The Necessity Of Context In Hip-Hop Censorship – HipHop-N-More (blog)

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I recently sat down to play a game of NBA 2K as I assume most people do on a Friday night when theyre losing yet another battle with writers block. Before I even got into an actual game (where I eventually demolished the Pistons with the Raptors by the way), I heard a familiar voice on the start menu.

Mans never been in Marquee when its shutdown, eh. Trusss mi daddi

The Vine loop that swept the culture. I hadnt even heard Shutdown in 2K17 before this. Being from London, I proceeded to rap Skeptas verse out loud but something was different. The absence of p*ssy in the chorus made me realise that Id never heard the clean version before, a fact Im both disappointed and proud of. Oh well, it made no difference to me, hence the carefree performance that followed in my living room.

But some of the censorship in the first verse caught my attention again, albeit for a different reason. Perplexingly, prison and Gs were both excluded from the vocals.

It reminded me of an infamous Kanye West interview from almost twelve years ago. During a visit to Canadas Flow 93.5, Ye voiced his opinion on the phrase white girl being censored on Gold Digger. He argued that the line when he get on, he leave yo ass for a white girl was less of an insult and more social commentary. An intelligent observation more than a stereotype. The conversation about the video ended up revolving around Ye walking out of the room after being constantly interrupted by DJ Hollywood Rich but the point should not be diminished.

Censorship and Hip-Hop have always had a bizarre relationship. Perhaps its a stigma, perhaps we bring it on ourselves. Perhaps its both. I wholeheartedly comprehend leaving words like n*gga, b*tch and f*ck (and specifically for this song, rolling and smoking) off the radio and other public forums like video games but its also mandatory to look at the context in which they are utilised.

On Shutdown, Skepta raps God knows I dont wanna go prison. Skepta is arguably the biggest rapper from London and despite his success in the US being only recent, he, along with the rest of BBK, has had a dedicated legion of fans for about a decade now. A substantial amount of those fans are impressionable youth who I can guarantee you would benefit infinitely more from hearing him say that he doesnt want to end up in prison than hearing nothing at all.

In the next bar of the song he says me and my Gs aint scared of police. A line that I can understand there being some level of contention about, but also a line that is still relatively harmless when you genuinely try to understand it. Although I think its safe to say that the police situation in America is vastly worse than here in the UK, we do face our own issues and empathise greatly with our brothers and sisters in the States. The line essentially reinforces confidence in the communities that need it and is a positive message well worth spreading.

However, both Gs and police are withheld in the game. Ill start with Gs.

This is one of a few examples of slang getting lost in translation over time. When it first started being used in Hip-Hop, calling someone a G was actually short for calling them a God, not a gangsta. Its one of the many bits of terminology that Hip-Hop adopted directly from the Five-Percent Nation via Wu-Tang, Nas and numerous others. JAY-Z is wearing a Five-Percent chain in the image above. Its a legitimate term of endearment. Come to think of it, the word police getting censored regardless of the context has some comical irony to it.

We have to re-evaluate what were trying to do with censorship. Are we dismissing negative words and messages or are we fearfully cleaning things up to an extent that we oversimplify and are ignorant of the rebellious roots which have been so fundamental in Hip-Hop? When dealing with such complex material, we cannot afford to look through such a narrow scope. Surface level analysation of songs invites surface level songs and vice versa. A vicious cycle. Context is pivotal.

by Akaash Sharma

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The Necessity Of Context In Hip-Hop Censorship - HipHop-N-More (blog)

Facebook: Too Big to Delete – WIRED

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On Wednesday, one day after Facebook announced that 2 billion people use its service every month, ProPublica released a bombshell investigation into the company's hate-speech censorship guidelines. The report included documents revealing that Facebook's rules often end up protecting the rights of those in power over those who are powerless. These two revelations are inextricably entwined, each enabling and necessitating the other.

Facebook is the biggest social network on the planetmore than a quarter of the human race uses its siteprecisely because it so actively censors and curates its community and follows local laws that enable it to exist even in oppressive countries. And because it is so huge, people who most need a platform for expression online cant afford to not be on iteven if that means enduring seemingly arbitrary censorship.

This is the network effect in action. As more people use Facebook, its value increases exponentially. That is especially true for people who don't have other networks through which they can share informationpeople such as dissidents, activists, or minority groups. Now that Facebook is the single biggest network on earth, the price people pay by leaving it is enormous.

Facebook wouldnt like to call themselves a monopoly, because that comes with regulations, but from a lot of perspectives they are the dominant player, says Steven Murdoch, a researcher at University College London. Whether its a corporate monopoly that could be fined by the European Union is a question for another time, but one thing is clear: Facebook is certainly a social monopoly. In order to get an audience, which is what people often want if they are, say, an activist, they need to stay involved with the dominant player. And that is Facebook, Murdoch says. The next most popular social media site worldwide, What's App, is also owned by Facebook. The next most popular non-Facebook-owned social media site in the US is Twitter, which has only 328 million active users. If you want your message to reach the most people, you better post to Facebook.

In order to get that big, Facebook has to be everything to everyone. "The fundamental disconnect is that they are making global rules about protecting groups of people, whose status and relationship with other groups varies locally." says Judith Donath, an expert on online communities at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society.

Appeasing the majority is the middle road Facebook has to walk in order to be a safe enough place for billions of people to want to engage. The mainstreamness and rigidity of Facebook is what lets it get so huge, Donath says. A site like Twitter, which has much laxer rules about hate speech, can never be as big as Facebook because some people find it unsafe or offensive. In fact, it was its "buttoned-up" quality, as ProPublica notes, that allowed Facebook to surpass its earliest rival, MySpace, which allowed more offensive content to proliferate on its site.

According to Facebooks internal documents, in order to systematize the censorship of hate speech so billions of people feel safe, it uses a simple formula: "protected category + attack = hate speech. Protected categories include things like race and gender, but not age. If someone attacks a person who is in a subset of a protected category, Facebook's rules seem to treat them as no longer protected. That results in strange and culturally tone-deaf inconsistencies, such as the revelation that white men are protected from hate speech but black children are not.

When this came to light Wednesday, people on social media quickly expressed their outrage, but few were surprised. Though Facebook hasnt been transparent about its policies, people who have been censored in seemingly arbitrary ways have noticed for years. One of the people Facebook censored, and whom ProPublica highlighted, was poet and Black Lives Matter activist Didi Delgado, who earlier this year published an article on Medium titled Mark Zuckerberg Hates Black People, in which she discussed at length how Facebooks guidelines penalized her and her fellow activists.

"I, like many Black organizers, have taken to maintaining two accountsa primary and a backup. Its infuriating and tedious, but I chalk it up to the Black tax," Delgado wrote. "Since Black organizers are more likely to have their content flagged and removed for 'violating community standards,' weve had to find workarounds to sustain our online presence and engagement."

Delgado is stuck using the same platform that she says hates her precisely so she can maintain that online presence. Even though Delgado uses other networks to reach her audienceMedium, for instance, and Twitter, and Patreonshe hasnt deleted her Facebook account. Neither have any of the other people who ProPublica found had been targeted by Facebook's guidelines. Nor has Damon Young, a writer who says his account was suspended over a post about racism after the police officer who shot Philando Castile was acquitted. When there's robust competitionsay, Uber and Lyft in the ride-sharing marketyou can delete one account in protest of a companys polices and use the other. Not so with Facebook.

Instead, people wait until Facebook turns their accounts back on, and then resume posting. They operate multiple accounts, as Delgado does, knowing that Facebook could suspend one of them at any time.

Murdoch says people often counter that anyone who disagrees with Facebook's policies is free to leave it. But that is a privileged position, he says, coming from people with alternative communication networks. For a large portion of people on Facebookand especially for people whose work is to share informationgiving up Facebook means being less effective at what they do.

Leaving Facebook is always an optionif you don't mind leaving the biggest audience on earth behind, not to mention the platform where most of your friends are. It's a very tough tradeoff, particularly for activists like those discussed in the story, who need access to the biggest possible audience to do their work, says J. M. Berger, a fellow at the International Centre for Counter-TerrorismThe Hague, who studies how people use the internet.

Facebook has all the power in these relationships. When the site first went global, after leaving the siloed dorm rooms of its infancy, Facebook empowered people to tell their side of the story, to have their voices heard outside of the mainstream systems that had otherwise silenced them. Mainstream media doesnt care about your plight? Post directly to Facebook. Dictatorial regime wont let you speak about your hunger, frustration, oppression? Post directly to Facebook. Facebook has been, in some real ways, a way to route around censorship. But as it grows, it is also becoming a censor that forces people to route around it.

One way to do that, now that the guidelines have been made public, is to pick your words carefully. According to the guide, Facebook will consider it hate speech if you write White people suck, but not if you write White people on the internet suck. Your other option is to post to smaller sites. A tweet may not get you the 2 billion-person audience of Facebook, but it might get your words out there.

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Facebook: Too Big to Delete - WIRED

Censorship – Southside Pride

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BY TONY BOUZA

Humans learned the importance of controlling the extremes of other humans very early onabout contemporaneous with learning of the efficiency and importance of conveying their messages and controlling behavior. Artists were called the antenna of the race by a poet who saw them as key definers of our nature and prospects. The Nazis burned books. A free press is the embodiment of our democratic ideals and the greatest adornment of our societynotwithstanding an idiot presidents definition of a free press as an enemy of the people. Ibsen cringes. And that is why the Walker Art Centers decision to dismantle and burn The Scaffold is so dismaying, whether they actually go through with the burning or not. Artists promote debates and provoke discussions. Without them our society would be a barren, sterile place. The Scaffold was intended to illustrate both the folly and cruelty of man, when driven by dumb passions and un-surrendered prejudices. How can we combat our ignorance without guidance? The position of the Dakota Native American community that The Scaffold be dismantled and burned is an uninformed act of censorship. The Walkers craven surrender to intimidation simply fuels right-wing extremists contempt for political correctness. And what a great example of intellectual flaccidness it is. The creator of The Scaffold transferred the intellectual property rights to the sculpture to the Dakotas, who seem to be entertaining second thoughts about burning the artwork. As with the pipelinea faint whiff of extortion permeated the backdrop.* [see Editors Note below] Last winter we saw the Native Americans demonstrate against a pipeline in North Dakota despite its operators having secured all needed permits and despite the fact that it touched no Native Americans lands. It looked to me like an attempt to secure something through the interruption of construction. Despite the fact that it is both safer and cheaper to transport fuels through pipelines than truck or rail. The demonstrators were doused by fire hoses, very likely creating grotesque versions of ice sculptures. A cruel and unnecessary response by the authorities. Arrests were legitimate. Acts of gratuitous cruelty and repression were not. Such events raise critical and fundamental questions relating to moral courage. If the emperors naked, why not just say so? A totally fraught element was recently introduced when NBC anchor Megyn Kelly interviewed Alex Jones. The guest holds that the killing of 20 children in Connecticuts Sandy Hook elementary school was a media hoax. His assertions triggered the febrile right to call the victims families with threats and imprecations. It is in its very ugliness and emotion that the test of freedom is forged. Sympathies flow to the families. Antipathy is aboil for the conspiracy theorist Jonesa friend of President Trumps. Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make ye free. That is all we know and all we need to know. [Editors Note: Im sure Tony knows that all political acts of resistance are, in some way, acts of extortionwhether it was Thoreau in a Concord jail or Martin Luther King in a Birmingham Jail. But the greatest extortionist of all time must have been Mahatma Gandhi. His hunger strikes held the holiest man in India hostage, and he threatened to kill him if the British did not surrender India.]

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Censorship - Southside Pride

Juan Williams: The land of free speech – The Hill

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Conservatives are right to skewer liberals as snowflakes who need to go back to their safe spaces when the left starts promoting codes that limit free speech.

That critique is largely aimed at college students who dont want to listen to controversial speakers.

In our politically divided nation, it is too often being left to big corporations to decide the limits of acceptable political speech.

And those companies are concluding that defending free speech is not worth their time if it damages their brand and their stock price.

On this Independence Day, ask yourself what the authors of the Declaration of Independence men heavily influenced by the works of Shakespeare and Roman philosophers might have said about corporate sponsors like Delta and Bank of America pulling their support for the Public Theaters production of Julius Caesar in New York City.

Those big companies ran away from free speech and artistic freedom when far-right talk radio and websites produced a swarm of social media outrage suggesting that the assassination of a Trump-like Caesar could promote violence against the real President Trump.

Top executives at those companies failed to notice that the play was written in 1599. They also ignored that a recent production of the play had the lead character played by a black actor who looked and acted a lot like President Obama. He, too, was assassinated. Yet no sponsors pulled their financial support from that show.

But in these politically polarized days, the billion-dollar brands are skittish about being trolled online by provocateurs on the right and left.

By the way, the takeaway from that play is a warning that stands the test of time about the danger of political violence and its unintended consequences.

The same dynamic featuring big corporations instead of citizens deciding the limits of free speech is now also at play in the fight over the value of opinion shows presented on our ideologically divided media outlets.

The right and the left now press big companies to pull advertising from media personalities with whom they disagree.

They are counting on timid executives to focus only on their profits without giving a thought to the basic American tenet of free speech.

I am not asking corporations to spend a dime on the racists, the women-haters, the gay-bashers, liars or people calling for violence. They deserve to be shunned.

But lets stop and consider how corporate bosses with the power of their advertising dollars have taken charge of determining acceptable speech in America.

Last month, I took my family to the Washington D.C. Capital Pride Parade.

The parade was the biggest and best in years. It was a rainbow-flag-waving celebration of the progress made by the LGBT community in terms of marriage equality and broad social acceptance.

Several parade watchers pointed out to me that some of the corporations whose logos were now proudly placed on floats had not long ago fired those who were open about their homosexuality.

More than a few of these companies stood silent as states passed anti-gay laws. They thought standing up for equal rights might be bad business.

But as the culture shifted on gay rights, those same corporations hopped on the rainbow bandwagon.

Isee the critics point.

But just as the Supreme Court changed the laws to protect gay marriage, I am glad to see corporations take a stand for individual rights.

The heart of the issue is sincerity. Are these firms sincere in promoting gay rights or do they have their fingers in the air, checking comments on social media and fearing for their stock price with no regard for the principle of protecting constitutional rights, even when they are unpopular?

Controversy about free speech on a politically sensitive subject is a storm I know all too well.

Seven years ago, I was fired by NPR for telling Bill OReilly, then of Fox News, that since the September 11 attacks I get nervous whenever I see people dressed in Muslim garb boarding an airplane.

By acknowledging my personal fears, I was pointing out the need to speak freely and have honest debate in a time of crisis. I was making the case for tolerance and for avoiding the kind of fear-mongering that might lead to zoning restrictions against a particular religions house of worship.

My point was this: Giving voice to hidden fears allows for clear thinking and full-throated discussion. This, in turn, can prevent a free people from falling into the same kind of policy mistakes seen in the past the setting up of internment camps for Japanese-Americans during the Second World War, for example.

But the argument was lost on the politically correct crowd who quickly labeled me an anti-Muslim bigot. They didnt like the idea that I work at Fox News, engaging in debate with its conservative personalities, either.

Many people on the right and the left only want to hear news and opinion that confirms their pre-existing point of view.

And they are willing to demonize opposing views. Often dangerously they even try to silence them.

This July 4, liberals and conservatives We the People, not big business, need to find common ground in defense of honest debate and its life blood, free speech.

Free speech can lead to revolution. But we are a nation born of revolution. And the greatest gift of our founders remains the right to speak out.

Juan Williams is an author, and a political analyst for Fox News Channel.

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

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Juan Williams: The land of free speech - The Hill

Facebook fights US gag order that it says chills free speech – Reuters

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By David Ingram and Dustin Volz | SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON

SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON Facebook Inc (FB.O) is challenging a gag order from a U.S. court that is preventing the company from talking about three government search warrants that it said pose a threat to freedom of speech, according to court documents.

Facebook said it wants to notify three users about the search warrants seeking their communications and information and also give those users an opportunity to object to the warrants, according to a filing in a Washington, D.C., appeals court seen by Reuters.

"We believe there are important First Amendment concerns with this case, including the government's refusal to let us notify three people of broad requests for their account information in connection with public events," Facebook said in a statement on Monday.

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees certain rights including freedom of speech.

William Miller, a spokesman for U.S. prosecutors, declined to comment.

Facebook decided to challenge the gag order around the three warrants because free speech was at stake and because the events underlying the government's investigation were generally known to the public already, Facebook said in the undated court document.

The precise nature of the government's investigation is not known. One document in the case said the timing of proceedings coincides with charges against people who protested President Donald Trump's inauguration in January.

More than 200 people were arrested in Washington the day Trump was sworn in. Masked activists threw rocks at police, and multiple vehicles were set on fire.

Tech firms comply with thousands of requests for user data annually made by governments around the world, but in extraordinary circumstances, companies such as Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) and Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) have challenged government secrecy orders.

Facebook recently fought a secrecy order related to a disability fraud investigation, losing in April in New York state's highest court.

Companies and privacy advocates argue that gag orders rely on outdated laws and are applied too often, sometimes indefinitely, to bar them from notifying customers about government requests for their private online data. Facebook says about half of U.S. requests are accompanied by a non-disclosure order prohibiting it from notifying affected users.

In April, a local judge in Washington denied Facebook's request to remove the gag order there, according to the document. Facebook is appealing and has preserved the relevant records pending the outcome, the document said.

"The government can only insulate its actions from public scrutiny in this way in the rarest circumstances, which likely do not apply here," said Andrew Crocker, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit group that advocates for digital rights.

Facebook is getting support in court papers from several organizations including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union, as well as eight tech companies such as Microsoft and Apple Inc (AAPL.O).

The District of Columbia Court of Appeals, which is the highest court in Washington for local matters, is scheduled to hear the case in September, according to an order obtained by BuzzFeed News, which first reported Facebook's challenge to the gag order on Monday.

(Reporting by David Ingram in San Francisco and Dustin Volz in Washington; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

SAN FRANCISCO Microsoft will undergo a reorganization that will impact its sales and marketing teams, company executives told employees on Monday.

BEIJING/SHANGHAI China's latest maneuver in a sweeping crackdown on internet content has sent a chill through a diverse community of filmmakers, bloggers, media and educators who fear their sites could be shut down as Beijing tightens control. Over the last month, Chinese regulators have closed celebrity gossip websites, restricted what video people can post and suspended online streaming, all on grounds of inappropriate content.

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Facebook fights US gag order that it says chills free speech - Reuters

We celebrate America’s commitment to free speech – Orlando Sentinel

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The United States is an exceptional nation in many respects. This fact cuts both ways. It shouldnt spare us from others criticism or our own soul-searching about any of our peculiar national excesses or injustices. Asserting that we are special isnt the same as saying were perfect.

But as our letters to the editor remind us today, our countrys 241st birthday, there is much to celebrate about being an American.

High on our list is the guarantee of free speech found in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This amendment, adopted in 1791, includes the immortal words that bar Congress from passing any law abridging the freedom of speech. Subsequent court decisions extended that prohibition to all other levels of government. Its the foundation for another First Amendment guarantee, freedom of the press. But free speech is a blessing enjoyed by all Americans, not just by those who buy their ink by the barrel full.

In his 2017 book The Soul of the First Amendment, lawyer Floyd Abrams wrote that while other nations promise free expression, America does so more often, more intensely, and more controversially than is true elsewhere. The U.S. is an outlier when it comes to protecting free speech, according to Abrams. Thats a good thing. It means Americans are at liberty more than just about anyone else in the world to speak their minds. Speech that would invite official harassment, imprisonment or worse in many countries is protected in the United States.

U.S. courts have consistently ruled that Americas constitutional guarantee of free speech doesnt allow the government to exclude views deemed to be erroneous or offensive. This principle was reiterated just last month in a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned a government decision to withhold trademark protection from a dance-rock band whose name is a racial slur for Asians. In the majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito wrote, "Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free-speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express 'the thought that we hate' a memorable phrase first used by legendary Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in a 1929 dissent.

Expansive protection for free speech reflects a radical faith, dating back to the Founding Fathers, that Americans can be trusted to sift through ideas for themselves. The primary author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, reaffirmed this faith when he founded the University of Virginia in 1820: For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it. Holmes, writing more than a century later, wrote the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.

In the 21st century, this faith in the wisdom of the American people and the free marketplace of ideas is not always shared by partisan media outlets. And its withering at some universities under pressure from students and faculty who object to providing a forum for contrary views a hazard that Jeffersons current successor as head of the University of Virginia, Teresa A. Sullivan, warned about in a speech earlier this year: The danger in shutting out viewpoints that differ from our own is that we create a personal echo chamber in which our deeply held beliefs are continually reinforced by those who share those beliefs.

Beware of that echo chamber. Dont shun the debate join it. Bear in mind the words of another high court justice, John Marshall Harlan, who wrote in a 1971 case, That the air may at times seem filled with verbal cacophony is not a sign of weakness but of strength.

Honor the nation and the faith of its founders, today and every day, by embracing free speech yours and your fellow Americans.

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We celebrate America's commitment to free speech - Orlando Sentinel

A Modern Day Inquisition: Rabbi Joseph Dweck – The Jewish Press – JewishPress.com

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Photo Credit: Courtesy

It is most disturbing that for the second time in almost 315 years the celebrated S&P (Spanish and Portuguese Jewish community of London), an affiliate of its mother synagogue in Amsterdam (of which many of my ancestors have been members for generations), is at the center of a major eruption within Orthodox Judaism due to the small-mindedness and deliberate misinterpretation of their rabbis views by some of his colleagues.

On the 20th of November 1703, the venerable Chacham David Nieto (1654-1728), chief rabbi of the S&P and a great Talmudic scholar, philosopher, mathematician, and author of his remarkable magnum opus, Matteh Dan, was accused of being a secret follower of the Dutch, Jewish, Portuguese-Spanish world class philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), who had turned his back on Judaism and declared that God was transcendent but not immanent, denying His involvement in the affairs of humankind and even His being the Creator of the universe. This doctrine, called pantheism, also suggests that God is not a Personality to Whom we are able to speak, or Who can reveal Himself to humankind through some type of verbal communication.

Chacham Nieto, in an attempt to refute deism (a very popular belief among philosophers of his time), which teaches that the living God created the universe but is no longer involved in it or in the affairs of humankind, said that God and nature are one and the same. By this he meant to say that God is not only transcendent but also immanent and, as such, deeply involved in the world. Unfortunately, he used the same words that Spinoza had used to explain his pantheistic views: God and nature are the same. Misunderstanding Chacham Nietos words, the Maamad (lay leadership of the S&P) thought that he was supporting Spinozas pantheism. They accused him of heresy and wanted to fire him. When this matter came to a head, shaking the foundations of the community, with far-reaching consequences for its future and for Judaism in general, they wisely decided to ask the opinion of the world-famous Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Ashkenazi (c.1660-1718), also called the Chacham Tzvi, the former chief rabbi of the Ashkhenazic community in Amsterdam who was then living in Altona, Germany. The rabbi convened his beit din, studied all the relevant material from both sides, and vindicated Chacham Nieto completely, telling the leaders of the S&P that they had misunderstood their rabbi and that he must continue as their religious leader (1). This ended a most unfortunate controversy and dangerous development within Judaism.

Now, more than 300 years later, a new scandal with major ramifications is again erupting around the S&P this time, regarding a lecture on homosexuality given by its venerable Senior Rabbi Joseph Dweck. In this case, however, it is not the lay leaders of the S&P who accuse their rabbi of heresy (in fact, they are standing with him) but some influential rabbis in England and abroad who felt the need to accuse Rabbi Dweck of heresy. In a tirade of mostly meaningless words, they attacked his integrity, faith and scholarship, calling him a wicked person and using even worse descriptions. By doing so, they showed ignorance, bias and self-interest and, above all, as in the case of Chacham Nieto, they completely and probably deliberately misinterpreted what the rabbi said.

In this remarkable lecture at the Ner Yisrael Synagogue, where the congregation is led by my dear friend Rabbi Dr. Avraham (Alan) Kimche, Rabbi Dweck presented an entirely new way of understanding homosexuality. Drawing on non-Jewish historical sources, he explained that homosexuality was an accepted lifestyle in the ancient non-Jewish world and, quoting many Jewish classical sources, he then specified what the prohibition of homosexuality in Halacha is all about and what is not prohibited in a same-sex, male loving relationship. He presented the different points of view and their nuances, and expressed the idea that current Western attitudes toward sexuality force traditional Judaism to rethink some of its core values, as it has always done when challenged. While it is true that Rabbi Dweck used some unfortunate phrases in the heat of his argument (What speaker doesnt, from time to time?), nothing that he said was outside the boundaries of established Halacha.

In fact, much of what he argued had already been said by Rabbi Chaim Rapoport, a great halachic scholar in London, in his well-known book Judaism and Homosexuality: An Authentic Orthodox View,for which I wrote an approbation and which carries a foreword by Emeritus Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks and a preface by the late Dayan Berel Berkovits of the Beth Din of the (Orthodox) Federation of Synagogues in London.

However, that didnt stop Rabbi Dwecks rabbinical opponents from deliberately misrepresenting him. Nothing but fear, lack of knowledge about homosexuality, and personal (not so kosher) reasons seem to have motivated them.

One rabbi felt the need to scrutinize all of Rabbi Dwecks lectures from the time he came to live in London a witch hunt of sorts looking for possible mistakes the rabbi may have made in earlier lectures so as to undermine his reputation, as if no Orthodox rabbis ever make mistakes in some of their rulings. He completely ignored the fact that Rabbi Dweck comes from a different Sefardic-Syrian tradition with its own (halachic) practices and religious outlook on life.

Rabbi Dweck is married to the granddaughter of Chacham Ovadia Yosef, zl, former chief rabbi of Israel. But that didnt prevent the current Chief Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef and his brother Rabbi David Yosef both sons of Rav Ovadia from refusing to see him (their own nephew) when he asked for a meeting. In fact, both wrote a letter to the Sefardic communities of New York and New Jersey condemning Rabbi Dweck (while never mentioning his name!) and asking for his dismissal, thereby showing lamentable small-mindedness, a lack of general knowledge, and ignorance of the Jewish religious philosophical tradition.

I have been told by reliable sources that by now Rabbi Dwecks weekly lectures have been cancelled and his former lectures removed from the Internet. Not only is this a grave injustice but it greatly harms his remarkable and most successful influence in London and beyond, in bringing people closer to our holy Torah.

The great danger of this unfortunate affair is not just the controversy surrounding Rabbi Dweck. More than anything else, it is an indication of where British or perhaps all European Orthodoxy is heading. When Orthodox rabbis are told that they are no longer able to speak their minds, offer new insights into Orthodox Judaism, or try to find solutions to serious problems by using innovative ideas, we are faced with a rabbinical world that is wearing blinders, is comprised of yes-people looking over their shoulders, and is generating a hazardous small-mindedness that has far-reaching effects.

Sure, there have always been differences of opinion within Rabbinic Judaism. This is healthy, and Judaism has only benefitted from it. But this was always done in a framework of well-informed argument and discussion, not in tirades of meaningless and hateful statements.

One of the biggest problems of current mainstream Orthodoxy is that it believes it is always right, knows all the sources, and doesnt need to be apprised of new information coming from our traditional sources. The consequences are that it is rewriting Orthodoxy in ways that sometimes make authentic Judaism unrecognizable.

What rabbis like those attacking Rabbi Dweck do not realize is that they are slowly but surely becoming irrelevant. They may be great Talmudic scholars, but instead of using their exceptional knowledge to make Orthodox Judaism more and more vibrant, they drown in it and become stuck in the quicksand of intransigence, which they themselves have created.

The danger is that in their stubbornness they take down all of British Orthodoxy, which seems to be unaware or too immature to understand what is happening.

The task of great rabbis is to jump aboard the sinking ship of Orthodoxy, with knives between their teeth, ensuring that a fearless Judaism, in full sail and in full force, will sail the ship of Torah into the midst of the sea of our lives.

I call on:

The venerable British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis and his beit din to unequivocally condemn the attacks on Rabbi Dweck and stand staunchly behind him;

Emeritus Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks to join Rabbi Mirvis in this endeavor;

My dear friend Rabbi Dr. Alan Kimche to resume Rabbi Dwecks lectures in his community without further delay;

The relevant parties to restore Rabbi Dwecks lectures on the Internet;

The S&P to continue to show courage and to oppose with full force any attempt to fire Rabbi Dweck and/or discredit him;

The New York and New Jersey communities to immediately invite Rabbi Dweck to be their scholar in residence again;

Chief Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef, Rabbi David Yosef, and other rabbis to cease harassing Rabbi Dweck and subjecting him to a meaningless inquisition; to begin listening to what he has actually been saying; and to stop the witch hunt, which has no place in authentic Orthodox Judaism.

And I call on Rabbi Dweck himself to continue leading and inspiring the S&P with pride and self-confidence and spreading Torah wherever possible. Let him not forget the wise words of Jonathan Swift: Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent (2).

Let us hope that this story will end in the same way as did the attack on Chacham Nieto, once again proving the power of Judaism when confronted with the lamentable closing of current rabbinic minds.

*****

(1) See ResponsaChacham Tzvi, responsum # 18 (Amsterdam, 1712). See also: Jakob J. Petuchowsky, The Theology of Haham David Nieto: An Eighteenth Century Defence of the Jewish Tradition (NY: KTAV Publishing House, 1970).

(2) From Swifts satirical essay, Various Thoughts, Moral and Diverting, first appeared in Miscellanies in Prose and Verse (Leicester, UK: Scolar Press, 1711).

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A Modern Day Inquisition: Rabbi Joseph Dweck - The Jewish Press - JewishPress.com

Religious people are more tolerant, open-minded than atheists, new study reveals – TheBlaze.com

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A new study has upended long-held assumptions that religious people are more closed-minded and intolerant than atheists.

The study, conducted byDr. Filip Uzarevic, a researcher at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium, revealed that while atheists might consider themselves open-minded than religious folk, they are actually less tolerant of differing opinions.

The main message of the study is that closed-mindedness is not necessarily found only among the religious, Uzarevic told PsyPost.

Uzarevics analysis determined that religious believers seem to better perceive and integrate diverging perspectives. The study revealed, though, thatthelevel of closed-mindedness depends on the issue at hand.

The nonreligious compared to the religious seemed to be less closed-minded when it came to explicitly measured certainty in ones beliefs, he said. However, and somewhat surprisingly, when it came to subtly-measured inclination to integrate views that were diverging and contrary to ones own perspectives, it was the religious who showed more openness.

The paper,whichexplored whether atheists are undogmatic, claims that nonbelievers measured lower than religious people in self-reported dogmatism but were actually rated higher in subtly-measured intolerance.

The idea started, Uzarevic explained, through noticing that, in public discourse, despite both the conservative/religious groups and liberal/secular groups showing strong animosity toward the opposite ideological side, somehow it was mostly the former who were often labeled as closed-minded.

Moreover, he continued, such view of the secular being more tolerant and open seemed to be dominant in the psychological literature.

The study also revealed that the strength of a persons belief in religion or atheism directly impacts just how tolerant or intolerant they are.

Researchers surveyed 788 adults from the United Kingdom, Spain, and France. The majority of participants identified as atheists (302). The next largest group was Christians (255), then agnostics (143), Muslims (17), Buddhists (17), and Jews (3). Fifty-one described themselves as other.

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Religious people are more tolerant, open-minded than atheists, new study reveals - TheBlaze.com

God’s own country – Qantara.de – Qantara.de

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Despite constant warnings issued by Saudi religious authorities about the dangers of atheism, which is, according to them, tantamount to not believing in God, many citizens in the kingdom are turning their backs on Islam. Among other things, perhaps what is primarily driving Saudis to abandon their religion is the countrys strict and dehumanising codex of Islamic law coupled with easy access to information and mass communication. Unfortunately, those who are open about their atheism find themselves harshly punished or forced to live double lives.

Just recently Saudi Arabia sentenced another atheist to death for uploading a video renouncing Islam. The man was identified as Ahmad Al-Shamri, in his 20s, from the town of Hafar Al-Batin, a village located in Saudi Arabias eastern province. In the video, Al-Shamri renounces Islam and makes disparaging remarks about the prophet Muhammad.

Saudi authorities first picked him up in 2014 after he uploaded a series of videos reflecting his views on social media, which led to him being charged with atheism and blasphemy.

With leaving Islam punishable by death in Saudi Arabia, the countrys Supreme Court, which ruled against Al-Shamri on 25 April 2017, has effectively already pronounced the death sentence. Although court proceedings dealing with blasphemy, atheism or homosexuality may last for months, the sentence is far more likely to be known in advance.

Riyadh introduced a series of laws in 2014 criminalising those who spread atheist thought or question the fundamentals of the Islamic religion. According to Amnesty International Global Report on death sentences and executions, Saudi Arabia has scored 154+ executions, in which the death penalty was imposed after proceedings that did not meet international fair trial standards. In January 2017, an unnamed Yemeni man living in Saudi Arabia was reportedly charged with apostasy and sentenced to 21 years in prison for insulting Islam on his Facebook page.

In November 2016, Indian migrant worker Shankar Ponnam reportedly was sentenced to four months in prison and a fine of 1,195 for sharing a picture of the Hindu god Shiva sitting atop the Kaaba on Facebook.

In November 2015, Palestinian poet and artist Ashraf Fayadh was sentenced to death for apostasy for allegedly questioning religion and spreading atheist thought in his poetry. His sentence was reduced to eight years in prison and 800 lashes to be administered on 16 occasions.

In 2014, Raif Badawi was also convicted of blasphemy for creating a website dedicated to fostering debate on religion and politics. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1000 lashes.

In 2012, the journalist Hamza Kashgari was accused of blasphemy after he posted a string of tweets. He was captured in Malaysia and brought back to the kingdom. No further information about his case has surfaced since.

Atheists are terrorists

In 2014, Saudi Arabia introduced a series of new laws in the form of royal decrees, which define atheists as terrorists. The new royal provisions define terrorism as calling for atheist thought in any form, or calling into question the fundamentals of the Islamic religion on which Saudi Arabia is based.

Conflating atheism and terrorism has become official in Saudi Arabia, by which non-believers who commit thought crimes are the same as violent terrorists.

Article 4 of the kingdoms laws on terrorism states: Anyone who aids [terrorist] organisations, groups, currents [of thought], associations, or parties, or demonstrates affiliation with them, or sympathy with them, or promotes them, or holds meetings under their umbrella, either inside or outside the kingdom; this includes participation in audio, written, or visual media; social media in its audio, written, or visual forms; internet websites; or circulating their contents in any form, or using slogans of these groups and currents [of thought], or any symbols which point to support or sympathy with them.

In a programme named UpFront on Al Jazeera America, Saudi Ambassador to the UN, Abdallah Al-Mouallimi explains why advocating atheism in Saudi Arabia is considered a terrorist offence.

Al-Mouallimi says that atheists are deemed terrorists in his country because in Saudi Arabia, we are a unique country.

We are the birthplace of Islam, he adds. We are the country that hosts the two holiest sites for Muslims in Mecca and Medina. We are the country that is based on Islamic principles and so forth. We are a country that is homogeneous in accepting Islam by the entire population. Any calls that challenge Islamic rule or Islamic ideology is considered subversive in Saudi Arabia and would be subversive and could lead to chaos.

If he [an atheist] was disbelieving in God, and keeping that to himself, and conducting himself, nobody would do anything or say anything about it. If he is going out in the public, and saying, I dont believe in God, thats subversive. He is inviting others to retaliate, Al-Mouallimi elaborates.

Countermeasures

The president of the Centre for Middle East Studies in Riyadh, Anwar Al-Ashqi, does not see the authorities adoption of these laws as a suppression of freedoms. While he believes that atheism as an independent thought is positive, it may become negative and require legal accountability if it aims to transform the traditional nature of the Saudi society, triggering communal strife and challenging the established religion. The state in this case, according to him, has the right to outlaw this type of atheism and declare it an aspect of terrorism.

Similar to other Gulf States, Saudi Arabia perceives atheism as a threat that needs to be eliminated. There have therefore been several conferences, trainings and workshops in recent years aimed at immunising society, especially the youth, against atheist ideas. Saudi Arabia has established the Yaqeen Centre at The Al-Madina University Department of the Study of Faith and Religions. Yaqeen Centre, which means certainty, specialises in combatting atheistic and non-religious tendencies. The centres vision is to achieve leadership in countering atheism and non-religiosity locally and globally. What this centre actually does remains unclear.

In October 2016, the Saudi Ministry of Education launched a government programme called Immunity in schools to inoculate children against Westernisation, atheism, liberalism and secularism.

Atheists in the Kingdom?

In 2012, a poll by WIN-Gallup International (Global Index of Religiosity and Atheism) found that almost a quarter of people interviewed in Saudi Arabia described themselves as not religious and of those 5 to 9% declared themselves to be convinced atheists. Extrapolating that figure on a national scale suggests there are about 1.4 million atheists living in Saudi Arabia. This of course excludes all work migrants from different parts of the world, who might already be non-believers.

Of all Arabic-speaking countries, even those known for their secular leanings such as Tunisia and Lebanon, the percentage of people who believe they are convinced atheists is the highest in Saudi Arabia.

However, these figures contradict the ones released by the Egyptian Fatwa observatory of Dar al-Iftaa Al-Missriyyah in 2014, in which only 174 atheists are thought to be living in Saudi Arabia. It remains a mystery how this number could be so accurate.

Scientifically speaking, there are no official figures about the number of atheists in Saudi Arabia because it is very difficult to conduct a research about such a sensitive topic. However, there are several pages for atheists sweeping the Internet such as Saudis without religion, Spreading atheism in Saudi, and Saudi secular, which indicate that there are some atheist activities despite all restrictions. It is difficult to determine whether these pages operate from within the kingdom or from outside.

On Twitter, the most widely used site in Saudi Arabia, over 20,000 Saudis reacted to topics related to the spread of atheism in Saudi Arabia. Voices advocating the rights of atheists appeared only very rarely compared to the ones affirming demanding persecution of atheists in the kingdom.

It must be noted that most accounts in Saudi Arabia hide behind fake names to avoid prosecution. A Saudi young man, 28, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison, 2,000 lashes and 4.780 fine after being convicted of publishing more than 600 atheist tweets.

Many Saudis say the presence of atheists in Saudi Arabia is like any other country, but their number in the kingdom is negligible compared to millions of Saudis who are adherents of Islam as a religion and as a law applied by their state in the finest details of life.

Hakim Khatib

mpc-journal.org/Qantara.de 2017

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God's own country - Qantara.de - Qantara.de

First Gaia Symposium scheduled for July 7-9 in Weed – Mount Shasta Herald

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The first Gaia Symposium (Conscious Evolution) is scheduled for July 7, 8 and 9 in the Kenneth Ford Theater at College of the Siskiyous in Weed.

Mount Shasta resident Jonathon Shalomar said he and other members of Awake Within The Dream Productions are putting on the event, which features speakers, a concert, and after-symposium workshops on July 10 and 11 in Mount Shasta.

Dr. Bruce Lipton, one of two keynote speakers, is a cell biologist and lecturer and author of The Biology of Belief and The Honeymoon Effect. In 2009 he received the Goi Peace Award in honor of his pioneering work in the field of new biology, which has contributed to a greater understanding of life and empowered many people to take control of their own lives.

Symposium presentations are scheduled from 9 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. daily.

The list of presenters, according to information submitted by Shalomar, includes:

Dr. Bruce Lipton Keynote Speaker

Tricia McCannon Keynote Speaker

Jamye Price

William WhiteCrow

Ron Amitron

Michael Cremo

Stephanie South

Dr. Paul Drouin

Grace

Eostar and Mathias Special Concert

Many of the presenters, according to Shalomar, will be giving an extra workshop, and those tickets will be sold separately from the symposium.

Tickets for the symposium are available on the website: http://www.awakewithinthedreamproductions.com and at Soul Connections in Mount Shasta.

The price of the full three-day event ticket is $199 per person.

Limited ticket sales for Fridays Gaia Symposium opening day are available at a marked down rate of $25.

Daily tickets and workshop tickets are also available.

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First Gaia Symposium scheduled for July 7-9 in Weed - Mount Shasta Herald

‘NotPetya’ malware attacks could warrant retaliation, says Nato researcher – The Guardian

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While a cyberattack can trigger an armed response from Nato, Minrik cautioned that the damage caused by NotPetya in Ukraine and elsewhere was not sufficient for such an escalation. Photograph: Barbara Walton/EPA

The NotPetya malware that wiped computers at organisations including Maersk, Merck and the Ukrainian government in June could count as a violation of sovereignty, according to a legal researcher at Natos cybersecurity division.

If the malware outbreak was state-sponsored, the Nato researcher says, it could open the possiblity of countermeasures. Those could come through retaliatory cyber--attacks, or more conventional means such as sanctions, but they must fall short of a military use of force.

Tom Minrik, a researcher at the organisations Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence in Tallinn, Estonia, made the comments after the Centre concluded that the malware outbreak, which overwhelmingly hit Ukraine but also affected more than 60 other countries, can most likely be attributed to a state actor.

While a cyber-attack can trigger an armed response from Nato, Minrik cautioned that the damage caused by NotPetya was not sufficient for such an escalation. The law of armed conflict applies only if a cyber-attack causes damage with consequences comparable to an armed attack, during an ongoing international armed conflict, but so far there are reports of neither, he said.

However, Minrik, added, as important government systems have been targeted, then in case the operation is attributed to a state this could count as a violation of sovereignty. Consequently, this could be an internationally wrongful act, which might give the targeted states several options to respond with countermeasures.

A countermeasure is any state response which would be illegal in typical circumstances, but can be authorised as a reaction to an internationally wrongful act by another state. A hack back response, for instance, could be a countermeasure, but Nato says that such responses do not necessarily have to be conducted by cyber means; they cannot, however, affect third countries, nor can they amount to a use of force.

The suspicion that NotPetya so called because the malware is superficially similar to an earlier ransomware variant called Petya may be the work of a state sponsored actor arose shortly after the outbreak began in late June.

While the malware appears to be ransomware (a type of program which holds critical files hostage in exchange for payment), it contained several flaws that prevented it from ever being an effective moneymaker for its creators. Among other things, the payment infrastructure was tied to one email address outside their control, which was promptly blocked by the webmail provider, preventing victims form ever receiving their decryption key and unlocking their files.

But the malware, which was overwhelmingly seeded to victims through a compromised Ukrainian accounting program, did function well as a wiper, designed simply to render systems unusable and cause economic damage. It spread rapidly inside business networks, using a combination of exploits stolen from the NSA and more common weaknesses in older versions of Windows, ensuring that whole organisations found themselves unable to operate for days on end.

Unlike WannaCry, an earlier piece of ransomware also suspected of being the work of state-sponsored attackers (in that case, explicitly linked to North Korea by intelligence agencies including the NSA and GCHQ), NotPetya did not contain any functionality enabling it to spread unconstrained across the internet, limiting the vast majority of its damage to those organisations directly infected by the compromised accounting software.

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'NotPetya' malware attacks could warrant retaliation, says Nato researcher - The Guardian

US cyber warrior begins NATO job as Trump pressures alliance – Stars and Stripes

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Stars and Stripes
US cyber warrior begins NATO job as Trump pressures alliance
Stars and Stripes
Kevin Scheid, a veteran of the U.S. Department of Defense, became head on July 1 of the NATO Communications and Information Agency, which runs the electronic networks of the 29-nation alliance. NCI Agency spends about $1.1 billion a year to ensure ...

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US cyber warrior begins NATO job as Trump pressures alliance - Stars and Stripes

NATO and Cyberwar: Will Britain Invoke Article 5? – American Spectator

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On November 19, 1919, Congress rejected the Versailles Treaty ending World War I and with it the charter of the League of Nations which was a key part of it. Principal among the reasons for the treatys rejection was a provision that committed the United States, along with the other members of the League, to the mutual defense of any member that was attacked militarily. Because treaties are the supreme law of the land second only to the Constitution Congress refused to surrender its power to declare war.

Almost thirty years later, Congress ratified the NATO Treaty despite the fact that Article 5 of that treaty contains the same mutual defense commitment. By ratifying that treaty, Congress declared war pre-emptively against any nation or non-state actor that attacked a NATO member.

With the accession of tiny Montenegro militarily as capable as the Duchy of Grand Fenwick minus the Q bomb NATO now has 29 member nations the United States is committed to defend.

Since 1949, the only time Article 5 has been invoked was after the 9/11 attacks on America. NATO, or at least most of its members, has joined us in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some NATO troops remain in Afghanistan after nearly sixteen years of war.

The threats of war that were recognized in 1949 have evolved as much as war itself. Every NATO member, including the U.S., has ignored the need to adapt the NATO Treaty to the 21st century.

As we celebrate our independence from Britain, we need to remember that they are now one of our most important allies. What they say deserves our attention and thought.

Last week UK Defense Minister Sir Michael Fallon, speaking about the recent cyberattack on the UK Parliament, suggested that his nation might respond to future cyberattacks with airstrikes or other military action. The clear implication is that the UK might invoke Article 5 to obtain NATO support for such military action.

No one considered cyberattacks when the NATO Treaty was signed because computer technology was in its infancy. But that is not to say that Article 5 is inapplicable to cyberattacks. The question boils down to this: When does a cyberattack constitute an act of war? There is no definition of a cyberattack in the NATO Treaty or elsewhere in international law.

Cyber espionage is a commonplace. U.S. defense contractors and government networks, including those of the intelligence agencies, are subjected to thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of cyberespionage attempts each day. Some succeed because every defense to them is penetrable eventually.

But cyberespionage is not cyberwar for one principal reason: it does no physical harm. Espionage only benefits the spy who remains undetected. People arent injured or killed, computer networks arent destroyed, and neither military nor civilian targets aircraft, the electricity power grid, and such are destroyed or damaged. Obviously, the cyberespionage or hacking that penetrated the UK Parliament email system wasnt an act of war.

Everyone who saw the Bruce Willis movie Live Free or Die Hard knows that cyberterrorism is not cyberespionage. The former can take down power grids, disrupt or rob financial networks, and kill people.

But theres a great deal more that cyberterrorists or nations acting against their adversaries can do. Some of those cyberattacks can and probably should be classified as acts of war.

Lets get organized. Cyberespionage isnt cyberwar. We do it as much as every other nation (and, I hope, more). Its the cost of doing business on the internet.

Leakers arent the issue. Leakers are traitors and should be caught and punished whenever possible. When CIA Director Mike Pompeo said that WikiLeaks was acting as a hostile intelligence service he was precisely right. But WikiLeaks, and others like them, are only as good as the leakers who feed them documents and data.

Hacking is a term that has lost its meaning because of its ubiquity. For the purposes of this discussion, lets exclude the innocent (or criminal) acts of individuals, governments, and terrorists gaining access to others emails and browser histories. As bad as they may be, theyre not acts of war.

But there is precedent for a definition of cyber acts of war.

In April 2007, the government of Estonia was subjected to a sustained cyberattack that lasted for weeks and effectively prevented Estonias government from functioning. The attack was almost certainly made by Russia, which naturally denied its involvement.

Estonia had become a member of NATO three years earlier. It didnt have the capability to retaliate against Russia but it could have invoked Article 5 of the NATO treaty to require participation in any military strike against Russia by the U.S. and other members. But the Russian cyberattack was, at worst, a marginal case under Article 5. Moreover no one, least of all the NATO members who are woefully deficient in defense spending, wanted to go to war over what the press characterized as a hacking incident.

Other cyberattacks were more clearly acts of war. For example, in 2007 the computer controls of many of Irans uranium enrichment centrifuges were penetrated by what reportedly was the Stuxnet computer worm that caused the centrifuges to run at excessive speed, destroying themselves. Other Iranian computer networks were also affected, bringing them down for a time.

Its almost certain that the Stuxnet attack emanated from either the United States or Israel and perhaps both. Stuxnet went far beyond espionage or hacking by materially damaging, and thus setting back, Irans nuclear weapons program. Because of its effects, the Stuxnet attacks were acts of war but Iran didnt claim them as such mainly because, at the time, it didnt have the capability to respond militarily.

Lets set the baseline. Our nation spends billions of dollars a year trying, with only middling success, to protect our cyber networks government, commercial, and private in a way that reduces but clearly doesnt eliminate the worst threats of cyberwar, including sabotage.

In setting the baseline we have to recognize that everything from most cars produced in the past ten years, to nuclear reactors, satellites, and fighter aircraft the F-35 is probably the best (i.e., worst) example are susceptible of cyberattack that can literally take over their controls and prevent them from performing their most essential missions. That vulnerability is limited only by the effectiveness of enemies efforts to penetrate their cyber defenses.

In March 2015 Adm. Mike Rogers, NSA Director and commander of U.S. Cyber Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in open session that the U.S. governments efforts to deter enemy cyberattacks werent working. Further, he said that we needed to increase our offensive cyberattack capabilities in order to create a deterrent effect. As a statement of the problem and not as an afterthought, Rogers said that then-President Obama hadnt delegated to him the authority to deploy offensive tools.

There is no reason to think that much has improved since then.

Now, we have one of our principal allies saying that at some point they may respond to a cyberattack with military action that would implicate all NATO members under Article 5. Thus, Article 5 needs to be amended to define what cyber events constitute an act of war on which the invocation of Article 5 can be justified.

This is not a trivial exercise, but lets take a crack at it.

To constitute an act of war, thereby justifying the invocation of Article 5, a cyberattack should be defined as an act by a nation or non-state actor such as a terrorist network that: (a) is performed by an identifiable actor and (b) attempted to cause or succeeded in causing physical injury to people or property (including damage to computer software) on a significant scale or (c) had the effect of preventing a government from employing its defense assets in peacetime or otherwise defending some or all of its citizens from harm.

The definition I propose is relatively simple. If a nation, or a non-state actor such as a terrorist network, commits a cyberattack that kills or injures people on a large scale or damages or destroys a significant amount of government or personal property, the event should be defined as an act of war. Taking control of an F-35, preventing it from navigating, using its weapons or even causing it to crash, would fit the definition. The Stuxnet attack on Iran would also fit.

Amending Article 5 to include a definition of cyberattacks would both limit it to properly prevent member states from using it to justify military action on baseless grounds and put enemy states on notice that certain cyberattacks are off-limits. As war evolves, so must the law of war.

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NATO and Cyberwar: Will Britain Invoke Article 5? - American Spectator

U.S, NATO Vow Full Support In War On Terror | TOLOnews – TOLOnews

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Top diplomats also paid tribute to the security force members, killed in the May 31 truck bombing, who had stopped the vehicle from entering the Green Zone.

The United States and NATO have reaffirmed their full support to Afghanistan in the war against terrorism and extremism, saying the U.S and NATO were determined to fight terrorism together with the Afghan government and the people. U.S. Ambassador Hugo Llorens labeled terrorists a small contingent of people who only think about destruction and hatred. Meanwhile, general John Nicholson, the commander of NATOs Resolute Support Mission (RS) in Afghanistan has paid tribute to the Afghan National Police (ANP) officers who defied the May 31 suicide bomber and sacrificed their lives to stop the truck from entering the Green Zone. He said these officers sacrificed their lives for the sake of their country and the people. These remarks were made at a special gathering in Kabul attended by officials from the U.S embassy, German embassy, UK embassy and some top Afghan government officials where they honored the slain security force members killed in the massive truck bombing in the city. We can personally express our gratitude and respect to your sons, your husbands, your fathers. They were our heroes, you are our heroes. They were strong and brave, you are strong and brave, said Nicholson. The U.S ambassador warned that terrorists have two options - either to lay down arms or face justice. "Let's devote special recognition to these brave heroes who gave everything to save their fellow man, their courage and sense of duty possibly prevented a catastrophy in our embassy and I offer the heartfelt condolences of president Donald Trump and the people of the United States, said ambassador Llorens. In addition, the Afghan Minister of Interior Taj Mohammad Jahid stressed the need for longstanding cooperation of the international community with Afghanistan in order to eliminate terrorism in the country. Our international partners help us in combating the enemies of humanity, the enemies of the world particulary the enemies of people of Afghanistan, their longstanding commitment to Afghanistan and support to our security forces, holding of this ceremony itself indicates the sympathy and support of our international partners, said minister of interior Taj Mohammad Jahid. The statements come after last weeks announcement by NATO that it would send in more troops to Afghanistan, where they will advise, assist and train the Afghan security forces.

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U.S, NATO Vow Full Support In War On Terror | TOLOnews - TOLOnews

DROPLEX [DROP] secure NSA bulletproof blockchain ICO – newsBTC

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Droplex Platform Financial instruments are digitize as apermissioned blockchain,here is a possibility to rapidly createtrading venues with astablevalue. And after that reduce operational overhead.Digital solutionsFull system run as a digital exchange, with fully-hosted optionsavailable. Custom deployments may be launched in less than a fewweeks.ExchangeAutomated market-making tool has got more than just one-party liquidity pool. We are honored that we can give you briliantthird-party liquidity sources. Supports multiple source exchanges and smart routing, with automated account management.Quantum defenderFeel safety with a quantum defender ! Weve already set up ameeting with D-wave company. Why ? Because Were going to beoneof the first platforms which soon tests the security systemagainstthe quantum pc. The quantum defender, is not just focused on theidea of being a wall against quantum computing attacks, but it isinpreparation to become a network of options for safe and trustedplace. We believe that blockchain needs to be involved in long-termassets and transactions, it has to think long-term. Long-term includes thinking about quantum computing and dealing with thattricks and threats.

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DROPLEX [DROP] secure NSA bulletproof blockchain ICO - newsBTC

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NSA Property Holdings Acquires Tri-State Self Storage in Castle County, DE – Inside Self-Storage

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NSA Property Holdings LLC, an affiliate of real estate investment trust National Storage Affiliates Trust (NSAT), has acquired a three-property Tri-State Self Storage portfolio in Castle County, Del., from Tri-State Realty Associates L.P. The facilities sit on approximately 28.3 acres of land, according to a press release from SkyView Advisors, the investment-sales and advisory firm that brokered the deal.

Overall, the properties comprise 264,237 rentable square feet of storage space in 2,428 units, 568 of are climate-controlled. They also contain 109 parking spaces and miscellaneous units, the release stated.

Its not often that a portfolio of this size becomes available in this region of the country, and it garnered multiple bids from national self-storage buyers, said Ryan Clark, director of investment sales for SkyView Advisors and a broker in the transaction.

Last month, NSA Property Holdingsacquired Stor-N-More Self Storage in Tampa, Fla., for $19 million. The property comprises 117,655 net rentable square feet in 1,105 units.

SkyView is a boutique firm specializing in self-storage acquisition, development, facility expansion and renovation, refinancing, and sales. Based in Tampa, the firm also has offices in Cleveland and Milwaukee.

Headquartered in Greenwood, Colo., NSAT is a self-administered and -managed REIT focused on the acquisition, operation and ownership of self-storage properties within the top 100 U.S. Metropolitan Statistical Areas throughout the United States. The company has ownership interest in 456 storage facilities in 23 states. Its portfolio comprises approximately 28 million net rentable square feet. It's owned by its affiliate operators, who are contributing their interests in their self-storage assets over the next few years as their current mortgage debt matures.

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Justin Amash Explains His Vote Against ‘Kate’s Law’ – The Libertarian Republic

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LISTEN TO TLRS LATEST PODCAST:

By: Elias J. Atienza

Representative Justin Amash (R-MI) baffled many Republicans and others when he voted against HR3004, known as Kates Law, an immigration bill passed by the House that toughens up punishments against illegal immigrants. As noted byBreitbart,a pro-Trump website, Amash was the only Republican to vote against the law, while 24 Democrats voted for it. The bill passed 257-167.

Amash voted against the bill because it stems from a provision that denies Fifth Amendment due process to certain criminal defendants.

Amash wrote:

As its text makes clear, the Fifth Amendment applies explicitly to all person[s] within the United States, including suspected illegal aliens who are arrested, charged, and tried within the United States. The Constitution uses the word citizen in other provisions whenever that word is intended. This interpretation of the Constitutions applicability is shared by the Supreme Court, including among the conservative justices.

Furthermore, he writes that the bill unconstitutionally eliminates the opportunity for those charged with illegal re-entry to challenge the validity of a removal order which, in his opinion, violates the Fifth Amendment.

He writes:

If a defendant never has a meaningful opportunity to have a judge review her removal order and, under this bill, she is prohibited from challenging her removal order during the criminal proceedings for illegal re-entry, then she could be convicted of a felony without ever having had the chance to challenge whether the order to remove herwhich is an element of the crime!was legally valid. As the Supreme Court held in United States v. Mendoza-Lopez, 481 U.S. 828 (1987), this would be a violation of the defendants due process rights.

The Hillsummarized the bill:

The bill includes a provision that ensures immigrants in the U.S. illegally who are charged with a serious crime are detained during their deportation proceedings. It also requires that localities comply with Immigration and Customs Enforcement requests to detain suspects for extra time, since some jurisdictions currently dont always cooperate. The extended detentions allow immigration enforcement authorities to pick up suspected criminal immigrants from local jails.

Many people in the comments section opposed him, with one commentator saying that he should have voted for the bill and let the Supreme Court deal with the constitutionality of it. Amash hit back, writing,First, thats not how our oath of office or our system of government works. Second, the Supreme Court already has held that this is unconstitutional. Theres an opinion cited in my explanation that is directly on point.

Amash also voted against the HR3003, which was theNo Sanctuary for Criminals Act, which he claims violates several amendments of the Constitution including the 1st, 5th, and 11th. He has voted for defunding sanctuarycities in the past.

breitbartDonald TrumpFifth Amendmentfirst amendmentfourth amendmentJustin AmashKates Law

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Justin Amash Explains His Vote Against 'Kate's Law' - The Libertarian Republic

County responds to ruling against shackling in courtroom – Corvallis Gazette Times

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Benton County officials are preparing to make policy changes after a federal appeals court ruled in-custody defendants should not be shackled in the courtroom.

A presumptively innocent defendant has the right to be treated with respect and dignity in a public courtroom, not like a bear on a chain, the decision states.

The decision, which was handed down May 31 by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, a court with jurisdiction over many Western states including Oregon, relies heavily on the constitutional liberties ensured under the Fifth Amendment.

The decision says a judge must make a determination that a defendant be required to wear restraints. Otherwise, all presumptively innocent detainees must appear without shackles at all proceedings, including sentencing hearings.

I think its a very expansive decision that will probably be reviewed further, said Benton County Circuit Court Presiding Judge David B. Connell.

The U.S. Attorneys Office applied for and was granted a 90-day stay on the issue, according to documents filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals. Therefore, the new policy has not yet gone into effect. The stay allows the U.S. Attorneys Office time to file a motion asking for the Ninth Circuit to rehear the issue.

The U.S. Attorney's Office also could appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, Connell said.

The decision is surprising because it greatly expands the scope of a defendants right not to be shackled in the courtroom, the judge said. The courts have long held that defendants should not be restrained during jury trials, the judge said.

Its not only the law, but I think its the right thing to do, Connell said.

For all other hearings that are not before a jury, defendants who are being held in the Benton County Jail typically are brought into court wearing cuffs around their ankles and wrists that are connected by a chain in front of their bodies, the judge said.

Should this decision go into effect, the sheriffs office would decide if someone poses a danger or risk for escape and should be shackled, Connell said. If a defendant contests that decision, a hearing would be held. The judge would look at factors including criminal history, the circumstances of the arrest and whether the defendant has been disruptive in the jail to decide if restraints are appropriate.

Since criminal cases take docket priority, these hearings may push aside civil cases, which already can take years to litigate, Connell said.

What an impact this would have is very hard to say since weve never faced it before, the judge said.

Benton County Sheriff Scott Jackson said more deputies would be needed to transport unrestrained offenders into courtrooms. He said he hopes the courts would use video appearances more often if the decision went into effect. Such video calls are currently used during some arraignments, but their use could be expanded for plea changes and sentencing hearings, Jackson said.

What were trying to avoid is having to bring on a bunch of staff that is costly to taxpayers, the sheriff said.

Jackson said he is also working to understand the legal definition of restraints. He said the Sheriffs Office has neoprene stun belts that wrap around the stomach and fit under clothing, so theyre not visible. A deputy could deploy the stun belt and incapacitate the defendant if the need arises, the sheriff said.

I question how valid (the decision) is, Jackson said. If you consider a violent person-to-person case or a rape case or significant domestic violence case where the victim has to come in to testify and theres no restraints there, it can be a really delicate situation to navigate, through.

Jennifer Nash, a Corvallis defense attorney, said she is pleased the sheriff and the courts are addressing the decision and safeguarding the constitutional rights of detainees.

All citizens are presumed to be innocent until the state proves that they are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, Nash said. Placing the accused in restraints when they do not pose a public safety threat belies that presumption.

Benton County District Attorney John Haroldson said those who participate in the judicial process must be mindful of ensuring both safety and fair trials. He said he will rely on the Ninth Circuits interpretation of the law in doing so.

Even under the proposed framework, if there is a risk, there is an opportunity to be able to address that with the court to ensure there are safeguards, Haroldson said.

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County responds to ruling against shackling in courtroom - Corvallis Gazette Times

Gang membership doesn’t color a crime, court says – The Rushville Republican

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INDIANAPOLIS -- While wearing gang colors may be suspicious, it's not enough to justify a stop by police unless criminal activity is involved, the Indiana Supreme Court said this week.

As a result of the decision, Jordan Jacobs, Indianapolis, had his conviction reversed for Class A misdemeanor possession of a handgun. The state court ruled that a police search leading to Jacobs' arrest in 2015 was not allowed under the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.

On Aug. 31, 2015, there had been numerous reports of gunshots fired on Indianapolis' northeast side by youths wearing red clothing, indicating gang membership. The location near 30th Street and Keystone Avenue was known as a high crime area and police placed more attention on patrols.

Two days later during the afternoon, an Indianapolis police officer saw young men who "looked like they should be in school" at Beckwith Park, according to court records. Some of the teens were wearing red clothing. Jacobs, then 18, had been seen earlier carrying a red T-shirt.

When a park ranger's car was in the area, Jacobs and another man walked away. They returned after the car left and Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officer Terry Smith, who is a gang detective, called for assistance. Smith ordered Jacobs to stop but he walked away. Another officer assisted in ordering Jacobs to the ground. Although handcuffed, Jacobs was told he was not under arrest but police saw a gun outlined in Jacobs' pocket.

In Marion County court, Jacobs' attorney objected to admitting the handgun into evidence on the grounds that the officers did not have reasonable suspicion to stop him under the Fourth Amendment. During a bench trial, Jacobs was found guilty and sentenced to one year probation.

In November, the Indiana Court of Appeals was split but found that Jacobs' behavior in evading police in a high crime area provided enough suspicion that a crime was "afoot."

The Indiana Supreme Court said that the officer's belief that Jacobs was truant at 2 p.m. that day was enough for an investigatory stop. But the actual stop occurred after school had let out for the day.

The court also addressed Jacobs' clothing. "Membership in a gang, by itself, does not provide the basis for prosecution for criminal gang activity," Justice Mark S. Massa wrote. "The State must prove that the individual was aware of the gang's criminal purpose."

He continued, "Jacobs' display of a red garment (which he was never wearing, and did not have at the time police approached), while standing among those clad in red, was thus insufficient to justify an investigatory stop under the Fourth Amendment."

The court said there was nothing to link Jacobs to the earlier gunfire.

Fourth Amendment

The Fourth Amendment states, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

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Gang membership doesn't color a crime, court says - The Rushville Republican

Young Republicans get a crash course in the 2nd Amendment – Fort Madison Daily Democrat

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MONTROSE About 30 attended the Lee County Young Republicans second meeting Saturday evening at the Tri-State Gun Club in Montrose.

The first meeting of the newly-formed GOP group was devoted to the First Amendment. The Second Amendment, stating 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, was the focus of Saturdays meeting.

Each was given a pocket-sized Constitution of the United States book provided by the Wapello County Republicans, that were represented at the meeting. There were sign-up sheets for upcoming events this week, such as the Donnellson Fourth of July Parade and the Lee County Fair.

Tri-State Gun Club President Dave Hunold presented a program on gun safety, which he reduced to four rules.

He said if everyone followed these four rules there would be no such thing as accidental injury involving a firearm.

The first rule is treat every gun as if it is loaded, Hunold said.

Hunold demonstrated that a person should always want to safety-check it when they pick up a gun.

Secondly, Hunold said one should never point the rifle at anything you cant pay for or replace.

The third rule is to keep ones finger off the trigger unless one intends to use the gun.

Hunold demonstrated how to use a gun. He described the design and model of three types of guns a revolver, semi automatic pistol and semi automatic shot gun. He also informed everyone about the most important parts of a gun: the muzzle, trigger, barrel and the magazine.

Des Moines County Co-President Eric Marshall spoke to the group about gun control.

The firearm comes in as a device of protection, Marshall said. Its something for Americans to protect themselves from those that wish to do them harm.

He added that there is an irresponsible and responsible way to use a gun. He said as long as it is properly handled there shouldnt be any problems.

He explained how there are some restrictions on gun usage in different countries and in the United States.

Marshall said there is a lot more publicity about guns being used improperly than instances when they are used properly.

After Marshall spoke, Wapello County Republicans Chair Trudy Caviness announced there will be a trip to the State Capitol at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, July 18. Lunch will be provided at the Republican headquarters. Anyone interested should contact Caviness at (641)-684-7585 by July 14

After the meeting was over everyone was invited to participate in trap shooting.

Lee County Young Republican Chair Jordean Stein said it was a great turnout, with the number of young and older people that came. The next meeting will be about the Third Amendment at the National Keokuk Cemetery on Saturday, Sept. 2.

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Young Republicans get a crash course in the 2nd Amendment - Fort Madison Daily Democrat