Archive for the ‘speech’ Category
“he Venezuelan government has ordered the closure of 34 radio stations, the head of the national telecommunications regulator, Conatel, has said. Diosdado Cabello, who is also minister of public works in the government of Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, said the closures were due to the stations’ inability to meet legal operating requirements, and warned that more closures may follow.
‘They will have to cease transmission once they have received the order’, Cabello said on Friday. ‘This is about legitimate authority of the government to manage the radio spectrum… We are only implementing what the law says…’”
source: aljazeera.net
“…The Internet remains one of the most powerful means ever created to give voice to repressed people around the world. Unfortunately, new technologies have also given authoritarian regimes new means to identify and retaliate against those who speak out despite censorship and surveillance. Below are six basic ideas for those attempting to speak without falling
victim to authoritarian surveillance and censorship, and four ideas for the rest of us who want to help support them…
1. Understand Risk Assessment
2. Beware of Malware
3. Choose the Least-Risky Communications Channels
4. Use Encryption to Prevent Surveillance and Censorship of your Web Usage
5. Be Careful of What and Where You Publish
6. Should I use a Tor Bridge…”
source: eff.org
“The Associated Press last week rolled out its brave new plan to “apply protective format to news.” The AP’s news registry will “tag and track all AP content online to assure compliance with terms of use,” and it will provide a “platform for protect, point, and pay.” That’s a lot of “p”-prefaced jargon, but it boils down to a sort of DRM for news—”enforcement,” in AP-speak…But how could that possibly work?It was good enough for music…
Turns out that it won’t, not really, not if the goal is to exercise control over AP content by those not voluntarily disposed to play by the AP’s rules. First, let’s try to make sense of what’s being proposed. According to the AP’s announcement, the news registry it plans to set up relies on a new ‘microformat’…”
source: arstechnica.com
“Israel is a democracy, we are told. We have freedom of speech to prove it. Aside from a few pesky details of a permanent state of emergency which allows the government and security forces to impose censorship of the media, we really are free to speak our minds – to an extent.
The legal limits on personal expression are draconian, but not very often invoked. It is the unspoken limits of freedom of speech which are more binding. Even as I write I hear the clinking of the chains in my mind: how much do I dare expose? What might be the repercussions of this word, or that sentence?
I, like most young Israeli Jews, went to the army at the age of 18. At the time I barely even questioned this. Going to the army here is a fact of life, merely another step in the standard ‘natural’ order: six years of grade school, six of high school, three in the army and so forth. In the army I was exposed to matters of varying levels of secrecy. Divulging them is, of course, illegal. But even that is not what I feel constrains me and so many others. What security clearance deems secret is not, as a general rule, an interesting subject for conversation other than in very specific circumstances, almost never occurring outside the army.”
source: guardian.co.uk
“The Press Office of the British Embassy in Washington, D.C. confirmed in an interview with me today that San Francisco talk show host, Michael Savage, still remains “persona non grata” in Great Britain. Savage repeatedly warned his listeners yesterday that neither he or his attorneys have received any official indication that the ban had been lifted.
A weekend newspaper report appears to have been inaccurate. The press representative indicated that while no visa is required of Americans visiting England, Michael Savage, would be detained by immigration authorities if he attempted to enter the country, and refused entry.As recently as yesterday the British Home Office informed the embassy office that there has been no change in Michael Savage’s ban.”
via examiner.com
“BERLIN – A court has ordered psychiatric care for a man who staged a short-lived protest before Barack Obama’s speech in Berlin during his campaign for the U.S. presidency. The 41-year-old German man drove through barricades around Berlin’s Victory Column the day before Obama was to speak in July 2008 and poured red paint from his car.
The Berlin state court says the man was protesting “injustice and poverty in the world” and is not guilty of any offenses for the reason of mental illness. The court says its ruling Tuesday that the man suffers from manic depression. He was remanded to a psychiatric institute for care.”
via yahoo.com
“Home Secretary Alan Johnson is to scrap his predecessor’s policy of naming and shaming people banned from Britain for spreading race hate and terrorism. The U-turn follows Jacqui Smith’s controversial decision two months ago to announce a list of 16 people branded as ‘least wanted’ in the UK. It led to a claim for £100,000 damages by U.S. radio ’shock jock’ Michael Savage, who objected to being put in the same category as Islamic hate preachers and terrorists.
The Mail on Sunday has been told that Mr Johnson believes the move was a blunder and does not propose to issue similar lists in the future. But the switch could have major legal consequences for the Government. Mr Savage is suing Ms Smith for libel over the list and abandoning the policy could make it impossible to contest his demand for damages…”
via dailymail.co.uk
“Obama likes to say two different things in the same speech, usually prefaced by his trade-mark ‘Let me be clear.’
‘And let me be clear,’ he told the Russians in Moscow, even as he presses forward with the Clinton/Bush policy of NATO expansion, ringing Russia with missile bases, ‘NATO seeks collaboration with Russia, not confrontation.’
You think ’saying’ and ‘doing’ are far apart on that one? Try this gem, also delivered in Moscow: ‘Now let me be clear, America will not seek to impose any system of government on any other country, nor would we presume to choose which party or individual should run a country…. America will never impose a security arrangement on another country.’ … Obama has been perfectly clear on so many pledges, on restoring constitutional protections such as habeas corpus, respect for international treaties and covenants on torture and the treatment of prisoners, on eavesdropping and, when you take even a quick glance at what he’s done, he’s been perfectly awful on so many fronts.”
via counterpunch.org