by Nicole Powers

“Presently analysing events of tonight at #OccupyLSX. Who needs sleep!” It’s 3:26 AM GMT on Tuesday, February 28, 2012, and John Cooper, Occupy London’s chief legal advisor is awake, on Twitter, and on the case following the movement’s eviction from their marquee St Paul’s Cathedral base.

The eminent barrister and Queen’s Counsel has worked tirelessly to keep the protesters in situ since the occupation began on Saturday, October 15, 2011. The battle the occupiers faced was made all the more complicated by the provenance of the site they were camping on, which straddles land owned both by the Church of England and by the City of London Corporation (a unique and ancient semi-private municipal authority which governs London’s square mile financial district).

When the first tent was pitched, even the most optimistic of Occupiers couldn’t have predicted the encampment would remain in tact over four months later, so Occupy London’s ultimate eviction from St. Paul’s can hardly be considered a defeat. An early attempt to remove protesters was thwarted when the Cathedral’s then Canon Chancellor, Giles Fraser, recognized the occupiers’ right to protest peacefully and asked the police to leave. Fraser’s actions would ultimately lead to his resignation following some rather public infighting between Church officials with conflicting affiliations and agendas.

With the Church distracted by its own internal disharmony and facing a public relations nightmare if it litigated against members of the very congregation it was supposed to serve, the powers that be at St. Paul’s – at least publicly – stepped aside and let the City of London Corporation spearhead eviction efforts through the courts. Following a hearing before Christmas, the High Court ruled in favor of the City on January 18, 2012. The occupation was granted a stay of execution pending a possible appeal, however, on February 22, three Court of Appeal judges declined to give Occupy London protesters permission to do so, setting the stage for this week’s eviction.

SuicideGirls caught up with John Cooper by phone shortly before the final ruling came down. Having butted heads with the UK establishment throughout his career (notably frustrating the ruling class’s thirst for blood sport thanks to a fox hunting prohibition act he penned), Cooper says his raison d’être is representing individuals and groups of individuals against the power of the state. A series of cases brought against the Ministry of Defense on behalf of the families of soldiers who had died in the theater of war due to unconscionably inadequate equipment earned him the honor of being short-listed as Human Rights Barrister of the Year in 2009. More recently, Cooper again gained notoriety in the halls of power when he represented those seeking to open an inquiry into the mysterious death of David Kelly, a Ministry of Defense weapons inspector who had embarrassed his employers by pointing out inconsistencies in their report on Iraq’s WMDs (or lack thereof).

Here Cooper gives an account of Occupy London’s David vs. Goliath fight, and outlines the numerous victories they have chalked up in the face of defeat. He also pragmatically comments on the changes he’d like to see in the law to fortify the battered and beleaguered rights to assembly and free speech.

Read our exclusive interview with John Cooper QC on SuicideGirls.com.

by Nicole Powers

“Omfgomfgomfgomfgomfg you have no idea how amazing you are!!!!!” was the exact turn of phrase used by my Twitter friend @EisMC2 when I told her I’d just interviewed Little Brother author Cory Doctorow and had returned with a signed copy of the book for her. Indeed it was @EisMC2 and her fiancé @JackalAnon who first turned me on to Doctorow’s epic updated spin on George Orwell’s Big Brother vision, which was first published in 2007. Uncannily prophetic, the novel serves as a veritable playbook for the Occupy movement, and with online pranksters turned hacktivists as its heroic protagonists, it is also an inspirational work for many Anons (hence the need for at least five omfgs). Combining an action packed and V-relevant plot with a solid historical perspective on activism, in retrospect, Little Brother may be considered one of the great civil liberties texts of our time.

The math, science, and sociopolitical commentary spun into the prose of Little Brother is pure genius, while the story makes for a gripping reading experience. As @EisMC2 puts it, Doctorow has a knack “for distributing the #Truth in a manner everyone can understand.” For example, during an expository paragraph regarding a key plot point, Doctorow also manages to simply and concisely explain how Bayesian mathematics (which puts the spam in your filter) is being deployed in an unscientific way to find “statistically abnormal” people to put under the security microscope – irrespective of whether they’re actually likely to have done anything wrong. Even if advanced probability theory isn’t your thing, by the time you’ve finished Little Brother, you’ll have a deep understanding of how this kind of statistical analysis – which government agencies routinely rely on to make policy and find targets in the war of terror – can be misinterpreted and manipulated with chilling effect.

Though set in an unspecified near future, much of the fictional dystopian world Doctorow depicted when he wrote Little Brother five years ago is now a reality (such as the indefinite detention of US citizens without trial or due process). It’s a tale of terrorism, society’s overreation to it, the psychology of fear, and the erosion of our constitutional rights. It also contains many elements occupiers will be all too familiar with: protests, out of control cops, pepper spray, tear gas, smoke bombs, police brutality, and a biased and lazy media “reporting” on it all.

At the start of the year, having spent some quality time at OccupyLSX, I met up with Doctorow at his North London workspace. Surrounded by cool gadgets, toys, and all manner of geek memorabilia (such as an original 1973 set of D&D boxed game instructions), I chatted at length with the author, digital rights champion, and Boing Boing co-editor about Little Brother, its forthcoming sequel Homeland, the realities of Big Brother, and how to stay under the radar when living in a surveillance state.

Read our exclusive interview with Cory Doctorow on SuicideGirls.com.

For more on Cory Doctorow visit craphound.com/. A free copy of Little Brother can be downloaded under a Creative Commons license here.

A staged version of Little Brother by The Custom Made Theatre Co. is currently playing through February 25 in San Francisco. Visit Custommade.org for full details.

by David Seaman

What if we voted for Barack Obama, a rational moderate, and instead got one of the most irrational, secretive, and authoritarian presidential administrations of the past 100 years? 
What if Ron Paul and Buddy Roemer are right about the election process, and about the erosion of our core civil rights? And what if Barack Obama truly DOES think the Constitution is an outdated joke?

In the video above, I’m not actually expressing my own opinion, instead I’m reading – verbatim – from an article in The Atlantic. In it, staff writer Conor Friedersdorf poses the following question: How would you have reacted in 2008 if any Republican ran promising to do the following?

1) Codify indefinite detention into law; (2) draw up a secret kill list of people, including American citizens, to assassinate without due process; (3) proceed with warrantless spying on American citizens; (4) prosecute Bush-era whistleblowers for violating state secrets; (5) reinterpret the War Powers Resolution such that entering a war of choice without a Congressional declaration is permissible; (6) enter and prosecute such a war; (7) institutionalize naked scanners and intrusive full body pat-downs in major American airports; (8) oversee a planned expansion of TSA so that its agents are already beginning to patrol American highways, train stations, and bus depots; (9) wage an undeclared drone war on numerous Muslim countries that delegates to the CIA the final call about some strikes that put civilians in jeopardy; (10) invoke the state-secrets privilege to dismiss lawsuits brought by civil-liberties organizations on dubious technicalities rather than litigating them on the merits; (11) preside over federal raids on medical marijuana dispensaries; (12) attempt to negotiate an extension of American troops in Iraq beyond 2011 (an effort that thankfully failed); (14) reauthorize the Patriot Act; (13) and select an economic team mostly made up of former and future financial executives from Wall Street firms that played major roles in the financial crisis.

(Source)

The 14 points Friedersdorf highlights are, to the best of my knowledge, firm facts. For example, it is a fact that Obama’s administration has continued to preside over federal raids on medical marijuana dispensaries, and that the TSA has greatly expanded its grasp (no pun intended) since he took office. And, obviously, the indefinite detention of US citizens without due process, was signed into law by Obama when he ratified the NDAA – that alone being a treasonous act given it clearly runs counter to America’s Constitution.

David Seaman is an independent journalist. He has been a lively guest on CNN Headline News, FOX News, ABC News Digital, among others, and is the host of The DL Show. Some say he was recently censored by a certain large media corporation for posting a little too much truth… For more, find him on G+ and Twitter.

[..]

by David Seaman

This is breaking news. More information will be added in subsequent videos as it becomes available. Journalist David Seaman calls for a nationwide boycott of News Corporation, Fox News, and Fox Business Network following the channel’s cancellation of Judge Andrew Napolitano‘s prime-time show, Freedom Watch.

Judge Napolitano was one of the few mainstream television anchors covering NDAA, economic unrest, and political corruption. The cancellation of his show is a major blow to free speech in the mainstream media, and the final nail in the coffin of our bought and sold press. He’s one of the TRULY good ones, even though we don’t always agree with his libertarian take on things.



Disobedience is civil. Disobedience is called for. Support Judge Napolitano. Say no to fuax news. Cancel Fox News and Fox Business on your cable or satellite package.

UPDATE
Here’s a clip of the fearless Judge Napolitano telling us how it is – and a fine example of what you’ll be missing. (Thanks to @Lymski for forwarding this link.)

David Seaman is an independent journalist. He has been a lively guest on CNN Headline News, FOX News, ABC News Digital, among others, and on his humble YouTube channel, DavidSeamanOnline. Some say he was recently censored by a certain large media corporation for posting a little too much truth… For more, find him on G+ and Twitter.

[..]

by David Seaman

SG political contributor David Seaman is in New York this week. When he asked if there was anyone we’d like him to chat to, the first name that came to mind, without hesitation, was Patrick Bruner from Occupy Wall Street. We were first introduced to him last November at NYC’s New School, when he participated in a panel discussion alongside Michael Moore, Naomi Klein, The Nation‘s national affairs correspondent William Greider, and Colorlines publisher Rinku Sen. The event, sponsored by The Nation and moderated by the magazine’s executive editor Richard Kim, was called Occupy Everywhere. It aimed to explore the new political paradigm brought about by Occupy, and the possibilities presented by the movement to redress the overbearing reach of corporate power.

Though the caliber of intellects assembled on the New School stage that evening was undeniably high, we were actually most impressed and inspired by what Bruner had to say. We are therefore thrilled that we got a chance to reconnect with him via Seaman and his video post above (which was produced with the help of Lindsey June Miller). We have a feeling we’ll be seeing and hearing a lot more from Bruner in the future, both as a skilled orator within this proudly leaderless movement, and as someone with great potential as a next generation politician.

During the course of their conversation, Seaman and Bruner discuss the misnomer that Occupy doesn’t have a message, how much of what those in the mainstream know about the movement is framed by just a handful of media conglomerates, and how the real issues are being buried by their propaganda. The pair also talk about the future of Occupy and some of the key agenda items the movement needs to bring to the fore – such as the fact that student loan debt has surpassed credit card debt, or that there are 24 foreclosed homes standing empty for every one homeless person in America.

We’ve also embedded the full Occupy Everywhere panel discussion below, which we highly recommend you view. – Nicole Powers, SG Ed.

David Seaman is an independent journalist. He has been a lively guest on CNN Headline News, FOX News, ABC News Digital, among others, and on his humble YouTube channel, DavidSeamanOnline. Some say he was recently censored by a certain large media corporation for posting a little too much truth… For more, find him on G+ and Twitter.

[..]

by Nicole Powers

This past week would have been pure lulz online, had the denizens of the web not been fighting over something so humorless. But then there’s nothing funny about spying on your citizens, denying them free speech, and criminalizing vast swathes of them for good measure, but that’s what our government, and the corporations that are under the impression that they control it, are trying to do.

Following last week’s historic Internet Blackout Day, which saw the likes of Wikipedia, Reddit, and BoingBoing go dark, it was apparent to everyone that SOPA and PIPA needed to be put on ice – everyone that is, except the Democrats, who have been suckling at Hollywood’s teet for way to long, and appear to have got their mouths stuck there.

But with SOPA’s markup hearing and PIPA’s Senate vote both indefinitely postponed, the Feds apparently decided they didn’t need the ugly censorship sister acts to go after online targets already in their sights. It was therefore no coincidence that the day after Blackout Day, the US Department of Justice moved against file sharing site Megaupload.

Their choice of target to make an example of might have seemed strange, especially when considering that Pirate Bay is perhaps a more recognizable name to those outside of the downloading massive. However, the decision to make an exhibition of Megaupload was likely motivated by more then a little machismo (or more accurately the public loss of it) on behalf of the entertainment industry who had long been lobbying for such action, and who had been taunted, publicly humiliated, and deemed impotent by the file sharing giant. (Megaupload had posted a promotional clip on YouTube which featured numerous major label artists including P Diddy, Kanye West, and Chris Brown, and a feud involving disputed DMCA takedown missives, lawsuits, and online mudslinging had ensued.)

What was perhaps most disturbing about the US government’s action against Megaupload, was that they made the site disappear like a renditioned prisoner – without any due process. And following the arrests of the site’s founder Kim Dotcom and three other key executives in New Zealand, and two further arrests in Europe, it became very apparent that when it comes to copyright infringement the long arm of America’s law extends far beyond our nation’s borders.

Retribution, courtesy of Anonymous and #OpMegaupload, was swift, and within hours numerous websites were “tango down.” Online shop windows successfully owned included those for government agencies (justice.gov, usdoj.gov, and fbi.gov), entertainment trade/lobbying organizations (riaa.org, mpaa.org, and bmi.com), and media corporations (universalmusic.com, wmg.com, and cbs.com).

As YourAnonNews noted, the non-consensual blackout day was “the largest attack ever by Anonymous” with “5,635 people confirmed using LOIC to bring down sites!” Gawker subsequently gave some insight as to how the mass coordinated DDoS attack was achieved by way of links that launched LOICs unbeknownst to those that clicked on them – the lack of intention in theory meaning accidental DDoS’ers should have the law on their side. (In CBS’s case, a little hackery also seemed to be involved, since their site, unlike the others, at one point appeared to have been totally wiped, though we’re not sure what exactly they did to achieve this special treatment. Answers via Twitter please.)

But despite shots fired against government and corporate vessels by pro-pirate and freedom friendly ships, the battle to contain and control the web continues as other file sharing sites curtail their activities in the hopes of avoiding Megaupload’s fate. PIPA and SOPA may be dead in the water, but two even worse pieces of legislation are on the horizon.

The misleadingly named Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act would use kiddie porn as a premise to monitor EVERYONE’S online activity (and what politician can appear to be pro-pedophilia by voting against it?), while the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) contains similar Big Brother surveillance provisions and contains SOPA-like language that requires that signatory nations* monitor and censor the internet within their domain. So while we internuts may have won out against the tyranny of PIPA and SOPA, the fight to retain freedom on the world wide web has only just begun.

Turn out, tune in, and log on, it’s going to be a lulzy ride.

**Update: Thursday, January 26, 2012**

Despite protests spearheaded by the Polish, ACTA was signed by 22 European Union member states today. They join 8 nations (Australia, Canada, Japan, Republic of Korea, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, and the United States) who had already signed the treaty this past fall.

by David Seaman

News Corporation chief executive and chairman Rupert Murdoch lashed out on Twitter against the changing tide of public opinion with regards to SOPA and PIPA. In this video post, SG Political Contributor David Seaman talks about why big media corporations such as Fox and Disney support these ugly sister acts, and gives us an overview of yesterday’s day of internet action against them.

He also gives us an update on NDAA – one of the most treasonous bills ever signed into law by Congress according to some – and points us in the direction of the grass roots groups who are seeking to recall every congressman that supported it. Also, David talks about last night’s NDAA segment on Coast to Coast, in which he participated.

David Seaman is an independent journalist. He has been a lively guest on CNN Headline News, FOX News, ABC News Digital, among others, and on his humble YouTube channel, DavidSeamanOnline. Some say he was recently censored by a certain large media corporation for posting a little too much truth… For more, find him on G+ and Twitter.

Related Posts:
NDAA And Occupy Congress: What If You Now Live In A Dictatorship, And No One Told You?