Sunday, September 30, 2012

PHL cybercrime law outrages netizens | SciTech | GMA News Online ...

MANILA ? A new cybercrime law in the Philippines that could see people sentenced to 12 years in jail for posting defamatory comments on Facebook or Twitter is generating outrage among netizens and rights groups.

The stated aim of the cybercrime law is to fight online pornography, hacking, identity theft and spamming in the conservative Catholic nation amid police complaints they lack the legal tools to stamp out Internet crime.

However it also includes a blanket provision that puts the country's criminal libel law into force in cyberspace, except that the penalties for Internet defamation are much tougher compared with old media.

It also allows authorities to collect data from personal user accounts on social media and listen in on voice/video applications, such as Skype, without a warrant.

Teenagers unwarily retweeting or re-posting libelous material on social media could bear the full force of the law, according to Noemi Dado, a prominent Manila blogger who edits a citizen media site called Blog Watch.

"Not everyone is an expert on what constitutes libel. Imagine a mother like me, or teenagers and kids who love to rant. It really hits our freedoms," Dado told AFP.

Compounding the concerns, those teenagers or anyone else who posts a libelous comment faces a maximum prison term of 12 years and a fine of one million pesos ($24,000).

Meanwhile, newspaper editors and other trained professionals in traditional media face prison terms of just four years and fines of 6,000 pesos.

While harsh criminal libel legislation remains in force in other parts of Asia, Dado said the Philippine law sent the wrong signal in a country that overthrew the military-backed Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship just 26 years ago.

Dado, a lawyer's wife known in the local online community as the "momblogger", is among a group of bloggers and other critics of the libel element of the cybercrime law campaigning for it to be repealed.

Brad Adams, Asia director for New York-based Human Rights Watch, said the law was having a chilling effect in the Philippines, which has one of the world's highest per capita rates of Facebook and Twitter users.

"Anybody using popular social networks or who publishes online is now at risk of a long prison term should a reader -- including government officials -- bring a libel charge," Adams said.

About a third of the Philippines' nearly 100 million people use the Internet, with 96 percent them on Facebook, according to industry figures.

Five petitions claiming the law is unconstitutional have been filed with the Supreme Court.

Senator Teofisto Guingona, the lone opponent when the bill was voted on in the Senate, has filed one of the petitions to the Supreme Court.

"Without a clear definition of the crime of libel and the persons liable, virtually any person can now be charged with a crime -- even if you just re-tweet or comment on an online update or blog post," Guingona told the court.

"The questioned provisions... throw us back to the Dark Ages."

The five petitions all say the law infringes on freedom of expression, due process, equal protection and privacy of communication.

University of the Philippines law professor Harry Roque, who filed one of the petitions, said the Philippines was one of a shrinking number of countries where defamation remained a crime punishable by prison.

Part of the penal code that was drawn up 82 years ago, it goes against the trend in many advanced democracies such as the United States and Britain where defamation is now punished with fines rather than imprisonment, Roque said.

Amid the public backlash, some of the senators who voted for the cybercrime law have started to disassociate themselves from it, even claiming they did not read the provision on libel.

However presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda has defended the cybercrime law.

"The Cybercrime Act sought to attach responsibilities in cyberspace.... freedom of expression is always recognized but freedom of expression is not absolute," he told reporters on Thursday.

Nevertheless, Lacierda said the law could still be refined.

He called for critics to submit their concerns to a government panel that will issue by the end of the year specific definitions of the law, such as who may be prosecuted. ? AFP

Source: http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/276136/scitech/technology/phl-cybercrime-law-outrages-netizens

albatross louis oosthuizen phil mickelson 10 year old gives birth c. difficile carmelo anthony nurse jackie

Posted by at No comments:

Hillary Clinton: Iran will do 'whatever it takes' to prop up Syrian 'crony'

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday that the US would send another $45 million in aid to Syrian rebels. But that pales in comparison to what Iran is doing to save President Assad.

By Howard LaFranchi,?Staff writer / September 28, 2012

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks during the Friends of Syrian People Ministerial meeting as Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby (l.) sits at the Waldorf Astoria in New York Friday.

Shannon Stapleton/REUTERS

Enlarge

According to the United States, a lack of coordination among the various rebel groups taking control of growing swaths of Syria is one of their principle weaknesses.

Skip to next paragraph

' + google_ads[0].line2 + '
' + google_ads[0].line3 + '

'; } else if (google_ads.length > 1) { ad_unit += ''; } } document.getElementById("ad_unit").innerHTML += ad_unit; google_adnum += google_ads.length; return; } var google_adnum = 0; google_ad_client = "pub-6743622525202572"; google_ad_output = 'js'; google_max_num_ads = '1'; google_feedback = "on"; google_ad_type = "text"; google_adtest = "on"; google_image_size = '230x105'; google_skip = '0'; // -->

To help remedy that, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday announced an additional $15 million in communications equipment to enhance cooperation among Syria?s opposition players ? from rebel fighters to the new ?revolutionary councils" popping up to administer local services in liberated zones.

Secretary Clinton unveiled the new aid package at a New York meeting of countries working with the Syrian opposition. And she used the meeting to call attention to the threat she said Iran poses with its deepening involvement in the Syrian civil war.

?Let?s be very frank here,? Clinton said. ?The [Bashar al-Assad] regime?s most important lifeline is Iran.?

Adding that ?there is no longer any doubt that Tehran will do whatever it takes to protect its proxy and crony in Damascus,? she urged Syria?s neighbors to take the necessary precautions to stop Iran from smuggling weapons and materiel into Syria through their air space or territory.

Clinton also announced $30 million in additional humanitarian aid for Syria?s beleaguered civilian population. Experts estimate that as many as 1.5 million Syrians may now be internally displaced, while soon as many as 700,000 will have left the country.

Friday?s meeting underscored how the major Western powers supporting the Syrian opposition continue to limit their aid to nonlethal military and humanitarian assistance, as well as some advisory help for civilians. By contrast, Iran and other outside players supporting President Assad are supplying him with arms and even boots on the ground.

Recently, commanders of Iran?s Revolutionary Guard Corps bragged that they are on the ground in Syria, and US intelligence officials say Lebanon?s Hezbollah Shiite Muslim extremist organization is also operating inside Syria on Assad?s behalf, though it is not thought to be carrying out military operations there.?

On the rebels? side, countries aligned against Assad ? including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar ? are said to be providing some arms, but not the heavier weaponry the rebels have been seeking.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/SRexMQmaJqI/Hillary-Clinton-Iran-will-do-whatever-it-takes-to-prop-up-Syrian-crony

bridesmaids winning lottery numbers megamillions winner kansas jayhawks mega millions results louisville lotto numbers

Posted by at No comments:

Daily Kos: A hidden Obama success story: weatherization and ...

For example, energy efficiency and weatherization funding. I

?that, after getting $5 billion in the stimulus bill, the Weatherization Assistance Program has weatherized 1 million homes as of September 27, 2012. Woohoo!

The program is a triple win. It creates jobs, helps deal with climate change by lowering energy use, and lowers monthly utility bills. The?post at Climate Progress points out that "state governments have been using a network of over 1,000 local agencies and more than 4,000 private contractors while employing an average of more than 12,000 workers per quarter to perform weatherization services across the country."

The Weatherization Assistance Program not only created jobs desperately needed in the construction industry, it also provided a boost for American manufacturing and small businesses. More than 89 percent of the materials used in home retrofits are made right here in America. In all cases, except refrigerators (which are 62.3 percent domestically produced), retrofitting homes exceeded the national average for domestic share of all manufactured products used in the United States of 76.5 percent. Recovery Act funding went through these channels to stimulate local economies, employ thousands, and create demand for American-made supplies.

I'm sure workers in some of the factories making those materials know they won new orders because of the weatherization program. But, I wonder how many people are aware that a factory in their town was able to stay open or hire new employees because of orders generated by the program. Not many, I bet.

Consider how it was?implemented?in my community as a typical example. Federal money was given to the states and passed down to agencies with weatherization programs. It allowed Sangamon County to dramatically expand their program during a time of major budget cuts. I'll be cynical and assume that the heavily Republican Sangamon county government probably operated by their usual buddy system and hired contractors they knew.

Neither Republican county leaders nor the friends they hire to do the work will go out of their way to credit Obama. In fact, many of them are the sort of people who nod their head when a politician says "government doesn't create jobs" even if they've spent most of their lives working for the government.

One might read in the newspaper or on the county website that the program was expanded thanks to stimulus funds, but there's nothing obvious to point that out when the work is being done. No one from the federal CCC or WPA came to work on their house. A contractor sent by the county did.?It's likely that many program participants are unaware or quickly forget about the connection to federal stimulus funding.

The $25 Billion of energy efficiency spending in the stimulus bill included much more than weatherization. Using another local example, Springfield's public utility did very well applying for stimulus funds, getting awards for a number of popular?new and expanded programs.

The utility isn't shy about saying they?received?funding from the?awkwardly?named American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. But, there's no particular reason to mention ARRA to every single person when work is being done and rebates are being distributed.

From a governing standpoint, it may have been more effective to distribute funding through existing agencies and non-profits rather than creating a new federal?bureaucracy.

From a political standpoint, it was a huge failure not to brand the stimulus with a catchy name that would be mentioned every time a job is saved or created. That allows Republicans to call the stimulus a failure and continue repeating the delusion that government doesn't create jobs. It also allows Green Party cynics to make their own delusional claim that Obama is no better than Bush on energy issues.

This is more important than Democrats taking credit for a hugely successful program that every single Republican in Congress voted against. Obama just made the largest investment in clean energy and efficiency projects in American history, by far. But, every expert I've read believes we must do much, much more.

There's no path to dealing with climate change that doesn't include dramatically reducing the amount of energy we waste. It's important to brag about the success of these programs because they need to happen again in Obama's second term.

First posted at my blog www.thereisaway.us.

Source: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/29/1137996/-A-hidden-Obama-success-story-weatherization-and-energy-efficiency

stand your ground law dancing with the stars season 14 david garrard bethenny frankel miguel cabrera michael bay ninja turtles san antonio weather

Posted by at No comments:

Saturday, September 29, 2012

readthroughlife: Heading out for nachos now. Then more bloggy stuffs. Had a great time, twitter people! #bloggiesta