Today, lawyers for Facebook will cross-examine ACLU Staff Attorney Ashley Gorski at a court hearing in Dublin, Ireland, about U.S. surveillance policies and privacy protections. The hearing is part of litigation in European courts over whether users private data is adequately safeguarded when companies like Facebook move that information from Europe to the United States.

Facebook says that its users data is adequately protected, even in the face of sweeping U.S. surveillance programs, like the PRISM program revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden. It also says that European citizens can readily obtain remedies for illegal surveillance in U.S. courts. But those claims are hard to square with reality. As our ACLU colleague has explained in her expert report, this data is incredibly vulnerable to spying programs operated by the NSA and other U.S. intelligence agencies. Moreover, in practice, the millions of people affected by this spying have few (if any) effective remedies.

Given all weve learned in the past three years and given the dangerous spying powers wielded by our new president U.S. tech companies must continue their efforts to promote strong surveillance reforms.

Fridays hearing is part of what is known as the Schrems litigation a pair of cases brought in European courts following the revelations of NSA spying that began in June 2013. Those disclosures revealed a vast machinery of surveillance, such as the PRISM program operated under Section 702 of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which the government uses to target tens of thousands of non-U.S. citizens for surveillance with few restrictions. According to NSA documents, Facebook was one of the major internet companies compelled to turn over its users stored and real-time communications under PRISM.

The breadth of U.S. government spying is a problem for companies that want to move their users data from the European Union to the United States. The E.U. generally prohibits companies from transferring private data out of the E.U. unless that data will receive essentially equivalent protection at its destination. The Schrems cases have challenged various protocols that companies like Facebook have relied on to satisfy these legal obligations. The initial challenge concerned the so-called Safe Harbour arrangement, which was invalidated by the Court of Justice for the European Union on privacy grounds in 2015. The present case challenges a new set of protocols that some companies invoked in an attempt to meet E.U. privacy rules after that groundbreaking decision.

The legal issues before the Irish High Court are complex, but whats at stake is not. The case highlights just how easy it is for U.S. intelligence agencies to access Europeans data once it is transferred to the United States. And it highlights also just how few meaningful remedies are available in the United States to those who want to challenge NSA surveillance, whether they are Europeans or Americans. The fact that few individuals receive notice of surveillance, combined with the U.S. governments repeated use of standing doctrine and the state secrets privilege to block court review, has put redress almost entirely out of reach.

If the European courts ultimately conclude that the U.S. surveillance regime lacks essential protections for E.U. citizens, companies like Facebook may have more difficulty transferring their users private data to the United States at least until the U.S. adopts badly needed reforms to its surveillance laws.

There are several ways that tech companies could push for stronger protections for their users data in the face of U.S. government spying.

First and foremost, tech companies must actively lobby members of Congress to reform our surveillance laws especially Section 702, which is set to expire this year. Tech companies, including Facebook, make contributions to dozens of candidates for the House of Representatives and Senate, including politicians who haveintroduced anti-privacy measuresin the past orhave advocated for the resurrection of mass surveillance programs.The message to lawmakers should be clear: If they do not support pro-privacy policies, they should no longer expect to receive Facebook support. Surveillance reform must remain a high priority for tech companies.

Second, tech companies should continue to oppose efforts to expand U.S. surveillance powers or to weaken encryption. In the past, Facebook to its credit has challenged efforts to allow the FBI to collect sensitive information, like browsing history, without appropriate court process. In addition, Facebook has stated its opposition to backdoors in encrypted products.Tech companies should continue to resist, both publicly and in the face of any private pressure they receive from the Trump administration.

Third, tech companies should push back against unilateral efforts by the Trump administration to strip away privacy protections for immigrants and foreigners.For example, the Trump immigration executive order contained a provisionstripping anyone who is not a U.S. citizen or green card holder of certain protections under the Privacy Act.As a result, individuals around the world and many immigrants in the United States may now have their private information disseminated without appropriate safeguards.

Now that President Trump has the keys to the US surveillance state, its more important than ever that tech companies work with us in the fight for surveillance reform.

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The ACLU Is in Dublin, Ireland, Today Defending the Right to Privacy for Europeans and Americans Alike - ACLU (blog)

This Sunday, season four of John Olivers Last Week Tonight premieres. If the last three seasons were any indication, viewers can expect no deviation from the official party line by the establishments favorite comedy accomplice.

Lets just cut right to the chase. John Oliver is a charlatan who appears to be a rebellious liberal comedian speaking truth to power. In reality, he is a shameless shill for the ruling class in the United States.

Oliver, who hails from West Midlands, England, specializes in telling his liberal audience and those in the establishment exactly what they want to hear. He never genuinely challenges or questions the American power structure, thereby making him an agent of the status quo, which is why the media adores him.

In order to maintain most favored status among liberals, Oliver assails universally loathed entities, like FIFA, the NCAA, big tobacco or televangelists. Or hell investigate a wonky subject, like crumbling infrastructure, voter ID laws or reforming the bail system. While Oliver gets quite a lot of attention for these stories, they only generate heat, not light. Nothing changes as a result, not even popular opinion since Oliver is only preaching to the converted in the liberal echo chamber.

When it comes to potentially controversial topics, like the rare moments when he looks at the US political, military and media establishment, Oliver can be relied upon to give his sycophant fans the soft sell.

To date, there have been 250 segments among the 89 episodes of Last Week Tonight. In those segments, Oliver has scrutinized issues pertaining to the US military and foreign policy just 11 times, thats 4.4 percent. In contrast, the show has dedicated 14 or 5.6 percent of their segments to Russia, Putin and Russias foreign policy. And those numbers do not include the innumerable one-liners at Russias expense that Oliver scatters throughout various other segments. Putin is Olivers favorite comedy whipping boy.

Even when Oliver looks into issues like drones, torture, Guantanamo Bay or NSA spying, he does so with the gentlest of tones and the kindest of language. For example, in regards to drones he called U.S. strikes, which killed civilians, a little disturbing. At end of the segment he concluded that now might be the time to think about drones. So his scathing assessment of the drone program was that it might now rise to the level of thinking about? And I guess might was the operative word in his statement since Oliver has never returned to the topic.

Contrast this delicate approach to the U.S. with his scorched earth campaign against Putin, where Oliver leads a cacophony of establishment media voices preaching a Russian hysteria. Oliver has assured his audience, without any shred of proof, that the brutal Russian dictator shot down MH17, invaded Ukraine, committed war crimes in Syria, among a number of other totally wrong-headed accusations. Olivers stance on Russia is just as vacuous, assumption-filled and fact-free as the rest of the mainstream media. A braver comedian would challenge the current prevailing presumptions, but courage is obviously not John Olivers strong suit.

Even when Oliver is mildly critical of the U.S., like he was in his torture and Gitmo pieces, he deflects those American failures by pointing to other nations that he feels are much, much worse, like Russia, North Korea, Iran, and Sudan. He also avoids using moral and ethical frameworks to argue against alleged US failings, instead favoring arguments about image.

Olivers main thrust on torture was that it causes serious harm to Americas image. He had an entire segment titled The CIAs Public Image which dealt with how the CIA handles its social media. Of all the things to talk about regarding the CIA, their social media prowess seems to be the most frivolous, which is probably why Oliver chose it.

In Olivers interview with NSA chief Keith Alexander, an important part of the conversation was on the NSAs image and how to change it for the better, not on its Orwellian surveillance programs. When it comes to questioning the U.S. establishment, Oliver never dares to wander into the heart of the matter; he stays on the surface and stick to appearances.

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So the discussion with Keith Alexander was very enlightening when contrasted with Olivers interview with Edward Snowden. Watching the Alexander and Snowden interviews side by side, it is easy to see where Olivers loyalties lie. He uses the softest and most playful tone with Alexander, whereas he is extremely aggressive and nasty with Snowden.

The Snowden interview also reveals Olivers tactic of obfuscating uncomfortable issues. Oliver spends the first half of his Snowden segment making the story about how frightened he is to be in Russia. He is fearful because Snowden is late, the old KGB building is up the street and Russians are no doubt listening to his every word. You could come away from these bits thinking it is Russia thats been eavesdropping on the world and not the US. And that that seemed to be Olivers agenda with the Snowden interview, and many other segments: distract from US crimes by imagining foreign ones.

The cherry on top of the Snowden episode was when John Oliver actually blamed Edward Snowden for the major f*ck-up of the New York Times publishing information that allegedly named a secret agent and a target. In John Olivers world, the New York Times is sacrosanct and above blame, but that scoundrel Snowden makes for a convenient scapegoat.

Lies of omission are littered throughout Last Week Tonight episodes as well. When Oliver did a segment on Obamas visit to Saudi Arabia, he made the story about how rude the Saudis were to the president but gave no context at all. According to Oliver, the Saudis just randomly decided to hate Obama. Of course, the actual context is pretty important, since Obama went to Saudi Arabia to calm the royal family over the 9-11 lawsuits and the congressional bills opening up the Saudis to liabilities for the attacks. Why Oliver would ignore this is beyond me.

When Oliver doesnt ignore context is also revealing. In two segments on Ramzan Kadyrov, the Sunni strongman in Chechnya who had lost his cat, Oliver went to great lengths to emphasize Kadyrovs ties to Putin. He also spoke of Kadyrovs Wikipedia page, which has a section about his human rights abuses, and spoke of it as if it were some sort of smoking gun. This is curious, as there was no mention of human rights abuses when another group of despotic Sunni Muslims, the Saudis, were the topic. And the Saudis dont just have a section on their Wikipedia page about human rights abuses, they have a whole page dedicated to their human rights abuses! But Kadyrov is an enemy of the U.S. establishment and the Saudis are protected by it, so Oliver acted accordingly.

Read more

Oliver only uses context when it supports the official narrative, not when it undermines it. A case in point was his coverage of the protests in Brazil against the left-wing Workers Party government. Oliver made that story about left wing corruption in Brazil, and nothing more. A closer examination of those protests reveals that a major factor was class and race, with wealthy Whites protesting against the government and poor Black/Brown people protesting for it. Race and class would normally be things that someone like John Oliver, and his liberal audience, would focus on, he certainly would in relation to the Tea Party or Trump supporters here in the U.S. But in South America, the official U.S. narrative is left-wing, populist governments are no bueno, and so Oliver, whether it be in regards to Dilma Rousseff in Brazil or Rafael Correa in Ecuador, propagates that position.

In contrast to his coverage of Brazil, watch this segment on turmoil in another left-wing South American country, Venezuela. In it, Oliver opens with a news story that clearly defines the context of the protests, with the poor and working class on one side, and the military and police on the government side. Why clarify the struggle in Venezuela so distinctly but keep the Brazil situation murky at best? Because context in the Venezuela story supports the establishment media narrative that Oliver wants to sell, while undermining it in the Brazil story.

And finally, the most remarkable proof of Oliver being an establishment shill occurred on the season three finale. Oliver actually pleaded with his audience to subscribe to the New York Times and the Washington Post in order to counter Trump and 'fake news'. This was the first time John Oliver ever made me laugh out loud, as buying the Times and Post as an antidote to fake news is like treating obesity with a diet of pizza and ice cream.

It is too bad that Olivers insipidly predictable comedy and insidious support for all things establishment are so beloved by his minions. They obviously dont know it yet, but John Oliver isnt laughing with them, hes laughing at them, all the way to the bank.

Michael McCaffrey, for RT

Michael McCaffrey is a freelance writer, film critic and cultural commentator. He currently resides in Los Angeles where he runs his acting coaching and media consulting business.mpmacting.com/blog/

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

Original post:
Another season of John Oliver, shameless pro-establishment shill - RT

By Amber Loveshe

In December of 2016, I was given the honor of becoming the first female Illinois State Chair with Young Americans for Liberty. Little did I know at the time that it would become the best decision of my life. Having previously worked on two political campaigns, I had curiously admired the fact that YAL advocates for policy, not party. As Young Americans for Liberty president Cliff Maloney once phrased it, Politicians come and go,. By focusing on educating young voters on policy issues and mobilizing them to challenge current legislation, Young Americans for Liberty is prepping the future generations to change history, and words cannot express how thankful I am to be involved with their organization.

If youre not involved with Young Americans for Liberty, but are passionate about the liberty movement, youre doing something wrong. When YAL says their goal is to, identify, educate, train, and mobilize youth activists, they mean business. Since joining this team I have met students from across the nation who have rallied on their campuses against free speech codes violating their rights who have successfully changed policy. But its not just free speech activism, Young Americans for Liberty also advocates for criminal justice reform, a cause near to my heart as I pursue my degree in Criminal Justice. With their activism project, Incarceration Nation, YAL gives college chapters the resources to bring awareness on campus of the rising incarceration rates in the United States. Still other prominent issues YAL advocates for include reducing the federal deficit, ending NSA spying, and advocating for less war.

But perhaps my favorite part about Young Americans for Liberty is the amount of beneficial events they host for the students within the liberty network. Beginning Saturday, February 11th, 2017, Young Americans for Liberty will kick off their Spring Summit series in Chicago, IL. For one day, young activists from across the Midwestern region will gather at Loyola University Chicago to experience all that YAL has to offer. Congressman Thomas Massie, who made headlines this week for his motion to eliminate the Department of Education after DeVos nomination approval, will serve as the keynote speaker for the event. Cato Institute scholars will also be in attendance, debating the topic, Should You Be Able to Sell It. In addition to hearing from top names in the liberty movement, students will also have the opportunity to network with various organizations for jobs and internships in the future. With so many young leaders involved in YALs network, these organizations recognize that these students may be the next Ron Paul. These summits will also serve as an amazing opportunity to receive valuable training on how to engage in activism both on and off campus. This is a perfect opportunity for the millennial generation to gear up for the future of politics as we become the leaders of tomorrow.

While Im extremely grateful that this years first summit is happening in my backyard of Loyola University Chicago, have no fear if youre not as lucky. Upcoming summit dates include Los Angeles on March 4th, Boston on March 25th, Pittsburgh on April 1st, Denver on April 8th, and Atlanta on April 22nd. I highly recommend locking in your spot before its too late!

2017LibertyThomas MassieYALyoung americans for liberty

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Make Liberty Win in 2017 - The Libertarian Republic