Global resorts network Examine
Global resorts network is definitely an Arizona based company that gives a small business opportunity marketing a lifetime luxury travel membership that’s a low cost substitute for having a timeshare or condo or paying market rates for hotel stays. The membership allows for seven days stays at four and five star resorts around the globe at vacation hotspots for bargain prices of $298 to $799 weekly.
I compared travel reservations with Expedia, Travelocity and Hotels.com which is not uncommon for Global Resorts booking at to operate between $1,500 and $2,300 at other travel sites. The $298 8 day/7 night stay is part from the Hot Weeks specials and includes paradise destinations like Hawaii, Barbados, the Bahamas, trinidad and Greece. I ensured to use the identical travel dates in each comparison.
Global Resorts pays a $1,000 for the representative who helps to make the $2,095 sale for that lifetime travel membership. The same package has been around for over Twenty years and contains sold for as much as $10,000. If you are considering joining the Global resorts network program as a possible affiliate, take into account the person you join with being a tour guide. Find someone who is actively training their teammates to ensure your adventure with GRN is really a profitable journey.
The membership has a wide selection of four and five star luxury resorts and vacation rentals to select from, and the value can there be but to earn money you need to have good marketing in position. There are more travel opportunities like MOR Vacations which looks similar. Personally the truth that the world Resorts membership has been in existence for so very long makes me feel more confident in regards to the long term stay.
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New Book Proposes Open Internet Policies for Latin America
Last week, the Center for the Study of Free Expression (CELE) at Argentina’s University of Palermo released Towards an Internet free of Censorship: Proposals for Latin America [Hacía una Internet libre de censura: Propuestas para América Latina] [es]. With contributions by leading policy experts from Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S., the book addresses some of the most pressing challenges facing Latin American digital rights advocates today.
Book cover. Design by Patricia Fiuza.
Drawing on current debates in five of the region’s strongest economies—Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico—all of which boast high Internet penetration rates for Latin America, contributors provide a sketch of legislation, judicial decisions, and policies that affect free expression and privacy online. Book editor and CELE Executive Director Eduardo Bertoni writes:
El debate global sobre la regulación en Internet ha evolucionado desde aquella pregunta inicial acerca de si es necesaria y deseable alguna regulación en la red. […] Los artículos de esta publicación abordan [estos temas] no con la idea de arribar a soluciones últimas, sino con la intención de plantear algunas de las cuestiones legales involucradas en estos temas y pensar el efecto que pueden tener estas políticas sobre la libertad de expresión.
The book’s authors urge policymakers to rely on international and regional human rights instruments—the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the American Convention on Human Rights—as crucial sources of guiding principles in making policy for the digital age.
Underlying much of the analysis and discussion in the text are three fundamental questions:
- When Internet users post content, store personal data, and search for information on the web, what are their rights and responsibilities?
- How can governments protect citizens’ rights to privacy and free expression while still upholding defamation and copyright law and ensuring that law enforcement officials can carry out legitimate criminal investigations online?
- What role do Internet intermediaries—ISPs, search engines, or platforms for user-generated content, such as YouTube or WordPress—have in implementing government policy?
Numerous debates surrounding Internet regulation in Latin America focus on copyright violations and threats to honor or reputation (also known as defamation). Many courts in the region take these infractions seriously (both on and offline), and some legislators argue that they justify implementing tighter regulations on Internet activity.
In Colombia, the proposed (though currently shelved) Lleras Law would allow copyright holders to demand that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) remove infringing content from the web, a process known as “notice-and-takedown.” Under current Colombian law, ISPs can only be required to remove content if they receive an order from a judge. But Ley Lleras would eliminate this requirement, leaving ISPs with the burden of determining whether or not takedown requests were valid.
Art by Tomaz Garzia. CC BY-NC 2.5
Internet search engines also have been held liable for providing access to defamatory content. In Argentina, singer Virginia da Cunha filed a defamation suit against both Google and Yahoo! Argentina, after the companies had denied da Cunha’s request that they filter (remove) search results for her name that led to sexually explicit content. A judge initially ruled in the singer’s favor, but an appellate court later overturned the decision.
Contributing authors Claudio Ruiz [es] and Juan Carlos Lara, of the Chilean NGO Derechos Digitales, warn that under the Lleras Law, ISPs likely would comply with most takedown requests before fully considering their validity, as the alternative could leave them vulnerable to prosecution. The da Cunha case could have led to a similar result, where search engines would agree to filter results upon request, so as not to risk punishment. These examples illustrate the need to protect intermediaries from liability for content created by their users.
Brazilian legal scholar Joana Varon and her co-authors, all researchers at the Centro do Tecnologia e Sociedade, discuss these issues in a chapter on content filtering. Although there is little evidence that Latin American governments (with the exceptions of Cuba and Venezuela) engage in widespread filtering, legislators have considered various filtering mandates that would combat copyright violations and defamation online. But the authors note that there is a problem with this approach:
…técnicas de filtrado no son precisas…es casi imposible bloquear solo un determinado contenido sin afectar otros…[A]demás, muchos de esos mecanismos utilizados para regular y censurar información son cada vez más sofisticados, utilizando…muchas camadas de control que generalmente están escondidas del usuario común, quien probablemente ni se dará cuenta de que la información a la que accede ha sido objeto de filtrado.
Other contributors include Universidad de los Andes scholar Lorenzo Villegas, who describes the challenges of protecting personal data in the digital age, and Eduardo Bertoni, who discusses the issue of jurisdiction in defamation cases where the poster of the defamatory content is located in one jurisdiction and the offended party is in another. Towards an Internet free of censorship also features articles by George Washington University Professor of Law Dawn Nunziato, Derechos Digitales' Alberto Cerda, and University of Puerto Rico legal scholar Hiram Meléndez Juarbe.
The Center for Democracy & Technology's Cynthia M. Wong, James X. Dempsey, and Ellery Roberts Biddle co-authored the final chapter of the book, which places current policymaking debates in Latin America into broader international context. They note that the issues being debated in Latin America are very similar to those raised elsewhere in the world, a convergence that is not surprising given the global nature of the medium.
However, while policymakers around the world are confronting the issues of free expression, privacy, copyright protection, defamation, and government power, approaches vary substantially from region to region, and country to country. Some have turned towards repression, jeopardizing not only human rights but also economic innovation and human development. As the book shows, Latin American policymakers have looked to both Europe and the U.S. when debating these issues. But they also have the unique advantage of working in a region where country-to-country relations are generally friendly, and legislators often are able to “borrow” policy solutions from one country and apply them in another.
Towards an Internet free of censorship aims to take advantage of this cooperative dynamic by initiating new conversations, collaborations, and policy initiatives that will help to protect and strengthen online free expression, freedom of information, and privacy throughout Latin America.
Expedited Pass Port For Newborn – Simple To Obtain
It used to be that a newborn baby was permitted to travel on the passport of one of their parents. Now, however, it is a requirement that every US citizen, including a newborn, have their own individual passport. When travelling within approximately two weeks, parents may apply for an expedited American pasport for newborn. Parents can do this themselves or they may go through a specialized agent.
Requirements
Applying for an infant’s passport is a little more complicated than obtaining one for a grown-up. The child’s birth certificate is required, along with proof of parental identification and consent for the infant to travel. Also required are the Social Security Numbers of both parents, proof of travel intent, completed application form, two photographs and payment of the necessary fee. There are five urgency levels for an infant passport, 24-Hour, Next Day, Priority, Rush and Expedited. It requires approximately two weeks for processing and the passport is mailed directly to the parent or parents.
DS-11
The necessary form, DS-11 – Application for a US pass port renewal, may be completed online and then printed or it may be downloaded, printed and then completed by hand. Form DS-11 is also available at a passport agency or from an Acceptance Facility. It is important not to sign the form until instructed to do so.
Submission
An infant passport is valid for five years and cannot be renewed. The application cannot be submitted in the mail, it must be in person. The baby must be present at the time of submission of the application.
Photos
Requirements for the two passport photographs are rather stringent. They need to be 2 inches by 2 inches in size with a white or whitish background. The head size has to be between 1 and 1.375 inches with no had or anything else worn on the head. It must be taken no more than six months before the date of the application.
Photo Requirements
The look on the child’s face must be natural. This means there can be no smiling, laughing, screaming or crying. Their mouth must be shut and must not contain a pacifier or anything else. The child should face the camera straight on and looking directly at it. Nothing apart from the infant can be visible in the photo. This includes the parent’s hands, face or arms. There cannot even be a car seat in the picture. It may be easier to pay extra and have this done by a professional photographer.
Citizenship
The infant’s parents must provide proof of their own American citizenship. This can be a naturalization certificate, a valid passport, a Consular Report of Birth, a certificate of citizenship or a certified birth certificate.
Netizen Report: Uprising Edition
Photo by Yogesh Mhatre
Most of this report was researched and written by Weiping Li, Mera Szendro Bok, and edited by Sarah Myers.
Netizens around the world took collective action with a mass Internet blackout on January 18 to protest the United States' Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act, which, in its effort to enforce copyright online, would have compelled Internet service providers and platforms to monitor and censor their users or risk being blocked or penalized in the United States, and would have weakened the Internet's domain name system, among other things. Global Voices and Global Voices Advocacy participated in the protest along with over 7,000 websites, including Mozilla, Wikipedia, Reddit, Flickr, TwitPic, Boing Boing. Advocacy groups including Public Knowledge and Free Press blacked out their sites and posted information about how to get involved in the fight against these bills.
Many protest websites tracked the bill's Congressional Representatives' supporters, ultimately pressuring many representatives to withdraw their support. In the end, Congressman Lamar Smith, SOPA's sponsor, pulled the bill and said it would not go to a vote until “issues are addressed”. Inspired by the American protests, netizens took action around the world on digital rights, including Chinese activists. An article in Ars Technica neatly summed up the impact of the legislation on the rest of the world.
After SOPA and PIPA’s Death
Now it seems that SOPA and PIPA are dead. But concerns about illegal file-sharing persist, and commentators warn that similar bills may be reincarnated. Ben Huh, The CEO of I Can Has Cheezburger?, states that we still have more work to do in order to defend Internet freedom and sustain the engine of netizen mobilization. His opinions echo an article by Alex Howard on O’Reilly Radar, which argues that citizens need to band together to work out alternatives to SOPA. Internet and Politics guru Micah Sifry discusses the broader political environment that produced the bills, and the need for Internet companies and netizens to work for political reform. Internet law Professor Yochai Benkler offers seven lessons and four proposals on where we go from here.
Censorship
Major Chinese cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen have enforced a registration system that requires users to register their real name on Weibo, the prominent Chinese microblog. Although the new regulation has been widely criticized by Chinese netizens, including Pony Ma (Ma Hauteng), the founder of Chinese Internet service company Tencent, the Chinese authority still plans to implement the rule in other parts of the country.
In contrast, South Korea, which adopted online real-name registration in 2007, has taken steps to abandon the practice. Having faced criticisms of infringing freedom of expression and concerns over hacking, some Internet companies have decided to stop asking customers’ resident numbers, and the Korea Communications Commission is also planning to abandon the real-name registration requirement.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has jumped on the bandwagon of using social media for his presidential election campaign, but he has also been reported to have censored comments left on his website: only those comments which support his election are allowed to stay on the site.
An Indian journalist sued Google, Facebook and other companies for not taking down offensive content from their websites. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, the journalist claimed that messages which contained objectionable content about Hinduism, Islam and Christianity could cause commotion across India. He said action was meant to remind Internet companies to act in socially responsible ways.
Surveillance
The Argentinean government is launching a program to build a national biometric service named “the Federal System of Biometric Identification (SIBIOS)“. This system combines Argentinean citizens’ biometric information with other databases and be used by law enforcement. According to Katitza Rodriguez’s report for Global Voices Advocacy, the information gathered through the SIBIOS system would include not only biometric identifiers but also “an individual's digital image, civil status, blood type, and key background information”. The program has raised serious concerns over the government’s unrestrained power to surveil its people.
Sprint has promised to remove CarrierIQ tracking software from the cell phones using its network, making good on its word to improve security for its users.
To fight against the government’s intrusion into netizens’ personal Internet information, EFF and ACLU filed an appeal to challenge the U.S. district court’s decision to refuse disclosure of all orders in the Twitter/Wikileaks case.
A hacked document revealing that RIM, Nokia, and Apple provided the Indian government backdoor access to users’ communications may be fake. The three companies and security company Symantec have argued this document was full of incorrect information, and is not from the Indian directorate general of military intelligence.
Thuggery
Iran’s government has relentlessly pursued the Internet activists Parastoo Dokouhaki, Marzieh Rasouli, and Sahamoddin Bourghani, who were recently arrested. They were accused of “propaganda against the system” or “acting against national security”. The Iranian Supreme Court also confirmed the death penalty of a web programmer whose web program was misused by others to upload pornography.
After being detained for 10 months, Egyptian blogger Maikel Nabil, who was convicted of “insulting the military” by an Egyptian military court, was released.
Chinese activist Li Tie was sentenced to 10 years in prison for writing articles advocating democratic reform; poet Zhu Yufu was also charged with subversion for poems published online.
Several Ethiopian journalists and bloggers were convicted of terrorism and may face the death penalty.
The Myanmar government released several journalists and bloggers and at least 600 dissidents from prison under the government’s amnesty program.
Netizen activism
A recent study found that in Colombia, the Internet is changing the media landscape. The research pointed out that online journalism emphasizes local perspectives and incorporates more interaction with readers.
According to the Statistical Report on Internet Development published by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), the number of Chinese Internet users hit 513 million in 2011, which is almost equivalent to the number of Twitter users. Half of the the 513 million netizens are microblog users.
Is citizen journalism rising in China? Maybe. With the prevalence of digital cameras, videos, and social media, more and more Chinese citizens shoot newsworthy events and are uploading the clips to websites. Media scholars expect this trend may promote societal progress.
Want to know more about hacktivists who often hit the Internet activism headlines? This documentary may provide the audience with insight into hacktivist group Anomymous.
National Policy
The European Union delineated more details on its ban on exports of surveillance technology to Syria. The banned items include equipment which can probe email content or intercepts text messages.
The Indian government plans to build an “m-Government” framework by which people can access public services more easily via their mobile phones.
The Canadian government has historically prohibited the revelation of election results to areas where the votes have not been closed. Last year, Twitter users breached the law in an election by tweeting the results. The Canadian government announced (via Twitter) on January 17 it plans to lift the ban.
Swedish government agencies let different Swedes demonstrate their ways of life in the nation’s official Twitter account, hoping to let more people around the world understand and be interested in Sweden.
Sovereigns of Cyberspace
Twitter has announced that it now has the capability to restrict content from appearing in certain countries. The company says this will allow it to comply with local laws in different countries without having to remove content globally. When content is restricted in this way, the action will be reported to users through the Chilling Effects website.
Twitter also acquired a start-up company which has developed a service to summarize social media content and solve the information-overload problem.
Google announcement of an “upgrade” of its privacy policy and terms of service that integrates user information across its search engine, GMail, YouTube and its 57 other services stirred criticism from privacy groups and some members of Congress. In the weeks before the announcement, Google launched a “Good to Know” campaign to educate the public on how to stay safe online. Meanwhile, Google is also readjusting its China business strategy. Setting its past confrontations with the Chinese government over censorship aside, Google has decided not to miss out on this big market and plans to introduce more services.
Copyright
The anti-SOPA and PIPA action in the U.S. helped spark another round of protests in Europe. Now Polish netizens are fighting against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). The provisions in the treaty require Internet companies to monitor their online users. What irritated the Polish netizens was not only the censorship-like regulation, but also the opaque negotiation process around the legislation.
On January 19, one day after the mass protest against SOPA, the FBI seized the file sharing Web site Megaupload and charged seven people connected with it with running an international enterprise based on Internet piracy. Seven Europeans now face legal indictments in the United States of “racketeering conspiracy, conspiring to commit copyright infringement, conspiring to commit money laundering and two substantive counts of criminal copyright infringement.” European officials and digital rights advocates are protesting the legal action because they believe it sets a bad precedent for international intellectual property law.
Research archive JSTOR will soon open more resources to the public for free access.
Pirate Bay has begun shifting from torrents to “magnets” as another way of sharing data that would help the site go further underground.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on January 19th to uphold a law which grants copyright protection to foreign works that had been freely availably in the public domain.
Cybersecurity
Cyberspace has become a new battleground for pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli groups. Pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli hackers took down websites and waged distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS attack) on each other.
Cool things
There could be easier ways to let the public understand obscure technologies on the horizon. New America Foundation’s Open Technology Initiative has explored methods such as visual language to explain their mesh wireless network projects to communities.
Internet Rights as Human Rights
Amnesty International has responded in a blog to Vint Cerf’s article on internet rights as human rights, saying “in places from Sub-Saharan Africa to the most impoverished communities here in the US, loss of access could mean an immediate threat to lives and livelihoods.”
In a letter by Joy Liddicoat of APC responding to Vint Cerf's article, APC encourages discussion and increased dialogue between technologists and human rights advocates.
Michael H. Posner, Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor gave a keynote address at the State of the Internet conference statingthe U.S government’s view on “Internet freedom as a foundation for the 21st Century human rights agenda” and the role of media in the “Arab Awakening”.
Publications
Reporters Without Borders released its Press Freedom Index for 2011-2012. Syria, Bahrain, and Yemen got their worst-ever rankings.
Freedom House released its 2012 Freedom in the World report. A chilling overall result was that despite the gains won by the Arab Spring, “slightly more countries registered declines than exhibited gains over the course of 2011. This marks the sixth consecutive year in which countries with declines outnumbered those with improvements.”
“Mapping Digital Media,” a new Open Society Paper reports on the impact of digitization on democracy in 60 countries around the world.
China Internet expert Hu Yong reviews trends of China’s Internet in 2011.
The Center for the Study of Free Expression (CELE) at Argentina’s University of Palermo released Towards an Internet free of Censorship: Proposals for Latin America with contributions by leading policy experts from Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S.
Vivek Kundra, who served as the White House's first Chief Information Officer until August 2011, writes on Innovation through Open Data and the Network Effect.
According to research conducted by Facebook, social networks can help spread diverse points and novel information. Slate’s technology columnist Farhad Manjoo wrote an article responding to the research.
EVENTS: For upcoming events related to the future of citizen rights in the digital age see the Global Voices events calendar.
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