Nearly half of the worlds population owns a smartphone. For those living in conflict zones or suffering human rights violations, these devices are crucial. They help ordinary people record and share the atrocities they witness alerting the world to their plight, and holding to account those responsible for crimes against humanity.

Yet when they come to post this vital digital evidence on social media platforms, citizens often find their posts censored and permanently removed. Companies such as Facebook have no obligation to preserve the evidence, and have been accused of rushing to moderate content on an ad hoc, sometimes incoherent basis.

Given that Human Rights Watch has called atrocities the new normal in the modern world, we must urgently set about creating a system through which citizens across the globe can preserve, share and publish digital evidence of atrocities without the fear of retribution or censorship.

Recent history has shown that social media companies cannot be trusted to preserve vital digital evidence of atrocities. Take the perplexing role of Facebook in Myanmar as an example. Facebook recently banned accounts related to Myanmars military in response to the February 2021 coup.

Read more: Myanmar coup: how the military has held onto power for 60 years

But in 2017, during the genocide of Rohingya Muslims by the same military, Facebook took little action against military-linked accounts. Instead, the platform was accused of whipping up hate in the country, while deleting the posts of Rohingya activists, presumably deeming their evidence of atrocities to have been shared for sadistic pleasure or to celebrate or glorify violence. Facebook has admitted it was too slow to act in Myanmar, but that better technology and more content reviewers are now in place to prevent the spread of hate in the country.

This subjective censorship is not unique to Myanmar. In the recent conflict between Gaza and Israel, Facebook silenced dissident views, blocking editors accounts at the Gaza-based Shehab News agency. YouTube has also been accused of routinely removing evidence of atrocities during the Arab Spring and the Syrian civil war. That content is mistakenly flagged by algorithms as violating YouTubes guidelines, something the platforms parent company Google accepts doesnt always get it right but takes incredibly seriously.

To address this problem, the United Nations Human Rights Council has in recent years established a mechanism to collect, consolidate, preserve and analyse evidence related to serious international crimes. For Syria its called IIIM and for Myanmar its the IIMM.

These situation-specific mechanisms have adopted the approach of traditional news outlets, where experienced investigators strategically select individuals and their evidence. Material is selected based on its ability to be used as evidence in court proceedings in the future, where perpetrators of atrocities may be held to account.

Elsewhere, global citizen journalism organisations such as Bellingcat have taken a different approach. They collect evidence from different social media platforms and use a network of volunteers to analyse and investigate it. It was Bellingcat, for instance, behind the unmasking of the Russian man accused of poisoning Sergei and Yulia Skripal in the UK city of Salisbury in 2018.

Laudable as they are, these approaches have their flaws. One of them is that theyre centralised. This increases the risk that citizens identities could be exposed (via a hack, for instance) which often deters people from coming forward and providing evidence in the first place.

Centralised systems are also susceptible to compromise, subjectivity, discrimination or even destruction. The computer hard drive containing evidence from the whistleblower Edward Snowden was destroyed by the Guardian, under the supervision of officials from the UK intelligence agency GCHQ, in 2013. More recently, Israels armed forces bombed the offices of Associated Press and Al Jazeera in Gaza in May 2021, destroying any evidence the news agencies may have been storing.

Its clear we need a decentralised platform, without gatekeepers or potential single points of failure, to properly preserve peoples digital evidence of atrocities. This could be seen as similar to Wikipedia: distributed and under no ones direct control.

However, unlike Wikipedia, such a platform must be able to guarantee anonymity to protect citizens from exposure and future retribution. Once evidence is uploaded, it needs to be time-stamped and made immutable, so that no one (including the evidence provider) can edit or delete the evidence. The platform itself also needs to be resistant to any form of cyberattack, so that it cant be taken down. All this requires engagement with new technologies.

First, creating a distributed website is relatively easy. Conventional websites use whats called a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP), which keeps the websites files stored on a central server or computer. But there are alternative, peer-to-peer protocols (like IPFS, for instance) which enable a websites files to be stored across many computers. This means no authority can shut it down. Similarly, IPFS can also be used to store evidence-related files in a distributed and decentralised fashion.

Making evidence-sharing anonymous simply requires the website to be integrated with an evidence drop box area supported by Tor, which creates free and open-source software for anonymous communication. News outlets such as the Guardian and the New York Times already use Tor for anonymous file drops. Citizens should also be encouraged to use Tors anonymous browser to shield themselves from corporate tracking and government surveillance.

Finally, unlike centralised systems, the evidence uploaded anonymously to this distributed file system (IPFS) must remain immutable and indestructible. This can be achieved by engaging with the blockchain network, which is the technology behind cryptocurrencies.

Blockchain is an open-source distributed ledger or database system in which an updated copy of the records is available to all stakeholders at all times across the globe. This makes it almost impossible for a single person or company to hack everybodys ledger, ensuring security against cyberattacks. The database stores cryptocurrency transaction data but blockchain could also store digital evidence.

The evidence-drop website we propose means victims and witnesses can upload their evidence during a crisis and, when situation is favourable, see it used by investigative journalists or by prosecutors at the International Court of Justice.

Such a website would empower ordinary citizens and whistleblowers to fight injustice and atrocities. At the same time, it would put psychological pressure on perpetrators, whod know evidence exists of their crimes which cannot be destroyed, altered or invalidated. This shift of power and mindset could reconfigure the relationship between oppressor and oppressed, overturning the new normal of atrocities that appears to have taken hold across the world.

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Facebook often removes evidence of atrocities in countries like Syria and Myanmar but we can preserve it - The Conversation UK

It was perhaps inevitable that someone would organize an international grab bag of auteurs reflecting on the worlds COVID-19 crisis in 2020. While there have already been documentaries like Wuhan Wuhan collecting human interest stories about coronavirus in a very specific place, The Year of the Everlasting Storm chooses a global approach. Its bow in Cannes in the Special Screenings sidebar is amply justified by two whimsical exercises in art house cinema directed by Jafar Panahi and Apichatpong Weerasethakul. The other tales are quirky but mixed in impact.

Panahi opens the parade in person with his personal domestic lockdown story, in which a giant pet iguana called Iggy features prominently. Shot in the directors luminous apartment in Tehran, where he spent many years of house arrest pre-COVID courtesy of the Iranian authorities, the 19-minute tale centers around his familys emotional reactions to being separated from each other. With typical humor, Panahi describes how his aging mother turns up at their door dressed head to foot in PPE. After his wife sprays her outerwear with disinfectant, granny talks to her distant granddaughter on a video call that turns very sentimental, with both sides insisting Ill die for you. Grannys mistrust of toothless old Iggy turns to something like sympathy by the films close.

The Bottom LineA mixed bag of coronavirus tales.

Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Special Screenings)Cast: Dongyu Zhou, Yu Zhang, Catherine Machovsky, Bobby Yay Yay JonesDirectors: Jafar Panahi, Anthony Chen, Malik Vitthal, Laura Poitras, Dominga Sotomayor, David Lowery, Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Three episodes come from the American directors David Lowery, Laura Poitras and Malik Vitthal. Vitthals brief take on a Black fathers overwhelming love for his three kids, all of whom have been placed in foster homes, is worth repeat viewing, even if its connection to the pandemic seems marginal. In eight edgy, machine-gun-fire minutes, Bobby Yay Yay Jones educates his son about how to act if he hears gunshots outside (you lie down) and mentions in passing how he himself was a homeless, neglected child and has had to deal with PTSD while fighting for seven years to regain custody of his kids. The synthesized music track plays off against simple animation around the live images, adding surprise to the emotional expressiveness of this striking work.

Poitras, who produced and directed the politically engaged docs Citizenfour, about whistle blower Edward Snowden, and Risk, featuring WikiLeaks Julian Assange, here directs a futuristic, multi-screen mini-documentary that is more nerve-wracking than any horror film. It highlights the threat that coronavirus tracing apps can be used to increase government and police surveillance of citizens without their knowledge. The film proceeds via interviews with those in the know to discuss digital infection of our phones, computers and cameras by malware. The Israeli company NSO Group (which denied the films allegations) is singled out as a bad actor prone to intimidate and sue anyone calling them out. NSO is both a cyber weapons manufacturer and, guess what, the producer of coronavirus tracing apps. Brian Enos music adds to the films dystopian atmosphere, along with a rolling database that scrolls sinisterly over the screen. Its enough to ruin anyones day, which is probably what Poitras intended.

David Lowery returns to the moody atmosphere of his indie Western crime drama Aint Them Bodies Saints in a puzzling tale about a Texas woman (Catherine Machovsky), who once was called Clyde. She sets out to dig up the body of her little brother on the basis of old letters from her father (now also dead). Many years earlier her father stole his sons dead body from a hospital and, unable to get the putrefying corpse to Texas, buried him in the remote countryside. One imagines the boy might have died from some kind of contagion to connect to the films theme, but that has no importance in this weird and partially incomprehensible Gothic horror tale in which skeletons talk.

Singapore director Anthony Chen (Ilo Ilo) offers an excellent take on the stress a young family goes through sharing close quarters during 45 days of lockdown. Though set in China with Chinese actors, the situation is universally recognizable. The break-down in the marriage of a couple played by Dongyu Zhou (noteworthy as the female teen lead in Derek Tsangs Better Days) and her husband Yu Zhang (An Elephant Sitting Still) is gradual but steady as they struggle to take care of their young child on a limited income in a small apartment. While she still works for a call center from home, he (a car salesman) hibernates on the couch. Her nerves are frayed; he wants sex and she refuses. It ends in a liberating but possibly no-return outburst of wildness. Chen offers the viewer some relief from the claustrophobia with outdoor shots of deserted streets and a huge banner that says Wuhan.

Chilean director Dominga Sotomayor, who became the first woman to win Locarnos Golden Leopard with her 2018 feature Too Late to Die Young, looks at the separation of loved ones under COVID restrictions. A plucky mother and her grown daughter keep up a farmhouse, while a city daughter announces her first baby has been born. The family is briefly reunited under a third-floor balcony, where we get a glimpse of new life, a child who will eventually help repopulate the empty pandemic landscape. The use of ancient church music underlines hope in a no-frills story.

Less simple and linear (as might be expected) is Apichatpong Weerasethakuls closing reflection. The set is a naked bed surrounded by neon tube lights, vaguely suggesting a porn film before the action begins. But in the tropical night, the action already has begun: Attracted by the lights, insects of all sizes and shapes congregate indiscriminately over and on the sheets. There is promiscuity, but also death big insects eat smaller ones with unemotional cannibalism. Disembodied human voices float from a scratchy gramophone record off screen, talking over old black and white photographs. Is this life after the apocalypse?

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The Year of the Everlasting Storm: Film Review | Cannes 2021 - Hollywood Reporter

Privacy and security-focused Linux distribution Tails, The Amnesic Incognito Live System, has announced a major new release completely overhauling how it connects users to the Tor network.

"After connecting to a local network, a Tor Connection assistant helps you connect to the Tor network," the project maintainers explained in the release notes for the latest version, Tails 4.20.

"This new assistant is most useful for users who are at high risk of physical surveillance, under heavy network censorship, or on a poor Internet connection."

The team claimed its freshly developed wizard, which launches with the option of "easier" automatic connection or "safer" hidden connectivity, offers better protection to users who may need to hide their activity from network operations, makes it easier to connect to Tor bridges, assists with troubleshooting network connectivity issues, and walks first-time users through getting Wi-Fi up and running.

It's far from finished, though. The team is working on a laundry list of improvements, including the option to save Tor bridge details to persistent storage, automatically detect when a Wi-Fi network is not working, and the ability to detect and handle captive-portal login requirements common to commercial Wi-Fi hotspots.

First released in June 2009 as a successor to the Incognito project but not hitting a stable 1.0 milestone until five years later, Tails aims to preserve users' privacy by routing all traffic through the Tor network a volunteer-driven encrypted overlay network itself launched back in 2002.

Given a publicity boost by whistleblower Edward Snowden, Tails has proven popular even if simply downloading it can get you on the NSA's naughty list. Development on the project has never ceased, from fixing security issues to improving memory privacy, the user interface, adding support for booting from USB sticks, and most recently boosting performance.

As well as the new connection wizard, Tails 4.20 includes the ability to host a website accessible only on the Tor network as an "onion service," an updated browser and email client, the latest Tor client, and a shift to Linux 5.10.46 to broaden support for running on newer hardware.

The release also includes a range of bug fixes, though comes with a warning: users looking to upgrade from a Tails 4.14 or earlier installation will need to upgrade manually, or if they've already hit a bug which breaks the update system for automatic upgrading should follow instructions on the release page to manually fix things again.

The new release is available on the Tails site now.

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Happy 4.20: Latest version of Tails bakes connection wizard into pro-privacy Linux distro - The Register

Bill Bishop is (literally) the original Substacker.

In the spring of 2017, Bishop an American media entrepreneur who previously lived and worked in Beijing was preparing to start charging readers for his China-focused blog/email newsletter.

In October of that year, after being approached by one of the founders of Substack, former journalist Hamish McKenzie, he became the newsletter platforms first writer.

Today, Substack is home to thousands of newsletters. The platform has millions of readers a month and says that its writers collectively have more than 500,000 paying subscribers.

Bishops newsletter, Sinocism, had 30,000 free subscribers (built up since 2012) when it launched on Substack, and a fair few of them decided to start paying immediately.

On the first day I was at over $100,000 in revenue for the year, says Bishop, who became an early investor in Substack after launching his newsletter. So it was a great start. And it grows every year.

The appeal of Substack for Bishop and others is that the platform handles the technical side of the business enabling writers to easily send out newsletters and collect payments. In return, Substack takes a 10% cut of paid subscriptions.

Bishop does not say what his annual revenues are currently more than zero, less than a million. But he does reveal that Sinocism today has more than 90,000 subscribers and that a single-digit percentage of these people pay for his premium edition. He charges $15 a month, or $168 a year.

Bishop, a co-founder of CBS MarketWatch which is now part of Dow Jones/News Corp lived and worked in China between 2005 and 2015.

He first started Sinocism as a blog during this period. In 2012, Chinas great firewall of internet regulation forced him to start sharing his content by email.

After moving to Washington DC in 2015, Bishop continued to write Sinocism, which provides readers with analysis, commentary and links to the biggest news about China.

Sinocism says its audience is made up of investors, policymakers, executives, analysts, diplomats, journalists, scholars, and others.

Bishop, who studied China academically and speaks Mandarin Chinese, describes himself as an analyst, commentator and meta-editor.

Reporters working in China often report instances of being followed or disrupted in their work. Bishop says that he had no apparent issues when living in Beijing, possibly because he was never officially recognised as a journalist.

But he adds that, because US-China relations have worsened since his move in 2015, I wouldnt be doing my newsletter if I was living in Beijing now. That would no doubt cause all sorts of problems for me.

Bishop says the big stories for him in the coming years will be the length of Xi Jinpings presidential reign will he become a leader for life? Chinas relations with the West and the developed world how much worse does it get? and the fallout from Covid-19, including how and where the disease originated.

Substack says its top ten writers collectively now make more than $15m a year through paid subscriptions. Bishop is no longer in the top ten but, because of his early investment in the company, their success is his success to an extent.

I really liked the team, and I thought it was interesting, says Bishop when asked about why he decided to invest in Substack. But I had no idea it was going to become a noun and a verb the way it has. It seems kind of crazy. Its really quite remarkable.

Substacks reputation has grown significantly over the past year or so. Several high-profile writers and public figures including Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald and Dominic Cummings, the former chief adviser to UK prime minister Boris Johnson have launched their own newsletters on the platform.

[Read more: Interview with Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie]

But Substack is now facing serious competition. Apparently inspired by the platforms success, both Twitter and Facebook are launching themselves into the newsletter business, with Revue and Bulletin respectively.

Bishop is not overly concerned. Sure, its hard to compete in some ways with Facebook and Twitter. But at the same time and youve seen this across industries those companies are massive, and they have much bigger things theyre focused on.

He believes Substacks work has been validated by this new competition after the concept was initially ignored or poo-pooed.

If, three years into this, the big guys werent paying attention, it would make me wonder whether or not this was a space worth caring about.

Now Facebook and Twitter have made it clear that this is an area thats very much worth caring about and fighting over.

Bishop believes the growth of Substack has been good for journalists and writers because it has made employers realise their value.

For a long time journalists, with very few exceptions, were not really considered talent, he says.

And now things like Substack, Revue/Twitter, whatever the Facebook thing is, are making it much more complicated for managers at these media companies to figure out how they deal with talent.

In the US, there have been several stories of journalists leaving established news groups to earn more for themselves on Substack.

So does Bishop think Substack is the future of journalism? Not quite.

Really good enterprise reporting is expensive, it takes a team, it takes good editor, and a lot of times it takes a really good brand behind you.

So its not like every journalist is going to be able to make the jump to become a Substacker making a couple of hundred grand a year.

But I think people who are very good in their niche can do extremely well.

Top picture credit: Reuters/ Carlos Garcia Rawlins

Press Gazette's must-read weekly newsletter featuring interviews, data, insight and investigations.

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Bill Bishop interview: The writer of China-focused newsletter Sinocism - Press Gazette

The BDN Opinion section operates independently and does not set newsroom policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or onbangordailynews.com.

Gwynne Dyers new book is Growing Pains: The Future of Democracy (and Work).

Polands prime minister, Mateus Morawiecki, condemned the hijacking of the Ryanair jet on the orders of Belarus president, Alexander Lukashenko, on Sunday, accusing him of a reprehensible act of state terrorism.

Dominic Raab, the British foreign secretary, agreed, warning that this outlandish act by Lukashenko will have serious implications.

And U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken strongly condemned the flight diversion as well as the Lukashenko regimes ongoing harassment and arbitrary detention of journalists. (Opposition journalist Roman Protasevich, who had been living in exile, was removed from the plane in Minsk and arrested before the plane was allowed to continue to Lithuania eight hours later.)

This chorus of condemnation was in welcome contrast to the silence or mumbled doubts that greeted the last outrage of this sort in 2013. The target of that incident was whistleblower Edward Snowden, and its perpetrator was the patron saint of American liberals, then-President Barack Obama.

Snowden had spilled the beans on the U.S. National Security Agencys secret electronic surveillance of millions of people (including foreign leaders like German Chancellor Angela Merkel), and was fleeing the U.S. governments vengeance.

Washington knew that Snowden had been trapped in the transit lounge of Moscow airport while trying to get to Ecuador. (The U.S. canceled his passport.) It suspected that Evo Morales, the Bolivian president and a longstanding critic of U.S. policy, who was in Moscow for a conference, would try to smuggle Snowden out on the presidential plane.

Morales plane (which did not actually have Snowden aboard) was forced down in Vienna, but the spooks in Washington are less crude and clumsy than their equivalents in Minsk. No lies like Hamas has put a bomb aboard and you must divert to Belarus; just a whole bunch of Americas NATO allies in Europe refusing to let Morales plane overfly their territory on its way home.

France, Spain, Portugal and Italy only let Morales pilot know that he could not overfly them when he was already more than an hour out from Moscow. He did not have enough fuel on board for the huge detour that he would now have to make, and had to land in neutral Austria to take on more. American agents were waiting.

U.S. agents confirmed that Snowden was not aboard while the Austrian president took Morales to breakfast, and Morales then continued his journey unharmed. The American behavior showed a lot more finesse than Lukashenkos action, but it was equally arbitrary, arrogant and arguably criminal.

Or am I guilty of the crime of moral equivalence for even suggesting such a thing?

Moral equivalence is a term that was used by Western governments during the Cold War to attack anybody who suggested that Soviet human rights abuses could ever be compared with those of Western countries. Communist actions were evil beyond measure; similar Western actions were innocent mistakes or simply didnt happen, and anybody saying otherwise was a traitor.

It continues to this day. Western media devote 20 times more space to Chinas persecution of the Muslim population of Xinjiang than they do to the Indian repression of Muslims in Kashmir. The Russian bombing of civilians in Syria is endlessly condemned while the Western-backed bombing of Yemeni civilians by Saudi Arabia gets very little attention.

Lukashenko is a stupid and brutal dictator who richly deserves condemnation, and the Russians, who are not stupid at all, are undoubtedly furious with him. However, using Lukashenko to make anti-Russian propaganda and putting Moscow on the defensive about this would be extremely counter-productive.

Lukashenkos claim to have won the last election is a blatant falsehood, and he only got the protesters off the streets late last year by much violence (abetted by the harsh nature of the Belarusian winter). The arrival of spring, combined with Lukashenkos new status as international skunk, may enable the democratic opposition to revive.

Belarusians are basically well-disposed to Russians, and it is imaginable (though not likely) that Putin could tolerate a democratic Belarus. To give the Belarusians their best chance, the West should concentrate on the illegality of Lukashenkos actions and not meddle in the broader domestic political struggle that may soon resume.

Leave that to the locals. They know best.

More articles from the BDN

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Condemnation of Belarus is a stark contrast to US treatment of Edward Snowden - Bangor Daily News

Earlier in May, exiled whistle blower Edward Snowden compared Belaruss downing of a plane to a US-style extraordinary rendition. Once the plane had landed in Minsk, journalist Roman Protasevich was seized and detained, along with his girlfriend Sofia Sapega.

Indeed, the hijacking, undertaken on the orders of the countrys dictator Alexander Lukashenko, should be deplored.However, evidence has emerged suggesting Protasevichs politics are not all they seem.

Snowden argues that the downing of the Ryanair flight from Greece to Lithuania by the Belarusian authorities is a modern expression of Bush-era extraordinary rendition:

Extraordinary rendition is defined as The extra-judicial transfer of persons from one jurisdiction or state to another. Though perhaps that definition needs expanding to include the capture of someone for political purposes and/or travelling from one third party country to another.

The UK governments condemnation of the downing of the Ryanair flight is sheer hypocrisy. For the UK is an expert practitioner of rendition.

Indeed, a 2007 European Parliament report stated it had:

serious concern about the 170 stopovers made by CIA-operated aircraft at UK airports, which on many occasions came from or were bound for countries linked with extraordinary rendition circuits and the transfer of detainees

And the Rendition Project published a list of 391 alleged rendition flights via the UK or its overseas territories or Crown Dependencies.

AsThe Canarypreviouslyreported, MI6 also played a pivotal role in the extraordinary rendition of then Libyan opposition leader Abdel Hakim Belhaj. Belhaj was kidnapped by the US and flown to Tripoli. There he was tortured by Libyan intelligence. Several incriminating documents retrieved by Human Rights Watch showed the extent to which MI6 head Mark Allen personally assisted the Libyan authorities in the matter.

Its further known that the CIA used Diego Garcia, a British Overseas Territory,as part of its rendition programme. In February 2008, foreign secretary David Miliband admittedtwo rendition flights stopped over in Diego Garcia, each carrying a detainee.

The EU can also be accused of hypocrisy in its condemnation of Belaruss downing of the Ryanair flight.

On 3 July 2013, a private plane carrying Bolivian president Evo Morales from Moscow was refused permission to land in or fly over Portugal, France and Italy. Instead, with reportedly little fuel left, it had to fly on to Vienna. Had the Austrian authorities also refused the plane to land, its possible it might have crashed.

So why did this happen? Its because Snowdon was believed to have been on board the plane. Though as it turns out, Snowden was still in Moscows Sheremetyevo airport at the time.

Journalist Glenn Greenwald commented:

The only reason Snowden did not suffer the same fate that day as the one Protasevich suffered on Sunday is because he happened not to be on the targeted plane that was forced to make an unscheduled landing in Vienna.

He added:

If it is outrageously dangerous and criminal to force the downing of a plane to arrest the passenger Roman Protasevich, then it must be equally dangerous and criminal to do the same in an attempt to arrest suspected passenger Edward Snowden.

In the aftermath of the action by those EU countries, Bolivian ambassador to the UN Sacha Llorenti claimed that Morales had been kidnapped:

Llorenti also argued that the blockade and subsequent search of the aircraft violated international law.

Bolivian defence minister Ruben Saavedra believed the US was behind it all, commenting:

This is a hostile act by the United States state department which has used various European governments.

Hence, the US can also be accused of hypocrisy in its condemnation of Belaruss actions:

Meanwhile, questions have been raised about Protasevichs political background.

The Grayzones Ben Norton has described Protasevich as a literal fascist:

Canadian academic Ivan Katchanovski added that according to Ukrainian media, Protasevich served in the press-service of the neo-Nazi-led Azov battalion.

The Azov Battalion is reportedlya:

far-right neo-Nazi all-volunteer infantry military unit forming part of military reserve of National Guard of Ukraine.

openDemocracy states that the Battalion was

formed by members of two neo-Nazi groups, Patriot of Ukraine and the Social-National Assembly.

At the time, these groups worked as part of Right Sector, the far-right activist group that came together during Maidan and which later also turned into a paramilitary organisation.

Norton has provided extensive research regarding Protasevichs links to the far-right and the Azov Battalion in particular.

Meanwhile, Julian Assangeremains locked up in Belmarsh prison. Hes been there since the UK authorities kidnapped him from the Ecuadorean embassy in London. Its over three months since the US lodged an appeal against a court ruling that Assange should not be deported.

Against the backdrop of Assange and Snowden, EU, UK and US outrage at Belarus looks farcical. It can only be seen as credible if current proceedings against Assange are dropped and Snowden is pardoned.

Featured image via YouTube/BBC News

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Edward Snowden calls out the US and its allies hypocrisy in condemning Belarus - The Canary

Newsroom | @journalovale

American journalist Glenn Greenwald along with Edward Snowden won the Pulitzer Prize for revealing the existence of covert global surveillance programs carried out by the United States National Security Agency (NSA). His investigative work was featured in the film Citizenfour, which won the 2015 Oscar for Best Documentary. In addition to showcasing Greenwalds work and his collaboration on the award-winning feature, an unreleased episode of the series The Method. Curta!, explores the importance of a good story for a documentary, the reasons behind making a film, and its ability to provoke audience participation.

The episode An Ethics and History premieres June 9 at 10 p.m. on Quarta do Cinema.

In this episode, Greenwald reveals details about the 2013 meeting with Snowden in the city of Hong Kong and the consequences resulting from the disclosure of classified NSA files. Working with Snowden has definitely changed the world. It changed the way people think about privacy and the Internet, it has changed the way they think about government secrets and the role of journalism in democracy , says the journalist.

In Brazil, Glenn was also known for the publication of a series of reports that characterized the scandal called Vaza-Jato, which exposed conciliatory negotiations between members of the countrys judiciary. The case brings up other discussions inherent in documentary production: the possibility of cinema as a complaint against political groups or companies, in addition to ethical issues.

In addition to Greenwalds testimony, excerpts from Citizenfour are shown, an account of the case of Edward Snowden and journalistic reports on the above events, in addition to the views of critic Bill Nichols and documentarian Carlos Nader, who served as the presenter of the series. We do.

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Glenn Greenwald talks about the Snowden case in an unprecedented episode of 'The Method' series - OVALE - Sprout Wired

In 2011, when he was general manager of the National Basketball Associations Houston Rockets, Daryl Morey was searching for ideas. He wanted brainstorming fodder: good ideas, outside-the-box ideas, even goofy ideas. Who has plenty of ideas? Fans of the team. So in a highly unorthodox move, Morey asked the Rockets fan base to email ideas on how to improve the team. They could be ideas on how to recruit free agents, ideas on drafting strategy, ideas on anything.

Then he did something even more unorthodox.

Over Twitter, Morey announced that the fan who pitched the best idea would win a bitcoin.

This was a decade ago, 2011. And whens the last time you heard someone use the phrase a bitcoin? The proof still exists on Twitter, where Morey cheerfully doled out the bitcoin, at the time worth $7.24. Most Rockets fans had no idea what he was talking about. I had to google bitcoin, confessed one Rockets junkie. This was so long ago, the Rockets fans were puzzled by Moreys use of a hashtag, confused by the appearance of #bitcoin in his tweet. Since when did # become hashtag? one fan posted. I always thought it was called pound symbol?

This is vintage Morey. Always three or five steps ahead.

A quick primer for the non-hoops crowd: Morey is widely credited with helping to shape the modern-day NBA, or as Michael Lewis once put it, hes Basketballs Nerd King. Morey loves data. He loves finding an edge. Thanks in large part to Moreys charts and spreadsheets, players now shoot more three-pointers (Morey found theyre statistically a higher value shot) and chuck up fewer mid-range jumpers (statistically, a dogs breakfast).

The phrase game changer is usually a cliche, but Morey literally changed the game. True, Morey is not the only influence see also: Steph Curry but its a copycat league. As other teams followed Moreys blueprint, the average score has jumped from 99.9 in 2007 (Moreys first year as Rockets GM) to 112 today.

How is this relevant to blockchain?

When billionaire investors like Michael Saylor or Paul Tudor Jones share their interest in crypto, the space celebrates it as a kind of validation. I would argue that Morey provides the same kind of imprimatur. Hes good at sniffing out trends. Hes good at spotting whats next. Hes the most forward-thinking GM in the most forward-thinking sports league. If Morey embraces crypto? There are worse mainstream signals. (Disclosure: As a lifelong fan of my hometown Houston Rockets, Ive been on Team Morey for years. Look elsewhere for objectivity.)

On our call, Morey brushes off these kinds of plaudits, modestly saying, Im just always into everything new, probably incorrectly at times, where I waste time or money.

Maybe. But his decade-long enthusiasm for crypto seems deeper than a quick bit of dabbling. Moreys so OG that he was involved in the Mt. Gox bankruptcy case, he bought a CryptoKitty, he both collects and mints non-fungible tokens (NFT), he gamely drops into a podcast with Anthony Pomp Pompliano, he collects CryptoPunks (and even used one as his Twitter avatar), he sells tweets as NFTs (and donates the funds to the American Civil Liberties Union), and he scoops up NBA Top Shot moments. His crypto enthusiasm seems more rooted in principles than making a buck. When retweeting Pomps celebration of Bitcoin Pizza Day, for example, he framed it as, Get delicious pizza and stop authoritarian oppression win/win. (Few can top Moreys anti-authoritarian credentials.)

These days, of course, Morey is the general manager of another NBA team, the Philadelphia 76ers, and once again, of course, his team is deep in the championship hunt. A few weeks before his Sixers entered the playoffs, Morey spoke to CoinDesk about his strategy for investing in NFTs, how he (kind of) almost bought an NFT from Edward Snowden and why NFTs are the start of a major, major trend but that were also primed for a shakeout.

CoinDesk: So I could talk hoops with you for hours but I know our time is limited. Youve been into crypto since waaaaay back. How did that start?

Daryl Morey: Im a big decentralized guy, a big civil liberties guy anything that allows a fundamental thing to happen without a central authority intrigued me. So I had a bunch of bitcoin by 2011, or maybe the end of 2010. And I was giving away bitcoin on Twitter in 2011 as part of a Rockets ideas giveaway. Of course, it was not a $60,000 idea. [Note: Bitcoin was worth $60,000 at the time of our conversation, in what now feels like five years ago.]

Just the whole idea [of bitcoin] appealed to me. And then I went through the roller coaster of getting hacked and being in a Japanese bankruptcy case and just the whole nine yards.

You lost some bitcoin on Mt. Gox, right?

Yeah, I did. Half of it.

My instincts were to not put all of it in any one place. So I had some of it on a wallet on my computer in my house. And then I had half of it on Mt. Gox, which afterwards I felt so dumb about. At the time I was like, Well, now I need to do something with it. Okay, Ill put it on this exchange, Mt. Gox. And because it was so little money at the time, I didnt really think too intentionally about it.

Then I found out that Mt. Gox M-T-G-O-X meant Magic: The Gathering Online eXchange. And Im like, What the hell? I put my bitcoin on a Magic: The Gathering trading card site?! I was laughing and I felt really dumb afterwards. So I lost all of that.

Wait, what happened with your Mt. Gox bitcoin?

I was in the Japanese bankruptcy case. And then Bain Capital did a really smart thing. They went to everyone in that case and offered 10 cents on the dollar. I took it because my wifes cousin a bankruptcy judge in New Jersey was saying, Youre never going to see any of that. Take what you can get. In retrospect, I should have kept it and hoped to get it back because its worth so much more now. But whatever. It is what it is, and Bain Capital is smart for a reason.

And then you were also early into CryptoKitties, right?

So I wish I had been more into it. I was into CryptoKitties, for sure, and I grabbed one. I still have my original, which is only worth around 100 bucks. But I didnt quite get it. Everyone was saying this was a digital collectible, and I got that angle, even though I wasnt really into cats. But I didnt get the scarcity angle. Because with the original CryptoKitties you can breed more and more.

And Im like, 'What the hell? I put my bitcoin on a Magic: The Gathering trading card site?!'

You were worried that because you can just breed cats endlessly breeding and breeding fing cats then there wouldnt be real scarcity?

Right. I didnt see the scarcity angle. I was wrong about that because some of them are worth a lot now. I wish I had dove in deeper. I didnt get that if someone made it scarce, which they did with CryptoPunks shortly thereafter, that it would change the game. And I was skeptical of shysters and hucksters jumping in.

What gave you more confidence in NFTs?

When I found out that NBA Top Shot was licensed, and that Roham [Roham Gharegozlou, Dapper Labs CEO] has a real plan for rolling it out to maintain scarcity and that, [as] with CryptoPunks, only 10,000 would ever be made, then I jumped into it in a big way.

So now youre both an NFT collector and an NFT creator. What was it like to mint your NFT?

Well, its pretty straightforward. People make it sound hard. But I like to describe NFTs as just a unique barcode someone cant copy, that you can put on anything. And when you describe it that way, people get that its not especially hard. Its just a thing.

I love that description. Howd you choose what you minted?

I was trying to make sure I did something that made some sense. And so I thought, yeah, the original formula that I got moderately famous for, Ill do that. [This is the Pythagorean Expectation Formula, which Morey adapted to the NBA.] And Ill do it for charity. To my point on shysters and hucksters, I didnt feel right making money on it. So I gave all the proceeds to the ACLU.

How many NFTs did you mint?

I did five of them. I like five as a nice scarce number. You dont want to do just one. Somewhere between five and 50, I think, is the sweet spot for how many things you mint of something to still get the scarcity element.

So I did five, and people snapped them up pretty quick for around $2,500. Four of them sold immediately.

You should have priced them higher!

When there was still one left, I was like, Oh s**t, I want to keep one! So I kept one. Because Im not going to be someone who, you know, just mints more or something. I would hate that. I also sold a couple of tweets for ACLU charity as well. They didnt quite do as well as Jack Dorseys or Ed Snowdens. Did you see Ed Snowdens tweet? I think he got almost [$]4 million [Editors note: Actually, it was 2,224 ETH, or $5.4 million, on the day of sale.]

I have a funny story. So I know the people around Ed Snowden really well. And Ive talked to Ed, and I think hes an American hero who still needs to be celebrated more. And I thought [Donald] Trump could do the one right thing in his presidency and pardon him. But of course he didnt.

And I hadnt known about the sale today. [Note: We spoke on April 16, the day of Snowdens NFT sale.] I just saw a tweet about it. And 15 minutes from the end of the auction, it was going for 13 Ethereum [around $31K at the time]. I immediately called the people around Ed. I was like, Is this real? Because if its 13 Ethereum, Ill buy it.

And then, I realized I read it wrong. It was going for 1,300 Ethereum. So they were laughing at me. They were, like, No, thats 1,300, Daryl. Im thinking, Okay, Ill let someone else do that one.

Yeah, the random bus drivers NFT goes for 13 ethereum.

Can you describe your NFT investing strategy? Because my understanding is that you look for artists who might be the next bigthing, and are currently undervalued. And this sounds a lot like what you do as a GM, hunting for undervalued players.

On the art side there are some very legitimate artists in the space. But then theres also a lot of nonsense. And theres a shakeout coming. Those [NFTs from the nonsense artists] are going to go to near zero, I think.

I had already been a fan of Beeples digital art. So when I saw Beeples sale go for a crazy amount, I immediately thought, Well, s**t, Ill look for all of my favorite digital artists. Ill see if theyre selling. Shockingly, very few were selling when I first went to look a few months ago.

Unless you're asleep at the wheel, every major organization, sports or not, is looking at how to use the technology in the back end.

Things change pretty quick.

When I first went to look, very few artists were actually selling any NFTs. But every single digital artist whose work I knew and thought was good I just grabbed all of them. Im probably most excited about getting some of Pascal Blanches stuff. Hes just so talented.

And when he did a Dune thing, I thought, Oh my God. I have to get the Dune thing because I love the book. So, yeah, I think Pascal has a chance to be the next Beeple, for example. And so Im just squatting those.

And your strategy for NBA Top Shot?

Im trying to get younger players that I think have a good future, and to get the scarcer ones. For Sorare, same thing, Im trying to grab the younger players that I think have a big future. Because when the shakeout comes, theres going to be a chase to quality.

Thats why I love CryptoPunks. I love the better Top Shot moments of younger players, who are going to be good for 10 to 12 years going forward. I love the Sorare soccer players who are younger and are going to be great later.

Theres going to be a moment when everyone thinks, This was all a huge mistake. That moments coming. It happened with bitcoin when it went back to $3,000. And everyone was like, Bitcoin is dead. Its all bulls**t. Thats going to happen in NFTs. Theres going to be a period where everyone thinks, Anyone who did anything right now is an idiot. Then it goes to quality and the foundation of the idea. And the reality is, theres going to be quality, and the idea is great.

Why do you like the idea so much?

Digital collectibles are superior to physical collectibles. I just moved from Houston to Philly and it was a pain in the ass. I had to move 10,000 comics. I had to move all of my wall art. I had to move all of this s**t, and with digital stuff you just move it. Its definitely superior. And its the start of a major, major trend. So things like CryptoPunks, things like Top Shot, Sorare, all of this early stuff as long as its quality is going to be worth, I think, five to 10 to 100 times in five years. But were going to have to go through a cycle.

It sounds like many players are very Top Shot savvy, and NFT savvy. Theyre into it. Do you see any complications here down the road? Like, what if the players want to mint NFTs or do things that are competitive with Top Shot? And will we have a kind of crypto players empowerment movement that leads to an almost meta-negotiation?

Well, the nice thing is, I think the players union and the league office are on top of this. First off, they can make an NFT now, nothing stops them. Theres no agreement. There may be certain kinds of things like game action where there are rules about what they can make. But just like me, theyre personally going to be able to do whatever they want. So nothings preventing that.

Theyre also benefiting in a big way. I mean, give credit to Michele Roberts [executive director of the NBA Players Association] and Adam [Adam Silver, NBA commissioner] and their whole infrastructure. Everyones making a lot of money in Top Shot at the league, and that flows into BRI [basketball-related income] and its shared 50/50.

The way that Adam and Michele have structured it, where the players and the league office have this partnership, really allows for these kinds of things to flourish. It helped us in the bubble we were the first league back. And thats because of the partnership. And for things like Top Shot and NFTs, that partnership allows these kinds of ideas to flourish.

Players might see a Top Shot moment of themselves selling for $250K, and they wonder how they benefit. Well, they do benefit. How they benefit is a little complicated because you have to look at the licensing flows, but they definitely do benefit. Its really nice how the NBA has done everything.

How much is the NBA to the extent that youre aware looking into other types of NFTs, or fan tokens, or other blockchain concepts, whether for ticketing or other fan engagement tools?

Unless youre asleep at the wheel, every major organization, sports or not, is looking at how to use the technology in the back end. And most of them are probably going to screw it up. [Laughs.] But everyone is looking at it. I think youre going to see tons of announcements from players, the league office, players unions, teams, organizations theres going to be a ton of announcements. And if theyre going to get into it, its important that people really understand the underlying technology and the underlying things that are going to drive value.

Youre most famous for using data and analytics to uncover opportunities and exploit inefficiencies in the market. What are some inefficiencies that you see in the crypto markets, that you think can maybe be exploited?

NFTs are going to be a real dangerous space to put money into for the next year, because theres just going to be a lot of low-quality stuff thats going to go to zero. To me, thats the inefficiency. Its similar to the first explosion of all the different kinds of altcoins and s**tcoins. Theres a flight to quality, and it flew to bitcoin and ethereum and a few others. Its similar here [with NFTs]. The inefficiency is the newly minted stuff that isnt really valuable.

How about a crypto project that youre bullish on?

Im really excited about y.at. Their vision is big. Theres a long way to go, but their fundamental vision is that emojis are universal, hard for governments to control so again, decentralized and every person can have their own three, four, or five emoji moniker. Its your email, its your URL, its whats used to log into sites. Your universal identifier becomes these emojis because language obviously varies from place to place, but globally these emojis are universal. So right now theyre minting all these universal emojis that people can own.

My personal one is the Statue of Liberty and a basketball. The three emoji ones, you can buy right now on their site. The two and one emojis are being auctioned off. Theyre putting in this infrastructure, and Im really bullish on them.

Thanks, Daryl. This was a blast. Best of luck with the rest of the season.

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Daryl Morey on Crypto, NFTs: 'It's the Start of a Major Trend' - CoinDesk - CoinDesk

The spying saga shows that Washington will go to any length to stop EU states from getting closer to China and Russia.

Embarrassing leaks that show the US National Security Agency (NSA) spied on high-ranking European Union leaders for years have opened up old wounds of distrust between close military and diplomatic allies.

What has worried EU politicians even more is that Denmark's military intelligence service - the FE - cooperated with the NSA in a sophisticated eavesdropping scheme that targeted German Chancellor Angela Merkel among others.

The revelations came in a pan-European media investigation led by Danish public broadcaster, Danmarks Radio, which said the NSA used Denmark's internet cables to retrieve calls and text messages of high-ranking officials from Germany, Sweden, Norway and France between 2012 and 2014.

Even though the details of NSAs spy operation that focused on Europe have emerged in the past, the new information comes when President Biden is only months into office, while Washington is seeking to coordinate with European allies on a host of issues including Irans nuclear programme.

Intelligence collection against allies suggests a lack of trust in what is being shared in normal diplomatic exchanges, said Ewan Lawson, an associate fellow at the London-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).

Key European states have taken different positions to the US on a number of issues, perhaps most notably on relations with Russia and China.

Reports of a sophisticated US spy network first surfaced in 2013 when the NSA analyst Edward Snowden leaked documents showing how Washington was spying on American citizens and allies in other countries.

US intelligence collection against allies was part of the Snowden leaks and as such, this is not new and given it is relatively historical it is unlikely to have a significant effect on US relations with France and Germany, said Lawson.

Nevertheless, the European politicians have reacted angrily. Clement Beaune, Frances Europe Minister, referred to the spying news as extremely serious.

A penalty for dissent

Sami Hamdi, the managing director of International Interest, a global risk and intelligence consultancy, said that Washington has been concerned for years that Europe might take an independent approach towards its foes China and Russia.

Some European countries, such as Italy, have gone their own way and signed agreements to participate in Chinas Belt and Road Initiative - a multibillion dollar infrastructure investment project that the US says Beijing is using to expand its global influence.

While the question of America continuing with its spying practice remains open for debate, Hamdi said the distrust between the allies is still there.

Washington is deeply concerned by European countries mulling better ties with Russia, and the EU negotiating a trade deal with China at the same time that Biden seeks to isolate Beijing.

President Trumps administration largely succeeded in convincing European partners to not use Chinas 5G gear.

But some countries, such as EUs economic powerhouse Germany, have resisted US pressure on other projects that involve China or Russia.

Biden is also concerned that Germany has pushed back hard on issues such as the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project that Washington had resolved to impose sanctions on in its entirety, said Hamdi.

The Nord Stream 2, a 1,200 kilometre-long pipeline that will transport Russian natural gas to Europe is being built at a cost of more than $11 billion. The project is vital for the EU to meet its energy needs.

The US in April warned Germany that there was no room for compromise on the project and that it will use all possible means to stop its construction.

Amid the spying saga, one country that has found itself in perhaps the tightest spot is Denmark.

Lars Findsen, the former director of the Danish Defense Intelligence Service (FE) was suspended along with other officials last year after an internal investigation, which began in 2015, Danmarks Radio said.

This is probably most difficult for Denmark in its relationships with neighbours, said Lawson, the RUSI research fellow.

However, the narrative in Denmark seems to be that this was an operation conducted by its intelligence agencies without the knowledge of politicians and not part of an official policy. This is supported by the suspension of senior intelligence officials.

Source: TRT World

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Why does the US intelligence spy on European allies? - TRT World

The Founding Fathers carved the Constitution in light of the horrific political abuses that had proliferated in England in prior centuries. That was why there was a narrow definition of treason in the Constitution: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

After the end of Reconstruction, treason charges became relatively rare in American politics. Wars were probably the biggest propellants, with anyone who opposed American intervention abroad being tagged with the scarlet T. But by the late 1960s, when the futility of the Vietnam War was becoming clear, treason charges had largely lost their political clout. Gen. Alexander Haig, who later became Richard Nixons last White House chief of staff, denounced the Pentagon Papers as devastating a security breach of the greatest magnitude of anything Ive ever seen its treasonable. But the Nixon administrations protests failed to sway the Supreme Court to block the New York Times from publishing the secret official records of decades of U.S. government deceit on Indochina.

Unfortunately, the political exploitation of the 9/11 attacks included reviving treason accusations against anyone who did not cheer George W. Bushs promise to rid the world of evil. On Dec. 6, 2001, Attorney General John Ashcroft informed the Senate Judiciary Committee, To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and give ammunition to Americas enemies. At that point, Bush had already suspended habeas corpus and his underlings were busy sabotaging laws limiting federal surveillance of American citizens. But regardless of how many civil liberties were actually destroyed, critics were traitors.

Run-up to 2016

While Bush was rehabilitated by the mainstream media in recent years as a reward for criticizing Donald Trump, his 2004 reelection campaign relied on tacit treason accusations to tarnish Democrats, liberals, and even a few libertarians. At the 2004 Republican National Convention, keynote speaker Democratic Sen. Zell Miller implied that political opposition was treason: Now, at the same time young Americans are dying in the sands of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, our nation is being torn apart and made weaker because of the Democrats manic obsession to bring down our commander in chief.

There was no evidence that such criticism of Bushs foreign policy was ripping America asunder but trumpeting the accusation made Bush critics appear a pox on the land. Other Republicans used the same theme. John Thune, the Republican U.S. Senate candidate in South Dakota, denounced Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle: His words embolden the enemy. Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman condemned the Kerry campaign for parroting the rhetoric of terrorists and warned, The enemy listens. All listen to what the president said, and all listen to what Senator Kerry said. Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik, stumping for Bush, told audiences, Political criticism is our enemys best friend. Six weeks before the 2004 election, the Washington Post noted, President Bush and leading Republicans are increasingly charging that Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry and others in his party are giving comfort to terrorists and undermining the war in Iraq a line of attack that tests the conventional bounds of political rhetoric.

In 2006, the New York Times revealed that the Bush administration was illegally seizing personal financial information of millions of Americans. Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, declared, Were at war, and for the Times to release information about secret operations and methods is treasonous. Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) also labeled the Times guilty of treason. Rep. Ted Poe (R-Tex.) suggested that the Times had become the Benedict Arnold Press.

After Barack Obama was elected in 2008, treason allegations simmered down, except for occasional allegations that Obama was a secret Muslim scheming to impose Sharia law on America. Former NSA employee Edward Snowdens leak of NSA documents was the biggest treason boomlet of that era. Numerous congressmen called for Snowden to be charged with treason, though the Founding Fathers neglected to include embarrassing the government in the Constitutions definition of treason. House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and former NSA chief Michael Hayden publicly joked about putting Snowden on a government kill list.

But the Snowden uproar was a kerfuffle compared to the Pandoras box opened by the 2016 presidential campaign. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton repeatedly effectively asserted that Republican nominee Donald Trump was a Russian tool, betraying the nation.

Treason in the White House

After Trumps surprise victory in November 2016, treason became the coin of the realm for denigrating political opposition. Democratic politicians, activists, and their media allies responded to Hillary Clintons surprise defeat by smearing Donald Trump for colluding with Russia. Leaks to the media from the FBI, CIA, and other federal agencies spurred raging controversies that contributed to Trumps firing FBI chief James Comey. That resulted in the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel to investigate Trump. Endless wrangling followed, including a claim by prominent Democrats claiming that Republicans would be guilty of treason if they released a memo detailing the FBIs abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Mueller quickly became sacrosanct; liberals even bought votary candles with his likeness. A piece I wrote for The Hill on Muellers lawless record as FBI chief spurred 1,500 comments, including denunciations of me as a treason weasel, bearded grifter, Alt-moron, lackey, lickspittle, and librarian (some folks cant spell libertarian). In April 2019, Mueller finally admitted that there was no substantive evidence of collusion but that did not stop the endless RussiaGate refrain and treason accusations from Trump critics. Most of Trumps presidency was permeated by charges of treason against him.

But the Mueller-induced treason prattle was childs play compared to what followed disputes over the 2020 presidential election. As law professor Jonathan Turley noted, after the media announced Biden won, All court challenges [to election results] then became unethical for lawyers and all congressional challenges became sedition for members. Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro this past December denounced one challenge to the election results as a seditious abuse of the judicial process that was guilty of misleading the public about a free and fair election and tearing at our Constitution. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) wailed, The most serious attempt to overthrow our democracy in the history of our country is under way. Twitters left-wing tilt has helped spur hashtags such as #GOPSeditiousTraitors and #TreasonAgainstAmerica. One leftist activist got 65,000 likes when he declared that Donald Trump should replace Benedict Arnold in history as Americas most reviled traitor.

On the other side of the political divide, some Republicans sounded equally hellbent on demonizing any opposition to their demands. Republican lawyer Lin Wood declared that Vice President Pence would be guilty of treason for certifying the election results and that he will face execution by firing squad. The Pro-Trump duo Diamond and Silk tweeted, After listening to the leaked call put out by the Washington Post we are convinced that Georgias secretary of state and his lawyer need to be arrested for Treason!

After protesters crashed into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 (some crashed into the building while others sauntered in), treason accusations went into overdrive. The definition of treason was vastly expanded to include members of Congress who filed a lawful challenge against the 2020 electoral tally. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared that Republicans who signaled they would not ratify the Electoral College results earlier that month gave aid and comfort to [protesters] with the idea that they were embracing a lie that the election did not have legitimacy. A court of law would never convict Republican members of treason, but Pelosi can convict them in the court of public opinion, thanks to the hanging judges at CNN and MSNBC.

Civil War politics

Many Trump opponents are invoking 1861, denouncing any Republican challenges to the election as the same type of treason supposed to have been committed by states that exited the union. But the Civil War illustrates the catastrophic damage that can result from broad-brush definitions of treason. Northern politicians quickly persuaded their supporters that all Southerners were traitors a capital offense. In 1864, Gen. William Sherman wired the War Department in Washington, There is a class of people men, women, and children who must be killed or banished before you can hope for peace and order. Union armies in Virginia, Georgia, and elsewhere late in the war intentionally devastated civilian populations who were considered collectively guilty of secession and treason.

Unfortunately, many pundits and politicians know only a fairy-tale version of the Civil War. The fact that Trump had high support in many southern states is spurring bizarre proposals that would be the final coffin nails into any hope for a semblance of peaceful coexistence between Americans with different views and values. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), the medias favorite progressive congresswoman, declared, The only way our country is going to heal is through the actual liberation of southern states. She didnt specify whether she favored the type of military dictatorship that was ended only by a historic compromise after the fraud-ridden 1876 presidential election. Politico, one of the most respected Washington publications, printed a piece titled, What Ulysses Grant Can Teach Joe Biden about Putting Down Violent Insurrections. The piece stressed, Grants approach relied on a combination of brute military force and a drastic curtailment of civil liberties, yet it nevertheless has relevance for the current moment. The article stressed the need for overwhelming force to suppress the type of people who violated the sacred space of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Any federal attempt to expunge political dissent in America with brute military force and a drastic curtailment of civil liberties would very likely provoke a civil war. But that could be the end result of current trends of presuming that political opponents are traitors who must be exterminated. While Democratic members of Congress and some Biden officials are comforted by the thousands of National Guard troops now occupying Washington at their behest, they would be unwise to presume the troops would obey orders to scourge their countrymen in every nook of the land.

Perhaps the ultimate cause of the proliferation of treason accusations is that politicians have captured far too much control over Americans lives. The more power politicians seize, the more unhinged political rhetoric becomes.

American politics is increasingly becoming toxic because presidents nowadays are elective dictators. Rather than a process of selecting a chief executive who will uphold the Constitution and enforce the laws, elections nowadays confer a license to run amok over the lives and property of practically anyone who falls under federal sway. Government has amassed so much power that the vast majority of Americans no longer trust Washington.

The surest recipe for curtailing political vitriol is to reduce political power so elections are not demolition derbies that doom losing sides. Thomas Jefferson in 1799 offered the ideal that can rescue America from strife today: In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution. And if presidents and members of Congress choose to openly scorn their oaths of office and constitutional constraints on their power well, many Americans would consider that to be treason.

James Bovard is the author of 10 books, including 2012s "Public Policy Hooligan" and 2006s "Attention Deficit Democracy." He has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Playboy, Washington Post, and many other publications.This article was originally published in the April 2021 edition of Future of Freedom.

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OPINION: Will treason mania destroy America? - The Richmond Observer