This is all part of the continuing efforts to keep Americans in a state of fear in order to justify continuing unending war.

Remarkably, George Orwell described this tactic almost perfectly in 1984 and if you haven't read it, now is the time to head down to the library or bookstore. Read it and start fighting back.

Everyone in Long Beach should start carrying a camera at all times and randomly taking photos, especially when they see a police officer.

Reshared post from +Dan Gillmor

UPDATED

Assuming this story is true, America's War on Photography has pushed the limits in Long Beach, California, where police chief says his cops will "approach" photographers pretty much at will — an obvious attempt to intimidate folks. To the extent that photographers are actually detained, that's likely to cost Long Beach taxpayers a bundle over time, as what the city is doing is almost certainly illegal.

Hope the ACLU is on this case…

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Long Beach Post: Police Chief Confirms Detaining Photographers Within Departmental Policy

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Rather than allow AT&T to buy T-Mobile USA, it's actually time to go back to 1984 and break up what has already been reconsolidated.

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A letter written by AT&T (and ineffectively redacted at the FCC) shows that AT&T's rationale for buying T-Mobile is exactly we've known from the beginning. The point is to reduce competition, period. If this buyout goes through, it will be terrible for everyone but the shareholders of AT&T.

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Leaked AT&T Letter Demolishes Case For T-Mobile Merger – Lawyer Accidentally Decimates AT&T's #1 Talking Point | DSLReports.com, ISP Information

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Too funny!

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Cement truck gets stuck in road
This cement truck driver in China must have been confused when he tried to pull away and couldn't because his back tire had sunk into the roadbed. Local officials discovered three large pits under th…

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Screw Apple! I've always like OS X and my Macbook Pro rocks and it's hard to beat an ipod as a portable media player. But I've always been hohum about iOs and and with all of this patent litigation bullshit they won't be getting any more of my money any time soon.

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Apple also files complaint against Motorola Xoom design, may seek injunction | Android Central
Apple suing Motorola for the Xoom design

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If you don't want you building photographed, wall it off and don't let anyone in. If someone can stand on the sidewalk and see something, why is it wrong for them to record it?

Reshared post from +Dan Gillmor

The British War on Photography, brilliantly illustrated by activists who took pictures in public places with videographers capturing the varied — and usually false — claims of private security people about what is permitted under the law. This is happening more and more in the U.S., but the UK leads (if that's the right word) the world's democracies in this particular brand of paranoia.

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It's not often that I agree with Mark Cuban but in this case I couldn't agree more. The abuse of patents by "intellectual property holding companies" needs to stop. More importantly the examiners at the US Patent and Trademark Office need to get off their asses and start actually examining these patents and using some common sense.

If patent application doesn't actually describe a very specific invention, reject it. If it's something obvious reject it. Put the burden of proof that the "claimed invention" on the applicant to demonstrate that it is novel.

Most importantly eliminate software and business method patents entirely. Patents should cover a specific implementation, not a general idea. At this point we would be better off if they put a moratorium on all new patents until the problem is sorted out.

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patent litigation pissing off anyone else ? I could hire a lot more people if we didnt have to spend money on the nonsense we are getting hit with. Hello Mr President, your assistance is requested…

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blog maverick
If you want to see more jobs created – change patent laws. Aug 6th 2011 8:24PM. Sometimes it's not the obvious things that create the biggest problems. In this case one of the hidden job killers i…

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It's time to take America back from big corporations and return it to the people! An Ypsilanti/Ann Arbor chapter of Move to Amend http://movetoamend.org/ is opening up. For those unfamiliar with the recently launched group, the intent is pass a constitutional amendment that would end the ridiculous idea that corporations should be treated as persons.

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Move to Amend chapter to open in Ypsi/Arbor, challenge concept of corporate personhood
For all your Mark Maynard needs.

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Shortly after Google's top lawyer called out Microsoft and Apple for ganging up on his company by combining to outbid Google in the recent Nortel patent auction, Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith fired back. http://www.androidcentral.com/editorial-keep-it-courtroom-folks

Smith claims that Google was invited to join the consortium which was actually put together to allow the members to defend themselves against smaller patent trolls. Now I'm no lawyer but having watched the software patent train wreck since the mid 1990s, I've got a few ideas (which may well be completely off-base) about Google's thinking here.

From Google's perspective their real patent problem revolves around Android and efforts by Microsoft, Apple and Oracle to derail its momentum with patent claims. While small patent trolls are a real problem, they are not Google's priority right now. Google's reason for buying the Nortel patents would be as a defensive maneuver against its large rivals.

If Google had opted to join the consortium, it's a good bet that the deal would have included some provision that those patents could not be used in either an offensive or defensive way against the other members of the group. That means that they would've been no use to Google in its current legal proceedings. For Google to use these patents defensively they would probably need to have sole ownership.

That's probably why Google has turned its attention and money toward acquiring other available patents. In the long run, this may yet come back to bite Google if the consortium opts to attack based on the Nortel patents as well but this may be less of an issue since those are apparently mostly related to hardware, a segment in which Google doesn't really participate.

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Yes, Apple and Microsoft are still evil. Glad to see someone at Google come right out and say it.

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Google's chief legal officer calls patent war 'a hostile, organized campaign against Android' | Android Central
Google We've heard the cries. "Why isn't Google fighting back on the patent front?!?!" Trust us, there are people in suits working on this every day.

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NATO alliance defeated the Soviet Union led Warsaw pact without ever firing a shot on the battlefield. The stronger western economies essentially allowed the United States to finance an arms race with the Soviets that drove the eastern bloc into bankruptcy. Because the excessive spending on the military starved the populace of economic advancement, the political system in the east eventually collapsed under its own weight. Victory came at the expense of fulfilling President Dwight Eisenhower's worst nightmare upon his retirement of an overly powerful military-industrial complex.Unfortunately following an all-too brief respite in the 1990s, military spending in the United States took off again following the turn of the century to the degree that even without counting the insane cost of all the wars that we are fighting right now, the US is spending more on its military in inflation adjusted dollars than at any time since the second world war.As of 2011, the US accounts for 47% of the entire planet's military spending, meaning that we just about spend more than the rest of the world combined. We spend 8 times more than China. It is this profligate spending on expensive weapons systems we don't really need (like the F35 and new aircraft carriers) plus huge outlays to contractors that no one either side seems willing to touch, that is driving this country into insolvency. Only a group of middle eastern countries including Saudi Arabia, Israel, Iraq, UAE and others spend a larger percentage of GDP on the military. Tax cuts and slashing the social safety net will not fix what ails the United States. We need to end these wars now and slash the military.

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War Room: Will military spending bankrupt the U.S.?
Our debt problems stem from the fact that we're pouring more money into the Pentagon than we have since WWII

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