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Category Archives: Freedom

Polk Place;Wounded Warriors for Freedom and Military Order of the Purple Heart 3rd Annual Golf – Video

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Polk Place;Wounded Warriors for Freedom and Military Order of the Purple Heart 3rd Annual Golf
The Warriors for Freedom and Military Order of the Purple Heart Golf Invitational supports the men and women that defend our freedoms through their service to our nation. The tournament is...

By: Polk Government

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Polk Place;Wounded Warriors for Freedom and Military Order of the Purple Heart 3rd Annual Golf - Video

Le Chambon: How A Jewish Refugee became a Freedom Fighter in WWII – Video

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Le Chambon: How A Jewish Refugee became a Freedom Fighter in WWII
Walter Jaye, born Walter Jakubowski in 1925 in Berlin, talks about his time in the Huguenot community of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon in France. He found shelter there during World War II after his...

By: Stanford Jewish Studies

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Le Chambon: How A Jewish Refugee became a Freedom Fighter in WWII - Video

Freedom of Information Act amendments set to be blocked in Senate, nation could lose appeal rights

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Australians could be left with no appeal rights against government secrecy by the end of this year with the Senate set to block crucial changes to the Freedom of Information Act.

The act urgently needs amendment after the Government's surprise May budget decision to cut funding for the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) by the end of this year.

Under the current FOI Act, appeals have to be lodged with the OAIC. However, the Government's amendment will allow challenges to go direct to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT).

But the Greens have decided not to support the amendment and the ABC understands both the Opposition and Palmer United Party (PUP) are also looking to block passage of the amendment in the Senate.

With only three sitting weeks for the Senate remaining and without cross-bench support, failure to amend the FOI Act will mean Australians will be without any appeal options against decisions to keep information secret for the first time since the FOI Act was introduced in 1982.

FOI laws provide a legal right of access to government information and recognise that politicians control information and tend to hide political and policy failures, mismanagement and corruption from voters.

Under the then-Labor government's reform of the FOI Act in 2010, an Australian Information Commissioner was created aimed at improving government transparency and openness.

But the OAIC was taking up to 220 days before even looking at an appeal, leaving applicants facing lengthy delays.

The OAIC also made decisions allowing increased government secrecy which also damaged support for the agency.

A spokesman for the Attorney-General George Brandis said the 2010 reforms had "created an unnecessarily complex system" with multiple levels of external merits review for FOI matters.

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Freedom of Information Act amendments set to be blocked in Senate, nation could lose appeal rights

The Illusion of Freedom by: Paolo Romeo E. Pastrana (B.S.P.T 2-3) – Video

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The Illusion of Freedom by: Paolo Romeo E. Pastrana (B.S.P.T 2-3)
PRESENTED TO: Ms. Nhorliza Nordan The Illusion of Freedom by: Paolo Romeo E. Pastrana (B.S.P.T 2-3) The Illusion of Freedom by: Paolo Romeo E. Pastrana (B.S.P.T 2-3) The Illusion of Freedom...

By: annajad6

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The Illusion of Freedom by: Paolo Romeo E. Pastrana (B.S.P.T 2-3) - Video

Freedom the story of the half-year in EPC South football

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Editor's note: Each week during the regular season, Stephen Miller will examine four Eastern Pennsylvania Conference football items in this space. Here is his look back at Week 5 and ahead to Week 6.

1. Freedom is the team of the half-year. It's no surprise to see Whitehall, Easton and Parkland near the top of the EPC South Division standings. Pat yourself on the back, however, if you had Freedom reaching the season's midpoint with the division lead.

The Patriots (5-0 overall, 4-0 South) enter Week 6 a half-game ahead of Whitehall and Easton in the division race. Freedom plays its last EPC crossover game of the season Friday against Dieruff, so it will head into the final month of the regular season tied with the Whitehall-Easton winner for the division lead.

Is Freedom the South's best team? It's hard to give the Patriots that nod given the track record and early-season play of Whitehall, Easton and Parkland.

Freedom has been the top story of the first half, though, because of its turnaround. The Patriots were a 2-8 team last season that struggled to score and gave the ball away too often.

The current Patriots have an efficient quarterback (Joe Young), a running game that has churned through the first five weeks, a solid defense and special-teams units that have produced big plays most weeks.

"I think we've been business-like in the way we've prepared," Freedom coach Jason Roeder said. "Coming off the year we had, I think it would have been easy to get off-focus after a couple of wins. I think we've handled the early success pretty well in terms of understanding what's ahead and that we have to get better every day."

What's ahead after Dieruff is a closing stretch against Whitehall, Parkland, Easton and Liberty. Those four games will determine where Freedom sits in the South pecking order.

That those games matter to the division race speaks to how well Freedom played during the season's first half.

2. Parkland finds a silver lining. When Whitehall jumped out to a 24-0 lead Friday, it forced Parkland to turn to its passing game. The Trojans never got closer than 14 points the rest of the night, but they showed the ability to move the ball through the air at times.

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Freedom the story of the half-year in EPC South football

Three Freedom Area football players march in the band

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When the Freedom Area High School Bulldogs football team runs to the locker room at halftime, three of the players stay on the field.

Senior Joshua Battaglia grabs his trombone, freshman John Blinn gets his tenor saxophone and freshman Michael Keith straps on the five drums that are sometimes calledthe quints.

Then they line up in a formation very different from football to play the music of Elton John in the marching bands half-time show.

They march, dance and play their instruments while wearing their football uniforms, including bulky shoulder pads. Though all Bulldogs wear the schools red and white colors, the uniforms of the instrument-playing football players stand out in more ways than one.

Michael and Donna Keith of New Sewickley quip that they never know what color their sons uniform will be at half time. Sometimes it gets really muddy, his mother said.

It appears that no one in the Beaver County school districts thinks any of this is unusual.

John, who has been playing the sax since fifth grade, said performing as an athlete and a musician on game nights issomething that has been going on in Freedom for years. He said he didnt start playing football until this year.

I played soccer for most of my life but it had stopped being enjoyable, said John, the son of John and Sherrie Blinn of Freedom. And, I am a bigger guy, so I decided to try football.

At 6 feet tall and weighing in at 200 pounds, he fits right in as a tackle. He and teammate Michael, a wide receiver, are pleased that they get varsity playing time in their freshman year.

Football coach Tim Dubovi says, I never cut anyone. As long as they are showing up for games and practices, they will be rewarded.

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Three Freedom Area football players march in the band

Can China Innovate Without Freedom of Information?

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For many analysts, the idea that one might link China and ethics in the same breath in talking of information freedom might seem strange. In cyberspace, it is a country known more for its i-dictatorship rather than its e-democracy.

Yet, as surely as China has moved from peoples communes in agriculture to private household production or from banning private property to embracing it, China is also well down the path toward information freedom.

It may yet have several very big obstacles to cross, not the least continued censorship and punishment for dissemination of politically unorthodox ideas. But China is on that path, even if it would be a brave person who might predict the arrival time for the journeys end. Will it be in this decade or the next one?

As long as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) remains in power, its default position would appear to be one of information dictatorship and continued suppression of ideas that challenge key CCP orthodoxies.

The degree and character of censorship has changed massively in the last three decades. In spite of this widespread liberalization, the CCP is not giving up easily on this last bastion of dictatorship the control of information. In fact, since Xi Jinping came to power in November 2012, the screws have been tightened further.

One of the best indicators of this has been the issue of regulations concerning re-registration of all journalists in China dependent on their familiarity with CCP ideology. The regulations on journalists couple with a prohibition on Chinese news outlets from carrying news items from any other media source, especially foreign ones, without special dispensation.

So what basis is there for any hope that the CCP might tear down the remaining obstacles to information freedom in this secret state? One answer lies in understanding the trajectory of Chinas innovation policy and the related policy of CCP control of education, especially the universities.

The countrys leaders have staked the future of the CCP on a promise of national resurgence and leadership in science and technology. The trajectory of innovation policy in China has been impressive, as have been the necessary enabling departures from Communist orthodoxy.

One of the most significant was official recognition beginning in the middle of the first decade of this century that the private sector, not the government, was the key to establishing a thriving national innovation system.

A second evolution was the recognition that such a system depends on a vibrant and creative relationship between university-based research and the private sector.

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Can China Innovate Without Freedom of Information?


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