Tag: freedom

Posted on by — 6 Comments

Think Before You Kill Julian Assange

Many people are in a uproar over the Wikileaks release of 251,287 United States embassy cables "the largest set of confidential documents ever to be released into the public domain." Reaction has included suggestions of naming Wikileaks as a terrorist organization. Some people have called for the execution of Julian Assange as a traitor. Proceed with caution! I’d like to take a moment to point out that history is repeating itself. Recall the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War. This exact situation was tried in 1971 in New York Times Co. v. United States with the outcome being the release of the documents is protected by the First Amendment.

Though inconvenient for officials, the revelation of information contained in any of the WikiLeaks files, much like the Pentagon Papers amid the Vietnam war, is protected by the First Amendment — a point made by the US Supreme Court in New York Times Co. v. United States in 1971.

[Source, The Raw Story, GOP Rep. asks Clinton to declare WikiLeaks a ‘foreign terrorist organization’]

In all that I have read, and in all the news commentary I have watched on television and online, nothing has been as notable and as important as the next three paragraphs of The Raw Story’s article.

"In seeking injunctions against these newspapers and in its presentation to the Court, the Executive Branch seems to have forgotten the essential purpose and history of the First Amendment," Justices Hugo Black and William Douglas wrote, taking the side of the Times, which had recently published what was then considered the largest cache of secret military information in US history.

[Source, The Raw Story, GOP Rep. asks Clinton to declare WikiLeaks a ‘foreign terrorist organization’ emphasis added]

Read this next paragraph twice. This paragraph notes where main stream media is failing in its job in the name of page views, popularity and ad sales rather than serving the governed. Wikileaks has stepped up to do the job that our press corp has quit.

"In the First Amendment the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy," they continued. "The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government’s power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government."

[Source, The Raw Story, GOP Rep. asks Clinton to declare WikiLeaks a ‘foreign terrorist organization’ emphasis added]

In conclusion, before passing negative judgment against Julian Assange and Wikileaks, read the words of Justices Black and Douglas in regard to the Pentagon Papers.

After the release of the Pentagon Papers, Justices Black and Douglas opined that "newspapers nobly did precisely that which the Founders hoped and trusted they would do."

[Source, The Raw Story, GOP Rep. asks Clinton to declare WikiLeaks a ‘foreign terrorist organization’ emphasis added]

Please go to The Raw Story and read the entire article titled GOP Rep. asks Clinton to declare WikiLeaks a ‘foreign terrorist organization’. Take note that the people wanting to declare Wikileaks a terrorist organization and suppress information keeping you, the citizenry, in the dark are the exact same people embarrassed, or in a position of having their careers ended, by the release of these documents, like Hillary Clinton.

To close, one more quote from The Raw Story. Justice Potter Stewart’s comment.

Justice Potter Stewart added: "In the absence of the governmental checks and balances present in other areas of our national life, the only effective restraint upon executive policy and power in the areas of national defense and international affairs may lie in an enlightened citizenry – in an informed and critical public opinion which alone can here protect the values of democratic government. For this reason, it is perhaps here that a press that is alert, aware, and free most vitally serves the basic purpose of the First Amendment. For without an informed and free press there cannot be an enlightened people."

[Source, The Raw Story, GOP Rep. asks Clinton to declare WikiLeaks a ‘foreign terrorist organization’ emphasis added]

Posted on by — 4 Comments

Active Thermite at WTC to Fuel Conspiracy Theories

Like the questions surrounding JFK’s assassination, I don’t think we will ever have definitive answers to what happened on September 11, 2001. Scientists, some who have since been released from their university or laboratory jobs, have released a paper "Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe" which will likely have conspiracy theorists once again presenting their arguments that the plane alone could not have destroyed the World Trade Center.

We have discovered distinctive red/gray chips in all the samples we have studied of the dust produced by the destruction of the World Trade Center. Examination of four of these samples, collected from separate sites, is reported in this paper. These red/gray chips show marked similarities in all four samples. One sample was collected by a Manhattan resident about ten minutes after the collapse of the second WTC Tower, two the next day, and a fourth about a week later. … The red portion of these chips is found to be an unreacted thermitic material and highly energetic. [Source, Bentham Open Access,Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe]

For more information on the super-thermite, read The Raw Deal.

Today on Reddit, the question was posed "2,740 Americans died in 9/11, justifying the removal/restrictions of many of our freedoms. How many people died to give us those rights in the first place?" Within the answers, this illuminating comment:

It’s sort of a nationalistic cliche to say that soldiers fight for our freedom but what they really fight for is the sovereignty of our government, which happens to guarantee us certain freedoms.

When we say a soldier died fighting for our freedoms, what we really mean is that he died in a war which threatened the loss of some or all of American sovereignty to a foreign or domestic power which would likely guarantee less rights than the present government.

This distinction is important because in the history of American wars, very few have definitively fallen under that category – and even in those cases, preserving the rights of American citizens was ancillary to sustaining or expanding the sovereign power of the U.S. government.

[Source, Reddit.com, 2,740 Americans died in 9/11, justifying the removal/restrictions of many of our freedoms. How many people died to give us those rights in the first place?]

We now live with a generation that has never known the feeling, the freedoms, we had prior to September 11, 2001. There is a different feeling. I felt more secure! I wish my youngest children could know that feeling and could experience true trust. I have lived with a tension since 9/11 that I had not known prior. The tension is not from a fear of terrorists; they’ve always been around (well, at least from the 1960s First U.S. Aircraft Hijacked, May 1, 1961 and at least 1800BC for the rest of the world). The fear is from my own government! Prior to 9/11 the police were different; now everyone should fear the police.

Question: “The police are here. They want to talk to me. What should I do?”

Answer: “Make no statement to the police under any circumstances.”

– Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson

[Source, Brasscheck TV, Why you should
never talk to cops
without a lawyer]

The terrorists won.

The point of terrorism is to cause terror, sometimes to further a political goal and sometimes out of sheer hatred. The people terrorists kill are not the targets; they are collateral damage. And blowing up planes, trains, markets or buses is not the goal; those are just tactics.

The real targets of terrorism are the rest of us: the billions of us who are not killed but are terrorized because of the killing. The real point of terrorism is not the act itself, but our reaction to the act.

And we’re doing exactly what the terrorists want.

[Source, Bruce Schneier – Security Expert, Refuse to be Terrorized]

Whether the terrible incident of September 11, 2001 was foreign or domestic terrorism, whether it was solely the plane or the plane timed with well placed explosives is irrelevant. Our society has dramatically changed, some say irrevocably. We were a better America when we could trust our government. We were a better America when the police were not the enemy. We were a better America before Civil liberties were taken away.

See also: Timeline of Terrorism dating back to 1800BC and History of Terrorism 70s to 2001.
See also: Professor Says "Cutter Charges" Brought Down WTC Buildings (Issue #18 & 19, May 1 & 8, 2006)

Posted on by — 3 Comments

From the mouths of babes

Dad: "Noah, do you know that the school board passed a new rule allowing random searches at the school?"
Noah, 12 years old: "No."
Dad: "It means that teachers can just pull you aside and have you show them everything in your bag and pockets. How do you feel about that?"
Noah: "I’m not doing anything wrong so I guess I’m okay with it."

My heart sank. He gave the scripted answer! The system has him. I think Noah is old enough to read 1984, Brave New World, and Fahrenheit 451. Time to knock the dust of my copies.

Posted on by — 3 Comments

Safer traffic is with less, not more

Michael Silence has posted that another Oak Ridge camera company (we have many: Ipix (dead), Pips, Perceptics, Aldis, others?) is attaching cameras to traffic lights. The full story is in the Knoxnews. These new cameras are being tested to replace the magnetic strips in the pavement that detect the flow of traffic or vehicles backed up at an intersection. These strips are often the bane of motorcyclists as they sometimes do not get detected and have to sit at a light forever. These cameras might be a good thing! Of course, No Silence Here commenter Joe Lance notes "Chattanooga has invested in a couple of cameras — complete with loudspeakers — that announce to illegal dumpers that they are being photographed." When do cameras cease to be a good thing?

I twitch a bit as we throw up more traffic lights, more signs, more lines on the road, more cameras, cameras, cameras. Traffic engineer Hans Monderman believes signs to be a danger to driving.

To him, they are an admission of failure, a sign – literally – that a road designer somewhere hasn’t done his job. "The trouble with traffic engineers is that when there’s a problem with a road, they always try to add something," Monderman says. "To my mind, it’s much better to remove things." [Source, Wired, Roads Gone Wild]

How does Monderman recommend building better intersections?

  1. Remove signs
  2. Install art
  3. Let lighting illuminate both roadbed and pedestrian areas
  4. Do it in the road (ie, get store fronts and Cafes closer to the road)
  5. Negotiate right-of-way by human interaction instead of signs
  6. Eliminate curbs

Knoxville has re-engeered roads for traffic control.near West High Schoolnear West High School Of course this project is not yet complete and Knoxville hasn’t reported on it at all much less said anything about its success or lack of success. Re-engineering roads for traffic control is not simply about removing lights and putting in traffic circles. It is about not cutting down that tree which seems so close to the road. A road with such an apparent danger causes drivers to be more alert. Re-engineering is about not straightening the roads and letting curves control speed. Re-engineering is about rethinking the paradigm by which we design our roads. I think some direct quotes from the article are in order. My favorite is when Monderman proves that designing without signs and signals works by putting hsi hands behind his back and walking backwards, blindly into traffic.

Monderman is one of the leaders of a new breed of traffic engineer – equal parts urban designer, social scientist, civil engineer, and psychologist. The approach is radically counterintuitive: Build roads that seem dangerous, and they’ll be safer.
…
He [shows] a favorite intersection he designed. It’s a busy confluence of two busy two-lane roads that handle 20,000 cars a day, plus thousands of bicyclists and pedestrians that doesn’t contain a single traffic signal, road sign, or directional marker, an approach that turns eight decades of traditional traffic thinking on its head. Several years ago, Monderman ripped out all the traffic lights, road markings, and some pedestrian crossings – and in their place created a roundabout, or traffic circle. The circle is remarkable for what it doesn’t contain: signs or signals telling drivers how fast to go, who has the right-of-way, or how to behave. There are no lane markers or curbs separating street and sidewalk, so it’s unclear exactly where the car zone ends and the pedestrian zone begins.
…
Monderman and I stand in silence by the side of the road a few minutes, watching the stream of motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians make their way through the circle, a giant concrete mixing bowl of transport. Somehow it all works. The drivers slow to gauge the intentions of crossing bicyclists and walkers. Negotiations over right-of-way are made through fleeting eye contact. Remarkably, traffic moves smoothly around the circle with hardly a brake screeching, horn honking, or obscene gesture. "I love it!" Monderman says at last. "Pedestrians and cyclists used to avoid this place, but now, as you see, the cars look out for the cyclists, the cyclists look out for the pedestrians, and everyone looks out for each other. You can’t expect traffic signs and street markings to encourage that sort of behavior. You have to build it into the design of the road."
…
In West Palm Beach, Florida, planners have redesigned several major streets, removing traffic signals and turn lanes, narrowing the roadbed, and bringing people and cars into much closer contact. The result: slower traffic, fewer accidents, shorter trip times.
…
In the village of Oosterwolde was once a conventional road junction with traffic lights [which] has been turned into something resembling a public square that mixes cars, pedestrians, and cyclists. About 5,000 cars pass through the square each day, with no serious accidents since the redesign in 1999. "To my mind, there is one crucial test of a design such as this," Monderman says. "Here, I will show you." With that, Monderman tucks his hands behind his back and begins to walk into the square – backward – straight into traffic, without being able to see oncoming vehicles. A stream of motorists, bicyclists, and pedestrians ease around him, instinctively yielding to a man with the courage of his convictions.
[Source, Wired, Roads Gone Wild]

Some countries have no traffic controls what-so-ever and still function fine. We can also use traffic calming methods or make our roads play music to control speed.

Related: One way to be environmentally sound and avoid tickets is to pickup a free bus ticket from Kroger when you buy groceries!

Update 6/3/08: Knoxviews reports that Oak Ridge is considering red light cameras at the same time The New York Times reports Trolling for Trouble in the Red Light District.

Perhaps a better way to reduce red light running lies in improving the design of the intersection. Studies have shown that extending the duration of the yellow light by just two seconds has significantly decreased the number of red light violations. In Dallas, longer yellows and signs warning motorists of red light cameras have helped reduce the violations so dramatically that the cameras are no longer generating the revenue needed to keep them in operation. [Source, The New York Times,Trolling for Trouble in the Red Light District]

Update 6/4/08: Red light cameras legal?.