Category Archives: Transhuman News

Censorship (Madison Star Moon)
Madison Star Moon Sonny Cardona discuss bans, blocks, censorship, and chemtrails.

By: Madisonstar Moon

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Censorship (Madison Star Moon) - Video

President Obama has called outSony for craven censorship on a daythe Federal Bureau of Investigation formally announced that North Korea was behind the hacking of Sony Corp.

In a statement the FBI said that it has enough information to conclude that the North Korean government is responsible for these actions.

The bureau said that its investigation revealed links to other malware that it knows North Korean actors have used previously developed; that there was an observed significant overlap between the infrastructure used in this attack and other malicious cyber activity the government has previously linked directly to North Korea, and that the tools used in the Sony attack have similarities to a cyber attack in March of last year against South Korean banks and media outlets, which was carried out by North Korea.

We are deeply concerned about the destructive nature of this attack on a private sector entity and the ordinary citizens who worked there the FBI said in a statement. Such acts of intimidation fall outside the bounds of acceptable state behavior. The FBI takes seriously any attemptwhether through cyber-enabled means, threats of violence, or otherwiseto undermine the economic and social prosperity of our citizens.

At apress conferenceat the White House, President Obama didnt mince his words when it came to Sonys decision to pull the movie from cinemas, a move he called a mistake.

We cannot have a society in which some dictator some place can start imposing censorship here in the United States, the Commander in Chief said, while noting he was sympathetic on the circumstances Sony is facing.

Imagine if producers and distributors and others start engaging in self-censorship because they dont want to offend the sensibilities of somebody whose sensibilities probably need to be offended.

He added that the Government was considering a proportional response.

Sony responded to the Presidents remarks stating that he was mistaken in blaming the company, and instead pointed the finger at movie chains.

The movie theaters came to us one by one over the course of a very short period of time and announced that they would not carry the movie,Michael Lynton, CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment said. At that point in time, we had not alternative to proceed with the theatrical release.

More here:
Cyberwar: Obama calls out Sony as FBI confirms North Korea was behind hack

Sonysdecision to pull The Interviewoff its release schedule in order to meet North Korean cyber terrorists demands isnt an isolated case of Hollywood caving into foreign censorship. In fact, the film industry has been plagued by foreign censors asearly as 1914 when the U.S. seized prints of the epic movie1776over its offense to the British, going so far to imprison the films director. Even as recently as 2006 former President Bill Clinton and members of his administration denounced the ABC miniseriesThe Path to 911, as it portrayed the presidential cabinet as inept regarding itsdecision to stand down against 9/11 architect Osama Bin Laden.In a special column to Deadline, filmmaker Ron Maxwell, who has directed the Civil War moviesGettysburg, Gods & GeneralsandCopperhead, details Hollywoods tarnished history in curbing artistic freedom and truth itself.

It is with a sense of deja vu that we watch the spectacle of threats, cowardice and censorship on display at SONY PICTURES. Yes, theres nothing new under the sun.

Political censorship, blackmail and intimidation is as old as civilization and already has a well pedigreed history in Hollywood. The examples are so rife it would take a shelf full of books to expose the whole sorry litany.

Theres the grim, absurd tale of the epic movie 1776, produced in 1914. Only because the bad guys of this movie are British, the US government seized the prints, prevented the movies release and arrested the director. Yes, you read that right. The director of the movie spent the duration of World War One in prison accused and convicted of sedition, because his patriotic film was deemed to undermine the war effort against the evil Germans.

Then theres the deplorable record of intimidation, acquiescence, self-censorship and outright censorship in the Thirties, when a high-ranking Nazi official well ensconced in Hollywood regularly communicated with the studio chiefs, advising them on what Herr Hitler would or would not like to see in the movies. This almost unbelievable Grand Guignol is documented in Ben Urwands recent book, The Collaboration.

From the other end of the political spectrum, the Soviet Union infiltrated its agents into Hollywood. Some scripts in development and production at major studios were actually vetted by thuggish members of labor unions outside of California, otherwise not even connected with moviemaking. What mattered was the party line, that party being the PCUSA. These shenanigans are brilliantly documented in the book, Red Star Over Hollywoodby Ron and Aliss Radosh. Bottom line, some films were killed in development or on the eve of production only because of pressure from foreign governments or their agents.

More recently, the mini-series The Path to 911was only a month prior to broadcast on ABC when the Clinton political machine exerted both public and behind-the-scenes pressure to shut it down. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former National Security chief Sandy Berger, Bill Clinton himself all went on national TV denouncing the film and more significantly, pressuring the network and its parent corporation to stop its release.

Now, lets put this in perspective. This is a former US president demanding the outright censorship of an American television program! The head of ABC did as he was pressuredmostly. The mini-series did air, but only after the producer and director were compelled to cut out scenes in which Sandy Berger gives the order to special forces to stand down to not shoot when they had Osama Bin Laden in their crosshairs. In other words, had that order been given theres no 9-11.

But it is worse. Immediately following the one and only airing of the re-edited version of the miniseries, the movie was placed in deep freeze. No video, no DVD, no online streaming nothing. It is still under lock down. The only way to see it is via pirated copies outside the United States. This movie was not censored or threatened by North Korea or some rogue cyber terrorists it was censored and shut down by ABC under threat and duress from Bill Clinton and his political entourage.

I admire George Clooney for the courage he is showing in defiance of SONYs hackers, but where was he when the same thing was done to ABC by a former president of the United States?

Continued here:
Hollywood Has Caved Before: Guest Column

The Washington Post reports that Facebook has complied with a Russian government demand to block access to a page supporting Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny:

In a sign of new limits on Facebooks ability to serve as a platform for political opposition movements, Russian users appear to have been blocked from accessing a page calling for a protest in support of a prominent dissident.

In 2011, Facebook was hailed by opposition movements during the Arab Spring and in Russia as a powerful new tool to spread information beyond the control of repressive governments. That may no longer be the case, at least not in Russia. Russian Internet regulators said Saturday that they had sent Facebook a demand that it block access to a page calling for a demonstration in support of Alexei Navalny, the most prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

At the moment, the demand to block the page is being fulfilled by Facebook, Vadim Ampelonsky, a spokesman for the Russian Internet regulator, told the Interfax news service.

Facebook should be ashamed of cooperating with this demand for censorship by Russias repressive government, and should rescind that cooperation immediately. In fairness, the Post article quotes a Facebook spokeswoman to the effect that the company is studying the matter. But she didnt deny the Russian governments claim that Facebook has fulfilled its demand, and the site does indeed seem to be blocked for Russian users. If it turns out that the Russian government somehow managed to block the site without Facebooks cooperation and is now lying about that, I will be happy to correct this post. For now, however, the available evidence strongly suggests that Facebook did in fact fulfill the governments demands.

If the problem is that Facebook worried about Russian retaliation against its physical presence in Russia (the article notes that Facebook tries to comply with demands by governments in nations where it has such a presence), then it would do well to withdraw that presence, so as to eliminate that vulnerability.

Navalny is one of the leading domestic opponents of a government that has engaged in extensive repression at home, and committed gross violations of human rights and international law abroad. Particularly at a time when falling oil prices and the collapse of the ruble have potentially made the Putin regime vulnerable, Facebook and other western enterprises should not cooperate with its efforts to repress opposition speech.

Ilya Somin is Professor of Law at George Mason University. His research focuses on constitutional law, property law, and popular political participation. He is the author of "The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London and the Limits of Eminent Domain" (forthcoming) and "Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter."

Excerpt from:
Volokh Conspiracy: Facebook should stop cooperating with Russian government censorship

I am not a fan of North Korea or its leader [How will US respond to Sony hack? Nation & World, Dec. 18]. Second, I am not a fan of imposed censorship. But, the reason we do not have imposed censorship in this country is because we exercise responsible freedom of speech.

Self-censorship is always important, both in personal and professional spheres. Making stupidly obnoxious films and calling them comedies seems to be a Hollywood expertise, and condoning this is a rejection of the idea of self-censorship.

When a company is insane enough to make a movie about the assassination of a real person and call it a comedy, and when proponents of free speech are insane enough to feel it is justified, then we have an example of the breakdown in social constraints.

Sony got, in my opinion, what it deserved.

Frank Mitchell, Seattle

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Sony got what it deserved in hack by North Korea