Under the U.S. Supreme Court: Using Twitter to build WikiLeaks case

As the United States tries to build its case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, prosecutors are seeking Twitter messages sent by supposed WikiLeaks supporters -- and possibly message information from Facebook, Skype and Google. At stake in the legal fight -- beyond placing criminal responsibility for thousands of classified U.S. documents being posted on the Internet -- is how much privacy Twitter and other social network users can expect or whether such messages are considered private at all.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the non-profit Electronic Frontier Foundation went to court in Alexandria, Va., last week to try to stop the government's acquisition of the Twitter messages.
An Assange lawyer said earlier an array of social networks, not just Twitter, was being mined by the government for information.
Ironically, the Alexandria hearing occurred on the same day President Barack Obama was publicly telling autocratic governments: "The world is changing … with a young, vibrant generation within the Middle East that is looking for greater opportunities. If you're governing these countries, you've got to get ahead of change; you can't get behind the curve."
Twitter and other forms of Internet social networking are given credit both for generating protests and keeping protesters in touch with each other. In Egypt and Tunisia, it led to regime change. Demonstrations inn Iran, Yemen, Bahrain and elsewhere are continuing.
On the same day, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was giving a speech advocating the freedom of the Internet. She told a crowd at The George Washington University in Washington: "Egypt isn't inspiring people because they communicated using Twitter. It is inspiring because people came together and persisted in demanding a better future. Iran isn't awful because the authorities used Facebook to shadow and capture members of the opposition. Iran is awful because it is a government that routinely violates the rights of its people."...

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@'UPI'

The girl who loves to levitate

"We are all surrounded by social stress as we are bound by the forces of earth's gravity," Natsumi says when asked why she took on the series. "So, I hope that people feel something like an instant release from their stressful days by seeing my levitation photos."
Natsumi Hayashi
Via

China police break up 'protests' after online appeal

Police in China showed up in force in several major cities after an online call for a "jasmine revolution".

Calls for people to protest and shout "we want food, we want work, we want housing, we want fairness", were circulated on Chinese microblog sites.
The message was first posted on a US-based Chinese-language website.
Several rights activists were detained beforehand and three people were arrested in Shanghai, but the call for mass protests was not well answered.
Reports from Shanghai and Beijing said there appeared to be many onlookers curious about the presence of so many police and journalists at the proposed protest sites, in busy city-centre shopping areas.
Police in the two cities dispersed small crowds who had gathered. There were no reports of protests in 11 other cities where people were urged to gather on Sunday.
The BBC's Chris Hogg in Shanghai says the men arrested there were roughly handled as they were dragged away shouting "why are you arresting me, I haven't done anything wrong".
Our correspondent says it was not clear what prompted the arrests and the men had not shouted any political slogans.
China's authorities blocked searches for the word jasmine on the internet.
Protesters in Tunisia who overthrew President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in January called their movement the Jasmine Revolution.
On Saturday President Hu Jintao called for stricter controls on the internet "to guide public opinion" and "solve prominent problems which might harm the harmony and stability of the society".
@'BBC'

Q&A: Cyber-espionage

Middle East protests: Is it time for the west to come clean?

Protesters in Bahrain celebrate after reaching Lulu Square in the capital city of Manama, defying calls by crown prince Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa for calm. Photograph: Mazen Mahdi/EPA 

There has been a tendency among western commentators during the past few weeks of popular uprising in the Middle East and north Africa to interpret the events as occurring along starkly defined fault lines.
There are the people versus the regime; Islamists versus the secular; and autocratic, corrupt rulers pitted against a popular desire for democracy, human rights and economic inclusion. All of which contains some truths, but it remains a partial picture.
In our desire to create a joined-up narrative out of the unrest, from Yemen to Iraq and Bahrain, we have ignored the specifics. In the rush of politicians such as Hillary Clinton to support the new wave of "freedom", western governments seem to be replicating the same errors they made during the "colour" revolutions, mistaking the act of revolt for the outcome of a long period of revolution, and accepting the incomplete in the name of "stability".
For, like Tolstoy's unhappy families, each of the autocracies now embroiled in popular uprisings is autocratic in its own way. What can be said about the events in Tunisia is as inapplicable to Egypt as it is to Bahrain or Yemen.
In truth, there are some broad common strands: each country has a young population with a significant, well-educated segment and many people looking for work. In each, power has been monopolised by a small elite, either drawn from a royal family or from a figure backed by the military and business and the west. Corruption is often rife; a culture of repression is vigorous and deeply ingrained.
But that tends to be where the similarities end. Take, for instance, comparisons between Egypt and Bahrain. The former is a huge state with a massive urban hinterland centring on Cairo, one of the planet's megacities. Its recent history includes a "revolution" in 1952 that was in reality a coup. Its social conflicts have been defined by the notion of the threat – in substantial part manufactured by the old regime – of the Muslim Brotherhood and a corrupt system of patronage overseen by the military and the associated National Democratic Party which have enjoyed a monopoly on power and economic opportunity.
Bahrain, for all of the similarity of some of the chants at the Pearl roundabout – and the violence used in the attempts to break the protest movement – has a social conflict very differently defined. It has been underpinned by a long-festering sectarian conflict in a Shia-majority country where a Sunni royal family has ruled since the 18th century.
Preferment for jobs, including the military and police, has not been through party patronage but through sect, resulting in a situation where the capital is largely Sunni and the far poorer countryside is Shia. Which leaves a profound challenge for the west, whose interventions in the region have historically tended to support exactly those autocrats whose power is now being challenged, while promoting neo-liberal economic policies that have enriched the minority elites while making daily life more difficult for many in the region.
It is not good enough to talk, as Clinton, Barack Obama, William Hague and others have done, in feeble generalities about "stability", "freedom" and "restraint" in a networked world where the weakness and slowness of expression of those sentiments is so rapidly exposed.
If western diplomacy – and media commentary – has a function in these times, it should be to expose and focus on the precise dynamics of the awful inequalities in these societies and the routine violence and oppression that sustains them.
If the west has a contribution to make, it is in an honest and accurate audit of the nature of the states our governments have for so long been supporting, not prevarication. To describe reality, not vague ideals, and in describing it, reboot the policies that have for so long supported repression and corruption.
Peter Beaumont @'The Guardian'

Libyan Disconnect

After 42 years, Libya's controversial ruler faces new threats

Tu Shung Peng - "Nuits Zébrées" of Radio Nova, Paris 21 November 2008

44 min.

http://www.myspace.com/tushungpeng

Dancing Thom

Thom dancing to the (Single) Ladies

@DancingThom

♪♫ Patti Smith - People Have The Power

it's on! (god VS anon)

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Anonymous warns Westboro Baptist Church to stop with the hate

UPDATE:

It's a trap!

Henry Rollin's High School Year Book Bio

Future plans: Nationwide terrorization
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Citizens patrol Benghazi streets

Palestinian Authority to call urgent UN session over US settlement resolution veto

Helvetica Blahs

"Hospitals are full with a shortage of blood for patients." #Libya #Feb17"

fieldproducer Neal Mann

Great line from Robert Fisk 'Just because Gaddafi is a nutter does not mean his people are fools' #Libya

Madison WI

Madison

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker: Funded by the Koch Bros.

Libya protests: Gaddafi sends in snipers to silence the dissent

Jah Wobble's top ten dub tracks

1 KING TUBBY MEETS ROCKERS UPTOWN Augustus Pablo
I first heard this as a pre-release in 1976. Love the sound of Augustus Pablo's melodica; I am also kinky for the sound of the dubbed-up timbale drums that feature on this recording. King Tubby was the king of pure, heavy-duty dub at that time. It was released in this country on Island Records. Hearing 'King Tubby' for the first time had a profound effect on me: it was like hearing music from another cosmos. There are any number of good King Tubby compilations now around - Trojan Records and the Blood & Fire label are good places to look.
2 CONCRETE DUB Bob Marley
I no longer have this record... in fact, I have not heard it for probably 25 years, so I hope it does really exist and is not a figment of my imagination. If memory serves me well, it was the dub version B-side of an Island 7" single; probably of the track called 'Concrete Jungle', from the Catch a Fire album. It must have been one of the first ever domestically released dub singles. It was great to hear a dub version of a Marley track - I nearly always preferred the dub version of a tune. There was more space, and the bass and drums were pushed to the fore.
3 MARCUS GARVEY (DUB VERSION) Burning Spear
One of the very first dub versions I ever heard. I heard it in 1975 on a Friday night on the Capital Radio reggae show. I used to listen to that show religiously - Tommy Vance was the DJ. I now occasionally hear him DJing on heavy-rock stations as I channel-hop.
4 PROMISE IS A COMFORT TO A FOOL Trinity/Yabby You
A classic bassline, with a beautiful vocal refrain, and DJ chat. There are some bass lines that contain the whole mystery of creation within them. This is one of them. Other examples are Roy Budd's bass line to the title track of Mike Hodges Get Carter, and Cecil McBee's line on Lonnie Liston Smith's 'Expansions' are two that come immediately to mind. The crediting of reggae musicians is notoriously lax. There are three possible players, re this particular tune. All giants of the bass - Robbie Shakespeare, Aston 'Family Man' Barrett and Clinton Fearon. If I had to put money down on who it is on this track, I would say it was Mr Fearon.
5 TWO SEVENS CLASH Culture
For a while back in 1977, you could not get away from this tune. It still sounds heavenly. It reminds me of walking back from a party in Hackney on a Sunday morning as the sun was coming up. I couldn't get the tune out of my head.
6 JUJU MUSIC King Sunny Ade
There was a little-known dub version of this classic album, mixed by an engineer that I worked with, called Groucho. What he did was devastating. I would love to hear it again. It was on Island (again!) and was released around 1982.
7 ROWING Dennis Bovell
One of the great musicians of his generation. I used to watch him perform this with his band Matumbi. As with "Juju Music", I hankered after hearing it again. I'm pleased to say that the label Pressure Sounds has released a compilation of Dennis's dub stuff, which includes this track.
8 THE SAME SONG Israel Vibration
Similar to our own late, and very great Ian Dury, 'Skeleton,' 'Apple' and 'Wiss' [Israel Vibration's three members] were stricken by polio in the fifties. This blend of their vocals within a dub context is wonderful. Yet again, there is a great compilation on Pressure Sounds.
9 CONSCIOUS MAN DUB Lee Perry and the Jolly Brothers
You could not have a dub selection without Lee "Scratch" Perry appearing. This is a great example of his idiosyncratic style.
10 SMILING STRANGER John Martyn
This is taken from his 1980 album One World. It was one of the first records outside reggae to utilise dub techniques. Superb.
@'Fodderstomph'

Notes:

A 'Baker's Dozen' out of Wobble's top ten dub tracks. I have included the vocal versions of the Culture & Israel Vibration songs and two versions of 'Concrete Jungle'. Is that single just a figment of the Wob's imagination? Certainly there was no dub version on the 1973 Island 7" (WIP 6164) The B side was a track called 'Reincarnation Soul' and the versions here are a much earlier cut of the tune produced by Lee Perry as well as an unreleased dub version from 1976. Regarding the King Sunny Adé Remix album. I think that may have been a perk of him being signed to Island Records at the time as to my knowledge the only dub cut to have been released was this version of 'Ja Funmi'. Lastly John Martyn spent a long time in Jamaica back around 1976 and also played on some Lee Perry & Burning Spear sessions amongst others. 'Big Muff' from 'One World' was co-written with Lee Perry and Perry's 'underwater swirling' effects are all over the album.

Get it
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UPDATE:

Thanx to 'Lightning Clap' the mystery of 'Concrete Dub' has been solved. It is the B side of the 'Jah Live' single released in 1975. Co-written and mixed by Lee Perry. Many thnx. You can get it HERE.

Another liberated post from HerrB's sadly missed 'Pathway To Unknown Worlds' blog

Smart Dictators Don't Quash the Internet

Wikileaks Stoned Again

♪♫ The Jungle Brothers - Brain

Funky shit

Deaths as Ivory Coast forces open fire on protesters

Anonymous delivers ultimatum to Westboro Baptist Church

Jah Wobble - Fireside Chat @ RBMAR

Public Image Limited - Memories - Virgin
Public Image Limited - Religion I - Virgin
Public Image Limited - Public Image - Virgin
Public Image Limited - Poptones - Virgin
Jah Wobble - Beat The Drum For Me - Virgin
Jah Wobble - Not Another - Virgin
Jah Wobble, Jaki Liebezeit, Holger Czukay - How Much Are They? - Island
Jah Wobble, The Edge, Holger Czukay - Hold On To Your Dreams - Island
Jah Wobble - Enough - Southern Records
Jah Wobble's Invaders Of The Heart - Becoming More Like God - Island
Jah Wobble's Invaders Of The Heart - Visions Of You - Oval Records
Primal Scream - Higher Than The Sun (A Dub Symphony In 2 Parts) - Creation
Bjork & David Arnold - Play Dead - Island Records
Jah Wobble & Bill Laswell - Orion - Palm Pictures/Axiom
Jah Wobble - New Mexico Dub - Trojan Records
Jah Wobble - Dragon And Phoenix Dub - 30 Hertz Records
Jah Wobble & The Nippon Dub Ensemble - K Dub 05 - 30 Hertz Records

Dean Wareham - Route du Rock 2/18/11

Singer/guitarist Dean Wareham is more influential than he is usually given credit for. Often sounding like a depressed slacker, Wareham has inspired a number of indie rockers to express their sadness with a wistful tenor. Wareham was born in Wellington, New Zealand, on August 1, 1963. In 1977, Wareham and his parents relocated to New York City. Wareham then moved to Boston to attend college. After spending a year in Germany, Wareham returned to Boston, MA, in 1987 and formed Galaxie 500 with his high school and college buddies Damon Krukowski (drums) and Naomi Yang (bass). Galaxie 500 was signed to Shimmy Disc and released their first album, Today, in 1988. Although Galaxie 500 received little mainstream recognition, the band's languorous, narcotic rhythms -- recalling the Velvet Underground and Joy Division -- had a significant impact in shaping alternative subgenres such as shoegazer and slowcore. Wareham recorded three albums with Galaxie 500 before leaving the group in 1991. Galaxie 500's label, the U.S. division of Rough Trade, also folded that year, leaving the band's LPs in limbo until Krukowski later bought the master tapes at an auction. Wareham then moved back to New York City, releasing the EP Anaesthesia and contributing vocals to Mercury Rev's "Car Wash Hair." A year later Wareham started Luna with Justin Harewood (bass) of the Chills and Stanley Demeski (drums) from the Feelies. Named after Diane Keaton's character in the Woody Allen film Sleeper, Luna recorded their debut full-length, Lunapark, for Elektra Records. The track "Slash Your Tires" was a minor hit on modern rock stations, but Luna's subsequent commercial failures diminished the label's faith in the group's ability to attract a bigger audience. Elektra dropped the band before their fifth album, The Days of Our Nights, was even released; it was distributed in 1999 by Jericho instead. The lack of major label support did nothing to diminish Luna's adoring fanbase. Wareham, et al issued Luna Live (Arena Rock Recording Company) in 2001, and moved to Jetset for the acclaimed 2002 release Romantica. Wareham returned a year later with L'Avventura. The album was a breezy mixture of originals and standards recorded with latter-day Luna bassist Britta Phillips. (Michael Sutton)

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00:55:26

Reggae Britannia (Documentary)

Showing how it came from Jamaica in the 1960s to influence, over the next 20 years, both British music and society, the programme includes major artists and performances from that era, including Big Youth, Max Romeo, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Jerry Dammers and the Specials, the Police, UB40, Dennis Bovell, lovers rock performers Carroll Thompson and Janet Kay, bands like Aswad and Steel Pulse and reggae admirers such as Boy George and Paul Weller.
The programme celebrates the impact of reggae, the changes it brought about and its lasting musical legacy.

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Historic moment for #bahrain #feb14 pearl occupied again.

Via

Bahrain unrest: Protesters enter symbolic Pearl Square

Sex is Dangerous. Again.

David Cameron gives the thumbs up after fugn you over!

The death of the music industry

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No flowers
Musicians: Why it’s still a good idea not to quit your day job

DalaiLama Dalai Lama

Large human movements spring from individual human initiatives.

exiledsurfer exiledsurfer

via ►@martinchulov: Bahrain's Crown Prince just announced that the army has been ordered off the streets of Manama

Libya protests: 84 killed in growing unrest, says Human Rights Watch

Scientist vs The Upsetters - Live at Fabric, London

Scientist needs no introduction. As a protégé of King Tubby at Dromilly Road he started out learning the tools of the trade, fixing electronics and working on four channels, before he moved on to the sixteen channel desk at Channel One Studio in Jamaica, where he engineered a host of albums, often working with the Roots Radics. His musical vision as well as his deep knowledge of the technical side of things have made him an undoubted godfather of dub with one of the most expansive discographies of the last three decades and counting. This set was recorded live at Fabric, during the launch party for Tectonic's new dub vs dubstep project, Scientist Launches Dubstep Into Outer Space. And while Scientist got busy in the booth, the live band on stage was latest incarnation of The Upsetters, who were not only Lee 'Scratch' Perry's house band but also form the nucleus of The Wailers. Big Showdown!

Radiohead - The King of Limbs (Albumstream)

Velvet Underground - Under Review (Documentary)

The Velvet Underground Under Review is a 75 minute film reviewing the music and career of one of rock musics most influential collectives, a band which esteemed music journalist Lester Bangs claims started modern music. It features rare musical performances never available before as well as obscure footage, rare interviews and private photographs of and with Lou Reed, Andy Warhol, Sterling Morrison and John Cale. The film also features rarely seen promo films, material from Andy Warhols private film collection, interviews with colleagues, producers, musicians and friends, TV clips, location shots and a host of other features.

If the video is blocked for your country try this link

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Tim Hecker - Ravedeath, 1972 (2011 - Albumstream)

A title like Ravedeath, 1972 is great because of all the possible associations it calls up. A time-traveling techno explosion, a John Brunner novel title, a 1960s Frug winding down in a horrible dry gulch? Whatever all the possible associations, when Tim Hecker begins the album with the at-once shuddering feedback glitch and distant soothing bliss of "The Piano Drop," the Canadian composer does seem to thrive in an intersection of possibilities from multiple sources. If the principle of plundering the past to create the future is well established, Hecker engagingly demonstrates how the many possibilities it offers remains open. Split into three multi-part pieces and several stand-alone compositions -- some with titles continuing the titular approach, such as "Analog Paralysis, 1978" -- the overall effect of Ravedeath, 1972 is a balance between sheer sonic wooziness and a focused sense of construction; nothing seems wholly random in each song's development even as the feeling can be increasingly disorienting. Of the multi-part pieces, the first, "In the Fog," lives up to the name -- instead of enveloping obscurity, however, it's more like a serene float in darkness, with the organ tone loop running throughout the second and third parts providing a bed that whirs and arcing grinds rise and fall on, an underscoring of violence that melds and contrasts with the otherwise calm progression. The concluding "In the Air" almost inverts this, with the feedback tones and growls stabbing out more directly in the first part while the second increasingly brings in the otherwise half-sensed piano. "Hatred of Music," meanwhile, doesn't sound like a radical change from the other parts in terms of overall feel or in matching with the title's sentiment, but the low rhythmic rumble of the second part, a steady progression punctuated by soft piano additions and what sounds like a howling, looming threat in the distance, is pure atmosphere at its best. Then there's "No Drums," which finds in its own calm way the kind of beautiful, dark-toned ambience that has informed the best work in the field of disturbing but never aggressive electronic music. (Ned Raggett - allmusic; 4/5)

1. The Piano Drop
2. In The Fog: I-III
3. No Drums
4. Hatred Of Music: I-II
5. Analog Paralysis, 1978
6. Studio Suicide, 1980
7. In The Air: I-III

ALBUMSTREAM

♪♫ Radiohead - Lotus Flower

   
DOWNLOAD
ALBUM DOWNLOAD @ Radiohead homepage

Faiz Ali Faiz & Titi Robin - Festival Au Fil des Voix 2/16/11

Faiz Ali Faiz (Urdu: فیض علی فیض; born 1962 in Sharaqpur, Pakistan) is a Pakistani qawwali singer.
Faiz was born into a family of seven generations of qawwals. He studied classical music with Ustad Ghulam Shabir Khan and Ustad Jafat Khan, and qawwali music with Muhammad Ali Faridi and Abdur Rahim Faridi Qawwal. He was a close acquaintance with the world-renown qawwali performer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, and is considered the latter's spiritual successor within the genre. Faiz Ali Faiz regularly performs the qawwal "Mustt Mustt", a signature song of his deceased mentor.
Faiz Ali Faiz was nominated for a BBC Radio 3 World Music Award in 2005 and 2006.

Thierry "Titi" Robin (born 1957 in Angers, Maine-et-Loire, France), is a French musician influenced by gypsy, tzigane and Arabic music, and by the musicians Camaron de la Isla and Iraqi oud player Munir Bashir. Robin plays the guitar, oud, and bouzouki. He has given numerous concerts, in South Africa, the Middle East, and France.
He has frequently collaborated with Gulabi Sapera, who has appeared on several of his albums to lend his distinctive vocals peculiar to gypsy motifs. He has also been involved in extensive collaborations with Erik Marchand, a musician from Brittany focusing on reinterpretations of that region's distinctive Celtic music.

01:10:54

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