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Online freedom is continuing to decline globally, according to a new study, with governments increasingly cracking down on user speech and misinformation on the rise.

The report from Freedom House, a Washington DC-based democracy advocacy group, found internet freedom declined for the fifth year in a row in the US and the 11th year internationally for two distinct reasons.

Domestically, the lack of regulation in the tech industry has allowed companies to grow beyond reproach and misinformation to flourish online. Abroad, authoritarian governments have harnessed their tight control of the internet to subdue free expression.

Freedom House cited a growing lack of diversity among sources of online information in the US that allowed conspiracies and misinformation to rise, an issue that was gravely underscored during the 2020 elections and the 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol.

The spread of false and conspiracist content about the November 2020 elections shook the foundations of the American political system, the report said.

The yearly study, which has been published since 1973, uses a standard index to measure internet freedom by country on a 100-point scale. It asks questions about internet infrastructure, government control and obstacles to access, and content regulation. Countries are scored on a scale of 100 points with higher numbers considered more free.

The report called measures taken by Joe Biden since his election promising for internet freedom, citing the reversal of a Trump administration order to halt transactions between US individuals and Chinese social media companies as beneficial.

Meanwhile, global internet freedom declined for the 11th consecutive year, with more governments arresting users for nonviolent political, social, or religious speech than ever before. Officials in at least 20 countries suspended internet access, and 20 regimes blocked access to social media platforms, the report said.

The biggest declines were seen in Myanmar, Belarus, and Uganda. In Uganda, internet freedom fell by seven points after pro-government social media accounts flooded the online environment with manipulated information preceding the January 2021 elections. In August 2020 in Belarus, government forces cracked down on election unrest by restricting access to the internet and surveilling activists online.

The report called the Chinese government the worlds worst abuser of internet freedom, citing new legislation criminalizing certain expressions online and draconian prison terms issued to activists for online dissent - including an 18-year sentence against one activist for distributing a paper criticizing the governments handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.

This year, officials in India pressured Twitter to remove protest-related and critical commentary and to stop flagging manipulated content shared by the ruling party. Nigerian authorities Turkish president Recep Tayyip , who himself has overseen the mass incarceration of journalists and opposition politicians.

The report further showed governments are clashing with technology companies on users rights, with authorities in at least 42 countries pursuing new rules for platforms on content, data, and competition over the past year.

Specifically, in India, officials pressured Twitter to remove posts critical of the ruling party. Authorities in Nigeria blocked access to Twitter after the platform removed incendiary posts by the countrys president. President Recep Erdoan of Turkey repeatedly accused tech companies of digital fascism for their refusal to comply with provisions in the countrys new social media law.

Despite these issues, the report said legislation to address abuses of tech companies has been limited. It found that while 48 countries have pursued regulatory actions in the past year, little of that legislation has the potential to make meaningful change.

In the high stakes battles between governments and tech companies, human rights are the main casualties, said Allie Funk, senior research analyst who co-wrote the report, in a news briefing on Monday.

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Internet freedom on the decline in US and globally, study finds - The Guardian

Lucknow, September 21

The state government will bring a law for population control at the right time, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said on Tuesday.

The government had in July unveiled a policy aimed at stabilising the population in Uttar Pradesh and reducing maternal and infant deaths in a time-bound manner, with Adityanath terming rising population a hurdle in development.

Everything is done at an appropriate time. The media earlier used to question the BJP on when it would announce a date for the Ram temples construction, but the prime minister (Narendra Modi), despite the Covid-19 pandemic, laid the foundation stone of the temple in Ayodhya on August 5 last year, and all need to be happy now, Adityanath said at a conclave.

Similarly, Article 370 was also scrapped by the prime minister and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, he said.

On August 5, 2019, the Centre had abrogated Article 370, which gave special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, and bifurcated it into union territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.

At the News 24 conclave, when asked about his recent abba jaan remark, the chief minister said, They (opposition) want the vote of Muslims but are getting irritated with abba jaan.

In Kushinagar, Adityanath, in an apparent attack against the Samajwadi Party had said people who say abba jaan used to digest all the ration earlier.

On the population law for Uttar Pradesh, the chief minister said, Everything has a right time and has to be done at the right place.

When the population law is brought, it will be done with fanfare, in the knowledge of the media as we do not believe in doing anything silently, Adityanath said.

In July, a draft Bill on population control was put up on the website of the Uttar Pradesh Law Commission, inviting suggestions from the public till the 19th of the month.

It states that people having more than two children in Uttar Pradesh will be debarred from contesting local bodies polls, applying for government jobs or receiving any kind of subsidy.

The draft Bill also seeks to prohibit promotions in government jobs for such people, while offering incentives to those limiting their children to two.

The law commission is said to have handed over the draft Bill to the government.

On Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadavs tweet claiming that a record number of riots have taken place in the state, Adityanath said, The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) states that there have been zero communal riots in Uttar Pradesh.

They (opposition) are not depending on their intelligence, but depending on Twitter, he said.

Asked about Yadavs assertions that he is inaugurating works done during the SP government, the chief minister said, The situation that had emerged in 2017 of the pair (Congress and SP alliance for the elections) coming together, it is their nature to humiliate the state.

The BJP is forming the next government with over 350 seats in the coming assembly elections, he said.

To a question on whether he would be chief minister again, Adityanath said, If you say so I accept it. Thanks for your good wishes.

Polls for 403-member Uttar Pradesh assembly are due next year. The BJP had won 312 seats last time. PTI

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Law on population control will be brought 'at right time': UP CM - The Tribune India

Washingtons quasi-official court stenographer, Bob Woodward, has just published another insider DC account, which he co-authored with the journalist and television fixture Robert Costa, titled Peril. In it, Woodward and Costa reveal that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), Army four-star general Mark Milley, made several calls to his Chinese counterpart in the closing days of the Trump administration in order to reassure him that should the president launch a military attack on China, he, Milley, would let the Chinese know ahead of time.

If were going to attack, Milley told Gen. Li Zuocheng of the Peoples Liberation Army,Im going to call you ahead of time. Its not going to be a surprise.

The revelation has captured Washingtons notoriously short attention span, and, as far as JCS Chairman go, Milley has now gained a level of national notoriety not seen since general Colin Powell held the position during the first Gulf War some 30 years ago.

Throughout his tenure, Milleys focus hasnt been so much on winning military battles, but on winning the hearts and minds of the media and liberal Democrats such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. His is a career built not on any first-hand combat experience but on his experience as a seasoned bureaucratic infighter, climbing the slippery yet ultimately very lucrative rungs of Washingtons military-media-think tank-defense industry complex. Cleverly, and no doubt with an eye toward preventing any stigma from attaching to his service within the Trump administration which might cloud his future earnings potential, Milley has become an outspoken defender of any and every cultural fad that has captured the canine-like attention span of the US Congress, including critical race theory.

In his years as JCS chairman under Trump, Milley seems to have crafted a kind of self-anointed role for himself, not so much as the elected commander-in-chiefs principal military adviser (as enshrined in the Goldwater-Nichols statute of 1986) but as a back-channel to the sitting presidents political enemies such as Pelosi and, as Woodward and Costa just revealed, to the countrys principal geopolitical rival in Asia. Yet, as Quincy Institute president Andrew Bacevich recently pointed out, Providing adversaries with advance notice of U.S. military actions does not number among the prescribed duties of the chairman of the joint chiefs. Arguably, the Woodward-Costa allegations, if accurately reported, qualify as treasonous.

This is hardly the first time we have seen military personnel, ostensibly subordinate to the civilian commander-in-chief, act in such a fashion. A neoconservative Army lieutenant colonel who was detailed to the national security council was, after all, largely responsible for Trumps first impeachment. The disgruntled Ukrainian-American Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman found Trumps conversation with the sitting Ukrainian president not to his liking and shared his grievances with the congressional opponents of the president he ostensibly served. Vindman testified that he believed Trumps intended policy was inconsistent with consensus views of the interagency. Yet the Constitution and subsequent Supreme Court decisions (see United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp. for example) give the elected civilian president wide statutory authority in the conduct of foreign affairs whatever Washingtons bureaucratic caste tells itself. Ironically, the very same Vindman just called for Milleys resignation.

Civilian control of the military is a bedrock principle of the US Constitution yet has been flouted again and again, particularly in recent years as military leaders and their congressional supporters have scrambled to save face over one lost war after another. Woodward and Costas reporting ought to occasion both a congressional investigation of military insubordination as well as a serious re-thinking of having military personnel in policy positions which ought to be under the purview of the countrys elected civilian leadership.

*James W. Carden is a writing fellow at Globetrotter and a former adviser to the U.S. State Department. Previously, he was a contributing writer on foreign affairs at the Nation, and his work has also appeared in the Quincy Institutes Responsible Statecraft, the American Conservative, Asia Times, and more.

This article was produced by Globetrotter.

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Media Revelations Suggest The US Civilian Control Of the Military Is Increasingly Shaky OpEd - Eurasia Review

If Israel was going to kill a top Iranian official, an act that had the potential to start a war, it needed the assent and protection of the United States. That meant acting before Mr. Biden could take office. In Mr. Netanyahus best-case scenario, the assassination would derail any chance of resurrecting the nuclear agreement even if Mr. Biden won.

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh grew up in a conservative family in the holy city of Qom, the theological heart of Shia Islam. He was 18 when the Islamic revolution toppled Irans monarchy, a historical reckoning that fired his imagination.

He set out to achieve two dreams: to become a nuclear scientist and to take part in the military wing of the new government. As a symbol of his devotion to the revolution, he wore a silver ring with a large, oval red agate, the same type worn by Irans supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and by General Suleimani.

He joined the Revolutionary Guards and climbed the ranks to general. He earned a Ph.D. in nuclear physics from Isfahan University of Technology with a dissertation on identifying neutrons, according to Ali Akbar Salehi, the former head of Irans Atomic Energy Agency and a longtime friend and colleague.

He led the missile development program for the Guards and pioneered the countrys nuclear program. As research director for the Defense Ministry, he played a key role in developing homegrown drones and, according to two Iranian officials, traveled to North Korea to join forces on missile development. At the time of his death, he was deputy defense minister.

In the field of nuclear and nanotechnology and biochemical war, Mr. Fakhrizadeh was a character on par with Qassim Suleimani but in a totally covert way, Gheish Ghoreishi, who has advised Irans Foreign Ministry on Arab affairs, said in an interview.

When Iran needed sensitive equipment or technology that was prohibited under international sanctions, Mr. Fakhrizadeh found ways to obtain them.

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The Scientist and the A.I.-Assisted, Remote-Control Killing Machine - The New York Times

Former acting ICE Director Tom Homan told "Fox & Friends" on Tuesday that the Biden administration does not have operational control of the southern border, as DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas claimed.

GREG ABBOTT: AMERICANS HAD NO IDEA BIDEN ADMINISTRATION WOULD LEAD TO SUCH BORDER CHAOS

TOM HOMAN: I watched that news conference. I wanted to throw something at the TV. I dont know what the color of the sky in his world is, but he cannot say two things: Number one, hes saying the Haitians are being deported. When this first happened, about three-quarters of them were released. It wasnt until they were called on it that he decided, okay, we have got to deport some. But many are being released to ICE and ICE will release them.

...

Another thing he said, when the reporter asked [Mayorkas], do you have operational control of the border? He said yes. They have lost operational control. When there are 350,000 got-aways, there is no operational control. When you surge sources from Rio Grande Vally into Del Rio, that leaves 224 miles of border unguarded, I have seen the assignment sheets, 224 miles of southern border were unguarded because they had a surge of resources to these other areas. Thats not operational security. When the Haitians are moving back and forth to Mexico for supplies and freely coming into the illegal camp on U.S. property, that is not operational control.

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Tom Homan blasts Mayorkas' remarks at border: 'I wanted to throw something at the TV' - Fox News