Local and Global Community News – Activism / Protests - Animal Advocacy - Animal Rescue- Archaeology/Anthropology/Paleontology/Crypto-zoology , Corporate Assault on our Lives and Our Health, Environmental- Internet/IT - Signs of the Times – Wildlife : News Affiliate of Family Survival Protocol.com
Showing posts with label freedom of information. Show all posts
Showing posts with label freedom of information. Show all posts
This
film follows the story of programming prodigy and information activist
Aaron Swartz. From Swartz's help in the development of the basic
internet protocol RSS to his co-founding of Reddit, his fingerprints are
all over the internet. But it was Swartz's groundbreaking work in
social justice and political organizing combined with his aggressive
approach to information access that ensnared him in a two-year legal
nightmare. It was a battle that ended with the taking of his own life at
the age of 26. Aaron's story touched a nerve with people far beyond the
online communities in which he was a celebrity. This film is a personal
story about what we lose when we are tone deaf about technology and its
relationship to our civil liberties.
Film by Brian Knappenberger - Luminant Media http://www.takepart.com/internets-own... https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...
- Watch some of our other videos -
Anonymous Documentary - How Anonymous Hackers Changed the World Full Documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAECy...
Anonymous Documentary - The Story of the Anonymous Hacktivists Full Documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC1ex...
Anonymous - Plan to defeat the Illuminati and New World Order 2015: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kobrw...
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Thousands rally against Erdogan as Turkey mourns deadliest attack
By Fulya Ozerkan, Camille Antunes October 11, 2015 7:16 PM
Associated Press Videos
Raw: Thousands Mourn Victims of Ankara Blast
Ankara
(AFP) - Thousands of mourners filled the streets of Ankara Sunday and
vented their anger at President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after 97 people
were killed in the country's worst-ever terror attack, while the
government raced to identify the two male suicide bombers it blamed for
the bloodshed.
Flags flew at half-mast across Turkey on the first
of three days of national mourning declared by Prime Minister Ahmet
Davutoglu, as questions grew over who could have ordered Saturday's
bombings on a peace rally in Ankara.
Turkey's
pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), one of the groups that had
organised the rally, said it believes the death toll now stands at 128.
The
attacks have raised tensions in Turkey just three weeks before snap
elections are due on November 1 and as the military wages an offensive
against Islamic State (IS) jihadists and Kurdish militants.
With
the country on edge, Erdogan issued a statement condemning the "heinous"
bombings and cancelled a planned visit to Turkmenistan but he has yet
to speak in public since the attack that shocked the nation.
On
Sunday, thousands of demonstrators thronged central Ankara's Sihhiye
Square, close to the blast site by the city's main train station, to pay
tribute to the victims.
View gallery
ATTENTION EDITORS - VISUAL COVERAGE OF SCENES OF INJURY OR DEATH
An injured man hugs an injured woma …
Many
of those gathered accused the government of failing to provide security
at the ill-fated rally and several anti-government demonstrators
shouted "Erdogan murderer" and "government resign!"
"I am a
mother, I'm worried about my grandchildren, I am marching for our
children, for our future. Each time there are people dead, I also die a
little," said Zahide, who like many others carried a pink carnation
flower to commemorate the victims.
The premier's office said 97
people were killed when the bombs exploded just after 10:00 am (0700
GMT) as leftist and pro-Kurdish activists assembled for the rally.
It added that 507 people were wounded, with 160 still in hospital and 65 in intensive care in 19 hospitals.
An
AFP correspondent said the scene of the blast was littered with ball
bearings, indicating the explosions were intended to cause maximum
damage.
View gallery
A family mourns in an area allocated for families of victims of Saturday's twin blasts in Ankara …
- 'Topple the dictator' -
In
an emotional address to the mourners in Ankara, the HDP's leader
Selahattin Demirtas said that rather than seeking revenge people should
aim to end Erdogan's rule, starting with the upcoming legislative
elections.
Fury towards Erdogan intensifies after Ankara attack
By Fulya Ozerkan, Camille Antunes October 12, 2015 1:43 AM
.
Ankara
(AFP) - Anger towards President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over Turkey's
worst-ever terrorist attack intensified as authorities raced to identify
the two male suicide bombers it blamed for the bloodshed.
The
streets of Ankara filled with anti-government and pro-Kurdish protesters
accusing the government of responsibility for the blast that ripped
through a peace rally a day earlier, with several shouting "Erdogan
murderer" and "government resign!"
In Istanbul on Saturday, a
10,000-strong crowd accused the government of failing to protect
citizens by providing security for the event, carrying placards reading
"the state is a killer" and "we know the murderers".
As
tributes poured in from world leaders, Selahattin Demirtas, leader of
the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), was cited as saying "State attacked
the people. Condolences recipient should be the people not Erdogan" on
the party's Twitter account.
In
an emotional address to mourners in Ankara, Demirtas said that citizens
should aim to end Erdogan's rule, starting with the upcoming
legislative elections.
"We
are not going to act out of revenge and hatred. But we are going to ask
for (people to be held to) account," he added, saying the vote would be
part of a process to "topple the dictator."
View gallery
Relatives mourn near the grave of a victim of the twin bombings in Ankara, during the funeral in Ist …
The
party believes the death toll now stands at 128, higher than the 97
people the prime minister's office said were killed when the bombs
exploded on Saturday morning as leftist and pro-Kurdish activists
assembled by the city's main train station.
The official toll also said 507 people were wounded, with 160 still in hospital and 65 in intensive care in 19 hospitals
A
conscientious father in Nevada received shocking news when he requested
to see the permanent records of his four children from state education
officials: His request would cost $10,194.
John Eppolito, the
father, was concerned about a recent decision in Nevada to join a
multi-state consortium that would share student data.
Fox News
explains, "Nevada has spent an estimated $10 million in its
seven-year-old System of Accountability Information in Nevada, known as
SAIN. Data from county school systems is uploaded nightly to a state
database, and, under the new arrangement, potentially shared with other
counties and states."
Eppolito was interested in
accessing his children’s records in order to learn what information had
been compiled on his children. It was then that he learned that he would
have to pay significant fees as well as special programming costs to
run a report of that kind.
The total, Eppolito was told, would come to $10,194.
“The
problem is that I can’t stop them from collecting the data,” said
Eppolito. “I just wanted to know what it was. It almost seems
impossible. Certainly $10,000 is enough reason to prevent a parent from
getting the data.”
Department of Public Information officer Judy
Osgood attempted to explain the reason for such a high price: “Please
understand that the primary purpose of the Department of Education’s
database it to support required state and federal reporting, funding of
local education agencies, education accountability, and public
reporting,” Osgood states. “The system currently is not capable of
responding to the type of individual student data request you have
presented.”
Eppolito was not satisfied with the response. “This data is for everyone except the parents. It’s wrong,” he asserts.
The
federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) allows
parents to view their children’s records and permits small fees to be
issued in order to access those records. Ironically, under the act, the
fees are not supposed to be so substantial that they ultimately prevent
parents from obtaining them.
“Unless the imposition of a fee
effectively prevents a parent or eligible student from exercising the
right to inspect and review the student's education records, an
educational agency or institution may charge a fee for a copy of an
education record which is made for the parent or eligible student,”
reads a section of the act. “An educational agency or institution may
not charge a fee to search for or to retrieve the education records of a
student.”
According to the regulations, the above criteria apply to “any state educational agency and its components.”
The state, by requiring the fee of over $10,000, appears to be acting in violation of FERPA.
“They
are supposed to provide [parents] the opportunity to inspect and review
[records] upon request,” explained one official at the Family Policy
Compliance Office (FCPO), the federal agency over FERPA. “There
shouldn’t be a fee for inspecting and reviewing the records.”
But
Osgood does not view it that way. “NDE does provide free access to
education records,” she said. “SAIN was not designed for student-level
inspection. Our understanding of FERPA is that this level of inspection
applies to the LEA [local education authority—i.e., school district] and
school.”
(NaturalNews)
A proposed new federal law just introduced by Rep. G.K. Butterfield (a
Democrat) and Rep. Mike Pompeo (a Republican) would outlaw state-enacted
GMO labeling laws. The new law, ridiculously called the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act,
is actually an last-ditch, desperate effort by the biotech industry and
the GMA to forever bury the truth about GMOs so that consumers don't
know they're eating poison.
According to mainstream media reports
(1), the bill would require the FDA to mandate GMO labeling only if
those foods "are found to be unsafe or materially different from foods
produced without biotech ingredients."
Because the FDA and USDA
have already decided, against all scientific evidence, that GMOs are
"safe" and "not materially different" from other foods, this requirement
is nothing but sheer sleight of hand and a pandering to idiocy. In
truth, this new bill, if passed into law, would allow food companies to
permanently and insidiously hide GMOs in all their products forever, nullifying the numerous state-based GMO labeling laws which are on the verge of passing.
The Environmental Working Group calls this proposed new law the "DARK Act" (Denying Americans the Right to Know), saying: After
two states have passed GE labeling bills and more than 30 others are
poised to consider similar labeling bills and ballot initiatives, the
food and biotech industry have goat-roped some members of Congress into
introducing legislation to block state GE labeling laws.
Push for GMOs run by criminally-minded organizations
GMOs
have already been restricted or banned in over 60 countries (2), and
Americans are very close to achieving victory in state-based GMO
labeling campaigns. The very idea that American consumers might find out
they've been eating GMO poisons in most of their favorite foods is so
horrifying to the biotech industry (and the processed food front groups)
that its enforcers are now seeking this "nuclear option" to legally
deceive consumers about GMOs with the complicity of the FDA.
Rep.
Mike Pompeo will introduce legislation backed by powerful trade groups
to prevent states from passing laws requiring the labeling of
genetically-modified foods, according to reports. The bill is linked to
biotech giant Monsanto and Koch Industries.
Pompeo will offer the
bill in the US House before Congress leaves for Easter recess later this
month, The Hill newspaper reported, citing industry sources. Politico
also reported on the impending proposal. Pompeo’s office would not
comment on the congressman’s intentions for a labeling restriction.
The bill includes a “prohibition against mandatory labeling,” according to The Hill, echoing powerful interest groups that have already declared war against such “right to know” labeling laws around the nation.
It was revealed in recent months that powerful farming and biotechnology interest groups like Monsanto were joining forces – under the name 'Coalition for Safe Affordable Food'
– to push a federal voluntary labeling standard for food made with
genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) in an effort to stem the tide of state legislation seeking to mandate labeling.
In
recent years, voters in states such as California and Washington have
narrowly defeated ballot initiatives proposing mandatory GMO labeling,
though not without dragging members of the new Coalition into expensive
campaigns to defeat the measures. Many other states are now considering
their own proposals to label GMO food.
A top member of the Coalition
– the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), a major food industry
lobbying group – raised and spent the bulk of the overall $22 million
that opponents of labeling sank into defeating Washington State’s ballot initiative
on GMO labeling last year. That total number was three times the amount
that proponents of labeling spent in the state. GMA was joined in its
effort by allies such as biotech giants Monsanto, Bayer, and DuPont.
The Coalition said in February that it would seek to empower the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) “to
establish federal standards for companies that want to voluntarily
label their product for the absence-of or presence-of GMO food
ingredients.” In addition, the Coalition proposes the FDA mandate
labels for GMO food or ingredients that the agency deems a “health,
safety or nutrition issue,” though no consumables currently fall in such
a category. “The legislation we’re proposing would preclude state legislation that conflicts with the federal standards,” GMA president Pamela Bailey said of the Coalition’s aim, The Hill reported.
While law enforcement officials have released few details of the Dec. 14 Sandy Hook Elementary School
massacre to Connecticut residents, state police and Newtown officers
have increased their trips across the country, in some cases sharing
graphic details of what they saw inside the school.
In March, Gov.
Dannel P. Malloy and other politicians criticized state police for
releasing details of the investigation at out-of-state conferences. A
police report has been delayed for months, and state law enforcement
officials have attempted to push through legislation intended to keep
secret some details of the shootings that killed 20 first-graders and
six adults.
Since then, state and Newtown police have spoken at or are scheduled to speak at forums from Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif. to Maine:
•The head of the crime squad leading the investigation, along with an FBI profiler, will speak in California in August.
•State police will speak about Newtown at child advocacy conference in Dallas in August.
•State police, including Lt. Paul Vance, the department spokesman, will discuss Newtown in Billings, Mont., in October.
•Since April, Newtown officers have spoken at conferences in Maine, Michigan and Nashville, Tenn., among others.
•Two
weeks ago, a Newtown officer described entering Sandy Hook school and
encountering a horrific scene when he spoke at a conference in Orlando, Fla., according to a Florida newspaper report of the conference and another article online.
In March, Danbury
State's Attorney Stephen Sedensky, who will issue the final
investigative report on the shooting, ordered police to stop discussing
details of the investigation at conferences. The ban was instituted
after the New York Daily News reported that state police Col. Danny
Stebbins told New Orleans conference attendees that shooter Adam Lanza had created a spreadsheet of mass killings going back 30 years.
"To
prevent such disclosure in the future, I have instructed that any and
all such presentations involving evidence in the criminal investigation
be ceased while the investigation is pending and my report is still
outstanding," Sedensky said at the time.
Protesters at the
entrance to Gezi Park, which Istanbul's governor has ordered them to
clear for their own safety. Photograph: Sedat Suna/EPA
Turkey's
prime minister defied a growing wave of international criticism on
Wednesday and issued a chilling warning to the protesters who have
captured central Istanbul for a fortnight, declaring that the
demonstrations against his rule would be over within 24 hours.
Recep
Tayyip Erdoğan's ultimatum, which he said was conveyed to his police
chief and interior minister, ratcheted up the tension in Turkey after a
relatively calm day following the mass teargas attacks by riot police in Istanbul city centre on Tuesday evening.
"We
have not responded to punches with punches. From now on security forces
will respond differently," Erdoğan said after meeting a team said to be
representing the protesters for the first time. "This issue will be
over in 24 hours."
The sense of a looming denouement at Gezi Park
off Taksim Square in central Istanbul was reinforced when a deputy
leader of Erdoğan's ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) said the
park had to be cleared of demonstrators as soon as possible.
Thousands of protesters again gathered at the park yesterday, with phalanxes of riot police marshalling nearby.
The
ruling party's deputy chairman and government Hüseyin Çelik added that a
city-wide referendum could be held on the initial issue that sparked
the wave of national protest – whether the park should be demolished to make way for a shopping mall and a replica of an old military barracks.
The
belligerent statement, contrasting with more conciliatory language from
President Abdullah Gül, who urged dialogue with legitimate peaceful
protesters, the vast majority of the tens of thousands who have taken to
the streets over the past two weeks.
The sense of a final
showdown was reinforced by Istanbul's governor, Hüseyin Avni Mutlu, who
ordered the protesters to clear the park for their own "safety".
"Families should take their children out of there," he warned.
Turkish government open to referendum to end protests
Protesters sleep on a bench at the Gezi Park in Istanbul, Turkey. Riot
police fired tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets in day-long
clashes that lasted into the early hours Wednesday. Photo: AP
Despite the offer, protesters continued to converge on Istanbul’s
Taksim Square, the epicentre of repeated clashes between riot police
firing tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets.
Turkey’s government on Wednesday offered a first concrete gesture aimed
at ending nearly two weeks of street protests, proposing a referendum on
a development project in Istanbul that triggered demonstrations that
have become the biggest challenge to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan’s 10-year tenure.
Despite the offer, protesters continued to converge on Istanbul’s Taksim
Square, the epicentre of repeated clashes between riot police firing
tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets, and stone-throwing youths
for 13 days an early sign that the proposal hadn’t defused the
demonstrators’ concerns.
Word of such a referendum came after Mr. Erdogan hosted talks with a
small group of activists. Many civil society groups behind the protests
boycotted those talks in the capital, Ankara, saying they weren’t
invited and that the attendees didn’t represent them.
The discussion was the first sign that Mr. Erdogan was looking for an
exit from the showdown, and came hours after some European leaders
expressed concern about strong-arm Turkish police tactics and hopes that
the prime minister would soften his stance.
The headscarfed mother, infant attacked by Gezi Park protestors
A report has been published about the mother who was attacked
by a mob of Gezi Park protestors for wearing a headscarf. Both mother
and infant suffered physical injury.
World Bulletin/News Desk
The Taksim Gezi protests, which began with a small group with
environmental concerns, have turned into nation-wide protests which have
resulted in groups violently attacking people throughout Turkey.
The efforts by the secularist-nationalist fronts, which have provided
direct support to the protests, to provoke the crowds and polarize
society have reached an appalling scale. One mortifying case has been
the attack on the daughter-in-law of an AK Party mayor of a township in
Istanbul as she was walking with her 6 month old baby.
Suffering from trauma, the mother whose entire body is bruised has been unable to nurse her infant since the attack.
