tagged w/ Corporate Government
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The one man who may be responsible for more food related illnesses and deaths than anyone in history, Michael R. Taylor, has just been promoted from US Food Safety Czar to Senior Advisor to the Commissioner of the FDA, a position which would enable the giant biotech company Monsanto to silently and legally feed cancer causing vegetables to every living person who is not 100% strictly organic.
President Obama has appointed the former Monsanto Vice President and lobbyist Michael R. Taylor to the throne. This is the same man who was Food Safety Czar for the FDA when Genetically Modified Organisms were allowed into the US food supply without undergoing a single test to determine their safety or risks. This is like putting a terrorist in charge of the world's food supply. What will the cancer numbers look like in 2016?
The GMO nightmare all started with the Dan Quayle led FDA/GMO marriage. Under George Bush Senior's Administration from 1989 to 1993, Dan Quayle single-handedly catapulted GMO's into existence through FDA's anti-consumer right-to-know policy, which stated that GMO foods did not have to be labeled or safety tested. Yes, you read that correctly: There is no safety testing required whatsoever to take some Agent Orange pesticide and genetically mutate the seeds of vegetables in a chemical laboratory so that nothing on planet earth will eat the plant that grows from the ground except for all the humans who have no idea what happened.
Michael Taylor is part of a revolving door at the FDA, where Monsanto Execs just come and go as they please. First, Michael R. Taylor was an assistant to the FDA commissioner. Then he left to work for a law firm in the 1980's to help gain FDA approval of Monsanto's artificial growth hormone (rGBH), which is directly linked to cancer. Then he became deputy commissioner of the FDA in 1991, and was later re-appointed to the FDA in 2009 by Obama. He is the food villain who tried his best to keep this "malignant milk of the turn of the century" from being labeled.
Michael Taylor is the epitome of everything Monsanto represents. Taylor is like a vehicle for Monsanto's patenting of seeds and global domination of farming. He implements the government's "favorable" agricultural biotech policies because it's much more of a financially sure shot to use RoundUp in food than to farm organically and ethically. If the investments aren't paying enough at the corporation, Execs just switch over to Federal Regulations and write some new Legislation based on "tainted research", which allows them to pile more toxins on the American public and bankroll off it when they flip back to the corporate side.
Michael Taylor is the epitome of everything Monsanto represents. Taylor is like a vehicle for Monsanto's patenting of seeds and global domination of farming. He implements the government's "favorable" agricultural biotech policies because it's much more of a financially sure shot to use RoundUp in food than to farm organically and ethically. If the investments aren't paying enough at the corporation, Execs just switch over to Federal Regulations and write some new Legislation based on "tainted research", which allows them to pile more toxins on the American public and bankroll off it when they flip back to the corporate side.
The 4-headed Administration of thieves
This marks the pinnacle so far of a long ascent of evil profiteering and corporate executives making it to the top. It's like one big 4-headed company of thieves: The FDA, EPA, Supreme Court, and Monsanto's Board of Executives, and these organization hoppers include Clarence Thomas, Michael R. Taylor, Ann Veneman, and Linda Fisher, who conveniently bounce back and forth between positions at Monsanto and the EPA.
Here are just a few examples in case you didn't know: Prior to being the Supreme Court Judge who put G.W. Bush in office, Clarence Thomas was Monsanto's lawyer. The U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Anne Veneman, was on the Board of Directors of Monsanto's Calgene Corporation. The U.S. Secretary of Health, Tommy Thompson, received $50,000 in donations from Monsanto during his winning campaign for Wisconsin's governor. The two congressmen receiving the most donations from Monsanto during the last election were Larry Combest, Chairman of the House Agricultural Committee, and Attorney General John Ashcroft. The prior Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, was on the Board of Directors of Monsanto's Searle Pharmaceuticals.
Monsanto has the money to win in court and/or settle with anyone who opposes them. Monsanto has been sued and has settled multiple times for damaging the health of its employees and residents near its Superfund sites through pollution and poisoning. A report released in June 2011 linked glyphosate (RoundUp) to birth defects in frog and chicken embryos at dilutions much lower than those used in typical agricultural spraying (including home gardens). (http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_22625.cfm)
Silent Anti-Nutritional Terrorism
FDA scientists once contended that genetic modification of the food supply is the "single most radical and potentially dangerous threat to public health." In addition to producing GMO foods, Monsanto pushes dozens of other toxic products such as aspartame, bovine growth hormone, Agent Orange, Dioxin, DDT, and Roundup - all of which cause birth defects and deformities.
Constitutional checks and balances are gone for the most part in the United States, especially when it comes to writing ethical policies regarding the environment, food, medicine and drinking water. The FDA and Corporations should not bleed over into one another, and the whole concept of lobbying is just a glorified form of "legal bribery."
Monsanto conveniently tramples on antitrust violations, which the Justice Department has supposedly been investigating for years. The Supreme Court of France found Monsanto guilty of falsely advertising Roundup as "biodegradable" and "environmentally friendly." The New York State Attorney General sued Monsanto and won in 1997 for claiming RoundUp was, "safer than table salt and "practically non-toxic" to mammals, birds, and fish. More than enough scientific research reveals glyphosate, the active ingredient in RoundUp, is "acutely toxic to fish and birds and can kill beneficial insects and soil organisms that maintain ecological balance."
On two other occasions, the EPA has caught scientists deliberately falsifying test results at research laboratories hired by Monsanto to study glyphosate.
(allot more @ link)
Here's the petetion link:
(http://signon.org)
http://www.naturalnews.com/034847_Michael_Taylor_Monsanto_FDA.html#ixzz1lEk1xhjZThe one man who may be responsible for more food related illnesses and deaths than... more
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Durable lasting change comes with changing the root motivation. Without changing the motivation, pollution, police state, corporate criminality will continue.Durable lasting change comes with changing the root motivation. Without changing the... more
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jmac9
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7 months ago
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No, it's not hot Senator-on-Senator sex. It's Rand Paul running into the same problem that every TeaBagger runs into when they try to apply their fanatical corporate ideology to the realities that their love of the free market has created: it hurts real people.
Speaking of real people, watch two real people, Senators Bernie Sanders and Al Franken, work to move the Older Americans Act (OAA) forward whilst taking a moment to educate Rand Paul.
CAUGHT ON VIDEO: If you look closely at about the 3:20 mark, you can see Corporate America's puppet strings attached to Rand's head.No, it's not hot Senator-on-Senator sex. It's Rand Paul running into the... more
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A “working class hero,” John Lennon told us in his song of that title, “is something to be/ Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV/ And you think you’re so clever and classless and free/ But you’re still fucking peasants as far as I can see.”
The delusion of a classless America in which opportunity is equally distributed is the most effective deception perpetrated by the moneyed elite that controls all the key levers of power in what passes for our democracy. It is a myth blown away by Nobel Prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz in the current issue of Vanity Fair. In an article titled “Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%” Stiglitz states that the top thin layer of the superwealthy controls 40 percent of all wealth in what is now the most sharply class-divided of all developed nations: “Americans have been watching protests against repressive regimes that concentrate massive wealth in the hands of an elite few. Yet, in our own democracy, 1 percent of the people take nearly a quarter of the nation’s income—an inequality even the wealthy will come to regret.”
Read More: http://globalpoliticalawakening.blogspot.com/2011/04/peasants-need-pitchforks.htmlA “working class hero,” John Lennon told us in his song of that title,... more
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When President Obama warned that the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision “will open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our election,” conservatives began damage control literally before the President could even finish his sentence. Justice Sam Alito infamously mouthed the words “not true” while Obama was speaking. Of course, we subsequently learned the Chamber of Commerce was raising money from foreign corporations and then placed this money in the same account which funds their political attack ads.When President Obama warned that the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision... more
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“You’ve got to read this!” I said. “There’s an article about how the media today is owned by only a handful of corporations, and corporate consolidation is leading to fewer voices getting on the air and stifling the range of debate, which is stifling the health of our democracy. A“You’ve got to read this!” I said. “There’s an article... more
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There was nothing terribly sophisticated about the denial of service attack executed by the activist hackers at Anonymous to temporarily knock out the website of Americans for Prosperity, the conservative advocacy group backed by billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch.
But the senior execs at Georgia Pacific and other corporate holdings controlled by the Koch brothers ought to be very nervous. Anonymous, best known for similarly crippling websites of firms hostile to WikiLeaks, says it has begun actively probing for network weaknesses in Georgia Pacific and other Koch brothers' holdings.
Should the activist hackers succeed in cracking into any of the Koch brothers' corporate networks, Anonymous could solidify its emerging persona as a digital-age Robin Hood, says Josh Shaul, Chief Technology Officer of network security company Application Security.
"These guys have so much attitude and spunk," says Shaul. "Anonymous is coming out of its shell and seems to be saying, 'Hey, we'll be the voice of the people, we'll be the Robin Hood fighting for the poor against the powerful.' "
In this statement, Anonymous accuses the Koch brothers of "fabricating grassroots organizations and advertising campaigns to sway voters based on their falsehoods." The statement concludes:
Anonymous hears the voice of the downtrodden American people, whose rights and liberties are being systematically removed one by one, even when their own government refuses to listen or worse - is complicit in these attacks. We are actively seeking vulnerabilities, but in the mean time we are calling for all supporters of true Democracy, and Freedom of The People, to boycott all Koch Industries' paper products. We welcome unions across the globe to join us in this boycott to show that you will not allow big business to dictate your freedom.
The group's highest profile hack to date shows what it is capable of. On Feb. 5, a group of five elite hackers gained deep access into data intelligence firm HBGary, defaced and damaged most if its systems, and stole 77,000 e-mails from the Google Enterprise cloud-based service used by the company.
Upon being made public on the Internet, the stolen e-mails were pored over by reporters and activists; they revealed stunning details of how high-stakes, corporate-backed disinformation campaigns get birthed.
Click here to read about the pivotal role a 16-year-old girl played in that hack. The lightning rod in that caper -- HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Barr -- on Monday announced his resignation. Barr will go down in tech history as the disinformation expert who stirred Anonymous into a higher gear -- by bragging that he had identified the group's leaders and planning to expose them on Valentines Day at the B-Sides Security Conference in San Francisco.
Though corporations have spent billions shoring up network perimeter defenses, determined hackers routinely gain deep access into corporate systems. They do so by combining simple social-engineering trickery with proven hacking tools.
We recently published this news story about how one cybergang stole more than $50 million by setting up an elaborate series of stings of European companies participating in Europe's carbon-credits exchange. Another gang got deep into Nasdaq's Directors Desk cloud collabartion tool for senior executives, where they lurked for more than a year before recently being detected.
The activist hackers at Anonymyous have demonstrated knowledge and skills of the techniques used by top hacking groups that concentrate on breaking into corporate networks for profit.
"They better be concerned," Shaul says of the Koch brothers. "What Anonymous is saying is 'we're getting ready to execute whatever attack we can, so you better be worried; in the meantime, we're going to be a big pain.' "
Update: 5:50 p.m Eastern. A Michael Goldfarb called Technology Live and identified himself as a spokeman for Koch Industries. Goldfarb requested to go off the record for a "substantive discussion." We declined. The caller declined to comment on the Anonymous attack.
GO TO STORY:
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/technologylive/post/2011/03/anonymous-actively-probing-koch-brothers-corporate-networks-/1There was nothing terribly sophisticated about the denial of service attack executed... more
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With reports of Egypt's government completing shutting down the Internet in the country, talk about an "Internet kill switch" bill in the U.S. has reemerged. Could it happen here?
The bill in question is the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010, a cyber-security measure introduced in June by Sen. Joseph Lieberman. It was an over-arching cyber-security measure that, among other things, would create an office of cyberspace policy within the White House and a new cyber-security center within the Homeland Security Department.
A provision that got the most attention, however, was one that gave the president the power to "authorize emergency measures to protect the nation's most critical infrastructure if a cyber vulnerability is being exploited or is about to be exploited."
Some interpreted that to mean that the president would have the authority to shut off the Internet at random. Lieberman refuted the "Internet kill switch" assertion as "misinformation" during an appearance on CNN, and the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which he chairs, later published a "myth vs. reality" fact sheet on the bill.
The bill passed the committee, but did not see any significant action before the end of the session. Earlier this week, however, CNet reported that Lieberman will re-introduce the bill in this Congress, and that the updated bill will include a provision that says "the federal government's designation of vital Internet or other computer systems "shall not be subject to judicial review."
A Lieberman spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
If it does go anywhere, though, should Americans be concerned about the Internet being shut down in the U.S.? In all likeliehood, no. Besides the fact that Lieberman himself says that his bill would not provide the government with an Internet kill switch, the bill - in theory - is intended to protect U.S. Web infrastructure from attacks that would irreperably harm the network rather than squash anti-government protests.
In Egypt, it appears that the government demanded that its four major ISPs shut down service. Could the U.S. government get away with asking Comcast, Time Warner, Verizon, and the like to shut down their networks to stop citizens from organizing protests? Anything is possible, of course, but at this point, it seems unlikely.
The current administration has already condemned the shut down in Egypt. In a Friday tweet, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the administration is "very concerned about violence in Egypt - government must respect the rights of the Egyptian people & turn on social networking and internet."
PJ Crowley, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, also tweeted that the "events unfolding in #Egypt are of deep concern. Fundamental rights must be respected, violence avoided and open communications allowed."
President Obama, meanwhile, made net neutrality and the concept of an open Internet part of his campaign , and continues to support the idea. The administration also relied heavily on social networking and the Web to reach voters, so efforts to restrict the Web for anything other than public safety would be surprising.
Of course, defining what constitutes a public safety threat could be a bit tricky. That being said, the bill still has to be formally introduced and make its way through a now-divided Congress by the end of the year; Lieberman has announced plans to retire in 2012.
TO GO TO THIS STORY:
http://mobile.pcmag.com/device2/article.php?CALL_URL=http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2376888,00.aspWith reports of Egypt's government completing shutting down the Internet in the... more
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By ISRAEL SHAMIR
In Part One of my report last weekend here on the CounterPunch site I showed that the US was secretly funnelling money into Belarus to fund the unelected opposition. Previously, the claim had been routinely denied. Now we have sterling proof. It is engraved in a confidential cable from a US Embassy to the State Department. It is undeniable.
That is, if you found the cable and were able to understand it.
And you happened to understand the political background of the cable.
The cables are raw data. Not as raw as Afghan Diaries, the previous coup of Wikileaks, but still quite raw. They are written in obscure state department lingo; much of the story is implied, as the cables were composed for colleagues and definitely not for strangers. They simply have to be explained, interpreted, annotated and then finally delivered to the reader. Dumping raw cables onto the web would not do: you’d never find the relevant cables and probably you wouldn’t be able to understand its significance even if you did find it.
The main job of a newspaper or news website is to process raw data and transmit it to a reader. This work requires an experienced and highly qualified staff. Not every newspaper or website has such resources, and none of the independent sites can compete with the mainstream outlets for readership. If all the cables were published in a local newspaper in Oklahoma or Damascus, who would read them? In order to get our news to you, our reader, we are forced to make use of the dreaded mainstream media.
That is why Julian Assange chose to partner with a few important Western liberal newspapers of the mainstream media. Let us make it perfectly clear that we understand that all mainstream media are at their heart embedded; in bed with the Pentagon, the CIA, with Wall Street and all its counterparts. Let us also make it clear that we understand that not every journalist on the staff of The Guardian, Le Monde or The NY Times is a crooked enforcer of imperialist ideology; no, not even every editor. We do understand that not everyone is willing to sacrifice their career to field a story that will attract storms of protest. From this point of view, the difference between the soft liberal and the hardline imperialist media is one of style only.
For instance, if they plan to attack Afghanistan, the hardline Fox News would simply demand a high-profile strike against the sand rats, while the liberal Guardian would publish a Polly Toynbee piece bewailing the bitter fate of Afghani women. The bottom line is the same: war.
Modern embedded media constitute the most powerful weapon of our rulers. The modern Russian writer Victor Pelevin succinctly explained their modus operandi: "The embedded media does not care about the content and does not attempt to control it; they just add a drop of poison to the stream in the right moment."
Furthermore, they skilfully arrange the information in order to mislead us. The headline might scream MURDER MOST FOUL but the article describes an unavoidable accident. We do not look beyond the headline, but the headline has been written by the editor and not the journalist who penned the article. Twitter is nothing but a mess of headlines; we are being trained to think in terms of slogans.
In the case of Belarus, the Guardian published three cables the day before elections in order to maximize the exposure and to influence the results of the election. One of the headlines, published on December 18, 2010 said: “WikiLeaks: Lukashenka’s [sic] fortune estimated at 9 billion USD”. It was a very misleading headline. Wikileaks made no claims about Lukashenko’s wealth. Read the entire article, and you will find that it was nothing more than a US embassy employee who had heard a rumor and transmitted it to the State Department. Only in the second to last sentence of the article do they mention that the cable admits: “the embassy employee couldn’t verify the sources [sic!] or accuracy of the information”.
So a corrected headline would read: “Wikileaks reveals: US diplomats spread unverifiable rumors about Lukashenko’s personal wealth.” But the Guardian made it appear as if it was Wikileaks itself that made the claim.
Let us suppose that one day Wikileaks will publish cables from the Russian Embassy in Washington to Moscow Centre. Shall we expect to see in the Guardian a screaming headline like: "WikiLeaks: The Mossad behind 9/11!!"
Isn’t it more likely we would be soberly told: “Wikileaks reveals that Russian diplomats in Washington report the persistent rumors on Israeli involvement in 9/11”?
Another cable on Belarus published on the same day was headlined: “US embassy cables: Belarus president justifies violence against opponents”. Again, a misleading headline, and again the majority will never read beyond it. In reality, this very interesting report contains the debriefing of the Estonian Foreign Minister after his long chat with President Lukashenko. The most interesting factoid was deliberately not highlighted in the article: Lukashenko told the Estonian visitor that the opposition in Belarus would never unite, and only existed “to live off western grants.” When you read the article, your eye gravitates to the highlighted section, skipping the valuable information just above. In fact, the highlighted section itself says nothing about justifying violence against opponents. The text says something completely different: “Lukashenko stated the opposition should expect to get hurt when they attack the riot police”. Again, it is sterling truth: in every country, people who attack riot police end up getting hurt. In Israel they also get shot, but that’s another story.
Thus the Guardian made use of Wikileaks in order to influence Belarus voters and Western audiences, and prepare them for an Election Day riot.
So here we are: in order to get valuable data to the people, Julian Assange had to make a deal with the devil: the mainstream media. It was most natural for him to deal with the liberal flank of the mainstream, for the hardliners would not even touch it. But since the liberal papers are also embedded, they freely distort the cables by attaching misleading headlines and misquoting from the text.
For me, a Guardian reader since I worked at the BBC in the mid-1970s, it is painful to say that the Guardian has become an impostor. This paper pretends to provide the thinking liberal and socialist people of England with true information; but at the moment of truth, the Guardian, like a good Blairite, will switch sides.
Next, the Guardian apparently decided to destroy Wikileaks after using it. The Moor did his job, the Moor may go. The Guardian’s embedded editors, understanding full well that the Wikileaks crew won’t be tamed or subverted, are preparing a book called The Rise and Fall of Wikileaks. It’s not quite released yet; they have still to arrange for the fall.
This will be done in two ways.
Go To Next Page:
http://www.counterpunch.org/shamir01052011.htmlBy ISRAEL SHAMIR
In Part One of my report last weekend here on the CounterPunch... more
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Wikileaks ~ A Swedish Documentary Film About Julian Assange & Wikileaks
(60 Min / SVT)Wikileaks ~ A Swedish Documentary Film About Julian Assange & Wikileaks
(60 Min... more
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From the must-be-a-coincidence,-huh? Dept...?
While Senator Joe Lieberman took credit for pressuring Amazon to stop hosting Wikileaks content via its Amazon Web Services infrastructure,
Amazon insisted that government pressure had nothing to do with it. Still, it seems rather odd that just weeks after booting Wikileaks, Amazon sent out a press release bragging about how the US federal government is one of its biggest customers (found via Slashdot).
Now, obviously, lots of tech companies do plenty of business with the federal government, but the timing of the two events at least creates an impression that Amazon will kick you off its service if the federal government disapproves of what you've done (even if no legal charges have been filed against you).
Again, no one is saying that Amazon has no right to deny service to whomever it wishes, but it does seem rather odd from a PR standpoint, and raises serious questions about how much anyone should continue to trust working a corporation with Amazon.com & Amazon web services if this how they do business ?
"I know it's making me reconsider my future use of their platform and services for of my projects."
What is freedom of speech & freedom of the press anyway?.. Just words Right?
I guess to Amazon there just empty words.... But, not to me....
To Go To The Full Article: ================================
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101229/11182612453/just-weeks-after-cutting-off-wikileaks-amazon-brags-about-how-us-federal-govt-is-one-its-biggest-aws-customers.shtmlFrom the must-be-a-coincidence,-huh? Dept...?
While Senator Joe Lieberman took... 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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UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression
JOINT STATEMENT ON WIKILEAKS
December 21, 2010 – In light of ongoing developments related to the release of diplomatic cables by the organization Wikileaks, and the publication of information contained in those cables by mainstream news organizations, the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression see fit to recall a number of international legal principles. The rapporteurs call upon States and other relevant actors to keep these principles in mind when responding to the aforementioned developments.
1. The right to access information held by public authorities is a fundamental human right subject to a strict regime of exceptions. The right to access to information protects the right of every person to access public information and to know what governments are doing on their behalf. It is a right that has received particular attention from the international community, given its importance to the consolidation, functioning and preservation of democratic regimes. Without the protection of this right, it is impossible for citizens to know the truth, demand accountability and fully exercise their right to political participation. National authorities should take active steps to ensure the principle of maximum transparency, address the culture of secrecy that still prevails in many countries and increase the amount of information subject to routine disclosure.
2. At the same time, the right of access to information should be subject to a narrowly tailored system of exceptions to protect overriding public and private interests such as national security and the rights and security of other persons. Secrecy laws should define national security precisely and indicate clearly the criteria which should be used in determining whether or not information can be declared secret. Exceptions to access to information on national security or other grounds should apply only where there is a risk of substantial harm to the protected interest and where that harm is greater than the overall public interest in having access to the information. In accordance with international standards, information regarding human rights violations should not be considered secret or classified.
3. Public authorities and their staff bear sole responsibility for protecting the confidentiality of legitimately classified information under their control. Other individuals, including journalists, media workers and civil society representatives, who receive and disseminate classified information because they believe it is in the public interest, should not be subject to liability unless they committed fraud or another crime to obtain the information. In addition, government "whistleblowers" releasing information on violations of the law, on wrongdoing by public bodies, on a serious threat to health, safety or the environment, or on a breach of human rights or humanitarian law should be protected against legal, administrative or employment-related sanctions if they act in good faith. Any attempt to impose subsequent liability on those who disseminate classified information should be grounded in previously established laws enforced by impartial and independent legal systems with full respect for due process guarantees, including the right to appeal.
4. Direct or indirect government interference in or pressure exerted upon any expression or information transmitted through any means of oral, written, artistic, visual or electronic communication must be prohibited by law when it is aimed at influencing content. Such illegitimate interference includes politically motivated legal cases brought against journalists and independent media, and blocking of websites and web domains on political grounds. Calls by public officials for illegitimate retributive action are not acceptable.
5. Filtering systems which are not end-user controlled – whether imposed by a government or commercial service provider – are a form of prior censorship and cannot be justified. Corporations that provide Internet services should make an effort to ensure that they respect the rights of their clients to use the Internet without arbitrary interference.
6. Self-regulatory mechanisms for journalists have played an important role in fostering greater awareness about how to report on and address difficult and controversial subjects. Special journalistic responsibility is called for when reporting information from confidential sources that may affect valuable interests such as fundamental rights or the security of other persons. Ethical codes for journalists should therefore provide for an evaluation of the public interest in obtaining such information. Such codes can also provide useful guidance for new forms of communication and for new media organizations, which should likewise voluntarily adopt ethical best practices to ensure that the information made available is accurate, fairly presented and does not cause substantial harm to legally protected interests such as human rights.
Catalina Botero Marino
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression
Frank LaRue
UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression
Click here to view full report:
http://www.cidh.oas.org/relatoria/showarticle.asp?artID=829&lID=1UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection the Right to Freedom of Opinion... more
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Watch this amazing interview with Julian Assange on AlJazeera Television. In the four years that Wikileaks has been leaking documents, there hasn't even been a single allegation from any government that anyone has been physically harmed by the release of documents.!
Watch this amazing interview with Julian Assange on AlJazeera Television. In the... more
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jubal
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Government officials in both Norway and Iceland are questioning the grounds for what’s become a credit card blockade against WikiLeaks that has disrupted the non-profit whistle-blowing organization’s ability to raise funds. Norwegian-Danish finance firm Teller is also the target of a government inquiry.
Norway’s leading business newspaper, Dagens Næringsliv (DN), has reported in a series of articles this week how Visa Europe and MasterCard have effectively blocked their credit card holders’ ability to send donations to WikiLeaks. The blockade has been carried out through the Norwegian-Danish finance firm Teller, which handles credit card transactions for Visa Europe and MasterCard.
Teller officials claim they were ordered by Visa Europe to suspend yet another firm involved in the complicated chain of credit card facilitators, Datacell of Iceland, which received donations (which donors had charged to their credit cards) on behalf of WikiLeaks.
Demanding legal basis for the suspension
DN reported earlier this week that a leading Norwegian law professor believes the credit card blockade, suspected of being politically motivated because of WikiLeaks’ disclosures of classified government documents, is illegal and violates both national and EU finance agreements and directives.
Now, reports DN, the Icelandic Parliament has launched an investigation into the grounds for the actions taken by Teller, Visa Europe and MasterCard against WikiLeaks. ”Nobody has been able to clarify the judicial foundation as to why payments to Datacell, and therefore WikiLeaks, have been stopped,” Robert Marshall, who leads the Parliament’s control committee, told DN. “And that is, of course, a problem.”
Marshall called the credit card blockade “serious” and “highly dubious” and said the Icelandic parliamentarians were demanding a “legitimate reason” for it. So far, he told DN, Teller has only referred to “due diligence” undertaken to ensure that Datacell has operated in accordance with its agreement with Visa. Neither Teller nor Visa Europe has produced evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Datacell or WikiLeaks, even though they have effectively halted payments to WikiLeaks through Datacell for nearly three weeks. That, according to DN, has cost WikiLeaks an estimated USD 1.6 million in lost donations from its supporters and also is hurting Datacell, which has more than 3,000 other customers.
Norway also demands some answers
DN reports that Norwegian financial authorities at regulatory agency Finanstilsynet in Oslo are also raising questions and have asked Teller to produce a legitimate reason for turning away customers. Finanstilsynet planned to send a letter Thursday to Teller demanding a legal reason as to why Teller has effectively stopped payments to WikiLeaks by suspending Datacell.
Anders Kvam of Finanstilsynet told DN that “we’re looking into this,” and that the regulators want to know Teller’s basis for the actions taken against Datacell. Teller must answer by January 3, an unusually short deadline that means Teller officials will need to work on the issue during what otherwise is a Christmas holiday period in Norway.
“This is a current problem that must be solved,”" Kvam told DN. “It involves payment transactions, and we can’t let these types of questions remain unanswered.”
Teller sent out a press statement earlier this week saying it had concluded that Datacell had violated its agreement with Visa by turning over payments to a third party. Datacell’s officials objected immediately and legal action is pending.
Teller also claimed that it had found no violations on the part of Sunshine Press, WikiLeaks’ company in Icceland, but that it was now up to Visa to approve payments to Sunshine Press.
Views and News from Norway/Nina Berglund
Join our Forum if you’d like to comment on this story.Government officials in both Norway and Iceland are questioning the grounds for... more
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Julian Assange Live Satellite UK Interview:
(1) Discussing Journalism in the USA is currently at risk as Government and Corporate powers in an attempt to cover-up wrong doings threaten the First Amendment and Freedom of the Press.
(2) Senior Political leaders demand and threaten murder and violence. Sending a message and example to their children and to the world... That fascist terrorist threats circumventing all law and due process - to cover-up wrong doings are all okay?
(3) Abuse of Private Manning... Locked in solitary confinement conditions 24X7 in a Military Brig as he continues to await trial for now over six months and counting. But in fact... is a designed as captive abuse in a clear attempt to attack Private Manning and break him psychologically before any trial takes place. > What we are witnessing here is the normal business as usual rule in the US treatment of any enemy combatants.Julian Assange Live Satellite UK Interview:
(1) Discussing Journalism in the USA is... more
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Glyn Moody points us to a blog post that has a video/audio clip of a John F. Kennedy speech to the press about secrecy and censorship, which is getting some attention for the contrast to the way our government is responding to the Wikileaks controversy.
The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it is in my control. And no official of my Administration, whether his rank is high or low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here tonight as an excuse to censor the news, to stifle dissent, to cover up our mistakes or to withhold from the press and the public the facts they deserve to know.
Compare that to the way our government has been responding -- demanding that US companies block access to Wikileaks and other such moves.
Of course, if you read the full speech from JFK (which was given to the American Newspaper Publishers Association), it's really quite nuanced. JFK argues forcefully against censorship from the government -- but actually is suggesting that the press consider self-censoring itself, taking into account the impact that it could have if it publishes certain information. However, he does try to make it clear that he does not want criticism or errors to be shielded from the public -- just that he hopes the press will decide for themselves to avoid publishing info that directly reveals vital points to enemies of the country.
In the end, I actually think these two paragraphs may be even more powerful than the one that most people are talking about:
I not only could not stifle controversy among your readers--I welcome it. This Administration intends to be candid about its errors; for as a wise man once said: "An error does not become a mistake until you refuse to correct it." We intend to accept full responsibility for our errors; and we expect you to point them out when we miss them.
Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed--and no republic can survive. That is why the Athenian lawmaker Solon decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment-- the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution- -not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply "give the public what it wants"--but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate and sometimes even anger public opinion.
Too bad we're not hearing much of that from our politicians today.
To view the full article : JFK On Secrecy And Censorship | Techdirt http://ow.ly/3txzTGlyn Moody points us to a blog post that has a video/audio clip of a John F. Kennedy... more
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Madison County officials are forcing a man out of his home — a recreational trailer — because they say he's breaking several ordinances.
If you would like to contact the Madison County officials to express your outrage please click here http://madisoncountyindiana.org/CountyOffices.html
To contact Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels office, please click here http://www.in.gov/gov/
Phone Contact:
Madison County Community "Justice" Center at 765-649-7341
Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels 1-317-232-4567Madison County officials are forcing a man out of his home — a recreational... more
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The Tester "Small Farm" Exemption to S.510 Exposed as a Scam: Part 1
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