YouTube vs Pakistan

I found more info. "According to one PTA official, the video in discussion could concern a movie trailer whose author is Geert Wilders, a man with radical anti-Islamic convictions that so far have brought him numerous death threats." I will try a search on the term "Geert Wilders" I need to narrow the search I will try "YouTube Geert Wilders"

The last search turns up a number of videos.

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Theocracy Shuts Down YouTube Worldwide

I am trying to find the Pakistan anti-Islamic video, that was the Reason that caused Pakistan to decide to shut down internet access to YouTube. A search on YouTube for "Pakistan anti-Islamic video" turns up the following vids. But I don't know which if any is the one Pakistan objected to.

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Many users around the world could not access YouTube Inc.'s site for about two hours on Sunday. The video-sharing company blamed the outage on erroneous routing information introduced by a Pakistani Internet service provider. Pakistani authorities ordered ISPs there to block the site on Friday.
Traffic to YouTube was misrouted for around two hours, rendering the site inaccessible for many users around the world, YouTube said today.
"We have determined that the source of these events was a network in Pakistan," the company said, adding that it is still investigating the problem to prevent it from happening again.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) ordered the country's ISPs to block users' access to YouTube on Friday because of an inflammatory anti-Islamic video on the site, said Wahaj us Siraj, convener of the Association of Pakistan Internet Service Providers, in a telephone interview.

"If the video is provocative, then it is better it is removed, rather than provoke unrest in Pakistan," said Siraj, who added that he did not know the contents of the video.

How Kevin Martin Got Over A Million People To Look At A Woman's Naked Buttocks

Since taking over the FCC, Kevin Martin has supposedly been against regulations -- except in two areas: the cable industry and "indecency." He's been a strong proponent of cracking down on whatever he considers indecent programming, and much of his support for a la carte cable is based on how it might block indecent content. The latest crackdown on indecency has a number of people shaking their heads. It involves fining ABC affiliates $1.43 million for a brief clip of the TV show "NYPD Blue," that aired in February of 2003, and included images of a naked woman from behind. ...

By now, most people would have forgotten about it... unless, of course, the FCC were to bring the clip back into the news, getting someone to put it on YouTube, and driving well over a million viewers to watch the video since the fine was announced.

I think I would consider this clip more funny than indecent; in fact its not indecent in the slightest. Kevin Martin needs to get a life.

I will never buy another Western Digital hard drive.

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Galveston Independent School District wants to Sue Blogger

This just makes them seem guilty, public officials should not sue citizens. Lets hope there actions are fully exposed and that they not be reelected.

The Galveston Independent School District (GISD) is attempting to sue
Sandra Tetley, the mother of a student in the district, for defamation.
Tetley runs the blog GISDWatch.com, which tracks and comments on the activities of the local school board.

EFF sues the DOJ for withholding records of telecom surveillance immunity lobbying

By Ryan Paul
Published: September 28, 2007 - 09:43AM CT

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has filed a lawsuit against the US Department of Justice (DOJ) in an effort to obtain records that could shed light on telecommunication industry lobbying activities. The EFF suspects that major telecommunications companies like AT&T have attempted to use political leverage to compel lawmakers to support legislation that would grant the companies legal immunity for their involvement in the federal government's extralegal electronic surveillance program.

The EFF requested records under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) last month from the Department of Justice and Office of Legislative Affairs. The records sought by the EFF include documentation of interaction pertaining to FISA amendments and surveillance immunity between Department of Justice officials, representatives of the telecommunications companies, and members of the Senate or House of representatives. The government has failed to process the FOIA request within the 20-day maximum waiting period stipulated by law, so the EFF has followed up its request with a lawsuit (PDF) demanding swift compliance.

Recent reports have revealed evidence that the telecommunications companies have been heavily lobbying for immunity in order to avoid potentially costly and embarrassing litigation.

Related Stories

Bush administration proposes retroactive immunity for phone companies

Censorship

[Editor's Note: Craig Murray, former United Kingdom Ambassador to Uzbekistan, author of the book, Murder in Samarkand: A British Ambassador's Controversial Defiance of Tyranny in the War on Terror, and contributor to Atlantic Free Press
has recently had his personal blogging site - as well as a number of sites not owned by him and on the same server, taken down by his U.K. hosting company due to pressure from Schillings, a high-powered London Law firm, on behalf of Uzbeki Alisher Usmanov
- the latest Russian billionaire to move to the United Kingdom.
Usmanov's lawyers have gone after the host of Murray's site rather than Craig Murray himself. It seems they would prefer not to have Murray on the stand in a courtroom. Usmanov is allegedly livid - as it has been leaked that he was not a political prisoner at all, but rather a hard-nosed criminal.

Other Links:

White House scrubs site in attempt to make office 'exempt'

Nick Juliano
Published: Tuesday September 4, 2007

The White House has scrubbed its Web site of evidence it has reversed its policies on allowing public access to information to which it is legally entitled. However, a source told Raw Story that the scrub would have no legal implications.

Sometime over the weekend, White House computer technicians removed from government Web sites any references to the Office of Administration or its previous compliance with Freedom of Information Act requests.

Where visitors once just found information about how to file public records requests or view annual reports on the Office of Administration's FOIA compliance, the White House has appended the following admonition:

"The Office of Administration, whose sole function is to advise and assist the President, and which has no substantial independent authority, is not subject to FOIA and related authorities. However, these pages have been maintained due to the Presidential Records Act."

Two other sites that previously listed the OA as subject to FOIA regulations have since been updated to reflect the opposite position, with similar stark denials of public accessibility at the top of each page.

...The office previously had a set of FOIA protocols and handled FOIA requests...

... the Bush administration is trying to subvert long-standing open-government policies...

The White House's attempt to erase the policies was discovered on the same day Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington submitted a new brief in its FOIA lawsuit seeking information on five million missing e-mails sent by the president's advisers on Republican Party-owned accounts.

CREW first documented the White House efforts Tuesday,...

This is the prior inforomation dated from October 6, 2005, which for some reason is the latest date available via the Wayback Machine.

The Office of Administration's Electronic Reading Room

The Electronic Reading Room contains documents specifically identified for inclusion by the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), as well as documents for which we have received multiple FOIA requests.

GILS Information

Purchase Cardholders

Annual FOIA Reports

2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996

Index and Descri

Bush and the Global Warming Case

Court Rules Against Bush Administration in Global Warming Case:

Federal Judge Orders Production of Suppressed

Scientific Reports on Global Warming Impacts

OAKLAND, Calif.–The Bush administration was rebuked today by a federal judge for suppressing scientific reports on the impacts of global warming on the United States. In response to a lawsuit brought last year by conservation organizations, Federal District Court Judge Saundra Armstrong issued an order finding the Bush administration in violation of the Global Change Research Act of 1990 for failing to produce an updated Research Plan and a National Assessment as required by the statute.
“This administration has denied and suppressed the science of global warming at every turn,” said Brendan Cummings of the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the attorneys arguing the case. “Today’s ruling is a stern rebuke of the administration’s head-in-the-sand approach to global warming.”

The Research Plan and National Assessment required by the Global Change Research Act are intended to be the preeminent documents guiding federal research and policy-making on issues related to global warming. The Research Plan guides all federal climate research, while the National Assessment serves to provide an understandable summary of global warming impacts on the environment, economy, human health and human safety of the United States and is to by used by Congress and federal agencies in setting policy and responding to global warming.
The last National Assessment was issued in late 2000 under the Clinton administration. Its use and dissemination was suppressed by the Bush administration, and the required update in 2004 was never produced. The Research Plan was required by law to be updated in 2006 but also has never been produced.

The Court ordered the Bush administration to issue the draft overdue Research Plan by March 1, 2008, with a final 90 days thereafter, and the National Assessment by May 31, 2008.

“Knowledge is the key to effective action,” said Danielle Fugere, global warming program director for Friends of the Earth. “Congress knew this when it required the best minds in our government to conduct a National Assessment documenting the impacts of global warming on the U.S. Today’s ruling will help make that information available.”

In April 2005, at the request of Senators John Kerry and John McCain, the U.S. Government Accountability Office investigated the Bush administration’s failure to produce a 2004 National Assessment. It concluded that 1) the administration “did not submit a scientific assessment in November 2004, 4 years after the previous assessment, as required by the [Global Change Research] act,” 2) the administration expressly refuses to complete a single National Assessment, and 3) the White House’s piecemeal approach lacks an “explicit plan or…assessing the effects of global change on the eight areas enumerated in the act: the natural environment, agriculture, energy production and use, land and water resources, transportation, human health and welfare, human social systems, and biological diversity. “From muzzling NASA’s top climate scientist to political cronies in the White House editing climate science reports, the Bush administration has repeatedly tried to obscure and deny the science, while attempting to run out the clock on his administration,” said John Coequyt, energy policy analyst with Greenpeace.

Scientific research continues to indicate that rapid global warming from human production of greenhouse gases threatens every aspect of society, from our economy and public health to water availability and biological diversity. Recent scientific literature documents the melting of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets at a rate faster than predicted. There is also evidence that the Arctic permafrost is beginning to melt, which will result in massive emissions of the powerful greenhouse gas methane. Dr. James Hansen, NASA’s leading
climate scientist, has warned that just 10 more years on current greenhouse gas emissions trajectories will commit the world to large-scale, disastrous climate impacts.

Today’s court ruling comes in the case Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, and Greenpeace, Inc. v. Brennan, et al.,
(Case No. 06-CV-7062 (SBA) (N.D. Cal.)). Senator Kerry and Congressman Jay Inslee filed an amicus brief and moved to intervene in support of plaintiffs in the case.

Censoring Scientific Discourse

Wordpress.com is the fourth biggest blog hosting site on the internet, and is home to more than 1 million blogs. According to the founding developer of Wordpress, Matt Mullenweg, his site was doing more than 12 million pageviews a month in Turkey
-- in other words, a large, thriving citizen-journalist community has been completely cut off because of the ego of a single wealthy creationist.

The Daily Swarm - The Blue Room: Who else did AT&T censor?

How many musicians have had their AT&T Blue Room performances edited or censored?