Action: killing the car "kill switch," and justice for Liu Ping.

Hard as it may be to believe, some two million cars now come equipped, as it were, with GPS-based kill switches. Why? So that lenders can literally shut off cars remotely if borrowers aren't current on their payments. Kill switch operators claim they can't shut off cars while they're actually running, but some folks have testified to the New York Times that's not exactly true, and note well that loans with kill-switches attached generally go to very poor people. People who respond ZOMG WHEN WILLZ THOSE PEOPLEZ BE RESPONZIBULZ!!!!! need to remember first that they're also bill-juggling debtors (who but a rich person buys a house with cash, after all?), and second that putting people at risk of stranding or even death is never an acceptable punishment for being late with a car payment. Only Wisconsin bans these kill switches (I bet Scott Walker would love to change that!), but New York, where a state Senator has introduced a bill (S. 7946) that would outlaw auto kill switches, might follow suit. So Watchdog.net helps you tell the New York state legislature to ban automobile kill switches.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International helps you tell the Chinese government to release Liu Ping. Liu Ping worked at an iron and steel plant until her mid-40s, when the plant forced her to retire; that was five years ago, and she began agitating for better pensions for forced retirees. Social Security defenders, you know what I'm talking about. Naturally, the Chinese government responded by detaining her for 10 days in 2010; the next year, she tried to run as a local delegate to the National People's Congress, but despite legally qualifying for the ballot, the local election director's office threw her name off anyway, because of "foreign influences" or something. In 2013, she participated in (and organized) demonstrations aiming to force Chinese government officials to disclose their wealth -- after all, in Communist China, no one's supposed to be super-wealthy, right? Now, perhaps not coincidentally, she's in jail serving 6 1/2 years for rubbish charges including "using a cult organization to undermine the law." You like the idea of good folks going to jail because they try to expose corruption? Of course not. So let's shame the totalitarians in the eyes of the world.