Hosting a blog has been very interesting so far, as I have become part of the blogsphere and I am learning about the amazing array of plug-ins and widgets available for WordPress.
One thing I am concerned about is maintaining ownership of my blog and the contents herein. Many of my friends use services, such as LiveJournal or BlogSpot because it is popular and there is more traffic “downtown” than out here in my own URL. I have just read on the Electronic Frontier Foundation Blog that LJ has been sold again. This time is is not to an American multi-national, but to one headquartered in Moscow, Russia. This raises many concerns about privacy, data security and, our worst nightmare, more spam.
There is some very good information on legal issues involved in blogging in the US of A and we all know that the internet extends over national borders. The long arm of the law can reach out and even kidnap citizens of other countries as I recently read of a case in Britain where it came up in court.
From
“December 2, 2007
US says it has right to kidnap British citizens
AMERICA has told Britain that it can “kidnap” British citizens if they are wanted for crimes in the United States.
A senior lawyer for the American government has told the Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under American law because the US Supreme Court has sanctioned it.”
I want to maintain the right to state my opinion and criticize those who are more powerful and wealthy than I am. I try not to abuse these rights, but I realize how close we are, even in in our democratic system, to being silenced by fear. It is important that we speak out and bring forward the issues that are important to us, even though it may not be in support of the current policy that maintains the status quo.
As I wrote in one of my songs,
“In the Great White North speech as free as you can get,
but the people with the power aren’t listening yet.
Don’t they know that in our time,
their children got to breathe the same air as mine”
This live more lightly project aims to bring the issue of environmental degradation to the attention of the powers that be and to the grassroots that can initiate change.
