UK Government Caught Surveilling Social Media of Teaching Assistants and Librarians
By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | October 23, 2023
A startling revelation indicates that the UK government has substantially amplified its surveillance of the online activity of educators. Ranging from leading education experts to teaching assistants and librarians earning modest salaries, the magnifying glass of surveillance closely monitors posts critiquing education policies. The discovery was made by The Observer, revealing that the Department for Education is keeping extensive records of such posts, something that we’ve previously covered.
This revelation highlights the burning issues of free speech and censorship, causing widespread disquiet among the educational community. The surveillance of educators’ online activity portrays a scenario where dissent or criticism of government policy is not only surveilled but also cataloged, potentially affecting the educators’ professional careers.
Educators across the UK have demonstrated a wave of shock and anger in response to the discovery. Many have submitted Subject Access Requests [SARs], a Right to Access provision within the General Data Protection Regulation, requiring the Department of Education to disclose the information it holds under their names. These educators found file lengths spanning up to 60 pages, documenting their tweets and comments opposing the government’s policies and criticizing the schools inspectorate, Ofsted.
Nikki Cleveland, a higher-level teaching assistant and primary school librarian, was astounded to find that even her tweets concerning issues such as inadequate funding for school libraries and criticisms of Ofsted had been flagged and stored by the Department. Her discovery has only raised her cynicism towards the government and the Department of Education, questioning their apathy towards the challenges schools face daily.
This disturbing surveillance operation extends to more than just educators. Jon Biddle, a primary school teacher and English lead, reported that “dozens of other teachers” he knew had also discovered their accounts were under scrutiny. The scope and depth of this surveillance has led to growing skepticism about the Department’s priorities and resource allocation.
Cases have also surfaced of the Department attempting to silence voices critical of government policy. Early years specialists Ruth Swailes and Aaron Bradbury have previously faced attempts from the Department to cancel their conference due to their earlier critiques. Similarly, Dr. Mine Conkbayir, a renowned early childhood author, was allegedly threatened with funding withdrawal for a conference she was scheduled to keynote, due to her criticisms. As she recounts, the Department also attempted to curtail her talk duration and verify her speech contents, pulling the strings of academic dialogue.
In response to these revelations, the Department has chosen to remain largely opaque, stating that it would not be appropriate to comment on individual cases.
The Damage Israel Does
Constitutional rights and genuine national interests are ignored as governments surrender to Jewish power
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • OCTOBER 23, 2023
There are numerous one-liners like “wag-the-dog” that constitute a long running joke about how Israel exploits Jewish power in the United States to limit and control Washington’s options in foreign policy as well as in many other aspects of international interaction. This has been accomplished by a cleverly executed neoconservative takeover of the foreign policy instruments of both major parties based on a series of nonexistent “threats” coupled with media control and billions of dollars in political donations that have bought the numerous politicians willing to be bought, which clearly constitutes a majority of Congress.
President Joe Biden and those who surround him are all about Israel and many of them are Jewish. His Secretary of the Treasury Janice Yellen claims that the US “can afford” two wars simultaneously and the Chuck Schumer led Senate has voted unanimously 97-0 pledging full and unconditional support for the Jewish state. Biden’s somewhat pathetic fifteen-minute speech last week justifying throwing another $105 billion of deficit spending at Ukraine and Israel could have been written by a neocon scribe in its attempt to demonstrate that the US is threatened by developments in those two countries. It is not, even Biden knows that, and his assertions were as hollow as the rhetoric used to support the false premise. My favorite argument being made by the president was that “American leadership holds the world together….and is necessary to keep freedom alive in both the Middle East and Eastern Europe… Hamas and Putin represent different threats, but they share this in common: They both want to completely annihilate a neighboring democracy.” As it turns out, Biden was wrong on every point. Opinion polls suggest that the world overwhelmingly sees the United States as the most disruptive and dangerous nation on the planet, so Biden’s unwillingness or inability to discern that he is presiding over the death throes of America’s global leadership is particularly troubling. And Joe even fails to realize that Russia is more democratic by most measures than is Ukraine, which is consistently rated as the most corrupt country in the world, while Israel is not a democracy at all unless one is a Jew.
Biden was certainly motivated to speak to the American public in prime time, only the second time he has done so, by his overriding concern to express and obtain absolutely total support for Israel no matter what it does. He is willing to lie, cheat and steal for Israel. In the wake of the devastating October 17th blast at al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, a Christian-run medical complex in central Gaza City, which killed at least 500 people and injured hundreds more, he immediately jumped on the protect-Israel bandwagon and declared that Israel had not done it, which is far from being demonstrated and is being hotly disputed by eyewitnesses and forensic specialists. Ukraine is a secondary issue but it too is a war supported overwhelmingly by international Jewry for various reasons, most notably visceral hatred of Russia.
Nevertheless, the control by the Israel Lobby aside, one is at a loss to understand the actual rationale behind the recent trips to Israel in the wake of the Gaza uprising made by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and “they beheaded the babies” Joe Biden since the United States has no genuine national interest that compels it to get involved in either war, even less so in Gaza where Israel has been indisputably the source of nearly all the trouble. Lest anyone be confused over what signal was being sent, two US aircraft carrier strike groups were also dispatched to the Eastern Mediterranean together with orders to prepare to deploy 2,000 Marines, suggesting that Washington was itself preparing for war. And the Muslim world, convulsed by what it is seeing happen to Gaza, is also heeding a call to arms. As of last Friday there have been seven separate drone and rocket attacks on US military bases in Iraq and Syria. Journalist Caitlin Johnstone has neatly summarized the legitimate rage on the ground in Palestine that the White House and Congress make no attempt to appreciate: “The status quo in Israel has been one of continually escalating violence, tyranny and abuse for generations… Stand on someone’s face for long enough and one day it will surprise you if he eventually bites your foot. You might even feel like you were the victim, because that’s just what you’d gotten used to.”
Blinken, citing his ancestors and the holocaust, presented himself as a Jew to his Israeli audience, which meant that no further justification was required as he totally rolled over to comply with the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s interpretation of what had taken place on October 7th. Reports suggest that Blinken had initially sensibly supported a cease-fire on social media just after the Hamas attack, writing that he would be “encourage[ing] Turkey’s advocacy for a cease-fire and the release of all hostages by Hamas immediately.” Presumably under pressure from Biden and the Israel Lobby, he then deleted that and wrote, “Israel has the right to defend itself, rescue any hostages, and protect its citizens.” The State Department got the message and circulated instructions to staffers to not use the terms “de-escalation/ceasefire,” “end to violence/bloodshed” and “restoring calm” in regard to the Gaza/Israel situation, giving Netanyahu a free hand to do whatever he would choose to do.
Blinken was thus converted to fully support massive and indiscriminate Israeli retaliation against the civilian population, a war crime, and his reward was being stiffed by the Saudi Crown Prince, forced to wait in attendance all night before being allowed a short and non-productive audience. Biden outdid his colleague in being completely stonewalled by Saudi, Jordanian, Egyptian, Iraqi and Palestinian heads of state and government, which leads to the question “What did Biden seek to achieve apart from demonstrating that the United States was owned by Israel which is committing a war crime by its collective punishment of Gaza? Did he think the Arab and Muslim states would react positively to a developing massacre of the Gazans, which he specifically supported?”
So why were Biden and Blinken so willfully ignorant as to be unable to appreciate that they were bearing a message that could only succeed in infuriating their hosts? Israel, after all, is by law a Jewish state which not only does not provide equal rights to the non-Jewish citizens and residents, it also has a government that has senior officials and some leading religious figures describing Palestinian Arabs as something less than human or even “animals” and who, in some cases, openly consider it perfectly acceptable to exterminate them. It is the same government with a different cast of characters that has been stealing, killing and inflicting a host of war crimes and crimes against humanity on its captive and largely helpless Palestinian Christian and Muslim minority for the past 76 years.
Biden’s nice package of $105 billion, which will likely sail through Congress because it is “for Israel,” will include $14 billion for Netanyahu to buy some new heavy ordnance to exterminate the Palestinians, which guarantees that the Muslim world will hate the United States for the foreseeable future. The money is also funding the war in Ukraine for the next year and arming Taiwan with some shiny new weapons to ward off China. Ironically, a new CBS/YouGov poll finds that most Americans don’t want the US providing Israel with weapons and supplies in this war, but, of course ordinary voters are never asked their opinion when the White House chooses to demonstrate “American exceptionalism” towards the country that it loves beyond all others. Oh, and the bill will also include some cash to “fortify” America’s Mexican border, a sweetener that runs completely contrary to what Biden has been doing for the past three years. All this will be piled on to the United States government debt which, at just short of $33 trillion, is considered to be unsustainable and weighs in at $350,230 for every American family. And it is all being done for no good reason whatsoever in terms of genuine American interests, and probably illegally too as proxy wars run by the Executive Branch would seem to go against the Constitution’s separation of powers as well as the time constraints in the War Powers Act of 1973. Congressman Michael McCaul from Texas, the Israel firster fanatic who heads the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is currently pushing legislation that would provide an in-advance authorization to go to war on Iran and on Lebanon if Hezbollah were to come in to support the Gazans when Netanyahu starts his potentially genocidal ground attack. Another Congressional clown, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is already calling for an attack on Iran under the presumption that it assisted the Gazans.
Fortunately for all of us who care for such issues as life and death, some cracks are appearing in the wall surrounding total subservience to Israel and its interest. Some even suspect that the “US-based Middle East system,” which mandates blind support for Israel, has become so abusive that the public is becoming reluctant to support it. Indeed, public opinion polls suggest that support for the Palestinians is increasing while that for Israel is growing weaker as atrocities against the Arabs multiply with Israel new ultra-conservative government. The resignation letter of senior State Department official Josh Paul, who recently quit over the Biden administration’s position on the Gaza War, makes for interesting reading. Paul described the Hamas attack as a “monstrosity of monstrosities” but continued: “This Administration’s response – and much of Congress’ as well – is an impulsive reaction built on confirmation bias, political convenience, intellectual bankruptcy and bureaucratic inertia. Decades of the same approach have shown that security for peace leads to neither security nor peace, The fact is that blind support for one side is destructive in the long term to the interests of the people on both sides.”
Paul was responding to the latest arms package being rushed through congress for Israel, which he described as “shortsighted, destructive and unjust,” and the US veto early last week of a Russian proposal in the UN Security Council to call for a ceasefire. The US permanent representative to the UN Linda Thomas Greenfield submitted the veto and then erupted with “By failing to condemn Hamas, Russia is giving cover to a terrorist group that brutalizes innocent civilians. It is outrageous, it is hypocritical, and it is indefensible.” She is the hypocrite in that she obviously does not recognize or does not care that Israel’s record is far worse than Russia’s in “brutalizing innocent civilians” for the past 76 years.
There are also other reports of general “discomfort” and dismay among civil servants over what is happening vis-à-vis the US role in Gaza out of concern for Israel not being urged to show restraint and the White House lack of any genuine concern over the developing humanitarian crisis. It also appears that several of the few Muslim federal government officials have been removed from positions having anything to do with Middle East policy. The US media likewise has been transferring many of its Muslim journalists who were on the ground in Gaza and elsewhere in the Middle East for fear that they will actually try to tell the truth about what is going on and who is doing what to whom.
On a next to last final note, it has often been noted that the first victim of war is truth. The US government in its various guises has been lashing out at social media and other sites that have been making available material that can be construed as favorable to Gaza. So far, they have been less than successful, but the efforts persist and could lead to legislation. Also, there have been the usual claims regarding “antisemitism” which can be exploited in “hate crimes” prosecutions as well as the existing legislation in 35 states that protect Israel with potential criminal and civil penalties as well denial of jobs and services to applicants who are critics of the Jewish state’s behavior. In Israel itself, al-Jazeera journalists have now been detained and expelled as a consequence of legislation criminalizing the activity of journalists who report “facts” that are not approved by the Israeli government.
But some of the most bizarre lashing out by the Israel lobby and its friends is taking place in the United States. In Florida the state Attorney General has told prosecutors to “exercise zero tolerance” when dealing with the “anti-Jewish hate crimes” engaged in by college students who have been demonstrating in support of the Gazans. At Harvard, major donors who are mostly Jewish have cut off donations to the university due to its tolerance of pro-Gazan student demonstrators. A so called “conservative group” Accuracy in Media headed by one Adam Guillette, who is Jewish, has led the response to a coalition of more than 30 Harvard student groups that posted an open letter on the night of the Hamas attack, citing Israel as “entirely responsible” for the violence that killed more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians. The letter was posted on social media and did not include the names of the individual students in the groups. But within days, students connected to those groups were being identified together with their personal information, all of which was posted online. Families back home were threatened while presumed Harvard alumni businessmen and executives demanded a list of the student names to ban their hiring. And a truck with a digital billboard paid for by Accuracy in Media circled Harvard Square, flashing student photos and names, under the headline, “Harvard’s Leading Antisemites.” The students now have to deal with “people’s lives being ruined, people’s careers being ruined, people’s fellowships being ruined” because they opposed a certainly controversial war being fought. Guillette said his organization’s next move, which has already started, is to create online domains using the students’ first and last names to create sites identifying them as antisemites. Guillette boasted that “I think it’s incredibly important for people to know who the antisemites are on their campus and in their community.”
And on a final note, if you have wondered where the money is coming from to fund Israel’s wars and crimes beyond what Joe Biden and his buddies are willing to hand them, there is an interesting story out of Georgia. Republican Governor Brian Kemp has ordered his state treasurer to use tax revenues to purchase $10 million in Israel Bonds. The bonehead then issued a statement: “Israel is one of Georgia’s strongest allies and greatest friends, and our support for its people as they endure horrific attacks from terrorists is unwavering. Purchasing these bonds is just the latest expression of that support.” It is not clear if the purchase is completely legal and someone should have advised the governor that buying Israel bonds is in the nature of a gift as they lack liquidity and are generally regarded as a terrible investment. So it is a rip-off of the Georgia taxpayer. I wonder if anyone will notice!
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.
Ex-Pakistani PM charged amid US interference scandal
RT | October 23, 2023
A special court in Pakistan formally charged former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his then-foreign minister on Monday with breaching state secrecy laws. The charges stem from their alleged conspiracy to reveal what Khan characterized as US interference in orchestrating his removal by political opponents last year.
Special Court Judge Abual Hasnat Zulqarnain lodged indictments against Khan and Shah Mahmood Qureshi concerning the so-called ‘cipher case.’ The allegations revolve around their purported unlawful retention and public disclosure of a classified document, which Khan’s side is said to have had the necessary cipher to decode. Pakistani media reports suggest that additional individuals, including Khan’s aide Muhammad Azam Khan and former Federal Minister Asad Umar, may also face charges in the ongoing investigation.
The document in question is a diplomatic cable sent by then-Pakistani Ambassador to the US Asad Majeed Khan after his March 2022 meeting with two senior US Department of State officials, including Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu.
Various media sources, including The Intercept, reported that Lu criticized Imran Khan for adopting an “aggressively neutral position” on the Ukraine conflict that erupted in late February of the same year. Unlike the United States and its European allies, the Pakistani prime minister refrained from siding with Kiev.
Instead, he conducted a scheduled visit to Moscow and declared during a rally that Pakistanis were not “slaves” to Washington, defying Western criticisms.
The US official reportedly discussed the no-confidence vote against Khan, which he was facing in parliament at the time. If it were to succeed, “all will be forgiven in Washington,” Lu was quoted as telling the ambassador, while if Khan stayed in power, Islamabad would supposedly face “isolation.”
The US government denied that anything said by Lu during the meeting amounted to taking a position on who should be in power in Pakistan.
Khan was ousted about a month after the meeting and has since been charged with a number of crimes, including some related to terrorism and corruption. He has claimed that his political opponents seek to bar him from the upcoming parliamentary elections with Washington’s blessing. Notably, after Khan’s downfall, US-Pakistani relations experienced a period of thawing.
Islamabad received an unexpected windfall this July when the International Monetary Fund extended a $3 billion bailout. The Intercept claimed that the US backed the rescue in exchange for Pakistan agreeing to supply munitions worth $900 million to Ukraine. The Pakistani government has denied the reported arms sale ever taking place.
Daria Dugina’s Assassination Orchestrated by Ukrainian Intelligence – Report
Sputnik – 23.10.2023
The assassination of Russian journalist Daria Dugina was orchestrated by the Security Service of Ukraine, a US newspaper quoted unnamed sources as saying.
The sources claimed that “the cluttered car carrying a mother and her 12-year-old daughter seemed barely worth the attention of Russian security officials as it approached a border checkpoint. But the least conspicuous piece of luggage — a crate for a cat — was part of an elaborate, lethal plot.”
According to the insiders, “Ukrainian operatives had installed a hidden compartment in the pet carrier, and used it to conceal components of a bomb. Four weeks later, the device detonated just outside Moscow in an SUV being driven” by Daria Dugina, the daughter of prominent Russian political philosopher Alexander Dugin.
“The operation was orchestrated by Ukraine’s domestic security service, the SBU,” the sources argued, referring to “the use of the pet crate, that have not been previously disclosed.” The sources also claimed that the deadly attack on Dugina in August 2022 was “part of a raging shadow war” that Ukraine’s spy services are waging against Russia.
The insiders pointed to the large role played by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in helping the SBU wage this “shadow war.”
“Since 2015, the CIA has spent tens of millions of dollars to transform Ukraine’s Soviet-formed services into potent allies against Moscow. The agency has provided Ukraine with advanced surveillance systems, trained recruits at sites in Ukraine as well as the United States, built new headquarters for departments in Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, and shared intelligence on a scale that would have been unimaginable” before the above-mentioned year, according to the sources.
They insisted that “the extent of the CIA’s involvement with Ukraine’s security services has not previously been disclosed.”
The sources claimed that over the past 20 months the SBU and its military counterpart, the GUR, “have carried out dozens of assassinations against Russian officials, including a former Russian submarine commander jogging in a park in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar and a militant blogger at a cafe in St. Petersburg.”
“Ukraine’s affinity for lethal operations has complicated its collaboration with the CIA, raising concerns about agency complicity and creating unease among some officials in Kiev and Washington. […] Even those who see such lethal missions as defensible in wartime question the utility of certain strikes and decisions that led to the targeting of civilians including Dugina or her father, Alexander Dugin. Others cited broader concerns about Ukraine’s cutthroat tactics that may seem justified now — but could later prove difficult to rein in,” the insiders pointed out.
Dugina was killed in a car bomb explosion on August 20, 2022, on the Mozhayskoe highway in the Moscow region after returning home from a festival. Her father, who was supposed to be in the same car, changed his plans at the last moment.
Following the investigation, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) determined that the explosive device in Dugina’s car had been planted by Ukrainian Natalia Vovk. The FSB said Vovk worked for Ukrainian special services that organized the assassination. Both Dugina and her father were strong supporters of the Russian special forces operation in Ukraine.
Although Kiev denied its involvement, the FSB released video footage of Vovk entering and leaving the country using forged IDs and moving into an apartment in the same building where Dugina lived. Moscow strongly condemned the attack on the journalist and accused Ukraine of engaging in state terrorism.
Conservative MP Leslyn Lewis backs petition calling for Canada to exit UN, WHO
MP Leslyn Lewis (Haldimand-Norfolk) speaks at Save our Charities Rally on Parliament Hill, Ottawa, Nov. 24, 2021
By Anthony Murdoch | Life Site News | October 18, 2023
OTTAWA, Ontario –– Conservative Party of Canada MP Leslyn Lewis has endorsed an official House of Commons petition demanding the nation’s federal government “urgently” withdraw from the United Nations and its subgroup, the World Health Organization (WHO), due to the organizations’ undermining of national “sovereignty” and the “personal autonomy” of citizens.
“We, the undersigned, Citizens and Residents of Canada, call upon the House of Commons in Parliament assembled to Urgently implement Canada’s expeditious withdrawal from the U.N. and all of its subsidiary organizations, including WHO,” reads the petition, which was initiated by Doug Porter from Burnaby, British Columbia, and then endorsed by Lewis.
As of press time, the petition, which was opened on October 10, has just over 36,000 signatures. It will remain open for signing until February 7, 2024.
The petition states that Canada’s current membership in the UN along with the WHO has resulted in “negative consequences on the people of Canada,” which far outweigh “any benefits.”
Additionally, the petition reads that the UN’s “Agenda 2030″ undermines “national sovereignty and personal autonomy.”
Many of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s federal government goals, notably its environmental ones, are in lockstep with the United Nations’ “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.”
Agenda 2030 is a plan that was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2015, and through its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), seeks to “transform our world for the better,” by “taking urgent action on climate change,” as well as “support[ing] the research and development of vaccines and medicines.” Some of the 17 goals also seek to expand “reproductive” services, including contraception and abortion, across the world in the name of women’s rights.
According to the UN, “all” nations working on the program “will implement this plan.”
Part of the plan includes phasing out coal-fired power plants, reducing fertilizer usage, and curbing natural gas use over the coming decades. Canada is one of the world’s largest oil and gas producers, however, Trudeau has made it one of his goals to decimate the industry.
In a blow to the globalist UN agenda, however, Canada’s oil and gas sector recently scored a huge win after the Supreme Court of Canada declared Trudeau’s government’s Impact Assessment Act, dubbed the “no-more pipelines” bill, is mostly “unconstitutional.”
As for Lewis, she is pro-life and has consistently called out the Trudeau government for pushing a globalist, anti-life agenda on Canadians.
Early this year Lewis noted that the World Economic Forum (WEF) is “not our government” and that Canadians did not “sign up” to be attached to one of its charters. Lewis herself helped expose Canadians to the fact that Trudeau’s Liberal government signed onto the WEF charter in 2020.
Petitions to Canada’s House of Commons can be started by anyone but must have the support of five Canadian citizens or residents, along with the support of a sitting MP.
Once a petition has over 500 verified signatures, it is presented to the House of Commons, where it awaits an official government response.
Petition calls out UN’s sex-ed programs, saying Canadians did not vote for these to be pushed on kids
The Lewis-backed petition states that Canada should have nothing to do with the UN’s sexual education programs as they have been pushed on the populace without the “consent” of the people.
The petition reads that Agenda 2030’s SDGs, as well as its “Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE)” program, its UN Judicial Review, and its International Health Regulations (IHR) are being “rapidly implemented,” with the absent awareness and “consent of the People or their elected representatives.”
The petition reads that SDGs have “negative impacts on potentially every aspect of life,” in Canada, including “religious and cultural values, familial relations, education, nutrition, child development, property rights, economic and agricultural productivity, transportation, travel, health, informed consent, privacy and physical autonomy.”
When it comes to the UN’s CSE, the petition states that publicly funded educational institutions have been “damaging children while concealing information from parents.”
As a result, the CSE’s “normalization” of “sexual values and activities with regard to children are endorsed and enforced, beginning at birth.”
As for the WHO, it claims that the CSE gives kids “accurate, age-appropriate information,” however it then says sexual education should start at the age of 5 as per UN guidelines.
“Learning is incremental; what is taught at the earliest ages is very different from what is taught during puberty and adolescence,” reads the CSE.
A report which was published by the UN’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, in collaboration with the WHO, told kids aged 5 to 8 that “people can show love for other people through touching and intimacy.”
UN’s health regulations look to violate Canadians’ charter rights, says petition
The petition notes that when it comes to Agenda 2030, many amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) were “secretly negotiated,” which as a result means they could “impose unacceptable, intrusive universal surveillance, violating the rights and freedoms guaranteed in the Canadian Bill of Rights and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”
Lastly, the petition states that the UN’s goals intend to impose “sweeping impacts on public and private life,” and only “serve the interests of UN/WHO and unelected private entities (e.g. World Economic Forum, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, International Planned Parenthood Federation, etc.), while diminishing the health rights and freedom of Canadians.”
The WHO says that the IHR is a legally binding international body to which all UN members are committed to.
Lewis has before blasted Canada’s involvement with the IHR and insisted last year that the Canadian government “defend our healthcare sovereignty” and vote against proposed U.S. amendments to the the IHR.
The WHO’s IHR provides an “overarching legal framework that defines countries’ rights and obligations in handling public health events and emergencies that have the potential to cross borders.”
“The IHR are an instrument of international law that is legally-binding on 196 countries, including the 194 WHO Member States,” notes the WHO.
So far this year, there have been more than 300 proposed amendments to the IHR when it comes to the declaration of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.
Lewis recently called out the proposed amendments, saying that if enacted it would negatively affect how Canada deals with any future health crisis.
On September 26, she presented to the House of Commons a petition specific to the IHR, which called for “urgent” debates on the amendments.
Critics have sounded the alarm over the Trudeau government’s involvement in the WEF and other globalist groups, pointing to the socialist nature of the “Great Reset” agenda and its similarities to Communist China’s totalitarian Social Credit System.
Lewis in June of this year had asked for a full disclosure of all “contracts, transfer payments, memoranda of understanding, letters of intent, charters, accords, projects and associations between the government and the WEF since November 4, 2015.”
The outcomes from the Order Paper resulted in a 127-page response that was tabled in the House of Commons on September 18.
Lewis has in the past blasted the WEF and its Known Traveller Digital Identification (KTDI) programs as “glitching failures.”
The Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Missouri v. Biden, the Federal Government Social Media Censorship Case
By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | October 21, 2023
A notable stride has been made in the long-waged battle against the Censorship Industrial Complex, with the US Supreme Court deciding to weigh in on the matter. The case in question, Missouri v. Biden, has the Attorneys General of Missouri and Louisiana pitted against the Biden administration, accusing it of advocating for censorship on social media platforms, particularly concerning discussions around Covid and election-related matters.
The constitutional examination of the Censorship Industrial Complex is seen as a significant step toward upholding or dismantling barriers to free expression on digital platforms.
The court decided to take up the case after the Biden administration asked for a stay on an injunction against its online censorship pressure.
Justice Alito, with whom Justices Thomas and Gorsuch join, dissented on the request for a stay, and this part is worth reading in full:
This case concerns what two lower courts found to be a “coordinated campaign” by high-level federal officials to suppress the expression of disfavored views on important public issues. To prevent the continuation of this campaign, these officials were enjoined from either “coerc[ing]” social media companies to engage in such censorship or “active[ly] control[ling]” those companies’ decisions about the content posted on their platforms. Today, however, a majority of the Court, without undertaking a full review of the record and without any explanation, suspends the effect of that injunction until the Court completes its review of this case, an event that may not occur until late in the spring of next year. Government censorship of private speech is antithetical to our democratic form of government, and therefore today’s decision is highly disturbing.
This case began when two States, Missouri and Louisiana, and various private parties filed suit alleging that popular social media companies had either blocked their use of the companies’ platforms or had downgraded their posts on a host of controversial subjects, including “the COVID–19 lab leak theory, pandemic lockdowns, vaccine side effects, election fraud, and the Hunter Biden laptop story.” According to the plaintiffs, Federal Government officials “were the ones pulling the strings,” that is, these officials “‘coerced, threatened, and pressured [the] social-media platforms to censor [them].’” Based on extensive findings of fact that spanned 82 pages, the District Court held that the plaintiffs were likely to be able to prove their claims and were threatened with irreparable harm, and it therefore issued a preliminary injunction against a number of Executive Branch agencies and officials.
On appeal, the Court of Appeals agreed with the District Court’s assessment of the evidence, which, in its words, showed the existence of “a coordinated campaign” of unprecedented “magnitude orchestrated by federal officials that jeopardized a fundamental aspect of American life.” The Court of Appeals found that “the district court was correct in its assessment—’unrelenting pressure’ from certain government officials likely ‘had the intended result of suppressing millions of protected free speech postings by American citizens.’”
To stop this “campaign,” the injunction, as it now stands, prohibits the covered officials from doing two things. First, they may not “coerce” social media platforms to make “content-moderation decisions.” Second, they may not “meaningfully contro[l]” social media platforms’ “content-moderation” efforts. Displeased with these restrictions, the Government filed an emergency application asking us to stay the effect of this injunction pending certiorari.
Under a straightforward application of the test we use in deciding whether to grant a stay, the Government’s application should be denied. To obtain a stay pending the disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari, an applicant must show, among other things, “a likelihood that irreparable harm will result from the denial of a stay.” A stay is an “extraordinary remedy that may only be awarded upon a clear showing that the plaintiff is entitled to such relief.” Thus, the Government in this case must make a “clear showing” of irreparable harm. And to do that, it is not enough to “simply sho[w] some ‘possibility of irreparable injury.’” A mere “‘possibility’ standard is too lenient.” Instead, the Government must prove that irreparable harm is “likel[y].” Here, the Government’s attempts to demonstrate irreparable harm do not come close to clearing this high bar.
Instead of providing any concrete proof that “harm is imminent,” the Government offers a series of hypothetical statements that a covered official might want to make in the future and that, it thinks, might be chilled. But hypotheticals are just that—speculation that the Government “may suffer irreparable harm at some point in the future,” not concrete proof. And such speculation does not establish irreparable harm.
Moreover, it does not appear that any of the Government’s hypothetical communications would actually be prohibited by the injunction. Nor is any such example provided by the Court’s unreasoned order. The Government claims that the injunction might prevent “the President and the senior officials who serve as his proxies” from “speak[ing] to the public on matters of public concern.” Application 36; accord, id., at 3 (suggesting that the Fifth Circuit’s decision implicates “the use of the Office’s bully pulpit to seek to persuade Americans”). The President himself is not subject to the injunction, and in any event, the injunction does not prevent any Government official from speaking on any matter or from urging any entity or person to act in accordance with the Government’s view of responsible conduct.
The injunction applies only when the Government crosses the line and begins to coerce or control others’ exercise of their free-speech rights. Does the Government think that the First Amendment allows Executive Branch officials to engage in such conduct? Does it have plans for this to occur between now and the time when this case is decided?
Despite the Government’s conspicuous failure to establish a threat of irreparable harm, the majority stays the injunction and thus allows the defendants to persist in committing the type of First Amendment violations that the lower courts identified. The majority takes this action in the face of the lower courts’ detailed findings of fact. But “[w]here an intermediate court reviews, and affirms, a trial court’s factual findings, this Court will not ‘lightly overturn’ the concurrent findings of the two lower courts.” And the majority suspends the relief afforded below without a word of explanation.
Applying our settled test for granting a stay, I would deny the Government’s application, but I would specify in the order that in the unlikely event that a concrete occurrence presents a risk of irreparable harm, the Government can apply for relief at that time, including, if necessary, by filing an emergency application here. Such an order would fully protect the ability of Executive Branch officials to speak out on matters of public concern.
At this time in the history of our country, what the Court has done, I fear, will be seen by some as giving the Government a green light to use heavy-handed tactics to skew the presentation of views on the medium that increasingly dominates the dissemination of news. That is most unfortunate.
Jenin Younes, a staff attorney for the New Civil Liberties Association, who has been working closely with Columbia Law Professor, Philip Hamburger, shared the sentiment of many anti-censorship advocates when she penned, “We look forward to vindicating the 1st Amendment rights of our clients, and all Americans, in the nation’s highest court.” The duo, alongside their represented clientele which includes academia stalwarts like Stanford Professor Jay Bhattacharya, former UC Irvine psychiatrist Aaron Kheriaty, and Harvard professor, Martin Kulldorff, find themselves on a shared mission to protect the sacred ground of free speech.
The EU Demands “Disinformation” Answers From Meta and TikTok
By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | October 22, 2023
The European Union has instigated investigations into two technological titans, Meta, the company that owns Facebook, and TikTok. The probes focus on assessing the actions these two companies have taken to halt the proliferation of “illegal content and disinformation” in the aftermath of the recent Hamas assault on Israel and subsequent escalation of conflict.
Notably, this process represents one of the first set of actions initiated under the newly minted EU legislation targeting online speech.
Prior to this, the EU had sparked similar inquiries into X. The request for information from Meta hinges specifically around the amplification and spread of “disinformation” and illicit content linked to the Israel-Hamas conflict. In a parallel vein, the EU is seeking to garner insight into TikTok’s strategy to combat the diffusion of terrorist provocation, violent material, and “hate speech.”
This legal altercation raises significant questions about internet censorship and its potential impact on free speech. With the EU demanding more details from Meta about its “mitigation measures to protect the integrity of elections,” there’s a looming fear of global tech behemoths capable of influencing political narratives and public opinion.
The two companies under probe have, respectively, October 25 and November 8 deadlines to answer to the EU’s demand for information, with the latter date serving for less urgent inquiries.
The DSA was enforced in August for “very large” platforms, encompassing Meta and TikTok, which boast more than 45 million monthly European users. The DSA threatens tech companies with potential fines equivalent to six percent of a firm’s global turnover if they permit the hosting of illegal online speech.
Thierry Breton, the EU’s chief tech enforcer, sent cautionary letters to various tech CEOs, such as TikTok’s Shou Zi Chew, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, and Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai.
In response, Meta announced it was allocating special resources to tackle problematic and illegal content related to the Israel-Hamas conflict, exemplifying the pressure exerted by the EU’s censorship crusade.
New York AG Letitia James Backtracks on Censorship Demands of Rumble
By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | October 22, 2023
In the face of determined resistance in defense of free speech, New York Attorney General Letitia James has withdrawn her overreach in demanding that Rumble, the social media platform, censor expression related to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
This move arrives in reaction to the advocacy of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), asserting that her initiative blatantly contravened the First Amendment and a federal court order restraining the enforcement of New York’s Online Hate Speech Law.
On October 12, James, orchestrated a drive against the freedom of expression, challenging multiple social media platforms, including Rumble, Meta, and Reddit. Her request to these platforms was for information on what steps they are taking to inhibit the dissemination of “hateful content” in relation to the escalating conflict in the Middle East and report back on their adopted policies regarding content administration.
One day later, following pushback, James climbed down from her position for FIRE plaintiff Rumble. This result was celebrated by FIRE attorney Daniel Ortner, who declared that “her letter was ill-advised and violated a court order.”
Related: Rumble wins injunction against New York’s online censorship law
Israel’s ambassador pushes to shut down pro-Palestinian activism
By Yves Engler | October 21, 2023
Israel wants Canada to criminalize growing displays of solidarity with Palestinians.
In a bid to amplify calls to ban Palestine solidarity marches, Israel’s ambassador Iddo Moed told the Canadian Press on Thursday, “I don’t think that democracies allow people to hate and to incite, and I think that that is something that is looked at very carefully in many places, including Canada.” He added, “when is a line crossed that is between supporting a cause and between changing our values in a way that incites hatred and violence and even glorification of horrendous terrorist attacks.”
As a purported example of the “hatred” Moed is referring to, the CP story reported “One sign spotted at the Oct. 9 protest outside Toronto’s Nathan Phillips Square read: ‘Occupation is a crime, resistance is a response.’”
Moed is seeking to boost a push to change Canada’s criminal code. Last week the Globe and Mail published “Rallies raise question of whether Canada should have a law against public cheering of terrorism” and the National Post’s John Ivison called for federal legislation to criminalize the protests in “Tolerating the glorification of terror and slaughter is societal suicide”. Similarly, the host of CBC’s Power & Politics David Cochrane asked foreign affairs minister Melanie Joly whether Canadians participating in Palestine solidarity rallies should be prosecuted for supporting terrorism while National Post reporter Tristin Hopper mused about banning the Palestinian flag. On Twitter Hopper noted, “So when do we declare the Palestinian flag a hate symbol? I’m not seeing a lot of them being waved by people who *don’t* support mass-murder.”
Taking a page from Hopper’s line of thinking, a principal at an Ottawa elementary school recently asked a student to remove the Palestinian flag as their profile picture. “We will follow up with your family because we want to keep all students feeling safe, welcome and included in our classrooms,” the principal is recorded saying.
This isn’t an isolated case. On Thursday prominent Toronto teacher Javier DaVila tweeted, “I’ve received dozens of reports from parents of children in Ontario education who’ve been targeted, attacked or suspended for wearing Keffiyehs, displaying Palestinian flags, expressing solidarity with or even saying Palestine.”
In a bid to blunt opposition to Israel’s genocidal policies, the media and politicians have hounded CUPE Ontario leader Fred Hahn and Hamilton NDP MPP Sarah Jama. They’ve also vilified student unions standing for Palestinian rights and called for them to be defunded.
While they obsess about one-sided student union statements, the media has all but ignored racism spouted by more influential pro-Israel actors. They are uninterested that the head of Montreal’s Federation CJA told an audience, which included multiple elected officials, that “the barbarians are at the gate” or that Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs hosted a speaker days after he tweeted an image of an Israeli military boot crushing a Palestinian cockroach. The leaders of the four main political parties spoke at the same CIJA conference.
Without a hint of awareness of the irony, organizations that proclaim Israel as “the only democracy in the Middle East” and condemn anyone who draws parallels between Nazi behaviour and Israel’s, as well as newspaper columnists who decry leftists when they “de-platform” right wingers, target the jobs of Palestine’s supporters.
Zionist campaigners have targeted multiple individuals’ livelihoods. Under outside pressure, a number of public servants are being “probed for anti-Israel posts” while a doctor who has done humanitarian work in Gaza and elsewhere, Ben Thomson, was suspended by Mackenzie Health for his Palestine advocacy. Air Canada even fired a pilot for posting Palestine protest photos on social media.
In response to the witch-hunt, Labour 4 Palestine has launched an action campaign titled “Defend free speech. Stop the attack on Palestine solidarity.” For its part, Scholar Strike Canada released a statement condemning “University Administrators and the Western media for their ongoing Threats against Scholars and Students in Solidarity with Palestinian People in Gaza.” In response to the Ontario premier’s smears, Jama formally threatened a defamation suit against Doug Ford.
Notwithstanding the witch-hunt, tens of thousands of Canadians have taken to the streets in recent days. On Tuesday night multiple thousands rallied and marched in emergency protests in Montreal, Ottawa, Calgary and Toronto against Israel killing hundreds at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza. A few days earlier more than 5,000 marched in Montréal against Canada’s complicity with Israel’s genocidal violence in Gaza.
More protests are planned Friday and this weekend. The best way to respond to repression of solidarity is to amplify Palestine solidarity work.
Rights groups push back against EU censorship chief Thierry Breton after he pressured platforms to censor “disinformation”
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | October 20, 2023
European (EU) Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton is asked to answer some tough questions after his (latest) escapade, now seen as a new attempt to pressure tech platforms to censor content – while he was explaining that as, combating “disinformation.”
Both politicians, and tech platforms, have been hearing this for a long time, many years now, from people opposed to the obvious censorship: don’t let it “find a home” in the heart of your governments and media, or political discourse – because once it does, it may never leave.
Sure, on any given day, it might feel great to suppress information about an election, a side you don’t like in a war, etc, by just labeling it as “disinformation.”
But what happens once those causes you do support start to get affected, as well? Unfortunately, that’s all there seems to be to it, regarding Breton’s latest outrageous moves – although one would hope and wish for a more universal understanding of the importance and need of protection of free speech, full stop.
Now groups like the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT Europe), Access Now, Article 19, and about two dozen others are expressing their extreme discomfort with Breton’s letter to X, TikTok, Google (YouTube) and Meta.
We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.
It has to do with the latest Middle East escalation. The groups behind the initiative are attempting to influence Breton mainly by asserting that his actions – penning a letter pressuring tech platforms demanding the censorship of “disinformation” on this particular geopolitical issue – as essentially contravening EU’s own Digital Services Act (DSA).
The long and the short of the civil society groups’ attempt here is that Breton is creating “a false equivalency” between illegal content and disinformation – as per the DSA.
To be honest – the EU is such a winding and “blinding” bureaucracy, that it’s not entirely impossible that some of its scriptwriters don’t fully understand their own plot.
Regardless, the letter the CDT now joins claims that Commissioner Breton – in his “censor-right-now” letter to big platforms – “incorrectly and confusingly invoked obligations under DSA to make several demands from these online platforms to swiftly address this content, which are not in fact required by the law.”
Obviously, nobody from these groups is ready to address the EU’s core policy – it’s all procedural.
Or – maybe they do – just a little bit?
“The Commissioners’ (Breton’s) highly politicized engagement risks pressuring online platforms to take actions in ways that are not guided by the law and may undermine human rights, which in this case disproportionately affects human rights defenders, advocates, and journalists. His actions further risk undermining the authority and independence of the Commission’s DSA Enforcement Team,” CDT’s Asha Allen is quoted.
Journalist killed by Israeli gunfire in southern Lebanon
Palestine Information Center – October 20, 2023
BEIRUT – A journalist was killed and another injured by Israeli gunfire in a southern Lebanon border area, the Lebanese army said early on Friday.
The Lebanese army said that “a media team of seven people was covering the events near the Israeli enemy’s Al-Abbad site in the outskirts of Hula town when Israeli forces opened their machine gun fire at them, killing a journalist and injuring another.”
An official for the United Nations peacekeeping troops in the region, UNIFIL, stated a civilian was killed in an exchange of fire.
“The Lebanese Army requested UNIFIL’s help for seven people stranded near the Blue Line during an exchange of fire across the Blue Line,” UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti stated. He said one person lost his life while the others were successfully rescued,” the spokesperson confirmed.
The Lebanese army described the seven people as media personnel, saying that Israeli forces targeted them with machine guns, killing one and wounding another. It did not provide their identities.
The incident came nearly a week after a Reuters journalist was killed, and other journalists injured, in an Israeli bombing in southern Lebanon.
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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
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