A new report has revealed the U.S. government refused or censored freedom of information requests from the public more last year than at any other time during the Obama presidency. The Associated Press analysis determined that the Obama administration cited legal provisions for withholding information more often in 2012 than in any previous year -- especially a rule intended to protect national security. The CIA denied 60 percent of information requests in 2012, compared to 49 percent a year earlier. We speak to Jack Gillum of the Associated Press and Alexander Abdo of the American Civil Liberties Union.
To watch the entire weekday independent news hour, read the transcript, download the podcast, search our vast archive, or to find more information about Democracy Now! and Amy Goodman, visit http://www.democracynow.org.
Democracy Now!, an independent global news hour that airs weekdays on 1,100+ TV and radio stations Monday through Friday.
FOLLOW DEMOCRACY NOW! ONLINE:
*Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/democracynow
*Twitter: https://twitter.com/democracynow
*Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/democracynow
*Listen on SoundCloud: http://www.soundcloud.com/democracynow
*Daily Email News Digest: http://www.democracynow.org/subscribe
Please consider supporting independent media by making a donation to Democracy Now! today, visit http://www.democracynow.org/donate/YT
Showing posts with label censorship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label censorship. Show all posts
March 12, 2013
October 24, 2012
Police Protection or Citizen Censorship? Spain to Ban Photos and Videos of Cops
*Source: RT
Spain’s government is drafting a law that bans the photographing and
filming of members of the police. The Interior Ministry assures they are
not cracking down on freedom of expression, but protecting the lives of
law enforcement officers.
The draft legislation follows waves of protests throughout the country against uncompromising austerity cuts to public healthcare and education.
The new Citizen Safety Law will prohibit “the capture, reproduction and editing of images, sounds or information of members of the security or armed forces in the line of duty,” said the director general of the police, Ignacio Cosido. He added that this new bill seeks to “find a balance between the protection of citizens’ rights and those of security forces.”
The dissemination of images and videos over social networks like Facebook will also be punishable under the legislation.
Despite the fact that the new law will cover all images that could pose a risk to the physical safety officers or impede them from executing their duty, the Interior Ministry maintains it will not encroach on freedom of expression.
“We are trying to avoid images of police being uploaded onto social networks with threats to them and their families,” underlined Cosido.
"We do not intend to stop the press from doing its job of taking pictures of police charges and other proceedings. But we understand that in anti-terrorist operations or against mafias you have to have a more careful approach when it comes to disseminating images," Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz said commenting on the issue.
The director of the police also argued that the measures were necessary given the “elevated levels of violence against officers” in the economic downturn that is “undermining the basis of a democratic society.”
The anti-austerity protests that have swept Spain over the past year have been punctuated by reports and footage of police brutality. The footage showed that large numbers of Spanish officers did not wear their identification badges during the protests, although the law requires it.
Spanish journalists now worry that the government's proposed measure could have a negative impact on news gathering.
"If this proposal goes ahead, it is going to be impossible to know about events as they occur on the streets just at a time when streets are at boiling point due to the dire economic situation of many families," Angel Casana, a lead writer for the national newspaper El Mundo, said in an online editorial.
The Spanish government made sweeping cuts to the public sector, provoking the ire of a Spanish public already disillusioned at rising unemployment that tops 50 per cent among adolescents. Madrid has not yet called on the European Central bank for a bailout. But rising economic woes and an unchecked public deficit may force it to do so in the near future as Spain’s beleaguered economy is in danger of following in the footsteps of Greece.
Protesters clash with riot policemen during a demonstration in Madrid. (AFP Photo / AFP Photo / Pierre-Philippe Marcou)
The draft legislation follows waves of protests throughout the country against uncompromising austerity cuts to public healthcare and education.
The new Citizen Safety Law will prohibit “the capture, reproduction and editing of images, sounds or information of members of the security or armed forces in the line of duty,” said the director general of the police, Ignacio Cosido. He added that this new bill seeks to “find a balance between the protection of citizens’ rights and those of security forces.”
The dissemination of images and videos over social networks like Facebook will also be punishable under the legislation.
Despite the fact that the new law will cover all images that could pose a risk to the physical safety officers or impede them from executing their duty, the Interior Ministry maintains it will not encroach on freedom of expression.
“We are trying to avoid images of police being uploaded onto social networks with threats to them and their families,” underlined Cosido.
Violation of freedom of expression?
Spain’s United Police Syndicate said it considers the implementation of the new legislation “very complicated” because it does not establish any guidelines over what kinds of images violate the rights of a police officer. The syndicate warned that the ministry will run into “legal problems” if it does not specify the ins and outs of the law."We do not intend to stop the press from doing its job of taking pictures of police charges and other proceedings. But we understand that in anti-terrorist operations or against mafias you have to have a more careful approach when it comes to disseminating images," Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz said commenting on the issue.
The director of the police also argued that the measures were necessary given the “elevated levels of violence against officers” in the economic downturn that is “undermining the basis of a democratic society.”
The anti-austerity protests that have swept Spain over the past year have been punctuated by reports and footage of police brutality. The footage showed that large numbers of Spanish officers did not wear their identification badges during the protests, although the law requires it.
Spanish journalists now worry that the government's proposed measure could have a negative impact on news gathering.
"If this proposal goes ahead, it is going to be impossible to know about events as they occur on the streets just at a time when streets are at boiling point due to the dire economic situation of many families," Angel Casana, a lead writer for the national newspaper El Mundo, said in an online editorial.
The Spanish government made sweeping cuts to the public sector, provoking the ire of a Spanish public already disillusioned at rising unemployment that tops 50 per cent among adolescents. Madrid has not yet called on the European Central bank for a bailout. But rising economic woes and an unchecked public deficit may force it to do so in the near future as Spain’s beleaguered economy is in danger of following in the footsteps of Greece.
September 26, 2012
CREWS: Homosexuals in the Military Demand Special Privileges.
*Source: The Washington Times
The first anniversary of the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” Sept. 20, has come and gone. Now, there is mounting evidence that proves our warnings were not idle chatter. The threat to freedom posed by this radical sexual experiment on our military is real: It is grave and it is growing.
Activists inside and outside our government who pushed the repeal have deployed a smoke screen around the fact that once the military was forced to exalt homosexuality in the ranks, the all-too-foreseen consequence reared its ugly head.
Senior military officials have allowed personnel in favor of repeal to speak to media while those who have concerns have been ordered to be silent. Two airmen were publicly harassed in a Post Exchange food court as they were privately discussing their concerns about the impact of repeal. A chaplain was encouraged by military officials to resign his commission unless he could “get in line with the new policy,” demonstrating no tolerance for that chaplain’s religious viewpoint. Another chaplain was threatened with early retirement, and then reassigned to be more “closely supervised” because he had expressed concerns with the policy change, again demonstrating no tolerance for that chaplain’s religious viewpoint.
At an officer training service school, a male serviceman sexually harassed another male serviceman through text messages, emails, phone calls and in-person confrontations. The harassing male insisted the two would “make a great couple.” The harassed serviceman reported the harassment, but the command failed to take disciplinary action.
Service members engaged in homosexual behavior protested a service school’s open-door policy for all students that prohibited the closing of room doors for the purpose of hiding sexual behavior. The protesters claimed that they had a right to participate in sexual behavior with their same-sex roommates.
A senior chaplain was stripped of his authority over the chapel under his charge because, in accordance with federal law, he proclaimed the chapel to be a “sacred space” where marriage ceremonies would only be between one man and one woman.
The Navy has allowed sailors openly engaged in homosexual behavior to choose their bunkmates. Imagine in this new age of “tolerance” if a sailor asked to be moved from a close-quarters berthing area because of his concern about another sailor’s sexual appetites. We already know what would happen, because tolerance has never been a two-way street.
Obviously, the recent “study” (aka propaganda) claiming that the repeal went off without a hitch should be shredded post-haste. It has no connection to reality.
This is just the first wave in the first year of the assault on the constitutionally protected freedom of our service members. Remember, the groups that forced their sexual experiment on the armed forces represent the lesbian, homosexual, bisexual and transgender community. It’s only a matter of time before a man who claims to be transgender demands to be placed with women during training, in the showers and in the barracks. The women in the units will have no recourse, especially if their objection to living, changing, bathing and bunking with a man is based on sincerely held religious beliefs. They would have two choices: Either accept this outrageous imposition silently or be charged with bigotry, hatred, intolerance and every other name the advocates of this agenda can throw at them. Neither choice is acceptable. When “sensitivity training” is in full force, these women just might face discipline and punitive separation merely for speaking up and requesting a reasonable measure of privacy and protection of their religious freedom.
This outrageous social science lab experiment could have been easily prevented. The Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty has worked closely with members of Congress to enact legislation, which has already passed the House, to protect freedom of conscience for chaplains and those they serve.
Even more outrageous is that we have to ask Congress to protect freedom of conscience for chaplains and those who serve in the military. The fact that Congress excluded a religious freedom protection amendment (authored in partnership with Alliance Defending Freedom), to the repeal sends a clear message that our current leadership does not consider, much less respect, the constitutional implications of their actions while they bow in allegiance to the powerful and aggressive lobby of those who supported the repeal.
Col. Ron Crews, a retired Army chaplain, is executive director for Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty.
Toleration doesn’t cut both ways.
By Col. Ron Crews
The American armed forces exist to defend our nation, not to conduct social science lab experiments in which our troops serve as human subjects. Try telling that to this administration.The first anniversary of the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” Sept. 20, has come and gone. Now, there is mounting evidence that proves our warnings were not idle chatter. The threat to freedom posed by this radical sexual experiment on our military is real: It is grave and it is growing.
Activists inside and outside our government who pushed the repeal have deployed a smoke screen around the fact that once the military was forced to exalt homosexuality in the ranks, the all-too-foreseen consequence reared its ugly head.
Senior military officials have allowed personnel in favor of repeal to speak to media while those who have concerns have been ordered to be silent. Two airmen were publicly harassed in a Post Exchange food court as they were privately discussing their concerns about the impact of repeal. A chaplain was encouraged by military officials to resign his commission unless he could “get in line with the new policy,” demonstrating no tolerance for that chaplain’s religious viewpoint. Another chaplain was threatened with early retirement, and then reassigned to be more “closely supervised” because he had expressed concerns with the policy change, again demonstrating no tolerance for that chaplain’s religious viewpoint.
At an officer training service school, a male serviceman sexually harassed another male serviceman through text messages, emails, phone calls and in-person confrontations. The harassing male insisted the two would “make a great couple.” The harassed serviceman reported the harassment, but the command failed to take disciplinary action.
Service members engaged in homosexual behavior protested a service school’s open-door policy for all students that prohibited the closing of room doors for the purpose of hiding sexual behavior. The protesters claimed that they had a right to participate in sexual behavior with their same-sex roommates.
A senior chaplain was stripped of his authority over the chapel under his charge because, in accordance with federal law, he proclaimed the chapel to be a “sacred space” where marriage ceremonies would only be between one man and one woman.
The Navy has allowed sailors openly engaged in homosexual behavior to choose their bunkmates. Imagine in this new age of “tolerance” if a sailor asked to be moved from a close-quarters berthing area because of his concern about another sailor’s sexual appetites. We already know what would happen, because tolerance has never been a two-way street.
Obviously, the recent “study” (aka propaganda) claiming that the repeal went off without a hitch should be shredded post-haste. It has no connection to reality.
This is just the first wave in the first year of the assault on the constitutionally protected freedom of our service members. Remember, the groups that forced their sexual experiment on the armed forces represent the lesbian, homosexual, bisexual and transgender community. It’s only a matter of time before a man who claims to be transgender demands to be placed with women during training, in the showers and in the barracks. The women in the units will have no recourse, especially if their objection to living, changing, bathing and bunking with a man is based on sincerely held religious beliefs. They would have two choices: Either accept this outrageous imposition silently or be charged with bigotry, hatred, intolerance and every other name the advocates of this agenda can throw at them. Neither choice is acceptable. When “sensitivity training” is in full force, these women just might face discipline and punitive separation merely for speaking up and requesting a reasonable measure of privacy and protection of their religious freedom.
This outrageous social science lab experiment could have been easily prevented. The Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty has worked closely with members of Congress to enact legislation, which has already passed the House, to protect freedom of conscience for chaplains and those they serve.
Even more outrageous is that we have to ask Congress to protect freedom of conscience for chaplains and those who serve in the military. The fact that Congress excluded a religious freedom protection amendment (authored in partnership with Alliance Defending Freedom), to the repeal sends a clear message that our current leadership does not consider, much less respect, the constitutional implications of their actions while they bow in allegiance to the powerful and aggressive lobby of those who supported the repeal.
Col. Ron Crews, a retired Army chaplain, is executive director for Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty.
August 4, 2012
Rand Paul Tries to Intimidate & Harass Journalist (Abby Martin) After A Youtube Video
Luke Rudkowski talks with Abby Martin of MediaRoots.org and RT about
U.S. Senator Rand Paul's attempt to get her arrested and stripped of
her press credentials for asking him tough questions in the Capitol
building. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtO5INu-VY4 A week after our video with Abby Martin came out on YouTube,
the RT office, where Abby works, got an ominous phone call from the
Senate Media Relations Committee. The Committee was acting on behalf
of Rand Paul and threatened both Abby and the entire RT news
organization. The threats included ambiguous "charges" for violating
the rules of the Committee floor, Abby's possible arrest and the
termination of her and the entire office's press credentials.
After a month of meetings and deliberation, the Senate Media Relations
office backed down and did not make good on any of their threats.
*http://www.wearechange.org
*http://www.youtube.com/wearechange
*http://www.ustream.tv/wearechange
*https://www.facebook.com/WeAreChange.org
*https://www.facebook.com/LukeWeAreChange
*http://twitter.com/#!/lukewearechange
*http://www.mediaroots.org
*https://www.facebook.com/MediaRootsNews
*https://www.facebook.com/JournalistAbbyMartin
*http://www.youtube.com/user/AbbyMediaRoots
April 4, 2012
Even Worse Than SOPA: New CISPA Cybersecurity Bill Will Censor The Web
*Source: RT
An onrush of condemnation and criticism kept the SOPA and PIPA acts from passing earlier this year, but US lawmakers have already authored another authoritarian bill that could give them free reign to creep the Web in the name of cybersecurity.
As congressmen in Washington consider how to handle the ongoing issue of cyberattacks, some legislators have lent their support to a new act that, if passed, would let the government pry into the personal correspondence of anyone of their choosing.
H.R. 3523, a piece of legislation dubbed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (or CISPA for short), has been created under the guise of being a necessary implement in America’s war against cyberattacks. But the vague verbiage contained within the pages of the paper could allow Congress to circumvent existing exemptions to online privacy laws and essentially monitor, censor and stop any online communication that it considers disruptive to the government or private parties. Critics have already come after CISPA for the capabilities that it will give to seemingly any federal entity that claims it is threatened by online interactions, but unlike the Stop Online Privacy Act and the Protect IP Acts that were discarded on the Capitol Building floor after incredibly successful online campaigns to crush them, widespread recognition of what the latest would-be law will do has yet to surface to the same degree.
Kendall Burman of the Center for Democracy and Technology tells RT that Congress is currently considering a number of cybersecurity bills that could eventually be voted into law, but for the group that largely advocates an open Internet, she warns that provisions within CISPA are reason to worry over what the realities could be if it ends up on the desk of President Barack Obama. So far CISPA has been introduced, referred and reported by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and expects to go before a vote in the first half of Congress within the coming weeks.
“We have a number of concerns with something like this bill that creates sort of a vast hole in the privacy law to allow government to receive these kinds of information,” explains Burman, who acknowledges that the bill, as written, allows the US government to involve itself into any online correspondence, current exemptions notwithstanding, if it believes there is reason to suspect cyber crime. As with other authoritarian attempts at censorship that have come through Congress in recent times, of course, the wording within the CISPA allows for the government to interpret the law in such a number of degrees that any online communication or interaction could be suspect and thus unknowingly monitored.
In a press release penned last month by the CDT, the group warned then that CISPA allows Internet Service Providers to “funnel private communications and related information back to the government without adequate privacy protections and controls.
The bill does not specify which agencies ISPs could disclose customer data to, but the structure and incentives in the bill raise a very real possibility that the National Security Agency or the DOD’s Cybercommand would be the primary recipient,” reads the warning.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, another online advocacy group, has also sharply condemned CISPA for what it means for the future of the Internet. “It effectively creates a ‘cybersecurity'’ exemption to all existing laws,” explains the EFF, who add in a statement of their own that “There are almost no restrictions on what can be collected and how it can be used, provided a company can claim it was motivated by ‘cybersecurity purposes.’”
What does that mean? Both the EFF and CDT say an awfully lot. Some of the biggest corporations in the country, including service providers such as Google, Facebook, Twitter or AT&T, could copy confidential information and send them off to the Pentagon if pressured, as long as the government believes they have reason to suspect wrongdoing. In a summation of their own, the Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan arm of the Library of Congress, explains that “efforts to degrade, disrupt or destroy” either “a system or network of a government or private entity” is reason enough for Washington to reach in and read any online communiqué of their choice.
The authors of CISPA say the bill has been made “To provide for the sharing of certain cyber threat intelligence and cyber threat information between the intelligence community and cybersecurity entities,” but not before noting that the legislation could be used “and for other purposes,” as well — which, of course, are not defined.
“Cyber security, when done right and done narrowly, could benefit everyone,” Burman tells RT. “But it needs to be done in an incremental way with an arrow approach, and the heavy hand that lawmakers are taking with these current bills . . . it brings real serious concerns.”
So far CISPA has garnered support from over 100 representatives in the House who are favoring this cybersecurity legislation without taking into considerations what it could do to the everyday user of the Internet. And while the backlash created by opponents of SOPA and PIPA has not materialized to the same degree yet, Burman warns Congress that it could be only a matter of time before concerned Americans step up to have their say.
“One of the lessons we learned in the reaction to SOPA and PIPA is that when Congress tries to legislate on things that are going to affect Internet users’ experience, the Internet users are going to pay attention,” says Burman. H.R. 3523, she cautions, “Definitely could affect in a very serious way the internet experience.” Luckily, adds Burman, “People are starting to notice.” Given the speed that the latest censorship bill could sneak through Congress, however, anyone concerned over the future of the Internet should be on the lookout for CISPA as it continues to be considered on Capitol Hill.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)