Saturday, 19 November 2011
Washington Post Column Incredulous That Congress Is Considering Censoring The Internet
It appears that more and more in mainstream America are waking up to the horrors of SOPA and PROTECT IP. Dominic Basulto, writing in the Washington Post notes that the debate over SOPA sends an "ugly message" to the rest of the world about the US:
He goes on to point out that this also shows "the failure on the part of lawmakers to understand how the Internet works."
Mike Masnick @'techdirt'
Imagine a country where the government is able to shut down Web sites at the slightest provocation, where elected representatives invoke fears of "overseas pirates" to defend the interests of domestic industries, and where Internet companies like Google must cave in to the demands of government censors or risk being shut down.Basulto also makes the point clearly. Supporters are "[confusing] 'piracy protection' and 'censorship.'"
No, we are not talking about China, North Korea or Iran — we are talking about the United States, where legislators in both the House and Senate are attempting to push through new anti-piracy legislation by year-end that would benefit Hollywood at the expense of Silicon Valley.
He goes on to point out that this also shows "the failure on the part of lawmakers to understand how the Internet works."
This new legislation, if enacted, would strike at the very core of the way the Internet has been structured. Sharing, openness, and participation are at the core of what the Internet represents. When it comes to a choice between an open Internet and an Internet of walled gardens patrolled by government censors, there is no doubt which is preferable. As Booz & Co. pointed out in a recent study, the SOPA legislation could lead to a decline in Internet innovation.A really strong piece in a very mainstream source. This isn't just about a few "pirates" complaining -- as SOPA defenders would have you believe. This is a widespread recognition that censorship and massive regulation of the internet, just because Hollywood refuses to adapt, is not in anyone's best interest.
The Chinese government attempts to portray dissidents as "pirates" and "rogues" outside the system. Entertainment interests are taking a similar approach, and have found what they consider to be the perfect bogeymen: the "rogue" sites and "overseas pirates" who steal content and make it available elsewhere on the Internet at a cheaper price. Under the cover of protecting intellectual property and making the Internet safe again for users, they risk destroying what makes the Internet so special and attractive to innovators and investors alike.
Mike Masnick @'techdirt'
Chasing the Dragon in Tehran
Tehran is one the higher capitals on the earth's surface, and not only in terms of altitude. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reports that Iran has 1.2 million "drug-dependent users," and that 2.26 percent of the population aged 15-64 is addicted to opiates. The organization's director, Yuri Fedotov, has praised Iran for having "the world's highest rate of seizures of opium and heroin," and for developing effective treatment and prevention programs. Human Rights Watch, by contrast, has criticized Fedotov for glossing over the country's inadequate legal proceedings and executions of drug offenders. Most alarmingly, people arrested during opposition demonstrations, such as the Dutch-Iranian Sahra Bahrami, have occasionally been hanged as "drug smugglers."
Today's Islamic Republic offers premonitions of a narcodystopia. Take a car ride through Tehran at night, and your driver may tell you that the underage girls in chadors who offer esfand -- seeds that are burned to ward off the evil eye -- along the highways are really selling sex to enable addicted fathers. Ride the metro, and you will see battered children pitching trinkets and fortunes to sustain their parents' habits. Visit a poor southern suburb like Shahr-e Rey, and you might see a cigarette vendor in the bazaar with a sideline in used needles. Walk through Khaju Kermani Park on the capital's southeastern outskirts, and you might witness young girls smoking crystal meth in full view of park authorities, while in the background a tall, badly sunburned man with track marks on his arms staggers around in an ill-fitting, woman's blouse.
Yet the Iranian drug scene is not an exclusive feature of the country's decadent capital, or solely of its abject underclass. Its roots run deep and wide: For example, when I was visiting the tomb of the 12th-century poet Saadi, a tourist attraction in the southern city of Shiraz, Azad, a local literary critic who was showing me around, gestured beyond the garden walls to the adjacent neighborhood, named Saadieh after the poet. This he identified as a hub for the region's thieves, traffickers, and drug addicts. "Would you like to visit? It's very easy to visit, but you might not come back alive," he joked. I had seen enough Iranian skid rows to demur, but, intrigued by the apparent intersection of drugs and high culture, I pressed him for insights...
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Roland Eliott Brown @'FP'
How to Smoke Opium in Tehran
TheLouBarlow Lou Barlow
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The plot to get Gough
Documents released by the National Archives, including a personal file compiled by Murdoch and notes of Fraser's attorney-general, Bob Ellicott, show that the media magnate and prime minister worked together on Murdoch's biggest personal scoop - a front page revelation in The Australian of February 25, 1976, that Whitlam had secretly sought a massive election campaign donation from Saddam Hussein's Iraqi Baath Party.
What was called the Iraqi Money Affair was a political sensation that nearly cost Whitlam the Labor leadership in humiliating circumstances.
Murdoch's personal file and Ellicott's notes have revealed intimate collaboration as the publisher sought to confirm claims by French-Australian businessman Henri Fischer that he had been enlisted by left-wing Labor figure Bill Hartley, ALP national secretary David Combe and Whitlam to raise Iraqi funds for Labor's 1975 election campaign...
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Wayne Kramer Guitar Gods Figure
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Occupy Oakland: footage shows police beating 'peaceful' Iraq war veteran
Video footage has emerged of a police officer beating an Iraq war veteran so hard that he suffered a ruptured spleen in an apparently unprovoked incident at a recent Occupy protest in California.
The footage, which has been shared with the Guardian, shows Kayvan Sabehgi standing in front of a police line on the night of Occupy Oakland's general strike on 2 November, when he is set upon by an officer.
He does not appear to be posing any threat, nor does he attempt to resist, yet he is hit numerous times by an officer clad in riot gear who appears determined to beat him to the ground.
Sabehgi, 32, an Oakland resident and former marine who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, has since undergone surgery on his spleen. He says it took hours for him to be taken to hospital, despite complaining of severe pain. Police have told the Guardian they are investigating the incident.
The footage was recorded by artist and photographer Neil Rivas, who said Sabehgi was "completely peaceful" before he was beaten. "It was uncalled for," said Rivas. "There were no curse words. He was telling them he was a war vet, a resident of Oakland, a business owner."
Sabehgi has previously said he was talking to officers in a non-violent manner prior to his arrest, which the footage appears to confirm.
The 32-year-old can be seen standing in front of a line of police officers, all of whom are in riot gear. The officers walk forward, chanting and thrusting their batons, and Sabehgi starts to walk backwards.
Although the video is dark, an officer can clearly be seen beginning to hit Sabehgi around the legs with a baton, then starting to strike him higher up.
Sabehgi then appears to be bundled to the ground. He was later arrested.
Rivas said the footage was shot around midnight on 3 November, as police approached Occupy Oakland following the 2 November general strike.
Police deployed teargas and non-lethal projectiles that night, after some protesters entered a disused building north of Frank H Ogawa Plaza, but Rivas said there did not appear to be an immediate threat to police at the time of the video.
"It was pretty much just Kayvan and myself right there at that moment when he got beat," Rivas said.
"I couldn't help but start yelling out for them to stop. He was not fighting back; he was moving away from the officer. It did not feel good.
"I saw him being taken down to the ground and I tried to keep my camera focused on that as well, but they were pretty quick at setting up a barricade between myself and Kayvan at that point. I was shoved out of the way, and I had several guns pointed my way.
"I remember specifically one officer right in front of me having his gun pointed point blank at me."
Rivas said he realised the man in his video was Sabehgi after reading that a second Iraq war veteran had been injured, and seeing television footage.
Oakland television station KTVU TV-2 has previously shown footage of Sabehgi in handcuffs just after he was arrested, but Rivas believes this is the only video of him being beaten.
Sabehgi has previously told the Guardian he was walking away from the main area of police clashes – at 16th Street and Telegraph, just north of the Occupy base at Frank H Ogawa Plaza – when he was beaten and arrested.
Several police agencies were involved in the operation on 2 and 3 November, but Rivas said the officers who appear in front of Sabehgi at the beginning of the video were from Oakland police department.
A spokeswoman for Oakland police said: "The Oakland Police Department is currently investigating the incident."
Adam Gabbatt @'The Guardian'
Handmade Portraits: The Sword Maker
Irony of What Bloomberg’s Done, Threw out Fahrenheit 451
On Monday, November 15, 2011 the books of many of those Library Lions mingled with broken shelves, ripped tents, and smashed computers in the aftermath of the raid on Zuccotti Park. The raid, authorized by Mayor Bloomberg, saw, among other things, the OWS People’s Library thrown in the trash. Perhaps, as Mayor Bloomberg enjoyed the library festivities on the 7th he was already planning the action that would destroy a different library on the 15th, or perhaps he was just enjoying the photo opportunity as he exchanged pleasantries with the authors who he held in high enough esteem as to have their works tossed into garbage trucks...
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Friday, 18 November 2011
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