Hey---
If you simply burn your music collection from your computer to a CD using this technique, the watermarks and all the other tracking nonsense could be expunged. Hard for a raider to prove you "pirated" a sound recorded to a record. Analog forever, kids. Mayhap 'tis time to reconsider some old techniques like this, seeing as how the digital open-air prison state is almost finished.

Don't worry. If you've done nothing wrong, there's nothing to worry about. And if they make a mistake, you can find out about it and they will be quick to correct it. They'll absolutely believe your story rather than take the word of solid businessmen. And we're all paranoid for even caring about such things, as we're innocent of any crimes. Trust them. Nothing could possibly go wrong, for you, if you're rich, scion of the rich, rightly famous, or powerful - or a happy combination of the four. And you are all that matters. It's up the individual to keep track of all that is said and logged about them. If you don't perform regular due dilligence, then that's your problem. Ignorance of the database is no excuse.
Did I leave anything out?

When you live in prison, you take precautions to stay out of trouble. And you do so all the time. The country's police, intelligence forces, and armed services are now our prison guards, and they can invent reasons to take out anyone they don't like. Ask that guy who was taken out by the Secret Service acting through local cops to jail for a few day of his life for walking up to Cheney and telling him off. Or that guy in New Orleans who told Cheney to Cheney himself after the VP shut down his street to stage a media event after the flood. He was arrested , too. And the NYC protests with the cops lying about lawbreaking to round up and jail anti-Republican protestors. How about Chicago, where Daley scooped up everyone on the street during our big war protest and hauled them off to jail, for the crime of being anti-war. How many others have gone to prison without anyone noticing, for the simple reason that they annoyed the wardens? And we assume prosecutions are not political - but remember weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who after popping up on TV saying Bush was lying about the WMDs, was hauled off on kiddie porn charges -- and was later released, charges dropped. Obviously was monitored and flimsy "evidence" provided. What if the shadowy men who staged that takedown had added watermarks to a kid porn pic indicating that Ritter had taken the shot? How would you KNOW? He's simply be in prison for twenty, and we'd be making Ritter/Girl Scout jokes for a hundred years. And keep in mind such a thing doesn't have to happen -- they can keep us in line knowing that we never can tell if they will choose, at some time unknown, to manufacture such "evidence" to nail their Nixonian enemy list. I especially point to the GPS trackers in our phones. They are accepted as direct evidence in court. What if they simply alter the text, and place you in a crime scene of their choosing? How would you know, how could you prove it? Who would even care to hear you protest? Our wardens have already demonstrated that they were willing to frame Ritter; it was a shot across everyone's bow. We know they can fabricate tech "evidence". So we are oh-so-careful not to offend the creatures. Police states are free only for the police and their bosses. Once they are in place, they are impossible, short of societal/economic collapse/war, to remove.

Smokers HATE being snarked on for the smoky mess they leave on stuff... no response for it, so go for the jugular of the bestard who snarked! Die, hippy! You'll pry this cigarette from my cold, dead lips! What's that? You probably will? Die hippy die! Better yet, I will blog about you and your Greenpeace friends! Bwahahahhahah!

You could stop smoking...

So, who were the girls who went on the rooftop to enhance their upper frontalities?

I'd worry more about the ability of [insert powerful entity name here] to have your cell phone company keep a log of your movements, good down to a meter or so, for as long as they care to. And don't believe for a second you can shut it off with a menu selection, not if they don't want you to. And I find it curious that on, say, an iPhone for example, the precedent has been set for a battery that you cannot disconnect voluntarily. If I were a suspicious type, I would go so far as to say that they are moving towards, quietly, a GPS tracking system that you cannot depower even if you turn the phone off.

You need a touch of madness, just enough that you don’t become stupid! –Robin Williams

Halloween Jack:

No camera, yet, for this purpose. They'll just add a line to your contract forbidding the use of a jammer, and another line authorizing them to charge, oh, $500.00 a day as a penalty during the rental period if your GPS tracking log indicates a period of loss of signal. You won't notice the line until the bill is presented to you. Oh, and they'll lobby to make blocking GPS on a commercial vehicle a felony akin to grand theft auto.

As for cell phones, why it would be against the law to block your own phone's tracking device is beyond me. The GPS E911 system was supposed to help us, not put us in jail. I've no doubt it is illegal to jam or physically remove the GPS tracker from your phone. If it isn't, it will be, once they see anyone doing it.

Face it. The GPS devices in our phones, and soon built into the computers in our cars, are there for prosecutorial purposes. They want a tracking log, good to a few feet, on every phone and car in the US. Why wouldn't they? They have it on the phones, and the car is child's play.

Try this: imagine a crime, committed somewhere. Almost anything is a crime, so easily done. No imagine them data mining the tracker logs of phones and cars. Imagine them finding you nearby. After that, it's just a job of writing a good enough piece of fiction to convince a jury, or a "military tribunal" at a gulag of not-your-choice.

It's not worth it, not for all the pedophiles and terraists in the world. This has no purpose, other than that Poindexter and his fellow Nixonians in the old Reagan/Bush shadow government have had a raging thirst for this kind of power since their days in the Nixon and Reagan basements. There won't be any trackers on those bastids; that style of thing is for the peons.

If you've any doubt on what they are doing with this total surveillance state, just look back at the last seven years and think. Also, imagine why so many politicians are so quiet on the subject. Think of all the recorded movements, phone calls, email, chats, that the total surveillance buggers have on members of Congress... people are human, they do things they are not supposed to do. The Total Info Awareness system has provided the system's owners with unparalleled material for, shall we say, a quiet chat with any rebellious Senators and Congresscritters that may even think of, say, voting for impeachment.

That's what GPS tracking gives us. A whole nation, under surveillance, under perpetual blackmail. Under fear.

In Chicago, I once tried to take a picture of a storefront -- The Alley, on Clark Street, in Lakeview -- and a clerk charged out of the store, claiming I wasn't allowed to take pictures. And this was before America went insane. I gave up street photography long ago, as people move to attack you when you point a camera at them. Yet, somehow, a police camera has been freshly installed on the southwest corner of Clark and Belmont, and no one cares at all. I thought those were only for high crime areas. Funny how they are seeping onto all the corners now. Boil the frog.

Yet, somehow, Scientologists can station dozens of people to take photos and video of protestors, even following them to their cars to photo license plates. Seems to be okay when they do it, so conclusion: if you don't have power, you can't use a camera.

HOW did they get in?? There's showing up, and there's breaking and entering, a felony.

@11:

What on earth makes you think they wouldn't have taken your gun? It'd have been first thing gone, bye. You'd be lucky if, had you caught the guy walking away with it, you had not been shot for trying to take "his" new shiny second amendment right.

Since when is Twoflower caucasian?

Anonymous is really not equal to 4chan. Anti-scientology is a lot older than the new crop acting as Anon. It goes back to Campbell and A.E. Van Vogt leaving the corrupt ship, and L. Sprague de Camp's harrassment after criticizing them in '58. Sc. is a colossal turd left by the Fifties SF community, and we old SF types feel kind of responsible for it, seeing as no one else will take them on. They are embarrassing. And nope, don't even read 4chan, don't care much. Point taken, for me: won't mention 4chan.

One more thing:

Kinda goes back to that article last week about how Sterling's panoptikon society wouldn't work to an average person's advantage due to relative power levels. Yep, we can tell everyone about their secret sauce and Xenu, talk about the deaths, but in the end, they can hurt you in endless ways through use of the super-panoptikon, and you cannot even identify them to begin to strike back. Panoptikon my fuzzy butt. Police states protect the police, not you. And Sc. in this case is pretty much the "police". Police states are soo safe, until the police stop liking you.

Fox already labeled the 4chan terrorist bombers. As you probably know. Wonder how many Scienos work at Fox News?

Yup. The Anons are learning what we old timers knew ten years ago -- use the net, they can see you. If they kinda know who you are, they hire PIs to follow you, track your phone, verify their theory. They have access to stuff that would surprise you. Now that we have HS, they just have to make a phone call and they have your phone records, medical records - REMEMBER that, HS gets copies of such if they want to, and it's easy to get such just by making phone calls anyway --web browsing records, SS#, work, home, cell numbers, credit reports, arrest records... and that's the easy part.

They start in on your friends with the same deal. After all, they know who you call. And chat with, and email. If they don't like you, they go after your family. Your friends. Business partners, customers, bosses. They keep coming until you are broken, and they WANT people to know they did it. They are proud of it, and absolutely nothing will happen to them for doing all of that. They are anonymous, they are corporate, and they never, ever go to jail, or even get charged. It's a message to anyone else who wants to try it. The Anons are in a world of shit right now.

A thought occurs. Perhaps, to truly create a level field in which one can hold the organization responsible, we should think about a mandatory restructure of their corporate shields. At the moment, it's like suing fog.

The organization was once monolithic, corporately speaking, but was split into hundreds of "independent" organisations when it lost a civil lawsuit awarding damages for kidnapping and imprisoning a man. Quite famous, but I digress. The lawsuit victor could no longer "find" Scientology in order to make it pay up, more or less, and additionally Scientology thusly made it impossible to sue "Scientology". They act under so many Delaware, and other, corporate fronts that it is impossible to nail down their actions in most matters. They are immune to civil action, most criminal actions as well. There is no target. They are anonymous...

Solution could be: court ordered restructuring, or even a law requiring restructuring, the many fronts into a single entity, with a list of actual officers to hold accountable for all actions. All the European fronts, all the Cayman Island bank accounts, ALL of it, back into one, single, sue-able monster. If they refuse --

They refused to pay the kidnap victim for over twenty years, until he had sold his settlement off trying to climb out from under the mountain of legal papers they tossed to him in lieu of his money.

They refused to pay income taxes for over forty YEARS even tho they were required to do so, and then walked away after tort torturing individual IRS officials with over 2000 simultaneous frivolous suits. A secret deal, special perks, and no penalties, and all the suits dropped.

If they refuse, freeze their assets, their secret accounts, shutter their orgs, arrest the corporate lawyers which actually run the real organization. Shut them down until they comply, piece by piece. We had no problem doing this to "terrorist" charities and Middle Eastern taxi drivers. Let's use Homeland Security to secure the homeland. Be an interesting battle, considering how many people they've planted in the IRS and the FBI, not to mention Bono's office would leak the US's moves to them. Would be entertaining, and after it's done, we can finally sue them for their actions, put them in jail, and worst of all, take away their so-pretty stacks of money.

Then, the moonies... Scientologists are unicorn lovers compared to those %^%&#@s. THAT is a cult.

My thoughts:

Research in any number of fields has slowed to a crawl. Hard to measure, given one must imagine what would be had the present condition not grown, but perhaps some causes can be identified.

- The conversion of the science community in the U.S. to a profit-based research model, with universities converted into patent farms. Unlike the model I grew up with, pure research, focus is on finding patentable, profitable knowledge. Knowledge is being hoarded and metered out. The collaborative nature of science is being snuffed under a money-stuffed pillow.

- Science funding, in the US at least, adjusted for inflation is shrinking when it should be expanding. And too much of it is micromanaged using the corporate model -- results on a timely basis or the grant dies. Wild, speculative notions are not encouraged, So serendipitous discoveries are rarer.

-TOO MUCH SCIENCE is depending on charitable donations. Telethons, expensive advertising campaigns that give too much to ad firms -- this is not how to cure diseases. Science should not have to market itself as a beggar.

-Market-driven science, as an ideology, is not as productive as the open publishing, liberally government-funded predecessor. We are dying in our millions through curable sicknesses for a market ideology.

And oh yeah - leaking this information about a case going to trial is a criminal offense. Not that anyone cares. Crime is only committed by the citizenry, never the government. Who's gonna charge them? Bush? The Justice Department?

And what the HELL is the FBI doing going after call girls and their customers?

Total Information Awareness. This is what it means. Spying, leaking, destroying - selectively. Didn't the White House press secretary McClellen get a gay hooker press credentials? Wasn't that hooker in the WH vistor log dozens of times -- before the log went missing?

No warrant means fishing on spec. Fishing for tidbits. Tidbits that can be useful. J. Edgar Hoover used to invite people to listen to Martin Luther King sex recordings he had had made. Great fun.

It doesn't take a "conspiracy" to troll for sex crimes. A whistleblower recently swears that Carl Rove asked her to find evidence of sexual hanky-panky of one of the RNC's targets. These a-holes now have exclusive access to the biggest internal spying system in the history of mankind, and they are using it to further their party.

Why is Congress so reticent about impeachment? How about six years of having their every call, every bank transaction, every move on the internet tracked and recorded for eagle-eyed RNC operatives to find weaknesses? EVERYone has a secret. Hear the crickets in the halls of Congress..

Takuan:

America killed three million in bringing civilization to our little brown brothers.

Famously, the Marines upgraded their sidearms to 45 caliber because the little 22's didn't knock down the determined terrorists, um, insurgents.

Our President decided to undertake the conquest after we defeated the Spaniards there. The Filipinos were distrustful of our intentions, as were the Cubans, and were proven right as we Brought Capitalism and Civilization to their world, now our world. Our elected Freedomizer decided we owed our "little brown brothers" the fruits of civilization. So we drowned them and shot them until they were free. They were by then, as I said, down three million young men.

I believe I learned all that from Sarah Vowell's "Assassination Nation". The good news was that the President in question was assassinated, I seem to recall. Sigh. She's Violet Parr and a genius writer. My kind of woman. Call me.

AFAIK, the land he built on is taxed lower, as it is zoned as agricultural. He would have paid a lot more for the land as well had it been zoned residential: it's in a green belt. Since farmers are subsidized by tax breaks and such, I don't have to point out he was gaming for land kept deliberately underpriced. Make him pay up the differences retroactive to the time he started his project. And tax him hard, as I said. And regulate his home's price on the market in future, so that he can't realize an unfair profit.

Well, let's be just. Fine him and let him keep it, AND tax him hard for his little game he played.

It's not like someone else will try putting up hale bales or similar and try the same trick. No-one will fall for that again. And it's quite beautiful, as houses go. More of a shame to destroy it than to let it be.

So, make him pay up.

Once more, I see people who don't understand evolution of tyranny. To prevent 1942, you must stop the reaction to Kristalnacht. There is no sound reason to slowly convert us into an open air prison "for our safety". We've lived a half millions years with a "lack" of such safety, and we can live another half without it.

Sigh. No knowledge of history. I blame the lack of reading of decent SF, written by men who were polymaths and understood process. Please don't reference Star Trek when talking about the evolution of tyranny.

Stop the cameras and movement logs now, while we can. In twenty years we will be gerbils in a laser-guarded cage if we do not.

Also, in the US, it's illegal. 9th amendment mentions that rights exist held in common that cannot be listed, but will arise when needed, and seven centuries of common law and everyday human life speak to a right to human privacy.

If those of you who care more for being safe in your cubic rather than being free men, build Pournelle and Niven's archologies to live in. Cameras in the home, monitored by trusted white authority figures. I call it prison.

Remember tho, that people aren't all that safe in prisons, even with open gated walls faced by serious guards watching you. Apparently safety depends on whether your tormentor is chummy with your guards -- or if say the guards or the warden don't like you. No terror is as complete as a prison staffed by people who don't like you.

Cory, Apple iTunes can sell DRM-free sound files. As a matter of fact, Jobs invited the labels to do so. They have no problem with unencumbered music, and iTunes itself is not structured to only accept DRM. One can prove it by simply playing a ripped MP3 on the iTunes panel. The labels insist on the DRM, not Apple.

Wrong, hot angel fantasy. Adults who try to put moves on kids are almost alway RELATED TO THE KID. Strangers are not the primary danger.

Families are.

Smoke that, Angel. And I see you peeking at the kid. Shame on you.

So, the idea is, he can hurt himself -- possibly, but a rare effect -- so he was arrested. So he'll see jail, maybe prison, get stitched up for tens of thousands of legal fees, perhaps lose the right to vote, won't be hired for any real job after he leaves prison, soooo... probably his best option after they "save" him is to commit suicide? How many millions of people have we saved from themselves so far? How many wrecked lives?

Re: Rather and the bloggers

"Rather's", or correctly, the Bush desertion story covered by CBS News (and by BBC's Newsline, and the Boston Globe in 1990), contained no factual errors. Rather was forced to apologize under tremendous pressure from the Republican owners of Viacom and CBS itself.

As for the accuracy of CBS's report: it was called into question by the writer of the right wing Powerline blog minutes after the broadcast of the episode -- an amazing feat considering all the fax-distorted "evidence" that Powerline presented as fact. Usually takes more than a few minutes to analyze a news story. Apparently Powerline was working closely with Rove's little disinformation team. Anyway.

Powerline was *wrong*. Selectric typewriters had optional proportional font features, if one paid for them. And apparently the military paid, because other documents in Bush's file were typed in proportional fonts. If those were "forged", then Bush's entire military record must be considered a forgery as well.

The "typeface didn't exist" argument was wrong. That particular typeface existed since the 30's.

The "document was typed in Word" argument, linked to the typeface fallacy, also wrong. The "evidence" was micrometric examination of documents, probably stolen from CBS's news department, that had been re-faxed and mutilated thereby. No forensics expert would use such tainted "documentation" such as those faxes.

The overwhelming evidence BESIDES the one document questioned by Powerline minutes after the broadcast damns the President. Witnesses say he wasn't at his duty post for a year. His CO says he was missing. He was seen working at a campaign that year by the entire campaign staff, for crissakes. Everyone in damned Texas, BTW, knows junior deserted and his daddy's friends covered for him. This was not exactly news.

But somehow, this blogger, a far rightist writer, became the source for the repudiation of an accurate report without a single "news reporter" investigating his claims. They instead reported the "controversy". Other bloggers, the non-rightist variety, had the refutation of his points up immediately -- but could get no traction, no mention in the news wires, nothing. Amazing. CBS trumped up a kangaroo trial chaired by a Bush family partisan, and they examined no evidence, and instead lambasted Rather's producer for using naughty words in her emails.

So somehow, a stellar report by the last credible TV newsroom in America ran a report on a long-reported and undenied fact that Bush deserted (AWOL over 30 days) from a Guard post during wartime was somehow deemed irredeemably false and the news reporters destroyed. By one right wing blogger with no facts to back him up. So nastily, so completely that even John Stewart disparaged Rather's work.

I hope Mapes and Rather take Viacom and CBS's trick elephants to trial, open the emails from the RNC and Rove, and empty their piggy banks in penalty. No doubt the report of their vindication will be printed in the "political opinion" section, rather than repudiate the right wing's consensus, so the fact of their innocence will become another "controversial opinion". No one in journalism will admit that they can be deceived so completely, either in this matter, or in the matter of the case for war. They will not face the mirror.

Nah. On Free Republic, they'd call him a fag, a traitor, and then give out his children's school address and schedule.

On Democratic Underground, there's just a lot of pissed off intelligent people. Big diff. Words posted there have more than three syllables, frequently. And you see, the DU's point of view is what we call out here, "true", while the Freepers are demonstrably out of touch with the "true". And are vicious little underhanded lying bastards, besides.

And Beck is a slime. Imagine Dan Rather laughing at a plane crashing into Cheney's bunker. Now imagine Beck sniggering at a plane hitting Hillary Clinton's entourage. See? One is impossible, because of a little thing called character. The other is not only easy to imagine, Beck just DEMONSTRATED that he is a soulless brownshirted prick. Sorry for the naughty words. I feel they are a lot less harmful than Beck's full-on joy for the firey destruction of the homes of "liberals".

Catbeller says hi to Boingboing.

We COULD build houses without hollow walls. Just a thought.