Is this thing on?

okie doke. How should I say this politely?
“I’m baaaack! ”
Well that might not have been as appropriate as I had envisioned. But let’s just say I am back, and I have a hell of a lot to talk about…

Warrantless Wiretapping of American Citizens A-OK According to Obama’s DOJ

In the past, I have placed all of my “warrantless wiretapping of americans” posts under

Bush’s Watergate on Steroids.
What a joke! Ha ha! But the joke’s on me – and all of us, as it turns out.
It saddens me greatly to have to create an “Obama’s Warrantless Wiretapping” category.
Today is a day I never thought I’d see. Seriously. I thought something as simple as striking down warrantless wiretapping would be a no-brainer. Certainly not a policy the Obama Administration would actually endorse and defend.
This is an excerpt from EFF’s Effector 22.10:

THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION HAS EMBRACED BUSH’S POSITION ON WARANTLESS WIRETAPPING, and goes one step further than the previous administration. In a motion to dismiss Jewel v. NSA, the Obama Administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) made two deeply troubling arguments.
First, they argued, exactly as the Bush Administration did on countless occasions, that the state secrets privilege requires the court to dismiss the issue out of hand. They asserted that simply allowing the case to continue “would cause exceptionally grave harm to national security.” As in the past, this is a blatant ploy to dismiss the litigation without allowing the courts to consider the evidence.
Second, the DOJ claimed that the U.S. Government is completely immune from litigation for illegal spying because the USA PATRIOT Act renders the U.S. immune from suit under the two remaining key federal surveillance laws: the Wiretap Act and the Stored Communications Act. This is a radical assertion that is utterly unprecedented. No one — not the White House, not the Justice Department, not any member of Congress, and not the Bush Administration — has ever interpreted the law this way.
This isn’t change we can believe in. This is change for the worse.
For the full blog post:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/04/obama-doj-worse-than-bush
For the press release:
http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2009/04/05
For Kevin Bankston on “Countdown With Keith Olbermann”:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/04/bankston-on-olbermann
For Keith Olbermann on Obama and Wiretapping:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/04/keith-olbermann-obama-and-wiretapping

***end excerpt***
This is pretty upsetting. I’m still shocked and dismayed.
I wanted to make sure you knew at least. Somehow that makes me feel a little better, usually.

Contact Conference This Fri-Sun at NASA Ames

Last year’s Contact conference was one of my favorite conferences of all time.
The focus of Contact is really hard to explain, but I’ll try: Space Exploration, Artificial Intelligence, Music, Science Fiction, Film making, Singularity stuff, Robot stuff, Artificial Life, Virtual Worlds, Virtual Reality, Space Colonization, Astrobiology, Astropsychology, Astrosociology, Biotech, Bioinformatics… — and *really* on all of it! (and I’m sure I’m forgetting something) — ALL this stuff is covered — and well!
Just go if you can. Registration is a bargain, and there’s a student rate!
Check out the speaker list.

Pete Worden at the The Next Generation Exploration Conference-2 – In Second Life

I’ve been going through my Second Life machinima from 2008, and I’ve found some real gems from last year that I never put up.
The first is NASA Ames Director, Pete Worden (wikipedia – twitter), speaking at last year’s Next Generation Exploration Conference at NASA Ames last March.
Pete packed the house in real life and in Second Life, at NASA’s COLAB SL site.
MP3 of Pete’s talk.

It’s the Sixth Anniversary of the Iraq War

Does anyone care? Seems like it’s just me.
Well I do care. I’m very upset. And I don’t think Obama is doing enough to get us out of Iraq, and I also don’t see how it’s any different than what Bush did, if he sends more troops over to Afghanistan, like he’s talking about.
Feels a little like in the months after 911, frankly. When everybody was all “yea us!” while Bush moved in on Iraq, and everyone assured me that we would do the right thing.
I’ll say it again: Waiting a year to close Guantanamo is wrong.
Not even mentioning the sixth anniversary of the war – just plain wrong.
I know the economy is everyone’s first priority, but stalling on taking action on Guantanamo and Iraq, when lives are at stake, can’t be right.
That’s what it feels like is going on right now.
I waited a day, as I often do, to see if I still felt this way, before sharing my feelings with you. But I just felt stronger about it this morning. So there it is 🙂
thanks!
lisa

Celebrate The Timothy Leary Archives With Me In San Francisco Tonight

I’ve been so busy this week, I almost forgot to tell you about what’s turning out to be a rather large get together tonight in San Francisco at 111 Minna Gallery from 6:30pm-2am.
The event is to raise awareness about one of my latest obsessions/duties: being the Digital Librarian for Timothy Leary’s personal archives.
I’ve made a little website with Jen Simmons (again! we’ve been quite a team lately 🙂 where you can learn more about the archives and the people that surrounded Tim during his adventurous lifetime.
Here’s the invite! Don’t worry about RSVP-ing at this short notice – just say you saw it on my blog, and it’s cool.
See you there I hope!
lisa
****
You are cordially invited to an evening of film, art and music inspired by Timothy Leary and his archives.
Confirmed guests include: Ralph Metzner (Colleague of Tim’s at Harvard and co-author of “The Psychedelic Experience”), Joi Ito (Tim’s Godson, CEO Creative Commons),Denis Berry (Futique Trust Trustee), RU Sirius (Collaborator, Author), John Perry Barlow (Friend of Tim, EFF Co-Founder, Grateful Dead Lyricist), Michael Horowitz (Tim’s Personal Archivist), Lisa Ferguson (Grew up at Millbrook, Director of “Children of the Revolution”), Zach Leary (Tim’s Stepson, Leary.com), Joey Cavella (Leary.com, Retinalogic), Chris Graves (Leary.com, Retinalogic) and many more!
Brewster Kahle will also be on hand to give a little tour of the Internet Archive’s recently launched Timothy Leary Video Collection.
When: February 8, 2009
Where: 111 Minna Gallery
2nd Street Between Howard and Mission
San Francisco, CA 94105
415-974-1719
http://www.111minnagallery.com/
Time: 6:30pm-8:30pm – Reception
9:00pm-10:30pm – Premiere of “The Terrestrials” film by Rene Daalder
10:30pm-2am – Party back at 111 Minna Gallery
We’ll be announcing the launch of several creative projects that use material from the archives, such as “The Terrestrials,” a documentary premiering right after the reception, and “The Leary Virtual Experience,” a 3-D site in the virtual world Second Life, courtesy of the Wishfarmers.
“The Terrestrials,” Directed by filmmaker Rene Daalder, is a feature-length scifi documentary that follows 6 students of UC Santa Cruz as they digitize Tim’s video archives.
The film will be premiering immediately following the reception, at 9pm, just a few blocks away from the gallery, at Obscura Digital:
Obscura Digital
460 Bryant St.
San Francisco, CA 94107
(415) 227-9979
http://obscuradigital.com/
After the screening — and during it if you don’t feel like watching a movie – there will be a party going on all night at the 111 Minna Gallery, featuring DJs and dancing, with visuals by Tiki TV — all featuring media from the Timothy Leary Archives.

Obama Says Guantanamo Will Close In A Year

Of course, that’s not really soon enough.
Barack Obama: Administration drafts order to close Guantanamo camp within year
Draft order would also declare a halt to all trials currently under way at the facility
By Mark Tran and Matthew Weaver for the Guardian U.K.

Moazzam Begg, the former British detainee at Guantanamo Bay, urged Obama to go further. “There is no clear statement about this being stopped and the whole process being recognised as illegal,” he said.
“For myself and other former detainees, until we see something tangible happening we are going to reserve judgment. That is because we have been here before – Bush has stated he wanted Guantanamo closed.”

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Day 1 of Obama – Day 1 Without An Executive Order Closing Guantanamo

I’m excited about our new president, but I’m more excited about closing Guantanamo NOW.

I hope that, tomorrow morning, or at least sometime this week, I’ll get to look like a doubting thomas when Obama closes Guantanamo like he said he would.


Obama Will Issue Executive Order Within First Week to Shut Guantanamo

By Laura Meckler and Evan Perez, in the Wall St. Journal

Mr. Obama acknowledged over the weekend the process will take time.
“It is more difficult than I think a lot of people realize,” he told ABC’s “This Week.” “I think it’s going to take some time.”
He added: “But I don’t want to be ambiguous about this. We are going to close Guantanamo and we are going to make sure that the procedures we set up are ones that abide by our Constitution.”

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Just Finished New Website For Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired

Hey I just finished a cool new website with awesome designer Jen Simmons for the new documentary,
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired.
I’m very proud to have worked on this beautiful website. Not only because the film was, hands down, my favorite – documentary or otherwise – of 2008 (and I saw it 6 months ago, way before I had the opportunity to work on the website or anything), but also because it looks like Marina Zenovich‘s awesome detective work has drawn attention to the Judge’s unprecedented shady behavior – and has now prompted Roman Polanski to file a suit to have the charges dropped for good (with the victim’s blessing).
The website has intensely detailed information on The Film itself, The Case, the numerous excellent Reviews, Articles, Interviews with Marina Zenovich about the film, a Blog for news about the case and the film, and much more…
The DVD will be out January 27, 2009.
You can see
The trailer for the film too!
Here is the statement that was issued today by Polanski’s lawyers (from the same Marketwatch press release):

Lawyers Chad Hummel and Bart Dalton issued the following statement about the public filing today:
“The release of the documentary film, ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED, and its aftermath, have revealed a pattern of misconduct and improper communications between the Superior Court and the District Attorney’s Office, in violation of the rule of law and without the knowledge of the defendant or his counsel.
“This case serves as a classic example of how our justice system can be abused, and defendants’ rights trampled, by an unholy alliance between courts and criminal prosecutors.”

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