Ottawa plans to outlaw support for boycotting Israel: Report
Press TV – May 12, 2015
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government has signaled plans to apply hate crime laws against advocacy groups that encourage the boycott of Israel, a report says.
The report by the Canadian broadcaster, CBC News on Monday said the move would target numerous civil society organizations who promote the boycott over the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and the expansion of its illegal settlements in the besieged areas.
“If carried out, it would be a remarkably aggressive tactic, and another measure of the Conservative government’s lockstep support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” the report read.
The Harper government’s intention was revealed in statements by federal ministers to the broadcaster about a “zero tolerance” policy toward groups supporting the Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement, which is part of international efforts to pressure Tel Aviv to stop its settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory.
A vast range of Canadian organizations support BDS including the country’s largest Protestant Christian denomination the United Church of Canada, Independent Jewish Voices, which is the chief organizer of the movement’s activity in Canada, various university groups and labor unions.
Asked what the policy means and what the authorities are doing to enforce it, a spokesperson for Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney, detailed in a written statement a list of the country’s updated hate laws.
“We will not allow hate crimes to undermine our way of life, which is based on diversity and inclusion,” the spokesperson added.
Canadian civil liberty groups criticized the government plans, saying it would almost certainly be challenged under the country’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
This is the latest move the Canadian government is planning to muzzle the BDS movement and supporters of the cause.
In January, Canada’s then foreign minister, John Baird, signed a “memorandum of understanding” with the Israeli regime in al-Quds (Jerusalem), pledging to combat BDS, a movement the agreement described as “the new face of anti-Semitism.”
Last year, Ottawa changed the country’s Criminal Code, expanding the definition of hate speech to include statements against “national origin” along with race and religion.
Micheal Vonn, a lawyer for the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, said the change in the country’s criminal code is clearly “a tool to go after critics of Israel.”
The presence and continued expansion of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine has created a major obstacle for the efforts to establish peace in the Middle East.
Last month, 16 European foreign ministers condemned the “expansion of Israeli illegal settlements in the Occupied Territories,” demanding that all imported goods originating from settlements be distinctly labeled.
More than half a million Israeli settlers live in over 120 illegal settlements built since Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds in 1967.
The UN and most countries regard the Israeli settlements as illegal because the territories were captured by Israel in a war in 1967 and are hence subject to the Geneva Conventions, which forbid construction on occupied lands. However, the Tel Aviv regime defies calls to abandon its illegal settlement activities.
Egyptian newspaper confiscated for the second time in two months
Mada Masr | May 12, 2015
A newspaper’s issue is usually confiscated when it is critical of the authorities. However on Monday the annual issue of the private al-Watan newspaper was briefly confiscated due to a headline that was deemed not quite supportive enough of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
The newspaper’s front page headline was changed from “Seven entities stronger than Sisi” to “Seven entities stronger than reform.” The report suggests that those entities represent the “deep state” threatening Egypt and resisting Sisi’s efforts to reform the country.
The seven entities, according to al-Watan’s report, included: Corruption, powerful people, businessmen, the Interior Ministry, the media, the unregistered economy and social media.
An opinion article by the newspaper’s managing editor Alaa al-Ghatrify was also censored. In a leaked copy of the banned article, Ghatrify slammed media personnel who are groomed by the state, according to him, to defend the ruling regime and face any criticism directed against state institutions.
The issue was then permitted to publish after amending the headline and removing the critical column. According to a statement by the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI,) “sovereign entities” banned the issue as the original headline implied Sisi’s grip over state institutions was weak.
This is the second time authorities banned an issue for al-Watan newspaper from publishing in the last two months. In March 11, authorities banned an al-Watan issue for including an investigative report detailing the tax evasion of state institutions including the presidency, the Interior Ministry, the Ministry of Defense and General Intelligence Services among others.
Ghatrify, whose article was banned from publishing, criticized the decision on his Facebook account, saying, “This is a country that will never be reformed. Today is another example that we did not move on, we are still on January 24, 2011. Don’t let him think, don’t let him publish, don’t let him be liberated. Just censor and oppress,” he said. None of the newspaper’s editors, including Ghatrify, were available for comment to Mada Masr.
ANHRI stated that censoring the newspaper’s issue is “a direct violation to the constitution and re-imposes police censorship over journalism.”
Similar incidents of censorship have taken place in the past, especially when articles critical to the Armed Forces or the General Intelligence Services have been published.
In October of last year, an edition of the privately owned Al-Masry Al-Youm was recalled because of an interview with former Intelligence Officer Refaat Gebreel. Al-Masry Al-Youm website editor Ahmed Ragab told Mada Masr at the time that the paper received a phone call from the General Intelligence Services requesting it to halt printing and remove the interview.
Article 70 of the Constitution guarantees freedom of the press, while Article 71 prohibits censorship, stating, “Censorship of Egyptian press and media is prohibited by any means, in addition to confiscation, suspension or closure, with the exception of specific censorship that may be imposed at times of war or public mobilization.”
However, certain laws allow for intervention in the media, especially when it comes to state institutions. A law issued under the presidency of Anwar Sadat states information regarding the General Intelligence Services is a national security secret and its publishing is prohibited except with written approval from the head of the General Intelligence Services. Breaking this law is punishable by six months to five years in prison, in addition to a fine ranging from LE100,000 to LE500,000.
In November, the State Council approved a Defense Ministry-authored bill banning media outlets from publishing news pertaining to the Armed Forces without prior written consent from the head of the Armed Forces or a relevant court.
Saudi regime plans crucifixion of dissident this Thursday
Reprieve | May 12, 2015
Saudi Arabia has been urged to spare the lives of two juveniles and an aging political activist, after plans emerged to execute at least one of them this Thursday.
Sheikh Nimr Baqir Al Nimr, a 53-year old critic of the Saudi regime, and two juveniles, Ali Mohammed al-Nimr and Dawoud Hussain al-Marhoon, were arrested during a 2012 crackdown on anti-government protests in the Shiite province of Qatif. After a trial marred by irregularities, Mr Al Nimr was sentenced to death by crucifixion on charges including ‘insulting the King’ and delivering religious sermons that ‘disrupt national unity’. This week, it emerged that the authorities plan to execute him on Thursday, despite protests from the UN and Saudi human rights organizations.
The planned execution of Mr Al Nimr has prompted fears for the safety of the two juveniles, who were both 17 when they were arrested and eventually sentenced to death on similar charges. Both teenagers were tortured and denied access to lawyers, and faced trials that failed to meet international standards. All three prisoners, including Mr Al Nimr, have not yet exhausted their legal appeals.
Saudi Arabia has carried out executions at an unprecedented rate since the coming to power of King Salman in 2015. On May 6th 2015, the Kingdom carried out its 79th execution of the year, and it is already close to surpassing its 2014 total of 87 executions. Human rights organization Reprieve has urged the European Union to intervene with Saudi Arabia to prevent the killings.
Commenting, Maya Foa, director of Reprieve’s death penalty team, said: “Saudi Arabia’s wave of executions since the start of this year has provoked widespread disgust. But these killings, if they are allowed to go ahead, will mark a new low. The sentencing to death of children and the elderly on blatantly political charges is inexcusable, and smacks of an attempt to silence internal dissent in the Kingdom.”
Tories’ repeal of Human Rights Act will spark constitutional crisis, erode civil liberties – experts
RT | May 11, 2015
Newly appointed Justice Secretary Michael Gove will push ahead with Conservative plans to repeal the Human Rights Act – a move experts warn could spark a constitutional crisis and blight Britain’s reputation on human rights worldwide.
Conservative Party sources, fresh from last week’s general election victory, told the Guardian the human rights reforms are imminent.
Civil liberty advocates warn the soon-to-be implemented measures would erode the right to life, the right to privacy, the right to a fair trial, the right to protest and the right to freedom from torture and discrimination.
Although the Tories were keen to push ahead with the legal changes during their last term in government, the move was blocked by the party’s ex-coalition partner the Liberal Democrats. But as a majority government, the Conservatives are now poised to push ahead with the reforms.
Central to the Tories’ election manifesto was a pledge to repeal the Human Rights Act (HRA) and significantly curb the power of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Britain. The legal reforms are expected to surface in PM David Cameron’s plans for his first 100 days, which will be outlined in the Queen’s Speech on May 27.
Under these changes, the Conservatives would replace the HRA with a Tory-styled British Bill of Rights. Britain’s Supreme Court would no longer be answerable to the ECHR, with the Strasbourg-based court losing the power to order changes to UK law.
The plans were drawn up in 2014 by then-Secretary of State for Justice Chris Grayling. At the time, Grayling proposed Britain withdraw from the ECHR if the Council of Europe rejects the Conservatives’ British Bill of Rights.
Constitutional crisis
Considerable doubt exists among experts that the Council of Europe, a human rights watchdog responsible for ensuring the Convention is upheld, will accept the Tories’ proposals. As a result, it is widely believed Britain will disengage from the European Convention on Human Rights and undermine Europe’s’ civil liberties framework in the process.
Britain’s withdrawal from the ECHR has been strongly opposed by former Secretary of State for Justice Kenneth Clarke and the UK’s ex-Attorney General Dominic Grieve. Grieve has long condemned the proposal, warning its consequences would be devastating.
In December, he said the government’s threat to potentially abandon the Strasbourg court undermines international law and could fray the constitutional fabric that holds the United Kingdom together. Echoing grieve, analysts warn such a withdrawal would spark a constitutional crisis in the UK.
They suggest the move would be flatly rejected by Nicola Sturgeon’s Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) and would mean the Conservative government has violated Northern Ireland’s 1998 Good Friday Agreement.
Dr Paul O’Connell, a Reader in Law at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), says the Conservatives’ proposed bill is shrouded with ambiguity.
“The notion of a British Bill of Rights is still quite vague, and more rhetoric than substance at present,” he told RT on Monday.
O’Connell, whose expertise lies in the field of human rights law, international law and the relationship between law and social change, said repealing the Human Rights Act would prove disruptive for Britain.
O’Connell rejected the notion such a move would breed a constitutional crisis in the UK, but argued the policy change would lead to a “recalibration of the culture of British law.”
“Withdrawing from the ECHR is difficult, it’s hard to imagine that the new government will, in fact, seek to do this,” he said.
“They may, however, take a harder line with decisions from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), and may lobby other members of the Council of Europe to reform the Court.”
Eroded civil liberties
Mairi Clare Rodgers, media director at human rights group Liberty, argued the Conservatives’ plans to scrap the Human Rights Act hold serious implications.
The Act has proven vital in protecting journalists’ sources, safeguarding British soldiers, offering much needed-answers to grieving families, and holding power to account, she said.
Mairi also emphasized the HRA’s role in defending those who suffer from domestic violence, rape victims and those who require specialist care.
Executive director at Reprieve, Clare Algar, said successive UK governments have undermined Britons’ ability to hold politicians to account.
“We hope that Mr Gove ignores the myths and spin that many others have used against human rights legislation, and considers instead the important central principles,” she told RT.
“This is something which helps defend the weak from the strong, and the individual citizen from the abuses of government.”
Amnesty International UK’s Allan Hogarth said the Human Rights Act has been misrepresented by a series of myths.
“Despite all the myths peddled about the Human Rights Act, this valuable piece of legislation has helped ensure that principles of fair trial, free speech and the right not to be tortured are properly respected in our country,” he told RT.
“Whatever the politicking in the coming weeks, the Human Rights Act should be protected and Michael Gove should stand firm over the Act’s fundamental principles of justice and decency.”
Read more: Human rights debate in Britain is ‘regressive’ – Scottish watchdog
NSA Spying Ruled Illegal, But Will Congress Save the Program Anyway?
By Ron Paul | May 10, 2015
This week the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the NSA’s metadata collection program was not authorized in US law. The PATRIOT Act, under which the program began, was too vague, the court found. But the truth is the Act was intended to be vague so that the government could interpret it in the broadest possible way.
But this is really more of a technicality, because illegality and unconstitutionality are really two very different things. Even if Congress had explicitly authorized the government to collect our phone records, that law would still be unconstitutional because the Constitution does not grant government the power to access our personal information without a valid search warrant.
Even though the court found the NSA program illegal, it did not demand that the government stop collecting our information in this manner. Instead, the court kicked the ball back in Congress’ court, as these provisions of the PATRIOT Act are set to expire at the end of the month and the Appeals Court decided to let Congress decide how to re-authorize this spying program.
Unfortunately, this is where there is not much to cheer. If past practice is any lesson, Congress will wait until the spying program is about to expire and then in a panic try to frighten Americans into accepting more intrusions on their privacy. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has already put forth a new bill as a stop-gap measure to allow time for a fuller debate on the issue. His stop-gap? A five year re-authorization with no changes to the current program!
The main reform bill being floated, the FREEDOM Act, is little better. Pretending to be a step in the right direction, the FREEDOM Act may actually be worse for our privacy and liberties than the PATRIOT Act!
One silver lining in the court decision is that it should exonerate Ed Snowden, who risked it all to expose what the courts have now found was illegal US government activity. That is the definition of a whistleblower. Shouldn’t he be welcomed back home as a hero instead of being threatened with treason charges? We shouldn’t hold our breath!
This week Snowden addressed a conference in Melbourne, Australia, informing citizens that the Australian government watches all its citizens “all the time.” Australia’s program allows the government to “collect everyone’s communications in advance of criminal suspicion,” he told the conference. That means the government is no longer in the business of prosecuting crimes, but instead is collecting information in case crimes someday occur.
How is it that the Australian government can collect and track “pre-crime” information on its citizens? Last month Australia passed a law requiring telecommunications companies to retain metadata information on their customers for two years.
Why do Australia’s oppressive laws matter to us? Because the NSA “reform” legislation before Congress, the FREEDOM Act, does exactly what the Australian law does: it mandates that US telecommunications companies retain their customers’ metadata information so that the NSA can access the information as it wishes.
Some argue that this metadata information is harmless and that civil libertarians are over-reacting. But, as Ed Snowden told the Melbourne conference, “under these mandatory metadata laws you can immediately see who journalists are contacting, from which you can derive who their sources are.”
This one example of what happens when the government forces corporations to assist it in spying on the people should be a red flag. How can an independent media exist in the US if the government knows exactly whom journalists contact for information? It would be the end of any future whistleblowers.
The only reform of the PATRIOT Act is a total repeal. Accept nothing less.
US Government: Court cannot review wrongful executive secrecy
Reprieve | May 8, 2015
The Obama Administration today told a US appeal court that it had no right to challenge the wholesale suppression of video evidence of prisoner abuse at Guantánamo Bay.
Lawyers for the Administration insisted that every single frame of video evidence – no matter how disturbing or unlawful- must remain an unchallengeable secret, beyond the review of judges or the public right of access.
The Administration further defended its absolute right to classify any information wrongfully — such as, hypothetically, censoring the Gettysburg address.
The federal hearing in Dhiab v Obama relates to a challenge by Guantánamo’s hunger strikers, whereby prisoners’ lawyers presented classified footage of a prisoner being violently removed from his cell and force-fed by the military authorities. On June 20, 2014, 16 media organizations sought the public release of the videos on First Amendment grounds. On October 3, Judge Gladys Kessler ordered the footage to be released, with appropriate redactions on national security grounds.
In defiance of this order, the Obama Administration failed to redact the tapes – a prerequisite to any release – and instead chose to appeal Judge Kessler’s decision.
In oral arguments today, the Administration defended its decision not to commence redactions, insisting that the judiciary must defer entirely to the executive on secrecy, and that not a single frame of the videos should ever be released to the public.
In response to the hypothetical question of whether a judge could challenge the manifestly wrongful classification of the text of the Gettysburg Address, the Administration replied that the judge could not — the court must simply trust the reasoning of the executive.
Reprieve argued that the Obama Administration was attempting to strip courts of the right to review their own records for a First Amendment public right of access, thereby eroding the separation of powers underpinning the US constitutional system.
Reprieve attorney Alka Pradhan said: “The Obama Administration made an audacious power grab today, insisting that no judge can ever review the executive’s addiction to hiding wrongdoing through secrecy. It is disturbing that such a tyrannical argument can be made by a former constitutional law professor. Today, it is the abuse of Guantanamo prisoners that is being wrongfully suppressed. Tomorrow, who knows?”
Not Racist Policing, But US State Oppression is Key Issue
By Finian Cunningham – Sputnik – 05.05.2015
Of the three cops charged over the death of African-American man Freddie Gray, media hand-out photos show that three of the arraigned officers are themselves of black ethnicity or “people of colour”.
The brutal death of 25-year-old Gray from a severed spinal cord while in police custody has become the latest symbol of racist policing in America.
Amateur video footage shows the young Baltimore man being hauled into a police van, limp and in agony, moments after his prone body on a sidewalk had been knelt on by at least two officers. Gray died a week later on April 19, with an autopsy showing that at least three of his spinal vertebrae had been crushed.
Maryland state attorney Marilyn Mosby has concluded that Gray’s death was homicide and she has moved to bring criminal charges against all six police officers involved in the man’s arrest. He had, by the way, been arrested for no probable cause, or as some witnesses said because he merely “looked at the cops the wrong way”.
All across America, thousands of indignant citizens — black, white, latinos and others — have taken to the streets over the past week to proclaim “Black Lives Matter” and to denounce “racist policing”. One protest banner read: “End America’s Blue KKK” — comparing the blue-uniformed law-and-order force to the white supremacists of the banned Klu Klux Klan.
But what do we mean by “racist policing” when three of the officers charged over Freddie Gray’s killing are themselves non-Caucasian?
Moreover, the public face of Baltimore’s police force has emerged as senior officer Anthony Batts — an African-American — who has been leading the force’s media response.
The Maryland state attorney, Marilyn Mosby, who delivered the homicide charges on the suspected police officers in the Gray case, is also of African-American heritage.
Justice campaigners and the Gray family welcomed Mosby’s decision to prosecute as a step in the right direction. Previous cases of black men dying as a result of police misconduct have conspicuously gone without any prosecution of the officers concerned, compounding the anger of civil rights and justice advocates. State attorney Mosby trenchantly declared that “no-one would be above the law” before her announcement on the filing of charges.
Furthermore, it is noted that the mayor of Baltimore City — whose population is 63 percent black — is an African-American woman.
And while we are at it, let’s go all the way to the top here to include President Barack Obama — the first elected black holder of the White House. Also only last week, Obama appointed another African-American, Loretta Lynch, as the US federal attorney-general — the highest law-and-order official in the country.
With African-Americans featuring prominently in the Gray case — from the prosecuting attorney to the three cops who are being charged over the man’s death — what does it mean to accuse US police forces of racism? Some might ask, is it even appropriate to level the accusation given the circumstances of Baltimore?
These apparent contradictions in the Gray case are just that. The operative word is “apparent”. That three police officers who allegedly meted out lethal force to Freddie Gray are themselves black should not distract from the fact that in the vast majority of cases black people are the victims of a largely white police force.
The deaths last year of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and of Eric Garner in New York are much more typical of the circumstances surrounding police violence. Black men are 20 times more likely than whites to die from lethal police force. And, disproportionately, in such cases no officer is ever charged.
What we are dealing with is the structural nature of police violence and impunity in America. And a racial aspect of this structural problem is irrefutable. From stop-and-search practices on the streets, to traffic police harassment of “driving-while-black”, to prison incarceration rates and ultimately the use of lethal extra-judicial force — the oppressive problem is predominantly burdened on African-Americans and people of colour.
America therefore surely has institutionalised racist policing.
However, it would be mistake to see the problem as merely a racial issue.
What needs to be addressed is the structural condition of oppressive state policing that is now prevalent in America. Last week, the Washington Post published an analysis of deaths at the hands of US police officers during the last 10 years. It reported that out of thousands of deaths over the past decade, only 54 police officers ever faced criminal charges, and most of those prosecutions resulted in the officers being acquitted.
The increasing militarisation of America’s police force, from the deployment of heavy-duty weaponry to the use of “war on terror” tactical assaults on inner-city communities, seems to be the bigger issue that needs to be addressed. Black communities, being disproportionately impoverished and ghettoised, are at the front-line of this systematic police state violence.
But it is all marginalised communities within the US that are potential targets for the country’s surge in militarised policing.
Growing poverty, social exclusion and the erosion of civil liberties for all citizens across the US go hand-in-hand with this increasingly oppressive police power.
The debate over racist policing in American needs to be broadened to confront the general state of oppressive policing that is directed against all those — the majority of the population — who are increasingly disenfranchised by an oligarchy where one per cent of the nation owns nearly 90 per cent of the total wealth. That polarisation of wealth and massive impoverishment of the majority is itself a form of state violence inflicted on the nation; and the police are the front-line enforcers of this systematic violence.
The fact that three police officers implicated in the brutal death of Freddie Gray are non-whites; the fact that the police chief and mayor of Baltimore are African-Americans; the fact that government attorneys are black; and the fact that the president of the United States is also black, all that serves to show that the inherent nature of police state violence in the US is both structural and endemic. The problem of how America has now degenerated into an oppressive police state is thus the central issue.
Today over 2.2 million people are imprisoned in jails across America — an incarceration rate that is said to be the highest in the world.
Some observers have noted that the US has locked away more people in its jails than there were even during the supposed Stalinist despotism of the former Soviet Union. Now that is saying something about the Orwellian nature of life in present-day USA — the “land of the free”.
Police Have Officially Killed 400 People in 2015, A New Grieving Family Every Seven and a Half Hours
By Cassandra Fairbanks | The Free Thought Project | May 6, 2015
As of May 5, 2015, the police in the United States of America have killed 401 people that we know of.
Deaths By Law Enforcement 2015:
- 91 in the 31 days of January
- 85 in the 28 days of February
- 115 in the 31 days of March
- 101 in the 30 days of April
- 8 people in the 5 days of May
Extrapolating those numbers out to an hourly figure and the police have killed someone on average, every 7.48 hours. While there is no government-run database, Killed By Police has taken it upon themselves to keep track, and are doing a fantastic job thus far. It’s truly a Cop Crisis.
The three youngest are A’donte Washington, Jason C. Hendrix, and Kendre Omari Alston who were all only 16-years-old. The oldest was 87-year-old Lewis Becker. At least four officers have also been shot and killed by other officers.
Meanwhile, the Officer Down Memorial Page is reporting gunfire related deaths of on-duty officers is down 43%.
Law Enforcement Deaths 2015:
- 9/11 related illness: 2
- Accidental: 1
- Assault: 1
- Automobile accident: 12
- Gunfire: 8
- Gunfire (Accidental): 2
- Heart attack: 10
- Motorcycle accident: 1
- Struck by vehicle: 2
- Vehicle pursuit: 2
The death by assault was Patrolman George Nissen, and they are referring to injuries sustained 10 years earlier when he was attempting to break up a large fight on February 13th, 2005.
A look at the two which were struck by vehicles, both were accidents, with one occurring while the officer was off duty and had stopped to help someone on an icy road. The other was an accident where a semi truck crashed into the officer’s vehicle.
That leaves the eight by gunfire as deaths due to suspects actively attempting to harm them this year.
Deaths of officers directly at hands of suspects this year:
- 0 in January
- 0 in February
- 6 in March
- 0 in April
- 2 in May
This means that in the 125 days of 2015, the police have been killed after being shot by a suspect, on average, every 375 hours.
According to an FBI report, Americans are less violent than ever, yet the police seem to be growing increasingly violent. These numbers seem to agree.
Being a police officer isn’t even close to being in the top 10 most dangerous jobs in this country. According to the 2013 report by the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics on work-related fatal injuries, “Police and sheriff’s patrol deputies” ranked as the 41st most dangerous occupation.
Just some numbers for you to consider next time you or someone you know tries to claim that the “brave” men and women in blue are perpetually “fearing for their life” so that they “can get home to their families.”
Every seven and a half hours our police leave another family planning a funeral. Enough is enough; visit our #solutions section if you’d like to find out some of the many ways we can change this paradigm.
‘Father of internet’ speaks out against government demand for back doors in encryption
RT | May 5, 2015
Internet pioneer Vint Cerf said Monday that creating defects in encryption systems for law enforcement, often known as “back doors,” was “super, super risky” and not the “right answer.”
Cerf, recognized as a “father of the internet,” currently working at Google, told an audience at the National Press Club that he understood law enforcement’s desire to avoid being locked away from evidence that could be used to prevent crimes. He went on to say, however, that providing such access raises constitutional and legal questions.
“The Congress is forced now to struggle with that, and they’re going to have to listen to these various arguments about protection and safety on the one hand and preservation and privacy and confidentiality on the other,” Cerf said, as reported by The Hill.
The Obama administration has been trying to force companies like Google and Apple to create defects in encryption so the FBI and other government agencies can gain access to people’s information; this despite mounting criticism over the plan – a criticism that’s shared by Cerf.
“If you have a back door, somebody will find it, and that somebody may be a bad guy or bad guys, and they will intentionally abuse their access,” said Cerf.
“Creating this kind of technology is super, super-risky,” he added. “I don’t think that that’s the right answer.”
Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed a program codenamed “Bullrun,” which showed that the government penetrated encryption securities through the use of “supercomputers, technical trickery, court orders and behind-the-scenes persuasion.”
Since those disclosures, Silicon Valley industries have been working feverishly to adopt encryption technology beyond the reach of law enforcement agencies that haven’t first obtained a warrant, and to appease customers worried about their privacy. Law enforcement sees it differently, however.
“If this becomes the norm, I suggest to you that homicide cases could be stalled, suspects walked free, child exploitation not discovered and prosecuted,” FBI Director James Comey warned in October, reported The Hill.
For tech companies, though, it is not a question of creating “back doors” or “front doors” – it’s just a matter of secure technology and unsecure technology.
Last week, a bipartisan group of legislators attempted to add an amendment prohibiting the government from forcing companies to build back doors into their devices to a bill reforming the National Security Agency. Despite full support from House Judiciary Committee members, the measure was dropped over concerns it would sink the underlying bill.
Pennsylvania Court strikes down law aimed at keeping convicts out of public eye
RT | May 5, 2015
A federal court in Pennsylvania overturned the Revictimization Relief Act, which aimed to ban convicted criminals from speaking publicly.
The federal district court on Monday said the statute introduced by lawmakers violated the first amendment rights of one-time death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal and other prisoners. The law was introduced in response to Abu-Jamal’s [recorded] appearance at a Goddard College commencement address in Vermont in October 2014.
“The fact that certain plaintiffs have been convicted of infamous or violent crimes is largely irrelevant to our first amendment analysis. A past criminal offense does not extinguish the offender’s constitutional right to free expression,” Judge Christopher Conner wrote. “The First Amendment does not evanesce at the prison gate.”
Judge Conner wrote the law was unconstitutionally vague and over-broad. He worried that it would deter not only the speech of convicted criminals, but also people who redistribute speech such as producers quoting criminals in radio programs or newspapers publishing interviews with criminals. Conner said a law restricting expression based on content was “inherently suspect.”
Attorney Eli Segal and the American Civil Liberties Union, who brought suit against the law, told the Associated Press that the decision “says loud and clear that all of us in this commonwealth have the right to freedom of speech.”
Steve Miskin, the spokesman for the Pennsylvania House GOP leadership told AP that Conner’s ruling “is woefully short of the fact. It begs the question: Did he even read the law?”
“The point of the law was to look out for victims,” he added.
The Revictimization Relief Act, passed by Pennsylvania lawmakers in October 2014, said a victim of a personal injury crime may bring a civil action against an offender to restrict them from conduct that could perpetuate the continuing effect of the crime on the victim, including conduct causing a temporary or permanent state of mental anguish.
Mumia Abu-Jamal, an American activist and journalist, was convicted in 1982 for the 1981 murder of Pennsylvania Police Officer Daniel Faulkner. He was on death row for 30 years before appeals converted his death penalty to life without parole. Abu-Jamal claims he is a victim of a racist justice system. The Faulkner family, public authorities, police organizations and self-described conservative groups have maintained that Abu-Jamal’s trial was fair, his guilt undeniable, and his death sentence appropriate.
Earlier this year, Tom Wolf, the Governor of Pennsylvania, offered the state’s 186 death row inmates temporary reprieves from execution, calling the system “error prone, expensive and anything but useful.”
Wolf said that if the state is going to “take the irrevocable step of executing a human being, its capital sentencing system must be infallible.” He said the system was riddled with flaws and studies had called into question the accuracy and fundamental fairness of Pennsylvania’s capital sentencing system. The studies suggested there were inherent biases indicating that a person is more likely to be charged with a capital offense and sentenced to death row if he is poor or part of a minority racial group; especially so if the victim of the crime was white.
Danish anti-Israeli settlements bus ads halted
RT | May 5, 2015
Photo from facebook.com/nejtaktilbsp
The Danish Palestinian Friendship Association said Monday it would expand its anti-settlement advertising campaign after Copenhagen bus operator Movia said it was dropping their ads from buses in the city.
The advertisements were put on 35 buses in the Danish capital and featured two women and the quote: “Our conscience is clean! We neither buy products from the Israeli settlements nor invest in the settlement industry.”
But Movia said they dropped them after four days because of the number of inquiries they received about what the Danish Palestinian Friendship Association stands for, AFP reports.
[We] “received a significant number of inquiries regarding the Danish Palestinian Friendship Association’s campaign against Israeli settlements.”
The company declined to comment but released a statement saying the ads were “unnecessarily offensive.”
Fathi El-Abed, the Chairman of the Danish Palestinian Friendship Association, however said that the ads were harmless.
“It’s a clear attempt to deny us our freedom of speech. There is nothing whatsoever about this campaign that is harmful, discriminatory or hateful in any way,” he told AFP.
He insisted that his organization would press on with a national advertising campaign on Israeli settlements.
El-Abed also said that his group was supported by people “who’ve never had anything to do with the Palestinian cause.”
Christian Juhl, a lawmaker from the Red-Green Alliance, said that he thought the decision by the bus company was “embarrassing.”
The decision by Movia is in stark contrast to their refusal last year to drop ads featuring bare breasts by a plastic surgery clinic after complaints by feminists.
In New York an arguably far more offensive ad campaign was allowed on buses after a judge overturned a ban in April from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA).
The adverts were commissioned by the pro-Israeli American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) and featured a masked man next to the caption “Killing Jews is Worship that draws us close to Allah. That’s his Jihad. What’s yours?”
The adverts were a spoof of an earlier far less offensive campaign by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which encouraged Twitter users to post messages with the hashtag MyJihad where they would right about their personal and peaceful achievements.
There were also ads showing a 1941 photo of a Muslim leader meeting Hitler, which appeared on buses in Philadelphia, which were also organized by the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), a pro-Israel group led by blogger Pamela Geller.
AFDI was also behind the contest in Texas on Sunday to award $10,000 for the best cartoon depiction of Muhammad, which ISIS attempted to attack.
The latest ads come after ads linking “Islamic Jew-hatred” with Adolf Hitler appeared in San Francisco In January and in Washington DC last year.
The campaign to boycott Israeli produce and companies operating in the areas of the West Bank, which have been occupied by Israeli settlers, began in 2005, although its effectiveness in stopping the settlement program and its impact on the Israeli economy has been questioned.
The issue of Israeli settlement building in the West Bank is one of the main stalling factors in the now dead Palestine-Israeli peace talks.
In an interview Sunday with the Financial Times and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Jimmy Carter, former American President and peace activist, said the peace process was dead because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would never accept a Palestinian state.
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‘Islamic Jew-hatred’ ads with Hitler appear on Philly buses
NYC judge lets through anti-Palestinian ‘killing Jews’ ad as ‘freedom of speech’
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