June, 13 2017, 12:30pm EDT
Momentum grows as more sites and organizations join Internet-Wide Day of Action to Save Net Neutrality on July 12th
Internet Association, Phil DeFranco, Imgur, Namecheap, DuckDuckGo, Sonic, Chess.com, Fark, O’Reilly Media, and dozens of others join Amazon, Etsy, Kickstarter, Reddit, Mozilla to save Internet freedom
NATIONWIDE
Momentum is building for an "Internet-Wide Day of Action to Save Net Neutrality" scheduled for July 12th to oppose the FCC's plan to slash Title II, the legal framework for net neutrality rules that protect online free speech and innovation.
The diverse list of companies and organizations supporting the effort has continued to grow with a slew of major players joining including the Internet Association, Imgur, Sonic (an ISP), popular domain registrar Namecheap, Writers Guild West, Fark, O'Reilly Media, DuckDuckGo, Checkout.com, Chess.com (the world's most popular online chess site), hip music blog Consequence of Sound, and venture capital firm Union Square Ventures. More than 30,000 people, sites, and organizations have signed up to participate in the effort overall, and more announcements from major companies are expected in the coming days. Many popular online personalities including YouTuber Philip DeFranco have also announced their participation.
See the announcement for the day of action here: https://battleforthenet.com/july12
The effort is led by many of the grassroots groups behind the largest online protests in history including the SOPA blackout and the Internet Slowdown. The day of action will focus on grassroots mobilization, with public interest groups activating their members and major web platforms providing their visitors with tools to contact Congress and the FCC.
Companies participating include Amazon, Kickstarter, Etsy, Reddit, Mozilla, Vimeo, Y Combinator, GitHub, Private Internet Access, Pantheon, Bittorrent Inc., Shapeways, Nextdoor, Patreon, Dreamhost, and CREDO Mobile, Goldenfrog, Fark, Chess.com, Imgur, Namecheap, DuckDuckGo, Checkout.com, Sonic, Brave, Ting, ProtonMail, O'Reilly Media, Discourse, and Union Square Ventures. Organizations participating include Fight for the Future, Free Press Action Fund, Demand Progress, Center for Media Justice, EFF, Internet Association, Internet Archive, World Wide Web Foundation, Creative Commons, National Hispanic Media Coalition, Greenpeace, Common Cause, ACLU, Rock the Vote, American Library Association, Daily Kos, OpenMedia, The Nation, PCCC, MoveOn, OFA, Public Knowledge, OTI, Color of Change, MoveOn, Internet Creators Guild, and many others.
Evan Greer, campaign director of Fight for the Future, said: "The Internet has given more people a voice than ever before, and we're not going to let the FCC take that power away from us. Massive online mobilization got us the strong net neutrality protections that we have now, and we intend to fight tooth and nail to defend them. Politicians in Washington, DC need to learn that net neutrality is not a partisan issue and Internet users will not tolerate these attacks on our basic rights -- we will come together to protect the web as an open platform for free expression and exchange of ideas."
Michal Rosenn, General Counsel at Kickstarter, said: "A threat to net neutrality is a threat to the free exchange of ideas that creative culture and an informed public rely upon. Kickstarter, and the tens of thousands of creators who have brought new ideas to life through our platform, all depend on a free and open internet. We're proud to stand alongside so many others today to preserve net neutrality, and to protect the freedoms that make the internet such a powerful force."
Malkia Cyril, executive director at the Center for Media Justice, said: "Communities of color across the United States depend on an open Internet to thrive. From resisting police violence to demanding fair wages -- the political voice and economic opportunity that the Internet enables must remain protected by Title II net neutrality. Trump's FCC seeks to wall these communities off from the power of the internet as a mobilizing tool and an equalizer. On July 12, we will stand together with activists, Internet users of color, advocacy groups, and tech companies to preserve democracy by defending our Internet."
Michael Cheah, General Counsel, Vimeo, said: "Net neutrality made it possible for Vimeo, along with countless other startups, to innovate and thrive. The FCC's proposed rollback of the 2015 open Internet rules threatens to impede that innovation and allow a handful of incumbent ISPs to determine winners and losers. On July 11th, Vimeo will proudly join our fellow tech brethren to rally Internet users nationwide to demand strong net neutrality rules to prevent ISPs from manipulating Internet traffic."
Mark Stanley, communications director of Demand Progress, said: "The FCC's plan to dismantle net neutrality will unfairly pad the bottom lines of Comcast and the rest of Big Cable, while undermining the public's ability to freely communicate, organize, and innovate. Every few years, a threat so severe confronts the open internet that people, organizations, and companies from across the political spectrum--including some of the largest online platforms--must band together in common cause to fight back. The FCC's ongoing effort to roll back net neutrality protections represents just such a threat -- and on the July 12th day of action, we'll once again use the transformative power of the internet to defend the internet itself."
Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator, said: "At Y Combinator, the startup accelerator I run, we have proudly supported thousands of entrepreneurs and more than 1,400 businesses, including companies like AirBnB and Dropbox. Companies like these have gone on to change our lives for the better--how we work, how we eat, how we live. They could grow and compete, and ultimately consumers choose who wins and loses online. Without strong net neutrality rules, though, I'm concerned that the cable and wireless companies that control internet access will have outsized power to pick winners and losers in the market."
Free Press Campaign Director Candace Clement said: "It's like deja vu. The last time Net Neutrality came before the FCC, internet users across the political spectrum swamped the agency with comments demanding strong Net Neutrality protections. The internet won't go down quietly in 2017 and on July 12 people, companies, organizations and websites will let everyone know that the Trump FCC lacks a public mandate to take away our online rights. We will make it impossible for Chairman Pai to continue to cling to the sorts of alternative facts against Net Neutrality that we've proven to be wrong time and again."
Denelle Dixon, Mozilla's Chief Legal and Business Officer, said: "Net neutrality is vital to a healthy Internet: it protects free speech, competition and innovation online. It's also something a majority of Americans support -- 76%, according to a recent Mozilla-Ipsos poll. By reverting to a Title I classification for ISPs, the FCC is endangering Americans' access to a free and open web. The FCC is creating an Internet that benefits ISPs, not users."
Zachary Rosen, CEO of Pantheon, said: "We started Pantheon to make it easier for organizations big and small to succeed on the Web. But if strong net neutrality rules under Title II go away, it'd put both us and our customers' innovation at risk."
Fight for the Future is a group of artists, engineers, activists, and technologists who have been behind the largest online protests in human history, channeling Internet outrage into political power to win public interest victories previously thought to be impossible. We fight for a future where technology liberates -- not oppresses -- us.
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'Make Polio Great Again': Alarm Over RFK Jr. Lawyer Who Targeted Vaccine
"So if you're wondering if Donald Trump is trying to kill your kids, yes, yes he is," said one critic.
Dec 13, 2024
Public health advocates, federal lawmakers, and other critics responded with alarm to The New York Timesreporting on Friday that an attorney helping Robert F. Kennedy Jr. select officials for the next Trump administration tried to get the U.S. regulators to revoke approval of the polio vaccine in 2022.
"The United States has been a leader in the global fight to eradicate polio, which is poised to become only the second disease in history to be eliminated from the face of the earth after smallpox," said Liza Barrie, Public Citizen's campaign director for global vaccines access. "Undermining polio vaccination efforts now risks reversing decades of progress and unraveling one of the greatest public health achievements of all time."
Public Citizen is among various organizations that have criticized President-elect Donald Trump's choice of Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, with the watchdog's co-president, Robert Weissman, saying that "he shouldn't be allowed in the building... let alone be placed in charge of the nation's public health agency."
Although Kennedy's nomination requires Senate confirmation, he is already speaking with candidates for top health positions, with help from Aaron Siri, an attorney who represented RFK Jr. during his own presidential campaign, the Times reported. Siri also represents the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) in petitions asking the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) "to withdraw or suspend approval of vaccines not only for polio, but also for hepatitis B."
According to the newspaper:
Mr. Siri is also representing ICAN in petitioning the FDA to "pause distribution" of 13 other vaccines, including combination products that cover tetanus, diphtheria, polio, and hepatitis A, until their makers disclose details about aluminum, an ingredient researchers have associated with a small increase in asthma cases.
Mr. Siri declined to be interviewed, but said all of his petitions were filed on behalf of clients. Katie Miller, a spokeswoman for Mr. Kennedy, said Mr. Siri has been advising Mr. Kennedy but has not discussed his petitions with any of the health nominees. She added, "Mr. Kennedy has long said that he wants transparency in vaccines and to give people choice."
After the article was published, Siri called it a "typical NYT hit piece plainly written by those lacking basic reading and thinking skills," and posted a series of responses on social media. He wrote in part that "ICAN's petition to the FDA seeks to revoke a particular polio vaccine, IPOL, and only for infants and children and only until a proper trial is conducted, because IPOL was licensed in 1990 by Sanofi based on pediatric trials that, according to FDA, reviewed safety for only three days after injection."
The Times pointed out that experts consider placebo-controlled trials that would deny some children polio shots unethical, because "you're substituting a theoretical risk for a real risk," as Dr. Paul A. Offit, a vaccine expert at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, explained. "The real risks are the diseases."
Ayman Chit, head of vaccines for North America at Sanofi, told the newspaper that development of the vaccine began in 1977, over 280 million people worldwide have received it, and there have been more than 300 studies, some with up to six months of follow-up.
Trump, who is less than six weeks out from returning to office, has sent mixed messages on vaccines in recent interviews.
Asked about RFK Jr.'s anti-vaccine record during a Time "Person of the Year" interview published Thursday, the president-elect said that "we're going to be able to do very serious testing" and certain vaccines could be made unavailable "if I think it's dangerous."
Trump toldNBC News last weekend: "Hey, look, I'm not against vaccines. The polio vaccine is the greatest thing. If somebody told me to get rid of the polio vaccine, they're going to have to work real hard to convince me. I think vaccines are—certain vaccines—are incredible. But maybe some aren't. And if they aren't, we have to find out."
Both comments generated concern—like the Friday reporting in the Times, which University of Alabama law professor and MSNBC columnist Joyce White Vance called "absolutely terrifying."
She was far from alone. HuffPost senior front page editor Philip Lewis said that "this is just so dangerous and ridiculous" while Zeteo founder Mehdi Hasan declared, "We are so—and I use this word advisedly—fucked."
Ryan Cooper, managing editor at The American Prospect, warned that "they want your kids dead."
Author and musician Mikel Jollett similarly said, "So if you're wondering if Donald Trump is trying to kill your kids, yes, yes he is."
Multiple critics altered Trump's campaign slogan to "Make Polio Great Again."
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) responded with a video on social media:
Without naming anyone, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), a polio survivor, put out a lengthy statement on Friday.
"The polio vaccine has saved millions of lives and held out the promise of eradicating a terrible disease. Efforts to undermine public confidence in proven cures are not just uninformed—they're dangerous," he said in part. "Anyone seeking the Senate's consent to serve in the incoming administration would do well to steer clear of even the appearance of association with such efforts."
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Biden Pardon of 'Kids-for-Cash' Judge Michael Conahan Sparks Outrage
"It's a big slap in the face for us once again," said one of the disgraced judge's victims.
Dec 13, 2024
Victims of a scheme in which a pair of Pennsylvania judges conspired to funnel thousands of children into private detention centers in exchange for millions of dollars in kickbacks expressed outrage following U.S. President Joe Biden's Thursday commutation of one of the men's sentences.
In 2010, former Luzerne County Judge Michael Conahan pleaded guilty to federal racketeering charges and was sentenced to more than 17 years in prison after he and co-conspirator Mark Ciavarella shut down a county-run juvenile detention facility and then took nearly $3 million in payments from the builder and co-owner of for-profit lockups, into which the judges sent children as young as 8 years old.
"It's a big slap in the face for us once again," Amanda Lorah—who was sentenced by Conahan to five years of juvenile detention over a high school fight—toldWBRE.
Sandy Fonzo, whose son killed himself after being sentenced to juvenile detention, said in a statement: "I am shocked and I am hurt. Conahan's actions destroyed families, including mine, and my son's death is a tragic reminder of the consequences of his abuse of power."
"This pardon feels like an injustice for all of us who still suffer," Fonzo added. "Right now I am processing and doing the best I can to cope with the pain that this has brought back."
Many of Conahan's victims were first-time or low-level offenders. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court would later throw out thousands of cases adjudicated by the Conahan and Ciaverella, the latter of whom is serving a 28-year sentence for his role in the scheme.
Conahan—who is 72 and had been under house arrest since being transferred from prison during the Covid-19 pandemic—was one of around 1,500 people who received commutations or pardons from Biden on Thursday. While the sweeping move was welcomed by criminal justice reform advocates, many also decried the president's decision to not grant clemency to any of the 40 men with federal death sentences.
Others have called on Biden—who earlier this month pardoned his son Hunter Biden after promising he wouldn't—to grant clemency to people including Indigenous activist Leonard Peltier and environmental lawyer Steven Donziger.
"There's never going to be any closure for us."
"So he wants to talk about Conahan and everybody else, but what is Joe Biden doing for all of these kids who absolutely got nothing, and almost no justice in this whole thing that happened?" said Lorah. "So it's nothing for us, but it seems that Conahan is just getting a slap on the wrist every which way he possibly could still today."
"There's never going to be any closure for us," she added. "There's never going to be, somehow, some way, these two men are always going to pop up, but now, when you think about the president of the United States letting him get away with this, who even wants to live in this country at this point? I'm totally shocked, I can't believe this."
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77 House Dems Call for 'Full Assessment' of Israeli Compliance With US Law
Lawmakers told the Biden administration they are "deeply troubled by the continued level of civilian casualties and humanitarian suffering in Gaza."
Dec 13, 2024
As Israel continues to decimate the Gaza Strip with American weapons, 77 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives this week demanded that the Biden administration "provide a full assessment of the status of Israel's compliance with all relevant U.S. policies and laws, including National Security Memorandum 20 (NSM-20) and Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act."
Reps. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.), and Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.) spearheaded the Thursday letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, with less than six weeks left in President Joe Biden's term.
Since Biden issued NSM-20 in February, his administration has repeatedly accepted the Israel government's assurances about the use of U.S. weapons, despite reports from journalists and human rights groups about how they have helped Israeli forces slaughter at least 44,875 Palestinians and injure another 106,454 people in the besieged enclave over the past 14 months.
"Our concerns remain urgent and largely unresolved, including arbitrary restrictions on humanitarian aid and insufficient delivery routes."
House Democrats' letter begins by declaring support for "Israel's right to self-defense," denouncing the Hamas-led October 2023 attack, and endorsing the Biden administration's efforts "to broker a bilateral cease-fire that includes the release of hostages," noting the deal recently negotiated for the Israeli government and the Lebanese group Hezbollah.
"Further, we condemn the unprecedented Iranian attacks against Israel launched on April 13, 2024, and October 1, 2024," the letter states, declining to mention the Israeli actions that led to those responses. "We must continue to avoid a major regional conflict—and we welcome the concerted diplomatic efforts by the U.S. and our allies to prevent further escalation."
"We are also deeply troubled by the continued level of civilian casualties and humanitarian suffering in Gaza," the lawmakers wrote, citing the administration's October 13 letter imposing a 30-day deadline for Israel to improve humanitarian conditions in Palestinian territory. "That deadline has expired, and while some progress has been made, we believe the Israeli government has not yet fulfilled the requirements outlined in your letter."
Asked during a November 12 press conference if the Israeli government has met the administration's demands, State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said that "we have not made an assessment that they are in violation of U.S. law."
Shortly after that, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) forced votes on resolutions to block the sale of 120mm tank rounds, 120mm high-explosive mortar rounds, and Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) to Israel, but they didn't pass.
Progressives and Democrats in Congress have been sounding the alarm about U.S. government complicity in Israel's armed assault and starvation campaign—which have led to an ongoing genocide case at the International Court of Justice—to varying degrees since October 2023, including with a May letter led by Crow and Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) and signed by 85 others.
Citing that letter on Thursday, the 77 House Democrats wrote that "our concerns remain urgent and largely unresolved, including arbitrary restrictions on humanitarian aid and insufficient delivery routes, among others. As a result, Gaza's civilian population is facing dire famine."
"We believe further administrative action must be taken to ensure Israel upholds the assurances it provided in March 2024 to facilitate, and not directly or indirectly obstruct, U.S. humanitarian assistance," the letter concludes. "We remain committed to a negotiated solution that can bring an end to the fighting, free the remaining hostages, surge humanitarian aid, and lay the groundwork to rebuild Gaza with a legitimate Palestinian governing body. We thank you and the administration for its ongoing work to achieve those shared goals."
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