Thousands protest to end evictions in Spain
AFP
Feb. 16, 2012
Thousands of people demonstrated in Spanish cities on Saturday pushing for a new law to end a wave of evictions of homeowners ruined by the economic crisis.
Several thousand marched yelling to the din of drums and horns in central Madrid, waving banners reading “Stop evictions” and yelling “We have no homes!”
Similar protests were called in Barcelona and 50 other Spanish cities, the latest of months of demonstrations driven by anger at Spain‘s recession and the conservative government, which is imposing austere economic reforms.
Campaigners passed a rare milestone on Tuesday when the Spanish parliament agreed to debate a popular bill of measures to protect poor homeowners, backed by a petition that received more than 1.4 million signatures.
Kids in the crosshairs: Photo of Palestinian children killed by IDF wins World Press Photo award
RT
Feb. 16, 2013
A picture of two Palestinian children killed in an Israeli airstrike has won the 2012 World Press Photo award. And as if to further prove the danger to the region’s youth, an IDF sniper has posted a photo of a child in his rifle’s scope to Instagram.
A procession of wailing men carrying two Palestinian children to their funeral, captured with the click of a camera, has won the 2012 World Press Photo.
The photo was taken by the Swedish photographer Paul Hansen, working for the Dagens Nyheter newspaper.
Taken in Gaza on November 20, 2012, the photo shows a group of men marching the dead bodies of a brother and sister, wrapped in white cloth, through the city. The piece portrays what became a common scene on the ground during Israel’s eight-day military conquest, Operation Pillar of Defense, against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Pentagon’s new massive expansion of ‘cyber-security’ unit is about everything except defense
Guardian
Jan. 28, 2012
By Glenn Greenwald
As the US government depicts the Defense Department as shrinking due to budgetary constraints, the Washington Post this morning announces “a major expansion of [the Pentagon's] cybersecurity force over the next several years, increasing its size more than fivefold.” Specifically, says the New York Times this morning, “the expansion would increase the Defense Department’s Cyber Command by more than 4,000 people, up from the current 900.” The Post describes this expansion as “part of an effort to turn an organization that has focused largely on defensive measures into the equivalent of an Internet-era fighting force.” This Cyber Command Unit operates under the command of Gen. Keith Alexander, who also happens to be the head of the National Security Agency, the highly secretive government network that spies on the communications of foreign nationals – and American citizens.
The Pentagon’s rhetorical justification for this expansion is deeply misleading. Beyond that, these activities pose a wide array of serious threats to internet freedom, privacy, and international law that, as usual, will be conducted with full-scale secrecy and with little to no oversight and accountability. And, as always, there is a small army of private-sector corporations who will benefit most from this expansion.
Let’s begin with the way this so-called “cyber-security” expansion has been marketed. It is part of a sustained campaign which, quite typically, relies on blatant fear-mongering.
Anonymous threatens Justice Department over hacktivist death
CNN
Jan. 26, 2012
By Ben Brumfield
(CNN) — In anger over the recent death of an Internet activist who faced federal charges, hackers claiming to be from the group Anonymous threatened early Saturday to release sensitive information about the U.S. Department of Justice.
They claimed to have one such file on multiple servers ready for immediate release.
The hackers apparently hijacked the website of the U.S. government agency responsible for federal sentencing guidelines, where they posted a message demanding the United States reform its justice system or face incriminating leaks to select news outlets.
The lengthy, eloquently written letter was signed “Anonymous.”
Online activist, programmer Swartz dies in NY
Associated Press
Jan. 12, 2012
By VERENA DOBNIK
NEW YORK (AP) — A co-founder of Reddit and activist who fought to make online content free to the public has been found dead, authorities confirmed Saturday, prompting an outpouring of grief from prominent voices on the intersection of free speech and the Web.
Aaron Swartz, 26, hanged himself in his Brooklyn apartment weeks before he was to go on trial on accusations that he stole millions of journal articles from an electronic archive in an attempt to make them freely available. If convicted, he faced decades in prison and a fortune in fines.
He was pronounced dead Friday evening at home in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood, said Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for New York’s chief medical examiner.
Swartz was “an extraordinary hacker and activist,” the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an international nonprofit digital rights group based in California wrote in a tribute on its home page.
Bradley Manning ensured leaks would not harm US, lawyer insists
Guardian
Jan. 8, 2012
By Ed Pilkington
Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of instigating the largest leak of state secrets in US history, consciously selected the information he passed to WikiLeaks to ensure that it would be of no harm to the US and would not aid any foreign enemy, his lawyer argued on Tuesday.
David Coombs, Manning’s civilian lawyer, revealed at a hearing at Fort Meade military base in Maryland what is likely to be a central pillar of the defence case at the soldier’s court martial. A full trial is scheduled to start on 6 March.
Coombs said that the defence would be calling as a witness Adrian Lamo, the hacker who alerted military authorities to Manning’s WikiLeaks activities, to give evidence about the web chat he had with Manning shortly before the soldier’s arrest in Iraq in March 2010. The content of the web chat, Coombs suggested, would be used by the defence to show that Manning selected information to leak that “could not be used to harm the US or advantage any foreign nation”.
‘Idle No More’ plans global rallies over Canada’s aboriginals
Press TV
Jan. 8, 2012
Organizers are preparing to stage rallies this coming Friday, which is designated as the ‘Global Day of Action’. It coincides with the same day that Prime Minister Stephen Harper plans to meet with some native leaders, including Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence.
Spence has been on hunger strike since December 11, 2012, and intends to continue the protest until Harper meets with the leaders of Aboriginal communities.
Judge Limits a Police Stop-and-Frisk Program in the Bronx
New York Times
Jan. 8, 2012
By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN
A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that the New York Police Department’s practice of stopping people suspected of trespassing outside private buildings in the Bronx was unconstitutional.
The decision appears to be one of the more significant federal rulings during the Bloomberg administration on the Police Department’s use of stop-and-frisk tactics, which the administration has credited with helping lower crime rates in the city.
The case was narrowly focused on police stops in front of the private residential buildings enrolled in the Trespass Affidavit Program in the Bronx. Under that program, which includes several thousand residential buildings, property managers have asked the police to patrol their buildings and to arrest trespassers.
F.B.I. Counterterrorism Agents Monitored Occupy Movement, Records Show
New York Times
Dec. 24, 2012
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT and COLIN MOYNIHAN
WASHINGTON — The Federal Bureau of Investigation used counterterrorism agents to investigate the Occupy Wall Street movement, including its communications and planning, according to newly disclosed agency records.
The F.B.I. records show that as early as September 2011, an agent from a counterterrorism task force in New York notified officials of two landmarks in Lower Manhattan — Federal Hall and the Museum of American Finance — “that their building was identified as a point of interest for the Occupy Wall Street.”
That was around the time that Occupy Wall Street activists set up a camp in Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan, spawning a protest movement across the United States that focused the nation’s attention on issues of income inequality.
‘Extraordinary’: Three Weeks Later, Keystone Blockaders Still in Texas Jail
Common Dreams
Dec. 21, 2012
By Beth Brogan
Nearly three weeks after they were arrested on misdemeanor charges, activists who barricaded themselves inside a portion of pipe to protest the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline remain in a Texas jail, each held on $65,000 bail.
Activists Matthew Almonte and Glen Collins. (Photo: Tar Sands Blockade) Mathew Almonte and Glen Collins were arrested Dec. 3 in Winona, Texas after chaining their arms to two 600-pound concrete barrels they had maneuvered inside a section of pipe. They hoped to block construction of the TransCanada KXL pipeline, which if completed will carry highly toxic tar sands from Alberta, Canada, to Gulf Coast refineries.
Also arrested was Isabel Brooks, who was filming the protest.
Part of the coalition Tar Sands Blockade, Collins said at the time that he was barricading the pipe “to say loud and clear to the extraction industry that our communities and the resources we depend on for survival are not collateral damage.”
