Category: Corporations

Save the Internet

Posted by Nexus – 26/11/2011

Right now, the US Congress is debating a law that would give them the power to censor the world’s Internet — creating a blacklist that could target YouTube, WikiLeaks and even groups like Avaaz!

To all Members of the US Congress:

As concerned global citizens, we call on you to stand for a free and open Internet and vote against both the Protect IP Act and the Stop Online Piracy Act. The Internet is a crucial tool for people around the world to exchange ideas and work collectively to build the world we all want. We urge you to show true global leadership and do all you can to protect this basic pillar of our democracies worldwide.

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High court forces BT to block file-sharing website

Posted by Nexus – 28/07/2011

[via guardian.co.uk. See similar stories at telegraph.co.uk and bbc.co.uk]

Warner Bros studios in Hollywood. Film studios have won a landmark UK high court ruling that forces BT to block access to file-sharing website Newzbin2. Photograph: Kevork Djansezian/AP

Hollywood film studios won a landmark UK high court ruling on Thursday forcing BT to block access to an illegal file-sharing website accused of operating “on a grand scale”.

The Motion Picture Association, the trade body whose members include Warner Bros, Fox, Disney and Paramount Pictures, has been granted an order requiring BT — the UK’s biggest internet service provider — to block its customers’ access to the website Newzbin2.

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Dear government

Posted by Nexus – 21/07/2011

LulzSec reply to FBI allegations

Copy/pasted from http://pastebin.com/RA15ix7S

Hello thar FBI and international law authorities,

We recently stumbled across the following article with amazement and a certain amount of amusement:

http://www.npr.org/2011/07/20/138555799/fbi-arrests-alleged-anonymous-hackers

The statements made by deputy assistant FBI director Steve Chabinsky in this
article clearly seem to be directed at Anonymous and Lulz Security, and we are
happy to provide you with a response.

You state:

“We want to send a message that chaos on the Internet is unacceptable,
[even if] hackers can be believed to have social causes, it’s entirely
unacceptable to break into websites and commit unlawful acts.”

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No tar sands in Europe

Posted by Nexus – 21/06/2011

Right now, EU law makers are introducing an important bill which would impose strict pollution standards on car and lorry fuels and would effectively ban tar sands fuel, the world’s most filthy and environmentally destructive transport oil. But shockingly, the UK is opposing it.

Our government is bending under pressure from the oil industry and the Canadian government, who stand to make billions if they can get an ally to water down the law and remove the clause that bans tar sands. We can expose these dirty dealings, and demand the government support the law and protect the climate.

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As food prices spike again, aid agency warns cost of staples will double in 20 years

Posted by Nexus – 31/05/2011

[via yahoo.com]

As food costs spike for the second time in three years, an international aid agency predicts the price of some staples such as corn will double in the next 20 years amid a permanent crisis caused by rising demand, flat crop yields and climate change.

The report by Oxfam released Tuesday said the demand for food will grow 70 to 90 per cent by 2030, without factoring in the impact of climate change. Increasingly frequent droughts, floods and changes in agricultural patterns from global warming will add pressure to what the agency calls an already broken system.

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Hacked off with Murdoch

Posted by Nexus – 12/04/2011

[via avaaz.org]

At last, News Corporation has admitted illegally hacking the phones of celebrities and politicians. It’s a scandal that’s rocking the nation — and it could become the tipping point, the moment when Britain stands up and stops Rupert Murdoch.

Scarcely a month after Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt said he’d allow Murdoch to take over BSkyB, Murdoch’s people have been caught red-handed. Politicians from across the spectrum are now calling for the takeover to be suspended until a public inquiry shows the full extent of News Corporation’s privacy invasion and law-breaking.

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Investigate Corporations’ Dirty Tricks Campaign

Posted by Nexus – 01/03/2011

[via demandprogress.org]

Shocking new leaked emails show big corporations, defense contractors, and corporate law firms conspiring to run a “dirty tricks” campaign against their political enemies, including WikiLeaks. They proposed infiltrating groups under fake identities, smearing their reputation by planting false documents, and even hacking into their computers to try to steal information and disrupt their work.

But while WikiLeaks is the target of a major government investigation, these guys are still major government contractors! Now some brave members of Congress are trying to change that, demanding a full investigation into these potential crimes: They just signed a letter urging the chairmen of several powerful Congressional committees to start holding hearings. Can you join them?

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Behind the Arab revolt is a word we dare not speak

Posted by Nexus – 27/02/2011

[via johnpilger.com, originally written by John Pilger]

Shortly after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, I interviewed Ray McGovern, one of an elite group of CIA officers who prepared the President’s daily intelligence brief. McGovern was at the apex of the “national security” monolith that is American power and had retired with presidential plaudits. On the eve of the invasion, he and 45 other senior officers of the CIA and other intelligence agencies wrote to President George W. Bush that the “drumbeat for war” was based not on intelligence, but lies.

“It was 95 per cent charade,” McGovern told me.

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Stop Cashing In On Low-Income Students

Posted by Nexus – 25/02/2011

[via change.org]

Here’s how the Washington Post Company makes billions of dollars:

Veterans, single moms, and working parents are lured in by admissions counselors at Kaplan University Online (a for-profit college owned by the Post). Students use federal loans to sign up for classes that can be 14 times more expensive than a comparable community college class.

It’s basically a scam. Sixty-nine percent of students drop out. A third of students default on their loans, meaning taxpayers are stuck with the bill and the students have their credit destroyed — while Kaplan keeps all the money.

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To us, it’s an obscure shift of tax law. To the City, it’s the heist of the century

Posted by Nexus – 08/02/2011

[via guardian.co.uk]

In David Cameron we have a leader whose job is to quietly legitimise a semi-criminal, money-laundering economy

‘I would love to see tax reductions,” David Cameron told the Sunday Telegraph at the weekend, “but when you’re borrowing 11% of your GDP, it’s not possible to make significant net tax cuts. It just isn’t.” Oh no? Then how come he’s planning the biggest and crudest corporate tax cut in living memory?

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