Freedom of Speech
The U.S. House Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic invited the editors-in-chief of Nature, Science and The Lancet to testify on government interference in the peer-reviewed publication process. Only Science’s editor-in-chief participated in Tuesday’s hearing.
Only 1 of 3 science journal editors invited to testify before Congress on government interference in the peer-reviewed publication process accepted the invitation this week.
Holden Thorp, Ph.D., editor-in-chief of the Science family of journals, on Tuesday testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.
Magdalena Skipper, Ph.D., editor-in-chief of Nature, and Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of The Lancet, “declined to participate,” according to the subcommittee’s website.
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Read MoreStella Assange claims US diplomatic assurances offer no real protection for Julian under the First Amendment.
Stella Assange has once again urged the Biden White House to give up on prosecuting her husband Julian Assange, at the same time accusing the US authorities of resorting to “blatant weasel words” when addressing the issue of granting the WikiLeaks founder First Amendment protections.
In a post on X, Stella Assange said that a diplomatic note from the US that was supposed to provide assurances regarding Assange’s future if extradited to the US did not succeed in doing that.
When it comes to the First Amendment, the note amounted to being “a non-assurance,” Stella wrote, which did not override the prosecution’s claim her husband had no rights guaranteed in this respect because he is not a US citizen. Instead it now only said that he can “seek to raise” the First Amendment if he finds himself in custody in the US.
At the same time, the note contained “a standard assurance in relation to the death penalty,” the post said. (Reuters cited the document as stating that “a sentence of death will neither be sought nor imposed.”)
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Read MoreSince April 2020, Pastor Art has been battling with the state non-stop; he has been fined, thrown in jail, and muzzled, but throughout it all, he never stopped fighting for freedom.
At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Pastor Artur Pawlowski was feeding the homeless downtown Calgary when over half a dozen police officers surrounded him and issued a $1,200 fine for allegedly breaking lockdown rules.
Since then, Pastor Artur’s top-notch lawyer has been fighting like a lioness for him.
Rebel News has been covering Pastor Artur’s story from the very beginning, including when, in July 2022, the Alberta Court of Appeal ruled that an injunction, arrest, jail time, censorship order and fines against him were illegal.
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Read MoreGovernor General Mary Simon, who serves as Canada’s official non-partisan head of state and representative of King Charles III, has taken heat for hosting a conference supporting a new federal government bill that could lead to large fines or jail time for vaguely defined online “hate speech” infractions.
On April 11, Simon hosted an event titled “The Governor General’s Symposium: Building a Safe and Respectful Digital World” at her Rideau Hall residence, with the goal to “bring together individuals who experience online violence and experts from across the country to share their experiences, explore solutions, and create allyship and networks of resilience.”
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Read MoreDemocracy Now! speaks with two of the Google employees who were arrested staging sit-ins on Tuesday at the company’s offices in New York City and in Sunnyvale, California, to protest the tech giant’s work with the Israeli government. Organized by the group No Tech for Apartheid, the protesters are demanding Google withdraw from Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract to provide cloud computing services to the Israeli military. “Google execs basically chose to arrest workers for speaking out against the use of our technology to power the first AI-powered genocide,” says Google software engineer Mohammad Khatami, who was arrested in New York. Google worker-organizer Ray Westrick, who was arrested occupying CEO Thomas Kurian’s office, says “more people are willing to organize and risk their jobs in order to take a stand against complicity in genocide.” We also speak with No Tech for Apartheid organizer and former Google worker Gabriel Schubiner, who calls on the tech industry to divest from Google and Amazon services. “Technology workers actually have a lot of power to shift this paradigm and to remove technology from this deep complicity with the Israeli occupation,” Schubiner says.
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Read MoreCanada is the butt of yet another international joke after Bill Maher roasted the nation in an eight-minute segment on “Real Time with Bill Maher” this weekend.
The HBO segment began with Maher taking shots at American liberals who often cite countries such as Canada, England and Scandinavia as “beacons of progressivism.” He then continued for more than five minutes demonstrating with stats how far Canada has fallen.
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Read MoreRideau Hall yesterday had no comment after Governor General Mary Simon personally hosted a conference in support of a bill before Parliament, C-63 An Act To Enact The Online Harms Act. The guest list was limited to Attorney General Arif Virani and supporters of internet regulation.
“The Governor General is non-partisan and apolitical,” Rideau Hall said in a statement Roles And Responsibilities. However no Opposition members or critics of Bill C-63 were invited to the April 11 conference.
Rideau Hall would not name all invitees, disclose why others were excluded or justify the pro-government event. It also declined to release any video or audio recordings of the meeting or a transcript of speakers’ remarks
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Read MoreCabinet’s 2022 use of emergency powers against Freedom Convoy protestors cost the Department of Public Safety more than $73 million, new records show. Expenses were not finalized.
“Cost associated with fiscal year 2023-2024 are still to be determined,” the department wrote in an Inquiry Of Ministry tabled in the Commons. The cost to date of $73,550,568 was tabled at the request of Conservative MP Ziad Aboultaif (Edmonton Manning) who asked, “With regard to enactment of the Emergencies Act in 2022, what was the cost burden for the government?”
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Read MorePro-Palestine protesters shut down the Golden Gate bridge as part of a global day of action over Israel’s war on Gaza, which also saw key economic sites blockaded in cities across the world.
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Read MoreAmidst escalating tensions, X responds to a US House subpoena, spotlighting its standoff with Brazilian censorship demands.
More details are emerging in the ongoing feud between X and its owner Elon Musk and Brazilian authorities over the latter’s censorship policies – a public dispute in which the US House of Representatives is now formally involved.
X has been subpoenaed by the House Judiciary Committee regarding censorship orders the company has been getting from Brazil, and the X Global Government Affairs announced that the company has complied with the request.
“X Corp. has been formally subpoenaed by the US House of Representatives Judiciary Committee to provide information on orders from the Brazilian Supreme Court regarding content moderation. To comply with its obligations under US law, X Corp. has responded to the Committee,” the post reads.
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