Freedom of Expression

Barrett Brown Stripped Of Prison Email After Talking To Media

April 8, 2015 Cyrus Farivar, www.arstechnica.com Resist! Freedom of Expression, Prison, Privacy, Surveillance

Barrett Brown, the brash journalist and former member of Anonymous who was sentenced in January 2015 to over five years in federal prison, had his e-mail privileges suddenly revoked, seemingly for corresponding with journalists. On Sunday, Brown’s supporters published his account of the punishment, describing how he suddenly lost access to his prison-supplied e-mail account on March 31. In the ensuing days, Brown attempted to contact various prison officials to get further information, including someone named “Trust Fund Manager Coleman.” As Ars reported previously, in April 2014 Brown took a plea deal admitting guilt on three charges: “transmitting a threat in interstate commerce,” interfering with the execution of a search warrant, and being "accessory after the fact in the unauthorized access to a protected computer."

Arizona School Officials Protest Ed Cuts, Protests Made Illegal

April 6, 2015 Maggie's Farm, www.dailykos.com Resist! Arizona, Education, Freedom of Expression, Law

Some of the most vocal critics of Ducey's education policy have been school board members, district superintendents and teachers, which does not please the governor. Early on, when his budget was being debated, 233 superintendents signed and sent a letter to the legislature asking them to stop their boneheaded budget slashing. After Ducey's draconian budget passed, Dr. Michael Cowan, superintendent of Mesa School District, the largest in the state, sent an email to teachers and parents that was critical of the governor's plan. Ducey's response was swift: his "dark money" backers (Koch of course), with the governor's knowledge, organized a robocall campaign to smear Dr. Cowan. The message to school employees was clear: shut up or we'll shut you up. Well, they did not shut up.

Journalists Sue Police Over Treatment During Ferguson Protests

April 2, 2015 Associated Press, www.theguardian.com Resist! Ferguson, Freedom of Expression, Law, Media, Police

Four journalists arrested during last summer’s protests over the Fergusonshooting death of Michael Brown are suing St Louis County’s police department for civil rights violations and unlawful detention. The lawsuit filed Monday in St Louis also names 20 unidentified St Louis County officers. Plaintiffs include two journalists who were covering last August’s protests for German publications, as well as a freelance reporter and a journalist for an online investigative publication. The suit describes them as US citizens. The lawsuit alleges that the journalists’ arrests for failing to disperse when ordered by police was unjustified and was an infringement of constitutionally protected freedom of the press.

After Talking To Washington Post Minimum Wage Worker Fired

March 31, 2015 Chico Harlan, www.washingtonpost.com Educate! Freedom of Expression, Worker Rights and Jobs

Shanna Tippen was another hourly worker at the bottom of the nation’s economy, looking forward to a 25-cent bump in the Arkansas minimum wage that would make it easier for her to buy diapers for her grandson.When I wrote about her in The Post last month, she said the minimum wage hike would bring her a bit of financial relief, but it wouldn’t lift her above the poverty line. She called me the other day to say she didn’t get to enjoy the 25-cent hike for long. After the story came out, she says she was fired from her job for talking to the Post. I spend a lot of time writing about people at the low end of the economy, and I see up close how narrowly they get by day-to-day. In this case, writing about Tippen’s plight may have made her situation worse.

Spanish Parliament Passes Anti-Indignado Law Against Protests

March 30, 2015 Erin Gallagher, www.revolution-news.com Educate! Freedom of Assembly, Freedom of Expression, Freedom of Press, police brutality, Spain

Yesterday three laws widely criticized by the opposition and human rights groups were approved in Spanish Congress. The Penal Code, the new Anti-Terror Law and the Law on Citizen Safety. The three new texts challenge freedom of expression in the streets and on the Internet. All three laws are scheduled to go into effect July 1, 2015. Under the new Citizen Safety Law or Ley Mordaza (Gag Law) as human rights defenders have renamed it, public protests, freedoms of speech and the press and documenting police abuses will become crimes punishable by heavy fines and/or jail. Some key points on the Ley Mordaza: Photographing or recording police – 600 to 30.000€ fine. . .

Whistleblowers Wanted: Mexican Journalists Seek Tips

March 18, 2015 Jo Tuckman, www.theguardian.com Resist! Freedom of Expression, Freedom of Press, Journalism, Mexico

In a country rife with corruption, criminality and abuse – and where saying the wrong thing in earshot of the wrong people can get you killed – Mexican journalists can have a hard time obtaining the kind of solid information required to sort out rumour from reality. Now an alliance of eight Mexican media outlets and civil society groups is courting potential whistleblowers with a new digital platform that promises to protect the anonymity of sources with the help of sophisticated encryption software. Mexicoleaks describes its mission as the construction of a “Transparent Mexico”, and participants say they hope it will help them document political corruption, human rights abuses and other misuses of institutional and economic power.

Buoyed By Net-Neutrality Win, Activists Prepare Next Campaign

March 2, 2015 Dustin Volz, www.nationaljournal.com Educate! Freedom of Expression, Internet, Net Neutrality

Over the opposition of some of Washington's most powerful corporate interests, an unlikely grassroots coalition came together and successfully lobbied the Federal Communications Commission to adopt the strongest net-neutrality rules possible. This wasn't a fluke. Just a few years ago, many of the same groups turned the Internet into a war zone over the Stop Online Piracy Act. They viewed the copyright bill, heavily backed by Hollywood and music interests, as an assault on the foundational freedoms enshrined in the Internet and launched an online guerrilla campaign that included thousands of websites shutting down in protest. Lawmakers promptly killed the bill and fled for the hills. Internet "slacktivism" is frequently derided as a passive form of political engagement that doesn't translate to real-world results.

Met Police ‘Pay To Protest’ Proposal Rejected

February 20, 2015 Rob Evans, www.theguardian.com Resist! Freedom of Expression, Human Rights, Protest

Twelve campaigning groups have said they will refuse to pay for what they view as their right to protest. Their declaration comes after the Metropolitan police told protest groups they would have to pay what could amount to thousands of pounds for private firms to oversee their protests. The Met said they would have to fund traffic management - including measures such as road closures, barriers and stewards - for demonstrations they are planning to hold. Scotland Yard has previously carried out the role. In a statement on Thursday, the coalition of groups declared: “We believe any demand to pay to be able to demonstrate constitutes an unacceptable restriction on the right to protest.”

Repression & Demobilization In Spain

February 16, 2015 Yesenia Barragan, www.telesurtv.net Resist! Freedom of Expression, Spain

Passing through Puerta del Sol on a Sunday afternoon in late-January, I noticed how two policemen approached a group of about seven or eight elderly protestors holding a banner protesting cuts to social services. After what seemed like a bit of a tense moment, one of organizers pulled out a white sheet from his backpack and waved it in the face of the officers, who eventually walked away. For me, this appeared to be a rather strange sight, having attended many unauthorized gatherings and marches beginning in this plaza. But that has all changed since the passing of one of the Gag Law’s most contentious legislations that prohibits protest in public spaces without permission. Depending on the context, one can be fined anywhere between 30,001-600,000 Euros for not having received the proper authorization.

TPP: Prison For File Sharing? That’s What Hollywood Wants!

February 14, 2015 Maira Sutton, www.eff.org Educate! Freedom of Expression, Internet, Mass Incarceration, Media, TPP

The Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP) poses massive threats to users in a dizzying number of ways. It will force other TPP signatories to accept the United States' excessive copyright terms of a minimum of life of the author plus 70 years, while locking the US to the same lengths so it will be harder to shorten them in the future. It contains DRM anti-circumvention provisions that will make it a crime to tinker with, hack, re-sell, preserve, and otherwise control any number of digital files and devices that you own. The TPP will encourage ISPs to monitor and police their users, likely leading to more censorship measures such as the blockage and filtering of content online in the name of copyright enforcement.

Assassination Plot Records Won’t Be Released

February 12, 2015 Dylan Baddour, www.chron.com Resist! Academic Freedom, Freedom of Expression, Houston, Occupy, police brutality

Details of a plot to kill Occupy Houston leaders won't be released after a federal court upheld the FBI's claim that the documents are legally exempted from the Freedom of Information Act. The FBI argued information was withheld, including 12 of 17 relevant pages, to protect the identity of confidential sources who were "members of organized violent groups," according to Courthouse News Service. A heavily-redacted FBI document first revealed a Houston plot "to gather intelligence against the leaders of the protest groups and obtain photographs, then kill the leadership via suppressed sniper rifles."

Freedom Of The Press: Where’s Pardon For Chelsea Manning

January 20, 2015 Matthew Behrens, www.rabble.ca Educate! Chelsea Manning, Freedom of Expression, Whistleblowers

When a former U.S. army private awoke in her jail cell just over a week ago -- some 17 months into a 35-year jail sentence -- she could have been forgiven for thinking, in the immediate aftermath of the terrible Paris magazine attacks, that the commutation of her punitive sentence for exercising freedom of speech and conscience was about to be placed on President Obama's desk. Obama, like many world leaders, had just issued stunning, passionate statements about freedom of the press, human dignity, and all the great things that make countries like Canada and the U.S. just so undeniably terrific. For the now 26-year-old Chelsea (previously known as Bradley) Manning, though, it was not to be. She had had the audacity to challenge terrorism by exposing it, not in a manner that humiliated or denigrated her targets, but simply to inform the public, generate discussion, bolster democracy and hold accountable those who had committed atrocities.

Chomsky: Paris Attacks Show Hypocrisy Of West’s Outrage

January 20, 2015 Noam Chomsky, www.cnn.com Educate! Charlie Hebdo, Chomsky, Freedom of Expression, Paris

After the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo, which killed 12 people including the editor and four other cartoonists, and the murder of four Jews at a kosher supermarket shortly after, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls declared "a war against terrorism, against jihadism, against radical Islam, against everything that is aimed at breaking fraternity, freedom, solidarity." Millions of people demonstrated in condemnation of the atrocities, amplified by a chorus of horror under the banner "I am Charlie." There were eloquent pronouncements of outrage, captured well by the head of Israel's Labor Party and the main challenger for the upcoming elections, Isaac Herzog, who declared that "Terrorism is terrorism. There's no two ways about it," and that "All the nations that seek peace and freedom [face] an enormous challenge" from brutal violence.

FCC Said To Signal It’s Heeding Obama’s Call For Open-Web Rules

January 8, 2015 Todd Shields and James Rowley, www.bloomberg.com Create! FCC, Freedom of Expression, Internet, Net Neutrality

The U.S. Federal Communication Commission is signaling that it intends to adopt President Barack Obama’s proposal to keep the Internet open when the independent agency votes on rules next month. FCC officials working on the issue under Chairman Tom Wheeler are asking questions they would only ask if they were taking the direction Obama is seeking, such as how to regulate wireless service, said one person involved in discussions with the agency. Obama in November called for “the strongest possible rules” to regulate Internet service, including a ban on so-called fast lanes. In doing so, he joined the ranks of Internet startups, public interest groups and more than 105,000 people who signed a petition to the White House calling for an open-Internet policy. The rules would ensure service providers treat Web traffic equally -- a concept known as net neutrality.

Spanish Government Strips Away Protesting Rights

December 24, 2014 Kevin Mathews, www.truth-out.org Educate! Civil Disobedience, Democracy, Freedom of Expression, Law

Spain is showing signs of fascism with its new anti-protest legislation nicknamed the “Gag Law.” This past week, Spain’s lower parliament okayed the law, pushing it much closer to reality. Among the restrictions cemented by the law, punishable by a $700-37,000 fine: Holding a protest without obtaining a permit from the government first, Protesting the day before an election, Insulting a police officer, Burning a flag, Photographing/filming police officers and sharing said photos/videos, Protesting at a bank, Blocking a home foreclosure, Assembling near a legislative building, Wearing hoods or masks, as they prevent authorities from identifying you.

«1 2 3 4 »

Daily movement news and resources