Robson & Shaidle on regulating journalists

(h/t: Blazing Cat Fur)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Uploaded by sdamatt2 on Aug 26, 2011

A licensing system for journalists being discussed in Quebec is a form of press regulation that would put limits on the free flow of information.

The licensing system would create a “professional journalist” designation, backed by Quebec law, that could provide for preferential access to government sources and extra rights to protection of sources.

That may sound seductive to some journalists. Exclusivity, bargaining power, prestige and money may be seen as side benefits to a professional licensing system administered by a body of journalists. But the damage to press freedom, and therefore to individual journalists, card-carrying or otherwise, would be considerable.

How? Controlling access to sources or to news conferences would by definition mute or limit some voices. Who might be shut down? Those who cannot afford professional schools, if that is what is required for a designation. Or those who find, whether at 14 or 94, that they have something to say, in a newspaper or on Facebook or in forms not yet invented. The group of people excluded would be massive.

And the free flow of information would be subject to state control. Government advertising would be restricted (under one proposal) to those news organizations that meet accepted proportions of “professional” journalists. News organizations that don’t could be destroyed — including Internet start-ups that could one day become as large and powerful as the Huffington Post.

A proposal to make French-language proficiency a requirement of journalists could shut down voices in minority-language media. The proposal shows that political imperatives other than journalistic ones could be imposed on a licensing system.

What is a journalist? It helps to be able to read and write — but a camera may be enough. What really matters is zeal for the story, within the boundaries set by laws of defamation, privacy and so on. At the very moment that a multiplicity of talents and voices, emerging thanks to new technologies, has helped to topple dictators in the Middle East, Quebec is rejecting the marketplace — of ideas, talents, desires, money and ingenuity — and trying to replace it with state-approved controls.

Our own thoughts:

According to Google Translate, “Bite me!” in French is “Mords-moi!”

CzechRebel says that Blazing Cat Fur is a perfectly good name for a blog. I think that the name goes well with Kathy’s blog, Five Feet of Fury. Both names are eye-catching and easy to remember!

Kathy Shaidle suggests that most of the obnoxious language and ad hominem attacks would go away without the anonymity. I haven’t found that to be the case; some infamously abusive bloggers do use their real names, and, sadly, not all of them are left-wing or pro-jihadi bloggers.

Some of us on 1389 Blog use our real names; others do not. Some of us require privacy for reasons of personal safety. In many parts of the world, if you openly take a hard line against Islam and you use your real name, or if you defend the Serbs, the government may come after you. In the US, you may be investigated by the government, but you usually won’t be arrested; however, the economy and the regulatory climate with respect to “diversity” is such that prospective employers will find your name on Google as an activist, and you will never be hired. At least four counterjihad and/or pro-Serb bloggers that I know of have had to shut down their blogs because of stalkers, threats, cyber attacks, and “SLAPP” lawsuits. I would like to have the luxury of blogging under my own name, but as long as most governments seem to be in business to protect enemy aliens and other wrongdoers at the expense of law-abiding citizens, that won’t happen for the foreseeable future.

Much more at Vlad Tepes Blog

Yes, we must keep on fighting for freedom of the press!

These days, the press includes the blogosphere. Only the tools are different, not the substance. Amateur bloggers are the ones who are serving the public. I put in upwards of 40 hours per week gathering information and blogging, NOT counting what my fellow blog team members are doing. I do this in my “off hours” when I’m not at work or at church. NONE of us get paid! WE are the ones serving the public. Some other bloggers put in even more.

The “professional journalists” are, for the most part, the paid hacks, the presstitutes, the panderers to the liberal elite. They already GET preferential treatment, and, by and large, they do not deserve it!

Also see:

Blazing Cat Fur: Specific plan for government control of Internet

I found this link about a serious violation of privacy in the State of Michigan in a worrisome Blogmocracy article about another significant threat to our electronic privacy, namely Apple iPhone secretly records owners’ every move. It followed another article, Exiting Detroit, about the endless and evidently irreversible decline and fall of the city of Detroit. It sure looks as though there are fewer and fewer reasons to visit, do business in, or live in, Michigan, and more and more reasons to avoid the entire state.

Similarly, if Apple shows so little regard for their customers’ privacy, I would suggest buying from a competitor until such time as Apple changes its ways. Vote with your wallet and vote with your feet!

Michigan: Police Search Cell Phones During Traffic Stops

(h/t: Da_Beerfreak)

ACLU seeks information on Michigan program that allows cops to download information from smart phones belonging to stopped motorists.

The Michigan State Police have a high-tech mobile forensics device that can be used to extract information from cell phones belonging to motorists stopped for minor traffic violations. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan last Wednesday demanded that state officials stop stonewalling freedom of information requests for information on the program.

ACLU learned that the police had acquired the cell phone scanning devices and in August 2008 filed an official request for records on the program, including logs of how the devices were used. The state police responded by saying they would provide the information only in return for a payment of $544,680. The ACLU found the charge outrageous.
[...]
A US Department of Justice test of the CelleBrite UFED used by Michigan police found the device could grab all of the photos and video off of an iPhone within one-and-a-half minutes. The device works with 3000 different phone models and can even defeat password protections.

“Complete extraction of existing, hidden, and deleted phone data, including call history, text messages, contacts, images, and geotags,” a CelleBrite brochure explains regarding the device’s capabilities. “The Physical Analyzer allows visualization of both existing and deleted locations on Google Earth. In addition, location information from GPS devices and image geotags can be mapped on Google Maps.”

The ACLU is concerned that these powerful capabilities are being quietly used to bypass Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches.

“With certain exceptions that do not apply here, a search cannot occur without a warrant in which a judicial officer determines that there is probable cause to believe that the search will yield evidence of criminal activity,” Fancher wrote. “A device that allows immediate, surreptitious intrusion into private data creates enormous risks that troopers will ignore these requirements to the detriment of the constitutional rights of persons whose cell phones are searched.”
[...]
Read it all.

But that’s not all, folks!

(Updated 9:33 AM EST April 22, 2011)

Jury to decide if Pastor Terry Jones can protest outside the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn. Last I checked, the First Amendment is not subject to jury disapproval.

Don’t look for me on Facebook. I’ve never joined it – neither under my real name, nor under my usual nom de guerre, nor under any other pseudonym. There is no security on Facebook, because the people who run it do not respect their users.

• Feds, teachers to stalk your kids on Facebook now
• Fed instructs teachers to Facebook-creep students

The hard-left MoveOn.org site, funded by the infamous George Soros, will stealthily collect and misuse your IP address. In this instance, the site is falsely using your IP address to inflate a signature count on behalf of their efforts to shill for the public employee unions. What else MoveOn.org may be doing, or planning to do, with your IP address and your computer, is anybody’s guess.

If you want to visit MoveOn.org in order to keep tabs on what our enemies are up to, be sure to go through a secure proxy service, as Velvethammer did here:

MoveOn.org Systematically & Fraudulently Skewing Anti-Walker ‘Call to Action’ Support Results [Screenshot]

(h/t: AvidEditor)

Thanks to AMORC11 of ‘Another Day at the Foundry’ there is solid proof that MoveOn.org is capturing IP’s, an underhanded dirty trick to fraudulently gather signatures of support for their “50-State Mobilization to Save the American Dream”.

Here is a screenshot I took after having accessed the same page going in through http://anonymouse.org. As you can see, since my IP address was hidden I was not forced into signing their letter without my consent.

http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-www.cgi/http://pol.moveon.org/callforaction/

The text of the letter “50-State Mobilization to Save the American Dream” MoveOn.org is tricking people into signing.

In Wisconsin and around our country, the American Dream is under fierce attack. Instead of creating jobs, Republicans are giving tax breaks to corporations and the very rich and then cutting funding for education, police, emergency response and vital human services. The right to organize is on the chopping block. The American Dream is slipping out of reach for more and more Americans, and we have to fight back.

Can you add your endorsement to the call for emergency rallies in front of every statehouse this Saturday at 12 Noon to stand in solidarity with the people of Wisconsin? We must demand an end to the attacks on workers’ rights and public services across the country. Demand investment, to create decent jobs for the millions of people who desperately want to work. And demand that the rich and powerful pay their fair share.
You can add your name and endorse the call for emergency rallies by following this link:

http://pol.moveon.org/callforaction/?r_by=26218-17675033-_X8NO3x&rc=mailto

Thanks!

As we have learned in light of the union protest in Wisconsin, public employee and their unions have the power to bring government to its knees. And their comrades at MoveOn.org are perfectly willing to stoop to any level to come to their aid. Whatever it takes, the ends [will] always justify their means.

MoveOn.org is as anti-American as it gets. So it should come as no shock that they and Obama are thick as thieves…

Read the rest.

Readers are free to comment on this blog, subject to comment moderation.

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Blog Administrator 1389

More discussion about blogging and commenting

• Foehammer’s Anvil: Words of Warning to Commenters
• Ubuntu Forums: The Definitive guide to Trolls
• Flame Warriors Home

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ABC News: Free Speech on the Internet: Will net neutrality help?

Will net neutrality keep the largest ISPs from restricting the way we use the Internet? Michael S. Malone thinks so. He says: “That does it: I am now a full-fledged convert to net neutrality.” Read the article and decide for yourself.

Seattle talk radio host Dan Sytman reveals IFAW protesters for what they are

Dan Sytman, of Sytman & Boze, brings us some audio from the jihadist ranters and ravers who are protesting Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week (IFAW). For other IFAW censorship issues, see yesterday’s Censorship Update 10/25/07.

On the evening of October 25, I attended the protest of Islamo-fascism Awareness Week at the University of Washington. Here is my conversation with Zakariya Dehlawi, President of the UW Muslim Student Association. He insists that even though Islamic terrorists frequently invoke their religion before detonating themselves, we shouldn’t ever mention the word “Islam” when we’re talking about those attacks. The conversation is interupted by an angry Muslim man, who you’ll hear from next.

UW Muslim Student Association President

Here is the rest of my conversation with the Muslim man who clearly wanted to talk, but didn’t want to answer questions. Note that he says “you didn’t catch Osama Bin Laden.” He, along with the next member of the UW MSA, doesn’t appear to identify with the country in which this protest is taking place. This leads to the obvious question: which side are these guys on, anyway? The following clips includes both men, both of whom seem to justify the 9/11 attacks because of the American foreign policy.

Hostile Muslim Protestors at the UW

Academic Freedom? Not at University of Delaware, not at Brookings or the Pentagon!

The University of Delaware folds like a lawn chair!

Yesterday, the University of Delaware asked Asaf Romirowsky to step down from an academic panel at the University of Delaware because another panelist, University of Delaware political scientist Muqtedar Khan, didn’t want to share the podium with anyone who served in the Israeli Defense Forces.

And how dare the Pentagon get its advice from such a bigot?

If Khan was just an academic, that would be one thing. But he also straddles the policy world: Khan is a a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and a Pentagon consultant. According to an e-mail he sent to the University, he gave a workshop at the Pentagon yesterday afternoon.

Free Speech on Campus Takes Another Hit

Emory:

• The Emory Wheel: Outside Group Stifles Horowitz Speech
• Leftist-Islamist Bullies Shut Down Horowitz Speech at Emory University
• Leftists Force Horowitz From Stage
• Leftist Fascists Deny Emory Audience Freedom of Assembly
• Well, We Brought the Fascists Out
• Alumni Assoc. Contact to Protest Emory’s Capitulation
• Emory University – Office of the President

GWU:

• Video: David Horowitz’s appearance at George Washington University
• CAIR Supporter Ejected – and his spin on that

Wisconsin:

• Our campus has higher standards
• YouTube video of Prof. Barrett’s meltdown during Horowitz’s speech

Elsewhere in Wackademia:

Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week (IFAW) has certainly brought out plenty of barking moonbats from the infamous leftist/jihadist convergence:

• Berkeley: Nonie Darwish at Berkeley (Zombie’s text, photos, video)
• Brown: Why I’m wearing green today
• Cal Aggie: Editorial Staff sanctimoniously condemns IFAW
• Harvard: Neo-Fascism Awareness Week
• Tufts: Photos of Useful Idiots Protesting Daniel Pipes at Tufts
• UCLA: USAC Votes to Condemn Islamo-Fascism Week

Stein hoist to Jenn Sierra and to Terp Mole on LGF!

Bad News in the EU

• Ain’t no free speech in the EU – it’s gonna be EXPENSIVE

Murder – The Ultimate Censorship

• UPDATE on the Copenhagen demonstration: MURDER ATTEMPT ON SIOE/SIAD DENMARK LEADER AND MEMBERS

Cartoon Censorship

• Reason Online: Revisiting the Danish Cartoon Crisis
  An interview with newspaper editor Flemming Rose
• Mohammed Clipart
  With some comic strips

Privacy and Freedom of the Press

• IN YOUR FACE! FURIOUS PUBLIC BACKLASH FORCES COUNTY ATTORNEY ANDREW THOMAS TO DROP CASE AGAINST NEW TIMES.

  Your opinion, in the blogosphere and elsewhere, makes a difference! Although Arpaio remains in office, the prosecution has backed off on this abusive venture. (See Tinpot Tyrant Sheriff Joe Arpaio Invades YOUR Internet Privacy for background.)

• Denmark: Defending Free Speech in the Mainstream Media

  Yes, it can be done; this article shows how!

  It has been said from time to time that Islam-critics are kept out by a ‘Media Wall’, barring certain viewpoints from the Mainstream Media.

  My experience doesn’t substantiate this. Over the last 2½ years, I had something in the league of 150 letters printed in the largest mainstream newspapers. My ‘hit rate’ varies wildly, but has at times been hovering at 60-70 %, well above the average of around 30 % in Danish papers.

  “But that’s Denmark, and you guys are special.”

  Might be. But a dozen of those letters were printed in International Herald Tribune, which is hardly a Danish special case.

The take-home lesson is encouraging:

Your time and effort is well spent when you write or blog to raise public awareness about threats to our First Amendment rights, or when you write, call, or email to protest against infringements on these rights.

Media Disinformation

Flooding both the blogosphere and traditional media with disinformation is a de facto method of censorship, because it crowds out any attempt to get true information in front of the public. Those using search engines will see the baloney at the top of the list, and most people won’t bother to dig down to find the real information. This technique is well known to black-hat search engine optimization (SEO) and “reputation management” purveyors.

• Documents from investigation of Scott Beauchamp: The New Republic

  TNR dragged its feet on the investigation, such as it was, of this journalistic fakery. Drudge posted these three docs; then took them down. But never fear; the intrepid Charles Johnson of LGF offers them now. Here’s his comment:

  #59 Charles 10/24/07 3:57:33 pm

  re: #43 marwan’s daughter

  But Charles, if these are real, then why did Drudge remove them? Hmm, maybe someone from TNR told him to cease and desist.

  They were not removed because they weren’t genuine, and no one threatened Drudge. I’m not at liberty to reveal anything more than that.

• Michael Yon: Beauchamp and the Rule of Second Chances
• McClatchy Reporter Calvan Created His Own Reality

Stein hoist to Little Green Footballs!

“Fairness” Doctrine

• Democrats for Censorship (or Freedom of Speech vs. the Fairness Doctrine)
• Fairness Doctrine Violates 1st Amendment

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(Updated 10/22/2007) Your opinion in the blogosphere makes a difference!

IN YOUR FACE! FURIOUS PUBLIC BACKLASH FORCES COUNTY ATTORNEY ANDREW THOMAS TO DROP CASE AGAINST NEW TIMES.

Your time and effort is well spent when you write or blog to raise public awareness about threats to our First Amendment rights, or when you write, call, or email to protest against infringements on these rights.

“But I’m not a prisoner and I’ve never been to Maricopa County!”

Doesn’t matter! If you’ve visited Phoenix New Times Online, your browsing history has been swept up into a nasty local investigation that has nothing whatsoever to do with you. Everything in the server logs pertaining to your visit is up for grabs.

Reason Online: Sheriff Joe Arpaio Wants to Know What Websites You’ve Visited

If, that is, you’ve ever read the Phoenix New Times online. The alternative weekly has run several articles over the years critical of the so-called “toughest sheriff in America.” But when an investigative piece on a series of questionable Arpaio real estate transactions included the sheriff’s home address (possibly violating state law), Arpaio launched an incredibly broad, wide-reaching investigation that looks an awfully lot like retaliation.

East Valley Tribune: New Times owners arrested by deputies

Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin, the executive editor and CEO, respectively, of Village Voice Media, were arrested at their homes on suspicion of violating grand jury secrecy, said sheriff’s spokesman Capt. Paul Chagolla.

Both were released from custody early this morning. Lacey posted a $500 bond, according to New Times.

The two, who together started New Times in 1970, were the authors of Thursday’s cover story revealing that a special prosecutor, retained by the county attorney’s office, had issued subpoenas to them and other staffers in a criminal case against the paper. The case stems from the paper publishing Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s home address more than three years ago.

. . .

Especially disturbing, Lacey and Larkin wrote, is that one subpoena asks for online profiles of anyone who read four specific articles about Arpaio and profiles of anyone who visited the paper’s Web site since Jan. 1, 2004. The county officials also want to track what Web users did while on the site, the story says.

NYT: Media Executives Arrested in Phoenix

Michael Lacey, the executive editor, and Jim Larkin, chief executive, were arrested at their homes after they wrote a story that revealed that the Village Voice Media company, its executives, its reporters and even the names of the readers of its website had been subpoenaed by a special prosecutor. The special prosecutor had been appointed to look into allegations that the newspaper had violated the law in publishing the home address of Maricopa Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s home address on its website more than three years ago.

The weekly and its leadership has been in a long running battle with Mr. Arpaio, after the weekly published a series of stories about his real estate dealings.

How did Arpaio become entrenched in power?

He’s no hero!

Too many conservatives admire Arpaio from afar, thinking he has the answer to problems of crime and social disorder.

It’s true that there are some very real problems in Maricopa County, especially in regard to illegal immigrants, and some people are content with the fact that Arpaio seems to be addressing those problems and are unwilling to look any further.

Nonetheless, riding roughshod over due process of law, common decency, and everyone’s privacy is never the way to go. Think about it: If you enter Arpaio’s jurisdiction and you get picked up for something you didn’t do, especially if you are physically fragile, you’re out of luck. Don’t think it can’t happen to you!

To top it off, Arpaio has such an effective PR campaign going that you’ll be unlikely to get anybody’s sympathy or help. He has played on public anger at rampant crime to make a seeming virtue of his smug, self-righteous, and cruel behavior. Even so, these tyrannies don’t last forever. When the bovine effluent from Arpaio’s reign of terror finally reaches the rotary ventilation enhancement device, Maricopa County will become known as an object of derision and a place to avoid.

Commenter blames federalism:

Mr. Nice Guy | October 19, 2007, 10:46am | #812184

I hope the folks who always moan about the federal government is always evil and federalism is always da bomb read this. Local government can be very tyrannical, and often it’ only the feds who can set these kind of tin-badge tyrants straight.

1389′s response:

1389 | October 19, 2007, 4:12pm | #812774

Mr. Nice Guy:

You are correct in pointing out that state and local authorities can become tinpot tyrants too. However, I take issue with your assertion that the feds can set them straight. That doesn’t seem to be happening! It’s the job of the local citizenry to do that! In other words, it all comes down to YOU!

1389

What to do?

Vote with your feet and boycott the place! If you live or have a business in Maricopa County, Arizona. move out! For everyone else, don’t visit!

Arpaio the Voyeur – So concerned about his OWN privacy! (Updated 10/20/07)

Arpaio loses long battle over jailcam

Dennis Wagner
The Arizona Republic
Sept. 12, 2006 12:00 AM

Maricopa County inmates have won a settlement with Sheriff Joe Arpaio over his live Internet broadcasts that showed prisoners being booked, photographed and, in some cases, using a toilet at the county jail.

The Sheriff’s Office agreed Monday to pay the legal fees for the inmates, plus $500 in damages to each of the 11 who remain in the case that was filed five years ago in U.S. District Court. Arpaio also agreed to accept the court order blocking the so-called jailcam.

. . .

Donna Hamm, executive director at Middle Ground, said the inmates all were pre-trial detainees, presumed not guilty under the law, subjected to public humiliation, with women prisoners shown partly undressed as they used a toilet.

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One more reason why a team blog is a good idea

If you have noticed that 1389 has not written any significant blog posts for quite a long while, it’s because I’ve been quite ill with bronchitis. And when I’m too sick to work a full schedule, I’m certainly in no condition to do justice to a blog article! All I can do is gulp water and antibiotics, cough, blow my nose, and try to stay on top of the deadlines for my other tasks. I’ve neglected everybody on Twitter, I haven’t read most of my feeds… I still haven’t been well enough to write any of the full-blown articles I’ve been planning on.

Fortunately, JennSierra has filled in admirably last week, so I could take a much-needed break.

I recently saw a little checklist, entitled When Not to Blog, which is actually quite funny. It makes some good points about being in the proper mental state. After all, if the pen is mightier than the sword, it behooves one to exercise a degree of prudence and caution.

It isn’t always easy to take a break. Dedicated bloggers often fear that their readership will dwindle if they take too long to get that next blog post out, or if they don’t work hard enough to promote their latest articles via email, social news sites, blog networking, word of mouth, and so forth.

Sometimes you can’t avoid doing some blogging while sick or while tired, but there comes a point of diminishing returns, and then a point where it becomes counterproductive. If you manage to get anything posted at all, it’s apt to be riddled with typos, layout errors, and dead links. Worse, you could end up trashing your own database and leaving yourself or your team a mess to clean up. So if you see you aren’t making progress, leave the blog alone, get some rest, and see the doctor if you need to!

More goodies on our Blog Censorship resource page

In view of the recent cutoff of web and cellphone communications out of Myanmar (see Think it Couldn’t Happen Here?), more people have been looking for information about censorware and other forms of Internet censorship, and how to get around them. Today, I finally managed to address that issue to some extent on our Blog Censorship resource page. Using proxy servers and the like to get around official censorship, especially in a dictatorship during time of war or revolution, is a very risky business, and I do not want to mislead anybody into being careless. If any of you have additions or corrections, please post a comment or click here to contact us via email.

Heard Foehammer’s podcasts yet?

I did manage to listen to some of the podcasts at Foehammer’s Anvil, and I highly recommend them. So if you’re looking for something worthwhile and informative, click here to see the entire list of podcasts. After you begin listening to one podcast, you’ll also see a widget in the sidebar that you can use to select what you want to hear next. So if you didn’t get to hear his recent webcast interview live, you can access the recorded version here.

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Apparently, as in Saudi Arabia, too many frustrated Iranians have been using cellphone instant messaging to circumvent the restrictions on communications regarding sexuality, and on contact between the sexes.

See this story from Reuters.com.

Technorati tags:
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This article in USA Today gives you even more reasons to be careful about opening email attachments. Be advised that cyberspies can be from any country, and they may be looking for your competitive business secrets as well as military or infrastructure data.

Update: Microsoft patches Office, IE 7 flaws.
Make sure that you have installed these patches on your system!

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Microsoft Office
privacy

This Computerworld article explains some available options and suggests ways to get started.

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