Last week cartoonist Garry Trudeau received the George Polk award for journalism. It’s an award named in memory of a journalist murdered while covering a war. Trudeau used the opportunity to say that while murdering journalists is sub-optimal, journalists need to rethink offending people:
What free speech absolutists have failed to acknowledge is that because one has the right to offend a group does not mean that one must. Or that that group gives up the right to be outraged. They’re allowed to feel pain. Freedom should always be discussed within the context of responsibility. At some point free expression absolutism becomes childish and unserious. It becomes its own kind of fanaticism.
Running satirical pictures of Muhammad like Charlie Hebdo or the Dutch cartoonists, said Trudeau, is punching down — “attacking a powerless, disenfranchised minority with crude, vulgar drawings closer to graffiti than cartoons.”
Trudeau’s complaint received sighs of rapture from Lydia Polgreen, a bureau chief at the New York Times, an institution generally associated — justifiably or not — with free expression:
Trudeau views the controversy over “blasphemy” as a conflict between privileged Western journalists and oppressed Muslim minorities. Hence the “punching down.” But this is an uninformed, parochial, and privileged view of how blasphemy norms actually operate in the world.
I’ve surveyed two years of “blasphemy” incidents and prosecutions1 that contradict Trudeau’s comfortable perspective. The threats and intimidation aimed at Dutch tourists, the massacre in Paris: these things are horrific, but they aren’t the day-to-day story of blasphemy norms. Most blasphemy incidents don’t involve a struggle between the West and the East, between “colonizers” and “colonized.” Most blasphemy incidents involve the majority — the strong — oppressing the minority — the weak.
Attacks on Western journalists are the exception. More typically, blasphemy norms involve things like author Zainub Priya Dala being beaten by a mob in South Africa because she spoke approvingly about Salman Rushdie at a writer’s conference. It’s about Farkhunda, a mentally ill woman beaten to death by a mob of Afghan men upon a rumor that she had burned a Koran. It’s about Aasiya Noreen, a member of Pakistan’s Christian minority sentenced to death for blasphemy on the word of her fellow field hands after a dispute. It’s about 68 lawyers charged with blasphemy for protesting police abuse, on the grounds that they had criticized a police inspector by name and that name was shared by one of Muhammad’s companions. It’s about a mother and father, members of a Christian minority, burned to death before their family by a mob made up of the Muslim majority. It’s about Raif Badawi, a Saudi blogger and rights activistsentenced to flogging and still facing potential beheading. It’s about Washiqur Rahman, a secular activist and blogger hacked to death with machetes in Bangladesh.
The issue is not just that it’s ridiculous to call the world’s second-largest religion an oppressed minority. It’s not just that Trudeau and his ilk treat murdering people based on cartoons as something that is the moral responsibility of the cartoonist. The issue is that anti-blasphemy social and legal norms are a tool of oppression of people who are powerless, even by the finicky standards of Trudeau and the New York Times. The concept of blasphemy is used to persecutereligious minorities, ethnic minorities, rights activists, and anyone else disfavored by the mullahs and the mob. It is used to protect power — the existing power structure of the mostly conservative, mostly traditional, mostly male-and-religious-dominated societies where the concept holds sway.
Garry Trudeau and Lydia Polgreen are the useful idiots of the brutal and the powerful. By obligingly framing the “blasphemy debate” as an issue of West v. East and journalistic power vs. Islamic powerlessness, they support and advance the blasphemy norms used to murder and oppress the genuinely powerless. They are punching down.
By contrast, journalists who confront and defy blasphemy norms are helping to make the point that religious offense is no excuse for murder. If that’s punching down, let’s punch harder.
Month: April 2015
UAE Gave $1 Million to NYC Police Foundation; Money Aided ‘Investigations’
The New York City Police Foundation received a $1 million donation from the government of the United Arab Emirates, according to 2012 tax records, the same amount the foundation transferred to the NYPD Intelligence Division’s International Liaison Program that year, according to documents obtained by The Intercept.
A 2012 Schedule A document filed by the New York City Police Foundation showed a list of its largest donors, which included several major financial institutions such as JPMorgan Chase and Barclays Capital — but also a line item for the “Embassy of the United Arab Emirates.” The Intercept obtained a copy of the Schedule A document, which is not intended for public disclosure and only shows donors above the threshold of donating $1 million over four years.
Conspicuously, while the financial institutions are listed as donors on the Police Foundation website, the UAE is absent despite being one of the largest contributors listed that year with its $1 million contribution.
Publicly disclosed tax documents filed in the same year show a $1 million cash grant from the foundation to the NYPD Intelligence Division. The purpose of the grant is to provide assistance to the NYPD International Liaison Program, which “enables the NYPD to station detectives throughout the world to work with local law enforcement on terrorism related incidents,” the foundation’s 2012 tax disclosures state.
But the foundation denies the contribution was directed to the Intelligence Division. “The gift was an unrestricted gift to the General Fund. No such donation funded the International Liaison Program,” a spokesperson for the foundation told The Intercept.
When asked for further details, the spokesperson responded, “The gift was directed to upgrade NYPD equipment and facilities used to aid in criminal investigations throughout New York City.”
The foundation refused to provide information about which “criminal investigations” or equipment upgrades were funded by the UAE.
The embassy of the United Arab Emirates declined to comment about the $1 million contribution, which has not been previously reported. A February 2013 Washington Post article listed the Police Foundation as one of several recipients of funding from the UAE, but did not specify an amount, or the source of the information.
Strikingly little is known about the intended use of the $1 million. The Police Foundation never filed a Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) disclosure, a federal disclosure required from individuals and organizations (usually law firms and consultants) who work on behalf of a foreign country or political party, or any other public acknowledgement of the UAE embassy’s contribution.
A 2013 report by the Brennan Center documented the role the NYC Police Foundation plays in funding the Intelligence Division’s overseas operations. “Funding for [NYPD] counterterrorism operations comes not only from the city, state, and federal governments, but also from two private foundations,” the report said. “The New York City Police Foundation pays for the NYPD’s overseas intelligence operations, which span 11 locations around the world.”
The NYPD has had a presence in Abu Dhabi since at least 2009. In 2012, then-Commissioner Ray Kelly travelled to the UAE to sign an information-sharing agreement between the country and the department. At the time of the trip, it was disclosed that the memorandum of understanding would “[allow] for the exchange of ideas and training methods” between the NYPD and the UAE.
For its part, the UAE said in a statement released at the time that the agreement would entail “the exchange of security information as is permitted by laws” and allow both parties to “achieve general security.”
While the Liaison Program is notoriously opaque, comments by Kelly at a 2012 Carnegie Foundation event gave some insight into its operation: “[The program] has been very helpful in a variety of ways — again, funded by the Police Foundation. We are not using tax levy funds to pay their expenses. Their expenses are paid by the Foundation”.
Verizon trots out analyst to say unlimited data is bad for customers
Got a data cap on your smartphone? You should be grateful, according to an opinion piece that Verizon Wireless published on Friday.
“Let’s face it, if everyone had unlimited data and used it fully, the performance of the networks would suffer because of bandwidth restrictions and the ‘shared resource’ nature of wireless,” industry analyst Jack Gold, founder of J. Gold Associates, wrote in an article titled “The Lure of Unlimited Wireless Data—Is It Necessary?”
Gold went on to write that customers have shifted high-bandwidth activities to Wi-Fi networks, where usage doesn’t count against cellular data caps, and that “users are very well served by current wireless data plans, and really don’t require more. So, while unlimited data may sound attractive, there is no practical effect of data limits on the majority of users.”
Court Dismisses Prenda’s Ridiculous Defamation Lawsuit Against Internet Critics & Guy Whose Signature It Forged
Remember Alan Cooper? This was the housekeeper for some cabins owned by John Steele, one of the lawyers behind Prenda Law, who suddenly found his name and (falsified) signature on a number of documents related to Prenda Law’s copyright trolling shakedowns. Unhappy with this situation, Cooper sued John Steele and Prenda Law. In response, Prenda Law, Paul Duffy and John Steele all sued back… for defamation. Specifically, they filed three separate lawsuits, all against Alan Cooper, his lawyer Paul Godfread and a bunch of anonymous internet commenters. John Steele quickly dropped his lawsuit (apparently there were some serious procedural problems with it in Florida), but Duffy kept both his personal lawsuit and Prenda’s lawsuit going — despite the fact that the lawsuits were clearly crazy.
There was some back and forth as Duffy tried (and failed) to keep the lawsuits in state court (where crazy lawsuits tend to have a better chance), and last year the lawsuit that was technically filed by “Prenda” resulted in sanctions against Duffy. The lawsuit filed by Duffy himself, facing the same judge (John Darrah) has now been tossed out as well, siding with Cooper/Godfread over their claims that the lawsuit violated Minnesota’s anti-SLAPP law.
Inspector General Exposes Pirating Prison Staffers
Last year we received a well documented report from the former operator of USAWarez.com and USATorrents.com, who accused prison staff of showing pirated films to inmates.
The pirate screenings allegedly took place in Lorain Correctional Institution in Ohio and soon after the news broke the case was referred to the Ohio inspector general.
The inspector general launched an investigation and a back-up of the entire file server was made to search for traces of pirated films. In a report released last week the inspector general concludes that no pirated files were present on the server, although there were some movie traces present.
“The one movie file previously identified was no longer present on the server back-up. However, the analysis identified an additional 23 forensic artifacts of movie files, portions of movie files, or movie trailers that once existed within two other LorCI employee user profiles,” the report reads.
“…it was not possible to determine what the original files within the user profiles were, based on the artifacts found. As such, this information is being referred back to ODRC for any administrative action deemed appropriate.”
The analysis further notes that there’s no evidence that the two correction officers who allegedly showed the pirated movies had unauthorized movie copies (digital or physical) in their possession at the time of the investigation. As a result, no further action will be taken by the inspector general.
In addition to the pirated movies claim, the Ohio inspector general investigated a separate case after a complaint suggested that dozens of staffers of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC) shared pirated music files on a work server.
In this case, a technical analysis found that there were indeed hundreds of files made available through the local network. In total, the report names 16 employees who shared between 33 and 463 audio files.
The files in question were stored on the prison’s “JPay” system and were available to anyone with access to the network. According to the inspector general’s report, most staffers didn’t realize that they were breaking the law by doing so.
“The majority of the 16 employees interviewed believed the folder containing the JPay audio files was visible to everyone who had access to the system, and it was permissible to play the audio files it contained,” the report reads.
“Many did not feel this was or might be a violation of copyright laws and noted that had they been aware it was a violation, they would not have accessed the folder and played or copied the files.”
CO Jayme Weber acknowledged copying several audio files after he overheard others talking about a shared folder on the system, but didn’t realize he was doing anything wrong.
“. .. I mean if somebody would have told me it was an issue, I would have deleted all the music and I would have never went into the folder. I mean, I just thought by word of mouth, that it was okay to do,” he said.
The Office of the Ohio Inspector General took the matter very seriously and contacted Homeland Security’s ICE unit to ask if they would pursue the matter.
Since there was no indication that any of the employees shared the copyrighted files to make a profit, ICE decided to let it slide.
“After being briefed of the allegations, investigators were told by the ICE duty officer that based on the allegations, barring any significant changes or evidence of sale-for-profit of the copied audio files, ICE would not pursue charges through the United States Attorney’s Office,” the report reads.
In both cases, the inspector general decided not to take any further steps against the accused employees. Instead, the report ends with a set of recommendations for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, to ensure that the same mistakes aren’t made in the future.
Zenefits Allowed Back Into Utah After Insurance Brokers Tried To Kill The Innovative Startup
Late last year, we wrote about the ridiculous situation in which the state of Utah effectively banned Zenefits, the innovative HR software service provider that tons of companies now use. As we noted, Zenefits came up with a creative way to build a real business by giving away its (really useful) HR software for free: coupling it with an insurance brokering business. You get to use its software for free, and Zenefits also makes it easy for businesses to get insurance and takes a cut of those deals. Zenefits started out by first just building the software, but then realized that it could tack on this business model after it found that most insurance brokers collect huge fees without really doing anything all that useful. So here, Zenefits could provide a more useful service, offer it to companies for free, and have a really successful business model. A win for everyone. Well, except traditional insurance brokers who found it more difficult to compete.
And thus, the Utah Insurance Department, run by former insurance broker Todd Kiser, declared that Zenefits broke a bunch of rules in Utah by daring to give out its software for free. Kiser determined that this violated rules against “inducements” or “rebates.”
These guys are upset that pseudoscience is labeled as such on…
These guys are upset that pseudoscience is labeled as such on Wikipedia. They’re looking for $67k to show Jimmy Wales who’s boss.
Of Course We Have No Ticket Quotas, But ….
… you may wish to consider the following information in re: your salary.
You won’t be surprised to learn that Edmundson is a “city” in St. Louis County, about a ten-minute drive from Ferguson (might take a lot longer, of course, if you’re black). As Radley Balko has written about in detail, St. Louis County is made up of almost 100 teeny little municipalities, each one of which has its own municipal code, police force, and court. “Teeny” may not be scientific, but it’s accurate. Edmundson’s slogan is “Front Door to St. Louis Lambert International Airport,” and that slogan is almost as bad as the location but my point is that Edmundson is actually much smaller than the airport.
Okay, maybe that’s not fair—airports are big. How about, Edmundson is not much bigger than the terminal?
And yet it has its own city government, law code, and law-enforcement system. Any town of 834 is going to have difficulty paying for that with a sales tax alone. The solution, as the letter shows, is to prey on the citizens. According to this report, Edmundson gets almost 35 percent of its revenue from court fines and fees, and that is not uncommon in the area. But with so few people in these towns, they have to get creative and aggressive. Of course some of the revenue is extorted from travelers, but residents suffer the most from being targeted and written up over and over again, and then punished for being unable to pay. (The report says another nearby town has 1,300 residents and over 33,000 outstanding warrants.) And this is just scratching the surface of what these reports show. It is astounding.
Of course, none of this is official policy, as the mayor’s letter clearly states. He specifically says that he wants only “good tickets” written. (He’s probably one of those people who uses quote marks for emphasis.) And, in an entirely separate and unrelated matter, he takes the opportunity to remind officers of certain unfortunate fiscal realities that might impact their remuneration. He’s not telling them what to do, you understand. He’s just stating facts. Do what you think is fair (to yourself and the city, that is).
Comcast fights hometown, says report on poor customer service “inaccurate”
The City of Philadelphia yesterday released a 571-page report assessing Comcast’s service, and the cable company is not taking the report’s criticism lying down.
“We appreciate some of the positive conclusions in the consultant’s report, but overall believe many of the findings are inaccurate, over-stated, or misleading, and we will deliver comprehensive proof of those facts to the City,” Comcast executives LeAnn Talbot and David Cohen wrote in a post titled, “A Philadelphia Love Story.”
Comcast’s headquarters are in Philadelphia, but in some respects the company provides worse service to its hometown than to other major cities, according to the community needs assessment and system technical review conducted by consulting firm CBG Communications. Comcast’s 15-year cable television franchise agreement with Philadelphia expires later this year. It authorizes the company to use public rights-of-way in order to operate cable service.
Judge: IP-Address Doesn’t Identify a Movie Pirate
While relatively underreported, many U.S. district courts are still swamped with lawsuits against alleged film pirates.
One of the newcomers this year are the makers of the action movie Manny. Over the past few months “Manny Film” has filed 215 lawsuits across several districts.
Like all copyright holders, the makers of the film rely on IP-addresses as evidence. They then ask the courts to grant a subpoena, forcing Internet providers to hand over the personal details of the associated account holders.
In most cases the courts sign off on these requests, but in Florida this isn’t as straightforward.
When District Court Judge Ursula Ungaro was assigned a Manny Film case she asked the company to explain how an IP-address can pinpoint the actual person who downloaded a pirated film. In addition, she asked them to show that geolocation tools are good enough to prove that the alleged pirate resides in the Court’s district.
In a detailed reply the filmmakers argued that IP-addresses can identify the defendant and that a refusal to grant a subpoena would set a “dangerous precedent.” Manny Film further stated that “all other courts” disagreed with the notion that an IP-address is not a person.
This last remark didn’t go down well with Judge Ungaro. In an order handed down this week she cites various cases where courts ruled that IP-addresses don’t always identify the alleged offenders.
“Due to the risk of ‘false positives,’ an allegation that an IP address is registered to an individual is not sufficient in and of itself to support a claim that the individual is guilty of infringement,” wrote the Judge citing a 2012 case, one of many examples.
The referenced cases clearly refute Manny Film’s claim that all other courts disagreed with the Judge Ungaro’s concerns, and the Judge is not convinced by any of the other arguments either.
“As in those cases, Plaintiff here fails to show how geolocation software can establish the identity of the Defendant. Specifically, there is nothing linking the IP address location to the identity of the person actually downloading and viewing the copy righted material and nothing establishing that the person actually lives in this district,” Judge Ungaro writes.
“Even if this IP address is located within a residence, geolocation software cannot identify who have access to that residence’s computer and who would actually be using it to infringe Plaintiff’s copyright,” she adds.
As a result, the Court refused to issue a subpoena and dismissed the case against IP-address 66.229.140.101 for improper venue.
While not all judges may come to the same conclusion, the order makes it harder for rightholders to play their “copyright troll” scheme in the Southern District of Florida. At the same time, it provides future defendants with a good overview to fight similar claims elsewhere.