Immigration Reform - Aren't We All the Immigrants?

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With Immigration reform promised in his first year by President Barack Obama back in 2009, and this being his fifth year in office, there is a chance Immigration reform actually might make it through Congress.  However, as far as our nation's capitol, nothing can be guaranteed except extended procrastination.

 

Long ago we should have had meaningful Immigration reform, the first since major bills were passed in 1965 and 1986, if we had not forgotten that when it comes down to the real facts, we really are a nation of immigrants.

 

 

There are a lot of things the president and congress can do to change or manipulate reality or to rewrite history but the plain truth is clear.  In 2010 there were 2.9 million pure blooded Native American and Native Alaskan Indians in America and 2.3 million Natives with mixed blood, a total of 5.2 million.
 

 

Since the total US population in 2010 was 308,745,538 that means just 1.8% of the population are original Americans, or 98.2% of Americans are immigrants or ancestors of immigrants.

 

Unlike the many countries settled since the discovery of America in 1492 the United States has the most diverse ancestry in the world.  The largest ancestral country of origin for Americans is Germany yet it only represents 15.5% of our total population.  No major country in the world can claim similar diversity of ancestry, not even newer nations like the US such as South American nations, Canada or Australia.

 

 

Since the 1800's there have been more Germans ancestors than any other immigrants to America with 48 million in 2010.  Also since the 1800's Irish have been firmly in second place with 34.7 million in 2010.

 

The dominant Hispanic country of ancestry is Mexico - 31.8 million followed by the English - 25.9 million, Italian -  17.2 million, Polish - 9.6 million, French - -8.7 million, Scottish - 5.4 million, Dutch - 4.6 million, Norwegian - 4.4 million and Scottish/Irish - 4.4 million show the dominance of European nations to American ancestry.  High profile immigrants from Russia, China, Cuba, India, Korea and Japan all range between 1-3 million.

 

 

In total about 500 ancestries have been reported to the US Census Bureau on behalf of the American population.

 

So I guess the bottom line in our message to all the nations of the world is, "We are you!"  Truly we are the only true melting pot of culture, religion, society and wealth in the world.  It makes us unique, but also makes us responsible to set the definitive example of how all of the people on Earth should be able to live in peace, harmony, prosperity and individual freedom.

 

 

Such inherent American virtues and characteristics should be embedded in our laws and actions but the dysfunctional federal government including the president and congress have made a mockery of adherence to American values.  They are yet to achieve the most basic of all actions, approving a budget, and have failed to approve one every year Obama has been president.

 

Well they better approve meaningful Immigration reform or the ancestors of immigrants may very well deport those same federal elected officials.

 

 

As for a lingering immigration issue that may still derail the reform movement, the issue of securing our borders, several years ago I proposed a very simple and logical way to achieve security.

 

We have about 2.5 million defense soldiers and civilian employees but only 1.1 million are in the USA. Since about 100,000 are in both Iraq and Afghanistan that leaves 1.2 million DOD employees all over the rest of the world.

 

There are over 735 American military bases outside the USA including 38 large and medium size facilities. At the height of the British Empire in 1898 they had 36 bases spread out around the world and at the height of the Roman Empire in 117 AD they had 37 major bases. Of course they were both trying to conquer the world. We aren't supposed to be conquering the world so we should get rid of the excess bases.

 

 

We could save billions of dollars a year if we moved a number of the very expensive foreign bases back to America and strategically located them along our southern border.  The presence of tens of thousands of US military troops and their bases would be a far greater deterrent to illegal immigrants or drugs than a few thousand more border patrol agents and a higher fence.

 

Immigration is not a political issue and should not be caught in the debate between two partisan parties.  If truth be known two partisan political parties have no business controlling the agenda for America and after their performance the last few years isn't it time we wake up?

 

 

Our Constitution does not guarantee control of any kind to the Democrats or Republicans so we need to campaign for freedom from the archaic and worn out platforms and control of the two political parties and return to what worked the first couple of hundred years, multiple political parties to choose from in elections.

 

 

The following is a summary of the history of Immigration reform in America from University of North Carolina - Greensboro.  You should read it and you will better understand the story behind the Immigration debate.

 

University of North Carolina Greensboro

 

 

A Brief Look at the History of Immigration Reform

by Dr. Raleigh Bailey, CNNC Director and Research Fellow

The U.S. Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were written by refugees and immigrants and their children who sought religious and economic freedom. These documents represented ideals that became cherished around the world. For the first 100 years of U.S. history, there were no immigration laws.

The first immigration law passed by Congress was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. At that time Chinese workers were being recruited in large numbers to do hard labor on the West Coast, building railroads and other large construction projects. However, California land developers did not want the workers to have the right to stay, buy land, and become citizens.

At the same time, our northern and southern borders were essentially porous. Much of what is now Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada and California were part of Mexico until the U.S. claimed the lands through wars or treaties. As the Southwest became U.S. territory, the Hispanic populations there came under U.S. rule. In many cases, families were suddenly divided by citizenship and residency requirements, though mutual visitation was ongoing.

 

With the depression of the 1930s, many family farms were lost. Land was bought up by agribusinesses. Farm labor needs were met by the newly homeless families who had lost their lands. With World War II, when young men were called to the military, agribusiness began to rely on migrant farmworkers from Latin America and the Caribbean. Many workers were brought as contract labor and others came on their own for growing seasons, returning to join their families after the crops were harvested.

 

 

Approximately 5 million Mexicans participated in the Bracero program, a labor agreement between the U.S. and Mexico, between 1942 and 1964. The exploitation of these workers is well-documented. After the war and the growing shift toward manufacturing and urbanization, agriculture continued to rely on migrant farmworkers, both those who were documented and recruited by labor contractors and those who simply crossed the border to continue their seasonal work jobs. That system has continued to the present day.

 

The 1960s brought major changes to the U.S. immigration system. Following the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, a newly conscientious U.S. Congress passed a new law, the Immigration Reform Act of 1965, which struck down our Eurocentric bias. Persons from countries around the globe could apply to migrate to the US if they met conditions related to family reunification, U.S. employment needs, or refugee status. The flood of refugees to the U.S. after the Vietnam War led to the Refugee Resettlement Act of 1980, which formalized the refugee resettlement process and established a new flow of people seeking freedom and security.

 

 

Several years later Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. This legislation was the first time a bill made it unlawful for an employer to hire an undocumented worker, and it created a pathway to citizenship for migrant farmworkers who had a history of work in the U.S. and who had no legal problems other than being unauthorized. It was a significant piece of legislation designed to rectify the fact that the U.S. recruited and depended upon vast numbers of Latin American farmworkers who did not have travel documents in order to sustain our agricultural economy. Many of these people then moved out of the fields and into construction jobs created by our growing economy. New farmworkers, many of them without documents, then came to fill the farm jobs.

 

In 1994 the U.S. and Mexico passed NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. U.S. agribusinesses were able to sell government-subsidized corn in Mexico at below market prices, destroying the traditional farm economy there. This was further complicated by the Mexican government’s decision to suspend the “ejido” system. Ejidos, written into the Mexican constitution, are communal farm lands shared by families and villagers and passed from generation to generation. The suspension allowed ejido lands to be sold to multinational agribusiness corporations. As a result, more unemployed young men who were strong and brave enough made the dangerous trek to “El Norte.”

 

 

 In 1996 the U.S. Congress passed two major bills that severely penalized undocumented residents and restricted legal immigrants from using many public services, even if those immigrants worked and paid taxes in the U.S. The Illegal Immigrant Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRRRA) was especially repressive as it required people who had an “unlawful presence” to return to their countries of origin for periods of three to ten years before they could apply to return. This was true even for spouses of American citizens.

 

Another bill, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) restricted tax-paying legal immigrants from using most public services and imposed major hardships on low-income workers, creating major legal and social snafus. Initially, pregnant immigrant women were denied access to WIC (the food supplement program for low-income pregnant women). Many premature births of high-risk, malnourished babies occurred, dramatically increasing medical costs for families and health providers. The federal government then concluded that immigrant women (documented and undocumented) could get WIC since it was nurturing their U.S.-citizen unborn babies.

 

 

In the 2000 census, North Carolina had the fastest-growing Latino population in the U.S. Most of these newcomers were immigrants, many of them undocumented and connected with the farm labor economy of the state. In the 2010 census, the state’s Latino population continued to grow but mostly due to the U.S.-born children of the newcomers from the previous decade. North Carolina has an estimated 150,000 migrant farmworkers annually, mostly from Mexico and other Central American countries. Our state has one of the largest farmworker populations in the U.S. With the tightened border security, many farmworkers now stay all year, unable to return home to see their families for fear they could not make the trek back across the desert. Some start new families here. Many families back home continue to depend on the paychecks of their husbands, sons, and fathers.

Other newcomers come on time-limited visas from around the world as students, business people, or tourists, and then they overstay their visas. Most unauthorized newcomers fall into this category. Others may be green card holders, but if U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) does not have documentation of their place of residence, their legal permanent residence status is terminated. Populations who come to the U.S. and to North Carolina as refugees regularly petition to bring their family members from their countries of origin. As recently-arrived newcomers, these refugees are typically low-income wage earners. If their families are granted permission to join them, they often come as immigrants but not as refugees, which means that they have no access to most public services. These expanded families struggle to survive because even though they are working they are barred from supplemental assistance available to others.

 

 

Economic impact is one of the major issues related to the proposed immigration reform. Most economists are clear that immigration reform, including a path to citizenship for undocumented residents, would have a strong positive impact on economic growth. Newcomers are drawn to the U.S. for job opportunities, are mostly young and entrepreneurial in spirit, and will be workers, consumers, and taxpayers. The Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan research arm of Congress, agrees with this analysis.

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, provides an alternative analysis. The Heritage Foundation posits that providing a path to citizenship for undocumented residents will be a drain on the economy. While they acknowledge that it will be an initial boom to the economy, they project that it will be a drain over a 50-year period. The reasoning of their research analyst is that low-income undocumented workers, Hispanics in particular, have lower IQ’s than U.S.-citizen whites. Therefore, their children will also have lower IQ’s, creating an ongoing pool of low-income and low-IQ U.S.-citizen workers who will need government subsidies. In many circles, the Heritage Foundation analysis is being compared to efforts to defend segregation in the early and mid-twentieth century.

 

 

The U.S. is recognized as the world’s premier immigrant nation, historically the champion of freedom, a model of innovation and entrepreneurship, and by far the wealthiest nation. As we struggle to pass immigration reform and reconcile our ambivalence toward the undocumented who sustain our economy, the refugees who are our historic champions of freedom, and the newcomers who are drivers of innovation, the whole world is watching.

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Staggering Seismic Jolt and Ensuing Tsunami stun Wimbledon in UK

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In what was without question one of the most chaotic days in professional tennis history, yesterday at Wimbledon in London there was more carnage and casualties than at any time since King Henry VIII put a revolving door on the prison in the Tower of London and began beheading wives and opponents.

 

In a single day at the revered Championship at Wimbledon saw seven former world number one seeded players go down in defeat and seven other tennis stars go down with injuries and withdraw.  Never have such a staggering seismic jolt and ensuing tsunami reached so far inland as what happened in a single day in jolly old England.

 

 

June 26 is a day of infamy in the UK as it was the same day the Beatles released their new album "A Hard Days Night" 49 years ago and the same day UK subject Elizabeth Taylor got her  fifth divorce from fellow UK subject Richard Burton 39 years ago.  Here in the colonies it was the day Elvis Presley performed his final concert in 1977.

 

Following are quotes from a number of stunned tennis reporters on the day of June 26 when darkness descended on the 2013 Wimbledon Championships.

 

 

By Martyn Herman

Reuters News Service

 

LONDON (Reuters) - Wimbledon king Roger Federer and Maria Sharapova endured jolting second-round losses to opponents outside the world top 100 in a freakishly dramatic 'Wednesday Wipeout' that saw seven players withdraw injured and the draw shredded.

 

Second seed Victoria Azarenka, Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and even Steve Darcis, man-of-the-moment after his opening day victory over Spaniard Rafa Nadal, were among the casualties as the medical bulletins piled up.

 

 

With title contenders dropping like flies, some before even striking a ball in anger, home favorite Andy Murray must be licking his lips after avoiding the scrapheap with an incident-free second round win over Taiwan's Lu Yen-Hsun.

 

 

By Douglas Robson USA Today SportsWed Jun 26, 2013 4:58 PM

WIMBLEDON, England — Wimbledon went wobbly on Wednesday.

It started with a rash of withdrawals. It ended with a rash of upsets. By the time it was over, it felt like the tournament had slipped off its axis.

"The whole day ... has been bizarre," said the USA's Sloane Stephens, who survived and advfanced. "I don't know what's going on."

All told, it produced one of the most extraordinary days in Wimbledon history.

Twelve seeds fell, including seven former No. 1s — none more shocking than defending champion Roger Federer.

Playing last on Centre Court, the seven-time Wimbledon winner lost in the second round to 116th-ranked Sergiy Stakhovsky of Ukraine 6-7 (5-7), 7-6 (7-5), 7-5, 7-6 (7-5), snapping his run of 36 consecutive Grand Slam quarterfinals that began here in 2004.

It was his worst defeat at a major since losing to No. 154 Mario Ancic in Wimbledon's first round in 2002, and the earliest loss for a defending champion since Lleyton Hewitt exited in the first round to Ivo Karlovic the same year.

"It's always a disappointment losing any match around the world, and particularly here," Federer said.

Federer had plenty of company. No. 2 Victoria Azarenka, No. 3 Maria Sharapova, No. 9 Caroline Wozniacki and No. 12 Ana Ivanovic joined him by failing to reach the third round.

The men lost No. 6 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, No. 10 Marin Cilic and No. 18 John Isner, plus Hewitt. Together, players with a combined 26 major singles titles were sent packing.

Perhaps it was an omen when Isner, the top-seeded American, pulled up lame three points into the day's opening slate of matches. The nearly 6-10 player felt a sharp pain in his knee when he came down on his serve against Adrian Mannarino. A game later at 1-1, he was forced to quit.

"I just landed and something happened," added Isner, who speculated it might be a tendon tear. "Severe pain. I mean, it hurt."

Three hours into the day, five players had retired mid-match or pulled out, including Azarenka (bone bruise), Cilic (left knee), 2006 quarterfinalist Radek Stepanek (left hamstring) and Steve Darcis (right shoulder), who upset Rafael Nadal in the first round.

They were joined by two-time Wimbledon semifinalist Tsonga, who threw in the towel because of a troublesome knee trailing Ernests Gulbis trailing 6-3, 3-6, 3-6.

"I tried, but no chance for me to beat a guy like this without my legs," said Tsonga, who was the seventh player to retire — the highest number on a single day at a Grand Slam event in Open era history, according to the International Tennis Federation.

AP - Associated Press

updated 4:55 p.m. ET June 26, 2013

 

LONDON - Seven-time champion Roger Federer was stunned by 116th-ranked Sergiy Stakhovsky in the second round of Wimbledon on Wednesday, his earliest loss in a Grand Slam tournament in 10 years.

 

The 27-year-old Ukrainian outplayed Federer on Centre Court, serving and volleying his way to a 6-7 (5), 7-6 (5), 7-5, 7-6 (5) victory that stands out as one of the biggest upsets in Grand Slam history.

 

"Magic," Stakhovsky said. "I couldn't play any better today."

 

The result capped a chaotic day at Wimbledon when seven players were forced out by injuries, and former champion Maria Sharapova fell in the second round to a qualifier.

 

Federer's loss ended his record streak of reaching at least the quarterfinals at 36 consecutive Grand Slam tournaments, a run that began at Wimbledon in 2004, shortly after a third-round exit at that year's French Open.

 

 

The owner of a record 17 major championships, Federer hadn't been beaten in the second round or earlier since a first-round defeat at the 2003 French Open.

 

Federer's shocking defeat was his earliest at the All England Club since a first-round loss in 2002 to No. 154-ranked Mario Ancic. Stakhovsky is the lowest-ranked player to beat Federer at any event since then.

 

Wednesday's defeat came on the same grass court Federer has made his own for nearly a decade.

 

The International Tennis Federation said the seven players forced out is believed to be the most in one day at any Grand Slam event in the 45 years of the Open era.

 

"I would say (it's a) very black day," Cilic said of the spate of injury withdrawals. "The other days, other weeks, there were no pullouts. Everything just happened today."

 

 

2013 Wimbledon: Stunning Day 3 ends with biggest surprise of all

By Bill Connelly on Jun 26 2013, 3:41p
SB Nation

Seven former No. 1s fell at Wimbledon on Wednesday, one of the most ridiculous, destructive days at a slam in tennis' long history. Victoria Azarenka couldn't go at all. Caroline Wozniacki slipped and fell, then fell again. Ana Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic were blown off the court. Lleyton Hewitt was outhustled and outhit. Maria Sharapova slipped repeatedly, tweaked her hip, then was taken down by an opponent who wouldn't buckle.

Of those six, only Sharapova was a true surprise. We could at least envision those losses taking place.

But how in the world were we supposed to see Roger Federer's loss coming? Federer had made 36 consecutive slam quarterfinals, pulling rabbits out of his hat on multiple occasions (including at Wimbledon last year, when he fell two sets behind Julien Benneteau in the third round), but he had no answer for the serve-and-volley game of Sergiy Stakhovsky. The No. 116 player in the world, a lanky 27-year old from Kiev, Ukraine, Stakhovsky ended one of the more incredible streaks in sports with a 6-7, 7-6, 7-5, 7-6 win over the seven-time Wimbledon champion. Federer served well and showed some fire, but his return game has slowly disintegrated over the last couple of years, and Stakhovsky took full advantage. With a game straight out of 1986, Stakhovsky frustrated and eventually defeated the all-time slams leader.

The last time Federer lost before the third round of a slam was at the 2003 French Open. He lost two tiebreakers and was swept by Luis Horna in the first round and responded with his first of 17 slam titles. Wimbledon was the most likely place for Federer to pick up an 18th, and that opportunity is now gone. We always rush to proclaim a once-amazing athlete done!, over!, but while Federer probably has quite a bit of elite tennis left in him, he probably doesn't have as much. We've assumed his mortality for a few years now, and today we saw proof that it exists.

The carnage of this incredible Wednesday at Wimbledon will be felt for the rest of the fortnight. Azarenka and Sharapova were easily the two players with the best shot of preventing Serena Williams from winning her sixth Wimbledon title, even if their odds weren't great. In all, seven of the top-13 women's seeds failed to reach the third round, and we're only halfway through the second round.
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Cyber Space -Virtual Playground of the Gods

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For over 15 years I have been writing about the potential of the Internet to bring good or evil to our world.  No doubt there are countless functions the cyber space universe can supply for the good of mankind.

 

Scientific and medical research both benefit from it with the ability to share data and speed up the processing of information.  It has been instrumental in the evolution of capitalism by dramatically changing the way people do business and get information.

 

Book publishers have been decimated by the Internet impact on book sales with e-books now able to instantly deliver books to your home or office at far less cost than you going to the nearest book store and fighting the crowds.

 

 

In music new artists abound on the Internet free of the shackles of the music publishers, the control of the producers and with the elimination of bribes paid to radio stations to only put certain artists in their playlist who are under contract to powerful record labels.

 

Both the fields of book and music publishing are in serious trouble, but maybe they earned it by trying to spoon feed the public certain authors and artists while refusing to take any risk on new artists in need of help thus strangling the heart and soul of American music, it's essential creative energy and powerful will to take risks and push the envelope.

 

The digital revolution is also extending it's tentacles into the movie and television business and once again is serving as an instigator of long overdue change to yet another industry that was growing irrelevant with it's risk aversion and obsession of control of artists, scripts and productions.

 

Thanks to our virtual world on the Internet books, records and movies are now available to us from old and new artists, every day there are new productions that actually have meaningful stories, coherent lyrics and happy endings that can have a lot of impact on the quality of life and attitude of people.

 

 

Of course in their last gasps of life the old guard are dumping junk on the market still using their worn out formulas of success to avoid risk, in other words, a propensity to simply copy the last successful movie and flood the market with multiple sequels is failing them at last.  With the Internet people now have the power to make choices for themselves and find the independent artists and companies long shunned by mainstream producers.

 

Beyond that there are many educational and informational benefits from the Internet.

 

But there are also dark sides to the Internet that have opened the floodgates to the demons who prey on the weaknesses and perversions which afflict a great many of our people.

 

About ten years ago I discovered an international prostitution ring operating on a popular social site.  After documenting how it worked, I was able to contact some of the actual prostitutes and interview them.

 

They told how they were recruited throughout Europe and were sent to major European cities, usually for a period of a few months, where they would rendezvous with the clients.  They were very high end, meeting in the best hotels and given the most expensive clothes and chauffeured limousines.

 

Every few months they were rotated to another major city to avoid detection by local and international police.  But they owed a lot of money to their "sponsors" and in fact were nothing but high-end sex slaves.  So I turned my information over to the owner of the Internet social service.  What a dumb thing to do.

 

Terrified (I guess) that I was going to post a news release accusing them of moral bankruptcy or something, instead of a thanks I got threats to sue me, sue me until I was bankrupt since they had billions and I was just a lowly reporter.  Some good did result as the highly sophisticated prostitution ring vanished from the Internet, no doubt resurfacing in some other location but no longer part of a mainstream social site..

 

 

To this day the Internet is used for every illegal and immoral purpose possible from child molestation to prostitution, pirating to pimping.   Then there is the DarkNet, that sinister and mysterious no man's land in cyber space where good intentions are swallowed up by evil results.  You should learn more about the DarkNet.

 

Finally, there is the world of cyber security where honesty and disclosure long ago vanished from the scene.

 

The culmination of Dark Force power manifests in cyber security where virtually everyone lies, or is required to lie, by the governments, private contractors and individual hackers involved in raping your rights to privacy and freedom.

 

I got to see this world from the inside out and rest assured what goes on in this arena most likely exceeds your wildest imagination.  Without a doubt the entire world was pretty much hacked over a decade ago and ever since competing interests from big and small countries and companies alike have been building profiles on you.

 

 

Every time I hear President Obama condemn China for hacking US top secret files I think of how many years the US has been hacking everyone else's top secret files in the world.  No one is without guilt when it comes to stealing records from other sovereign nations.

 

The bizarre NSA scandal dominating world news right now is the inevitable result of a lust for power and obsession with stealing information by governments, and powerful corporations.

 

One by one it seems our revered institutions are falling because they got a little too greedy and decided they were above the law.  Just look at the rash of illegal activity revealed recently in the fields of housing, financial speculation, energy pricing, international banking ad infinitum.

 

We need to pay a lot more attention to the administration and management of the virtual world.  It certainly serves some mighty beneficial purposes but it also serves some rather sinister masters and the Internet, unfortunately, is totally oblivious to characteristics like knowing right from wrong, knowing the value of children or young girls being forced into sexual slavery and perversion.

 

It certainly does not have the capacity to tell the truth as it has no basis for truth or lies.  And it has no empathy or compassion for people for there is no emotional sensitivity in virtual space.  In terms of a mathematical algorithm it is free of bias, prejudice, and discrimination because it is also free of morality, ethics and oversight.

 

Be informed and beware.

 

 

The following was published by The Telegraph from the United Kingdom.

 

We present the ten most famous hackers

 

1. Kevin Mitnick

 

Probably the most famous hacker of his generation, Mitnick has been described by the US Department of Justice as "the most wanted computer criminal in United States history." The self-styled 'hacker poster boy' allegedly hacked into the computer systems of some of the world's top technology and telecommunications companies including Nokia, Fujitsu and Motorola. After a highly publicised pursuit by the FBI, Mitnick was arrested in 1995 and after confessing to several charges as part of a plea-bargain agreement, he served a five year prison sentence. He was released on parole in 2000 and today runs a computer security consultancy. He didn't refer to his hacking activities as 'hacking' and instead called them 'social engineering'.

 

2. Kevin Poulson

 

Poulson first gained notoriety by hacking into the phone lines of Los Angeles radio station KIIS-FM, ensuring he would be the 102nd caller and thus the winner of a competition the station was running in which the prize was a Porsche. Under the hacker alias Dark Dante, he also reactivated old Yellow Page escort telephone numbers for an acquaintance that then ran a virtual escort agency. The authorities began pursuing Poulson in earnest after he hacked into a federal investigation database. Poulson even appeared on the US television Unsolved Mysteries as a fugitive – although all the 1-800 phone lines for the program mysteriously crashed. Since his release from prison, Poulson has reinvented himself as a journalist.

 

3. Adrian Lamo

 

Adrian Lamo was named 'the homeless hacker' for his penchant for using coffee shops, libraries and internet cafés as his bases for hacking. Most of his illicit activities involved breaking into computer networks and then reporting on their vulnerabilities to the companies that owned them. Lamo's biggest claim to fame came when he broke into the intranet of the New York Times and added his name to their database of experts. He also used the paper's LexisNexis account to gain access to the confidential details of high-profile subjects. Lamo currently works as a journalist.

 

4. Stephen Wozniak

 

Famous for being the co-founder of Apple, Stephen "Woz" Wozniak began his 'white-hat' hacking career with 'phone phreaking' – slang for bypassing the phone system. While studying at the University of California he made devices for his friends called 'blue boxes' that allowed them to make free long distance phone calls. Wozniak allegedly used one such device to call the Pope. He later dropped out of university after he began work on an idea for a computer. He formed Apple Computer with his friend Steve Jobs and the rest, as they say, is history.

 

 

5. Loyd Blankenship

 

Also known as The Mentor, Blankenship was a member of a couple of hacker elite groups in the 1980s – notably the Legion Of Doom, who battled for supremacy online against the Masters Of Deception. However, his biggest claim to fame is that he is the author of the Hacker Manifesto (The Conscience of a Hacker), which he wrote after he was arrested in 1986. The Manifesto states that a hacker's only crime is curiosity and is looked at as not only a moral guide by hackers up to today, but also a cornerstone of hacker philosophy. It was reprinted in Phrack magazine and even made its way into the 1995 film Hackers, which starred Angelina Jolie.

 

6. Michael Calce

 

Calce gained notoriety when he was just 15 years old by hacking into some of the largest commercial websites in the world. On Valentine's Day in 2000, using the hacker alias MafiaBoy, Calce launched a series of denial-of-service attacks across 75 computers in 52 networks, which affected sites such as eBay, Amazon and Yahoo. He was arrested after he was noticed boasting about his hack in online chat rooms. He was received a sentence of eight months of "open custody," one year of probation, restricted use of the internet, and a small fine.

 

7. Robert Tappan Morris

 

In November of 1988 a computer virus, which was later traced to Cornell University, infected around 6,000 major Unix machines, slowing them down to the point of being unusable and causing millions of dollars in damage. Whether this virus was the first of its type is debatable. What is public record, however, is that its creator, Robert Tappan Morris, became the first person to be convicted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Morris said his 'worm' virus wasn't intended to damage anything and was instead released to gauge the size of the internet. This assertion didn't help him, however, and he was sentenced to three years probation, 4000 hours of community service and a hefty fine. A computer disk containing the source code for the Morris Worm remains on display at the Boston Museum of Science to this day.

 

8. The Masters Of Deception

 

The Masters Of Deception (MoD) were a New York-based group of elite hackers who targeted US phone systems in the mid to late 80s. A splinter group from the Legion Of Doom (LoD), they became a target for the authorities after they broke into AT&T's computer system. The group was eventually brought to heel in 1992 with many of its members receiving jail or suspended sentences.

 

9. David L. Smith

 

Smith is the author of the notorious Melissa worm virus, which was the first successful email-aware virus distributed in the Usenet discussion group alt. sex. The virus original form was sent via email. Smith was arrested and later sentenced to jail for causing over $80 million worth of damage.

 

10. Sven Jaschan

 

Jaschan was found guilty of writing the Netsky and Sasser worms in 2004 while he was still a teenager. The viruses were found to be responsible for 70 per cent of all the malware seen spreading over the internet at the time. Jaschan received a suspended sentence and three years probation for his crimes. He was also hired by a security company.

 

 

CPT Editor's Note:  If the bad guys (China, etc.) do all the hacking why are all or most all of the world's top ten hackers from America?  And isn't it true that the best of all hackers are the ones who don't get caught?

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The Death of Television News in America

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Did you know that in 1980 55 million Americans watched the network news every night?  In other words 24% of the USA population watched the news.  If 24% of the USA population watched the network and cable news on TV today 75.6 million people would be watching.

 

So why are just 25 million Americans watching the network and cable news today?  That means less than 8% of our population gets their news from the blob tube today.  What about the other 92% of the population?

 

Okay, this story could be a psychological thriller if you care about such things since we are talking about something that can have a major influence on your mind.  If you are a trusted psychologist is this drastic loss of news watchers a bad or good thing?

 

As an investigative reporter I want to find the truth behind the numbers.  So I first check on things like do people trust the news media.  Here is the latest Gallup poll.

 

Honesty/Ethics in Professions

 

 

So 24%  of the people seem to trust journalists.  That means 76% of the people don't trust journalists.  At least they are more trusted than politicians, lawyers, stockbrokers, Congress members and car salesmen.  It also means while just 8% watch the TV news 24% don't trust them.

 

Why would people want to watch news they don't trust?  No wonder the numbers keep dropping.  Is it good or bad that people don't trust the media?  If they don't trust the TV media who do they trust for news?

 

Sadly print media and radio are both fading into extinction as news sources while the digital revolution has brought us multiple sources for news bytes but little in the way of in-depth reporting.

 

I had a theory it all started back in 1979 when President Jimmy Carter got attacked by the killer rabbit.  Such stories could have accelerated the loss of trust in the media.

 

  

 

 

In spite of an expanding variety of ways to get news, a sizable minority of young people continues to go newsless on a typical day. Fully 29 % of those younger than 25 say they got no news yesterday either from digital news platforms, including cell phones and social networks, or traditional news platforms. That is little changed from 33% in 2010.

 

 

In all cases the more choices we have for news the fewer people are using them.  Thus the access is there, so is the availability, but the content and delivery seem to suck.

 

Once upon a time there was some semblance of journalism integrity when it came to news.  Standards, ethics and fact checking were all practiced before most stories got into the news.  With the Internet, there are no longer requirements for standards on content, ethics in the writing style, objectivity in reporting or fact checking in the content.

 

 

Once upon a time no respectable reporter would quote an anonymous source but today's Internet is filled with unsubstantiated facts and unknown sources of information.   Worse, there is no one in a position to bring such discipline and ethics to the Internet since it has no loyalty to sovereign geographic boundaries.

 

Who would you sue and under what court of law if a story full of lies is on the Internet?  It can be almost impossible to track the source of the story when Internet servers all around the world are used to transmit information.

 

So we are helpless to enforce any journalistic standards.  Maybe it is a good thing fewer and fewer people are watching the news or are accepting the digital universe as the source for news.

 

 

Yet I cannot help thinking that a society that no longer thinks and is no longer informed of the situation in the world may very well be so caught up in self-serving interests that the good of all the people is a distant memory.

 

Maybe we need more digital applications teaching us how to give selflessly rather than simply take.  Self-gratification is not a Cardinal virtue in spite of what you may have read in the digital universe.

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The Strange Stories Genealogy Generates

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When I was a kid my grandfather used to sit me down on Sunday afternoons and give me a copy of one of the top magazines of the 1950's.  The magazine might be Time Magazine (1923-present), Life Magazine (1936-2000), Popular Mechanics (1902-present), Harper's Magazine (1850-present), Scientific American (1845-present), National Geographic (1888-present) or Boy's Life (1911-present).  He would quiz me on what I knew about the contents.

 

Since I was the only one in my family who loved to read and learn except Grandpa Pat, I figured he was desperate for intellectual discussions about current events, science or history.  So what if I was a kid, I still devoured magazines and listened to the news on radio and TV.

 

My grandfather was an immigrant of Scottish-Irish descent and he came to America from Donegal County, Ireland.  Of course his Campbell clan had been forced to leave Scotland a few hundred years earlier when England started enforcing the new Anglican religion in order to cover up King Henry VIII and his frisky ways.

 

 

Most of Europe was Catholic in the 1500's when the Pope delayed giving King Henry an annulment from his first wife, a method of divorcing your wife without divorcing her by having the Pope declare the marriage never existed in the first place.

 

Divorce was not allowed by the church.  Annulment was the only way to get out of marriage and remain a Catholic.  But there had to be a good reason and Henry had none except the need to pursue further peccadilloes with all the ladies of the world who seemed to love him.

 

Without an annulment the death of his wife was the only way for him to get married again.  Ironically, it was the death of his brother that forced him to get married in the first place.

 

Back in the good old days of the monarchies when the parents arranged marriages for their children in order to merge with other monarchies, a three year old Catherine was betrothed to Prince Arthur of England, Henry's older brother and heir to the throne, thus setting up a consolidation of the Spanish and English empires.

 

 

They were married in 1501, when she turned 16, and six months later Prince Arthur died after both became ill, possibly from sweating sickness.  This caused a royal mess as the whole succession plan to consolidate the kingdoms was unraveling.  So Arthur's brother, Henry, who was five years younger than Catherine, had to marry his brother's widow to keep things on track.

 

Unfortunately, that same Catholic church had canon law that forbade men from marrying their brother's widow.  Yet there was a way around that canon law as well.  The Pope could grant a dispensation if the marriage was never consummated.

 

Catherine said the marriage was never consummated during the 6 month period and the Pope granted the dispensation.  It still took several years due to monarchy bureaucratic delays before they were married.  Then Catherine never produced a male heir to the throne with Henry, just a female named Mary, and Henry feared the Tudor family was so dysfunctional a woman could never rule the kingdom.

 

Henry's first wife at the time, Catherine of Aragon, was the daughter of the most powerful monarchy in the world, Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Argon, the Queen and King of the Spanish empire.  Yes, the same Isabella who helped finance the discovery of America by Columbus.

 

 

One could write numerous more volumes or scripts on the incredible, bizarre and off-the-wall antics of the royal monarchies that ruled the world and in particular the Tudor family in England.  The truth about them is far more riveting a tale than the fiction of Hollywood screen writers.

 

Anyway, finding the young maids of his wife far more interesting and desirable than his older wife, Henry needed an out so for the second time he asked the Pope to waive a canon law for him.  First the dispensation and now the annulment.

 

When the Pope took to much time to act Henry went out and changed the ruling church to Anglican and banned Catholics from England, Scotland and Wales among other places controlled by the British.

 

 

A few wives and numerous peccadilloes later, peccadilloes being the insignificance old Henry attached to the affairs, adultery and general debauchery he considered essential to his monarchy, the old boy died.  The cause of death was long attributed to that deadly old venerable venereal disease syphilis.  Imagine that, being killed by too many peccadilloes!

 

Now historians point to diabetes, obesity, or even brain damage from a 1536 jousting accident.  Aristocrats never stop trying to re-write any history that makes the family look bad.

 

After his death from diabetes, obesity, brain damage or syphilis his son Edward (King Edward VI), became king at 9 years old and died at age 15.  In order to keep his oldest daughter Mary, a Catholic, from being queen Henry had directed that Lady Jane Grey succeed Edward.  Jane was queen 9 days before Bloody Mary showed up, imprisoned her and then had her executed in 1554.

 

 

Thus his daughter Mary (Queen Mary I or Bloody Mary) did become Queen lasing only until 1558  when she died and Elizabeth, Henry's last child and daughter of second wife Ann Boleyn, became Queen.

 

Queen Elizabeth I, my all time favorite Queen of England, ruled for 45 years and is often considered the greatest Queen of England.  She refused to marry in order to assure there would never be another Tudor on the throne of England.

 

 

It seems Henry's legacy was too much for her.  There is an old English rhyme that summarized Henry's rule.

 

King Henry the Eighth

to six wives he was wedded.

One died, one survived,

two divorced, two beheaded.

For historical accuracy change divorced to annulled.

One of the reasons I thought Elizabeth was great is she refused to enforce her dad's (King Henry) law banishing Catholics from England.  It was not until after she died that Catholics were finally told to denouncement their Catholic faith and become Anglican or leave the country.  They could be imprisoned and even executed for refusing to denounce their faith.

My grandfather's Campbell clan ruled Scotland at the time.  They were Catholics.  In the early 1600's they were ordered to denounce their Catholic faith or give up all rights to ruling Scotland.  Those that remained Catholic gave up all rights to succession and were sent to Ireland, where Catholics still ruled.

So you can see how King Henry VIII and his daughter Queen Elizabeth I had a direct impact on my family about 450 years ago and why my family immigrated to America.  Ironically, while the Campbell's were my maternal family the Putnam's from my father's side were from England and were Anglican aristocratic defenders of the monarchy.

For some odd reason reunions of my family never seemed to work.
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