This week’s installment of AKPF #1 takes place in three acts. The most modern information is presented initially, and all others are portrayed in descending order. You won’t want to miss out on the historical knowledge presented in the latest episode!
Cody Wilson has a unique relationship to the intellectual property that he has been developing for the past few years. He has designed three dimensional, printable plastic firearms accessories and essential parts, including rifle lower receivers, extended magazines, and the first functional printed plastic pistol, known as the Liberator. However, intellectual property laws in the United States prevent him from being able to directly share 
these designs with the world. While courageous others risk fines or jail time for hosting the schematics independently, the information produced by Defense Distributed is essentially illegal. The reason for this is that the IP laws unique to munitions technology specifically state that all intellectual property related to munitions are deemed to be under the ownership of the US military. As a crypto-anarchist, Cody is interested in neither profiting from nor restricting the sharing of his designs, yet his wishes as the product’s creator are rebuked by federal statute so as to place an artificial limitation on the advancement of the technology. Despite the restrictions and the uses of intellectual property laws to limit the free flow of information and media, Defense Distributed continues to stand for the right of producers to share their created items freely, understanding that ultimately ideas cannot be owned. The above interview was filmed on 22 February 2014 at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Nashua, New Hampshire. (more…)
Last evening in the Mabel Brown room of Keene State College, Cheshire county jail superintendent Richard Van Wickler hosted a presentation representing Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. In the roughly hour-long speech followed by question and answer session, the failures of modern drug prohibition policy were addressed and the call was made to scale back the hostility of the drug war. Van Wickler is one of only two LEAP speakers that is an actively employed member of law enforcement. Filmed from multiple angles, see the embedded videos below for playlists from either angle.
Captured using a Sony HDR-CX190:
Captured using a Nikon Coolpix P520: (more…)
An anonymous video editor who wishes to be known as ‘Duck Truther’ has submitted an edited rendition of the recently released 911 calls related to the Duckgate scandal. In the calls, we hear a representative of the Nashua Crown Plaza hotel call the police because an allegedly drunk man has killed several ducks. We also hear a call from one of three Nashua police commissioners, a friend of the allegedly drunk man, who provided cover for him while police were seeking him out. After coming under criticism and review, Nashua’s board voted not to kick out Thomas Pappas. Listen to the saddening calls and see the crying duck in this powerful submission to the AquaKeene youtube channel.
Last Friday, January 17, 2014, the state of New Hampshire published a press release regarding the dangers of marijuana (cannabis). In this press release they claim that 9.6% of youth aged 12-17 had reported regular use of cannabis. Joe Harding, the director of the Bureau of Drug and Alcohol Services (BDAS) is quoted using the words “disturbing” and “alarming” and goes on to say, “This underscores the need for us to collaborate with not only our partners in the field, but also businesses, law enforcement, the medical field, and schools to implement proven strategies to prevent youth use of marijuana.”
I would like to point out that, according to the Bureau of Drug and Alcohol Services publication, New Hampshire State Epidemiological Profile of Mental, Emotional and Behavioral Health they provide the number of 12-17 year olds who reported having participated in binge drinking within the past month at 11%, more than had tried cannabis in the same time frame. I would like to point out that this 11% is for those that claimed to have participated in binge drinking. Binge drinking is not only use, but abuse, of alcohol.
Taking a closer look at these two substances, I would like to compare their dangers as well. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the mortality rate linked to alcohol consumption was 15,990 related to alcoholic liver disease and another 25,692 related to alcohol induced deaths — excluding alcohol related accidents and homicides in 2010. There were no deaths at all listed as being caused by cannabis. Not a single one.
The BDAS reports that between 2001 and 2006, between 35% and over 45% of motor vehicle crashes were related to alcohol consumption. While, according to Epidemiologic Reviews, published by Oxford University Publications, “Some studies indicate that marijuana use alone has minimal effect on driving performance, while others report an increased crash risk when combined with other drugs”. (more…)
Everyone’s favorite National Security Agency whistleblower has released a Christmas message to the people of the world. Cheers!
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/82666985]
Hi, and Merry Christmas. I’m honored to have a chance to speak with you and your family this year. Recently, we learned that our governments, working in concert, have created a system of worldwide, mass surveillance, watching everything we do. Great Britain’s George Orwell
warned us of the danger of this kind of information. The types of collections in the book — microphones and videocameras, TVs that watch us — are nothing compared to what we have available today. We have sensors in our pocket that track us everywhere we go. Think about what this means for the privacy of the average person. A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all. They’ll never know what it means to have a private moment to themselves — an unrecorded, unanalyzed thought. And that’s a problem, because privacy matters. Privacy is what allows us to determine who we are, and who we want to be. The conversation occurring today will determine the amount of trust we can place both in the technology that surrounds us, and the government that regulates it. Together we can find a better balance, end mass surveillance, and remind the government that if it really wants to know how we feel, asking is always cheaper than spying. For everyone out there listening, thank you, and Merry Christmas.
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