(If you aren’t familiar with the background of this story, here’s some background.)

First, of course, I wanted to be on the “inside” of the story and really see the play-by-play of what was happening.  I tried to go to the publicly announced planning center, a chat room on irc.anonops.net.  Unfortunately, this domain name had also been the target of the volley of attacks that was transpiring.  However, a nice gentlemen in the #wikileaks channel of irc.freenode.net directed me to the server by IP address: 88.198.224.117.  Do have a visit with your IRC client if you are interested.

Upon arrival, I was prompted to check out #operationpayback, the central meeting spot for these hacktivists.  Once in the channel, I was astounded at the pace of the conversation – about 5-7 comments EVERY SECOND.

Most were updates on the state of the LOIC (Low-Orbit Ion Cannon), the tool of choice for taking mastercard.com down from the Internet (LOIC is, or at least was, a fairly mainstream tool for testing server defenses).  The tone was absolutely jovial – mastercard.com was down, and the mainstream media regarded the events of this chatroom as headline-worthy.

Yet, I did not get a sense of constructive, radical civic duty.  In fact it seemed to me that the average age (judging by comment maturity and grammer) was probably about 14.

I do understand how a person of a different bent might derive a bit of glee from the spectacle of the denial of service attack being coordinated.  I, however, noticed a very different sentiment unfold in my gut:

Mere destruction of existing power structures, without contemporaneous (or, for that matter, preceding) construction of alternatives is unlikely to ever result in sustainable positive change.

May I suggest to all the people who are distressed about Amazon, Visa, Mastercard, and whomever else abandoning Wikileaks that their mission needs to be to build peaceful, sustainable alternatives to Amazon, Visa, and Mastercard?

May I further suggest that this is the only truly radical use of information technology?  Destruction has been possible (and in fact normative) since the beginning of time.  Only now, however, is parallel construction possible.

Stop the temper tantrum.  Stop the blame game.  Instead, just work toward an information age where the the quasi-censorship that has characterized the industrial age is mathematically precluded at the infrastructural level.  I suspect that thanks for this work will come not only from Wikileaks (and all those who are spiritually motivated by its basic premises) but in fact also from governments and corporations too.  Everybody has an interest in the tech infrastructure working more efficiently and smoothly, and this will naturally translate to lower costs and increased availability in disadvantaged communities.

Make no mistake: I’m not happy about the treatment wikileaks is getting. But is this really the best that we can come up with as a response? Have we really run out of civil, ethical, and constructive ways to deal with these kinds of issues? If so, doesn’t that make us as bad as “them?”

I urge the young, tech-savvy people who are concerned about technological freedom: shut down LOIC, start up Eclipse and Miro, and get to work – there’s plenty to be done.

Now, without any legislative backing or public hearings, the New York State Health Commissioner has made an “emergency executive order” demanding that Jessica, her mother, and every other medical service professional to be vaccinated with both the seasonal and H1N1 flu vaccines.  If they decline to allow this, they’ll lose their jobs.

Remember, these are not government employees.  They are private citizens who have worked hard to build a career around helping people be healthy.  They know better than anyone the risks of being, or declining to be, injected with swine flu vaccine.

A recent small protest on the steps of the New York State Capitol in Albany got a bit of news attention, with local TV coverage,

Later, a lawsuit filed got more coverage, and the decision of a New York State judge got even more coverage when he issued a restraining order against the State, preventing it from vaccinating people until a hearing is held.  The hearing is scheduled to begin October 30.

Many health care professionals have said they’ll be fired rather than allow themselves to be injected with the vaccine.  As with all flu vaccines, it’s quite risky.  In addition to the typical risks, though, the plaintiffs say that this vaccine was rushed to market hastily and has already caused more sickness than usual.

Does anybody have the relevant documents?  I’m looking for, but cannot find:

• The text of the mandate
• The brief filed by the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, and the response, if any, from the state
• The restraining order
• Any kind of press release from the State defending the mandate

I have started a facebook group.  Please invite!

The underlying message here is simple:  You must expose yourself to surveillance.  You may not take any steps to defend yourself against state or corporate incursion into your privacy.

This reminds me of the order in Seattle back in 1999 that made gas masks illegal.  The thought process seems the same:  Your communication data and your muccous membranes must be exposed to the state so that they can be utilized to control you.

A google search for the phrase “Connecticut Governor” yields a drug-policy reform site as the #1 result, dropping her official website to #2.

What does this mean?

While Google doesn’t tell the public exactly how its pagerank system works, we know that it primarily assesses links.  It sees each link as a “vote” that the website being linked to is relevant to phrases near the link.

In this case, the phrase “Connecticut Governor” normally points to the official website for the office of the Connecticut Governor.  However, now, with all the attention on the movement to decriminalize cannabis in Connecticut, it seems that there are more and/or stronger links for the phrase “Connecticut Governor” to the website of the Drug Policy Alliance, one of the leading organizations advocating sensible drug policies in Connecticut and around the world.

A few years ago, a concerted effort, called a “Google Bomb,” was made to tie the phrase “miserable failure” to George W. Bush.  This event, on the other hand, seems to be entirely organic and incidental.

Was this intentional and targeted?

As far as I can tell, absolutely not. There is no evidence of efforts to actually game the pagerank system.  Instead, it just seems that many thousands of people saw fit to link to drug policy reform websites when writing about the Connecticut Government.

Why is this politically significant?

As a tech-activist, I often observe that certain types of trends formulate first on the web and later on the streets and in the statehouses.

In this case, I believe this to be the clearest indication yet that drug policy reform is not a second-rate issue or a “third rail,” but is actually the #1 domestic policy concern across a wide array of the American populous.

Check out this screen shot:

A photo snapped today by Micah Daigle at the dispensary in San Francisco.

BREAKING:   I have just received a report from Micah Daigle, Associate Director of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, that he is watching a DEA raid unfold.  This was sent on SSDP’s mailing list:

SSDPers,

Looks like Obama’s pledge to end the raids on medical marijuana
dispensaries was a lie. (Or the DEA is being insubordinate.)

I’m currently standing outside a dispensary in San Francisco that is
being raided by the DEA. There are already a couple dozen protesters
gathered chanting “DEA to away!”

More updates to come…

The Obama Administration recently pledged not to interfere with medical cannabis dispensaries in states where their operation is congruent with state law, as is the case in California.  As always, I’ll keep you posted.

UPDATE 8:42PM:

(from Micah, on the scene)

The DEA still hasn’t come out of the dispensary. They brought in a
sledgehammer and a crowbar, so it look like this is yet another no-
arrest “smash and grab.” In other words, a robbery.

All the local media is here.

From what I understand, this dispensary was operating in compliance
with state law.

I’ll be uploading lots of video tonight.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A local CBS affiliate is apparently first out of the gate with this coverage, including a video.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Another witness to the scene contacted me and sent me this video:

*Note: I realize that the flight is referred to in the audio at “1529,” but I have confirmed that this is a mistake. It is flight 1549.

Michael Connell, who was a key witness to the rigging of the 2004 election in Ohio, died in a 1-man plane crash Friday, December 19.

It may well be that stolen elections are not new or unusual in the US of A.  We don’t and can’t really truly know.

It may also be that stolen or manipulated elections are simply not spoken of much in their aftermaths.  I know that this was true of election manipulation that occurred within my College Administration, who unsuccessfully tried to manipulate an election to prevent this blogger from holding office.

Finally, it may be that the 2004 elections in the United States are no longer truly worthy of our worry, since clearly the damage is done.

However, what *is* worth our worry, and effort, is that the media-political establishment theatre refuses to acknowledge that something is deeply, fatally flawed about our political system.

NEWS FLASH: The 2004 election was stolen.  No, it really, definitely was.  Are you uncertain?  Don’t know all the details? read this alternet article. You’ll find that it difficult, given the facts that have emerged, to reasonably argue that it’s likely or even possible that legitimate elections transpired in Ohio in 2004.

Heard of Michael Connell?  At once a GOP operative and web developer and also a subcontractor in charge of developing vote-counting systems in Ohio, Connell had apparently confided to his attorneys that he had been threatened over the Ohio 2004 situation.  He had recently been subpoenaed in a court case to discuss his knowledge and / or role in rigging the election.

Well, he died Friday in a 1-person plane crash.

Now I’m a skeptic, and not at all a Democrat.  I don’t yet have any reason to believe that his death was part of a conspiracy.  I do, however, think that it’s very reasonable to believe that the 2004 election was stolen, and so I’m naturally suspicious of a mysterious death of a potential witness.

The real question is:  Will, say, John Kerry question this?  He never really has.  Will Barack Obama?  Will the corporate media?  Will this event and others like it become center-stage until the major outstanding questions are resolved, as is necessary for our Republic to survive?

Don’t respond with short cycnism.  Don’t tell me, “Of course not, the MSM blah blah blah.”  Instead, make it news.  Tell your friends and neighbors and family.  Talk about it around the dinner table.  Come on now.

This is the kind of story that has all the ‘red meat’ necessary to be the biggest headline in the world.  Will it be?

Today, on the 75th anniversary of the repeal of alcohol prohibition, 10,000 current and former law enforcement officials are calling for an end to the war on drugs and publishing an earth-shattering report from a Harvard Economist which concludes that ending the current policy of drug prohibition will boost the U.S. economy by $76,800,000,000 per year.  That’s 76.8 BILLION!

….and mind you, this is just the savings to be brought about from ending the policy, and does not include the even more enormous and amorphous costs of lost wages and family support of those incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses.

“We’re starting to see an emerging consensus that drug prohibition just doesn’t make sense,” said Seattle’s retired Police Chief Norm Stamper, a LEAP member. “Three out of four Americans now say the ‘war on drugs’ has failed, and so do the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National Black Caucus of State Legislators and the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators. Now, it’s up to the new administration and Congress to follow through.”

I don’t usually explicitly ask for Digg or Stumble traffic, but I’m going to this time.  Let’s get this story out there!

(BTW, enormous props to Tom Angell, who has worked overtime for weeks coordinating the release of this report)