Slashdot Mirror
Facebook Helps Israel Blacklist Air Travellers
Jeremiah Cornelius writes "According to a report by the Associated Press, protesters have been stopped in their tracks after Facebook aided Israel in cracking down on the group of activists from the UK, France, and Belgium who planned their event using the popular social networking site. Facebook allowed government agents to track the activists activities and then create a black-list of people who participated in the planning of the protests. The black-listed group was then forwarded to airlines with instructions to prevent the activists from boarding air flights to Israel. Over 200 activists were prevented from flying after being added to the airlines terrorism watch list, according the the AP report. Was Julian Assange correct, when he warned that Facebook was a giant, 'appalling spy machine'?"
Facebook is in routine use by various "authorities " to profile people. So why not the Israelis?
And in other news. Bears shit in woods.
Most groups in Facebook are public by default. They are also public to those who belong to the group. So they didn't have to do any super-spy type thing. It's the users of the group who left themselves out in the open.
At least they didn't just let the protesters get there and gun them down. This is surprisingly restrained behaviour from the Israeli government.
There's a difference between facebook actively aiding Israel officials, and those officials viewing the members of a facebook group. Maybe not planning activities in a publicly-viewable setting would have helped these people?
Police, officials, whatever, viewing publicly-accessible information posted on social media sites is a Good Thing, occasionally. If you don't _want_ it viewed, don't post it publicly [and please note, I don't mean, don't post it online. Some medium of privacy should be expected, and the summary and my [brief] skim of TFA didn't say this was privacy violation in any way].
Anything to do with Facebook, Israel and super hidden government agents is going to be bad. For those who have not watched Pilger's film The War you Don't see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ah20IAyYxg
I know Julian and he is also quite right about facebook being an appalling spying machine. I loathe facebook with a passion, but there again I am a non-conformist, facebook is the sheep following sheep society and if that is not enough, people get emotionally blackmailed into using it. You do not need facebook, you need a life!
All cows eat grass!
disruptions, and told their friends."
Sounds like they bragged in public, using their own names. And nothing more.
It's shit like this, Slashdot...
Maybe you should look into the work of some Jews like Noam Chomsky, in case you think being a Jew inherently makes you a supporter of Israels policies.
Equating being a Jew with being pro Israel comes off as racist.
"These people announced on their Internet sites that they planned to come here and cause disruptions, and told their friends."
Sounds like they bragged in public, using their own names. And nothing more.
What's the difference between this and what happened during the 1960's when people wanted to see Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speak and were turned away?
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
So anyone could setup a fake profile with someone else's name, join one of these groups and then that person goes on the terrorism watch list? Sounds fair to me.
I dream of a nation where a man is not judged by his skin color but by an number assigned by a credit rating agency.
My point wasn't regarding the politics. It was that Slashdot blatantly distorted the article to manufacture a sensationalist headline.
Is a bunch of young Israeli lawyers working round the clock sustained only by Diet Coke, falafel and cigarettes about to pull off the legal equivalent of the Six-Day War? A really good link which you should read. Here is another.
The Israelis have learned from the last flotilla, and hacked international law to serve their ends. The law firm Shurat HaDin (motto: "Bankrupting Terrorism - One Lawsuit at a Time") has done a bang-up job worthy of admiration, even if you're one of those people who thinks (like Hamas, the recipient of the aid flotilla) that Israel has no right to exist. I really recommend reading the link above, it does a great job of laying out what exactly has been done. They wrote letters to the insurers of the boat, warning them that under international law they would be legally liable for the consequences of helping Hamas. They informed INMARSAT that continuing their service exposed the company to liability. And, most hilariously, the legendary Greek bureaucracy has helped tremendously. Once a complaint is filed and an investigation started, the Greeks aren't exactly known for efficiency. American government is a model of speed compared to this.
Some more interesting facts: there is no pressing need for the aid flotilla. The last convoy actually succeeded in making the Israelis open up land borders and things are super in Gaza now. If the goal was to actually deliver aid, then the flotilla could dock in Egypt and have the goods delivered overland, permission has already been granted. Of course, this offer was refused because that's not the goal of the flotilla. It exists only to remove Israel's legitimacy as an entity (in other words, the same goal as Hamas). Yeah, yeah, right, you don't believe me. OK, how about what Adam Shapiro, co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement and a board member of the Free Gaza Movement said at a speech at Rutgers (to enormous applause, by the way)
Nobody in the Free Gaza movement gives a shit about being a delivery boy for rice and cooking oil. Journalists should really listen when organizations state their goals in public, but who gives a shit when the facts don't fit the narrative.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Where does it say in the article that they were added to the 'terrorism watch list'?
In fact the Israelis told the airlines that the people on the list would not be allowed to enter Israel, so the airlines prevented them from flying.
There's no mention of terrorism: the submitter made that bit up.
Yeah, and this gives them the right to steal land, drive people out of their homes, assassinate activists around the world, secretly stash nukes, turn racism into law... ? Get real: Israel is a military/religious dictatorship with overly racist overtones; exactly the opposite of what the U.S. stands for.
Delta-Mike November Bravo Tango
This story isn't about Facebook, as a company helping Israel blacklist these activists. This is a story about how Facebook's service was used as a tool to compile this blacklist. Slashdot, nor the linked article mean to imply that FB, the company actively provided any assistance other than what the service already provides, to everyone. When it's said the Facebook aided Israel in spying on the activist, the correct context again is that Israel used Facebook's services which aided in monitoring these individuals, in the same way FB aided the activists in coordinating their efforts.
You mean if you plan things in a publically accessable area on the Internet, other people might read it and plan accordingly?
Are these people really stupid enough to think this would somehow work? I guess for their next act they'll discuss plans to eat & dash at a restraurant by yelling the plans to each other right outside the restraurant front door?
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Facebook help Israel Blacklist Air Travelers
simply means that Facebook, the service helped Israel compile this blacklist, the same way the activists used it to coordinated their efforts. The context of how Facebook is used isn't clear from the headline, which actually makes it a good headline because people will read it. Hopefully they will understand once they do, that they were referring to the service, and not the company when they say Facebook.
Because assholes come in many colors and shapes, tying greed and general antisocial behaviour to a group of people (where its members didn't choose to be part of it) is kinda nonsensical.
If I'm an asshole to people, I chose to be that way. I didn't choose the color of my skin or the origin, religion or culture of my parents.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I didn't get the impression that Facebook had done anything proactively, as you appear to have. Granted, not the clearest summary I have ever seen, but by /. standards, this is pretty clear.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
I can't but the Pacific side of WW2 could have shown you a few.
So, because the situation is now hopelessly fscked up and it's almost impossible to establish cause and effect for all the minor incidents that occur, we should all forget that Palestine was invaded, occupied and settled?
mediocrity rules, man
World and Palestinians have waited far too long. Israel does not want peace, it want's to continue it's ethnic cleansing. It is time for people in free world (not counting USA where this is apparently illegal) to boycott Israel in same way as South Africa was boycotted during Apartheid.
If you see any product where the numbers on barcode start with 729, don't it! It comes from Apartheid country, that does routinely war crimes, tortures and kills people (including children), does slow motion ethnic cleaning etc.
And if somebody tries to sell you some Israeli goods (especially if they are from occopied territories), refuse and say that you are opposing Apartheid (again, this might be illegal in USA which doesn't seem to allow this kind of consumer freedom).
I even refuse meet people from dating sites if they are from Israel (unless they support Noam Chomsky type of thinking). I just say politely, but straight, that I cannot help not to think the extremely poor situation of plastinians if I meet people from Israel. And if I think the situation of palestinians, I cannot get any sleep. Therefore I cannot meet you, sorry.
Sounds like they bragged in public, using their own names. And nothing more.
It's shit like this, Slashdot...
o_O ...And this is is the part where I say you're a moron if you believe I don't use YOUR name, Paul, to brag in public about my anti-copyright protests.
Well, perhaps I don't use your name; Maybe someone else does, and I use some other's name... In reality, without Facebook's Help, how would they verify that the IP addresses posting as Susan Someone really belongs to Susan, and not Jane?
Are you suggesting that they just took the names and added them to the no-fly list without identity verification? Is this not even more outrageous?
Go ahead. Continue to ignore the ease of which I can now use your name online to falsely incriminate you... If you are not outraged now, then maybe you will be when you can't fly, ride a train, get a driver's license, or vote because of something I said or did using your name?
Oh c'mon, don't you learn anything in history these days? How about that one?
Desperate people will take desperate means to achieve their goals. Regardless of religion.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
By 'working' do you mean the stripping away of people's civil, moral and legal rights?
If so, I concur.
My blog
Why does everyone behave like the internet is automatically a private forum? At best, it is semi-private, and generally it is a public forum. These people started a public Facebook event. No spying necessary. Don't want everyone, including the authorities and people who may not like what you are doing, to know what you are doing, don't post it in a public forum.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
There is a difference between movement within your own country and being permitted to enter a foreign one, if your purpose is to stir things up. It's not as though they were blacklisted for forming a group of people on Facebook that were going to all meet at a beach party in Eilat.
I support my favorite football team. I guess that means I'm on the football team.
I support women's rights. I guess that makes me a woman.
I support Canada's independence. I guess that makes me Canadian.
I support the troops. I guess that makes me a soldier.
Do I need to go on?
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
Except the people being targeted by Israel using Facebook are not terrorists. They are political activists seeking to engage in non-violent protest.
A "terrorist" is anyone that any government says is a terrorist. It's arbitrary. There cannot be any objective definition, because such a definition would include groups supported by the same governments (this applies to the US, Israel, France, and probably most other governments). "Terrorist", like "regime", is a word with great emotional content but little objective content. It applies to those a government disapproves of, but not those who it counts as friends or minions.
JEWS ARE NOT A RACE.
Judaism is a superstition like all other religions, which one may adopt or reject at will.
Your first sentence was fine, but there is ZERO excuse for confusing RACE with RELIGION with ETHNICITY.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
You are a victim of the Terry Gilliamesque, "Brazil"-style coverage of world events.
Suicide bombing in, the modern era, was introduced and maintained for a couple decades by Hindu Tamil separatists, in Sri Lanka.
The "suicide belt" and "suicide vest" - as well as the use of young women as bombers and blast decoys originate here, and are far more institutionalised and part of ongoing strategy by the Tamil Tigers.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Suicide planes were a strategy for the Luftwaffe though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonderkommando_Elbe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonidas_Squadron
"paintball guns"? Are you shitting me?
That "analysis" is just ridiculous. We've got Israeli commandos descending from ropes with automatic rifles onto the deck of a civilian ship in international water and then complaining because the unarmed occupants of the ship defended themselves.
The effort made by the western media to make Israel appear to be the "victim" in this is unbelievable. They kill 9 civilians and then complain that they're the victim. Claiming that "shaking the rope" that they're using to board a civilian ship is an excuse for slaughter.
It's getting harder and harder to support Israel without asking some serious questions about how their own behavior has contributed to the problem. This conflict has been going on for more than a half-century. They are not winning any new friends and are losing some of the current ones. When your existence depends upon powerful benefactors, petulance does not help.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Friendly fire. Then the cover-up.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
According to the customary law of the sea as it stands, it is legal to attack and/or board ships in neutral waters that "are believed on reasonable grounds to be carrying contraband or breaching a blockade, and if after prior warning they intentionally and clearly refuse to stop, or intentionally and clearly resist visit, search or capture" (per San Remo Manual summary of the law). The ships in question had a publicly declared goal of breaching the blockade, so it would seem to apply. To the best of my knowledge, no-one disputes that the boarding itself was legal if the blockade is legal. The legality of the latter is disputed, but at that point we are into very murky territory, since it hinges on whether "the damage to the civilian population is, or may be expected to be, excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated from the blockade", and in particular if it "has the sole purpose of starving the civilian population or denying it other objects essential for its survival" - and both are very subjective measurements which are easy to reinterpret according to one's biases.
Anyway, my point was not to debate the legality of the boarding in the first place, but rather to dispute your account that IDF went in guns blazing. All in all, I think that soldiers at the scene had shown remarkable restraint to use lethal force (compared to e.g. US police - consider how long it would take a cop to decide to draw out a gun if he sees someone swinging a metal pipe at his partner).