Addison dePitt — Presstitutes raise the temperature on social media giants to join the campaign to stamp out free speech and all political dissent

Zuckerberg’s auto-da-fé before the Congressional inquisition is designed to send a message to his tech industry colleagues, as well as provide official cover for the future enforcement of draconian rules against deviants from the official script. “Misuse of social media!” cry the new Inquisitors. But who decides what constitutes “misuse”? Isn’t that what the First Amendment is all about?….

The suppression of free speech in the US and the rest of the “capitalist democracies” (a glorious oxymoron) is a systemic bipartisan plot that long precedes Trump, the result of the establishment’s realisation —brought to a boil with the upset election of Trump—that they are losing control of the main narrative—the truth is getting through, so to speak— and the holes must be plugged. The gargantuan echo chamber dedicated to lies 24/7 that is the mainstream media and supporting institutions must be kept safe from further erosion and eventual dismantlement by that pesky little thing some people still quaintly call, “just the facts.”...

The Greanville Post

Presstitutes raise the temperature on social media giants to join the campaign to stamp out free speech and all political dissent

Addison dePitt

Naomi LaChance — After Dallas Shootings, Police Arrest People for Criticizing Cops on Facebook and Twitter

The headline is a bit misleading. The charge is not criticizing but threatening. The legal question is when criticism becomes a threat under the law.

The policing of online threats is hardly a new issue. The Supreme Court set a precedent last year when it ruled that prosecutors pursuing a charge of communicating threats need to prove both that reasonable people would view the statement as a threat and that the intent was to threaten. Elonis v. United States dealt with a man who had posted violent rap lyrics about his estranged wife; the court reversed his conviction.

“After Dallas, threats may seem more threatening to police officers around the country,” said Daniel Medwed, professor of law at Northeastern University. “We might be seeing more arrests right now because the police will interpret that they have probable cause to make the arrest,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean in the end that this will result in convictions,” he added.

Schneier urged that law enforcement use caution.“This is complicated,” he said. “We don’t know how to do this — we’re doing it pretty badly and we should to it better.”

But he said it was a sign of the times. These days, almost all communications are recorded in some capacity. “This new world where things aren’t forgotten is going to be different,” Schneier said. “And you’re seeing one manifestation of it in casual comments that are resulting in arrest.”

Are Americans boing to have to be careful what they say?

The Intercept
After Dallas Shootings, Police Arrest People for Criticizing Cops on Facebook and Twitter

Naomi LaChance

Counter Current News Police Destroy LEGALLY Painted Mural of Mike Brown, Because It ‘Sent the Wrong Message’

The mural was created by artists in Trenton, New Jersey on the gate to a vacant storefront. 

Permission of the proper authorities was even obtained before the mural was created, just to make sure that there was no reason for it to be destroyed later by police.
But that didn’t seem to thwart officers who decided to get involved, even though no laws had been broken by the artists who created the mural. 

Monday afternoon, the mural was defaced, then painted over after Trenton police said that the painting “sent the wrong message about community and police relations.”
Watch the video of the illegal destruction of this legal artwork by police suppressing freedom of speech!

Counter Current News
Police Destroy LEGALLY Painted Mural of Mike Brown, Because It ‘Sent the Wrong Message’

Amy Goodman — Aaron Swartz on the Fight for Internet Freedom

Aaron Swartz: So, you might say, surely COICA would get declared unconstitutional, as well. But I knew that the Supreme Court had a blind spot around the First Amendment, more than anything else, more than slander or libel, more than pornography, more even than child pornography. Their blind spot was copyright. When it came to copyright, it was like the part of the justices’ brains shut off, and they just totally forgot about the First Amendment. You got the sense that, deep down, they didn’t even think the First Amendment applied when copyright was at issue, which means that if you did want to censor the Internet, if you wanted to come up with some way that the government could shut down access to particular websites, this bill might be the only way to do it. If it was about pornography, it probably would get overturned by courts, just like the adult bookstore case. But if you claimed it was about copyright, it might just sneak through.

And that was especially terrifying, because, as you know, because copyright is everywhere. If you want to shut down WikiLeaks, it’s a bit of a stretch to claim that you’re doing it because they have too much pornography, but it’s not hard at all to claim that WikiLeaks is violating copyright, because everything is copyrighted. This speech, you know, the thing I’m giving right now, these words are copyrighted. And it’s so easy to accidentally copy something, so easy, in fact, that the leading Republican supporter of COICA, Orrin Hatch, had illegally copied a bunch of code into his own Senate website. So if even Orrin Hatch’s Senate website was found to be violating copyright law, what’s the chance that they wouldn’t find something they could pin on any of us? [emphasis added]

AlterNet
Aaron Swartz on the Fight for Internet Freedom
Amy Goodman | Democracy Now

Aaron Swartz is framed as the bad guy in many media reports of his "regrettable" death because he was "breaking the law and got caught," rather than as a victim of state intimidation in service of those collecting economic rent from artificial scarcity.

“If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing." — Malcolm X (h/t Stephan Ewald)