Michael Riordon

the view from where I live

Category Archives: Authoritarian regimes


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‘A historic victory’: The internet is ours

“We did it! The FCC just voted to stop the slow lane!”

Internet slowdown protest

This is good news. It’s amazing news.

“The stakes couldn’t have been higher. With so many websites based in the US, the future of the entire Internet hung in the balance.”

A year ago, the open internet looked doomed. The huge bully corporations that monopolize cable and wireless provision announce plans for a two-speed internet: fast for those who could pay, slow – very slow – for the rest of us.

The Federal Communications Commission, responsible for overseeing such things, is not noted for favouring public over corporate interests. Its current chair, Tom Wheeler, is a venture capitalist and former head lobbyist for both the cable and wireless industries, which worked hard behind closed doors and spent lavishly to ensure their stranglehold on the internet.

Erupting in May 2014, a small resistance grew quickly into a multi-faceted, finely coordinated international public campaign, eventually engaging more than 5 million people in protecting our internet. It worked.

On February 26 the FCC commissioners voted 3 – 2 (close, but good enough) to keep the internet open. The details are here (same story, two variations):

Outraged, the bully corps leapt immediately to sue the government, and right-wingers in the US Congress obediently set about sabotaging the historic ruling. Of course.

But still, for now, we can celebrate. This is a rare victory for open communication, equity and freedom of speech.

In Canada, OpenMedia.ca led the campaign, one of many on their docket. This small but formidable grassroots organization is independent, creative and vital.

For more on what’s at stake, check out Bold Scientists, chapter 6, The Cloud.

(Image: popsugar.com)


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Bold Scientists in Toronto: Exercise your Freedom to Read *

cropped-bold-scientists-front-cover8.jpgTuesday, February 24, 1 – 3 pm.  Michael Riordon at the Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge Street, north of Bloor.  Elizabeth Beeton Auditorium, ground floor, right-hand side of the building, back corner.  More detail here.  Map here.

Wednesday, February 25, 7 – 10 pm. Michael Riordon at Beit Zatoun, 612 Markham Street, one minute west of the Bathurst subway stop on the Bloor line (Markham Street exit).  More detail here.  Map here.

* February 22 – 28, 2015: Celebrate and defend Freedom to Read (and think, and speak, and share ideas….)

Great minds don’t think alike. They think differently.   Bring yours.

 


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Oh Canada, glorious and free*

(* from Canada’s national anthem.  No irony intended, I assume).

Just revealed by The Intercept: Canada Casts Global Surveillance Dragnet Over File Downloads

This marks a new low in Canada’s data hoovering as a junior partner in the US-run War on Terror TM.

Maple leaf, dead

More detail here, at CBC News.

According to OpenMedia.ca, “The data they’re collecting can identify everything from your sexual orientation, religious and political beliefs, to your medical history. This sensitive information is being shared with the spy agencies of several other countries, without our knowledge or consent.”

If you oppose secretive, ever-expanding, high-cost, out-of-control spying on all of us, say so now.

This week, the Harper regime introduced dangerous new anti-terrorism legislation that will give spy agencies even more powers.

Michael Vonn, Policy Director, BC Civil Liberties Association: “Canada has utterly failed to respond to the urgent need for national security oversight and instead, proposes an unprecedented expansion of powers that will harm innocent Canadians and not increase our public safety.”

Tell the Harper regime: Cease and desist, back off, quit spying on us.

For more on the steady advance of the national security state in Canada, see Bold Scientists. Scroll down to chapter 6, The cloud.

For further details and resources, check out Transparent Lives: Surveillance in Canada.

(Photo: http://www.pxleyes.com)

 

 


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“An attempt to guarantee public ignorance”

“A recent New York Times editorial, referencing the rapid development of the Alberta oil sands, went so far as to describe new communications restrictions on government scientists as ‘an attempt to guarantee public ignorance.’” – from an open letter to the current Canadian government, signed by more than 800 scientists from 32 countries.

ed-nease12

Image: Steve Nease, The Toronto Star

The international roster of scientists called on the Harper government to end “burdensome restrictions on scientific communication and collaboration faced by Canadian government scientists.” More detail on the story here.

The call was made in an open letter drafted by the Cambridge, Mass.-based Union of Concerned Scientists.  UCS represents U.S. scientists, and fosters “rigorous science to build a healthier planet and a safer world.”

The need for this unusual intervention is strongly reinforced in a new report from the Canadian organization Evidence for Democracy.  It  assesses the communication and media policies of 16 Canadian federal government departments.

For more on the fight for open science and democracy, see chapters 9 and 12 in Bold Scientists. Read an excerpt here.

 


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Margarita Zamora, stolen children and DNA

Good news: Margarita Zamora of Pro-Búsqueda nominated for a prestigious Tulip Human Rights Award.  Voting has begun.

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Margarita Zamora and other searching relatives,
at the Monument to Memory and Truth, San Salvador.

During the 1980s-90s military repression in El Salvador, Margarita Zamora lost her mother and six brothers, two of them killed.  She still searches for her mother and four brothers, aged 9 months to 8 years when they disappeared during a ‘scorched earth’ military assault in the Chalatenango region. She also searches tirelessly, year after year, for thousands of other missing children.

Margarita coordinates the Research Unit of the Asociación Pro-Búsqueda in El Salvador. A citizens’ organization, Pro-Búsqueda (For the Search) strives to identify, locate and reunite with their birth families thousands of children forcibly disappeared during the war. Many of them were kidnapped by soldiers and given or sold into adoption, either with military families in El Salvador or in North America and Europe.

With Pro-Búsqueda since 2003, Margarita has conducted more than 1,000 interviews with family members and witnesses, and gathered more than 500 DNA samples for a genetic database that can match children and relatives. Her extraordinary skill in engaging people throughout El Salvador has been key to solving 60 cases to date.

But obstacles remain.  Margarita explains, “The army holds important details – dates, names and places – which would help us solve many more cases as families are often too traumatized to remember. We have been asking the military for years to release their files. They always say yes, but these are just words.”

The work is also dangerous. At dawn on Thursday November 14, 2013, three armed men broke into Pro-Búsqueda’s office in central San Salvador, beat and handcuffed the security guard, an employee and a member of the board, poured gasoline over file cabinets in three offices, set them on fire, then stole several computers. Clearly the intent wasn’t vandalism but the destruction and theft of vital records and testimonies essential to human rights investigations. Pro-Búsqueda has changed its address, but not its mission to find the stolen children, to defend public memory that some would bury, and ultimately to bring perpetrators to justice.

The Human Rights Tulip is an award of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for courageous human rights defenders who promote and support human rights in innovative ways.  Each of the international nominees deserves acclaim. Based on my own inspiring encounters with Pro-Búsqueda people in writing Bold Scientists, I’ve cast my vote for Margarita Zamora. Please consider doing the same.

For more on Margarita Zamora, and to vote: http://www.humanrightstulip.nl/candidates-and-voting/margarita-zamora-tobar.

Stolen children: a gripping story of war, loss and reconciliation, science and human rights, in Bold Scientists. Read an excerpt here. (Scroll down to Chapter 5, Stolen children.)