Daily Archives: August 22, 2017

The Fight Over Free Speech Online – The New Yorker

Posted: August 22, 2017 at 11:44 pm

Generally speaking, anyone can say anything online. But, lately, things have started to get complicated. Last week, after neo-Nazis and white supremacists descended on Charlottesville, the neo-Nazi blog the Daily Stormer disappeared from the Internet. GoDaddy, the registrar of the sites domain, had discontinued its service. The Daily Stormer switched its domain to Google, which promptly shut it down as well. The site is now back up, on the dark Web, with its publisher pleading victimhood on social media. (I am being unpersoned.) What happened to the Daily Stormer wasnt a violation of the First Amendmentprivate companies are allowed to stifle speechbut it enraged people on the right, many of whom were already deeply skeptical of the puppet masters in Silicon Valley. Before any of this happened, a pro-Trump activist named Jack Posobiec was organizing a multicity March on Google, calling the company an anti-free-speech monopoly. (Last week, Posobiec announced that the march had been postponed, citing threats from the alt-left.)

Jack Conte is not an alt-right activisthes a bald, bearded musician from San Franciscobut he, too, once resented the titans of Silicon Valley. A few years ago, Conte was trying to make a living on YouTube. His music videosfunk covers of pop songs, homemade robots playing percussion padsoften went viral. I made a video that took many, many hours and cost me thousands of dollars, Conte said. My fans loved it. It got more than a million views. And I made a hundred and fifty bucks from it. I realized, Clearly, there is a problem with how stuff on the Internetwhat we now call content, what used to be called artgets monetized. Conte co-founded his own tech company, Patreon, a Web site that allows artists and activists to get paid directly by fans and supporters. A creator posts a description of what she intends to makea comic strip, a podcastand patrons sign up to fund it, each chipping in a few dollars a month. Patreon takes a five-per-cent cut. The company now has about eighty employees and a hundred-and-fifty-million-dollar valuationbig enough that many Web denizens consider Conte a new kind of puppet master.

Last month, Lauren Southern, a right-wing activist and pundit who was earning a few thousand dollars a month on Patreon, received an e-mail from the companys Trust and Safety team. Here at Patreon we believe in freedom of speech, it read. When ideas cross into action, though, we sometimes must take a closer look. Southern, a videogenic Canadian in her early twenties, whose book was blurbed by Ann Coulter, was known for videos like White Privilege Is a Dangerous Myth. Her Patreon page now reads This page has been removed.

Southern had participated in an anti-immigration action in the Mediterranean Sea, in which a motorboat tried to prevent a ship from bringing refugees to Europe. In an apologetic YouTube video, Conte insisted that Southern had been banned not for her politics but for her risky behavior. I didnt expect to convince everyone, and thats O.K., he said.

Predictably, Southerns fans were not pleased. Youre an idiot and a beta cuck, one commented. Some called for lawsuits. Others linked to a copycat site called Hatreon. (Motto: A platform for creators, absent thought policing.) Southern set up her own site, patreonsucks.com. Big liberal silicon valley companies want me to become a friendly little vlogger that spouts all the right lines, she wrote. I wont let that happen. She made a YouTube video directing followers to her new site, adding, As for Patreon, you guys can suck my balls.

Then came Charlottesville. Jason Kessler, the organizer of the Unite the Right rally, had a Patreon page (three backers, generating thirty-three dollars a month). It was swiftly removed for violating Patreons rule against affiliations with known hate groups. Meanwhile, another Patreon user, the progressive activist Logan Smith, began sharing photos of the torch-wielding mob on his Twitter handle @YesYoureRacist. He urged people to help him identify the participants: Ill make them famous. Online vigilantes complied, and several marchers lost their jobs. A few people were incorrectly identified, causing nonparticipants to receive death threats. Doxingpublishing someones private information onlineis against Patreons rules. Smith claims that his activism wasnt doxing. If these people are so proud of their beliefs, then they shouldnt have a problem with their communities knowing their names, he said last week.

Patreon disagreed, and Smiths page was removed. It doesnt matter who the victim is, Conte said. It could be a convicted murderer. If someone is releasing private information that an individual doesnt want to be made public, then thats doxing. And we dont allow it. (One person tweeted at Patreon, He is identifying nazis and you are stopping him at the request of nazis .) Conte went on, Weve been getting it from all sidesof course. I get it. Taking away someones income is a hugely onerous thing, and we dont take it lightly. He sighed. Weve dealt with a huge range of stuff in the past few years, a wider variety than I ever would have imagined. But the fact that were talking about swastika flags right now? It just makes me sad.

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Free Speech: The Left Moves In for the Kill – PJ Media

Posted: at 11:44 pm

The Left is mounting an all-out assault against the freedom of speech, and is using Charlottesville as its Reichstag Fire moment to try to crush all dissent.

Several days ago, I received an email that set in motion a chain of events leading to my website, Jihad Watch, being dropped from PayPal. After an immense public outcry, the Jihad Watch PayPal account was restored -- not that I ever intend to use it again. But this episode illustrates the Lefts determination to silence all of its foes rather than debate them, and these fascists wont rest until no one dares oppose their agenda.

The email that started this incident has ominous implications far beyond the incident itself. Far-Left journalist Lauren Kirchner sent similar emails to other counter-jihad sites as well -- here are her questions, along with the answers I sent her:

Yes, certainly I do. For years, Leftists and Muslim groups with numerous ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood have smeared as hate all attempts to speak honestly about the motivating ideology behind jihad terrorism.

In reality, it is not hateful, racist or extremist to oppose jihad terror, and the claim that it is [is] not only libelous but insidious: the intent has clearly been to intimidate people into thinking it wrong to oppose jihad terror, and it has worked, as illustrated by the neighbors of the San Bernardino jihad murderers, who saw suspicious activity at their home but didnt report them for fear of being racist.

2) We identified several tech companies on your website: PayPal, Amazon, Newsmax, and Revcontent. Can you confirm that you receive funds from your relationship with those tech companies? How would the loss of those funds affect your operations, and how would you be able to replace them?

The intent of your questions, and no doubt of your forthcoming article, will be to try to compel these sites to cut off any connection with us based on our opposition to jihad terror. Are you comfortable with what youre enabling?

Not only are you inhibiting honest analysis of the nature and magnitude of the jihad threat, but youre aiding the attempt to deny people a platform based on their political views. This could come back to bite you if your own views ever fall out of favor.

Have you ever lived in a totalitarian state, where the powerful determine the parameters of the public discourse and cut off all voice from the powerless? Do you really want to live in one now? You might find, once you get there, that it isnt as wonderful as you thought it would be.

3) Have you been shut down by other tech companies for being an alleged hate or extremist web site? Which companies?

No. This is a new thing.

First came the ridiculous claim that opposing jihad terror was hate, and now comes the other shoe dropping: the attempt to cut out the ground from under the feet of those who hate. You can only hope that you arent similarly defamed one day; perhaps if that does happen, you will realize (too late) why the freedom of speech is an indispensable element of a free society.

4) Many people opposed to sites like yours are currently pressuring tech companies to cease their relationships with them -- what is your view of this campaign? Why?

Nazis will be Nazis. Fascists will be fascists. Today they call themselves Antifa and the like, but theyre acting just like Hitlers Brownshirts did, when they shouted down and assaulted anti-Nazi speakers. Now the violent thugs work in a more genteel fashion: they just pull the Internet plug on those they hate. You, Lauren Kirchner, are aiding and abetting a quintessentially fascist enterprise. Authoritarianism in service of any cause leads to a slave society despite the best intentions of those who helped usher it in.

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Everyone’s suspicious of atheists even other atheists – SBS

Posted: at 11:43 pm

In the U.S. and plenty of other places around the world, atheism is on the rise. In just under half of the worlds countries, according to Pew Research Center, the second-largest religious group is people who claim no religion at all. In the United States, while recent research has shown an uptick in the number of people who identify as atheist, definitive numbers are hard to come by; one survey last year put it around 10 percent, whilea more recent study argued that it was as high as 26 percent.

Whatever the true number is, though, there remains a disconnect between atheisms popularity and its reputation: According to a new study published last week in Nature, people all over the world connect immorality with atheism. In fact, the moral prejudice against atheists is so strong that it holds even in countries like the Netherlands, where most people arent religious. Even atheists themselves, according to the study, are inclined to see nonbelievers as more wicked than the faithful.

According to a new study published last week in Nature, people all over the world connect immorality with atheism.

Entrenched moral suspicion of atheists suggests that religions powerful influence on moral judgements persists, even among non-believers in secular societies, the authors wrote.

The study, led by University of Kentucky psychology professor Will Gervais, surveyed more than 3,000 people in 13 countries, including nations with Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Muslim, and non-religious majorities: Australia, China, Czech Republic, Finland, Hong Kong, India, Mauritius, Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and the United States.

Participants read a description of a man who tortured animals as a child and became even more sadistically violent as he grew up, eventually murdering five homeless people and hiding their dismembered bodies in his basement. The survey then asked some participants if they thought the man was more likely a teacher or religious teacher. Other participants were asked if they though the man was more likely a teacher or an atheist teacher. This setup meant that no one was directly asked if they thought the man was or was not an atheist, but researchers could draw conclusions by comparing how many participants said the man would be an atheist teacher versus how many said he would be a religious teacher.

Entrenched moral suspicion of atheists suggests that religions powerful influence on moral judgements persists, even among non-believers in secular societies, the authors wrote.

As they had hypothesised, the researchers found a universal suspicion of atheist morality across all 13 countries. People overall are roughly twice as likely to view extreme immorality as representative of atheists, relative to believers, they wrote. Consistent with predictions, extreme intuitive moral distrust of atheists is both globally evident and variable in its magnitude across countries.

The association was somewhat stronger in more religious countries, but even in very secular countries in the study Australia, China, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom people were more likely to associate serial killing with atheism, although the gap was narrower. The survey also asked participants to describe their religious beliefs, which allowed the research team to determine that even atheists connected immoral acts to atheism more often than to religious belief.

The authors concluded that people around the world see religion as a necessary restraint on depraved and dangerous behavior. In other words, despite the fact that we live in an increasingly secular world, people still fear those who arent God-fearing.

That finding didnt surprise Joseph Baker, author of American Secularism and a professor in the East Tennessee State University sociology department. An anti-atheist bias is really common and really well established, he said. In the United States, atheists used to be the most disliked among a number of unpopular groups, but are now tied at the top with Muslims, he said; what this new study adds is good data showing that the feeling is international.

Louise Antony, a philosophy professor at UMass Amherst who has written about atheism and morality, also found the study results unsurprising. I could predict it just from what I know about the stereotypes that people hold of atheists, she said.

It wouldnt be surprising that atheists who grow up in cultures disparaging atheists have the same associations.

But Antony also cautioned against drawing too much significance from experiments that may reveal only implicit bias, but not accurately portray peoples more holistic feelings about atheists. For example, Antony said, she has a terrible fear of spiders, the result of some deep-seated association that she wishes she didnt have, since she knows that spiders are almost entirely harmless and kill pests like mosquitoes. Likewise, people even avowed atheists may be handicapped by an implicit connection between atheism and immorality, despite a genuine belief that they themselves are as moral as believers.

The study might also be picking up on a fairly superficial response, Antony said: It wouldnt be surprising that atheists who grow up in cultures disparaging atheists have the same associations.

But even superficial biases can have very real effects, she added. Thats especially true in moments of hot cognition, when people dont have time to stop and reason out their beliefs before taking action, Baker noted.

This latest study is more evidence that atheists are still mistrusted in contemporary society, he said. It means that people who are secular still have a long way to go in terms of getting equal footing in civil discourse. Theres still a lot of prejudice they have to overcome.

This article originally appeared on Science of Us: Article 2017. All Rights reserved. Distributed by Tribune Content.

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The Camera That Will Transform Our Understanding of the Universe – Atlas Obscura

Posted: at 11:41 pm

The LSST is getting close to completion. LSST Project/NSF/AURA

Theres a mystery at the heart of physics. Two decades ago, in 1998, cosmologists discovered that the universe is not just expandinga discovery of the early 20th centurybut that the rate at which its expanding is getting faster.

Thats not what they expected to find, but it made a kind of sense. If the expansion of the universe is accelerating, there needs to be a cause; not knowing exactly what that was, physicists called it dark energy. In theory, dark energy interacts through gravity, is spread out homogeneously through the universe, and is not particularly dense. If you total up all of the forces that make up the universe, it would account for 68.3 percent of matter and energy.

Account for dark energy, and certain theories of physics start to click. It helps explain the rate that galaxies rotate and reveals a more sensible age of the universewithout dark energy, scientists were finding that some stars were supposedly older than the universe as a whole. But almost 20 years after this discovery, physicists still know only a little bit about it. In order to learn more, scientists from dozens of institutions in 23 countries have been working together to create the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, a giant, digital camera that has the power to capture the light of several billion faint galaxies, millions of light years away.

All the existing telescopes with cameras were built before the discovery of dark energy, said Paul OConnor, a senior scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory. We expect the LSST to map the entire sky and find out where all that dark matter has been hiding. OConnor has been working on the projects camera sensors for more than ten years, and at Atlas Obscuras Total Eclipse festival on Sunday, he explained how the telescope, when it goes into operation on a mountain in Chile, could transform our fundamental understanding of the universe.

For millennia, scientists and scholars have been looking at the night sky and recording their impressions with the best technology available. Starting in the 18th century, with the advent of photography, astronomers started taking pictures of the stars and other celestial phenomena; in 1851, a daguerreotypist, Johann Julius Berkowski, took the first photo of a solar eclipse. In the 1920s, Edwin Hubble used what was then the worlds largest telescope to established that spiral nebulae were whole other galaxies, millions of light years distant from our own. The human understanding of space changed; we saw for the first time the extent of empty space, punctuated by these disc-shaped assemblies of stars, hundreds of billions of stars, which are the galaxies, as OConnor puts it.

In the 1970s, scientists at Bell Labs created a technology that used a charge-coupled device to capture lights as digital images. In 1981, the astrophotographer Jim Gunn used a CCD camera to create a 500 by 500 pixel image of a faint star cluster. He called that camera a nearly perfect device. This same technology, refined, is what kicked off the revolution in consumer-grade cameras and has given us the astounding images of the universe captured by the Hubble Telescope and other instruments. Today, there are dozens of huge telescopes, with top-notch CCD cameras. The question for the team building the LSST, OConnor says, is: Why are we going to the trouble of building another one? What will the LSST do that existing cameras will not?

If you looked up at the sky on a dark night, you might see 2,500 stars with your human eyes. The LSST would see a billion stars, OConnor said this weekend, and those stars would be outnumbered by distant galaxies, three to one. The cameras field of view is ten square degreesabout the size of a dime, held up to the sky. Every photograph we take of that size of the sky gets us another million galaxies, OConnor said.

One of the jobs of the LSST is to survey as many of these galaxies, over as wide a region of sky, as possible.

When the LSST goes into operation, which is scheduled for 2020, it will spend a decade scanning the sky, again and again. Over about 3,000 nights, the instrument will scan and capture each patch of sky one thousand times. Were really going to be making a movie of the universe, OConnor said. The LSST was specially designed to make this possibleit has a relatively wide field of view, it can scan each tiny section of the sky quickly, and it can look deep into the depths of the universe, to capture the faintest, most faraway galaxies.

With the information collected, cosmologists hope to start to better understand dark energy, the force that is causing those distant galaxies to speed away from us at an ever-increasing pace. This line of inquiry has the potential to transform the field of physics. The acceleration of the universe is, along with dark matter, the observed phenomenon that most directly demonstrates that our theories of fundamental particles and gravity are either incomplete or incorrect, the Dark Energy Task Force wrote in 2006. By looking at these faraway galaxies and understanding more about how they move, scientists may unlock fundamental truths about the nature of time, space, matter, and the forces that hold our world together, that have so far escaped our understanding.

Thats the reason theyre building the LSST. One of the reasons, at least.

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Former NSA official named to M&T board – Buffalo News

Posted: at 11:39 pm

M&T Bank Corp. has named a former deputy director of the National Security Agency to its board of directors.

Richard H. Ledgett Jr., a Maryland resident, spent 29 years with the NSA, including serving as itsdeputy director from January 2014 until his retirement last April. M&T said Ledgett has a total of four decades of experience in intelligence, cyber security and cyber operations experience.

Richard H. Ledgett Jr. (PRNewsfoto)

As the NSA's deputy director, Ledgett acted as the agency's chief operating officer, and he also led the NSA's 24/7 Threat Operations Center, which is responsible for identifying and countering cyber threats to the United States' national security systems.

Robert G. Wilmers, M&T's chairman and CEO, said Ledgett "will be an invaluable addition to our board, bringinga management, operational and technical perspective to cyber security and information assurance that will further strengthen M&T's commitment to information security and risk management."

With Ledgett's appointment, M&T now has 15 directors on its board.

Ledgett was also named to the board of M&T Bank, M&T's principal banking subsidiary.

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What the Announced NSA / Cyber Command Split Means – Defense One

Posted: at 11:39 pm

Cyberwar and cyber intelligence are diverging, as are Cyber Command and the NSA. Heres what that means for the man who leads both entities, the future of signals intelligence collection, and cyberwarfare.

The move to elevate Cyber Command to a full Unified Combatant Command and split it off from the National Security Agency or NSA shows that cyber intelligence collection and information war are rapidly diverging fields. The future leadership of both entities is now in question, but the Pentagon has set out a conditions-based approach to the breakup. That represents a partial victory for the man who directs both Cyber Command and theNSA.

The move would mean that the head of Cyber Command would answer directly to the Defense Secretary and the National Security Agency would get its own head. Its a move that many have said is long overdue, and its exact timing remains unknown. So what does the split mean for the Pentagon, for Cyber Command, and for the future of U.S. cybersecurity?

The split will give the commander of Cyber Command central authority over resource allocation, training, operational planning and mission execution. The commander will answer to the Defense Secretary directly, not the head of Strategic Command. The decision means that Cyber Command will play an even more strategic role in synchronizing cyber forces and training, conducting and coordinating military cyberforce operations and advocating for and prioritizing cyber investments within the department, said Kenneth Rapuano, assistant defense secretary for Homeland Defense and GlobalSecurity.

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The move announced on Friday fulfills a mandate in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2017. Former Defense Secretary Ash Carter hinted at the split back in May 2016. But it wont happenimmediately.

Instead, Defense Secretary James Mattis and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joe Dunford will nominate a flag officer to take over the new Cyber Command as well as the NSA. That person could be Adm. Michael Rogers, who currently heads both, or someone else. Trump has reportedly asked Mattis to give him the name of a nominee. Speculation has focused on Army Lt. Gen. William Mayville as the nominee to head CyberCommand.

Once that new person is nominated and confirmed and once Mattis and Dunford are satisfied that splitting the two entities will not hamper the ability of either Cyber Command or the NSA to conduct their missions independently, only then will Cyber Command and the NSA actuallysplit.

What Does it Mean forLeadership?

Read one way, the announcement means Rogers will lose power. Even were he to become the nominee to the new elevated Cyber Command, he would still wind up losing the NSA eventually, or, as the eventual head of the NSA, lose CyberCommand.

Read another way, the lack of a concrete timetable for the split, despite such a requirement in the authorization bill, represents a partial win forRogers.

Rogers took over the NSA and Cyber Command in the spring of 2014. He has been resistant to the idea of a split, telling lawmakers in September that U.S. national security benefitted from the dual-hat arrangement. This view was not shared by then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper nor then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter. Rogers resistance was one of many issues that rubbed them the wrongway.

It got so bad that in November, unnamed sources told The Washington Post that Clapper and Carter were urging President Barack Obama to fireRogers.

The truth is a bit more nuanced. Clappers goal was to split the NSA from CyberCom. He was not a strong advocate of removal, but was willing to defer to [the Secretary of Defense] if Carter felt strongly about selecting new leadership at Cyber Command, a source inside the intelligence community said. There were other concerns unrelated to the potentialsplit.

Rogers outlasted both Clapper, who had long planned to retire at the end of the Obama administration; and Carter, a political appointee. Rogers attitude toward an NSA-Cyber Command split evolved. In May, he testified that he would support a split was done in a way that did not hamper either the NSA or CyberCommand.

The manner in which the split was announced is in keeping with what Rogers has said hewanted.

The move toward a conditions-based split also met with the approval of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz, a longtime Rogers ally. I appreciate the administrations commitment today to ensuring that a future separation of the so-called dual hat relationship between Cyber Command and the National Security Agency will be based on conditions, rather than arbitrary political timelines, McCain said in a statement. While Cyber Command and the National Security Agency should eventually be able to operate independent of one another, the administration must work closely with the Congress to take the necessary steps that will make this separation of responsibilities successful, and to ensure that each agency will emerge more effective and more capable as aresult.

What It Means for Cyber Command, the NSA, and CyberOperations

The elevation of Cyber Command represents a big step forward for the militarys cyber ability, but it has yet to be catch up to the NSA in terms of collecting signals intelligence or creating network accesses, according to Bill Leigher, who as a rear admiral helped stand up Navy Fleet Cyber Command. Leigher, who now directs government cyber solutions for Raytheon, applauds the split because the NSA, which collects foreign intelligence, and Cyber Command, a warfighting outfit, have fundamentally different missions.This caused tension between the two organizations under one roof. Information collected for intelligence gathering may be useful in a way thats fundamentally different from intelligence for military purposes, he says. If you collecting intelligence, its foreign espionage. You dont want to get caught. The measure of success is: collect intelligence and dont get caught. If youre going to war, I would argue that the measure of performance is what we do has to have the characteristics of a legal weapon in the context of war and the commander has to know what he or she usesit.

This puts the agencies in disagreement about how to use intel and tools that they share. From an NSA perspective, cyber really is about gaining access to networks. From aCyber Command point of view, I would argue, its about every piece of software on the battlefield and having the means to prevent that software from working the way it was intended to work [for the adversary], hesaid.

The split will allow the agencies to pursue the very different tools, operations, and rules each of their missions requires, he said. Expect NSA to intensify its focus on developing access for intelligence, and Cyber Command to prepare to rapidly deploy massive cyber effects at scale during military operations and shut down the enemy. Both of this will likely leverage next-generation artificial intelligence but in very different ways saidLeigher.

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UP govt to use NSA, Goondas Act to curb power theft, award informers – Hindustan Times

Posted: at 11:39 pm

The Uttar Pradesh government has decided to slap the National Security Act (NSA) and Goondas Act against those obstructing electricity department officials from discharging their duties in checking power thefts and award those who give information about such thefts.

State Energy Minister Shrikant Sharma said honest customers suffer because of power theft and the government is committed to check the menace.

National Security Act and Goondas Act will be slapped on those obstructing officials from discharging their duties while curbing electricity theft. Power theft is a national crime. We are in the process of setting up 75 bijli thane (power police stations) for this, he said here.

Under the stringent NSA, a person can be detained without bail or trial and the authorities need not disclose the grounds of detention if they believe the detainee can act in a way that poses a threat to the security of the state/country or the maintenance of public order.

The Goondas Act aims at a year-long preventive detention of habitual offenders. According to the law, a goonda is a person who, either by himself or as a member or leader of a gang, habitually commits or attempts to commit or abets the commission of offences.

Meanwhile, in a bid to ensure adequate availability of electricity by minimising the line losses, the state Cabinet has given approval to the Protsahan Yojana (encouragement scheme).

In this regard, provisions have been made that a person informing about power theft will be given 10 per cent of the compounding fee (realised from a person indulging in power theft) as protsaahan (encouragement).

Similarly, 10 per cent of the compounding fee will also be given to the enforcement team, the Uttar Pradesh Cabinet said in an official statement.

Sharma said the state government would follow the Gujarat Model of power distribution and keep a check on pilferage and establish dedicated police stations in all 75 districts where cases of power theft would be taken up.

The tough Gujarat Model envisages constitution of dedicated vigilance squads and setting up special police stations to check pilferage.

The Uttar Pradesh government has already initiated name and shame policy for power bill defaulters under which names of big defaulters are disclosed in a bid to cajole them to pay their bills at the earliest.

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Bahrain rights groups accuse National Security Agency of torture – Reuters

Posted: at 11:39 pm

DUBAI (Reuters) - Three Bahraini human rights groups accused the Gulf Arab monarchy's National Security Agency on Tuesday of systematic use of torture, and a security official said it would investigate their allegations.

The NSA has for decades been central to the Sunni Muslim-ruled kingdom's efforts to overcome protests and occasional violence by members of the country's Shi'ite Muslim majority.

The Gulf Institute for Democracy and Human Rights, the Bahrain Forum for Human Rights and Salam for Democracy and Human Rights accused the NSA of employing excessive force from its predecessor agency's founding in 1966 to the present.

Giving examples, the report by the three groups entitled "Chambers of Death" alleged that female rights activist Ebtisam Alsaegh was subjected to torture and sexual assault during an interrogation by the NSA in May this year.

It accused the NSA of having arrested an opposition party official Adel Marzooq in the same month, "stripping him of clothes, pouring cold water several times on him, threatening him with rape, forcing him to repeat the slogans 'I am a traitor to the homeland' and forcing him to quit his legal activism".

The rights organizations recommended that the NSA be relegated to gathering intelligence and be stripped of a role in arrests and law enforcement.

A Bahraini security adviser said the government took allegations of wrongdoing seriously and would investigate any violations.

"The NSA is committed to protecting and preserving Bahrains national security whilst upholding domestic and international law. We therefore take very seriously any allegations of wrongdoing by NSA staff," said the adviser, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.

"We will be examining the report in detail and will provide a full response when we have looked into these allegations."

In 2011, Bahrain put down an uprising by pro-democracy activists, many of them Shi'ites. The monarchy believes the opposition seeks to overthrow it by force and accuses Iran of aiding in deadly militant attacks on security forces.

Home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet, Bahrain denies opposition claims that it marginalizes Shi'ites economically and in government representation. But U.S. President Donald Trump's administration reiterated concerns about Bahrain this month.

"In Bahrain, the government continued to question, detain, and arrest Shi'ite clerics, community members, and opposition politicians," U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said with respect to an annual report on global religious freedom.

Bahrain said Tillerson's remarks were "inappropriate" and showed "a deep misunderstanding of the facts".

Reporting By Noah Browning

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Charleston man arrested for ‘Black Lives Matter’ graffiti – Charleston Gazette-Mail (subscription)

Posted: at 11:38 pm

Charleston police arrested on Tuesday night an East End man who allegedly spray painted Black Lives Matter on the Clay Center the previous night.

Detectives arrested Ray Hensley Jr., 36, for destruction of property, according to a criminal complaint filed in Kanawha County Magistrate Court. Hensley, who is white, also was charged with obstructing, two counts of shoplifting, and trespassing, according to a news release.

Sgt. J.A. Hunt said, in a news release, that police expect to file more charges once a more detailed examination of other graffiti sites is completed.

Police had said, in a news release earlier Tuesday, that they found graffiti on both the Clay Center, at 1 Clay Square, and Foxs Pizza, on Ruffner Avenue, near Smith Street. The graffiti appeared to match in paint color and was similar in writing style, police had said.

Police received a tip that Hensley had Black Lives Matter spray painted on a cardboard sign on the front porch of his Dixie Street apartment, according to a criminal complaint. Police wrote in the complaint that the slogan on the sign was also written in the same writing style.

Detective W. Anderson wrote, in the complaint, that Black Lives Matter found several weeks ago on a billboard at the intersection of Slack Street and Piedmont Road had what appeared to be the initials RHJ written on the bottom and was also written in a similar style.

Police had reviewed video surveillance from the Clay Center. Police said, in the complaint, that Hensley was wearing black and white shoes, similar to those of the person in the surveillance video.

While driving to the station I asked if Mr. Hensley if he was aware of why we would want to speak with him and he nodded his head yes, Anderson wrote. I explained that this was not a major crime but we did want to know why these locations were damaged. I told him that he was captured on video spray painting the side of the Clay Center and he nodded his head in agreement. I asked if he was aware of the cameras in the area and he said that he was not.

I then asked if he was responsible for the spray painting incidents several weeks ago and he said he would exercise his fifth amendment right on that question. I asked if I should be looking for someone else in relation to those crimes or would I be wasting my time doing so? Mr. Hensley said that I would be wasting my time and that he would not let someone else take the blame for him.

While at the station Mr. Hensley was read his Miranda rights [CPD form 145] and initialed the form. He wrote his initials as RHJ on the form.

Destruction of property, a misdemeanor, is punishable by a fine of not more than $500, confinement in a regional jail for not more than one year, or both.

Charleston police could not be reached for more information Tuesday night.

Reach Erin Beck at erin.beck@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5163, Facebook.com/erinbeckwv, or follow @erinbeckwv on Twitter.

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LIVE LOCAL, LIVE SMALL: What freedoms and liberties do we stand to lose? – encore Online

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The Guardian reported:

The warrant covers the people who own and operate the site, but also seeks to get the IP addresses of 1.3 million people who visited it, as well as the date and time of their visit, and information about what browser or operating system they used.

There are a variety of concerning aspects to this set of events. First, and most obviously, are those related to the First Amendment (freedom of speech and assembly) and the Fourth Amendment (protection from unreasonable search and seizure). The Department of Justice wants the IP addresses of every visitor to the siteand from that information the physical location of each visitor can be ascertained. It makes identification not all that difficult. Besides freedom of speech, there are questions about the scope of the warrant. The Fourth Amendment makes it clear a warrant must specify locations to be searched and probable cause. Orin Kerr noted in the Washington Post:

Courts have allowed the government to get a suspects entire email account, which the government can then search through for evidence. But is the collective set of records concerning a website itself so extensive that it goes beyond what the Fourth Amendment allows? In the physical world, the government can search only one apartment in an apartment building with a single warrant; it cant search the entire apartment building.

Additionally, one has to be concerned that one branch of government would use their power to collect private information about citizens it feels threatened by. It looks like a personal score to settle. People who disagree with the executive branch are to be identifiedand to what end specifically? Over 200 people have already been charged with felony rioting at the inauguration. Why does the Department of Justice need to identify 1.3 million people who might disagree with the executive branch? It is frightening not only for civil liberties but for what it can mean on the slippery slope of settling political scores with citizens. Ask the Mothers of the Disappeared in Argentina: This is dangerous.

At the end of June, the executive branch asked the states to turn over voter registration information for the voter fraud commission. The information requested voter rolls, dates of birth and the last four digits of social security numbers. North Carolinas bipartisan State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement announced it would turn over publicly available information to the commission, but not social security numbers and dates of birth. Some states have refused to comply. I have to admit: The possibility of finding oneself purged from the voter rolls is a scary idea.

About 10 years ago, I found myself dropped from the voter registration rolls. It was a bit of a surprise; I showed up on election day and was informed I was not registered to vote in New Hanover County. The poll worker asked if I had registered to vote?

Yes, I answered. I have voted at this precinct location for the past six years. I usually come in with one of my parents and we would take turns standing with the dog outside, because a family that votes together stays together.

After much hemming and hawing with the poll workers, I was given a provisional ballot. I sorted out my registration and, thankfully (fingers crossed), have not had a problem since.

I come from a family that makes voting a priority. I am comfortable advocating for that right with people in positions of authority.

Recently, my household went through the citizenship process and one of the recurring themes in the process was voting is one of the most important ways to participate in a democracy and preform a civic duty. At the Naturalization Ceremony, the League of Women Voters were standing by with voter registration forms for each of the newly sworn-in citizens.

It doesnt take a giant leap of imagination to see those two lists overlap: Who visited a website the executive branch dislikes and who voted against the candidate in the last election? Where there is a match, how hard would it be to drop a name from the rolls? As far-fetched as this would have sounded 18 months ago, it is just not hard to imagine right now. If they control who can vote, they can control who wins an election. The timing of demanding these two sets of data is startling and frightening.

Dreamhost is challenging in the warrant and a hearing is scheduled on August 18. What is possibly more frightening than the above scenario is the possibility this is just a litmus test. If successful, where does it stop? What speech and assembly freedoms could we lose?

In the wake of the events at Charlottesville and escalating concern regarding North Koreawhich strike a primal and emotional chordit is hard to focus on something as dry as a justice department warrant. But that is exactly why it is important. The events surrounding the warrant and what happens with the information gathered will directly impact the publics ability to talk back to power and speak freely.

Allowing one branch of the government to target citizens who disagree is dangerous The possibilities of the internet are a fascinating double-edged sword. Never before in history have we had the ability to share information, opinions and ideas with such immediacy. Social media and web tools can allow for assemblies with short notice on a scale not previously imaginedand the documentation of the assemblies can be shared and made available around the world as they unfold. But the footprint and trackability of online activity is the other side of the coin. Potentially targeting someones voting rights based upon political opinions is not what the constitution intends.

Its important: protecting citizens rights to vote, speak and participate in democracy. It is essential to our future.

CharlottesvilleDepartment of Justiceencore magazineFourth AmendmentGwenyfar RohlerLeague of Women VotersMothers of the Disappeared in ArgentinaNaturalization Ceremonynew hanover countyNorth KoreaOrin KerrState Board of Elections and Ethics EnforcementUnited States ConstitutionWashington PostWilmington NC

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LIVE LOCAL, LIVE SMALL: What freedoms and liberties do we stand to lose? - encore Online

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