Tag: Bloggers

Department Of Homeland Security Compiles List Of All Bloggers, Journalists, & “Social Media Influencers”

Authored by Michael Snyder via The American Dream blog,

Many were hoping that once Barack Obama was out of office we would see less of this Big Brother surveillance nonsense, but instead it seems to be getting even worse.

https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/Big-Brother-Is-Watching-You-Public-Domain.png?itok=t2pUvf2Z

In fact, the Department of Homeland Security has just announced that it intends to compile a comprehensive list of hundreds of thousands of “journalists, editors, correspondents, social media influencers, bloggers etc.”, and collect any “information that could be relevant” about them.

So if you have a website, an important blog or you are just very active on social media, the Department of Homeland Security is going to put you on a list and will start collecting information about you.  The DHS has already announced that it will hire a contractor to aid in monitoring media coverage, and they will definitely need plenty of help because it is going to be a very big job…

As part of its “media monitoring,” the DHS seeks to track more than 290,000 global news sources as well as social media in over 100 languages, including Arabic, Chinese and Russian, for instant translation into English. The successful contracting company will have “24/7 access to a password protected, media influencer database, including journalists, editors, correspondents, social media influencers, bloggers etc.” in order to “identify any and all media coverage related to the Department of Homeland Security or a particular event.”

“Any and all media coverage,” as you might imagine, is quite broad and includes “online, print, broadcast, cable, radio, trade and industry publications, local sources, national/international outlets, traditional news sources, and social media.”

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TPP WILL DESTROY FREE SPEECH

Guest Post by Stilton Jarlsberg

obama, obama jokes, political, humor, cartoon, conservative, hope n' change, hope and change, stilton jarlsberg, tpp, censorship, copyright, freedom of speech

The TPP (which allegedly stands for Trans-Pacific Partnership even though we’re more familiar with those first two letters having a different and more accurate association) is the bizarre, mostly-secret trade agreement which our current anti-capitalist president is ramming through. It’s long, complex, and, like Obamacare, deliberately written to be misunderstood – so we just want to focus on one  seemingly teeny-tiny element which was recently changed (and which the Obama administration is no doubt hoping will fly under the radar).
You can read all about it here, but in a nutshell the TPP will allegedly extend “copyright protection” for things like online content by allowing the government to bring charges against anyone suspected of copyright infringement even if the “copying” (like a simple link to a news story) does no harm to the copyright owner and, indeed, may even be encouraged by the copyright owner.
In other words, Hope n’ Change could be shut down for linking to the dry story about the TPP above, let alone linking to stories about more sensitive issues like Hillary’s criminal wrongdoing or how “Bathhouse Barry” got his nickname.  And if you share one of our cartoons, even though we explicitly encourage you to do so, the government could come and get YOU, too. A very tidy way to curtail bothersome political speech, don’t you think?
Despite vagueness in many other areas, the TPP is quite clear about what the government can do to you if it finds you in potential (or even imaginary) violation of their new copyright standards:

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LAND OF ORWELL USING 1984 AS A BLUEPRINT

Once the law is passed in the name of protecting the people from terrorists, the definition of extremist will be expanded to include anyone who questions the government authorities.

Big Brother will protect you from the extremists.

“We were always at war with anti-establishment blogger extremists.”

How long until I’m declared an extremist?

Time for the Hangman poem again.

 

Extremists may face broadcast ban, social media vetting – home secretary

Published time: September 30, 2014 11:18

Britain's Home Secretary Theresa May leaves Downing Street in London September 25, 2014. (Reuters/Luke MacGregor)

Britain’s Home Secretary Theresa May leaves Downing Street in London September 25, 2014. (Reuters/Luke MacGregor)

Powers banning extremists from appearing on TV and which allow police to vet “harmful” individuals’ social media activity would be enforced if the Conservatives return to power next year, Home Secretary Theresa May is set to announce.

The party manifesto will also pledge to introduce time-limited Extremist Disruption Orders to curb individuals’ right to speak at public events and control their social media usage. The maximum sentence could be up to 10 years in prison for breaking a banning order.

Announcing the plans at the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham on Tuesday, May will also promise greater powers for British police to access internet data.

Police and intelligence services would accrue greater access to details of when and where phone calls and emails are sent, but not their content.

Targeted individuals could be banned from taking part in public protests, certain public spaces, from associating with named people and from using broadcast media if deemed a threat to “the functioning of democracy.”

The Home Office counter-extremism strategy would encompass “the full spectrum of extremism” extending beyond radical Islamism to include far-right and fascist organizations.

Orders would target those who undertake activities “for the purpose of overthrowing democracy,” a broad definition that could encompass political activists of many different stripes.

Fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) celebrate on vehicles taken from Iraqi security forces, at a street in city of Mosul, June 12, 2014. (Reuters/Stringer)

Fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) celebrate on vehicles taken from Iraqi security forces, at a street in city of Mosul, June 12, 2014. (Reuters/Stringer)

 

Critics are expected to accuse the government’s gag order of dramatically widening state censorship against people who have never been convicted of a criminal offence.

In their final party conference ahead of the May 7 general election, the Conservatives aim to appear the toughest party on the threat of terrorism.

Prime Minister David Cameron told BBC Breakfast on Tuesday morning that new powers would go beyond mere advocates of violence, instead targeting those who propagate dangerous views and radicalize others.

Currently, organizations can only be banned if there is evidence of links to terrorism.

“The problem that we have had is this distinction of saying we will only go after you if you are an extremist that directly supports violence,” said Cameron.

Tattoos are seen on the back of the head of a supporter of the English Defence League (EDL) during a rally outside Downing Street in London September 20, 2014. (Reuters/Toby Melville)

Tattoos are seen on the back of the head of a supporter of the English Defence League (EDL) during a rally outside Downing Street in London September 20, 2014. (Reuters/Toby Melville)

 

“It has left the field open for extremists who know how not to step over the line. But these are people who have radicalized young minds and led to people heading off to Syria or Iraq to take part in this ghastly slaughter.”

Earlier in September, Cameron announced new police powers to seize terror suspects’ passports and stop British jihadists from returning to the UK.

May will tell Birmingham delegates that the government’s new approach to its ‘Prevent’ strategy will go beyond targeting the violent “hard end” of extremism, and focus on “undermining and eliminating extremism in all its forms.”

The strategy would aim to prevent extremists holding positions of authority in local communities, including schools, by supporting Islamic institutions that are judged as “compatible” with British values.

Enhanced powers will allow the Charity Commission to close down groups deemed to be fronts for extremist activity as a means of tackling funding streams.

An armed police officer is seen on duty in Downing Street, central London September 1, 2014. (Reuters/Luke MacGregor)

An armed police officer is seen on duty in Downing Street, central London September 1, 2014. (Reuters/Luke MacGregor)

 

Political opponents accuse May’s counter-extremism proposals of not being tough enough, with calls to relocate suspects elsewhere in the country, and for the expansion of de-radicalization programs for all individuals returning from the Middle East.

Meanwhile, the Opposition Labour Party has called for the reintroduction of control orders, scrapped by the Conservative government in 2011.

In response to the rise of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in Iraq and Syria, the government raised the UK’s terror threat level from ‘substantial’ to ‘severe’ at the end of August.

MPs voted on Friday to join US, French and Arab airstrikes against IS positions in Iraq, but not in Syria.

FEC Chairman Warns Of Forthcoming Government Media Censorship

Submitted by Mike Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

When I first read this story I wasn’t sure whether to highlight it or not. While the claims made by Federal Elections Committee (FEC) Chairman Lee E. Goodman are extraordinarily frightening, sometimes people with strong partisan leanings can exaggerate threats and so I like to be careful. I’m not certain if this is the case with Mr. Goodman, but since it is his word against other folks at the FEC and I don’t work there, it’s hard to know what the true state of affairs is.

Nevertheless, the fact that Ajit Pai, a commissioner at the FCC, recently warned in a Wall Street Journal editorial of government plans to “monitor” media organizations, makes me concerned enough to post on it. I highlighted the Ajit Pai editorial back in February in my post: The Obama Administration Plans to Embed “Government Researchers” to Monitor Media Organizations.

As far as the Goodman comments, The Washington Examiner reports that:

Government officials, reacting to the growing voice of conservative news outlets, especially on the internet, are angling to curtail the media’s exemption from federal election laws governing political organizations, a potentially chilling intervention that the chairman of the Federal Election Commission is vowing to fight.

 

“I think that there are impulses in the government every day to second guess and look into the editorial decisions of conservative publishers,” warned Federal Election Commission Chairman Lee E. Goodman in an interview.

 

“The right has begun to break the left’s media monopoly, particularly through new media outlets like the internet, and I sense that some on the left are starting to rethink the breadth of the media exemption and internet communications,” he added.

 

Noting the success of sites like the Drudge Report, Goodman said that protecting conservative media, especially those on the internet, “matters to me because I see the future going to the democratization of media largely through the internet. They can compete with the big boys now, and I have seen storm clouds that the second you start to regulate them, there is at least the possibility or indeed proclivity for selective enforcement, so we need to keep the media free and the internet free.”

 

“The picking and choosing has started to occur,” said Goodman. “There are some in this building that think we can actually regulate” media, added Goodman, a Republican whose chairmanship lasts through December. And if that occurs, he said, “then I am concerned about disparate treatment of conservative media.”

The main issue I have with Mr. Goodman’s comments is that he frames them in a very partisan manner. Sure, I don’t doubt that the current state of affairs might have the FEC concerned about the threat posed by conservative media, but in ten years who knows, it could be the reverse. The key here is that media, in particular the internet, must be kept free and open. The internet is what allows an individual like me, armed with only a computer and an internet connection, to reach thousands of people per day on a shoestring budget. This is a revolution in humankind and must be preserved at all costs.

Full article here.