Democrat Political Party Leadership On Invasive Keystroke Surveillance

If you thought the National Security Agency's collection of Verizon phone-call data was bad, wait until you hear about the seven-year-old, previously undisclosed classified government program that works with nine very major U.S. Internet companies to secretly scrape your online life and has become "the most prolific contributor" to President Obama's daily intelligence report and is "increasingly" important to the NSA. Caption Credit & Image Credit: theatlanticwire.com

Democrat Political Party Leadership On Invasive Keystroke Surveillance

At what point in time does having the ability to have a private life cease to be viable in a Bill-Of-Rights, Rule-Of-Law, Constitutionally protected society?

The answer can be found when a Government becomes so big and fearful of its citizens that it violates the trust between the institutions of Government and the citizens these institutions were established to serve on behalf of the citizens.

Yesterday, a United Kingdom news service, The Daily Guardian, issued a second in a series of information articles about the United States Government’s information gathering programs run by the National Security Agency and other government institutions under the mission of curbing terrorism.

The first information based article highlighted that Verizon was turning over, wholesale, all phone call information it had on its hundreds of millions calls per day, to the NSA for the Government to use however it saw fit to use. The information included phone numbers, time of call, location of both phones on the call, duration, an other key digital data that was associated with the call in a practice that has been termed by some as a DRAGNET.

The information in the second article in as many days from the UK’s Guardian (where are the American news services on this exposure and investigation of this information?) highlights that this Democrat Political Party led Government was also collecting EVERY KEYSTROKE a person types on the internet in order to communicate the who, what, when, where, and why they are.

This excerpted and edited from The Guardian -


NSA snooping on massive amounts of personal data from major U.S. Internet companies
By Glenn Greenwald, The Guardian – Thursday, June 6, 2013


The participation of the internet companies in PRISM will add to the debate, ignited by the Verizon revelation, about the scale of surveillance by the intelligence services. Unlike the collection of those call records, this surveillance can include the content of communications and not just the metadata.

Some of the world’s largest internet brands are claimed to be part of the information-sharing program since its introduction in 2007. Microsoft – which is currently running an advertising campaign with the slogan “Your privacy is our priority” – was the first, with collection beginning in December 2007.

It was followed by Yahoo in 2008; Google, Facebook and PalTalk in 2009; YouTube in 2010; Skype and AOL in 2011; and finally Apple, which joined the program in 2012. The program is continuing to expand, with other providers due to come online.

Collectively, the companies cover the vast majority of online email, search, video and communications networks.
(Reference Here)

T R U E   C O L O R S !!

The Bush Administration first found folks to be suspicious of … then asked for phone record information about these individuals … and followed the trail.

The Democrat Political Party led Obama Administration uses this post 9/11 law – the Patriot Act – to cast a net on ALL individuals, assuming that ALL of us are potential terrorists. 

After using information to target Obama Administration questioners through the power of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), does anyone believe that this broad net information would be used for your personal good??? – THIS is why the United States HAS a Constitution and a Bill-Of-Rights backed with a Rule-Of-Law.

Senator Barack Obama ran for President saying that the Bush Administration practice was un-American and that his government would do away with these snooping practices – in practice, however, he lied to each and everyone of us and is collecting information on each and everyone of us – WITHOUT DUE CAUSE OR SUSPICION!

President Barack Obama’s T R U E   C O L O R S !!!


**Article first published as Democrat Political Party Leadership on Invasive Keystroke Surveillance on Technorati**

Google Shareholders On Human Rights: Not So Much

The starting view in Google Earth. If one were to type in an address in Denver, Colorado, USA, one can zoom in and out from 1600 Curtis St. and watch it disappear into a satellite view of the Earth and then zoom back in as if one were falling onto 1600 Curtis St. from space; and if one were to click on "Forbidden City" in the "Sightseeing" column, one would see what it would look like to fly Superman-style from 1600 Curtis St. in Denver to the Forbidden Palace in Beijing, China. Image Credit: Google Earth™ mapping service via How Stuff Works

Google Shareholders On Human Rights: Not So Much

It wasn’t long ago when the business information and technology airwaves were filled with human interest stories about the emerging search engine powerhouse, Google, and how the company should be held out as an example of what a socially conscious corporate society should be.

The Google campus boasted a multitude of social services like gyms, flex-time, in-house medical services, an accommodating and understanding rules infrastructure with staffing to help employees with everyday human life problems … in short, a social/corporate wonderland.

Apparently, this commitment to recognize the plight of the human condition does not extend or apply outside of the walls of the corporate environment.

In recent votes on proposals that would have the search engine giant recognize and adhere to policies that would help to enforce human rights agendas, the shareholders voted down moves in taking a stand.

This excerpted from IDG News Service via Computerworld -

Google grilled on human rights
Google shareholders voted down two proposals that would have compelled the search giant to implement more stringent human rights policies
Nancy Gohring (IDG News Service) 09/05/2008 10:57:04

Google's shareholders, following the advice of the board, voted down two proposals on Thursday that would have compelled the search giant to change its human rights policies, but the issue dominated the company's annual shareholder meeting nevertheless.

Sergey Brin in participation at a Web 2.0 Conference Q & A. Image Credit: James Duncan Davidson/O'Reilly Media, Inc. (2005) via Wikipedia

Sergey Brin, cofounder and president of technology for Google, abstained from voting on either of the proposals. "I agreed with the spirit of these proposals," Brin said. But he said he didn't fully support them as they were written, and so did not want to vote for them.
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Google has come under fire for operating a version of its search engine that complies with China's censorship rules. Google was criticized for launching a search service in 2006 aimed at Chinese users that blocks results considered objectionable to the Beijing government. Google argues that it's better for it to have a presence in the country and to offer people some information, rather than for it to not be active in China at all.

In March Google's board of directors indicated they opposed a ban on Internet censorship as well as the creation of a committee that would review the company's policies on human rights, according to the company's proxy statement filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission and released publicly Tuesday.
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The proposal, presented by an Amnesty worker, suggested that Google institute a series of policies to protect freedom of access to the Internet. The policies should include using all legal means to resist demands for censorship, informing users when the company has complied with requests for censorship, and hosting information that can identify users only in countries that don't restrict the Internet.
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Google is participating in an initiative to develop voluntary guidelines for how Internet companies should respond to censorship demands in countries like China, said Tony Cruz, the Amnesty International member who presented the proposal. While that's a step in the right direction, he said, Google still hasn't made any improvements since its launch in China.

"We've seen little more than talk and defensiveness from Google since the problems emerged," he said. "Nothing precludes Google from taking steps to ameliorate this problem while conversation about the standard goes on."

Harrington Investments submitted a related proposal that was also voted down. It would have created a human rights committee at Google to review the implications of company policies on human rights.

Brin defended Google's activities in China. "Google has a far superior track record than other search companies with respect to making information freely available," he said. He may have been referring to Yahoo, which turned over information to Chinese authorities that led to the imprisonment of a writer.
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That explanation didn't seem to placate everyone in the room. Another Amnesty International member said he appreciates the difficulty of the situation in China, but Google hasn't gone far enough.
Reference Here>>

This lack of action toward the issue of human rights may give a whole new twist on the expression "Google Earth".

So what do we, at MAXINE, think about Google Corporation's recent activities and moves to absolve themselves from being a responsible player on the world's human rights front?

Ahhhh, Not So Much!

Stick-Pin Tour & Travel Planning Made Easy

The Brooklyn Museum exhibition Graffiti looked at graffiti as a phenomenon of modern urban life. During the exhibition, June 30 - September 3, 2006, we invited the Brooklyn and Flickr communities to share their photographs of existing graffiti and/or murals around the borough of Brooklyn. This photograph of Brooklyn-area graffiti was submitted by a community member. Image Credit: Flickr

Stick-Pin Tour & Travel Planning Made Easy

People love to photograph their travels, especially in this digital age. Increasingly, people are posting their travel photos on photo posting portals like Flickr, SmugMug, & Everytrail … and, what is really cool, adding locater tags along with GPS data to the photos they upload.

What makes this really cool is that it is much easier to plan a tour in a particular travel destination tailored to ones specific interests. It’s easy - just type in a few tags into the Google, Flickr, SmugMug, and etc. search window and behold locations one can plot to create a tour of ones interest.

The planning and search process is pretty simple because the work is done through the meta-data travelers are eager to provide for being able to find and identify the photo they took to share with others they know … the extended benefit is everyone else’s gain.

Excerpts from The New York Times via CNET News.com -

Snapshots that do more than bore friends
How sharing your family vacation photos online can help others discover a place through your travels.
The New York Times - By Michelle Higgins - Published: June 9, 2007, 11:42 AM PDT

Few sentences in the English language are more dreaded than this seemingly innocent offer: "Oh, I must show you the pictures from my vacation." Who wants to see endless shots of a friend lounging by a pool or in front of a monument, or -- worse yet -- their kids doing the very same things?

But, of course, those very same shots can be extremely useful when researching your own trip. How big is that pool? What, exactly, does the room at that five-star hotel you're thinking of booking look like? What's the crowd like at the so-called hot restaurant? It's good to have documented evidence from someone who has been there.
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Through a technology called geotagging, users can add GPS data to their pictures, which can then be plotted on a digital map. This not only allows users to see exactly where a photo was taken, but, when uploaded to an Internet map, users can also quickly browse a trove of photos that were taken nearby, providing a kind of scattershot collage of a place.

For example, people planning a trip to Cancun can use Google Earth, a free mapping software, to zoom in on Cancun's crowded hotel zone and click on dozens of candid photographs, from the lounge chairs at the Fiesta Americana Grand Coral Beach hotel and the pool at the Omni Hotel & Villas, to snapshots of less crowded beaches and the nearest mall.

Plotting photos on maps also allows trip planners to "see" the terrain before booking a trip. On Everytrail.com -- which lets users upload geocoded photos from their favorite hiking trails, biking routes and sailing trips -- visitors can check out sights along a specific driving route in Namibia, or examine trail conditions on a hilly bike route near Palo Alto, Calif.
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“Gowanus” - This photograph of Brooklyn-area graffiti was submitted by a community member. The Brooklyn Museum exhibition - Graffiti. Image Credit: Flickr

For example, fans of graffiti can search the word, "graffiti," and "New York City" at Flickr.com/map, and pull up photos of freshly painted tags, all plotted with pushpins on a clickable Yahoo map. A search for "Dumbo Brooklyn graffiti," for example, finds some 99 photos, including the infamous "Neck Face" tag, spray-painted on a brick warehouse at Jay and Front Streets in Brooklyn. Try finding that in a guidebook.

"Dumbo Brooklyn graffiti" – Photo of screenshot search for tourpoint locations. Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (MAXINE)

Geotagging photos brings a whole new level of context to the image, said Andy Williams, general manager of SmugMug.com, a photo-sharing site. "After all," he said, "pictures are flat." But the real reason geotagging is getting so popular, he added, are the bragging rights involved. "We want people to know the cool places we've been," he said. "And this is a cool way to show off."
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The steps needed to geotag photos are admittedly somewhat geeky.
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To streamline the process, several camera makers have released models that are GPS-ready, with either a built-in device or a special accessory. But they tend to be geared toward professionals and are expensive.
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Once your photos are plotted geographically, others can discover a place through your travels.
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Web sites are increasingly embracing geotagging as a way to draw users. Last month, Google announced plans to acquire Panoramio.com, a photo-sharing site with more than two million images that allows users to integrate photos into Google Earth. And as photo-sharing continues to evolve, travel Web sites are recognizing how valuable images can be when users essentially act as free contributors and submit their own pictures.

Zoomandgo.com, a travel review site, recently redesigned its site around photos and videos submitted by travelers. A team of four people spent months "geocoding" thousands of hotels and attractions so that user photos can be displayed on digital maps. A new social-networking feature also allows users to create their own travel profiles, connect with like-minded travelers, and swap tips through photos.

"Facebook meets Frommers" is how Jonathan Haldane, the founder of Zoomandgo.com, described it. Before the social-networking feature went up, he said, users spent about eight minutes on the site, mostly reading or posting hotel reviews. Now, he said, users spend an average of 18 to 19 minutes, sending messages to each other and browsing through photos and videos.

But though travel sites are embracing the flood of user-generated photos, the quality can vary. A Flickr search for the W hotel in New York City, for example, turns up a mix of candid room photos and pictures of friends eating pizza
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Zoomandgo.com, which pays users a nominal fee for relevant photos, says it vets every submission.
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Panoramio, on the other hand, has a devoted online community that tends to self-edit, and post photos only of places rather than people.
Reference Here>>