Monday, Alan Rusbridger of The Guardian gave us some insight into the nature of the incident at Heathrow airport where David Miranda was detained for 9 hours under Britain’s Schedule 7 terror law. The measure, which was originally designed for detaining “suspected terrorists,” can be abused in order to detain anyone. No charges are required, and no legal council is allowed. Also under Schedule 7, the authorities can obtain and hold the belongings of the “person in question” for up to seven days.
Clearly, the detaining of David Miranda served as both a warning and a disruption. The warning was designed to discourage other journalists or bloggers from going to such great lengths to tell the truth and get vital information in to the hands of the public. Undoubtedly, the authorities were also hoping to be able to seize either physical or digital documents.
Perhaps George Orwell summarized the situation best with a single sentence. “In a time of universal deceit – telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” We all know what happens to many revolutionaries before the actual revolution is realized. No one seeking the truth deserves a fate like the late Michael Hastings, who, in my opinion, was murdered on June 18, 2013 for challenging the authority of the NSA. So much for freedom of the press in the USA.
Even the mighty New York Times revised a very critical story they published in early June 2013. The piece was critical of the credibility of the Obama Administration, and the NSA domestic spying program. Eventually the Times issued an “official statement” as to the reason for the changes to the article, but we all know the real truth. It has to do with revenue. Enough said.
Recent Cyber Censorship
I have experienced the first-hand effects of cyber censorship, as have many of my fellow bloggers. “Someone” wants to stifle the truth seekers from getting to the truth, and from spreading it around.
Generally speaking, if you are having trouble accessing sites like WordPress or Blogger from your normal default browser, it may be due to an ip block. To verify this, go to
downforeveryoneorjustme and enter the url of the site you are having trouble with. If the report comes back showing that the site is up for everyone, then you probably have a censorship issue. Chances are, you will be able to access the censored resource via TOR, a free anti-censorship tool. If you are not familiar with this technology, please look in to it. It may just open up some resources for you that have not been an option before.
Free Speech & Free Press
The way things are looking now, it won’t be long before journalists will have to give up all their sources, and have stories approved by a government agency before publication. Not to mention the blogging platforms that are already in compliance with the US Government, and have no problem giving up the personal data of their users, namely
Blogger (a
Google property) and
Tumblr (a
Yahoo! property). Enjoy your blogs now, as the clock is ticking on free speech.
Advocates of press freedom are concerned about recent moves by some governments to arrest journalists and restrict Internet access to their citizens. Freedom House is a Washington-based group that supports democracy and free speech activists. The group says these restrictions on freedom of expression undermine both human rights and the foundation of democratic societies.
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