Tragedy to Push Limit
on Free Speech
By Michael Collins Piper
However, long-standing evidence suggests that those who advocate such measures in the United States do not intend to directly confront the issue of “Holocaust denial” in pushing such legislation.
Rather, they intend to deal with the issue through an insidious tactical “back door” approach.
The scheme has been in the works for a long time and is not to be confused with the long-standing drive (once again before Congress) to set up a federal “hate crimes” bureaucracy.
Here’s the story that’s not been reported anywhere else: On June 12, the conservative Washington Times— which regularly touts the globalist and Zionist agenda— featured a headline story announcing that “Debate arises on legality of Holocaust denial,” as a consequence of what happened at the Holocaust Museum, adding fuel to the fire.
So now the propaganda drive for legislation targeting not just “Holocaust denial” but all manner of political freedom of expression is being rejuvenated.
Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, the wealthy American founder of the Israel Project, one of many well-funded Jewish lobby operations, was quoted in the Washington Times article as saying that public distribution of so-called “hate literature” as well as “hate” on public access cable should be outlawed.
And although the Times quoted officials from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B’nai B’rith as saying the ADL does not advocate laws criminalizing “Holocaust denial” in America, the fact is that for more than 20 years the ADL has been in the forefront of a coordinated effort to pave the way for legislation designed to suppress speech in the U.S. the ADL considers dangerous to its agenda.
The ADL’s plan is to outlaw what it called “group defamation” that could be considered hurtful against certain specifically identifiable groups of people and thus potentially spark violence against them. In fact, the ADL’s contention is that hurtful language actually constitutes “violence” in and of itself.
In other words, if an individual criticized the actions of the state of Israel for its recent bloody incursion into Gaza, this could be considered offensive by American Jewish supporters of Israel and, in turn, those criticisms of Israel could cause other Americans to become angry at the supporters of Israel. As a consequence of this, it is said, violence could occur.
Or, for example, if someone raised questions about the number of Jews who died in Europe during the Holocaust and suggested that the numbers had been inflated by Jewish groups for political benefit and financial profit—this is considered a form of “Holocaust denial” in Europe today—Jewish people could be “hurt” because their integrity was being questioned and it might cause others to think badly of them.
If this sounds unlikely or extraordinary, consider the documented record of the ADL in this regard.
In 1988 at Hofstra University in New York, the ADL conducted a three-day legal symposium entitled “Group Defamation and Freedom of Speech: The Relationship Between Language and Violence.” The forum concluded with a call for passage of a law to ban what was described as “hate literature” by so-called “extremists.”
The opinions expressed by the featured speakers at the ADL conclave advocating a ban on hate literature centered around two ideas:
• That words, written or spoken, in and of themselves, constitute violence. (For example, one need only call someone a “bad” name without threatening any physical action to perform an act of violence.)
• That words, written or spoken, take on a certain power that creates a reality for the target or victim of these words. (For example, by calling someone a “dirty rotten bum,” he will become one.)
In his opening remarks, Hofstra law professor Monroe Freedman said that trying to defend free speech while trying to protect minorities against those who “defame” them is a “paradox of Constitutional democracy.” According to Freedman:
Group defamation can create a social climate that is receptive to and encourages hatred and oppression. If a minority group can be made to appear less than human, deserving of punishment, or a threat to the general community, oppression of that minority is a likely consequence. We know also that language itself can hurt, that there are words that, by their very utterance, inflict injury. . . .When the message is violent, language can itself be violence.
The conference featured a moot court argument of the winning submission of a competition among law students around the nation to write a model statute that could be used to prosecute those who engage in socalled “group defamation.” The first prize winner was a model statute defining group defamation as:
Any oral, written or symbolic speech, published with malice, that debases, degrades or calls into question the loyalties, abilities or integrity of members of a group based on a characteristic that [is] allegedly common to the members of that group, or that by its very utterance inflicts injury upon members of a group, or that promotes animosity against a group.
Under the proposed statute, an agency would be established to monitor acts of group defamation; assess the impact of any speech that defames a group; and counteract the actually and potentially adverse effects of that speech. That agency would also review all films and movies before they could be shown and, if deemed to be offensive, ban public viewing.
In a similar vein, on November 2, 1995, then-Rep. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.)—now a powerful U.S. senator— joined with the aforementioned Congressman Conyers in promoting legislation of the character proposed at the ADL conference. The Schumer measure, H.R. 2580, was deceptively called “The Republican Form of Government Guarantee Act.”
A longtime ADL spokesman in Congress, Schumer proposed to outlaw discussion of what he called “baseless conspiracy theories regarding the government” that he said endangered public order. Already he was known as the leading congressional enemy of the Second Amendment and the rights of gun owners. Schumer’s new target—the First Amendment—would have been scrapped had the bill been passed.
Cyber-tactics gain growing importance in Israel's warfare
2009-07-15
...Reports from Jerusalem suggest the country's Foreign Ministry has unveiled plans for an "Internet warfare" team. The program recruits members from the public to write on websites in defense of Israel.
The successful candidates need to be students of law or politics who speak foreign languages. Others will have a military background. Much of what they will do is to write talkbacks on news sites -- the area usually beneath a news story that allows for public comments.
Back to 2006, the Israeli war with the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah could form the basis of a cyber-warfare ABC textbook. Israel adopted a series of low-key methods for trying to win the war physically and psychologically.
Israel created numerous fake sites in Arabic that spoke to average Lebanese citizens. It tried offering rewards for the hand-over of Hezbollah fighters and, in perhaps the most James Bond-like operations, it took control of people's mobile phones.
In September 2007, Israeli jets blew up a remote facility in Syria, which was believed to be a nuclear facility under construction. From what journalists have been able to learn of that operation, Israel managed to jam Syrian radar and other devices to allow its air force time to launch the strike undetected. (...)
In the Middle East, spies, intelligence agencies and sundry official eavesdroppers are increasingly using the Internet and beyond to target enemy states. It is rumored that several countries in the Middle East use Russian hackers and scientists to operate on their behalf. (...)
Israel's high-tech industry is a world leader, particularly in the fields of security and communications. Israeli companies such as Comverse, Checkpoint and AMDOCS are world leaders, while many other top international high-tech firms choose to locate their research and development arms in Israel.
All that Israeli technical know-how comes from one place: the army. There is one unit within the army's intelligence arm that seems to specialize in producing the most talented CEOs and programming whiz kids. And it is the army that takes the lead in Israel's cyber campaigns.
The other intelligence branches, including the famed Mossad, are very dependent on the military, although it is understood that the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) is now developing its own mechanism.
The Shin Bet has a similar mandate to the FBI, with its main focuses being the Palestinians and Israeli Arabs.
Gadi Evron, a private consultant formerly responsible for security in Israeli government's non-military computer system, does not deny that his country has a large-scale activity using the Internet to disrupt enemy activities. He just tends to err when it comes to talk of the more grandiose plots.
While it is clear Israel has successfully used cyber-tactics against its enemies, it is harder to know to what extent Israel has been hit, according to Dahan.
"If you are attacked or hacked and no one knows about it, you are not going to run to the press and tell people," he said.
Israel talks little about its cyber operations, but occasional leaks to the media, along with insider knowledge amassed by analysts, certainly pointing to a trend of active involvement of computer experts in Israel's covert and sometimes overt operations. (...)
Hacking into websites and flooding computer systems are commonplace these days, the question is to what extent governments participate in these types of activities and the more sinister planting of Trojan Horses on enemy computers in order to gain control of information and to potentially disinform. ...
Nouvelles "pas casher":
ISRAELI ‘THOUGHT POLICE’ DECLARE ALL OUT WAR ON THE WEB
Internet surfers paid to spread Israeli propaganda
Sur ce blog:
États-Unis: bientôt des lois criminalisant la pensée dissidente? "Round Up Hate-Promoters Now, Before Any More Holocaust Museum Attacks"
Gare au nouveau projet de la de l'ADL contre le "cyberharcèlement"
Les bloggeurs, des extrémistes politiques?
Les maîtres chanteurs sillonnent les sites et les fora
L'éternel retour de la droite extrémiste: le rapport étatsunien sur le terrorisme domestique
Les services secrets et l'armée engagent des pirates informatiques et des criminels
Le golem finit toujours par se retourner contre son créateur...
Des attaques militaires prévues contre les médias dissidents