12/8 defcon: kepler, voyager, zynga & more

new planet an earth-like world, 600 light-years away?*

video: new planet eerily like earth*
nasa spacecraft 'voyager 1' exploring solar system's edge*
video: surfer blood 'voyager reprise'*
iran shows intact drone, boasts of cyberattack*
house cyber panel chair says put dhs over cybersecurity*
on facebook, nypd officers maligned west indian paradegoers*
oregon judge rules bloggers aren't journalists*
video: zynga set to sell 100m shares in huge ipo*

lieberman wants terrorist flagging button added to blogger

Senator Joseph Lieberman writes letter to Google requesting terrorist flagging feature be added to its blogging platform, Blogger, reports Cryptogon website. Lieberman moved to write letter due to recent bomb suspect Jose Pimentel's arrest. "Cops say he was putting the finishing touches on a pipe bomb when they arrested him Saturday," according to NYDailyNews.com article. "Pimentel is accused of hatching a plot to blow up police cars, post offices and U.S. soldiers." Governments move to quell dissent when public opinion turns against them; the Pimentel case represents an excuse for a crack down.

3/3 defcon: fascism, fake friends, foia

obama joins critics of nonprofit group that oversees internet;

or, obama & china agree: fascist dictators should control the net*
army of fake social media friends to promote propaganda*
centcom says spy bloggers not 'friending' US targets*
bradley manning charged with 22 new counts, including capital offense*
when westboro won't take no for an answer, anonymous hacks - live!*
chaos as anonymous attacks toilet paper, sweden, itself*
scotus says at&t not exempt from foia*
if watson can win jeopardy, can ibm make cities smarter?*
'minority report'-style shopping? billboard profiles, shows ads tailored to your tastes*

philadelphia attempts $300 'business privilege tax' on bloggers

or: it's always money in philadelphia
from nbc philadelphia: Taking a step closer to an eerie Orwellian state where creativity is crushed in the name of “the greater good,” the city of Philadelphia is demanding that bloggers pay $300 for the privilege of writing on the Internet. This $300 “business privilege license” is for all local bloggers – even the ones that make no money off their words. The city doesn’t stop there. In addition to the $300 for the license to write on the World Wide Web, bloggers must pay city wage taxes, business privilege taxes and taxes on any net profits - on top of state and federal taxes - even if the blogger only made $11 over two years, reports the City Paper.

Blogger Marilyn Bess, whose Ms. Philly Organic Blog has made her a whopping $50 over the past few years, went to the city’s tax amnesty program to explain that she makes pennies on her hobby. They told her to hire an accountant, she told the City Paper. In an economy where jobs are sparse and people try to make ends meet with part-time jobs, taxing the independent, scrappy freelancers and bloggers seems counterproductive. But the emptying of bloggers’ wallets may not be the worst result of these taxes. With the city’s charge being more than what most bloggers make, their voices could be silenced, as the extra expense is enough to discourage many from even having a blog.

“To say that these kinds of draconian measures are detrimental to the public discourse would be an understatement,” writes the Washington Examiner’s Mark Hemingway. So what’s next? Higher taxes for longer blogs, cutting the use of vocabulary “newspeak”-style. Oh Nineteen Eighty-Four, you still scare the spit out of us.

update: mayor defends 'business privilege tax' on bloggers

defcon 7/22: bleaker for bloggers

false flag cyber attack could takedown the internet*
obama joins un to dictate acceptable behavior on the net*
feds ignore 1st amendment, shut down 1000s of blogs*
google launches coverup of 'google spies' story*
google's china changes in line with law*
wikileaks reopens for leakers*

tsa threatens blogger who posted new screening directive

from threat level: Two bloggers received home visits from Transportation Security Administration agents Tuesday after they published a new TSA directive that revises screening procedures and puts new restrictions on passengers in the wake of a recent bombing attempt by the so-called underwear bomber.

Special agents from the TSA’s Office of Inspection interrogated two U.S. bloggers, one of them an established travel columnist, and served them each with a civil subpoena demanding information on the anonymous source that provided the TSA document.

The document, which the two bloggers published within minutes of each other Dec. 27, was sent by TSA to airlines and airports around the world and described temporary new requirements for screening passengers through Dec. 30, including conducting “pat-downs” of legs and torsos. The document, which was not classified, was posted by numerous bloggers. Information from it was also published on some airline websites.

“They’re saying it’s a security document but it was sent to every airport and airline,” says Steven Frischling, one of the bloggers. “It was sent to Islamabad, to Riyadh and to Nigeria. So they’re looking for information about a security document sent to 10,000-plus people internationally. You can’t have a right to expect privacy after that.”

Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman Suzanne Trevino said in a statement that security directives “are not for public disclosure.”

“TSA’s Office of Inspections is currently investigating how the recent Security Directives were acquired and published by parties who should not have been privy to this information,” the statement said.

updates: feds withdraw subpoena over security memo &
blogger's twitter account implicated in tsa leak hunt