Monthly Archives: August 2012

The idea for the Oregon Freedom Festival was first scrawled out on napkins by a couple of friends.

Glenn (Colangelo) and I sat down three years ago in a Subway, said Kim Ullfers. We started mapping out a dream of what we want to do.

Ullfers and Colangelo formed Vision Corps and still pull out those napkins sometimes to make sure they are staying true to their original vision.

Our goal is to do things like this freedom festival, Ullfers said.

The two have known each other for 15 years. Both have military backgrounds and their events have been patriotic in theme. Vision Corps held Memorial Day ceremonies in Salem and Hillsboro in 2011 and 2012.

Sept. 1 will be the first Freedom Festival the group is putting on.

The flavor of the event is a family Fourth of July picnic, Colangelo said.

A watermelon seed spitting contest, bouncy houses, and a puppet show are among the kid-friendly activities.

Shelly Garrett, executive director of the Lebanon Chamber of Commerce, will emcee the evening activities, which include performances by the Victory Voices choir and a tribute to the victims of 9/11.

Pyrotechnician Norm Rose worked on synchronizing the Lights of Liberty fireworks display, which will finish off the night.

Read more here:
Freedom Festival celebrates patriots

Freedom of speech is more important for Russians than rallies, a poll conducted by the Levada Center pollster showed.

Eighty-three percent of Russians need freedom of speech, 62 percent freedom of rallies and demonstrations, and 76 percent would like to go abroad unhindered, according to the poll whose results were published on Wednesday.

Seventy percent of those polled said individual freedom and personal interests are above all, and the state should guarantee that these are observed. Thirty percent said the interests of the state are above all other things.

A total of 42 percent of respondents - 5 percent more than 11 years ago - said they believe Russia should be a country closed to others to be successfully developing. Fifty-eight percent said Russia should become integrated in the international community not to lag behind other nations.

Seventy-eight percent said they want to see Russia as a country which is comfortable to live in, and which prioritizes its nationals needs, while 22 percent said they need their country to have military power and be respected worldwide.

The poll was conducted on August 17-21, 2012, among 1,601 urban and rural residents aged 18 and above in 130 localities of 45 Russian regions.

The statistical margin of error does not exceed 3.4 percent.

Read the rest here:
Freedom of Speech ‘More Important’ for Russians than Rallies

GOP adopts Internet freedom plank: Part of the platform the Republican party adopted Tuesday night included language to protect Internet freedom, something that lawmakers and interest groups on both sides of the aisle have been calling for in recent months.

Several groups that lobbied against the online piracy bills known as the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP (Intellectual Property) Act have petitioned Republicans and Democrats to affirm a commitment to the open Internet as planks in their party platforms, and lawmakers such as Reps. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) have made similar cases to party leadership.

The Republican plank is focused on removing regulation around technology businesses, as well as language that would protect personal data online from the government. The platform language also says that the party will resist any effort to move Internet governance away from its current multistakeholder model in favor of international or intergovernmental organizations.

The GOP also specifically criticized the Federal Communications Commission, saying that the agencys net neutrality rule and other regulations show the Obama administration is frozen in the past. The platform proposes that the federal government inventory its spectrum to discover how much of it could be auctioned to the public.

Cybersecurity: Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has asked that President Obama put out an executive order of take other appropriate action to pass measures to enhance the cybersecurity of the countys critical infrastructure, the Hill reported.

On Tuesday, Feinstein sent a letter to the president asking him to take action because she believes that Congress will not be able to pass a strong cybersecurity law by the end of this session.

A broad cybersecurity bill failed in the Senate this month.

LulzSec arrest: The FBI has arrested a second man suspected of being a member of the hacking group LulzSec, which claimed responsibility for cyber attacks against Sony in late spring 2011.

According to Reuters, Raynaldo Rivera of Tempe, Ariz., faces up to 15 years in prison on charges that he aided hackers in posting personal information taken from Sony online.

Challenge to FTC, Google settlement: Consumer Watchdog has won the right to oppose the Federal Trade Commissions $22.5 billion challenge to a settlement with Google on privacy matters, the group said Wednesday.

Read the original post:
GOP adopts Internet freedom plank #thecircuit

By Doug Gross, CNN

President Barack Obama posted this photo of himself answering questions on social-sharing site Reddit on Monday afternoon.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) -- This week, Republicans made a free and open Internet part of their party's 2012 platform.

On Wednesday, during a visit with some of the most ardent open-Web supporters, President Barack Obama said Democrats will do the same.

"Internet freedom is something I know you all care passionately about; I do too," Obama wrote during an AMA ("ask me anything") on social-news site Reddit. "We will fight hard to make sure that the Internet remains the open forum for everybody -- from those who are expressing an idea to those to want to start a business."

Obama became the most high-profile person to host one of the site's live chats, during which well-known figures take questions live. The site's two most popular AMA's before Wednesday were astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and "Jeopardy" champ Ken Jennings.

As such, many users were having trouble following the conversation in real time, with the sheer amount of traffic causing the page to load slowly, or not at all, from time to time.

Obama was responding to a question, noting that Republicans had included an entire section promising protections for Internet freedom in their platform at the party convention being held in Tampa, Florida.

U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-California, has been a leading Web-freedom voice in the GOP and reportedly pushed hard for the language to be included. Obama promised similar action when Democrats convene next week in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Visit link:
Obama: Web freedom will be part of Democratic platform

'Academic Freedom' By Fr. Roy Cimagala (Cebu) Wednesday, August 29, 2012 02:17:33 PM

ITS a hot, controversial issue, this thing about academic freedom. And its understandable because what is involved is something very intimate to a person working in an academic community.

Ideas, theories, views, opinions are so personal that anything that would tend to obstruct them can be very painful. Everything has to be done to avoid such predicament, therefore.

And so, I somehow understand why this academic freedom can be defined in its extreme form, as Wikipedia would have it, as:

The belief that the freedom of inquiry by students and faculty members is essential to the mission of the academy, and that scholars should have freedom to teach or communicate ideas or facts (including those that are inconvenient to external political groups or to authorities) without being targeted for repression, job loss, or imprisonment.

Some parties involved in this issue have even gone to the extent of describing academic freedom, again taking from Wikipedia, as having the following properties: a) Academics, both inside and outside the classroom, have unrestricted liberty to question and test received wisdom and to put forward controversial and unpopular opinions, whether or not these are deemed offensive, and, b) Academic institutions have no right to curb the exercise of this freedom by members of their staff, or to use it as grounds for disciplinary action or dismissal.

Still, while I and any decent man would respect such freedom, I also could not help to point out that such take on academic freedom is one-sided and is oblivious and quite nave of other factors and conditions that need to be taken into consideration also.

This extreme form of academic freedom has to contend also with the rights of the other parties involved. And more basic to the issue would be that some structure be made in the academic community where a healthy exchange of views could be done, and clear guidelines have to be made.

The dynamics of this exchange of ideas should be closely monitored and managed, otherwise there would be chaos and confusion. And rules of the game should be clearly spelled out for this.

Thing is we cannot deny the fact that academic communities have their basic constitution that, no matter how imperfect it is, should be respected and upheld, unless legitimately revised.

Read more:
'Academic Freedom' By Fr. Roy Cimagala (Cebu) Wednesday, August 29, 2012 02:17:33 PM

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 8/29/2012 9:25:13 AM The Republican Party adopted its platform at the convention Tuesday, and it included a commitment to Internet freedom, kudos for mobile broadband, and a big knock on the current Democratic-led FCC.

In the section entitled "Protecting Internet Freedom," the platform notes that Internet's independence is its power: "We will remove regulatory barriers that protect outdated technologies and business plans from innovation and competition, while preventing legacy regulation from interfering with new and disruptive technologies such as mobile delivery of voice video data as they become crucial components of the Internet ecosystem."

The platform also commits to a multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance, one of the few things Republicans and Democrats are in full agreement on.

The Republican party says it is committed to ensuring that "personal data receives full constitutional protection from government overreach and that individuals retain the right to control the use of their data by third parties," it adds that "the only way to safeguard or improve these systems is through the private sector." The Republicans' focus on the private sector became one of the sticking points in cybersecurity legislation that failed to pass despite both parties acknowledging that there was a need for better cybersecurity protections.

But while the Republicans say they are for Internet freedom, it does not mean they have changed their opposition to the FCC's open Internet rules. The Republicans say telecom regulation is stuck in the last century -- make that two centuries ago.

"Today's technology and telecommunications industries are overseen by the Federal Communications Commission, established in 1934 and given the jurisdiction over telecommunications formerly assigned to the Interstate Commerce Commission, which had been created in 1887 to regulate the railroads," according to the platform in a section entitled: "A Vision for the Twenty-First Century: Technology, Telecommunications and the Internet."

That vision does not include the FCC as currently constituted. "An industry that invested $66 billion in 2011 alone needs, and deserves, a more modern relationship with the federal government for the benefit of consumers here and worldwide," they say. "The current Administration has been frozen in the past. It has conducted no auction of spectrum [and] has offered no incentives for investment."

And while the FCC recently said that broadband has not been deployed in a timely and reasonable fashion, the Republicans lay the blame at the feet of the FCC. "[The commission] inherited from the previous Republican Administration 95% coverage of the nation with broadband. It will leave office with no progress toward the goal of universal coverage -- after spending $7.2 billion more [a reference to the Obama Administration's broadband stimulus package].

"We call for an inventory of federal agency spectrum to determine the surplus that could be auctioned for the taxpayers' benefit... we will replace the administration's Luddite approach to technological progress with a regulatory partnership that will keep this country the world leader in technology and telecommunications."

Related Content

Read the original post:
Republican Platform Includes Internet Freedom Plank

28 August 2012 Last updated at 17:28 ET

A Lisburn council motion to grant the Orange Order the freedom of the city has cleared its first hurdle.

The council agreed on Tuesday to pass the DUP proposal to the committee stage, despite opposition from Sinn Fein and the Alliance Party.

It will go through equality screening, for assessment on whether it has the potential to impact differently and unfairly on various groups.

The motion was proposed by Paul Givan, a DUP councillor and assembly member.

Mr Givan said it had "nothing to do with getting the right to march in Lisburn".

"This is all about recognising an organisation which has over 600 halls in Northern Ireland, used extensively by the community," he said.

"In Lisburn in particular, the community get excellent value out of the Orange Order - they are part of our society and we want to recognise them."

Sinn Fein councillor Arthur Carson said the Orange Order had "a lot of reforming to do" before his party would back such a proposal.

"The anti-Catholic stance in terms of membership, the refusal to engage with residents groups over parades, expelling members who attend Catholic services - these are all big issues that the Orange Order need to take into consideration," he said.

Continue reading here:
Orange city freedom clears hurdle