Posts

Jailed for Facebook Comments, Marine Sues (+video)

Photo Credit: USDAgovIt happens in China routinely. It frequently happened in the old Soviet Union. Undoubtedly in North Korea, although generally there’s no one around to witness it. But in the United States? It happens here, too, apparently.

A lawsuit has been filed by officials with the Rutherford Institute on behalf of a Marine who was jailed and held for the comments he made on Facebook – comments that expressed a dissatisfaction with the present direction of the U.S. government.

According to officials at Rutherford, the civil rights action names as defendants members of law enforcement and the government who were involved in last year’s episode where Marine veteran Brandon Raub, 27, was arrested by a swarm of FBI and Secret Service and forcibly detained in a psychiatric ward for a week.

His crime was posting controversial song lyrics and political views on Facebook, the institute reported.

In one of his postings, he cited the evil in the world.

“The United States was meant to lead the charge against injustice, but through our example not our force. People do not respond to having liberty and freedom forced on them,” he wrote.

Read more from this story HERE.

Facebook Causes ‘Psychotic Episodes and Delusions’, Claims Study

Photo Credit: Mike KempFacebook and other social networking sites can actually send you mad, according to scientists in Israel.

Researchers from Tel Aviv University have linked psychotic episodes in patients to internet addiction and delusions caused by virtual relationships cultivated on social networking sites.

Although all the participants had underlying problems of loneliness, none had any history of psychosis or drug abuse, the team say.

Lead researcher Doctor Uri Nitzan of Tel Aviv University’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the Shalvata Mental Health Care Centre said: ‘As internet access becomes increasingly widespread, so do related psychopathologies.

‘Computer communications such as Facebook and chat groups are an important part of this story.’

Read more from this story HERE.

Rep. Chaffetz: I Don’t Want Government ‘Searching my Facebook Page’

Photo Credit: Poster Boy NYCRep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) warned that the government’s search for information online is approaching a “dangerous line” of infringing on people’s liberties.

Speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Chaffetz said that there has to be a balance between liberty and security, even as the government works to hunt down potential terrorists.

“We have a very dangerous line — I don’t want my federal government going in and searching my Facebook page,” Chaffetz said.

The way the federal government tracks potential terrorism suspects has come under scrutiny in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, after it was revealed that the older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was placed on a watch list.

Chaffetz raised the concerns about the government searching for information online after Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), another panelist, had discussed investigators’ data mining in the Boston case.

Read more from this story HERE.

Feds Now Seek Punitive Fines Against Tech Companies Who Won't Eavesdrop on Internet Users

Photo Credit: Truthout.orgA government task force is preparing legislation that would pressure companies such as Face­book and Google to enable law enforcement officials to intercept online communications as they occur, according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with the effort.

Driven by FBI concerns that it is unable to tap the Internet communications of terrorists and other criminals, the task force’s proposal would penalize companies that failed to heed wiretap orders — court authorizations for the government to intercept suspects’ communications.

Rather than antagonizing companies whose cooperation they need, federal officials typically back off when a company is resistant, industry and former officials said. But law enforcement officials say the cloak drawn on suspects’ online activities — what the FBI calls the “going dark” problem — means that critical evidence can be missed.

“The importance to us is pretty clear,” Andrew Weissmann, the FBI’s general counsel, said last month at an American Bar Association discussion on legal challenges posed by new technologies. “We don’t have the ability to go to court and say, ‘We need a court order to effectuate the intercept.’ Other countries have that. Most people assume that’s what you’re getting when you go to a court.”

There is currently no way to wiretap some of these communications methods easily, and companies effectively have been able to avoid complying with court orders.

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: IRS Collecting Tax Payer Information from Facebook and Twitter

Photo Credit: kenteegardin

You have until April 15th to file a return – and the IRS will be collecting a lot more than just taxes this year.

According to several reports, the agency will also be collecting personal information from sites like Facebook and Twitter.

It says the effort is to catch people trying to beat the system, but some say it goes too far.

Attorney Kristen Mathews warns to be careful with what you say on social media platforms.

Watch video here:

Read more from this story HERE.

Man’s Home Raided After Son’s Facebook Picture Shows Gun

Photo Credit: The New American

After seeing a photo of an 11-year-old boy holding a rifle on Facebook, New Jersey police and Department of Children and Families officials raided the home of the boy’s father, Shawn Moore, a firearms instructor. Moore was not arrested or charged, but immediately sought the counsel of his lawyer.

Moore is a certified firearms instructor for the National Rifle Association, an NRA range safety officer, and a New Jersey hunter education instructor. He posted a photograph of his son wearing camouflage and holding his .22 rifle. The photograph caused quite a stir, even though the boy has a New Jersey hunting license and has passed the state’s hunter safety course.

“Someone called family services about the photo,” said Evan Nappen, an attorney representing Shawn Moore. “It led to an incredible, heavy-handed raid on his house. They wanted to see his gun safe, his guns and search his house. They even threatened to take his kids.”

On March 16, Moore’s wife texted her husband to tell him that the Carneys Point Police Department and the New Jersey Department of Children and Families had raided their home. Moore quickly called Nappen and rushed back to his home to find police demanding to check his guns.

In response, Moore handed his phone to the officers so that they could speak to Nappen. “If you have a warrant, you’re coming in,” Nappen told the officers. “If you don’t, then you’re not. That’s what privacy is all about.” Moore, having heard what Nappen told the officers on his speakerphone, asked the officers to leave his home. He later wrote a post about his encounter on the Delaware Open Carry website.

Read more from this story HERE.

Facebook Paid No Taxes Despite Record Profits

Photo Credit: sherifer22Despite earning more than $1 billion in profits last year, social media juggernaut Facebook paid zilch when it came to federal and state taxes in 2012. In fact, the website will actually be getting a refund totaling $429 million thanks to a tax reduction for executive stock options.

In the coming years, Facebook will continue to get monster tax breaks, totaling about $3 billion.

“The employees cash in stock options, and at that point there is tax deduction for the company,” Robert McIntyre, of watchdog group Citizens for Tax Justice, said in an interview with Fox News Channel. “Because even though it doesn’t cost Facebook a nickel, the government treats it as wages and they get a deduction for it. And usually it doesn’t wipe out companies whole tax bill, although many companies get big breaks from it.”

The news comes after President Obama’s State of the Union speech in which he called for such tax breaks to end.

Read more from this story HERE.

Checking Facebook at Work Could Become Illegal

photo credit: ideagirlmedia

Logging into Facebook, perusing eBay and surfing to other decidedly non-work related sites may not just upset your boss; it could also be a federal offense.

That’s according to two Boston College professors who recently authored a paper on how a broad interpretation of the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) could criminalize the routine behavior of every employee who uses a workplace computer in their job.

As the First, Fifth, Seventh and Eleventh Circuit Courts of Appeal interpret it, a breach of a company’s computer policy for example a ban on accessing dating sites and social media for example, also constitutes a violation of the CFAA.

The law was originally written to punish and deter criminal hacking, but as technology experts point out, innovation in technology has outpaced the laws that govern it.

The CFAA, a 1986 law that predates HTTP and the Web as we know it, makes it a crime to “access a computer without authorization or exceed authorized access … from [a] protected computer.” Based on the law’s own definitions, a “protected computer” is virtually any device with a microprocessor and a network connection. Today, virtually everyone “accesses” one when they point their browser to any webpage.

Read more from this story HERE.

Facebook Censors Special Ops PAC to Help Obama (+video)

By AWR Hawkins. Over the weekend, Facebook took down a message by the Special Operations Speaks PAC (SOS) which highlighted the fact that Obama denied backup to the forces being overrun in Benghazi.

The message was contained in a meme which demonstrated how Obama had relied on the SEALS when he was ready to let them get Osama bin Laden, and how he had turned around and denied them when they called for backup on Sept 11.

I spoke with Larry Ward, president of Political Media, Inc — the media company that handles SOS postings and media production. Ward was the one who personally put the Navy SEAL meme up, and the one who received the warning from Facebook and an eventual 24 hour suspension from Facebook because Ward put the meme back up after Facebook told him to take it down. Read more from this story HERE.

Here’s the SEAL’s PAC’s (Special Operations Speaks PAC) latest video:

US Military: You May Be a Terrorist if You Use Facebook, Are Young, and Don’t Like “Mainstream Ideologies”

You’ve recently changed your “choices in entertainment.” You have “peculiar discussions.” You “complain about bias,” you’re “socially withdrawn” and you’re frustrated with “mainstream ideologies.” Your “Risk Factors for Radicalization” include “Social Networks” and “Youth.”

These are some other signs that one of your co-workers has become a terrorist, according to the U.S. military. He “shows a sudden shift from radical to ‘normal’ behavior to conceal radical behavior.” He “inquires about weapons of mass effects.” He “stores or collects mass weapons or hazardous materials.”

That was the assessment of a terrorism advisory organization inside the U.S. Army called the Asymmetric Warfare Group in 2011, acquired by Danger Room. Its concern about the warning signs of internal radicalization reflects how urgent the Army considers that threat after Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan shot and killed 13 people at Ford Hood in 2009. But its “indicators” of radicalization are vague enough to include both benign behaviors that lots of people safely exhibit and, on the other end of the spectrum, signs that someone is so obviously a terrorist they shouldn’t need to be pointed out. It’s hard to tell if the group is being politically correct or euphemistic.

Around the same time, the Asymmetric Warfare Group tried to understand a related problem that now threatens to undermine the U.S. war in Afghanistan: “insider threats” from Afghan troops who kill their U.S. mentors. In another chart, also acquired by Danger Room, an Afghan soldier or policeman ready to snap could be someone who “appears frustrated with partnered nations”; reads “questionable reading materials”; or who has “strange habits.” Admittedly, the U.S. military command isn’t sure what’s causing the insider attacks, but it’ll be difficult for an American soldier who doesn’t speak Pashto or Dari to identify “strange habits” among people from an unfamiliar culture.

Read more from this story HERE.