Spokane Photographers Considered Suspicious al-Qaeda Types

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
May 17, 2011
In the Soviet Union and communist countries, photography in public was considered suspect. It is now the same in the New Soviet Union, the United States of America, formerly the land of the free and the home of the brave, now land of the surveilled and home of the cowed.
As the web form below demonstrates, photography is now considered suspicious and possibly criminal, the same as theft and physical intrusion.
The Spokane County Sheriff’s Office may actually believe a certain number of photographers are working for al-Qaeda – or the Sovereign Citizens movement – but the actual reason for listing such normally innocuous behavior as suspect is to get subjects of the state to realize they are living in a dictatorship… minus all the Stalinesque statues.
The entire Stasi rat-out-your-neighbor form can be viewed here.

Newt Gingrich: Health Care Socialist

Laurence Vance
LewRockwell.com
May 17, 2011
Editor’s note: Newt is just another garden variety statist who thinks government should lord over subjects for their own damn good. In addition to supporting Obamacare, or Gingrichcare, he also advocates drug testing everybody in the country. In other words, if this guy becomes president – and he won’t – he would force you at gunpoint to demonstrate to the state you don’t take drugs imported by the CIA and the banksters. A vote for Newt would be a vote for radically expanding the prison-slave complex.
Gingrich made the case on Meet the Press yesterday, not for a free market in medical care and medical insurance, but for Gingrichcare. Interesting that back in 1993 Gingrich said he favored the federal government requiring individuals to buy health insurance and then subsidizing individuals’ purchase of health insurance on a “sliding scale” determined by their income. Now he supports requiring all individuals to buy health insurance, post a bond to pay for health care, or in some way indicate that they are going to be accountable.
Is any of this a surprise? I think Gingrich for president will turn out to be a total flop like Giuliani for president.

FDA Claims Power To Seize Food Without Evidence of Contamination

Rady Ananda
Activist Post

A few hours ago, the Food and Drug Administration declared it no longer needs credible evidence to seize food that may be contaminated. Ignoring the Fourth Amendment entirely, the FDA claims that based on mere suspicion that a food product has been contaminated or mislabeled, and that serious illness or death will result, it can hold the food for 30 days while it then looks for evidence. It claims this power under the Food Safety Modernization Act, which President Monsanto, I mean, Obama, signed in January.

On May 4th, the FDA stated:

Previously, the FDA’s ability to detain food products applied only when the agency had credible evidence that a food product presented was contaminated or mislabeled in a way that presented a threat of serious adverse health consequences or death to humans or animals.

Beginning July, the FDA will be able to detain food products that it has reason to believe are adulterated or misbranded for up to 30 days, if needed, to ensure they are kept out of the marketplace. The products will be kept out of the marketplace while the agency determines whether an enforcement action such as seizure or federal injunction against distribution of the product in commerce, is necessary.

Credible evidence no longer applies, it seems.

The Fourth Amendment states:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

FDA thinks it can engage in search and seizure willy nilly. They’ve already been doing this, of course — but only at natural food facilities. Factory farms like DeCosta Eggs can sicken thousands of people over a period of years, without ever being shut down or having its product seized or destroyed. But, if you raise natural foods without pasteurizing them or adulterating them with drugs and genetically modified ingredients, even though no one becomes ill from your product, then be assured, the FDA will seize your products, your computers, your paperwork, and shut you down.

Most recently, the FDA shut down Pennsylvania farmer Dan Algyer, though no one became ill from his natural milk.  Morningland Cheese and Estrella Family Creamery are but two more in a long line of victims of the corporate war on natural food, though their products sickened no one. And most of the nation knows of the armed raid on Rawesome Foods last year. (Also see David Gumpert’s book, The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America’s Emerging Battle Over Food Rights.)

In the May 2011 edition of the Minneapolis St. Paul Magazine (hat tip FTCLDF), Greg Breining summarizes the issues in MILK vs milk: Do consumers have the right to choose? Well, of course we do. Food freedom is as inalienable as the right to breathe. The freedom to eat the food with which humans evolved is requisite to our survival as individuals and as a species.  Thomas Jefferson agrees: “Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now.”

That’s often paraphrased as: “If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.”

Another rule announced by the FDA requires importers to declare if any nation refused their food or feed product for any reason, and to give the reason.  Both rules go into effect July 3, 2011.

Read the new FDA rules here.

Rady Ananda specializes in Natural Resources and administers the sites, Food Freedom and COTO Report.

Read more: http://www.setyoufreenews.com/2011/05/fda-claims-power-to-seize-food-without.html#ixzz1MdqXV0BY

Unchecked Executive War Power Could Slip Through the House

Amanda Simon
ACLU
May 17, 2011
Tucked inside the National Defense Authorization Act, being marked up by the House Armed Services Committee this week, is a hugely important provision that hasn’t been getting a lot of attention — a brand new authorization for a worldwide war.
This stealth provision was added to the bill by the committee’s chairman, Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), but has a bit of a history. It was first proposed by former Attorney General Michael Mukasey in 2008 after the Bush administration lost the Boumediene v. Bush case, in which the Supreme Court decided that federal courts would subject the administration’s asserted law of war basis to hold Guantanamo detainees to searching review. An idea that may have originally been intended to bolster the Bush administration’s basis for holding Guantanamo detainees is now being promoted as an authorization of a worldwide war — and could become the single biggest ceding of unchecked war authority to the executive branch in modern American history.

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The current authorization of war provided the constitutional authority for the executive branch to go to war in Afghanistan. Subsequently, it has reportedly been invoked by the executive branch much more broadly to also use military force in Yemen and elsewhere, to justify torture and abuse of detainees, to eavesdrop and spy on American citizens without warrants, and to imprison people captured far from any battlefield without charge or trial.
Before Congress this week, the proposed authorization of a worldwide war goes much further, however, allowing war wherever there are terrorism suspects in any country around the world without an expiration date, geographical boundaries or connection to the 9/11 attacks or any other specific harm or threat to the United States. There have been no hearings on the provision, nor has its necessity been explained by Rep. McKeon or anyone else in Congress.
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The idea that Congress is about to pass new authority for a worldwide war as we’re trying to ramp down our efforts in both Iraq and Afghanistan is starting to get attention. We’re hoping that the House Armed Serviced Committee, and the full House, will reconsider this troubling and dangerous provision. We’ll keep you updated as this troubling provision progresses, but you can help now by telling your representative to oppose any new and expanded war authority.

Supreme Court refuses to consider ‘torture flights’ case, ending legal battle

By Howard Mintz hmintz@mercurynews.com Posted: 05/16/2011 08:13:04 AM PDT Updated: 05/16/2011 08:25:24 PM PDT The U.S. Supreme Court has put an end to a lawsuit over the CIA's so-called torture flights, refusing to consider a long-running case against a San Jose-based subsidiary of Boeing accused of participating in the operations. In a one-line order, the Supreme Court on Monday refused to review a federal appeals court ruling that found the lawsuit could not proceed because of the possibility it might reveal national security secrets. As a result, the ruling stands, derailing an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit against Jeppesen Dataplan, the Boeing subsidiary accused of carrying out the flights under a contract with the government. ACLU lawyers expressed disappointment in the Supreme Court's decision, and the Brennan Center for Justice urged the Obama administration to reconsider its approach to invoking the state secrets privilege in legal battles around the country. "With today's decision, the Supreme Court has refused once again to give justice to torture victims and to restore our nation's reputation as a guardian of human rights and the rule of law," said Ben Wizner, the ACLU's litigation director for national security issues. The Supreme Court's action also means the justices declined to jump into reviewing one of the more controversial methods used in the government's war on terrorism, which has been in the forefront with the recent killing of Osama bin Laden. Both the Obama and Bush administrations had fought hard to Advertisement block the lawsuit from going forward, arguing that it could expose government secrets. The case tested the government's power to invoke the "state secrets" privilege to fend off lawsuits.A sharply divided panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 6-5 ruling last year, sided with the U.S. Justice Department's arguments, saying the case "presents an unacceptable risk of disclosure of state secrets no matter what the legal or factual theories Jeppesen would choose to advance during a defense." The four-year legal battle stems from a case filed by five former terrorism suspects who allege they were transported to foreign countries and subjected to brutal CIA interrogation tactics. ACLU lawyers insisted the government was abusing its state secrets privilege to conceal the handling of the terrorism suspects. Jeppesen and Boeing have refused to discuss the company's relationship with the CIA and the government's "extraordinary rendition" program, which was launched in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. The Supreme Court, meanwhile, has two other major California cases to decide before it finishes up its term next month. The justices are considering a legal challenge to California's law banning the sale of violent video games to minors, and also federal court orders requiring the state to shed nearly 40,000 inmates from its overcrowded prison system. Contact Howard Mintz at 408-286-0326.

TSA Responds To Texas: Resistance is Futile

Steve Watson
Infowars.com
May 17, 2011

The TSA has issued a laughable response to the news that the state of Texas has passed a bill to officially make it a misdemeanor to pat-down breasts, buttocks, or genitals.
The Agency contends, via its blog, that Texas cannot do anything to restrict TSA procedures because, as a federal agency it is protected under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
“Blogger Bob”, the TSA’s propaganda mouthpiece, writes:

“What’s our take on the Texas House of Representatives voting to ban the current TSA pat-down? Well, the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution (Article. VI. Clause 2) prevents states from regulating the federal government.”

How ridiculous it is for the TSA to cite the Constitution in its own defense! While citing one section, it is completely ignoring two others – namely the Fourth and Tenth Amendments.
The Fourth Amendment protects “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches” without “probable cause”.
As far as we can recollect, no where in the Constitution does it say that the federal government has the right to touch Americans’ private parts in the first instance.
Therefore, under the Tenth, States have the right to pass their own laws against this abuse of power, because:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The TSA’s contention that the Supremacy Clause bars states from regulating the federal government is a total lie. The Supremacy Clause states:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.

In other words, The constitution is the supreme law and any federal laws made in line with the constitution are supreme. No where does it say that states cannot regulate federal government.
But why would we expect the TSA to understand the Constitution when it violates it every hour of every day?
The Supremacy Clause, as with every other part of the Constitution, is there to protect against potential federal government abuses of power, not to effectively enable them as the TSA claims. The Constitution protects the rights of the people, not the rights of the federal government.
In addition, there is no enumerated power in the Constitution that gives the federal government the authority to regulate local airports. Under the Tenth Amendment, airport operation falls under state jurisdiction.
The TSA’s version of the US Constitution, like much of the federal government’s, is a complete perversion of it’s actual meaning.
The TSA blog goes on to state:

“We wish we lived in a world where you could just walk on a plane with no security screening, but that just isn’t the case unfortunately. Aviation security agencies worldwide have been using pat-downs long before TSA was created to prevent dangerous items from getting onto airplanes. The pat-down is a highly effective tool to resolve certain alarms and keep these dangerous items off of planes that could cause catastrophic damage.”

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Again, this is a pathetic attempt at justification of full on government groping. To claim that “Other countries did it first” is just plain weak. Other countries do not have a written constitution safeguarding the privacy rights of their citizens. And besides, specifically, what other countries governments are putting their hands inside people’s pants and literally touching their genitals?
The Texas House of Representatives passed the legislation on Friday to prohibit “intrusive touching” when people are seeking access to public buildings and forms of transportation.
The bill, sponsored by Republican House member David Simpson, outlaws public servants from “intentionally, knowingly or recklessly touching anyone’s anus, sexual organ, buttocks or breasts, including touching through clothing, and any manner of touching that would be offensive to a reasonable person.”
Should the bill also pass the Senate and be signed into law, convicted TSA agents could face a $4,000 fine and up to one year in jail.
Representative Simpson appeared on the Alex Jones Show Friday to discuss the bill:

Texas, and in particular Austin, has been at the forefront of the revolt against the TSA since it began increasing its presence in airports some eighteen months ago. In December, Austin’s Airport Advisory Commission approved a resolution advising the city council to oppose airport body scanners and invasive body searches.
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The TSA has signaled its intention to install the scanners at Austin, but the date has continually been put back, with the agency saying it could now be as late as 2012 before the devices are activated.
Meanwhile, in related news, the revolt against the TSA continues as a House Appropriations Subcommittee last week stripped $76 million out of the TSA budget for 2012. The funds had been designated for the purchase of 275 more naked body scanners. Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) said that the body scanners are “a nuisance. They’re slow. And they’re ineffective.”
—
Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.net, and Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England.

NATO Helicopters Fire on Pakistani Troops

VOA News  May 17, 2011

Photo: AP

Chinook helicopters fly over the Paktia province near Khost, about 200 kilometers southeast of Kabul, Afghanistan, in this March 27, 2004, file photo.

Related Articles

• Pakistan Envoy Downplays PM's China Comments
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• Senator Kerry Calls for Improved US-Pakistan Ties

Pakistani officials say NATO helicopters crossed into Pakistan and fired on troops, wounding two soldiers in an incident that drew a strong protest from the Pakistani military.

Tuesday's attack in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan came amid heightened tensions between the United States and Pakistan, following the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad.

Pakistan's army says troops fired on NATO helicopters after they crossed into Pakistan's northwestern tribal region from neighboring Afghanistan.  Two soldiers were wounded when the helicopters returned fire.

NATO has confirmed it had helicopters flying near the border, and said it is investigating the incident.

A Western military official said the two helicopters were on the Afghan side of the border and were fired on from inside Pakistan.  He said the helicopters only fired back after receiving fire twice.

North Waziristan is known to be a hub for Taliban and al-Qaida-linked militants who carry out attacks in neighboring Afghanistan. The tribal region has repeatedly been targeted by U.S. drone strikes.

Pakistan's army lodged a protest Tuesday and demanded a meeting with NATO on the alleged cross-border attack.  Pakistan briefly closed the main land route for NATO supplies in Afghanistan after a similar incident last year in which two Pakistani soldiers were killed.

Tuesday's incident in North Waziristan is likely to add to tensions between Islamabad and Washington, despite a visit by U.S. Senator John Kerry Monday meant to repair bilateral relations following the U.S. operation that killed bin Laden.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has warned that any future unilateral actions by the U.S. would carry serious consequences.  U.S. officials have questioned how the al-Qaida leader was able to live in Pakistan for years without being detected.

During a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in Washington on Tuesday, Kerry said the U.S.-Pakistan relationship remains at a critical juncture and that the United States has vital national security interests in the region.

Senator Richard Lugar warned that the U.S. does not give out "blank checks," referring to billions of dollars in aid given to Pakistan.  Lugar called on Pakistan to do more to root out terrorists in the country.

Separately on Tuesday, Pakistani police say security forces foiled a major suicide attack in Quetta, the capital of southwestern Baluchistan province. Officials say five militants, including three women, were planning to attack an army checkpoint when police intercepted them. The attackers were killed in the resulting exchange of fire.

US Ready To Swap Occupation of Afghanistan For War On Pakistan?

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
May 17, 2011
With the Obama administration fast approaching a July deadline that mandates troops be withdrawn from Afghanistan, Pakistan is moving into the cross hairs as the next targeted conquest of the “war on terror,” with NATO helicopters launching an attack on a Pakistani military outpost today, triggering a firefight that injured two soldiers, as Pakistan moves closer to China in an effort to avoid geopolitical isolation.

Although NATO claimed it was responding to an unprovoked attack, Pakistan lodged a “strong protest,” stating that its soldiers were merely responding to an illegal incursion into Pakistani airspace.
“The incident is certain to weigh on relations between the U.S. and Pakistan have been pushed almost to the breaking point after the May 2 raid on Abbottabad that killed bin Laden, with Pakistan’s parliament condemning the operation as a violation of the nation’s sovereignty,” reports Reuters.
Pakistan’s political leaders as well as its citizens have been vociferous in their protests against US Predator drone strikes in the country that have killed 10 innocent people for every “militant” killed. These demonstrations reached fever pitch in the days before Obama’s announcement that Navy SEALS had killed Bin Laden at a compound in Abbottabad.
Washington was also furious about the Pakistani ISI’s role in outing CIA operative Raymond Davis, who shot dead two Pakistanis he claimed were trying to rob him in January.

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The narrative behind the Osama fable was used to accuse Pakistan of hiding the whereabouts of Bin Laden, when in reality it was the US government that refused numerous clear opportunities to kill Bin Laden despite the fact that they knew his precise location over the course of several years.
As Washington increasingly tries to isolate Pakistan following the dubious Bin Laden raid, Islamabad is turning to its old ally for support – China – a partnership that is, “Looking more attractive after the U.S. killing of Osama bin Laden further strained Islamabad’s ties with Washington,” reports the Associated Press.
“The sentiment is mutual, with China now in the process of shoring up its relations with Islamabad, Afghanistan and several other Central Asia states in step with an expected diminished U.S. presence as it winds down military operations in Afghanistan.”
The NATO attack occurred just hours after Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani arrived in Beijing.
Firedoglake’s David Dayen characterizes the deepening crisis as an “undeclared war” on Pakistan, pointing out that the Obama administration is now looking to “deal its war in Afghanistan for a war in Pakistan.”
The US has accelerated talks with Taliban leaders as it prepares to exit the country, but far from coming home it looks likely that American troops will be used as cannon fodder for the next lurch of the empire into Pakistan.
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Given nuclear-capable Pakistan’s warm relations with China, in addition to its hostility toward fellow member of the nuke club India, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out where all this could lead. Any US conflict with Pakistan could potentially escalate and lead to a major confrontation with China, a scenario that could move the hands of the doomsday clock a few minutes closer to midnight.
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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show.

9/11 Families Snub Obama's "Photo-Op"; 'Show Us The Bin Laden Proof'

Original Article: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/wpix-family-unhappy-about-obama-...

Prison Planet Article: http://www.prisonplanet.com/911-families-snub-obamas-photo-op-show-us-the-bin...

As 50 carefully selected families prepare to join President Barack Obama for a ceremony at the World Trade Center site Thursday, one of the invited 9/11 families have decided to pass on the Commander-in-chief's visit.

"There is no closure," a sobbing John Vigiano said. "There is none."

"I'm honored the President of the United States is coming to New York," he said. "[But] to me its just going to be a photo op."

Jeannie Evans, of Elmont, who lost her baby brother firefighter Robert Evans on 9/11 will also not be there Thursday. She wasn't invited.

"Why not show us proof, that Bin Laden was killed? I would like to see that," wondered Evans.

Secret Service Interrogates 7th Grader For Facebook Post

A Tacoma seventh grader faced federal interrogation at school for what he posted on his Facebook page. His mom said it all happened without her knowledge or permission.

Timi Robertson said she had just finished lunch with a friend Friday when she got a phone call from her son's school. Topics U.S. Secret Service Mass Media Facebook See more topics »

"I answered it, and it's the school security guard who's giving me a heads up that the Secret Service is here with the Tacoma Police Department and they have Vito and they're talking to him," Robertson said.

After Osama bin Laden was killed, 13-year-old Vito LaPinta posted an update to his Facebook status that got the Feds attention.

"I was saying how Osama was dead and for Obama to be careful because there could be suicide bombers," says LaPinta.

A week later, while Vito was in his fourth period class, he was called in to the principal's office.

"A man walked in with a suit and glasses and he said he was part of the Secret Service," LaPinta said. "He told me it was because of a post I made that indicated I was a threat toward the President."

The Tacoma school district acknowledged a Secret Service agent questioned Vito and that it was a security guard who called Vito's mom because the principal was on another call. The school district said they didn't wait for Vito's mother to get there because they thought she didn't take the phone call seriously.

"That's a blatant lie," Robertson said.

The teen's mom says she rushed to Truman Middle School immediately and arrived to discover her son had already been questioned for half an hour.

Corporate Kill Switch in Software and Smart Phones

By Mark Milian, CNN May 12, 2011 -- Updated 1120 GMT (1920 HKT) | Filed under: Mobile

Phones from Google, left, and Apple have "kill switches" built into them that allow the companies to remotely delete software.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Apple, Google and Microsoft all have kill switches built into their phone software
  
• Google has used the capability only in two situations, a source said
  
• Amazon.com had to settle a lawsuit over its use of the kill switch for Kindle e-books
  

RELATED TOPICS

• Apple Inc.
• Google Inc.
• Microsoft Corporation

(CNN) -- When you buy a video game from Best Buy, you don't give the retailer the right to barge into your house whenever it wants. So why do we give that permission to software companies?
Most popular smartphone operating systems and other electronic gadgets include what security researchers refer to as a kill switch.
This capability enables the company that makes the operating software to send a command over the Web or wireless networks that alters or removes certain applications from devices.
Apple, Google and Microsoft include this function in their platforms, along with a few lines in their usage agreements describing the policy. Google and Apple executives say this feature is important in order to protect against malicious software.
"Hopefully we never have to pull that lever, but we would be irresponsible not to have a lever like that to pull," Apple CEO Steve Jobs told The Wall Street Journal in 2008. It's there as a fail-safe for when the App Store gatekeepers erroneously approve an app that has problems, he said.
Apple doesn't appear to have used this feature in the four years since introducing the iPhone. An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment on the issue.
Andy Rubin, Google's head of Android development, said something similar in an interview with reporters Tuesday. He described the kill switch as a "safety lever" or "malware apparatus" used for "removing stuff from devices once it gets out of the Android Market, once it escapes."
Google is believed to have used the security procedure twice -- once last summer when an independent security researcher unleashed a potentially troublesome program, and again in March after malware spread to Android phones. In the latter case, Google threw the switch within about 50 minutes of learning about the trouble, Rubin said.
Those two incidents were the only times Google has used the function, according to a person familiar with the matter. A Google spokesman declined to comment.
Agreeing to allow Google to remotely delete software from your device is required in order to use its market for downloading apps. It's unclear whether phone manufacturers, which sometimes tinker with the software, can add a kill switch of their own. Samsung Telecommunications, a top Android handset maker, didn't respond to a request for comment.
Research in Motion's BlackBerry and Nokia's Symbian don't make kill switches available to their handsets.
RIM has referred to its lack of remote access for BlackBerry as a defense for why it could not provide the United Arab Emirates access to phone users' data. "RIM does not possess a 'master key,' nor does any 'back door' exist in the system that would allow RIM or any third party to gain unauthorized access," the company said in a statement last year.
Like many other app store operators, Nokia has a measure in place for its Ovi Store that scans software for security risks. But the system doesn't have a kill switch, a spokeswoman said.
However, Nokia, which produces the highest volume of cell phones worldwide, plans to shift its primary smartphone software to Microsoft's Windows Phone 7, which does have such a capability.
Virtually every smartphone system, including RIM's and Nokia's, allows corporations to remotely alter or disable their employees' phones and data. The difference is that RIM and Nokia don't actively police their customers' usage.
McAfee, which makes security software, sees corporate security in the mobile industry as an important growth area.
"The number one thing that we see the enterprises and corporations needing is: how do we manage mobile devices in our network?" McAfee CEO David DeWalt said last month in an interview with Forbes. "Whether or not there's some security features from Google or features from Apple on the device, you have to manage these devices."
Kill switches don't just apply to phones. Nintendo recently offered owners of its 3DS, the new hand-held game system, a free music video. It came with a caveat: The video "is provided for a limited time and may be deleted from your system with subsequent updates," the offer read.
Unlike a toaster or a paperback, apps and many other digital files cannot be resold. According to the iTunes legal agreement, customers don't even own certain music and videos that they buy, but instead acquire a license to use them on certain devices.
For consumers, accepting the idea of a kill switch may come down to a matter of trust.
"We have always had to completely trust our platform/operating system vendor," Chris Palmer, the technology director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group, wrote in an e-mail. "It will always be that way."
Amazon.com broke that trust in a high-profile use of the kill switch in 2009, when the company remotely erased copies of George Orwell's "1984" and "Animal Farm" from its customers' Kindles. The books had been mistakenly sold on its e-book store, the company said.
Amazon settled a lawsuit over the issue and agreed to limit how it uses remote deletion for books. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos apologized for using the kill switch, calling the decision "stupid, thoughtless and painfully out of line with our principles."
Amazon didn't return requests for comment for this report.

"Print media, when you buy it and you have it in your house, it's yours," said Mark Frauenfelder, a Boing Boing blogger who covered the Amazon case. He believes that episode "points to a dangerous future, where you see some of the downsides of cloud storage, digital technology and closed systems -- where you have less control over the things that you paid for."

Same Lies; Different Day: CBS Demonizes Constitutionalists

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
May 16, 2011
In a 60 Minutes hit piece, constitutionalists who believe the federal government has grabbed too much power and has become tyrannical are lumped in with Jerry Kane and his 16-year-old son Joseph. Kane and his son, who claimed to be aligned with the sovereign citizen movement, gunned down two Arkansas cops during a traffic stop and were killed by police 90 minutes later.
The CBS video attempts to connect constitutionalists and members of the sovereign citizen movement to Terry Nichols, the Oklahoma City bombing, and supposedly racist militias. It uniformly portrays those who argue the government has violated its constitutional mandate as violent, insane, and possibly racist. It insinuates that if you have a problem with income taxes or are an advocate of states rights under the Tenth Amendment, you are an extremist and domestic terrorist.