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| France yesterday put in its bid for an unlikely prize, becoming the first western country to make even Australia look liberal when it comes to state powers of internet censorship. |
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| One of the biggest issues facing individuals and corporations choosing to adopt public cloud computing (or any Internet service, for that matter) is the relative lack of clarity with respect to legal rights over data stored online. |
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| New rules to be introduced by government decree will require people who upload videos onto the Internet to obtain authorization from the Communications Ministry similar to that required by television broadcasters, drastically reducing freedom to communicate over the Web, opposition lawmakers have warned. |
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"We don't need to look at naked 8-year-olds and grandmothers to secure airplanes," Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R- Utah, said Friday. "Are we really going to subject 2 million people per day to that? I think it's a false argument to say we have to give up all of our personal privacy in order to have security." |
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| The minimum stay is two years, and life is an unremitting gauntlet of physical abuse and forced labour without any drug treatment, according to former inmates and substance abuse professionals. "It was a hell I'm still trying to recover from," she said. |
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| A federal judge in Manhattan again allowed a lawsuit to proceed against several corporate giants for their alleged role in aiding South Africa's oppressive apartheid regime. Daimler AG, General Motors, Ford Motor Co. and IBM are accused of "aiding and abetting" human rights violations under the apartheid government. |
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| Two parents in Montgomery County are accused of improperly home schooling their children. |
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| Israeli police have arrested Mordechai Vanunu, a technician who spent 18 years in prison for revealing details of Israel's clandestine nuclear programme. |
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That the CIA has been supporting torturers in the Palestinian security forces should come as no surprise. The CIA has a long history of training foreign security forces in torture techniques, even though they were forbidden in the US itself |
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| The Federal Government has announced it will proceed with controversial plans to censor the internet after Government-commissioned trials found filtering a blacklist of banned sites was accurate and would not slow down the internet. |
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Rushed into law by Congress just weeks after Sept. 11, 2001 three controversial provisions of the Patriot Act granting officials far-reaching surveillance and seizure powers in the name of national security, are due to expire this New Year's Eve. |
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| “Abort it! Kill it! Terminate it! You cannot give birth to him or her!” is just one example of the several banners in the streets of China |
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| President Obama today signed into law a Homeland Security appropriations bill that grants the Department of Defense (DOD) the authority to continue suppressing photos of prisoner abuse. |
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| Israel is denying Palestinians access to even the basic minimum of clean, safe water, Amnesty International says. |
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| The House Agriculture Committee approved legislation Wednesday beefing up regulation of the kind of opaque derivatives many blame for causing the financial crisis, but while proponents celebrate, critics say the bill exempts some transactions involving the very institutions -- big banks -- most responsible for the collapse. |
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| Mandatory vaccinations, home searches without a warrant and forced quarantine for those who resist. |
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The PBS Newshour reports on political dissidents and petitioners in China who are sentenced to psychiatric hospitals: |
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| Pittsburgh City Council balked at giving final approval today to legislation that could give police new powers in advance of anticipated G-20 Summit protests, putting the matter off until tomorrow. |
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| A United Nations report issued Tuesday says both Israel and the Palestinians committed actions amounting to war crimes during Israel's military incursion into Gaza from December 27 to January 18. |
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| Nearly 1,500 rice farmers are suing the German conglomerate Bayer Cropscience and affiliated companies over a genetically engineered strain of rice. |
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| Israel must investigate the “unlawful” killing of 11 civilians carrying white flags during its Gaza operation earlier in 2009, Human Rights Watch has said. |
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| Predictive text messaging changes the way children's brains work and makes them more likely to make mistakes generally, a study has found. |
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| Elderly people with swine flu should be treated as the lowest priority for antiviral drugs in a bid to preserve stocks for the younger population, according to new research. |
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| Gov. Rick Perry, raising the specter of a showdown with the Obama administration, suggested Thursday that he would consider invoking states’ rights protections under the 10th Amendment to resist the president’s healthcare plan, which he said would be "disastrous" for Texas |
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| Federal law now criminalizes activities that the average person would never dream would land him in prison. Consequently, every year, thousands of upstanding, responsible Americans run afoul of some incomprehensible federal law and end up serving time in federal prison. |
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| Pupils and their families will be required to agree to the deal - setting out minimum standards of behaviour and attendance - before the start of term. Contracts, known as Home School Agreements, will also establish parents' responsibilities for the first time. |
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| It has become a first for Canadians and the implications can be astronomical, a massively large insurance firm; The CUMIS Group Limited Insurance whohave beenpartnered along with thousands of banks across North America for insurance requirements, has now accepted a policy of pre-screening drug tests & hair samples for the right to obtain home loan insurance, a necessity, if you’re going to purchase a home in Canada |
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| American forces arrested Iraqi journalist Ibrahim Jassam last year and continue to hold him without charge in a U.S. military prison camp — even as the United States transfers jurisdiction to Iraqi authorities. |
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| The Senate on Thursday approved the most sweeping expansion of federal hate crimes law since Congress responded four decades ago to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. |
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| Congress seems intent on passing new hate-crime legislation. It may sound like a surefire way to tamp down on hate crime, but it won't work. |
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Welcome to Shreveport: Your rights are now suspended.According to Cedric Glover, mayor of Shreveport, Louisiana, his cops “have a power that [. . .] the President of these Unites States does not have”: His cops can take away your rights. |
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| Riots and street battles killed at least 140 people in China's western Xinjiang province and injured 828 others in the deadliest ethnic unrest to hit the region in decades. Officials said Monday the death toll was expected to rise. |
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| When Elizabeth Dean was four, her mother took her out of kindergarten to teach her at home because she could already read the children's classic "Charlotte's Web" while the other kids were just learning how to write the letter "C". |
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| A federal appeals court in Chicago ruled today that the Second Amendment doesn't bar state or local governments from regulating guns, adopting the same position that Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Barack Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court, did when faced with the same question earlier this year. |
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| Photographs of alleged prisoner abuse which Barack Obama is attempting to censor include images of apparent rape and sexual abuse, it has emerged. |
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| A person who legally possesses a gun would not have it seized during periods of martial rule under a proposal that has been signed into law by the governor.
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| Gov. Brian Schweitzer has signed into law a bill that aims to exempt Montana-made guns from federal regulation, adding firepower to a battery of legislative efforts to assert states’ rights across the nation.
“It’s a gun bill, but it’s another way of demonstrating the sovereignty of the state of Montana,” Democrat Schweitzer said. |
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| Bill ignites debate about privacy vs. cost savings |
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Many people have heard Pulitzer prize winning reporter Seymour Hersh's claim that boys were sodomized at Abu Ghraib and that the Pentagon has video of the rapes. |
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| Proposed congressional legislation would demand up to two years in prison for those whose electronic speech is meant to “coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person.” |
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| A sociology professor at the University of California Santa Barbara is in the center of a heated debate about academic freedom after he sent an e-mail comparing "parallel images of Nazis and Israelis" to 80 of his students in January. |
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| On a vote of 249-175, the House passed and sent to the Senate a bill backed by the new Democratic White House to broaden such laws by classifying as "hate crimes" those attacks based on a victim's sexual orientation, gender identity or mental or physical disability. |
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| WARNING: EXTREMELY GRAPHIC |
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| Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 |
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| The interrogation techniques sanctioned by George Bush's administration were disclosed by Barack Obama last night to avoid "an inaccurate accounting of the past," which would "fuel erroneous and inflammatory assumptions about actions taken by the United States." |
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| Lawyers for Binyam Mohamed face the incredible prospect of a six-month jail sentence in America after writing a letter to President Obama detailing their client's allegations of torture by US agents. |
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| Congress has tried ammunition registration in the past, only to discover that it was not only ineffective for law enforcement, but also completely unmanageable due to the sheer volume of transactions. |
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| Attorney General Eric Holder is using the drug violence in Mexico to "confuse and mislead" Americans in an attempt to reinstate the expired Federal Assault Weapons Ban, gun advocates claim |
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| Several European countries have restricted gun laws in the wake of school massacres, gang violence and other gun-related crimes |
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| Police will take away more than 100 monks for political re-education today on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising that led to the flight of the Dalai Lama. |
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| Films and details of campaigners and journalists may breach Human Rights Act |
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The president has the authority to detain people without charge, the Supreme Court decided today, dismissing a challenge by suspected al-Qaeda operative Ali Al-Marri. |
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| Previous Ban Expired in 2004 During the Bush Administration |
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| There are now more slaves on the planet than at any time in human history. This conclusion has been made by the United Nations (UN). |
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| The chances of a statewide smoking ban passing in Texas improved this week after the Texas Restaurant Association’s board of directors voted to formally support the measure. |
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Almost two-thirds of Americans polled by Gallup say they would support either a criminal investigation into allegations of torture and illegal wiretapping by the Bush administration or an independent commission to look into those issues. Only 34 percent would oppose both. |
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| "Conditions for parents and children in Gaza are dangerous and frightening," Maxwell Gaylard, the UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, said in a statement. |
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| DISCRIMINATION against dominant white males will soon be encouraged in a bid to boost the status of women, the disabled and cultural and religious minorities. |
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| The brother of the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at US President George W Bush has said that the reporter has been beaten in custody. |
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| Unemployed people could be forced to carry out "community punishments" such as litter-picking or gardening if they miss meetings designed to help them back into the workplace. |
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| The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), is one of the organizations that is mentioned in the report that is particular cause for concern. NGA provides mapping tools and imagery intelligence that are obtained from the United State’s military spy satellites which are controlled by the National Reconnaissance Office. In other words during the RNC, these top spying tools could have been utilized to gather intelligence on the homes of activists and media workers who were a part of the demonstrations. That information could have then been relayed to local officials |
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| The authorities may lawfully conduct searches and electronic surveillance against United States citizens in foreign countries without a warrant, a federal appeals court panel said on Monday, bolstering the government’s power to investigate terrorism by ruling that a key constitutional protection afforded to Americans does not apply overseas. |
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| A crowd of 1,000 people stormed a local Communist Party headquarters in northwest China, smashing cars and clashing with police following a land dispute, government officials said Tuesday. |
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| De-funded during the Bush Administration, US money for the UN Population Fund that supports China's policy of coercive abortion will flow again during the Obama Administrations, say supporters. |
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| China is likely to become the first country in the world to officially recognise internet addiction as a clinical disease as it battles with the increasing number of people who spend almost of their time in chatrooms, blogging or playing online games. |
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| Last month, I reported that the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) space-based domestic spy program run by that agency's National Applications Office (NAO) had gone live October 1. |
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| Chinese Human Rights Defenders, a coalition of lawyers, academics and activists from round the country, has grown in the shadows of state suppression in the last two years |
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| The clashes in Shenzhen followed just hours after anti-mainland protesters clashed with riot police in Taiwan at the end of a week of talks between Taipei politicians and and envoys from Beijing. |
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| Women in the Netherlands who are deemed by the state to be unfit mothers should be sentenced to take contraception for a prescribed period of two years, according to a draft bill before the Dutch parliament. |
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| A California school system refuses to say what action, if any, it will take after it received complaints about a kindergarten teacher who encouraged her students to sign "pledge cards" in support of gays. |
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| Three Russian TV channels have been banned from broadcasting in Ukraine. The country's authorities ordered local cable operators to take them off air. More than half of Ukraine's population speaks Russian regularly and one third say it's their native tongue. |
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| AUSTRALIA will join China in implementing mandatory censoring of the internet under plans put forward by the Federal Government. |
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| Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff says the federal government is monitoring "dozens" of potential terrorists in the U.S. |
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| Metro officials yesterday announced plans to immediately begin random searches of backpacks, purses and other bags in a move they say will protect riders and also guard their privacy and minimize delays. |
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| As the Times Online reports, the corporate behemoth Microsoft is on the verge of unleashing a technology capable of eliminating “green inkers” and conspiracy theorists |
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| North Korea is clamping down on mobile phones and long distance telephone calls to prevent the spread of news about a worsening food crisis, according to the United Nations investigator on human rights for the isolated communist country |
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| "Words like drought ... have negative connotations for farm families," a report by the Drought Policy Review Expert Social Panel found. |
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| ACLU highlights 'Constitution-Free Zone' 100 miles from border |
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| Safety, costs for 11- to 26-year-olds are questioned, but CDC supports rule |
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| The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is running a criminal extortion racket designed to drain cash from health supplement companies and shift it into the pockets of top FDA contractor |
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Europeans especially are speaking of a " Bretton Woods II" that could do for financial markets what the 1944 summit at a resort in New Hampshire did for monetary policy. |
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| Human tissue could be taken from the mentally infirm without their consent and used to create embryos for experimentation, under Government proposals added to a controversial bill. |
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| Supporters of Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr have staged a mass demonstration in Baghdad in protest against plans to extend the US mandate in Iraq. An estimated 50,000 protesters chanted slogans such as "Get out occupier!". |
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| Newly released footage, which was buried to avoid confiscation, shows riot cops arresting and abusing a giant group of people for nothing. |
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| The second shock from Lehman Brothers’ crash is expected when Wall Street opens Monday, Sept. 15. The European Central Bank injected 30 billion to steady the markets, followed by the Bank of England, which earmarked 5 billion sterling to arrest the City’s slide. |
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| A SCOTTISH human rights activist has filmed the Israeli navy firing machine guns at unarmed Palestinian fishing boats in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of the Gaza Strip. |
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