Posts Tagged ‘policy’

Moms Vs. The Drug War

Monday, May 14th, 2012

“Mothers throughout history have come forward for the sake of their children. We’re coming forth saying that the drug war has been more damaging to our families than the drugs themselves.” – Gretchen Burns Bergman, executive director of PATH

Moms United is a growing movement to stop the violence, mass incarceration and overdose deaths that are the result of deeply flawed, punitive and discriminatory drug policies. (more…)

Omnibus Bill: Pumping Prison Profits

Monday, March 5th, 2012

Suppose you own a number of giant prisons and you’re looking to expand your annual earnings. How exactly could you do that?

Well, you could cut maximize efficiency and minimize overhead, like any good corporation would do. As well, considering how you’re housing a massive population of inmates with practically no rights, it would be best to put them to work for slave wages. (more…)

Saving the Ass of the Assange

Friday, December 31st, 2010

Princess Leia (disguised as Boushh) held a thermal detonator. The Joker kept his thumb connected to a string of grenades. Julian Assange’s insurance policy? A pile of dirty secrets.

In 2006, Julian Assange founded Wikileaks as a technological means to embolden the world’s people. Regime change, claimed Assange, could be fostered by releasing classified information to the public. Once an unjust organization’s inner workings get exposed, they lose the upper-hand and become vulnerable to being replaced by others who will promote a more open government.

While Assange and his fellow freedom fighters have yet to directly overthrow a dictatorship, they certainly haven’t shied away from repeatedly stomping on increasingly powerful toes.

Earlier this year, they posted a classified US military video showing children, journalists and other Iraqi civilians being gunned down in an unprovoked attack. A few months later came war logs from Afghanistan, followed by war logs from Iraq. Yet all of these leaks were trumped when Assange and his troop of truth-bringers began publishing 250,000 classified US cables, of which they’ve released less than 2000 to date.

It is no small wonder that Wikileaks’ head honcho has been doing his best to safeguard his own life. This summer, part of this policy was put in place when a mysterious encrypted file appeared on the Wikileaks’ page for “insurance”. Were anything to happen to Assange or Wikileaks, the password for this massive file would be released letting the world gain access to all the skeletons held within.

Until a cracker figures out how to beat the encryption scheme or the password gets leaked, the exact contents of this insurance file will remain known only to Assange and his inner circle. The rest of us can only speculate.

Maybe this archive contains damning data pertaining to one of the targets Assange has already painted: The State of Israel or the Bank of America.  Perhaps it deals with those alluded to yesterday by Wikileaks’ fearless leader, namely, CIA agents who’ve been colluding with Arab leaders. The file might even be a bluff, containing no intrinsic value other than the fear it inspires in those with secrets to hide.

Whatever insurance policies Wikileaks decides to take out, hopefully they’ll be enough to keep one of the world’s greatest threats to tyranny – Julian Assange.  – alive for long enough to see the fruits of the social revolution he’s helping to create.