By Associated Press: April 28, 2014

MINYA, Egypt — A judge in Egypt on Monday sentenced to death 683 alleged supporters of the country’s ousted Islamist president, including the Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual leader, the latest in mass trials that have drawn international condemnation and stunned rights groups.

The same judge also upheld the death penalty for 37 of 529 defendants sentenced in a similar case in March, though he commuted the rest of the sentences to life imprisonment.

Still, the 37 death sentences — which can be appealed in a higher court — remain an extraordinarily high number for Egypt, compared to the dramatic trial in the wake of the 1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat, when only five people were sentenced to death and executed.

Among those convicted and sentenced to death on Monday was Mohamed Badie, the Brotherhood’s spiritual guide. If his sentence is confirmed, it would make him the most senior Brotherhood figure sentenced to death since one of the group’s leading ideologues, Sayed Qutb, was sentenced and executed in 1966.

In announcing the 683 death sentences for violence and the killing of policemen, Judge Said Youssef on Monday also said he was referring his ruling to the Grand Mufti, the nation’s top Islamic official — a requirement under Egyptian law, but one that is considered a formality. It does, however, give a window of opportunity for a judge to reverse an initial sentence.

Both Monday’s and the March trial are linked to deadly riots that erupted in Minya and elsewhere in Egypt after security forces violently disbanded sit-ins held by Brotherhood supporters in Cairo last August. Three policemen and a civilian were killed in those riots.

Hundreds were killed as part of a sweeping campaign against supporters of former president Mohammed Morsi, ousted by the military last July. The removal of Morsi — a year after he was elected — came after millions demonstrated against his rule, demanding he step down for abuse of power.

After Monday’s ruling, which followed a single session in the case held last month, Sarah Leah Whitson, the executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Division, said the defendants were not given the chance to properly defend themselves. The proceedings went on without the judge even verifying that the defendants were present, she said.

“The fact that the death sentences can be appealed provides little solace to hundreds of families that will go to sleep tonight facing the very real prospect that their loves ones could be executed without having an opportunity to present a case in court,” she said. “There is no more serious violation of the most basic right of due process and the right to a fair trial than that.”

(read the full article at Vancouver Sun)

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AFP: April 27, 2014

Two elite French police officers were charged Sunday with raping a Canadian tourist in their Paris headquarters in a case that has sent shock waves across France.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said in a statement sent to AFP that the two officers would “face the full consequences” if they were found guilty.

Four policemen were taken into custody after the 34-year-old woman filed a complaint saying she had been raped in the police headquarters overnight Tuesday.

Two of the members of the elite BRI unit that fights gang crime were charged overnight, a source close to the investigation said, after the other two were released on Saturday.

The interior ministry said Sunday that three of the men had been suspended, including one who was released but who was not charged.

(read the full article at Yahoo)

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Mike Krieger
Liberty Blitzkrieg: April 25, 2014

The concept of “net neutrality” is not an easy one to wrap your head around. Particularly if you aren’t an expert in how the internet works and if you don’t work for an ISP (internet service provider). In fact, I think that lobbyists and special interest groups make the concept intentionally difficult and convoluted so that the average person’s eyes glaze over and they move on to the next topic. I am by no means an expert in this area; however, in this post I will try to explain in as simple terms as possible what “net neutrality” means and what is at risk with the latest FCC proposal. I also highlight a wide variety of articles on the subject, so I hope this post can serve as a one-stop-shop on the issue.

The concept of “net neutrality” describes how broadband access across the internet currently works. Essentially, the ISPs are not allowed to discriminate amongst the content being delivered to the consumer. A small site like Liberty Blitzkrieg, will be delivered in the same manner as content from a huge site like CNN that has massive traffic and a major budget. This is precisely why the internet has become such a huge force for free speech. It has allowed the “little guy” with no budget to compete equally in the “market of ideas” with the largest media behemoths on the planet. It has allowed for a quantum leap in the democratization and decentralization in the flow of information like nothing since the invention and proliferation of the printing press itself. It is one of the most powerful tools ever created by humanity, and must be guarded as the treasure it is.

People have been worried about internet censorship in the USA for a long time. What people need to understand is that censorship in so-called “first world” countries cannot be implemented in the same manner as in societies used to authoritarian rule. The status quo in the U.S. understands that the illusion of freedom must be maintained even as civil liberties are eroded to zero. In the UK, the approach to internet censorship has been the creation of “internet filters.” The guise is fighting porn, but in the end you get censorship. This is something I highlighted in my post: How Internet in the UK is “Sleepwalking into Censorship.”

In the U.S., it appears the tactic might take the form of new FCC rules on “net neutrality,” which the Wall Street Journal first broke earlier this week. While the exact rules won’t become public until May 15th, what we know now is that the FCC intends to allow ISPs to create a “fast lane” for internet content, which established content providers with big bucks can pay for in order to gain preferred access to consumers on the other end.

This is truly the American way of censorship. Figure out how those with the deepest pockets can smother the free speech of those with little or no voice on the one medium in which information flow is still treated equally. The nightmare scenario here would be that status quo companies use their funds to price out everyone else. It would kill innovation on the web before it starts. It’s just another example of the status quo attempting to build a moat around itself that we have already seen in so many other areas of the economy. The internet really is the last bastion of freedom and dynamism in the U.S. economy and this proposal could put that at serious risk. Oh, and to make matters worse, the current FCC is filled to the brim with revolving door industry lobbyists. More on this later.

So that’s my two cents. Now I will provide excerpts from some of the many articles that have been written on the topic in recent days.

First, from the article that started it all in the Wall Street Journal:

WASHINGTON—Regulators are proposing new rules on Internet traffic that would allow broadband providers to charge companies a premium for access to their fastest lanes.

 

If the rule is adopted, winners would be the major broadband providers that would be able to charge both consumers and content providers for access to their networks. Companies like Google Inc. or Netflix Inc. that offer voice or video services that rely on broadband could take advantage of such arrangements by paying to ensure that their traffic reaches consumers without disruption. Those companies could pay for preferential treatment on the “last mile” of broadband networks that connects directly to consumers’ homes.

 

Startups and other small companies not capable of paying for preferential treatment are likely to suffer under the proposal, say net neutrality supporters, along with content companies that might have to pay a toll to guarantee optimal service.

 

In Silicon Valley, there has been a long-standing unease with owners of broadband pipes treating some content as more equal than others. Large companies have been mostly silent about the FCC’s moves regarding broadband service, but some smaller firms or investors in startups have said the FCC needs to tread carefully so Internet policies don’t disadvantage young companies that can’t afford tolls to the Web.

 

“For technologists and entrepreneurs alike this is a worst-case scenario,” said Eric Klinker, chief executive of BitTorrent Inc., a popular Internet technology for people to swap digital movies or other content. “Creating a fast lane for those that can afford it is by its very definition discrimination.”

 

Some consumer advocacy groups reacted strongly against the proposal. The American Civil Liberties Union said, “If the FCC embraces this reported reversal in its stance toward net neutrality, barriers to innovation will rise, the marketplace of ideas on the Internet will be constrained, and consumers will ultimately pay the price.” Free Press, a nonpartisan organization that is a frequent critic of the FCC, said, “With this proposal, the FCC is aiding and abetting the largest ISPs in their efforts to destroy the open Internet.”

The New York Times also covered the story:

Still, the regulations could radically reshape how Internet content is delivered to consumers. For example, if a gaming company cannot afford the fast track to players, customers could lose interest and its product could fail.

 

Consumer groups immediately attacked the proposal, saying that not only would costs rise, but also that big, rich companies with the money to pay large fees to Internet service providers would be favored over small start-ups with innovative business models — stifling the birth of the next Facebook or Twitter.

 

“If it goes forward, this capitulation will represent Washington at its worst,” said Todd O’Boyle, program director of Common Cause’s Media and Democracy Reform Initiative. “Americans were promised, and deserve, an Internet that is free of toll roads, fast lanes and censorship — corporate or governmental.”

Let’s not forget that Comcast is attempting to take over Time Warner (I wrote my opinion on that here). So this whole thing seems like a gigantic, status quo consolidation cluster fuck.

Also, Comcast is asking for government permission to take over Time Warner Cable, the third-largest broadband provider, and opponents of the merger say that expanding its reach as a broadband company will give Comcast more incentive to favor its own content over that of unaffiliated programmers.

USA! USA!

“The very essence of a ‘commercial reasonableness’ standard is discrimination,” Michael Weinberg, a vice president at Public Knowledge, a consumer advocacy group, said in a statement. “And the core of net neutrality is nondiscrimination.”

 

“This standard allows Internet service providers to impose a new price of entry for innovation on the Internet,” he said.

Now from TechCrunch’s article, The FCC’s New Net Neutrality Rules Will Brutalize The Internet:

The FCC will propose new net neutrality rules that at once protect content from discrimination, but also allow content companies to pay for preferential treatment. The news, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, would in fact create a two-tiered system in which wealthy companies can “better serve the market” at the expense of younger, less well-capitalized firms.

 

The above is only “net neutrality” in that it protects all content from having its delivery degraded on a whim. The rubric reported doesn’t actually force neutrality at all, but instead carves out a way for extant potentates to crowd out the next generation of players by leaning on their cash advantage.

 

In practice this puts new companies and new ideas at a disadvantage, as they come into the market with a larger disadvantage than they otherwise might have. Any cost that we introduce that a large company can afford, and a startup can’t, either makes the startup poorer should it pay or degrades its service by comparison if it doesn’t.

 

This will slow innovation and enrich the status quo. That’s a shame.

So given the potential disastrous consequences noted above, why is the FCC pushing this through? After all, “net neutrality” was one of candidate Barack Obama’s key campaign promises (just the latest in a series of completely broken promises and lies).

As usual, you can simply follow the money. While FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is hiding behind a recent court decision that seemingly struck down net neutrality, the court gave him the option to declare the internet a public utility, which would have prevented this outcome. Yet, he didn’t go that route. Why? The revolving door of course!

An article by Lee Fang at Vice sheds a great deal of light on the issue:

Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal dropped something of a bombshell with leaked news that the Federal Communications Commission is planning to abandon so-called “net neutrality” regulations—rules to ensure that Internet providers are prevented from discriminating based on content. Under the new proposed system, companies such as Comcast or Verizon will be able to create a tiered Internet, in which websites will have to pay more money for faster speeds, a change that observers predict will curb free speech, stifle innovation and increase costs for consumers.

 

Like so many problems in American government, the policy shift may relate to the pernicious corruption of the revolving door. The FCC is stocked with staffers who have recently worked for Internet Service Providers (ISP) that stand to benefit tremendously from the defeat of net neutrality.

The American way.

Take Daniel Alvarez, an attorney who has long represented Comcast through the law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP. In 2010, Alvarez wrote a letter to the FCC on behalf of Comcast protesting net neutrality rules, arguing that regulators failed to appreciate “socially beneficial discrimination.” The proposed rules, Alvarez wrote in the letter co-authored with a top Comcast lobbyist named Joe Waz, should be reconsidered.

But wait, it gets worse.

Among current FCC commissioners, Republican Ajit Pai previously served as associate general counsel for Verizon and held numerous government positions before becoming a commissioner in 2012.

(read the full article at Liberty Blitzkrieg)

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NDP Leader Tom Mulcair says Prime Minister Stephen Harper needs to “come clean” over the deletion of an email account belonging to a former PMO staffer involved in negotiations over the repayment of Senator Mike Duffy’s ineligible expenses.

“Stephen Harper’s employees, for whom he is responsible, have illegally erased documents that had an important involvement in an ongoing investigation and Prime Minister Harper has to start explaining himself,” Mulcair told reporters in a press conference across from Parliament Hill Wednesday.

The emails were later recovered during the course of an RCMP investigation into a payment to Duffy from Harper’s former chief of staff, Nigel Wright.

Muclair was reacting to a news report that said memos to IT staff in the Privy Council Office (PCO), the non-partisan administrative arm of the Prime Minister’s Office, had instructed them not to delete the accounts of departing staff.

Nevertheless, days after the memos were sent, an account belonging to Benjamin Perrin was apparently deleted when he left his job in late March 2013. Perrin was legal counsel to the prime minister and had been involved in discussions within the PMO on how to deal with Duffy’s expenses.

Until then, it had been policy for departing staff to ensure emails for ongoing files were forwarded to the appropriate officials or put in electronic storage.

Emails recovered

The account deletion first became public in November 2013, when court documents about the probe were made public.

But days after the court documents were released, PCO officials announced they hadn’t deleted the emails: in fact, Perrin’s account had been frozen “due to unrelated litigation.”

New court records obtained by CBC News suggest the information in Perrin’s account may have been provided to the RCMP in January 2014.

Despite the apparent recovery of the emails, Mulcair called Tuesday for an investigation into the account deletion.

“Canadians have a right to know what went on and destroying that type of evidence as they’ve done by deleting the emails simply puts another circle around that big stain of what the Conservatives have been doing: hiding information, trying to block Canadians’ understanding of the big lie that they constructed with Mike Duffy.

“These are emails that would have gone right to the heart of this matter and that’s why they erased them,” Mulcair said.

(Read the full article at CBC)

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Elizabeth May: Prime Minister’s Office Full Of ‘Ruthless, Cutthroat Psychopaths’

The Huffington Post Canada: April 23, 2014

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May doesn’t mince words.

And she’s clearly no fan of the concentration of power in the Prime Minister’s Office.

The British Columbia MP made waves by using some colourful language at a Nanaimo town hall last week to describe the government staffers behind Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

According to Metro’s Luke Simcoe, May called the PMO a “$10-million-a-year partisan operation filled with ruthless, cutthroat psychopaths.”

May later explained to Metro that the comment was made in jest but did not back down from what she sees as an attitude in the PMO that puts the interest of the party in charge ahead of Canadians.

“The staff at the PMO have no allegiance to anything other than getting the Conservative Party re-elected. And they feel entitled to tear strips off bureaucrats at all levels of the system,” she said. “It completely offends the principles of parliamentary democracy.”

Of course, this is not the first time May has opened up about problems she sees with the PMO.

Last May, the MP had a memorable exchange in question period with Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird shortly after she called the PMO an “invention,” a “partisan fortress” and the least accountable place funded by taxpayers.

“About $10 million a year disappears into the PMO with zero accountability,” May said. “The guys in short pants who run around bullying MPs, muzzling scientists and harassing civil servants report to one boss. Is it not time to have accountability out of the PMO?”

Baird thought her remark smacked of sexism and rose on a point of order.
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May doesn’t mince words.

And she’s clearly no fan of the concentration of power in the Prime Minister’s Office.

The British Columbia MP made waves by using some colourful language at a Nanaimo town hall last week to describe the government staffers behind Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

According to Metro’s Luke Simcoe, May called the PMO a “$10-million-a-year partisan operation filled with ruthless, cutthroat psychopaths.”

May later explained to Metro that the comment was made in jest but did not back down from what she sees as an attitude in the PMO that puts the interest of the party in charge ahead of Canadians.

“The staff at the PMO have no allegiance to anything other than getting the Conservative Party re-elected. And they feel entitled to tear strips off bureaucrats at all levels of the system,” she said. “It completely offends the principles of parliamentary democracy.”

Of course, this is not the first time May has opened up about problems she sees with the PMO.

Last May, the MP had a memorable exchange in question period with Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird shortly after she called the PMO an “invention,” a “partisan fortress” and the least accountable place funded by taxpayers.

“Mr. Speaker, I have to rise and respond to the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands,” Baird said. “She made comments with respect to young boys in short pants. We have a lot of young, talented women also working in the Prime Minister’s Office. And I would ask her to withdraw her sexist comments.”

But May didn’t miss a beat.

“I accept that there are, then, also women employed for the purpose of harassing scientists, bullying MPs, and muzzling civil servants,” she said.

About a week after that exchange, Alberta MP Brent Rathgeber quit the Conservative caucus to sit as an Independent in part because of what he saw as the undue influence of unelected, unaccountable government staffers.

Rathgeber told reporters he didn’t appreciate staffers in Harper’s office who are half his age pressuring caucus to adhere to talking points and vote like “trained seals.”

“When you have a PMO that tightly scripts its backbenches like this one attempts to do, MPs don’t represent their constituents in Ottawa, they represent the government to their constituents,” he said.

Rathegeber also said at the time that the PMO has too much power because there isn’t enough separation between the legislature and executive.

(read the full article at Huffington Post)

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