Cross-posted from Integral Psychosis



A couple of days ago (on my blog) I posted about the recently revealed documents that showed Maryland State Police monitoring and infiltrating anti-war and other leftist political groups, despite the fact that no crimes and criminal activities were taking place (and as the Baltimore Sun‘s article points out, reasonable suspicion of a crime is required, by law, for police to take such actions).  The crux of my point in regards to the story was that people and groups who find themselves with a surplus of power and authority- specifically governments- are inherently un-“democratic” in that they will always seek to intimidate, prosecute, and do-away with beliefs and opinions which run counter to their own “official” politic.  Though in the U.S. the official line maintains that we are a “free” society of “free” people, the reality is that such freedom is mostly- and increasingly- limited to those who support, or at least accept, capitalism and the prevailing mood of the moment.

With this all in mind, I’m going to take the Maryland State Police spying story and bring it closer to home for us Vermonters.  The other day I ran into Matt, AKA Santa Clause, the infamous Governor Douglas pier.  He recounted for me the story of a few nights prior, when the vehicle he was a passenger in was pulled over by Montpelier Police late in the evening.  Though he had no ID on him (he wasn’t the driver) when he gave the officers his name they wondered aloud why his name was so familiar- eventually realizing why.  As Matt tells the story, the MPD were in fact quite sympathetic to his pie-fully sweet action of dissent during the Independence Day parade, and even cracked a few jokes with him and the other passengers.  However, one of the officers did say this: “You know, you’re on the FBI’s Terrorist Watch list now.  You’re going to have a really hard time getting on a plane or a Greyhound Bus.  We have nothing to do with it- it’s an FBI thing.  Just watch out for yourself.” (I’m paraphrasing from Matt’s story, obviously I don’t know the officer’s exact words).

Lets take a minute to think about this here.  A Federal Terrorist Watch List, meant to monitor and keep track of the activities of groups and individuals who are allegedly bent on killing innocent people, now includes the name of a 20-something kid from rural Vermont who just happens to disagree with the dominant political paradigm, who was willing to take a pastry to a person of authority in a symbolic act of rejecting a politic that he finds morally repugnant and inhumane.  This is what we’ve come to here in the States: a society so afraid, so insecure, so philosophically dogmatic that any action which is deemed unacceptable by those in power- regardless of the actual context or legitimate ideas meant to be put-forth by such an action- is “terrorism”.

I, for one, do not feel any safer knowing that this is how the Fed portends to “protect” me and my neighbors from the actual dangers of the world.

cas-cade (n) a succession of devices or stages in a process, each of which triggers or initiates the next

(definition taken from The New Oxford American Dictionary)

How likely except for the internet is it that the Netroots Nation conference would be viewable literally by folks world wide. Considering the name of the organization, how likely is it that a non-Republican/corporate oriented gathering would be able to garner much, if any, publicity … except for the internet?

In both a devices and stages sense, the internet has proved itself to be a cascade. While I’m focusing on social improvement, businesses and governments are transforming or have transformed themselves due to the massive information connections the various ‘net “tubes” make available.

But I want to go one step lower. Net Neutrality!

In the simplest terms net neutrality describes an even playing field that does not discriminate based upon content. Net neutrality says that Disney or MacDonald/Douglas cannot be given, or sold, a more favorable access to the ‘net than Green Mountain Daily or Netroots Nation because of a web site’s offerings.

Net neutrality today is based upon promises whereby various transport companies such as Comcast (who was caught interfering with peer to peer downloads over their network). As Vermont Yankee has shown us, however, corporate promises are only as good as … well … the promising corporation wants to make them.

The diversity we see today on the internet is solely because in the US we’ve taken a controlled anarchistic (libertarian if you will) view of how it should be run. Thus one can get hard core porn or children’s cartoons; traditional and non-traditional politics; medical information; family vacation pictures and so much more. If net neutrality is allowed to slip there is absolutely no doubt the powers in control (whomever they be) will push for a more homogeneous electronic fare.

I have no doubt in my mind that such as Netroots Nation would have been made prohibitively expensive to broadcast over the internet, and thus to billions of possible viewers, if the internet had grown out of a proprietary business plan as opposed to the government (military don’t ya’ know) turned educational turned public venture project it is.

Look to Apple’s Mac and the PC computers as great examples. IBM (because they didn’t believe there was a future for small desktop computing) released the entire PC design to the public, and it quickly became a standard. On the other hand Apple closely controlled their design and build, and this has kept the Mac a creature of Apple’s business as opposed to plethora of PC compatible computer brands out there. Guess which costs less for comparable computing power and has a wider variety of hardware, software and service providers?

You got it … the PC.

Because the internet was a creation of our federal government, and because the standards that make up the internet were made public a cascade of events occurred. Standards were publicly submitted and reviewed and accepted or rejected. Big corps won some and big corps lost some as did the little people and governments and whatever else.

But there is one other thing to bear in mind. The Siren lure of the ‘net for a huge number of people is because of the great disparity of offerings out there. Before people used the internet for shopping, folks were passing around emails and building personal websites and showing photos which led to a familiarity with the ‘net that made internet shopping as acceptable as it is as quickly as this happened.

Net neutrality is what brought many, if not almost all, of us to the internet. Next to the US government, net neutrality is the most important thing in the social explosion we know as the internet.

If we want to find Netroots Nation next year as easily as we did this year we need to zealously fight for and protect this notion called net neutrality. There is huge huge money in dumping this, and we’re either going to be paying those bills or falling by the wayside should net neutrality dissolve.

Cascades can be good and bad!

Go Netroots Nation!

The Vermont state police have once again decided that warrants were an unnecessary part of their process.  Unfortunately for them, they were no match for mild mannered, 4′ 10″, 56-year old, librarian by day, civil rights defender by… okay, also by day… Judith Flint.

The short version: the state police showed up at Kimball Public Library to seize the library’s computers because they had a tip that Brooke Bennett may have used them at some point and she asked them for a warrant.  

As reported in, of all places, The Fresno Bee (used to avoid linking to an AP article; otherwise I’d use the Herald):

Children’s librarian Judith Flint was getting ready for the monthly book discussion group for 8- and 9-year-olds on “Love That Dog” when police showed up.

They weren’t kidding around: Five state police detectives wanted to seize Kimball Public Library’s public access computers as they frantically searched for a 12-year-old girl, acting on a tip that she sometimes used the terminals.

Flint demanded a search warrant, touching off a confrontation that pitted the privacy rights of library patrons against the rights of police on official business.

[…]

“What I observed when I came in were a bunch of very tall men encircling a very small woman,” said the library’s director, Amy Grasmick, who held fast to the need for a warrant after coming to the rescue of the 4-foot-10 Flint.

The police did return with a warrant eight hours later (see?  How difficult was that?), but concerns remain.  Continuing from the Bee article:

Once in police hands, how broadly could police dig into the computer hard drives without violating the privacy of other library patrons?

[Vermont State Police Colonel] Baker wouldn’t discuss what information was gleaned from the computers or what state police did with information about other people, except to say the scope of the warrant was restricted to the missing girl investigation.

“The idea that they took all the computers, it’s like data mining,” said [deputy director of intellectual freedom issues for the American Library Association] Caldwell-Stone. “Now, all of a sudden, since you used that computer, your information is exposed to law enforcement and can be used in ways that (it) wasn’t intended.'”

Go Judith Flint!  Go Amy Grasmick!  

And as far as the Vermont State Police go, why would you waste your time during a frantic search trying to obtain computers that you have no right to obtain when it’s easy enough to go to a judge first?

I mean, come on.  This is not rocket science.  

( – promoted by odum)

The three member State panel has been refused access to Vermont Yankee Monday.An inspection Monday by the NRC and State officials looking into the leak and cooling tower bracket malfunction will not be joined by members of the newly appointed team.This bodes poorly for the panels success.Gov Douglas has from the start vaguely questioned two members impartiality as if to lay the groundwork for this type of tactic.Commissioner O’Brien said last week that He promised to talk to Entergy corporate officials about the state’s ongoing concerns. To state the clearly obvious an awful lot more is needed,cooperation to start.Gov.Douglas has yet to my knowledge comment on the Yankee leak and other problems last week that resulted in the plant shutting down to 25% of power.The aging nuclear plant supplies one third of Vermont’s electric power .

MONTPELIER — The state Department of Public Service has declined to let members of a panel created by the Legislature to do a special audit of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant join an inspection of the plant set for Monday, officials confirmed Friday.

“They’re trying to stonewall our appointees,” Shumlin said Friday.

He said the legislative appointees, retired nuclear engineer Arnold Gundersen and former federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission member Peter Bradford, needed to be full participants in the Vermont Yankee review for lawmakers to have confidence in the plant’s continued operation.

Stephen Wark, spokesman for the DPS, said Friday he could not comment of the matter because of an agreement that the deliberations of the Public Oversight Commission be kept secret.

Diane Screnci, spokeswoman for the NRC’s Northeast regional office, confirmed that no member of the Public Oversight Commission would be attending Monday’s inspection.

“The Department of Public Service has not requested that any member of the panel observe the (inspection),” Screnci said. “And they would have to tell us; they would have to request this specific person and they haven’t at this point.”

http://www.burlingtonfreepress…