On Tuesday, Buffalo became the first city in the country to take the drone issue seriously after the presentation of a drone ordinance to Common Council President Richard Fontanna. Author and co-founder of CODEPINK Medea Benjamin, Occupy Buffalo, and the Western New York Peace Center were given a date to present their case to the Common Council Legislation Committee headed by Darius Pridgen. After bringing Medea to Buffalo for an appearance on Book TV at Talking Leaves, both groups spent plenty of time in City Hall lobbying council members to sponsor the ordinance.

Most had no idea about drones and it was a great opportunity to educate our elected officials before the DHS got a chance to leave out the inconvenient truth about drones. Meetings with Pridgen’s assistant and council members LoCourto, Scanlon and Smith sparked genuine concern over the implications of the use of drones in our city.

Buffalo First City to Bring Drone Ordinance to City Council

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The age of the drone has arrived. It’s not possible to uninvent these Orwellian devices, but we can — and must — restrain their use.

As instruments of war, pilotless aircraft have already become essential. The Post reported last year that more than 50 countries had developed or purchased drones to use in surveillance — and that many of those nations were working to weaponize the aircraft. Deadly missiles fired from drones are among the most effective U.S. weapons against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

The emerging ‘drone’ culture

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This morning, the US Senate defeated the Cybersecurity Act of 2012, a bill that would have given companies new rights to monitor our private communications and pass that data to the government. The bill sponsors were 8 votes short of the 60 votes necessary to end debate on the bill (vote breakdown here). This is a victory for Internet freedom advocates everywhere. Hundreds of thousands of individuals emailed, tweeted, called, and sent Facebook messages to Senators asking them to defend privacy in the cybersecurity debate. Those voices were heard loud and clear in the halls of Congress today. EFF extends our heartfelt thanks to everyone who fought with us on this issue.

We can all be proud today that there was no law enacted on our watch that would have compromised the online privacy rights of Internet users in the name of cybersecurity.

We beat the bill, and we changed the conversation

Victory Over Cyber Spying

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The public is hearing little about increased spending by outside groups in the 2012 election. Just 25% have heard a lot about outside spending by groups not associated with the candidates or campaigns, while three-quarters are hearing a little (36%) or nothing at all (39%) about this. In fact, the term “super PAC” itself is not widely known: Just 40% can correctly identify the term, nearly half (46%) don’t know what it refers to, while 14% give incorrect responses.

Little Public Awareness of Outside Campaign Spending BoomWhat's a 'Super PAC?'

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Former President Bill Clinton is slated to meet with donors at a private residence in Manhattan to urge them to open their wallets to the pro-President Obama super PAC Priorities USA Action, two sources told POLITICO.

Priorities officials, as well as Obama campaign officials, have increasingly been turning to Clinton for help in rainmaking as the Mitt Romney campaign and outside Republican groups are set to massively outraise the Democrats.

Bill Clinton to make ask with donors for pro-Obama super PAC in NYC