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ACLU may sue over censorship of social media pages by elected officials – Gardnernews.com

Posted on July 15, 2017 by Danzig

An ACLU letter sent to Kansas Senator Mary Pilcher-Cook, 10th District, has resonated with at least one Gardner resident. Wes Rains, Gardner, recently sent a letter to Lee Moore, Gardner councilman, requesting Moore unblock his ability to post to Moores official city councilmans Facebook page.

Lee Moore

Recently, a more famous public official (state Senator) has practiced the same form of censorship that you have, and she now has been asked by the ACLU to cease this behavior, Rains said in his e-mail. I believe this to be a similar situation, and am considering writing to the ACLU myself to appeal to your better nature and judgement, but before I do that, I am asking you myself as a Gardner citizen and constituent and voter. Rains attached the American Civil Liberties Union July 5, 2017, letter to Sen. Pilcher Cook in his email to Moore. According to the ACLUs letter, blocking opposing views violates citizens well established First Amendment rights to criticize elected officials and express opinions of public concern. Censoring a constituents viewpoint violates the First Amendments Speech Clause. According to Moores response received by Rains and supplied to The Gardner News, I am not required by ordinance or by statute to maintain an official Facebook page. Therefore, my social media activity, all of it, is a completely private endeavor. In fact, all of the content I place on my page, is licensed to Facebook by virtue of the EULA they make you sign when you create the account. In fact, because they own the platform, they may even elect to censor me, should they so desire. So, to make the argument that I can somehow violate your First Amendment rights from within a platform that I do not own or otherwise have any authority over, beyond that licensed to me by the owner of the platform, and that I am not even legally obligated to use for official business is absolutely laughable. I mean, what are you going to do if Facebook bans you for violating their terms of service? Will you claim that is also a violation of your First Amendment right? Thanks for the laugh. You may engage with me anywhere you find me in public, over the phone, and through my official email just like constituents who have no access to Facebook. You may also share content from my page on CFG and engage me there. Until I am required by statute to maintain an official public social media presence, I will reserve the right to control the content associated with my name. That said, I think you were banned only because you were backing the opposition and got obnoxious with me when I was running for office and this page was servingas my campaign page. However, I checked and you are not even banned and have not been banned for a very long time. If I do ban you in the future, maybe all it takes is asking me nicely instead of threatening me. Enjoy your weekend. Cheers, Lee According to Doug Bonney, Kansas legal director for the ACLU, Social media has become an essential tool of communications between elected officials and their constituents, and blocking someone from an officials Facebook page violates the First Amendment and the well-established right of the public to criticize elected officials. On July 5, we sent a letter to Senator Pilcher-Cook outlining these concerns and requesting that she cease censoring the comments on her page and reinstate those who have been blocked. In an e mail to The Gardner News, Moore said there was not anyone currently blocked on his social media page, although he admits Rains was temporarily blocked during Moores election campaign two years ago. He also says he is unclear when Rains was unblocked. Nobody is currently blocked from posting comments on the Lee Moore Gardner City Councilman Facebook page, Moore wrote. However, he indicates that he reserves the right to limit abusive or harassing language and makes note that the social media platform is not required nor government owned. Moore says he will not be bullied, but that he will not try to use his Facebok page to silence opposing opinions. Thus, Mr. Rains email to me and the rest of the Governing Body was received by me as an ignorant, ill-conceived, and unprovoked threat, he writes. Although, the ACLU is an organization which holds no authority over me or the City of Gardner. Nevertheless, I will not be bullied. Likewise, I cannot and will not try to use my Facebook page as a tool to silence people who hold opposing opinions. However, I will also not tolerate comments from people who are unable or unwilling to maintain civility and basic relevance to the topic being discussed. The complete text of his response is adjacent to this story. Since the ACLUs letter was sent, it appears the problem with censorship is more widespread than originally thought, said Bonney, ACLU. Theres a lot more of this than I realized, he said. The core first amendment right is to speak and be heard by your elected officials, Bonney continued. When elected officials censor those voices, they are violating the First Amendments core principle. If elected officials dont voluntarily comply by allowing constituents to comment, Bonney said other options will be considered. We will evaluate our options, Bonney said. At this point, there are no individual lawsuits anticipated, but it may become necessary to file a lawsuit. ACLUs around the country are looking at this, Bonney said. Currently, there is at least one ACLU branch preparing a lawsuit. The American Civil Liberties Unions website says, Last month, we were contacted by a constituent of the 10th District of Kansas who had been blocked from the official Facebook page of Senator Mary Pilcher-Cook, the state senator representing her district. The constituent was blocked after leaving comments on the page expressing opposition to the policy stances taken by Senator Pilcher-Cook, which were also subsequently deleted. The ACLUs letter to Pilcher-Cook is available online at: https://www.aclukansas.org/en/news/aclu-letter-senator-pilcher-cook-regarding-facebook-page-censorship As of July 11, Rains said his posts to Moores page were still blocked.

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ACLU may sue over censorship of social media pages by elected officials - Gardnernews.com

Chinese Citizens Evade Internet Censors to Remember Liu Xiaobo – New York Times

Posted on July 15, 2017 by Danzig

Denouncing Censorship Photo Internet users mourning Mr. Liu posted images of an empty chair, an echo of the way the Nobel Prize committee honored him in 2010. Credit via Weibo

As censors sprung into action after Mr. Lius death, internet users found creative means to convey their opinions. One popular motif was a picture of an empty chair, echoing the way the Nobel Prize committee honored Mr. Liu at the 2010 ceremony. Another common image was a black backdrop accompanied only by the text 1955-2017, the years of Mr. Lius life.

Chinese journalists, lawyers and activists denounced government efforts to erase mentions of Mr. Liu. He is now relatively unknown in China, despite his fame overseas, and the mainland Chinese news media has largely not reported his death. To evade censors who were patrolling the internet for uses of Mr. Lius name, some users instead referred to him as Wang Xiaobo, or Teacher Liu.

The censors were quick to react, blocking searches of several code words. A viral essay on Mr. Lius death titled A Night That Cant Be Discussed was quickly deleted.

Mr. Lius famous phrase I have no enemies and no hatred was widely quoted among his admirers in the hours after his death. He had planned to make the remark at his sentencing on charges of inciting subversion of state power in 2009, but the court forbade him from doing so. Since then, the quotation has become a mantra of hope for pro-democracy activists in China and a reminder of Mr. Lius commitment to nonviolence.

I have no enemies and no hatred. None of the police who monitored, arrested and interrogated me, none of the prosecutors who indicted me, and none of the judges who judged me are my enemies, Mr. Liu wrote in a prepared statement in 2009.

As they grappled with his death, Mr. Lius admirers quoted his writings and poetry. Some remembered his days helping student protesters gathered in Tiananmen Square in 1989. They posted photographs of a dimly lit square, a portrait of Mao blurry in the background.

You are the martyr of freedom, wrote one user. The executioner will never be forgiven.

Iris Zhao, Zoe Mou and Ye Fei contributed research.

A version of this article appears in print on July 15, 2017, on Page A7 of the New York edition with the headline: Evading Censors To Honor An Activist.

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Chinese Citizens Evade Internet Censors to Remember Liu Xiaobo - New York Times

China’s artists defy censorship ban to mourn Liu Xiaobo – Art Newspaper

Posted on July 15, 2017 by Danzig

The death on Thursday of Chinese dissident activist and Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo elicited an outpouring of grief and anger in China, particularly from its artists. Though usually preferring to remain safely apolitical, members of the Chinese art world defied a ban on covering or mentioning Liu and expressed their sorrow and frustration at his death through mostly indirect references on Chinese social media.

Ai Weiwei, the Chinese dissident artist now living in Berlin, told the BBC yesterday: "It still comes as a big shock... because he has been such a symbol for China's human rights or democratic movement." Ai said of his friend, "I think Liu Xiaobo will be remembered as an individual, a strong mind, with his belief, and as a brave fighter, believing in democracy and freedom of speech. And he sacrificed his life for his belief."

His compatriots still based in China, though unable to speak so freely, found creative ways to mourn Liu on the social media platform Wechat. According to some reports, the national outpouring was so widespread that the government banned the emojis for candles and clasped hands on Twitter clone Weibo, though they remain permitted on Wechat.

Articles mentioning Liu's death, with titles like "The Death of Freedom", were quickly expunged, but artists and curatorshave instead posted screenshots of the error message, with comments like, "Do you not understand what bullshit this is!" Screengrabs of global media reports were also popular, as technology currently does not facilitate the searching of textual images.

One artist listed the characters of Liu Xiaobo's name but on different lines, slowing their removal. Many posted simple all black or grey squares were posted to represent censorship, sometimes adding the prayer and candle emojis and references like Liu's age of death, 62, or simple expressions of gratitude.

Some posted the works of Liu Xiaobo's poet and artist widow Liu Xia, who remains under house arrest, depicting mutilated dolls positioned in bleak landscapes. Paintings of empty chairsreferencedthe empty seat at Liu Xiaobo's 2010 ceremony for the Nobel Peace Prize, which the Chinese government refused to release him to receive.

Liu Xiaobo was a professor spurred to activism by the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, and negotiated the safe passage of hundreds of students from the square. In and out of prison since for his fearless criticism of the government, he was last sentenced to 11 years in 2009 for co-authoring Charter 08, a 2008 call for political reform and greater freedom.

Officials announced Liu's terminal liver cancer last month, and moved him to a hospital in Shenyang under high security but refused to release him for treatment abroad. And while his name can be erased from China's public domain, his memory remains powerfully present.

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China's artists defy censorship ban to mourn Liu Xiaobo - Art Newspaper

Letter: No censorship in West Peoria parade – Peoria Journal Star

Posted on July 15, 2017 by Danzig

Karen Cook

As with most things these days, people do not agree.

I have lived in West Peoria for 43 years, having participated in the Fourth of July parade in various capacities and watched it many times. If the spirit of the Fourth of July stands for anything, it's for the freedoms we enjoy in America. Freedom of speech is No. 1.

I certainly hope the parade does not become censored because there are some groups I would like to see banned. That's not where freedom should lead us. The kids aren't much interested in antique cars, politicians, the pro-life movement or Planned Parenthood, but they are all part of the parade. That's America. I doubt any kids even noticed or understood the float.

The parade is always a fun event. Please don't force it to become a battleground.

Karen Cook

West Peoria

Applaud support for free speech – The Missoulian

Posted on July 15, 2017 by Danzig

Recent incidents at the University of California-Berkeley where protesters threw Molotov cocktails and broke windows at the site of a sponsored lecture, and at Middlebury College where protesters assaulted a professor, highlight a disturbing trend in higher education: the assault on free expression.

This flouting of the norms of civil discourse and debate endangers the very heart of the university, for freedom of expression is essential to its mission and a fundamental constitutional right. Faculty recently demonstrated their commitment to open inquiry and to education, not indoctrination.

We encourage our students to speak freely and think critically. The citizens of Montana should applaud the University of Montana, where the Faculty Senate at its spring meeting overwhelmingly endorsed the University of Chicagos statement on principles of free expression. The university thus joins 20 other institutions who have done so.

Let us all encourage others, especially our students, to cultivate the virtue of toleration and to respect the basic rights of all.

In Defense of Free Speech, Flying Dog Terminates BA Membership – Brewbound.com

Posted on July 15, 2017 by Danzig

Flying Dog Brewery has officially terminated its membership with the Brewers Association (BA), citing changes to the not-for-profit industry trade organizations Advertising and Marketing Code thatare aimed at addressing sexually explicit, lewd, or demeaning brand names, language, text, graphics, photos, video, or other images.

Flying Dog CEO Jim Caruso told Brewbound that his company, ranked no. 32 on the BAs list of largest domestic craft breweries, had cut ties on June 1 even though it had paid its membership dues through June 2018. He made the decision after the BA announced policy changes during the annual Craft Brewers Conference in April.

The new policy prevents brewers from using the BAs intellectual property after winning medals at the Great American Beer Festival and World Beer Cup. It was put in place, in part, to snuff out offensive labels and to limit how those companies are able to promote their winning beers.

This sort of policy is nothing more than a thinly veiled side door to censorship, Caruso said. Its anti-free enterprise. Its interfering with their competitors business. Its thinking for consumers. Americans hate thought police, and they hate censorship.

BA CEO Bob Pease told Brewbound that the organization was disappointed in Flying Dogs decision to withdraw from the organization. However, Pease defended the policy changes as reasonable and responsible.

The BA and its members absolutely support the First Amendment, he wrote in an email. Invoking the First Amendment in this instance is misplaced and inaccurate. The Brewers Association has no intention nor ability to censor any market initiatives by any brewing industry member.

However, Caruso told Brewbound that he views the changes as nothing more than attempting to bully and intimidate craft brewers into self censorship.

Self censorship is a particularly vicious tyranny of silence because people tend to over censor, he said.

Caruso said he asked the BA to reconsider enacting the policy but realized the organization was intent on implementing the changes. He then informed BA CEO Bob Pease of Flying Dogs decision to end its membership and followed up with a six-page letter that outlined reasons for his companys departure.

Caruso said Pease assured him that the BA had no issue with any of Flying Dog brands, which include labels such as Raging Bitch as well as sexually explicit, innuendo-laden brands such as Doggie Style Pale Ale and Pearl Necklace Chesapeake Stout. However, those assurances were not merely a case of agreeing to disagree, but a fundamental disagreement on a core principle, Caruso stressed.

Free enterprise doesnt exist without freedom of expression, he said. If youve suppressed my ability to communicate my marketing message to my potential consumers, you are anti-free enterprise. Its appalling to think that the brewers who sit on the board of directors and the BA management are interfering in the industry, trying suppress free enterprise and suppress craft brewers from communicating their marketing message to their consumers.

Asked about brand names that consumers may consider offensive in Flying Dogs portfolio, Caruso replied: The question is, offensive to whom?

Everybody has something subjective, he said. There is a free market, and its as much a marketplace of ideas as it is products, and over time good products survive and bad products disappear off the shelves. Thats how it works.

Caruso said such a policy creates a chilling effect on speech. For example, a new brewery attempting to differentiate itself from the more than 5,400 beer companies now operating in the United States may talk themselves out of using a clever, witty name that might have a double entendre for fear of running afoul of the BAs policy.

Its an awful policy because its nonobjective, Caruso said.

Part of the BAs efforts to crack down on offensive labels also included the formation of a three-person Advertising Complaint Review Panel, aimed at addressing member complaints. The findings of reviews are published on the BAs website.

Caruso characterized the panel as a tribunal, and called the review process creepy.

Three people are making the decisions for fifty million craft beer consumers, he said. You actually have a system where you go online and complain about your competitor. What reality are they living in?

BA leaders have completely lost sight of the purpose for the Association and should be focusing their attention on issues such as nutritional labeling, the fight for market share with wine and spirits, the challenges coming from big brewers, softening of craft beer sales and winning new consumers, Caruso argued.

The brewers on the BA board of directors and BA management are there to serve the industry, he said. Theyre not there to think for consumers and make sure they only have BA-approved choices. Theyre not there to interfere with their competitors and tell them how to run their businesses. There are big issues in the industry, and thats what they should be focused on.

This isnt the first time that Flying Dog has taken a stand on First Amendment rights. The brewery lodged a federal challenge in 2009 against the state of Michigan, which had rejected the brewerys Raging Bitch label and other labels using the word bitch. In 2015, Flying Dog won the case and was awarded six-figures in damages, which Caruso said were used to create the First Amendment Society, a nonprofit educational advocacy group.

Caruso said his company will take the tens of thousands of dollars that it spends annually on its BA membership and related activities such as GABF, CBC and SAVOR and double it in a donation to the First Amendment Society.

This is not a small issue for us, Caruso said. We are the freedom of speech brewery.

Through the Viewfinder: Pamela Ryder with Peter Markus – Brooklyn Rail

Posted on July 15, 2017 by Danzig

Pamela Ryder writes sentences like no other writer I know. I remember my first encounter with her fiction, a story called Hovenweep as it appeared as the opening story in Gordon Lishs The Quarterly #29, a story that begins, We are too much in the open here: sky, sky, slick rock, heat, and high above us the circling birds. What is this word Hovenweep? I remember asking myself. Might it be a made-up word to go along with the world of a made-up fiction? It was a dizzying reading experience right out of the gate, one filled with the sensations that I go out seeking when I pick up any work of fiction, any work of art: to be bewitched by what I see and hear, by what I hold. I was immediately held. And was not let go, and did not want to let go, for all the sentences that then followed. We are left too much unshadowed by the shape of them, the second sentence then went on to say, escaping past the canyon walls, winging down the stone, unshaded by the deer-stripped juniper that juts above the river. I knew I was in a place. I was placed inside this place: a place of shadow and light, stone and bird. I was sold, not so much by what was being said, but by how the sentences were being delivered and slung, fasted as they were to the page, and to my eye. I could not, I dared not, I did not want to look away. The magic of fiction was taking place here in this moment: the given being displaced by the made. I remember, too, soon after I read this story, taking it in with me to a fiction class I was teaching and reading the story aloud to my students, and trying not to stop at the end of each sentence to marvel at the joys to be found at the stoppage of every period: the shapes of the sounds, the rivers that Ryder was able to carve out of stone, the images of blood squeezed from ink. That story, Hovenweep, a word I still to this day dont know what it means or if it is a made up word or if it, perhaps, makes reference to a kind of flower, or weed, a thing of the actual world, later appeared in Ryders second book, the collection of stories A Tendency to Be Gone. Open this book to any page and read at random any one of the sentences youll find there and expect to be immediately transported to worlds made of dirt and stone and heart. Yes, more than anything else, Ryder is a writer of ferocity and the bravest of hearts. Her new book, Paradise Field, digs even deeper than ever before into the fertile ground of family and fathers and daughterhood and tells us what it is to live and die with strength and grace and indignity and meaning, what it means and what it feels to be, in the end, left alone to our own devices. What it means, in the end of all endings, to tend to those emotionally loamy gardens, to give due passage and a ritualized bidding adieu to those we call our ownin this case the father of this book, a WWII fighter pilot, a man who most often, in Ryders own words, was a man gone, flying to parts far-flung. I had the pleasure of asking Ryder some questions by email about this latest book and her life as a writer and what it is that keeps driving her sentences.

Peter Markus (Rail): I don't know where to begin. I have so much I want to say. Let's begin at the beginning, then. What gave rise to the writing of this book? And before even this book: what gave rise to you reaching for a pencil? As a writer of such lush, lyrical fictionsa writer, I often say, unlike any otherwhat is it that keeps you coming back?

Pamela Ryder: Peter, these are complex questions, so I need to break it down a bit. So to begin with, What keeps me writing? Its the singleness of itthe separateness of writingthat is a reflection of how I see myself in the world: somehow not fitting in very well, and now, finally, getting older, not wishing it were any other way. Writing is a solitary business, as is all of this lifeof this everything, and in the end, no matter what comfort one attempts to cultivate to convince ourselves that we are loved, or that we will never be abandoned, or that we will be rememberedit is all rubbish, you see. Standing alone: that is what remains. Separateness is what endures. That being said, writing is a form of preparation for mea humbling practice for that final aloneness. A trial of sorts, for what is coming: a journey unaccompanied, unattended. Traveling light.

As to: Why did I start to write? I was an utterly dismissible child: awkward, unattractive. Little was expected of me. My childhoodessentially one of self-loathing, was interruptedno: redeemedby my solitary rambles outdoors, not in deep and lovely woods, but in shabby, empty tracts of land in our neighborhood where whole blocks of suburban houses had once stood, having been smashed flat and hauled off to make way for an interstate highway coming through. The old yards and gardens went to weeds, the driveways cracked. As a kind of wilderness grew in that ruined landscape, so did a peculiar pantheism grow within me. I collected stones and seeds and leaves and featherstook them to my roomcherished objectsa solace. And when, at some point during my adolescence, I was requiredcommandedas perhaps we all had been in school, to go home and write a poem, I wrote The Highway. The poem was quite long. Rhyming. I mourned my scrubby little Eden coming to an end as the surveyors made their marks for road-cuts and as the asphalt rolled in. But I knew that, now no matter what happened to those beloved and blighted yards which had been a sanctuary, they were there on the pageand would endure, would remain there, safe on the page. When I turned it inthis poemI was told (teachers, principal), Oh, come on, you didnt write this yourselfnot you. Not someone like me. But it was me. It was more me than me. I had written something so wonderful it couldnt have been me. Dismissible me. And I felt something akin to joy.

I did not continue writing after that, however. The old patterns of self-doubt and insecurity, of fear of failure, kept me from writing for decades. But the objects stayed with me. I pick up stones to this day. Pebbles in the gutter. Leaves. Twigs. Anything. They fill my stories.

I came to write Paradise Fieldthe stories about the final years of a WWII bomber pilot and the adult daughter who cares for the old manbecause of my fathers death. The book is my father and I. His flight from the family. His final years, final indignities. My ineptitude, resentments, recollections. The unfathomable notion of approaching death, and the decrepit attempts to keep it at bay. Paradise Field was a way to preserve him, preserve us. He was gone, the years he was my father had vanished, and it was too late to do anything about it except to write it. Too late to make amends for the words never spoken, the regrets. I knew I had to write it because it so pained me to do so. I remember Gordon Lish speaking on what to write about. He advised that we recognize those objects that we find so engaging, so beguiling, that we cannot look away from them. Write that, he said. But he also advised that we attend to those objects from which we want to turn away. From which we want to avert our gaze. Those, too. Write that.

Rail: There are these sentences which make me think of you, your way as a writer: There is grit in her nails, a twig in her hair, a found piece of bone in her pocket. She is a child who peeks under rocks, who likes the millipede that rolls into a perfect sphere when touched. Though likely not intended, these words serve as a kind of metaphor to the kind of writer I believe you to be: the dirt beneath the nails, the world you are so attuned with in your hairtwig, flower, skythe found objects you carry in your pockets and pull out and pull sentences and stories that are rooted and then chiseled to such things: bone, stone, rock, father. Would you say that I am onto something here in terms of your approach to writing fiction?

Ryder: The writing is indeed rooted in the objects that draw me to them. I almost said the objects that fascinate me, but that isnt it at allno, no. I believeI knowthat the artifacts I hold dear have lives of their own and, therefore, stories of their own. You dig a hole for whatever reason (to find water, or plant a rosebush, or bury a father) and you find there in the dirt: a shard, a rusty buckle, a boneand now in your hand are the artifacts that make the story. And it neednt be many objects to make the story. (In fact, if there are too many objects in the story, the objects wont cling to each other, but will run away from the writerscamper off the page, setting the story adrift.) And you take those artifactsthe buckle, the bone, the shardand place them in the mindset of a magic pouch, and spill them onto the table, and as conjurer, you present those now sacred pieces in what only appears to be a chanced arrangement, then toss again, place them this way and that, here and there, now you see them, now you dont and now you do again.

Rail: The word daughter is such a charged word in this book. Some words, I often say, in the hands of one writer, mean so much more than they do in the hands of every other writer. Daughter, Id go so far as to say, is a word that now belongs to you. You have claimed all authority over this word, have made it entirely your own. You also place the name, Pamela, in the few places where and when the daughter is given a name. In choosing to do so, are you making it a point to say that this fiction is truth? Not that a fiction that is made up is any less true, yes? But Im curious to hear you speak to that sometimes fine line that this book in particular seems to be straddling and maybe even going so far as to call it into question?

Ryder: This is a startling question. But, yes. The word, daughter is charged. I hadnt accepted this notion until you asked. Charged. Daughterthe sound and meaning of it seems peculiar to me, almost alien. Daughter as outsider. And yes, again: that giving the daughter my name is a way of saying that the stories are true. And, where the daughter needs to be named, what better name could I give her? What other name would do? But back to what is true and what is not: when it comes to writing, what is truth outdoes what is true. What is true must be shaped into a greater, more powerful truthin the telling of it. At the end of As Those Who Know the Dead Will Do, the daughter and father go looking for an old B-17. So sure the father is of the location of an old airfield, that they hikethe father: heart-sore, the daughter: dubiousat night, in the desert, towards the shape of what seems to be a junked plane up ahead. But it is not a plane at all. Just a boulder looming in the desert dark.

What was true was that we actually did find the planehe and Irusting to pieces at the end of an overgrown runway. We climbed up into the ruined, crumbling cockpit, and he sat in what was left of the pilots seat. But I was afraid we were trespassing, that we might be caught. Lets get out of here, I said. Hell, my father said, I flew this thing. But I made us go. I made him leaveus leavetoo, too quickly. His storyand minecut short by my foolishness, my faintness of heart. So, when I made it into a story, I wrote that we never found a plane at all, which was the same as running away from it, leaving it too soon. What we had lost.

Rail: You speak about the writers solitude, the fact that we stand alone, and your fiction certainly is singular, and perhaps through its separateness it will, I hope, endure. Of course its also true that those books and writers who seek out their own singularity, or can't help but be because such separateness is the source and nature of their song, are also those books already on a trial of sorts, for what is coming: a journey unaccompanied, unattended. I love that. Here's the question I am trying to ask: Is it possible, though, that language itself might connect us, or make us at least a little less alone? Or doesnt it quite work like that, in the end of ends, especially?

Ryder: No. Never less alone. If anything: more alone. Listen: Heres how it goes. I have terrible-looking hands. I was always ashamed of my hands. I remember Gordon Lish advising the writer to acknowledge his othernessbecause thats where the story is. Easier said than done, confessing ones otherness, and then finding a way to turn it into prose fiction.

The day I faced up to my hands was this: I was about to be married. A wedding band was required. The ring salesman (I say salesman, because there is a crassness to the word, instead of jeweler) had me put my hands right up there on the counter, on a velvet pillow, on display. A spectacle of the grotesque. The ring man had a hard time pushing the ring over my big knuckle. And the ringa simple bandwhen finally forced onto mewas an absurdity on my hands. An excrescence. I went home and wrote it, and freed myself: My hands are not hands you would like to have. Hard, you might say, if you saw my hands, homely, big-knuckled hard and unpretty. And then there it wasan admission of my peculiarity which would be the story, confirmed by the language, the delivery, the diction.

Rail: The anecdote about your first poem and the something akin to joy that it delivered to you as a childeven if your teachers rejected it and didn't believe that such a thing could come from the Pam that they believed they knew you to bedoes the fiction that you deliver to the page nowand specifically in this new and, dare I say it, your strongest, most tenderly dangerous book, though I relish every sentence you've ever delivered to the pages of all of your three booksis there in them that sensation that is something akin to joy?

Ryder: Yes. Akin. When it comes out right on the page.

Rail: Id like to hear more about Lishs dare. Look away but say. Or look closer at what you might not want your gaze to see. To say what otherwise might not besaid, seen, otherwise not seen. And what you do saythe act of its sayingis an act of, what? Would the word love suffice? The solitude of such a momentthat wish to turn away, to avert, but in the end being able to stay: the making that might come of that! Paradise Field, its really spectacular. How I wish I had a better word. But a spectacle, a marvel, no doubt! Thank you!

Ryder: No. Not love. Not at all. You say you wish you had a better way of saying it. Me too. But I have often thought that banana feverSeymour Glasss afflictionwould certainly do.

Rail: Twice now youve mentioned the advice, the teachings, the influence of Gordon Lisha writer, editor, a man famous, Delillo once said, for all the wrong reasonson you and your work. What else might you have to say about how Lishs words and his approach to being a writer have shaped you and your fiction?

Ryder: He told me: One day youll thank me for all the times I said, No. And I do. Simply put: If not for Gordon Lish, I would not be a writer.

Rail: Talk to me some more about the delivery of your fiction, its diction, how a story is, in your words, confirmed by the language. How often does the language fall short and fail to offer up its blessings?

Ryder: If the language falls short, I have only myself to blame. And if the language fails, so does the story. Language always prevails over content. Youve got to let the language win out, even if it changes what you think you want to say. When it appeared my father wasnt getting better, I asked him what song hed like sung at his funeral, just in case was how I put it. He actually said, Off We Go Into the Wild Blue Yonderthe Air Corps song. But the language of that title didnt fit the story and didnt sound right. So the storythe retelling, became this (the father speaking first):

No flowers. A song might be nice. One of my favorites. Which one?just in case, the daughter said. You pick, he said.

Rail: My own father is in a similar landscape as the father here in your book: a mind in its own flight, a body that knows only the space that is his bed and the few tangible things still in view for him to latch hold of and see with his eyesluckily a river he always loved and taught me how to love. Your book really hits home. It is a hammer-song to the heart, and I know that others of our aging generation who are now caretakers of our parents will be moved by the story that youve delivered to us. Not that a work of fiction has to do or be anything, not that a story must instruct us in any way, and yet I find myself better prepared, more firmly footed, for what I know is ultimately coming, that "final aloneness. So here again, Pam, from the core of me my thanks.

Ryder: No, I thank you, for this interview. And for telling me the circumstances of you and your father, and that outside his window runs a riverthe tangible element of passage. What more suitable a view?

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Through the Viewfinder: Pamela Ryder with Peter Markus - Brooklyn Rail

Interview with Sikivu Hutchinson – The Good Men Project (blog)

Posted on July 15, 2017 by Danzig

Sikivu Hutchinsonis an American feminist,atheistand author/novelist. She is the author of White Nights, Black Paradise (2015), Godless Americana: Race and Religious Rebels (2013), Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics, and the Values Wars(2011), and Imagining Transit: Race, Gender, and Transportation Politics in Los Angeles(Travel Writing Across the Disciplines)(2003). Moral Combat is the first book on atheism to be published by an African-American woman.In 2013, she was namedSecular Woman of the Year.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is your family and personal story culture, education, and geography? Sikivu Hutchinson: I grew up in a secular household in a predominantly African American community in South Los Angeles. My parents were educators and writers involved in social justice activism in the local community.

Jacobsen: What informs personal atheist and humanist beliefs, as a worldview and ethic, respectively? What are effective ways to advocate for atheism and humanism?

Hutchinson: Through public education and dialogue about the role secular humanism and atheism can play in dismantling structures of oppression based on sexism, misogyny, heterosexism, homophobia and transphobia.

Jacobsen: What makes atheism, secular humanism, and progressivism seem more right or true than other worldviews to you arguments and evidence?

Hutchinson: For me, they are a means of redressing the inherent inequities and dogmas of religious belief and practice, particularly vis--vis the cultural and historical construction of womens subjectivity, sexuality and social position in patriarchal cultures based on the belief that there is a divine basis for male domination and the subordination of women.

Progressive atheism and humanism are especially valuable for women of colour due to the racist, white supremacist construction of black and brown femininity and sexuality.

Notions of black women as hypersexual amoral Jezebels (antithetical to the ideal of the virginal, pure Christian white woman) deeply informed slave era treatment of black women as chattel/breeders. These paradigms continue to inform the intersection of sexism/racism/misogyny vis--vis black womens access to jobs, education, media representation and health care.

Jacobsen: What is the importance of atheism, feminism, and humanism in America at the moment?

Hutchinson: Over the past decade, weve seen the erosion of womens rights, reproductive health and access to abortion, contraception, STI/STD screening and health education. Weve also seen virulent opposition to LGBTQI enfranchisement, same sex marriage, employment and educational opportunities for queer, trans and gender non-conforming folk.

These developments are entirely due to the massive Religious Right backlash against gender equity and gender justice thats occurred both in State Legislatures across the country and in the political propaganda of reactionary conservative politicians and fundamentalist evangelical Christian interest groups.

Feminism/atheism/humanism are important counterweights to these forces because they underscore the degree to which these political ideologies are rooted in Christian dominionist (the movement to embed Christian religious principles public policy and government) dogma and biases.

Jacobsen: What social forces might regress the atheist, feminist, and secular humanist movements in the US?

Hutchinson: I have no doubt when I say that the election of Donald Trump and the continued neoliberal emphasis of American educational and social welfare policy will surely undermine these movements.

Jacobsen: You wrote Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics & Values Wars, White Nights, Black Paradise & Rock n Roll Heretic. It will come out in 2018. What inspired writing it?

Hutchinson: Rock n Roll Heretic is loosely based on the life of forerunning black female guitar playerRosetta Tharpe, who was a queer gospel/rock/blues musician who influenced pivotal white rock icons like Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis but is largely unsung. The book explores racism, sexism and heterosexism in the music industry in addition to the fictional Tharpes rejection of faith.

Jacobsen: What is the content and purpose of the book?

Hutchinson: The book is designed to shed light on the travails and under-representation of women of colour musicians in a highly polarised, politically charged industry that still devalues their contributions.

Its also designed to highlight the nexus of humanist thought and artistic/creative discovery in the life of a woman who had to navigate cultural appropriation, male-domination, the devaluation of white media and musical trends that were antithetical to supporting or even validating the existence of black women rockers.

Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Sikivu.

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Interview with Sikivu Hutchinson - The Good Men Project (blog)

Liberty Might Be Better Served by Doing Away with Privacy – Motherboard

Posted on July 15, 2017 by Danzig

Zoltan Istvan is a futurist, transhumanist, author of The Transhumanist Wager, and a Libertarian candidate for California Governor.

The constant onslaught of new technology is making our lives more public and trackable than ever, which understandably scares a lot of people. Part of the dilemma is how we interpret the right to privacy using centuries-old ideals handed down to us by our forbearers. I think the 21st century idea of privacylike so many other taken-for-granted conceptsmay need a revamp.

When James Madison wrote the Fourth Amendmentwhich helped legally establish US privacy ideals and protection from unreasonable search and seizurehe surely wasn't imagining Elon Musk's neural lace, artificial intelligence, the internet, or virtual reality. Madison wanted to make sure government couldn't antagonize its citizens and overstep its governmental authority, as monarchies and the Church had done for centuries in Europe.

For many decades, the Fourth Amendment has mostly done its job. But privacy concerns in the 21st century go way beyond search and seizure issues: Giant private companies like Google, Apple, and Facebook are changing our sense of privacy in ways the government never could. And many of us have plans to continue to use more new tech; one day, many of us will use neural prosthetics and brain implants. These brain-to-machine interfaces will likely eventually lead to the hive mind, where everyone can know each other's precise whereabouts and thoughts at all times, because we will all be connected to each other through the cloud. Privacy, broadly thought of as essential to a democratic society, might disappear.

The key is to make sure government is engulfed by ubiquitous transparency too.

"While privacy has long been considered a fundamental right, it has never been an inherent right," Jeremy Rifkin, an American economic and social theorist, wrote in The Zero Marginal Cost Society. "Indeed, for all of human history, until the modern era, life was lived more or less publicly, as befits most species on Earth."

The question of whether privacy needs to change is really a question of functionality. Is privacy actually useful for individuals or for society? Does having privacy make humanity better off? Does privacy raise the standard of living for the average person?

In some ways, these questions are futile. Technological innovation is already calling the shots, and considering the sheer amount of new tech being bought and used, most people seem content with the more public, transparent world it's ushering in. Hundreds of millions of people willingly use devices and tech that can monitor them, including personal home assistants, credit cards, smartphones, and even pacemakers (in Ohio, a suspect's own pacemaker data will be used in the trial against him.) Additionally, cameras in cities are ubiquitous; tens of thousands of fixed cameras are recording every second of the day, making a walk outside one's own home a trackable affair. Even my new car knows where I'm at and calls me on the car intercom if it feels it's been hit or something suspicious is happening.

Because of all this, in the not so distant futureperhaps as little as 15 yearsI imagine a society where everybody can see generally where anyone else is at any moment. Many companies already have some of this ability through the tech we own, but it's not in the public's hands yet to control.

Massive openness must become a two-way street.

For many, this constant state of being monitored is concerning. But consider that much of our technology can also look right back into the government's world with our own spying devices and software. It turns out Big Brother isn't so big if you're able to track his every move.

The key with such a reality is to make sure government is engulfed by ubiquitous transparency too. Why shouldn't our government officials be required to be totally visible to us all, since they've chosen public careers? Why shouldn't we always know what a police officer is saying or doing, or be able to see not only when our elected Senator meets with lobbyists, but what they say to them?

For better or worse, we can already see the beginnings of an era of in which nothing is private: WikiLeaks has its own transparency problems and has a scattershot record of releasing documents that appear to be politically motivated, but nonetheless has exposed countless political emails, military wires, and intel documents that otherwise would have remained private or classified forever. There is an ongoing battle about whether police body camera footage should be public record. Politicians and police are being videotaped by civilians with cell phones, drones, and planes.

But it's not just government that's a worry. It's also important that people can track companies, like Google, Apple, and Facebook that create much of the software that tracks individuals and the public. This is easier said than done, but a vibrant start-up culture and open-source technology is the antidote. There will always be people and hackers that insist on tracking the trackers, and they will also lead the entrepreneurial crusade to keep big business in check with new ways of monitoring their behavior. There are people hacking and cracking big tech's products to see what their capabilities are and to uncover surreptitious surveillance and security vulnerabilities. This spirit must extend to monitoring all of big tech's activities. Massive openness must become a two-way street.

And I'm hopeful it will, if disappearing privacy trends continue their trajectory, and if technology continues to connect us omnipresently (remember the hive mind?). We will eventually come to a moment in which all communications and movements are public by default.

Instead of putting people in jail, we can track them with drones until their sentence is up

In such a world, everyone will be forced to be more honest, especially Washington. No more backdoor special interest groups feeding money to our lawmakers for favors. And there would be fewer incidents like Governor Chris Christie believing he can shut down public beaches and then use them himself without anyone finding out. The recent viral phototaken by a plane overheadof him bathing on a beach he personally closed is a strong example of why a non-private society has merit.

If no one can hide, then no one can do anything wrong without someone else knowing. That may allow a better, more efficient society with more liberties than the protection privacy accomplishes.

This type of future, whether through cameras, cell phone tracking, drones, implants, and a myriad of other tech could literally shape up America, quickly stopping much crime. Prisons would eventually likely mostly empty, and dangerous neighborhoods would clean upinstead of putting people in jail, we can track them with drones until their sentence is up. Our internet of things devices will call the cops when domestic violence disputes arrive (it was widely reportedbut not confirmedthat a smarthome device called the police when a man was allegedly brandishing a gun and beating his girlfriend. Such cases will eventually become commonplace.)

A society lacking privacy would have plenty of liberty-creating phenomena too, likely ushering in an era similar to the 60s where experimental drugs, sex, and artistic creation thrived. Openness, like the vast internet itself, is a facilitator of freedom and personal liberties. A less private society means a more liberal one where unorthodox individuals and visionariesall who can no longer be pushed behind closed doorswill be accepted for who or what they are.

Like the Heisenberg principle, observation, changes reality. So does a lack of walls between you and others. A radical future like this would bring an era of freedom and responsibility back to humanity and the individual. We are approaching an era where the benefits of a society that is far more open and less private will lead to a safer, diverse, more empathetic world. We should be cautious, but not afraid.

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Liberty Might Be Better Served by Doing Away with Privacy - Motherboard

My Turn: The smartphone as a social tool – Concord Monitor

Posted on July 15, 2017 by Danzig

For years Ive been firmly in the camp of those who argue that to the degree technology distracts us from being present to those we are with, its a bad thing.

I disagree, however, that the inevitable result of technology is social disconnection or that its bad for conversation.

When social critics drag out the image of a couple ignoring each other while tapping on their smartphones in a restaurant, they are whacking a straw man. This typically illustrates the speakers discomfort with technologys evolving role in our lives and unduly romanticizes what conversation was like before smartphones.

I encountered this trope most recently during a homily at a Sunday Mass. The deacon, a kind, wise fellow, was speaking on community as an aspect of love, as illustrated by the community of the Trinity. He pointed out our modern world was in danger of losing that essential community for which weve been designed. One of the culprits? Smartphones in restaurants.

You walk into a restaurant, he said sadly, and half the people arent talking anymore, just looking down at their smartphones.

Two questions occurred to me. One, is it true? Two, to the degree that it is, is it bad?

Before addressing these questions, I will point out I am not arguing for a culture of distraction. I keep most notifications shut off on my smartphone and clear most of my home screen so Im not tempted into 20 minutes of Facebook browsing when all I wanted to do was check the weather. This comes per the recommendation of Tristan Harris and his Time Well Spent initiative. Harriss group argues that app makers, who are currently using behavioral science and big data to make our tech more addictive, have a moral obligation to stop making Cookie Jam. (Okay, they dont single out Cookie Jam, but seriously, stop sending me invites. Im not going to play.) They dont argue against technology itself, only that it should serve us, not the other way around. Watch the video, its brilliant.

If were out to dinner together, Ill silence my ringer and keep my phone in my pocket. Ill look at you most of the time. That brings us back to the two questions.

Have you ever walked into a restaurant and seen half its diners looking at their phones? I never have. Not even close. A good number of people on phones? Sure. And for fogies like us who remember the days before smartphones, does it seem like a disproportionate number? Sure. But half is an overstatement, exaggeration for effect, or misperception.

If I acknowledge its rude to check my email, text messages or voicemail when Ive made a commitment of time and attention to my dining companion, what possible excuse could I have for suggesting people ought to feel comfortable taking their smartphones out at dinner?

Your smartphone is not just a messaging device. Its a part of your intellect, your memory, your augmented consciousness. This device, with its incredible processing power, memory, connectivity and even artificial intelligence, represents a step toward a transhumanist future. Transhumanism is a movement that believes technology will enhance human intellect and physiology, and strives to push that enhancement in beneficial directions.

This is already happening. Consider chess. You know who can beat a human in chess? A computer. You know who can beat a computer in chess? A human teamed with a computer. This hybrid player concept, known as a centaur, is an example of augmented human intellect. It also probably represents the future of work for most of us and certainly our children. Ignore at your peril.

Back to dinner. Youre telling me about the amazing trip you just went on. You take out your phone to show me pictures you took of the Painted Desert. Are either one of us distracted? On the contrary. Youve just opened a window into your mind and memory, and brought me closer to the experience youre trying to share than you likely could have otherwise.

But, grouses the curmudgeon, in our day we talked, used our words to describe these things. We didnt have to rely on pictures.

Which is BS and you know it. How many of you old-timers were forced, for the price of dinner at a friends home, to sit through 4,000 grainy vacation slides? If your host could have lugged the projector to the restaurant, he would have.

Speaking of words, lets say Im trying to recall for you a beautiful poem I read earlier in the week, or an erudite passage from an op-ed column. If used in a deliberate way, this massive, near-infinite library at our fingertips is not a distraction. Its a miracle.

Technology, used deliberately, clearly enhances human exchanges rather than diminishing them. Why then are we so concerned about each others tech habits at meals, on subway trains, in parks and airports?

We are misremembering the world before smartphones as one massive, sparkling community conversation. We forget the couple at the restaurant grimly poking at their soup, going the whole meal hardly saying a thing. We forget parents at breakfast tables tucked away behind morning newspapers while the kids read the backs of cereal boxes. People on subways and airplanes absorbed in novels, praying the person next to them wouldnt turn out to be a talker.

One of the things that makes living in communities as dense as ours tolerable is our remarkable ability to ignore each other when appropriate and engage when appropriate. The smartphone enhances both of those skills.

Finally, back to the homily, the Trinity, the ultimate conversation.

I recall once, traveling alone on a hot day in Paris, waiting in line to get into Notre Dame Cathedral. My spirit soared, lifted into the great vaults and arches, drawn heavenward, craving conversation with the eternal, the creator.

I sat down before the great altar and felt moved to pray an old prayer, the Rosary. This is typically prayed with a string of beads. Not having one in my pocket, I took out my smartphone, launched my Laudate app, opened the interactive Rosary and commenced to conversing with the Almighty. And regardless of what some of my fellow pilgrims may have thought seeing me bent over my smartphone, it was an excellent conversation.

(Ernesto Burden is the vice president of digital for Newspapers of New England, the Monitors parent company. He lives in Manchester.)

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My Turn: The smartphone as a social tool - Concord Monitor

The Scopes Monkey Trial and global warming: Same playbook, different football – Baptist News Global

Posted on July 15, 2017 by Danzig

A business owner, a school superintendent and a lawyer walk into a bar . Sounds like the beginning of a lame joke, right? Well, it was definitely a joke even worse than the kind of joke that might illicit an eye roll from spouse or friends. Ninety-two years ago this week, one of the greatest legal farces in history commenced in the small town of Dayton, Tenn. It all started at a drug store lunch counter as many things do in a small town when a manager at a local company met with the school superintendent and a local attorney. The story goes that the businessman, George Rappleyea of the Cumberland Coal and Iron Company, hatched a plan designed to bring much needed publicity to Dayton. So, you must wondering, what kind of publicity campaign did they devise? They, of course, decided to bring suit against a 24-year-old substitute teacher named John T. Scopes, for unwittingly teaching evolution in science class.

Pit fundamentalist Christians against modernist ones. Place science and the Bible itself on trial. Drive a wedge between conservative people of faith and the scientific community. Create a cloud of doubt and fear about scientific claims, and instead of encouraging people to study and wrestle with the claims themselves, encourage a spirit of bitter resentment and dismissal. Create a media driven campaign to discredit scientists, thereby discrediting science in general. Make sure all this is started and largely funded by a leader in the fossil fuels industry. Make sure the ACLU (among others) is on the side of the liberal, anti-God movement.

Now, instead of the Scopes Monkey Trial, think global warming and climate change. Its the same playbook, folks. As people of faith we should be able to recognize and name a farce when we see one, and stand up for truth in the face of propaganda meant to drive a wedge between good people of faith. Care for creation may well be the most pressing ethical and theological issue of our time, and the church cannot allow disinformation and indoctrination to rule the day.

We live in a time of seemingly unprecedented political division, and many organizations and movements decry the changes in our culture, and the progress we are making. Harry Emerson Fosdick said in his famous sermon, Shall the Fundamentalists Win, The new knowledge and the old faith cannot be left antagonistic or even disparate, as though a man on Saturday could use one set of regulative ideas for his life and on Sunday could change gears to another altogether. We must be able to think our modern life clear through in Christian terms, and to do that we also must be able to think our Christian faith clear through in modern terms. Think that sounds tough in modern times? How about postmodern times?

Many of the same challenges that existed in the last century persist today. Pastors in churches across the country face the challenge of placing faith in the contemporary context a context marked by sweeping and rapid change. One peer-reviewed article I recently read cites that the only cross-segment of American society that has grown in its distrust of science since the late 1970s is Protestant Evangelicals. Let that sink in for a minute. Think about how that fact impacts our political climate. Think about how that fact impacts our planetary climate. Simply astounding.

Interesting, is it not, that the rise of evangelical distrust in science itself coincides with the rise of the so-called Moral Majority and the culture wars of the 1980s and 90s?

Its been nearly a hundred years since The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes, but for many, science (or the Bible depending on your perspective) remain on trial. As Christians, we (perhaps) still struggle to speak of faith and science in ways that dont alienate or divide people in our churches. In 1925, the conversation was about the future of education and about the nature of religion, focusing largely on the history of humanity. Today the conversation between science and faith revolves around the future of the planet, the ethics of human genetic engineering, human sexuality, and the nature of religion itself, focusing largely on the future of humanity.

The conversations between science and faith will never go away. As scientific knowledge exponentially proliferates at unprecedented rates, those of us in faith communities need to strongly consider how we are called to respond to the discoveries and claims of the scientific community. I fear many are still living in 1925.

Related story:Millennials not OK with conventional science vs. religion debates, experts say

Related opinion:Genius hesitates, both in science and religion | Scott Dickison

OPINION: Views expressed in Baptist News Global columns and commentaries are solely those of the authors.

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The Scopes Monkey Trial and global warming: Same playbook, different football - Baptist News Global

Is History a New NATO Weapon against Russia? – International Policy Digest (press release) (blog)

Posted on July 15, 2017 by Danzig

On Wednesday NATO and Russia received a new reason to argue and make claims to each other. NATO posted an 8-minute online documentary video glorifying the activity of the Baltic partisan movement Forest Brothers.

For the Baltic States WWII did not end in 1945, as well as for the Soviet army soldiers who faced unexpected violent resistance from national partisans. The Forest Brothers actively fought the Soviet army from 1948 until the late 1950s or early 60s.

It should be noted that the Forest Brothers activity is little known and a controversial piece of history of the Baltic States. There are two radically opposite points of view. From one point of view the Forest Brothers were partisans who continued armed resistance to the Soviet occupation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania after the end of the Second World War. From the second point of view such treatment of their activity is very contradictory, because there are facts that many of the Forest Brothers were former Nazi collaborators and members of the Baltic Waffen SS, and that members of these groups killed thousands of civilians in their raids.

Where is the truth? It seems as if in this particular case NATO has gone about the Baltic States and puts itself in an uncomfortable position, supporting the possible misinterpretation of historical facts.

A similar dispute has become a source of contention between Ukraine and Poland, which differently interpret Stepan Banderas role in history. Ukraine considers Stepan Bandera a hero. Poles mainly remember him for collaborating with the Nazis and for his followers slaughtering Polish civilians. Poles find Ukraines version of a common history a problem and emphasize, that they will not accept ideology and actions that allow murder of innocent civilians, even in the name of the highest goals, to which undoubtedly fight for state independence belongs. The matter is very similar to what is going on between NATO and Russia just now.

Such political interference into the history of separate countries, in bitter moments of the past wont make NATO stronger, wont make relations between opponents warmer, and wont make the continent more peaceful. There are enough problems in contemporary history that should be solved immediately and a new one makes the situation even harder. As for the Baltic States they simply want NATOs attention, and past conflict with the Soviet Union provides an opportunity to attract that attention and, probably, money

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Is History a New NATO Weapon against Russia? - International Policy Digest (press release) (blog)

How many Americans are swept up in the NSA’s snooping programs? – The Hill (blog)

Posted on July 15, 2017 by Danzig

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper famously (or infamously) told Congress the National Security Agency did not wittingly collect data on Americans. That turned out to be false.

More recently, Sen. Ron WydenRon WydenHow many Americans are swept up in the NSA's snooping programs? Overnight Finance: Yellen pushes back on GOP banking deregulation plan | Trump dodges on Russia sanctions bill | Trump floats tariffs on steel imports | Budget director touts MAGAnomics Dems on tax reform outreach: Talk is cheap MORE (D-Ore.) asked the current director of national intelligence, Dan CoatsDan CoatsHouse moves to bar Pentagon contracts with firms backing North Korean cyberattacks How many Americans are swept up in the NSA's snooping programs? Granting NSA permanent bulk surveillance authority would be a mistake MORE whether the government could use Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to collect communications it knows are entirely domestic.

Not to my knowledge. That would be illegal, Coats responded.

However, a subsequent letter from Coats office to Wydens office suggests the directors answer was incomplete. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence clarified that section 702(b)(4) plainly states we may not intentionally acquire any communication as to which the sender and all intended recipients are known at the time of acquisition to be located in the United States. The DNI interpreted Senator Wydens question to ask about this provision and answered accordingly.

FISA Section 702 authorizes two major NSA snooping programs. One is upstream collection, a process in which the NSA collects digital communications through the internets backbone undersea cables that process large volumes of internet traffic, which internet service providers send to the government. The government attempts to sort the data for foreign targets information and then is supposed to discard the rest.

We know some Americans information is retained when they communicate with a target, though minimization procedures are in place to protect their identities. Until recently, the information also could be swept up if they communicated about a target. The NSA recently announced it was ending about collection in the wake of a series of compliance incidents and privacy concerns. Some other Americans data may be swept up due to technological limitations that affect scope of collection. In other words, the NSA hasnt invested in infrastructure that can narrow their collection.

The problem is that we do not know how many Americans are swept up in 702 surveillance. We do not even have a rough estimate. A recent letter from privacy groups admonished Coats for refusing to provide information on the number of Americans swept up in 702 collection information that both he and his predecessor had promised to deliver.

Coats intransigence follows a familiar pattern of the NSA promising transparency and then reneging on those promises. Indeed, for the past six years the agency has flummoxed congressional oversight, with its reluctance to give the public hard data on this matter. When a powerful bureaucracy ignores both civil-society groups and its constitutional overseers, what is the solution?

Congress should step in and do its job, which requires going beyond public reprimands from a handful of members. The first branch has the power to legislate and write laws requiring the executive branch to reveal the number of Americans swept up in 702 collection. The letter from privacy groups recommended such a deep dive, but the intelligence community argued it would be counterproductively invasive. A clear legal mandate from Congress could outline how the search would be conducted, with accurate protections for Americans who potentially could be unmasked.

As to why the NSA would be so reluctant to answer such a simple request, privacy blogger Marcy Wheeler recently detailed a culture of ignorance that has emerged within the NSA in the wake of an July 2010 ruling by Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Judge John Bates concerning the deliberate collection of domestic content via upstream collection. In Wheeler's characterization, Bates said that if the government knew it had obtained domestic content, it had to delete the data, but if it didnt know, it could keep it. A perfect catch-22.

These instructions cultivate a practice of willful ignorance, which probably explains the hesitance of the intelligence community to answer Wyden's question publicly. A new law would nip this habit in the bud and place heavy incentives for transparency. Until a new law is passed, privacy advocates will be at the mercy of the NSAs mood.

Civil-society groups have nobly tried to fill the gap where Congress has been lacking in its oversight and lawmaking role. It is imperative then that Section 702 be updated substantially, before it is reauthorized at the end of the year. Both Americans privacy rights and the intelligence community stand to benefit from clearer legal boundaries. It is Congress job to hold the executive branchs feet to the fire the very notion of the separation of powers, of checks and balances and of a free democracy depend on it.

Jonathan Haggerty (@RplusLequalsJLH) is a research assistant at the R Street InstituteandArthur Rizer (@ArthurRizer) is the national security and justice policy director.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.

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How many Americans are swept up in the NSA's snooping programs? - The Hill (blog)

Moscow board to reconsider NSA permit Tuesday – Moscow-Pullman Daily News

Posted on July 15, 2017 by Danzig

It has been almost three months since the Moscow Board of Adjustment approved a conditional use permit allowing New Saint Andrews College to expand into the former Cadillac Jack's building on North Main Street.

After appeals and City Council review, the board will make a decision on the CUP again at 7 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall's council chambers.

Mike Ray, assistant community development director, said the board will reconsider all the information previously presented to them in addition to reviewing a new survey of the availability of public parking in the area that city staff conducted at the direction of the City Council. After considering all the information, Ray said the board can approve the CUP with or without conditions, reject it or table the matter for a future meeting.

The board voted 3-2 to approve the CUP April 25 but five people appealed the board's decision during a 10-day appeal period in early May.

While the board approved the CUP in late April, it said NSA must provide 47 off-street parking spaces within about half a mile of the former CJ's property, subject to the approval of the zoning administrator. The other condition was NSA would be allowed to phase in the off-street parking requirement by providing 50 percent of it on occupancy of the building and the remainder when NSA's enrollment reaches 150 students, or five years from the date of occupancy, whichever comes first.

The City Council listened to the five appellants June 5. It upheld Ryanne Pilgeram's appeal and remanded the CUP decision to the board.

At the June 5 council meeting, the City Council directed city staff to conduct an additional survey of parking use within 600 feet of the proposed educational institute. City staff had conducted a parking survey over a five-day work week in April to assess the average availability of public parking spaces within 600 feet of the property. Counts were taken at 9 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Ray said city staff conducted new counts at 9 a.m., 12:30 p.m. and 2 p.m, and those results will be presented to the board Tuesday night.

Ray said the City Council also wanted the board to consider studying the parking mitigation calculation, which determined that 47 off-street parking spaces be required within roughly half of a mile of the former CJ's building.

The City Council further directed the board to reconsider its decisions that "the location, design and size of the proposed use will be adequately served by existing streets, public facilities and services" and "will not be in conflict with the Comprehensive Plan."

Although Tuesday's public hearing is open to the public, no public comment will be allowed at the direction of the City Council.

Ray said it is a public hearing only to accept the new parking count information that the City Council requested the board to consider.

"The City Council did not intend for additional public comment to be considered since there was already three, four hours of public comment at the initial hearing," Ray said.

The NSA's proposed expansion would include a maximum enrollment of 300 full-time equivalent students with up to an additional 44 faculty and staff.

The roughly 15,900 square-foot facility would include five classrooms/studios, nine offices, a multi-purpose room, a student lounge and a music conservatory with seating for 680 occupants.

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Moscow board to reconsider NSA permit Tuesday - Moscow-Pullman Daily News

Huggan retires, hands over command of NSA Panama City – The News Herald

Posted on July 15, 2017 by Danzig

Cmdr. Douglas Huggan, who has a long and illustrious career with the Navy, serving on three continents in five countries and six states, had led NSA Panama City since July 2015.

NAVAL SUPPORT ACTIVITY I relieve you sir.

With those words, command over Naval Support Activity Panama City passed from Cmdr. Douglas Huggan, known as Huggie to friends and associates, to Cmdr. Jay Sego in a simple but tradition-steeped ceremony Friday morning.

Huggan, who has a long and illustrious career with the Navy, serving on three continents in five countries and six states, had led NSA Panama City since July 2015. Capt. Stephen Barnett, the chief of staff for the Navys Southeast Region, and retired Navy Capt. Dennis Warren were among a dozen military and local officials on hand to wish Huggan fair winds on his retirement and return to Oklahoma, where he attended the University of Oklahomaand met his wife, Inge, more than 20 years ago.

Huggie has made a really big impact on the community during his command, Barnett said, adding that Huggans name is synonymous with pride in the community.

Warren, who has known Huggan for 17 years after they met at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma, said the Navy and the country as a whole are better because of Huggans service. From a hockey-playing kid from Boston to safely landing a Cessna aircraft with his family on board when its engine seized, to turning a small naval air operation in Japan into a major international airport after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, Warren commended Huggan for his lifetime of dedication and service.

Doug, Warren said, you will now be known as Skipper by those who served with you for the rest of your life.

Sego, who like Huggan is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma, hails originally from Fayetteville, Ark. He comes to Panama City from Duke University, where he was a public policy fellow at the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Defense. He has worked at the Pentagon with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and with legislators developing defense policy. He also has completed numerous deployments during Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, as well as a deployment in the South China Sea.

Im truly and extremely blessed with this opportunity to join Naval Support Activity Panama City, Sego said. Im dedicated to giving you my all.

Sego said he was extremely excited to start working with the talented team at NSA Panama City, saying the bases stellar reputation is well known throughout the country.

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Huggan retires, hands over command of NSA Panama City - The News Herald

Civil Libertarians Seek Intelligence Sharing Agreement From NSA – JD Supra (press release)

Posted on July 15, 2017 by Danzig

On Wednesday, July 5, British nonprofit Privacy International filed suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the National Security Agency (NSA), the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), and other U.S. agencies under the Freedom of Information Act. The suit seeks a copy of the current agreement governing sharing of signals intelligence among the Five Eyes alliance of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. If successful, this request could provide new insight to domestic and overseas privacy advocates on how intercepted information is shared and could influence regulators already wary of the United States practices in this area.

Privacy Internationals suit arises from the long history of signals intelligence sharing between the United States and United Kingdom. In 1946, the countries executed an informal document, titled the United Kingdom-United States Communication Intelligence Agreement (the UKUSA Agreement), committing to share both signals intelligence itself and the techniques used to gather it. In 1955, the parties proposed a restatement of the UKUSA Agreement (which had by that time been joined by Canada, Australia, and New Zealand), and the NSA declassified records from those negotiations in 2010. These documents represent the most recent version of the UKUSA Agreement available to the public.

In its complaint, Privacy International seeks to compel the NSA, the ODNI, the State Department, and the National Archives and Records Administration to provide the text of the UKUSA Agreement now in effect, as well as records on the defendants rules and policies governing their sharing of intelligence gathered from operations relating to foreign communications.The 1955 UKUSA Agreement defines foreign communications to include communications of the Government of a foreign country, or of any person or persons acting or purporting to act therefor, and [redacted] communications originated by nationals of a foreign country which may contain information of value.

Of course, the rise of the Internet has given the NSA and its overseas partners opportunities to gather intelligence in ways not anticipated in 1955, and these new technologies create new difficulties in determining whether participants in a communication are indeed foreign nationals. The same difficulty prompted the enactment of the of the Protect America Act of 2007 and the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, each of which require the United States to take measures to minimize the chance of intercepting communications from U.S. persons. (The complaint likewise requests records describing these minimization procedures.) Privacy International argues that requiring the disclosure of any privacy safeguards mandated by, or implemented under, the current UKUSA Agreement will aid the public in understanding their rights and advocating for any needed improvements.

Updated information on the UKUSA Agreement, if released, could add to the international debate on privacy protections and surveillance. For example, in 2015, the European Court of Justice invalidated the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor, which had permitted the processing of European personal data in the United States due to NSA surveillance programs publicized by Edward Snowden. The Safe Harbors replacement, the Privacy Shield, is itself subject to at least two similar challenges under European law, and the European Commission will conduct its first annual review of the new regime later this year. Even the publicity accompanying Privacy Internationals initial filing could draw attention to the U.S.surveillance practices, which could in turn threaten the Privacy Shields continued viability.

To view a copy of the complaint, click here.

Excerpt from:

Civil Libertarians Seek Intelligence Sharing Agreement From NSA - JD Supra (press release)

The Tell-Tale Heart – Lawfare – Lawfare (blog)

Posted on July 15, 2017 by Danzig

The Internet of Things is a marvel.Cars, medical devices, homes, refrigeratorsall of them now come with silicon chips and data collection, analysis and sharing capabilities. For the most part the enhancements in efficiency, connectivity and cost-reduction make the use of IoT a no-brainer.But lurking in the background are a host of unaddressed issues of cybersecurity, civil liberties, transparency, accountability, and privacy.Today's story of the Tell-Tale Heart lies at the intersection of technology, privacy and criminal law.

According to CNet, Ross Compton's house caught on fire.Notwithstanding his protestations, the authorities came to believe that the fire might have been caused by arson and that Compton had set the fire to collect on the insurancce. So far, a fairly standard case and, presumably (the story does not say) the investigation proceded on normal lines (e.g. looking for accelerants as evidence of arson). Then it took a turn.

You see, Compton has a heart pacemakerone that records data about heart rythms and the like. Compton had told the police that he was awakened from sleep by the start of the fireand an enterprising prosecutor in Butler County Ohio got to thinking that the data from Compton's pacemaker might rebut that claim.They obtained a warrant for the data from Compton's pacemaker. (It is not clear from the various storiessee, here, here, and hereexactly how the evidence was collected, that is whether it was from Compton himself or from his doctor and whether the process served was actually a warrant based on probable cause or a grand jury subpoena.)Using that data, the prosecutor then proffered the testimony from a cardiologist that the information he had reviewed was not consistent with Compton's story. The news of the day is that Compton's motion to supress has been denied and that his trial is scheduled for later this year.

To begin with, it seems to me that the judge's ruling is likely canoncially correct under existing law.Assuming that a warrant was issued based on probable cause, the Fourth Amendment objections seem to lose force.And it has long been the law that a defendant does not have a Fifth Amendment privilege against providing physical evidence that might implicate him in a crime.The Amendment is limited, under Supreme Court doctrine, to compelled testimony. The seminal case on these points, involving blood alcohol, is Schmerber v. California.

This seems, however, to be another instance in which technological development is outstripping the law. Consider the implications of a rule in which the IoT is generally a source of evidence for criminal investigations (or civil suits):

This is a big deal

If data in medical tech can

IoT may stand for: Internet of TremendousEvidenceGoldmine https://t.co/7M8pKnhoNs

Josh Corman (@joshcorman) July 13, 2017

I am not sure what the right answer is here. After all, one can readily imagine any number of circumstances in which evidecne relevant to a crime (or a terrorist incident) might reside in an IoT device.And, at least in the traditional view, if a warrant was actually issued (again, I am not clear from the stories) then Compton's rights got the gold-standard in protection against government abuse. Yet at the same time, this transition feels like a privacy invasion of a different sort than being required to give up fingerprints or even blood. What I do know for sure is that the transition is happening in an unexamined way ... and it strikes me as clear that more thoughtful consideration would benefit everyone.

Continued here:

The Tell-Tale Heart - Lawfare - Lawfare (blog)

Divided COA: Pat-down search did not violate rights – Indiana Lawyer

Posted on July 15, 2017 by Danzig

A divided panel of the Indiana Court of Appeals has affirmed a mans felony and misdemeanor drug and firearm charges after finding the officer who arrested the man did not violate his constitutional rights by stopping him or conducting a pat-down search.

In Louis Bell v. State of Indiana, 49A05-1606-CR-1390, Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Officer Justin Gough observed a man, later identified as Louis Bell, riding a bicycle at 1 a.m. and trailing another bike by holding its handlebars. Gough said Bell appeared to be scanning the area to see if someone was watching him.

State law requires bikes operated at night to have a red rear light and white front light, but Bells bike did not have the appropriate lighting. Thus, when Bell came near the parked police vehicle, Gough asked if he could talk to him, and Bell rode his bike over to the officer.

Though Bell claimed he was not in possession of anything illegal and a search of his name did not yield any warrants, Gough said Bells heart was beating extremely fast and he continued to scan the area as he talked to Gough. Gough observed a bulge in Bells front pocket, and when Bell refused to answer questions about the bulge, the officer conducted a pat-down search and discovered it was a gun.

Bell admitted he did not have a permit to carry the gun, so Gough arrested him and conducted a search incident to arrest. That search led to the discovery of baggies containing substances that Gough believed were cocaine and heroin, a glass pipe and two burnt marijuana cigars.

Bell was charged with various felony and misdemeanor drug and firearm charges, but he filed a motion to suppress the fruits of Goughs search, arguing the pat-down violated his constitutional rights because his encounter with Gough was non-consensual. The Marion Superior Court denied the motion, and Bell was found guilty as charged.

A majority of a panel of the Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed Bells convictions, with Judge Melissa May writing that because Bell was riding a bike in the middle of the night that did not have the required lights, Gough had reasonable suspicion to detain him for a traffic violation.

Further, May wrote for the majority joined by Judge James Kirsch that the pat-down search was permissible under the Fourth Amendment because Bell was behaving nervously and refused to answer questions about the bulge in his pocket, causing Gough to be concerned for his own and the publics safety. Similarly, Bells Article 1 Section 11 rights were not violated because, under Litchfield v. State, 824 N.E.2d 356, 359, the degree of suspicion and law enforcement needs were high, while the intrusion into Bells privacy was low, the majority held.

However, dissenting Judge Margret Robb wrote she would hold the pat-down search did violate Bells Fourth Amendment rights.

Specifically, Robb wrote she did not believe Goughs description of Bells behavior and his refusal to answer Goughs question could support reasonable suspicion that he posed a danger. Further, Gough never actually described the bulge in Bells pocket, so he did not establish a reasonable belief that Bell was hiding a weapon, she said. Thus, after he learned Bell had no outstanding warrants, Gough should have written a traffic citation and let Bell go on his way, she said.

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Divided COA: Pat-down search did not violate rights - Indiana Lawyer

Determining what the Second Amendment means for today – STLtoday.com

Posted on July 15, 2017 by Danzig

Guns seem to be a regular topic in the newspaper, along with references to the Second Amendment, which protects the citizens' right to keep and bear same.

I was curious, so I read it: A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

As a strict constructionist, I would like to advocate for the intent of the writers of this article.

Seems to me that those who keep and bear arms ought to be enrolled in a well regulated militia, currently known as the National Guard or the military reserve. These citizens would be trained and ready should our nation require their services when we are threatened by Native Americans or forces of the British, French or Spanish governments.

We could even designate certain units for advanced training in nuclear weaponry, air combat, operation of a submarine or aircraft carrier, and special ops. We would no longer need a standing military force, since the citizenry would stand ready when needed. This could result in a great savings from the national budget, and allow Medicaid to become a national health care system.

If called, I will gladly bring my bow, arrows and slingshot.

William A. Kaeppel Florissant

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Determining what the Second Amendment means for today - STLtoday.com

Bastille Day reminds us that our Second Amendment debates are distorted – Washington Post

Posted on July 15, 2017 by Danzig

By Noah Shusterman By Noah Shusterman July 14 at 6:00 AM

Noah Shusterman is the author of "The French Revolution: Faith, Desire, and Politics," and is currently researching 18th-century militias. He teaches history at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Every year on July 14, France celebrates its national holiday, commemorating the storming of the Bastille in 1789. The festivities include fireworks, dances and a military procession through Paris.

Ironically, it was fear of the French army that first led Parisians to storm the Bastille. And distant though that event may be in both time and place, Americans should take note: this kind of scenario is why the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution exists. Both those storming the Bastille and those ratifying the Bill of Rights had a genuine fear of a standing army as the enemy of a true republic a fear that shows just how disconnected modern readings of the Second Amendment have become.

[Trump loves a military parade its one reason hes gone to Paris]

Gun rights advocates argue that the founders included the amendment to protect the people from a tyrannical government. To an extent, they are correct. But the founders were concerned about a specific kind of tyranny. They were worried about the same thing that the Parisians were worried about on the eve of the storming of the Bastille: that a despot would order his soldiers to attack the citizens. A citizens militia, by replacing the army, could prevent that scenario from happening.

In recent years, the idea of the Second Amendment as a justification for standing up to the government has become more popular. Todays visions of armed resistance, though, have become unhinged from the Amendments 18th-century moorings, in ways that make appeals to what the founders thought ring hollow. The story of the storming of the Bastille can help, by showing how an 18th-century Second Amendment solution was meant to work and how ideas of military service have changed since the Early Republic.

In early July 1789, Frances National Assembly was less than a month old. It represented a new beginning for a nation accustomed to absolutist rule. When the troops arrived in the region, Parisians believed that the king or someone close to him had ordered them to destroy the Assembly and put an end to Frances Revolution. This, in a nutshell, was the kind of action that the Second Amendment was meant to prevent.

Parisians were unwilling to wait andsee what would happen. On July 12, on the initiative of the citys government, Parisian men began arming and organizing themselves into a militia. In a well-constituted state, one city leader told a town meeting, every citizen is obliged to bear arms in defense of the fatherland.

By the morning of July 14, 1789, tens of thousands of Parisian men had joined the new militia. They seized guns from a Paris arsenal. Lacking gunpowder and ammunition, they attacked the Bastille prison, which had a large supply inside its walls. The storming of the Bastille had begun.

It had begun, moreover, so that the Parisian citizens, organized into a militia and under local government leadership, could fight against Frances professional army. This, in a nutshell, was the Second Amendment solution, tested two months before the Bill of Rights and with it, the Second Amendment would be written, and two years before itwould be added to the Constitution.

To be clear, there was no causal link between the storming of the Bastille and the writing of the U.S. Bill of Rights. Both, though, borrowed from the same groups of ideas. Americans were even more fearful than the French of a standing army of professional career soldiers. For the founders, such an army was incompatible with a free society, because salaried career soldiers were loyal to their leaders, not to the society they served. Kings or generals could order their soldiers to do anything, including marching on the citizens themselves. That Frances king could order his troops into the Paris region seemed to confirm such fears.

How could a society defend itself, though, without relying on professional soldiers? The 18th-century answer to standing armies was the citizens militia, in which all citizens were part-time militiamen. In any other society, freedom existed at the whim of the military leaders, but an armed, trained, and organized society depended only on itself. Hence the militias necessity to a free state.

The Second Amendment said all of this in its first 13 words A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state without spelling it out as explicitly as it might have. Virginias 1776 Bill of Rights made the links clearer: That a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that, in all cases, the military should be under strict subordination to, and be governed by, the civil power. The phrasing was different but the ideas were the same: for a society to be free, there could be no professional army. Citizens had to be soldiers, and soldiers citizens.

At the Bastille, French citizens were putting those ideas into action. Storming the prison began as a means to an end, a way to better prepare Parisians to face off against the army. Once the attackers took over the prison, though, the gunpowder became an afterthought. A multiday celebration began.

Still, the militia formed during the preceding days remained in place. Thomas Jefferson, in France at the time, wrote of 50, or 60,000 men in arms in Paris. The king ordered his soldiers back to the border.

The people, armed, organized and under the leadership of the local government, had stood up to Frances Royal Army, and the king had backed down. This was the kind of resistance to the government that the founders had in mind, and it was a far cry from the kinds of resistance seen or even proposed in the United States today.

Over the past two centuries, changes in public perception of the military have made the original vision of the Second Amendment unrecognizable. The nation has moved away from the mandatory militia service that the founders took from granted. As part-time militia service became unpopular among citizens, Americans came to embrace their professional army, and being a career soldier became the highest form of patriotism.

As a result, it has become harder to understand what these well regulated militias were and why they were necessary for the security of the free state. But the storming of the Bastille serves as a reminder that those who would haul out the founders to defend the modern Second Amendment would do well to remember how much American society has changed since the 1790s.

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Bastille Day reminds us that our Second Amendment debates are distorted - Washington Post

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