In recent weeks, one source of live news coverage for the Occupy Wall Street movement stood out above all others. Not a cable news network, not a newspaper, but a 25-year-old guy named Tim Pool. He packs a smartphone with unlimited data, a copy of Ustream's mobile video streaming app, and a battery pack to keep it all going — which he has for 21 hours straight, on big news days. Soon, Tim and team plan to have have their own hacker-made flying camera-drones, to provide aerial footage TV news chopppers can't. The guerrilla web stream "The Other 99" has reached more than 2 million unique viewers over the last two months, and become a source of eyes on the ground unmatched by big media. The project runs solely on donations.

The dronecam revolution will be webcast: Interview with Tim Pool of "The Other 99" - Boing Boing

My account on Twitter has been suspended. I logged in and was informed of this by a banner across the top of the site. I have no idea why. I'm obviously not a malicious user.

Twitter's documentation claims that if you've been suspended you'll have received an email explaining why. I have received no such email. I appealed, and the appeal produced a rather paternalist automated response:

If you didn't receive an email indicating why your account was suspended, please take a minute to review the Twitter Rules. If you suspect you've been suspended for another reason, please reply to this email with a short explanation.

What?

Some Google searches pull up lots of people in the same circumstances - their accounts have been suspended and they have no idea why, they have received no email explanation and their appeals are never responded to either.

So I have no idea if I'll ever hear from Twitter again. One person who did hear back, heard back about a week later. Is that really the best they can do?

I've been using Twitter since 2008. I have over 400 followers and nearly 600 posts. I rely on Twitter as a way to communicate with other people. Obviously, that was a mistake.

What I've learned from this experience is that Twitter accounts can be suspended at any time, without explanation, and without a reliable appeal process.

In other words - relying on Twitter to communicate with people is probably not a good idea.

I've been trying to understand what has motivated the crackdowns on Occupy Wall Street protests. Its clear what occurred in Tennessee - right wing agitators had been publicly demanding that the government act for weeks. The motivations were entirely partisan, and ultimately declared unconstitutional, as they should have been. But what about Oakland? UC Davis?

Is it really a sanitization concern? You'd think that these OWS people would have that sorted out - you'd think that park cleaning could have been negotiated. I just don't get the necessity of marching in with batons and beating these people down. Why the fuck would you do that?

In some cities like Washington, DC, there has been no beat down. Its really just a non-issue. If its a non-issue in Washington, why isn't it a non-issue in New York?

I partially feel that the motivation in New York is similar to the motivation in Nashville. Its annoying to have people there expressing a point of view that we disagree with. We don't like it. We want them to go away. I want to be able to go sit in that park and have smoke and I can't now because of all of these damn hippies.

In other words, the American people fundamentally do not respect eachother's right to freedom of speech and assembly. The "right" to go into the park and have a smoke is more important than the right to freedom of speech and assembly. We gotta march an army in there to defend that right to sit in the park and have a smoke.

Does that really add up?

This rant and some of the things it links points to another explanation. Our country's domestic law enforcement is more militarized than it used to be. These demonstrations of excessive force are the only way that our local governments know how to deal with things anymore. Our default reaction is to minor annoyances is to bring excessive force to bear on the situation.

This is what the OWS protestors have demonstrated - not just our country's intolerance for the exercise of its own values, but its increasing domestic militarization. We are exactly what they accuse us of being, and the proof is the way that we've reacted to them.

What we have seen in the last two weeks around the country, and now at Davis, is a radical departure from the way police have handled protest in this country for half a century. Two days ago an 84-year-old woman was sprayed with a chemical assault agent in Seattle in the same manner our students at Davis were maced. A Hispanic New York City Councilman was brutally thrown to the ground, arrested, and held cuffed in a police van for two hours for no reason at all, and was never even told why he was arrested. And I am sure you all know about former Marine Lance Cpl. Scott Olsen, who suffered a fractured skull after police hit him with a tear gas canister, then rolled a flash bomb into the group of citizens trying to give him emergency medical care.

Last week, former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper published an essay arguing that the current epidemic of police brutality is a reflection of the militarization (his word, not mine) of our urban police forces, the result of years of the "war on drugs" and the "war on terror. Stamper was chief of police during the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle in 1999, and is not a voice that can be easily dismissed.

Yesterday, the militarization of policing in the U.S. arrived on my own campus.

These issues go to the core of what democracy means. We have a major economic crisis in this country that was brought on by the greedy and irresponsible behavior of big banks. No banker has been arrested, and certainly none have been pepper sprayed. Arrests and chemical assault is for those trying to defend their homes, their jobs, and their schools.

Bob Ostertag: Militarization Of Campus Police

Stoeckly was pulled over on Broadway and Cedar Street near Zuccotti Park. The cops used the fact that his license plate was crooked, and that he turned on his windshield wipers without his lights as pretense to pull him over.

Police demanded to search the vehicle, and when Stoeckley refuse they arrested him for "Obstructing Governmental Administration." Stoeckley's lawyer, Wiley Stecklow, said he's concerned Stoeckly was arrested "unlawfully," simply for "refusing to consent to a search."

His arresting officer gave him a handwritten slip of paper with contact info for a place called Mike's Towing, saying he could pick up his truck there. But when Stoeckley was released from jail Saturday, Mike's Towing said they had never received the truck, which incidentally also contains all of Stoeckley's possessions.

Rule of law - whatever. Photoshop Meme has started. Apparently it has been located.

NYPD 'Loses' the Occupy Wall Street Wikileaks Truck

noteworthy wrote:
Sarah Palin:

Peter Schweizer's new book, "Throw Them All Out," reveals this permanent political class in all its arrogant glory. (Full disclosure: Mr. Schweizer is employed by my political action committee as a foreign-policy adviser.)

Doesn't this suggest that Schweizer is the true author here, and Palin is the byline for strategic reasons?

It doesn't really matter who wrote it - many politicians don't write their own stuff. Whats important is that herein Palin endorses a bold and, at first glance, genuine path toward addressing corruption within our political system. Suddenly her claims of being a maverick have some credibility. She actually appears to be standing for something important instead of merely claiming to have done so in the past.

(I found it interesting that every one of the 15 reviews gives the book five stars.)

I noticed that one of those positive reviews was posted by Marc Thiessen, the former Bush administration speech writer who a year ago was calling for cyberwarfare over wikileaks.

The presence of Thiessen increases the suspicion that this book is to become official party dogma and this might even be a calculated election season move, as the Wikileaks war mongering was transparently coordinated to make Leiberman's inappropriate actions appear moderate in comparison.

Of course, whether or not the litany of solutions proposed here address the right problem is an important one. If you found yourself having whipped up a populist movement and that movement wanted to see action taken to solve a problem that you didn't want to solve, providing a credible sounding solution that addresses the wrong problem might be just exactly the sort of strategy you'd play, and it would certainly be good for kicking the can down the road for a few years.

I haven't read Schweizer's book yet, nor Lessig's, but the later is on my short list. I'm aware from some of Lessig's presentations that studies have shown that campaign finance has absolutely no influence on Congress. I haven't read these studies. I therefore approach the matter with an open but skeptical mind. Perhaps these studies are asking the wrong questions. There is clearly a problem. If you haven't figured out where it is you aren't looking carefully enough.

I'm skeptical of Lessig's proposed solutions because I figure the "coalition of both traditional and non-traditional allies" exist entirely outside of the direct campaign finance world and tinkering with that world won't make a lick of difference. The Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford Memo makes it clear - if you don't do what these rich people want, they'll go after you. They'll dig up dirt and they'll nail you to the wall with it. They don't have to directly donate money to your opponent in order to do that.

The people who get the support of the parties needed to get elected and avoid getting discredited by "the coalition of both traditional and non-traditional allies" are the people who do what the people with the money want them to do.

It would not be surprising to me if there were both carrots and sticks. They have to motivate people to do this somehow, although many might be suckered in by a naive interest in serving the people and find themselves trapped. Once you get good at doing a thing, and well compensated, abandoning it for an entirely different profession is not always the path of least resistance in life.

In the end, I find the idea that Congress isn't barred from insider trading a bit hard to swallow. If Schweizer has identified any real problems, and they get fixed, that is good enough for a days work I think.

RE: Sarah Palin: How Congress Occupied Wall Street - WSJ.com

This is pretty amazing.

xkcd: Money

This essay is awesome.

We need reform that provides real transparency. Congress should be subject to the Freedom of Information Act like everyone else. We need more detailed financial disclosure reports, and members should submit reports much more often than once a year. All stock transactions above $5,000 should be disclosed within five days.

We need equality under the law. From now on, laws that apply to the private sector must apply to Congress, including whistleblower, conflict-of-interest and insider-trading laws. Trading on nonpublic government information should be illegal both for those who pass on the information and those who trade on it. (This should close the loophole of the blind trusts that aren't really blind because they're managed by family members or friends.)

No more sweetheart land deals with campaign contributors. No gifts of IPO shares. No trading of stocks related to committee assignments. No earmarks where the congressman receives a direct benefit. No accepting campaign contributions while Congress is in session. No lobbyists as family members, and no transitioning into a lobbying career after leaving office. No more revolving door, ever.

My mind is officially blown. I did not think she was capable of saying something so coherent and valuable. I am extremely impressed.

Sarah Palin: How Congress Occupied Wall Street - WSJ.com

I think that there ought to be more outrage about the Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford memo which you can read here and I highly encourage you to do so.

THIS is THE HEART of the problem with Democracy in America - special interests spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on cynical campaigns to discredit people because they can't win on facts. We know that this kind of stuff goes on, but in this case these people more or less spell out what they are doing in black and white. Everyone should read this memo. They need to understand the amount of effort that goes into lying to them and manipulating them.

This morning I imagined remixing this as tongue in cheek television advertisement.

[Suit 1 - standing in front of the Capital building] Are you concerned that the United States might become a more Democratic country, with strong political institutions that faithfully represent the will of the people?

[Suit 2 - with OWS protestors far in the distance] Do you have important initiatives in Washington that could be undermined if they become the target of popular protests?

[Suit 3 - older man, in a wood paneled office] Here at Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford, we're here to help.

[Suit 2 - handing money and a bong to a hippie and directing him to join the OWS protestors] We can help you develop negative narratives that will undermine the credibility of people who express political opinions that you disagree with.

[Suit 1 - handing money to a radio talk show host before he goes on the air] Large companies are not always the best spokespersons for their own causes. We can leverage our vast coalition of both traditional and non-traditional allies to make it clear that standing in opposition to your initiatives will carry severe political costs.

[Suit 3] Manipulating the democratic process is an important part of doing business in America today, and nobody does it better than Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford. So give us a call, our agents provocateurs are standing by.

If you want the keys to understanding the political reality in America read the following. This is probably the clearest thing I've ever posted to MemeStreams. If you've ever read anything I that I've posted to MemeStreams, you should read this.

The middle class faces a harder economic situation than they did 30 years ago. This is the consequence of US federal and state economic policies.

Read Elizabeth Warren:
The Over-Consumption Myth
The Vanishing Middle Class
The Middle Class on the Precipice
Whats hurting the Middle Class

The same financial regulatory framework that is crushing the middle class created the conditions that caused the housing crisis.

Read Barry Ritholtz:
The Big Lie
The Big Lie Part II
Big Lie Part II Supporting Economic Data

These financial regulations are being created because of the way that well funded private interests can manipulate both Congress and the people into believing in things that aren't true. Elizabeth Warren and Barry Ritholtz both touch on this aspect of the things they are writing about.

Here is a very clear example of hundreds of thousands of dollars being spent on whispering campaigns aimed at discrediting people who have the wrong views:
Lobbying firm's memo spells out plan to undermine Occupy Wall Street

Larry Lessig writes extensively about the corruption of Congress. I agree with a lot of his observations regarding the problem. I don't think his proposed solutions will work, but his observations about the problem and his work toward an answer are nevertheless important:
Democracy after Citizens United (Click Through to "There is no Pro")

The bottom line is that it is important to understand that wealthy interests have manipulated both the Congress and the people who vote for it into believing things that are not true, and that Congress has therefore created a financial regulatory framework that benefits those wealthy interests in the short term, to the detriment of the welfare of the American people in the long term and in fact to the detriment of the stability of the global economic system in the long term. These wealthy interests continue to be successful at controlling the political system in spite of the obvious damage they have done, because they have been so successful at convincing people to believe their lies. Our economy will not function properly again until those lies are dispelled and discredited.

In a victory for fair use, the publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Stephens Media, filed papers yesterday conceding that posting a short excerpt of a news article in an online forum is not copyright infringement. The concession will result in entry of a judgment of non-infringement in a long-running copyright troll case that sparked the dismissal of dozens of baseless lawsuits filed by Righthaven LLC.

This is an important victory for bloggers.

Righthaven Case Ends in Victory for Fair Use | Electronic Frontier Foundation