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Alan Cox Resigns USENIX Post Over DMCA Arrest
Posted by
timothy
on Sat Jul 21, 2001 07:52 PM
from the unintended-consequences dept.
from the unintended-consequences dept.
1millionmhz writes: "NewsForge is reporting that Alan Cox has resigned from his position on the USENIX ALS committee in protest of Dimitry Sklyarov's arrest in Las Vegas. He is also urging non-US programmers to boycott American computing conferences until the DMCA is overturned." Boy, aren't you glad that the DMCA now has nine special units to prosecute hacking and copyright violations? At least it will help keep the country safe from programmers. Update: 07/22 01:05 AM by T : Yup, it's a dupe. Mea culpa -- I missed it the first time. Worth dwelling on, though ;)
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Alan Cox Resigns USENIX Post Over DCMA Arrest
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Re:Democrat Senator Leahy cowrote the bill! (Score:3)
The same guy also used Napster to download Metallica songs and say that they need a better songwriter.
He also quized the RIAA leader on what counts as fair use and pointed out that fair use has a larger scope than what the RIAA claims. The lady heading the RIAA simply did not know the rules.
Hatch also threatened that if they don't quit being an ass about fair use he'll codify a law explicitly laying down what fair use is and what rights consumers have, and promised that the RIAA et al. won't like it.
But let's not disclose facts inconvenient to our arguments, right?
Slashdot caught on the hop again; fillum at eleven (Score:5)
Great reporting, guys.
--
"Where, where is the town? Now, it's nothing but flowers!"
Democrat Senator Leahy cowrote the bill! (Score:3)
Hatch is a moderate. He's one of the few Republicans who is in favor of the antitrust prosecution of Microsoft (the fact that Novell is in his state is only a coincidence I'm sure), and he's as clueless about techonology as you would expect.
Besides, the DMCA was a bipartisan bill, cowritten by Democrat Senator Leahy, who Senator Hatch praises here [harvard.edu]:
"Finally, I would like to particularly pay tribute to the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Leahy. I don't know of anyone who has more interest in the Internet, more interest in computers, more interest in copyright matters than Senator Leahy, unless it is myself, and I don't think I have more. He has done a great job on this committee. It is a pleasure to work with him."
The bill passed 99-0, the nonvoting senator being absent. Can't get any more bipartisan than that.
Re:dumb question--why? (Score:5)
It won't. Understandably, Alan is concerned about his personal security in a State which seems to have incorporated kidnap of alien nationals by its Police Apparatus as a law enforcement tool.
The question which should be asked is simply:-
"Why do the US State Security organs want to kidnap a Russian citizen"?
I don't like Republicans, but ... (Score:3)
But let's not disclose facts inconvenient to our arguments, right?
It is very, very counterproductive to cast the DMCA fiasco in terms of Republican's vs. Democrats. I do not like Republicans and will never forgive them the twelve Reagan-Bush years that gave us such treasures as an ongoing war on drugs (which is in fact a war on our youth and our civili liberties), Iran-Contra, Desert Storm, and so forth, but Jeff DeMaagd is absolutely right in pointing out that Orin Hatch, who may deserve our contempt for many of his stances and policies, is AFAIK the only congressman to come forward and publically admit that the DMCA was a mistake. For that he wins some respect from me.
Of course, talk is cheap. Until Hatch actually translates his regret into action and works to repeal the law he will remain nothing more than Yet Another Political Windbag.
However, I reiterate, this isn't about Conservatives vs. Liberals (a conservative congress wrote and passed the law, and a relatively liberal president signed it), this is about Corporatism vs. Individualism and the rights of the common man vs. the raw might of those synthetic capitalist beings we call corporations. Until we set aside our differences on other agendas and unite to lobby and effect change on those issues we do agree on, such as individual liberty, the civil rights of the common man, and the need to overturn the DMCA, those who benefit from such draconian laws will continue to ride roughshod over the rest of us.
Ignorance, Bluster, and Immaturity. (Score:5)
No, just like people their wealthy varies all over the map, in fact, most corporations are quite small and unheard of.
Yes, they are afford some protections that humans are not. However, it is clear that you are confusing this with the limited liability that the shareholders have. Just because the shareholder cannot be held personally liable, does not mean that the corporation is immune, nor does it mean that the investor bears no risk; it just means that the investor can only lose what the investor invested.
Corporations are dissolved quite often. Shareholders can, and do, lose ALL of their investment. For some shareholders, this can be pretty traumatic. Anyways, the proof is in the pudding, investors are clearly risk averse. Baring all but the most fly by night corporations, the threat of criminal and civil lawsuits is taken very seriously indeed.
You totally fail to consider WHY corporations exist in the first place, or why they're founded. The shareholders of corporations bear a significantly increased task burden, it generally far exceeds that of sole proprietorships or partnerships. Essentially, they pay taxes twice. The corporations pay taxes on their earnings and the shareholders pay taxes on both capital gains and dividend checks (the two ways that investors get a return on their investment). They are willing to accept the diminishment of earnings because it is quite necessary.
Without corporate status, each and every one of the investors takes a great deal of personal risk (baring some notable and hardly relevant exceptions). What this means is that if you own even the tinniest number of shares, you stand lose your house, your car, and all of your savings. Consider investing in a well diversified portfolio. You could very expose yourself to MORE risk, not less risk, since just one company need default on a loan, run affoul of the law, get sued by some ambulance chaser, get struck down by some overzealous bureaocrat, or what have you. Many many businesses would simply become impalatable for the reasonable investor, not just "evil" corporations like tabacco companies, but medical devices companies, medical technology companies, drug companies, car companies, you name it. Without investment, those industries would eventually die.
Taking a stand? (Score:3)
Alan Cox has legitmate concerns about his safety if he enters the USA. He is also pointing out to other software authors that they should be concerned. This isn't a political game... the USA is arresting people for giving lectures on software design and security!
I work in the area of network security and I just turned down a contract in the USA. I won't touch foot on US soil until the DCMA is struck down.
Re:Ashcroft is shameless (Score:3)
FWIW, he was just doing the job -- the instant background checks were a comprimise reached by the stipulation that all the records at the federal level would be destroyed. The FBI never destroyed ANY of them, claiming it was simply keeping an "audit" trail. Whether you agree with the law or not, the FBI was clearly keeping an extensive list of legal handgun purchasers, in direct contradiction to the very federal law that implemented the background checks.
Nothing would kill the Brady bill and similar measures faster than things like this, where the FBI and fed proves it is unwilling to live up to their own comprimises with gun rights advocates. Now it will be MUCH harder to convince the NRA the fed is working in good faith.
So NRA aside, Ashcroft was just enforcing the federal law (and his FBI oversight responsibilities)...
---------------------------------------------
Re:But will it help?? (Score:3)
Think of the children!
He REALLY Wanted to Protest (Score:3)
Re:But will it help?? (Score:4)
Corporations are legal persons and are afforded all the rights of a flesh and blood person. They just happen to also be very rich, and able to do more than one thing at a time (unlike flesh and blood persons). They also operate under a different set of law; law that sheilds them from the consequences of their actions.
So yes waging war on employers is shooting ourselves in the foot, because we need jobs to make moeny to buy food, etc.
So instead of smashing up a Starbucks like a hopped-up retard, do something positive like lobby the government to abolish corporations. Or at least take away their "human rights." The U.S. didn't always have corporations far and wide, you know. Once upon a time corporations were a very few select organizations, chartered by the government for some official purpose. Such as the Postal Service and the Internal Revenue Service. And not at all like Adobe, Microsoft, the RIAA, etc. Companies were just companies. And people were people (and small furry creatures from...)
Corporations are not the cause of America's economic greatness; they are its mummy.
- - - - -
Sent to Congress via snail-mail (Score:5)
July 21, 2001
The Honorable Brad Sherman
1524 Longworth Building
Washington, DC 20515-0524
Dear Congressman Sherman,
Several months ago, I had the opportunity to talk with you after you spoke at Temple Judea in West Hills. At that time, I attempted to convey to you my concern about some of the more onerous provisions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). Recent events have deepened my concern, and as one of your voting constituents, I ask you to work towards the repeal of the DMCA.
While I am fully in favor of creators retaining control over distribution of their works, the DMCA goes several steps further. The "anti-circumvention" provision restricts time-honored Fair Use rights of consumers, and essentially also destroys the First Sale doctrine. These, in and of themselves, could be considered a reason to work towards its repeal. However, the actual situation is much worse.
(Any references given in this letter are World Wide Web links, I don't have access to the necessary hard copy.)
The DMCA has had a chilling effect on academic research. Professor Edward Felten, a distinguished professor, who was also one of the lead witnesses for the Department of Justice in the Microsoft anti-trust trial, was recently prevented from delivering an academic paper on information hiding and watermarks (see http://www.eff.org/Legal/Cases/Felten_v_RIAA). This sort of chilling effect is precisely what the First Amendment is designed to prevent.
Again, that would be sufficient to work towards overturning. Even worse, however, the criminal provisions of the DMCA have been invoked against a Russian national, Dmitry Sklyarov, who performed "anti-circumvention" work in Russia for his employer, where he broke no Russian law. He came to the US to deliver a speech about his work, and was arrested subsequent to that speech. This sets a dangerous precedent. What would the US government do, if a US citizen was arrested for violating foreign law, while the act was performed in the US where it was perfectly legal? Needless to say, the irony of this occuring to a Russian citizen is immense, and embarrassing to the United States.
Here are some references to the Sklyarov case:
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,45298, 00 .html (Wired)
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/archiv es /2001/jul/18/512096646.html (Las Vegas Sun)
http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/010718/n17166094_2.html (Reuters)
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nyt/20010718/tc/u_s _a rrests_russian_cryptographer_as_copyright_violator _1.html (New York Times)
Congressman Sherman, please help ordinary people by working to repeal this draconian law.
Sincerely,
etc...
Wrong System (Score:3)
Intellectual property laws exist only because we have a slavery system. Our livelihood depends on working for others so we can pay our taxes. The reason that we have to work for others is that 99% of people have been deprived of an inheritance in the wealth of the land. Income property is owned by a few and the state. The others are slaves. Artists, programmers and inventors depend on their work to make a living. Can we blame them? We all depend on our labor because we are all slaves. So now we are swimming in a ocean of laws and rules that take away our remaining liberties, one by one.
Let's face it, if you cannot put a fence around it or put chains on it, it does not belong to you. Makes no difference whether it is ideas, writings, software, music or what have you. Once you've released it, like the air, it belongs to nobody and everybody.
Intellectual property owners (such as Microsoft, Adobe, and the music industry) will fight freedom with everything they've got. Right now they have two formidable weapons: IP laws and powerful police states to enforce them. But those who yearn to be free also have a formidable weapon, the internet.
The internet and other communication technologies (e.g., file sharing systems) are the first major kinks in the armor of a sick system. As technology progresses, the system will eventually collapse. What will happen to a slave-based economy when robots and advanced artificial intelligences replace everybody, i. e., when human labor, knowledge and expertise become worthless?
And don't think for a minute this won't happen in your lifetime. The internet is the latest giant leap in human communication. Before that came mass telecommunication technologies and before that was the movable press. If history is any indication, we can expect a giant leap in technological progress and scientific knowledge. In fact, it is happening before our very eyes.
We should all demand a system where everybody is guaranteed income property, a piece of the pie, an estate if you will. There is plenty for everybody.
Communism confiscates all property and enslaves everybody. Capitalism gives property to a few and enslaves the rest. It's sad. The land should not be divided for a price. It should be an inheritance for us and our children and their children. It's the only way to guarantee freedom and a truly free market in a world where human labor is about to go the way of the dinosaurs.
Demand liberty! Nothing less.
Aviod conferences in the US (Score:5)
The next Defcon conference should be outside the US... and other conferences should think twice before having a US based conference attended by programmers from outside the US.
Since the DMCA is protecting wealthy capitalists by disallowing any programs that compete with their popular programs, it is only prudent to avoid putting your programmers in harms way.
It was the ultra-conservative Republican, Orin Hatch (representing ultra-conservative Utah) that wrote the DMCA. Strange that these republicans say they want to "open markets", then pass laws to protect wealthy capitalists instead.
Maybe this is cause to boycott the 2002 Winter Olympic games in Utah too (it's worth boycotting since they won't let outsiders bring in their own booze, and must purchase booze from the limited variety offerred by the state store).
Call to arms! Organize! (Score:5)
As other slashdotters have pointed out, mere compaining is not likely to do anything in particular. An organized show of support against adobe, and against the DMCA is much more likely to be effective.
What is the best approach to organizing against adobe and the DMCA? Letter writing? Boycott? Something else?
What about flooding local editorial pages of newspapers with well written letters describing the dangers of the DMCA so that our non-linux guru friends (and the media) can understand and support the cause?
Nice gesture, but I'm afraid doomed to failure (Score:5)
The cold fact is this - the US lawmakers could not care less about what the non-corporate computer world thinks of their laws. Our opinions don't matter to them.
Consider! There are at last count a few hundred MILLION americans. Most of them can vote, a major percentage of them DO vote. There are also thousands of issues waiting to be addressed, most of which are more emotionally relevant to people than computers. Most people in the world use computers only to get specific jobs done - they have no need to appreciate the whole picture. Consider how small the percentage of voters who are worried about this are relative to the rest of the population. Probably about the same number who stand to profit from the DMCA. The net result, when you throw money into the mix, is that we are irrelevant.
So our vote doesn't scare them. What about what Cox tried, encouraging people to move their operations elsewhere. From the government's point of view, that's probably just what they are looking for! They have Microsoft in the US, and lawsuits or no it isn't going anywhere. And Microsoft controls probably between fifty and seventy percent of all computing, depending on how you count. On desktops considerably more than that. The Microserfs both within and out of the company aren't going anywhere, and neither is their economic clout or control of personal computing. So what do they care if they lose a few independant thinkers? From their standpoint it makes security through obscurity easier. The fact that this isn't secure at all apparently doesn't mean much to them.
Consider how much damage things like the Love virus do, and yet no action is taken to fix the fundamental problem (Microsoft's security). If that didn't teach them that unknown security problems are a danger, nothing will. They (and the companies) just want the visible problems gone. They are both monopolies - they don't have to care about a small buch of techno-geeks. We are bad. We wave problems in the face of everyone and teach people how to destroy the system! We should be stopped!
All the people who wrote the DMCA are interested in is money and public image. They've got the crap beat out of us on both. We insist that people THINK about the problem and find real solutions. The people are lazy. Most think a login prompt is a major hassle. They don't want to have to think about whether they are really secure. They just want to get buy. Anyone shooting their mouth off about problems makes that impossible, and people have to work more. Ohh, we can't have that.
That battle, at least in the US, is hopeless. It's money and votes people are interested in, and we don't have either. Therefore, our opinions don't matter to the powers that be.
The once chance that things will improve might be if all the best computer people go somewhere else to work because of the stupid US legislation. Enough dumb rules, and it might just happen.
Re:Land of the free, home of the brave (Score:5)
Ghostview and DMCA? (Score:3)
The Alan Cox resignation adds a Free Software angle to this sorry case.
Another might well be potential liability by Ghostview and other Free Software PDF viewers. According to some sources, gv "bypasses" the Adobe Security API model and allows a user to read a PDF file with permissions the original publishers did not grant. For example, to print the file.
Could some of the Ghostview, Ghostscript, or other PDF developers comment?
Specifically, if ElcomSoft and/or Dmitry Sklyarov is liable under the DMCA for creating or "trafficking" in a "device" that "bypasses" an "effective" security API that is imposed by "authority" of the copyright owner--then could Ghostview, Red Hat, and other Free Software people be also harrassed by Adobe?
I got the response that Ghostview is not a "commercial" product. But I don't believe that is enough to excuse a piece of software under the DMCA--the "access" part of the DMCA doesn't require that the software be sold. Certainly Adobe will claim damages in lost sales.
Re:But will it help?? (Score:3)
Infact the whole 1992 election cost less then a hundred million but in 2000 the cost was close to a billion with corporations paying for the vast majority of it.
Why such an increase?
Because Americans do not read the newspapers or get politically involved anymore. The vast majority of Americans prefer to get their information from blittzy hollywood produced 15 second commercials on television paid by lobbiets and corporate executives. The ad's are all bent on half truths because Americans are too lazy or ignorant to look up the facts. Less then %25 of Americans under 30 even read a newspaper on a weekly basis so the corporations pay more and more on television to produce an artificial image of a candidate to serve their interests. Anyone remember how Bush claimed he was extremely moderate on televsion? Or how NBC claimed he would be the most liberal republican since Nixon? Well after the blittzy "I want to be your friend " ads, George Bush actually was extremely conservative but ignorant televion watching Americans didn't know this untill the California gas crises. What can we do?
We need to educate Americans to read more newspapers and magazines and encourage others to be politically involved. In 1992 americans spent ore time researching and reading the newspaper to make their political deciscions. This is why money had less influence then in today. Counter lobbying is not the answer. We can not outspend corporate america with counter lobbying. They hold %95 of the worlds wealth. Its a hopeless battle. If people will learn from news oriented media like newspapers and doing their own research rather then from ads on entertainment sources like TV, we can make a difference. Also Corporations are buying their way into being international citizens and not only american ones by buying international trade laws to put the DMCA everywhere including england where Alan Cox is at. It will not stop. They need to grow at %50 every 4 years to make wall street happy and buyuing some laws to help them make secretive deals or brake laws is a great way to accomplish this. GE only had to pay to clean up half the hudson river thanks to some lobbying wich saved them money.
With regards to the DMCA, Americans do not even know how much money they are losing per dvd disc bought due to price gouging that the dmca was made to help enforce. VHS tapes are still $17 while a dvd movie is $35. DVD discs are actually cheaper to make then a VHS tape. After seeing all those glittz dvd movie ads they all of the suden forget about the price tage and even cmd-Taco himself must have his japanese animated dvd's.
Hmm that isn't right.
In the 1950's something like the dmca would not be tollerated. Americans who read back then would know about it and be outraged. Lets hit corporate america right where it hurts and make campaign ad's less effective by promoting people to read the new York times or some other news media which is not written by a lobbiest.
Historically, Corporations haven't existed long (Score:5)
Historically, "Father of the free market" Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations wasn't published until 1776. There was organized trade before that (e.g. Dutch East India Company), but the world's economic landscape looked nothing like it does today.
I just pulled Peter Lynch's book "Learn to Earn" off of the shelf, I wish I had a better reference.. Anyway, consider this sentence:
"By 1800, there were 295 corporations formed in the United States, but most of these remained in private hands so the general public couldn't own them."
In the early 1800s, there were various stock market panics and bubbles that didn't do much to encourage Americans to invest in the stock market. But during the later half of the 1800s, the corporation in the United States really took off. That's when we saw the proliferation of inventions like the steamboat, the cotton gin, fancy pistols, Edison's inventions, etc. Getting these new products out there took a lot of investment, and that's when the stock market became very active.
Since then we've incurred incredible societal changes with a move from agrarian life to urban and suburban life, various ethnic groups have more representation in government and less discrimination. The industrial revolution and factories have made mass production of prpducts possible. Corporations are a lot more VISIBLE now. Brand names weren't well known until the early 20th century thanks to A&P being the first popular chain store, making mass produced items like Nabisco crackers and Heinz ketchup ubiquitously known in American towns. Chain stores have now made our cities (particularly the suburbs) look like carbon copies of one another (read The Geography of Nowhere.) Advertising has gone from Burma Shave billboards along Route 66 to huge screens on buildings displaying brightly lit, flashing animated ads that distract drivers on the road.
Historically, you don't really have a CLUE what the answer is to the question "Which is better: GOVERNMENT or CORPORATION?" because the impact of the corporation on our culture has changed so much in only the past 150 years.
Henry Fool
Re:Bush and DMCA (Score:3)
It's all about currying favour with the current administration.
Kierthos
Re:But will it help?? (Score:4)
Cox's actions illustrate the danger that the DMCA poses to associations of computer security professionals.
There are 2 things that will kill the DMCA-- one of them is that the restrictions will eventually annoy the everage person, but the second it is that it will permanantly damage the ability of academics and other security professionals to do their work. (Well, maybe not permanantly...) Without the ability to freely work on cryptoanalysis projects, as a network administrator, I have no way of knowing how secure my networks are. The DMCA threatens to dampen the speech which goes on among security professionals, giving a greater edge to those who would maliciously attack my networks, and this is the primary reason I fight it. (Maybe when the whitehouse's web site actually goes down from a DDOS worm, then they will listen and realize the damage they have done.)
This is a serious issue, and if it continues, I will have to seriously rethink whether I want to remain in the States.
Nor is the actual letter of the law the worst though. YOu can expect major corporations to hide behind it, protecting themselves from the expense of investing in real security. So no one in the states will have any idea that that super-duper new encryption scheme is really the old spycode cypher or maybe rot-13. Their threatening letters (ala Felden) will become more important than their actual words, and could destroy the Amercian community of computer security professionals.
So yes, I hope Cox's move is effectual in making the security community aware of the grave threat that the DMCA poses. I think it just might be.
Sig: Tell all your friends NOT to download the Advanced Ebook Processor:
But will it help?? (Score:5)
dumb question--why? (Score:5)
I am not being sarcastic; I really don't understand--can anyone clear it up?
Oh the irony... (Score:4)
Reporting Suspected Privacy
If you know of, or believe you know of, an organization or an individual who is committing software piracy, please let us know. Reporting piracy is a good thing because:
Adobe will work with the person or organization to help it become compliant.
If the information you provide turns into a corporate lead and if we get the company to legalize (by buying genuine Adobe software), Adobe will donate a portion of the proceeds as software to underprivileged schools and nonprofits in North America and the rest of the world.
Oh the irony. I suppose this only applies to people who are actually pirating Adobe products, and not just showing the world how worthless they are?
Source: http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/antipiracy/report. html [adobe.com]
There's no $$$ in 'team'...
Half of this post is in rot13 (Score:5)
MYY YOUR NMFR MER BELONG GB US
Now do you see?
All sorts of different suggestions here, but... (Score:3)
How come nobody's mentioned writing their politicians about this? Try telling THEM how much you don't like sections 1201 [cornell.edu] and 1202 [cornell.edu] of Chapter 12 [cornell.edu] of Title 17 [cornell.edu] of the U. S. Code [cornell.edu]. It might be helpful to quote passages from it that you find particularly damning.
Tell them about Sklyarov [cnn.com] and Felten v. RIAA [eff.org] and Universal v. Reimerdes [eff.org] and any other of the big cases I missed. Talk about how the law is being abused and violates the First Amendment. Mention that it could harm business. Keep in mind that neither they nor anybody they know actually read Slashdot (as hard as that may be to grasp).
Here's the President's address:
President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20500-0001
Here's the address for the Supreme Court:
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist
Supreme Court of the United States
1 1st St. NE
Washington, DC 20543-0002
Your representative? The House maintains a site here [house.gov] where it will tell you who your rep is after you tell them what your state and ZIP code are. Don't know your ZIP+4 code is? Go to the USPS site and put your address in here [usps.com] to find out. After you find out who it is, their address is on their website.
Senators? The Senate's web site maintains a list of the addresses (and phone numbers) of all current Senators organized by state here [senate.gov]
Too cheap to pay the $1.70 in postage to write all these people? E-mail them. I was amazed last week when Tauzin acknowledged an e-mail I sent him with a snail-mail response. Sure, it was a blanket form letter on the topic, but it's a sign that it got read. (I still reccomend paper mail, though, since it's harder to ignore).
At the absolute least, you should realize that bitching and moaning to Slashdot about all this is about as effective as bitching and moaning to a brick wall.
Oh, and one last note: If you DO write them, don't flame them (unless you want another note added to your FBI file and possible surveilance/wiretaps/etc.).
Contact Adobe (Score:3)
Boycott Adobe has the following email contacts at Adobe to send a message to [mailto].
Also, Adobe's own forums apparently have discussions related to this matter. I think this forums are located under Adobe support.
Bush and DMCA (Score:5)
I have a feeling that the Bush Administration isn't opposed to DMCA?
Re:But will it help?? (Score:3)
There are voices of reason out there in beautiful downtown America. The mainstream rote learners (couch potatos) like to call them crackpots, liberal fanatics, and eco-terrorists (or whatever other buzz words the mass media dreams up) so they don't have to face the truth. It's very hard for people to come to grips with the fact that everything they've believed in and trusted their entire lives is a lie. It's a real challenge for ordinary Joes to break free from their comfortable little paradigms, but until they do, they are being held hostage to the whims of corrupt governments who are also controlled by these same multi-national corporations.
The Internet has been an invaluable tool in helping people to see beyond the propoganda machine and seek knowledge. There are also a few good journals available to the public, like Zmag for example, that contain no corporate sponsorship and thus are free from influence. There are some excellent academic works like Media Monopoly by Ben Bagdikian and Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky that spell out the conspiracy of corporate America in black and white. These authors are not crackpot leftists, they are the intellectuals in our modern civilized *cough* world that dare to tell the truth and dare to back up their findings. They stand accountable to us, the conscience of America, and the entire free world.Give up a couple of hours of primetime TV and go to the library or the bookstore and pick up these books and read them. Above all, do not depend on any corporate-sponsored media for an objective and honest view.