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.
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“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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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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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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During the latest “debate” in South Carolina, Mitt Romney said that if he were president he would sign the the National Defense Authorization Act.

Prior to his recent assertion that it is perfectly normal to dispense with the Fourth Amendment and suspend habeas corpus, Romney said he wasn’t up to speed on the law and promised to post an analysis on his website, which he never did.

Romney said you don’t have the “right to join a group that has challenged America” and then mentioned al-Qaeda, the terror group that the FBI admits poses little threat to the nation.

The NDAA, however, is not about indefinitely detaining Muslim cave dwellers. It’s about disappearing American citizens who oppose the bankster cartel now in control of the government.

The law is a “violent and sudden usurpation” of the Constitution of the sort James Madison warned about. The founders considered habeas corpus the most fundamental of rights because it insured that the executive branch could not hold people without cause. It was so important the founders included it in Article 1, Section 9, Clause 2 of the Constitution.

Truman tried to veto the Internal Security Act of 1950 that codified indefinite detention without trial but he was overturned by Congress.Truman said it was “the greatest danger to freedom of speech, press, and assembly” since the Alien and Sedition Laws of 1798 and represented a “mockery of the Bill of Rights” and was a “long step toward totalitarianism.”

In the years after Truman’s warning, the government slowly chipped away at the Fourth Amendment and habeas corpus as it passed the McCartney-Walter Act, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (following the Oklahoma false flag), the Patriot Act (following the 9/11 false flag), and has finally repealed the cornerstone of the Bill of Rights with the passage of the NDAA.

As Sherwood Ross notes, with the passage of the NDAA, we have returned “to the disgraceful Korematsu Era, when President Roosevelt ordered the military to round up law-abiding Japanese-American citizens and stick them in concentration camps for the duration of World War II.”

World War II, however, had an end, whereas the bogus war on terrorism is designed to last forever, as our leaders have stated on a number of occasions.

Romney has no opinion on the Constitution, Magna Carta, and centuries of common law. He is an empty vessel filled up with nonsense produced by the global elite who run the disgusting dog and pony shows that now pass as elections in the United States.

The ruling elite behind the curtain have worked slowly and methodically to dismantle the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It stands in the way of their plan to implement world government and a global banking and economic system. Habeas corpus is a thorn in the side that prevents them from sending out the military to disappear those of us opposed to their plan for a global totalitarian future now under construction. They now have that power.

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The military showdown in the Persian Gulf seems even more inevitable, with the UK foreign secretary not ruling out military action against Iran. Applying even more pressure to the country, Europe may ban Iranian oil imports by the end of the month.

­The UK will continue to pursue a diplomatic solution to bringing Iran to the negotiating table, although, according to the UK Foreign Secretary William Hague, his country has not “ruled out any option, or supporting any option.”

“We believe all options should be on the table, that is part of the pressure on Iran, but we are clearly not calling for or advocating military action,” Hague said.

European foreign ministers are expected to meet on January 23 and Hague believes that the EU will come to an agreement on the measures against Iran. His remark of a military action still being on the table is the latest play in the game of threat and counter-threat unfolding around Iran.

“We are advocating meaningful negotiations, if Iran will enter into them, and the increasing pressure of sanctions to try to get some flexibility from Iran,” Hague said.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said that the new sanctions would help to cut off funding to Iran’s controversial nuclear program.

“So with new sanctions that we want to approve this month, we are now targeting the heart of the Iranian nuclear program: its oil and, with that, its sources of financing,” Westerwelle said as cited by the Associated Press. “But the door to dialogue with Iran remains open at the same time.”

Iran is OPEC’s second-largest oil producer and the third-largest crude oil exporter in the world, according to US Energy Information Administration.

Such countries as the UK and Germany have only about 1 per cent of Iranian oil in their total imports at the moment. Meanwhile, debt-stricken Italy, Spain, and Greece depend quite significantly on exports from Iran, with Iranian oil constituting around 13 per cent of total crude imports to each of these countries in 2011.

As a whole, Iran’s export volume to the EU countries had decreased to 18 per cent of total crude exports by the middle of 2011. At the same time, China, India, and South Korea have increased their imports of Iranian oil. Iran exports 22 per cent of its oil to China alone, with Japan, India, and South Korea consuming 14, 13 and 10 per cent of Iran’s total exports respectively.

In 2010, Iran’s total oil export revenues amounted to approximately US$81 billion, according to the IMF, and in 2011 Iran’s revenues are estimated to have risen to around $100 billion.

Iran’s oil exports have already been affected by sanctions. In 2011, Iran experienced significant problems with receiving payments from India, when the Reserve Bank of India halted a clearing mechanism. And with the latest round of US sanctions targeting Iran’s financial sector, Iran is expected to have even more troubles receiving payments from most of his clients.

­Meanwhile, a group of UN experts has identified that Iran violated the arms embargo set up by UNSC by exporting military equipment to the Syrian regime among other things, the French Foreign Ministry said on Monday. Iran is forbidden from importing or export weapons or ammunition under the terms of UN Security Council resolutions dating 2007 and 2010.

“These arms deliveries are illegal and deeply shocking because they benefit a regime that has chosen a kind of repression that the UN rights council has repeatedly said constitutes ‘crimes against humanity’,” said spokesman Romain Nadal.

Washington is beefing up its naval presence in waters just outside the Gulf in response to Iran’s threats to block the crucial strait if the West places sanctions on its oil exports.

The first encounter of between Iranian and US ships already happened on January 6, when US Navy amphibious ship New Orleans was heading through the Strait of Hormuz to the Persian Gulf. Three Iranian boats approached it at high speed, but turned away after a radio warning. The incident was considered “routine” according to US military officials.

Iran has received a letter from the US government about the Strait of Hormuz and will respond “if necessary.” On Sunday, Masoud Jazayeri, the deputy chief of Iran’s armed forces, claimed that any US aggression in the region would fail.

“Despite their propaganda, the United States knows that it does not have the ability to halt the Islamic Republic’s activities in certain areas, notably in closing the Strait of Hormuz,” Jazayeri said as cited by the Fars news agency.

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When Barack Obama inked the National Defense Authorization Act on New Year’s Eve, the president insisted that he wouldn’t use the terrifying legislation against American citizens. Another new law, however, could easily change all of that.

If the Enemy Expatriation Act passes in its current form, the legislation will let the government strike away citizenship for anyone engaged in hostilities, or supporting hostilities, against the United States. The law itself is rather brief, but in just a few words it warrants the US government to strip nationality status from anyone they identify as a threat.

What’s more, the government can decide to do so without bringing the suspected troublemaker before a court of law.

Under the legislation, “hostilities” are defined as “any conflict subject to the laws of war” and does not explicitly state that charges against suspects go to court.

When Obama signed NDAA on December 31, the president said that his administration “will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens.” Added the president, “Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a Nation.” But by breaking off ties between citizens — American-born or otherwise — the harsh realities of NDAA can be forced on anyone in the US if Washington decides that it is in the country’s best interest.

The National Defense Authorization Act drew widespread opposition despite a lack of media cover due to the capabilities in bestows in the administration. Under NDAA, the government can indefinitely imprison anyone deemed dangerous by Washington and hold them without trial. After criticism led to massive online campaigns and protests, President Obama addressed the issue and said specifically that his administration would not understand the law as such. Instead, said Obama, “My administration will interpret section 1021 in a manner that ensures that any detention it authorizes complies with the Constitution, the laws of war, and all other applicable law.”

Some are now saying that Obama’s attempt at discrediting the NDAA by insisting that he would not use it against American citizens came only as a precursor to the latest Act. By adding his signing statement to the NDAA, the president insured that legislation such as the Enemy Expatriation Act would surface to strike any limitations that would have kept Americans free from military detainment. “I hope I’m wrong, but it sounds to me like this is a loophole for indefinitely detaining Americans,” Stephen . Foster, Jr. writes on the AddictionInfo.org website. “Once again, you just have to be accused of supporting hostilities which could be defined any way the government sees fit. Then the government can strip your citizenship and apply the indefinite detention section of the NDAA without the benefit of a trial.”

The bill, currently being passed through Congress, is sponsored by Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Charles Dent (R-PA).

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Human rights groups are holding demonstrations to protest the tenth anniversary of the US military detention camp at Guantanamo Bay while hopes for its closure weaken, Press TV reports .

Protesters dressed in orange prison jumpsuits, paraded in front of the White House to demand that the Guantanamo Bay detention facility be closed.

Detainees at the US Navy base also plan to mark the day with sit-ins, banners and a refusal of meals.

Guantanamo Bay “war prison” turned 10 years old on Wednesday, while US president Barack Obama promised two years ago to shut down the prison within a year of taking office.

Meanwhile, no detainee has left in a year because of restrictions on transfers, and indefinite military detention is now enshrined in the US law.

On December 15, the US House of Representatives passed a bill, which allowed the authorities to jail terrorism suspects for an indefinite period.

Under the new legislation signed by Obama, the US military is given the custody of anyone, who is deemed to be a member of al-Qaeda or one of the terrorist group’s affiliates.

The Guantanamo detention facility was initially established at a US naval base in Cuba after the US invasion of Afghanistan on January 11, 2002, under former US President George W. Bush.

Gitmos still houses 171 detainees.

The US has used torture techniques, including simulated drowning, known as waterboarding, on alleged terrorist suspects over the past years.

Human rights groups and lawyers for prisoners are disappointed that Obama failed to overcome resistance in Congress and close the prison. Besides, his administration has resumed military tribunals at the base and even continues to hold prisoners cleared for release.

The 10th anniversary of Guantanamo has been the focus for demonstrations in London and Washington and Paris this week.

The protesters also demand the closure of the US military’s Bagram prison in Afghanistan and the repeal of provisions of the 2011 Defense Authorization Act.

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Iranian scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan was killed in a terrorist attack in Tehran on Wednesday, January 11, 2012.

Iran accuses Israel and the USA of assassinating an Iranian nuclear professor in Tehran, pointing to a string of attacks against such scientists in the country.

Both countries have denied the accusations, according to AP.

Iran’s vice-president reacted to the attack by saying it would not stop “progress” in the country’s nuclear program.

“Those who claim to be combating terrorism have targeted Iranian scientists. They should know that Iranian scientists are more determined than ever in striding towards Iran’s progress,” Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi told state television.

Identified by Iranian media as Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, the chemistry expert was killed on January 11 in a car-bomb explosion, while two others were injured.

“This morning a motorcyclist attached a bomb to a Peugeot 405, which exploded,” the deputy governor of Tehran province, Safar Ali Baratloo, was quoted by the ILNA news agency as saying.

The magnetic bomb, attached under Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan’s car, went off at a faculty of Iran’s Allameh Tabatai University.

“The bomb was a magnetic one and the same as the ones previously used for the assassination of the scientists, and the work of the Zionists [Israelis],” Fars quoted Safarali Baratloo as saying.

Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, 32, was a director of the Natanz Uranium enrichment facility in central Iran and specialized in making polymeric membranes which are used to separate gases. The technology of gas separation is required for the enrichment of uranium.

The blast follows confirmation made by the International Atomic Energy Agency on Monday that Iran has begun to enrich uranium in a new, underground bunker in Fordo, southwest of Tehran. The United States, Britain, France and Germany responded to the IAEA’s conformation, calling it an unacceptable “violation” of UN Security Council resolutions.

The blast, which comes amid extremely high international tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, is not the first crime against Iranian scientists involved in nuclear activities. Another three scientists were killed in 2010 and 2011 in similar circumstances. Those attacks were also considered by Iranian officials as assassination operations carried out by Israel’s Mossad intelligence service, possibly with help from US counterparts.

The international community believes, though, that Iran’s nuclear program is merely a front for its ambitions to create a nuclear weapon.

Tehran firmly denies that its nuclear program is for anything other but peaceful purposes and threatened to close the strategically important Strait of Hormuz, if Israel or the United States attacks Iran.

Dr. Maher Salloum of the Universal Peace Federation, believes Iran’s claims that the US or Israel were behind the assassination is a fair accusation.

“Consecutive assassinations against nuclear scientists inside Iran will lead to an example of how the West, actually, and the US, specifically, through Mossad or through the CIA, will always engineer or handle such assassinations inside Tehran,” he told RT.

Salloum also said a regional war would be likely if both sides continue escalating tensions. “I am predicting a certain regional war in the area if tension grows by time, and incidents, they grow like a snowball in the Gulf region, and specifically in the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran has shown its military power. So this will eventually escalate the situation inside the Gulf and specifically in Hormuz.”

­War correspondent Eric Margolis told RT that the latest assassination, which he describes as an international crime, will not seriously affect Iran’s nuclear program. “It may slow things down, but it won’t end them because Iran is a big country, it has a large cadre of scientists. It will continue to work.”

According to Margolis, possible retaliation from Iran could be directed against Israeli or American scientific figures or diplomats in the region. “The Iranians are very anxious to get revenge, but they are being cautious because war seems not so far away in the Gulf,” he added.

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The passing of the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, could very well scrub the Internet clean of any content that the US government considers questionable.

The massively popularly website Reddit is well aware of these implications and is ready to show the world just what harm SOPA could do to the Internet.

On January 18, Reddit, a user-generated aggregator of content contributed by all corners of the Internet, will black out their own site in protest of SOPA. For an online hub that snags up around 2 billion hits every month, a lot of traffic and ad revenue stands to be lost during the 12-hour span. For the administrators of the site, though, they are running short on finding ways to fight the legislation.

Advocates against SOPA have rallied in Washington and across the country and Internet since a congressional committee began drafting the Act. Under the legislation, websites and people that post or share third-party content could be crushed with heavy fines and imprisoned for the distribution of knowledge. While opposition has existed ever since the terrifying realities of SOPA made its way to the Web, the ban by way of Reddit stands to be the biggest and only protest of its kind so far.

On January 18, Reddit announced that “Instead of the normal glorious, user-curated chaos,” the site will suspend its content and instead post a message about the dangers of both SOPA and the Protect IP Act, a sister legislator of sorts about to go before the US Senate. The site will also post a live stream of the House hearing that will discuss SOPA, which Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian will be testifying at.

“The freedom, innovation, and economic opportunity that the Internet enables is in jeopardy,” reads an official post published by Reddit administrators on their site. “Congress is considering legislation that will dramatically change your Internet experience and put an end to Reddit and many other sites you use every day. Internet experts, organizations, companies, entrepreneurs, legal experts, journalists and individuals have repeatedly expressed how dangerous this bill is. If we do nothing, Congress will likely pass the Protect IP Act (in the Senate) or the Stop Online Piracy Act (in the House), and then the president will probably sign it into law. There are powerful forces trying to censor the Internet, and a few months ago many people thought this legislation would surely pass. However, there’s a new hope that we can defeat this dangerous legislation.”

Reddit users have rallied for other causes online as of late, attracting thousands of comments over such issues as the National Defense Authorization Act. Shutting down their own sight for the sake of protest, though, is a rare move for Reddit.

“Blacking out Reddit is a hard choice, but we feel focusing on a day of action is the best way we can amplify the voice of the community,” add site administrators. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols at ZDNet agrees, and acknowledges that Reddit already is the leading social network opposed to SOPA and calls the site a “hotbed” for organizing protests. Many users of the site supported a recent campaign against domain registrar GoDaddy after the company offered their support for SOPA. Though the registrar later rescinded their support for SOPA, a campaign largely amplified by Reddit yielded thousands of account cancellations on GoDaddy.

Other major sites that have rallied against supporters of SOPA include WikiLeaks, which cancelled all of its GoDaddy domains in opposition to their initial alignment with the legislation. Some fear though that it will take much more than just a handful of major sites to make a stink bad enough for Congress to second-guess SOPA.

“Chances are if you’re a regular Reddit user, you’re either tech savvy enough to know the dangers of SOPA, or if not, you’ve at least been reading about it on the site’s front page for months,” writes Paul Tassi on Forbes. “Rather, even though Reddit is a massive site, the industry needs a nuclear option to truly decimate SOPA once and for all. Titans like Google and Facebook need to have a similar blackout, which would reach an audience far, far wider than Reddit’s.”

Tassi adds that Reddit’s maneuver is a good first step, but others must fall in line if they want to ensure a success.

“A blackout of the internet’s biggest sites would seal the deal automatically, and we could be free of this nonsense for good,” writes Tassi.

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Iran, Iraq and North Korea may have been labeled “the axis of evil” by President George W. Bush but it is Saudi Arabia that is the center of the Satanic universe here on Earth.

President Obama and the hounds from hell in the US Congress and various thinks tanks who seek to send Americans to fight and die in Iran should be targeting their wrath and the US Instruments of National Power at the House of Saud.

Fed incessant propaganda on the dangers of Iranian ownership of nuclear weapons-and still upset about the Shah’s fall and the Iranian hostage crisis–Americans have long since forgotten just how brutal, conniving, and dangerous that Saudi Arabia actually is.

And as cunning and wealthy as the House of Saud is-and with nuke heavy Israel right down the street–it seems very likely that Saudi Arabia is in possession of nuclear weapons either provisioned by the United States or, more likely, Sunni Pakistan. Whatever the case, the US has always had the nuke umbrella open over Saudi Arabia. To put a fine point on that for all to see-mainly Iran—during joint exercises between American and Saudi forces in April 2010, the US decided to launch a nuclear capable TRIDENT ballistic missile from a US submarine operating in Saudi territorial waters.

It is Iran that has eleven operating Jewish synagogues in various enclaves in that country. And it is in Iran’s Constitution that Christians and Jews are, by law, to hold one seat in Parliament. At least it is a start. Such activity is forbidden in Saudi Arabia.

The Economist’s Intelligence Unit 2011 survey of democracy examined 167 countries based on the effectiveness of a particular government and its citizens to handle an open society with press freedoms and free and fair elections, among other categories. Saudi Arabia placed 161st and was tied with Equatorial Guinea and Myanmar for the honor (Iran was 159th).

Internal Terror

The Daily Mail in the UK reported in December 2011 this news: “Textbooks handed out in Saudi Arabian schools teach children how to cut off a thief’s hands and feet under Sharia law, it has emerged. The shocking books, paid for and printed by the Saudi government, also tell teenagers that Jews need to be exterminated and homosexuals should be put to death. This is where terrorism starts in the education system…The textbooks were printed for the 2010-2011 academic year and translated from Arabic… Women are described as weak and irresponsible. In one, for ninth-graders, students are taught the annihilation of the Jewish people is imperative. One text reads in part: ‘The hour (of judgment) will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them. There is a Jew behind me come and kill him. If you teach six million children in these important years of their lives, if you install that in their brain, no wonder we have so many Saudi suicide bombers,” said one commentator.

Then there is this forgotten gem from February 2002: “RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) – Saudi Arabia acknowledged for the first time that 15 of the September 11 suicide hijackers were Saudi citizens, but said Wednesday that the oil-rich kingdom bears no responsibility for their actions. Previously, Saudi Arabia had said the citizenship of 15 of the 19 hijackers was in doubt despite U.S. insistence they were Saudis. But Interior Minister Prince Nayef told The Associated Press that Saudi leaders were shocked to learn 15 of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.”

In December 2011, the Daily Mail in the UK reported that “a woman convicted of practicing magic and sorcery has been executed by Saudi authorities. The Saudi Interior Ministry says in a statement that the woman was beheaded today, but gave no details of her crime. The London-based al-Hayat daily, however, quoted Abdullah al-Mohsen, chief of the religious police who arrested the woman, as saying she had tricked people into thinking she could treat illnesses, charging them $800 (£500) per session…In September, a Sudanese man, Abdul Hamid bin Hussain bin Moustafa al-Fakki, was also put to death in Saudi Arabia for sorcery. Amnesty International has called for the kingdom’s government to establish an immediate moratorium on executions. The crime of ‘sorcery’ is not defined in Saudi Arabian law but it has been used to punish people for the legitimate exercise of their human rights, including their right to freedom of expression, the charity said.”

Interview with an Executioner

The BBC interviewed a Saudi executioner in June of 2003. It’s just business, so to speak.” ‘…[I am] very proud to do God’s work.’ He does not lose sleep over beheading several people in one day. He said he sometimes shot dead women convicted under Sharia. ‘It depends what they ask me to use. Sometimes they ask me to use a sword and sometimes a gun. But most of the time I use the sword.’ B

Back in 1998, when he carried out his first execution in Jeddah, he was nervous, because many people were watching. But now he no longer suffers from stage fright, he explained. ‘The criminal was tied and blindfolded. With one stroke of the sword I severed his head. It rolled metres away,’ he said, recalling his first beheading. He said his sword was a gift from the government. He keeps it razor sharp and sometimes his children help him clean it. ‘People are amazed how fast it can separate the head from the body,’ he said. Sometimes he also has to carry out amputations of hands or legs. ‘I use a special sharp knife, not a sword. When I cut off a hand I cut it from the joint. If it is a leg the authorities specify where it is to be taken off, so I follow that.’”

Saudi Arabia, with American support, is fomenting religious civil war between the Sunni’s and Shia in Iraq, Syria and much of the Middle East region. It was not enough that the United States kicked the middle east ant hill and, in the process, literally destroyed Iraqi society, to include a once flourishing Christian community. Thus the second phase of the second Iraq war continues on as a campaign of internal destabilization to fan the flames of sectarian conflict/civil war in which the adversaries on each side receive funds and support from the USA, Saudi Arabia and other interested governments. The US strategy seems to be one based on destroying annoying cultures from within rather than by overt invasion.

According to Patrick Cockburn writing in a September 2011 issue of Pakistan’s The News, “Iranian influence is growing in Baghdad because of the escalating struggle between Sunni and Shia Muslims across the region. The Shia-dominated coalition government in Baghdad is worried that the Sunni uprising in Syria may displace Bashar al-Assad and his regime, whose leaders come mostly from the Alawite Shia sect. The Iraqi Shia also strongly sympathizes with the Shia majority in Bahrain, whose movement for democracy has been ruthlessly crushed by the Sunni al-Khalifa monarchy with the backing of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.”

US Committed to Lingerie and F-15′s

Big news of change came recently from Saudi Arabia. 28,000 saleswomen are going to be hired to work in some 7,300 lingerie shops around the country. “Saudi Arabia on the Cups of Change: New rules say only women can sell lingerie, ending male monopoly,” runs the headline in the January 2012 edition of the MidEast News Source. “The move is expected to boost employment for the country’s women, even if they still have to be driven to their place of work because the country still bans female drivers…Saudi’s top cleric, Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh, blasted the new ruling for contradicting Islamic law, or Shariah. He warned in his Friday sermon that employing women at shops where they interact with men is a crime. ‘The employment of women in stores that sell female apparel and a woman standing face to face with a man selling to him without modesty or shame can lead to wrongdoing, of which the burden of this will fall on the owners of the stores,’ the mufti thundered….

Right around the same time as “Saudi Arabia and the Cups of Change” came this story in the Ottawa Citizen: “F-15 Sale to Saudi Arabia Just Part of $60 Billion U.S. Sales of Aviation Capabilities to that Country.” Dated January 2012, the article indicates that half of the $60 billion will be in the form of advanced F-15 aircraft. The entire package will help the Saudi’s defend themselves in uncertain times, American government officials intimated.

Really? Defend against what? All the men who are losing their lingerie sales jobs or women who want to drive? To blast to smithereens the majority Shia population in Bahrain, the rebels in Yemen, or the thousands of imported workers who labor in wretched conditions within Saudi Arabia?

“In announcing the F-15 sales agreement Dec. 29, James N. Miller, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, and Andrew Shapiro, assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs, emphasized the close military-to-military ties between the United States and Saudi Arabia. The United States is firmly committed to the security of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as we have been for nearly seven decades, and … more broadly, the United States and Saudi Arabia have a strong mutual interest in the security and stability of the Gulf,” Miller said. The F-15s Saudi Arabia will receive under the agreement “will have the latest generation of computing power, radar technology, infrared sensors and electronic warfare systems,” he added. This agreement reinforces the strong and enduring relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia,” Shapiro said. “It demonstrates the U.S. commitment to a strong Saudi defense capability as a key component to regional security.”

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