I gave money to the EFF in their first year, and have supported all their initiatives, until they sided with the tech industry on content modification, and that’s where I think they parted ways with the interests of bloggers. Now they’re asking for the support of bloggers. You might want to give this some thought before you automatically give them the support they seek. Maybe ask them to help us define what’s allowable content modification and what’s not.

At this point, the EFF hasn’t been willing to answer the question, they just evade it, dancing around like a Republican spin doctor (when they’re being nice) and telling us “tough shit” when they can’t be bothered. If we’re going to help them pay their bills, they should pay attention to our interests, maybe even represent them.

And let’s see if the EFF can respect that someone might have a different opinion than theirs, and engage in a little discourse instead of personal attack. That would be a first step. [Scripting News]

Winer invented blogging and RSS, and with Adam Curry, invented podcasting. Some think he’s an abrasive pain in the ass. And sometimes that’s precisely what is needed. EFF has lost track of who they are on this issue and Winer has been calling them on it. Repeatedly.

No, Google should not be allowed to re-write webpages, serving them to websufers, inserting ads and not paying the website. They are trying to do that in the US ( they can’t do it in the UK because it’s illegal.) For EFF to attack Winer for asking why they supports this makes me wonder what on earth is happening in the EFF, that usually exemplary defender of freedom on the Net.

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Now, 112 years after U.S. troops helped overthrow the independent Kingdom of Hawaii and 12 years after Congress apologized for it, that Hawaiian distinctiveness appears close to being formally recognized by the U.S. government. A bill that for the first time would extend sovereignty to the native Hawaiian people is poised for a vote - and likely approval - in the U.S. Senate.

Not only was The Kingdom of Hawaii overthown by force aided and abetted by the US military, the new rulers revoked citizenship for Asians, stole all the land they could, and among other things, created sugar plantations where the workers lived in semi-slave-like conditions. Ah, capitalism.

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The Federal Bureau of Investigation has collected at least 3,500 pages of internal documents in the last several years on a handful of civil rights and antiwar protest groups in what the groups charge is an attempt to stifle political opposition to the Bush administration.

“I’m still somewhat shocked by the size of the file on us,” said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the A.C.L.U. “Why would the F.B.I. collect almost 1,200 pages on a civil rights organization engaged in lawful activity? What justification could there be, other than political surveillance of lawful First Amendment activities?”

Leslie Cagan, the national coordinator for United for Peace and Justice, a coalition of more than 1,000 antiwar groups, said she was particularly concerned that the F.B.I.’s counterterrorism division was discussing the coalition’s operations. “We always assumed the F.B.I. was monitoring us, but to see the counterterrorism people looking at us like this is pretty jarring,” she said.

Antiwar activists in the 60’s who did an FOIA request decades later said they were shocked at how much they were being watched. They figured they were under some surveillance, but they had no idea it was so much or so constant. This happened under Democratic presidents as well as Republican presidents  so let’s not have any illusions that it’s just a right-wing thing.

Now it’s happening again, which should be no big surprise. If they are watching the ACLU, Greenpeace and UFPJ, then it’s a given they are watching the ANSWER Coalition where I am an active volunteer. But I assumed that long ago anyway!

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We advised you to buy it, you did, now we’ll sue you

Facing the threat of criminal indictment and a torrent of civil lawsuits over its marketing of abusive tax shelters, KPMG LLP is fighting back against the very customers to whom it sold the deals.

 Lawyers for KPMG recently filed court papers in connection with a Texas case signaling that they will seek to ask plaintiffs and their personal tax advisers what they knew about the shelters and why they failed to disclose them on their individual income tax returns.

These of course are the very same tax shelters that KMPG marketed to them.

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San Diego is so awash in political corruption it’s becoming comical.

San Diego’s interim mayor convicted of wire fraud

A federal jury convicted San Diego’s interim mayor and a councilman on conspiracy and wire fraud charges on Monday, the latest scandal in a city that has witnessed the resignation of its mayor and federal probes into the mishandling of its pension fund.

Interim Mayor Michael Zucchet was convicted on his first official day in office and immediately suspended.

Mayor Dick Murphy announced [who Zucchet replaced] in April he was resigning after Time magazine named him one of the three worst big-city mayors in the United States.

Then there’s Randy Cunningham, San Diego’s member of the House who deserves to and probably will be indicted due to his exceptional stupidity and greed.

For the first time in a great while, Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham has done something that benefits all of his constituents and not just himself: He’s called an end to his political career.

Smart move, Duke. It’s about time.

The San Diego Republican was operating under a dark ethical cloud after it became known that he sold his home at an inflated price to a federal defense contractor, which, in turn, resold the house for $700,000 less.

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