Libya In Turmoil

As Libya struggles to become the independent democratic state it so much wished to become when it revolted against Muammar Gaddafi last year, numerous issues are being brought up, with recent incidents highlighting them. It seems becoming a free and fair country is harder harder than it seems. Recently, former fighters that helped liberate Libya attacked a Libyan government building trying to get the money that they were promised from the interim government for helping oust Gaddafi and his followers. The attack left a guard dead and several injured, and shows the deeply rooted chaos that is prevalent in Libya right now. With so many people wanting to achieve their own personal goals in their newly freed country, issues and conflict are popping up left and right.

Libya's untamed militias protect the shaky state but terrorise those seen as enemies [GALLO/GETTY]

Corruption seems to be widespread as newly assumed government funds are disappearing as it is being decided what to do with it. It is also important to note that while the interim government is trying to determine what to do in basically every area, local militias are tasked with keeping order. And like they were during the revolution, they often take justice into their own hands in cases where they think there are enemies about. Enemies could include black Africans, who were often seen as mercenaries during the revolution and now distrusted through out the country.

Five months after the fall of Tripoli, the Libyan capital, the security situation is getting worse, not better. Militias operating outside the control of the interim government - the National Transitional Council (NTC) - remain heavily armed and they continue to detain, and sometimes even torture, hundreds of prisoners suspected of being loyal to Muammar Gaddafi, the former Libyan leader. Revolutionary forces were involved in recent fatal clashes in Tripoli, Bani Walid and Gharyan - in the west, and Benghazi in the east. Doctors Without Borders (MSF), the international medical humanitarian organisation, has decided to suspend its operations in detention centres in Misrata after confirming that detainees are being tortured and denied urgent medical care. The UN says Libyan militias are holding thousands of people in secret detention centres, while the interim government struggles to assert its authority. It seems that the struggle for democracy is much harder than many Libyans have anticipated, but one that others have.

Break # 8

This weeks break is brought to you from my good ol' friend Reddit. This week I stumbled over this incredibly well put together stop-motion animation set to Delta Heavy's tune, Get By. As with most dubstep it starts off all nice and pretty, and you wonder to yourself what direction it might head in. Then all of the sudden your choices are thrown out the window into the path of a lawnmower as the bass drops and sets in. Same thing with this video basically. Wait until the end and you'll get a pleasant "Ooooh" moment.

A Blind Activist? Yes Indeed

Recently there has been some attention directed towards China, after a blind activist named Chan Guangcheng escaped from his home while under house arrest to expose his abuse under the guards. What makes this feat even more amazing despite the fact that he is blind and that this is China that we're talking about, is that he had to get past 90 guards in order to do so. Jailed for four years for posting information on corruption and manipulation in his community, Chen was under house arrest as parole. Having been thwarted before in attempted to escape and weary from continuous beating from his captors, Chen finally scaled a wall surrounding his compound and sprinted to safety with the help of fellow activists who had kept in communication with Chen. It has also been reported that three of the dissidents that aided Chen in his escape have now disappeared, likely abducted by police. With Chen now rumored to be at the US embassy in Beijing, China has a mess on its hands. With annual talked between the US and China coming up, strain has been put on US-Chinese relations, adding to the humiliation China suffered from the case of Bo Xilai, the center of a cascading scandal that cost him his seat in the Politburo and exposed a level of mistrust among top officials in the one-party state.Will this lead to serious talks over China's reputation of corruption, manipulation, cover-ups and silencing of dissidents? The US will have to take a stance now, and whether that stance be one of accusation, support, or neutrality has yet to be seen.

Essay Part 4

Part 4:

Today companies hold more power with the Internet than they ever have before. They have the power to decide what to do with privacy and whether or not to comply with governments when it comes to regulation of the Internet. The Internet ushered in a new era of free speech, information, and privacy, but it has also helped the opposite side of the spectrum by allowing governments to censor information flowing through it as well as by keeping tabs on their citizens. While this comes in varying levels of intensities, it is seen in all governments, be they democratic or not. Companies also play an integral part in the control of the Internet, as they have power over their users and consumers, being able to decide what to enforce and how to take sides on issues. Recently, with the heated debate over rights involving the Internet, free speech, and privacy, more and more companies recognize the need for a free, neutral Internet, or net neutrality as some put it. Rebecca Mackinnon offers solutions to many of these problems by proposing regulation of the Internet by governments and companies’ hand-in-hand, in order to establish fair systems and ensure rights are being protected. Without this crucial cooperation, companies won’t be able to be held accountable by the networked through the government and the government won’t be able to enforce any legislation without the support of companies. Whether or not this will happen is another issue. Time will tell whether or not control of the Internet will be decided by the consent of the networked.

Thanks for reading and feel free to leave feedback and comments! 

Essay Part 3

 Part 3:

As you can see here, Yahoo! was prodded by Chinese officials to hand over the information regarding the owner of the email address in question. In this case they did, breaking the trust they had with Shi Tao and basically handing him over to receive a prison sentence. There are deeper problems with this though. First off, we need to start with how companies operate in China. Basically, in order to operate a business on the Internet in China, you have to first get a license. This license binds you to Chinese law regarding the Internet, which means you have to comply with censorship laws. This leads to companies enforcing Chinese censorship laws and requests from the government to hand over information, or else risk the revocation of their business license. If this seems corrupt, it’s because it is. Both sides can be said to partake in the corrupt nature of this deal, as the companies know what they are getting into. This leads us to our second problem, the problem with companies themselves. Since there is little legislation that dictates consumer-corporate interaction on the Internet, companies are often left to make their own policies regarding these types of situations. In these cases their rules stay inflexible, which can lead to what some call human rights breaches. By revealing Shi Tao’s identity, Yahoo! breached his right of privacy and free speech.  Despite the fact that it was acceptable within its own code of conduct and China’s laws, it was in violation of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, specifically articles 17 and 19. In this case Yahoo! acted according to it Chinese law in order to keep its license, however many call Yahoo! out for not taking into consideration the human rights aspect.

Corporations always have their own set of rules, a code for them to follow in order to do efficient business and keep things running smoothly. Such is the case with Facebook and other sites. With Facebook, creating an account under a fake name is against their policy. This policy makes sense in order to uphold an enjoyable atmosphere and create a stable business enterprise. No one wants to go onto Facebook and see twelve different accounts saying they are the same person. However, Facebook doesn’t take into account different situations where revealing ones identity may be the difference between life and death. Take for example the revolutionaries in Egypt. Many banded together on Facebook via pseudonyms, in order to protect themselves from Mubarak’s regime and the consequences they would face if caught. However, since most of their pages on Facebook are created by someone with a pseudonym character, Facebook removed them. This created uproar in the activist community, as many felt vulnerable and deceived. There are other instances where people have been inadvertently affected by new privacy settings that come with a new release of a product as well. When Google Plus changed its policy regarding privacy, it made it so people could see other peoples contacts, information, real names, everything. It was either this way or leave. This took many activists by surprise and they had to scramble to leave before their identities were revealed and they themselves prosecuted by their government.

Essay Part 2

Part 2:

Censorship of the Internet has become an increasingly troublesome problem, with regimes in Syria, Libya, Egypt and China all exacting control over their citizens on the web. Recent examples of attempted censorship and control in more democratic countries include PIPA and SOPA of the US.  These acts would allow for the removal of websites via request and for the censorship of information by websites in order to maintain legality. International effort from the European Union as well as western countries such as the US to ratify ACTA also posed a serious threat to internet freedom (ACTA being a stronger version of SOPA/PIPA). These bills were criticized by human rights organization for not having safeguards in place to prevent abuse of power in taking down copyright infringing cases. Due to the language of the SOPA bill, many feared that it would allow free speech to be censored and lead to overzealous regulation of the Internet. Also brought up was the fact that the main supporters were large corporations which would propose such a bill to increase their own profits at the expense of what many people consider basic rights. Corporations such as Coca-Cola, Visa, Viacom, Capitol Records Nashville, Time Warner, and the MPAA were/are all supporters of the bill, along with dozens more. (House Judiciary Committee, 2011), A key example of this being the idea of innocent until proven guilty, which would be overlooked in these bills as requests of site takedowns would be honored first and it would be up to the site to provide evidence, not the requester. The MPAA and other Hollywood entertainment companies such as Time Warner lobbied for the passing of the bills and spent millions in pushing them through congress. This type of corporate interference is unfortunately all too common in the digital age, as corporations try to maximize profit by cutting theirs losses—often from the Internet.

Besides trying to censor the Internet through legislation, corporations also infringe on our perceived moral rights through their own ways as well. There are many incidents where corporations such as Yahoo!, Facebook, Twitter, Google, and other social media companies endanger the rights and sometimes lives of people in restrictive countries. For example, MacKinnon details the case of Shi Tao, a reporter who is now serving a 10-year prison sentence for sending an email containing military procedures. However, the charges of “divulging state secrets abroad” were not reasonable, as the military procedures and policies were available on the state military’s website and Shi Tao received them from a non-secretive presentation. However, this did not stop the Chinese government from silencing his less-than-praising voice on the issues. But the rights violations on behalf of the Chinese government are not the only ones here. According to Human Rights Watch, an international NGO focused on the research on and advocacy for human rights,

In its case against Shi Tao, the prosecution charged that he improperly took notes on the memorandum as it was being discussed at an editorial meeting at the newspaper and then hours later sent an outline of its contents by email to be published in an overseas web forum under a pseudonym. Evidence presented during the trial included account verification information provided by Yahoo! Holdings (Hong Kong) Ltd., which linked the IP address used to send the email from Shi Tao's personal Yahoo! email account to a computer located in the Contemporary Business News office.

(Human Rights Watch, August 2006)

Essay Part 1

Lately in AP Lang we've had to write an essay on a book while both reviewing it as well as an overall topic it covers. For mine I've read Rebecca MacKinnon's Consent of the Networked which touches on the impact of the Internet as well as privacy concerns and regulatory concerns and their implications. Thanks for reading and feel free to leave feedback and comments! Here's the first part:

Control of the Internet in the Modern Age

Parker Bennett

Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom

By Rebecca MacKinnon

Basic Books, 320 pp., $26.99

January 25, 2011: Hossam el-Hamalawy joins thousands of others to take to the streets in Egypt as their “Day of Rage” begins. Organizing protests through social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, activists are able to put together highly visible and effective demonstrations that elicit a response from the police. Soon protests are happening nation-wide as Egypt experiences a modern revolution, attracting international attention. On the third day of protests, Internet and phone services are cut off in the Cairo area, severely disrupting communication between activists. This is only part of the Egyptian government’s control over the citizens. Late Friday night, Hossam el-Hamalawy along with numerous other protestors storm the offices of the SSI in Nasr City. He visits the cell where he had been imprisoned for anti-government sentiments and beaten, later writing on his Twitter feed that he could not stop crying. Also discovered in the compound are thousands of documents and files on citizens, with text message transcripts, Internet postings, photos, dossiers, and other privacy-infringing records of Egyptian citizens. As the regime built around Hosni Mubarak (the dictatorial president of Egypt at the time) crumbles in the following weeks, more and more evidence comes to light of the extent of which the Egyptian government kept surveillance on its citizens, as well as the extent of how far it went to control their access to freedom: The Internet.

The Internet has become the most important innovation of the modern age, connecting billions of users across the world, encouraging cooperation between people on a global scale and allowing for the sharing of ideas, photos, information, videos, and more. Even though it can create an open and free society, it can also help those who wish to force control on people, or monitor them. This dual use of the Internet is discussed in length in Rebecca MacKinnon’s book, The Consent of the Networked. As well as discussing the role of the Internet in repressive governments and its role in fighting for freedom, MacKinnon focuses on threats to the Internet, which include authoritarian regimes, but also corporations and legislature which can interfere with free speech and privacy rights.  These areas of focus are the key points Mackinnon uses in her book to prove her point that action needs to be taken in regards to the Internet and freedom of speech/privacy concerns. As she says in the beginning of the book,

It is time to stop debating whether the Internet is an effective tool for political expression, and to move on to the much more urgent question of how digital technology can be structured, governed, and used to maximize the good it can do in the world, and minimize the evil….

The reality is that the corporations and governments that build, operate, and govern cyberspace are not being held sufficiently accountable for their exercise of power over the lives and identities of people who use digital networks. They are sovereigns operating without the consent of the networked. (MacKinnon, pp. 34 )