http://blog.internetnews.com/…

As my colleague Michelle Menga is reporting, Amazon is now making new source code available for its Amazon Kindle. Basically what it represents is, Amazon’s responsibility to make the GPL licenced source code that is used in the Kindle available to others.

That’s part of the GPL license and Amazon is doing its part.

Digging into the code that Amazon is now making available, provides some really interesting insight into the underlying structure of the Kindle.

For one, Kindle (at least the DX) is using a modified Linux 2.6.22 kernel. This is a kernel that originally was released by Linus Torvalds in 2007. Is it a surprise that the Kindle is Linux powered? (not really).

Where there is LInux there are always some key Linux tools. In the Kindle’s case that’s the GCC 4.1.2 release for code compilation. In GCC terms that’s now an older release (originally out in 2006), so I would hope that Amazon moves to the newer GCC 4.4 over time as it could yield some performance gains for them.

Amazon is also using BusyBox (how can you not if you’re running embedded?), so it’s a good thing they’ve released that code – BusyBox has been active in recent years by way of the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) in making sure that vendors that use their code actually comply with the GPL.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that those that back the GPL are entirely thrilled with Amazon. In fact the Free Software Foundation (FSF), actually refers to the Kindle (somewhat less than politely) as the ‘Swindle’.

“It’s good that Amazon is complying with the licenses and not behaving illegally, but this is hardly something praiseworthy,” John Sullivan operations manager at the FSF blogged. “Amazon benefited from the freedoms passed on to them by other free software authors, and that benefit comes with an obligation to convey that same freedom to their users — to share alike.”

This isn’t about all supporters of FOSS but the many who are anti DRM.

For those of you… you are inconsistent. DRM is based on copyright laws. Intellectual property is both the justification for government enforced DRM (like the DMCA) and free and open source licenses. If you can use the government to force Amazon to abide by the usage rules set by authors of the Kindle’s software then Amazon can use the government to force you to obey the rules regarding the hardware and media they provide you.

People like Richard Stallman don’t understand freedom in a consistent way. They want the ability to do what they like with the physical and digital things in their possession but use the threat of violence to make others unable to do the same. Intellectual property is not actual property and can not be owned. It is inalienable. Nontransferable. Scarcity only applies to it’s ability to be transferred and not itself. To threat or actually aggress against someone in order to keep a monopoly on an idea is just as illegitimate and ridiculous as waging a war on a tactic.

Trying to have it both ways is intellectually dishonest and antithesis to the rule of law or a free society. If you use the guns of government to create this artificial monopoly power you will forever be fighting for control over it.

• Against Intelectual Property – Stephan Kinsella

http://www.nytimes.com/…

Ten minutes into arrant mayhem in this town near the Mexican border, and the gunman, a disgruntled Iraq war veteran, has already taken out two people, one slumped in his desk, the other covered in blood on the floor.

The responding officers – eight teenage boys and girls, the youngest 14 – face tripwire, a thin cloud of poisonous gas and loud shots – BAM! BAM! – fired from behind a flimsy wall. They move quickly, pellet guns drawn and masks affixed.

“United States Border Patrol! Put your hands up!” screams one in a voice cracking with adolescent determination as the suspect is subdued.

It is all quite a step up from the square knot.

The Explorers program, a coeducational affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America that began 60 years ago, is training thousands of young people in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence – an intense ratcheting up of one of the group’s longtime missions to prepare youths for more traditional jobs as police officers and firefighters.

“This is about being a true-blooded American guy and girl,” said A. J. Lowenthal, a sheriff’s deputy here in Imperial County, whose life clock, he says, is set around the Explorers events he helps run. “It fits right in with the honor and bravery of the Boy Scouts.”

The training, which leaders say is not intended to be applied outside the simulated Explorer setting, can involve chasing down illegal border crossers as well as more dangerous situations that include facing down terrorists and taking out “active shooters,” like those who bring gunfire and death to college campuses. In a simulation here of a raid on a marijuana field, several Explorers were instructed on how to quiet an obstreperous lookout.

“Put him on his face and put a knee in his back,” a Border Patrol agent explained. “I guarantee that he’ll shut up.”

“Our end goal is to create more agents,” said April McKee, a senior Border Patrol agent and mentor at the session here.

The law enforcement posts are restricted to those ages 14 to 21 who have a C average, but there seems to be some wiggle room. “I will take them at 13 and a half,” Deputy Lowenthal said. “I would rather take a kid than possibly lose a kid.”

Just as there are soccer moms, there are Explorers dads, who attend the competitions, man the hamburger grill and donate their land for the simulated marijuana field raids. In their training, the would-be law-enforcement officers do not mess around, as revealed at a recent competition on the state fairgrounds here, where a Ferris wheel sat next to the police cars set up for a felony investigation.Their hearts pounding, Explorers moved down alleys where there were hidden paper targets of people pointing guns, and made split-second decisions about when to shoot. In rescuing hostages from a bus taken over by terrorists, a baby-faced young girl screamed, “Separate your feet!” as she moved to handcuff her suspect.

In a competition in Arizona that he did not oversee, Deputy Lowenthal said, one role-player wore traditional Arab dress. “If we’re looking at 9/11 and what a Middle Eastern terrorist would be like,” he said, “then maybe your role-player would look like that. I don’t know, would you call that politically incorrect?”

This is seriously fucked up. YAY fascist police state Hiter youth brigade!

http://www.usatoday.com/…

Here’s a glimpse at the future of aviation security: Airline passenger Natalie Miller steps into a glass booth at a checkpoint. She raises her arms. Within moments, a screener asks what is in her back pocket.

Miller is puzzled because she dumped all of her possessions into a plastic bin before entering the booth. Or so she thought. When she reaches into her back pocket, she finds a credit card she left there.

“That’s pretty cool,” Miller says of the incident Thursday at Tulsa International Airport, shortly after the screener waved her through. “I thought the machines just detected metal.”

Not anymore. The 35-year reign of airport metal detectors began its slow descent this week in Tulsa, where for the first time some passengers are skipping metal detectors. People are instead being screened in a 9-foot-high portal with glass shields that rotate to produce vivid pictures of what is underneath passengers’ clothing.

As the TSA expands its test for airports in San Francisco, Miami, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City and Albuquerque in coming weeks, it will be listening to passengers’ reactions.

Miller, 34, a sales representative from St. Louis, had no concerns. “It makes me feel a little safer,” she said, taking “maybe a few seconds longer – not a big deal.”

Tulsa Airport Director Jeff Mulder watched Wednesday when the body scanner was first used and saw little passenger objection or slowdown. “It looked like a relatively normal flow,” Mulder said.

But passenger Jim Lesterhold said the body scanner took twice as long as a metal detector takes. “If you were in a crowded airport, it would really slow things up,” said Lesterhold, 50, a Houston engineer.

[speaking of the images] “They are not pornographic at all,” Tulsa screener Debbie Shacklett said. “I don’t look at them as people. I look at them as a thing that could have something on it.”

Well… there you have it. The screening is “cool”, makes people feel safer, and is “not a big deal.” Not that it matters. The TSA agents don’t see the passengers as people anyway and therefore do as they please. “Steigen Sie in das Eisenbahnauto ein! In den Ofen!”

OK… I’m being hyperbolic but that statement is a bit startling. Treating people like things is exactly why we are in these situations.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/…

Missiles fired from suspected US drones killed at least 15 people inside Pakistan today, the first such strikes since Barack Obama became president and a clear sign that the controversial military policy begun by George W Bush has not changed.

Security officials said the strikes, which saw up to five missiles slam into houses in separate villages, killed seven “foreigners” – a term that usually means al-Qaeda – but locals also said that three children lost their lives.

Dozens of similar strikes since August on northwest Pakistan, a hotbed of Taleban and al-Qaeda militancy, have sparked angry government criticism of the US, which is targeting the area with missiles launched from unmanned CIA aircraft controlled from operation rooms inside the US.

The operations were stepped up last year after frustration inside the Bush administration over a perceived failure by Islamabad to stem the flow of Taleban and al-Qaeda fighters from the tribal regions into Afghanistan. Mr Obama has made Afghanistan his top foreign policy priority and said during his presidential campaign that he would consider military action inside Pakistan if the government there was unable or unwilling to take on the militants.

The strikes come just a day after Mr Obama appointed Richard Holbrooke, a former UN ambassador, as a special envoy for the region.

Eight people died when missiles hit a compound near Mir Ali, an al-Qaeda hub in Pakistan’s North Waziristan region. Seven more died when hours later two missiles hit a house in Wana, in South Waziristan. Local officials said the target in Wana was a guest house owned by a pro-Taleban tribesman. One said that as well as three children, the tribesman’s relatives were killed in the blast.

Pakistan has objected to such attacks, saying they are a violation of its territory that undermines its efforts to tackle militants. Since September, the US is estimated to have carried out about 30 such attacks, killing more than 220 people.

Even if he didn’t know this specific strike was going to be made he defininately knew about the possibility. So much for the peace candidate.

http://townhall.com/…

Civil libertarians, including prominent conservatives like Rep. Ron Paul and former Rep. Bob Barr, have made loud objections to the U.S. government’s efforts to counteract terrorism in the wake of 9-11. In particular, they have protested the detainment and interrogation methods used on suspected terrorists at Gitmo, wiretapping, and other methods of surveillance. They don’t represent the majority of Americans, many who privately say anyone involved with terrorism should be executed. They don’t dare say this publicly since the law has evolved over time to provide those accused of crimes certain privileges, labeling them “rights.” While some of these “rights” make sense in order to prevent the government from falsely imprisoning innocent people, at some point there is a line where these specified additional “rights” for suspected terrorists begin to infringe upon the rights of innocent Americans.

So even though we all know the Guantanamo detainees have been aiding and abetting terrorists whose sole goal in life is to kill U.S. citizens, we pretend that the U.S. Constitution includes all these additional “rights” for terrorists and their aiders and abettors, ultimately enabling them to continue their attacks upon U.S. citizens.

Many of the anti-terrorism methods being attacked by civil libertarians involve new methods and areas of communication never addressed nor contemplated by the Constitution or Congress. Claims that our freedoms are gradually being eroded by the government’s attempts to deal with terrorism are inaccurate since these new areas had never been established as constitutional rights for those accused of terrorist activity.

The Constitution doesn’t establish rights. It is a negative rights document. The Bill of Rights merely explicitly points out particular things Congress can not do. Madison and others thought the original 12 amendments were pointless due to the nature of the Constitution. Negatives rights and enumerated powers.

Congress has passed laws attempting to reconcile changing technologies with the Fourth Amendment’s vague general protection against “unreasonable” searches and seizures – emphasis on unreasonable.

Changes in technology are of little or no matter. “Unreasonable”… without reason. If you want to search and/or seize the 4th Amendment explains how to legally do so. It clearly includes “and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. If these “terrorists” are found to have done harm or clearly intended harm on another then by all means. However, you can’t go and justify the search or seizure after the fact. And note how she calls these people terrorists outright rather then accused terrorists. I don’t even think accused terrorist is appropriate as there has been no evidence they actually performed any act of terrorism. Likely they are wannabe terrorists at best. Which in and of itself is no crime. Not a real crime but one of thought.