Jordan's King Abdullah endorses controversial media law

18 September 2012
Source: BBC News Middle East

Jordan's King Abdullah of has endorsed a new media law which critics say will stifle freedom of expression online.

The legislation requires "electronic publications" in Jordan to get a licence from the government.

It also gives the authorities the power to block and censor websites, whose owners will be held responsible for comments posted on them.

Human Rights Watch accused the government of using such legislation to "go after opponents and critics".

Media professionals and ordinary citizens regularly found themselves charged with and convicted of criminal offences related to speech, it said.

In April, the State Security Court military prosecutor detained the editor of the Gerasa News website for trying to "undermine the system of government" after it published an article about the king's alleged intervention in a corruption investigation.

The case remains open but the trial has not yet started.
'Check the truth'

Human Rights Watch said the dangers of the amendments to the Press and Publications Law endorsed on Monday arose from its vague definition of the "electronic publications" which would be affected, the new executive power to block websites, and the unreasonable restrictions on online content, including comments posted by website users.

The legislation's definition of electronic publication is "an electronic site on the internet with a fixed address that offers publication services".

Any that publish "news, investigations, articles, or comments, which have to do with the internal or external affairs of the kingdom" must register with the commerce ministry and get a licence from the culture ministry.

The culture ministry will have the authority to block websites that are either unlicensed or deemed to be in violation of any law, and to close the website's offices without providing a reason or obtaining a court order.

The owner, editor and director of an electronic publication will share the responsibility for comments posted on their website, and be obliged not to publish any "containing information or facts unrelated to the news item or if the truth has not been checked", or if they "violate laws".

"The government has not shown a valid reason for prohibiting user comments that are deemed unrelated to the item that triggered the comment, a prohibition that appears to be arbitrary interference in the right to free expression," HRW said.

"Obliging website managers to check the truth of comments is also not a valid restriction on freedom of speech, which includes the freedom to express unproven statements or even falsehoods."

The Associated Press estimated that about 400 Jordanian websites would be affected by the new law.

The Press and Publications Law and the penal code already criminalise defamation, including libel and slander, including against entities that are not people, such as government institutions, symbols and religions.

IDF Chief Censor Disses Tikun Olam

September 10, 2012
by Richard Silverstein
Source:Tikun Olam

At last month’s Digit2012 conference on Israeli digital journalism, the IDF chief censor participated in a panel about conflict between censorship on the one hand and the freewheeling social media networks and freedom of the press on the other. I’m of two minds about the entire discussion. On the one hand, my name and record were important enough to be discussed (starting at 11:30 in this Hebrew language video) by panel members who were journalists, judges, editors, defense attorneys, and military officers. But on the other, the approach of the censor was entirely dismissive and mendacious.

In discussing the issue of blogging and foreign media and the impact we are having on public discourse in Israel, Sima Vakhnin Gil, the censor claims that the only story I ever exposed was related to Anat Kamm. She means of course, the only stories I ever exposed which were under censorship. Because there are many stories I broke which were under judicial gag but not censorship. Besides stories I first broke which weren’t either censored or gagged.

But let’s stay within the bounds of her jurisdiction. Besides Anat Kamm, I broke the following stories that were under censorship:

1. Israel’s kidnapping of Dirar Abusisi in Ukraine

2. Mossad and MEK responsibility for assassination of Iran’s nuclear scientists

3. appointment of Tamir Pardo as Mossad chief and the name of the new chief of the Border Police

4. secret arrest, detention and torture of Israeli-Palestinian activist, Ameer Makhoul

5. the Israeli security cabinet had never previously met to discuss an attack on Iran until this month

6. the identity of the Palestinian killers of the Fogel family

7. IDF violation of Egyptian sovereignty using a drone to assassinate Sinai Bedouin militant

8. Defense minister Barak refused to allow IDF chief of staff Gantz to testify about Iran before a Knesset committee

9. a former IDF pilot arrested in Zimbabwe for smugging $2.5 million worth of conflict diamonds

10. notorious IDF torturer, Doron Zahavi (aka Captain George), appointed by national police as “liaison” to East Jerusalem Palestinian community

11. Israel’s test launch of a Jericho III missile

12. Iran supported Sinai militants who attacked Eilat

13. Mossad chief Tamir Pardo shut down a Knesset committee hearing because it would reveal that Israel’s major shipping company allowed its vessels to transport Mossad agents for operations inside Iran.

14. Israel created the Stuxnet and Flame computer viruses as part of a major covert campaign against Iran’s nuclear program

15. Sdot Micha is home base to Israel’s Jericho III missiles

So the question is, why would the IDF chief censor need to either lie or diminish my role? Of course, she may be ignorant. No one ever lost money betting on the IDF to simply be ignorant about its claims on many issues. Or she may need to dismiss my work because admitting that I’ve played a significant role in breaking military censorship would be an admission that there was something wrong in the system. If Israel were a free and open society it wouldn’t need someone like me. Israelis themselves could do what I do and possibly do it better. She may need to diss me because (to her) there is something wrong with the fact that I can report and she can’t stop me.

At any rate, when your opponents diss you whether they be military censors or cyber-hacker-attackers, you know you pose a threat. You know you’re doing your job and that it’s something important.

As an aside, the censor also insulted another friend of mine, Avner Cohen, who wrote the first major expose of Israel’s nuclear program. That book, which he refused to submit to the military censor, earned him many enemies inside the intelligence apparatus. He was forced to leave Israel for a time. Since then, he’s become kosher and his last book was not submitted and did not raise a similar stir. Vaknin-Gil said that if the State believed Cohen had broken Israeli law in publishing his book it had the right to prosecute him. It’s precisely this sort of Neanderthal thinking which has gotten Israel into the mess its in and endangered, even nullified, democracy.

It’s unfortunate the organizers of this conference didn’t invite me to address any of these issues since I’ve played an important role in digital media regarding Israel’s national security apparatus. It continues the echo chamber effect of Israelis only hearing from a limited number of voices about issues critical to them, their State, and their democracy (such as it is). But I suppose it’s better to be talked about, even if erroneously, than ignored.

Not that we here in the States are doing much better under the national security president, Barack Obama. He’s made mincemeat out of the Bill of Rights and Constitution. He’s made secrecy and opacity into a watchword for his counter terror program. We have nothing to boast about on this score.

Thanks to many folks who’ve stepped forward with donations in the aftermath of the cyber-attack against this blog. Keep it coming. The best revenge against the bullies and vandals is to give ‘em hell. We’ll tell this story in the MSM, get our voice heard by a far wider audience, and encourage donations to cover the extra expenses of protecting the integrity of this site. Thank you for all of it.

Syria's Assad gives tacit OK to online attacks on press

June 24, 2011
By Danny O'Brien
CPJ Internet Advocacy Coordinator
Source: Committee to Protect Journalists Internet Channel

On Monday, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad gave his third public address on the vast unrest that has roiled his nation. Reporters described him as nervous. He, the reporters, or perhaps both, may have been thinking about the significance of speech No. 3. Both Tunisia's Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Egypt's Hosni Mubarak were overthrown shortly after they delivered their third addresses on tumult in their countries. My interest, however, was on a sentence buried near the end of his address. Here's the official translation:

The army consists of the brothers of every Syrian citizen, and the army always stands for honour and dignity. Young people have an important role to play at this stage, because they have proven themselves to be an active power. There is the electronic army which has been a real army in virtual reality. There were those who took part in the blood donation campaign, and other initiatives. I met a number of youth delegations from different sections of society and found that Syrian youth enjoy a high sense of patriotism, and this is self-evident because they belong to this country.

Those bolded italics include a direct reference to the Syrian Electronic Army, a pro-government hacking group. On Twitter, the group thanked al-Assad for the mention, and went on to say on its Facebook page:

Our message to the news agencies and reporters: If you have a shortage of professionals to report the correct news ... the hordes of the Syrian Electronic Army will not be forgiving with you.

The statement sits next to a screenshot of the army's most frequent and mildest tactic: encouraging followers to saturate online forums with pro-Assad commentary. The group has taken such actions on American and French politicians' sites, as well as news sites such as that of the BBC.

But the army also claims responsibility for more invasive attacks, including defacing websites by exploiting security holes. Their attacks appear aimed more at the lower-hanging fruit of unsecured sites rather those who write critically about Syrian affairs: Past targets have included local town councils in England, Israeli pizza shops, and Australian window sellers.

Nonethless, to my knowledge this is the first time a head of state has explicitly approved of such actions. Governments are usually careful to distance themselves from nationalistic hacking groups, even if they tacitly permit it through lack of law enforcement. By mentioning the Electronic Army, al-Assad is signaling his support of computer sabotage and vigilante censorship in the name of his country. At least, that is how his online supporters are likely to interpret his words.
San Francisco-based CPJ Internet Advocacy Coordinator Danny O’Brien has worked globally as a journalist and activist covering technology and digital rights. Follow him on Twitter @danny_at_cpj.

Jordanian journalists call for press freedom

Monday, March 7, 2011

By Joel Greenberg

AMMAN, JORDAN - In the first protest of its kind here, journalists from state-controlled media demonstrated Monday for press freedom and demanded the ouster of the editor of the main government-controlled newspaper.

"We're fed up. We've reached the point where there's no turning back," said Amer Smadi, a veteran broadcaster currently with state radio and formerly a news anchor on Jordanian television. "We have nothing to fear now. I've been waiting to say this all my life."

Inspired by the anti-government uprisings sweeping the Arab world and mounting calls for change at home, about 200 journalists from official and independent media rallied near the headquarters of Al-Rai, the main state-controlled paper. They then marched to the building, shouting slogans and calling for the dismissal of the government-appointed editor of Al-Rai, Abdel Wahab Zgheilat.

"We want press freedom, not government censorship!" they chanted. "We want the liberation of the media! Self-censorship destroys professionalism!"

A statement read to the crowd demanded a halt to "intervention in the media" by the Jordanian government and security agencies, and a change of the state-controlled press "to independent newspapers."

In an apparent sign of greater official tolerance of such protests, Information Minister Taher Adwan, a former newspaper editor, arrived at the rally and expressed his support, rejecting "intervention by any party" in media work. "There can be no economic or political reform if we don't start with the media," he said.

Al-Rai and other government-controlled newspapers have responded to growing protests calling for limits on the powers of King Abdullah II by highlighting gatherings where Jordanian tribes and other groups have pledged their allegiance to the monarch.

After thousands marched in central Amman on Friday demanding "reform of the regime," Al-Rai ran a headline that combined news of the loyalty pledges with the protest. Two pictures of equal size showed the crowds of anti-government protesters and a small group of demonstrators in support of the king.

Sami Zubeidi, a columnist at Al-Rai, said that his work was regularly censored, and he accused Zgheilat of taking orders from the Jordanian intelligence service. "I have to practice self-censorship," he said. "I know our newspaper's threshold." He said he had been called in for questioning several times by the authorities.

"In the media our king says that the 'sky is the limit' for free speech, and in reality he lets his security agencies stifle the press," Zubeidi said. "He tells the intelligence to keep a low ceiling on the media."

In an interview in his office, Zgheilat denied that he was in regular contact with the intelligence services or that he practices political censorship, saying that he intervened only when columnists engaged in personal attacks. "We know the limits of freedom of the press," he said. "There are issues that you can't touch: the regime and the military. These are the rules. I don't need to get orders for that."

Smadi, the veteran broadcaster, said that in 20 years of work for Jordanian television, there was "no freedom to say what we want," but now there were signs of change. A mere three months ago, he said, the journalists' protest could have been violently broken up by the police.

"We don't know what will happen six months from now," he added, suggesting that a crackdown was also possible. "But if I have to end my career, at least I will be saying something I believe."

Source: Washington Post

Link:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/07/AR2011030702135.html.

Like It or Not, WikiLeaks is a Media Entity

Dec. 4, 2010

By Mathew Ingram

The past week has seen plenty of ink spilled — virtual and otherwise — about WikiLeaks and its mercurial front-man, Julian Assange, and the pressure they have come under from the U.S. government and companies such as Amazon and PayPal, both of which have blocked WikiLeaks from using their services. Why should we care about any of this? Because more than anything else, WikiLeaks is a publisher — a new kind of publisher, but a publisher nonetheless — and that makes this a freedom of the press issue. Like it or not, WikiLeaks is fundamentally a journalistic entity, and as such it deserves our protection.

Not everyone agrees with this point of view, of course. Some argue that there is nothing journalistic about the organization whatsoever, and that it is simply a lawless group of misfits spreading information around that it doesn’t have the right to distribute, without caring for the effects of its actions. That may be true — but it’s also true that the same description fits more than one allegedly journalistic entity in the traditional media sphere, and they are all protected by the First Amendment and its principles regarding freedom of the press. So why is WikiLeaks not worthy of the same protection?

Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Conn), the chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee, is the one who put pressure on Amazon to remove support for WikiLeaks (although the company claims it removed the organization’s site from its servers because Wikileaks did not own the rights to the content, not because of political pressure). Senator Lieberman has proposed legislation called the SHIELD law — short for Securing Human Intelligence and Enforcing Lawful Dissemination — which would make it a crime to publish information that might harm U.S. agents or informants, or would otherwise be contrary to the national interest.

This might as well be called the WikiLeaks law, since it is clearly targeted at the organization — which did not actually leak the documents (something that is already a crime under the Espionage Act) but is clearly publishing them. But the heavy hand of this law would not just fall on WikiLeaks; it would also potentially cover anyone who has published the cables, such as the New York Times. Just as sources used to leak secret documents to newspapers, which often published them regardless of whether the government disapproved, now those sources can go to WikiLeaks and accomplish the same thing.

So what makes WikiLeaks different from the New York Times? There are the obvious things, of course — the latter publishes a print newspaper, is a member of a variety of self-regulatory bodies involving the media, and is a venerable institution with a long history of journalistic integrity. WikiLeaks, meanwhile, is a shadowy organization with an uncertain history, opaque motivations and publishes only online. That said, why are we so eager to protect one and not the other? WikiLeaks’ stated intention is to bring transparency to the political process and expose wrongdoing. Isn’t that the same thing the Times does? And yet one is being hounded by government agents, forced to remove its documents from Amazon’s servers and blocked from using PayPal, while the other is free to publish whatever it wants. What if the Times were to store some of its content on Amazon’s EC2 servers or use PayPal for transactions — would it be subject to the same treatment? And if not, why is WikiLeaks?

Some would argue that we don’t need entities like WikiLeaks, because traditional publishers like the New York Times are good enough. And it’s true that leakers took their information to newspapers before WikiLeaks came along — but it’s also true that many of them refused to publish it. And in some cases, information that should not have been published actually took the spotlight away from the truth, as in the case of the Times’ reporting leading up to the Iraq War. An independent source of documents like WikiLeaks (which journalism professor Jay Rosen has called the world’s “first stateless news organization”) would have been a very valuable thing to have during that time.

The fact is that freedom of the press, like freedom of speech in general, is a crucial part of the fabric of a free society. Every action that impinges on those freedoms is a loss for society, and a step down a slippery slope — and that applies to everything that falls under the term “press,” regardless of whether we agree with its methods or its leaders. As the Electronic Frontier Foundation has pointed out, online speech is only as strong as the weakest intermediary. Any action that the government or its representatives take against a publisher like WikiLeaks should have to meet a very high bar indeed — and as Dan Gillmor argues, everyone working at the New York Times or any other media outlet should feel a shiver when they see Joe Lieberman attacking WikiLeaks, because it could just as easily be them in the spotlight instead of Julian Assange.