Yemen Strike Leaves Misfit Metalhead as Al-Qaida’s Last American Voice

Can Free Web Content Save The Guardian?

Alan Rusbridger could hardly be accused of being old-fashioned. The editor-in-chief of the Guardian loves the Internet. The website of the British daily is considered one of the industry's best. Yet Rusbridger, 57, has chosen to preserve his greatest journalistic triumph in good old aluminum: in the form of a matte gray exposed printing plate with light-blue lettering; the front page of the July 5, 2011 edition. The souvenir stands on the desk of his London office.
A large part of the page is given over to a photo of a young girl, 13-year-old Milly Dowler, who was abducted on her way home and later killed. On the July 5 in question, the Guardian revealed that a reporter at Rupert Murdoch's tabloid News of the World had tapped the cell phone of the murdered schoolgirl. Although this was only one of many scoops by the Guardian in the wiretapping scandal surrounding the Murdoch paper, it was undoubtedly the most momentous. The story shook the Australian media tycoon's global empire, scandalized the British public, and prompted the British parliament to openly discuss curbs on the yellow press. Murdoch closed the News of the World and police opened investigations into 16 reporters and managers at the paper. And all because of Rusbridger's "guardians."
The paper has made something of a name for itself with such revelations. In fact it has become the symbol of independent journalism. But in purely economic terms, it's a complete fiasco.
Offsetting the Losses
The Guardian has been losing money every year since 2004. Last year alone, it and its sister newspaper, the Observer, lost more than €47 million. It's only thanks to the farsightedness and generosity of its former owners, the Scott family, that the paper hasn't gone bankrupt.
Since 1936, the paper has been funded by the Scott Trust. This structure has but a single aim: "To secure the editorial independence of The Guardian in perpetuity."
Many newspapers would like to be based on such a business model. The Scott Trust owns a number of lucrative companies, including the used-car magazine and portal Auto Trader. The profits generated on these are used to offset the heavy losses incurred by The Guardian.
"Our mission is to be profit seeking rather than profit finding," says Deputy Editor Ian Katz. Even CP Scott, the paper's owner in the early 20th century, believed it was more important to be influential than to turn a profit.
However, the Guardian's losses have become too big to absorb -- and in 2007 the Scott Trust was forced to sell some of its assets to refill its coffers.
Andrew Miller, a former consumer-goods industry manager and for the past year the managing director of the newspaper's parent company, the Guardian Media Group, recently warned that if the Guardian continued to make such heavy losses, the company would simply run out of money within five years...

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Isabell Hülsen @'Der Spiegel'

Adult Swim - Unclassified (Free Download)

Ikonika – World on Mute
xxxy – Kerpow
Untold – Peaky
Geiom – Pure Bristle
Ginz – Chrome
Lukid – Running From The Demons
Geeneus ft Riko, Wiley, Breeze (Knife & Gun Dusk & Blackdown 2step mix ft Farrah)
SBTRKT – Golddigger
Starkey – Eris
Actress – Murder Plaza
Zomby – Hexagons
Dauwd – Ikopol
Boxcutter – Waiting For The Lights
Babe Rainbow ft Ashley Webber – Give You Time
Burial – Street Halo
Kode9 – Just Inside
Pinch – Blow Out The Candle
Cooly G – R U Listening
HERE

Putin’s Return to the Russian Presidency and U.S.-Russian Arms Control

The first cut is the deepest

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Glenn Greenwald on Democracy Now

With Death of Anwar al-Awlaki, Has U.S. Launched New Era of Killing U.S. Citizens Without Charge?

Word

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Once Again, The eXiled Exposes Koch Hypocrisy

eXiled editors Mark Ames and Yasha Levine were on the Dylan Ratigan Show yesterday, talking about their latest scoop for The Nation. The pair uncovered a series of letters from billionaire libertarian robber baron Charles Koch to the free-market economics guru Friedrich Hayek, urging the latter to come to America and take advantage of America’s generous Social Security and Medicare programs–the same programs that Koch and his brother are now pushing to obliterate for the rest of us.
The letters are an amazing find, revealing once again just how morally and ethically bankrupt the philosophy of the ruling elite truly is.
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On Newspapers, Public Discourse, and the Right to Remain Anonymous

In a recent Washington Times editorial titled “Internet trolls, Anonymity and the First Amendment,” Gayle Falkenthal declared that “the time has come to limit the ability of people to remain anonymous” online. She argued that any benefit to online pseudonyms has long since dissipated and anonymous commenters have polluted the Internet “with false accusations and name-calling attacks.” Newspapers, she wrote, should ban them entirely.
This argument is not only inaccurate, it's also dangerous: online anonymity, while allowing trolls to act with impunity, also protects a range of people, from Syrian dissidents to small-town LGBT activists and plenty of others in between.
Unfortunately, many newspapers have already banned anonymous comments, and while not all have offered an explicit reasoning for their policies, "civility" is often cited as justification in discussions on online anonymity.
Of course, online civil discourse is something to strive for. Anyone who’s spent time reading YouTube comment threads is aware of the vitriolic bile spewing from the keyboards of largely anonymous masses. And it is a truism that when people speak using their true identity, they are more likely to think about the consequences of their speech.
But while identification brings about a greater sense of safety for some, for others, it presents a great risk. Think, for example, of victims of domestic abuse, whose online safety is predicated on not revealing their identity or location. Or the small-town schoolteacher who fears revealing her political views to her local community but seeks solidarity online. Or the gay teenager who wants to explore communities online but isn’t quite ready to come out. Or the myriad other examples compiled by the Geek Feminism blog.
Contrary to Ms. Falkenthal’s assertion that “The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, but not anonymity,” the Supreme Court has made these same arguments about safety and anonymity for decades. In 1960, the Court explicitly upheld a speaker’s right to remain anonymous,
In Talley v. California, Justice Black wrote “Anonymous pamphlets, leaflets, brochures, and even books have played an important role in the progress of mankind. Persecuted groups and sects from time to time throughout history have been able to criticize oppressive practices and laws either anonymously or not at all.”
And in 1995, the Court upheld online speakers’ First Amendment right to remain anonymous, emphasizing, “protections for anonymous speech are vital to democratic discourse.” The court went on to say anonymous speech “exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation…at the hand of an intolerant society.”
These principles are, of course, nothing new and date back to our country’s birth. Yet Ms. Falkenthal says, “When our nation was being formed, Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin stood behind their incendiary, treasonous views in public even at the risk of being hanged for what they said,” implying that the Founding Fathers would be against online anonymity if they were alive today.
However, Ms. Falkenthal herself later admits that Paine actually wrote his most influential work Common Sense anonymously, just as Franklin got his start writing under a name that was not his own, the pseudonym “Mrs. Silence Dogwood.”
But no example illustrates the importance of anonymity more than The Federalist Papers. The series of essays, published in the nation’s most popular newspapers in 1778 under the pseudonym “Publius,” were instrumental in the ratification of the Constitution. Yet it was not until after Alexander Hamilton’s death in 1804 that the public discovered the essays had been written by Hamilton, along with James Madison and John Jay.
Lest readers believe that the age of the pseudonym is dead, more recently, the right to anonymity was vital for protesters in the Arab Spring: Wael Ghonim, the Google executive who was detained for more than a week in the height of Egypt’s uprising, had anonymously created the Facebook page “We are all Khaled Saeed,” widely credited as the driving force behind the successful revolution.
Bloggers in Syria are now faced with the same risks as Ghonim amidst a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests.
The complex questions currently faced by newspapers have been addressed before. One event in the earlier, pre-social media days of blogging brought to the forefront a discussion around online civil discourse. Back in 1997, following anonymous death threats made to prominent blogger and game developer Kathy Sierra, publishing magnate Tim O’Reilly proposed a Blogger’s Code of Conduct to improve discourse in the blogosphere. Though the code would have prohibited anonymity, requiring users to sign up with an e-mail address, it allowed one to display publicly a handle or username in lieu of a "real" name.
Sierra recently weighed in on the debate, stating “I am for preserving pseudonymity, and believe that eliminating it will never stop the worst of the trolls, griefers, haters, and stalkers. There are far better ways to help reduce the worst of anonymity-fueled behavior online including plain old moderation.”
Indeed, comment moderation is a simple and low-resource method by which newspapers can ensure comments remain civil. Most newspapers with large online readership, from the New York Times, to the UK’s Guardian, implement comment moderation in some form.
There will always be those for whom a name is not a barrier toward acting abusively; for those with little to lose, there’s no reason to hide. Inversely, those who stand to lose a lot by identifying online are those who need pseudonyms the most, to speak their mind freely, without fear of retribution.
Jillian York and Trevor Timm @'EFF'

HA!

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Anwar Al-Awlaki's Death: Is America Any Safer?

I'm sending you a poem

In 1970, eager to spread the word about a low-key magazine he had just launched, the editor of the very short-lived Vishtaroone sent a copy of its first and possibly only issue to the frontman of T. Rex, Marc Bolan. Ever-gracious, Bolan responded to the fan with three things: a handwritten letter; an as-yet-unpublished poem to be used in the next issue, and the offer of more original material in future. All without charge.
Transcript follows. Images kindly supplied by Jeff at Hard Rock; owners of a staggering amount of music memorabilia who have a regularly updated, highly recommended Facebook page.
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Extrajudicial Execution of Samir Khan Arguably More Significant Than Awlaki

By this time in the day, the early morning report of the killing of Anwar Awlaki is old news. From ABC News:

Senior administration officials say that the U.S. has been targeting Awlaki for months, though in recent weeks officials were able to pin down his location.
“They were waiting for the right opportunity to get him away from any civilians,” a senior administration official tells ABC News.

And today they got him. Awlaki was killed by a drone delivered Hellfire missile, via a joint CIA and JSOC operation, in the town of Kashef, in Yemen’s Jawf province, approximately 140 kilometres east of Sanaa, Yemen’s capital. But not only Awlaki was killed, at least three others, including yet another American citizen, Samir Khan, were killed in the strike.
That’s right, not just one, but two, Americans were summarily and extrajudicially executed by their own government today, at the direct order of the President of the United States. No trial, no verdict, just off with their heads. Heck, there were not even charges filed against either Awlaki or Khan. And it is not that the government did not try either, there was a grand jury convened on Khan, but no charges. Awlaki too was investigated for charges at least twice by the DOJ, but non were found.
But at least Awlaki was on Barrack Obama’s “Americans That Are Cool to Kill List”. Not so with Samir Khan. Not only is there no evidence whatsoever Khan is on the classified list for killing (actually two different lists) my survey of people knowledgeable in the field today revealed not one who believed khan was on any such list, either by DOD or CIA.
So, the US has been tracking scrupulously Awlaki for an extended period and knew with certainty where he was and when, and knew with certainty immediately they had killed Awlaki and Khan. This means the US also knew, with certainty, they were going to execute Samir Khan.
How did the US then make the kill order knowing they were executing a US citizen, not only extrajudicially, but not even with the patina of being on the designated kill list (which would at least presuppose some consideration and Yoo-like pseudo-legal cover)?
Did Barack Obama magically auto-pixie dust Khan onto the list with a wave of his wand on the spot? Even under the various law of war theories, which are not particularly compelling justification to start with as we are not at war with Yemen and it is not a “battlefield”, the taking of Khan would appear clearly prohibited under both American and International law. As Mary Ellen O’Connell, vice chairman of the American Society of International Law, relates, via Spencer Ackerman at Wired’s Dangerroom:

“The United States is not involved in any armed conflict in Yemen,” O’Connell tells Danger Room, “so to use military force to carry out these killings violates international law.”
O’Connell’s argument turns on the question of whether the U.S. is legally at war in Yemen. And for the administration, that’s a dicey proposition. The Obama administration relies on the vague Authorization to Use Military Force, passed in the days after 9/11, to justify its Shadow Wars against terrorists. Under its broad definition, the Authorization’s writ makes Planet Earth a battlefield, legally speaking.
But the Authorization authorizes war against “nations, organizations, or persons [the president] determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.” It’s a stretch to apply that to al-Qaida’s Yemen affiliate, which didn’t exist on 9/11. But when House Republicans tried to re-up the Authorization to explicitly bless the new contours of the war against al-Qaida, the Obama administration balked, fearing the GOP was actually tying its hands on the separate question of terrorist detentions.
“It is only during the intense fighting of an armed conflict that international law permits the taking of human life on a basis other than the immediate need to save life,” O’Connell continues. “In armed conflict, a privileged belligerent may use lethal force on the basis of reasonable necessity. Outside armed conflict, the relevant standard is absolute necessity.”
So did al-Awlaki represent an “absolute” danger to the United States? President Obama, in acknowledging Awlaki’s death on Friday morning, didn’t present any evidence that he did.

And therein lies lies the reason the US killing of Samir Khan may be even more troubling than the already troubling killing of al-Awlaki. There is no satisfactory legal basis for either one, but as to Khan there was NO process whatsoever, even the joke “listing” process utilized for Awlaki. The US says it took care to not harm “civilians”, apparently that would mean Yemeni civilians. American citizens are fair game for Mr. Obama, list or no list, crime or no crime, charges or no charges. Off with their heads!
People should not just be evaluating today’s fresh kills as to Awlaki, Samir Khan should be at the tip of the discussion spear too.
bmaz @'emptywheel'

Killing of American in Yemen raises new legal questions

A Rare Display of the Origins of Electronic Music

“Daphne Oram was the first woman to direct an electronic music studio, the first woman to set up a personal studio and the first woman to design and construct an electronic musical instrument. This happened back in the late 1950s when she used sine wave oscillators, reel-to-reel tape decks and other electronics that most of us vaguely remember. She went on to invent a machine in 1965 called Oramics that used hand-drawn patterns that were converted to music that would be stored magnetically.”

@readwriteweb