School ‘banishes’ 7yo student for saying he doesn’t believe in God – lawsuit
RT | August 5, 2015
A seven-year-old Indiana student was “banished” from sitting with his classmates at lunch after stating that he did not believe in God, according to a lawsuit which claims the school violated the child’s First Amendment rights.
The suit – filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Indiana and obtained by the Washington Post – claims the punishment occurred after the student, named only as AB, told a classmate on the playground that he didn’t go to church and didn’t believe in God.
That child then started to cry, stating that AB had hurt her feelings by saying that he didn’t believe in God.
The girl’s visible distress prompted a playground supervisor to report the incident to AB’s teacher, identified in the suit as Michelle Myer.
In response, Myer told AB that she was “very concerned” about what he had done, and said she was going to contact his mother.
Myer forced the child to sit by himself at lunch for three days, and told him that he shouldn’t talk to the other students because he had offended them.
The lawsuit states that this was distressing to AB, as it implied that he had done something wrong by expressing his personal opinion.
However, according to the suit, the hurt did not end there.
The matter was then sent to “another adult” employed at Forest Park Elementary School. Upon hearing the story, the adult reportedly told AB’s classmate that she should be “happy she has faith” and that she “should not listen to AB’s bad ideas.” She then patted the girl’s hand.
Despite Myer’s claim that she would contact AB’s parent, that phone call never took place. Instead, AB’s mother found out about the incident from her son, who came home from school upset and stating that he was hated by teachers and students at the school.
This prompted his mother to call the assistant principal of the school, demanding that her child not be punished for expressing his religious views. The teacher was also included in the call, during which she confirmed her involvement in the matter.
After the phone call, AB was apparently told by Myer and other teachers that he could believe what he wants to believe.
Following his three days of punishment, AB was allowed to sit with his fellow classmates at lunch. However, the lawsuit stresses that lasting damage has been inflicted on the student.
That damage includes the fact that some students refuse to talk to the child, and that AB is now “anxious and fearful” about school.
In response to the incident, the school district released a statement: “It is clear that it is not the province of a public school to advance or inhibit religious beliefs or practices. Under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, this remains the inviolate province of the individual and the church of his/her choice. The rights of any minority, no matter how small, must be protected.”
Citing the violation of First Amendment rights, the suit is seeking damages and attorneys’ fees. The child’s mother has been allowed to proceed with the lawsuit anonymously, in order to protect her child’s identity.
Mandatory Reporting of User Content Chills Speech and Violates Privacy Rights
By Kelsey Harclerode and Erica Fisher | EFF | August 5, 2015
EFF joined a broad coalition of 31 organizations in sending a letter to Senate leadership opposing an unconstitutionally vague law that would require Internet companies to report to the government when they obtain “actual knowledge” of any “facts and circumstances” related to “terrorist activity.” Section 603 of the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016 (S. 1705), which does not define “terrorist activity,” raises significant First and Fourth Amendment concerns, including the chilling of protected speech and the warrantless search and seizure of private electronic content.
First Amendment Concerns
The most obvious flaws in Section 603 are its vagueness and overbreadth: it will chill wholly legal speech and conduct. The key reason is that there is no clear agreement in U.S. society about what counts as “terrorism” (and triggers mandatory reporting). The single, tiny island of clarity in the term “terrorist activity” is one non-exclusive reference to 18 U.S.C. § 842(p), which makes it unlawful for a person to distribute information relating to explosives if the person has knowledge that the recipient intends to use the information to commit a violent crime. Otherwise, Section 603 is a Rohrschach blot.
Because Section 603 leaves both companies and users uncertain as to what exactly triggers the mandatory reporting requirement, this vague obligation to report will encourage service providers to broadly implement the law and will, in turn, encourage users to self-censor to avoid being reported to the federal government as possible “terrorists.” Without further clarification, the law will likely put innocent political activists, journalists, engaged citizens, professors and students participating in wholly lawful debate and research under a cloud of suspicion. For many, the risk of being put on a mysterious government watch list will more often than not outweigh the benefit of speaking.
With limited context for, say, a tweet or private direct message, service providers will err on the side of over-reporting and submit First Amendment-protected speech through content-flagging or automated monitoring systems. Section 603 includes a “protection of privacy” subsection, which clarifies that nothing in the provision “may be construed to require [a] service provider…to monitor any user…or the content of any communication.” Yet this “protection” does little to counteract the pressure on intermediaries to monitor their users’ behavior and content. While intermediaries often rely on content-flagging systems that enable users to report apparent unlawful or abusive activity of other users, this mechanism is prone to fraudulent notices. An automated monitoring system based on keywords would allow intermediaries to avoid having to themselves make decisions about their users’ content. But because it’s not obvious what constitutes “terrorist activity,” a user could be reported any time she uses a buzzword related to terrorist groups, the Middle East, U.S. foreign policy, or a particular political ideology.
Fourth Amendment Concerns
Section 603 not only chills lawful speech, it also tries to evade constitutional barriers that protect against unreasonable searches and seizures of private communications by the government.
EFF has consistently argued that a warrant based on probable cause is required for compelled government access to content stored by “cloud” service providers. In United States v. Warshak, the Sixth Circuit held that the government cannot access email content without a warrant because users have a Fourth Amendment-protected reasonable expectation of privacy in the email content that they store with these intermediaries.
While Section 603 does not permit the government to demand the production of content, it does require Internet companies to report content—including private content—reflecting “terrorist activity.” There is no question that this kind of mandatory reporting statute is subject to Fourth Amendment scrutiny, not unlike the ordinance found unconstitutional in Los Angeles v. Patel.
The applicability of the Fourth Amendment is particularly important given the amount of private content the government will acquire under this provision. As noted above, this mandatory provision will encourage companies to over-report both public and private content to the government. This will enable the government to evade normal due process requirements—including meeting legal standards such as probable cause and submitting to judicial review—while collecting much private content protected by the Fourth Amendment.
Future Action
Section 603’s constitutional implications have not gone unnoticed in Congress. On July 27, the Senate was set to pass the bill by unanimous consent until Sen. Wyden objected to this expedited procedure. The Senate will now have to engage in the normal process of debate and amendment, or remove this provision from the bill to prompt Sen. Wyden to withdraw his objection and enable the bill to pass by unanimous consent. The government should not be permitted to evade constitutional limits by turning private companies into watchdogs with no leashes. We urge Senate leadership to withdraw Section 603 from the intelligence authorization bill.
In Victory for Free Speech and Animals, Judge Strikes Down Idaho ‘Ag-Gag’ Law
Banning the filming of factory farm operations is an unconstitutional violation of both free speech and equal protection clauses, says federal judge
A demonstration against Ag-Gag legislation in Idaho outside the state house in 2014. (Credit: Flickr / cc / Mercy for Animals)
By Jon Queally | Common Dreams | August 4, 2015
In a victory for animal rights advocates—and the animals on factory farms they seek to protect—a federal judge on Monday ruled Idaho’s controversial “ag-gag” law unconstitutional in a decision that said criminalizing the undercover documentation of livestock abuse violates both free speech and the equal protection clause.
“The effect of the statute will be to suppress speech by undercover investigators and whistleblowers concerning topics of great public importance: the safety of the public food supply, the safety of agricultural workers, the treatment and health of farm animals, and the impact of business activities on the environment,” U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill stated in his 28-page ruling.
Under the law, people filming agricultural operations without permission in Idaho face up to a year in jail and a $5,000 fine. By comparison, a jail sentence for an animal cruelty conviction is capped at six months and a maximum fine of $5,000.
However, as Winmill’s ruling continued, the legal arguments in favor of banning undercover investigations—long a tactic of animal rights groups with no other way to prove or expose such abuse—did not stand up to scrutiny. “Audio and visual evidence is a uniquely persuasive means of conveying a message,” he wrote, “and it can vindicate an undercover investigator or whistleblower who is otherwise disbelieved or ignored. Prohibiting undercover investigators or whistleblowers from recording an agricultural facility’s operations inevitably suppresses a key type of speech because it limits the information that might later be published or broadcast.”
In the end, the judge concluded, “the facts show the state’s purpose in enacting the statute was to protect industrial animal agriculture by silencing its critics.”
Though other states have passed similar laws in recent years, the decision by Winmill marks the first time a federal court has struck down such legislation. And though the Idaho ruling could be appealed to a higher federal court, it is also likely to spur additional challenges in those other states.
Instigated by an undercover operation by the animal rights group Mercy for Animals, Idaho’s law was signed into law in 2014 by the state’s Republican Gov. Butch Otter, but was challenged in court by a coalition of welfare advocates, led by attorneys with the Animal Legal Defense Fund.
ALDF called Winmill’s ruling a “landmark victory” for all those represented by the suit, which in addition to the tens of thousands nameless animals, included a broad-based public interest coalition of national nonprofits, including the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Idaho, journalists Will Potter and Blair Koch, Farm Sanctuary, and the Center for Food Safety (CFS). In a joint statement, the coalition said:
Undercover video and photography has exposed numerous shocking practices that are “industry standards.” These pervasive, systematic procedures include routine mutilation, including debeaking birds with electrically heated blades and castrating male animals by slicing open their scrotum and ripping their testicles out without pain relief or anesthesia and intensive confinement—where animals are literally unable to turn around for months on end. Exposes have also detailed the sickening farming conditions resulting in contaminated meat products—posing serious health risks to the public—and life threatening conditions for farm workers.
These investigations, and the subsequent media coverage, have led to food safety recalls, citations for environmental and labor violations, evidence of health code violations, plant closures, criminal convictions, and civil litigation. The Idaho statute unconstitutionally and unwisely prohibits efforts to bring violations of state and federal laws relating to food safety, environmental protection, and animal handling to the attention of the public and law enforcement.
Ag-Gag laws are notoriously unsupported by the public. Nationwide thirty-two similar Ag-Gag measures have failed. Currently, seven states have Ag-Gag laws on the books. This Idaho decision is just the first step in defeating similar Ag-Gag laws across the country.
Mercy for Animals also hailed the ruling, saying it is now looking forward to continuing its work and producing more undercover videos in Idaho.
“Idaho’s lawmakers should be ashamed of wasting precious time and valuable resources enacting unconstitutional laws that threaten animal welfare, food safety, workers’ rights and the environment,” said Nathan Runkle, president of Mercy for Animals, in response to the ruling. “We hope they will now focus their efforts on improving animal welfare and rewarding the brave whistleblowers who uncover criminal activity in Idaho’s agricultural operation.”
UK Defence Secretary praises Egypt
Reprieve | August 6, 2015
Defence Secretary Michael Fallon has praised what he says is Egypt’s “vision of a more prosperous, more democratic society.”
Writing in Egyptian newspaper Al Ahram on the day of the opening of a new section of the Suez Canal, Mr Fallon said that the UK stood “shoulder to shoulder” with Egypt, but made no reference to the human rights situation in the country.
The article comes amid concerns over the fate of thousands of prisoners who have faced mass trials and the death penalty as part of a two-year-long crackdown on dissent by the Sisi government. They include Ibrahim Halawa, an Irish teenager who was arrested during the military’s breakup of protests in August 2013. Ibrahim, who faces a death sentence alongside 493 others in mass proceedings, has endured torture and mistreatment throughout his detention. Last weekend, his mass trial at Wadi Natrun prison, where conditions are poor, was postponed for the 9th time.
The UK Foreign Office has previously told human rights organization Reprieve that it is “monitoring” Ibrahim’s case, and that it has “concerns over the use of mass death sentences and the large number of people in pre-trial detention.”
Commenting, Maya Foa, head of the death penalty team at Reprieve, said: “At a time when Egypt’s jails are heaving with jailed protestors and journalists, torture is rife, and thousands are facing mass death sentences, it is disgraceful that Michael Fallon sees fit to praise Egypt’s government in such unqualified terms. To prisoners like Ibrahim Halawa, who is enduring regular torture and a Kafkaesque mass trial, talk of Sisi’s ‘vision of a more prosperous, more democratic society’ is a sick joke. If the defence secretary truly wants to support Egypt, he must tell Sisi to reverse the terrible human rights abuses of the last two years – and to release the many victims of the crackdown, such as Ibrahim.”
17 ‘violations’ against Palestinian journalists in July
MEMO | August 5, 2015
Israel’s occupation forces and the Palestinian Authority (PA) security services committed 17 “violations” against Palestinian journalists in July, Quds Press reported on Tuesday.
According to the Palestinian Media Forum, the Israelis committed most of the violations against journalists in the occupied Palestinian territories, ranging from physical assault and arrests to banning the media professionals from covering certain incidents and events.
The forum’s report said that journalist Mohamed Ateeq from Jenin was arrested; cameraman Shadi Jarrar was wounded in Nablus, as was cameraman Mohamed Jaradat in Hebron. A number of journalists were also attacked in the village of Jaba’, north of Jerusalem.
In addition, an Israeli court adjourned the trial of journalist Ahmed Al-Bitawi, the editor of Quds Press, until further notice. Al-Bitawi was moved to Ofer Prison near Ramallah. He was arrested early last month when Israeli troops stormed into his family home in Nablus. He joins another 15 Palestinian journalists being held by the Israelis.
PA security services violations against Palestinian journalists in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip included detention and unwarranted investigations.
Watchdog Demands Rules on FBI Media Spying
By Elizabeth Warmerdam | Courthouse News | August 3, 2015
The Department of Justice refuses to reveal its unpublished rules for spying on journalists, and the Freedom of the Press Foundation demands a look at them, in Federal Court.
The foundation sued the Justice Department on Friday under the Freedom of Information Act, seeking expedited production of records on FBI procedures for issuing National Security Letters and exigent letters to investigate members of the media.
“Public disclosure of these protocols is necessary to deter chilling affects on the press and its sources, especially given recent years during which the Obama Administration has increased surveillance of reporters,” the foundation’s attorney Victoria Baranetsky said.
The Associated Press revealed in 2013 that the Justice Department had secretly obtained months of phone records for at least seven journalists on 20 phone lines while trying to determine which government official leaked information about a CIA operation that allegedly thwarted a terrorist plot.
Soon after, it was revealed that the Justice Department had investigated James Rosen, Fox News’s chief Washington correspondent, in connection to a possible leak of classified information by a government contractor.
In that case, Rosen was labeled as a possible “co-conspirator,” and investigators pulled his security badge records, phone logs and personal emails.
As a result of the backlash, the Justice Department in July 2013 released guidelines that supposedly bar the government from issuing subpoenas to journalists unless high standards are met.
But the guidelines did not apply to FBI agents using national security letters to get telecom companies, libraries and others to secretly hand over information, including Internet records of U.S. citizens without court oversight.
About 97 percent of national security letters come with gag orders barring the recipients from talking about it.
In 2013, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston found the letters facially unconstitutional and ordered the government to stop issuing them, but she stayed her ruling pending appeal to the Ninth Circuit.
A Justice Department spokesperson told The New York Times that procedures for national security letters are governed by an “extensive oversight regime.”
A heavily redacted August 2014 Department of Justice Inspector General report criticized the FBI’s handling of a leak investigation, in which it collected a reporter’s phone records using national security letters.
A separate Inspector General report found that the FBI had issued hundreds of exigent letters to get telephone records from three major telephone carriers. The letters were not authorized by law, flouted internal FBI policy and violated attorney general guidelines, the report said.
In January, several months after the 2014 report confirmed that the FBI had new procedures for gathering information about media, the Justice Department published another rule amending the media guidelines.
The updated policy did not include any procedures for issuing national security letters or exigent letters to get information about members of the press, the foundation says.
It filed an FOIA request in March, seeking the FBI’s unpublished procedures on how it issues national security letters or exigent letters regarding members of the media.
“The DOJ failed to provide adequate response after it acknowledged the need for expedited processing,” Baranetsky said.
Nor has the Justice Department met its deadline to reply to the FOIA, the foundation says in the complaint.
It seeks information on the extensive regime that oversees issuance of national security letters, the procedures the FBI must follow before and after issuing a national security letter to obtain records on members of the press, and any changes in FBI policy after the Justice Department reviews.
Expedited disclosure “is in the public interest and ‘[a] matter of widespread and exceptional media interest in which there exist[s] possible questions about the government’s integrity which affect public confidence,'” the foundation says in the complaint.
The Justice Department would not comment on the lawsuit.
Baranetsky and Marcia Hoffman, both of San Francisco, represent the foundation.
Mark Duggan killing: Four years later and still no justice
RT | August 4, 2015
On August 4, 2011, Mark Duggan was killed in Tottenham by the police. Four years on, the Duggan family are still seeking justice for Mark. But the officers involved were cleared of ‘any wrongdoing’ and it was eventually ruled that Mark’s murder was ‘lawful.’
While we see the ramifications of unbridled police violence all over the world, we are reminded that for many communities here at home in the United Kingdom, the treatment they face is little different from that which have seen of late in the United States.
The case of Mark Duggan stands amid a backdrop of many other tragic cases whereby young black men are killed by those who are supposed to protect them. Just as with the many hundreds of other cases which have seen citizens die in police custody, with no officer being brought to justice, Mark Duggan’s case is a chilling reminder of just how little progress has been made and how far there still is to go. The criminal justice system has failed to jail any officer, despite the fact Mark Duggan was unarmed and shot dead execution style.
Many anomalies and questions marks still surround the case, and the official line peddled by the police and the media in the immediate aftermath of Mark’s murder was shown to be a fallacy. There were also significant political implications with this case too.
Not only did the facts that emerged after Mark’s killing contradict the official police and media line, but the failure of the police to even communicate with Duggan’s family and inform them of his death led to protests outside Tottenham police station. These protests and the fact that police reportedly beat a teenage girl during the demonstrations are viewed by many to have been the initial sparks for the unrest which followed. The riots in North London quickly spread throughout the country.
Police relations with communities in Tottenham have historically been riddled with examples of police brutalising residents.
As a result of these tensions building up over many years, and because the police have failed to root out their own problems from within, the potential for this tension to explode has always existed on a knife edge just below the surface needing only a jolt to rear its head.
Duggan’s murder in 2011 provided such a catalyst.
But the media coverage at the time of the protests successfully diverted attention away from the criminal actions of the police, poverty, and racial tension and instead demonised the community, specifically young people.
One other knock-on effect from the English riots was that attention was diverted away from the MPs expenses scandal, which was breaking at the time, and onto young people who took part in the rioting from poorer communities. It’s worth noting too, that while these young people were being put through a kangaroo court system, paraded in the media, punishing them for taking part in the riots characterising the behaviour as ‘pure criminality’ (removing the factors underpinning the riots), at the same time politicians were being barely punished for looting the taxpayers pocket. This has left many people reeling from a bitter sense of injustice and double standards.
The tragedy of Mark Duggan’s killing is a reminder to all those who were living in London of how entrenched and normalised and accepted such injustice has become.
Mark Duggan’s case was significant because of the circumstances surrounding his killing, and because the actions of the police before and after highlighted the deep institutional failings of the police and so-called justice system. It was these failings which led to the riots.
Duggan’s killing was ruled as ‘lawful’. Officers involved were cleared of ‘any wrongdoing’ despite the fact they shot dead an unarmed black man in an area of London where racial tensions between the community and police were already fragile, with not much needed for things to erupt.
If you are young and black in the UK, you are still more likely to be stopped and searched than if you are white, despite the fact that black people are no more likely to commit crime than anyone else.
Poverty, a lack of access to further education, and low employment prospects have not just remained firmly rooted in some of the UK’s poorest areas – with government policy and austerity becoming further entrenched since 2011- these problems have undoubtedly worsened.
Food banks are now becoming more and more widespread and the gap between the richest and the poorest has widened too.
No one is denying individual responsibility for any crime, including looting or rioting. But surely all of the factors which lead to such a disaster like the London riots must be looked at. And surely the same level of personal responsibility we are all supposed to adhere to applies to the police too?
Surely yes, but the current state of play suggests that this ideal, is far from becoming a reality.
Many were quick to focus on anything which might justify the actions of the police and shift accountability for his death from their own actions to the actions of Mark Duggan.
He was smeared in the press before any trial had even taken place following his killing. ‘Journalists’ like Richard Littlejohn from the Daily Mail pretty much suggested that Mark Duggan deserved to be killed based on the media’s common portrayal of him. In one sensational claim it was suggested that Duggan was among “Europe’s most violent criminals”.
The only reason why entirely racist claims like these are allowed to be seen as the norm in the mainstream media, at least, is because they have become wholly acceptable.
In much of the media, and within the criminal justice system, the assumption is usually made that the police, by virtue of the fact that they are the police, are whiter than white, and innocent, and that anyone they come into contact with must somehow therefore automatically be guilty and have done something wrong.
Mark Duggan’s family and countless other families are still seeking justice for loved ones who have died in police custody.
Today we remember Mark Duggan and remember too just how quickly a sequence of events can spiral out of control. One could perhaps argue that if the police had handled the aftermath of Duggan’s death better (ignoring for a moment the fact it was they who killed him) the riots could have been avoided.
The crimes of the police to date have barely been acknowledged, and until they are we are not even in a position to suggest many solutions. Hope for the future rests with a more informed public, equipped with knowledge and a willingness to hold those accountable who do wrong no matter who they are, including the police. If we are organised we can pressure those who have the power to implement change among powerful institutions from the top down. It won’t happen just from marches and wishful thinking. It’s not in the nature of power to relinquish it without a fight.
Power concedes nothing without demand, and without justice there can be no peace-nor should there be.
Richard Sudan is a London based writer, political activist, and performance poet. He has been a guest speaker at events for different organizations ranging from the University of East London to the People’s Assembly covering various topics. He also appears regularly in the media, and has featured as a guest on LBC Radio, Colourful Radio and elsewhere. His opinion is that the mainstream media has a duty to challenge power, rather than to serve power. Richard has taught writing poetry for performance at Brunel University, and maintains the power of the spoken and written word can massively effect change in today’s world.
Mississippi’s All Up in Your Google Activity
By Samia Hossain, William J. Brennan Fellow & Esha Bhandari | ACLU | August 3, 2015
An overzealous attorney general is trying to police online speech by capitalizing on the reams of data Google stores about its users.
James Hood, Mississippi’s attorney general has issued a whopping 79-page subpoena to Google asking for a massive amount of data about the identities, communications, searches, and posts of people anywhere in the United States who use its services, including YouTube and Google+.
The kicker? The state is asking for all this information for anyone speaking about something “objectionable,” “offensive,” or “tangentially” related to something “dangerous,” which it defines as anything that could “lead to physical harm or injury.” You read that right. The attorney general claims that he needs information about all of this speech to investigate Google for state consumer protection violations, even though the subpoena covers such things as copyright matters and doesn’t limit itself to content involving Mississippi residents.
Earlier this year, a District Court judge froze Mississippi’s investigation into Google. The state appealed the ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, where we filed a brief today against the attorney general’s attempt to violate the First Amendment rights of the millions of people who use the Internet.
The case has already gotten attention because of Google’s claims that Mississippi is attempting to censor its editorial choices, by dictating what can appear in search results or on YouTube, for example. Our brief attempts to highlight an overlooked aspect of the case – that millions of people’s rights to free speech, anonymity, and privacy are also at stake.
The government is well aware of all the personal information that’s being stockpiled online and often serves subpoenas on private companies for information about individuals and groups under investigation. But the Constitution has established protections that keep the government from getting into our business without just cause, especially when our First Amendment rights to express ourselves freely and anonymously are at stake.
Yet as we’re seeing in Mississippi, the government doesn’t always play by the rules.
We are increasingly seeing efforts by law enforcement to engage in wholesale monitoring of certain groups online. Just a couple of weeks ago, we learned the Department of Homeland Security has been scrutinizing #BlackLivesMatter for constitutionally protected activity. This kind of surveillance chills the exercise of our First Amendment freedoms, especially considering how much sensitive and important speech – like political or human rights advocacy – takes place on the Internet.
Needless to say, “objectionable,” “offensive,” or “tangentially” related to something “dangerous,” are terms that are so broad that they could encompass a huge swathe of content on the Internet – and result in information about millions of people’s online activity being handed over to the government. Virtually any topic could be said to “tangentially” lead to physical harm or injury in certain cases – from organizing protests to skydiving. Most importantly, the First Amendment protects the right to speak about dangerous, objectionable, and offensive things without fear that the government will be scrutinizing your speech or trying to find out your identity.
And let’s not assume it’s innocuous YouTube videos of skateboarding 6-year-olds, football highlight reels, or fireworks displays that the attorney general wants to waste his office’s time looking through – even though these would be covered by the subpoena. History has shown us that politically dissident and minority groups have been targeted for monitoring, and those are the groups that are most likely to be chilled from speaking. Politically active movements online, such as #BlackLivesMatter, often discuss strategy, organize protests, and post videos of police brutality (which certainly meets the attorney general’s definition of “dangerous”) online.
Not only that, but the right to online anonymity is threatened. Domestic violence support groups can provide a safe space online for victims to speak anonymously and honestly, including about the dangers of violence they face. Yet these activities could be seriously harmed if Mississippi is allowed to collect information about the people who engage in them. It’s no stretch to imagine that people will speak less freely if things like their email addresses, login times, and IP addresses could be handed to law enforcement whenever they say something that could be considered dangerous or offensive.
For these reasons, we’re asking the 5th Circuit to order the state to back off and keep the Internet a place where people can speak freely, without fear of government harassment or investigation.
Statement from Palestinian Activist Amer Jubran on Being Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison by Jordan’s State Security Court
Amer Jubran Defense Campaign
On Wednesday, July 29, Amer Jubran was sentenced by Jordan’s State Security Court along with 8 other defendants. The rest of the defendants were given sentences of 2-3 years; for his refusal to cooperate, he was singled out for excessive punishment, and given a 15 year sentence (reduced by his lawyers to 10 years). The verdict comes after 15 months in detention–the first 3 months without charges.
He was able to get a call out of the prison where he is being held in Jordan to make a statement about his trial and sentencing. An audio recording is available at the following link:
https://archive.org/details/AmerStatement
We include a full transcript below:
“Last Wednesday on July 29, 2015, I was issued a verdict of 15 years in prison which was reduced to 10 years later. This verdict was issued by a military court, a martial tribunal court made of three judges. The trial lasted for about 1 year and over thirty sessions, through which my legal defense team has proven beyond doubt false charges of terrorism. There were 10 charges and our defense amounted to zero effect on the outcome of that trial, as I was given a maximum punishment, while everybody else in the group were given 2-3 year sentences. It is clear that I am being targeted as a person, and such decisions had completely put aside law and justice and replaced that with politics and vengeance.
During the interrogation period, I was told by the GID that any decision made about me is involving (quote) ‘our American and Israeli friends’ (end-quote). All started when I refused to be a sell-out and work against the Lebanese resistance. I was told then that I will be sent behind the sun for such a refusal. And frankly it is very easy for me to disappear behind the sun rather than to be well outside but a sell-out and traitor.
Please use this information to spread to everyone among our activist media who are interested. Especially media that is pro-resistance in Lebanon. And anybody you think is worthy to take this information to. Also please tell my love and my respect to everybody who stood by me among our friends and brothers and sisters where you are. And I thank you deeply from my heart and please do not forget Palestine.”
***
In conversation, Amer further clarified that all 10 of the original charges were disproved by his defense team, but a new charge was manufactured at the time of the verdict. He also clarified that his refusal to be a “sell-out and work against the Lebanese resistance” was a refusal to work as an infiltrator and informant.
We are releasing this statement along with a call for activists to renew pressure on the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Jordan’s Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al Hussein, demanding an independent review of Amer’s trial and the flagrant violations of human rights involved in his imprisonment. It is now 13 months since our initial open letter to the High Commissioner–an appeal that is still unanswered. (For the text of our letter, see: https://freeamer.wordpress.com/action-calls ).
It has been clear from the outset that Amer was targeted for his activism and political speech on behalf of Palestine. The lengthy proceedings before the State Security Court were a sham trial, before a court with no political independence, acting as a rubber-stamp for the GID (General Intelligence Directorate).
Amer’s statement confirms what many of us have suspected from the beginning: his arrest and detention–and now his sentencing to 10 years of imprisonment–have taken place in coordination with the US and Israel.
Please take the time to forward Amer’s statement. You can support justice for Amer by sending letters, faxes and e-mails over the next week (8/5/15-8/12/2015) addressed to Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al Hussein at the following address:
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
Palais des Nations
CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland
Fax: (41 22) 917 0008 (If faxing from US: 011-41-22-917-0008)
E-mail: registry@ohchr.org
And please cc the following:
Prime Minister and Defense Minister
Abdullah Ensour
Fax number 962-6-464-2520 (If faxing from US: 011-962-6-464-2520)
e-mail: info@pm.gov.jo
Minister of Interior
Salamah Hammad
Fax number 962-6-560-6908 (If faxing from US: 011-962-6-560-6908)
e-mail: info@moi.gov.jo
Minister of Justice
Bassam Talhouni
Fax number 962-6-464-3197 If faxing from US: 011-962-6-464-3197)
e-mail: Feedback@moj.gov.jo
***
Our open letter is below:
Open Letter to Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al Hussein
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
Palais des Nations
CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland
email registry@ohchr.org
August 3, 2015
Dear UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al Hussein:
We wrote to you in July of 2014 to ask you to intervene in the case Amer Jubran of Jordan.* Mr. Jubran at that time had been detained for two months without charges, and you, at that time, were the UN High Commissioner-Elect. Now you occupy that office, and Mr. Jubran has been convicted. On July 29, 2015 he was sentenced by the Jordanian State Security Court, a military tribunal, to ten years in prison on charges of terrorism. These charges were proven false by Mr. Jubran’s defense team, but a decision was made against him nevertheless.
We saw no sign that you acted to intervene in this case in 2014. Perhaps if you had this sham trial would not have proceeded. But now that it has come to its predictable conclusion we ask you again to intervene to question why such a harsh sentence could be handed down without evidence of any crime. As High Commissioner for Human Rights we believe it is your responsibility to act to review this case. Amer Jubran is an internationally known activist, speaker, and writer on Palestinian human rights, and a critic of US and Israeli policies in the Arab world. These are the reasons he was targeted, not for terrorism. Though Jordan is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the human rights violations of its General Intelligence Directorate and State Security Court are well known. This is a problem that, as a Jordanian and as Human Rights Commissioner, you have every reason to be concerned about. The unjust sentence against Amer Jubran should be overturned immediately.
We look forward to your response.
Sincerely,
The Amer Jubran Defense Campaign
defense@amerjubrandefense.org
*See our previous letter at https://freeamer.wordpress.com/action-calls/
cc:
Prime Minister and Defense Minister
Abdullah Ensour, e-mail: info@pm.gov.jo
Fax number 011-962-6-464-2520
Minister of Interior: Salamah Hammad, e-mail: info@moi.gov.jo
Fax number 011-962-6-560-6908
Minister of Justice Bassam Talhouni, e-mail: Feedback@moj.gov.jo
Fax number 011-962-6-464-3197
***
Amer Jubran Defense Campaign
freeamer.wordpress.com | defense@amerjubrandefense.org
Outrage, Protests Grow in Mexico Over Photojournalist Murder
teleSUR | August 2, 2015
Outrage among journalists has spread across Mexico since the Sunday’s confirmation by the attorney general’s office that the body found in an apartment in Mexico City on Friday belongs to the photojournalist Ruben Espinosa.
Dozens of people are conducting protests across Mexico to demand justice in Espinosa’s case, but also to demand the government to take action and halt the attacks against journalists.
According to local press, Espinosa — whose body was identified by his relatives, authorities say — was killed along with his three female roommates and also the maid. The victims had been tied up and were shot in the head. The bodies showed signs of torture.
Espinosa had previously spoken out against the threats and harassment he received when working in the Mexican Gulf state of Veracruz, which is considered to be one of the most dangerous states for journalists.
Espinosa also worked with the weekly magazine Proceso, renowned in Mexico for its expositional reporting. The magazine has demanded authorities conduct a proper investigation into the crime to determine what happened and punish the perpetrators of the “heinous crime.”
Espinosa abandoned the state of Veracruz June 9, after saying that his life was at risk. He decided to “self-exile” in Mexico City, which he thought would be safer. In 2013, he had filed a lawsuit against the Security Secretariat of Veracruz.
In a recent interview with the free press website Sin Embargo, the late journalist said that, in Veracruz, he was not allowed to attend official events or even press conferences. This hostile attitude by the local authorities, according to Espinosa, came after Proceso published a picture of the state’s current governor, Javier Duarte, wearing a police cap, with the headline, “Veracruz, a lawless state.”
Duarte is from the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party. He took office in 2010 and since then 14 journalists have been killed or disappeared. Last month, during a public event to commemorate the Free Speech Week, the governor sent a message to the state’s journalists saying “Please behave, I beg you. It’s for your own good.”
According to the 2015 World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders, Mexico ranked 148 out of 180 countries, making it one of the most dangerous countries in which to be a journalist.
In the wake of the shocking homicide of photojournalist Ruben Espinosa, figures released in February by Mexico’s attorney general’s office are worth revisiting.
Ruben Espinosa is one of over 100 journalists killed in Mexico in the last 15 years, according to official figures by the attorney general’s office, which show 25 more are missing.
The attorney general reported in February that 103 journalists had died since 2000, with the northern states of Chihuahua and Veracruz topping the list as the most deadly, with 16 journalist deaths each.
RELATED: Attacks Against Mexican Journalists up 80% Under Peña Nieto
The Case of Alison Weir: Two Palestinian Solidarity Organizations Borrow from Joe McCarthy’s Playbook
By Jack Dresser | CounterPunch | August 3, 2015
From the outbreak of the Second Intifada, Journalist Alison Weir has tirelessly investigated and reported on the history and realities of Israel’s dispossession and occupation of Palestine through her organization and website, If Americans Knew. Now, she has come under guilt-by-association attack by two umbrella organizations of the Palestinian Solidarity movement, Jewish Voice for Peace and US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, for granting interviews to “white supremacist, anti-Semitic” and “vile” radio shows, specifically Clayton Douglas and American Free Press. Judged as tarred by a common brush for not using her limited air time to challenge their objectionable ideologies, her offenses include being called a “patriot” by her defenders.
Alison’s politically incorrect policy has been to disseminate salient facts to anyone, anywhere to achieve the broadest possible reach among American citizens, without political discrimination. The expelling organizations undoubtedly fear that the knowledge will feed anti-Semitism. Maybe it will, but the appropriate remedy would be a collective demand by the Jewish diaspora to end the Zionist project, make reparations to its victims, and establish a democratic state, not to withhold information from people who might use it to make Jewish Americans uncomfortable.
The complaint itself is strongly bigoted against the presumptively “white” political “right-wing” of America and the evidence is extremely thin, so what might really – and so suddenly – be behind this? Unlike the two organizations attacking her, Alison has always taken an unequivocal and uncompromising position against the legality and morality of the entire Zionist project, focusing on the 1948 Nakba and UN-established right of return, not just the Israeli occupation. So-called “liberal” or “progressive” Zionists evade the former and pretend that the crimes began in 1967. Why this adamant denial of honest history and Palestinian human rights?
Fully honoring the right of return would threaten or eliminate Israel’s Jewish majority and any defensible claim to be a “Jewish state.” Survey data from Israelis and occupied Palestinians show this as the largest disparity between them and the most insurmountable obstacle to resolution. Hand-wringing Jewish Israelis and their US enablers see establishment of an integrated, multi-ethnic, Western-style constitutional democracy as an “existential threat” to be fought tooth-and-nail. Jeremy Ben-Ami of J Street says, “One-state is not a solution. One state is a dissolution.”
This is pure segregationist racism, not simply annoying discourtesies but the kind of racism that really counts, imposed by armed violence for 67 years upon helpless victims by a self-declared “Jewish state” with a Jewish religious symbol on its flag and emblazoned on the wings of its Hellfire missile-equipped, US-supplied F-16s murdering whole families in Gaza. How can this not inevitably generate some anti-Semitism? And how does it differ in spirit from the Jerusalem Cross of Crusaders that remains a mark of shame upon the history of Christianity? Emotional reactions are not finely parsed, however sometimes unfair to the innocent, and are less likely to be nuanced when Israeli atrocities remain uniformly unopposed by the 50+ Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Jews everywhere are put on the spot by Israeli arrogance and outlawry to collectively stand up, declare “not in my name,” take sides, and choose the side of international law and justice. If they don’t, they have themselves largely to blame. Given awareness – which is readily available, however ignored – silence becomes complicity.
And equally disturbing, it is our country that protects these outrages in violation of our declared principles and our own laws, so why should “patriotism” not be evoked? And why should American WASPs not be prominent among opponents of the government for which they are responsible? And why should organized and politically influential Jewish Americans who march in lockstep defending Israel, as well as those who remain silent, not be held accountable by all US taxpayers who involuntarily support this? And who are the USCEIO and JVP to tell Americans of any political persuasion what to think, to what information they are entitled, or what to conclude from the evidence? Until the righteous critics find effective ways to end Israeli oppression of people suffering under it daily, who are they to judge the attitudes or strategies or political outreach of others?
Those of us firmly supporting justice for Palestinians have observed JVP for many years as compromised by Zionist colonial sympathies but improving recently by endorsing the full BDS campaign. We also found ourselves suspicious a while back when USCEIO convened conference calls, highly controlled in format and content, concerned with “anti-Semitism” – the threadbare fallback complaint of Israel and its US lobby to change the subject and regain the offensive from attention to Israeli state crimes. Curiously, “Zionism” was omitted from their statement on racism while generically condemning “other racist or bigoted behaviors, practices and structures,” an undefined subjective net that could sweep up almost anyone deemed objectionable. Why were putative Palestinian human rights advocates echoing Israeli propaganda themes?
Setting aside the possibility of infiltration, both Alison-attacking organizations have mixed memberships of people scattered along the learning curve of knowledge regarding international law, human rights and documented history, and at different levels of readiness to give up attachment to Israel and its mythologies. Alison would inevitably make many of these members very nervous. And to make matters worse, she has been spreading inconvenient facts widely and very democratically, providing these, inter alia, to people from whom we “liberals” may choose to ideologically distance ourselves. But they too are voters, with a right to know how and where their tax money is spent, to draw their own conclusions, and to exert political influence. Political influence is what is desperately needed against AIPAC power, and many of our federal legislators who bow to AIPAC are also “right-wing.”
The timing of the excommunication is not random. I suspect that it is publication and Alison’s promotion of her book, Against Our Better Judgment, that has released long-stockpiled ammo against her, however flimsy – especially her revelations of arguably treasonous conduct by our first two, widely revered Jewish Supreme Court justices, both pledged to Zionism above loyalty to country as members of a secret Zionist organization, the Parushim. If Justice Louis Brandeis was instrumental, as the evidence suggests, in persuading President Wilson to betray his 1916 campaign promise and declare war on Germany (as a quid pro quo for the Balfour Declaration, with or without his knowledge) – a decision costing over 116,000 American lives (double those killed in Vietnam) – this is explosive information indeed. In addition, Alison’s research indicates that future Justice Felix Frankfurter was instrumental in preventing an early WWI peace treaty with the Ottomans that would have obviated the Balfour Declaration, terminating or seriously restricting the Zionist movement and the havoc that has followed. This information had been published elsewhere but remained obscure.
Some would like to keep it obscure. Blackening the reputation of Justice Brandeis in particular, an iconic figure with a university bearing his name, is undoubtedly intolerable in the realm of “Jewish identity politics” (the real criteria, it would appear, defining Alison’s “anti-Semitism”). It also drives another nail in the coffin of Israel’s proclaimed “right to exist” on land stolen from others. Alison had to be discredited and silenced.
These attacks are serious and malevolent, threatening both Alison’s influence and her livelihood, intended to reduce or extinguish her book sales and speaking engagements. Both expelling organizations are national in scope with many JVP chapters and USCEIO member organizations that may fear inviting her to their communities with her opposition now freshly armed to harass her events and their sponsors.
Readers wishing to oppose this muzzling attempt can endorse a petition supporting Alison here.
Jack Dresser, Ph.D. is National vice-chair, Veterans for Peace working group on Palestine and the Middle East and Co-Director of Al-Nakba Awareness Project in Eugene, Oregon
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The Balfour Declaration – A Century of Jewish Power
By Gilad Atzmon | May 17, 2017
This year, Palestinians and their supporters mark the 100th anniversary of The Balfour Declaration, a written statement from the United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary, Arthur James Balfour, to Walter Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, in favour of the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine.
For Palestinians, The Balfour Declaration was the beginning of their plight: a century of ethnic cleansing at the hands of European newcomers who claim Palestine as their historic home. Yet, for some reason, supporters of the Palestinians are desperate to suppress discussion of the motivation for the Balfour Declaration – how and why did it come about? … continue
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