An industry-dominated “multistakeholder process” convened by the Commerce Department recently produced a set of voluntary privacy “best practices” for commercial drones that are so riddled with exceptions and vague language that companies could engage in all sorts of practices that would violate the public’s privacy expectations, while still claiming to comply with these guidelines.
The idea of the process was to produce a set of voluntary best practices to ensure that commercial drone use protects privacy rights. It was convened at the direction of President Obama in an executive order on drone privacy that he issued in February 2015.
Last month, before the document was finalized, we, along with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Access Now, urged the corporate participants to make a clear commitment to actual best practices, rather than a weak document designed primarily to ensure maximum flexibility in what companies can do with drones. We proposed a set of changes to the document’s language that would have strengthened it enough to allow us to endorse it. Unfortunately, these changes were rejected.
Why won’t Amazon and other industry players in the drone space make a clean commitment to good privacy practices when it comes to drones? To take just one example, I think one thing most Americans would definitely not want to see companies doing with their drones is engaging in persistent and continuous surveillance of people without their consent. Yet this industry-led draft says the best practice is to avoid doing that “in the absence of a compelling need to do otherwise.” A compelling need? What is that? Is Amazon planning to engage in such surveillance with its delivery drones? If not, why wouldn’t it agree to a more straightforward statement? There were a lot of industry players, so I don’t mean to pick on Amazon. Except actually I do, because apparently that company led the meeting negotiations for industry on what turned into the final product.
Perhaps one could dream up scenarios where a company engages in persistent, continuous surveillance of people without their consent, in a way that nobody would find objectionable. I’m not sure what that scenario would look like, but that certainly wouldn’t be a best practice, and the inclusion of such language is far more likely to be abused than to cover such a remote eventuality.
Other areas where we thought the documents language was too weak were around issues such as consent, the collection of data where people have a reasonable expectation of privacy, the sharing of data with third parties, and data retention. We spell out these and other problems in our letter. As it now stands, the document shows more promise as a corporate consciousness-raising document than an assurance that any complying company isn’t doing anything objectionable.
Any company that is operating drones should certainly comply with the practices laid out in this document. But doing so represents the very bare minimum of what companies should do on privacy, not best practices. The NTIA should reject this document, and discussions in the multi-stakeholder process should continue until adequate privacy protections can be included.
Mohsen Abdelmoumen: Can we say that the United States is a sovereign State when we see the historical weight of the Zionist lobby on its policy decision?
Alison Weir: Adherents of political Zionism have influenced U.S. policies for decades and have often played a central role in elections. Despite this, Americans will be able to forge independent policies when enough people become aware of the facts and demand different policies.
You cite the staggering US aid to Israel, either $ 10 million per day or 7,000 times more per capita than other countries. What justifies such help to Israel from the United States?
I personally don’t feel it is rational or justified. It is the result of political lobbying by well-funded organizations and obfuscation by the American media. Most Americans have no idea that our government gives such an enormous amount of money to Israel. For this reason, our organization is placing billboards around the U.S. informing people of this fact.
You are threatened with death, you undergo pressures, because of your commitment to the Palestinian cause. Where are the Western values such as “democracy” and “freedom of speech” in all this?
Zionists have little attachment to principles such as democracy or freedom of speech. However, I believe that the majority of Americans believe in these and are disturbed when they are violated. Again, however, most are unaware of how deeply these principles are being damaged by Israel partisans.
As an intellectual committed to the Palestinian cause, how can you explain that when people like you are disparaged, defamed and threatened, some leaders of the Arab-Muslim world collaborate actively with Israel, including some Palestinians themselves? Is not the Palestinian cause the cause of all the humanity?
A group in Malaysia has a wonderful name: “the Movement for a Just World.” I feel that the Palestinian cause is part of that. All people should work for justice for all people, without exceptions.
You were supported in 2015 by 2000 activists and world-famous personalities, among them the Professor Richard Falk, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied, Hedy Epstein, Ann Wright, Arun Gandhi, Ray McGovern, Cindy Sheehan, and James Abourezk former Senator and founder of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Can you tell us about this open letter they signed?
Some individuals who say they are “pro-Palestinian” seem to wish to control the discourse on this issue and keep aspects of it, such as the power of the Israel lobby, hidden. A group called “Jewish voice for peace” that was formed about the same time that I began “If Americans Knew” has always contained Zionists among its members and, while its stances have evolved as more people have become involved in the Palestine solidarity movement, it has a history of taking weak stands on some fundamental aspects of this issue and failing to support full justice for Palestinians; it refuses to consider Zionism racist. This group has become quite powerful and currently has a budget of over $2 million. While the organization has done much valuable work and worked to build relationships with many groups and individuals, it has also used its power to try to control the movement and marginalize committed activists who support full justice for Palestinians. When JVP’s actions against me became public, many people opposed them and called for such attacks to end. Some created an Open Letter supporting me and opposing the divisive attacks, and over 2,000 people signed it, including many members of JVP. It appears that the majority of activists support me and If Americans Knew. Some, however, taken in by JVP’s accusations, or who themselves wish to dominate the movement, support what JVP is doing.
Why do the Zionist lobbies persecute Mrs. Alison Weir? Are they afraid of a Righteous bringer of light?
I think that Zionists of all stripes fear exposure of the full facts on this issue. While open Zionists, soft Zionists (people who only oppose the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank but support Israel’s core, discriminatory identity), and many people who say they are no longer Zionists but who still seem to have an emotional attachment to Israel have long opposed If Americans Knew, my book seems to have particularly triggered escalated attacks on me. This book, which is thoroughly cited, exposes the fact that Zionists have worked to manipulate the U.S. since the late 1800s and contains facts that Israel partisans clearly wish to keep hidden. Fortunately, despite their attempts to bury the book and to prevent my speaking engagements, the book is enjoying considerable popularity and we have now sold over 25,000 copies. It is now listed on Amazon as a bestseller in several categories. I expect its success will lead to even more attacks on me of all sorts ; some of the most insidious, sadly, will quite likely continue to be from those who claim to be part of the Palestine solidarity movement.
How is it that we saw Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to terrorist Al Nusra treated in Israeli field hospitals? Do Daesh and Al-Qaeda come from the same terrorist matrix as the State of Israel?
From its earliest beginnings, the Israeli strategy has been one of “divide and conquer.” Israeli leaders feel that any and all actions that cause strife within and among its neighbors benefits Israel, and Israel has often played a role in creating and/or nurturing such strife. This tactic has been discussed in a number of Israeli strategy papers.
You lived with Palestinians in the occupied territories, what is your testimony about their daily life under Israeli occupation?
In some areas they are shelled and invaded frequently, people killed and injured routinely. Even in the areas that are usually free of this outright violence, Palestinians are living in prisons in which Israel controls their lives and prevents their ability to protect their children – Israel decides where and whether they can travel and takes any action against Palestinians it wishes, strip searching women and children; abducting men, women, and children at will; imprisoning them without trial; perpetrating physical and psychological torture against them with impunity; preventing them from free contact with the rest of the world.
Does not Israel constitute a threat for peace in the world notably with its nuclear power?
Israel has long been a major threat to peace. It has caused numerous wars and encouraged still more. Its possession of nuclear weapons threatens the region and beyond and its actions could trigger a global conflagration.
More and more voices in the world are protesting against Israeli domination, as we saw it during the last open-air massacre in Gaza. How do you explain this change in favor of the Palestinian cause?
With the Internet, more and more people are learning the facts. People are increasingly seeing Israeli violence that used to be hidden from the world.
How do you explain that the Zionist state of Israel is called the Jewish state by referring to the Hebrew religion; and why are those who are against the Israeli criminal policy or the Zionist lobbies qualified anti-Semitic?
Israel does not define “Jewish” as a religious designation, it defines it as an ethnic identity. Israel claims that anyone who exposes or opposes its human rights violations is “anti-Semitic” as a tactic to prevent such opposition and to marginalize those whose facts they wish to hide. As a former Israeli Knesset member said a while ago, “It’s a trick; we always use it.”
Is not the Christian fundamentalism the real creator of the Zionist State of Israel, as it is found in some ancient texts either in Britain or the United States?
No, this isn’t what led to the creation of Israel. While there are some passages within Hebrew and Christian texts that some individuals have long interpreted as meaning that all Jews are meant to go to Israel (these interpretations are contested by most respected theologians, including fundamentalist theologians), such groups never brought this about. It was the political Zionist movement largely begun by Theodor Herzl in the late 1800s that Israel and others accurately consider the movement that founded Israel. This movement worked to propagandize every sector of the United States, including both Christians and Jews. There is quite a bit of information about this in my book. Today, while many Christian fundamentalists support Israel because of the manipulation that occurred and still occurs in the U.S., more and more of these individuals are changing their views when they learn the facts. There are now many Christian fundamentalists (and Jews) who are working fervently for justice for Palestinians.
You founded If America Knew and you are President of the Council for the National Interest, can you explain to us what is the role of these two organizations?
I founded If Americans Knew to give Americans the full facts on Palestine and on the role of the United States in this conflict. Most Americans have no idea that the U.S. government gives massive amounts of money to Israel and shields it from deserved international condemnation. Similarly, most Americans have no idea of the history of this issue, and of the ongoing oppression of Palestinians. Finally, most Americans have no idea of the size, history, and significance of the Zionist lobby in the U.S. and the degree to which it influences policies that are immoral, irrational, and that cause great harm to people throughout the world, including Americans.
The Council for the National Interest was founded in 1989 to counter the Israel lobby. Its goal was to work for policies that would be in the interests of all Americans, an extremely diverse population, rather than for one tiny interest group. Its two main founders, former Congressmen Paul Findley and Pete McCloskey were both pushed out of office by Israel partisans when these men began to advocate for justice for Palestinians. Both are deeply principled individuals who had also opposed the Vietnam War and racism.
What can a world scale activist as you are say to all resistants worldwide against Zionism and the fascist State of Israel?
I’m very surprised, but honored, to see you refer to me as a “world scale activist.” I’m just one of a multitude of people who are joining together to work for justice for Palestinians and to oppose violence, racism, and oppression. I have no doubt that we will eventually succeed. The main point is to continue our work, to refuse to be divided from one another, and not to give up. We are an extremely diverse movement and I believe that is part of our strength, along with the worthiness of our cause and the nobility and courage of those who came before us. We are of all different faiths and backgrounds, of all ages and races, and we won’t be stopped.
Who is Alison Weir?
Alison Weir is an American writer and an activist for the Palestinian cause. She is the founder and director of the non-profit organization If Americans Knew and president of the Council for the National Interest. In 2001, Alison Weir left her job as editor of a weekly newspaper and traveled alone to the Palestinian territories during the Second Intifada. She visited the West Bank and Gaza and witnessed the scenes of violence, seeing the truth of the conflict on the ground, and from where she wrote about her encounters with Palestinian suffering and with the “incredible arrogance, cruelty, selfishness” of Israelis. She was amazed by what she learned: That the truth of the conflict, on the ground, bore almost no resemblance to the stories told in US media. She returned to the US determined to change that. She began to speak and write on the topic and founded If Americans Knew, a nonprofit dedicated to accurately informing Americans. More recently, she also accepted a position as president of the Council for the National Interest.
Alison Weir was a civil rights activist and Peace Corps volunteer. Alison Weir has spoken all over the United States, including two briefings on Capitol Hill, presentations at the National Press Club in Washington DC (broadcast nationally on C-Span), Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine (one also broadcast on C-Span), at World Affairs Councils, and at numerous universities including Harvard Law School, Columbia, Stanford, Berkeley, Yale, Georgetown, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Vassar, the Naval Postgraduate Institute, Purdue, Northwestern, and the University of Virginia.She has given papers at various international conferences, lectured in Ramallah and at the University of Qatar, presented at the Asia Media Summits in Kuala Lumpur and Beijing, and given speaking tours in England, Wales, Iran and Qatar.
Alison Weir has also written widely on Israel-Palestine, the US connection, and media coverage. Her first book, Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel, was published in February 2014 and has received high praise. Her essays and articles have appeared in a number of books and magazines, among them The New Intifada (Verso), Censored 2005 (Seven Stories Press), Encyclopedia of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (Rienner), The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, San Francisco Bay View newspaper, CounterPunch, and The Link.
Alison Weir has received various awards and in 2004 was inducted into honorary membership of Phi Alpha Literary Society, founded in 1845 at Illinois College. The award cited her as a “Courageous journalist-lecturer on behalf of human rights, the first woman to receive an honorary membership in Phi Alpha history.”
Hillary Clinton is the most qualified person to “rule the world”, if she can get around the “insane” US Constitution
OffGuardian | June 11, 2016
With the democratic nomination now officially all but certain (Sanders, quite obviously, never had a chance), the Guardian has thrown their full editorial weight – such as it is – into a pre-emptive defence of Hillary’s record and an hysterical celebration of the “progress” that the election of this particular bank-backed, corporate-bought, war-hawk would (apparently) demonstrate.
Those out to demonise Hillary Clinton should be careful what they wish for”
“Demonise”, in this instance, seems to mean “accurately describe her political career and possible criminal activities”. If you can demonise someone by holding a mirror up to their face, chances are that person is a demon.
“The choice of the next US president is now so stark that it’s time the left put aside its sneers and pray that this strong woman will get to rule the world”
“Rule the world?” Does the US president rule the world? I think I missed that particular UN resolution. As I recall, the POTUS doesn’t even wield supreme executive power within their own nation, the US constitution prevents that… but we’ll get to that later.
As for the starkness of the electoral field – I have to say I agree with Toynbee there. The choice between a bombastic orange billionaire, who sometimes seems to be running for president as an elaborate prank, and a proven corrupt and dangerous war-hawk, backed by lunatics like Victoria Nuland is indeed a stark one. Nuclear winter type stark. Perhaps literally.
This is a time to celebrate. At last, a woman leads a major US party to fight for the presidency.
Yes. At last, a woman. It doesn’t matter who the woman is, what she has done, how much she cheats to get there. Irrelevancies used to “demonise” her. Hillary is a woman, and thus her being president is A Good Thing… because progress. This is going to be key to Clinton’s campaign, and you will hear it a lot. It’s one of only 2 real tactics the Clinton camp have at their disposal. “What’s the other”, you ask? Simple: Lying. A lot of lying.
… as the first woman to enter the White House, she will also step through the door as by far the most qualified and experienced arrival there for generations…”
Now, this isn’t technically a lie… but only because we don’t know what Toynbee means by “qualified”. If being a shambolic Secretary of State and highly unpopular first lady makes you qualified then sure. If being proven to lie for your own benefit, time and time again, makes you “qualified”, or being firmly behind every American military intervention for the past 25 years… then I guess Hillary has qualifications to spare.
… a searing firestorm of abuse… Why so fierce, so unreasonable, so vitriolic?”
This is called a strawman. Having made a statement, one which is not backed up by any citations or quotes, she will attempt to “explain” this fictional phenomenon with some cloying cod psychology:
If you are naturally left of centre, especially if you are a woman, yet you find you instinctively dislike her, ask yourself why. There may be some good reasons…
So, liberal traitors – especially the female liberal traitors – why do you “instinctively” dislike Hillary Clinton? I mean there may be some good reasons, for example:
… she’s not as radical as Sanders; she is not a natural rabble-rouser at rallies; she is the wife of a past president; she’s called “robotic” in her careful choice of words; and as a flesh-presser she warms the cockles of few hearts.
To rephrase: You may not like her because she has no principles, is a bad public speaker, her election reeks of nepotism or she comes off as cold and sociopathic. Toynbee volunteers these facts – and we should note that these are the qualities the media list when they are trying to make her look good.
There are others: You MAY not like her because she planned and executed an illegal coup in Honduras, the destruction of Libya and execution of its head of state, she backed the Afghan and Iraq wars, she lied to cover up for a pedophile by blaming his 12 year old victim, the many alleged crimes, or any of the other callous and dreadful instances of dishonesty and self-aggrandisation she has taken part in.
These are the reasons you MAY think justify your “instinctive” hatred of this woman. But Toynbee knows better. She knows why you REALLY don’t like her – It’s because you’re a misogynist who doesn’t understand how tough it is for a woman:
If women of the left do break into the bastions of power, the sisters often view them as sell-outs to the establishment, as if permanent outsiderdom and victimhood is the only true mark of feminism.
You see? You “instinctively” dislike her, because you assume she must be a member of the establishment. That is the burden of the female “liberal”. You start a few wars, attend a few Bilderberg conferences, get a few million dollars donated to you from the most powerful banks in America, speak at the Council of Foreign Relations a few times and suddenly – BOOM – you’re viewed, unfairly, as part of the establishment.
But, putting aside the forced gendercentric argument and massive intellectual dishonesty, there’s some far more worrying agenda being whispered subliminally into the minds of Guardian readers here – Hillary’s greatest opponent is not the Republicans, it’s not the patriarchy, it’s not the other women who so resent her rise to power.
No, it is the law itself:
Unlike most, she knows how to wield the power levers, insofar as the insane US constitution allows any president to carry out their manifesto.
The United States Constitution is insane folks. I’m not sure which specific part of the most important egalitarian legal document of all time Toynbee has taken issue with – and she declined to answer when I asked her on twitter. But there’s a lot of good places to start.
For one thing: Limiting the power of the chief executive, making them answerable to the legislative body in order to prevent tyranny? That is obviously stupid when your head of state is a WOMAN who only wants to be nice. No, that has to go. The three separate branches of government should obviously be reshaped into a supreme executive with control over both legislative and judicial bodies. After all, how can you expect to implement a “manifesto” when you don’t have absolute power?
Free speech? Well, this is an antiquated notion, from a time before “progress” when people didn’t understand what was definitively correct. Now that we have reached consensus on what is “right” and what is “wrong” there is no need for freedom of speech – and in fact it is a hindrance, as people will only abuse their “right to free speech” by spreading propaganda, or broadcasting opinions which we have all agreed are wrong. As the Guardian has made clearmany times, free speech is meaningless if people use it to bully and disenfranchise minorities. If free speech is being used to inflict hatred and tyranny on women, ethnic minorities or the trans community, then what use is it? Free speech doesn’t mean hate speech… but unfortunately banning hate speech DOES mean banning free speech sooo…. yeah.
Right to bear arms? Absolutely crazy. The very idea that civilians having access to firearms is important as a general principle in guarding against tyranny is foolish. There isn’t going to BE any tyranny anymore, because we’ve handed absolute power over to a woman who has banned the “tyranny” of “free speech”.
This frightening statement gives us a flash of the future – of the agenda already set in place. The US constitution has been largely ignored and misinterpreted for years to excuse totalitarian laws, such as the Patriot Act. But when Clinton is president, it will come under full-blown attack. Make no mistake: Clinton will be president, there’s no doubt about that. The election will be fixed, either literally like in 2000 and 2004, or more subtly by simply making the alternative bizarre and unelectable – as in 2008 and 2012. The latter possibility even explains the rise of Trump.
I don’t know if the man is genuine or not, I don’t know if he really believes he can win, but I understand his role. He is there to guarantee a Clinton victory. That’s why the press talks up his “violent” supporters, and balloons any and every tiny comment he makes into “racism” and “sexism”. He exists so that people like Toynbee can say this:
Outside, the world looks on aghast at any possibility America could choose a racist, sexist brute over a feminist with a long track record of standing up for the right causes.”
… and has there be a tiny kernel of truth to it. A very tiny kernel.
Consider professional wrestling. It’s fake, everybody knows that, it only just barely pretends to be otherwise. An elaborate action-based soap opera, with wild stunts and expensive tickets. That is all that American democracy has become. In wrestling it is predetermined who will win, they have labels for their wrestlers. First there is the Face, the hero, the good guy. He fights fair, he has a noble cause. He wears the American flag like a cape. When his music pipes up, we cheer because we’re supposed to. And the other guy? He’s the Heel. He’s obnoxious, he cheats, he’s mean for mean’s sake and smiles when we boo. And when your Face is Hillary Clinton, you need a HELL of a big Heel. Enter Donald Trump. A cartoon character. The caricature of the everything we’re supposed to hate about the GoP.
The fact that Clinton has still somehow contrived to be behind him in the polls tells you all you need to know about the desperate struggle the media face in turning Clinton into a believable hero.
Regardless, Clinton WILL be President. But it won’t be a sign of progress, it will be a neon display highlighting everything that has gone wrong with the American political system. It won’t be because she’s a woman, or a liberal, or an idealist. It will be because she sold her soul to finance her ambition for fleeting prestige and the appearance of power.
Rarely has any candidate so deserved their place.
In this case I tend to agree with Toynbee – never before has a candidate SO obviously worked SO hard to become president. Never before has a candidate so brazenly sold out the values they were (at best) pretending to hold dear. Never before has a candidate so artlessly and obviously lied about so many things. Never before has a candidate been so open and obvious about the Faustian pact they needed to make to get where they want to go, so obviously played the political game of the oligarchs who really run the country, in order to get her pay-off.
Editorials such as Toynbee’s will appear on the regular all through the campaign, all variations on a theme, all attempting to re-write Clinton’s history and hinging on the worst kind of puddle-deep identity politics. The truly tragic part is that they KNOW they are lying, they KNOW they will be called on it, they KNOW what they ARE, and they resent us for telling them. That’s why they say stuff like this:
And if you want a reminder of what women like her are up against, just read the comments that will no doubt follow this.
The comments, as you’d expect, were full of people commenting on her obvious bias, pointing out her half-truths and correcting her glaring factual errors. In the world the Guardian wants Clinton to build, this will be called “demonisation”.
Thanks to FBI meddling, a straightforward electronic communications privacy reform with bipartisan support and barely any opposition is now stalled, and is dangerously close to dying this session.
The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) became law in 1986, and hasn’t been updated since. The statute, which governs law enforcement access to electronic communications, contains an obsolete clause enabling government agencies to obtain stored communications without warrants as long as the records are over 180 days old. This provision made more sense when the law was passed, at a time when computer data storage was expensive and most people couldn’t afford to store anything in digital form for as long as 6 months. Today, when storage is cheap and many people have emails dating back a decade in their Gmail inboxes, the law makes no sense. For years now, advocates including the ACLU and major tech companies have been furiously lobbying to update the law. This year, the House finally passed an ECPA modernization bill, which if enacted would do away with the 6 month rule and instituting a warrant requirement for content across the board—no matter how long the information has been sitting in your Dropbox folder or Gmail account. After the unanimous House vote, I and others expected the reform to quickly move through the Senate and get a signature from President Obama. Finally!
Alas, that’s not what is happening.
Unfortunately, the FBI intervened, and now the bill has a poison pill in it. Republican Senator John Cornyn attached an amendment to the bill that would vastly expand the FBI’s power to use much-abused ‘National Security Letters,’ or NSLs, secret subpoenas. Email privacy supporters Senators Pat Leahy and Mike Lee have said they will pull the bill from consideration instead of allowing their efforts to be coopted by the FBI—which intends to broaden its surveillance authorities, instead of contract them, as the email privacy bill intends.
“Unfortunately, some Senators on the committee have decided late in the day that this bill should be a vehicle to move an unrelated and controversial expansion of the use of national security letters by the FBI,” Lee said. “Such an expansion would swallow up the protections this bill offers to the American people. While there are other concerns we had hoped to negotiate, the national security letter amendment is something I cannot in good conscience have attached to this bill.”
FBI Director James Comey has said getting the NSL power extended to internet information is his organization’s top legislative priority.
Palestinian journalist and human rights defender, Hasan Safadi, the Arabic Media Coordinator for Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, was ordered to six months imprisonment without charge or trial under administrative detention by Israeli occupation forces today, Friday, 10 June.
Safadi, 24, who has been imprisoned since 1 May while crossing the Karameh bridge between Jordan and Palestine’s West Bank, has been under interrogation consistently at Al-Moskobiya interrogation center since that time. His detention had been repeatedly renewed. Prior to the issuance of the administrative detention order, the Jerusalem Magistrate Court had decided to release him today on a bail of 2500 NIS (approximately $650 USD), which had already been paid.
Safadi’s administrative detention order is scheduled to be confirmed by a judge at a time set in the next 48 hours, reported Addameer, making him one of approximately 750 Palestinians held without charge or trial under administrative detention. Administrative detention orders are indefinitely renewable and issued for one to six month periods at a time; some Palestinians have spent years at a time in administrative detention, on the basis of secret evidence submitted by the Shin Bet.
The detention of Safadi is part of the continued attack on Palestinian journalists and media workers, which includes the administrative detention without charge or trial of Omar Nazzal, member of the General Secretariat of the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate; Musab Kafisheh, freelance journalist; Mohammed Kaddoumi, freelance journalist; and Ali Al-Oweiwi, an announcer on Arabah radio station.
Other Palestinian journalists like Samer Abu Aisha, Sami al-Saee and Samah Dweik are imprisoned on “incitement” charges for posting on Facebook about Palestinian politics and struggle, while Abu Aisha also faces charges for visiting neighboring Lebanon, an “enemy country.” Other imprisoned journalists targeted for membership in political parties include Hazem Nasser and Mujahid Saadi. They are among 19 journalists imprisoned in Israeli jails.
Further, the imprisonment of Safadi also continues attacks on Palestinian human rights defenders, particularly those who work to free Palestinian prisoners, including recently released Addameer vice-chair and Palestinian Legislative Council member Khalida Jarrar; imprisoned land defender and advocate Samer Arbeed, held without charge or trial; civil society leader Eteraf Rimawi, executive director of Bisan, imprisoned without charge or trial; and repeatedly targeted prisoners’ advocates like Ayman Nasser of Addameer and Osama Shaheen of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Center for Studies.
Facebook and Twitter have recently deleted thousands of posts, pages and accounts in response to demands from the Israeli ministry of justice, Quds Press reported on Wednesday.
“We succeeded to achieve our goals as around 70 per cent of our demands [to delete Facebook and Twitter content] were fulfilled,” Israeli Minister of Justice Ayelet Shaked said, according to Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.
She also added: “We succeeded to delete incitement contents calling for death and violence across the internet.”
During a meeting she held to discuss “fighting incitement and shameful content on social media” three-days ago, Shaked reiterated Israel’s “cooperation with Facebook, Twitter and google regarding the violent electronic Palestinian incitement”.
Shaked claimed that when internet incitement decreased, the attacks on Israelis decreased.
“This proves that there is a direct relationship between internet incitement and violence in Israel,” she said.
Media is doling out in bite-sized bits what we already knew: we are being tracked and traced, recorded and stored.
The Guardian recently told us that – shock – Google is storing lots of information about us; meanwhile, the wildly different Independent gently awakens us to the fact that Facebook is doing something almost identical. Both articles contain instructions on how to appear to thwart these intrusions.
Oh well, click, click, yawn. Safe again.
An Orwellian present
Most people who read my column will have read Orwell’s 1984. And most who haven’t will have seen the film (the one with John Hurt, I hope). If you haven’t done either, go and do one of them right now.
Orwell’s famous dystopian vision describes a world in which the State knows everything about you. He had entitled his book The Last Man – meaning by that: The last true man left on earth. It was changed – perhaps fortuitously – by the publisher.
The book fed a slew of references into the culture, seemingly understood even by those who had never read it: Big Brother, Doublespeak, Sex Crime, Winston Smith.
The world Winston inhabits is physically viler and more obviously brutal that ours – at least if you live outside the perimeters of the wars the US is waging directly or indirectly. Its architecture and ambiance are, likewise, orders of magnitude darker and more depressing than ours – parts of inner cities excepted.
Orwell’s Doublespeak is more directly relevant to our experience today. With things now routinely called by something other than their proper names – men ‘identifying’ as women, women ‘identifying’ as men, men ‘identifying’ as dogs, and forty-six-year-old fathers ‘identifying’ as six-year-old girls – our world is littered with an increasing number of obvious truths which must be resolutely ignored on the grounds of political necessity.
Doublespeak has hamstrung academia – rendering whole swathes of it inoperative, and much of the rest of it either irrelevant, farcical or pernicious.
In our day-to-day exchanges it has resulted in smile-fronted loneliness and lurking suspicion as necessary features of a life wherein those of us who comment openly upon the Spandex-coated bars of our prison are treated as pariahs and lepers.
As in Orwell’s world, our language is undergoing a thinning process and morphing into a ghettoized Newspeak and Twitteresque literary shorthand. Our grandparents knew what it was to speak and write well because they acknowledged an objective standard. Those who attained it were regarded as exemplars, and those who had not could see what remained to be done. Now, as in so much else, mediocrity and approximation are defended as acceptable standards; simply noticing one’s own shortcomings is elitist – and, therefore, contemptible – while commenting on another’s is an outright sin.
The result is a common language attenuated to the point where being correctly understood is increasingly difficult, and the scope for being wrongfully construed almost unlimited.
But here the overlap in terms of content between our world and Orwell’s thins out in favor of a stark – and for some disarming – stylistic dissonance.
Orwell’s world is bleak. It is dark. The walls are covered – at best – by poorly applied institutional paint and creeping mold. The lights hang by a rat-eaten wire and flicker erratically, serving only – to plunder Milton – to discover sights of woe, regions of sorrow, doleful shades. Orwell’s “boot stamping on a human face – forever” is congruent in Hollywood terms with the scenery.
But our world is not like that. At least, not yet. Much of it is shiny and manicured – and not only for the technocrats and Inner Party members, but also for the drones of the Outer Party like Winston Smith.
Today, Smith does not wear dungarees and inhabit cold, dark corners creeping with vermin. He wears clothes which look something like what he sees on TV. He makes his car repayments. True, what he buys has the obsolescence of Orwell’s world, but that is due to a design philosophy geared to keep the drones shopping, rather than a simple inability to produce at all.
These seeming contradictions are difficult to process. A system which tortures you and stamps on your face might still be identified by the proles in their current state of conditioning as an enemy. But boot-stamping is not our experience – again, at least not yet.
The Big Brother of our experience has a public relations department and a team of designers with bed-head haircuts working on more palatable and fabulous ways to sell you servitude. Our prison does not simply consist of bars. It consists of hi-tech, ergonomically designed, ambient-adjustable bars. And it is policed by people who want you to call them by their first name; who are trained to seem to agree with you; who sit patiently when you talk, and then tell you to have a nice day.
If this seems unconnected with your current worldview, consider that some of the highest-profile puppets we vote for recently attended the opening of the Gotthard Tunnel, Switzerland – without batting an eyelid.
Sure, if you are deep in the bowels of Badnet – downloading a program you just discovered you really need but don’t want to pay for from a site featuring languages you don’t understand and from which windows with images of scantily dressed females jump out erratically at you – then you expect nasties. It feels dodgy and dangerous – and it is.
But Facebook and Google don’t feel like that. They are shiny, convenient heavens generated by serried ranks of earnest, enthusiastic angels in love with what they do. They love you, too. They don’t love you individually, but they love you mathematically; they love you when enough of you say the same thing to them for it to be incrementally advantageous to do something about your prayers. The world they produce feels professional and safe, something like a cross between a business park, a shopping mall where everything is free, and a children’s nursery.
This does not feel like a place where boots stamp on faces forever.
Collecting data
A common misconception about this ergonomic, customer-service Big Brother decked out in primary colors is that he couldn’t possibly watch everyone at the time.
But it doesn’t work like that. Mostly, he doesn’t care what you are doing on a day-to-day basis.
When databases were created in the 1970s, storing stuff was very expensive. That’s why they used the relational data model: it could cram more stuff into less space.
Now storing stuff costs nothing. I bought a 16 GB USB memory stick for the price of two cups of coffee last week. So they are not watching you. They are storing what you do.
Firstly, in case they need it. As morals, mores and norms are re-engineered and hemorrhage and coalesce in new configurations and are downloaded as normative updates by a population unable to concentrate or remember, everyone eventually will be a criminal – at least retrospectively. There is no future-proofing compliance with this new system of control. No matter how quickly you take the upgrades in Newthink, proof of your Oldthink will be accessible and visible to those who care to use it against you.
Secondly, they are building profiles. They want to know who the troublemakers are.
Those at the helm couldn’t care less what you think currently. If you are intelligent and happen to have spent your time online researching rather than looking at compilations of top goal-scoring moments, pornography, or highly pixelated editions of the Simpsons’ back catalog, that is likely to have rendered you a social outcast sheltering under the bridge of your own Cassandra complex yelling at random passing cars. So they don’t care about you – at least, not yet.
What they are on the lookout for in the current phase is a rogue idea. They are afraid that some bright individual will find the solar plexus of the psychological control grid and start jumping up and down on it. And they are also making sure existing powerful entities don’t go off the reservation of what is agreed by the guiding think tanks and conclaves of the mighty.
What to do?
We incline toward fight or flight. Many feel their security lies in keeping their heads down, by conforming. While I understand the feeling, my opinion is that no amount of conformity will be enough to placate what is coming. This system does not simply want conformity – although it does require it – it will not rest until it has your homage. For myself, my mind is made up: I will not bow to the new idol.
Armchair heroism is easy, it is true. But I know one thing: Room 101 will hold much less terror for me if I ever have to enter it, if I know then that I stood up now and spoke out while I could, leveraging what intelligence God saw fit to give me.
And that is something no boot can stamp out of existence.
Sam Gerrans is an English writer, translator, support counselor and activist. He also has professional backgrounds in media, strategic communications and technology. He is driven by commitment to ultimate meaning, and focused on authentic approaches to revelation and realpolitik.
The FBI hopes to amend surveillance laws as early as this year, giving the agency explicit authority to access a personal Internet browser history by simply issuing an administrative “national security letter,” the Washington Post reports.
The new legislation being readied would empower the FBI to obtain “electronic communication transactional records” bypassing judges’ approval with the help of a “national security letter” (NSL) which could be issued by the special agent in charge of a bureau field office, the paper says.
The FBI chief made a specific point that gaining this access through changing legislation is topping agency’s priorities for the year 2016, since the inability to get the necessary data “affects our work in a very, very big and practical way,” James Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee in February.
The Obama administration already tried to adopt a similar amendment some six years ago, but had to retreat after fierce opposition from the IT industry and privacy advocates.
Incidentally, Comey believes the current state of things is thanks to a “scrivener’s error” in the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, enabling internet providers and other technical companies to refuse providing certain personal information to the agency, citing infringement of American citizens’ privacy.
The ECPA is “needlessly hamstringing our counterintelligence and counterterrorism efforts,” Comey stressed.
The FBI also insists that a broader update of the ECPA should set electronic communication transactional records equal to telephone billing records.
The personal web ‘transactional records’ in question will allegedly include protocol addresses and the exact time a person spends on a web resource, but not content like search queries and email texts.
A coalition of privacy and civil society groups united with internet industry organizations to oppose the legal initiative, warning that the amendment would “dramatically expand the ability of the FBI to get sensitive information about users’ online activities without oversight.”
Security letters requesting data usually come with a gag order forbidding the internet providers from making the fact of the FBI request public.
The FBI has issued over 300,000 such requests within the past 10 years and in most cases they were accompanied by gag orders, estimated American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) legislative counsel Neema Singh Guliani.
“That’s the perfect storm of more information gathered, less transparency and no accountability,” Guliani said.
Syria Solidarity Movement is an international network in solidarity with the Syrian people and their struggle to retain a secular, independent state.
Unfortunately, there is an organization in the UK called “Syria Solidarity UK” (SSUK). The similarity in names has caused some confusion, especially because their “solidarity” is with the “Syrian Revolution”. In reality, this ‘revolution’ consists of long exiled Syrians with heavy Muslim Brotherhood influence, some daydreaming Trotskyists, Western or Gulf or Turkish supported political agents and tens of thousands of terrorists and mercenaries supplied, paid, assisted and promoted by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Israel, Turkey, USA, France, UK.
The genuine and positive forces seeking change in Syria disappeared long ago. James Foley documented the reality in Syria after his illusions were dispelled in Fall 2012. So did the native Aleppan known as Edward Dark. Initially he and his friends supported the uprising but then realized what it meant. While there is an array of takfiri factions, the conflict has crystallized into its essence: a brutal war of aggression with foreign funded mercenaries and international takfiries on one side, and a struggling multi-ethnic, multi-religious Syrian army and allies on the other.
SSUK and their American counterpart Syrian American Council are an integral part of Team Regime Change. They receive direct and indirect funding from the governments they are allied with. They are promoted in the Zionist establishment in the USA. Their voice is amplified by the media. Yet that is not enough. They aggressively attempt to block, prevent and censor any other voices.
In 2014 the voice of Mother Agnes Mariam was disrupted and attacked at various venues in the USA because she talked about the reality in Syria rather than what was being proclaimed by Washington and Doha. Her voice was shamefully shut down in London. The reason: because she opposed the media propaganda narrative about the chemical weapon attack in August 2013. Now some of the same sectarian propagandists are trying to prevent Dr. Tim Anderson from speaking at a global conference in Greece examining the refugee crisis and its causes. Dr. Anderson brings an analysis of the “Dirty War on Syria” and its connection to the refugee situation. That is what SSUK cannot abide and why they have threatened to disrupt the conference.
Under pressure from SSUK, the “Crossing Borders” conference organizers withdrew their invitation to keynote speaker Dr. Tim Anderson. This censorship led to hundreds of calls for the the conference to be true to its stated goals. To their credit, conference organizers realized the error and Dr. Anderson who will be presenting a paper and speaking at the conference. Now, the sectarian and bullying SSUK is again on the rampage; they are threatening to disrupt the conference and urging speakers to withdraw. After five years of continuous propaganda and demonization of the Assad government, what kind of academics or activists are so pathetic they cannot stand to hear a different perspective? What could be more relevant to an examination of the refugee crisis than an examination of the root causes?
The true nature of SSUK and their ‘revolution’ is revealed by their own actions. They talk about ‘freedom and democracy’ but practice censorship, repression and intimidation. Their threats need to be rejected and their actions condemned. They evidently do not want to solve the crisis; they want to escalate it.
The group SSUK (sŭk), has registered its strong objection to, and condemnation of, the participation of Dr. Tim Anderson in the Crossing Borders Conference on Refugees, to convene July 7-10 on the Greek Island of Lesbos. Dr. Anderson is the author of The Dirty War on Syria: Washington, Regime Change and Resistance. Their complaint is that Anderson presents facts and a point of view that SSUK does not like.
We understand their concern. It is difficult enough to justify their support for some of the world’s most vicious terrorists without having someone like Dr. Anderson presenting genuine facts and arguments against doing so. How much more daunting, therefore, to justify violating international law and the UN Charter, and forming alliances with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the world’s great imperialist powers for the sake of “freedom and human rights”? That’s a hard sell even without a voice like Dr. Anderson’s pointing out the hypocrisy.
But money can fix everything. SSUK’s White Helmets allies can bring $23 million from the US government, £15 million from the UK and millions more from private sources to mobilize a great marketing effort and twist a few arms to silence Dr. Anderson.
Dr. Anderson has nothing in his arsenal but facts and reason, and he is not even making an effort to silence the SSUK supporters of takfiri mercenaries. Perhaps he thinks that mere truth will be persuasive.
SSUK is trying to impress upon conference organizers that free speech must be sacrificed in order to win the fight for Syrian human rights. Rights like… well, like free speech. After all, isn’t victory more important than human rights?
Paul Larudee is one of the founders of the Free Gaza and Free Palestine Movements and an organizer in the International Solidarity Movement.
The detention and interrogation of Palestinian journalist and human rights defender Hasan Safadi, Arabic media coordinator for Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, was renewed on Friday, 3 June. Safadi, 24, has been under interrogation for more than a month, since his arrest by Israeli occupation forces on 1 May as he attempted to cross al-Karameh bridge, returning to the West Bank of occupied Palestine from Jordan.
The Jerusalem Magistrate Court extended his interrogation period for 4 additional days; he will have another court hearing on Tuesday, 7 June.
The arrest of Safadi comes amid an ongoing attack on Palestinian journalists and media workers, including the administrative detention without charge or trial of Omar Nazzal, member of the General Secretariat of the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate; Musab Kafisheh, freelance journalist; Mohammed Kaddoumi, freelance journalist; and Ali al-Oweiwi, an announcer at Arabah radio station.
In addition, Syrian journalist from the occupied Golan Heights (holding Israeli citizenship) Bassam al-Safadi, a correspondent for the Iranian Al-Alam TV channel, was arrested on 1 June and is being imprisoned in Tzalmon prison, accused of “incitement” and “support for terrorism,” apparently on the basis of public media statements.
Other Palestinian journalists like Sami al-Saee, Samer Abu Aisha and Samah Dweik are imprisoned and charged with “incitement” for publishing on social media; Abu Aisha faces charges for going to Lebanon – where hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees live – labeled an “enemy country.” Journalists like Hazem Nasser and Mujahid Saadi are targeted and accused of membership in or support for an “illegal organization” – any Palestinian political party.
A new agreement between the European Commission and four major U.S. companies—Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Microsoft—went into effect yesterday. The agreement will require companies to “review the majority of valid notifications for removal of hate speech in less than 24 hours and remove or disable access to such content,” as well as “educate and raise awareness” with their users about the companies’ guidelines.
The deal was made under the Commission’s “EU Internet Forum,” launched last year as a means to counter what EDRi calls “vaguely-defined ‘terrorist activity and hate speech online.’” While some members of civil society were able to participate in discussions, they were excluded from the negotiations that led to the agreement, says EDRi.
The agreement has been met with opposition by a number of groups, including EDRi (of which we’re a member), Access Now, and Index on Censorship, all of which have expressed concerns that the deal with stifle freedom of expression. The decision has also sparked debate on social media, with a wide variety of individuals and groups opposing the decision under the hashtag #IStandWithHateSpeech.
But you don’t have to stand with hate speech to stand against this decision. There are several reasons to oppose this Orwellian agreement. First, while Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights allows states to limit freedom of expression under select circumstances, such limitations are intended to be the exception, and are permitted only to protect the following:
The rights or reputations of others,
national security,
public order,
public health, or
morals.
These limits must also meet a three-part test as defined by the ICCPR: be defined by law; have legitimate aim; and be truly necessary. While some of the speech that concerns the Commission may very well qualify as illegal under some countries’ laws, the method by which they’ve sought to limit it will surely have a chilling effect on free speech.
In addition, as EDRi points out, despite a lengthy negotiation between companies and the Commission, “hate speech” remains vaguely-defined. Companies have been tasked with taking the lead on determining what constitutes hate speech, with potentially disastrous results.
In fact, social media companies have an abysmal track record when it comes to regulating any kind of speech. As Onlinecensorship.org’s research shows, speech that is permitted by companies’ terms of service is often removed, with users given few paths to recourse. Users report experiencing bans from Facebook for 24 hours to up to 30 days if the company determines they’ve violated the Community Standards—which, in many cases, the user has not. Requiring companies to review complaints within 24 hours will almost surely result in the removal of speech that would be legal in Europe.
By taking decision-making outside of the democratic system and into backrooms, and granting corporations even greater control, the European Commission is ensuring a chill on online speech.
Our world is run by oligarchs, the holders of vast wealth from monopolies in banking, resource extraction, manufacturing, and technology. Oligarchs have such power that most of the world doesn’t even know of their influence over our lives. Their overall agenda is global power — a world government, run by them — to be achieved through planned steps of social engineering. The oligarchs remain in the background and have heads of state and entire governments acting in their service. Presidents and prime ministers are their puppets. Bureaucrats and politicians are their factotums.
Who are politicians? Politicians are people who work for the powerful while pretending to represent the people who voted for them. This double-dealing involves a lot of lying, so successful politicians must be good at it. It’s not an easy job to make the insane agenda of the powerful seem reasonable. Politicians can’t reveal this agenda because it almost always goes against the interests of their constituents, so they become adept at sophistry, mystification, and the appearance of authority. For example, wars for Israel have been part of the agenda of the powerful for years. Since 2001, wars for Israel have been sold as “the war on terror” and lots of lies had to be made up as to why the war on terror was a real thing. The visible faces promoting the war on terror were neoconservatives in the US, almost all of whom were advocates for Israel, or Zionists. Zionists are not the only members of the oligarchy, but they seem to be its lead actors. ... continue
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Palestinian journalist and human rights defender, 
The detention and interrogation of Palestinian journalist and human rights defender 
Aletho News 