The seizure was a result of a series of bomb threats made to the University of Pittsburgh over the past months. A suspect with alleged connections to the perpetrator was arrested last week, but this failed to halt the ongoing threats. The threats were suspected to have been made using Mixmaster, a remailer service facilitating pseudonymous emailing. The seized server offered the Mixmaster service allegedly used by the perpetrator of the Pittsburgh bomb threats.

Also relying on the server—and now having their service cut and data in the hands of federal agents—were myriad academic and activist groups employing the services of the European Counter Network (ECN), Europe’s oldest independent internet service provider. More than 300 email accounts, between 50 – 80 email lists, and various websites were affected.

Regardless of our own data having been spared this time, the news is nonetheless disquieting. Anonymizing networks are used to protect the identity of freedom-fighting and human rights activists in oppressive regimes around the globe. These activists put themselves and their families in mortal peril by reporting on the brutal activities committed by their governments; networks such as the ECN serve to allay this danger. Currently, ECN primarily focuses on supporting anti-Nazi and anti-fascist groups. The seizure demonstrates the casual and indifferent attitude held by federal agents toward the integrity of anonymous web services in general, and toward the safety of their patrons. All it takes is a weak connection to illegal activity to jeopardize an entire service provider.

While the activity within our newsletter, for example, is 100% legal, we reject the idea that those operating within the bounds of the law have nothing to fear from having their private data compromised. The FBI apparently feels that anyone assisting in the infrastructure of anonymizing networks is culpable when that network is used for threatening communication. Will raids on private citizens operating TOR exit relays follow?

CISPA is would allow federal and state governments to request detailed records of what we send over the Internet from telecommunications companies. Since the bill is intended for:

“the protection of a system or network from … theft or misappropriation of private or government information, intellectual property”

we believe that CISPA would make it possible for telecommunications companies to actively monitor private communications over their networks in order to detect and censor transfers of copyrighted content. Telecommunications companies would not be required to anonymize the information they gather and so the personal details of users would be handed over to governments to use as they wish.

Additionally, state and federal governments would be allowed to share such personal information with private companies. Because such data would be used to protect against ”cybersecurity” threats, should those governments or companies misuse this information, they and their employees would be protected from being sued.

CISPA would preempt state law and prevent states from imposing privacy protections on the data gathered or limiting what data can be gathered.

While this system is voluntary, since the introduction of the PATRIOT Act we have seen the increasing collusion between telecommunications companies and the federal government to spy on people. Giving such broad powers to the government and the corporations helping them will undermine our rights to privacy and freedom of speech.

CISPA is so broad it would give the government and corporations access to what we read, watch or say on the Internet, and would destroy what little remaining privacy we have on the Internet.

We urge our members and supporters to contact their Congressperson and Senators and urge them to oppose CISPA and other bills like it.  The EFF has setup a page that helps people contact their Congressperson and Senators via Twitter and email.  However, calling them (phone numbers below) is the most effective method.

1.  Contact your Senators

Scott Brown
(202) 224-4543
http://scottbrown.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/emailscottbrown

John Kerry
(202) 224-2742
http://kerry.senate.gov/contact/

2.  Contact your Congressperson

To find out who represents you in Congress, please visit Where Do I Vote MA and enter your address.

• 1st Congressional District - John Olver – (202) 225-5335 / (413) 532-7010
• 2nd Congressional District – Richard Neal – (202) 225-5601 / (413) 785-0325
• 3rd Congressional District – James McGovern – (202) 225-6101 / (508) 831-7356
• 4th Congressional District – Barney Frank – (202) 225-5931
• 5th Congressional District – Niki Tsongas – (202) 225-3411 / (978) 459-0101
• 6th Congressional District – Jonathan Tierney – (202) 225-8020 / (781) 595-7375
• 7th Congressional District – Ed Markey – (202) 225-2836 / (508) 875-2900
• 8th Congressional District – Michael Capuano – (202) 225-5111 / (617) 621-6208
• 9th Congressional District – Stephen Lynch – (202) 225-8273 / (617) 428-2000
• 10th Congressional District – William Keating – (202) 225-3111 / (617) 770-3700

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For those unfamiliar, a PirateBox is a portable filesharing network – utilizing OpenWRT, you can create a self-powered mobile server which any computer can connect to via WiFi and upload or download files. In addition, each one has a shoutbox for communicating anonymously. Nifty!

For more info on the PirateBox movement and a guide on making one yourself, check out David Dart’s page.

We weren’t there to make any policy decisions, just have some food and talk about piratey things. BBQ, ice cream, rum, and good times. We’ll have to make this a regular thing.

Check out the gallery for more images!

This is a big step for a Pirate Party in the United States to join their international brethren in Europe and elsewhere.

When video is available, if it is available, it will be linked here.

In six months, there will be another PPI meeting, no one knows where yet. At that time, the FLPP may decide to apply for full ordinary membership status.

Stay tuned.

So after talking about it, we decided to adopt the wording that Eric Zoltan was using on our Youtube site:

We are the Party of Open! We stand for open government, open culture and open innovation. We are the anti-monopoly and the pro-human party. Pro-Human means a high regard for your individual privacy and your right to free expression. It also means an end to the concept of “Corporate Personhood”.

If you want something even more brief then you could try:

The Party of Open: Open Government, Open Culture, Open Innovation & People First

We fully expect this summary will evolve over time.

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On April 14th-15th, the organization Pirate Parties International will be holding their yearly conference in Prague.

On the first day of the conference, PPI’s members will vote for the applicants for membership and observer membership status. The Florida Pirate Party is up for inclusion in PPI as an observer member. We are confident that the FLPP will be accepted as an observer member.

The Florida Pirate Party is one of two officially recognized Pirate Parties in the United States (the other being Massachusetts). We are also the group behind the popular book (and ebook), No Safe Harbor, which has been downloaded and read by Pirates around the world.

Be sure to keep an eye on this site and our Facebook page (and the below linked PPI site) for news about our admission into PPI.

Thank you.

http://int.piratenpartei.de/PPI_Conference_2012

The panel will be this Wednesday, April 4th at noon at the Together Center at 579a Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139.

Also, on Saturday, April 7th, from 11am to 5pm, we will have a table at Together Boston‘s expo, The Get Together. We could use your help with tabling and the like. Please contact us at info@masspirates.org if you can volunteer.

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Just a little over a year ago, I embarked on what would be an incredible journey for me. With the help of then-USPP Records Officer Bradley Hall, the Florida Pirate Party became the second Pirate Party to be recognized in the United States (just a few short days after Massachusetts). We joined the greater worldwide Pirate movement in demanding the evolution to 21st century governance, respect for liberty and our personal freedom.

From those humble beginnings, our party has grow by leaps and bounds to include hundreds of other Floridians in demanding more from our leaders. The ground-swelling of grassroots support from these freedom-loving Americans has been nothing short of astonishing, and truly speaks volumes about the brighter future laying ahead for our great nation. Through your help, we have provided a loud and clear counterpoint to the Hollywood lobbyists and fought back blatant attacks on our first freedoms. We have fought against censorship in every form, and have campaigned tirelessly to preserve our rights as enumerated in the Constitution.

I have been proud to be a part of this party and this movement. Therefore, it is with a heavy heart that I am announcing I will be stepping down as Chairman of the Florida Pirate Party. Circumstance has ordained that my time as this party’s leader has come to a close, and that I must step aside for new leadership to take my place at the helm and lead this party forward. I will continue carrying on the day-to-day responsibilities as Chairman until such time as new leadership is chosen to ensure the smooth transition this party and it’s members deserve.

I am confident the members of the Executive committee and the party membership at large will find new, strong leadership and will continue the fight to make this nation ever-better for its citizens.

I would like to thank all of you for the support you’ve given me. My time here has been an experience I will never forget, and I know I’m a better man for it.

For the final time, thank you and farewell.

Ryan Moffitt

Kopimism by Lauren Pespisa

Campaign to Win by James O’Keefe

We will post the rest of the videos as soon as they are available.

Just as a reminder, a number of speakers gave permission for us to post the slides of their talks (pdf):

• Kopimism by Lauren Pespisa
• Stranger Danger by Conor Sherman
• Patents Upending by Erik Zoltan
• Campaign to Win by James O’Keefe

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• Open Government – increased government transparency and accountability
• Open Culture – limited copyrights & more sharing
• Open Innovation – no patents

Unfortunately, issues such as increased personal privacy and reining in the power of corporations do not lend themselves well to being lumped under Open.  Open privacy seems to be an oxymoron.  Open Corporations as an idea, while useful from a consumer, worker and even investor perspective, is not what we are trying to communicate.

Erik Zoltan noted that “open” is one of the critical ideas but not the only one. He suggested that we are also the party of the human being, which explains our ideas on personal privacy and reining in corporations.  As ideas, being anti-monopoly and pro-person are two other angles that complement “open”.

After our discussion, we decided to open things up and gather other perspectives.  Whether we can summarize our positions down to one overarching idea or whether we need several is very much an open question.  We welcome your thoughts and comments.  Thanks!

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A number of speakers gave permission for us to post the slides of their talks (pdf):

• Kopimism by Lauren Pespisa
• Stranger Danger by Conor Sherman
• Patents Upending by Erik Zoltan
• Campaign to Win by James O’Keefe

We will post videos of the conference talks as soon as they are available.

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The NYPP Founding Members have voted in a Constitution in January. I will have a version of that posted to the site with the Founding Members signatures shortly. Any wishing to become a member must also agree to abide by the rules set forth by the NYPP Constitution.

There will be more pages coming soon, including an FAQ on NYPP, USPP and Pirate Politics in general. If you have a question, please email us at nypirateparty at gmail dot com.

We still are holding our weekly Sunday IRC meetings at 8pm. Please join us then, as our meetings are open to the public. Please note that if anything is being voted on, only members can vote. We can be reached on Twitter at @NYPirateParty.

happy sailing!
-kusanagi

Please tell the Joint Committee on the Judiciary that you oppose H.2842 by contacting the chairs of the committee listed below.  If your Representative or Senator is on the committee, please contact them as well.

Senator Cynthia Stone Creem
Phone: 617-722-1639
Fax: 617-722-1266
Email: Cynthia.Creem@masenate.gov


Representative Eugene L. O'Flaherty
617-722-2396
Fax: 617-722-2819
Email: Gene.O'Flaherty@mahouse.gov

We formatted the text of the bill for easier reading here.

From:

James O’Keefe
on behalf of the Massachusetts Pirate Party

To:

Senator Cynthia Stone Creem
Chair, Joint Committee on the Judiciary
State House
Room 405
Boston, MA 02133

Dear Chair Creem,

Thank you and the members of the Joint Committee on the Judiciary for providing us with the opportunity to provide testimony opposing H.2842: An Act relative to unfair competition.

H.2842 would hold liable any company which has a supplier that uses unlicensed software. Such a company would then face penalties including:

• monetary damages;
• restrictions on the sale of its products; and
• potential seizure of its products.

We believe that this bill would place an enormous burden on Massachusetts companies as it would force them to audit all of their suppliers or face huge penalties and endless litigation.

During an already difficult time in our economy, H.2842 would make it even harder for Massachusetts companies to create jobs in Massachusetts.

The bill includes many provisions that are broad and undefined and we believe it will lead to unintended consequences and will discourage competition in Massachusetts.

Additionally, H.2842 will favor closed source software over open source software. The bill explicitly states that it cannot be used to defend against infringement of open source licenses. This provision would prevent an open source software manufacturer from suing a US software company when that company’s overseas partners violate the software manufacturer’s GPL or other open source license. This law benefits closed source software, while disadvantaging open-source software, its chief competition.

We fully expect that this law will be used by closed source software manufacturers to extract money from innovative companies. We have seen this done repeatedly with patents. Patent trolls have used their patent portfolios to demand money from small iPhone application vendors ( http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/05/patent-troll-shakes-down-iphone-app-programmers.ars ). Even Microsoft has used its patent portfolio to force Google Android phone manufacturers to kick back money to it for each device sold ( http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2011/10/microsoft-collects-license-fees-on-50-of-android-devices-tells-google-to-wake-up.ars ).

The H.2842’s supporters maintain that it will prompt overseas companies to stop infringing on software produced in the United States. We do not find that assertion credible since it will be US companies that pay damages, not overseas companies.

Ultimately, this bill will hurt Massachusetts companies by forcing them to take defensive measures to protect themselves from the effects of H.2842, rather than innovating. It will advantage closed source source software over open source software and decrease competition in Massachusetts.

The Massachusetts Pirate Party urges the Joint Committee on the Judiciary to reject H.2842.

Sincerely,

James O’Keefe
Captain
Massachusetts Pirate Party

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We have finished the conference schedule:

There is a possibility that it might change a bit, but this schedule is close to the final version.

Don't forget, you can preregister by making a contribution of
$5 or more.

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1. 1976: Copyright Act of 1976: Flipped copyright on its head and expanded it massively. Not only did it switch from an opt-in system with registration and renewals to an "everything is automatically opted-in," but it also massively expanded the length of copyright.
2. 1982: Piracy and Counterfeiting Amendments Act: Increased criminal penalties for infringing records, tapes and films from $25k & 2 years in jail to $250,000 and 5 years in jail. Also... made it so that first-time offenders could get the maximum.
3. 1984: Record Rental Amendment of 1984: Outlawed music rentals (have you ever wondered why there were no Blockbusters or Netflixes for music?)
4. 1990: Copyright Remedy Clarification Act: Allowed copyright holders to sue states for copyright infringement (before that, states could claim sovereign immunity)
5. 1990: Computer Software Rental Amendments Act: Outlawed software rentals
6. 1992: Audio Home Recording Act: Mandated DRM on certain digital audio devices (mainly DAT), added a royalty on such devices.
7. 1994: Uruguay Round Agreements Act: Not only did it seize works out of the public domain and put them under copyright (this was what was challenged in the recent Golan case), but it made it a criminal offense to bootleg concerts (audio or video).
8. 1995: The Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act: Created a new "performance" right for copyright holders concerning digital "performances."
9. 1996: Anti-counterfeiting Consumer Protection Act of 1996: Expanded racketeering laws to include criminal copyright infringement, as well as "trafficking" in computer software, documentation or packaging, as well as trafficking in movies or audiovisual works. Also let the government seize property associated with these activities (precursor to domain seizures...).
10. 1997: No Electronic Theft (NET) Act: Decreased the threshold for what counts as criminal infringement (such as taking out the monetary profit requirement).
11. 1998: Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act: You should know this one. Expanded copyright terms by 20 years.
12. 1998: Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA): Again, you may have heard of it. Created anti-circumvention rules and the notice-and-takedown system for online infringement, among many other things.
13. 1999: Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Improvement Act of 1999: Massively increased statutory damages for infringement
14. 2004: Intellectual Property Protection and Courts Amendments Act: Set up penalties (civil and criminal) for counterfeit labels, documentation and packaging in association with copyrighted goods (yes, separate from the content itself). Also lowered the bar to show willful infringement.
15. 2005: Family Entertainment and Copyright Act: Criminalizes recording of movies in theaters and also lets theaters detain people merely suspected of recording in theaters. Criminalizes releasing a work online before it's been officially released (if it's "being prepared" for commercial distribution).
16. 2008: Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property (PRO-IP) Act: Increased civil penalties for infringement. Increased government seizure & forfeiture powers (which is how the government currently justifies its questionable domain seizures) and created a job in the White House to focus on greater enforcement.

Our incredible followers and their savvy use of new media to spread the word of our party has been nothing short of mindblowing. But to compete on the main stage, we need your help once again. A donation of anything from $5 to $2500 will help us continue our fight against censorship, domestic surveillance, warrantless wiretapping and expansion of intellectual property. The Democratic and Republican war machines have billions at their disposal, as well as the backing of Super PACs with undisclosed millions more. Any help you can give us, large or small will go a long way to help us fight the corporate-backed two-party system.

We are volunteers here at the Florida Pirate Party. We promise 100% of your donation will go to straight to the party’s efforts to fight for your rights in Tallahassee and Washington. Please make a one time or recurring donation to help us expand and build our party. Spread the word to as many people as you can. Show the lobbyists in Hollywood and their pets in Congress that we will no longer stand by as our civil liberties are chipped away. Tell Washington their free ride is over, and that the 21st century demands 21st century leaders.

This is excellent news, considering the nature of the bills. However, with the take-down of MegaUpload.com, the message still is not across to the government that the state of things as they are should be allowed. With a mere threat of a DMCA take-down, or seizure of a domain by the government, are we really going to be “okay?” How long will it be before a new version of SOPA or PIPA come up? PIPA is a mere rewrite of another failed Senate bill called COICA, “Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act.”

There is some good news though. This happens to be an election year; a general election year, the best kind, is happening this year. That’s why you’ve been hearing about the Presidential race, and probably have seen people canvassing for signatures on the ballot.

This is the best year for SOPA and PIPA to get the attention they have grabbed. As seemingly effective as it was, the massive online protests held the 18th will not ever be enough to fully stop this bills. If these elected officials stay in power, the acts will come up ad nauseum until they pass. They may have different names, but if the wording is still there, what is different?

After reading what Maddox had to say about the bills, I had to agree with him; he is completely correct. He states in more vulgar language than I could use that the bills will be reintroduced “like clockwork” every so often. If you really believe that these bills should not be in legislation, you need to do more about it; there is no excuse for that. Write your representatives, especially they supported these or other bills you do not agree with. Suggest ideas for legislature you actually do agree with. Even worse for them, if you are dissatisfied with how they are doing their job, tell them that, tell they have lost your vote, and that you will tell other constituents why you will not vote for that person. Most importantly, follow through on what you said you would do! Nothing would help more than that. On a more involved note, maybe you should form a party or join one that closely shares your views, maybe even run for office yourself.

A few days’ of online activism, which literally can be done while sitting on the couch watching TV, causes no one a major inconvenience. If you are truly dedicated to changing the state of things, a few hours’ time every day should be very easy to find. Maybe you will lose sleep doing this, or find yourself without time to get drinks with your friends while you are working on changing things. You may need to relocate if you find yourself serving in Congress in Washington, D.C., or to your state’s capital to serve there, if you choose to on the state level. Maybe you, like myself, find the age-restrictions a hindrance to serving, and feel that you are “stuck.” Again, I suggest you write your representatives in government about this. I have, and there are enough issues for me to at very least attempt to fully form a political party that shares my views.

If you wish to read maddox’s “I Hope SOPA Passes,” it is found at http://maddox.xmission.com/

tl;dr: Yay, SOPA and PIPA are suspended. But it’s not enough.

This seizure is just the latest in a long string of abuses by US officials seeking to enforce laws such as the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) outside of their jurisdiction. Megaupload is a Hong Kong-based company with servers hosted around the world, and none of the 7 named in the indictment are residents of the United States. This act is a clear and blatant violation of national sovereignty, and of the rights of the arrested individuals. The current attitude in our government that our jurisdiction extends to all corners of the globe is moronic and dangerous. We cannot continue to force our laws down the throats of the rest of the world.

The Florida Pirate Party completely, fully and absolutely condemns the actions of the FBI, ICE and the Department of Justice against Megaupload, and their continued abuses of power in their corporate-backed “War on Piracy”. These crimes by the Department of Justice, as well as the upcoming vote on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) have demonstrated the need for a counter to the US government’s attack on civil liberties and the immense power and influence of the Hollywood corporate lobby. The Florida Pirate Party is proud to stand alongside other Pirate parties and liberty activists here and abroad to demand these abuses come to an immediate end.

On that day, citizens are urged to call their Senators and Representatives and DEMAND they oppose SOPA/PIPA. It is NOT enough to just sign a petition and change your Twitter icon. Your representatives MUST hear from YOU that you do not support blacklists and censorship, and it is unacceptable to support Chinese-style censorship rules.

The massive success of the Internet Blackout Day has already sent a clear and resounding message to Washington: The internet MUST remain a free and open exchange of ideas and information. Several supporters and cosponsors of the bill have already backed down as a result of the net blackout, but we still have a long way to go. We showed our representatives what an internet under SOPA/PIPA would look like. As the time draws closer to a vote, we must double and triple our efforts to ensure these atrocious bills are roundly defeated. Below is the contact information for all 25 Representatives from Florida, as well as both of our Senators. Call them and demand they vote down SOPA/PIPA!

Call your Representative and tell them to vote NO on HR 3261 (SOPA)! Don’t know your Representative?

District 1- Jeff Miller (202-225-4136)

District 2- Steve Southerland (202-225-5235)

District 3- Corrine Brown (202-225-0123)

District 4- Ander Crenshaw (202-225-2501)

District 5- Richard Nugent (202-225-1002)

District 6- Cliff Stearns (202-225-5744)

District 7- John Mica (202-225-4035)

District 8- Daniel Webster (202-225-2176)

District 9- Gus Bilirakis (202-225-5755)

District 10- C.W Bill Young (202-225-5961)

District 11- Kathy Castor (202-225-3376)

District 12- Dennis Ross (202-225-1252) Former Cosponsor

District 13- Vern Buchanan (202-225-5015)

District 14- Connie Mack (202-225-2536)

District 15- Bill Posey (202-225-3671)

District 16- Tom Rooney (202-225-5792)

District 17- Frederica Wilson (202-225-4506)

District 18- Ileana Ross-Lehtinen (202-225-3931)

District 19-  Ted Deutch (202-225-3001) Cosponsor

District 20- Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (202-225-7931) Cosponsor

District 21- Mario Diaz-Balart (202-225-4211)

District 22- Allen West (202-225-3026)

District 23- Alcee Hastings (202-225-1313)

District 24- Sandy Adams (202-225-2706)

District 25- David Riviera (202-225-2778)

Call Senators Marco Rubio and Bill Nelson and demand they vote NO on S. 968 (PIPA)

Senator Marco Rubio (202) 224-3041 Cosponsor

Senator Bill Nelson (202) 224-5274 Cosponsor

Our Twitter account, @NYPirateParty, will be down today for 12 hours, from midnight to noon. If you would like to contact us, please do so by email.

On January 18, many websites will voluntarily go on strike [1] to demonstrate against the threat of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT-IP Act (PIPA) bills, pending US legislation that would restrict freedom of speech, negatively impact economies, and degrade internet security. Participation in the strike has been confirmed by Wikipedia [2], Reddit, Mozilla, and Free Software Foundation, among others. Many organizations, including Google, Facebook, and Twitter, have expressed grave concerns over the bills [3].

Regardless of whether its purpose is legitimate or whether it will work; the legislation is not compatible with democratic values. It promotes censorship by giving the US Government and corporations the power to block access to – and take down – websites that they consider to be infringing on their copyright monopoly, including search engines or blogs which link to such sites. This would be done by ordering Internet Service Providers to censor access to the Internet and by cutting funds to the infringing websites by forcing the advertisers and payment services to cancel their accounts [4].

These laws would make social networks, search engines, and all websites providing space for discussion and information exchange impossible to run without massive surveillance of all users and the censorship of everything they publish. A link placed by a user in the comment section of an article in a regular Internet magazine could result in the magazine going bankrupt and the owners being charged with a crime. This would not only cripple innovation and entrepreneurship, it would be a flagrant violation of the fundamental human right to free speech. The bill’s supporters refuse to acknowledge the anti-democratic aspects of the bill as a problem; instead pointing-out that the proposed filtering mechanisms have been proven to work in countries like China, Iran, and Syria [5] – nations infamous for their official suppression of free speech and expression.

Pirate Parties are joining the protest and oppose these bills on the grounds that they will erode the rights of every internet user around the world. Pirate Parties object generally to any legislation that would toughen intellectual property law, but these acts go beyond file-sharing – they harm everyone’s ability to participate and interact online, both personally and commercially.

Pirate Parties urge other websites to join the strike on the 18th.

Pirate Parties who will black out on the 18th:

The following Pirate Parties support it:

Australia
Belgium
Catalonia
Czech Republic
Canada
France
Germany and Young Pirates Germany
Greece
Italy
Kazakhstan
Luxembourg
Massachusetts and Georgia
Russia
Slovakia
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
The Netherlands
Turkey
Ukraine
United Kingdom
Pirate Parties International

Links:
[1] Strike Against SOPA: http://sopastrike.com/
[2] English Wikipedia anti-SOPA blackout: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/English_Wikipedia_anti-SOPA_blackout
[3] List Of Those Expressing Concern With SOPA & PIPA: https://www.cdt.org/report/list-organizations-and-individuals-opposing-sopa
[4] PIPA/SOPA Breaks The Internet: http://fightforthefuture.org/pipa/
[5] It Worked For China, Why Not The United States?: http://www.publicknowledge.org/blog/it-worked-china-why-not-united-states

== END OF ENGLISH PRESS RELEASE ==

We will be voting on our Constitution next Sunday. If you would like to attend, you may join us on IRC at 8 PM. Please note that only those wishing to join NYPP will be allowed to vote on this. You must be a resident of New York, have read the Constitution, and agree to uphold it.

As always, any questions can be emailed, asked in our IRC channel, or to our Twitter account.

See you there!
Liz

The Florida Pirate Party is pleased to announce the release of No Safe Harbor: Essays About Pirate Politics. The book can be bought in dead tree format at the following Amazon link, or it can be downloaded as a PDF (and other formats) at the site linked below.

The website for the book is http://www.nosafeharbor.com

Of course you can always join the dialogue on irc, face to face can
be better. Please read the Pirate Party book when it is released get
educated, and join us.

Our next meeting will be held on Sunday, Jan. 8th, at 8PM on IRC. Our channel and server are listed in the contact section.

We have an offical Twitter account, @NYPirateParty. This account was held by another person, former NYPP member Jay Emerson. I took over the account on January 2nd, and was thoroughly upset by the content of the Direct Messages. I will not post any of the content in those messages, but many people believe that NYPP supports and funds various causes, including OccupyMARINES, Occupy Navy and other related Occupy sites. We did NOT support or fund anything of the sort. In-fact, New York does not recognize us as a minor party yet, and we have no funds at all. Mr. Emerson thought it was appropriate to promote and support his personal politics through the name of NYPP. At this time, it is completely inappropriate for us to promote or support much of anything on our own,

If you did get a website, funding, or any support from “NYPP” in the past, it was not us, but Emerson himself. We have no relationship to Emerson anymore.

I apologize for any confusion caused by this, and as always feel free to contact me directly with any questions or concerns.

-Liz

January 4, 2012
Dear Withheld,
H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act, was introduced by Rep. Lamar Smith on October 26, 2011 and subsequently referred to the House Judiciary Committee. If enacted into law, it would authorize the Department of Justice to seek court orders against websites outside U.S. jurisdiction accused of infringing on copyrights, or facilitating copyright infringement. This issue has generated significant support and opposition in recent weeks. Because of this, I am following its progress in the Judiciary Committee closely. While I am not a member of the Judiciary Committee, I look forward to the Committee's findings on this legislation and I will be sure to keep your views in mind should H.R. 3261 be scheduled for a vote on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Thank you for contacting me. Please feel free to do so in the future. It's an honor to represent the Eighth Congressional District of Georgia.
Sincerely,
Austin Scott

Please take note, our IRC meetings are adjourned until Thursday, January 5th. The meeting will take place at 8 PM.

Happy Holidays!

-Liz

• We gather to change laws, not break them. 
• We strive to use Copyright law to promote progress. 
• We strive for more privacy and less invasion of it by government and private business. 
• We aim for a Patent system that rewards innovation.

Anyway, I’d like to welcome you to the official site for the New York Pirate Party! There will be more updates when I’m not passing 21 hours of waking time. Please excuse the appearance of the site as well.

However, I’d like to announce that we will have a general meeting on IRC this coming Sunday at 8PM EST. I would love to see more names there!

Here is the IRC information:

Server: irc.pirateirc.net #nypp

If you do not have a IRC client, I personally recommend X-Chat 2, also known as Y-Chat, available at http://www.silverex.org/

Hope to see you there!

-Liz “kusanagi” Brunner

You can read about the Swedish Pirate Party: here
Then look at how many countries have united under the flag: here

Cheers

The Obama Justice Department has denied the FLPP FOIA request for the Office of Legal Counsel memo outlining the administration’s belief it has the ability to order the killing of an American citizen without due process. Furthermore, the administration has categorically refused to acknowledge the memo’s very existence.

This development, while unsurprising, is a blatant violation of the basic concepts of government transparency and the fundamental right to a fair and expeditious trial based on fact and evidence. The very notion that the President, the military or the intelligence community believes it has the power to order the killing of a passport-holding American citizen it unilaterally deems dangerous or inconvenient has potentially dangerous and far-reaching consequences for activists and political opposition.

An appeal is now in the works, and will be filed immediately. If this appeal is denied, we reserve the right to begin litigation against the Obama administration’s Justice Department. We call upon the Justice Department to release the Awlaki memo before such drastic steps would become necessary, however.

We will be discussing our response to the new definition of ‘minor political party’ presented by the Washington Secretary of State, and using this to narrow down our goals for the coming year.

Remember – You Are A Pirate!

The FLPP is now on IRC!

Join us on PirateIRC!

Connections:

• uk.pirateirc.net – port 6667 (clear) and 6697 (SSL)
• au.pirateirc.net – port 6667 (clear) and 6697 (SSL)

For hostmask – /msg hostserv take PirateParty/US/Member

Web client here: https://webchat.pirateirc.net/

This has been a very active week: Occupy Seattle has been having police issues, local elections are around the corner, new pirates have joined and helped implement a project manager, and another is contributing an internet radio station. All in all, we’ve been very busy.

We started off the week with a meeting in Seattle at Elysian Brewery. There were some new faces with fresh ideas and valuable insights; it’s through these new pirates that Redmine (See this post for more information) was put on the table and up within 48 hours. It’s already being heavily used, at least here in Washington, although it is already beginning to be picked up by other regions; we feel this will have repercussions throughout the future.

Another pirate has started an internet radio station and we got him in touch with Pirate Radio. He is already airing Pirate Radio’s past episodes on his test site; once it’s ready for primetime, we’ll be tweeting it out, so keep a lookout! In the future, possibly as soon as January, the host of Pirate Radio (Which went on hiatus this summer) is considering starting up again. We are practically giddy!

Occupy Seattle on the other hand has seen better days. They aren’t finding the foothold that protests in other cities have established. It does not help that the Seattle Police Department are employing psychological warfare tactics, just one step away from the brutality in seen Oakland, Melbourne, Atlanta, and Egypt. Occupy Seattle could use all the solidarity it can get. In response, several pirates attended the Seattle budget council meeting on behalf of the 99%; they presented a letter challenging police funding on account of misappropriation. They managed to canvass fifty signatures in only an hour and obtained over two hundred signatures online in one day, an altogether impressive feat. We feel that this is only the first step in what will be heavy involvement in local governance.

Since Wednesday’s council meeting, there was an attempt to run a write-in candidate only to find that our candidate didn’t fit in any of the districts where she might win. However, we’ve gained valuable insight into Seattle’s inner workings in this short lived effort. Resources have been collected and we now better understand what we must do in order to actively participate in local politics. It is through exercises such as this that everyday citizens can pierce the veil of ignorance and become engaged in the system which controls their lives. It does not take experts, lawyers, and over-paid consultants; rather, the dedicated and tireless effort of those who seek understanding and truth.

It is rather easy to simply look towards the highest levels of government and feel that is the only way to make a difference. We are finding every day that we can have the greatest effect if we look at what’s right under our noses! Every day, the path to our goals comes further into focus.

We need your help. There are council meetings to go to, research to be done, committees to attend, projects to lead, and fellowship with those who also wish to make a positive change in the world.

Remember – You Are A Pirate!

Redmine keeps track of ideas, problems, website bugs, and much more. If someone has an idea for a petition or project, all they have to do is post it under “Suggestions”. Any party member can then set up the project so that the community can begin working on it. In this way, there are no hoops to jump through and no need for approval to do something. As the Pirates in Europe have been saying, “If you see something that needs done, just do it… We trust you to do what’s right.” (That being said…if something is not appropriate, it will be moderated in a transparent manner!)

This isn’t just for the Washington Pirate Party either; any Pirate Party can use it. The major benefit to this is anyone around the world can get involved and participate in tasks for any Pirate Party. This is of special importance to newly starting states and regions as they essentially begin with the world as their work force.

It’s a wonder we didn’t have something like this up earlier. We’re excited that our semi-autonomous ‘first mate’ is up and ready to delegate tasks. All you have to do is look around until you see some way you can help then add yourself to the duty roster. Don’t see your idea? Suggest it! This is everyone’s party!

Among other things, the protesters are fighting against corporate money corrupting our political system and a grossly unequal distribution of wealth. They question many issues, such as whether their voices can be heard over the millions of dollars in corporate campaign contributions and donations from private citizens in the top 1%.

The Citizens United ruling, which allowed the creation of Super PACs that can accept unlimited donations without disclosing the donors, has only served to exacerbate the situation by removing any limits that had previously held back the potential flood of private interest money. Many protestors want an end to lobbying and many more want an end to corporate personhood and aren’t leaving until they get it.

Occupy Seattle is protesting at Westlake Park – a public space – and has been courteous, sharing it with other groups who had gotten permits. The protesters had to pick up and move over at four in the morning, while it was raining, when Target wanted to use the area to shoot a movie.

The Washington Pirate Party demands a transparent government accountable to its people, just like the Occupy protesters. We are part of the 99% and we support you!

Hello, Pirates!

There will be a General Meeting in October – the tentative date is Sunday the 16th from 5:00-7:00 PM. This date was voted as the most available on our Facebook group.

(Watewut, Pirates on Facebook? We’re working with some skilled folks to develop a whole new site for consolidating Pirate news and information for the US, so it’s just temporary!)

Location: Elysian Brewing Company – Please bring cash, as the tab will come as one check and, to be honest, we’re supposed to be boycotting Visa anyway.

If you are looking for a ride/carpool, please send an e-mail to secretary@wa.pirate.is.

Can’t Make It or Not in the Area: WAPP will either host a BigBlueButton video conference during the meeting or stream it live, though this depending on WiFi availability. We will tweet a link if it becomes available.

Agenda: This meeting is for setting our goals for the rest of the year and sharing information. We have limited resources, so we need to determine what to focus on.

-Review InfoCamp

-Recruitment

-State legislation to support or oppose (e.g. Top-Two primaries)

-National legislation to support or oppose (e.g. ProtectIP)

-Definition of Minor Party in Washington state (Craft a suggestion for the Elections Board)

-How to elaborate on the Pirate platform to appeal to a broader constituency within Washington

-Elected position to target and how best to get there (Finances, grassroots)

-WAPP Bylaws – Criticisms and suggestions

-Needs (Funds, manpower, forum moderators, wiki editors, etc)

-Planning future events (Protests, conferences to attend, etc)

There’s a lot to talk about, hope to see you there!

A second major victory for the Pirate Party gives credence to the reality that the Pirate Party is not a fad, but a trend.

Capturing 8.9% of the vote, the Pirate Party of Germany has shown that the Pirate movement is not fading. It is steadily growing, and will continue to build as long as there is censorship, restriction of freedom for corporate interests, and a lack of transparency in the corporate and governmental realms.

What does this mean for the U.S. parties?

It means more legitimacy. As anger rises, citizens will seek outlets through which they might vent their frustration – the U.S. pirate parties need to be there for that. What we have now is the beginnings of a structure; it lacks the funding and support of those parties in Europe at the moment, but that is not the most pressing concern. The key now is to build a foundation, a system which is able to scale rapidly, when the people are finally ready.

Until then, slow and steady.

An idea, put into action, has now become an entity, and continues to grow. Here’s a timeline:

01/16/2011 – First ‘meeting’ about the Washington State Pirate Party.

05/20/2011 – Incorporated the ‘Washington Pirate Party’

07/17/2011 – Recognized by United States Pirate Party

07/23/2011 – First ‘Annual’ Pirate Party Picnic (Same day as MAPP)

07/27/2011 – First official meeting, established bylaws and leadership for the non-profit

08/19/2011 – Applied for PAC status

08/24/2011 – First General Meeting online

There is still much to be done.

• The WAPP IT Committee has taken over responsibility and funding of the USPP website and wiki, both of which need a significant amount of attention.
• Due to the introduction of the Top-Two primary system in Washington state, we are not able to apply for ‘minor party’ status until the Washington Secretary of State elections office comes up with a new definition that is acceptable. Meanwhile, we are intent on becoming a Political Action Committee (PAC) until such time as we can appeal for ‘minor party’ status in the state of Washington.
• The USPP was dissolved and the states need to come together to form a sort of ‘State Advisory Board’ to connect, communicate, and help pirates throughout the country. Pirates of the recognized parties decided that we needed to put the power into the hands of the states, not one guiding US party.
• Finally, WAPP is going to build up its activity level. We have some goals to set down, such as getting Pirates on local councils, and will lay down the steps we’ll need to take to get there. As we increase our activity level, we want to be seeing results, not just movement.

At this stage, we have to focus on the foundations of the party. We must put in place systems which will allow us to scale up in an effective manner, but in a way that keeps in line with Pirate Party principles. A lot of effort is going into setting up the website and wiki, putting all our plans on paper, and trying to encourage communication between the state parties.

This is a shoutout to anyone who is interested in helping the Pirate Party – if you have time, we have work for you. Especially if you have skills with WordPress development, PHP, or wiki editing. Other needed skills include knowledge of intellectual property law, election/tax law, or campaign finance.

We need everyone to get involved, to show up at meetings to make their voice heard, participate in the debate, vote on the path their party should take, and help spread the word. The Pirate Party is needed more and more every passing day; government organizations and corporations ignore the rights of citizens, Patent Wars between large corporations damage smaller players, and patent trolls stifle innovation to make easy cash.

If you’re tired of:

…yelling at your computer screen and getting no answer…

…cringing when you listen to the news and wishing ‘someone’ would do ‘something’…

…feeling that your rights have been violated and no one is paying attention…

…being a statistic and are ready to be a Citizen…

Join the Pirate Party.

The Wikileaks founder then warns Facebook users, stating that if a user adds their friend to Facebook, they are “doing free work for US Intelligence agencies, in building this electronic database for them”.

read more

By Casey Chan on October 31, 2010 at 5:00 AM

read more

Keeping it interesting.

Remembering morale, motivations, incentives, and perspectives

I will be focusing on the legal aspects, working with our allies, and recruiting members.

I need help, especially on the technical side and online promotion. I am limited in my time. Though I would love to ramble on and on every day that is just not something I can do online. At least not regularly. So I need some ramblers to represent.

Let's get some discussions going.

Don't be shy.

We are Pirates, we are bold.