Category Archives: Freedom

Social media activist Gul Bukhari speaks to the Associated Press in Lahore, Pakistan, on June 20, 2018. (K.M. Chaudary / AP Photo)

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IslamabadPakistans press, once a fertile breeding ground for reporters and activists, has become a graveyard of murdered careers. Such is the case of Asad Ali Toor, a journalist and vlogger based in the capital who is known as an outspoken critic of the military.

At around 11 pm on May 25just two weeks after the festival of Eid Al-FitrToor opened the door of his Islamabad apartment and found himself staring down the barrel of a gun. What followed, within moments, was a beating so severe that it left him flapping on the ground like a fish.

By the time they were done with me, he tells The Nation, I was so badly wounded that there were drops of blood falling from my fingertips. That was the most pain Ive ever felt in my life.

Toor says his attackers identified themselves as belonging to Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)Pakistans military intelligence agencyand forced him to chant slogans in support of the army, as well as others denouncing Israel, Afghanistan, and India. MORE FROM Hasan Ali

I couldnt understand how they expected me to speak with a rag in my mouth. All I could do was make silly sounds.

In spite of the traumaor perhaps because of ithe is keen to draw attention to the heroics of his snow-white cockatoo Barfi, who apparently had her wing broken while trying to defend him. The relief, however, is distinctly short-lived, and he quickly returns to the topic of press freedom. To be very honest, I dont see a ray of hope for the future. The establishment has become so powerful that there is nothing a few voices can do to disturb them.

The media landscape in Pakistan is notoriously complicated. Though there are more than 40 news channels on television and as many as 700 newspapers in print, the space for dissent is vanishingly small. The country ranks 145 out of 180 on the Global Press Freedom Index, and its prime minister, Imran Khan has just been named a predator by Reporters Without Borders. It is a climate that has become so unsafe for journalists that some have fled the country in terror.Current Issue

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One of those to have left is Gul Bukharia liberal commentator and social activist who used to write a regular column in the English-language press. Speaking to The Nation from London, where she has lived in exile since 2019, she gives a detailed account of her abduction in Lahore and the circumstances that forced her to leave the country. It is the first time she has spoken about the incident in public, and her thoughts are punctuated by chasms of silence.

I couldnt believe what was happening, she says, looking away. I thought I was going to be raped and killed.

On the night of June 5, 2018, while she was traveling to the studios of Waqt News, her car was intercepted by a cavalcade of trucks and forced off the road onto the pavement. When she came out to demand an explanation, she found herself surrounded by a dozen armed men, who violently bundled her into a car.

Bukhari believes these men were from ISI and had been sent to punish her for her views on the military. There is only one organization in Pakistan that has the power to abduct people in this way, she says.

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To stop her from screaming, one of her assailants started choking her and did not let go until she signaled her compliance. Her dupatta (shawl) was then used to tie up her hands and her eyes were covered with a dirty rag. They drove me around for an hour to disorient me and then took me to a safe house for an interrogation.

At the time of her kidnapping, Bukhari had emerged as one of the armys harshest critics. She had repeatedly condemned the armed forces for their incursion into politics and for committing human rights abuses against the Pashtuns, topics she claims made up the bulk of her interrogation.

Her high profile probably saved her life. News of her abduction went viral within minutes, and the pressure on her assailants became so strong that they were forced to take her back to her house.

My son was in his room. His friends had told him what had happened. He was very brave in that momentbut the effects of the trauma came out later.

For Taha Siddiqui, who survived an abduction attempt in January 2018, the trauma is something that never goes away. I had to go and see a psychologist because of all the flashbacks.

As the journalist responsible for investigating the armys extrajudicial killings in covert prisons, Siddiqui has often been accused of maligning the establishment. Like Bukhari, he too is living in exilein his case in Franceand the atmosphere he conjures when describing his life in Paris is one of suffocation, paranoia, and a perpetual sense of jeopardy.

In December 2018, while visiting Washington, D.C., for a conference, he claims to have been tipped offunder the Duty to Warn directiveby US Intelligence of a plot to kill him. From what I understood, they were spying in Islamabad when they came across this information, he says. They told me, Dont go to Pakistan because theyre gonna kill you for sure there; dont go to a Pakistan-friendly country because our assessment is that they might target you and be safe in Paris because anything can happen anywhere. In his hometown of Karachi, his parents still receive threatening phone calls and interrogatory visits.

The attacks on Siddiqui and Bukharispaced just six months aparttook place in a year of profound upheaval for the media. In the run-up to the general election of 2018, Pakistans biggest television network, Geo TV, was taken off the air on the orders of the military, allegedly because of the way it was covering the news. There then followed a brief period of negotiations that allowed Geo to return, but not before its management made a number of concessions. According to a source familiar with the terms of the settlement, the military and judiciary were not to be criticized; there was to be no reference to vote rigging or pre-poll manipulation; and all reporting on former prime minister Nawaz Sharif had to follow the narrative that he was guilty of corruption.

According to Asad Ali Toor, the capitulation of Geo management became a watershed moment. The establishment wasnt setting the boundaries for a single outlet; they were setting the boundaries for the entire media. The only journalists who were able to survive were the ones who agreed to follow these red lines.

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Certainly, it is difficult to argue with Toor when one considers the fate of those who rejected these commandments. In the past three years, the three big beasts of Pakistani journalismNajam Sethi, Hamid Mir, and Talat Hussainhave been taken off air and banned from working.

Talat Hussain was the first to go; he was removed from his job shortly after Imran Khan came to power, apparently because of pressure from the military establishment. We have dealt with fairly tyrannical regimes that were elected and dealt in repression, but it was episodic, he told The New York Times last year. This time it is structural and complete, and its hard to breathe.

In the case of Najam Sethi, exclusion was inevitable. Known for his wit and political wisdom and for the anonymous sources he likes to call his little birds, he was responsible for pioneering a pedagogic form of talk show in which he would tutor his cohostand by extension the audienceon how to interpret the news of the day. My problem was that I was being asked the question of why things were happening. Now my view was that they were happening because of the intervention of the military. I couldnt analyze anything without making reference to the powers that be.

The choice for Sethi, then, was simple: fall in line or fall out with the establishment. He chose the latter, and had his show suspended by the management of his channel.

Hamid Mir, who still carries two bullets inside his body from a failed assassination attempt in 2014, managed to stay in his job for a little while longer, despite walking out on the broadcast of the 2018 general election. In a free and fair election, Imran Khan would never have become prime minister, he tells the Nation. The whole thing was rigged, and I wasnt allowed to cover it.

Since May 28, when he gave a speech condemning the attack on Asad Toor and threatened to expose the secrets of the military, he hasnt been able to cover anything at all. I am living proof of censorship in Pakistan, he says.

To counter the censorship being imposed by the military, several prominent journalists have started broadcasting on YouTubebut this avenue is also on the verge of being closed. The government is proposing a measure to make the freedom to publish on social media contingent on obtaining a license from the state. If passed, the Pakistan Media Regularity Authority ordinance would be the latest in a long series that have been used to put limits on freedom of expression. Raza Rumi, who directs the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College, attributes this suppression to the nature of the Pakistani state. You have to remember that this is a postcolonial state with the same attitude towards the press as the British Raj, which saw it as some kind of threat to security.

In fact, by making freedom of the press conditional on maintaining the glory of Islam and the integrity, security, or defense of the country, even the Pakistani Constitution restricts the medias ability to report. In the opinion of journalist and civil rights campaigner Munizae Jahangir, these constitutional restrictions make it difficult for the media to speak truth to power. You cannot critique the armed forces when, unfortunately, they have been at the heart of politics in Pakistan and the main decision-makers for most of our lives.

For Najam Sethi, who has just returned to the airwaves after a protracted absence, the situation in Pakistan is part of a worldwide phenomenon. Now that the media via technology is open to globalization and to completely new populist impulses, the urgent need of establishments everywhere to hide whatever they are doing has never been so ubiquitous. Whether its America or Pakistan, or anywhere else, laws are changing to manage the media in democracies and to control the media in autocracies.

The implications for Pakistan, however, are more serious than for most others. That is the view of reporter Azaz Syed, who thinks that future generations will suffer the consequences of this crackdown. When theres an entire era in which you havent told the truthits like youve distorted history, he tells The Nation. If you murder critical thinking in a society, it means you end up with a country thats only raising soldiers, people who only know how to follow instructions.

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Inside the Fight for Press Freedom in Pakistan - The Nation

The CW has created a new initiative, called Freedom To Vote, to both protect eligible voters and combat voter suppression in upcoming elections.

Announced on the 56th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by The CWs Mark Pedowitz, Freedom to Vote expands on the networks 2020 voting campaign Vote Actually, which helped encourage young people to cast their votes in local and national elections. The CW has partnered with Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law and Vote.org for the new voting initiative.

Also teaming up with The CW for the latest campaign are some of the networks most notable stars. The Flashs Grant Gustin, Stargirls Brec Bassinger, Kung Fus Olivia Liang, Dynastys Sam Adegoke and Liz Gilles are among the The CW faces lending their voice to the multiplatform campaign, which launches today. Additional participating talent are Tala Ashe, Coby Bell, Kaylee Bryant, Melonie Diaz, Camrus Johnson, Nicole Kang, Jeanine Mason, Perry Mattfeld, Kennedy McMann, Candice Patton, Danielle Rose Russell, Azie Tesfai, Elizabeth Tulloch, Anjelika Washington and Karimah Westbrook.

The star-studded PSAs will be broadcast during the networks primetime lineup, across the CWs digital platforms and social media outlets.

Voting is the very foundation of our democracy. We all deserve the right to vote, and the right to fair access to cast those votes safely and securely. The CW has an opportunity and a responsibility to engage our multi-platform audience in the efforts of our esteemed partners to encourage leaders in Washington and around the country to protect and strengthen the freedom to vote, said Pedowitz. Last year, we were so incredibly proud to have contributed in some way to getting more young people than ever to vote in the 2020 presidential election through our Vote Actually campaign. Now, through our Freedom to Vote initiative, we want to make sure that those young voters,and every one of the240 million eligible voters, can continue to be able to make their voices heard in future national, state and local elections.

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The CW Launches Freedom To Vote Initiative To Combat Voter Suppression - Deadline

Rahul Gandhi's photo with the parents of a 9-year-old rape victim was taken down by Twitter. (File)

After Rahul Gandhi's account was temporarily suspended and a tweet deleted, the Congress on Monday accused Twitter of adopting "double standards" and violating the freedom of expression "under the diktat of the Modi Government".

The action by Twitter was condemned at a meeting of party general secretaries on Sunday evening, where the leaders decided to take up this matter at all levels.

Congress general secretary, Organisation, K C Venugopal said the issue of temporary suspension of Rahul Gandhi's Twitter account was discussed at the meeting of general secretaries, in-charges and PCC presidents.

The party also claimed that the Twitter handle of INC-TV was also suspended this morning.

"The atrocious stance is nothing but another instance of anti-SC and anti-women mindset and inherent prejudice of the Modi Government as also a violation of freedom of expression by the Twitter India under the diktat of Modi Government. All present universally condemned this prejudicial mindset of BJP and decided to take up this matter at all levels," he said in a statement later.

The opposition party had on Sunday alleged that Twitter acted in haste due to "pressure" from the Indian government and was "selective" in removing Rahul Gandhi's tweet and "suspending" his account for putting up pictures of the nine-year-old Dalit rape victim's family after he met them in Delhi as no action was taken against some other handles which carried the similar pictures.

"The double standard of Twitter is too obvious as statutory commissions, BJP leaders and those holding statutory offices had put up similar pictures on Twitter on 2nd and 3rd August, two days before Rahulji's visit," Mr Venugopal said on Monday.

The Congress leader said it was resolved that we will continue the fight undeterred until securing justice for the family.

"Instead of curtailing atrocities against Dalits across the country, the prime minister and the government are up to suppress the voice of leaders like Rahul Gandhi who are in the forefront to fight for justice," he said.

The Indian Youth Congress also staged a protest in the national capital against Twitter India for blocking Rahul Gandhi's account.

"The double standards of Twitter India continue. Even as accounts raising a voice for justice continue getting blocked, Twitter handles related to the govt like @NCSC_GoI & @anjubalabjp face no action for posting the same images," the Congress said on its official Twitter handle.

Remember, truth and justice always prevail," the party said while showing a picture of the blocked account of INC-TV.

"To Twitter India, we say, ''Daro Mat''," the Congress tweeted on Sunday with an image alleging that the PM Modi government is "intimidating" Twitter to lock Rahul Gandhi's account "for demanding justice for Delhi rape victim".

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

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"Double Standards": Congress Accuses Twitter Of Violating Freedom Of Expression - NDTV

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Some of the worlds fittest athletes share their WHOOP heart rate, HRV, strain, and recovery data from the 2021 CrossFit Games.

CrossFit legend Rich Froning, the first four-time Fittest Man on Earth, is now a five-time team champion as well. His Mayhem Freedom squad just completed one of the most dominating showings in the history of the CrossFit Games. Additionally, fellow Mayhem athlete Haley Adams was the number one American in the womens individual competition as she posted her second consecutive top-five finish.

Below we explore some of the WHOOP data behind their epic performances.

The day before the Games began, Haley Adams awoke with a green WHOOPrecoveryof 74%. Herheart rate variability(HRV) was 112 milliseconds, and herresting heart rate(RHR) was 48 beats per minute. Her body was in great shape to take on the worlds best.

Haleys daystrainon the eve of the Games was also only 5.9 on our 0-21 scale, meaning she took great strides to give her body adequate rest heading into four days of intense competition.

Her top event finish was on Day 2, in which she took second place in the handstand walk obstacle course. Check out this WHOOP Live video featuring her real-time heart rate:

Haleys overall strain that day was 17.4. By the next morning, the immense workload was clearly starting to take its toll. Haleys recovery on Day 3 was just 19%, her HRV dropped to 67, and her RHR rose to 60 bpm.

However, despite a 18.9 strain on Day 3, Haleys metrics rebounded for the last day of the Games. On Day 4 she was 68% recovered, her HRV was back up to 96, and her RHR dipped to 58 bpm.

A 4th-place effort in the final event helped Haley finish among the 5 fittest women on the planet for the second year in a row.

In winning a record fifth team championship, the members of Mayhem Freedom (Rich Froning, Chase Hill, Andrea Nisler, and Taylor Williamson) accomplished a number of other CrossFit Games first as well.

On Day 1, Mayhem Freedom won all 4 events, the only squad ever to do that. Collectively the team members average recovery that morning was in the green at 67%. They averaged an 18.0 day strain, and to no surprise their spectacular achievements had a huge impact on their WHOOP stats the following morning.

For Day 2, their average HRV slipped from 110 to 76, and recovery was nearly in the red at 34%.

An average strain of only 15.7 on Day 2 helped boost the teams recovery to 47% for Day 3, and it stayed there for Day 4.

Mayhem Freedom continued to break records, winning 8 of the Games 13 total events and capturing the title by 219 points, the greatest-ever margin of victory over a second-place finisher.

On the Monday following the completion of the Games, the Mayhem Freedom teammates WHOOP numbers were indicative of pushing themselves to the limits for four straight days, and potentially enjoying some quality time to celebrate afterwards.

Their average HRV was down to 60, while resting heart rate (49 bpm on Day 1) was up to 56 bpm. Combined with just a 66% sleep performance (average of 5 hours and 54 minutes), and the teams recovery the day after winning the CrossFit Games was a well-earned 20%.

Start tracking your sleep and recovery like Haley Adams and Mayhem Freedom with afree WHOOP strap 3.0.

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CrossFit Games Heart Rate Data from Haley Adams and Team Mayhem Freedom - Morning Chalk Up

LCS 21 (Minneapolis-Saint Paul) Christening and Launch on June 15, 2019.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. The Navy is putting Littoral Combat Ship Minneapolis-Saint Paul (LCS-21) back together after completing a repair to beef up the complicated gearing mechanism that links the ships gas turbines to its diesel engines, service officials told USNI News on Monday.

In January, the Navy stopped taking delivery of the Freedom-class from Lockheed Martin after determining the RENK AG-built combining gear was under-engineered following a string of high-profile failures. In total, 13 Freedom-class LCS require the fix to the complicated gearing mechanism deep in the heart of the hulls.

The ships affected are now restricted by Naval Sea Systems Command to using either the ships diesel engines or its MT-30 gas turbines, but not both keeping the ships from their 40 knot top speed.

The Navy, Lockheed Martin and RENK AG tested a fix for the gearing in March in Germany and are finalizing the repairs on Minneapolis-Saint Paul at Escanaba. Mich., where the ship was taken to free up space at Fincantieri Marinette Marine in Wisconsin.

Its a very complex fix to replace the bearings on the combining gear. Its a very tight space, theres a lot of interferences that have to be removed, said LCS deputy program manager Howard Berkof on Monday. We completed that, were in the process of putting the ship back together and we will conduct at-sea testing of LCS 21 in the September timeframe.

The Navy, RENK and Lockheed Marin have devised three ways to potentially repair the gear. One requires a hull cut in the middle of the ship, while a second unvalidated repair replaces the bearings without removing the gear. The third, which was used on Minneapolis-Saint Paul, involved dropping the gear to the mission bay where the ships small boats will reside and removing the gear through the door in the aft of the hull, officials told USNI News.

The next steps will be to test the fix in the Great Lakes by putting the repaired gear through a series of elaborate propulsion drills for both Minneapolis-Saint Paul and under-construction USS Cooperstown (LCS-23). The goal would be to validate the repair on both ships and leave the Great Lakes before the path to the Atlantic freezes.

We expect to validate the combininggear year effects at sea and at which point we will continue to implement with providing our fix across new construction and in-service ships in that, that those details are still being worked, Berkof said.

The repairs will be included in the under-construction USS Marinette (LCS-25), USS Nantucket (LCS-27)

Beloit (LCS-29), thefinal Freedom-class ship, USS Cleveland (LCS-31), will be outfitted with a fully corrected combining gear.

How the rest of the fleet of Freedoms will be repaired and who will pay for it is still an open question. The complexity of the repair, as currently devised, will take years to trickle into ships already in the fleet, Berkof said.

While the contract repair for the yet-to-be-deployed ships has been determined, the Navy and Lockheed Martin are still negotiating how the fixes will happen and how they will be paid for, he said.

The two Freedoms not affected by the NAVSEA restrictions are USS Freedom (LCS-1) and USS Fort Worth (LCS-3). The two original hulls were built with a different mechanism, built by U.S. company Philadelphia Gear, to join their turbines and diesels.

The Navy has asked to decommission both ships, with Freedom slated to leave the fleet in September.

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Navy Will Test Freedom-class LCS Gear Fix Next Month; Years Before Repair Reaches Rest of Fleet - USNI News - USNI News

The saying, Everything in moderation, including moderation, has taken on new meaning since Facebook outsourced responsibility for content moderation to its Oversight Board following the violenteventsthat occurred at the United States Capitol back onJan. 6, 2021. First conceived in November 2018 as Facebooks Supreme Court for public appeals, the social media giants Oversight Board was officially enacted on Oct. 22, 2020.

In its time since, the Oversight Board has overturned many of Facebooks own decisions on what is and is not free speech. Some of the boards rulings include overturning decisions meant to limit hate speech and false pandemic claims. While this all sounds quite formal and matter-of-fact, nuance lurks beneath the surface.

In 2016, an internal Facebook presentation claimed that 64% of all extremist group joins are due to our recommendation tools. Two years later, another Facebook presentation confirmed that their algorithms exploit the human brains attraction to divisiveness. If Facebooks own research indicated valid, science-based reasons for reform, why outsource the responsibility to a new independent legal structure in the first place?

Related: Social media giants must decentralize the internet... Now!

While it is not my job to wade into the politics of what happened, Facebook should be responsible for developing content recommendation and moderation strategies that do not exacerbate political polarization for profit.

For example, last month Facebook issued a haphazard attempt to model community moderation after Nextdoor, the controversial neighborhood app. While Nextdoor has had fewer moderation problems than Facebook globally, its ongoing localized issues with misinformation, in-fighting and accusations of biased community moderators still set a low bar for private group moderation as a whole. This borrowed band-aid needs serious reconsideration.

In terms of content moderation, Reddit represents a step in the right direction by using a community-based upvote/downvote system on fora like r/wallstreetbets. Reddit CEO Steve Huffman claims that Reddits moderation system has not seen any nefarious behavior take place in r/wallstreetbets, showing the power of community action.

Related: Robinhood and GameStop proved we need a new financial system

Despite presenting a content moderation system thats slightly better than that of Facebook, the centralized nature of Reddit still poses a threat to open discourse and the marketplace of ideas. As a result of centralization, Reddit communities are not entirely self-governed or self-regulated. This means that practices such as shadow banning may occur, which can be seen as blatant violations of free speech in certain circumstances.

The new era of social media platforms must uphold the values of decentralization, democratization and transparency all of which are the driving forces behind crypto. Embodying these values, crypto social applications present a powerful alternative to Facebook and Reddit by enabling decentralized decision-making, where no authority can reign supreme and where blind trust is not a prerequisite for participation. They are designed by open-source communities around the globe to improve the status quo for the purpose of social good. These crypto social applications rely on bottom-up and middle-out governance instead of Facebooks top-down hierarchical power structures. And they do it in the name of crypto social justice.

Related: Is a new decentralized internet, or Web 3.0, possible?

Based on public blockchain technologies, these crypto social applications empower a new era of dont trust, verify and provide a practical way to do so. Examples of crypto social organizing include decentralized autonomous organizations, or DAOs. These headless organizations operate based on community-derived rules that are employed to vote new features and functionality in and out of use.

Many DAOs feature governance tokens which give DAO members financial incentives to vote on proposed actions. Voting is done by staking your financial claim to a proposed action. If the action passes, the new feature is implemented by the community. If the action fails, staked governance tokens are returned to DAO members. However, if a member acts in a way that breaks the community-set rules, their governance tokens are slashed and voided from having any financial or functional value. These are the basic rules of financially incentivized DAOs. Ideally, some of the same DAO mechanics can be used for content moderation more broadly.

Related: Decentralized technology can help protect democracy around the globe

Along with DAOs, another solution to problematic moderation practices can be found in content creation platforms decentralized, user-owned, crypto-based networks. By joining such platforms, users become their co-owners. This means that the power rests in the hands of consumers as opposed to an out-of-touch corporate board, thus better upholding the rights and responsibilities of the community.

Critically, crypto does not solve all the problems that content moderation has experienced historically. What it provides is a technological basis with which community mechanics can be organized from a bottom-up and middle-out perspective that empowers free speech in safe ways.

Related: Social applications are the next big trend in crypto

While the onboarding process to participate in DAOs has been historically difficult, there are new crypto social applications that seamlessly streamline the experience to improve accessibility. Moreover, by equipping users with pseudonymous usernames, these new onramps can cut off unproductive ad hominem attacks at the source, providing fairer opportunities for all.

Giving people the tools they need to interact civilly and productively opens up opportunities for online inspiration and collaboration. Designing these tools together is what makes DAOs and crypto social both uniquely powerful and just.

In an October speech of 2019 at Georgetown University, Mark Zuckerberg said:You cant impose tolerance top-down. It has to come from people opening up, sharing experiences, and developing a shared story for society that we all feel were a part of. Thats how we make progress together.He was right, but for the wrong reasons. Crypto social applications can help right those wrongs.

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Jonathan Zerah joined Status Network, an encrypted messenger, in 2017 to lead marketing and communications, spearheading the messengers Web 3.0 ecosystem and the challenges it faces in marketing. Before Status, he worked at leading digital agencies crafting campaigns, activations and building digital products for global companies including Nike, Samsung, Audi and Google.

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Crypto social governance will lead to online freedom - Cointelegraph

WASHINGTON Sadly, we are approaching a time in America during which our elected public officials will assault the liberties we have hired them to protect. Whatever the cause, the government will soon blame its failures to contain a virus on a small portion of the population and then impose restrictions on the inalienable rights of all of us.

We cannot permit this to happen again.

During the Civil War, when President Abraham Lincoln thought it expedient to silence those in the northern states who challenged his wartime decisions by incarcerating them in military prisons, he was rebuked afterward by a unanimous Supreme Court. The essence of the rebuke was that no matter the state of difficulties whether war or pestilence the Constitution protects our natural rights, and its provisions are to be upheld when they pinch as well as when they comfort, in good times and in bad.

Whether COVID-19 is coming back or not, our central planners have panicked. We do not have a free market in the U.S. in the delivery of health care; rather, we have thousands of pages of statutes, regulations and controls at the federal, state and local levels.

Those controls were revealed as manifestly deficient the last time around. The feds were so protective of their control of health care an area of governance that the Supreme Court has ruled is nowhere delegated to them in the Constitution and, but for their power to tax those who defy them, is nonexistent that they insisted that only the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta could be trusted to test for the virus.

It took weeks of begging by governors and mayors and health care professionals for the feds to relent. Of course, once they acknowledged that labs throughout the country were as competent as theirs, they realized that their incompetence had deprived all physicians as well as most private sector and state government-owned labs of the test kits themselves.

We all know how central economic planning diminishes freedom, produces scarcity and adds to the cost of products. Now we know that central micromanagement of health care kills people.

But these mayors and governors were not to be outdone by the feds in their totalitarian impulses. Many of them issued decrees that are as profoundly unconstitutional as Lincolns efforts to silence dissent.

They ordered the closing of most businesses and nearly all retail establishments. They acted as if they, and not we, owned our faces. They shuttered religious institutions. It took a year for the courts to interfere partially with this madness.

The fulfillment of these totalitarian impulses put millions out of work, closed and destroyed thousands of businesses and impaired the fundamental rights of tens of millions all in violation of numerous sections of the Constitution that the totalitarians swore to uphold.

And now they are threatening to do this again.

The Contracts Clause of the Constitution prohibits the states from interfering with lawful contracts, such as leases and employment agreements. The Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment prohibits the states from interfering with life, liberty or property without a trial at which the state must prove fault. The Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment requires just compensation when the state meaningfully interferes with an owners chosen lawful use of his property.

Taken together, these clauses reveal significant protections of private property in the Constitution. Add to this the threat of punishment that accompanied these decrees and the fact that they were executive decrees, not legislation, and one can see the paramount rejection of basic democratic and constitutional principles in the minds and words and deeds of those who have perpetrated them.

Add to all this the protection in the First Amendment of the rights to worship and associate, and elsewhere the judicially recognized right to travel, and it is clear that these nanny state rules were profoundly unconstitutional, indisputably unlawful and utterly unworthy of respect or compliance.

Why is this happening again?

Throughout history, free people have been willing to accept the devils bargain of trading liberty for safety when they are fearful. We supinely accept the shallow and hollow offers of government that somehow less liberty equals more safety. It doesnt. This is the governments dream dominance without resistance.

This happened here with the Alien and Sedition Acts in the 1790s when the Federalists feared a second revolution and punished speech critical of them, during the Civil War when Lincoln feared dissent and Congress feared defeat and they locked up innocents, during World War I when President Woodrow Wilson punished the speech he hated and feared, and during the Great Depression when President Franklin D. Roosevelt feared economic calamity and seized property without compensation. And, after 9/11, fearing another attack, Congress secretly crafted the Patriot Acts circumvention of the Fourth Amendment and authorized the creation of the total surveillance state.

Of course, just one year ago, we free people were all in lockdown a word used to describe confining prisoners to their cells.

This sordid history came about when the public was fearful of the unknown and trustful of the governments bargain. But the liberty that was sacrificed for the safety that was promised is being taken away again.

Liberty is natural and personal. You can sacrifice yours, but you cannot sacrifice mine. Thus, personal liberty the Declaration of Independence calls our rights inalienable, and the Ninth Amendment reflects freedoms nature as limitless is insulated from totalitarian and even majoritarian interference.

Today, the fear of contagion again gives government cover for its assaults on freedom and poses a question the government does not want to answer: If liberty can be taken away in times of crisis, is it really liberty; or is it just a license, via a temporary government permission slip, subject to the whims of the politicians in power?

We cannot permit this to happen again.

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Freedom in the coming time of madness | News, Sports, Jobs - Escanaba Daily Press

The Beyond the Bridge Freedom Festival will be held this weekend.

The event starts at 10 a.m. Saturday and ends at 3 p.m. Admission is free and will be held on Washington Street, Water Avenue, Selma Avenue Alabama Avenue and Franklin Street.

The event was scheduled for Junteenth under the name Junteenth Freedom Fest, but it got postponed because of weather.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 will be a big part of Beyond the Bridge

Beyond the Bridge Freedom Fest is hosted by TRHT Selma in partnership with the Selma Center for Nonviolence and Black Belt Community Foundation, the City of Selma and Selma City Schools.

Co-hosts Collins Pettaway III and Lydia Chatmon will be among the speakers.

Pettaway said hes looking forward to the event.

This is an excellent opportunity to bring the community out to not only commemorate a momentous occasion, but to bring together people from all walks of life to simply have a great time, Pettaway said.

Chatmon said its an honor to participate in the event.

We are excited to share resources and information with families from across the Black Belt as we honor the signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and promote the importance of education, Chatmon said.

Eric Marable Jr. and Jahman Ariel Hill,, co-executive directors of The Flourish, Inc.are also scheduled to speak.

A health village will be part of the festival, with free health screenings, healthy snacks, preventive care resources and COVID vaccines. All are free.

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Beyond the Bridge Freedom festival will be held on Saturday - The Selma TimesJournal - Selma Times-Journal

Steve Bates drove from Northbrook to Forest Park on July 10 to attend a vanlife roundup, convened by Scott Watson.

Bates, a former Forest Park resident, explained that a roundup is a meeting attended by those interested in buying a vehicle, like his 21-foot 2019 Winnebago Travato GL self-contained camper van, and in hearing about his nomadic journey, which began in February 2019. Since then he has visited 40 states, lived in his van, and worked full time online from almost anywhere that has access to Wi-Fi.

The eight people from all over the Chicago Metro area attending the roundup had all caught the vanlife bug and were at various stages of turning their fantasies into reality. Bates, for example, had been a tent camper for many years but at this stage of life was interested in transitioning to something more comfortable.

Last winter he rented what is called a teardrop because of its profile a 4-by-4-foot camper trailer and headed out to Yellowstone National Park. He laughed as he reported that it snowed while he was there. Those camping in tents wished they had even a small camper like mine, he said, while I wished that I had a bigger camper like the van Scott has.

Seated around the table at Louies was the whole spectrum of vanlife enthusiasts. A woman named Deborah had just started exploring the possibility of buying a van while a man named Greg already owned a van similar to Watsons Winnebago. JB and Christine presently have a Winnebago Solis with a pop top roof and are thinking about upgrading.

The roundup turned out to be less a lecture by Watson and more of a seminar with all of the attendees chipping in their insights.

Many were interested in Watsons model of working while on the road, which required the nomad to have a job that can be done online. Suma couldnt do that because she is a veterinarian.

Two participants reported that hospitals tend to be short of nurses and will agree to commitments as short as three months, and that some even have electrical hookups in their parking lots to accommodate people living in campers. When Suma brought up the challenge of licensing in different states, she learned there are third-party companies that can do it for you.

Bates mentioned that on his recent trip to Yellowstone, it seemed like every business had a now hiring sign in its window.

Regarding electrical power, Watson raved about the ability of lithium batteries to hold a charge. Campgrounds like KOA have hookups but charge something like $30 a night to park. In addition, some campgrounds dont allow generators to run after a certain time in the evening. Malcom Smith was interested in buying a piece of land somewhere off the grid and parking a van or trailer there for long periods of time, so he asked questions about solar power.

There are campgrounds, of course, but at $30 a night the cost can mount up. Some towns allow parking on the street while others, like every municipality in Michigan, will give you a ticket.

With freedom come periods of being alone. Watsons solution is to be outgoing. When he parks in a campground, he immediately gets to know his neighbors, and discovers right away that they have vanlife or a variant thereof in common. When visiting a town, he introduces himself to the people in the diner or gas station or library and has learned that many locals like sharing their stories and show interest in his lifestyle.

As it turns out, there is a whole online community of vanlife enthusiasts which can be plugged into. Watson posts two stories a week on his website, Go Small. Live Large! and on YouTube under the same name. The subtitle on the website explains the content: Sharing stories about interesting places, fascinating people, Vanlife in a Travato GL, and working as a digital nomad.

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Living the fantasy of freedom on the open road - Forest Park Review

Yes, Taiwan will fight

Donald Trump was never pro-Taiwan. What I mean by that is that he never saw the nation as an asset in our struggle with China.

Some believe that Taiwan is a liability for America. They fear that China will inevitably swallow the democratic island of 24 million people by force, and that while the United States should try to deter such a calamity, there is no need to risk World War III by fighting the Chinese over an island in their backyard.

The pro-Taiwan camp differs. It holds that Taiwan puts the lie to the entire reason for existence of the Chinese Community Party (CCP). The CCP says the Chinese people need the iron fist of the Party to stave off the chaos and the humiliation at the hands of foreigners that marked Chinas chaotic modern history. In Taiwan, ethnically Chinese people live in freedom, govern themselves democratically, and have the rule of law. Theyre also better off economically: according to the Central Intelligence Agency, Taiwan has a per capita income of $24,502, compared to $16,117 for China.

To put it another way, the pro-Taiwan crowd sees the country as an invaluable political warfare tool in the Free Worlds struggle with Beijing. Knowledge of Taiwans success is one of several factors eroding support for the CCP, and the CCP knows it.

But Trump didnt. To his credit, he eventually had some political appointees beneath him who were very pro-Taiwan. This feature may have been unintentional, given Trumps galactic incompetence with personnelan eighth wonder of the world. But it worked out for Taiwan. Trumps secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, gave strong verbal support to Taiwan, approved several arms packages for the country, including new F-16 fighters, and sent his under secretary to visit the nation. He also dropped pointless and insulting curbs on diplomatic engagement with Taiwan that had often led U.S. and Taiwanese officials to meet in coffee shops. Pompeo was also tougher on China than any secretary of state since John Foster Dulles, if not ever. Pompeo heralded an end to blind engagement of Beijing and condemned Chinas military aggression and human rights abuses.

But the rub for Trump was a belief that Taiwan wouldnt fight in a war, at least not for long. An interesting feature of Washingtons feckless national security establishment has been a stark shift in views on China, from a belief that its threat to Taiwan was overblown to an assumption that it will eventually conquer the island. In part because of a lack of communication between top levels of both nations militaries (in contravention of law), and thanks to decades of pre-Trump neglect of getting adequate U.S.-made arms to Taiwan, there is a view that the country would fold rapidly in a conflict with China. If we wake up one Sunday to learn that China has plastered Taiwan with hundreds of conventional missiles, with paratroopers presumably on the way, and the Chinese navy dominating the Taiwan Strait, will the Taiwanese even hold out long enough for Washington to marshal its too-few ships and aircraft in the Pacific for a fight?

I think they will.

First, there is the political angle. While the Free World lost Hong Kong to the CCP, its people, who struggle on through more subdued means, did not lose their freedom in vain. Supposedly concerned only about money, the people of Hong Kong, through protest and resistance, showed that free ethnically Chinese people will not surrender their freedom without a fight. While this now seems obvious, it was in doubt before Hong Kongs Umbrella Movement in 2014 and much broader protests of 2019 and 2020. This sentiment was echoed on Taiwan, where the tough-on-Beijing ruling party and president achieved resounding success in 2020 elections and relegated to a fringe the old voices that still entertained union with China under the CCP.

Then there is the military angle. Under Trump, officials at the State Department, National Security Council, and Pentagon accelerated quick, simpler arms sales to Taipei, which in turn increased its defense spending. They set aside costly options like the F-35 fighter, and instead moved pragmatic aircraft and other weapons like tanks, drones, missiles, and missile-defense systems to the countryall paid for by Taiwan. Just this week, the Biden administration continued the trend by notifying Congress it intended to export M109 self-propelled howitzers to Taiwan. The country is developing its own electric submarine, which could help the U.S. Navy and Air Force sink a Chinese invasion force.

Taiwan can hold out, given it has the both the political will and military means to fight for its freedom. Beijing likely suspects this, and should understand that the risks it would face in attacking Taiwan are too great, especially since failure would destabilize the Chinese government.

Washington could make the world a safer place by acknowledging this reality as well, and dispensing with the defeatist, pessimistic view of Taiwan. Furthermore, it is negligent that our two militaries do not drill together and have a unified military command, ideally with Japan involved as well. By taking these steps, Taiwan can be an even greater asset in our deterrence of China and struggle against CCP aggression.

Christian Whiton, a senior fellow at the Center for the National Interest, is the author ofSmart Power: Between Diplomacy and War. He was a State Department senior advisor during the George W. Bush and Trump administrations.

Image: Reuters.

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Taiwan Will Fight China in a War For Its Freedom - The National Interest