Daily Archives: February 6, 2014

Afghanistan Elections and Media Freedoms: Will free speech gains of past decade prove durable?
The remaking of the Afghan media scene over the last 12 years is arguably the most clear and visible silver lining to the fraught project of fostering a stab...

By: JewishNewsOne

See the rest here:
Afghanistan Elections and Media Freedoms: Will free speech gains of past decade prove durable? - Video

Published February 06, 2014

FoxNews.com

Republican congressional leaders are calling on the newly appointed IRS commissioner to scrap a new rule they claim would target politically active groups seeking tax-exempt status -- including the very same conservative groups the agency is accused of harassing.

"This proposed rule is an affront to free speech itself," the lawmakers wrote in a letter to IRS Commissioner John Koskinen.

The letter -- signed by House Speaker John Boehner, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and others -- marks the most coordinated effort yet by the GOP to fight the rule change, first proposed in November.

The letter comes as more conservative groups testified Thursday about IRS targeting, before a House oversight subcommittee.

"They were harassed at the hands of their very government," Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said.

The central complaint over the proposed rule is that it would effectively codify the kind of scrutiny that Tea Party and other groups were subjected to before the 2010 and 2012 elections. Those groups had been applying for what's known as 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status, as "social welfare" organizations. The rule change would limit the kinds of political activity that "social welfare" groups -- of any ideological leaning -- could engage in.

The proposal was described by the administration as a way to clarify the rules, and create "clear-cut definitions of political activity."

But Republicans now say the rule change would allow political targeting to continue unabated.

Read the original post:
FREE SPEECH MUZZLED? GOP urges IRS boss to scrap controversial rule

Hundreds of authors including Jonathan Franzen, Salman Rushdie, and Margaret Atwood have signed an open letter criticizing Russian laws which they say 'strangle free speech.'

On the eve of the opening of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, more than 200 authors from 30 countries have published an open letter criticizing recent Russian laws that strangle free speech, joining a wave of protestors denouncing rights abuses in Russia.

Subscribe Today to the Monitor

Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition

Anti-gay and blasphemy laws place a chokehold on the right to express oneself freely, the letter, published in the Guardian Thursday, states.

Among the prominent author-signatories are Jonathan Franzen, Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, Gunter Grass, Julian Barnes, Neil Gaiman, and Orhan Pamuk. Notably, as the Guardian points out, Russia's foremost contemporary novelist, Lyudmila Ulitskaya, is also a signatory to the letter.

They condemn three specific laws: gay propaganda laws that prohibit the propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations among minors; blasphemy laws that criminalize religious insult; and the recent recriminalization of defamation laws.

These laws "specifically put writers at risk", according to the letter, and its signatories "cannot stand quietly by as we watch our fellow writers and journalists pressed into silence or risking prosecution and often drastic punishment for the mere act of communicating their thoughts.

The letter reads:

A healthy democracy must hear the independent voices of all its citizens; the global community needs to hear, and be enriched by, the diversity of Russian opinion. We therefore urge the Russian authorities to repeal these laws that strangle free speech, to recognise Russia's obligations under the international covenant on civil and political rights to respect freedom of opinion, expression and belief including the right not to believe and to commit itself to creating an environment in which all citizens can experience the benefit of the free exchange of opinion.

Visit link:
Is there free speech in Russia? These writers think not

A quick flash of bight headlights is a driver-to-driver warning only some know about and many police officers don't like, but a federal trial judge has ruled it is protected free speech. In Minnesota, the rules aren't so clear.

Many languages evolve and change over time, and it seems that flashing headlights to another driver on the road is hardly a universal symbol for anything these days. Yet, in many areas, a couple of flashes can signal there is a cop waiting up the road with a speed gun -- and a federal trial judge in Missouri says those speed trap warnings are constitutionally protected free speech.

"I think, at this point, the case may be unsettled," CLA Law Professor Eugene Volokh -- the go-to expert on the topic, said.

According to Volokh, intent is what counts.

"What was he saying? Watch out for police or watch out and drive safely?" he questions.

In Minnesota, there is no specific law preventing drivers from warning other motorists about speed traps, but that doesn't mean anyone who tries it out won't get a ticket. State law says headlights must be on continuously a half hour before sunset and after sunrise, but high-beams may not be used within 1,000 feet of an oncoming vehicle. That may allow them to initiate a stop.

"Officers can certainly stop someone," John Elder, with the Minneapolis Police Department, confirmed. "It's up to the officer whether they want to issue a ticket, but they can certainly stop for it."

These days, warnings tend to be more high-tech anyway. Waze is a traffic app that encourages drivers to report police activity -- including whether the cops are visible or hidden. Of course, police can also pull over a driver they suspect of texting behind the wheel too.

The Minnesota State Patrol said their main concern with flashing headlights to communicate with other drivers isn't keeping speed traps a secret. Rather, it's about avoiding creating additional distractions on the roads.

"It's really a traffic safety issue for us -- not so much for warning other drivers," Lt. Eric Roeske said.

More here:
Flashing headlights protected free speech? Not in MN

5 hours ago Feb. 6, 2014 - 3:23 PM PST

The Turkish government has long had a fractious relationship with the internet, marked by periodic bans on sites like YouTube for content that contravenes Turkish laws like the law that makes it an offence to insult Turkishness. But new amendments to the countrys internet legislation that were passed by parliament on Wednesday take this internet-phobia to new levels, and represent an unprecedented attack on the free speech rights of Turkish citizens.

Among other things, the amendments allow the authorities to block access to specific content on the internet with as little as four hours notice, and without a court order. The legislation goes beyond the kind of blanket site-wide banning that Turkey has used in the past against services like YouTube, and allows the government to block specific pieces of content at the URL level, in much the same way that Chinas Great Firewall does.

In many ways, the new Turkish law is the rough equivalent of SOPA and PIPA two anti-piracy bills that were proposed by the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives in 2011 and sparked a huge outcry about surveillance and free speech, to the point where both were withdrawn. The Turkish amendments, however, have been passed by parliament and now just require the signature of the countrys president, Abdullah Gul.

Like those laws, the Turkish legislation forces ISPs to act as agents of the government in a variety of ways, including a requirement to store virtually all data about their users online activity for at least two years. The amendments also authorize the government to use methods such as deep packet inspection in order to bypass anonymizing tools and other technologies that Turkish dissidents might use to get around content blocks or bans.

Turkish nationals, including University of North Carolina sociologist and social-media expert Zeynep Tufekci, have been criticizing the proposed legislation for some time because they see it as an infringement of their rights to free speech. Some see the crackdown as a response to the recent corruption scandal, in which some senior ministers have reportedly been receiving bribes. Turkey also routinely censors and restricts its national news media, making internet sources and especially social media an even more important factor.

As noted by the site BoingBoing, one Turkish citizen has written a goodbye letter to the internet and posted it on Medium, saying: This is a farewell to our freedom of speech, privacy and World Wide Web, and an unwanted welcome to Turkey Narrow Web. Ahmet Sabanci described the legislation in this way:

ISPs going to log everything we do together. Theyll keep these logs for years and government can check these logs whenever they want. Theyll use URL-based censorship on you. That means, if my essays on Medium counted as harmful, other people can see Medium but theyll never be able to read my essays on Medium. And most of the people wont be able to notice this.

In a recent interview with Wired magazine, the creator of the web Sir Tim Berners-Lee said that one of his fears about the future of the global network was that it would become Balkanized, with countries taking control of portions of the net and restricting information. He said he wants a web thats open, works internationally, works as well as possible and is not nation-based. Unfortunately, that kind of free flow of information isnt in the interests of repressive regimes.

Subscriber Content

More here:
Turkey passes draconian internet law, Turks say goodbye to their freedom of speech