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If you are like some of our readers, you may have been wondering why we show your IP address in the control bar on the website. Some of our readers feel their privacy is being violated by this. On the contrary, it is intended to assist them in preserving their privacy. Here’s why.

Widespread Monitoring Of Your Computer Usage

Every time you use your computer to access a web site, there are several, likely even dozens, of pieces of software running on computers spread across the Internet that log bits and pieces of information about you. Such information typically includes your IP address as the unifying element to glue it all together. Other bits of information include the web browser your are using, the operating system your computer is running, web sites you visit, comments you post, email addresses you use, and questions you answer in surveys of demographic information that may not seem at first glance to be related to your web browsing at all. They might be software registrations, surveys for “free coupons”, “free email newsletters”, or something else. Your IP address can be used to tie it all together, to track your “Internet identity” and the usage of the Internet associated with it. Such information is being collected about you all the time. Every day, it is bought and sold routinely as a matter of regular business practice by many of the top brand names in the Internet world.

Have you installed any of those popular browser toolbars from Google, Yahoo, or Microsoft? Such software can log similar information about your usage, too. So can Flash, Java, and other apps that are common on many popular websites.

Your Internet Service Provider (Cox, Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, etc.) probably logs a substantial amount of this type of information and retains it for multiple years. Some countries actually have laws requiring this. Even if they don’t, the ISP and hosting providers for any websites you visit log and save similar information for years, too. Your web browser also retains such information, too, and it will persist for months or years unless you take steps to erase it. Even if the company, organization, or people running the website you are visiting go to great effort to discard that information, virtually nobody else is going to do likewise. Like it or not, you are creating a great big trail that others can use to find and track you, be it for reasonable or very hostile purposes. Your IP address is often the single most important piece of information typically used to glue together the bits and pieces of your Internet trail into a cohesive whole that somebody can portray as representing you, rightly or wrongly.

Why We Show Your IP Address

We show you your IP address for two primary reasons:
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Our nation’s children are no longer safe in their homes, schools, or anywhere they go. Far too often, the threat is not from traditional miscreants such as school bullies, class-cutters, and neighborhood drug-dealers but rather from the adults entrusted with the care of our children. Intolerant and extremist teachers, school administrators, police officers, district attorneys, and judges are a serious and growing threat to our children. They believe that children who make a minor mistake or dare to express an opinion or personal preference that is not in compliance with government thought control and anti-free-speech policies should be treated like felons. Even having to attend to basic bodily functions like using the bathroom and eating in schools controlled by these extremists can be a threat to the safety of our children.

Our friendly faced jackbooted government goons have made up euphemisms for their agendas. Given their limited intelligence, their choice phrases must be succinct.

“Zero tolerance” is one catch-phrase invented by “safety minded” school employees. No tolerance for dissent, suppression of individuality, banning freedom of speech, enforcement of dogmatic thinking, and criminalization of opinions that are counter to the teachers unions is what it objectively means. Coming from a more sensible age in which I could chose the color of my clothes and a pocket knife was not a weapon of mass destruction but rather a basic tool that many kids carried to school, it seems to me that kids today should be raising civil disobedience groups and learning guerrilla warfare tactics after they have been exposed to this extremism. But oddly it seems to be gradually zapping many of them into mind-numbed drones. Or maybe they are too busy playing Grand Theft Auto and Halo to know that sometimes criminals and conflicts are real.

“Kids for Cash” is another catch-phrase invented by somebody in the government, quite possibly by thousands of them at about the same time. They realized that when they see smiling little kids, they think of $$$ MONEY $$$ in their pockets, so it was a natural expression of their intent to use other people’s children for their own economic security. Although it’s not clear which government agency invented it first, many of them, from the courts to “CPS” to schools, are living by it. Seldom is anything done to distract the government from viewing our children as money sources and pawns for profit except in the most bizarre and extreme cases that even the goons are embarrassed by it. I suspect when something is done to temporarily divert the greedy goons from monetizing our children, it is only because these extreme examples are getting so far out there that it’s amazing that parents and grandparents who love their young ones are not storming courthouses with automatic weapons to protect their offspring from true evil. You’ll see some of these cases below.

Teacher Will Kick In Your Face If You Use the Potty!

If you’re a kindergartener in Miami, Florida, and go the the bathroom without permission, you might get your face kicked in by your teacher.

(from From Sex to Assault: What’s Up With America’s Teachers? Teachers Busted for Kicking Students, Showing Up Drunk, Having Affairs With Pupils)

For a 5-year-old Miami student who came home from school with a cut lip from being kicked in the face, the bully wasn’t a playground menace — it was, she alleges, her teacher.

The preschooler’s offense? Using the restroom without permission during naptime.

Miami police arrested Head Start teacher Jean Dorvil, 56, on child abuse charges. Miami-Dade Schools Police Sgt. Ivan Silva told ABCNews.com that detectives found during the course of their investigation that Dorvil had allegedly kicked two other students during the school year.

Two Pennsylvania juvenile court judges are being prosecuted for corruption in a shocking scandal involving corruption, abuse of law, and what amounts to government-sponsored child abuse. Since December 2002, they allegedly sentenced children who were denied legal representation and fair trials to detention in private jails from which the judges received kickbacks.

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(Click here for more coverage of CPSIA.)

With the February 10, 2009, start of enforcement of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 just 3 days away, we are relieved to see that the Consumer Product Safety Commissions has issued a press release outlining exceptions for children’s books printed using ordinary processes from 1985 onwards and for children’s clothing manufactured using natural fibers.

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(Click here for more coverage of CPSIA.)

The February 10, 2009, start of enforcement of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 is just two weeks away, yet the US federal government is still irresponsibly failing to correct the interpretations of the law to avoid shutting down access children’s books in libraries and even school text books.

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(Click here for our complete coverage of CPSIA.)

Our previous posts on the Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA) have brought up the legal and financial risks faced by resellers of used and new children’s clothing, toys, and other products. These appear to extend to private sellers on eBay and Craigslist as well as to consignment stores and charity/resale organizations such as Goodwill Industries. We’ve also mentioned problem faced by libraries and home business and small business children’s product manufacturers for which testing costs may be prohibitive. They may be forced to stop loaning out existing children’s books already in their collections for years and selling safe products simply because of the risks and costs of this law.

As we continue to review information and discussion about CPSIA and the text of the law itself, it’s clear there is a lot of confusion about this law. The American Library Association admits after getting everybody alarmed that it doesn’t understand the law and how it will impact libraries in its post Children’s Books and the CPSIA – STANDBY – Situation Fluid.

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(Click here for our complete coverage of CPSIA.)

Unless the US government acts soon, on February 10, 2009, life as we know it in the United States may become extremely bizarre. Imagine a nation in which it is illegal for:

• Children age 12 and under to enter libraries or attend schools or daycare facilities unless those schools and daycare facilities have no books or toys.

• Books and toys for children age 12 and under can only be sold by mass-merchants because home and small businesses and manufacturers cannot afford the testing costs to verify paper, cardboard, glue, and other components do not have illegal levels of lead.

• Only major publishers running huge print-runs can print children’s books because only they can afford the testing costs.

• If you can find anybody willing to risk selling you a used children’s book, either they will be criminals or buying a used children’s book will cost upwards of $150 per title because each book will have to be individually tested for lead and phthalates.

• Tens of thousands of US home and small businesses which have made a major portion of their sales from children’s products go out of business and file for bankruptcy as their inventories go from having value to being worthless because they cannot be sold.

This is all due to the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008. The new law requires that products intended for use by children ages 12 and under must meet new standards for lead and phthalate content or they cannot be sold starting February 10, 2009. The law does not have any grandfather provisions for products made prior to February 10, 2009. It apparently affects all products intended for use by children age 12 and under. And it is being interpreted as affecting operations that sell, lend, or allow the use of children’s products by children ages 12 and under.

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(Click here for our complete coverage of CPSIA.)

As reported last week (see Government Bans Sale of Used Children’s Clothing and Toys !?!), the impending enforcement of the Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act of 2008 starting on February 10, 2009, will change the landscape for children’s clothing and toy sales in the United States. New 600ppm limits on lead will be enforced immediately, and those limits will be lowered to 300ppm and next to 100ppm. Phthalates used to soften plastics must comprise less than 0.1% of the product content. Sellers must be able to show the items they are selling have passed safety tests for lead and phtalate content or they cannot sell the products. The new regulations pertain to products intended for use by children age 12 and under.

A major criticism of this law has been the negative impact on the resale of used children’s clothing and toys. Many consignment shops and charity organizations sell such items, and parents are able to get back some of the value of toys and clothes their children have outgrown. There have been widespread complaints that the new law has the potential to put such businesses out of business.

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