Gitmo Numbers

admin — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 18:33:14 -0600

From our friends at Young Americans for Liberty and @bonniekristian

$800,000: Annual cost to tax-payers of maintaining one prisoner in Guantanamo Bay.

166: The number of prisoners currently in Gitmo.

86: The number of prisoners currently in Gitmo who have been cleared for release but not actually released.

46: Detainees scheduled for indefinite detention without charge or trial.

15: The age of arrest of the youngest Gitmo detainee ever, Omar Khadr, who was “tortured and refused medical attention” because he would not confess.

15: The number of prisoners under the age of 18 who have been kept at Gitmo.

9: The number of inmate deaths at Guantanamo Bay.

6: The number of those deaths suspected to be suicides.

2009: The year Obama was supposed to close Gitmo.

2013: The year he closed the office dedicated to closing Gitmo.

United Liberty’s Top 30 Most Read Posts from 2012

admin — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 09:09:34 -0600

Being a libertarian-leaning blog, we touch on a variety of issues. From those of you that aren’t familiar with libertarianism, it is a philosophy grounded in individual liberty, limited government, and free markets. Our commentary is based from that unwaivering viewpoint.

This past provided endless fodder for bloggers. From the push for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) to the terrorist attack in Benghazi to the 2012 election. While there was plenty to talk about this year, 2012 also served as a reminder that our liberties are still being slowly taken away.

With all that said, here are the top 30 most read stories from United Liberty during 2012. We hope you enjoy reading them as much as we enjoyed writing them:

Anti-Johnson Crowd is Full of Cowards (Jeremy Kolassa)
For Choom, the Bell Tolls (Louis DeBroux)
There Is No Libertarian Case For Mitt Romney (Doug Mataconis)
Why Is The State Department Partnering With Convicted Bomber Brett Kimberlin (Kevin Boyd)
8 Technological Reasons to Stop SOPA & PIPA (Ron Davis)
Intelligence officials destroy White House’s Benghazi narrative (Jason Pye)
Santorum meets with conservatives in hopes to save campaign (Jason Pye)
5 Reasons Why You Might Want to Vote for Mitt Romney (Ron Davis)
Looking ahead in the race for the GOP nomination (Jason Pye)
Obama ready to send the United States over the fiscal cliff (Jason Pye)
Wayne Root leaves Libertarian Party, backs Romney (Jason Pye)
Problems with Involving Minors in Politics (George Scoville)
Note to Birthers: Marco Rubio is a natural-born citizen (Jason Pye)
5 Reasons Why You Might Want to Vote for Gary Johnson (Ron Davis)
NYC Soda Ban Will Have Unintended Consequences (Ron Davis)
Can Libertarians And Social Conservatives Be Allies? (Kevin Boyd)
Randy Barnett: Evaluating the ObamaCare Ruling (Jason Pye)
Are we still arguing about Chick-fil-A? (Jason Pye)
Vote Your Conscience (Kevin Boyd)
Johnson Crushes Obama On Gay Marriage Question (Jeremy Kolassa)
Exploring Liberty: Christopher Preble explains libertarianism and war (Jason Pye)
Write-In for Ron Paul Would Be Useless (Jeremy Kolassa)
Poll shows top concerns of small business owners (Jason Pye)
Romney’s tax returns should be off limits (Jason Pye)
Has the world gone mad? (Brian Lehman)
SOPA author not done with the internet (Tom Knighton)
Mitt Romney: The Reason Ron Paul Supporters Still Dream (Rick Fisk)
A Santorum nomination could be a good thing for libertarians? (Jason Pye)
Thoughts on Free Speech and Censorship (Ron Davis)
Law Enforcement Needs To Reassess Its Priorities (Jeremy Kolassa)

United Liberty VP Debate Hangout

admin — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 19:50:06 -0500

We’re live from a Google+ Hangout, watching and critiquing the debate tonight between Vice President Joe Biden and Rep. Paul Ryan. You can watch the debate live here and you can listen to our commentary below:

Super Tuesday Live Blog

admin — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 15:55:52 -0600

Welcome to United Liberty’s Super Tuesday Live Blog. We’ll be getting started around 6:30pm or so. But before you join in on the conversation, here are some links to read on things to look for this evening.

Over at FiveThirtyEight, Nate Silver lays out the various scenarios that could unfold tonight, including delegate projections for all four candidates. Politico has a list of 10 things to watch for tonight, including Ohio, where a win could help Romney put the race to bed much quicker. CNN only gives three things for us to watch, but one of them (voter turnout) could obviously be a game-changer.

Watch returns come in:

Alaska (12am EST)
Georgia (7pm EST)
Idaho (10:30pm EST)
Massachusetts (8pm EST)
North Dakota (10pm EST)
Ohio (7:30pm EST)
Oklahoma (8pm EST)
Tennessee (8pm EST)
Vermont (7pm EST)
Virginia (7pm EST)

&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href=”http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php/option=com_mobile/task=viewaltcast/altcast_code=95602dc036” mce_href=”http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php/option=com_mobile/task=viewaltcast/altcast_code=95602dc036” &amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Super Tuesday Live Blog&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

South Carolina Primary Live-Blog

admin — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 15:45:03 -0600

Welcome to United Liberty’s coverage of the South Carolina primary. We were anticipating an interesting day between Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, but polls have showed movement in recent days. It looks like Gingrich will win the state this evening by a decent margin, despite some bad press in the last 72 hours.

You can track results from the Palmetto State here.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href=”http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php/option=com_mobile/task=viewaltcast/altcast_code=3655c92820” mce_href=”http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php/option=com_mobile/task=viewaltcast/altcast_code=3655c92820” &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;South Carolina Primary&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

DIY Satellites and Filesharing Religions: SOPA's new enemies

admin — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:43:58 -0600

In keeping with the goal to educate readers about the dangers of SOPA and PIPA, here is a piece by Jeremy Kolassa, originally published on January 12, 2012.

Going off of my colleague Ron Davis’ post about technological reasons to oppose that monstrosity known as SOPA (and it’s Senate twin, PIPA), here are a couple of news stories from earlier in the month to share with you. I am a bit late on these, I admit, but I want to place them here just to show how ineffectual SOPA will actually be.

The first “solution” will probably fail and end in misery and a fireball, but you have to give some credit to these guys: a group of hackers want to send up a satellite that will act as an independent file-sharing server, a sort of space age Sealand:

The scheme was outlined at the Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin.

The project’s organisers said the Hackerspace Global Grid will also involve developing a grid of ground stations to track and communicate with the satellites.

Longer term they hope to help put an amateur astronaut on the moon.

Hobbyists have already put a few small satellites into orbit - usually only for brief periods of time - but tracking the devices has proved difficult for low-budget projects.

The hacker activist Nick Farr first put out calls for people to contribute to the project in August. He said that the increasing threat of internet censorship had motivated the project.

“The first goal is an uncensorable internet in space. Let’s take the internet out of the control of terrestrial entities,” Mr Farr said.

He cited the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa) in the United States as an example of the kind of threat facing online freedom. If passed, the act would allow for some sites to be blocked on copyright grounds.

First of all, SOPA and censorship aside, this is awesome. We have individuals desiring to put up a satellite all on their own, without government involvement. This is the free market at work, people, and its glorious. Maybe in a few decades we can all send up satellites? Definitely, they’re ambitious—an amateur astronaut on the Moon? Sign me up!—but what is life without ambition?

Likely, however, such a satellite would be shot down by some power, if it ever made it off the launch pad. I doubt any launching company would want to send up a satellite intended for filesharing and to bypass copyright restrictions for fear of being targeted in lawsuits by media companies and perhaps even national governments (if those governments didn’t just send in cops to prevent the launch in the first place.) If these guys were able to obtain the support of a “terrestrial entity,” as they call nations, then perhaps it would work.

Still, a person can dream. Some dreams are even prophetic, with religious connotations…which is my very poor segue into the next solution: create a filesharing religion! No, I’m not on crack, the Swedes have really done it:

The Church of Kopimism has been registered as a religious organization by the Swedish governmental agency Kammarkollegiet, it said on Wednesday.

For the Church of Kopimism, information is holy and copying is a sacrament, it said in a statement, and adds that information holds a value, in itself and in what it contains, and the value multiplies through copying. Therefore, copying is central for the organization and its members.

Well, that’s certainly an interesting hypothesis. Kind of a new age twist on the whole “go forth and multiply” rule.

Kammarkollegiet confirms the registration, which was approved in December. The registration will have very few direct consequences, according to Bertil Kallner, general counsel at Kammarkollegiet. It is the first step if the Church of Kopimism wants to get help from the government to collect membership fees, but that has to be approved by the government and is a much more demanding process. Also, the church isn’t interested in that at this point, according to spiritual leader Isak Gerson.

However, being recognized by the state of Sweden is still a big step. Hopefully, this is one step towards the day when they can “live out their faith without fear of persecution”, Gerson said.

A-yep. Torrenters have created their own religion in Sweden to protect filesharing. “All hail μTorrent.”

Would this ever get ground in America? Doubtful. Sweden is a much more open-minded country, and they are, in general, far less religous than Americans (even though they have a state church.) It would never fly in the country of apple pie, college football, and Jesus Christ (who I heard was playing for ‘Bama this year.)

The point is that these things show how creative people get when confronting government regulation. The government—and by extension, the corporate sponsors of these bills—are simply not agile enough to respond to all of the possible workarounds of SOPA and PIPA. It’s not even technological, as the Church of Kopimism shows; you just have to believe in it strongly enough, and you’ll find some way.

Now, that’s not to say I believe in online piracy myself. I agree with Tom Knighton that intellectual property does exist, and perhaps needs to, if we’re going to have creative people create new works of art. Why would they if there was no incentive to do so? Why would they if they couldn’t pay their bills? They’d just go work in McDonalds. However, developments over the past half-century in copyright enforcement have gone too far the other way. The cure, in this case, is far worse than the disease, if it even works at all.

Companies backing SOPA have created piracy

admin — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 19:15:59 -0600

In keeping with the goal to educate readers about the dangers of SOPA and PIPA, here is a piece by Jason Pye, originally posted by on December 27, 2011.

We’ve been posting a lot about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) lately. You’re going to continue to hear about it online over the next few weeks. SOPA is touted by supporters as legislation that would prevent copyright infringement and secure intellectual property rights, but it would actually promote internet censorship and ignore due process. In fact, SOPA isn’t likely to stop piracy.

If you want to learn more about the law and its implications, you should watch this video that explains how many of the companies supporting SOPA are in fact guilty of distributing software that promotes piracy:

H/T: RevoluTimes

8 Political Reasons to Stop SOPA and PIPA

admin — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:05:01 -0600

In keeping with the goal to educate readers about the dangers of SOPA and PIPA, here is a piece by Ron Davis, originally posted on January 11, 2012.

My post from earlier today, 8 Technological Reasons to Stop SOPA and PIPA, discussed the legitimate technological problems with the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). These bills are supposed to be an attempt at stopping online piracy, but as I mentioned yesterday, they will not work but will instead cause harm to the speed, reliability, security, and safety of the Internet.

There are also political reasons this legislation should not be supported. Here are eight of them:

SOPA and PIPA will not stop piracy. It’s even a stretch to argue that they would impact it at all. I explained how earlier, but the technical details aren’t important to today’s point. If proposed legislation will obviously not accomplish its stated purpose, it should never pass. This one point alone should be enough for your congressman and senators to oppose it. In case it’s not enough, keep reading; I have seven more reasons.

SOPA and PIPA mandate censorship compliance. When a domain name is seized by the government, ISPs are forced to comply with the censorship. There is no option of appeal for the ISPs; they must comply.

The method of seizing domain names lacks due process for the accused. These bills take a “guilty until innocent” approach to Internet censorship. If the site that has been seized is truly not violating copyrights, the owner can follow a process to get his site restored, but this process is backward from what the Fifth Amendment would require. Voting for legislation which so obviously ignores the Fifth Amendment would be a violation of the oath of office for any legislator.

SOPA and PIPA contradict the safe harbor rule. I’m no lawyer, but current law creates a safe harbor for ISPs. Basically YouTube isn’t liable for copyrighted material you upload, as long as they take it offline at the request of the copyright holder. If this legislation passes, it will make YouTube responsible for the content its users upload, which means that YouTube could be gone from the Internet with one complaint of copyright violation.

SOPA and PIPA will damage entrepreneurship. The risk of investing startup capital for a new company will be too great; it could be completely lost overnight. Where would we be without the companies that came from the dot com era? I know where I’d be: unemployed. We can’t risk killing the entrepreneurial spirit in America’s small business minds.

The Attorney General is a qualifying plaintiff. Suppose people who comment on my site have an avatar of a copyrighted character. Suppose Eric Holder doesn’t like what I have to say about him. He would be able, without the request or support of the copyright holder, to have my web site’s domain seized by court order. This is too much power for government to hold.

SOPA and PIPA set a precedent for global Internet administration. This one is really scary. Yesterday I talked about how easy it was to bypass the efforts of a SOPA/PIPA domain seizure by using servers outside of the United States for DNS queries. The next logical step would be for our government to start pushing for a global Internet management process where all DNS servers would be subject to censorship law. A United Nations type effort for censoring Internet sites would effectively kill the Internet.

SOPA and PIPA are about Internet censorship, not online piracy. I’ve used the word “censorship” several times in this post – and not by accident. This legislation is about our government having the ability to step in and forcibly seize a web site so that people in the United States are unable to read its content. Putting restrictions on what people can read or publish is nothing more than censorship. This legislation hinders free speech and is in violation of the First Amendment.

Online piracy is definitely an important issue, but it’s not an issue that can be solved with government regulation. It’s a service problem. Think about how iTunes saved the music industry with the iTunes store. It made music easy to buy, and people bought it. To stop piracy, copyright holders need to deliver the content in ways where the pirates are willing to pay for it. A government takeover of the Internet is not the solution to this problem.

I hope you’ve found these posts enlightening and informative. Please use them to stress to your congressman and senators that this legislation must not be passed. There is no reason for any member of Congress to vote in favor of this legislation. Emphasize these points when you call. Let them know you’re paying attention. We absolutely must stop these bills from becoming law.

List of Pols against SOPA Blows My Mind

admin — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:10:33 -0600

In keeping with the goal to educate readers about the dangers of SOPA and PIPA, here is a piece by Jeremy Kolassa, originally posted on November 21, 2011.

I’ve been following the progress of the “Stop Online Piracy Act,” or SOPA, also known as the “Internet Blacklist Bill,” for some time now, but haven’t posted about it because I feel that other websites cover it far better. Recently, though, I’ve seen some news I feel I have to share to United Liberty readers, because it comes straight from the “Holy Crap I Never Saw THAT Coming!” department.

For a good summary of why SOPA is a bad law, you should read the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s explanation. You can also grab the actual text of the law here. In effect, the bill would criminalize “casual piracy”—linking a music video on Facebook would land you some stiff penalties, as well as penalties for Facebook. Goodbye Youtube, as well. For that reason, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Youtube, Google, and a host of other Internet giants have come out against the bill, in addition to groups like EFF, DemandProgress, CreativeCommons, and Mozilla.

But guess who else is against SOPA? Well, Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) has put a hold on the Senate’s version of the bill (PROTECT IP, even though it does no such thing), and has been joined in opposing it by Senators Rand Paul (R-KY), Jerry Moran (R-KS), and Maria Cantwell (D-WA).That alone is a good thing, but then we get the news that…Michele BACHMANN (R-MN) is against this? And, and...Darrell ISSA (R-CA)? And, and, and…no. No, that cannot be possible. She couldn’t possibly be against a bill that would dramatically increase the power of the federal government. But, holy crap, she is…

Nancy PELOSI (D-Waterworld) is against SOPA.

My mind is officially blown. It’s only 10am where I am, and already I’m just going to take the day off, not read the news, just do some paperwork and cleaning and that’s it. My mind cannot handle the fact that Rand Paul, Michele Bachmann, and Nancy Pelosi all agree on something—and moreover, that they all agree on the side of liberty and individual freedom.

One small disclaimer: I’m actually not a fan of intellectual piracy; however, at the same time, I recognize that bills like SOPA are cures that are worse than the disease, and it would not fix the problem. I also recognize there are limits to intellectual property, unlike the MPAA and RIAA, and that you can’t run roughshod over others trying to protect it. Thus, my opposition to SOPA—and besides, when someone links a music video to their Facebook account, they’re actually drumming up business for your musicians. Isn’t that what you want?

SOPA Delayed, But It Should Be Dead

admin — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:00:40 -0600

In keeping with the goal to educate readers about the dangers of SOPA and PIPA, here is a piece by Jeremy Kolassa, originally published on December 21, 2011.

In one of the few instances of “good news,” or at least “not that terrible news,” the Stop Online Piracy Act has been delayed until after the winter recess:

WASHINGTON POST - The House Judiciary Committee confirmed Tuesday that it will delay continuing debate on the Stop Online Piracy Act until after Congress returns from its winter recess.

Committee spokeswoman Kim Smith said in an e-mailed statement that the hearing is expected to be scheduled for “early next year.”

Well, that is certainly good news on one front. It at least means they won’t be shoving it down our throat today.

But they’re going to try again. It always happens.

There was widespread outrage when TARP was first proposed, and under that public onslaught, the House of Representatives bucked its campaign contributors and shot the plan down. There was much rejoicing—until they passed it, with even more pork, four days later.

Now, I’m not saying this is necessarily what will happen with SOPA. It may come back and it may be defeated. That is certainly a possibility. But it will come back. The Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America—which I have heard sarcastically referred to, combined, as the MAFIAA—have far too much invested in controlling your Internet access and your personal computer. Do you think they’re just going to give up the possibility of more control over your lives? Of course not. No corporation that could obtain such lucrative rents from the government is going to give it up that easily.

The only thing that will stop them, I think, is when they realize that A) this is just plain foolish, and B) the costs of trying to enforce it will outweigh any imaginary “benefits” they can think of. Even though the law hasn’t been passed yet, there are already workarounds to the SOPA enforcement mechanisms. When a guy in his metaphorical basement can spend a few hours and create a mere Firefox add-on that goes around the DNS blocking, you know your bill is pretty much useless.

And that’s the thing. No matter how many laws they pass, unless they start knocking on your door and arresting millions of people, they will not stop online piracy. Period. The MAFIAA is an ossified, old-school, traditional, top-down, hierarchial corporate organizational structure. The Internet is a fresh, agile, new school, modern, non-hierarchial, horizontal (or “flat”), and has no organization to speak of (other than, perhaps, “Anonymous.”) It is completely decentralized, dependent only on individuals—and that’s what makes it so impervious to this sort of thing. You simply cannot act fast enough to counter these workarounds.

Not that the MAFIAA will ever get it through their heads. They never do. And not that any of this justifies SOPA. The delaying is a good thing. Now let’s make sure it’s dead.

Recent posts by admin