Czech Republic prosecuting citizens for supporting Russia
RT | November 12, 2023
Czech law enforcement is dealing with a growing number of cases linked to the public approval of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, iRozhlas media outlet reported on Saturday, citing police data. The EU nation’s authorities have made it a crime to publicly express support for Moscow in its conflict with Kiev.
Endorsing Russia’s military operation in Ukraine at demonstrations or on the internet, as well as praising or supporting senior Russian officials can be treated as ‘approval of a crime’, or “denying, questioning, approving or justifying a genocide” under the Czech Criminal Code, the nation’s Public Prosecutor’s Office warned in February 2022.
Police say they have investigated hundreds of complaints related to these types of actions since the beginning of the conflict. The number of criminal cases opened over public endorsements of Russia has reached 384, Police Spokesman Ondrej Moravcik told iRozhlas. Almost 100 people have been charged, he added.
According to the spokesman, the courts have already passed judgment in some of the cases. The official did not reveal how many cases reached the courts or if anyone has received time in prison for supporting Russia. According to Moravcik, the police stop following these cases after handing them over to the prosecutor’s offices for indictments.
Under the Czech Criminal Code, approval of a crime is punishable by up to one year behind bars. Those found guilty of denying or justifying “genocide” could spend between six months and three years in jail.
The Czech authorities have faced heavy public criticism over its support for Kiev and its ties to the US. In September, around 10,000 people took part in a rally in the capital, Prague, demanding the government resign due to its pro-Western policies.
The demonstration was organized by the opposition Law, Respect, Expertise (PRO) party. The protesters demanded that Prague veto any attempts by Ukraine to join NATO, adding that the Czech Republic should withdraw from the US-led bloc.
California school suspends student for saying ‘Free Palestine’
Press TV – November 12, 2023
A US school has suspended a student for his pro-Palestine remarks amid the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip by Israeli occupant forces.
The school in Newport Beach, southern California, which has a history of scandals, suspended the 7th-grade Palestinian student for his remarks to a schoolmate that included the words “Free Palestine.”
Corona del Mar High School (CdM) officials and social media posts cited by US media on Saturday reported that the student was suspended for allegedly violating school codes prohibiting students from harassing and threatening other students amid increasing hate crimes.
A spokesperson for the Newport-Mesa Unified School District, which owns CdM, confirmed the suspension of the student but declined to provide any details.
“While we cannot share specifics of the situation, due to student privacy, we assure you that appropriate action was taken based on the facts of what occurred,” Annette Franco wrote in a statement.
“We value students’ freedom of speech, but we will not tolerate hateful speech in our schools, especially not hate speech that incites others to engage in this negative behavior.”
The family of the student, who has been suspended for three days, could not be reached for comments.
However, a woman named ‘Zeina’ who claimed to be the student’s aunt, posted details about the incident with a photo of the suspension letter written by Jacob Haley, the principal at Corona Del Mar Middle and High School on Instagram.
In the post, she explained how her 13-year-old nephew had been called a “terrorist” by a female student.
Zeina said that her nephew had responded by saying to her several times, “Free Palestine.”
She also pointed out that the recent incident was not the first time that her nephew had been harassed by kids in school.
“Two weeks ago [he] was threatened with hate and racism comments by two Israeli students,” she wrote in her post. “The Israeli students told him to go back to your country which is [Palestine] and started laughing, saying oh too bad you don’t have a country it’s getting bombed.”
Zeina said her sister had reported the incident to the principal who told her he would speak to the two boys and that neither of them got suspended.
She also posted a video and photos of a book about the Israeli entity that had been placed on Haley’s desk, noting that it was biased.
In the suspension letter, Haley accused the student of allegedly violating two education codes that prohibit students from harassing and threatening other students.
“The incident that caused this suspension follows: [the student] said threatening remarks to a young lady in class. He said ‘Free Palestine’,” the suspension letter signed by Haley and posted by Zeina on Instagram reads.
CdM, a combination of a middle school (7th and 8th grades) and a high school (9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grades), has been cited by US media for the school administration’s involvement in several scandals involving sexism and academic dishonesty.
The California school incident takes place as the Israeli regime forces have been relentlessly killing, bombing, and shelling defenseless Palestinians in the besieged Gaza strip for almost 40 days, cut off completely from water, food, medicine, and power.
The international community, in general, Arabs and Muslims, in particular, has expressed outrage over the ongoing genocide of the Gazans by the occupant forces, calling for an immediate ceasefire in the blockaded Palestinian territory.
The NYPD is Underreporting Its Invasive Surveillance Tactics
By Ken Macon | Reclaim The Net | November 7, 2023
In the interest of privacy, and with the aim to combat overreaching surveillance, the work of the New York City Police Department (NYPD) has raised several concerns.
The Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P) revealed through its Research Manager, Corinne Worthington, and research intern, Aaron Greenberg, that the NYPD has been employing surveillance technologies that track civilians unnoticed. This type of tracking includes the use of drones for aerial surveillance, GPS locators for tagging vehicles, and even robots for tracking movement within the subway system.
The implications of these findings go beyond just privacy invasion. With no accountability, these intrusive practices can result in unchecked power dynamics, which can subsequently compromise the justice system and individual rights.
The Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology (POST) Act was introduced to curb such instances by making the NYPD more transparent about surveillance practices. The POST Act demands detailed disclosure of technology usage and data-sharing policies, along with impact assessments to ensure surveillance is commensurate with justice.
Regrettably, it appears that the NYPD has disregarded the POST Act’s regulations since its inception three years ago. Worthington and Greenberg argue that city council’s approval should be a requisite before the NYPD can renew contracts or acquire new technology. This suggestion comes in light of the failure of existing oversight mechanisms to hold the NYPD accountable for compliance with the POST Act.
In its report, the NYPD failed to adequately provide specifics about the technology it employs for surveillance, thereby failing to comply with the POST Act. They strategically exploited loopholes, presenting new technologies as enhancements of current ones to dodge the need for justifying these additions. Furthermore, the NYPD’s report on the technologies’ impact is not sufficiently detailed, and it suppresses key information such as their technology vendors.
Related: NYC Mayor Eric Adams: “Big Brother is protecting you”
UN Agency Unveils Action Plan To Regulate Speech on Social Media Platforms
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | November 9, 2023
Yet another United Nations agency – this time the Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) – has joined the contentious efforts to use UN resources in the “war on misinformation.”
UNESCO is not lagging behind some of the veterans of this “war” regarding the kind of alarmist language its leadership is choosing to use to justify the policy.
Thus, Director-General Audrey Azoulay presented an action plan, saying that online disinformation is “a major threat to stability and social cohesion.”
A press release announcing the plan referred to the phenomenon of misinformation as “a scourge” and one that is intensifying. Those behind all this must hope that this is enough to explain what UNESCO – formerly known mostly for protection of world heritage sites and raising funds for underprivileged children – is even doing “fighting disinformation.”
But here’s the plan: to somehow not harm freedom of speech, and yet push for social media companies to hire more “moderators” that speak all the major languages and whose job would be “effective control of content.”
A lot of attention seems to be given to strengthening censorship capacities in languages other than English; that could explain why, according to UNESCO’s statement, the plan has received support particularly from some countries in Latin America and Africa.
Over the past number of years, the whole world could see how efficiently the notion of “misinformation” and the tools to counter it can be turned into proper weapons of censorship; there is likely no shortage of governments that would like to replicate what has been happening in English speaking countries.
“Electoral integrity” also crops up in the press release announcing the UNESCO initiative, and here the proposed solution is “risk assessment” as well as flagging content, more “transparency” around political ads – and who they are meant to target.
Finally, UNESCO somehow manages to work its core task and purpose into the whole thing – namely, culture. And that’s done by calling for “highlighting the risks faced by artists and the need for online access to ‘diverse cultural content’ (quotation marks here are UNESCO’s) as a fundamental human right.”
As for who needs any of this from UNESCO, and why – the agency justified its involvement by mentioning an opinion poll it commissioned, involving 8,000 respondents in 16 countries.
And because “85% of citizens are worried about the impact of online disinformation (on elections)” – we now have this “action plan.”
The Israel Exception to Free Speech
Israel’s stranglehold on American foreign policy must be identified and eliminated
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • NOVEMBER 10, 2023
Last Tuesday there took place a disgraceful display of visceral malignancy in the United States House of Representatives Chamber in the south wing of the Capitol building. The House, long characterized by its aversion to truth, justice and what was once the American way, has been corrupted by special interests who have effectively bought an overwhelming majority of legislators, to include the leadership of the two major political parties. In the area of foreign policy, as well as a spill-over into many domestic and constitutional issues, there is no more powerful lobby than that of the state of Israel, and its power was on full display on Tuesday afternoon when Representative Rashida Tlaib was censured for the crime of being of Palestinian ancestry and speaking up against the ongoing genocide of her people by the Jewish state. Nearly all Republicans voted to condemn her together with a considerable number of her fellow Democrats.
On the following day, the White House added its own condemnation of Tlaib, referring specifically to the phrase “from the river to the sea” used by her, a slogan conveniently regarded by some like the fanatical Zionist Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as an Arab rallying cry for the eradication of Israel. ADL’s ghastly director Jonathan Greenblatt inevitably equates use of the phrase with “antisemitism” and ADL insists that “’From the River to the Sea’ is a Hamas call to annihilate Israel” while also “claiming [that] it is a rally of coexistence [which] gives cover to terror.” Tlaib, for her part, was resurrecting a memory of the Palestine that once was, and she has asserted that the slogan is “an aspirational call for freedom, human rights and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction or hate.” Pro-Palestinian protesters do also use the slogan as a plea for their long-delayed nationhood, but groups like ADL prefer to claim that the activity provides “material support for Hamas,” and, as Hamas is a US listed terrorist group, that equates to aiding terrorists. Tlaib had also particularly angered the White House through her recently posted online video that accused President Biden of supporting genocide in the Gaza Strip, a seemingly undisputable assertion.
One might argue that even Congressmen are protected by the First Amendment right to free speech, but it is becoming increasingly obvious that the Bill of Rights does not apply when Israel is concerned, either in the halls of Congress or on college campuses, where Palestinian groups are being harassed and banned. The Tlaib censure vote can be seen as part of the bipartisan effort to protect the state of Israel from any and all criticism. Rashida Tlaib broke no law, did not threaten anyone, nor did she call for the destruction of any nation, yet she was excoriated by a series of her comrade-speakers in the House for something akin to a crime against humanity due to her turning against what was repeatedly described as one of America’s closest allies, a best friend and the only democracy in the Middle East, all of which are lies. Israel is no ally, which would require a certain reciprocity, a word that apparently does not exist in Hebrew. And in the current crisis Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has demonstrated that he will not be moved by US interests to mitigate the slaughter no matter how much Blinken-Biden suck up to him to make him budge. And as for the claim of democracy, Israel only grants citizenship with full rights to Jews, hardly a democratic measure. Apparently, cutting off the massive amounts of US aid, including the current $14.5 billion to pay for exterminating the Palestinians, is not even on the table. Israel will always get its pound of flesh and will call all the shots in its relationship with Washington.
Tlaib’s comments are in the context of a White House that believes it is free to send bombs to Israel to slaughter Palestinian children — without even revealing how many plane loads of weapons have been delivered or are on their way. And then there are members of Congress like Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina who are free to advocate a “total war” against what he calls “the most extremist population on Earth,” i.e. the Palestinians. But verbal criticism of what is clearly a genocide and a massive violation of international law that has the US government as an accessory in a war crime is impermissible and there are even concerns that the Tlaib censure could become the foundation for a criminalization of any criticism of Israel under the assumption that all critics are ipso facto antisemites and the comments themselves amount to a “hate crime.”
Consider for a moment the precedents to Tlaib’s disgrace who are still in office untouched by any procedural steps to define what are acceptable rights of legislators. Beyond Senator Lindsey Graham’s unchallenged invitation to a mass murder, there is Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey whose apparent tendency to accept bribes has been a particularly lurid tale in part because much of the loot consisted of $480,000 in cash stuffed into jacket pockets, closets and in a safe, along with 13 gold bars, two of them marked as 1 Kilogram in weight to the value of more than $100,000. Both men are still walking around free of censure!
Israel’s love of the United States is only skin deep, if it is as much as that. Recall for a moment the comments by Israeli prime ministers on the nature of the relationship. Consider Ariel Sharon’s 2001 comment: “Every time we do something you tell me Americans will do this and will do that. I want to tell you something very clear, don’t worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it… I don’t care what the American people think, I own the congress!” Or Netanyahu’s famous quip also in 2001: “America is a thing you can move very easily!” So that is what “America’s best friend’s” leadership actually thinks about the United States and its people! It is a cash cow to be milked and otherwise exploited for political cover before being disposed of when its usefulness is gone.
Sharon also famously said “I vow that if I was just an Israeli civilian and I met a Palestinian, I would burn him and I would make him suffer before killing him.” It squares the circle on why the Gazans erupted in rage on October 7th. Palestine was one nation from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea when Israel was founded in 1948. Since that time, Israel has been ethnically cleansing the Palestinians for three quarters of a century, has stolen and plundered their land, has replaced or eradicated hundreds of villages, has besieged Gaza for nearly 2 decades, and has engaged in mass starvation and now in genocidal mass killing. In the fighting preceding Israel’s independence, three quarters of a million Palestinians were driven from their homes and sent into refugee camps by Israeli militias, together with tens of thousands who were killed outright. Now the refugee camps in Gaza are being bombed together with churches, hospitals, schools and apartment blocks and we have only just learned that some Israeli officials are considering using one of their nuclear bombs to completely wipe out Gaza. It is surprising that the Palestinians have shown as much restraint as they have.
Given the damage that a corrupting Israel has done to America’s political system, it is important to ask what good the relationship with Israel has done for the average American whose tax dollars support the Zionist enterprise together with its plan to remove the Palestinians. The answer is that nothing good has come out of the so-called alliance, which has cost the US $260 billion in direct aid adjusted for inflation since 1946. Plus there is the large sum of $14.5 billion more recently approved and pending currently as some kind of war fund to enable Netanyahu to crush the Palestinians. Israel regularly gets $3.8 billion yearly in direct aid from the US Treasury, a gift from Barack Obama, that is more than what goes to all other countries combined. And there is also more-or-less “off the books” considerable additional money from special and joint military projects, dubious charities and state level development boards that bring the total up to roughly $10 billion per year, which does not include the billions in financial aid that are in reality bribes paid to Egypt and Jordan to maintain peace with the Jewish state. The handout from Uncle Sam helps make Israel a very wealthy country which can afford to give its Jewish citizens free health care and college education as well as subsidized housing.
And being joined at the hip to the Jewish state has a considerable downside, requiring the use of the US United Nations veto at regular intervals to protect the client state as well as involvement in unneeded wars in places like Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Libya with Iran coming up next. Nor has Israel hesitated to kill Americans when it felt that the US was not fully supportive of its interests and the White House is so constrained by its “alliance” that it has essentially covered up the crimes against its own citizens. Last year’s sniper killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, which produced only a whimper from the Jewish dominated State Department, plus acceptance of Israeli lies about the incident, is a prime example. And then there is the killing of 34 sailors and the injuring of 172 more on the USS Liberty in international waters on June 8th 1967. The US Navy largely unarmed intelligence ship was monitoring the ongoing fighting with Egypt when it was attacked by Israeli planes and torpedo boats. Efforts to send US aircraft carrier warplanes to assist the ship were called back by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who also orchestrated a cover-up exonerating Israel from blame. One hopes he and his Secretary of Defense Robert MacNamara are now burning in hell.
The US government is so averse to challenging Israel that many believe that there are other unrevealed influences at play, possibly to include the Jeffrey Epstein/Mossad pedophile sex trafficking caper. It has long been true that candidates for high office in the US are approached by agents of the Zionist lobby and coerced into signing a pledge to support Israel. In return, the candidates who accept receive substantial political contributions and positive media. If they say “no” they are frequently targeted for defeat and go the way of Cynthia McKinney, Charles Percy, William Fulbright, Pete McCloskey and Paul Findley.
Congressman James Traficant of Ohio was perhaps the most aggressive voice in Congress in the 1980s and 1990s in expressing a critique of Israel’s power. He was inevitably controversial and was eventually imprisoned for seven years on a corruption charge that many subsequently considered to be a government set up. He had argued, among other things, that “Israel has a powerful stranglehold on the American government” explaining how Israel was “controlling much of our foreign policy” and “influencing much of our domestic policy.” He claimed quite plausibly that former Pentagon official Paul Wolfowitz, working for Israel, had “manipulated” President George W. Bush into the disastrous invasion of Iraq.
Traficant maintained in the 1990s that “We’re conducting the expansionist policy of Israel and everybody’s afraid to say it. They control much of the media, they control much of the commerce of the country, and they control powerfully both bodies of the Congress. They own the Congress.” If Traficant were still with us, he would be astonished to see how Jewish influence has actually increased, with 35 states having some rules or legislation punishing advocates of boycotts of Israel and bills currently before congress authorizing automatic war against Iran and even the expulsion of Palestinians from the US. The State Department has an ambassador who monitors so-called antisemitism and the White House has recently declared a war against what it describes as “surging antisemitism.”
Currently, everyone opposing the US engagement with Israel in its extermination of the Arab population in the area it controls is being labeled an anti-semite and speaking up for the Palestinians is becoming a good way to get kicked out of university and unemployed. Israel’s friends are busy compiling lists of students who support the Palestinians and are working on schemes to circulate their names to deny them jobs once they graduate. Rashida Tlaib is only the latest affront to the dignity and common sense of the US Constitution but she is certainly not going to be the last victim of the Jewish lobby, which must be labeled for what it is, made to register as the agent of the Israeli apartheid state, and excluded from unilaterally making the policies that all of us Americans have to pay the price for in the Middle East.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
Biden regime moves to clamp down on pro-Palestine student groups in US
By Shabbir Rizvi | Press TV | November 8, 2023
Since the onset of the Al Aqsa Storm Operation more than a month ago, the US has seen an unprecedented level of support and solidarity for the Palestinian people and resistance.
Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets in different US cities, not only condemning the Zionist regime for its horrific war crimes in the besieged Gaza Strip and the ongoing occupation but for the US government’s direct role in supporting such crimes.
A particular note has to be made regarding the role of young people – specifically university student groups and coalitions – who have organized marches, rallies, speakouts, walkouts, and more.
Organizations such as the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Muslim Students Association (MSA), Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and others have not only devoted much of their time and energy championing the Palestinian cause on campuses – but have done so with tremendous bravery.
These demonstrators have been braving great risks and threats from pro-Israel lobbies.
Anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are conflated in the political mechanisms of the United States. These political tendencies, which are really just Zionist propaganda points, are also disseminated into college campuses through special interest organizations and the academic curriculum itself.
Pro-Palestine organizers put themselves at great risk with their activities – groups like the “Anti-Defamation League” or other Zionist groups often target activists to smear or doxx them.
Despite this, the Palestinian cause has become unshakable on campuses. From prestigious universities like Harvard to the small-town community college, the Palestinian struggle is making itself known – and it has turned heads. So much so that the federal government is now taking action to clamp down on it.
The Joe Biden administration, revising Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, asserted a new, egregious clarification to the 1964 law – insisting it prohibits “certain forms of antisemitic, Islamophobic, and related forms of discrimination in federally funded programs and activities.”
It is worth noting that the update to the civil rights legislation is being done directly through the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights.
Clearly, the ongoing struggle for Palestinian freedom has struck a nerve with the Biden administration.
Adding this clarification would threaten universities with having federal funding pulled – which many universities cannot exist without – if the federal government deems the university is breeding “anti-semitism.”
Anti-Semitism, under the Biden administration’s official definition, conflates criticism of Israel with anti-semitism.
Through this egregious conflation, Zionist groups can play the victim as they notoriously do and claim that cases of anti-semitism are on the rise when that is simply not the case. Calls for Palestinian liberation is on the rise, which the state – through its legal definition – deems as “anti-Semitic.”
The definition lays the groundwork for enforcing a total ban on all pro-Palestine student activity as the very nationhood of Palestine is under direct threat by the US-backed Israeli occupation regime.
Every and any act of solidarity with Palestine on university campuses could mean arrest or expulsion.
Through bureaucratic measures, the Biden administration – and those that would follow after – could crack down on Pro-Palestine groups within universities by forcing the university to either comply with its new definition of anti-semitism – or face all of its federal funding being revoked.
Universities would then be the ones forced to stop Palestine solidarity demonstrations – and not an arm of the state, which would likely invite different legal hassles and challenges.
The Biden administration is moving fast to enforce this unpopular measure – more than 200 security experts at the Department of Homeland Security have now been deployed to schools to “monitor antisemitism” according to a White House official.
The state is acknowledging that it is devoting a significant amount of resources to prevent the spread of the Palestinian freedom movement.
And as such, some universities are already caving in to Zionist and state pressure.
Brandeis University, in Massachusetts, has completely banned the Students for Justice in Palestine organization. The local SJP chapter was then forced to cancel a vigil they had planned for Monday night to honor the 10,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza by US-funded bombs used by the Zionist regime.
Other states are experiencing more heavy-handed repression. Florida governor and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has issued a complete ban on Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).
Of course, legal action is always an option on the table. But the process can be lengthy, and full of different obstacles – such as money, time, and ongoing threats from the state and Zionist lobby.
This is by design – slowing down the rapidly growing march of the Palestinian cause on universities is pivotal for the Biden administration as it brazenly defends Israeli war crimes.
So even if the student groups could win a legal case, this critical moment in US politics would be something the student organizations could not legally pursue through campus mechanisms.
The binding false definition that ties anti-Semitism to anti-Zionism will be the primary legal hurdle, and not just in universities.
By using this standard on campuses, it is plausible to extend it to cities too – threatening to cut federal funding for city projects if local authorities do not crack down on Palestinian groups and their activities.
It is a dangerous precedent being set and lays bare the hypocritical nature of freedom of speech and assembly in the United States.
The silver lining here is perhaps tied to that exactly – never before has the Palestinian cause been so powerful in the United States as it is today.
With Biden’s tanking numbers in the polls ahead of an election year, complimented by hundreds of thousands attending Palestine marches in the streets, this legislation has the potential to backfire against not only Biden but the US political apparatus as a whole.
Only time will tell what legal battles will arise from this political fiasco. But one thing is for certain: the road ahead is long, and the state should expect a fierce fight from activists who are already willing to risk their lives for Palestine.
Shabbir Rizvi is a Chicago-based political analyst with a focus on US internal security and foreign policy.
US House Panel Says Disinformation ‘Pseudo-Experts’ Targeted Political Speech Online
Sputnik – 07.11.2023
WASHINGTON – US government officials used a government-linked group of disinformation pseudo-experts to launder the censorship of political speech online, the US House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government said in an interim report.
The Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) – a group of purported disinformation academics led by the Stanford Internet Observatory – worked with US government officials to monitor and censor online speech ahead of the 2020 presidential election, the report, released Monday, said.
“This interim staff report details the federal government’s heavy-handed involvement in the creation and operation of the EIP, which facilitated the censorship of Americans’ political speech in the weeks and months leading up to the 2020 election,” the report said. “This pressure was largely directed in a way that benefited one side of the political aisle: true information posted by Republicans and conservatives was labeled as ‘misinformation’ while false information posted by Democrats and liberals was largely unreported and untouched by the censors.”
The House Weaponization Subcommittee released the report in conjunction with the House Judiciary Committee.
The EIP worked with the US Department of Homeland Security and other US government agencies to bypass First Amendment protections for speech through the consortium of disinformation “pseudo-experts,” the report said.
The EIP was created at the request of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the report said. US government officials would submit misinformation reports to EIP analysts, who would then recommend censorship actions to tech companies, the report added.
An “untold number” of US citizens across the political spectrum were impacted by the censorship of true information, jokes and opinions, the report said.
The House committees’ investigations into the weaponization of the federal government and violations of civil liberties remain ongoing, the report said. There is “more to come,” Judiciary and Weaponization panel chair Jim Jordan also said in a statement via social media platform X.
The American people deserve to know whether they were targeted by the US government and affiliated disinformation pseudo-experts, Jordan added.
Israeli Soldiers Detain German Journalists in West Bank
Sputnik – 06.11.2023
The Israeli military detained a film crew from German broadcaster ARD in the West Bank and threatened journalists with weapons, the Tagesschau broadcaster, part of the ARD media group, reported on Sunday.
The journalists were detained after they filmed violence against Palestinians by radical Jewish settlers, the report said, adding that ARD in Tel Aviv sees this as a clear attack on press freedom.
“Soldiers threatened us with guns and asked if we were Jews. Our colleague was called a traitor … Journalists who want to cover events taking place in the West Bank in the shadow of the war in the Gaza Strip are apparently not allowed to do so,” ARD correspondent Jan-Christoph Kitzler said.
The situation was resolved only an hour later, after the arrival of additional Israeli military and police forces, the report added. ARD in Tel Aviv promised to hire a lawyer to determine the legal consequences of the incident.
Christian Limpert, the head of ARD-Studios Tel Aviv, said it was the second such incident this week. “For us it is the second incident within a week. Our team has clearly identified itself as an accredited press representative and was far away from military security areas. We cannot accept the actions of the Israeli military,” he said.
I was tortured, evicted from home for my media, rights work: West Bank activist
By Syed Zafar Mehdi | Press TV | November 6, 2023
There is “an announced and official war” on the besieged Gaza Strip and “an unannounced and unofficial war” on the occupied West Bank, says a Palestinian human rights activist.
Issa Amro, a prominent human rights activist based in the occupied West Bank, in an interview with the Press TV website on Monday, said the Israeli military has laid crippling siege around the territory.
He said all checkpoints have been closed in the occupied West Bank, most of the roads have also been shut, and the majority of communities are not allowed to leave their respective areas.
The Israeli regime launched an indiscriminate aerial bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip early last month, which was followed by attacks and military raids in the occupied West Bank.
One more Palestinian man was killed by the Israeli army fire in the West Bank on Monday, taking the death toll to 154 since October 7, the Palestinian Authority-run health ministry said.
According to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society, at least 2,150 Palestinians have been detained in arbitrary military raids by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank in the past four weeks.
In the besieged Gaza Strip, the death toll has risen to over 9,500, most of them children and women.
Amro described the detention of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank as “random and arbitrary”, saying over 2,000 people have been held under the controversial “administrative detention” policy.
The West Bank-based human rights activist who has been attacked by Israeli forces on multiple occasions said Israeli settlers dressed as soldiers have been “harassing” local Palestinians and carrying out “organized violence” towards Palestinians in different villages of the occupied region.
Israeli settlers, he maintained, have been on the rampage, warning Palestinian residents, attacking them, burning their houses, and beating them up despite any provocations.
In his village, Amro said, a strict lockdown has been imposed and local inhabitants are allowed to leave their homes only on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday “for one hour each to get food and return.”
“It is not a normal life, it’s a very very bad life, and it’s a really scary life,” he told the Press TV website, adding that he was ruthlessly beaten on October 7 “for ten hours continuously” and later evicted from his home as well.
“I returned home only yesterday (Sunday) after my lawyer intervened.”
On the relentless targeting of journalists in both the Gaza Strip and West Bank, Amro said journalists are not even allowed to film Israeli soldiers, cover their stories, or write anything on social media.
“Journalists here are afraid of their lives, about their freedom. Many journalists have been arrested in the West Bank in last month, they were beaten up and their cameras were broken.”
Amro is a prolific writer and contributes his articles to many reputed international publications.
He told the Press TV website that he is scared for his life, like other Palestinians, including journalists – “to be shot, to be arrested, to be tortured.”
“I was myself tortured (by the Israeli military) as I shot films and spoke to media on October 7. It was due to my journalism and human rights work,” he asserted.
Amro said the Israeli regime used the Hamas operation on October 7, ‘Al-Aqsa Storm’ operation’, “to announce a war, to end what they started in 1948, the Nakba, ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.”
“Without a real intervention of the international community and stopping the support for Israel, it will go on killing the civilians and targeting Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza,” he remarked.
Thoughtcrime Arrests In Israel: “People Have Been Arrested For Saying Their Heart Was With The Children of Gaza”
It’s all following the algorithm—same as Canada, same as US—you MUST agree with your STATE
By Celia Farber | The Truth Barrier | November 5, 2023
“The police say that any slogans in favor of Gaza or against the war mean supporting terrorism… even if you say that you are, of course, against people being murdered,” Abeer Baker, a human rights lawyer representing some of the people who have been arrested, told CNN.
“The Israel Police said that as of October 25, it had arrested 110 people since the start of the war for allegedly inciting violence and terrorism, mostly on social media. Of these arrests, only 17 resulted in indictments. Most people were released without further charges, usually after a few days.
“Baker said the low number of indictments suggested that people were being arrested for making statements that are not illegal.
“People have been arrested for saying their heart was with the children in Gaza,” Baker told CNN, pointing to a widely-reported case of a comedian from northern Israel who was arrested after posting that phrase on his social media.
‘Not talking about the law’
“The Israel Police says it is acting under Israel’s Counter Terrorism Law. Article 24 of this legislation states that anyone who does anything to “empathize with a terror group” whether that’s by “publishing praises, support or encouraging, waving a flag, showing or publishing a symbol” can be arrested and jailed for up to three years.
“However, Adalah, a non-governmental organization (NGO) that advocates for Arab rights in Israel said in a statement that these arrests are arbitrary and target Palestinians only. It said that many are carried out with brutal force in the middle of the night, and without proper legal justification.
“The criteria is not whether it’s legal or not, the criteria is whether it makes people angry or whether it’s something that is against the mainstream, we are not talking about the law. We are talking about atmosphere,” Baker said, adding that discussing the context of the October 7 attacks is “forbidden.”
Article here.
Featured Video
Deception – Submarines against Olof Palme
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
Woolsey Fire started at Santa Susana Field Lab — where “radioactive materials released were never accurately measured”
By John Laforge | CounterPunch | November 30, 2018
In my Nov. 16 column, I reported on potential radiation risks posed by California’s Woolsey wildfire having burned over parts or all of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory—south of Simi Valley, Calif., 30 miles outside Los Angeles—site of at least four partial or total nuclear reactor meltdowns.
The field laboratory operated 10 experimental reactors and conducted rocket engine tests. In his 2014 book Atomic Accidents, researcher James Mahaffey writes, “The cores in four experimental reactors on site … melted.” Reactor core melts always result in the release of large amounts of radioactive gases and particles. Clean up of the deeply contaminated site has not been conducted in spite of a 2010 agreement.
Los Angeles’s KABC-7 TV reported Nov. 13 that the Santa Susana lab site “appears to be the origin of the Woolsey Fire” which has torched over 96,000 acres. Southern Calif. Public Radio said, “According to Cal Fire, the Woolsey Fire started on the afternoon of Thursday, Nov. 8 … on the Santa Susana site.” … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Feeling Better, Getting Worse: How Psychiatric Drugs Create the Illusion They Cure
- ‘Nobody Told Me’: Former Mental Health Patient Calls Out Dangerous Side Effects of Psychiatric Drugs
- Dr. Abu-Sitta: Beirut ‘felt like a day in Shifa Hospital’
- Iran Has Won the War, It Will Be Up to the US to Secure the Peace: Mohammad Marandi
- Iran condemns assassination threats against Iranian negotiators amid US talks
- Brussels cannot say where its own pipeline inspectors are as Hungary’s oil lifeline remains shut
- Israel’s Iran War: Myth and Reality
- Between war and industrial breakdown: The US-Israeli attrition crisis
- Pressure builds on Iran to ‘drop’ Lebanon ceasefire demand as Islamabad talks hang in balance
- In another clash report, US denies agreement to release Iran’s assets
- If Americans Knew
- Pro-Israel ‘Thinktanks’ and Individuals who Influence U.S. Foreign Policy
- Mearsheimer reveals how Israel dictates US policies on Iran, Gaza – video
- After killing 350+, Israel still has a “score to settle” with Lebanon before ceasefire – Daily Update
- Military aid to Israel emerges as the latest political litmus test for Democrats
- The only Palestinian children’s rights organization closes following years-long Israeli campaign against it
- ‘I Can’t Forget the Smell’: Lebanese Reel After Israel Kills Over 300 in Single Day
- DNC Shoots Down Resolutions Calling Out AIPAC and Limiting Arms to Israel
- TCN: Is Israel Blackmailing President Trump?
- Israel killed at least 303 Lebanese yesterday – who were they? Daily Update
- Amnesty: Urgent – Protect Lebanese civilians from brutal escalation in Israeli attacks
- No Tricks Zone
- German Expert: Heat Dome Led To Record Temps In Western USA…Warmer In 1934, 1936
- New Study: No Linear Warming Or Glacier Retreat Along Northern Antarctic Peninsula Since 1980s
- An Inconvenient Tree: Uncovered In Alps… Europe Much Warmer Than Today 6000 Years Ago
- New Study Reports A 60% Slowdown In Greenland’s Ice Loss Rate In The Last Decade
- Low Intensity Tornado Wrecks Major Solar Farm, Creating A Potential Toxic Dump
- New Study Finds Warming Saves Lives…Cold Temperatures 12 Times More Deadly Than Excess Heat
- German Science Blog Accuses PIK Climate Institute Of Hallucinating Climate Tipping Points
- Devastating Assessment Of Comirnaty Vaccine By Former Senior Pfizer Europe Toxicologist
- New Study: CO2 Is ‘Effectively Negligible’ As An Explanatory Climate Change Factor Since 2000
- Former Pfizer Toxicologist Dr. Helmut Sterz Tells Bundestag Hearing Pfizer Vaccine Should Have Never Been Approved
Aletho News 