“Who runs the European Union?” This is the question front and centre of the excellent 2012 documentary The Brussels Business which takes the viewer on “a journey into the corridors of power of the biggest economy on earth – the European Union.” What filmmakers Matthieu Lietaert (Belgium) and Friedrich Moser (Italy) find is a Byzantine complex of corporate entanglements and high-powered lobby groups.
Assiduously researched and documented, the real importance of this film is that almost uniquely it presents an exposé of the European Union from a leftist perspective:
Produced by:
Steven Dhoedt (VisualAntics – Be)
Friedrich Moser (green + blue communication – Austria)
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Additional: latest example of EU corporatocracy at work
On Tuesday [May 31st] the European Commission together with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft announced a code of conduct “to combat the spread of illegal hate speech online in Europe”:
The definition of illegal online content is based on the Framework Decision on Combatting Racism and Xenophobia which criminalises the public incitement to violence or hatred directed against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, colour, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin.1
In accordance with the directive, views and opinions that the aforementioned corporations deem “hate speech” will be removed within 24 hours, whereas “alternative” content deemed “a counter narrative” to “hate speech” will be actively promoted. In other words, the tech giants who already own most of the internet will be put in charge of policing it too:
In short, the “code of conduct” downgrades the law to a second-class status, behind the “leading role” of private companies that are being asked to arbitrarily implement their terms of service. This process, established outside an accountable democratic framework, exploits unclear liability rules for companies. It also creates serious risks for freedom of expression as legal but controversial content may well be deleted as a result of this voluntary and unaccountable take down mechanism. 2
Today, on 31 May, European Digital Rights (EDRi) and Access Now delivered a joint statement on the EU Commission’s “EU Internet Forum”, announcing our decision not to take part in future discussions and confirming that we do not have confidence in the ill considered “code of conduct” that was agreed.
Launched at the end of 2015, the “EU Internet Forum” was meant to counter vaguely defined “terrorist activity and hate speech online”. The discussions were convened by the European Commission and brought together almost exclusively US-based internet companies and representatives of EU Member States. While no civil society organisations were invited to attend the discussions on terrorism, several civil society representatives were allowed to take part in some of the discussions on online hate speech. However, civil society was systematically excluded from the negotiations that led to the voluntary “code of conduct” for IT companies – an official document that was presented today, despite the lack of transparency and public input into its content.
Turks greeted the news that YouTube has been blocked in the country with the grimly raised eyebrows Brits reserve for an unusually bad weather forecast. “So it’s come to this”, they say, but no one is overly shocked. Internet bans are becoming a weekly occurrence. A week ago Twitter was banned at the personal behest of the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and remains so days after a court order annulled the block.
So begins an article in Friday’s Guardian, which continues:
By painting both Twitter and YouTube (and no doubt Facebook next week) as online dens of iniquity, he aims to convince his supporters that the allegations are malicious falsehoods, and that he is the victim of an international smear campaign operating on social media. Extreme tactics; but in a country rife with conspiracy theories and pre-election tension, they might well work.
Allegations? Malicious falsehoods? An international smear campaign? Conspiracy theories…? Well, not just “theories” as it transpires… Here’s a little more of the same article:
On Thursday he sounded hoarse and shrill as he poured scorn on opponents for the umpteenth time, causing much amusement among Twitter users merrily circumnavigating the ban. Hours later, YouTube was blocked, drawing immediate attention to the recording released that day of the foreign minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and the head of the National Intelligence Organization allegedly planning a Syrian provocation. The government has not denied these tapes, instead labelling their circulation as “a declaration of war against the Turkish Republic”. War machinations aside, they have a serious espionage problem on their hands.1
“Allegedly planning a Syrian provocation” – in what way? What exactly is on these tapes that the Turkish government are not denying? The article doesn’t say, but perhaps the BBC can help… (although we’ll need to go back another day – to Thursday):
Earlier, what appeared to be a leaked audio recording of Turkish officials discussing Syria appeared on YouTube.
It relates to a discussion of possible military operations in Syria, which was apparently attended by Turkey’s intelligence chief, its foreign minister and the deputy head of the armed forces.
Reuters news agency, which examined the recording, said it could not verify its authenticity but it was potentially the most damaging purported leak so far as it appeared to have originated from the bugging of a highly confidential and sensitive conversation. […]
At a rally in the south-eastern city of Diyarbakir on Thursday, Mr Erdogan appeared to confirm the latest audio leak was genuine.
“They even leaked a national security meeting,” he said. “This is villainous, this is dishonesty… Who are you serving by doing audio surveillance of such an important meeting?”2
So not only do we learn that the Turkish government “has not denied these tapes” (as the Guardian reports) but that Prime Minister Recep Erdoğan does in fact “confirm the latest audio leak was genuine” – although once again, when it comes to specific details, the BBC seems reluctant to tell us what these “possible military operations in Syria” might have been. As with the Guardian article there is again no link to the leaked discussion on the tapes. We might reasonably wonder why they are being so tight-lipped.
Well, judge for yourself – because here is part of a transcript of the (translated) discussion involving foreign minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and the head of the National Intelligence Organization, Hakan Fidan:
Ahmet Davutoğlu: “Prime Minister said that in current conjuncture, this attack (on Suleiman Shah Tomb) must be seen as an opportunity for us.”
Hakan Fidan: “I’ll send 4 men from Syria, if that’s what it takes. I’ll make up a cause of war by ordering a missile attack on Turkey; we can also prepare an attack on Suleiman Shah Tomb if necessary.”
And it is important to understand that the Tomb of Suleyman Shah is an exclave of the Republic of Turkey situated in Aleppo, Syria. Note too that back in August 2012, Prime Minister Erdoğan had publicly stated:
“The tomb of Suleyman Shah [in Syria] and the land surrounding it is our territory. We cannot ignore any unfavorable act against that monument, as it would be an attack on our territory, as well as an attack on NATO land… Everyone knows his duty, and will continue to do what is necessary”3
Click here to read a full translation of the leaked discussion at the national security meeting.
The youtube audio clip is also embedded below (but unfortunately only available with Turkish subtitles):
This recording (which has already had more than 300,000 ‘views’) supplies evidence of a NATO-member country planning to expand the war in Syria. Caught red-handed, Prime Minister Erdoğan has conceded that the recording is authentic whilst attempting to deflect attention by saying the leak was “immoral”.
However, the important story here is not the one about the “villainous” leaking of “a highly confidential and sensitive conversation” – has Erdoğan never heard of Edward Snowden…? Neither is it news that Turkey has clamped down on youtube and twitter, as troubling as these bans are. Far more important is the confirmed leak itself – that Head of Turkish intelligence, Hakan Fidan, and foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, were discussing the option of launching covert attacks on the Turkish exclave of Suleiman Shah Tomb.
The Financial Times published their own report on the leak also on Friday [March 28th] and it is a little more candid. Whilst accepting Turkish foreign ministry claims that “parts of the recording were doctored” (which parts? Again there are no details) the article does go on to point out how:
“the most contentious segment is a discussion on how to justify military intervention, including a suggestion, which is not taken up, of staging an attack on the tomb…” [my bold emphasis added]4
A clear reference to the part of the leaked discussion reproduced above.
Click here to read the full Financial Times article.
And if this discussion hadn’t been leaked, and a later attack had been staged, then would Nato have followed Turkey into battle? All on the pretext of what the Guardian described as “a Syrian provocation”, but should more properly be called “a Turkish false flag”. Little wonder Erdoğan and the Turkish government have been so keen to shut down the internet. More worrying, however, is that the Guardian, BBC, Reuters and other mainstream media outlets have followed suit. The details sketched over, the links unavailable, and the discussion between foreign minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and the head of the National Intelligence Organization, Hakan Fidan only paraphrased and hinted at. Is the big story just too hot to handle?
Click here to read an alternative article on the leaked tapes posted by zerohedge also on Thursday [March 27th].
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“Why would Turkey want to start a war with Syria?” a friend asked in reply to my email that linked to the zerohedge article above. And my short answer was that Turkey are already heavily involved, having assisted both with allowing a supply of arms as well as the passage of al-Qaeda fighters across their borders into Syria.
The slightly longer answer is that Turkey has its own interests in a northern portion of Syria known as Rojava (or Syrian Kurdistan) where local YPG units (or People’s Protection Units) are engaged in regular battles to hold off a Turkish-backed invasion by Islamists in what is a more or less unreported war within the larger Syrian conflict.
In September of 2013, VICE reporter Aris Roussinos crossed the border into Rojava to document the YPG’s counteroffensive against the jihadists. There he was shown evidence of fighters coming from Libya, Chechnya and even Afghanistan to join the ranks of “the rebels” and saw how sections of the Turkish border had been deliberately opened up and left unprotected:
With unparalleled access to the Kurdish and Syrian Christian fighters on the frontlines, we found ourselves witnessing a bitter and almost unreported conflict within the Syrian war, where the Assad regime is a neutral spectator in a life or death struggle between jihadist-led rebels and Kurdish nationalists, pitting village against village and neighbor against neighbor.
As Syria’s bloody civil war enters its third year, fighting has reached the country’s Kurdish-dominated northeast, a region until recently almost untouched by the conflict. The Kurdish PYD party and its YPG militia, which is affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in neighboring Turkey, took over control of much of Hassakeh province from the Assad regime in the summer of 2012, and with it control of Syria’s precious oilfields.
But the PYD’s hopes of staying neutral in the conflict and building an autonomous Kurdish state were dashed when clashes broke out with Syrian rebel forces in the strategic border city of Ras al-Ayn. That encounter quickly escalated into an all-out war between the Kurds and a powerful alliance of jihadist groups, including the al-Qaeda affiliates ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra.
The notes above are taken from the VICE.com website.
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The documentary embedded above presents very much the Kurdish perspective. Nevertheless, it provides an alternative standpoint since the fighters, although defending themselves against “the rebels”, remain in opposition to Assad.
The Syrian war is complex, but if you’d prefer something a little simpler, then let me also draw attention to a youtube animation entitled “The war in Syria explained in five minutes” uploaded by the Guardian last September – and shame on the Guardian for producing such drivel:
It is a fortnight since the story of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden first broke with revelations of a “previously undisclosed program called Prism, which allows officials to collect material including search history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats” announced to the world by Glenn Greenwald writing in the Guardian on Friday 7th:
The National Security Agency has obtained direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other US internet giants, according to a top secret document obtained by the Guardian.
On that very same day I was heading down the M1 motorway to Watford with a friend to protest against the Bilderberg meeting taking place at the Grove hotel. A meeting that evidently has extremely close connections to those same “internet giants” who have been enabling the NSA as well as our own GCHQ to covertly snoop into every aspect of our lives. Indeed Google were already busy having their very own “private gathering” inside the same grounds of the very same hotel on days either side of the Bilderberg confab. In spite of being so closely connected to the inner circle of the Bilderberg clique, and thus to the very people who are engaged in this rampant abuse of our civil liberties, here’s what Google officially said to the Guardian:
In a statement, Google said: “Google cares deeply about the security of our users’ data. We disclose user data to government in accordance with the law, and we review all such requests carefully. From time to time, people allege that we have created a government ‘back door’ into our systems, but Google does not have a back door for the government to access private user data.”
Plausible deniability, in other words, and it gets better:
Several senior tech executives insisted that they had no knowledge of Prism or of any similar scheme. They said they would never have been involved in such a program. “If they are doing this, they are doing it without our knowledge,” one said.
An Apple spokesman said it had “never heard” of Prism.1
I imagine he’s probably never heard of those Foxconn factories in China with the suicide nets either.
Driving down in our van together we were missing the coverage of Snowden’s document release but then again we already knew all the most important details of the supposedly breaking story. That we are all now living under constant internet and telephone surveillance being old news to any who have cared to search within the margins or else entirely beyond the mainstream news. Since if you are familiar with the names of William Binney or Tom Drake, to name but two former NSA whistleblowers who have both featured in earlier posts, then Snowden’s document dump comes mainly as confirmation of prior knowledge. Details added, yes, but nothing substantially new or remotely surprising.
As we approached the M25 we had entered a twenty mile section of the M1 with CCTV cameras (unless we were both mistaken) fitted every hundred yards along the hard shoulder and funneling our way ahead to London. Having not driven along this newly refurbished stretch of the M1, I felt a growing unease at this additional and less anticipated evidence of where our society is so obviously heading, thoughts which were also combined with something more primal: a loathing of being so tightly boxed in. My friend said he felt similarly unnerved. The claustrophobia of high surveillance was creeping both of us out.
At Junction 8 we turned off and from there onwards followed the softly spoken instructions of our satnav. As patient as she was mellifluous, surely ‘Emily’, the satnav babe, was on our side, but hang on, what’s this…?
A secret ‘Big Brother’ operation is allowing officials to pinpoint the exact location of thousands of vehicles with satellite navigation systems.
The controversial scheme is built into the small print of a contract between the Department for Transport and the satnav company Trafficmaster.
Currently the ‘spy in the sky’ system is limited to some 50,000 drivers who have Trafficmaster’s Smartnav system.2
And that story was released back in 2007 so god knows what Emily gets up to these days… the flirty little snitch! Still, at least she knew the whereabouts of where we were heading, reliably delivering us to the entrance of the Bilderberg Fringe designated campsite where we were soon spotted by a warden who politely but promptly informed us that we were actually the wrong side of the hundred acres of scout parkland. In view of the latest child protection laws, the protesters, he informed us, were being located well away from the scouts and with access guarded by a couple of police vans on 24-hour patrol outside the gates just in case.
So we turned the van around and, without Emily to guide us now, aimed a little across country, down some forest tracks, and eventually coming to the proper site. It was dusk and we were soon parked up in a beautiful corner of the rolling Hertfordshire countryside, brewing up some teas and pulling out the camping chairs to idle the rest of the evening beside the white blossoms of the hawthorns and the brighter flush of ox-eye daisies. A lovely spot for camping, quiet and secluded, and also close enough to the main field to mingle with other campers who as darkness fell had put together a makeshift bonfire from pallets and entertained themselves with beers and music. It was odd to think that this accidental mix of people had all come along with the same singular intent. There to vent a little of our collective spleen directly towards the secretive banker-CEO-politico hobnobbing which was already well underway but happening five miles away inside the plush Grove hotel.
In many ways it was turning into a rather beautiful weekend. Beautiful weather, beautiful location and the following day, a beautiful gathering of common humanity hollering our peaceful but intransigent dissent across the lines of G4S security guards and towards the high security steel perimeter that surrounded the hotel half a mile away in the distance. Did the Bilderberg delegates hear our cries from our small but thronging paddock of free speech? I think they most probably did. Were they remotely listening to what any one of us had to say? Of course not – what do you think this is… a democracy or something?
In truth I’ve been struggling to decide what to write about the Bilderberg protests ever since I returned. The media, of course, knew exactly where to point its cameras. Alex Jones was bound to provide them with a story and offer a further distraction to the main event. Duly he obliged, goaded into action by the smug Andrew Neil and his supercilious sidekick David Aaronvitch (who ironically enough was once awarded the Orwell Prize – how Orwell must be turning in his grave). His latest rant going viral once again and thus overshadowing the more considered position of Tony Gosling who had sparred with Neil on the same subject only a few days earlier:
But then, Neil and Jones weren’t the only ones playing games over the Bilderberg weekend. For instance, the police liaison officers convivial mingling with the crowds was another little game with different rules. Likewise, the men in sharp suits who were milling around the gates of the Grove before drifting across to be matey with those of us enclosed within our little pen were part of yet another form of the same game. In response to all this or else for more provocative reasons, some of the protesters were playing parallel games of their own. Making entertaining announcements over their personal megaphones or more simply befriending those who helped to keep us under restraint.
And perhaps the one time the protesters really got the upper hand in these ongoing games was when two small children breached the security cordon and briefly ran amok. The G4S guards were clearly flustered and at a total loss to know what to do. Sure the meeting was taking place half a mile away across a canal with only one small bridge crossing and firmly sealed behind the newly installed and heavily patrolled perimeter fence high on the hill in the distance, but just what might have happened if these children had been permitted to run loose… might others have been inspired to boldly follow their lead?
Maybe if we sent all the kids out ahead, perhaps followed soon after by the pensioners and the disabled, then such a diversionary tactic might just be enough to keep the troops of security guards and mounted police sufficiently preoccupied for the rest of us to make a proper assault on the castle walls! I’m fairly sure I wasn’t alone in thinking such subversive thoughts… although these were just games of a purely imaginative kind. The single person who did in fact embark upon such daring act of civil disobedience having already been promptly captured; foiled within seconds by the lines of blue. She hadn’t stood an earthly. So why then had we all been submitted to airport-style security checks before being allowed entry into the paddock? Well, it was just another part of the games being played, as was the enormous police presence that accompanied some of the protesters, keeping an eye on their later pub rendezvous many miles away in a different village. Being followed hither and thither by security vans was all part of the festival, and of course we all enjoyed the romp no end.
Which basically sums up the lasting lesson of Bilderberg 2013 for me at least; that all of the many impositions and cruelties inflicted upon the downtrodden populations of this world by a small but dominant gang of well established oligarchs can actually be maintained only by virtue of such tacitly accepted games – games being so absolutely vital for ensuring that the world goes on working in the unjust way it does, with tyranny being so much more effectively instilled and ensured through disingenuous smiles and knowing winks than by any amount of armed security guards and steel fences. The fences and the guns being reserved for emergencies only and if the herd should ever get too out of control.
“One pro-transparency campaigner has had enough” wrote Charlie Skelton in his final Bilderblog for this year’s event, continuing with a quote:
“For too long, those in power made decisions behind closed doors, released information behind a veil of jargon and denied people the power to hold them to account.”
Who might that have been, you may wonder. Perhaps Michael Meacher, who was the only parliamentarian with the gumption to directly address the protesters gathered at the gates of the Grove. Well, no actually…
This particular critic of closed-doors government is a certain David Cameron, speaking shortly after taking office. “This coalition is driving a wrecking ball through that culture,” he said, “and it’s called transparency.”
And Cameron wasn’t alone in his humbug:
Cameron wasn’t the only one swinging the wrecking-ball of transparency inside this year’s Bilderberg. He was joined on the end of the chain by Jessica Mathews, who sits on the advisory council of Transparency International, and James Wolfensohn, who’s on the advisory council of Transparency International USA. Together, I’m sure, they were lobbying hard to open up this last bastion of murky politicking to the sunlight. If they could find the time between seminars.3
Click here to read more of Charlie Skelton’s summary of this year’s Bilderberg.
When I got home to Sheffield I had some explaining to do. Principally I needed to account for why it was I’d let myself get so sunburnt during the weekend. Now the strict answer was that due to the security checks and the long tailback that had resulted (many of the protesters, we understood, having been turned away at the entrance) I hadn’t been able to return from the paddock to pick up the sunscreen we’d rather foolishly left behind in our van. Not a terribly romantic answer and so I improvised. “A battle scar,” I told my nephews and niece when they asked me later, “received at the cost of fighting against the Bilderbergers.”
“Why are you fighting the Build-A-Bears?” my niece objected. “I love the Build-A-Bears” she added. “Not Build-A-Bears,” I explained, “but Bilderbergers…”
“What do they make?” she asked me. What do the make…? I hesitated. How could I explain to an eight year-old what the Bilderbergers make? “War,” I said bluntly after a pause. With both General Petraeus and Kissinger in attendance it seemed like a fair if simplified version of the truth.
Meanwhile Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower, has been involved in quite a caper of his own, leading the American government a merry dance in an almost nostalgic game of Cold War cat and mouse. Landing first in Hong Kong and then taking a flight on to Moscow, the news media is now altogether consumed with speculation about when and where he’ll most likely turn up next, whereas some others, perhaps most notably Naomi Wolf, are also questioning Snowden’s motivations. Is he really who he purports to be?, asks Wolf, with the unstated implication being that his adventures might in some way be part of a “limited hangout” operation; a convenient way to leak out minimal information primarily to the advantage of the spy agencies involved. As a further response, some are already asking who Naomi Wolf really is… here for example is Dave Lindorff offering a counter-offensive in last week’s Counterpunch.
In my opinion questioning the motivation of both parties is perfectly legitimate, since after all I cannot vouch for either Wolf or Snowden, having absolutely no personal association with either one. Wolf’s speculations may indeed be wild and self-promoting, as Lindorff asserts, yet the fuller verdict on Snowden surely remains unclear. For though his release of the Prism documents was undoubtedly in the public interest, and for that reason alone he ought to be protected from any subsequent prosecution, yet as I pointed out above, the evidence he presents adds surprisingly little to what we already knew or might easily have presumed.
What Snowden unquestionably has achieved, however, is to put the matter of public surveillance under the mainstream spotlight. Yet does this alone automatically affirm him as our new hero for freedom and democracy? For there might indeed be, as Wolf tentatively points out, a more hidden agenda going on behind the scenes, and whether or not Snowden is a man of integrity, he may still be an unwitting dupe. This leak, which serves to apply extra pressure to Obama, might, for instance, help with forcing the beleaguered President’s hand in other areas. It could be that by such means, Obama may now be further pressured into engaging in all-out war on Syria – one conflict that Obama has so far managed to steer clear of. Snowden’s leak becoming the straw that finally broke the camel’s back…
That said, charging Snowden under the Espionage Act strikes another fierce blow against freedom of speech, issuing a chill warning to other potential whistleblowers who may contemplate speaking out in the public interest, and thereby further trampling on the tattered remains of the American constitution. It is right therefore that those who stand for freedom ought to back Snowden’s actions and demand that he is pardoned of any crime, but it is also wise to be cautious of all those who cross from behind enemy lines. So let’s also remind ourselves that Snowden worked for the NSA and though we may like to believe that a leopard can change its spots, the associated proverb helpfully cautions us not to wish to be deceived…
The truth is the truth and yet the truth gets harder and harder to find. Take Bilderberg again, which commentators like Andrew Neil assure us is just a private club, and nothing to bother our silly little heads about. Ken Clarke, answering questions in the House of Commons (see below), playing a similar gambit. But then why the cover up for so long, we may legitimately ask, and why does the BBC even now continue to stick with the party line (of “nothing to see here”) rather than asking the tougher questions directly of the Bilderbergers themselves?
As a consequence, when we desire to uncover any meaningful facts about Bilderberg (starting with its actual existence) we are instead forced to turn to the alternative media, and the same goes for most other pressing issues including, to stick with the pertinent illustration, the rise of the surveillance state. The BBC reporting next to nothing when William Binney and Tom Drake were spilling the beans about the NSA, but some years later totally seduced by the story of Edward Snowden. The best we can say is that this is too little too late: closing the stable door after the horse has well and truly bolted.
And the emphasis is also shifted. Stories not to reveal more about Bilderberg or to challenge NSA and GCHQ surveillance, but instead about what Alex Jones believes about Bilderberg or intrigue surrounding the continuing flight of Edward Snowden. The news becoming the metanews and the important message being lost in all the hubbub. In such a fashion we are cajoled into accepting the unacceptable. These kinds of reporting of the news helping to get us more accustomed to the idea of clandestine political gatherings and of the secret services spying into every area of our personal lives. The media playing their own considerable part in the very same game… tricking us into masking our fears with our own false grins as we laugh along with the lies and feign delight in our own deception.
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Update:
An article published in last Wednesday’s Washington Post [June 26th] offers further reasons to be cautious when it comes to Ed Snowden’s motivations. Entitled “Four years ago, Ed Snowden thought leakers should be ‘shot’”, it begins as follows:
Since he publicly acknowledged being the source of bombshell leaks about the NSA two weeks ago, Ed Snowden has portrayed government secrecy as a threat to democracy, and his own leaks as acts of conscience. But chat logs uncovered by the tech news site Ars Technica suggest Snowden hasn’t always felt that way.
“Those people should be shot in the balls,” Snowden apparently said of leakers in a January 2009 chat.
Click here to read the full article by Timothy B. Lee.
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Additional:
Here is the best video compilation of the Bilderberg Fringe event I have found uploaded:
I’ve now been writing this blog for just about two years, and this will be my 200th post. Being something of an anniversary then, I’ve been wondering how to mark the occasion. How about some kind of a retrospective, for instance… reviewing my earlier reports on the decline of the world’s economy as an inevitable consequence of systemic fraud and failure; or the rise of the surveillance state with the introduction of fingerprinting of kids in Britain and of drones over America; or the serious environmental threat from nuclear power and fracking (this ultra-destructive ‘technology’ coming to Britain almost immediately after I first heard and wrote about it!); mixed in perhaps with another reminder of how the neo-imperialist wars of the twenty-first century are being expanded into Africa and why the civil war in Syria is really just a proxy war with the al-Qaeda-led rebel forces being covertly supported by their own sworn enemy, America. (To read posts on any of the above just follow the relevant links from the main menu or use the search tool.)
However, to do justice to such a monumental post would possibly have taken a month or more. All the troubles I have written about, and sadly with very few exceptions, worsening during the past two years; our descent into chaos and tyranny happening quicker now than before I began.
More wars; more environmental devastation in the name of environmental protection; greater infringement of our civil liberties and human rights; and an economy that is teetering on the very edge of total collapse. Indeed, the economic situation is now so bad that on BBC2’s Newsnight a few nights ago [Tuesday 19th], Jeremy Paxman was reduced to interrogating an MP from Cyprus. And just think about that for a moment, and bear in mind that Cyprus (and I mean no offence to Cypriots when I say this) is an economic gnat. Yet we are seriously contemplating how the effects of a debt problem in Cyprus might undo the entire Eurozone. All of which is actually a measure of how broken the banking system has become.
Yes, the financial system of much of the world (and especially our region of it) is bankrupt, and has been for some time. The reason is the multiple hundreds of trillions of dollars of so-called ‘toxic’ derivatives that have still yet to be deleted. But instead of cancelling the odious debts and prosecuting a corrupt banking establishment, the proposed solution is instead to openly steal money from personal bank accounts in order to keep the Ponzi scheme up and running just a little longer. This brazen theft being described in places like the BBC as “a haircut” or “a tax on savings”. You just can’t make it up any more! And sooner or later, we must expect that all of this will be coming to a bank nearby…
Those who have listened carefully to people really in the know, like former regulator William K Black, are aware not only of the real cause of this crisis (and the resulting depression which the mainstream media have also helped to play down) but also precisely who is really to blame – and let’s name names here: hands up Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s, and Fitch! The three credit rating agencies who gave triple-A’s to toxic trash on the basis of mere opinion and yet continue to downgrade the credit worthiness of nation states in a deepening crisis which they were instrumental in starting… you really can’t make this up! And hands up Goldman Sachs, J.P Morgan, Citibank, Barclays, HSBC, and all the cronies in government, at the ECB, the Bank of England, the Federal Reserve, the IMF, and not forgetting the FSA and other supposed “regulatory agencies”. Agencies working for whom and to what ends, we may all reasonably demand.
It is the greed, incompetence and malfeasance across the whole of the financial sector that has brought us to this brink. It was never the fault of “the lazy Greeks” and it’s not the fault of pesky Cypriots either, but the mainstream media still hesitates at telling the people the truth – and why? Just how deep does the cronyism run…?
I hate to say this but quite frankly our world, by which I mean our civilisation, is going to hell in a handbasket. Because just as our economies collapse, and the social structures we rely upon follow, at very same time the controls on us are being tightened one notch at a time, and at an accelerating rate. This is another big theme I have returned to time and again. How in America there was Obama’s introduction of the NDAA “indefinite detention act”, and how in Britain we look set to get our own secret trials too. How in America (and most probably in Britain, although here the available evidence is less certain) there is already universal surveillance of internet activity and soon (certainly if Obama gets his way) of bank accounts too.1
These are the considered thoughts of veteran investigative journalist John Pilger, writing almost a year ago an article on his own website entitled “You are all suspects now. What are you going to do about it?”:
You are all potential terrorists. It matters not that you live in Britain, the United States, Australia or the Middle East. Citizenship is effectively abolished. Turn on your computer and the US Department of Homeland Security’s National Operations Center may monitor whether you are typing not merely “al-Qaeda”, but “exercise”, “drill”, “wave”, “initiative” and “organisation”: all proscribed words. The British government’s announcement that it intends to spy on every email and phone call is old hat. The satellite vacuum cleaner known as Echelon has been doing this for years. What has changed is that a state of permanent war has been launched by the United States and a police state is consuming western democracy.
What are you going to do about it?
In Britain, on instructions from the CIA, secret courts are to deal with “terror suspects”. Habeas Corpus is dying. The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that five men, including three British citizens, can be extradited to the US even though none except one has been charged with a crime. All have been imprisoned for years under the 2003 US/UK Extradition Treaty which was signed one month after the criminal invasion of Iraq. The European Court had condemned the treaty as likely to lead to “cruel and unusual punishment”. One of the men, Babar Ahmad, was awarded 63,000 pounds compensation for 73 recorded injuries he sustained in the custody of the Metropolitan Police. Sexual abuse, the signature of fascism, was high on the list. Another man is a schizophrenic who has suffered a complete mental collapse and is in Broadmoor secure hospital; another is a suicide risk. To the Land of the Free, they go – along with young Richard O’Dwyer, who faces 10 years in shackles and an orange jump suit because he allegedly infringed US copyright on the internet. 2
Meanwhile, of course, the neo-imperialist adventuring remains not only unchecked, but is actually gathering momentum. The war racket pressing full-steam ahead and flattening all before it. It doesn’t matter that we don’t have money to fix our broken hospitals, or to build houses and renew infrastructure, or that in America there are fifty million people already on food stamps – and if you picture those people in sepia forming a queue then you’ll see how this depression has already reached 1930s levels. But in spite of these hardships at home, no amount of money is ever spared when it comes the next country on our checklist for “humanitarian intervention” – and more thoughts on this in my next post.
So these days I am finding every post I write is harder than the last. How many ways are there to say that nuclear power and fracking are a menace not only to human beings but to most other life on the planet (cockroaches aside perhaps)? How many times do you need to say that “austerity measures” are not merely ideological in design but that they serve no useful purpose other than to wreck economies (as the IMF and World Bank have done in so many other countries across the globe) whilst redistributing wealth from the relatively poor to the mega-rich? How many times does it need pointing out that America is backing al-Qaeda when it suits their ends? – when, after all, al-Qaeda owes its origins to Zbigniew Brzezinski and the CIA and their dirty campaign to overthrow the Soviets in Afghanistan. So it is genuinely painful to have to repeat these things, and totally depressing to be shown to be right – that our collective future really is becoming so absolutely bleak, and unremittingly brutalised. Sooner rather than later, I want to be proved wrong – this hope is the only thing that actually keeps me writing this damned blog.
Now if any of the above sounds to you like craziness, then let me confirm that on one level it really is, though the craziness is not mine. For, in a sense, this is simply the way things have always worked: policies of expedience, of realpolitik. It is how ruling elites prefer to govern the masses, and all that stuff and nonsense about “freedom and democracy” and “saving the planet” is for the proles and “the gentlemen” (as neo-con political philosopher Leo Strauss called them) – those in the higher-up echelons who truly believe in the goodness of the system, but whose real job is to protect the interests of the powers that be. But the difference now is that the ruling elites are ready to assume a more complete dominion over all of their underlings. And it will be achieved by a scientifically-driven programme of social engineering that is already well underway: bringing us into the scientific dictatorship that globalist bigwig Zbigniew Brzezinski famously called “the Technetronic Era”:
“In the Technetronic society the trend seems to be toward aggregating the individual support of millions of unorganized citizens, who are easily within the reach of magnetic and attractive personalities, and effectively exploiting the latest communication techniques to manipulate emotion and control reason.” [..]
“Another threat, less overt but no less basic, confronts liberal democracy. More directly linked to the impact of technology, it involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled and directed society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite whose claim to political power would rest on allegedly superior scientific knowhow. Unhindered by the restraints of traditional liberal values, this elite would not hesitate to achieve its political ends by using the latest modern techniques for influencing public behavior and keeping society under close surveillance and control.” 3
Do Brzezinski’s words represent a warning or a blueprint… this ambiguity remains only because Brzezinski quite deliberately never makes his position clear:
The Technetronic age is that which is created by the (theoretical) Technetronic Revolution. It is always fairly ambiguously presented as to whether Brzezinski is actually predicting this revolution based on observation/trends, or whether he is abstractly philosophizing. It certainly is not a work of political science. With this in mind, his concluding line in the book, ‘In the technetronic era, philosophy and politics will be crucial’ serve to confuse the reader further rather than give some closure. 4
The quote above is taken from a rather favourable review of Brzezinski’s book written by Stephen McGlinchey in 2011. The book itself has been out of print for three decades.
There is plenty of speculation about Brzezinski’s real intent when he wrote the book, but does this even matter – especially as we have good reasons to be suspicious given his record in other more tangible ways – the more important point is that the direction he outlines is evidently the direction our world has taken. And I would like to think that my own ant-sized efforts to halt the progress of this imposed revolution, alongside the efforts of countless other out-spoken ants, all trying so hard to speak up with truth to power is having some effect. That we may be small and struggling to be heard above the largely controlled, mainstream din, with tiny readerships and such small spheres of influence, but that our combining ripples are building in amplitude and spreading wider…. And then I read an article and I think that yes indeed, tiny as we are, we really must be having some effect, because it seems that the government is suddenly intent on shutting voices like mine down altogether.
Never letting any good crisis go to waste, the government it seems has twisted the whole Leveson Inquiry around to its own advantage – in a fashion reminiscent of what happened with the Hutton Inquiry (from which, of course, the BBC has never properly recovered). The Leveson Inquiry, we should remember, was set up to deal with crimes, and specifically the crime of phone hacking, perpetrated by media giants (most prominently Rupert Murdoch’s News International), and to also look into the role played by the London Metropolitan Police, yet in consequence, the results of that inquiry look likely to close down parts of the alternative media instead. Here’s an extract from Tuesday’s Guardian:
Bloggers could face high fines for libel under the new Leveson deal with exemplary damages imposed if they don’t sign up to the new regulator, it was claimed on Tuesday.
Under clause 29 introduced to the crime and courts bill in the Commons on Monday night, the definition of “relevant” bloggers or websites includes any that generate news material where there is an editorial structure giving someone control over publication. […]
Kirsty Hughes, the chief executive of Index on Censorship, which campaigns for press freedom around the world, said it was a “sad day” for British democracy. “This will undoubtedly have a chilling effect on everyday people’s web use,” she said.
She said she feared thousands of websites could fall under the definition of a “relevant publisher” in clause 29.
Hughes said: “Bloggers could find themselves subject to exemplary damages, due to the fact that they were not part of a regulator that was not intended for them in the first place.” 5
My belief has always been (and remains) that the best way to lose your freedom of speech is by refusing to use it, and so this ludicrous regulatory overreach is more reason to keep offering some small alternative to the mainstream behemoths. And rest assured that I certainly won’t be signing up to any regulatory body.
Finally then, and if the authorities ever do decide to go after me for daring to disagree with mainstream authority, then I ask in advance for your support – why? Because I’m the little guy, the ant, the gnat, the gadfly. The main difference between you and I, in this respect, is merely that I have perhaps put my head a little higher above the parapet. So once I’m firmly in the cross-hairs, assuming this should happen, then you can be absolutely certain it’ll be your turn next, and rather sooner than you might suppose…
1“The Obama administration is drawing up plans to give all U.S. spy agencies full access to a massive database that contains financial data on American citizens and others who bank in the country, according to a Treasury Department document seen by Reuters.
“The proposed plan represents a major step by U.S. intelligence agencies to spot and track down terrorist networks and crime syndicates by bringing together financial databanks, criminal records and military intelligence. The plan, which legal experts say is permissible under U.S. law, is nonetheless likely to trigger intense criticism from privacy advocates.”
From an article entitled “Obama Administration Proposing To Let U.S. Spy Agencies Have Access To Massive Financial Database”, written by Emily Flitter, Stella Dawson and Mark Hosenball, (from Reuters) published by Huffingtonpost. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/13/obama-spy-agencies_n_2868389.html
3 Both quotes taken from Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era, written by Zbigniew Brzezinski, published in 1970 (although out of print since 1982).
5From an article entitled “Press regulation deal sparks fears of high libel fines for bloggers: Websites could have to pay exemplary damages if they don’t sign up to new regulator, claim opponents of Leveson deal”, written by Lisa O’Carroll, published by the Guardian on March 19, 2013. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/mar/19/bloggers-libel-fines-press-regulation
A few months ago many were worrying about PIPA and SOPA, two US bills drafted ostensibly to protect intellectual property rights, but blocked thanks to widespread protests including the blackout of many internet sites – most notably wikipedia. Meantime, we have also seen the European Union attempting to ratify the international ‘anti-piracy’ ACTA treaty, this time ignoring not only public opinion, but the advice of two of their own appointed rapporteurs.1 So there has never been such a conspicuous rush by governments to take control of the internet, and to limit the free sharing of information, as we have seen during the last few months.
Combined with this, we also recently learned that the NSA are constructing a massive new centre for the purpose of the interception and storage of all email and other personal data passing through the United States. Finally, we see how this unlawful intrusion on personal privacy is to be legitimised, by, of course, yet another draft of internet regulation: the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, which passed yesterday in the House of Representatives:
On a bipartisan vote of 248-168, the Republican-controlled House backed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (Cispa), which would encourage companies and the federal government to share information collected on the internet to prevent electronic attacks from cybercriminals, foreign governments and terrorists.2
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) legislative counsel Michelle Richardson has since made the following statement:
“CISPA goes too far for little reason. Cybersecurity does not have to mean abdication of Americans’ online privacy. As we’ve seen repeatedly, once the government gets expansive national security authorities, there’s no going back. We encourage the Senate to let this horrible bill fade into obscurity.”3
The ACLU is also holding out hope that the Obama administration will now veto the bill as it is threatening to do. The Guardian also reports that The House of Representatives “ignored objections from Barack Obama’s administration” by approving the legislation. But now let us rewind just a little. This is taken from another Guardian article published in December last year:
Barack Obama has abandoned a commitment to veto a new security law [NDAA 2012] that allows the military to indefinitely detain without trial American terrorism suspects arrested on US soil who could then be shipped to Guantánamo Bay.4
Human rights groups accused the president of deserting his principles and disregarding the long-established principle that the military is not used in domestic policing.
Returning to CISPA, and in contrast to the outcry over SOPA and PIPA, it is interesting to note that all of the major corporations involved with the internet have been supporting the bill. No blackout of wikipedia, or any other major sites. What do these companies have to gain? Here’s Michelle Richardson speaking on yesterday’s Democracy Now! :
[And] frankly, they’re going to make out like bandits. Under this bill, if they share our private information, they get complete protection from liability. Consumers will no longer be able to assert their privacy rights that exist under current law and hold them accountable in court. They can’t be prosecuted by the government like they currently can for illegal wiretapping or sharing information. They’re getting FOIA exemptions, so that no one will ever know about these breaches or the things that they share with the government. They’re really walking away here with maximum flexibility to share our personal information with minimum accountability and no enforcement to make sure that they are not oversharing and infringing on our privacy.5
Click here to watch video and read the full transcript of the Democracy Now! interview
Asked what the prospects are of the legislation passing, Richardson replies:
Well, we were very, very pleased to see that the Obama administration issued a veto threat yesterday and said, in very clear terms, that they believe that control of the internet needs to remain civilian, and the military shouldn’t be routinely collecting information on innocent people.
Very, very pleased to see that the Obama administration issued a veto threat… Why so pleased? Can it be that Richardson and the rest of ACLU are suffering some form of amnesia? Have they forgotten that Obama reneged on his promise not to authorise the NDAA ‘indefinite detention’ act less than four months ago? Are they also oblivious to the fact that the necessary facilities for such widespread domestic surveillance is now being constructed in a heavily fortified centre in Bluffdale, Utah at a cost of $2 billion? So Obama isn’t fighting the same corner. Surely by now that’s obvious, isn’t it?
“But why did he do it?” a friend said to me, soon after Obama had given the go-ahead for indefinite detention without trial. This common response simply reminds me of the question the drowning frog asks the scorpion in the fable.6 The answer being, if you remember, “I couldn’t help it – I’m a scorpion”.
1 Kader Arif resigned in protest on January 26 denouncing the treaty “in the strongest possible manner” for having “no inclusion of civil society organizations, a lack of transparency from the start of the negotiations, repeated postponing of the signature of the text without an explanation being ever given, [and] exclusion of the EU Parliament’s demands that were expressed on several occasions in [the] assembly,” concluding with his intent to “send a strong signal and alert the public opinion about this unacceptable situation” and refusal to “take part in this masquerade.”
The newly appointed rapporteur, British MEP David Martin, also recommended against the treaty, stating “The intended benefits of this international agreement are far outweighed by the potential threats to civil liberties”.
4 From an article entitled “Military given go-ahead to detain US terrorist suspects without trial: civil rights groups dismayed as Barack Obama abandons commitment to veto new security law contained in defence bill”, written by Chris McGreal, published in the Guardian on December 15, 2011. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/15/americans-face-guantanamo-detention-obama
6A frog and a scorpion are trying to cross a river. “Hello Mr. Frog!” says the scorpion across the water, “Would you be so kind as to give me a ride on your back across the river?”
“Well now, Mr. Scorpion! How do I know that if I try to help you, you won’t try to kill me?” asked the frog.
“Because,” the scorpion replied, “If I try to kill you, then I would die too, for you see I cannot swim!”
With SOPA and PIPA kicked into the long grass, another attempt to close down free speech on the internet is now coming under scrutiny. ACTA, the “Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement”, is yet another draft of legislation that is ostensibly for the purpose of enforcing intellectual property rights, although unlike SOPA and PIPA, ACTA is an international treaty. (And apologies for such an obfuscation of acronyms — I presume that’s the correct collective noun).
ACTA, which establishes its own governing body outside existing international institutions such as the WTO, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) or even the United Nations, was originally signed by countries including Australia, Canada, Japan, and the United States back on October 1st 2011.
When, last Thursday [Jan 26th], twenty-two of the European Union member states including the UK also signed the agreement, French Member of the European Parliament, Kader Arif, was so angered by “manoeuvres” used to get the bill approved, that he immediately resigned in protest from his position as rapporteur:
Negotiations over a controversial anti-piracy agreement have been described as a “masquerade” by a key Euro MP.
Kader Arif, the European Parliament’s rapporteur for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (Acta), resigned over the issue on Friday.
He said he had witnessed “never-before-seen manoeuvres” by officials preparing the treaty.1
And Kader Arif made the following statement:
“I condemn the whole process which led to the signature of this agreement: no consultation of the civil society, lack of transparency since the beginning of negotiations, repeated delays of the signature of the text without any explanation given, reject of Parliament’s recommendations as given in several resolutions of our assembly.”
In Poland, tens of thousands of demonstrators also voiced opposition to their own government’s signature to the ACTA agreement:
Crowds of mostly young people held banners with slogans such as “no to censorship” and “a free internet”.
Earlier in the week, hackers attacked several Polish government websites, including that of Prime Minister Donald Tusk.2
Russia Today reported that the Anonymous group had earlier sent out ‘a stern warning’ to the Polish authorities, issuing what was little short of a blackmail note:
“Polish government – we are more powerful than you. We have a lot of your files and personal information. We warn you to exercise caution” which was published on pastebin.com.
The scope of ACTA is more expansive than SOPA and PIPA, not merely geographically, but because it aims to establish and enforce global standards in many other areas. Here’s analysis of how the new legislation will affect the lives of people across the world, published in Forbes:
Worse, it appears to go much further than the internet, cracking down on generic drugs and making food patents even more radical than they are by enforcing a global standard on seed patents that threatens local farmers and food independence across the developed world.
Despite ACTA’s secrecy, criticism of the agreement has been widespread. Countries like India and Brazil have been vocal opponents of the agreement, claiming that it will do a great deal of harm to emerging economies.
I’ll have more on the agreement as it emerges. But to briefly sum up, according to critics of the agreement:
ACTA contains global IP provisions as restrictive or worse than anything contained in SOPA and PIPA.
ACTA spans virtually all of the developed world, threatening the freedom of the internet as well as access to medication and food. The threat is every bit as real for those countries not involved in the process as the signatories themselves.
ACTA has already been signed by many countries including the US, but requires ratification in the EU parliament.
ACTA was written and hammered out behind closed doors. While some of the provisions have been taken out of the final US draft, plenty of unknowns still exist. It’s not nearly clear enough how the agreement will affect US laws.3
With regards to the internet, the tightening of control on websites will automatically lead to the closer scrutiny of all internet users:
Under ACTA, internet service providers are virtually obliged to monitor all user activity for possible copyright violations. It also gives trademark owners and officers of the law great authority to violate privacy while investigating suspected infringements.4
Rick Falkvinge, the founder of the Swedish Pirate Party, told Russia Today that the ACTA copyright protection treaty is an “excellent example of abuse of power by the corporate industry”:
“This legislation about putting people in jail was negotiated by corporations and the lawmakers just got it in their lap,” he explained. “That is not how a democratic society should work, quite regardless of what this law says.”
Jonathan Swift famously said that “laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.” ACTA is a perfect example of Swift’s observation, drawn up in order to serve the interests of the biggest pirates of our economies. The pirates at the helm of the megabanks who continue to force whole nations to surrender their wealth to bail them out on the basis of threats from their pirate buddies at the credit rating agencies. And the multinational corporate pirates who refuse to pay up their modest contribution in taxes, preferring to bury their treasures in offshore havens.
We already have laws to bring many of the major pirates to justice, but these laws are rarely used for such purposes. Regulations that haven’t so far been axed are increasingly being ignored. Meanwhile, bills like SOPA, PIPA and ACTA have been drawn up to further choke opposition, opening the way for greater corporate control over our lives. All of this so-called ‘anti-piracy’ legislation is nothing but humbug, and poisonous humbug at that. The signing of ACTA, which is clearly designed to squeeze out the little guy and stifle the independent voice, represents just another miserable step towards a globalised corporate tyranny. In short, ACTA was written by the pirates and for the pirates.
1 From an article entitled “European Parliament rapporteur quits in Acta protest” written by Dave Lee, published by BBC news on January 27, 2012. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16757142
With two controversial internet ‘anti-piracy’ bills, SOPA and PIPA, now moving through Congress, Rebecca MacKinnon, author of the forthcoming book, “Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom” spoke on yesterday’s Democracy Now! about the clampdown on internet freedom, as well as the dangerous rise of internet surveillance:
[And so,] it’s very important that people who are exercising power, whether they’re corporate or whether they’re government, that are exercising power over what we can see, over what we can access, over what we can publish and transmit through these digital spaces, need to be held accountable, and we need to make sure that power is not being abused in these digital spaces and platforms that we depend on. And so, that’s why this SOPA and PIPA legislation and the fight over it is so important, is who are you empowering to decide what people can and cannot see and do on the internet, and how do you make sure that that power is not going to be abused in ways that could have political consequences.
MacKinnon cites examples from all over the world showing how the internet can be controlled or else used for control. Here is China:
And China, in many ways, is exhibit A for how an authoritarian state survives the internet. And how do they do that? They have not cut off their population from the internet. In fact, the internet is expanding rapidly in China. They now have over 500 million internet users. And the Chinese government recognizes that being connected to the global internet is really important for its economy, for its education, for its culture, for innovation. Yet, at the same time, they have worked out a way to filter and censor the content overseas that they feel their citizens should not be accessing.
And what’s even more insidious, actually, is the way in which the state uses the private sector to conduct most of its censorship and surveillance. So, actually, what we know as the Great Firewall of China that blocks Twitter and Facebook, that’s only one part of Chinese internet censorship. Actually, most Chinese internet users are using Chinese-language websites that are run by Chinese companies based in China, and those companies are all held responsible for everything their users are doing. And so, they have to hire entire departments of people to monitor their users at the police’s behest and also to not just block, but delete content that the Chinese government believes infringes Chinese law. And, of course, when—in a country where crime is defined very broadly to include political and religious dissent, that involves a great deal of censorship. And it’s being conducted, to a great degree, not by government agents, but by private corporations who are complying with these demands in order to make a profit in China.
This is Egypt:
Facebook has its own kind of type of governance, which is why I call private internet companies the “sovereigns of cyberspace.” And so, Facebook has a rule where it requires that its users need to use their real name, their real identity. And while some people violate that rule, that makes them vulnerable to having their account shut down if they are discovered. And so, the reason they do this is that they want people to be accountable for their speech and prevent bullying and so on. And that may make sense in the context of a Western democracy, assuming that you’re not vulnerable in your workplace or anything like that, which is even a question, but it means that you have to be—as an Egyptian activist or as an activist in Syria and so on, you’re more exposed, because you have to be on Facebook using your real name.
And actually, a group of prominent activists in Egypt who were using Facebook to organize an anti-torture movement were doing so, before the regime fell, under fake names, and actually, at a critical point where they were trying to organize a major protest, their Facebook group went down, because they were in violation of the terms of service. And they actually had to find somebody in the U.S. to take over their Facebook page so that they could continue to operate.
And this is America:
American political cartoonist, Mark Fiore, had an app in which he was making fun of a range of politicians, including President Obama, and Apple App Store nannies decided to censor that app, because they considered it to be too controversial, even though that speech was clearly protected under the First Amendment. So you have companies making these judgments that go well beyond sort of our judicial and constitutional process.
But much worse, here is America again (and I had no idea how much access the US government already has to investigate the private lives of citizens – the bold highlight is added):
And there’s also a real issue, I think, in the way in which our laws are evolving when it comes to government access to information stored on corporate servers, that is supposed to be private, that we are not intending to be seen in public, which is that, according to the PATRIOT Act and a range of other law that has been passed in recent years, it’s much easier for government agencies to access your email, to access information about your postings on Twitter, even if they’re anonymous, than it is for government agents to come into your home and search your personal effects. To do that, they need a warrant. There is very clear restriction on the government’s ability to read your mail. Yet, according to current law, if your email is older than 180 days old, the government can access your email, if it’s stored on Gmail or Yahoo! or Hotmail, without any kind of warrant or court order. So, there’s a real erosion of our Fourth Amendment rights, really, to protection from unreasonable search and seizure. And this is going on, I think, to a great degree without a lot people realizing the extent to which our privacy rights are being eroded.
Click here to read a full transcript of the interview
