Category: media


Many young people diagnosed with mental disorders have acted on their beliefs in ways that threaten authorities…

pill

…Many young people diagnosed with mental disorders are essentially anarchists who have the bad luck of being misidentified by mental health professionals, who 1) are ignorant of the social philosophy of anarchism; 2) embrace, often without political consciousness, its opposite ideology of hierarchism; and 3) confuse the signs of anarchism with symptoms of mental illness.

The mass media equates anarchism with chaos and violence. However, the social philosophy of anarchism rejects authoritarian government, opposes coercion, strives for greatest freedom, works toward “mutual aid” and voluntary cooperation, and maintains that people organizing themselves without hierarchies creates the most satisfying social arrangement. Many anarchists adhere to the principle of nonviolence (though the question of violence has historically divided anarchists in their battle to eliminate authoritarianism). Nonviolent anarchists have energized the Occupy movement and other struggles for economic justice and freedom...writes psychologist Bruce e Levine…

::: this piece continues in full @ AlterNet…just click here :::

gutlessflea

GetUp:

Prime Ministers reflect our national values, and have the power to change them radically. Does what Tony Abbott says matter? Well, in just a few days he wants to be speaking for all of us. That’s why GetUp members are launching this ad. Will you be part of it?

“If you stand for clean energy, for refugees, for equal love, for helping single parents and their children – then you stand with us.”

libmenz

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(cartoon Len Fox – mid C20)

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(…thanks to independentaustralia.net…)

Refugee rights rally in Melbourne, July 27.

Below is an excerpt of a piece @ Green Left Weekly by Sam Wainwright

After promising not to “lurch to the right” on refugees if he returned as prime minister, Kevin Rudd dramatically did just that with his plan to send refugees to Papua New Guinea for processing and resettlement. He says no refugee who arrives by boat will ever be settled in Australia.

This is a draconian plan beyond the dreams of hardline racists like Pauline Hanson and John Howard. Yet despite this, leaders of the ALP left, such as Doug Cameron and Melissa Parke, have defended the policy.

Both piously claim to be concerned about saving lives at sea. Rudd’s policy won’t do that. But it will reinforce the racist poison that is a disaster for refugees and for the ordinary Australians whose lives will be worse because of it…

… click here to see more at Green Left Weekly…

…That was one of the biggest challenges, and truly the darkest and scariest time of the whole project. When he was detained, I knew the stakes were raised immensely. Suddenly I was at the helm of a film about someone who was missing, and we all feared a prolonged detention or more serious political charge like “incitement to subversion of state power,” which had recently landed several high-profile activists with multi-year jail terms [including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo]. Fortunately, his release allowed us to finish the film without feeling like we were in full-out crisis mode, and we could continue to work hard to tell a delicate and complex story…

Read more: http://world.time.com/2013/08/09/qa-alison-klayman-director-of-the-first-full-length-film-on-chinese-artist-ai-weiwei/#ixzz2bcabOiAV

PsyCHAug13

PsyCh Journal, China’s first international psychology journal, is the ‘flagship journal’ of the Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences – the only national psychology research institute in China…

PsyCh Journal is freely available during 2013 – just click August cover @ left to access…

“look…I never really left you Herr Murdoch” gushed Tony…

Realise that, realise that. You’ve been my little sleeper, eh Abbott? In actual fact, we errr, we were rather pleased with your stint with Australians for Constitutional Monarchy…

Why thank you, Herr Murdoch…I was Executive Director of Australians for Constitutional Monarchy from 1993–94.

Yeah, the bloody Royals are always good for my circulation. Was around then that you, Abbott, caught my eye. Thought we’d give you a crack on the Australian.

Indeed, I wrote…as a journalist…for your august national journal…

Then we aided your ascendancy to the towering heights of Federal Health Minister, no less…

Indeed, Herr Murdoch. Indeed.

Guess somebody had to keep those moaning asbestos union lefties at bay. You were just the ticket. You and Julie, that is.

Look, why thank you…

Fast forward to Aug ’13 and you now have 70% of all Australian newspapers…MY 70%…articulating THE VALUES, DIRECTIONS AND POLICY PRIORITIES of my next coalition government!!! 

Indeed, Herr Murdoch. Indeed.

‘nd NEVER FORGET, ABBOTT, NEVER FORGET WHAT WE LEARNED FROM BUSHES 1 & 2. NEVER FORGET that I DECIDE who will lead this country and the manner in which they lead it!!!

Is Edward J. Snowden Aboard This Plane?

America’s imperial power is on the decline, to the world’s benefit.

By Noam Chomsky

A Brief History of Squatting

The Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space chronicles decades of Lower East Side occupations.

A Bill of Rights for the Homeless

Several states are considering guaranteeing civil rights for those without a roof over their heads.

Teach for America’s Mission to Displace Rank-and-File Educators in Chicago

Why are thousands of experienced educators being replaced by new college graduates?

Water, Water, Nowhere

When water becomes scarce, conservatives become environmentalists.

The Force Behind Bills To Lower Wages and Suppress Workers’ Rights? You Guessed It: ALEC

The right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council has modeled legislation to strip workers of their rights nationwide.

By Mary Bottari and Rebekah Wilce

The Dangers of Red-Baiting

A power struggle ensues as we meet the prison chef in episode 2 of Orange Is The New Black.

Helen Thomas: First and Foremost

The White House reporter smashed the glass ceiling for women and set the bar for tenacity.

‘Bargain’ on Immigration Would Feed Prison Profits

The private prison industry stands to gain millions from the Senate’s reform plan.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Clueless

The Newsroom recap: The ‘mission to civilize’ makes a comeback. Cover your ears.

burnside“…Spooked by tabloid scare-mongering, both major parties have chosen deterrent policies; treat them harshly, push them off to small, impoverished Pacific neighbours. The low point of this is the recent Coalition promise to bring in the military to deal with the “emergency”.

The spectacular cost of these measures passes without complaint because it is seen as a kind of protection. While it is difficult to separate out the various components of the cost, indefinite detention costs around A$110,000 per person as of 2011-12. The actual cost varies: metropolitan detention is cheapest. It gets more and more expensive as the place of detention is more remote. On current estimates, we will spend about $2.9 billion each year….”

This prescient piece continues @ the Conversation…click here to go on through…

leCurrent issue: August 2013

… Egypt in crisis: the army threatens, Saudi manoevres; Gulf states aim big and global; battle for the Nile waters; Snowden, do Americans still care about surveillance? Mandela legacy, train of good health; the great energy debate; the figures behind France’s fantasy mall; the soundcloud city;  Brazil’s telenovelas, 50 glorious years; Flaubert to Ai Weiwei, what’s the point of art? a small town in Andalusia…

…just click cover pic to access…

Crackdown on Whistleblowers as ‘US SHOWS NO MERCY’ (SPIEGELonline…)

…Still, the fact that Manning wasn’t convicted of aiding the enemy in no way diminishes the massive pressure that US President Barack Obama has applied on the media and potential future whistleblowers. Recently, James Risen, an investigative reporter with the New York Times, was ordered by a federal court to testify against a confidential CIA source — with the threat of imprisonment if he refused to do so. Risen said he would go to jail if necessary to protect his source. Presently, the US is prosecuting six different people on allegations that they betrayed government secrets — more than under any previous president…

Crackdown on Whistleblowers as ‘US SHOWS NO MERCY’ (SPIEGELonline…)

New John Pilger film, Utopia, to be broadcast on ITV (UK) and released worldwide…click here for details and the whole of his recent piece, excerpt below…

“…During the boom, Aboriginal incarceration has more than doubled. Interned in often rat-infested cells, almost 60 per cent of the state’s young prisoners are Aboriginal – out of 2.5 per cent of the population. While their mothers hold vigils outside, aboriginal children are held in solitary confinement in an adult jail. A former prisons minister, Margaret Quirk, told me the state was now “racking and stacking” black Australians. Their rate of incarceration is five times that of apartheid South Africa…

…Deaths in custody are common. An elder known as Mr. Ward was arrested for driving under the influence on a bush road. In searing heat, he was driven more than 300 miles in the iron pod of a prison van run by the British security company GSL. Inside the mobile cell the temperature reached 50 degrees centigrade. Mr. Ward cooked to death, his stomach burned raw where he had collapsed on the van’s scorching floor. The coroner called it a “disgrace”, yet the Department of Public Prosecutions refused to take action, saying there was “no evidence”. This is not unusual. The two security van drivers were eventually fined under Health and Safety rules…”

New John Pilger film, Utopia, to be broadcast on ITV (UK) and released worldwide…click here for details and the whole of his recent piece, excerpt above…

The prime spot in your computer’s anti-royal baby utility belt should be reserved for TweetDeck. The Twitter-owned app has the option to filter out certain text, users, and sources from which you do not wish to see any updates (here’s a look at how to do that). Since this morning, my mute filters have included the following:

It’s been nice.

You might wish to filter out certain users as well, such as @ClarenceHouse, an official source for news from the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s side of the Royal Family. Other Twitter apps allow you to block specific people, words, and tags. If you’re on mobile, try Tweetbot or Echofon. On the desktop, consider browser extensions like Twivo (created by a 17-year-old female developer), Open Tweet Filter, or Larry filter for Twitter to filter the Twitter website.

These won’t stop all the royal baby tweets from flooding your timeline, but filters will certainly make your Twitter experience a lot more tolerable over the next few days.

Facebook

Facebook’s a little more complicated to manage, since many of the posts you’ll see there are image-based. While there’s no real way to cut out a hundred of your friends posting a snap of the happy family without a caption, there are a few tricks you can try.

Browser extensions are your friend. Once the heir is born, Unbaby should be your go-to. It’s a Chrome extension that replaces all the baby photos in your feed with cats. It’s not just for babies, either: Unwhatever.me, from the same developers, can help you block Kate and Wills from your News Feed.

A number of other Chrome extensions let you hide posts containing certain words. Test some out, and see which works best for you.

“Nationalism is a very old concept, and it has become weaker during globalisation. But from the Snowden incident, we can see that even if nationalism is weak, its power structures still exist,”

– See more at: blouinartinfo.com

Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern explains his view that a secrecy agreement is not an oath, it is a promise. (00:20) The purpose of secrecy agreements is to protect national security, not to protect abuse and illegal activities. (2:00) Bradley Manning, in his view, was faced with a dilemma of either keeping quiet or expose the abuses he saw and risk prosecution. Manning followed his moral conviction and publish the information being withheld from the public, including by a Washington Post reporter who had been assigned to his unit and did not report what he saw. We therefore need whistleblowers to provide evidence and get the word out.

The biggest change McGovern has seen in his nearly 50 years in Washington is that there is almost no big free media any more. (06:30) He describes the fourth estate as dead in the US, but says there is a fifth estate – the internet, including Wikileaks. This is a new tool for people to find out what is going on in the world. (09:40) Today most US broadcasting channels are owned and operated by the same corporations who are profiteering form the wars they have espoused and justified. (12:00)

There is hope in the alternative media, but it comes with not shackling them, as happened with Julian Assange and Wikileaks. McGovern writes for consortiumnews.com, which is one of the earliest examples of  investigative journalism online. (24:20) Julian Assange is a journalist, according to McGovern, as someone who is trying to find out what is really going on. Journalists impose their own brand of self-censorship today in order to not be ‘sensationalised’. (26:00)

source: Free Speech Debate is a research project of the Dahrendorf Programme for the Study of Freedom at St Antony’s College in the University of Oxford. http://www.freespeechdebate.ox.ac.uk


							

AlMag

just click image for July ’13 magazine @ Al Jazeera

‘Often described as a land straddling both east and west, Turkey – with its vast array of cultures, industries and political opinions – remains as relevant to global narratives today as it was during the period of the Ottoman Empire.

July’s edition of Al Jazeera’s award-winning monthly magazine focuses on all things Turkey, as the nation grapples with protests and new voices of opposition against the government, while also managing to operate on the world stage with deft hand…’

Calling for a worldwide struggle to preserve the global commons…

‘…At the forefront of the defense of nature are those often called “primitive”: members of indigenous and tribal groups, like the First Nations in Canada or the Aborigines in Australia – the remnants of peoples who have survived the imperial onslaught. At the forefront of the assault on nature are those who call themselves the most advanced and civilized: the richest and most powerful nations…’

::: click here for piece in full @ AlterNet :::

At the interpretOr, we’re having a look at the publication ‘The Indigenous World: 2013’ by International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA). The ecocide caused by the rapacious resources sector is not confined to Oz…

Global development is as much driven by the extraction of natural resources as ever, many of these being found on indigenous peoples’ traditional lands and territories. In Peru, for example, this year’s country report informs us that the government has leased out 60% of indigenous peoples’ territories for oil and gas concessions. Additionally, numerous legal and illegal mining and logging activities are taking place on indigenous land.

‘The Indigenous World: 2013’ is a free download – simply click here – 

“No democratic Australia could ever impose penalties on refugees which could match the terror from which most of them flee. Our policies need to change. I believe the major parties’ policies are extreme.”

click here for piece in full at the Guardian 

There’s a whopping great full page ad from Lockheed Martin International in today’s Murdoch owned national rag, the Australian, (02/03/13 p5).

Headline copy:

“Introducing Lockheed Martin International”

Partnering for Protection and Prosperity.

“We never forget who we’re working for”

A heck of a lot of space for a three-liner…

At the interpretOr, we never forget who they’re working for…nor does AlterNet…

"While contracts for supplying weapons for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are a significant part of Lockheed Martin’s business, the new company that has taken form since the merger boom of the 1990s has a far wider reach. These activities include everything from involvement in interrogation and police training to profiting from the new post-9/11 wave of domestic surveillance activities.
Of all the new ventures that Lockheed Martin has undertaken, the least well known may be its role in interrogating prisoners at U.S. facilities in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The fact that employees of private companies are even allowed to interrogate terror suspects came as a surprise to most Americans when it was revealed in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal. The revelations of the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques”—many of which were viewed by human rights analysts as torture plain and simple—rocked the world as pictures of naked inmates threatened by dogs and subjected to other serious abuses were disseminated in print and electronic media. The damage to the reputation of the United States as a country governed by the rule of law is still being felt, even as accountability has been limited to the low-level military personnel involved directly in the abuses."
William Hartung reveals how Lockheed Martin’s presence in the U.S. military goes far deeper than mere weapon supplying, AlterNet (11/01/11)

In These Times is an independent, nonprofit magazine…”dedicated to advancing democracy and economic justice, informing movements for a more humane world, and providing an accessible forum for debate about the policies that shape our future.” 

2013 FEATURES

Food Fight: Feminists and Femivores
Is slow food about politics, privilege, or oppression?
By Rebecca Burns

Geoengineers Gone Wild
Techno-entrepreneurs are funding sci-fi solutions to global warming.
By Anthony Mangini

In Defense of Dessert: The Case Against Austerity
Why cutting down doesn’t pay off.
By Chris Lehmann

The Expendables: How the Temps Who Power Corporate Giants Are Getting Crushed
Hundreds of thousands of blue-collar workers are stuck in low-wage temp jobs, despite working for America’s largest companies.
By Michael Grabell, Propublica

Obama’s Dirty War on Journalism
Despite a facade of openness, the president has sought to crack down on ‘inconvenient’ reporting.
By David Sirota

Humanity’s Oldest Story
The White House claims unprecedented authority over drone strike assassinations.
By David Sirota

WORKING IN THESE TIMES

The Supervisor From Hell Gets a Pass From SCOTUS
The Supreme Court decision that you didn’t hear about—and how it could make life much more difficult for workers facing harassment on the job.
By Michelle Chen

UPRISING

The Public Broadcasters’ Revolt
This month, with zero debate, the Greek government shut down the only public broadcasting station, but the workers haven’t left.
By Kristen Han

LMDJul13

Current issue: July 2013

… what Brazilians want; why the Turks are protesting; Syria’s growing tragedy; Kuwaitiswithout a name; Portugal, where is the sun?Greece, what next for the left? US, get in, then get on; South Korea special – Samsung, a state in itself; cashing in Gangnam-style … and also the online ads we helped create; footie figures it out … and more…

…just click the pic to access…

AlterNet / By Max Blumenthal

Exposing the Dark Forces Behind the Snowden Smears

Who is planting anti-Snowden attacks with Buzzfeed, and why is the website playing along?

Since journalist Glenn Greenwald revealed the existence of the National Security Agency’s PRISM domestic surveillance program, he and his source, the whistleblower Edward Snowden, have come in for a series of ugly attacks. On June 26, the day that the New York Daily News published a straightforward smear piece on Greenwald, the website Buzzfeed rolled out a remarkably similar article, a lengthy profile that focused on Greenwald’s personal life and supposed eccentricities…

…click here for piece in full @ Alternet…

Revelations of the past few weeks confirm the existence of a mass surveillance programme, ‘PRISM’, created by the US government.

According to Reporters Without Borders, these revelations confirm that journalists, bloggers and netizens need not only to circumvent censorship but also to master tools and techniques that will help shield them from mass surveillance, both in countries that are Enemies of the Internet and in the leading western democracies.

Reporters Without Borders has published an Online Survival Kit on its WefightCensorship.org website that has tools and practical advice that will allow you to protect your communications and data.

You don’t need to be an IT engineer to learn how to protect the content of your emails and remain anonymous online. The tools and techniques presented in this kit do not require advanced knowledge of computers and programming.

Online Survival Kit

Agence France-Presse reporting Snowden’s ‘safe exit from Hong Kong’ this eve assisted by WikiLeaks…

The advent of new supercomputers that can use algorithms to trade thousands of shares in a blink of an eye or read the transactions of slower computers and human traders and benefit by buying the sought shares more quickly and on-selling them to those purchasers, have subverted the market and destroyed its value to society. It now means that those more wealthy organisations that have the fastest access to shares have a considerable advantage over ordinary investors. It is in fact super speed insider trading.

More importantly as these algorithmic transactions take over more of the market share, trading will become increasingly for speculation and enhance the ability of these super speculators to manipulate the true values of companies and therefore be able to destroy productive businesses for a quick share profit.

These algorithms will not be calculating the loss of jobs or the disruption of communities. Neither will they calculate the impacts on life systems like the quality of the air we breathe. The non-monetary impacts of tornadoes and floods, droughts and rising temperatures on people outside the air-conditioned board rooms in New York, London and Beijing mean nothing to super computers.

There is a growing disconnect between the real world and real world impacts and share trading and the market system itself. The market is working for the wealthy priests of the temple of Mammon and sucking the life out of world communities and the planet. It has an overwhelming influence on society to the extent that it has become society’s master.

If there is no benefit to society in this type of trading the question arises whether society should continue with this type of market system or change it for something more sophisticated? A system that meets the material and social needs of humanity and maintains  the biological world they live in.

— for more on this story, click here for an infographic on ‘Trading @ the Speed of Light’ —

…Presenting the award June 20th in London, John Pilger, the veteran war reporter described the bureau’s work as ‘extraordinary’ and ‘truly pioneering’.

The prize honours Martha Gellhorn, a renowned war reporter and humanitarian. She was one of the first reporters in Vietnam to reveal what she called ‘a new kind of war against civilians’. Her long career included reporting on the rise of Fascism in Europe and accompanying the first American troops into Dachau concentration camp during the Second World War, as well as filing dispatches from Panama, South Vietnam, Nicaragua and Brazil.

Judges look for reporting that reflects Gellhorn’s pioneering journalism. The prize seeks to recognise journalism that tells an ‘unpalatable truth, validated by powerful facts’ and in so doing exposes what Gellhorn described as ‘official drivel’.

Pilger said of the Bureau’s work on drones:

‘This was extraordinary work on Barack Obama’s lawless use of drones in a campaign of assassination across south Asia. Woods, Ross and Serle stripped away the façade of the secret drone ‘war’, including how it is reported and not reported in the United States: how civilian casualties are covered-up and how rescuers and funerals are targeted…

…as important, in many respects, as the recent leaks from inside Washington: remarkable work in the highest tradition of investigative journalism.’

The short-list was made up of seven other journalists including Andy Worthington, a London-based independent journalist and filmmaker who has covered the ongoing detention of over 100 individuals at Guantanamo Bay and Yemen-based Iona Craig.

Previous winners of the award have included Robert Fisk of the Independent, Nick Davies of the Guardian and Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks. In 2010, an additional award was given to the late Marie Colvin of the Sunday Times.

The Bureau’s work on drones and the covert war can be read here.

…Earlier interpretOr drone posts include…

doodlebugs tO drones: terror from the sky

…just click above to access…more drone news too in our Fear Trade section…
The Australian Government has indicated breathtaking complacency in answer to Senator Scott Ludlam’s Senate question today about the PRISM surveillance program:

“A warrantless surveillance system that grants real-time Government access to emails, audio and video chats, photographs, documents, connection logs and location data, to potentially the entire Australians population, and today the Government shrugged it off as business-as-usual.”

“The Greens would appear to be the only party in Australia concerned by widespread surveillance of Australian citizens and the meaninglessness of Australia’s Privacy Principles,” said Senator Ludlam.

“While Australian authorities appear to have been fed some kind of tranquiliser, parliamentarians in other parts of the world are taking action over this warrantless real time mass surveillance…”

…for more on this story, click here…

“…Top European officials are demanding more information about the controversial US Internet surveillance program known as Prism. But new information has revealed that the EU weakened privacy regulations in early 2012 following intense US lobbying.

…European Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding vented her fury over the US data spying program known as Prism. The far-reaching online surveillance operation, which saw the US National Security Agency spying on users across the globe, clearly demonstrates “that a clear legal framework for the protection of personal data is not a luxury, but is a fundamental right,” Reding told SPIEGEL ONLINE…

…click here for more @SPIEGEL ONLINE…

The Australian Greens will introduce a Bill next week to strengthen regulation of data collection on Australians, returning normal warrant procedures to law enforcement agencies accessing peoples’ private data…

“This is the first step to winding back the kind of surveillance overreach revealed by the PRISM whistleblower,” Greens communications spokesperson Senator Scott Ludlam said.

“Law enforcement agencies – not including ASIO – made 293,501 requests for telecommunications data in 2011-12, without a warrant or any judicial oversight.* Under the Telecommunications Interception and Access Act, that’s entirely legal.

“Vast amounts of private data are being accessed – including the precise location of everyone who carries a smartphone – without any recourse to the courts. A law enforcement agency simply fills out a very basic form. My bill will return to the system where they will need a warrant.*

…for more on this story, click through HERE to Scott Ludlam’s site…

 

wankerswankers

FEATURES 
Guilty in Guatemala
The U.S. owes more than empty apologies in Central America.
By Noam Chomsky

The Dirty Wars, Abroad and At Home
Jeremy Scahill’s new film on drone warfare shows why we need to stop the war on whistleblowers.
By Trevor Timm

Aloha, Workers’ Rights!
Hawaii is poised to become the second state in the nation to protect the rights of domestic workers.
By Luke Brinker

Where Unions Went Wrong on ‘Right to Work’
Labor activists retool their tactics against the bosses.
By Rebecca Burns

Obama’s SEC Cop-Out
The new chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission is fresh off Wall Street.
By Joel Bleifuss

Mad Professors
The adjuncts are at the barricades.
By Rebecca Burns

Growing Up Under Goebbels
Nancy Kricorian’s novel shines light on a little-known Armenian-run resistance movement in Nazi France.
By Eleanor J. Bader

Out of the Pen and Unrepentant
Environmentalist Tim DeChristopher on the future of climate activism.
By Rebecca Burns

How China Changed After Tiananmen Square
China remains as politically oppressive as ever, but there has been a sideways revolution.
By Andrew Lam

COMMENTARY

Rethinking American Exceptionalism
America is certainly exceptional, but that isn’t necessarily something to be proud of.
By David Sirota

Time for the Democrats to Go Nuclear
Harry Reid has nothing to lose by banning the filibuster of appointments.
By Leo Gerard

WORKING IN THESE TIMES

Chicago Demands Justice for Wal-Mart Workers
Roughly 100 supporters, union members and Wal-Mart employees gathered in downtown Chicago to demand the company change the treatment of its workers.
By Griffin Bur

UPRISING

Photojournalists Fight Replacement by iPhones
The Chicago Sun-Times laid off its entire photography department, and now wants to replace it with reporters trained in “iPhone photography basics.”
By Rebecca Burns

Ever heard of Prism? It’s heard of you.

The Australian Government should immediately disclose whether or not it has access to private information on Australian citizens using the PRISM program used by US intelligence agencies to access the servers of nine major US tech companies including Apple, Google and Facebook.

The revelations are contained in a presentation leaked by an NSA whistleblower to the Washington Post, which notes that ‘much of the world’s communications flow through the US’ and goes on to list a menu of content that the US intelligence community can access via the PRISM program.

“A number of the tech companies are denying that they’ve ever heard of PRISM or that US intelligence agencies have installed ‘backdoors’ in their servers,” Senator Scott Ludlam, Australian Greens communications spokesperson said today.

“Australians use these services to the point of ubiquity. Does the Australian Government believe it is appropriate that the US intelligence agencies appear to be engaged in warrantless realtime surveillance of the entire online population? Does the Australian intelligence community have access to this material? And is this the reason the Attorney Generals Department have been so insistent that Australian ISPs institute a two-year data retention regime?

“This is a major example of the important role whistleblowers play, and it is unfolding with the trial of whistleblower Bradley Manning under way in the United States, and just one day before the anniversary of the publication of George Orwell’s 1984. It wasn’t intended to be an instruction manual,” Senator Ludlam concluded.

Senator Ludlam intends to submit Questions to the Attorney General’s department later today and has sought input and additions from Australian internet users alarmed by developments in the United States.

http://scott-ludlam.greensmps.org.au/content/questions-notice/draft-ques…

scottgreyscottgreyscottgrey

excerpt of…

…Joint Doorstop Interview, Queanbeyan

  Posted on Tuesday, 4 June 2013

QUESTION:
In 2001, what happened when your department knocked back a request from Telstra to provide compensation for those affected by asbestos?
TONY ABBOTT:
Look, I’m not going to comment on decisions that the department made. What I can do is certainly defend my own record when it comes to asbestos. One of my early acts as Minister for Workplace Relations was to commence the process for banning the importation and use of Chrysotile asbestos. As Health Minister I committed $6 million to establish a national research centre into asbestos-related diseases. So, the record is there for all to see and my plea to the Government now is please, please, given what we know about asbestos, make sure that the roll-out of the National Broadband Network doesn’t add to the asbestos hazards that the Australian people face.
QUESTION:
 But as Minister were you aware of that decision?
TONY ABBOTT:
I’m just not going to comment on who said what to whom, when, what document might have gone to what person when. The fact is you can always ask the department what the department did back then…

Sri Lanka, June 2013: intolerance and fear

“…A climate of intolerance and fear continues to sweep the island as the government’s stranglehold on the population grows ever tighter. In March, Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake was impeached after declaring a government bill unconstitutional.

Lawyers working on torture and other human rights cases have been targeted and harassed. Meanwhile, the cases of Kumar, Poddala and the many activists who have disappeared have not been independently or credibly investigated.

Yet the authorities claim that their human rights record has improved – a claim reinforced by their selection as hosts of the November meeting of Commonwealth leaders. It is a whitewash of immense proportions, says Poddala.

“I can’t understand why the Commonwealth has decided to do this,” he told us, “because no civil society organization is allowed to function there. There are no human rights in Sri Lanka.”

…for more on this story, click through here to Amnesty International…