Congress: This is a Blackout

If you can read this, you aren't viewing my post from a Congress IP. Hello! If you were trying to access my blog from a Congress IP, though, you would be...somewhere else.

Thousands of websites block Congress in Patriot Act protest: "Led by the online activist group Fight for the Future, more than 10,000 sites have added code that redirects any visitors from Internet protocol (IP) addresses stemming from Congress away from their site and towards a protest page."

Want to know what the big deal is? Here's an old (in Internet terms) video that covers it really well:

The Patriot Act has been used by the NSA and other organizations to collect an unbelievable (and, turns out, illegal) amount of private information. Proponents argue it's necessary to fight terrorism, but the FBI has admitted it's ineffective for that purpose; it is used, inappropriately, for other issues - primarily narcotics cases. Some provisions, particularly Section 215, are about to "sunset" - that is, if Congress does nothing, it just...disappears. And, as Jennifer Granick, Director of Civil Liberties at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, wrote for Forbes: A Sunset Is A Beautiful Thing! What should we be asking our Congressmen to do? 

Nothing.

So, let’s don’t just do something, let’s stand here. Let’s let 215 sunset. It was unthinkable a month ago. Today it’s likely. In combination with the Second Circuit opinion, the sunset will, irrefutably, put laws on the books that will end domestic dragnets. Then, let’s get serious. Let’s have hearings, really understand all the spying being done in our name, how the information is being used. Let’s set up real, comprehensive, robust checks and balances, starting with declassifying interpretations of law and changing the role of the FISA judges.

Of course, the intelligence community is going to come back to Congress and ask for more robust spying powers. Maybe the IC needs these powers. If so, it can make the case and we can publicly, democratically, debate it. But the sunset takes us back to first principles. This is America. No secret law. No suspicionless spying. The sunset is a necessary first step for a new day to dawn. [Source]

Sounds just fine to me. I always did like a good sunset. If you can, please contact your members of Congress and ask them to do nothing - let the Patriot Act die.

More links on this topic:

• Americans Want the Patriot Act to Die. Let It. 
• Congress should sunset part of Patriot Act to prevent domestic spying 
• Let the Sun Set on PATRIOT - Section 215 
• U.S. to stop collecting bulk phone data if Congress lets law expire 
• This Is What Section 215 of the Patriot Act Does  
• The NYTimes Plays Its Role In 'Keeping Fear Alive' With Pure Fearmongering Over PATRIOT Act Renewal 

Links!

• Libraries, Books, Writers, & Suchlike
• Dear librarian: New York Public Library's quirkiest inquiries This is exactly what it's like working in a public library! 
• 'Compliance' stays on Toronto library shelves despite complaint 
• Review: Neal Stephenson's 'Seveneves' is moonstruck by nerdiness This is probably the best description I've ever read of Stephenson's writing - including his inability to finish a story well. I still love his books, and will absolutely be reading Seveneves soon!
• CBLDF Joins Coalition Protesting Censorship of Of Mice and Men in Idaho
• A High School Teacher Was Forced to Resign for Sharing an Allen Ginsberg Poem. How Absurd. 
• May 29, 1906: T.H. White, author of The Once and Future King is born
• Cartoonists Tell Azerbaijan to #FreeKhadija 
• China’s Publishers Court America as Its Authors Scorn Censorship "...a handful of writers who gathered on the steps of the New York Public Library on Wednesday night to protest the limits on free speech and expression in China. The gathering, organized by the PEN American Center, was prompted by the presence of a large delegation of Chinese publishers at BookExpo America, a major publishing trade event taking place in Manhattan this week." 
• Net & Tech
• Africa's Worst New Internet Censorship Law Could be Coming to South Africa 
• FCC moves to crack down on unwanted robocalls "The Do Not Call Registry was established in 2003 and had 218 million actively registered phone numbers as of Sept. 30. In most cases, telemarketers are not allowed to call numbers on the list. And most telemarketing robocalls have been illegal since 2009.  But technological advances have made it easier for telemarketers to route calls over the Internet or dial from overseas, circumventing the U.S. law, Marvin said. 'Crooks don't care about the Do Not Call list.'"
• Encryption key to free speech, says UN report "The report comes as many governments seek to put 'backdoors' in encryption software to aid law enforcement....'States should not restrict encryption and anonymity, which facilitate and often enable the rights to freedom of opinion and expression.'"
• Mercury News editorial: Tech industry must secure privacy rights 
• FCC Announces Plan to Extend Lifeline to Broadband 
• Ford Has Made All Its Hybrid And Electric Car Patents Available To Competitors 
• Google Cardboard Viewfinder grew up and became awesome...I want four, please.
• Health & Science
• World Hunger Has Significantly Dropped Despite Population Growth 
• There's An Effective Vaccine For Lyme Disease - But You Can't Get It, Thanks To Anti-Vaxxers 
• I Fooled Millions Into Thinking Chocolate Helps Weight Loss. Here's How. "I am Johannes Bohannon, Ph.D. Well, actually my name is John, and I’m a journalist. I do have a Ph.D., but it’s in the molecular biology of bacteria, not humans. The Institute of Diet and Health? That’s nothing more than a website.  Other than those fibs, the study was 100 percent authentic. My colleagues and I recruited actual human subjects in Germany. We ran an actual clinical trial, with subjects randomly assigned to different diet regimes. And the statistically significant benefits of chocolate that we reported are based on the actual data. It was, in fact, a fairly typical study for the field of diet research. Which is to say: It was terrible science. The results are meaningless, and the health claims that the media blasted out to millions of people around the world are utterly unfounded.  Here’s how we did it."  
• Op-Ed Who's to blame when fake science gets published? 
• Scientists Predict Everest Could Be Ice-Free By The End Of This Century 
• Software Glitch Pauses LightSail Test Mission Awww...
• Education
• Which students get to have privacy? 
• The case for starting sex education in kindergarten 
• Breaking News: World Leaders Commit To 12 Years Of FREE Education For All 
• What the heck is going on with Wisconsin public education? 
• Dress Code Warns Graduating Senior Girls Not To Show Their ‘Sausage Rolls’ That seems like really inappropriate language. The whole letter is just entirely inappropriate, demeaning, and sexist. 
• Parents, Witnesses Claim School Threw Away Lunch Of Student Unable To Pay 
• Authority Issues
• Ignoring court order, police in Kentucky town put mentally-ill man on bus to Florida "It's unclear whether police thought their maneuver would go undetected. Horine, after all, was a bit of a vagrant, bouncing among temporary homes, jail and jobs. Who would advocate for him?  Today, Horine is back in Kentucky and in the psychiatric hospital, just days away from his next court appearance. The Kentucky attorney general's office is investigating the whole affair.  And in one more bizarre twist, the justice system that sent Horine to Florida had to charge him with a new crime to extradite him to Kentucky. The offense? Escape from jail, a felony." Well, I certainly hope that felony gets thrown out - otherwise, we'll just have to charge the police department with acting as an accessory to a felon.
• Man Threatens Suicide, Police Kill Him 
• International
• 10 killed by car blasts at two luxury Baghdad hotels 
• Women barred from voting in parts of Pakistan 
• Welcome to Cambodia: What Australia isn't telling refugees 
• Louisiana
• Louisiana equal pay measure dies in House committee at hands of business-friendly House committee "Louisiana now ranks 49th in the U.S. when it comes to employees receiving the same pay for the same work regardless of sex.  Proponents said statistics show women in Louisiana make 66 cents compared to a dollar that men make."
• LCMC Health will 'rethink' University Medical Center deal without full funding 
• Other (Serious Stuff)
• Anheuser-Busch Halts Beer Production to Provide Water for Texas, Oklahoma Storm Victims 
• California’s Drought Is So Bad, Thieves Are Now Stealing Water 
• Instead of Playing Golf, the World's Elderly Are Staging Heists and Robbing Banks 
• “Big 3” Credit Bureaus Settle With 31 States Over Credit Reporting Mistakes 
• Mapping the Hourly Wage Needed to Rent a 2-Bedroom Apartment in Every U.S. State "A new report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition....finds that in no state can a person earning minimum wage afford such an apartment at market rent."
• The myth of victory 
• Maple Grove couple: We were terrorized at gunpoint 
• Other (Interesting Stuff)
• The Magical World Of Australian Mushrooms By Steve Axford 
• How Comedians Became Public Intellectuals 
• Time Wasters: Desktop App Turns Any Part Of Your Screen Into A Playable Super Mario Level