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Suing to Defend Americans’ Right to Take Pictures in Public

By Julia Harumi Mass | ACLU | July 10, 2014

What does an 86-year-old art photographer have in common with a young man with a video game habit?

Not just a proclivity for perfectly innocuous hobbies, unfortunately. These days, engaging in either activity can get the FBI on your case.

Today, the ACLU and our partners at Advancing Justice–Asian Law Caucus and Bingham McCutchen are taking the federal government to court over a surveillance program that targets people even if they are engaging in entirely innocent and constitutionally protected activity, and encourages religious profiling. As if that weren’t enough, the Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) program also violates the government’s own rules for the collection of criminal intelligence.

James Prigoff is one of our clients. He is 86 years old, and a renowned photographer of public art. He has lectured at universities and had his work exhibited at museums around the world. In 2004, he was stopped by security guards in Boston while attempting to take photos of a famous piece of public art called the Rainbow Swash, which is painted on a natural gas storage tank. Several months later, the FBI tracked him down at his house in Sacramento to question him about his activities in Boston.

Tariq Razak, a young scientist and Pakistani-American, is another plaintiff in our case. He became the subject of a SAR after a visit to a train depot in Santa Ana, California, where he had an appointment with the county employment resource center. He walked around the depot looking for the resource center, and his mother, who was wearing a hijab, accompanied him. He later discovered that this conduct led to a SAR describing him as “a male of Middle Eastern descent” who was suspicious because he was “constantly surveying all areas of the facility” and because he met up with a “female in a white burka head dress.”

Our other clients were also unfairly targeted, falling under government scrutiny for activities ranging from buying computers to playing video games. Several of them were profiled due to their perceived religious beliefs.

These “suspicious activities” may be absurd, but there’s nothing funny about the program. The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Information Sharing Environment, a post-9/11 agency tasked with coordinating national security intelligence-sharing, have adopted lax standards for what constitutes “suspicious activity.” These standards violate a DOJ regulation from 1978 that prohibits law enforcement from sharing “intelligence” about individuals unless the information is supported by reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. The 1978 regulation was adopted in the wake of prior domestic surveillance abuses.

Predictably, eschewing those protections has turned back the clock. The government is ignoring sensible limits on criminal intelligence collection and actively encouraging not just law enforcement, but also private security guards, shopkeepers, hotel owners, and even neighbors, to collect and share information about innocent conduct.

For example:

  • Hotels are advised to be on the lookout for guests who “request specific room assignments or locations” or use “payphones for outgoing calls.”
  • Rental car companies are instructed that “providing multiple names” on rental paperwork is to be “considered suspicious.”
  • Hobby shops should be wary of customers with an “unusual interest” in remote-controlled aircraft and those who pay in cash.
  • The general public is cautioned to report “unusual activity,” including “people acting suspiciously” and “people in places where they do not belong.”

If “acting suspiciously” or being somewhere someone thinks you don’t “belong” is enough to put people into federal counter-terrorism databases, it’s no wonder the databases are full of irrelevant information and reports targeting Muslims, South Asians, and Arab Americans. As you may remember from last year, actual SARs we obtained through Public Records Act requests include reports with subjects like “Suspicious ME [Middle Eastern] Males Buy Several Large Pallets of Water.” It’s also no wonder law enforcement experts criticize the SAR program for “flooding” law enforcement with “white noise.”

Today our clients are challenging a program through which innocuous and even constitutionally protected activity is being reported as “suspicious” and leading to federal law enforcement scrutiny.  This program not only violates federal privacy protections for “intelligence” sharing. It encourages a culture of fear and distrust, undermining our freedom with no known benefit to our safety.

Click here for more on our plaintiffs.

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July 10, 2014 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Islamophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

Journalism groups blast Obama admin for ‘politically driven suppression of news’

RT | July 10, 2014

In a letter to President Obama, 38 journalism groups criticized his administration for severely limiting access to federal agencies and a general politically-motivated suppression of information despite the president’s pledge of historic transparency.

Led by the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), the groups said that efforts by government officials to curb free-flow of news and information to the public has reached a peak during the Obama administration following a similarly stifling culture during prior president George W. Bush’s tenure in the White House.

“Over the past two decades, public agencies have increasingly prohibited staff from communicating with journalists unless they go through public affairs offices or through political appointees,” wrote SPJ president David Cuillier. “This trend has been especially pronounced in the federal government. We consider these restrictions a form of censorship — an attempt to control what the public is allowed to see and hear.”

Cuillier added that while agency personnel are kept mostly off limits to journalists, they are ”free [to] speak to others — lobbyists, special-interest representatives, people with money — without these controls and without public oversight.”

The groups said that Obama’s recent lamentations of a growing cynicism of government were peculiar given his administration’s broad efforts to shroud official action and policy maneuvers in secrecy, all of which “undermines public understanding of, and trust in, government,” the letter reads.

“You need look no further than your own administration for a major source of that frustration – politically driven suppression of news and information about federal agencies. We call on you to take a stand to stop the spin and let the sunshine in,” wrote Cuillier.

The administration has previously dismissed similar sentiment from other journalism and watchdog groups, including the White House Correspondents’ Association.

The letter cites examples of alleged information censorship, including officials repeatedly blocking reporters’ requests to talk with specific agency staff, long delays in answering questions that disregard reporters’ deadlines, officials’ proclivity for offering information anonymously or “on background,” and federal agencies completely blackballing of certain journalists who write critically of them.

“In many cases, this is clearly being done to control what information journalists — and the audience they serve — have access to. A survey found 40 percent of public affairs officers admitted they blocked certain reporters because they did not like what they wrote,” the letter stated.

The groups recommended that the president should encourage all federal agencies and their public employees to speak freely with reporters. In addition, they called for an ombudsman to keep track of any suppression efforts.

“Create an ombudsman to monitor and enforce your stated goal of restoring transparency to government and giving the public the unvarnished truth about its workings,” the letter said. “That will go a long way toward dispelling Americans’ frustration and cynicism before it further poisons our democracy.”

In March, journalists at the Associated Press reported that their research indicated that the US government has withheld more information than ever under the authority of President Obama. Their findings were based mainly on how difficult it is to successfully request documents from the White House through the US Freedom of Information Act.

In addition, the Obama administration has been criticized for using the punitive, World War I-era Espionage Act to punish whistleblowers who leak classified government information to journalists, in effect chilling press freedoms.

July 10, 2014 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , | Leave a comment

Justice Corrupted

By Lawrence Davidson | To The Point Analyses | July 10, 2014

Dogmatists in the Justice System

Scattered throughout the ranks of U.S. federal prosecutors and judges there have always been men and women who are unwilling to make a distinction between their own biases and the rules of evidence that are designed to keep the system focused on the goal of justice. Such closed-minded individuals, embedded in the system, can find themselves set free to act out their prejudices by special circumstances. One might think back to the “hanging judges” who appeared here and there on the American frontier in the 19th century. Being among the few enforcers of law and order in an otherwise anarchic environment, they indulged their fantasies of playing the wrathful god.

The “War on Terror” has likewise created a special circumstance that has liberated Justice Department dogmatists: Islamophobes, Zionists, neoconservatives and others who fancy themselves on a special mission to protect the nation from evil and conspiratorial forces. And, as with the hanging judges before them, the result has been an enhanced possibility not of justice, but rather of the miscarriage of justice.

The Case of Sami Al-Arian

In the past twenty years one of the most notable victims of doctrinaire judges and prosecutors has been Sami Al-Arian. Al-Arian is the son of Palestinian-refugee parents. He came to the United States in 1975 to attend university and earned his degree in computer systems engineering. Eventually he earned a Ph.D. and obtained a tenure-track position at the University of South Florida.

Not only did Al-Arian become a prominent professor, winning several teaching awards, but he also became a community activist, defending the civil liberties of minority groups, particularly Muslim Americans. During the Clinton administration he was an active campaigner against the Justice Department’s pre-9/11 use of “secret evidence” to hold people in jail indefinitely. He also actively and publicly supported the right of Palestinians to resist Israeli oppression.

At some point in the mid-1990s what may have been a coordinated effort to ruin Dr. Al-Arian developed among neoconservative and Zionist elements. Steven Emerson, a man who has made his living as a faux expert on terrorism and a professional Islamophobe, accused one of Al-Arian’s organizations, the World and Islam Studies Enterprise, of being a “terrorist front.” This accusation proved to be baseless, but it nonetheless led other Islamophobe radicals to focus on Al-Arian. Some of these people resided within the Justice Department and the FBI, and they went on a fishing expedition looking for alleged connections between Al-Arian and a recently designated “terrorist organization” called the Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ).

During the 2000 presidential election Al-Arian became a prominent figure in national politics as it played out in Florida. His major concern was the government’s use of secret evidence, and it was George W. Bush who promised to rein in the practice. Therefore Al-Arian backed Bush in the election. His trust in this regard proved horribly misplaced.

On September 26, 2001, Bill O’Reilly invited Al-Arian onto his TV show ostensibly to discuss Arab-American reactions to the 9/11 attacks. It was a trap. O’Reilly immediately asked Al-Arian if he had said “Jihad is our path. Victory to Islam. Death to Israel” at a rally thirteen years before (in 1988). Though Al-Arian tried to explain that it was a reference to his support for Palestinian resistance against apartheid policies in Israel, O’Reilly proclaimed that the CIA should watch Al-Arian from now on. Almost at once Al -Arian started to receive death threats. At this point the University of South Florida placed him on administrative leave. He would eventually be fired by the University.

The O’Reilly interview may have been a public relations booster for the ongoing Justice Department investigation mentioned above. That lasted until September 2003, when Al-Arian and three others were indicted on 25 counts of “racketeering” for the PIJ. The Bush administration’s Attorney General John Ashcroft went on television to extol the indictment as a great blow against terrorism (thus confusing an indictment with a conviction) that was made possible by the extensive powers of the USA PATRIOT Act. Among these powers were those George W. Bush had promised Al-Arian he would rein in.

After a 5-month, 13-day trial Al-Arian was acquitted on 8 counts and the jury deadlocked on the remaining 17. When a juror was interviewed after the trial and asked what was lacking in the government’s case he replied, “evidence.” Nonetheless, the outcome allowed the government to hold Al-Arian pending retrial on those deadlocked counts. The case had a distinctly contrived and corrupt feel to it – the result of Islamophobes turned loose by the events of 9/11 to substitute their own biases for the rules of legal evidence.

In 2006 Dr. Al-Arian was still in prison. His health was deteriorating and the strain on his family (his wife and five children) was great. Given the situation he agreed to a plea bargain agreement whereby he would plead guilty to one count of acting in a fashion that benefited the PIJ. In exchange the other counts would be dismissed by the government. He would be incarcerated for a relatively short period on the guilty count with time already served counting toward this sentence. In order to secure the plea bargain, Al-Arian also had to agreed to be deported upon release.

Once more the government, in this case the judge and the federal prosecutor, proved untrustworthy. Despite the jury verdict, the judge had decided that Sami Al-Arian was a “master manipulator” and “a leader of Palestine Islamic Jihad.” This was exactly what the jury decided the evidence could not substantiate. However, the judge, moved by emotional convictions, had equated statements on the part of Al-Arian showing understanding of acts of Palestinian resistance with actual material support of those actions. In doing so the judge went beyond the rules of evidence and corrupted the system he was sworn to serve. The judge gave Dr. Al-Arian not the minimum recommended in the plea bargain but the maximum of 57 months for the one count to which he pled guilty.

Then began a series of additional prosecutorial steps involving the issuing of repeated subpoenas demanding that Al-Arian testify at grand jury investigations. This was also in defiance of his plea bargain and so he refused. He was held in civil and later criminal contempt which added substantially to his jail time.

So egregious was the behavior of the prosecutors seeking his testimony that another, more objective judge eventually stepped in and halted the government’s efforts to force Sami Al-Arian’s to appear before grand juries. Dr. Al-Arian was also let out of prison and allowed to live under a liberal form of house arrest at his daughter’s home in Virginia. His case was held in a kind of legal limbo until just recently, when on 27 June 2014, prosecutors decided to drop all charges against Al-Arian. One should not think of this as a total victory, for the government still intends to deport Sami Al-Arian.

Sami Al-Arian and his family had to endure eleven years of persecution on the basis of assumptions that were substituted for evidence. In the process the life of an upright man, devoted to teaching, charitable works and the cause of a persecuted people, was ruined. The people who did this to him simultaneously corrupted the justice system the integrity of which they were sworn to uphold.

Other Victims

While Sami Al-Arian was perhaps the most high-profile of these cases, his was not the only one. Four members of the Holy Land Foundation charity were charged with materially aiding Hamas when, in fact, all the foundation did was supply money to charitable Palestinian organizations which had been accredited by Israel. It took two trials, one in 2007 and another 2008, for the U.S. government to eke out a conviction on weak evidence that included the testimony of anonymous Israeli witnesses. The Supreme Court refused to interfere with this prima facie unconstitutional procedure.

At present a Palestinian civil rights activist in Chicago, Rasmea Odeh, is being prosecuted for an alleged immigration fraud for failing to report on her immigration application that forty-five years ago, when she was a child, she was arrested by the Israeli military and briefly held without charge. The same prosecutor who went after the Holy Land Foundation is involved in the prosecution of Odeh.

Conclusion

Times of high tension often result in the lowering of important standards in the application of law. They do so by heightening the fears of the general public, which in turn gives license to bigots embedded in the justice system such as judges and prosecutors who have Islamophobic prejudices, Zionist biases, or neoconservative delusions. All of these motives may come into play in cases such as those mentioned above.

Normally the appeals process should catch and reverse such problematic behavior. However, if the period of public fear is prolonged, the appeals process might also become corrupted by public hysteria and political pressures. It took Sami Al-Arian eleven years to overcome his prosecutorial ordeal and those of the Holy Foundation members and Rasmea Odeh are ongoing.

The last word on this dilemma should go to Sami Al-Arian’s son, Abdullah, who in a recent statement observed,“It’s a sad day when you have to leave America to be free.” Indeed, when dogmatists are in control none of us are really free.

July 10, 2014 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Islamophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

James Clapper Issues Non-Denial Denial Of Greenwald’s Story About Surveillance Of Muslim-Americans

By Mike Masnick | TechDirt | July 9, 2014

We already wrote about Glenn Greenwald’s big story concerning how the FBI has been spying on prominent Muslim American politicians, lawyers and civil rights activists. If you follow this stuff closely, you may have heard that Greenwald was originally supposed to publish that story last week, but held off at the last minute due to some “new information” from the government. This resulted in some silly and ill-informed conspiracy theories, but in the article Greenwald explains what actually happened:

The Justice Department did not respond to repeated requests for comment on this story, or for clarification about why the five men’s email addresses appear on the list. But in the weeks before the story was published, The Intercept learned that officials from the department were reaching out to Muslim-American leaders across the country to warn them that the piece would contain errors and misrepresentations, even though it had not yet been written.

Prior to publication, current and former government officials who knew about the story in advance also told another news outlet that no FISA warrant had been obtained against Awad during the period cited. When The Intercept delayed publication to investigate further, the NSA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence refused to confirm or deny the claim, or to address why any of the men’s names appear on the FISA spreadsheet. Prior to 2008, however, FISA required only an authorization from the attorney general—not a court warrant—for surveillance against Americans located overseas. Awad frequently travelled to the Middle East during the timeframe of his surveillance.

The fact that it was out warning people that the story was inaccurate before anything had even been written is… quite telling. Also, the fact that it only seemed to focus on the lack of a FISA warrant (and against one individual) seems like the standard form of the intelligence community choosing their words especially carefully to say one thing, while implying something else entirely. Now that the report has actually come out, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has issued a statement that is more of the same. You will note, for instance, that it does not deny spying on the five named individuals — only that it doesn’t spy on people because of their political, religious or activist views:

It is entirely false that U.S. intelligence agencies conduct electronic surveillance of political, religious or activist figures solely because they disagree with public policies or criticize the government, or for exercising constitutional rights.

Unlike some other nations, the United States does not monitor anyone’s communications in order to suppress criticism or to put people at a disadvantage based on their ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation or religion.

Our intelligence agencies help protect America by collecting communications when they have a legitimate foreign intelligence or counterintelligence purpose.

Again, note the specific denial they’re making. They’re not denying they spied on these five individuals. They’re claiming that if they spied on them, it wasn’t because of their religion — though the evidence presented in the Intercept article certainly rules out many other explanations. And, remember, it was just a week ago that it was revealed that the NSA, does, in fact, consider people interested in Tor or open source privacy to be extremists. So, while it may be technically true that these individuals weren’t targeted because of their religion, it does seem fairly clear that the intelligence community has fairly low standards for what it takes to convince themselves that someone may be a threat.

Furthermore, the statement admits that there are cases where it spies on people without approval from the FISA Court, but doesn’t say what those examples are beyond “in an emergency.” That may imply the only cases are in an emergency, but that’s not what the statement actually says:

With limited exceptions (for example, in an emergency), our intelligence agencies must have a court order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to target any U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident for electronic surveillance.

These court orders are issued by an independent federal judge only if probable cause, based on specific facts, are established that the person is an agent of a foreign power, a terrorist, a spy, or someone who takes orders from a foreign power.

And, again, as the Intercept report itself notes, prior to 2008, there were different standards in place for people traveling overseas (even Americans) which could explain how some of these individuals were targeted.

The ODNI statement more or less concludes by suggesting that the five people named may have been agents of foreign powers, which is quite a claim:

No U.S. person can be the subject of surveillance based solely on First Amendment activities, such as staging public rallies, organizing campaigns, writing critical essays, or expressing personal beliefs.

On the other hand, a person who the court finds is an agent of a foreign power under this rigorous standard is not exempted just because of his or her occupation.

It’s a neat little out. Accused of spying on five Americans who pretty clearly do not appear to be agents of foreign powers, just hint strongly that they really are agents of foreign powers. It’s back to the good old days of McCarthyism.

July 9, 2014 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Islamophobia, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

We Demand Justice for Amer Jubran

Amer Jubran Defense Campaign | July 8, 2014

Amer Jubran has now been detained for over 2 months without charge. Until last week, he was being held incommunicado. Because Amer is a political dissident, we are gravely concerned that he may be tried with serious offenses based on his political speech under Jordan’s legal framework. If so, he would be brought before the State Security Court in Jordan soon. The State Security Court is an institution that has been widely criticized by human rights advocates as a tribunal that lacks any real judicial independence from the Mukhabarat (Jordanian Secret Police).

Today, we sent an open letter to the recently elected UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al Hussein of Jordan demanding that he address the atrocious human rights abuses in Jordan, citing Amer’s case.

We are asking all supporters to take action on Wednesday July 9th.

Please take a few minutes to do the following on July 9th:

1) Please forward the open letter to Prince Zeid to all your contacts/lists and post to Facebook;

2) Please write your own letter reiterating the points in the open letter (see below) and e-mail your letter  to:

***Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al Hussein, UN High Commissioner-Elect for Human Rights
e-mail:  registry@ohchr.org

***Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour  e-mail: info@pm.gov.jo

***Minister of Interior, Hussein Majali  e-mail: info@moi.gov.jo

***Minister of Justice, Bassam Talhouni   e-mail:  Feedback@moj.gov.jo

3) Please encourage your contacts to sign the petition to free Amer Jubran if they have not signed it already http://freeamerpetition.wordpress.com/

Amer has always fought for justice. He needs your help now!

Please follow the action steps above on Wed July 9th and let us know if you receive any reply.
Thank you again for your continued support.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

freeamer.wordpress.com
defense@amerjubrandefense.org

July 8, 2014

To UN High Commissioner-Elect for Human Rights, Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al Hussein:

In light of your recent confirmation as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, we are writing now to urge you to turn your attention to your own country, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and its atrocious history of human rights abuses.

The current case of Amer Jubran highlights Jordan’s ongoing contempt for the most basic international standards of civil and political rights. Mr. Jubran, a Jordanian citizen, was arrested at his home on May 5, 2014 by agents of the General Intelligence Directorate (GID) and continues to be detained without charges. For the first seven weeks of his detention, he was held incommunicado, without access to a lawyer or family. The international human rights organization Alkarama recently filed his case with the UN as an instance of arbitrary detention (http://en.alkarama.org/jordan/24-communiqu/1251-jordan-arbitrary-detention-of-human-rights-defender-amer-jubran-since-may-2014 ).

Mr. Jubran is an internationally known activist, speaker, and writer on Palestinian human rights and a critic of US and Israeli policies in the Arab world. All who know him and are familiar with his history recognize his arrest as a politically motivated silencing. We are therefore concerned that the amendments to Jordan’s “anti-terrorism” laws passed on June 1st criminalizing new categories of speech as “terrorism” may be applied in Mr. Jubran’s case. The legislation itself demonstrates the willingness of the Jordanian regime to exploit the label “terrorism” to further limit free speech, especially speech that is critical of the existing system of cooperation between Jordan, Israel and the United States. (See statement from Reporters without Borders: http://en.rsf.org/jordan-king-urged-to-repeal-draconian-16-06-2014,46423.html  )

We further call attention to the use of the State Security Court as an instrument for political repression. As a direct extension of the executive branch of government, the State Security Court violates all standards of judicial independence. It is a rubber stamp for arrests and detentions carried out by the GID, which has a well-documented history of arbitrary detention and torture to silence political opposition (http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/jordan/report-2013). The collaboration between the GID and the State Security Court in human rights abuses has been specifically cited by Alkarama: “The methods of torture most commonly employed by GID officers are beatings, beatings with cables, ropes, plastic pipes, whips etc all over the body including the soles of the feet (falaqa), stress positions, sleep deprivation, injections that cause states of extreme anxiety, humiliation, threats of rape against the victim and members of his family, electroshock, prolonged isolation, etc. Abuse is more prevalent in the GID due to its close collaboration with the judges of the State Security Court. Incommunicado detention, which is itself a form of mental torture, is routinely extended for undetermined amounts of time.” (http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrc/docs/ngos/Alkarama_Jordan_HRC100_en.pdf)

In your acceptance speech at your confirmation as the UN High Commissioner by the General Assembly in June, you spoke of the commitment to push forward the issue of human rights on the Asian continent. Such a commitment can only be taken seriously if you are willing to begin at home. We ask you to stand behind your words by demanding the release of Amer Jubran from his unjust imprisonment by unaccountable agencies within the state of Jordan, and to use your position to end extensive human rights violations carried out by the GID and the State Security Court.

Sincerely,

The Amer Jubran Defense Campaign
National Lawyers Guild, Palestine Subcommittee
Defending Dissent Foundation

cc:  Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour (Jordan)
Minister of Interior Hussein Majali (Jordan)
Minister of Justice Bassam Talhouni (Jordan)
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay

July 8, 2014 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

EU Publishers Present Their ‘Vision’ For Copyright: A Permission-Based Internet Where Licensing Is Required For Everything

By Glyn Moody | Techdirt | July 2, 2014

For too many years, the copyright industries fought hard against the changes being wrought by the rise of the Internet and the epochal shift from analog to digital. Somewhat belatedly, most of those working in these sectors have finally accepted that this is not a passing phase, but a new world that requires new thinking in their businesses, as in many other spheres. A recent attempt to codify that thinking can be found in a publication from the European Publishers Council (EPC). “Copyright Enabled on the Network” (pdf) — subtitled “From vision to reality: Copyright, technology and practical solutions enabling the media & publishing ecosystem” — that is refreshingly honest about the group’s aims:

Since 1991, Members [of the EPC] have worked to review the impact of proposed European legislation on the press, and then express an opinion to legislators, politicians and opinion-formers with a view to influencing the content of final regulations. The objective has always been to encourage good law-making for the media industry.

The new report is part of that, and is equally frank about what lies at the heart of the EPC’s vision — licensing:

A thread which runs through this paper is the proliferation of ‘direct to user’ licensing by publishers and other rights owners. Powered by ubiquitous data standards, to identify works and those who have rights in those works, licensing will continue to innovate exponentially so that eventually the cost of serving a licence is close to zero. The role of technology is to make this process seamless and effective from the user’s perspective, whether that user is the end consumer or another party in the digital content supply chain.

Seamless licensing will be made possible through the roll-out of ubiquitous Digital Rights Statements (DRS) containing information about identity, rights and — you guessed it — licenses:

The key point about a DRS is that once it exists, it can be searched, read and actioned by any other machine connected to the Internet. And once the DRS is indexed by a search engine, through the machine readable IDs contained in the DRS it will always be possible to find the person or entity who owns or administers the rights and the rights associated with it. From there, it will be possible to link to the service from which the rights can be obtained and the content accessed and, if applicable, paid for.

Furthermore, this infrastructure is well suited to a world of ‘mash-ups’ where one work will incorporate parts or elements of other works, because the relevant IDs can identify the whole of a work or granular elements of it.

As that makes clear, the EPS vision includes being able to pin down every single “granular” part of a mash-up, so that the rights can be checked and — of course — licensed. Call it the NSA approach to copyright: total control through total surveillance. The paper helpfully explores how that would work out in various specific situations encountered today. For example, the European publishers want to be able to use licensing to restrict access even to material on the open Internet:

Legal clarification is needed about the relationship between hyperlinks and licence terms on the websites (or other platforms) to which they link. It must be clear that rights owners may by their licence terms to “restrict” access to content on an “open website” to a specific category of “the public” (e.g. users who visit the site directly), whether or not accompanied by technical protection measures.

So licenses would be able to forbid the use of hyperlinks to jump directly to pages, even though the latter were not locked down by DRM. The EPC is also worried about an “overbroad” interpretation of a general right to browse copyright material without needing an explicit license:

Whilst the general proposition that Internet browsing does not require a licence is reasonable, there remains a risk that an overbroad interpretation could mean that activities which ought properly to be licensable (e.g. the consumption of press cuttings) might cease to be so.

To tackle that, the EPC wants (pdf) “a new limited neighbouring right to stop unlicensed use of snippets,” and also, for good measure, “[h]yperlinking to illegal copies to be treated as an infringement.” Given this relentless focus on creating a permission-based Internet, it will come as no surprise that the EPC hates the idea of introducing fair use in Europe:

this is an issue which would require considerable evidence-based research in order to make a reasoned evaluation of the benefits of introducing a fair dealing exception compared with the uncertainty and other risks which would be caused by its introduction.

That call for “considerable evidence-based research” is rather rich, given the complete absence of it for all the recent changes to European copyright law in favor of publishers. Indeed, as Techdirt has frequently discussed, there is plenty of research to support reducing copyright’s term and reach, but when this is brought up, publishers are strangely uninterested in evidence-based policy making, preferring to stick with the dogma-based kind. Naturally, the EPC thinks that instead of fair use, what people really need is more licensing:

Europe would be better positioned to reach a dynamic flexibility for increased uses by providing incentives to small scale licensing, both B2B and B2C, and automated licensing solutions.

Part IV of the report is entitled “Meeting users’ needs in the new media & publishing ecosystem.” That’s a welcome emphasis, since it finally recognizes that the users are not just some passive recipient of what the publishers decide to throw at them. However, the section’s focus is still resolutely on seeking permission for every possible use of copyright material.

For example, one of the areas where publishers are fighting fiercely against granting new copyright exceptions is for text and data mining. The refusal to contemplate anything but licensing as an option led to a group of researchers, SMEs, civil society organizations and open access publishers pulling out of the European Commission’s “Licensing for Europe” fiasco. Here’s what EPC has to say on the matter:

A new exception for text and data mining at EU level carries a huge risk from ‘the law of unintended consequences’. A key theme running through our paper is the enabling role of technology in managing copyright. Given the increasing automation of rights management, the full potential of which we have yet to realise, including in the area of specific permissions, access to and use of content, we urge the European Commission to look at practical solutions first for serving the genuine needs of the research community before legislation.

Scare-mongering about an exception for text and data mining is bad enough, but it gets worse. In this same section, we read the following concerning the copyright needs of users with a disability:

There are undoubted challenges faced by this user group in being able to access digital content although publishers have been investing in voluntary solutions, including via ePub3 and voice-enabled services online.

The report then goes on immediately to mention:

The Marrakech Treaty is a recent exemplar. It provides a legal framework to facilitate access to published works for persons who are blind, visually impaired or otherwise print disabled.

That gives the impression that the Marrakech Treaty was something that publishers backed strongly as a fair way of helping those with disabilities. In fact, quite the reverse is true. To have that hard-won treaty for the visually impaired presented here as an example of how publishers can be relied on to do the right thing by the public is not just misleading but morally repugnant. It shows that despite some fair words in the rest of the “vision” document, in important ways European publishers are just as selfish and cynical as ever.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

July 2, 2014 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Tony Blair ‘to advise’ Egyptian dictatorship

RT | July 2, 2014

Tony Blair has reportedly agreed to advise coup-appointed Egyptian President, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, as part of a United Arab Emirates-funded program which promises lucrative “business opportunities” to those involved.

Blair is set to give Sisi advise on economic reform in tandem with a UAE financed taskforce in Cairo, the Guardian reported on Wednesday. According to the daily, the taskforce is being run by the management consultancy Strategy&, formerly Booz and Co, now part of PricewaterhouseCoopers. The group hopes to attract foreign direct investment to Egypt’s crisis racked economy at an upcoming Egypt donors’ conference, which is being sponsored by oil-rich UAE, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

The former prime minister and Middle East peace envoy supported the coup against Egypt’s democratically elected president Mohamed Morsi last July and continues to generate controversy with his complicated dealings in the region.

A spokeswoman for Blair told the Guardian that his attempts to garner support for Egypt from the international community were not being done “for any personal gain whatsoever.”

“He is giving advice, he will have meetings, that’s all,” she said, stressing that neither Blair nor any organizations associated with him would make money out of Egypt.

She added that he believes the Sisi government “should be supported in its reform agenda and he will help in any way he can, but not as part of a team.”

When pressed on the lucrative “business opportunities” the Egypt project and its Gulf backers promised, she said: “We are not looking at any business opportunities in Egypt.”

A former close political associate, however, told the Guardian that Blair’s role in advising the Egyptian regime would cause “terrible damage to him, the rest of us and New Labour’s legacy.”

The associate said that Blair was able to kill two birds with one stone in Egypt, battling the threat of Islamism while sinking his teeth into “mouth-watering business opportunities” in return for Bush-era advocacy.

He added that it would be a very lucrative business model, but one Blair should not be involving himself with.

“He’s putting himself in hock to a regime that imprisons journalists. He’s digging a deeper and deeper hole for himself and everyone associated with him.”

Alastair Campbell, Blair’s former press secretary who resigned in 2003 over the Iraq Dossier scandal, is also a paid advisor consulting the Sisi government on its public image. When asked by the Guardian on Wednesday if he had been working with Strategy&, Campbell refused to say who he had been working with. Like Blair, Campbell also visited Cairo earlier this year as part of the Gulf-funded program to prop up the regime. Another former Blair employee, Darren Murphy, a so-called special advisor in the Blair government who has traded off the former PM’s name for years, has also been working on the program.

In June, Sisi, Egypt’s former army, won 96.9 percent of the votes in a presidential poll that had all the hallmarks of a dictatorial election.

Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz was the first international leader to congratulate Sisi on his election victory.

King Abdullah hailed Sisi’s ’win as a “historic day” for Egypt, calling for donors a donors conference to help Egypt through its economic troubles.

“To the brothers and friends of Egypt… I invite all to a donors conference… to help it overcome its economic crisis,” he said.

Since the Morsi government was toppled, hundreds of alleged supports of the ex-president and his Muslim Brotherhood movement have been sentenced to death. The persecution of political opponents and crackdown on journalists has pushed US congressional leaders to consider withholding $1.3 billion in military support to Cairo.

Since stepping down as prime minister in 2007, Blair and his companies have worked with a variety of repressive and dictatorial regimes across the world. Blair’s Middle East interest appear to be expanding, with aids confirming last month he was considering opening an office in the UAE capital Abu Dhabi. His work in Egypt could be viewed as even more contentious, due to the bloody nature of the coup and his work as a mediator in the region.

In June, retired diplomats and political enemies came together to demand that Blair be fired as the envoy to the Quartet on the Middle East– the UN, US, Russia and EU – after failing to bring Israel and Palestine closer to a peace deal.

July 2, 2014 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Economics | , , | Leave a comment

Palestinian-American activist held without charges in Jordan

Amer Jubran Defense Campaign | June 29, 2014

We received word this weekend that Amer Jubran was finally granted a visit by family at the General Intelligence Directorate detention facility near Amman, Jordan this past Friday–seven weeks after he was arrested. He appeared to be in good health and his spirit remains strong.

While this news comes as a relief, we are gravely concerned that Amer continues to be detained without charges, in violation both of Jordanian law and of international standards of human rights.

Amer’s detention is a political silencing. It is taking place in the context of new “anti-terrorism” legislation passed in Jordan on June 1, 2014 that criminalizes new categories of speech. According to the human rights organization Alkarama:

“Criticizing or caricaturing a foreign leader, or more generally a policy of a third country, also falls under the definition of terrorism. Thus, any person that has ‘disturbed relations with a foreign country’ can be prosecuted. … More importantly, if an act is qualified as an act of terrorism, authorities can then bring perpetrators of the real or supposed violations, before the State Security Court, an extraordinary jurisdiction. This court lacks independence as it is directly linked to the executive branch, and its members, including one military, are appointed by the Prime Minister.”

Such legislation is designed to protect the interests of US and Israeli political domination, and not the interests of the people of Jordan and the surrounding Arab region.

The Case of Amer Jubran

freeamerAmer is a Palestinian political activist who opposed the warmaking policies of the United States and Israel during his 18 year residence in the United States. Shortly after September 2001 he was harassed by US  authorities, detained, and finally pushed out of the country. He returned to Jordan, his first country of exile, in 2004. This latest arrest is a continuation of the political repression Amer experienced in the United States.

We do not know if Israel or the US ordered Amer’s arrest, but it is clear that his detention is aimed at silencing a strong voice of dissent against their policies.

We call on all supporters to remain committed to the campaign to win Amer’s freedom. We will be sending out more information soon about next steps.

defensecampaign@openmailbox.org

June 30, 2014 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , | Leave a comment

US pressured Denmark to close Kurdish TV so Rasmussen would become NATO chief – lawyer

RT | June 29, 2014

The US put pressure on Danish authorities to close the Kurdish Roj TV channel in order to appease Turkey. This was done so Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s position as NATO secretary general would be secure, the station’s lawyer told RT amid WikiLeaks revelations.

WikiLeaks documents released back in March suggest Rasmussen abused his powers during his time as Denmark’s prime minister, in order to secure his future job.

In 2009, Denmark reportedly agreed to start legal action against Roj TV, a Kurdish separatist channel that was broadcasting from Copenhagen, in order to appease Turkey. In return, Ankara said it would back Rasmussen as the future NATO chief.

“There were some conflicts of political character between Denmark and Turkey. And the US intervened because they liked very much [for the] then-Danish prime minister to become secretary general. And therefore they felt confident with him as a secretary general,” Roj TV lawyer Bjorn Elmquist told RT.

“There was big pressure from the US to think in a creative manner how to indict and how to prove that Roj television was promoting terrorism. And in the end, the indictment was there. And within hours after that indictment it was announced that there was an agreement between the Turkish government and the other NATO countries to decide for the previous Danish prime minister to be secretary general.”

Roj TV began broadcasting in 2004. In 2010, it was accused in Denmark of promoting terrorist activities. It was officially shut down in February 2014.

Turkey maintained that Roj TV was a mouthpiece for the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which fights for the rights of the Kurdish minority – and is considered a terrorist organization in Turkey and the West.

In fact, Turkey had on three different occasions unsuccessfully complained to the Danish Radio and Television Board about Roj TV, with the watchdog ruling that the channel’s reporting standards matched those of other TV stations in Denmark, Elmquist added.

“We have a special independent committee on television in Denmark, which would issue the certificates. And the Turkish government had on three different occasions complained to the committee. And each time they concluded that the coverage of the conflict between the PKK, the Kurdish guerrillas, and Turkish security forces was just like the coverage you would find at the big Danish news television stations,” he said.

“So, we thought that also the courts would respect the freedom of expression, the freedom of press, the freedom of information, but it didn’t occur.”

When NATO was asked to comment on the leaks about the deal to appoint Rasmussen, its press office directed RT to the Danish judicial authorities, insisting that the courts were fully independent.

“We do not comment on alleged leaked documents. However, in general I can say that in real democracies, such as Denmark, the courts are fully independent. For any other inquiries, I refer you to the Danish judicial authorities,” press officer Ben Nimmo from NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division told RT in a letter.

Kurdish activist Dilar Diriq said that Turkey has been after Roj TV ever since it launched.

“They repeatedly filed complaints, but they were unsuccessful until Rasmussen became NATO’s secretary general in 2009. And Turkey did not make it a secret that Roj TV’s closure was a condition for them to support Rasmussen. And suddenly in the next year, the Danish government decided to prosecute Roj TV. This really does not come as a surprise because there had been several anti-Kurdish policies that were adopted by European governments to appease Turkey,” she told RT.

The 2009 WikiLeaks diplomatic cable sent by Terence McCulley, then-deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in Copenhagen says that the Danish promised to come after Roj TV.

“Danish pledges to intensify efforts against Roj-TV — among the measures offered Turkey for not blocking former PM Rasmussen’s appointment as NATO secretary general — have given additional impetus to the investigation while also prompting senior officials to tread carefully, to avoid the appearance of a quid pro quo (i.e., sacrificing freedom of speech in exchange for a high-level post),” the cable states.

The cable also says that “no clear evidence has been found to connect the broadcaster with the PKK,” but that the Danish are being encouraged to “think creatively about ways to disrupt or close the station.”

June 29, 2014 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Rep. Grayson Asks If Keith Alexander Is Selling Classified Information To Get $1 Million Per Month

By Mike Masnick | Techdirt | June 27, 2014

We recently noted that former NSA boss Keith Alexander is running around asking for $600k to $1 million per month for his new “cybersecurity” consulting firm. While some people thought that the number was “low” for banks, that doesn’t make any sense. You could hire a lot of really good actual security professionals for that kind of cash. So it made us wonder just what banks thought they were getting for that $1 million. Actual security professional Bruce Schneier wondered that as well, and wondered aloud if the one difference was that… Alexander could give them classified info — such as where he hid the backdoors in their routers.

That statement apparently caught the attention of Rep. Alan Grayson, who has been a vocal opponent of NSA overreach. He’s now sent a letter to the Financial Service Rountable to point out that selling classified info is a crime:

Security expert Bruce Schneier noted that this fee for Alexander’s services is on its face unreasonable. “Think of how much actual security they could buy with that $600k a month. Unless he’s giving them classified information.” Schneier also quoted Recode.net, which headlined this news as: “For another million, I’ll show you the back door we put in your router.”

This arrangement with Mr. Alexander may also include additional work with the shadow regulatory firm The Promontory Group, with whom Alexander apparently will partner “on cybersecurity matters.” According to Promontory spokesman Chris Winans, Mr. Alexander “and a firm he’s forming will work on the technical aspects of these issues, and we on the risk-management compliance and governance elements.”

Disclosing or misusing classified information for profit is, as Mr. Alexander well knows, a felony. I question how Mr. Alexander can provide any of the services he is offering unless he discloses or misuses classified information, including extremely sensitive sources and methods. Without the classified information that he acquired in his former position, he literally would have nothing to offer to you.

Grayson also demands “all information related to your negotiations with Mr. Alexander,” so that Congress can verify whether or not he is selling military or cybersecurity secrets to the financial services industry for personal gain. Sure, it’s a snarky move, but there is a point behind it. Alexander can’t command those sums because of his actual technical expertise. The reality, of course, is that he’s selling his connections to the government. But it certainly raises the question of appearances.

June 28, 2014 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, Economics | | Leave a comment

Enough Secret Law: Newly Released DOJ Drone Killing Justification Memo… Points To Another Secret Drone Memo

By Mike Masnick | Techdirt | June 25, 2014

We already reported on the finally released DOJ legal drone memo that supposedly “justifies” the extrajudicial killing of Americans via drones. However, as we noted, much of it was actually redacted, leaving many of the details and reasons totally secret. Jameel Jaffer, the ACLU lawyer who helped get this heavily redacted memo released in the first place has written up an analysis which notes how ridiculous the redactions are and the fact that the memo actually points to another secret memo that reveals more details:

In one instance, the long sought-after drone memo references another legal memo that concluded that al-Awlaki’s American citizenship did not “preclude the contemplated lethal action.” From this reference, we can deduce that the OLC authored a separate drone memo assessing – and dispensing with – the proposition that an American citizen had the right not to be deprived of his life without some form of judicial process. But that earlier memo, treated by the executive branch as binding law, is still secret.

This kind of thing is all too common, but tremendously problematic. For folks actually trying to understand what the law actually is the fact that people have to play this bizarre game of 20 questions, seeking secret laws and interpretations, only to get breadcrumbs pointing to other secret interpretations of the law is just ridiculous. We’ve complained in the past about the dangers of a secret law, but just the fact that the American public needs to play this stupid game, and the DOJ appears to have broken up the secret interpretations of the law into different sections, making it that much harder to track it all down, raises serious questions about what sort of government we have, and how Americans can be expected to respect, let alone obey, the law when we can’t even be told what it is.

June 26, 2014 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Progressive Hypocrite | , , | Leave a comment

Unanimous Supreme Court Backs Whistleblowers over White House Objections

By Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo | Black Agenda Report | June 25, 2014

The US Supreme Court on Thursday, June 19th ruled that First Amendment protections extend to public employees who provide testimony, under subpoena, on corruption from adverse actions, such as retaliation or job termination. In a rare show of bi-partisan unity in Washington, DC, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote the Supreme Court decision in favor of whistleblowers over the opposition of those who nominated her for the Supreme Court, the Obama Administration. Although the corporate media hailed it as triumphant, the decision fails to provide necessary protections to whistleblower against retaliation for exposing corruption.

The case of Lane v. Franks centers on an employee, Edward Lane of Alabama Community College, hired in 2006 to direct an at-risk youth program that provided “counseling and educations as an alternative to incarceration.” The program received “substantial federal funds.” In the course of conducting an audit, Lane discovered that a state representative, Suzanne Schmitz, was being paid for work that she did not provide. Lane raised concerns about this fraudulent situation and was warned by the president of the community college, Steve Franks, that firing Schmitz could have a negative impact on his career at the community college. Despite the warning, Lane terminated Schmitz’s employment. As a result, a lawsuit was filed and the FBI initiated an investigation.

In 2008, Lane was subpoenaed and testified against Schmitz at her criminal trial. She was convicted of “fraudulently obtaining $177,000 in public in funds.” Under the thin pretext of a budgetary crisis, Franks laid off 29 employees but withdrew all but two of those lay offs – Lane was one of the two employees not re-hired. Lane filed charges claiming that Franks retaliated against him for testifying against Schmitz. He argued that his First Amendment rights had been violated. Franks on the other hand argued that he was protected from these charges because he was acting in an official capacity and therefore immune from such charges. In the federal government, managers also claim to be above the law because of sovereign immunity.

Justice Sotomayor wrote in the Courts decision that Lane gave his testimony “as a citizen on a matter of public concern – a public program and misuse of state funds.” Sotomayor wrote: “ Anyone who testifies in court…bears an obligation, to the court and society at large, to tell the truth.”

Sotomayor further asserted:

“…The importance of public employee speech is especially evident in the context of this case: a public corruption scandal. The United States, for example, represents that because “[t]he more than 1000 prosecutions for federal corruption offenses that are brought in a typical year . . . often depend on evidence about activities that government officials undertook while in office,” those prosecutions often “require testimony from other government employees.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 20. It would be antithetical to our jurisprudence to conclude that the very kind of speech necessary to prosecute corruption by public officials-speech by public employees regarding information learned through their employment may never form the basis for a First Amendment retaliation claim. Such a rule would place public employees who witness corruption in an impossible position, torn between the obligation to testify truthfully and the desire to avoid retaliation and keep their jobs.” [emphasis added]

Unfortunately, Franks was not held accountable for terminating Lane because of the on-going bias towards protecting the illegal behavior of managers and those in power.

The Sotomayor opinion is certainly a step forward in protections for citizens who have the courage to fight against corruption. However, what remains unclear is why a citizen should need a subpoena to protect them from retaliation?The Supreme Court, in future rulings need to eliminate this unnecessary barrier to justice. Because the Supreme Court did not order Lane to be reinstated, the Court ruling still sends a chilling message to whistleblowers in the sense that their jobs are still in jeopardy. This issue of holding officials to account for their illegal behavior remains unaddressed. The First Amendment victory is small consolation when one is facing unemployment.

However, the Barack Obama Administration — true to its core values of retaliating against, maligning and silencing whistleblowers– argued against First Amendment protections for public employees who testify against corruption at trials. At one point, the Obama Administration even argued “a police department would be within their rights to fire an officer who responded to a subpoena and testified about a search warrant in a court.”

Had the Supreme Court accepted the Obama Administration’s argument it would have further undermined democratic ideals and intensified the fear of losing ones job by providing testimony in corruption cases, even with a subpoena. With the Supreme Court pushing back against the Obama Administration’s position they have set the stage for further examination of how to best provide transparency in government and comprehensive whistleblower protection.

~

Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo is the author of No FEAR: A Whistleblowers Triumph over Corruption and Retaliation at the EPA. Dr. Coleman-Adebayo worked at the EPA for 18 years and blew the whistle on a US multinational corporation that endangered South African vanadium mine workers. Marsha’s successful lawsuit against the EPA lead to the introduction and passage of the first civil rights and whistleblower law of the 21st century: the Notification and Federal Employees Anti-discrimination and Retaliation Act of 2002 (No FEAR Act).

June 25, 2014 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption | | Leave a comment

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