The couple who is leading the legal fight for the freedom of the internet in Canadian courts was recently interviewed on the ‘Just Right’ radio program.
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Supreme Court of Canada says it’s OK to censor the truth, then re-publishes hate-speech
March 1, 2013 — xanthippaSad…
H/T: BCF
Telecom giants and repressive regimes are teaming up to use a little-known UN agency to make the Internet more expensive, surveilled, and censored.
November 14, 2012 — xanthippaFrom OpenMedia:
Wow. Telecom giants and repressive regimes are teaming up to use a little-known UN agency to make the Internet more expensive,1 surveilled,2 and censored.3
We need you to take a stand as part of a global community right now.
Internet freedom means connection with loved ones, open innovation, and free expression without interference by Big Telecom or repressive governments. All this is under threat right now, but you can make a difference in just a few seconds.
You are part of what’s shaping up to be the largest movement in history, and the stakes couldn’t be higher.
We’re already working together globally to stop new Internet restrictions from being imposed through trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP),4 and we’ve taken massive strides in Canada to push back against Big Telecom’s price-gouging activities.5 This kind of success is unique and inspiring, and it’s something you should be proud of.
Please don’t let them take it away from you – raise your voice now.
Thank you so much for being a part of this,
Steve, on behalf of your OpenMedia Team
P.S. Whether it’s stopping Big Telecom price-gouging and online surveillance in Canada, or opening the secret negotiations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) to citizen comments, we’re bringing the pro-Internet community together to amplify your voice. Our community can only continue to be successful with stable support; you can help by becoming an Ally.
Footnotes
[1] See our blog, ITU proposals threaten Internet freedom and access, or the Center for Democracy and Technology’s Two Page Memo on Telecom Operators Proposal for New Internet Charging Scheme [PDF]
[2] See our blog, UN proposals threaten the Internet as we know it, or the Wired magazine article, The Kremlin’s New Internet Surveillance Plan Goes Live Today
[3] See GigaOM: Is the UN the next big threat to Internet freedom?
[4] See the successes with the StopTheTrap.net campaign so far listed in this recent letter to supporters: It’s time to amplify our voice against the TPP’s Internet trap
[5] See our infographic about the famous StopTheMeter.ca campaign here, or learn more about how we recently pushed for (and won) transparency around Big Telecom’s costs here.
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Could there be more behind the MSM’s refusal to investigate the Obama administration?
October 28, 2012 — xanthippaSure, many of the talking heads and most visible journalists are blatant Obama sycophants. But, why is the refusal to investigate Obama and his administration so pervasive?
Are there really no young and eager investigative journalists who want to make a name for themselves – and to hell with ideology?
While the brainwashing most liberal arts (journalism included) students are subjected to in Colleges and Universities may account for much of it, there may be more to it than just liberalism’s willful blindness:
‘I was on the brunt end of the Obama-generated censorship while employed at CNN as an investigative correspondent.
On at least a weekly basis, and to my constant frustration, my superiors and CNN’s lawyers were quick to remind me that we need to be extra careful because “President Obama has gone after more journalists and whistleblowers than any president in history”. The leash around my neck began to tighten.
Whether I was allowed to embark on future stories or even interview sensitive sources for potential investigations, eventually became an ‘Obama subpoena risk assessment’ and potential court cost calculation, rather than a pure evaluation of the report’s contribution to public good or our journalistic duty to cover the story.
Some of my most crucial investigations were killed before they started because they were too high a risk of an Obama subpoena.
One boss told me quote “we know how the FBI feels about your source, if we have information the FBI will want we become a target”.’
I don’t know just how reliable this blogger is, but her read-worthy post includes many links to reputable sites with material confirming her observations.
Worth thinking about…
Rowan Atkinson on Freedom of Speech
October 25, 2012 — xanthippaGeorge Igler: Freedom of speech under attack in Britain
September 26, 2012 — xanthippaOn the topic of freedom of speech…and ‘scapegoating’
September 17, 2012 — xanthippahttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAmmfxs8q2Y&feature=colike
Many people think that it is a reasonable limitation on the freedom of free speech to prohibit someone from yelling ‘FIRE!’ in a crowded theatre – provided, that is, that there is no fire.
That little caveat – provided that there is no fire – is often forgotten by those who wold consider this to be a reasonable limitation of free speech. This, indeed, is not surprising – failure to recognize real warnings of danger and simply treating unpopular statements equally, whether they are true or not, is symptomatic of the individuals who most loudly profess that this limitation on the freedom of speech is somehow ‘reasonable’.
According to these people, giving a warning of a real ad present peril (like, say, a fire in a crowded theatre) is worse than letting everyone sit complacently until they burn to death.
I must admit, there was a time when I was persuaded that if there indeed were no fire, then shouting a warning of it ought not happen. OK, I still think that it ought not happen – but not because there are laws against it.
To explain my change of mind, I have to digress a little bit to some examples on utilitarian morality from philosophy. Not that I am particularly versed in philosophy – my ideas are mostly self-reasoned, but a little education has made me widen the scope of my reasoning.
There is that classical moral dilema question: if you see an uncontrollable train going down some tracks where it will hit six people, but there is a lever you can pull that will divert that train onto another set of tracks, where it will only kill one person, should you pull the lever?
Most ‘utilitarians’ will say that yes, you should, because one death is less tragic than 6 deaths.
I don’t think this is anywhere near as clear cut.
If the train stays on its original track, you (presuming the uncontrollable-ness of the train is not your fault to start off with) are not responsible for the deaths of those 6 people.
If, however, you do pull the lever, you will be the direct cause of the death of that 1 person.
People are not cogs, interchangeable for each other. We are individuals. And, if you pull that lever, you will indeed be guilty of causing the death of that individual. What is more, since you have had time to consider it, that constitutes premeditation. You would therefore be commiting murder.
This means that the question itself is improperly formulated.
Rather, it ought to ask if you could pull that lever and save the 6 people – but in the process murder 1 person, with all the legal consequences this carries, should you still pull that lever?
Because that is the real question: is saving the lives of 6 people worth murdering someone – and, perhaps, spending the rest of your life in prison as a result! After all, real actions have real consequences…
Similarly, the person who shouts ‘FIRE!” in a crowded theatre has not actually killed anyone.
It is the people who act before checking whether their actions are based on fact or not, and those who put their lives above others by trampling them to death to save themselves, who are guilty of, well, the trampling. Not the person who – rightly or wrongly – shouts ‘Fire!’
It is always the tramplers who are the ones guilty of the trampling.
But, because there are many of them, and our moral compass has for too long been corrupted by the profoundly immoral Judeo-Christian doctrine of ‘scapegoating’, of ‘vicarious redemption’, that we are willing to put the blame of the many ‘tramplers’ onto the one who may not, indeed, have done any ‘trampling’ at all!
It is precisely this predisposition we have of shifting the blame for the actions of the individuals who actually carry them out onto a scapegoat who is said to have ’caused’ their bad or immoral behaviour that is going to be the downfall of our society!
It is precisely this scapegoating which is at the heart of political correctness and the erosion of the freedoms which we ought to be able to exercise unfettered.
How have we improved our lot if we have liberated ourselves from Christian religious dogmas, if we permit its worst shackles to still imprison our morality, albeit under the new name of ‘political correctnes’?
So, now, I agree with Christopher Hitchens on this point:
100% ‘fair use’ political ad censored by DMCA
July 17, 2012 — xanthippaThis is a perfect illustration of how the unbalanced copyright laws are abusive.
The political ad of Obama singing the song ‘Let’s Stay Together’ while showing images of him with rich lobbyists is as textbook ‘fair use’ as there is. Yet, the song rightsholder, BMG, had it yanked off the interwebitudes:
‘A YouTube video produced by the Romney for President campaign got hit by a takedown request on Monday, highlighting the challenges that the Digital Millenium Copyright Act can pose for free speech.
…
Yet the “notice and takedown” process established by the DMCA and apparently utilized by BMG in this case doesn’t give the Romney campaign much recourse. It can file a counter notice stating that it believes its clip to be fair use, but YouTube is required to wait a minimum of 10 days before putting the video back up. In a campaign where the news cycle is measured in hours, 10 days is an eternity.’
Because sometimes, delaying a message is just as good as stopping it…
Another dimension of the problem is that individuals unfairly censored under the current policies are penalized for the other side’s failure – without any accessible or effective recourse or remedy readily available. They are, in a very real sense, guilty until proven innocent – at their own cost and by their own effort.
This is so contrary to our common law tradition I don’t know where to begin!
And it’s only going to get worse – unless we shift our enforcement focus from ‘fair dealing’ to ‘fair ‘use’ (as, hopefully, seems to be happening up here, in Canada).
Brian Lilley and John Robson on ‘The Baglow Case’ and Free Dominion
July 9, 2012 — xanthippahttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmZJn3s1BkU&feature=colike
The Free Dominion fundraising site is here.
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 