Monthly Archives: May 2020

The acrimonious split of Masha and Ronnie Shak ended up where many divorces do these days on Facebook.

As the proceedings unfolded, Mr. Shak offered a running commentary on social media, shared with the couples rabbi, assistant rabbi and members of their synagogue, court documents show.

He created a GoFundMe page entitled Help me KEEP MY SON. He called his ex-wife an evil liar. He illustrated the posts with a video of their one-year-old son, and told their friends to unfriend her.

That was until a probate court judge banned Mr. Shak from posting on social media about his divorce, a common practice known as a nondisparagement order.

As important as it is to protect a child from the emotional and psychological harm that might follow from one parents use of vulgar or disparaging words about the other, merely reciting that interest is not enough to satisfy the heavy burden of restricting speech, Justice Kimberly S. Budd wrote in a 13-page ruling.

Jennifer M. Lamanna, a lawyer who represented Mr. Shak in the appeal, called the ruling a game-changer because family and probate judges in the state frequently give such orders, and treat violations as contempt of court, carrying severe penalties.

There are thousands of these out there, which is why this is, for Massachusetts purposes, a landmark ruling, she said. People ask for them routinely and they are just handed out.

She said the orders, used for decades to control disparaging speech, have been expanded in recent years to focus on social media.

Under such orders, she said, my client could write a nasty letter to everyone he knows, but hes not allowed to put it up on social media. You can whisper in your synagogue, make nasty remarks about your ex-wife, but you cant put it up on Facebook.

Ms. Shaks attorney, Richard M. Novitch, said the ruling had an immediate, negative effect, prompting Mr. Shak to resume his postings on social media. Within the last 24 hours of the Shak case being issued by the S.J.C., hes right back at it, blowing up on social media, he said. Theres nothing that stops him.

While Mr. Novitch called the decision constitutionally sound, he said that common sense would suggest that children should be insulated from the combat between parents.

It will give license to a lot of bad actors to say what they want, regardless of where and when and the circumstances, he said.

The case underscored the role social media can play in modern divorce, as dueling parties try to win support from their circle of acquaintances.

Shortly after filing for divorce and seeking to remove Mr. Shak from their shared home, Ms. Shak filed a motion to prohibit him from posting disparaging remarks about her on social media. Two family court judges complied, with the second, George F. Phelan, issuing an order preventing both Mr. and Ms. Shak from posting any disparagement of the other party on social media until their son reached the age of 14.

Judge Phelans ruling prevented both spouses from using four specific expletives, as well as other pejoratives involving any gender, noting that the Court acknowledges the impossibility of listing herein all of the opprobrious vitriol and their permutations within the human lexicon.

It also banned the parents from posting photographs of their son in poses the judge considered inappropriate.

The court finds that the fathers posing, taking and posting of the photo of the parties child (then less than one year old) with a cigarette in his mouth was in poor taste, even if intended as a joke, and causes the Court to question the fathers maturity, the judge wrote.

But Judge Phelan also put the order on hold, to be reviewed on constitutional grounds by the Supreme Judicial Court. And this week, the court found it unconstitutional.

An order preventing someone from carrying out a certain kind of speech, known as prior restraint, is legal in the United States when the threat of damage caused by that speech is compelling. But though the state does have an interest in protecting children from being exposed to disparagement between their parents, it is not grave enough to justify restricting freedom of speech, the ruling said.

The ruling noted that one spouse, if offended by the others speech, has the option of suing for defamation or seeking a harassment prevention order. It also noted that the judges ruling does not apply to voluntary nondisparagement agreements.

What are people with common sense going to do? Theyre going to go out in the hallway and reach an accord in which each agrees not to disparage the other, said Mr. Novitch, Ms. Shaks attorney. It will be based on the agreement of the parties, not on judicial fiat.

Ruth A. Bourquin, a senior attorney from the American Civil Liberties Union, the co-author of an amicus brief supporting Mr. Shak, said she was relieved by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling. Were so grateful that the S.J.C. reiterated the first amendment principles, and recognized that they applied here, she said, comparing social media to the new town square.

Thats what it is, she said. Just because its bigger doesnt mean we can say that the rights of free speech dont apply. Having a government actor say you can say this, and not say that, is a somewhat scary alternative.

Excerpt from:
Divorcing Parents Have a Right to Post Their Stories Online, Court Says - The New York Times

Metro Times gained access to four private Facebook groups that can only be seen by approved members. The pages, which have a combined 400,000 members, are filled with paranoid, sexist, and grammar-challenged rants, with members encouraging violence and flouting the governors social-distancing orders.

On Sunday, after being contacted by Metro Times, Facebook removed one of the groups, Michigan United for Liberty, and deleted posts on others for violating the companys policy against inciting violence. Facebook announced last month that it will remove groups and events that encourage people to defy social-distancing measures. Facebook also is investigating the other groups.

We removed one group for violating our policies and will remove any other violations as we continue our review, a Facebook spokesperson tells Metro Times.

Assassinating Whitmer is a common theme among members of the groups. Dozens of people have called for her to be hanged.

We need a good old fashioned lynch mob to storm the Capitol, drag her tyrannical ass out onto the street and string her up as our forefathers would have, John Campbell Sr. wrote in a group called People of Michigan vs. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, which had nearly 9,000 members as of Monday morning.

Steve Doxsie had the same idea: Drag that tyrant governor out to the front lawn. Fit her for a noose.

Either President Trump sends in the troops or there is going to be a midnight lynching in Lansing soon, Michael Smith chimed in.

Others suggested she be shot, beaten, or beheaded.

Plain and simple she needs to eat lead and send a statement to the rest of the democrats that they are next, James Greena, of Fennville, wrote.

Chris Rozman said, She needs her ass beat. Most of these politicians need a good ass whooping. Just. Punch there lights out.

When someone suggested the guillotine, Thomas Michael Lamphere responded, Good ol fashioned bullets work better, but I like the enthusiasm.

Wonder how long till shes hit with a shotgun blast, Chris Parrish wrote.

Matthew Woodruff had another idea: Can we please just take up a collection for an assassin to put that woman from Michigan down, he asked.

We couldve taken over the capital last time if we wanted, Chris Coffey said. This was just a display. Next time wont be!

If she thinks the last protest was bad she hasn't seen anything yet, DonnaCookie Grady warned.

We havent had any bloodshed yet, but the populous is counting to three, and the other day was two, Dave Meisenheimer wrote in Michiganders Against Excessive Quarantine, which has more than 385,000 members. Next comes watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants.

Gordon Chapman says hes going to the Thursday rally and hopes demonstrators are armed to the teeth.

Voting is too late we need to act now, Chapman said.

The potential for violence prompted some public officials, including Whitmer and Attorney General Dana Nessel, to promote banning firearms from the Capitol building.

There are legislators who are wearing bulletproof vests to go to work, Whitmer told ABC News last week. "No one should be intimidated by someone who's bringing in an assault rifle into their workplace.

At 11 a.m. Monday, the bipartisan Michigan State Capitol Commission plans to discuss a firearms ban. In a letter to the six-member commission, Nessel told the panel that it has the legal authority to ban guns from the Capitol.

Nessels support of the ban drew anger on another private Facebook page, Whitmer Recall Movement, which has more than 3,500 members.

We are sharpening a stick for you Dana, Pete Scudamore wrote.

DO you want me to bring the rope, shouldnt be too hard to find a good tree, Russell Kynn asked.

Nessels spokeswoman Kelly Rossman-McKinney says the attorney generals office will not tolerate threats.

We take every threat seriously and, of course, we are doing everything we can to minimize threats, Rossman-McKinney tells Metro Times.

In January, Metro Times chronicled another Facebook page that was rife with sexism, Islamophobia, and threats against Whitmer and other politicians.

Whitmer responded with a letter to Facebook.

"As a lawyer who respects the First Amendment right to freedom of speech and expression, I realize there is only so much purview media platforms have for the content posted by their users," Whitmer wrote. "However, better enforcement of Facebook's own community standards where 'attacks' are defined as, 'violent or dehumanizing speech, statements of inferiority, or calls for exclusion or segregation' this election cycle is needed now more than ever. Mine is not a singular ask."

The private Facebook groups are a hub for far-fetched conspiracy theories and disinformation, reinforcing peoples fears and anger. For some, the states stay-at-home order is an unconstitutional plot by liberals to strip residents of their freedoms and steal the election from President Trump. Some insist the coronavirus is a hoax, and others believe its a manmade disease designed to enrich billionaires and force vaccines on the masses.

One of the most popular and influential conspiracies is featured in Plandemic, a 26-minute documentary-style video with ominous music that racked up millions of views in the past week. The video features a widely refuted researcher named Judy Mikovits, who spins a baseless tale about wealthy people intentionally spreading the coronavirus to boost vaccination rates. She also warns against wearing masks, saying they can exacerbate viral symptoms. Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram have been removing the video, saying the false claims pose a threat to public health.

Not surprisingly, many members of the groups say they will never wear a mask because they believe they are unsafe or represent tyranny.

Birbot Arvo suggested he would resort to violence if police approached him about wearing a mask.

Cop or not. You come at me strong about a mask and I will break your face, Arvo said.

Nathan Silver declared he will not submit to their cultural Marxism.

I refuse to wear one, wrote Rich T. Tyra II. They cause more problems than they prevent and its a sign of being silenced and submission and its training for the forced vaccinations.

To Melody DeCaire, wearing a mask is useless because the coronavirus isnt real.

theres no such thing as Covid, she insisted. Its radation [sic] poisoning coming from the 5g, referring to the conspiracy theory that5G towers cause the illness.

As it struggles to stem the spread of disinformation, Facebook has become the go-to platform for anti-government talking points.

In an April 20 interview with ABC News Good Morning America,Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the stuff that people are saying that is false around a health emergency like this can be classified as harmful misinformation that has a risk of leading to imminent danger, and well take that content down.

When reached for comment, Facebook users who posted comments about violence said they were merely exercising their right to free speech.

Thomas Allan Morse, who wrote, Army 11 bravo vet here ready to rumble. Two to the chest one to the head, responded that he earned the right to exercise free speech because he served in the military.

Did you serve this country in the armed forces? Let alone ground combat? Morse asked Metro Times via Facebook Messenger. I earned my 1st ammendment (sic).

He declined to say whether he planned to attend Thursdays rally.

Sexism also is rampant among members of the private groups.

I'm dying here a woman talking strategy is like a man explaining what its like to go through menopause. PLEASE, Eric John Mayer said.

James Davis added, Men advanced civilization from the days of banging two rocks together. I dont doubt there are smart women out there. However, the smart women are busy doing things like having families, not corrupting themselves with power and ruining peoples lives.

Facebook users called Whitmer a Nazi, spawn of the devil, wicked witch, arrogant facist [sic] pig, Gestapo Gretchen, tyrant, Soros puppet, and baby killer tyrant.

For Patricia Folk, threats are the logical next step to regaining her freedoms.

I honestly believe that the only way that Congress and the Senate are going to start listening to We the People are threats, Folk wrote on one of the private pages. They no longer respect the voter, or the people they represent. Maybe a tarred and feathered election official, may wake them up.

Excerpt from:
Gov. Whitmer becomes target of dozens of threats on private Facebook groups ahead of armed rally in Lansing - Detroit Metro Times

I read Ewan Gurrs column about the SNPs Hate Crime Bill which appears to me to stand up for every minority while punishing anyone who in their opinion says anything that slights them.

Late comedians such as Dick Emery, Benny Hill and Dave Allen would all be arrested, while Frankie Boyle will maybe be put down.

As for myself and thousands of other football fans, are we to be charged for chanting Stand up if you hate Dundee/Hibs/Hearts or any other club?

What has happened to free speech?

The mind boggles.

Yours,

Concerned Reader.

Throughout my life, I have disagreed with many and disliked some but do not think I can say I have ever hated anyone.

The SNP can now resolve that question with their authoritarian new Hate Crime Bill which carries a maximum seven year jail term for anyone who stirs up hatred or insults anyone on the basis of age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or variations in sex characteristics.

The intent of the legislation proposed by the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Humza Yousaf, is not in question because hate is not pleasant for anyone who has ever been on the receiving end.

However, the Bill extends to those who possess inflammatory material or employers who fail to report those who promote it.

Could we eventually see a church minister prosecuted for failing to officiate a same sex wedding, a history student penalised for purchasing a copy of Mein Kampf for an essay on the Second World War or Frankie Boyle being hauled before a judge for hurting the feelings of a paedophile?

Currently, Scotlands two biggest SNP-led councils are being taken to court over the alleged suppression of freedom of speech and dialogue concerning the postponed Gender Recognition Act is expected to become more intense.

The Scottish Government could not have selected a worse time to present this Bill if they tried.

The rest is here:
Readers' Letters: 'Hate bill an attack on free speech and could affect football and comedy' - Evening Telegraph

Editors Note: This is your definitive guide to the big SCOTUS oral argument today. For our live and unfiltered thoughts on the argument as it unfolded see here and here. Additionally we will have a VIDEO podcast discussing the SCOTUS argument up this week. Check back for more.

Well folks, today was the big dayoral argument took place in Barr v. AAPC and it did not disappoint.

With the advocates and the Supreme Court Justices including Ginsburg who called in from a hospital bed calling into the hearing by phone the stage was set for a robust back-and-forth between the advocates and the Justices, who asked questions in order of seniority.

What emerged over the hour-long argument was the tale of a stark choice: strike down the entirety of a beloved statute (the Telephone Consumer Protection Act) whichat least according to popular fiction combats robocalls or sever an unconstitutional exemption to the TCPA and forever set precedent allowing courts to expand unconstitutional restrictions on speech by judicial fiat.

What a choice!

Remarkably there is ZERO case law directly on point here as the advocates both acknowledged in their arguments. That leaves the Supreme Court justices with a blank slate to draw on in formulating the proper dimensions of First Amendment scrutiny where a content-neutral restriction on speech contains an unconstitutional, content-specific exemption. That also makes AAPC v. Barra huge casenot just for the TCPA for First Amendment precedent and our freedom of speech as a whole.

While it is always dangerous to draw conclusions from oral argumentjustices notoriously will ask questions that do not ultimately tip their hand we think the tea leaves here are pretty safe to read to some degree. Here are our TOP 10 takeaways from the big AAPC v. Barr TCPA review.

1. The TCPAs Government-Backed Debt Exemption is Dead:

If there was any doubt that the government-back debt exemption might be upheld going into the oral argument, the questions of the Justices seem to put those doubts to bed.

The exemption was already limping when, ahead of oral argument, the government conceded away the position that the government-backed debt exemption does NOT survive strict scrutiny. That left it in the difficult position of arguing that the exemption was not content-baseda real stretch.

The Court did not seem impressed. Several of the justices expressed an outright rejection of this concept from the bench, highly suggesting that the government-backed debt exemption is a goner.

Justice Kavanaugh was, perhaps, the most direct of the justices in his remarks, commenting:

I think the government-debt exception is almost certainly content based. You dont argue that it could satisfy strict scrutiny. Those two things make this a case about severability.

-Justice Kavanaugh commenting at oral argument in AAPC v. Barr, May 6, 2020.

Bye bye government-backed debt exemption.

2. Striking Down the Entire TCPA is Very Much on the Table:

As noted above, the Supreme Court Justices really seem to be struggling with the idea of striking down the entire TCPA. Nonetheless, that appears to be one of the stark and few choices available to SCOTUS in addressing the Respondents meritorious First Amendment challenge to the TCPAs government-backed debt exemption.

Chief Justice Roberts himself set the stage for the possibility that the TCPA might fall in its entirety early in the argument:

I wonder why in that situation the whole statute shouldnt fall.

-Chief Justice Roberts commenting at oral argument in AAPC v. Barr, May , 2020.

The situation the Chief Justice was analyzing was one where an exemption is perfectly legal standing alone but only becomes legal with reference to a restriction (remember when the Archduke analyzed that issue?):

When we sever provisions its because they are illegal. here there is nothing illegal about the government-debt exception

-Chief Justice Roberts commenting at oral argument in AAPC v. Barr, May 6, 2020.

3. The Justices Seemed Deeply Concerned With Expanding an Unconstitutional Restriction on Speech as a Remedy for a Successful First Amendment Challenge

The most common category of questions posed to both advocates involved the irony of expanding an unconstitutional restriction on speech as a remedy to a successful challenger of a speech restriction. As several justices noted, this is not an equal protection casewhere severing exemptions can make everyone equalbut rather a direct First Amendment challenge where the challengers substantive right to speak has been infringed.

Justice Gorsuch framed issue perhaps best of all when he noted the:

[i]rony of a First Amendment challenge leading to the suppression of more speech as a remedy

-Justice Gorsuch commenting at oral argument in AAPC v. Barr, May 6, 2020.

He also delivered a powerful blow to the idea that severence is the proper remedy to a First Amendment violation by pointing out that the Respondents neither sought the remedy of severence nor had standing to seek it, even if they wanted it:

They didnt seek the relief and they dont have standing to seek that relief [striking the exemption]..should that tell us anything?

-Justice Gorsuch commenting at oral argument in AAPC v. Barr, May 6, 2020.

And Justice Alito was in clear agreement:

In a free speech case what the complaining party is objecting to is a restriction on its speech [if severance is applied] the complaining party does not get what it wants

-Justice Alito commenting at oral argument in AAPC v. Barr, May 6, 2020.

4. The Justices Also Seemed Concerned that Striking the Exemption Would Take Away the Rights of Non-Parties to the Case

The Justices also recognized that striking an exemption would result in the rights of non-parties to the case being taken awaya deprivation of both due process and a substantive right to speak. Indeed, Justice Thomaswho is renowned for rarely speaking at oral argumentstated matters bluntly remarking that severing the restriction:

seems to be taking speech away from someone who is not in this case.

-Justice Thomas commenting at oral argument in AAPC v. Barr, May 6, 2020.

5. The Supreme Court Justices Are a Big Fan of the TCPA For Some Strange Reason:

If anyone thought the Supreme Court might not like the vague and unwieldy restrictions of the TCPAguess again. Over and over again the Justices heaped (undeserved?) praise upon the statute, suggesting that it was responsible for preventing unwanted robocalls.

Chief Justice Roberts began the praise when he called the TCPA an extremely popular law in response to a comment by Respondents counsel that it ought to be struck down.

Then there was this gem:

The TCPA is one of the more popular laws on the bookswant to argue against that common sense?

-Justice Kavanaugh commenting at oral argument in AAPC v. Barr, May 6, 2020.

Eesh.

6. There Was Not Much Discussion of a Middle Ground:

As noted above, the choice before the Supreme Court appears starkstrike down the TCPA entirely or expand a restriction on speech to the assistance of none and the detriment of non-parties.

Indeed, throughout the entire argument there was only ONE reference to a possible middle ground and it seems an unlikely one. Specifically, Justice Sotomayor suggested that the proper remedy might be to somehow carve out political speech from the reach of the TCPA. Her words:

Why shouldnt we limit any remedy striking down this provision simply to permit the types of calls that your clients make?

Justice Sotomayor commenting at oral argument in AAPC v. Barr, May 6, 2020.

7. The TCPAs Chances of Survival Were Greatly Helped by the Identity of the Respondentand the Tactical Choice to Diminish the Value of Privacy in Challenging the Statute:

It is said that bad facts make bad law and this case may end up adding further proof to that adage.

If the TCPA survives SCOTUS review in Barr v. AAPCit will almost certainly beat least in partbecause the Respondent was attempting to defend unsolicited out of the blue calls, rather than targeted specific calls to, for instance, customers of a business. But preventing random-fired out of the blue calls is precisely what Congress wanted to stop when it enacted the TCPA in the first place.

Whereas a business making targeted calls could easily argue that the TCPA is overly broad as applied to themagain it was designed to prevent the nuisance and intrusion of random-fired calls not expected contacts from businesses the Petitioner in this suit (apparently) did not feel comfortable making a similar over breadth challenge. Instead its counsel focused again and again on the government lacking a compelling interest in protecting privacy. At one point counsel argued that the interest in protecting privacy is just not strong enough to justify the TCPAs restrictions.

Pause.

You read that right. Respondents primary argument as to why the TCPA does not survive First Amendment review is because privacy is not really that big of a deal anyway.

Eesh. I mean. Come on.

But giving the argument its due, Respondent contends that Congress showed it did not really care about privacy in enacting the TCPA when it amended the statute in 2015 to exalt the collection of money over protecting consumers. If privacy was all that compelling Congress would never have made that choice. I mean, right?

Hmmm. I dont know. Probably would have been better if the Respondent could have faithfully argued that the TCPAs vague and unwieldy ATDS restriction covers way more speech than necessary to accomplish the statutes stated objective, a point Justice Ginsburg herself recognized:

What congress wanted to stop were out of the blue calls. [debt collection] calls are not out of the blue, they are simply a reminder..

-Justice Ginsburg commenting at oral argument in AAPC v. Barr, May 6, 2020.

Ugh. What might have been.

8. The Government Was Very Concerned that the Supreme Court Might Focus Scrutiny on the ATDS Restriction and not the Exemption

The Respondent was not alone in making some interesting tactical choices. The DOJs SGarguing in support of the TCPAs constitutionality as Petitionerkept answering the question that no one was asking: does the TCPAs ATDS definition survive First Amendment review?

Over and over again throughout the argument and in discussions with virtually every justice, the Petitioners counsel hammered that the ATDS restriction survives the appropriate level of scrutiny. This is true although there was barely a whisper from the justices on the issue.

Without a doubt both the Respondents brief and TCPAWorld.com focused much fire on the ATDS restriction and the need to apply scrutiny to the restriction rather than the exemption, but the Petitioners focus on this issuewhich seemed a phantom before a court obsessed with severability seemed an odd choice. (It may, however, prove to have been tactically brilliant iffor instancethe Court elects to sever and still reviews the TCPA under intermediate scrutiny.)

9. This is a True Issue of FirstImpressionWhich Means the Ruling Could Have Huge Impact on our Freedom of Speech Moving Forward

Throughout the oral argument multiple justices and the advocates themselves remarked that there was really no direct precedent available to guide the issue of severability. As we have written repeatedly, never before has the Supreme Court struck an exemption in order to expand a statute as a remedy to a successful First Amendment challenge.

As Justice Alito framed the issueafter calling it fascinatingthe question is:

what is best precedent for application of severability analysis in case like this where arguably a regulation of speech is unconstitutional only because it contains a content based exception.

Justice Alito commenting at oral argument in AAPC v. Barr, May 6, 2020.

As already noted above, the Supreme Courts take on this issue will set incredibly-important precedent that will determine the way lower courts are to apply First Amendment principles for decades to come.

10. There Was Very Little Discussion of the ATDS Definition But that Doesnt Mean it Wont Get Resolved on This Appeal

One of the key things we were looking for is whether and to what degree the Supreme Court justices were focused on applying scrutiny to the ATDS restriction. Based on the questions of the justices there appears to be very little focus on that issue in this appeal.

Nonetheless, as the Court grapples with the difficult and stark choice presented by this appeal, the common sense solution available to it may still find its way into a majority opinion: apply strict scrutiny to the TCPAs ATDS restriction, read it narrowly, and uphold the statute intact.

That was my prediction going in to oral argument andalthough I concede the likelihood of that prediction coming true took a hit todayit still seems the easiest and most logical resolution to the difficult questions posed byAAPC v. Barr.

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Big TCPA Supreme Court Oral Argument Complete: Here Are the Top 10 Things You Need to Know About the Barr v. AAPC TCPA Review Right Now -...

Drawing by Nathaniel St. Clair

On Monday May 4, the British Court decided that the extradition hearing for WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, scheduled for May 18, would be moved to September. This four month delay was made after Assanges defense lawyer argued the difficulty of his receiving a fair hearing due to restrictions posed by the Covid-19 lockdown. Mondays hearing at Westminster Magistrates Court proceeded without enabling the phone link for press and observers waiting on the line, and without Assange who was not well enough to appear via videolink.

Sunday May 3rd marked World Press Freedom Day. As people around the globe celebrated with online debates and workshops, Assange was being held on remand in Londons Belmarsh prison for publishing classified documents which exposed US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. On this day, annually observed by the United Nations to remind the governments of the importance of free press, Amnesty International renewed its call for the US to drop the charges against this imprisoned journalist.

The US case to extradite Assange is one of the most important press freedom cases of this century. The indictment against him under the Espionage Act is an unprecedented attack on journalism. This is a war on free speech that has escalated in recent years turning the Internet into a battleground.

Privatized censorship

While he was living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, after being granted asylum in 2012, Assange alerted the public about the oppressive force that is now threatening press freedom around the world. In a statement that was read during the Organizing Resistance to Internet Censorship webinar in January 2018, Assange noted how multinational tech companies like Google and Facebook have evolved into powerful digital superstates. He warned that undetectable mass social influence powered by artificial intelligence is an existential threat to humanity.

Most who care about digital rights are well aware that tech giants like Google and Facebook have long been embroiled with Washington halls of power. Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder, chairman and CEO of Facebook has been candid about his pro-censorship stance. In his 2019 Washington Post op-ed Zuckerberg shared his belief that Facebook, the worlds largest social networking site with more than 800 million users, should take an active role to control content for governments.

In When Google Met WikiLeaks, published in 2014, Assange exposed the way Google executives used revolving doors within the US State Department, and highlighted their close ties to US intelligence agencies like the NSA. Googles internal research presentation, leaked to Breitbart News from the companys employees in 2018, revealed government requests for censorship have tripled since 2016. An 85-page briefing entitled The Good Censor concluded that the multinational search giant needs to move toward censorship if it wishes to continue to receive the support of national governments and continue its global expansion.

Google has been accused of discriminating against conservative viewpoints and suppressing free speech. YouTube, one of Googles subsidiaries, is now censoring the WikiLeaks Collateral Murder video. Real images of war that exposed the US militarys brutal killing of innocent Iraq civilians, including two Reuters journalists, is now assigned to the inappropriate for some users category, severely compromising its viewership. Meanwhile, the many millions of YouTube videos, of which tens of thousands depict violence, are allowed to be played without restriction.

Big Techs fight against misinformation

Now, amidst the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, this privatized censorship via a monopoly on information became more overt and even normalized. On March 11, after the White House asked Big Tech for help in fighting the spread of false information about Covid-19, top tech industry players including Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, and Twitter and Reddit issued a joint statement on their collaborative efforts to battle against disinformation on their platforms.

As measures to quell the spread of inaccurate information and harmful content, Facebook implemented a new policy to direct users who have interacted with posts that contain harmful coronavirus misinformation to a myth busters page, maintained by the World Health Organization (WHO). In setting forth this companys new aggressive move to counter misinformation about Covid-19, Guy Rosen, Facebooks vice-president of integrity commented in a blogpost:

We want to connect people who may have interacted with harmful misinformation about the virus with the truth from authoritative sources in case they see or hear these claims again off of Facebook.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai also announced that the company is partnering with the US government in developing a website to educate about COVID-19 and provide resources nationwide. The blog post indicated that the multinational search giant would work under the guidance of the WHO and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

Silencing the voices of dissent

Since it declared a global pandemic on March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization positioned itself as a source of legitimacy, setting guidelines and recommendations to direct a worldwide response to Covid-19. Narratives put forward by this Geneva-based global health body began to rapidly shape the scenery of our everyday life.

Images of emergency rooms filled with those who are infected with novel coronavirus have quickly flooded into American homes through major cable news networks. With a daily report of death count increasing everyday, fear began to spread around the world. As doctors and nurses at the frontline fight to save the lives of victims in what has now become the War on Covid-19, views that challenge the mainstream discourse on the pandemic have emerged on the Internet. Physicians who disagree with the expert opinion of WHO on the transmission of Covid-19, efficacy of its treatment and/or management of the outbreak began speaking out.

Recently a call by two Californian doctors to reopen the economy and to examine the death rate of Covid-19 and justification of lockdown, created a wide sensation, attracting both support and criticism. A news conference held by Dr. Daniel W. Erickson and Dr. Artin Massih, co-owners of Accelerated Urgent Care in Bakersfield, was livestreamed by local television stations. When the online video went viral, being viewed millions of times, YouTube pulled the plug, stating that the doctors were disputing local health authority guidance.

In the first week of May, David Icke, the former football player and author of more than 20 books, got deplatformed from Facebook and Google for posting content that questioned the motives of WHO and countered the official narratives on the threat of Covid-19. In deleting his account, YouTube stated that the 68 year old UK citizen, often labeled a professional conspiracy theorist, violated their Community Guidelines on sharing information about coronavirus. Prior to deleting his account, a video of an interview of him by London Real was deleted. That video, discussing misdiagnosis and misclassification of death and economic consequences of the lockdown, is reported to have been viewed over 30 million times.

The disciplinary actions of these digital mega corporations against those who dont conform to the edicts of the designated health authority resemble the censorship of authoritarian states such as China. In a name of public safety, efforts to widen discourse and open up a democratic debate were uniformly shut down across major media platforms. This contravention of First Amendment principles does not stop with restriction of the freedom of speech. It also abridges the right of the people to peaceably assemble, prohibiting political dissent. Facebook has now confirmed that the company, after consulting with state governments, is banning promotions for protests that violate social distancing rules.

CIAs cyber-warfare

A little over a year before his arrest inside the embassy, Assange gave a dire warning: The future of humanity is the struggle between humans that control machines and machines that control humans. In this digital age, a battle for free speech is not fought on the political ground alone with legislators, corporate lobbyists, senators and presidents. Civil liberties are being eroded by an algorithmic control dictated by the Silicon Valley tech titans. They use AI in ways that act beneath conscious awareness, manipulating reality at a speed and level that humans can no longer keep up with, to control perception.

Now, the machines seem to be out of control, fueling cyber-warfare. In 2017, WikiLeaks released the largest publication of confidential documents, code-named Vault 7, sourced from the top-secret security network at the Cyber Intelligence Center. This release revealed that the CIA had lost control of the cyber-weapons it had developed.

What is alarming is that the CIA became aware of this loss but didnt warn the public about it. Now, this horrific arsenal that was designed to hide all traces of its own actions, is loosed upon the world and can be used for malicious purposes by cyber-mafias, foreign agents, hackers, and anyone else who eventually got their hands on it.

The CIAs covert hacking program and their weaponized exploits target a wide range of U.S. and European company products. The series of documents and files categorized in Year Zero revealed the specific CIA malware that grants the agency capacity to penetrate Googles Android phone and Apples iPhone software the very software that runs (or has run) presidential Twitter accounts and to avoid or manipulate fingerprints in any subsequent forensic review. An example of the abuse of this power is found in evidence of CIA espionage, targeting French political parties and candidates in the lead up to the 2012 presidential election.

Rage against the machine

The Framers of the US Constitution believed there is a seed of corruption inherent in humans. This is why Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of Americas founding document, emphasized the vital role of a free press in keeping government power in check. He said that if he had to choose between a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

Although the social and political landscape has significantly changed since his time, fundamentals of democracy have not changed. As our society quickly moves into a 1984 Orwellian technological dystopia, Jeffersons words that alarmed a nation back then should sound more loudly now. If people care about democracy, a healthy distrust of the government must be restored, awakening moral courage to ignite our rage against the machine.

Through his work with WikiLeaks, Assange aimed to hold people who run the machine to account. As a project of free software, he created an exemplar of scientific journalism on the platform of the Internet. It provided ordinary people with a formidable tool that can help them take back their power to control the machine and end its hostile takeover of society.

The whistleblower behind WikiLeaks publication of Vault 7 (allegedly Joshua Schulte, still held in custody in New York) disclosed CIA documents in an effort to initiate a public debate about the security, creation, use, proliferation and democratic control of cyberweapons. In releasing the material, Assange, as editor in chief of WikiLeaks, responded to his sources call for peacemaking, by affirming the organizations role as a neutral digital Switzerland for people all over the world, to provide protection against nation-states and cyber attacks.

After the whistleblowing site carefully redacted the actual codes of CIA hacking tools, anonymized names, and email addresses that were targeted, it contacted Apple, Microsoft, Google, Mozilla, and MicroTik, stating that WikiLeaks would work with tech companies by giving them exclusive access to appropriate material so they could help create a possible antidote to the CIAs breach of security and offer countermeasures.

Existential threat to democracy

For these efforts to end the military occupation of cyberspace, Assange is now being aggressively pursued by the Trump administration. At the time when WikiLeaks released a massive trove of documents that detailed the CIA hacking tools, Vice President Mike Pence vowed to use the full force of the law to hunt down those who released the Intelligence Agencys secret material. Calling WikiLeaks a non-state hostile intelligence service that needs to be shut down, Secretary of State and former CIA director Mike Pompeo has taken on and expanded Obamas war on whistleblowers to attack the publisher.

John Kiriakou, who became the first CIA officer to give evidence of the use of torture, repeatedly said that if Assange were extradited, he would receive no fair trial. The CIA whistleblower, who was jailed for calling this torture unconstitutional, noted that in the Eastern District of Virginia where Assange was charged, juries are made up of people from the CIA, the FBI, the Pentagon, the department of Homeland security and intelligence community contractors or their family members and that no national security defendant has ever won a case there.

In his fight against extradition to the US, where he faces 175 years in prison and being subjected to harsh conditions under Special Administrative Measures, Assange is rendered defenseless. He is in effective solitary confinement, being psychologically tortured inside Londons maximum-security prison. With the British governments refusal to release him temporarily into home detention, despite his deteriorating health and weak lung condition developed as consequences of long detention, Assange is now put at risk of contracting coronavirus. This threatens his life.

Now, as the world stands still and becomes silent in our collective self-quarantine, Assanges words spoken years ago in defense of a free internet call for our attention from behind the walls of Belmarsh prison:

Nuclear war, climate change or global pandemics are existential threats that we can work through with discussion and thought. Discourse is humanitys immune system for existential threats. Diseases that infect the immune system are usually fatal. In this case, at a planetary scale.

Prosecution of WikiLeaks is an attack on the free press that is supposed to promote the discourse necessary to maintain the health of our society. A potential US extradition of Assange poses existential threats to democracy. We must fight to stop it, for without each individuals ability to speak freely, the tyranny of the authoritarian technocracy will become inevitable. It will be the extinction of free human beings everywhere in the world.

Originally posted here:
Assange's US Extradition, Threat to Future of the Internet and Democracy - CounterPunch