A few book ideas in retort to “Sex at Dawn”:
“The Horny Scriptures” – Explores the tension between the Bonobo monkeys’ culture of polyamory and biologically determined monogamy.
“Pretty Good For Us Big Monkeys” – A cross-species study exploring the sexual strategies of culturally attractive primates.
“Free Trade, Free Sex” – Beyond the sexual prisoner’s dilemma and toward a Neo-Liberal economy of relationships with no borders.
A Response to the Portland City Council’s JTTF Review Work Plan
Things have not gotten better with the JTTF, they have gotten worse. This is definitely not the time to get back in bed with the Feds. They do not respect the privacy and freedom of expression rights of Portlanders any more at this time, then they did then, and perhaps less now. The bruises still remain from the JTTF’s legacy of terror upon the Constitutional rights of citizens pre-2005, especially in Portland’s key social justice industry. This re-opening of those old wounds is irresponsible and the misplaced belief that the current council can control a proven abuser is naïve at best. More importantly, the justifications for its timing are as puzzling as they incongruent with the reality of the marked decrease in the current Federal government’s respect for core rights.
First, it is unclear who, or what, is really motivating the timing of the Council’s decision to re-assess Portland’s entanglement with the JTTF. An appropriate preliminary move, not addressed by the Draft, would be a candid revelation of the interests that have the council’s ear and what they have specifically said to encourage the council at this untimely moment. There are no explicit statements in the Draft, but it can be gathered that the election of a new President and “changes” in related federal policies imply that things are better at this time and justify a re-evaluation. However, nothing could be further from the truth and just a few examples serve to dispel that ironic notion in support of re-assessment now.
A preliminary example is the recent federal TSA policy which forces citizens to choose between having their privacy rights violated by either being viewed naked in X-Ray/Backscatter Scanning equipment or sexually assaulted. This federal policy has raised eyebrows across the political spectrum about the federal government’s respect for citizens’ privacy rights. Similarly, the head of the current administration voted in favor of a pardon for the telecom companies that provided assistance to the government’s proven illegal wiretapping of the private conversations among U.S. citizens on a massive scale. A wiretapping program which was never denied and is likely still ongoing, the existence of which would never been known without a leak to the press.
Speaking of discovering privacy violations through press leaks, only a few days ago the CIA was publicly exposed by Google after setting an web-based entrapment device called a “honeypot” mirror of the WikiLeaks website designed to record the reading activities of any citizen would came to this site. The evidence gathered will be used for later prosecution. This tactic of subterfuge was, it must be noted, to counter the affect of leaks about the government’s own spying activities on other countries. Clearly, the federal government’s policies show a significant decrease in respect for privacy and freedom of expression during this administration. But, these evaluations of broad federal policy are inherently political and make a questionable yardstick to measure whether to increase Portland’s entanglement with the feds. If this “change” in related policies is a basis for the timing of this move as the Draft suggests, it is a very poor criteria and the facts weigh against a finding of change in a positive direction. It is unfair to ask Portland’s citizens to sink or swim with the current administration’s “changes “, even if the council would risk that.
Closer to home and with respect to entrapment, many in Portland are questioning the FBI and PPB’s role in the arrest of Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a 19 year-old Somalian (who the Draft deftly refers to as an “Oregon Man”) charged with attempting to detonate a bomb at Pioneer square. Our country’s social values, and judicial system, proceed on the notion that an accused is innocent until proven guilty. Thus, we must assume at the present time that the most likely scenario was entrapment and that the 19 year-old dark-skinned target of investigation is innocent. A guilty verdict or refutation of entrapment after the trial might be a more appropriate time for an introduction of this Draft. If this episode is a part of the council’s justification for reassessment, it is premature and seems to have cleared the FBI and convicted the “man” already.
If the unspoken motivation to rekindle Portland’s love affair with the JTTF is because the council thinks it can succeed, where others have failed, to monitor a federal agency which uses trickery as its main tactic, the council is very naïve and perhaps over-proud. Mayor Sam Adam’s own public comments attest to the fact that he was kept in the dark by his own police force about the operation. In instances involving “Top Secret” clearance, no more oversight will be gained by a reengagement with the same JTTF that did not like our previous terms which limited their discretion. The Draft’s solution seems to be to give into JTTF’s terms to gain leverage. This is the classic story of the “tar baby” or the abused spouse.
In addition, the question whether the PPB has violated U.S. and Oregon law in its previous spying activities of Portland citizens is a non-starter. Of course they did; the documented instances of it are part of what led to removing the influence of the JTTF in the first place. The Mayor himself, having been privy in the administration which saw the problem to begin with must know this already. The federal government may be said to have a sort of “illness” when it comes to violating privacy and freedom of expression law. It makes no sense to have the JTTF come back to reinfect our PPB, which has its own maladies the city is dealing with already.
The social justice industry in Portland arguably suffered the brunt of the offenses. Though often overlooked, Portland’s social justice industry draws many new residents who both work and volunteer a lot of time to causes they believe are important. These residents’ activities contribute significantly to the city’s cultural and financial wealth through events and taxes. This industry is part of what makes Portland what it is and is responsible for attracting many important knowledge workers.
It is well documented on the basis of first-person observation and the very few FOIA requests granted that the JTTF investigated and disrupted purely political groups who were targeted for being opposed to several federal government policies. These groups posed no threat of violence against any citizen of Portland, the State of Oregon, or the Nation. The JTTF used subterfuge and infiltration which had the effect of illegally denying privacy to individuals, chilling free speech, and rights to freely associate. The JTTF’s violations were not minor and they had a significant impact on many real voter’s lives. Going to gather the “original source materials” will be a difficult process since these grassroots groups do not possess the political, financial, or legal clout to produce such, mostly secreted, material on their own. While groups like the ACLU are sometimes allies of the types of political thinking exhibited by people that suffered the worst abuses under the JTTF, the ACLU and the like are by no means representatives of these people. So, in following this Draft’s outline, the council will be getting the wrong data from the wrong people and getting the wrong answers.
Finally, in answer to the immediate question, whether the events surrounding the November 2010 arrest would have unfolded differently if the city was a full participant in the JTTF, the answer is “yes” and “no.” First, “no,” neither the process by which the target of “investigation” was chosen, the tactics used in furtherance of the “investigation,” the inability of the Mayor to monitor the secreted activities, nor the ultimate outcome of arrest would have been any different. But, “yes,” there would have been a important difference to Portland’s voters; the city would have been complicit and could not escape its own responsibility to the community for better or worse.
This article had to be written. I also bristled when reading tweets like “the first serious infowar is now engaged, and the field of battle is WikiLeaks.” I re-tweeted these with “Second War #indymedia #1999 
” pre-appended. I sent these numerous times to satisfy my little sense of injustice, if not a desire to fill the void of ignorance. Kids today, you know 
But, most feelings of pride or injustice aside, the article perhaps errs in some places a bit too much to the side of caution. When points on history like this need to be made, they should be made unequivocally. No WikiLeaks without Indymedia, just as you could say no Twitter without TXTMOB.
Indymedia certainly won the first-person journalism war with corporate media, and arguably the government. You can’t run a corporate media without some sort of “eye witness reporting”, “iReport”, or commenting based system on a CMS. Your corporate news site would lack creditability or legitimacy. Citizen input on lawmaking in U.S. at least, such as administrative agency rules, is still in its infancy. But, this is not because governments do not know they lose legitimacy since the technology is available. But, governments are slow to move.
So, the first war for information freedom was fought and won. The question remains, as the song from “White Christmas” reminds us, “What do you do with a General?”. That is, how does an ol’ soldier get on when they come home in peace time and their skills are no longer needed in the same form. One answer, wait till the next war.
However, what is interesting is the evolution of the tactics. Some tactics have stayed the same, for example with IRC, a CMS, and audio streaming servers with mirrors. (In fact, one could give much credit to the great rise in CMS / “blog” use generally to the rise of citizen JOURNALism / commentary meme). Surprisingly, geeks will appreciate the significance of the fact that the OperationPayback audio stream was still running Shoutcast. But, audio streaming also presents an example of how the tactics evolved. It was shocking to find that the audio stream already had several mirrors up very near the launch of the audio stream. This process could have taken half a day or more in the past. Furthermore, the mirrors were put in a round-robin DNS so no list had to be published. How far we’ve come!
The question of the DDOS tactics presents an entirely different question. The tactics could be characterized as a “blockade” as Professor Coleman suggested. Or, as Anonymous has titled them a “sit-in”. Perhaps a better analogy would be to non-violent direct action more akin to what the Indian Independence movement did in actually moving against the British with their bodies, though in a way that caused no permanent damage. In their best characterization, these DDOS tactics are a legitimate defense of others.
Whichever way you characterize the DDOS tactics, they are not tactics which the Indymedia movement, by and large, has used thus far. It is certainly not a core tactic. The core Indymedia tactic is Open-Publishing. DDOS has an active defensive quality that Indymedia has not yet used. Indymedia uses strength in the number of its articles as bodies in something more like a virtual street action. It is active in the sense that it pushes articles out there, but passive in that does not directly affect other entities by reaching out and touching them. The DDOS tactic feels more like “war” (self-defense) than Open-Publishing does. This escalation in tactics is perhaps natural or necessary.
However, what the DDOS and the Open-Publishing tactic as used in Wikileaks / Payback and Indymedia have in common is the defense of others. When an aggressor against either the cyber or “meat” law of nations is identified as a target, a convergence is called around them to repel the attack against a third-party.
These “others” are a third-party, at least from the perspective of journalistic hacktivists. What open-publishing hacktivists have in common is that they envision themselves as the enablers of third-parties who actually “take action”. Open-Publishing and DDOS both help to create a space where third-parties who are trying to carry out some other action can operate. For Indymedia, an example would be providing computers at a convergence space at events as diverse as WSF, WTO, Biodev, etc. which create journalistic space through the strong network effect of publishing on Indymedia and direct provision of technology resources and training. The fourth-parties would be the people most effected by the target, for example farmers in the WTO / Biodev actions. The DDOS attacks have led to paypal allowing the money to go through to Wikileaks and they provided the LOIC toolset (”the hive”) and help to set it up. So, both tactics are enablers and defenders of third-parties.
The juice of love’s fruit is sweet
but it is of such quantity
as the skin and meat
which contains it allows
and only then as much
as the Earth has seen fit to package
by its mysterious and knowing hand
and only again as much as the lover’s hands can hold
and mouth drink
In response to this article on a “terror” group caught in NC.
TERROR GROUP Geez, I’m quaking in my boots with fear, aren’t you?…. come on … “Prosecutors said the arrests show that the threat of terrorism is still very real.” Give me a break… weekend warriors who were taken without incident… so I guess this means keep dehumanizing me at airports and keep listening in on all U.S. citizens’ phone calls and what I’m typing right now.. geez
From the article: “These charges hammer home the point that terrorists and their supporters are not confined to remote regions in some faraway land but can grow and fester right here at home,” said United States Attorney George E. B. Holding.
The point that is “hammered home” is that we must be a bunch of scared little chicken sh*ts, if this is what we were supposed to fear AND what we are looking for. Imagine how much cash wasted on this? Funny, you look for muslims doing something strange, you find them. How were these people “growing” and “festering”? Just a bunch of rednecks, like the rest of us… geez
It gets worse:
“There was no indication Boyd wanted to attack targets in the US or in NC, but Emerson said it “certainly tells us that Al-Qaida, and other like-minded groups, are very active in the US to this very day and are able to secure weapons, train, raise funds, and even travel overseas to carryout Jihad in the belief that carrying out Jihad is mandatory.”
It CERTAINLY tells you that Al-Qaida, WHAT? It tells you NOTHING about Al-Qaida, because Al-Qaida is not involved. It’s like telling you that NC State will win the NCAA next year because Duke did this year. Not connected all… just throwing a name to scare.
“secure” weapons, “train”, “raise funds”, “carryOUT”– GEEZ SICKENING! They didn’t do crap but go around pretending they were military anything… like half of the Southern population. Tough guys, for sure.
“I do know that one of the individuals that participated in the plot, in the conspiracy, became an informant for the government,” he said.
AND the cooker! They were infiltrated and ratted out. That’s how the IBF gets it done. Very brave, indeed. Oh yeah, and bring in SWAT team… geez…
I have VMWare Server 2.0 running on an Ubuntu Intrepid host with a Windows 2003 Server guest OS. The network speed, evidenced by SAMBA/SMB connections, was a crawl compared with other XP guests. I scratched my head for a long time. THE SOLUTION: Change the guest VM “Number of Processors” setting from 2 to 1. Network speed goes back to expected speed.
I used Intel PRO 100/1000 NICs, so I thought I might have a bug that was described which required turning off certain features on the card with ethtool. I tried proprietary drivers… I tried putting a different model NIC in… nothing seemed to work.
So, I installed Jaunty and latest VMWare Server 2.0.1 on another box to see if it was a host OS problem that Jaunty would fix over Intrepid. This old box happened to have one processor, so I set the VMs for that, and realized, by the MOST COUNTER-INTUITIVE WINDOWS CRAP on the planet, that this may have been the difference.
In life it is far better to have been a hammer or saw than a nail or board
So I have been taking quite a bit of time I do not have to figure out how to create a Table of Authorities for a legal brief I have to write in Pages (OS X, iWork, Mac). Short answer is: You can’t do it. You can do light Table of Contents, but no index like function. But, OpenOffice can do it right…. with a lot of hassle.
However, if you need to do citation management and bibliography for law/legal or science journals that can be done using BibDesk AND Jim Harrison’s VERY helpful CiteInPages. This won’t get you page numbers associated with citations as needed for a TOA, but it will help you cite.
For simple documents, you can use the Alphabetical Index feature of OpenOffice. Just mark each case (only the short-cite.. e.g. Marbury) in the cite. Then INSERT the index into your document on the Table of Authorities page and choose Combine Identical Entries. This will give each entry in the table as the Short-Cite case name and then all the pages on which it appears.
DON’T WORRY ABOUT THIS FOR BASIC TOA: BUT,IF for some reason you need to include the page numbers like “i,ii” AND “1,2,3″ in the same table, you will need to create a Master Document and make sure that each sub-document has a unique Page Style. This will get the page numbering correct.. e.g. “Marbury……………………. i,iii,1,3,5″. If you do not not structure the master document/sub-document you will get “……….. 1,3,5,i,iii” because open office sorts numbers before letters WITHIN THE SAME DOCUMENT. But, using master/sub-document lets you control this.
I can’t speak to the hacker news consumption side, except for my early temporary watching of slashdot, which I compare to my early experiences with micro-brews. I have moved on generally. I can speak to the indymedia / news production side of things (as opposed to consumption). I posted an article in response to a poster on portland.indymedia.org about indymedia being “dead”. It is over here: http://www.salaud.net/blog/?p=50 and I think that Rabble and I share a lot of common perspective on this…. I would not go so far as to say that iReport.COM or the others are like what indymedia does in the sense of the intent/method.
I see the intent/method as being more important than the ends…. the means are more important. In the same way, I believe that a possible solution to the problem that Rabble is describing is that, just like indymedia, the alpha-hackers (did I just say that?) need to create an INTENTIONAL community. This intentional community can choose whether to sell out its space or not. If the ends are “get page hits”…. that’s one choice, if the ends provide a space for open-publishing of RELEVANT information, that’s another. Just as in a gentrification, which I agree is loaded word, it does not really matter, except in extreme cases, whether hipsters or bohemes WANT to buy homes or businesses in the area, the people already living there have to SELL OUT. Some cases, of course, the city forces out undesirables by taxes or other things. Long story short, prosperous, informative, and empowering hacker news sites need to have PRINCIPLES of unity that are not sold out. If they do this, then a few of these intentional communities will not turn into roving tent cities.