Americans, this is why it is SO IMPORTANT that you vote in the upcoming November election.
“Sorry lil Jimmy we can’t let you be fostered by this loving family because they’re Jewish. Stay put and keep attending our mandatory Bible study while we rake in more money until we can find a proper Christian family.”
Does this mean that Jewish kids who end up in foster care couldn’t be placed in Jewish homes? (Or Muslim or Catholic kids in Muslim or Catholic homes, etc.)
If the private foster agency in question takes them from the public system and places them in a group home, yes. And for all we know, those are exactly the kids they’re after, the young non-Protestant ones who they want to convert.
The first “religious freedom” lawsuits were never about baking cakes, they were about laying a foundation.
With the approval in the European Parliament of the
final text of the Copyright Directive, which will be definitely put to
the vote in a very few months’, the European Union has lost a historic
opportunity to produce copyright legislation adapted for the Internet in
the twenty-first century. What the European Parliament will finally
vote on is a technophobic text, tailor-made for the interests of the
copyright monopolies which, moreover, doesn’t guarantee the right of
authors to have a reasonable standard of living as a result of their
work.
If the law is eventually passed, it will be used for
wholesale curtailment of freedoms and more censorship, in keeping with
the bizarre idea that anything that doesn’t produce hard cash for the major players– which doesn’t mean authors! – has to be prohibited and eliminated.
This is a tragedy for workers in the domain of
culture who (with a few, brave, and praiseworthy exceptions) have once
again been frivolously incapable of informing themselves about the real
state of affairs. They have passively swallowed the version fed to them
by their masters and, avidly playing the victim, have become the chief
mouthpiece of freedom-killing propaganda without the slightest
understanding that this is not going to enhance their rights but will do
away with the rights of everyone.
Alarm bells started ringing almost two years ago
when we discovered that, rather than being a proposal for an obsolete
copyright law, the directive is being used as a Trojan horse to
introduce surveillance, automatic data processing, government by opaque
algorithms, and censorship without court orders, etc.
This threat to such basic rights as freedom of
expression and access to culture and information lurks in ruses which
are mainly hidden in two articles of the Directive:
Article 11: no link without a license. Article
11, otherwise known as the “Linktax” article, has created a new
economic “right” for magnates of the written press. This ‘right’,
moreover, implies indefinitely restricting the possibility of citing the
press online.
If this seems absurd, arbitrary and
counterproductive, we invite you to read the proposal itself. This is an
ambiguous text, described by the jurist Andrej Savin as “One of the worst texts I have ever seen in my 23-year-long career as a law scholar.” Given
its muzzy formulation, the safest response for any platform will be not
to link to any media publication without explicit permission.
This perverse measure will be the equivalent, on a
European scale, to the “Google tax”, which is already in force in Spain
and Germany. Even its promoters were soon to regret it, when Google shut
down Google News in Spain after it was approved. The Google tax is
paradoxical and those responsible for initiating it know very well it
won’t work in Europe. For example, Xnet revealed that the big German
publishing company Alex Springer was paying itself – having linked up to
pay itself – in an outlandish pretence that “everything’s fine”.
Where are they trying to go with this? What sense is
there in this move by the press barons to push laws which prevent you
from linking up to their content, disseminating it, and commenting on
them? Is this just a mix of ignorance and greed, or something like
shooting yourself in the foot?
There is certainly something of this involved, but
we believe that this is a mix of ignorance and greed which, in the end,
means cutting off your nose to spite your face (when you’re trying to
damage someone else’s face). With laws like this, the press barons can
engage in legal harassment to the point of closing down social
aggregators and communities like Meneame or Reddit, eliminating any new
competitor, consolidating their monopoly, and thus becoming the lone
voice on the Internet, the only ones who speak. In short, they are
aspiring to become a new kind of television.
Article 13: no uploading content without a license. Platforms
– from medium-sized providers of services storing subject material
through to the giants of the Internet – will be considered responsible
for any copyright infringement committed by their users, and they are
bulldozed into taking preventive measures. In other words, this isn’t a
matter of eliminating content but directly preventing people from
uploading it.
Of course, nobody is forcing them to do anything.
They are simply being made responsible for material uploaded by their
users. It’s like a car salesman being held responsible for crimes
committed by people who buy his cars. This can only end up with
algorithmic upload filters being applied to absolutely everything or, in
other words, prior, automatic, and massive Internet censorship. This
can only end up with algorithmic upload filters being applied to
absolutely everything or, in other words, prior, automatic, and massive
Internet censorship.
Recently, YouTube prevented the pianist James Rhodes
from uploading one of his own videos in which he is playing Bach. This
kind of “error”, which always favours privatisation of the public
domain, is the everyday reality for all authors who use YouTube.
And this isn’t just about the “errors” that lead to
the privatisation of the public domain. It is about the difficulty or
impossibility of uploading on the Internet any kind of derivative work:
parodies, memes, remixes, fandom, satires, and so on or, in other words,
the very essence of culture, political freedom and freedom of
expression.
Repeating the Medieval Experience of the Invention of the Printing Press
This whole setup, which looks like a science-fiction
dystopia, an impossible attempt to lock the doors when the horse has
bolted, or an exaggeratedly grim prophecy being spread by concerned
activists, is already being implemented today on big platforms.
At present, there are two options:
The Spotify model
In this case, the platform would
acquire all national and international licences and then make all
contents available unidirectionally in such a way that users can’t
upload content. Even so, in the case of Spotify, one of the few giants
with the resources to do this today, paying the copyright monopolies has
raised its overheads so much that, despite its commercial success, its
medium-term sustainability isn’t guaranteed. If this is the situation of
Spotify, it’s not difficult to imagine what will happen to medium-sized
Internet companies.
This model has another defect which is obvious to
most artists. The amount of money the real authors receive in the end is
zero or almost zero. The amount of money the real authors receive in
the end is zero or almost zero.
TheFacebook/Google model
These new Internet monopolies refuse to share the
cake with the old copyright monopolies and therefore opt for
large-scale, automatic filtering of all content. They will find it
easier to adapt to Article 13 since now they will only need to apply the
filtering mechanisms before uploading takes place.
This technology, besides being opaque and exclusive,
is very expensive. Since it will be obligatory, it will also mean that
these giants are very unlikely to have competitors that have any chance
of prospering.
Google has spent approximately 100 million dollars
to create the technology that has so far enabled it to respond to
copyright claims coming in from only 1% of its users.
The effect which these arbitrary regulations will
have on free Internet conversation, on diffusion of culture and
information, and access to them will be devastating.
Yesterday’s Copyright Office ruling
on when you are allowed to break DRM went further than any such ruling
in the DMCA’s 20-year history, and that’s swell, but when you drill into
the ruling, it’s still a flaming pile of garbage.
Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act bans breaking DRM,
even for lawful purposes: repairing your car, say, or installing
third-party apps on a phone, or using third-party ink in your printer.
Back when the DMCA was passed in 1998, everyone warned Congress that
this was an invitation to abusive behavior, but Congress decided the
best way to address this would be to tell the Copyright Office to hold
hearings every three years in which the public could ask for temporary,
limited exceptions to this rule (very limited exceptions: the
Copyright Office can grant you the right to bypass DRM to do something
legit, but can’t give anyone the right to make a tool to exercise that
right: you’re expected to hand-whittle your own Iphone or car
jailbreaking gadget, with no help from anyone else).
The Copyright Office likes to make these exceptions ridiculously narrow, with so many terms and conditions that you have to hire a lawyer just to figure out if they apply to you.
This year, the Electronic Frontier Foundation applied for a slate of
exceptions designed to get the lawyers out of the picture, making them
wide and clear enough that Americans could read the rules, figure them
out, and apply them.
And while the Copyright Office granted some really great exceptions for
repair, preservation, security research, and more – but larded these
exceptions with so much copyrightese that the average person is going to
struggle to figure out what they really permit.
EFF is suing the US government to kill Section 1201 of the DMCA altogether. It was a terrible idea in 1998 and it’s only gotten worse every day since.
me sitting here two weeks before the midterm elections watching my twitter and tumblr feeds fill up w/ memes and discourse about how voting is useless and democrats aren’t gonna save us: uh guys? guys? hey guys? guys? you guys? guys? hey you guys? you guys? guys? uh guys? guys? guys? guys?
one of the most common tactics of the right isn’t to change who you vote for. they know that’s unlikely to work. it’s to do everything in their power to make sure you decide to stay home.
republican turnout wasn’t actually that high in the last election. democratic turnout was just fucking abysmal, because of attitudes like this.
“To be clear, women loudly protesting the confirmation of Kavanaugh are not a “mob,” and comparing Trump to thuggish autocrats is simple honesty. Trump seems not to understand that criticism of his policies and rhetoric is not the same as a president demonizing opponents, race-baiting and threatening democratic institutions. In his book, news accounts exposing his corruption, ineptitude and cruelty are on par with his insisting that neo-Nazi marches include some “fine people.” No, Trump’s level of vitriol and overt racism is unmatched by political opponents or past presidents. The president for three years has demonized the Clintons, accusing Hillary of negligent handling of national intelligence (funny that Trump communicates by unprotected cellphone as the Chinese and Russian intelligence listen in) and threatening to jail her. As for Obama, Trump was a prime purveyor of the racist birtherism nonsense, designed to delegitimize Obama and cast him as the “other” — a foreigner, a Muslim.”
My name is Kelsey Juliana and I’m suing the United States government
for causing and accelerating the climate change crisis. I’m 22 years old
and I’ve been a climate activist for more than half of my life.
I know that young people like me, and others who have yet to be born,
have a right to a safe climate system. The constitution guarantees all
Americans the right to life, liberty, and property. But how is anyone
supposed to live a life of freedom amid a climate crisis? My own
government is violating my constitutional rights by its ongoing and
deliberate actions that cause climate change and it’s not right.
I, along with 20 other young people from around the country, filed a lawsuit against the federal government in 2015, called Juliana v. United States.
We’re not asking for money. Instead, we’re asking the court to order
the government to develop and implement a National Climate Recovery Plan
based on the best available science.
This plan should end the reign of fossil fuels and quickly
decarbonize our atmosphere so that we can stabilize our climate system
before it’s too late.
The longer we go without climate recovery, the more we risk allowing our climate to spiral completely out of control.
And the climate is spiraling out of control, no matter how many
politicians claim we’re experiencing normal fluctuations or, worse, a
“hoax.” All of the expert witnesses in our lawsuit say that we are
currently—already—in the “danger zone” and an “emergency situation” with
only 1°C of planetary heating. Allowing the planet to heat up any more
is not safe for our species, as well as so many others. And according to
the Trump administration’s most recent environmental impact statement,
the planet could heat as much as 7°F before the end of this century. We
cannot allow this to happen because we simply will not survive.
We originally filed our lawsuit against the Obama administration.
That administration tried to have the case dismissed, but the judge
ruled in our favor and found that we should be allowed to go to trial.
In 2017, the Trump administration inherited the lawsuit and it has
done everything in its power, employing every conceivable tactic, to
deny my fellow plaintiffs and me our right to present our case in court.
This administration is so fiercely attempting to silence our voices.
At this point, every level of the federal judiciary—the U.S. District
Court, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court—has
denied the Trump administration’s efforts to have the case thrown out.
Yet it will not halt its efforts to avoid standard legal procedures and
confront us, the nation’s youth, in court.
Our trial is officially scheduled to begin on October 29, 2018 in Eugene, Oregon.
What we’re asking for could change everything.
My fellow plaintiffs and I want you with us as we head into the
courtroom to confront the United States government for knowingly
violating our constitutional rights. Supporters will hold rallies in
every state around the country, so if you can’t be with us in Eugene, find your local rally here.
Get regular updates by following @youthvgov on social media.
“We’re also going to hear a lot of moral equivalence and whataboutism. Both sides are over the top. Both sides are too partisan. Let me be clear: Only one party calls for its opponents to be locked up, calls the free press the “enemy of the people,” incites violence at rallies, praises an act of criminal violence by a congressman, deploys race-baiting and xenophobia as a political tactic and stokes fear of crime at a time it is at record lows. To be more precise, the president of the United States does all these things, and by and large, Republicans condone or at the very least ignore him. Afraid of their own shadows and of their own base, Republicans choose to turn a blind eye when Trump whips his crowd into a frenzy — and the audience turns its venom on the media covering the event. We are not saying Trump causes bomb threats; we are saying his rhetoric is unlike any of his predecessors, does damage to our democracy and can motivate fringe characters to behave violently. He systematically destroys comity, decency and rationality in the public square. The violence understandably gets the attention of the public, and of the White House. But the “it’s only words” or “ignore the tweets” or “so he lies” mentality that Republicans use to defend Trump must end. His rhetoric is indefensible. Period.”
Senators Bob Corker, Jeff Flake and John McCain talk a big game about
not letting the GOP be the handmaiden of trumpist corruption, but when
the chips were down last night, they voted with their party and a
tie-breaking vote from Vice President Handmaid’s Tale to pass
legislation that lets financial institutions take away your right to sue
them when they defraud you.
In particular, these clauses ban the kinds of class-action suits that
make it worth top lawyers’ time to sue deep-pocketed, well-represented
blue-chip firms that commit petty thefts against millions of people, no
one of whom is worth representing.
With the CFPB rule dead, Equifax, Wells Fargo, and other mass-scale crooks can rip off the public with total impunity.
