EU Citizens Initiative calls for ban on biometric mass surveillance systems
By Katya Pivcevic | January 8, 2021
A European Citizen’s Initiative (ECI), ‘Civil society initiative for a ban on biometric mass surveillance practices,’ has been registered by the European Commission, calling for a permanent end to the disproportionate uses of biometric data in ways which can lead to mass surveillance or any undue interference with fundamental rights. Dozens of civil society groups have supported the movement.
The ECI was made part of the Lisbon Treaty in 2012, and introduced as an agenda-setting tool in the hands of citizens. An ECI allows for 1 million citizens from at least one quarter of EU Member States to invite the European Commission to propose legal acts in areas where the Commission has the power to act. Since 2012, 76 Citizens’ Initiatives have been registered.
This initiative for a ban on certain biometric applications urges the Commission to cease their development and deployment of arbitrarily-targeted biometric systems, even on a trial basis, recalling actions by EU agencies which have resulted in violations of EU data protection law. Under such law, the processing of biometric data is forbidden except where there is a “substantial public interest,” subject to strict necessity and proportionality requirements.
Should the ECI receive one million statements of support within one year from at least seven different Member States, the Commission will have to react within six months. The initiative hopes to gain transparency, protection from discrimination and respect through the Reclaim Your Face movement, which opposes biometric mass surveillance systems.
Erdogan’s press office ditches WhatsApp as Ankara urges Turks to use domestic apps in fight against ‘digital fascism’
RT | January 10, 2021
The media office of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is reportedly shutting down its WhatsApp groups over privacy concerns. The move comes after Ankara called for a nationwide boycott of the Facebook-owned messaging app.
Starting on Monday, the office is switching over to encrypted messaging app BiP, which is developed by Turkish firm Turkcell, Bloomberg reported, citing internal messages posted to the WhatsApp groups.
The decision comes amid growing consternation over WhatsApp’s plan to begin sharing personal data with its parent company, Facebook. The policy comes into effect on February 8, and users who refuse the new terms will not be able to access their accounts on the messaging platform.
The updated user terms have been met with hostility by the Turkish government, which has used privacy issues to promote homegrown apps and internet services.
Ali Taha Koc, head of the presidency’s Digital Transformation Office, released a statement on Saturday in which he warned that foreign-made applications “contain significant risks to data security.” He urged Turkish citizens to switch over to “local and national software,” claiming the move would help Turkey safeguard its data.
“As President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated, let’s stand against digital fascism together!” he concluded.
The message seems to have resonated. Turkcell reported that around one million new users joined BiP Messenger in the past 24 hours. The app has been downloaded more than 53 million times since launching in 2013.
Why doesn’t Facebook just buy your data if it’s so valuable? RT’s Boom Bust digs into WhatsApp privacy controversy
Meanwhile, Turkish media outlets have been highlighting high-profile individuals who have joined the exodus. State-run Anadolu Agency reported that a senior executive at Baykar, a Turkish drone company, announced that he was dropping WhatsApp due to its new data policy and would begin using BiP.
Erdogan has previously warned of “digital fascism,” arguing that the monopolization of data control would spell disaster for the world. In a speech from November, he said that remaining “human” in the digital age would be one of the greatest challenges going forward. However, his own government has been accused of policing social media platforms and websites for political views it deems unsavory.
Parler CEO Speaks Out After Amazon Boots From AWS, Vows To Rebuild ‘From Scratch’
“This Was A Coordinated Attack”
By Tyler Durden – Zero Hedge – January 9, 2021
Update (2210 ET): Parler CEO John Matze has issued a statement (emphasis ours):
Sunday (tomorrow) at midnight Amazon will be shutting off all of our servers in an attempt to completely remove free speech off the internet. There is the possibility Parler will be unavailable on the internet for up to a week as we rebuild from scratch. We prepared for events like this by never relying on amazons proprietary infrastructure and building bare metal products.
We will try our best to move to a new provider right now as we have many competing for our business, however Amazon, Google and Apple purposefully did this as a coordinated effort knowing our options would be limited and knowing this would inflict the most damage right as President Trump was banned from the tech companies.
This was a coordinated attack by the tech giants to kill competition in the market place. We were too successful too fast. You can expect the war on competition and free speech to continue, but don’t count us out.
#speakfreely
* * *
Update (2130 ET): And so the hammer has come down late on Saturday, when Amazon officially kicked Parler off its cloud Web hosting service, AWS according to Buzzfeed. The suspension means that once the ban takes effect on Sunday, the website – which as of this moment is still up – will be offline until it finds someone else to host it.
* * *
Update (2100 ET): As expected, Apple removed Parler permanently from its app store on Saturday. “[T]here is no place on our platform for threats of violence and illegal activity,” the iPhone maker said, according to CNN which adds that Apple notified Parler of its decision in a message that said it had violated the company’s app store terms.
“The processes Parler has put in place to moderate or prevent the spread of dangerous and illegal content have proved insufficient,” Apple told Parler. “Specifically, we have continued to find direct threats of violence and calls to incite lawless action in violation of Guideline 1.1 – Safety – Objectionable Content.”
Apple’s notice said Parler’s responses to an earlier warning were inadequate, including Parler’s defense that it had been taking violent rhetoric on its platform “very seriously for weeks” and that it had a moderation plan “for the time being,” according to Apple.
A search for the Parler app as of 8pm showed that the app was no longer there, with the search query returning recommended substitutes:
“Parler has not taken adequate measures to address the proliferation of these threats to people’s safety,” Apple said in a statement to CNN Business. “We have suspended Parler from the App Store until they resolve these issues.”
Apple’s decision follows a similar move by Google to drop Parler from the Google Play Store, and after Amazon (AMZN) has come under pressure by its own employees to stop hosting Parler’s website on Amazon Web Services.
John Matze, Parler’s CEO, wrote in a message on his platform that Apple “will be banning Parler until we give up free speech, institute broad and invasive policies like Twitter and Facebook and we become a surveillance platform by pursuing guilt of those who use Parler before innocence.”
“They claim it is due to violence on the platform,” Matze wrote of Apple, whom he also accused of being a “software monopoly,” a particularly relevant attack right now given an ongoing antitrust suit against Apple from Fortnite maker Epic Games. “The community disagrees as we hit number 1 on their store today.”
Matze promised to share “more details about our next plans coming soon as we have many options.”
* * *
Earlier:
A coalition of Amazon corporate employees have demanded that the Seattle-based megacorp kick Parler off the Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform unless ‘posts inciting violence’ are removed, which would force the Trump-friendly Twitter competitor to find another host.
According to CNBC, an employee advocacy group – Amazon Employees for Climate Justice – said in a Saturday tweet that AWS should “deny Parler services until it removes posts inciting violence, including at the Presidential inauguration.”
More via CNBC:
Pressure has been mounting for Amazon to stop hosting Parler on AWS after other tech giants took action against the social media app in the wake of the deadly U.S. Capitol riot earlier this week. Google on Friday removed Parler from its app store for Android users, Google Play Store. BuzzFeed News reported on Friday that Apple has threatened to pull Parler from its App Store.
Parler, which launched in 2018, has emerged as a popular platform for President Trump’s allies in the last year by billing itself as a free speech alternative to mainstream social media services like Twitter and Facebook. –CNBC
To justify censoring Parler, critics have pointed to posts calling for ‘firing squads’ – like one from attorney Lin Wood (who some say handed the Senate to the Democrats by openly calling for Georgians not to vote in the runoff election unless the GOP candidates backed Trump’s election fraud claims).
In 2019, Amazon pulled the plug on their AWS partnership with Twitter alternative GAB over user posts. CEO Andrew Torba essentially blamed the CIA – claiming that a “PSYOP campaign started back in early December” in which newly created accounts were “popping up out of nowhere and making threats of violence.”
Torba’s letter continues:
After this week, it’s clear why this PSYOP was started: to take down alt-tech platforms and frame them for the January 6th protests that ended with the police killing an unarmed woman.
Almost instantly after police allowed protestors into the Capitol the New York Times started a baseless narrative that this protest was organized on alt-tech sites, and in particular on Gab, without offering any proof, screenshots, usernames, or evidence to back these baseless claims. I’ve recorded a video highlighting how this all played out. I hope you’ll take some time to watch it to learn how the CIA Mockingbird Media complex operates. The way we fight back is with truth and by speaking truth to their power, which is quickly fading.
Meanwhile, Parler has jumped to the #1 app in Apple’s app store.
Parler saw approximately 210,000 installs globally on Friday 1/8, up 281% from approximately 55,000 on 1/7, according to data from the analytics service Sensor Tower. “In the U.S., the app saw approximately 182,000 first-time downloads on 1/8, up 355% from about 40,000 installs on 1/7. Since Wednesday, the app has seen approximately 268,000 installs from across U.S. app stores,” a press rep from Sensor Tower wrote in an email. -TechCrunch
And as conservatives scramble to download the app before it’s deplatformed at yet another social media giant, we now have to wonder if they’ll even be able to find a new home among a collusive constellation of big-tech – at least one of which used to value the phrase ‘think different.’
Trump’s Last Stand
By Israel Shamir • Unz Review • January 9, 2021
President Trump was decisively beaten, if not fair and square. The hopes of millions of American voters were squashed and extinguished. The saga of the Orange Man is over. The victors used a gambit: they sacrificed the sanctity and security of the Capitol, allowed intruders in, permitted them to take selfies in the Speaker’s office, and then faked horror and outrage. The attempted calls for electoral transparency were deflated in real time as huge crowds were dispersed, electors were confirmed, and the ascendancy of Biden was assured, while Trump followers were branded ‘domestic terrorists’.
Donald Trump denounced the people whom he personally called to protest. His close political allies withdrew their support. Within hours, or even minutes, this ruler of the world admired by millions became a non-person. Like a boy who posted an obscenity, he was banned by Twitter and Facebook. Time will tell whether he will go to prison, as so many Dems pray for, but his political life seems to have ended, even if his cause may live.
The deck was stacked against President Trump from Day One. His orders were ignored. The US courts, judges, police, the whole system of law enforcement was against him; his orders were blocked or overturned, while the media made fun of him and the opposition relentlessly delegitimised him. He was blocked even by Fox News. Dem-run states adjusted their laws to assure the elections’ result. Trump was a lame duck from the very beginning of his presidency to its bitter end. He was kept on a short leash by the almighty Deep State, and when he tried to free himself, they pulled the leash.
On January 6, a massive demonstration in his support gathered in Washington, DC. Hundreds of thousands Americans came to the capital to demand justice after the election fraud became obvious. They hoped that the Republican representatives would refuse to certify the fraud and appoint a commission to check and recount the votes. Some of the protesters managed to break into the Capitol, or were let in by the police. This peaceful Occupy Capitol action, the exercise of a natural right to protest, was met with lethal fire, and a young female protester from San Diego, Ashli Babbitt, was murdered by the plainclothes police. The Republican representatives were cowed and surrendered; Biden was confirmed to take office.
The horror and outrage of the Dem politicians and media were as faked as their news. During last year, many government buildings were taken over by Dem-sponsored BLM activists, and in not one case did the police use lethal weapons or even rush the protesters out of buildings.
“Shortly after 8 p.m. Wednesday, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the locked King Street entrance to the Capitol, chanting “Break down the door!” and “General strike!” Moments later, police ceded control of the State Street doors and allowed the crowd to surge inside, joining thousands who had already gathered in the Capitol to protest the votes. The area outside the Assembly, which is scheduled to take the bill up at 11 a.m. today, was crowded with protesters who chanted, “We’re not leaving. Not this time.” …
Department of Administration spokesman Tim Donovan said although protesters were being encouraged to leave, no one would be forcibly removed. … Mayor Dave Cieslewicz said he had instructed … Police Chief Noble Wray not to allow his officers to participate in removing demonstrators from the building.”
This was what happened in Madison, Wisconsin in March 2011, as Steve Sailer reminded us. Indeed, this is what the protesters expected; some were dressed in flamboyant carnival attire; they behaved well and peacefully, within acceptable limits. It was not an insurrection; they didn’t try to take over the Congress in any meaningful sense. For them, it was an honest and funny way to express their indignation. But the real gambit plotters intended to frame them. They even murdered four protesters hoping they would respond with violence, but in vain.
White American protesters are exceptionally non-violent lot; as with Occupy Wall Street a few years back the January 6 Capitol protesters were timid and obedient as lambs. For this reason, BLM was invented, for Blacks are able to riot violently, as opposed to well-trained whites. It is not a race thing: lily-white French Yellow Vests and Ukrainian nationalists have fought the police all right. But US whites are not prone to riot, not since the Civil War. Being a foreigner, I do not understand why the Americans want to keep their guns if they never use them, but that’s the way they are.
Anyway, their non-violence didn’t help them. The president-elect Biden begrudged them even the name of protesters: “Don’t dare call them protesters. They were a riotous mob, insurrectionists, domestic terrorists.” Indeed, the name should be preserved for Deep State-authorised looters and their brethren all over the world, whether in Hong Kong or Minsk, in Seattle or Portland.
Russian social networks were comparing the Washington DC events with those nearer to home and complained of ‘double standards’. The US media expressed no indignation when their appointee Boris Yeltsin shelled the Russian Parliament in 1993. The New York Times and the State Department had encouraged the nationalist mob to storm Ukrainian government offices in 2014. They cheered on the opposition in Minsk in taking over their parliament after failing to win elections. The Belarus protesters claimed their country’s election results were rigged, just like Trump supporters did for the US elections, but Biden didn’t call them “domestic terrorists”. (Actually, neither did President Lukashenko: he called them ‘protesters’, and their violent demos were dispersed without a single shot fired.) In such cases, Jews respond with “How can you compare?!”
The Russians compared the Capitol ‘coup attempt’ with their own semi-staged ‘coup’ of 1991, a partly pre-planned provocation. In 1991, the feeble coup organisers could not detain Yeltsin and surrendered as if on cue; the wave of indignation removed Gorbachev and the Communist party from power. In the Capitol, too, police waved the ‘invaders’ in, as you can see on this video forwarded by the BBC. More videos suggesting Capitol police involvement in the ostensible provocation are presented here. The orchestrated indignation allowed the victors to censor and purge the defeated Trump and his followers. Just as the USSR went down in August 1991, Trump’s America went down in January 2021, and the liberal elites representing the big corporations came to power. It was achieved by a provocation, but ordinary Trump followers were really angry with the Election Steal. Likewise, 1991 was a provocation, but ordinary Russian citizens were angry at Gorbachev’s perestroika, while the liberal elites used it to dismantle the Soviet state and transfer all assets to their oligarchs.
People with a good knowledge of history refer to the Reichstag Fire of February 1933, the arson contrived by the newly formed Nazi government itself to turn public opinion against its opponents and to assume emergency powers. Alternatively, other researchers have contended that there was no proof of Nazi complicity in the crime, but that Hitler merely capitalised on the Dutch Communist van der Lubbe’s independent act. The fire is the subject of continued debate and research, says the Encycopaedia Britannica. Probably the same will be said about the Capitol “invasion”, and researchers will argue whether duplicitous Biden’s minions organised it or just capitalised on the Trumpers’ sincere protest.
There is no doubt that to an objective observer the 2020 elections were profoundly unfair. I won’t trouble you with too many published details about the statistically impossible results, but here is one example of fraud. The city of Detroit gave 95 per cent of its vote to Biden/Kamala, a number that Mr Kim Jong-un would view with slight envy, while Mr Lukashenko would murmur, “How can it be done?” It is highly likely this mind-boggling result was achieved in the following way.
Detroit Dems outsourced ballot harvesting to local drug lords, offering them as a prize – recreational marijuana business licenses. These licences are the best thing since a licence to print money. Having such licenses is like having your own ATM. Here you can read about their profitability and the lengths criminals will go to obtain them. Detroit Dems had changed local laws allowing the sale of marijuana in their fine city (it was forbidden until November 2020). They changed local laws prescribing the issuing of marijuana licences to drug dealers with previous convictions for drug dealing. They let drug lords out of jail. They changed local laws to allow ballot harvesting; that is, collecting postal votes and assisting with the filling in of ballots. After that, the drug dealers went around collecting postal ballots and filling them in immediately, if they were conscientious, or just filling them in at their leisure, if feeling lazy. They had a judge at their disposal, Cynthia Stephens, who single-handedly changed Michigan election laws, and then rejected Trump’s claims of fraud.
Yes, Virginia, there was election fraud in many American states. They are used to gambling; they aren’t surprised by a beautiful hand of four aces, as Mark Twain suggested. Usually the two parties deal in turns, and cheat in turns. Only this time, Trump convinced many people that it is different; that this is their last chance.
The problem is, Trump was a poor organiser. He could win elections, if he could prevent Cynthia Stephens’s kind of legislation, outlaw postal ballots, enforce obligatory IDs for voting, mobilise his people for election control. A formidable task, but not impossible, while dealing with a prone-to-cheat adversary. He could even do a revolution on January 6, tasking the right people to act, forming a revolutionary HQ, planning a strategy of takeover, but he didn’t do anything of the sort. He probably thought Congress would see the vast crowds and allow for the checking of election results.
Alternatively, he was so naïve that he believed revolutions just happen by themselves, as in the movies. They do not. Behind every successful revolution, there is a lot of planning, armed force, weapons ready for use, supply lines, logistics, media support, and communications. Trump had none of that. It was enough to turn off Twitter to make him deaf and dumb.
There was no coup attempt, as correctly stated by Tyler Durden: “Trump has never had the concentration, organizational acumen, or ideological coherence to mount a bona fide “coup,” and a mob intrusion which was swiftly dispersed by armed agents of the state doesn’t change that. Shortly after the breach, he released a video instructing his followers not to take Senators hostage or imprison Mike Pence, but to “go home.” No factions of the federal government joined the mob on Trump’s orders, because he didn’t bother issuing any. The whole episode never stood the remotest chance of preventing the certification of Joe Biden, much less overthrowing the government. It was just another goofball charade, and in that sense, a fitting end to the Trump presidency.”
Conspiracy theories played their disappointing part in the debacle. Many Trumpists believed in the QAnon and Kayfabe conspiracies; they posted reports of bad guys being arrested, of servers snatched by the FBI, of Clinton and Biden waiting for rough justice behind bars. This belief disarmed people who would otherwise have fought to achieve this very result. That is the problem with conspiracies: imaginary conspiracies prevent real action.
Still, I do not want to finish this piece on such a sad and disappointing note. President Trump was a great leader. He succeeded against enormous odds in improving the lot of American workers: for the first time since the 1970s, their incomes rose in relation to the other classes. He stopped mass migration to the US: legal immigration went down to a trickle. He avoided new wars; he tried to make peace with Russia. He refused to bomb Iran even in the last days of his presidency, though some pro-Israel supporters promised him a second term if he would.
His fight against the corona madness was his great achievement. He was against the lockdowns that are about to destroy our world so completely that few things will survive. The last great US ruler who didn’t wear the cowardly mask will be remembered. He could not defeat the mighty medical complex, or FAGMA, or the Masters of Discourse, but he tried.
The day of his defeat, January 6, was the Epiphany, or Adoration of the Magi, of the Three Wise Men who came to worship Jesus in his cave. It was also Christmas Eve for the Eastern Church. It is the darkest time of the year; from now on, the day will increase and so will our hopes.
Israel Shamir can be reached at adam@israelshamir.net
Big Tech giants want to prove they are ‘American gods’. Anyone watching the watchers?
By Frank Furedi | RT | January 9, 2021
Big Tech has just taken a gigantic step toward its objective of gaining total control over what can and what cannot be said on the internet.
Apple and Google have commanded Parler, a social network used by conservatives, to police its users. In effect, what their warning issued to Parler means, ‘do as you are told or face digital annihilation!’.
Google suspended Parler from its Play Store, declaring that it will shut the network until it rigorously polices its app. Apple was reported to have followed suit giving Parler 24 hours to fall in line; otherwise it would be removed from Apple’s App Store.
Apple and Google’s declaration of war on Parler has serious implications. These two giant companies make operating systems that support nearly every smartphone in the world. That means that if Apple shuts Parler out of its App Store, people would not be able to download the app on their iPhones or iPads.
The timing of the edict issued by the masters of Silicon Valley is not a coincidence. Parler is one of the fastest growing apps on the internet. Millions of conservatives fed up with the censorious behavior of Twitter and Facebook have been attracted to this social network. In the aftermath of President Trump being forced off Facebook and Twitter, it was expected that millions of his supporters would turn to Parler to freely express their convictions.
Big Tech censorship is nothing new. In recent years, social-media companies – once reluctant to be drawn into becoming official censors and arbiters of truth – have increasingly clamped down on what they deem to be hate speech or misinformation.
Since the beginning of the pandemic Big Tech companies have behaved as if they are digital gods. These powerful unaccountable billionaires have issued one Papal Bull after another. Facebook has used the pandemic to expand its policing of what can be posted. Initially it stated that it would continue to remove “misinformation that could contribute to imminent physical harm,” while deploying its army of fact-checkers to flag certain posts, depress their distribution, and direct sharers of such material to ‘reliable’ information. A few weeks later in April, 2020 it was reported that it was removing event posts for anti-lockdown gatherings.
Early on in the pandemic Susan Wojcicki, the CEO of YouTube, declared that she saw their role as the arbiter of truth on the coronavirus. She stated that anything that contradicted the recommendations of the WHO would be removed from her platform.
That Big Tech sees itself as a veritable global power that stands above elected governments was strikingly illustrated by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, when he announced that Trump’s page would be closed down, at the very least, for the rest of his presidency. A day later, Twitter followed suit and suspended Trump’s account permanently. This humiliation of the American president indicates that a handful of billionaire capitalists now get to decide who can have a voice in the digital public square.
Big Tech companies censoring their own platforms is bad enough. However, when they take it upon themselves to determine how another independent social network must police itself, they have in effect assumed a tyrannical role over the entire internet. Their declaration of war on Parler, indicates that they see themselves as not simply private companies but as global institutions that can wield political and policing power over the digital world.
It is likely that Parler will be forced to cave in and accept the terms imposed on it by Apple and Google. John Matze, Parler’s CEO, has gone on record to state that he believes that “we can retain our values and make Apple happy quickly.” If Parler is forced to fall in line with the edict issued by Big Tech then it will constitute the greatest blow struck against internet freedom so far.
Despite its rhetoric of supporting diversity, Big Tech is distinctly opposed to the diversity of opinion. As recent events show they intend to turn the digital world into an entirely homogeneous system, where the only values that can be freely expressed are those of Silicon Valley and Hollywood.
Restoring the freedom to express whatever view you want to put forward on the internet is one of the most important challenges confronting genuine democrats.
Frank Furedi is an author and social commentator. He is an emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent in Canterbury. Author of How Fear Works: The Culture of Fear in the 21st Century.
Twitter Bans Trump! What’s Next?
By Stephen Lendman | January 9, 2021
Dark forces against an open, free, fair society pushed for silencing Trump.
Twitter complied. Facebook and perhaps other significant social media may be next.
Who’ll next be censored and silenced?
Will muckraking, investigative, truth-telling journalists be banned by Twitter and other social media?
Will everyone diverging from the falsified official narrative face online banishment across the board?
Will cutting edge websites I and many others follow no longer be accessible ahead, including my own?
Will my writing and by others I respect and follow be criminalized if continued?
GW Bush once calling the Constitution “just a goddamned piece of paper” is reality as tyranny incrementally replaces the rule of law in the US.
It began happening post-state-sponsored 9/11, especially since last year to the present and what may lie ahead.
Daniel Ellsberg explained the ominous threat revealed by releasing the Pentagon Papers.
Arundhati Roy called them “mesmerizing, not as documentation of the history of the US war in Indochina, but as insight into the minds of (diabolical) men (and women) who planned and executed it.”
The Pentagon Papers exposed US war on humanity abroad.
Police state America wages it at home.
Most Americans are unaware of what’s going on and the ominous threat it poses — notably looking ahead to what may follow what’s happening now.
The road to tyranny moves incrementally toward becoming full-blown.
How it happened in Nazi Germany may be replicated in the US — wrapped in the American flag for mass deception.
Ellsberg called 9/11 — followed by Bush/Cheney’s contempt for the rule of law — “a coup (with another to come from) the next 9/11,” adding:
What’s happening is “a steady assault on every fundamental (aspect) of our Constitution (to create) an executive government (to) rule by (police state) decree.”
So far it’s not with jackboots in the streets. It’s by Big Government in cahoots with Big Media manipulation of the public mind and more.
In includes censorship, what I call the new abnormal.
Dark forces in cahoots with social media perhaps intend banning online content entirely that diverges from the official falsified narrative.
Friday I stressed that if social media can deny a US president his First Amendment rights, will state approved censorship on everyone diverging from the official narrative become the new abnormal?
Will truth-telling on vital issues be criminalized?
Will independent voices be threatened, intimidated, and mistreated like Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange and other heroic whistleblowers?
Will full-blown tyranny ahead permit no challenges to diabolical aims of US dark forces — enforced by police state harshness?
The US Constitution’s First Amendment guarantees speech, media and academic freedom.
If lost, all other rights are threatened with abolition. Tyrannical rule will supersede the rule of law.
On June 30, 1971, the US Supreme Court ruled that the NYT and Washington Post were legally permitted to publish material in the Pentagon Papers.
A per curiam statement (meaning by the court, not a single justice) said the following:
“Any system of prior restraints of expression comes to this court bearing a heavy presumption against its constitutional validity.”
The government “thus carries a heavy burden of showing justification for the imposition of such a restraint.”
The Supreme Court’s ruling upheld First Amendment rights, stating:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Banning Trump by Twitter with perhaps other social media to follow flagrantly breached First Amendment rights and the High Court’s ruling that upheld them.
It affirmed the constitutional right to speak or publish truthful information in the public interest no matter how it was obtained.
Britain’s mistreatment of Julian Assange on orders from Washington flagrantly breached the US First Amendment — upheld by the US Supreme Court numerous times.
In its Pentagon Papers ruling, Justice Hugo Black said the following:
The government’s injunction to prohibit publication by the NYT and Washington Post “should have been vacated without oral argument when the cases were first presented,” adding:
“(E)very moment’s continuance of the injunctions… amounts to a flagrant, indefensible, and continuing violation of the First Amendment.”
“The press was to serve the governed, not the governors.”
“The government’s power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the government.”
“The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people.”
“Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.”
“And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people…”
“(W)e are asked to hold that… the executive b ranch, the Congress, and the judiciary can make laws… abridging freedom of the press in the name of ‘national security.’ ”
Justice William Brennan argued that publication of the Pentagon Papers was a First Amendment right.
So did Justice Thurgood Marshall, adding:
The term “national security” is too broad and ill-defined to be used as justification to restrain publication of information in the public interest.
The right of speech, press, and academic freedoms is fundamental in a society claiming to be free.
I profoundly condemn most Trump actions throughout his tenure.
I strongly disagree with and reject most of his views.
But I defend his constitutional right to express them on social media, in speeches, on television, and other public remarks — no matter how contrary to my own.
That’s what the rule of law in an open, free and fair society is all about.
Without the right of unstricted free expression in all forms — no matter how offensive to some — a nation safe and fit to live in no longer exists.
That’s the ominous state of today’s USA.
Silencing Trump may be prelude to making it the police state law of the land on the fabricated pretext of national security and/or whatever other phony pretext(s) dark forces cook up to justify what’s unjustifiable.
James Madison once called “(t)he accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands… the definition of tyranny.”
When rule of the people becomes of, by, and for privileged interests at the expense of exploited and silenced others, tyranny is the law of the land.
Things today are at an ominous crossroads.
If left unchecked, the nation I grew up in long ago no longer will exist — replaced by polar opposite what just societies most cherish.
Martin Niemoller’s long ago ominous warning is relevant today in the US, saying:
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.”
“Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.”
“Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.”
“Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
First they enacted police state laws in the US post-state-sponsored 9/11.
Then came 9/11 2.0 last year — followed by banning a US president’s free expression rights on social media.
Is the the path Niemoller warned about now followed by US dark forces?
Are things well along toward abolishing America as once existed, warts and all?
Is there time to stop and reverse what’s going on?
Anthropologist Margaret Mead once said the following:
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.”
“Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
I’ve stressed many times that ordinary people have power when they use it.
Now’s the time for its use to save what otherwise may be permanently lost.
A Final Comment
Below is Twitter’s attempt to unjustifiably justify Trump’s “permanent suspension” of his First Amendment rights, saying:
“(W)e have permanently suspended (his) account due to the risk of further incitement of violence (sic).”
In response to Trump’s tweet that he “will not be going to the inauguration on January 20,” Twitter falsely claimed the following:
His tweet “is being received by a number of his supporters as further confirmation that the election was not legitimate and is seen as him disavowing his previous claim made via two Tweets…that there would be an ‘orderly transition’ on January 20th (sic).”
His tweet “may also serve as encouragement to those potentially considering violent acts that the inauguration would be a ‘safe’ target, as he will not be attending (sic).”
The above claims defy and reinvent reality.
Nothing Trump tweeted, otherwise stated, or implied encouraged violence on Capitol Hill last Wednesday or possibly ahead.
Claiming otherwise by Twitter and other media reinvented reality to unjustifiably blame Trump for what he had nothing to do with — followed by Twitter’s unconstitutional ban on DJT.
Was its action a shot across the bow warning against others using its platform?
Henceforth will everyone’s views that conflict with the official narrative be silenced by Twitter and other social media?
Biden Is Not Yet Inaugurated and the Establishment Is Already Fomenting Civil War
By Paul Craig Roberts | Institute for Political Economy | January 9, 2021
Trump was demonized before he was inaugurated. He was demonized because he was correctly perceived by the Establishment as a threat to the Establishment. Trump’s election surprised the Establishment. The Establishment thought that Establishment control over the media guaranteed their power and was astonished to realize that enough American voters saw through their lies and propaganda to elect a non-establishment figure.
The world does not understand that the American Establishment has a propaganda organization that shames the one assembled by Joseph Goebbels. The American media, never very independent, lost all semblance to independence during the Clinton regime when 90% of the US media was concentrated into six hands and converted into a completely obedient tool of the Establishment. Anyone who doubts this should explain why on every issue the presstitutes speak with one voice, which is never the voice of the people.
It is extraordinary that anyone could have fallen for the Establishment’s line that Trump conspired with Putin to steal the election from Hillary, but so many did. The Establishment could not permit the realization that the American Establishment had been rejected by the American people in the 2016 election. Using the CIA and FBI the Establishment went to work on Trump. His entire four years was used in fighting orchestrated Russiagate investigations and an orchestrated impeachment. Most people in the world know nothing more about these four years than American presstitute headlines told them.
In the Soviet Union, Stalin’s police state control enabled him to frame Bolshevik leader Nikolai Bukharin as a capitalist spy. In the American democracy, the Establishment has been able in plain view to steal Trump’s reelection and is now framing him as an insurrectionist. The power of this establishment is so great that Republicans have wilted and are kneeling to the Establishment in order to protect themselves. Trump’s appointees are resigning and running for their lives and reputations.
The military/security complex using the DNC and the media has been able to do what Stalin did—eliminate the opposition.
The Establishment has now put out calls for retribution against US Senators and Representatives who supported Trump’s attempt to have the evidence of electoral fraud examined. I have watched presentations of the evidence by nonpartisan professionals, and the evidence of electoral fraud is overwhelming. Yet it has been deep-sixed without ever being examined. In place of examination, from day one the presstitutes, none of whom looked at the evidence, repeated endlessly that there was no evidence. Trump, and not the stolen election, was blamed for discrediting American democracy.
The American Establishment is not through with Trump and his supporters. Propaganda campaigns against them could well end in show trials.
Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, like the print and TV media and NPR, are employed to shut down non-establishment explanations. Consequently, new social media organizations, such as Parler have arisen as uncensored forums. Judging from information sent to Mark Crispin Miller and posted on Notes from Underground ( https://markcrispinmiller.com ), Parler is now under attack: “BREAKING – Apple has given #Parler a 24 HOUR ULTIMATUM to implement a “moderation plan” or it’s getting scrubbed from the app store.” If this hasn’t yet happened, it will. “Moderation,” of course, means compliance with Establishment wishes.
Americans and Western peoples in general are very insouciant people. The Establishment has used Identity Politics to disunite whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, men, and women. A population at war with itself has no prospect of standing against the Establishment which exercises power in its interest independently of the interests of the people. In such a system, democracy is merely a cover for oligarchic rule. No one is permitted in public office who is not a servant of the Establishment. Any who somehow get there are removed. Redistricting was used to rid the Establishment of Dennis Kucinich. Ron Paul was eliminated by the RNC by “a systematic campaign of election fraud at state conventions” according to a lawsuit in federal district court. If these methods of elimination are not available, women are trotted out to allege sexual harassment or corruption or tax frame-ups are used. Those who don’t go along with the Establishment do not have a career. This is true as well in corporate employment and universities.
Fear and demonization are powerful Establishment weapons. Truth and the human achievement of civil liberty are their victims.
Biden Declares War on Trump Voters
Biden’s (the Establishment’s) war on domestic terrorism is a war on Trump deplorables. As I told you, normal white Americans are in for it. Here is Glenn Greenwald to tell you about it:
https://www.rt.com/usa/511976-greenwald-capitol-terror-crackdown/
With unilateral censorship of a sitting US president, Big Tech has proven it’s more powerful than any government:
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/511958-social-media-politicians-censorship-riots/
Pelosi consults with military brass on how to keep NUCLEAR CODES out of Trump’s hands:
https://www.rt.com/usa/511975-trump-departure-nuclear-riot-pelosi/
Biden the unifier? President-elect likens Cruz, Hawley to Nazi propagandist Goebbels, says they share blame for inciting violence:
https://www.rt.com/usa/511984-biden-unity-goebbels-cruz/
House Democrats leak draft of Trump IMPEACHMENT for ‘inciting insurrection’:
https://www.rt.com/usa/511982-trump-insurrection-impeachement-draft-leaked/
Mexico’s President Blasts Twitter & Facebook For Acting Like “Holy Inquisition” In Censoring Trump
By Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | January 8, 2021
In a rare instance of a Left-wing Latin American leader siding with Trump, Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has condemned controversial actions taken by major US social media platforms to block Trump messages. He’s long had warm relations with the US president even as other regional leaders have remained cold.
Recognizing the extreme dangers and abuse of big tech censorship for political speech, especially statements by elected government officials, Mexico’s president underscored that it’s an egregious violation and alarming precedent-setting severe abuse of power by Twitter and Facebook – both of which have blocked President Trump’s official accounts this week.
“I don’t like anybody being censored or taking away from the the right to post a message on Twitter or Facebook. I don’t agree with that, I don’t accept that,” López Obrador said.
He further compared the extreme action to the infamous episode of the Inquisition in medieval Europe under the Catholic monarchs:
“How can you censor someone: ‘Let’s see, I, as the judge of the Holy Inquisition, will punish you because I think what you’re saying is harmful,'” López Obrador said in an extensive, unprompted discourse on the subject. “Where is the law, where is the regulation, what are the norms? This is an issue of government, this is not an issue for private companies.”
He branded Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg as “arrogant” in the comments. “I felt he was very self-important and very arrogant,” Lopez Obrador said.
He was also pressed by reporters as to his thoughts on Wednesday’s storming of the Capitol and brief occupation of Congress by pro-Trump supporters who were intent on blocking the election certification, to which he made no comment.
Meanwhile, Mexico’s presidential spokesman Jesús Ramírez reaffirmed the official condemnation of the social media giants’ actions saying in a follow-up Twitter message, “Facebook’s decision to silence the current leader of the United States calls for a debate on freedom of expression, the free exchange of information on the web, democracy and the role of the companies that administer (social) networks.”
The blockages of Trump’s accounts, which further includes Instagram, are expected to be in effect until at least after Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan.20.
López Obrador indicated he was not planning on traveling to D.C. to attend Biden’s inauguration, for which there’s also likely to be further mayhem – or at the very least on the peripheries of the event amid tightened security.
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From the Archives
World War II Didn’t End The Great Depression
Stark Realities with Brian McGlinchey | April 4, 2024
A principal goal of Stark Realities is to “expose fundamental myths across the political spectrum” — and few myths are as universally embraced as the notion that US participation in World War II (1941-1945) lifted the American economy out of the Great Depression.
This myth is dangerous not only because it leads citizens and politicians to see a bright side of war that doesn’t really exist, but also because it helps foster a belief that government spending is essential to countering economic downturns. That belief, in turn, has helped propel us to a point where the national debt now exceeds $34.6 trillion, with interest payments alone on pace to reach $1 trillion a year in 2026, inviting financial catastrophe. … continue
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