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Pax Ahimsa Gethen / Wikimedia CommonsA recent Pew Research report looked into what characteristics Americans feel are essential for a strong democracy to flourish. The survey asked 1,503 American adults how important things such as fair and open national elections are in preserving democracy.

Of those surveyed, 89 percent believed that open and fair national elections were essential for a strong democracy, while 83 percent saw having a system of checks and balances as critical. Seventy-nine percent thought that people having the right to nonviolently protest was important, and 74 percent favored protecting the rights of people who hold unpopular views. Only 64 percent thought that news organizations being free to criticize political leaders was essential.

Breaking the data down along party lines shows little difference between Republicans and Democratsexcept on a two key points.

Sixty-eight percent of Republicans viewed nonviolent protests as important, compared to 88 percent of Democrats.

Republicans' lower propensity to see this right as essential is reflected in a recent push to crack down on the practice. GOP lawmakers in at least 18 states have introduced some form of anti-protesting legislation, according to The Washington Post.

Inspired by the North Dakota pipeline protests, state Rep. Keith Kempenich introduced a bill that would make motorists not liable for unintentionally hitting protesters who are blocking a roadway. A bill sponsored by Iowa state Sen. Jake Chapman would make intentionally blocking traffic on a highway a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. Missouri Rep. Don Phillips introduced legislation to penalize anyone wearing a mask or disguise during an unlawful protest.

Civil liberties groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have called the anti-protesting legislation unconstitutional and an "unlawful infringements on our right to speak." As the ACLU notes, some of the bills have stalled (including the one in North Dakota) or been dropped altogether (including ones in Michigan and Virginia).

A 20-percentage-point difference is nothing to sneeze at, but it pales in comparison to the current partisan divide over the importance of the right of the press to criticize political officials. While 76 percent of Democrats believed a free press was essential, only 49 percent of Republicans felt the same way.

Trust in the media has been declining, as noted by Gallup, so it's no wonder both Democrats and Republicans feel journalists' role in preserving democracy is less vital than the role of things like checks and balances. But you still have to wonder at the extent to which President Trump's ongoing feud with the media and the anti-Trump protests of recent months seem to be shaping the views of GOP supporters. It's also hard not to think the results might be flipped if Democrats were still in power.

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How Important Are Nonviolent Protests and Media Criticism in Preserving Democracy? Depends Which Party You ... - Reason (blog)

Either we own political technologies, or they will own us. Illustration by Ellie Foreman-Peck Illustration: Ellie Foreman Peck

Has a digital coup begun? Is big data being used, in the US and the UK, to create personalised political advertising, to bypass our rational minds and alter the way we vote? The short answer is probably not. Ornotyet.

A series of terrifying articles suggests that a company called Cambridge Analytica helped to swing both the US election and the EU referendum by mining data from Facebook and using it to predict peoples personalities, then tailoring advertising to their psychological profiles. These reports, originating with the Swiss publication Das Magazin (published in translation by Vice), were clearly written in good faith, but apparently with insufficient diligence. They relied heavily on claims made by Cambridge Analytica that now appear to have been exaggerated. I found the story convincing, until I read the deconstructions by Martin Robbins on Little Atoms, Kendall Taggart on Buzzfeed and Leonid Bershidsky on Bloomberg.

None of this is to suggest we should not be vigilant. The Cambridge Analytica story gives us a glimpse of a possible dystopian future, especially in the US, where data protection is weak. Online information already lends itself to manipulation and political abuse, and the age of big data has scarcely begun. In combination with advances in cognitive linguistics and neuroscience, this data could become a powerful tool for changing the electoral decisions we make.

Our capacity to resist manipulation is limited. Even the crudest forms of subliminal advertising swerve past our capacity for reason and make critical thinking impossible. The simplest language shifts can trip us up. For example, when Americans were asked whether the federal government was spending too little on assistance to the poor, 65% agreed. When they were asked whether it was spending too little on welfare, 25% agreed. What hope do we have of resisting carefully targeted digital messaging that uses trigger words to influence our judgment? Those who are charged with protecting the integrity of elections should be urgently developing a new generation of safeguards.

Already big money exercises illegitimate power over political systems, making a mockery of democracy: the battering ram of campaign finance, which gives billionaires and corporations a huge political advantage over ordinary citizens; the dark money network (a web of lobby groups, funded by billionaires, that disguise themselves as thinktanks); astroturf campaigning (employing people to masquerade as grassroots movements); and botswarming (creating fake online accounts to give the impression that large numbers of people support a political position). All these are current threats to political freedom. Election authorities such as the Electoral Commission in the UK have signally failed to control these abuses, or even, in most cases, to acknowledge them.

China shows how much worse this could become. There, according to a recent article in Scientific American, deep-learning algorithms enable the state to develop its citizen score. This uses peoples online activities to determine how loyal and compliant they are, and whether they should qualify for jobs, loans or entitlement to travel to other countries. Combine this level of monitoring with nudging technologies tools designed subtly to change peoples opinions and responses and you develop a system that tends towards complete control.

Already big money exercises illegitimate power over political systems, making a mockery of democracy

Thats the bad news. But digital technologies could also be a powerful force for positive change. Political systems, particularly in the Anglophone nations, have scarcely changed since the fastest means of delivering information was the horse. They remain remote, centralised and paternalist. The great potential for participation and deeper democratic engagement is almost untapped. Because the rest of us have not been invited to occupy them, it is easy for billionaires to seize and enclose the political cyber-commons.

A recent report by the innovation foundation Nesta argues that there are no quick or cheap digital fixes. But, when they receive sufficient support from governments or political parties, new technologies can improve the quality of democratic decisions. They can use the wisdom of crowds to make politics more transparent, to propose ideas that dont occur to professional politicians, and to spot flaws and loopholes in government bills.

Among the best uses of online technologies it documents are the LabHacker and eDemocracia programmes in Brazil, which allow people to make proposals to their representatives and work with them to improve bills and policies; Parlement et Citoyens in France, which plays a similar role; vTaiwan, which crowdsources new parliamentary bills; the Better Reykjavk programme, which allows people to suggest and rank ideas for improving the city, and has now been used by more than half the population; and the Pirate party, also in Iceland, whose policies are chosen by its members, in both digital and offline forums. In all these cases, digital technologies are used to improve representative democracy rather than to replace it.

Participation tends to be deep but narrow. Tech-savvy young men are often over-represented, while most of those who are alienated by offline politics remain, so far, alienated by online politics. But these results could be greatly improved, especially by using blockchain technology (a method of recording data), text-mining with the help of natural language processing (that enables very large numbers of comments and ideas to be synthesised and analysed), and other innovations that could make electronic democracy more meaningful, more feasible and more secure.

Of course, there are hazards here. No political system, offline or online, is immune to hacking; all systems require safeguards that evolve to protect them from being captured by money and undemocratic power. The regulation of politics lags decades behind the tricks, scams and new technologies deployed by people seeking illegitimate power. This is part of the reason for the mass disillusionment with politics: the belief that outcomes are rigged, and the emergence of a virulent anti-politics that finds expression in extremism anddemagoguery.

Either we own political technologies, or they will own us. The great potential of big data, big analysis and online forums will be used by us or against us. We must move fast to beat thebillionaires.

Twitter: @GeorgeMonbiot. A fully linked version of this column will be published at monbiot.com

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Big data's power is terrifying. That could be good news for democracy - The Guardian

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman is in over his head.

Few had high hopes for Liberman when he was appointed to his post, but most observers on the political Right were willing to swallow the pill of having a man with an understanding of military and strategic affairs that began and ended with applause lines because his appointment solved two pressing political problems.

Libermans appointment to serve as defense minister brought his Yisrael Beitenu party into the government, which increased the size of the coalition from its razor-thin 61-seat majority to a more healthy 66 seats. Moreover, by appointing him, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was able to remove Moshe Yaalon from the Defense Ministry. Yaalon had become unacceptable to Likud voters due to his rush to convict IDF Sgt. Elor Azaria as guilty of criminal wrongdoing last March when Azaria killed a downed terrorist who had stabbed a fellow soldier in Hebron.

Monday morning Liberman showed that concerns about his suitability for his position were spot on.

Speaking to reporters at the Knesset, Liberman said that growing discussion among leading members of the coalition about applying Israeli law to parts of Judea and Samaria must stop.

Anyone who wants to apply Israeli sovereignty to Judea and Samaria needs to understand that such a step will bring immediate repercussions from the new US government, Liberman alleged.

He added, We received a direct not indirect message: Apply sovereignty and you will be cutting ties with the new administration.

Libermans statement was both ignorant and damaging.

It was ignorant because it critically misrepresented how decisions are made in US administrations.

It isnt hard to guess which Trump administration official is threatening Israel and trying to force the government to abide by the failed and damaging policy of surrendering Jude and Samaria to Palestinian terrorists.

As defense minister, he speaks to his counterpart, US Defense Secretary James Mattis. Mattis is no friend of Israels.

During his confirmation hearings in the Senate, when Senator Lindsay Graham asked him what the capital of Israel is, Mattis replied Tel Aviv.

Mattis also said that solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a vital [US] interest.

After being fired from his command of Central Command in 2013, Mattis claimed that the US alliance with Israel harms the US. In his words, I paid a military security price every day as the commander of CentCom because the Americans were seen as biased in support of Israel, and... moderate Arabs who want to be with us... cant come out publicly in support of people who dont show respect for the Arab Palestinians.

In the same address, Mattis argued that if Israel continues to allow Jews to assert their property rights in Judea and Samaria, it will risk becoming an apartheid state.

When President Donald Trump appointed Mattis, supporters of Israel in the US were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and hope that his statements were the product of his service in the anti-Israel Obama administration and that once liberated from its intellectual straitjacket, he would abandon his preposterous positions on Israel. Concern over Mattis was abated by the fact that he opposed president Obamas Iran policy.

But last week Mattis made clear that he actually shares Obamas worldview when he decided to appoint Anne Patterson to serve as his undersecretary of defense for policy. Patterson, who served as assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs under Obama, is a harsh critic of Israel and an apologist for the Palestinian Authoritys support for terrorism.

In testimony before Congress in April 2014 for instance, Patterson defended the PAs practice of paying salaries to Palestinian terrorists and their families. The payments are legitimate, she told lawmakers, because they need to provide for the families.

Last year, when Mahmoud Shalan, a Palestinian terrorist with US citizenship was shot by soldiers at a checkpoint after he tried to kill them, and later died of his wounds, Patterson demanded an explanation from Israel for his death.

As Steven Flatow, father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered by Palestinian terrorists in Gaza in 1995, noted in an article at JNS news service, Patterson did not demand that the PA provide an explanation for why Shalan, who was a resident of the PA, was engaged in terrorism against Israelis.

Before being appointed to head the State Departments Near East bureau, Patterson served as Obamas ambassador to Egypt from 2011 to 2013, during tumult that saw two leaders outed in so many years.

Patterson supported the overthrow of longtime US ally then-president Hosni Mubarak.

She supported the Muslim Brotherhood regime that replaced him.

She urged Christians and others who were being persecuted by the Muslim Brotherhood regime not to demonstrate against it. She supported Morsis moves to seize tyrannical power and transform Egypt into an Iranian-allied Islamic state.

After the military overthrew Morsi and his regime, Patterson supported cutting off US military assistance to the regime of President Abdel Fattah Sisi.

For her pro-Muslim Brotherhood positions, Patterson became one of the most hated people in Egypt and a symbol of the Obama administrations abandonment of Egypt.

Mattiss decision to appoint Patterson was rejected by the White House, on the basis of Pattersons record in Egypt and at the State Department.

The Patterson episode shows that Mattis continues to embrace Obamas policy of supporting Islamists and opposing US allies. The White Houses rejection of Patterson shows that Mattis is not in charge of policymaking, the White House is.

The fact that Liberman has represented Mattiss threats to Israel as the official policy of the Trump administration indicates that he doesnt understand either who Mattis is, or how decisions are made in US administrations generally or how they are made in the Trump administration in particular.

Moreover, by claiming that Mattiss positions are US policy, Liberman insulted Trump, attributing policymaking powers to Trumps appointed adviser that belong to the president alone.

Trump, for his part, has clearly not made a determination of where he stands on the disposition of Judea and Samaria. But he has made clear that he has no intention of striking out at Israel. He similarly made clear that he has no intention of maintaining Obamas position, which Patterson communicated to Congress, of supporting payoffs to Palestinian terrorists.

If this werent reason enough to be appalled by Libermans deeply destructive statement, the fact is that this isnt the main problem with it.

Libermans argument that Israel must maintain allegiance to the failed and destructive policy of empowering the PLO lest it wreck its ties to America is most destructive because it undermines Israeli democracy and Israels international position. Libermans statement invites indeed begs for a foreign government to threaten Israel in order to cow elected officials and the public into accepting a policy they rightly reject and abandoning discussion of an alternative path that advances Israels strategic interests.

In behaving in this manner, Liberman is adopting the anti-democratic practice of Israels political Left. Incapable of winning the publics support for their obsessive agenda of giving land to Palestinian terrorists, for years, leftist politicians like former justice minister Tzipi Livni have threatened the public and her fellow elected officials that if they dare step away from the disastrous policy, Israeli officials and citizens will face war crimes indictments in international courts.

To his great discredit, Prime Minister Netanyahu began engaging in this sort of behavior recently as he warned that passage of the Settlements Regulation Law would expose Israel to war crimes charges at the International Criminal Court.

Netanyahu was substantively ridiculous. There is no international legal basis for such charges. On its own, the ICC would be unlikely to initiate such proceedings, given their legal weakness. But by arguing that action by the ICC would be a reasonable response to the law, Netanyahu created the political opening for anti-Israel lawfare by the ICC.

After all, if the prime minister himself is saying such charges will ensue, far be it for ICC prosecutors to disagree with him.

This practice of alleging foreign opposition and so inviting foreigners to attack Israel in order to prevent Israels elected officials from loyally performing their duties in accordance with the wishes of their constituents has always been harmful to the country.

Libermans false statement regarding the purported policies of the Trump administration brings this practice to a new low.

Liberman should issue an immediate clarification.

Prime Minister Netanyahu should reject Libermans statement. And both men should affirm their commitment to Israeli democracy and the power of elected officials to determine the course of the nation in accordance with Israel law and on basis of their assessments of Israels national interests.

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Our World: Avigdor Liberman vs. Israeli democracy - Jerusalem Post Israel News

FBI Director James Comey is asking the Justice Department to publicly refute President Trumps unsubstantiated claims that former President Obama ordered Trumps phones be wiretapped during the 2016 presidential campaign. FBI Director Comey, President Obama and others have all rejected Trumps allegations, which he first made during a tweet storm on Saturday. Trump began by tweeting "Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!" He went on to tweet, "How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!" Trump has called for a congressional investigation and the White House is standing by the allegations, even though it has not provided evidence to back them up. This is Trump spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders speaking to Martha Raddatz on ABCs "This Week" Sunday.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders: "Look, I think hes going off of information that hes seen that has led him to believe that this is a very real potential. And if it is, this is the greatest overreach and the greatest abuse of power that I think we have ever seen and a huge attack on democracy itself. And the American people have a right to know if this took place."

It appears the "information" Trump spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders is referring to is a Breitbart article that has been circulated within the White House. The article draws on a Thursday report by the far-right-wing radio host Mark Levin, who claimed without evidence that Obama submitted a request to the secret FISA court to tap Trumps phones at Trump Tower. Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers, including Florida Senator Marco Rubio, say they have seen "no evidence" supporting these claims. This is California Democratic Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi.

Nancy Pelosi: "This is called a wrap-up smear. You make up something, then you have the press write about it, then you say everybody is writing about this charge. Its the tool of an authoritarian, to just have you always be talking about what you want them to be talking about."

The Intercept reports that, as President of the United States, Trump has the power to declassify surveillance recordsmeaning if his wiretapping claims were true, he could prove it immediately.

Continued here:
US Military Carries Out 30 Airstrikes in Yemen - Democracy Now!

Many of the crisis symptoms that European democracy is currently experiencing have been growing for a long time and have anchored themselves in countries in the southeast of the continent: The democratic crisis in Southeast Europe is clear for all to see, and the "idea of liberal democratic consensus no longer exists," Florian Bieber from the Center for Southeast European Studies at the University of Graz in Austria told Deutsche Welle.

Yet the crisis is not a result of an acute depression, emphasizes Michael Hein, a professor at Berlin's Humboldt University, but rather, has grown out of a long, negative process. Hein analyzed and evaluated a number of statistics and indicators that measure various developmental, legal and social parameters. They show the same tendencies across the board: All of the countries of Southeast Europe, with the exception of Kosovo, and regardless of whether they are EU member states or not, have exhibited a constant downward trend over the last ten years.

Read: Western immigrants feel 'welcome' in Balkans

This pertains to objectively measurable declines, but also to subjective parameters, such as citizens' faith in political and social institutions, which show the same downward tendency.

In nations that are not members of the European Union, or others -like Croatia -who are new to the EU, the democratic crisis is closely tied to more fundamental crises of orientation and values. In moments of uncertainty strong leaders offer hope -most often with simple messages gleaned from national history. Bieber says that nationalism welds people together under the leadership of democratically elected but authoritarian leaders.

Thousands of people took part in the 'colorful revolution' against the Macedonian government

New form of rule in the Balkans

Vedran Dzihic, a political scientist from Vienna, says that this has aided the spread of a new form of rule in the Western Balkans: One that combines authoritarian leadership, nationalist ideology and neoliberal economic policy. Politicians that govern in this way exhibit an "incredibly pragmatic use of power," much like role models such as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Democracy is simply a means to an end for them, but it is not the goal. Such leaders use democratic instruments in order to cancel the power of those very instruments.

In this way, Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic could be seen as the prototype of a politician acting in "messianic and narcissist" fashion. Such leaders suggest to voters that crises can only be solved by a strong leader, says Dzihic.

'Vucic is a dictator' reads the graffiti in Belgrade

Democratic institutions are rendered practically powerless in such instances, and the system only works because the country is repeatedly said to be in a constant state of national crisis. The same applies to economic policies in which the people are baited by politicians' "I can do it, I can fix this" rhetoric, which promises that everyone will benefit from a supposed economic upswing. In reality only a small number of people within a leader's inner circle profit politically and economically.

The EU has to stay engaged

Dzihic is nevertheless convinced that there are ways to break through this negative trend, as well as through autocratic structures. He says it is important that people defend themselves against obvious injustices. Recent mass protests in Romania showed how an awakened civil society can force a government to return to its principles of the rule of law. Dzihic is calling for more "alliances between free and democratic forces." He says that courage and constructive forms of civil protest are also needed to fight the increasing concentration of media control in the hands of the political elite.

Natasha Wunsch, a political scientist from Zurich, sees the support of civil society and independent media as another possible route to breaking through antidemocratic tendencies. "Setbacks in democratization and fatigue from EU expansion fuel one another," she told DW. The concept of integration through democratization has become obsolete because Europeanization and democratization have been decoupled from one another.

The EU must speak out sternly against democratic breaches while at the same time establishing mechanisms that promote democracy and civil society. Wunsch says that a more positive overall image of democratic progress and European integration could be furthered through exchange and education programs. Experts are unanimous in their opinion that two areas, above all, need special attention: the rule of law and freedom of the press.

It is in these two areas that the most alarmingly negative developments are to be seen. And it is here that quick and decisive measures must be formulated and positive steps to foster them be taken. Otherwise, the countries of Southeast Europe will drift ever farther from the community of shared European values, and with that, their EU membership will fade into the distance, forever beyond their reach.

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How to deal with democracy in crisis in Southeast Europe - Deutsche Welle