Archive for Civil Liberties

Banned Books aren’t just an American phenomenon

August 11, 2012 Censorship, Civil Liberties, Freedom of Information, Human Rights 39 comments

The last week of September (this year September 30 – October 6) is Banned Book Week in the USA. Hundreds of libraries and bookstores around the country erect displays of challenged and banned books, and host events and educational seminars in an attempt to draw attention to the problem of censorship. First begun in 1982 as a reaction to the steep increase of book challenges in schools, bookstores, and libraries, this ‘holiday’ of sorts is the only national celebration focusing on the freedom to read.

This is a fantastic idea, but why does it appear to only be Americans who’ve decided this is an important enough phenomenon to have an annually allocated space of time for recognition? It isn’t as if the United States is the only country where this has happened. Given that governments around the world have, at some point in time or another, banned a book from its populous, it stands to reason that there are individuals OUTSIDE The States who also would like to participate in such a celebration in the belief that one should have the freedom to read without restriction by the state. In addition, staunch Human Rights supporters should also be clamouring for a chance to participate in such an event, as censorship is certainly a violation of Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as various pieces of the International Coveneant of Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenenant of Cultural, Economic, and Social Rights. Therefore, I propose that those of us with a computer, a love of books, a desire to always learn more and maintain the right to information should get in on this!

What can we do?  LOTS!
For starters, there is the Virtual Readout which is the now online version of the traditional community readouts that are often hosted by local bookstores and libraries during BBW. Supporters can upload a brief video of themselves reading from their favorite banned/challenged book.

They ask that your video submission be no longer than 2 minutes (120 seconds) in length, and that you include information about why the book was banned or challenged. I suggest we also include our country of origin to help underscore the fact that this is a global interest, and choose books from our home country which are/were banned or challenged.

On top of that, you can take a leaf out of the American Library Association’s book (haha, pun definitely intended here), and get your local bookstore, book club, library, etc to host an evening event!

However you choose to participate, I want to know about it! Take pictures and send them to me with a caption/brief description of what you did and I’ll post them here. Tag your tweets with #GlobalBBW, and I’ll be sure to retweet you! If you post a Virtual Readout, send me the link to your video on the BBW youtube channel, I’ll be sure to include it during my posts for that week.

The right to read is something we should all be able to enjoy!

Readers of the world, let’s do this!

 

Who’s got your back? New EFF report re: internet companies & user privacy

June 6, 2012 Civil Liberties, Freedom of Information, Internet, surveillance 5 comments

Personal privacy has been at the forefront of the news the past few months, no doubt. The focus of which has been on new legislation under consideration in various countries around the world. Don’t get me wrong, I am most definitely *all for* more coverage of political issues in the media – there is FAR TOO LITTLE of this as it is. I do find it interesting, however, that no clever, scoop-scuttling journalist has bothered to try and scrutinize the current user privacy situation.

EFF to the rescue!

Not only has Electronic Frontiers Foundation bothered to consider this topic – they’ve compared 18 top internet companies to eachother on the basis of their user privacy policies, they’ve compared these practices to the company’s previous practices and published a report about it! Thank you Digital Advocates!

Each company was evaluated on four criteria: commitment to alerting their users when their personal data is being sought by the government, transparency about how often and when user data is released to the government, and how willing the company is about fighting for user rights in the courts and against congress. The list of companies evaluated ranges from the ever-popular Facebook and Twitter to Google, and even included a few lesser known orgs such as SpiderOak (a cloud provider offering multi-platform storage options).

Check out the nifty table and full length report here; and next time, maybe consider what opening an account with one of these companies might mean if one of those new fangled CISPA/SOPA/PIPA/TPP bills manages to make it all the way through to ratification.

 

CISPA, a lil’ piece of SOPA disguised as an Internet Security Bill

April 28, 2012 Civil Liberties, cyberwar, Freedom of Information, Internet, surveillance 16 comments

UGH – and I’m in the middle of End-of-the-Semester-crunch! I can’t share as much detail here as I would have preferred, given the stack of assignments I’m trying to prepare for the last few weeks of the semester, but this is too important to not post on at all!

 

On Thursday, April 26, 2012, the House of the US Federal Government passed CISPA (Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act; H.R. 3523), sending it on to the Senate for further consideration.This is the newest attempt by government officials to place regulations on the internet while simultaneously impinging on civil liberties.

This bill, supposedly drafted as a means of preventing and safeguarding against cyberattacks (so said Michigan Representative Mike Rogers – Republican), has provoked large numbers of objections from the American populous, Cyber Security Experts, and a host of other actors in response to its vague language (i.e. the term ‘cyber threat information’ and other terms which will actually permit organizations seeking information to bypass preexisting legislation that was drafted to protect personal data accumulation and dumping ) and disregard for the treatment of personal information (there are no provisions for anonymizing information when sharing between telco-companies or any other third party). In fact, the Obama Administration has even threatened to veto this bill in an issued statement on Wednesday; dubbing the bill ineffective in protecting the nation while protecting personal privacy rights.

 

From an international perspective, the ratification of this bill will certainly have far-reaching implications. For starters, the language of CISPA is broad enough to include both domestic AND foreign communications. Aside from slipping in that little piece of SOPA, the ratification of CISPA would also provide precedence for other regimes to base their own versions of such legislations on.

 

What can you do?

If you’re a citizen of the US, you can go to the EFF website here and send a message to your local Representative and State Senators.

Not a US citizen but still want to contribute? Avaaz is also taking signatures for it’s online petition for non-US protesters.

EFF also has a comprehensive list of other US organisations currently campaigning against CISPA.

 

More Resources:

CISPA bill text

Down With CISPA – Foreign Policy, April 27, 2012.

ACLU Blog entries concerning CISPA.

Recent publications from EFF on CISPA.