In the fourth part of his pre-election manifesto published in Kommersant daily on Monday, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin touts the internet as an electronic means for making democracy more responsive to the people.

The premier is running for president in next month’s election.

Expressing the importance of “indispensable” democratic principles, Putin stresses at the same time that democracy-building is not just a matter of “copying and pasting” Western values into Russia.

“Genuine democracy cannot be produced overnight,” Putin states in the article. “You cannot just copy it by reproducing somebody else’s model; society has to be ready for democratic mechanisms.”

The Prime Minister recalls what transpired in the turbulent 1990s, when “democracy” was hastily introduced following the collapse of the Soviet Union.“What we got in the 1990s with the supposed coming of democracy was not a modern state,” writes Putin.

“What we got was turf wars between various clans and…semi-feudal fiefdoms.” By comparison, Russia’s political landscape today – with its more politically informed electorate – faces new challenges that demand new solutions.

“Today, the quality of the state does not match civil society’s readiness to participate in it,” Putin admits, in a nod to the opposition. “Our civil society has become much more mature, active and responsible – they should have the capacity to match increased public activism.”

­Spin doctors and image makers need not apply

In an apparent swipe at Western-style democracy, where, he suggests, substance has taken a back seat to sensationalism, Putin warns of the threat of democracy becoming just another form of cheap entertainment.

“We do not need the circus of various candidates competing with each other to give more and more unrealistic promises,” he says. “We don’t need a situation where all that is left of democracy is the facade, where democracy is understood as a one-time entertaining political show…where substance is forgotten for the sake of shocking statements and mutual accusations.”

Putin goes on to chastise the “spin doctors” and “image makers” who are attempting to “control politicians.”

What modern Russia needs, Putin says, is a “clear, quick and transparent mechanism for preparing, making and implementing both short-term and long-term decisions,” which will promote “constructive dialogue and mutual trust between society and the government.”

Putin advocates the active use of Internet technologies for building the foundation of responsible democratic institutions.

­Downloading Democracy

Russia, with its millions of regular internet users, has the means to overhaul its political system, right at its fingertips.

“Democracy should have mechanisms for direct and constant action… and efficient channels for dialogue, public oversight, communication and feedback,” Putin advises, offering examples as to how to use the available technology.

“It is important to create user-friendly, interactive interfaces for public authorities’ web portals, so that their plans and programs can be fully available, publicly discussed, and their implementation monitored,” he writes.

The top contender in next month’s presidential election says he will “ask web designers to assist the state” with implementing this proposal.

Putin then discusses how the internet can give voters direct participation in the democratic process, while also breaking down the mountain of red tape.

“I suggest introducing a rule for a mandatory review in Parliament of initiatives that collect one hundred thousand or more signatures on the internet,” Putin writes, citing a similar law in the UK. “Certainly the anonymous internet cannot serve this purpose, even though in a number of instances it helps reveal the mood of society… [Therefore] a procedure should be developed for the official registration of those who want to participate in this system”.

Putin believes that a widely available “internet democracy” would give citizens at the city and municipal levels “the opportunity to vote and introduce topical problems at local referendums or Internet polls.”

By way of example, Putin says residents of a given locale “should be given an opportunity to express their opinion on the performance of the head of the district police…after his first year on the job.”

The PM’s plans for promoting “internet democracy” are part of his Electronic Government project, scheduled to be completed by July.

“At present, our citizens have access to all information on political debates in Parliament, on world markets, and on the marriages and divorces of Hollywood celebrities,” Putin muses. “What they can’t do over the internet, however, is retrieve data on their utility bills, review their medical files, or find the name of their district police officer…

“Many state services are now available online… But most people need information that’s relevant for them: on their homes, nearby areas, neighboring parks, schools, and their municipalities.”

“The Electronic Government project should be aimed more precisely at the needs and requirements of the people,” Putin says, summing up his plans. “By means of information technology, state mechanisms should be made comprehensive and accessible to the public.”

­Corruption: the new cool

Addressing Russia’s perennial problem of corruption, Putin cited a conversation between Tsar Nicholas I and his chief of secret police Alexander von Benckendorff, when the former announced he wanted to stamp out graft, and got the following question in return, “Do you think there will be anyone left around you?”

The Prime Minister then quotes a recent poll on the aspirations of Russian children.

“In the turbulent 1990s teenagers dreamed of becoming oligarchs,” Putin said. “But now they want to be state officials; many view public service as a source of fast and easy cash.”

When discussing ways of dealing with individuals in high places fattening their wallets, Putin talks tough.

“The fight against corruption must become a national course, not a matter for political speculation… political exploitation,” he cautions. “We offer real, systemic solutions that will ensure a far more effective rehabilitation of state institutions and the use of new principles in our staff policy – eventually, our goal is to make reputational, financial and material losses so great, that corruption would no longer pay.”

“We will act consistently, reasonably and with determination. We will remove the fundamental causes for corruption and punish particular officials. We will boost motivation for those who want to serve Russia in good faith. We have always had plenty of such people, and they will be given a chance.”

“We have defeated oligarchy, and we will defeat corruption.”

In conclusion, Putin says that his solutions will help to make the power of the people – democracy – a genuine one.

“It’s these solutions that make public service function in the interests of people,” Putin writes. “And together, they ensure that Russia and its people enjoy sustainable and successful growth.”

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Federal agency would be forced to consider applications to remove TSA screeners.

Following House approval of the measure on Friday, the Senate is set to vote today on legislation that would allow U.S. airports to replace TSA workers with screeners from private companies, a move that could spell the beginning of the end for the highly unpopular federal agency’s role in airport security.

“The U.S. agency must allow airports to switch to private companies for screeners unless it can show the move wouldn’t be cost-effective and would be detrimental to security, according to the legislation, which if passed will go to President Barack Obama for his signature,” reports Businessweek.

“They’ve been trying to force the door open for several years,” Jeff Price, a Denver-based consultant who has written a textbook on aviation security, said of U.S. lawmakers. “It reverses the burden of proof. It is definitely trying to checkmate the TSA.”

At the height of the anti-TSA drive in late 2010, which coincided with a national full body scanner opt out day, a growing number of airports such as Orlando Sanford International began to exercise their right to replace TSA workers with private screeners.

The TSA soon put a stop to this in January 2011 by freezing the number of airports that could use private screeners, a figure that had climbed to 16. Orlando Sanford is one of the airports whose vetoed application to remove TSA screeners will have to be reconsidered under the new legislation.

More private security companies are expected to start up if the legislation passes, providing the additional benefit of adding tens of thousands of private sector jobs to the economy.

“You’ll see companies make themselves known,” said Price. “They’ll make sure every airport operator knows the rules have changed.”

The TSA’s involvement in airport security has become highly unpopular over the last two years, with the federal agency mired in one controversy after another, from its agents constantly caught stealing from travelers, to its mistreatment of children and the elderly, to its habitual lies about the safety of naked body scanners.

In September last year, a petition on the White House website that called for abolishing the TSA received almost 32,000 signatures, forcing TSA chief John Pistole to issue a response.

When Texas lawmakers attempted to pass a bill that would have outlawed the TSA’s “advanced pat down” procedures last year, the feds threatened to impose a no fly zone over the state and the measure was ultimately defeated.

Congress recently gave the green light for $24 million dollars in extra funding for the TSA’s VIPR program, which was responsible for conducting 9,300 unannounced checkpoints last year alone.

For anti-TSA activists, kicking the federal agency out of the nation’s airports will merely be the first step given that TSA workers have now been deployed to staff a network of internal checkpoints. The TSA is now conducting searches of Americans at train stations, bus depots, ferry ports, on highways and even at high school prom nights.

The federal agency was also responsible for training hot dog sellers and other vendors to spot terrorists at the recent Super Bowl, a story that attracted yet more derision from the national media.

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As a warrior for Internet freedom, you helped defeat the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA by supporting Web black outs by sites like Wikipedia and by contacting your lawmaker to voice your displeasure. So loud was your voice that even the president of the United States sided with you in opposing it.

But don’t take a deep sigh of relief because, after all, we’re talking about a merger of Washington, D.C., and Hollywood here, as well as global interests. After the motion picture industry, its subsidiaries and all “interested parties” have spent nearly $150 million lobbying for some sort of Internet-centric “anti-piracy” bill, you should have known the powers that be would return.

And they have, only this time they are pushing something far more onerous: ACTA, or the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.

“Although the proposed treaty’s title might suggest that the agreement deals only with counterfeit physical goods (such as medicines) what little information has been made available publicly by negotiating governments about the content of the treaty makes it clear that it will have a far broader scope and in particular will deal with new tools targeting ‘Internet distribution and information technology’”, says an assessment of ACTA by the watchdogs at the Electronic Freedom Foundation.

“ACTA has several features that raise significant potential concerns for consumers’ privacy and civil liberties for innovation and the free flow of information on the Internet [regarding] legitimate commerce and for developing countries’ ability to choose policy options that best suit their domestic priorities and level of economic development,” says EFF’s assessment.

As is usually the case with dubious, rights-stripping legislation, ACTA – which Forbes.com reports was signed by the U.S. in 2011 and has already been sanctioned as well by Japan, Switzerland and many European Union nations – has largely been negotiated in the shadows and, thus, has largely been devoid of scrutiny… until now.

While the Obama administration was shying away from SOPA, it has been aggressively pursuing ACTA (full disclosure: the process was started under the Bush administration). Critics say it is much more far-reaching than SOPA, bypassing “the sovereign laws of participating nations” and “forcing ISP’s across the globe to act as internet police,” Forbes said.

But ACTA isn’t limited just to the Internet. In fact, the agreement would crack down things like generic drugs and would make food patents more difficult to obtain “by enforcing a global standard on seed patents that threatens local farmers and food independence across the developed world,” Forbes says.

The good thing is, there is not universal acceptance of ACTA and its onerous, liberty-stealing provisions. Emerging nations like Brazil and India are adamantly opposed to it for rightfully fearing its provisions would harm their economies.

But Internet freedom is also under attack from other quarters as well. The EFF also notes that the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, which is a separate measure, would “rewrite the global rules on IP enforcement”.

“All signatory countries will be required to conform their domestic laws and policies to the provisions of the Agreement,” said the EFF assessment. “In the U.S. this is likely to further entrench controversial aspects of U.S. copyright law. The recently leaked U.S. IP chapter also includes provisions that appear to go beyond current U.S. law. This raises significant concerns for citizens’ due process, privacy and freedom of expression rights.”

SOPA may be history but that doesn’t mean Internet freedom does not remain under assault. Tyrants never stop trying to enforce tyranny.

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Police in Oakland, California, have used tear-gas and flash-grenades as a 2,000-strong Occupy Oakland march turned violent, with some protesters claiming that rubber bullets were also fired into the crowd. At least 400 people were arrested.

Initially, authorities had said 200-300 people were detained. But later the figure was revised to over 400 arrests, reports Reuters citing the Oakland emergency operations center.

The demonstrators had attempted to take over vacant buildings to use as their headquarters, they also broke into City Hall and tried to occupy a YMCA. Police spokesman Jeff Thomason told media most of the arrests came around 8 pm local time. Police took many protesters into custody as they marched through the city’s downtown area, with some entering a YMCA building.

Officials say, at one point protesters began tearing down perimeter fences around the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center, as some attacked police officers, throwing rocks, bottles and other objects. Police declared an unlawful assembly and used force, according to the Oakland Tribune newspaper.

While police were taking people into custody near the YMCA, about 100 officers surrounded City Hall, while others swept the inside of the building for protesters who had broken in. Inside the building, protesters burned flags, broke into an electrical box and damaged several art structures, according to Oakland Mayor Jean Quan.

“The City of Oakland welcomes peaceful forms of assembly and freedom of speech, but acts of violence, property destruction and overnight lodging will not be tolerated,” the press release by city officials stated. “The Oakland Police Department is also committed to facilitating peaceful forms of expression while protecting personal safety and property through ethical and constitutional policing.”

At the moment, the Occupy crowd in the city’s central square is being monitored by dozens of police officers.

Oakland has seen one of America’s largest and most vocal Occupy protests, with thousands of people attending since the demos started in October. Some 300 people have been arrested since then. The Occupy Wall Street movement started in September in New York and claims to represent the 99 per cent of Americans, who suffer from corporate greed and economic injustice.

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The United Nations has demanded that Israel stops the demolition of Palestinian homes in the West Bank following a report on the “dramatic” increase in homes being knocked down.
­
“The current policy and practice of demolition causes extensive human suffering and should end,” said the UN humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territories, Maxwell Gaylard.

According to the report from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 622 Palestinian homes were demolished by Israeli forces in the West Bank in 2011, “forcibly displacing” almost 1,100 people, over half of them children, Agence France Presse (AFP) reports.

Gaylard said that on Thursday he visited the village of Anata near Jerusalem, which has recently seen seven Palestinian homes destroyed.

“He was informed that bulldozers and troops had arrived in the middle of the night of 23 January and that 52 people, including 29 children, had been forced from their homes, which were then completely destroyed,” a UN statement said.

Israeli authorities insist that they only demolish homes built without the required permission. But the Palestinians say they are rarely granted permits, according to AFP.

The Palestinians are refusing to return to negotiations with Israel over its settlements in the West Bank.

Meanwhile, Israeli diplomat and former ambassador to Russia Anna Azari told Interfax news agency that Israel is not going to freeze its settlement activities in the West Bank in order to restart talks with the Palestinians. “I would like to remind you that Israel had already frozen settlement activity for 10 months but, nevertheless, Abbas did not come to the negotiations table. So we will not repeat that.”

As tensions between the two sides grow, UN chief Ban Ki-moon is planning to visit Jerusalem and Ramallah next week.

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Ron Paul has long opposed the TSA and has campaigned for its abolishment for years. Following an episode on Monday that left his son, Sen. Rand Paul, stranded in a Nashville airport, the presidential hopeful is asking for help to finally end the TSA.

Early Monday, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul triggered a false alarm while passing through a Transportation Security Administration checkpoint on his way to Washington DC. As per TSA standards, the government-hired screeners on site asked the senator to submit to a personal pat-down. Rand Paul, however, had other plans. Senator Paul says he asked to be re-scanned. Shortly after 10 a.m., the senator’s Facebook page announced that he had been detained at the Nashville Airport by the TSA.

Hours later, his father, Texas congressman and Republican Party contender for the GOP nomination Ron Paul, addressed the matter on his official campaign website.

“The police state in this country is growing out of control. One of the ultimate embodiments of this is the TSA that gropes and grabs our children, our seniors and our loved ones and neighbors with disabilities. The TSA does all of this while doing nothing to keep us safe,” wrote the congressman. He added that, under his own “Plan to Restore America,” he aimed to save $1 trillion federal spending, a goal that would be reached in part by ending the TSA.

“We must restore the freedom and respect for liberty that once made American the greatest nation in human history. I am deeply committed to doing that as president of the United States,” added Congressman Paul.

On Tuesday, Ron Paul furthered his fight for ending the TSA by asking on his official website for campaign contributions so that he could help bring down the government agency if he can make it to the oval office. Only one day after the incident in Nashville, the older Paul asked his followers to donate towards an “End the TSA Money Bomb.” Within hours, he managed to bring in over $50,000 in donations.

“I’m proud of my son’s stand, but just imagine those who receive this kind of treatment every day in our nation’s airports and can’t fight back?” asked Congressman Paul. “The elderly. The disabled. Little kids,” he said, “All victims of an out-of-control police state that, while doing nothing to make us safer, is working overtime to strip away our freedoms, our rights and our basic dignity.”

Even for those who don’t necessarily subscribe to the strict libertarian leanings that both Pauls share, many see a problem with the current operating procedures of the TSA. In 2011, the Transportation Security Administration’s airport checkpoints were marred by a series of scandalous events. In June, a 95-year-old leukemia patient was subjected to a strip search in Florida; in October, authorities in New York City humiliated a breast cancer victim by refusing a note from her doctor requesting she not be touched; and a month later at the same airport, three separate elderly women reported that they were subjected to invasive searches for seemingly no reason.

In most cases, the TSA has responded apologetically and addressed the issue. For Ron Paul, that’s not enough. While a “sorry” might be soothing for some, it has still victimized many Americans, he says. When the TSA wrote of their track record for 2011 in a blog post published earlier this year, they addressed that, even with an $8 billion budget, their “Top 10 Good Catches” of the year included nothing monumental. Instead, rather, the TSA wrote that their best finds of 2011 included a handful of reptiles and, in one instance, the science project of a college student. By the end of the year, the US Travel Association reported that two-out-of-five travelers during the December holiday season were trying to seek other modes of transportation.

On his own site, Ron Paul quotes Rep. John Mica (R. -Fla.), chairman of the House Transportation Committee and co-creator of the TSA, who himself has grown weary of the government agency.

“The whole program has been hijacked by bureaucrats,” says Rep. Mica. “Everything they have done has been reactive.They take shoes off because of [shoe-bomber] Richard Reid, passengers are patted down because of the diaper bomber, and you can’t pack liquids because the British uncovered a plot using liquids. It’s an agency that is always one step out of step,” he adds, but not before calling the agency “a complete fiasco.”

Both Ron Paul and Rand Paul feel the same way, and since his “End The TSA Money Bomb” has raked in an additional three thousand dollars since the last five paragraphs have been penned, many Americans must agree as well.

“As president, I pledge to do everything in my power to strengthen our national security by ending the theatrical sham that is the TSA,” Ron Paul writes today. “I know it’s short notice, but we’ve put together a mini-Money Bomb to bring even more attention to this critical issue tonight and tomorrow.

Will you help me win this race and fight back for our civil liberties by making your most generous contribution right away?” he asks.

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The French Senate has passed a bill which makes it a crime to publicly deny that the Ottoman Empire’s 1915 killings of Armenians was a genocide. The move sparked fresh condemnation from Turkey, and could lead to further tension.

The upper house of parliament voted 127-86 in favor of the legislation on Monday, after it had been passed by the National Assembly, France’s lower house, last month. To become a law, the bill must be signed by President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose party proposed it.

Denying the Holocaust in France is already a crime punishable by a year in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros; the same punishment would apply to the law the on Armenian Genocide.

The legislation was passed despite Turkey’s threats to retaliate with new sanctions on France – in addition to Ankara’s suspension of military, economic and political ties with France after the National Assembly approved the bill.

Following the vote, Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan branded the French bill “racist and discriminatory”. The Turkish foreign ministry warned that should it be passed into law, Ankara will hold on to sanctions it imposed against France in response to the legislation being put on the table.

“Those who thought that we reacted too harshly to the events, or that our response would be in words only, simply can’t comprehend the issue, Turkey or the Turkish nation,” a statement of the ministry said.

Turkey denies the massacre that claimed an estimated 1.5 million lives – and is the event for which the word “genocide” was created – was a genocide. France, on its part, insists that the new law would not harm Turkey.

“The law does not condemn Turkey in any way. It just sets sanctions for actions aimed at denying several cases of genocide. It is all about implementing European directives, the responsibilities of the French parliament,” French Interior Minister Claude Guéant insisted in an interview.

Executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America, Aram Hamparian, told RT that Monday’s vote in the French Senate was “the approval of genocide-prevention measures – and a vote for a world without genocide.”

It is also a step forward mounting pressure on Turkey to “finally come to terms with Armenian genocide both truthfully and justly,” he insists.

However, Hamparian doubts that Turkey is serious about its threats. “It’s a paper tiger – they make very vocal threats but ultimately don’t follow through,” he says. “They are going to do what they do in terms of trade and military relations based on their own interests.”

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After the arrest of the Canadian officer, who was suspected of espionage for Moscow, the Canadian authorities expelled four employees of the Russian Embassy in Ottawa.

According to CTV, Dmitry Fedorchatenko and Konstantin Kolpakov were sent back to Russia. The names of two other Russian citizens, who were involved in the story, have not been exposed. However, spokespeople for the Russian Embassy in Ottawa have not confirmed the information. They simply said that the diplomats returned to Russia because their missions expired.

It was reported this week that the Canadian authorities arrested naval officer Jeffrey Paul Delisle, whom the media nicknamed as the “Russian spy.” The charges against Delisle were filed within the scope of the law about the security of information, which was passed in Canada soon after the 9/11 attacks in the USA. The officer may spend a life in prison.

Prosecutors said that the officer had been delivering secret information to Moscow since July 2007. However, none of the suspicions against him have been officially confirmed yet.

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Britain has revoked the press license of Iran-based English language broadcaster Press TV, accusing it of violating press regulations. But some say the decision was really motivated by British geopolitical interests.

­The Office of Communications (Ofcom), a government-approved watchdog overseeing broadcasting and telecommunications in the UK, says the channel does not control its content.

It also says the channel’s license should be held by its office in Tehran, not London, since its editorial control is clearly coming from the Iranian capital.

In addition, Press TV is accused of not paying a fine of £100,000 ($156,000) for airing an interview with an imprisoned journalist in 2009.

Press TV says it’s being silenced, calling the withdrawal of the license “a clear act of censorship.”

Phil Rees, a UK-based media analyst and author, thinks that although the regulation breaches did technically take place, the driving force behind the decision is geopolitics.

“If this had been separate from geopolitics, it would not have happened – and some other kind of sanction would have been made,” he explained.

“Press TV has been viewed through geopolitical terms – and there is a breakdown of relations between Britain and Iran,” he continues. “Press TV’s journalism is not viewed through journalism, but it is viewed in terms of British-Iranian relations.”

“Most of the criticisms of Press TV have been due to its coverage, because it sees the Middle East very differently than the mainstream media in Britain,” the journalist asserts.

Rees also says the withdrawal of Press TV’s license means a limitation of dialogue in the British media, a “tragedy” at the moment when British-Iranian relations are at their lowest point in a long time.

And journalist Yvonne Ridley told RT that this story is part of a bigger phenomenon in the US these days.
“Through Wikileaks we discovered that the American government was putting pressure on the British government to pull the plug on Press TV. They’ve obviously passed that pressure on to Ofcom, and today Press TV was pulled off the Sky satellite platform. But we need to put this in perspective – it would be like the BBC being pulled off broadcasting on the Isle of Man. Press TV has more than a dozen satellites around the world, so it will continue, and of course it’s streamed live on the Internet.”

Ridley also noted that the move shows how “the so-called ‘free democracies’ don’t like the truth, and they will go to extraordinary levels of censorship to stop what they see as criticism of the way that they run their governments.”

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The Internet was awarded a major victory Friday morning as US Congress announced that they will indefinitely postpone voting on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA).

The win, while a major success viewed in the eyes of advocates for a free and open Internet, is for the meantime, however, only a momentary one. Lawmakers hope that revamped legislation will be penned while Congress considers finding a fair balance that will appeal to both the entertainment industry lobbying for stricter laws and its array of opponents, largely represented by Silicon Valley and the Web.

“There is no reason that the legitimate issues raised by many about this bill cannot be resolved,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said Friday morning in a prepared statement. While he condemned illegal activity on the Web, Senator Reid added that lawmakers will “continue engaging with all stakeholders to forge a balance between protecting Americans’ intellectual property, and maintaining openness and innovation on the Internet.”

The announcement comes only two days after a massive campaign on the Internet voluntarily blacked out some of the biggest sites on the Web, particularly Google, Wikipedia and Reddit. Others that did not participate in the campaign but advertised strong opposition were Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, the website icanhazcheeseburger.com and rapper MC Hammer.

“We don’t want people who spend their days legislating trying to control creativity,” Hammer said. “I speak on behalf of a lot of artists … who would like to be able to continue to utilize the valuable tools that the Internet has brought.”

Following Wednesday’s massive blackout, at least 38 Senators either vowed to vote no on PIPA or were largely considering doing so. As RT reported on Thursday, however, entertainment industry bigwigs who remained opposed to the legislations were beginning to draw a rift within Washington with some Hollywood tycoons vowing to end donations to the campaign of Barack Obama due to the president’s anti-SOPA stance.

“God knows how much money we’ve given to Obama and the Democrats and yet they’re not supporting our interests,” one anonymous Hollywood insider told the website Deadline. “There’s been no greater supporters of him than we’ve been from the first day and the first fundraisers continuing until he was elected. We all were pleased. And, at its heart institutionally, Hollywood supports the Democrats. Now we need the administration to support us. This is a very important time for Hollywood.”

That same day, Barrett Brown, founder of the Project PM online collective, said hacktivists were waging a campaign against the congressmen who were still siding with Hollywood in regards to the legislations. Speaking to RT, he announced that his group would generate “a great deal of havoc” waged at pro-PIPA and SOPA lawmakers. A campaign earlier on Thursday participated in by members of the online group Anonymous crippled several entertainment industry and government websites due to an unrelated attack launched by the feds that morning on Megaupload, a file sharing site that has since gone offline and its affiliates charged with criminal counts of conspiracy and copyright infringement.

“Even without SOPA having been passed yet, the federal government always had tremendous power to do some of the things that they want to do. So if this is what can occur without SOPA being passed, imagine what can occur after SOPA is passed,” asked Brown.

“This is a war they plan on fighting until the end and so do we,” he added.

In that war, Friday’s announcement by way of Senator Reid reveals that the Internet and its advocates against SOPA and PIPA have been made the victors in what is certain to be just the first battle in a war that could very well go uphill for quite some time.

Early Friday, Senator Chuck Schumer tweeted, “You’ve been heard. #PIPA has been pulled so we can find a better solution.”

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Ugandan opposition leader, Kizza Besigye, sits in a police cell in Uganda's capital Kampala on January 19, 2012.

Ugandan police have arrested Kizza Besigye, the president of the country’s main opposition party, Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), as he was preparing to lead an anti-government protest against spiraling living costs in the East African nation.

Besigye, a one-time advisor to President Yoweri Museveni, was meeting a number of senior opposition figures in an upmarket suburb of the capital Kampala on Thursday before the rally, which was set to focus on corruption and economic hardships.

Armed police intercepted the group as they were heading towards the city center. The police then fired teargas canisters before bundling the politicians into vans and hauling off the opposition leader into detention.

“We’re holding Besigye and others as a preventive measure because there was a likelihood of a breach of peace and chaos,” deputy police spokeswoman, Judith Nabakooba, said.

She added, “We’ll hold until we’re sure there is no more threat.”

Besigye has announced that he would step down as party leader to devote more time to organizing anti-government rallies.

He was arrested on several occasions last year. He was once injured and had to be hospitalized in neighboring Kenya, following violent clashes during a rally between Ugandan security forces and his supporters.

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Anti-government protesters shout slogans in the Romania capital Bucharest on January 19, 2012.

Romanian police have fired teargas canisters at demonstrators protesting against the government’s austerity measures in the Romanian capital Bucharest.

On Thursday, the police arrested about 50 people, who allegedly threw bricks and bottles and other materials at them.

Earlier on the day, thousands of protesters, including teenage students who abandoned their classes, held a demonstration demanding the resignation of the government for imposing harsh austerity measures.

Police said about 7,000 protesters attended the rally from all over Romania; however, organizers claimed the crowd was far larger.

It was one of the biggest anti-government demonstrations held recently in Bucharest.

Demonstrators stopped traffic at the University Square and chanted slogans against President Traian Basescu.

In 2009, Romania received a two-year €20 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the World Bank as its economy shrank by 7.1 percent.

The government imposed tough austerity measures under the agreement, reducing public wages by 25 percent and raising taxes.

Anger against the government has mounted over the wage cuts, slashed benefits, higher taxes and widespread corruption.

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If you see the White House invaded by aliens, blown up by laser beams or bombed by terrorists in any of the big summer blockbusters this year, consider it a subtle hint to the Oval Office by way of Hollywood.

After US President Barack Obama demanded revamped provisions in the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, Los Angeles film executives are rescinding their support of the commander-in-chief.

While Hollywood hot-shots were in the past major contributors to the 2008 campaign for Barack Obama, movie execs are heated up over the presidents halting of SOPA. On the West Coast, filmmakers and affiliated are insisting that the move is a major blow to the movie industry and it will only further encourage an Internet already ripe with pirated motion pictures.

Under the proposed SOPA legislation, both websites and Web surfers involved in sharing copyrighted material would be imposed with hefty fines and imprisonment, imposing a government-sanctioned firewall of sorts to shut down a large chunk of the Web. Advocates for an open Internet have protested in droves against both SOPA and its sister legislation, the Protect IP Act, or PIPA, and a massive campaign against them both on Wednesday this week brought thousands of websites down to show the impact the laws could have. Search engine giant Google warned users of the acts’ implications on Wednesday, and both Wikipedia and Reddit turned their sites black for the day. On Twitter, users used the microblogging sight to tweet opposition to SOPA and for a while the term “Save Porn” became the top trending topic in America, as passed legislation would no-doubt cripple the online adult entertainment industry.

Although Obama has won the favor of much of Silicon Valley by striking down SOPA for now, downstate in the Hollywood Hills, executives are furious that the president has put his foot down on the legislation, potentially allowing for the sharing and pirating of films to continue endlessly.

In Los Angeles, execs are fearful of the consequences and are revoking their support. For Obama’s re-election campaign, that could be one big dent in his 2012 fundraising efforts out west.

President Obama has managed to garner substantial support from the Internet and computer tech industry, although the Democratic National Committee has, as of September 30, 2011, received around $1 million more from the Hollywood and entertainment industry than their Silicon Valley counterparts. Among those that are at the top of the donor list are DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenerg, who personally has raised more than $500,000 for Obama’s re-election so far and has contributed $2 million to a super PAC with similar viewpoints.

If the backlash already aimed at Barack is any indication, however, the amount in the money well might begin to dry up.

“We just feel very let down by the administration and Obama for not supporting us,” one anonymous movie exec tells the Hollywood-geared website Deadline.

Another executive, who is identified only as a well known movie mogul and a supporter of the administration until now adds, “At least let him remain neutral and not go against it until we can get the legislation right. But Obama went against it. I’m personally not going to support him anymore and not give a dime anymore.”

With Hollywood funding not just Obama but the Democrats as a whole, a rift is dividing the president’s own party as lawmakers are forced to take sides with anti-SOPA supporters and the entertainment industry.

Former Democratic Senator Chris Dodd campaigned for Obama in 2008 but today heads the Motion Picture Association of America. He called the blackout on Wednesday waged by anti-SOPA advocates “the height of irresponsibility” when speaking to MSNBC and equated it to children screaming until they hold their breath.

Others within the Hollywood elite, including Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, have in the past donated large sums to the Obama campaign, which hosted three separate fundraisers at the Sony Pictures movie studio in Los Angeles before.

While 19 US Senators flipped their stance regarding SOPA on Wednesday alone and became opponents of the bill, the vast majority of them are Republicans. Democrats, on the other hand, are largely in support of both SOPA and PIPA, with Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) personally raking in almost one million dollars from supporters of the legislation. In a report published by the Raw Story on Thursday, the top 20 beneficiaries of special interest money in favor of PIPA doubles as a roster of some of the left’s biggest names, including Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Patrick Leahy, among others. In all, writes the website, the total amount of money handed over to the Democrats on the list of supporters of the act from special interests favoring SOPA amounts to more than $7 million. Anti-SOPA lobbyists, in comparison, have only contributed $807,502 to those very same Democrats.

“God knows how much money we’ve given to Obama and the Democrats and yet they’re not supporting our interests,” another anonymous Hollywood insider tells Deadline. “There’s been no greater supporters of him than we’ve been from the first day and the first fundraisers continuing until he was elected. We all were pleased. And, at its heart institutionally, Hollywood supports the Democrats. Now we need the administration to support us. This is a very important time for Hollywood.”

The Internet and computer industry has supported the Democratic Party to the tune of $52 million since 2007, which the Center for Responsive Politics says is up $12 million from the period of 2001 to 2006.

In regards to the week’s blackout, a senior Democratic congressional staffer close to the issue tells the National Journal, “Before this happened, the perception around here was that those who are in favor of ever-increasing copyright protections always won.” Because of Wednesday’s blackout, adds the staffer, “This may shift people’s expectations. It’s hard to say how much, but I think in a way that we haven’t seen in a long time. Folks on the Hill are realizing that there are a lot of people out there, and not just tech companies, that care about copyright issues.”

“This is something that could be repeated, but it couldn’t be repeated on just any issue. It resonates with people in having the freedom to go on the Internet and not be censored,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat from California and an opponent of the bills, adds.

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Federal prosecutors in Virginia have shut down one of the world’s largest file-sharing sites, Megaupload.com, and charged its founder and others with violating piracy laws.

The indictment accuses the company of costing copyright holders more than $500 million in lost revenue from pirated films and other content. The indictment was unsealed Thursday, one day after websites shut down in protest of two congressional proposals intended to thwart the online piracy of copyrighted movies and TV programs.

Megaupload.com has claimed it is diligent in responding to complaints about pirated material.

The indictment says that at one point, Megaupload was the 13th most popular website in the world. sfgate.com

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which defends free speech and digital rights online, said in a statement that, “This kind of application of international criminal procedures to Internet policy issues sets a terrifying precedent. If the United States can seize a Dutch citizen in New Zealand over a copyright claim, what is next?”

Highlights

In what the federal authorities on Thursday called one of the largest criminal copyright cases ever brought, the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation seized the Web site Megaupload and charged seven people connected with it of running an international enterprise based on Internet piracy.

Four of the seven people, including the site’s founder, Kim Dotcom (born Kim Schmitz), have been arrested in New Zealand, the authorities said; the three others remain at large. Each of the seven people – who the indictment said were members of a criminal group it called “Mega Conspiracy” – is charged with five counts of copyright infringement and conspiracy. The seven each face a maximum of 55 years in prison.

Coming just a day after civil protests in the United States over proposed antipiracy bills, the arrests were greeted almost immediately with digital Molotov cocktails. The hacker collective that calls itself Anonymous attacked the Web sites of the Justice Department and several major entertainment companies and trade groups in retaliation for Megaupload’s seizure. The Justice Department’s site and several others remained inaccessible for much of Thursday afternoon. nytimes.com

As part of the crackdown, more than 20 search warrants were executed in the United States and in eight other countries. About $50 million in assets were also seized, as well as a number of servers and 18 domain names that formed Megaupload’s network of file-sharing sites. mediabistro.com

On Wednesday, Google and Wikipedia joined dozens of sites in political theatrics by blacking out some content and explaining their arguments against the laws. nytimes.com

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Cockroaches scatter as spotlight is pointed at Internet censorship bill.

Lawmakers have begun to jump ship following a day of protest against the draconian internet legislation, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Senate version of the bill, the Protect IP Act (PIPA).

As many major websites such as Wikipedia and Google participated in a “blackout” in opposition to the bills, several former co-sponsers of the legislation have reversed their positions and retreated away from the bills.

Reports of flood of calls to the offices of elected representatives, as well as widespread media coverage seems to be having a significant effect.

Among those to disavow the bill today was influential Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio, a former co-sponsor who now says that the legislation should be completely re-written to addresses the concerns “raised by all sides.”

“I have been a co-sponsor of the PROTECT IP Act because I believe it’s important to protect American ingenuity, ideas and jobs from being stolen through Internet piracy, much of it occurring overseas through rogue websites in China,” Rubio said in a Facebook post.

“As a senator from Florida, a state with a large presence of artists, creators and businesses connected to the creation of intellectual property, I have a strong interest in stopping online piracy that costs Florida jobs.”

“However, we must do this while simultaneously promoting an open, dynamic Internet environment that is ripe for innovation and promotes new technologies.” the Senator added.

South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint also proclaimed opposition to the legislation, commenting via Twitter “I support intellectual property rights, but I oppose SOPA & PIPA. They’re misguided bills that will cause more harm than good.”

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-.N.J.) separately tweeted that he, too, had concerns and is “working to ensure critical changes are made to the bill.”

Arizona Republican Representative Ben Quayle, another former co-sponsor, has also withdrawn support of the House bill, along with Nebraska Congressman Lee Terry.

Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), a libertarian leaning Republican, went as far as changing his Facebook profile photo to a logo of the words SOPA and PIPA crossed out, while also disabling key functions on his Facebook wall, preventing guest posts.

“These bills give the federal government unprecedented power to censor Internet content and will stifle the free flow of information and ideas,” Amash wrote. “Demand that Congress and the president keep the Internet open and free.”

A further six Republican Senators penned a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in which they stated:

“We have increasingly heard from a large number of constituents and other stakeholders with vocal concerns about possible unintended consequences of the proposed legislation, including breaches in cybersecurity, damaging the integrity of the Internet, costly and burdensome litigation, and dilution of First Amendment rights,”

The letter was signed by Senators. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), Orrin Hatch (Utah), Jeff Sessions (Ala.), John Cornyn (Texas), Mike Lee (Utah) and Tom Coburn (Okla.) – both Grassley and Hatch had previously co-sponsored PIPA in the Senate.

The authors of the legislation refuse to back down, however. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) said Wikipedia’s protest was a “publicity stunt” that promotes “fear instead of facts.”

“Perhaps during the blackout, Internet users can look elsewhere for an accurate definition of online piracy,” he said.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who authored the Senate bill, maintained that protesters were “misunderstanding” the legislation.

“The PROTECT IP Act will not affect Wikipedia, will not affect reddit, and will not affect any website that has any legitimate use,” he said.

“Perhaps if these companies would participate constructively, they could point to what in the actual legislation they contend threatens their websites, and then we could dispel their misunderstandings. That is what debate on legislation is intended to do, to fine-tune the bill to confront the problem of stealing while protecting against unintended consequences.” he added.

As things stand a test vote on the legislation will go ahead in the Senate on Tuesday, despite increasing requests to further delay the decision. Lamar Smith recently postponed a vote to send SOPA to the chamber floor until next month.

A breakthrough for opponents of the legislation was made last week when Smith and Leahy agreed to remove a provision in the legislation that would have allowed the government to seek a court order to block access to the domain names, or Web addresses, of websites they believed were pirating copyrighted material.

As we have detailed in depth, the definitions of ‘facilitating’ ‘copyright infringement’ in the bills are so broad that entire web sites could come under threat of being effectively seized and shut down for merely displaying one offending hyperlink.

Some felonies under SOPA, such as “streaming copyrighted content” – again the terminology is vague at best – carry a five-year prison sentence.

As we reported back in October, the bill will also force compliance from search engines and Internet Service Providers, demanding they create a list of banned web sites and prevent their users from accessing the sites. Advertising networks, payment providers and credit card processors would also be ordered to stop doing business with any site deemed to be acting unlawfully under SOPA.

“…all those entities are compelled to comply. Indeed, the bill imposes stiff penalties on anyone who doesn’t, and offers immunity to ad networks and payment processors that follow orders. As such, SOPA is chock-full of incentives for ISPs, content-hosting sites and other such entities to go along with the government’s demands.” writes Omar El Akkad of The Globe & Mail.

SOPA is not legislating for anything that the government isn’t already engaged in carrying out. The Department of Homeland Security has already seized dozens of web sites merely for linking to copyrighted material, despite the fact that such material isn’t even hosted on the web site itself, a process the Electronic Frontier Foundation has criticized as, “Blunt instruments that cause unacceptable collateral damage to free speech rights.” Most recently, the DHS seized a popular music blog and shut down the web site for over a year on charges it now admits were completely false.

Under SOPA, even domain name server (DNS) forwarding, a core functionality of the internet as a whole, would have to be suspended for any site accused of “piracy”. Enacting the legislation would constitute a massive internet-wide operation.

Furthermore, experts contend that anyone who is determined to download pirated content from a forbidden site could easily switch their computer settings to bypass SOPA restrictions, by using a foreign-based DNS, for example.

In short, intense lobbying from the entertainment industry, urging the government to protect copyrighted content, is being used as yet another front by an establishment hell bent on restricting freedom of speech and the free flow of information to ramp up a long running crack down on the internet.

As we have ceaselessly documented, legislation is being drafted left, right and center in an effort to ensure complete control over cyberspace.

Lawmakers like Senator Joe Lieberman have teamed up with Department of Homeland Security officials to push draconian legislation in an effort to mimic the Communist Chinese system of policing the Internet.

Legislation such as The Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act is written around the notion that big government decides who can say what on the web. The nightmare vision provides the President the power to shut down the entire Internet with a figurative flick of a switch.

Simultaneously, legislation such as The Cybersecurity Act and the “Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011″ propose allowing the federal government to tap into any digital aspect of every citizen’s information without a warrant. Banking, business and medical records would be wide open to inspection, as well as personal instant message and e mail communications.

The push to restrict and control the internet, as we have repeatedly warned for years, is being pursued by an elite few petrified at the fact that alternative and independent sources of information are now eclipsing corporate and government controlled outlets in terms of audience share, trust, and influence.

Regulation and censorship of the Internet would not only represent a massive assault on free speech, it would also create new roadblocks for e-commerce and as a consequence further devastate the economy. The move, which will not end with SOPA and PIPA, should be met with fierce opposition at every level and from across the political spectrum.

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