Muslim print shop stores will now be open to litigation if they refuse to depict their prophet Mohammed on customer T-Shirts.  Muslim restaurant owners are now open to litigation if they refuse to make Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato sandwiches….. oh yeah, and Catholics business owners are now open to civil rights litigation if they refuse to participate in same sex marriage activities…..

(Raw Story) – After days of protests and criticism levied against her state, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) said on Wednesday that she vetoed SB 1062, which would have effectively legalized discrimination based on religious grounds.

Brewer said she had not heard of one example of religious freedoms being attacked without the bill, considered it broadly worded, and did not address any specific concerns.

She further said that SB 1062 “has the potential to create more problems than it purports to solve” and would be divisive “to a degree that no one would ever want.” (read more)

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“Reporters Without Borders”,  a watchdog organization headquartered in Paris, France and known by its French acronym, “RSF”, has published its annual “World Press Freedom Index”.

Liberty Blitzkrieg brings to our attention that in the great march FORWARD!, the US was a front runner in the stakes for greatest loss of press freedom in year over year results – slipping an impressive 13 slots  from #33 last year to #46 on the 2014 world ranking, after Romania but before Haiti.

There were some “non-surprises”, such as North Korea and Eritrea remaining at the back of the pack, but also some pleasant surprises with tiny Belize clocking in at an impressive #29, hanging out in the “free press” band with Australia at #28.

Clearly, much work remains to be done before the US can be satisfied that the people’s work is completed and it can comfortably hang in the 100’s with its pals in the middle east and Africa.  Maybe that will provide the necessary incentive to Dirty Harry in the Senate to get working on that innertubes kill switch.  In the meantime, those pesky bloggers keep bringing up stuff like Benghazi, or Warrantless Wiretaps, or the ever expanding use of technology to spy on and monitor its own citizens.

The 2014 World Press Freedom Index spotlights the negative impact of conflicts on freedom of information and its protagonists. The ranking of some countries has also been affected by a tendency to interpret national security needs in an overly broad and abusive manner to the detriment of the right to inform and be informed. This trend constitutes a growing threat worldwide and is even endangering freedom of information in countries regarded as democracies. Finland tops the index for the fourth year running, closely followed by Netherlands and Norway, like last year. At the other end of the index, the last three positions are again held by Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea, three countries where freedom of information is non-existent.

Shortly after a congressional hearing yesterday morning, True the Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht filed an ethics complaint against Rep. Elijah Cummings. The complaint alleges the Congressman intimidated her and and her group. The Congressman had done some cable news shows alleging incorrect facts about True the Vote. In the hearing yesterday, Cummings accused True the Vote of racism saying that they were trying to suppress the vote.

“Franky, Megyn, the thought of having to sit before my accuser and be silent in the face of what he did was unconscionable. He [Cummings] filed over a period of months in 2012, he filed three letters that he sent to me asserting that he was opening an investigation. He sent this on House Oversight and Government Reform letterhead.”

“It is not an easy task to unring a bell, nor to remove from the mind an impression once firmly imprinted there*”

“I’m not anti-government …. I’m just pro Freedom”.

-Ladar Levison, (the founder of secure email provider Lavabit, facing a court case because he closed his company rather than hand over encryption keys) interviewed in the interactive UK Guardian piece published November, 2013

Whether or not you think Snowden was a traitor or a hero; the fact remains that “the bell can not be unrung”.

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Jacob Appelbaum is a US citizen and core member of TOR project (funded originally to provide internet communication security).  He writes open source software, is an independent security software developer, activist hacker and passionate resister to tyranny.
He has stated in past interviews that he believes “personal privacy and institutional transparency are complementary ideas that help to create a free and open society …..Tor is part of an ecosystem of software that helps people regain and reclaim their autonomy. It helps to enable people to have agency of all kinds; it helps others to help each other and it helps you to help yourself. It runs, it is open and it is supported by a large community spread across all walks of life.”
Appelbaum eloquently discusses warrantless or “open writ” dragnet surveillance as “turnkey tyranny” and posits that the black budget agencies that engage in such surveillance are violating the 3rd Amendment Rights of US Citizens, likening the actions of the NSA to de facto “digital soldiers” being quartered in our homes without our knowledge or permission. (more…)

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You can expect a lot of this from the crew at Em-Ess-En-Bee-Cee:
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