Mediaboss Marketing

If you didnt know beforehand, you knew Elizabeth Warren was an authoritarian when she gave the most unsettling possible argument against the death penalty: She doesnt want the death penalty because she wants criminals to die in prison. The maximum, maximum punishment, she argued, is to keep them in prison for all of their days."

Today, Warren released her plan for combating election interference and disinformation. My colleague Brad Polumbo rightly worries about a chilling crackdown on free speech.

Its important to specify that Warren only calls for criminal penalties on people who knowingly spread false information about when and how to vote in U.S. elections. Lying in order to suppress the vote is pretty bad, and fraud isnt protected by the First Amendment. But pay close attention to Warrens bigger argument here, and it gets worrying.

Warren is trying to criminalize "voter suppression." Voter suppression efforts of any kind offend basic American values, she writes. Then she links to a study about voter suppression.

That study condemns lots of methods of voter suppression, including demobilization. One example of voter suppression condemned by the study Warren links to: The night before Election Day, ads appeared urging people to boycott the election because neither of the presidential candidates would serve black voters.

So, if Warren becomes our president and runs for reelection, imagine a GOP-affiliated super PAC runs an ad in black neighborhoods saying Warren says shes been good for African Americans. She hasnt. The Warren administration might decide that this ad wasnt a bona fide effort to win votes for the GOP, but to discourage votes for Warren. The Warren administration might also decide that this ad is false or misleading.

What then? Will she jail the head of the super PAC?

Free speech is not popular these days on the Left. Now that California Sen. Kamala Harris is out of the race, Warren is the most authoritarian Democrat remaining. She wants to crack down on a specific form of political speech that she claims harms the republic. That is something to worry about.

Excerpt from:
Yes, you should be afraid of Elizabeth Warren the censor - Washington Examiner

The National Security Councils records office, which is coordinating the review, apparently intends to scour the book not just for classified material but for information implicating executive privilege a privilege that Mr. Trump and his lawyers have construed expansively in other contexts though executive privilege is decidedly not a permissible basis for prior restraint. The White House has sent Mr. Bolton a letter expressly warning him against publishing the book.

Of course Mr. Boltons case is unusual, and it is possible that public and congressional pressure will force the White House to review his manuscript promptly and fairly. (Prominent Republicans, for their part, seem to be focused on persuading Mr. Bolton to withdraw his book, or failing that, on limiting the books audience to the senators hearing the impeachment case against Mr. Trump.)

But the spectacle of White House censors deciding, without any real constraint, whether to permit a former government official to publish a manuscript critical of the president should nonetheless provoke alarm.

The necessary changes to this process have been obvious for years: Prepublication review should apply to fewer people and fewer secrets. There should be narrower submission requirements, clearer censorship standards, enforceable deadlines and a meaningful right of judicial review. Mr. Boltons case surely underscores the urgency of these reforms.

Its not just Mr. Boltons rights at issue here. Former government officials often have unique insights about the operation of government. When censors suppress these voices, they inflict a constitutional injury on the public as well. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for a unanimous Supreme Court in 2014, Speech by public employees on subject matter related to their employment holds special value precisely because those employees gain knowledge of matters of public concern through their employment.

Mr. Bolton is an unlikely standard-bearer for the publics right to know, having worked at the highest levels of an administration notorious for its hostility to the First Amendment. But everyone who values an informed public, and an accountable government, should be troubled that the fate of Mr. Boltons book is in the hands of the White House, and that government censors have so much control over what we will read, and when we will read it.

Jameel Jaffer is the executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. Ramya Krishnan is a staff attorney at the institute.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. Wed like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And heres our email: letters@nytimes.com.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.

Originally posted here:
We May Never See John Boltons Book - The New York Times

From time to time we hear that a totalitarian government has locked down Internet access for a part or all of their country. Normally, that is about all we hear about the situation. In the case of India, not normally thought of as a Totalitarian government, we have a unique opportunity to look at what they are censoring as they began to relax the total lockout of Internet services that was put into place in Jammu and Kashmir.

The lift of total censorship began on January 14th, when Internet Service Providers were ordered to install firewalls that would only allow access to 153 government-approved websites. As was pointed out by The Wire, No Mainstream News in List of 153 Whitelisted Websites Under Kashmirs First Govt Firewall. TheWire.in noted that Conspicuously absent from the list that includes Gmail, Netflix, Zomato, Oyo Rooms and Paytm are news and social media websites.

The order from the Principal Secretary to the Government, Home Department to the ISPs stated that the Internet shutdown was because there have been number of reports of the use of internet in cross border terrorism/terror activities, incitement, rumour-mongering, etc. as also misuse of pre-paid mobile connections by anti-national elements.

I would invite others to make relevant observations in the comments sections, or in your own publications linking back to this page. The list is intended to be a faithful representation of the new order, which can be found on the JK Home Office website as Home-05(TSTS) of 2020.

While the order has been commonly described as containing 300 URLs, there are a handful of duplicates, where a URL was included both with a trailing slash and without the slash. It should also be noted that there are a very large number of websites included by Top Level Domain, due to the inclusion of the TLDs: Ac.in (most academic institutions in India will be included here), Gov.in (most government offices and services in India will be included here), and Nic.in (most network infrastructure services from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology is included here.)

It is curious how it was decided which websites to include and not to include. For example, why include Adidas and Reebok, but not Nike? Im sure the programmers are thrilled to see that Github and StackOverflow are included! What other observations strike you as interesting? Please comment or Tweet about them!

*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from CyberCrime & Doing Time authored by Gary Warner, UAB. Read the original post at: http://garwarner.blogspot.com/2020/01/how-does-government-censor-internet.html

Follow this link:
How does a government censor the Internet? A rare peek from Jammu and Kashmir - Security Boulevard

The New York Times took a break from flogging the impeachment circus to recently committing a true act of journalism, making the point that people become angry when a government of the authoritarian left suppresses important information.

The national socialist media normally champions the authoritarianism of China exemplified by their being impressed that they can build a hospital in six days.

China has a record of getting things done fast even for monumental projects like this, says Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations.

This authoritarian country relies on this top down mobilisation approach. They can overcome bureaucratic nature and financial constraints and are able to mobilise all of the resources.

However, the New York Times recently noted a downside to systems of centralized control: As Virus Spreads, Anger Floods Chinese Social Media.

The government usually keeps a tight grip on what is said, seen and heard about it. But the sheer amount of criticism and the often clever ways in which critics dodge censors, such as by referring to Xi Jinping, Chinas top leader, as Trump or by comparing the outbreak to the Chernobyl catastrophe have made it difficult for Beijing to control the message.

The condemnations stand as a rare direct challenge to the Communist Party, which brooks no dissent in the way it runs China. In some cases, Chinese leaders appear to be acknowledging peoples fear, anger and other all-too-human reactions to the crisis, showing how the party can move dramatically, if sometimes belatedly, to mollify the public.

The left is based on authoritarianism, but it cannot admit this basic truth. The authoritarian socialists in China cannot be honest with their people in normal, everyday matters. This destroys any trust the people have in their government, so even when it may tell the truth in an emergency, no one will accept this as the truth.

Thus, they are already behind the eight ball when it comes to these situations, making them far worse. There are times when government has an important role in society, but when it aggressively asserts control and is deceptive, this negates that role. They cant very well admit that they lied before, but they are being trustworthy now.

While they can use brute force to get things done, the same doesnt hold true for intellectual endeavors. Those take a meritocracy of sorts, the kind of thing authoritarianism tends to suppress.

While leftists secretly love authoritarianism, the stark reality of an emergency shows that freedom based societies are better prepared to deal with them. They can be honest with people because they had to do that in the past. They can also solve the problem faster because they are intellectually equipped to do so.

Here is the original post:
The New York Times finally realizes that censorship and socialism are bad ideas in an emergency The New York Times finally realises that censorship...

Home and Away has responded to claims of censorship after cutting same-sex kissing scenes.

The soap recently aired the romantic scenes between Alex and her girlfriend Willow on New Zealand television, but those moments were cut from episodes that aired in Australia.

Related: Home and Away star praises shock death storyline after leaving the show

Fans in Australia have since taken to social media to share their confusion and disappointment at the missing scenes, one of which sees Alex kiss Willow in a bar, and another features a long emotional speech that also ends with a kiss.

In a statement (via ABC), Channel 7 claimed that it accidentally aired the wrong versions of two episodes in Australia due to "human error".

"As with any television show, numerous changes are made throughout the post-production process all the way up until final broadcast," the statement read.

Related: Home and Away star speaks out after shock death in 2020 season premiere

The network also said that "the final versions of those episodes" will be shown on its streaming service in Australia, 7Plus.

But needless to say, fans weren't happy when the scenes were initially cut:

Home and Away's UK broadcaster Channel 5 has confirmed to Digital Spy that the scenes will not be cut when it screens the episodes in the coming weeks.

A spokesperson told us: "This is not content that Channel 5 would remove."

Home and Away airs weekdays at 1.15pm and 6pm on Channel 5 (UK) and Mondays to Thursdays at 7pm on Channel 7 (Australia).

Digital Spy now has a newsletter sign up to get it sent straight to your inbox.

Read more news, spoilers and gossip on our Home and Away homepage

Want up-to-the-minute soaps news, spoilers and gossip on your social feeds? Just hit 'Like' on our Digital Spy Soaps Facebook page and 'Follow' on our @soapscoop Twitter account.

View post:
Home and Away responds to claims of censorship after cutting same-sex kissing scenes - digitalspy.com