Daily Archives: October 22, 2013

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Poland: Freedom for Atheists | European Journal
In the fervently Roman Catholic country of Poland, a poster campaign defending atheism is attracting attention. In the past few years, increasing numbers of ...

By: deutschewelleenglish

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Poland: Freedom for Atheists | European Journal - Video

St. Louis -- It was the 59th annual Freedom Fund Awards Banquet and a crowd of NAACP members and friends came together at the Renaissance Grand Hotel in St. Louis to be a part of the event.

Several East St. Louis firefighters who make up the Color Guard presented the colors as the event got under way.

This year's theme was "Game Changer."

East St. Louis Mayor Alvin L. Parks Jr. asked the question "Where are we going with changing the game? I am glad the NAACP is leading the way.

"We must carry on and continue to stand for something. We are all leaders." Parks said.

U.S. Rep. Bill Enyart, D-Belleville, briefly touched on the financial mess that's going on in Washington, D.C., saying he was in the east wing of the White House last Thursday with President Barack Obama as multiple members put their heads together to get out of the financial mess that the nation has gotten itself into.

"Our future is very bright, but not without peril. There are assaults upon our rights -- the voting rights act. The Supreme Court has stripped part of that down. We must work to continue to preserve those voting rights," Enyart told the crowd. "Programs that help Americans in need are being cut. There are cuts to the work force. We must work together. We must continue the great work of the NAACP to turn back the forces that would be regressive. We can't afford to regress," Enyart said, firing up the crowd.

The audience was filled with a host of city leaders from East St. Louis and St. Clair County. Besides Parks, there were Centreville Mayor Marius Jackson, St. Clair County Board Chairman Mark Kern whose wife, Erin Kern, is chairman of the NAACP scholarship committee. Also attending were retired St. Clair County Judge Milton S. Wharton, former Superintendent of School District 189 Katie Wright, St. Clair County Sheriff Richard Watson, East St. Louis City Manager Deletra Hudson, East St. Louis Police Chief Michael Floore and many more.

St. Clair County Judge Heinz Rudolf was in the audience. When he was asked what Game Changers means to him, he said "forever vigilant now and in the future."

Watson, who has attended the NAACP banquet for the last 10 years, said Game Changers means "Promoting the health and well-being of everyone."

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Freedom Fund Awards Banquet draws enthusiatic crowd

Hong Kong people treasure freedom of speech and press freedom for a good reason. They think that it is human nature to want to speak one's mind, and to hate to say things against one's true beliefs. Hong Kong people also think that press freedom is essential to knowing what really goes on. In the absence of press freedom, it is possible that the media might present a biased picture of the reality, and that some officials may get away with power abuses, favoritism, and other wrongdoings.

Sadly, however, some people seem to be abusing this precious freedom. It is heart-breaking to see some netizens pour abusive words on another human being who has done absolutely nothing wrong. Stephanie Liu Han, a top student from Yunnan, who graduated from the University of Hong Kong two years ago having earned a full scholarship on outstanding academic merits, and who worked in the city's financial industry, was killed in a traffic accident. Instead of expressing sympathy as a normal human being would, some netizens made outrageous and disturbing remarks.

While she was in intensive care, one netizen remarked: "Quickly take her back to Zhina (a derogative name for China). Otherwise we would be losing medical fees on her behalf."

"Having grabbed a place in the university at the expense of HK people, she now occupies a hospital bed. Soon she may be pre-empting a place in the columbarium. The Chinese really are overbearing!"

"Punishment from heaven!"

There is nothing we can do if people choose to say these things privately. But these words are posted on the Internet. A good question is whether abusive language that hurt people should be banned from publication: on the Internet, in newspapers, or on TV. Will this compromise press freedom?

Perhaps there should be limits to freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Language that hurts other people is really not much different from physical assault that hurts other people. In both cases there is an actor, an act, and a victim. There should be no presumption that physical injury necessarily hurts more than "mental injury". In principle, people should not be allowed to arbitrarily hurt others.

But who is to determine if someone has been hurt? Unlike physical injury which can be objectively assessed, it is not easy to demonstrate that someone has been hurt by language, and to what extent. If a government department is to take up this role, people will worry about arbitrary censorship. The alternative is to set up an independent commission or committee, one that has credibility for its professionalism and independence, and to have it determine if the bounds of reason and common sense consideration have been violated.

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Limits of speech freedom

Before his suicide in January 2013, Aaron Swartz had worked together with the hacker and Wired editor Kevin Poulson on a platform for whistleblowers called Dead Drop. The software allows the transmission of messages and documents between whistleblowers and journalists. The sources of the data are protected by the fact that even the news organization contacted may not even know who has transmitted the messages. The aim of the tool is to protect information from anonymous sources on the internet.

Aaron Swartz did not have it done to complete his big project and now Freedoom of the Press Foundation has done this for him as well as taken charge of the DeadDrop project. In coming months, the Foundation will also provide on-site installation and technical support to news organizations that wish to run the system, which has been renamed SecureDrop.

The Open Source SecureDrop

SecureDrop is a safe, secure, virtual system where journalists can exchange information with hackers. The WikiLeaks media, it has been called, was Swartzs vision, who has become a symbol of freedom of information and of that part of the digital world.

The system assigns a unique code for each source and thus an anonymous entity can establish a relationship with the media without the need to give a name or face. The New Yorker, was one of the first institutions to adopt SecureDrop under the name StrongBox.

In August, the University of Washington safety experts and security expert Bruce Schneier had raised concerns about the safety of Dead Drop. The Freedom of the Press Foundation had therefore entrusted the security professional James Dolan with the revision of the software. Even now, with the main problems resolved, further improvements has been promised. Dolan had already helped the New Yorkerbuild and secure their own Dead Drop Strongbox implementation.

Any organization can install SecureDrop for free and can make modifications because the project is open-source. The foundation has written detailed installation instructions, which can be found on GitHub.

Although its creators do not guarantee 100% security, they do say that this tool has been tested in several studies to prove its high levels of security, but there are always risks. SecureDrop runs a public servant who serves in the face for the project, another server that archives the messages and documents and another that monitors the safety of the first two. SecureDrop still relies on donations to stay alive, but also accepts comments from developers interested in discussing the topic.

WikiLeaks, PRISM, and SecureDrop

With all the hype of WikiLeaks, PRISM, Edward Snowden and NSA that shock the world, a system in which people can share their knowledge in a completely anonymous way seems no longer a luxury in this period.

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Freedom of the Press Offers SecureDrop, a Tribute to the Legacy of Aaron Swartz