Reid postpones vote on anti-piracy bill

Πηγή: AP
By JIM ABRAMS
Jan 20 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Yielding to strong opposition from the high tech community, Senate and House leaders said Friday they will put off further action on legislation to combat online piracy.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he was postponing a test vote set for Tuesday "in light of recent events." Those events included a petition drive by Google that attracted more than 7 million participants and a one-day blackout by the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.

House Judiciary Committee chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, quickly followed suit, saying consideration of a similar House bill would be postponed "until there is wider agreement on a solution."

The Senate's Protect Intellectual Property Act and the House's Stop Online Piracy Act have strong support from the entertainment industry and other businesses that lose billions of dollars annually to intellectual property theft and online sales of counterfeit products. But they also have strong opposition from Internet-related companies that argue the bill would lead to over-regulation and censorship of the Internet.

Reid has also seen at least a half-dozen senators who sponsored the bill announce they now oppose it.

Reid said counterfeiting and piracy cost the American economy billions of dollars every year and "there is no reason that the legitimate issues raised by many about this bill cannot be resolved." He said he was optimistic about reaching a compromise in the coming weeks.

The main Senate sponsor, Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said he respected Reid's decision to postpone the vote but lamented the Senate's unwillingness to debate the bill.

"The day will come when the senators who forced this move will look back and realize they made a knee-jerk reaction to a monumental problem," he said. Criminals in China, Russia and other countries "who do nothing but peddle in counterfeit products and stolen American content are smugly watching how the United States Senate decided" it was not worth debating the bill.

The two bills would allow the Justice Department, and copyright holders, to seek court orders against foreign websites accused of copyright infringement. They would bar online advertising networks and payment facilitators such as credit card companies from doing business with an alleged violator. They also would forbid search engines from linking to such sites.

The Tuesday vote was on whether to move the legislation to the Senate floor for debate. With the recent desertions and a statement Thursday by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell that it is too early to consider the bill, it appeared supporters lacked the 60 votes needed to advance the measure.

McConnell on Friday applauded Reid's decision, saying it would "prevent a counterproductive rush toward flawed legislation."

In the House, Smith said he had "heard from the critics" and resolved that it was "clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products." Smith had planned on holding further committee votes on his bill next month.

The bill's opponents were relieved it was put on hold.

Markham Erickson, executive director of NetCoalition, commended Congress for "recognizing the serious collateral damage this bill could inflict on the Internet."

The group represents Internet and technology companies including Google, Yahoo! and Amazon.com. Erickson said they would work with Congress "to address the problem of piracy without compromising innovation and free expression."

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who has joined Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., in proposing an alternative anti-piracy bill, credited opponents with forcing lawmakers "to back away from an effort to ram through controversial legislation."

But the CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, former Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd, warned that, "as a consequence of failing to act, there will continue to be a safe haven for foreign thieves." The MPAA, which represents such companies as Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., is a leading advocate for the anti-piracy legislation.

BNP facing accusations of fraud

Mr Griffin accused the BBC and Panorama of bias in the reporting of the BNP

Πηγή: BBC
Oct 10 2011

The British National Party is under investigation by the European Union and the Metropolitan Police for alleged fraud and breaches of electoral law.

The dual investigations come as a former BNP administrator told the BBC's Panorama programme that she was instructed to falsify invoices.

Those invoices were then submitted by the BNP to the Electoral Commission.

The BNP has strongly denied any suggestion of wrongdoing.

The allegations come as the party struggles with debts run up during the 2010 general election campaign.'Invoices faked'

Internal party documents seen by Panorama reveal that 12 months ago the BNP owed creditors more than £570,000. Party chairman Nick Griffin recently said the party now owes just £52,000.

Former party worker Marion Thomas said after the 2010 general election she was instructed by the party's treasurer, Clive Jefferson, to alter invoices and in at least one case stamp an outstanding invoice as "paid".

The invoices were submitted to the Electoral Commission and had been altered, Mrs Thomas said, in order for it to appear that the BNP had complied with the law on election spending.

Asked how she felt about doing this, Mrs Thomas said: "I made my objections known."

She added: "You can't do that, you cannot do that. That is fraud."

Mr Jefferson told the programme that Mrs Thomas' allegations are "untrue".

Mrs Thomas, who now works for Britain First, a rival political organisation, has since been interviewed about her claims by detectives from the Metropolitan Police who are investigating alleged breaches of electoral law by the BNP.

That investigation began after Richard Barnbrook, who used to be the BNP member of the London Assembly and Mr Griffin's 2010 election agent, went to the High Court to say that he had submitted printing invoices totalling nearly £10,000 as paid when they too were outstanding.

Mr Griffin also signed those returns. Both he and Mr Barnbrook, who has since been expelled from the party and now sits as an independent in London, have said they acted in good faith, believing the bills had indeed been paid.

The High Court judge has referred the case the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Metropolitan Police were notified.'Cash cow'

Another former party worker, Alistair Barbour, was recruited to Mr Griffin's European staff after he and one other BNP candidate were elected members of the European Parliament in 2009.

Nick Griffin's appearance on BBC Question Time prompted protests

Mr Barbour was hired to work on European Parliament business and was to be paid out of the £260,000 pot of EU money that each MEP has available to them to pay for staff and expenses.

He told the programme that some money intended for MEP business was diverted to help bolster the party itself.

"Europe was the big cash cow you know, 'let's get our noses in the trough and see what we can get out and... see what we can fund the party with,'" he said of the approach to the MEP funds.

He added: "This is what it was all about, party work and just trying to figure out what expenses we could get out of the European Union."

Other party insiders have told the programme that at one point electricity from Nick Griffin's European constituency headquarters on an industrial estate in rural Cumbria was siphoned to the unit next door which served as the BNP's national headquarters.

When the European Parliament's fraud unit, OLAF, travelled to Cumbria five months later to investigate the allegations they found no evidence of an electricity scam but Panorama understands that they continue to investigate other allegations of misuse of European money by the BNP.

The BNP has denied using money from the European Union to fund national party work.

Tripoli on the Cusp

Πηγή: OpEdNews
By Franklin Lamb

August 18, 2011 at 08:28:07

Tripoli

Libya Update
Truth be told, some foreign observers, and certainly this one, having been based in Tripoli the past nearly eight weeks, have not taken very seriously occasional media predictions that Tripoli might soon be invaded by "NATO rebels" and certainly not by NATO country forces putting their boots on the ground.

The reasons include observations that the Libyan population is increasingly expressing anger over members of their families and tribes being killed by NATO sorties claiming to be "protecting civilians."

It is said by many here that tens of thousands are ready to repulse invaders who try to enter Tripoli. Support for Colonel Kaddafi appears to reflect even Western polls such as the one referred to by the UK Guardian recently that Libya's leader Colonel Gadaffi's popularity had perhaps doubled during the current conflict. This morning's Rasmussen poll claims that support for NATO-US involvement has plummeted to just 20% among the American public due to among other reasons, NATO killing of civilians. It is even lower in several other NATO countries.

Until quite recently, life appeared fairly normal except for the scarcity of benzene for vehicles and some luxury food items and also some necessities such as baby formula, some medicines and reliable phone service. Earlier piles of household trash that began accumulating at some street corners around Tripoli in early March when up to 400,000 foreign workers fled West to Tunisia and East to Egypt began being cleared a couple of weeks ago as the municipality of Tripoli reorganized its severely and instantly depleted work force.

Except for the recent increase in NATO bombing sorties Tripoli has been a fairly pleasant place to be.

On 8/17/11 things abruptly changed and no one knows for sure in which direction daily life is now headed. Starting just before noon, much, if not most of Tripoli was without power. At my hotel, one of only two in Tripoli with even sporadic Internet these days (even though parts of Tripoli regularly experiences South Beirut Lebanon type sudden cuts that can last for hours or days) the services abruptly stopped for all staff & guests. Initially some guests were stuck in the elevator and a few appeared to panic. Our hotel rooms, which for security reasons have windows which don't open began to heat up fast, laptop batteries quickly died, the weak Internet vanished, and this observer, like others, was faced with the prospect of walking down and up eighteen floors to keep appointments in the street level reception area. Two of my Libyan friends, who work in one of the hotel restaurants called my room to ask me if I wanted them to walk up some lunch. Profoundly touched by their thoughtfulness which seems typical of Libyans, I reminded them that I was fasting for Ramadan and in any case would not think of accepting their kind offer. Not long after the hotel emergency generator kicked in and the elevator began working but no power anywhere else inside the hotel.

At nearby Green Square, crowds began to gather by 2 p.m. and rally against "NATO rebels" and I was told thousands of Libyan citizens were ready to move to the edges of town, man check points, and support army units and repulse any advances from Al Zawieh to the West, Gheryan and several villages from the South or Brega and closer villages from the East.

Prices at the local "Medina" ( street market covering several blocks selling a large variety of goods and vegetables) adjacent to my Hotel jumped up again according to two sisters who have become my friends and who shop with their mother every morning in preparation for cooking the daily "Iftar" meal which breaks the Ramadan fast at sunset. Over the past six months basic food prices have largely leveled off under government warnings to merchants not to even dream about trying to price gouge.

Some people are leaving Tripoli but it's hard to estimate how many. Most people I have asked say they will stay and they do not think "NATO rebels" can enter this well-armed and apparently well-organized city of still around 1.5 million people.

A delayed UN fact finding delegation, led by a spectular Palestinian woman from Nazareth in occupied Palestine named "Juliette", finally arrived by plane after the UN demanded NATO allow their plane to land at Tripoli airport. The UN group, staying at our hotel, had been blocked from the main road between Tripoli and Tunisia. As of the morning of August 18, people are trapped in Tripoli from departing to Tunisia and no one is entering from Tunisia.

Libyan students at Tripoli's Al Fatah University and even some government officials have told this observer that they have vowed to dig in and wage a "Stalingrad Defense" of Tripoli against the advancing "NATO rebels." Certainly the neighborhoods are very heavily armed.

Some, including this observer, lack the heart to remind these dear students that at Stalingrad, the Russian citizns were holding out for the arrival of the Red Army that did indeed save many of them in the end.

One does not sense that a Red Army is en route to lift the threatened siege of Tripoli.

But maybe Tripoli's defenders will not need a Red Army to lift a siege of Tripoli.

This week, a Libyan law student who for weeks has been helping man a neighborhood defense committee checkpoint near Airport Road left me the following note:

"Franklin, you asked me how we will defend our capitol Tripoli if NATO bombs a path so rebel forces can arrive here and try to enter our neighborhoods. We discuss this often among ourselves during the night. This is what we have to say to answer your question"

It is not private information that our defense will be from every buildings on every main street, square or roundabout. We can and will keep for as long as possible every meter that NATO forces try to take. Every apartment building, factory, warehouse, street corner, intersection, home or office building is waiting and supplied with guns of different types, RPGs and mortars. Snipers and specially trained small 5-6 man units are ready. Our defense will be a house to house battle. From every floor and from hole in the floor we will fight NATO rebels. Also from the sewers we will fight and every basement. If NATO enters a front door we will fight them for every room in the house and from the piles of debris created from them bombing us.

Dear friend Lamb. Libyans are a good and a proud people. You and I have spoken about Omar Muktar and our defeat of the Italians that cost us more than one-third of our relatives who fell in battle. Do you know my friend that during the Ottoman Empire centuries of colonization which was the only Arab or Muslim country to rebel again them? It was Libya. Only Libya, led by her tribes. We stood up against the Turks and fought two 20 year wars against them. Do NATO and Obama believe they can defeat us? Your friend, Mohammad."