Racketeering charges for violating website’s terms of service

by Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com

The Department of Justice is attempting to criminalize uploading videos that break You Tube’s terms of service, along with any other online action that is deemed to contravene a website’s usage policy, in a shocking expansion of cybersecurity laws deemed draconian by critics.

“In a statement obtained by CNET that’s scheduled to be delivered tomorrow, the Justice Department argues that it must be able to prosecute violations of Web sites’ often-ignored, always-unintelligible “terms of service” policies,” writes Declan McCullagh.

Such violations would include creating a fake Facebook profile, lying about your weight on dating websites, or providing any other item of false information that violates a website’s TOS agreement.

Under the DOJ’s new legal framework, an expansion of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), agreeing to a website’s terms of service would be identical to signing a contract with an employer, with similar punishments for breaking that contract.

“To the Justice Department, this means that a Web site’s terms of service define what’s “authorized” or not, and ignoring them can turn you into a felon,” writes McCullagh, pointing out that millions of Americans violate ‘terms of agreement’ policies every single day.

Indeed, in the case of You Tube, users are often informed months or even years later that they may have infringed on the company’s ‘terms of service’ agreement if another user merely complains about the content of their video.

Attorney Stewart Baker warns that under the newly amended law, users uploading a copyrighted You Tube video more than once would fit into “a pattern of racketeering,” with even harsher criminal penalties, “at least if Justice gets its way.”

A coalition of free speech organizations from across the political spectrum, including the ACLU, Americans for Tax Reform, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and FreedomWorks have joined forces to oppose the move, savaging the proposed changes as an affront to Internet anonymity in a letter to the Senate.

“If a person assumes a fictitious identity at a party, there is no federal ­crime,” the letter states. “Yet if they assume that same identity on a social network that prohibits pseudonyms, there may again be a CFAA violation. This is a gross misuse of the law.”

As we have documented, the attempt to create a Communist Chinese-style system of Internet policing, advocated by Senator Joe Lieberman, mandates that Internet anonymity be outlawed and that a system even more draconian than what was rejected in China – individual ID’s for Internet users – be put in place.

The attempt to expand CFAA is just one tentacle of an all out war on Internet freedom that has been launched by the federal government. Another piece of legislation that has received bipartisan support, the so-called “Rogue websites bill,” would create a Chinese-style ban list where ISPs would be mandated to block certain websites by government decree.

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show.

­por Yashenka Baca

Occupy SF protesters rally in front of Welss Fargo Bank: (PHOTO BY OCCUPY WALL STREET WEBSITE)

More than 680,000 people nationwide moved their money from a major bank to a credit union or a community bank last month, spurred by the “Move your Money Day” and “Bank Transfer Day”, on Nov. 5. According to the Credit Union National Association (CUNA), about $4.5 billion was transferred to new accounts in credit unions. Bank of America Corp., announced on Sept. 29, they had decided to start charging a $5.00 fee to debit card users (now rescinded). The news was not welcome by customers, who were irritated by the idea and started looking for alternatives.

Los Angeles artist Kristen Christian was one of many Bank of America customers fed up with fees and charges. She created a Facebook page called Bank Transfer Day and set Nov. 5 as the day of action. Through the page she encouraged her 500 friends to transfer their money from a big bank to a local non- profit credit union, cooperative, or community bank. The page went viral and after just three days it had more than 8,000 people ‘attending’ (the social media equivalent to: yes, I’ll do it).

On the other side of the country, the same idea had being circulating for a year and a half through online financial freedom communities. The Move your Money project, “a campaign that aims to empower individuals and institutions to divest from the nation’s ‘Too Big To Fail’ Wall Street banks” also started encouraging people to move their money to local financial organizations. According to Move your Money’s website, over 4 million people have already moved their money during the last year and a half.

Both movements gained tremendous momentum when Occupy Wall Street supporters echoed the idea during numerous rallies and marches around the country. Protesters saw Bank Transfer Day as a perfect way to take action and demonstrate that people are not helpless against big banks.

Bill Cheney, CEO of CUNA, said “consumers doubled the pace on November 5 … they should be given credit for being smart about what to do with their money.” The association revealed that only on Bank Transfer Day, credit unions got 40,000 new members and $80 million in new savings account funds. Bank of America representatives would not comment on the loss of customers.

Money moved in the Bay Area

Demonstrators protested against corporate greed showing support for “Move your Money Day” outside Bank of America in downtown San Rafael. Carrying sings like, “Leave Vampire Banks, Join a Credit Union” and, “Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Jail” protesters tried to encourage people to switch financial institutions and leave behind the bailout giants for a small community oriented bank or credit union.

A bank clerk from a San Francisco branch of Wells Fargo, whose name is omitted to protect his job, said to El Reportero that customers had been coming frequently to the bank looking to close their accounts. “Last Saturday, we had 20 people close their account in support of the Bank Transfer Day campaign”, the clerk said.

Protests were seeing outside major banks in Berkeley, Alameda, Oakland and San Francisco. In Palo Alto, home of the affluent Silicon Valley community, dozens of people also took to the streets carrying signs reading “Main Street before Wall Street” and “We are the 99%.” The group marched to all four Palo Alto big bank locations in support of the action day.

­Many Bay Area residents celebrated November 5 as “financial freedom day.” Messages posted on Twitter and Facebook referred to November 5 as “just the beginning.” Credit unions expect growth from new customers continuing to transfer during the rest of November and into the future, as the grip of major banks loosens.

by Jonathan Benson
Natural News

Baxter Healthcare Corp. has announced it is recalling roughly 300,000 doses of its Preflucel influenza vaccine due to what it says is an excessive number of adverse events. Baxter is the same drug company that was caught inserting Avian Flu Virus into flu vaccines back in 2009 (http://www.naturalnews.com/025760.html).

The UK’s Daily Mail reports that a high number of individuals injected with an apparently tainted batch of Preflucel have been reporting side effects like fatigue, muscle pain, and headaches. The vaccine, which was crafted specifically for those with egg allergies, has only been in use since March when it was first approved for use in the UK.

“The vaccine is being recalled because these side effects have been reported more frequently with this specific batch,” said a Baxter spokesmen. This spokesman also attempted to reassure the public that those who have already been vaccinated with Preflucel “should not be concerned (for their safety).”

The same time, however, Baxter has instructed healthcare providers not to administer any more Preflucel, no matter what batch it came from, to patients. And since this announcement, many European countries where the vaccine was distributed have ceased using it, and have instead switched to various alternatives.

“[Preflucel] should no longer be used and any remaining stock [of the recalled batches] should be returned to the original supplier for credit,” announced the UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency. “No further Preflucel of any batch should be administered at this time.”

Conveniently for Baxter, no further information has been provided to the public as to what might be the cause of the uptick in adverse reactions. And if the vaccine is so harmful that the company has decided to recall several hundred thousand doses of it and cease all further administration of it, how can officials say that those who have already been injected with it are safe?

The 2009 scandal involving the US division of Baxter essentially exposed the company as a purveyor of biological terrorism. After all, the company’s Biosafety Level 3 (BSL3) facility where the tainted vaccine was produced would have prevented unintentional contamination, which implies an intentional conspiracy (http://www.naturalnews.com/025760.html). So what dirty little secret might Baxter be trying to hide with its current recall?

Learn more: ­http://www.naturalnews.com/034112_Baxter_flu_vaccines.html#ixzz1dHpDhoTm.

­by the El Reportero’s news services

Daniel Ortega

Nicaragua’s Supreme Electoral Court (CSE) officially confirmed President Daniel Ortega the winner of the 6 November presidential contest, with 62.56 percent of the valid vote.

José Miguel Insulza, Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), said the election represented a step forward for the country in terms of “democracy and peace”, while the European Union is siding with the Nicaraguan opposition who is calling the election invalid and fraudulent. They are demanding for new elections.

Colombia turns its back on Uribe

A political colossus just over a year ago, and the longest serving president since the establishment of the Republic of Colombia in 1886, Alvaro Uribe (2002-2010) looks increasingly embittered as he loses his grip on Colombian politics.

It is not always easy to identify winners and losers in regional elections but on 30 October Uribe suffered several painful defeats, none more so than the victory for Gustavo Petro in the race for mayor of Bogotá: as a senator, Petro, a former M-19 guerrilla, was the one man not just to stand up to Uribe but to expose the parapolitics scandal that did most to damage his legacy. Uribe’s choice for mayor, Enrique Peñalosa, was one of a number of candidates nationwide that failed to benefit from his patronage.

­Then there was the resurgence, at the expense of Uribismo, of the Partido Liberal (PL), which President Juan Manuel Santos solidified by appointing the PL president, Rafael Pardo, to his cabinet.

by Chris/Information Liberation Opinion

One of the most common sayings among statists and government people is “you can’t complain if you didn’t vote.”

The idea is, if you didn’t try to influence the machinery of the state, then you have no right to complain about what the machinery of the state does to you against your will.

The idea is, of course, laughable on it’s face.

As with all statist memes, the reality is the opposite. You can’t complain if you *did* vote!

Why? Because, *gasp* you voted for it!

By taking part in the state’s voting ritual, you affirm the legitimacy of the system, you tell the government how you want the state’s machinery to run, you say how you want to force people to live.

By not voting, you are voicing your displeasure with the system, you are showing it has no validity in your life, you’re showing it’s irrelevant and the system is an illegitimate fraud.

The biggest constituency in America is not republicans or democrats, the biggest constituency is non-voters! Whether it be because they don’t care, don’t have the time, don’t think their vote counts for jack squat, or think voting is inherently immoral because it involves telling strangers how to live, the non-voter is the largest voter! They’re voting not to take part in the state’s charade!

Certainly an argument could be made, “I don’t want the state to rob from me etc., so therefore I try to minimize it’s damages.”

That’s all fine and dandy, but for the average voter, I think it’s likely they go in the booth with the intent of trying to tell other people how to live. Of course, they get the oppressive nanny state they ask for, and when it comes to burn them, all the sudden they start to complain. Not enough to actually question the system, just enough to go back next election and vote for some other clown who tells them everything

they want to hear and talks to them like an idiot. While I would never actually say they “can’t complain if they did vote,” the fact of the matter is, if anyone has any less of a right to complain, it’s voters, not non-voters. You don’t grant someone the right to rule over you and then complain because they don’t do everything you want, that they would act in their own best interests, and not yours, is to be expected. If you only did the same, we wouldn’t be in this horrible mess.

I did not vote in this election out of principle, previously I never voted because I just didn’t care, the reality is the same regardless. I do not grant the system any authority, nor do I grant the goon-squad government any legitimacy.

The state is a gang of robbers and thieves writ large, they have absolutely no right to tell anyone else how to live, they have absolutely no right to expropriate their neighbors wealth, and they have absolutely no continuright to threaten their neighbors with guns if they don’t comply with their arbitrary dictates. That a group of strangers voted for them to do it changes nothing.

(Chris runs the website InformationLiberation.com. He doesn’t believe in government by goon-squad and instead wishes to live in a free society. You can read more of his commentary here).