On December 21, Apple pulled a WikiLeaks application from its iTunes store, banning it forever. When reporters queried the company about why it did so, the response was: “We removed WikiLeaks because it violated developer guidelines. An app must comply with all local laws. It may not put an individual or target group in harm’s way.”
And so Apple has joined capital’s war on WikiLeaks; adding its power to that of the credit card company’s online retailers and even Swiss banks who refuse to do any business with the grassroots whistleblowing organisation that has done more to bring the malfeasance of governments and corporations to the light of public scrutiny than any other organisation in at least two generations.
And because of that, I will never buy another Apple product again. You’ve made your choice, Mr. Jobs, and now so have I.
LeVine skriver mere, og det er alt sammen værd at læse. Men egentlig er der ikke mere at sige. At mene, at Apple-produkter er cool er det samme som at mene, at politisk censur er cool – for Apple praktiserer politisk censur og er stolt af det.
Lad os forestille os, at der er storstilede demonstrationer mod statsmagten i et land, hvor alle ved, at undertrykkelsen er hård. Lad os forestille os, at mens demonstrationen ruller gennem gaderne i Teheran, Beijing, Harare, Caracas eller Havana, slår ordensmagten ned på den med jernhånd. Blandt demonstranterne befinder sig en tyve-årig med spastisk lammelse i en rullestol, der ikke selv kan bevæge sig og derfor bliver skubbet gennem demonstrationen af sin bror.
Da politiet udser sig denne unge mand, flår ham ud af hans rullestol og banker ham, er der nogle af de andre demonstranter, der har held til at filme det. Filmklippet bliver smuglet ud og vækker så stor opmærksomhed, at regimets egne, statskontrollerede medier er tvunget til at omtale sagen.
Forestil jer omverdenens reaktion, når de forklarer, at den unge provokatør i rullestolen i virkeligheden “rullede hen mod politiet” og derfor var meget suspekt, i hvert fald suspekt nok til at fortjene de fleste af de bank, han fik. Forestil jer de vrede ledere i Jyllands-Posten og Politiken, den intense dækning i TV-Avisen, interviewet med korrespondenterne om, hvordan det ikke vil lykkes regimet at narre befolkningen på den måde.
Og se så klippet herover. Faktisk var det ikke i Teheran, det var i London, og det var de kun alt for villige lokale medier, der gik med på ideen om den “farlige”, angribende spastiker i rullestolen. Det kunne have været i København, hvor politidirektøren lige har forklaret, hvorfor det er i orden at slå pressefolk i en lovligt anmeldt demonstration ned med “rødglødende knipler”.
Nuvel, denne vinkel på sagen er tyvstjålet fra China Mieville, der opsummerer, hvad der var sket, hvis det her havde fundet sted i en “slyngelstat”:
The British & American media response can be imagined. Shock. Disgust at such overt & disgraceful victim-blaming. Sympathy for the young activist, who becomes an international hero. Revulsion at the outlet’s patently ridiculous claims of ‘objectivity’. Bitter humour, perhaps, at the sheer Leviathan absurdity of the implied justification.
‘Rolling towards the police’ might become a media meme, this year’s Comical Ali, a shorthand for any self-evidently ridiculous & tasteless claim by the media apparatchik of a repressive regime. Hipsters begin to wear t-shirts emblazoned with the phrase & the face of the ‘journalist’ who spoke it.
Men nu fandt det selvfølgelig sted hos os selv, så det bliver der ikke noget af. I stedet må vi huske, at politiet er der for at beskytte os alle sammen, og at Jody McIntyre nok havde et eller andet voldeligt for, den lede spastiker. Kun således kan vi blive ved med at bilde os selv ind, at regimerne i Danmark og Storbritannien er åbne for kritik og demokratiske demonstrationer, som truer de mest fundamentale interesser. Lad os gøre “slyngelstaternes” dissidenter til helte – og vore egne …
– I skal sgu ikke være bange for at piratkopiere filmen. Download den – fyr den af – og lav den i mange kopier. Casper og jeg har det sådan – og det er med hånden på hjertet – at når vi tæller sammen hvad vi er blevet snydt for af penge, så er det ikke piraterne der har snydt os. Det er distributørerne og producenterne der har snydt os, det er ikke jer søde piratbrugere … Fyr den løs!
Distribution via download er jo også blevet en del af den virkelighed, som filmmagere og musikere må forholde sig til i disse år. Det er uden tvivl langt klogere at ride med den bølge fremfor at forsøge at svømme imod den.
Den 22-årige Bradley Manning, der beskyldes for at have lækket et stort antal amerikanske statshemmeligheder, men ikke er dømt for nogen forbrydelse, holdes ikke desto mindre fanget under gruopvækkende omstændigheder, fortæller Glenn Greenwald:
Interviews with several people directly familiar with the conditions of Manning’s detention, ultimately including a Quantico brig official (Lt. Brian Villiard) who confirmed much of what they conveyed, establishes that the accused leaker is subjected to detention conditions likely to create long-term psychological injuries.
Since his arrest in May, Manning has been a model detainee, without any episodes of violence or disciplinary problems. He nonetheless was declared from the start to be a “Maximum Custody Detainee,” the highest and most repressive level of military detention, which then became the basis for the series of inhumane measures imposed on him.
From the beginning of his detention, Manning has been held in intensive solitary confinement. For 23 out of 24 hours every day — for seven straight months and counting — he sits completely alone in his cell. Even inside his cell, his activities are heavily restricted; he’s barred even from exercising and is under constant surveillance to enforce those restrictions. For reasons that appear completely punitive, he’s being denied many of the most basic attributes of civilized imprisonment, including even a pillow or sheets for his bed (he is not and never has been on suicide watch). For the one hour per day when he is freed from this isolation, he is barred from accessing any news or current events programs. Lt. Villiard protested that the conditions are not “like jail movies where someone gets thrown into the hole,” but confirmed that he is in solitary confinement, entirely alone in his cell except for the one hour per day he is taken out.
In sum, Manning has been subjected for many months without pause to inhumane, personality-erasing, soul-destroying, insanity-inducing conditions of isolation similar to those perfected at America’s Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado: all without so much as having been convicted of anything. And as is true of many prisoners subjected to warped treatment of this sort, the brig’s medical personnel now administer regular doses of anti-depressants to Manning to prevent his brain from snapping from the effects of this isolation.
Just by itself, the type of prolonged solitary confinement to which Manning has been subjected for many months is widely viewed around the world as highly injurious, inhumane, punitive, and arguably even a form of torture. In his widely praised March, 2009 New Yorker article — entitled “Is Long-Term Solitary Confinement Torture?” — the surgeon and journalist Atul Gawande assembled expert opinion and personal anecdotes to demonstrate that, as he put it, “all human beings experience isolation as torture.” By itself, prolonged solitary confinement routinely destroys a person’s mind and drives them into insanity. A March, 2010 article in The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Lawexplains that “solitary confinement is recognized as difficult to withstand; indeed, psychological stressors such as isolation can be as clinically distressing as physical torture.”
Her var det måske passende at rette et spørgsmål til præsident Obama: Er det den “change”, folk skulle stemme på? Er dette den “reinstatement of habeas corpus”, som Obama lovede, da han stadig kun var kandidat? Ren og skær tortur af en mand, der ikke er dømt for nogen forbrydelse, for at tage en lille, billig hævn og ikke af nogen anden grund. Shame on the U.S. of A.
For dem, der ikke forstår hvad koden gør og ikke ved, hvad Eratosthenes’ si er:
Funktionen beregner for et givet “n” (for eksempel 100) en liste af alle primtal op til n (for eksempel 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71, 73, 79, 83, 89, 97).
15-årige Rodney (så vidt jeg kan høre) forklarer, hvad den nye konservative regerings brutale og unødvendige nedskæringer på det britiske samfund og den brutale undertrykkelse af demonstrationerne mod dem er ved at vække den det, som af nogen er kaldt “MTV-generationen”:
Brasiliens præsident Lula erklærer bl.a., at i stedet for at retsforfølge dem, der har lækket disse mange dokumenter, skulle man retsforfølge dem, der har skrevet dem og begået de uhyrlige ting, som mange af telegrammerne afslører.
