The Transformation of American Education: Common CORE: Providing Human Capital For Global Industry.

Whether you know it or not, American children, in 45 states, in public and even Catholic schools (over 100 Diocese across the nation have succumbed to the nationalized one-size fits all secular standards of Common Core) are falling under the human capital Public Private Partnership (PPP) model of education called Common CORE  (CC)--"cradle to career education agenda"--curriculum.. Yes, there is a Catholic version of CC, called the Common Core Catholic Identity Initiative (CCCII).

“For those not familiar with the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model of privatizing government functions through corporations, you should be very afraid. For when this form of partnership happens, the government hands over the operation and supervision of government functions and infrastructure to private and publicly traded corporations like General Electric, Monsanto, JP Morgan Chase, and other less than desirable corporate entities. These lease agreements and multi-decade contracts take the government out of government, allowing companies like CORE to sweep in and… well – “Re-imagine” the education of your children.-- Clint Richardson

According to Clint Richardson, best known for his work exposing the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report's or “CAFR”, CORE Education and Technologies Ltd, is a for-profit corporation (see their annual financial report for 2012 here) based out of India that sells an outcome based education model that tracks  children  for the purpose of creating a “master” plan for a global workforce, which according to the state of Illinois -- the most advanced data system at this time, supposedly mirrored at the federal level -- is defined as:

“The term workforce is defined as consisting of the workers engaged in a specific activity, business or industry or the number of workers who are available to be assigned to any purpose as in a nation’s workforce.

The public workforce system is a network of federal, state, and local offices that function to support economic expansion and facilitate the development United States workforce. The system is designed to create partnership with employers, educators, and community leaders in order to foster economic development and high-growth opportunities in regional economies so that businesses find qualified workers to meet their present and future workforce needs.

In other words, as Richardson states, "CORE is a global network of for-profit corporations literally taking over the entire structure of education." This is the business of human capital management, and as Richardson states again, “human capital” means humans as trade-able and disposable commodities. In other words… SLAVES!" CC, which is not law-- not an act of Congress-- is an untested and unproven system that usurps local control, a hallmark of the U.S. education system, to a “one size fits all” solution imposed by elitist bureaucrats who are only interested in creating a global workforce of industry ready workers

Why did 45 states adopt CC so quickly, even when it means they are not allowed to change any of the standards (CC standards are copyrighted)?  It's called coercion. They wanted to stay eligible for Race to the Top funding. 

“Why did 45 states agree to do this? Because the Obama administration had $4.35 billion of Race to the Top federal funds, and states had to adopt "college-and-career ready standards" if they wanted to be eligible to compete for those funds. Some states, like Massachusetts, dropped their own well-tested and successful standards and replaced them with the Common Core, in order to win millions in new federal funds."

Keep in mind, under CC, things like cursive hand-writing will no longer be taught. Why? Well, kids no longer need it, right? After all, they text, send emails, etc.  But what about reading historical documents from early America? Or letters written prior to email?  Since much of history is written in cursive the inability to read it will sever future Americans from the ability to check their own history. Also, the plan is to replace classical literature with “informational text” approved by the Common Core State Standards, something that's already taking place in public high school libraries across the nation.

“Suggested non-fiction texts include Recommended Levels of Insulation by the the US Environmental Protection Agency, and the Invasive Plant Inventory, by California's Invasive Plant Council.

The new educational standards have the backing of the influential National Governors' Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, and are being part-funded by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation."

However, all is not lost.  Although CC does not have a required reading list, it does have a recommended reading list.   Here's one example of what is on its list of exemplar texts for 11th graders: The Bluest Eye

“He further limited his interests to little girls. They were usually manageable . . . His sexuality was anything but lewd; his patronage of little girls smacked of innocence and was associated in his mind with cleanliness.” And later, this same pedophile notes, “I work only through the Lord. He sometimes uses me to help people.” p. 174

“The little girls are the only things I’ll miss. Do you know that when I touched their sturdy little t*** and bit them—just a little—I felt I was being friendly?—If I’d been hurting them, would they have come back? . . . they’d eat ice cream with their legs open while I played with them. It was like a party.” - p. 181

I guess "Bluest Eye" falls in line with CC's National Sexuality Education Standards , therefore, would be considered "informational text".   Yep, parents will no longer have the right to decide what is developmentally and age appropriate for their individual child.

“Students need opportunities to engage in cooperative and active learning strategies, and sufficient time must be allocated for students to practice skills relating to sexuality education." - National Sexuality Education Standards, p. 9

and this...

“Students need multiple opportunities and a variety of assessment strategies to determine their achievement of the sexuality education standards and performance.

If that's not bad enough,  CC gives schools and third parties unprecedented access to  student's personal information.   Every child will have a data set that follows that child into the workforce. This data will be merged with the Departments of Labor, Health and any other third party organizations or research firms that the Department of Education thinks needs your child’s data. The sets include such things as hair color, eye color, gestational age at birth (whether a child was premature or not), blood type, blood test results, birth marks, and even bus stop arrival time.

The bottom line is that the teachers will be teaching to the test, and only to the test, because not only do their jobs depend on it, the principal’s jobs depend on it, and the superintendent’s jobs depends on it, and so on...

CC is a job training program and training stifles innovation, creativity, and competition. The Chambers of Commerce, corporations, and governments love CC because they've been told this will make for great workers. Mark my words, Common Core standards are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the transformation of American Education. 

 Links:

Microsoft Common Core Standards  Exxon, Bill Gates Common Core Spending

unauthorized student data mining., not to mention teacher data mining.

student longitudinal data [tracking] systems (SLDS)

A Framework for Multi-State Human Capital Development Data System

“This “human capital development data system” must be developed to answer “master” policy questions that benefit each of the principal state stakeholders – the K-12 education system, the post-secondary system, and labor/workforce development system….

This “human capital development data system” must be developed to answer “master” policy questions that benefit each of the principal state stakeholders – the K-12 education system, the post-secondary system, and labor/workforce development system…"

Outsourcing the match (the actual task of linking the student unit records together) to a state with a proven capacity to do so….Advantages and disadvantages of this approach…the additional disadvantage that the states, other than the state to which the match was outsourced, give up direct control of their data to a “foreign” state government entity. (Page 16)

A multi-state data exchange – what we have chosen to call a human capital development data system – that enables policymakers to look comprehensively at the stock and flow of human capital has become essential for effective policymaking and planning in the globalized
knowledge economy. Technology now permits the development of longitudinal systems that follow individual students from elementary school through college or directly into the workforce,...(Page 17)

Welcome to the new Common Core fuzzy math.

From the World Bank: “Improving Human Capital in a Competitive World—Education Reform in the United States”

BUSINESS SIGN-ON LETTER IN SUPPORT OF THE COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS

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TPP: The Biggest Threat to the Internet You've Never Heard Of.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) is being negotiated in secret between more than 12 countries around the Pacific region. Find out why it poses a huge threat to your digital freedoms.

“The first concern about the TPP is its Article 4, on “Copyright and Related Rights”.

It extends the terms of protection of these rights to the life of the author, plus 70 years. Although this is already part of Australia’s law since 2006, it goes beyond the life plus 50 years from the Berne Convention and will bring all the signatory countries in line with US law.

Copyright extensions have been criticised as being “bad for innovation, bad for the economy and bad for our culture”. This is because extending copyright protection delays creative material going into the public domain and restricts the re-use and remix of older material into something new and innovative.

It also benefits established artists and corporate rightsholders who have bought the rights from the original innovators, at the expense of emerging creators.

Article 4 also prohibits the circumvention of technical measures which are used to protect copyrights. These measures include the restrictions on music files which prohibit the user making copies, on DVDs which prevent the DVD being played in a different region, and on e-books which stop them being read aloud by the computer.

There are some very limited exceptions to this rule, such as for researchers who are trying to ensure the interoperability of computer programs and to investigate security flaws.

Although technical protection measures can protect against copyright infringements, they can also stop plenty of perfectly legal uses of protected material. The circumvention of technical protection measures can be done for legitimate reasons, such as for promoting competition and facilitating innovation.

Yet this is not included in the TPP’s text, and currently the breaking of a technical protection measure will be prohibited, even if it does not constitute a copyright infringement.

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The Nationally Directed Effort to Take Down Aaron Swartz

The death of Aaron Swartz, co-founder of Reddit, co-author of the specifications for the Web feed format RSS 1.0 (Rich Site Summary), pioneer of open-source, and  Internet activist against the monopoly of information, was sadly, a death that was coerced. Yes, he apparently killed himself, but it's the government--with the assistance of MIT who over-zealously persecuted through prosecution, and pushed him to that point.  Not the first time, I might add.

The issue here is the abusive treatment of citizens, in particular, one citizen who courageously spoke truth to power, Aaron Swartz, by a government bureaucracy intent on intimidating activists. In this case, prosecuting a person accused of a victimless "crime," if it was a crime at all, and threatening a severe sentence--35-years in jail-- in retaliation for, in this case, advocating on behalf of the free flow of information on the Internet.

What was Aaron Swartz's crime? Attempting to liberate taxpayer paid research journals--that already belonged to the public--to the public for free, journals that the "owner" of the records, JSTOR, declined to press charges. Swartz did not seek to profit from the information he liberated, and the writers/researchers had already been compensated for the work, unlike all of corrupt banksters, CEOs, and politicians, who not only go free but are rewarded for intentionally bringing down the global economy.

“..he used an open network connection at MIT, which explicitly allowed free guest access, to download academic research papers that were available for free for any user on that particular network."

According to a good friend of his, Aaron Swartz had a "much broader agenda than the information freedom fights for which he had become known." He was also a "political activist interested in health care, financial corruption, and the drug war."  To sum it up, Aaron's goal was making "life a little less unfair." And for that, he paid the ultimate price.

Here are some of the more unusual aspects in this case:

Two days before Aaron Swartz was arrested, the Secret Service took over the investigation.

"On the morning of January 4, 2011, at approximately 8:00 am, MIT personnel located the netbook being used for the downloads and decided to leave it in place and institute a packet capture of the network traffic to and from the netbook.4 Timeline at 6. This was accomplished using the laptop of Dave Newman, MIT Senior Network Engineer, which was connected to the netbook and intercepted the communications coming to and from it. Id. Later that day, beginning at 11:00 am, the Secret Service assumed control of the investigation."

The top federal prosecutor, U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz and her assistant Stephen Heymann rejected any deal that did not involve a prison sentence.

Aaron Swartz prosecutor 'drove another hacker to suicide in 2008 after he named him in a cyber crime case'

“In his suicide note, James said he had no faith in the justice system, which he believed were trying to tie him to a crime he did not commit.

'I have no faith in the "justice" system. Perhaps my actions today, and this letter, will send a stronger message to the public.

'Either way, I have lost control over this situation, and this is my only way to regain control.

'Remember, it's not whether you win or lose, it's whether I win or lose, and sitting in jail for 20, ten, or even five years for a crime I didn't commit is not me winning. I die free.'

James was the first juvenile put into confinement for a federal cyber crime case.

And last, but certainly not least, from emptywheel, who seems to be breaking most of the news regarding the death of Aaron Swartz, the Department of Justice invoked Aaron Swartz’ manifesto to justify investigative methods.

“And look at the passage from the Manifesto they quote in the brief, which appears in this larger passage.

“There is no justice in following unjust laws. It’s time to come into the light and, in the grand tradition of civil disobedience, declare our opposition to this private theft of public culture.

We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our copies and share them with the world. We need to take stuff that’s out of copyright and add it to the archive. We need to buy secret databases and put them on the Web. We need to download scientific journals and upload them to file sharing networks.

In context, much of the manifesto advocates for things that are perfectly legal: sharing documents under Fair Use. Taking information that is out of copyright and making it accessible. Purchasing databases and putting them on the web.

Aside from sharing passwords, about the only thing that might be illegal here (depending on copyright!) is downloading scientific journals and uploading them to file sharing networks.

Precisely what the government accused Swartz of.

But they don’t cite that passage. Rather, they cite the “making copies” passage–something not inherently illegal. As if that justified the investigative tactics they used.

Used as it is in this page-limited brief arguing why their tactics were legal, the citation is really bizarre. But it does seem to admit that the government considers Swartz’ role in the Open Access movement to be as much proof he was a criminal as that he chose to download the documents at MIT and not Harvard.

This is just one more example of how distorted the whole US justice system has become in order to please the elite few who want to retain their power and wealth at any cost.

“For remember, we live in a world where the architects of the financial crisis regularly dine at the White House — and where even those brought to “justice” never even have to admit any wrongdoing, let alone be labeled “felons.” Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig,

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Under Cover of Darkness: The Trans-Pacific Partnership

Increasingly, corporations are gaining more and more access and influence to legislation that the public and even Congress does not have through groups like  ALEC and trade agreements such as NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, that merged the United States, Canada, and Mexico creating essentially a north American continent of supposedly, "free" trade. "NAFTA contained 900 pages of one-size-fits-all rules to which each nation was required to conform all of its domestic laws - regardless of whether voters and their democratically-elected representatives had previously rejected the very same policies in Congress, state legislatures or city councils." After NAFTA was signed, two-thirds of Canadian families saw a decline in real income while two million peasant farmers were displaced from their land in Mexico, forcing many into trying to gain entrance into the United States, adding to our already growing immigration problem.

Now, there is "NAFTA on steroids," the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) (see links below), "a legally binding trade agreement for advancing transnational corporate tyranny and dismantling domestic democratic accountability" that is not only the largest “free trade agreement” ever negotiated, but also the most secretly negotiated, with "no public oversight, input, or consultations". Only two of its 26 chapters deal with trade, the rest grant unprecedented powers and privileges upon Trans-National Corporations (TNCs)while dismantling regulations and laws without any democratic oversight or input."

Take the intellectual property chapter alone, which would extend copyright provisions, if enacted into law,  from a state/federal jurisdiction to a matter of international agreement, and within that framework, plans on extending endless copyright terms across the globe  The U.S. already has the most extensive copyright terms in the world.  This is increasingly problematic for today's remix culture, intrinsic to the health of our economy. Not only can one face statutory damages, with preset fines of up to $150,000 per infringement, the criminal section of intellectual property chapter indicates an individual could face actual jail time.if it's proven that they had direct or indirect motivation for financial gain  Not to mention, copyright expansion can  be used to silence speech as they often do on websites such as Youtube.

In February 2012, powerful content groups such as the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and the MPAA (Motion Pictures  Association of America) met in Beverly Hills along with representatives from nine countries including the United States were secretly meeting in a luxury hotel in Beverly Hills. Public interest groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) were shut out, their hotel reservations canceled without their consent. Another public interest group's representatives were kicked out of the hotel.

For example, public interest groups have been warning that the TPP could result in millions of lost jobs. As a letter from Congress to United States Trade Representative Ron Kirk stated, the TPP “will create binding policies on future Congresses in numerous areas,” including “those related to labor, patent and copyright, land use, food, agriculture and product standards, natural resources, the environment, professional licensing, state-owned enterprises and government procurement policies, as well as financial, healthcare, energy, telecommunications and other service sector regulations.”

The next round of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement negotiations will take place from December 3-12 in Auckland, New Zealand, and it will be done with the same level of secrecy as the last 14 rounds in order to grant far-reaching new rights and privileges to the 600 corporations aligned with the TPP at the expense of the tax-paying public. This could affect the health and welfare of billions of people worldwide, so where is the mainstream media?

The following is a list of 35 of the 134 lobbying clients who paid more than $1 million on lobbying in 2011-2012 and reported lobbying a federal agency on the Trans Pacific Partnership.

Links:

The Trans-Pacific Partnership: This is What Corporate Governance Looks Like


Why So Secretive? The Trans-Pacific Partnership as Global Corporate Coup

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History Shows Copyright Monopolies Slow Down Innovation

Copyright and patent monopoly is supposed to encourage innovation and creativity, right? Well, that's what we're told. However, history shows the opposite is true. It's clear that the push for more severe laws and enforcement in the area of copyright/intellectual property is nothing more than a power move.

Let’s start around the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. In that day and age, copyright monopoly laws were in force in the United Kingdom, and pretty much the United Kingdom alone (where they were enacted in 1557). You know the “Made in Country X” that is printed or engraved on pretty much all our goods? That originated as a requirement from the British Customs against German-made goods, as a warning label that they were shoddy goods made in Germany at the time. It spread to pretty much global use.

But Germany didn’t have copyright monopoly laws at this point in time, and historians argue that was the direct cause of Germany’s engineering excellence overtaking that of the United Kingdom. In the UK, knowledge of handicrafts was expensive to come by. Books and the knowledge they carried were locked down in the copyright monopoly construct, after all. In Germany, however, the same knowledge was available at print cost – and thus, engineering skills proliferated. With every new person learning engineering, one more person started to improve the skill set for himself and for the country at large. The result is that Germany still, 200 years later, has an outstanding reputation for engineering skills – the rise of which are directly attributable to a lack of the copyright monopoly.

Everything is a Remix:

"All inventions are not so much original ideas but advances or tipping points along a continuous line of invention by many different people, but the most dramatic results can happen when ideas are combined. By connecting ideas together, creative leaps can be made producing some of history’s greatest breakthroughs.
[...]The interdependence of our creativity has been obscured by powerful cultural ideas but technology is not exposing this connectedness." -- Kirby Ferguson, creator of "Everything is a Remix"

"Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery. celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: 'It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to.'” -Jim Jarmusch

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DOJ Wants $5 Million to Act as Hollywood's Private Police Force

Apparently, copyright infringement is big threat to national security, because despite the protest of many public interest groups begging President Obama to stop filling his administration with RIAA lawyers, in April 2009, he appointed the 5th RIAA attorney into the Department of Justice (DOJ). And, now, the DOJ wants $5 million to hire 14 new employees, nine of them - you guessed it - attorneys!

As Congress struggles to resolve the "debt crisis", subsidizing the rich and powerful, not the poor and unempowered, seems to be the only solution to this massive "problem". After all, if they don't continue to increase the burden on the less fortunate, the less fortunate might gather the strength to rise up and break the backbone of their power, and we wouldn't want that, would we?

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SOPA Supporters Distribute and Encourage File-Sharing Software Use for Pirating Copyrighted Material

Mike Mozart (see video below) of Jeepers Media discovered that the very same people who are complaining about copyright infringement, who want to impose SOPA, establishing gestapo like powers over the Internet, are the very same people who distribute file-sharing software! Why? So, they can sue you, of course.

Not only that, Hollywood is inflating piracy figures to push SOPA, and the lesser known PIPA, to censor "we the people" without due process, while cutting President Obama off from further funding, for supposedly refusing to pander. It's an election year after all.

Then there is Orin Hatch, whose INDUCE Act of 2004 set out to "illegalize anything that might make you more likely to infringe copyright. It's written in such overly broad language that you can't tell whether it would outlaw the iPod, tape recorders, libraries, the Internet, or just technology in general. After all, one could argue that all of these have made people more likely to commit copyright infringement".

The bottom line is that, per usual, We the People are made out to be the enemy, when, in reality, it's the infinitely rapacious elite - in this case, the Hollywood moguls and media corporations - employing the Hegelian Dialectic, once again. Problem, reaction, solution.

MGM vs Grokster Copyright Ruling: "We hold that one who "DISTRIBUTES" a "DEVICE" with the object of "PROMOTING" its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is "LIABLE" for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties." . . . . . . . Regardless of the device's non-infringing uses.

Related Links:


Government hits MEGAUPLOAD with mega piracy indictment


Hollywood Moguls Stop Funding Obama for not supporting SOPA

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The Criminalization of Learning in a Knowledge Based Economy.

"The right to learn is now aggressively opposed by intellectual property advocates, who want ideas elevated to the status of land, cars, and other physical assets so that unauthorized acquisition can be prosecuted as theft." - Robert Laughlin, Nobel Prize winning physicist

Sequestering knowledge under  the cloak of a freely available information-rich world is alive and well, as the barriers that scientists, engineers, etc, encounter get larger and larger.  Since the 1970s, intellectual property law (knowledge restriction law) has expanded exponentially, and as I have posted several times before, is about ready to expand once more, as many powerful forces conspire to make acquiring information dangerous, or even a crime.   Now, an innocent  flash of insight could potentially lead to to infringing on a patent or, even threaten national security!  Nevertheless, as paradoxical as it sounds, in a knowledge based economy,  real knowledge will become increasingly less available.  Why? Because, when you commodotize something, it must become less available in order to retain its value.

Sure there is a ton of disposable knowledge, on the Internet, but how useful is it?  Nobel prize winning physicist, Robert Laughlin, author of The Close of Reason and the Closing of the Scientific Mind claims that  increasingly, the really useful stuff is classified or privatized. The knowledge connected to how you make your living is and will become more scarce. At the same time, the information connected to advertising has and will become more plentiful.  In other words, through the dumbing down of our current public education system, absurd patent laws, and excessive disposable knowledge, the knowledge based economy will continue to increase our ignorance. Can you say scary??

Take word processing software, for example. It has made the technology of communication proprietary. It's a computer program that you must buy. In addition to the monetary cost, the price you pay is that it becomes illegal for you to know how it works. If you figure out the communications protocol and write it down on a piece of paper,  and then show someone that piece of paper, you're in violation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. 

And in Oregon, someone wrote a computer program to control his electric trains and promptly got sued. Why? Because the concept of controlling your train with a computer had been patented!

As more and more technical knowledge is outlawed, there is a very real danger that our most brilliant and creative minds, when trying to learn how the world works through the discoveries of others will be rendered impotent by a legal framework that prohibits them from attempting learn about the world around us .

Within the past ten years it has become illegal to to understand encrypted communication and distribute code-cracking devices.  Moreover, it is now legal for corporations to monopolize certain forms of communication; and it is possible to patent sales techniques, hiring strategies, and gene sequences. There are now attempts to patent the entire idea of Internet learning. So, if you want to teach someone over the Internet for profit, you will have to pay a liscencing fee to the people who invented Internet learning. Broad areas of science, in particular, physics and biology, are now off limits to public discourse because they are national security risks and there are notorious examples in the literature of medical research at universities that are blocked because of a patent position that a company has taken.  You can't do research on it without paying them a liscence fee. These ever increasing restrictions on fertile scientific and technological fields are creating a new Dark Age

In effect, the decision to deindustrialize is making us an even more ignorant society.  The more knowledge based our economy becomes the less knowledge there is going to be for free.  The  continuation of this trend will end up in a situation where there is nothing left but knowledge and none of it is free.

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Obama's Draconian Intellectual Property Law Proposals Already in Effect

The mass incarceration that's taken place over the last three decades, largely under the auspices of the "War on Drugs" that has only served to create a permanently criminalized underclass will not only continue, it will greatly expand under Obama administration's crackdown on intellectual property law offenders as he felonizes infringement.

Take former Goldman Sachs computer programmer, Sergey Aleynikov.  He did not kill anyone. He did not assault anyone. He did not inflict bodily harm on any living creature, nor take or sell drugs...he did something much worse: he stole source code from Goldman Sachs.  For this victimless crime, because Goldman Sachs is no one's victim, the government wanted to seek a sentence five-times higher than what probation recommends.  Well, federal Judge Denise L. Cote, who likened his crime to “economic espionage”, sentenced him to four-times what the probation recommended - eight years - explaining that Mr. Aleynikov's conduct “deserves a significant sentence because the scope of his theft was audacious — motivated solely by greed, and it was characterized by supreme disloyalty to his employer.” Oh, the irony!

Did Mr. Aleynikov break the law?  Do something wrong?  Yes he did; however he certainly showed remorse when he said, “I never meant to cause Goldman any harm. I am sorry for the burden and emotional impact this trial has caused on my family, and my mother and children.” I think it's fairly clear that Mr. Aleynikov does not pose a threat to society; therefore, should receive the minimum sentence, especially considering he is a first time offender.

President Obama is not legitimately trying to address infringement or counterfeiting problems with his sweeping revisions to U.S. copyright law. He is simply cracking down on the people in order to protect the interests of corporations, instead of encouraging companies to adapt to the changing technological environment.

“The legitimate desire to address some serious counterfeiting abuses - such as medications or industrial components used in defense products - has been hijacked to create draconian proposals to alleviate the content industry of the burden of protecting its own interest using its own extensive resources. The government's role in protecting the public's right to safe medicine and component parts should not be allowed to morph into supplanting the responsibility of private companies to use existing legal remedies to remove possibly infringing content online and bring legal action against those involved. -- CCIA President & CEO Ed Black

Links:

Government Seeks Sentence Five Times Higher Than Probation Recommends

Intellectual Property Watch

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White House and Big Corporations Want to Destroy the Internet as We Know It.

Until very recently, most of us could only passively consume our media. We could listen. We could watch. But we couldn’t touch, enter into, or even respond to the media. The Internet has changed all of that, leveling the playing field in such a way that anyone with a connection can participate. The powers that be are not happy.

The other day, Sen. Al Franken claimed that big corporations are "hoping to destroy" the Internet, by destroying "the very thing that makes it such an important [medium] for independent artists and entrepreneurs: its openness and freedom." He then claimed, "Net neutrality is the First Amendment issue of our time."

However, it appears the Obama administration wants to crackdown on the Internet, and eliminate this new emergent participatory media production that depends on "fair use", by policing the Internet, making copyright infringement a felony.  He wants to tighten many forms of intellectual property law, increase existing criminal penalties, and expand wiretap laws to include copyright and trademark infringement, ultimately giving even more authority to Homeland Security.   He has proposed sweeping revisions to U.S. copyright law, including making "illegal streaming" of audio or video a federal felony and allowing FBI agents to wiretap suspects.

Turning to the specific recommendations, the Administration recommends increasing the statutory maxima for the following offenses:

1. Increase the statutory maximum for economic espionage (18 U.S.C. § 1831) from 15 years in prison to at least 20 years in prison.

2. Increase the statutory maxima for drug offenses under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA), particularly for counterfeit drug offenses.

The Administration recommends that Congress: (1)  direct the U.S. Sentencing Commission to increase the U.S. Sentencing Guideline range for intellectual property offenses; (2) require the U.S. Sentencing Commission to consider five specific categories of changes to the Guidelines; and (3) require the U.S. Sentencing Commission to act within 180 days of such legislation being adopted (including issuing a report explaining why it has not adopted any of the specific recommendations). The five categories of specific recommendations for the U.S. Sentencing Commission are:

1. Increase the U.S. Sentencing Guideline range for the theft of trade secrets and economic espionage,
including trade secrets transferred or attempted to be transferred outside of the U.S.

2. Increase the U.S. Sentencing Guideline range for trademark and copyright offenses when infringing products are knowingly sold for use in national defense, national security, critical infrastructure, or by law enforcement.

3. Increase the U.S. Sentencing Guideline range for intellectual property offenses committed by organized criminal enterprises/gangs;

4. Increase the U.S. Sentencing Guideline range for intellectual property offenses that risk death or serious bodily injury and for those offenses involving counterfeit drugs (even when those offenses do not present that risk); and

5. Increase the U.S. Sentencing Guideline range for repeat intellectual property offenders.

The Administration recommends three legislative changes to give enforcement agencies the tools they need to combat infringement:

1. Clarify that, in appropriate circumstances, infringement by streaming, or by means of other similar new technology, is a felony;

2. Authorize DHS, and its component U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), to share pre-seizure information about, and samples of, products and devices with rightholders to help DHS to determine whether the products are infringing or the devices are circumvention devices; and

3. Give law enforcement authority to seek a wiretap for criminal copyright and trademark offenses.

The Administration recommends two legislative changes to allow DHS to share information about enforcement activities with rightholders:

1. Give DHS authority to notify rightholders that infringing goods have been excluded or seized pursuant to a U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) order; and

2. Give DHS authority to share information about, and samples of, circumvention devices with rightholders post-seizure.

The Administration recommends six legislative changes to improve U.S. enforcement efforts involving pharmaceuticals, including counterfeit drugs:

1. Require importers and manufacturers to notify the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other relevant agencies when they discover counterfeit drugs or medical devices, including the known potential health risks associated with those products;

2. Extend the Ryan Haight Act’s definition of “valid prescription” (and its telemedicine exemption) to the FFDCA to drugs that do not contain controlled substances;

3. Adopt a track-and-trace system for pharmaceuticals and related products;

4. Provide for civil and criminal forfeiture under the FFDCA, particularly for counterfeit drug offenses;

5. As noted above, increase the statutory maxima for drug offenses under the FFDCA, particularly for counterfeit drug offenses; and

6. As noted above, recommend that the U.S. Sentencing Commission increase the U.S. Sentencing Guideline range for intellectual property offenses that risk death and serious bodily injury, and for those offenses involving counterfeit drugs (even when those offenses do not present that risk).

What's more is that with all of the important unresolved issues, not to mention, the banksters and  major Wall Street criminals basking in their billions and still in charge, you have to wonder why the Obama administration chooses to focus, in comparison, on what seems like such a trivial matter.  Well, one can only conclude that it's much more than that. It's an underhanded power grab, to control the distribution of information, communication, ultimately providing Big Brother with the power to wiretap anyone for any reason.

It all boils down to who benefits and who pays.   As always, it's the elite who benefit the most - the prison industrial complex, big corporations, Hollywood, the banksters - while we, the taxpayers, continue to pay through the nose. As someone once said, "who gets prosecuted for what has always been and always will be political and decided by those with wealth and power".

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Big Pharma or Us?

Generic drugs make up 70% of all prescriptions, and according to House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Henry Waxman, "in the last decade alone, generic drugs have saved consumers, businesses and state and federal governments $734 billion." Despite that savings, the cost of drugs continues to escalate. In large part this is due to what is regarded as the future of health care: biotechnology drugs, or "biologics".

Simply put, biologics are protein based drugs made from living organisms - hamster ovaries, mare's urine, pig intestines, blood - grown inside living cells, as opposed to chemicals, normally showing better efficacy and safety than conventional drugs. Used to treat everything from cancer to multiple sclerosis to psoriasis, biologics currently make up about 20% of the pharmaceutical market - predicted to make up half the market by 2015 - and are the fastest-growing class of medicines, with more than $40 billion in annual sales in the United States.

However, the FDA has no authority to approve lower-cost, generic versions, biosimilars or “follow-on biologics” (“FOBs”) so, these drugs very rarely face competition from generic copies. FOBs (generic form of biologics) could save patients, insurers and our government anywhere from $67 billion to $108 billion during the first decade, and between $236 billion to $378 billion over the next two decades according to the Generic Pharmaceutical Association.

The contentious issue here is the length of time that brand names can hold a monopoly before the FDA can approve the entry of generic competitors. Competition from generic drugs has substantially reduced prescription drug prices and overall prescription drug expenditures, increased access to therapeutic drugs for more Americans, and hastened the pace of innovation.

The provision in proposed health care legislation would allow pharmaceutical companies to extend monopolies to 12-years exclusivity once the product is licensed by the FDA. Even after 12 years, this legislation would allow a pharmaceutical company to extend market protection for its biologic by making minor modifications to the drug to effect dosing, for example.

Generic brand medications only make up for 17 percent of all profits, and generic prescription companies are more focused on the hit that consumers will take financially if longer terms of exclusivity are given to brand-names and biologics. Brand names and biologics, however, are more focused on their profits.

So, why do biologics need a 12-year instead of a 5-year monopoly?

The answer is, of course, profit, and not just a little profit...a lot of profit. According to the pharmaceutical trade association, the average research and development costs are approximately the same for biologics as they are for conventional drugs. Not only that, generics face higher than normal barriers to entering the market. The FTC recently released a report entitled, “Follow-on Biologic Drug Competition” which addressed questions that have arisen about whether the price of biologics might be reduced by competition if there were a statutory process to encourage biosimilars or FOBs to enter and compete with pioneer (brand name) biologics once a pioneer drug’s patents have expired. The FTC did not recommend biologics any years of exclusivity protection.

Based on these findings, the Report concludes that patent protection and market-based pricing will promote competition by FOBs, as well as spur biologic innovation. It states that legislation to put a process in place for the abbreviated FDA approval of FOBs is likely to be an efficient way to bring FOBs to market, because of the time and cost savings it would provide.

In addition, the Report states that the 12- to 14-year regulatory exclusivity period is too long to promote innovation by these firms, particularly since they likely will retain substantial market share after FOB entry. The Report concludes that special procedures to resolve patent issues between pioneer and FOB manufacturers before FDA approval, which are not needed,
could undermine patent incentives and harm consumers. Finally, the Report states that FOB manufacturers are unlikely to need additional incentives – such as a 180-day marketing exclusivity period – to develop interchangeable FOB products.

Links:

Act and Myth of Exclusivity Incentive

Competition Counts

Frequently Asked Questions About Therapeutic Biological Products

Emerging Health Care Competition and Consumer Issues

See How Pay-for-Delay Settlements Make Consumers and the Federal Government Pay More for Much Needed Drugs: Hearing Before the H. Subcomm. on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection, Comm. on Energy and Commerce.

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Founding Fathers Sanction Open Source Society

No, the Founding Fathers have not come back to life - although if they did, they wouldn't last long after witnessing what's left of the Constitution - however, their writings and example send a clear message on the topic of "open access".

Some proprietary companies claim and will continue to claim that open source or open access is communist or anti-American. The Founding Fathers would have claimed the opposite, as they had definite opinions on the free flow of information and remained very skeptical about copyright laws. They would cringe at the idea of extending copyright as we do today, as it creates monopolies and offers no public benefit. Consider the greatest inventor of all time, Benjamin Franklin, who never patented a thing he invented.

Almost 240 years ago, a good friend of Ben Franklin, Joseph Priestly, illustrates this point further. Primarily famous for figuring out that plants create "good air" therefore replacing the air animals consume, Priestly proved to be revolutionary in more fields than one - in particular, science, religion, and politics - and far more influential than he was given credit.

According to Steven Johnson, author of "The Invention of Air: A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America" Priestly is "the missing philosophical link between our founding fathers." Priestly greatly influenced the Founding Fathers including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, who Priestley wrote to after his discovery of "good air" and with whom he had a collaborative and intellectual relationship.

"That the vegetable creation should restore the air which is spoiled by the animal part of it, looks like a rational system." -- Ben Franklin responding to Priestly

Years later, after Priestly accepted a job as a minister, he moved into a temporary residence adjacent to a brewery, to await the house he was supposed to move. While there, he noticed a haze coming off the brewing beer and upon further investigation, discovered carbonation, hence his discovery of soda water. He immediately published the recipe for his new invention without thought to profit, as Steve Johnson writes, "The idea of proprietary secrets, of withholding information for personal gain, was unimaginable in that group." Of course, years later, in 1783, Johann Schweppe patented the process, which continues to provide "personal gain" through today.

Ben Franklin said the following regarding the subject of open access after he invented the Franklin stove:

I wrote and published a pamphlet, entitled "An Account of the new-invented Pennsylvania Fireplaces; wherein their Construction and Manner of Operation is particularly explained; their Advantages above every other Method of warming Rooms demonstrated; and all Objections that have been raised against the Use of them answered and obviated," etc. This pamphlet had a good effect. Gov'r. Thomas was so pleas'd with the construction of this stove, as described in it, that he offered to give me a patent for the sole vending of them for a term of years; but I declin'd it from a principle which has ever weighed with me on such occasions, viz., That, as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously. -- Ben Franklin

The idea behind the Founding Father's thinking was that the free flow of ideas and information foster the growth of original thought, and as Ben Franklin said, attract the attention of genius who can improve upon and solve problems half understood.

Fast forward to the last Presidential campaign. Obama used open source software and McCain used proprietary software. With proprietary, society gets the soda water, and with open source or open access, society gets soda water and the recipe for the soda water. President-elect Obama's tech agenda seems to support the latter. His choice of Julius Genachowski to chair the FCC is at the very least, an improvement. So, even though the first stab at a Broadband Bill is disappointing, it appears that net neutrality, open source and a more level playing field just might have a chance.

"We can’t allow a system of gatekeepers to get built into the network. The Internet shouldn’t be harnessed for the profit of a few, rather than the good of the many; value should come from the quality of information, not the control of access to it." -- Damian Kulash Jr. lead singer of OK Go

Some Open Source links:

Open sustainability camp

Open source car

Open source comes to medical instruments.

Software industry vs. software society

Open Democracy - aims to build the open source model for news analysis and opinion

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"Fair Use" Enables Creation, the Essential Ingredient to Economic Growth

Picasso said, "Mediocre artists borrow, great artists steal." There is a lot of truth to what Picasso says and he should know, right?

Drill down to the core of any creation and you will undoubtedly find "copyright infringement". It's how life rolls. None of us are gods as much as we would like to believe that we are.

Therefore, Fair Use, a doctrine in U. S. copyright law that allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders when the benefit to society outweighs the cost to the copyright owner, is fair, as it legalizes the process of creation, something essential to the existence of the human being.

So, having said that, how does this law work? The particular use of a copyrighted work is permissible dependent upon four factors, the last factor weighted heavily:

1. The character and purpose of the use.
2. The nature of the copyrighted work.
3. The amount of the work that is used.
4. The effect of the use on the market for the copyrighted work.

As the debates regarding copyright law in the digital age escalate, it's important to keep in mind that the Fair Use economy represents one-sixth of U.S. GDP or more than $4.5 trillion in annual revenue for the United States. Not only that, nearly one out of every eight American jobs is in an industry that benefits from "fair use".

The aforementioned information, in and of itself, especially considering the state of our economy, is enough proof that the benefit of "fair use" to society far outweighs the cost to copyright holders. The "fair use"doctrine should be expanded to incorporate the inevitable rapid changes that will continue on in the digital age, in order to avoid the cost of unnecessary litigation, while at the same time, supply the fertile ground needed for economic growth to occur across the broad spectrum of various sectors that make up our economy.

“Much of the unprecedented economic growth of the past ten years can actually be credited to the doctrine of fair use, as the Internet itself depends on the ability to use content in a limited and nonlicensed manner. To stay on the edge of innovation and productivity, we must keep fair use as one of the cornerstones for creativity, innovation and, as today’s study indicates, an engine for growth for our country”

I would think John McCain agrees ...Jackson Browne, not so much. I don't know that John McCain's use of Browne's song, "Running on Empty" benefited society all that much, but considering it was only a small portion of the song rather than a large one, McCain's chances are good that "fair use" will more than likely be found. However, the question is, did McCain's use of that small portion help the marketing of Browne's content or did it reduce of the market for Browne's content?

Just as Steve Perry didn't want to see 'the Soprano family being whacked to 'Don't Stop Believin', it's possible Jackson Browne did not want to see John McCain running his campaign to the tune of "Running on Empty".

However, Jackson must realize that John McCain, despite his politics (I'm assuming Browne is a Democrat), may have introduced his song to a brand new generation who would have never heard of him, otherwise. Who knows? Maybe that clip will inspire a youngster to musical greatness.

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What do Joe Biden and Eliot Spitzer Have in Common?

As I have said before, Joe Biden's experience is a positive addition to Obama's candidacy, however, his long history becomes antiquated and is a detriment in the area of technology. Either that, or he's trying to make up for infringing on the copyright of others.

Biden's pro RIAA tech voting record, his effort to expand copyright law, his somewhat hypocritical effort to remedy the situation, and finally, his lack of perspective in this area could be compared to Spitzer's paradoxical behavior in another realm, although not as quite as drama filled and salacious as that of Mr. Spitzer.

Hopefully Obama will convince his running mate to support the principle of network neutrality and to quit backing the RIAA and the MPA as they are more than capable of taking care of business on their own.

Even after this "devastating" news, I'd still back Joe Biden's candidacy 100% if he were running for President. Why? Because, as I've also mentioned numerous times before, Joe Biden has demonstrated above all else, that he is willing to learn from his mistakes and that he's flexible enough to incorporate new information and experience in order to keep up with the rapidly changing complex global environment that is our future.

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At Home With Hitler

This blogger's father-in-law had kept a copy of Home and Gardens from 1938 for personal reasons. The blogger scanned in the article, At Home with Hitler and was told to take it down by Home and Gardens Magazine for copyright reasons.

The Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies insisted they release this article to the internet.

As educators who have taught about the Holocaust, we are deeply disappointed that Homes & Gardens has pressured a British web site to delete a 1938 Homes and Gardens article that portrayed Adolf Hitler in highly sympathetic terms.

A crucial part of Holocaust education involves studying the failure of the Western media to fully and accurately report about the Nazi menace in the 1930s. The attempted suppression 65 years later of articles such as the 1938 feature in Homes and Gardens undermines efforts to teach about the Holocaust and its lessons.

Just as various governments, corporations, and institutions have acknowledged their role in the Holocaust process by publicly apologizing, paying reparations, or taking other appropriate steps to face up to their past, so too should Homes and Gardens squarely face up to its past. We urge Homes and Gardens to make the full 1938 article available at no cost to interested readers, together with a formal letter of apology from the publisher.

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