three U.S. citizens . . . . It is a measure of the extent to which the drone campaign has become an awkward open secret in Washington that even those inclined to express misgivings can only allude to a program that, officially, they are not allowed to discuss. . . . Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, described the program with a mixture of awe and concern. Its expansion under Obama was almost inevitable, she said, because of the technology’s growing sophistication. But the pace of its development, she said, makes it hard to predict how it might come to be used.

(More at the link.) A.k.a. "extrajudicial killings" – a fancy name for murder.

How to Stand Up for Your 1st Amendment Rights

Watch the video below to see how one videographer stood up to illegal intimidation by NYPD police:



Per Gizmodo, police in at least three states have taken the position that citizens have no right to record police without the latter's prior consent, based on laws that prohibit wire-tapping without the consent of all parties recorded.

I believe most legal scholars disagree. The ACLU has published an excellent summary of what it views as your Constitutional rights to videotape and photograph police in public places, here.

Know your rights, and use 'em or lose 'em.

Matt Taibbi on Principles and Pepperspray

Another brilliant piece by Taibbi in one of the last bastions of journalism still standing in the U.S., Rolling Stone; here's a taste:

[W]hen we abandoned our principles in order to use force against terrorists and drug dealers, the answer to the question, What are we defending? started to change.

The original answer, ostensibly, was, "We are defending the peaceful and law-abiding citizens of the United States, their principles, and everything America stands for."

Then after a while it became, "We’re defending the current population of the country, but we can’t defend the principles so much anymore, because they weigh us down in the fight against a ruthless enemy who must be stopped at all costs."

Then finally it became this: “We are defending ourselves, against the citizens who insist on keeping their rights and their principles.”

More here. (Image by √oхέƒx™).

UPDATE: Re- our eroded rights, Wired just posted 9 reasons for tinfoil millinery, including: warrantless wiretapping; warrantless GPS tracking; warrantless location tracking of your cell; fake cell interception towers; the 100-mi. wide, Constitution-free zone along US borders; the "6 mos. and it's the Goverment's" rule; the ironically-named Patriot Act; Government malware; and the known unknowns about what else the gummint's doing (remember, "warrantless" means they do it whenever they like, for reasons good, non-existent, or bad). Details here.

Student Protests TSA Searches

On Thur., Dec. 30, Aaron Tobey, a student at the University of Cincinnati, stripped down to his underwear at a Richmond, Virginia airport in protest of TSA scannings and pat downs, exposing the following message written on his chest and abdomen: "Amendment 4: The right of the people to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated." Tobey was charged with disorderly conduct. Details here.

Just added this to the quotes in the sidebar at left:

Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders . . . . and millions have been killed because of this obedience . . . . Our problem is that people are obedient allover the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves . . . [and] the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.

(Howard Zinn, Failure to Quit, South End Press, 2002; originally published 1993). But I have to admit, I also like this solution:

FINALLY – A great alternative to body scanners at airports . . .

The Israelis are developing an airport security device that eliminates the privacy concerns that come with full-body scanners at the airports.

It’s a booth you can step into that will not x-ray you, but will detonate any explosive device you may have on you. They see this as a win-win for everyone . . .

More at the link.

Future Attribute Screening Technology

No joke. More at Wikipedia.

What Body Scanners Really Show

. . . is that (1) our leaders are in corporate pockets, and/or (2) our leaders are more afraid of US than they are of terrorists.

Body scanner makers doubled lobbying cash over 5 years
". . . Rapiscan Systems, meanwhile, has spent $271,500 on lobbying so far this year, compared with $80,000 five years earlier. It has faced criticism for hiring Michael Chertoff, the former Homeland Security secretary, last year. Chertoff has been a prominent proponent of using scanners to foil terrorism. The government has spent $41.2 million with Rapiscan. . . ."

Body scanner CEO accompanied Obama to India
". . . The CEO of one of the two companies licensed to sell full body scanners to the TSA accompanied President Barack Obama to India earlier this month, a clear sign of the deep ties between Washington politicians and the companies pushing to have body scanners installed at all US airports. . . ."

Body scanner caught masturbating
". . . as a team of High School netball players went through the scanner. 'The young ladies were going through the scanner one by one, and . . . .'"

And see this translation of what John Pistole means when he talks about providing the "high level of confidence" we weren't clamoring for:

But it's not the waste of money I mainly object to, and it's certainly not the invasion of my bodily privacy, or even the damage to my DNA; it's the rape of my Fourth Amendment rights.

What's next, scanning before travel by train? bus? toll roads? TSA is performing a police function with respect to a public, common carrier. The government cannot be allowed to unilaterally repeal the Constitution merely by subcontracting its obligations to private corporations.

UPDATE: If you had any remaining doubt about the real purposes of this "security theater," see this documentary: "Some facts from Please Remove Your Shoes . . . : 'During the first 3 months of 2007, the TSA Logistics Center received 8 explosive detection systems units at a cost of about $7 million. As of January 2009, all 8 explosive detection systems units remained in storage at the Logistics Center. TSA paid out $98 million in bonuses and pay raises in 2008. According to GAO, TSA inspectors spend 33% of their time inspecting, 8% on incidents, 5% investigating, 5% on 'outreach' 49% of their time on 'other.' Other?'" (Link inserted; from BoingBoing via Ben – thanks!)

FURTHER UPDATE: I thought I was kidding about scanning before boarding a bus!

FURTHER FURTHER UPDATE: Mark Denninger makes a great point: none of the 9/11 hijackers or the underwear bomber had the documentation to remain in or enter the U.S. legally, and the technology to turn up that fact in time to have prevented them from flying here has been commercially available for 20 years, but only now has the Obama admin finally announced we'll start using it. (Meanwhile, we've spent billions on "worthless virtual strip-search machines" from Chertoff & Co.)

From Our Military-Industrial Complex: Hummingbird mit Argus

A robot helicopter capable of hovering for 20 hours without re-fueling at altitudes up to and beyond 15,000 feet, equipped with a 1.8 gigapixel camera. Developed under the auspices of DARPA, the camera is the sensor part of Autonomous Real-time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance - Imaging System or ARGUS-IS.

While surveying an area of over a hundred square miles, the resolution will be good enough to follow individual people on foot. Part of the tech involves an ability to target areas of interest; when used, "it may be possible to speed the frame rate up considerably – we previously looked at a windowing system so fast it could follow speeding bullets."

More at Wired (thanks, Ben!) Glad I live in a city with tunnels.

For art re- DARPA, see the Institute for Applied Autonomy (also rec'd is their project on supposedly-extraordinary rendition; see here and here).

UPDATE: Ending the Internet as We've Known It

Sorry to keep pounding this but I can't believe how many people still don't get it.

Via Slashdot,

"Microsoft's vision of your computing future is on display in its just-published patent application for the Metered Pay-As-You-Go Computing Experience. The plan, as Microsoft explains it, involves charging students $1.15 an hour to do their homework, making an Office bundle available for $1/hour, and billing gamers $1.25 for each hour of fun. In addition to your PC, Microsoft also discloses plans to bring the chargeback scheme to your cellphone and automobile — GPS, satellite radio, backseat video entertainment system. 'Both users and suppliers benefit from this new business model,' concludes Microsoft, while conceding that 'the supplier can develop a revenue stream business that may actually have higher value than the one-time purchase model currently practiced.' But don't worry kids, that's only if you do more than 52 hours of homework a year!"

This is an important step in the devolution I've outlined in previous posts that's transforming the internets as we've known them into something controlled centrally from the top down by mega-corps and gummints. I realize that that transformation could yield efficiencies in some areas, but I think they'll mainly benefit the controllers (them), not the controllees (us).

My main concerns relate to the power of those who own or control the more centralized system, which power will be enormously enhanced to do any or all of the following:

(1) To charge us whatever they like for their services, including but not limited to forcing us to pay for and use upgrades that we don't want or that are incompatible with older documents or software that we still want to use;

(2) To surveille us without any "probable cause" to suspect us of wrongdoing, in violation of the U.S. Constitution, esp. the Fourth Amendment; and

(3) To alter or delete any information or data, whether accidentally or intentionally, if they consider it a "threat" or simply inconsistent with their own interests.

As I said in my 6/3/07 post, "effective regulation or oversight over those in possession of that ownership and control [of the devolved system] would become impossible, since they would have the power with a few keystrokes to alter every digital record on the planet . . . ."

The following is from my 10/3/07 post on the subject:

Free speech in general and the internet in particular seem to worry control freaks.

As of 2000, just five megacorporations – Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch's News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS) – controlled over 90% of the media industry in the U.S., with General Electric's NBC a close sixth (see here, here, here, and here).

In 2003, despite the largest public outcry in FCC history, the FCC adopted rules loosening restrictions on media ownership (stories here, here, and here) . . . .

Certain people have spent a lot of money to gain all that control, and notwithstanding claims of hard times in the media biz, the investment has in fact proved profitable; but one of the main benefits that might have been hoped for – control over the agenda and messages reaching audiences of any significant size – is threatened by the 'net.

* * * * *

In an earlier post, I discussed conservatives' plans to replace the internet as we know it with something called the "Worldbeam" (a.k.a. the "Cloud"), a system in which, instead of storing all your personal docs, files, and software on your own computer at home, everything would be stored on larger computers elsewhere, and you would just have a box that would be little more than a gateway to the Beam.

Instead of buying your own copies of applications, the most basic might (or might not) be provided on the Beam for free, and you'd pay license fees for anything fancy, so vendors could force you to upgrade whenever they liked. Although access to your own data would theoretically be protected by a password or other security, the gummint or others who controlled the Beam could access, modify, or simply delete any or all of your or others' data much more easily than now.

The internet would have been transformed into a massive, top-down surveillance system while conferring virtually unlimited power on those who controlled it to re-write "reality." [As I said in my 6/3/07 post, "[w]ho controls the Beam will control history, and thus will have the power to botch if not completely control the present and future."]

I was worried, but thought it would be some years before the "Beam" replaced the 'net as we know it.

Duh. It's finally dawned on me, there's no need for those desiring Beam-like control to engineer any single, vast switch-over to a new system. They're simply colonizing the 'net little by little – and many of us are unwittingly helping them.

Think MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, MeetUp, LinkedIn, del.icio.us, Ancestry.com, and yes, Blogspot – you upload or create tons of data about yourself and your activities, opinions, social and other relationships, and personal preferences into online facilities that are maintained and controlled by other people. You may or may not even keep copies on your own computer of everything you put on the 'net. Think online banking and investment, every airplane ticket you've ever bought and hotel you've booked, every comment you've ever posted, and every purchase you've ever made esp. from vendors like amazon that keep track so as to make recommendations. Think on-line spam filter services (I realize AT&T is probably already giving the gummint copies of every e-mail that passes through AT&T's "pipes," in direct violation of our constitutional rights -- see here [and here, here, here, and here] -- but hey, we managed to shut that down, didn't we? Oops, guess not [link supplied].) . . .

* * * * *

At least now, of course, we CAN keep copies of our stuff on our own computers. My computer can of course be infected or hacked; but I can fight that in various ways that at least make it more difficult for my privacy etc. to be massively violated by the gummint, etc. Theoretically, I could even put stuff on a computer that has no wireless port and isn't otherwise connected to the 'net, so someone would have to have actual physical access to it in order to alter or delete it [and if you are an activist who opposes gummint policies, I recommend you do this].

(There's a "Search Blog" function at upper left on this page; you can enter "internet" or other terms to find additional, related posts.)

As I look back at what I've posted before, the only thing that's changed is that the devolution is happening even more quickly than I imagined possible.

As I also said in my 6/3/07 post, "I happen to agree that all information is good information. But what needs to be spelled out in no uncertain terms is that because knowledge is power, a balance of power requires a balance of knowledge." Right now, the powerful know a lot more about us than we know about them; that needs to change.

Great Read for Kids and Others: "Little Brother"

You can download it for free here (you can also buy it already printed; per amazon, it's 384 pp.). I'm really enjoying it; and it's gotten lots of awards.

The author, Cory Doctorow, is inviting everyone to download and modify the book any way they like, subject only to a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license.

More info from Doctorow:

Marcus, a.k.a "w1n5t0n,” is only seventeen years old, but he figures he already knows how the system works–and how to work the system. Smart, fast, and wise to the ways of the networked world, he has no trouble outwitting his high school’s intrusive but clumsy surveillance systems.

But his whole world changes when he and his friends find themselves caught in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack on San Francisco. In the wrong place at the wrong time, Marcus and his crew are apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security and whisked away . . . .

When the DHS finally releases them, Marcus discovers that his city has become a police state where every citizen is treated like a potential terrorist. He knows that no one will believe his story, which leaves him only one option: to take down the DHS himself.

* * * * *
This book is meant to be something you do, not just something you read. The technology in this book is either real or nearly real. You can build a lot of it. . . . [and y]ou can use the ideas . . . . to defeat censorship and get onto the free Internet, even if your government, employer or school doesn't want you to.

Making stuff: The folks at Instructables have put up some killer HOWTOs for building the technology in this book [, here]. [Also, t]he afterword for this book has lots of resources for increasing your online freedom, blocking the snoops and evading the censorware blocks. . . .

Additional details here.

E.g., early in the book, Marcus shares his hack for connecting to his school's wireless internet without being tracked. Sure sounds like it might work:

I turned to my SchoolBook and hit the keyboard. The web-browser we used was supplied with the machine. It was a locked-down spyware version of Internet Explorer, Microsoft's crashware turd that no one under the age of 40 used voluntarily.

I had a copy of Firefox on the USB drive built into my watch, but that wasn't enough -- the SchoolBook ran Windows Vista4Schools, an antique operating system designed to give school administrators the illusion that they controlled the programs their students could run.

But Vista4Schools is its own worst enemy. There are a lot of programs that Vista4Schools doesn't want you to be able to shut down -- keyloggers, censorware -- and these programs run in a special mode that makes them invisible to the system. You can't quit them because you can't even see they're there.

Any program whose name starts with $SYS$ is invisible to the operating system. it doesn't show up on listings of the hard drive, nor in the process monitor. So my copy of Firefox was called $SYS$Firefox -- and as I launched it, it became invisible to Windows, and so invisible to the network's snoopware.

Now I had an indie browser running, I needed an indie network connection. The school's network logged every click in and out of the system, which was bad news if you were planning on surfing over to the Harajuku Fun Madness site for some extra-curricular fun.

The answer is something ingenious called TOR -- The Onion Router. An onion router is an Internet site that takes requests for web-pages and passes them onto other onion routers, and on to other onion routers, until one of them finally decides to fetch the page and pass it back through the layers of the onion until it reaches you. The traffic to the onion-routers is encrypted, which means that the school can't see what you're asking for, and the layers of the onion don't know who they're working for. There are millions of nodes -- the program was set up by the US Office of Naval Research to help their people get around the censorware in countries like Syria and China, which means that it's perfectly designed for operating in the confines of an average American high school.

TOR works because the school has a finite blacklist of naughty addresses we aren't allowed to visit, and the addresses of the nodes change all the time -- no way could the school keep track of them all. Firefox and TOR together made me into the invisible man, impervious to Board of Ed snooping, free to check out the Harajuku FM site and see what was up.

You can order Little Brother in hardcover here; no paperback available yet.

(Thanks, Ben!)

The Death of YouTube as We've Known It?

As reported by ipower, "As of yesterday YouTube has replaced its list of 'Most Viewed' videos on the site's 'Videos' section with a varied selection of sponsor-friendly videos that the site calls 'Most Popular'. Where users normally see videos with high view-counts that have become popular due to viral spreading and community activity, we now see videos like the new MacBook commercial that gets showcased on the 'Most Popular' #1 spot while having very low view-counts and even lower ratings. YouTube will no longer give massive exposure to its community's video productions and instead is now tightly controlling its Videos pages to attract more sponsors and a more mainstream audience." More at the link above.

U.S. Authorities Stake Out "Constitution-Free Zone"

"The ACLU says a 'Constitution-free zone' [has been created] within 100 miles of the US border, where [U.S. authorities claim] the authority to stop, search and detain anyone for any reason. [This violates your Constitutional right to be free from seizure or search unless there exists some "probable cause" to believe you're involved in a crime.]

Nearly two-thirds of the US population lives within 100 miles of the border, according to the ACLU, and the border zone encompasses scores of major metropolitan areas and even entire states."

This summer Craig Johnson, a college professor, participated in a protest against the expansion of the fence along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The next time he tried to return to the U.S. from Mexico, he was handcuffed, arrested, and "'thoroughly and aggressively searched. . . . Every inch and crack and crevice of my body was poked and prodded,' Johnson said. . . .

"Prior to that visit, Johnson said he had traveled regularly between the US and Mexico for a variety of reasons without facing any harassment." But the next time he went, he was subjected to the same ordeal.

"'It took me four months to return to Mexico,' he said. 'Not because I'm afraid of traveling outside my own country, but rather because I'm afraid of returning home.'"

More details at rawstory.

Police Plan to Track Every Vehicle that Enters Manhattan

Via cryptogon (thanks, Ben!) Like, wow, that "Ring of Steel" really helped London prevent the 7-7-05 bombings.

iPatriot Act Ready and Waiting for i911; and, About the Cloud . . . .

Too impt. not to re-blog. Transcript from starting around 4:30 min.:

Lawrence Lessig: "There's going to be an i-911 event . . . I had dinner once with Richard Clark at the table and I said, 'is there an equivalent to the Patriot Act -- an iPatriot Act -- just sitting waiting for some substantial event . . . for them to come have the excuse for radically changing the way the Internet works?' And he said, 'Of course there is' -- and I swear this is what he said, and quote -- 'and Vint Cerf is not going to like it very much.'"

I wish more people were aware that this is what's been going on; but to quote some useful cliches, nature abhors a vacuum, and the unconscious does not hear the negative. So, it's not enough for us to just point this out and say, we can't let that happen. We need to have our OWN counter-iPatriot proposal sitting on the shelf. Theirs is ready; we'd better catch up fast.

And how about us having a few initiatives of our own that are actually in advance of theirs, instead of merely trying to catch up all the time?

About the Cloud, here's a recent article showing how one of the risks I've discussed has materialized:

"Can you trust your data to the cloud? For users of an online storage service called The Linkup, formerly known as MediaMax, the answer turned out to be a resounding 'no.'

"The Linkup shut down on Aug. 8 after losing access to unspecified amounts of customer data . . . ."

The Linkup says 55% of the data is safe, but they're not sure about the other 45%.

Here's my related, 2007 post.

Huh, II?

Obama voted to abet the evisceration of our Fourth Amendment rights?

Check this out. And this. Here's the source for the image.

Senate Dems Agree: the Constitution Really Is "Just a Goddamned Piece of Paper"

-- as Bush put it.

A number of Senate Dems, including Senator Clinton, have voted in favor of granting telecoms immunity for abetting the Bush administration's wholesale, warrantless spying on U.S. citizens, in gross violation of our Constitutional rights. Senator Obama voted against granting the immunity. You can check the roster here.

Remember, this isn't just about the telecoms, or even just deterring illegal spying. It's also about (1) whether the telecoms have any reason to reveal who in the Bush administration pushed for the illegal spying and (2) whether anyone in the future has any incentive to say "no" to the next violation by our government of our fundamental rights.