129 Matching Annotations
  1. Mar 2024
    1. we have the Pilgrims (a people who are celebrated atThanksgiving, a holiday that did not exist until the Civil War), who cameashore at Plymouth Rock (a place only designated as such in the lateeighteenth century). The quintessential American holiday was associatedwith the native turkey to help promote the struggling poultry industryduring the Civil War.

      Why does it seem so apropos that Thanksgiving, a quintessential American holiday, is the product of corporate marketing?

    2. Monuments imperfectly record the past

      Examples of this to collect in the future, including:

      • Civil War monuments
      • Pilgrim monument ( National Monument to the Forefathers) 1898 by Hammatt Billings (mentioned in White Trash)
      • others...
    1. Dana Fisher stell in "Saving Ourselves" dar, weshalb die sich verschärfende Klimakrise zu mehr und radikalen Aktivismus führen wird, und warum die Krise ohne diesen Aktivismus nicht mehr aufzuhalten ist. Sie bezeichnet Extremereignisse, die in den üblichen Abläufen der Umwelt nicht vorkommen, als "climate shocks". Es sei angesichts der Untätigkeit der Politik klar, dass die Zahl dieser Shocks zunehmen und dass sie zu immer mehr sozialen Konflikten führen werden. Die wachsende persönliche Unsicherheit werde die Bereitschaft erhöhen, gegen die Krise aktiv zu werden. Wegen der zunehmenden Katastrophen werde die Klimabewegung immer konfrontativer werden und es werde sich auch eine radikale Flanke herausbilden. https://www.fastcompany.com/91033418/climate-crisis-heating-up-activism

  2. Feb 2024
    1. Am 22. Februar hat Michel Forst, Beichterstatter der Vereinten Nationen zur Aarhus-Konvention, die ZAD (zone à défendre) besucht, die zur Verhinderung des Baus der Autobahn A69 zwichen Toulouse und Castres eingerichtet wurde. Die Aktivist:innen haben bei der UNO eine Beschwerde gegen die Repression durch die Behöden eingelegt. Forst forderte eine Beruhigung der Situation, damit „die Umweltdemokratie ausgeübt werden kann“.

      https://www.liberation.fr/environnement/climat/un-rapporteur-de-lonu-au-chevet-des-militants-opposes-a-la69-20240222_NDMNZTLG7REL7HFU2WZ5M3AB6A/

    1. Michel Forst, UN-Berichterstatter zur Aarhus-Konvention, hat die europäischen Regierungen aufgefordert, Klima-Aktivist:innen zu unterstützen statt sie zu kriminalisieren. Die zunehmende Repression gefährde das Erreichen der Pariser Klimaziele und Demokratie und Menschenrechte in Europa. Forst erwartet, dass Protest und direkte Aktion zunehmen, weil die aktuelle Politik vieler europäischer Regierungen die wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnisse zu globaler Erhitzung, Biodiversitätsverlust und Umweltverschmutzung nicht respektiert. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/feb/28/european-nations-must-end-repression-of-peaceful-climate-protest-says-un-expert

      Positionspapier von Michel Forst: https://unece.org/sites/default/files/2024-02/UNSR_EnvDefenders_Aarhus_Position_Paper_Civil_Disobedience_EN.pdf

    1. Noël Mamère, der bisher erfolgreichste grüne Präsidentschaftskandidat Frankreichs, und der junge Aktivist Achraf Manar stellen im Interview fest, dass die politische Ökologie im Gegensatz zu den angepassten Teilen der grünen Parteien keinen sanften Übergang" verspricht. Die globale Erhitzung trifft vor allem die Verwundbarsten der Gesellschaft, für die sich die ökologische Bewegung deshalb vor allem engagieren muss. Beide verteidigen den zivilen Ungehorsam und stellen fest, dass die ökologische Bewegung zunehmend zum Sündenbock für die Folgen der Klimakrise gemacht wird. https://www.liberation.fr/environnement/noel-mamere-et-achraf-manar-il-faut-que-celles-et-ceux-qui-subissent-les-crises-soient-au-coeur-des-prises-de-decision-20240209_QYUABTHUTBB3DCL2LXBBKLK4ZI/

  3. Jan 2024
  4. Dec 2023
  5. Nov 2023
  6. Oct 2023
    1. Over drinks in Tallinn, I had the chance to briefly reflect with Alex Howard on OGP Summits past. One notable feature of early summits were the national or regional sessions. Slots on the agenda to share what had made it onto the open government National Action Plans of different states, and, crucially, where governments and civil society shared the room and stage in talking about them. These have dropped from the agenda in recent years. And with that, a critical moment around which to structure other conversations in the run up to, and follow up from, a summit

      [[Tim Davies]] and [[Alex Howard]] notice the absence of space for civil society orgs and govs to interact during OGP summit, which also means there's no interaction before or after. This reduces the relationships and connections.

    2. https://web.archive.org/web/20231024050406/https://www.timdavies.org.uk/2023/09/10/reflections-on-two-reunions/

      Tim on the OGP Summit in Tallinn. Seems to echo the absence of civil society orgs here too. Like what I see in the EU context of the creation of data spaces.

    1. Die Bewegung gegen die Autobahn A69, zu der auch Extinction Rebellion gehört, organisiert in einem Ort namens La Crémade eine ZAD (Zone à défendre, zu verteidigende Gebiet). Dazu wurden für den Autobahnbau bereits enteignete Gebäude besetzt, obwohl die Exekutive die Dächer beseitigt und großflächig Mist verstreut hatte, um die Aktivist:innen abzuschrecken. Die Exekutive vertrieb die Protestierenden gewaltsam. Reportage in der Libération. https://www.liberation.fr/environnement/a69-les-gendarmes-mobiles-tentent-de-demanteler-la-zad-des-opposants-20231022_YHXQJTFNOBAMBESFWFPXBWSG7Y/

    1. https://web.archive.org/web/20231019053547/https://www.careful.industries/a-thousand-cassandras

      "Despite being written 18 months ago, it lays out many of the patterns and behaviours that have led to industry capture of "AI Safety"", co-author Rachel Coldicutt ( et Anna Williams, and Mallory Knodel for Open Society Foundations. )

      For Open Society Foundations by 'careful industries' which is a research/consultancy, founded 2019, all UK based. Subscribed 2 authors on M, and blog.

      A Thousand Cassandras in Zotero.

    1. Analysis from the Anti-Defamation League published this year found that, in the past five years, there have been more than 170 deaths linked to right-wing extremism. Three have been linked to extremism on the left.
    2. There was former Ohio congressman Anthony Gonzalez (R) — a former professional football player — who deemed the hostility he faced after opposing Trump too much of a risk for his family. Former Wyoming representative Liz Cheney (R) described similar fears from other legislators, as did former Michigan representative Peter Meijer (R). That these three are all former legislators is not a coincidence: They resigned or were beaten in primaries largely because they saw how the party had turned against them. See also: Romney, Mitt.

      The threat of physical violence is silencing those in power even on the right. We're already at war except for the bullets.

    1. Mit drastischen Repressionsmaßnahmen versuchte die Polizei, Proteste gegen die Internationale Automobilausstellung IAAA in München zu unterdrücken. Verdächtig wirkende Personen wurden in der Stadt festgehalten und durchsucht, während der Automobiliindustrie große Flächen als „open spaces“ zur Veerfügung gestellt wurden. Dennoch erregten Proteste und Aktionen große öffentliche Aufmerksamkeit. https://taz.de/Protest-gegen-Automobilausstellung-IAA/!5956556/

  7. Aug 2023
  8. Jul 2023
  9. Jun 2023
    1. Second, the social life of annotation is of greater importance than individual reader response. Annotation must be studied and promoted as a social endeavor that is co-authored by groups of annotators, with interactive media, spanning on-the-ground and online settings, and in response to shared commitments.

      When will we get the civil disobedience version of Mortimer J. Adler's How to Mark a Book?

  10. May 2023
    1. An analysis of the modern capitalist state that distinguishes between political society, which dominates directly and coercively, and civil society, where leadership is constituted through consent

      What is the current separation of political and civil society in America in 2023? Do the differences in these two (particularly with respect to Antonio Gramsci's framing) still have distinguishing features?

    2. the Prison Notebooks, contain Gramsci's tracing of Italian history and nationalism, as well as some ideas in Marxist theory, critical theory and educational theory associated with his name, such as: Cultural hegemony as a means of maintaining and legitimising the capitalist state The need for popular workers' education to encourage development of intellectuals from the working-class An analysis of the modern capitalist state that distinguishes between political society, which dominates directly and coercively, and civil society, where leadership is constituted through consent Absolute historicism A critique of economic determinism that opposes fatalistic interpretations of Marxism A critique of philosophical materialism
  11. Apr 2023
    1. In Frankreich entwickeln Naturfreund:innen neue Organisations- und Aktionsformen zum Schutz der Biodiversität. Sie orientieren sich an der ZAD (zu verteidigen Zone) von Notre-Dame-des-Landes und den Soulèvements de la Terre. Sie finden Verbündete in Arten wie Dohlen und Binden, die die Zerstörung der Natur durch ihre Lebensweise aufhalten oder verhindern können.

    1. 57:17 I mean, when we think of the ways57:20 in which ISIS is not only using images for propaganda,57:25 to see a statue,57:28 both of historic worth and of aesthetic value57:32 being so destroyed,57:33 gives you a kind of visceral shock because you feel,57:37 not only the assault on our cultural heritage,57:39 but you feel the assault on the body.

      Aby Warburg's views on art history and memory may have a lot to say with respect to our cultural movement of destroying and removing Civil War Monuments which glorify the "Lost Cause" of the South in the United States.

  12. Mar 2023
    1. Civil engineers are responsible for developing and creating infrastructure such as roads, bridges, buildings, and water supply systems, as well as resolving environmental and sustainability challenges.
  13. Dec 2022
  14. Nov 2022
    1. In the year after their acquittal, Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam told their story to William Bradford Huie in a piece for Look magazine. According to Huie, the two admitted to killing the teenager. Upon abducting Till at the home of his great-uncle Mose Wright, Milam recalled asking him: "You the nigger who did the talking?" "Yeah," Till answered. "Don't say 'Yeah' to me: I'll blow your head off.'"27 In his account, Milam continued to characterize the incident as a legitimate effort to maintain white-black social hierarchy. Blaming an unrepentant Till for his own murder, Milam explained, "He was hopeless. I'm no bully; I never hurt a nigger in my life. I like niggers in their place. I know how to work 'em. But I just decided it was time to put a few people on notice. As long as I live and can do anything about it, niggers are going to stay in their place."28

      The fact they molested, mutated and killed a goof-off black boy with no bodily strength or power to fight back, just in an effort to "how blacks where they belong" is discusting and horrifying.

    2. In other words, lynching images, such as those of Emmett Till, are too visually provocative, too viscerally challenging, to be contained by time or distance.

      The picture of Emmett Till is a valid argument to shut down racism here in the USA.

    3. If the men who killed Emmett Till had known his body would free a people, they would have let him live.

      It's funny how the white men did this to show black boys their place, and instead opened the floodgate to the civil rights moevemnt.

  15. Aug 2022
    1. Colectivamente, una comunidad tiene ma-yor información, perspectivas y recursos (y los tiene en mayor diversi-dad) que cualquier individuo. Una comunidad sabia, un líder sabio, yuna democracia sabia harán uso de la riqueza de esa diversidad creativae interactivamente.

      Relación entre comunidad, información y recursos, donde la diversidad genera valor en lugar de inconvenientes.

    2. a sociedad civil es el impulso socialpara vincularse libre y democráticamente, para crear comunidad y paraconducir la vida social, incluyendo la vida política. L

      Sobre la sociedad civil. Acercamiento sobre las definiciones y posibilidades del concepto.

  16. Jun 2022
    1. Newton had discovered, during classes at San Francisco Law School, that California law allowed people to carry guns in public so long as they were visible, and not pointed at anyone in a threatening way.In February of 1967, Oakland police officers stopped a car carrying Newton, Seale, and several other Panthers with rifles and handguns. When one officer asked to see one of the guns, Newton refused. “I don’t have to give you anything but my identification, name, and address,” he insisted. This, too, he had learned in law school.
  17. May 2022
    1. <small><cite class='h-cite via'> <span class='p-author h-card'>Treva B. Lindsey </span> in Abortion has been common in the US since the 18th century -- and debate over it started soon after (<time class='dt-published'>05/18/2022 12:10:32</time>)</cite></small>

      some interesting looking references at the bottom

  18. Apr 2022
    1. SmartDevelopmentFund [@SmartDevFund]. (2021, November 2). A kit that enables users to disable misinformation: The #DigitalEnquirerKit empowers #journalists, civil society #activists and human rights defenders at the #COVID19 information front-line. Find out more: Http://sdf.d4dhub.eu #smartdevelopmentfund #innovation #Infopowered https://t.co/YZVooirtU9 [Tweet]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/SmartDevFund/status/1455549507949801472

  19. Jan 2022
  20. Dec 2021
  21. Nov 2021
    1. Social convention, which has for so long worked against us, can if flipped become our greatest source of power, normalising what now seems radical and weird. If we can simultaneously trigger a cascading regime shift in both technology and politics, we might stand a chance. It sounds like a wild hope. But we have no choice. Our survival depends on raising the scale of civil disobedience until we build the greatest mass movement in history, mobilising the 25% who can flip the system.

      This is the core philosophy behind Stop Reset Go, but NOT NECESSARILY just in the direction of civil disobedience. To invest only in that is to put all our eggs in one basket that top down actors will be pressured beyond a certain threshold. It may happen, it may not, or it may just take too long. We must diversify and also invest in systematized bottom-up efforts.

    1. Last year Joshua Katz, a popular Princeton classics professor, wrote an article critical of a letter published by a group of Princeton faculty on race. In response The Daily Princetonian, a student newspaper, spent seven months investigating his past relationships with students, eventually convincing university officials to relitigate incidents from years earlier that had already been adjudicated—a classic breach of James Madison’s belief that no one should be punished for the same thing twice. The Daily Princetonian investigation looks more like an attempt to ostracize a professor guilty of wrong-think than an attempt to bring resolution to a case of alleged misbehavior.

      The example of Joshua Katz brings up the idea of double jeopardy within the social sphere. Is this form of punishment ethical or fair? Also, while those transgressions were held to account by the norms of their day, were there other larger harms (entailing unwritten rules) to humanity that weren't adjudicated at the time which are now coming to the surface as part of a bigger aggregate harm?

      It could be seen as related to the idea of reparations. In some sense, aside from the general harms of war—in which they participated—the South and slave holders in particular were never held to account or punished for their crimes against humanity. Though they may have felt as if they were. Where are those harms adjudicated? Because of a quirk of fate and poor politics following the Civil War and not being held to account, have those in the South continued perpetuating many of the same harms they were doing, simply in different guises? When will they be held to account? How would reparations look in the form of a national level of restorative justice?

  22. Sep 2021
  23. Aug 2021
  24. May 2021
    1. Adjiwanou, V., Alam, N., Alkema, L., Asiki, G., Bawah, A., Béguy, D., Cetorelli, V., Dube, A., Feehan, D., Fisker, A. B., Gage, A., Garcia, J., Gerland, P., Guillot, M., Gupta, A., Haider, M. M., Helleringer, S., Jasseh, M., Kabudula, C., … You, D. (2020). Measuring excess mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic in low- and lower-middle income countries: The need for mobile phone surveys [Preprint]. SocArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/4bu3q

  25. Apr 2021
    1. s. “We don’t have to prove a racially discriminatory impact to win.”A federal judge agreed with Husted, ruling that Ohio did not violate the law because voters were purged for a variety of reasons. The case has since been appealed to the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which heard oral arguments in late July and has not yet ruled.When Hamilton County, Ohio, where Cincinnati is the county seat, removed 75,000 voters this year, nearly half, and in some neighborhoods far more, were purged because of “non

      Ohio, you are disgusting. Don't you goddam treat my fellow Americans like that

    1. Laura, como terceira não interessada, tem apenas direito de regresso em face de Jacira

      Laura (irmã que pagou um mês de aluguel). Ela tem o direito de regresso (cobrar da irmã o mês de aluguel). Errei a questão porque pensei que nem esse direito ela teria.

  26. www.planalto.gov.br www.planalto.gov.br
    1. ; acessório

      São bens acessórios, previstos no ordenamento jurídico brasileiro: a) Frutos – São bens acessórios que têm sua origem no bem principal, mantendo a integridade desse último, sem a diminuição da sua substância ou quantidade. Os frutos, quanto à origem, podem ser assim classificados: b) Produtos – São os bens acessórios que saem da coisa principal, diminuindo a sua quantidade e substância. Percebe-se que é discutível a condição de acessório dos produtos, eis que são retirados ou destacados da própria coisa principal. Como exemplo, pode ser citada a pepita de ouro retirada de uma mina. c)Pertenças – São bens destinados a servir um outro bem principal, por vontade ou trabalho intelectual do proprietário. Com efeito, prevê o art. 93 do CC inovação importante que “são pertenças os bens que, não constituindo partes integrantes, se destinam, de modo duradouro, ao uso, aoserviço ou ao aformoseamento de outro”. d) Partes Integrantes – De acordo com Maria Helena Diniz, as partes integrantes são os bens acessórios que estão unidos ao bem principal, formando com este último um todo independente. e) Benfeitorias - São os bens acessórios introduzidos em um bem móvel ou imóvel, visando a sua conservação ou melhora da sua utilidade. Enquanto os frutos e produtos decorrem do bem principal, as benfeitorias são nele introduzidas.

    2. Art. 92.

      Princípio geral do Direito Civil – o bem acessório segue o principal, salvo disposição especial em contrário (acessorium sequeatur principale) – princípio da gravitação jurídica.

  27. Mar 2021
  28. www.planalto.gov.br www.planalto.gov.br
    1. Constitui universalidade de direito

      espólio - massa falida - herança de determinada pessoa.

    2. Constitui universalidade de fato

      pinatcoteca - - bliblioteca - boiada etc

    3. Bens Fungíveis

      Bens fungíveis - empréstimo - mútuo Bens infungíveis - empréstimo - comodato

    4. Fungíveis

      imóveis são sempre infungíveis

    5. . São móveis os bens suscetíveis de movimento próprio, ou de remoção por força alheia, sem alteração da substância ou da destinação econômico-social.

      semoventes - animais por muitas vezes se encquadram nessa categoria ex. Não há dúvidas de que o Código Civil tipificou-os na categoria das coisas e, como tal, são objetos de relações jurídicas,como se depreende da dicção dos arts. 82, 445, § 2.º, 936, 1.444, 1.445 e 1.446.

    1. Famously, he found many of the answers in state, local, and even neighborhood institutions. He wrote approvingly of American federalism, which “permits the Union to enjoy the power of a great republic and the security of a small one.” He liked the traditions of local democracy too, the “township institutions” that “give the people the taste for freedom and the art of being free.” Despite the vast empty spaces of their country, Americans met one another, made decisions together, carried out projects together. Americans were good at democracy because they practiced democracy. They formed what he called “associations,” the myriad organizations that we now call “civil society,” and they did so everywhere:Not only do [Americans] have commercial and industrial associations in which all take part, but they also have a thousand other kinds: religious, moral, grave, futile, very general and very particular, immense and very small; Americans use associations to give fêtes, to found seminaries, to build inns, to raise churches, to distribute books, to send missionaries to the antipodes; in this manner they create hospitals, prisons, schools … Everywhere that, at the head of a new undertaking, you see the government in France and a great lord in England, count on it that you will perceive an association in the United States.

      Small individual communities all making and promoting things can be a powerful thing.

      Where have we gone wrong?

  29. Feb 2021
  30. Oct 2020
    1. They also found themselves unable to sustain and organize in the long term in a manner proportional to the energy they had been able to attract initially and the legitimacy they enjoyed in their demands.

      This reminds me of an excellent example I heard recently on Scene on Radio's Men series which tells the story of a rape which occurred several years prior to the bus boycott that helped to rally the community and make the bus boycott far more successful than it would have been without the prior incident and local reportage.

      The relevant audio begins (with some background) at approximately 22:40 into the episode.

    1. Mutual aid societies were built on the razed foundations of the old  guilds, and cooperatives and mass political parties then drew on the  experience of the mutual aid societies."

      This reminds me of the beginning of the Civil Rights movement that grew out of the civic glue that arose out of prior work relating to rape cases several years prior.

      I recall Zeynep Tufekci writing a bit about some of these tangential ideas in some of her social network writing. (Where's the link to that?)

  31. Aug 2020
  32. Jul 2020
  33. Jun 2020
  34. May 2020
  35. Mar 2020
    1. Police powers of the states are an expression of civil authority, i.e., the state's ability to control, regulate, or prohibit non-criminal behavior.6 Health officials may use these powers to compel treatment, prohibit or direct a particular conduct, or detain and isolate in a quasi-criminal nature
  36. Jan 2020
    1. A obrigação somente será convertida em perdas e danos se o autor o requerer ou se impossível a tutela específica ou a obtenção de tutela pelo resultado prático equivalente.

      A obrigação de dar coisa certa confere ao credor simples direito pessoal, e não real, havendo, contudo, no âmbito do direito, medidas destinadas a persuadir o devedor a cumprir a obrigação.

  37. Dec 2019
    1. van a necesitar su más valioso activo de su parte: los usuarios de la biblioteca.

      Esto está entre lo difícil y lo bonito del trabajo que se construye día a día. Pero en todo caso consolidar una comunidad alrededor de la bibliteca, ahora, implica pensar la oferta que estas instituciones le entregan a las personas ¿qué les resuelve y qué pasaría si una biblioteca dejara de estar disponible para ellas? ¿es claro lo que esto implica?

    2. ¿Quién nos va a denunciar por ser antiamericanos - por decir algo equivocado o por leer el libro incorrecto?

      Aunque pareciera un asunto alejado de nuestro contexto, ahora con la migración venezolana a Colombia es más evidente la poca capacidad que tienen las personas para atender y entender una crisis de este tipo, aflorando sentimientos de xenofobia, racismo y desconfianza. También con los movimientos sociales que están ocurriendo en el continente es más evidente las posturas y ataques entre simpatizantes de uno u otro partido político.

  38. Oct 2019
  39. Aug 2019
    1. Its aim is producing students who can think critically, be considerate of others, take risks, think dangerously and imagine a future that extends and deepens what it means to be an engaged citizen capable of living in a substantive democracy.

      What does Giroux's "be considerate of others" look and feel like in practice? How is it related to the problematic calls for civility?

  40. Apr 2019
    1. In September 2017, Pompeo sought authority for the CIA to make covert drone strikes without the Pentagon's involvement, including inside Afghanistan.

      Did he get it? Scary thought; program had very little accountability as it was.

  41. Mar 2019
    1. “token curated registry”—basically a listicle, with equity.

      This is probably the clearest and most pithy description of a "token curated registry" I have read. And I tried very hard to explain the concept in articles like this one, about Civil.

      🔗 Here's the canonical thing on TCRs, by Mike Goldin.

    1. reaffirming its faith in government of the people, by the people, for the people

      "The Party of Lincoln." (Lincoln's death was only 51 years in the past in 1916.)

  42. Feb 2019
  43. Jun 2018
    1. “Tribes of affection matter,” Kaptur says. “Whether it’s work-related, or a vets’ organization, or church, neighborhood, neighborhood businesses—they’re all evaporating. It’s the disappearance of everything they’ve worked for. Their identity, really.”

      Shades of Putnam here - what's the relationship between civic organizations as places which make connection happen (and improve work opportunities for some) and work as the thing which provides the money for civic organizations?

  44. Mar 2018
  45. Feb 2018
    1. What we are suggesting here is that ICTs are disrupting the relations between the citizen and the state by giving the state unparalleled access to information about its citizens, while the citizens are not comparably informed about what the state is doing or what it knows

      Éste es el núcleo: el Estado tiene acceso a la información, pero no los ciudadanos. No hay balance o mecanismos apropiados de control. Llaman a este fenómeno "déficit informacional"

  46. Dec 2017
    1. 21 Dec 2017: Six defendants who were arrested during protests at Trump's inauguration were found not guilty of all charges.

      Nevertheless, the Justice Department prosecutors still intend to take nearly 200 other defendants to trial.

  47. Oct 2017
    1. The abuse is the free speech issue. Kicking Nazis off of Twitter reduces the platform of a small number of people who are using that platform to terrify and silence others. Leaving them on suppresses, in all meaningful terms, the voices of entire classes of female intellectuals, people of color, and any other subgroup the mob decides to turn it spotlight towards when that subgroup gets a little too uppity.

  48. Aug 2017
    1. The request from the DOJ demands that DreamHost hand over 1.3 million visitor IP addresses — in addition to contact information, email content, and photos of thousands of people — in an effort to determine who simply visited the website. (Our customer has also been notified of the pending warrant on the account.)

      That information could be used to identify any individuals who used this site to exercise and express political speech protected under the Constitution’s First Amendment. That should be enough to set alarm bells off in anyone’s mind.

  49. May 2017
  50. Mar 2017
    1. Rainey died inside that shower. He was found crumpled on the floor. When his body was pulled out, nurses said there were burns on 90 percent of his body. A nurse said his body temperature was too high to register with a thermometer. And his skin fell off at the touch.

      But in an unconscionable decision, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle's office announced Friday that the four guards who oversaw what amounted to a medieval-era boiling will not be charged with a crime.

  51. Feb 2017
    1. Claiming people are being paid to riot, Republican state senators voted Wednesday to give police new power to arrest anyone who is involved in a peaceful demonstration that may turn bad — even before anything actually happened.

      SB1142 expands the state’s racketeering laws, now aimed at organized crime, to also include rioting. And it redefines what constitutes rioting to include actions that result in damage to the property of others.

  52. Jan 2017
    1. Mike Pompeo, of Kansas, to be Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, vice John Owen Brennan.

      Read about Mike Pompeo's record: https://www.aclu.org/other/mike-pompeo-facts.

    2. Jeff Sessions, of Alabama, to be Attorney General.

      American Civil Liberties Union has a fact sheet on Senator Sessions' record, https://www.aclu.org/other/jeff-sessions-facts.

    1. We are concerned about the constant use of federal funds to support this most notorious expression of segregation. Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and the most inhuman because it often results in physical death.

      -- Martin Luther King Jr.

  53. Dec 2016
    1. "Lynching in America" documents 4075 lynchings in 12 Southern states between Reconstruction and World War 2.

      https://twitter.com/eji_org "The Equal Justice Initiative is committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the United States, to challenging racial and economic injustice, and to protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society."

  54. Nov 2016
    1. 19 May 2016. Republicans defeated an amendment by Rep. Sean Maloney D-NY, aimed at upholding an executive order that bars discrimination against LGBT employees by federal contractors. Seven Republicans switched their votes under pressure from House leaders. Final vote 213-212.

    1. EFF guide to attending protests, especially how to handle smartphones. (Part of the guide to surveillance self-defense.)

    1. Gloria Steinem responds to the election of Donald Trump.

      I’m being realistic, not negative. Almost every issue of equality now has majority support in public opinion polls, ideas of race and gender are changing, activism and iPhones are exposing the racial violence that has always been there, sexual assault from the campus to the military is no longer hidden, and Trump’s very public misogyny has unified women, educated men and inspired activism. It’s the Anita Hill effect, but deepened and multiplied. Trump has helped to expose desperation among those jobless and working poor who support him only because they oppose Washington.

    1. An instance of a police department and DA blatantly robbing a citizen and his family. Business and personal assets seized, without even a charge of a crime.

      The business complied with state law, registered with the City of San Diego, had a website and paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in state and federal taxes every year.

      Without warning, everything changed in January 2016, when San Diego police and agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency raided Med-West and shut the business down. The officers refused to recognize Med-West’s legal status and—without charging anyone with a crime—they seized everything from the business, including $324,000 in business proceeds.

      But the legal nightmare was only beginning for James and his family.

      A few days after the raid, the San Diego County District Attorney used civil forfeiture to seize every penny in James’ personal bank accounts, his wife Annette’s accounts, and accounts belonging to their teenage daughters,

  55. Oct 2016
    1. Facebook is allowing advertisers to exclude users based on race.

      The ad we purchased was targeted to Facebook members who were house hunting and excluded anyone with an “affinity” for African-American, Asian-American, or Hispanic people.

      When we showed Facebook’s racial exclusion options to a prominent civil rights lawyer John Relman, he gasped and said, “This is horrifying. This is massively illegal. This is about as blatant a violation of the federal Fair Housing Act as one can find.”

    1. On May 9, after a question-and-answer session following a public lecture by US diplomat Dennis Ross at the Plaza branch of the Kansas City (Mo.) Public Library (KCPL), city police arrested and detained an attendee and the library’s director of programming and marketing. The attendee, social activist Jeremy Rothe-Kushel of Lawrence, Kansas, was charged with trespassing and resisting arrest after he asked the speaker a question, and the librarian, Steven Woolfolk, was charged with interfering with the arrest.

      Sounds as though off-duty police officers overreacted, and the prosecutors and judges haven't been any wiser.

  56. Sep 2016
  57. online.salempress.com.lacademy.idm.oclc.org online.salempress.com.lacademy.idm.oclc.org
    1. El Salvador's population growth has slowed, with a decline in the number of youths and a slowly aging population. Life expectancy is 71 years for men and 78 years for women (2014 estimate). Over one million Salvadorans, or approximately 20 percent of the population, live abroad, mainly because of economic and social hardship within their native country. During the civil war, an estimated 75,000 Salvadorans were killed.

      I found this interesting because El Salvador has quite a small population, so 75,000 people is a lot of people to die in a civil war.

    1. El Salvador's population growth has slowed, with a decline in the number of youths and a slowly aging population. Life expectancy is 71 years for men and 78 years for women (2014 estimate). Over one million Salvadorans, or approximately 20 percent of the population, live abroad, mainly because of economic and social hardship within their native country. During the civil war, an estimated 75,000 Salvadorans were killed

      I find that the last part of this is pretty interesting. Seeming that El Salvador doesn't have that big of a population, a civil war where 75,000 people died is pretty huge.

  58. Apr 2016
    1. Doug Muder points out that "freedom" is often invoked by people who want to deny rights to others. He says "big government" is often required to enforce rights. A strong example is the southern states during the century following the Civil War -- and even still today.

      I agree. But it is also true that our big government has some serious problems. It is too often an abuser of rights, rather than a defender. As usual, these abuses fall mainly on minorities and the poor. But they affect almost everyone.

      http://www.spectacle.org/0400/natural.html<br> Jonathan Wallace gives a strong argument that "natural rights" don't exist. Rights are determined by the consensus of a society. They do not have or need any stronger justification.

  59. Feb 2016
    1. The emotional and affective dimensions of racism are of course very important, and we all have a responsibility to treat members of all races with dignity, respect, and equality. But politics are about policy, about the material dimensions of society, and there is no way in which policy can ensure that everyone act with personal and social fairness towards people of color. Indeed: my argument has long been that the anti-racist project has suffered because following the initial successes of the Civil Rights movement, our conception of fighting racism switched from enacting laws and enforcing material equality, such as with the Voting Rights act or the Fair Housing Act, to a vague idea that we should all hold hands across racial lines. In other words, racism switched from being popularly conceived of as a problem of the material world to being a problem of mind, and the fight against racism stopped being waged in material terms and instead became about people feeling and thinking the right things.
  60. Jan 2016
    1. The explicit right to a free press it seems to me, though I’m no constitutional scholar, should translate today to an infrastructure not only for publishing information but for protecting those publishing, providing, or consuming it, as well as those financially supporting its publication. Just as the rights to speech, assembly, and petition should translate to online infrastructure in which discourse at all levels is protected and groups can meaningfully express their views (let alone the fourth amendment right to protection of your own information). With these essential rights, a democracy can function and use its mechanism of governance to create new rights and protections.
    1. Petition President Obama to pardon alleged whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling. He was convicted on the basis of exchanging emails and phone calls with a reporter, with no evidence of what was discussed? These conversations took place in 2002-2004, but they didn't decide to press charges until December 2010?

      http://en.rsf.org/united-states-jeffrey-sterling-latest-victim-of-18-09-2015,48366.html<br> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Alexander_Sterling

  61. Dec 2015
    1. Congress on Friday adopted a $1.15 trillion spending package that included a controversial cybersecurity measure that only passed because it was slipped into the US government's budget legislation. House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Republican of Wisconsin, inserted the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) into the Omnibus Appropriations Bill—which includes some $620 billion in tax breaks for business and low-income wage earners. Ryan's move was a bid to prevent lawmakers from putting a procedural hold on the CISA bill and block it from a vote. Because CISA was tucked into the government's overall spending package on Wednesday, it had to pass or the government likely would have had to cease operating next week.

      House 316-113<br> Senate 65-33

      The Verge "This morning, Congress passed the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015, attached as the 14th rider to an omnibus budget bill. The bill is expected to be signed into law by the president later today."

      Techdirt 15 Dec

      1. Allows data to be shared directly with the NSA and DOD, rather than first having to go through DHS.
      2. Removes restrictions on using the data for surveillance activities.
      3. Removes limitation on using the data for cybersecurity purposes, and allows it to be used for investigating other crimes -- making it likely that the DEA and others will abuse CISA.
      4. Removes the requirement to "scrub" the data of personal information unrelated to a cybersecurity threat before sharing the data.

      ACLU

  62. Mar 2015
  63. ronja.twibright.com ronja.twibright.com
    1. Ronja is a free technology project for reliable optical data links with a current range of 1.4km and a communication speed of 10Mbps full duplex. Applications of this wireless networking device include backbone of free, public, and community networks, individual and corporate Internet connectivity, and also home and building security. High reliability and availability linking is possible in combination with WiFi devices. The Twibright Ronja datalink can network neighbouring houses with cross-street ethernet access, solve the last mile problem for ISP’s, or provide a link layer for fast neighbourhood mesh networks.
    1. Links, thoughts and research into using drones, UAVs or remotely piloted vehicles for journalism at the Drone Journalism Lab at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's College of Journalism and Mass Communications.
  64. Aug 2014
    1. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season."

      Feeling a lot of this frustration at white liberals these days.

  65. Jan 2014
    1. Until academics get their acts together and start using new modes of publication, we need to recognize that actions like Aaron Swartz's civil disobedience are legitimate.

      Justification for civil disobedience

    2. The consensus so far has been that Swartz did something wrong by accessing and releasing millions of academic papers from the JSTOR archive.

      Background on the Aaron Swartz act of civil disobedience:

      http://about.jstor.org/news/jstor-statement-misuse-incident-and-criminal-case

    3. "There is no justice in following unjust laws. It's time to come into the light and, in the grand tradition of civil disobedience, declare our opposition to this private theft of public culture."

      Civil disobedience is indeed a grand tradition... and what are the conditions under which to declare it is time to act again?