The Latest from Boing Boing

Canadian copyright collective wants a music tax on memory cards
Blackwater founder Eric Prince building American-led army of revolution-crushing mercenaries in UAE
Happy Birthday, David Byrne!
Wikileaks: Manning supporter sues US govt. over border laptop seizure
Belarus: opposition presidential candidate sentenced to 5 years hard labor
Caturday: Cats in Tanks (video)

Canadian copyright collective wants a music tax on memory cards

Posted: 14 May 2011 10:32 PM PDT

Michael Geist sez, "Canadians currently pay levies on blank CDs (and cassettes) and now the Canadian Private Copying Collective, which collects the private copying revenues, would like to establish a new levy on blank memory cards used in a wide range of devices such as smartphones and digital cameras. The financial impact of the levy would be significant. A 2GB SD card currently sells for about $6.00 and this would add an additional dollar or almost 15% to the cost. Given that the levy would remain static (or even increase) but the costs of SD cards are dropping by roughly 30% annually, the percentage of levy in the overall cost would likely gradually increase over time. Moreover, music plays a small role in the use of memory cards."

You know, I'd be willing to consider this as a wildly imperfect compromise, if the quid-pro-quo was no more file-sharing lawsuits and threats, no more DRM laws, no more lawsuits against toolsmiths and ISPs, no more censorship and surveillance demands... But as far as I can tell, the deal on offer is: "pay up and get nothing in return."

Forget the iPod Tax, Canadian Copyright Collective Demanding Memory Card Tax

Blackwater founder Eric Prince building American-led army of revolution-crushing mercenaries in UAE

Posted: 14 May 2011 10:37 PM PDT

Eric Prince, the billionaire founder of Blackwater (now rebranded "Xe") is building a stealth, American-led mercenary army in the United Arab Emirates "with $529 million from the oil-soaked sheikdom." The business plan, at least in part, appears to be to help autocratic regimes crush popular democratic uprisings—a response to "Arab Spring." Oh, this will turn out well. Snip from the New York Times' exclusive:

Mr. Prince, who resettled here last year after his security business faced mounting legal problems in the United States, was hired by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi to put together an 800-member battalion of foreign troops for the U.A.E., according to former employees on the project, American officials and corporate documents obtained by The New York Times.
The force is intended to conduct special operations missions inside and outside the country, defend oil pipelines and skyscrapers from terrorist attacks and put down internal revolts, the documents show. Such troops could be deployed if the Emirates faced unrest or were challenged by pro-democracy demonstrations in its crowded labor camps or democracy protests like those sweeping the Arab world this year. The U.A.E.'s rulers, viewing their own military as inadequate, also hope that the troops could blunt the regional aggression of Iran, the country's biggest foe, the former employees said.

Read the rest of the story here.

The New York Times also published a copy of the executed contract. (PDF)

Screen-shot-2011-05-14-at-7.30.jpg

Here is a Google Maps link for the Blackwater UAE compound (via Kurt Brown).

Jeremy Scahill on Twitter, cryptically: "The breaking Blackwater story in NYT is, in part, a limited hangout. Follow the Libyan road."

(Photo: In 2007, Blackwater Chief Executive Erik Prince testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on security contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan on Capitol Hill in Washington. At the time, Prince's company was under investigation over deadly incidents in Iraq, and lawmakers took aim at the company's actions in a shooting in which 11 Iraqis were killed.)

Happy Birthday, David Byrne!

Posted: 14 May 2011 10:57 AM PDT

The musician, artist, author, urban explorer, avid cyclist, and righteously cool human being turns 59 today. Happy birthday, David Byrne! Website, blog, Amazon, iTunes, YouTube.

(Photo: Clayton James Cubitt)

Wikileaks: Manning supporter sues US govt. over border laptop seizure

Posted: 14 May 2011 09:55 AM PDT

With support from the ACLU, David House, an advocate for the legal rights of accused Wikileaks source Bradley Manning, has filed a federal lawsuit accusing the Department of Homeland Security of violating his civil liberties "by seizing his laptop without a warrant when he passed through security at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago." [Boston Globe]. More: Wired News, Washington Post.

Image: David House, via Boston Globe.

Belarus: opposition presidential candidate sentenced to 5 years hard labor

Posted: 14 May 2011 09:51 AM PDT

Andrei Sannikov, a candidate in Belarus's December 2010 presidential elections, was today sentenced to five years in prison. Index on Censorship:

Sannikov claimed during the trial that he had been tortured, denied access to legal representation and that KGB officers threatened to kill his wife, journalist Irina Khalip, and three year-old son, Danil.
In a post-election clampdown on the country's opposition, seven of the nine presidential candidates who stood against President Alexander Lukashenko were arrested. Ales Mikhalevic, another candidate, fled the country after also accusing the KGB of torture. Index on Censorship is part of a coalition of NGOs supporting a private prosecution of President Lukashenko.
Sannikov claims that prisoners at "The Amerikanka", an infamous KGB jail in Minsk, were being psychologically conditioned to violence in an echo of the Soviet-era tactic. Prisoners were shown anti-Semitic films such as Russia With A Knife In Its Back, clips of Chechen rebels being decapitated and the dismembering of children's corpses.

Read (or listen to) the final speech Sannikov gave before the verdict.

Excerpt:

I love my family more than life. I love Belarus. I love freedom very much. I know that my family and all the people of Belarus will be happy when we become free, but this is impossible without law and order.

Four other opposition activists were today sentenced their roles in what the Lukashenko administration labels "mass disturbances": Oleg Gnedchik was sentenced to 3.5 years, and Fedor Mirzayanav, Vladimir Yaromenak and Ilya Vaselevich each received sentences of 3 years.

More coverage: Washington Post, Associated Press,, BBC News.

Related: in The Independent, a bizarre link between the Lukashenko crackdown and... McDonalds.