Category Archives: Free Speech

And the river opens for the righteous

Posted on September 16, 2006

Beautiful, heartaching, swinging country version by the Burns Sisters of Little Steven’s I am a Patriot provides the soundtrack for a video view of last summer’s Cindy Sheehan-led peace protests in Crawford, Texas. The song is so appropriate and never more so than when Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld are giving speeches claiming that people like me, who disagree with their tactics and policies, are either traitors or providing sustenance to the terrorists. As if their oh so precious Bible were not the only document they possess written down by man but whispered by their Almighty!

(Tech note: I initially attempted to embed the video in this post for your convenience but despite trying a couple of WordPress plugins couldn’t make it work; the fault is mine, I’m sure, and not the plugin authors’.)

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Journalist jailed for refusing to give up tapes

Posted on August 1, 2006

Though I ought to expect crap like this, I’m still surprised when the Bush Administration pulls stunts like putting a journalist in jail for refusing to give up videotape he made of a protest last summer in San Francisco. The guy was blogging right up until the court hearing from whence he was sent to the stir.

Really unbelievable and yet a totally transparent ploy. California law protects the press so–on the flimsiest of connective tissue–the fact that the SFPD gets federal funding, the Justice Department jumped in and brought the case in federal court. Of course the judge had to go along with it and he did.

The other question I have is whether the major media outlets will jump on Wolff’s story as they did in the celebrated Judith Miller fiasco. Coverage by the local daily is not the same, but we need to hold the government accountable for yet another board in our fence of rights pulled away.

Also posted in Bushinations, News, Politics, Repression | Comments Off

Censorship's bad, m'kay?

Posted on July 20, 2006

Amnesty International, with the support of The Observer UK newspaper, is launching a campaign to show that online or offline the human voice and human rights are impossible to repress. I agree with the aims and tactics, so I added the campaign awareness widget on the top of the sidebar. For a much better explanation of what this is all about than I can offer, read Rebecca Blood’s post China, the Internet & Human Rights – a long analysis.

Also posted in Dictators, Politics, Repression | Comments Off

Bush looks in mirror

Posted on June 29, 2006

President Bush does it again, saying newspaper reports on the Administration’s use of bank data was “disgraceful.” Cheney called out the New York Times by name in a speech. Because of course these people are always right, never violate any laws or the Constitution and are allowed to do whatever they choose to protect us from nasty terrorists.

I’m not saying this particular program is illegal, unconstitutional, doesn’t work or won’t help. That’s not the point. Comments like these from our top two ‘elected’ officials alone are sad signs of the times, when freedom of the press is being attacked more often than is our nation.

Far worse, though, is the ignorant, fascist call by Republican congressman Peter King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, who called on the attorney general to investigate whether The Times‘s decision to publish the article violated the Espionage Act. In an interview Sunday, King described the disclosure as “absolutely disgraceful” and said he believed that the newspaper’s action had violated the statute.

How can a person of such high office even think this is possibly true? Sometimes I think the current crew slept (or ws stoned) through the entire Nixon episode. If the Supreme Court, which was much more rational in those days, refused to halt the publication of the Pentagon Papers I thought the days when politicians tried to stiffle and censor were essentially through.

Tragically, not.

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The Scalito Screwing Begins

Posted on May 31, 2006

The US Supreme Court decided today that government employees give up free speech when they accept their job. Specifically, federal employees lose the ability to expose wrongdoing (i.e., whistleblowing). We can thank new Justice Antonin Scalia, the difference from a very similar decision last year in which sadly departed Sandra Day O’Connor was the fifth vote for the side of freedom. We best get used to this, slip side, slip side.

Also posted in Courts, Politics | Comments Off

Free speech as long as you don't piss of the Chinese

Posted on January 4, 2006

Scoble does stand up against the Microsoft Machine on the censorship of Michael Anti though his response in the comments is underwhelming. Unlike apparent official blog spokesperson Michael Connolly, product unit manager for MSN Spaces, who gives a mealymouthed explanation of Microsoft’s position of why the company took down this pro-China democracy blog.

This is a tough issue which both Google and Yahoo have previously faced and also handled poorly, not to point the finger only at MSFT. It’s one which we need to find a better answer as a culture; as one of Scoble’s commenters said, why are we fighting for democracy in the Middle East but allowing US-flagged corporations to toss it aside as they like elswhere?
[cross-posted]

1/5/06: InformationWeek has the official Microsoft response. Still weak.

Also posted in America, Dictators, Politics | Comments Off

Word play

Posted on December 9, 2005

The Mercury News asked readers to write in with made up words where only one letter is changed from a real word to give a very different meaning. I took up the challenge but somehow my little gem was not selected for print:

Conserfatives – lower and middle class Americans who think the reigning Republicans are actually looking out for their best interests.

Also posted in Politics, Republicans | Comments Off

Truth in advertising, 2005

Posted on November 26, 2005

In our madly consumerist American society good price is nearly everything. Nothing affirms this more than the massive success of Wal-Mart and the way in which it’s ridden ever-lower prices to greater and greater share of retail spending. Yesterday, the year’s pagan shopping holiday known as Black Friday, at our local house of worship shoppers were so anxious to save $22 off an admittedly already low price of $400 for an HP notebook PC they nearly rioted in efforts to claim one of the slim supply.

People raced to the consumer electronics department as the store opened at 5 a.m., jumping over counters and pushing over a display case. Store managers, downplaying the scrum afterwards, needed help from Mountain View PD to restore order. Mothers were overheard berating their 10 year old sons for not being aggressive enough and so missing out on the day’s big bargain. And, as Rogers writes, this wasn’t an isolated incident.

Really, though, are these rapacious consumers to blame? Obviously not from this sideline view or I’d not be writing this. No, to me this is a case of Wal-Mart and the supporting squads of advertisers and media partners stoking the acquisitive fires with barrages of commercials and planted news pieces.

A perfect example just came on while we’re watching Mad TV, the three ladies from Destiny’s Child pretending to celebrate Christmas with their families. These women are all worth many millions so for them passing out all kinds of expensive consumer electronics is a trivial expense. For the group’s biggest fans, who tend to be between 10 and 25 years old, plasma TVs, digital cameras and laptop computers are extremely costly, but mostly paid for by parents after rounds of extreme begging. Somehow I doubt Beyonce worries about that.

But back to the Mountain View Almost-Riot. Wal-Mart and its competitors pour out the hype and create an atmosphere where getting to the sales becomes a sporting event. The prize, of course, is being allowed to hand over as much of your cash as possible as long as you have the chance to walk out the door with the day’s best deals. Americans love to compete, there’s no other culture with so many awards and top 10/100 lists as us, but these sales days are different because usually the average American has no chance to win.

The stores really take it to the next level and Wal-Mart has got to be about the best at this part. Usually stores are required to have sufficient supply on hand to meet reasonably expected demand, which is why auto commercials are so explicit about specifying the VINs, and otherwise hand out rainchecks. Somehow Wal-Mart (and Fry’s Electronics!) gets away with blatantly violating this aspect of consumer protection laws because if they brought in anywhere near enough of the ‘big deal’ items like the HP notebooks there’d be no need to crush little kids to get one. I’m sure a lawyer will explain Wal-Mart abides by regulations by squeezing qualifiers in the small print.

Too bad parents can’t answer their kids’ screaming with the small kind of print. Maybe they can explain that not everyone makes it to the pros.

Also posted in Corporations, Politics | Comments Off

Radio station has been blocked

Posted on September 7, 2005

Jacob Appelbaum is on the ground in Houston trying to open the flow of information to and from Katrina evacuees but running into sizable giovernment roadblocks. Sad but hardly surprising. I met Jake at BarCamp, this guy is scary smart and uses his deep knowledge of networks (and their vulnerabilities) in combination with his political skills in ways I cannot pretend to even consider. He’s constantly trying to get into places where information is being walled in, or out, and change that–just before BarCamp he’d returned from four months in Iraq where he was constantly hassled, detained and blocaded by American forces.

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Jerk your knees

Posted on August 21, 2005

CBS News is reporting Anti-War Mom Opposition Mounting, that people are objecting to Cindy Sheehan’s message that President Bush should be honest with Americans and pull our troops out of Iraq; one local TV station refused to air a (paid) commercial featuring Sheehan because the message “could very well be offensive to our community in Utah.” The President is traveling to Salt Lake City tomorrow to speak to a VFW convention and Rocky Anderson, the city’s mayor is calling for a huge anti-war demonstration, causing one local VFW post officer to call Anderson unpatriotic.

I’d really like to understand the logic behind the position of these Bush supporters. American soldiers have sacrificed and died in Iraq and, if I get what they’re saying, to withdraw now without accomplishing the mission than we’d be disrespecting our military. My question is why rethinking our efforts in light of new information in any way shows disrespect or ingratitude towards the people in uniform, especially those who’ve given their life in Iraq. The pattern of behavior, that government decisions must be the best and any disagreement is unpatriotic and wrong, has been repeated constantly in America and other nations; I thought after Vietnam we might learn the lesson that critical debate and dissent makes us stronger but sadly this is not so.

If continuing analysis of the true situation on the ground in Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere concludes that the use of force is the best practical option to reach our goals, then America should use it regardless of opposition at home or abroad. I do want to be clear that I’m not objecting on, say, a general pacifist principal. I do object to the actions of those who’d be the first to scream about any infringement of, say, the Second Amendment but want to curtail the First Amendment rights of Cindy Sheehan, Rocky Anderson or myself to debate, question and even insult the policy decisions of the Bush Administration.

For me, the best thing we can do, for ourselves and our loved ones, is to make decisions that offer the highest probability that fewer horrific sacrifices–American or Iraqi–will happen from today on and that increase the likelihood of stable, less belligerent governments and populace in the region. The idea that even one more person should be put at risk unnecessarily, through unquestioned obedience to authority is precisely what many Americans claim as a major defect of non-domocratic countries. Attempts to stifle policy discussions through ad hominem personal attacks and rhetorical shortcuts are actually far worse insults to the memory of the servicemen and women dead, maimed and disabled.

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