Facebook Executives Meet Regarding Your Privacy
Sign the ACLU Petition Regarding Facebook Privacy Policy
According to news reports, Facebook has called an “all hands” meeting today to discuss its privacy policies. That’s because they are facing a brewing revolt among Facebook users alarmed by the company’s cavalier attitude toward protecting your privacy.
In recent months, Facebook has rolled out some very privacy-unfriendly practices, from the “privacy transition” that took away privacy controls to “instant personalization” that instantly shares your personal information with third party pages without your consent.
At every step, the ACLU has been there to push back. Why? Because the less control you have over your own personal information, the more likely that information could end up in the wrong hands—including the government’s.
Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg has claimed that “the default is social.” That means Facebook starts from the assumption that your personal information will be distributed far and wide without your consent. But, tens of thousands of you have signed the ACLU petition to make it clear that you want to share with your friends, not a spying government.
Facebook is feeling the heat. It’s time to hold the company’s feet to the fire and take back control of our personal information.
You—not Facebook—should decide who to trust with private information about your political interests, sexual orientation, and more.
Sign the ACLU Facebook privacy petition. Make it clear you want to share with the people you choose, not the ones Facebook chooses for you.
Today’s reported all-hands meeting at Facebook means we’ve got their attention. Let’s keep the pressure on until Facebook adopts policies that respect the privacy of its users.
Top Ten Worst Things About the Bush Years
The Bush Decade – Ten Worst Things;
Or, the Rise of the New Oligarchs
A great article about the worst of the Bush years. Here are a few highlights. For more, read the whole article as it appeared on the NewsTrust.net website:
- 10. Stagnating worker wages and the emergence of a new monied aristocracy. Of all the income growth of the entire country of the United States in the Bush years, the richest 1 percent of the working population, about 1.3 million persons, grabbed up over two-thirds of it. The Reagan and Bush cuts in tax rates on the wealthy have created a dangerous little alien inside our supposedly democratic society, of the super-rich, with their legions of camp followers (sometimes referred to as ‘analysts’ or ‘economists’ or ‘journalists’). The new lords and ladies are the Dick and Liz Cheneys and the people for whom they shill. They are the Rupert Murdochs and the Richard Mellon Scaifes, and they are guaranteed to own more and more of the country as long as more progressive taxation (i.e. pre-Reagan, not pre-Bush) is not restored. They are the ones who didn’t want a public universal health option, did not want the wars abroad to end abruptly, did not want the Copenhagen Climate convention to succeed. They are driven by pure greed and narrow profit-seeking for themselves. They always get their way, and they always will as long as you poor stupid bastards buy the line that when the government raises their taxes, it is taking something away from you.
Read the entire article 10 worst things about the Bush years here. - 9. Health and food insecurity increased for ordinary Americans. Health care costs skyrocketed. Most Americans in the work force who have health care are covered via their employers. ‘From 1999 to 2009 health insurance premiums increased 132%” for the companies paying most of the costs of coverage to their employees. Euromonitor adds, “Average private health insurance premiums for a family of four in 1999 were US$5,485 per annum or 7.2% of household disposable income. 2008 premiums were estimated at US$12,973 per annum or 14.8% of average household disposable income.” By Bush’s last year in office, food insecurity among American families was at a 14-year high. About 49 million Americans, one in six of us, worried about having enough food to eat at some points in that year, and resorted to soup lines, food stamps, or dietary shortcuts. Some 16 million, according to the NYT, suffered from ‘“very low food security,” meaning lack of money forced members to skip meals, cut portions or otherwise forgo food at some point in the year.’
Read the entire article 10 worst things about the Bush years here. - 8. The environment became more polluted. The Bush administration was the worst on record on environmental issues. Carbon emissions grew unchecked, and the threat of climate change accelerated. In fact, Bush muzzled government climate scientists and had their reports rewritten by lawyers from Big Oil.
Read the entire article 10 worst things about the Bush years here. - 7. The imperial presidency was ensconced in ways it will be difficult to pare back. But note that its powers were never used against the oligarchs (unlike the case in Putin’s Russia), but rather deployed to ensure the continued destruction of the labor movement and the political bargaining power of workers and the middle class, and to harass and disrupt peace, rights and environmental movements. A part of this process was the abrogation of fourth amendment protections against arbitrary search, seizure and snooping into people’s mail and effects, and of other key constitutional rights…
Read the entire article 10 worst things about the Bush years here. - 6. The Katrina flood and the destruction of much of historic African-American New Orleans, and the massive failure of the Bush administration to come to the aid of one of America’s great cities.
Read the entire article 10 worst things about the Bush years here. - 5. The Bush administration’s post-2002 mishandling of Afghanistan, where the Taliban had been overthrown successfully in 2001 and were universally despised. The Bush administration’s attempt to assert itself with a big troop presence in the Pashtun provinces, its use of search and destroy tactics and missile strikes, its neglect of civilian reconstruction, and its failure to finish off al-Qaeda, allowed an insurgency gradually to grow…
Read the entire article 10 worst things about the Bush years here. - 4. The Iraq War, in which the US illegally launched a war of aggression that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, displaced 4 million (over a million abroad), destroyed entire cities such as Fallujah, set off a Sunni-Shiite civil war, allowed Baghdad to be ethnically cleansed of its Sunnis, practiced systematic and widespread torture before the eyes of the Muslim Middle East and the world, and immeasurably strengthened Iran’s hand in the Middle East. All this on false pretexts such as ‘weapons of mass destruction’ or ‘democratization,’ for the sake of opening the Iraqi oil markets to US hydrocarbon firms– a significant faction of the oligarchic class.
Read the entire article 10 worst things about the Bush years here. - 3. The great $12 trillion Bank Robberry, in which unscrupulous bankers and financiers were deregulated and given free rein to create worthless derivatives, sell impossible mortgages to uninformed marks who could not understand their complicated terms, and then to roll this garbage up into securities re-sold like the
Cheshire cat, with a big visible smile of asserted value hanging in the air even as their actual worth disappeared into thin air.
Read the entire article 10 worst things about the Bush years here. - 2. The September 11 attacks on New York and Washington by al-Qaeda, an organization that stemmed from the Reagan administration’s anti-Soviet jihad in the 1980s and which decided that, having defeated one superpower, it could take down the other. Al-Qaeda’s largely Arab volunteer fighters had confronted the Soviets over their occupation of a major Muslim country, Afghanistan. Bin Laden was himself a Neoliberal Oligarch, but he broke with the Gulf consensus of seeking a US security umbrella, thus creating a fissure within his powerful social class. Al-Qaeda viewed the US as only a slightly less objectionable occupier, though they were willing to make an atliance of convenience in the 1980s. But they were increasingly enraged and galvanized to strike, they said, by the post-Gulf-War sanctions on Iraq that killed 500,000 children, the debilitating Israeli occupation of the Palestinians, and the establishment of US bases in the holy Arabian Peninsula (with its oil riches that Bin Laden believed were being looted for pennies by the West, aided by a supine and corrupt Saudi dynasty).
Read the entire article 10 worst things about the Bush years here. - 1. The constitutional coup of 2000, in which Bush was declared the winner of an election he had lost, with the deployment of the most ugly racial and other low tricks in the ballot counting and the intervention of a partisan and far right-wing Supreme Court (itself drawn from or serving the oligarchs), and which gave us the worst president in the history of the union, who proceeded to drive the country off a cliff for the succeeding 8 years. And that is because he was not our president, but theirs. Read the entire article 10 worst things about the Bush years here…
Read the entire article 10 worst things about the Bush years here.
Chase Bank Resorts to Subterfuge to Trump Students for a Sensible Drug Policy
Recently, Micah Daigle, Executive Director of the Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), asked supporters to vote for SSDP in a competition on Facebook that would have earned them $25K and a shot at $1 million. Thousands of activists and supporters took action, catapulting SSDP into fourteenth place. The SSDP needed to place within the top 100 to win, so victory was assured.
Clearly, Chase can’t be trusted to handle our money. This morning, Micah canceled his credit card account with Chase, and he hopes you’ll join him. Please make the Chase Boycott Pledge at http://www.ChaseBoycott.com
To be clear, this isn’t sour grapes over not receiving a grant – this is about demanding honesty and accountability of a corporation that handles billions of dollars of American assets. The banking giant had every opportunity to disqualify SSDP from the start if they disagreed with the charity’s mission. Instead, Chase Bank used popular social networks to generate free advertising for their brand, and then revoked the winnings after the contest was over without providing an explanation. When asked by SSDP and the New York Times to produce a vote tally, they smugly refused.
Chase executives are not only out of touch with the principles of honesty and transparency, but they are also out of touch with the majority of Americans when it comes to drug policy. Are you aware that 75% of Americans think the bogus War on Drugs has failed and that 53% support legalizing marijuana? This is a mainstream issue that’s gaining more support every day.
And by making a donation to SSDP today, you’ll be sending a message that excellent organizations like theirs don’t need to rely on grants from big banks so long as they can rely on the generosity of supporters like us.
If you donate $25 today, and 999 others take a stand with you, SSDP will raise the $25,000 that Chase revoked. With more than 400,000 supporters on SSDP’s e-mail list and Facebook networks, we can make that happen. I’m in. I hope you are, too!
It’s up to us to fight the good fight, when there stakes are high. We are a country governed of the people, for the people, and by the people. Let’s not give it away to the reckless and unconscionable mega-corporations. Donate today. Your support is greatly appreciated and needed.
Downsize DC Internet Radio Show
Today, Sunday March 30, on the Downsize DC Conference Call, Libertarian Jim Babka’s two-hour radio show, will air at at 3:06 PM Eastern (2:06 PM Central, 1:06 PM Mountain, and 12:06 PM Pacific). The focus of today’s show will be about the Real ID Act.
Not only does Mr. Babka contend that Real ID is not good for America, but he also believes it is anti-American. He is not alone. He’ll provide a great many details about what’s going on in the fight because we’re now at the point where we need to turn up the pressure at a national level. This will be a show featuring some good news.
For the last two years the battle has shifted to the states on this issue and he wants to hear from the activists working in the states. What’s happening in your state?
Please let him know at CALL at DOWNSIZEDC dot ORG (we ask that you type that address in as it sounds because if we provide a hyperlink, spam harvesting programs will snag the address, and make a headache out of it).
To call-in during the show the toll-free number is 1-800-259-9231.
And, by the way, if you want to send a message to Congress asking them to repeal the Real ID Act, you can do so at the website, DownsizeDC.org.
The best way to hear the program is on the Genesis Communications Network website.
And previous episodes are available as mp3 “attachments” to posts on our DownsizeDC.org blog.
