Record Companies vs. Digital Streaming

Read the original here.

Why Spotify can never be profitable: The secret demands of record labels
By Michael Robertson, MP3tunes Dec. 11, 2011, 9:00am PT 106 Comments

Imagine a new hot-dog selling venture. Let’s also say there’s only one supplier to purchase hot dogs from. Instead of simply charging a fixed price for hot dogs, that supplier demands the HIGHER of the following: $1 per hot dog sold OR $2 for every customer served OR 50 percent of all revenues for anything sold in the store.In addition, the supplier requires a two-year minimum order of 300 hot dogs per day, payable all in advance. If fewer hot dogs are sold, there is no refund. If more than 300 hot dogs are sold each day, payments to the supplier are generated by calculating $2 per customer or 50 percent of total revenues, so an additional payment is due to the supplier. After the first two years, the supplier can unilaterally adjust any of the pricing terms and the shop can never switch suppliers.

Would this imaginary hot dog establishment be able to generate a profit? Never, because the economics are one-sided. The supplier will always elect the formula that captures the largest amount of money for themselves, completely disregarding the financial viability of the store. If the store miraculously managed to generate a profit, the landlord would simply raise the rates after two years.

Such economic demands may be imaginary for the hot dog business, but they are the stark reality that every digital-music subscription service such as Spotify, Rhapsody, MOG, Rdio, and others must confront. These details aren’t well-known because digital music service deals are always wrapped tightly with strict non-disclosure agreements.

For the first time, people are talking, and these previously secret demands are being made public. The specifics are even more onerous than the hot dog example cited above. Together they doom online audio companies to a life of subjugation to the labels, as you will learn below.

Here are some specific demands that digital music companies are compelled to agree to:
General deal structure: Pay the largest of A) Pro-rata share of minimum of $X per subscriber, B) Per-play costs at $Y per play, C) Z percent of total company revenue, regardless of other business areas. As stated previously, this means labels de facto set retail price (they also regularly negotiate floors on price, giving even less wiggle room), which limits the ability of the music service to develop ancillary revenue streams that aren’t siphoned off by the labels.
Labels receive equity stake. Not only do labels get to set the price on the service, they also get partial ownership of the company.
Up front (and/or minimum) payments. Means large amounts of cash are necessary to even get into the game. In my experience, this further stifles innovation in services and business models.
Detailed reporting, including monthly play counts. This seems rational enough — you would assume this information is necessary to pay artists and make other business decisions. The problem is, the labels each make additional demands, including providing additional reports unrelated to payment, including overall market share of sales in various categories. I doubt that, for example, phone manufacturers demand Best Buy provide the percentage of sales of competitors’ phones. The labels effectively offload their business analysis (and the cost of such analysis) onto the music services. I can’t think of another industry where that is standard practice.
Data normalization. Labels all provide their data and files in different formats. That data is constantly changing as labels make available new material and make unavailable old material. This might seem trivial. It’s not. Without standard naming conventions and canonical methods for referencing artist, tracks and albums (ISRC and UPC don’t cut it), the services are left to try and match artist, track, album names provided by one label with those of another. It’s incredibly inefficient, as each service must undergo this process separately (although there are now companies that provide a service for doing this for the retailers).
Publishing deals. Once you’ve signed deals with the labels, you then need to cut deals with the publishers. Determining ownership is a complete nightmare and there are huge holes in the licensable catalog. The data issues here are worse than with the labels. The long and short of it: Although you may have the rights to stream from labels, you sometime can’t get the rights to stream from the publisher, or worse, even find the publisher.
Most favored nation. This is a deal term demanded by every major label that ensures the best terms provided to another label are available to it as well. This greatly constricts the ability to work out unique contractual terms and further limits business models. It is a form of collusion since each label gets the best terms the other label negotiates. It’s also why it’s easy to get one label (typically EMI) because they’ll provide low-cost terms knowing that others will demand higher rates, which EMI will then garner the benefit from.
Non-disclosure. Every contract has strict language prohibiting the digital music company from revealing what they pay to the labels. If they speak publicly about any of the licensing terms, they jeopardize invalidating their license which would torpedo their business. Since labels license on behalf of the artists any payment to the artist comes from the labels not the digital music company. This is the main reason music services, not the labels, have been getting heat from the artist community. Music services can’t defend against accusations about low artist payments because they pay the labels who don’t disclose what they’re paying to the artists.

With most other businesses, if a supplier makes unreasonable demands, a retailer can turn to other providers. Since copyright law gives record labels and publishers a government-granted monopoly, no such option is possible with music. Digital vendors have only two options: Accept the terms or not include those songs in their offering.

The sale of EMI to other music companies means there will shortly be only three major labels. If a music service rejects terms offered by a label, then that service’s offering will have an enormous hole in their catalog of 25 percent or more of popular songs. In the business world, a monopoly leads to lopsided economics, and the subscription digital music business is a poignant illustration of that.

Final note: Online radio services such as Pandora take advantage of a government-supervised license available only to radio broadcasters thus sidestepping dealing with record labels. While the per-song fees are daunting, they bypass virtually all of the terms listed above.

A 15-year veteran of the digital music business, Michael Robertson is the founder and former CEO of MP3.com and is currently CEO of personal cloud music service MP3tunes as well as the radio recording service DAR.fm. He can be reached at michael@michaelrobertson.com. He would like to thank Paul Petrick for his contribution to this piece.

A Life Rule lesson

Seriously, what is going on. I railed against it when he announced, and I'll say it again. If you give bad guys a date that the good guys are leaving no matter what, the bad guys will usually just take a vacation and wait until you've left the premises. I genuinely question the logic of setting such a hard timetable for Iraq's exit, and vociferously question the logic and integrity of whomever decided it was worth announcing to the world. I don't understand how anyone will think it's a surprise when the violence goes up. If POTUS claims he ended the Iraq war, I disagree. I think this is a perfect example of why he has never made the transition from popular kid voted class president to being an actual class president. Read the original here.

Dozens die as 14 bombs explode across Baghdad - World news - Mideast/N. Africa - Conflict in Iraq
MSNBC:

BAGHDAD — A wave of bombings ripped across Baghdad on Thursday morning, killing at least 60 people and injuring more than 150 in the worst violence Iraq has seen for months. The bloodbath comes just days after American forces left the country.




The blasts also came on the heels of a political crisis between Iraq's Sunni and Shiite factions that erupted this weekend.

The political spat has raised fears that Iraq's sectarian wounds will be reopened during a fragile time when Iraq is finally navigating its own political future without U.S. military support.

While the string of explosions was likely not a direct response to the political Sunni-Shiite confrontation, it will ratchet up tensions at a time when many Iraqis are already worried about security. If continued, it could lead to the same type of tit-for-tat attacks that characterized the insurgency years ago.

Iraqi officials said at least 14 blasts went off early Thursday morning in 11 neighborhoods around the city.

Figures gathered from Iraqi health and police officials across the city put the death toll at 60, with 160 injured. The spokesman for the Iraqi health ministry put the death toll at 57 and said at least 176 people were injured. Conflicting casualty figures are common in the aftermath of such attacks.

The explosions ranged from blasts from sticky bombs attached to cars to roadside bombs and vehicles packed with explosives. There was at least one suicide bombing among the attacks.

'A huge explosion'
At least 18 people were killed when a suicide bomber driving an ambulance detonated the vehicle near a government office in the Karrada district, sending up a dust cloud and scattering car parts into a kindergarten, police and health officials said.

"We heard the sound of a car driving, then car brakes, then a huge explosion, all our windows and doors are blown out, black smoke filled our apartment," said Maysoun Kamal, who lives in a Karrada compound.

Raghad Khalid, a teacher at a kindergarten near the Karrada blast, said "some parts of the car bomb are inside our building."

"I saw all the windows were blown out and glass scattered everywhere. The children were scared and crying," Khalid added.

Two roadside bombs struck the southwestern Amil district, killing at least seven people and wounding 21 others, while a car bomb blew up in a Shiite neighborhood in Doura in the south, killing three people and wounding six, police said.

"My baby was sleeping in her bed. Shards of glass have fallen on our heads. Her father hugged her and carried her. She is now scared in the next room," said one woman in western Baghdad who identified herself as Um Hanin. "All countries are stable. Why don't we have security and stability?"

More bombs ripped into the central Alawi area, Shaab and Shula in the north, all mainly Shiite areas, and a roadside bomb killed one and wounded five near the Sunni neighborhood of Adhamiya, police said.

Violence in Iraq has ebbed since the height of sectarian violence in 2006-2007, when suicide bombers and hit squads targeted Sunni and Shiite communities in attacks that killed thousands of people.

Stubborn insurgency
Iraq is still fighting a stubborn, lower-grade insurgency with Sunni Islamists tied to al-Qaida and Shiite militias, who U.S. officials say are backed by Iran, still staging daily attacks.

The last few thousand American troops pulled out of Iraq over the weekend, nearly nine years after the invasion that toppled Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein. Many Iraqis had said they feared a return to sectarian violence without a U.S. military buffer.

Just days after the withdrawal, Iraq's fragile power-sharing government is grappling with its worst turmoil since its formation a year ago. Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish blocs share out government posts in a unwieldy system that has been impaired by political infighting since it began.


The government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who is a Shiite, has accused the Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi of running a hit squad that targeted government officials.

Al-Maliki is also pushing for a vote of no-confidence against another Sunni politician, the deputy prime minister Saleh al-Mutlaq. Al-Maliki was likened to Saddam by al-Mutlaq.

Many Sunnis fear that this is part of a wider campaign to go after Sunni political figures in general and shore up Shiite control across the country.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the morning's violence. But the coordinated nature of the assault and the fact that the attacks took place in numerous neighborhoods suggested a planning capability only available to al-Qaida in Iraq.

Many of the neighborhoods were also Shiite areas which are a favorite target of al-Qaida. The Sunni extremist group often targets Shiites who they believe are not true Muslims.

U.S. military officials have said they're worried about a resurgence of al-Qaida after the American military leaves the country. If that happens, it could lead Shiite militants to fight back and attack Sunni targets, thus sending Iraq back to the sectarian violence it experienced just a few years ago.

Jimmy Carter is sad about Kim Jong Il

Seriously? Really Jimmy Carter? I suppose their is no action that he can give that he is out of step with the United States that he once was President of! Read the original here.

Ex-President Carter sends condolences to Kim Jong-un
By Victor Morton
Washington Times
December 21, 2011, 03:38PM

Former President Jimmy Carter has sent North Korea a message of condolence over the death of Kim Jong-il and wished “every success” to the man expected to take over as dictator, according to the communist country’s state-run news agency.

A dispatch from the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Mr. Carter sent the message to Kim Jong-un, Kim Jong-il’s son and heir apparent.

“In the message Jimmy Carter extended condolences to Kim Jong Un and the Korean people over the demise of leader Kim Jong Il. He wished Kim Jong Un every success as he assumes his new responsibility of leadership, looking forward to another visit to [North Korea] in the future,” the KCNA dispatch read.

When contacted by The Washington Times for comment, the Carter Center provided an email contact to a spokeswoman who is out of the office until the New Year.

North Korea is routinely labeled as one of the world’s most oppressive governments under an eccentric personality cult surrounding the Kim family. Harrowing reports from defectors describe North Korea as a dirt-poor nation filled with concentration camps and Communist propaganda. Kim Jong-il ran the reclusive country according to a “military first” policy since the mid-1990s, after a famine that may have killed as many as 2 million people.

Mr. Carter has visited North Korea twice — including a 1994 visit for talks on nuclear issues that led to a deal in which North Korea agreed to dismantle its nuclear-weapons program in exchange for oil deliveries and the construction of two nuclear reactors. That deal collapsed in 2002.

The former U.S. president also downplayed a 2010 North Korean attack on a South Korean island and disclosure of a uranium enrichment facility, saying the acts were merely “designed to remind the world that they deserve respect in negotiations that will shape their future.”

Kim Jong-Il's death, should the US have seen it coming?

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In Kim’s Death, an Extensive Intelligence Failure

Ahn Young-Joon/Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Kim Jong-il, the enigmatic North Korean leader, died on a train at 8:30 a.m. Saturday in his country. Forty-eight hours later, officials in South Korea still did not know anything about it — to say nothing of Washington, where the State Department acknowledged “press reporting” of Mr. Kim’s death well after North Korean state media had already announced it.
For South Korean and American intelligence services to have failed to pick up any clues to this momentous development — panicked phone calls between government officials, say, or soldiers massing around Mr. Kim’s train — attests to the secretive nature of North Korea, a country not only at odds with most of the world but also sealed off from it in a way that defies spies or satellites.


Asian and American intelligence services have failed before to pick up significant developments in North Korea. Pyongyang built a sprawling plant to enrich uranium that went undetected for about a year and a half until North Korean officials showed it off in late 2010 to an American nuclear scientist. The North also helped build a complete nuclear reactor in Syria without tipping off Western intelligence.

As the United States and its allies confront a perilous leadership transition in North Korea — a failed state with nuclear weapons — the closed nature of the country will greatly complicate their calculations. With little information about Mr. Kim’s son and successor, Kim Jong-un, and even less insight into the palace intrigue in Pyongyang, the North’s capital, much of their response will necessarily be guesswork.

“We have clear plans about what to do if North Korea attacks, but not if the North Korean regime unravels,” said Michael J. Green, a former Asia adviser in the Bush administration. “Every time you do these scenarios, one of the first objectives is trying to find out what’s going on inside North Korea.”

In many countries, that would involve intercepting phone calls between government officials or peering down from spy satellites. And indeed, American spy planes and satellites scan the country. Highly sensitive antennas along the border between South and North Korea pick up electronic signals. South Korean intelligence officials interview thousands of North Koreans who defect to the South each year.

And yet remarkably little is known about the inner workings of the North Korean government. Pyongyang, officials said, keeps sensitive information limited to a small circle of officials, who do not talk.

“This is a society that thrives on its opaqueness,” said Christopher R. Hill, a former special envoy who negotiated with the North over its nuclear program. “It is very complex. To understand the leadership structure requires going way back into Korean culture to understand Confucian principles.”

On Monday, the Obama administration held urgent consultations with allies but said little publicly about Mr. Kim’s death. Senior officials acknowledged they were largely bystanders, watching the drama unfold in the North and hoping that it does not lead to acts of aggression against South Korea.

None of the situations envisioned by American officials for North Korea are comforting. Some current and former officials assume that Kim Jong-un is too young and untested to step confidently into his father’s shoes. Some speculate that the younger Mr. Kim might serve in a kind of regency, in which the real power would be wielded by military officials like Jang Song-taek, Kim Jong-il’s brother-in-law and confidant, who is 65.

Such an arrangement would do little to relieve the suffering of the North Korean people or defuse the tension over its nuclear ambitions. But it would be preferable to an open struggle for power in the country.

“A bad scenario is that they go through a smooth transition, and the people keep starving and they continue to develop nuclear weapons,” said Jeffrey A. Bader, a former Asia adviser to President Obama. “The unstable transition, in which no one is in charge, and in which control of their nuclear program becomes even more opaque, is even worse.”

As failures go, the Central Intelligence Agency’s inability to pick up hints of Mr. Kim’s death was comparatively minor. But as one former agency official, speaking on condition of anonymity about classified matters, pointed out: “What’s worst about our intel is our failure to penetrate deep into the existing leadership. We get defectors, but their information is often old. We get midlevel people, but they often don’t know what’s happening in the inner circle.”

The worst intelligence failure, by far, came in the middle of the Iraq war. North Korea was building a nuclear reactor in Syria, based on the design of its own reactor at Yongbyon. North Korean officials traveled regularly to the site.

Yet the United States was ignorant about it until Meir Dagan, then the head of the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service, visited President George W. Bush’s national security adviser and dropped photographs of the reactor on his coffee table. It was destroyed by Israel in an airstrike in 2007 after the United States turned down Israeli requests to carry out the strike.

While the C.I.A. long suspected that North Korea was working on a second pathway to a bomb — uranium enrichment — it never found the facilities. Then, last year, a Stanford University scientist was given a tour of a plant, in the middle of the Yongbyon complex, which American satellites monitor constantly. It is not clear why satellite surveillance failed to detect construction on a large scale at the complex.

The failure to pick up signs of turmoil are especially disconcerting for people in South Korea. The South’s capital, Seoul, is only 35 miles from the North Korean border, and the military is on constant alert for a surprise attack.

Yet in the 51 hours from the apparent time of Mr. Kim’s death until the official announcement of it, South Korean officials appeared to detect nothing unusual.

During that time, President Lee Myung-bak traveled to Tokyo, met with the Japanese prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, returned home and was honored at a party for his 70th birthday.

At 10 a.m. local time on Monday, even as North Korean media reported that there would be a “special announcement” at noon, South Korean officials shrugged when asked whether something was afoot. The last time Pyongyang gave advance warning of a special announcement was in 1994, when they reported the death of Mr. Kim’s father, Kim Il-sung, who also died of a heart failure. (South Korea was caught completely off guard by the elder Mr. Kim’s death, which was not disclosed for 22 hours.)

“ ‘Oh, my God!’ was the first word that came to my mind when I saw the North Korean anchorwoman’s black dress and mournful look,” said a government official who monitored the North Korean announcement.

“This shows a big loophole in our intelligence-gathering network on North Korea,” Kwon Seon-taek, an opposition South Korean lawmaker, told reporters.

Kwon Young-se, a ruling party legislator and head of the intelligence committee at the National Assembly, said the National Intelligence Service, the main government spy agency, appeared to have been caught off guard by the North Korean announcement. “We will hold them responsible,” he said.


Mark Landler reported from Washington, and Choe Sang-Hun from Seoul, South Korea. David E. Sanger contributed reporting from Washington.

Washington Post Editorial on Obama economic policy

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Obama’s simplistic view of income inequality
By Charles Lane, Published: December 19

Maybe Americans are Okunites — as in Arthur Okun, the late Yale economist and author of the 1975 book, “Equality and Efficiency: The Big Tradeoff.”

Okun saw free markets as a source of unparalleled human progress — and of big gaps between rich and poor. Indeed, he argued, markets are efficient partly because they distribute economic rewards unevenly. Government should try to smooth out income stratification, but such efforts risk undermining incentives to work and invest.

Hence the “big trade-off”: channeling income from rich to poor, Okun wrote, was like trying to carry water in a leaky bucket. He wanted to move money from rich to poor without “leaking” so much economic growth that the whole process became self-defeating.

The American public intuitively shares Okun’s concerns. Consider the responses to another question in the Gallup poll. Asked to rate the importance of alternative federal policies, the public saw both economic growth and redistribution as worthy objectives — but put the former well ahead of the latter. Some 82 percent said growth was either “extremely” or “very” important; only 46 percent said “reduc[ing] the income and wealth gap between rich and poor” was “extremely” or “very” important.

In short, the public wants fairness but retains a healthy skepticism about the federal government’s ability to achieve it.

As such, Gallup’s numbers do not bode well for President Obama’s effort, launched in a Dec. 6 speech at Osawatomie, Kan., to win reelection as a soak-the-rich populist.

The president, like Okun, acknowledged that the free market created “prosperity and a standard of living unmatched by the rest of the world.” But he explained the recent rise in inequality too simplistically, as the result of financial deregulation and the “breathtaking greed” it enabled.

And rather than tackle the big trade-off directly, Obama tried to sidestep it. Rising inequality “hurts us all,” he argued, implying that more widely distributed income would essentially pay for itself through higher growth. He alluded to a recent study showing “that countries with less inequality tend to have stronger and steadier economic growth over the long run.”

It’s true that International Monetary Fund researchers Andrew Berg and Jonathan D. Ostry reported in September that egalitarian developing countries grow faster than less egalitarian ones. But the lesson for mature industrial economies is unclear. Western Europe’s recent history suggests that flat income distribution accompanies flat economic growth. Which European country recorded the biggest decrease in inequality between 1985 and 2008? That would be Greece.

The president argued, as he has before, that more government spending on education and training is key to greater equality. No doubt education has been a source of social mobility in the past. Obama has taken some steps in the right direction, notably his “Race to the Top” program that conditions some federal educational aid on reform.

But lack of reform — not resources — remains the problem with U.S. education and with many other public-sector institutions, from housing to agriculture. The president has taken only modest steps to deal with this problem, which is not surprising given his party’s dependence on public-sector labor unions.

Public-sector unions and other interest groups wrap their causes in the rhetoric of equality. Often, what they’re really protecting are privileges that raise the cost of public services to everyone else — including citizens who earn a lot less than civil servants. Yes, Wall Street’s bonuses are stratospheric. But the New York Times recently reported that Medicaid was paying nine executives $500,000or more per year to operate nonprofit homes for the mentally disabled.

Okun’s message is that equality is a public good, whose benefits — social cohesion, political stability and the like — are worth paying for. The trick is not to overpay.

lanec@washpost.com

Cable Company cap policies don't work?

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Data caps a "crude and unfair tool" for easing online congestion
By Nate Anderson | Published 12 days ago

Data caps a "crude and unfair tool" for easing online congestion

Internet providers argue that they need to impose monthly data caps on their users in order to slay the "bandwidth hogs" running wild and free through their networks, goring ordinary users with their tusks when all those users want to do is view some funny cat pictures online after a tough day at the office. The idea is that a monthly quota can reduce the amount of network congestion during peak hours throughout the month. Fact or fiction?

One piece of new research argues that it's fiction. "Our analysis confirms that data consumption is at best a poor proxy for bandwidth usage," writes Benoît Felten, chief research officer of Diffraction Analysis.

Two years ago, Felten and Herman Wagter (the man who spearheaded Amsterdam's fiber rollout and wrote about it for Ars) issued a challenge to Internet providers: show us the evidence.

"Any telco willing to actually understand what's happening there and to answer the question on the existence of hogs once and for all can extract that data and send it over to me, I will analyse it for free, on my spare time," Felten wrote in 2009. "All I ask is that they let me publish the results of said research (even though their names need not be mentioned if they don't wish it to be). Of course, if I find myself to be wrong and if indeed I manage to identify users that systematically degrade the experience for other users, I will say so publicly. If, as I suspect, there are no such users, I will also say so publicly. The data will back either of these assertions."

A midsized American DSL provider finally stepped up to the plate, offering fine-grained detail over the course of a single day from one aggregation link that served 5,138 users. Felten and Wagter broke down the daily data consumption into five-minute increments and went to work.
You're doing it wrong

Their detailed analysis is available as a paid report, but Felten did make his conclusions public this week. He found that 48 percent of active Internet customers "are amongst the top 10 percent of bandwidth users at one point or another during peak hours." Controlling real-time congestion by going after just a few high-data monthly users, then, is unlikely to be effective.

"Data caps, therefore, are a very crude and unfair tool when it comes to targeting potentially disruptive users," writes Felten. "The correlation between real-time bandwidth usage and data downloaded over time is weak, and the net cast by data caps captures users that cannot possibly be responsible for congestion."

His solution: look only at those causing actual congestion during periods of peak use—generally four to five hours in the evening. (Comcast has employed such a system, though it also uses data caps.)

What Internet users do outside that time should have little effect on other network users (because the aggregation links aren't even close to saturation) or on the Internet provider (because the marginal cost of additional traffic on one's own network is essentially zero, and peering and transit arrangements with other ISPs and backbone providers generally involve paying for bandwidth rather than data). So data caps serve as a general warning to subscribers against excessive use—whatever that is—while doing very little to address actual congestion problems.

Even media in other countries are taking notice. The quote of the day: "...As a former constitutional law professor, the President should know better.” -Raha Wala of Human Rights First

Seriously, all I hear is crickets from the people who complained that George Bush stomped on everyone's civil rights, and waterboarding. I'm not saying he was completely in the clear; more so that Obama should not be held to a different standard. In my opinion, from the language in this bill, and the targeted assassination of Anwar Al-Awlaki (I'm not saying he was a good guy, but it set a precedent for indefinite detention via hellfire missile of an American citizen who had not been arrested or charged with anything yet), and SOPA, somewhere George Orwell is in a grave, saying "I told you so."

Read the original here.

Americans face Guantánamo detention after Obama climbdown | World news
Chris McGreal in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 14 December 2011 23.34 EST

Barack Obama has abandoned a commitment to veto a new security law that allows the military to indefinitely detain without trial American terrorism suspects arrested on US soil who could then be shipped to Guantánamo Bay.

Human rights groups accused the president of deserting his principles and disregarding the long-established principle that the military is not used in domestic policing. The legislation has also been strongly criticised by libertarians on the right angered at the stripping of individual rights for the duration of "a war that appears to have no end".

The law, contained in the defence authorisation bill that funds the US military, effectively extends the battlefield in the "war on terror" to the US and applies the established principle that combatants in any war are subject to military detention.

The legislation's supporters in Congress say it simply codifies existing practice, such as the indefinite detention of alleged terrorists at Guantánamo Bay. But the law's critics describe it as a draconian piece of legislation that extends the reach of detention without trial to include US citizens arrested in their own country.

"It's something so radical that it would have been considered crazy had it been pushed by the Bush administration," said Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch. "It establishes precisely the kind of system that the United States has consistently urged other countries not to adopt. At a time when the United States is urging Egypt, for example, to scrap its emergency law and military courts, this is not consistent."

There was heated debate in both houses of Congress on the legislation, requiring that suspects with links to Islamist foreign terrorist organisations arrested in the US, who were previously held by the FBI or other civilian law enforcement agencies, now be handed to the military and held indefinitely without trial.

The law applies to anyone "who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaida, the Taliban or associated forces".

Senator Lindsey Graham said the extraordinary measures were necessary because terrorism suspects were wholly different to regular criminals.

"We're facing an enemy, not a common criminal organisation, who will do anything and everything possible to destroy our way of life," he said. "When you join al-Qaida you haven't joined the mafia, you haven't joined a gang. You've joined people who are bent on our destruction and who are a military threat."

Other senators supported the new powers on the grounds that al-Qaida was fighting a war inside the US and that its followers should be treated as combatants, not civilians with constitutional protections.

But another conservative senator, Rand Paul, a strong libertarian, has said "detaining citizens without a court trial is not American" and that if the law passes "the terrorists have won".

"We're talking about American citizens who can be taken from the United States and sent to a camp at Guantánamo Bay and held indefinitely. It puts every single citizen American at risk," he said. "Really, what security does this indefinite detention of Americans give us? The first and flawed premise, both here and in the badly named Patriot Act, is that our pre-9/11 police powers were insufficient to stop terrorism. This is simply not borne out by the facts."

Paul was backed by Senator Dianne Feinstein.

"Congress is essentially authorising the indefinite imprisonment of American citizens, without charge," she said. "We are not a nation that locks up its citizens without charge."

Paul said there were already strong laws against support for terrorist groups. He noted that the definition of a terrorism suspect under existing legislation was so broad that millions of Americans could fall within it.

"There are laws on the books now that characterise who might be a terrorist: someone missing fingers on their hands is a suspect according to the department of justice. Someone who has guns, someone who has ammunition that is weatherproofed, someone who has more than seven days of food in their house can be considered a potential terrorist," Paul said. "If you are suspected because of these activities, do you want the government to have the ability to send you to Guantánamo Bay for indefinite detention?"

Under the legislation suspects can be held without trial "until the end of hostilities". They will have the right to appear once a year before a committee that will decide if the detention will continue.

The Senate is expected to give final approval to the bill before the end of the week. It will then go to the president, who previously said he would block the legislation not on moral grounds but because it would "cause confusion" in the intelligence community and encroached on his own powers.

But on Wednesday the White House said Obama had lifted the threat of a veto after changes to the law giving the president greater discretion to prevent individuals from being handed to the military.

Critics accused the president of caving in again to pressure from some Republicans on a counter-terrorism issue for fear of being painted in next year's election campaign as weak and of failing to defend America.

Human Rights Watch said that by signing the bill Obama would go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in US law.

"The paradigm of the war on terror has advanced so far in people's minds that this has to appear more normal than it actually is," Malinowski said. "It wasn't asked for by any of the agencies on the frontlines in the fight against terrorism in the United States. It breaks with over 200 years of tradition in America against using the military in domestic affairs."

In fact, the heads of several security agencies, including the FBI, CIA, the director of national intelligence and the attorney general objected to the legislation. The Pentagon also said it was against the bill.

The FBI director, Robert Mueller, said he feared the law could compromise the bureau's ability to investigate terrorism because it would be more complicated to win co-operation from suspects held by the military.

"The possibility looms that we will lose opportunities to obtain co-operation from the persons in the past that we've been fairly successful in gaining," he told Congress.

Civil liberties groups say the FBI and federal courts have dealt with more than 400 alleged terrorism cases, including the successful prosecutions of Richard Reid, the "shoe bomber", Umar Farouk, the "underwear bomber", and Faisal Shahzad, the "Times Square bomber".

Elements of the law are so legally confusing, as well as being constitutionally questionable, that any detentions are almost certain to be challenged all the way to the supreme court.

Malinowski said "vague language" was deliberately included in the bill in order to get it passed. "The very lack of clarity is itself a problem. If people are confused about what it means, if people disagree about what it means, that in and of itself makes it bad law," he said.

WH OKs indefinite military detention of terrorism suspects

Here's the big story for the day. Read the original here.

December 14, 2011 9:22 PM
WH OKs military detention of terrorism suspects
By Phil Hirschkorn

(CBS News) The White House is signing off on a controversial new law that would authorize the U.S. military to arrest and indefinitely detain alleged al Qaeda members or other terrorist operatives captured on American soil.

As the bill neared final passage in the House of Representatives and the Senate on Wednesday, the Obama administration announced it would support passage of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which contains slightly watered-down provisions giving the military a front line role in domestic terrorism cases.

The administration abandoned its long-held veto threat due to changes in the final version of the bill, namely that in its view, the military custody mandate has been “softened.” The bill now gives the President the immediate power to issue a waiver of the military custody requirement, instead of the Defense Secretary, and gives the President discretion in implementing these new provisions.

“We have concluded that the language does not challenge or constrain the President’s ability to collect intelligence, incapacitate dangerous terrorists, and protect the American people, and the President’s senior advisors will not recommend a veto,” the White House statement said.

The detainee provisions are just one part of the annual NDAA authorizing $662 billion in federal defense spending next year.

While the bill never expanded the authority to detain American citizens indefinitely without charges, proponents said the legislation would codify court decisions finding the President does have the authority to declare “enemy combatants,” as commander-in-chief and under the post-9/11 Authorization for Use of Military Force against al Qaeda and its allies. The administration, which has pledged not to use this power, believes the bill leaves this legal issue unresolved.

“By signing this defense spending bill, President Obama will go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in U.S. law,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “In the past, Obama has lauded the importance of being on the right side of history, but today he is definitely on the wrong side.”

FBI Director Robert Mueller, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, said the provisions still could create confusion among counter-terrorism professionals.

“My concern is that you don’t want FBI agents and the military showing up at the same time, with some uncertainty” as to who has control, Mueller said, and raised this hypothetical example: “A case that we’re investigating on three individuals, two of whom are American citizens and would not go to military custody and the third is not an American citizen and could go to military custody?”

Mueller was joined earlier in the detainee debate by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper in opposing the military custody provision, because they said it might inhibit flexibility by counter-terrorism professionals, restrain federal, state, and local law enforcement authorities, and risk losing the cooperation of terror arrestees.

“If President Obama signs this bill, it will damage both his legacy and American’s reputation for upholding the rule of law,” said Laura Murphy, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “The last time Congress passed indefinite detention legislation was during the McCarthy era, and President Truman had the courage to veto that bill.”

Bill opponents have noted that in the decade since the 9/11, the government has successfully convicted over 300 people for terrorism-related crimes, including thwarted plots to bomb passenger jets, subway lines, and landmarks such as Times Square and the Sears Tower.

By comparison, the military justice system, although stymied by constitutional challenges, has completed only six cases in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where 170 detainees remain.

© 2011 CBS Interactive Inc.. All Rights Reserved.

Whose fault is it? The minority rich or the minority powerful?

Is it the fault of the people who have been successful, or the people who set the rules. How many morality tales are there about individuals who acquire the power to legislate over others, set the rules, etc? "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" Who should the "99%" really be looking at protesting?

Read the orginal here.

Opinion: Federal government created the mess we’re in, not those who are wealthy
Posted: Sun, Dec 11, 2011 : 8:02 a.m.
Guest Column | Ben H. Colmery III

It is clear to me that the “Wall Street Occupiers” are going after the symptoms of our problems, not the disease. Being rich is not an evil thing — it is how you become rich that is at issue. The naive protestors do not seem to understand that the federal government is the problem and has created the mess with which we are in.

Federal spending, such as the $700 billion “stimulus package,” does not generate wealth - it only transfers money from one pocket to another. While it is nice to have a new bicycle bridge over U.S. 23 next to Geddes Road. the bridge is not worth anything because no one will buy it.

Wealth is created by establishing a business that makes something or provides a service. Making something to sell is easy to understand. The item has value and if produced for a profit the business has value to an investor or buyer. The service industry, even a hamburger stand, develops wealth if it is run properly and generates a profit. When the owner sells the business part of its value is the “blue sky” or “goodwill’ it has created. People are employed and continue to be employed when wealth is created. Simply paying for infrastructure repair robs Peter to pay Paul — and both are out of a job when the money dries up.

Crony capitalism is a major problem perpetuated by the federal government. Investing our tax dollars in favored companies under the philosophic argument that it will be good for our country is simply wrong. Of course, Solyndra is the current classic example. Two years ago the federal government invested in a South Korean company (L.G.) that makes car batteries for hybrid vehicles located near Kalamazoo. The list is endless. These practices simply must stop.

It is the well intentioned legislation with unintended consequences created by federal legislation that is even a larger problem. The “Affordable Housing Act” generated by President Carter is the genesis of the recent housing market meltdown contributing to the resulting recession. The money made by “Wall Street” resulted from this legislation and the illusion of the housing market boom. “Wall Street” merely reacted to the gold mine presented to them by the federal government. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are equally guilty of contributing to the meltdown by underwriting worthless mortgages — all in the name of a federal “feel good” program to make home ownership accessible to people who couldn’t afford the mortgages.

Taxing the rich is a romantic thought — the Robin Hood approach, but it doesn’t solve the problem. As per Forbes magazine, the top 400 wealthiest individuals in the United States are worth 1.5 trillion dollars. Even if the federal government taxed them at 100 percent of worth, this money would not even cover half of this year’s budget, let alone make a dent in the 14+ trillion dollar national debt. There are approximately 1,400,000 people in the top 1 percent of wage earners. This one percent paid 38% of the income tax revenue in 2008. To generate a trillion dollars more this group would be required to each pay an additional $715,000 in taxes. The bottom 50% of wage earners paid 2.59% of the income tax revenue. So, who is carrying the load?

And as for corporations — they don’t pay taxes, you do for them. Taxes are imbedded in the cost of doing business and are included in the cost of goods and services. As previously stated — the federal government doesn’t create wealth, it transfers existing wealth.

The creation of the Federal Reserve — a private bank that controls our money supply was and is a bad idea. There simply are too many connections between banks, investment firms, and the Federal Reserve — without a glimmer of transparency. We must return to the banking system prior to Jekyll Island and place the money supply back in the hands of Congress and “the people.”

If the “Wall Street Occupiers” and those in our own Liberty Square really want to have an impact they must focus on Washington and ask for accountability from our government. But wait, the Tea Party has already done this — without the violence.

Ben H. Colmery III is a veterinarian and a long-time resident of Ann Arbor. He is in private practice and has been on the faculty at Michigan State University and on staff at veterinary specialty practices.

Quote of the Day

Regarding the secret drone lost in Iran:

President Barack Obama said Monday that the U.S. wants the top-secret aircraft back. "We have asked for it back. We'll see how the Iranians respond," Obama said during a White House news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Monday.

I'm going to go out on a limb, and say Iran will respond much like this episode of The Simpsons:

Read the original here.

Obama calls on Iran to give back downed US drone
By MATTHEW LEE | AP – 20 mins ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration has delivered a formal request to Iran for the return of a U.S. surveillance drone captured by Iranian armed forces, but said it is not hopeful that Iran will comply.

President Barack Obama said Monday that the U.S. wants the top-secret aircraft back. "We have asked for it back. We'll see how the Iranians respond," Obama said during a White House news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Monday.

In an interview broadcast live Monday night on Venezuelan state television, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said nothing to suggest his country would grant the U.S. request.

"The Americans have perhaps decided to give us this spy plane," Ahmadinejad said. "We now have control of this plane."

Speaking through an interpreter, Ahmadinejad said: "There are people here who have been able to control this spy plane, who can surely analyze this plane's system also. ... In any case, now we have this spy plane."

He added, "Very soon, they're going to learn more about the abilities and possibilities of our country."

On Tuesday, a semi-official Iranian news agency said authorities have shrugged off the U.S. request. Defense Minister Gen. Ahmad Vahidi said the United States should apologize for invading Iranian air space instead of asking for the return of the unmanned aircraft.

Obama wouldn't comment on what the Iranians might learn from studying the downed aircraft. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said it's difficult to know "just frankly how much they're going to be able to get from having obtained those parts."

Former Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday called the downing of the drone "a significant intelligence loss."

"For us to go in and take out the drone that crashed, I think, would have been a fairly simple operation," he said on CBS's "The Early Show." But Cheney said the administration "basically limited itself to saying please give it back." Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Panetta said they're not optimistic about getting the drone back because of recent Iranian behavior that Clinton said indicated "that the path that Iran seems to be going down is a dangerous one for themselves and the region."

"We submitted a formal request for the return of our lost equipment as we would in any situation to any government around the world," Clinton told reporters at a State Department news conference with British Foreign Secretary William Hague.

"Given Iran's behavior to date we do not expect them to comply but we are dealing with all of these provocations and concerning actions taken by Iran in close concert with our closest allies and partners," she said.

Panetta said the request to return the drone was appropriate. "I don't expect that that will happen," he said. "But I think it's important to make that request."

Neither Obama nor Clinton would provide details of the drone request, but diplomatic exchanges between Washington to Tehran are often handled by Switzerland, which represents U.S. interests in Iran. The State Department said Monday that the Swiss ambassador to Iran met with Iranian foreign ministry officials last week but refused to say what they discussed.

Iran TV reported earlier Monday that Iranian experts were in the final stages of recovering data from the RQ-170 Sentinel, which went down in Iran earlier this month. Tehran has cited the capture as a victory for Iran and displayed the nearly intact drone on state TV. U.S. officials say the aircraft malfunctioned and was not brought down by Iran.

Despite the incident, Clinton said the administration and its allies would continue to push Iran to engage over its nuclear program while at the same time increasing pressure on the regime with new, enhanced sanctions.

"We obviously believe strongly in a diplomatic approach. We want to see the Iranians engage and, as you know, we have attempted to bring about that engagement over the course of the last three-plus years. It has not proven effective, but we are not giving up on it," she said.

Standing beside Clinton, Hague agreed.

"We're not giving up on engagement with Iran, but on a number of occasions Iran has behaved in a way in recent weeks and months which has intensified confrontation with the rest of the world," he said. "We have seen an increasing predilection for dangerous and illegal adventures on the part of at least parts of the Iranian regime."

Clinton and Hague referred to the storming of British diplomatic compounds in Tehran, allegations that Iran tried to arrange the assassination of the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Iran's ongoing support for militant groups and its continued defiance of demands to prove its nuclear program is peaceful.
___
Associated Press writers Ian James and Fabiola Sanchez in Venezuela contributed to this report.

Obama says U.S. has asked Iran to return drone aircraft

POTUS with all of his wisdom and political acumen, in moving the country into a world that loves the United States again, has determined the best strategy to deal with the secret drone that was lost in Iran.  He decided to ask the mullahs to 'give it back'. Read the original here.

Obama says U.S. has asked Iran to return drone aircraft
By the CNN Wire Staff
updated 9:37 PM EST, Mon December 12, 2011

(CNN) -- President Barack Obama said Monday that the United States has asked Iran to return a U.S. drone aircraft that Iran claims it recently brought down in Iranian territory.

"We've asked for it back. We'll see how the Iranians respond," Obama said in a news conference, alongside Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

A top Iranian military official previously vowed not to return the unmanned American stealth plane that it says it has.

"No nation welcomes other countries' spy drones in its territory, and no one sends back the spying equipment and its information back to the country of origin," said Gen. Hossein Salami, deputy commander of Iran's military, the semi-official Fars news agency reported Sunday.

"It makes no difference where this drone originated and which group or country sent it to invade our airspace," Salami said. "This was an act of invasion and belligerence."

Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney on Monday criticized Obama's decisions on the drone, but for an entirely different reason. He said that, after the aircraft went down, the president should have ordered an airstrike over Iran.

"The right response to that would have been to go in immediately after it had gone down and destroy it," the Republican, who served with President George W. Bush, told CNN's Erin Burnett. "You can do that from the air ... and, in effect, make it impossible for them to benefit from having captured that drone."

Instead, "he asked nicely for them to return it, and they aren't going to," Cheney said.

American officials have not confirmed that the drone shown in a video released last Thursday by Iranian media is a U.S. aircraft. But Pentagon spokesman George Little has said that an American drone is missing and had not been recovered.

Two U.S. officials have confirmed to CNN that the missing drone was part of a CIA reconnaissance mission that involved both the intelligence community and military personnel stationed in Afghanistan.

Iran's official Iran Republic News Agency said the country's armed forces had downed the drone near Kashmar, some 225 kilometers (140 miles) from the border with Afghanistan on December 4.

Salami said downing the plane was "very valuable for us" and "a victory for us and a defeat for our enemies," IRNA reported.

He also said Iran had downed other drones earlier but had not announced those instances because they were not as important.

Iranian TV has aired images of what it says is the drone, an apparently intact RQ-170 drone propped on a pedestal and triumphantly displayed.

One U.S. official said the United States can't be certain it's the real stealth drone, because U.S. personnel don't have access to it. But he added there's no reason to think it's a fake. However, a second senior U.S. military official said that a big question is to how the drone could have remained virtually intact given the high altitude it is believed to have crashed from.

The condition of the drone in the video suggests it was not shot down but suffered a system failure, aviation analyst Bill Sweetman said. There are no burn marks from a fire, no holes and no outward damage. Sweetman noticed a dent along the leading edge but doesn't know what that means.

"It's fairly clear here from the pictures that the outer wings have been separated. The question is, did that happen in the accident or (did they take) them off to move the aircraft?" Sweetman asked.

Iran's U.N. ambassador said in a letter last week that the drone flew 250 kilometers (150 miles) into Iranian territory "to the northern region of the city of Tabas."

The letter from Ambasador Mohammad Khazaee to U.N. Secretary-Genera Ban Ki-moon and the heads of the General Assembly and Security Council said the drone "faced prompt and forceful action" by the armed forces.

"My government emphasizes that this blatant and unprovoked air violation by the United States government is tantamount to an act of hostility against the Islamic Republic of Iran in clear contravention of international law, in particular, the basic tenets of the United Nations Charter," Khazaee's letter said.

He called for U.N. condemnation of U.S. "acts of aggression," as well as "clear and effective measures to be taken to put an end to these dangerous and unlawful acts in line with the United Nations' responsibilities to maintain international and regional peace and security."

MPAA Head Chris Dodd on Online Censorship Bill: China's the Model

Here's another reason to dislike Chris Dodd. First he got involved in the housing market, now he works for the MPAA. Here's their strategy from his own words. Read the original here.

MPAA Head Chris Dodd on Online Censorship Bill: China's the Model
5:31 PM, DEC 12, 2011 • BY DANIEL HALPER

Jen Rubin makes the case today that the anti-piracy bills pending in the House, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), and Senate, the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), are likely unconstitutional. The bills essentially call for censorship of online speech in such a way, and with so little recourse for those accused of "infringing" on intellectual property rights, that the bills will likely not survive the scrutiny of the courts even if they do survive in Congress. But if Congress does pass these laws, it will be a testament to the enormous power and influence of two Democratic special interest groups—the Hollywood lobby, comprised of the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America, and the trial lawyers.

If you're wondering why lawyers and Hollywood folks would get behind legislation to censor the Internet, you only need to listen to former Senator Chris Dodd, now the head of the MPAA, who last week explained to Variety that the lobby is only asking for the same kind of power to censor the Internet as the government has in the People's Republic of China:

"When the Chinese told Google that they had to block sites or they couldn't do [business] in their country, they managed to figure out how to block sites."

Indeed, that is precisely the kind of abuse of power we are already seeing from the collaboration between Hollywood and the government on this issue. Last week a tech website reported on a website seizure by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the behest of the Recording Industry:

The US government has effectively admitted that it totally screwed up and falsely seized & censored a non-infringing domain of a popular blog, having falsely claimed that it was taking part in criminal copyright infringement. Then, after trying to hide behind a totally secretive court process with absolutely no due process whatsoever (in fact, not even serving papers on the lawyer for the site or providing timely notifications -- or providing any documents at all), for over a year, the government has finally realized it couldn't hide any more and has given up, and returned the domain name to its original owner. If you ever wanted to understand why ICE's domain seizures violate the law -- and why SOPA and PROTECT IP are almost certainly unconstitutional -- look no further than what happened in this case.

Even in China they are calling it the “Great Firewall of America.” At least the Chinese are enjoying the irony of the U.S. government moving toward a legal regime that would give it carte blanche to seize and take down websites on the basis of "infringement." Tech Dirt, the site that reported on the above domain seizure, quotes one Chinese blogger on Sina Weibo subversively commenting on the progress of SOPA and PIPA in Congress:

It looks like that we can finally export our technology and value to the Americans. We’re strong, advanced, and absolutely right!

Internet piracy bill: A free speech ‘kill switch’

Read the original here.

Internet piracy bill: A free speech ‘kill switch’
By Bill Wilson, Americans for Limited Government -12/12/11 10:14 AM ET

What began as an attempt to restrain foreign piracy on the Internet has morphed into a domestic “kill switch” on First Amendment freedom in the fastest-growing corner of the marketplace of ideas.

Proposed federal legislation purporting to protect online intellectual property would also impose sweeping new government mandates on internet service providers – a positively Orwellian power grab that would permit the U.S. Justice Department to shut down any internet site it doesn’t like (and cut off its sources of income) on nothing more than a whim.Under the so-called “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA) the federal government – which is prohibited constitutionally from abridging free speech or depriving its citizens of their property without due process – would engage in both practices on an unprecedented scale. And in establishing the precursor to a taxpayer-funded “thought police,” it would dramatically curtail technology investment and innovation – wreaking havoc on our economy.

Consider this: Under the proposed legislation all that’s required for government to shutdown a specific website is the mere accusation that the site unlawfully featured copyrighted content. Such an accusation need not be proven – or even accompanied by probable cause. All that an accuser (or competitor) needs to do in order to obtain injunctive relief is point the finger at a website.

Additionally, SOPA would grant regulators the ability to choke off revenue to the owners of these newly classified “rogue” websites by accusing their online advertisers and payment providers as co-conspirators in the alleged “piracy.” Again, no finding of fact would be required – the mere allegation of impropriety is all that’s needed to cut the website’s purse strings.

Who’s vulnerable to this legislation?

“Any website that features user-generated content or that enables cloud-based data storage could end up in its crosshairs,” writes David Sohn, senior policy council at the Center on Democracy and Technology. “(Internet Service Providers) would face new and open-ended obligations to monitor and police user behavior. Payment processors and ad networks would be required to cut off business with any website that rights-holders allege hasn’t done enough to police infringement.”

The Center’s president and CEO, Leslie Harris, points a bleak picture of the impact SOPA and its companion legislation in the U.S. Senate would have on the world wide web, arguing that the legislation would “(jeopardize) the continued development of powerful new forums for free expression and political dissent.”

“If these bills pass, there will be major collateral damage to Internet innovation, online free expression, the inner workings of Internet security, and user privacy,” Harris writes.

Google’s public policy director Bob Boorstin takes it one step further, arguing that the bills “would put the U.S. government in the very position we criticize repressive regimes for doing – all in the name of copyright.”

The proliferation of free expression on the Internet has spawned a vibrant new marketplace of ideas – toppling the old legacy media construct and ushering in an era of enhanced accountability in which thousands of new voices provide heightened scrutiny of our elected officials.Obviously, silencing those voices and stifling the web’s innovative potential would exact a heavy toll on this new accountability – and on the U.S. economy. In a letter urging their colleagues to oppose SOPA, U.S. Reps. Zoe Lofgren and Darrell Issa speak to this very concern.

“Online innovation and commerce were responsible for 15 percent of U.S. GDP growth from 2004 to 2009,” Reps. Lofgren and Issa write. “Before we impose a sprawling new regulatory regime on the Internet, we must carefully consider the risks that it could pose for this vital engine of our economy.”

Safeguarding intellectual property is certainly an important goal. The ability to protect one’s work product is vital to the proper functioning of the free market – and key to preserving its innovative potential. However in enhancing property protections, we cannot permit the government to trample over our right to free speech and due process.

SOPA is the equivalent of curing a headache with a guillotine. It may stop piracy, but it would shut down our economy and unconstitutionally erode our most basic freedoms in the process.

Wilson is president of Americans for Limited Government.

Congress wants to Legislate the internet

Read the original here.

Overkill on Internet piracy

Right Turn by Jennifer Rubin 

Washington Post

Over the weekend, First Amendment impresario Floyd Abrams addressed two controversial Internet piracy bills, the Senate’s Protect IP Act (PIPA) and the House version, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). He argued that the bill, designed to stop Internet theft of intellectual property, has been denounced by critics for setting up “ ‘walled gardens patrolled by government censors.’ Or derided as imparting ‘major features’ of ‘China’s Great Firewall’ to America. And accused of being ‘potentially politically repressive.’ ” He contends, “This is not serious criticism. The proposition that efforts to enforce the Copyright Act on the Internet amount to some sort of censorship, let alone Chinese-level censorship, is not merely fanciful. It trivializes the pain inflicted by actual censorship that occurs in repressive states throughout the world. Chinese dissidents do not yearn for freedom in order to download pirated movies.”

I don’t quarrel with his assertion that it is hysterical to regard enforcement of libel and copyright infringement on the Internet as the beginning of a totalitarian state. But he misses the real point of sober-minded critics: The bill is unnecessarily overbroad and a formula for a host of undesirable and unintended consequences.

ABC News reported last month on the overbroad nature of the remedies that would be available:
Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, said the bills would overdo it — giving copyright holders and government the power to cut off Web sites unreasonably. They could be shut down, and search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo could be stopped from linking to them.
“The solutions are draconian,” Schmidt said Tuesday at the MIT Sloan School of Management. “There’s a bill that would require ISPs [Internet service providers] to remove URLs from the Web, which is also known as censorship last time I checked.”

Harvard law professor and Supreme Court advocate Laurence Tribe (whom I don’t always agree with but who takes the Bill of Rights quite seriously and was instrumental in developing the jurisprudence that confirmed the Second Amendment is an individual right) has submitted a memo detailing the multiple ways in which SOPA runs afoul of the First Amendment. For example, “SOPA provides that a complaining party can file a notice alleging that it is harmed by the activities occurring on the site ‘or portion thereof .’ Conceivably, an entire website containing tens of thousands of pages could be targeted if only a single page were accused of infringement. Such an approach would create severe practical problems for sites with substantial user-generated content, such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and for blogs that allow users to post videos, photos, and other materials.”And likewise: “The notice-and-termination procedure of Section 103(a) runs afoul of the ‘prior restraint’ doctrine, because it delegates to a private party the power to suppress speech without prior notice and a judicial hearing. This provision of the bill would give complaining parties the power to stop online advertisers and credit card processors from doing business with a website,merely by filing a unilateral notice accusing the site of being ‘dedicated to theft of U.S. property’ — even if no court has actually found any infringement. The immunity provisions in the bill create an overwhelming incentive for advertisers and payment processors to comply with such a request immediately upon receipt.”

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) have introduced a competing bill, the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act (the “Open Act”), which seeks to address legitimate concerns about SOPA/PIPA and focus more specifically on the real problem without knocking down robust, protected speech in an indiscriminate fashion. Google, AOL, eBay, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Mozilla, Yahoo!, and Zynga have signed on to support this alternative to SOPA/PIPA.

The Hill recently reported on OPEN: “The draft proposal would instead authorize the International Trade Commission to investigate and issue cease-and-desist orders against foreign websites that provide pirated content or sell counterfeit goods. The ITC would have to find that the site is ‘primarily’ and ‘willfully’ engaged in copyright infringement to issue the order.” Rather than take down entire websites and potentially interfere with perfectly legitimate and protected speech OPEN, would, after a court order, “compel payment providers and online advertising services to cease providing services to the offending website. The approach comports with current copyright law and hews to the ‘follow the money’ approach favored by Google and other tech companies.”

In short, this is not a fight between protectors of copyrights and Internet anarchists. Rather, there is a legitimate policy dispute about how broad and how disruptive government enforcement powers should be when core First Amendment rights are at issue. No doubt the Motion Picture Association of America, headed by disgraced former Connecticut senator Chris Dodd, has spread plenty of money around Congress to try to give the government the bluntest, heaviest weapon to fight piracy. But that doesn’t make it good policy. And it sure doesn’t make for constitutional legislation.

DNC Chair Denies Unemployment Has Gone Up Under Obama

via RCP, read the original here (with video).

DNC Chair Denies Unemployment Has Gone Up Under Obama
Posted on December 12, 2011

Gretchen Carlson, FOX News: Unemployment has gone up precipitously since he took office.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, DNC Chair: That is simply not true. In fact, unemployment has now dropped below 9%. It's continuing to drop. He's been focused on --

Carlson: It's higher than when they promised the stimulus would lower it to 8%.

Wasserman Schultz: You see, that narrative doesn't work for you anymore, though, because --

Carlson: It's not my narrative. I'm just talking about facts.

Wasserman Schultz: You just said the unemployment rate is going up since Obama took office, and it hasn't.

Carlson: Is unemployment higher since President Obama took office?

Wasserman Schultz: What's happened since President Obama took office --

Carlson: Is unemployment higher than when he took office?

Wasserman Schultz: Unemployment is nearing right around where it was when President Obama took office and it's dropping. You just said it's been increasing and that's not true.

Quote of the Day

I'm not saying he shouldn't want his kids to be successful, as any father does. But as POTUS, shouldn't he be trying to make America successful? What message does this send to everyone whose last name isn't Obama? Read the original here.

December 1, 2011 11:19am
Obama: My kids will succeed, even if USA doesn’t
byJoel Gehrke Commentary Staff Writer
Washington Examiner
Follow on Twitter:

President Obama believes that Republican leadership of the country would ruin the United States as a land of opportunity, but he’s (justifiably) confident that his daughters will have plenty of opportunities, no matter what.

“Our kids are going to be fine,” Obama told supporters at a campaign event last night. “And I always tell Malia and Sasha, look, you guys, I don’t worry about you … they’re on a path that is going to be successful, even if the country as a whole is not successful. But that’s not our vision of America. I don’t want an America where my kids are living behind walls and gates, and can’t feel a part of a country that is giving everybody a shot.”

It is good to be the president.

Unemployment falls to 8.6%. Is that the whole story?

I don't want to take away from what sounds like good news. However, the unemployment rate only measures unemployment claims. Is this skewing statistics like England's statistical cap of multiple crimes against an individual victim? What happens if someone's unemployment runs out, or they give up and stop looking for a job. How many of the new jobs are seasonal hires that will be back to be unemployed after the Christmas shopping season? Read the original here.

U.S. Jobless Rate Unexpectedly Declines to 8.6%
By Shobhana Chandra - Dec 2, 2011 8:49 AM ET Fri Dec 02 13:49:00 GMT 2011

Unemployment in the U.S. unexpectedly dropped in November to a two-year low, while employers added fewer workers than projected and earnings eased, indicating the labor market is making limited progress.

The jobless rate declined to 8.6 percent, the lowest since March 2009, from 9 percent, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. Payrolls climbed 120,000, with more than half the hiring coming from retailers and temporary help agencies, after a revised 100,000 rise in October. The median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey called for a 125,000 gain.

Companies like DirecTV (DTV) have said they will keep a tight rein on spending and employment in 2012, reflecting concern over the outlook for demand, Europe’s debt crisis and the U.S. deficit. The scant number of jobs is limiting wage gains and restraining consumers’ ability to boost spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of the economy.

“It’s good news, not great news,” said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Inc. in Lexington, Massachusetts, who projected a 125,000 gain in payrolls. “The labor market is gradually healing. I wouldn’t take huge comfort that the unemployment rate is falling but some comfort that it’s edging down.”

Bloomberg survey estimates ranged from increases of 75,000 to 175,000.

Stock-index futures maintained gains after the figures. The contract on the Standard & Poor’s 500 index expiring this month rose 1 percent to 1,255.6 at 8:46 a.m. in New York. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.11 percent from 2.09 percent late yesterday.
Unemployment Rate

The unemployment rate, derived from a separate survey of households, was forecast to hold at 9 percent, according to the survey median. The decrease in the jobless rate reflected a 278,000 gain in employment at the same time 315,000 Americans left thelabor force.

The labor participation rate declined to 64 percent from 64.2 percent.

Private hiring, which excludes government agencies, rose 140,000 after a revised gain of 117,000. It was projected to rise by 150,000, the survey showed.

Revisions to prior reports added a total of 72,000 jobs to payrolls in September and October.

Factory payrolls increased by 2,000, less than the survey forecast of a 9,000 increase and following a 6,000 gain in the previous month.
Retail Hiring

Employment at service-providers increased 126,000, including a 50,000 gain in retail trade at companies hired for the holiday shopping season. The number of temporary workers increased 22,300.

Macy’s Inc. (M), the second-biggest U.S. department-store chain, increased mostly part-time staff by 4 percent for the November-December shopping season. See’s Candies Inc., a chocolate maker owned by Berkshire Hathaway Inc., said it would add 5,500 mostly temporary workers.

Construction companies shed 12,000 workers. Government payrolls decreased by 20,000. State and local governments employment dropped by 16,000, while the federal government trimmed 4,000 positions.

Average hourly earnings fell 0.1 percent to $23.18, today’s report showed. The average work week for all workers held at 34.3 hours.
Underemployment Rate

The so-called underemployment rate — which includes part- time workers who’d prefer a full-time position and people who want work but have given up looking — decreased to 15.6 percent from 16.2 percent.

The report also showed an increase in long-term unemployed Americans. The number of people unemployed for 27 weeks or more increased as a percentage of all jobless, to 43 percent from 42.4 percent.

The jobless rate has exceeded 8 percent since February 2009, the longest stretch of such levels of unemployment since monthly records began in 1948.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and his colleagues last month cut economic growth forecasts for 2012 and said unemployment will average 8.5 percent to 8.7 percent in the final three months of next year, up from a prior range of 7.8 percent to 8.2 percent.

Growth in the U.S. and other advanced economies “has been proceeding too slowly to provide jobs for millions of unemployed people,” Fed Vice Chairman Janet Yellen said in a Nov. 29 speech inSan Francisco. She called for “urgent” international action to combat a “dearth” of global demand.
Central Banks

Six central banks led by the Fed acted on Nov. 30 to make more funds available to lenders to preserve the global expansion. The move came after European leaders said they failed to boost the region’s bailout fund as much as planned, fueling concern about a possible breakup of the euro bloc.

The crisis in Europe and presidential election in the U.S. make it difficult to predict the level of economic expansion, causing DirecTV to “slow our growth rate,” Michael White, chief executive officer of the largest U.S. satellite-TV provider, said in an interview last week.

“We’re tightening our belts in terms of spending,” White said in the Nov. 21 interview. “We’ll cut back on overhead, hiring and programming.”

Payrolls may pick up as more businesses benefit from increased demand. Boeing Co. (BA), the largest U.S. aircraft maker, is hiring about 100 machinists a week as it boosts production by about 60 percent over three years to whittle down a backlog that now stretches to nearly 4,000 aircraft.

To contact the reporter on this story: Shobhana Chandra inWashington at schandra1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Christopher Wellisz at cwellisz@bloomberg.net

Glad someone has spare time...

With all that's going on in the world and here in country, I'm glad that some people have the time to relax. Because relaxing is important. Things to remember if you want to be snarky, there are 52 weeks in a year and there have been 148 weeks in Barack Obama's presidency. Not to be too snarky, I mean in all seriousness, the President should have be able to relax now and then. But shouldn't he be working harder at being President than the checkout cashier at your local Target? I don't know if he just doesn't do work or if just appears that way, but judging at the state of things.... What do you think, am I being overly critical or is it ok to expect that POTUS has more important things to do than go golfing all the time?  Read the original here.

Obama Plays Golf for the 30th Time This Year
by Keith Koffler on November 25, 2011, 3:21 pm

It is an unseasonably warm 65 degrees in the Washington area, and President Obama has bolted out of the White House to go golfing.

It’s his 30th time golfing this year and the 88th golf outing of his presidency.

He’s at the Andrews Air Force base course with one of his usual crew, White House trip director Martin Nicholson, as well as Marvin’s brother Walter and Reggie Love.

Love, who is Obama’s personal assistant – or “body man” – is not usually a golfing companion. So the outing may be a farewell gift to Reggie, who is leaving by the end of the year.

This can't be good...

Read the original here.

Iranian protesters storm UK compound in Tehran
By Robin Pomeroy
TEHRAN | Tue Nov 29, 2011 8:50am EST

By Robin Pomeroy

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian protesters stormed two British Embassy compounds in Tehran Tuesday, smashing windows, hurling petrol bombs and burning the British flag during a rally to protest against sanctions imposed by Britain, live Iranian television showed.

The attacks followed the rapid approval by Iran’s Guardian Council of a parliamentary bill compelling the government to expel the British ambassador in retaliation for the sanctions, and warnings from a lawmaker that angry Iranians could storm the British embassy as they did to the U.S. mission in 1979.

Several dozen protesters broke away from a crowd of a few hundred protesters outside the main embassy compound in downtown Tehran, scaled the embassy gates and went inside. Iranian security forces appeared to do little to stop them.

The semi-official Mehr news agency said protesters pulled down the British flag, burned it, and put up the Iranian flag.

Inside, the demonstrators threw stones and petrol bombs. One waved a framed picture of Queen Elizabeth, state TV showed.

The British Foreign Office said it was outraged by the incursion into embassy.

It was not clear if British diplomats had been caught up in the action, or had been harmed. Embassy staff fled protesters “by the back door,” the Mehr news agency said.

Demonstrators waved flags symbolizing martyrdom and held up portraits of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

A separate group of protesters broke into a second British embassy compound in the north of the city, the IRNA state news agency said, and seized “classified documents.”

Riot police later moved in and mounted the embassy gates, helping protesters climb back on the street outside, television pictures showed, and began to slowly clear demonstrators.

The incident followed Britain’s imposition of new sanctions on the Islamic state last week over its nuclear program.

London banned all British financial institutions from doing business with their Iranian counterparts, including the Central Bank of Iran, as part of a new wave of sanctions by Western countries.

In London, Foreign Secretary William Hague said Britain expected other countries to follow its lead in imposing financial sanctions on Iran and will take “robust” action if Tehran reduces their diplomatic relations.

Hague was speaking in a parliamentary debate as news broke of the incident in Tehran but he made no comment on it.

(Reporting by Robin Pomeroy; Writing by Jon Hemming; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Spain goes Conservative...again

Read the original here.

Spain election: Conservatives set to win landslide victory, exit polls show.
Spain’s conservative party were set to win an overwhelming victory as the nation went to the polls to choose a government to steer the country through a looming debt crisis.
By Fiona Govan, Madrid
9:03PM GMT 20 Nov 2011

Initial exit polls suggested the Popular Party had secured between 181 and 185 seats, compared to 154 in the last legislature and that the socialists could only hope to win between 115 and 119 seats. The final results were not expected until late into Sunday night.


Mariano Rajoy, leader of the centre-right Popular Party (PP) was on course to win an absolute majority, as voters punished the ruling Socialists for their perceived mishandling of the economy.

But the 56-year old will have little time to savour his victory as fears grow that the debt laden nation may yet need to seek a bail-out after borrowing costs last week edged towards an unsustainable level.

Monday morning will bring the new Prime Minister the daunting task of winning over financial markets and bring confidence that Spain can swiftly trim its public deficit to save it from becoming the next victim of the Euro crisis.


Mr Rajoy gave little detail of the measures to come during the campaign but pledged major reforms, deeper austerity measures to bring Spain out of the crisis.He must also announce who will be appointed to the key position as economy minister in the new government.

The usual caretaker period of 100 days has been reduced and the new prime minister is expected to be sworn in by Christmas but the dangerous vacuum period has raised fears that Spain could yet succumb to contagion.

Mr Rajoy had pleaded for time to tackle Spain’s deep economic problems. “Those who win should have a minimum margin, more than half an hour” to enact swift reforms, he said Friday on the last day of campaigning.

After the collapse of the Greek and Italian governments, Spain’s ruling socialists were the third government to be pushed from power in as many weeks but in Spain, at least, the electorate were able to choose the successors.

Voters on the whole were pessimistic as they went to the polls on the 36th anniversary of dictator Gen Francisco Franco’s death.

"We can choose the sauce they will cook us in, but we're still going to be cooked," said Jose Vasquez, a 45-year old civil servant as he cast his vote in a Madrid suburb.

“All we can do is keep our fingers crossed that the next government can do what it takes to save Spain,” said Javier Hernandez, an engineer who cast his vote for the PP at a polling station near Las Ventas, the Madrid bullring.

“We don’t really know what’s to come because the PP haven’t told us their plans but it’s time to get rid of the socialists who after nearly eight years have brought this country to its knees,” he said.

With Spain suffering 5 million unemployed - at 22 per cent, the highest rate in Europe - and a second recession looming, many turned against the socialist government of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, which has been in power since 2004.

Socialist prime ministerial candidate Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba had failed to inspire confidence and in the last days of campaigning attempted to limit the certain defeat.

“The PP say they create jobs and quite frankly that’s all we care about,” said Rosa Escobar, 62, who said both of her children were unemployed. “I’ve always voted socialist in the past for ideological reasons but this time I just can’t.”

At some polling booths people arguments broke out after teachers wearing green protest t-shirts in which they have taken to the streets to demonstrate against stringent cuts in education, were told they could not vote.

“I was turned away by voting officials because they said I was wearing a political message,” explained Gema Rodriguez, 44, a former secondary school teacher in Madrid but now on the dole, with the slogan “Public education of all, for all” emblazoned across her chest.

“I was told to remove the T-shirt or forfeit my right to vote. How can this happen in a democracy?” she said.

The socialists seemed likely to lose the region of Andalusia in the south, which suffers one of the highest unemployment rates in Spain.

Smaller and regional parties appeared to have done well, with a new party in the Basque country securing several seats in the national parliament.