NY overturns Family Court decision to bar level 3 sex offender from his kids

James Colliton was a half-million dollar a year tax attorney with a Manhattan apartment and a home he shared with his wife and children in upstate Poughkeepsie, New York. Today, he is a convicted level-3 sex offender after pleading guilty to rape, among other charges, for patronizing teenage prostitutes who were pimped out by their mother according to prosecutors. Initially he took his family and fled to Canada, was arrested but released in Ontario, before finally being arrested again in Manhattan to face a 43-count indictment. By the time of his 2007 conviction, he had been in jail for 19 months and was sentenced to one year, time-served, in a plea deal that let him off the hook for a potential 30 years in prison. The mother of the teen girls had previously pleaded guilty to charges against her for pimping the girls out to Colliton.

In Plea Deal, Lawyer Admits Having Sex With Teenagers

Seem like a pretty open and shut case of a real creep who probably got off a lot easier than he should have. I mean, just getting a look at this guy's mug is almost enough to convict him. Tell me that doesn't look like the textbook pic of a pedophile.

Since his conviction he has gone from tax attorney to pro se litigant, suing everyone from American Express for revealing account information leading to his arrest, to his former employer for not paying him his bonus, to the Town of Poughkeepsie and Dutchess County for violating his Constitutional rights and rights to privacy while monitoring him as a registered sex offender. Now it appears as though he might have grounds to go after the county's Department of Social Services with the NY State Court of Appeals ruling in his favor against the Family Court and recommendations of DSS which forced him out of his home for the next three years after his conviction. According to the Poughkeepsie Journal...

The Dutchess County Department of Social Services filed neglect petitions against both parents alleging the father was an untreated level-three sex offender, deemed likely to reoffend, whose crimes involved young teens, and that the mother failed to protect the children from the father.

Enough to make your blood boil right? One article I linked above there they called him "the most ridiculous pro se litigant of all time." And I am sure much worse has been said about him. Certainly enough to piss off the average Joe or Jane to see a creep like this using his legal expertise in to start snagging up loopholes in order to sue various parties for hundreds of millions of dollars. You would think he would have been happy with getting such a lucky break at sentencing for his admitted crimes.

Well, if you know me, or as you get to know me, you will see that I like to play the devil's advocate a lot. I am not easily swayed by rhetoric and shock-value reporting. I don't have the same knee-jerk reactions as most people do to words like communist, terrorist, sex offender or pedophile. So I tried to think about this objectively. Should this man have been forced from his house and barred from his children simply because he was guilty of sex with a teenage girl for money?

Of course I understand that these girls were underage and what he did is indeed a crime, but I am not quite seeing the correlation that shows he would actually attack his own children. It's kind of like the assumption that homophobes always make when they find out a guy is queer. All the sudden the straight guys all think the queer guy is going to try to have sex with them. You see that assumption too when it comes to homosexuals interacting with children. Legal or not, homosexuality is still often seen as sexual deviancy, that the homosexual might be more inclined to molest children and therefore should not be allowed to adopt or work with kids. Even if there were data to support such a notion, there is certainly nothing that says all homosexuals are likely to attack children.

So just because he pled guilty to having sex with a minor, does not mean that he is likely to attack any and all minors, especially his own children.  If he had sex with a prostitute that was of legal age, would that be a sign that he was likely to proposition his children for sex when they became legal age of consent? Certainly not, yet that is same sort of logic which was applied to bar this man from his house and his kids.

Applied logic doesn't always pan out though in the real world. My gut was still telling me that this guy is a creep and his kids would be better off without him. I would certainly sleep better at night knowing that this guy was nowhere near kids, his own or otherwise. But then again I am conflicted between what my gut is telling me, and what my morals tell me. And my morals tell me this has nothing to do with how I sleep at night. My morals tell me that this has nothing to do with what my gut tells me "might" happen. My morals tell me that just because a man is guilty of one crime, I have no right to assume he is destined to be guilty of any crime my imagination conjures up.

Therefore, I must conclude that the judges in this case did in fact make the right decision in their ruling. A difficult decision on their part no doubt, and an unpopular ruling it is likely to be in the face of hyperbole and the public's utter contempt for sex offenders. Nonetheless, we see that they had statutory basis for their ruling.

...under New York's Family Court Act, they cited two findings that required them to determine neglect. The first is "proof of actual (or imminent danger of) physical, emotional, or mental impairment to the child." Second is the danger "must be a consequence of the parent's failure to exercise a minimum degree of parental care."


The court noted the statutory test is not best or ideal care for children, but a minimum degree.

So it does appear that the Department of Social Services did wrongfully separate this man from his family, falsely accusing both himself and his wife of neglect. And as much as I hate to admit it, he should be compensated for that. As this story begins to unravel, now we must consider too that perhaps his other lawsuits were not so frivolous as we had assumed. What if this man were not guilty of statutory rape? I think that perhaps me might actually give him more serious consideration. Which we should anyway. Just because someone is the perpetrator of a crime, no matter how heinous, that is no justification for others to commit crimes against him or to deny him his rights, lest one day we too are abused simply because we are not popular.

Digging a little deeper now, I am confronted by articles that paint a very different picture than what has been portrayed by the prosecution and in most media sources reporting on the case. What if this man really is not in fact guilty of the crimes he was convicted of? It would seem incredulous, unthinkable to even suggest such a thing. How dare I even doubt for a second that such a creep is not as guilty as sin. After all, he pled guilty, and so did the mother who pimped out those poor girls.

So let's go ahead and take a second look at that woman, who also pled guilty in a plea arrangement. How could a mother do such a thing to her daughters? Well, the case comes undone a little more as we pull at the loose ends as they begin to fray.

"The one that was prostituting my [now] 15-year-old daughter was my [21-year-old] daughter," the mother said in her sparse apartment in lower Manhattan. "She's the devil's child, period."


The mother said her vengeful child had been out to get her since she called ACS to report her daughter's boyfriend was abusing her granddaughter.

But it also appears the girls weren't just out to get the mother. According to another article, these young girls have lied about an awful lot in this case, even lying under oath to the grand jury. So what can we really believe? The window of reasonable doubt is suddenly wide open it appears, and perhaps James Colliton should never have pled guilty to what may have been false allegations from the start.

The older sister had alleged that her own relationship with Colliton began when she was 15. This is disputed however by a cousin of the sisters, identified only as "Shorty," who states that it was she who introduced the older sister to Colliton and that it had been three years later than claimed, when she was 18, a year older than the legal age for consent in New York State. If that is true, then one of the rape charges against Colliton goes right out the window. Plainly not guilty of statutory rape, even if guilty of patronizing a prostitute.

The younger girl has now admitted that she lied about her mother pimping her out, but maintains that she did in fact have sex with Colliton for money and gifts at the behest of her older sister.But that too must be met with the utmost skepticism at this point, considering how this whole case came about in the first place. The elder sister became pregnant by another man, but then began extorting Colliton until finally he demanded a DNA test be done. This is where the younger sister comes into the picture.

By some accounts, still needing cash, the older sister began offering up her younger sibling to Colliton. At first to clean his apartment in exchange for money, but eventually he is alleged to have begun paying in cash and gifts for sex with the younger girl for the next several months. By her own admission, the younger girl began extorting Colliton, threatening to have him arrested.

"I started threatening him that if he didn't give me money that I'd call the cops on him. I told him to give me whatever he could give me. I didn't want to have sex with him anymore," she said.

Maybe she never had sex with him in the first place. The older sister convinced the younger to report Colliton to ACS Administration for Children's Services) while implicating their mother becasue she was too strict on them. As if the credibility of these two girls was not already in serious doubt, we also have the case of José Mangual, the ex boyfriend of the mother of these two girls, who has come forward stating that he was the subject of false allegations made by these two sisters.

Mangual said he ran afoul of the older sister when he moved into the family's Manhattan home and the mother began paying more attention to him than to her kids.


The older girl, then 17, filed physical-abuse charges against the mother with the Administration for Children Service and allegedly persuaded her younger sister to accuse Mangual of sexual abuse.


Mangual said he was never arrested but hired a lawyer to defend himself in family court. He said that the girls' claim fell apart under questioning and that the case against him was dismissed. He and their mother later broke up.

Considering that Mangual came forward and the testimony of the girls had been all but disproven by their own public statements to press, it is hard to imagine how the charges against either the mother or Colliton still stood at all, much less why they might have elected to plead guilty to those charges. Of course, there are those who will maintain the naive notion that "only a guilty person would plead guilty." But sadly, that just is not the truth in this day and age of the presumption of guilt over innocence. The police and courts are too well trusted, while someone as loathsome as a child molester or an unfit mother will hardly be afforded any reasonable doubt even when only the weakest of evidence is brought against them.

So considering that. Considering the very real possibility that they may spend decades in prison for something they did not do, it is really little surprise that such a fear would get the better of someone. And that they would rather just plead guilty, go home and try to move on, leaving the whole sordid tale behind them the best they can. And that my friends, is a big reason why our system is broken. Because the accused, even with the best lawyers often, know full well that there is no such thing as the presumption of innocence anymore. How did that happen? How do we change that?

No closure for 9/11 victims' families and survivors

This really pisses me off to no end. Since the very first hours after the attacks of September 11, 2001 we have been fed a string of lies, and stonewalled from getting any real answers to very serious questions. And now the whitewash is complete. No body, no photos, and weak promises of "Bin Laden is dead."

Well, he may indeed be dead. But this whole yarn spun straight from the pages of some Tom Clancy novel is a bunch of bullshit. So let's just recap the events of the past few days here to get the facts straight.

Late Sunday night, while most people in America were going to bed, we began to hear rumors that Osama Bin Laden had been killed. Initial reports from "inside White House sources" said that he had been killed in a missile strike about a week earlier, and that the news was delayed so that they could positively identify the remains through DNA analyses.

But when U.S. President Barack Obama came to the podium in the White House to make the official televised announcement, the story was quite a bit different. According to the President, OBL was killed that very day, in a daring raid by commandos. Okay, fine. Maybe some miscommunication in there, maybe a little deliberate obfuscation by the inside sources to cover their own butts for talking to the press. I roll my eyes, but okay, let's give a little benefit of doubt there. But let's have a look now at how the rest of the story has unfolded.

To begin with, the White House has already changed their story a number of times since the President's official announcement. Now we are not talking about leaked insider information being misinterpreted. We are talking about the White House making authoritative statements of fact, and then reversing themselves. The excuse they use is "the fog of war." Bullshit I say. If they didn't "know" they wouldn't have shared the information. They keep slipping up, getting called on it, and have to change their story each time to make it appear believable.

The Raid.

So as I said, it went from a missile strike a week earlier, to a daring commando raid on a compound less than a mile from a prestigious Pakistani military academy. Doesn't say much for Pakistan's ability to protect their borders for one thing. Okay though, let's assume that it was within the capabilities of US elite forces, without any Pakistani clearance, to storm a compound a mile away from their equivalent to our West Point.

As it is being reported now, a forty-man group of operators from CIA SOG, and so-called SEAL Team 6 (who don't even officially exist), flying in two Blackhawk helicopters descended upon the compound in the dark of night. There was a "fierce" firefight, even though, according to their own reports, OBL had no body guards. Several people are reportedly killed, including two couriers, the same couriers it is believed who led them to the compound to start with, and one of OBL's sons. One of OBL's wives is allegedly wounded in the raid as well, and another woman is killed.

The raid culminates with the execution of the alleged terror mastermind himself, Osama Bin Laden, with a precise shot to the forehead, and another in the chest. Initial reports claim that he was armed and that he used his wife as a shield. But as it turns out now, he did not use his wife as a shield, and in fact was not even armed. So what does that really say about our most elite military unit? That they cannot take in an unarmed man alive. A man who should have been taken alive at all costs even if he was armed. Forget about the moral questions of arbitrarily executing an unarmed man, even one so loathed as OBL. But consider the treasure trove of intelligence that was lost by killing him, if in fact he was the terror mastermind he has been made out to be all along.

The dead part of "wanted, dead or alive" is there because we were willing to pay for his remains if someone else killed him. US forces though? US forces should have taken him alive at all costs. It is clear though, that this operation never intended to take him alive at all. This was an assassination mission right from the start. Why? Because we already know everything he knows. We did not need to wrest any information from him. We needed to silence him. And why the "need" to silence him? Well ask yourself this. Why wasn't he wanted for the 9/11 attacks? On his official wanted posted at the FBI, not a single mention of 9/11.

And al-Qaeda? No such thing.

He needed to be brought to justice so that the world would know once and for all that OBL was indeed the terror-chief he has been portrayed as ever since 9/11. That indeed the threat has been real all along, and not staged to further American geo-political agendas, imperialism and war profiteering by the corporations who control the US government.

At some point during the raid one of the helicopters went down due to some mechanical failure. Some reports say that it overheated from hovering for too long in ambient air temps that were too high. So somehow they managed to squeeze 40 men and a dead body into a single helicopter along with a "treasure trove" of computer hardware.

The compound had no internet connection and no telephones, yet contained this supposedly marvelous cache of intelligence data. And nevermind of course, that they had just executed the most important piece of intelligence they could have ever gotten their hands on.

The Body.

Along with the assassination team and the electronics hardware, the body of Osama Bin Laden was loaded onto the Blackhawk helicopter, and brought back to a base in Afghanistan. A base allegedly so modern and well equipped in the middle of the most ferocious war zone in a third world country, that they were able to make a thorough and conclusive DNA identification of the remains, in a matter of a few hours.

Meanwhile, here in New York State, an autopsy alone can take days. The full lab reports in a the recent high-profile murder of teenage girl who's body was dumped in a suburban ballpark took over a month to complete. Yet in the middle of some stone-aged desert town the U.S. managed to get a conclusive, highly technological, complete scientific analyses of the remains of the most wanted criminal in history done in a matter of a few hours. Of course, we had to do this, in order to make sure that we conformed with Islamic custom to bury the body as soon as possible. How convenient.

So we bury the body in the Arabian Sea. Wait what? We go to all this trouble and then just dump his body in the ocean. What ocean? The Arabian Sea. Now, I know most Americans are terrible at geography and if they actually looked at a map they couldn't tell you the difference between Australia and Afghanistan, but here's a big clue folks. They are opposites, Australia is an island, surrounded by ocean. Afghanistan on the other hand, is a land-locked country, surrounded by the land of other coutnries. There is no ocean on any of it's borders.

Abbottabad, the city where this raid is said to have taken place, is on the Northwestern frontier of Pakistan, along their disputed border with India. That city is a thousand miles from any ocean. So we rushed the body from Abbottabad, to some base in Afghanistan, did a rush autopsy, lab work and DNA test, then packed his corpse onto some other aircraft, another helicopter or light transport plane capable of landing on an aircraft carrier over a thousand miles away, to get his body dumped in the ocean in less then 24 hours. The flight times alone for such a journey really stretch the believability if you stop to actually think about this story we are being told.

Okay, so let's assume that the bullshit story of trying to conform to Islamic tradition is true. We really did want to bury him with the dignity of his faith which says it should be done quickly. Why dump him in the ocean? That is actually an affront to his religious dignity. A Muslim who dies on land is supposed to be buried in the land. Now their faith does allow for burial at sea if the person dies at sea and cannot be buried in the land, but that was not the case here. It is also offensive to transport the body. Muslims are supposed to be buried in the land where they died, and are not to be transported. The body is to be washed and shrouded, placed in a Mosque, funeral prayers offered, and then be buried within 24 hours.

Tombstones, elaborate grave markers, and gravesite offerings are discouraged. Which basically shoots down the American excuse that they didn't want his grave to turn into some terrorist shrine. Besides that, there were plenty of other things that could have been done to prevent that. Like bringing the damn body back to the States for one thing. For another, they didn't seem so concerned about what happened to the corpse when they offered to turn over the body to Saudi Arabia, who declined.

Okay, to recap, we went out out of our way and bent over backwards for one tenet of his Islamic faith while ignoring just about all the other funeral traditions, and while ignoring the need for scientific analyses of the remains, to pack his dead ass back onto another helicopter and fly him over a thousand miles, back out across Pakistan by the way, to drop him on a ship and dump his body in the ocean. And that makes sense to people? Why go to all that trouble to dump him in the ocean if they weren't hiding something?

The Photo.

On the night of the announcement, several main stream media outlets began circulating a picture of what was believed to be the body of Osama bin Laden. A fairly gruesome image, that fits the description that the White House is still using. A bullet entry wound just slightly off center in the forehead, with both eyes exploded in their sockets.

That photo was quickly proved to be a fake, and the propaganda machine was pushed back on its heels. Of course, most of us expected to see a photo, and when the first one proved to be a fake, we expected to see the "real" one. Today, President Obama has decided that he will not release an "authentic" photo of the body. And it appears that a bunch of morons out there are just fine with that.

Supposedly, the President does not want to incite unrest, does not want it plastered over front pages and television screens where the children might see it (oh no, not the children), and is basically saying "America doesn't do that, we are better than that." Yea right. Every other time we killed someone, like Saddam's sons, the pics were released. We have always released pictures of the bodies. And even this time we are doing it. We will get to see pics of OBL's son who died in the raid as well as a few other people in the compound. But no pic of the grand prize.

How the FUCK do Americans find this reasonable?

Especially considering all the questions and conspiracy theory swirling about 9/11 still a decade later, this event had to be executed perfectly. to give real closure to the victim's families and survivors of the 9/11 attacks. To leave Americans no doubt whatsoever that Osama bin Laden was dead, and that the whole thing went down the way they said it went down. But nooo, our government couldn't even get that right. You know why don't you?

I mean seriously, are they just trying to prove how fuckin stoopid Americans really are?!

Internet Security vs. Civil Liberty

From Washington DC it is being reported that the US government is taking a look at a new program now set to be rolled out in Australia, to make the internet “safer.” Before we get right to the topic, as a side note, it is worth mentioning that this is not the first time the Land Down Under has become the proverbial canary in the coalmine. In the late 1990's these freedom-loving people in a land of vast wilderness expanses was subject to new draconian restrictions on citizens' firearms. Today, statistics show that these heavy-handed restrictions by the government have done nothing to improve public safety. A fair argument can even be made that the loss of gun rights put the citizens there in more danger, at a very high monetary cost, yet the failed policy remains in place more than a decade later. Moreover, those statistics cannot show what the real cost may be when it comes to the values of liberty and freedom heralded by America, but supposedly also cherished by the rest of the “free world.” It seems that the global powers-that-be like to use a freedom-loving but sparsely populated land like Australia as a testbed for their control mechanisms over populations.

Here is some information on the impact of gun-control in Australia, information that you may not be allowed to view much longer if you are in Australia and your ISP doesn't want you to see this web-page...

http://www.gunsandcrime.org/auresult.html

Today, information is power. So it only stands to reason that the internet, the last bastion of unrestricted exchange of information, would be viewed by some as an entity which must be controlled, like all the other facets of our lives that have come under restrictions. It seems most of the so-called rights we are left with today require a user handbook in order to know how you can actually apply those rights without violating the law or some civil statute that may leave you broke and destitute should you stray afield of these control mechanisms. The internet however, is not so easily policed, with rapid dissemination of information made easy and with violators of public code more difficult to identify.

So it is no surprise that the current Presidential administration is meeting with industry leaders in order to find a way to put clamps on the internet. To impose security measures in the name of “safety” while claiming that civil liberty concerns are being weighed as anything more than a stumbling block to symbiotic government/corporate control of the internet. They are looking closely at portions of Australia's plan that are set to go into affect in December.

There, internet service providers will be allowed to alert a customer if their computer has been taken over by hackers. Seems like a good idea on the surface. As White House cyber-coordinator Howard Schmidt puts it, "Without security you have no privacy. And many of us that care deeply about our privacy look to make sure our systems are secure," But of course, the question then is, how effective is the software that is being used to identify threats? This also opens the door to “selective” policing, and lulls the public into a false sense of security. A very good hacker working on the cutting edge of up to the minute technology probably won't be detected. Government intrusions will not be reported most likely, even if they were detected. And of course, the corporations with their varying agendas will exploit this inherent vulnerability in selective policing. If your ISP is gathering usage data on you and selling it to another company, they certainly aren't going to send you a report about it.Besides, who better to judge their own security need better than the individual? Are legislated or corporate imposed requirements actually necessary?

Schmidt went on to say that the American public would go along with it if a company is willing to give them better security. Sure, why not? That is the real question. What is the real cost here? Because “giving” us better cyber-security is bound to have some strings attached. Nothing is free in this world, and no company, nor the government are about to spend millions, even billions of dollars and go well out of their way to “give” you anything, except syphilis perhaps.

Cyber-security expert James Lewis, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies is of the opinion that the public would be amendable to the idea of having their ISP warn of cyber attacks, while helping them to clear malicious software from their systems through instructions, patches, and anti-virus programs. But isn't such help already out there? Well granted, security software and monitoring is not done by your ISP, but it's not like most of us are surfing the net without firewalls, malware removal tools at the ready, and even full retail grade security suites. Of course, much if it is not free, and some folks say in a sort of tongue-in-cheek manner that it is the cyber-security software companies themselves that are creating these threats in order to maintain the demand for their products and to insure continued update subscriptions. So will ISP's be providing for free what software companies have been charging for? Not for long, because as Mr. Lewis also explains, the public may be willing to pay a monthly service fee, just like all the other fees that are already attached to our utilities and communications services.

So rather than having the choice of whether or not you want to spend money on internet security, it will be mandatory that you now cover those costs as part of your standard contract with an internet service provider. For now though, the public is being softened up to the idea, like a crack dealer who give you your first few hits for free. Comcast is set to expand their Denver-based pilot program which alerts customers when their computers come under the control of a botnet. That program will go nationwide in the next few months. Seems all well and good, but even if the service is not itemized as a pay service, surely Comcast is not promising a freeze on general rate increases, which would help to cover the cost of the program, and whatever future security enhancements they may choose to “provide.”

Like Mr. Lewis said though, the public will probably be willing to pay a small fee with a non-chalant, “thanks for the info, good to know” sort of approach. After all, it could still be considered voluntary what company you choose as an ISP, though those options seem to have become more and more limited because of mergers. But in Australia, they are taking it a step further now. It's not just good-to-know info, but your ISP will insist that you do something about it. They are planning everything from warnings, to blocking outbound emails, to actually quarantining your entire system from the internet. That is not just one company, that is set to be the industry standard for all ISP's in Australia. It's one thing to be provided information to help keep your system safe and secure, it is quite another to have your access to the internet terminated because you are not up to date on your security maintenance tasks.

There are a few very big problems with that approach. Here in America, it could and should be seen as a direct assault on the First Amendment. To have your words, perhaps in the form of an email for example, being barred from distribution by some private corporation is a clear affront to liberty, even if it is in the interest of “internet security.” That's like saying that you cannot say what you want while standing on a street corner, because the guy who built the sidewalk is worried that you might cause damage to the sidewalk. Guess we'll have to go buy a pair of bowling shoes first. Freedom of speech, by paid permit only with proper attire.

Just because a person cannot afford internet security software, does not mean they should be barred access to the internet for one thing. But perhaps the ISP will be providing these fixes and software “free” of charge. Of course, then that means that your ISP could be installing who knows what into your system. What if the threat you are most concerned about is in fact your own ISP that you have been railing against on your web-page, or some other company that does business with your ISP, or the government who, no doubt, also have a cozy relationship with ISP's. What if these supposed fixes are malware themselves? What if these supposed fixes create system errors, as unnecessary system updates may do from time to time. But at least there, we still have a choice as to whether or not we update our systems. These new security ideas allow for no such freedom or choice in how you will maintain your system.

There is yet another serious concern, especially to folks like small business owners, folks who work from home, who depend on their computers for income. There may be times when a person is operating on a deadline, or may have some other immediate need for internet access such as a family emergency. A sudden and announced block could have serious and costly repercussions. Even for the person who is diligent with their system security knows that on occasion they may be subject to an attack or error that can take days to repair. Now you will be restricted or even barred from the internet during that time. Not to mention the fact that you might very well need internet access in the first place to make the repair. If you think they already thought this through, guess again. There is a whole nest of unforeseen problems that may or may not be fixed, as it is the consumer's problem, the citizens' problem, not theirs once these things are put in place.

Now a personal anecdote for a moment, if I may. In the US, a land-line telephone is considered so important, that even if you don't pay your bill, there are FCC regulations that bar outright and immediate termination of service. It can take months before that line is finally cut completely, and in that time the person who is in default will get many notices and still be able to dial the operator as well as 911. Several years ago I found out the hard way that digital communications are not governed by the same FCC regulations as the telephone company, and to not trust these companies any further than I can throw a television. I signed up for a triple-service plan with Cablevision, to have my telephone, television and internet all be provided by them for a single monthly rate. Because I made the switch part-way into the month, it created a billing error. I was told not to worry, that I had in fact been over-charged, and to not pay anything until my next regularly scheduled billing statement arrived. A few nights later, in the middle of the night, my roommate stopped breathing. I ran for the phone. I could not make a call. No, “sorry, your service has been suspended,” no dial-tone, no operator, no 911, nothing. I woke the neighbors, and got an ambulance there. My roommate was fine after a quick visit at the hospital. But you can bet that the next day I raised holy-hell with Cablevision, and a snotty supervisor that I finally got on the line from a neighbor's phone. That was how I learned the hard lesson of how not all service providers are the same or governed by the same regulations as technology advances. When I went back home, I found that she had in fact turned the telephone back on...and then an hour later my television and internet went dark. I ripped the box out of the wall and never dealt with Cablevision again.

Now just think of what an internet service provider like that will do if and when they are handed real power, as society becomes ever-more dependent on the internet. Are we really going to allow this sort of thing to be legislated into law, in the name of public safety, and then be forced to pay a fee on top of that? Apparently, because Mr. Lewis also tells us that it is inevitable that ISP's will play a role in internet security. Dale Meyerrose, vice president and general manager of Cyber Integrated Solutions at Harris Corporation states, "There are people starting to make the point that we've gone about as far as we can with voluntary kinds of things, we need to have things that have more teeth in them, like standards.” Teeth huh? Sounds like some folks are talking about sinking their teeth into the Constitution and our wallets. Standards? The same sort of standards that leave a person who has stopped breathing without a lifeline to the outside world? What threat justifies corporations or government imposing such standards and measures that will cause so many problems at considerable cost in time, money, and personal liberty?

According to former chief technology officer for the National Security Agency, Prescott Winter of California-based cyber-security firm ArcSight, the unfettered and unfenced technological wild-west is not secure, stating, “we need to take steps to make it safe, reliable and resilient.” Uh huh, so we keep hearing, but the reasons why are not so clear. It seems the spectre of oppressive corporate sponsored government is far more prevalent than the threat of any serious attack.

By what right does a corporation or government presume to dictate what level of security the individual may find necessary for their internet needs, or what they can afford? If one wants to buy some old laptop from a yard sale running windows 95 and go power up at the coffee shop to jump online, they should have every right to do so. But that is not the future envisioned by Mr. Meyerrose. Instead, he sees public wifi hotspots restricting access, blocking those laptops which are not equipped with certain security software, that do not meet whatever criteria the industry decides is the standard. Moreover, he sees that it will be your tax dollars that will be used to impose those standards, as tax breaks will be given to those providers who comply with the demands.

"I think that, quite frankly, there will be other governments who will finally say, at least for their parts of the Internet, as the Australians have apparently done, we think we can do better," says Prescott Winter. So it appears that they are indeed the canary in the coalmine, and that we are expected to go jump off the bridge behind them.

A report on this subject was made by the Associated Press and can be found at the following Yahoo News page...

US studying Australian Internet security program

For further reading on internet security, it is highly recommended that you read our previous article...

Book Burning in the Digital Age...and so it begins