Big Brother is in my computer

For openers, this writer wonders why my Internet provider, Verizon Wireless, signed on as a major sponsor of The Daily, the new Apple iPad-only “newspaper” from Rupert Murdoch’s uber-right wing News Corp. This is the company that brought Fox News’ unfair and imbalanced reporting to us. Murdoch himself admitted he was trying to sway political agendas to the right. And this was the same Fox News that gave a whopping $1 million to the Republican Governor’s Association. Is anybody listening?

Verizon also contributed to the campaigns of Tea Party-backed Senators Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Mike Lee and Pat Toomey. It also gave $35,000 to members of the House Tea Party Caucus—most of whom are climate change deniers who voted to repeal health care reform (not that I particularly like Obama’s brand myself), but it’s the principle here. And Verizon has also cosponsored a bill to redefine rape, a long way from the telecom business, wouldn’t you say? But not from the larger aspirations of Republicans corporatos to support anti-abortion nut groups who thrive on intimidation and limitation or taxing of insurance payments for abortion.

But then Verizon doesn’t just throw cash to ultra-right politicians. It throws their corporate weight here and there to oppose freedoms you care about. For instance, Verizon fought hard against net neutrality and went so far as to sue the Federal Communications Commission in January to get rid of the rules to protect an open Internet. Why, unless they’re inherently repressive? Also, Verizon once rejected NARAL Pro-Choice America’s request to send text messages on the Verizon network, saying it had a right to block messages it deemed were “controversial or unsavory.” When did Verizon Wireless start playing Big Brother?

Ironically, the information above came from a mobile phone competitor named CREDO, who happens to support a woman’s right to choose and fights hard for a free and open Internet. Nor is it afraid to say so. And the reason I downloaded its web-message was that it had direct application to this writer in the moment that it appeared.

Several days earlier, an article of mine went up at the new site intrepidnews.com called Taking it to the street. It spoke of the spirit of revolution that seems to be filling the streets in the Mid-East as well as in the Mid-West of America. And the issue I was focusing on was for US Citizens to confront the Federal Reserve Bank and members to step down. You see the Fed don’t just print our money. They “lend it” to us so we owe them back for whatever cash they print, and with interest as debt. They make money based on the fictional fractional-reserves system for lending funds that aren’t even there. You can read the article for the full Monty, denuding of the scammer Federal Reserve members and their banker cronies across America and the world.

They are the folks to rely on for the devaluation of currencies that crush Third World nations under IMF loans and their debt, and which also inspire speculators to buy up depressed currencies for pennies on the dollar then buy up everything in sight in the country with the extra currency. This crushes economies, whether in Asia, Eastern Europe, or the good old USA. So, I guess someone at Verizon Wireless did not like the message of taking protest to the streets to get financial change for the better. Nor did they like unveiling the Fed and Central banking industry as the criminal mafia it is. But let’s get back to Verizon.

When it came time to send out my article in an email, with the URL typed in, and a brief comment about the content to my readers, somebody or some electronic device must have read it. I selected those readers who have asked to be on my mailing list and receive my articles. This was a curious repetition of “blocking’’ which had occurred several times during recent years. That is, as some of my 600 articles have been published and republished online at numerous sites. My name is familiar to bloggers and readers. This article, as with some articles in the past, was blocked by the Verizon System Administrator, who claimed it was “Spam and couldn’t be delivered.” There were perhaps 50 names on the mailing list to receive my article, though Verizon allows for up to 100 names on an email. The System Administrator had no return address for redress. And the spam policy piece linked to the System Administrator notice revealed violations of the first amendment that affected my rights to free speech and freedom of the press . . .

“Spam and Outgoing Message FAQs

Verizon adds additional security and protection to subscriber accounts by taking measures both to prevent spam from being sent to our customers and to safeguard our network from being used by spammers. These measures include scanning all incoming and outgoing e-mail [hey, that’s unconstitutional!] so that spam can be captured and contained before it reaches our customers or before it can be sent from our network. The FAQs you see below provide information related to our efforts to reduce spam and what to do if you receive a message that your outgoing mail contains spam.

“Why does Verizon scan E-mail messages I send?
Verizon Online has a zero-tolerance policy for spamming from the Verizon.net domain and is working to reduce unsolicited email messages and improve the overal [their spelling error] customer e-mail experience.” But then I get about 60 unsolicited email messages a day, many that I delete due to lack of interest in them. I read what I wish to read, delete the others.

“Scanning is the process of comparing an email message to a known spam signature using a combination of proprietary anti-spam techniques and spam complaints sent from users across the Internet. [Actually, even if Verizon is using a proprietary electronic software to interrupt any communication, it is still unconstitutional]. Verizon will not read your email [but it is reading it, technologically]; we only compare the digital signature [more interference] of a sent email against the digital signatures of known spam [clever but a violation anyway]. Emails that match a spam signature will not be delivered.” [That’s the cherry on the constitutionally violated cake].

“Scanning outbound email is an accepted industry practice [which doesn’t make it legal] and is an effective method for reducing overall spam on the Internet and for our customers [not this customer; and I’ll bet many like me]. It also benefits you by reducing the likelihood that an email message you send will be blocked by the receiving service provider.” [It benefits me to have you violate my communication? What perverse logic is that?]

“Will I receive any notification if an E-Mail I send is determined to be SPAM?
Yes. If you send an email message that is determined to be spam, you will receive the following error message in your email client: “The message you attempted to send was determined to be spam. Please visit http://www.verizon.net/spamfaq for more information.” [And you’ll get this doubletalk].

“What does it mean if I get an error message that indicates that I sent spam?
The error message is intended to notify you that a message you attempted to send was blocked because it was determined to be spam [that is, that your software or the Wizard of Verizon determined it to be spam]. It also provides you with a link to this FAQ page for more information.” [Yes, and now Verizon has confessed to violating my First Amendment rights].”

But, good luck. They’ve already tried and convicted you in the court of corporate silencing. So the next best thing to do is call up Verizon tech in India, who would very much would like to help you, very much, on behalf of Verizon, to straighten this out. You could say Big Brother is in my computer.

You explain the whole thing to him: you’re a writer, you’ve published all these articles, you write for this website, many others pick up your articles, and you’ve been doing this for years, and the blocking has happened before. Meanwhile, there’s a bit of difficulty in mutually understanding each other due to his thick Indian accent and my thin New York accent. Gee, wouldn’t an American guy be good at this job to improve communication. Our unemployment’s rising to 10 percent on the books, more like 15 percent off-book, counting those who have been bouncing around for a while and going nowhere thanks to outsourcing IT jobs.

My Indian friend wants to have a screen session, wherein he looks through my computer and presses whatever buttons he has to. It’s like a virtual colonoscopy. And I tell him, “No. First, somebody or some software must have read or reacted to the paragraph describing the article and decided to block it. I also wrote my article URL in an email I opened from a writer friend of mine and asked him if he’d send the article to his list. And that request was bounced back by the system administrator as well as spam. So Verizon has violated that person’s First Amendment rights, too.

Then I sent two emails to myself, one with the article title as subject and the URL inside, and one that simply said “Good Morning” and contained the URL. Both were bounced back to me. The only email I could get through was the one I sent to myself with the subject line, “Test” and that had one word inside “Test.” So much for free speech and the rights of journalists! Nothing passed the test.

I thought back to the last time Verizon Wireless was blocking articles that I sent to my editor to publish. It reached the point where I had to smuggle a page at a time, each in a different email with a different subjects on them. When all the pages were received, my editor would notify me. And when it was published, there was more trouble sending it to readers, much like what I’ve described earlier.

In fact, I got so annoyed at this point that I read to Verizon’s Indian tech support guy (straight from Wiki) what the First Amendment provides in a nutshell, “The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law “respecting an establishment of religion“, impeding the free exercise of religion, infringing on the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances.” Get it, guys?

“Okay,” I said to the guy, “So, I have a constitutional right to send this piece to my readers who enjoy reading my material.” “Well, perhaps, I can unblock it,” he said, “Perhaps it is the blockers in your computer.” “No,” I said, “it’s the blocking mechanisms in your server. Verizon is the blocker. And I don’t need you to look in my computer. Just convey my feelings of anger and frustration to your bosses, regarding the violation of my constitutional right to free speech and of the press.”

“Yes sir,” he said, probably wondering why he didn’t call in sick that morning. “And,” I added, “Tell them to cut their blocking out. It’s unconstitutional for corporations as well as people or the government to block it.” “Yes, I am writing this down, sir, and I will send it to my supervisors.” Well, the dialogue went on a while. He wanted a back-up phone number to reach me at. I gave him my cell number, warning him I only turned it on when I went out, and using my primary Verizon phone number with voicemail on it would be better. “Yes sir,” he said.

I reminded him, “Do you realize my family has three Verizon landlines, three Verizon cell phones, three computers with Verizon DSL hi-speed Internet on them. We pay our bills on time. We are your ideal consumers. And AOL is dying to come over and give me cable, phone, and broadband for less money?” “Uh, yes sir, I am . . .” Okay, so call your supervisor.” “I’m calling, sir, I’m on the line. Give me your backup number. We will call you back within 24 to 48 hours.” Right, the check is in the mail. He’s stamped a large “NUT CASE” on my complaint.

Irate, I vented another five minutes and finally said “goodbye, no, there was nothing else you can do for me. Verizon’s done it all.” But there was more. A reader sent me a film clip to watch in an email. I opened it, clicked it on. It was about drones falling on Afghanistan, and how the numbers had soared during the Obama administration, and how it created terrorists, Talibanis, Al Qaedas since some 600 people had been killed by the drones, mostly women and children, and perhaps 30 were bad apples. And it was a Pakistani journalist discussing this with great passion, the same I had for my story sitting there unsent, even though it went on Facebook, Twitter, and was up at the Intrepid Report site. But you always have that fervor to reach more people, the hope you’ll inspire the crowd, they’ll run in the street and stop the bankers, stop the bombs, stop the wars, stop the stealing, stop Wall Street, stop acting like yahoos.

But the drone-clip ended and I clicked respond and wrote to my reader “It’s a strange world, Melanie, and it’s getting stranger.” And then I sent it. And then a few seconds later it bounced back, my response to her, in her email to me. They were blocking those, too, and messing with her rights. I was sitting here isolated. And then I decided it was a reading day, not a writing day, and proceeded with Ellen Brown’s The Web of Debt.

The next morning I called Verizon Wireless tech support. This time I got a Hispanic voice, sounded Mexican. I told him the whole story, how they were blocking my article. And he said, “Nah, man, these things happen.” Really, got a list of who they are? He said, “I see in the report, they’re checking the software, the browsers. It happens.” “Maybe they should check themselves, the guys upstairs doing this.” He said, “They say it’ll take 24 to 48 hours. We’ll call you. I have your number. Anything else I can help you with.” “No, that’s enough.” “Okay, so thanks for calling Verizon Wireless.” “Yeah” Click.

So he’s thinking, so what, some gringo can’t get his story up about how the US bankrupted Mexico of trillions and crashed the peso, jobs lost by the thousands, prices soaring, money gone, people impoverished in a nightmare of unemployment, scant food, nowhere to go . . . except across that awful border to more gringos who hate you on sight, who want to kill you for living, who hate your kids, your pregnant wife, your face in the shape-up line each morning for cheap labor, who hate the country they destroyed, its economy fighting an endless bout to come back, blood-splashed face, fists bleeding, brothers dying around you, drugs, cartels, putas, name it. . . .

But today, mañana, they’re still looking for the problem. The phone hasn’t rung. I tried emailing myself my article. I put the title in the subject. I got the system administrator blocking me for my spam. I figured it was time to blow the whistle. It’s true. Big Brother is in my computer.

Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer, life-long resident of New York City. An EBook version of his book of poems “State Of Shock,” on 9/11 and its after effects is now available at Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com. He has also written hundreds of articles on politics and government as Associate Editor of Intrepid Report (formerly Online Journal. Reach him at gvmaz@verizon.net.