One of the fastest ways to ruin the Internet would be to put the United Nations in charge of it. Unfortunately, that is exactly what the United Nations wants. The United Nations is now pushing very hard for complete control over the Internet. A proposal that has the support of China, Russia, India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Iran would give control of the Internet to the UN’s International Telecommunication Union. This is perhaps the greatest threat to the free and open Internet that we have seen yet. At a UN conference in Dubai this upcoming December, representatives from 193 nations will debate this proposal. The United States and many European nations are firmly against this proposal, but it is unclear whether they have the votes to stop it. Unlike the Security Council, there are no vetoes when it comes to ITU proceedings. So the United States may not be able to stop governance of the Internet from being handed over to the United Nations. The United States could opt out of any new treaty, but that would result in a “balkanized” Internet. If the UN gains control over the Internet, you can expect a whole new era of censorship, taxes, and surveillance. It would be absolutely catastrophic for the free flow of commerce and information around the globe. Unfortunately, many repressive regimes are very dissatisfied with how the Internet is currently working and they desperately want to be able to use the power of the UN to tax, regulate and censor the Internet. Needless to say, that would be a disaster. International control over the Internet would be a complete and total nightmare and it must be resisted. (Read More...)
Internet
10 Reasons Why Nothing You Do On The Internet Will EVER Be Private Again
The Internet is rapidly being transformed into a Big Brother control grid where privacy rights are being systematically strangled to death. The control freaks that run things have become absolutely obsessed with watching, tracking, monitoring and recording virtually everything that you do on the Internet. One thing that you can count on is that nothing you do on the Internet will ever be private again. In fact, if you are obsessed with privacy then the last place you want to be is on the Internet. Most Americans have absolutely no idea how far Internet surveillance has advanced in the past few years. At this point, it would be hard to imagine any place less private than the Internet. Do not ever put anything on the Internet that you would not want the authorities or your employer to hold you accountable for. Basically, the Internet is creating a permanent dossier on each one of us, and we contribute to this process by freely posting gigantic volumes of information about ourselves on social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter. The Internet is the greatest tool for mass communication that the world has perhaps ever seen, and it gives average citizens the ability to communicate with each other like never before, but there is also a downside to using the Internet. Everything that we do on the Internet is being watched, monitored and recorded and there is no longer any such thing as Internet privacy. If you think that you still have any privacy on the Internet, then you are either ignorant of what is going on or you are being delusional. (Read More...)
According To The FBI, Internet Privacy Is Now Considered To Be Suspicious Activity
When you use the Internet in a public place, do you prefer to have as much privacy as possible? Well, that makes you a potential terrorist. According to the FBI, Internet privacy is now considered to be suspicious activity. If you are out in public and you attempt to keep snoopers from peeking at your computer screen, then according to the FBI they should gather as much information about you as they can and they should report you to the authorities immediately. If this seems completely and totally ridiculous to you, then you are not alone. Millions of Americans have become deeply concerned about the constantly expanding definition of “suspicious activity” in the United States. Sadly, the federal government is now engaging in an all-out attempt to have us all spy on one another. All over America, the Department of Homeland Security is running ads promoting the “See Something, Say Something” campaign. They even had 8,000 stadium workers at the Super Bowl this year go through special training on how to spot potential terrorists. So the next time you see a hot dog vendor, keep in mind that he might also be part of a special anti-terrorism task force. (Read More...)
ACTA = Global Internet Censorship – Now Even Foreign Governments Will Be Able To Have Your Website Shut Down
Global Internet censorship is here. SOPA and PIPA have been stopped (at least for now) in the United States, but a treaty known as ACTA (the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) is far worse than either of them. ACTA was quietly signed by Barack Obama back on October 1st, 2011 and most Americans have never even heard of it. But it could mean the end of the Internet as we know it. This new treaty gives foreign governments and copyright owners incredibly broad powers. If you are alleged to have violated a copyright, your website can be shut down without a trial and police may even show up at your door to take you to prison. It doesn’t even have to be someone in the United States that is accusing you. It could just be a foreign government or a copyright owner halfway across the world that alleges that you have violated a copyright. It doesn’t matter. So far, the U.S., the EU and seven other nations have signed on to ACTA, and the number of participants is expected to continue to grow. The “powers that be” are obsessed with getting Internet censorship one way or another. The open and free Internet that you and I have been enjoying for all these years is about to change, and not for the better. (Read More...)
Why We Must Stop SOPA
Right now, there are two pieces of legislation in Congress that would change the Internet forever if they are enacted. The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) would give the federal government the ability to potentially shut down millions of websites. SOPA (the version being considered in the U.S. House of Representatives) is the more dangerous of the two. It would essentially be the equivalent of a nuclear bomb being dropped on the Internet. It would give government officials unlimited power to very rapidly shut down any website that is found to “engage in, enable or facilitate” copyright infringement. That language is very broad and very vague. Many fear that it will be used to shut down any websites that even inadvertently link to “infringing material”. Can you imagine a world where there is no more Facebook, Twitter or YouTube? Sites like those would be forced to hire thousands of Internet censors to make sure that no “infringing material” is posted, and many prominent websites may simply decide that allowing users to post content is no longer profitable and is just not worth the hassle. Are you starting to get the picture? That is why we must stop SOPA. If SOPA is enacted, it could be the death of the free Internet. (Read More...)
First Amendment Under Attack: 18 Examples Of How They Are Coming For Our Free Speech
In the United States today, the First Amendment is under attack like never before. Technological innovations such as the Internet have made it possible for average Americans to communicate directly with one another in ways that completely bypass the mainstream media, and this is making the elite very uncomfortable. They have decided that they better come after our free speech before it is too late. Right now, free speech in America is being chipped away at it in thousands of different ways. On the one hand, you have the disciples of “political correctness” that want to make all forms of speech that are “offensive” to anyone against the law. On the other hand, you have those that are obsessed with “national security” that want to ban all speech that is critical of the U.S. government or the U.S. military. These twin forces are constantly seeking to push the First Amendment into a smaller and smaller box. If you say the wrong thing in America today, your website might be shut down, you could be suspended from school, you may find yourself out of a job and there is now even a possibility that you could be arrested and shipped off to Guantanamo Bay without a trial. (Read More...)
Betrayed! Tea Party Politicians Vote To Renew The Patriot Act As America Is Slowly Transformed Into A Big Brother Police State Worse Than George Orwell’s 1984
For a moment, imagine that you are awakened one night by a heavily-armed team of federal agents dressed in all black breaking into your home. As you confront them, they hand you a piece of paper that says that your son has been identified as a “terrorist” and that they are there to take him away. They pull your son out of bed, they throw him on the floor and the use a taser on him repeatedly. Then they handcuff him and haul him away without telling you a thing about where they are taking him. Your son suddenly has no rights because the Patriot Act supersedes the U.S. Constitution. That’s right – because your son has been identified as a “terrorist” because of something that he has said on the Internet he no longer has any constitutional rights. Your underage son is held indefinitely and is subjected to “enhanced interrogation” because he has been identified as a “threat”. You are not able to get your son back for years even though it turns out that he is completely and totally innocent. If you think that such a thing cannot happen to you then you are a fool, because this kind of thing is happening over and over across the United States and it is all legal because of the Patriot Act. (Read More...)
Uh Oh – The Internet Is About To Run Out Of IP Addresses!
Yes, you read the headline correctly. The Internet is about to run out of IP addresses. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority has scheduled a press conference in Miami on Thursday to announce that they are distributing the last blocks of new Internet addresses. It is expected that all of those IP addresses will be fully distributed within 6 to 9 months and then there will be no more. The current IP address system, known as “IPv4”, can only support a little over 4 billion IP addresses and we have now almost reached that limit. The good news is that a replacement for the current system already exists, but the bad news is the the vast majority of Internet devices around the globe do not speak the “language” of the new system. This has the potential to create an Internet “headache” of mammoth proportions in the coming years. (Read More...)