Recommended Reading - 08/08/06

• Preparing for Martial Law - Jill @ Brilliant at Breakfast reports that President Bush is trying to secretly federalize the National Guard, a move that the National Governors Association is trying to put a stop to.  This is the kind of thing a dictator would do, by the way.
• Might as well face it, they’re addicted to porn… - SpinDentist @ The All Spin Zone reports on a poll revelling what I’ve suspected all along — that there are quite a large number of self-identified Christians involving themselves with porn.  This may be why so many rightwingers are so interested in what everyone else is doing in their bedrooms.
• ABC’s Good Morning America covers story of gay Arabic speaker kicked out of military - John in DC @ AmericaBlog has a link to ABC’s Good Morning America video coverage of the story.  I’ve seen the story reported on several liberal blogs, including Pandagon, but this is the first main stream media coverage I’ve seen.  I have to agree with John that it does appear that the military does seem more interested in it’s witch hunt for homosexuals than in helping itself and in stopping the terrorists.
• Senate ratifies Europe cybercrime convention - Michael Hampton @ Homeland Stupidity reports that as of last Thursday night, “the U.S. can now spy on your Internet activity at the request of a foreign government — even if you are only doing things completely legal.”  It’s called the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime.  What does that mean?  It’s a treaty which requires its signatories to pass laws against breaking into computer systems, child pornography, Internet fraud, computer viruses, denial of service attacks and related crimes.
  

  The treaty requires the U.S. to turn over data stored by Internet Service Providers, and provide real-time interception of your Internet traffic, at the request of a foreign government, whether the offense the foreign government is investigating is a crime in the U.S. or not.

  “That means that countries that have laws limiting free speech on the Net could oblige the F.B.I. to uncover the identities of anonymous U.S. critics, or monitor their communications on behalf of foreign governments,” wrote Electronic Frontier Foundation activist coordinator Danny O’Brien. “American ISPs would be obliged to obey other jurisdictions’ requests to log their users’ behavior without due process, or compensation.”

  “And it applies not just to ‘cyber’ crimes but to digital evidence of any crime, so foreign governments now may begin using U.S. law enforcement to help them gather evidence in all kinds of cases,” wrote Cato Institute Director of Information Policy Studies Jim Harper.

• Gunning for PBS - Steve Aqui @  Donklephant writes about the GOP’s targeting of funding for NPR and PBS and how the GOP would prefer both would just disappear.  Steve points out how hypocritical the GOP is with it’s big tax cuts and it’s attempts to eliminate the estate tax and yet it claims there’s no money to help handicap children or pay for public radio and television or reduce the deficit.

Tags: PBS, NPR, GOP, Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime, ABC, Good Morning America, Christians, George W. Bush, National Guard, National Governors Association, EFF