Monthly Archives: May 2017

Venezuela is increasingly censoring its internet and expanding online surveillance of citizens.

The country is currently in a state of emergency after two months of anti-government protests that have caused the deaths of over 50 people and led to violent confrontations with the police.

Citizens are furious with president Nicols Maduro, who has been using emergency powers since 2015 to pass laws without congressional approval. He claims to be using the powers to fight an "economic war" with unseen enemies, but taxes on alcohol and tobacco alongside a collapsing economy have turned people against him.

As that anger has translated into protests, the government has responded by trying to shut it down.

Although phone ownership has rocketed in Venezuela in the past few years, roughly a third of the population still does not have an internet connection or a smartphone and rely on television for their news. And so the government responded to footage of the protests by shutting down or censoring television stations that broadcast it, as well as harassing and arresting journalists.

When citizens started using SMS messages to share information and coordinate protests, president Maduro personally ordered an investigation into phone company Movistar, claiming that it was assisting opposition to the government.

When protestors then moved to online TV stations, the Venezuelan government responded by censoring them. Vivoplay.net, elcapitolio.tv and vpitv.com have all been blocked at the DNS level, sparking letters of protest to the national telco commission Conatel and demands for an investigation. Other websites have reported denial-of-service attacks.

It is unclear what the legal justification is for the blocks, and the situation led to the United Nations Human Rights Commission issuing a statement condemning "the censorship and blocking of information both in traditional media and on the internet."

The report noted that "a large part of televised media is under government control, while the private sector operates with restrictions due to expired licenses that public authorities have refused to renew in more than two years." It claimed the restrictions in place were "disproportionate and incompatible with international standards."

As a result, protestors have now moved en masse to social media apps like Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp which have proved harder to censor.

In response, earlier this month Maduro issued a presidential decree that, among other things, authorized content filtering and online surveillance. The official justification is that the internet is being used to promote hate speech and is damaging the economy.

At the same time, the government is trying to flood social media services with positive images, leading to surreal juxtapositions of bloodied protestors next to smiling and waving citizens.

As the government ramps up its surveillance and censorship, the country is slowly slipping into anarchy.

Earlier this week, Maduro unveiled his plans to draw up a new constitution for the country something that critics say is no more than an effort to delay elections and stay in power.

Read more from the original source:
Venezuela increases internet censorship and surveillance in crisis - The Register

From 2007-2009, I had the privilege of representing the State of Israel on behalf of the Jewish Agency for Israel as a shaliach (Israeli emissary) at one of the most notoriously anti-Israel campuses in the nation University of California at Irvine.

One of the premier methods of the anti-Israeli movements is to boycott Israel, prevent people from buying Israeli goods, using Israeli technology, and listening to Israeli speakers and artists.

At Irvine, the anti-Israel movement protested and tried to disrupt many of the events we organized. Sometimes they would attend and ask anti-Israel questions. Sometimes they would protest loudly to drown out the speakers voice.

In one notable instance, they were so disruptive, Michael Oren (who was the Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. at the time) could not finish his remarks. As the adviser to the pro-Israeli activists, the pro-Israel students and I decided to take the high road.

We, the pro-Israel voice, never disrupted a speaker from the other side. We protested, we showed up with signs, but we never drowned out their speakers voices. Especially on a college campus, where a philosophy of critical thinking permeates the landscape, we believed we would be able to sway opinions and become a more inclusive and stronger pro-Israel network if we stood for freedom of speech and not against it.

Fast-forward to today, the boycott movement has arrived in the Jewish community of Metro Detroit. The Israeli artist Achinoam Nini (Noa) was invited to perform at my synagogue, Adat Shalom. But some local Detroit Jews, many of whom are themselves Israeli, decided that Achinoam Nini should not be allowed to perform at Adat Shalom because of her left-wing views and participation in coexistence and dialogue programs with Palestinians. After reviewing their efforts and tactics (racist Facebook postings, spamming Adat Shaloms website and rankings, threats to Noa personally and calls to disrupt the concert), it is clear what it is they are using tactics of the anti-Israel movement.

In Jewish communities, there is a Vaad Hakashrut, a community group whose mission is the maintenance of a kosher quality supervision. The anti-Noa movement created a Censorship Vaad. This Censorship Vaad has chosen not to join Adat Shalom, nor did they approach Adat Shalom in the spirit of dialogue. Rather, the Censorship Vaad decided they have the right to tell the rest of the Jewish community who is allowed to play and perform, and who is not.

Adat Shalom was forced to cancel the event after conversations with local police and security experts. The Censorship Vaad created an atmosphere so toxic that Adat Shalom could not guarantee the safety of the performer or audience. No matter that Adat Shalom has had a long history of supporting Israel. No matter that Adat Shalom just wanted to offer a fun evening of Israeli music and culture open to everyone.

Achinoam Nini is an artist and private citizen. Noa lives in Israel, is a veteran of the IDF, will be the parent of an IDF soldier in a few years. Noa has represented Israel in the Eurovision contests, and has performed internationally for decades, spreading joy, Israeli music and Israeli culture to thousands. She is a private citizen; she represents Israeli culture, not the Israeli government.

Now that the Censorship Vaad took the liberty to decide who is allowed to perform and who is not, I wonder what will be the process in the future to get an artist or speaker approved by the Censorship Vaad?

Lets say Israeli author David Grossman will be invited to speak in the West Bloomfield JCC at the Book Fair. Mr. Grossman is a vocal critic of the Israeli presence in Judea and Samaria. Will the Vaad approve his event? Will the fact that he lost his son in the second Lebanon war give him the right to speak with a local audience? What if Ariel Sharon were still alive? He orchestrated the removal of settlements in the Gaza Strip (Gush Katif). Could he speak from a synagogue bimah?

Yes, we have the right to protest against different ideas, but the idea of a Censorship Vaad is nonsense. In America (like Israel), no one group has the right to decide for another American what he will read, listen to or say.

Tzvi Raviv lives in Farmington Hills.

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Censorship Vaad - The Jewish News

Climate Change Webpage Disappears from EPA, BeingUpdated

By Rowena Eng, Shelby Oliver, and Gokce Sencan

Last month, the EPA quietly removed all climate change-related information from its website under orders of new director Scott Pruitt. Though a snapshot links to the old webpage at an archive outside the Environmental Protection Agency, a statement also indicates the agency is updating language at EPA.gov. The decision to remove climate change information is not only scientifically unethical, its also censorship, a form of political coercion through the control of publicly available knowledge. Trump may think these actions are a show of power, but censorship instances like this one will discredit his administrations competence, if it hasnt already, in all fields ofgovernance.

Obstruction of science isnt new. Under President George W. Bush, federal agencies were advised against using the terms global warming or climate change in governmental reports. Even more restrictive practices happened in Canada until Justin Trudeau took office; under the previous prime minister Stephen Harper, governmental policies obfuscated communication between federal scientists and the media. With President Trump, it wouldnt be far-fetched to expect his fling with censorship to extend beyond climatechange.

EPA.gov

The current EPA climate changepage

In an economic order now dominated by aggressive industries, the government must maintain an impartial stance between business interests and science. Our government should be protecting us when businesses attempt to profit at the expense of public health. Tobacco is one example of a big industrys interests clashing with the publics. Climate change is no different, only this time we are faced with a government that openly sides with another big industry oil.

Trumps loyalty lies with his familys and allies businesses, so any science that compromises the bottom line of those industries is at risk. It may involve direct censorship, like the removal of climate change information from EPAs website. Or it may involve stealthier methods, such as the defunding of programs like PBS and NPR. This suppression of science will not only delay our nations response to the urgent threats of climate change, but it will also enable Trumps administration to stack the deck against any science that does not serve itsinterests.

Censoring science can cause a balloon effect: Oppression of one part of the balloon forces pressure to spill over into another area of less resistance. This phenomenon is exemplified by the US war on drugs in South America during the late 1980s; the crackdown on drugs in one South American country merely intensified production in another, rendering the drug war a futile effort. Similarly, Trump underestimating the value of scientific information could result in unforeseen and undesirable outcomes. Major businesses in the U.S., from auto industries to real estate companies, depend on information from the EPA. Even other countries rely on our governments scientific data to predict and plan for natural disasters and agricultural risks. Trumps suppression of scientific data could compromise the operations of both domestic and internationalentities.

EPA.gov

EPA kept a snapshot of the deleted page, stating, This is not the current EPA website. To navigate to the current EPA website, please go to http://www.epa.gov. This website is historical material reflecting the EPA website as it existed on January 19, 2017. This website is no longer updated and links to external websites and some internal pages may notwork.

As for international relations, the U.S. government as the self-proclaimed leader of the free world has a moral responsibility to keep its science publicly available. Despite Trumps denial of climate change, the closest allies of the U.S.(e.g., Canada, Europe) have been tackling the issue for over a decade; their scientists rely on data provided by the EPA, NASA, and other U.S. scientific research bodies. Removal of EPAs climate change data not only undermines the credibility of Trumps administration in the public eye, it also obstructs scientific activities and weakens the U.S. as the pioneer of global scientificadvancement.

The federal government also has an obligation to objectively disclose scientific research to its tax-paying citizens. The science gives us transparency into how the government makes (or should make) informed policies. If the public cant see the science for themselves, they wont be able to trust the governments decision-making. With a plummeting approval rating of 39 percent in addition to the growing suspicion of Trumps collusion with Russia, this concealment of science only further weakens hiscredibility.

As long as Trumps scandals continue, our distrust in his administration will only intensify. His favoritism for certain businesses and cherry-picking of scientific information will not go unnoticed. And while the administration is busy denying climate change to benefit Trumps friends in the fossil fuel industry, these actions will bring irreparable damage to the hard-earned reputation of many institutions, such as the EPA, and damage the function of the U.S. government in the longrun.

Rowena Eng, Shelby Oliver, and Gokce Sencan are masters degree candidates at UC Santa Barbaras Bren School of Environmental Science & Management. Engs specialization at Bren is Corporate Environmental Management, Olivers is Coastal and Marine Resource Management, and Sencans Economics and Politics of the Environment. All three also pursue a focus in Strategic Environmental Communications andMedia.

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Trump's Censorship of Science - Santa Barbara Independent