Anonymous takes down Department of Justice, RIAA, Motion Picture Association and Universal Music

In response to today’s federal raid on the file sharing service Megaupload, hackers with the online collective Anonymous have broken the websites for the Department of Justice, Universal Music Group, RIAA and Motion Picture Association of America.

“It was in retaliation for Megaupload, as was the concurrent attack on Justice.org,” Anonymous operative Barrett Brown tells RT on Thursday afternoon. Only hours before the DoJ and Universal sites went down, news broke that Megaupload, a massive file sharing site with a reported 50 million daily users, was taken down by federal agents. Four people linked to Megaupload were arrested in New Zealand and an international crackdown led agents to serving at least 20 search warrants across the globe. Less than an hour after the DoJ and Universal sites came down, the website for the RIAA, or Recording Industry Association of America, went offline as well. Minutes later, MPAA.org also returned an error as Anonymous hacktivists managed to bring the website for the Motion Picture Association of America. The group, headed by former senator Chris Dodd, is an adamant supporter of both PIPA and SOPA legislation. Universal Music Group, or UMG, is the largest record company in the United States and under its umbrella are the labels Interscope-Geffen-A&M, the Island Def Jam Motown Music Group and Mercury Records. Brown adds that “more is coming” and Anonymous-aligned hacktivists are pursuing a joint effort with others to “damage campaign raising abilities of remaining Democrats who support SOPA.” Although many members of Congress have just this week changed their stance on the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, the raid on Megaupload Thursday proved that the feds don’t need SOPA or its sister legislation, PIPA, in order to pose a blow to the Web. Brown adds that operatives involved in the project will use an “experimental campaign” and search engine optimization techniques “whereby to forever saddle some of these congressmen with their record on this issue.” Source

Bob Janjuah: What Looks Feels and Smells Like Quantitative Easing?

Submitted by Tyler Durden: Bob "The Bear" Janjuah may appear a little greyer than his previous appearance on Bloomberg TV but his thoughts on the 'weaker-for-longer' recovery are as clarifying as ever as he sees Q2 as payback time for the misunderstanding of a mini US business cycle as a real sustainable recovery. Noting that the LTRO does not fix Europe, he sees the worst still ahead for the 'Eurozone mess'. Discussing expectations for Fed QE3 and moderating growth in Asia/EM, he believes that markets are likely to get ahead of themselves (or have done) even as he recognizes his potential underestimation of the market's perception of LTRO's impact on sentiment (pulling forward risk appetite from a QE-driven Q2 rally to the current Q1 ripfest). As we have argued, Bob notes that we are simply not addressing growth or solvency and Q2 will be the payback (looking for a 1000 print in the S&P 500 index by quarter-end) for the policy- and liquidity-driven rally we are undergoing. Source

LINK TO BLOOMBERG INTERVIEW WITH BOB JANJUAH 

Megaupload op: Anonymous downs FBI, DoJ, music sites in biggest attack ever

Today the Feds raided the website MegaUpload, which led to the arrests of seven people across the globe, according to some reports. Now the Hacktivist group, Anonymous, has come forth in retaliation to the crackdown and launched an attack on several websites including The Department of Justice, Universal Music Group, and the Recording Industry Association of America. The wave of attacks is just the beginning and Barrett Brown, founder of Project PM, joins us to discuss whats next for the groups. Source

Ron Paul's 2002 Predictions All Come True - Incredible Video!

Africa for Ron Paul 2012

Hope is coming for all of us, Africans, Americans, Asians, Arabs and Europeans. Source "I didn't believe we still had people like Ron Paul."

HOW COULD YOU BELIEVE THAT - Deek Jackson

Scam On Epic Scale - Building a Model for a Global Bank Holiday - Max Keiser

419 scams and Tim Geithner's gimp. In the second half of the show, Max talks to financial blogger and semi-retired Wall Street executive Warren E. Pollock about MF Global, wealth confiscation and bank holidays. Source

Andy Samberg, Neil Gaiman, Trent Reznor, Aziz Ansari, Adam Savage & More Tell Congress: Don't Pass PIPA Or SOPA In Our Names

A group of some pretty damn famous people within the entertainment industry just made it clear that the folks pushing PIPA and SOPA do not represent their best interests. To hear the MPAA and the US Chamber of Commerce tell the story, they're pushing these bills in order to "protect artists." But more and more we're seeing the very artists they claim they're protecting say they want no part of these laws. The guys from The Lonely Island (Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer), famous both for their YouTube videos and their work on NBC's Saturday Night Live, along with a number of other notable names in the entertainment industry -- including Neil Gaiman, Amanda Palmer, Trent Reznor, Aziz Ansari, Adam Savage, Damian Kulash (and the rest of OK GO), the band MGMT, and a bunch more -- have written a letter saying that, as internet users, they don't think these bills are a good idea:

We fear that the broad new enforcement powers provided under SOPA and PIPA could be easily abused against legitimate services like those upon which we depend. These bills would allow entire websites to be blocked without due process, causing collateral damage to the legitimate users of the same services - artists and creators like us who would be censored as a result. 
We are deeply concerned that PIPA and SOPA’s impact on piracy will be negligible compared to the potential damage that would be caused to legitimate Internet services. Online piracy is harmful and it needs to be addressed, but not at the expense of censoring creativity, stifling innovation or preventing the creation of new, lawful digital distribution methods.

We urge Congress to exercise extreme caution and ensure that the free and open Internet, upon which so many artists rely to promote and distribute their work, does not become collateral damage in the process.

When even the very people that the entertainment industry insists its "protecting" with these bills are being quite vocal against them, you have to wonder why they're being pushed so hard? 

Once again, it seems that these bills aren't about protecting artists at all. They're about protecting the gatekeepers, who want to control those artists... Source

What SOPA and PIPA are at face value and what they could end up enabling

MSM: Realizes SOPA Exists + Reddit Co-Founder: SOPA Blackout 'Resounding Success'

January 18 is blackout day in protest of SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House, and the Protect IP Act in the Senate; hundreds of websites have blacked out their sites in protest. And the mainstream media, finally noticed! Welcome to the world that you've been ignoring for so long where opposition to these two anti-piracy laws has been growing for months. Source

”Reddit Co-Founder: SOPA Blackout ‘Resounding Success”

Four sponsors of PIPA have dropped out and on the SOPA side three sponsors have announced they will be removing their names. Many other members of Congress, who are not sponsors or authors of the bills, have also released public statements today signaling their opposition. So in this battle of Hollywood versus the tech industry, are the tables finally beginning to turn? Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian weighs in. Source

We have three tool time winners tonight and they're all politicians who are backing SOPA. Find out what Lamar Smith, Harry Reid, and Chris Dodd have been up to. Source

China's banks lure man on the street to gold

For Chinese shipping executive Ping Bo buying gold is the best way to protect his family's wealth and give his 10-year-old son a headstart into adulthood. (Reuters) 

"For my son, the idea is that he will get a nice stash of gold that he can cash out when he turns 21 or when he gets married," said Ping, one of over 2 million people that have opened accounts in the past two years to accumulate gold at the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC). The ICBC launched the accounts in April 2010. The gold that it has bought to back them is only a fraction of total Chinese demand, but the explosive growth in the number of investors that have signed up is a symptom of the wider demand for the precious metal in the world's most populous country. China, expected to overtake India as the world's top gold consumer in the next few years, accounted for 23 percent of the world's total consumer physical gold demand in the first three quarters of 2011, up from 19 percent in 2010, according to the World Gold Council (WGC). Growing wealth in a traditional culture that favours gold, economic uncertainty and looser regulations on the domestic gold market together have combined to create rapid growth in China's gold demand. The accounts are one of a range of methods that China's banks have come up with that allow small investors like Ping access to the gold market. Investors buy as little as a gram a month through the accounts, a tiny quantity but one that adds up when the middle class of the world's most populous country is involved. "Its a fantastic way for me to accumulate gold," said Shanghai-based Ping. ICBC's accounts drew 2.33 million investors by the end of November, according to the bank, just 19 months after the launch, with 22 tonnes of gold held to back them. Agricultural Bank of China said that for a similar product launched in September, more than 70,000 clients signed up to buy a minimum of one gram of gold per month. "The product will retain its vitality as long as the demand for physical gold investment keeps growing," said the bank in a written reply to a Reuters enquiry. The ability of China's banks to keep money flowing into bullion investments will play a major part in supporting gold prices this year, after spot bullion pulled back to around $1,660 an ounce from a record above $1,920 in September. "The Chinese really love gold," said Shi Xudong, deputy head of the Administration Office of the Precious Metals Department at ICBC (1398.HK) (601398.SS). "The fact that the government has started to clean up the gold market is favourable to our business, as investors who have been trading on illegal platforms will need to look for new investment platforms." He referred to a recent statement from China's central bank on cracking down on informal gold exchanges outside the Shanghai Gold Exchange and Shanghai Futures Exchange. ICBC, the biggest among the country's commercial banks in precious metals, also offers paper gold, a way for investors to buy and sell without taking physical delivery, and allows retail investors to trade on the Shanghai Gold Exchange through its platform. In the first 11 months of 2011, the bank's clients traded 295 tonnes of gold on Shanghai gold forward contracts and 615 tonnes on paper gold. In 2011, the bank sold 50 tonnes of physical gold products and 70 tonnes of silver products, ICBC said. For graphic on China's physical gold demand, click link.reuters.com/raz85s

CHINA GOLD DEMAND TO RETAIN HIGH GROWTH. In the first three quarters of 2011, China's jewellery demand shot up 34 percent on the year to 376.8 tonnes, while demand for coins and bars surged 89 percent to 204.1 tonnes, according to the WGC. Albert Cheng, Managing Director of the WGC, Far East, estimated total jewellery consumption would grow to 500 tonnes and physical investment demand exceed 250 tonnes in 2011, which would bring total demand up at least 18 percent from a year earlier. "In 2012, both investment and jewellery demand will retain growth, albeit at a lower pace," Cheng told Reuters in an interview. He estimated that investment demand would grow 25-30 percent, and jewellery demand 6-10 percent, in 2012. Volume on gold derivative trades could be 15 to 20 times physical investment demand, Cheng said. As a sign of surging demand for bullion, China's gold imports from Hong Kong in the first 11 months of 2011 more than tripled on the year. China has one of the world's highest saving rates, and the public faces few investment options. A volatile stock market and a property market under government crackdown are driving investors to seek alternative investment choices. "Chinese investors are looking for ways to protect their savings from negative real interest rates," said Nick Trevethan, Senior Commodity Strategist at ANZ in Singapore. "A diverse saving portfolio could help." Source

Spy Who Stoned Me: UK admits British rock invasion

The UK has admitted for the first time that it was using a fake rock to spy on Russia six years ago. The chief of staff to the then British PM Tony Blair has made the revelation in an interview. In 2006 the UK dismissed the allegations that appeared in the Russian media. Source