Gov’t & Trade – Page 12

2014122720141227

Can you legally record a conversation in New Jersey?

You can legally record both phone and in-person conversations in New Jersey as long as one of the people in that conversation agrees to the recording of it – and it’s fine if the one person is you. State law makes the phone recording legal; and federal law makes the in-person conversation recordings legal. If you need guidance for your state, check the Digital Media Law Project website.

Digital Media Law Project tells us that New Jersey is a “one-party consent” law state as regards the recording of both phone and in-person conversations: read more

2014113020141130

Don’t let GOP lies confuse you – Obamacare is a good thing

Twitter trolls are spreading lies about Obamacare and its relationship to Medicare and Seniors. You can combat their lies by getting the real facts and sharing them. Obamacare (aka Affordable Care Act) is a good thing, especially for seniors.

#1 Troll says “Egregious example f Obamacare Medicare cuts-hospital refusing 2 ADMIT seniors & OBSERVING them instead”

Truth: Hospitals have been taking advantage of lack of clarity in Medicare billing procedures to charge higher rates when possible. This is not a failing of the ACA and it is being addressed by Congress. read more

2014072120140721

What is capitalism?

Capitalism is an economic system in which a small group of people at the top of a financial hierarchy exploit others at lower levels according to the principle: buy low sell high. This small group uses profits to buy land and also control labor rates and conditions; food, water, transportation and processes others must buy, rent or use in order to participate in organized society – thereby setting in motion a self-perpetuating system of automatic wealth acquisition. As long as society functions, those holdings will be used and the holders of them will acquire greater wealth, which will translate into more acquisition in a never ending loop. read more

2014072120221207

J4J report shares important data about attacks on public ed – Death by 1000 Cuts

The Journey 4 Justice Alliance has issued an important new report entitled Death By A Thousand Cuts which includes the number and location of school closings not previously gathered together by any major organization or media portal. It discusses the racist motivation of the misnamed “education reform” movement; the injustice that investor-based charters represent – institutions which are publicly funded but privately controlled; and is a must-read for any person interested in education equity. read more

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Did Facebook illegally try to depress users?

I learned today that Facebook is under an FCC consent decree that will last 20 years (until 2032) to protect user’s privacy. Also that privacy advocacy group EPIC has filed a formal complaint against Facebook for violating it. Facebook recently attempted to influence the mood of 700,000 users by filtering posts in their News Feeds to show either more good or more bad news, and then monitored individual users’ posts for words known to reflect emotional state. This was a research project that involved Cornell University but users were not informed that it was taking place. read more

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Take control of your privacy & end surveillance

Jon Fox, Global Advocacy Manager for Access points out that we have the power as individuals to curtail mass surveillance and data collection and comments, “Here are four things you can do today to keep your online activities private and secure from snooping eyes.”

1. Secure Browsing: Access recommends using the Tor Browser Bundle which provides access to blocked websites, and prevents others from tracking you online or watching what sites you visit by obscuring your online communications. Tor also prevents websites and others from collecting data on you – most importantly your physical location. read more

20140521

Book: Nonprofit Kit For Dummies

Nonprofit Kit For Dummies Categories: Nonprofit, NGO, charity, business Author: Stan Hutton and Frances Phillips

Learn to set up and manage a nonprofit organization (aka NGO). Available in Kindle version too. The paperback comes with a CD. For the Kindle version, a link is supplied after purchase to download forms and other extras.

2014020820140208

Dems don’t offer Blacks enough support but GOP is worse

Friend Bryan Alexander reminded me tonight that Dems take the Black vote entirely for granted. He’s so right. This is probably one of the big reasons that communities of color aren’t getting the help they expected with fighting public school takeovers by charters (Philly) … schools being just closed down (Chicago (where 49 schools were closed in one day – by Dem mayor Rahm Emmanuel) and Newark) and why Dems supported the devious Governor Christie’s 2013 re-election bid instead of getting behind Democratic Party candidate Barbara Buono – a progressive with a long, strong record of promoting excellence in public education, and transparency and accountability in the realm of public service and politics. read more

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Christie wants to use leftover campaign funds to pay for Bridgegate defense

You would think that a person in Christie’s situation would learn from past mistakes, but I guess after you’ve fallen a certain distance from grace self-correction becomes impossible. Christie’s camp is once again making the law all about our governor’s wishes instead of about legal precedent, common decency, responsibility to constituents or logic.

This time, Christie wants to use leftover campaign funds to pay legal bills for the Bridgegate defense. No matter that the Christie-Booker team went after Sharpe James for doing exactly the same thing: read more

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Where does Google Voice fit into the privacy spectrum these days?

Being gifted a spectacular MotoX Adroid phone from my brother saddled me with the obligation to sort through privacy options I had avoided confronting until now by staying away from smart phones and as much as possible, the public observation grid. I use a client-side email application connected to a private email service, which means my mail isn’t being stored on Yahoo or Google’s servers or monitored by them (as most people’s e-correspondence is). And I use a client-side calendar as well NOT synched via the cloud, which is another layer of privacy protection I’ve got that many people gave up a long time ago. read more

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Bob Braun explores relationship between Christie and NJ violence

Lots of things Bob Braun says are way too important to only be seen on Facebook. Like his thoughts on the relationship between Christie’s ranting/abuse and youth shootings motivated by a desire for “respect”:

If the governor of the state can suggest that someone should “take a bat” to a woman, why should we be surprised that a child shoots people because they “disrespected” him?

We live in a state in which the governor prides himself in bullying, misogynistic behavior, someone who shows his displeasure with threatening gestures and who refuses to defend gun restrictions in court. We live in a state whose voters re-elected this bully and elected as US senator a man who, as Newark mayor, laid off cops and presided over the worst carnage in almost a decade. We live in a state where the busiest interstate crossing can be held for political ransom despite the threat to public safety. read more

20131223

Film: American Violet

Film: American Violet

American Violet is a film that shows us the criminal justice system being used as a tool to disenfranchise target communities from housing, jobs and social services – with no regard for whether detainees have ever committed a crime, or how the arrest of one member will impact the stability of an entire family.

People who are falsely detained and have children or parents at home who rely on them for support, are likely to succumb to coercion and plead guilty to crimes they did not commit in order to get released from jail and back to their families. But afterwards, they will face the consequences of being branded as convicts and the immediate loss of social support services their families rely on, including their family’s home if they live in public – or publicly supported – housing. read more

20131223

Book: Reign of Error by Diane Ravitch

Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools by Diane Ravitch
Category: Social Justice, Education

In the days that Diane Ravitch was U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education in the administration of George H. W. Bush, she drank lots of Kool Aide and believed strenuously that destroying public education was good for students of color and poor kids. But one day the veil was lifted from her eyes. She understood the error of her previous thinking, and did a complete about face to become the country’s most visible and high-profile champion of public education. I’m a Diane fan and now, you can be too! Read her book and her blog. read more

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Book: The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Category: Social Justice

Author Michelle Alexander-West is the wife of a United States federal prosecutor and an attorney in her own right. In this book, she does a truly remarkable job of drilling down through levels of strategy, policy and procedure that form the complex web of injustice that has brought the United States to the terrible point of imprisoning over 1% of our adult population and detaining 25% of all prisoners everywhere in the world … many of whom have been jailed for minor offenses, such as carrying a couple of marijuana cigarettes. Over 3200 non-violent offenders have been jailed for life for non-violent offenses like that, or for stealing an item of clothing worth $150. Unjust imprisonment is part of the intentional destruction of the lives of people of color. read more

2013122220131222

Doc ACLU fought years to see sat @ Library of Congress, visible to all

Mother Jones reports on the strange case of the high-security document sitting in the Library Congress, “where anyone with a library card can read it.”

In a lapse that national security experts call baffling, a high-ranking FBI agent filed a sensitive internal manual detailing the bureau’s secret interrogation procedures with the Library of Congress …

For years, the American Civil Liberties Union fought a legal battle to force the FBI to release a range of documents concerning FBI guidelines, including this one, which covers the practices agents are supposed to employ when questioning suspects. Through all this, unbeknownst to the ACLU and the FBI, the manual sat in a government archive open to the public. When the FBI finally relented and provided the ACLU a version of the interrogation guidebook last year, it was heavily redacted; entire pages were blacked out. But the version available at the Library of Congress, which a Mother Jones reporter reviewed last week, contains no redactions. read more