tagged w/ Freedom of Information
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The Canadian government has been accused of "muzzling" its scientists.
Speakers at a major science meeting being held in Canada said communication of vital research on health and environment issues is being suppressed.
But one Canadian government department approached by the BBC said it held the communication of science as a priority.
Prof Thomas Pedersen, a senior scientist at the University of Victoria, said he believed there was a political motive in some cases.
"The Prime Minister (Stephen Harper) is keen to keep control of the message, I think to ensure that the government won't be embarrassed by scientific findings of its scientists that run counter to sound environmental stewardship," he said.
"I suspect the federal government would prefer that its scientists don't discuss research that points out just how serious the climate change challenge is."”
Professor Thomas Pedersen
University of Victoria
The Canadian government recently withdrew from the Kyoto protocol to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
The allegation of "muzzling" came up at a session of the AAAS meeting to discuss the impact of a media protocol introduced by the Conservative government shortly after it was elected in 2008.
The protocol requires that all interview requests for scientists employed by the government must first be cleared by officials. A decision as to whether to allow the interview can take several days, which can prevent government scientists commenting on breaking news stories.
Sources say that requests are often refused and when interviews are granted, government media relations officials can and do ask for written questions to be submitted in advance and elect to sit in on the interview.
'Orwellian' approach
Andrew Weaver, an environmental scientist at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, described the protocol as "Orwellian".
“The information is so tightly controlled that the public is left in the dark”
Professor Andrew Weaver
University of Victoria
The protocol states: "Just as we have one department we should have one voice. Interviews sometimes present surprises to ministers and senior management. Media relations will work with staff on how best to deal with the call (an interview request from a journalist). This should include asking the programme expert to respond with approved lines."
Professor Weaver said that information is so tightly controlled that the public is "left in the dark".
"The only information they are given is that which the government wants, which will then allow a supporting of a particular agenda," he said.
The leak was obtained and reported three years ago by Margaret Munro, who is a science writer for Postmedia News, based in Vancouver. Speaking at the AAAS meeting, she said its effect was to suppress scientific debate on issues of public interest.
"The more controversial the story, the less likely you are to talk to the scientists. They (government media relations staff) just stonewall. If they don't like the question you don't get an answer."
Ms Munro cited several examples of what she described as the "muzzling" of scientists by the government.
Research on falling salmon stocks was published in a leading journal
The most notorious case is of that of Dr Kristi Miller, who is head of molecular genetics for the Department for Fisheries and Oceans. Dr Miller had been investigating why salmon populations in western Canada were declining.
The investigation, which was published in one of the leading scientific journals in the world, Science, seemed to suggest that fish might have been exposed to a virus associated with cancer.
The suggestion raised many questions, including whether the virus might have been imported by the local aquaculture industry.
Requests denied
The journal felt this to be an important study and put out a press release, which it sent out to thousands of journalists across the world. Dr Miller was named as the principal contact.
However, the government declined all requests to interview Dr Miller. It said it was because she was due to give evidence to a judicial inquiry on the issue of falling fish stocks.
According to Ms Munro, because reporters were denied the opportunity to question Dr Miller about her work, important public policy issues went unanswered.
"You have a government that is micromanaging the message, obsessively. The Privy Council Office (which works for the Prime Minister, Stephen Harper) seems to vet everything that goes out to the media," she said.
A spokeswoman for Fisheries and Oceans Canada told BBC News: "The Department works daily to ensure it provides the public with timely, accurate, objective and complete information about our policies, programmes, services and initiatives, in accordance with the Federal Government's Communications Policy.
"In 2011, Fisheries and Oceans publicly issued 286 science advisory reports documenting our research on Canada's fisheries; our scientists respond to approximately 380 science-based media calls every year."
Fisheries and Oceans Canada declined a request by the BBC to interview Kristi Miller for this article. Dr Miller told us she would have been willing to be interviewed had her department given her permission.
More at the linkThe Canadian government has been accused of "muzzling" its scientists.... more
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A man who witnessed last week’s controversial fatal South Beach shooting of Raymond Herisse by Miami Beach police says he and his girlfriend were intimidated by cops who sought footage of the incident captured on his cell phone (see above).
“When he noticed me recording, one of the officers jumped in the truck, put a pistol to my head,” Narces Benoit said. “My phone was smashed – he stepped on it, handcuffed me.”
Benoit and his girlfriend, Ericka Davis, were driving around the area on Memorial Day when they saw the tail-end of a police chase that ended with Herisse dead and four bystanders injured by gunfire. In addition to unconfirmed reports that he was shooting a Berretta 92-F semiautomatic pistol from his Hyundai, police say Herisse — an armed robbery suspect — struck several officers after bolting from a traffic stop.
Benoit says he was initially cuffed, but released after additional gunshots were heard. He then slipped the phone’s memory card in his mouth and kept it there through a recorded interview at police headquarters. According to Benoit, several other bystanders had their phones smashed by police.
Police Chief Carlos Noriega told the Miami Herald he hadn’t previously heard of any threats or smashed cell phones, but that Internal Affairs would investigate if Benoit made a formal complaint. Miami Beach PD detective Juan Sanchez told CNN he couldn’t comment on how the situation was handled, “because the matter could become the subject of an internal investigation or a civil lawsuit.”
http://thedailywh.at/2011/06/07/photography-is-not-a-crime-of-the-day/A man who witnessed last week’s controversial fatal South Beach shooting of... more
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4/1/11 - The Hedz-Up Report travels to federal court (Southern District of NY), to cover the Coalition for a New Village Hospital's Freedom of Information claim. Led by activist/lawyer, Yetta Kurland, the Coalition is seeking access to documents pertaining to St. Vincent's abrupt closure.
The Hon. Jed S. Rakoff, will decide the matter within a week. In this clip, Ms. Kurland and community activists reflect on the proceedings.
More to come, stay tuned.
In the meantime, please visit our video blog, "Why Are They Closing St. Vincent's Hospital?," for our collected reports and future updates:
http://watclosingstvincentshospital.blogspot.com/
Thanks for watching, help spread the word.
Related articles:
New York Freedom of Information Law (FOIL)
http://sunshinereview.org/index.php/New_York_Freedom_of_Information_Law
Crain's NY Business - "Medical tenants dig in their heels at St. Vincent's site"
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20110401/FREE/110409985
Wall St. Journal - "St. Vincent's Deal Stirs Local Opposition"
http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2011/03/10/st-vincents-deal-stirs-local-opposition/
Related site:
Coalition for a New Village Hospital - "Rally to Demand a Hospital"
http://demandahospital.blogspot.com/4/1/11 - The Hedz-Up Report travels to federal court (Southern District of NY), to... more
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"The hacker battle cry of “free” information reflects either ignorance of value and ownership, or active hostility to those concepts".
[ me ] ;
-DEATH TO PARASITES.
Uhm,....yes,....I think "actively hostile" sums it up.
from the post -
CNN reports that “whistle-blowing” Swiss banker Rudolf Elmer handed the banking information of two thousand clients over to WikiLeaks. The website says it will be able to “process” and release this information in “a matter of weeks.” Elmer is facing charges for violating Swiss banking secrecy regulations.
Elmer describes himself as an “activist/reformer/banker” who decided the Swiss banking system was “damaging our society in the way money was moved.” He’s never been able to get government authorities or universities interested in the data he pilfered from the banks, so he hit on the idea of handing it over to WikiLeaks.
Once again, we see a lone “activist” violating the property and privacy rights of many others, in the belief his wisdom transcends the judgment of those he could never convince to act upon his stolen data. I’m second to none in my criticism of hidebound government bureaucracies… but where, exactly, do the Swiss go to vote against Rudolf Elmer or WikiLeaks, if they disagree with their notions of secrecy or transparency?
Are we supposed to believe that all 2000 of the accounts Elmer gave WikiLeaks belong to evil villains conspiring to dominate the world? Don’t they “own” their banking data, and therefore have some right to decide how it would be disseminated?
more-
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http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=41245
graphic-"The hacker battle cry of “free” information reflects either... more
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By RAPHAEL G. SATTER
Associated Press
LONDON (AP) -- U.S. officials have issued a subpoena to demand details about WikiLeaks' Twitter account, the group announced Saturday, adding that it suspected other American Internet companies were also being ordered to hand over information about its activities.
In a statement, WikiLeaks said U.S. investigators had gone to the San Francisco-based Twitter Inc. to demand the private messages, contact information and other personal details of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and other supporters, including the U.S. Army intelligence analyst suspected of handing classified information to the site and a high-profile Icelandic parliamentarian.
WikiLeaks blasted the court order, saying it amounted to harassment.
"If the Iranian government was to attempt to coercively obtain this information from journalists and activists of foreign nations, human rights groups around the world would speak out," Assange said in the statement.
A copy of the court order, dated Dec. 14 and posted to Salon.com, said the information sought was "relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation" and ordered Twitter not to disclose its existence to Assange or any of the others targeted.
The order was unsealed "thanks to legal action by Twitter," WikiLeaks said.
Twitter has declined comment on the claim, saying only that its policy is to notify its users, where possible, of government requests for information.
Others named in the order include Pfc. Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army private suspected of being the source of some of WikiLeaks' material, as well as Birgitta Jonsdottir, an Icelandic lawmaker and one-time WikiLeaks collaborator known for her role in pioneering Iceland's media initiative - which aims to make the North Atlantic island nation a haven for free speech.
The U.S. is also seeking details about Dutch hacker Rop Gonggrijp and U.S. programmer Jacob Appelbaum, both of whom have previously worked with WikiLeaks.
Assange has promised to fight the order, as has Jonsdottir, who said in a Twitter message that she had "no intention to hand my information over willingly." Appelbaum, whose Twitter feed suggested he was traveling in Iceland, said he was apprehensive about returning to the U.S.
"Time to try to enjoy the last of my vacation, I suppose," he tweeted.
more at LINK - - -
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WIKILEAKS?SITE=NVREN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
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http://hosted.ap.org/photos/5/5c409645-58e0-4d3a-a794-fa07f470e992-small.jpgBy RAPHAEL G. SATTER
Associated Press
LONDON (AP) -- U.S. officials have issued a... more
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AlterNet http://ow.ly/3u5kr
By Joshua Holland
December 22, 2010 |
Wall Street has worked hard to keep its inner workings from seeing the light of day. But one of the worst offenders in the financial crisis may be about to face the kind of public disrobing that government regulators, the corporate media and transparency activists are incapable of performing. If the rumors that have been swirling around in recent months prove true, Bank of America's dirty secrets may soon be exposed for the world to see, courtesy of the whistle-blower site Wikileaks.
The banks prefer not to give out information, even when required to do so by law. Consider their potentially illegal response to a campaign by the service employees union, SEIU called, “Where's the Note?” that helps homeowners request a copy of their mortgage-holder's proof that it actually holds the note on their properties. According to SEIU – and confirmed anecdotally by others – borrowers who take advantage of SEIU's system have faced retaliation in the form of lower credit ratings: they send in the request, and see their credit scores fall. It's a likely violation of the Fair Lending Act, and as Roosevelt Institute fellow Mike Konczal noted, it's a serious threat:
In the middle of a foreclosure fraud crisis where people aren’t sure who owns their mortgage, a simple ask of “can you show me the contract I signed with you, just to make sure it is there if there is a dispute” is being used to threaten someone’s credit score.... Since credit scores impact everything else in your life, from being able to turn on your lights and electricity to renting an apartment to purchasing things, this is a serious threat, one of the more grievous ones a private company can deliver.
David Dayen at Firedoglake adds that the heavy-handed response to SEIU's campaign “is part of a broader trend, where the servicers and big banks, having been exposed by the foreclosure fraud crisis, are now lashing out at their critics.”
The St. Petersburg Times reported that one company, Nationwide Title clearing, has taken to using legal bullying tactics to stifle its critics. The company filed an injunction against Sarasota lawyer Christopher Forrest “to remove videotaped depositions he had posted of three Nationwide Title employees describing an assembly-line process of signing mortgage-related documents.” The ACLU of Florida filed an emergency appeal of the injunction, calling it a "gag order" and a restraint of free speech.
The company then sued Matthew Weidner, a St. Petersburg lawyer who defends homeowners against wrongful foreclosures, for defamation and libel after he reposted the videos and added some commentary.
Barbara Petersen, the president of Florida's First Amendment Foundation, told the Times that Weidner had played a pivotal role in exposing serious issues in the foreclosure process, “including court hearings from which the public was barred.” "I've been working with Matt on trying to open the foreclosure process and we've made great strides that have a lot to do with his activism," she said. "He's bringing a great deal of national attention to what's going on in Florida."
Nationwide Title claimed that Weidner defamed the company by including the widely used term “robo-signers” in his posts. The charge will be hard to prove, but as Naked Capitalism's Yves Smith noted, the act of suing a lawyer with a small practice “throws a wrench in their operation” as “it takes time to deal with litigation, and often money, plus the stress is also a considerable distraction.” She adds: “Of course, the hope is no doubt that this sort of risk will also deter other lawyers and critics.”
~AlterNet http://ow.ly/3u5kr
By Joshua Holland
December 22, 2010 |
Wall... more
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Even as crowds gathered outside a British court on Tuesday for the first hearing of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, a document circulating on the Internet appeared to be attracting ever more attention. A huge computer file known as “insurance.aes256”, available on Internet torrent sites since July, has seemingly offered the WikiLeaks founder a new lifeline. The so-called “life-insurance” file contains yet more political and diplomatic secrets which some say will prevent powerful opponents of the whistle-blowing website from threatening its founder.
If any harm befalls either the organisation or its extremely media-exposed representative Assange, WikiLeaks has promised to release the document’s decryption key to the public. During a recent interview to the American news channel Democracy Now!, Assange himself stressed the importance of the document. “It might be worth ensuring that important parts of history do not disappear,” he said.
“insurance.aes256” weighs in at a hefty 1.39 GB. “This is huge if it contains only text. So there is a chance that the document also contains images and other multimedia elements,” said Laurent Heslaut, director of security technology within the American anti-virus software firm Symantec.
3x1051 years
The contents of this “Sword of Damocles” being held above the heads of Assange’s powerful detractors have inevitably been the subject of much speculation. The possibility of uncovering secrets surrounding Guantanamo Bay or serious revelations regarding the background of the global economic crisis are the most frequently hypothesized. Most probable of all is that “insurance.aes256” contains the previously undisclosed identities of people WikiLeaks has so far sought to protect.
Yet to read the document one will need to get past an encryption key of 256 bits, which many believe uses the AES encryption algorithm also used, quite ironically, by NASA for documents classified as “Top Secret”.
The code is currently considered one of the most secure forms of data protection available. “It would take, a priori, 3x1051 years for an army of computers to decipher this code,” says Renaud Bidou, technical director of the French technology security firm Deny All. Unless, like the lottery, in one huge stroke of luck you find the winning number…
http://www.france24.com/en/20101215-insuranceaes256-julian-assange-contingency-plan-life-insurance-wikileaksEven as crowds gathered outside a British court on Tuesday for the first hearing of... more
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In a front-page story, the New York Times "Federal prosecutors, seeking to build a case against the WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange for his role in a huge dissemination of classified government documents, are looking for evidence of any collusion in his early contacts with an Army intelligence analyst suspected of leaking the information." Justice Department officials "are trying to find out whether Mr. Assange encouraged or even helped the analyst, Pfc. Bradley Manning, to extract classified military and State Department files from a government computer system. If he did so, they believe they could charge him as a conspirator in the leak, not just as a passive recipient of the documents who then published them."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/world/16wiki.html?_r=1&hpIn a front-page story, the New York Times "Federal prosecutors, seeking to build... more
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Yesterday, in the Westminster Magistrates Court in London, the lawyers for WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange presented to the judge a document from me stating that I have put up $20,000 of my own money to help bail Mr. Assange out of jail.
Furthermore, I am publicly offering the assistance of my website, my servers, my domain names and anything else I can do to keep WikiLeaks alive and thriving as it continues its work to expose the crimes that were concocted in secret and carried out in our name and with our tax dollars.
We were taken to war in Iraq on a lie. Hundreds of thousands are now dead. Just imagine if the men who planned this war crime back in 2002 had had a WikiLeaks to deal with. They might not have been able to pull it off. The only reason they thought they could get away with it was because they had a guaranteed cloak of secrecy. That guarantee has now been ripped from them, and I hope they are never able to operate in secret again.
So why is WikiLeaks, after performing such an important public service, under such vicious attack? Because they have outed and embarrassed those who have covered up the truth. The assault on them has been over the top:
**Sen. Joe Lieberman says WikiLeaks "has violated the Espionage Act."
**The New Yorker's George Packer calls Assange "super-secretive, thin-skinned, [and] megalomaniacal."
**Sarah Palin claims he's "an anti-American operative with blood on his hands" whom we should pursue "with the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders."
**Democrat Bob Beckel (Walter Mondale's 1984 campaign manager) said about Assange on Fox: "A dead man can't leak stuff ... there's only one way to do it: illegally shoot the son of a bitch."
**Republican Mary Matalin says "he's a psychopath, a sociopath ... He's a terrorist."
**Rep. Peter A. King calls WikiLeaks a "terrorist organization."
And indeed they are! They exist to terrorize the liars and warmongers who have brought ruin to our nation and to others. Perhaps the next war won't be so easy because the tables have been turned -- and now it's Big Brother who's being watched ... by us!
WikiLeaks deserves our thanks for shining a huge spotlight on all this. But some in the corporate-owned press have dismissed the importance of WikiLeaks ("they've released little that's new!") or have painted them as simple anarchists ("WikiLeaks just releases everything without any editorial control!"). WikiLeaks exists, in part, because the mainstream media has failed to live up to its responsibility. The corporate owners have decimated newsrooms, making it impossible for good journalists to do their job. There's no time or money anymore for investigative journalism. Simply put, investors don't want those stories exposed. They like their secrets kept ... as secrets.
I ask you to imagine how much different our world would be if WikiLeaks had existed 10 years ago. Take a look at this photo. That's Mr. Bush about to be handed a "secret" document on August 6th, 2001. Its heading read: "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US." And on those pages it said the FBI had discovered "patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings." Mr. Bush decided to ignore it and went fishing for the next four weeks.
But if that document had been leaked, how would you or I have reacted? What would Congress or the FAA have done? Was there not a greater chance that someone, somewhere would have done something if all of us knew about bin Laden's impending attack using hijacked planes?
But back then only a few people had access to that document. Because the secret was kept, a flight school instructor in San Diego who noticed that two Saudi students took no interest in takeoffs or landings, did nothing. Had he read about the bin Laden threat in the paper, might he have called the FBI? (Please read this essay by former FBI Agent Coleen Rowley, Time's 2002 co-Person of the Year, about her belief that had WikiLeaks been around in 2001, 9/11 might have been prevented.)
Or what if the public in 2003 had been able to read "secret" memos from Dick Cheney as he pressured the CIA to give him the "facts" he wanted in order to build his false case for war? If a WikiLeaks had revealed at that time that there were, in fact, no weapons of mass destruction, do you think that the war would have been launched -- or rather, wouldn't there have been calls for Cheney's arrest?
Openness, transparency -- these are among the few weapons the citizenry has to protect itself from the powerful and the corrupt. What if within days of August 4th, 1964 -- after the Pentagon had made up the lie that our ship was attacked by the North Vietnamese in the Gulf of Tonkin -- there had been a WikiLeaks to tell the American people that the whole thing was made up? I guess 58,000 of our soldiers (and 2 million Vietnamese) might be alive today.
Instead, secrets killed them.
For those of you who think it's wrong to support Julian Assange because of the sexual assault allegations he's being held for, all I ask is that you not be naive about how the government works when it decides to go after its prey. Please -- never, ever believe the "official story." And regardless of Assange's guilt or innocence (see the strange nature of the allegations here), this man has the right to have bail posted and to defend himself. I have joined with filmmakers Ken Loach and John Pilger and writer Jemima Khan in putting up the bail money -- and we hope the judge will accept this and grant his release today.
Might WikiLeaks cause some unintended harm to diplomatic negotiations and U.S. interests around the world? Perhaps. But that's the price you pay when you and your government take us into a war based on a lie. Your punishment for misbehaving is that someone has to turn on all the lights in the room so that we can see what you're up to. You simply can't be trusted. So every cable, every email you write is now fair game. Sorry, but you brought this upon yourself. No one can hide from the truth now. No one can plot the next Big Lie if they know that they might be exposed.
And that is the best thing that WikiLeaks has done. WikiLeaks, God bless them, will save lives as a result of their actions. And any of you who join me in supporting them are committing a true act of patriotism. Period.
I stand today in absentia with Julian Assange in London and I ask the judge to grant him his release. I am willing to guarantee his return to court with the bail money I have wired to said court. I will not allow this injustice to continue unchallenged.
P.S. You can read the statement I filed today in the London court here.
P.P.S. If you're reading this in London, please go support Julian Assange and WikiLeaks at a demonstration at 1 PM today, Tuesday the 14th, in front of the Westminster court.
http://j.mp/i0vgv5Yesterday, in the Westminster Magistrates Court in London, the lawyers for WikiLeaks... more
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follow link for full story
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(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- A former staff member of WikiLeaks said he will launch a new alternative website that he promises will be more transparent than WikiLeaks.
Daniel Domscheit-Berg, the former deputy to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says he will launch Openleaks (www.openleaks.org) Monday in an effort to aid anonymous sources expose sensitive information to the public eye.
As of this morning, the website displays nothing more than the Openleaks logo with the message "Coming soon!"
The new website will be launched on Monday from its Germany headquarters as part of a board of directors-run, undisclosed foundation, said reporter Jesper Huor in a documentary by Swedish broadcaster SVT that will be aired on Sunday.
"Openleaks is a technology project that is aiming to be a service provider for third parties that want to be able to accept material from anonymous sources," Domscheit-Berg said in interviews conducted in Berlin.
Domscheit-Berg said he left WikiLeaks after a falling out with Assange over the lack of transparency in the organization's decision-making process.
In an interview with OWNI technology website, Domscheit-Berg declined to further elaborate on his dispute with Wikileaks but said that "in these last months, the organization has not been open any more, it lost its open-source promise."
He added that Openleaks intends on providing a vehicle to publish leaked materials without taking on a publisher role itself.
"If you preach transparency to everyone else you have to be transparent yourself. You have to fulfill the same standards you expect from others, and I think that's where we've not been heading in the same direction philosophically anymore," said Domscheit-Berg in the documentary.
Domscheit-Berg said he had issues with the way WikiLeaks handled larger leaks, including the 400,000 classified US war files from Iraq and 76,000 from Afghanistan from earlier this year.
He said that it would have been wiser for WikiLeaks to publish these documents "slowly, step by step, to grow the project."
The launch of Openleaks comes after mounting speculation about the existence of copycat sites of the controversial site.
Meanwhile, both WikiLeaks and Assange continue to face pressure after the site published 250,000 secret US diplomatic cables last month.
Financial institutions such as Swiss Postfinance, Mastercard, Visa and Pay Pal have cut off the means for people to send donations to WikiLeaks, while Assange has been imprisoned in the UK and faces extradition to Sweden on sex crime allegations.(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- A former staff member of WikiLeaks said he will launch a... more
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I have lost count of the politicians and opinion formers of an authoritarian bent warning of the dreadful damage done by the WikiLeaks dump of diplomatic cables, and in the very next breath dismissing the content as frivolous tittle-tattle. To seek simultaneous advantage from opposing arguments is not a new gambit, but to be wrong in both is quite an achievement.
Publication of the cables has caused no loss of life; troops are not being mobilised; and the only real diplomatic crisis is merely one of discomfort. The idea that the past two weeks have been a disaster is self-evidently preposterous. Yet the leaks are of unprecedented importance because, at a stroke, they have enlightened the masses about what is being done in their name and have shown the corruption, incompetence – and sometimes wisdom – of our politicians, corporations and diplomats. More significantly, we have been given a snapshot of the world as it is, rather than the edited account agreed upon by diverse elites, whose only common interest is the maintenance of their power and our ignorance.
The world has changed, not simply because governments find they are just as vulnerable to the acquisition, copying and distribution of huge amounts of data as the music, publishing and film businesses were, but because we are unlikely to return to the happy ignorance of the past. Knowing Saudi Arabia has urged the bombing of Iran, that Shell maintains an iron grip on the government of Nigeria, that Pfizer hired investigators to disrupt investigations into drugs trials on children, also in Nigeria, that the Pakistan intelligence service, the ISI, is swinging both ways on the Taliban, that China launched a cyber attack on Google, that North Korean has provided nuclear scientists to Burma, that Russia is a virtual mafia state in which security services and gangsters are joined at the hip – and knowing all this in some detail – means we are far more likely to treat the accounts of events we are given in the future with much greater scepticism.
Never mind the self-serving politicians who waffle on about the need for diplomatic confidentiality when they themselves order the bugging of diplomats and hacking of diplomatic communications. What is astonishing is the number of journalists out there who argue that it is better not to know these things, that the world is safer if the public is kept in ignorance. In their swooning infatuation with practically any power elite that comes to hand, some writers for the Murdoch press and Telegraph titles argue in essence for the Chinese or Russian models of deceit and obscurantism. They advocate the continued infantilising of the public.
Nothing is new. In 1771, that great lover of liberty, John Wilkes, and a number of printers challenged the law that prohibited the reporting of Parliamentary debates and speeches, kept secret because those in power argued that the information was too sensitive and would disrupt the life of the country if made public. Using the arcane laws of the City of London, Alderman Wilkes arranged for the interception of the Parliamentary messengers sent to arrest the printers who had published debates, and in doing so successfully blocked Parliament. By 1774, a contemporary was able to write: "The debates in both houses have been constantly printed in the London papers." From that moment, the freedom of the press was born.
It took a libertine to prove that information enriched the functioning of British society, a brave maverick who was constantly moving house – and sometimes country – to avoid arrest; whose epic sexual adventures had been used by the authorities as a means of entrapping and imprisoning him. The London mob came out in his favour and, supplemented by shopkeepers and members of the gentry on horseback, finally persuaded the establishment of the time to accept that publication was inevitable. And the kingdom did not fall.
Over the past few weeks, there have been similarly dire predictions from sanctimonious men and women of affairs about the likely impacts of publication, and of course Julian Assange finds himself banged up in Wandsworth nick, having neither been formally charged with, nor found guilty of, the sex crimes he is alleged to have committed in Sweden. Making no comment about his guilt or innocence, or the possibility of his entrapment, I limit myself to saying that we have been here before with John Wilkes; and the reason for this is that authorities the world over and through history react the same way when there is a challenge to a monopoly of information.
It is all about power and who has access to information. Nothing more. When those who want society to operate on the basis of the parent-child relationship because it is obviously easier to manage, shut the door and say "not in front of the children", they are usually looking after their interests, not ours.
I don't argue for a free-for-all, regardless of the consequences. In the WikiLeaks cables, knowledge and the editing and reporting skills found in the old media, combined with the new ability to locate and seize enormous amounts of information on the web, has actually resulted in responsible publication, with names, sources, locations and dates redacted to protect people's identities and their lives.
America is sore and naturally feels exposed, but the state department would have had much less cause for regret if it had listened to Ross Anderson, the Cambridge professor often quoted here in relation to Labour's obsession with huge databases of personal information. His rule states that it is a mathematical impossibility to maintain a large and functional database that is also secure. Hillary Clinton must rue the day that the Bush administration built a great silo of cables that could be accessed by three million staff. The Chinese and Russians would never have been so trusting.
There has been more than a hint that China and Russia have empathised with the Americans. The unseen affinities of the powerful may also be responsible for the unforgivable behaviour by Amazon, which pulled the plug on hosting WikiLeaks, and PayPal, Visa and MasterCard, which unilaterally stopped customers making donations to WikiLeaks. There was not the slightest consideration of principles about free information or the freedom of their customers to make up their own minds. What next? Will these corporate giants be blocking payment to the New York Times and the Guardian? It is hard to feel much regret over the cyber attacks on their websites because, in the end, they did not seem much better than Shell and Pfizer, the companies that appear to be running so much of Nigeria like the worst type of imperial powers.
Nothing but good can come from revelations about these companies, and in this brief moment when we have a glimpse of how things really are, we should relish the fact that publication of the cables, as well as the shameful reactions to it, have brought light, not fire.
http://bit.ly/eYBsaUI have lost count of the politicians and opinion formers of an authoritarian bent... more
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In the spring of this year, before Wikileaks unleashed a flood of secret U.S. government documents, Rolling Stone met with "hacktivist" Jacob Appelbaum, a volunteer for the organization and a die-hard true believer in freedom of speech and personal privacy. Reporter Nathaniel Rich learned about Appelbaum's troubled childhood, his first forays into activism — in 2005, he set up unauthorized satellite internet connections in Iraq and, right after Hurricane Katrina, in one of New Orleans's poorest neighborhoods — and his growth into a global force for his beliefs.
Appelbaum is the public face of Tor Project, an organization that, by introducing intermediaries between computers, is used to prevent some of the world's most repressive regimes from tracking activists' movements online. Dissidents from China, Tunisia and a suspected high-level member of the Iranian military have used it to protect their identities.
While Appelbaum's work for Tor has been substantial, more notorious is his extensive work for Wikileaks. "Jake has been a tireless promoter behind the scenes of our cause," founder Julian Assange said.
The Wikileaks controversy has led Appelbaum to go underground, using Tor to protect himself and evade surveillance. He's set about living a life of anonymity, one where his mail is sent to a private drop, he pays rent in cash, and he doesn't enter his home address into any computer.
"You can never take that information back once it's out there," he said. "And it takes very little information to ruin a person's life."
http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/gear-up/blogs/November29/239095/238012In the spring of this year, before Wikileaks unleashed a flood of secret U.S.... more
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Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism
Featuring Julian Assange - a very interesting watch.Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism
Featuring Julian Assange - a very... more
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With budget cuts looming the Met chief has laid out some ideas where money could be saved at the police force. However, the idea to cut back on lawyer costs was criticised by human rights and civil liberties groups, since the proposal would make it more difficult for claims to be taken against police officers.
"• Making it harder for people to sue the police for damages in civil actions. These usually involve allegations of brutality or wrongful arrest.
• Loading higher costs on to officers and other staff suing police forces at employment tribunals. These cases include claims of discrimination and unfair treatment.
• Charging the public a fee for freedom of information requests. The Freedom of Information Act is supposed to help citizens hold public bodies to account."-Guardian
The main criticism states the tougher it is to sue officers the higher the risk for abuses of power committed by officers, which is why the safeguards are in place.With budget cuts looming the Met chief has laid out some ideas where money could be... more
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Yesterday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a speech on internet freedom in which she argued that it was a critical part of US foreign policy. She called out a few countries by name for restricting their citizens' access the information online. China was one of them. Unsurprisingly, today China expressed its unhappiness with Mrs. Clinton's speech...
"...calling on the United States government “to respect the truth and to stop using the so-called Internet freedom question to level baseless accusations.”
Ma Zhaoxu, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said in a written statement posted Friday afternoon on the ministry’s Web site that the criticism leveled by Mrs. Clinton on Thursday was “harmful to Sino-American relations.”
“The Chinese Internet is open,” he said.
Here's video of Mrs. Clinton's speech from yesterday.
The speech gives a new dimension to China's fight with Google. China has been making it out to be a business-only spat, but Clinton seems to have made it not just China vs. Google but China vs. US foreign policy.
Interestingly though, Joshua Keating at FP Passport thinks China's response was overblown and made Clinton look like she was being harder on China than she was:
It strikes me that Beijing could have issued a statement along the lines of, "Secretary Clinton is right to say that the United States and China have different views on this issue. We welcome her invitation to dialog but ask that the United States respect the sovereignty of our electronic space and unique political context. We are actively engaged in cracking down on criminals and extremists who take refuge in cyberspace."
Acting as if Clinton's temperate remarks amounted to a thrown gauntlet makes it appear to the outside world that they have something to be ashamed of. It doesn't seem like the response of a secure superpower.
If China is treating Clinton's speech like a 'thrown gauntlet', what will be the next step for the US? The Obama Administration up to now has been very reserved in its criticisms of China. Will criticism increase?
Recently on the Current News Blog:
- How people are helping Haiti
- Supreme Court opens doors to corporate money
- China to start watching texts
- Haiti: Challenges to come
- Haiti: Following along in the newsYesterday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a speech on internet freedom in... more
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Want to know how much phone companies and internet service providers charge to funnel your private communications or records to U.S. law enforcement and spy agencies?
That’s the question muckraker and Indiana University graduate student Christopher Soghoian asked all agencies within the Department of Justice, under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed a few months ago. But before the agencies could provide the data, Verizon and Yahoo intervened and filed an objection on grounds that, among other things, they would be ridiculed and publicly shamed were their surveillance price sheets made public.
continued....Want to know how much phone companies and internet service providers charge to funnel... more
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Here's how.
It's fast,
It's Free.
It's Fun.
Easier than a letter or an email. Raise a FOI, and ask all those questions about CAFCASS or your local council that you've always wanted to know.
This works for:
CAFCASS
Social Workers
Local Councils
All state departments, all local authorities.
Shame them, quiz them, expose their actions.
The Press and media can use your FOI - as it's public domain.
It's democracy in action! People power!Here's how.
It's fast,
It's Free.
It's Fun.
Easier than a... more
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