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US To Host World Press Freedom Day
rekrowyalp writes "From the press release: 'The United States is pleased to announce that it will host UNESCO's World Press Freedom Day event in 2011. The United States places technology and innovation at the forefront of its diplomatic and development efforts. New media has empowered citizens around the world to report on their circumstances, express opinions on world events, and exchange information in environments sometimes hostile to such exercises of individuals' right to freedom of expression. At the same time, we are concerned about the determination of some governments to censor and silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow of information.' Oh the irony."
Is it safe to assume that Wikileaks isn't invited?
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I SO have to watch the next Daily Show. Just to see if they have the balls to use this.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If you use some starch, the ironing will be crisp!
You forgot to mention the complimentary escort services.
but I don't think they're aware of that.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
World Press Freedom Day "moved" (deleted and reposted) the original posting on Facebook and with it deleted all of the comments on it claiming: "We have temporarily stopped wall posts simply because the traffic we've received far exceeded what are able to see and respond to right now! We simply had the structure wrong and weren't ready for a wall with that much traffic, and once we have the logistics worked out, we look forward to continuing a robust discussion around press freedom ahead of World Press Freedom Day 2011!"
The logistics being a situation where they moderate (read: delete) posts,
regulating speech != free speech, disappointing behavior for an organization who celebrates (and very existence relies on) free speech
Let them have it here: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/WPFD2011?v=app_2373072738
or join "World Press Freedom Day, what a joke" here: http://www.connect.connect.facebook.com/WPFD2011#!/pages/World-Press-Freedom-Day-2011-What-a-Joke/164635873577540?v=wall
or "Protest World Press Freedom Day-3 May" here: http://www.connect.connect.facebook.com/WPFD2011#!/pages/Protest-World-Press-Freedom-Day-3-May/128796330513944?v=wall
Sure, this is hilarious. But somehow I doubt they meant it to be so funny.
Concern over some governments' determination to restrict the free flow of information. That's rich.
To be fair, governments need secrets. Not everything should be public. Now I know that you may say that if a government doesn't want an action to be made public then they shouldn't do it. But sometimes, there is a legitimate need for secrecy. For example, when a diplomat sends a wire back to Washington saying that he does not believe the diplomat from N. Korea is being entirely truthful concerning the welfare of the N. Korean citizens, that information should not be made public. It could irreparably harm negotiations that could prove beneficial to the peoples of both countries. The path that a convoy full of medical supplies and food for refuges against a warlords wishes would be another example. This is a bit different than a diplomat calling the leader of Esbonia a stinky-fart fat-head.
Some things are legitimately kept secret for a reason. Others, not so much. Wikileaks doesn't concern itself with the difference.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
He's already in custody; he turned himself in in the UK.
I guess that's what happens when you get INTERPOL set upon you for the crime of having consensual sex with groupies without a condom. Groupies who remained supportive after their sexual trysts until they found out that he was sleeping around. Because that's the sort of stuff INTERPOL is there for, right? Certainly politics didn't play a role in THAT warrant...
You don't exist. Go away.
I'd be happy if the local media here in California would ask a follow up question once in a while.
All I want is this:
STATE POLITICIAN: This bill will fix global warming, solve hunger and make tasty donuts fall from the skies like kisses from kittens!
REPORTER: How, exactly?
STATE POLITICIAN: Thanks and good nigh- eh, what?
REPORTER: How does the bill do that? What sequence of events did you and the other legislators envision after the bill is enacted?
STATE POLITICIAN: (deer in headlights gaze) Uh, well, blah blah blah bullcrap blah symbolism blah feelgood blah TheChildren blah, er, 9/11.
REPORTER: Isn't that a pile of bullshit?
STATE POLITICIAN: Hey, what happened to impartiality?
REPORTER: It wasn't working out very well.
What I want is Spider Jerusalem going after some of these scumbags. Wikileaks is all well and good, but I want these people confronted in their speeches by someone other than media insiders who just sit their dumbly nodding their heads at any crap a politician says. Fuck, every reporter is just a softball Larry King type these days.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_Jerusalem
And compared to stoning beheading is pretty painless. Your point being?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Actually when it comes to press freedom, the US still looks better than most countries. In fact, even after 230 years of the US example, I don't know of any other governments whose core founding and/or legal principles include the explicit recognition of the citizenry's inalienable right to freedom of speech, it seems to genuinely be something exceptional. Oh sure, many governments have begrudgingly given a nod to what they see as "granting" of similar rights (and in fact even that much is due to the positive influence of the US historically) - but saying "OK, we grant you freedom of speech" is actually fundamentally vastly different to inalienable rights, which are not considered granted, but exist independent of government and cannot morally be taken away. Sure, in practice lawmakers pee on the constitution with abandon, as lawmakers will do, but I'll take the US any day. Trying to block citizens' practice of liberties such as free speech is something all governments do anyway, but only one government in the world at least formally recognizes this as wrong (and gives the citizens other rights, such as the 2nd amendment, in order to enforce the 1st amendment).
I'm definitely not saying it's perfect, or that we shouldn't strive for better. On the contrary, we should continually strive for better. We have to.
Will Finland, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland do? Just for starters?
Vatican City will be hosting the Annual Gay Pride Extravaganza, and Steve Jobs will be hosting the Open Source The Future Gala.
Common Sense isn't as Common as people think...
There are times a government needs to keep secrets, however the US government has gone way overboard. Obama has done nothing to change that despite promises of a more open government, so I for one welcome the new openness that has come from wikileaks and will support efforts for it to continue. It has been a welcome breath of fresh air to see how OUR (the people's) government operates and to see the lies it has been shoveling back in the homeland.
I think it's much better to be too open than too secretive.... but then again, I believe it's better to keep our freedoms and be attacked by terrorists than become a police state and be "safe". I must be the crazy one.
Long live wikileaks.
d
all language nazi's will burne in heil!
Actually, apart from doing things like pressuring private companies like Amazon and PayPal to "voluntarily" kick Wikileaks off their systems, and making public statements musing that Mr Assange should be assassinated (all reprehensible, to be sure), has the US government actually done anything concrete to censor Wikileaks? Have they arrested or imprisoned anyone who downloaded the torrent? Have they issued ISPs with warrants to find out why downloaded the torrent? Have they forced any media organizations publishing information on the leaks into silence, or arrested or prosecuted any media organization that has published anything about the leaks? Have they made any format attempts to extradite Mr Assange? Has the US government done anything to forcibly silence discussion among the public on the leaks -- for example, shutting down blogs, or arresting blog owners? Have they forced media organizations to toe the official state position only? I'm curious, apart from vague allusions to "censoring websites from the entire world", what are you referring to exactly?
The types of activities I've mentioned, are the types of things that DO actually go on in the many countries outside the US that do practice censorship and control of speech, and I must say, I don't really see the US doing those things. Or perhaps you want to suggest that they are doing those things but that we don't know about them because the US has silenced anyone who talks about it. But I'm afraid I don't even see the climate of fear around discussion that that type of control usually generates in such countries that suppress freedom of speech; as far as I can tell, Americans seem to enjoy the liberty of being able to do and say whatever they want about their government very, very openly.
Your mistaking being for transparency when it comes to alliances pact and treaties, with transparency when it comes to everything a diplomat says to his boss. I don't think the US has ever been in favor of having diplomats and their diplomatic cases being searched and read by anyone and everyone so that everything they write has to be made for public consumption so as to not damage foreign relationships instead of quick and honest truth.
Some things are legitimately kept secret for a reason. Others, not so much. Wikileaks doesn't concern itself with the difference.
Which is why Wikileaks offered to negotiate with the US government over redactions? To which the US government responded that they shouldn't have to negotiate that they wanted all of it to remain secret.
Keep in mind that it takes at least two to negotiate, and if one party flat out refuses you've got limited options. You can give in, release everything or do your best to handle it responsibly. The third case seems most closely related to what they've done.
rediff. There are probably better sources, but this is what I've seen elsewhere. Note the passage starting at the fourth paragraph.
"You have chosen to respond in a manner which leads me to conclude that the supposed risks are entirely fanciful and you are instead concerned to suppress evidence of human rights abuse and other criminal behaviour," Assange said.
We will not engage in a negotiation regarding the further release or dissemination of illegally obtained US government classified materials, Harold Hongju Koh, Legal Adviser, State Department said in a letter to Jennifer Robinson, Attorney for Julian Assange, WikiLeaks.
This was in response to the communication from WikiLeaks a day earlier in which the whistle blower website informed the US about its intentions to publish classified US government documents.
Someone should nominate Assange to UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize 2011
Imagine if he would have to get parol from a US prison to attend?
I don't have one
Compare and contrast:
Obama does nothing and gets a Nobel Peace Prize
Assange champions truth and gets an arrest warrant.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but WikiLeaks isn't "the press" is it?
It qualifies by any reasonable definition of press I've ever heard.
I don't know any government that has told the media that they can publish whatever government secrets they want.
If Fox News or CNN or the New York Times got a hold of a bunch of newsworthy diplomatic cables between Pakistan and Iran do you really think they'd keep them under wraps because the Pakistan and/or Iran government consider them secret? Of course not.
How is wikileaks any different, being a foreign organization releasing information about the states?
And at the end of the day, even Fox/CNN/NYT are reporting on the wikileaks leaks. How do you feel about that?
I'm attempting to say it's not fair to pretend that WikiLeaks does the same thing a given journalist does. Maybe they overlap at times, sure.
Please expand on this.
Oh, it's no problem to speak. As long as nobody listens. Once you manage to make too many people listen and you say things the powers that are don't like, well, take a look at wikileaks to see what happens.
"Dumb" governments restrict the freedom of speech, disallowing you to say what you want. This isn't necessary. Not by a longshot. Say what you want. In 99% of the cases, you won't say anything the governing body would like to keep covered. Why? Because you don't know it. Duh. If you know it, you will probably not have the broadcasting power to cause a problem. If you do have the broadcasting power (i.e. if you're part of "the media"), you are usually concerned with making money more than with spreading information the government does not want to be spread. Now, who do you think gets all that cool smart bomb footage and gets invited to those interesting and by your viewers so well received public speeches and press statements from politicians? Those that report what the government likes or those who report what they don't?
Think about it for a moment, then continue.
So you have sensitive information and you don't have an "automatic" audience because they listen to you anyway? Who cares? Broadcast it. You'll get turned off on some technicality and the info vanishes into nothingness before it can reach critical mass. If that fails, a three steps plan follows:
1. Remove your reputation
2. Remove your assets
3. Remove your freedom
If the data is out and can't be contained, discredit the source. Call it fabrication, call it a disgruntled ex-employee, make the one spreading the information appear like a lunatic or someone who wants to hurt Uncle Sam (or whoever is the target), under no circumstances even talk about the information leaked, just assassinate the character of the person spreading the information. Nobody will talk about it anymore, everyone will dismiss it as fabricated because the one spreading the information had some ulterior motivation to spread it, he's not interested in the "truth", he's interested in hurting $target.
If this fails because for some odd reason the source is credible (first reason why Wikileaks should have been attacked way earlier, at least from the government's POV, is that now they actually do have some rather solid reputation for being credible. Don't worry, the US gov won't make that mistake again and let someone gain that much cred unsupervised), cut their money. Spreading information costs money. Defending against litigation costs money. Denying them this money means they cannot continue to spread the information and cannot defend against litigation, thus they have to cave in. So cut their access to money and carpet bomb them with law suits. Whether they hold up in court doesn't really matter, what matters is that they are kept busy and that they have to raise and spend money, which they now cannot.
If this cannot curb the leaking, arrest them. Find some technicality, fire up the counter propaganda and paint them as the villain of the century, put them in the vicinity of other criminals and lock them up. If they are part of an organization, do what you can to outlaw that organization or, preferably, outlaw any organization dealing in the same area. This takes care of information spreaders that do not work alone but in a group. Usually the group should dissolve now. If not, rinse and repeat.
You see, you do not have to limit the freedom of speech. You only have to take care that nobody can hear anything and listen when someone should say anything that actually counts.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Actually when it comes to press freedom, the US still looks better than most countries. In fact, even after 230 years of the US example, I don't know of any other governments whose core founding and/or legal principles include the explicit recognition of the citizenry's inalienable right to freedom of speech, it seems to genuinely be something exceptional. Oh sure, many governments have begrudgingly given a nod to what they see as "granting" of similar rights (and in fact even that much is due to the positive influence of the US historically) - but saying "OK, we grant you freedom of speech" is actually fundamentally vastly different to inalienable rights, which are not considered granted, but exist independent of government and cannot morally be taken away. Sure, in practice lawmakers pee on the constitution with abandon, as lawmakers will do, but I'll take the US any day. Trying to block citizens' practice of liberties such as free speech is something all governments do anyway, but only one government in the world at least formally recognizes this as wrong (and gives the citizens other rights, such as the 2nd amendment, in order to enforce the 1st amendment).
I'm definitely not saying it's perfect, or that we shouldn't strive for better. On the contrary, we should continually strive for better. We have to.
Press Freedom Index 2010: US at #20. With the Nordic countries, Netherlands and Switzerland at the top.
Well, we know who most fits that description by far.
We'll need Assange's full/proper name, date/place of birth, nationality, address, and suitable brief biography (yes, most of that is known, but for formalities let's make sure proper, not popular, information is used) to fill in this form. I suggest lots of people submit the form, with "Candidate presented by" filled as "populous at large"; should not a large number of individuals all acting as interested-for-the-same-reason parties have their unanimous selection recognized as much as any formal organization, given the nature of the prize?
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
If you were paying attention, the women DID NOT want to press charges. It was an overzealous prosecutor who forced the issue. Later, a lawyer ($$$$$$$$) convinced the women to press charges. Certainly, it is possible that he is a rapist, but it is surely suspicious considering how mad the USA is at him and their leverage around the world.
Actually the New York Times did get a hold of some documents back during the Vietnam War. It ended up in the US Supreme Court (look up "Pentagon Papers").
Secrecy is necessary. There is no question of that. But then KEEP IT SECRET! After 9/11 when the government got slapped for not sharing intel, they responded by letting everybody and their uncle read this stuff. That's not the way to keep secrets.
Trying to wrap your head around what intel needs to be kept and who really needs to be able to see it is a huge task. One that has not been handled well.
For some other disucssions around this topic check out the Secrecy Blog ( http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/ ).
A diplomatic case or bag is different than what Manning got ahold of.
Really, a diplomatic case carrying documents containing communications between ambassadors and their bosses not meant to be read by others is different than secure diplomatic cables of documents containing communication between ambassadors and their bosses not being meant to be read by others? How do you think this stuff was transferred before faster secure communications became available?
If the United States was really trying to keep this crap secret, why were hundreds of thousands of files accessible to a Private First Class assigned to an infantry division stationed in Iraq?
This argument is entirely off topic from the issue at hand which is whether all diplomatic communications SHOULD be transparent or not. It's like saying if you think getting robbed is wrong why did you trust the cleaning service that went through an extensive background check and swore an oath? Besides which, no one knows for sure if the diplomatic cable leak was related to Manning anyways.
Look at 1990, right before Iraq attacked Kuwait, Saddam hinted very heavily to the US Ambassador that they were going to attack and they might even keep going into Saudi Arabia and Saddam took an American lack of reaction as a tact "OK". Had that interaction been in the open and a public US government reaction been made, well then hundreds of thousands of lives would have been saved and hundreds of billions of dollars would have not been wastes.
If true, this was a mistake by the ambassador not to pick up on it and react accordingly. In the world you imagine though, Saddam would know that regardless of our reaction any hint of war plans would be given to the public at large and therefore Kuwait and Saudi Arabia who would prepare defenses or possibly strike first. In such a case he'd be less likely to even mention it to our ambassador and we would have lost the chance to avert the war at all.
If this had happened in America, you might have a point. But this happened in Sweden, which recently enacted some fairly strict and harsh anti-rape laws. Commentators quipped that when the laws passed, men would need to get specific consent in writing before having sex. Mr. Assange is not being treated any differently than anyone else in Sweden.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
One factual correction:
The Canadian who called for the execution of Assange is named Tom Flanagan. He was a top aide to Canada's prime minister Steven Harper many years ago, long before Harper became the prime minister. Currently he works as a political science professor at the University of Calgary. He often gives interviews to news agencies about his opinion, because he usually speaks his mind very freely without needing to think about who he upsets, because he hasn't had any political masters for quite some time. It's like calling a retired former aide to Obama while he was governor a "high ranking USA bureaucrat". No sane politician or bureaucrat in Canada would ever make such statements and still keep their job.
As a side note, the police now investigating Tom Flanagan for uttering death threats.
"Press Freedom Index 2010 [rsf.org]: US at #20. With the Nordic countries, Netherlands and Switzerland at the top."
And remember, this was before the US response to the Wikileaks release. Guess they'll be dropping a few places...
The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.
No, it's not silly at all. The natural endgame of any system of government is absolute tyranny. The only things standing between this country and tyranny are the constitution and the citizens' willingness to rebel. If the government had its way, it would keep everything it does secret. That's why freedom-loving members of government had to force through sunshine laws, FOIA, E-FOIA, and so on. Without such laws, the public would be kept in the dark on nearly everything. That's just the way government works. In particular, the military, were it possible to do so, would allow no information disclosure whatsoever. The same goes for law enforcement, which is why we have public records laws that mandate journalist access to police blotters. Indeed, it is the very nature of any group in a position of power to conceal information to the maximum degree possible. Some might even call it basic human nature.
Such total secrecy, however, is contrary to the proper functioning of a free society, and as such, a government mandate to keep everything secret must be looked upon with suspicion and disdain. Anything less is a complete abrogation of the public's right to know what the government is doing, a complete abrogation of the right to a free press, and thus a complete abrogation of basic democratic principles. Such obscenity has no place in a free society.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
As far as I know, they just "asked" them not to. Voluntarily. Have they prosecuted or arrested anyone for doing so?
Whether or not somebody has been prosecuted for it is as far as I know unknown as of yet, but a google search will show you many of the news about the military censor of WikiLeaks, amongst which is this.
A memo from the US Marines says this:USMC Personnel (Marines/Civilians/Contractors) are hereby cautioned and directed to NOT access the WIKILEAKS website from a personally owned, publically owned or US Government computer system. By willingly accessing the WIKILEAKS website for the purpose of viewing the posted classified material - these actions constitute the unauthorized processing, disclosure, viewing, and downloading of classified information onto an UNAUTHORIZED computer system not approved to store classified information. Meaning they have WILLINGLY committed a SECURITY VIOLATION.
Obviously committing a security violation as an employee of the US Marines is, well, not a laughing matter.
Which .com domain have they seized and blocked access to? Sorry if I've missed something here.
You might find more info here.
Yes, governments can, have always, and always will try to control anything and everything and suppress citizen rights. What I am saying is that in the case of Wikileaks, I don't think they have succeeded yet, whereas the statement "censoring websites from the entire world" suggests they have.
In fact I have, as a non-US citizen living outside of the US, have seen one of the results of this censor when trying to access one of the censored sites, getting a warning page with a FBI DVD-like warning. The problem with censoring the domain name itself is that the website can be hosted outside of the US, and yet they'd have power to censor it.
Blah blah blah. Yeah, you have an "inalienable" right to free speech, as long as you perform it in a designated "free speech zone", an atrocity no other western democracy have stomached so far. I guess the rest of us should take note.
Where have I heard that logic before? Oh, yeah. Those ridiculous MPAA commercials that say "You wouldn't steal a DVD. You wouldn't steal a car." Repeat after me: stealing a copy of information is not the same thing as stealing property.
No, a better analogy is that they saw your car parked, broke into the trunk, and discovered the three bodies you had hidden there. They contact you and ask which of those murders you don't want them to report to the police. Sure, you might tell them where to go, but you are hardly on the moral high ground. And that's the point.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
I think we'd have to agree we all have a bit of hero and a bit of villain in us.
And apparently when visiting Sweden it's best to keep your villain in your pants.
Some of what I say is fact, some is conjecture, the rest I'm just blowing out my ass...you guess.
In most places, including the States, if a person gives consent and then withdraws it, there is no longer consent. As far as I know there is no "blue balls" clause letting you finish even if she says no halfway through.
Lots of states in fact. Like North Carolina and Maryland. I'm not saying that such laws are morally right, but I do personally think that the level of protest required during coitus needs to be significantly higher than, "no means no" because the participants can't be expected to be fully in control of their faculties. Everything I've read about the two incidents indicates that neither women claim to have made any physical attempt to stop the act. Plus Assange is completely deaf in one ear and ~50% deaf in the other.
I'm far more interested in the charges leveled by John Young of Cryptome, that he is a mercenary selling access to unredacted source documents to the highest bidder on the black market.
Interesting but it sounds like an exaggeration, apparently this is what Young said:
"Well, it only came up in the topic of raising $5 million the first year.
That was the first red flag that I heard about. I thought that they were
actually a public interest group up until then, but as soon as I heard that,
I know that they were a criminal organisation."
To me, that sounds like wikileaks people were brainstorming at its inception and Young has extrapolated the worst possible result from it. Remember at the start wikileaks wasn't redacting anything - they even published their own list of donors. So the implication that they would publicly release redacted documents but privately sell them doesn't fit the circumstances.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Well, compared to the many somethings the previous President accomplished, a President doing nothing DESERVES a peace prize!
Free Martian Whores!
It's not what he did, it's what he didn't do. Obama got a Nobel for _not_ being G.W. Bush.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Obama does nothing and gets a Nobel Peace Prize Assange champions truth and gets an arrest warrant.
Not to worry, this time next year the US will call for a boycott of the Nobel Peace Prize, because it "goes to a convicted criminal" </cynicism>
What tweets?
These tweets for example:
http://radsoft.net/news/20101001,01.shtml
'Julian wants to go to a crayfish party, anyone have a couple of available seats tonight or tomorrow? #fb'
'Sitting outdoors at 02:00 and hardly freezing with the world's coolest smartest people, it's amazing! #fb'
These were made the days immediately after she was "raped".
Is that how you act after a rape? Call it hanging out with the coolest people in the world?
To make matters even worse, she tried to remove them after the fact...
It's amazing what people take for proof and sources to base their snap judge and jury judgement on in this case.
Yes, that is scary. I agree with you there.