MEDIA ROOTS —

This may be an unsurprising revelation, but these documents further expose the increasingly oppressive nature of the state and DHS to stifle free speech and target dissent under the umbrella of “‘national security.”

MR

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WASHINGTON POST — Civil liberties advocates are raising concerns that the Department of Homeland Security’s three-year-old practice of monitoring social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter could extend to tracking public reaction to news events and reports that “reflect adversely” on the U.S. government.

The activists, who obtained DHS documents through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, say one document in particular, a February 2010 analyst handbook, touts as a good example of “capturing public reaction” the monitoring of Facebook and other sites for public sentiment about the possible transfer of Guantanamo detainees to a Michigan prison.

With the explosion of digital media, DHS has joined other intelligence and law enforcement agencies in monitoring blogs and social media, which is seen as a valuable tool in anticipating trends and threats that affect homeland security, such as flu pandemics or a bomb plot.

But monitoring for “positive and negative reports” on U.S. agencies falls outside the department’s mission to “secure the nation,” said the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which obtained a copy of a contract and related material describing DHS’s social media monitoring through its FOIA suit.

Read more about DHS monitoring of social media concerns civil liberties advocates.

© 1996- The Washington Post

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Photo by Flickr user Adam Selwood

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has said the “major problem is that they are written to be overly broad and they are written to favour the rights-holders.  And, so, they allow a thing called a private right of action, which means that someone who believes that a [web]site is intended for, or allows, the distribution of their copyrighted material can go directly to that website’s ad networks or payment processors and have them cut off from those sources of revenue.” 

Clearly, SOPA and PIPA amount to a power grab by the legislation’s corporate supporters—Viacom, Netflix, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Motion Picture Association of America, Recording Industry Association of America, and the AFL-CIO—to alter the structure of the internet in their pro-1% favour.  Today, Democracy Now! spoke with Corynne McSherry, who is the intellectual property director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation about the website strikes planned for tomorrow by Wikipedia and Reddit, protesting SOPA and PIPA, and Rebecca MacKinnon, author of Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom about online freedom and its role in cultivating a healthy democracy.

Media Roots is a prime example of the kind of website that could be targeted for aggregating material that may be deemed copyright  under the overarching SOPA and PIPA legislation.  Learn more about the bills and what you can do here.
 

MR

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DEMOCRACY NOW! — Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia and sixth most visited site in the world, will join websites like the content aggregator Reddit to “go dark” on Wednesday [18 Jan 2012] in opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its companion bill, the Protect IP Act (PIPA), which are currently being debated in Congress. “What these bills propose are new powers for the government and also for private actors to create, effectively, blacklists of sites that allegedly are engaging in some form of online infringement and then force service providers to block access to those sites,” says Corynne McSherry, intellectual property director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “What we would have is a situation where the government and private actors could censor the net.” Chief technology officials in the Obama administration have expressed concern about any “legislation that…undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.” But the bills’ main backers—Hollywood movie studios and music publishers—want to stop the theft of their creative content, and the bills have widespread bipartisan support. A vote on SOPA is on hold in the House now, as the Senate is still scheduled vote on PIPA next Tuesday [1/24/12]. [rush transcript included]

DN!:  “If you want to know more about two controversial internet anti-piracy bills moving through Congress, you won’t be able to consult Wikipedia on Wednesday. The online encyclopedia and sixth most visited site in the world will join websites like the content aggregator Reddit to ‘go dark’ for 12 to 24 hours in opposition to the Stop Online Piracy, or SOPA, Act and its companion bill, the Protect IP Act. Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales announced the decision to bring down his website last night on Twitter, writing, quote, ‘Student warning! Do your homework early. Wikipedia protesting bad law on Wednesday!’

The White House responded over the weekend to two petitions opposing the bills. The administration’s chief technology officials wrote on White House blog Saturday, quote, ‘We will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.’

While the White House did not take a definite position on SOPA and the Protect IP Act, it has called for legislation to combat online piracy that has hurt the legislation’s main backers: Hollywood movie studios and music publishers who want to stop the theft of their creative content. Now a vote on SOPA is on hold in the House. The Senate is still scheduled to vote on the piracy issue next Tuesday, a week from today.

Well, to talk more about the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, and the Protect IP Act, we go to San Francisco to talk Corynne McSherry, who is the intellectual property director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

We welcome you to Democracy Now! Please explain both of these bills. It’s very tough, I think, for most people to understand the technical aspects of this legislation.”

CORYNNE McSHERRY:  “Sure. In a nutshell, what these bills propose are new powers for the government and also for private actors to create, effectively, blacklists of sites that allegedly are engaging in some form of online infringement and then force service providers to block access to those sites. And that’s why we call these the censorship bills, because effectively what we would have is a situation where the government and private actors could censor the net. So, U.S. citizens would basically get a different version of the internet, different from what you might get in, say, Italy or even China.”

DN!:  “So, explain the difference between SOPA and the Protect IP Act.”

CORYNNE McSHERRY:  “Well, currently they’re quite—they’re quite similar. As drafted, SOPA was much broader than the Protect IP Act, and the folks behind the bill realized that maybe it was a little bit too broad, so they tailored it down. So now they’re quite similar. One of the differences is that SOPA is, finally, after a great deal of activism, more or less on hold for now. But Senator Reid is saying that he’s going to push forward the Protect IP Act, despite all of the opposition.”

DN!:  “And explain who is behind these two acts.”

CORYNNE McSHERRY:  “Well, that’s not a great mystery. Both of these acts are clearly being pushed hard by the big media industries, who seem to think that online piracy is why they’re having trouble, and actually, who insist that they’re having all kinds of trouble and they’re failing immediately if something doesn’t—if legislation isn’t passed immediately, they’re going to all go under, which is not true. In fact, the motion picture industry has been posting record profits for five years straight.”

DN!:  “In a December hearing of the House Judiciary Committee, Congress Member Jason Chaffetz, a Republican from Utah, talked about the lack of expert consultation in drafting SOPA.”

Rep. Jason Chaffetz:  “I was trying to think of a way to try to describe my concerns with this bill, but basically, we’re going to create—we’re going to do surgery on the internet, and we haven’t had a doctor in the room tell us how we’re going to change these organs. We’re basically going to reconfigure the internet and how it’s going to work, without bringing in the nerds, without bringing in the doctors. And again, I worry that we did not take the time to have a hearing to truly understand what it is we’re doing. And to my colleagues, I would say, if you don’t know what DNSSEC is, you don’t know what you’re doing. And so, my concern is that there is a problem, but this is not necessarily the right remedy.

DN!:  “That was Utah Congress Member Chaffetz. Corynne McSherry, your response?”

Corynne McSherry:  “I think he’s absolutely right. SOPA, in particular, was negotiated without any consultation with the technology sector. They were specifically excluded. And one of the things I think is really exciting, though, is that—you know, no one asked the internet—well, the internet is speaking now. And so, we’re seeing all kinds of opposition all over the web. And there’s going to be a day of action tomorrow. People are really rising up and saying, ‘Don’t interfere with basic internet infrastructure. We won’t stand for it.'”

DN!: What do you make of President Obama’s position on the bill, Corynne?

Corynne McSherry:  “Well, it was heartening to see the White House statement and see the White House sort of stand with the internet and stand with its own commitments against censorship and against online censorship, in particular. Up until recently, we have been very concerned that there seemed to be a contradiction. On the one hand, you had Hillary Clinton criticizing foreign governments for online censorship and for censoring web results and so on. But at the same time, you had these bills rocketing through Congress that would propose very similar things. So, it was good to see the White House stand against that and criticize these bills. On the other hand, I am concerned that the White House seems to think that some kind of legislation needs to be passed this year. And I actually don’t think the case has been made for that.”

DN!:  “Talk about the whole issue of the protection of artists, for example, the music industry and their concerns.”

Corynne McSherry:  “Well, look, there’s no question that there’s plenty of infringement online. That’s been true for a long time now. The question is how you’re going to answer it. And the best way to respond—it’s very clear at this point. The best way to respond to online infringement is to give people a better alternative. And when that happens, people go to that. So that’s the best way to do it. It’s not to pretend that the Pirate Bay doesn’t exist; it’s to give people an alternative to the Pirate Bay. And one of the things that we’ve seen is that, actually, independent artists are taking advantage of new technologies to reach the—reach new audiences. Music fans have more access to more music than they ever had before, and different kinds of music. And that’s what happens when you take advantage of new technologies, as opposed to running away from it.”

DN!:  “Let me read you a tweet that Murdoch sent out this weekend: ‘So Obama has thrown in his lot with Silicon Valley paymasters who threaten all software creators with piracy, plain thievery.'”

Corynne McSherry:  “Well, you know, I think it’s ironic to talk about paymasters, given the amount of money that Hollywood has been spending in Congress to try to ram these bills through. I think it is true that the Obama administration has somewhat stood with Silicon Valley here, but I think Silicon Valley knows how to protect itself against so-called software piracy better than Rupert Murdoch will.”

DN!:  “Finally, the votes, where they stand this week?”
 

Corynne McSherry:  “Well, what we’re seeing now is Harry Reid, Senator Reid, is insisting that he’s going to go forward with a vote next Tuesday on the Protect IP Act. We’ll see what happens over the course of the week. Things have changed a lot. And after the day of action tomorrow, a lot of us are hopeful that Senator Reid will think better of trying to push this bill through, given the level of opposition. It’s really just a bad idea, particularly when you think about what they’re doing here. This is basic internet infrastructure that they’re messing with. And I think that Representative Chaffetz had it exactly right. It’s foolish to go in and interfere with internet infrastructure when you don’t know what you’re doing.”

DN!:  “And overall, SOPA and PIPA, how they’ve been separated?”

Corynne McSherry:  “Well, SOPA seems to be on hold for now. If PIPA is rammed through, it may be that in the House of Representatives they will try to revive SOPA and sort of bring the two bills in line. I certainly hope not, because that would be very, very dangerous for human rights, for internet security, and send an extremely negative signal around the world that the United States government does in fact support censorship, as long as you say that you’re doing it in the name of intellectual property enforcement.”

DN!:  “Corynne McSherry, I want to thank you for being with us, intellectual property director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. When we come back, we’ll be joined by author Rebecca MacKinnon. She has just written the book, Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom. This is Democracy Now! Back in a minute.”

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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DEMOCRACY NOW! — As protests mount against two controversial internet anti-piracy bills moving through Congress, we speak with Rebecca MacKinnon, author of the forthcoming book, “Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom.” “If we want democracy to survive in the internet age, we really need to work to make sure that the internet evolves in a manner that is compatible with democracy,” MacKinnon says. “And that means exercising our power not only as consumers and internet users and investors, but also as voters, to make sure that our digital lives contain the same kind of protections of our rights that we expect in physical space.” She argues that for every empowering story of the internet’s role, there are many more about the quiet corrosion of civil liberties by companies and governments. [rush transcript included]

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Photo (above) by Flickr user Adam Selwood

Photo (feature) by Flickr user Monkey Man Forever

DISINFO – “Brace yourself, the American Empire is over, and the descent is going to be horrifying.” Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges conducts an illuminating if depressing discussion on politics, poverty, and everything else regarding the way we live and where we are headed:

Chris Hedges on The End of the American Empire

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MEDIA ROOTS- Ralph Nader continues to be one of the most honest U.S. political analysts, despite being such an influential public citizen.

Too often, political pundits spin us with ‘horse race’ coverage that’s confined within a false left/right paradigm, and report under the assumption that U.S. voters are satisfied with the two-party system.  In recent interviews, Ralph Nader has critically analyzed controversial topics such as ‘corporate fascism’ and the ‘US two-party dictatorship’, confronting what many other public figures shy away from.  

Despite low voter turnouts, tens of millions of U.S. citizens will still take to the ballot boxes in 2012.  So, we may as well speak plainly about the reality of our electoral system. As in past U.S. Presidential elections, millions of progressives will admit to holding their noses as they cast a ballot for the ‘lesser-of-two-evils’, instead of voting their consciences or demanding free and fair elections.  Yet, such topics remain taboo. 

As Occupy Wall Street protesters across the country increasingly express disaffection with both corporate-driven political parties, it’s remarkable how difficult it is for our national discourse to lay bare the false left/right paradigm that is propped up by the establishment.  OWS protesters have been photographed with signs rejecting the two-party system.  Yet, amorphous anti-greed or anti-inequality complaints, rather than fundamental structural issues, such as our broken electoral system, are disproportionately featured by the mass media.  This seems as much a cognitive question of mass psychology or taboos associated with appearing partisan, as it is one of mass media complicity in the perpetuation of the two-party system.  However, younger generations see through this false dichotomy, and we can credit those same younger generations for energizing the mass political awakening we are witnessing with the OWS movement. 

In an exclusive interview with Ralph Nader, Media Roots asked, “Do you think the game is rigged?”

“Well, of course,” Ralph Nader candidly admitted, ”two-party dictatorship, completely rigged, right down to the Presidential Debate Commission, which is a fancy phrase for a private corporation created in 1987 by the Republican and Democratic parties to get rid of the League of Women Voters, which supervised Presidential Debates up to then, and to exclude anyone who they think should not reach tens of millions of Americans.”

It may seem an obvious question.  But it’s very empowering to hear it asked plainly and answered so candidly by one of America’s greatest public citizens.

Without broadcasting meaningful discussions about the regressive consequences of perpetuating a restrictive two-party system, which groups like MoveOn, Global Exchange, Code Pink, and even A.N.S.W.E.R. seem to shy away from, progressives are held captive by the Democratic Party. 

Ralph Nader also makes an important distinction in pointing out the Koch Brothers’ astro-turfing of the original Tea Party ideals, because it demonstrates the model by which the same may occur to the grassroots OWS movement by well-funded media darlings like MoveOn. 

It’s important to not only take into consideration the hopes and aspirations of protesters on the ground, but also to follow the money back to who inevitably funds Left organizers, such as billionaire George Soros’ subsidiaries or MoveOn (which although no longer a 527, stands upon a pro-Democratic Party track record).  It may be impossible for organizers to avoid grants from funders with a vested interest in preserving the two-party system, but at least an informed citizenry can better navigate the uphill struggle toward representative democracy.  Most, including Nader, will argue it doesn’t matter from where organizing funds originate, as long as it doesn’t corrupt the message.  However, if the message emanating from mass demonstrations seems to avoid critical electoral analysis, progressive activists may be playing into pro-Democratic influences unwilling to confront such fundamental structural problems.

For example, the Keystone XL protests in D.C. earlier this year was funded in part by the Rockefeller Brothers– the No Tar Sands Oil campaign was funnelled financially through Corporate Ethics International.  This money trail may help explain why none of their spokespersons, including Bill McKibben, ever really slammed Obama or the Democratic Party beyond supplicant appeals, much less threatened withholding mass electoral support if their environmental demands went ignored.

Since well-funded groups like MoveOn (and its charismatic leaders like Van Jones) do not question the two-party system, they thereby function to perpetuate it under the pretence of grassroots transformation.  This illusion in which such groups operate only hurts real activism, progress, and change in the U.S. Even with mass protests reaching historic proportions, we still must confront the reality of a captured electoral system.

By contrast, groups like US Day of Rage, which co-organized the OWS actions from the outset, focus on electoral reform and propose an Article V Constitutional Convention outlining concrete steps, such as restoring representative democracy, abolition of corporate personhood, and the overturning of the Citizens United case. 

Critical electoral analysis is not a partisan issue– it is a question of free and fair elections. The people of this country deserve to have an electoral system which truly reflects the popular will of its people, rather than one which locks them into a false choice between two increasingly identical versions of the same thing.

It’s up to honest journalists, to citizen journalists, to resident journalists, to look beyond symptoms and to causality.  It’s up to the dialectic between independent journalists and a candid Left to broadcast critical, empirically-based, electoral analysis, to cut through the false left/right paradigm, to expose uncomfortable truths, and to help raise the consciousness of the masses toward breaking out of our restrictive two-party dictatorship paradigm. 

Written by Felipe Messina for Media Roots

Photo by flickr user Nick Bygon

MEDIA ROOTS- The term “conspiracy theory” has been hijacked by the establishment propaganda machine in order to marginalize anyone in the mainstream political discourse who simply questions the official government or media narrative about an event. This ad hominem attack tool is extremely effective at shutting down serious debates about crucial topics, like whether or not the US government was criminally complicity in the attacks of 9/11. Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury and former editor for the Wall Street Journal, writes for Global Research about the Orwellian redefinition of the term and its prevalent use to blanketly demonize 9/11 truth seekers.

Abby

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GLOBAL RESEARCH– While we were not watching, conspiracy theory has undergone Orwellian redefinition.

A “conspiracy theory” no longer means an event explained by a conspiracy.  Instead, it now means any explanation, or even a fact, that is out of step with the government’s explanation and that of its media pimps.  

For example, online news broadcasts of RT have been equated with conspiracy theories by the New York Times simply because RT reports news and opinions that the New York Times does not report and the US government does not endorse.

In other words, as truth becomes uncomfortable for government and its Ministry of Propaganda, truth is redefined as conspiracy theory, by which is meant an absurd and laughable explanation that we should ignore.

When piles of carefully researched books, released government documents, and testimony of eye witnesses made it clear that Oswald was not President John F. Kennedy’s assassin, the voluminous research, government documents, and verified testimony was dismissed as “conspiracy theory.”  

In other words, the truth of the event was unacceptable to the authorities and to the Ministry of Propaganda that represents the interests of authorities.

The purest example of how Americans are shielded from truth is the media’s (including many Internet sites’) response to the large number of professionals who find the official explanation of September 11, 2001, inconsistent with everything they, as experts, know about physics, chemistry, structural engineering, architecture, fires, structural damage, the piloting of airplanes, the security procedures of the United States, NORAD’s capabilities, air traffic control, airport security, and other matters.  These experts, numbering in the thousands, have been shouted down by know-nothings in the media  who brand the experts as “conspiracy theorists.”  

This despite the fact that the official explanation endorsed by the official media is the most extravagant conspiracy theory in human history.  

Let’s take a minute to re-acquaint ourselves with the official explanation, which is not regarded as a conspiracy theory despite the fact that it comprises an amazing conspiracy.  The official truth is that a handful of young Muslim Arabs who could not fly airplanes, mainly Saudi Arabians who came neither from Iraq nor from Afghanistan, outwitted not only the CIA and the FBI, but also all 16  US intelligence agencies and all intelligence agencies of US allies including Israel’s Mossad, which is believed to have penetrated every terrorist organization and which carries out assassinations of those whom Mossad marks as terrorists.

In addition to outwitting every intelligence agency of the United States and its allies, the handful of young Saudi Arabians outwitted the National Security Council, the State Department, NORAD, airport security four times in the same hour on the same morning,  air traffic control, caused the US Air Force to be unable to launch interceptor aircraft,  and caused three well-built steel-structured buildings, including one not hit by an airplane, to fail suddenly in a few seconds as a result of limited structural damage and small, short-lived, low-temperature fires that burned on a few floors.

The Saudi terrorists were even able to confound the laws of physics and cause WTC building seven to collapse at free fall speed for several seconds, a physical impossibility in the absence of explosives used in controlled demolition.

The story that the government and the media have told us amounts to a gigantic conspiracy, really a script for a James Bond film. Yet, anyone who doubts this improbable conspiracy theory is defined into irrelevance by the obedient media.

Anyone who believes an architect, structural engineer, or demolition expert who says that the videos show that the buildings are blowing up, not falling down, anyone who believes a Ph.D. physicist who says that the official explanation is inconsistent with known laws of physics, anyone who believes expert pilots who testify that non-pilots or poorly-qualified pilots cannot fly airplanes in such maneuvers, anyone who believes the 100 or more first responders who testify that they not only heard explosions in the towers but personally experienced explosions, anyone who believes University of Copenhagen nano-chemist Niels Harrit who reports finding unreacted nano-thermite in dust samples from the WTC towers, anyone who is convinced by experts instead of by propaganda is dismissed as a kook.  

In America today, and increasingly throughout the Western world, actual facts and true explanations have been relegated to the realm of kookiness.  Only people who believe lies are socially approved and accepted as patriotic citizens.

Indeed, a writer or newscaster is not even permitted to report the findings of 9/11 skeptics.  In other words, simply to report Professor Harrit’s findings now means that you endorse them or agree with them.  Everyone in the US print and TV media knows that he/she will be instantly fired if they report Harrit’s findings, even with a laugh. Thus, although Harrit has reported his findings on European television and has lectured widely on his findings in Canadian universities, the fact that he and the international scientific research team that he led found unreacted nano-thermite in the WTC dust and have offered samples to other scientists to examine has to my knowledge never been reported in the American media.

Even Internet sites on which I am among the readers’ favorites will not allow me to report on Harrit’s findings.

As I reported earlier, I myself had experience with a Huffington Post reporter who was keen to interview a Reagan presidential appointee who was in disagreement with the Republican wars in the Middle East.  After he published the interview that I provided at his request, he was terrified to learn that I had reported findings of 9/11 investigators.  To protect his career, he quickly inserted on the online interview that my views on the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions could be dismissed as I had reported unacceptable findings about 9/11.

The unwillingness or inability to entertain any view of 9/11 different from the official view dooms to impotence many Internet sites that are opposed to the wars and to the rise of the domestic US police state.  These sites, for whatever the reasons, accept the government’s explanation of 9/11; yet, they try to oppose the  “war on terror” and the police state which are the consequences of accepting the government’s explanation. Trying to oppose the consequences of an event whose explanation you accept is an impossible task.

If you believe that America was attacked by Muslim terrorists and is susceptible to future attacks, then a “war on terror” and a domestic police state to root out terrorists become necessary to make Americans safe. The idea that a domestic police state and open-ended war might be more dangerous threats to Americans than terrorists is an impermissible thought.  

A country whose population has been trained to accept the government’s word and to shun those who question it is a country without liberty in its future.

Written by Paul Craig Roberts

© 2011 Global Research

Photo by flickr user Cliff1066

RELATED: Check out a special 2 1/2 hour Media Roots Radio broadcast breaking apart the 9/11 coincidence theory, or read 9/11: Do We Know the Truth?