From dailykos....
Your rights under fire: No more private domain registration for .US
by jbeach
Wed Mar 30th, 2005 at 17:05:52 PST
I use godaddy.com as my registrar. just minutes ago I received this email:
Today I have the unfortunate responsibility of informing you that there has been a decision made by bureaucrats of a Federal agency that takes away your right to privacy as guaranteed by the United States Constitution. This decision was unilaterally made by the National Telecommunications and Information Association ("NTIA") -- http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ ...
The effect of this decision is to disallow new private domain name registrations on .US domain names. In addition, if you already own a private .US domain name registration, you will be forced to forfeit your privacy no later than January 26, 2006...
This comes after an anarchist website was forced to give up the IP addresses of some of it's posters, and the FEC is looking into restriction of political blogs.
Guess what, people - they're finally attacking the real enemy: the Internet.
The website to petition against this is at http://www.TheDangerOfNoPrivacy.com
As Bob Parsons, head of Godaddy.com, quite eloquently continues: I personally find it ironic that our right to .US privacy was stripped away, without due process, by a federal government agency -- an agency that should be looking out for our individual rights. For the NTIA to choose the .US extension is the ultimate slap in your face. .
US is the only domain name that is specifically intended for Americans (and also those who have a physical presence in our great country). So think about this for a moment. These bureaucrats stripped away the privacy that you're entitled to as an American, on the only domain name that says that you are an American. I am outraged by this -- you should be also.
Except that he should know that it wasn't any bureaucrat who made this decision... 59 million cows are coming home.
Then there is this continuing saga of the little, bitty, tiny people that the BradBlog has been covering:
RNC Political Director Cites Report by RNC 'Voting Rights' Front Group to RNC Email List!
Report from 'American Center for Voting Rights' (ACVR) Used as Political Smokescreen to Deflect from Real 2004 Election Irregularities...
Cynical, Deceptive GOP anti-Election Reform Agenda gets Underway as Baker/Carter Commission Convenes...(And apparently ACVR Knew About it Before Anybody Else! Go Figure!)
...
The ACVR report was presented by the GOP front group to Congress in a U.S. House Adminstrative Committee hearing on the Election Mess in Ohio. The then-three-day old group, masquerading as a "voting rights" organization, was the only such group called as witnesses in the hearings convened by the committee's Chairman, Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH).
As well, the creation of the ACVR seems to be smartly-timed with the creation of a supposedly "bi-partisan" blue-ribbon commission convened to study and recommend solutions for Electoral Problems in 2004. The Commission was seated in secret, announced on Thursday at 2pm, and lauded in a Press Release published by ACVR just 24 minutes later!
The commission, as announced, is set to be co-chaired by James A. Baker, III, the mastermind and architect of the 2000 Bush/Cheney strategy to ensure that votes were not counted in the state of Florida. The other co-chair is former-President Jimmy Carter who led a similar commission with respected elder statesman, former-President Gerald Ford after the 2000 Election debacle led by Baker on behalf of the Bush Family.
The RNC email, sent to believers on Tuesday, described the ACVR report as "document[ing] massive amounts of voter intimidation by Democrats and their third-party allies".
Of course, the report doesn't. Neither does it document the thousands of verified instances of real election fraud, irregularities, intimidation, disenfranchisment, miscounted and uncounted votes that occurred in Ohio and elsewhere in the last general election. Many of the real documented reports of evidence of went actually went wrong last November are contained in a 102-page report submitted to Congress after months of investigation by the minority staff of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee.
While the media has been feeding the frenzy over whether to pull Terri's feeding tube or not, the Republicans have been working feverishly to stack the voting rights/reform deck. In the last week they have managed to manufacture a "non-profit voting rights" group and have its "leaders" testify before congress as experts. And to top it off James Baker III has been selected to co-chair an election reform panel.
If fair elections matter at all to you it's time to start talking about what is going on and quit pretending that the last 3 elections weren't horribly "flawed" - and quit pretending that "the next time it will be different, if only..."
