Civil Liberties Minute

graphic by Susan Henson
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Upcoming talks

• Surathkal, India

  Richard Stallman will give a talk in Surathcal, India, February 3^rd at 11:00 AM.

  The talk will be at the Natonal Institute of Technology, Western campus.

Urgent action items

• US citizens: call on the Senate to reject Mike Huckabee, the extremist nominee for U.S. Ambassador to Israel.

• Massachusetts voters: call on your state representative and state senator to pass the Location Shield Act (HD2965/SD501) and the Dignity Not Deportations Act (HD3596/SD1107).

  Each of these bills does far less than what is needed, but each is a step forward nonetheless.

• US citizens: call on Congress not to let the Muskrat destroy Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

  If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121

• US citizens: call on the Big Banks to divest from fossil fuels.

• US citizens: call on Congress to provide immediate disaster relief for LA fires.

  If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121

• US citizens: call on the Senate to reject Dr Oz.

  If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121

• US citizens: call on Congress to provide immediate disaster relief for LA fires.

  If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121

• I'm looking for speaking invitations for a trip in January and February that will include some part of Europe, then India, then some other part of Europe.

  The first visit to Europe will be roughly Jan 16 to 22. The visit to India will start Jan 22 and can continue into February. The second visit to Europe will be after that. Those dates are flexible.

  One advantage of this period for you is that the intercontinental flights are already covered, so you won't need to pay for that.

  If you are interested in inviting me, and you have a venue to use and a public to invite, please email me soon with "speaking invitation" in the Subject field, using the name rms and the host gnu dot org.

• I'm looking for a cartoonist who would like to draw cartoons for me once in a while. If you're interested, please write to rms, which refers to me, at the location gnu period org.

• Boycott Chevron, in the name of Steven Donziger.

Recording of Guantanamero

There Ought to Be a Law

• A pitifully weak attempt to solve a real problem: asking for a federal law that would permit victims of domestic abuse and stalking to demand that data brokers delete information about them.

  Data, once collected, will be abused. The way to prevent that abuse is to facilitate refusing to hand it over in the first place.

  Here is my proposal for protecting the specific people known to be in particular danger, and everyone else who could be harmed if individuals, businesses or governments use their personal data against them without a search warrant: require services to be available anonymously.

• The regulation of toxic chemicals in the US is hamstrung by laws that enable companies to keep their use and their presence in any place secret.

  The selfish interest of those who keep trade secrets is rational but antisocial. In many cases the only harm it does is to hold back the general advance of technology. But sometimes it does really nasty things. For digital hardware and software, it often gives companies a way to subjugate their users. Regarding use of toxic chemicals, it endangers public health.

  Why would legislators pass laws to "protect" companies instead of protecting the people they harm? I suspect it is partly because these companies are influential and the legislators seek their support, and partly because the legislators ask them for campaign funds.

  But it is also partly the result of the mindset of "trickle down", which assumes that the only way to get more funds for the state is to let increase the size of the economy by letting companies have what they want. Unfortunately, what they want is often to be allowed to harm the public.

  Most Democrats in Congress got corrupted this way in the 80s and 90s. (The exceptions are the progressive Democrats.) Now in the UK Starmer is guiding Labour into that sort of corruption.

  Clearly our laws should say that any public need to know about the presence of toxic substances in a business facility overrides the desire to keep them secret.

• *China-owned British Steel said to have requested £600m of taxpayer support.*

  Whether the owners are Chinese is a question that there is no need to ask, because the state should never give money to a business "to support it." Instead it should offer to lend money to the company for suitable repayment, or else buy equity at a fair price.

  These two ways of supporting a company avoid giving the owners an opporunity to rip off the state -- which the company's owners are likely to try to do, if they can, regardless of which country they are from.

  With a policy like this, it wouldn't matter which country the company's owners are from.

• California is proposing an interesting approach towards antisocial media platforms.

  It is exciting that SB 976 turns towards restricting recommendation algorithms. But these options should not be limited to minors — every user should have this choice. (Please do not refer to teenagers as "children"; that feeds the US tendency to treat them like children and retard their development.)

  However, I suggest taking a step beyond just choosing to use or not use the platform's addiction system. Recommendation algorithms should be completely separated from platforms!

  If you want to use a nontrivial recommendation algorithm, you should be able to choose it yourself and use it anonymously. You could send it the URLs you want it to base its choices on. These might be some of the pages you had visited, and perhaps pages you had not visited.

  Then it should send you its recommendations. You could pass all, or just some, or none of those recommendations to the platform to look at them.

  AB 1949 is admirable because it gives a small boost to privacy for users of all ages, not only for children. It isn't enough, though — users should also be guaranteed the right and possibility to access through the Tor network and to use aliases. And collection of a user's data by the state should require a warrant against the user.

Quotes

Here are some quotations that I particularly like.

Most recent Political Notes and News Items

You can now read the political notes on Mastodon.

Health insurance VS doctors, USA
1 February 2025

*"It's a death sentence": US health insurance system is failing, say doctors. Firms including United [Hellthcare] have denied basic scans and taken months to reconsider, physicians say.*

Tariff processes initiated, MEX, CAN
1 February 2025

The wrecker announced 25% tariffs on products from Mexico and Canada.

I suggest that those countries respond by declaring sanctions on the muskrat and his companies. That could provoke friction between the wrecker and the muskrat.

Funding freeze blocked by courts
1 February 2025

The maladministration stated it was withdrawing the memo that blocked nearly all US government payments in programs to help non-rich people.

Then it "clarified" that only the memo was rescinded, not the policy.

A judge thereupon ruled that this was meaningless bullshit, and that the policy was indeed canceled.

UnitedHellth expanded corruptly: history
1 February 2025

*The Deadly Consequences Of [UnitedHellth]’s Unchecked Growth*, and the company's influence over judges.

Talk in Surathkal, India, on Feb 3
1 February 2025

Richard Stallman will give a talk at

National Institute of Technology, Surathkal
Hall Complex - C (LHC-C)
Western Campus, NITK Surathkal

Surathkal is near Mangalore.

Urgent: Huckabee Ambassador hearings
31 January 2025

US citizens: call on the Senate to reject Mike Huckabee, the extremist nominee for U.S. Ambassador to Israel.

Labor Relations Board deactivated, US
31 January 2025

The wrecker illegally fired a member of the NLRB, leaving it with no quorum and therefore deactivated.

By hook or by crook, he will support the billionaires against American workers.

Dept. of Edu. ignoring school book-bans
31 January 2025

As part of the War on Human Rights, the wrecker has given permission for state and local book-banning in schools.

Voter suppression rampant in red states
31 January 2025

Greg Palast: *Trump lost. That is, if all legal voters were allowed to vote, if all legal ballots were counted, Trump would have lost the states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia. Vice-President Kamala Harris would have won the Presidency with 286 electoral votes.*

*Harris cheated out of 3,650,000 votes by these Jim Crow tricks. 4.7 million voters purged. 3.2 million registrations rejected. 2.1 million mail-in ballots tossed.*

EU tech-laws VS big US tech-companies
31 January 2025

*Europe "must not be bullied" by Trump and Musk on tech laws, NGOs say.*

I think the EU should resist the bullshitter on every demand that would strengthen his power.

Bullies generally exaggerate their strength and pretend to be invincible. But they always have weakpoints too. The first surrender makes the bully stronger — so almost always you should resist the first demand/threat.

The only exception that occurs to me is when you are rapidly building your strength and have real reasons to think you will have a better chance of winning if you wait for that.

CNN chief anchor and critic resigns
31 January 2025

A prominent CNN critic of the wrecker quit after the network moved his show to midnight.

We have to conclude that this was an attempt to win the wrecker's forgiveness for showing criticism of him to so many people.

Proof of citizenship for voting
30 January 2025

Oklahoma plans to demand proof of citizenship (or legal immigration status) from children who should go to school. In addition to denying to unauthorized immigrants' children, many US citizens would have trouble proving they are citizens.

Worse, the US House of Representatives is about to vote on such a voter-id bill.

Urgent: Location Shield Act
30 January 2025

Massachusetts voters: call on your state representative and state senator to pass the Location Shield Act (HD2965/SD501) and the Dignity Not Deportations Act (HD3596/SD1107).

Each of these bills does far less than what is needed, but each is a step forward nonetheless.

Fighters in Syria
30 January 2025

*Fighters [who belonged to PISSI] in Syria could escape from prison with help from the wrecker's stoppage of US aid to the forces keeping them in prison.

Climate crisis beached Brazil's floating communities
30 January 2025

*The year the rainforest dried up: how the climate crisis beached Brazil’s floating communities.*

Not long ago, scientists warned that global heating and deforestation were going to eliminate the rainfall that keeps the Amazon rainforest in existence. The death of so many trees will cause a big shot of greenhouse gases that will hasten climate disaster world-wide.

Wrecker fired 17 inspectors general
30 January 2025

The wrecker fired 17 inspectors general, apparently illegally.

Heuristically detecting automated insurance coverage denial
30 January 2025

A new computer program heuristically detects medical insurance's automated denials of coverage.

This implies an arms race. I tend to suspect the insurance companies will win, that it will be easier to fool whatever the detection program looks at than to overcome its disguises. What is really needed is to change the laws or structure of the insurance system.

Arrest warrants for Taliban leaders
30 January 2025

*[International Criminal Court] chief prosecutor seeks arrest warrants for Taliban leaders over persecution of women.*

I did not know the ICC had the ability to prosecute crimes like this. Bravo!

I imagine that this step will make the election-riggers in the US hate the ICC even more, but since they already hate it as hard as they can, I doubt they can escalate their hostilities.

Islamic law is cruelty and injustice to women (and also sometimes to men).

Spending of big oil on politicians
30 January 2025

*Big oil spent $445m in last election cycle to [politicians] report says.*

A lot of this spending was on helping to influence (or fool) the public to vote for them.

Labour retreats from tax increase on rich
30 January 2025

Yet again, Labour retreats from a planned tax increase on the rich in response to their threats of pushing back.

The right way to respond is with a counter threat. One idea is a special tax on income from British business that goes to non-taxed stockholders?

The four factors of the apocalypse:
   global heating, global hating,
   global eating, global mating.

Copy this button (courtesy of R.Siddharth) to express your rejection of Facebook.

E-books

Non-oppressive Commercial E-books

Don't use Facebook

Facebook's face recognition demonstrates a threat to everyone's privacy. I therefore ask people not to put photos of me on Facebook; you can do likewise.

Of course, Facebook is bad for many other reasons as well.

Boycott Harry Potter Books, Movies, etc.

Internet Music EULAS

Business Supremacy Treaties

Countries to Stay Away From

No national identity cards

I'd like to make a list of countries that do not require a national identity card, and have no plans to adopt one. If you live in or have confirmed knowledge of such a country, please send email to rms at gnu.org.

Here's my list of countries with no national ID cards and no plans for one: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK. Australia's previous government tried to institute national ID cards, but the Labor government dropped the plan.

India has mostly finished imposing a national biometric ID number in a grand act of oppression.

Switzerland has national ID cards which are optional, but they or some other government ID card are needed for some purposes.

Iceland doesn't have ID cards as such, but they have ID numbers that citizens are forced to use frequently. For example, the national ID number is often required to rent a video or use a gym.

Denmark issues non-photo ID cards with a "person number", and many services use this card to identify people.

Norway will impose a national biometric ID card.

Ireland - national ID card by stealth.

ACLU: the five dangers of national ID cards.

Wikipedia has a list of identity card policies by country.

Borders

Stay away from certain countries because of their bad immigration policies.

Flight connections

Avoid flight connections in these airports because of their treatment of passengers.

The Lifelong Activist

People often ask how I manage to continue devoting myself to progressive activism (such as the free software movement) for years without burning out. The best way I can answer is by recommending a book, The Lifelong Activist by Hillary Rettig.

I disagree with the book on one theoretical point in the last part of the book: we shouldn't think of political activism as being marketing and sales, because those terms refer to business, and politics is something much more important than mere business. However, this doesn't diminish the value of the book's practical advice about borrowing techniques from marketing and sales.

Disclosure: I am friends with the author.

Bob Chassell

Solidarity Economy and Free Software

Personal Declaration of Richard Stallman and Euclides Mance on Solidarity Economy and Free Software.

Falkvinge articles

I have reposted some of Rick Falkvinge's articles. As posted on his site, you can't see them in a browser without running some nonfree Javascript code which is apparently non-free. These versions show the same text, without the obstacle.