UK’s Snoopers’ Charter Ruled Unlawful: What Does Privacy Mean to You?
By Julian Vigo | Dissident Voice | September 27, 2018
Two weeks ago the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) gave a landmark ruling against the UK government’s mass surveillance program, stating that it violated human rights and offered “no real safeguards” to the public. This surveillance programme, according to the Strasbourg court, allowed the British intelligence agencies’ to violate the right to a private and family life with “insufficient oversight” over which communications were chosen for examination. Of equal importance the ECHR found that the Investigatory Powers Act (IPA), also known as the Snoopers’ Charter, did not give enough protection to journalistic sources which would violate the rights to freedom of expression guaranteed in UK and EU laws and would discourage whistle-blowing. In its judgment of the case, Big Brother Watch and Others v. the United Kingdom (applications nos. 58170/13, 62322/14 and 24960/15), the court concluded that police and security services had breached citizens’ right to privacy by intercepting communications data in bulk, with little oversight of when these powers could be used, just as NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden had revealed.
In its judgment, the ECHR expressed concern that “intelligence services can search and examine ‘related communications data’ apparently without restriction’ – data that identifies senders and recipients of communications, their location, email headers, web browsing information, IP addresses, and more.” This means that Internet service providers must store details of everything we do online for twelve months and render it accessible to dozens of public bodies to include everything from browsing records to data on private citizens, search engine activity, to every phone call to text message and geographical location we have held in any of our electronic devices. The IPA also requires that tech companies hand over the data that they possess to intelligence agencies.
Yet, what does this mean for those of us who just use our computers for work and our mobiles for texting friends to meet up for drinks? Surely, this does not affect us, right? Wrong.
The catch is that we are all implicated, to include the simple text message to confirm dinner plans. Do you use a social media account? Do you have photos on your mobile and laptop that you have or have not posted online? Did you rate a restaurant on Google? All this information to include your list of Facebook friends are being mined by the government along with all the tracking information that your many apps provide, your bank, credit card and financial details, biographical information, your resume, your medical records, and all the information in the world that you store on these devices which you might even deem harmless. In this day and age there is no such thing as harmless information. At that, there is no such thing as privacy when the government believes it has already rewritten the IPA in measure with the previous court’s instruction.
As many are concerned with the interception of personal data and parents are reading online privacy and safety guide for kids, the government’s secret interception, processing and storing data of millions of people’s private communications, should alarm each and every one of us. The current form of the IPA means that any information that you have in the UK can be shared with secret intelligence agencies like the CIA, and well beyond. With which other countries does the US also share information under similar secret legal frameworks? Also important to consider here are the impediments to tech development that are under threat such as when then Prime Minister David Cameron threatened to ban Snapchat, WhatsApp, and any other encrypted messaging services unless these companies provided the government with backdoor access to user data. Such measures actually deter technology since most tech companies are aware that the minute they undermine their users’ privacy, their company will not last.
In short, by stripping away our privacy, the government is undermining everything that keeps us free: our expression, our right to protest and to fair trials, our legal and patient confidentiality, our free press. And one can argue our individuality is at stake whereby everything we do, consume, record, and say is potentially up for monitoring and scrutiny, as are those with whom we interact. As Edward Snowden stated, “Because privacy isn’t about something to hide. Privacy is about something to protect. That’s who you are.”
We need to prize our privacy and human right not to be spied upon in this day and age where governments are pulling out the “terrorism” card in order to goad its citizens into surrendering one of the qualities which makes us most human.
Julian Vigo is a scholar, film-maker and human rights consultant. Her latest book is Earthquake in Haiti: The Pornography of Poverty and the Politics of Development (2015). She can be reached at: julian.vigo@gmail.com.
Britain’s Labor Party Passes Motion for ‘Arms Embargo’ on Israel
Palestinian flags waved during the Labor party conference in Liverpool. (Photo: Via Twitter)
Palestine Chronicle | September 26, 2018
The British Labor Party conference passed a motion to support an embargo on arms sales to Israel, a first in the country’s history.
As the proposal was put forward, hundreds of pro-Palestinian Labor delegates stood and waved their flags inside the conference hall in Liverpool, chanting “Free Palestine!” and turning the hall into a sea of Palestinian flags.
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) Ben Jamal, which has been a key force behind the proposal, said:
“This incredible show of support and this historic motion demonstrate the strength of feeling at the grassroots of the party.”
He added:
“Labour members want to show real solidarity with Palestinians… Given Israel’s continuing use of live fire to kill unarmed Palestinian demonstrators, it is no surprise that there’s clear support for an immediate freeze of arms sales to Israel.”
The motion – moved by Harlow Constituency Labour Party (CLP) and seconded by Wolverhampton South West CLP – is the first on Palestine to be heard at the party’s conference in many years.
Palestine was put forward as the fourth-most important issue by CLPs in the priorities ballot, after housing, the school system and “justice for the Windrush generation” – and above Brexit, the NHS, climate change and social care.
The motion comes amid ongoing protests along Gaza’s border with Israel dubbed the Great March of Return.
Despite the largely peaceful nature of the protests, Israeli snipers have killed more than 170 Palestinians since they began on March 30, with more than 17,500 injured.
More than 68 Palestinians injured by Israeli forces have required amputations of either lower or upper limbs since the protests began.
Palestinians have been calling to return to the homes their families were forced from in 1948, during the military campaign surrounding the creation of Israel.
They are also calling for an end to the decade-long Israel-Egypt blockade that the UN says will make Gaza “unlivable” by 2020.
Tuesday’s motion at the Labour Party conference called for an “independent international investigation into Israel’s use of force against Palestinian demonstrators”, an “immediate and unconditional end to the illegal blockade and closure of Gaza” and “a freeze of UK government arms sales to Israel”.
Israeli violations against Palestinian journalists stand at nearly 640: Committee
Press TV – September 25, 2018
The Committee to Support Palestinian Journalists says the Israeli military’s violations against Palestinian journalists since the beginning of the current year stands at 637 as the Tel Aviv regime continues its repressive measures against members of the press in the occupied territories.
The New York-based committee, in a statement released on Tuesday, said Palestinian journalists Ahmed Abu Hussein and Yasser Murtaja succumbed to Israeli-inflicted gunshot wounds earlier this year, while covering anti-occupation protests along the border between the besieged Gaza Strip and occupied lands.
The committee further noted that the month of August witnessed the highest number of Israeli violations against Palestinian journalists, and the number hit 129.
It added that most of last month’s violations were recorded in the Gaza Strip, where reporters were targeted by live bullets and tear gas canisters as they were reporting on “The Great March of Return” protests.
The committee stated that it has recorded 82 cases of arrests and summonses since the beginning of the current year, besides 53 cases of extension of detention, adjournment and trial of Palestinian journalists being held in Israeli jails.
It highlighted that it has documented more than 83 cases of denial of coverage and obstruction of information, 31 cases of confiscation of media equipment, cameras and press cards plus six travel ban cases.
The committee also recorded 7 cases of incitement, and 35 cases of closure of media institutions and news websites.
It later expressed deep regret and condemnation of the Israeli forces’ targeting of Palestinian reporters, who conduct their “noble” mission by conveying the truth and exposing the ugliness of crimes being committed against the Palestinian nation.
The Committee to Support Palestinian Journalists also censured the Israeli regime’s bans on the broadcast of Arabic-language Palestinian al-Quds television network.
Israeli authorities have on occasion accused al-Quds television channel of being a “propaganda tool” for the Islamic resistance movement, Hamas.
The committee finally warned against the rising number of Israeli crimes against Palestinian journalists, calling on the International Federation of Journalists and the Union of Arab Journalists in addition to all human rights organizations to voice solidarity with Palestinian journalists, condemn Israel’s barbaric practices against members of the press and devise measures to stop the deliberate Israeli violations against them.
Meet James Corbett, Political Extremist!!! #PropagandaWatch
corbettreport | September 25, 2018
Imagine you’re a high school student doing a homework assignment on the Federal Reserve. You go to YouTube and type in “Federal Reserve” in the search bar and find “Century of Enslavement: The History of the Federal Reserve.”
The horror!
Luckily, you don’t have to worry about that, because now that MSNBC and Mother Jones have ganged up, it’s being scrubbed from the search results! Welcome to the world of soft censorship, folks!
SHOW NOTES: https://www.corbettreport.com/?p=28238
The blocking of Palestinian rights at an international level is endorsed by the PA
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas led by French President Emmanuel Macron departing the Elysee Palace in Paris, France on 21 September, 2018 [Mustafa Yalçın/Anadolu Agency]
MEMO | September 25, 2018
As the UN General Assembly meeting approaches, the entire international community is engaged in a collective spectacle discussing the obsolete two-state compromise as the only way forward for Palestinians. There is no debate about how the facts on the ground contradict the diplomatic hyperbole.
Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas is reportedly holding a side meeting with officials, excluding the US and Israel, to seek ways in which negotiations about the two-state paradigm can be restarted; Israel’s illegal settlement expansion can be countered; and UN agencies that protect the rights of Palestinian refugees can be safeguarded.
The illusion of two camps – Israel and the US purportedly opposing the Palestinian Authority and the international community – is being promoted by Abbas, and none of the political actors are averse to the gimmick. As US President Donald Trump surpasses the pro-Israel approach of previous US presidents, it has become easier to focus on the current contempt for international law and ignore the subtle manoeuvres which paved the way for the Zionist colonisation of Palestine. Yet it is impossible to ignore one main fact: Trump and Israel are holding themselves beyond any accountability whatsoever and are wilfully eliminating Palestinian rights, while the international community and the PA hold conferences and meetings, and give meaningless speeches, in which support is professed but action is withheld.
While in Paris last week for a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, Abbas declared his willingness to resume negotiations with Israel sponsored by the Middle East Quartet. The previous illusion of opposing camps blurs even more with the inclusion of the US in such a scenario. Despite Trump closing down the PLO office in Washington and unilaterally recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the PA is still dependent upon the US for its survival and the continuation of security coordination with the Israeli occupation authorities. Its refusal of Trump’s so-called “deal of the century” is only one facet of its dealings with Washington and is weakened by the PA’s own structure, which needs the power of stronger entities to survive while creating collateral damage out of the Palestinian people.
Abbas is merely ambling around in the international community’s deconstruction of Palestine, attempting to highlight favourable endeavours where there are none. Following his meeting with Macron, he declared that France is “increasingly studying the possibility of recognising a Palestinian state.” Apart from the fact that recognition of a Palestinian state without defining both the concept and what remains of Palestinian land available for a state is vague, to say the least, such recognition by more than 130 countries has rendered nothing tangible for Palestinians on the diplomatic front. France, like other countries claiming to support Palestine, is engaging in isolating facets to weaken the Palestinian cause, and the PA is playing along with the charade.
In all likelihood, the forthcoming meeting will reap a tacit acceptance of stripping Palestinians of their rights. The two-state compromise is obsolete, but its rhetoric still hasn’t been extinguished. The blocking of Palestinian rights at an international level is endorsed by the PA, and as long as the entire world community and the Ramallah-based authority are able to delay the inclusion of Palestinians into the political process, Israel stands to gain regardless of any outcome. The meeting is superfluous in comparison to what Palestinians need; it is now common knowledge that Palestinian needs and the deprivation of such needs have become fodder for sustaining the international community’s duplicitous agenda.
September 25th is “National Panic Day” a day where Americans are encouraged to spy on each other
massprivatei | September 25, 2018
Today, September 25th. is Homeland Security’s “National Panic Day.”
What is “National Panic Day”?
Officially, today is known as “National Awareness Day” not “National Panic Day.” For the reasons stated below, I am calling it “National Panic Day” which coincides with DHS reissuing their National Terrorism Bulletins this month.
DHS and law enforcement have created a national day that glorifies spying on your family, neighbors, coworkers, classmates and much more.
Because DHS and law enforcement don’t do enough spying, they have created a National Awareness Day that encourages domestic spying.
(DHS Suspicious Activity Infographic)
If you think “recognizing the signs of terrorism-related suspicious activity” ended with just an infographic you would be mistaken.
DHS has also created an entire page of suspicious young Americans doing things like bicycle jumping, eating from food trucks and sitting in a school hallway. Besides trying to appeal to X Games fans, what purpose do these videos serve?
I’ll give you a hint, DHS and law enforcement want young people to be afraid of everything.
Besides being blatantly hyperbolic, these videos play on young people’s fear of terror and encourages them to report “harmless activities.” This is what happens when you indoctrinate an entire generation of millennial’s who have grown up living in fear.
DHS’s “National Awareness Day” is a carbon copy of McCarthyism which turned America’s fears of Communism into a national panic that lasted for decades.
My god, what Senator Joseph McCarthy would have given to be alive today.
What better way to justify their existence [DHS] than by appealing to the younger generation and encouraging them to report harmless activities, family, friends, neighbors etc.
Let’s call National Awareness Day what it really is: a day that law enforcement fans the flames of fear, hence “National Panic Day.”
Shutting Down Free Speech in America: Government and Lobbyists Work Together to Destroy the First Amendment
By Philip Giraldi | American Herald Tribune | September 24, 2018
During the past several years, there has been increased pressure coming from some in the federal government aided and abetted by powerful advocacy groups in the private sector to police social and alternative media. It is a multi-pronged attack on the First Amendment which has already limited the types of information that Americans have access to, thereby narrowing policy options to suit those in power
The process has been ostensibly driven by concerns over alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election, but it is really about who controls and limits the public’s right to know what is going on out of sight in Washington and New York City, where politics and money come together. If one is interested in the free flow of information and viewpoints that comes with the alternative media, it certainly does not look that way. Robert Parry described it as a deliberate process of “demonizing and silencing dissent that questions mainstream narratives.”
Last October top executives from Facebook, Google and Twitter were summoned to Capitol Hill for a discussion of their role in what is alleged to be Russia’s influence on the presidential campaign and went back home contrite and promising to improve. They have indeed improved by punishing members whose views have been found to be unacceptable, blocking them and suspending their access to the sites. Meanwhile, the federal government for its part has attempted to silence independent non-U.S. based voices by declaring Russian media outlets RT America and Sputnik to be “foreign agents,” requiring them to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA). It is an unprecedented action against a news agency and invites quid-pro-quo for U.S. media operating overseas, leaving the American public more ignorant of world affairs than it already is.
Qatar based Al-Jazeera, which has been particularly targeted by Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as “a major exporter of hate against the Jewish people,” will also be required to register with FARA to comply with the new National Defense Authorization Act. Al-Jazeera, it should be noted, has employed undercover investigative journalism to expose the corruption of Britain’s government by Israeli supported Jewish groups. It’s similar series on the activity of Zionist lobbyists in America is on hold due to threats from Jewish organizations to severely punish the network if the documentary should ever be aired.
More recently Facebook has been active in removing accounts and advertising, much of it pro-Palestinian or otherwise critical of Israel, but also to include highly respectable Telesur’s “The Empire Files,” which looked at the consequences of U.S. sanctions on Venezuela. Anything that criticizes the corporate worldview is fair game for censorship. American Herald Tribune, which is critical of U.S. foreign policy in many areas, has recently had its Gmail shut down while Google also stopped servicing ads on its website. Its Facebook page was also closed, all done without any warning or explanation.
One of the organizations most interested in limiting conversations about what is going on in the world is the ADL which claims that it is “the world’s leading organization combating anti-Semitism and hate of all kinds,” though it clearly excludes incitement or even physical harm directed against Palestinian Arabs resentful of the Israeli occupation of their country. Its definition of “hatred” is really quite selective and is focused on anyone criticizing Israel or Jewish related issues. Its goal is to have any such speech or writing categorized as anti-Semitism and, eventually, to have “hate crime” legislation that criminalizes such expressions.
It is particularly ironic that Israel, which has now declared that it is in no way subject to international law, has itself proposed across the board censorship of the most prominent social media platforms on a global scale by creating an “international coalition that would make limiting criticism of Israel its primary objective.” It would operate through a “loose coalition… [that] would keep an eye on content and where it is being posted, and members of the coalition would work to demand that the platforms remove the content… in any of their countries at the request of members.”
More recently, Israel has been exposed by Wikileaks as hosting a conference describing how it now has a Command Center that uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to scan the internet worldwide looking for “anti-Semitic” content. For Israel, anti-Semitic content means any criticism of its government or its behavior towards the Arabs. It reportedly pulls 200,000 posts a day and then reviews them using AI for content considered to be unacceptable. The roughly 10,000 posts determined to be anti-Semitic are then passed on to “intelligence and law enforcement agencies” in countries that have hate speech legislation for further action. The Israeli government also complains directly to the social media source to have the material taken down and works through Jewish organizations in cities and countries where there is considerable “anti-Semitic” activity to pressure governments to act even if there is no legal basis.
As most genuine independent journalism is currently limited to the alternative media, and that media lives on the internet, the ADL and those who are acting in collusion with the Israeli government are focusing on “cyberhate” as the problem and are working with major internet providers to voluntarily censor their product. On October 10th, 2017 the ADL issued a press release out of its New York City offices to explain just how far the censorship process has gone. The organization boasted of the fact that it was working with Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter “to engineer new solutions to stop cyberhate.” Apple is not identified by name in the press release but one should presume that it is also involved, as well as YouTube, which is owned by Google. When you consider that the associates in this venture with ADL are vast corporations that control huge slices of the communications industry, the consequences of some kind of corporate decision on what constitutes “hate” become clear. Combatting “cyberhate” will inevitably become across-the-board censorship for viewpoints that are considered to be unacceptable, including any criticism of Israel.
ADL will be the “convener” for the group, providing “insight on how hate and extremist content manifests – and constantly evolves-online.” Which means it will define the problem, which it calls the “spew[ing] of hateful ideologies” so the corporate world can take steps to block such material. And “the initiative will be managed by ADL’s Center for Technology and Society in Silicon Valley.”
Facebook already employs thousands of censors and there is literally no limit to how far those who want to restrict material that they consider offensive will go. To be sure, most groups who want to limit the flow of information do not have the clout or resources of ADL with its $64 million annual operating budget so its “cyberhate” campaign will no doubt serve as a model that others will then follow. For ADL, reducing criticism of Israel is a much-sought-after goal. For the rest of us, it is a trip into darkness.
Autopsy shows detained Palestinian was beaten by Israeli forces
MEMO | September 24, 2018
A Palestinian who died after Israeli occupation forces arrested him at his home was indeed assaulted, autopsy results have revealed, reported AFP on Sunday.
Mohammed Khatib, 24, died after being taken into custody during a pre-dawn raid on Beit Rima village in the occupied West Bank last Tuesday.
At the time, the family said occupation forces had “beaten [Mohammed] into an unconscious state” while still in the house; two hours after he was taken, his family was informed of their son’s death.
The latest findings, published by the Palestinian Committee of Prisoners’ Affairs, contradict claims made by Israeli authorities that there had been no violence by soldiers during or after the arrest.
The committee stated that “preliminary results of the autopsy clearly indicate the martyr was assaulted and beaten”, adding that the body “had bruises on the torso and the right thigh, as well as on other (body) parts”.
“The brutal manner of his arrest had affected the functioning of his organs, which was the main cause of his death”, the statement added.
“The autopsy was carried out at Abu Kabir forensic institute near Tel Aviv in the presence of the head of the Palestinian Institute of Forensic Medicine, Rayan al-Ali”, noted AFP.
Israeli settler runs over Palestinian teen in Hebron City
Ma’an – September 21, 2018
HEBRON – A 16-year-old Palestinian teen was hospitalized after an Israeli settler “deliberately” ran him over, on Friday, in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood in the southern occupied West Bank city of Hebron.
Witnesses told a Ma’an reporter that an Israeli settler deliberately ran over the Palestinian teen with his vehicle in Hebron City.
The teen was identified by locals as Munir Abdullah Gharib, 16.
Mounir suffered injuries from the attack and was immediately transferred to the Alia Governmental Hospital in Hebron for necessary medical treatment; his condition remained unknown.
Incidents involving Israeli settlers hitting Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory are a relatively regular occurrence, and are usually treated by Israeli security forces as accidents, even in cases when witnesses claim the car rammings were deliberate.
Some 800 notoriously aggressive Israeli settlers now live under the protection of the Israeli military in the Old City, surrounded by more than 30,000 Palestinians.
Palestinian residents of the Old City of Hebron face a large Israeli military presence on a daily basis, with at least 32 permanent and partial checkpoints set up at the entrances of many streets.
Additionally, Palestinians are not allowed to drive on al-Shuhada street, have had their homes and shops on the street welded shut, and in some areas of the Old City, are not permitted to walk on certain roads.
Meanwhile, Israeli settlers move freely on the street, drive cars and carry machine guns.
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