Cops to Congress: We need logs of Americans’ text messages

The government is spying on us via social networks and our e-mails. Now state law enforcement wants to do it to. Welcome to the police state America.

From CNet:

AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, and other wireless providers would be required to record and store information about Americans’ private text messages for at least two years, according to a proposal that police have submitted to the U.S. Congress.

CNET has learned a constellation of law enforcement groups has asked the U.S. Senate to require that wireless companies retain that information, warning that the lack of a current federal requirement “can hinder law enforcement investigations.”

They want an SMS retention requirement to be “considered” during congressional discussionsover updating a 1986 privacy law for the cloud computing era — a move that could complicate debate over the measure and erode support for it among civil libertarians.

As the popularity of text messages has exploded in recent years, so has their use in criminal investigations and civil lawsuits. They have been introduced as evidence in armed robbery,cocaine distribution, and wire fraud prosecutions. In one 2009 case in Michigan, wireless provider SkyTel turned over the contents of 626,638 SMS messages, a figure described by a federal judge as “staggering.”

Chuck DeWitt, a spokesman for the Major Cities Chiefs Police Association, which represents the 63 largest U.S. police forces including New York City, Los Angeles, Miami, and Chicago, said “all such records should be retained for two years.” Some providers, like Verizon, retain the contents of SMS messages for a brief period of time, while others like T-Mobile do not store them at all.

Along with the police association, other law enforcement groups making the request to the Senate include the National District Attorneys’ Association, the National Sheriffs’ Association, and the Association of State Criminal Investigative Agencies, DeWitt said.

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Obama Champions Wind Tax Credit Favored by Campaign Donors

Just more of Obama’s crony capitalism where he takes YOUR money and REDISTRIBUTES it to his campaign donors.

From WFB:

A wind energy tax creditchampioned by President Barack Obama will benefit financially a group of large American corporations that have donated overwhelmingly to Democratic candidates and committees.

Last week a group of 19 non-energy sector businesses—including Yahoo!, Starbucks, Symantec, and Sprint—sent a letter to congressional leaders urging them to extend the Production Tax Credit (PTC), a $1 billion tax subsidy for wind energy set to expire at the end of the year.

“We are concerned that allowing the PTC to expire will immediately raise prices for the renewable electricity we buy today,” the letter states. “…Failure to extend the PTC for wind would tax our companies and thousands of others like us that purchase significant amounts of renewable energy and hurt our bottom lines at a time when the economy is struggling to recovery.”

A review of the companies’ political contributions reveals a strong preference for Obama and the Democratic Party.

The 19 businesses and their employees have given a combined $240,648 to Obama’s campaign this cycle, compared with $83,875 given to Republican candidate Mitt Romney. They have contributed about $7.3 million to Democratic candidates and committees since 2008, compared with roughly $4.5 million given to Republicans.

Yahoo! is one of the group’s largest contributors to Obama and Democrats, having donated more than $985,000 to Democrats since 2008 and more than $44,000 to Obama’s reelection campaign.

The company, its employees, and political action committee (PAC) have given $261,00 to Republicans and just $8,000 to Romney.

Newly appointed Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer is a prominent campaign bundler for the president, having raised more than $112,000 for the current cycle and $386,000 since 2007.

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FOIA Docs Show Ties Between George Soros’ “Free Press,” Google and Obama White House

Just another story about a George Soros backed group influencing the Obama White House.

From the DC:

The lobby group Free Press, a self-styled “public interest” organization, has worked hard over the years to forge alliances with corporate players and federal bureaucrats directly involved in the political intrigues of DC technology and media policy.

Documents made public through past Freedom of Information Act requests and those obtained by The Daily Caller through an undisclosed source reveal a well-funded, ideologically motivated organization with close ties to Google, the White House, and several federal agencies, including the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission and the State Department.

The regulatory policies Free Press advocates, including net neutrality, benefit the organization’s corporate allies, in addition to the investment portfolios of philanthropists including the group’s most well-known financier, George Soros.

The net neutrality debate was largely one about how to best solve the dilemma of meeting continually increasing consumer demand for the data-intensive services of corporations like Google and Facebook. That growing demand for online bandwidth developed in parallel with the communications technology industry’s own problem: the ever-decreasing supply of available electromagnetic spectrum to license to Internet providers like AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Sprint.

The ideological rhetoric of political players on both sides of the debate, however, seemed to force consumers and bureaucrats to choose between free speech and free markets.

John Fund, the senior editor of the conservative American Spectator, explained in a 2010 Wall Street Journal column that the concept of net neutrality was birthed as part of a well-funded and intentional effort by a network of liberal foundations, and that Free Press co-founder Robert McChesney’s “ultimate goal” — as stated in a 2009 interview on the Canadian socialist website SocialistProject – was to “get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control.”

The policy coordination between McChesney’s group and Google can physically be traced back as early as March 2009. Free Press co-founder and former president Josh Silver had sent out a memo, obtained by TheDC, an invitation to the home of Google General Counsel David Drummond — which advertised a reception where attendees would discuss all things related to the Internet policy of the new Obama Administration:

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