I can't believe it's not a democracy!

Not surprised:

Associated Press says U.S. government seized journalists' phone records. Of course this happened. Probably trying to find out who all WH leakers are so they can start prosecuting them and have a whole ward of Bradley Mannings. I am so so glad I did not vote for Obama for president. Holder was his pick for Attorney General. Period. I only hope that some journalists finally understand what this government is willing to do to keep all leaks from happening and start reporting the shit out of what is going on. With a handful of exceptions, DC is a fucking cesspit that needs a Herculean cleaning.

But surely the head of the IMF is beyong reproach. This must be a mistake!

Christine Lagarde's flat raided by French police | IMF chief's residence searched amid inquiry into her handling of €285m payout to Nicolas Sarkozy supporter Bernard Tapie. I hope she, Sarkozy, and the rest of these monsters go down. Then, once the people see that yes, you can destroy monsters, maybe they will go after the monsters' masters, the uber rich families that insist on owning everything forever, and their banker enablers and political whores. Hey, I like to dream big.

When you consider the French police raider her fucking apartment, that she's the chief of the fucking IMF, and that the "[i]nvestigators suspect her of complicity in embezzling public funds after she overruled objections from advisers to proceeding with the €285m (£244m) payment to Tapie," what isn't possible?

If Credo is behind this, then I'm getting a new mobile phone provider:

Telecoms firm hails 'significant victory' as judge blocks FBI's data demands. The Guardian reports: The Californian telecoms company thought to be behind a stunning court victory that has blown a hole in the FBI's highly secretive system for collecting US citizens' private data has hailed the "significant" legal breakthrough.

Credo, based in San Francisco, spoke out after a federal judge ordered the US government to stop issuing what are called "national security letters" – demands for data that contain in-built gagging clauses that prevent the recipients disclosing even the existence of the orders or their own identity.

In a carefully worded release, the firm fell short of revealing itself as the instigator of the legal action that resulted in Friday's development. But it is understood by the Guardian that the telecommunications firm was indeed the unnamed litigant behind the action.The Californian telecoms company thought to be behind a stunning court victory that has blown a hole in the FBI's highly secretive system for collecting US citizens' private data has hailed the "significant" legal breakthrough.

Click the link to read the whole thing. The judge gave the government 90 days to appeal, and given the Obama administration's laser like focus on punishing whistleblowers and continuing W's destruction of the 4th amendment by treating citizens as criminals (see FISA, Sen. Obama's vote in favor thereof), I have no doubt that the administration will throw everything they can at the appeal. I mean, you can't have an effective police state unless you can get whatever you want whenever you want without restraint, right?

I must say that before reading this article, I assumed CREDO was like Move On, a seemingly good idea that either was co-opted by political consultant whores or was the means by which closeted political consultant whores made themselves useful to the democratic party by convincing progressives that clicking a link or signing an online petition was the same thing as actually protesting bad policy or actually engaging in the political process. But if Credo was behind this case--and it looks like they are--I'm going to choose them as my cell phone provider. I mean, they actually did something spectacular. Kudos Credo.

It's like a longer, slower version of "V for Vendetta," but without Natalie Portman:

Anonymous hacks US Sentencing Commission, distributes files. And what is the "as-yet unknown information" that Anonymous is threatening to release if the U.S. government does not comply with Anonymous' demands for legal reforms (which are, quite frankly, sensible and aimed at finally making the U.S. a nation or laws and not men)? No one knows, but encrypted files have been distributed, each identified with the name of a Supreme Court Justice. The question is what is in the files? Information on the named justice, or something more? If at least some of the information in each file is on the justices, I'm guessing that folks might learn that Justices Roberts and Kagan have a little something in common. Please let this be worth the wait.

Update: Anonymous has hacked the US sentencing site again: Anonymous re-hacks US Sentencing site into video game Asteroids. My gut says there is a bit more going on than just the fuck you that comes with the second hack. Does anyone know which media outlet they contacted with information about the nine files mentioned above?

Drip, drip, drip:

News International, the owner of The Sun and The Times newspapers, could face corporate corruption charges over alleged bribery of public officials, it has emerged. Looks like the prosecutors are putting pressure on the more than 20 Sun journalists--not News of the World journos--who have been arrested as part of Operation Elveden. Corruptions charges are not quite the same as listening in to Sienna Miller's voice mail, now is it?

In a country where a factory owner's response to employee suicides is to put suicide nets around the factory, this is positively progressive:

China to cut jail organ-harvesting programmes -- Beijing to implement national organ donation service, reducing dependency on death-row donors. Because "using organs from death-row prisoners was neither ethical nor sustainable." My guess is that emphasis in on the later.

WOW!!! Maybe there is a god, after all? No, just some justice, finally:

Silvio Berlusconi sentenced for tax fraud. Ok, his four-year sentence was reduced to one-year in jail because of some fucking amnesty law, but this filthy asshole might finally serve jail time. Yeah, he should die in jail, but in a world were Pres. Obama calls Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon "savvy businessmen," I'll take whatever I can.

Here's another one who made it through the NYPD screening:

NYPD officer charged with plotting to kill and eat women. Something is seriously wrong with the process by which teh NYPD screens its applicants, no? The rot must be at the top, but the bottom isn't looking good either. Sigh.

Time to bomb Ecuador:

Julian Assange will be granted asylum, says Ecuadoran official. Whether you like Assange or not, Wikileaks is a publisher entitled to the protections afforded the press, and it has forced transparency on all governments, which is a good thing for the regular joe. Just saying.

This is potentially explosive:

Phone hacking: Metripolitan police wins access to Glenn Mulcaire statement. Who is Glenn Mulcaire? Just the private investigator who was hired to hack phones on behalf of News of the World. And the high court has just ordered that the police are to have access to a statement in which he "names those who he says ordered him to hack phones at the News of the World." I know it would be too much to have James Murdoch or even--gasp--Rupert named, but a girl can dream. Still, if it's Rebekah Brooks, then she's toast and maybe she will offer to show where the real bodies are buried. And remember, only recently have we heard about the computer hacking that also apparently was going on....