radiofree.asia 
radiofree.asia 
radiofree.asia 

Category: Censorship

  • On Being a Patriot

    Journalist and political analyst Caleb Maupin put out a video “Scott Ritter’s home raided by the FBI.” Maupin affirmed his solidarity with Ritter, a staunch opponent of US militaristic support for Ukraine and Israel.

    Ritter’s anti-imperialist stand is nothing new. He first came to wider attention with his opposition to US plans to attack Iraq for having weapons-of-mass-destruction. Ritter, the then United Nations weapons inspector, said that Iraq was “fundamentally disarmed.” History has proven Ritter correct. The US government was wrong.

    Nonetheless, many patriots often trot out the canard “my country, right or wrong.”

    Scott Ritter, a former US marine intelligence officer and UN weapons inspector, is a fierce critic of US militarism. Yet, he does not equivocate when it comes to his patriotism: “I’m an American Patriot who puts my country and its security first.”

    This fidelity called patriotism is universal. For example, it is one of the 12 goals of socialism in China. Generally, it is understood to mean “love of country.” Thus, the Chinese characters for love and country.

    Patriotism: “devotion to and vigorous support for one’s country.”

    To vigorously support one’s country? Right or wrong? And what exactly is a country? Is it specific to a geographically defined dimension?

    Country: “a nation with its own government, occupying a particular territory.”

    This definition of country does not clarify precisely the orbit of patriotism. Is it government? It couldn’t be that because people, who consider themselves to be patriots, in countries with elections are often voting governments out. And one can often hear citizens venting displeasure with their government. Does this mean they are not patriots? Ritter, undeniably, does not hide his displeasure with government.

    Nation: “a large body of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular country or territory.”

    Well, the United States often describes itself as a melting pot: “a term that was used to describe Americanization in which immigrants adopt American culture and abandon culture from their home country.”

    So, US culture is the result of abandoned cultures?

    Previously, I asked why people like Scott Ritter and colonel Douglas Macgregor keep professing their love of the US while pointing out its dishonesty, bullying, war crimes, warmaking, corruption, etc. Why love such a country?

    Ritter points out the multitudinous crimes of US empire, the racism, the crimes against whistleblowers and publishers (e.g., Julian Assange), the crimes of US allies (e.g., Israel; it took him a while to realize the evil of Zionism, but credit to him that he rejected a previously held position that he later found to be intellectually and morally untenable), the unfair “trade” practices (e.g., sanctions, theft of another country’s assets), the deterioration of US infrastructure (e.g., water in Flint, MI), the destruction of the environment, the inequality, homelessness, poverty, etc. Yet, he always says he is an American patriot and that he loves his country.

    The logical disconnect seems huge, but it is also understandable. Why? If Ritter didn’t praise his American citizenship to the heavens, then he would likely be dismissed as anti-American, and people who swallow the patriotism Kool-aid would tune him out. A sad state of affairs.

    If Ritter, Macgregor, and other American voices that speak in opposition to the imperialist agenda did not profess their love of the US of America, an entity that came into existence because of a massive genocide, then they all know that they would be silenced.

    The world needs contrarian voices to be free to speak, and not just contrarian voices, all voices. People must have the opportunity to consider what the voices say. Are their facts verifiable, is their logic sound, and is their message morally based?

    Ritter educates many of us about US militarism, what the fighting in Ukraine is about, who the actors are and why they are involved.

    Back to Maupin

    I do not always agree with Ritter, and I have expressed some of my reservations and my reasons for them. Likeliest, Ritter would like to revisit and amend some of his formulations, as most of us would. But Ritter is a cut above; he is experienced; he does his homework; he talks straight and extemporaneously.

    A friend who started checking out Ritter’s geopolitical views on my recommendation, came across disturbing news about Ritter and asked me about it. The news of the FBI raid on Ritter’s domicile, has provided the monopoly media the opportunity to dredge up his past indiscretions and criminal activities. However, these should not just be brushed aside or dismissed. And neither should Ritter’s views be brushed aside. Whatever the facts are of the unsavory matter, Ritter had been punished. Now the state is piling on. Because past actions are past, we cannot undo them; the best we can do is atone.

    Some might question whether a person with certain criminal deficiencies could be trusted about their reporting on geopolitics and militarism? The answer seems obvious. The focus ought to be on whatever information, from whoever. By all means, take into account the source; regarding the information, take what is good and factual and relegate what is bad and dubious to a lesser file.

    Ritter is an important voice. The assumption is that the FBI raid was only about Ritter’s expressing his first amendment rights. Regardless, I have no problem to standing in solidarity with Ritter against imperialism, warring, and Zionism.

    The common refrain “I love my country…” is almost mandatory in the US if uttering any criticism of the state. As ex-military and a declared patriot, Ritter had created a space to function as a critic of the international crimes of America. That space appears to have severely narrowed. To express non-allegiance with America – despite it being a moral abomination – would invite the wrath of the state. For one, these critics would be slandered and have their communication platforms targeted, as Maupin knows well since his book Kamala Harris & the Future of America was banned by Amazon. This is another example of the government and its allies undermining free speech.

    As Maupin said in the video, an injustice to one is an injustice to all. It is a call for the free speech rights of Ritter, and it emphasizes the same rights for all of us.

    The post On Being a Patriot first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • The People’s Court of New Normal Germany (Part Two)

    So, my second trial for alleged thoughtcrime-tweeting is going ahead as planned on August 15 in Berlin Superior Court (Das Kammergericht). Full-blown anti-terrorism security protocols will be in effect in the courtroom. Yes, that’s right, the Berlin Superior Court denied my attorney’s motion to rescind their special Security Order, so the German authorities will be putting on an elaborate official show of force, which everyone is welcome to attend!

    Or, actually, according to the Security Order, only 35 people are welcome to attend. That’s one of the anti-terrorism security protocols. Also, if you do attend, you’ll have to surrender all your personal possessions (i.e., notebooks, phones, wallets, pens, pencils, other writing instruments, wristwatches, hats, and other head coverings, etc.) and any outwear (i.e., jackets, scarves, etc.) and totally empty your pockets of all items, presumably into a plastic bin like the ones they use at airport security, which the Court’s security personnel will carry away and store somewhere while you attend the trial, and which the Superior Court expressly denies any liability for (i.e., for your items). Once you have surrendered all your possessions, and have been body-scanned and metal-detected, and possibly physically patted down, you will be admitted into Room 145a, where you will have to sit in the rear five rows of the gallery, behind a presumably bullet-proof security barrier, so that the security staff can monitor you during the proceedings.

    OK, I know what you’re probably thinking, but the Superior Court’s Security Order is not at all intended to prevent members of the press from attending and reporting on the trial. Members of the press are absolutely welcome! It’s just that they will have to surrender their cameras and phones and their pens and other writing instruments to the security staff before they enter the courtroom. But they are welcome to attend and report on the trial! The security personnel will even provide them with pencils — presumably those little child-sized pencils, which are harder to use as Jason-Bourne-style stabbing weapons — and sheets of paper that they can position on their knees and attempt to make notes on during the trial.

    Same goes for all you members of the public. This Security Order is not in any way intended to discourage you from attending the trial, or to intimidate or humiliate you by subjecting you to pointless “security protocols” and treating you like suspected terrorists. No, you are absolutely welcome to attend! You just might want to think about what you bring with you. Sharp objects are probably not a good idea. Likewise anything the Court might construe to be a camera or an audio-recording device. The Security Order is clear about that … there is to be no photographic or audio record of the proceedings.

    Oh, and, definitely do not bring any state-of-the-art terrorist “wiretapping technology” with you. The Court is particularly worried about that stuff. Hence the need to subject everyone to TSA-style body-scanning, and pat-downs, and to confiscate their personal possessions, i.e., to ensure that no one smuggles in some sort of remotely-activated wiretapping technology that will infect the judges’ smartphones with some kind of untraceable surveillance software that will secretly record everything they say and transmit it to Tehran, or Moscow, or wherever.

    You probably think I’m joking. I’m not. Here’s how one of the Superior Court judges justified the Court’s Security Order in his denial of our motion to have the Order rescinded …

    I cannot see the unreasonable restriction of the press and your defense that you are concerned about, nor any violation of the guarantee of a fair trial. I admit that the restrictions imposed by the Security Order are quite significant; however, they are by no means unreasonable. They are objectively required both by the overall tense security situation (e.g. publicly announced threats of attacks against judges of the Superior Court) and the increased special security requirements in at least one criminal trial conducted in the same courtroom. Since only the courtroom in question is assigned to the Criminal Division (and the other divisions) as a permanent courtroom, and a regular search of the courtroom following every session using suitable technology for recently introduced wiretapping technology represents an objectively unjustifiable burden, its introduction must be prevented from the outset if possible.

    Yes, you read the judge’s explanation right. Apparently, the Court is worried that my readers, or maybe members of the German independent press, might be planning to launch an “attack” on the judges, presumably with their phones and writing instruments, and possibly their head coverings and outerwear (for example, their scarves, which I suppose, in the hands of trained terrorist assassins, could be used to strangle them). In any event, they clearly believe that an “overall tense security situation” exists, one which necessitates these anti-terrorism security protocols at the trial of a 62-year-old playwright, author, and political satirist.

    OK, I probably should have mentioned that earlier for the benefit of anyone not familiar with my case. I’m not a terrorist, or in any way terrorist adjacent. I’m just an author and a political satirist. The German authorities are prosecuting me because I criticized them and their Covid mask mandates.

    As I explained in my most recent column …

    The German authorities have been investigating and prosecuting me since August 2022. My case has been covered in The Atlantic, Racket News, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Multipolar, and many other outlets … Basically, I am being prosecuted for ‘spreading pro-Nazi propaganda’ because I criticized the Covid mask mandates and tweeted the cover artwork of one of my books, The Rise of The New Normal Reich. Here’s the cover artwork of that book. The other two images are recent covers of Der Spiegel and Stern, two well-known mainstream German magazines, which are not being prosecuted for spreading pro-Nazi propaganda.

    My punishment for doing that (i.e., criticizing the Covid mask mandates, not spreading Nazi propaganda) has been … well, here I am, on trial, again, in The People’s Court of New Normal Germany. The German authorities had my Tweets censored by Twitter. They reported me to The Federal Criminal Police Office, which is kind of the German FBI. They reported me to The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany’s domestic Intelligence agency. My book is banned in Germany. They have damaged my income and reputation as an author. They have forced me to spend thousands of Euros in attorney’s fees to defend myself against these blatantly trumped-up charges. And now they are going to subject me, and my attorney, and anyone who attends my trial, to this humiliating, ham-fisted, official show of force.

    If you’re an American (or a Brit, or Australian, or whatever), and you’re thinking this is just a story about Germany, or the EU … well, I’m sorry, but it isn’t. My case is just one of countless examples of the criminalization of dissent that is happening throughout the West. A lot of Americans don’t realize it, but freedom of speech is protected in the German constitution.

    My story is not about the differences between the German and American freedom-of-speech protections. It is about the authorities prosecuting government critics like me on fabricated charges, banning our books, and censoring our political speech.

    Once a government starts doing that, the protections in its constitution no longer matter. You are no longer dealing with questions of law. You are dealing with the exercise of authoritarian power. That is what my story is about. Any Americans (and any other non-Germans) who have been paying attention to recent events will recognize what I’m talking about.

    As I’ve been saying, repeatedly, for the last four years or so, the global-capitalist power system (or the “corporatocracy,” or “The Powers That Be,” or whatever other name you need to call it) is going totalitarian on us. It dominates the entire planet, so it doesn’t have anything else to do. It is conducting a global “Clear and Hold” op. It is neutralizing internal resistance … any and all forms of internal resistance. The criminalization of dissent is an essential part of that. I’ve been documenting this process in my columns and in my books, and specifically in The Rise of the New Normal Reich — which you can read, unless you live in Germany — so forgive me if I don’t rehash it all here.

    The point is, we’re not in Kansas anymore. All that democracy and rule of law stuff is over. It is being gradually, and not so gradually, phased out.

    I get that most people don’t believe that. Most people won’t, until it’s too late. That’s how these transitions generally work. Most people can’t see what is coming until it gets here. I see it, but not because I’m a prophet. I’m just a loudmouth, and the loudmouths get crushed first.

    Anyway, if you are in Berlin on August 15, and would like to observe The People’s Court of New Normal Germany in action, or just get groped by a German law enforcement officer, the trial is scheduled to start at 10:30AM. Seating is on a first-come-first-served basis. So you may want to show up a little early, given all the scanning and screening and groping, and the “overall tense security situation.”

    The address is Elßholzstraße 30-33.

    The post The People’s Court of New Normal Germany (Part Two) first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Big Tech’s Trump Censorship Exposed

    You might be shocked to learn that Big Tech is already censoring information about America’s presidential race… I know it’s SHOCKING!

    The post Big Tech’s Trump Censorship Exposed first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Briefing Paper: Digital Rights in Bahrain

    Introduction 

    When we refer to digital rights—in this example, Bahraini rights—we refer to a wide set of human rights that are exercised and defended in the digital sphere. These include liberties like privacy, information access, and freedom of speech. As digital platforms are becoming increasingly important in social, political, and economic life, these rights have become crucial. Although the relevance of this has increased over time, Bahrain’s digital rights situation remains highly restrictive. This is mainly because of three things; government censorship, surveillance and legal repression. In a globalised world where digital infrastructures are critical to social and economic progress, Bahrain must strike a balance between protecting human rights and advancing technology. This briefing paper examines the present status of digital rights in Bahrain.

    In the Middle East, Bahrain, a small island of 1.5 million people, has been a scenario of both government persecution and digital activism. This briefing paper examines the intricate dynamics surrounding digital rights in Bahrain, emphasizing the country’s past, and current policies, and wider ramifications for both the advancement of digital activism and human rights. Several measures, such as sophisticated surveillance, internet censorship, and legal repression, have been put in place by the Bahraini government to restrict and control digital expression. The report explores how the state monitors activists and dissidents, intercepts conversations, and gathers personal data. Censorship is another element to highlight a common practice that affects websites and online platforms with a critical stance towards the government, which are frequently blocked. We highlight the role of laws such as the Press Law of 2002 and the Cybercrime Law of 2014, which have become tools used to criminalize online dissent.

    This report provides a comprehensive overview of the current digital rights situation in Bahrain, assessing governmental actions, the effects of censorship and monitoring, and the reactions of civil society. By bringing these concerns to light, it hopes to foster a deeper understanding of Bahrain’s digital rights possibilities and difficulties as well as offer recommendations for improving the situation. This will facilitate the development of

    informed and effective strategies to protect and promote human rights in the country’s digital environment.

     Future Directions and Recommendations 

    Despite the challenges enumerated, there is room for improvement regarding digital rights in Bahrain as the digital sphere never changes. This indicates that it is possible to create new ways of protecting and promoting these rights when it is backed up by strong advocates who are also supported by the international community. This implies that digital security should be reinforced while at the same time developing secure communication platforms as well as advocating for legal reforms which will guard against infringement on online freedoms.

    Recommendations 

    1. Strengthening Digital Security: Activists need all-inclusive training to learn how they can protect their communications and data from being monitored by the governments.
    2. International Advocacy: International bodies and foreign nations must continue standing firm for Bahrain’s digital rights while reminding people about these rights to enable them to push for reformation through diplomatic means.
    3. Secure Platform Development: It is necessary to invest in creating safe communication networks that put the privacy of users first thus preventing any form of government infiltration.
    4. Legal Reforms: Recommend legal reforms based on EU law.

    Conclusion 

    Digital rights in Bahrain remain a contentious and challenging issue. The government’s extensive surveillance and censorship measures have significantly restricted these rights, however, activists are still finding ways by which they can resist these restrictions and advocate for greater freedoms. International support and continued efforts to develop secure technologies and legal protections are critical to ensuring that digital spaces can serve as platforms for positive political change in Bahrain.

    By shining a light on the digital rights situation in Bahrain and supporting efforts to protect these rights, the international community can contribute to the broader struggle for human rights and democratic governance in the region.

     

    Press below to download the Briefing Paper:

    Digital Rights in Bahrain

     

    The post Briefing Paper: Digital Rights in Bahrain appeared first on Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain.

    This post was originally published on Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain.

  • The People’s Court of New Normal Germany

    Just when I thought things could not possibly get more shockingly totalitarian in New Normal Germany, where I’m being prosecuted in criminal court (for the second time) for tweeting, the German authorities have gone and surprised me again. No, they haven’t established an actual Nazi-style People’s Court (pictured above) yet, and, of course, there is absolutely no similarity between the current German justice system, which is totally fair and democratic and a paragon of impartial justice and the rule of law, and The People’s Court of Berlin during the Nazi era, nor is there any similarity between Nazi Germany and New Normal Germany (i.e., modern-day Germany), and I would never, ever, suggest that there was, as that would be intellectually lazy, and tasteless, and completely inaccurate, and illegal, and … well, let me fill you in on the latest.

    The Berlin Superior Court has set a date for my next thoughtcrime trial. As regular readers will probably recall, my first thoughtcrime trial in January ended with my acquittal. So, the German authorities are putting me on trial again. Yes, they can do that in Germany. But, wait, that’s not the best part.

    The best part is, at my new thoughtcrime trial — this time in Berlin Superior Court — full-scale Anti-Terrorism Security protocols will be effect in the courtroom. Everyone will be subjected to TSA-style scanning and screening, and will have to surrender all their personal possessions and hats and coats and head coverings to the Security Staff, and completely empty their pockets of all items, before entering the courtroom. No computers, phones, smart-watches, or any other potential recording devices will be allowed in the courtroom. Pencils and sheets of paper will purportedly be provided to members of the press by Security Staff. Members of the press and public will be limited to 35, and, after they have successfully passed their “security screening,” they will be cordoned off in the last five rows of the gallery in the very back of the courtroom, “for security reasons,” and monitored by the armed Security Staff.

    For the benefit of any new readers unfamiliar with me and my case, I am not a terrorist. I’m an award-winning American playwright, novelist, and political satirist. I have lived here in Berlin for 20 years. The German authorities have been investigating and prosecuting me since August 2022. My case has been covered in The Atlantic, Racket News, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Multipolar, and many other outlets, so I won’t reiterate every little detail again here. Basically, I am being prosecuted for “spreading pro-Nazi propaganda” because I criticized the Covid mask mandates and tweeted the cover artwork of one of my books, The Rise of The New Normal Reich.

    Here’s the cover artwork of that book. The other two images are the recent covers of Der Spiegel and Stern, two well-known mainstream German magazines, which are not being prosecuted for “spreading pro-Nazi propaganda.”As anyone (even the German authorities) can see, the Spiegel cover artwork uses exactly the same concept as the cover artwork of my book. The only difference is, the Spiegel swastika is covered by the German flag, whereas the swastika on my book is covered by a medical mask.

    Both artworks are obviously intended as warnings of the rise of a new form of totalitarianism. Der Spiegel was warning about the Alternativ für Deutschland party (AfD) — as was Stern with its swastika floating in a champagne glass. I was warning about what I dubbed “The New Normal Reich,” the new nascent form of totalitarianism that emerged during 2020-2023, which is still very much on the rise, and which is thoroughly documented and analyzed in my book (which book was banned by Amazon in Germany at the same time the German authorities launched a criminal investigation of me and instructed Twitter to censor my Tweets, which Twitter did).

    The pretext the Court is citing for ordering these Anti-Terrorism Security protocols at my trial is ridiculous, and infuriating. The Court claims that the courtroom in which my trial is to take place is occasionally used for a certain “high-security” trial. Therefore, according to the Court, my trial must also be subjected to Anti-Terrorism Security protocols. Seriously, the Court sent my attorney a fax setting forth this “explanation,” which is, of course, a load of horseshit. The Berlin Superior Court is a huge building containing multiple courtrooms, one or two which are probably not subject to such Anti-Terrorism Security protocols when “high-security” trials are not taking place within them.

    No, the imposition of these Anti-Terrorism Security protocols is clearly a cynical ploy intended (a) to suppress coverage of the trial, (b) to discourage the press and public from attending, and (c) to intimidate and harass me and my legal counsel, and any members of the press and public who nevertheless attend the trial in spite of the “security procedures” they will be subjected to.

    This cynical tactic — which is not an official press blackout, because journalists can still attend and attempt to scribble notes on their knees with the pencils and sheets of paper provided by the Security Staff — comes as no real surprise. As I mentioned above, my case and my first trial got a fair amount of attention from the international press, enough to put the Court on notice that my prosecution was being watched. So, it’s no mystery why the German authorities would want to discourage any reporting on my “do-over” trial in Superior Court.

    Also, the gallery was filled to capacity at my original trial in January, where I delivered a rather unusual closing Statement to the Court, which was then published and disseminated widely in Germany. So, again, it is no real mystery why the Superior Court wants to discourage members of the public from attending this new trial by threatening to subject them to these humiliating “security” protocols, and why it has limited the gallery size to only 35 seats.

    I assume the German authorities — and by “authorities” I mean the Berlin District Prosecutor’s office, the Berlin Superior Court (Der Kammergericht), and whatever other authorities are intent on punishing me, and making an example of me, for daring to criticize the government’s edicts during 2020-2022, i.e., suspension of the constitutional rights, mask mandates, segregation, the banning of protests, etc. — I assume these authorities are particularly motivated to prevent the press from covering this second trial in Superior Court, because, from what I understand of the German legal system, they are going to “do” me (i.e., convict me) this time.

    The way the German legal system works, if they want to do you, is (1) you are acquitted in the lower Criminal Court, (2) the District Prosecutor appeals the verdict to the Superior Court, (3) the Superior Court overturns your acquittal, and (4) the prosecution goes back to the original Criminal Court, which stages a new trial, at which you will be found guilty, because, once the Superior Court has overruled your acquittal, the Criminal Court will convict you based on the Superior Court’s ruling. At which point you will appeal. And on and on and on it will go, until you are broke, or until you give up fighting because you are just so fucking exhausted.

    I’m not making this up. This is how The People’s Court of New Normal Germany (i.e., the post-Covid German justice system, which, again, bears no resemblance whatsoever to The People’s Court of Berlin in Nazi Germany, or to the courts in the Soviet Union during the Stalin era, or any other totalitarian “justice” system) … this is how it works in New Normal Germany if you are a critic of the authorities and refuse to meekly accept whatever punishment they want to summarily dish out for whatever they deem to be your thoughtcrimes.

    But, hey, at least they’re not going to take me out and put me up against a wall and shoot me, like they did with political criminals in Nazi Germany, and the USSR, so I suppose I should be grateful. I’ll have to work on that.

    If you think my case is an aberration, it isn’t. There are many, many other people — critics of the government’s “Covid measures” during 2020-2023 — who are being persecuted and made examples of. Most of these people do not have the financial resources to pay lawyers to fight these prosecutions, so they plead guilty to the charges and pay the fines, which are typically much less than what they would face in attorney’s fees. Being somewhat of a public figure, I thought it was my responsibility not to do that. I’m extremely grateful to everyone who has donated to my legal defense fund, which is how I have been able to cover my legal expenses. There’s enough left in that fund to cover this next trial in Superior Court, so I’m OK for now, financially. I mention that because people are already asking how they can send me money.

    What people can do, if they want to do something helpful, is make as much noise as possible about what is happening, not just in Germany, but all throughout the West. Because what is happening is, well, what I tried to capture and analyze in my book. The Powers That Be are going totalitarian on us. They are gradually, and not so gradually, phasing out the so-called “liberal” or “democratic” rights and principles that it was necessary to placate the Western masses with during the Cold War era, which it is no longer necessary to do beyond a certain superficial point.

    I have published three books of essays documenting this transition to a new global-capitalist form of totalitarianism, so I’m not going to go on and on about it here. But that’s what all the censorship is about. That’s what all the manufactured hysteria, fomented hatred, fanaticism, the permanent state of “emergency” and “crisis,” the “culture wars,” the cults of personality, the bombardment of our minds with absolutely meaningless nonsense, the naked displays of force, the blatant instrumentalization of the justice system to punish political dissidents, not just here in Germany, but throughout the “democratic” West … that is what all this is about.

    I’ll keep my readers posted on the details of my upcoming trial in Berlin Superior Court. My attorney is objecting to these “security protocols,” of course. We’ll see how that goes. In the meantime, instead of sending me money this time, maybe try to step back from all the mass hysteria and hatred that we are being inundated with and see the big picture. It isn’t pretty.

    Help spread the word about the new totalitarianism, about the phasing-out of our democratic rights. I don’t care which “side” of whatever you are on — Trump, Biden, Palestine, Israel, the culture wars, the cancel campaigns, Covid, Elon Musk, Russia, whatever — and neither do The Powers That Be. Take a step back and try to see the bigger picture … the forest, instead of just the trees. And then make as much noise about it as you can.

    We are heading somewhere very ugly … somewhere most of us can’t imagine. Some of us will get there first, but all of us will be there, together, eventually. My story is just one example of what it will be like there, in that ugly place. It isn’t really a story about Germany. It is a story about the end of the myth of democracy, and the rule of law, and all that good stuff. As Frank Zappa once so eloquently explained …

    The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.

    It’s something to behold, that brick wall is, especially up close and personal. You’ll see when you get here. I’ll save you a seat.

    The post The People’s Court of New Normal Germany first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Tibet’s Flag Getting Censored In Elon’s ‘X’ Files

    For a number of years now our team; over on what was Twitter, now ‘X’, noticed our account was being targeted and restricted, with follower numbers cut, various bans and posts being blocked from view. Any thought that Elon Musk’s take-over would see a lifting of such covert censorial actions was soon dashed when our already serverely reduced follower count was blocked by a ceiling limit. So much for free-speech and respecting human rights, eh Elon?

    Today we discover that Tibet’s flag is now being regarded by ‘X’ as ‘sensitive content’ (another way to reduce the visibility and reach of a post) having been sent a tweet by Raimo Kangasniemi – a long-standing friend and supporter of or work for Tibet – we noticed it was hidden from open view.

    Tibet's Flag Getting Censored In Elon's 'X' Files

    Clearly Musk’s ‘X’algorithms lack the capacity to decide for themselves to suddenly apply such restrictions on viewing the Tibetan national flag, or deeming it ‘sensitive material’ which means that this latest incidence of censorship is yet another example of the sly censorship operating in regard to Tibet; and our account!

    For those brave enough to view the content this is what they would have seen, shocking and deeply offensive, right Elon?

    Tibet's Flag Getting Censored In Elon's 'X' Files

    This post was originally published on Digital Activism In Support Of Tibetan Independence.

  • Israel Faces No Apparent Red Line, But Pro-Palestinian Media Workers Do

    British cartoonist Steve Bell estimates that he has drawn more than 13,000 comic strips, illustrations and cartoons since the early 1980s, most of them for The Guardian newspaper. But shortly after the Israeli military attacked Gaza in the aftermath of October 7, Bell’s drawing of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu carving a Gaza-shaped incision into his belly led to his dismissal from the…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Idaho Law Criminalizes Librarians Who Allow LGBTQ Books to Stay on Their Shelves

    It just became more dangerous for a librarian to check out a book to a child in Idaho. On July 1, House Bill 710 went into effect in the state, undermining the agency of library workers to build collections that meet the needs of their communities. The legislation targets “harmful materials” in public and school libraries, requiring library workers to move them within 60 days at the request of any…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Project Total Control: Everything Is a Weapon When Totalitarianism Is Normalized

    The U.S. government is working to re-shape the country in the image of a totalitarian state.

    This has remained true over the past 50-plus years no matter which political party held office.

    This will remain true no matter who wins the 2024 presidential election.

    In the midst of the partisan furor over Project 2025, a 920-page roadmap for how to re-fashion the government to favor so-called conservative causes, both the Right and the Left have proven themselves woefully naive about the dangers posed by the power-hungry Deep State.

    Yet we must never lose sight of the fact that both the Right and the Left and their various operatives are extensions of the Deep State, which continues to wage psychological warfare on the American people.

    For years now, the government has been bombarding the citizenry with propaganda campaigns and psychological operations aimed at keeping us compliant, easily controlled and supportive of the government’s various efforts abroad and domestically.

    For example, in 2022, the U.S. Army’s 4th Psychological Operations Group, the branch of the military responsible for psychological warfare, released a recruiting video that touts its efforts to pull the strings, turn everything they touch into a weapon, be everywhere, deceive, persuade, change, influence, and inspire.

    “Have you ever wondered who’s pulling the strings?” the psyops video posits. “Anything we touch is a weapon. We can deceive, persuade, change, influence, inspire. We come in many forms. We are everywhere.”

    This is the danger that lurks in plain sight.

    Of the many weapons in the government’s vast arsenal, psychological warfare may be the most devastating in terms of the long-term consequences.

    Aided and abetted by technological advances and scientific experimentation, the government has been subjecting the American people to “apple-pie propaganda” for the better part of the last century.

    Consider some of the ways in which the government continues to wage psychological warfare on a largely unsuspecting citizenry in order to acclimate us to the Deep State’s totalitarian agenda.

    Weaponizing violence in order to institute martial law. With alarming regularity, the nation continues to be subjected to spates of violence that terrorizes the public, destabilizes the country’s ecosystem, and gives the government greater justifications to crack down, lock down, and institute even more authoritarian policies for the so-called sake of national security without many objections from the citizenry.

    Weaponizing surveillance, pre-crime and pre-thought campaigns. Surveillance, digital stalking and the data mining of the American people add up to a society in which there’s little room for indiscretions, imperfections, or acts of independence. When the government sees all and knows all and has an abundance of laws to render even the most seemingly upstanding citizen a criminal and lawbreaker, then the old adage that you’ve got nothing to worry about if you’ve got nothing to hide no longer applies.

    Weaponizing digital currencies, social media scores and censorship. Tech giants, working with the government, have been meting out their own version of social justice by way of digital tyranny and corporate censorship, muzzling whomever they want, whenever they want, on whatever pretext they want in the absence of any real due process, review or appeal. Digital currencies, combined with social media scores and surveillance capitalism, will create a litmus test to determine who is worthy enough to be part of society.

    Weaponizing compliance. Even the most well-intentioned government law or program can be—and has been—perverted, corrupted and used to advance illegitimate purposes once profit and power are added to the equation. The war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on COVID-19, the war on illegal immigration, asset forfeiture schemes, road safety schemes, school safety schemes, eminent domain: all of these programs started out as legitimate responses to pressing concerns and have since become weapons of compliance and control in the police state’s hands.

    Weaponizing behavioral science and nudging. Apart from the overt dangers posed by a government that feels justified and empowered to spy on its people and use its ever-expanding arsenal of weapons and technology to monitor and control them, there’s also the covert dangers associated with a government empowered to use these same technologies to influence behaviors en masse and control the populace.

    Weaponizing desensitization campaigns aimed at lulling us into a false sense of security. The events of recent years—the invasive surveillance, the extremism reports, the civil unrest, the protests, the shootings, the bombings, the military exercises and active shooter drills, the lockdowns, the color-coded alerts and threat assessments, the fusion centers, the transformation of local police into extensions of the military, the distribution of military equipment and weapons to local police forces, the government databases containing the names of dissidents and potential troublemakers—have conspired to acclimate the populace to accept a police state willingly, even gratefully.

    Weaponizing politics. Fear is the method most often used by politicians to increase the power of government and control a populace, dividing the people into factions, and persuading them to see each other as the enemy. This Machiavellian scheme has so ensnared the nation that few Americans even realize they are being manipulated into adopting an “us” against “them” mindset.

    Weaponizing the dystopian future. With greater frequency, the government has been issuing warnings about the dire need to prepare for the dystopian future that awaits us. For instance, the Pentagon training video, “Megacities: Urban Future, the Emerging Complexity,” predicts that by 2030 (coincidentally, the same year that society begins to achieve singularity with the metaverse) the military would be called on to use armed forces to solve future domestic political and social problems. What they’re really talking about is martial law, packaged as a well-meaning and overriding concern for the nation’s security. The chilling five-minute training video paints an ominous picture of the future bedeviled by “criminal networks,” “substandard infrastructure,” “religious and ethnic tensions,” “impoverishment, slums,” “open landfills, over-burdened sewers,” a “growing mass of unemployed,” and an urban landscape in which the prosperous economic elite must be protected from the impoverishment of the have-nots. “We the people” are the have-nots.

    The end goal of these mind control campaigns—packaged in the guise of the greater good—is to see how far the American people will allow the government to go in undermining our freedoms.

    As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, the facts speak for themselves.

    Whatever else it may be—a danger, a menace, a threat—the U.S. government is certainly not looking out for our best interests, nor is it in any way a friend to freedom.

    The post Project Total Control: Everything Is a Weapon When Totalitarianism Is Normalized first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Electing the Next Dictator: Ugly Truths You Won’t Hear from Trump or Biden

    No matter what carefully crafted sound bites and political spin get trotted out by Joe Biden and Donald Trump in advance of the 2024 presidential election, you can rest assured that none of the problems that continue to undermine our freedoms will be addressed in any credible, helpful way by either candidate, despite the dire state of our nation.

    Indeed, the 2024 elections will not do much to alter our present course towards a police state.

    Nor will the popularity contest for the new occupant of the White House significantly alter the day-to-day life of the average American greatly at all. Those life-changing decisions are made elsewhere, by nameless, unelected government officials who have turned bureaucracy into a full-time and profitable business.

    In the interest of liberty and truth, here are a few uncomfortable truths about life in the American police state that we will not be hearing from either of the two leading presidential candidates.

    1. The government is not our friend. Nor does it work for “we the people.”

    2. By gradually whittling away at our freedoms—free speech, assembly, due process, privacy, etc.—the government has, in effect, liberated itself from its contractual agreement to respect our constitutional rights while resetting the calendar back to a time when we had no Bill of Rights to protect us from the long arm of the government.

    3. Republicans and Democrats like to act as if there’s a huge difference between them and their policies. However, they are not sworn enemies so much as they are partners in crime, united in a common goal, which is to maintain the status quo.

    4. Presidential elections merely serve to maintain the status quo. Once elected president, that person becomes part of the dictatorial continuum that is the American imperial presidency today.

    5. The U.S. government is spending money it doesn’t have on foreign aid programs it can’t afford, all the while the national debt continues to grow, our domestic infrastructure continues to deteriorate, and our borders continue to be breached. What is going on? It’s obvious that a corporatized, militarized, entrenched global bureaucracy is running the country.

    6. 1984 has become an operation manual for the omnipresent, modern-day surveillance state.

    7. When exposing a crime is treated as committing a crime, you are being ruled by criminals. In the current governmental climate, obeying one’s conscience and speaking truth to the power of the police state can easily render you an “enemy of the state.”

    8. If voting made any difference, they wouldn’t let us do it. Americans only think they’re choosing the next president. In truth, however, they’re engaging in the illusion of participation culminating in the reassurance ritual of voting. It’s just another manufactured illusion conjured up in order to keep the populace compliant and convinced that their vote counts and that they still have some influence over the political process.

    9. More than terrorism, more than domestic extremism, more than gun violence and organized crime, the U.S. government has become a greater menace to the life, liberty and property of its citizens than any of the so-called dangers from which the government claims to protect us.

    10. The government knows exactly which buttons to push in order to manipulate the populace and gain the public’s cooperation and compliance. This draconian exercise in how to divide, conquer and subdue a nation is succeeding. This is how you use the politics of fear to persuade a freedom-endowed people to shackle themselves to a dictatorship.

    11. The government long ago sold us out to the highest bidder. The highest bidder, by the way, has always been the Deep State.

    12. Every U.S. citizen is now guilty until proven innocent.

    13. “We the people” are no longer shielded by the rule of law. While the First Amendment—which gives us a voice—is being muzzled, the Fourth Amendment—which protects us from being bullied, badgered, beaten, broken and spied on by government agents—is being disemboweled.

    14. Privacy, as we have known it, is dead. Every second of every day, the American people are being spied on by the U.S. government’s vast network of digital Peeping Toms, electronic eavesdroppers and robotic snoops.

    15. Private property means nothing if the government can take your home, car or money under the flimsiest of pretexts, whether it be asset forfeiture schemes, eminent domain or overdue property taxes.

    16. If there is an absolute maxim by which the federal government seems to operate, it is that the American taxpayer always gets ripped off.

    17. From the moment they are born to the time they legally come of age, young people are now wards of the state.

    18. All you need to do in order to be flagged as a suspicious character, labeled an enemy of the state and locked up like a dangerous criminal is use certain trigger words, surf the internet, communicate using a cell phone, drive a car, stay at a hotel, purchase materials at a hardware store, take flying or boating lessons, appear suspicious, question government authority, or generally live in the United States.

    19. The government is pushing us ever closer to a constitutional crisis.

    20. Our freedoms—especially the Fourth Amendment—continue to be choked out by a prevailing view among government bureaucrats that they have the right to search, seize, strip, scan, spy on, probe, pat down, taser, and arrest any individual at any time and for the slightest provocation.

    These are not problems that can be glibly dismissed with a few well-chosen words, as most politicians are inclined to do.

    No matter which candidate wins this election, the citizenry and those who represent us need to own up to the fact that there can be no police state—no tyranny—no routine violations of our rights without our complicity and collusion—without our turning a blind eye, shrugging our shoulders, allowing ourselves to be distracted and our civic awareness diluted.

    Likewise, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, these problems will continue to plague our nation unless and until Americans wake up to the fact that we’re the only ones who can change things for the better and then do something about it. After all, the Constitution opens with those three vital words, “We the people.”

    There is no government without us—our sheer numbers, our muscle, our economy, our physical presence in this land.

    We are the government.

    The post Electing the Next Dictator: Ugly Truths You Won’t Hear from Trump or Biden first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Censorship at a Jewish School Part of a Crisis for Free Expression

     

    Boiling Point: School censors story about LA Muslim teens and war

    Shalhevet school head David Block (Boiling Point, 6/2/24): “If our community can’t handle something, I do have to consider that.”

    The staff of the Boiling Point don’t consider themselves student journalists. They consider themselves journalists.

    The official paper of Shalhevet, a prestigious orthodox Jewish day school in Los Angeles, is not a mere extra-curricular activity for the college-bound, but a living record of the larger community. And so the fact that the school is censoring the paper’s coverage of pro-Palestine viewpoints is an illustration of the nation’s current crisis of free speech and the free press as Israel’s slaughter in Gaza rages on.

    The Boiling Point (6/2/24) reported that the school administration had censored an article about Muslim perspectives on Gaza because it quoted a teenager who “said Israel was committing genocide and that she did not believe Hamas had committed atrocities.” The paper said:

    Head of school Rabbi David Block told faculty advisor Mrs. Joelle Keene to take down the story from all Boiling Point postings later that day.

    It was the first time the administration had ordered the paper to remove an active story. The story is also not published in today’s print edition.

    “Shalhevet’s principal ordered that the entire paper be taken out of circulation in what advisor Joelle Keene said was a striking change of pace,” the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (6/11/24) reported. She told the wire service, “There have been difficult stories and difficult moments and conflicts and that sort of thing. We’ve always been able to work them out.”

    Justifications for censorship

    The administration’s justification for the censorship was twofold. The first reason for the censorship was that the pro-Palestine viewpoints were simply too hurtful for a community that was still in shock over the October 7 attacks against Israel by Hamas.

    This is, to be quite blunt, demeaning to the students and the community. I was not much older than these students during the 9/11 attacks, but I spent that day and days after that at my student newspaper, the Michigan Daily. While our reporters piled into a car to drive to New York City, I joined my fellow editorial board members—Jews, Arabs and many others—in navigating a future of war, attacks on civil liberties and anti-Islamic hate.

    And today, student journalists are no less important in this historical moment where students are standing up against the genocide in Gaza (USA Today, 5/2/24; AP, 5/2/24).

    The Boiling Point is hardly pro-Hamas. As one of its editors, Tali Liebenthal, said in response to this point, it was indeed painful for the community to hear anti-Israel opinions, but “I don’t think that the Boiling Point has any responsibility to shield our readers from that pain.” The Shalhevet students, in the tradition of Jewish inquiry, do certainly appear able to explore the tough and difficult subjects of their moment.

    But there’s a second, more banal reason for the censorship. Block told the Boiling Point, “My feeling is that this article would both give people the wrong impression about Shalhevet.” He added:

    It would have very serious implications for whether they’re going to consider sending the next generation of people who should be Shalhevet students to Shalhevet.

    Block is placing prospective parents’ sensitivities before truth and debate. He’s worried that families will see a quote in the paper they disagree with, decide the school is a Hamas hot house, and send their child for an education elsewhere. The suggestion is that the school’s enrollment numbers are more important, not just than freedom of the press, but than a central aspect of Jewishness: the pursuit of knowledge.

    Would Block block articles exploring why ultra-religious Jews like Satmars (Shtetl, 11/22/23) and Neturei Karta (Haaretz, 3/27/24) oppose Zionism for theological reasons? We should hope a school for Jewish scholarship would be wise to value discussions of deep ideas over fear of offending potential enrollees.

    Perverting ideals of openness

    Intercept: Columbia Law Review Refused to Take Down Article on Palestine, So Its Board of Directors Nuked the Whole Website

    Intercept (6/3/24): “After the editors [of the Columbia Law Review] declined a board of directors request to take down the articles, the board pulled the plug on the entire website.”

    The Boiling Point affair is indicative of a larger problem with a censorship that exploits the term “antisemitism” and a sensitivity to Jewish suffering to silence anything remotely critical of Israel’s far-right government. Raz Segal, a Jewish Israeli scholar of genocide, had his position as director at the Center of Genocide and Holocaust students at the University of Minnesota rescinded (MPR, 6/11/24) because he wrote that Israel’s intentions for its campaign in Gaza were genocidal (Jewish Currents, 10/13/23). The board of directors of the Columbia Law Review briefly took down the journal’s website in response to an article (5/24) published about the Nakba, the expulsion of Palestinians—after the piece had already been spiked by the Harvard Law Review (Intercept, 6/3/24).  The chair of the Jewish studies department at Dartmouth College was violently arrested during an anti-genocide protest (Jerusalem Post, 5/3/24).

    The 92nd Street Y, a kind of secular Jewish temple of arts and culture in New York City, encountered massive staff resignations (NPR, 10/24/23) after it canceled a talk by Pulitzer Prize–winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen because he had signed a letter calling for a ceasefire in Gaza (London Review of Books, 10/18/23). The author of the American Jewish Committee’s definition of antisemitism admits that his work is being used to crush free speech (Guardian, 12/13/19; Chronicle of Higher Education, 3/27/24).

    These are prominent institutions that are meant to be pillars of openness and discourse in a free society, yet that are perverting themselves in order not to offend donors, government officials and sycophantic newspaper columnists. And the victims of this kind of censorship are Jews and non-Jews alike.

    From the highest universities down to high schools like Shalhevet, administrators are cloaking their worlds in darkness. The journalists at the Boiling Point are part of a resistance keeping free speech and expression alive in the United States.

    This post was originally published on FAIR.

  • Two poems, four years in detention: the Chinese dissident who smuggled his writing out of prison – podcast

    My poems were written in anger after Tiananmen Square. But what motivates most prison writing is a fear of forgetting. Today I am free, but the regime has never stopped its war on words. By Liao Yiwu

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Quixotic Regulation: Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Capitulates

    It was given top billing, a near absurd show intended to rope in content on a global social media platform, thereby denying all outside Australia access to it.  Because an Australian official had deemed a video too disturbing and offensive for Australians of ordinary sensibility (the standard remains opaquely absurd), the world’s citizenry were also to be barred from viewing it.  It did not matter that those in the US, for instance, could readily digest the same, unabridged content, or that news networks in that country could readily broadcast the material in its entirety.

    On April 16, Australia’s eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, smacked X (formerly known as Twitter) and Meta with legal notices to remove links to a video within 24 hours depicting what her office declared to be “gratuitous or offensive violence with a high degree of impact and detail”.  The video featured a livestreamed church service at Sydney’s Assyrian Orthodox Christ the Good Shepherd Church, which was abruptly interrupted by a stabbing assault.  The perpetrator was a 16-year-old youth.  Two churchmen, Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel and Rev. Isaac Royel, were injured.

    X Corp’s erratic, truculent CEO thought differently about this overly generous extension of Australia’s Online Safety Act.  Elon Musk found Inman Grant’s demand insensible, calling her a “censorship commissar” in her insistence on global content bans.  While he was happy to acquiesce to restricting access to the video in Australia, the world was quite something else.

    The issue wound its way to the Federal Court.  On May 15, the Commissioner’s case received something of a sinking blow.  Justice Geoffrey Kennett pondered the “potential consequences for orderly and amicable relations between nations, if a notice with the breath contended for were enforced”.  It would, for instance, “be ignored or disparaged in other countries”.  In the United States, no court would agree to enforce any relevant injunction requiring X Corp to take down the relevant URLs, numbering 65.

    The judge acknowledged that the Online Safety Act covered “acts, omissions, matters and things outside Australia” but did not stipulate what “all reasonable steps” were in the context of removing material.  “A clear expression of intention would be necessary to support a conclusion that Parliament intended to empower the Commissioner to issue removal notices with the effect for which she contends.”  It followed that she had failed to establish “that compliance with the removal notice entails blocking access to the 65 URLs by all users of X Corp.”

    The matter should have ended there, but the regulatory instinct of condescending officials is often obstinate.  As proceedings continued through the month, more opposition manifested.  On May 27, Justice Kennett granted orders permitting the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) leave to intervene.  The intervention, reasoned FIRE, sought “to focus the court’s attention on how a global takedown order would disregard the strong free speech protections of countries like the US and lend an air of legitimacy to repressive regimes’ efforts to assert control over online content everywhere.”

    On June 5, the Commissioner finally filed a notice of discontinuance in proceedings against X.  The EFF stated with much satisfaction “that the Commissioner saw the error of her efforts”, reasoning that such global take down notices “threaten freedom of expression around the world, creating conflicting legal obligations, and lead to the lowest common denominator of internet content being available around the world”.  Doing so permitted “the least tolerant legal system to determine what we all are able to read and distribute online.”

    Very true – except that the Commissioner showed few signs of enlightenment, and certainly nothing in mending her crypto-authoritarian ways.  A statement from Inman Grant showed that her program of infantilisation and regulation of the Internet is an ongoing one.  “Our sole goal and focus in issuing our removal notice was to prevent this extremely violent footage from going viral, potentially inciting further violence and inflicting more harm on the Australian community. I stand by my investigators and the decisions eSafety made.”

    In Inman Grant’s mind, Australians generally accepted (very good of her to think so) that such “graphic material should not be broadcast on television, which begs an obvious question why it should be allowed to be distributed freely and accessible online 24/7 to anyone, including children.”  As the country’s online safety regulator, she expected “reasonable companies to be taking action in relation to this type of content.”

    Unfortunately for free speech advocates and information libertarians, the Commissioner’s paranoia does have an audience. Ever since its creation, the Australian Commonwealth has shown a parental obsession with censorship.  And now, we have such sentiments as those of Michael Miller, Executive Corp Australasia Executive Chairman, lecturing the public about the need for big tech companies to pay “a social license” should they “want access to Australian consumers”.

    Such an encumbering license would permit the Australian government “to make the platforms liable for all content that is amplified, curated, and controlled by their algorithms or recommender engines”.  It would also grant the government powers to “ultimately block access to our country and our people if they refuse to play by our rules.”

    When an entity such as News Corp gives advice on what should or should not be accessible to the broader citizenry of any country, the bells should be going off.  The Big Tech behemoths have much to answer for – the destruction of privacy, the ruthless monetisation of user data, behavioural modification and hypnotic seduction.  But governments of all hues always cling to the same logic: the public is a dangerous beast best fed morsels of information rather than the whole buffet.  Ignorance breeds manageable docility.

    The post Quixotic Regulation: Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Capitulates first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Chinese artist hits back at party censorship with trashy performance

    A Chinese artist is hitting back at the Communist Party’s ongoing attempts to censor cultural expression even far beyond China’s borders with an exhibit in Sydney depicting the kind of “garbage” that gets produced when artists agree to stay within the government’s “red lines.”

    As part of her performance art exhibit at Sydney’s Passage Gallery — titled “Junk,” which runs through July 19 – Xiao Lu creates artwork live, but within a pattern of red neon strips, before crumpling it up and tossing it away like trash.

    “The whole of the Passage Gallery exhibition hall is set up as a black space,”  Xiao told RFA Mandarin at the launch of her exhibit. “There are red lights that represent China’s censorship of art exhibitions and free speech.”

    “In Chinese, we use the phrase ‘red lines’ to denote lines that can’t be crossed,” Xiao said. “If you cross them, something bad will happen.”

    She said it’s not just in China that Beijing stifles creativity, however.

    “Self-censorship by art institutions invades everyone’s soul,” Xiao said, adding that even exhibition venues in Australia can be wary of annoying the Chinese government.

    “Even here, it’s rare to see an exhibit that truly reflects the reality of China,” she said.

    It’s not that Australia lacks work by Chinese artists. In Sydney alone, small and large venues alike run frequent shows year round that are lavishly sponsored by Chinese companies.

    “Most of those exhibits focus on work with ‘Chinese characteristics’ that is overwhelmingly unrelated to political and social reality in China today,” she said.

    ENG_CHN_ART CENSORSHIP_06172024.2.jpg
    Chinese artist Xiao Lu’s performance art exhibit at Sydney’s Passage Gallery, June 14, 2024. (Lionel TC/RFA)

    “This is increasingly similar to what’s happening in China, where most of the works I see are devoid of content,” Xiao said. “Contemporary art shouldn’t be about eulogizing something, or focusing on superficial form.”

    “It should face up to the problems of the age it is living in, and raise questions about them,” she said. “I don’t see this kind of work in China, but I only see it rarely in Australia, which is a problem.”

    ‘Soft-power infiltration’

    Xiao cites an example of Sydney’s Vermilion Art gallery, which invited her to write an article about the situation in China during the stringent restrictions of the zero-COVID era.

    “I was still in China when I received a call from a gallery asking me to write an article about the situation in China,” Xiao said. “It was during the pandemic [restrictions], and I wrote an article about lockdown. But the gallery didn’t dare to publish it.”

    Radio Free Asia approached Vermilion Art and invited them to respond to Xiao’s allegations, but no reply had been received by the time of publication.

    Taiwan-based artist Kacey Wong, who went to art school in Australia, agreed with Xiao’s assessment that Beijing is packaging approved forms of art to be shown in overseas galleries.

    “They take ancient Chinese culture and add various Communist Party-influenced elements to it, then export it as a form of soft-power infiltration and soft-power confrontation,” Wong said.

    “The Chinese Communist Party turns every walk of life into a battlefield,” he said.

    In January, Xiao boycotted an exhibition of Chinese art linked to former Australian Ambassador Geoff Raby, saying he had been lauded by the Communist Party newspaper the People’s Daily in December 2019 for his uncritical attitude to Beijing.

    In February, she held an exhibit in Melbourne which hit back at Beijing’s suppression of the 2019 Hong Kong protests and its clearance operations targeting the low-income population in the Chinese capital.

    Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Lionel TC for RFA Mandarin.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • In our make-believe politics, the strings pulled by the super-rich are all too visible

    We live in a world of make-believe politics, a world where strings pulled in the interests of the super-rich are ever more visible. And yet we are expected to pretend we cannot see those strings. More astonishing still, many people really do seem blind to the puppet show.

    1. The “leader of the free world”, President Joe Biden, can barely maintain his attention for more than a few minutes without straying off topic, or wandering offstage. When he has to walk before the cameras, he does so like he is auditioning for the role of a geriatric robot. His whole body is gripped with the concentration he needs to walk in a straight line.

    And yet we are supposed to believe he is carefully working the levers of the western empire, making critically difficult calculations to keep the West free and prosperous, while keeping in check its enemies – Russia, China, Iran – without provoking a nuclear war. Is he really capable of doing all that when he struggles to put one foot in front of the other?

    2. Part of that tricky diplomatic balancing act Biden is supposedly conducting, along with other western leaders, relates to Israel’s military operation in Gaza. The West’s “diplomacy” – backed by weapons transfers – has resulted in the murder of tens of thousands of Palestinians, most of them women and children; the gradual starvation of 2.3 million Palestinians over many months; and the destruction of 70 per cent of the enclave’s housing stock and almost all of its major infrastructure and institutions, including schools, universities and hospitals.

    And yet we are supposed to believe that Biden has no leverage over Israel, even though Israel is entirely dependent on the United States for the weapons it is using to destroy Gaza.

    We are supposed to believe Israel is acting solely in “self-defence”, even when most of the people being killed are unarmed civilians; and that it is “eliminating” Hamas, even though Hamas doesn’t appear to have been weakened, and even though Israel’s starvation policies will take their toll on the young, elderly and vulnerable long before they kill a single Hamas fighter.

    We are supposed to believe that Israel has a plan for the “day after” in Gaza that won’t look anything like the outcome these policies appear designed to achieve: making Gaza uninhabitable so that the Palestinian population is forced to leave.

    And on top of all this, we are supposed to believe that, in ruling that a “plausible” case has been made that Israel is committing genocide, the judges of the world’s highest court, the International Court of Justice, have shown they do not understand the legal definition of the crime of genocide. Or possibly that they are driven by antisemitism.

    3. Meanwhile, the same western leaders arming Israel’s slaughter of many tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, including more than 15,000 children, have been shipping hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of armaments to Ukraine to assist its armed forces. Ukraine must be helped, we are told, because it is the victim of an aggressive neighbouring power, Russia, determined on expansion and land theft.

    And yet we are supposed to ignore the two decades of western military expansion eastwards, via Nato, that has finally coming knocking, in Ukraine, on Russia’s door – and the fact that the West’s best experts on Russia warned throughout that time that we were playing with fire in doing so and that Ukraine would prove a red line for Moscow.

    We are supposed to make no comparison between Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and Israel’s aggression against the Palestinians. In the latter case, Israel is supposedly the victim, even though it has been violently occupying its Palestinian neighbours’ territory for three-quarters of a century while, in flagrant violation of international law, building Jewish settlements on the territory meant to form the basis of a Palestinian state.

    We are supposed to believe that the Palestinians of Gaza have no right to defend themselves comparable to Ukraine’s right – no right to defend against decades of Israeli belligerence, whether the ethnic cleansing operations of 1948 and 1967, the apartheid system imposed on the remnant Palestinian population afterwards, the 17-year blockade of Gaza that denied its inhabitants the essentials of life, or the “plausible genocide” the West is now arming and providing diplomatic cover for.

    In fact, if the Palestinians do try to defend themselves, the West not only refuses to help them, as it has Ukraine, but considers them terrorists – even the children, it seems.

    4. Julian Assange, the journalist and publisher who did most to expose the inner workings of western establishments, and their criminal schemes in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, has been behind bars for five years in Belmarsh high-security prison. Before that, he spent seven years arbitrarily detained – according to United Nations legal experts – in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, forced to seek asylum there from political persecution. In an interminable legal process, the US seeks his extradition so he can be locked away in near-isolation for up to 175 years.

    And yet we are supposed to believe that his 12 years of effective detention – having been found guilty of no crime – is entirely unrelated to the fact that, in publishing secret cables, Assange revealed that, behind closed doors, the West and its leaders sound and act like gangsters and psychopaths, especially about foreign affairs, not like the stewards of a benign global order they claim to be overseeing.

    The leaked documents Assange published show western leaders ready to destroy whole societies to further western resource domination and their own enrichment – and eager to wield the most outrageous lies to achieve their goals. They have no interest in upholding the supposedly cherished value of freedom of the press, except when that freedom is being weaponised against their enemies.

    We are supposed to believe that western leaders genuinely want journalists to act as a watchdog, a restraint, on their power even when they are hounding to death the very journalist who created a whistleblowers’ platform, Wikileaks, to do precisely that. (Assange has already suffered a stroke from the more than a decade-long strain of fighting for his freedom.)

    We are supposed to believe that the West will give Assange a fair trial, when the very states colluding in his incarceration – and in the CIA’s case, planned assassination – are the ones he exposed for engaging in war crimes and state terrorism. We are supposed to believe that they are pursuing a legal process, not persecution, in redefining as the crime of “espionage” his efforts to bring transparency and accountability to international affairs.

    5. The media claim to represent the interests of western publics in all their diversity, and to act as a true window on the world.

    We are supposed believe that this same media is free and pluralistic, even when it is owned by the super-rich as well as western states that were long ago hollowed out to serve the super-rich.

    We are supposed to believe that a media completely dependent for its survival on revenues from big corporate advertisers can bring us news and analysis without fear or favour. We are supposed to believe that a media whose primary role is selling audiences to corporate advertisers can question whether, in doing so, it is playing a beneficial or harmful role.

    We are supposed to believe that a media plugged firmly into the capitalist financial system that brought the global economy to its knees in 2008, and has been hurtling us towards ecological catastrophe, is in a position to evaluate and critique that capitalist model dispassionately, that media outlets could somehow turn on the billionaires who own them, or could forego the income from the billionaire-owned corporations that prop up the media’s finances through advertising.

     

    We are supposed to believe that the media can objectively assess the merits of going to war. That is, wars waged serially by the West – from Afghanistan to Iraq, from Libya to Syria, from Ukraine to Gaza – when media corporations are embedded in corporate conglomerations whose other big interests include arms manufacturing and fossil-fuel extraction.

    We are supposed to believe that the media uncritically promotes endless growth for reasons of economic necessity and common sense, even though the contradictions are glaring: that the forever growth model is impossible to sustain on a finite planet where resources are running out.

    6. In western political systems, unlike those of its enemies, there is supposedly a meaningful democratic choice between candidates representing opposing worldviews and values.

    We are supposed to believe in a western political model of openness, pluralism and accountability even when in the US and UK the public are offered an electoral scrap between two candidates and parties that, to stand a chance of winning, need to win favour with the corporate media representing the interests of its billionaire owners, need to keep happy billionaire donors who fund their campaigns, and need to win over Big Business by demonstrating their unwavering commitment to a model of endless growth that is completely unsustainable.

    We are supposed to believe that these leaders serve the voting public – offering a choice between right and left, between capital and labour – when, in truth, the public is only ever presented with a choice between two parties prostrated before Big Money, when the parties’ policy programmes are nothing more than competitions in who can best appease the wealth-elite.

    We are supposed to believe that the “democratic” West represents the epitome of political health, even though it repeatedly dredges up the very worst people imaginable to lead it.

    In the US, the “choice” imposed on the electorate is between one candidate (Biden) who should be in pottering around his garden, or maybe preparing for his final, difficult years in a care home, and a competitor (Donald Trump) whose relentless search for adoration and self-enrichment should never have been indulged beyond hosting a TV reality show.

    In the UK, the “choice” is no better: between a candidate (Rishi Sunak) richer than the British king and equally cosseted and a competitor (Sir Keir Starmer) who is so ideologically hollow that his public record is an exercise in decades of shape-shifting.

    All, let us note, are fully signed up to the continuing genocide in Gaza, all are unmoved by many months of the slaughter and starvation of Palestinian children, all are only too ready to defame as antisemites anyone who shows an ounce of the principle and humanity they all too obviously lack.

    The super-rich may be just out of view, but the strings they pull are all too visible. Time to cut ourselves loose.

    The post In our make-believe politics, the strings pulled by the super-rich are all too visible first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Academia is only as free as powerful donors allow it to be

    Anyone who imagines there is something resembling academic freedom in the US, or elsewhere in the West for that matter, needs to read this article in the Intercept on an extraordinary – or possibly not so extraordinary – episode of censorship of a Palestinian academic. It shows how donors are the ones really pulling the strings in our academic institutions.

    Here’s what happened:

    1. The prestigious Harvard Law Review was due to publish its first-ever essay by a Palestinian legal scholar late last year, shortly after Hamas’ October 7 attack in Israel. Hurrah (finally) for academic freedom!

    2. However, the essay, which sought to establish a new legal concept of the Nakba – the mass expulsion of Palestinian civilians from their homeland in 1948 to create what would become the self-defined Jewish state of Israel – was pulled at the last moment, despite the fact the editors had subjected it to intense editorial checks and scrutiny. The Harvard Review got cold feet – presumably because of the certainty the essay would offend many of the university’s donors and create a political backlash.

    3. Editors at the rival Columbia Law Review decided to pick up the baton. They asked the same scholar, Rabea Eghbariah, to submit a new, much longer version of the essay for publication. It would be the first time a Palestinian legal scholar had been published by the Columbia Law Review too. Hurrah (finally) for academic freedom!

    4. Aware of the inevitable pushback, 30 editors at the Review spent five months editing the essay, but did so in secret and mostly anonymously to protect themselves from reprisals. The article was subjected to unprecedented scrutiny.

    5. Alerted to the fact that the essay had been leaked and that pressure was building from powerful figures associated with Columbia university and the Washington establishment to prevent publication, the editors published the article this month, unannounced, on the Review’s website. Hurrah (finally) for academic freedom!

    6. But within hours, the Review’s board of directors, comprising law professors and alumni, some with official roles in the federal government, demanded that the essay be taken down. When the editors refused, the whole website was pulled offline. The homepage read “Website under maintenance.”

    7. Hurrah for… the Israel lobby (again).

    If even the academic community is so browbeaten by donors and the political establishment that they dare not allow serious academic debate, even over a legal concept, what hope is there that politicians and the media – equally dependent on Big Money, and even more sensitive to the public pressure of lobbies – are going to perform any better.

    University complicity in the Gaza genocide – brought out of the shadows by the campus protests – highlights how academic institutions are tightly integrated into the political and commercial ventures of western establishments.

    The universities’ savage crackdown on the student encampments – denying them any right to peacefully protest complicity in genocide by the very institutions to which they pay their fees – further underscores the fact that universities are there to maintain the semblance of free and open debate but not the substance. Debate is allowed but only within strictly controlled, and policed, parameters.

    Academic institutions, politicians and the media speak as one on the Gaza genocide for a reason. They are there not promote a dialectics in which truth and falsehood can be tested through open discussion, but to confer legitimacy on the darkest agendas of the establishment they serve.

    Our public debates are rigged to avoid topics that would be difficult for western elites to counter, like their current support for genocide in Gaza. But the very reason we have a genocide in Gaza is because lots of other debates we should have had decades ago have not been allowed to take place, including the one Eghbariah was trying to raise: that the Nakba that began in 1948 and has continued ever since for the Palestinian people needs its own legal framework that incorporates apartheid and genocide.

    Israel’s genocide in Gaza was made possible precisely because western establishments avoided any meaningful scrutiny of, or engagement with, the events of the Nakba for more than 75 years. They pretended either that the ethnic cleansing of 1948 never happened, or that it was the Palestinians’ choice to ethnically cleanse themselves.

    In the decades that followed, western establishments pretended that the illegal colonisation of Palestine by Jewish settlers and the reality of apartheid rule faced by Palestinians – hidden under the rubric of a “temporary occupation” – either weren’t happening, or could be solved through a bogus, bad-faith “peace process”.

    There was never accountability, there was no truth or reconciliation. The western establishment are still furiously avoiding that debate 76 years on, as Eghbariah’s experiences at the hands of the Harvard and Columbia Law Reviews prove.

    We can only pray we don’t have to wait another three-quarters of a century before western elites consider acknowledging their complicity in the genocide of Gaza.

    The post Academia is only as free as powerful donors allow it to be first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Communication Crackdown in Federal Prisons Has Been Operating Quietly Until Now

    The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has quietly but steadily been implementing a nationwide policy that silences the voices of people incarcerated in federal prisons by preventing them from sharing the same email and phone contacts for people on the outside, also known as a “double contact ban.” The policy, which gives prison authorities wide leeway to censor communications, appears to have gone…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Palestinian Lawyer Censored for “Nakba as a Legal Concept” Article Speaks Out

    The website of the Columbia Law Review was taken down by its board of directors on Monday after student editors refused a request from the board to halt the publication of an academic article written by Palestinian human rights lawyer Rabea Eghbariah titled “Toward Nakba as a Legal Concept.” The article argues for the Nakba to be developed as a unique legal framework, related to but distinct from…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Columbia Law Review website shut down over ‘censored’ article critical of Israel

    Pacific Media Watch

    The editorial board of the Columbia Law Review journal — made up of faculty and alumni from the university’s law school — shut down the review’s website on Monday after editors refused to halt publication of an academic article by a Palestinian human rights lawyer that was critical of Israel.

    Al Jazeera reports that the student editors of the journal said they were pressured by the board to not publish the article which accused Israel of carrying out genocide in Gaza and implementing an apartheid regime against Palestinians.

    The review’s website was taken down after the article was published on Monday morning and remained offline last night, reports AP news agency.

    Columbia Law Review
    Columbia Law Review . . . “under maintenance”. Image: APR screenshot

    A static homepage informed visitors the domain was “under maintenance”.

    Several editors at the Columbia Law Review described the board’s intervention as an unprecedented breach of editorial independence at the periodical.

    In a letter sent to student editors yesterday, the board of directors said it was concerned that the article, titled “Nakba as a Legal Concept,” had not gone through the “usual processes of review or selection for articles”.

    However, the editor involved in soliciting and editing the aricle said they had followed a “rigorous review process”.

    ‘A microcosm of repression’
    The author of the article, human rights lawyer Rabea Eghbariah, a Harvard doctoral candidate, said the suspension of the journal’s website should be seen as “a microcosm of a broader authoritarian repression taking place across US campuses”.

    The Intercept reports that this was the second time in barely eight months that Eghbariah had been censored by US academic publications.

    Columbia Law Review
    Columbia Law Review . . . second journal to censor Palestinian law scholar over Nakba truth. Image: APR screenshot

    Last November, the Harvard Law Review made the unprecedented decision to “kill” (not publish) the author’s edited essay prior to publication. The author was due to be the first Palestinian legal scholar published in the quality journal.

    As The Intercept reported at the time, “Eghbariah’s essay — an argument for establishing ‘Nakba’, the expulsion, dispossession, and oppression of Palestinians, as a formal legal concept that widens its scope — faced extraordinary editorial scrutiny and eventual censorship.”

    “When the Harvard publication spiked his article, editors from another Ivy League law school reached out to Eghbariah.

    “Students from the Columbia Law Review solicited a new article from the scholar and, upon receiving it, decided to edit it and prepare it for publication.

    “Now, eight months into Israel’s onslaught against Gaza, Eghbariah’s work has once again been stifled.”

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Broadcast bill passed by Uruguay Senate threatens press freedom

    Mexico City, May 30, 2024—Uruguayan authorities should not approve a proposed broadcast law passed by the Senate and should ensure that all media legislation is discussed broadly, including with civil society organizations and journalist representatives, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday.

    On May 14, the Uruguayan Senate approved the proposed “Law of Audiovisual Content Broadcasting Services” without consulting civil society organizations or other groups, according to news reports.

    Article 72 of the proposed law states that broadcasting services “have the duty to provide citizens with information, analysis, opinions, comments, and evaluations in a complete, impartial, serious, rigorous, plural, and balanced manner among and regarding political actors.” Local civil rights groups, including press freedom organization CAinfo, have warned this could potentially serve as a state control mechanism over the media.

    The House of Representatives must vote in June to either approve or reject the bill without amendments, according to the news reports.

    “Uruguayan lawmakers should not approve the proposed broadcasting law and should ensure that any new legislation is discussed broadly,” said Cristina Zahar, CPJ’s Latin America program coordinator, in Sao Paulo. “Control over what constitutes ‘complete, impartial, serious, rigorous, plural, and balanced’ information should never be in the hands of the state.”

    Fabián Werner, president of CAinfo, told CPJ that the bill would put Uruguay in a dangerous position, especially ahead of the country’s general elections scheduled for October 27.

    “This new law was rushed through the Senate to avoid democratic discussion and goes against international standards of freedom of expression,” he said. “It is very bad for democracy, human rights, and freedom of expression.”

    Werner said that Uruguay’s current media law, approved by the government of former President José Mujica in 2013, was widely discussed with civil society sectors and international organizations such as UNESCO before and after passage.

    International organizations, including the Inter American Press Association, UNESCO, and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, have also expressed concerns about the proposed law.

    CPJ emailed the president of the Uruguayan House of Representatives, Ana Olivera, but did not immediately receive a reply.


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Geoffrey King/CPJ Technology Program Coordinator and Tom Lowenthal/CPJ Staff Technologist.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Get Up, Stand Up, Don’t Give Up the Fight: Know Your Rights or You Will Lose Them

    If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

    — Thomas Jefferson

    If America’s schools are to impart principles of freedom and democracy to future generations, they must start by respecting the constitutional rights of their students

    Take the case of Lucas Hudson.

    With all the negative press being written about today’s young people, it’s refreshing to meet a young person who not only knows his rights but is prepared to stand up for them.

    Lucas is a smart kid, a valedictorian of his graduating class at the Collegiate Academy at Armwood High School in Hillsborough County, Fla.

    So, when school officials gave Lucas an ultimatum: either remove most of his speech’s religious references from his graduation speech—in which he thanked the people who helped shape his character, reflected on how quickly time goes by, and urged people to use whatever time they have to love others and serve the God who loves us—or he would not be speaking at all, Lucas refused to forfeit his rights.

    That’s when Lucas’s father turned to The Rutherford Institute for help.

    In coming to Lucas’ defense, attorneys for The Rutherford Institute warned school officials that their attempts to browbeat Lucas into watering down his graduation speech could expose the school to a First Amendment lawsuit.

    Thankfully for Lucas, the school backed down, and he was able to deliver his speech as written.

    It doesn’t always work out so well, unfortunately.

    Over the course of The Rutherford Institute’s 42-year history, we have defended countless young people who found themselves censored, silenced and denied their basic First Amendment rights, especially when they chose to exercise their rights to free speech and religious freedom.

    In case after case, we encounter an appalling level of ignorance on the part of public school officials who mistakenly believe that the law requires anything religious be banned from public schools.

    Here’s where government officials get it wrong: while the government may not establish or compel a particular religion, it also may not silence and suppress religious speech merely because others might take offense.

    People are free to ignore, disagree with, or counter the religious speech of others, but the government cannot censor private religious speech.

    Unfortunately, you can only defend your rights when you know them, and the American people—and those who represent them—are utterly ignorant about their freedoms, history, and how the government is supposed to operate.

    As Morris Berman points out in his book Dark Ages America, “70 percent of American adults cannot name their senators or congressmen; more than half don’t know the actual number of senators, and nearly a quarter cannot name a single right guaranteed by the First Amendment. Sixty-three percent cannot name the three branches of government. Other studies reveal that uninformed or undecided voters often vote for the candidate whose name and packaging (e.g., logo) are the most powerful; color is apparently a major factor in their decision.”

    More than government corruption and ineptitude, police brutality, terrorism, gun violence, drugs, illegal immigration or any other so-called “danger” that threatens our nation, civic illiteracy may be what finally pushes us over the edge.

    As Thomas Jefferson warned, no nation can be both ignorant and free.

    Unfortunately, the American people have existed in a technology-laden, entertainment-fueled, perpetual state of cluelessness for so long that civic illiteracy has become the new normal for the citizenry.

    In fact, most immigrants who aspire to become citizens know more about national civics than native-born Americans. Surveys indicate that half of native-born Americans couldn’t correctly answer 70% of the civics questions on the U.S. Citizenship test.

    Not even the government bureaucrats who are supposed to represent us know much about civics, American history and geography, or the Constitution although they take an oath to uphold, support and defend the Constitution against “enemies foreign and domestic.”

    For instance, a couple attempting to get a marriage license was recently forced to prove to a government official that New Mexico is, in fact, one of the 50 states and not a foreign country.

    You can’t make this stuff up.

    Those who gave us the Constitution and the Bill of Rights believed that the government exists at the behest of its citizens. The government’s purpose is to protect, defend and even enhance our freedoms, not violate them.

    It was no idle happenstance that the Constitution opens with these three powerful words: “We the people.”

    Those who founded this country knew quite well that every citizen must remain vigilant or freedom would be lost. As Thomas Paine recognized, “It is the responsibility of the patriot to protect his country from its government.”

    You have no rights unless you exercise them.

    Still, you can’t exercise your rights unless you know what those rights are.

    “If Americans do not understand the Constitution and the institutions and processes through which we are governed, we cannot rationally evaluate important legislation and the efforts of our elected officials, nor can we preserve the national unity necessary to meaningfully confront the multiple problems we face today,” warns the Brennan Center in its Civic Literacy Report Card. “Rather, every act of government will be measured only by its individual value or cost, without concern for its larger impact. More and more we will ‘want what we want, and [will be] convinced that the system that is stopping us is wrong, flawed, broken or outmoded.’”

    Education precedes action.

    As the Brennan Center concludes “America, unlike most of the world’s nations, is not a country defined by blood or belief. America is an idea, or a set of ideas, about freedom and opportunity. It is these ideas that bind us together as Americans and have kept us free, strong, and prosperous. But these ideas do not perpetuate themselves. They must be taught and learned anew with each generation.”

    There is a movement underway to require that all public-school students pass the civics portion of the U.S. naturalization test—100 basic facts about U.S. history and civics—before receiving their high-school diploma, and that’s a start.

    Lucas Hudson would have passed such a test with flying colors.

    On graduation day, Lucas stepped up to the podium and delivered his uncensored valedictorian speech as written, without any interference by school censors.

    As Lucas’s father relayed to The Rutherford Institute:

    In the end, Lucas got to give his entire speech the way he wanted to give it, and everybody was paying attention.  Nobody got hurt.  Nothing bad happened.  It was just a young man using the First Amendment rights to speak his mind regarding his personal beliefs. [Lucas] never thought a few sentences in a speech would create such a controversy in his world, but this speech turned into a defining moment for him.  He will never be the same after this experience, but this permanent change is a good thing.  When it mattered, Lucas stood up for himself, and when those he stood up against tried to push him down, [The Rutherford Institute] came to his aide and backed him up to make it a fair fight. I am comforted to know you are defending the rights of the people.  These fights matter.  Every time you defend the rights of one person, you defend the rights of every person.  You helped my son fight for his rights against the school, and, in doing so, Hillsborough County Public Schools will think twice before infringing on the rights of future students. Your defense of Lucas became an inspiration for the students in his school and sparked a healthy and meaningful debate among the teachers, students, and parents about the value of the First Amendment and the need for limits on government control over our personal beliefs.  You are fighting for good and doing important work.  Don’t ever stop. Thank you, Rutherford Institute, for being there for my son when he needed you most.

    America needs more freedom fighters like Lucas Hudson and The Rutherford Institute.

    It’s up to us.

    We have the power to make and break the government.

    We the American people—the citizenry—are the arbiters and ultimate guardians of America’s welfare, defense, liberty, laws and prosperity.

    We must act—and act responsibly.

    A healthy, representative government is hard work. It takes a citizenry that is informed about the issues, educated about how the government operates, and willing to make the sacrifices necessary to stay involved.

    As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, it’s our job to keep freedom alive using every nonviolent means available to us.

    As Martin Luther King Jr. recognized in a speech delivered on December 5, 1955, just four days after Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to relinquish her seat on a Montgomery city bus: “Democracy transformed from thin paper to thick action is the greatest form of government on earth.”

    Know your rights. Exercise your rights. Defend your rights. If not, you will lose them.

    The post Get Up, Stand Up, Don’t Give Up the Fight: Know Your Rights or You Will Lose Them first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • K-12 Schools in New Jersey Are Becoming a Battlefield Over Palestine Advocacy

    On the heels of the eruption of the university movement for Palestine and the subsequent wave of repression that has been at the center of national politics, Congress has begun questioning K-12 school districts about how they will clamp down on the movement for Palestine. Under the guise of addressing “antisemitism,” public K-12 schools may become more of a flashpoint across the country over…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • From COVID-19 to Campus Protests: How the Police State Muzzles Free Speech

    The police state does not want citizens who know their rights.

    Nor does the police state want citizens prepared to exercise those rights.

    This year’s graduates are a prime example of this master class in compliance. Their time in college has been set against a backdrop of crackdowns, lockdowns and permacrises ranging from the government’s authoritarian COVID-19 tactics to its more recent militant response to campus protests.

    Born in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, these young people have been raised without any expectation of privacy in a technologically-driven, mass surveillance state; educated in schools that teach conformity and compliance; saddled with a debt-ridden economy on the brink of implosion; made vulnerable by the blowback from a military empire constantly waging war against shadowy enemies; policed by government agents armed to the teeth ready and able to lock down the country at a moment’s notice; and forced to march in lockstep with a government that no longer exists to serve the people but which demands they be obedient slaves or suffer the consequences.

    And now, when they should be empowered to take their rightful place in society as citizens who fully understand and exercise their right to speak truth to power, they are being censored, silenced and shut down.

    Consider what happened recently in Charlottesville, Va., when riot police were called in to shut down campus protests at the University of Virginia staged by students and members of the community to express their opposition to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Palestine.

    As the local newspaper reported, “State police sporting tactical gear and riot shields moved in on the demonstrators, using pepper spray and sheer force to disperse the group and arrest the roughly 15 or so at the camp, where for days students, faculty and community members had sang songs, read poetry and painted signs in protest of Israel’s ongoing war in the Palestinian territory of Gaza.”

    What a sad turn-about for an institution which was founded as an experiment in cultivating an informed citizenry by Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, champion of the Bill of Rights, and the nation’s third president.

    Unfortunately, the University of Virginia is not unique in its heavy-handed response to what have been largely peaceful anti-war protests. According to the Washington Post, more than 2300 people have been arrested for taking part in similar campus protests across the country.

    These lessons in compliance, while expected, are what comes of challenging the police state.

    Free speech can certainly not be considered “free” when expressive activities across the nation are being increasingly limited, restricted to so-called free speech zones, or altogether blocked.

    Remember, the First Amendment gives every American the right to “petition his government for a redress of grievances.”

    Along with the constitutional right to peacefully (and that means non-violently) assemble, the right to free speech allows us to challenge the government through protests and demonstrations and to attempt to change the world around us—for the better or the worse—through protests and counterprotests.

    If citizens cannot stand out in the open and voice their disapproval of their government, its representatives and its policies without fearing prosecution, then the First Amendment with all its robust protections for free speech, assembly and the right to petition one’s government for a redress of grievances is little more than window-dressing on a store window—pretty to look at but serving little real purpose.

    After all, living in a representative republic means that each person has the right to take a stand for what they think is right, whether that means marching outside the halls of government, wearing clothing with provocative statements, or simply holding up a sign.

    That’s what the First Amendment is supposed to be about: it assures the citizenry of the right to express their concerns about their government to their government, in a time, place and manner best suited to ensuring that those concerns are heard.

    Unfortunately, through a series of carefully crafted legislative steps and politically expedient court rulings, government officials have managed to disembowel this fundamental freedom, rendering it with little more meaning than the right to file a lawsuit against government officials.

    In more and more cases, the government is declaring war on what should be protected political speech whenever it challenges the government’s power, reveals the government’s corruption, exposes the government’s lies, and encourages the citizenry to push back against the government’s many injustices.

    Indeed, there is a long and growing list of the kinds of speech that the government considers dangerous enough to red flag and subject to censorship, surveillance, investigation and prosecution: hate speech, conspiratorial speech, treasonous speech, threatening speech, inflammatory speech, radical speech, anti-government speech, extremist speech, etc.

    Clearly, the government has no interest in hearing what “we the people” have to say.

    Yet if Americans are not able to peacefully assemble for expressive activity outside of the halls of government or on public roads on which government officials must pass, or on college campuses, the First Amendment has lost all meaning.

    If we cannot stand peacefully outside of the Supreme Court or the Capitol or the White House, our ability to hold the government accountable for its actions is threatened, and so are the rights and liberties that we cherish as Americans.

    And if we cannot proclaim our feelings about the government, no matter how controversial, on our clothing, or to passersby, or to the users of the world wide web, then the First Amendment really has become an exercise in futility.

    The source of the protest shouldn’t matter. The politics of the protesters are immaterial.

    To play politics with the First Amendment encourages a double standard that will see us all muzzled in the end.

    The power elite has made their intentions clear: they will pursue and prosecute any and all words, thoughts and expressions that challenge their authority.

    As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, this is the final link in the police state chain.

    If ever there were a time for us to stand up for the right to speak freely, even if it’s freedom for speech we hate, the time is now.

     

    The post From COVID-19 to Campus Protests: How the Police State Muzzles Free Speech first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Anti-LGBTQ Censorship Is Endangering Trans People Behind Bars

    The rampant banning of texts about queer and transgender people has been in the news a lot recently, but nowhere is book banning more of an issue than in prison. Trans people, in particular, suffer from prisons’ arbitrary restrictions. Sophia Alexsandra Brett Laferriere, a trans woman living in a Washington state prison, told Truthout via the prison’s online messaging system…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Indeed, there is no comparison: Israel’s crimes are far worse than Hamas’

    There is one thing we should all be able to agree with Benjamin Netanyahu on: Any comparison between Israel’s war crimes and those of Hamas is, as the Israeli prime minister put it, “absurd and false” and a “distortion of reality”.Here’s why:

    * Israeli war crimes have been ongoing for more than seven decades, long predating Hamas’ creation.

    * Israel has kept the Palestinians of Gaza caged into a concentration camp for the past 17 years, denying them connection to the outside world and the essentials of life. Hamas managed to besiege a small part of Israel for one day, on October 7.

    * For every Israeli killed by Hamas on October 7, Israel has slaughtered at least 35 times that number of Palestinians. Similar kill-ratios grossly skewed in Israel’s favour have been true for decades.

    * Israel has killed more than 15,000 Palestinian children since October – and many tens of thousands more Palestinian children are missing under rubble, maimed or orphaned. By early April, Israel had killed a further 114 children in the West Bank and injured 725 more. Hamas killed a total of 33 Israeli children on October 7.

    * Israel has laid waste to Gaza’s entire health sector. It has bombed its hospitals, and killed, beaten and kidnapped many hundreds of medical personnel. Hamas has not attacked one Israeli hospital.

    * Israel has killed more than 100 journalists in Gaza and more than 250 aid workers. It has also kidnapped a further 40 journalists. Most are presumed to have been taken to a secret detention facility where torture is rife. Hamas is reported to have killed one Israeli journalist on October 7, and no known aid workers.

    * Israel is actively starving Gaza’s population by denying it food, water and aid. That is a power – a genocidal one – Hamas could only ever dream of.

    * Israel has been forcibly removing Palestinians from their lands for more than 76 years to build illegal Jewish settlements in their place. Hamas has not been able to ethnically cleanse a single Israeli, nor build a single Palestinian settlement on Israeli land.

    * Some 750,000 Palestinians are reported to have been taken hostage and jailed by Israel since 1967 – an unwelcome rite of passage for Palestinian men and boys and one in which torture is routine and military trials ensure a near-100% conviction rate. Until October 7, Hamas had only ever managed to take hostage a handful of the Israeli soldiers whose job is to oppress Palestinians.

    * And, while Hamas is designated a terrorist organisation by western states, those same western states laud Israel, fund and arm it, and provide it with diplomatic cover, even as the World Court rules that a plausible case has been made it is committing a genocide in Gaza.

    Yes, Netanyahu is right. There is no comparison at all.

    The post Indeed, there is no comparison: Israel’s crimes are far worse than Hamas’ first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Gaza is our moment of truth

    A protest by students at George Washington University. Probal Rashid SIPA USA)

    Powerful student movements in the 1960s and 1970s shook the world’s conscience to end America’s slaughter in Vietnam and Cambodia. The moral force of Black people rising together in their pain and rage against legislated racism changed the social fabric of America, ending formal segregation and ushering a new era in the struggle against institutional racialism.

    Power did what power does, deploying brute force, murder, intimidation, silencing, marginalizing, surveillance and all manner of corrupt policing.

    We see the outcome and we think we know it.

    Labels like “victory” and “advancement” are applied. “Civil rights” is a term spoken as an absolute, a singular point of history with a terrible before and liberated after.

    It’s the “happy ending” reframing of what is indeed a boundless thread of struggle for Black liberation stretching in both directions through time.

    The resilience of elite capitalist rule relies heavily on such narrative construction that manipulates public imagination with platitudes and reversible concessions, followed by a rebranding of oppression.

    Enslavement becomes mass incarceration and purposeful drug addiction. Segregation is sacrificed to be replaced with conscription of Black faces around the same table of power ethos.

    Rebooted with greater cruelty

    Power adapted since the 1960s, creating new stops, levers, gates and gatekeepers. They lulled us back into their system, rebooted it with greater cruelty and corruption, and retooled it with distractions and celebrity worship while they consolidated and concentrated power in the hands of a tiny minority.

    They bought politicians, who in turn work to safeguard and increase the wealth and influence of this elite minority, turning millionaires into billionaires and soon trillionaires, a staggering wealth gap built on the misery of the masses. They created laws to exonerate their criminality and criminalize dissent.

    They busted up the unions, subjugated workers and pitted them against each other. Instead of confronting the bosses, workers were manipulated into demanding iron borders and separation of families at those borders.

    They gutted regulations and bought up the airwaves to now dictate the content of 95 percent of everything we see, hear and read in the way of journalism, entertainment, education and cultural productions.

    This is the reason terrorist characters dominate Arab depictions in Hollywood. It’s the reason for the unusually high number of casual mentions of Israeli benevolence or genius in so many television series and films; the reason why Palestinian humanity is ignored or at best obscured in both print and broadcast news media no matter how many atrocities we face at Israel’s hands.

    It’s why Black media outlets, owned and run by Zionists of all stripes, take out hit pieces on the likes of Amanda Seales for her righteous stand on Palestine.

    Instead of paying taxes, these billionaires “donate” to universities sufficient sums to impose their vision not only for higher education, but for the acceptable expression of constitutional rights like the First Amendment.

    For example, outraged by a Palestinian literature festival – a beautiful celebration of Palestinian excellence and indigenous heritage – the billionaires Marc Rowan, Dick Wolf and the Lauder family conspired to remove the president of the University of Pennsylvania for her insufficient deference to their interpretation of academic freedom.

    Enlisting their hired goons in Congress, they and others of their ilk, like Bill Ackman, denigrated and/or removed more university presidents for the same reason.

    They even managed to bring the internet – which gave the 1990s generation hope for real democracy – under their nefarious control through algorithms and various forms of surveillance and censorship.

    Hiding the horrors

    Americans tried to stop the march of US corporate and Zionist warmongers toward war in the early 2000s, but they marched on, trampling our will and the bodies of millions of Iraqis. And the world watched as the US pulverized Iraq, a once glorious, high functioning ancient society.

    An “embedded” media hid the bloody horrors and kept the secrets of US corporate looting of Iraq’s treasures and laundering of US tax dollars through rebuilding schemes.

    Desensitized, Americans didn’t bother protesting when the US did the same in Libya, spurring a staggering de-development of one of Africa’s most advanced nations into a veritable human slave market.

    The enslavement and mutilation of Congolese children and whole families in mineral mines to benefit American tech billionaires (as well as Israel’s blood diamond trade) barely elicit a blip in Western media, a shockingly cruel reality they continue to obscure.

    There are hundreds more examples of American and Israeli militarism killing and destroying others in the service of this ruling corporate class.

    Mass surveillance of the populace followed the gutting and looting of public education in the United States. The rich got richer and the poor became destitute.

    In the name of technology and efficiency, capitalists degraded our food and water – poisoned them even – benefitting pharmaceutical billionaires who keep the masses teetering on the edge of health.

    Popular gurus pushed philosophies of individualism, contempt for family, and various forms of alienation that shattered community and social or familial bonds, leaving vast swaths of the people unable to cope with life without drug varieties, both legal and illegal.

    They have weighed us down with the fake dreams they scripted for us – insurmountable debt as a stand-in for family and education, blood diamonds as a stand-in for love and carnage abroad as a stand-in for greatness. They sold us a glorious pile of shit and made us think it was a normal – even inevitable – way of life.

    They glorified obsessive consumerism and obscenely ostentatious lifestyles. And we let them, believing it was our choice.

    But we had none.

    An American illusion

    Choice, like democracy and free press, is an American illusion, a fairytale they peddle in school, newspapers and songs.

    Look how quickly they disbanded, silenced and erased memory of the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011. Look how we are taught to believe that change can only come through the ballot box, where we’re told to “choose” between two war criminals one election after another.

    This moment of livestreamed genocide is the culmination of decades of global capitalist criminality and genocidal Western and Zionist imperialism. We watch in horror as whole Palestinian families are buried alive in their homes, crushed beneath the weight of rubble, their bodies torn and shredded.

    Then they gaslight us.

    Politicians, spokespeople, pundits, journalists and broadcasters take to the airways to convince us that we hadn’t just seen brains, tongues and eyeballs spilling from the crushed skulls of children and babies. Or worse, that they somehow deserved it.

    “Fog of war.”

    “Collateral damage.”

    “Hamas. Hamas. Hamas.”

    “The only democracy.”

    “Self-defense.”

    Over and over they use their wicked justifications and obfuscations. They speak to us as if we’re stupid because they’re accustomed to our silence and acquiescence.

    And they go on, prancing into the Met Gala in obscene finery, the vulgarity of which is made all the more apparent in juxtaposition to the burned and dismembered small bodies on the same day, pouring into Gaza’s few remaining hospitals, screaming, bewildered, in shock and in pain.

    But thank God for the students.

    Thank God for every Palestinian journalist and every Palestinian healthcare worker risking their lives day in and out to serve their people.

    For every fighter choosing martyrdom over indignity.

    For the local organizations and activists you never hear about, but whose work has been keeping thousands alive. I dare not say their names, lest they become targets.

    For Naledi Pandor in South Africa, Francesca Albanese at the United Nations and Clare Daly in the European Parliament.

    For the masses rising up in #Blockout2024. For artists and musicians from Roger Waters and Talib Kweli, to Macklemore and Black Thought, Questlove and more.

    For Yemen, South Africa and Colombia. For every person who refuses to remain silent.

    All dots connected

    This time is different from the uprisings of the 1960s and 1970s. There is a new sense of global interconnection, an emerging class consciousness and foundational political analyses predicated on post-colonial studies and intersectionality.

    Back then the white students protesting the war wouldn’t unite with the Black Panthers because they couldn’t connect the dots. All dots are connecting now.

    Gaza is no longer the enclave sealed and besieged by Israel and Abdulfattah al-Sisi’s Egypt into a concentration camp. Gaza is no longer the densely-populated strip of Israeli-occupied land.

    Rather, Gaza is now all the world.

    Gaza is our collective moment of truth, the meaning in our lives. It is the clarity we need and seek.

    It is the definitive divide between us and the ruling class that tramples us.

    It is us or them. There is no middle place now.

    All the borders fade, leaving us united to confront this greedy genocidal minority everywhere.

    Gaza is the most anguished place on earth at this hour, dimmed by unimaginable Zionist cruelty, which their military and society conduct with perverted glee that they set to music for TikTok.

    And from this tortured place of rubble, death and misery there springs the greatest light we have ever known to guide us out of the darkness in which we’ve been forced to live. The light of our ancestors – from Palestine and Alkebulan to Turtle Island and Aotearoa.

    Gaza may well be our last chance to save humanity.

    If we allow the wheels of this genocidal Zionist engine to keep turning, there will be no more limits to fascism. There will be no shame or red lines before which they will halt.

    This struggle can no more be just about a ceasefire. It must demand liberation and accountability across our burning planet.

    Already they are using the tactics of brute force, violent intimidation, suspension and marginalization. They will attempt the same dismantlement, silencing and erasure they did with the Occupy Wall Street movement.

    They will offer half-baked promises with no teeth, enough to quiet matters long enough to adopt new strategies and enact new laws.

    If we stop they will adapt, and they will do so with artificial intelligence, against which we may well have no defenses, not for a long time to come. So beware of their concessions.

    Beware of victory that pulls us back into the lanes they made.

    We cannot allow Israeli genocide against a defenseless and captive indigenous population to become a whitewashed, declawed historic moment of before and after.

    We cannot leave the lawns and streets and courts and battlefields until Zionism is dismantled and Palestine is free.

    This moment belongs to the people. We can dream our own dreams and create a new world in every personal act of refusal to participate in this horrible system predicated on genocide and unending exploitation.

    Together we are powerful beyond our wildest imaginations. Compassion and defiance are our superpowers, and this is just our origin story.

    The youth are leading and showing us that the future is ours, if we dare to claim it.

    • First published in The Electronic Intifada

    The post Gaza is our moment of truth first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Two poems, four years in detention: the Chinese dissident who smuggled his writing out of prison

    My poems were written in anger after Tiananmen Square. But what motivates most prison writing is a fear of forgetting. Today I am free, but the regime has never stopped its war on words

    Most of my manuscripts are locked up in the filing cabinets of the ministry of security, and the agents there study and ponder them repeatedly, more carefully than the creator himself. The guys working this racket have superb memories; a certain chief of the Chengdu public security bureau can still recite the poems I published in an underground magazine in the 1980s. While the literati write nostalgically, hoping to go down in literary history, the real history may be locked in the vaults of the security department.

    The above is excerpted from my book June 4: My Testimony, published in Taiwan in 2011. I wrote that book three times, the later drafts on paper much better than the paper I used for writing in prison, which was so soft and brittle I had to write very lightly. Paper outside prison is solid and flexible enough that you don’t have to worry about puncturing it with the tip of a pen. Thus, I restrained myself and filled in a page of paper, and then how many thousand – ten thousand? More? How many ant-sized words can be packed on to a page? Who knows.

    On 10 October 1995, at two in the afternoon, three police cars carrying about a dozen special agents burst in on me. Everything was carried out in accordance with “legal procedures”, the officers’ IDs and search warrant were presented, the entire search process was meticulously videotaped, and all written matter in the house (including manuscripts, letters, and notes) was confiscated. And this included the very nearly completed draft of this testimony – more than 300,000 characters representing my painstaking efforts of the past year and a half.

    I was breathing normally, signed with a smile, and asked: “Should I bring clothes?” The answer: “No.” I was uneasy leaving my money and valuables at home as I prepared to be the guest of the state for a long time. The agents laughed.

    At 10 o’clock in the evening, I exited the Baiguolin police station in the Xicheng district of Chengdu and was politely told: “Don’t leave the city for the next month.” Thank God, my head was still on my shoulders and I could still write.

    I cursed my carelessness with the foulest language imaginable and set about rewriting with all my might. Without inspiration or passion, the pen slashed the paper to ribbons, and often I could only produce a few hundred words a day. Staring at the paper was useless, and cold sweat couldn’t solve my writer’s block. But I’d made a bet; I couldn’t admit defeat. I wanted to use this to validate my own stupid way of living as an insignificant individual – a bet with the world’s largest dictatorship – with writing materials, so that in future my kids won’t think their dad was just talking big.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Virtual Home Invasions: We’re Not Safe from Government Peeping Toms

    The spirit of the Constitution, drafted by men who chafed against the heavy-handed tyranny of an imperial ruler, would suggest that one’s home is a fortress, safe from almost every kind of intrusion.

    Unfortunately, a collective assault by the government’s cabal of legislators, litigators, judges and militarized police has all but succeeded in reducing that fortress—and the Fourth Amendment alongside it—to a crumbling pile of rubble.

    We are no longer safe in our homes, not from the menace of a government and its army of Peeping Toms who are waging war on the last stronghold of privacy left to us as a free people.

    The weapons of this particular war on the privacy and sanctity of our homes are being wielded by the government and its army of bureaucratized, corporatized, militarized mercenaries.

    Government agents—with or without a warrant, with or without probable cause that criminal activity is afoot, and with or without the consent of the homeowner—are now justified in mounting virtual home invasions using surveillance technology—with or without the blessing of the courts—to invade one’s home with wiretaps, thermal imaging, surveillance cameras, aerial drones, and other monitoring devices.

    Just recently, in fact, the Michigan Supreme Court gave the government the green light to use warrantless aerial drone surveillance to snoop on citizens at home and spy on their private property.

    While the courts have given police significant leeway at times when it comes to physical intrusions into the privacy of one’s home (the toehold entry, the battering ram, the SWAT raid, the knock-and-talk conversation, etc.), the menace of such virtual intrusions on our Fourth Amendment rights has barely begun to be litigated, legislated and debated.

    Consequently, we now find ourselves in the unenviable position of being monitored, managed, corralled and controlled by technologies that answer to government and corporate rulers.

    Indeed, almost anything goes when it comes to all the ways in which the government can now invade your home and lay siege to your property.

    Consider that on any given day, the average American going about his daily business will be monitored, surveilled, spied on and tracked in more than 20 different ways, by both government and corporate eyes and ears.

    A byproduct of this surveillance age in which we live, whether you’re walking through a store, driving your car, checking email, or talking to friends and family on the phone, you can be sure that some government agency is listening in and tracking your behavior.

    This doesn’t even begin to touch on the corporate trackers that monitor your purchases, web browsing, Facebook posts and other activities taking place in the cyber sphere.

    Stingray devices mounted on police cars to warrantlessly track cell phones, Doppler radar devices that can detect human breathing and movement within in a home, license plate readers that can record up to 1800 license plates per minute, sidewalk and “public space” cameras coupled with facial recognition and behavior-sensing technology that lay the groundwork for police “pre-crime” programs, police body cameras that turn police officers into roving surveillance cameras, the internet of things: all of these technologies (and more) add up to a society in which there’s little room for indiscretions, imperfections, or acts of independence—especially not when the government can listen in on your phone calls, read your emails, monitor your driving habits, track your movements, scrutinize your purchases and peer through the walls of your home.

    Nowhere to run and nowhere to hide: this is the mantra of the architects of the Surveillance State and their corporate collaborators.

    Government eyes see your every move: what you read, how much you spend, where you go, with whom you interact, when you wake up in the morning, what you’re watching on television and reading on the internet.

    Every move you make is being monitored, mined for data, crunched, and tabulated in order to amass a profile of who you are, what makes you tick, and how best to control you when and if it becomes necessary to bring you in line.

    Cue the dawning of the Age of the Internet of Things (IoT).

    In the not-too-distant future, “just about every device you have—and even products like chairs, that you don’t normally expect to see technology in—will be connected and talking to each other.”

    It is estimated that 127 new IoT devices are connected to the web every second.

    These Internet-connected techno gadgets include smart light bulbs that discourage burglars by making your house look occupied, smart thermostats that regulate the temperature of your home based on your activities, and smart doorbells that let you see who is at your front door without leaving the comfort of your couch.

    Given the speed and trajectory at which these technologies are developing, it won’t be long before these devices become government informants, reporting independently on anything you might do that runs afoul of the Nanny State.

    Moreover, it’s not just our homes and personal devices that are being reordered and reimagined in this connected age: it’s our workplaces, our health systems, our government, our bodies and our innermost thoughts that are being plugged into a matrix over which we have no real control.

    It is expected that by 2030, we will all experience The Internet of Senses (IoS), enabled by Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), 5G, and automation. The Internet of Senses relies on connected technology interacting with our senses of sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch by way of the brain as the user interface. As journalist Susan Fourtane explains, “Many predict that by 2030, the lines between thinking and doing will blur… By 2030, technology is set to respond to our thoughts, and even share them with others.”

    Once technology is able to access and act on your thoughts, not even your innermost thoughts will be safe from the Thought Police.

    Thus far, the public response to concerns about government surveillance has amounted to a collective shrug.

    Yet as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, when the government sees all and knows all and has an abundance of laws to render even the most seemingly upstanding citizen a criminal and lawbreaker, then the old adage that you’ve got nothing to worry about if you’ve got nothing to hide no longer applies.

    The post Virtual Home Invasions: We’re Not Safe from Government Peeping Toms first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Romney and Blinken Admit Tiktok Ban Sought to Censor Gaza News

    A discussion between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Sen. Mitt Romney over the weekend included what one critic called an “incredible mask-off moment,” with the two officials speaking openly about the U.S. government’s long-term attempts to provide public relations work for Israel in defense of its policies in the occupied Palestinian territories — and its push to ban TikTok in order to…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Why impact of Israel-Gaza war has become harder to document

    Israel’s surprise attack on Al-Shifa hospital in northern Gaza on March 18, and the two weeks of fighting that followed, resulted in hundreds of deaths and a trail of destruction. It also left a morass of contradictory information about exactly who was killed there, who was arrested, and who went missing.  

    As the Israel-Gaza war enters its eighth month, the verification of such information has slowed to a crawl. An unprecedented number of deaths, with more than 90 Palestinian journalists killed by Israeli forces since the start of the war, displacement, and censorship are all making it exponentially harder to confirm information about the conflict’s devastating impact on Gaza’s media community – and, by extension, about the broader impact of the war.

    “At the start of the war it would take us a day or two to verify information about a journalist who had been killed or injured,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martínez de la Serna. “Collecting and vetting this information is now taking us weeks or months, and in some cases won’t be possible at all.”

    More than six weeks after the Al-Shifa hospital attack, CPJ is still working to verify what happened to four people on the site who may have been journalists. Were they killed, did they go missing, or were they detained in the raid, and were they working as journalists at the time? Efforts to glean accurate information about these four have been obstructed by a communications blackout, conflicting accounts, and the near-total destruction of the Al-Shifa site, where evidence may be destroyed or buried under the rubble.

    One effect of this uncertainty is that the names of these journalists are not yet included in CPJ’s reports about other journalists held in the Al-Shifa attack – a stark illustration that the true casualty count may be much higher, and may not be known for months or even years.

    These constraints have become the norm in Gaza and, as the number of media workers in the region dwindles, pose fresh challenges to CPJ’s real-time documentation of the war’s toll on journalists.

    “Every bit of information we cannot access means the world loses more of its ability to understand what is happening in the war, how it has affected journalists and media workers, and who is specifically accountable,” said Mohamed Mandour, a researcher on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) program.

    Devastating loss of local sources

    The decimation and displacement of Gaza’s media community, which was estimated to number at least 1,000 before the war, means that there are fewer and fewer local journalists left to provide details about the fate of their colleagues. As of May 6, at least 97 journalists and media workers had been killed in Gaza, Lebanon, and Israel since October 7, 2023, the vast majority (92) Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes. Others have been injured, fled into exile, and had their offices destroyed. 

    Those who died may have been directly targeted or victims of a broader attack, but with whole families killed in many instances, there are fewer survivors to provide information about the circumstances of a relative’s death. To date, CPJ has determined that at least three journalists were directly targeted by Israeli forces in killings which CPJ classifies as murders, but is still researching the details for confirmation in 10 other cases that indicate possible targeting. 

    More Israel-Gaza war coverage

    CPJ has been documenting the impact of the war’s impact on journalists since it began October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched an unprecedented surprise attack against Israel, which responded by declaring war on Hamas and launching airstrikes and a ground assault on Gaza. CPJ has also offered safety guides on war reporting, psychological safety, and advice for journalists arrested or detained. 

    * List of journalist casualties
    * 2023 report: War brings journalist killings to devastating high
    * Palestinian journalists detained by Israel in record numbers
    * Methodology
    * Full coverage

    “Imagine the amount of information we could have had if nearly 100 journalists had not been killed,” Mandour said. “Many journalists have also fled Gaza, some in urgent need of medical care that is not available, especially after the attacks on hospitals. Others fled to avoid being killed or injured, as there is no longer a safe space for journalists in Gaza, not even hospitals.”

    The overall scale of loss has made it harder for journalists to get the information they need to convey the full impact of the war. 

    Diaa Al-Kahlout, the Gaza bureau chief for Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, who recently told CPJ that he was tortured during 33 days in Israeli detention, said that the outside world “sees only 10% of the actual reality” in Gaza. “I used to be able to get all the news, and today, many significant stories haven’t been covered,” he said.

    Diaa Al-Kahlout, Gaza bureau chief for Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, recently told CPJ that he was tortured during 33 days in Israeli detention. (Photo: Courtesy of Diaa Al-Kahlout)

    In addition to journalists and their families, others who could have provided information about the situation for journalists are now dead, displaced, or injured. One of those injured and now in exile is Abdullah Al-Hajj, a photographer for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), who provided crucial drone imagery of war damage before he was severely injured in a February Israeli strike in which he lost both legs. Al-Hajj was being treated in Al-Shifa hospital when Israel raided it in March, but survived and was later evacuated to Qatar.

    More than 34,000 Palestinians are estimated to have been killed in the war, and an April 28 Wall Street Journal report notes that Gaza health authorities – a primary source of casualty data for institutions like the U.N. – say they can no longer provide an accurate count of the dead. 

    Precarious living conditions

    Another factor hampering access to information is that overstretched Gaza journalists are drained by the same dire shortages as other residents, struggling to find food, equipment, protective gear, and safe places to stay. “They are busy trying to save their own lives,” said Mandour.

    “The day-to-day includes a lot of uncertainty and unpredictability,” Hoda Osman, executive editor of Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ), told CPJ recently. “They have a home today, they might not have a home tomorrow. They have their family members with them today, they might lose them tomorrow. They themselves are alive today, they might be injured or killed tomorrow.”

    Absence of foreign journalists

    The near-total ban on international journalists allowed in Gaza further complicates the situation. In most conflicts, a rotating international press corps provides additional coverage and can help assist in documentation of threats to journalists.

    Before the war, many foreign press outlets had offices in Gaza, but those bureaus have been unable to operate effectively after many were damaged during Israeli attacks. Those hit included the building housing international news agency Agence France-Presse, which had been streaming live images of the war from a camera at the top of the building.

    Despite more than 4,000 international journalists coming to Israel to cover the war, the High Court in Israel upheld the IDF’s decision to prevent almost all foreign media from Gaza. The only exceptions are a handful of tightly controlled army-led press tours. 

    “With so many Palestinian journalists killed, in exile, or physically and psychologically depleted after months of reporting and living in a conflict zone, and no international media present within Gaza either, the process of finding credible sources to verify the facts on the ground has become increasingly difficult,” CPJ MENA Representative Doja Daoud said.

    For CPJ, this dearth of sources means that it is taking longer to investigate whether a victim meets the organization’s criteria for classification as a journalist and to ensure that CPJ researchers have more than one source confirming details of a situation involving members of the media.

    “We are trying to preserve the history of what’s happening to the journalists themselves and the increasingly difficult situation they are in,” said Daoud. “And we want to be fair to everyone who is a journalist or media worker by not adding anyone to the list who should not be there or by skipping anyone. Even if we must work more slowly, it is worth the wait.”

    Communications breakdowns

    Frequent communications blackouts and destruction of media equipment are further disrupting efforts to gather information about the war. CPJ researchers say that calls that do get through are plagued with background noise from constant drone flyovers, and voice messages can get lost in often-unreliable internet connections. Journalists’ vehicles, computers, phones, cameras, and other gear also have been destroyed in attacks. “At the start of the war, it was easy to call anyone in Gaza and hear back from them immediately. Now you are not sure when or if you’ll get a response,” Mandour said. “The drone attack on Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital was less damaging than at Al-Shifa, but many journalists still lost their phones and laptops so their ability to communicate was gone.”

    Deteriorating due process

    In the case of journalist arrests – most of which have happened in the Israeli-occupied West Bank – “we are finding it difficult to document arrests because even the lawyers for the journalists’ families don’t have access to the details,” said Ignacio Delgado Culebras, a consultant for CPJ’s MENA team. “Due process is failing because authorities can use administrative detention laws to put people behind bars without charging them or publicly disclosing evidence. It’s only over time we find out where they are held or whether there are any charges filed.” 

    In one of the cases CPJ is investigating, freelance journalist Hamza al-Safi was arrested in February, but his wife still doesn’t know the reason for his arrest or the charges he is facing. Al-Safi, who contributes to the Hamas-affiliated Quds News Network, the news website Al-Jarmaq News, and other outlets, was arrested at his house in the West Bank on February 9, according to news reports and his wife.

    Israel’s use of administrative detention, a practice in place before the onset of the war, has long been condemned by human rights groups and U.N. experts.

    Fear of retribution in multiple regions, perceptions of indifference

    Many sources are increasingly afraid to speak out. “People don’t want to be killed, attacked, or imprisoned by the authorities for echoing critical voices” whether those authorities are Hamas or Israel, Daoud said. 

    Daoud noted that this fear transcends borders as journalists in Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt have all faced violence and censorship during the war: 

    • Israel raided and closed the Jerusalem office of Al-Jazeera after the Israeli cabinet voted on May 5 to shut down the broadcasts of the Qatar-based channel in Israel under a law that could also restrict other international outlets working in Israel if they are deemed to be a threat to the country’s security. Israeli journalists have said they fear expressing views critical of their country’s actions in the war. Some have been attacked by Israeli citizens while covering events. Military officials have also voiced concerns about government efforts to stifle reporting. 
    • In Lebanon, at least five journalists, who spoke to CPJ anonymously for fear of retribution, said they had been detained in the country while trying to document the war in the south. Others have faced online threats and investigations for being critical of the war.
    • In Jordan, journalists have been detained for reporting on the protests in front of the Israeli embassy in Amman. Charges of “impersonating a journalist” are being brought against journalists who aren’t members of the government-approved Press Syndicate. (Most practicing journalists are not in the syndicate.) Many journalists also tell CPJ they are facing threats but do not want to report them publicly.
    • Egypt has banned international and Egyptian journalists from entering Gaza through the Rafah border crossing. Additionally, when one of the few independent media outlets in Egypt, Mada Masr, reported on the effect of the Israel-Gaza war in Egypt, the Egyptian authorities banned Mada Masr’s website for six months and referred its editor-in-chief for prosecution.

    Perceptions of global indifference are also making people more cautious in providing information. “In the beginning of the war people were interested in exposing actions against journalists,” Mandour said. “Now everyone knows the international community has been ineffective in stopping media arrests and violence. They wonder why they should speak out if they are not getting any protection.”

    CPJ’s road to accountability

    CPJ believes that the decline in reporting – along with the war’s impact on the media – will continue if Israel is able to continue attacking and imprisoning journalists without consequence. “Deadly Pattern,” a CPJ investigation published in May 2023, found that Israel did not charge any soldiers for 20 journalist killings in over 22 years. 

    This pattern of impunity may be repeated in the current war, where it could become a playbook for repressive behavior in the Israel-Gaza region and elsewhere – endangering journalists and suppressing information needed to hold accountable those who kill, attack and imprison them for their work. 

    To help curb the threats to journalists and press for more information attacks against them, CPJ continues to conduct methodical research and to press both regional and global authorities to act on journalists’ behalf. Said Daoud: “We are keeping in mind that the road to accountability, to justice, to all of these court hearings and rulings and lawsuits is through our accurate documentation.”


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.