Ai Weieis 2014 exhibition on Alcatraz is readied, in a scene from Ai Weiwei: Yours Truly.

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Ai Weiwei: Yours Truly, a new documentary by San Francisco gallerist Cheryl Haines, is a moving cinematic experience and so wide-ranging a project that it is likely to appeal even to those who might not think they are interested in the famed artist. Sadly, it is having only a one-day stand in New York this weekend as part of the DOC NYC festival. If you can make it to IFC in Greenwich Village at 12:15 p.m. on Sunday, be there. Otherwise, hope for a wider theatrical release soon.

Ai Weiwei: Yours Truly began as a feature about @Large: Ai Weiwei at Alcatraz, the public art project that Haines and the artist collaborated on in 2014, while Ai was still under house arrest in Beijing after his three-month imprisonment in 2011. Unable to travel from China and visit the site, he nonetheless designed an exhibition perfectly suited to the long-closed federal penitentiary-turned-national park. It amounted to a tribute to political prisoners around the world.

With the help of teams of assistants, over 100 larger-than-life pixelated portraits of jailed individuals were created out of millions of Lego blocks. Over 900,000 people visited the site during its seven-month run, certainly a large-enough crowd to mark the project as a major success and justify a documentary to capture it.

Ai Weiwei: Yours Truly.

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Known the world over for his stance against the Chinese government, which more recently has expanded into a broad-based campaign for human rights, Ai is also a master of self-promotion, and is particularly adept at training the spotlight on his favorite causes. A documentary on so lionized a figure could have become a vanity project, given that the subject himself was involved in its creation. However, Haines, a first-time director, has managed to situate him in a larger context, rescuing the film from charges of narcissism.

Haines (who also could have turned this into her own opportunity for self-promotion, given her role as organizer and executive director of the For Site Foundation, the chief sponsor of the Alcatraz show) ultimately made Ai Weiwei: Yours Truly into an examination of the recent history of political repression.

Early on, she incorporates astounding footage of China in the 1950s, when Ais father, the venerated poet Ai Qing, was a victim of the Anti-Rightist Campaign and was sent to a work camp in Xinjiang Province. With testimony from the artists mother Gao Ying and his brother Ai Dan and a scattering of remaining family photographs, the film conveys the insurmountable hardships and degradation they faced in exile. At another point, the film examines the history of Alcatraz as a site of oppression and protest, ranging from the detainment of Hopi leaders in 1895 to the occupation of the island by Native American activists in 1969.

Ais Alcatraz project tied together all these threads in a postcard component that encouraged visitors to send messages to imprisoned activists of their choosingthus the films name, Yours Truly. Ai was inspired to create this interactive artwork by the memory of his father receiving an anonymous postcard praising one of his poems while still in exile. Though just a child at the time, Ai recalls the momentary look of happiness on his fathers face.

The artists postcards, with innocuous pictures of birds and flowers from certain activists home countries, also made a profound impact on their receivers.

Ai Weiwei: Yours Truly director Cheryl Haines and the artist.

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Haines and Ai heard back from hundreds of family members and from those who were able to reply from their jail cells. Recipients ranged from the Egyptian Arab Spring activist Ahmed Maher to former U.S. intelligence officer John Kiriakou, who disclosed the Bush Administrations use of waterboarding program and served prison time for releasing other classified information. According to the film, these postcards gave them hope at some of their bleakest moments of imprisonment.

One of the finest moments in the film is a scene where Ai, now free to travel and living in Berlin, visits government whistleblower Chelsea Manning after her release from prison. He had sent her a postcard saying, Keep strong and hold on to your idea. Whatever you think of Mannings disclosure of classified information to WikiLeaks, it is powerful to see the once-embattled pair meeting as free equals.

At an early point in the film, Ai explains himself by saying, It is your duty as an artist to fight for freedom of speech. That is the soul of any creativity. The documentary demonstrates that there is a worldwide network of people who feel the same way, and who have taken great risks to make their voices heard.

As the credits roll, names of imprisoned dissidents are listed, broken down by individual countries. China has the longest list by far, underscoring how brave Ai once was to speak out when he was living there, and how lucky he was that his detention ended after 81 days. This side of the artist is sometimes lost when audiences visit his less politically engaged exhibitions, and even when critics review his work. Ai Weiwei: Yours Truly makes the case that such engagement is always at the forefront of his thinking, not only when he finds himself in front of a camera.

Read more from the original source:
New Ai Weiwei Documentary Champions the Artist as a Global Activist - - ARTnews

BY MARY BESS

We need to understand the spark of divinity within human beings who put their lives at risk to benefit others. Of particular interest are those who commit acts of heroism for which they will not be honored and may even be vilified, despised and ostracized.

Especially on Veterans Day, helicopter reconnaissance pilot Hugh Thompson, Jr. and his crew come to mind. Their chopper was hovering over My Lai on March 16, 1968 when they saw what looked like a massacre taking place. Civilians old men, women, even children, were being herded into a ditch and shot. Thompson brought down the chopper and warned U. S. soldiers that if they didnt stop shooting civilians, he would turn his guns on them. Strangely, there wasnt much screaming coming from the victims. Later it was learned that their tongues had been cut out to prevent screams.Pregnant women had been bayonetted through the belly. The lucky ones, according to Thompson, were those who took a round right through the brain. There was a lot of evil. This is not to say that the perpetrators of these war crimes werent victims themselves. A full account of the massacre can be found in The Forgotten Hero of My Lai: The Hugh Thompson Story, by Trent Angers.

Thompson reported the incident in a tearful rage when he returned to headquarters. When charges were brought against 26 officers and enlisted soldiers, including William Calley and Ernest Medina, he testified against them. They were acquitted or pardoned.

Thompson was shunned and condemned by the military, the government and the public for his whistleblowing. Congressman Mendel Rivers (D-S.C.) actually said Thompson was the only person at My Lai who should be punished and unsuccessfully tried to have him court- marshaled for turning his guns on fellow soldiers. People made death threats and left mutilated animals on his porch. Subsequent to My Lai he suffered post traumatic stress, bouts of alcoholism and severe nightmare disorder. He was married and divorced several times. Although the military abandoned him for telling the truth, he did not abandon the military, serving until 1983. He died in 2006 at age 62 with his surviving crew member Lawrence Colburn at his side.

Anyone who thinks whistleblowing is an easy road is mistaken. Thompson told the Associated Press in 2004, Dont do the right thing looking for a reward, because it might not come. Chelsea Manning, who was obligated by law under the Geneva Convention to report the murder of civilians gunned down by a U. S. Apache helicopter crew as they attempted to remove the dead and injured from an Iraqi street, was imprisoned in August 2013 for reporting the war crime as he was required to do. By doing so, according to the military, he was disrupting good order and discipline and discrediting the armed forces. Prosecutors did not present any evidence that the leaks caused harm to anyone. She served more than seven years of a 35-year sentence.

In 1998, 30 years after the My Lai massacre, Thompson and his crew were awarded the Soldiers Medal, the highest award for bravery not involving contact with the enemy. In 1999 Thompson and Colburn received the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award.

Why did Thompson continue to speak out instead of going along with the subsequent coverup? At least two factors would seem to have influenced his behavior. His grandmother was a full-blooded Cherokee, whose ancestors were victims of ethnic cleansing under the Indian Removal Act. He was raised an Episcopalian in a working class family that condemned ethnic discrimination and aided minorities within the community.

My Lai became a symbol for everything wrong with our presence in Vietnam when Army veteran Ron Ridenhour and Dispatch News Service reporter Seymour Hersh broke the story. Because My Lai is the only massacre from the Vietnam era to gain wide notice, it is thought to be an anomaly. It wasnt.Hersh reports that, on a recent trip to Vietnam, he learned that massacres of civilians like the one that took place at My Lai were not unusual.

A study by the International Committee of the Red Cross reports that there have been 10 civilian deaths for every soldier death in wars fought since the mid-20th century. Practically speaking, civilians have become the enemy. Hugh Thompson reached out to enemy civilians in recognition that we are all one.

Mary Bess is a Boca Grande resident.

Marcy Shortuse is the editor of the Boca Beacon, and has been with the paper since 2007. She is also editor of the Boca Beacon's sister publication, Gasparilla Magazine.She has more than 20 years of experience writing and editing local newspapers and is originally from the Chicago area.

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Veterans, heroism and whistleblowing - Boca Beacon

By John W. Whitehead

What happens to Julian Assange and to Chelsea Manning is meant to intimidate us, to frighten us into silence. By defending Julian Assange, we defend our most sacred rights.Speak up now or wake up one morning to the silence of a new kind of tyranny.The choice is ours.John Pilger, investigative journalist

All of us are in danger.

In an age of prosecutions for thought crimes, pre-crime deterrence programs, and government agencies that operate like organized crime syndicates, there is a new kind of tyranny being imposed on those who dare to expose the crimes of the Deep State, whose reach has gone global.

The Deep State has embarked on a ruthless, take-no-prisoners, all-out assault on truth-tellers.

Activists, journalists and whistleblowers alike are being terrorized, traumatized, tortured and subjected to the fear-inducing, mind-altering, soul-destroying, smash-your-face-in tactics employed by the superpowers-that-be.

Take Julian Assange, for example.

Assange, the founder of WikiLeaksa website that published secret information, news leaks, and classified media from anonymous sourceswas arrested on April 11, 2019, on charges of helping U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning access and leak more than 700,000 classifiedmilitary documents that portray the U.S. government and its military as reckless, irresponsible and responsible for thousands of civilian deaths.

Included among theleaked Manning materialwere theCollateral Murder video(April 2010), the Afghanistan war logs (July 2010), the Iraq war logs (October 2010), a quarter of a million diplomatic cables (November 2010), and the Guantnamo files (April 2011).

TheCollateral Murder leak included gunsight video footage from two U.S. AH-64 Apache helicoptersengaged in a series of air-to-ground attacks while air crew laughed at some of the casualties. Among the casualties were two Reuters correspondents who were gunned down after their cameras were mistaken for weapons and a driver who stopped to help one of the journalists. The drivers two children, who happened to be in the van at the time it was fired upon by U.S. forces, suffered serious injuries.

This is morally wrong.

It shouldnt matter which nation is responsible for these atrocities: there is no defense for such evil perpetrated in the name of profit margins andwar profiteering.

In true Orwellian fashion, however, the government would have us believe that it is Assange and Manning who are the real criminals for daring to expose the war machines seedy underbelly.

Since his April 2019 arrest, Assange has been locked up in a maximum-security British prisonin solitary confinement for up to 23 hours a daypending extradition to the U.S., where if convicted, he could be sentenced to175 years in prison.

Whatever is being done to Assange behind those prison wallspsychological torture, forced drugging, prolonged isolation, intimidation, surveillanceits wearing him down.

In court appearances, the 48-year-old Assange appears disoriented, haggard and zombie-like.

In 20 years of work with victims of war, violence and political persecutionI have never seen a group of democratic States ganging up to deliberately isolate, demonise and abuse a single individual for such a long timeand with so little regard for human dignity and the rule of law, declared Nils Melzer, the UN special rapporteur on torture.

Its not just Assange who is being made to suffer, however.

Manning, who was jailed for seven years from 2010 to 2017 for leaking classified documents to Wikileaks, was arrested in March 2019 for refusing to testify before a grand jury about Assange, placed in solitary confinement for almost a month, and thensentenced to remain in jail either until she agrees to testify or until the grand jurys 18-month term expires.

Federal judge Anthony J. Trenga of the Eastern District of Virginia also fined Manning $500 for every day she remained in custody after 30 days, and$1,000 for every day she remains in custody after 60 days, a chillingand financially cripplingexample of the governments heavy-handed efforts to weaponize fines and jail terms as a means of forcing dissidents to fall in line.

This is how the police state deals with those who challenge its chokehold on power.

Make no mistake: the government is waging war on journalists and whistleblowers for disclosing information relating to government misconduct that is within the publics right to know.

Yet while this targeted campaignaided, abetted and advanced by the Deep States international alliancesis unfolding during President Trumps watch, it began with the Obama Administrations decision to revive the antiquated, hundred-year-oldEspionage Act, which was intended to punish government spies, and insteaduse it to prosecute government whistleblowers.

Unfortunately, the Trump Administration has not merely continued the Obama Administrations attack on whistleblowers. It has injected this war on truth-tellers and truth-seekers with steroids and let it loose on the First Amendment.

In May 2019, Trumps Justice Department issued a sweeping new superseding secret indictment of Assangehinged on the Espionage Actthatempowers the government to determine what counts as legitimate journalism and criminalize the rest, not to mention giving the government license to criminally punish journalists it does not like, based on antipathy, vague standards, and subjective judgments.

Noting that theindictment signaled grave dangers for freedom of the press in general, media lawyer Theodore J. Boutrous, Jr., warned, The indictment would criminalize the encouragement of leaks of newsworthy classified information, criminalize the acceptance of such information, and criminalize publication of it.

Boutrous continues:

[I]t doesnt matter whether you think Assange is a journalist, or whether WikiLeaks is a news organization. The theory that animates the indictment targets the very essence of journalistic activity:the gathering and dissemination of information that the government wants to keep secret. You dont have to like Assange or endorse what he and WikiLeaks have done over the years to recognize that this indictment sets an ominous precedent and threatens basic First Amendment values. With only modest tweaking, the very same theory could be invoked to prosecute journalists for the very same crimes being alleged against Assange, simply for doing their jobs of scrutinizing the government and reporting the news to the American people.

We desperately need greater scrutiny and transparency, not less.

Indeed, transparency is one of those things the shadow government fears the most. Why? Because it might arouse the distracted American populace to actually exercise their rights and resist the tyranny that is inexorably asphyxiating their freedoms.

This need to shed light on government actionsto make the obscure, least transparent reaches of government accessible and accountablewas a common theme for Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, who famously coined the phrase, Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

Writing in January 1884, Brandeisexplained:

Light is the only thing that can sweeten our political atmospherelight thrown upon every detail of administration in the departments; light diffused through every policy; light blazed full upon every feature of legislation; light that can penetrate every recess or corner in which any intrigue might hide; light that will open up to view the innermost chambers of government, drive away all darkness from the treasury vaults; illuminate foreign correspondence; explore national dockyards; search out the obscurities of Indian affairs; display the workings of justice; exhibit the management of the army; play upon the sails of the navy; and follow the distribution of the mails.

Of course, transparency is futile without a populace that is informed, engaged and prepared to hold the government accountable to abiding by the rule of law.

For this reason, it is vital thatcitizens have the right to criticize the government without fear.

After all, were citizens, not subjects. For those who dont fully understand the distinction between the two and why transparency is so vital to a healthy constitutional government, Manning explains it well:

When freedom of information and transparency are stifled, then bad decisions are often made and heartbreaking tragedies occur too often on a breathtaking scale that can leave societies wondering: how did this happen? I believe that when the public lacks even the most fundamental access to what its governments and militaries are doing in their names, then they cease to be involved in the act of citizenship.There is a bright distinction between citizens, who have rights and privileges protected by the state, and subjects, who are under the complete control and authority of the state.

Manning goes on to suggest that the U.S. needs legislation to protect the publics right to free speech and a free press, to protect it from the actions of the executive branch and to promote the integrity and transparency of the US government.

Technically, weve already got such legislation on the books: the First Amendment.

The First Amendment gives the citizenry the right to speak freely, protest peacefully, expose government wrongdoing, and criticize the government without fear of arrest, isolation or any of the other punishments that have been meted out to whistleblowers such as Edwards Snowden, Assange and Manning.

The challenge is holding the government accountable to obeying the law.

Almost 50 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 inUnited States v. Washington Post Co.to block the Nixon Administrations attempts to use claims of national security to prevent The Washington Post and The New York Times frompublishing secret Pentagon papers on how America went to war in Vietnam.

As Justice William O. Douglas remarked on the ruling, 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.And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell.

Almost 50 years later, with Assange being cast as the poster boy for treason, were witnessing yet another showdown, which pits the peoples right to know about government misconduct against the might of the military industrial complex.

Yet this isnt merely about whether whistleblowers and journalists are part of a protected class under the Constitution. Its a debate over how long we the people will remain a protected class under the Constitution.

Following the current downward trajectory, it wont be long beforeanyonewho believes in holding the government accountable islabeled an extremist,is relegated to an underclass that doesnt fit in, must bewatched all the time, and is rounded up when the government deems it necessary.

Eventually, we will all be potential suspects, terrorists and lawbreakers in the eyes of the government

Partisan politics have no place in this debate: Americans of all stripes would do well to remember that those who question the motives of government provide a necessary counterpoint to those who would blindly follow where politicians choose to lead.

We dont have to agree with every criticism of the government, but we must defend the rights ofallindividuals to speak freely without fear of punishment or threat of banishment.

Never forget: what the architects of the police state want are submissive, compliant, cooperative, obedient, meek citizens who dont talk back, dont challenge government authority, dont speak out against government misconduct, and dont step out of line.

What the First Amendment protectsand a healthy constitutional republic requiresare citizens who routinely exercise their right to speak truth to power.

As I make clear in my bookBattlefield America: The War on the American People, the right to speak out against government wrongdoing is the quintessential freedom.

Be warned: this quintessential freedom wont be much good to anyone if the government makes good on its promise to make an example of Assange as a warning to other journalists intent on helping whistleblowers disclose government corruption.

Once again, we find ourselves relivingGeorge Orwells1984, which portrayed in chilling detail how totalitarian governments employ the power of language to manipulate the masses.

In Orwells dystopian vision of the future, Big Brother does away with all undesirable and unnecessary words and meanings, even going so far as to routinely rewrite history and punish thoughtcrimes.

Much like todays social media censors and pre-crime police departments, Orwells Thought Police serve as the eyes and ears of Big Brother, while the other government agencies peddle in economic affairs (rationing and starvation), law and order (torture and brainwashing), and news, entertainment, education and art (propaganda).

Orwells Big Brother relies on Newspeak to eliminate undesirable words, strip such words as remained of unorthodox meanings and make independent, non-government-approved thought altogether unnecessary.

Where we stand now is at the juncture of OldSpeak (where words have meanings, and ideas can be dangerous) and Newspeak (where only that which is safe and accepted by the majority is permitted). The power elite has made their intentions clear: they will pursue and prosecute any and all words, thoughts and expressions that challenge their authority.

This is the final link in the police state chain.

Having been reduced to a cowering citizenrymute in the face of elected officials who refuse to represent us, helpless in the face of police brutality, powerless in the face of militarized tactics and technology that treat us like enemy combatants on a battlefield, and naked in the face of government surveillance that sees and hears allour backs are to the walls.

From this point on, we have only two options: go down fighting, or capitulate and betray our loved ones, our friends and ourselves by insisting that, as a brainwashed Winston Smith does at the end of Orwells1984, yes, 2+2 does equal 5.

As George Orwell recognized, In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

See more here:
A new kind of tyranny: The global states war on those who speak truth to power - Augusta Free Press

Get a taster of her debut solo album, taken from the new Peaky Blinders soundtrack

Savages Jehnny Beth has shared a taster of her upcoming solo album with first single Im The Man. Check it out below.

A snippet of the track was first heard in the latest series of Peaky Blinders, with the song also set to feature as one of three previously unreleased track of the upcoming official Peaky Blinders soundtrack album.

A journey into different sounds, Im The Man stomps through the sonic terrain of industrial rock and punk, with a brief interlude into ambient piano. Lyrically, its an existential questioning of right and wrong.

Im The Man is an attempted study on humankind, what we define as evil and the inner conflict of morality, said Beth. Because it is much easier to label the people who are clearly tormented by obsessions as monsters than to discern the universal human background which is visible behind them. However, this song has not even a remote connection with a sociological study, collective psychology, or present politics; It is a poetic work first and foremost. Its aim is to make you feel, not think.

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While Savages have been on a break since 2017, Beth has used the time since to collaborate with the likes of PJ Harvey, The XX, Gorillaz, The Strokes Julian Casablancas, and Anna Calvi joining the latter on stage to cover Nick Caves Red Right Hand at the Peaky Blinders Festival in September.

Beth also released the acclaimedsoundtrack for Showtimes XY Chelsea a documentary about Chelsea Manning which she co-wrote and recorded with longtime producer Johnny Hostile.

Havingpreviously teased that a solo album is in the works, Beth said that wed be hearing plenty more from her various projects in 2020.

Im always making music, Beth told NME. I justfinished a soundtrack with Johnny Hostile for the Chelsea Manning documentary. Theres definitely new music coming out in the next year or so.Im finishing a lot of projects. Im living between London and Paris. I think youre about to find out!

And what ofher work with Primal Scream frontman Bobby Gillespie?

Weve made some music together, yes, she replied. Ive been working so much on various projects, not just music. Part of our life is to create things. Its one thing to create something but then you have to remember to put it out. Thats just another thing we need to put out! Its in the charts and its coming!

Originally posted here:
Listen to Savages Jehnny Beths brutal solo single Im The Man - NME Live

In their new book, United States of Distraction: Media Manipulation in Post-Truth America (And What We Can Do About It ), Nolan Higdon and Mickey Huff sketch out our current media landscape, one cluttered with propaganda, confusion, and distraction. They argue that while corporate media do not serve the publics right to know, whistleblowers should be regarded as defenders of democracy.

Whistleblowers are the brave people who risk employment, reputation, friends, freedom, and sometimes their lives, to provide citizens with information that those in power attempt to keep secret. Historically, whistleblower protections date all the way back to the American War for Independence (1778), when the Congress passed a law stating that It is the duty of all persons in the service of the United States, as well as all other inhabitants thereof, to give the earliest information to Congress or any other proper authority of any misconduct, frauds or misdemeanors committed by any officers or persons in the service of these states, which may come to their knowledge. Explicit protections for whistleblowers were enacted into law in 1989 through the Whistleblower Protection Act, and further expanded in 2012 through President Obamas policy directive Protecting Whistleblowers with Access to Classified Information. However, despite these apparent protections, in actuality numerous whistleblowers have faced federal threats, or worse, including Barrett Brown, Thomas Drake, John Kiriakou, Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, and Reality Winner. Under Barack Obamas presidency, more whistleblowers were targeted, persecuted, and prosecuted than in all previous administrations combined. In order to strengthen our democracy, the public, policymakers, and courts must defend the freedom of individuals to blow the whistle.

Whistleblowers provide invaluable information to journalists, educators, and the American public by exposing unethical and corrupt practices that they believe the public has a right to know. For example, Daniel Ellsberg leaked classified documents to the press in order to challenge the U.S. governments public portrayal of its military activities in the Vietnam War. Edward Snowden, a government-contracted employee for the National Security Agency, leaked documents in order to expose the fact that U.S. government was colluding with software companies to secretly collect private information from millions of U.S. citizens phones and computers.

The corporate press has largely attacked whistleblowers or questioned their motives rather than analyzing the relevance and meaning of the information they have released. For example, in response to Snowdens leak, NBCs popular Sunday morning program Meet the Press hosted a panel titled, Why shouldnt you be charged with a crime?; Michael Grunwald of Time tweeted that he cant wait to write a defense of the drone strike that takes out Julian Assange of WikiLeaks for helping Snowden; and the editorial board of The Washington Post published an op-ed suggesting Snowden surrender himself.

Among the few who supported Snowden were two reportersGlenn Greenwald and Laura Poitraswho were working for The Guardian of London at the time, and whose investigative reporting helped break the story at a time when the U.S. press showed little interest in exposing government lies about surveillance. In 2014, they won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for their reporting on the matter, recognition that shows there is hope for a vibrant and free press, one that is willing to publish controversial information to keep the public informed and hold those in power accountable.

Whistleblowers help keep governments and corporations in check. Media outletsand the population as a wholeneed to help cultivate a climate where whistleblowers feel they can safely expose corruption in high places. This will likely require more independent media outlets to provide space and safety for whistleblowers to share data and communicate. While many media outlets accept anonymous news tips, operations such as The Intercept, Freedom of the Press Foundation, WikiLeaks, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Government Accountability Project, as well as filmmakers like Michael Moore, Robert Greenwald, and Oliver Stone, have specifically encouraged and supported whistleblowers and have created platforms for them to send large amounts of data securely. This is a much-needed development in our current culture of media consolidation, censorship, and increased attacks on both whistleblowers and journalists.

Rene DiResta, research director at the firm New Knowledge, co-authored a major report on disinformation for the Senate Intelligence Committee in late fall of 2018. Several months prior to the release of the report, DiResta independently wrote an influential essay titled The Digital Maginot Line, examining the implications of living in an era of intense information manipulation. There is a war happening, wrote DiResta. We are immersed in an evolving, ongoing conflict: an Information World War in which state actors, terrorists, and ideological extremists leverage the social infrastructure underpinning everyday life to sow discord and erode shared reality.

For DiResta, consciousness itself is the terrain in which disinformation operations are waged. The human mind is the territory, she writes. If you arent a combatant, you are the territory. And once a combatant wins over a sufficient number of minds, they have the power to influence culture and society, policy and politics. According to DiResta, Influence operations exploit divisions in our society using vulnerabilities in our information ecosystem. We have to move away from treating this as a problem of giving people better facts ... and move towards thinking about it as an ongoing battle for the integrity of our information infrastructure.

In her essay, she echoes the ethos and instruction of early 20th century public relations guru Edward Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud, who wrote in his 1928 book, Propaganda:

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. Our invisible governors are, in many cases, unaware of the identity of their fellow members in the inner cabinet. They govern us by their qualities of natural leadership, their ability to supply needed ideas and by their key positions in the social structure. Whatever attitude one chooses toward this condition, it remains a fact that in almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons ... who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world.

Indeed, we are in the midst of a complex set of battles between those who value democratic principles and those who seek to exploit them, on whatever side, and our circumstances have only become more complicated since the time of Bernays, though the battlefield for the public mind remains much the way he outlined it. Seen in the context of information war, inaction is a tacit form of support for the forces seeking to undermine our information systems and manipulate society. Action is needed by everyone who values truth, transparency, and participatory democracy. As historian Howard Zinn argued, You cannot be neutral on a moving train.

We clearly should not expect any of the many actorsdomestic, foreign, corporateto self-regulate in the public interest. Indications are that the deliberate propagation of disinformation is proliferating, and the American public is being targeted by an increasing number of forces. Simply asking politicians and tech giants like Facebook or Twitter to address and fix the challenges we face is not enough. History has shown that such entities will not respond without significant and sustained public pressure.

Changing the system is possible. Doing so will require people to organize, agitate, and insist on policyand a way of lifethat prioritizes the interests of the public over those of corporations. Successful public-interest shifts, particularly in media and education, can provide the population with the tools needed to sustain democratic sovereignty and subordinate corporate interests to the priorities of social justice, environmental sustainability, and the common good.

Without widespread organizing, resistance, and pressure, the information war against public consciousness, truth, and sovereignty will intensify. While characters like Donald Trump and Steve Bannon were able to acquire power, in part, by weaponizing disinformation and exploiting public vulnerabilities, they did not invent the tactics. The very possibility that they could get so far was the result of decadeslong corporate influence over the U.S. political economy and democratic culture.

What happens next is up to us, but time is of the essence. We still have the ability to make a difference by acting together, but act we must. In this new millennium, its long past time for renewed and revelatory directions that favor the public sphere and restoration of the commons, or else we may find ourselves living in the ecologically unsustainable, corporate-dominated, authoritarian surveillance state toward which weve been heading for a long time.

A better future is possible. To help change direction toward a more just and robust civil society, we need to build a non-commercial public media system, and increase media literacy and critical pedagogy in schools. Doing so will help us better arm ourselves with the power that knowledge gives, and enable us to live with greater deliberation, democracy, and dignity.

This excerpt fromUnited States of Distraction: Media Manipulation in Post-Truth America (And What We Can Do About It)by Nolan Higdon and Mickey Huff, with a foreword by Ralph Nader (City Lights Books, 2019) appears by permission of the authors.

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In Praise of Whistleblowers by Nolan Higdon and Mickey Huff - YES! Magazine

ByMarge Hoskin

"Whistleblowers" who have recently come forward to disclose critical information about wrongdoings in our federal government are not new in the United States of America.

Historians pretty much agree that the first whistleblowers included American naval officers Samuel Shaw and Richard Marven.In 1777, soon after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, they reported the misconduct of the Navy's highest officer, thecommander-in-chief of the first United States Navy, Esek Hopkins.He was a Rhode Island slave runner by occupation.His crime: torturing British prisoners of war.

Ten officers had signed the complaint which they said upheld principles in Congress's original "Orders and Directions for the Commander in Chief of the fleet of the United Colonies" which ordered that prisoners of war be "well and humanely treated."

On Jan. 2, 1778, Congress dismissed Hopkins who retaliated by filing a criminal libel suit against the petitioners.Only Shaw and Marven, residents of Rhode Island, were jailed. Congress soon ruled that they be set free and passed the world's first whistle-blower protection law on July 30, 1778.

During my lifetime, there have been numerous whistleblowers whose deeds have inspired both books and movies.

They include: Frank Serpico who reported corruption in New York City in the late 1960s and 1970s; Daniel Ellsworth, a military analyst who in 1971 gave what became known as "The Pentagon Papers" to several newspapers. The papers included a study regarding the Vietnam War and revealed that the war was considered unwinable but was being escalated anyway. And, of course, there was Mark Felt, FBI Associate Director who worked with Washington Post reporters Bob Woodworth and Carl Bernstein during President Nixon's Watergate scandal (1972-1974) under the name "Deep Throat."

During every decade since the 1970s, there have been numerous additional whistleblowers such as Mark Whitacre who blew the whistle on the Archer Daniels Midland Co. price-fixing scandal in 1995, and Jeffrey Wigand's 1996 discussion on the TV program "60 Minutes" of his own organization's (Brown and Williamson Tobacco Corp.) approval of additives known to cause cancer to their cigarettes.

More recent so-called whistleblowers (they have been called other names, also) include Chelsea Manning who was court-martialed for passing in 2013 thousands of pages of military-related documents to Wikileaks et al, and Edward Snowden who created the biggest intelligence leak in theNational Security Agency's history, also in 2013, by releasing classified information without authorization.

Who's next?

Marge Hoskin, a Quiet Corner native, is a retired naval officer. She is the former Chairwoman of the Quinebaug-Shetucket board of directors and one of the founders of the Corridor. Reach her at mlhoskin@sbcglobal.net.

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Whistleblowers are hardly new in the US - News - The Bulletin - Norwich, CT - Norwich Bulletin

Edward Snowden. Reality Winner. Bradley/Chelsea Manning. When it comes leaking classified information, these notorious names come quickly to mind.

It isnt difficult to ascertain a leakers motivations; she or he usually trumpets them publicly in a plea for sympathy once caught. Similarly, a spys motivations invite few questions. But discerning what motivates those who abscond with classified information and dont leak it or provide it to foreign adversaries can be more challenging.

Bizarre stories about such circumstances have proliferated in recent years, although they have received far less media attention than the Snowden, Winner, or Manning cases. Consider, for example, the recent case of ex-NSA contractor Harold T. Martin, III. Martin served the intelligence community for decades and spent just about the same amount of time absconding with classified information in both physical and digital form.

Martins defense attorney described him as a hoarder and attributed the actions to mental illness rather than any malicious intent. As incredible as that may sound, there is little evidence to suggest otherwise. Prosecutors initially claimed that Martin was feeding the information he collected to an entity affiliated with Russian intelligence services, but that theory faded at trial, according to a news report.

Consider also the recent case of Air Force contractor Izaak Vincent Kemp, who authorities say printed 1,000 pages of classified material much of it marked TOP SECRET and literally walked out of his office with it. Kemp, who was storing the materials at home for motivations that remain entirely unclear, was caught only when local police served an unrelated search warrant at his home after being alerted to the presence of a marijuana growing operation.

The news trail on Kemps case has been cold for months now, but from what little we know about the matter there have been no accusations by the government that Kemp was a leaker or a spy. So, the question remains: what was his end-game? Like with Martin, we may be left with more questions than answers.

When we think of criminal behavior, we typically think of activities undertaken with the intention or knowledge of wrongdoing, or sometimes those which occur due to reckless negligence. The law calls this mens rea or, literally, a guilty mind. Purpose why the wrongdoer did what he or she did doesnt always factor into the equation, although it can be either an explicit element of the crime or an aggravating factor (think, for example, hate crimes).

The criminal statutes for absconding with classified information dont require that the act have been undertaken with an improper purpose in order to obtain a conviction. Knowingly taking classified information home is enough for criminal culpability.

Yet given the recent spate of such cases, it would seem that the government has a significant interest in assessing what, precisely, the motivation was in each situation and implementing additional security safeguards to combat future similar occurrences. That could include mandatory mental health screening for all security clearance applicants; and, as some have suggested, use of diagnostic personality assessments like the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) as part of the security clearance process. The theory behind such tools is that if, in fact, there are similar personality traits present in cases like Martins and Kemps, the government may be able to establish a profile of someone prone to mishandling classified information that could then be used to deny the individual a security clearance.

You can bet that conversations about this are already happening behind the scenes among policy-makers. Unfortunately, the bad actions of some means that all clearance holders may see increasing encroachments on their personal privacy and administrative due process rights as the governments security programs evolve to meet emerging threats.

This article is intended as general information only and should not be construed as legal advice. Consult an attorney regarding your specific situation.

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What Motivates a Clearance Holder to Abscond with Classified Information? - ClearanceJobs

During a Trump campaign rally in Lexington, Kentucky on Monday, the state's junior senator, Rand Paul, stopped by to offer a spirited defense of his party's leader and an unsubtle threat to those he considers enemies. "We also now know the name of the whistleblower," Paul said triumphantly, referring to the intelligence community official who reported on Trump's efforts to coerce Ukraine's president to open a politically-motivated investigation of former vice president Joe Biden. After questioning the whistleblower's motivations and suggesting that he be dragged before Congress as a "material witness" in the matter, the senator pointed directly at the assembled TV cameras. "I say tonight to the media: Do your job and print his name!"

Trump, who has asserted a right to "learn everything about" the whistleblower and issued a similar call for their public testimony earlier that day, smirked as he joined in the crowd's applause. "Wow, that was excellent," he said after Paul concluded his performance. "He's a warrior."

Within the right-wing media ecosystem, efforts to out the whistleblower have been underway for some time already. Multiple outlets have provided valuable signal boosts to unconfirmed reports identifying an individual who allegedly filed the complaint, digging up old school photos to accompany their stories on the subject. Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill have reportedly invoked the person's name in closed-door impeachment hearings, and circulated a dossier of information about their biography, professional history, and alleged links to Democratic politicians and members of the Deep State.

Paul, a self-proclaimed libertarian who made a crusade against warrantless surveillance a key feature of his 2016 presidential campaign, used to be an occasional advocate for strengthening whistleblower protection laws and institutions. When government contractors "see something wrong," he said at a conference in 2014, "they should be able to report it without repercussions. Even today, his web site still contains vestiges of a pro-whistleblower worldview that he apparently held before the Trump era made that worldview politically inconvenient. Last week, he even tweeted to his 2.6 million followers a link that included the name in question, calling it "imperative" that lawmakers subpoena the person and have the chance to interrogate them under oath. What was a fringe movement to out the alleged Ukraine whistleblower has gone mainstream.

Shoddy protections for whistleblowers in the United States are neither a new nor a partisan problem. In a 2011 feature for The New Yorker, Jane Mayer profiled the "surprising relentlessness" with which the Obama administration prosecuted leaks, a trend she characterized as at odds with his praise of whistleblowers as "often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government." Two years later, U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden fled the country after publishing thousands of documents describing, among other things, the government's clandestine efforts to spy on other countries and its own citizens. He has since explained that the laws shielding whistleblowers from retaliation were too convoluted for him to trust, and that he felt there were "no proper channels" through which he could report what he knew. For publishing documents that exposed the extent of civilian deaths in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, former U.S. Army soldier Chelsea Manning received a 35-year prison sentence; she served about seven years of it before then-President Obama commuted the balance in 2017.

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How Rand Paul's Calls to Out the Ukraine Whistleblower Make America Less Safe - GQ

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is suffering significant psychological torture and abuse in the London prison where he is being held, and his life is now at risk, according to an independent UN rights expert. A senior member of his legal team believes Assange may not live until the end of the extradition process.

Assange mumbled, stuttered, and struggled to say his own name and date of birth when he appeared in court on October 21. The Wikileaks founder is being subjected to long drawn-out psychological torture as he battles to prevent his extradition to the United States where he faces a slew of espionage charges, warns Nils Melzer, the UN special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.

Unless the UK urgently changes course and alleviates his inhumane situation, Mr. Assanges continued exposure to arbitrariness and abuse may soon end up costing his life, Melzer said in a statement on Friday.

His physical appearance was not as shocking as his mental deterioration, writes former British ambassador Craig Murray, who was present at the October hearing. When asked to give his name and date of birth, he struggled visibly over several seconds to recall both his difficulty in making it was very evident; it was a real struggle for him to articulate the words and focus his train of thought Until yesterday I had always been quietly skeptical of those who claimed that Julians treatment amounted to torture and skeptical of those who suggested he may be subject to debilitating drug treatments. But having attended the trials in Uzbekistan of several victims of extreme torture, and having worked with survivors from Sierra Leone and elsewhere, I can tell you that Julian exhibited exactly the symptoms of a torture victim brought blinking into the light, particularly in terms of disorientation, confusion, and the real struggle to assert free will through the fog of learned helplessness.

One of the greatest journalists and most important dissidents of our times is being tortured to death by the state, before our eyes. To see my friend, the most articulate man, the fastest thinker, I have ever known, reduced to that shambling and incoherent wreck, was unbearable, writes Murray.

Melzer, who is not speaking on behalf of the UN, visited Belmarsh prison in May and conducted an extensive review of Assanges physical and psychological condition. Melzer told the AFP news agency that his increased alarm is based on new medically relevant information received from reliable sources that indicate Assanges health has entered a downward spiral of progressively severe anxiety, stress and helplessness typical for persons exposed to prolonged isolation and constant arbitrariness.

While the precise evolution is difficult to predict with certainty, this pattern of symptoms can quickly develop into a life-threatening situation involving cardiovascular breakdown or nervous collapse, he told AFP.

Assange is kept in complete isolation for 23 hours a day, and permitted 45 minutes exercise. When he has to be moved, guards clear the corridors and lock all cells to guarantee he has no contact with any other prisoner outside the exercise period.

Assange continues to be detained under oppressive conditions of isolation and surveillance, not justified by his detention status, said Melzer, who pointed out that Assange completed his prison sentence for violating his British bail terms and is being held exclusively in relation to the pending extradition request from the United States.

The US charges that Assange, an Australian citizen, violated the U.S. Espionage Act in 2010 when he published a series of leaks provided by Chelsea Manning. Those leaks include the Afghanistan war logs, the Iraq war logs, the Collateral Murder video, and classified U.S. State Department cables. For her role, Manning was court martialed and sentenced to 35 years in prison. After serving seven and a half years of the sentence, Manning received a pardon from President Obama, but he has since been jailed again for his refusal to testify against Assange.

The U.S. has claimed that Wikileaks publications have caused the deaths of Americans serving overseas. But no evidence has ever surfaced to prove this, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in 2010 that such claims were significantly overwrought.

Nevertheless, the U.S. wants Assange because the information he published was deeply embarrassing to the government. The British courts have already signed off on an extradition order and he will remain behind bars until the hearing, which isnt until early next year, according to The New York Times.

And curiously, even though mainstream media once heralded Assanges publications, there is substantially less coverage of his current plight, former CIA officer Raymond McGovern told The American Conservative.

To McGovern, the timing of the U.S. decision to press charges is particularly suspect; charges were announced right after Assange published that the CIA has cyber-tools that can leave a false digital footprint. McGovern, who had visited Assange during his seven-year asylum in thethe Ecuadoran embassy, has been a vocal supporter since the beginning.

The CIA can hack into a system and make it look like the Russians did it, said McGovern. This challenges the official narrative that Russians hacked the DNC server, exposing Hillary Clintons emails. Imagine that.

The October hearing was Assanges first public appearance since May. Illness has prevented him from attending previous hearings.

The UK ignored earlier pleas that to protect Assanges health and dignity, Melzer said, and his condition has progressed to the point where his life was now at risk.

In fact, when Melzer tried to raise the alarm in the media, The Guardian, The Times, the Financial Times, the Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, The Canberra Times, The Telegraph, The New York Times,The Washington Post, Thomson Reuters Foundation, and Newsweek all refused to publish his op-ed.

Instead of addressing Assanges health, what we have seen from the UK government is outright contempt for Mr. Assanges rights and integrity, said Melzer. Despite the medical urgency of my appeal, and the seriousness of the alleged violations, the UK has not undertaken any measures of investigation, prevention and redress required under international law.

Assange has lost 33 pounds during his imprisonment, according to Australian filmmaker John Pilger. He attended the hearing and has visited Assange in Belmarsh prison.

To see him in court struggling to say his name, and his date of birth, was really very moving, said Pilger. When Julian did try to speak, and to say that basically he was being denied the very tools with which to prepare his case, he was denied the right to call his American lawyer. He was denied the right to have any kind of word processor or laptop. He was denied his own notes and manuscripts.

Assanges access to legal counsel and documents has been severely obstructed undermining his most fundamental right to prepare his defense, charged Melzer.

The judge refused to grant Assanges request to delay the February trial.

The lack of legal process in the hearing was profoundly upsetting, to watch unfold, writes Murray, because it is a naked demonstration of the power of the state.

Unless Julian is released shortly he will be destroyed, writes Murray. If the state can do this, then who is next?

Barbara Boland isThe American Conservatives foreign policy and national security reporter. Follow her on Twitter@BBatDC.

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Will Julian Assange Die in Prison? - The American Conservative

By John W. Whitehead*

What happens to Julian Assange and to Chelsea Manning is meant to intimidate us, to frighten us into silence. By defending Julian Assange, we defend our most sacred rights.Speak up now or wake up one morning to the silence of a new kind of tyranny.The choice is ours.John Pilger, investigative journalist

All of us are in danger.

In an age of prosecutions for thought crimes, pre-crime deterrence programs, and government agencies that operate like organized crime syndicates, there is a new kind of tyranny being imposed on those who dare to expose the crimes of the Deep State, whose reach has gone global.

The Deep State has embarked on a ruthless, take-no-prisoners, all-out assault on truth-tellers.

Activists, journalists and whistleblowers alike are being terrorized, traumatized, tortured and subjected to the fear-inducing, mind-altering, soul-destroying, smash-your-face-in tactics employed by the superpowers-that-be.

Take Julian Assange, for example.

Assange, the founder of WikiLeaksa website that published secret information, news leaks, and classified media from anonymous sourceswas arrested on April 11, 2019, on charges of helping US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning access and leak more than 700,000 classifiedmilitary documents that portray the US government and its military as reckless, irresponsible and responsible for thousands of civilian deaths.

Included among theleaked Manning materialwere theCollateral Murder video(April 2010), the Afghanistan war logs (July 2010), the Iraq war logs (October 2010), a quarter of a million diplomatic cables (November 2010), and the Guantnamo files (April 2011).

TheCollateral Murder leak included gunsight video footage from two US AH-64 Apache helicoptersengaged in a series of air-to-ground attacks while air crew laughed at some of the casualties. Among the casualties were two Reuters correspondents who were gunned down after their cameras were mistaken for weapons and a driver who stopped to help one of the journalists. The drivers two children, who happened to be in the van at the time it was fired upon by US forces, suffered serious injuries.

This is morally wrong.

It shouldnt matter which nation is responsible for these atrocities: there is no defense for such evil perpetrated in the name of profit margins andwar profiteering.

In true Orwellian fashion, however, the government would have us believe that it is Assange and Manning who are the real criminals for daring to expose the war machines seedy underbelly.

Since his April 2019 arrest, Assange has been locked up in a maximum-security British prisonin solitary confinement for up to 23 hours a daypending extradition to the US, where if convicted, he could be sentenced to175 years in prison.

Whatever is being done to Assange behind those prison wallspsychological torture, forced drugging, prolonged isolation, intimidation, surveillanceits wearing him down.

In court appearances, the 48-year-old Assange appears disoriented, haggard and zombie-like.

Its not just Assange who is being made to suffer, however.

Manning, who was jailed for seven years for leaking classified documents to Wikileaks, was arrested in March 2019 for refusing to testify before a grand jury about Assange, placed in solitary confinement for almost a month,sentenced to remain in jail either until she agrees to testify or until the grand jurys 18-month term expires, and fined$1,000 for every day she remains in custody, a chillingand financially cripplingexample of the governments heavy-handed efforts to weaponize fines and jail terms as a means of forcing dissidents to fall in line.

This is how the police state deals with those who challenge its chokehold on power.

Make no mistake: the government is waging war on journalists and whistleblowers for disclosing information relating to government misconduct that is within the publics right to know.

Yet while this targeted campaignaided, abetted and advanced by the Deep States international alliancesis unfolding during President Trumps watch, it began with the Obama Administrations decision to revive the antiquated, hundred-year-oldEspionage Act, which was intended to punish government spies, and insteaduse it to prosecute government whistleblowers.

Unfortunately, the Trump Administration has not merely continued the Obama Administrations attack on whistleblowers. It hasinjected this war on truth-tellers and truth-seekers with steroidsand let it loose on the First Amendment.

Heres the thing: we desperately need more scrutiny and transparency, not less, in order to shed light on government actions and make the obscure, least transparent reaches of government accessible and accountable.

Of course, transparency is futile without a populace that is informed, engaged and prepared to hold the government accountable to abiding by the rule of law.

For this reason, it is vital thatcitizens have the right to criticize the government without fear.

Thats where the First Amendment comes in. The First Amendment gives the citizenry the right to speak freely, protest peacefully, expose government wrongdoing, and criticize the government without fear of arrest, isolation or any of the other punishments that have been meted out to whistleblowers such as Edwards Snowden, Assange and Manning.

The challenge is holding the government accountable to obeying the law.

The governments ongoing war on whistleblowers and journalists is not merely a legalistic exercise over whether these individuals are part of a protected class under the Constitution. Its a struggle that speaks to the very real question of how long we the people will remain a protected class under the Constitution.

Partisan politics have no place in this debate: Americans of all stripes would do well to remember that those who question the motives of government provide a necessary counterpoint to those who would blindly follow where politicians choose to lead.

We dont have to agree with every criticism of the government, but we must defend the rights ofallindividuals to speak freely without fear of punishment or threat of banishment.

What the First Amendment protectsand a healthy constitutional republic requiresare citizens who routinely exercise their right to speak truth to power.

As I make clear in my bookBattlefield America: The War on the American People, the right to speak out against government wrongdoing is the quintessential freedom.

Be warned: this quintessential freedom wont be much good to anyone if the government makes good on its promise to make an example of Assange as a warning to other journalists intent on helping whistleblowers disclose government corruption.

As George Orwell recognized, In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

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A New Kind Of Tyranny: The Global State's War On Those Who Speak Truth To Power OpEd - Eurasia Review