Thank you Chelsea for changing the world

Today is the birthday of Chelsea Manning, she has a special place in my heart. She got a 35 years in prison for blowing the whistle on war crimes all over the world. She has already served 4 years in a military prison. She was tortured while waiting for trial. Despite all the wrongdoings that have been imposed on her, she is so strong and so incredibly compassionate in her clarity and wisdom for the reasons why she felt she had to blow the whistle. Please urge Obama to pardon her. No one has been held accountable for the crimes she exposed, the murders and the tortures but her, the whirlwind in the coalmine.

I will show this video tonight to honor her courage at a local theater: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0

If you want to support her, here is what she wishes for her birthday: http://www.chelseamanning.org/press/what-does-chelsea-want-for-her-birthday-this-week

and here is small token of gratitude from me to her, a letter i sent via the Amnesty International website, they promise to deliver the letters so go ahead, send her a little message of love and support:
http://www.amnesty.org.uk/blogs/ether/send-birthday-message-chelsea-manning?utm_source=TWITTER&utm_medium=Social&utm_content=20141217174327&utm_campaign=Freedom_of_expression&linkId=11209083

Dear Chelsea, there has not been a single day that has passed since I heard of your arrest that you have not been in my mind and heart. When i chose to co-produce the video that changed the world forever that you leaked to WikiLeaks, i knew my life would never be the same, but i did it, because people needed to see the true horror of war, and because i knew whomever the source was, (later I found out that it was you, you brave soul) that person put her live in great danger in order to tell the world about the crimes done in our names. I know you are strong, I will never forget you, and i hope someday that i will get permission to visit you in the prison. You are a beacon of hope in these times of changes, your courage has inspired so many, and you are a catalyst of transformation.


with rebellious joy
Birgitta Jonsdottir - poetician

here is a poem i wrote for you about you for you

Internal external crisis
cause deep earthquakes
pangs of awareness
penetrate
as for one perfect moment
the looking glass is clear

Sounds of screaming silence
when perspectives change
rushing in stillness
intent
to change
everything

Blinding light
awful truth
exposed
everything is changing

Hiding is over
only option left
to share

No glory is requested
humble justice
perhaps

Power is naked
for one moment in time
echoes through history
people saw
registered
everything has changed

Her voice is everywhere
in the truth she exposed
perverted justice
to lock her in a cell
in a body
for exposing
what's in plain sight

Nobel Peace Prize nomination for Manning & Snowden 2014

Dear Nomination Committee of the Nobel Peace Prize,

        

We wish to nominate two outstanding candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize of 2014. It is our firm belief that Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden have achieved and exceeded all the qualifications required to be worthy laureates of the Nobel Peace Prize.

        

The nominees are both whistleblowers who have inspired change and encouraged public debate and policy changes that contributed to a more stable and peaceful world.

        

Chelsea Elizabeth Manning (born Bradley Edward Manning, December 17, 1987) is a soldier in the United States army who was sentenced to 35 years in a military prison in 2013 for releasing hundreds of thousands of documents to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. The leaked documents pointed to a long history of corruption, serious war crimes, and a lack of respect for the sovereignty of other democratic nations by the United States government in international dealings.

        

These revelations have fueled democratic uprisings around the world, including a democratic revolution in Tunisia. According to journalistic, academic, and intellectual scrutiny her actions helped motivate the democratic Arab Spring movements, shed light on secret corporate influence on foreign and domestic policies of European nations, and, also contributed to the Obama Administration's agreement to withdraw all U.S.troops from occupied Iraq.

        

The profound information that was revealed by this courageous whistleblower helped to foster public dialogue on the legitimacy, suitability, and relevancy of the military interventions carried out by US troops both Iraq and Afghanistan. The release of these documents led directly to calls demanding the full withdrawal of the military forces from these countries, as well as investigating committees on the treatment of detainees in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

        

The documents and information should never have been kept from public scrutiny, and the very fact that embedded journalists minimized or omitted facts in the field exacerbated the corruption of the information flow. The revelations - including video documentation of an incident in which American soldiers gunned down Reuters journalists in Iraq - have fueled a worldwide discussion about the overseas military engagements of the United States, civilian casualties of war and the rules of engagement. Citizens worldwide owe a great debt to the WikiLeaks whistleblower for shedding light on these issues.

        

Edward Joseph Snowden (born June 21, 1983) is an American computer specialist, a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee, and former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor who disclosed top secret NSA documents to several media outlets, initiating the NSA leaks, which reveal operational details of a global surveillance apparatus run by the NSA and other members of the Five Eyes alliance, along with numerous corporate and international partners.

        

He has, with great risk to his personal well-being and future, revealed the horrific scope of the global espionage network of the Anglo-American spy agencies. By releasing documents regarding the activities of clandestine agencies he has not only unveiled the global scale of  mass surveillance which endanger a wide array of civil liberties (cornerstones of our liberties such as free speech and the right to privacy) but, he has also given the people of the world the necessary tools to counter the ever invasive path towards mass surveillance. Blatant violations to even the very basic human rights have been institutionalized by US government agencies while privacy has been classified in ALL the major international human rights charters and declarations.

        

The debate on mass surveillance cannot take place without the disclosure of the basic structures and methods of the corresponding secret spy programs. Citizens, researchers and politicians need insight into these methods to be able to weigh the social consequences and the possible resulting damage to the global society. Mass surveillance erodes the fundamentals of modern democracies; making local laws to protect privacy meaningless within it's global scope. Snowden has shown us that journalists can no longer protect their sources, lawyers can't protect their clients and doctors can't protect their patients information. The concept of privacy has been redefined to complete exposure into no privacy. His actions have shown the rest of the world and its policy makers that joint global action needs to take place in order to reinstate constitutional rights of privacy for citizens which is completely essential to healthy democracies. 

        

By leaking the documents to investigative journalists from independent media, Snowden has managed to carefully consider the balance between public interest and national security. By revising the source documents, he and his supporters avoided leaking highly sensitive information that might have put currently running operations and the people involved into danger.

        

Some might argue that Snowden acted against the law, however, mass secret surveillance is illegitimate as it undermines the sovereignty of the people over the state apparatus. It is very well known that at times of universal deceit just telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. When the state is acting outside the rule of law it is up to the citizens to report on such unlawfulness for the greater good of its peoples and principles for sustainability of the future. Snowden and Manning courageously acted and as a result we have a more stable and peaceful world and far more of a possibility to develop/enact true democratic models.

We are nominating Manning and Snowden together because the courage of Manning inspired Snowden and both of them have inspired thousands of people all over the world to speak truth to power and demand transparency and accountability in their own societies.  

Signatories:

Amelia Andersdotter, Pirate Party Sweden, Member of European Parliament 

Birgitta Jónsdóttir, Party Chairperson for the Pirate Party Iceland, Member of Icelandic Parliament

Christian Engström, Pirate Party Sweden, Member of European Parliament

Helgi Hrafn Gunnarsson, Pirate Party Iceland, Member of Icelandic Parliament

Jón Þór Ólafsson, Pirate Party Iceland, Member of Icelandic Parliament

What is the GRPO?

A journalist friend of mine is trying to get some answers from the Icelandic police in relation to a stated liaison between GRPO and the Iceland police. The USA embassy claims it doesnt know that the GRPO is (lol) and I want to ask the Icelandic police about this liaison at a meeting in the parliament. Would be very useful to know what this stands for. Cant find anything useful online, so forget about google. We need your help, if you know how to decode this.

¶D.  (S/NF) Iceland does not have an intelligence service. 
The National Security Unit (NSU) within the National 
Commissioner's Office handles threat information analysis. 
The NSU is comprised of three individuals.  The NSU is too 
small to undertake any type of intelligence gathering role 
and responds to threats as they arise, such as threats 
against Icelandic officials, demonstrations/protests, and 
"extremist" groups.  The NSU is not a tradecraft or covert 
group.  There are no terrorism-related examples, but the 
NSU's investigative and analytical capabilities have been 
demonstrated through operations in varying fields of law 
enforcement such as organized crime (OC), counterintelligence 
(CI), and counter-narcotics (CN).  GRPO maintains liaison 
with the NSU. 
 
¶E.  (SBU) Law enforcement agencies, including the NSU, have 
been very cooperative with US Embassy requests for 
information and support. 
 

Random Cables where the GRPO is mentioned to get some context:


“Two separate GRPO sources, one highly credible, have alleged that Patiño obtained and managed Venezuelan funds for Correa’s campaign. An uncorroborated report from a GRPO source indicated that Patiño also solicited funds from the FARC for Correa’s campaign,” the cable reads.



„On December 15-16, 2009, Treasury Department 

Acting Assistant Secretary of the Office of Intelligence and 

Analysis Howard Mendelsohn, along with GRPO officers and Treasury 

analysts, met with senior officials from the UAE's State Security 

Department (SSD) and Dubai's General Department of State Security 

(GDSS) to discuss suspected Taliban-related financial activity in 

the UAE.  Prior to these meetings, GRPO and Treasury passed to SSD 

and GDSS detailed information on the financing of the Taliban and 

other terrorist and extremist groups based in Afghanistan and 

Pakistan.“



„During the course of the two multi-hour intelligence 

exchange sessions, GRPO and Treasury analysts walked through the 

previously shared information suggesting that Taliban-related 

finance officials have visited the UAE in order to raise or move 

funds.“



„GRPO and Treasury analysts also shared 

names and phone numbers of multiple Taliban and Haqqani associates 

known either to reside in or travel to the UAE.“



„UAE security services were not familiar with the names of specific UAE-based LT members shared by GRPO and Treasury, but promised to follow up on 

the information.“



„On 06 November 2007, ARSOI coordinated 

with GRPO and scheduled a follow up interview of Subject 

detailed in RefTel who claimed to have information about the 

sale of uranium.  ARSOI began the interview and subsequently 

introduced the Subject to GRPO to answer detailed questions 

sent from GRPO headquarters.  GRPO will send detailed results 

of the interview via SepTel.“



„RSO and GRPO will continue coordinating efforts 

and wait for GRPO headquarters to determine if the 

information obtained during the interview merits additional 

contact with the Subject.“



„This National HUMINT Collection Directive (NHCD) is compliant with the National Intelligence Priorities Framework (NIPF), which was established in response to NSPD-26 of February 24, 2003. If needed, GRPO can provide further background on the NIPF and the use of NIPF abbreviations (shown in parentheses following each sub-issue below) in NHCDs.“



„Military and Security Issues 1) Critical Infrastructure Protection (INFR-4) 2) Military Structure and Capabilities (FMCC-4) 3) GRPO can provide text of this issue. 4) Health and Medical Developments (HLTH-4)“



„There are opportunities in the area of security cooperation, too. For starters, we know that Tunisia could be doing a better job in sharing intelligence with us about



TUNIS 00000492 005 OF 005



the threat of terrorism in North Africa. This was all too clear when, yet again, the GOT failed recently to share information with us in a timely fashion on a reported plot against US military personnel. GRPO has been taking steps to increase cooperation through liaison channels; while there has been progress, more is possible.“



„Tunisian cooperation in the intelligence arena has been uneven. On the positive side, we have some successful programs being run through GRPO. We also have good intelligence sharing on Tunisians who are outside the country. On the negative side, however, intelligence sharing on the threat inside Tunisia is thin, although it has improved somewhat in recent months. The improvements are probably in response to a commitment made by President Ben Ali to A/S Welch in February to cooperate on counterterrorism "without reservation."“

Is it an option for Edward Snowden to seek shelter in Iceland?

When it was brought to my attention that Edward Snowden was looking to Iceland for political asylum, I offered to help figure out the legal options for such a request.

These are my findings: Snowden should not come to Iceland unless he will request and be granted citizenship by the Icelandic Parliament. Citizenship is the only legal protection that will shelter him from any demands of extradition to the USA. The ideal situation would be for Snowden to be granted a Icelandic passport as was the case with Bobby Fischer.

Seeking political asylum is a process that can take long time, and there are no guarantees granted against extradition while the process is ongoing. However since Snowden faces possible death sentence his case is stronger, for it is illegal to extradite a person who faces death sentence from Iceland. It is important to note that Iceland has a terrible track record when it comes to granting political asylum to people seeking shelter, as it is hardly never granted and thus a too dangerous path to be recommended for Snowden.

The new Interior minister, Hanna Birna Kristjánsdóttir, has been very stern in her statements announcing that Snowden will not get any sort of special treatment for the Minister fears that if he will be granted asylum, Iceland might have to show humanitarianism in action by transforming its poor treatment towards asylum seekers who seek shelter in Iceland.

I was hoping that the new Prime Minster, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, would take the same leadership in this case as a former PM did in the case of Bobby Fischer, for it was a political decision to grant the Chess Master Icelandic citizenship and Icelandic passport while Fischer was in prison in Japan waiting to be extradited to the USA for playing chess in the wrong country. It is still not too late to show such leadership.

It is important to note that there has not been any formal requests for asylum from Snowden to the Icelandic government and thus impossible for them to respond with affirmative answer until such a request has been received.

I've heard as I am writing this that there are other countries that have offered to shelter this brave whistleblower. Snowden has done service to all of humanity by bringing to the public domain information that truly belongs there. It is ironic that Snowden is to be charged for spying by blowing the whistle on the fact that NSA is spying on everyone with much deeper probing into our personal lives then even Stasi could do. I am sorry that Iceland might not be an option. It would have made me exceptionally proud if it was.

The war on whistleblowers needs to stop. I see Manning, Brown, Hammond and so many others as political prisoners of the information revolution. If extradited to the USA, on the charges of espionage, Snowden’s fate might be death sentence. By not sheltering him those who reject to help him might have blood on their hands.

With Rebellious Joy

Birgitta Jonsdottir
Poetician & a member of the Icelandic Parliament for the Pirate Party,
Chairperson of the International Modern Media Institution (IMMI)
http://birgitta.is
http://immi.is

Bradley Manning Nobel Peace Prize Nomination 2013

February 1^st 2013 the entire parliamentary group of The Movement in the Icelandic Parliament, the Pirates of the EU; representatives from the Swedish Pirate Party, the former Secretary of State in Tunisia for Sport & Youthnominated Private Bradley Manning for the Nobel Peace Prize. Following is the reasoning we sent to the committee explaining why we felt compelled to nominate Private Bradley Manning for this important recognition of an individual effort to have an impact for peace in our world. The lengthy personal statement to the pre-trial hearing February 28th by Bradley Manning in his own words validate that his motives were for the greater good of humankind.

Read his full statement 

Our letter to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee

Reykjavík, Iceland 1^st of February 2013

Dear Norwegian Nobel Committee,

We have the great honour of nominating Private First Class Bradley Manning for the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize.

Manning is a soldier in the United States army who stands accused of releasing hundreds of thousands of documents to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. The leaked documents pointed to a long history of corruption, war crimes, and a lack of respect for the sovereignty of other democratic nations by the United States government in international dealings.

These revelations have fueled democratic uprisings around the world, including a democratic revolution in Tunisia. According to journalists, his alleged actions helped motivate the democratic Arab Spring movements, shed light on secret corporate influence on the foreign and domestic policies of European nations, and most recently contributed to the Obama Administration agreeing to withdraw all U.S.troops from the occupation in Iraq.

Bradley Manning has been incarcerated for more then 1000 days by the U.S. Government. He spent over ten months of that time period in solitary confinement, conditions which expert worldwide have criticized as torturous. Juan Mendez, the United Nations' Special Rapporteur on Torture and Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment, has repeatedly requested and been denied a private meeting with Manning to assess his conditions.

The documents made public by WikiLeaks should never have been kept from public scrutiny. The revelations - including video documentation of an incident in which American soldiers gunned down Reuters journalists in Iraq - have helped to fuel a worldwide discussion about the overseas engagements of the United States, civilian casualties of war and rules of engagement. Citizens worldwide owe a great debt to the WikiLeaks whistleblower for shedding light on these issues, and so we urge the Committee to award this prestigious prize to accused whistleblower Bradley Manning.

We can already be reasonably certain that Bradley Manning will not have a fair trial as the head of State, the USA President Mr. Barack Obama, stated over a year ago on record that Manning is guilty.

Sincerely,

Birgitta Jónsdóttir, Member of Parliament for the Movement, Iceland

Christian Engström, Member of the European Parliament for the Pirate Party, Sweden

Amelia Andersdottir, Member of the European Parliament for the Pirate Party, Sweden

Margrét Tryggvadóttir, Member of Parliament for the Movement, Iceland

Þór Saari, Member of Parliament for the Movement, Iceland

Slim Amamou, former Secretary of State for Sport & Youth (2011), Tunisia

Statement: Dreamworking WikiLeaks

I have been approached in the last few years by many great artists/writers/filmmakers who seek to tell the story of WikiLeaks extraordinary impact on the world at its peak in 2010/2011.

I have accepted to be part of many of these releases because I felt my voice in relation to the future of Freedom in Information, Expression and Speech and of course online Privacy needs to be included. I have often felt disappointed by how little focus is given, in the end result, to the important vision and work on behalf of the online tribe that is in constant struggle to ensure our online rights. Instead the projects tend to devolve into revolving about the persons involved, their drama and eccentric behavior. I guess that is what producers believe gets people interested in the story. I personally believe that people crave for a vision and some sort of solution to the threats that projects like WikiLeaks expose. I think people need and crave to understand what drives others to take risks in order to improve our world and set information free, that story is not told through ordinary personal drama.

The reason why I got involved with the Dreamworking WikiLeaks project was simple. I had a chance to bring more balance to it, since it is based on two books that are focused on the personal drama, the divorce of persons but not necessary ideology. There is a reason why I have not written a book about my times with WikiLeaks, for as interesting it is to expose how people behave under extreme circumstances, I find the impact of those circumstances way more important. Everyone seems to be wounded from collaborating together and I think that is unimportant in the long run. What WikiLeaks achieved at its peak was to send a ripple effect through the fabric of history and alter the way we see our world. That happened because of the vision and courage of many people, many whom will never have their face or name attached to the story by their own choice.

I chose to work with Dreamworks, because I believe there is a chance that I could impact its final outcome by offering balance. Thus I have suggested many changes that might or might not be included in relation to how Assange is written into it, for I felt it was heavily focused on eccentric and negative behavior. I was also deeply concerned about the Iran scene and to my great delight I discovered after various discussions with all the main stakeholders involved, that I was not alone about my worries and in the end it was written out. I also felt the name “The Man Who Sold the World” was iffy but I am pleased with the new name of the film, The 5^th Estate”. This will be a fictional movie about an incredible time in our history that will hopefully provide an inspiration.

Everyone I have talked with in relation to the making of the film respect the work of WikiLeaks but do of course have a very unbalanced view of how it was since it is based on one perspective. The perspective of those that fell out with Assange. I know that Assange has been given a chance to offer his version of accounts and that is important to me. I hope the end result will be slightly closer to the reality of everyone, not just a few players as written in the version I got to see. In regard to my own person in the film, it is fictionalized in a way that is not at all pleasing to me and does no justice to the work I did while involved with WikiLeaks. But to be perfectly honest, I don't care. What I do care about is the overall message, spirit and story. The story of a project that changed the way we see our world. A project that is still changing the way our history is unfolding and a project that will always be remembered as titling the scales of power in our world in favor of the general public and its right to be informed. 

Collateral Murder: the stills

I was the one that had the task of pulling out the stills from the video named Collateral Murder so that journalists could use it without delay online and in printed media. A friend suggested I should blow them up really big and hang them up in galleries. I think it would be a great fundraising event in order to help the Bradley Manning defense fund. I need help in order to find the best possible venue for this. Perhaps in more then one city. It would also get more attention on why Manning is still in prison and hopefully bring those that are responsible for these war crimes to justice. If you think you can help please write to birgitta@birgitta.is

here are links to the photos i am thinking of blowing up
http://www.collateralmurder.com/en/p-helicopter.html
http://www.collateralmurder.com/en/p-carnage.html
http://www.collateralmurder.com/en/p-shot.html

I have never done any task that has moved me so profoundly and deeply
I urge you to watch the video if you have not done so already: 
http://www.collateralmurder.com/en/index.html

here is what we wrote on the official webpage as an explanation of what it contains: 

Update: On July 6, 2010, Private Bradley Manning, a 22 year old intelligence analyst with the United States Army in Baghdad, was charged with disclosing this video (after allegedly speaking to an unfaithful journalist). The whistleblower behind the Pentagon Papers, Daniel Ellsberg, has called Mr. Manning a 'hero'. He is currently imprisoned in Kuwait. The Apache crew and those behind the cover up depicted in the video have yet to be charged. To assist Private Manning, please see bradleymanning.org.

5th April 2010 10:44 EST WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff.

Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-sight, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.

The military did not reveal how the Reuters staff were killed, and stated that they did not know how the children were injured.

After demands by Reuters, the incident was investigated and the U.S. military concluded that the actions of the soldiers were in accordance with the law of armed conflict and its own "Rules of Engagement".

Consequently, WikiLeaks has released the classified Rules of Engagement for 2006, 2007 and 2008, revealing these rules before, during, and after the killings.

WikiLeaks has released both the original 38 minutes video and a shorter version with an initial analysis. Subtitles have been added to both versions from the radio transmissions.

WikiLeaks obtained this video as well as supporting documents from a number of military whistleblowers. WikiLeaks goes to great lengths to verify the authenticity of the information it receives. We have analyzed the information about this incident from a variety of source material. We have spoken to witnesses and journalists directly involved in the incident.

WikiLeaks wants to ensure that all the leaked information it receives gets the attention it deserves. In this particular case, some of the people killed were journalists that were simply doing their jobs: putting their lives at risk in order to report on war. Iraq is a very dangerous place for journalists: from 2003- 2009, 139 journalists were killed while doing their work.

A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace by John Perry Barlow

This is still highly relavant even if it was first published February 8, 1996. Think of the legal monsters waiting to be grounded in laws and norms such as SOPA, PIPA, ACTA. Everyone who cares about the freedoms online should read and share... and resist. 

Thank U John Perry for the vision and for the groundwork. Here is the manifesto.

"Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.

We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks. I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear.

Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. You have neither solicited nor received ours. We did not invite you. You do not know us, nor do you know our world. Cyberspace does not lie within your borders. Do not think that you can build it, as though it were a public construction project. You cannot. It is an act of nature and it grows itself through our collective actions.
You have not engaged in our great and gathering conversation, nor did you create the wealth of our marketplaces. You do not know our culture, our ethics, or the unwritten codes that already provide our society more order than could be obtained by any of your impositions.

You claim there are problems among us that you need to solve. You use this claim as an excuse to invade our precincts. Many of these problems don't exist. Where there are real conflicts, where there are wrongs, we will identify them and address them by our means. We are forming our own Social Contract . This governance will arise according to the conditions of our world, not yours. Our world is different.

Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications. Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live.

We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth.

We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.

Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us. They are all based on matter, and there is no matter here.

Our identities have no bodies, so, unlike you, we cannot obtain order by physical coercion. We believe that from ethics, enlightened self-interest, and the commonweal, our governance will emerge . Our identities may be distributed across many of your jurisdictions. The only law that all our constituent cultures would generally recognize is the Golden Rule. We hope we will be able to build our particular solutions on that basis. But we cannot accept the solutions you are attempting to impose.
In the United States, you have today created a law, the Telecommunications Reform Act, which repudiates your own Constitution and insults the dreams of Jefferson, Washington, Mill, Madison, DeToqueville, and Brandeis. These dreams must now be born anew in us.

You are terrified of your own children, since they are natives in a world where you will always be immigrants. Because you fear them, you entrust your bureaucracies with the parental responsibilities you are too cowardly to confront yourselves. In our world, all the sentiments and expressions of humanity, from the debasing to the angelic, are parts of a seamless whole, the global conversation of bits. We cannot separate the air that chokes from the air upon which wings beat.

In China, Germany, France, Russia, Singapore, Italy and the United States, you are trying to ward off the virus of liberty by erecting guard posts at the frontiers of Cyberspace. These may keep out the contagion for a small time, but they will not work in a world that will soon be blanketed in bit-bearing media.

Your increasingly obsolete information industries would perpetuate themselves by proposing laws, in America and elsewhere, that claim to own speech itself throughout the world. These laws would declare ideas to be another industrial product, no more noble than pig iron. In our world, whatever the human mind may create can be reproduced and distributed infinitely at no cost. The global conveyance of thought no longer requires your factories to accomplish.

These increasingly hostile and colonial measures place us in the same position as those previous lovers of freedom and self-determination who had to reject the authorities of distant, uninformed powers. We must declare our virtual selves immune to your sovereignty, even as we continue to consent to your rule over our bodies. We will spread ourselves across the Planet so that no one can arrest our thoughts.
We will create a civilization of the Mind in Cyberspace. May it be more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before.

John Perry Barlow
Davos, Switzerland
February 8, 1996"

Bradley Manning Nobel Peace Prize Nomination 2012

February 1^st 2012 the entire parliamentary group of The Movement of the Icelandic Parliament nominated Private Bradley Manning for the Nobel Peace Prize. Following is the reasoning we sent to the committee explaining why we felt compelled to nominate Private Bradley Manning for this important recognition of an individual effort to have an impact for peace in our world.

Our letter to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee:

We have the great honor of nominating Private First Class Bradley Manning for the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize. Manning is a soldier in the United States army who stands accused of releasing hundreds of thousands of documents to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. The leaked documents pointed to a long history of corruption, war crimes, and imperialism by the United States government in international dealings. These revelations have fueled democratic uprising around the world, including a democratic revolution in Tunisia. According to journalists, his alleged actions helped motivate the democratic Arab Spring movements, shed light on secret corporate influence on our foreign policies, and most recently contributed to the Obama Administration agreeing to withdraw all U.S.troops from the occupation in Iraq.

Bradley Manning has been incarcerated for well over a year by the U.S. government without a trial. He spent over ten months of that time period in solitary confinement, conditions which experts worldwide have criticized as torturous. Juan Mendez, the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Torture and Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment, has repeatedly requested and been denied a private meeting with Manning to assess his conditions.

The documents made public by WikiLeaks should never have been kept from public scrutiny. The revelations – including video documentation of an incident in which American soldiers gunned down Reuters journalists in Iraq – have helped to fuel a worldwide discussion about America’s overseas engagements, civilian casualties of war, imperialistic manipulations, and rules of engagement. Citizens worldwide owe a great debt to the WikiLeaks whistleblower for shedding light on these issues, and so I urge the Committee to award this prestigious prize to accused whistleblower Bradley Manning.

Sincerely,

Birgitta Jónsdóttir

Margrét Tryggvadóttir

Þór Saari

Members of the Icelandic Parliament for The Movement

Statement to USA Authorities on Bradley Manning's Birthday

Statement from the 50 people who have gathered outside the USA Embassy, Reykjavik, Iceland 17th of December 2011 to show Bradley Manning solidarity on his 24th Birthday delivered to the USA Ambassador to Iceland.

Today marks the second birthday Private Bradley Manning spends in jail. He is accused of having leaked secret documents to WikiLeaks of unprecedented proportions exposing serious war crimes and how the general population in the USA and around the world have been lied to in relation to the war waged in their name.

It is obvious that Manning will not get a fair trial. The USA president Mr Obama has prior to Manning even being brought to court claimed he was guilty. Obama also said that Manning could not go unpunished the way Ellsberg, the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers, once did, because the two cases are too different. Ellsberg, who sees Manning as following in his footsteps, cannot accept this assessment. He only agrees with the president on one point: Manning disclosed secret information, he says, but "all of the pages that I released were top secret."

The US government celebrated the release of the 'Pentagon Papers' on the Vietnam War as a sign of its openness. The truth, however, is that President Barack Obama has taken a much tougher line on whistleblowers than his predecessors. It is though timely to remind him that blowing the whistle on war crimes is not a crime.

The USA Army has come under fire for keeping Manning under detention for 18 months without trial, as well as the conditions of his detention. Since his confinement, Manning has become a symbol of free speech. We second the demands of the Bradley Manning Support Network  whom have pushed for his release and the dropping of all charges against him.

Nato Parliamentary Assembly in Romania

I am currently in the Romanian Parliament in Bucharest participating in the NATO parliamentary assembly. I am in the Civic Dimension of Security Committee. A few months ago Lord JOPLING presented a report on Cyber Security. His report dealt with a wide range of topics: WikiLeaks and Anonymous were of great concern in his report, where he wove together real and serious attacks on nations such as Estonia with the threat of leaks: a very dangerous trend. Leaking information to the public domain is not an act of war, I would rather classify it a civic duty to expose war crimes.

I have not been able to find a legal way to provide changes in this biased report. I did criticize it harshly yesterday and basically said i could not support it with all its factual errors and biased perspective and attempts to make cyber attacks into something that would justify the usage of article 5. Apparently such criticism is not common here at the assembly on reports. The Lord thus offered me to send in info on factual errors. I did. I have with some great help from activists from all over the world gone through this report step by step and provided both amendments and deeper perspectives. You can download it HERE as pdf.

In the draft resolution on cyber security is no mention of the factual errors in Lord Jopling report and no proper way for me to amend those. Looking through the draft resolution on Cyber Security the following struck me with discomfort:

“9. URGES member governments and parliaments of the North Atlantic Alliance:

1. to ensure swift implementation of the revised NATO Policy on Cyber Defence and the related cyber defence Action Plan, adopted in June 2011, introducing the cyber dimension in all three of NATO’s core tasks: collective defence, crisis management and co operative security;
   
   

We are URGED to ensure swift implementation of: revised NATO Policy on Cyber Defence and the related cyber defence Action Plan, adopted in June 2011

As this is a secret document and we will not be given access to review the policy. It is not wise for us the parliamentarians present here to ensure swift implementation of something we have not seen and will not be granted access to. It makes a mockery of the Nato parliamentary assembly to request its members to accept this process. If this is a common practice I urge all parliamentarians to abstain from participating in such an act because we cant possibly ask for legalizing something we have not been able to scrutinize and this process of accepting policies blindly is not very democratic and it does not provide the needed core information for us to have debate and offer political guidance and authority.

Thus I have requested that we will delete sub-paragraph 9.a in the draft resolution on Cyber Security unless we be given prior access to NATO Policy on Cyber Defence and the related cyber defence Action Plan, adopted in June 2011.

No one has chosen to do a report on the findings in the Afghan War logs. I will ask if my committee would be willing to do that at this assembly, there are not many like minded parliamentarians at the assembly and thus harder to get a Rapporteur status. I will keep on trying.

Here is the entire draft resolution:

Civil dimension of security

209 CDS 11 E

Original: English

NATO Parliamentary Assembly

DRAFT RESOLUTION

on

CYBER SECURITY

presented by

Lord JOPLING (United Kingdom)

General Rapporteur

The Assembly,

1. Recognizing the benefits offered by the cyber domain to our societies as well as to the defence and security sector, including opportunities for greater situational awareness and co ordination among the armed forces of the Allies as well as for the Alliance‘s public diplomacy;

2. But also concerned with the emergence of a new category of threats that target national information infrastructures, and that could seriously undermine the security interests of the Alliance and its member states;

3. Anxious that cyber defence capabilities and awareness of cyber threats vary significantly across NATO member states thereby weakening the Alliance’s overall cyber security;

4. Welcoming the decisions made by the leaders of the Alliance at the NATO Lisbon Summit and the meeting of NATO Defence Ministers in June 2011, identifying cyber security as one of the key priorities of the Alliance;

5. Saluting NATO’s approach aimed at expanding its cyber defence policy to include centralized cyber protection of all NATO bodies and the use of NATO’s defence planning processes in the development of the Allies’ cyber defence capabilities. ;

6. Believing that, in view of the growing scope and severity of cyber attacks, in addition to exploiting fully the opportunities offered by Article 4, the potential application of Article 5 of the Washington Treaty in case of a serious cyber attack against the Alliance or its individual members, should not be ruled out;

7. Noting that legislative “black holes” still exist both at a national level and in terms of international law when it comes to setting security standards for the cyber domain;

8. Emphasizing that stricter security regulations for the cyber domain should not come at the cost of reduced civil liberties and rights, such as freedom of speech and the right to communicate over the Internet, and noting the key role of the Internet in mobilizing democratic movements in authoritarian countries;

9. URGES member governments and parliaments of the North Atlantic Alliance:

a. to ensure swift implementation of the revised NATO Policy on Cyber Defence and the related cyber defence Action Plan, adopted in June 2011, introducing the cyber dimension in all three of NATO’s core tasks: collective defence, crisis management and co operative security;

2. to promote domestic awareness of cyber threats, taking into account lessons learned from milestone events including the cyber attacks against Estonia in 2007 and against Georgia in 2008 as well as the emergence of Stuxnet malicious software;

3. to scrutinize domestic legal frameworks, ensuring that coherent and effective laws are in place to address the evolving cyber threats;

4. to provide necessary support for the efficient functioning of national Computer Incident Response Teams, and to invest sufficiently in the training of national cyber security experts;

5. to promote closer partnerships between governments and the private sector in order to ensure the security of government networks and improve the exchange of expertise in case of a breach of security;

6. to ensure that the introduction of additional security measures in the cyber domain are accompanied by adequate mechanisms of parliamentary and public oversight over their respective government institutions;

7. to support international efforts to develop universal norms of acceptable behaviour in the cyber domain that would ban the use of cyber attacks against civilian targets, promote exchange of best practices and establish mechanisms of international assistance to stricken nations, while ensuring full universal access to the Internet as a venue for the exchange of ideas and information;

8. to ensure that adequate attention is paid to the physical protection of networks, including undersea fiber-optic infrastructures;

10. URGES relevant NATO bodies:

1. to ensure that NATO Computer Incident Response Capability is fully operational by the end of 2012, and that NATO’s cyber defence services are centralized;

2. to facilitate, if requested, national efforts of NATO member states to acquire adequate cyber defence expertise and state-of-the-art technologies;

3. to test the efficacy of NATO and member states’ cyber defence efforts through NATO’s periodic international exercises, and to ensure that these exercises are fully funded, staffed and well-attended;

4. to use capabilities such as NATO Cyber Defence Management Board and NATO Co operative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence, to analyze rapid developments further in the cyber domain and to develop strategies for strengthening cyber defences across the Alliance, while exploiting the advantages of the information age through initiatives such as NATO Network Enabled Capability;
5. to develop efficient co-operation mechanisms with the relevant EU institutions, with the particular aim of supporting the EU’s legislative efforts to establish robust cyber security standards across the private sector;

6. to increase assistance, if requested, to NATO partner countries in the field of cyber security, particularly by sharing best practices and raising awareness of cyber threats.

_______________

Legalizing Freedom of Information

My speech from Kapittel Stavanger International Festival for Literature and Freedom of Speech

Norway 22nd of September 2011

First of all I want to express my gratitude to the USA Department of Justice for their attempts to have my personal backend information handed over to them from my Twitter account because of my volunteer work for WikiLeaks. It has raised my awareness about the lack of civic rights social media users have and thus given me reasons to fight for these rights.

Before my Twitter case I didn't think much about what rights I would be signing off when accepting user agreement with online companies. The text is usually lengthy in a legal language most people don't understand. I think it is save to say that very few people read the user agreements, and very few understand its legal implications if someone in the real world would try to use it against them. It is simply virtual until case is made in the real world.

Many of us who use the Internet, be it to write emails, work, browse its growing landscape, mining for information, connecting with others or use it to organize ourselves in various groups of likeminded, are not aware of that our behavior online is being monitored. Profiling has become a default with companies such as Google and Facebook. These companies have huge databases recording our every move within their landscape in order to groom advertisement to our interests. For them we are only consumers to push goods at, in order for them to sell ads in a clever business model. For them we are not regarded as citizens with civic rights in their world. This notion needs to change. To be fair, I guess no one really knew where we were heading when these companies were start ups. Neither us the users, nor the companies hogging and gathering our personal information for profit. Very few of us had the imagination that governments that claim to be democratic would invade our online privacy with no regard to rights we are supposed to have in the real world. We might look to China and other stereo type totalitarian states and expect them to violate the free flow of information and our digital privacy, but not our very own democratically elected governments.

What I have learned about my lack of rights in the last few months is of concern for everyone that uses the Internet and calls for actions to raise peoples awareness about their legal rights and ways to improve legal guidelines and framework online be it locally or globally.

I guess the problem and the dilemma we are facing is that there are no proper standards, no basic laws in place that deal with the fundamental question: are we to be treated as consumers or citizens online? There is no international charter that says we should have the same civic rights as in the offline world.

Our legal systems are slow compared to the speed of online development. With the social media explosion many people have put into databases very sensitive information about themselves and others without knowing that they have no rights to defend themselves against attempts by governments to obtain their personal data – be in locally or like in my case globally. According to the ruling of the judge in my Twitter case, we have fortified those rights when we agree to the terms and conditions by the company hosting our data even if it is not kept on servers in the USA, the company would only need to have a branch in the USA for authorities to be able to demand the information to be given to them. We have to rely on, for example, Amazon, Facebook, Google and Twitter to look out for our interests. It might not always be in their interest to look out for us.

I want to stress that Twitter did fight for the interests of their users in my case by going to court to unseal a document demanding them to hand over personal backend information about me and four other users connected to WikiLeaks. The document Twitter managed to unseal stated that they were to hand over our personal information without our knowledge within three days. If Twitter had not managed to unseal the document we would not know how far the DoJ is reaching to get their hands on our data and how difficult it is to guard our privacy in the borderless legal jungle. I am for example not a USA citizen and because of that I am not protected by the 1st and 4th amendment in the USA constitution. Users from the USA are protected in the same case by these fundamental rights.

The reason we humans make international treaties and declarations about human rights is because somewhere along the line we agreed that certain rights are sacred and universal. We need to make the same principles applicable to our human rights online as they are offline. These two worlds have fused together and there no way to define them separated anymore.

If is too easy to obtain the information stored online and thus it is too easy to abuse. If someone wants to go through all my regular mail they would have to obtain a search warrant in advance. No such thing happened in my case. I am according to the DoJ not under a criminal investigation yet they demanded Twitter to hand over my personal messages and IP numbers without my knowledge. If authorities want to tap your phone they need warrants, but not in order to get your IP number. If authorities want to search anything of personal nature or spy on someone in the real world they would have to get warrants. It has never been as easy for big brother to pry into all our most sacred information without us ever knowing.

I find it important to shed light on the fact that USA authorities have reached so far in their attempts to criminalize WikiLeaks that they are demanding backend information from a Member of Parliament from sovereign nation. This is a whole can of worms that I am not sure that the USA wants to open. What about the USA senators that want to apply themselves in the international field of human rights issues. Abuse of human rights in for example China, Tibet or North Korea. Can USA authorities protect their own Senators from demands of probing into the personal data from China? I don't think so.

Members of parliaments all over the world are encouraged to use social media to be in touch with their voters. Many people don't understand that sending a message on Facebook or via Twitter or gmail is not an official pathway. The voters might send sensitive information about themselves to their MP's online. With court ruling in favor of exposing this information to a foreign government – the line of privacy and sovereignty of individuals in cyberspace has taken a new dangerous direction.

Merging the Online with the Offline world

The reason why I felt so at home online when I discovered it 16 years ago was the fact that I am born on a small island at the edge of the world with only 315,000 people sharing it with me.  My island has natural borders, with roaring Atlantic Ocean making a shield against the rest of the world.  That shield can cause an intense sense of cultural and personal claustrophobia. Being a poet with such a small language zone writing political poetry when that was not so cool in Iceland, I felt prior to the times of internet isolated and alone at times. The internet allowed me to break out of that limitation. I was the first poet in Iceland to create a website and to publish my work and the poetry and art of others through various adventures online. Later I learned I was among the first in the world.

One of the prime influences in shaping a profound understanding that I don’t belong to one nation, that I belong to all of this planet was my participation in co-creating the landscape of the new online world.  In 1995, I started working with the shapers and pioneers in the internet landscape in Iceland and beyond.  One of my passions was to merge creative spaces. Music, poetry, and art all bleed well together in the multi-creative space of the internet.  But that was not enough.  After all, this was a new world, without borders and without limitations, other than the limitations of our imagination.  Likeminded people found each other, no matter where they happened to be located in the real world. We could work together — trans-border, trans-culture, transgender, trans-party, trans-race.  It was a world of transparency, almost beyond duality. Borders, just an optical illusion. It was as close to paradise as I could get in this human vessel.  It was almost spiritual; it was as if the collective consciousness had taken on tangible shape in a virtual world that was influencing the real world at an increased speed every day.  My dream was that this world we created with the free flow of ideas, information, and understanding could manifest itself outside the virtual.

The internet has given us the tools to empower ourselves in the real world, with knowledge beyond the cultural conditioning we acquire within our own culture.  The internet has given us the tools to work together beyond traditional borders, and it has allowed us to create real windows into the real world that reach far beyond our cultural beliefs about other countries.  However, this world beyond borders is now under serious threat, a threat that is growing at an alarming rate.  I have seen the development of the internet since its early visual stage.  I have seen how it can improve and enrich the quality of life.  I have also seen how those who hold the reigns of power in our world have discovered that the internet needs to be tamed, like the rest of the world, and brought under their control — to be industrialized in the same manner that other media have been brought under control by industry and the state.  My last hope of gathering momentum in stopping this development is through the free spirit within the wilderness of the internet — where the conditioning and the reigns of control have not been able to tame the free spirits who roam with the hackers’ manifesto singing in their hearts.

I have seen new stories and new myths emerge out of the language of the internet, where people speak together through Google and translate new languages; and I have seen the library of Alexandria materialize with free knowledge and torrents of information wash upon shores otherwise impossible to reach.  I have seen the alchemy of stories take on real shape in a collective online effort; and the truth seeped into the real world.  As the untouchables try to hide their secrets for the chosen few, those secrets keep spilling out in a whirlwind of letters in every digital corner of the world.  They sweep through the streets of Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Tunisia, Greece, China, Iceland, Spain, Iran, and the United States — confirming that the rumors are true: “corpocracy” is the new global empire, and it thrives in local corruption.

The internet has given people access to information that should remain in the public domain; yet it is a trending policy within the belly of the all embracing system to make everything secret by default. It is time to reverse this tendency a create a consensus about the process of keeping secrets.  Transparency and open access to information are the only real pressures on governments to remain true democracies.  If you don’t have freedom of information and expression, you are not living in a democracy; rather it is ruled by dictatorship with many heads. 

Many people don’t realize that if we won’t have freedom of information online, we won’t have it offline.

Media Morphing into Cyberspace

The media is in transition – morphing from the traditional format into the online media format. Most people want to be able to access news online and usage of traditional media is shrinking day by day. The mainstream media has not figured out how to make profit or how to survive online without cutting off many of the services we have learned to depend on and regarded as their main responsibility, such as investigative journalism and in depth analyzing of complex matters in simple easy to grasp terms for the general public.

In this fragile morphing stage the media is faced with increased challenges from international legal firms that specialize in gagging the media. More out of court settlements are occurring every day. Super injunctions, prior restraints, and attempts to alter our historical records online is on the rise. Criminalization of whistle blowing and filtering of online content is also of great concern.

People feel that mainstream media has failed them and thus they turn to alternative media online and the culture of cracking secrets is on the rise. I want to stress that i am shocked by the lack of courage by the USA media in relation to WikiLeaks. Shocked because WikiLeaks simply acted as the middle man. The save box in cyberspace that received the brown envelope from the source and handed it over to the media. Shocked by the ignorance from the media, for it's obvious to me that if WikiLeaks will be taken down or the people behind it, it will be harder for other media to stay on a firm ground when under attack for publishing leaked material from whistle-blowers and secret sources.

I feel there has been too much focus on the people behind WikiLeaks, not the content they have provided. This has taken the focus off the historical significance of the leaks and created something of a frenzy around sensationalism around cults of personalities. If we allow ourselves to step away from the persons and look into the achievements of WikiLeaks it is obvious that because of them we have the state of freedom of information on the agenda, all over the world, and of course the issue of whistle-blowing as a option when witnessing criminal behavior in the public, military and private sectors.

I left WikiLeaks about a year ago for various reasons. I might not agree with how it has developed but its significance remains the same. We need many more leak sites until we have real laws in place that protect content, whistle-blowers, sources and journalists.

The culture of free flow of information is still strong online, and every attempt to block, hinder, or erase information is met with increased creativity.  Yet those of us who care for freedom of information have to step-up our quest to remove the gags, tear down the firewalls, and dissolve the invisible filters. 

The telecom companies have gained incredible power and tend to cave-in under government pressure, as we saw happen in Egypt in early 2011. We also saw Amazon cave-in under political pressure and kick WikiLeaks off its cloud. Corporation and specialized law-firms have figured out the best countries to use as a medium to attack and gag journalists, writers, publishers, and the rest of the media because of weak laws to protect the media. They have become so good at it that important stories have vanished from the public domain.  Modern book-burnings occur every day in every library in the world by a click of a button. Libel tourism, prior restraints, gag orders, out-of-court settlements, and tampering with our online historical records are altering our current history in real time and robbing us of the possibility to be informed about the activities of the most influential corporations and politicians in our world.  We have to do everything in our power to stop this development — through lawmaking and creative resistance.  

The “Icelandic Modern Media Initiative” (IMMI) is an attempt to raise the standard and upgrade the current legal framework in order to strengthen freedom of information, speech, and expression in our modern world. The creation of a save haven for freedom of information has to start somewhere – Iceland is a good place because we learned the hard way, the destructive nature of lack of transparency and where culture of secrecy can lead us. People yearn for change and thus this crises can be used for something that will be beneficial for us and hopefully for the rest of the world. You can learn more about the project that is currently being written into law in Iceland at http://immi.is

I gave a speech at Nordic Tech Politics in Oslo earlier this month, I met many inspirational people from Norway and from speaking to them the idea of creating a Scandinavian shield inspired by IMMI was not only born, but a determination to making that vision into reality. We have been blessed in this part of the world for having strong foundation for freedom of information. Sweden has set the standard for the rest of us in many ways.

It is interesting to note that societies of transparency have more equality.

I have learned to embrace times of crises and make good use of it because times of crises are the only times we can push for real change in our societies.

The crisis in Iceland has helped us transform from secrecy to transparency and encouraged people to take on more responsibility when it comes to co-creating our society. Never before has it been easier for people in power to hand over the power of information to the rest of us and for us to reclaim our power.

This process of transformation takes work and dedication. By giving over our powers to religious or political leaders we can never expect to live in our dream world – only by applying our time and vision can we hope to co-create our dream into reality.

Constitutional dreaming together

One of the most positive results from our Iceland crisis is the re-writing of our constitution. The main reason i helped create a political movement in the wake of the meltdown was to create the tools for the general public to be able to influence law making, and also to inspire people to be part of decision making. Chief aim was to have our old copy paste Danish constitution re-written by the people of Iceland. That process has taken place and the parliament of Iceland has been handed over a bill by the people we elected to write it with us.

The constitutional committee encouraged the general public in various ways to be part of the process, such as encouraging people to comment on each new segment via the facebook comment system. More on that here: Icelands crowdsourced constitution

The new constitution includes some pretty awesome freedom of information laws plus net neutrality. The big task is to get the bill into national referendum before my co-workers at the parliament attempt to thin it out.

The parliament needs a strong mandate from the nation on what it wants to keep of the new bill and what not. I hope by 2013 we will have a constitution that is what the nation dreamed together into reality. An agreement on what sort of society we want to live in together. I think perhaps all nations should allow each generation to have a go at the constitution – for it is a brilliant platform for a healthy debate on what we envision as societies together. It is important to note that it has been foreseen that the 21st century will be the century of the common people.

Finally I want to leave you with the wisdom of Alan Moore who claims that writes are the modern day shamans, I agree with him. One word, one sentence can mean live or death, joy or grief. Lets treat the world of words with that knowledge of power.

Many thanks to the EFF and ACLU for offering me strong legal support in my Kafka nightmare through the USA legal system.